A/N: now that's what I call a hiatus! Sorry about that, folks! I've got no excuse other than I haven't been feeling too creative of late but I'm back now and hopefully, this chapter will be enjoyable. I am expecting to continue my other current fics (my DS9 one 'Corina' and my Star Wars one 'Your Fate is Not Your Own') but please be patient. Thank you again to everyone who's reading! :)

Chapter Ten: Soirée

2366: Terok Nor

Get-together. Soirée. Words, words, words. She had been to such events at home, back on Earth, maybe also on a few holidays where she had danced and partied and had fun.

Fun.

There had been champagne and barbecues and laughter.

She laughed, sighed.

And then Daphne sat down in front of he mirror, hand wandering over to the make up, to the kohl and the rouge and the mascara and the powder. More paint, more plaster, to cover up what was already there.

Yes, she could've shown up in the cargo trousers. But as she had already told Miri, Dukat wouldn't have minded. Rebellion wouldn't get her far, and she knew it.

No, or made more sense — much more sense — to take her time, to get the Cardassians on side, to get close to them, or even to one of them.

Then the laugh came back, and she was shaking her head, amused, disgusted, with herself.

"Come on, Daphne," she muttered, catching her eye in the mirror. "Who do you think you are? Che Guevara?"

So she applied the make up, smacked her lips, smiled. She was beautiful and yet there was something there — as when she and Miri and Selena had stood like pieces of meat before Dukat — that wasn't so pretty, that was haunted and afraid.

The Cardassians wouldn't see that though. No. They would see beauty. And that was all that mattered now. Beauty and wit. It seemed that, now, she had shrugged off the spy persona, and now she was a Regency lady.

She stood, crossed over to the wardrobe and picked out another dress. It was blue, and when she held it up, tiny crystals caught the faraway starlight, and the fabric glistened, sparkles, became magical.

The magical dress, though, had very little power. She would dance at the ball, and yet there would be no Prince Charming, no glass slipper.

An hour later, the coach arrived. Belen.

He didn't much look at her, only snorted when she stepped into the corridor with him. They walked through the Habitat Ring in silence, the occasional hiss of ore and fire of a disrupt or the only noise breaking up their journey.

"I have to say," Daphne eventually said. "I hadn't expect an escort."

"As the woman assigned to the station's second-in-command, you're important," he murmured.

Daphne blinked. Stared. Stopped. In the distance, the Ferengi bartender was berating a waiter who had dropped a raktajino, and Dabo girls were smiling sycophantically at the lucky gamblers. All around them, below and above, the station churned and whirred and hummed.

Then a pain in her back reminded her of where she was. No doubt, Belen had jabbed his disruptor rifle into the small of her back. But she didn't hurry along.

"What did you say?"

"You didn't hear?"

"Tell me."

"You should've been listening."

She took a deep breath, commanded herself to stay calm if not quiet. She had not forgotten her time in the holding cell, and the serious face of the Changeling, who was walking serenely nearby, made that memory all the more obvious.

"I said," Belen continued with an exaggerated sigh. "That you're the woman assigned to Dukat's second-in-command. That way, you get certain privileges."

"I haven't been assigned to anyone," she said quietly, disbelieving. "Assigned," she repeated, suddenly turning over the meaning of that word in her mind. Assigned. Possession. Owned. Object.

Then Belen's face became a sneer. "Then we had better not be late. Dukat did say that he had an announcement to make. I'll wager you're the star attraction."

With everything that had been said, with the plaintive cries of the Bajorans and the Cardassians barking orders, Daphne hadn't really heard what he'd said. Hadn't realised that he'd mentioned a second-in-command.

Which was probably for the best. Had she realised, she would've had to make a voice: whether to make for the closest airlock or to think herself thankful that she at least knew the officer to whom she was assigned.

But there were no air locks here. No way out. Restricted, confined, she knew there was only one way out, and that was to play along with it, to dance to someone else's tune.

