Chapter Text
“I hate this.”
“I know you do,” Jadzia said, brushing a strand of her hair back behind her ear. The three of them were sitting in Ben’s living room, in the apartment above his dad’s restaurant. They each had schoolbooks out in front of them, pencils and spare scraps of paper laying sprawled across the small round tabletop. Each passing minute made it harder for Jadzia to focus; the smell of cooking seafood kept drifting in through the open window, bringing with it tempting waves of summer heat.
“They don’t make sense.”
Ben slowly raised his eyes from his own textbook. “As you’ve told us. Many, many times.”
Kira’s brow furrowed, and she stared down at the scratched table. Jadzia elbowed Ben, who sighed.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I’m not dumb,” Kira muttered. “I’m not.”
Jadzia put a hand on her back. She hated the way Kira’s face twisted, like she needed to convince herself rather than either of the other two. “We know.”
“The letters just don’t make sense.”
“Try again,” Jadzia counseled. She pointed to the word ‘soccer’. “What’s this word?”
Kira glared down at it. “Ess. Ess-oh-xer?”
“S doesn’t make an “ess” sound in the word, remember?”
“S-oh-xer?”
“You play it all the time,” said Ben. He’d dropped his pencil and was leaning over to read upside down. “Gave Miles a bloody knee.”
“Soccer?”
“Yeah!” Jadzia cheered.
“But I thought two c’s made an ex sound? Like success.”
Jadzia shrugged. “What do we say?”
Kira groaned. “English sucks,” she said, repeating what’d become their mantra. She put her head in her hands.
“That’s the spirit.”
“Let’s go downstairs,” Ben said. He flipped his textbook closed—Jadzia thought he’d probably been waiting for a chance to abandon it since their study session began. Ben might have been a lot of things, but a statistician wasn’t one of them. “I’m done studying. Dad’ll probably have some extra jambalaya that he can slip us.”
“Benjamin,” Jadzia chided, enjoying the way his jaw tensed in exasperation, “what kind of example are you setting? Especially with such young minds present.”
To the surprise of no one, least of all Jadzia, it was only an instant before Kira punched her arm. “I’m fifteen,” she growled. “Fif-fucking-teen.”
“Ah yes, the days of such youth and innocence…”
Kira pushed her harder, two handed. Jadzia, sixteen years of all gangly limbs, nearly toppled off her chair. There was a moment when pure panic flitted across Kira’s face, terrified she’d hurt her, but then all four legs of the chair hit hardwood again and Jadzia burst out laughing. Ben grinned. Kira tried to hide her smile with a pout, to little avail.
“Asshole,” she grumbled.
Jadzia made a tsk sound with her lips and her teeth. “Now, now, child. Respect your–”
This time, Kira stood and pulled Jadzia out of the chair, yanking on her neck until she had her in a headlock. With her free hand, she mercilessly tickled Jadzia’s sides until her laughter turned into gasps. “Nerys,” she pleaded, “I give, I give.”
Victorious, Kira started to loosen her grip, but then Jadzia flipped the situation—she pinned her to the floor, attacking her neck with glee. It was Kira’s turn to shriek, to writhe on the carpet with giggles stopping up her lungs. Her face flushed and her eyes watered, but her cheeks were split into a grin.
Jadzia wouldn’t tell her, but it was one of the few times she’d seen the girl actually look her age.
(Jadzia wouldn’t tell her, but it was really cute.)
“If you’re done,” Ben said, amused, watching them from where he was still sitting in his chair. He’d turned around to straddle it, his arms resting along the back. “I was serious about that jambalaya.”
Jadzia rolled off of Kira, the two of them belly-up to the ceiling. There was a pause as they both caught their breath. “Benjamin,” Jadzia finally replied, “I love your dad’s cooking, but I think I’m two-thirds shrimp by now.”
Ben grinned, clapping his hands together. “Still a third left, Old Man.” Swinging his legs off his chair and standing, he added, “Besides, do you really want to stay, and finish your…”
“Biochem.”
“Your biochem homework? Rather than eat a Sisko specialty?”
