II. INDISCRETION
"So who was she?" Kira asked, more to break the bizarre moment she found herself entrapped in than because she truly wanted to know. So far, being on a mission with Dukat of all people had not been the complete nightmare she had feared it would be, but it was uncomfortable enough with his constant switches between condescension and unwelcome admiration. She did not need him to suddenly become this stranger who sat between graves, in silence, and cried.
Once, she had lived for making Cardassians cry. Tears of rage, to pay for all the tears Bajorans had cried during decades of horror. For her own tears, when her father told her that her mother would never come back. For the tears they had made her incapable of shedding, when her father died. But what Dukat was doing right now had nothing to do with being made to pay for his crimes. There was the tiny hope that this was all some kind of strange mind game, a trick for her benefit, but then again she had found him like this when he hadn't even known she was there. He still ignored her completely.
"Dukat," she prompted, without getting a reaction. She looked at what he held in his hands, thought of the two civilian names she had found on the Ravenok's passenger list, and it all fell together.
"I recognise a Bajoran child bracelet when I see one," she said.
"Her name was Tora Ziyal," he said slowly, his voice filled with a kind of numb disbelief she was all too familiar with. Some petty part of her wanted to ask him what it felt like, the loss thousands of Bajorans had to cope with. "She was...the daughter of a friend."
It was so good to be able to despise him again.
"Don't bother, Dukat," she said scornfully. "Ziyal is a Cardassian name. You are hardly the only Cardassian who had a half-blood child and then abandoned it. Our orphanages are full of them."
He didn't even flinch.
"Very well," he said. "She was my daughter. And I did not abandon her."
"Actually, I was being diplomatic," Kira returned. "There are a lot worse words one could use for sending a child and her mother to a prison camp."
That brought him to his feet.
"They were *not* on their way to a prison camp," he declared. He was no longer crying, but the rage that held his face was too raw to be familiar on this smooth-talking monster either. "The Ravenok was supposed to rendezvous with a freighter, which would have taken Naprem and Ziyal to Lyseepia. I knew the occupation was coming to an end, I knew there wouldn't be a place for them on Cardassia *or* Bajor. They could have lived their lives in some sort of peace there, at least. Now if you don't mind, Major, I'd rather not talk about this any longer."
He gestured to the small pile of earrings he had collected on one of the burial mounds.
"The earrings you asked for are there."
She quickly found out that her friend Lorrad's wasn't among them. Neither, she noticed, was another earring with the family crest for Tora. She gave Dukat a look. He was kneeling again, next to the burial mound that had held the girl's remains, and was slowly returning the rocks to their original place.
"If Lorrad is dead, he's not buried here," she declared.
"Neither is Naprem," Dukat said distantly.
Kira made a quick decision and told him about the possibility of tracking Lorrad through isotopes. He nodded without saying whether he was still interested in finding the remaining survivors from the Ravenok, but when she started to leave, he marched at her side, silently, his earlier boasts about the insufferable heat gone completely.
She didn't quite know what to make of it. Her own feelings for the women who had shared the beds of Cardassians were clearly defined. Those who had been raped, she pitied; those who had shamed their people by voluntarily giving their bodies to men who raped their planet, she despised. There had been ugly scenes after the occupation had ended; many of the women had been dragged through the streets in public, their hair cut off, with the people spitting and cursing at them. Kira had not joined in, but neither had she done anything to stop it. These women had sold more than their bodies; they had sold their souls. They had sold out Bajor for some luxury at the side of their Cardassian masters, who, naturally enough, had not bothered to do anything to protect them once the occupation was over, and they could return to whatever entertainment awaited them on Cardassia.
That Dukat had kept Bajoran mistresses wasn't exactly news. That he would have feelings for one of them years later would be surprising, but she couldn't be sure about this. He might only have come on this trip to find his daughter. Well, even predators had parental instincts. It didn't make them less dangerous.
They spent the night in a cave. By then, he had become restless, but still not talkative. Finally, Kira decided that his silent pacing irritated her more than his usual endless ramblings and told him to sit down.
"You never had a child, did you?" he asked.
What was left of her restraint snapped.
"No," she said. "I was too busy making sure other children could live instead of being dragged to your labour camps. I'm sorry for that dead girl, Dukat. It wasn't her fault that you were her father. But do not ever expect me to pity you."
He stood still. Standing in the entrance to the cave as he did, she could see the setting sun outlining his shape, the familiar, long-necked figure of a Cardassian in body armour which still instinctively made her wanting to grab the next rifle.
"On the contrary, Major," he said, and his voice was very cold. "If anything, I would expect you to congratulate me. You see, if Ziyal had not died, I would have had to kill her. And life was kind enough to spare me that."