So she walked, and Belen found that he no longer had to jab his disruptor into her back to tell her to speed up. She was walking quickly, with purpose, her heels clicking on the metal floor. Everyone looked, turned, Bajorans and Cardassians alike, to watch as she strode through the Habitat Ring, towards the commander's quarters.

Belen exchanged some words with the two Cardassians guarding the corridor, and Daphne heard the faint buzz of a force field being deactivated. She stepped through, ever aware that Belen could switch on the field at any moment, that a current could go swimming through her, twisting her body and her nerves and killing her there and then. He didn't. He wouldn't.

"Wait here," he said.

She waited.

"Another one for Gul Dukat?" one of the guards asked; Daphne hadn't realised before but it was Turak. She didn't dare smile but it comforted her — amused her — to see that Turak, who had relished bullying her, was now relegated to performing the duties of a lackey.

And so the door slid open, and Daphne didn't need telling twice to go through. Her dress was loose, and yet the air felt sticky, hot, clinging, and she had to remind herself that she could still breathe.

Her eyes darted around the crowd, and she noticed Selena, her smile beautiful but forced nonetheless as a glinn grabbed at her shoulder, took her away to a corner. Daphne recognised some of the others, too, from her first day on the station, and they all looked the same. Pained, worn. But they were smiling, giggling, pretending that they were interested — and aroused — by the Cardassians with their tales of conquest.

"He's got some nerve," she heard Belen murmur.

She had forgotten he was till there, and she turned to look at him. "Who?"

But she knew who. The journey, the get-together as Dukat seemed intent on calling it, had taken her mind off of it.

"I mean, if I knew you were assigned to me, I wouldn't be late."

She raised an eyebrow. Was that a compliment?

Still, there was something in Belen's eyes, a form of hunger that Daphne didn't find intriguing. No, she found it frightening.

As the raucous laughter and the stickiness of the kanar filled the room, she saw Dukat swagger in from somewhere. Miri clung to his arm, a look of adoration on her delicate face, as he greeted his men. He looked troubled, expectant.

The door opened then, and Daphne felt that sickness settle in her stomach again, and her head was spinning.

Dukat came striding over, a grin taking over his sharp features. "Ah!"

To her surprise — and relief — he walked straight past her, and paid her no heed. Instead, he walked over to the door.

Damar smiled tightly as his commander – and friend – came up to him. Dukat clapped him on the back, grinned.

"I'm glad you could finally join us," he said, and his tone was low, perhaps threatening.

From afar, but not as far as she would've liked, Daphne watched, pretended to be incredibly interested in a glass of viscous kanar on a table.

"Yes, sorry, Sir," came Damar's half-hearted response. "I was busy filling in those reports."

Dukat raised an eye ridge. "Reports?"

"Uh, yes. You said you wanted me to."

"I did. I did think it was clear that I didn't mean right at this minute."

Damar shifted uncomfortably, and then he cast his gaze over Dukat's shoulders, saw her, saw the anger and the anguish in her face.

"I must have misunderstood," he eventually said, catching Dukat's eye.

The Cardassian watched him silently for a moment, and then he waved a hand. "No matter. Come with me."

In no time at all, Daphne found she had no choice but to look away from that kanar. It continued bubbling, and she thought she could hear it in the distance. But no. She couldn't. Some officer had picked it up, had taken it over to a Bajoran woman, and she had accepted it as happily as she could, as happily as she dared.

Then she set her jaw, took a deep breath, told herself that the room wasn't spinning, as the two Cardassians came to stand in front of her. They were not in a corner but they might as well have been. She was calm.

"Ah, Daphne, isn't it?" Dukat said, genially enough. Maybe too genially.

She gave him a contained smile, her red lips curving ever so slightly. She nodded, didn't look over at Damar, for she knew that he wasn't looking at her.

"I wasn't expecting you to come."

To your soirée? How could I not? I was looking forward to it ever so much. She didn't say any of that. No, the airlock didn't seem quite as attractive a prospect now.

"I wasn't aware that I had a choice."

