Chapter Text
Kira:
Her cheeks are dotted with blue flush. Kira’s never seen that before. Well, not never before on anyone ever, but never before on Ziyal. Usually it means that Kira – or someone Kira cares about or knows or even just happened to be standing near – is about to get the jackboot cracked down on their head.
Metaphorically speaking.
Sometimes.
Because usually it – the blue, she means – is the last clear sign that a Cardassian is well and truly pissed the fuck off. A comment here, a look there and the normally cool, smug faces will twist and scrunch and blush with blue blood.
Kira often found sweet, sick satisfaction in making it appear. Watching it leech across cheeks, staining faces that tried to hard to be superior, untouchable. She could smear them with blue all she liked.
Satisfaction.
Well, sweet, sick satisfaction followed in short succession by sweet, sickly pain.
The constant give and take of her life.
At least, that had been the give and take of her life until a few years ago, when Bajor successfully liberated herself from the Cardassian heel, when the Prophets sent Benjamin Sisko to DS9, and finally when Tora Ziyal had turned her precious face in Kira’s direction. Held her hand for the first time. Smiled gently at her brusqueness. Kira didn’t really believe in fate, thought it was a lazy dismissal most of the time, but how could she imagine a universe where a Kira and a Ziyal don’t find each other? They were linked together by more than just circumstance, she knew that with certainty.
That link was a tangled one though, much as she might wish it wasn’t. Normally, she could blame the complication on other people – one slimy, one...simple. Now though, the only one to blame was herself and her own scrambled instincts. Now, there is no sweet feeling curling through her gut at the sight of blue spots high on grey, scaled cheeks. No satisfaction either.
Just sick.
Kira sighs and scrubs a hand through her overly-long hair.
Finding Ziyal disrupts her plans for the night.
Not that she isn’t happy to see Ziyal! She really, really is. She had spent the entire time in the holding cells thinking about Ziyal, then Odo, then Ziyal, over and over, obsessing over the image of them alone on a station forever under the control of Gul Dukat.
It makes her stomach turn, even now.
She’s been glad to watch Jake and Leeta and Ziyal bond, to see how they supported each other in the rebel resurgence. Those are two influences that will do Ziyal a world of good, that will help her come into her own and blossom into the kind, smart, creative young woman that Kira knows she is.
Kira is pretty sure that she’s also a good influence on the girl, but, well. She chews her lip, watching Ziyal from across the crowded corridor.
The Prophets are forgiving and gracious beings. She believes that, most days.
This day has been a trying one.
After leaving the bridge, in...spirits of some kind, all Kira had wanted to do was find the easiest path back to her quarters; a choice that depended on how much and where and what she wanted to see of the destruction leftover from the most recent occupation. It’s strewn all over, from the chipped paint at Quark’s to the slightly suspicious and familiar stains on the carpet to scent of phaser discharge in the air.
Ziyal sinking a hole in front of the med bay fits right in with the rest.
Forget her quarters, all she has to do is stagger face-first into a bed. Any bed will work. But she has to get to one first and she has to get there without passing something that needed her help. Which she has already failed at because there’s no chance she’s going to leave Ziyal there. She just has to...work up to it...first...
Freeing the station from Cardassian rule, again, hasn’t felt like much of a victory, just another push of the rock up the mountain.
Another strike of a war hammer that she had just started believing could be stopped.
She is so tired.
Being in the resistance again had been exhausting, the constant subterfuge and high stakes making her fuse run too short. The company hadn’t exactly helped. Some of it, anyway.
She knows about her temper, isn’t proud of it, but that doesn’t mean she can stop it either.
She also hadn’t tried all that hard for some people, if she’s honest, and she almost always is.
Undermining Dukat and the Female Founder had been endlessly stressful. She’d been snappy and gritty but she’d also been energized, because having purpose and direction always invigorated her like nothing else. She had been bone-tired at the end of every day, collapsing heavily into her bunk, but it had been the good kind of tired. The one that told her she was on the right path.
The stations has been freed for a few hours now and her fuse has been cut out altogether. It’s been sucking the energy from her bones like a starved b’ath rayl and she’s getting more and more resentful of that.
She still has purpose and direction, but it’s starting to feel like she’s being pulled away downstream, pelted with branches and twigs as she goes, away from the familiar feel of fire. So, she’s been dreaming of a mattress and sheets, plotting a subtle retreat, and trying to keep her gaze from wondering too far and then she sees Ziyal. And Ziyal’s blue.
