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Kasidy Yates was born in the Rigella IV colony, in the beautiful mountain ranges of the east province where at least one of the three suns is visible from 0100 hours all the way until 2850, painting the sky with different shades of pink and purple but only plunging it into blackness for about seventy minutes of every day. When she had first started her business it had sometimes felt like the constant inky black outside the windows of her ship was getting in – inside her little freighter, inside her skin. There were times when she had wondered if she'd made a terrible mistake and why a woman who adored light and wide-ranging movement would ever have thought that a life of containment and darkness could be tolerable. But then she had learned to move with her ship instead of just inside it. She had come to love the tiny pricks of starlight against the blackness with the same passion she had once reserved for those bright triplets of her youth. More than adapting, more than even thriving - she had taken the the vastness and the darkness and built herself a home there.
Now, she must do it again. And it is taking far longer than she anticipated.
She sighs as she takes out the teacups, ensuring that each one is free of fingerprints before carrying it to the table. They drink a lot of tea, the Bajorans. Which is not to say that she couldn't get coffee if she wanted it; this is a Federation planet now and she can have anything she likes to drink. Even that thick heavy Klingon coffee, Raktajino, is popular in the major cities. But here in the countryside Kasidy's neighbors all drink tea. And, in a rather pointless attempt to fit in, so does she.
Bonnie loves the tea. She gulps down a mug of it with her morning hasparat and pours another into her traveltherm before she goes to school. She and her friends often stop at a teahouse on their way home and she keeps the kettle boiling constantly as she does her homework: Bajoran literature, Bajoran history. She drinks it like a Bajoran as well, adding half a spoon of lokurt juice to sweeten it, inhaling the fragrance of the steam, closing her eyes at the first sip. Sometimes, watching her daughter drink, Kasidy forgets that she is a human girl.
The sound of the doorbell shakes Kasidy from her musings and that's probably a good thing. A slave to old habits, she calls out for her guest to enter and then remembers that she's not on a ship or a space station and the door isn't automated. Chiding herself, she goes to let Keiko in.
The two of them embrace warmly. They hadn't been close all those years ago on Deep Space Nine. It had been their husbands who were friends. But time and circumstances change all things and Kasidy is entirely delighted to see Keiko now.
They settle in with the tea and some snacks. Keiko remarks how much she's missed the Bajoran blends on Earth so maybe Kasidy will get used to the stuff in time. They chat idly for a few minutes. The weather has been pleasant, both here and on Earth. Miles and Molly are well, although the young woman needs to take Starfleet exams and her father needs to supervise them so neither of them could make this trip. Keiko carefully does not ask about Kasidy's own husband and Kasidy is grateful for that. It has been more than fifteen years and still the hope in people's eyes strikes her to her core. Living here, it is impossible to ignore the absence of the man she'd had for such a short time; the Bajorans' attachment to their Emissary seems to grow deeper with every passing day. Sometimes it is hard to keep her temper in check. If there were to be any hint of Ben, of course she would inform both the Bajoran government and Starfleet. And yes, she would definitely notice.
She still watches for signs every day.
She wishes she could return the favor and avoid uncomfortable topics but there is no sense in pretending not to see the elephant in the room. After all, it is what has brought Keiko back after all these years. It is behind her paleness, her pinched lips, the faint red tinge in her eyes. So Kasidy picks her words carefully after refilling their cups. "The ceremony was beautiful."
Keiko's hand trembles slightly. "You watched it?"
Kasidy shrugs, half an apology. "It was all over the news."
"Ah."
It always is. It is a feature of this world where faith is so much a part of daily life. Every year the entrance of the novitiate Vedeks into their temples is broadcast live, with commentary dominating the news cycle for days. The wave of brightly colored robes is like a sparkling river flowing through the temple doors. Birds hatch from their eggs, green shoots break through the melting snow in the northern provinces and the heart of the Bajoran faith draws in fresh new lifeblood. It's beautiful, in a way. Coming from a secular colony, Kasidy hadn't been prepared for that.
That's what it's normally like but this year had been different. This year had been a tsunami; the excitement of it had swept across the whole planet like a frantic storm. Kirayoshi O'Brien was not only the youngest novitiate in history to be accepted into the Order of Vedeks, he was also the first ever to choose to come to the faith despite not being Bajoran.
"Yoshi looked great." Kasidy rearranges cookies on a plate, trying to cover up the gaps. "And his Bajoran is excellent."
Keiko studies her mug. "He started learning young. They say that helps."
"Bonnie too. It must really make a difference. Even with all the time we spent off world when I was working, she still sounds just like a native. But me? I doubt I'll ever lose my accent."
An alien from a foreign world who spoke flawless Bajoran and worshipped the Prophets - that alone would have fascinated the population. But there was more to it than that. The Bajoran press had not been able to choose a term to describe Vedek O'Brien's relationship with the First Minister but the two were certainly something to each other. In spite of herself, Kasidy had been fascinated by the palpable electric current between the pair: the way Kira Nerys had lit up from within as Yoshi stepped onto the platform, the way he had scanned the crowd to find her and kept her fixed in his sight as he said his vows. The way that their fingers had intertwined for just a moment as the First Minister wished the novitiates well had broken with thousands of years of tradition but as they had released each other, smiling proudly through their tears, Kasidy had known that every mother on Bajor would have understood.
