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Part 1
It was calm in the Klingon restaurant at this time of the day, which was probably why Worf preferred to eat at this time. Jadzia didn’t mind, there weren’t many Klingons on the station, so she enjoyed the company of the serious Worf. Ever since she had joined with the symbiont she had gotten a better understanding of Klingons and their habits. And quite frankly, she liked their warrior-life style, filled with honour and celebrating victories.
She glanced at her dinner-companion who had accepted a position at the station, Worf may be an honourable Klingon, he still had a thing or two to learn about partying. Maybe, one day, she could turn that frown in a smile. Out of all the Klingons she ever met, Worf had to be the most serious. Still, she enjoyed his company and valued his friendship.
While capturing some of her food that tried to escape her plate, Jadzia glanced to the Promenade. There she saw what she thought was a female half-Klingon, the features of a Klingon were there, but less prominent and she had a lighter skin-tone. She watched the young woman walk around aimlessly.
“Isn’t that one of Voyagers crew?” she asked, looking at the older Starfleet uniform.
Worf looked up from the food and nodded. “She was on board when they came through that wormhole in the Gamma Quadrant.”
That morning Worf had been on a mission in the Gamma Quadrant when suddenly a wormhole opened. The ship coming through had been the ship that had been stranded in the Delta Quadrant for four years: the U.S.S. Voyager. It was fitting that they had disappeared close to Deep Space Nine and now the reappeared close to the wormhole linking the Alpha Quadrant with the Gamma Quadrant. Immediately Worf had requested permission to postpone their mission and when he got it he had escorted Voyager through the wormhole and back to the space station where they had last docked before disappearing.
Back at Deep Space Nine he had awaited the senior staff at the airlock so he could welcome them and accompany them to captain Sisko.
That meeting was probably over now and the crew took a much-needed break before heading back to earth.
“You don’t see a lot of Klingon-Human hybrids, don’t you?” Jadzia asked, watching B’Elanna trying to decide where she would go.
“The mother of Alexander was one,” Worf mentioned. “Her father was Klingon, her mother Human.”
“I heard it’s not easy for Humans and Klingons to conceive.”
“K'Ehleyr said it required medical assistance.” It seemed to be all Worf wanted to say about the subject, because he devoted his attention on the living food.
“Well, I’m going to welcome her,” Dax stated as she gracefully rose from her chair.
“What about your food?” Worf inquired.
“If you’re still hungry you’re free to eat. Otherwise the cook will collect them and put them back in their trays.” She winked and with her hands behind her back she walked towards B’Elanna.
B’Elanna noticed someone walk towards her with a straight back and her hands behind her, a tall woman with spots on the side of her head. A Trill if she remembered correctly.
“Welcome back!” the woman greeted her cheerfully. “I’m luitenant commander Jadzia Dax.”
“B’Elanna Torres,” B’Elanna responded curtly. “Chief Engineer of Voyager.”
“Wow, four years. You must be glad to be back.”
B’Elanna looked in another direction, just a few weeks ago she had gotten the news that the Maquis has been wiped out by the Cardassians with the help of their Dominion allies. All her friends had died.
“Is something wrong?” Jadzia asked.
“No, it’s fine,” B’Elanna said as she shook her head. “It’s good being home again.”
Dax smiled at her. “I couldn’t help but notice you are part Klingon.”
“I’m not sure that is a good thing,” B’Elanna replied curtly.
“Why wouldn’t it be? I’ve spent a lot of time with Klingons, they’re honourable, strong, …”
“Aggressive,” B’Elanna continued. “I’ve gotten in trouble more than once for my temper. And as a child I was often picked on for looking like this.” She gestured to her face.
“I don’t see why. You’re beautiful.”
B’Elanna blinked. “What?”
Jadzia smiled and leaned forward a bit. “I think you’re beautiful,” she repeated and she stood up straight again. “Would you like to join me and Worf for some bloodwine?” she asked, gesturing to Worf who watched them as he chewed on something.
“I don’t care much for bloodwine,” B’Elanna scoffed as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. Why did everyone assume she would like Klingon things just because she looked like one?
