A/N: OK, I lied, I couldn't fit the rest of the story in this one chapter without it being hugely, epically long (and driving me mad trying to tie it all up) so there'll be one more after this one.

A/N Supplemental:Sometime in the near future, there will be a continuation/sequel/part 2 of this story. Details to follow in next chapter. I have a title, a plot bunny the size of the Were-Rabbit and absolutely no spare time to write in the next few months, but it's going to happen at some point.

CAUTION: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MATERIAL OF A SOMEWHAT SENSITIVE AND ADULT NATURE. It should probably be rated R, but I couldn't figure out how to change it. I've tried to keep it within the bounds of decency, but don't say I didn't warn you. Eek, I've never posted anything like this before, I feel a bit nervous...

PART 20: FOR I AM CAPTURED ONE MORE TIME

Oh the towers of ivory are crumbling

And the swallows have sharpened their beaks

This is the time of great undoing

This is the time that I'll come running

Straight to you, for I am captured

One more time

– Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Kira did not visit the infirmary again after that; she worked herself to the bone getting the station operational again, putting in more hours than anyone except maybe O'Brien and falling into bed exhausted every night, too tired and sore to think. She knew Dukat was getting better, because she overheard Bashir telling Sisko they'd moved him out of the infirmary to a "secure location," for his own protection as much as everybody else's, in case anyone fancied themselves a vigilante. She didn't know where he was. She didn't want to find out where he was. She avoided Ziyal, which was horrible but necessary, and she swiftly closed down all of Jadzia's attempts to draw her in conversation on the subject. She couldn't talk about it. She couldn't think about it. But after a few days, she needed someone who'd been there, someone who understood. Someone who needed someone. She'd left it long enough and it was time now.

So she jimmied her way into Odo's quarters, not even bothering to press the bell because she knew he wouldn't answer. He sat there on the unmade bed, staring vacantly out the window. He looked oddly creased, like a sheet of paper that has become dog-eared in someone's hands, and his crystal eyes had faint lines around them, lines which looked scored into his smooth surface. He didn't look round as she approached, sat down behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder very lightly.

'Odo, we need to talk.'

'I tried so hard to make her see,' he said flatly. 'But she couldn't.'

'Or she wouldn't.'

'Or that, yes.'

He didn't sound convinced. Kira looked at the rumpled sheets, wondering if that dent in the mattress was the shape of two humanoid figures, or if it was just a trick of the light.

'Part of you loved her,' she said.

'Yes. Part of me.'

His voice was bleak and toneless, scoured of any recognisable emotion; all that was in his eyes as he turned to face her for the first time.

'I had to choose, Nerys. I wanted both, and I couldn't have it. I'm sorry it took me so long to realise. You understand, don't you?'

More than you will ever know, Odo, she thought sadly as she nodded, finding herself having to look away from his gaze. She knew what was in those eyes, and it could never be. She knew what choice he'd made, what he'd turned his back on. For her. Just like Dukat. Why did they have to do these things in her name? One who was far too close, and one who would never be close enough.

'Come back to us, Odo. Weyoun's still out there and this war's far from over; if there's ever been a time this station needs a good security chief, it's now.'

She knew not to push him, and she knew she wasn't offering enough, but he'd take it all the same. He took every scrap she dropped for him, and he gave her back so much it was frightening. And he knew it wasn't enough, but he never demanded more. Just accepted: patient, expressionless, always slightly alien, however well she knew him. And she saw how he stiffened at the mention of Weyoun's name.

'You're right. I expect the place has turned into a complete hive of larceny while I've been gone.'

The last bit was almost his familiar grumble, and she grinned to hear it. That was the Odo she knew and trusted and loved like family; the Odo she sat and laughed with when they read the crime reports, the Odo who stood shoulder to shoulder with her during fights, the Odo who she ganged up on Quark with, the Odo who always backed her up in an argument, even when she was wrong. He looked at her with a strange, cool light in his eyes, the eyes of someone who has lost a lot. A cool light that was him knowing that in wartime, personal isn't the same as important, and knowing that he'd been forever beaten to the punch – the uneasy balance that had been forever tipped by a speeding green bolt and a poor decision and a failure to realise and something that felt like inevitability. She stopped smiling. He would never be the old Odo again, precisely because he knew personal isn't the same as important, even though sometimes it should be.

'He's still alive, isn't he?' Odo asked. She nodded. He sighed, and said nothing; they simply sat there in silence for a minute or two, the gulf between them closed in some ways and wider than ever in others. It would be easier when Dukat was gone. The air would be clear, and she could start again. Perhaps, even, they could start again – could there be a they? Did she want a they? Would it make things easier, or would it just hurt him even more?

'Odo, I – ' she began in a rush, but he shook his head, heavily, knowingly.

'Don't, Nerys. I understand. Somehow, I've always understood, even when you hated him.'

'I still hate him,' she muttered fiercely to distract herself from the pained look on Odo's face. He stood up and began to smooth out the bed, not looking at her. She bit her lip and turned to go.

