Keiko was rushed immediately into the operating theater once the three of them materialized in the infirmary. Bashir had rattled off rapid instructions to a nurse about Kira's condition and treatment, then disappeared behind the same doors Keiko had been whisked through. Kira craned her neck in the same direction, though there was nothing to be seen from this side of the metal doors.
A quiet voice calling her name drew her attention away, back to her own situation. The nurse Bashir had spoken to was holding up a set of soft, cotton pajamas to Kira, the expectation that she would need to change into them clear. Standing half-dressed in the middle of the infirmary still clutching around herself the mylar emergency blanket Bashir had thrown over her before, Kira accepted the pajamas thankfully. The nurse directed her behind a privacy screen before helping her to undress and pull the muted blue pajamas over her body.
During the process, Kira couldn't help but to look repeatedly at her now distended abdomen. If the nurse noticed her quiet, unsure awe, she said nothing. Having likely sensed Kira's need to remain in her pensive state, she made no attempt to draw her out of her reflections with anything other than murmured instructions. She offered Kira a steadying hand when needed and assisted her in stepping into the pants where her sore knees and altered center of gravity had made this task suddenly a challenge. When Kira was fully clothed again, the nurse gave her a reassuring smile and led her to a biobed across the room.
Kira accepted the nurse's offered hand for support again as she lifted herself clumsily onto the bed. The motion was complicated further by the cramping sensation that tightened around her uterus, causing her to wince and suck in a sharp breath. A chill struck her in the next moment. Gritting her teeth, she finished climbing onto the bed, shiver while trying to find a comfortable position to sit in. None of this escaped the nurse's watchful eye. Though she gave little indication of a reaction, her demeanor remained calm and confident.
"Lie back," she said, and placed her gentle hand on Kira's shoulder to encourage her to recline. Once she had rested her head on the pillow of the bed, the nurse drew a blanket up for Kira to pull over herself. "Can you tell me what symptoms you're experiencing?"
"Cramp. Chills"
The nurse nodded and typed something into the padd that she held. When Kira's breathing relaxed again, the nurse asked her a couple more questions about the degree and type of pain that she did her best to answer. She'd never been good at talking about pain, only feeling it.
Warmer now with the blanket and with no more questions to answer, Kira settled properly into the stiff material of the bio bed. She hadn't realized how much she needed to lie down until she was off her feet, letting out an involuntary groan of relief. She spent several moments staring blankly at the ceiling while the nurse fetched a few pieces of medical equipment, weariness sinking into her deeply.
She chanced another look at her abdomen as the nurse held one of her tools up near Kira's bruised forehead. Looking at her belly from this angle was equally strange, she discovered. The round form peeked out, taller than her chest now, and blocked her view of her legs. She brought her legs up, bent at the knee and feet resting flat on the bed, feeling less disoriented that they were back in her field of vision. The baby kicked then, almost as if in response to her motions, and she startled at the still unfamiliar sensation.
Again, the nurse didn't react; she continued with her task as if she hadn't noticed. Her presence maintained an easy comfort, and she seemed to have developed an intuition for which moments patients wished she wasn't witnessing. Realizing this, Kira made a mental note to remember the woman's name and ask for her care in the inevitable event that she ended up back in the infirmary in the future.
The next thought that occurred to her was that there was no doubt Chief O'Brien would be arriving in the infirmary himself any moment. She knew he would have been alerted the instant they came through the wormhole and requested transfer to the medical bay. If the sight of the sudden change in her physique was jarring to Kira, she could only imagine O'Brien would be dumbfounded.
In an attempt to soften the blow and to have the chance to explain before O'Brien saw her abdomen, Kira pulled the blanket further up over her body to sit just under her chest. With her knees still drawn up, this formed a slack tent that obscured her midsection from O'Brien's immediate notice. She found herself waiting again with nothing else she could do at the moment and in the meantime she closed her eyes and relented partially to the persistent urge to sleep.