That was the end of the conversation for the evening.
In the morning, when they ate their field rations, she could no longer hold back and told him exactly how despicable she found a father who would even consider for a single moment killing his own daughter.
"And if you think I'll let you kill her mother just so your precious status won't be endangered, you can think again. I'd rather kill you first."
"I see," he said, and the familiar sarcasm in his voice was back. "Well, Major, I salute your nobility. Too bad you didn't show it before."
"What do you mean?" she asked before thinking better of it.
"There is no need to protect Naprem from me," he said acidly, "but I can think of many other women who could have used your protection. Can't you?"
Again, she recalled the women with their cut hair, the furious screams of the mob.
"They were collaborators," she stated, but for the first time since she had seen him cry over the graves, she felt unsure.
"And collaborators," he finished for her in flawless if accented Bajoran, his mockery evident, "deserve everything they get." Continuing in Cardassian, he added: "In which case there would be no reason for you to be concerned about Naprem. However, I meant what I said. There is no need to protect her from *me*. As you said, a Bajoran mistress is not that unusual. A half-Bajoran child, on the other hand, people wouldn't have forgiven, not anymore."
"People?" she asked automatically while trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling he might actually have a point by picturing instead these women sharing cocktails with Cardassians when their entire planet was brutalized beyond forgiveness.
"My wife, for one."
"You should have thought of that before you became involved with Naprem."
"You are right," he said unexpectedly, "I should have."
"So what will become of her once we have liberated the prisoners?" Kira asked, almost against her will. She couldn't imagine Naprem wanting to return to Bajor. In theory, things had settled down a bit since the end of the occupation, but once word got out that she was the mistress of the prefect, Naprem's life would make this hellhole of a planet look like a vacation spot. And she couldn't see any Bajoran wanting to live on Cardassia, either, not even someone who had lowered herself to spending years with Gul Dukat.
He didn't reply. She couldn't tell whether this was because he did not want to talk about it, or whether he could not imagine an answer, either.
The liberation itself went as smoothly as one could hope for. One could accuse Gul Dukat of many things, but he was a competent fighter, and Kira decided that in a battle situation, it was better to have him at her side than with a knife to her back. Once the remaining Bajorans and Cardassians had helped them deal with the Breen, it was not too hard finding Tora Naprem. Kira didn't know what she had expected, but the wiry, middle-aged woman who turned out to be Naprem hadn't been it. If she didn't look like the glamorous, well-dressed and well-kept whores the Cardassian officers had loved to show off, she didn't look like the pathetic, scared and helpless women running through the streets at the sunset of the occupation, either. The loss of her daughter and the years in prison had visibly left their mark on her and might have made her look older than she actually was, but mostly she resembled nobody as much as Winn Adami, if one imagined Winn in prison drab instead of her fine robes. She exuded a certain sense of authority, and some of both Bajoran and Cardassian prisoners automatically looked at her for clues on how to react.
Naprem did not acknowledge Kira and Dukat beyond a nod and the acceptance of some quick instructions before all the Breen guards had been killed. Only when this was over did she go to Dukat. Kira told herself it was only distrust of Dukat that made her linger and watch. The first thing she saw Naprem do was hit Dukat in the face, not a gentle slap but something hard enough to draw blood. But Naprem's whisper was of a harsh yet undeniable intimacy that stifled the flicker of amused approval in Kira.
"Where have you *been*?" Naprem hissed. "All these years, where have you been? I waited every second of every minute of every day. *She* waited while she bled to death in my arms."
"I saw her grave, Naprem," Dukat said, and then they silently stood together, till Kira turned away and busied herself with the other survivors.
Sharing the small space of a shuttle with Dukat and his mistress made the first part of her trip look relaxed in comparison. Kira couldn't shake off the suspicion he knew how deeply uncomfortable it made her, and doubled the numbers of casual, intimate gestures reaching from a hand on Naprem's shoulder to a lingering kiss on the woman's neck because of it. Then there were times when she was sure she was mistaken, that, disgusting as the notion was, this was simply the natural behaviour of two long-parted lovers who didn't really notice the third presence that much at all. But each time she had convinced herself of this, he gave her one of his cool, amused looks that made her want to leave the room. There were other moments, too, moments in which the fact she was finally free seemed to catch up with Naprem, and she started shaking, while Dukat held her, or moments in which she turned aside when he touched her and stared out through the windows, trying to catch the bizarre, fleeting colours of space.
Finally, Kira had the opportunity to talk with Naprem on her own. Once they were back on the station, Naprem had asked to visit the temple, in order to pray for Ziyal. On the way, Kira decided that Naprem probably knew what she was thinking anyway, so she might as well say it.
