Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newshosting.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!yellow.newsread.com!news-toy.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <41334B9D.6080000@comcast.net> From: "czb (Chris)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW DS9: Metamorphosis 0/4 (O/K) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 66 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:55:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1093884904 209.198.142.218 (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:04 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:04 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:83258 X-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:55:08 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title: Metamorphosis Author: C. Zdroj Email: czb at comcast dot net Website: http://odosgirl.tripod.com/ Series: DS9 Part: 0/4 Rating: NC-17 Codes: O/K, Dukat, Quark Warnings: explicit sex; angst; Cardassian Occupation-era violence, including execution, rape, and torture Archiving: Bajorarama, ASC*. Others please ask. ~~~~ Author's Notes for "Metamorphosis": This story was originally completed in 1997 for the second issue of the fanzine "Love and Justice." It's been at least a few years since I last read it all the way through, and in all honesty, I was a little afraid to do so before posting it here. "Metamorphosis" was my fourth completed fanfic, and is probably one of the most ambitious stories I've ever attempted. It's an AU version of Odo's transformation from changeling to human in "Broken Link" and the aftermath of that transformation, but it also draws heavily on the events of "Things Past," as well as bits and pieces of "The Die is Cast" and "Necessary Evil." It's also probably the darkest piece of fiction that I've written to date about Odo's past, both as a lab specimen in the Bajoran Science Center and as Terok Nor's security chief during the Cardassian Occupation. And if all that weren't enough, its narrative also makes sometimes elliptical use of dreams and flashbacks. I don't think that any new writer could take on all of that and fully succeed–-but I was surprised and pleased, during that dreaded re-reading, to discover how much of this fiction actually does still work-–at least for me. The sex scenes are probably a bit too purple, and if I were writing this today I'd probably try to make Odo just a little more hard-edged--and there's an awful lot here that could be more fully fleshed out ... But that's the nature of revisiting your own work once it's gathered a little dust--you always see something that you could have done differently or better. I have re-edited this version of the story just a little for posting to this forum. I got rid of a few typos from the zine version, changed or deleted a word here and there, and revised maybe two or three sentences to make them clearer, but for the most part, this is the story that I wrote seven years ago, so bear that in mind as you read. Also, when this piece was published in print, the dream/flashback portions of the story were set in italic type to visually distinguish them from the rest of the narrative. As there was no good way to duplicate that effect in text format, I decided to simply let the flashbacks stand without visually marking them off in any way except for the asterisk section-breaks that were in the original version of the story. I think these portions are reasonably self-explanatory (considering that they are coming from the POV of a couple of fairly disoriented characters), though if they aren't, I trust that readers will let me know. Later this year, I hope to post "Bodies of Knowledge," a much more recent story of mine that deals with some of the same material (Odo's transformation to human) in a slightly different way. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: Path: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!feedeast.aleron.net!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newshosting.com!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!yellow.newsread.com!news-toy.newsread.com!netaxs.com!newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <41334BB5.3020708@comcast.net> From: "czb (Chris)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW DS9: Metamorphosis 1/4 (O/K) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 839 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:55:08 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1093884908 209.198.142.218 (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:08 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:83260 X-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:55:14 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title: Metamorphosis Author: C. Zdroj Email: czb at comcast dot net Website: http://odosgirl.tripod.com/ Series: DS9 Part: 1/4 Rating: NC-17 Codes: O/K, Dukat, Quark Warnings: explicit sex; angst; Cardassian Occupation-era violence, including execution, rape, and torture Archiving: Bajorarama, ASC*. Others please ask. SUMMARY: Kira helps Odo to survive the physical and psychological DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the DS9 universe and characters. No copyright infringement is intended here. Chronology Note: This story is an AU version of "Broken Link" and its aftermath. It also draws on elements of "Things Past," "Necessary Evil," and "The Die is Cast." ~~~~ Metamorphosis by C. Zdroj The first step was the most difficult. His whole body, melting and misshapen now, quivered unsteadily as he moved toward the ocean of gold that stretched to the horizon--endless, living, fluid amber. He could no longer recall his name or how he'd come here. His people had no names. He knew only that he had to go to Them--to join that great communion of bodies and minds that rippled under the darkening sky. The Link. Part of him still resisted the idea, recoiling from it in wordless fear. Yet the stronger part of him longed to go--to immerse himself in the Others. The need was so strong it overpowered thought. He shut his eyes. The humiliation of being forced back to this place, to his own kind, to be censured and punished like an errant child--that feeling was gone now, replaced by a haze of wearied and contradictory emotions. He knew only that he'd been holding this shape too long, and that it hurt to move, even a fraction. The slightest shifting of cells was an agony that burned through his whole frame, and he longed for rest. Yet his body, as though recalling something that he did not, refused to let go of its solid form until he reached the Link's very edge. The effort required to walk those few steps made him tremble, yet he kept his back straight as he approached, wearing the shape of those he had lived among but had never belonged to--the shape that had become his mask and his concealment. Futile concealment, he knew--for the Others would read all of his fears, all of his secrets, as soon as he joined with Them. He would be able to hide nothing. He would be exposed and shamed for his crime. It didn't matter. He wanted it known. There were so many things inside him that he had never dared to speak of. Let them have all of it. It didn't matter if they condemned him. It mattered only that they knew the truth of who he was. He seemed to feel Kira beside him, taking his hand and allowing him to lean against her compact, strong frame. *Take your time,* she said gently in the back of his mind. Yes. He could hear her. He smiled at the memory of how she'd helped him walk to the infirmary, ever-mindful of his pride. *Stupid,* he chided himself. *You should have told her. You may not get another chance.* He set his jaw and tottered forward one more step. The substance of his form quivered suddenly, and he fell to his hands and knees on the unforgiving rock. It hurt, but not as much as he expected. Something inside him seemed to jar loose, and he looked down to see his hands liquefying--melting and running in amber streams into the Link, which was now mere inches away. Thick, translucent gold fluid washed up over the rock, over his fingers, and he sighed. It felt warm. Like a hand-clasp, it steadied and pulled him in. *Let go,* said a soft voice in the back of his mind that was and was not his own. He exhaled softly as the warmth flooded his body. Yes. He had to let go of everything. It was the only way. He looked down at his own rapidly eroding solid form, and then slowly, fearfully, he relinquished control. He felt himself collapse into his fluid state in a matter of heartbeats. A heartbeat ... a unit of measure that he knew only as an abstraction, for he had no heart. Yet, he seemed to feel a pulse within himself now, a rhythm, a sensation never before encountered. He flowed into the Others effortlessly, then eagerly, letting go of the humanoid perceptions of sight and hearing. All was touch now. Body and soul knew no separation. He was *whole.* Touch was voice, and voices in turn were shared through touch, the touch of thousands of lives that had seen thousands of years and endless civilizations flow past them. The touch of those who were like himself. Had he been a humanoid, he would have wept with joy and grief. He had come Home. The primal place that had given him form was at last receiving him back. Yet before he merged with the Others completely, he saw a face in his mind's eye. A pair of eyes as dark as some starless depth of space, gazing into his with an emotion that he could not identify. Hatred? Despair? Disappointment? He reached for her, and was swallowed in the all-surrounding embrace of the Link. His last coherent thoughts were despairing. *Dear Prophets, Nerys ... what have I done?* **** She wasn't certain if she was awake or sleeping, whether she was alive or dead. Her breathing came in strong, regular rhythm, and she could feel her own heartbeat, but she was not certain that this meant anything. The Prophets were strange beings, after all. Who knew what it might be like to meet them after death? She lay on her back, wanting to move her hands down to her swollen belly and feel her baby kicking. She knew she was still pregnant, even though she could not turn her head to look down at her body, could not feel the child stirring inside her. In the pit of her stomach there was no sensation except for that of cold heaviness, as though there were a rock inside her. Panic surged through her nerves but could find no expression in her body. *What have they done to me?* She closed her eyes as a wave of something vaguely like nausea swept through her. She breathed, trying to focus her thoughts, to steady herself. Images flitted across her mind's eye. Erratic. Scattered like the half-dreams that one sees before falling into true sleep. She saw thin, fragile limbs and pale skin bruised against rough stone--then precise, masterful arcs of gray metal in a distinctly Cardassian design pattern. She remembered now. She had fallen asleep staring at the ceiling of the O'Briens' quarters. She forced her eyes open and saw ... nothing. Nothing that matched any recognized pattern. Mottled, rough-textured gray and brown and black filled her unfocused vision. She squinted in the dim light. "Do you know why you're here?" The faces moved into her line of sight, blurred and indistinct, simple and mask-like--humanoid--but not, revealing nothing to her except perhaps her own fear. "Where's Odo?" she asked, not sure where the words came from. It seemed very odd to her that the changeling faces gazing down at her should be so blank and expressionless. Had they wished it, these beings could assume flawless humanoid forms. She knew of their abilities, had seen them demonstrated. Yet they chose these "half-finished" faces, perhaps to remind her of her friend, perhaps seeking to intimidate her subtly with their hostile, "alien" appearance. She thought of Odo, the abandoned and rejected offspring of those who now gazed on her in the unbearable silence. Odo could not imitate the humanoid body with anything approaching their ease and accuracy, and yet he had a face that, even at its most cryptic, was more expressive, more ... real than these cold counterfeits. "And why should you care what happens to a changeling?" asked a harsh, disembodied voice. She could move neither her arms nor her legs. Fury coursed through her and found no outlet other than her voice. She turned the question back on them. "Why should you care what I think?" There was a protracted silence. Kira waited with closed eyes and clenched nerves. "This is a waste of time," announced a third voice, deeper and heavier than the two that had spoken before. "It does not reason or feel, any more than a Jem'Hadar does." "And do not the Jem'Hadar serve our purpose?" came the reply, cold and calculating, subtly shifting the consensus. Manipulating. Kira recognized the softer, more "feminine" tones of the female changeling that she had met only once--the first time that Odo had found his people in the Gamma Quadrant. The Founder advanced and stared down at Kira with eyes that were clear and bright and ageless. Eyes that betrayed no emotion. Eyes that sought the truth. Blue, like Odo's eyes. *No*--she gritted her teeth. *Not like his eyes.* There was no emotion in the face that now gazed down at her, except possibly hatred, but even that was a hatred that had become cold lifetimes ago, centuries before Kira was ever born. She willed the child inside her to lie still, as if that stillness might somehow conceal its presence from the piercing gazes that surrounded her. The female changeling cocked her head to one side in mock curiosity. Or perhaps her interest was genuine. Kira could not have said. "Tell me Major," she asked, "What is Odo to you?" *What is he to me? How long have you got to listen?* said the sharply ironic voice inside her own head. Aloud she replied: "He's a friend. One of the most honorable men I know." "Is he indeed?" queried the changeling. "And what does your limited species know about honor? Or perhaps you think it ‘honorable' to kill one's own kind? I understand that you've killed many of your own people--perhaps you have even enjoyed it." After all these years, the surge of her own guilt was still a shock. "You don't know anything about my life," Kira whispered. "We know more than you realize--and all that is required." *"How much do you know about me, Odo?"* *"More than you probably realize ...."* The echo was painful in her mind, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to close it out. It might have been days or merely moments later when she opened her eyes again. "Major, it is time for you to leave us now." The clear, direct voice pierced her awareness, and she saw the face of the female changeling confronting her in the dimness. Kira was shivering, her body cramped with the cold. She was awake enough to note a female Vorta, elaborately dressed in pale robes of silk, standing a little behind and to the right of the Founder. When the changeling nodded, the Vorta advanced to Kira's side and leaned in, pushing back the sleeve of her thin nightgown and pressing a hypospray against her bare arm. There was a soft hiss in the stillness, and sudden warmth flooded Kira's body and senses, making her momentarily weak and dizzy. For an instant her muscle and bone felt as fluid as that of any shapeshifter, and then her vision cleared and she could move again. She flexed her fingers slowly, feeling the circulation return. "It will take some moments before your mobility is fully restored," the changeling told her neutrally. Kira waited a moment or two, then managed to sit up slowly, awkwardly, shutting her eyes and feeling the baby kick irritably inside her at long last. Her hand moved to her belly and she breathed deeply, exhaling in a sigh of relief and not caring who heard it. *Easy little one,* she ran her hand soothingly over her abdomen, seeking to quiet both the child and her own jangled nerves. Reaching up and behind, she rubbed at the nape of her neck and then tried to massage some feeling back into it. She glared at the Founder and her entourage as they stood silently by, waiting, but without any hint of impatience. In addition to the Vorta, the changeling was flanked by a pair of the reptilian Jem'Hadar guards. The soldiers were silent and expressionless--unless predatory watchfulness counted as expression. Kira's eyes were drawn uncomfortably to the strange, tooth-like projections along their jawlines, and the feeding tubes genetically embedded in their throats. She tried not to let her discomfort slip across her face. The forbidding seriousness with which they all watched her--unwieldy and heavily pregnant as she was --made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. It was, of course, the Founder who made the decision. She looked straight at Kira. "You will come with us." She waited while Kira stood, bracing herself against the rough stone wall. She found, much to her own surprise, that her legs would indeed bear her weight. Apparently satisfied that Kira was in no danger of collapse, the changeling waved the Vorta away, and then turned to leave herself. The Jem'Hadar stood deferentially aside for the Founder as they had not for the Vorta, then nodded curtly at Kira to tell her she should follow. Kira took several hesitant steps forward before settling into a surer rhythm, following the changeling, with the two Jem'Hadar striding behind her like some sort of dubious honor guard. They wound their way through some interminable cavern of rock, the Founder gliding calmly ahead while Kira followed awkwardly. As they emerged beneath a vast, enigmatic black sky, the changeling suddenly turned about, regarding Kira and her extra girth with undisguised repulsion. "You are here for the one you call Odo?" she asked, her tone ritualistically formal, as if Kira had come here of her own volition, rather than being abducted and brought by the Jem'Hadar. Yet she knew the answer to the Founder's question. "I am." "Very well." The Founder nodded and turned away once more, and Kira followed her over the rock-strewn landscape, suppressing any gasps or groans that might reveal her mental and physical fatigue. The child inside her, under no obligation to save face, complained loudly by kicking with extra force, and Kira, not for the first time, longed to put her hands around the neck of Julian Bashir and wring the life out of him. Eventually she was led to the edge of what looked like a sea of thick, satiny liquid, translucent, with a vaguely golden sheen. It stretched as far as she could see--an ocean of changelings. Its surface was eerily calm and peaceful. Kira wondered absently how many beings--how many intelligences--existed in that sea. For a fleeting moment she was oddly tranquil, and the next overwhelmed at the thought of so many changelings in one place. She was distracted by a sudden disturbance in the amber sea. It was illuminated from within until it looked like molten gold under the dark sky. It glowed with a frightening otherworldly beauty, casting odd shadows on the rock formation where she stood. She was reminded of an old Bajoran story about the end of the world. "And the sea shall become as fire ..." The Link began to roil and churn ominously, lapping at the shore. Kira stood frozen as its depths stirred and moved--a living, sentient sea. Its waves leapt to cresting points. Its golden light fragmented into sparks. She stared, transfixed, and waited for the judgement that she knew would follow. **** It looked like a Cardassian courtroom. He wasn't sure why it should look that way, but he recognized it well enough. The minimal lighting, the grand, sweeping, angular planes of the architecture. And the cold. Yes, it was the cold above all else that felt familiar. It was not a physical coldness, but an emotional one. Warm feelings were not possible here. He stood in the center, in the dark, alone. A harsh light found and separated him from the Others, singling him out. He sensed the other changelings peering at him from the edges of the light, but could not see them. He looked at his hands, turned them over carefully, noting their shape. He was in humanoid form, it seemed, but he was not conscious of having to hold the shape through his own effort. He ran his hands down the front of his chest and found that he was wearing the dark, ragged clothing typical of Bajoran workers during the Cardassian Occupation. The light changed around him. Instead of white brilliance, he was now bathed in a pulsating blue glow ... of the sort given off by a Federation starship warp core. He knew where this was. He was back on the Defiant. He looked up to find another changeling extending its arms, tendrils of golden light that snaked out toward him, seizing his tunic, burning