Beloved madness
by Roxane Gilbert

Legalese: Paramount owns the characters and the universe in which they live. I own the story. It was written out of love for the characters, certainly not to profit from Paramount's children.

He held back and let his own security force carry her from the runabout. He did not trust himself to do the job. Dr. Julian Bashir had stepped between him and Nerys, gently issuing orders to the men as they lowered her to the deck plates. His nurse, a Bajoran who regularly saw the injuries inflicted in bar fights at Quark's, visibly cringed as she bent toward Kira and began to assess her more overt wounds even as Bashir called for transport.

Both grateful and resentful that Bashir, Kira and the nurse disappeared in a sparkle without him, he gruffly thanked his deputies, then began his own long walk to the Infirmary.

They'd tractored the runabout to a docking bay well off the Promenade fearful of contaminating the area with radiation from the ruined vessel. The Defiant crew had finally found it adrift outside the plasma fields of the old Maquis stomping grounds. Lt. Commander Worf had ordered it towed in, unable to beam anyone on or off the runabout because of the radiation, and unable to raise the single passenger on the commlink. As his own deputies released the hatch, Odo had wondered if they were simply opening a tomb. From Bashir's intent expression and the nurse's cautious glance his way, he wondered if it would have been better had they found her dead.

But if Kira Nerys was dead, surely he could not live.

Imperfect humanoid legs propelled him to the Infirmary. Already a small group had gathered just inside. For a minute, his mind flashed back to that awful instant when the Defiant had docked and the command staff had poured into the Infirmary only to be told that Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax was dying. Captain Benjamin Sisko's deep brown eyes searched his features as if trying to read his unfinished form for emotion. Lt. Ezri Dax smiled gently, then reached out to take his hand in hers. It took most of his concentration not to pull away from her, from what was meant as a comforting gesture. It was too close to what Kira might do. It was too damned close.

Worf acknowledged the Captain and spared a slight nod to the lieutenant before making his preliminary report. He would not look at Odo. He would not look at Odo whose face mirrored the same pain he still carried for his dead wife, for Jadzia.

Sisko's eyes locked with those of the Klingon as Worf recited the events leading up to finding the Rio Grande. Odo willed himself to listen, but could not. The events seemed to unfold around him with a murky clarity that made it at once familiar and strange. His mind sought to look past the bulkheads to see what Bashir was doing to save her. He had to save her. Dozens of impulses washed over him - become a Tarkelian hawk, a Cardassian vole - anything at all that would bring him closer to Kira, closer to seeing her breaths come in reassuring waves.

Odo couldn't be sure why, but Bashir's appearance from behind the gray bulkhead did not immediately register in his mind. He blinked, a movement he remembered from having once been human. Now he had the uncomfortable feeling of being the outsider, of being mistrusted. They would not talk to him directly; they would not tell him anything. Sisko read the dataPADD Bashir had given him before handing it off to Dax. Odo craned his neck, but Dax stepped away from him as she scrolled through the report.

"Doctor?" His own impatience growing, he tried to put as much force as he could in that one word. He failed. Even his voice sounded as far away as the images that should be so close he ought to be able to touch them.

"She's dead."

Amber gel bucked and coalesced into a column, then into the form of a humanoid male. Odo tried to leave the nightmare in that golden column which marked his natural state, but it always followed him into humanoid form.

"Oh, it's you," sighed Bashir as he skidded to a stop. "I thought that maybe...." His voice trailed off in the direction of the unconscious Bajoran.

Odo tried to keep the sheepishness off his own face with little success. "I had a bad dream, Doctor. I'm sorry that I woke you."

Bashir nodded tiredly. "It's all right. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check on the patient." Dr. Bashir began to poke to life the dataPADD in his hand as he scrutinized the blinking lights on the monitor just at the head of the biobed. "I always wondered if Changeling's dreamed. Did you dream before you became a human or only after?"

Odo snorted. Several nights in the Infirmary had seemed to give the doctor a license to probe into his life. "I am not the patient here, doctor."

"And a good thing that is, too, because I'm not sure what I could do to help prevent your nightmares," Bashir offered with a wry grin. "Except perhaps to help Nerys recover."

Odo wouldn't argue that point with Bashir. The nightmares came rich each night with details of the moments they found the damaged runabout or pulled her limp body from the wreck. Each ended the same way with the same hollowness as Bashir announced her death. Knowing that she did live never altered the horror that slammed into him, sending him reeling into wakefulness. Every regenerative cycle ended the same way - with Odo waking to escape the dream only to find himself in another version of the nightmare. Kira remained a prisoner within her own healing body as Bashir - alerted by the monitors - emerged from his office to check on his patient.

Odo was more than grateful that Bashir would appear each night to rescue him from the nightmare and his own pessimism. Julian Bashir had performed a Herculean task of knitting together the broken Bajoran and had remained in the Infirmary for the past three nights fine-tuning his efforts. To Odo's mind, the fact that Kira had survived and was slowly recovering couldn't be ascribed so much to the wealth of Bashir's genetic enhancements, but to the richness of the doctor's very human heart.

"She's sleeping naturally even if we aren't," Bashir noted, punctuating his statement with the closing click of the tricorder in his hand. "It's a good sign for her, not such a good sign for us."

"I hope you're still referring to our lack of sleeping through the night, Doctor," Odo said gruffly.

Bashir smiled. Even in the middle of the night, the Constable demanded accuracy. "It's a good sign that she's sleeping on her own without any aid." He yawned and stretched the knots from his shoulders, then sighed. "When she does wake, I don't imagine it's going to be terribly easy on her or us when she's ready to talk about what happened." Bashir nodded toward the hallway. "Care to join me for some coffee at the Replimat?"

Reluctant to leave Kira's bedside, Odo slowly followed him across the Promenade, sure the doctor wanted more than just coffee. In the nights they spent watching over Kira, Odo had come to realize just how thorough Bashir and Ezri Dax were. The doctor had spelled out each stage of Kira's impending recovery, while Dax remained intent on having the Changeling understand fully the depth of anger and grief to come. Not having experienced these stages yet, Odo had carefully filed away that information for the moment Kira recovered consciousness.

For his part, Bashir shrugged off any compliments or thanks only acknowledging that he was simply doing his job. However, nights spent drinking Raktagino and calmly discussing the aspects of Kira's recovery with an agitated Changeling had earned Odo's profound respect and gratitude.

"Raktagino, one kava," Bashir ordered. As the replicator delivered the drink and Bashir turned toward him, Odo noticed just how tired and haggard the young doctor was. Bashir slid into the seat opposite the Changeling with a creakiness that belied his years.

"It's very quiet here this time of night. Or it must be morning by now," Bashir noted as a few people still traversed the Promenade. Even with the Dominion War raging somewhere beyond the station, the night cycle of DS9 continued unabated. The Promenade, which coursed with life throughout the day, slowed considerably during the night. Odo watched a Lessepian across the Promenade as the botanical trader checked the contents of the carryall over his shoulder. Pulling out a small PADD, the Lessepian poked at it, nodded, then resumed his journey.

"Still on duty, Constable?" Bashir smiled gently, warming his hands over the blue mug of Klingon coffee. "This place still pulses with possibilities for criminal activity even now."

"This isn't why you invited me here for coffee, Doctor."

"No. No, it's not. Ezri and I talked yesterday afternoon and we've decided some things regarding Kira's recovery. Physically, she's still mending. It's really just a matter of letting the ligaments and muscles heal a bit more. She'll need physical therapy for her shoulder, leg and hip. I can set up a program for her in the holosuite."

"That's the easy part."

Bashir nodded tiredly. "Physically, we've done all that we can do. Eventually the aches and pains will diminish. At least the physical ones. The emotional ones will be harder. They will have some long-term effects on the Colonel. I anticipated waking her today or tomorrow. I trust you've read all the literature we've given you?"

Despite the subject matter, Odo had studied the readings as if Kira's life depended on it. For all he knew, it probably did.

"Yes," Odo said tiredly. Sometimes he wondered who was really the patient. While Odo was pouring all his energies into Kira's recovery, Bashir, Dax and the others all stole attention away from her to shower some concern on him.

"Good," Bashir said as he took a long draught of the coffee. "She's a strong woman, Odo, but she'll need support from all of us over the next several weeks. I can't think of anyone on the station who she'll probably rely on more. But you should know that in some ways, Kira will be different. At least, at first. Gradually, she should be able to work through the trauma. And with our help, she'll be able to."

Leftover images from the nightmare still danced in Odo's mind even as he tried to picture a Kira Nerys free of monitors and blinking lights. Three nights living in a vicious dream had virtually erased all traces of the Kira he had known. Once Bashir woke Kira, a whole new nightmare began.

"I'm going back to the Infirmary and set up a sedative field around Kira's bed," Bashir was saying. "I want her to continue sleeping for now, but I still need to run some tests on her and I don't want her waking up prematurely."

"I don't understand, Doctor. Just a few minutes ago you said that it was a good sign that she is sleeping on her own. Without sedatives."

"Yes, I did. And it is good." He rubbed his eyes. "I need to get some sleep as I imagine you do. I also want Ezri and you to be available to her when she wakes. I need to run some tests on her. For that, I need to be clear- headed." Bashir ran a hand through his hair. "I'll set up something that's closer to a brain wave inducer for her. That way I can wake her easily."

"Worf won't appreciate your interference, Doctor. I'm not sure I do either."

Bashir eyed the Constable under heavy lids. "She needs more time to heal, Odo. You said that the physical evidence is fairly conclusive. Yes, by keeping her sedated, it'll hold off Worf's investigation a little bit longer, but she really doesn't need him questioning her given the evidence found on the runabout."

"It must be rather serious." Odo had learned that when Bashir parceled out information like this, he was simply trying to prepare him for some bad news.

"There's an area of her brain that's been completely unresponsive so far. I need to see if that's changed."

"Unresponsive?"

"I noticed it when we originally ran diagnostic tests on her cranial injuries. I had hoped the damage would have diminished by now."

"Brain damage?"

"Yes. If it's still there, there's little I can do to repair it." Bashir frowned, then shook his head. "There's much about the brain that we still don't fully understand. It's a relatively small portion of the brain that's been affected, Odo, but it may play havoc with the memories of the assault or her emotions. Even more than what one would expect following such a savage attack."

