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eponymous_roseTitle: The Life of Significant Soil (2/2)
Word Count: ~15,000
Characters: Kira Nerys, Odo, Shakaar Edon, Jadzia Dax, Benjamin Sisko, Julian Bashir, Tora Ziyal, Elim Garak, Damar, others
Warnings: Violence, but not beyond what we saw on the show.
Notes: Many, many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
meddow for the eleventh-hour beta. Written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
where_no_woman's First Anniversary Ficathon, for the prompt "Five times Kira Nerys's faith in the Prophets wavered, and one time she believed with all her soul". Quotations and title are from T.S. Eliot's "The Dry Salvages".
Summary: The past and future are conquered, reconciled. Kira Nerys and the Prophets, through the years.
(Part 1/2)
IV. Lost in a shaft of sunlight.
"Nerys, wait!"
She didn't turn, too focused on the sound of one footstep after another, too focused on her heartbeat's too-loud thrumming in her ears, too focused on the feel of landing blow after blow, of doing damage, of doing something-
Ziyal was calling her name again, with a new urgency, with something that seemed a lot like fear. It took some effort, but eventually Nerys slowed her pace, slowed her breathing, and cast Ziyal a sidelong glance; she looked pale, shocked, but also a little thrilled. Their eyes met, and Ziyal went very quiet for a few moments.
"Your hand's bleeding," she said, finally.
Nerys had been aware of the ache, but it was the kind of pain she'd reveled in during her days with the Resistance, the kind of pain that said This is under my control and I caused this and This is because I won. She looked closer, winced at the way the knuckles were already starting to swell. Her head was spinning.
"There's an emergency medkit somewhere along this corridor," she said, but Ziyal was already moving to the nearest panel – Nerys wondered, idly, if it was her artist's eye that had drawn her to it so quickly, or if it was merely the vaunted Cardassian attention to detail at work.
They were quiet for a while longer while Ziyal patched up Nerys's hand. A Bajoran security officer walked by; Nerys met his eyes, daring him to comment, but he merely bowed his head and moved on. She wondered what else he'd been turning away from lately.
"Back there," Ziyal began, and then winced sympathetically, adjusting her grip on the dermal regenerator. "Sorry. I guess I make a better artist than a doctor."
Nerys laughed, expelled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in. "Just don't get too creative. I'd rather not wind up with my hand on display at the Cardassian Institute of Art."
Ziyal smiled at that, but only for a moment. "Nerys," she said, "it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but back there... that wasn't just about me, was it?"
"It was about Damar," Nerys said, with a carefully casual shrug. "Three months of working with him. It was bound to come out sometime."
"So you decided to pound him into the floor," Ziyal said, and then grinned. "I can't believe you did that."
Nerys managed another smile, but it was more weary; the adrenaline was wearing off fast, and with it went the certainty that what she'd done had been a good idea. If Damar raised a stir, if he tried to get her arrested, if he went to Dukat-
And then she felt a wave of relief so profound that she nearly burst out laughing again. If Damar went to Dukat, he'd have some explaining to do, and given Dukat's devotion to his daughter, that particular conversation wasn't likely to be a pleasant one. She almost wished she could be there to see it.
"There," Ziyal pronounced. "Good as new. Does it hurt?"
Nerys flexed her hand, experimentally, and was surprised when there was only a faint twinge in response. "Not at all," she said. "You're pretty good at that."
"It's a lot like sewing," she said, and by the faint flush in her cheeks, Nerys thought she could guess who'd been teaching Ziyal to sew. Her expression shifted almost immediately, to something colder, something strange. "I hope they're all right."
"I'm sure they are," Nerys said, and, when Ziyal gave only a miserable nod, she clasped her shoulder. "They're coming back, Ziyal."
Ziyal wouldn't meet her eyes for a second, but when she finally looked up, it was with enough hope that Nerys found herself taking solace in it, found herself almost believing her own words. "You're right," Ziyal said, briskly, and closed the medkit. "I'm being silly. They'll make it back somehow."
"I'm sure they will," Nerys said, with more certainty than she felt.
She flexed her hand experimentally while Ziyal put the medkit away, then rolled her shoulders; that last punch had been hard enough that she'd felt the impact all the way back to her spine. Not as much as Damar would have felt it, of course – she wondered how long it would take him to come to. She was reasonably sure that Dukat would be able to keep him in line, but she'd still have to watch her back. Lately it seemed like that was all she knew how to do.
Ziyal was still standing beside the panel where she'd put the medkit, and, stepping closer, Nerys was startled to see that she was shaking. "Ziyal?"
Ziyal glanced up, gave a ghost of a smile, and Nerys wondered, not for the first time, how a father like Dukat could produce someone like Ziyal, how anyone could live the life she had and still be disturbed by violence. "I'm sorry, Nerys. I think I'd like to go back to my quarters."
"Of course," Nerys said, softly. "I'll walk with you."
They went in silence, broken only when a flurry of activity at the end of the hallway signalled that Damar was awake and angry. Ziyal winced, glanced down every time someone passed by, but Nerys looked them in the eyes, even nodded to the trio of Jem'Hadar soldiers who barrelled past to investigate the commotion.
"Aren't you worried?" Ziyal whispered.
Nerys snorted. "Damar's the one who should be worried. Trust me, Ziyal, your father's going to take your side, no matter what."
Ziyal was quiet for a long time after that.
They were nearly at Ziyal's quarters when she turned, smile already dying on her lips. "Nerys, do you mind if I ask – as a friend – why Odo isn't-"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Nerys said, perhaps a little more sharply than she'd intended, because while Ziyal immediately looked chagrined, she also took on a contemplative air, as though something had suddenly become clear to her.