Jadzia turned her head to look at Nerys. The girl’s cheeks were puffed—she was slowly letting out air, like a balloon with a tiny hole. When she noticed Jadzia was watching, she quickly deflated. Her skin flushed pink again. Despite clear attempts to keep her expression even, at Jadzia’s grin, her mouth curled up in a smile.
“What do you think?” Jadzia asked.
Kira raised her eyebrows. “I’ve never said no to food in my life.”
“I guess we’re going, then.” Jadzia stuck her hands up into the air. “Bennnnnnn…”
“It astounds me—”
“Nice SAT word,” Kira remarked.
Ben continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “It astounds me that, between the two of you extremely capable young women, neither of you have the core strength to sit up.”
Jadzia grinned like a cat with cream. “Oh, we do.”
Kira tugged up her ratty baseball tee, an old one of Ben’s, to reveal a well-defined six-pack. “See?” she said. “Shredded.”
Mouth suddenly dry, Jadzia tore her eyes away from Kira’s midriff. She waggled her hands at Ben. “We just want you to help us up anyway.”
Ben heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t know why I do this,” he complained. He grabbed one of each of their arms, and yanked them up. “I have other friends.”
“Ooooh, like Jennifer,” Jadzia teased, slinging her arm around his shoulder.
Kira grinned. “Jennifer,” she added, “would you, would you want to come to my baseball game? It’s Saturday.”
“There’ll be other people there,” Jadzia cut in, “you don’t have to worry about being bored…”
“We could buy milkshakes after, even,” said Kira, delightfully dry.
“Oh, Jennifer—”
Ben growled, shoving them both ahead of him and shutting the door behind him.
-
“Heyyy, it’s my two favorite girls!” Ben’s father exclaimed, turning away from his stove. “Come down for a break after all that studying?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Sisko,” Kira replied.
“Miss Kira,” Mr. Sisko said, ruffling his hand through her short hair, “we do need to do something about that ‘Mr. Sisko’ of yours. Ain’t no friend of my son’s gonna call me ‘sir’ unless I want them to. And I don’t want you to.”
“Yes sir.”
Mr. Sisko grinned. “How’s that reading of yours coming?”
Kira’s lips pursed. “Great,” she said, an edge to her voice. “Soon I’ll be able to read See Spot Run with the best of them.”
Mr. Sisko gripped her shoulder sympathetically. He was one of the only adults who Kira allowed to touch her, and he knew it. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, huh? You’re trying to learn how to read a whole new language. It’s only been a few months.”
“Thanks, Mr. Sisko.” Kira tried for a smile, though her posture was still stiff.
“Anyway, at least English has vowels. That must be nice. Let me get you set up with some jambalaya, huh?” Before he turned back to his pot, he clapped Jadzia on the shoulder. “How’re you, kiddo?”
Jadzia beamed at him. “Great, sir.”
He waggled his spoon at her. “No.”
“Great, Joseph,” she amended.
“There we go. I won’t have a girl who I’ve known since she was knee-high comin’ at me and calling me sir, for Chrissakes.”
Ben, who’d been watching his father interact with his friends with mild impatience, raised his hand. “Sir?” he asked. “Can I have some, too?”
Mr. Sisko shook his head. “Good lord,” he said to Kira, “see what you’ve inspired in these delinquents?”
She ducked her head and tried to hide a smile.
“Three rounds of jambalaya,” Mr. Sisko said. “Coming right up. Say, Ben, you all done with them maths?”
Ben sighed. “Not yet, Dad.”
“Boy should know his math.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you use it a lot, frying up portabella mushrooms.”
Mr. Sisko turned, his face creased in exasperation. “Yeah, Ben, I do. I’m a small-business owner—who did you think runs the taxes on this shack?”
“Dad.”
“Jesus, I’m not saying cure cancer or anything. Just be finishing your homework. I betcha Jadzia’s finished her math homework, huh?”
Jadzia looked down. She didn’t like when people did that; when people tried to hold her up on a pedestal of academic success, just because she was taking a few advanced courses. As much as she liked Ben’s dad, it sounded too much like he was saying she was smarter than her friends. That was an idea that made her stomach twist.
Ben knew it, too. “Dad,” he said, “can we talk about this later?”
