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“I thought about having my own, you know,” Nerys says, watching fondly as the little one tears into the plate of cookies she put out when they arrived — homemade, but not by her, she’d noted wryly as she set the plate down, picked up from her last trip to the surface. “After Yoshi was born.”
“What’s stopping you?”
She turns towards Julian, incredulous, only to find him looking at her with a perfectly serious expression on his face.
“Why not?” he asks, shrugging. “If Garak and I can manage, surely you can handle it.”
Seated on the couch across from them, Garak clears his throat pointedly, not taking his eyes away from the small piece of fabric in front of him — a new playsuit for the little one, he’d informed Nerys when he procured it upon taking a seat, insisting that he’d just work quietly while Julian and Nerys caught up. ‘Quietly’ isn’t exactly how Nerys would describe his work: so far he’s had a wordless exclamation to contribute to every topic the two of them have covered, although he has yet to actually look up and join the conversation properly.
Julian rolls his eyes, the fondness in his expression unmistakable.
“If you have something to add, by all means chime in,” he says dryly, obviously fighting a smile.
“I wouldn’t dare interrupt,” Garak says, voice mild.
“No, of course not,” Julian says, faux-placating. Nerys’ eyes dart back and forth between them, amused.
“He’s better at it than me, actually,” Julian admits in a low tone, turning his focus back to Nerys. He’s lost the battle against his sappy smile; it’s an expression more suited to a teenager than a man nearing his forties, much less a man nearing his forties with a long-term live-in partner and an unexpectedly acquired baby.
Nerys snorts, but she is happy for him. He was a mess at the end of the war, permanent dark circles under his eyes and a constant aura of misery floating about him. Even Ezri’s presence hadn’t lessened it, which had made a lot more sense after they’d abruptly parted ways: Ezri back to San Francisco, ready to switch to the command track, and Julian out of Starfleet completely, on a civilian humanitarian aid mission to Cardassia.
They’re friends again now, apparently, although Nerys has yet to see them in the same place at the same time.
“I think you’re doing fine,” she says, turning her attention back to their conversation. Surprisingly, she isn’t lying; she’s only seen him with the baby for less than an hour, but there’s an ease to his manner that she wouldn’t have expected. She never would have thought she’d see Julian, of all people, comfortably caring for a child, but she supposes everyone has to grow up some time.
She never would have thought she’d consider him a friend, either, but by now it’s been over ten years. On the day they met she didn’t think he’d last the week.
“And you’d do fine as well,” Julian says, smoothly course-correcting back to his original point. “Better, I imagine.”
Nerys casts her gaze over at Garak, waiting for the lightly barbed hum, but this time Garak doesn’t make any sound at all. Instead he raises his head from the brightly coloured fabric of the playsuit, meeting Nerys’ eyes directly. When he dips his head in a nod of acknowledgment Nerys’ breath catches.
She looks away, lips pressing together.
“It’s all hypothetical anyway,” she says, once she trusts herself to speak.
Julian opens his mouth, no doubt to disagree, but before he can get the words out Garak interrupts smoothly.
“Of course,” he says, nodding again. “Although it must be said, Commander, that you never know when a surprise will fall into your lap.”
“What, as in a baby?” Nerys laughs in disbelief. “That would be an awfully big surprise, Garak.”
He only shrugs, turning back to his stitching.
“Stranger things have happened,” he says lightly.
Much as she wants to, Nerys can’t quite deny that — she’s witnessed stranger things herself, over the past decade. Between a baby appearing out of nowhere and a Cardassian making himself comfortable in her living room, the Nerys of ten years ago would have thought the first more likely by far.
A thumping sound distracts her from her thoughts, and Nerys looks over to find the little one has tugged a pillow to the floor, having eaten his share of cookies and lost interest in the plate.
“Sorry,” Julian apologizes, but Nerys waves a hand. It’s only a pillow, and she made sure to stow anything fragile before they arrived.
