3

60,054 (Kurillian Calendar)

Weyoun had a message from Eris when he dragged himself through his door late that night, wondering if he wanted to have dinner. His reply was terse and obvious—he was home far too late. Maybe later in the week. She would understand his delayed response; work was important to both of them and it came first. He knew she was already in bed; she got up early so that she could make the most of the daylight hours for excavation, and that was fine, because the last thing he wanted to do was hear her voice. All he'd be able to hear overlaid on it would be Soltoi's ultimatum.

He didn't really sleep, and it showed the next morning as he sat blearily in the canteen, blinking slowly at a breakfast that he didn't feel like eating and a cup of kava that would wake him up, but which he hadn't touched. Even the glass of water looked unappealing, with the steam from the kava condensing on its side.

Deimos's voice made him jump as his friend slid into the empty seat across the table, already talking. "I think you'll find this ironic considering the fact that we just spent over two months fighting not to allow a holo-arcade into the Hellad district, but a case came across my desk last night to fund holo-arcade research, for medical purposes, of all things—hearing starts in three weeks and I don't know where I'm going to find the time to research that when I'm already working on…" Deimos trailed off and narrowed his eyes at Weyoun. "What's wrong? You look terrible."

Weyoun raised his eyes, absently drumming his fingers on the table. "What's more important, Deimos, a career or a woman?"

"Well, the answer to that question is entirely dependent on the relative merits of each."

"My career. Or Eris."

"Ah. Soltoi finally took notice?"

"Yes."

Deimos downed a gulp of kava. "I'm surprised it took her this long."

Staring off into space, Weyoun made a small, vague noise, then said, "She probably thought it was a monsoon fling."

"Then it's not?" When Weyoun shot him a disgruntled look, Deimos said, "All right, all right, it's not."

"At least, it wasn't."

Deimos raised his eyebrows. "You're thinking about ending things because Soltoi gave you an ultimatum?"

Letting his eyes unfocus to some point in the distance again, Weyoun replied, "That's why I'm asking your advice." His eyebrows drew together slightly. "I don't know what to do. Eris is…very important to me." To cover his awkwardness at this admission of affection—like blatant physical affection, no one of their caste liked showing it—he sipped at his kava. It was lukewarm.

"All my monsoon flings are very important to me," Deimos said frankly, "until our differences inevitably arise when it stops raining."

Weyoun looked at him sharply. "Are you saying you think I've fooled myself into thinking this is something more?"

"I'm not saying that, but have you considered the possibility?"

"Yes."

"And?"

With a sigh, Weyoun said, "I have no idea." He stared at his full glass of water. "Soltoi offered me Parnon's seat."

Deimos's eyebrows shot up. "If anyone can make sure you get it, it's her."

"Exactly." A bead of condensation slid down the outside of the glass. "I've spent half my life working towards a Senate seat. This is…not the way I'd planned on getting it."

"Hm."

When it became clear that this was the only comment Deimos was going to make, at least until prompted, Weyoun asked, "Do you have something to say?"

Deimos shrugged. "You're an ambitious man. I was just thinking—it's something of a miracle that you've gotten this far with your career without having to throw someone under who, as you say, is important to you."

His eyes slid away from Deimos again and focused on nothing. It was true—but then, there had never been anyone to care about. Certainly not his family. He wouldn't have hesitated to throw them under, but there had never been any need. They were too unimportant. "You're saying I'm going to have to make a sacrifice at some point."

"I'm not saying that," Deimos said quickly, then, after a moment, added, "It just wouldn't be strange if you did have to. Look, I can't tell you if Eris is more important than winning a Senate seat. I do know that for as long as I've known you, you've wanted the latter. Eris…well, it's only been five months, yes?"

Distantly, Weyoun nodded. It had only been five months. Compared to the last fifteen years of work, that was insignificant. And if he took Soltoi up on her offer, he'd be a senator by the time he was twenty-eight—not the youngest ever, but close.

Self-disgust twisted through his stomach at that thought and he remembered the look of vulnerability on Eris's face the on the morning of monsoon's end. She trusted him—she loved him, and he was sitting there trying to rationalize throwing away what they'd found together. The problem was, it was much too easy to rationalize it. Perhaps she'd even understand—perhaps she'd consent to a…a break, while Soltoi's anger cooled and he won one of Tira City's two junior senator seats…

The thought was too absurd to continue with. Soltoi's memory was too long. She'd never forget that Eris had beaten her. And Eris—well, if he suggested a 'break', he knew it would be a permanent one. He flicked his eyes towards Deimos. "What do you normally tell your flings when you're finished with them?"

Deimos shrugged. "The truth. It was fun while it lasted."

And having met some of Deimos's flings, they no doubt agreed and were untroubled by such an ending. "In this case, I don't think the truth will be the best option." Weyoun squinted across the canteen at nothing in particular. "I suppose the question is: would I rather have her hate me for being shallow and callous or for putting my ambition before everything else?"

"Hey," Deimos said, sounding mildly affronted. "Watch it with the 'shallow and callous' business."

Flicking his eyes towards his friend, Weyoun said, "Sorry. But this wasn't your standard relationship fare."

"I'll ignore the implied slight," Deimos said, and then scoffed, "You didn't tell her you love her." When Weyoun glanced quickly away, the other man looked horrified. "You did."

"It's the customary response when it's said to you," Weyoun said stiffly, unsure for a moment if he was more disgruntled with Deimos's dismissiveness or the fact that he'd posed the question so matter-of-factly, and then, after a moment, why he'd deflected the truth away so glibly.

"Well." Deimos took a large bite of his breakfast. "You do have a dilemma, don't you?"

"I'm delighted you finally see it," Weyoun replied sourly.

"Yes, this is one thing you can't talk your way out of or twist into something good."

Weyoun's attention was already drifting again, drawn back into his internal struggle, and he barely heard this. "Soltoi knows she's not really offering me a choice."

Deimos remained quiet for a moment while he chewed and swallowed another mouthful of food. "You're ending it, then?" he asked, not sounding particularly surprised.

Pressing his lips together for a moment and exhaling harshly, Weyoun said, "I don't know."

There was a long moment of silence. The clatter of trays and silverware suddenly seemed very loud. Then, Deimos tried, "Look at it this way—there are always going to be other women."

Weyoun looked up sharply. "After I win the senate seat, you mean."

"Obviously. Somehow I don't see you having time for romance during your campaign."

Though his mind was insisting on weighing both paths, at the back of his awareness, he knew the decision had already been made—that it had been made, in fact, the minute Soltoi had offered her ultimatum. By asking Deimos he knew that he could articulate, out loud, what needed to be done, and he knew now that he could live with the hard twist of guilt in his gut, because it was tying his stomach up now and his decision was taking form in his mind. "If I take her offer," Weyoun said slowly, "I'll be beholden to Soltoi for the rest of my life."

With a shrug, Deimos said, "A lot of people are. That's the price you pay." He paused, then added, "I always thought you accepted that that was how things were going to be."

So had he. Weyoun finally reached towards his water, swallowed a mouthful that went down hard, and then got to his feet without responding to what Deimos had said. "I have work to do," he said, gathering his mostly unconsumed breakfast. "Thanks for the advice."

"Somehow I don't think it was that helpful," Deimos replied, watching Weyoun.

