Pohl

The next morning, the children returned to their quarters to find their father Odo wearing an apron and cooking a large breakfast. Their mother was still in the shower and singing. Taban and Iliana grinned at each other. They knew Nerys did that sort of thing when she was especially happy. She must have slept late as well. It was getting close to noon and she was an early riser. The first thing she did was take a cold shower.

Pohl's expression remained neutral as Odo moved about the kitchen area like a dancer. His siblings partook of the feast manifesting before them like rabid cubs. They had eaten light breakfasts with their peers but they had heard their father's cooking was legendary and replicator food could become very trite quickly. Their elder didn't touch anything and made an annoyed face when he saw there was Klingon coffee awaiting his mother already. He was used to replicating raktajinos for her.

"Are you not hungry, son?" Odo's voice was thin and mild when he addressed him.

"I ate already and I have a sensitive stomach," Pohl responded without looking back at his parent. "I came merely to greet mother. I have work to do."

"That's right; you work as a security officer!" Odo brightened. "How is my former deputy?"

"I work under officer Talpet since he replaced you when you left," his son explained. "You should meet with him as soon as possible. I take it you want your old job back?"

Odo paused for a moment then stirred a porridge he was making as he said, "Now that you mention it, I would like that very much."

"I'm sure mother, the Commander, will green light that!" Taban stuck a finger into the porridge to steal a sample.

"You greedy peng!" Iliana called him the equivalent of a Bajoran pig and kicked his shin under the table.

"Ow!"

"The two of you are almost adults!" Kira Nerys entered at last. "Knock it off and behave for your father! He was telling me last night I did such a good job raising you! Don't prove him wrong!"

"Mother, your coffee," Pohl handed her the mug.

"Thank you, darling," she took a sip. "Both my son and his father know exactly how I like it! Odo, don't spoil them too much with your cooking."

"Don't listen to her!" Taban cried. "Spoil us!"

"I'm just glad you are here, daddy!" Iliana said as she took a big bite of eggs. "I'm not complaining about the food! I could get used to this!"

"Pohl, you should grab a plate!" Nerys instructed.

He snatched a piece of fried bread, took a nibble, and then tossed it into the replicator, "There, I ate! May I leave?"

There was a thunderous silence and a wave of shock. Nerys looked furious but Odo wasn't.

"You may," he granted him leave. "I'll see you in the security office."

"Thank you," Pohl said stiffly and made a quick exit.

"I guess he woke up on the wrong side of the bed today!" Iliana wrinkled her ridges. "He can be such a grouch!"

"He must take after me," Odo grumbled. "He doesn't mean anything by it and I know it."

Nerys still looked upset and the children's spirits seemed to be dampened by their elder brother's mood. She was going to announce to them as a family that a wedding ceremony was going to be arranged and she wanted them all to play a part. Pohl left so abruptly she decided to put it off. Why was her son acting this way?

"Taban, Iliana, will you clean up once you have eaten?" she asked.

"Yes!"

She finished the breakfast meant for Pohl and Odo sent her off to work with one of his signature liquid kisses. She giggled because nothing between them seemed to have really changed. Iliana and Taban had places to go and Odo decided to follow his eldest to the security office.

Once there, his old deputy shook his hand and talked his ear off. He was happy to see him and asked if he wanted to head the department again and reclaim his title of 'Constable'. Odo promised to have lunch with him sometime and confessed he did want to do that but he was distracted. Pohl was working nearby but seemed oblivious to anything else. When Talpet finally let him off the hook, he went to speak with his son instead.

"What are you working on there?" he asked lamely.

"Checking over files and making sure everything is in order," Pohl answered without looking up. "I'm human and have to sleep and eat and such. I don't have your perfect memory either. I have to work harder than you about certain things and am naturally prone to more mistakes. Therefore, I have to double check and triple check everything."

"I was human long enough to understand."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"Why?"

"Because you were human for less than a year, Constable, and that is paltry sum compared to eighteen years. I take it you are claiming your job and that means I will be working under you?"

"Not directly under me. Talpet will be your direct superior."

"But you will be in charge overall."

"Yes."

"Then you and I will inevitably be working together and I am down the chain of command."

"Yes."

"Wonderful."

"Was that sarcasm?"

"Nope."

Odo clenched his jaw, trying not to lose patience, "Are you having lunch today with Molly?"

Pohl finally looked up for a moment, "We are not discussing Molly."

"Why not?"