“Oh. Okay. Would you like a jumja stick then?”
B’Elanna narrowed her eyes briefly and tilted her head ever so slightly. “Jumja stick?” she repeated.
“A Bajoran delicacy,” Jadzia quickly explained. “It’s made from the sap of the jumja tree, it has a lot of vitamin C in it and it’s really sweet. I think you’ll like it.”
“I… suppose I can give it a try.”
B’Elanna and Jadzia walked to a stall where they sold the oddly shaped pink confections. They ate as they walked over the Promenade and they talked Klingons first, where Jadzia explained about Curzon’s experiences with the species and how it had sparked her own connection with them, but soon they talked about the Maquis, the Cardassians and the Dominion.
“It must have been hard to hear they were gone,” Jadzia said with a soft voice.
“It was,” B’Elanna said, recalling how she had gone from feeling so angry she was ready to kill someone to crying for an hour. Eventually she had accepted it, but the thought of all those good people who had died still hurt.
Jadzia put her hand on B’Elanna’s shoulder. “How about we go to Quarks?”
“That bar run by the Ferengi? No thanks.”
“It can be a bit noisy there,” Jadzia agreed. “Maybe…” She noticed how B’Elanna glared at someone and looked in the direction she was looking. “Oh, that’s Garak,” she explained. “I know he is Cardassian, but he is an exile and has assisted us.”
“He’s on our side?” B’Elanna asked with disbelief in her voice.
“To be fair, he is the only Cardassian on our side. During the time you were in the Delta Quadrant we were on reasonable terms with the Cardassians, but you came back in the time they are the enemy again.” Jadzia smiled and shrugged lightly. “Maybe not that much has changed for you.”
“Except that the Maquis is gone,” B’Elanna said with a bitter tone in her voice.
The smile faded and Jadzia nodded as she put a gentle hand on B’Elanna’s back. “I never thought I would say this, but I’m sure we could have used the skills of the Maquis in this war. Voyager returned on a good moment.” She looked at Garak, who disappeared in his shop. “And it’s good to have a Cardassian on our side too.”
B’Elanna scoffed. “You really trust him, don’t you?”
Jadzia laughed, it sounded happy and pleasant and B’Elanna couldn’t even get angry at her for laughing. “No-one trusts Garak,” she explained, “he is a man know for his lies and half-truths.” She had an amused look in her eyes as she looked at the shop. “But, he is an enemy of Gul Dukat, the current leader of Cardassia, and he is against the Dominion. When he was in a prison camp with Worf, he was the only Cardassian not allowed to be freed after the Cardassians made a pact with the Dominion.” As she talked they continued to walk and eat the jumja sticks. “And thanks to his efforts, both general Martok and Julian were rescued, who had been imprisoned there and had replaced by founders here. So, yes, we do consider him an ally, even though we know we can never really trust him.”
Even after jumja sticks were gone, they stayed together. They talked as they went up the stairs to the upper level of the Promenade and finally stood next to one of the big windows, each on either side.
“I’ve never met a Trill before,” B’Elanna admitted suddenly.
Jadzia joined B’Elanna and she put a hand on her shoulder, turning her ever so slightly and pointed. “My home is in that direction,” she told her. “If you want I can take you there once, it’s a lovely place and the people are generally kind, if I may say so myself.”
B’Elanna smiled as she looked at the stars. “I would like that,” she said, turning to face the science officer. She noticed how Jadzia’s hand was still on her shoulder, but for some reason she didn’t mind.
“When will you depart again?” Jadzia asked.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Too bad, I would have liked to get to know you better.”
“There’s not much to know,” B’Elanna retorted. “I fix things, I get angry easily.”
“You’re beautiful,” Jadzia added, lifting her hand from the shoulder and brush some of B’Elanna’s hair back. “Maybe you will come back to visit the station, after you went to Earth?”
B’Elanna nodded slowly. “I might just do that,” she whispered.
Part 2
After Voyager returned to earth, they were assigned a new mission. With the war against the Dominion they needed all the help they could get. The former members of the Maquis were allowed to stay on board and remain a part of the crew, mostly because captain Janeway insisted on keeping her crew as it was. Voyager had to patrol a few sectors.