"If there was, you made the right one," Dukat said smoothly. "You've already met my second-in-command?"

She let her eyes shift over to Damar. "Yes."

"And I hear you've been getting on quite well."

He's heard? From who? Belen? Turak?

" Yes," she said.

"So I hope you appreciate what I'm about to do."

She wasn't entirely sure appreciate was the right word. But she would nod, would smile, would say yes, because she had no other option. Again, there was no choice. No other choice.

"Miri," Dukat began, and this time, his voice was delicate, as if he were concerned about touching on some worrisome, unspoken, topic. "I have taken her as my comfort woman." Then he paused, looked pained. "Ah, that's such an unpleasant term, don't you think?"

He gave her no time to nod or to reply and so she let him carry on, and she knew that Damar had still not looked at her, though they stood only a few metres apart.

"But it's meant to suggest comfort, to give the women the impression that this can be their second home. An escape, if you will."

She nearly snorted. Funny. No one escapes to a prison. That word impression - no word had ever been more accurate, more meaningful, more far-reaching, and more encompassing. That was it. To give the impression...

" But I digress. Let's get to the point, shall we?"

"Sir, I-" Damar started.

Dukat glared at him, and he fell silent. "In a similar way, I can see how uncertain you seem, Daphne. I can see that you're not settling in too well. Yes, you have come this evening. But... you seem as if you would prefer to leave."

Do I?

" But I've also seen that you seem to have attached yourself to, well, to Damar over here. And I've made the decision to assign you to him."

So. Belen wasn't lying. At least that's answered that, she thought ruefully, regretfully. She wasn't aware that she had attached herself to anyone. If anything, she would have rather been locked up in a room with the station's Changeling security guard or even with one of the Ferengi. No, she would rather have been put on a shuttle, sent into Federation space, and set free.

At last, Damar let his gaze settle on Daphne, on the human who was so far away from home, from what she knew. And Daphne caught his eye, wondered what he was thinking, whether he was excited or nervous or offended.

"I'm not going to argue with you, Dukat," she said quietly, decidedly. Even calling him Dukat and not Sir was rebellion enough for her at that moment, for it had been a few days and she was tired, tired or second guessing and estimating and wondering what was going to happen next.

"I don't suppose my consent even matters but I accept."

She tried to tell herself that Damar was, as far as Cardassians go, not unattractive, and that he had been the only one who had seemed to treat her with even a modicum of respect. Then her mind flitted over to Belen, who was stood in the other side of the room, his eyes roving over some young Bajoran woman. Daphne sighed, remembered how he had seemed unsure, reticent, maybe even regretful, of Turak's treatment of her. And then her stomach churned as she recalled how his gaze was still lascivious.

Then. How Damar had walked her back to her quarters, and how they had stared at one another as if they had come to the end of some awkward date. Awkward, she reflected. But not unwanted. She had been lonely, had been alone, and she realised that he made her feel safe.

"No, honestly, Sir," Damar said, voice gruff. "I've got enough paperwork to do and-"

Dukat let out a bark of laughter, and a few of the other guests turned to look. When they realised it was Dukat, they turned away. "Now, Damar, when did you become a pen pusher? Doesn't it mean anything to you? That I've deemed you worthy of this?"

Then he stepped over to Daphne and before she could do anything, he had taken a hold of her chin. It wasn't painful but it had taken her by surprise, and she gasped.

"She's beautiful, Damar. She's yours."

Then Dukat let go over her, smiled. "I'll have some men take your belongings to Damar's quarters. They're much nicer than yours. Oh, and Damar, be sure to make a degree of effort. I doubt this young lady wants to wade through a sea of kanar bottles and uniform pieces."

She didn't. She didn't want to do any wading. But she nodded her gratitude to Dukat, who gave Damar one last meaningful glance, and then the station commander was gone. Damar stared after him for a while.

"Daphne," he said, throat catching. "I hope you don't think that I asked Dukat for this because-"

"I don't."

She didn't. Well, she didn't know what to think.