into the substance of his being like white-hot metal. He gasped and fell to his knees. "Link with me, Odo," whispered the other changeling, in a voice that was almost sensuously tempting. "You and I don't need to stay among these solids. We can leave this place together." The voice became even lower, as though it would insinuate itself into his very skin. "Join your people ... become one with us ... You know that's what you want to do." Odo struggled back to his feet and pulled away, clawing at the other changeling's substance now embedded in his chest. "No ... I ... can't," he grated, straining against the force of the joining with every ounce of his will. The other changeling grappled with him, and they spun across the narrow room, slamming into consoles, stumbling over equipment. Odo gave his attacker a shove, felt a stab of pain as the link snapped and the other changeling went spinning across the open space ... and into the lethal blue fire of the warp core. Odo collapsed, closing his eyes as the changeling's dying screams vibrated through his entire body. He stayed crouched on the floor for some interminable length of time, shivering as he listened. The sound of the other changeling's death gripped him and would not let him go. Then there was silence. He opened his eyes and climbed to his feet slowly, still shaking. He reached out to grasp a steel railing and steady himself. That was when he noticed where he was .... He gazed around in shock. The other changeling was gone. He was no longer on the Defiant, but back on the station. Yet this was not the DS9 he knew, at least not over the past five years. This place was dark and ... dirty. It made him *feel* dirty. There was no one about. No sound. No movement. The station was a hollow thing. Dead. The stars shone coldly through the viewports, surrounding him with the chilling vastness of space. "Why have you brought me here?" he said to the air. There was no answer but his own voice echoing through the emptiness. "Why have you brought me here?" he repeated, his words rising to a shout, taking on an edge of panic. At that moment, two figures materialized on the other side of the upper level. A thin, ragged man with hollow cheeks and a face drained of all color. Bound at the wrists, he was forced to kneel as the other figure, a heavily-built Cardassian guard, approached and leveled a disruptor. Odo watched helplessly as the guard fired--and his Bajoran victim crumpled to the floor, face frozen in a grimace of pain, eyes suddenly blank and expressionless. He hadn't even cried out. For a long moment, Odo could not take his eyes from the dead man's face. When he was able to look up at last, he no longer saw a Cardassian standing over the ragged heap of flesh and bone. He saw instead the mirror image of himself, young and grimly expressionless, wearing a Cardassian uniform--and a disruptor at his hip. Odo's breath came harsh and fast. He felt an unfamiliar pain in his chest. It hadn't happened that way. He knew it. He had never picked up and fired a weapon. *But you might as well have done it yourself,* said the unforgiving voice in his mind. *You gave him to the Cardassians, didn't you? You gave them all to the Cardassians.* He gripped the railing as his legs tried to give way beneath him. He trembled but managed to keep his feet. "You said I was to be judged--and here I am," he rasped into the silence. "So why don't you just do whatever you intend to do? Why are you putting me through this charade? Does it amuse you?" An ancient, ageless voice came out of the darkness. "We haven't *brought* you anywhere. I told you that you would have to open yourself to us within the Link--and you have. You have brought *us* to this place." One of the floor panels a few steps away to his right began to glow and liquefy. Odo stepped back and watched as the silver liquid became amber and slowly assumed a humanoid form that he had come to recognize. The female changeling that he had spoken to on so many occasions--she who had taught him what it meant to link with one of his own kind--stood before him once again. He saw the deep disappointment in her eyes, heard it in her low, ironic, and yet not unkind voice. "It seems that you feel guiltier about what you have done to the solids than what you have done to us," she observed. "I should never have worked for the Cardassians," whispered Odo. "They slaughtered the innocent along with the guilty. And I helped them." He dared to look up at her. "Don't you understand how wrong that is?" The gaze of the female changeling remained dispassionate. "We are concerned only with the changeling that you killed." Odo drew himself straight, realizing that he was being manipulated, he forced himself to speak with more decisive tones. He met the Founder's gaze evenly. "That was self-defense." "No doubt. As Major Kira's terrorist activities were self-defense," said the female changeling, clearly enjoying the irony of her own suggestion. Odo said nothing. "So you feel no remorse?" she asked calmly, in her inquisitor's voice. "I never said I didn't feel remorse." "But you would do the same thing again?" pressed the voice of the female changeling. "You would kill others of your kind to shield these solids from harm?" Odo could no longer see her. He could see nothing but a haze of purplish black closing him in. "Yes," he whispered. His body was slowly disintegrating as he stood there. He felt as though every cell of his being was on fire. He fell, clutching at his head, feeling his fingers cracking and crumbling to dust. He was burning. The pain escalated unbelievably until he wanted to scream--but the vocal chords had melted out of his throat. *Then ... you are a murderer,* accused the voice in his mind, a low, savage whisper. *No...* He tried to shield himself with the denial, but the accusation only became more insistent. *You are a murderer.* He had no control over his form. His body would not obey his will. His vision blurred again, went to black, and he was lost utterly. He was invaded, cell by cell, felt himself mingling with the Others. His thoughts, his feelings--his guilt--seeped away into the substance of the Link, and he gasped. Release. Blessed release after all this time. His form rippled, blending into Them. Their minds merged with his own, opening him, spreading him wide, pouring into him with sudden force. He was torn open and spilling out. He twisted in pleasure, in agony both as the Others entered and became him with no barriers. The images came and went in a frightening barrage. Changelings tortured, killed in horrible ways. He felt their agony. His own body pulsed with pain. Slammed against a forcefield, torn through with electrical energy. Memories from centuries of persecution. *This is what they do to us. Yet still you wish to be like them...* He was unable to answer the charge. *Do you deny you caused the death?* *No.* *Then you must accept the judgement....* The pain was so intense that by now there was only one priority left--making it stop. *I ... accept... * He heard the sound of heavy-booted feet. Saw gray uniforms in the dimness. Heard voices from a long-buried past. "So--exactly what tricks does this pet of yours do, Mora?" A rough, scaly hand whipped out and grasped his chin, jerking Odo's gaze upward. It didn't hurt--but it felt like ... a violation. He met the cold-eyed, reptilian stare unflinchingly, and then firmly turned away, out of the Cardassian's grip. "Does the thing speak? Or is it a half-wit?" Odo wanted to melt into the floor, but didn't dare to. "We're waiting for an answer, Bajoran." "Of course he speaks. He simply doesn't respond well to rough handling." "I don't think it knows what rough handling is ... any more than you do ..." The fire came again--pain burning through every cell like acid poured on his skin. He raised a lacerated hand as though to touch his face, but stopped and--suddenly found himself gazing into a mirror at a face unrecognizable, charred and disfigured, blackened around the eyes, the hair grayed and falling out of a rotting scalp. He shuddered and turned his face to the wall, eyes tightly shut. He was trembling with exhaustion and unbroken pain. The Cardassian standing over him spoke with the calmest and most urbane air. "I know you're keeping something from me, Constable. Why don't we just end this now? You want to tell me ... don't you?" The voice was wheedling, inexorably gentle, almost pleading. "All you have to do is tell me your darkest fear, your most closely guarded secret--and the pain will end, I promise you. I'll let you go back to your liquid state and rest." Odo wrapped his arms around himself, huddled against the bulkhead, watching while little bits of himself broke from his hands and face and fell to the floor. He clenched his teeth. Speech was difficult through his ruined, blackened lips, but he spat the words out vehemently. "Leave me alone." There was a sudden, bright flash of phaser fire, and the Cardassian's body went taut before collapsing into a lifeless heap. A light footstep crossed the threshold--and then he saw her. His rescuer. A trim, red-haired woman in a red uniform, wearing boots of burnished leather. Her eyes were dark, but they burned with an inner fire. She seemed, somehow, to be made of fire--her movements were quick, alert and fluidly graceful. An avenging angel. "Nerys," he whispered. "Yes," said the voice of the female changeling, with barely concealed scorn. "She is here. This creature you profess to love." Kira Nerys entered the room with her phaser clutched at the ready. Seeing the motionless body of the felled Cardassian, she holstered the weapon at her hip. A frown twisted her delicate features. "Bastard," she said tightly, and as she knelt and reached out to touch the corpse, it suddenly collapsed into a heap of black ash. Kira lifted her face to look directly at Odo. Her dark eyes widened. "You," she whispered. Her voice held stark disbelief. "What are you doing here? You're not one of them." Her eyes narrowed a little. "Are you?" Odo shook his head. There was, he seemed to recall, something that he desperately wanted to tell her. But the pain was ... blurring his thoughts. Her eyes were filled with tears as he looked at her. "I knew you worked for them. I just never thought you could become like them. I thought ... you were different." Her hand reached out as though to touch him, and paused a hair's breadth away from his cheek. He turned away, ashamed of his ravaged face, of the deep unspoken guilt that he had carried for so long. "You should have told me," she whispered. Pain made his voice crack. "How ... could I? I wanted to forget. To make it right. "Forgive me," he whispered, "I never meant to love you." There was a roaring inside his head. The voices of the Others mingled and merged into a chaotic blur of sound--and he tried to pull away in fear. No escape. He was enmeshed. His body was twisted without his consent. He felt the others withdrawing touch as his form changed, becoming ... something foreign. His back arched in agony as his changeling senses were suddenly and brutally ripped away and his physical self was confined, trapped. He needed to breathe. His chest was going to burst. He was on fire. The living tide of the Link converged on him and forced him into a shape that was not his own. He tried to scream ... but there was no air for his lungs. There was a frantic throbbing in his chest as the tide of the Link pushed him to the surface to gulp the cold air. He screamed once before consciousness was torn away. **** Kira heard a cry of pure agony. A golden wave flashed up along the harsh, rocky shore, and carried on its force she thought she had a fleeting glimpse of something that looked ... humanoid. The amber tide swirled briefly around her feet. When the next wave surged over the rock and sand, it carried the familiar frail shape with it. For one horrible moment, Kira was reminded of the emaciated, naked bodies of those who had died in the Cardassian labor camps. The solitary being was washed ashore like unwanted refuse, limp and pale and unmoving. It lay gasping on the cold, rough stone, utterly abandoned. Kira began climbing determinedly, frantically, over the rocks, ignoring the burden of her extra weight, sinking at last to her knees beside the shivering life that lay sprawled at the edge of the Link, its smooth curves of flesh pale silver in the moonlight, a tangle of fear and fragile limbs. Unseeing blue eyes stared back into her own. "Odo ..." she gasped, taking one of his hands and pressing it against her belly, thinking somehow to waken his senses, to reassure him with the life that moved inside her. His fingers were unnaturally cold, seemingly too numb to interlace with her own. His free hand hovered vaguely over his chest, fingertips shaking as they traced its surface. *He's afraid ...* The too-obvious thought whispered through Kira's mind, sinister and impossible. Dear *Prophets ... he's afraid.* His inarticulate panic seemed to flow into her own awareness as though transmitted through his skin. She recalled, with sudden, shocking vividness, the image of a wounded fa'al-dove that she and her brothers had discovered as children living in the refugee camps. The bird's wing had been charred and twisted by a Cardassian phaser blast. The panicked creature, not comprehending its sudden loss of flight, had struggled against their efforts to nurse it. Kira remembered holding the fragile thing in her hands--the slightness of its warm, feathered body, its rapidly fluttering heartbeat. It had died in her hands, within an hour of their finding it. She pressed Odo's cold, stiff fingers more tightly against her body, staring fixedly into the depths of his eyes--eyes that had steadied her own flailing emotions so many times with their ironic gravity and perceptiveness. Those same eyes were now dark oceans of confusion. He turned his head slightly, looking at her and through her, as though he could feel her presence but could not see her. After a moment, Kira realized that Odo was trying to look past her--to the Founder that suddenly loomed over the two of them. The female changeling dropped to one knee and regarded Kira intently. "You are distressed," she noted, with the barest hint of surprise in her voice. Or was it irony? The Founder extended her hand with some uncanny authority that made Kira relinquish her hold on Odo, allowing the changeling to take his hand. The other shapeshifter stroked Odo's arm in seeming consolation, the way that a parent might comfort a sick child. "Poor Odo," she said softly. "Perhaps we should have killed you. It would have been far less cruel." At that moment, Kira felt an emotion swell up from her chest that she had not felt in a very long time--a feeling that she thought she had killed with her prayers and her fasting after Bareil had died. Rage. Murderous, unbridled rage. The only thing that kept it in check was her own vague sense that somehow the Founders had staged this display of Odo's judgement, had chosen this setting and these words, precisely in order to provoke a reaction from her, to confirm their view that she was a lower, "solid" lifeform. They had brought her here, after all--Prophets only knew why. Yet Kira felt certain that giving in to her anger would be playing into their hands. If Odo had taught her nothing else, he had taught her the value of mastering one's feelings--or at least trying to. Kira reached out and silently reclaimed Odo's hand. The Founder relinquished her grasp without protest. Kira met her cryptic, alien gaze without flinching. "You made him a humanoid. Why?" The Founder appeared to study Kira's face a moment longer, her eyes assessing. "It is an appropriate punishment for his actions," she said simply. She looked down upon Odo with an expression that was almost compassionate, and yet lacking in any real warmth. Odo reached the thin fingers of his free hand toward her, a futile gesture of inarticulate need. Kira thought she saw regret in the Founder's eyes and posture for one brief second. Then she stood, all cold formality once again. "We have arranged for you to return to your people. You will leave this place." Her gaze lingered sadly on Odo just before she turned away. Her form shimmered and dissolved to a pillar of gold that liquefied and poured over the rock and back into the amber sea, joining the other changelings where Odo could no longer follow. Kira's lips moved to formulate some sort of protest, to demand a clearer explanation, but before thought could shape itself into words, she felt the sudden whirl of disorientation that she always associated with being snatched away by a transporter. She could do little but grip Odo's hand as the two of them were swept away together. The sea of living amber was the last thing that she saw. **** They re-materialized in a place that was all gray stone and swirling clouds of gritty sand. They might have been halfway across the galaxy or on the other side of the same planet. There was no way to know. The wind went howling through the rock formations that rose up all around them--jagged, indistinct shapes in the waning sunlight. Kira still held Odo's hand, still knelt beside his unmoving form. She bent to him, shouted his name over the roar of the wind, but he lay silent and unmoving. She crouched over him, seeking to protect his body from the harsh wind, bringing her face close to his. "I'm here, ashani," she whispered against his ear. "Stay with me. It won't be long now, I promise." He stirred briefly beneath her hands, and Kira was shocked at how weak he felt--like a newborn harocat. His eyelids fluttered briefly without quite opening. His lips moved, but no sound emerged from them. She felt tears stinging her eyes, shut them and lay her cheek against his hair. *Damn, fucking, prejudiced shapeshifters,* the thought scalded her mind in a sudden burst of anger. Odo. Her rock--her refuge. Her island of rational certainty in a sea of wrongs and contradictions. He shivered against her, frail and defenseless as any mortal being held together with blood and bone. The wind continued to shriek through the stones around her, and she was reminded, somehow, of the plains of Belkala--one of the few places on her homeworld left untouched by the Cardassians. The stone circle of Belkala was Bajor's earliest temple to the Prophets, and the silent witness to most of its history--including the horrors of the Occupation. She kept her eyes closed and began to pray, her lips moving slowly to form words that had been worn into smooth patterns centuries before her own birth, repeated by countless generations of her people. The words, after a time, blurred together in the comforting way that she knew from long experience, shaping a web of sound, casting delicate threads out of herself, toward the Celestial Temple, catching at stray bits of thought and memory. The words lulled her into a hazy, half-conscious state, and before long, the howling of the wind had gone still, as she retreated into herself. **** He was somewhere below the surface of consciousness, as though trapped beneath a sheet of ice. He could move--barely, but the labor required even to twitch a finger was an effort of the whole body. In the end, he gave it up and simply lay there inert. The pain had faded to a level of general numbness--or perhaps he had simply grown used to it. There were bruised flashes of lucid memory--the feel of rough stone against his back, of cold air clawing at his lungs. Somewhere in his chest there was a faint kernel of warmth, faded like his awareness --a flicker like a candle-flame inside him, ever in danger of being extinguished. The whisper of heat spread through his body with painful slowness. He was not sure he wanted feeling restored. He fought it at first, tried to remain *odo'ital*--"nothing." For being nothing meant feeling nothing, and for a time that was all he wanted. But then he seemed to feel her heartbeat--or perhaps it was his own--a pulse from deep inside him that grew gradually stronger, bringing tingling sensation back to his numbed limbs and fingertips and the ends of his toes. His eyes slitted open very slowly. For a several moments he lay still--except for the shivering that he could not control. He hurt everywhere. Every cell, every nerve-ending pulsed with pain. He was vaguely aware that he was clinging to someone, unable, in fact, to let go. She murmured softly against his bare skin--words that washed over him like the warmth infusing his body. Bajoran words. He knew them from the time he'd spent in the camps. He recalled suddenly the image of a boy, perhaps five years old, tripping and falling in the dust of some long-ago labor camp where he had stayed after fleeing the lab. The young Odo had watched furtively as the distressed Bajoran mother tried to soothe her child, but his wistful, curious gaze had been turned away by the cold shoulder of suspicion. "Ent'ak Vol'asha!" the woman had spat, glaring at him. Filthy off-worlder. The words stung even now. * I never had a mother,* he thought absently. Yet in his need and aloneness he had memorized their words. Their social structures. Their ways of calling things ... * Mother. Child. Lover.