AN: This is a little Lwaxodo one shot. It can be read alone, but it can also be further enhanced by reading it as part of my little universe that I've created for them.
I use * before telepathic communication.
I own nothing from Star Trek.
I hope you enjoy. If you do enjoy, please do consider letting me know!
111
"Oh—Odo—come and see the most precious thing!" Lwaxana said, as soon as Odo entered their bedroom from putting Veta to bed.
Odo smiled and practically glided into the room.
"I do!" He declared. "In Lwaxana Troi, I see the most precious thing in the whole universe."
Lwaxana laughed quietly, but Odo's simple words sent a warm feeling through her body that seemed to burn the longest on her cheeks. She reached to touch her cheeks, to see if they were as warm to the touch as they felt.
"Oh—Odo, you do flatter me!"
"I mean what I say, Beloved," Odo assured her. "What is all this, Lwaxana? I thought you wanted to make love."
Lwaxana felt a little surprised by the question. She'd almost forgotten, really, what they had planned for their evening. Odo had been putting their son, Veta, to bed, and it seemed as though it had taken longer than it usually did. Lwaxana had started to entertain herself while she waited for him.
Odo wasn't a sexual being—at least not exactly. He didn't seem to experience mating and sex in the same way that many species did. It was something that had made him uncomfortable, at first, in their relationship. He felt that, not being sexual like many species seemed to be, there might be something wrong with him. He would say, to Lwaxana or anyone else who had any business knowing about their sex lives, that he was a non-sexual entity, and he said it as though he were ashamed or sorry for that fact.
He did find his own sort of pleasure, however, in making love to Lwaxana, and Lwaxana had finally suggested to him that, maybe, he didn't need to consider himself a non-sexual being. Maybe he could simply say that he was unique—as he was in so many ways—and there was nothing about his pleasure that made it any less important than anyone else's pleasure.
Since she had suggested such a thing, Odo had taken great joy in exploring what he liked, and what he didn't like, when it came to their love making, and Lwaxana was happy to make herself available for his experimentations.
"Oh—I do, Odo!" Lwaxana assured him, getting to her feet and pushing to the side the two bassinets with which she'd been toying. "You asked for me to wear something green and—well—it isn't my best color, but…I thought you might like this? Of course, I'm not as thin as I used to be, and all of this is starting to become very round…and the twins are tired, so I haven't been prodding them, and this one is…you can see, can't you? In its Betazoid form and, this one is…well…I think they might sleep in their Changeling form. It hasn't moved for some time, despite the occasional kicking of this one. So I'm quite out of shape and lopsided."
Lwaxana was surprised—pleasantly surprised—when Odo grabbed her and, pulling her toward him, kissed her deeply. She sank into the kiss and prolonged it a little, playfully teasing him as he started to pull away.
"Is that your way of saying I talk too much, Imzadi?" Lwaxana asked, when the kiss broke.
"I desire you, Lwaxana," Odo said, in a tone of voice that Lwaxana couldn't possibly question. "Just as you are—at all times. I desire you."
Lwaxana laughed quietly. Her cheeks burned warm again.
"Half-round belly and…well…it's you who insists on no make-up and no wigs," Lwaxana said. The way Odo looked at her made her eyes prickle, slightly, and she told herself that she wouldn't cry. Odo smiled.
"If they are happy tears, Beloved, then let them fall," Odo offered.
"Oh—Odo," Lwaxana said, wrapping herself around him. He let his shape change to hold her in the special way that he could.
Odo had married Lwaxana to save her from losing custody of the baby boy she'd carried—Veta—to his father, as was the tradition in Tavnian households. Veta, though half-Tavnian and half-Betazoid, only knew Odo as his father, and Odo was happy to be his father. Lwaxana currently carried twins, made from her DNA combined with Odo's Changeling DNA, and they were playing the entire pregnancy by ear, since nobody knew anything about Changelings, really, at all, beyond the few clues that Odo could provide.
