First, an apology to all those who were reading this story about taking so long to update. Real life has been a bit crazy and that means little time to write. Hopefully, I'll do better from now on. As always, reviews are desired and appreciated, so let me know what you think. Now, as Mr. Harvey would say, for the rest of the story.

Chapter 10

Dukat sat staring at the perfect miniature image of Ziyal. Gods, how he missed her! She had always had a smile for him, always something to talk to him about. It really hadn't mattered to him what it was they had talked about, he was only too grateful that she was there, and actually happy to see him. She was the only one of his children he had ever been able to spend an extended amount of time with. She had given him a point to come back too and it had been so long since he had had anyone to come back to. It had given him an odd feeling of 'home' whenever he was on-station, knowing that she was there and it had made the pain of everything he had lost on Cardassia and what he had been reduced to, bearable. Although he really did love his other children, he had never been as close to any of them as he had been to Ziyal. Even before she and her mother had been lost, he had always thought of her as more his child than the others. It had been devastating to him when they had disappeared.

And now he was having to deal with that same devastation all over again. Only this time, it was so much worse. Not only had he lost Ziyal, he had utterly lost any chance he had at rebuilding his life and his reputation on Cardassia. And this time, he had no one to fall back on, nothing to turn to. The only person he had left that he had any kind of claim to, hated him.

He truly had no idea why Nerys was here, unless it was some obscure Bajoran death ritual she was performing for Ziyal's sake. Oh, he had no illusions where Kira was concerned. Not anymore. She had never tried to hide the fact that she loathed the sight of him, and, because he didn't have any illusions, it was even more painful to him that she was here now. He really didn't know how much more he could take before he totally fell apart yet perversely, he still didn't want her to go. If nothing else, talking to her had managed to keep the worse of the voices at bay. He looked over at her. She was staring at him with a deep, introspective look on her face. He wasn't quite sure she was even seeing him. He watched as her eyes suddenly cleared and drew sharply into focus. She then saw him staring back at her and she gave him a small, self-depreciating smile.

"I'm sorry. Was I staring at you? I was kind of off in my own world there for a moment."

He returned her smile with a slightly bitter one of his own, "So I noticed."

She caught the inflection of his voice and looked away. All of a sudden, it simply became too much for him to handle. Roughly he asked the question that had been on his mind ever since she had arrived.

"Why are you here, Nerys? What do you want from me?"

She looked back at him, a frown wrinkling her forehead and again took him totally off guard.

"Do you know the Bajoran death chant?"

"Come again?"

"The Bajoran death chant. I'm sure you must have heard it before, even if you didn't know what it was."

"I'm vaguely familiar with it but why would you possibly care?"

She shrugged and looked away for a moment, uncomfortably. Nervously biting her lip, she looked back at him.

"I thought…," she sighed and straightened, almost imperceptibly, "I thought that you might want to do the chant with me." He stared at her, stunned and she rushed on, "I don't know what death traditions Cardassians have outside of the non-Cardassians-can't-view-the-body one. But Ziyal was half-Bajoran and I thought she should have a death chant. You don't have to do it. I know it's supposed to be done only by close family but since we were really all she had here I…"

Dukat reached out and touched her hand, effectively silencing her nervous babble.

"I would be honored to do the death chant for her," he looked suddenly pained, "however, I'm afraid I don't know it."

Kira smiled, relieved. "It's alright, its very simple, pretty much just a repetition of the same lines with a variation here and there."

He made a wry face. "Oh, is that all? I'm so relieved."

She caught the humor in his statement and smiled then set about teaching him the ancient words.