Weyoun flicked a glance towards his friend, then left without another word. He shut himself in his office the rest of the day, concentrating on the Mount Tiryn case, but he found himself running into one mental barricade after another, unable to force his mind on track. Not that there was any mystery why it was happening. He kept thinking of Eris; for some very odd reason, the way she sat. She had a way of gracefully arranging herself, one leg crossed over another and stretched in front of her. There was something so easy and elegant about it; so very…her.

He pushed the thought away, but it, and others like it, returned time and again, all day, until dusk fell and Soltoi's offices emptied, and he realized it was time to go home.

Normally, during the dry season, he walked home outside. The route through Tira City's streets was much more direct than it was through its skyways, and he spent enough time on the trains during the monsoon that the shorter commute didn't appeal to him. It was cool and almost dark when he left the Complex, and for a moment he stood on the broad steps outside, breathing in the dry night air, thick with the sounds of the evening rush. Mopeds and open-roofed skimmers crowded the road below, circling the obelisk at the center of Capitol Square, and shuttles roared by overhead, either taking off or landing, their wing lights flashing in the purple dusk. Hawkers selling everything from kava, to the day's news on an interface disc, to bean cakes, congregated at the bottom of the Complex steps, hoping for a few stragglers leaving work late.

Normally he might buy a bean cake for the walk home, but his stomach, at the moment, was nothing but a hard knot. He knew what he needed to do tonight, he just didn't want to do it. Closing his eyes for a second, he fixed the image of himself as a senator in his mind. That was what waited for him on the other side of tonight. When he opened his eyes again, they fell on the hawkers. If he hadn't done everything that he had to avoid it, that may have been his life—if he'd been lucky. Tonight was part of that. He had to do what he had to do.

So when he reached his tower he kept going; continued the further five blocks until he reached the building that Eris lived in, where he forced himself to walk through the front doors without hesitation and take the lift to her floor. It was an interminable ride. But he found within himself an ability that he hadn't called upon in a long time—a capacity to disassociate himself from the moment so that while the lift labored upwards, he examined this situation and chose the words he'd use when he came face to face with Eris.

There was no sound from within her flat when he knocked at the door, and he didn't know if he was gratified that no one was there or horrified that he'd have to do this all again the following day. Then, however, the door opened, and Eris was there, still in her dirty work clothes.

"Weyoun?" The surprise was evident in her voice. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight."

He didn't meet her eyes. "May I come in?"

"Of course."

If she'd touched him, his resolve likely would have failed—but he had no doubt that she could see in his posture and in the way he didn't quite look at her that something was wrong, so she didn't. The lights were dimmed in her flat and a padd was glowing softly from the sofa, where she'd obviously been sitting and reading. The door clicked shut behind him and Eris walked around him to face him.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore," he said quickly, before she could ask him if he was all right.

There was a suffocating silence in the room. Somewhere far below, a metro train rattled by.

Then, Eris said in a low voice, "Look at me." For a moment, he resisted, and she repeated, "Weyoun, if you're going to break up with me, at least look at me while you're doing it."

He dragged his eyes to her face, pale and hard as marble. Her chin was raised. "Why?" she asked.

"Why?" he said with a shrug—some way to occupy his body, instead of just standing there, as much as it was an attempt at nonchalance. "Does there really need to be a 'why'? Sometimes things don't work out, and there isn't any reason."

"You told me you loved me two weeks ago," she said, stepping closer to him. He maintained the distance by stepping back and she stopped, then asked, with a fierceness in her tone that he associated with her passion for her work, and not with him at all, "Were you lying?"

"Eris—"

"Were you lying, Weyoun?" she demanded.

This time, when she stepped closer to him, he didn't move away. Her eyes flickered between icy and bruised and he found that he couldn't look away from them, at least until he closed his own eyes briefly, which allowed him to cast his gaze towards the ceiling. "No," he had to admit.

He made the mistake of glancing back towards her. Her jaw was set in a hard line, the bottoms of her ear lobes standing out starkly against the set of it. "This is about your job, isn't it?" she asked in a low, dangerous tone. He didn't answer, figuring there wasn't any need. The way her eyes were slitted at him was indication enough that she knew it was. "I should have known," she said, her tone steely. "After all, you do work for Soltoi. The senator would probably sell her own parents to a slum charnel house if she thought it would benefit her position."

Weyoun kept himself very still, running through responses in his head. "She could make your life miserable," he attempted in one last desperate bid for any softening of her expression, even though he knew he'd never get it.

Eris's peel of laughter rang out; a sharp, hard version of the sound that he loved. "Don't condescend to me. This is about you and your need to grab at power. Well," she added savagely, "I hope you enjoy it."

She clamped her lips shut and Weyoun knew that there was nothing more to say—he'd made his choice and she wasn't going to tell him that it was fine; that she understood. Had he been expecting that? Nevertheless, he couldn't stop himself from adding, "This wasn't an easy decision—"

Her eyes flashed with pent-up emotion. "Get out," she interrupted, her voice low and dangerous again. "I don't care if the decision wasn't easy. You made it. So leave. Now."

He hesitated another moment, then bowed his head and forced himself to walk out of her flat without looking back towards her. The door slammed shut before he could close it and he avoided, narrowly, feeling that it was a clichéd echo of the feeling in his chest.

The combined silver-blue light from both moons slanted through the window at the end of the corridor as he forced himself to stand there, unmoving, until the icy feeling choking him began to melt away. It didn't, or wouldn't, and so he left feeling still strangled, his acute hearing picking up the sound of something—a padd, perhaps—clattering to the floor. Eris wouldn't cry, so he didn't listen for that—and he didn't want to hear it, anyway.

Somehow he hadn't expected what he'd just done to hurt as much as it had, and he couldn't help but begin wondering, even before the lift reached street level, if he'd just made a serious error in judgment.

"Ah, Mr. Uldron. Are you ready to discuss your senatorial campaign?"

It had been four days—though it had felt more like four months—since Weyoun had been to Eris's flat to—well, since he'd been to Eris's flat. Soltoi had never even asked him what he'd done; what decision he'd made, though if he had to guess, he'd assume that the expression on his face when he walked into work the day following the split had been evidence enough. She had waited those four days, and then she'd summoned him to a meeting.

He entered Soltoi's office, shut the door behind him, and stood rigidly in front of her desk. "I'd be honored to, if you think I'm ready to hold a seat in the Council."

Soltoi smiled coldly. "You're ready if I say you're ready. Sit down."

The command was unusual—Soltoi generally preferred to keep her subordinates on their feet. He moved to do as she asked immediately, sitting in one of the two hard-backed chairs along the wall. His employer made a great show of busying herself with the several padds on her desk, and then she set them aside and gave him a discerning look. "I can tell you're second-guessing yourself about the decision you've made."

"Not at all," he replied stiffly, knowing the minute the words had left his mouth that everything in his demeanor contradicted them.

With a sniff and a shake of her head, Soltoi remarked, "You're lying, and poorly. I expect better from you."

He clasped his hands in his lap and inclined his head. "Of course, Senator. Forgive me."

"I only have your best interests at heart, Weyoun."

The thought struck him, suddenly, that there was an odd note of parental authority in her tone. He'd obviously never spoken to her about his family—all other issues aside, family was too personal a subject to discuss with anyone but the people one was closest to—but he had no doubt that she knew his history.