Odo stared at Bashir unsure how to interpret what he was saying. The other time that he had such difficulty had been in the first few moments after he arrived in the Infirmary and they told him the extent of Kira's injuries. Bashir's words then had not immediately registered in his mind either.

"This may not make your own nightmares go away, Odo. But in other words, she may not remember the assault, she may not remember her feelings for you, or she may not be affected at all. I'm just not sure."

In the moments after they told him, Odo felt his concentration waiver and his body begin to melt into his natural state. Somewhere he found the strength of will to remain solid even as every cell within him screamed for relief from the images coursing through his mind.

Rape. Even in this century, with the civilizing tone of the Federation all around and the horrors of the Occupation long gone, the word still filled Odo with an indefinable feeling. He could identify the shock, the growing rage. But the other feeling hung around the edges of his consciousness. Only later would he realize that he understood it to be a mixture of violation and loss of control. He had had the same feeling the time the Changeling had linked with him on the Defiant. Weeks afterward he struggled with having the link forced upon him as well as the guilt of having killed the Changeling. Now he understood the meaning in the savage emotions still simmering in his own mind.

"Odo?" Captain Benjamin Sisko had placed a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to capture his wayward attention. "Talk to us."

Odo had tried to escape, tried to avoid telling them. Somehow giving up Kira's secrets seemed another violation of her person. Another rape.

"If there's something from Kira's past that might impact her recovery now, Odo, you should tell us." He might not know Ezri well, but the Dax symbiont knew him. And it knew Kira.

Sisko considered his silence for a moment. "There were many in the Resistance who were scarred by violence, Odo. And by rape. I heard stories of what Cardassians did to female captives and to the females in their labor camps."

The same wave of nausea he'd felt on the Defiant as the other Changeling forced him into a link overcame him. He gasped and clutched his simulated stomach. "Rape."

"Over several days, Odo. She fought back, Odo. But she's going to need our help to fight through this." Ezri's voice offered confidence even as her youthful features did not.

Sisko's words hung in the stagnant air of the conference room. The Captain's eyes had gone soft and liquid. Dax suspected the truth and had alerted Sisko. Or maybe Sisko, with his Emissary eyes, had seen into Kira's past and knew her secrets.

"She'd been raped before at the Narik Dir detention center." There, he said it. Neither Sisko nor Dax flinched. Their silence gave him strength. "Usually they would torture suspected Resistance members by beating their friends or family members to death in front of them. Narik Dir specialized in both rape and torture. Either method was very effective." Odo had found his voice and began the toneless recitation. Sisko stood uncomfortably at his side, his eyes assessing Odo's wounds as they ripped open wider with each word. Ezri Dax sat opposite Odo, her eyes measuring his pain. Her job was to help the living. Somehow, some way, part of Kira had been killed and only her body remained. The Kira Nerys Odo knew had died. He was sure of it.

"They raped Nerys in front of Shakaar and Furel and Lupaza. They wanted to break the Shakaar. The Cardassian guards took turns beating and raping her." Odo's smooth face seemed drained of any emotion. "She never gave in. None of them did. Furel let them cut off his arm before he began giving them information. And he only stalled them, let them think that they had broken him before he turned on the guards and killed them. He killed them with the same laser scalpel they used to cut off his arm."

"When did she tell you this?" Ezri Dax's face shone with the wash of tears on her cheeks.

Odo seemed to have shrunken into himself. "She had nightmares. On the anniversary of their capture and torture, she had the nightmares." Odo shrugged. "I...she... he told me bits and pieces. I was able to fill in the rest." Odo turned his eyes toward the bleak faces of Sisko and Dax.

"She never told me, I mean, Jadzia. But Jadzia always suspected something like this," Ezri whispered. After glancing at Sisko, she determinedly stared at a spot on the carpeting in the room. Odo had the strange sense that she was struggling as much to be professionally distant as she was trying to remain Ezri Dax rather than be subsumed by one of the personalities of her many hosts.

"Nerys learned to bury parts of the Occupation," Odo added tonelessly. "What she couldn't use to fuel her survival instincts, she tried to forget."

"It's funny," Dax offered, "but I always thought Kira's main emotion those first few months on the station was that of despair." She looked up at the two men who had turned to her with some surprise. Odo nodded slightly, a sad expression emanating from his eyes. "I mean, Jadzia thought." She looked toward Sisko who regarded both of them with a thoughtful tilt of his head.

"Lt. Commander Worf will head up the investigation," Sisko said gently. But to Odo's ears, the words had sounded harsh and cruel.

"Captain, I am Chief of Secur...." Odo protested.

Sisko's grip on his shoulder tightened as he cut him off. "It has nothing to do with your abilities, Constable. It has everything to do with your emotional involvement with Kira. Right now, you will be of more help to her by getting her through this. You know her better than anyone on this station. The fact that you know details of what happened to Nerys at Narik Dir can help her counselor help her." Sisko looked hopefully at Dax. Ezri had responded with a determined grimace, a slight nod of her head. Odo doubted that the young woman was up to the task. He had hoped then that at least one of the former hosts was experienced in counseling others through this sort of assault.

"The evidence on the runabout will tell us a great deal about what happened. Dr. Bashir has confirmed that the Cardassian found on board the runabout was Kira's assailant. Worf can go over the sensor logs and other evidence," Sisko said. "You need to be here for Nerys."

"What happened to Nerys at Narik Dir is a good place to start," Ezri agreed. She looked toward the Changeling who seemed lost in thought. "Odo, Julian said that physically she'll recover. It's going to have to be up to you and me to help her mind and spirit recover. If she never quite recovered from the rape at Narik Dir, she's going to have to deal with that as well as with what happened on the runabout. She's a strong woman, Odo. She's incredibly tough, but she's going to need our help to get through this."

He looked at the Captain and the counselor. And if he had tears, neither would have been surprised to see him cry.

Despite the dire warnings and predictions of emotional earthquakes, Kira Nerys endured the aftershocks of the rape and assault in her usual straightforward manner. Bashir's concern over the brain damage proved eerily true as she could remember little of her attacker and slightly more about the circumstances that found her in the crippled runabout just outside the plasma fields near the Denorios belt. DNA tests had already confirmed the dead Cardassian in the runabout as Kira's tormentor even if she could not. Jagged images of the attack flooded her mind although she could little remember how she had managed to kill her assailant. Those images racked her sleep and punctured her days as Ezri Dax helped unwrap layers of bleeding memories wrapped in emotional rags. Kira raged and stormed, but after a week of intense therapy, both Julian Bashir and Ezri Dax announced her fit to return to her quarters. Alone.

Kira had actually suggested the last part to Odo as he sat with her in the quarantine room in the Infirmary - set up as her temporary quarters - sharing time with her as she ate her evening meal. He'd come by daily, restricted to a single visit by Ezri Dax. Odo watched the metamorphosis Kira underwent from a distance, amazed at how well the young counselor prodded the stubborn Bajoran to release the pain-drenched images. Jadzia's memories, he imagined, helped the young Ezri understand the reluctant patient. But he truly began to believe that it was Ezri's skill that directed Kira's progress.

"You want me to move out of our quarters." Odo simply repeated the words Kira had used. Both practical, they had found it easier to live in Kira's quarters as a couple than to live separately. Both deeply in love neither noticed the moment at which it happened nor when their separate lives had merged into one. "But why?"

Once they had become lovers, Kira had shown him the easiest path to understanding her was the same one he had traversed as a friend - the straight, honest road. Love revealed intimacies, she had told him, but did not change who she was. Or who he was. Honesty, tempered by caring, sometimes won out over sentimentality in their relationship.

"I need time, Odo. I have to be comfortable with myself before I can be comfortable with anyone else." Her large brown eyes never left his blue eyes. "I want to see you...."

"But not in your quarters." The words came out tinged with disappointment.

"That's not what I mean. I need time alone."

"I think you made that clear." Each of his words cut the air like knives.

Exasperated, Kira's anger flared, then faded as she took in a deep breath and sighed. "I'm not sure I'm making anything very clear right now."

"You don't...."

"Odo, stop." She put her hand on his lips, forestalling any further comment. A haunted look colored her eyes and Odo felt his own anger subside. "This is not going well for either of us. I know that right now I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to hurt you. I think that if we continued to live together that one or both of us could be hurt." She relaxed, allowing her hand to slowly trace the line of his lips. "I'm not sure how I feel about a few things right now, Odo. I just need time to sort out what has happened."

"I wouldn't press you, Nerys."

"I know." She looked at him with hooded eyes. Under the Cardassian lights of the station, her face looked pale, thin "The problem is I'm more sure of you right now than I am of me." She smiled wanly. "I don't like feeling like this. I had the same feeling before, like I was disconnected somehow. Maybe it'll be different when I get back to work, I don't know."

"I love you, Nerys."

"I know." For Odo, the conversation played like one of those warning chapters in the dataPADDs Bashir and Dax had given him. He wondered if he sounded like the understanding lover or the selfish boyfriend. Even as Kira tried to give him a reassuring smile, he realized that his end of the conversation only sounded desperate.

"Nerys, I...." He stopped, bewildered as how not to sound too needy, too indifferent, too insensitive, and being too unsure of himself, he simply said nothing.

Kira read his face, her eyes darting across his. "I felt helpless, Odo. Like I didn't have any control over what was happening to me. At least...I felt that I was protecting Lupaza and Shakaar and Furel. What I went through helped them, maybe saved them just long enough for Furel to get us all out of there. "

"But this time you didn't feel like you had any control."

She shook her head and her eyes darted downward. "I'm not even sure anymore. It seems like a distant memory, but I can still feel him. I close my eyes and...." Pain erupted on her face, and Odo held back from gathering her in his arms. Dax had warned him not to rescue her but allow her to feel the pain. He couldn't remember the last time he had held her.

He watched the storm gather force even as she tried to fight the raging winds. Kira's fingers flew to her right ear to the Bajoran earring. Polishing its already shiny surface between her fingertips, she closed her eyes and began taking in long draughts of air. Perhaps she conjured up images of her friend Lupaza, the proud Bajoran resistance fighter who reminded Odo once of cold, hardened duranium. Or Furel. Or maybe she entreated the Prophets to ease her suffering. Odo threw his own prayer toward the Celestial Temple, unsure if they would hear him.

"Nerys," he whispered gently, "I'll do what is best for you."