There were ups and downs in their marriage, as Lwaxana assumed was simply the fact in every marriage, but she believed that there were far more ups than downs, and she loved Odo dearly. She believed that Odo loved her, too, though she sometimes battled with her own insecurities—as everyone does, perhaps. Odo had become her imzadi—her beloved and her soulmate—and he had connected with her in every way possible, making them able to communicate telepathically and empathically, connecting them through mind and body.
"What did you want to show me?" Odo asked, pulling out of the hug.
"I suppose I might as well show you," Lwaxana said, dabbing at her eyes with her fingertips. "I have to move them, anyway. I ordered them and they were brought earlier today, but I just got around to looking at them. They're specially crafted bassinets for the little ones."
Lwaxana showed them to Odo. They were transparent boxes, each with a little mattress in the bottom to make them comfortable.
"I'll have to build the stands—they roll," Lwaxana said. "It's over there. I didn't unpack it. Do you see, Odo? We don't know how the little ones will be, but they'll be safe in these. They can change as much as they like, and they'll be safe—whether Betazoid or Changeling."
Odo touched the bassinet that remained in Lwaxana's hand after he followed her to put them down, out of the way, for the time being.
"Our little ones will sleep here," Odo marveled.
"They'll be so darling," Lwaxana said. "Do you think that this will be sufficient, Odo? For when they're in their Changeling form? Oh—nothing I looked at had anything specific for Changelings, of course, and this was the best that I could do. I ordered them, to my specifications, but…I should have asked you. I thought—it has to be something to accommodate whatever shape they may take."
"Do I have to kiss you again, Beloved, to stop you from running away with your thoughts?" Odo teased.
Lwaxana laughed quietly.
"Do you approve of my choices, Husband?" She asked.
"I approve of everything about you," Odo said. "And I believe that no Changeling baby has ever had a nicer bed picked out for it by its mother."
"You're teasing me now," Lwaxana said.
"Only slightly," Odo offered.
"We'll put sweet little covers on the mattresses," Lwaxana said. "Those don't need to be specially ordered. We could choose…anything, really. We'll change them, too, so we'll keep some on hand. Do you think they'll like ducks or sweet little bears? There are pretty little colors, and shapes of all kind. Maybe they'll like stripes or dots."
"I think they will have very few opinions," Odo said. "However, they are half-Betazoid, so they may have more opinions than I predict."
With the bassinets tucked away until the coming day, Lwaxana straightened up and hugged close to Odo. The physical touch between their bodies—nothing more complicated than a simple touch like that of a hug—could fulfill many of Odo's physical needs. He drew energy from Lwaxana's body—something that made her tired, but which she would never deny him—and he drew comfort and pleasure from touching her. She felt something of a low-key vibration everywhere that they connected. It made her a little sleepy and euphoric.
"I almost called Beverly," Lwaxana said. "Then, I remembered it's late and she needs to rest."
Doctor Beverly Crusher was Lwaxana's primary caregiver. She'd helped to create the twins, combining their DNA, and she'd been with them through every step of the pregnancy from implantation until the current day. The Federation had a very vested interest in the first Betazoid-Changeling twins, and Lwaxana had agreed to allow herself and the babies to be studied, for the advancement of Federation science, in exchange for the best medical care she could have, administered in a way that made her happy.
She had chosen Crusher as her doctor, and the woman never complained about being on-call practically twenty-four hours a day.
"What did you need from Doctor Crusher?" Odo asked.
"I thought—well—I never asked her if the babies would be boys or girls," Lwaxana said. "Or even if she could tell just yet."
"It is very likely that they will be neither," Odo offered.
"What?" Lwaxana asked, amused and a little confused. Odo took her hands and led her back toward their bed. She followed him, more than willing to spend their evening together, however he might like.
"Well, they are half-Changelings," Odo said. "Therefore, it is possible that, like me, they are neither male nor female or…perhaps…that they are everything."
"What do you mean?" Lwaxana asked.
