Tall trees, looming branches, large leaves covering the sky in all shades of green; vines, bushes and all kind of exotic plants surrounding her as far as she can tell. She is an exobiologist and would love to study every one of them, but the mission that led her to this planet is not a scientific one.
She can hear chirping and buzzing everywhere and even is able to spot some of the birds or the insects if she pays attention enough. From time to time, a screech from an unknow animal that hides from her sight reaches her ears. She would love to explore and identify them all. But she just can't.
Instead, Jadzia Dax sits leaning on a fallen trunk of one of the many trees, grasping her rifle, and strains as the plasma weapon's injure at her chest worsens and death gets closer. Because this is war, and for her, this mission in enemy territory has gone awfully wrong.
Rustling leaves. She tenses and raises her phaser. She hisses in pain. She focuses on the place from where she thinks the sound came. She can see nothing but the never ending jungle.
She struggles to keep the gun up but after some minutes without any further movement she just can't. Her mind starts to drift too.
She knows she should stay alert and aware of her surroundings, but still most of the sounds she hardly registers anymore and each passing moment the jungle gets blurrer. She tries once more to clear her head. The Jen'Hadar can be back at any moment and she has to fight back. She has to cover for Worf as much as she can.
But that's exactly her other problem, that she can only think of Worf. Her gaze keeps going back to the point where she saw him for the last time. She tried to put on a brave face, she tried to give him her best smile, but she failed and broke down. She never said good-bye. At least, not aloud. She did not allow Worf to pronounce the words that were meant to be his final ones. But when they melted in a kiss, it was too obvious that the gesture was their farewell. And she cried, no matter how hard she tried to hold back her tears, she cried. She has always been good at downplaying the situations using her humor, but she has her limits. Even now, alone, she just can't summon it any longer.
And she is so sure he will come back to her, if he can, just as sure as she is that by the time he arrives, she will already be dead. But, how can you say that to your loved one?
Besides, she needed him to leave her, the mission needed it, the mission came first.
It is odd to look around and have the certainity that this will be your grave. Temporary, perhaps, if her husband is luckier than her and can make it through. Forever, if fate is also unfair to him. And then, they may be laying here together, on this alien planet, so close and so much apart. That's a gloomy thought. She does not want to envision it. She wants to be funny, to say something silly to herself. Anything to lighten the mood. But her wit keeps eluding her.
All she can muster to say to herself is that Worf is not going to die. No way. But right now, she is so desperate that if she believed in the Prophets, or in any other gods, she would pray to them for that. Maybe she should pray to them anyway, just in case. Nerys is convinced they listen to her.
Dax has died many times. Maybe that's why she can so clearly recognize it now. But death has never been that scary before. She wonders then where that tingle of panic that she feels right now comes from. Maybe it is the subtle difference that at first she has refused to acknowledge. She is dying. Jadzia Dax. Jadzia and Dax.
Ever since she was joined, somehow, she experienced a sense of inmortality. Other beings died in a definitive way but joined Trills only died to be reborn. Jadzia's life may end but Dax would perdure, and, actually, Jadzia would continue existing too as the symbiont passed her memories to the new host.
Curzon. Torias. Audrid. Emony. Tobin. Lela. They all are still alive within her. And she has always thought that it would continue that way for many more generations. She has been naive.
Certainly, when her body failed, the symbiont, undamaged by the plasma wound, would continue living for a while. Once in the runabout, and kept on the stasis unit, Dax would be fine, ready to be transported to the nearest place with an available host. But the Shenandoah is far away, and Worf is even further, and he has to accomplish his mission first. She has made her calculations and she has not liked the odds.
Jadzia is going to die. Dax is very probably going to die too. This is the end. No more lives ahead of her.
And a selfish, arrogant thought crosses her mind then, that the life of the Cardassian informant they have come to extract isn't worth more than hers.
She knows she is a valuable asset. To Starfleet, to her homeworld and to the whole Federation. She is 206 years old and in her former six, well, actually seven, lives she has treasured an important amount of knowledge, a unique melting pot of experiences she is very aware that the Federation would not want to lose forever. Jadzia Dax may be expendable, but certainly the symbiont Dax can't be.
But she is.
After all, Starfleet assigned her this mission knowing very well the risks. Of course, they probably thought that they could go to the Badlands, receive the transmission and get back to DS9 unscarred. The original plan did not consider entering Dominion territoy to help Lasaran defect. Or maybe for Starfleet Intelligence actually it did. Anyway, it was a dangerous mission and their failure, and their deaths, have always had to be a possibility. Nerys knew that and still picked them.