* His body closed more snugly around the warmth of whoever it was that huddled against him--that prayed over him. He let himself fall into her, reaching for her with mind and will, letting his thoughts settle as he felt the rhythms of her body ... her breathing ... her heartbeat ... becoming one with his own somehow, like streams of liquid flowing together ... merging .... He needed desperately to link with another, to be no longer alone. He saw her standing ahead of him down a dark corridor ... and reached out ... **** Kira stood at a juncture between two corridors. She waited for Odo to catch up with her. He looked thinner than usual, and like her, he was wearing dark, drab colors. She reached back for his hand. "You should try to stay closer," she whispered. "This isn't the safest place in the world." Together they walked through the darkened station--or rather, crept through it. The ill-lit corridors were familiar but hardly reassuring. The sound of harsh laughter rang out from somewhere in the distance, sending tension through Kira's body. She didn't need to look around to recognize the source of the levity. Only Cardassians had such brutal-sounding laughter--and in a place like this, they were the only ones who ever laughed. Odo started unexpectedly at nothing that Kira could see. He gasped and then stumbled, collapsing to his knees as though he'd been hit in the stomach, pulling her down to the cold metal floor with him. She stared at him in consternation. He was shaking all over. She leaned forward, touching his face. He tried to avoid her eyes. "What is it?" she asked. "We shouldn't be here ... this ... this isn't right. It doesn't make sense." "I have a feeling that we're not actually here," she replied softly. "Not in the way we seem to be." She reached down to pat her abdomen, which was smooth and flat. Definitely not the belly of a pregnant woman. Odo noted this, but didn't seem reassured by it. Impulsively, Kira pulled him into her arms, winding her body around his with an enthusiasm that surprised even her. His body was solid and invitingly warm. Her lips sought his without apology or explanation, and she kissed him slowly, felt his tension melt away under her hands. "Nerys...." Before she realized what she was doing, she was unfastening the waist of his trousers with agile, eager fingers. Sliding her hands up under his shirt, over the warmth of his smooth chest. Odo's resistance gave way, and he leaned back against the wall with a gasp, arching himself against her touch. She felt his soft abdomen, his ribcage, the small, perfect nipples that hardened under the pressure of her fingers. "You really are humanoid, aren't you?" she whispered. He could only nod and gasp in reply. She continued to massage his chest slowly, up and down, while kissing him with increasing fervor. His hands found their way inside the back of her shirt, and kneaded her shoulders, drawing her against him, then traveled lower, drawing down her trousers while she wriggled determinedly out of them. There was a long moment of kissing and mutual silent exploration. A slow and gentle escalation of pleasure. She felt his fingertips moving cautiously between her thighs, seeking out the sensitive places with a delicate and unerring touch. Wrapping her arms around his torso, she began to move against him, until they were both gasping softly. She buried her face against his neck to stifle her own outcry, heard the soft, ecstatic little whimpers of pleasure that escaped his throat. She took him into herself slowly, gently, holding still against him for a moment, feeling his ragged breathing and the pounding of his heart against her own, feeling him fill her. Her lips sought the pulse in his throat her as her pelvis rocked against him. It took all of three thrusts to send them both into orgasm. For a long moment she remained leaning against his chest, her arms wrapped around him, while the rhythms of their bodies slowed back to normal. Odo's fingertips ran delicately along her back and she pressed closer to him, sensing his need for reassurance. "So," she whispered at last. "Do you know why we're here?" Before he could reply, a long shadow fell over the two of them. Kira felt a chill, and then gasped as she was knocked sprawling by a sudden, sharp blow to her ribs. The force of it tore her out of Odo's grasp, and she landed on her back on the chill floor. Familiar, harsh laughter sounded again, filling the suddenly cramped and darkened space around her. As she pulled her clothing back on and tried to scramble to her feet, Odo moved to protect her, hovering over her in a half-crouch. Looking up, Kira was not surprised to find the leering visage of Gul Dukat gazing down at the two of them, bony-ridged brow shadowing his eyes. Somehow she had known he would be here. That he would find them. "Well, Shapeshifter," smiled Dukat. "I'm proud of you. I always thought you had no taste for the more ... messy aspects of humanoid relationships. This is a pleasant surprise. And such a lovely Bajoran, too. I am impressed. You must have some interesting talents." The Cardassian paused ominously, eyeing the two of them. "But I'll bet she doesn't know about all your little secrets--does she?" Kira noted that Odo was again trembling visibly, but he hunched himself down over her protectively, blocking Dukat's view of her with his own body. "Stay away from her," he growled. There was a panting and breathless quality to his voice. His shoulders quivered with pent-up anxiety. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "You're not ... touching her." Dukat grinned ferally. "You can't hide it forever, you know. You're one of us, Odo. So cold and calculating--practically a Cardassian yourself." "No." Odo sank down over Kira's body, burying his face against her shoulder. "No." Dukat smiled, and then turned his back, vanishing into the shadows from which he'd emerged. **** (to be continued in Part 2) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: ath: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!in.100proofnews.com!in.100proofnews.com!feedeast.aleron.net!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <41334BC9.50009@comcast.net> From: "czb (Chris)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW DS9: Metamorphosis 2/4 (O/K) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 684 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:55:11 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1093884911 209.198.142.218 (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:11 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:11 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:83261 X-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:55:15 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title: Metamorphosis Author: C. Zdroj Series: DS9 Part: 2/4 Rating: NC-17 See part 1 for Disclaimer, Codes, Warnings Part 2 **** "Nerys..." Someone was shaking her. She struggled out of the haze of her sleep. It was like wading through the marshes of Jer'aat Province in the winter, as she had done countless years ago with a Cardassian phaser rifle strapped to her back. Her body was cold and damp with sweat that had soaked through the fabric of her clothing. "Nerys--wake up ..." Kira rolled onto her back, somehow managed to sit up. A youthful face with troubled gray-blue eyes gazed down at her. It was a face that combined both Cardassian and Bajoran features. Ziyal. Kira blinked dazedly. The younger woman took firm hold of her arm and pushed at her shoulder. "It's me, Nerys." Kira gasped softly, as a rush of images flooded her brain. She reached forward past Ziyal, groping half-blindly until her fingers found Odo's cool, smooth skin. He was stretched on the floor beside her in the transport chamber of what looked like a Klingon ship--as naked as she remembered. She herself was dressed little better, still wearing the nightgown she'd been wearing when the Founders had taken her. She was aware of several heavy-booted figures nearby, but ignored them as she leaned over her unmoving friend. "Odo..." She turned his still face toward her, pressing her fingertips against the base of his neck. She exhaled with relief as she found his pulse, letting the tension drain out of her, letting her head droop until her forehead touched his. For seconds that stretched into infinity, the universe consisted of nothing but the sound of her breath and his. Her thoughts were full of nothing but the reassurance that they were both still alive. Behind her, someone cleared his throat. "Major ...." The dark voice wakened her as if from sleep. She looked up into a gray-skinned, bony-ridged face with piercing blue eyes. Dukat. Eerily reminded of the dream that had just fled her, Kira moved to shield Odo's body. She ignored the other two Cardassians who stood just behind Dukat, and fixed her glare on him alone. "What are you doing here?" she demanded quietly. The former Cardassian prefect of Bajor regarded her blandly. "I, Major was ... escorted here, not very politely, I might add, by the Jem'Hadar, who inform me that I'm to take you back to your miserable space station. Frankly I would appreciate an explanation." Kira ran a hand through her dark hair in utter frustration. None of it made sense. Maybe she was still trapped in some nightmare. She shook her head distractedly. "I'm afraid I can't tell you much," she said. "I went to sleep on the station and woke up next to the Great Link. That's all I know right now." She did not hear Dukat's reply because Ziyal was suddenly beside her again. Kira started back in surprise. Ziyal's careful hands moved to spread out a blanket of some soft, thick, white fabric and to tuck it around Odo's trembling body. "Father," she said chidingly. "You can ask your questions later. The constable needs a place to sleep--and probably medical attention as well." Kira and Dukat both stared at her. Kira flushed with shame and then nodded. "You're right." Dukat turned to one of his officers. "Send Dr. Hakar to meet us on B-Deck," he said quietly. With a brief nod, the young Cardassian turned away. That done, Dukat ventured a step or two closer to Odo and Kira. Odo was still shivering, still seemingly unconscious, but as Dukat leaned forward over him, a choked little whimper of fear escaped his throat and he tried to jerk away from Kira's touch, curling him in on himself as though he wanted to disappear into the floor. Dukat's face twisted in concern and disbelief, and he backed off slightly. Kira placed a hand on Odo's forehead. "Shhh ... It's all right," she soothed. "No one's going to hurt you ." Odo stirred fitfully and then subsided. Dukat dared to move forward again, casting an inquiring look at Kira. She could have sworn that the Cardassian actually looked--afraid. She saw however, that he wanted to help, and she nodded to him, straightening to allow Dukat room to crouch down and gather Odo into his muscular arms. Odo was quiet, though she couldn't tell whether he was resting or just insensate. Without any preamble, Dukat strode from the transporter room, carrying Odo's limp body in his arms as easily as though the constable were a sack of flour. Kira scrambled to keep pace with him as the Cardassian's long strides took him down the hall. "I think it would be advisable to get our friend to another part of the ship." "Who's Dr. Hakar?" asked Kira, letting a touch of suspicion creep into her voice. "One of Cardassia's more brilliant surgeons, as it happens," said Dukat, "though I suppose that on this ship, she's little more than a field medic. Still, I was extremely lucky to get her." Kira said nothing, withholding judgement for the moment, but a wave of instant hostility filled her. Her own memories of Cardassian doctors were less than reassuring. Dukat seemed to sense her anger as though it had been carried on the air. "He needs medical attention, Major. You said so yourself," came the silky, utterly reasonable voice--a voice Kira didn't trust for a minute. "That was Ziyal--not me," she muttered grudgingly, "But you're right. He does." Dr. Hakar herself joined them around the next bend, saying nothing, falling into step easily beside Dukat. She cast a brief, curious glance at Odo, but otherwise gave no indication of her mood. Like most of the Cardassians Kira had met, she appeared coldly and thoroughly professional. She was tall and had a severe-looking, nearly expressionless countenance. Her faintly graying hair was pulled back sharply from her bony-ridged face, gathered into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a rather nondescript dark green coverall. Eventually Dukat located some empty quarters, and the Cardassian carried Odo inside and laid him down on one of the spartan-looking bunks. Odo lay unmoving, looking almost drained of life. Only the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket indicated otherwise. His lips moved silently, forming unintelligible words. His face was tight with pain--or the memory of it. Kira sat beside him on the edge of the bed and lightly moved her hands over his face, smoothing back his disarrayed hair, quieting him. Oblivious to the stares around her, she made her voice low and soothing. "Shhhhh ... It's okay, sweetheart. It's over now." Her fingertips traced his cheekbones, his forehead. "They're gone. Just rest now. You're safe. Shhh...." Kira remained where she was, hovering like a watchful ta'arhawk as Dr. Hakar also seated herself on the bed. Seeing that Kira was determined to stay, Hakar nodded at her briefly and then pushed the blanket partway off Odo's body. "This is the shapeshifter, isn't it?" she queried. "He was," said Kira, immediately on her guard. She gazed down at Odo's face and kept seeing the terrified creature that had emerged from the Great Link. He stirred slightly on the narrow bunk, his fingers clawing briefly at the mattress. The doctor straightened and regarded her patient with evident interest, while Kira's jaw tightened and she moved to sit at the head of the bed. The Cardassian woman ran her tricorder over Odo's body, making no immediate comment. Her features became tense and almost worried-looking as she watched the readouts. Odo moaned softly. Kira, continuing to soothe him, felt his skin, once so chill, becoming flushed and hot. "I think he's starting to run a fever," she told the doctor, striving to keep the impatience and panic out of her tone. "Yes," said Hakar evenly, continuing to make her scans. "His body temperature appears to be abnormally high for a human." "Human?" Kira glanced up. "You're sure?" "Quite sure." Hakar paused. "I work better without nervous relatives hovering over my shoulder, Major." "Too bad," grumbled Kira, both unmoved and unmoving. She knew she looked ridiculous in her soiled and flimsy nightgown, but damned if she was going to let any Cardassian stare her down, even now. Her patience had already been strained well past its normal limits, but her hand remained exactly where it was, stroking the damp, fine strands of loose hair off Odo's forehead. She wasn't even certain that he was aware of her presence. "You're sure that this *is* your friend?" Dr. Hakar asked, looking up from her readings. Kira nodded. "Yes," she said with quiet certainty. She knew this was Odo, though she could never have explained *how* she knew. It was entirely possible, theoretically, that the Founders had not given back the changeling they had taken into the Link. Yet the deepest part of her own pagh recognized the man now lying helpless before her--and some other part of her knew that his ordeal was still far from over. His fevered murmurings and wakeful agitation were already reminding Kira of her Resistance days, of comrades taken ill with fever dreams after countless bloody raids. Odo was still experiencing whatever horrors had been inflicted on him while in the Link. Hakar set her tricorder aside and began to run her hands along Odo's chest and arms. Her examination was abrupt and cursory, conducted in the manner of a chev'ka breeder evaluating livestock. Hakar pushed the rest of the blanket aside to feel her patient's legs, and Kira shuddered inwardly at the sense of ... violation that crept over her. Heat washed over her face as her eyes were drawn, curiously, appreciatively, to the most delicate portions of Odo's new anatomy--and she recalled her dream of the two of them ... together. Despite his weakness and the pallor of his skin, Odo's new human body was, in fact, exquisitely beautiful. There was a tenderness and delicacy to the smooth skin of his chest and belly, the thinness and apparent frailty of his limbs, and yes, even the soft-looking bulk of his genitals--which Hakar glanced over with scant interest before moving on with the rest of her examination. **** The dark was close around him as the probe penetrated his body, searing his flesh, and Odo screamed mutely in pain. His substance quivered, every nerve ending raw. He could not see his tormentors. He only heard their voices vibrating about him. "Mora thinks it might be sentient." "Yeah, he's got all kinds of funny ideas, doesn't he?" "If it is, we might be hurting it, you know." "Leave it to you and Mora to ascribe feelings to a puddle of slime. That's hardly a professional attitude, Lai'ka--not the kind the Cardassians want, anyway. You'd better remind our beloved mentor of that." "But the way it reacts, T'vdan--it's not just reflex. It's too . . . irregular for that. Turn the probe off . . . now." "Suit yourself. The spoonheads want results from this center, though, or we'll all be back in the mines bruising our delicate hands." "I said leave it." **** A low, muted whimpering sound emerged from Odo's throat. His body trembled violently for a moment, and then lay eerily still. Kira watched as the Cardassian doctor leaned forward to open one of his eyelids with a thumb, shining a small light into the exposed eye with her free hand. That was when Odo screamed, a terrible sound in the small, close silence. His body twisted away from the light and then curled into a tight little ball on the edge of the pallet. Dr. Hakar leaned forward as though to grasp his shoulder, but Kira intercepted her wrist. "That's enough." The Cardassian's eyes hardened. "You think perhaps that your Federation doctors would treat him more gently?" "They'd better," she growled. Kira drew a deep breath. "I think you've done enough, doctor. I'll call if we need you." For a moment there was tense silence, filled only by the rasp of Odo's harsh breathing. He lay curled on the bed like a baby in the womb, shivering wretchedly. Kira, breaking eye-contact with Hakar, edged her way across the bed to her unconscious friend, her movements cautious. She set one hand between Odo's shoulder blades and began rubbing his back with a slow, up-and-down motion. His breathing became easier in response to her touch. **** He gathered himself into being, rising to full height to stand on trembling legs, staring in fear and sudden self-consciousness at the hard faces around him. Cardassian faces wearing reptilian leers. The soldiers applauded in their carapaces of heavy black armor. He cringed away, wanting to hide. There was nowhere to go. He turned to find Bajoran faces, three of them, gazing at him with accusing eyes. Three men, lined up against the wall, their chests scorched and blackened with disruptor fire. "No," he whispered softly. "Please..." but they remained standing as they were, unmoving, their lifeless eyes focused on his face. Panicked, he tried to shift, to hide himself. To become part of the floor. He couldn't. Someone gave his shoulder a rough shove and he collapsed to his knees, looking up at the looming figure of the Cardassian guard. "Go on shifter," he laughed. "Let's see some of those fabled talents of yours. Amuse me." Odo closed his eyes and huddled on the ground, unable to move ... Someone took hold of his hand. He heard a woman's voice, soft and pleading. "It's all right, Odo. Just do what they ask and it will be all right." He shook his head. "Can't. Please. I want to stop." "It will be over soon. Then we can go home. I promise. Please, Odo. Just this one more thing ...." **** His fingers interlaced with Kira's out of seeming blind instinct, and after a moment, his lips moved slowly. "... won't go back ... I won't," he mumbled, stumbling over the words. "No more. You can't make me ... I won't ... go ..." His speech became gradually more slurred as the effort spent what was left of his strength. Dr. Hakar had not moved from her position beside the bed, but when she spoke next the hostility seemed to have faded out of her voice. "Whatever they did to him must have been traumatic." *No kidding.