Kira draws herself in tight without realizing.
Oh, Ziyal.
The girl is standing just back from the sick bay entrance, seemingly as lost in the corridor as in her thoughts, with the foot traffic of DS9 ebbing and flowing around her. Her stance is loose, arms hanging relaxed in front of her, hands gently clasped, but the delicate scales around her eyes are tight. Her expression holds no intense emotion, almost a blank canvas, and Kira could believe Ziyal is just shell-shocked if she didn’t know the girl as well she does.
If not for the unwavering shine of her bright eyes, fixed on the closed doors.
And the blue. Prophets above, that blue.
Because the thing is, is that the blue means that Ziyal, her Ziyal, is mad. Madder than Kira has ever seen her, not that she has seen Ziyal angry very often. It is an understandable anger, if Kira divorces herself from her own feelings regarding the trigger. Which she can do for Ziyal.
She can at least try.
Anyone who has been attacked by someone they trusted should be angry.
Not that Damar should be trusted by anyone, the Bajoran blood on his hands alo-- but those are Kira’s feelings again. Divorcing...
And, continue.
Damar is, was, an important adult in Ziyal’s life, a trusted figure. She had been to his family home on Cardassia, had dinner with his family, shared tea and stories with his wife. It might have just been a show of respect Damar felt was owed to Dukat, despite his loss of station, but Ziyal had been invited in and cared for in a way she had probably treasured. Maybe they had even treasured her too.
There was plenty of reason to treasure Ziyal, if they had any feeling at all.
Not that Kira knew, or even pretended to know the feelings of Damar and Damar’s family, let alone any Cardassian. She had long since given up on that game.
But Ziyal knew. Had known.
Thought she knew.
And that was what mattered, in the end. Ziyal had thought she had known who to trust, who could be depended on, despite what her own instincts must have been telling her.
Kira can just imagine how they would have been screaming for Ziyal to run, run fast and far and forever and shivers in sympathy.
Even if Ziyal hadn’t actually known Damar, not like Kira knew him, she had trusted him and look where had that had gotten her. Nearly killed in her own home.
So, of course Ziyal was angry. She had trusted him and Damar had pointed a phaser at her from across a room, then told her plainly that she had to die. For honour. For Cadassia.
For her father.
The same old story, but it’s wasn’t exactly laughable when someone she loved was on the receiving end. Damar had looked her sweet girl dead in the eyes, then, dead serious, had squeezed the trigger like Ziyal was nothing. Like their shared food and stories and comfort, like her trust, were nothing more than ash to be flicked off his uniform.
Typical.
It was the first time that Ziyal had seen his true nature – the true nature of all Cardassians in Kira’s experience – and it must have been scary. She knows what it’s like to face down a brute squad, pulse hammering wildly, ready for anything, even as muscles and throat lock up. The thought of Ziyal facing that type of fear, alone, well, she’s been trying not to think about it.
She should have known avoidance wouldn’t do her any good. It never does. Reality is standing just over there and Kira is stuck against the wall by the turbolift.
Humans like to say there’s a ‘fight or flight’ fear instinct. ‘Freeze’ is much more common, really. She can just picture how Ziyal had frozen, bright eyes wide and confused. It makes her heart ache. But since a man and a phaser aren’t going to suddenly miss a frozen target, it’s a completely useless response.
It had never helped Kira, and clearly Ziyal had figured that out too, had chosen ‘fight’ instead.
Her girl was smart like that.
Damar had failed in his execution, thankfully, so Ziyal was standing there now, angry, blue. But, oh, he’d tried. He had tried and had only been stopped by Rom, running away from the wife that had just saved him to dive in front of the beam. Without him, Ziyal would have been just another cold body on the station’s floors. One in a thousand.
Anonymous.
She shivers.
His intervention hadn’t even deterred Damar, though. Rom’s unconscious body had barely settled, crumpled on the floor, before Ziyal was in the line of fire again.
Seeing all of this play back on the security cameras had been one of the (many) things to drain her today.
And then the footage had gone dark and she had seen the whites of her eyes in the black reflection of the blank screen. Hated it and hoped, futilely, that Sisko hadn’t noticed. She was his second, she couldn’t lose her nerve like that, not after months apart.
And besides, she knew Ziyal was safe, she knew it, there was no reason to be afraid. But her fear was yet another thing she could know of and still not stop.
Pressing her shoulders into the wall, Kira forces her heart rate to slow down.