"I understand," she said, and they arrived at the door to her quarters.
"Would you like me to come in for a minute?"
Ziyal's smile returned, but now it was apologetic. "If it's all the same to you, Nerys, I'd rather spend a little time alone."
"Of course," Nerys said, but neither of them made any move to leave.
"Thank you for what you did back there," Ziyal said, finally. "Things have been difficult lately. Confusing. It's good to know there's somebody who cares."
"Lots of people care, Ziyal." Nerys pulled her into a one-armed hug, ignoring the strain on her sore muscles. "You don't have to feel alone here."
Ziyal shifted, and Nerys could feel her shaking again. "I don't think I've ever really felt alone. At the labor camp-" She swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried again. "At the labor camp, I wasn't treated well, exactly, but it wasn't entirely terrible, either. Some of the guards had been there nearly as long as we had. They'd talk to me, and sometimes I managed to convince them not to hurt the other prisoners." Another breath, and Nerys glanced down; Ziyal's eyes were shining, and a faint smile had come to her face. "And then you and my father came out of nowhere."
Nerys decided that now wasn't a good time to remind her that Dukat had only been seeking her out in order to kill her and avoid the scandal, and settled instead for patting her on the shoulder for a few moments.
"Sometimes it feels like there are too many people who think too highly of me," Ziyal said, in a murmur. "It's difficult being all things to all people."
Nerys chuckled, but it was without humor. "Tell me about it. I think everyone on the station's feeling conflicts of loyalty, Ziyal. Yours is just a little more pronounced than most."
Ziyal took a step back, met Nerys's eyes squarely with the quiet determination that she'd seen on several occasions. "So is Odo's."
Nerys felt her face twist into a scowl, and she worked on smoothing out her expression. "Odo made the wrong choice. You haven't yet. Just-" She sighed, rolling out her shoulders again; right now, a drink at Quark's was starting to seem more and more appealing. "Just remember what your father's done, in the past. Remember what he tried to do."
Ziyal nodded, and Nerys turned away. Before she could get too far, though, Ziyal called out, "Nerys." When she turned, Ziyal was smiling, uncertainly. "You've always trusted in the Prophets, Nerys. I think you might need that faith now more than ever."
As she raised a hand in farewell, Nerys smiled back, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.
V. In the sombre season or the sudden fury.
There was one thing to be said for living in a cellar: at least it was cooler than outside.
Oh, not pleasantly so – that would be too much to ask. Just enough that Nerys didn't feel like the air was sapping her strength, didn't feel like she was moving too slowly all the time, didn't feel like she was trapped. No more so than usual, anyway.
The cooler temperatures seemed to be bothering Damar more than they bothered Garak; Nerys suspected the latter had grown used to the more Bajoran-friendly environmental controls on the station, probably in spite of himself. He'd still managed to keep up the odd complaint about the chill, but it was a half-hearted attempt at best.
And then their rebellion had been obliterated before it had a chance to begin, and nobody felt much like complaining about the chill.
Damar had been quiet ever since Weyoun's transmission; Garak, on the other hand, had been talking almost ceaselessly, spinning ideas and suggestions that became more and more ridiculous as time wore on. At first, Nerys engaged with him on the more plausible ideas, argued with him, tried to make them seem feasible, even tried to draw Damar into the debate. Now she didn't bother.
When even Garak had gone quiet, she knew they were in trouble.
At some point, Mila brought them sleeping cots, but nobody felt much like sleeping. She brought them food, but nobody felt much like eating. Nerys wished she hadn't brought up the idea of spending the rest of the war in the cellar, because it was becoming more and more plausible by the minute.
Her heart raced sometimes, and she paced, feeling like the walls were caving in on her, feeling like the whole of Cardassia Prime was ready to collapse on top of her, feeling like maybe it already had. But those moments passed, leaving her as silent and lethargic as the others.
It came as some surprise, then, when it was Damar who stirred himself first one day and said, softly, "It's nearly time for the Edosian orchids to bloom, you know."
Nerys turned, caught sight of his wistful expression, and nearly laughed at the surreal non-sequitur. When she saw Garak's face, though, the smile died on her lips. He'd gone very still, and his expression was unreadable. Trust Cardassians to get stirred up over flora.
Damar sat up, though he avoided looking at them both. He seemed almost embarrassed. "My son loved Edosian orchids. This time of year, he'd always be after me to take him to the botanical gardens."
Garak smiled, mask firmly back in place. "It is rather a nice time to be on Cardassia Prime, isn't it? If it weren't for the occupying horde threatening our imminent destruction, this would nearly qualify as a pleasant holiday."
Nerys snorted. "Complete with world-class accommodations."
Garak drew a finger across the table he'd dusted earlier that day. "You can't deny the efficiency of the maid service."
Damar cast a wry look at the ceiling. "And the view needs to be seen to be believed."
They were silent for a moment after that, and with the silence came a strange, companionable feeling that reminded Nerys of nothing so much as the long nights spent with the members of her resistance cell, trading stories and hopes and dreams under an unfriendly sky. The parallel was disconcerting, to say the least.
"I'm sorry, Damar," she said, surprising herself. "About your family."
He didn't say anything for a long time, but when she darted a glance in his direction, she thought he looked a little more thoughtful than he had in some time, a little less lost. Garak, she noticed, was watching the exchange with something that was obviously meant to look like boredom.
"Thank you, Colonel," Damar said, finally.
"If you ask me," Garak said, sitting up as well, "the Dominion's getting sloppy. If it was a deliberate tactic to sap your resolve – and I believe that's what was intended – then it's clearly had the opposite effect. And that's highly suggestive." He paused, as though waiting for one or both of them to interject. Nerys and Damar exchanged glances, then shrugged in unison.
