DISCLAIMERS: Stark Trek Deep Space Nine and its characters belong to Paramount. No infringement is intended - this work is for enjoyment, not profit. Any resemblance of this story to persons living or dead, or works of fiction/non-fiction published or unpublished is purely coincidental. This story may not be printed except for personal use. Please print it in its entirety, including the header and the copyright information.
SPOILERS/WARNINGS: "'Til Death Do Us Part," "Strange Bedfellows"
"And she is so beautiful,
She is so young and old. . ."
- REM - You are the Everything
"Once again she steals away, then she reaches out to kiss me
And how she takes my breath away, pretending that she won't miss me
Oh, I would bleed to love her. . ." - Fleetwood Mac - Bleed to Love Her
The halls of Deep Space Nine were ghostly still and empty as he ran through them. Oddly, the knowledge of a crewless station didn't phase him. The only disturbing thought that was in his mind, as he frantically ran through empty crew quarters, was the whereabouts of Ezri. She had been right here with him, walking down the hall, and then he turned a corner and she was gone. She had to be somewhere on the station - but where?
Suddenly, Dr. Julian Bashir came upon a bend in the hallway that lead to his own quarters and before him stood a doorway he had never seen before. With an air of brave curiosity, he pushed on the door and it hissed opened. Within the softly lit room he now looked in on - he saw Ezri, smiling warmly up at him. With a smile himself, he stepped into the room, which strangely resembled the bedroom he'd had growing up.
Before he could wonder how in the world his childhood bedroom had wound up on DS9, Ezri spoke up softly. "Julian - I can't believe you finally came."
Opening his mouth to reply, he watched in horror as she disappeared suddenly before his eyes. With a deep feeling of loss - he cried out as he stared at the now empty room. "No!"
And with a start, Julian bolted awake.
Smoothing back his damp hair, he slowly let the familiar surroundings of his room settle in. This was DS9 - he was in his quarters. There was no childhood bedroom here, no deserted hallways. It was just another dream - another dream of Ezri in peril.
Letting out a small puff of air, he dropped back down onto his pillows and stared up at the dimly lit ceiling. Even now, he could still feel his heart pounding from the feelings of fear and loss in the dream. At first, it had felt so good to find her again - in a place that was familiar. *Your unconscious,* his genetically enhanced mind reminded him - *the room you never knew existed represents an aspect of the unconscious previously hidden.* And then to find Ezri there - waiting for him. *She's captured a part of your mind and soul,* his mind commented again. *She's worked her way in - and now you're worried she may never return to fill the room she's made.*
"That about sums it up." Julian said out loud quietly, answering his own thoughts. "Computer: what is the time?"
"The time is 0200 hours." The standard Starfleet computer voice replied. 0200 - the start of another day, he mused. Gods, how many days had it been already, since she was gone? The days were so unbearably long, they blurred into one another until he'd lost track. At this rate, it would hardly matter - he'd be mad soon and wouldn't care.
The first day or so hadn't been so bad - after all, it had seemed reasonable that a rescue attempt would take at least that long. Then, as the days stretched on past four - they became more and more like a living hell. A somber pallor had descended on Ops, people talked in hushed tones or avoided the topic all together. He found that he couldn't eat, couldn't concentrate well, and couldn't sleep at all. Finally, by day five, he'd resorted to theta and alpha wave therapy to give his brain and body the restorative REM sleep it needed. Only now, when he did manage to sleep, which was mostly from sheer exhaustion, he was disturbed by wild and frightening dreams each night. Dreams of Ezri in danger.
Heaving a quiet sigh, he slid his way out of bed and softly padded into his main living quarters. There was no way he was getting back to bed tonight, he was far too wide-awake. Walking over to the replicator, he ordered hot chamomile tea and then settled down on his sofa with a stack of data padds. If he couldn't sleep, at least he could get some work done.
That had been the plan anyway. Instead, he found himself sitting and staring out the window, his mind still focused on Ezri. Why couldn't he get her off his mind? He was worried about his friend, yes - but it was more than that, his analytical mind deduced. This went back to the thought of loosing Dax again, of going through all of that of more time - especially the deep, hollow void of loss. . .
Closing his eyes - he could still remember how deathly still Jadzia had been when they'd moved her into the infirmary. He would never forget the day, or the feeling of dread that had spread across his soul.
Shaking himself out of his temporary shock, his medically trained mind had taken over, clinically assessing the situation. It had been impossible to pinpoint just how long she'd been in her unresponsive state, let alone what had caused her unconsciousness to begin with. But with an ever increasing, sickening clarity as he examined her, he knew what symptoms she had: ventricular tachycardia, temporal arteritis, multiple internal hematomas, systemic polyneruopathy, and a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage on the brain. The damage to her neural and cardiac systems had been extensive, to the extreme. With lightening-speed - his mind raced through hundreds, maybe thousands of scenarios that could have produced the trauma he saw, and without another moment's thought, he'd moved her into the operating arena, and the battle for her life had begun.