* Kira bit back the snappish reply that immediately popped into her mind. "Do you know what's wrong with him?" she asked. "At a guess ... he's experiencing some kind of delayed shock from the transformation. It seems to have put stress on all his vital systems." Kira took this in silently as she held Odo's hand. He murmured something into the pillow. Kira looked up at Hakar again. "So basically there's nothing you can do for him?" "I could give him a sedative, if I had any," was the grim reply. "But his reactions would be ... hard to predict. He reads as human on the tricorder, but considering what's happened, there may be ... some anomalies." She paused. "Does he eat in this form?" Kira shook her head. "I ... don't know. He never did before." "Well ... for a humanoid, I'd normally recommend sleep, and then food. At this point there's not much else I can suggest--except that you monitor his fever to make sure it doesn't get too high. But that's fairly standard advice." Kira nodded silently. A moment later she was pulled out of her thoughts by the blinking lights on Hakar's tricorder. "He seems a little dehydrated--a fever will make him more so," the Cardassian told her. You might want to see if he'll take something to drink when he regains consciousness." There was an uncomfortable pause. "I'd like to take a blood sample--to double-check my scans." Kira nodded. "Go ahead." She watched mutely as Hakar drew out a hypo with practiced hands, as the device was pressed into Odo's arm, as his blood--bright red blood--filled the syringe and then stayed red inside the confines of the glass tube. The doctor began to pack up her med-kit. "It would probably be best simply to let him sleep for now." "Thanks," said Kira softly. She wasn't sure whether Hakar even heard her. The door hissed open and then closed again behind the Cardassian woman as she left, and then Kira was alone with the semi-conscious Odo. For some moments she simply watched him, holding his hand, studying his face, listening to the uneven rhythm of his exhausted breathing. After a few moments she tried to extricate her hand from his grip, but Odo made soft sounds of protest and held on even more tightly. Kira smiled despite herself. "You always were stubborn as hell," she muttered softly. She reached out with her free hand to stroke his temple. "It's okay. You can let go. I won't run away. I promise." Odo's grip loosened the merest fraction, and then relaxed completely. Kira flexed her fingers cautiously and then gently freed herself. She straightened, hesitated, and then leaned in almost shyly to kiss his cheek. "See ... I'm still here." She gathered up the loose blanket and drew it over him. Her hand came to rest against the side of his face. The smooth planes and angles of his features were just as they had always been, but she shivered at the stirring of the warm blood that she felt pulsing beneath his pale skin. Worried stillness settled over the tiny room, making Kira feel slightly claustrophobic. The air seemed damp and heavy. She suddenly wanted to flee the cramped accommodations on this wretched ship with its dismal Klingon architecture and Cardassian crew. A soft voice fell into her awareness even as her own panic crowded around her. "You're worried about him, aren't you?" Kira drew air into her lungs and allowed herself to breathe. "Hello, Ziyal." The young woman sat down on the bed beside her. Kira didn't even look up. "Did your father send you?" "I came to see how *you* were, Nerys." Ziyal studied Kira wordlessly for a moment, then rose and went to the replicator, where she quietly ordered something. She came back and pushed a mug of steaming liquid into Kira's hands. Kira simply inhaled the smell for a moment, feeling her own hunger for the first time in hours, feeling the child within her stir irritably. She recognized the drink instantly--chi'ya--a tea made from the roots and bark of certain trees--a dietary staple in poor Bajoran families, especially in the camps. It was often used to quell hunger when more solid nourishment was not available. Kira took a sip of the hot liquid and closed her eyes as its warmth pervaded her body, nudging her dulled senses awake. She turned her gaze to the anxious, too-earnest eyes that watched her. She took another swallow of the chi'ya and managed a smile. "I'm surprised a Klingon replicator can make a half-decent cup of this," she offered wryly. "He's going to be all right, isn't he?" "I wish I knew," Kira whispered, too much the pragmatist to offer false hope--to herself or anyone else. Ziyal hesitated before speaking again. "Nerys--how could the Founders just ... do that to Odo? How could they change him that way?" "I don't know. Even the Federation scientists don't understand all their abilities. Dr. Mora studied Odo on Bajor for a long time, and even he doesn't know everything about changelings." "I didn't mean their abilities. I mean ... he's one of their ... children. How could they ... do that?" A harsh, familiar voice invaded the quiet intimacy of the moment before Kira could find the words to respond. "I have found," said Gul Dukat, leaning in the doorway, "that children often require discipline. Even when they have the most loving of parents." Kira raised her head, felt more than saw the heavily-built shadow that hovered on the edge of her awareness. "If you don't mind, daughter," Dukat went on, "I'd like to speak to Major Kira alone for a moment." Ziyal nodded, placed her hand on Kira's knee in a consoling gesture, and then took her leave. For a long moment, Dukat remained where he was, arms folded, studying her. All of Kira's old hatred for the man seeped slowly back into her mind and her body tensed. Irrational or not, some memories never died. She was still Bajoran--and he was still the man who had run the Occupation. Dukat moved slowly forward, the door hissing closed behind him, and Kira tried to quell the feeling of being trapped with a dangerous animal. Odo's presence, even unconscious, was a comfort and somehow strengthened her resolve. She let her fingers curl possessively around his hand. The Cardassian stood at Kira's elbow, gazing over her shoulder at the former changeling. "He was certainly the best security chief Terok Nor ever had," Dukat remarked, almost casually. "You know he was never afraid of anything--not even me. I always admired that." Kira was not in the mood for games. "What do you want, Dukat?" "I'd like to know exactly what's going on, Major. All that I can get out of Dr. Hakar is that the Founders have taken our friend here and made him human. Quite a feat, wouldn't you say?" "Obviously they wanted to punish him." "Obviously--but I wonder if you might elaborate on that." Kira sighed heavily. "Odo was responsible for the death of another changeling. It wasn't an intentional killing. He was protecting the rest of us--but apparently the Founders aren't very forgiving." "So they took him. And why did they take you?" Kira gave a soft snort of irritation. "Maybe they wanted a witness." Dukat seemed content to let the silence linger for a moment before speaking again. "Ironic isn't it, seeing Odo as a human. I always suspected that he fancied himself a Bajoran. I warned him about those sympathies on more than one occasion." Kira ran one finger along the smooth bridge of Odo's nose, determinedly ignoring the cobra eyes that watched her. "He *is* Bajoran." Her voice was firm. "I never realized that the two of you were so ... close." The fascination evident in his tone made Kira's flesh crawl. "I need to get some sleep," she grated. "And you're sure that you know nothing more about the Founders or their plans?" "I'm sure." "Very well." The Cardassian turned away. He paused just at the door. "But if you--or Odo--do happen to recall anything, I trust you will let me know of it." "Of course," she returned. "But I wouldn't sit up waiting for that information if I were you." He frowned and then turned to leave without another word. Kira's eyes lingered warily on the door long after he was gone. **** "And now, Constable, you will share with me your insights concerning the Founders..." The heavy fluid that roiled and swelled all around him was dragging his body into the darkness. Nothingness. He felt his substance separated and reformed. A heartbeat where there was none before. His substance was twisted and reshaped, becoming ... alien to him. He was blind and couldn't breathe. He was drowning. Thick fluid covered his face and mouth with a suffocating film. His chest was going to explode. His fingers clutched at handfuls of nothing. His limbs flailed weakly against the Link, strength evaporated. He was nothing--a piece of hollowed out driftwood washed unresisting onto the shore. He was lying naked on his back, staring up at the sky. At the stars. At endless space. Hot tears ran down his face and he was powerless to stop them. He was trembling, falling to pieces, coughing up bits of himself as his body shriveled and blackened. As the fire ate away at his insides. Somewhere on the edge of his awareness was a soft voice and something cool being pressed to his forehead, his chest. He struggled, with what little strength he possessed, to move toward her voice--toward her touch. He remembered that touch from a dream ... a dark corridor and her hands slipping beneath his shirt to touch bare skin. A gasp of pleasure in the semi-darkness.... It was so dark. Too dark to see anything. He whimpered softly and pulled away from the memory. She soothed him back into normal breathing, away from dreams and old fears. Her hands were a rhythm that washed over his body like water, cleansing, like the Link--and yet not like. There were no accusing voices here--only one voice, low and soothing, that seemed to emerge from some deeper silence. He welcomed the quiet, entered into it, became one with it, until her words were only a distant, comforting murmur. To feel nothing again. Yes. To be nothing. That was what he wanted. He let awareness slip away from him and let his body float away. There was no more struggle, as there was nothing to struggle for.... **** It was dark when he opened his eyes. He stared for a moment into the black, aware of nothing but the pain that pulsed through his body. His head hurt, his mouth was dry, and his whole body shook with strange, alien rhythms. He sat up slowly, his body leaden and resistant, put his face into his hands as his vision became a momentary haze of bluish-black. He was only peripherally conscious of the dozing figure of the pregnant woman on the chair beside his bed. Some strange urgency seemed to grip his body and he half rolled, half-stumbled from the pallet to stand on unsteady legs. He took two steps, shivered and half-collapsed against the wall that suddenly materialized in the dark. He almost cried out, and for a moment he imagined that he could actually feel some small part of himself--not physical, but no less real for that--being broken from him like a limb snapped from a tree. He was reminded of a separation that he could not now name, not in words. But he trembled at the shadow of the memory, suddenly feeling weak all over, then grimaced and pushed himself away from the wall, groping his way through the dark. Blind. A wave of dizziness, accompanied by sharp abdominal pain, swept through him suddenly and his legs folded beneath him. His head struck some cold and unforgiving bit of architecture as he fell, and pain exploded above his left eye. Shivering on the cold floor, he brought his fingers to his temple and felt some hot, sticky substance pooling into his hand. It was dripping, spattering to the cold floor from his injured face. He touched his brow lightly and located the cut. His stomach heaved in revulsion, but since he had eaten nothing--nothing came up. His shoulders began to shake uncontrollably. He drew deep breaths at the sense of being trapped inside the body he now inhabited. The once-fogged recollection became clear now. *No. They couldn't... I'm not ... I'm still a changeling.* His breath came in ragged gasps that he strove in vain to control. He had never known what it was like to have lungs that craved air. The solid body seemed to tighten around him as his fear mounted. After a moment he was able to draw his hands away from his face. He shut his eyes, willed those hands to shift, but the cells of his body remained inert and unresponsive. The hands remained hands. He clenched them into fists. "No Garak," he growled softly. "Not this time..." He remembered the slow burn that had started somewhere in the tips of his fingers and spread throughout his body until he'd become a trembling, disintegrating heap on the floor. The pain ... was not so very different now. Perhaps this was still a dream .... He slammed one fist into the wall. It hurt. He closed his eyes and tried to hide against the smooth surface, as he had done before. He'd retreated into himself so often in the lab. Nothing. *Odo'ital.* A quivering gelatinous mass. A stone or a tile to hide himself from the Cardassians. He stared at his hands in the dark, seeing nothing but red. Blood on the faces, the limbs, the lacerated chests and broken bodies piled in heaps. He felt sick, tried to press further into the wall as the images began to cloud his memory. "Go away," he whispered, and the whisper emerged from his throat as sob. He cowered in the dark as the memories consumed him .... **** "Where is the shapeshifter?" the harsh voices grated over his nerves as he huddled in the darkness, unseen. "I don't know." A woman's voice. Proud, defiant. There was a harsh noise, a slap. He heard a gasp, but no outcry. The woman's voice was more subdued now, almost pleading. "I told you, I don't know. He could be anywhere here--or he may have slipped away. We don't keep him in a cage." Another slap. Followed by a crash as something fell onto the floor and shattered into a thousand useless fragments. Odo quivered as part of the floor, unmoving, terrified. The woman crumpled to her knees on the cold tile, inches away from his hiding place. He might have reached out and touched her. She was crying. One of her tears actually splashed against him as he cowered there. "Gul Hadar doesn't appreciate carelessness ...." He spent the next hour trying to shut out the sound of her screams. **** It was moments or perhaps hours later, when his knees were aching and he could no longer recall what it was like not to be huddled in the dark, when a soft hand touched the side of his face, making him look up, brushing away the tears that streamed silently down his cheeks. Until that moment, he had been still as stone, but now, that touch brought him back to himself, back to feeling and awareness. At first he thought he was dreaming, but in the dimness he could, just, make out the shape of a face, the dark pools of a familiar pair of eyes. His tongue felt as though it were made of clay. "Ner--" "It's me," she hushed him. Something wet and cool was pressed to the gash above his brow. "Just take it easy, okay? Shhh ..." She gathered him close. He let his head droop against her shoulder. His voice sounded thick and unfamiliar to him, each word was a struggle. "I saw ..." "It's all right now. Don't try to talk. You're safe." Her warmth gathered around him in the dark, seeping into muscles that were stiff and sore and bones that felt as though they were made of lead. Her lips pressed briefly against his temple. A slow, rocking motion took his body, and his hands came up to clutch at the wiry, slender frame of the woman holding him. She was murmuring some soft nonsense in Bajoran that calmed him even though he was too tired to fashion meaning out of the words. The sounds were like stones worn smooth in memory, their shapes comforting. "Etana, ashani ... het'ya tanu oshe'ia." Her fingertips brushed the hair out of his eyes. "It's gone," he whispered hoarsely, feeling a loss that was like cold emptiness inside him. "I know." Her words were soft against his cheek. "You hurt yourself," she observed quietly. "I fell," he whispered, both too ashamed and too weak to attempt a fuller explanation. Fragments of unfinished thoughts slid away from him. Dimly, he realized that his blood must be all over her, smeared on his hands, still oozing from the cut on his head. It didn't seem to matter. She didn't let go. He exhaled and allowed himself to feel the slow movement of her hands along his back, over his face. He almost started as her fingers lightly traced the outer contour of his right ear, a peculiarly Bajoran gesture of endearment, used with family or between bond-mates. He closed his eyes, feeling the throb of his wound quieting slowly. For a while there was no sound but that of his breathing and her soft words. Odo shut his eyes and held still. Vague memories of shared warmth and physical closeness stirred inside him. Memories he could not place. The movement of Kira's hands over his body seemed to answer some ancient and unspoken physical craving. He felt his body loosen the merest fraction, as if he had still been liquid, and suddenly he became so sharply aware of her touch that a low moan of pleasure escaped him. Kira drew a little back. "Did I hurt you?" "No," he whispered, pressing against her. An unfamiliar tightness constricted his throat and he pressed his mouth into her shoulder to muffle the fearful emotions that gripped him. Her heartbeat and rhythmic breathing became his own. He grew quiet, the pain ebbing away like water as her hands ... as her words ... flowed over him. She ran her fingers along his cheek and through the fine strands of his hair, then her lips brushed across his other cheekbone in a light, cautious kiss. Her touch seemed to ease the painful tightness in his chest. Her hand moved to her own body, slim fingers skillfully unbuttoning the loose gown that she still wore. He was only faintly surprised when she let it fall open to reveal her softly rounded breasts. Her hand moved tentatively in the dark. Eventually he felt her wet thumb against his lips, brushing them with something warm and wet. He opened to her touch, hesitantly, reaching for the moisture on her fingertips. Her hands drew him closer, guiding his mouth to her nipple. He didn't resist. Her skin was soft against his lips and tongue. He shut his eyes and surrendered to the needs, the instincts, of his new form. The first swallow seemed a great effort. There was no taste, as if his brain was weary of processing any such detailed information. But there was ... sensation. Warmth, slipping down his throat, flowing down through the rest of his body. "It's all right, ashani," she soothed, and he recalled, for no reason, the meaning of the old Bajoran endearment, a word that meant both "child" and "beloved." Her voice became a soft chant in the darkness. "... it's all right." His lips found the words to answer her. Words so long buried that they were part of him, ancient and therefore easy to speak. "I love you, Nerys ..." he whispered against her skin. The silence became a soft cocoon around the two of them as they held to each other in the dark. **** (to be continued in Part 3) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: ath: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!newshosting.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!news-out.visi.com!news-out.octanews.net!petbe.visi.