With a long-suffering sigh, Garak continued. "Well, you must see what that implies? Such appalling lack of intelligence when it comes to understanding the Cardassian family, the Cardassian sense of honor, suggests that the Vorta and the Founders have stopped even pretending to listen to whichever Cardassian is playing puppet for them now."
It was a deliberate shot at Damar, but Nerys was surprised to see him take the blow with good grace and a faint, self-deprecating smile. Undaunted by this lack of reaction, Garak straightened, warming to his subject matter. "It speaks to a certain level of discord among the ranks of our enemy, a lack of communication. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage."
"Of course," Damar said, deadpan. "Instead of going for their supply lines, we should have been ridiculing their lack of familiarity with the collected works of Preloc. How silly we were."
"No, there's something to that," Nerys said, and sat up as well; her view of the ceiling was becoming stale. "If we can use their ignorance somehow-"
"Using anything – doing anything – is out of the question as long as we're stuck down here," Damar said, and slammed his fist against his cot to punctuate the statement.
Garak's brief burst of energy seemed to have burned itself out. "There is something to be said for having resources at one's disposal."
With a wince, Nerys slumped back onto her cot. She'd been assigned to this sorry excuse for a resistance for precisely that reason – Cardassians were used to large-scale plotting, to playing games that had complicated pieces covering the board, to schemes and stratagems. Nerys was here to help them see beyond that, to point out the immense gains that could come from small-scale, simple, low-risk attacks carried out with surgical precision.
Three people against an army. The scale didn't get much smaller than that.
When the silence became less of an interlude and more of a state of being, Nerys allowed herself to retreat back into her own thoughts, combing through her memory yet again for ways in which they might be able to fight, ways in which they might be able to turn the tables on Weyoun. She wished they could get in touch with people who believed in a new Cardassia, people who believed as Tekeny Ghemor had believed, but she suspected any hint of a dissenting group within the Cardassian populace would have been eradicated immediately. If they were going to turn public opinion against the Dominion, they'd have to do it without the benefit of any organized, pre-existing structure. That didn't bode well.
The Bajoran resistance had been born of a half-century's terror and resentment, but it had only really come into its own once it became clear that the Bajorans who collaborated with the Cardassians were merely there to pay lip service to the people, to keep a steady supply of slave labor and line their own pockets. To expect the Cardassians to rise up against the Dominion in so little time was ludicrous – unless, as Garak suggested, the Dominion were to tip its hand in some way, by showing the Cardassian people how little they mattered in this so-called alliance. Maybe it wasn't about reaching the right targets anymore. Maybe it was about reaching the right people.
Or maybe, some small part of Nerys suggested, it was about waiting for the Prophets to intervene, as they had after the minefield had come down.
Somehow she suspected that might be a long wait.
"It's a shame," Garak said, as though reading her thoughts, "that the Prophets don't seem inclined to act on our behalf."
"The Prophets helped defend us against you," Nerys said, and it came out more harshly than she'd intended, but the anger felt good, felt real, felt like stepping into a cool cellar after such terrible heat. "They're hardly likely to switch sides."
"And here I thought we were all fighting for the same thing," Garak said, with deceptive mildness. There was something in his eyes, though, that made Nerys suspect he was spoiling for a fight every bit as much as she was.
"Maybe the Emissary could put in a good word for us," Damar said, with a sneer.
Nerys sat up again, whirled to face him. "Look, Damar, if you don't have anything to contribute-"
"I wasn't aware that anyone was contributing much of anything-"
Nerys was on her feet before she knew what she was doing. "At least we're talking!"
Damar jumped up as well. "Unless I've missed something, talk doesn't seem to be getting us out of this cellar!"
There was a long moment of silence, broken only by their heavy breathing. Nerys became aware of the fact that Garak was staring at both of them, eyes wide in an exaggerated parody of surprise.
And then, with a rueful smile, Nerys slumped back onto her cot. "Listen to us. We're talking about trying to sow discord within the Dominion, and we can't even go five minutes without bickering amongst ourselves."
After a tense moment, Damar's expression softened to match hers. "Not exactly the sort of resistance people write songs and stories about."
Nerys snorted. "If we win, let's swear to falsify the songs and stories so they make our victory seem much more impressive."
"I suppose a verse about the days we spent moping in a cellar might not go over particularly well," Damar said. "There are only so many rhymes for the word 'boredom'."
"If we win," Garak said softly, "we won't need to exaggerate our victory."
They were silent again for a long time after that, until Mila came back downstairs and told them about the Man They Couldn't Kill, until they found hope again in the most unlikely of places, in a disgraced ex-politician living in a cellar.
All Nerys could think, after that, was that maybe, just maybe, the Prophets had a hand in this after all. With Damar on their side, it seemed impossible to lose. Any day, she knew, a new Cardassia would rise from the ashes of the old. Anything else would be unthinkable
And then the unthinkable happened.
The day Damar died, the day a billion Cardassians died with him, the day the Dominion began the slow, unwieldy process of surrender, Nerys found herself a quiet corner in all the commotion of important diplomats, of soldiers and civilians and the walking wounded.
There, for the first time, she cursed the Prophets.
She cursed them for not interfering when they could so easily have prevented all this, cursed them for this devastation, cursed them for the devastation that had only ended seven years earlier. The words tasted like ashes in her mouth, and she regretted them as soon as they'd been uttered, but still she cursed them for stepping in only when their own interests were threatened, for sitting idly by while so many died-
"Colonel?"