He doubted he would ever forget how that moment had felt, exhaustive hours later, when he knew and understood, as a physician, that there was nothing he could do for her. At first, it had been a clinical thought, and nothing more, a firm conclusion based on medical fact. The patient had too many hematomas to repair, cardiac arrhythmia threatened with each passing heartbeat, and cerebral infarction had set in from a massive hemorrhage. His clinical mind had then deduced quite clearly - the patient would die.
But this wasn't a nameless, faceless case in some medical book - this was Jadzia - the woman he still loved. At with that thought - the human reality of his medical decision sunk in, and he understood exactly what it was that was coming to pass. He would never see her alive again. Never hear her laugh, never see her smile, never feel the gentle touch of her hand on his in friendship. Even like this, her fragile body laid open to him on the operating table. Soon - he would never see her flushed with the spark of life again.
It was too much to take, and without conscious thought, he slipped back into his doctor mode. The pain of the decision was just too much to fully bear. He closed her surgical incisions, and then asked his surgical staff to leave the room. When they had gone, hearts heavy at the thought of not saving the patient, he'd walked over beside Jadzia and revived his patient - an act he'd done millions of times on millions of patients. Only this one, the leaden weight in his chest reminded him, would open her eyes only to close them forever soon after. Bending down to look at her face one more time, he leaned over and placed a tender kiss on her forehead - his friend, his colleague. By the time she'd slowly opened her eyes, his eyes were wet with tears. And she understood.
The days after that had been nearly unbearable. There was the whirlwind of the funeral itself - a hazy memory at best from his numbed state. All he could really remember were the Klingons chanting. Klingons - Klingons! Gods, there had been so many Klingons. That, and the official speeches from Starfleet, especially the one from Sisko, who had looked as shell-shocked as he himself had felt. He really couldn't blame the Captain, he'd known Dax for two lifetimes. The thought made Bashir feel like six short years of knowing her was nothing.
It was funny, though - how six short years had felt like a lifetime. Maybe it had something to do with the many evolutions his love for her had gone through. Even after she'd married Worf, and his love for her had mellowed into a warm affection between old friends - there had still been times when the mere sight of her, laughing - made his heart leap all over again. He'd told himself in those moments that at least it was something - he could still be her friend, and enjoy the gift of her friendship. And then, even that was gone. And he was alone.
Worrying now about Ezri had the same exact feel - bottomless and painful. And with a quiet but sudden realization, it hit him why he was carrying on the way he was. He loved her. Ezri. Ezri, with her gentle, playful smile, and compassion. With her cute, quirky way of telling stories, and putting herself down in the process - pointing out her own mixed up personalities and having a good laugh at herself. Ezri with her soft, small hands and rose-petal lips. Ezri. . .
Or rather, his thoughts amended themselves, Ezri as *Dax.* That was the tricky part about loving a Trill you'd known for more than one lifetime. The first time he'd met Jadzia - he had been charmed - but of course, he had met her as a stranger. It as only after many, many years that he'd figured out which of the many traits he loved actually belonged to former hosts. And now, with Ezri - it was hard to fight the urge to constantly see the Jadzia he knew in Ezri's actions. For as many ways as she was physically and emotionally different from Jadzia, she was also frighteningly the same, and that, he figured, was the result of the Dax symbiont itself. It was a mixing of Ezri Tigan's own personality, and all the other hosts as well. Maybe it was really the Dax symbiont he'd been in love with all along, he thought, chuckling softly at the idea. He could see it now - 'man in love with small pink slug' - some headline.
The very first time he'd met her - as the short, brunette woman Jake Sisko pointed out on the crowded Promenade - she was automatically a study in contrasts to Jadzia. She was shorter, younger, less confident and more animated. Looking back on it now, it seemed extremely unfair - but he guessed it was only a natural reaction. When faced with the "new" Dax - how could he have acted any other way?
Later, he admitted to himself as he sipped from his steaming mug of tea, when he "accidentally" ran into her that day in the replomat, that he had been drawn to her because she'd been Jadzia. Here was another person with the living, breathing memories, and, he'd sworn to her that day - eyes of Jadzia Dax. Mostly he blamed Quark for putting those ideas into his mind. It had been the Ferengi, after all, who had put the crazy idea in his head about competing for Ezri. It was absurd - Ezri wasn't Jadzia - she wasn't the next best thing - she was herself, although he suspected that Quark was now beginning to realize that himself.
It was a bit silly now, in a way - thinking this woman had Jadzia's eyes. And it was certainly unfair - making her into a ghost of someone he'd once loved. But she did have Jadzia's memories - and in some strange way, it had felt so good talking to her about them, hearing how it would have been him if not for Worf. He had told her that day how much talking to her had helped - and even though he was sure at the time she didn't believe it, it really had helped. The Ezri Tigan part of Dax was a wonderfully promising counselor, and it showed.