She nodded, blinking away the offending images with hard-won resolve. "This has to be about me right now, Odo. Not us. If we're together, if we live together like before, I'm not sure that I won't just hide."

"That doesn't sound like you."

"I think you know better than anyone how well I can avoid my feelings." Her eyes bored straight through him, chilling him with their intensity. "Eventually, I think it would hurt us more to be together like that than to be apart now."

Barely recovered from injuries that should have killed her, still reeling from a savage sexual assault, Kira Nerys had the strength to follow her own path to wholeness. In spite of his own qualms, Odo acknowledged reluctantly that it was a journey she would have to take alone.

"You know I'll do everything I can to help, Nerys."

"I'm counting on it."

Kira's return to Ops ended a month-long encampment of junior officers who tried heroically to take her place. Even though she still was technically on restricted duty with no end in the foreseeable future, she handled her duties as liaison between the Bajoran ministers and Federation officials with a deftness that the other officers lacked. Part of it was her ability to hold the attention of the ministers. She'd earned their respect and trust and few of them could dismiss her recommendations out of hand. Part of it was her understanding of the political minefield of the Bajoran government. Somehow she had devised her own map and carefully steered the Federation clear of potential danger. As for the Federation - well, both Captain Sisko and Admiral Ross afforded her an equal share of admiration and respect. Both had come to rely on her steadfast loyalty and professionalism in the face of the turmoil around her. Or in her.

Odo had taken some of the journey with Kira, lending his simulated ears to hear her tortured memories or allowing her to escape the daily demands of work and recovery with a night of quiet within his quarters.

"Ever notice just how well Ops runs with the Colonel in charge?" Julian Bashir asked in a voice just loud enough to penetrate the lunch crowd conversations. He placed his tray next to Ezri Dax's, then slid into the seat. "I'd say that she's doing fine there." Bashir emphasized the last word.

Odo had heard similar comments for much of the week. Kira's return to duty had won good reviews from the officers in Ops to Sisko himself. Odo suspected that Sisko secretly missed arguing with the fierce Bajoran something that the junior officers would never do with the Emissary of the Prophets.

"But she doesn't go anywhere but her quarters, Ops and the Infirmary," Dax noted. "At least not for the last few days."

Bashir nodded then leveled his gaze with Odo's. "She's handling the stress in Ops well. Her physical therapy is going well, so I would say that she's making good progress. But something's off."

"Shouldn't you be telling this to Kira?" Odo tried his best to make his voice vibrate with annoyance. Once Bashir began speaking, Odo realized that both the counselor and doctor had devised this lunch date with a hidden agenda in mind. He'd spent enough time with both of them over the past weeks to know when they were about to deliver bad news. "She is the patient."

"True," said Bashir. "But sometimes you're the one with the answers."

Odo returned to staring at his hands. Dax had said something similar just moments earlier.

"I haven't seen Kira at the Bajoran shrine lately," Dax blurted out. "And I can't think of the last time she spent any time on the Promenade."

"Don't you think that she's concentrating on her work right now?" Odo asked. But he knew the answer.

"That may be, Odo," Bashir began, "but we're concerned. I suppose we want to know if anything happened that you know of to alter the progress she's been making."

Anger erupted inside Odo and flowed over the two people seated with him. "I suggest that you discuss this with Kira, not me. I am not your patient and I doubt that Kira would...."

"Odo, you misunderstand me," Bashir offered gently as he tried to calm the angry Changeling. "It's just that we've hit a snag...."

"You certainly have," Odo said loudly, drawing attention to their table.

"How are you doing, Odo? I know this has been very rough on you." Dax took a different tack in a tone meant to soothe his jangled nerves.

"You're not here to talk about me and my feelings. You're here because Kira has stopped talking to you and you want to know why." Odo's voice vibrated with his indignation. "She misses a prayer meeting and you instantly think that there's something wrong."

"Odo, we're worried about her as I know you are, too," Bashir interjected. His cultured voice tried to placate the agitated Changeling. "We noticed that for the last five days or so that she's been keeping to herself. She works; she goes to her quarters. I asked her about it, but she just said that she was tired. I suggested running some tests, and she declined."

"We're just wondering if you've seen the same things we've been seeing." Dax's blue eyes bored into his.

"We're worried. We expected her to integrate herself into the social aspects of the station a bit more by now." Bashir exchanged looks with Dax before continuing. "For a while, she seemed to be more social, more outgoing. We just wanted to get your impressions, Odo. We don't mean anything more than that."

"I think you do, Doctor," Odo insisted as he stood up from the table. The motion tipped Dax's tray whose contents crashed loudly to the deck causing the noise level in the Replimat to drop instantly to a whisper. But Odo ignored the startled looks around him. "Both of you are telling me to give her time. Well I think it's about time you took your own advice, Doctor. Counselor." With little more than an angry swipe with his foot at the dropped tray, Odo stormed from the Replimat.

Odo did not need the fears and doubts of Bashir or Dax to bolster those of his own. For four days now, Kira had avoided him. When she did happen to cross his path, her eyes, once so full of emotion and life, now looked blankly at him. Dullness had settled in them and Odo feared that she would never look at him with the same kind of emotional wealth he had come to know from her.

Five days ago his hopes had soared like a Tarkelian hawk.

Five days ago he had welcomed a willing Kira into his arms.

Five days too long ago.

As Kira made her steady climb back into the normal routine of her life, she had always included him. Almost every day he could count on having a leisurely meal with her or an impromptu meeting in his office. When he had mentioned his surprise at her insistence that they see each other daily, she only smiled shyly and told him, "You're part of my therapy, Odo."

He made himself available to her in the same way he had after that momentous kiss on the Promenade. He measured his life around that day and while he suspected that Kira never quite felt the emotional avalanche he did within their passionate embrace, he knew that she had been changed just the same. He knew she had loved him. Once.

Since her release from the Infirmary, every contact with Kira left him hungering for more. At first he failed to recognize that simple truth, but when he did, he understood the cautions that Bashir and Dax had leveled at him. On the surface, Kira maintained an aura of health and confidence that drew him in like the middle of a vortex. But even he had seen the slips into fear and pain erase the one Kira and replace it with the shadowy substance of her old self. These episodes reminded him of a younger Kira Nerys, new to the station and still adjusting to a life of peace after years of starvation and violence. Then he had seen the mere shell of a woman filled with adolescent rage and fear. And despair, always despair.

Lately as she lingered at his doorway, or at one of the restaurants they frequented, he had begun to see parts of her merging and becoming whole again. And each day she seemed to need him more for advice or escape or companionship. Daily he found his own needs mirrored in hers. Yet the tough Resistance fighter who could resolutely stare down Romulans and Klingons alike without flinching could also resist him.

Surprisingly he sensed their relationship deepening and growing although they continued to live separately. Not that there weren't rough patches between them. Once in his quarters he had wanted so badly to turn back time that he ordered the computer to play a folk tune they had heard at the Gratitude Festival earlier that year. He'd gone on about a memory of that moment unconsciously willing that time to return. Kira had listened to him talk while the canticle of music swelled around them, her face awash with tears. The sight of her silently crying so unnerved him he never repeated the experiment.

One evening he tried to tell her of what it had felt like to have the other Changeling violate him, enter his consciousness without permission. She'd listened, her own discomfort growing as he described the sensations. Whatever pain still remained from the assault saturated the air and left Kira gasping. She crawled into his arms and comforted him as tears washed her face. They spent the night talking in his quarters until she slept and he regenerated, their words offering a soothing balm on parched and faded memories.

She knew him so well, almost better than she knew herself. One night in the third week of her recovery as he lay regenerating, she came to him using the security codes he'd given her. Only hours before she stood talking with him just inside his door at the Security Office. Then he had wanted to reach out and touch her face, ease a wayward strand of hair from her cheek. But fearful of breaking the spell between them, he'd hesitated.

Inside his quarters, talking softly to his gelid form, she touched his substance, trailing a finger along the surface much as she did when they first became lovers. The sensation, familiar and sensual, almost spurred him to reach out to return her caresses. Yet he allowed only a faint ripple along his golden substance to betray his own sexual interest. As much as he wanted to hold her, to touch her, he dared not. He feared he would reopen her wounded pagh and leave her more broken. She continued her erotic dance along his surface, her fingers gentle reminders of their lovemaking. Her soft words caressed his liquid form, too, until he felt the explosion of sensation and thought erupting throughout his amber gel. In that instant, the touches ceased and she left him.

The next day they did not talk about her visit, only entered into a silent conspiracy marked by secret, shy smiles and glances. She would resist him, but only for so long.

Dinner dates began to stretch into the wee hours of the morning as they caught up on station news or debated Bajoran issues or read aloud to each other. Or sat silently together. He thought to invite her to stay the nights which stretched toward morning, but he left that to her. He would gladly dance with her, but he would let her lead.

Five nights ago, he felt the tempo of their dance changing. He'd been discussing some key bit of evidence in one of the mysteries they had read, intent on making some point to win the slight argument that had cropped up. She had grown quiet and played her fingers along the crook of his arm even as her head nestled into his shoulder. They sat that way, Odo talking about P.D. James' novel while all he reeally knew was Kira's body heat. As he tried to explain some obscure point, Kira had pressed her lips to his ear and began nibbling at the ill-formed lobe as her hands began to caress him. When they first had become lovers, uncertain of how to undress him or cause him to shift out of his clothes, Kira had resorted to simply running her hands sensuously along his body. It worked wonderfully well then. Even now his body automatically wanted to begin melting down clothes into flesh at her touch.

"Nerys, are you sure?" Odo asked even as his own interest grew. Kira shifted her attention away from his earlobe and concentrated all her energies into molding her lips to his. Odo leaned into the kiss, allowing his hands to trespass no farther than her shoulders. Kira's hands roamed freely, massaging his all-too-solid form with increased urgency. This was familiar territory, and Odo began to meet her fingers with molten flesh. The kiss deepened as her tongue began a slow, playful tango with his. All too suddenly, Kira pulled back and studied his face. She drew him off the couch then toward the bedroom, her eyes never leaving his. Once there, he finally embraced her, kissing her tenderly at first, allowing the contact to build slowly, teasingly. The spell deepened, and he was content to simply hold her.

