Kira's Cardassian spirit daughter was gone. Ziyal was lying before her on Julian's table but she wasn't sleeping. Her skin was cold, dry, and stiffening already. The girl had always been so warm. Her eyes were mercifully shut and her mouth closed, her limbs fixed in place so she would look natural and alive. Kira wasn't fooled, though. She had seen corpses in nearly every possible state. Even the texture of Ziyal's beautiful black hair felt off though her body was quite fresh still.

"Who did this?" she demanded. "Was it Dukat? If it was Gul Dukat, I swear I will-"

"Actually it was Damar," Dr. Julian Bashir corrected her.

Kira's eyes fluttered and shook her head in disbelief, "No!"

"It's true, I'm afraid. Dukat was too grief stricken to escape the station. Odo took him into custody and babbling nonsense. They had to pry her body from his arms and bring her to me. She was already dead."

"Did she suffer?"

"No. Damar used the highest settings on his weapon. Dukat had just enough time to tell her he loved her before her life expired."

"She died because she helped me to escape!" Kira's voice became guttural and strained. "Damar saw that as an act of treason!"

"Kira, Ziyal knew what she was risking when she helped you!" Bashir kept his distance but tried to caress her with his voice. "You saved her life. You provided for her. You became a mother to her."

"Mothers should never outlive their children."

"This one didn't."

Kira almost didn't catch what he said. Then the syllables and sounds registered in her brain. She gripped Bashir's arm in a painful grip. Her short nails dug into his arm. He was more afraid of her grief than her anger and didn't mind if she inflicted it upon him.

"What does that mean, Julian?" she snarled.

"Nothing!"

He winced and tried to pull away as she dug her nails in more.

"Don't lie to me!"

"Kira, Ziyal is-was-she was-"

"She was pregnant, wasn't she?"

Julian hung his head and whispered, "Yes."

Kira's eyes darted to Ziayl, "Who knows about this?"

"I don't think she even was aware. There are no records of her coming to the medical office for any sort of treatment while I was gone and the Dominion was running the station. Unless she was purposely hiding it. According to her replicator logs, she had an slightly increased appetite but no other change to her diet."

"How far along was she? Were you able to determine that?"

"She was about eight weeks pregnant."

Kira released him and turned her back to him, letting out a breath, "She likely didn't know then. She always complained that her cycles were near impossible to track like a normal woman's. She was a hybrid so her body was an anomaly. Eight weeks for a Bajoran or a Cardassian woman…"

"Nerys," Julian squeezed his eyes shut because he had been informal and used her first name.

She was distracted and didn't seem to mind.

"Is it possible to transplant the baby-"

"No," he interrupted. "It's dead. Even If I could readapt your womb for a mostly Cardassian child."

"Of course," Kira scowled. "I'm not thinking properly."

"How could you? I know you cared deeply for Tora Ziyal. You practically adopted her as yours even though she is the daughter of your oldest enemy!"

"I also forgot that her child would also be Gul Dukat's grandchild," she shuddered at the realization. "Poor Garak!"

"Do I dare tell him?" Bashir was gray in the face with despair. "I have no doubt he's likely on his way here now looking for her. She promised to greet him at the terminal any and every time he came to the station. He will know something is terribly wrong the moment he notes her absence. She never broke a promise to anyone, that girl!"

"Don't tell him!" Kira burst. "What good would it do him?"

"If I were in his place-"

"You are not, Julian, in his place! You are also nothing like him. Remember what and who Garak is? He is no friendly and harmless tailor like he pretends to be these days. We both know Garak is masking darkness in his soul and denying a long and horrible history!"

Julian drew himself up and hardened, replying, "You are right, Major. Ziyal's secret won't leave this room. I will never repeat it. I trust you won't either. Garak hides much and more from me for a multitude of reasons. Mostly because he can. This will be for his own sake."

Kira kissed Ziyal's brow, tears in her eyes but refusing to fall, "She would have been a happy and wonderful mother."

"She died far too young," the doctor bemoaned.

Kira gave him a sharp look, "Death doesn't discriminate! Don't they teach you that in medical school or am I supposed to somehow believe that Earth is so perfect that only the elderly die and of totally natural causes?"

Julian made no rebuttal. He should have remembered she didn't respond well to platitudes. They were both still and silent when Garak entered.

He looked almost lost until he spotted Ziyal. To Kira's surprise, he seemed as though he didn't believe his eyes. She thought a Cardassian like him would never be baffled by death. He was often the bringer of death, just as Kira had been in her terrorist days. His confusion and disbelief were far worse than an open display of weeping and blubbering. He resembled a child encountering death for the first time and utterly incapable of truly understanding it.

Kira watched Garak carefully and her heart ached for him. Part of her wanted to tell him the whole truth. Would he be softened by the fact that he had briefly been a father even if it was only in the most technical sense? Would he have been happy at such news pouring from Ziyal's lips or would he have been withdrawn and repulsed at the notion of fatherhood? Most Cardassians loved their progeny, but Garak was certainly not the same as his fellow Cardassians. Did he have the faintest desire to rear children when he himself was a bastard?

Even if he cared for the doomed fetus Ziyal carried, would he become more embittered and sadistic than he already was if he was told he had been robbed of not only a lover but of their child? Had he ever suffered such losses? Had Garak ever truly loved anyone he ever encountered in his life? She didn't really think Garak would call her or anyone but perhaps Julian Bashir a real friend on this station. He lied without qualms to the doctor's face all the time anyway. That might be because it was a compulsion nurtured in him not because he was malicious.

I think he truly loved Ziyal, she thought to herself as she saw Garak rest his hands upon her. She couldn't help but recall that Garak had tried to initially reject Ziyal's advances. Why should just a beautiful and good natured creature like Ziyal be attracted to him? In the end, though, Ziyal could charm a shark. Garak had been kind and gentle with her. He was not pandering like her father was. He allowed Ziyal her freedom. He didn't spurn her Bajoran heritage.

It was not considered appropriate for a Cardassian to grieve or show weakness in front of strangers or aliens, but Kira could see cracks in Garak's façade.

"She really loved you, you know," Kira declared.

"I know but now I will never know why."

Kira chewed her tongue as though it were bubblegum. She kept her speculations and the secret to herself. Ziyal loved Garak because she reveled in finding the good in the vilest of men and women. She wanted to be the shining light that led them back to the path of goodness and warmth. She sought lonely and broken souls the way a lonely child digs through a bin of unwanted toys to select one and love it in a way no one else could possibly imagine. She had been forced to realize her father was not as good as she hoped but maybe she wasn't wrong about Garak.

Eight weeks! The image of a half formed baby coiled within the womb. If Damar had known, would he have still pulled that trigger?