[DS9] Rebuilding (Kira/Dax | G)

[eponymous_rose]

Written for cosmic_llin's fandom_stocking. ♥ Can also be read at the AO3 here.

Title: Rebuilding
Word Count: 1,500
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Pairing: Jadzia Dax/Kira Nerys

Summary: Jadzia has a new holosuite program. Kira is out of excuses.



"You coming?"

Nerys froze, hands hovering over her console, and found herself looking for an error message, a warning light, a core breach, anything that would serve as a distraction. "Um," she said, which she figured was an utterly brilliant way to stall for time.

Jadzia loped down the steps to the heart of Ops, heaving a long-suffering sigh. "We only have the holosuite booked for an hour. I promise, it won't be too relaxing."

"Uh," Nerys said, cleverly, and glanced in Sisko's direction. "Commander, wasn't there the-"

"I don't believe so," he said, sounding entirely too gleeful.

"I'm sure I could-"

"Have a good time, Major." And with a conspiratorial nod at Jadzia, he swept back into his office.

Jadzia leaned on the console next to Nerys as she signed off on some busy-work. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who's so opposed to having fun."

"I'm not opposed to having fun! It's having fun in a silly holographic environment-"

"Besides, I have a new program for us to try out," Jadzia said, as though Nerys hadn't spoken. "You'll love it."

"I'm sure." Nerys stared down at her console, which still traitorously refused to provide her with a reasonable excuse for saying no. She sighed. "All right. Lead on."

The program was nothing like she'd expected. Jadzia's favored holographic relaxation spots tended to be gloriously decadent, full of twisting passages and layers of complexity that went far beyond the flimsy excuse for a plot. Nerys had seen enough pleasure gardens and alien beaches by now that she suspected some part of her was beginning to get used to them, to accept them as yet another quirk of Jadzia's, maybe even to look forward to them, a bit. A little bit.

It came as a surprise, then, just how disappointed she was when the holosuite doors opened, and they walked into a bare, dimly lit room.

"Well?" Jadzia turned, with a flourish. "What do you think?"

Nerys peered at a strip of paint hanging off the wall. "I think it could use a little work."

"I was hoping you'd say that." With an easy grace, Jadzia folded herself into a cross-legged position on the floor. "Would you sit down? You're going to give me a kink in my neck."

"I-" Nerys said, and couldn't think of a reasonable excuse for saying no. She sat.

They were quiet for a moment, and Nerys became aware of the smell of holographic dust, thick in the air. The detail wasn't altogether unpleasant: it lent the room an air of history, spoke of half-remembered things.

"So?" Jadzia was looking at her, expectantly.

Nerys glanced up at the ceiling, where a thin veil of cobwebs had taken up residence. "Am I missing something, or are we just sitting in a box?"

"You're always saying that's what a holosuite amounts to." With a little flourish of her wrist, Jadzia deadpanned, "Ta-daa."

Nerys couldn't quite hold back a smile. "Very funny."

"Ah, but there's more," Jadzia said, and Nerys saw again the flair of the performer in her friend, wondered whether this was a trait from one of Dax's previous hosts, or whether it was something of her own that Jadzia had brought to the joining. "Let's just say I come here when I need to think."

"Great thoughts?"

"The best kind." Jadzia glanced up at the ceiling. "Computer, initiate object Dax-zero-two, authorization nine-delta."

The computer bleeped, and, with a shifting-sand sound, a small blue ball fuzzed into existence, hovering between them.

Nerys stared at the ball, which did nothing in particular. "Are you sure I'm not missing something? I'm starting to feel like I'm missing something."

Jadzia grinned. "This is something special, trust me. Installed it under Quark's nose. I picked it up from a Talarian trader passing through – it powers down for good after a while, of course, and I'm pretty sure he exaggerated how long it'll last, but in the meantime-"

And the ball shifted, morphing, shimmering into the outline of a face, arms, legs. A doll, Nerys realized, and reached out to touch one of the button eyes, cool and chipped. Imperfect, like the room, and all the more real for it.