"Why did you do it?" Kira asked. "For the food and the security? Or did he somehow blackmail you? Or did he rape you, and leave you with no other place to go?"
Naprem did not react offended, or for that matter remorseful. Instead, she looked amused.
"You're such a child, Major," she said, which strengthened the similarities to Kai Winn to no end. Kira found herself bristling.
"Even when I was a child," she replied, "I would have never been so naïve to trust a Cardassian when he talked to me of love."
"Did he?" Naprem asked, interested. For a moment, Kira didn't understand what she meant. Then the implication let her go cold.
"No," she said icily.
"Well, you *are* flirting with him," Naprem stated placidly. "As Cardassians understand it. To answer your question. I did not love him, not at first, but no, he did not force me, either. I did love him well before Ziyal was born, though."
"Was that before more than a million of your people were dead, or after?" Kira asked, the rage in her slowly building to a boiling point.
Naprem looked at her, her face unreadable.
"As I said," she stated. "You are a child. Now if you will excuse me."
Before entering the temple, she did turn her head around one more time and asked:
"You are Kira Meru's daughter, aren't you?"
Confused, Kira nodded.
"Prophets help us," Naprem said, and vanished into the temple.
When Dax quizzed her about her trip, Kira hardly knew what to say. She was rescued out of this rare loss of words by Dukat, of all the people, who turned up and caused Jadzia to make a discreet exit.
"Major," he said.
"Dukat."
"One of these days, I will have to decide whether your insistence on calling me by my name instead of my title is an insult or a compliment," he said. "But it is not this day."
Against her will, she recalled what Garak last year and Naprem only the other day had said about him flirting with her, so she immediately said the worst thing she could think of.
"Does Naprem know you were planning on killing Ziyal?"
"No, and I do want to thank you for not telling her," he returned. "She would have understood, but it would have pained her unnecessarily."
"Pained her... what kind of a mother is that?"
"If it is any consolation to you, if I had done it, she would have killed me in turn. But she still would have understood."
"Well, I hope the two of you are going to be happy together," Kira declared disgustedly. Somehow, she had ended up standing so close to Dukat that she could see the faint wrinkles on his forehead and the deepening corners of his mouth as he smiled at her.
"I'll let you know."
"So who was she?" Kira asked, more to break the bizarre moment she found herself entrapped in than because she truly wanted to know. So far, being on a mission with Dukat of all people had not been the complete nightmare she had feared it would be, but it was uncomfortable enough with his constant switches between condescension and unwelcome admiration. She did not need him to suddenly become this stranger who sat between graves, in silence, and cried.
Once, she had lived for making Cardassians cry. Tears of rage, to pay for all the tears Bajorans had cried during decades of horror. For her own tears, when her father told her that her mother would never come back. For the tears they had made her incapable of shedding, when her father died. But what Dukat was doing right now had nothing to do with being made to pay for his crimes. There was the tiny hope that this was all some kind of strange mind game, a trick for her benefit, but then again she had found him like this when he hadn't even known she was there. He still ignored her completely.
"Dukat," she prompted, without getting a reaction. She looked at what he held in his hands, thought of the two civilian names she had found on the Ravenok's passenger list, and it all fell together.
"I recognise a Bajoran child bracelet when I see one," she said.
"Her name was Tora Ziyal," he said slowly, his voice filled with a kind of numb disbelief she was all too familiar with. Some petty part of her wanted to ask him what it felt like, the loss thousands of Bajorans had to cope with. "She was...the daughter of a friend."
It was so good to be able to despise him again.
"Don't bother, Dukat," she said scornfully. "Ziyal is a Cardassian name. You are hardly the only Cardassian who had a half-blood child and then abandoned it. Our orphanages are full of them."
He didn't even flinch.
"Very well," he said. "She was my daughter. And I did not abandon her."
"Actually, I was being diplomatic," Kira returned. "There are a lot worse words one could use for sending a child and her mother to a prison camp."
That brought him to his feet.
"They were *not* on their way to a prison camp," he declared. He was no longer crying, but the rage that held his face was too raw to be familiar on this smooth-talking monster either. "The Ravenok was supposed to rendezvous with a freighter, which would have taken Naprem and Ziyal to Lyseepia. I knew the occupation was coming to an end, I knew there wouldn't be a place for them on Cardassia *or* Bajor. They could have lived their lives in some sort of peace there, at least. Now if you don't mind, Major, I'd rather not talk about this any longer."
He gestured to the small pile of earrings he had collected on one of the burial mounds.