Clenches her toes in her boots. Sighs, or tries to anyway.
She wishes this was the part where she dashed in and hurled Damar to the ground. Where she ripped the phaser away from him and crushed it to pieces with her bare hands. She wishes she could see herself come in on camera and cradle Ziyal to her chest and get another kick or two in while the girl’s face was hidden against her.
She also wishes this was the part where she finally catches Dukat being his true, unmasked cowardly self in front of Ziyal. Where Kira can point to him just standing there while his daughter was in danger and Ziyal can see what a monster her father is, how he was only pretending to love her.
Kira wishes this was the universe where fate worked in her favour for once. Where she’s finally able to save someone she cares about, spare them pain, keep them from shouldering a burden she’s all too familiar with.
She wishes really, really hard.
The Defiant is too late though, doesn’t make it through the blockade in time to prevent this confrontation, and neither does she.
Damar is still aiming a phaser at Ziyal.
She isn’t totally clear on what happened next. The cameras had cut out and no one had been able to give a coherent answer when Sisko had tried to debrief her, two rattled kids, a distraught wife, and Quark. And really there was only so long he could bear trying.
What they knew was simple.
Dukat had, in fact, gotten involved. Damar had been incapacitated. Ziyal wasn’t dead.
Dukat was.
It was gruesome but Kira couldn’t say she was completely unhappy with the outcome, all things considered. She’s a little disappointed she wasn’t the one to do it, but it could be a lot worse.
So much worse.
She swallows around a dry tongue.
Bashir was now working tirelessly to save Damar’s life, but Ziyal was alive. Rom was in a coma, struggling to hold on to his own, and Kira was worried about him, she was. But Ziyal was alive. Dukat himself was laid in a lineup of the dead down some random corridor. Immobile, quiet, unassuming.
Just like every other corpse.
And Ziyal was alive.
Even that blessing wasn’t filling Kira with the satisfaction, the relief that it should. Maybe she would be able to celebrate later, when Dukat was interred and there was a grave to dance on. She couldn’t remember if Cardassians did graves actually. She’d make do, like always.
Maybe she’d actually be able to convince Ziyal to join her, when anger wasn’t icing the skin of her cheeks.
A sigh came more easily now. She still didn’t move.
Kira understood anger, even if she didn’t understand or sympathize with who it was for. But unfortunately, understandable or not, it was unnerving to see such emotion dashed across Ziyal’s face. There was a reason Kira was lingering by the turbolift, letting her thoughts ramble over fields of pengshit, watching and assessing instead of going over to comfort a girl she had come to care about like family.
She understood anger, understood it well, but didn’t recognize it on Ziyal, didn’t like it – and didn’t want to admit that it scared her.
Her breath caught.
Scared her? Prophets, she was scared of Ziyal and wasn’t that a bucket of cold water.
Oh, enough was enough. Freezing is useless; fear is useless.
Kira grits her teeth, unclenches her toes and plants her feet firmly on the ground. Being afraid of Ziyal was unacceptable, ridiculous. That was her girl, not some heavy-handed, whip-happy, leering and sneering Legate. Kira could divorce her feelings from this. Didn’t even need to divorce them actually because she was not scared of Ziyal.
“Okay, then. Buck the fuck up, Nerys.”
Breathing even, shoulders squared, Kira weaves her way through the tangle of people jumbled across the Promenade, slowing to a stop just behind Ziyal. She breathes in, then out and reaches out to touch the girl’s elbow. Except, even as distant as Ziyal had seemed, she still manages snaps out a hand and catch Kira’s. Blue eyes widen ever so slightly, exposing the white sclera and irritated rims.
Then a smile skilfully spreads from cheek to cheek.
“Oh, Nerys, hello!” Two grey hands cup hers between them. Their chill is an unpleasant shock, but she does not flinch. “I missed you so much while you were in the holding cells. I know that it was important that you act and fight back but, please, let’s promise to never be parted for so long again!”
Kira, hand laying limp where it’s been captured, opens her mouth to respond only to find her voice too thick to say anything. ‘Startled’ would be a gross understatement. So would ‘surprised’. Where had Ziyal learnt --? How was she--? Ziyal had always been a cheerful girl, but this?
And where had all the anger gone?
“I...” Kira clears her throat roughly. “I missed you, too.” It sounds wobbly, even to her. Quark is probably cringing and laughing behind the bar.