Maybe she did have his best interests at heart. Certainly she had a closer idea of what those interests were than his parents had. He would always remember, though he'd tried to forget, the look of stupid happiness on their faces the last time he'd seen them. They were thrilled, thrilled he was going on to university, but he hadn't volunteered what degree he was planning on pursuing and they hadn't asked, happy enough just that he was going. That pride shining in his mother's dull eyes had made him hate them, the way they lived their small, ambition-less lives, content to let him have all the ambition for them—the way they spent all dry season securing their hovel so it wouldn't collapse during the monsoon and spent the monsoon huddled inside. His father had been crippled by a piece of hail at some point in the preceding five years and didn't work, and that left his mother to support the two of them and his younger siblings—and Founders knew what she did. Weyoun hadn't wanted to know. He had just wanted the train to come so he could get on it and never, ever see these people again, because he'd reached the age of majority and Founders help him, he was never going to return to the slums.

But the idea of Soltoi as…parental, was not, in light of recent events, the way he wanted to think of her. Maybe she saw him as a sort of son; the son she'd never had—because he did know that about her; she wasn't married and had no children. Still, a response was required, and he said, "I know you do."

She was regarding him steadily, as though she could still see straight through his feigned courteousness. "I'm glad," she said, then steepled her hands on the desk. "Now, as I said, you're an excellent candidate to replace Parnon. I have no doubt that given the right effort on our part, you can win his seat easily."

"Everyone thinks they can win his seat," Weyoun said. "Including him, I imagine."

"But 'everyone' isn't on my staff," she replied curtly. "We'll get you the endorsements you'll need to win the public over right away." She paused for a moment, thinking, and then sniffed derisively. "And as for Parnon—he's a naïve fool who rode a wave of popular idealism into office. He didn't know a thing about serving in the Council before he was elected to it. And he hasn't learned anything about it in the past five years."

"His poll numbers aren't bad," Weyoun felt compelled to point out.

Soltoi looked contemptuous. "I don't care about his poll numbers. He has no money and no donors. The public may like him now, while they aren't being told any differently, but once campaign season begins, we'll make sure to tell them exactly why Parnon isn't fit to hold that seat."

For a moment, he weighed whether or not to say what he was thinking. It might come off as argumentative—but then, part of him was feeling argumentative, anyway. "I don't have any money either, Senator." Soltoi had come from a very wealthy family and Weyoun knew that her first campaign had been funded entirely from an inherited trust fund. Weyoun made a comfortable salary, but the idea of funding a campaign with it wasn't just laughable, it was absurd.

Soltoi smiled with her usual chill. "You don't need to worry about that. You'll be funded very generously by several of Tira Exarchate's oldest and most influential families. It will be easier to do things that way rather than drawing you into commercial interests so early in your career."

He held his tongue for a moment, knowing, now, that the tight feeling in his chest was brittle, bitter anger. "I imagine I'll be too busy with your political interests to concern myself with commercial ones," he said, hearing the bile in his own voice.

There was silence in the room for a moment. "Will that be a problem?" she asked dangerously.

He didn't know the answer to that question, but he still replied, casting his eyes downwards, "No."

"Good." Soltoi kept her unblinking gaze on him while she slid a padd across the desk. "Here's a basic timeline of what you can expect from a campaign. I know you know all of this, but I want you to start thinking about it from the perspective of the candidate. You'll need to think about staffing, as well, though the staff here will obviously be available to you."

For the better part of the afternoon, the two of them went over procedural aspects of running for a Council seat. Weyoun gave what he thought was perhaps the performance of his life, as by the end of the meeting, Soltoi was convinced that he was thrilled to be considering the upcoming election—when in fact, nothing was further from the truth.

As he stood to leave, Soltoi surprised him by getting to her feet as well. She regarded him for a moment, and then said unexpectedly, "This has been a valuable lesson for you. Romantic entanglements are a distraction at best, and at worst, they're a tool that can be used against you."

He wondered if she was trying to be ironic. "I suppose that's why you never married," he replied, struggling to keep the bite out of his tone.

Soltoi gave him a cool look. "That is none of your concern whatsoever."

Something in her tone made him glance quickly upwards to meet her eyes without meaning to—it was as if what he'd said had crossed a line of some sort. Well, it had; it had been too personal, but there was a rigidity to Soltoi's words that suggested a far deeper infraction than mere rudeness on his part.

"My apologies," he said slowly, wondering what he'd said to hit such a nerve in her. Her eyes, for the barest of moments, had looked unguarded, though he hadn't thought to determine what emotion had flashed through them. There was no mistaking the look in them now, though—definite cold hostility, and he had a feeling it was more because he'd gotten a rise out of her than because of what he'd said.

The best thing to do in such a situation was to genuflect and leave, which he did, with the padd she'd prepared for him in hand. Between that and his other work, he had plenty to think about and to keep him occupied—and hopefully that would keep his mind off the thing that it kept going back to, and the one thing that he didn't want to think about.

Four weeks went by. Weyoun wouldn't have said he was miserable. He was too busy to be miserable, between the Mount Tiryn case, preliminary preparations for Soltoi's re-election campaign the following year, and his own political campaign. Soltoi was pushing him hard, particularly on the last, and he doggedly threw himself into the work. It gave him, he thought, about the same amount of satisfaction as always, but these days he needed…more. The work simply wasn't enough.

So while he wasn't miserable, he certainly wouldn't have characterized himself as happy, and it was no mystery why. He couldn't really see his way out of it—Deimos told him to have some casual sex and was only half-joking. "I talked to Eris," he had then said in one of the most awkward segue ways to have ever occurred during their friendship, prompting Weyoun to raise his eyebrows dubiously in his friend's direction, and Deimos to hastily go on, "She seems well."

"Glad to hear it."

"But unhappy." When Weyoun had hesitated to respond, Deimos had said, "It's all right, I won't judge you if you say you're glad to hear that, too."

He hadn't said it, though part of him was. It was the same petty part of him that wondered if she worked as much as she could so she didn't have to go home and sit by herself in an empty flat—or if her flat wasn't so empty. The latter was a thought he pushed out of his mind every time it came up. She was perfectly within her rights to fill her time and her bed with someone else. But knowing that didn't make the idea of it any easier.

Four weeks to the day after he'd left her, he arrived home so late that the streets were nearly empty—empty enough to make him grateful for the fact that he lived nowhere near the slums, and thus out of the territory of most of the criminals who operated from them. Once at home, he didn't feel like scrounging together enough food to make a meal, but he found an old jar of kava nuts—very stale by this point—and contented himself with them.

He stood at the window, mechanically eating, while he stared out at Tira City. The fifteenth storey put him about in the middle of its vertical expanse; his building rose a further three floors upwards but many were thirty or forty. Eris's building was visible in the distance, one more lit residence tower among many. Her window, on the twenty-first floor, actually faced towards his, but the individual flats were too blurry to pinpoint, and it was so late that she was probably sleeping, anyway.

Suddenly, he missed her more than he'd ever missed anyone in his entire life; her absence and his role in it eating what surely had to be a physical hole in his chest. It hurt, and he wasn't used to that, having foolishly thought he'd left such vulnerability behind in childhood. It hurt and he didn't know what to do. He felt as lost as that pathetic piece of gutter-scum that he'd once been, disembarking the train at the exarchate school, alone at nine years old because he hadn't wanted to be seen with his family. Well, he'd always been alone. He'd found his way when he was nine because that was what he'd always done, and he knew what he wanted. All that had been left to figure out was how to get it.

