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Jadzia wakes up, and her head throbs. There’s a figure beside her, curled up under a thin lilac sheet, and this is in when it hits her; she’s not in bed with Worf. She’s not even in the bed she shares with Worf, in their shared quarters. The figure is small, elfin; how many times has she ended up in this bed in the past, giggling or crying or yelling about some deranged thing Dukat’s done now?
Nerys. She moves the covers off of the other woman’s head, and Nerys groans, apparently equally hungover. Her red hair is curly in an utterly mussed way, and there’s a shimmer of drool coming off of the right corner of her mouth. “Good morning?” she guesses.
“What did we do last night?”
Nerys turns to look at Jadzia, before her eyes go wide with a little bit of horror. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
Nerys reaches up and tugs at something on Jadzia’s ear, and it is then she realizes her ear bears an earring… an earring customary with those worn on Bajor. “That’s a… ceremonial clasp on this thing. Can I…?”
Jadzia nods, and feels Nerys undo the earring clasp, and take it off of her ear. She inspects it, peering at it, before clenching it into her hand.
“This is… ridiculous. Ridiculous. I’m never going to one of Rom and Leeta’s parties again. Prophets!”
Jadzia stretches where she lies, not really on edge, not yet. “It can’t be that bad.”
“We’re married, Jadzia.”
Jadzia laughs at that, over the top. “Ridiculous! Rom’s not that convincing.”
“This a Bajoran fidelity clasp, commonly used in weddings.”
“I’m married to Worf, Nerys—”
“Where is Worf?”
The memories of the previous night are hazy, but Jadzia vaguely remembers Worf and …Garak, of all the people, laughing over some exotic Cardassian liquor, or rather, laughing due to the exotic liquor. Jadzia had encouraged him to talk to the tailor, who’d been in a mood ever since Tora Ziyal’s tragic death, and Julian’s recent grouchiness. They’d been thrown together in that prison camp, after all. ‘You two must have something you can talk about,’ she’d insisted, before shoving Worf over to where Garak was eyeing Rom’s stash of old, vintage alien liquors.
Nerys seems to remember something chilling, because she makes a startled sound. “Not… Elim… oh, Prophets.”
“I don’t think the Prophets would reign over that particular relationship—”
“Why are you so… casual about all this?”
Jadzia shrugs. Accidental, drunken marriages are old school for Dax. “Curzon once got married to Admiral Uhura in Las Vegas. Admiral Sulu had to get it annulled. Chekov wouldn’t stop laughing and muttering in old Russian proverbs about it.”
“Who?” Nerys’s now up and pacing, in her undershirt and uniform trousers.
“At least we didn’t have sex in that state.”
Nerys winces, moving aside one of the straps of her undershirt, revealing a purple mark. “I think we passed out before we could get that far.”
“Oh well. We’ve done it before,” Jadzia giggles.
The shorter woman puts her hands on her hips, brow furrowed, nose wrinkles more prominent, before digging through the pile of their discarded clothes from last night to find her combadge. She presses it. “Major Kira to Lieutenant Commander Worf.”
They get their answer to their concerns in the form of the dulcet tones of one Elim Garak. “I’m afraid he’s rather preoccupied, Major—”
“Garak, put my husband on, now,” Jadzia says, a little menacingly, but only a little menacingly.
“Jadzia, I am fine, but something has… happened,” Worf can be heard huffing in the background.
“Let me guess. You’re now beholden to donate spousal benefits to the Obsidian Order’s retirement fund.”
Garak snorts over the comm. “Nonsense, Lieutenant Commander Dax. You don’t retire from the Obsidian Order.”
“What does that mean about your status with them, Garak?” Nerys sounds actually menacing.
Garak gives one of his short, barking laughs. “I was discharged, Major.”
They meet up at Quark’s, where Leeta squeals as soon as she sees them, hugging and kissing Jadzia and Nerys, before hugging Worf and accepting a shook hand from Garak. “Congratulations,” she squeals.
“Leeta, honey,” Nerys sighs. “This isn’t going to stick.”
“But you were all so happy last night.”
“I seem to remember drinking most of an old bottle of kanar, very fine vintage, and that always puts me in a good mood,” Garak groans.
“Tell me these marriages weren’t officiated by a member of Starfleet,” Jadzia sighs, rubbing her neck, feeling the slight bumps of her spots.