Or maybe he’s not. Rom. Med bay. Jumped in front of a phaser beam.
She tries again, “Really, I did. I’m so glad you’re alright, Ziyal. I was so worried when we heard what happened...If you had been, if you were ki – well, there’s no point in thinking about it.”
Ziyal’s smile eases slightly, but she gives Kira’s hand a metronomic pat, pat and her nerves refuse to settle. “Of course. Such a horrible thought, please don’t give it any more time. I’d hate to weigh on your mind like that.” Her sweet face is a relief, but that smile is not. Where had Ziyal learned to twist her features and feelings like that? Or, better question, who had taught her?
Dukat has never been that good at concealing himself.
And neither was Kira.
Something wasn’t right and Kira was going to find it and fix it.
“Come with me.”
Her mind made up, she turns and tugs them down a less crowded corridor, away from the stumbling crowd. Ziyal’s hands press tight against Kira’s before releasing. She then loops her arm around Kira’s elbow and presses closer to her side; it should be comforting. It should be, but this mask, this disguise that Ziyal is wearing grates on Kira’s nerves. It’s so familiar and yet deeply out of place; Kira recognizes it, though from where she can’t say yet.
She does not shiver under the watch of that frozen, serene gaze. This was still her girl and she wasn’t going to be afraid of her, ever.
She sets her jaw and tightens the hold, pulling Ziyal closer to her.
Kira steers them around a corner and towards a battered hydroponics lab. Palming the stiff door open, she marches them inside. Safe.
[Mentally, she adds the door to her running list of things to set right on the station. Tries not to sigh.]
The door swooshes shut much more efficiently, blocking out the light and noise of the Promenade. Soothed, Kira turns to face Ziyal, bringing her hands up to cradle the sides of her cheeks. The wretched smile feels brittle in her grip. She hopes she’s strong enough to crack it.
Who’s she kidding. She knows she is.
Choosing to believe that brief burst of confidence, she jumps right in.
“I know how you’re feeling right now, trust me.” She’s expecting disbelief, knows that she would never believe the words ‘I know how you’re feeling right now’. Would probably snap her teeth at anyone who tried saying them. Yet, Ziyal is looking at her with something like hope parting the shroud of her expression. “I’m very familiar with this anger. Too familiar, some might say.”
They share a knowing grin and Ziyal hums, turning her cheek into Kira’s palm.
Great, just...keep it up, Nerys.
“I’ve lost so many people that it’s – I...well...” Kira grimaces, then scoffs ruefully. “You’d think it’d get easier talking about this, with all the practice I’ve had, but there’s never anything good to say.”
“It’s alright, Nerys. I understand, and I appreciate you trying, but,” Ziyal sighs, noise low in her throat. “I don’t know what to say either, I feel—”
“I know.” Kira nods, moving her hands to the outside of Ziyal’s shoulders and grips them firmly. “When I lost my father,”
She has to pause to swallow. Then barrels on.
“When I lost my father, I was so angry I didn’t know what to do with it. I would steep in it all day and lay in it all night, choking on it, wanting to do something so badly, but not knowing --” She raises a hand to gesture lamely. “Not knowing what could possibly make it feel any better.”
Ziyal’s attention is locked on Kira’s face, watching every twitch of her features. She’s so obviously looking for reassurance.
Kira could do that. She could be vulnerable and talk about her...feelings. She does everything she can to relax, to soften herself. She blows a puff of air to the side, fluttering her hair, and gentle Ziyal tucks it behind her ear.
Prophets guide her.
“I heard every platitude ever to spill from some idiot’s head and all it did was make me angrier. Even people who meant well, people who had experienced a loss like I had, fed me the same lines.”
I’m sorry, Nerys. It’ll get easier, Nerys. Trust in the plan, Nerys.
“Nothing, no one could reach me.” She shakes her head, listening for the jingle of her earring. “Even the Prophets felt so far from me. How could they have let this happen, any of it. All of it. They didn’t stop it and yet, I was so sure they would never forgive my anger either.”
It was hard to reconcile, even now, but Kira has tended to her faith a lot since then. Learned to let the power of the unknown unfold, trust in what she couldn’t see just as much as she trusted in what she could. Ask questions, keep her eyes and heart open, and not let the connection close off. Bareil would be proud, she hoped.
Her eyes have literally shut now though, and jerking, she opens them to find Ziyal slanted forward with concern.
And interest.
