Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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What even was freedom? Terok Nor was now called DS9.

Freedom?

The ninth deep space station of the Federation. The first space station of this new Bajor.

What did freedom even mean?

A symbiosis. A symbiosis of spiritualism and science. A symbiosis of ethics. A symbiosis of power and of thought. Deep Space Nine. What did freedom mean up here? How could freedom rule over these long dark corridors when everyone here made their own decisions?

Kira Nerys didn’t step foot on this wreck of a station for the first time, no, not at all. She had worked in the mines here, she had gotten intel here, she had fought for the resistance here. She had won this station back bit by bit. She did step foot on ‘Deep space nine’ for the first time. She did step foot on it in these boots for the first time. Military boots. Brand new. On her. And also a brand new military. Major Kira Nerys. Major Kira Nerys looked around. ‘Wreck of a station’ was a pretty accurate description.

They had wrecked it. They had done this, with their power, they had wrecked this station, wrecked the Cardassians, they had fought and won. They had won this station, their planet, they had won their autonomy, their freedom. Bajor’s freedom.

And now she would wait for her Starfleet Commander. Prophets, she would do no such thing! Kira Nerys would work. She would fix this station and it would be Bajor’s shining station. A free Bajor’s free space station.

Just a few aligned couplings and whatsoever away from that shining free station. Just a few bricks and shovels away from a shining Bajor. They were free. They had done it. They had done this. By themselves. Freedom. They were free now, free to rebuild, free to clean, free to repair, free to deal with all that destruction. With shovels. With bricks. With couplings, that Nerys had no idea about. With the Federation. The Federation who claimed to be a place of freedom, but what did they even know about that? They had not been slaves on their own planet. They had not fought. They had not fought alongside Bajor.

Bajorans had fought for Bajor. And Bajorans had freed Bajor. And now Bajor was free. Free. Bajor was free.

Free to deal with all that destruction. Free to deal with 50 years of terror reign and trauma. Free to persist. Free be Bajor. Free to be who even? Free to do what? What did one do after resisting? What did one do after 50 years of terror? What did one do after victory? What did one do with freedom?

Nerys yanked at a metal shield. She was going to rebuild.

***

Jadzia should have been at peace. She was Jadzia. She was herself. For now, because soon there would be a second name next to hers and she wouldn’t be herself anymore, while still being the same. Different but the same.

She should have been at peace, because she laid here waiting for the biggest award to be bestowed on any Trill. She should have been free because she had just achieved the biggest challenge a Trill could set out for themself; she had succeeded in her life’s task. She had succeeded. Her hard work was about to pay off.

She was laying on the surgery table and Dax, Curzon Dax, was laying next to her.

She should have felt free. Peaceful. Free, joyous. Free of all the work, of the pressure, of all those thoughts, of the to do’s, of the courage, of the energy and of the exhaustion. Free of tension and anxiety, free of it all. Free of being trapped by herself, by her wish for joining, free of her ambition. Because she had reached it.

This was the goal. This had been the goal. This was it, and Jadzia was jittery and nervous, internally, because externally she should not show that. She was not free to show her feelings. She was not free enough to feel her feelings. She should have been elated. She was. Kind of?

She was about to disappear and become a new person.

It was in reach. It was happening.

She’d be joined. But right now, now, she was Jadzia, only Jadzia.

She was about to die and leave the pressure behind. She was about to die in order to live her best life. But right now she lived.

Jadzia lived knowing she was about to go on. All she had to do was be here. To lay on the table and become a new person. To be free. Jadzia was free. She set herself free.

***

He had slept on a traffic station last night. That was not what they were called, of course, but that was what he used to call them, back when. Back when he was traveling with his parents. Back when he was dependent on them, because he was a small kid. Back when they called him Jules. They still did, of course, but: that was not who he was. No, he was Julian, and where he went no one would call him his old name, he would not be dependent on anyone and he would not be on the planet with the headquarters of his society that forbid the right to his very existence. To the way they had made him. But they would not be there either, and they wouldn’t even know where he was, would never find him, because where he went was into deep space.

To the front lines.
Space exploration.
A newly freed planet, in the midst of chaos.

Just like Julian was freed.

Freed from earth, free from pretending, free from all the eyes that were roaming earth, from that planet that had never been safe, not before when he was considered the bad kind of human and not after when he wasn’t considered fully human at all anymore.

