A/N: Well, this is it, folks. Incoming epic-ness. Hang on tight.

25: ECLIPSE

And today we'll catch a glimpse of eternity

As the world stands still for a moment

And today we will be making history

As we all join hands

Just to watch the sky

For a moment

– Apoptygma Berzerk

Going towards the wormhole this time was nothing like all the other times Kira had been through. This time, she noticed the colours, the beautiful jewel blues, fiery orange flecks and deep mauves, made all the more glorious through the prism effect of tears in her eyes. It yawned open like an embrace to receive the Defiant – that tiny, insignificant lump of metal and technology and invention, paling into nothing besides the eternal eye of the Celestial Temple – and she just wanted to dive into it and never resurface again. The Prophets were here. They would take care of her, as her father always told her they would. Almost involuntarily, her lips formed the shapes of the death chant, but she didn't know who she was chanting for. Herself? Sisko and Dax and Nog? Dukat? Odo? Or perhaps for the whole Alpha Quadrant, rendering it unto those who always knew the answer, because there was nothing else they could do.

Nog, who was watching from the doorway, stood tiny and open-mouthed, pointed teeth gleaming in the were-light of the wormhole, and Kira suddenly felt desperately sad for him; a young Ferengi, barely out of adolescence, standing here in the ultimate of profit-less endeavours, giving up his short life for Starfleet, for the rest of the quadrant, a thing very few other Ferengi would dream of doing. By contrast Dax was calm and controlled, an almost-smile on her face; if the Dax symbiont had to die, it would be dying for a cause, and this satisfied the Klingon side of her as well as the Trill side. Though it wrenched her three-hundred-year-old heart to think about how much Worf would miss her, about how he'd hate the fact that he wasn't at her side when she died, she knew he would approve. She knew Curzon would approve. And she knew, in every fibre of both her beings, that it was the right thing to do.

Dukat just stared. He'd never seen anything like it, he'd never experienced anything like this sense of terrible relief that flooded through him like the heat of the sun on his skin. It didn't matter any more. His Cardassia was gone. His complicated, crazy life of plots and schemes and cover-ups and lies and tricks and desperation and disaster and dilemma was over. He'd chosen this. For the last time in his life, perhaps the only time, he'd chosen the thing that would make a difference – he'd broken the chain, he'd taken off the mask, he'd stopped playing the game, because that was the only way to be free of it. Not winning for yourself. Winning for the things you really cared about, not the things you felt you should care about or were forced to care about. He would go happily to his death now, because he had admitted everything. There was nothing left to fight against. He thought of his precious Ziyal, who he had never done right by, who would miss him so terribly, who would now have a future without the mess he'd made of her past. He thought of Naprem, who never believed in the Prophets, but who he hoped he would see again. Maybe this time she'd be proud of him, rather than in spite of him. He looked over at Nerys – she who had killed him and brought him back to life, she who had surprised him and delighted him beyond measure by learning from him what he had never admitted to learning from her: to do things openly, to make the changes rather than react to them. To do things even if they killed you, rather than endlessly struggling to make sure they don't kill you in case you've done the wrong thing. To say what you mean and do what you believe in. Faith over fatalism, principles over pragmatism. The Bajoran way. He watched her lips move. Now they finally understood each other, he never wanted to let her out of his sight again. But he knew he could not go with her where she was going. But he would go cheerfully all the same.

'Why aren't they listening?' Sisko asked, breaking the silence. 'Why won't they act? Prophets!' he shouted out suddenly, voice almost cracking. 'Prophets, your people need you!'

Kira held her breath as the storm of colours around them seemed to swell and intensify, as if responding to the Emissary's call. So this was what a miracle looked like. But as she watched, waited, felt the strain of Sisko's calling as he searched for the gods again and again, nothing changed. She prayed harder than she'd ever prayed before. Prophets. Please. We need you.

'Dammit, what are you waiting for?' Sisko exclaimed. 'What else must we do?'

'They're coming!' Dax shouted. 'This is it!'

The viewscreen was full of ships. So many. So dark. So horrible, so alien against the blue light of the Celestial Temple – they did not belong, they were all wrong. And the Prophets still did not act.

'Where are you?' Kira screamed, not understanding. 'Why are you letting this happen?'

She felt betrayed, she felt bereft. Her gods had forsaken her. There were no miracles. It was the end.

'Their hands to act,' Sisko said softly, carefully. 'Their voice to speak...'

And there was light in his face, a whole world of it; his eyes burned, his skin glowed, and Kira knew the Prophets had acted. They had spoken to their Emissary. They were to make the miracle.

Their hands will act, their voice will speak.

She looked at Dukat, and he looked at her. They smiled a slow smile. They would die together, after one last dance. She was the propulsion, he was the precision; she the fire, he the steel. They made a good team.

'One shot,' Dukat said, cracking that grin of his. 'One good shot – they'll never know what hit them. Nerys?'

'Yes?'

'Promise you'll leave the Celestial Temple and visit me in the Fire Caves occasionally. I'll get terribly bored otherwise.'

'Visit you? Hah! I'll be down there with you, I expect.'

The smile that crossed his face made her want to live all over again. Wherever she was going, she hoped he was there. Her enemy, her partner, her other self. If they could not live together, in the world they'd done so much to destroy and to create, they would die together.

'Dax, Nog!' Sisko shouted. 'Give us everything you've got! Dukat, Kira, you know what to do!'

Dax and Nog scrambled for the consoles, the Defiant leapt forward in a burst of energy just as something golden and white shot past them, two tangling energies, crackling and sparking – 'Odo!' Kira shouted, half-delirious with adrenaline; he'd kept his promise, he'd followed her in, like she always knew he would – and the gold dragged the white with it right into the Defiant's path just as Dukat hit the torpedo and Kira hit the thrusters. The torpedo charomed perfectly off the side of the wormhole, spiralling back at them as they rushed towards the innumerable ships. Hate and the other one, right in the face. The timing was flawless.

The world exploded.

Sisko roaring out his triumph and his revelation in that great booming voice of his, tears streaming down his face and catching in his beard. Nog frantically gabbling the few Ferengi prayers he remembered, little hands squeezed over his ears. Dax laughing, hair flying out, all honour and battle-light and exultation, forever the most beautiful of all warriors. Down was up, up was down, hot and cold and wonderful and terrifying as Kira felt Dukat's hand close hard around hers for one last time in the chaos and the glory. Death was not blackness and dark and emptiness, it was all the colour and noise in the whole world, reflected back in brown eyes and blue, off grey skin and tan, off black hair and copper. They were fiercely alive. All they had was one last dance. They listened to the yes. Hate was love. Up was down. They lived a hundred lives, and none. They were free.

'For Bajor,' he said.

'For Cardassia,' she answered.

They smiled and held on tighter, clinging to each other in the storm. They were blinded and deafened. They held on. They were together.

They died.