When news came that the Romulans had joined the war, they even had a chance to explore an anomaly in the area.
A transport ship neared Deep Space Nine and Kira had just given it clearance to dock when a communication came through. “The transport ship asks if Jadzia Dax is on the station,” she said, looking towards Jadzia. “One of their passengers, a B’Elanna Torres, wants to know.”
The eyes of Jadzia lit up and she smiled. “Please communicate that I will wait at the airlock when they dock,” she said to Kira.
“Okay,” Kira replied, looking at her console as she typed in the message. “Answering that now. Is that someone you know?”
“Only met her once,” Jadzia said as she walked towards the turbolift, still smiling.
“All right, have fun.” Kira watched Jadzia leave Ops and shook her head with a faint smile.
Jadzia waited at the airlock and soon enough B’Elanna emerged. When she noticed Jadzia she smiled awkwardly and joined her.
“Hey,” B’Elanna greeted her.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” Jadzia said. “Weren’t you on a mission with Voyager.”
“Yeah I got permission for a short leave. I really needed to talk with someone who isn’t Klingon but knows them and their… mythology.”
Jadzia opened her arms in a welcoming gesture. “You came to the right person. So, tell me, what’s wrong?”
“Do you believe in Sto-vo-kor?”
“Personally… I don’t know. But I respect the Klingons that do. I even went with Martok, Worf and a few others on a dangerous mission in the name of a fallen friend, Klomal, because he died in a surprise attack, which according to their believes denies him access to Sto-vo-kor. A Klingon has to die with honour.” She invited B’Elanna to walk along and clasped her hands behind her back. Together they walked towards the Promenade. “One way to guarantee a passage to Sto-vo-kor is to complete a dangerous mission in their name, to show the deceased has lived a life capable of inspiring others to great feats of courage. So they wanted to do that for him, and because they are my friends I supported them. And I cared for Klomal, so regardless of my own believes I joined them, because if Sto-vo-kor is real, I want him to be there.”
“And…Gre’Thor?”
“If the Klingon Heaven is real, then their Hell must be too.” Jadzia looked at B’Elanna. “Why do you ask?”
B’Elanna didn’t answer at first. “Don’t laugh,” she said, “but I was on the barge of the dead, on the way to Gre’Thor, but it wasn’t my time, so they couldn’t mark me. My mother appeared there too, she was sent to Gre’Thor because I didn’t live an honourable, Klingon live.”
Jadzia listened with a serious look on her face.
“You must think I’m crazy, the crew on Voyager all believed it was just a dream from the near-death experience, but it felt real to me.”
“I understand that. What happened?”
B’Elanna told Jadzia what had happened, how Voyager had been caught in a nebula which interfered with the scanners, external communication system and navigation system, they could only scan the immediate surrounding, so she had piloted a shuttle to plot the course out of the nebula. An ion storm had hit the shuttle on the way back and left her without life-support. On the barge of the dead she had seen her mother and then she had woken up. After asking permission from captain Janeway, she let the doctor simulate the conditions to return to the barge and take her mothers place, so her mother could go to Sto-vo-kor and she would go to Gre’thor.
At first she had intended it as a trick, she would release her mother before the doctor would wake her up again, but Kortar saw through it, and after that she decided she’d take her mother’s dishonour for real and accept her fate. She explained how Gre’thor had taken the shape of Voyager, with images of all the crewmembers and when Tuvok attacked her with a bat’leth, she was back on the barge. In the end it was all very confusing, but her mother has said ‘choose to live’ and ‘we will see each other again. When she asked if they would see each other in Sto-vo-kor, to which her mother said they would meet there or back home.
As B’Elanna spoke, Jadzia listened. They stopped in front of the jumja-stick stall and Jadzia took two.
“What do you think of it?” B’Elanna asked, taking the jumja stick Jadzia offered her.
“Well, either you had two similar dreams because you were close to dying, coming from your subconscious. Which is the scientific explanation. Or you and others who had glimpses of the afterlife during a near-death experience were right. I honestly can’t say which one it is, but if you say it was real, then maybe it was.” She looked at the female hybrid next to her. “Did you check if your mother is really dead?”