Some seconds or minutes later, she heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching. She was aware on some level that they likely belonged to O'Brien, but in having surrendered to the grogginess even halfway she found she was uninterested in opening her eyes to find out. The footsteps sounded closer now, growing faster, but still she paid them no mind. In the next second, however, she heard her title being spoken in a quiet, unsettled voice.
"Major?"
This pulled her from her drowsiness more effectively, and she opened her eyes to see O'Brien staring at her with concern and so many questions. To her surprise, Lieutenant Commander Dax was also with him, standing a few paces behind him. She wouldn't hazard a guess as to why Dax had come down to the infirmary, but she did know the answer to O'Brien's most pressing question, and wasted no time.
"Keiko's still in surgery, but she's going to be just fine."
Some relief shaded his expression, but the urgency remained, and he followed immediately with, "And the baby?"
She knew those would be the next words out of his mouth. Of course they would. And she had also known that she would likely be the one to break the news to O'Brien of what had happened, since Bashir still had his hands full performing surgery. Despite this, she found that when the time came she had no idea where to begin or what to say. How exactly did one inform a colleague that their wife was no longer carrying their unborn child because the baby had been transferred to their own womb? Certainly her military training had never prepared her for this. The mild disorientation she'd been experiencing from the parade of hyposprays Bashir had given her didn't help the matter either. She made brief eye contact with the nurse who, yet again, read the room with adept social awareness and flicked off the device she had been using to treat Kira's head wound, stepping away to busy herself with other tasks.
O'Brien interpreted Kira's hesitation and uneasy expression as a confirmation of his worst fear, and his face crumpled in dismay while Dax's grew mournful and sympathetic. She placed a hand on O'Brien's shoulder in quiet comfort, and he bowed his head with eyes squeezed shut in pain, whispering, "Oh my god."
"No, no, Chief. The baby's fine." Kira rushed to reassure him, reaching one hand out in his direction and cursing internally at her own lack of tact.
O'Brien's head snapped back up and his eyes widened in surprise, clearly wanting to believe what he'd just heard. She'd shaken him though, and he asked with a hint of desperation coloring his voice, "Are you sure?"
"Positive." She responded immediately this time, hoping that she could offset his premature grief with the vehemence in which she promised him this. "Everything's okay."
After all, she would be the first to know if the baby was in distress now. The more difficult part of the conversation remained, however, and she found she still didn't have the words to explain exactly what had occurred. She had yet to fully wrap her own mind around the events of the past several hours and she found herself hesitating again. At least, now that O'Brien knew the baby was alive and well, she had the space of a few seconds to think without him panicking. She sighed, frustrated with herself and her fumbling for the least shocking way to drop this news on him. Ultimately though, the only thing she could come up with was to say, "The baby just had a change of address is all."
Unsurprisingly, this did little to clear up the matter, and O'Brien was holding her with such a baffled expression that she wanted to start this whole conversation over again.
The words seemed ridiculous to say out loud, she wouldn't necessarily have believed them herself if she hadn't experienced the whole thing first hand, but being indirect was not doing O'Brien any favors. Her swollen belly was irrefutable evidence of what had happened- as good a place as any to start, she supposed. Nerves were getting the better of her, and she chastised herself for the uncharacteristic behavior as she pulled down the white blanket covering her body to reveal what lay beneath with a slow, unsteady motion. She brought her hands to her stomach and rubbed the length of the round swell as if to illustrate and, still feeling at a loss for the proper words, she said, "Your son is living here now."
O'Brien stared at Kira's midsection, blinking in shock and struck speechless by the sight. She could relate.
Dax, who had been previously quiet, let out a soft, astonished, "Nerys," as her mouth parted in surprise.
After a long, uncomfortable stretch of silence, O'Brien finally said in a breathless voice, "I don't understand."
"I don't understand much of the medical science behind it either," Kira admitted, wishing Bashir were there to talk with O'Brien, to make him understand. She offered what little she knew, hoping that would be enough for now. "Bashir didn't really have time to explain. But it was the only way to save the baby. Keiko was badly hurt. He was able to stabilize her, but not the baby. He tried everything, this was the only option left. He transferred the baby from Keiko to me to save him."