“You never talk about that time around me. The militia. The resistance.” Ziyal blinks and raises one of her hands to cover Kira’s. Her shoulders slump a little under their combined weight.
Kira’s mouth twists without her consent. “I don’t talk about that with anyone.” Regrets how flat her voice has gotten, but, emotions, knowing, stopping.
Yeah.
Considering for a moment she adds, “As much as all the shrinks and Winns tell me to.” Ziyal responds immediately, smiles, quickly there and gone, then straightens and steps back. Kira’s now free hands drop uselessly to her sides. She tries to watch the girl out of the corner of her eye, but it’s difficult to tell if the humour reaches Ziyal’s eyes from this angle. If the smile was a smile or a smile.
Ziyal remains out of focus.
“You talk about it with Odo, don’t you?”
Ouch.
“Odo’s different.”
Was different. She isn’t sure anymore what to think of her oldest friend. Watching his colla-- involvement with the Founders...She clenches her hand, feels the strain of her joints, of old fractures.
“He was there for most of it. He understood.”
Or at least she thought he did.
“Only one left who could,” She finishes, feeling lame even as the words leave her mouth.
Tilting her head, Ziyak considers her. “Not Quark?”
“Ugh, gross!” Scrunching her nose up comically gets her a girlish giggle. Now, that is a victory.
“But you could talk to him. If you wanted to. I mean, he would understand, he saw everything you and Odo did.”
Kira drops her head back and scowls at the ceiling. “As if. That little toad was sitting pretty the whole time. He wouldn’t know the first thing about strangling your own emotions just to survive.”
“Is that true? Or is that what you know?”
What the hell?
“Of course it’s true.” She refuses to feel interrogated, slowly rolls her head from side to side, trying to release some of the tension curled in her shoulders. Back and forth, easy does it. “Trust me, I know Quark. There’s no hidden depths there.”
“Maybe you missed something. Maybe he’s hiding another side of himself, a side he doesn’t want you to see.”
“Quark?” She scoffs, “You think that Quark is some secret trove of wisdom and empathy? No, no way, not if he couldn’t sell it at least.” Kira laughs at her own joke and waits for Ziyal to join her.
The lab is quiet. She sneaks a glance in on the next roll of her head, trying to read the girl’s face at an angle.
“People are easy, Ziyal. They always show you who they are.”
“They always show you who they are.” There’s a slight twist in the way Ziyal speaks, but she understands. Kira can tell.
“Exactly. Anyone out for themselves, acting towards their own benefit and satisfaction, lying about their true nature, it’s always obvious.” She finally gets a good crack from her neck and huffs in satisfaction.
“Really? Always?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kira lifts her head up and grins cheekily at Ziyal. “No monster can hide very long from your Nerys!”
The girl laughs this time, an echoing thing, and doesn’t say anything more about Quark or Dukat or Damar or whichever monster she had been thinking about.
The identity didn’t matter. Kira wouldn’t rest until Ziyal’s life was free of violence.
She’d never flush that horrible blue again if Kira could help it.
Now there was a feeling to fuel her through this miserable war. That was some real direction and purpose.
Finally.
The grin sits easily on her face now, tired limbs a distant memory as she’s invigorated with the best kind of mission. She props her hands on her hips. “If we’re done talking about Quark, you want to tell me what I can do to help you feel better?”
Ziyal hms and moves further away to peer over the mixed, yellowing leaves of Bajoran, Terran, Ferengi, and Cardassian plants.
Kira won’t let her get too far. “Whatever you want to do with your anger, Ziyal, we can make it happen. Just say the word.”
The lab is quiet again as she’s ignored in favour of the fragile looking plants. She’s pretty sure these plants are just filters for the station’s water, not anything particularly interesting. But if Ziyal needs time to gather her thoughts, she’s all to happy to give it to her.
She remembers how hard it was to open about to someone for the first time. Quark had had to get her spectacularly drunk off some truly awful Romulan Ale and even then she hadn’t been very forthcoming. Or intelligible. Quark had never rubbed her face in it though, just sent her the outrageous bill in the morning.
It had included a ‘Listener’s Fee’.
The gall.
Her knee jiggles her heel up and down, quietly.
Huh, she guesses she has talked to Quark about it before.
The quiet drags on, decidedly uncomfortable now.
Maybe if Ziyal asked again she’d tell her the truth.
“Odd, that even plants feel the impact of regime change.” Ziyal says out of no where and traces a finger over a dangling leaf. Kira startles as she then plucks it off. “Such a fragile life, easily taken. But it resists rule, even death, all the same.”