He sighed like a rebellious teen, "Because, Constable, I am at work. I don't discuss my personal life when I am at work. I try to keep focused and I don't discuss my girlfriend with my colleagues."

"I am not just your colleague."

"While here, you are and I am not your son."

Odo felt wounded and rejected but Pohl was being frigid and not overtly angry or snarky. He decided not to push himself in the office like he said.

"We will discuss it at home then."

Pohl made no response to that and Odo didn't like that.

Odo expected to see Pohl return for supper, but he didn't. Nerys informed him that he was staying with Molly O'Brien and Odo got frustrated.

"He's avoiding me!"

"Odo, he grew up entirely without you," she reminded him. "He needs to adjust."

For weeks Odo tried to let Pohl's coldness slide. He realized Pohl might be too much like himself. He was stubborn, independent, and a workaholic. He avoided confrontation and vulnerability. He felt sorry for Nerys and anyone else that had to deal with him in the past! Now he was getting a taste of his own medicine courtesy of his child.

Finally, Odo could stand it no more and he marched into Pohl's office and said, "We're taking a personal day you and I! That's an order!"

"This is abuse of power!" Pohl objected.

"Do you want me to bring this matter before the Commander?" Odo didn't back down.

"That's also abuse of power!"

"I don't care now where do you want to eat lunch?"

Pohl realized he couldn't escape anymore and named a place. He ordered nothing more than an appetizer and water and stared at his food.

"You should eat," Odo coaxed gently.

"Are you going to cut my meat for me too?" Pohl snapped.

"It's OK to hate me a little," Odo put that out there.

Pohl's eyes flickered, crystal blue just like his father. At last he was cracking! Odo matched his gaze and no one could beat him at a staring contest. His eyes didn't burn and water no matter how much time passed.

"I don't hate you," his son breathed.

"But?"

"I don't know what to make of you."

"That's to be expected."

"Do you know what your absence did to her?"

"To whom? Your mother?"

"Yes!"

"I condemned her to terrible loneliness when I left, I know. But she knew it was for a powerfully good reason, son. Neither of us regrets it. We didn't know children were an option. At least she had you three to keep her company. I am grateful that she had you. You had to make up for an absentee parent for the sake of your siblings. You seem to have done that splendidly."

"I didn't ask for it!" Pohl finally let heat enter his face and voice. "Iliana calls me 'Dad' as a jab and I despise it! Taban just eases through life without a care and my sister gives me nightmares! Not because she's awful, no, I love her, but because I fear for her needlessly. I just can't help it! And don't get me started on mother!"

"Proceed!"

"Since you asked, Constable, do you have any idea how many times I walked in on her crying and she tried to lie and say it wasn't because she was missing you?"

Odo's breath caught in his throat.

"Do you know how painful it was for me knowing that I look so much like you? Every time she looked at me, she saw YOU! I made it worse!"

"No, I am certain it was a comfort!"

"Did you know she slept with that stupid bucket of yours by her bedside every night?"

Odo tried to smile but he wanted to weep at the same time.

"Did you know she never dated any of the men I tried to match with her? I was tired of seeing her so lonely! I wanted her to have that part of her life to fill the emptiness that we three children could never fill no matter how much she lied and said it didn't matter! Mother never deserved to be alone and raising us by herself!"

"She didn't raise you alone! She had the entire station giving her support and love!"

"It's not the same as having an actual mate around! Now that I have a companion, I understand how wonderful it is!"

"I'm happy for you," Odo was able to smile that time.

"Why? Why do you care? You don't know me!" Pohl was terribly bitter. "I'm something Julian planted. You had nothing to do with my conception other than providing the sperm in a checkup! You never intended to make any of us! Would you have wanted to be a father if you had stuck around? Would you have really played house with mother? Why the hell are you even here and why now? Why not ten years ago? Why not eighteen years ago so you could witness my birth and truly be a father?"

"It wasn't my choice, son. If I had known, maybe the Great Link would have let me go sooner. You must understand time passes quite differently for them. They barely keep track of it and only because it is a necessity for lesser beings-"

"And we are all lesser beings! Mother, Taban, Iliana, and me!"

"No, Pohl, you are my children. You are my flesh and blood. I am so happy you are alive and that you are mine!"

"You never changed a diaper. You never gave us a bottle. You never held our hands or taught us anything. All that I had of you were several scarce pictures and audio recordings of you working or reciting books! Don't tell me you couldn't have returned sooner!"