“Yeah, sure. Rice is done anyhow.” Mr. Sisko expertly emptied the pan into three plates, handing one to each of them. He ladled a little bit more into the plate he handed to Kira, but no one commented on it. “Go sit down out front, now. Won’t have any children of mine eating stood up in the kitchen. Ben, make sure that boy comes in for his piano shift at six, will you?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“Here are some forks,” he added, sticking them into Jadzia’s romper pocket. “And if anyone asks, it wasn’t me who spoiled your dinner.”
Jadzia grinned. “No sir.”
He gave her a light tap on the back of her head with the butt of his spoon. “Get out of here, Jadzia,” he said, “’fore I decide to give that meal to paying customers.”
-
Sisko’s was, as always, lively, maybe even more so because it was five-forty-five on a Friday. People of all types chatted and ate. There was a group of kids from their school on one side, a delegation from the nursing home two tables over, and a party of middle-aged women at the front, spilling gossip as easily as wine. Jadzia could even swear she spotted her bus driver from elementary school chatting up some woman at the bar. Sisko’s was a melting pot—you never knew what sorts you were gonna find. Jadzia thrived in it.
The three of them moved into the restaurant proper, gravitating towards the table that they typically claimed right at the back. Quark, a grumbling, sour-faced boy who worked weekends as a server, gave them the stink-eye as they settled down.
“Quark,” Kira muttered. Her body curved protectively around her food. Her eyes told her friends, very clearly, that if she had to engage with him then it would end with his blood on the floor. “Not today, gonif.”
“Ah, Quark,” Ben smiled, his voice dangerously low. “How are you doing today?”
“As a matter of fact–”
Ben’s expression frosted over, though his lips remained upturned. “I’m glad to hear that. Would you go serve table six? I would hate the mayor’s niece to feel like she’s not being attended to properly.”
Quark’s lips drew together. “I–”
“I think she’s trying to catch your eye.”
“Seriously, Quark,” Jadzia put in. Her mouth twisted teasingly. “I hear all these mayor’s nieces do hate to be kept waiting.”
With a grumble and a parting glare at Kira, Quark headed over to the table Ben had pointed to.
“Good riddance,” Kira snarled. Jadzia offered her one of the forks—she all but snatched it out of her hand. She began shoveling rice into her mouth, one arm still extended as a barrier around her meal.
Watching Kira eat was always a sobering experience. Her hackles came up—all traces of humor left her face. She ate far too fast. Jadzia wasn’t sure how she avoided getting a stomach ache; it couldn’t have been healthy, eating so quickly. Food insecurity, the special nutritionist had diagnosed. She thinks someone will take it away from her. It may take time to fade.
The speed-eating was a relatively new development, though, and, according to the same nutritionist, a good one. In the first few months, Kira had eaten only tiny bites at a time, uncomprehending of the idea that food didn’t need to be stockpiled. She would slip extra slices of bread into her pockets, to be nibbled on throughout the day.
(Jadzia still remembered one of those early conversations. They’d been outside the cafeteria at school, at lunchtime. “Aren’t you going to come in?” Jadzia had asked.
“Why?” Kira had replied. Her voice had been almost easy-going. “I’ve already eaten today.”
“Eaten what?”
Kira had stiffened. “More than I used to,” she’d said.)
Apparently, the hearty consumption of food was good for her. While Kira was no longer in danger of starvation, malnourishment didn’t just disappear. She was shorter than she was supposed to be by a good five inches, and, above her well-toned abs, her ribs splayed out starkly against her skin. She’d been gaining some more weight, but it wasn’t a lot.
“Jadzia,” Ben said.
Jadzia straightened, blinking. “Yep.”
“Zoned out there.”
“Yep.”
“Doing your biochem homework in your head?” he asked. There was a knowing glint in his eye, and he glanced over to where Kira was plucking the tail off a fresh prawn. “Or…”
She kicked him. His grin grew, his suspicions confirmed.
“D’you remember Tommy Callaghan?” Ben asked, nonchalantly scooping up a bite of his jambalaya. “In sixth grade?”