Kira observed his face closely, wanting at the same time both to help O'Brien with this ordeal and to return to her quarters and put the whole mess out of her mind. Cogs were turning in his head, obvious even from her perspective. She knew he had listened to all of her words, but she couldn't be sure how much he was absorbing. He reached out his hand toward the baby, almost as if without thinking, but quickly retracted the gesture as if he'd come to an abrupt realization that the body his son was now growing inside was not his wife's.
"It's okay, Chief. You can put your hand on me," she said. If nothing else, in this moment where her words were coming up short and awkward, she could facilitate this connection between father and child. "He's kicking a bit, you might be able to feel it."
She grasped his wrist gently and guided his hand to her stomach, where he let the palm splay out across the surface of the swell. The baby was still for a while, content to operate on his own schedule. Eventually, he did kick and some of the fear and uncertainty was chased away from O'Brien's expression as he felt the movement. He stared at his hand on Kira's belly for a little while longer, unspeaking, and likely trying to force his brain to make sense of what he was seeing.
"And he's really okay? They're both going to be okay?" The poor man, for all his quiet bemusement, seemed almost on the verge of tears with relief, confusion and a number of other emotions to which Kira could only speculate.
"Yes, Chief. They are both okay. I promise."
"Okay." He nodded to himself, took a few bracing breaths, and repeated, "Okay." Something occurred to him then, and he asked suddenly, "Are you okay, Kira?"
"Oh, I'm alright." She shrugged. "Nothing very serious. I hurt my knees but Bashir was able to patch that up already. And I bumped my head but it's not so bad."
At the mention of her head wound, the nurse cleared her throat. The vocable was quiet but undeniably present even though her tone belied no judgment in knowing that Kira was lying about the severity of her injury. She said nothing to contradict Kira's comment; she only held up the regenerator she had been using to treat the head trauma when O'Brien and Dax had walked in, then moved forward to resume the task.
Dax. Kira shifted her focus over to the woman who had yet to say anything other than her quiet gasp of Kira's given name upon seeing her belly. What was she doing there? She was still watching Kira with a strange look, though she was doing better to hide the quick glances she was throwing at Kira's stomach than a few moments ago. She didn't seem to be hurt, and she was making no attempt to catch the attention of the other medical personnel nearby. Kira cleared her throat, and gave in to her curiosity. "Dax, are you alright? What are you doing in the infirmary?"
Dax looked at her with a strange set about her eyes, as if the answer should have been obvious. The expression was fleeting across her face, and was soon replaced with a sincerity that was almost more surprising than her presence in the first place.
Despite her initial reaction to the question, Dax's voice was as rich and confident as always as she said, "I came to see if you were okay, Kira. I was in Ops with O'Brien when the call came through about you and Keiko needing emergency medical transports."
Kira wasn't quite sure how to respond, other than to let out a small, "Oh." She was unaware what would cause Dax such concern for her, but she couldn't deny the pleasant warmth that this knowledge brought to her. Maybe she would never fully understand what had led this woman to befriend her, why she insisted on caring about Kira, and how she'd been so convincing in causing Kira to return the sentiment. As far as unexpected and uninvited visitors went, however, she could think of plenty worse than Dax. She offered a smile, and said, "I'm okay. Though there's a little bit more of me than the last time you saw me."
A spark of mirth shined through Dax's responding grin, and she replied, "I noticed."
The baby kicked, and Kira jolted once more, eyes returning to her stomach reflexively. The smile dropped off of Dax's face, and both she and O'Brien stepped closer to her with worried looks.
"Nerys?" Dax questioned out loud, while O'Brien looked to her eyes with the same unspoken question. His hand had not left her belly yet, and though she found the prolonged physical contact from the chief a touch uncomfortable, she hadn't begrudged him the need to be close to his son after fearing his loss. He had to have felt the kick, and as such, he waited for Kira to confirm that the motion was what she had been reacting to, rather than something to truly worry about.
"It's okay, it was just another kick." For lack of a better way to mitigate her mild embarrassment, she laughed a little at herself and admitted, "They keep surprising me."