"Doctor Mora Pol seemed inclined to see my—nature—as lacking. Lacking the sexuality of most beings, I was without sexuality. You prefer to see it as—as all-encompassing. Lacking definition only means uniquely sexual. Perhaps the same is true of my gender. Doctor Mora Pol would have said that I am neither this nor that—that I am lacking. You would likely define it as…something more. I am everything, all at once." He smiled at her. "Never nothing. Lwaxana Troi has never seen me as nothing."
Lwaxana held Odo's hands and smiled at him.
"You're everything to me. Still, I guess—I never thought about it that way before," Lwaxana admitted. "That you're…everything. All at once."
"I chose this form because I learned to mimic my humanoid shape from the doctor," Odo said. "But I could be anything you like, Lwaxana. Anything that pleases your eyes…your body."
As if to demonstrate, he shifted fluidly into a female version of himself—changing shape to mimic some woman that he'd seen somewhere or, perhaps, to combine characteristics of several women. When he spoke to Lwaxana, Odo spoke to her in her mind, through their telepathic connection.
* "I sense you are alarmed, Imzadi. Do not be afraid. Just as you're not afraid of me when I am a chair, or a table lamp, or even when I come to you in my natural state, you mustn't be afraid of me in another humanoid form."
Lwaxana smiled.
* "I'm not afraid," she assured him. "It's only new to me, Odo. Unfamiliar."
Lwaxana drew in a breath and released it, relaxing. She tipped her head to the side and examined Odo's new form. She moved in for a kiss. The form was unfamiliar, but the kiss felt comfortable and comforting.
The touch was familiar.
"And so my husband becomes my wife?" Lwaxana asked, smiling at Odo when the kiss broke.
"Is that what you prefer?" Odo asked. The feminine voice was unexpected—unfamiliar, again—but Lwaxana only tensed slightly before relaxing once more. "I can be anything you desire, Lwaxana."
Lwaxana shrugged.
"It really isn't up to me, Odo," Lwaxana said. "It's whatever makes you happy."
"It's only an illusion, at any rate," Odo offered. "What makes me happiest is what you find most pleasing."
"I love you no matter your form, Odo," Lwaxana offered. "I desire you as you are. Don't you come to me in your natural state when we make love?" Odo nodded. Lwaxana shrugged. "Well, then…but…tell me, Odo, have I been wrong to teach Veta to call you Papa? Maybe you would prefer to be something else entirely?"
Odo smiled.
"Being Papa to Veta has been one of the greatest roles of my existence," Odo said. "There is nothing else I'd rather be. I look forward to being Papa, as well, to our little ones."
"You're a wonderful Papa," Lwaxana offered. "But—Veta and the little ones would accept whatever you wanted to be."
"I want to be their Papa," Odo said. "And I want to be your imzadi."
"You are," Lwaxana assured him. "But—as long as you don't mind, either way…"
"Yes?" Odo asked, pressing her.
"I do miss your face, already," Lwaxana said, stroking the feminine cheek that, though it wasn't unattractive, wasn't that which she most readily associated with her beloved.
Odo smiled and fluidly shifted back to the form which Lwaxana knew best.
"Better, Wife?" He asked.
Lwaxana smiled.
"Do you mind, terribly, my attachment to this form, Husband?" Lwaxana asked.
"Because I ache to see your face whenever I can't see it," Odo said, "I understand. It is enough, for me, that you would let me choose, if it mattered to me."
"I would," Lwaxana said. She shrugged her shoulders. "And if you wanted to…you know…experiment sometimes, I could give it a try. I can be pretty open-minded."
Odo laughed and took her in his arms. She felt the low vibration that ran through her body from his touch—a low hum of happiness that was almost like electricity.
"Tonight—I only want to be with my imzadi," Odo said.
"That sounds wonderful to me, Odo," Lwaxana assured him. She thought a moment and held her hand up, not really pulling away from the tight hold that he had on her. "Odo—the babies are half-Betazoid. What do you think that will mean, as far as their gender?"
Odo seemed to consider it a moment.
"You know—I haven't the foggiest idea," he admitted. "We'll have to ask Doctor Crusher."
"In the morning," Lwaxana said. "Let's let the dear woman sleep."
"That's fine with me," Odo said. "We have other plans, after all, for tonight."