Free from family, free from everyone he knew.

At the frontier. Newness. This was gonna be what he made out of it, not what his genes said.

Free.
Like Bajor.

Like Bajor he had fought his way here, okay granted not exactly the same, but getting there, getting out had certainly not been easy.

Nothing in his life had been. Just like the Bajoran’s lives among the Cardassians, or something.

Free and at the frontier to new discoveries.

Free and at chaos–because proud as he was of how he had dealt with everything the universe had thrown at him, Julian was well aware that there was so much shame. So much guilt. For just leaving earth, going to the remotest station he could find, for being who he was, what he was. There was so much fear, there was so much he couldn’t even name because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to think as much as his enhanced brain wanted to sometimes, and being busy healing the wounded at the deep space frontier would maybe stop him from doing so, would finally be enough occupation for all those neuron connections they had built into his body.

So, he had slept on a traffic station last night and now he sat on a shuttle. A shuttle that would bring him to his new home. Deep space nine. A shuttle that would bring him home–what a sentence. What a word. Home. A shuttle that would bring him to freedom. To deep-space-nine. He would be free of thinking, free of himself, of his past, of his parents, of inquisition and free of earth. And safe.

Safety and freedom. Weren’t they contradictory?
Safety and freedom. Weren’t they one and the same?
Safety and freedom–could one exist without the other?
Could either of them exist at all in this universe full of ships and thoughts and wars and ambition?

***

She was Jadzia Dax. She was Jadzia freaking Dax and she was free to do whatever the hell - whatever the fuck - she wanted.

And oh shit did she want a lot.

She wanted to spread her wings and fly. She wanted to travel space on her own, just spread her arms and lift up, she wanted to explore, to scan, to find life, to create life, to see life. She wanted to be life in every way possible. Be alive and also set others alive, find out how life works, that is what she wanted.

And she is Jadzia fucking Dax so she could do whatever the fuck she wanted to do.

Say Fuck, for example. Be life, and find out what life is, for example.

The traveling part, that she had already done and enjoyed tremendously when she was Curzon Dax. But now, she was Jadzia, not Curzon.
She was Dax, still, but she was also Jadzia, still.

Jadzia was dead and so was Curzon Dax.

She was Jadzia Dax; she was free to go wherever she wanted, far far from the eyes of the symbiosis committee who had rejected her once, and she was a scientist. She would go far away, she would be free and on her own, because she was Jadzia Dax, and she would explore and live.

***

Curzon Dax was about to leave.

He had left many places in this life; traveling as a diplomat had been his calling and he knew that no goodbye was permanent. Yet this one–no, this one still wasn’t for good, there would be zhian’taras and memories and old friends. But that would be Curzon and not fully Curzon Dax. This was a good-bye.

And it was time. Time to let go. Time to hand over the console. Time to fly without walking, to swim in the depths of this young woman’s mind, free like the ancestors of the symbiont he would no longer be, in the caves of Trill.

He had loved being the main character, that was no secret. But now it was time. He had been a protagonist for a long time, a long lifetime.

It was time to become a new person, and Curzon would go on, would be free; but Jadzia would be the main character in this new chapter of Dax, now. Jadzia, who would write a glorious chapter full of glory. Curzon was free of any more expectation, and he was free of the guilt of keeping a young, a beautiful, young woman from who she was supposed to become, of keeping himself from becoming who he was supposed to become.

It was time to be a beautiful, young woman; it was time to be a brilliant scientist.

It was time for greeting and for laying down.

“Hello, my for now young friend,” he said and lay next to his future self.

***

This was it. Well, not it. That, oh, that would come, sometime. Hopefully, it would. If she kept going. Like she had had to in order to get here, to this something, this step, this break.

This progress, that didn’t mean break, but meant ‘keep going’, meant ‘now the real work begins’.

This step, that for most of those around her was it. Jadzia sighed. She leaned against the wall of her bunk and closed her eyes. From beyond the thin wall she heard the cheers of the other cadets. They had done it: they had entered Star Fleet.

They were in. This was the start of something great.

But that was just it: it was a start, not a finish line.

Jadzia knew that it was a finish line: the one to an excruciating application process and hard training—but she also knew that the application she really wanted was bigger still, and even after all this still so far away. And yet, closer than before today—she was part of Star Fleet now, the symbiosis committee would appreciate that.

