NOTE: Some of you may be wondering at the title. I suggest you read the novelization of “What You Leave Behind” and then you will understand — since this story takes place after the final episode of DS9. To TPTB: Thanks for letting us hitchhike a ride with you into the future.
It had been many years since their parting on the homeworld. The Link remembered intimately the pull between love and need as Odo had returned to cure the Link. Each step had brought both pain at leaving and relief at returning. But now nearly twenty years after that day the healing, not only of the disease but of the prejudices against “solids” as well, was underway. It was not yet at a symbiotic stage for living side by side with humanoids but a newer sense of diplomacy existed. Why, even the Link’s appreciation of the few remaining Vortas had evolved. Things solid in the Universe were no longer taken quite so much for granted; a new respect was forming even as the wounds of a solids-inflicted disease healed in the memory. Even as the healing continued, however, the Link found itself faced with another immediate task, something they would send out one to be called Odo to accomplish.
Throughout the years, the pull had intensified, a calling that the Link could no longer ignore — and so once again Odo was sent forth into space.
(-|-)
The pain had been growing quicker in the past few months, the pain of incompleteness and of something else. There was a sickness that could not be cured despite every effort, medical and non. All hope was nearly gone, leaving a shallow empty existence. Who would have thought the days before, those years since Odo had left, would culminate into this decripit mess.
Until the day Odo returned, bringing new life – and a cure; bringing the knowledge of the Link and the new peace that was offered there.
“Odo, is it really you?” The voice was disbelieving. How much distance he must have crossed.
“Yes, it’s me,” answered a gruff voice, tempered and softened by years of a teaching peace mixed with an eternal emptiness.
“I knew someday you would return, that you would see the error of your ways. You should have left with me that day.”
Odo laughed slightly. “There was no error in the path I took, only that I did not take it sooner. Loving a ‘solid’ has never been something I have regretted.”
“Well, it is never too late to change your mind.”
“I am surprised to see your distrust so intact, Laas. I had hoped that the years would have changed that.”
“I am sorry to disappoint you, Odo, but the years have done nothing except reinforce my distrust. We have reason to believe that it was a group of ‘solids’ who gave us this disease.” Laas settled gently against a rockface behind him, taking in the smooth coldness of its support. “What would you have us think?”
“Us? The pull to this location led me to believe that another Link existed here.” The eagerness in Odo’s voice tinged Laas’ mind with suspicion. “There are more of you then?”
“Yes, and all are plagued by this debilitating sickness.” There was tremendous disgust in the Changeling’s dry voice, disgust and anger.
“Laas, the solids didn’t give you this disease — I did.”
“What?” the Changeling responded, a low tone backed by indignation.
“I didn’t realize it but I had a virus planted in me so that when I linked with other changelings, they would contract the virus as well and die. The entire Link was infected.”
“*Was* infected? Then the Link no longer exists.”
“No, the Link is intact,” Odo assured. “Dr. Bashir found the cure and at the end of the war I returned to the Link to heal — just as I have come to you today. My mission is to cure you and invite you to join the Great Link.”
“I am not sure. There are over 60 of us here, but that means more than 30 of us left to find.” Laas paced a stiff perimeter around Odo. “I am not sure if we would be ready to retrn.”
“I understand, Laas, and if you do not want to return, we will accept that but the Link is a very different place now and I would think that many of youwould find a good deal of completeness there.” Odo paused. “But you can decide that later. First let me cure this link.” He extended his hand solemnly.
(-|-)
Odo sat staring out the window, not anything too remarkable except that Odo was disguised as a window himself. How long it had been since he had stared at these stars. He heard the door open and close, a smooth shooshing sound that amazingly filled part of the void inside of him. He sensed the new occupant of the room walk over to the sill. She sat in the cat’s eye and leaned a weary head against what she thought to be the same windowpane she had been leaning against these past 21 years. Many days life resembled something normal, but today things had been particularly tough. Something inside told her that it had been twenty-one years to the day since she arrived back at the station after saying good-bye.
With a deep sigh, Kira Nerys moved her body from the window sill to stand before the prayer wheel. Odo listened as words of Bajoran goodwill and love flowed from her body and into the otherwise silent room.
“Keep him in health and peace. Guide him to a life of happiness and fulfillent. Keep him safe; my love, keep him in your watch.”
Kira stumbled from the mandela, unable to bear the strength of heart she still bore him. While she knew and understood his decision, it still had never been easy. She returned to the window sill, bracing herself with arms at her side. It was unable for her to imagine the years .. the near lifetime she had spent on this station. First as a member of the Shakaar resistance. Next as its First Officer. Then its Commanding Officer. 21 years had passed and Kira Nerys still reported every morning to the office overlooking Ops. It was were she belonged, where fellow officers and friends had grown into her life as a family.
Of course Bajor had become a much different place once the Restoration swept over the land. The Emissary’s victory over the Kosst Amojan had begun a new age for Bajor, a period that had even tried to adopt Kira into its management with her election as Prime Minister. But the term had lasted a mere 4 days before her resignation and return to Deep Space Nine. Besides, Sarish Rez made a much better go at it than anyone Kira had ever known; the man had politics and compassion blended beautifully in his pagh.
A deep breath filled lungs before being shrugged off by a figure retreating to her bedroom.
And Odo could not help feel pain at the tears he saw fall.
(-|-)
He floated carefully into the room, maintaining his appearance as air molecules. If he had eyes, they would have closed ever so briefly at the beauty he had always seen in her. Her hair reached well past Kira’s shoulders now, the vibrant red only enhanced by the brilliant metallic strands of silver that now wove their way into the mix. Lines of age marked 21 years worth of fear, anger, stress and trouble; emotions he had not been there to share and soothe. There were some signs of joy, the sight of which he was grateful for. Perhaps Ezri and Bashir were to thank for that … maybe even Quark.
Odo moved closer to Kira, silently reaching a physcial proximity that he never imagined could be his again. Despite years of paradise in the Link, there would always be the lure of this eden, housed in the pagh and love of the woman before him. This one last time he would be the flying fish.
(-|-)
Kira awoke from a desperate restless sleep with a shiver, a reaction to her dreams that was all too common. Yet there was something in the air this time that made 21 years of separation disappear. A sound caught in her throat, a start at hello. He was there in the room with her; this much she knew. On some level, despite years of shattered daydreams and hopeful nightmares, she knew. Kira laid awake a few moments; hovering between the pain of not saying hello, not being with him, and the pain of having to say good-bye again; hovering betwen flying alone and drowning.
After a few moments more, a smile formed on her lips, tears of tart joy rolling down the worn lines etched on her face. Odo moved in closer, blanketing her. He raised the temperature he maintained and waited until his beloved fell asleep.
(-|-)
There was much commotion upon his return; most wanting to know where he had been and what luck there had been in curing the Link. There was both disbelief at his return and surprise at what had taken him quite so long. The one called Odo could only tell them in simple terms as he concentrated, for the time being, on the few precious moments he had spent in her presence before returning to the Link.
(-|-)