"The earrings you asked for are there."
She quickly found out that her friend Lorrad's wasn't among them. Neither, she noticed, was another earring with the family crest for Tora. She gave Dukat a look. He was kneeling again, next to the burial mound that had held the girl's remains, and was slowly returning the rocks to their original place.
"If Lorrad is dead, he's not buried here," she declared.
"Neither is Naprem," Dukat said distantly.
Kira made a quick decision and told him about the possibility of tracking Lorrad through isotopes. He nodded without saying whether he was still interested in finding the remaining survivors from the Ravenok, but when she started to leave, he marched at her side, silently, his earlier boasts about the insufferable heat gone completely.
She didn't quite know what to make of it. Her own feelings for the women who had shared the beds of Cardassians were clearly defined. Those who had been raped, she pitied; those who had shamed their people by voluntarily giving their bodies to men who raped their planet, she despised. There had been ugly scenes after the occupation had ended; many of the women had been dragged through the streets in public, their hair cut off, with the people spitting and cursing at them. Kira had not joined in, but neither had she done anything to stop it. These women had sold more than their bodies; they had sold their souls. They had sold out Bajor for some luxury at the side of their Cardassian masters, who, naturally enough, had not bothered to do anything to protect them once the occupation was over, and they could return to whatever entertainment awaited them on Cardassia.
That Dukat had kept Bajoran mistresses wasn't exactly news. That he would have feelings for one of them years later would be surprising, but she couldn't be sure about this. He might only have come on this trip to find his daughter. Well, even predators had parental instincts. It didn't make them less dangerous.
They spent the night in a cave. By then, he had become restless, but still not talkative. Finally, Kira decided that his silent pacing irritated her more than his usual endless ramblings and told him to sit down.
"You never had a child, did you?" he asked.
What was left of her restraint snapped.
"No," she said. "I was too busy making sure other children could live instead of being dragged to your labour camps. I'm sorry for that dead girl, Dukat. It wasn't her fault that you were her father. But do not ever expect me to pity you."
He stood still. Standing in the entrance to the cave as he did, she could see the setting sun outlining his shape, the familiar, long-necked figure of a Cardassian in body armour which still instinctively made her wanting to grab the next rifle.
"On the contrary, Major," he said, and his voice was very cold. "If anything, I would expect you to congratulate me. You see, if Ziyal had not died, I would have had to kill her. And life was kind enough to spare me that."
That was the end of the conversation for the evening.
In the morning, when they ate their field rations, she could no longer hold back and told him exactly how despicable she found a father who would even consider for a single moment killing his own daughter.
"And if you think I'll let you kill her mother just so your precious status won't be endangered, you can think again. I'd rather kill you first."
"I see," he said, and the familiar sarcasm in his voice was back. "Well, Major, I salute your nobility. Too bad you didn't show it before."
"What do you mean?" she asked before thinking better of it.
"There is no need to protect Naprem from me," he said acidly, "but I can think of many other women who could have used your protection. Can't you?"
Again, she recalled the women with their cut hair, the furious screams of the mob.
"They were collaborators," she stated, but for the first time since she had seen him cry over the graves, she felt unsure.
"And collaborators," he finished for her in flawless if accented Bajoran, his mockery evident, "deserve everything they get." Continuing in Cardassian, he added: "In which case there would be no reason for you to be concerned about Naprem. However, I meant what I said. There is no need to protect her from *me*. As you said, a Bajoran mistress is not that unusual. A half-Bajoran child, on the other hand, people wouldn't have forgiven, not anymore."
"People?" she asked automatically while trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling he might actually have a point by picturing instead these women sharing cocktails with Cardassians when their entire planet was brutalized beyond forgiveness.
"My wife, for one."
"You should have thought of that before you became involved with Naprem."
"You are right," he said unexpectedly, "I should have."
"So what will become of her once we have liberated the prisoners?" Kira asked, almost against her will. She couldn't imagine Naprem wanting to return to Bajor. In theory, things had settled down a bit since the end of the occupation, but once word got out that she was the mistress of the prefect, Naprem's life would make this hellhole of a planet look like a vacation spot. And she couldn't see any Bajoran wanting to live on Cardassia, either, not even someone who had lowered herself to spending years with Gul Dukat.
He didn't reply. She couldn't tell whether this was because he did not want to talk about it, or whether he could not imagine an answer, either.