Leeta looks utterly disappointed. “They’re only sacred in the eyes of the Prophets, I guess. We didn’t swear to any Klingon gods, either.”
Nerys slumps. “So I have to abide by these vows?”
“Well, technically… it’s old Bajoran theology, but wedding vows whilst intoxicated are invalidated automatically,” Rom pipes up from behind the bar.
They all stare at him for a moment, before turning back to Leeta. “What exactly was your plan?” Nerys sounds more amused than frustrated, and Jadzia can tell from how the arch in her back is going down, her hackles have decreased as well.
“I just thought… Jadzia and Worf seem so happy, and you’ve been so down about uh… the Constable, and you’ve been so down about—” Garak gives an imposing cough, and Leeta nervously chuckles, “—the medical establishment… I just thought Jadzia and Worf wouldn’t mind sharing!”
“Leeta!” Jadzia exclaims, more amused than anything else, while Worf responds with “The very idea!”
“Alright, so it was one of my daffier ideas. Quark says my schemes’ll get me in trouble someday.”
Jadzia makes eye contact with Nerys, who just looks sad, before wiping away the melancholy in her eyes, and Garak after that, who’s gone very still and wide-eyed.
“They might get you in trouble someday, but today is not that day,” Worf sighs. Jadzia knows he’ll rant about Leeta and Rom later that night, as they go to bed, but he’ll still go to their next party, no matter what.
Jadzia walks Nerys back to her quarters, while Worf goes to report to Sisko on the shenanigans. “It seems everyone knows I’m mooning over Odo,” Nerys mutters.
“Only because he’s made such a business of mooning over you for the past seven years or longer,” Jadzia says, trying to make it amusing. “I can’t blame him. It was nice being married to you.”
“For less than 24 hours?”
“Your feet get warm at night. Warmer than Worf’s, which is much to say about a Klingon.”
“Bajorans have good circulation. Especially after being pregnant.”
“When Miles hears about this…”
“He’ll invite Worf and Garak to his and Julian’s silly holosuite wars? Brothers and bedfellows in arms and all that?”
“Exactly. And we can whisk Keiko away and have a ladies’ night.” Jadzia feels conspiratorial, and Nerys looks a little uplifted; moreso than before. “Nerys. Look at me. Odo’s his own mess of problems. You are… a wonderful woman, an even better wife—” Nerys rolls her eyes, “…and a magnificent drinking partner. Do you want me to help tidy up your quarters?”
Nerys nods, and they spend the afternoon cleaning up the mess from the night before.
Jadzia arrives at her quarters around the same time as Worf, who looks sheepish. “I should not have gotten so drunk last night.”
“Garak’s that bad in bed?”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Worf rumbles. “He was out before we got through the door of his quarters.”
Jadzia kisses Worf before they enter their quarters and pats him on the bum as he takes off his uniform jacket. “So you were a perfect gentleman.”
“Until he woke up screaming from a nightmare.”
“Tell me you were nice to him, at least?”
“I gave him a cold compress and a cup of tea. From the replicator, but still.”
“I’m sure he appreciated that.”
Once they settle down for bed, Jadzia begins to speculate while she puts lotion on her spots. “What if we… opened up our marriage? Not to Garak, but to Nerys. Or… I don’t know. Some of my old friends.”
Worf looks concerned. “Am I not enough for you, my love?”
“No, that’s not it. I just think we have enough love to share with those who don’t get enough of it.”
“That is very generous of you.”
“You’ll think about it?”
“I do not like to share.”
Jadzia tilts her head back and laughs at how… perfunctory Worf can be. He looks offended, and she just rubs her lotion on his strong upper arms, and he winces, but she knows he’s in love with her, no matter what. He chuckles back at her, burying his nose in her hair.
“You are a wild woman.”
“Dax is wild. I think you’d be surprised by how… tame Jadzia could be.” There was a time, once, when Jadzia had turned down a proposal from a young woman with bright eyes, insisting that she had to stay single and focused on her goal of getting the symbiont.
And now Dax was Jadzia, and Jadzia was Dax, and she wished she hadn’t wasted so much time.
But as Worf snores beside her, much as Nerys had the previous night, toes warm against her cool legs, she wonders if her time wasn’t wasted at all, but just time in… waiting.