"I wish I could have been there. How often did you listen to those recordings? Did you really listen to all of them in my office? There must have been hundreds and hundreds of tedious proceedings and journal entries."

"I threw them all out!"

Odo couldn't help himself he smiled and said, "You're lying!"

"How do you know?"

"I am very observant and you are human. I know the signs because your mother makes similar gestures when she tried to lie."

"I listened to them and then I destroyed them!"

"You're telling more lies than truth."

"I listened to all of them!"

"Almost there."

"I listened to them all and I have them still and I hate you for abandoning us!"

"Do you know I killed a Changeling to protect your mother and my friends?"

"Yes, she told us all about it."

"I would kill for you, Pohl. I would die for you even easier."

"You practically did die for us!" Pohl was beginning to break down. "Do you know what it is like to grow up without a father? Do you know what it's like to love him and hate him without knowing him?"

"I had no parents. The Great Link finds that concept foreign, but I don't. I had Dr. Mora who is your namesake."

"I am named for my dead uncle too."

"I resented Dr. Mora for a long while, you know. I didn't want to understand him or love him."

"Sounds familiar."

"How is he?"

"He's dead, Constable."

"When?" Odo gasped as though he had been punched in the gut.

"Three years ago peacefully in his sleep. He came to visit several times. He would stare at me in a similar way that mother sometimes stares at me."

"I wish I could have been there…" Odo tried to keep himself together literally and figuratively. "I wanted to tell him how much I did grow to love him like a real father. He had his flaws, but he cared for me whether I liked it or not."

"Too late now!"

"But it's not too late for us!" Odo pierced him with a loving glance. "I wish you would stop calling me Constable and call me father."

Pohl let out a defeated sigh, "I know you are finally going to marry my mother. She doesn't have to announce it as though it deserved some great fanfare. It's probably a mistake. You're just going to leave us again!"

"I won't do it!" Odo said. "Not unless the station and Bajor were burning! If those were to go, so would my family!"

"How can I trust you?" Pohl's eyes were pleading. "Losing you again would destroy not just her but my siblings."

"And what about you, son? I know you can't possibly have a heart of stone. I never did and you are no Changeling. You have good qualities from Nerys to make up for my less enduring ones. You also have a much more handsome face thanks to her. So I wonder if that's how I would look like if I could have simulated a younger face. I notice you don't drink."

"Not alcohol anyways."

"Pohl, son, I would like to build a relationship with you. I want to be a father and not just a colleague."

"You'll have to earn that," Pohl sighed heavily again. "I'm not as warm and accepting as Taban. I'm not as young and loving as Iliana either. I got my mistrustful and cold nature from you."

"Shame on me for that, but you did get a pair of decent lamps in your sockets and an outstanding work ethic with enormous talent and intelligence, right?"

"Very little sense of humor though."

"And yet you can smile. You're doing it now."

"Mother forced me to be a bit less prickly than you."

"Thank you, son, for taking care of her for me."

"You better never make her cry ever again."

"I don't intend to. You already called us out. I'm marrying the woman. Are you willing to give her away?"

"Do you think I could possibly stop her?"

"Of course not."

"Then I have no choice in that matter just as I have no choice in who my father is."

"They say sons exist to trouble their fathers."

"You haven't spoken deeply with Iliana yet."

"Are you saying Taban is going to be easy?"

"No, but he's likely going to bore you and drive you back to the Great Link just to get away from him."

"Why?"

"Because he wants to be a holy man."

"You don't share his views and your mother's? I noticed you don't wear your Bajoran earring much."

"I can probably only really confess this to you."

Odo leaned in really close to listen.

Pohl declared, "I respect the Prophets but I can't bring myself to submit to them and worship them the way the rest of the family does."

"Ah," Odo grinned again. "You are a skeptic like me!"

"Yes, and I was very much alone in that."

"Not anymore."

Pohl looked surprised and then relieved. Perhaps having a father around like him wasn't going to be so bad after all.

"So when will you tell me about Molly?"

"Never, but now that you have reminded me, I need to get her a gift."

"Why?"

"The human holiday."

"Valentine's Day?"

"Sort of. In Japan there's a sort of second Valentine's Day."

"Really? Isn't one day focusing overmuch on romance insufferable enough?"

"I sort of thought the same thing."

"Well what are you getting for her?"

"I haven't decided."

"I always got your mother mint chocolates. Does Molly like mint?"

"She hates it."

"Well then get her a rock. Don't women like rocks?"

"You are terrible at giving romantic advice!"