Dax's face softened with an understanding that could only come from the memories of pregnancy in her previous hosts' lives. O'Brien, for his part, smiled along with Kira's laugh, but she could see the tinge of sympathy to the expression. As much as she did not want to be the center of such focused attention, she realized she would have to get used to these peculiar looks from the people she worked with over the next several months. Weariness reclaimed her at the thought, and she could only close her eyes in response. Idly, she wondered when she would be able to sleep for real.
"You must be exhausted, Nerys." Dax's quiet voice cut through her thoughts, speaking them aloud, and she mumbled her agreement though she didn't reopen her eyes. Now that she'd allowed them to close again, nothing seemed as important to her as sleep. But when the warmth of O'Brien's hand left her stomach, she peered at him through reluctantly half-opened eyes. He had moved to sit in a chair nearby, evidently drawn inward by his own thoughts as he waited for the news of Keiko's procedure.
They remained in silence as they all waited now. The nurse had finished treating Kira's head wound and had stepped away again, leaving them to their waiting. She didn't count the minutes, but the anxiety of trying to predict the moment Bashir would reappear with news felt interminable.
Dax was still at Kira's side, standing with her own hand resting on the edge of the bed and her eyes fixated on the spot where O'Brien's hand had been. Rather than expressing her frustration with her initial impulse to lash out for being gawped at so obviously and continually, Kira forced herself to rein in her temper. She let out an exasperated sigh and said, "This is going to take some getting used to. For everyone."
"I'll say," Dax murmured. She looked so far away, so lost in her own thoughts, that Kira felt her surge of annoyance fade to be replaced with the inexplicable need to pull Dax back to her. She squeezed Dax's forearm lightly, causing the other woman to turn her head back to look Kira in the eye again. The bemusingly pleasant feeling in her chest bloomed again when Dax gave her a genuine smile, and she realized Dax was looking at her expectantly, wondering why Kira had reached for her attention with the hand still resting on her arm.
Before she had thought of anything to say, the door Keiko had been ushered through earlier slid open to reveal Bashir. He strode into the main area of the infirmary, directly toward Kira's bed. Though she hadn't seen that he'd sustained any serious injuries in the asteroid field, the toll of the accident and the resulting medical emergencies had left him looking a little worse for wear. However, a faint smile lit up his exhausted features, and Kira felt the last bit of worry she'd been holding over Keiko's wellbeing leave her in a relieved rush of breath. O'Brien had jumped to his feet as soon as he'd seen Bashir, and was already upon the man with a dozen questions about Keiko and how she was doing.
Bashir addressed the whole room when he said, "She came through the surgery wonderfully. She'll be asleep for a little while still, but she'll be just fine."
Hearing the words from Bashir must have held a heavier weight than when coming from Kira, and she saw O'Brien's shoulders slump with a true relief he hadn't allowed himself before. She wasn't sure in that moment if she resented O'Brien for not trusting her word, or if she was simply grateful that the burden of reassuring him had been lifted from her.
Bashir caught on then to the tension which had been filling the room, albeit belatedly, and offered in a jovial tone, "If it's alright with you, Kira, I can attach a fetal monitor for a moment so we can see the baby's vitals and that he's alright for ourselves."
O'Brien looked to her, his interest instant and earnest, and said, "I'd really appreciate that, if you're willing, Major."
Kira shrugged, and gave a small smile through her exhaustion. "Sure, yeah, of course."
Gesturing to the top of her infirmary pajamas, Bashir asked, "May I?" She nodded, and he lifted the shirt's hem up to place the small, silver monitor just above her belly button. As soon as the monitor made contact, the screen of the computer display next to her bio bed lit up with medical information. Seeing the bare skin of her abdomen reminded Kira of the presence of the stretch marks striping across her belly and she frowned at them, resolving to ask Bashir to take a dermal regenerator to the dark scar lines soon. In the next moment, the sound of a heartbeat whooshing from the computer, steady and rapid, ripped her attention away from the marks.
