It's never easy to do the reaction of a man when he discovers the woman he loves is pregnant with his child, and neither expects it - in this case, Worf is destined to unleash it, and when word gets back to Sirella, there will be hell to pay. But Martok? Let's find out.
Chapter Ten
I Could Never Say Good-Bye
There were no words to describe the terror in my gut, in my heart and every part of my body. This did not bode well for me and Worf - and I did not know how to feel about realizing I was going to be a mother.
And Worf might not be overjoyed at becoming a father.
To tell anyone who wasn't him would ruin me definitely. I knew my Starfleet career would not be ruined, but the Symbiosis Commission? Curzon? The latter might decide my fate simply because I was his pupil - and that frightened me more, nauseated me more than anything else ever did. He could go to the board and request that I be dropped from EVER inheriting the symbiont simply because I got pregnant by a Klingon, and the fault would be all on me and not him. If that happened, then I was going to accept the responsibility...unless something could be done about that.
I could not think about my future with the symbiont right now. I was having a baby that I never knew would happen - or so fast, for that matter. But for now, I had to keep my condition hidden...
...only Worf noticed how ill and in pain I had been, and the fact that I would not practice with the weapons in his and Martok's company caused him to confront me in his infirmary.
"Jadzia, you've been like this for weeks. At least let me examine you," he insisted. If I said plea or beg in the sense, I'd be making it very non-Klingon for him. "Whatever it is, I'll get you through it. I have enough experience in Trill physiology."
I gulped and looked him in the eye. Both of my own were feeling watery, might as well look it, and he noticed but said nothing. Either he assumed it was because I was sick, or I was simply afraid of what he would find. I thought it was both. I sat on the stone bed like a "good little patient" and let him examine me: everything from temperature to pulse and heartrate - and then I was asked about my monthly cycle.
The words slipped out without hesitation.
"I...missed the last one."
His eyes widened before they reverted back to normal. I knew what was coming next as soon as he ran the tricorder over my abdomen, finding the little blip in there. Blip? It would have been funny if not for now. I laid back for him, kept my hands on their sides but clenched them into fists as the light scans rolled over my body. I could hear my heart thundering.
Worf's voice was harshly soft. "Jadzia..." He trailed off and continued to stare at his findings in utter shock that he didn't need to finish his sentence. "We are..."
"Having a baby," I finished for him, guiltily at that. "I know what you're going to say: how could this happen?"
"I agree. I don't know how this happened, but a Klingon and a Trill would have had difficulty conceiving a child -" Then his eyes flared. "- and especially when one is an initiate of the great Curzon Dax, and the other an outcast in the eyes of his people...and both unmarried."
Tears slipped down my cheeks. He wasn't blaming me, but he was blaming himself. "Worf, why are you talking like this?" I croaked. He sighed.
"I don't regret being with you, but I let myself get out of hand. And this came from it," he said, motioning to my flat abdomen with his tricorder now off. I broke completely because of my out of control hormones - but it was also because my heart was breaking in that our lives were going to change altogether.
I wanted to reach out and take his hand into mine, but my muscles held me back. "What do you want to do?"
"I should have asked you that," he said, surprised. "But if you must know my answer, I don't want to abort this child. I've always been against such things, but children have been known to be lost before birth or after amongst the Klingons." My stomach clenched and then softened into mush at such horrific images. On Trill, abortions were legalized only when the board of health went through with the final decision as to whether or not the mother would survive after the baby was killed. The mother herself had no choice in the matter. I never thought I would find myself in this predicament, but I wasn't on Trill anymore.
I also was not married, like he pointed out. Which makes it more difficult. I had no experience with raising children, and he didn't, either. "I'm sorry to ask...what are we going to do now?" I whispered, my cheeks burning as the tears soaked into my skin.
"I wish I knew, but one thing is certain: Sirella will not be best pleased once we tell her." I looked at him in alarm, knowing the lady's wrath. "I don't relish this any more than you," he said, with the cool clinical speaking of the doctor he was, "but we can't keep this hidden forever. Had it gotten out later, it would have blown to the heavens and even enraged Kahless himself."
~o~
"Jadzia, you little fool."
The slap to my face sent me on my knees. I covered my face not only to nurture the burn in my flesh, but to hide the tears I could not fight back now. I wanted so much to be angry at Worf for this decision, but he was the doctor, and who was I to question him as always?
I was beyond anger and hate at this very moment. I was angry at Worf for sure - but I hated Sirella most of all.
"And you, Worf -" Her eyes blazed with uncontrollable frenzy when she looked him square, but he did not display any form of emotion. She did not frighten him as much as she frightened me inside. "- you made the fatal mistake of bedding an alien and in my own house! You are an even greater fool than I thought you were."
That makes us both, I wanted to say, except it would only make it worse, but he was there for me. "Lady Sirella, with due respect," Worf countered, "I care for Jadzia more than just as a friend, no matter her being a non-Klingon. I never dreamed that I would find someone like her, and no man is accorded the luxury of choosing a woman he falls in love with."
"My husband's words." She laughed harshly. "Well, I doubt I can erase that, can I?" She looked at me again when I stood and dusted myself off, holding myself together.
"But that leaves your future in the question, doesn't it, Jadzia? A transmission to Curzon Dax is in order, and he should decide whether or not he should come back and retrieve the disgrace that you are, take you back to your own people if they will accept you," she sneered. "See how they take the fact you mated with a Klingon man, if they will accept that breed that I never will."
My hands flew protectively over my stomach, a sudden wave of protectiveness coming over my senses for my child - and Worf's - as Sirella taunted us both and its father who erupted with rage in his voice. "Sirella," he growled vengefully, standing in front of me, "you speak without honor and with prejudice, xenophobic views."
"Klingons do not accept outsiders, Worf," she spat. "We conquer." She began to circle us both, like a predator trapping prey. "The both of you disgust me. Curzon Dax will know about this as soon as possible, and when you do tell him and if he decides to abandon you, don't come sniveling to me," she hissed when she stopped behind me. "You're a failure, Jadzia, and you always will be. At best, an object of pity who could never match up to greater authority."
I had enough of this. I turned my back to her and began to stalk away from her, from Worf, and found my rooms, locking myself in and refusing to answer any calls for any reason, unless it was from Curzon - and I was not looking forward to that in the slightest.
Hours later - Sirella never wasted any time - she informed me that he was on the line and wished to speak to me. Unable to control the breaking out of perspiration, I faced my mentor and field docent, seeing the grim expression I knew he would have. And his response matched.
"It should have been impossible for a Trill and a Klingon to bear children, my dear. But there is very little notice to consult the medical board on Trill or even on the Livingston. I wish I could be there now, but tomorrow we attack the Albino at last."
"You found him," I stated, utterly relieved that he and the others finally caught up to him. "What happened?"
"He sent Kang the message, claiming he was finished and tired of running, and that he would propose one last glorious battle against forty of his finest. It would be the four of us against forty of them. The odds are against us, but I'm willing to take the chance," Curzon answered solemnly, tilting his head. "We have to take out the armory and the power station before we can take action, however."
To which he should have had me present to help. "Yes," he answered, "but it can't happen, my dear. Before I go off with my friends, I have to consult with the Symbiosis Commission." Now his tone took a very cold, formal turn in a flash that I felt a tear from each corner of my eye slip with my sweat - and his words made me break down to a point of beyond repair.
"I'm going to request that you be terminated from the initiation program, for your own good, Jadzia."
~o~
I believe I threw more than just a childish tantrum when I flung myself out the window - not to commit suicide - to land on the earth and run for the woods. In the past several weeks, I'd learned to find safe spots if I wanted to be in the wild alone for whatever reason, and this was to think. Not just to think, but to scream, cry and curse - you name it.
How could Curzon DO this to me?!
I felt betrayed more than I ever was in my life. People abandoned me, people teased me in my life, called me scared and weak, seldom as those times were - but I hated myself as I was. Pitiful Jadzia Idaris, well-educated science girl and young officer, from a planet of science-based beings like any other, and I came so close to getting the one thing I wanted most, but it had been ripped from me because I gave myself to a man who in return gave me a child neither of us expected.
It was my fault, after all. I was the one who seduced Worf, even though he never used that phrase on me. I couldn't keep it to myself, let myself blindly follow some so-called prophecy by Kahless...and my life was taken away from me just like that. I had nothing left but Starfleet, and how could I get away now like this?
Curzon abandoned me.
Might as well say good-bye to hopes of ever being joined - yet I could not let it go just like that. The fierce side of me rose when I leaned against a tree facing the depths and paths into the forest. I was alone now, wanted to be alone for awhile to my sorrow, wished I could walk those miles ahead of me until I passed out and became targ food...but the little thing in my body swirled and brought me back to life. I wasn't going to give up just like that. Maybe not now, but someday soon, I could pick up the pieces and pick up where I left off even if it took every breath in my body.
I would become Jadzia Dax one day, with or without Curzon. The man I thought I could look up to but who rejected me in the end. I had failed to impress him because I followed my heart.
However, I was also confused. He'd been there when I told him about the mysterious message about me and Worf, but this time with a baby coming into the picture, he had out-of-the-blue informed me he would drop me from the initiation program that I had worked so hard to get into. All I knew was that I could not - and never would - forgive him for wounding me the way he did.
I looked over my head at the sound of thunder rolling. A storm was coming soon. I might as well run back into the house for shelter, but at the same time, I wanted the rainfall to cleanse away my tears if not the aching in my bones.
I closed my eyes as I felt the first drop hit my cheek...and then I heard my name called. Eyes snapping open, I hid behind the tree in case it was Worf, but as the voice drew nearer, it was someone better - I hope. "Martok!" I shouted over the increasing downpour, stepping out and facing him.
"Jadzia, you need to come inside now."
"And go back to apologize to your wife, for a forgiveness she does not deserve?" I countered. "She called me weak, pitiful - and Curzon rejected me, left me here to rot!"
He grumbled and shook his head, shaking off drops from his bushy mane. "And you won't have to, but you should be inside resting after the ordeal today," he told me, venturing closer. "Your life isn't over."
I snorted and put my hands on my hips. "My future in becoming a joined Trill was taken from me by a man whom I looked up to as a teacher and friend - and he rejects me because I am pregnant," I pointed out. "How can you say it's not over?"
"Because a true warrior never gives up without a fight, Jadzia. You might have lost one battle, but there is always more to come. This isn't the end of the war, because in the very near future, you will try again to regain what was taken from you, reclaim your honor and even shed blood in your path if you have to. Tear through with more passion than you ever dreamed of." His eyes glittered. "And as for you and Worf, he has been looking for you. Now, if you please, come with me. He and this little one -" He placed his hand over my stomach, the feeling strange but comforting. "- are all you have now."
I had it planned from the beginning to get Jadzia pregnant at some point, so it's coming along more than I planned in the beginning. :)
