Last chapter

Midway through the day there was a rap on the door. It roused them both. Odo kissed the fine folds on the bridge of Nerys' nose, and slid away from her. He formed crisp, fresh clothes - the silvery blue tunic with it's darker blue trousers and wrap, before he walked through the room partition. It was Rahnu, elegant looking and authoritative. With a shrug, she presented him a small pouch.

"I only know it was found while we were gone. There was a note with it that bore both of your names. It was written phonetically, in badly formed Sehlian, so we are making the assumption that it was misplaced during the goods exchange with the Thalidee'ians that occurred when Colonel Kira was initially transported on board. And by the way, Colonel Kira will likely be chosen as our official liaison to Bajor and the Alpha Quadrant. The Councils have been discussing it during our absence as well. We foresee your departure, now that your work is done, but please, as Delegate of this Province, I wish to extend the open invitation to stay as long as you like, and return whenever and as often as you are able."

"A kindness I appreciate. I wish I could guarantee you that I will return, but I have much work ahead of me. I will stay in touch. You have been a good friend."

He sensed the shift in the air currents that marked Nerys' movement into this outer room from the bedroom. She had dressed, was wearing the rust tunic with silvery blue embroidery. Hair that moments earlier had been ruffled was combed sleekly away from her face. She slipped her arm around his waist, and extended her other palm to Rahnu.

"I told you so," she smiled to the Delegate, squeezed her hand. "Thank you for everything."

Rahnu's feathers fluffed in pleasure, and she ducked her head at both of them and excused herself. "Two weeks' missed work awaits me, but, please warn me of your departure, so that we may celebrate together one last time!"

Together, the waved her away as she wheeled off, colorful, bird-like in her movements, her prayer scarf trailed behind her.

Odo drew the door closed, it's handle cool and hard in his fist. Kira turned her head and kissed his upper arm on the spot that was level with her mouth. She tugged him towards the low couch. He watched her sit, lost himself for a moment in her, in what she had survived, what they had both survived. Their lives would never not be hard edges and twisted metal. Everywhere they had been was the fragility of flesh rent and bleeding. She had lived through so much anguish and despair. Her body violated, tortured, her friends and family manipulated and killed. Everything she had every loved had been ripped away from her. But still she found a solace in him he could not explain. Just as he found solace in her. They were connected, linked for eternity by the life that had been growing within her for several days now. He said a short, silent prayer to the Prophets. If you are listening, please keep her safe. Please keep our child safe.

They had, in a way, delivered him to her, the Prophets, the wormhole aliens. He didn't believe in Gods; his own people were proof enough of how easily the false mantle of godhood could be settled on a race simply different enough from one's own to seem magic. But still, without the presence of the wormhole aliens, their paths, his and Kira's, would have never crossed.

He settled next to her and she turned herself and laid against him, a satisfying pressure against his abdomen and chest. He kissed the smooth auburn hair beneath his chin, and then the bud of her mouth when she tipped her head and offered it to him. Enjoyed the simple, sweet pleasure of lazily exploring the heat and texture of her. They had decided to stay on the planet for a week and a half. There was a trade ship scheduled to dock then on its was to New Bajor. She had affairs to get in order, and he didn't want her out of his sight. He tipped the leathery padru pod bag into his palm. A metallic object slid out - a talisman of sorts on a chain. Kira took it from his fingers and turned it over in her palm. "I remember this. I saw it, had it, on the ship. It wasn't mine, but it was around my neck. I took it off because it cut into my skin and caught on the buckles."

She looked at it closely, turned it on its side. There was a slight seam, Odo could see it as she tilted the metal. She noticed it too, and slid the edge of her fingernail into it. Two sides sprung open, and to Odo's shock, what appeared to be metal at the core of the locket distended and colored. It unfurled and shimmered clear amber. Without hesitation he let go of the solidity of his fingertips and allowed the tiny column of morphogenic matter to mingle with him.

"Odo!" Kira tried, too late, to swat his hand away. "You don't know what it... Are you all right?"

Already, though, he knew, understood, had assimilated the information and substance that was passed along from the Great Link. "It was a message. The Link, my people; they've gone. Out of this quadrant, out of charted space."

He swallowed, fought to keep his voice even and failed. "They won't come back this way, not for aeons. They've left me."

The ache returned, the terrified hollow loneliness that had been carved into his core; he had felt it when they asked him to leave the Link after he had healed them. It would never go away. He knew that already.

He had Nerys. He wanted that to be enough. Had just been reveling in how much more they had now, how much more a part of his life she was, could be in ways that had never been possible before. She had been an offering from them. That was the other part of the message that he didn't want to say out loud, though he knew he would have to. There was no more hiding anything from her. Linking ensured that. She had presented herself to them at a most opportune time. They had been coming to a consensus about how to leave, and whether or not he would even be told of their exodus. She had come and they had taken advantage of the moment to create a way to make what they were about to do less heinous. If they just abandoned him, his own solitude, his separation from the Link would slowly eat away at him. With her capable of activating morphogenic RNA sequences, she would be at least some sort of Link for him, some reprieve from the echoing loneliness his life would have been otherwise.

He wasn't sure if he should think of it as a gift for him or a curse for her. He couldn't quite believe that they would knowingly disappear. They knew how alone he had felt before they gave him a sense of what and where he came from, of who he was. His people had hurt him again and again, but they were still a part of him, and he wanted them to accept him as he was, to overlook the dissonance he brought to the Link. He wanted to be able to love Nerys, and be part of her and part of his own people at the same time. Not be a source of fear. Once again they had rejected him. But he had her. He had her. He had her. Nerys. He blinked his eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. Cleared his throat. He had her and the minute collection of cells growing inside her. These were two things no other Changeling had. Things no other Changeling could truly understand. He sank into himself, coalesced into liquid. They lay together on the couch for a long time. Quiet. The soft gurgle of him as he moved against her. Her humid breath flowing warmly over parts of his surface.

She open her throat after the shadows of the room lengthened and the incredible golden shimmer of light turned purple and then dimmed, and sang. It was a song in old Bajoran, of lost loves and lost homelands, of being stranded and lonely in a faraway land. He could hear the tears in her voice, though it did not waver or break. She sang it through three times, her voice lifting and falling, her hands stroking and stirring his substance. He settled against her, formed to her. Let the melodic vibration of her voice soothe him. They would not link until after the child was born. They had discussed it and both decided it was too great a risk, too large a variable to take for granted. Still, all he wanted to do was to feel the comfort of joining another. So he stayed gelatinous while she sang. He did not stir when she fell asleep, except to cover and cradle her more with his substance to keep her comfortable and warm.

My name is Odo'ital. I am nothing. I am everything. I am whole and I am broken. How my heart can feel complete and full, and shattered at the same time, I do not know. How I can feel this heart when I am not possessed of one, I will never know. As much as I wish it were different, my path and that of my people may not cross again.

I will go on. With her I will go on. For the growing cluster of cells inside of her, I must.

It will be a girl. I made sure of that much. Our first will be a girl. Child of nothing. Child of everything. She will be singularly remarkable. My heart is broken, but something new and fragile unfolds from the wreckage. I feel it; it is as real to me as the landscape of Nerys' skin. Hope.

A/n: I'm so sorry I took my sweet time posting the final chapter. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to these two. This was my first novel length fic. I dedicated two years of my life to it. It is my baby in a very special way. And it never ever gets reviews. Please review. It means a lot to me to know what you think.