She sighed again. She was supposed to be proud of herself, she knew that. She had tried to be, she really had, but pride was hard, when she was working towards becoming joined, working towards changing her entire being. Working towards the one real goal any Trill should have.

Being Star Fleet was a plus for her candidature, to be sure.
So maybe for today she could rest. Maybe she could join the celebration next door. Maybe she should join the celebration next door—what else would she do with a free evening? What did one do when consciously taking a day off? Jadzia had absolutely no idea. And people always told her to loosen up; that, too, would be something the symbiosis committee would judge: personality, how stable she was, how she dealt in certain situations, social most of them—she really should go join that party– how calm she was, how happy she was, how easy life came to her, the way her thoughts danced and led her feelings over the floor; how free she was.

And if Jadzia had needed further proof of how very much she was not that, here it was: there was a party next door, a party that she still hadn’t joined and she sat here, on her bunk.

Instead of celebrating. Celebrating her achievement. This was an achievement and she should be able to feel free enough to appreciate it as such. She had worked under extreme self-made pressure—she had not yet achieved her end goal but she did something. She was not completely useless.

And also perhaps she would learn more about intercultural relations, that, too, would be helpful in order to be considered for joining, and this new group of Star Fleet cadets certainly was heterogeneous.

She would go over there, learn something and breathe a little. And tomorrow she would set herself a new goal, now that this one was achieved. She would need to assemble more accreditations and it needed to be something the symbiosis committee would be impressed by. Tonight she would go over to the party and she would be a very social, a very fun Trill; and tomorrow she would work on how to become a Lieutenant the fastest way.

Ensign first, but she had to think in long-shots, or she would never succeed. Lieutenant within two years, that was the new goal.

She would go over tonight, and learn how to feel proud. How to feel free. She would try, she would genuinely try to bring that freshness of freedom rolling into her chest. She would work on it.

She had not achieved her end goal yet, but she had done something. She was not completely useless.

And one day she would get there. One day, when this was all over. When she wouldn’t just be Jadzia anymore, when she had actually succeeded. Then she would be able to feel this.

One day. One day she would be free. She just had to believe that. Have faith in the future.

Was freedom the future? Was having a future to look to freedom?

Or was it that faith? Did the faith in a free future mean true freedom? Even despite the weight still pulling and pushing? Pulling and pushing toward that future, toward true, earned, deserved freedom?

Chapter Text

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Kira’s hand was soft. The tissue was soft. Jadzia breathed–through her nose, literally. Soon, soon her spots would be able to breathe again, too. They had done it, they had saved the day and the planet; Bajor would be free, Kira’s home would be free.
And soon Jadzia would be free of Bajor. Not of Bajor per se of course, no, she wouldn’t want that! She lived on a Bajoran Space Station. Kira was Bajoran. No, she wouldn’t rid her life of Bajor, but she would rid her body of it and her Trill spots would breathe. Kira would get rid of the make-up and the prosthetics for her with that soft tissue in her hand.

Jadzia inhaled again. She closed her eyes.

Soft.

They had done it. They had gotten it done peacefully–more or less. They had uncovered the conspiracy and convinced even the most gullible ministers. They had succeeded and Bajor would stay free.

Kira would stay free.

Jadzia’s life on ds9 would stay free.

For now, though, her arms would be freed of the vedek’s costumes–religious garbs, really! Never in all her seven lives had she thought she would let herself be seen in those in public! But it had been the only way, and admittedly it had been fun, plus her religion meant a lot to Kira, so, Jadzia tried to be more open–her spots being free of the make-up and her nose… Kira had said it was flattering. Jadzia had said, she’d think about keeping it. She was certainly not keeping it, and Kira knew that. It had been a joke. A friendly quib. It had been a bit of fun in a rough situation and it had been a moment just between her and Kira.

Jadzia liked that: moments between her and Kira, yes, but mostly: the fun; the bringing light into darkness, the freedom, the safety with another person to joke, to say, “I am thinking of keeping it.” She also liked being told, “It’s flattering.” She really did like that.

And she liked how her spots felt as air was brushing them. A mild breeze on a station without an atmosphere. She was in her own skin and she was home.

