A/N - I don't own Star Trek Deep Space Nine or any other series of the franchise.
I'm sorry if this upsets any fans of Jadzia, but I like Ezri best as she was more humble than Jadzia at times, who had an arrogant belief she was above the problems and thoughts of others.
Please let me know what you think.
Happy Christmas.
I am NOT Jadzia.
Ezri stood in the captain's office grimly. She had just found out that Ben hadn't sent off her earlier request to resign from her Starfleet Commission after she'd come to him following the way Garak had treated her when she had tried to help him, the way he'd chucked all of her insecurities into her face, which was the last straw for her.
She'd gladly come back to the station with him (actually, before now she had never set foot on the station as Ezri) because all of her predecessor's friends were on the station, and she was hoping they could help ease her into the transition. Unfortunately, she had been mistaken. None of them really wanted her there, as she was so sinfully different from their beloved Jadzia. She might have the Dax name now, but in their eyes, she was not Jadzia.
She wasn't tall, outgoing and wonderful like the Trill woman they had known.
She was chatty, more so than Jadzia, but she was awkward as a young girl.
She was just not Jadzia.
Personally, Ezri saw nothing wrong with that, being her own person, especially after waking up from being joined (she would not think of that, the memories were still raw even if she'd regained control over herself since). Still, she could understand why the Trill Symbiosis Commission frowned heavily on re-association, especially since she had been on Deep Space Nine for the past few weeks, and all she'd had was people acting awkwardly around her, all of Jadzia's old friends not knowing what to say to her.
It was ironic, really; all her life she had not really paid any attention of the symbionts and the lore surrounding them, and yet even when she was younger Ezri had known she had wanted nothing to do with them, and yet now she was joined because the Dax symbiont had taken a turn for the worst following Dukat's senseless attack on Jadzia in the Bajoran shrine, Ezri, a girl who had truly wanted nothing to do with joining or spending half her life trying to become joined like so many people in Trill society, could understand the re-association laws better than even the most dedicated joined Trill.
She could understand the temptation to reconnect with an old flame from a previous host, and while she could only baulk at how harsh the Trill were in banishing the host and symbiont until both died, wasting who knew how many years of experience and wisdom simply because they couldn't let go, Ezri was starting to see she had tried to re-associate the symbiont on Deep Space Nine.
Even Ben Sisko, one of Dax's oldest friends had proven he was more interested in Jadzia than her. He'd proven that by the way he'd spoken to her - she should have seen the reverse psychology trick for what it was, but she had been so overwhelmed by the maggot inside her never allowing her a moments' peace - and so she glared at him angrily.
Ben noticed the look of displeasure in her glare, and he became worried. Instead of being pleased, she was still a Starfleet officer, he was getting a glare instead.
"Is everything alright, Dax?" He asked.
"No, it's not," Ezri's tone made him realise she was really not happy with him now. "Do you have any idea how cruel that was when you shouted me out of this office?"
"Ezri, I was just trying to help-," he tried to say.
"Yeah, I'm not saying it didn't make me snap out of it, and it was a good trick, but it really, really did hurt," she stared solemnly at him. "Perhaps it will help me in the future, but I want to get something straight; I am NOT Jadzia Dax."
Ben leaned back in his chair, his expression becoming grave. "I know that. I have met three Daxes in my life before, and I don't like the implication you believe I can't see you're a different person."
"But am I anymore?" The look on Ezri's face almost broke Ben Sisko's heart. He had never seen so much pain and grief on anyone's face, especially one so young. "You think it's been bad for me recently, oh you have no idea."
"What do you mean?" Fear coiled in Ben's gut; he might have noticed the relationship between himself and Ezri was different from the relationships he'd had with Curzon and Jadzia, but he did care. For the first time he could see what the joining had done to Ezri; she'd said in his father's restaurant she hadn't been prepared to be joined, nor had she wanted to be, but it was clear the symbiont was overwhelming her despite whatever she was doing to ease into her new life.
But was it enough?
Clearly not.