The non-answer lets a bit of the wind out of Kira’s solar sails, but she’s never been one to back down. “Life doesn’t care about who’s in charge.” Another leaf plucked. “Neither does death.”
Ziyal turns towards her again. Smiles. “Platitude, Nerys.”
“Yes,” She sighs, “See, I told you.”
The corners of Ziyal’s mouth twitch. Kira is almost positive it’s in amusement. She smiles back.
Spinning the leaf around and around in her hand, Ziyal looks carefully between the plants, Kira, the door.
Door, Kira, plants.
Kira.
She hesitates for a second more, then hits Kira with, “It isn’t you I’m mad at.”
“I—” She frowns, “I know that.”
Of course she knows that.
“It’s just that before, you, on the Promenade...Well, your heart rate was so fast and you seemed...”
Around and around goes the leaf, a tear forming along the edge where Ziyal hasn’t been mindful of her claws. Another slight hesitation.
“Tense.”
“What!? No. Ziyal, that was – that was completely unrelated. I was just -“ She reaches out to still the movement of the girl’s hands before it drives her mad. “It’s just been a long day, and I didn’t sleep well on those damn holding cell bunks.”
She strokes her thumb against the soft skin of Ziyal’s wrists, debating whether or not she can get away with taking her pulse. “I was just tired.”
She’s never been the best liar, but it wasn’t like Ziyal was the best at spotting lies. Her continuing love of Dukat was surely proof of that. And her growing love for – nope. Kira strangles that thought before it fully forms, taking special care to keep her grip gentle.
Anyway, she isn’t lying completely, those bunks were awful and Kira would know. She’s slept on rubble.
“Please believe me, I would never be scared of you.” She ducks her head to try and catch Ziyal’s eyes. Sort of succeeds.
Ziyal nods – is nodding before Kira even finishes. “Oh, of course! I’d never worry about a thing like that.” Her smile widens a fraction. “I just didn’t want you to worry that I was worrying. Just in case.”
Kira would really like to grimace. She doesn’t though.
“Good. That’s...good.” She lets the cold hands drop from hers again, but doesn’t let the girl leave her view. Ziyal quietly paces around the length of the room, picking at this plant and that. Bending down to get a better look and tilting her head like she was imagining how she would draw each delicate shape.
She keeps moving. Kira keeps looking.
‘Girl’ doesn’t really seem accurate any more, she supposes. The longer she looks the more she notices; so many changes she hardly knows where to start.
Her teeth dig into her lip again.
There is more curve around her hips, accentuated by the smart cut of her bodice and skirts.
Kira refuses to think about which tailor she had probably gone to for that.
Ziyal picked at the tubing pumping water in and out and missed how Kira’s eye twitched.
Her silky hair is piled up in a new, more intricate style, showing off her graceful neck. It’s still held by the sketch pen Jake gave her last year though, instead of the sharp and complicated pins favoured by many Cardassian women. Most of her makeup has smudged away, but there is still a soft touch of kohl around her eyes and blue stain on her bottom lip.
It’s much more gentle than the blue that had seared across her cheeks and Kira’s mind earlier.
It’s cute. Suits Ziyal in a way that really surprises her.
And maybe it really shouldn’t.
Of course, none of that compares to the set of her shoulders, the angle of her head. Kira watches her move about the room and realizes that all of the gangliness of a teenage body is gone. Oh sure, Ziyal is still plenty young, and she would fight anyone who implied otherwise, but she has grown so much and Kira had almost missed it.
She had missed the initial changes, the ones that had happened under the weight of a war and rebel movement, damn Dukat and the Founders straight to the Wraiths.
So much time lost, gone in what felt like a blink.
But she was going to make up for all of that lost time now. She was going to figure out every last little detail that was different, marvel over it, and then delight in every new one that happened after.
Maybe Ziyal would even be kind enough to show Kira how she had changed too.
There was still time. Thank the Prophets, there was still time.
Because Ziyal was still alive.
The corner of her mouth ticks up lazily and she leans back against the work bench behind her, content to continue watching. Every move Ziyal made was a happy reminder.
The young woman before her presses nimble artist’s fingers against a bulb of Terran moss and watches as water wells up beneath her claws. It pools slowly and she leans closer before startling. Tearing her hand back, she stumbles away from the table and towards Kira.
Kira’s all too happy to catch her.