She turned, furious, but faltered when she saw Garak. He seemed curiously off-balance, and his emotions played clearly across his face: surprise, frustration, a hint of disgust, something very much like concern, and, underlying it all, a lost, devastated look that Nerys hadn't seen on anyone since the Occupation had ended. "Colonel," he said again. "I couldn't help overhearing-"
"I don't have time for your games, Garak." She pushed past him and was surprised when he didn't hold his ground.
"I only wanted to say, Colonel, that I appreciate everything you did here. Our resistance would have died in its entirety without you. The Cardassian people would be extinct."
She turned, looked back, and saw something in Garak's face she couldn't identify, something she couldn't quite make out at first because it was something she'd never seen in him before: complete candor. Honesty. Sincerity.
He hesitated a moment, then reached out and touched her arm, briefly. "If your Prophets could find no way to prevent all this, perhaps they had a hand in sending you here."
And then he moved away, melting into the commotion and noise, and Nerys was left standing alone, in a quiet place.
VI. The past and future are conquered, reconciled.
"I promise, Colonel, we're doing everything we can." Even over the crackling, sputtering comm signal, Nog sounded frantic, and she pictured him moving from station to station, shoving aside the more junior officers in his hurry to get to the relevant consoles. "We'll have you out of there right away."
Grinning in spite of herself at the mental image, Nerys made another attempt at standing, then winced as her knee threatened to buckle again. With a sigh, she slumped back against the sheer face of the rock. "No rush, Lieutenant. Take your time."
Julian's voice was next, and he sounded nearly as worried as Nog. "How badly are you hurt, Colonel? Can you move?"
"Just wrenched my knee when the floor gave way." Nerys stared up at the cracks in what was now the ceiling, scowling. "And I may have bruised my dignity a little. Remind me to wear padded clothes the next time I decide to explore an archeological treasure trove of caves and tunnels."
Ezri's voice was next, and Nerys was relieved at the warmth of it, at the gentle tinge of good humor that meant she was going to get teased about this for weeks to come. "I'll remind him to remind you. Hang in there, Nerys. If you can get to the beam-out point on your own-"
"I'd be there already, trust me. You'll just have to keep tunnelling down until you can get a lock." Nerys took a closer look at what was now her ceiling – it seemed solid enough. For now. "Carefully."
"You got it."
The comm signal went dead, and Nerys was alone in a series of tunnels under a forgotten city on an alien world. With a sprained knee, to boot. Not exactly her finest hour.
She levered herself into a more comfortable position, stretching her leg out in front of her, and rested her head back against the stone wall, staring up at the hole in the ceiling, trying to hear the sound of the surgical drilling the Defiant was doing from space, even though she was far enough underground that there was no way she'd be able to hear it. When she got tired of listening for something she'd never be able to hear, she listened instead to her own breathing, to her own heartbeat, to the intermittent crackles of static that were her people's wordless signal that they were still on their way to get her.
And then, all at once, she started to laugh.
At first, she had a panicked sense that she must have been hurt worse than she thought, that she must have hit her head or lost a lot of blood, because there was no reason to feel so giddy. But after a quick check that turned up nothing beyond her knee and a number of bruises in unmentionable locations, she was still grinning, and the giggles were threatening to escape again.
Here she was, valiant leader of Deep Space Nine, supervising the overhaul of the Defiant that would make it more suitable for scientific and exploratory expeditions, in the process of running the paperwork for her new officers – some of the most brilliant minds Bajor and Starfleet had to offer – and she was spending part of these early days of her command with a busted knee, stuck on a planet that hadn't been inhabited for millennia. It was ridiculous. And it felt wonderful.
Sometimes it was like Odo was impossibly out of reach, like he'd never been there, like she'd dreamt him. Now, though, he might as well have been beside her, stifling a smile of his own, maybe rolling his eyes. And Sisko-
She still wasn't sure what had happened to Benjamin Sisko; nobody knew. Kasidy had insisted that he was unharmed, that he was with the Prophets, and after those terrible first few weeks, Jake had come forward with a similar story, looking like a different man. Nerys had no reason to doubt it. If anyone deserved some measure of peace, it was Sisko.
She'd heard of people experiencing the physical sensation of being with the Prophets in times of great need. That made sense; her people had survived the Occupation in large part due to their faith, after all, and when the war with the Dominion had broken out, there'd been another need for comfort, for assurance. She'd experienced it herself over the years, to greater and lesser degrees.
But this was a different story. There was no immediate threat – her people were good, the rest of the stonework was solid and not in danger of caving in, there were no unfriendlies about, and it was all just a matter of waiting. And yet she felt as though Sisko were sitting at her side, as though the Prophets were all around her, and that feeling had grown stronger and stronger, even as she wrestled with the fresh political issues of the selection of Bajor's new kai, even as she counseled her Bajoran crewmembers in the aftermath of the planet's religious upheaval. It wasn't simply a matter of assuming that everything would turn out for the best; it was trusting that it might, trusting that there was the potential left for good in a universe that sometimes seemed to turn its back on the righteous. It was knowing that people like Sisko and Odo could be gods, could be something beyond anyone's understanding, and still they were her friends.
It was having faith in Kira Nerys.
The war was over. She had no doubt another would take its place sooner or later, that still more death would follow, but for now, Nerys intended to live.
She looked up at the ceiling and laughed until her voice was hoarse, waiting for her friends, her family, to take her back among the gods and the Prophets and the people. To take her back among the stars.
Word Count: ~15,000
Characters: Kira Nerys, Odo, Shakaar Edon, Jadzia Dax, Benjamin Sisko, Julian Bashir, Tora Ziyal, Elim Garak, Damar, others
Warnings: Violence, but not beyond what we saw on the show.
