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Disclaimer: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and all related characters owned by Paramount Studios. No copyright infringement intended.
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We pass the day in a little café somewhere aft the Golden Gate.
I'm in civvies, naturally, and trying to pretend it doesn't bother me so much any longer. Nerys wears Starfleet black and gray with a consoling dash of red, and she's inconspicuously but desperately wriggling, slapping at imaginary bugs and what. Miserable little Bajoran trapped on an alien planet in an alien uniform.
She surprised me this morning, actually…with padds in hand and no happier for a weekend off, I was headed to the Academy to teach….Conduit Maintenance One Oh One, or so my itinerary says. Boring as hell, and they say I'm suited to it. I wonder who they bribed to sub.
So at the crack of dawn I kissed Molly and Yoshi goodbye, stuck the necessary note under Keiko's microscope for intense study, and having decided to skip the shuttle traffic, started walking. I guess I got about two blocks when a ball of mass disaster knocked me flat against the stones…and kept on wind-milling. When she finally got a killing grip on her stuff and my stuff and my rear right along with it all, Starfleet's latest Command Level Pain in the Ass chanced to actually look at the victim, and blushed, actually blushed bright as her under tunic. "Miles!" She started in, standing and offering a hand up, a yank of surprising strength. "I was just going to your apartment…but I'm thrilled to have met you here instead. Happy Birthday!"
After all the dusting off was over, we separated our belongings and headed back my way, detouring here. It's quiet enough, with Command just out of sight and the bridge hovering like a rickety archangel. After the beating it got in the war, I figure the structural integrity must be as good as gone, and someone up top is playing games just to hide the fact and stave off a demolition crew. But that bridge is an institution, after all, without it returning heroes couldn't swoop in to grand entrances and scientists like my wife couldn't helm field trips and briefly entertain the thought of throwing themselves over to grand exits.
We both have places to be, Nerys likely the more important duty holder. She doesn't appear to care, and her com badge is buried under debris enough to equal a silencing tachyon storm. Its illusory rebellion, of course, come tomorrow she'll be back in the office of some jilted Admiral offering apologies and swinging her hips. I hope to God she doesn't get Janeway. But Kira Nerys has her stubborn streak just as well as I have mine, and we pass the day, mostly in silence, just aft the Golden Gate and out of Command's line of sight.
The questions are terse and the answers fall on deaf ears, I don't remember why she was looking for me and I don't think she does either. The small talk is sharp and delving. No, she doesn't like Earth, but her commission is still strong for another couple of years and there's no use for her on Bajor what with her exile from the religion, and Captain Sisko has Deep Space Nine under control. He doesn't like paperwork, so here she is.
Have I spoken to him? I hear that one. No, no, I haven't. There was a time back when Keiko and the kids and I helped pull Joseph Sisko from his grief, and I was close with the old man right up to his death…but his son? No. Oh, there were a couple of transmissions after the great return, welcome back, sir and it's good to be back. But he's different now, and I'm just a teacher. Nerys understands. Her elegant fingers draw patterns on the coffee stained table cover, scratching roses and clouds away to reveal filthy corkboard.
She asks about my students and if they'd like an off world lecturer, not that she knows anything about engineering. She just wants to flaunt herself to the cadets and boost my appearance in their eyes a little. In turn, I know I'll invite her to stay at the apartment and listen to her breathy dreams through the structurally unsound walls while Keiko holds my covers hostage and snores in her flannel. We'll sit together at breakfast, maybe after Molly has gone out with friends and my wife to work, with Yoshi between us. She'll smile and laugh and remember happiness and I'll imagine my son has Bajoran nose ridges and gives a damn about his sorry old man.
But for now we sit aft the Golden Gate and just beyond Command, sipping from chipped mugs and watching gulls scream and swoop over our heads on the café patio. The Colonel's earring is gone and chief feels naked without his uniform, but Miles and Nerys are doing fine, so long as we don't think about yesterday or anticipate tomorrow.
But maybe even that's all just illusion.
FIN