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <41334BDE.50907@comcast.net> From: "czb (Chris)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW DS9: Metamorphosis 3/4 (O/K) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 907 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:55:15 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1093884915 209.198.142.218 (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:15 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:15 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:83262 X-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:55:18 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title: Metamorphosis Author: C. Zdroj Series: DS9 Part: 3/4 Rating: NC-17 See part 1 for Disclaimer, Codes, Warnings Part 3 **** "I'm sorry this is taking so long, Odo." The voice of Dr. Julian Bashir was as kind and solicitous as always. Odo knew that Bashir was trying to help, but at the moment, kind words did little to relieve the impression that he had become a lab specimen again--an impression that had only grown stronger over the last week. He let the grim reflection filter through his mind as he allowed his gaze to travel from the cold and antiseptic white walls that enclosed him to the thin blue hospital gown that covered his spare frame. Prophets only knew how many needles, hypos, and other devices he'd been jabbed with since coming here. No counting the number of strangers' hands that had touched and examined his body. "I suppose it's ironic, in a way," he said quietly. "Starfleet trying to convince itself that I'm really human." "I don't think there's much question of that, Odo," said Julian, in a tone that was annoyingly bright and chipper. "It's just that we'd like to have some idea of *how* it happened. Once we know that, we just might be able to make you back into a changeling." "But at the moment, the experts are mystified." The doctor grimaced, and Odo winced at the tone of his own words. He knew that he'd sounded ungrateful. Bashir didn't deserve his sarcasm. He'd been unfailingly kind and concerned ever since they'd left the station together, and he'd run himself near to exhaustion over the last week trying to help Starfleet Medical solve the puzzle of just what the Founders had done to change his physiology. But by now, Odo had grown tired of being cooperative, and being pitied didn't sit well with him. It rankled. "I can just imagine the fascinating papers that will emerge from all this," he mused darkly. Julian's youthful face looked puzzled, and then deeply concerned. Odo could have kicked himself. The doctor's next words were soft and apologetic. "I'm sorry, Odo. I suppose this must seem little different to you than being in Dr. Mora's lab." "Very little," Odo admitted, somewhat appeased. "It was thoughtless of me to have agreed to this so quickly. I should have realized ..." "Never mind, Doctor," Odo returned, forcing himself to display the gruffness that he always used to deflect personal discussions. "I imagine that Starfleet Medical wasn't ready to take no for an answer." Julian nodded and there was a momentary silence. Odo was relieved when that silence was broken by the appearance of a smart-looking young woman in a med-tech's uniform, who suddenly appeared in the doorway of the tiny room. She smiled at both of them. "Well, that's it for now, gentlemen. We should have the results back in just an hour or two." She paused, then directed her gaze at Bashir. "Would you care to step outside with me, Doctor?" she queried. Bashir nodded his assent and followed her out. The woman threw a kindly glance at the ex-changeling perched on the examination table. "You can put your clothes back on, Mr. Odo." Then the door closed and Odo was left, finally, alone with his thoughts. He waited, unmoving, until the voices had faded away down the hall before he slipped carefully from the examination table. His sense of balance in his new form had improved markedly in a matter of days. He no longer had to worry about blundering into walls or tripping over himself. The tile was reassuringly cool and solid against the soles of his bare feet. He pulled off the flimsy hospital gown and allowed himself a good look in the mirror at his new body. Odo frowned. The legs still looked too thin to him, despite Bashir's assurances that they were perfectly normal, given his weight and height. Odo reflected that his entire body looked somewhat thin--even fragile. He pressed cautious hands against his lower abdomen. His digestive system was still behaving pettishly, assaulting him with minor bouts of nausea when he least expected it. While he had grown used to many of its idiosyncrasies with remarkable quickness--according to the self-proclaimed "experts" who'd been charting his progress--Odo still found the body he lived in to be a mystery. He knew what to feed it, and thanks to many long, agonizing hours of its protestations, he now had a good idea what not to feed it. After a series of painfully humiliating "accidents," he'd learned how to clean and relieve himself. He had even experienced a few dreams that could only be categorized as ... erotic .... He pulled his mind abruptly from *that* train of thought and sighed heavily, recalling that hazy time with Nerys, just after the transformation. Even in that initial agony and helplessness, there had been a singular bliss in being close to her, in touching her. Those hours--those days--had passed as a blur. He remembered them now as if through a mist, through his body's memories of being connected to her. Nothing from that time seemed real except the isolated images of closeness that still returned to haunt him--her hands lifting water to his lips, her voice pulling him out of dreams that had left him sweating and trembling, her lips brushing his skin ... brushing away tears. In the cramped, dark humidity of the tiny room on that wretched Klingon ship, she had been his only connection to the world that lay outside his own fevered mind. He felt himself flushing as a slow fire crept in between his thighs and the new genitalia proved just how well they were functioning. Yet there was also a ghost of pain and panic hovering at the edge of his mind. The nightmares from that time still cycled endlessly through his sleep and sometimes visited his waking thoughts in half-remembered fragments. One moment he was drowning in the Link, and the next he was back in the darkness of the old Terok Nor station, seeking some nonexistent refuge from Bajoran prejudice and Cardassian brutality--from his own deeply buried guilt and fear. With trembling fingers, Odo began to shake out the neatly folded uniform on the chair nearby. He had learned to distract himself from his own memories quite efficiently over the last week and a half. He was still meticulous about things, and now he dressed himself carefully, slowly, examining the cut of his uniform in the mirror and smoothing its tunic portion carefully down over his chest. Wearing clothing still felt ... unnatural to him--confining. He was adjusting his still-too-itchy wool collar when Julian came back for him, politely knocking at the door first. Odo straightened. "Come in," he said soberly, placing his hands behind his back and standing to attention. "Well Constable, I've got good news and bad for you," the young doctor informed him. "The bad news is that we still have no idea how the Founders changed you." "So what's the good news?" "The good news is that they can't think of any more tests to give you." Julian paused and gave Odo a knowing grin. "So I suggest we leave here within the hour--before they devise any new ones." Odo allowed himself a bitter little return smile. "For once, Doctor, I agree with you completely." **** Deep, unrestrained sobbing echoed through the room. She moved forward hesitantly in the dark until she could see the thin figure on the bed, tossing restlessly. In the dim light she saw tears streaking the smooth, pale face. The eyes were closed. He was asleep. She reached out to touch the soft skin and the eyes came open, stricken as they gazed at her. Her heart was pierced. He recoiled from her and there was suddenly blood pouring from his temple, blood on her hands .... **** Kira woke up shivering. It was a moment or two before she realized exactly where she was--in her own quarters. Spare, uncluttered ... empty and silent. For a moment she felt a pang as she recalled the lost coziness of the O'Brien family quarters, but she pushed that thought away from her almost immediately. She fidgeted a moment with the tangled sheets and then decided that she was too unsettled to sleep. She needed something to do. Captain Sisko had relieved her of duty almost the moment she'd set foot back on the station, advising her to "get some rest" while the care of Odo was handed over to Dr. Bashir. Kira could still see the deserted, almost baffled look on her friend's face as Julian had gently led him away from her and to the infirmary. Thoughtfully, she ran one hand back and forth over her belly, quieting the child within her. The remembered look of utter despair in Odo's clear blue eyes lingered with her for long moments in the darkness. She had not seen him at all for almost two weeks while he'd been with Julian at Starfleet medical, undergoing tests to appease the Federation science experts. She frowned, recalling how Odo despised labs and tests. She had wanted to go with him, but Julian had all but ordered her to remain on the station, and in her current physical state she had not dared to defy him. Odo had been back on the station for almost a week and a half now, resuming his old duties as head of Security, but Kira had seen him only in passing and at staff meetings, had barely exchanged a word with him. Perhaps they had been so unbearably close in those hours following his transformation that somehow ... something had changed in their relationship that neither one of them had the courage to face. *"I love you, Nerys..."* She pushed the words from her mind--fevered words, meaningless. *As meaningless as that dream of making love to him?* Asked the softly sarcastic voice in her mind. She chose to ignore it, and continued to run her hand along her oversized stomach, reflecting. She was still having problems with premature lactation. Julian was at a loss to explain it. Some bizarre hormone interaction, he'd suggested, caused by the decidedly unnatural phenomenon of a Bajoran woman carrying a human fetus. Not that Kira really cared about scientific explanations at this point. The memory of Odo, practically a helpless infant himself, feeding from her body, was something that clung to the edges of her awareness with all the haunting persistence of one of the sacred orb visions. It was a memory that she both treasured and feared. His sudden absence from her life ached like a wound. She would catch glimpses of his sad face, now and then, and would find herself longing, with sudden, pulsing urgency, to wrap her arms around him, to hold him tight against herself and tell him that everything was going to be all right. But something always stopped her--something forbidding in his stoic, solitary grief. For grief it surely was, that he carried with him everywhere. He looked bleak all the time now, like the winters she had known as a child in Dahkur province. He was closed off to everyone, as though he were living entirely within himself. It chilled Kira to look at him. If she made a movement toward him, he would turn away. She sighed. Shakaar Edon had tried to contact her from Bajor several times in the last few days. She had returned none of her lover's calls, nor did she want to now. Something at the core of her heart had changed, but she was at a loss to explain what it was. Her emotions were tangled ... she needed to sort them out. Kira sat up and let her feet touch the floor. She stood carefully, heavily, and moved across the room to the icon that she kept in the far corner. She settled herself before it, sitting on the floor and crossing her legs as best she could in the typical Bajoran meditative pose. The child stirred inside her body, restless, as she tried to focus her pagh. She closed her eyes and listened to her own breathing, imagined that she could feel the child's heartbeat as well as her own. As she had in those cramped little quarters on Dukat's ship, hunched over Odo's motionless form, she let the words flow out of her like water, let whatever thoughts come that wished to find her. "E tana ma-shae, e voor il i nma i mei sul..." *Let me hear my own heart ... I am listening ...* ***** Odo tilted the glass in the muted light of Quark's bar to peer through the amber liquid. After little more than four weeks as a solid, even the memory of being able to shapeshift was beginning to fade away. He sometimes felt as though he'd always lived in this body. That should have been a comforting thought, but it wasn't. Grimacing, he took another swallow of his beer. "Hmmmph," Quark snorted at his elbow, with typical Ferengi impertinence, "Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?" Odo didn't even deign to look at him. "Go away, Quark." "Major Kira came by a little while ago. She was looking for you. Seemed kinda worried if you ask me. But then I suppose you wouldn't be interested in *that.*" Odo swallowed the liquid, let the bitter taste flow down his throat. He didn't want to think about Nerys now. He couldn't bear it. The problem was, he couldn't stop himself from thinking of her. He drained his drink and then shoved the empty glass back at Quark. The Ferengi left to get him a refill, shaking his head, while Odo tried without success to convince himself that he hadn't just seen a worried look on Quark's lumpish face. Odo was rather proud that he'd managed to drink an entire glass of beer without feeling any ill effects. The first time he'd tried real alcohol--about five days ago--he'd been violently sick for half the night. Quark and Julian had sat up with him throughout those hellish hours, holding his head over the toilet because he'd been too weak and faint to keep himself upright. The memory of that night was not something that Odo cherished--and yet he'd returned to alcohol relatively soon thereafter, learning to handle it with greater care. He now stayed clear of the more potent liquors that might make wreak havoc on his still-fussy digestive system. Yet he'd grown uneasily fond of alcohol, of its tranquilizing effects. He appreciated the way it tended to make his comprehension ... fuzzy. Perhaps it was a weakness he'd inherited from his short-lived joining with Curzon Dax, but he found that drink-induced haziness made his life seem more bearable. Initially he'd worried about his public image, about being seen in the act of consuming liquor by Quark's other patrons--by the Starfleet officers he worked with ... or by Nerys. The funny thing was, the more he drank, the more he didn't care what anyone thought of him. As far as he was concerned, they could all go to whatever hell they believed in. Odo didn't believe in hell--unless it was the hell of his own life. He rose without saying a word and tossed some slips of latinum on the table. Quark, holding the refilled beer mug, grumbled and shook his head in disbelief as he watched the constable leave. "Suit yourself," he muttered under his breath. "You probably wouldn't know what to *do* with her if you got her." **** At the end of his duty shift, Odo made his reluctant way back to his quarters. When he'd originally acquired them, having his own rooms had been a sign of independence. Now, his once-cherished personal space had come to feel as alien as the new body he was trapped in. Just another kind of cage. His life, it seemed, had been spent in moving from one cage to another. For a while, he had fooled himself into thinking that he could learn to be a shapeshifter with a few oddments of sculpture in a room by himself. But that was only shifting. It wasn't linking. He'd gotten rid of the sculptures and wall-hangings, of course--all the artwork. They served no purpose now other than to remind him of what he'd lost, even more forcefully than the smooth face that stared at him from the mirror, unaltered. He'd told Doctor Bashir that he thought his people had left it there as a reminder of what he'd once been. Actually he was grateful, wretchedly grateful to Them for allowing him to keep the face he'd grown used to thinking of as his own. Perhaps it wasn't handsome, but it was *his.* He entered his rooms with no wish for anything other than the oblivion of sleep--not that he actually expected to find it. He'd come to dread the nights alone in his quarters. While he was on duty he could at least try to distract himself, but here, he would be alone with his thoughts--his dreams. He didn't expect to find any comfort in solitude when he opened the doors to his quarters. He certainly didn't expect to find Kira Nerys asleep on his sofa. "Computer ..." he stopped in mid-thought as he saw her lying there, silhouetted by the starlight coming in through the wide viewport. "Waiting," said the computer mechanically. Odo straightened, he had been about to call up the lights. "Never mind," he said softly, more to himself than anyone or anything else. He approached her sleeping figure slowly, blinking in disbelief, certain at first that he must have hallucinated her into existence. But her image did not waver and vanish as he stared at her. Her soft, even breathing was the only sound in the darkened rooms. For a long moment he just let himself gaze at her, a slight figure despite her by now advanced pregnancy. In fact, her heavy belly seemed to emphasize her slightness in a curious way. Odo felt a little tremble in his body when he saw her. She looked vulnerable this way, and the familiar, sweet ache that he had been plagued with for so long returned in full force. He tried to shut out the memory of having touched her, of her tenderness to him during those long hours of darkness and confusion that still plagued his dreams. He crouched beside the sofa and allowed his hand to caress her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered and lifted slowly. She gazed up at him with dark, sleepy eyes and smiled. "Odo ..." He felt an overpowering urge to kiss her. Instead, he only said "Hello, Nerys." Her expression changed slightly, becoming shyer, perhaps a little guilty. "I'm sorry--I ... I let myself in. I must have fallen asleep." Odo was silent for a moment, not sure what the proper response was. The fact that his brain was fogged with alcohol didn't help matters any. "Nerys--" he began hesitantly. "We need to talk, Odo," she said softly. She studied his features for several moments, then put a hand up to touch his face. "You look so tired," she said, and the sympathy in her voice made him want to cringe. "What's wrong?" He shook his head. There were so many things wrong, to try to articulate them all, or to separate them from each other in his present state of mind was simply too great an effort. Kira's hand gently toyed with the loose fabric of his tunic. Odo reflected how strange it was to watch her hands touching his uniform and to be able to feel that touch only indirectly. She looked up at him with an expression that was both solicitous and hurt. "You've been avoiding me ever since you came back from Starfleet Medical." It was a statement, not a question. She lowered her eyes. "I guess I can understand why you might feel ... uncomfortable with me after everything that's happened, but I--hate to think that I might have offended you in some way --" "You didn't," he broke in, feeling a sudden catch in his throat. "You ..." his voice became a very tight whisper. "I was glad that you were there. I--I needed you there." Kira said nothing. She kept her eyes down and merely nodded. Her hand slipped gently over his and gave it a light squeeze. "I moved out of the O'Brien's quarters," she told him. "I don't imagine that the Chief was very happy about that." "No," Kira admitted, "And I can only imagine what Keiko will say when she gets back from Bajor--but I had to do it. It was getting so that I felt like I couldn't breathe. Like on that ship of Dukat's ..." She paused. "I think Miles is afraid that the Founders are going to spirit me away again some night." Odo's voice was very low, solicitous "Are *you* afraid of that, Nerys?" "I've had some interesting nightmares lately," she sighed. "That's my fault." He could feel her breath on his cheek and drew back abruptly as he realized how close his own face was to hers. Kira looked up at him. "Don't be silly." "They were using you to get at me," he said quietly, half to himself. "I should have realized they would try that sooner or later." "What do you mean?" There was an uncomfortable silence. "I just--should have known they'd come after my friends, that's all." He studied her face as she considered this. His stomach, now that he had one, felt as though it were tightening into knots. "Don't blame yourself," she touched his face again, gently. Her eyes were dark pools of such concern that for a moment he thought... *No.