To The Journey

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Back Home

"You weren't kidding when you said it was a long story. And more than a little complicated."

Tasha smiled a little and shrugged. "With Q, isn't it always?"

She had omitted the part about Q trying to bribe her with her child. He had seemed genuinely remorseful, and he had just done her and several people in her life a huge favor. She didn't want to get Picard mad at him all over again. As far as he knew, Q had showed up in her room and tried to proposition her even after she told him she was seeing Data. She had been angry and upset enough that he had erased her memory, and then he had offered her a chance to save a friend, and so on.

"You look upset. What else did he do?"

"That one's not on him," she replied truthfully. She was still a little shaky after having to look her former tormentor in the eyes, but Q couldn't be held responsible for that. "The Cardassian who tried to kill her -"

"Understood." She shot him a grateful look. Of course he would understand - he had been there. He had been forced to watch one of them hurt her. He would know that she could never forget. And he would know from the look on her face that the man she had faced down that day had been one of her tormentors.

"Take the next shift off. Go to Sickbay if you need it."

"Thank you, Captain." Normally she might have protested the idea of going to Sickbay, but she had promised Julian, and she wasn't going to go back on that. She knew how bad it had been, and she could only imagine how she had looked to an outsider, especially one that cared as much as her young friend did.

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Tasha wasn't at all surprised to see Julian's face on her monitor. "I assume you have a few questions."

"A few doesn't begin to cover it. I'm not sure if I should ask first about your mysterious appearance and disappearance, when I happen to have seen that your ship is more than five light-years away, or what happened in the shrine."

"The answer to the first is pretty straightforward. In fact, I can answer it in one letter. Q."

Julian laughed. "I should've guessed, but I slept through most of his only visit to the station. His fault, of course. He was upset that I was making advances towards a woman that had been his traveling companion. All the same, you should have seen their faces when I appeared after what I eventually discovered was two days of utter chaos and asked if I'd missed something. Hey, how was I supposed to know that when I said I felt like I'd just slept for days I meant it literally?"

Tasha joined in his laughter. It felt good after the day she'd had. "Jadzia's, uh, otherwise engaged, but she told me to thank you. You probably saved her life today."

I know I did, she thought, but she didn't say it out loud. "Worf's back?"

"You know it. And I just told her that some treatments I did worked quite well and she and Worf shouldn't have any problems conceiving a child. I get a feeling we won't be seeing much of them off-duty for awhile." They both laughed again, but it didn't last long before Julian started talking again. "But in all seriousness, what happened in the shrine? I don't know where you went, but it was pretty clear you weren't there with us. You didn't even know Dukat had beamed out." He sighed. "Look, I know there's a history there."

"How?" She was instantly on alert. "What has Garak been telling you?"

"Garak? Garak didn't tell me anything. I think we've well established I'm not stupid. I don't know any specifics, but you tense up every time he comes up as a topic of conversation, and you're always making comments about him."

"What do you mean?"

"Like when he first allied Cardassia with the Dominion, I said I was shocked he would do something like that, and Garak said I didn't really know him, and then he looked right at you, like you would know exactly what he meant. And when I said he'd gone insane, you said he always had been and it was just starting to show. I didn't realize how serious it must have been until I saw you today, though. You thought he was still there until I snapped you out of it. What happened between you two?"

"It was about six years ago," she said softly. "We thought we were going to destroy a metagenic weapon built by the Cardassians. It wasn't real," she hastened to add when she saw the look on his face. "It was a trap to catch Captain Picard. My capture was collateral damage, but once they had me they weren't just going to let me go because I wasn't their objective."

"They gave you to Dukat," Julian realized.

She nodded. "They said they wanted information on how to break the Captain, but they had to know that nothing I could tell them was actually worth that much. He had them torture me because he enjoyed it."

"What did he do?" Julian pressed gently.

"He beat me, denied me food, water, and sleep," she said softly. "And he -" She broke off and turned her head, hoping he'd miss the tears in her eyes.

He didn't. "What?"

She swallowed. "He - he used me. Sexually. And he started bringing his friends by to do the same."

"My God." Horror was written on Julian's face. "How come you never said anything?"

"I wanted to pretend it never happened. You all thought of him as a sort of amicable adversary, I didn't want everyone to know what happened. It's bad enough I have to live with it."

