Chapter Text
Upper Pylon Three's transport lounge smelled of recycled air and the faint ozone of a docking clamp that had cycled too many times that morning. The viewport curved with the wall, and beyond it the wormhole was closed, the Denorios belt a dim smear against the dark. A handful of travelers waited near the boarding gate with their bags at their feet: a Bolian family, two Bajoran traders, a Starfleet ensign reading a PADD and not turning the page.
Kira stood at the viewport with her hands clasped behind her back. She had not sat down since she arrived.
Odo stood beside her, hands clasped behind his back the same way hers were, and didn't move at all.
KIRA: You know I trust you.
ODO: I've noticed you tend to lead with that when you're about to tell me something I won't like.
She didn't smile, quite. Her gaze stayed on the dark where the wormhole would open.
KIRA: I trust you. That's not the same as not having reservations.
ODO: No. It isn't.
KIRA: I've signed off on a lot of things on this station I didn't expect to. I'm not pretending this is the hardest one.
She let that sit. Her thumb moved once against the back of her opposite hand, the only thing about her that wasn't perfectly still.
KIRA: It might be the hardest one.
Odo turned his head, not all the way, just enough to take her in. When he spoke, the dryness had gone out of his voice.
ODO: So does the Federation.
That got her to look at him.
ODO: Have reservations. Command cleared this with more conditions than I've ever seen attached to three people who haven't done anything yet. I read all of them. Twice.
KIRA: And you negotiated anyway.
ODO: I negotiated because. The conditions are the price of the thing being possible at all. I'd rather pay a high price for something possible than no price for nothing.
Kira almost laughed, a short breath through the nose, more exhaustion than humor.
KIRA: That's very diplomatic of you.
ODO: I've had practice. I find I hate it slightly less than I expected.
The lounge lights shifted half a degree warmer as the station cycled toward midday. Across the room, the Bajoran traders had started a low conversation about cargo manifests, comfortable, unhurried.
Then the docking clamp engaged (a heavy mechanical thunk that carried through the deck plating), and the gate indicator went green.
The ensign with the PADD looked up.
The gate opened, and three Jem'Hadar came through it.
They came in single file, unhurried, carrying nothing: no weapons, no packs, nothing in their hands at all. The lead one was broad through the shoulders with the grey, scaled hide and the spined ridges, and his eyes moved across the room once, methodically: corners, exits, hands. The two behind him did the same a half-second later. Then all three stopped, and stood, and waited.
The room went quiet in pieces. The Bajoran traders had stopped talking about manifests. The Bolian father had drawn his youngest child a half-step back; his hand had simply found the boy's shoulder. The ensign with the PADD was holding it against her chest now, screen-in, and had gone very interested in the deck.
Nobody said anything. That was the part. Nobody was rude, nobody objected, nobody did a single thing you could write up. The room had just gotten smaller and moved its weight to one side.
Kira watched it happen. Her jaw set.
The lead Jem'Hadar's gaze finished its circuit of the room and arrived at Odo. He inclined his head. Not a bow.
DAROK: Founder.
ODO: I'm not…
Odo stopped himself. Started again, and the second try came out gentler.
ODO: Odo. We've agreed on Odo.
DAROK: Odo.
Darok said it carefully. Then he glanced, very briefly, at the Bajoran traders frozen mid-cargo-manifest, at the Bolian's hand on his son's shoulder, at the ensign studying the floor. He took it in without expression.
DAROK: We've arrived at a poor time. There's a transport boarding.
KIRA: No. The transport's not for an hour. They're early.
She said it too quickly, and heard it, and didn't take it back. The travelers were not early. Nobody in the room said so.
Darok looked at her, fully, for the first time. His gaze came to rest on her and did not move off again. No drift, no softening. Kira held it.
DAROK: Colonel Kira.
KIRA: Yes.
DAROK: I know what this station is to you. I know what we are to it.
He paused. Behind him, the two others (Goran'tar a half-head shorter and heavier, Imrosh younger, the spines on his jaw not fully come in) held their stillness like it was the only thing they'd been issued.
DAROK: We won't make it harder than it is.
Kira's jaw came down a fraction.
KIRA: That's not your job. Making it easy.
DAROK: No. But it's the only thing I can offer today, so I'm offering it.
The docking clamp cycled again somewhere down the pylon, a long mechanical groan. The Bolian family had begun, very quietly, gathering their bags, not leaving, just arranging themselves into a configuration that put the parents between the children and the gate. Odo watched them do it. Nothing moved in his face. At his sides, his hands closed once and opened again.
ODO: Come with me. I'll show you where you'll be working.
The three of them moved to follow him, single file again, unhurried.
As they passed the boarding gate, the ensign with the PADD finally looked up, and Imrosh, the young one, met her eyes for a half-second on the way by. He didn't do anything. He just looked back at her.
She went back to the floor.
Kira watched all four of them go. She didn't move from the viewport. Outside, the dark stayed dark.
Behind her, the lounge slowly remembered how to make noise: the traders picking the cargo manifest back up mid-sentence, the Bolian father's hand coming off his son's shoulder, the ordinary volume of a room returning a beat at a time, like nothing had happened.
Kira stood there until it had, and then a moment longer.