***

Li Nalas was free. Freed from the labor camp. Freed from Cardassia. Freed by a fierce, by a courageous woman: Kira Nerys had freed him.

Had freed him to trap him in worship. Freed from the Cardassian labor camp to be trapped on Bajor, to be trapped in expectation, to be trapped in Li Nalas.

Freed to be trapped to be a war hero.

He had done what Bajor needed for so long. He wasn’t a great warrior and he abhorred the lie, but he had allowed himself to be a slave to his reputation all these years, now it was enough.

That was what he had said to Commander Sisko.

A Star Fleet Commander. They had no idea what it was like, these Star Fleet Commanders. They liked calling themselves heroes not knowing what a real hero was, not knowing what being known as one was like. The responsibility, that came with it. They had no idea, these Star Fleet Commanders.

Commander Sisko did seem to understand a little–he had to if he was chosen by the Prophets.

“Bajor doesn’t need a man, it needs a symbol,” he had said. And looked at Li. Li was supposed to be that symbol. He was not supposed to be a man, was not supposed to be himself. Not supposed to be free. That was who, that was what Kira had freed: a symbol. For Bajor.

“They look at you and they see strength and honor and decency. They look at you and they see themselves.”

“But they see a lie.”

“No, they see a legend. Bajor still needs that legend. It needs you.”

Great. Now he was supposed to be a legend. Nothing easier than that, a living legend. A leader once again, to give hope to the hopeless, to give hope when he had none left. To trap himself in order to give freedom to his people. Because they needed hope. Because they needed freedom. Because they needed hope in order to free themselves. Because Bajor needed him.

And because he would live in his role, live in his labour until the day he died. Until the day he was freed. For Bajor.

***

Li Nalas was dead.
He had died.
He had died.
Dead.
Another death.
Another death for Bajor.
Another death for Bajoran freedom.
Another death on behalf of Cardassian involvement in her home.
Another death Kira was responsible for.
Another death Kira had to mourn.
Another death Bajor had to mourn.
Another death.
Li Nalas was dead.
Dead.
Not just any death.
Not just a man–a great man!-- had died today, but a piece of the resistance.
A piece of hope, a symbol as large as Li’s home planet.
A piece of freedom.

Li Nalas was Bajor’s freedom. Had been Bajor’s freedom. Li Nalas was dead. Another hero had died.

Kira’s hero had died and Kira was still here and tomorrow she would fight on but for today she had excused herself.

She could not take Sisko’s optimist talk, not when Li Nalas, not when Bajor’s biggest freedom fighter had died.

“Bajor has many heroes,” he had said. “I am sitting with one right now.”

Clearly he still didn’t understand. Clearly, he had no idea what Bajor had lost today. Clearly he had no idea of the legend, the symbol, the symbol of strength, of honor, of decency, of Bajor, that had died today.

Clearly he still had no idea what its freedom had cost Bajor. Clearly he still had no idea what its freedom was costing Bajor today and everyday.

Kira didn’t know if he was ever going to understand. Especially if he called her a hero now. She was a fighter. She had fought well. But she was not like Li.
Not freedom personified.

And Sisko didn’t understand. Must be nice. Not to know, not to have to know.

Chapter Text

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Kira had slept. Kira had slept. And slept. Kira slept most nights now.

This night she had slept.

She had slept and slept and still slept when morning came.

This morning Kira had slept. This morning the computer had not told her the time to get on her uniform, no, this morning the computer had told her to wake up. Because Kira had slept.

She had slept when she went to bed yesterday, and she had slept while in Dahkur province it was time for daily soil controls. In her bed on her space station she had slept in the evening and at night, when it was day in her home, she had slept when others were working, she had slept even when the artificial night came to an end.

She had slept and slept all morning, and only awoken from the computer’s call at 5am, telling her to get out, get to work, get out of bed, stop sleeping.
Because Kira had slept. Kira had slept all night. And now, as she put her uniform on, she felt weird. This was not normal, to sleep that much, all night. Not normal to not wake up, not normal to be this calm for this long, not normal for her body to have felt safe enough to not wake her in appropriate intervals for check-ins.

Not normal.

Not normal that she relied on a machine to wake her up in the morning, because she was asleep, to tell her to get to work. To tell her there was more to fight through. Only that it was work, and not a fight. There were fights in the sector still, yes, and verbal fights with the ministers, and Kira fought with her patience every day, but it wasn’t fighting for survival anymore. She was working. On a space station along the Federation.