Ziyal shakes the wet from her fingertips and it’s pleasantly warm when it lands on Kira’s cheek and nose. She braces Ziyal with a palm in the centre of her back and absently wonders if Keiko would keep a moss with some sort of acidic defense. That doesn’t make any sense, but then, neither did Ziyal’s response.
Turning it over in her head, she starts rubbing up and down Ziyal’s back. Even the feeling of a triple spinal ridge doesn’t penetrate her peace of mind.
She meanders back to what they had been talking about before, feeling much more prepared.
“I’m not mad at you either, for the record.” Her palm moves up and down in slow, controlled movements, the smooth rhythm a contradiction to the muscles held taut around it.
“Why would you be mad at me?”
Kira keeps the soothing motion of her hand going and breathes in easily through her nose. “For any of the usual reasons people get mad at survivors. Because you weren’t a perfect little victim. Because you wanted space or needed comfort or whatever it is that you need that your mind is feeling guilty about. For being angry.”
Ziyal wobbles a little against her, starting to sink her body into Kira. “You really wouldn’t be mad if I was? Because I feel so angry.”
“Of course, Ziyal, how could I ever be mad about that?”
“Oh, Nerys, thank you.”
She suddenly has the dead weight of 82 kg dropped on her. Easiest burden she’s ever had to shoulder.
“I was so scared that you would see me differently or that you’d be...sc--”
“No, Ziyal, never. You will never have to worry about that with me.” Bringing her hand up to the nape of her neck, Kira cradles Ziyal against her, exactly how she’d wished to do before. “Besides, what leg what I have to stand on if I got mad at you. I was angry too when I finally accepted what Cardassians are like.”
There’s no movement in front of her now; no controlled breathing, no hand fidgeting, nothing.
Kira plows ahead. She’s always felt better when she was moving.
“It feels awful right now, but you’ll find a useful place to direct your anger, just like I did. Maybe you can help Leet--”
“What is that, exactly?”
“Hm?” She plays with a few of the soft, escaped strands of hair.
“What Cardassians are like. You said I had finally accepted what Cardassians are like.” Ziyal isn’t moving away from her, but Kira finds she can’t keep her hand moving either.
Frozen again.
“So, what is ‘that’, Kira?”
“Just the – Ziyal, I didn’t mean...”
“No, please. It would be better if I knew, right? So I don’t miss it again; keep myself safe.”
Still hesitating, Kira leans a little to the side, trying to see her face. “I—”
“I am an adult, now, you know,” Ziyal wheedles, “No reason to hide things from me anymore.”
Biting her lip, not feeling good about it in the least, Kira finally continues. “Just...the – the violence of a Cardassian. And not violence for any good reason! Violence just because it feels good. Violence to make someone else hurt.”
Ziyal hms. Turns her face away, standing like stone in Kira’s arms.
She tries again to explain, sure she just has to say it right to help Ziyal understand.
“I know you loved him, your father, but he was violent and cruel, Ziyal.”
And he was hardly the only one.
“Damar too. He would have killed you without a second thought, and he knew you. You can’t imagine what he did to countless Bajorans; I’m so grateful you’ll never know violence like that. I’m sorry, not angry, that your personal feelings blinded you to the cruelty lurking so close to you.”
Turning finally, Ziyal eyes her, intense. There’s a sharpness to her that almost has Kira pulling her hands away so she isn’t pricked. Then the tension leaves her and a smile unfurls beautifully on Ziyal’s sweet face. “Thank you for telling me, Kira.”
Fumbling, Kira tacks on, “I don’t mean you, you’re not like them – you’d never be like them.”
“Of course!” The smile twists to bare incisors and squints Ziyal’s eyes nearly closed.
But is it genuine? It doesn’t feel like it, but Ziyal wouldn’t lie to her face.
Right?
“I can only thank you, it means so much that you would be honest with me.” Ziyal holds her hands together in front of her stomach, patient, serious. “I hope we can talk about this more in the future. I have so much to learn from you.”
Kira is starting to feel very strongly like she shouldn’t be thanked at all, actually, that she hasn’t comforted Ziyal like she meant to and that she’s made it all worse somehow. She keeps searching, but Ziyal’s features are flat. No sign of hurt, let alone anger or embarrassment or anything else.
She searches again, hoping for any sign of falseness.
There’s nothing.
And Ziyal would never lied to her.
“You’re...welcome. I guess.”
She reaches out to pull Ziyal back into a much needed embrace, only for her to break away from Kira’s arms and start towards the door.