"Who knows?"

"Data, of course. My Captain, Doctor Crusher, and I suspect Geordi does although he's never outright said anything. A couple other friends, mostly the ones who were mistakenly informed I was dead when I was taken prisoner."

"And Garak." Julian reeled a little as he realized what he'd said. "How does Garak know? Don't tell me he -" The young doctor looked pained as he tried to equate the friend he knew with what the situation suggested.

"No," she said quickly. "Dukat brought him in, but he never touched me. He told Dukat he'd rather conduct his business in private, then he just sat and talked to me. It was the only kindness I recieved the entire time I was there."

"That's why you go out of your way to talk to him." That did seem to fit better with a secret ally than what had first crossed his mind.

"He was a small light in a very dark place. It wasn't until years later that I learned he'd tried to get me transferred into his custody. I don't think he ever meant for me to find out."

"How did you?"

"Tain told me. I'd be surprised if anything ever went on anywhere in the Cardassian empire he didn't know about, let alone something involving one of his own operatives."

"I always had a sense that the three of you knew something you weren't sharing but I never thought - I never thought it was something like that. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You didn't know because I didn't want you to. I just wanted things to get back to normal."

"What happened in the shrine didn't look normal to me."

Tasha flinched a little, but she knew she deserved it. She had probably scared him half to death. "I swear, that hasn't happened in years."

"But it has happened before?" Julian didn't look at all put at ease by this.

"I wasn't expecting to see him a week after I was released. Of all the people for Cardassia to send to negotiate about the wormhole, they had to send him. I collapsed right there on the bridge. I'm just lucky my crew was tactful enough not to ask the hard questions."

"And you didn't talk to anyone."

"Like I said, I want to forget. Talking endlessly about what happened - it just means having to drudge up the memories over and over again. It doesn't help."

Julian opened his mouth to ask how she would know and closed it again when he decided he didn't want to know. He could likely guess anyway, knowing where she came from.

"After what happened today, I doubt he'll be welcome on the station anytime soon," he offered. "Captain Sisko's gone too."

"What? Why?"

"Whatever Dukat did, it turned off all the orbs and closed the wormhole. The Bajorans are begging for answers he can't give, he had some sort of telepathic communique he feels like he should have listened to to stop this, and on top of that he knows he almost got his best friend killed. He just needed to get away from it all."

"But he'll be back."

Julian shrugged. "At this point, we don't know. I don't think he knows."

She sighed. "He's really been handed one heck of a mess, hasn't he? He gets transferred practically by force out to a space station against his will which turns out to be one of the most pivotal Federation holdings and at the same time he learns that he's supposed to be the intermediary for some non-corporeal aliens that happen to be considered gods to the people he's working with for the foreseeable future."

"And then he finds out that on the other side of the wormhole that's made this station so important in the first place is an empire that now knows about the wormhole and wants to take over the Alpha Quadrant as well, and his station is now on the front line," Julian finished. "And then it's just one thing after another. It's no wonder he decided he'd had enough."

"Who's in charge now?"

"Major Kira. They considered sending out someone else, someone Starfleet, but she knows what's going on in a way that some new Captain wouldn't. Dax is head of Starfleet matters - if we can ever get her out of the bedroom and into ops," he added with a visible gleam in his eye.

The comment had its intended effect and Tasha started laughing again.

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"Data?"

"Yes?"

"Tonight - is it okay if - if we don't -"

He nodded in understanding. "Is everything all right?" He would never force her to do anything, but she had never outright asked him not to have sex with her before they even got into bed, and he was worried.

She hadn't intended to tell him, but at his gentle prompting she felt her guard tumble down and she blurted out everything. By the time she had finished, tears were sliding down her face.

He stepped closer, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight. "Shh," he whispered. "I have you now. You are all right. You are safe now. I have you."

"Oh, Data." She leaned into his chest. "I love you so much. You know that, right?"

"It would be hard not to," he teased. "You remind me of it at least ten times a day."

Sorry this took so long, really. I just didn't quite know where it was going.

We'll probably be skipping a few months in the timeline between this chapter and the next (hopefully that will not be how long it takes me to write it!). Just fair warning.

Please review.