The liberation itself went as smoothly as one could hope for. One could accuse Gul Dukat of many things, but he was a competent fighter, and Kira decided that in a battle situation, it was better to have him at her side than with a knife to her back. Once the remaining Bajorans and Cardassians had helped them deal with the Breen, it was not too hard finding Tora Naprem. Kira didn't know what she had expected, but the wiry, middle-aged woman who turned out to be Naprem hadn't been it. If she didn't look like the glamorous, well-dressed and well-kept whores the Cardassian officers had loved to show off, she didn't look like the pathetic, scared and helpless women running through the streets at the sunset of the occupation, either. The loss of her daughter and the years in prison had visibly left their mark on her and might have made her look older than she actually was, but mostly she resembled nobody as much as Winn Adami, if one imagined Winn in prison drab instead of her fine robes. She exuded a certain sense of authority, and some of both Bajoran and Cardassian prisoners automatically looked at her for clues on how to react.
Naprem did not acknowledge Kira and Dukat beyond a nod and the acceptance of some quick instructions before all the Breen guards had been killed. Only when this was over did she go to Dukat. Kira told herself it was only distrust of Dukat that made her linger and watch. The first thing she saw Naprem do was hit Dukat in the face, not a gentle slap but something hard enough to draw blood. But Naprem's whisper was of a harsh yet undeniable intimacy that stifled the flicker of amused approval in Kira.
"Where have you *been*?" Naprem hissed. "All these years, where have you been? I waited every second of every minute of every day. *She* waited while she bled to death in my arms."
"I saw her grave, Naprem," Dukat said, and then they silently stood together, till Kira turned away and busied herself with the other survivors.
Sharing the small space of a shuttle with Dukat and his mistress made the first part of her trip look relaxed in comparison. Kira couldn't shake off the suspicion he knew how deeply uncomfortable it made her, and doubled the numbers of casual, intimate gestures reaching from a hand on Naprem's shoulder to a lingering kiss on the woman's neck because of it. Then there were times when she was sure she was mistaken, that, disgusting as the notion was, this was simply the natural behaviour of two long-parted lovers who didn't really notice the third presence that much at all. But each time she had convinced herself of this, he gave her one of his cool, amused looks that made her want to leave the room. There were other moments, too, moments in which the fact she was finally free seemed to catch up with Naprem, and she started shaking, while Dukat held her, or moments in which she turned aside when he touched her and stared out through the windows, trying to catch the bizarre, fleeting colours of space.
Finally, Kira had the opportunity to talk with Naprem on her own. Once they were back on the station, Naprem had asked to visit the temple, in order to pray for Ziyal. On the way, Kira decided that Naprem probably knew what she was thinking anyway, so she might as well say it.
"Why did you do it?" Kira asked. "For the food and the security? Or did he somehow blackmail you? Or did he rape you, and leave you with no other place to go?"
Naprem did not react offended, or for that matter remorseful. Instead, she looked amused.
"You're such a child, Major," she said, which strengthened the similarities to Kai Winn to no end. Kira found herself bristling.
"Even when I was a child," she replied, "I would have never been so naïve to trust a Cardassian when he talked to me of love."
"Did he?" Naprem asked, interested. For a moment, Kira didn't understand what she meant. Then the implication let her go cold.
"No," she said icily.
"Well, you *are* flirting with him," Naprem stated placidly. "As Cardassians understand it. To answer your question. I did not love him, not at first, but no, he did not force me, either. I did love him well before Ziyal was born, though."
"Was that before more than a million of your people were dead, or after?" Kira asked, the rage in her slowly building to a boiling point.
Naprem looked at her, her face unreadable.
"As I said," she stated. "You are a child. Now if you will excuse me."
Before entering the temple, she did turn her head around one more time and asked:
"You are Kira Meru's daughter, aren't you?"
Confused, Kira nodded.
"Prophets help us," Naprem said, and vanished into the temple.
When Dax quizzed her about her trip, Kira hardly knew what to say. She was rescued out of this rare loss of words by Dukat, of all the people, who turned up and caused Jadzia to make a discreet exit.
"Major," he said.
"Dukat."
"One of these days, I will have to decide whether your insistence on calling me by my name instead of my title is an insult or a compliment," he said. "But it is not this day."
Against her will, she recalled what Garak last year and Naprem only the other day had said about him flirting with her, so she immediately said the worst thing she could think of.
"Does Naprem know you were planning on killing Ziyal?"
"No, and I do want to thank you for not telling her," he returned. "She would have understood, but it would have pained her unnecessarily."
"Pained her... what kind of a mother is that?"
"If it is any consolation to you, if I had done it, she would have killed me in turn. But she still would have understood."
"Well, I hope the two of you are going to be happy together," Kira declared disgustedly. Somehow, she had ended up standing so close to Dukat that she could see the faint wrinkles on his forehead and the deepening corners of his mouth as he smiled at her.
"I'll let you know."