That was, he supposed, not so different from the current situation, after all. Except finding his way all those years ago had led him to a place where there weren't manifold paths, there was just one, and there wasn't room on that path for the two things that he wanted. He'd asked the Founders for guidance, praying at both the corner shrine in his flat and the district shrine, but they hadn't provided. It was too petty a problem for them, but it was the only thing he could think to do.

His fingers brushed the bottom of the jar and he glanced down at it, mildly nonplussed that he'd eaten an entire jar of stale kava nuts without really knowing it. Lost in thought—and not even useful thoughts; just the same self-pitying, ineffectual nonsense that he'd been engaging in for the past four weeks.

He turned around and went to check his interface messages, setting the jar down on the desk, and then, abruptly, he realized he was being a colossal idiot. Of course there was an option for him. It was a horrifying option, and four weeks ago to suggest such a thing to him would have been ludicrous. Four weeks ago he never even could have come up with the thought independently; it was simply unfathomable that he would consider such a thing. Now, it seemed so obvious that he couldn't imagine why it hadn't occurred to him.

He could resign from Soltoi's staff, set back his career by years, but possibly, just possibly, convince Eris to give him another chance.

A roll of excited nausea swelled through him at the sheer audacity of the idea and he actually had to put a hand to the back of the interface chair to steady himself. Barely breathing, and hardly believing that he was actually giving this serious thought, he rapidly went over what it would mean. No Council seat in this election. Obviously. Finding a new job—again, obvious. Likely taking a cut in pay. Showing that his loyalty was questionable. Inviting Soltoi's enmity.

Weyoun slowly sat down in front of the interface terminal, staring at the lit screen without really seeing it. He didn't know if the nervous thrum of his body was from horror or excitement. Except for that first, quick foray into the implications of resigning from his position, he couldn't make his mind settle down to thinking about it seriously. Taking a deep breath, he reached forward and turned the interface off, messages forgotten. The darkened screen was a relief that he hadn't known he needed.

Weyoun was a great believer in his own capacity to make the right decisions, but of late he wasn't sure how sterling his record was. He needed someone's advice about this. Tomorrow, before he got to work, before he met Deimos for breakfast, he'd stop by the Science Lobby office and speak to his friend there, where they were unlikely to be overheard. He wanted someone to tell him definitively that this was a terrible idea; that he should stop considering it and get on with his life and career, sans Eris Arethoi.

Unfortunately, he kept thinking of those as two separate arenas. With Soltoi, career was life, and he knew, as his unfocused gaze settled on the residence tower lights reflected on the interface screen, that as long as he worked for her or with her, it would be that way. There wasn't room for anything else.

Weyoun rarely visited the Science Lobby offices. They were sprawling, labyrinthine, and bustling, with one of the largest, most diverse staffs in the Complex. There was representation from just about every scientific discipline on Kurill, from astronomy to genetics to physics, with each field split out into separate offices, usually divided further by folding walls. Despite their specialties, the lobbyists really were generalists, and when they took on a case, each member of the panel was chosen at random. Weyoun thought it was a ridiculous way to delegate responsibility—the other lobbyist offices didn't have the same system—but Deimos had always insisted it was the best way for them to broaden their knowledge. He supposed he owed their ridiculous system, in a way—it was the reason that Deimos, an astronomer, had worked on the Hellad hearing, and he doubted that he'd ever have been properly introduced to Eris without that intermediary.

The head lobbyist for each discipline usually got his or her own office, and Weyoun headed straight to Deimos's, asking as he walked through the door, "Do you have a minute?"

"For you? Always," Deimos replied obsequiously.

"Good. I need you to talk me out of something."

Deimos rolled his eyes. "I've never been able to talk you out of anything. You're the most stubborn man I've ever met. Remember your three-job semester?"

Giving him an exasperated look, Weyoun said, "I wouldn't have been able to stay at university without those three jobs. Anyway, that's beside the point. Can I shut the door?"

Cocking his head in surprise, Deimos replied, "I suppose. What's going on?"

After he'd closed the door behind him, Weyoun returned and crossed his arms over his chest in front of Deimos's desk. For a moment, he stared down at his friend, and then he said determinedly, "I'm going to resign from Soltoi's staff and try to find a job with another senator."

"That's a stupid idea," Deimos said promptly.

Furrowing his brow, Weyoun asked, "Do you think so?"

Deimos threw up his hands in amused exasperation. "I haven't thought about it at all; you told me to talk you out of it!"

Uncrossing his arms and putting his hands on the desk, Weyoun said, "Well, think about it. In my more lucid moments I think it's the most terrible idea I've ever had. The rest of the time I think it's the only thing I can do."

"Weyoun, she's going to make you a senator."

"I know."

Deimos stared at him acutely. "Is it a more terrible idea than breaking up with Eris was?"

There was a long moment of silence between the two of them. "No," Weyoun finally answered. "But that was the worst idea I've ever had."

"Well, to be fair, it wasn't your idea."

With a dark chuckle, Weyoun replied, "Just my execution of it."

"Execution is probably the apt word." Deimos studied him, then said, "Sit down, would you?"

Smiling wryly, Weyoun settled himself in the worn chair that Deimos kept in one corner of his office. Then, the smile faded and his expression grew serious again. "I can't work for Soltoi anymore. Every moment I'm in my office I'm…bitter."

"That will pass."

"I'm not so sure." Weyoun clasped his hands together. "It isn't just Eris—though that's a major component, I'll admit. It's…" He hesitated. His mind had been turning this over for days now, the truth of his realization and the equally truthful fact that he was rejecting what it could have given him. "Everyone that Soltoi helps owes her. On the Council, if she wants something to happen, it will happen. Her business friends all owe her favors. Sometimes it seems like she owns half this city. Never mind the city—half the exarchate."

"And you don't want her to own you," Deimos finished for him.

Weyoun nodded. "I already knew all of that. But then I started to imagine myself as one of her…lackeys, and…" He paused again, and Deimos let the pause stretch for as long as it needed to. "I didn't go into politics to take orders from my peers."

Deimos stayed silent for another minute, watching Weyoun across the desk. Finally, he said, "It sounds like you've already made up your mind."

He almost denied it. He'd walked into Deimos's office fully intending to weigh both options against each other, but as soon as the word 'lackey' had come out of his mouth—Eris's word, to describe his subordination to Soltoi—he'd realized that his decision had been made. "I suppose I have."

There was a companionable lull in the conversation, and then Deimos asked curiously, "Who would you work for?"

Weyoun splayed his fingers and absently fidgeted with them. "I haven't gotten that far yet." It was true. The clarity that had made him decide to apply for work elsewhere had been a crystalline moment of resoluteness— the decision of where that 'elsewhere' would actually be was far more nebulous. He had, possibly arrogantly, figured that it didn't require that much thought. After all, he was Soltoi's senior aide—any position he applied for would be a step down for him. Anyone should be happy to hire him. And choosing a potential employer would require careful thought. Not just anyone would do; he would need someone that would owe him; who would want to protect him from Soltoi's wrath.