B’Elanna cast her eyes down. “I’m… afraid to,” she admitted. “If… if she’s dead then it really happened, but if she’s alive it was all a dream. And… I’m afraid to find out which one it is.”
“I understand,” Jadzia said, putting a comforting hand on B’Elanna’s arm. “If you want I will help you. We can do it together. Knowing if your mother is dead or alive will give you closure.”
“But if she’s alive and the myths really are just myths, just as I started to believe in them…”
“That it seems like a dream doesn’t mean it wasn’t real,” Jadzia said. “You saw your crewmembers too and they were alive. Maybe the journey to both Gre’thor and Sto-vo-kor is personal and will the deceased, or near-deceased, be given a chance to gain insights that will affect the ultimate destination. Maybe you were destined for Gre’thor and you got a chance to change.”
B’Elanna looked at Jadzia, for the first time since their conversation had started she smiled.
“Would you like to try and contact your mother together?” Jadzia offered.
“I would like that.”
Jadzia smiled and nodded. “We can do so tomorrow. Let’s enjoy today. Everyone needs a moment to relax, even during wartime.”
“We never relaxed with the Maquis.”
“That’s why you were so aggressive all the time,” Jadzia teased.
B’Elanna looked at her and shook her head, again she noticed how hard it was to be angry with her.
“How about we go to the holosuite? I know the perfect program to relax a little.” She looked at the half-Klingon and felt her lips turn into a grin.
“What is it?” B’Elanna asked impatiently.
“I just remember that when I brought Kira to this program I also took her to another program where we were in Camelot. She played Guinevere and she hit Lancelot when he kissed her.”
B’Elanna laughed. “Sounds like something I would do as well,” she said with a grin.
“To be honest, Kira wasn’t much of a fan of the Hoobishan Baths either, she found it hard to image she was on another planet.”
“I’ve been to holodecks before,” B’Elanna said. “The one thing I couldn’t figure out was why Tom recreated an old cinema in the 3D environment of the holodeck where we had to put on glasses to see the movie on the screen in 3D.” She smiled when Jadzia laughed, it was a lovely sound and one she’d like to here more often. “So, where are these baths located when they’re not rendered in the holosuite?”
“Trill. I’m sure you’ll like it, it is really relaxing. And we don’t have to add the massagers.”
“What?”
Jadzia had a playful smile on her face. “You’ll see.”
Moments later they were in the steamy Hoobishan Baths, both getting massaged by holographic Trill men.
B’Elanna lay on her belly as she looked at Jadzia. She trailed the spots down from the side of her head to the shoulders, where they disappeared under a towel and emerged at her ankles again. “So, they really go down all the way then,” she commented.
“They sure do.” Jadzia had a playful smile on her lips. “Would you like to see?”
“You know what?” B’Elanna said, also smiling. “I would.”
Jadzia rose from the massage table and ordered the computer to remove the massagers. After that she dropped the towel to the ground, showing off her spots to a smiling B’Elanna. Now B’Elanna rose as well, leaving the towel at the table. Jadzia walked over and the two women looked at each, smiling. They moved closer to each other and kissed, gentle and inquisitive at first, but soon with more passion. With gentle touches they explored each other’s naked skin, with their lips they tasted other parts of the body. They hugged and fondled and kissed when the computer voice announced the rental time was almost over and the program would soon come to an end.
Jadzia laughed and suggested to go to her place and continue the interesting conversation. And, she added with a wink, she was good at massages too, if B’Elanna still wanted one. B’Elanna didn’t have to think it over, she immediately replied she would love to get a massage from Jadzia.
B’Elanna spend the night with Jadzia and in the morning they contacted Kronos to see if B’Elanna’s mother Miral was alive or not. After the request for information they had to wait and B’Elanna looked at Jadzia.
“I love you,” she said.
Jadzia turned to face her, a happy smile on her face. “I love you too,” she said, taking B’Elanna’s head in her hands and pressing a gentle kiss on the ridges of her forehead.