Then just as suddenly, she drew back from him. Lifting the hem of the tunic over her head, she presented herself to him. "Nerys, is this what you want?" As if to answer him, she clasped his hand to her lips. Her tongue drew a line from his wrist to his fingertips as they uncurled beneath the silken caresses of her mouth. She turned his hand over and kissed the open palm, her lips and tongue dancing along his skin before sucking on the fingers. Odo groaned then drew her to him, his lips claiming hers once again.

"Nerys," Odo said as he broke free of their kiss and he sought answers in her eyes, "I want to, but are you sure?" In answer, Kira's eyes blazed with desire and he allowed his hands to go liquid against her solid flesh. Odo's eyes never left hers as he touched her.

It was oddly silent lovemaking. Her eyes remained locked on his, even as his hands drove her to a fevered release. Odo eased his caresses, gently touching her as the quakes subsided.

"Do you want more, Nerys?" he asked softly, huskily. "Tell me if you want more."

Kira's face came alive for a second, as she seemed to be trying to form the words to speak. Without waiting, he gently lowered her to the bed and using the look in her eyes as permission, began a rain of kisses from her temple to her navel, his hands acting as emissaries for his lips. Kira moaned beneath him. Looking down at her, Odo noted the flush of arousal, the deep plunges of her chest. He shifted, forming a landscape of flesh for his lover along with proof of humanoid desire. In her eyes he saw yearning and anticipation. He reached toward her to make them one.

Kira's reaction was swift and sure. She pulled away violently, sending him crashing on his side. Gasping, Kira had retreated to the side chair, her tunic held in front of her like a shield while Odo remained frozen on the bed.

Once when they first became lovers, when his passion had overcome him and his body first melted into a golden mass over and in her, he had seen that same look in her eyes for a brief moment before acceptance, before ecstasy washed over her and they had melded into one. Now that same look lingered, accused him, shamed him, destroyed him as Kira gasped for control.

He morphed into clothes, the familiar brown and tan security uniform meant to reassure her. Somehow it seemed obscene next to her nudity. When he cautiously reached out for her he was gratified to see that she did not cringe, but woodenly allowed him to help her pull the tunic back over her head.

"Can I just hold you, Nerys?" he whispered against the tension between them. "Can I just remind myself of how you feel next to me?" She nodded and moved toward him like a wounded animal. Gingerly, Odo reached out and pulled her gently to him. He held her much as he had done the first night they had made love, hesitant and unsure of how to proceed. Then, at least, Kira had told him what she wanted. What she wanted to do.

He felt her body slowly relax into his as they lay down together on the bed, Odo careful to let his body cushion hers. Her racing heartbeat slowly eased as Odo wrapped his gelid form around them and called for the lights to soften. Kira's breathing gentled then faded so much he wondered if she had fallen asleep. As he began to shift the blanket he formed to better cover her, he stopped as he felt hot moisture across his surface. Kira's slight frame abruptly rocked with a flood of despair and grief.

And in the morning, she was gone.

He had slipped into his regenerative cycle only after she had fallen into a fitful sleep. Sometime before morning, he felt her body slip away. He wanted to resume his humanoid form and follow, but he sensed her spirit had left him much earlier that evening and he let her go without protest.

"You and Kira haven't talked for days, have you?" Leave it to Quark to know more than Odo wanted him to about his personal life. Odo tried to appear busy scanning the latest criminal activity report, but the words blurred before his eyes. "Did you two have a fight?"

"I don't see how that's any business of yours," the Constable practically hissed at the Ferengi.

"Well, if the truth be told, I'm more than a little worried about her. And I'm not the only one. Ezri says that she's keeping to herself lately and that she's stopped going to the Bajoran Shrine. And if she's stopped talking to you, then something very serious is going on with her."

"What goes on between Kira and myself is our business. And I'd thank you to stay out of it," he rejoined.

Quark grimaced, then tapped the edge of his desk. "Maybe she's remembering something. You said that there probably was more than one person behind what happened. And no one's found that other person."

Odo heard his own thoughts echoed in the Ferengi's words. It wouldn't be the first time Kira acted like the Resistance fighter she'd been trained to be. When he had been human and she very pregnant, she'd taken on a Cardassian assassin with cunning ruthlessness. Some terrorists, he discovered, made very nasty subjects for terrorism. But he knew better than anyone why Kira had retreated. She wasn't planning an assault; she was staging her own surrender.

"We've taken every precaution to prevent that from happening, Quark. But why am I talking to you about this?"

"Because you better start talking to someone about this. And if not me, then whom? I tell you, Kira's not acting right. And if you don't do something about it, then I might have to."

"And what might that be?"

"Just mark my words, Odo. Kira is acting strangely and I don't want to have to be the one to pick up the pieces."

"But you stopped when it was clear that she wasn't ready."

Odo's continued to fold and unfold his hands in nervousness before Ezri Dax. Somewhere in that young woman lay a skillful inquisitor among her hosts who managed to exact his confession. Originally he had stopped by her office on a small, unrelated manner, and found himself - 20 minutes later - unburdening himself of almost seven days of worry and self-doubt.

Ezri Dax pursed her lips and tapped her forehead as if to select some idea stored there. "That explains some of what's going on, but not everything." She looked at Odo with a well of compassion. "This wasn't very easy for you to talk about, was it? I mean, you haven't talked much about sex with anyone save for Nerys."

"I... no," Odo admitted.

"Well, you didn't misread the situation, Odo. You didn't force anything. Obviously, she wasn't so frightened by what happened that she went running and screaming from the room. Nerys probably thought she was ready when she really wasn't."

If Odo had dared hope for some light in the darkness of his thoughts, Ezri Dax was providing it. He couldn't picture Kira running and screaming from anything, but he knew her surrenders could be just as dramatic. "I told her I wanted to." Even with Dax's reassurances, Odo's words still came out in stilted phrases.

"That's a good thing, Odo. It tells her that you're still interested and you still find her attractive. "

"How could I not?"

"You'd be surprised." She paused, letting the effect of the words sink in. "Anyway, from what you've told me, she wanted you to touch her. I think that's progress, Odo. You just have to let her set the pace."

"But she's not talking to me. She's avoiding me." The vehemence of his words startled Odo. "I've tried to talk to her, but she ignores me."

Odo could not read the look that passed across Dax's face. "It happened, what, almost a week ago? Even for Kira, that gives her some time to digest what happened."

He sighed. Within the light of hope, he still seemed to be battling walls of shadows.

"She's been on Bajor for a few days, Odo. That usually helps her perspective," Ezri Dax was saying. "But are you all right?"

The question - which had cropped up regularly ever since the attack - never failed to elicit an exasperated sigh from the Constable.

"I'm not here to talk about myself. In fact, I came here to talk about...."

"Look, Odo. I am trying to help her." Ezri Dax's own frustration lit up her face. In many ways, the Trill reminded him more of Kira than Jadzia with her eloquent face and pixyish features. "And you seem to be the best source of information we have for Nerys sometimes. You've been a large part of her recovery, Odo."

Well-meaning or not, that phrase triggered Odo's own frustration. "It's quite obvious that I am not a part of her recovery," he countered, his voice brimming with raw anger. "All I've done is hurt her and...."

"Let her know that you love her? Remind her that she is still desirable to you? Hold her together when she's falling apart? That's all you've done, Odo." Just as abruptly as she began, Ezri finished, her own frustrations still reverberating within the room. For his part, all Odo could do was stare at the diminutive counselor, some of his anger forgotten in the wake of her own.

"Right now, something is wrong with Nerys and my professional opinion is that it goes beyond a bad sexual encounter with you." Ezri's blue eyes widened. "She's my friend, too, Odo. Or at least she was Jadzia's... oh, hell, she's my friend and I want to help her, but she's been avoiding her friends, you, her spiritual health. Hell, I could have told you that Kira wouldn't be able to give herself freely to you because she's still trapped within the violence that was done to her."

Odo tried to interrupt Ezri's tirade, but he found his words swallowed in the ramblings of hers. "When Julian and I went to you earlier, we were trying to help Nerys. We might have been able to talk to her earlier if you hadn't been so protective of her. Or embarrassed. She's been extremely quiet and withdrawn, Odo. And there's something about her eyes. The way she looks at you. Well, not just you. I tried to figure it out, but the only description I can come up with is that the look is similar to the eyes of the Bajorans during the Occupation," Ezri ventured. "What did the Bajorans say then? Never look directly at a Cardassian if you value your life."

At that moment, Odo made sure his own eyes met Ezri's hoping the same wasn't true of Trills.

"I'm sorry, Odo." Ezri offered to the awkward silence. "Here I am trying to make you feel better and I'm probably making you feel worse."

Unsure of what he actually felt, Odo nodded dumbly, hopeful that the Trill had few other surprises left.

"Julian and I can meet with Nerys tomorrow when she comes back from Bajor. Don't worry, Odo. Nerys survived the Occupation and she'll survive this."

Odo heard no explosions, felt no tremors upon Kira Nerys' return to the station, but he really hadn't known what to expect. If she followed her routine, she would go straight to Ops or to the Captain's quarters upon arrival to make her report. After years of dealing with Starfleet and satisfying the whims of various Bajoran ministers, Kira had learned to use the three hour trips to and from Bajor to prepare and write reports. She'd sometimes steal a few extra moments on the transport to check them over before disembarking, but she could be relied on to be prepared to address any questions Captain Sisko or the Bajoran ministers might have. It was one of the habits that made her a good liaison officer.

Almost fifteen minutes after the shuttle's arrival, he had seen Kira wade through the throngs of people on the Promenade on her way to Ops. At least the dataPADDs in hand suggested that direction. Both Bashir and Dax had promised him that they would talk to Kira first before talking to the Captain, and Odo had only a long wait in front of him and a pile of dataPADDs of his own to focus on.

But his mind continually wandered to the last time he had confronted Kira just outside her quarters. As he tried to apologize and entreated her to talk to him, she had turned those deadened eyes on him. How many times during the Occupation had he seen the eyes of a Bajoran, broken and seemingly abandoned by the Prophets, turn those same deadened eyes toward him, toward a man who worked for the Cardassians? While he had taken some comfort in Ezri's words, he had remained smitten by those that had described the loss of liveliness evident in Kira's eyes. Dax's description - probably a product of his having taken Jadzia, Garak and Sisko into a trip through his mind's eye and into the very heart of the Occupation on then-Terok Nor - rarely left him. If he tried to, he could probably conjure up an entire parade of Bajorans from the past to pass before him with the same look.