Deimos gave him a serious look. "Have you considered this office?"

The sincerity of the question surprised Weyoun, so much that he said immediately, "Oh, no, I couldn't." Aware of how dismissive it sounded, he added quickly, "I'm not a scientist."

"You could learn," Deimos said evenly. "And we could always use someone who's as persuasive as you are."

Weyoun smiled at his friend. "I appreciate your faith in me, but I'm afraid my particular aspirations aren't all that well suited to this office."

"You mean our pure pursuit of knowledge isn't compatible with your naked ambition," Deimos replied good-naturedly.

"Your words," Weyoun replied, raising an eyebrow, "not mine." When Deimos chuckled, Weyoun said graciously, "I appreciate the offer. And I know if you put in a good word for me, I could have my pick of positions in this office."

"But you want to be a senator someday," Deimos finished for him, and when Weyoun bowed his head in affirmation, Deimos sighed, then said, "I know. You're much more transparent than you think you are. Speaking of, if I were you, I'd find out if Eris even wants you back before you resign."

Weyoun looked up at him. "That isn't really the point."

"I know," Deimos replied, smiling crookedly. "But I'd still hate to be out a job and out a woman."

"I'm sure it must be a terrifying thought for you," Weyoun said. Then, he furrowed his brow. "I'm much likelier to get another job than get her back."

"But the latter is what you really want."

Weyoun didn't answer, aware that it sounded unprofessional, impulsive, and maudlin to admit that Deimos was right, but his friend just sighed, smiled again, as though he found Weyoun's developing sentimentality amusing. Well, he probably did. "I have a feeling you'll get her back somehow," he said.

"Oh?" There was no reason for the naïve rush of…relief; relief and stupid happiness, that Weyoun felt, hearing his friend say that. Deimos didn't have the slightest idea. But still.

"Yes." Deimos hesitated. "In my expert opinion, she misses you. She wants to be with you."

"Well, you are the closest thing to an expert that I know on these sorts of things." Weyoun got to his feet. "Thank you, Deimos. I think I know what I have to do."

"Don't mention it." Deimos grinned. "And try not to get on Soltoi's bad side, yes?"

Weyoun raised an eyebrow, but let that comment hang in the air as he departed.

It had never really occurred to Weyoun how large Soltoi's offices were, and how small most other senators' were in comparison. That, he supposed, was one very tangible benefit of nearly thirty years of service in the Senate—an office large enough to accommodate one's staff. The offices he was sitting in at the moment were a fraction of the size of Soltoi's. The small staff was crowded around a block of desks that was sectioned half-heartedly off from the rest of the office by folding walls, and the personal assistant's desk was crammed up against the wall near the door, so that she had to squeeze past one arm of it to get to her seat. There were only two separate offices inside—one for the senator, and one for the senator's senior aide.

Weyoun shifted, attempting the impossible task of getting comfortable on the worn chair he was seated in. Something very sharp and evidently vital to the utility of the piece of furniture was broken and poking him in the back, but he couldn't imagine what could be so sharp and painful inside the cushion; and every time he shifted it seemed to shift with him.

There was something threadbare about the entire operation, not just the chair. The carpet was thin in many places and had a distinct moldering odor. The old carpet—a century old, in some cases—had been ripped out of most of the Complex, but apparently some of these tiny, top-floor offices had been missed. The staff themselves had the same quality about them. Soltoi's staff always looked their best. These people looked as though they didn't really care about their appearances.

They did look happy, though, which he supposed was what counted. He'd certainly never appreciated how important it was to be happy in one's job until he no longer was.

The internal interface line on the personal assistant's desk pinged and she depressed a button on her headset, then murmured into it. Looking over the desk at him to meet his eyes, she said, "Senator Parnon will see you now."

He stood and she sidled out from behind the desk to escort him to Parnon's office—not that he needed the direction. There were two doors to choose from, and one opened onto a clearly empty office. The personal assistant looked too young to even have the job. Just out of school, maybe, which meant no university education, which meant…Parnon couldn't even get a fully-qualified personal assistant. Maybe this hadn't been a very good idea after all.

The time for such second guessing was long past, though, as the personal assistant knocked swiftly and perfunctorily on Parnon's office door, then pulled the handle to open it.

"Ah, Mr. Uldron. Please come in."

Parnon was a youngish man, probably in his early forties, who was Tira Exarchate's resident Senate idealist. He'd spent a significant part of his first term opposing many of Soltoi's initiatives and cases, and about all he had to show for it was her enmity. He was the most junior of junior senators; a man that everyone knew was going to lose his seat because of the powerful rivalries he'd created. Weyoun didn't know him well. As an enemy of Soltoi's, he hadn't been encouraged to get to know the senator well. And he knew that Soltoi could get him Parnon's seat, because at this point, it was anyone's for the taking.

Or Weyoun could do something truly stupid, and make sure that Parnon kept it.

Parnon's seat came to term in half a year. Challengers were lining up in the wings, though Kurill law kept them from declaring their candidacy and openly running until three months prior to the election. His senior aide, despairing of ever attaining any kind of advancement, had quit—not that he was a great loss. He'd never advised Parnon well—not that Parnon was beyond reproach in this, as he'd hired the man in the first place—and when it had become clear that his employer was making enemies, he'd failed to make overtures to Parnon's enemies' aides, which any low-level aide should have known to do. Weyoun had heard that he'd left politics altogether and was waiting tables at one of the high-priced restaurants in S-tech Tower. It probably was less stressful and more rewarding.

That left a vacant senior aide position in a senatorial office that desperately needed one. It was the most important administrative position in a senator's office in a normal year; in an election year, it was paramount.

So Weyoun had come, against all of his better judgment, to ask Parnon for a job.

He murmured his thanks to Parnon's personal assistant, who nodded to both him and her employer before closing the door. Immediately, Parnon stood and reached across his desk, offering his hand. Weyoun clasped it, surprised at the gesture. "Sit down," Parnon said, and as Weyoun did so, the senator said, "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

"A year, maybe," Weyoun answered. "I believe the last time we saw each other was a fundraiser that the Pegrill Mining Consortium organized."

Parnon leaned back in his chair. "Yes, that's right. Senator Soltoi was away, as I recall, and you took point on her networking." When Weyoun inclined his head in confirmation, Parnon asked, "How did that ever work out?"

Weyoun hesitated, but then, rationalizing that he'd come here to ask for a job and that he was trying to sell himself, said, "Very well. The Consortium will be one of the largest donors for her re-election campaign." The amount they were donating, in fact, was likely more than Parnon would see during his entire campaign. He hoped Parnon understood that—Weyoun didn't want to have to say it out loud.

"Ah. Impressive." He gave Weyoun a pleasant look, with something probing beneath it. "Senator Soltoi must have been pleased. But then, I think we've all been impressed with your acumen for politicking."

"I just do my job," Weyoun replied.

"And the hallmark modesty of Senator Soltoi's staff, as well." When Weyoun remained silent, unsure if a response to this was required, Parnon smiled and saved him from further bemusement by saying, "Let me ask you something. Say you find yourself winning an election within the next few years. What's your platform?"

Weyoun blinked and leaned back unconsciously. Did Parnon already know that Soltoi was after his seat for her senior aide? Then, he demurred, "I don't think I'll find myself winning an election within the next few years, Senator."