As the months stretched on after her arrival on the station, he truly began to see that she was becoming her own person, and not just a mirror reflection of someone else. Yes, there were still times when a certain type of look, a tone of voice, a tilt of eyebrow, was Jadzia. He guessed that was to be expected. It wasn't for naught that Sisko had taken to calling Jadzia "old man" when they'd first met nearly seven year ago. There was something in the young woman that had reminded him of Curzon - a look, a smile, a sparkle in the eye. It must always be that way with Trill.
After watching her though all these months, struggling to come to grips with who she really was, he found he admired the young woman greatly. It couldn't have been easy facing the friends she did and yet did not know - wondering about how they would react, and if they even wanted a new Dax in their life. And then, facing her family as well. He remembered the uncertain look on her face as she boarded the transport that day.
No - regardless of what Quark, or even what he himself had initially thought - this Dax was a totally new and unique woman to him -comfortingly familiar and yet intriguingly mysterious. That was what he loved now - and could loose now. . . *Don't go there,* his mind cautioned against the painful subject of death.
Anyway, his thoughts quickly flip-flopped, even if she was fine - he could still lose her to Worf. Worf! He held no real animosity against the Klingon, even after he had threatened him that day in the infirmary. The man had lost his wife - he could only imagine what kind of pain that was. But to have Ezri run off after Worf - what was it about the big Klingon that held such fascination for Dax? He wished he knew.
He thought back to other day when Miles was with them, sitting around talking about that insufferable Captain Boday. He'd naturally fallen into talking about Jadzia's former attraction to the alien with Ezri - forgetting for the moment, as he let his mild annoyance with the man show through in the conversation, that Ezri held the very memories he was referred to. Well - he'd suffered through tales of the charming Captain with the last Dax - enough had been enough this time. Ezri took his teasing jealousy in stride, holding his gaze in hers, smiling, almost taunting him with her tale of how charming Boday was...
All that shattered moments later, when Kira mentioned that Worf was missing. He'd seen the look Ezri made at that moment once before, on Jadzia's face. It was the face of a woman numb with fear over the one she loved. The only thing had been - he couldn't tell if it was truly Ezri having the reaction - or whatever part of Jadzia that still remained.
He was still wondering about that even now. He really couldn't blame Ezri for doing what she did - or feeling what she did for Worf before she'd left to rescue him. She had a lot of emotional baggage to go through, nine lifetimes worth of personalities and memories, and of course, the fact of Jadzia's abrupt death. There had been no time for lengthy good-byes with Worf. It wasn't too hard to understand she still felt connected to him in someway.
And now - sitting here in the dark of his quarters - he felt connected to her, more than ever. Even more than he had felt with Jadzia. If only she'd come back so he could tell her . . Ah - it was cruel thing - to have a genetically enhanced mind at two in the morning. His thoughts had turned themselves back in an analytical circle, to the very beginning - feeling miserable about Ezri's missing in action status. *Brilliant, Julian* his thoughts took a congratulatory air, *you may just be the worst love sick, genetically superior fool in all the galaxy.*
With a sigh, Julian figured he'd get dressed and maybe go to Quark's. The night was still young, especially for patrons at that place. Maybe he'd get a drink. . . and have the Ferengi tune into his moping about Ezri. *Maybe not.* The last thing he needed from Quark was another one of those looks. The last time he'd been there, and rambled on about Ezri to Miles, he was sure the Ferengi had caught on to his feelings. After all this time, Quark still counted him as a rival for Dax's affections. So, no - Quark's wouldn't do.
Maybe he'd get a holosuite and see Vic. And then, chasing on the tail of that thought came images of Ezri in her cocktail waitress outfit, from the last time they'd been in the Vegas program together - fighting the mob. The dress had been a little too revealing, a little too sexist for his twenty-fourth century tastes - but he had to admit, she'd looked damn cute. What he really wanted to was take her out soon, on a real, old-fashioned date. Maybe get dressed in that tuxedo from his spy program days and have dinner in Vegas -letting the quadrant and all its crazy warfare fade away until it was just her, with him.
Holding on to the upbeat thought, Julian made his way over to his closet and got dressed. Thinking back on the early morning hour it was - he shrugged. He had a six hour jump on the day, and if was going to pull off the world' most perfect date - he'd need every second. There was no telling if today would be the day Ezri would come home.
~The End~
(Or is anyone up for a trip to Vegas? Feedback is always welcome, but be warned, flames will be met with marshmallows, and maybe chocolate - s'mores! Send feedback and just plain talk to squirrel@enteract.com)
Have something to say about this story? Visit the Discussion Area!
Go back to the Archive