She was free from fighting for her life, and apparently her body was too, not waking her.

Her body seemed to have forgotten where it came from. What it went through.

Her body seemed to have forgotten who she was.

And Kira didn’t know how she liked that. Not much. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t proper, not when the fight continued, not when there was so much work to do yet, to assure Bajor’s future. No, it was not right. But it had happened.

And now she would step out of her giant quarters and pretend that it was all fine.

***

Today Kira was sitting at the replimat.

Kira was sitting at the replimat.

Just like that for no reason. Sitting. Doing nothing. Well, sitting, and drinking some weird earth beverage. That counted as ‘doing’ these days.

Just sitting and drinking. For no reason. Doing things without reason, who was she, Jadzia?

She smiled. She smiled! Just like that.

It felt easier. Lighter.

She had always smiled, you don’t survive the caves without humor, but now it just happened like that. Like that. Without reason. Kira smiled by herself without any reason for it, her face just did.

Doing things without reason. Smiling without reason. And why not. Why shouldn’t she? She certainly was not Jadzia, she didn’t want to be her, being with her was better than she could have anticipated. But she shared a life with her and why shouldn’t she be a tiny bit like her?

Kira was a high ranking officer in the militia, stationed on a well running space station, off-duty, why shouldn’t she sit here and smile at the thought of sitting and smiling. It felt nice. Weird, but nice.

So weird-nice that she almost slapped her combadge and said,”Kira to Dax.”

Almost so weird-nice that she said, “Kira to Dax. I am smiling. I am sitting here and smiling and I wanted to tell you.” So very weird-nice. This must be it. This must be the freedom we dreamed about, she thought.

Jadzia was still on duty, so she wouldn’t. But she might tell her tonight when they would sit together, also without any reason, other than that being with Jadzia was good.

***

Nerys said no, when Jadzia tried to get drunk on her favorite springwine. Obviously springwine was nice, and being drunk could be nice, but that wasn’t all there was to it, was it?

“Not too much,” she said.

“Ohhh, why won’t you? Let’s have some fun!”

“We are already having fun,“ Nerys replied. Fun was important, and nice, of course. It was best to have fun in a way that would be enough for morale for the next few weeks, but not too much to distract everyone. Fun was nice–but one shouldn’t exaggerate.

“Exactly, so don’t leave now, Neryyyys come on!“ Jadzia was already a tiny bit drunk. Nerys had drunk some springwine as well, but someone should stay level headed in this room. Someone should keep guard.

“I’m not leaving, I am just saying: let’s ration the wine. You are the super smart scientist, you should know: too much wine results in unfitness tomorrow.“

“So what, a little hangover! You are off duty tomorrow, are you not?”

Nerys almost scoffed. But then she stopped. “Off duty,” she whispered.

“No work for you tomorrow!”

Off duty meant no work. DS9 meant no need to run, to hide, to be vigilant on a day without work. Off-duty meant she would drink wine tonight and more wine if she wanted to. Being free meant getting drunk with her colleague, friend, lover. Being free meant not caring about tomorrow.

Being free was being now.

Chapter Text

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“What is science for?” Jadzia asked.

“What is freedom?” Kira asked.

“Why do you do what you do?” Julian heard in their questions. “Who are you?”

‘To help people’ was the wrong answer, he knew that; It was the first advice any recently graduated physician got for their job interviews–never say you want to help people, it seems naive. But he had helped people today.

It had felt good. It did feel good. He had actually done something useful. Not because of his intellect but because of his persistence.

His persistence, not some trait his parents had added to his chromosomes–he had read the reports; he was aware of what had been changed within him. What was him and what was also him, but fake-him. He was aware of his changed genetics. And now he knew that he was more than that. He had stayed. And he had made a difference. He had helped people and it had felt good.

Had he done it for them or for himself? Did it matter? Certainly it did.

“How do you think you helped them tonight?” Jadzia asked.

“How do you think they wanted you to help them?” Kira asked.

Julian froze. How. That was not a question he asked himself often–outside of ‘how to I cure this or that disease’.

“Why did you help?”

“Because!” He answered out loud.