“He’s not doing any harm,” she says. The boy turns towards them, apparently sensing that they’re talking about him, and she watches, amused, as he toddles in their direction, ramming himself straight into Julian’s knees in the process. Julian laughs and reaches down to haul him up, casting a wry glance over at Nerys.
“He’s better at starting than he is at stopping,” he comments, wrinkling his nose and trying to dodge as the little one slaps at his cheeks.
“He’ll get there,” Nerys says fondly. She’s mesmerized by the movement of the boy’s tiny hands: clumsy and awkward, but still using all his force.
“Would you like to say hello to your aunt?” Julian asks quietly, nodding towards Nerys with a smile. Nerys watches, hardly able to believe it, as the boy twists in Julian’s lap to stretch toward her, until her body catches up with what’s happening and she reaches to get her hands under his armpits. He’s heavy, as all babies are, a solid weight as she settles him in her lap. He squirms a bit, already too big to sit still for very long, until she holds her small hands in his and claps them together, a rhythmic pattern that he’s eager to join.
Nerys wonders if he’d let her read him a book, like she used to do with Yoshi. Maybe he’d be content to sit still, then. Yoshi always was.
“You’re good with him,” Garak comments mildly. Nerys’ cheeks flush, humiliatingly, but when she looks up Garak’s simply smiling at her, no guile at all that she can see.
“He’s easy to be good with,” she responds, pressing a kiss to the baby’s soft hair. At the sensation he tilts his head back curiously, peering up her. He’s still at the age where his speech is mostly incomprehensible syllables, soft chirps that can’t be picked up by the translator, but she could swear he’s trying for her name. She laughs, letting go of one of his hands to thumb first at his ridged chin, and then his soft cheek.
“We should have visited earlier,” Julian says apologetically, watching as Nerys takes the baby’s hand in her own again. He resists clapping this time, but takes enthusiastically to waving.
“You were busy,” Nerys says. “You have your own lives.”
Julian doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and he’s saved from the attempt by the doors sliding open, Odo stopping short as soon as he’s over the threshold.
“Oh,” he says, holding himself still. Nerys grins at him, aiming the baby’s waving hands in his direction. Odo, through visible discomfort, waves back.
“You forgot, didn’t you,” she says, laughing as the baby tries to push himself up on socked feet, careless that he’s standing on her thighs rather than the ground. “Oop,” she laughs, taking more of the baby’s weight as one foot slides down her thigh to the couch, sinking into the soft fabric.
“I didn’t … forget,” Odo says, walking stiffly into the living room and, after some deliberation, perching himself next to Garak on the other couch. Garak’s eyes widen in exaggeratedly startled delight. Odo notices, and looks even more uncomfortable.
The baby lets out a string of incomprehensible syllables, directly into Nerys’ ear.
“Well!” Julian says brightly, beaming around at all of them. “Who’s ready for lunch?”
+++
Lunch runs long: the four of them sit around the table to talk long after the meal’s been finished, trading the little one between laps when he gets bored and starts to squirm. He seems to like Odo best, which Nerys can’t help but find amusing. He even pronounces Odo’s name without difficulty, to her delighted surprise.
“Well, of course he does,” Odo says stiffly, although it must be noted that he’s offered his hand for the boy to play with as he wishes, and Nerys doesn’t think she’s imaging a certain… elasticity to Odo’s fingers as the baby pulls and tugs. “It’s a Cardassian name, after all.”
“Is it?” Nerys hadn’t realized — she should have, she supposes, but for some reason she just never considered it. She glances over at their companions and finds Julian leaning in, openly curious, while a small, unreadable smile plays at the corners of Garak’s mouth.
“It was my … specimen label.” Odo doesn’t look at any of them as he speaks, focused only on the little one. His fingers are definitely stretching, Nerys notes distractedly. The baby clearly finds the phenomenon captivating. “Odo Ital. Nothing.”
He coughs out a stiff almost-laugh after he speaks, but Nerys doesn’t join in. She only stares at him, unsure how to respond.
“Fascinating,” Garak says lightly, although he had to have known, or at least guessed: it’s his own language. Julian hasn’t said anything at all, wide eyes merely darting between the rest of them, as though waiting for a reaction he can follow.