* He cut the idea off abruptly. It was impossible. He looked away and Kira drew her hand back. She changed the subject. "I noticed that you removed all sculptures," she said quietly, "The place seems pretty empty now." Odo shrugged. "There was no point in keeping them. I can't use them anymore." "I figured that had to be it. I don't blame you. I guess I just ... liked them. They made it sort of--*your* room." Touched, Odo managed a smile for her. His voice came out of him in a whisper. "I'm glad you liked them." She took both his hands and gazed earnestly into his face. "Odo, how--how are you? I mean--really? We haven't talked in so long ..." He averted his eyes, ashamed. "I've--I've been busy." "You don't lie very well, you know," she smiled sadly. Odo was seized by a sudden desire to melt into the floor. The fact that it was no longer possible seemed the ultimate cruel joke. "Odo--for Prophets' sake what is it? After all we've been through, you can't tell me?" He said nothing. She leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the mouth. He let her. She drew back and gazed at him, troubled. "You've been drinking." "Yes," said Odo. "I've been drinking. If you ask Dr. Bashir, I'm sure that he can tell you exactly how much I've been drinking." "I didn't believe Quark when he told me." She gazed at him with pleading eyes. "Odo, what's going on? This isn't you." He let go of her hand. His voice became a shade cooler. "With all due respect, Major, I don't think you really know me well enough to tell me what *is* and *isn't* me." He let his bitterness fall into the silence. "Is it really that bad?" "Yes," he said, miserably. He looked up at her with sudden fire in his eyes. "Have you ever had someone explain your own anatomy to you--had to ask how ... certain things work?" He averted his gaze. "It's been humiliating." "I'm sorry. I wish I'd been there to help." Odo relented. "Dr. Bashir did what he could ..." he said lamely. "But they still don't know how the Founders changed you." "No." Kira seemed to grope for her next words. "Edon has been trying to call me for days," she blurted nonsensically. "I haven't returned the calls." She looked at Odo with a kind of desperation in her eyes. "This is going to sound silly--but I think I ... I think I had to come here. I think the Prophets ... *made* me look for you. I just --I seem to need you with me right now." She looked at him searchingly. Then tentatively, she leaned forward again. Her lips found his mouth, and she kissed him with studied gentleness. He never moved. "Odo ..." her whisper was soft and tender and she drew away and kissed him again lightly on the cheek, on the temple, rubbed the side of her face against his own. "Why didn't you tell me that you loved me before?" she pleaded, her voice a husky whisper filled with submerged passion. Odo's mind screamed at him that this could not be happening, but all he could do was kiss her back. His lips, his hands, were numb, but he drew her to him anyway, as though in a dream. She ran gentle hands over his clothed chest, but the touch was still fire. Odo shut his eyes. His heart was pounding. His voice emerged as a croak. "Nerys ... please." "Tell me you don't want me, and I'll leave." She kissed his mouth again, and this time her tongue slid gently past his lips and he heard himself groan. The child inside her kicked strongly. He felt her heart beating in tandem with his own. The sensations were suddenly and blessedly familiar. Odo sighed. His hands moved slowly, gently over Kira's back. He opened his mouth to her fully, allowed the soft exploration of her tongue, shivered at the terrifying intimacy of the touch. Her mouth was sweet and moist, her closeness almost too much to bear. He wasn't certain if the soft sounds coming from the back of his throat were spurred by pleasure or by fear. Kira drew back, an expression of concern on her face. "Should I stop?" she asked gently. "I ... no," he whispered, his voice thicker than usual. "I don't want you to stop--but I've never--I mean..." "Shhhh ...." She pressed her forehead against his. He felt her fingers gently ruffling through the hair at the back of his head. "You've given so much to me. I never realized how I ..." There were tears in her voice. He heard her swallowing them. "Let me give you this. Let me love you back .... Please ... don't push me away." He shut his eyes and let her words flow over him, just as before--and her kisses with them, this time. Kisses that were sweet on his cheeks and temples, his throat ... everywhere. The heat of her body was a soft mist that clung to him, loosening his muscles. Her lips found his again and he offered no resistance. He surrendered to her completely as a now-familiar heat flared into life in the lower regions of his torso. Her kisses flowed over his face, touching his cheeks and eyelids. His neck arched back just slightly, and she accepted the hesitant offering, kissing along his throat to the collar of his uniform, and then back to his mouth, which now shaped itself to hers with very little effort. For several heartbeats there was no thought, only sensation as their bodies slowly merged, coming together with rising intensity. His breath caught as he felt her hands gently slipping inside his tunic and over his chest, massaging, kneading his flesh, finding his nipples and gently squeezing, pulling a soft gasp out of him. After some disconcerted fumbling, the uniform top slid from his shoulders and fell softly to the floor. She let her lips brush teasingly over his and then dipped her head to kiss his collarbone. There was a strange reverence in the touch. Kira moved lower, delicately licking at his right nipple. Odo gasped as the light tickle became a gentle, insistent nibbling. Her hands surprised him again, this time slipping beneath the waist of his trousers and sliding them partway down his hips. She reached between his thighs with a sure and gentle hand, soothing the ache that burned there. He groaned softly as he felt the touch. Her hand moved along the erect shaft of his penis with gentle care, and Odo's hips moved slowly in rhythmic answer, rubbing himself against her in silent want. "You like that, don't you?" she whispered, her voice tender and seductive. She drew his shaking hands up to the back of her own neck. "Why don't you help me out of this?" He fumbled with the zipper of her blousy tunic and she kissed him again. Soft and welcoming. Warmth seemed to flow into him from her mouth and her fingertips. "It's all right," she murmured against his ear. "Go ahead and just pull it off." The tunic came free easily, to Odo's astonishment. His hands moved slowly, wonderingly, over Kira's warm, soft flesh with an apparent will of their own. His mouth found and kissed her temple, then moved to her neck and shoulders, tentative. Kira's body arched appreciatively in his arms, her skin caressing his. There were more kisses, sweet and exploratory, and somehow, despite flushing with embarrassment, they managed to discard the last remnants of their clothing. Odo stood awkwardly, helped Kira to her feet. For a moment she just stood there with her hands in his, regarding his face--his body--with new awareness. She had seen him naked, at the edge of the Link, and after that, all through the time she had stayed with him on Dukat's ship. He was as slender and fragile-looking as he had been then, but now his skin was flushed and his eyes were bright with some emotion that hovered between expectation and uncertainty. Kira slipped her arms around his waist for a moment and drew him close. Feeling as though he still walked through a dream, took her hands and led her to the bedroom, where she gently pushed him onto his back on the unmade, welcoming bed. She began to kiss him again, slowly now but eagerly, as if she were tasting him. Lips ... chin ... neck ... throat ... shoulders ... breastbone ... nipples. He lay still, letting her do exactly as she pleased. The touches moved down his form with a slow, rising warmth. Swirls and prickles of sensation swelled within him every place she touched. Her hands, her mouth, moved everywhere now. "Nerys ..." he whispered hoarsely, helpless to do anything but repeat her name. "It's alright. There's nothing to be afraid of." He shivered uncontrollably at the warmth in her voice, at the sensation of her breath against his skin. Odo felt his fingertips seized and suddenly pressed against the warm, pliant flesh of Kira's belly. The child within her moved, and he closed his eyes as he felt it. It dimly occurred to him that this child might have been his. For his own body was now presumably capable of such minor miracles. He heard Kira sigh, and opened his eyes to gaze up at the silhouette of her beautifully sculpted body. He couldn't move. He lay there on the bed--naked and vulnerable and aroused, and for once, completely unashamed of his body and its needs. He felt the light pressure of her hand as she almost casually reached down to stroke the trembling shaft of his penis. He closed his eyes, feeling her touch someplace deep at the core of himself--someplace never touched before--a place that was still tender and painful with scarred-over hurts. Her hands ran gently, lovingly over the fragile organ, and then from his abdomen to his shoulders and back. Her voice was warm with affection as her hands stroked his body. "You're beautiful." *Beautiful.* The word was a caress, and he didn't reject it. A small whimper of pleasure, the tiniest sound, managed to pass his lips as his body responded to her touch. His back arched and soft animal sounds escaped his throat. He felt her hands caressing his lower abdomen. There was a soft flicker of wet warmth against his erection, and his fingers clutched involuntarily at the tangled sheets as her mouth gently closed over him. He trembled and cried out, mewling helplessly like a kitten, found his fingers reaching down to tangle in her short, thick hair. Dear Prophets, he was going to faint ... or die ... from this. His soft cries became insensible to him as she devoured him with gentle eagerness. "Nerys ... Oh Prophets ... please, Nerys, please ...." His fragile, humanoid body twisted as a wave of exquisite pleasure went quivering through it. Pleasure like and not like the joining in the Link. As in the Link, the feelings came in waves--softly, gently invasive. Waves of sensation pulsed through him, contorting his body. "Nerys..." Her mouth sought his again, stifling his cries. He so craved her touch that it was unbearable. The caressing went on, slow and inexorable, her hands, her mouth on his body, everywhere. The kisses went on forever, searching his mouth, bathing his body in circles of warmth that joined him to her. Everything was a sensory blur. His hips strained against her in a dream-like haze of need and pleasure. He longed in his deepest self to become liquid and wrap his body around hers, to touch her everywhere, to drown all pain in the awareness of her body and his own. His hands roved over her skin with fluid ease, his mouth sought her breasts. Her milk wet his lips and tongue, fed his hunger--the hunger he had lived with all his life. Hunger for warmth and touch and belonging. She reached up to touch his face, and some part of him was lucid enough to let him reach back and trace the contour of her cheek with shaking fingertips. He looked up, and her dark eyes held him. *Don't be afraid,* they said. With some effort, owing to the burden of her swollen belly, she straddled his narrow hips, and he felt the slick wetness between her thighs slowly coating his erection. She moved like water against him. He shivered as she opened herself to his body. He moved against her fractionally and she felt his hesitation. "It's all right," she whispered, coaxing. "Come into me." Her weight shifted decisively, and he gasped, feeling himself sheathed inside her warm, fluid, slickness. Kira groaned softly as she felt him there. She moved slowly, surely against him and Odo's hips jerked almost frantically in response. He gasped her name amidst meaningless cries that blurred into soft animal sounds of passion. His body became the movement against her, thrusting over and over. There was only that movement, primal as ocean waves, and the wanting, the sweet, warm wetness inside her, and need for merging--for *linking.* She contracted around him, and he shuddered. His orgasm welled out of him in long, shuddering sobs. The semen burst from him and spilled into her like pent up emotion. For long moments he lay gasping beneath her in the silence, feeling the heart inside his chest thudding against his ribcage. She murmured soft words of comfort against his skin. She held him fiercely, tenderly, until his passion had spent itself, then gently shifted off him to lie on her side with her arm around his waist. Time seemed to stop for that interval and the universe was the two of them, clinging together, melded and joined by the shared warmth of their bodies. He felt her brush away something wet that clung to his face. "I'm sorry, Nerys..." She kissed the tears once more from his face. "No ... Just be quiet now. There's nothing to be sorry for." She kissed him again. It was warm and satisfying and Odo had no trouble returning her passion. Her mouth was familiar now, and his tongue explored its inner contours eagerly, almost of its own accord. Kira's soft little cry of delight as he deepened the kiss both added to his pleasure and deepened his pain. "I love you," she whispered, winding herself around his body and closing her eyes. Odo held her and said nothing. It was a long time before he followed her into sleep. **** Kira was surprised to find herself curled on the floor when she awakened. An unforgiving, metal floor. She recognized the cold, gray architecture and knew that she'd been here before. In the semi-darkness, she reached out for Odo. The thin fabric covering his shoulders was coarse and rough under her hands as she shook him awake. He turned onto his back, and when his eyes opened at last, he seemed to start in panic. His gaze flicked apprehensively to the ceiling, to the stack of crates beside them, before coming to rest on her face. "Where--how did we get back here?" he whispered. There was a hoarse, pleading note in his voice. Her fingers reached out in the dimness to touch his cheek. She could feel bone beneath the soft flesh. "We know this place." Odo sat up, leaned back against the crates, and closed his eyes. He spoke so softly that Kira had to strain to hear him. "... but that was ... so long ago. This isn't right. It can't be." The words were almost a prayer, as if he were trying to reassure himself. When he opened his eyes, they were more bleak-looking than she'd ever seen them. "It should be over," he whispered. We shouldn't have to keep coming back ... here." She reflected. "Maybe we forgot something. Maybe we left something here and need to find it--to bring it back." Odo seemed to take no comfort from that statement. She watched him withdraw into silence and apprehension. She crouched beside him in the somber half-light, put a hand on his knee. "Look--it's okay," she soothed. "We'll figure it out." She paused, glancing over her shoulder. "We probably shouldn't stay here, though. The Cardassians don't appreciate vagrants." She stood slowly, helped pull Odo to his feet. A heavy footstep made her turn around. She was not surprised to see Gul Dukat again. The Cardassian was wearing his usual insolent smile. It took her a moment to realize that the smile was intended for Odo, not for her. "Well done, shapeshifter. I take it that this is one of our would-be assassins?" he asked, giving a cursory nod in Kira's direction. "No," said Odo, his tone dangerously level. "She's done nothing." "Really?" said Dukat, stepping closer and taking Kira's chin in his hand. She held still, glaring at him. "I hope that you of all people aren't starting to be deceived by pretty faces." Kira jerked her chin away. Dukat smiled again. "I've never given you any reason to doubt my word," growled Odo. "She's innocent." "Hmmm ... aren't they all?" Kira, feeling irrationally protective, planted herself squarely in front of the Cardassian, holding his gaze with her own. Dukat's expression chilled her. "Just remember what I said, shapeshifter. Sooner or later, you have to tell her. Do you suppose she'll forgive you?" Then he was gone--as if he'd vanished while Kira blinked her eyes. She heard a threatening rumble nearby, the groan of shifting steel, seemed to feel the deck-plating giving way beneath her feet. Kira turned in time to see Odo collapsing against the stack of crates. The metal containers swayed perilously, and she reached for his hand, pulling him away just as the world fell down all around them. They fell with it, together, crouching on the cold floor and covering their heads with their arms, in the midst of commotion like a barrage of gunfire. When the noise was swallowed at last by an unnatural silence, Kira found that she was still clutching Odo's arm. To her great surprise, no Cardassian guards arrived to haul them away. No onlookers gathered to survey the damage. The two of them were utterly alone. Odo was shivering and gasping for breath. They remained huddled on the floor for several moments. Odo was murmuring under his breath, his words soft and rapid. "I didn't mean to. I swear, I never meant for it to happen that way." She tried to pull him up, but his body seemed heavier than usual. He remained slumped on the floor. "Odo...?" She paused, as some vague suspicion seemed to gel in her mind. She spoke slowly as the idea completed itself. "Did you bring us here?" Odo nodded, unable to meet her eyes. He half-raised himself, slowly--the action seemed to take a great deal of effort. Somehow they had come to be on the upper level of the promenade. Odo gripped the rail with one shaking hand, and then raised the other to point directly across the way at the scene that was transpiring. Kira squinted into the shadows and as she did so, she saw three figures take shape, seemingly out of the air--three Bajoran men, their faces set in the resigned manner that only the condemned wear. As Kira watched, a Cardassian guard stepped up to the first of them, pressing the barrel of a disruptor to the man's chest. She watched him fall in slow motion. The other prisoners were dispatched in the same brutal manner. As the last of them fell, Kira's gaze was drawn upward to another figure that suddenly materialized--a tall man with smooth features, dressed in the dark, heavily-padded uniform of a Cardassian civilian official. He gazed impassively upon the fallen bodies of the prisoners until they melted back into the darkness. The alien officer looked up and directly across at Kira, with a dispassionate, grimly satisfied expression. Then he too vanished from sight. Kira looked down. Odo was still beside her on the floor, quivering as if he were moments away from collapsing into gelatinous form. "That ... was you there ...." she told him slowly, hearing the astonishment and horror in her own voice. Odo gave a silent nod. "I don't understand." "They ... should not have died. Those deaths ... are my fault." She was unable to move or speak, paralyzed by disbelief. And then Odo vanished from the cold metal floor beside her, and she was left alone. **** Odo found himself sobbing into his pillow. The room materialized around him slowly as he came out of the dream. The first thing that he became aware of was Kira's body, the heat and softness of her curled against him. *Dear Prophets ... we didn't ....* But he could feel her skin against his own. She was clinging to him, as naked as he was. His mind reeled with the memory of her lips on his own, of her hands, her mouth, on his body. The warmth, the passion that had surged through him. It hadn't been a dream. They had made love. Their bodies had been intimately ... linked. He drew a soft breath in the darkness, afraid to move lest he shatter the reality of this moment. Cautiously, he reached out and let his hand touch Kira's cheek, stroking her hair away from her face. His hand paused in its tentative journey along her temple, then he froze as he sensed another presence in the room. Some blind instinct, some knowledge that remained with him in spite of all that he had lost, told him that he and Kira were no longer alone. Odo drew the breath slowly into his lungs and let it out. He kept his eyes focused on Kira's sleeping features for a long moment before he sat up slowly and began to look around the room. He stood decisively and peered into the darkness. "I know you're here," he whispered to the empty air. "And I know that you can hear me. So why don't you stop this game and tell me what you want?" On the periphery of his vision, something moved, and Odo turned to watch as a golden glow blossomed to life in one corner of the room--a part of the wall. It expanded and grew, rippled and changed, until Odo beheld a humanoid visage, mask-like as his own, and a humanoid form, clothed in simple garments. The other changeling looked at him in amusement. "I see it didn't take you long to fit in with them," it observed wryly, looking Odo's slender frame up and down. Only now did it occur to Odo that his vulnerable humanoid body was fully exposed to the other shapeshifter. But he no longer cared. He drew himself straighter, met the changeling's look with a gaze of blue steel. The changeling turned his attention on the sleeping Kira. "So you've coupled with her." The observation seemed charged with both amusement and disgust. "... engaged in one of their animal mating rituals. I suppose that's what you wanted." The expressionless eyes turned back to Odo. "Does it please you?" The other changeling held out his hand and Odo watched his own hand reach out to clasp it, as though it were helpless to resist. He watched the other shapeshifter's hand go liquid, felt the amber gel flowing around his own solid fingers. He gasped and closed his eyes. It was not a Link, not a proper Link. But some part of him still remembered that singular joy. His breath came hard and sharp. "Tell me," the other changeling whispered seductively, "was it worth losing your connection to the Great Link? Does it ... satisfy you?" Without warning, the liquid touch of a single fingertip reached even lower and drew a line of fire down his genitals. The barest touch. It was agony. Odo gasped and struggled, and at last wrenched himself away. The other changeling watched him expressionlessly, and Odo turned his body to the wall, ashamed. "Leave me," he grated hoarsely, cradling his violated hand against his chest as though it had been burned. "This is what you made me, and I've accepted it. I won't beg for you to change me back." Surprisingly, the other changeling did not argue with him. "As you wish," came the soft reply. "You haven't told her, have you?" Odo looked up into a sly and knowing smile, just before the other changeling faded away into the architecture of the station. Odo was barely aware of its departure. His head was suddenly pounding again, his mind crowded with memories. His humanoid body was suddenly as claustrophobic as it had been the moment that he had emerged from the Link. His groin was still throbbing with unanswered need. His breath came in sharp, painful gasps. He glanced back at the bed, at Kira. *No.