Captured by these thoughts, Odo failed to notice one aggravated Ferengi barging into his office. "Do you hear that?" demanded Quark at the top of his lungs.

"Hear what?" Odo demanded back.

"That?"

"Is there something that I should be aware of, Quark?"

"Did you forget to form ears this morning? That noise is driving me crazy and I demand that you do something about it," Quark bellowed.

Before Odo could answer the bartender, the Security doors whooshed open revealing Dr. Bashir with a tricorder in hand. "There's some kind of interference that's playing havoc with some of my medical instruments," Bashir said. "I tried to contact Ops, but it seems to be affecting the commlines as well."

Odo punched several of the pads on his desk before sending an emergency signal to his deputies. "You're right. Can you get a fix on where the interference is originating with that tri...."

"It stopped," Quark screamed before realizing he no longer needed to be heard over the sound that only he could hear. "It's stopped," he repeated in a softer voice.

"Odo to Ops." The Chief of Security made his way past the ear-sore Ferengi and the doctor into the Promenade where a number of other Ferengis stood. "Ops, Dr. Bashir detected a high pitched frequency which was interfering with his medical instruments."

"What am I, chopped hasperat?" exclaimed Quark.

The rich baritone of Worf came on the line. "Colonel Kira went down to the Promenade to investigate. According to our sensors, the frequency originated there near the Infirmary. We are attempting to obtain more accurate coordinates."

Odo nodded in acknowledgement then began scanning up and down the Promenade for Kira's red uniform. Few of the passers-by on the Promenade seemed to have even noticed the noise. Only the Ferengi, still milling about outside the bar, rubbed at their sore lobes.

"Get back to work. I don't pay you to have union meetings," Quark grumbled at his bar workers as he shooed them toward his establishment.

"The sound must have come from near Garak's shop," Bashir offered. He nodded toward the tailor's shop. A red uniform was just entering the doorway. Odo began his own walk toward the shop, the doctor matching him stride for stride, when he heard a loud thud from within. Bashir kept up with him as he raced into the shop.

On the floor, Garak gasped for air, blood spewing between his fingers as he clutched at his torn chest. Kira knelt over him, her own hands formed around the handle of a Bajoran assassin's dagger which she held before her like a sacrificial offering. Blood splattered her face and hands, and Odo couldn't help but think that Garak's blood clashed with the red of her uniform.

In one movement, Odo grabbed the knife and pinned Kira against his chest. She remained quiet, almost catatonic as he looked for injuries.

"Medical emergency," Bashir barked. "Two to beam to the Infirmary."

As Bashir disappeared with the prone body of Garak, Odo closed his eyes against the death glare of his lover.

Three security monitors continually scanned the one prisoner. Clad in a red Bajoran officer's uniform, splotches of reddish-indigo remained as sole evidence of her reason for being there. Few would have thought her capable - her eyes appeared glassy and focused on something within her while her demeanor remained serene, almost otherworldly.

Inside the main office of Security, Odo paced with profound agitation as the officers took up various positions within the room. Ezri Dax's eyes alternated between the deeply frantic Changeling and the eerie calm of Kira visible in the monitor. Captain Sisko stood to the side, his emotions hid beneath a stoic exterior. Three sets of eyes turned as the door whooshed open and Chief Miles O'Brien entered, a dataPADD in hand.

"Sir?" O'Brien pushed the pad toward Sisko who gingerly took it. "The interference was created with a small audio generator that malfunctioned."

Odo's suspicions came to the surface. "Audio generator?"

"Part of a child's toy - nothing more. Apparently it was dropped on the Promenade and malfunctioned. Sorry." The Chief's open Irish face registered his own grief at the turn of events.

"And it's not related to Kira's behavior?" Sisko's head tilted upward.

"Not that I can tell. It's a Lessepian toy. It's doubtful that it's related."

"It seems convenient that a Lessepian toy would be left on the Promenade and somehow interfere with station communications," Odo's voice grated with possibilities. "It seems rather powerful for a toy."

"You're right, Odo," O'Brien conceded. "But we've had work crews repairing commlines in that area all day and the section they were working on was unshielded. It set up a vibration that affected a small area of the Promenade. Believe it or not, the commlines were never down, just suffering from a bit of interference. And it lasted less than a minute."

Whatever light appeared for Odo immediately vanished with O'Brien's explanation. Kira herself had offered no reason for stabbing Garak, only walked to the detention cells and collapsed onto the narrow bench there.

"When the repairs are made, will this kind of thing affect the commlines again?" Sisko directed his question to O'Brien, but his eyes never left the worried Changeling.

"As soon as all the repairs are made, sir, the kind of interference won't occur again."

Sisko nodded, satisfied with one answer, but his eyes registered a few more queries of his own. Just then four sets of eyes drew a bead on Worf as the Klingon made his way into the Security office.

"Mr. Worf?"

"Dr. Bashir is still in surgery. However, his nurse reports that the doctor believes Garak will live."

The news lessened some of the tension within the room. "Did Garak say anything? Anything at all?" asked Odo.

"No," replied the Klingon. "And Garak was unarmed. The only thing he was holding when Colonel Kira entered his shop was a pair of pants."

"Whose?" Odo felt himself grasping for anything.

Worf's expression displayed his discomfort. "Morn's...."

Odo snorted then shook his head which rapidly fell to his chest. He did not dare look at the monitor nor at the silent prisoner it pictured.

"Sensors indicate that the only two people in Garak's shop were Garak and the Colonel," Worf reported. "They have had little contact over the past several weeks and there are no indications of any recent conflict between the two."

"Any additional conflict," O'Brien offered hopefully. "Maybe because he's a Cardassian and the rapist was one she made some kind of connection between the two."

"Kira would not try to kill him simply because he is a Cardassian," Odo said tiredly. "Besides, she knows of him deciphering the Dominion codes. In her eyes, he's a key part of the war effort and she wouldn't let something personal get in the way of trying to win the war."

"Nerys and I talked about her feelings toward Garak," Ezri added. "She could make a difference between Garek and her attacker on a conscious level."

"Then maybe she's gone insane, or something," Miles suggested. "Or maybe she can't make a distinction between them on a subconscious level."

"It's possible," Ezri began, but the hint of doubt in her voice registered with each man in the room. "But it seems we're grasping for straws here."

"It's not like her to walk around here with a knife in her hand and go after someone," O'Brien protested. "She would have to be insane to have tried to kill him just off a busy Promenade within a few meters of Security personnel."

Odo snorted with contempt. "I doubt that the episode on the runabout would have caused her to go insane."

"Miles is right, Odo. At least, we should find out if she is insane." Ezri looked up at the Changeling. "It might explain what's been going on."

"You have to admit, she's been keeping to herself lately. And that look about her eyes," Miles continued, "it's frightening."

"Then you wouldn't have liked living on the station during the Occupation," Odo harrumphed. But he knew that look all too well.

"Gentlemen," Sisko interjected. "Constable, I think it's time to talk to your prisoner." The gentleness of Sisko's voice was edged with the hardness of a command. "Odo, Dax, you're with me."

The two security guards acknowledged Sisko and the others before stepping out of the detention area. Odo trailed behind his commanding officer and the counselor, his eyes riveted to the woman seated in the cell before them.

The guards had allowed Kira to wash her face and hands of Garak's blood and someone had gone to her quarters to retrieve a set of civilian clothes which remained folded neatly on the table outside her cell. Odo remembered the two security guards gently prying Kira away from him, talking softly to the shocked Bajoran even as they led her across the Promenade to be detained. He had followed numbly, but with enough presence of mind to order two others to begin preliminary sensor sweeps of the area and to begin cataloging evidence from the shop. One of those left behind had been in a minor Resistance cell during the Occupation; his uncle had been liberated from the Gallitep labor camp by Kira's cell, the Shakaar. Another of the guards had earned a place on the force thanks to Kira's recommendation. They would gather every shred of evidence to convict her of attempted murder, or if Bashir's nurse was wrong, murder. Odo did not doubt that they would be thorough; he had trained them both himself.

Kira's eyes remained focused on the floor in front of her. In a moment, friends of Kira Nerys would become her adversaries; her lover was already her jailer.

Sisko considered the slight woman in front of him, cleared his throat, then waited expectantly. Slowly, Kira's face tilted upward and her eyes met his.

"Colonel, do you know why you're here?"

Her head bobbed once.

"Why did you attack Mr. Garak?" Odo glanced at the Captain whose voice remained so soft it seemed he was questioning a child about her day at school.

"Is he dead?"

"No. Julian thinks he might live."

Kira sighed and rested her back against the wall.

Odo stepped forward. "Did he attack you?"

Kira studied Odo's face for some time, before closing her eyes.

"Nerys?"

Shaking her head, she continued to look inwardly. "I remember going into Garak's shop. I remember stabbing him. Once, no twice."

"What else do you remember?" Sisko's voice remained steady.

"I remember kneeling over him, his blood, the knife in my hand." Anguished eyes sought out those of her questioners. "I remember holding the knife over him, as if I was going to stab him again. Then I realized where I was and I stopped. The Constable and the doctor came in."

"Can you think of any reason you might stab him, Nerys?" Desperation pushed Odo's voice higher. "Did he threaten you? Did he remind you of the rapist?"

"I remember putting the knife in my boot this morning. I've been doing that all week."

"Because of the attack?" Ezri asked.

Kira nodded. "I guess I felt safer somehow. I didn't want to be caught without a weapon again." She paused and looked at Odo. "I'm sorry. I know you don't like weapons on the Promenade, Constable."

"Did anyone know that you were armed?"

"I didn't tell anyone, if that's what you mean."

"Did Mr. Garak have something to do with the attack on you?" Sisko stepped toward Kira. "Did you remember something about the attack?"

She pursed her lips and shook her head. No one spoke as the realization sank in.

"Think, Nerys." Odo's desperation exploded around them. "What were you feeling at the time?"

"What do you want me to say, Odo? That all I felt was hatred and contempt?" Kira's own anger flared. "I remember feeling rage? And bitterness? I felt all those things, Odo. And I stabbed him."

"Because he's a Cardassian?"