Notes: Many, many thanks to
meddow for the eleventh-hour beta. Written for where_no_woman's First Anniversary Ficathon, for the prompt "Five times Kira Nerys's faith in the Prophets wavered, and one time she believed with all her soul". Quotations and title are from T.S. Eliot's "The Dry Salvages".Summary: The past and future are conquered, reconciled. Kira Nerys and the Prophets, through the years.
(Part 1/2)
IV. Lost in a shaft of sunlight.
"Nerys, wait!"
She didn't turn, too focused on the sound of one footstep after another, too focused on her heartbeat's too-loud thrumming in her ears, too focused on the feel of landing blow after blow, of doing damage, of doing something-
Ziyal was calling her name again, with a new urgency, with something that seemed a lot like fear. It took some effort, but eventually Nerys slowed her pace, slowed her breathing, and cast Ziyal a sidelong glance; she looked pale, shocked, but also a little thrilled. Their eyes met, and Ziyal went very quiet for a few moments.
"Your hand's bleeding," she said, finally.
Nerys had been aware of the ache, but it was the kind of pain she'd reveled in during her days with the Resistance, the kind of pain that said This is under my control and I caused this and This is because I won. She looked closer, winced at the way the knuckles were already starting to swell. Her head was spinning.
"There's an emergency medkit somewhere along this corridor," she said, but Ziyal was already moving to the nearest panel – Nerys wondered, idly, if it was her artist's eye that had drawn her to it so quickly, or if it was merely the vaunted Cardassian attention to detail at work.
They were quiet for a while longer while Ziyal patched up Nerys's hand. A Bajoran security officer walked by; Nerys met his eyes, daring him to comment, but he merely bowed his head and moved on. She wondered what else he'd been turning away from lately.
"Back there," Ziyal began, and then winced sympathetically, adjusting her grip on the dermal regenerator. "Sorry. I guess I make a better artist than a doctor."
Nerys laughed, expelled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in. "Just don't get too creative. I'd rather not wind up with my hand on display at the Cardassian Institute of Art."
Ziyal smiled at that, but only for a moment. "Nerys," she said, "it's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but back there... that wasn't just about me, was it?"
"It was about Damar," Nerys said, with a carefully casual shrug. "Three months of working with him. It was bound to come out sometime."
"So you decided to pound him into the floor," Ziyal said, and then grinned. "I can't believe you did that."
Nerys managed another smile, but it was more weary; the adrenaline was wearing off fast, and with it went the certainty that what she'd done had been a good idea. If Damar raised a stir, if he tried to get her arrested, if he went to Dukat-
And then she felt a wave of relief so profound that she nearly burst out laughing again. If Damar went to Dukat, he'd have some explaining to do, and given Dukat's devotion to his daughter, that particular conversation wasn't likely to be a pleasant one. She almost wished she could be there to see it.
"There," Ziyal pronounced. "Good as new. Does it hurt?"
Nerys flexed her hand, experimentally, and was surprised when there was only a faint twinge in response. "Not at all," she said. "You're pretty good at that."
"It's a lot like sewing," she said, and by the faint flush in her cheeks, Nerys thought she could guess who'd been teaching Ziyal to sew. Her expression shifted almost immediately, to something colder, something strange. "I hope they're all right."
"I'm sure they are," Nerys said, and, when Ziyal gave only a miserable nod, she clasped her shoulder. "They're coming back, Ziyal."
Ziyal wouldn't meet her eyes for a second, but when she finally looked up, it was with enough hope that Nerys found herself taking solace in it, found herself almost believing her own words. "You're right," Ziyal said, briskly, and closed the medkit. "I'm being silly. They'll make it back somehow."
"I'm sure they will," Nerys said, with more certainty than she felt.
She flexed her hand experimentally while Ziyal put the medkit away, then rolled her shoulders; that last punch had been hard enough that she'd felt the impact all the way back to her spine. Not as much as Damar would have felt it, of course – she wondered how long it would take him to come to. She was reasonably sure that Dukat would be able to keep him in line, but she'd still have to watch her back. Lately it seemed like that was all she knew how to do.
Ziyal was still standing beside the panel where she'd put the medkit, and, stepping closer, Nerys was startled to see that she was shaking. "Ziyal?"
Ziyal glanced up, gave a ghost of a smile, and Nerys wondered, not for the first time, how a father like Dukat could produce someone like Ziyal, how anyone could live the life she had and still be disturbed by violence. "I'm sorry, Nerys. I think I'd like to go back to my quarters."
"Of course," Nerys said, softly. "I'll walk with you."
They went in silence, broken only when a flurry of activity at the end of the hallway signalled that Damar was awake and angry. Ziyal winced, glanced down every time someone passed by, but Nerys looked them in the eyes, even nodded to the trio of Jem'Hadar soldiers who barrelled past to investigate the commotion.
"Aren't you worried?" Ziyal whispered.
Nerys snorted. "Damar's the one who should be worried. Trust me, Ziyal, your father's going to take your side, no matter what."
Ziyal was quiet for a long time after that.
They were nearly at Ziyal's quarters when she turned, smile already dying on her lips. "Nerys, do you mind if I ask – as a friend – why Odo isn't-"
"I'd rather not talk about it," Nerys said, perhaps a little more sharply than she'd intended, because while Ziyal immediately looked chagrined, she also took on a contemplative air, as though something had suddenly become clear to her.
"I understand," she said, and they arrived at the door to her quarters.
"Would you like me to come in for a minute?"
Ziyal's smile returned, but now it was apologetic. "If it's all the same to you, Nerys, I'd rather spend a little time alone."