* He couldn't. He would not use her body again to sate his own need and comfort his own insecurities. He had to get out of here. He dressed himself in the darkness. Touch had always been enough to guide him through his quarters. A shadow of the changeling sense of exactly where things ought to be still lingered with him. He moved softly, so as not to waken Kira. It occurred to him that she might worry if she woke up to find him gone. But at the moment the need to get out of the confining space, if not out of his confining body, was uppermost in his awareness. He drew the soft folds of the twisted sheets and blankets gently over Kira while she remained blissfully asleep. She didn't even stir at the touch. He hesitated, then allowed himself to kiss her briefly on the forehead. She murmured something he couldn't make out and rubbed her cheek against her pillow. He waited only long enough to be certain that she had settled back into sleep. Once the doors to his quarters had shut behind him, Odo headed straight for the promenade and Quark's bar. He grimaced at the utter predictability of his own actions. *That's right, drown your failures in alcohol--like any other weak humanoid.* He ignored the odd look that Quark gave him as he seated himself in front of the bar. "Isn't it a little late for you to be about, Constable--when you're off duty, I mean?" asked Quark, in a tone of voice that Odo couldn't quite read. *Concern, perhaps?* Odo snorted to himself. *Never.* "Whiskey," he said tersely, leaning forward with his elbows on the bar. "And I'm always on duty." Quark glanced warily over his shoulder. "Whatever you say. By the way, have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?" Odo chuckled morbidly. "Oh, yes." He glanced up at the Ferengi. "Look like hell, don't I?" he smiled. Quark backed away slightly. "Look, if you trip over something on your way home, I won't be held liable--" "If I wanted to chat I'd be sitting next to Morn," growled Odo. "Are you running a bar or a psychiatric clinic?" "All right, all right. Fine." Quark poured out a tall glass of the dark fluid, pushing it across the table to Odo, who squinted at it in the neon lighting and took a swallow, savoring the bitter flavor and the burn down his throat. He finished the drink in a few forced gulps and then rose. He looked down to find Quark eyeing him with undisguised worry. "Odo--you all right? You look like you've just seen a ..." "I'll be fine, growled Odo. The last thing he wanted was an interrogation right now, let alone sympathy from his oldest nemesis. "Put the drink on my tab." He turned away and headed for the door, leaving Quark shaking his head in wonder. (to be continued in Part 4) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: ath: newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!elnk-atl-nf1!newsfeed.earthlink.net!bigfeed2.bellsouth.net!bigfeed.bellsouth.net!news.bellsouth.net!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsread.com!newsstand.newsread.com!POSTED.newshog.newsread.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated Approved: ascem@earthlink.net Organization: Better Living Thru TrekSmut Sender: ascem@earthlink.net Message-ID: <41334BF3.9060800@comcast.net> From: "czb (Chris)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCEML@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCEML-owner@yahoogroups.com Subject: NEW DS9: Metamorphosis 4/4 (O/K) [NC-17] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 806 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 16:55:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.198.142.218 X-Complaints-To: Abuse Role , We Care X-Trace: newshog.newsread.com 1093884918 209.198.142.218 (Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:18 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:55:18 EDT Xref: news.earthlink.net alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated:83263 X-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:55:19 PDT (newsspool2.news.atl.earthlink.net) Title: Metamorphosis Author: C. Zdroj Series: DS9 Part: 4/4 Rating: NC-17 See part 1 for Disclaimer, Codes, Warnings Part 4 **** "Odo?" Kira murmured. She allowed her eyes to slit open a fraction, then closed them again, curling herself back around the pillow. Lovemaking always allowed her to sleep well, and left her pleasantly warm and hazy on awakening, but as she burrowed herself in among the sheets, a nagging feeling lingered at the back of her mind. An odd dream .... Something was wrong. In the next instant she knew that she was alone. The soft breathing of a sleeping lover was not to be heard in the stillness around her. No one was moving about the quarters. The only sound in the suddenly eerie silence was that of her own breath. She turned over. "Odo?" she said, more loudly now, just to make sure, but she wasn't expecting a reply. "Computer, lights," she sat up irritably, pushing the hair away from her eyes. She blinked and glanced around. As she had expected, the spartan quarters were empty. "Computer, locate Security Chief Odo." The synthetic voice answered her with prim dispassion. "Security Chief Odo is in his quarters." "Yeah, right," Kira growled, hauling herself out of bed and collecting her clothing from the floor in the next room. She found Odo's combadge on the night-table, scooped it up into her hand and let her fingers curl possessively around it. As she did so, dream images flooded her mind --of herself with Odo, on the station as it had been ... during the Occupation. "What the hell...?" she muttered. She recalled the dream she'd had just before finding herself on Dukat's ship. Something very strange was happening--something that was not quite under her own control--and Kira hated that feeling. As soon as she looked semi-presentable, she headed out the door and straight for the Promenade. There was one person on the station that just might be able to help her find Odo. **** He stared out at the stars for a long time. He had always liked the docking bays. They were cold and functional and stubbornly silent--they suited so many of his off-color moods. During the days of the Occupation, he had often come here for the quiet--and to be alone. In the days following the executions and the purges, he'd spent hours at a time here. At first he barely noticed that his humanoid body wasn't quite as impervious to cold as his changeling self had been. Such trouble, these humanoid bodies--so fragile. The tears came into his eyes, chilling against his face. He studied his hands--hands that now knew the curves of a woman's body ... Nerys' body. He still could not quite believe that. He had dreamed of being with her for so long, and yet, now that it had finally happened, it felt almost surreal--another dream he'd had. In this cold, certainly, it was difficult to believe in any warmth shared between two frail bodies during some fleeting encounter in the dark. And yet, a spark of that remembered joy remained in him yet. It made his despair that much deeper now. How was he to explain his secret shame to the woman he loved? The woman who had, at long last, consented to love him back? How could she go on loving him if she knew what he truly was? A murderer--or at best an accessory to murder. Not because of what he'd done to his own people, but because of what he'd done to hers--to Bajor. He'd buried the memories of those dark days inside himself for what seemed an eternity, hoping that they would fade, that he would find some way to redeem himself. He hadn't. Odo put his face into his hands and sank to the floor. He let the shame overpower him, let the sobs rack his body--and they echoed through the coldest and emptiest part of the space station. **** Quark automatically backed two steps away from the bar when he saw Major Kira headed through the doors of his establishment. Pregnancy, he'd decided long ago, did not improve the Major's disposition. At the moment, however, she looked positively irate--disheveled, haggard, like she'd just been roused from a sound sleep. Looking, in fact, exactly as he'd seen Odo looking not an hour since. Kira walked straight up to the Ferengi and fixed him with a glare. She opened her mouth but Quark answered her question before she asked it. "He was here about an hour ago, in a fouler mood than usual, I might add. He had one drink, and then left without so much as a thank you." "You're talking about Odo?" queried Kira, clearly not knowing whether to be astonished or irritated. "Who else?" Quark didn't have time to yelp in surprise as Kira dragged him over the bar and almost tossed him onto one of his own bar-stools. "I'm in no mood to play games, Quark. I want to know where he is." "I just told you, I don't know," gasped Quark. "I don't suppose you've tried his quarters," he added sarcastically. "I just came from there," snapped Kira. "I woke up and he was gone." She flushed suddenly at her own words, and Quark stared at her with new awareness--at her disheveled, hastily drawn on garments, her barely brushed hair, the deep red marks that were still visible on her neck. The Ferengi's jaw dropped as he began to put two and two together. "You mean that you two--" "Never mind what we did. I need you to help me find him." She grabbed the Ferengi's arm and pulled him to his feet. "Now just a minute," Quark protested. "I've got my rights--" "You can file a complaint with Odo, right after we find him," said Kira briskly, hauling Quark out of the bar. He scurried to keep up with her longer strides. "Captain Sisko will hear about this. You can't just drag me away from my customers." Kira's mouth twisted into a wry grimace as she looked at him. "I'm sure they'll be broken-hearted to lose you. Now let's go." "Fee-males," grumbled Quark under his breath. "Give them two strips of latinum and they empty the whole account." **** He wasn't sure just when he looked up at last--but as he did, the starlight faded from his sight and he was standing on a windswept plain--on Bajor, in the center of the great ring of ancient stones--the standing stones of Belkala. He was tired ... so tired. He put a hand out to touch the surface of the nearest stone--such a varied, interesting surface, weathered by thousands of years of wind and rain even before the Occupation--and yet still it stood here, a silent keeper of Bajor's history. He closed his eyes, let his hand caress the surface. He still ... loved surfaces of all kinds, rough, smooth. He remembered the time when thought alone might have allowed him to duplicate this form. "Become rock ..." Now why had that seemed so terribly difficult before? It was easy now, to grow cold and silent, ancient and rough-skinned, to be part of Bajor's ancient soil. Peaceful. Yes. He knelt beside the stone and leaned into it--to become one with the rock. Yes. The body didn't matter. The body was only an outward expression, a form, a symbol. There was rain falling on him, pricking his skin through the clothing. Needles of cold. Water. Yes--that too. Liquid. The sound was so very peaceful, like feeling the motion of the O'Brien baby still in Kira's womb. "Mother," he whispered against the rough stone. "Where am I?" A long while passed in a cold, gray nothingness, where the only awarenesses were the sound of the rain falling and the cold howling of the wind. But then, slowly--there was warmth again, the return of sensation. A gentle hand touched his chin, raising his face. "Why are you crying child?" He looked into the face of a Bajoran woman, middle-aged, short, and with a softly rounded face. She smiled as if she knew him, and he thought he recognized her from ... somewhere. "I'm lost," he told her. "Are you certain of that?" She asked, looking at him keenly. "I ... I want to go home, Mother." He wasn't certain why he addressed her thus, only that it seemed right. The woman smiled again. "You are of Bajor, child." "I don't understand." She touched his cheek. "You are of Bajor. The Prophets sent you to us." Odo shook his head. "I've never seen the Prophets. I don't believe in them." "That doesn't matter. You need only to believe in yourself. You're not lost, child. You're exactly where the Prophets placed you." He shook his head. His voice came out a whisper. "No." "Why do you deny the connection? Bajor herself knows you, my child." "But I have betrayed Bajor. She cannot forgive me." "That you cannot know," came the soft reply, "... until you ask her." **** They found him in docking bay seven, curled up near one of the viewports in a fetal position, shivering uncontrollably. He didn't respond to her touch or her voice. She reached out to feel his pulse, pausing to glare up at the hovering figure of Quark. "Well don't look at me," said the Ferengi sulkily, rubbing gingerly at his arm. "I didn't send him out here. I tried to stop him." Still frowning, Kira hit her combadge. "This is Kira to Sickbay. I have a medical emergency. Two to transport immediately." She hardly noticed the look of pure umbrage on Quark's face as the transporter beam whisked her and Odo away. **** His face was wet. He looked up into Kira's concerned eyes. Her hand traveled gently over his chest. "Odo," she whispered, "Can you hear me?" "I--yes.... I'm fine--I ..." He felt her fingers lightly brushing against his face. "Shhhh... It's okay. Just rest." Odo closed his eyes and accepted her gesture of comfort. His body trembled as a surge of emotion welled up from inside him. His lips would not move, yet he had to speak. The words came with painful slowness. "Nerys--I saw her." "What do you mean? Who did you see?" she asked gently. "The Kai. Kai Opaka. I saw her." A silence. Kira's dark eyes regarded him with compassion. "You don't believe me...." She smiled. A tender, loving smile that somehow accentuated the worry hiding in her dark eyes. "Of course I believe you." Her fingers ran through his hair, brushing it back fastidiously, as though it had been mussed.* ... like before, back on Dukat's ship,* the thought drifted through his awareness, *she touched me just that way ...* He wanted to tell her that he was all right, but his body and mind had become sluggish and heavy. He sensed another figure moving somewhere off to his side. There was a soft and pleasantly soothing hissing noise as something cold was pressed to his arm, and then his insides seemed to grow warm and ... liquid. Within moments the dark well of sleep had claimed his awareness. **** Kira watched silently as Bashir administered the hypo with his usual deft and gentle healer's touch. Odo lost consciousness almost immediately, the tension fading slowly out of the muscles of his face, his body sagging and resettling on the biobed. She stroked his face with the back of her hand, noted the bruise-like shadows around his eyes and mouth, and was stunned yet again by his fragility. He was a living, breathing human being--susceptible to simple and mundane things like cold. Her rage at the Founders renewed itself as she let her touch come to rest at his cheek. "Sweetheart ... what did they *do* to you in there?" she breathed. "Major?" Julian Bashir, who had been watching her this while, now looked at her questioningly. Kira shook her head again, "Nothing. Is he going to be all right?" "He should be fine." The doctor paused thoughtfully. "I have no idea what brought it on, but his body went into severe shock. Partially I'd blame the cold in those docking bays, but that really doesn't explain the hallucinations." Unaccountably, Kira found herself irritated. "What makes you think he *didn't* see the Kai?" Julian was taken aback. "It--seems unlikely, that's all. Humanoid brains generate all sorts of electrical impulses when the body is subjected to stress. Odo's never been exposed to any Bajoran orbs, has he?" Kira shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think so." She paused. "Julian ... have you ever heard of people ... sharing dreams?" "Well certain types of telepathic races do it as a matter of course ... Nerys, does this have anything to do with Odo's condition?" "I don't know ... I--It's just that I've been having dreams ... about the Occupation. They started back when I was on Dukat's ship. Odo's always in them and it only seems to happen when we're ... asleep ... together." She felt the flush creeping into her cheeks as she made this last admission. "He hasn't been completely himself lately and ... oh, I don't know--I just wondered if maybe ... I know it sounds crazy...." Bashir seemed to ponder for a moment, "Well, when Starfleet Medical did its tests, we did find some traces of morphogenic enzymes in his brain. At the time we didn't really know what to make of it ... I wonder if he could be..." "What?" Bashir shook his head. "It's a bit of a reach, but perhaps he's been trying to ‘link' with you ... telepathically. But I can't know that without some more data." "So we *could* be sharing dreams..." "What makes you think that Odo is having these dreams too?" She paused before answering. "They--they don't *feel* like my dreams. At least not completely mine." There was another silence. "Would it be all right for me to take him back to his quarters?" "As long as you plan to keep an eye on him for a while. The medications have taken the edge off the fever and chills. Basically he just needs some rest. And a solid meal once he wakes up." Kira nodded and gently took Odo's hand in her own. It seemed frail and rather cool. She let her fingertips close around it. Glancing up at Julian, she gave him a quick nod. "Whenever you're ready." Within moments she found herself blinking in surprise as she stood at Odo's bedside. The transport had been neat and precise. The biobed was gone. Odo lay on his own bed, covered only by the thin blue hospital gown. Kira got some blankets from the replicator and covered him. Then she sat beside him on the bed, staring intently at his face, running the back of her hand lightly along his cheek. There were words struggling into her mind half-formed, emotions that she could barely articulate. So she said nothing and sat with him quietly while time stretched meaningless before and behind her, until it seemed she had always been sitting in this very spot, gazing down on the still features of her friend. At some point, Odo stirred faintly and she watched a pair of unnaturally dark blue eyes open slowly in the dimness as the prayer she had been speaking, murmuring really, faded off her lips in mid-word. She looked into those eyes and felt suddenly, inexpressibly tired, weak, and sad--as if all the sorrow of the universe had suddenly been revealed in his expression. She placed her hand against the side of his face and his features shifted subtly, his minimalist mask of a face somehow slipping into a look of both sorrow and intense pleasure as he leaned, just slightly, into her touch and closed his eyes again. She bent down to him, feeling released from some burden as she kissed his forehead and continued to kiss him. "I'm sorry, Nerys," he murmured softly against her lips. "Shhhh .... Take me with you," she whispered, laying herself beside him. "We'll be all right as long as we're