"I want you to know

I'm a mirrorball

I can change everything about me to fit in

You are not like the regulars

The masquerade revelers

Drunk as they watch my shattered edges glisten"

Taylor Swift, "mirrorball"

/

The Infirmary was Odo's least favorite place on the station. The bright light panels, the shiny white furniture, the beeping and whirring of medical equipment and the smell of sanitiser reminded him unpleasantly of Dr. Mora's laboratory. He only sat through Dr. Bashir's scans because Starfleet protocol demanded regular physicals for all crew members, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

He liked it even less when the doctor wouldn't meet his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"N-n-nothing!" Bashir's tricorder clattered in his hands as he closed it, putting on a shaky smile. "Nothing at all."

"Hmph! Nothing, you say, when you've been jumpy as a hara cat for days. Go on, Doctor, out with it. If I'm dying, I want to know."

Odo meant for it to be a joke, but the tricorder fell right out of Bashir's fingers and landed on the floor. The young man dived for it, and when he straightened up again, his face was pale.

If Odo hadn't already suspected something wrong, that would do it.

He folded his arms. "Well?"

"You're not dying." Bashir sank into the nearest chair. "As a matter of fact," he said faintly, "I already killed you … the other you, that is."

Odo fought back a powerful urge to blend in with the smooth blue fabric of the diagnostic bed behind him. Perhaps this was how solids felt when they needed to sit down. He wasn't afraid, exactly - at least not of Bashir; as perpetrators went, Odo had dealt with worse - he just wanted very much to be something else and act like this wasn't happening. That had never worked in Dr. Mora's lab, though; the experiment always had to be gone through eventually. He might as well get it over with.

"I take it," he said in his driest, most professional tone. "You're referring to my counterpart in the alternate universe you and Major Kira encountered?"

Bashir gulped, eyes wide. "Yes."

"Well, don't look at me like that. I'm not going to arrest you."

"You're not?"

"It's not as if we have an extradition treaty with that place. Even if we had, I wouldn't send Quark there, let alone anybody else." Bashir looked only slightly less terrified. "Still, you'd better tell me everything."

He leaned back against the bed and fixed his eyes on the human's face. Not that it made a difference to his own perception - he could "see" with every pore no matter where his eyes were pointed - but people tended to talk more this way, and Bashir was no exception. His confession poured out of him so easily that, if the killer and the victim in question had been anybody else, Odo would have been satisfied to hear a case wrapped up so neatly.

There was nothing neat about it.

Hearing his counterpart described as the supervisor of enslaved workers in a mine, like the one the Cardassians had run when this was Terok Nor, made him feel as cold and metallic as the station itself. Much as he would have liked to believe himself incapable of such cruelty, he knew better. Even if he hadn't, the details sounded too much like him not to ring true.

"He took away your name?"

"All the workers' names." Bashir's hand went to his cheek, as if at a memory of being struck. "He said Terrans didn't have any."

Odo'ital. Cardassian for "unknown sample". He used to hate being called that. He used to wonder how Dukat and the rest of them would like being referred to as labels on test tubes. That was before Major Kira had started calling him Constable; before his human colleagues had informed him that on Earth, the name Odo had a history of belonging to rulers and saints. Perhaps if his counterpart had ever talked to those Terran workers … but what was the use of thinking this way?

"For what it's worth," he croaked, his throat being one of the hardest shapes to control, interrupting Bashir's explanation of the workers' revolt, "It does sound as if you were acting in self-defense. A sufficient motive for anyone."

"But I didn't mean to - to kill him!" said Bashir, looking up at him with pleading eyes. "Only get him to move aside, so I could escape. Phasers don't even affect you. Maybe theirs are built differently, or maybe the thorium leak affected him … " He looked down unhappily at the caduceus symbol on his tricorder. "Odo, I'm a doctor. I took an oath to do no harm. I never meant for any of this to happen." He bowed his head, curly hair falling forward like a child's.

Odo had heard variations of this from many people, usually when they were sitting in a holding cell. but this time, he believed it. Dr. Bashir had more regard for the value of life than anyone he'd ever known … and yet, the other Odo was still dead.

How long had he been searching for someone like himself?

"A slave overseer? Really?" He didn't mean to ask this; it merely burst out, with all the force of falling out of shape after holding it for much too long. "Was there nothing else to him except for that? Was there anyone who would have cared that he was gone, or would they only say good riddance? Oh, never mind. It hardly matters now!"

He wasn't just speaking on the other Odo's behalf, he realized, as soon as it was too late to take the words back. He was speaking for himself. Quark had accused him once of being incapable of love. It wasn't as if a petty crook who got slapped by his ex had any right to criticize, but the comment had stuck with him, and what if it was true?

Odo pulled himself up from his leaning position, already regretting his outburst, ready to get out of this sterile room and avoid it as far as possible from now on, when Bashir's red-rimmed eyes suddenly became visible beneath the curls.

"I wouldn't know for certain," said the doctor, "But … Intendant Kira thought highly of him."

Odo froze.

Whether by accident or by intuition, the young man had just said the one thing in a million possibilities that made Odo see his way to eventually forgive him. If there was one legacy he would wish for after his death, it would be for Kira Nerys to think highly of him.

"She did?"

"She called him irreplaceable."

"He must have been the only shape-shifter there as well."

"Probably - but it was more than that." Bashir wiped his eyes on a tissue from the box by his desk and blinked hard to clear them. "When her soldiers gave the report, she had to sit down. Her eyes … For a moment, she looked exactly like our Kira, when she talks about the Occupation."

Odo knew the look to which Bashir was referring. Nerys' - the Major's - eyes burned darker when she grieved, like a fire down to embers. She should never have to look like that, especially not for him - and yet … Could a version of him really mean that much to a version of her?

"What happened next?"

"She started giving orders to have me slowly and publicly executed," said Bashir, with a sardonic smile that showed how much time he'd been spending with Garak. "So with the help of their Sisko and O'Brien, we - the Major and I, that is - stole back our runabout and bolted for the wormhole at maximum warp. One does hate to overstay one's welcome."

He didn't fool Odo with his flippancy; fear obviously still sat deep in his bones. Odo could only imagine what it must have been like for the Major, to be face to face with someone so eerily alike and so horribly different. (He was firmly resolved not to ask her about it. If she chose to confide in him, that was her prerogative, but he wouldn't bother her for worlds.) At least Bashir hadn't had to meet his counterpart.

"At least you both made it back here." With some concentration, he managed to sound a little less like a rusty saw. "So there's that."

"Yes," said Bashir. "Thank the Prophets, as she would say."

"Speaking of overstaying one's welcome, Doctor, may I return to work now?"

"Oh!" Bashir jumped up from his chair and gestured toward the doors. "Of course! Don't mean to keep you - frightfully sorry - the Major doesn't like it either when I talk too much … "

Odo nodded formally, straightened the all-too-realistic wrinkles in his shirt and turned to go, relieved to have gotten through this encounter without losing either his shape or his composure (except for that one moment, and it could have been worse).

"Odo?" came the doctor's small voice from behind him.

"Hmm?"

"Is there any way … ? Could you possibly … ?" Bashir cleared his throat. "Can you forgive me?"

Odo knew he wasn't talking about the too-long appointment this time.

"I'll try," he gritted out, which was the best he could do.

"Fair enough," said the doctor. "I, er … I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Good night, Doctor," said Odo, and escaped.

As soon as he got to his office, he was going to lock the door, dive into his bucket and stay there for a good couple of hours.

Thank the Prophets or whoever else, he thought, that changelings couldn't have nightmares.