She allowed herself to be stunned once more by the tiny life she now carried as she watched the jagged, lively pulse lines fly across the screen. Her hands came up to cradle her stomach of their own accord, and she felt another little thump from within. No one else in the room spoke, and for a short while, all four stared at the screen with varying degrees of amazement and delight. Eventually, however, the moment dissipated when Bashir cleared his throat and, at Kira's nod, removed the fetal monitor. Kira pulled the hem of her shirt back down, but found she was still fixated on the sound that no longer played through the room.
"I have no doubt you must be hungry by now, Major." Bashir drew her away from her thoughts, and though she turned her head to look at him, she needed an extra moment to process his words after being so taken aback by the heartbeat.
When she did catch up to what he had said, she realized she hadn't paid any thought to her appetite in a while. Food had hardly been on her mind, especially given that the last gastric sensation she recalled directly focusing on was retching in the shuttle when she had first stood after slamming her head into the helm. Calling up that memory was hardly conducive to persuading herself to eat, but she couldn't deny the emptiness gnawing into her stomach. She forced herself to focus more on the hunger than any leftover nausea, and when her brain caught up to her stomach's signals, she admitted, "Very."
"I'll get you something," Dax's swift response came with a firm but gentle squeeze to Kira's shoulder, and an affectionate glance in her direction.
"Good," Bashir cut into any opportunity Kira might have had to react. His words, though cheerful, were resolute and made clear that she had no room for negotiation. "Make sure she gets a full meal." He turned to Kira, his demeanor shifting even further into one of his more tiresome personas, to Kira's mind. The one who lectured her about the medical advice she often ignored, particularly when the day shift ran long into the night without an end to her work or a break to care for herself. "Forgetting to eat won't do now, Kira. You'll need the fuel, and so will the baby. In the meantime, Chief, I think it would be alright now for you to see Keiko for a bit. She'll be asleep for a while still, but you can sit with her. I need to talk to Kira in private about her medical care anyway."
No sooner than the words had left Bashir's mouth had O'Brien nodded and taken off in the direction indicated where Keiko was resting. Dax gave one more light squeeze to Kira's shoulder, then turned and marched off on her mission to find Kira something to eat, leaving Kira and Bashir.
She turned to him and pushed herself up into a sitting position with far less grace than she'd had just that morning. She spoke first, unwilling to discuss more of her own medical condition with Bashir as her doctor before checking in with Julian as her friend. "How are you doing? You got rattled around pretty badly too, but you've been on your feet the whole time taking care of us."
He allowed some of his true exhaustion to color his smile. "I think I'll sleep for nearly as long as you and Keiko will once this day is over," he admitted. "But my colleagues insisted on scanning me with a tricorder before I performed Keiko's surgery. Just bumps and bruises for me. I was lucky."
"I think we were luckier that you were there."
He tipped his head in an awkward acknowledgment, seemingly unsure of how to accept the compliment, then turned the subject to the matter at hand. "Now, your turn. How are you feeling?"
"Like I got jettisoned out of the airlock a few times, if I'm honest."
"Honest is good. I can't treat my patients if they lie to me." He gave her a fond smile, eyes kind though he was teasing her. She rolled her eyes and snorted half-heartedly. He was scanning her again before she even finished her eye roll, and she wondered just how many tricorders had been pointed in her direction in the last several hours.
"Your vitals are holding well, and the baby appears to be doing equally well. Your progesterone and estrogen levels are starting to increase too. That's good."
Kira offered only a low hum in response. She tensed as another spasm seized up on her abdominal muscles. Bashir noticed her reaction to the pain, and he asked, "Cramp?"
She nodded, still breathing through the sharp pain. He nodded as well, unsurprised by the information, and posed another question. "Any hot flashes?"
The cramp was subsiding now, and Kira cast a side glance to Bashir. "No. Should I be expecting them?"