together." His fingers closed around hers and they descended into sleep. **** She stood in the glow cast by the sea of gold, just as before. Odo stood in the distance, nearer to the Link, with his back to her. His body was melting and misshapen. He paused at the edge of the living ocean and looked over his shoulder. His plain features hardened into a look of disapproval when he saw her. "Nerys ... what are you doing here?" "I followed you," she said simply. "You can't go without me." "But ... I can't take you here. You're not a changeling. You won't survive." "Odo--you're not a changeling either. Not anymore." He held up his melting, ravaged hands, indicated his body, falling to pieces as he stood there. "How do you explain this?" She took his hands in her own. "This is a dream, Odo. Our dream--yours and mine. The Prophets send us dreams sometimes to make us see the truth. We can only do this together. You have to take me with you." He looked away. "I can't. If you come here. You'll see what I am. What I really am." "I know who you are. I've always known." He shook his head, helplessly. "You have to. It's the only way. You have to take me into the Link." A pillar of gold rose from the Great Link and formed itself into the now-familiar shape of the female changeling. "She is right, you know. You must allow her to enter. You must allow her to see the truth." "You're not interested in the truth," spat Odo. "They may be not be," said a soft voice from the shore behind them. Kira turned to see Kai Opaka gazing meaningfully at the two of them. "But you are, my child. Don't be afraid of what you find within yourself." Odo stared helplessly at Kira. She had not let go of his hands this entire time. "Take me, ashani. We have to go in together." He looked at her with despairing eyes. "I love you, Nerys." "I know you do," she replied. She stepped with him toward the sea of gold that swirled at their feet. She felt the essence of her being changing, shifting. Her hands lost their shape and spilled into his, and her cry of pleasure was dissolved by silence as her body became liquid and flowed into his open arms, merged and blended with his body. Her hips and torso and finally all of herself entered his essence, spilling into him. She clung to Odo with all of herself, amazed. There was no separation, now, between the two of them, no physical barriers to get in the way. His fear, his guilt, his desperate love--she felt all of these directly. She wondered which thoughts, which memories, which feelings were his and which were her own--and if such distinctions mattered anymore. Around them, the outside world was dim and hazy. Sight and sound did not exist. Only ... contact ... warmth ... touch. She let herself ripple and flow through him and felt the soft gasp of release that was his surrender to her touch. It was like making love, only ... more intimate ... There was a flare of bright light in the midst of utter darkness and the two of them were thrust apart, reconstituted into humanoid forms. The force of the separation was so wrenching that Kira fell to her knees, gasping. Then she saw it--a shattered body lying on the cold floor. A woman's body--Bajoran, frail and dark-haired, her skin as white as bone-china, except for the ugly patch of blood-matted hair over her right temple. Her clothing was almost luxurious--colorful, delicate fabrics rich with embroidery--but it was brutally shredded and torn in the same manner as her body. Odo, standing a little in front of Kira, dropped to one knee beside the fallen creature and allowed his fingertips to gently brush a lock of hair away from the pale, lifeless face. He caressed the smooth cheek with reverence. Kira managed to regain her feet, took a hesitant step forward, then came at last to his side. "Who is she?" Odo's words came slowly and painfully. "Her name was Lai'ka. She was an assistant of Dr. Mora's. She died ... years ago. Her death was my fault." Kira tried to study Odo's features in the dark, but in the shadows, his face was a cryptic mask that gave away so little. "What do you mean?" "I could have stopped it from happening if I hadn't been ... so afraid. She was protecting me from the Cardassians. They wanted to amuse themselves with the shapeshifter. But they couldn't find me--so they amused themselves with her instead." His voice quivered, hovering close to tears. "I was there. I heard it all. I never moved. I was hiding as part of the floor." Kira knelt beside him, reached out and took his hand gently away from the battered body, and it vanished as though it had never been. "It wasn't your fault," she said. Odo looked up at her. His blue eyes were desperate. She could taste how badly he wanted to believe her. "You were a child." She squeezed his hand between her own. "Believe me, I know ..." Her voice sank to a soft whisper. "I know what it's like to feel helpless in the face of evil." "Tell her about the others," commanded a stern voice. Kira looked up. The female changeling stood at Odo's shoulder. He bowed his head in surrender. "What others?" asked Kira. "The innocents killed on Terok Nor during the Occupation," said Odo, not looking at her. And as if by magic, the ragged figures materialized mere footsteps away from them. They were typical, half-starved Bajorans of the Occupation, only their faces stared straight ahead with dead, expressionless eyes, and their chests were blackened with gaping wounds caused by weapons fired into the chest at close range. They stood unmoving, towering over Odo and Kira, who still knelt on the floor. Kira still held Odo's hands. She gave them a squeeze, looking up into his eyes, drawing him to his feet with her as she stood. She felt him shaking. Odo looked into the blank eyes of each ghost in turn. Then he looked at Kira. "I thought I could remain on the outside. I thought I could serve justice impartially. But in trying to remain neutral, I only served the interests of the Cardassians." He turned away from her, ashamed. "I worked for them, Nerys." His voice was barely audible. "I might as well have been one of them. That's who I am. That's what I tried to hide from you." Kira closed her eyes, and suddenly felt herself drowning, her lungs crying for air. She reached out for Odo, but he was beyond her grasp. Her body went fluid and formless once more. A scream was wrenched from her as she was tossed onto a barren, rocky shore. Her body felt strange ... both solid and fluid, changing, fluctuating. Another person, a second presence, was with her, beside her, in the deepest part of her mind, buried in half-consciousness, a warmth, a dimly-remembered hand clasp, the beating of a second heart. Her shadow, her self--yet not herself. She brought her arms around it, held on and refused to let go of the other life that she held. "I love you," she whispered. **** There was warmth in the darkness. He lay still, letting himself be helpless, feeling the rhythms of his body--the body that was neither "solid" nor unchanging. It changed with an almost frightening constancy, even as he lay unmoving. The pulse of the blood through his veins quickened and throbbed. His breath came more sharply. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe slowly. Tried to block out everything but the sound of his own gasping in the stillness. He was aware of Kira, dimly at first, and then with more surety, lying curled across his chest. His hand moved, his fingers somehow finding their way into the softness of her hair and combing through it slowly. The dream images flashed briefly in memory and he shivered. She was real. Her weight shifted, the rhythm of her breathing changed subtly--and he realized she was awake. She stirred and raised her face to look at him. "Nerys," he whispered, running his hand up along her cheek. Kira turned her face into his hand so that she could kiss his palm. For a moment there was silence as she rubbed her cheek against his hand. "Odo," she whispered against his touch. Her lips traveled to the inside of his wrist. He heard the tears in her voice. He hesitated, recalling pieces of memory, fragments of dream. "You were with me, weren't you?" he said slowly. "You saw ... you saw everything." She nodded. Odo disentangled himself from her and got up carefully from the bed. Kira made no move to stop him. He walked unsteadily to the viewport and braced himself against its casement, staring out into the stars. He put his hand on the transparent steel of the window, as though trying to reach past it. His voice was low, as though he were speaking more to himself than to her. "I was hoping to spare you that--or maybe I was just trying to spare myself." He bowed his head. "I've seen terrible things, Nerys. I've done ... terrible things." "We all did, during that time," she said quietly. His voice was distant and toneless, his face without expression. "Did you ... see them--?" Kira didn't have to ask who he meant. "Yes," she said softly. "I have no way of knowing how many ... innocent people might have died on Terok Nor when I ran security there." His voice trembled just slightly, but he continued. "The three men ... that you saw executed--I found out days later ... that they had done nothing. My pride killed them--my arrogance. I thought ... that I couldn't make a mistake. I thought ..." He swayed unsteadily. Kira, afraid that he would fall, came to stand behind him, put one arm around his waist while her other hand reached up to cover his where it rested on the clear steel of the viewport. He blinked, turned his head to look at her as though he'd been wakened from a dream. His eyes held a look of pure devastation. "Afterward, I vowed that I would never be responsible for such a thing again. But I'll never know ..." "I think you should lie down," she said softly. He didn't fight her as she turned him away from the window and helped him to settle in among the sheets. She pulled the crumpled blankets over him and sat at his side, taking his hand in her own. For a moment he looked as if he were going to fade back off into sleep, but even as his eyes began to close, his lips moved slowly. "You were never the coward that I was," he murmured. "Who said you were a coward?" she challenged, her words sharp even though her voice was pitched low. His eyes opened. "I was never able to walk away from Dukat--from any of them." "You did walk away, Odo. You did walk away from them--just like you walked away from the science center," she said. "The lab," Odo gave a snort of half-hearted laughter. "Ironic--that's the one cage I've managed to carry with me." His voice became bitter. "Sometimes I wonder if I ever left. I've always been hiding--just as I did when Lai'ka was killed ... behind the law, behind ... this face. I can't ... I've never ... let anyone inside. I was afraid ... of what they'd find." He paused, drawing slow, shaking breaths, "You were right all along, you know. Everyone has to choose sides." He let his eyes close. "You did choose," she reminded him. She let her fingertips gently trace the shape of his forehead, travel down the bridge of his nose, and then over his lips to his chin. "You walked away from the Founders," she whispered. "I always thought--that took more courage than I would ever have, to walk away from something you've wanted--dreamed about--for your whole life." "Do you know what ‘odo'ital' means?" he asked softly. She drew back a little. "Odo'ital...? Is that where your name came from?" "It *is* my name." Cardassian for "nothing." Her sharply indrawn breath told him that she recognized the word and knew its meaning. Of course. She was a child of the Occupation. She would know some basic Cardassian vocabulary. Most Bajorans who had survived the Occupation did. He should have known the Founder who had once impersonated Kira for the fraud that she was as soon as she failed to recognize the meaning of "odo'ital". How lax of him, he reflected almost idly. Kira's voice was sober. "Dr. Mora called you that?" she asked, carefully. "It was a ... joke that stuck." He was surprised as she leaned down to kiss his cheek. There was a sudden fierceness in her voice. "I'm sorry, Odo." Her voice wavered slightly, as though she were crying--or trying to keep herself from crying. Odo shut his eyes tightly to blink back his own tears. "Oh gods, Nerys ... how can you not hate me?" "Because I love you," she said quietly. "Why won't you believe that? I've been thinking about it for days now, and I finally realized that I've always loved you. I just didn't know how much until I saw you lying there on that cold rock--how they'd just ... left you there." "You pity me ..." "No! Damn you!" It was a cry of protest. "Blessed Prophets, why do you hate yourself so much?" She drew a deep breath. "When I saw what the Founders had done to you, I realized then how much I need you, how much I've always needed you--and how empty my life would be if I lost you. Do you think you're the only person to come out of the Occupation with blood on your hands? Don't you know ..." She raised her hand to his cheek, brushed away the hot wetness of his tears. "Don't you know that I have always measured my own worth by the way that *you* see me?" He looked straight at her, his voice becoming low and almost hostile. "I don't want to be on anyone's pedestal, Nerys. I don't want to be the arbiter of anyone's conscience but my own. Don't you see? I'm not perfect. I can't be that--I never have been. I don't want to be your role model ... I want --" He looked away, and the last words came out in a resigned sigh. "I want to be your lover ... that's all." "What did you think you were?" she asked softly, bringing her forehead to rest against his. "I don't know--I ... so much has happened. I'm still trying to make sense of it all." "So let me help." His eyes were full of urgency. As Kira studied his features, she recognized something that she had not been able to name before. She knew what it was now: a look of starvation that had always haunted his features, a look of never knowing what it was to be full--to be satisfied. His need was a sharp ache, an emptiness and desperate longing that emanated from his whole body. She spoke to him in a low, soothing voice. "In the infirmary, you said you saw Kai Opaka --" "It was ... a dream ..." "Dreams are a form of truth. I'm going to tell you something that Opaka told me once. She said that the Prophets wait for us to forgive ourselves." "I don't believe in the Prophets." "That doesn't matter." "Funny," he managed a soft little snort of almost laughter. "I seem to remember her telling me the same thing." "So why don't you--forgive yourself?" Odo hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice quivered with emotion. "Because I need to know--if you can forgive me." The expression on his face had become one of deep anxiety. Kira took his hands into her own and held them tightly. "In case I didn't make this clear before--if the Prophets can forgive me ... how can I *not* forgive you?" She kissed him then, slowly and deliberately. Her tongue gently opened his mouth and caressed its inner contours, gentle and thorough in its exploration. When she had finished, he pulled her close, wrapped his arms around her. For a long moments the silence expanded as he pressed his face into her shoulder. "Odo'ital ..." she whispered against his neck, the soft reverence in her voice changing the once-hated name into something else--something that was lovingly intimate. "The best part of who I am has always been you. Don't you know that?" Odo felt the tears running down his face unchecked. Kira wound herself around him and reached up to kiss them away. He held her tight and closed his eyes. **** The monastery was high in the mountain region. Its caved-in rooftops, still visible in the rose-colored light of Bajor's setting sun, were golden--from various angles almost blinding. Kira--almost fully returned to her trim and athletic figure after giving birth to the O'Brien baby--extended her hand to Odo, who let himself be pulled up one more step into the wind and sunlight. He found himself looking down on the monastery, down on the rolling, scarred green hills of Dakhur province, from the top of the rocky outcropping. Behind them, the mountains rose ever higher. Odo smiled faintly as he watched Kira close her eyes and turn her face up toward the light. "This is it?" he asked, a little breathlessly. "This is it." "So explain this ritual of yours to me." "This is where you discard your old self--your ‘sins' if you're a traditionalist." "I see--though I don't understand why we had to come all the way here to do that." "Because it takes effort--and because it's *symbolic,*" said Kira patiently. She knew that Odo was teasing. His gruff sarcasm had been delivered with unusual gentleness. He still looked at little weary, faintly haunted, around the eyes. But the climb had done him good. There was color in his cheeks. "So what do I do?" he queried, his voice almost shy. Kira slipped off the shoulder-straps of the pack she carried and crouched down to open it up. Odo, looking doubtful but also curious, crouched beside her. She pulled out something very carefully wrapped in white paper. "Bread?" Odo raised his brows in surprise. "Homemade," Kira assured him. She broke off a little piece and handed it to him. "Eat." Odo put the bread into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully while Kira broke off another piece for herself. When she had swallowed it she offered him some water, and then drank herself. Then she stood up and gave him a smile. "This is the good part," she assured him. Taking the remainder of the loaf in her hands, she broke it in half, handing one half to him. "Now what you do is, you crumble it up, and you let the wind carry away the crumbs." She demonstrated, squeezing and tearing the bread in her hands until it looked like rough meal. Odo copied her action, feeling vaguely silly, and then mimicked her again as lifted her cupped hands up in front of herself, and the wind tore the fragments of bread away from her, carrying it off to Prophets knew where. Odo watched as the crumbs were blown out of his own hands, between his own fingers, scattered away into oblivion like so much dust. "Those are your sins," said Kira softly. Odo was strangely quiet for a moment. Kira glanced at him over her shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asked. "Me--I'm fine." He smiled a little. "I feel much better." "In the old days, people would sometimes bring live birds up here in cages and release them--usually on holy days. Makes the ritual a little more dramatic. But I like keeping things simple." She colored a little bit. "So --" she put an arm around his waist. "You ready to climb back down?" Odo returned the embrace. "Not just yet. I can almost remember what it was like to be a bird from up here." His voice was wistful, full of remembrance. "Well don't get carried away," she told him, her grip tightening around him ever so slightly. "I'm not that desperate," he murmured, "Not any more." He bent his head down to kiss her, a long, slow kiss. He drew away and studied her face. "I've almost gotten used to this body--though I think I must have pulled some muscles on the way up." He grimaced. Kira smiled at him mischievously. "I'll bet I know the cure for that." Odo looked distant. "Have you ever felt completely safe," he asked quietly, "even for a few moments?" "Only when I'm with you--and when my mother held me as a child. I can barely remember her. A touch. A word. But--I carried those ... pieces of memory all through the Resistance--all those times when I felt anything but safe--I would remember her being close." She reached up and kissed his cheek. Odo drew a deep breath. "When I went into the Link ... it was like forgetting that I had ever been different. I can't even begin to tell you--the sense of peace that I had. The--sense of loss when it was just--ripped away. Do you see? The Others ... are part of me somehow, even now, whatever they've done. I suppose I feel guilty for that too. A part of me ... *wants* to go back to them. I ... lost part of myself somehow when they made me this. I'll never get it back and this body--the only time it's not a cage is when I'm with you." She looked at him curiously. "Why do you love me so much? I've never done anything to deserve it." Odo touched her cheek. "You made me realize that I wasn't nothing," he whispered. "How could I not love you after that?" Her lips found his in a tender, reassuring kiss. "Guess you'll have to keep me around, then," she ventured softly. Odo managed a smile for her. "I'll do that," he whispered. ~The End~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ASCEM messages are copied to a mailing list. Most recent messages can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCEML. NewMessage: