"You ask me my name. I'll tell it to you, and in return give me the gift you promised me. My name is Nobody. That is what I am called by my mother, and father, and by all of my friends."

(Homer, Odyssey.)

Odo was a Tiberian Python, slithering through as many tunnels as he could ever be certain to find. The station - and especially it's network of branching Jeffries' tubes - was uncomfortably cold for any snake. But for the moment at least, his comfort was of very little consequence.

He'd told his deputies to keep up with their own comprehensive search, although he doubted they would be having much success. Tricorders and sensors were excellent at picking up life signs when there was nothing to interfere with their readings. But pythons could not be stopped by dampening fields. And they had that extra sensitivity to infra red. If there was anything giving off residual heat, he would find it.

Even if all he found turned out to be a rapidly cooling body.

Nathan Hayes barely had time to catch his breath before the call came through to expect another beam in. They've found him. With a queasy mix of relief and anxiety, he acknowledged the call, and focused on the seconds-long wait that always seemed to stretch into infinity.

Athena had been barely conscious, and close to panic. But she'd managed to tell them enough for Hayes' jaw to clench so tightly that it ached.

Tense and waiting, channelling every wave of cold anxiety, he fixed his gaze on the tell tale lights of a transporter beam.

No time to think about what they could have done better. That would come in the later hours, when the consequences had played themselves out, with little left to do but watch and reflect, possibly even regret. Now there was only the moment, a steady rush of anticipation as the beam took on a solid form and Hayes and the nurse at his side were instantly called to action.

Fluctuating colours on the monitors around them were set to display the young man's vital signs. And Jabara's tight, steady voice was clear in the doctor's ears. "BP is low. Pulse thready. Brain activity is minimal…"

"He's not breathing," shouted Hayes. Blood was caked at one corner of Bashir's mouth. The muscles of his hands and wrists were twisted - tense. Internal bleeding. Hypoxia. Seizure. The doctor called for a shot of cortolin, which hissed obligingly, but failed to provide the jump-start he had hoped for.

Damn, damn, damn.

An alarm sounded, shrill and noisome. Anxiety sharpened Hayes' focus as he jerked his head towards the display. What the Hell…? But then Nurse Jabara spoke the words he realised he'd already been dreading.

"Cardiac arrest. Doctor!"

It always happened too fast, but Hayes' thoughts were moving so much faster. Or, more probably, there were no thoughts - just a series of rapid, practised movements. Years of experience and well worn reflexes. Times like these, too much thinking just got in the way.

"Clear!" he shouted. Bashir's body jerked upwards with the surging current. No change. Hayes held back a curse.

Don't you leave me. He wished as he often did that there was some divine power he could believe in. Praying to gods was always so much easier than accepting cold, impersonal, verifiable facts.

"Clear!"

Don't you dare leave me.

The cargo ship was ideally suited to a crew of two or three, but not entirely unmanageable with just one. Slipping quickly into the centremost of three high backed chairs, Appleton finally released the breath he'd been holding and watched the dark, exotic form of Deep Space Nine as it disappeared from his rear view screen.

His venture had not gone according to plan. Really, the disruptor pistol had only been for show, and he'd certainly never expected to be forced to hurt anyone. And what was he coming away with? Not much more than he'd known from the beginning - decidedly less if he was to count all the "answers" he'd discovered were in fact entirely wrong. To put it plainly, a failure all around.

Unless he counted his own life. He still had that, didn't he? Enough to keep on fighting with the approach of the next new day.

Elene… As he continued to stare at the receding station, the name floated gently up from the darkness. He could only imagine what his wife would say. "You're getting distracted again, Laurie. And you've put on weight." It was true. The space between chair and console had been a far tighter squeeze than perhaps it should have been.

And yet… Lawrence Appleton leaned back and frowned, still troubled in a way that he could not quite explain. It had been an interesting flourish on somebody's part - to poison the Jeffries' tubes with himself and his hostage still inside. Certainly not his idea. And he was beginning to suspect it might not have been Bashir's intention, either.

If there was even a hint of evidence to be found on the station, Appleton would have been the one to come and find it. Somebody had known that. And that same person must have known exactly where he would be, calculated from a distance what they were near to certain he would do. And if that freak doctor of theirs really had known nothing, then who else…?

"Answer me something, Mister Appleton."

He tensed. From behind him came the cold, steady voice of Luther Sloan. "How long has it been since last we met? Quite some time, hasn't it? Tell you what. Next time I see Elene, I'll give her your regards."