"No... no... I don't know." Agony burst upon her features and brought her to her feet. "I remember stabbing him. I remember wanting him dead. But I don't know why. But it doesn't matter, because I stabbed him."

Ezri stepped closer to the prisoner, her hands open as if her words would not be weapons. "I'll need to do a complete psychological workup on you, Nerys," she practically whispered. "There's a possibility you weren't completely in control of your actions." Ezri's voice offered a branch of hope.

But from the tense silence, everyone suspected it to be a vain exercise.

As if all air had been expelled from her body, Kira reached backward and collapsed onto the bench. "It was as if I was watching my actions. I saw myself do this and...." Trying to drive away the memories, she closed her eyes and drew her legs to her chest. For several moments she rocked as she tried to regain control, her breaths harsh and ragged.

The three officers stood and watched, uncertain of how to proceed, their own grief a palpable presence in the room. Seldom had any of them seen Kira vanquished by her own actions.

"Colonel, did the rape have anything to do with your attack on Mr. Garak?" In his own muddled mind, Odo silently thanked Sisko for remaining detached from the emotional tumult around him. Yet, as Odo glanced at the Captain, he realized Sisko's heartache was almost as great as his own.

Drawing in a deep breath, Kira rose slowly to her feet. "I don't see how, Captain. He wasn't there. What would it have gained him? If a connection were made between Garak and the rape, he would lose his place on the station and be submitted to justice on Bajor. Garak isn't likely to put himself in that position."

"I agree with Nerys," Ezri tendered. "Garak has much more to gain by remaining here and helping the Federation win the war than by pursuing some sort of personal vendetta against the Colonel." For a moment she considered the Bajoran thoughtfully. "What about this past week, Nerys? What's been going on?"

Kira appeared stricken by the words and reached behind her for the bench. She looked up at Ezri and Sisko, then focused her eyes on Odo alone. "I felt so angry and so lost inside myself. I knew that I wanted to stop the pain, but I didn't know how. I walked around the station, scared and sure that every moment something would happen. Someone would hurt me."

"Who?" Sisko asked.

"I don't know." Kira shook her head undecidedly. "I felt like I was being hunted."

"By Garak?"

"No... not Garak, at least not at first. I knew that someone was there, following me, watching me, but I didn't know whom. I didn't know who it was until I walked into Garak's shop."

Sisko's voice intruded on Odo's growing grief. "Constable, what about Mr. Garak's movements this past week?"

Odo assessed his own memories and stared at his commanding officer. "I keep a pretty close eye on Garak these days, Captain. He's done little more than go to his shop, the Replimat and his quarters. He had no contact with anyone out of the ordinary all week and he hasn't had any contact with Kira that I know of. I can give you our security logs, but there's nothing out of his usual routine."

"I want you to find out if there was someone stalking the Colonel," Sisko commanded.

Odo acknowledged the Captain's order, but doubted he would find anyone so wily as to follow Kira around the station and not be noticed or even mentioned until now. Sisko and Ezri's eyes bored into Kira who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

"It's ironic, isn't it, Odo," Kira offered to the gathering gloom within the brightly-lit arena. "We passed the laws on Bajor to protect all people who live and work and travel through the station. You remember?" Odo nodded gently to her. The memories of her heartbreak after a Cardassian, Aamin Marritza, had been killed on the station still lingered. "I fought with the Chamber of Ministers for weeks to make it a priority. You and the Captain wrote the law."

"I remember, Nerys."

"It wasn't enough to have the Federation rules in place on the station, we needed to make Bajorans accountable as well."

Odo remembered Kira's grief poured out into ensuring that something good would come from Marritza's senseless death.

"And now, I'm going to test that law, aren't I?"

Odo nodded. "It seems likely."

Kira stood. "Do you remember saying that all people - no matter what their species - have an inherent right to be protected here on the station?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember how difficult it was for the Chamber of Ministers to agree to that? They still held onto their hatred of all Cardassians. If it were up to some of them, they would have passed a law to have all Cardassians who set foot on the station to be executed immediately."

"I remember that is what Minister Haran said."

Kira sketched a nod. Her eyes remained unfocused. "You'll get to see how good that law is, Odo."

"I never really doubted it."

With a wan smile for the Constable, Kira turned to Sisko. Swallowing hard, and squaring her shoulders, she faced Sisko. "Captain?"

"Why, Colonel? Why did you stab Mr. Garak?"

"I don't know, sir. I wish I did."

For over an hour, Odo felt the walls of guilt and hurt fall between himself and Kira although an energy barrier still divided them. They talked softly within the detention area, the ebb and flow of station life beyond those walls forgotten. Sisko had left for his office long before, the inquiry into the attack on Garak a frustrating collection of dead ends. Ezri Dax, too, had been swallowed up in the station, her examination of the prisoner resulting in another series of empty answers. They might plead insanity for Kira, but even that seemed to doom her to a civilian's life and several years of rehabilitation. The one piece of damning evidence remained locked in Odo's desk - and promised only to shred her life in much the same way she had sliced into Garak's chest.

For her part, whatever storms might have still raged on inside Kira, they had quieted against the soft tones of their voices. Clad in civilian clothes, the blood on her hands and face a distant memory, Kira appeared pale and tired under the glare of the lights in the cell. She had drawn her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her crossed arms. In spite of the hardness and narrowness of the bench, Odo marveled that she could find a comfortable position there.

"When I woke this morning, all I could think of was how beautiful it was in the Capitol. There was a morning rain and the air was freshly washed." Kira closed her eyes and Odo began to wonder how many Bajoran mornings she would ever experience first-hand again. "I thought about you. I thought you'd like it."

"I always enjoy the rain on Bajor," Odo added quietly.

"I know," Kira acknowledged with a slight grin. Her eyes opened and considered him for a long time as her face grew serious. "When I was on Bajor, I felt like I was in control of my life, finally. My mind was clear. It hasn't felt so clear in weeks."

"Maybe you needed some more time on Bajor, Nerys."

"I didn't wake up intending to do this, Odo."

"Few people do, I imagine."

She shook her head. "You were never in the Resistance." Kira sighed. "We woke up every morning thinking that by pushing back just one Cardassian we would be that much closer to our freedom." Odo considered her face gone thoughtful and sad. "If it meant killing a Cardassian, then we did it. I did it." She paused and locked eyes with the Constable. "I suppose the security monitors are online."

"I turned them off."

Kira nodded. "It's good to know the one in charge, I guess."

"But you didn't hurt Garak for those reasons, Kira. He was working with us to end this war, not to enslave or imprison Bajorans."

In her eyes, he saw the confusion return as well as the regret. For several minutes, she said nothing, only stared at her hands. She paused, then took on a decidedly command tone with him. "You've asked for a complete physical examination of the prisoner as well as a complete psychological screening."

"Of course."

"Any guesses what they'll find?"

Odo shrugged. "I don't know. The suspect doesn't remember much about the incident. She carried the weapon into the shop. It's not going to make a very good defense."

"And she's a former member of the Shakaar, and it's known that she does not trust nor like Garak." Kira's toneless recitation of the facts seemed to distance them both from the reality.

"She specifically volunteered to go down to the Promenade to investigate a sound crippling some of the station's communications. She could have sent someone else."

"But she may have used the problems with communications to allow her to enter Garak's shop, stab him and allow the confusion to cover the crime."

"And her behavior the week leading up to the incident in question...." The silence hugged Odo's words. In almost the same instance the thoughts escaped his mouth, he had wanted to capture them and prevent them from harming her.

Their eyes locked, and for a moment, Odo saw beneath the brave facade. She seemed to shrink before him. "I'm not sure that I have a good explanation for that either," Kira finally whispered.

Odo tried to shift to less treacherous ground. "What is the last thing you remember?"

"All I remember is the interference on the commlines and when the sensors located the sound on the Promenade, I went to investigate," Kira said tiredly. "I got off the turbolift on the Promenade and followed the sound. I don't remember much after that."

"Has anything like this happened before, Nerys? Was it a blackout? Have you had one before?"

"Not unless I'd been drinking heavily," she offered. "Or I was drugged or hit over the head. But Dr. Garany couldn't detect any physical trauma, Odo. Except for what happened on the runabout and this afternoon, I haven't... oh, this is hopeless," Kira muttered as her hands raked through her hair. "All the things I've done, all the memories and all the battles... and I'm here for something... for something I can't remember."

"Nerys, I wish I could say that...," he halted, uncertain what words of comfort he could offer.

"I know. I know you'll do what youcan." Kira rested her cheek on her crossed arms. "I haven't been sleeping well. I could sleep for a week."

"I'll let you get some rest, Nerys." Odo gracefully unfolded his limbs and stood. Part of him wanted to remain behind, to take her in his arms, to protect her. "Is there anything you need?"

Her own limbs untwined as she began placing the pillow at the end of the narrow bench even as she began spreading the blanket over her. "Just answers." She paused and looked at him. "I wish I could explain what happened."

He watched her stretch along the hard bench. She pulled the blanket up to her neck, and lay her head down heavily on the pillow. Satisfied that she would sleep or at least try, he turned toward the doorway leading to his office.

"Odo?"

He turned back toward her. "Yes?"

Kira propped her head up on one hand. "It wasn't you. You were so gentle and considerate. I needed time to understand what I did, what I did to you. I got so wrapped up in feeling angry and ashamed that I couldn't talk about it with you. I'm sorry, Odo. My mind's been a muddle almost all this past week. I'm not sure that I wasn't planning to kill Garak all along. I might have and I can't remember why or even if I thought about it."

In her eyes he could see the pain and sorrow and anguish she'd endured on the runabout and in the weeks since. "I'll wake you when we have word on Garak. Get some sleep, Nerys. I'll check on you later." He stood in the brightly-lit area and watched as the former freedom fighter, used to finding rest wherever and whenever she could, drifted to sleep. For Odo, his own rest would not come easily.

Bajoran daggers made during the Occupation had tough, well-honed blades designed to pierce the sinewy membranes beneath Cardassian scales. Some of the knives had vicious barbs on either side of the blade meant to inflict considerable damage if the victim tried to pull off of the knife. Odo knew that some Bajoran children as young as 9 years old had learned how to thrust the blade deep into a Cardassian's chest and hold it as the victim twisted on the knife.

Desperation brought out the worst qualities in people.