“Ziyal...”
“Whew, goodness! I just picked up my own scent, how have you been in an enclosed room with me?”
“Wha -? Easily. Please, Ziyal -”
She’s not exactly ignored, but with the way Ziyal looks through her, Kira might as well not be standing there at all.
She clamps her mouth shut.
“If you’ll excuse me, dear Kira, I fear I’m long overdue for a sonic. I can’t imagine how you withstood being near me for as long as you did!”
It’s impossible to miss the way she flinches, but Ziyal breezes on.
And with one last flash of a smile, she palms the door open and rejoins the rush without a single glance backwards.
She’s gone before Kira can unstick her brain and come up with something, anything to say.
Ziyal:
When she was a kid and grumpy or grossed out or afraid, her mother would poke warm, callused fingers into her cheeks and launch an attack. Naprem would smile, tickling under her chin, against her clavicles, down to her armpits if Ziyal was being particularly stubborn, until she broke and giggled.
Her mother would swing Ziyal up into her arms, still giggling, and look at her with intense eyes.
“Don’t scrunch your face up for too long, my pagh,” She’d say, bringing her head down to rest against Ziyal’s. Her giggles would slowly subside as they looked at each other, Ziyal marveling at the warm brown shade of her mother’s eyes. It reminded her of the riverbanks in the summer. There was tears in them sometimes, the sadness just as rich and intense as any of her emotions.
Mostly though, she just looked like her mother. Like how she was supposed to look.
As soon as Ziyal was serious again, Naprem would twist her face up, eyes crossed, and stick her tongue out. Leaning forward, she’d threaten to lick Ziyal’s face until she shrieked and started wriggling. Only then would her mother hoot with laughter and whirl them around. “It might get stuck like that!” She’d tease as colours flashed around and around. “You might get stuck! Oh, how silly you’d look, I’d laugh and laugh!”
The room spun wildly behind them.
Ziyal would shriek again, with joy, and use still pudgey hands to squish her mother’s grinning cheeks.
We’ll share a silly face, she’d think, and be warmed by the ridiculous picture they made.
People always used to say she had her mother’s smile.
She had a smile frozen on her face now actually, hadn’t been able to shake it for the past few hours.
Months maybe.
Her cheeks ached from the strength of it on her face, yet she can’t let it go. So, she smiled on.
Ziyal turned a corner, back into the main hub of the Promenade and a harried looking Ferengi raised his head to tell her to 'Watch it!'. Without a word he pivoted and went back the other direction.
Probably for the best.
There was only one person she felt fit to talk to right now.
Kira:
Kira stands stiffly, still in the lab.
She is trying and failing to match the way Ziyal had looked and sounded with the guilt that now squirms in her stomach. With who she knows Ziyal to be against the person that had just stood in front of her.
Well, who had stood in front of her more than forty minutes ago.
All thoughts of going back to her quarters to sleep had fled with Ziyal.
It’s just incongruous. She’s never hidden how she feels about Cardassians, and Ziyal has never...Something was different. Something else was wrong. It isn’t making any sense. It’s a knotted weave her mind can’t untangle, though she is trying over and over, standing stock still.
One foot braced towards the door from where she had almost bolted after Ziyal.
And then didn’t, because she didn’t know what to say. Ziyal has always just – disagreed – when Kira said something she didn’t like. Given her, an often naive, alternative point of view. The smile, the deflecting, the running away, it feels so wrong and yet, Ziyal was gone.
It’s not right.
Kira tugs at her hair in a restless burst of energy.
She’s not making any progress, any sense. It might actually be too much to make sense of tonight. Another problem for tomorrow’s Kira.
Add it to the list, right under the door.
She moves stodgily to it, flicking the lights off with a slap of her hand and then presses her forehead to the door in the dark. Breathes out in a grinding groan. She has really stuck her foot in it, somehow, feels her cheeks flush in embarrassment and shame.
Bonks her head against metal, just once, for good measure, and then straightens up and opens the door.
It’s only as she’s squinting into the hallway lights that Kira remembers just who Ziyal has been so devotedly attached to these days. Who she has been following around with a schoolgirl gleam in her eye, despite Kira’s best efforts.
She swears, doesn't notice how a bleary eyed ensign poking at a maintenance panel jumps, and then starts back towards the Promenade.
Hopefully towards Ziyal.
And a disgraced exile. A Cardassian. A tailor.
A plain and simple liar.