Jadzia pinked, though she tried to keep her expression even. He had been her first crush, and she had not been nearly so subtle as she was now. It had led to quite an eventful year. “I do,” she said.
“Hm,” was all Ben hummed. For her best friend, he was absolutely insufferable.
Kira, having scraped her plate clean, was looking between them in confusion. “Who’s Tommy Callaghan?”
“Nobody,” Ben said, at the same time as Jadzia groaned.
“He’s just some jerk from middle school.” She paused. “Quark reminds me of him.”
Kira wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “How was the rice?”
“Do you have to ask?”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “For the sake of my dad’s reputation, I’m gonna pretend that you answered with a ten-page paper on how good it was.”
“I wouldn’t be able to write it.”
“It would also be acceptable in Hebrew.”
“It’d be written,” she said, her eyebrow arching challengingly, “in a style that went out of date when Moses went up to Sinai.”
Ben’s face cracked into smiled. “Just give us five stars on Yelp.”
“Done.”
“Benjamin,” Jadzia interjected.
“It’s Ben, Old Man—”
“Benjamin, I think that kid,” she pointed to where a nervous teenager was standing by the door, rolling and unrolling the cuff of his sleeve, “is the piano one your dad was talking about.”
“How can you tell?” Kira asked critically.
“I’m psychic.”
Ben squinted. “He’s got sheet music in his hand, doesn’t he.”
“Definitely.”
“He looks fidgety,” Kira observed. She stole a shrimp from Jadzia’s plate. “Maybe he’s baked.”
Ben’s lips folded into a smile. “No,” he said, standing, “don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“That boy wouldn’t know how to roll a joint if he were on a twelve-hour bus ride with Wiz Khalifa. I’m going to go help him find where the piano is.”
Jadzia smiled. “Good luck, Benjamin.”
The two girls watched as he walked up to the nervous boy, introducing himself with an easy grin. The nervous boy nodded, extending a hand, his mouth moving quickly. They couldn’t hear what he said. At Ben’s apparent prompting, he turned and surveyed the room until his eyes fell upon the upright piano that sat next to the kitchen window. His mouth fell open in surprise.
“It’s in the middle of the room,” said Kira, incredulous. “He didn’t see it?”
Jadzia covered her mouth with her hand. “He didn’t see it.”
“Wow.”
They watched as the boy moved towards the piano, nearly tripping over an entire table. There was the screech of chairs as the people sitting there tried to keep him upright, to the detriment of the saltshaker, which fell to the floor with a crack. He apologized profusely, his light brown skin darkening in a flush.
“Wow.”
Jadzia giggled.
Eventually, the boy did manage to make it to the piano. He set his sheet music down on the shelf and fiddled with his cuffs one last time. Ben appraised the song over his shoulder—it must have been acceptable, because he gave the boy a pat on the back. He squirmed. Ben apologized, or, at least, Jadzia hoped he did (with friends like Kira, he really should understand that some people didn’t like to be touched by strangers). There was a pause before the boy nodded, his mouth bouncing up and down in streams of words that Jadzia couldn’t make out, and then set his hands on the piano and began to play.
And boy, could he play. The music swelled through the room, gentle and upbeat. People turned to stare, their cheeks dimpling in soft smiles, and for a moment all the talking lulled. The boy at the piano, no longer babbling or clumsy, danced his fingers along chords as though he were coaxing song from a nightingale. Even the background clatter of the kitchen paused. Joseph Sisko leaned out the window, staring at his newest employee with a radiant grin.
Jadzia had always been atrocious at anything musical, but it didn’t take a trained ear to feel the talent that spun the notes through the air.
“He is good,” she said. “Really good.”
Kira’s face had gone all pinched. “Yeah,” she replied, her voice weird. “I guess.”
“What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat. “Nothing.”
The restaurant filled with chatter again, but the steady backdrop of music remained. Ben came back over, his grin matching his father’s.
“His name is Julian,” he said. He dropped down into his seat. “Doesn’t know how to shut up, but he’s a fucking genius.”
“He’s put you out of a job, Ben,” Jadzia replied, smiling back.
Ben let out an amused huff. “I don’t need it anymore. I’m better.”
I’m better. Jadzia’s hand snaked out and grabbed his, squeezing.