"It works by memory," Jadzia was saying. "By thought. I think of Audrid's daughter's favourite doll, and there it is."

Nerys lifted the toy in her hands, felt the weight of it. "Why not just use the voice commands? This is a holosuite, after all."

"Yeah," Jadzia said. "But it's more fun to do it by thought."

In Nerys's hands, the doll shifted into a string of glittering beads that fell through her fingers like sand, bouncing on the hard floor, bouncing into the hard floor, shimmering across to the walls and up to the ceiling, bathing the dingy little room in a strange, iridescent light.

Nerys let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. "What is it?"

"Whatever you want." Jadzia nodded at the ceiling, and a glittering chandelier melted down toward them, bathing the room in a warm glow. "I remember going to some event with my family, at a house down the road. The people there had the most ridiculous, extravagant chandelier. I couldn't stop looking at it."

Nerys smiled, but she couldn't suppress a shiver of envy, thinking about a childhood, a whole world so blessed with light. "It's beautiful."

"It is," Jadzia said, and the chandelier dissolved back into the ceiling. "But that's not why we're here. You give it a try. I can transfer the controls-"

"Oh, no." Nerys held up her hands. "I'm not an artist, remember? I'm-" She paused; Jadzia's gaze was unyielding. "I don't know. I'm better at tearing things down than building them up."

"Consider it a challenge," Jadzia said, and added, "Computer, transfer controls to Major Kira Nerys."

"Wait, I-"

And the walls were crumbling, whispering away into dust all around them, the entire room groaning and swaying. Nerys closed her eyes, clenched her hands into fists, tried to picture the room whole again, but all she could hear was the warping of tortured beams-

Hands closed over hers. "It's all right," she heard, over the destruction. "You're trying too hard. Just think of the room. Remember the way it was."

A beam crashed down next to them, and with it came the pervasive smell of dust and decay, and with that, Nerys remembered stepping into the room, remembered sitting on the cool floor, and silence fell so completely that she almost didn't dare open her eyes.

When she did, the room was silent, shimmering all around her, and Jadzia was clasping her hands, smiling. "There, you see? Nothing to it."

Nerys blinked up at the ceiling, then laughed, squeezed Jadzia's hands back. "Right. Nothing to it." She let her gaze wander along the walls, and then, with a thought, sent a shivering, twisting vine snaking across them, blossoming thick, green leaves as it went. Within seconds, the room was coated in greenery, smelling lush and tropical and strange.

"You're a natural," Jadzia said. Meeting her eyes again, Nerys felt, not for the first time, like she was looking into a well, into a void of fathomless depths that was somehow warm and welcome all the same.

The ceiling rolled back above them like it was a scroll of paper, revealing an emptiness of stars overhead, distant and beckoning, carrying cool breezes and whispered song. Nerys looked up; the illusion faded, the vines flickered, and the room slipped back into dust and ruin.

"I think that's about it for the power cell on that," Jadzia said, after a moment, and shrugged apologetically. "These things never last long."

Nerys realized she was still holding Jadzia's hands, and made no move to let them go. "Thank you," she said, after a moment. "I think I needed that."

Jadzia smiled, then added, in a soft voice, "I hate to say I told you so-"

Nerys rolled her eyes. "Oh, you do not hate to say it. You love to say it. You'll take any opportunity to say it."

Jadzia quirked a brow. "Guilty as charged."

And in that mischievous smile, Nerys saw an invitation, and the sheer ridiculousness of their situation struck her. Here they were, holding hands, sitting on the floor of a musty old room that wasn't even a real musty old room, a musty old room that was actually a glorified box with a bunch of holoemitters. And yes, that was almost certainly an invitation in Jadzia's eyes.

Once again, Nerys cast around her mind for apologies, for justifications. Once again, there was no reasonable excuse for saying no.

She closed the space between them with a smile.