Worf was not at all sure how appropriate it was for him to be part of the vigil the others insisted on maintaining at Bashir's bedside. The man was childish, overconfident, infuriating. And, needless to mention, still in love with his Parmach'kai. It had not been Worf's choice, but rather an explicit request from the captain - and a stone-hard glare from Dax - that brought him to this place. But once there, he quickly discovered a peculiar reluctance to leave.

The doctor had helped him at least once already, in that difficult situation with his brother Kurn last year. He'd helped him again during their recent captivity, and now he might have even saved a large part of the station. So it was decided. In his own way, Bashir was capable of great deeds, deeds that were worthy of story and song. And he - Worf, last son of a dishonoured house - would sit, and watch, and keep the predators at bay.

A sound at his left alerted him to movement, and he turned in time to see another young man swing a chair around in one hand and drop it lightly to the floor.

The son of the captain approached from behind, his face barely visible in the fragmented light. "Can I join you?"

The Klingon nodded, and returned to his silent reverie. For a moment, Jake Sisko was quiet as well, eyes fixed hypnotically on the display above the biobed. Then he nodded towards it. "Do you understand what any of that means?" he asked.

Worf looked up at the screen, and pondered his answer. "I do not," he replied after a brief pause. "Do you?"

"I'm not sure I want to." Jake shifted uneasily, and sighed. "The truth is, I wasn't even that sure I wanted to be here. I'm still not, but…" At this, he was visibly squirming. "Then I had to come. I couldn't sleep, and besides, I've already failed him once before."

Worf turned, and studied the teenager's expression. Jake was slouched over the back of his chair, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip, and with his head resting upon both arms. The light was slender on the outline of his face, but some part of it reflected directly from his eyes, lending them an eerie, melancholic glow.

"I understand," Worf said. "But Doctor Bashir is strong. He will prevail. And he will know that you were here."

"How?" asked Jake.

"I will tell him."

With that understanding, they slipped back into silence.

It was almost exactly 0600 hours when Kira Nerys strode into the Infirmary. But the lighting was as subdued as if it had been closer to midnight. She saw two people already at the far end of the room. Worf was sitting straight backed in his seat, large hands resting upon his knees. Beside him, Jake Sisko had folded his arms across the back of another chair. His head was bowed against them, eyes closed.

Kira placed a hand on Jake's shoulder, and he stirred. "Shouldn't you be back at your quarters?" she teased, unable to keep a trace of mirth from her voice.

"Five more minutes, okay?" he mumbled into his sleeve.

She nodded. "Okay."

Worf was watching her. That was the thing about those dark, staring eyes of his. When he watched, people felt it.

"It's all right, Mr Worf," Kira told him. "It's 0600. You're relieved."

The Klingon nodded. "Thank you, Major."

And from the direction of the nearest bed there came a barely audible moan, so quiet that Kira and the others might just as easily not have heard it at all. "Doctor," she called to where Hayes was monitoring the dark haired woman who slept nearby. Even Jake was suddenly alert and upright.

Catching the sudden urgency in the major's voice, Hayes strode around the nearby monitors towards them. Bashir grimaced, chest rising slowly as though struggling to lift a heavy weight, and Kira instinctively called his name.

His mouth was moving as if to speak, one hand struggling to push away the lightweight oxygen mask that still rested across it. Kira glanced at Hayes, who closed his tricorder and nodded.

Covering her friend's cold hands with her own, she removed the mask from over his mouth and nose. "Nerys?" he whispered, instantly gravitating to the familiarity of her voice.

"…May I call you Nerys?" A memory drifted through the years and came to settle lightly upon her shoulders. They had been in a runabout, believing they were on their way home. And he had managed to annoy her yet again although she didn't quite remember why.

But the image she carried of those wide brown eyes was as clear as any hologram. They'd watched her so intensely, with such jittery anticipation that she could not help but relent. The younger, angrier version of herself had found the doctor offensive - arrogant and irritating. But even in those first two years, there was something about him - in the enthusiastic gleam of his eyes, or perhaps in that oddly infectious grin. She'd never quite managed to dislike him completely.

And she distinctly remembered hating him for it.

"I'm here," she promised, and moved in closer. She pushed aside all feelings of awkwardness, inadequacy, doubt. Her sick friend needed company, and for the moment, she was it.

"Doctor Nikos?" His voice was clear, but there was barely a breath behind it. "She… alive?"

It was Hayes who answered from the shadows. "She's going to be fine. You probably just saved her life back there."

Bashir took a deep inward breath, which sounded more like a gasp. "Am I…?"

"You're alive too, Julian." Kira squeezed his hand. And he smiled. It was weak, but it was there, and she saw him relax, the worried creases smoothing once again across his face.

"Good."