"Of course," Nerys said, but neither of them made any move to leave.
"Thank you for what you did back there," Ziyal said, finally. "Things have been difficult lately. Confusing. It's good to know there's somebody who cares."
"Lots of people care, Ziyal." Nerys pulled her into a one-armed hug, ignoring the strain on her sore muscles. "You don't have to feel alone here."
Ziyal shifted, and Nerys could feel her shaking again. "I don't think I've ever really felt alone. At the labor camp-" She swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried again. "At the labor camp, I wasn't treated well, exactly, but it wasn't entirely terrible, either. Some of the guards had been there nearly as long as we had. They'd talk to me, and sometimes I managed to convince them not to hurt the other prisoners." Another breath, and Nerys glanced down; Ziyal's eyes were shining, and a faint smile had come to her face. "And then you and my father came out of nowhere."
Nerys decided that now wasn't a good time to remind her that Dukat had only been seeking her out in order to kill her and avoid the scandal, and settled instead for patting her on the shoulder for a few moments.
"Sometimes it feels like there are too many people who think too highly of me," Ziyal said, in a murmur. "It's difficult being all things to all people."
Nerys chuckled, but it was without humor. "Tell me about it. I think everyone on the station's feeling conflicts of loyalty, Ziyal. Yours is just a little more pronounced than most."
Ziyal took a step back, met Nerys's eyes squarely with the quiet determination that she'd seen on several occasions. "So is Odo's."
Nerys felt her face twist into a scowl, and she worked on smoothing out her expression. "Odo made the wrong choice. You haven't yet. Just-" She sighed, rolling out her shoulders again; right now, a drink at Quark's was starting to seem more and more appealing. "Just remember what your father's done, in the past. Remember what he tried to do."
Ziyal nodded, and Nerys turned away. Before she could get too far, though, Ziyal called out, "Nerys." When she turned, Ziyal was smiling, uncertainly. "You've always trusted in the Prophets, Nerys. I think you might need that faith now more than ever."
As she raised a hand in farewell, Nerys smiled back, but the smile didn't reach her eyes.
V. In the sombre season or the sudden fury.
There was one thing to be said for living in a cellar: at least it was cooler than outside.
Oh, not pleasantly so – that would be too much to ask. Just enough that Nerys didn't feel like the air was sapping her strength, didn't feel like she was moving too slowly all the time, didn't feel like she was trapped. No more so than usual, anyway.
The cooler temperatures seemed to be bothering Damar more than they bothered Garak; Nerys suspected the latter had grown used to the more Bajoran-friendly environmental controls on the station, probably in spite of himself. He'd still managed to keep up the odd complaint about the chill, but it was a half-hearted attempt at best.
And then their rebellion had been obliterated before it had a chance to begin, and nobody felt much like complaining about the chill.
Damar had been quiet ever since Weyoun's transmission; Garak, on the other hand, had been talking almost ceaselessly, spinning ideas and suggestions that became more and more ridiculous as time wore on. At first, Nerys engaged with him on the more plausible ideas, argued with him, tried to make them seem feasible, even tried to draw Damar into the debate. Now she didn't bother.
When even Garak had gone quiet, she knew they were in trouble.
At some point, Mila brought them sleeping cots, but nobody felt much like sleeping. She brought them food, but nobody felt much like eating. Nerys wished she hadn't brought up the idea of spending the rest of the war in the cellar, because it was becoming more and more plausible by the minute.
Her heart raced sometimes, and she paced, feeling like the walls were caving in on her, feeling like the whole of Cardassia Prime was ready to collapse on top of her, feeling like maybe it already had. But those moments passed, leaving her as silent and lethargic as the others.
It came as some surprise, then, when it was Damar who stirred himself first one day and said, softly, "It's nearly time for the Edosian orchids to bloom, you know."
Nerys turned, caught sight of his wistful expression, and nearly laughed at the surreal non-sequitur. When she saw Garak's face, though, the smile died on her lips. He'd gone very still, and his expression was unreadable. Trust Cardassians to get stirred up over flora.
Damar sat up, though he avoided looking at them both. He seemed almost embarrassed. "My son loved Edosian orchids. This time of year, he'd always be after me to take him to the botanical gardens."
Garak smiled, mask firmly back in place. "It is rather a nice time to be on Cardassia Prime, isn't it? If it weren't for the occupying horde threatening our imminent destruction, this would nearly qualify as a pleasant holiday."
Nerys snorted. "Complete with world-class accommodations."
Garak drew a finger across the table he'd dusted earlier that day. "You can't deny the efficiency of the maid service."
Damar cast a wry look at the ceiling. "And the view needs to be seen to be believed."
They were silent for a moment after that, and with the silence came a strange, companionable feeling that reminded Nerys of nothing so much as the long nights spent with the members of her resistance cell, trading stories and hopes and dreams under an unfriendly sky. The parallel was disconcerting, to say the least.
"I'm sorry, Damar," she said, surprising herself. "About your family."
He didn't say anything for a long time, but when she darted a glance in his direction, she thought he looked a little more thoughtful than he had in some time, a little less lost. Garak, she noticed, was watching the exchange with something that was obviously meant to look like boredom.
"Thank you, Colonel," Damar said, finally.
"If you ask me," Garak said, sitting up as well, "the Dominion's getting sloppy. If it was a deliberate tactic to sap your resolve – and I believe that's what was intended – then it's clearly had the opposite effect. And that's highly suggestive." He paused, as though waiting for one or both of them to interject. Nerys and Damar exchanged glances, then shrugged in unison.