Keiko, no doubt, had understood too.
Keiko picks up a ginger root biscuit and takes a bite. "It's not her fault", she announces. Kasidy doesn't need to ask what she means. "There isn't even really any fault to be had. We wanted them to stay close; we were happy they had a relationship. We still are. She's a friend of mine, and of Miles. It's not about that."
"I know." Kasidy says. And she does.
"Can I ask you something?" Keiko leans forward intently. "Why did you come back here? I know why you stayed at first. We were all hoping. But when you left, I thought for sure -" She stops and draws a deliberate breath. "Why come back?"
Kasidy is about to answer when the front door bangs open again. Laughter bubbles in from the front hall, girlish shouts as her daughter calls to her friends to shed their shoes and coats and come up to her room. They flow into the kitchen first; girls this age are always hungry. And everything comes to a screeching halt, of course, when they notice the adults sitting at the table.
"Hi Mom." Bonnie greets her mother in Bajoran; after a day of speaking it at school it sometimes takes a while for her tongue to transition back to English. She manages it though, when she sees Keiko. She bends to kiss her cheek. "Hi Mrs. O'Brien! Mom, can Lusha and Parmis stay for a bit? We want to listen to the new Kon Firrin recording."
It takes Kasidy a moment to place the name; he's that new Bajoran pop singer. The one that wears the enormous ear cuff. "Use your sound dampers. We're trying to talk down here."
Bonnie is already halfway up the stairs, her friends carrying what looks like half the contents of Kasidy's refrigerator among them. Kasidy rolls her eyes. "That's why."
Keiko nods.
"She always wanted to come back. And I knew that eventually we'd have to, at least for a while. But when she got older... it was strange. It was like she craved Bajor; like she needed to be here. She's not a demanding kid - not really. So this was pretty out of character; it was starting to scare me. In the end I knew that it was the right thing to do, to bring her home."
"This is home?"
There is pain in Keiko's eyes and nothing Kasidy can honestly say will remove it. "It's her home. Maybe... maybe it's a spiritual thing." That was what the Bajoran doctor she had consulted had said. Her father was the Emissary; according to the Bajorans Bonnie is descended from the prophets. Kasidy hadn't wanted it to be true. But as her daughter's fits of rage had worsened the Federation doctors had slowly given up. So Kasidy had grudgingly accepted Doctor Polla's advice and agreed to a trial relocation. To both her joy and her despair, it had worked. "She's so much happier here. Like Jake."
Like her stepson, who rarely leaves Bajor anymore. He writes press releases for Minister Kira's administration, a known and trusted figure in Bajoran politics. The last time he visited he had mentioned even running for office himself someday. He'd been perplexed when Kasidy asked where.
"Yes." Keiko dabs at her mouth, and then at her eyes. "Like Jake."
The name she does not say hangs heavily in the air until Kasidy cannot bear its weight anymore.
There is so much more that she will never say. How she had believed that she was marrying a human man and how even here, so far from Earth or any human colonies, she had thought that she could have a human family. Of course she still would have married Benjamin if she had known the truth. Of course she would have had Bonnie. But she didn't know it and she didn't choose it and yet she is still here, always subtly out of step with the world around her, always just slightly foreign to her own child.
She doesn't need to tell Keiko this. Her friend knows it far too well. So Kasidy tries for comfort instead. "Keiko, it'll be all right."
"I miss him!" All at once, Keiko's cup comes crashing down on the table and her grief explodes from within her. "I missed him even before he was gone but at least then I could see him whenever I wanted. They don't use translators for temple ceremonies so when he was up on that dais, all dressed up in his robes, I could barely understand his vows. My son was giving his life away and I was trying to remember the vocabulary for it. And then I had to stand in the back with all the other mothers while the Vedeks went into the temple. The mothers were all praying but I don't know any of the prayers and Yoshi was so far away. By the end..." Her voice drops to a whisper. "By the end he was so far away that I didn't even know which one he was."
Kasidy reaches for her friend a moment too late; Keiko's tears have already begun to fall by the time Kasidy is able to hold her close. She rocks her gently until the sobbing stops and then she simply holds her.
"Let's go visit him." The idea and the words materialize at the same time. "Let's go to Yoshi's temple and see him. He can have visitors, right?"
After a long pause, she feels Keiko nod against her chest. "He can." She pulls away and blows her nose on a napkin. "But he says most Bajoran mothers don't visit for the first little while. They wait six months or so, so that the novitiates can get used to the temple routines."
Kasidy shrugs. "Well, Yoshi has a mother who isn't Bajoran." She squeezes Keiko's hand. "It's just a little bit different. But it's still all right."
Keiko squeezes back. "I would really like to see him again before I go." She lifts her eyes to Kasidy's. "I hope you're right."
Kasidy hopes she is too, so much. Lifting her tea cup to her lips, she tries to breathe in its scent. Remembering, she closes her eyes before she swallows.