I don't own the Star Trek franchise or any of the characters.
Odo sighed as he did his morning rounds of the village. The former constable looked about the thriving town that had grown so much since the Defiant crew first crash landed on Gaia. The small settlement constructed by the forty-nine members of the Defiant crew had grown and prospered as the years went by, and Odo had been there to see it all.
He had lived through the first harsh winter where the crew struggled to survive to the point where the population of the settlement grew so much that several others had to be constructed to house the sudden overflow in population. Over eight thousand people were spread across the several settlements scattered about Gaia, but Odo still called the original his home. After all, it was where his beloved wife, Kira, and the rest of his friends were buried.
Slowly, as the years went by, the original settlers of Gaia slowly died, one by one. Some died from sickness or injury. A few were lost during the years when the harvest was poor. But most of the crew had died from old age.
Bashir and his wife, Angie, had been some of the first to die. The two doctors had been well into their nineties at the time of their passing, only a few short months apart. Behind the two had left a legacy of every medicine and vaccine they had found, which was continued to be expanded upon and refined by their descendants.
Odo laughed to himself as he thought of the settlement's chief doctor. She was the spitting image of Bashir and constantly trying to live up to the legend that Julian had become to all his descendants. At least, Odo realised, the new doctor was not as bad as some of his other friend's descendants.
Yedrin Dax, great-grandson of Jadzia Dax and Worf, was by far one of the worst cases when it came to try and live up to his ancestor's legacy as he actually possessed Jadzia's memories and those of every previous host of the Dax symbiont. Odo had had trouble dealing with Yedrin's mother and grandfather after they received the Dax symbiont, each acting somewhat like Jadxia had, but Yedrin was far different. Of all of Jadzia's descendants that had held the Dax symbiont, Yedrin had carried the fewest signs of acting like a joined Trill. Odo remembered how Yedrin's mother had theorised that the mixture of Klingon and human blood in their bloodline would slowly dilute all the Trill in them until it was impossible for any of Jadzia's descendants to host the Dax symbiont.
In earlier years Odo had suggested trying to find some possible candidates to host the Dax symbiont among the Sons of Mogh, but Yedrin's mother had refused. Though the Sons of Mogh had been founded by Worf and several of his children not long after Jadzia's death, they wanted little to do with any of the settlements, only coming in every now and then to trade goods and recruit new members. The majority of the Sons of Mogh didn't even have a trace of Klingon blood in them, mostly all being descended from the human members of the Defiant crew. And even those that did have Klingon blood, such as their leader Borta, had even less Trill blood than Yedrin and his mother.
After Yedrin had received the Dax symbiont, he had asked Odo to stop looking for another host. Yedrin had accepted that he would be the last host to the Dax symbiont and asked Odo to do the same. Odo had not been pleased with the decision but had grudgingly accepted Yedrin's request. Though each host had been different, part of them had still carried Jadzia within them. Once Yedrin died Odo would truly be the last survivor of the Defiant crew.
Such thought always weighed heavily on Odo's heart. Out of all the crew members, Odo knew he would live the longest. He had outlived Sisko, who passed away after leading the settlement for over sixty years. He'd outlived O'Brien, who had still insisted they would all find a way back to DS9 until his dying breath. But worst of all, Odo had outlived his beloved wife Kira, who had joined the Prophets not seventy-odd years ago.
Odo was brought out of his musings when the elected village leader, Miranda O'Brien (one of Miles' descendants), came running up to him. The Changeling looked blond woman, surprised at her unnaturally frantic state. In the forty years that Odo had known Miranda since she was born, the O'Brien woman had always been calm and level headed. After all, those were the qualities that had gotten her nominated and elected village leader.
"Why are you frantic, Miranda? I have not seen you this worried since that yar-bear nearly attacked the village last year." asked Odo.
Miranda quickly straitened her skirts and wiped the sweat from her brown, trying to make herself more presentable before addressing the former constable.
"Yedrin and I were comparing notes for the meeting between all the villages next month, when one of the old atmospheric monitors began going off. Odo, we think it's the Defiant." told Miranda.
Odo was left speechless. He knew this day would come but he never knew exactly where or when. The calendar and year the Gaians had developed was nowhere near similar to that used by the Federation or Starfleet. True, they had tried to keep track of the days in the early years after the crash, but after a few decades it became pointless. The crew knew the Defiant had been thrown roughly two hundred years into the past, but they could never get more precise than that. None of them had expected to live to see the time the Defiant would first crash (besides Odo and the Dax symbiont) so they had forgotten about it as the challenged of everyday life became more important. However, the crew's descendants had been awaiting the day and for the last ten years been expecting the Defiant to show up some time or another.
"If the Defiant has truly arrived then we should prepare. They will all likely be confused and need answers to what it going on. I shall accompany you to the meeting. A familiar face will most likely be more accepting than that of a stranger." stated Odo.
The two began making their way to the town hall. Miranda went on about the plan Yedrin had been refining to create a second Defiant (a plan that had been started by his great-grandmother Jadzia) so one would crash and ensure Gaia's founding and the other could escape the planet to continue the war against the Dominion, but Odo was not listening. The only thing on the Changeling's mind was reuniting with a certain Bajoran who now lay so close within his reach.
Sorry about the late update. I've grown rather disinterested with this story but did not want to leave it unfinished so I've left it a bit open ended. I hope it's better than having no ending. Hope you liked the story.