He had little doubt that the wound inflicted by Kira had meant to kill Garak. The location of the injury indicated that it was meant to be a mortal wound. Kira had been trained to kill from an early age.

Idly he examined the knife, a Bajoran-made blade with a simple composite and leather handle. A bit shorter than some of the knives he'd seen, it would fit perfectly in Kira's boot without giving away its presence.

But few Bajorans simply walked up to a Cardassian and stabbed him no less than 20 meters off a busy pathway unless they had an escape route in mind. Odo had puzzled over that problem for some time, wondering why Kira would try to kill Garak at all and why she would attempt to do so in such a public way. Kira could have picked a more opportune time or a better location; a suicidal attempt at Garak made no sense to him. Yet Odo both hated and clung to Ezri's theory that Kira had gone insane for only a moment. Somehow, using insanity as a defense destroyed the carefully schooled control that Kira had mastered over the years. Insanity struck at her kindnesses toward Dukat's half-Bajoran daughter and the Cardassian politician who had called her daughter. That plea would destroy her years of service and call to question all her actions.

Since leaving Kira to rest in the holding cell, Odo had gone over every bit of evidence his deputies and Worf had amassed. The clues were there, he told himself. But he kept drawing a blank on what they meant.

Part of being a good law enforcement officer, Odo knew, was being able to wait. Evidence didn't always make itself apparent, and criminals sometimes needed time to trip up themselves. In this case, all Odo really waited for was news of Garak's condition. As the minutes slowly passed, Odo's instincts told him that Garak's chances for survival lessened considerably. The difference between a murder conviction and attempted murder was significant; whereas one outcome meant Kira might face a 30 years to life sentence, the other spelled no more than 20 years. The Bajorans, still scarred by Cardassian brutality, might reduce the sentence especially for someone like Kira, a former Shakaar member, a decorated military officer. A good advocate might use the extenuating circumstances of the recent attack to reduce her sentence further.

Another part of being a good law enforcement officer was being able to distance oneself from the players in an investigation. He knew he could not. His eyes constantly drifted toward the monitor that framed the sleeping Bajoran in the cell beyond the side door. It was Worf who had Odo's staff catalog the evidence and enter the details into the computer. Somber and subdued, his own security people woodenly presented their reports. Many of the men and women in his command had been in the Resistance; all had faced Cardassians and most still held scars from the Occupation. All of them respected Kira; many admired her; one or two even revered her. Odo doubted if any of them wanted to see her tried and convicted of murder. Or even attempted murder. But they did their jobs with their usual professionalism looking no farther than the evidence. Few of them would have the heart to bring charges against her.

That was his job. Justice called for Kira to pay for what she had done, but she remained a victim of lost memories that otherwise reared ugly and cruel at inopportune times. Perhaps she would remember why she had targeted Garak. Perhaps Garak would survive and provide a reason for what she had done. Outside the Security doors, Odo knew that the station already buzzed with the information about the attack and the attacker. Kira would already be stripped of her military rank and court martialled, her reputation forever sullied except by those Bajorans who still clung to the belief that all Cardassians deserved to die for their species' role during the Occupation.

These musings brought several troubled thoughts to the surface which he quickly locked away in some closet of his mind. Kira slept in spite of the turmoil across the way in the Infirmary or even in the main office of Security within his own mind. He studied her restless form try to burrow deeper into sleep. He stood to go to the Infirmary when Quark appeared behind the sliding doors.

"I know you're a little preoccupied right now, Odo, but can you do something about that noise?"

"What noise?"

"Don't tell me we're going through this again." The Ferengi's annoyance showed clearly in his bobbing head and droll features. "There's a high pitched whine that is making my waiters edgy and it's giving me a headache. And cranky waiters...."

"Are bad for business."

"Exactly."

"Maybe you could describe this sound to me." Odo's own tone bordered on annoyance and frustration.

"I would, but it just stopped." Quark's face relaxed against the newfound silence. "Maybe Chief O'Brien should have a look at the EPS lines or whatever in this office. When I walked in, the noise was louder in here."

Frustration won out. "Thank you, Quark. I'll have the Chief look into it say, next week."

Quark shook his head as if to erase Odo's dismissive tone. "How is she?"

"Who?"

"Don't play coy with me, Odo. I know it's tearing you up to see her in there." Quark stepped closer to Odo and cocked his head toward the holding area. "If she was going to kill Garak, I would think she'd pick a better time and place to do it. I thought members of the Resistance were taught how to kill more discreetly."

Odo sighed and began to gather the stray PADDs on his desk. "I suppose you're taking bets on if Garak will live or how many years Kira will get." Anger and grief fueled the sarcasm in his voice which vibrated with as much menace as he could muster.

"No," Quark said gently. He tilted his head. "I like the Colonel and I like Garak. And I happen to think that the Colonel has had enough trouble lately. She'd have to be insane to go after Garak like that." Under that large, bulging head, Quark's eyes donned a sympathetic softness. "Look, Odo, find out what's causing that noise when you can. I know you're busy." With a final nod for the Changeling, Quark sauntered out of the office.

With the dataPADDs finally under control, and the Ferengi's warmth giving him misguided hope, Odo spared one last look toward Kira through the security camera. Instead of lying on the hard bench, she stood and had approached the security force field as if to peer out at something beyond her cell. Thinking she needed assistance, he sighed heartily for he could not resist her, then reversed his intended direction to detour through the detention area.

Through the short hallway, he remembered an odd contradiction in Kira's statement and thought to ask her about it to cover for spying on her. As the security door descended close behind him, he realized that the same hollow-eyed look he had seen earlier in Kira had reappeared. She stood awkwardly just before the force field, her body swaying toward the barrier. "Nerys, do you need something?" he called. "What is it?" As if in answer, she flung herself at the force field, the energy sparkling and rippling through her. Her body convulsed and shimmied against the wall of pure energy that hissed and raged in reply. Shock held him frozen for only a second before he launched himself at the security panel, wildly slamming at the buttons to disengage the field. Failing at the first try to bring the field down, he growled in frustration before finding the right combination. As the energy field melted away, he caught Kira's lifeless body as it slumped forward.

"Damn it, you can't die now, Nerys," he cried as his hand automatically went to his commbadge. "Emergency medical transport, two to beam." He clutched her to him as the transporter responded and stole them away in a shower of energy.

"It's Cardassian technology, a product, I would guess, of some demented Gul's imagination," Garak pronounced as he examined the tiny spider-like device encased in a plasglass container. He handed the small item back to Odo who eyed it with contempt then passed it back to Bashir.

"Why do you say, 'some Gul', Garak?" Odo growled.

Garak considered the audience gathered around his Infirmary biobed. Captain Sisko, Dr. Julian Bashir, and Odo all formed a ring around him, an unconscious attempt, Odo thought, to keep the Cardassian tailor prisoner until he revealed his secrets.

"During the Occupation," Garak began, warming to his tale, "certain Guls were attempting to find ways to use the Bajoran people against themselves. Certainly some of the Bajorans chose to become collaborators, while others needed further convincing."

"Meaning the Guls would use implants to control Bajorans," Bashir added. "Implants like that one."

"Unfortunately, yes." Garak considered the device still in Odo's hands. "One Gul in particular liked the idea of programming Bajorans to attack other Bajorans. They were to target suspected members of the Resistance. You, my good doctor, would have a better idea of the biological problems with the device, but suffice it to say that the implant project was not very cost effective. Nor were the results very predictable."

"Which should make you fairly happy." Heads turned toward the speaker. Wrapped in a robe, the patient walked slowly toward them as if testing out each step. "You're alive because that device couldn't completely control me."

"Yes," Garak said, his ironic tone highlighting the understatement of his words, "you Bajorans were always stubborn."

"Which is why you're out of bed when you should be resting," Bashir scolded. "You've had major surgery and I've had to repolarize most of your neural pathways, Kira. Not to mention removing that implant."

Ignoring Bashir, Kira locked eyes with the Cardassian. "I'm sorry for what happened, Garak. I don't have any reason to kill you."

He smiled and nodded. "At least not today, Colonel, for which I am eternally grateful. But I do accept your apology. You couldn't be liable for your actions under the influence of an implant."

"Do we know who is responsible for this?" Sisko asked. He turned toward Odo. "And how was it activated? You said it had something to do with the commlines."

Odo nodded stiffly, and handed the dataPADD he'd been holding to the Captain. "A small audio generator was used to initiate the attack on Garak. It appeared to be a Lessepian child's toy that had been dropped on the Promenade. Chief O'Brien's work crews have been on the Promenade all week making repairs, so it was able to react with the shielding on the lines in that part of the station. A second device was attached to the shielding of one of the comm junctures just outside Quark's. It created a vibration that was carried along the shielding throughout much of the Promenade. The shielding actually amplified the effect and made it possible to affect anyone in the holding cells. Normally it wouldn't, but the Chief's crews have been running maintenance checks on the communication lines throughout the station."

"I realized that the triggering device for Kira's action was probably a sound that no one else could hear except for her and a certain Ferengi bartender," Odo added. "Kira mentioned that she heard the noise, but almost no one else had. And certainly no other Bajorans had complained."

"She didn't actually hear the sound," Bashir interjected. "She was reacting to the feedback loop of the sounds. Apparently the implant malfunctioned and created the feedback when it was activated."

"Any ideas as to who put the audio generators on the station?" the Captain asked.

"We're holding a Lessepian trader. Apparently he was paid to plant and trigger the generators. He claims to not knowing what he was doing except causing a small annoyance on the station." Odo stiffened, drawing his erect frame even straighter. "The authorities on Bajor also have a Bajoran engineer who helped plant the devices and shield them from detection. The engineer is a member of the paghwraith cult. He thought the devices were meant to disrupt station activities in the name of the paghwraiths."

"So they haven't completely disappeared," Bashir noted. He looked at the drawn faces of Sisko and Kira. "They're still active."

"Most of the cultists have gone underground." Odo studied the exchange between Sisko and Kira. "I'm sure the engineer had his reasons. As did the Lessepian."

"I'm sure he was paid handsomely," added Garak. "Someone else is responsible for the implant. And that person is probably also responsible for the attack on Colonel Kira earlier."

"Why do you say that, Mr. Garak?" Sisko inquired.

