This is not my character. None of them are. I am not a Founder, Vorta, or Jem'Hadar. Don't kill me.
He finds the wall on level 35 of the station the first week he is there. A service corridor, with no functional or useful systems in it, nowhere anyone will ever go.
It is unremarkable, bare, and empty. Like his soul was, just last week. And there, using a laser welder, he carves the first name.
Jennifer Sisko.
It is nothing, just a scratch on the wall, and when he has carved it he can walk away and leave her behind.The day he returns from the Nol-Ennis camp, he walks to the wall again. The emptiness he sees there is blinding – Jennifer is alone. And so he carves another name beside her:
Opaka.
Although he doesn't like having to do it, Mullibok is sent back to Bajor. It's not fair, it's not right, he hates these choices and he hates to have to make them. He walks the station late at night, and finds himself standing in front of that wall. And even though he knows that Mullibok is alive, and that he is safe, he grieves for him all the same. And so another name joins the first two.
Mullibok.
Amin Marritza dies on the Promenade, and he wonders what the price must now be for peace. Deep down, he knows that it wouldn't have been as easy as one might hope – even if Marritza had survived the attack, even if he hadn't been attacked at all. But it would have been a start, and as he writes Marritza's name on the wall he wonders if he should just write "peace" on there as well.
Amin Marritza.
Capturing Neela broke his heart – he liked her, he knew O'Brien liked her, and he blames Vedek Winn. Not being able to do anything about it doesn't mean that Winn hasn't brainwashed that girl, doesn't mean that she won't be sent to a Bajoran prison, doesn't mean that anything good will come from her capture other than Bariel's life and his friendship with Kira.
What he mourns tonight is the death of Neela's innocence, and that can never be restored. So he feels no qualms about adding her name.
Neela.
He pities Li Nalas his situation. It's not fair, it shouldn't be like this. Nalas should be able to live his life – and so should he. He is trapped by the same web as Nalas, and even though he doesn't really feel it yet, he knows that someday being the Emissary will catch up to him.
As he watches Li die, he wonders what will become of him? Will he be shot in OPS like Li? Or will he maybe be blown up? Will it be quick or slow? Painful?
Adding Li's name, he almost feels like he is adding his own.
Li Nalas.
Sending Rugal back to Cardassia is one of the worst decisions he has ever made. There is no right, there is no fairness, and Rugal deserves better.
He wants to scream, lash out, rip Rugal away from all of it. He wants to grieve for the boy's loss, and he wants to curse Dukat for his heartlessness that created this mess. But he can't – he just has to hope that Rugal will grow to understand what he has been given... whatever that is.
Rugal.
It's his fault, and he knows it. He never should have fallen for Fenna, he never should have let himself be attracted to her, he should have known...
He shouldn't have let Seyetik die. When he gets to his wall, he realizes that he doesn't know who to add: Seyetik or Fenna. And so he puts them both.
Professor Seyetik.
Fenna.
Any parent will grieve for the loss of another parent's child.
Tumak.
He knows that something is very wrong in the Gamma Quadrant, but no one can quite sort out what. All the exploration, the work, and they just have questions. But it's nothing compared to what's wrong in the Alpha Quadrant, where he has Cal Hudson running a band of vigilantes in the Demilitarized Zone.
He just wants his friend to come home. He knows he will never see that friend again.
Cal Hudson.
Everything's going to hell, and he knows it. Eris has escaped, they want him to come back to Earth to brief everyone on the Dominion, and he has no clue how they're going to get out of this. The Dominion, the whispers he's been hearing... now he knows. Something is very wrong in the Gamma Quadrant. And now he's in the middle of it.
Everything's going to hell on Bajor too. He knows it. Kai Winn.
The night before they leave for Earth he stands in front of his wall, and for the first time he adds a whole ship.
Odyssey.
How the last few weeks can be allowed is unknown to him, but he refuses to give up. There is still worse it can get, and he plans to see it through. Odo's discovery of his people, the fight in the Gamma Quadrant, Dax's missing host...Quark running a Klingon house...
He wants to pour all of his frustration, his anger, and his fear on the wall, but he has come here for a purpose and he cannot let himself be distracted. The time for distraction is over.
Joran.
When he negotiates with Dukat, he feels that he's selling his soul every time. And this time he's sending another human into hell in his place.
Tom Riker.
He blames himself for altering history, and then he wonders if history would have played out the same if he had left it alone.
Gabriel Bell.
As the treatments fail one at a time, he watches as Vedek Bariel dies inch by inch until he's gone. He sees Kira's grief and loneliness, and he watches as the peace treaty with Cardassia is signed. He hopes that peace was worth the price.
Bariel.
Prophecies play out in real life, and he is forced to accept that he may really be the Emissary. It's one thing for people to think that he is, and another for him to really be. Maybe he's not Li Nalas at all. This musing is cast to the side as the Cardassians and Romulans attack the Founders. When it's all over, and everyone is where they should be, he wonders if maybe he should try next.
After all, Enabran Tain was willing to give his life for this. He doesn't really fancy letting the head of the Obsidian Order have a place on his wall, but this time he's willing to make an exception.
Enabran Tain.
Kai Winn spins circles within circles until the whole universe is dizzy, and he wishes he had his friend Curzon here to fix it. After all, the man negotiated with Klingons. He would have no trouble fixing Bajor. It's worse when they are reunited for a few minutes – he wishes Curzon could just stick around and solve this as brilliantly as he solved everything else.
The night Curzon leaves him again he goes to the wall and writes his old friend's name.
Curzon Dax.
The alliance with the Klingons that has stood for eighty years crumbles, but it is the vision of his son as an old man that he really came here to deal with. He wonders how Jake will compare to that man, and if he will ever see enough of Jake to know the answer.
It is with a heavy heart that he carves the name into the wall tonight, hoping Jake will never become that old man.
Jacob Sisko.
The encounter with Akorem cements it – he cannot get out of being the Emissary. He wants to put his own name on the wall that night, since his life is no longer his own, but he settles for the name of the man who should have been Emissary if Ben Sisko had had anything to say about it.
Akorem.
The mirror image of his wife dies, and he doesn't want to put her on the wall again. But he does, because he can.
Jennifer Sisko.
Again, it's on him. His fault that Muniz is dead. He should have known, he should have saved Muniz, and he didn't, because he couldn't just trust the Vorta.
Never mind that one should never trust the Vorta.
He remembers watching Muniz weaken, and he knows he can never watch that again. If he had it to do over again, he would make the deal. If it happens again, he will make the deal.
Joe Muniz.
The Dominion invades, as he knew they would. But on a distant planet in the Gamma Quadrant, he could have lived without it. No war, no pain. He could have lived and died and it could have been someone else's problem.
He would have let it, too. He would have given up everything he had to give those people life, but that choice was taken from him.
And so he carves the name on the wall for the two hundred people who never existed.
Gaia.
Michael Eddington was right after all. The Cardassians are not to be trusted. He wonders if they could have been trusted if there had been no Maquis.
Whatever the answer to that question, it is the first time he has added anyone that he has tried to kill to his wall.
Michael Eddington.
He has places to be, but he knows he may not stand here again. The mines are going up soon, and that will be the end of it. The war will begin.
He's known it was coming for a long time now.
If Bajor had joined the Federation, it would be destroyed. Now it will be safe.
He wants to carve a name, but he doesn't have one, so instead he puts out a hand and rests it on Jennifer's name for a moment, and he knows he will stand here again.
"I will be back," he says.