With a long-suffering sigh, Garak continued. "Well, you must see what that implies? Such appalling lack of intelligence when it comes to understanding the Cardassian family, the Cardassian sense of honor, suggests that the Vorta and the Founders have stopped even pretending to listen to whichever Cardassian is playing puppet for them now."
It was a deliberate shot at Damar, but Nerys was surprised to see him take the blow with good grace and a faint, self-deprecating smile. Undaunted by this lack of reaction, Garak straightened, warming to his subject matter. "It speaks to a certain level of discord among the ranks of our enemy, a lack of communication. Perhaps we can use that to our advantage."
"Of course," Damar said, deadpan. "Instead of going for their supply lines, we should have been ridiculing their lack of familiarity with the collected works of Preloc. How silly we were."
"No, there's something to that," Nerys said, and sat up as well; her view of the ceiling was becoming stale. "If we can use their ignorance somehow-"
"Using anything – doing anything – is out of the question as long as we're stuck down here," Damar said, and slammed his fist against his cot to punctuate the statement.
Garak's brief burst of energy seemed to have burned itself out. "There is something to be said for having resources at one's disposal."
With a wince, Nerys slumped back onto her cot. She'd been assigned to this sorry excuse for a resistance for precisely that reason – Cardassians were used to large-scale plotting, to playing games that had complicated pieces covering the board, to schemes and stratagems. Nerys was here to help them see beyond that, to point out the immense gains that could come from small-scale, simple, low-risk attacks carried out with surgical precision.
Three people against an army. The scale didn't get much smaller than that.
When the silence became less of an interlude and more of a state of being, Nerys allowed herself to retreat back into her own thoughts, combing through her memory yet again for ways in which they might be able to fight, ways in which they might be able to turn the tables on Weyoun. She wished they could get in touch with people who believed in a new Cardassia, people who believed as Tekeny Ghemor had believed, but she suspected any hint of a dissenting group within the Cardassian populace would have been eradicated immediately. If they were going to turn public opinion against the Dominion, they'd have to do it without the benefit of any organized, pre-existing structure. That didn't bode well.
The Bajoran resistance had been born of a half-century's terror and resentment, but it had only really come into its own once it became clear that the Bajorans who collaborated with the Cardassians were merely there to pay lip service to the people, to keep a steady supply of slave labor and line their own pockets. To expect the Cardassians to rise up against the Dominion in so little time was ludicrous – unless, as Garak suggested, the Dominion were to tip its hand in some way, by showing the Cardassian people how little they mattered in this so-called alliance. Maybe it wasn't about reaching the right targets anymore. Maybe it was about reaching the right people.
Or maybe, some small part of Nerys suggested, it was about waiting for the Prophets to intervene, as they had after the minefield had come down.
Somehow she suspected that might be a long wait.
"It's a shame," Garak said, as though reading her thoughts, "that the Prophets don't seem inclined to act on our behalf."
"The Prophets helped defend us against you," Nerys said, and it came out more harshly than she'd intended, but the anger felt good, felt real, felt like stepping into a cool cellar after such terrible heat. "They're hardly likely to switch sides."
"And here I thought we were all fighting for the same thing," Garak said, with deceptive mildness. There was something in his eyes, though, that made Nerys suspect he was spoiling for a fight every bit as much as she was.
"Maybe the Emissary could put in a good word for us," Damar said, with a sneer.
Nerys sat up again, whirled to face him. "Look, Damar, if you don't have anything to contribute-"
"I wasn't aware that anyone was contributing much of anything-"
Nerys was on her feet before she knew what she was doing. "At least we're talking!"
Damar jumped up as well. "Unless I've missed something, talk doesn't seem to be getting us out of this cellar!"
There was a long moment of silence, broken only by their heavy breathing. Nerys became aware of the fact that Garak was staring at both of them, eyes wide in an exaggerated parody of surprise.
And then, with a rueful smile, Nerys slumped back onto her cot. "Listen to us. We're talking about trying to sow discord within the Dominion, and we can't even go five minutes without bickering amongst ourselves."
After a tense moment, Damar's expression softened to match hers. "Not exactly the sort of resistance people write songs and stories about."
Nerys snorted. "If we win, let's swear to falsify the songs and stories so they make our victory seem much more impressive."
"I suppose a verse about the days we spent moping in a cellar might not go over particularly well," Damar said. "There are only so many rhymes for the word 'boredom'."
"If we win," Garak said softly, "we won't need to exaggerate our victory."
They were silent again for a long time after that, until Mila came back downstairs and told them about the Man They Couldn't Kill, until they found hope again in the most unlikely of places, in a disgraced ex-politician living in a cellar.
All Nerys could think, after that, was that maybe, just maybe, the Prophets had a hand in this after all. With Damar on their side, it seemed impossible to lose. Any day, she knew, a new Cardassia would rise from the ashes of the old. Anything else would be unthinkable
And then the unthinkable happened.
The day Damar died, the day a billion Cardassians died with him, the day the Dominion began the slow, unwieldy process of surrender, Nerys found herself a quiet corner in all the commotion of important diplomats, of soldiers and civilians and the walking wounded.
There, for the first time, she cursed the Prophets.
She cursed them for not interfering when they could so easily have prevented all this, cursed them for this devastation, cursed them for the devastation that had only ended seven years earlier. The words tasted like ashes in her mouth, and she regretted them as soon as they'd been uttered, but still she cursed them for stepping in only when their own interests were threatened, for sitting idly by while so many died-
"Colonel?"