And she knew the risks too, and she accepted the mission; she agreed to go to this planet to try to extract the Cardassian. She was not a fool, and she chose to serve in Starfleet, nevertheless. She can't help but crack a grim smile at the thought, and when she tries to laugh, she winces in pain instead.
She is proud of her decision, even now. As when she had been willing to be sentenced to death for a crime she had not commited, just to protect Enina. There were causes she was willing to sacrifice for. There had been no regrets then. There are no regrets now. If any, that she isn't going to enjoy her honeymoon with Worf, and then her pained smile turns mischievious as she remembers her ideas about that particular leave.
So she reminds herself of her still unwielding will to wear the uniform, and the duty that comes with it, while at the same time she can't help but think of Worf, her mighty Klingon warrior, very much without uniform, that's it, and she feels ashamed of her fleeting resentment about her present predicament, of her former assumption that her life was above Lasaran, of her lack of professionalism.
Because it's not the life of the Cardassian operative that is at stake. It's not the one of the delusively inmortal Dax. And... she pauses, feels the pang at her heart but finishes the sentence anyway. ...Not the life of her beloved Worf. Because there are millions of lives at stake.
Because it's not his life, but his knowledge, what makes the Cardassian defector more valuable than both of them. Because no matter how hard she tries, there is nothing in her present and all her former lives that can bring a stop to the war now. However, if he wasn't lying to them when he said he had information about every Founder in the Alpha Quadrant, she can only agree with the assesment of Starfleet Intelligence. That information can change the course of war; it can even end it. And she may be dying, but if Worf is successful and saves the informant, millions will be spared.
And peace will come. For Worf. For Benjamin. For everyone she knows and cares about. For everyone she has never met but are still out there, hoping for a better future.
She tries to focus on that, to convince herself that her sacrifice is a meaningful one. She can't hear the sounds of the jungle anymore. She can't see the canopy above her, her vision is too blurry. She can't feel her hands either. She does not know if she is still holding the rifle or if she let it slip from her grasp. She wishes the phaser was still in her hands. If she is going to die as a soldier, she wants to look like one. Acording to Worf, she will be going to Sto-vo-kor now. She will wait for him there, but he does not need to hurry, she can wait for a long time.
And now there comes darkness.
.
Worf is already asleep at her side, but she keeps tossing around, entangled in the furry sheets, unable to close her eyes. She can hear his rhythmic breathing. She knows that he isn't worried. He is satisfied with what he did, convinced that it was the right thing. His love for her is more important than anything else. She wonders if he would sleep so easily if he were in the brig, if he were to be court martialed for what he did. Because she knows that is exactly what would have happened if Starfleet Intelligence would not have considered that preserving their secrets was more important than punishing him. And they are still punishing him. Because Benjamin told them that he would not be offered a command ever again, and she knows how much Worf wanted to be a captain of his own ship one day. But now that's over. Because of her. Because she matters more. Because he loves her more than anything. Because there is nothing more important than her. Not even the whole universe.
And he knows she would do the same for him. He told her so.
And probably that's what is keeping her awake, more than anything else. Because she isn't so sure of that. When he had wanted her to say she would, in the infirmary, she had joked that her career was too important to her and therefore she was not sure. He had let it pass. He knows that she really does not care about her career that much. But still, she had dodged the question and she knows why. It's not her career. It's Starfleet, and the war and their duty.
Actually, she can't help but think that if their situation had been reversed, their outcome would have been much different. After all, when she was dying in Soukara, she had been willing to sacrifice herself for the mission, and had considered that their duty was above both their lives. Of course, she was the one injured and not the other way around, so the choice was easier, but she is still having that nagging feeling that she would have chosen differently, that she would have carried out the mission even when her husband's life was at stake.
And she feels as if she does not love him enough, as if she does not deserve him. She isn't worthy of him because she can consider the possibility of placing Starfleet first.
But she does love him. With all her heart. With all her soul. She really does.
She turns around in the bed once more, facing Worf. She can hardly see his features in the dark but she can picture him clearly anyway, because she has memorized every crease, every single inch of his skin. She is looking at him, smelling him. She has raised over him and caresses his bare arm lightly.
And then he flutters his eyes open. He takes her hand. He is about the say something, she knows. And again, she can't let him, because she is afraid of the words she may pour out in return. Because she just can't confess her dark musings. So she kisses him once more, desperately, and he kisses her back with the same yearning. And in the middle of their passion she swears to herself that if the situation arises, she will rescue him too, no matter what. And to hell with duty. To hell with everything. She will repay him. She will place him first.
"I love you," she breathes to his ear as she seals her silent pledge.
"I love you too," he mumbles back, content and oblivious to his wife's inner turmoil.