"Well, everyone reacts differently of course, but it's a common side effect of both the procedure and all the hormones flooding your system at the moment. As well as irritability, mood swings, weepiness, nausea, tender breasts-"
Though he gave no indication that the list ended there, Kira cut him off upon hearing the word breasts. She'd already discussed and exposed far too much of her private anatomy to Bashir for one day. For one lifetime. Thankfully, he seemed to get the message, and moved on. "Suffice it to say you're going to feel pretty tired and a bit sore for at least a few days, but you should be fine to be up and about by tomorrow morning."
She nodded, though she knew that her achy exhaustion was most likely just beginning and would last long past the next several days given what she had signed herself up for. She needed more information, beyond just the immediate repercussions to her body. So many questions were swirling around her mind but the cloudiness inside her brain was challenging her ability to articulate any of them. She pressed at her eyes with the heel of her hands and didn't bother to stifle the yawn that came from her. She spoke over the end of the yawn, asking, "Okay. So what's next? After the next couple of days."
"Well, from here we'll monitor your pregnancy carefully." Bashir tucked his hands behind his back as he spoke, relaxed in relating the next steps. That he was comfortably certain about how to proceed eased some of Kira's anxiety. At least he wasn't feeling as lost about this as she was. She released some of the tension in her shoulders as he continued. "I'll get you set up with one of the station's obstetricians. I'm sure they'll want to schedule regular check-ups for you and the baby. As I told you on the shuttle, there isn't a way to safely transfer the baby back to Keiko. That procedure isn't without risks to begin with, and those risks only increase due to you being Bajoran and the vascular connections to the fetus that your body will create."
"Right, all those blood vessels." A faint hum of embarrassment thrummed in her mind at her lack of knowledge on the topic and she felt compelled to add, "Admittedly, learning about reproductive biology wasn't high on my list of priorities in the Resistance."
He tilted his head with an understanding smile, indicating no judgment. However, the smile faded as he acknowledged the severity of the topic. "They'd be too dense to separate from the baby without hurting you both. Transferring the baby from your body back to Keiko would likely result in massive hemorrhaging for you both and severe oxygen deprivation for the baby."
"I think I'll pass on that," she replied with light sardonicism.
"Agreed."
Feeling a strain on the muscles of her lower back growing, Kira brought her hands to the sore flesh and muttered out, "This already feels like how I've heard Bajorans describe the later stages of their pregnancies."
Bashir smiled another kind smile and moved around to the other side of the bed where he stowed the device in his hand and pulled out another scanner to examine her clearly aching posture. "I don't doubt it," he said. "You're starting from a fetal age of seventeen weeks, not zero." His eyes were filled with the same sympathy she'd seen from O'Brien earlier and she had to resist the urge to continue grumbling out her annoyance in sarcastic comments.
She settled instead for asking, "How many weeks do humans usually carry for?"
"Forty Earth-weeks is considered full term."
She groaned. More than twice as long as if she were carrying a Bajoran child. She felt the weight of the next several months to come pressing heavily in her chest, and even more literally so in her abdomen. "And this is a human baby. So that means he'll need another 23 weeks before he's ready to be born, regardless of me being Bajoran, I'm guessing."
The sympathetic gaze was fixed on her again, verging far too close to pity for her liking as Bashir said, "He'll still need the amount of time typical to most human pregnancies to be fully developed, yes."
Kira rubbed at her tired eyes again and wondered if she should have asked more questions before volunteering her body to house an unborn human baby. She didn't dwell on the thought long though; there hadn't been time for many questions and even had she been armed with this information at the time, she knew she would have still made the same decision. Far too weary to learn more about human fetal development in that moment, she shifted the conversation to another question on her mind.
"The transfer process left a lot of stretch marks on my stomach. Can you get rid of them?"
"Of course," Bashir said. He reached for a dermal regenerator and motioned for her to lie back again. She did so, though she didn't recline all the way. She hauled her legs back onto the bed and leaned back until she was resting propped up on her elbows, then lifted the hem of her shirt once again and watched as the regenerator worked over her skin. The faint glow emanating from the device fell over the dark lines and she felt the familiar prickly warmth of the regenerator stimulating her skin to heal and recreate in the place of the scars. After a few minutes, the skin of her abdomen was once again unmarred save for a knife mark under the left side of her rib cage, but she mentioned nothing of this to Bashir and he didn't ask.