"No?" Parnon studied him, and Weyoun saw the desire to press him for an answer, and then the dismissal of that desire, flash across his face. "What I'd like to do is to have a more complete space program," Parnon said musingly.

"Senator?"

"Manned orbitals; that's what we need to do. There's no good reason we haven't done it. With all the satellites we're always launching up there, we could easily build an orbital to carry people."

Weyoun didn't know about 'easily'—Deimos would, probably—and as this conversation had strayed substantially from the reason he'd come by, he decided to steer it back in the direction he wanted. "Senator," he said seriously, "it's an…interesting idea, but to be quite blunt with you, you aren't going to have another term to pass that legislation. You've got five months, and no one in the Council will side with you because they know you're going to lose. They know Soltoi wants you out, and they won't risk annoying her. This is a dead seat, Senator, and I think you know it."

For a moment, Parnon didn't say anything, and Weyoun wondered if he'd gotten through to him at all. Then, Parnon said, "Call me Foros."

With a small laugh—more out of shock than anything else—Weyoun said, "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

He furrowed his brow. "Because, I'm…an aide, and you're a senator."

Parnon waved a dismissive hand. "I don't care to stand on formality. You remind me of my brother. He's about your age."

For a moment, Weyoun was stunned into silence, which didn't happen all that often. "Your…brother," he finally repeated, for lack of anything else.

"Yes. You must be about twenty-eight?"

Weyoun couldn't even bring himself to be bewildered by this straightforward query about his age, which was considered to be very bad taste. "Twenty-seven."

"Ah. Well, my brother's twenty-eight. He writes sacred music, actually. No one can quite understand how he came up with that gene; our whole family has been in politics. I suppose we were all surprised when he came along—our mother was supposed to be infertile after bearing me. Maybe it's not particularly shocking that he'd go against the grain in his career, either." Parnon turned a holoimage on his desk around. "There we all are. That's my wife next to me."

Weyoun could barely look at the holoimage; his eyes were too glazed over from this glut of extremely personal information that he didn't need to know. In five years of working for Soltoi, she had never told him her parents' names or even whether they were still alive, and here was a man he barely knew informing him of his mother's fertility issues (or lack thereof, he couldn't help adding to himself with a shudder).

"Well, anyway. What do you think?"

Snapping his eyes up to Parnon, he stammered, "Think? About…er…what?" Surely the man wasn't asking him what he thought about his family. Weyoun was beginning to have serious doubts about the wisdom of asking for a job with the junior senator. He was beginning, actually, to have serious doubts about the other man's sanity.

"About manned spaceflight," Parnon said patiently. "If I were to introduce the legislation, what do you think its chances of passing would be?"

Weyoun lowered his eyes to the desk. "It doesn't matter what I think."

Parnon leaned back in his chair. "Maybe not. But I'm curious."

"Senator," Weyoun said, still staring at the swathe of desk in front of him, "it's not my place to judge your ideas—"

"You want me to hire you, don't you?" At those words, Weyoun's eyes snapped up, and Parnon smiled knowingly. "That is why you're here? My vacant senior aide position?"

"I…thought we could discuss it, yes."

There was a moment of measuring silence. Then, Parnon said, "The job's yours—if you give me your honest opinion about manned spaceflight."

Weyoun stared at him. The man seemed sincere. How odd. Soltoi had never asked him for his personal opinion on her legislation during five years in her employ, and he'd never really felt the urge to offer it. Finally, he shifted in his seat and said, "The only thing that I can think of that's in space are the Founders. So the only reason to go there is to look for them. But they're supposed to return to us."

"Yes, I see what you're getting at. Blasphemy?"

"No," Weyoun quickly assured him. Somehow he didn't think the job offer would still stand if he actually leveled that accusation. Besides, it hadn't been what he meant, though he could see how his words had been misconstrued. "I just don't know if it's something the general public cares about. Orbitals are for synchronizing satellite orbits, not exploration. And even if you convince the Council, they'll be nervous about committing the amount of money that manned spaceflight would require. The public is already unhappy with the way the Senate's been allocating funding. People want the metro improved. They want better roads into the exurbs. Sending Vorta into space isn't high on the public's list of worthy uses of taxes." He hesitated, then bowed his head and added, "And it isn't high on mine, either, Senator."

Parnon was nodding and staring at him seriously, and once Weyoun had finished, the senator remained silent for a minute or two. Then, he asked, "And if you were my senior aide, what would your advice be for a first step in this process?"

Weyoun blinked. Had Parnon heard a word of what he'd said? The departure of the man's previous senior aide was becoming more and more understandable. For a second, he considered repeating himself regarding the folly of manned spaceflight, but when he glanced up and met Parnon's eyes, he sighed and couldn't. "If you want to introduce that sort of legislation, then you need to get in the good graces of the science lobby."

"And you'll help me with that?"

There was a long moment of silence, then Weyoun inclined his head. "If you were to hire me, then of course. It would be my job to support your efforts."

"No matter how ludicrous you think they are."

"If it was only the sensible legislation that made it to Council debate, there would be no point in having a Council," Weyoun remarked.

Parnon laughed, then leaned back in his chair and tilted his head in study. "Why do you want to work for me?" he asked curiously. "I mean no offense, but you seem more the type to stay on Soltoi's staff until she can help you into a Council position. You yourself pointed out my…shortcomings."

Weyoun kept his eyes lowered. "If I can be honest with you, Senator?"

"Foros. But yes, please."

He would not call him Foros. Taking a breath, Weyoun said, "It's something of a personal issue."

There was silence in the room while Parnon waited expectantly and Weyoun resisted saying it out loud. "If your personal issue is so severe that it's driving you from Senator Soltoi to me, then maybe you'd better make sure that you won't have it with me also."

After another moment, Weyoun sighed resignedly and said, "Are you familiar with Eris Arethoi? She consulted for the Hellad hearing a few months ago?"

Parnon nodded. "I've never met her, but yes. She's the woman who helped the science lobby win the hearing."

Weyoun folded his hands in front of him. "She holds a very…unfavorable opinion of me. I'd like to show her that it isn't completely correct."

There was another long silence. This time, Weyoun knew for certain that the senator was waiting for him to elaborate. He wasn't going to. Parnon may have been comfortable sharing his entire family history with strangers, but Weyoun wasn't interested in broadcasting the details of the…situation between him and Eris to anyone else. "Ah," Parnon eventually said. "You're being circumventive. You'll learn to stop doing that around here." At that, Weyoun looked at him sharply, and a slight smile flickered across Parnon's face. "Well, Mr. Uldron, you're the first person to show any interest in working for me, so congratulations. You're hired."

Though intellectually Weyoun had known that even Parnon wasn't a big enough fool to turn down the brightest political aide in the Complex asking for a job that was a decrease in pay, stature, and prospects, a surge of triumphant relief still shot through him. Bowing his head, he said, "Thank you, sir. When would you like me to start?"

There was a broader smile on Parnon's face when Weyoun looked back up to him. "Considering I haven't had a senior aide for over two months, as soon as possible. Can you begin tomorrow?"

"I'll be here in the morning," Weyoun replied immediately.

"Good." Parnon stood, and Weyoun did as well, and this time, when the senator—his new employer—offered his hand, Weyoun took it much more enthusiastically. "I'm looking forward to seeing how you do things."

