Chapter Text
"Long-range scanners aren't picking up anything," Kira said.
She peered at the view screen and tried to take in everything about the anomaly. From its strange green glow and splotches of white in the middle, there was everything to be unusual about it. Neither her or Doctor Bashir had a clue towards its whereabouts or intentions.
Julian's hands flew across his console. He frowned. "It seems to resemble some sort of temporal anomaly. We should call the Chief."
"Agreed."
Miles had been exhausted with all the repairs he had been stuck with after a recent skirmish with the Jem'Hadar involving the Defiant. Circuits had been fried. Systems had been malfunctioning. The computer's voice was coming out two tones too low and carried a stutter. The list went on and on and on.
He had decided to take the first half of their journey - a research project on a planet a few hours away from the wormhole - to sleep off his fatigue.
Julian stood up. He started across the runabout, intending to head into the back and wake up Miles.
Kira watched from the corner of her eyes before redirecting her attention back to the view screen. Before she could react or issue a warning, the computer blared an alarm. The anomaly was pulsing and showering barely visible strands of light at the front of the runabout. The last thing she heard before completely losing consciousness was the sound of Julian hitting the ground behind her.
The first thing Miles registered was the sound of the computer beeping. He groaned and tried to focus on the noise to rouse himself.
"Computer," he muttered, "time?"
"It is 1400 hours. Warning, spike in system energy recorded at 1330."
"Well why didn't you tell me?" Miles realized now that the beeping was the standard alarm he'd set to wake him. "Run a level one diagnostic of computer systems, damnit."
"C-cannot perform requested function at this time."
He was wide awake now. "Can you scan for Major Kira and Doctor Bashir?"
"Two humanoid life-signs are present."
"You said an energy surge... Is the runabout damaged?"
"Systems o-operating within parameters."
Miles cursed under his breath and pulled on his uniform jacket. He tapped his combadge while pulling on his boots.
"O'Brien to Kira." No response. "O'Brien to Bashir." There was still nothing, so he quickened his pace and stood up. "Damnit. Must be unconscious..."
Despite being awake and alert, it took him a few seconds to get the door open. Miles stepped out and looked around. To his horror, he realized why the computer had neglected to tell him the specifics when it came to his friends. Two humanoid life-signs... It had never actually said they were Julian or Kira, likely because the system didn't know how to process whatever the hell had happened.
"You're a fucking collaborator!" A strong yet young voice shouted. "Now tell me who you really are!"
"I already told you!" Another voice said frantically.
Stepping out from the corner of the room, Miles took in the scene. Flashbacks from the Enterprise and its de-aging incident filled his mind.
There was a small Bajoran girl with a Human in a headlock position. She was small and frail, but apparently made up for it in aggression and strength. Miles had a sudden thought of anger, likely with him being a father himself. She was obviously malnourished - and obviously Kira.
Julian was tall and thin, but he still had some meat on his bones unlike the Bajoran holding him in a struggle. Miles spotted the doctor's medical tricorder and phaser on the ground, a few meters separating them. Kira had hers in her hand, and Miles could only hope it was still set to stun.
They looked like fucking teenagers wearing their now shrunken uniforms respectively. He thought they looked a bit younger than Jake had when they had all arrived on DS9, but it was hard to tell.
Especially when one child was threatening to kill the other.
"Er, hello?" He said.
Instantly Kira pointed the phaser at him. Fire burned in her gaze. "You have ten seconds to tell me who you are, or—" she redirected it at Julian's head— "he dies."
Miles noticed her notice his own phaser. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Miles O'Brien."
He slowly lifted his phaser from its place on his uniform and slid it across the ground towards her. Miles looked at Julian and realized that his face was turning blue with oxygen loss.
This time, when Kira spoke with narrowed eyes, he detected a small tremor. "My name is Brica Olko."
Miles had to keep from calling her out on the lie. "Okay. Can you release him?"
"Not until you tell me where the hell we are and how we got here," Kira replied, tightening her grip on the wheezing boy.
"You have the weapons already!" Miles raised his hands. "You'll kill him if you don't release him!"
"I've killed Cardassians," she spat in a low voice. "I don't know what the both of you are, but people always die no matter who they are."
"P-please," Julian whispered. There were tinges of desperation in his voice. "P-p—"
She rolled her eyes at his pleas, but gave in and released him. Kira shoved him towards Miles, and Julian hit the ground at his feet, coughing and gasping for breath.
"Now talk."
Miles hoped the Dominion wouldn't find them before the situation was resolved. He wasn't a religious man, but he prayed to the Prophets and whatever gods he could think of.
She didn't trust him or the boy apparently named Julian. They were Humans, not Cardies, but the possibility of them being collaborators lingered at the back of her head. And don't even get her started on the whole "You're in the future because your adult selves were turned into children" excuse! It was the most ridiculous thing Kira had ever heard.
Now that "Miles" thought they were calmed down, Julian sitting on the floor with a degree of tenseness in his frame and her on a chair in front of dozens of lights and buttons, he tried to make conversation. The audacity...
"What's the last thing you remember?" He asked the two of them.