'It's best if I have something to do,' he said, voice even gruffer than usual, 'so I'll be back at work in the morning. As you said, Weyoun's still on the loose, and I know we're going to have trouble with the Cardassians again before too long. You'll need me around.'

'Want me to come over for breakfast with the crime reports?' she asked in the doorway, attempting to lighten the mood, to regain an entrance to their former easy camaraderie. It almost worked; the corner of his mouth twitched dryly, but his eyes were still too liquid and his expression was all wrong. It was pouring salt in the wound, and she wished she hadn't said it.

'No, I don't think either of us will have the time. I doubt they'll make very interesting reading anyway. I'll see you soon, Major. Tell the captain I'll be reporting to him first thing in the morning.'

The man who loved her so much that he'd destroyed an entire civilisation for her, reduced by his own shame to using her title – it made her wince. She looked at him once more over her shoulder as she walked away, before the door swished shut; tall, straight, so very alone as he stood by the eye-shaped window. So very different. Maybe it would get easier, given a bit of time and space. It certainly couldn't get much harder.

The transport that was to take Dukat to the starbase was due to arrive at 0400 the next day. Kira ignored the chronometer which counted down the hours. She couldn't waver. He'd be gone, she'd be free, just a few more hours. It didn't stop her looking towards the door every few minutes, or aimlessly searching the station's security cameras for a room with two guards outside it. It was no use. He was going.

'Odo to Kira,' said the comm as she ate dinner listlessly at her station in Ops, barely tasting it. She sighed and hit her communicator.

'Go ahead.'

'Meet me on the habitation ring, section 4, corridor H. There's something here I want to show you.'

Mystified, she closed down her workstation, dumped the accumulation of empty mugs and plates back in the replicator, and went down to where Odo was waiting for her – a nondescript stretch of living quarters for junior officers with no family, many of which were disused. Two yellow Starfleet uniforms stood outside the last door on the right, and Odo walked forward to meet her.

'You have until 0400. Sort it out.'

Suddenly realising what he was doing and who was behind that door, she panicked and tried to move past him, back to the turbolift. She couldn't do this. She mustn't do this.

'Nerys, you have to do this. For my sake as much as yours. If I can't have you, I at least want you to understand why he can.'

'Odo, wait, I can't –'

He was already shoving her towards the door, which one of the uniforms opened for her; she stumbled in, only to find that it had swished shut already. It was dark inside, but she could see where he was; perched on the end of the bed by the window, watching the stars, the thin blanket wrapped around him like a cloak against the chilly, stale air.

'Is it time already?' he asked tonelessly as she crossed the room towards him.

'It's time,' she told him, hearing his surprise as much as seeing it as his head whipped round and he saw her, the delight on his face mixed with something indefinably sad. She sat down next to him, their shoulders not quite touching. It was time.

'It's time that I...' she faltered. Time she what? She tried again. 'Time that we...'

He stopped her with a long, cool finger against her lips, just for a second, then withdrew it like he was afraid.

'You said we. You finally understand that it is we, not simply you and I.'

His voice was quiet and flat, as if he didn't quite believe the words he was saying. She shrugged.

'I understand that our lives are tied together for better or worse and there's no way out of it, so we may as well make sure it's for better rather than worse. I think we've both had enough of worse.'

'That's all I want. All these years, Nerys, that's all I've ever wanted.'

He turned his head away for a moment, perhaps in shame, and she turned it back with her hand.

'Take it, then. We don't have long.'

His eyes were glassy as he reached out and touched her hand, where it rested on his face, but he didn't say anything. It was like he was lost for words. Again she felt his pulse against hers, where their hands touched, and she could hardly breathe. Again she traced the half-circle of ridge around his left eye, looking at him, vulnerable, as unsure of himself as she'd ever seen him. She'd never thought a Cardassian could be beautiful – never admitted that they could be – but now, as she looked at the angles and planes of his face that she knew so well, she found the admission came naturally as breathing. It was a betrayal of everything she thought made her Bajoran, and it was so easy. So painless. So like relief, as his other arm snaked around her waist and he lowered his head, unsmiling, eyes wide open at hers. All her life she'd tried to get away, and never once imagined turning around and running into him instead. So delicately balanced, the flint and the steel, such a careful, wary circuit of anger and spite and curiosity they danced around each other for so many years with the sparks flying every time they struck and bounced off, never once wondering what would happen if they struck harder, deliberately, setting a collision course.

We will do great things together, you and I.