Determinedly, Weyoun said, "The first thing I'll do is win the election for you."

With a chuckle, Parnon remarked, "Well, your job is on the line now, too, so I appreciate your eagerness." Something measuring flashed through his eyes, but all he added was, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Weyoun nodded briskly and turned to go, but then Parnon said, "Oh, and Weyoun?" When he turned around to look, the senator said, "I wish you and Miss Arethoi the utmost happiness."

He thought about responding, but in the end all he did was bow his head in acknowledgement before leaving. If he was going to begin working for Senator Parnon the following morning, he had a job to resign from this afternoon.

Soltoi had always been imperious about her office door. If it was physically open, it was still metaphorically closed, and the routine of knock, wait ten seconds for an answer, and enter had been hammered into her staff. Weyoun didn't break the credo, though when he walked into her office he dispensed with the usual deferential waiting to be summoned, and simply held out a padd to her.

"What's this?" Soltoi asked, with barely half a glance in its direction.

"It's a letter of resignation."

"Ah, I wasn't aware we were losing anyone. Whose? Yeroi's, I suppose? She's been yammering on about getting married and I suppose the workload is too much for her—"

Weyoun dropped the padd on the desk so that the text of the letter faced towards her. "Mine, actually." The way Soltoi looked up at him in bafflement was almost comical—he'd never shocked the woman before; perhaps never really even surprised her. And it was clear that despite her ultimatum, there had never been any doubt in her mind which he'd choose between his career and Eris.

She'd been right. At first. "Senator Parnon has been generous enough to offer me a position on his staff," Weyoun said as his former benefactor scanned his letter of resignation. "I'll move my things to his offices this afternoon."

Soltoi jerked her head up to look at him, straightening her shoulders so that she took on the posture that most people found intimidating. He supposed that part of him always had as well. It helped to be standing. "Why in the world would you resign from my staff to work for Parnon?" she asked. "His support means nothing in the Council and he's only got another six months left on it."

"Senator," he said, "I was under the impression that you were concerned about my private affairs having a negative impact on your standing in the Council. Senator Parnon has no such concerns."

"This is about Arethoi?" Soltoi chuckled. "I thought you'd forgotten about her."

Weyoun stared at her blandly. "This is about correcting an ill-advised decision."

The pleasant expression on her face evaporated and was replaced by something much uglier. "Don't be a fool. I've already offered you Parnon's seat in the next election."

"And if I may say so, Senator, I have a feeling that with me as his senior aide, Parnon's seat won't be available." He gave her the look of practiced diplomacy that he'd honed in her office; that perfect mixture of concern, understanding, and assurance. It would look nothing but disingenuous to her in that moment, and that was exactly what he wanted.

Tightly controlled fury washed over her face. "I can see I've been very wrong about you. I never imagined you the type to throw your career away for a woman."

Weyoun tilted his head, giving her the barest of hard smiles. "Oh, I don't think I'm throwing away my career. But I'll remember your concern."

Soltoi kept her expression mostly in check. "Get out. If you're still here in an hour, I'll call security."

He bowed his head and turned to go, but then, something made him hesitate in the door and look back at her. She was already concentrating on her interface screen. "Senator," he said, and with another moment's hesitation and real sincerity, added, "thank you." He meant for everything she'd taught him; what he'd learned in her offices was going to serve him well in his future, and even if their professional relationship was going to end on bad terms, he at least wanted her to know that he recognized and appreciated what she'd done for him.

But she just gave him a steely smile. "Don't thank me, Weyoun. I'm going to destroy you."

The cold anger in her tone made what gratitude he'd been feeling for her vaporize, and he turned around in her door, bowed slightly at the waist, and spread his arms out with his palms facing towards her. "Senator," he said as an acerbic parting shot, and then, finally, turned and strode from her office.

It was a week before he decided to pay Eris a visit. A very vain and stupid part of him had half-hoped that he'd come home from his new job and find a message from her stored on his interface line; that she'd heard what he'd done and wanted to throw herself back into his arms.

Obviously, no such thing happened, and he knew he'd have to initiate contact between them. An interface call didn't seem right, much less an interface message, and so he walked the twelve blocks to her flat in the rapidly waning daylight, watching as flares of orange and reddish-purple light from the setting sun glinted off the sides of buildings and pooled in the clear sky overhead.

Once he reached her flat, he stood outside the blank wood expanse of her door for two or three minutes, not so much working up the courage to knock on the door as the courage to manage his disappointment if she slammed it in his face once she saw it was him. Maybe he should have brought her something. She liked those little lavender shore roses—but no, flowers weren't going to sway her if her inclination was to never speak to him again.

He took a deep breath rapped on the door. Then, a small victory—it opened. Eris stood there, one hand on the edge of the door as if blocking his entry, her chin raised defiantly. She didn't look surprised to see him. She didn't look anything, in fact—her face was entirely expressionless while she stared at him for a long moment. His romantic instincts, not so different from the political ones that he'd sharpened for years in Soltoi's office, told him to keep his mouth shut. The light was dim in the corridor and brighter in her flat, so her stillness seemed magnified by the fact that she was silhouetted against the light.

"Come in," she finally said, stepping aside to allow him entry, and then, grudgingly, she asked, "Can I get you something to drink?"

"No, but thank you." The two of them stood and stared at each other for a minute until Weyoun gestured to the loveseat sectional in the living room. "Can we sit down?"

Eris nodded curtly and motioned for him to do so with a flick of her wrist.

"I heard you've changed offices," she said as they both sat on opposite sides of the sectional.

He assumed this piece of information was courtesy of Deimos and wondered if she'd asked about him or received the knowledge unsolicited. "Yes. I think it will a much better fit for me."

Scoffing, she said, "No, it won't be. Soltoi is the most powerful senator in the Council. You're hamstringing your career by alienating her."

"Maybe I'm just looking for a challenge."

Her mouth twitched towards a smile but she quickly clamped down on it. "Weyoun, you left me for your job. What do you expect from me?"

This reaction, while not the one he was hoping for (though a step up from having the door slammed in his face), was unsurprising. "Nothing. I just wanted to tell you." It was a lie. He wanted her, more, suddenly, than he'd ever wanted anything in his life.

She looked away from him, anger flaring briefly in her eyes. "Well, I already knew, so you're wasting your time."

Heavy silence enveloped the room. Finally, Weyoun cleared his throat and said, "Fine. I suppose I'll go, then."

Eris's nod was more of a jerk; she didn't look at him as he got to his feet and moved towards the door. Before he got there, however, he sighed, then turned back around to face her. "I handed Soltoi my entire life when I gave into her demand to end things with you. She knew she'd be able to control me, and that made me perfect as a senatorial candidate. I could be counted on never to oppose her or challenge her on anything." He hesitated. "That's why I resigned from her staff."

"So you didn't quit because of me."

"Eris." He failed miserably at keeping the desperate note out of his voice, so he paused, willing his tone back to its typical smoothness, and stared at her until she finally turned her head and met his eyes. The other reason was true. But not as true as what he was about to say. "Of course I did. She made it clear that she could give me the career I wanted, but only if it was without you. And I want you. I can find a career without Soltoi. You, though…you're irreplaceable."

There was a twitch in her face, around her eyes, and she didn't blink as she stared at him. "Don't be melodramatic."