‘Not good enough,’ the voices in his head whispered. “Because I could,” he said.

“You could. You wanted to,” Kira said.

“They needed me!”

It felt good. It had felt good.

“They needed me,” Julian repeated.

“But why, Julian, why?” Jadzia asked.

“Because I could help them,” Julian answered.

“But how, Julian, how?” Kira asked.

Julian looked at them. Looked around the shuttle. “By helping them,” he whispered.

“Did you?” Kira asked. It could have been mean, in that way Kira sometimes was–it was sharp. But she looked at him as if she was helping him now. He just didn’t know with what. He just didn’t know how she was helping him, because he didn’t know how he had helped the people down on the planet beneath them.

Beneath them. He looked at Kira. Kira nodded.

“You say, they needed help. You say, they needed your help. You say what help they needed, you say how to help, why to help and then you go and you do the helping,” she said.

Julian nodded. He had done that. He had seen the need and he had acted.

“Sometimes, no, often, people know what they need. And even more often, they know what they want.”

“I know some of them were against my plans, but they were dying! You should have seen that guy, he basically killed them!”

“Did he, now?” Jadzia asked.

“He did! He gave them food and drinks and drugged them to leave them to die!”

“So he killed them?” Jadzia asked. Julian looked at her. “Or did he let the Blight take its way, because he couldn’t fight it? Did he give them a beautiful goodbye?”

“Did he give them a choice? Did he free them of their pain? Of their nausea? Did he give them their appetite back? Did he free them?” Kira asked.

“Well…,” Julian said. “Yes. But I could fight the Blight. I did! And isn’t that better? Shouldn’t we strive for the best possible outcome? Shouldn’t we strive for survival?”

“Shouldn’t we strive for the freedom of choice?”

“Shouldn’t we let each people decide for themselves how they treat their bodies, how they leave their lives?”

“They were dying! And now they don’t have to!”

“Their children won’t die from the Blight. They might die from other diseases. They themselves will still die from the Blight,” Jadzia said.

“And yes, most would agree, that their children having the chance to grow old enough to develop other diseases to die from is a wonderful thing,” Kira took over. “But just because most agree that you need a haircut, doesn’t mean I will replicate a pair of scissors now.”

“She is good at cutting hair. She learned in the resistance, when they didn’t have hairdressers,” Jadzia said.

“Because I chose to fight. I chose. Because I freed my people. I freed myself. Bajor helped itself. Because it chose to.”

“But these people couldn’t help themselves,” Julian said. Asked. Knew, but didn’t know anymore.

“I said random things about antibodies and antigens all the time I was down there, like creating an antigen, and in the end it accidentally made kind of sense because it turned out to be a vaccine, but before it didn’t and it wasn’t my intention. I just knew that they wouldn’t know anything about viruses anyway so I just kept talking. About antibodies. And antigens. Even though it didn’t make sense. Because they didn’t notice, because they didn’t know. I didn’t know either, but I knew I could help, I wanted to help, I wanted them to let me help, so I said antibody and antigen and it sounded good to them, who had no idea. And they let me help.”

“You wanted them to let you help. Because you wanted to help,” Jadzia repeated. “So you used random words to sound more knowledgeable.”

“More powerful,” Kira specified.

“You were the powerful one in this situation and you used that power to decide what was best for an entire race of people, despite them not wanting you to. You were lucky it was an antigen you found in the end. At least you didn’t deprive them of their own ways, of their way of caring, of their tender goodbyes and their acceptance for nothing.”

“I didn’t..,” Julian started to protest. Then he stopped. He thought. He looked at Jadzia. He looked at Kira.

“Power,” he said.

“Choice,” Jadzia said.

“Freedom,” Kira said.

“Tenderness.” Julian said. “Caring.”

“Goodbye,” Jadzia said.

“Not fighting, when there is no victory in sight. Acceptance,” Kira said.

“Acceptance and turning the fight around. Fighting, always fighting for what you can fight for. Fight for the ability to tolerate the pain. Fight to be yourself, when your life collapses around you. Fight to be as free as you can when you have reached the battle's end.”

“Being cared for. Being the most comfortable you can when your body cannot keep you alive any longer,” Julian said.

Silence.

“To help,” Julian added.

Kira and Jadzia smiled at him. Julian smiled back. “Freedom,” he said.