She turned, furious, but faltered when she saw Garak. He seemed curiously off-balance, and his emotions played clearly across his face: surprise, frustration, a hint of disgust, something very much like concern, and, underlying it all, a lost, devastated look that Nerys hadn't seen on anyone since the Occupation had ended. "Colonel," he said again. "I couldn't help overhearing-"
"I don't have time for your games, Garak." She pushed past him and was surprised when he didn't hold his ground.
"I only wanted to say, Colonel, that I appreciate everything you did here. Our resistance would have died in its entirety without you. The Cardassian people would be extinct."
She turned, looked back, and saw something in Garak's face she couldn't identify, something she couldn't quite make out at first because it was something she'd never seen in him before: complete candor. Honesty. Sincerity.
He hesitated a moment, then reached out and touched her arm, briefly. "If your Prophets could find no way to prevent all this, perhaps they had a hand in sending you here."
And then he moved away, melting into the commotion and noise, and Nerys was left standing alone, in a quiet place.
VI. The past and future are conquered, reconciled.
"I promise, Colonel, we're doing everything we can." Even over the crackling, sputtering comm signal, Nog sounded frantic, and she pictured him moving from station to station, shoving aside the more junior officers in his hurry to get to the relevant consoles. "We'll have you out of there right away."
Grinning in spite of herself at the mental image, Nerys made another attempt at standing, then winced as her knee threatened to buckle again. With a sigh, she slumped back against the sheer face of the rock. "No rush, Lieutenant. Take your time."
Julian's voice was next, and he sounded nearly as worried as Nog. "How badly are you hurt, Colonel? Can you move?"
"Just wrenched my knee when the floor gave way." Nerys stared up at the cracks in what was now the ceiling, scowling. "And I may have bruised my dignity a little. Remind me to wear padded clothes the next time I decide to explore an archeological treasure trove of caves and tunnels."
Ezri's voice was next, and Nerys was relieved at the warmth of it, at the gentle tinge of good humor that meant she was going to get teased about this for weeks to come. "I'll remind him to remind you. Hang in there, Nerys. If you can get to the beam-out point on your own-"
"I'd be there already, trust me. You'll just have to keep tunnelling down until you can get a lock." Nerys took a closer look at what was now her ceiling – it seemed solid enough. For now. "Carefully."
"You got it."
The comm signal went dead, and Nerys was alone in a series of tunnels under a forgotten city on an alien world. With a sprained knee, to boot. Not exactly her finest hour.
She levered herself into a more comfortable position, stretching her leg out in front of her, and rested her head back against the stone wall, staring up at the hole in the ceiling, trying to hear the sound of the surgical drilling the Defiant was doing from space, even though she was far enough underground that there was no way she'd be able to hear it. When she got tired of listening for something she'd never be able to hear, she listened instead to her own breathing, to her own heartbeat, to the intermittent crackles of static that were her people's wordless signal that they were still on their way to get her.
And then, all at once, she started to laugh.
At first, she had a panicked sense that she must have been hurt worse than she thought, that she must have hit her head or lost a lot of blood, because there was no reason to feel so giddy. But after a quick check that turned up nothing beyond her knee and a number of bruises in unmentionable locations, she was still grinning, and the giggles were threatening to escape again.
Here she was, valiant leader of Deep Space Nine, supervising the overhaul of the Defiant that would make it more suitable for scientific and exploratory expeditions, in the process of running the paperwork for her new officers – some of the most brilliant minds Bajor and Starfleet had to offer – and she was spending part of these early days of her command with a busted knee, stuck on a planet that hadn't been inhabited for millennia. It was ridiculous. And it felt wonderful.
Sometimes it was like Odo was impossibly out of reach, like he'd never been there, like she'd dreamt him. Now, though, he might as well have been beside her, stifling a smile of his own, maybe rolling his eyes. And Sisko-
She still wasn't sure what had happened to Benjamin Sisko; nobody knew. Kasidy had insisted that he was unharmed, that he was with the Prophets, and after those terrible first few weeks, Jake had come forward with a similar story, looking like a different man. Nerys had no reason to doubt it. If anyone deserved some measure of peace, it was Sisko.
She'd heard of people experiencing the physical sensation of being with the Prophets in times of great need. That made sense; her people had survived the Occupation in large part due to their faith, after all, and when the war with the Dominion had broken out, there'd been another need for comfort, for assurance. She'd experienced it herself over the years, to greater and lesser degrees.
But this was a different story. There was no immediate threat – her people were good, the rest of the stonework was solid and not in danger of caving in, there were no unfriendlies about, and it was all just a matter of waiting. And yet she felt as though Sisko were sitting at her side, as though the Prophets were all around her, and that feeling had grown stronger and stronger, even as she wrestled with the fresh political issues of the selection of Bajor's new kai, even as she counseled her Bajoran crewmembers in the aftermath of the planet's religious upheaval. It wasn't simply a matter of assuming that everything would turn out for the best; it was trusting that it might, trusting that there was the potential left for good in a universe that sometimes seemed to turn its back on the righteous. It was knowing that people like Sisko and Odo could be gods, could be something beyond anyone's understanding, and still they were her friends.
It was having faith in Kira Nerys.
The war was over. She had no doubt another would take its place sooner or later, that still more death would follow, but for now, Nerys intended to live.
She looked up at the ceiling and laughed until her voice was hoarse, waiting for her friends, her family, to take her back among the gods and the Prophets and the people. To take her back among the stars.
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Date: 2010-06-27 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-27 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-06-27 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-28 03:39 am (UTC)Kira's really one of those characters you could just muse on and on about forever
I definitely found that. It wouldn't have been any great hardship finding another six scenes to write about Kira - the trick was actually finding a good point to stop. ;)
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Date: 2010-06-27 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-07-02 08:43 pm (UTC)