A motion caught her peripheral vision and she heard Dax's voice announcing her entrance back into the infirmary. "I hope you're okay with Terran food, Kira. Quark was having a special and it doesn't look half bad actually." Dax looked up from the tray she was carrying, an easy smile on her face which twitched into a more amused expression when she realized she'd perhaps arrived a few minutes too early. "Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude."
"We were just finishing up anyway," Bashir said as he turned off the regenerator and stepped away from Kira.
"Yeah. Don't worry about it." Kira smiled as she spoke, eyes fixated on the tray that had sparked another surge of hunger to rumble inside her. She pulled down the hem of her shirt and scooted up into a sitting position. "Thanks for the food."
"Of course." Dax strode the small remaining distance to Kira's bedside and pulled an unused medical table over to set the food down, pushing the tray in front of Kira. She wasted no time digging into the meal presented to her, ignoring the increasing amusement on Dax's face. Her smile was warm, if slightly teasing, and Kira found she didn't mind much if her friend got a kick out of watching her devour a plate of some sort of fragrantly spiced Terran protein and vegetables.
"I think it's time for me to succumb to my own need for rest." Bashir admitted as his shoulders slumped and he finally allowed the day's stress to embrace his posture and expression. "However, Kira, I want you to remain in the infirmary for the night."
She heaved a disgruntled groan around a mouthful of food and said, "Is that really necessary?"
"Yes, I believe it is." Even through his fatigue, he was resolute and stern as he continued. "We need to monitor you to make sure no unforeseen complications arise, to make sure your body is adjusting."
"I thought you said I was doing okay, that the baby was doing okay." She eyed him suspiciously and without realizing, she brought a protective hand up to rest on her abdomen.
He softened a little and reassured, "You are, both of you. Indulge me, please. I'd like to keep you both doing okay."
She held his gaze for a moment and inhaled deeply through her nose, then exhaled with only a little more force than necessary. "Fine."
"Thank you," he said, clearly uninterested in arguing with her at this point and relieved he wouldn't have to. "Dr. Jefferson is on duty for the rest of the day shift, Dr. Lukar is working the night shift. They'll take good care of you."
Kira nodded, then returned her full attention to her meal. She picked up the small, flat piece of bread on the side of the dish and ripped off a sizable chunk. Pleased with the taste of the soft, fresh bread, she tore off another piece which she swirled through the sauce on her plate. She wished Bashir a good night, throwing him a grateful look for all he had done that afternoon despite her momentary annoyance from before, and he slipped out the door of the infirmary with a faint smile.
Silence stretched on for a bit as Kira continued eating and Dax wordlessly observed Kira's steady progress through her meal. After a few moments, though, she pulled a chair over to Kira's bed and sat down. "I'll keep you company for a little while."
Kira looked up and furrowed her brow in question. "Don't you have to get back to Ops?"
Dax shook her head and settled further into her chair. "No, my shift was close to over anyways when your distress call came through. When I asked Sisko to be relieved to come see you, he said I might as well take the rest of the evening off."
Unsure how else to respond, Kira studied Dax for a moment and let out a bemused "Huh."
Dax's amusement from before brightened in the way she spoke as she said, "You know, Nerys, believe it or not, your friends actually care about you."
Kira only acknowledged the comment with a playful roll of her eyes, then shoved another large mouthful of bread into her mouth. "What's this stuff called? Do you know?"
Dax was unbothered by the change in topic, her easy smile still in place, and she replied, "Quark said it was curry and naan. Benjamin's mentioned the dish before too. It's good, I take it?"
Kira hummed her agreement around another mouthful of bread. Once she swallowed, she said, "Yeah, it reminds me a little of hasperat. It's not the same flavor profile exactly, but it's rich and it's got a good spice to it."
"I'll have to stop by Quark's again later and get some more for myself."