"That type of implant worked best if the Bajoran who carried the device had been conditioned to detest Bajorans. Usually that meant the Bajoran was tortured or beaten by one of herown kind," Garak explained. His mouth curled in an expression of distaste. "The beatings or torture could also be used to cover up for the surgery needed to place the implant in the brain."

"During the Occupation, there were enough Bajorans willing to inform against other Bajorans," Kira added, anger coloring her words. "It wouldn't have been that hard to find someone to aid in the training."

"I would imagine the assault was intended to condition the Colonel to detest Cardassians although whoever did it certainly took perverse pleasure in that particular assignment. I would think the Colonel would not need a great deal of persuasion under the circumstances. I would imagine that the device was tested by having her kill her attacker. An effective way of silencing him and making the trail to the person behind this fairly difficult to follow." Garak cast a long glance at Kira who evenly returned his gaze.

"But what about the Colonel's behavior the week leading up to the attack?" Sisko queried. "Was that somehow part of the implant?"

Garak who seemed not to notice the sudden discomfort of Odo and Kira embellished on his explanation. "As I understand these things, the implant requires some kind of signal, a sound. They could have tested it during that week by putting an audio device near her quarters."

"My people discovered an audio generator set for a ultra high frequency in Kira's quarters," Odo offered. He let his eyes fall on Kira's. "It became active only when she entered her quarters."

"The implant triggers certain chemical reactions within the brain," Bashir explained. "I would imagine that the implant was meant to build high levels of the chemical triggers in Kira. Her behavior leading up to the incident with Garak might have been part of that buildup. Past experiences would have accelerated or enhanced the effect of the implant because it seems to monitor and react to chemical endorphins. My guess is that something set off the implant early resulting in higher levels of chemical endorphins. For all we know," he looked toward Odo and Kira with gentle eyes, "her therapy might have brought on the higher levels or the device could have malfunctioned. A memory, a smell, a stray thought."

"It was certainly disguised well - it emits a false reading to bioscanners, suggesting that its location in the brain is the site of brain damage. That's why we weren't able to detect it in Kira." Bashir seemed to be warming to his explanation. "The surgery was covered up by the beatings and both the assault and the rape were meant to condition Kira to act as her brain chemistry became further imbalanced. I would imagine that's what we've been seeing this entire week. The build-up was then channeled into an assassination attempt."

"In any case, the implant was discovered before Kira could harm others or permanently harm herself," Garak soothed. "There's no telling who else could have been targeted with the device and the Colonel would make a most effective assassin given slightly more favorable conditions."

Odo, who remained fully aware of Kira's every move, caught sight of her blanching, then folding against a biobed. Both he and Dr. Bashir stepped closer to her, but hesitated briefly as she waved them off. To Bashir's warning look, she steadied herself, then eased onto the bed. Odo took up position behind her, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder which she quickly encased in her own.

Sisko watched as Kira tried to control herself, supported on one side by Bashir and at her back - always at her back it seemed - by Odo. Bashir had already opened a tricorder and was running it over his patient. "Colonel, you should get some rest."

"Julian, is there any way to determine who else could be targeted by the device?"

Odo tightened his grip on Kira's shoulder even as he began to understand the subtext of her question.

"It uses chemical pheromes. I detected a human signature, but I haven't tried to match it with anyone yet," the doctor replied.

"It will match the Captain's," Odo suggested. Garak, Sisko and Bashir turned startled eyes toward Odo. "It makes sense."

"Captain, I think I know who is behind this."

Garak leveled his gaze to Kira's, but she continued to lock eyes with Sisko. "Who wants Garak dead and me either dead or disgraced? And if the signature matches yours?"

Sisko gave voice to the name they all thought. "Dukat."

"You're getting soaked."

"So are you, or at least you should be."

Odo chuckled and bent to kiss the rain-splattered face of Kira Nerys. "One advantage of being a Changeling." The rain continued to run off Odo's clothes and hair leaving him almost untouched by the downpour.

"Oh?" Kira challenged. "Well, I guess I'm the only one who'll need a hot shower." She playfully elbowed him. "But you're invited."

Odo offered her his best smile, a slight curling of his lips where the usually straight line of his mouth ended. "Then why are we standing out here in the rain, Nerys, if all we're going to do is go inside and get wet again?"

She turned her face upward, the droplets meeting her skin, then exploding into sprays of smaller drops. The rain pushed her hair from her face, slicking it back over the top of her head. Turning to Odo, she reached for his hand and hugged it to her breast. "Sometimes I would just stand outside in the rain when I was younger. My father and brothers never really understood, but I always felt cleansed by just standing in the rain and letting it wash me free of the Occupation."

"And now?"

For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, Kira smiled at him with joyful abandon. "I feel clean and fresh and much lighter than I have in a long time."

"And wetter."

The mixture of rain splattering all around them and Kira's laughter refreshed Odo's own spirit and he pulled her into his arms to dance with her in nature's shower.

Later as she snuggled into his side and clutched at him as if to assure herself he was still there, Odo felt his own spirit lightening more even as the afternoon sun faded around them. This, the last day of their leave on Bajor, had been spent talking and laughing and touching - an intimate festival that bound them to each other as it erased the rare tensions between them. He wrapped his arm around Kira, careful not to disturb her in sleep. "Lights," he hissed in an effort not to wake her, "at 50 per cent, over me." A halo of light appeared and Odo picked up the dataPADD and began reading.

"What's Mike Hammer up to now?" Kira murmured. "Has he figured out who did it, yet?"

Odo regarded the Bajoran nestled at his side. "I didn't mean to wake you, Nerys."

"I'm what you call, oh what did Molly tell me, Chesternapping, no, catnapping. That's it." Kira sighed then slowly blinked open her eyes. Planting a kiss on the cloth he had formed as his pajama top, she pushed herself up from the bed, and sat, shoulder to shoulder with him. Leaning into him, she laid her head on his shoulder. "This feels so good, I'm not sure I want to sleep through it."

"Do you want me to read to you?"

He felt her response as she shook her head against his shoulder. "I wanted to tell you something."

"Oh?" Three days with Kira had been a feast to which he continually wanted to stuff himself. But he had allowed her to set the places and bring out each course for him to sample and comment upon. And he knew Kira had fed upon his company as well, finding a wholeness and contentment that had been sorely lacking the weeks before.

"First, I wanted to tell you that I was wrong to try to heal without you. I want to continue living with you; I want to be with you."

Odo rested his cheek against the top of her head, his substance warming with her words. "I wasn't that far away. Besides, there's nothing to forgive, Nerys. You needed to have time to yourself."

"Maybe. But I missed waking up beside you. I missed watching you become you in the morning."

"And I missed you." Her hand snaked down to his which had already abandoned the dataPADD and she brought his fingers to her lips. She continued to hold his hand, drawing his arm within the circle of her own. "Second, I want to thank you for saving my life."

"It doesn't look good for a prisoner to die in the holding cell. It usually means a lengthy investigation."

His deadpan delivery and expression elicited incredulous laughter from Kira who pulled away from him and flung his arm toward his chest. "Oh, is that the reason you kept an eye on those monitors, Constable? You didn't want a lengthy investigation?"

Not to be so easily abandoned, Odo shifted and pushed Kira to her back, angling his body over hers. She did not flinch, but he caught the small pang of fear cross her face. Kissing the tip of her nose, he hesitated before making his decision, then he rolled onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling of their Bajoran cottage, allowing Kira privacy to recompose herself if necessary. "Is there a third item, Colonel?"

The mattress rolled with her decision. Propping herself on her elbow, she steadied her position by leaning against him, her left arm lazing against his chest. "I don't want you going after Dukat for what he did."

Whatever tensions had subsided over the past few days, reared to full life between them now. Odo studied the cool, even gaze of his love and shook his head. Choosing one direction, then abandoning it, he finally found his voice. "I imagine there's many people who want to kill him. You, Worf, Sisko. Maybe Dax. Garak, certainly. Me. Between the six of us, I'm sure we could make it dangerous for Dukat."

"I don't have any intention of letting him get away with what he's done, Odo, but promise me that you won't go after him alone. He worked for the Dominion hand-in-hand with the Founders, Odo. I doubt very much that Dukat was willing to share power with them after the war. I would bet my life that he was hedging his bets and was looking into ways of killing or imprisoning the Founders. There's no telling what he could do to you. And we both saw what he did to the Prophets and to Jadzia."

"And to you, Nerys." He made his eyes go hard against her expression. For several minutes they remained locked in a wrestling match of sorts that Odo finally realized could not be won by glare alone. He blinked. "I used to have dreams when you were in the Infirmary. Nightmares, really. They always ended with Bashir telling me you were dead, Nerys. For a while, you were dead to me, and I didn't want to face each day without you. But I did, I went on. I hated it, but I did it. You know what that's like, Nerys."

The nod of her head was slight, but definitive. She had lost a lover years earlier and felt Odo's words conjure up the loneliness and pain of thattime. She laid her head on his chest and conceded the victory to him. "I don't want to lose you, either."

He gathered her into his arms and kissed her forehead. Just holding her next to him could buoy his spirits and give him hope. "I suspect Dukat has dozens of other enemies we don't even know about. But I don't want to talk about him, Nerys. I just want to be here with you." Odo hugged her closer and felt her respond as her arms enfolded him. They lay like that for several minutes, Kira's soft, even breaths and the gentle beating of her heart the only sounds.

"Odo?"

"Mmmm?"

"Make love to me?"

"I can't."

"Why?" She perched herself on her elbows and stared into his eyes, her own look a mixture of challenge and surprise.

"Because," he offered gently, "we've been making love all day, Nerys."

Incredulous, she shook her head. "What are you talking about, Odo?"

"These past three days have been like making love to you, Nerys. Today, especially. What's making love but giving pleasure and receiving pleasure?"

Her smile radiated through the dusky light of the room. "It's a little more than that, Odo."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But we're not ready for that, yet. At least I'm not ready for more right now."

Her face became serious. "You mean me."

"I mean both of us, Nerys. We both need some more time to heal. You may need a little longer. When we're both ready, then we'll be ready. Not before."

She considered his words then nodded, her face alight with wonder. "Okay, I won't push you into something you're not ready for, Constable." She laughed, and Odo felt the warmth of her love like the rays of sunlight over his body. "I have a fourth item. Have I told you how much I love you, Odo?"

He hugged her closer as she melted into him. "All day, Nerys. All day."

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