“You play piano?” Kira frowned. “I didn’t know that.”
“I used to play it more. Before you came. It’s nothing.” Ben smiled, for lack of something else to do.
Jadzia cleared her throat. “I hear the Giants beat the Red Sox yesterday,” she said, switching topics.
“No,” Kira groaned, slumping. “No baseball.”
“You love baseball.”
“I hate baseball.”
“No, you love baseball.”
“Ben, not everybody loves baseball. Some of us think it’s boring.”
“Get out of my damn house.”
“Children,” Jadzia admonished, doing a fairly decent impression of their Vice Principal, “we can accept everyone, regardless of their enjoyment of baseball. Also, Nerys, if you really hated baseball, you wouldn’t go play it at the park every weekend with him.”
Kira rolled her eyes. Ben smiled in satisfaction, crossing his arms over his chest. Jadzia looked from one to the other. Idiots, she thought, and tried to stop her expression from seeming quite so fond.
An alarm went off on Kira’s phone, vibrating from where it sat in the pocket of her cargo shorts. She pulled it out, wincing. “Fuck,” she swore. “Fuck.”
“What?” Jadzia asked, alarmed.
“Ten minutes to sundown.” Kira’s knuckles were white around her phone case.
“Go,” said Ben. “Quick. What’s your record for the house?”
“Seven minutes.”
Kira moved to scrape her plate, but Jadzia shooed her off. “Go grab your books upstairs,” she insisted. “Hurry.”
Taking her advice, Kira hurried back to the kitchen. Her steps made a faint one-two-one-two as she rushed up the stairs. Ben and Jadzia looked at each other, slightly exasperated yet amused.
“She is going to beat her record,” Ben predicted, his voice deliberately slow. “She should really go out for track.”
“She’d miss soccer too much,” Jadzia countered. She laughed as Kira darted back through the kitchen, a scrawny mess of short-cropped hair and poorly zipped backpacks bobbing past the window.
“Bye, Mr. Sisko,” they heard her yell.
The reply came quickly after, less urgently: “See you, kiddo!”
She banged through the silver double doors back into the restaurant proper, her sneakers squeaking with traction as she expertly dodged through the tables. After Julian’s catastrophic entrance, Kira’s hurried exit hardly drew a stray glance. She sent Jadzia and Ben a wave as she threw herself out into the street. Jadzia’s eyes followed her long shadow as she sprinted down the block, cut off only when she disappeared from the view of the window.
“That girl,” Ben said, shaking his head.
“I hope she gets there in time,” Jadzia said. “Rabbi Opaka hates it when she’s late. You wouldn’t want to disappoint a kindly grandmother like that, would you?”
Ben winced in sympathy. “I wouldn’t,” he said, “but I can imagine it.” His hand came up and rubbed at the side of his face. “I think my cheek would be bruised for a month.”
Jadzia grinned. “She thinks you need to eat more.”
Casting his hands out to his surroundings, Ben raised his eyebrows. “I don’t need to eat more.”
“Then you get the cheek pinch.” Quick as an imp, Jadzia reached out and squeezed an inch above his jawline, catching her fingertips on his stubble. She grinned. “Could be chubbier.”
Ben sent her a venomous look, but it crumbled in the face of her smile. He rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible to hate, you know that?”
Jadzia inched her chair over and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “Yes,” she agreed, settling her head into the crook of his neck. “I’m magnificent.”
“That you are, Old Man,” Ben smiled, his arm falling back around her. He let out a deep, contented breath. “That you are.”
Light smoothed across the tables in a gentle orange—bubbles of conversation blew through the room, popping gently with laughter every once in a while. Saucepans hissed from the kitchen, flooding the air with seafood and the rich oils of stew. The evening sighed. A warm breeze splashed down Jadzia’s arm as a new couple walked in, giggling to each other. Julian’s music danced over everyone’s heads, his chords running like streams through the low-hanging lights. Ben grinned, surveying his father’s restaurant with pride. He tapped his foot along to the tune.
A text pinged on Jadzia’s phone. NEW RECORD, it read, 6.37.
Warmth brimmed in her chest, and she grinned.