"You should. Though, I have to admit I'm so hungry you could have brought me a bowl of pureed beetles and I probably would have eaten it." She paused for a moment to consider this, then amended, "Well, I would have at least thought about it." She returned Dax's disbelieving chuckle with a lopsided smile, and shrugged. "Trust me, I've eaten worse."
Most of the light in Dax's eyes remained, but Kira did notice a shift in mood to the more serious. Fortunately, Dax made no comment, but she knew her friend was likely imagining some of the less than savory things Kira had had to eat for survival during the years of Bajor's occupation by the Cardassians and her time in the Resistance. Along with a profound disinterest in dissecting her more traumatic memories, the subtle yet grave edge settling in Dax's demeanor was one of the main reasons she did not like to often reference the Occupation or discuss that period at length. The subject depressed everyone, herself included.
For her own sake as much as Dax's, Kira awkwardly steamed ahead in the conversation, steering them in a different direction. "Maybe it's good I'm stuck here for the night. I don't feel like dealing with people staring at me yet."
Dax didn't bother to deny that this was precisely what would happen when Kira stepped back out among the public eyes of the station. Most were very aware of Kira's commanding presence on Deep Space 9, irrespective of a gossip-rich turn of events that was manifested visibly under her shirt. This particular occurrence would be sure to fuel rumor mills for a considerable amount of time. Instead of dwelling on this inevitability, Dax asked, "How did this all happen anyway?"
"An asteroid field. I'm still not sure how the sensors failed to pick it up accurately. We changed course a bit to check out some weird bioscans," Kira said before shoveling more curry into her mouth. Dax gave her an inquiring look, no doubt wondering what had prompted that decision. Without waiting to be asked directly, Kira supplied, "Keiko insisted."
"Ah." Despite the unfortunate outcome, a small, fond smile for the woman in question still pulled at Dax's mouth at this detail.
"Something malfunctioned with the sensors, I guess," Kira continued, "because the asteroid field was a lot larger and closer than it seemed at first. We got tossed around like a toddler's playthings."
"Well, I'm glad you're all alright."
Kira smiled in response. She polished off the last bite of the curried protein and vegetables, then sopped the last of her bread through the sauce that remained on her plate and savored the flavor that coated her tongue. Pleasantly full, she sat back against the pillows of the bed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Not long after she had pushed the tray away from herself, she noticed a petite woman in science officer teals approaching her bed and she resigned herself to focusing on yet another medical discussion.
"I just wanted to introduce myself, so you know who to look for if you need me," the woman spoke. "I'm Dr. Jefferson, I'll be here for another couple of hours."
Kira nodded, not bothering to sit up straight again. She was too tired, and now that she'd eaten she was feeling even more sedate. Dr. Jefferson skimmed through a padd in her hand, no doubt Kira's medical chart, then looked back up with a professional smile.
"Do you have any questions before I let you be?"
"I'm so tired." Kira's eyes were burning as she croaked out the words. "Do I still have to stay awake?"
"No, Dr. Bashir and Luce repaired the serious damage." Dr. Jefferson's response was possibly the best news she'd ever heard. Well, at least that evening. "In fact, I want you to get some sleep now. Your body needs to rest, both to heal and to continue adjusting to this rapid change."
"Oh thank the prophets," Kira let out in a relieved rush of breath, finally allowing herself to deflate fully on the exhale. She settled further into the bed and pulled the sheet over herself again. Suddenly, she didn't care much that she was on a biobed in the infirmary. She only cared that she was reclined against a soft surface with no reason now not to allow the sleep her body was desperate for. A thought occurred to her before she permitted the exhaustion a complete claim on her and she turned her head in Dax's direction.
"I don't think I'll be very good company," she murmured drowsily, already endeavoring to drift off to sleep.
She heard another small laugh from her friend, light and affectionate. Her eyes slipped closed as Dax said, "Go to sleep, Nerys."
A soft touch rested on her arm, the weight a steady presence that grounded her even as her mind untethered itself from consciousness. Her head swam with fuzzy darkness as she faded into sleep. The hand didn't leave her arm, radiating comfort until her breathing evened out and she was no longer aware of anything other than her own dreams.