Neither of them spoke. Kira glared at Julian as he looked at his feet and mumbled something with that annoying voice of his.
"I-I was walking home from school," he said, which Kira instantly recognized as a lie.
She snorted and twitched her hand towards the phaser she held beside her. "That's a lie." Turning to Miles, she said, "You can't possibly believe him."
"Okay, Kira."
Against her control, Kira's eyes widened and her breath hitched in her throat.
"Fine. I wanted to talk, so I'll talk." Time to show these Humans their place. "I was running to my resistance cell after taunting a couple Cardies up by the caves. It was risky but I did it anyway."
"Because you're determined to fight for freedom from the Occupation," Miles finished. "I'm telling you - I know you well, Kira."
Julian watched the exchange with a dry mouth and panic seeping into his mind.
He'd been easily called out for his lie, which of course wasn't totally false. He had walked home from school, arriving at his house with an entire list of things to tell his parents about - the tennis tournament he'd won with top marks, the test he aced in science, and even the novel he had finished in less than a day!
Then he had opened his front door and discovered no one was home. It was fine with him, as Julian remembered the trophy in his backpack along with the photo a kind parent had taken of the tournament. He wondered if he could frame it.
Julian climbed the steps leading into the attic. He opened a box with dust coating the seals. There was a stack of papers at the top where he had expected a hollow picture frame or at least a few padds. Bold letters were streaked across the top page: ADIGEON PRIME GENERAL HOSPITAL.
As a knot formed in his chest, Julian read on about his genetic enhancements. The trophy slipped from his other hand and shattered into dozens of useless pieces. Dozens of distorted reflections of Jules stared back at him, and eventually, he dropped the name and everything else as Julian Bashir fled from the home.
He remembered that night had been falling when he had turned and started back home. Soon everything blurred and became fuzzy with confusion. That was before waking up with an angry Bajoran and a nice man with fuzzy hair.
Julian gasped aloud, but ignored the looks he got from Miles and Kira.
He was being punished for his enhancements. He was so useless and stupid that he couldn't even form an excuse. He would be killed or imprisoned, no matter what Miles had said about them being safe. His parents had lied to protect him for the past eight years - protecting him from their very own government.
Julian thought back to what he knew about the Bajoran Occupation. It was something to do with the Cardassians, right? He looked at the Federation combadge, its obvious symbol of what he had once thought was safety and freedom and respect. In reality, it was the Federation punishing him. Miles and the government he represented were all just his version of the Cardassians - a game of cat and mouse.
Well, he wouldn't be enslaved to their beliefs. He would fight like the resistance fighter sitting in the very same room. Slowly, an idea grew in Julian's mind...
"Julian. Are you alright?" Miles asked, looking at his friend with concern when a sudden thought came to him. "How old are you?"
Without knowing the age of Julian, Miles wasn't sure if he knew about the genetic engineering yet. Did he know about Adigeon Prime? Now that he focused on Julian instead of Kira, he realized that the talkative Julian was uncharacteristically silent.
Kira was watching them again. He thought it extremely unsettling that such a young girl could be so attentive and untrusting and violent. He knew she was probably terrified, the smallest tremors or cracks in her strong facade leaking ever so slightly.
"Oh, I'm absolutely grand."
Miles sighed. "Look, we need to head back home to a station called Deep Space Nine. There will be Bajorans and Humans and all sorts of other alien species. We need to get out of here before..." Before the Jem'Hadar find and kill us.
"Before what?" Kira asked. "Are we in the middle of Cardassian space?"
How do you explain the Cardassian withdrawal of Bajor, the Federation's involvement aboard what was once Terok Nor, and then the entire Dominion War? Fuck, Miles needed more coffee. Actually, scratch that - he needed a strong drink from Quark's, preferably with the lanky teenager besides him (as an adult, assuming they could fix this).
"Not exactly," Miles admitted. She opened her mouth to bully a better response out of him, but he continued, "It's just a bit dangerous to be out here alone, especially when two of my friends have been turned into children. If we can get back to DS9, we can hopefully resolve this... situation."
"We're friends?" A timid voice asked softly. Julian was still sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Miles, however this was the first time their gazes met.
"Of course, Julian. You, me and Kira are all friends and colleagues."
The latter rolled her eyes and looked at Julian. "I'm still calling bull, Federation boy."
"Uh, well... W-what if he showed us proof?"
Miles wanted to interrupt and remind them that he was still sitting there, but he also realized that that would only make a bad situation worse.
"Proof of what?" Kira accused. "Proof for his ridiculous time travel theory? You must be more stupid than I originally thought, Julian, and that's really saying something."
Miles coughed. "Computer, pull up records on Major Kira Nerys."
Kira visibly stiffened at the address of her full name. Her hand holding the phaser shook, but it didn't fire. Miles knew that she could shoot it, and had likely done it in the past, but he suspected she wouldn't kill him. Wouldn't be able to stomach the burden of guilt at killing a man who was possibly innocent, a man who spoke (with half lies and half truths) of a world where Bajor was free from Cardassian oppression (kind of).
So Miles O'Brien took a gamble and won the house.