“Typical,” Nerys scoffs, dredging up her mostly-dormant resentment towards the Cardassians as a whole on his behalf. It is, as always, easier to feel anger than anything else. Ezri had her working on it, back when she was still on the station, and Nerys did get better about it, generally, but right now she doesn’t feel like holding back on the instinct.
Odo merely inclines his head. The baby has stuck one of his fingers in his mouth, taking an experimental bite. Julian winces when he notices; Odo shows no sign of discomfort.
“Well, obviously you aren’t nothing,” Nerys says after a moment, when no one else has offered anything to break the silence at the table.
Odo nods again, a small smile on his face.
“Obviously not,” he agrees.
The baby sinks his teeth in again, this time with significantly more force.
“That’s quite enough of that, darling,” Julian says hastily, pushing his chair back to stretch over and retrieve his son. “He really does know better,” he assures the table at large, although the expression on Garak’s face says otherwise.
“He’s fine,” Nerys says, distracted again by the baby’s round cheeks, his flailing chubby hands. She reaches out without thinking, offering her own finger to replace Odo’s. It’s less fascinating, unable to stretch and bend to the baby’s will, but he seems content with it nonetheless.
The rest of the room seems to fade away, and Nerys can’t help but wonder.
+++
“It really doesn’t bother you?” Nerys asks later, when it’s the two of them again. The plates have all been cleared and she’s perched herself on the table with one socked foot on the edge, her cheek propped up on her knee. “The name thing.”
“Not anymore,” Odo says with a shrug, leaned against the counter opposite her.
“You could change it. Take mine, if you wanted.”
“Is that what you want?”
Nerys laughs.
“It’s about what you want,” she says, stretching out her free leg to try to poke at him. She can’t quite make it; he grabs her foot instead, thumb rubbing along her instep before letting her go. “It’s your name,” she reminds him.
Odo holds himself still, considering it. Not much shows on his face — it never does — but Nerys knows him well enough to know he isn’t upset. She can always see it in the set of his shoulders.
Finally, he shakes his head.
“When you think of me, what name comes to mind?”
“Odo,” Nerys admits. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t — ”
Odo shakes his head before she’s finished the sentence, gently cutting her off.
“It’s how you think of me,” he says simply. “So it’s my name.”
Nerys looks at him for a long time, parsing that, and then she nods, slowly.
“It’s your name,” she agrees. Odo smiles, small but real. She stretches her foot out again, just so he’ll grab it. He does, of course, reliable as ever.
“The new First Minister is planning an orphanage tour soon,” she says after a moment. “I was thinking I’d ask to go along.”
“Oh?”
He doesn’t seem particularly surprised, Nerys can’t help but note. If anything, she’d almost think he saw it coming.
Apparently she was even less subtle than she thought.
“There are a lot of kids who need homes,” she says carefully, eyes on the smooth planes of his face. Her heart is beating faster, she realizes belatedly, almost like she’s afraid. How bizarre. She takes a deep breath before she continues. “We don’t have to decide right away, I just thought — we have a home.”
“We do,” Odo agrees, and for once Nerys can’t really tell what he’s thinking. It feels humiliating to ask directly, and she’s humiliated by her own humiliation. Surely she’s braver than that.
But before she can say anything Odo squeezes her foot, smiling in his dry, funny way.
“I suppose I’d better work on my impressions, then,” is all he says, but it’s enough: Nerys recognizes the agreement hidden in his words.
“What’s that Earth animal Yoshi loves so much?” she teases him, grinning with relief.
“The manatee,” Odo sighs, world-weary, and Nerys’ smile bubbles up into a laugh.
“You’ll do great,” she promises him. Odo sighs again, put-upon and entirely false. He’s let Nerys’ foot go again, but in doing so moved close enough that she can touch him for real. She straightens on the table, letting her other foot drop. “You’ll do great,” she says again, a whisper this time, reaching for his hand. He tugs her to her feet, gently, a serious expression on his face as he leans down to drop a kiss on his forehead.
“So will you.”