Ezri took a deep breath, and from her pocket, she produced an isolinear chip. "You'd better play it," she whispered as she laid it down on the desk and flicked it over to Ben, who took it curiously.
"What is it?" Ben didn't take it.
"Just watch it," Ezri whispered, sitting down in her chair on the opposite side of the desk while she closed her eyes. Intrigued and worried, Ben slotted the chip into the computer on his desk. The screen flared to life, showing Ezri waking up in a sickbay on a starship.
"It's okay," one of the doctors said soothingly. He was clearly going to ask her more questions when Ezri - who was clearly not Ezri - sat up, and Ben noticed how the young Trill seemed to hold herself differently.
"Where am I?" Now Ben was really frowning, he might not know Ezri that well, but there was something about how she'd voiced that question that sounded too familiar….
"You're on board the Starship Destiny. The Dax symbiont was dying, but surely you know this, Ensign-?"
"ENSIGN?! I WAS A LIEUTENANT COMMANDER!"
Ben gasped, realising this was not Ezri. She might be wearing Ezri's body, but it was Jadzia speaking.
"Please calm down-."
"Where's my husband? Where's Worf?"
"He's still on Deep Space Nine. Listen, we need to keep you sedated, so the doctors on Trill can help stabilise Ensign Tigans' condition-."
"I don't care about this Ensign Tigan," Jadzia interrupted, and Ben gasped. The way his friend had just said that didn't give the impression she was just saying it out of spite. Jadzia sounded serious.
Was this…. Was this really how Jadzia was?
Ben had faced some problems with Jadzia over the years he had known her on the station, just like he'd had issues with other members of his staff; that mess with Meridian, the way she'd given in to her curiosity and crashed the Defiant on a planet, stranding them in a different time, giving in to temptation with the Kahn symbiont, but he had never imagined Jadzia had been this selfish about another person, especially since that same person had sacrificed her freedom, and her sanity, to protect the Dax symbiont. Questions were entering his mind, and Benjamin Sisko did not like the implication he had been wrong about Jadzia Dax.
The doctor obviously thought she was being ungrateful and callous as well.
"No? Well, you should; if it wasn't for her, you and the rest of your previous hosts would be dead right now. Is that what you want, or are you so arrogant and full of yourself, you won't even acknowledge that sacrifice?"
"I took that recording from the Destiny's black box because I wanted to remind myself of how Jadzia only seemed to care for herself, although I know that isn't true," Ezri whispered.
Ben stopped the recording, wanting nothing more than to call her a liar, but he ran a check over the chip and found it was genuine. That hurt him even more, he had always thought Jadzia was better than that.
"You were conscious, weren't you?" He asked, knowing the answer already.
Ezri nodded, "I was. I was submerged deep inside my own head at the time but I heard everything she said. I was horrified anyone would say that, especially under the circumstances."
"I can understand that," Ben's voice shook as he tried to come to terms with what Jadzia had essentially said. "Is…is that what she's really like?"
He didn't like asking the question because it upset his own views of the woman.
"More or less," Ezri folded her hands, "although she had her moments, she was genuinely compassionate and wanted to do great things with people. Her fatal flaw was thinking she was above ordinary problems. I have to leave, Ben," she added.
"What, why?"
"I might have sorted myself out - more or less - but I am re-associating with everyone on this station; everyone here sees Jadzia before they see me, and I am getting tired of it."
"So you still want to be reassigned?" Ben said.
"I think it's for the best," Ezri said.
A few days later, when she was sorting out her new quarters on a starship after transferring off of Deep Space Nine, Ezri felt freer than she had done since she had first gotten joined with the Dax symbiont. Okay, what she had done in Ben's office had not been what she'd wanted, but it had needed to be done. Anyway, she was at the start of a new life, and she'd just turned the page of the Dax legacy and now she was starting a new chapter. She had said she had needed to leave the station despite the best efforts of Ben and Worf, but she had needed to leave to find her own path.
And she wasn't sure if she would ever turn back.