He pressed his lips into a thin line and exhaled sharply through his nose. "I always knew that I was working for an authoritarian, antisocial tyrant. I didn't care until I met you."

She rose to her feet. "And you want me to ignore that you hurt and humiliated me; that you chose that authoritarian, antisocial tyrant because it would have furthered your prospects and your career. Maybe I've moved on, Weyoun. I've had a month. Maybe I've forgotten you."

His hands, at his sides, twisted so that they faced her, palms out. It was an echo of the most common gesture of religious obeisance. Maybe he should have prayed before coming here. "I don't think you have."

"I take that to mean that you haven't? That you've been pining for me ever since you broke it off?"

He stared at her levelly. "Eris, I can go or stay; it's your choice. Just tell me."

She laughed harshly, no doubt at the absurdity of someone like him imploring forthrightness from someone else. "Just tell you," she repeated. "As though it's that simple."

His shoulders dropped in a tiny, half-stifled sigh, and he stepped towards her. "It is."

There was a long silence. Out her large, open windows, Weyoun could see both of Kurill's moons, hanging low and large over the city. Eris's interface line pinged, but she ignored it, keeping her arms held straight at her sides as she stared at Weyoun. The harsh lines on her face were beginning to melt away to something more like desperation. "I can't help thinking you fell out of favor with Soltoi somehow. That you had nothing to lose by resigning."

Weyoun held her gaze matter-of-factly. "She offered me one of Tira Exarchate's junior senator seats. It was mine for the taking." He didn't blink as he stared into her eyes. "I turned her down."

Despite her best efforts, the surprise showed in her eyes before she blinked to hide it. "Is that supposed to make me feel flattered?"

"No," he said, fierceness creeping into his tone. "You asked if I had anything to lose and I told you the truth. I did. You know I did; you said it yourself."

She was silent for a minute, and then she dropped her gaze away from his entirely. "You won't take no for an answer, will you?"

He started to take a step closer, but halted when she jerked her eyes back to him. "You haven't said no yet," he replied gently.

There was another long silence. Eris swallowed hard enough that the movement of her throat was visible and finally murmured unwillingly, "I don't want to forgive you."

Something about the way she said it made him remain still—he couldn't hear dismissal in her voice, not yet. All he heard was wavering indecision, her desire to withhold forgiveness and send him away warring with the fact that she was still in love with him. That much was obvious—because he could see in her eyes exactly what he'd been seeing in his own for the past month.

Suddenly, Weyoun didn't want to stand there anymore, doing nothing, waiting for an axe to fall when he knew what he wanted and had a feeling Eris did as well. Before he thought any more about it, he drew a deep breath through his nose, closed the distance between them, grabbed her shoulders in his hands, and kissed her.

There was just a second where she stiffened, probably kept her eyes open, and her mouth was certainly closed, but then that second passed, her lips parted, and she put her hands hesitantly to his chest, curling the tops of her fingers over his shoulders. Some noise escaped him; something like a desperate laugh, and she kissed him harder, sliding one arm around his neck, and he was, for the first time in a month, happy.

There was an infinite moment of connection between the two of them; his stupidity forgotten for a precious few minutes while they held onto each other, but then she broke away and put her hands on his chest, distancing herself from him. "I have to think about this," she said, breathlessness lending her tone a gentleness that he had no right to expect. Then, a smirk ghosted across her face. "This isn't going to be an easy decision."

"I deserve that," he murmured.

Eris reached a hand out, as though she was going to touch his face, but then withdrew it and met his eyes frankly. "I'm tempted to ask for your assurance that you'll never hurt me again."

It would have been easy to blithely give it to her. Maybe she would have even believed him; certainly she would have believed his sincerity. Instead, he straightened, holding her gaze. "That would be disingenuous of me," he replied, adding with a small smile, "And you know how I hate being disingenuous."

This time, she couldn't seem to stop herself from brushing her fingers down his face. "Your honesty buys you a little goodwill," she said softly.

He disregarded the fact that one of her palms was still flat against his chest, forcing distance between them, and put one of his hands on her hip. "The only assurance I can give you is that my feelings for you are never going to change."

A startled look flickered across her face, but then she shook herself and said, "That's a bit disingenuous, don't you think?"

"Not at all."

"Then maybe it's just a bold claim for someone who put his career first and won't disregard the possibility of doing so again." Dropping her gaze away from his, she sighed and said, "As I said, I'm tempted to ask. I know better than to make such lofty demands, though."

Weyoun took her hand, removing it from his chest, and she let him, drawing her eyebrows together as she stared at her hand in his. "You said you need to think about this."

She nodded, hesitated, and finally said, "I won't let you wonder indefinitely. A week. No more." Then, she gently disentangled herself from him, taking several steps backwards. It was an unsubtle hint, and he took it, bowing his head slightly and turning towards the door to leave.

Before he could open the door, though, she spoke again, suddenly, as though she was surprising herself by saying anything. "Weyoun—" She grabbed his arm and when he turned back to face her, abruptly let go, as though she hadn't meant to touch him. For a moment, she stared at him, then said, "You never told me whether or not you agreed if Hellad Metro Center should be built."

He tilted his head at her in surprise. "Does it matter?" When she clasped her hands behind her back and nodded, he sighed through his nose. "At the time I didn't care. I appreciated that Yelar Industries razed the slums, and that was all. It was my job to win." At that, she raised her eyebrows. He shrugged, then continued, "I'm glad Soltoi lost. I couldn't care less if there's another shopping center in Tira City or not, but Soltoi needs to lose once in awhile. And I'm glad, now, that your excavation's still there. What you found there, it's…important." He hesitated, then finished, "And I'm glad that you're still here, and not excavating some High Classical site in Pegrill."

"All of the good High Classical sites in Pegrill have already been taken," she said softly. "And anyway, that's archaeology."

He smiled ruefully but decided that the best thing to do was to go and let her think, or not think, or whatever best led her to a decision. "Good-bye, Eris."

She bowed her head and this time, when he turned to leave, she didn't stop him. The whole thing had gone neither worse nor better than he'd expected—he'd refused to think about what the outcome of the meeting would be, and so he wasn't disappointed as he walked home, but rather caught in the same state of anticipation that he'd been in all week. Still, she could have slammed the door in his face when he'd arrived. In that regard, at least, it had gone well.

The following night, his interface line pinged as he was working on something for Parnon and eating a late, lukewarm dinner. He was on his feet immediately and at the interface terminal before he had time to think. Eris's face appeared, her eyes wide, as though she couldn't quite believe what she was doing. "Weyoun," she said in greeting.

"Eris," he returned, still on his feet. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She opened her mouth, then hesitated and closed it again, licking her lips. "I never told you that I admire what you did. Resigning from Soltoi's staff, that is." Furrowing her brow, she said, "I know it can't have been easy for you."

"I appreciate that," he said, sitting down slowly in the chair. "But is that why you called?"

"Well—no." She sighed, then bit her lip—trying to hold back a smile and failing miserably. "It turns out I didn't need as much time as I thought I did," she said, and though he knew that it was an illusion, that the cameras along its edges constructed the semblance of looking another person in the eye through the interface, he couldn't help feeling as though he was staring straight into her clear, violet gaze as she asked, "Would you like to have dinner together tomorrow?"