'Nerys,' he began, clumsily, haltingly, but she shook her head and stopped his mouth with hers. Cool and bittersweet, surprisingly soft. So very gentle as his hand cupped the back of her head, fingers in her hair. Something surged in her like a breaking wave, like listening to the yes, like flying sparks as she felt a sigh catch in his throat, and she kissed him harder, pressed herself closer – now they had a new dance, a new fight; she grabbed his neck-ridges, he raked his fingers down her back, and they fell in a tangle on the rock-hard bed, her pinning him down as she bit his neck and his arms crushed her closer to him, so close that neither of them could breathe. They danced the dance, they fought the fight and the need in her was building into a roaring fire, making her half delirious with the taste of him, the feel of his skin and the weight of his body as he rolled her over to lie underneath him, the wild exulting flutter of his heart against hers as they clung to each other desperately like they were drowning. They were both out of breath and their clothes were scattered all over the room when he hesitated, pushing himself up on shaking arms, and studied her face urgently. His hair was a tangled black nest and his skin shone bluish in the gloom, the long ugly scar across his ribcage a darker grey like thunderclouds.

'Nerys, I – '

'Shut up,' she said fiercely, pulling him back down and finding his mouth again, hearing her own groan and his as he finally pushed inside her, all at once, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Her legs wrapped around him, his arms pressing her down and the slick-sticky slide across each other like liquid fire, old as time, as common and as rare as life. The dance of moans and gasps and skin and heat and the collision of his hips with hers, over and over, harder, faster, eyes screwed shut in pleasure that was almost pain, until they both fell over the edge and flew, shaking, burning, stifling each other's cries with their mouths. He collapsed over her, panting, and a long moment passed in which they lay entangled, weak and dizzy and trembling with aftershocks. She didn't know where he ended and she began, and she didn't care. She was boiling hot, soaked with sweat, and she never wanted to move again. But eventually their breathing slowed, the mad tribal stomp of their heartbeats calmed, and he rolled off her, sitting up and dragging his hands through his untidy hair. He hadn't said a word; she'd expected at least a glib comment or two, but he was silent, turned half-away from her, pale and silvery in the room lit only by starlight. She reached out and ran her finger carefully down the long spinal ridge, wondering at the strength and flex of it. He sighed and fumbled for his trousers on the floor, then retrieved the blanket from the corner into which it had been flung, draping it carefully over her.

'Don't get cold,' was all he said as he went to stand by the window, staring out, more remote from her than he'd ever been when they were enemies. She wondered what she'd done. What they'd done. She got off the bed and went to stand next to him, wrapping the blanket around both of them. He slid his arm around her waist and leaned his head against hers, and they looked out at the stars for a few minutes.

'That one there is Cardassia,' he told her, pointing at the brightest of the near points of light.

'Trust you to know that,' she scoffed, but there was no anger in it, only a dry, grudging fondness. Then she saw his expression, and wished she hadn't spoken.

'You might see it again,' she said, trying to soften the blow. He shook his head.

'No. Cardassia and I, we're better off without each other, at least until things change. I spent too many years trying to deny it, but I know better now. Besides, I'd be shot as soon as I stepped off the shuttle if I tried to go back after what happened up here.'

He'd turned his back on everything for her, just as Odo had. Which meant he'd had a lot riding on the assumption that she'd accept, that she'd understand. It almost made her angry – almost, but not quite, because it wasn't an assumption, exactly. It was as close as a Cardassian got to a leap of faith.

'Was it easy to choose?'

'Yes,' he admitted without shame, and pulled her closer. She rested her head against his chest, seeing the outline of the scar the disruptor had made as he shifted slightly. She ran her hand across it; he winced, but didn't stop her.

'Was it worth it?'

'Ask me again when I've spent a year in a Federation jail; right now I might be a little biased,' he quipped gently, his hands stroking her sides, but she didn't smile. She squeezed her eyes shut to get rid of the tears that threatened to fall, and hid her face in his shoulder, trying to disappear inside the heady, bitter-sweet smell of him and the feel of cool scales under her fingers as she traced the ridge down his back again. She needed more time, and she couldn't have it. She needed more time in which to forget that the hands holding her had once killed her people, that the voice that murmured snatches of Kardasi that didn't translate but the tone of them was the same the universe over – love and sorrow, desire and remorse and need, a complicated relationship between two people against an even more complicated backdrop of war and planets and politics and years – that the voice was the same one she'd hated so much every day as a child. She needed more time in which to remember she'd killed his people too. More time in which to learn, and to teach, and to try to start again. Some start, she thought bitterly, digging her nails into his back in her agitation and feeling him flinch.

'Hey, what was that? Payback for something?' he asked, stilling her twisting hands between his own. She pulled away, turning her back to him as she suddenly found it all unbearable. He didn't let go.

'Nerys, I know this isn't going to be easy,' he said with his face in the back of her neck. She stopped fighting and let herself lean back against him, all boneless. No more fighting. No more running.

'When has it ever been easy?' she muttered. He shushed her like it had upset him.

'Oh, let's not talk about this any more. Come to bed. I want something to remember when I'm alone in a cell a long way from here.'

He said it lightly and she went with him, and what was rushed and desperate became slow and gentle and tender, but as she lay awake, curled next to him while he slept – so quietly, so still, so innocent now those eyes were shuttered away behind their grey blinds – she knew that she could never go back from here.