INCOMMUNICADO

Content:
Het
Odo/Kira
No Sexual Situations
No Violence

With thanks and apologies to Paramount and Jimmy Buffett, and proceeding under the assumption that forgiveness is easier to ask than permission....

This story takes place following "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night" and before "His Way."

So when I finished that last line
I put the book by itself
On the shelf
With my heart in it
Never wasting time
Taking the right way home
Still, I am incommunicado ...

INCOMMUNICADO ~ Jimmy Buffett

~~~

The duty roster of Deep Space Nine's Security Chief was as crowded as the Promenade outside his office doors. With the immediate threat of the Dominion somewhat diminished and the war effort returning more traffic to the station, Odo had doubled his patrols in order to keep a watchful eye on all the increased activity. But for a week now, the changeling had been preoccupied with a single station resident.

He had not seen her. For five days he had watched, but he had not seen her. Messages appeared on his computer screen; his communicator occasionally chirped and delivered her voice. But she did not appear at his door, did not pace before his console, did not make small talk before finally settling in his guest chair to pour her heart out to him, as she once had. Odo had begun to resign himself to the terrible probability that she would not come at all.

And then, amazingly, she appeared ... a figure in red, standing out like a vision in the crowd. Through the office doors, across the bustle of the Promenade, his eyes met hers....

But Major Kira averted her gaze and continued on her way. In despair, Odo allowed his head to drop into his hands.

It was too late to hide his lapse of composure when the door panels slipped open, but Odo put up a front anyway, growling menacingly at Quark as the Ferengi entered the office.

"Are you here on business, Quark? If not, I'm very busy."

"Yes, I saw how busy you are."

"Quark...."

With a bit of a hitch, the Ferengi settled into the guest chair that Odo had been hoping another one of the station's personnel might occupy. "It's about Major Kira."

Wonderful, thought Odo to himself. "What about her?"

"She's been driving all of us crazy. It was bad enough before she went t o Bajor, but now she's worse than Morn with a hangover."

Odo's disgusted snort was just a little too overstated. "I don't know what you expect me to do about it."

Quark grinned, but his eyes were gentle.

"I expect you to talk to her, Odo. You're the only one who's ever been able to deal with her when she's like this ... give the rest of us a break, find out what's wrong, and fix it, will you?"

Odo studied his datapadd with determined concentration. "If Major Kira wants to talk to me, she knows where I am."

"Maybe you should ask Dax if you can borrow her closet again."

"Quark...."

"All right, all right." Quark slid off the chair and turned for the door. He paused there, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe and looking back at the security chief slumped miserably behind his desk. "But Odo, don't let too much time slide by."

~~~

"Why are you having this conversation with me, Nerys?"

Kira glared at her friend, the color high in her cheeks.

"Why?" she shot back. "Am I boring you?"

Jadzia smiled serenely in the face of her friend's anger. "Of course not," she said mildly. "I'm simply trying to point out to you that I'm not the best person for you to be talking to about this."

"You're my friend."

"I know. But I'm not your best friend."

Kira fell silent for a moment. "Maybe you are, now."

"If I am, it's not his fault."

Kira's eyes flashed. "Dax," she began, but Jadzia cut her off in a voice still maddeningly mild.

"I thought you two had settled things at my party. Ten hours is a long time to sit in a closet talking to someone who isn't your best friend. "

Kira dropped her gaze, and took up her glass with an unsteady hand. Bajoran spring wine surged over the brim and onto the table. Dax noticed the spill.

"He's been sitting in his office for days now, ever since you came back from Bajor, waiting for you to talk to him. Why don't you go?"

"Damn you, Jadzia," murmured Kira, staring at her reflection in the spilled wine on the tabletop. "Damn him. And most of all, damn me."

"That's quite all right, Major," said Quark, appearing tableside in time to hear only the end of her remark and thinking she meant the spill. The Ferengi set down a fresh bottle of wine and pulled a bar towel from his cummerbund. "It's easily cleaned up." The wine, and Kira's reflection, were wiped away; on the clean spot, Quark placed a bundle of flowers. Kira scowled at the barkeep.

"What are these for? I only ordered one bunch of Bajoran lilacs. And I'll probably never order them again."

"Major." Quark's tone was patronizing, but there was a gentle undertone to it. "Not all ladies order flowers for themselves. Some occasionally receive flowers from admirers."

"I hate flowers."

"Maybe the person who ordered these for you doesn't know that. Maybe he ... or she ... knows you've been in a filthy mood for over a week, and is trying to cheer you up."

Kira fixed Quark with a deadly look. "Who?"

"Maybe Odo did it," Jadzia interjected brightly. "He probably saw you on the Promenade the other day, carrying the bouquet you got for your mother's birthday, and thought you liked them."

"Quark?"

Quark hedged. "Would you be happy if he had?"

"Did the flowers come from Odo, Quark?" The Major's voice had a dangerous edge to it. Quark stepped back a pace.

"Now, Major ... that would be telling."

"Maybe you should ask Odo," Dax persisted.

Kira's temper reached its narrow limits and spilled over them. "Maybe I should," she said fiercely. Rising so quickly that her chair rattled, Kira grabbed the bouquet and swept it from the table. Lilac petals scattered behind her as she stalked from the bar. Quark and Dax looked at each other.

"We didn't lie," said Dax.

"Didn't have to," replied Quark. "The Major can spring to her own conclusions without any help at all."

"She's really angry," Dax remarked.

"Good," replied Quark, as he slid into the Major's vacated chair and refilled Kira's glass and Dax's from the new bottle. "Maybe she's angry enough that she'll get him angry. And then they can settle this. And we can all live happily, or at least peacefully, ever after." He lifted his wineglass; after a moment, Dax lifted hers. The brims clinked, and the two conspirators smiled at each other.

~~~

She would not come. Odo resigned himself to the fact.

The trust between them, which they had cautiously begun to rebuild during that long night in Dax's closet, was still too fragile. Kira had not come to him after she had been betrayed by the stranger who looked like Bariel. She had not told him about the transmission from Gul Dukat. And after the Prophets had chosen to reveal the painful secret which Odo had so long protected her from, she had turned to the Emissary, not to him.

Odo grieved for her. And for himself, and for all that had been lost between them.

His work forgotten, unseeing eyes fixed on his computer terminal, Odo was taken by surprise for the second time that day when his office doors slid open. The Changeling's fluid body thrilled with relief at the sight of Kira standing in his office door, then contracted as he took in her expression, her posture, and the flowers clenched in her fist. Odo flinched as the bouquet slammed down on his desk. Petals scattered and drifted to the floor.

"Did you send these?" she demanded.

"No."

It was not the answer she had expected, or rehearsed a reply to. Kira hesitated, then sat uncomfortably in what had once been her customary chair.

"But Quark and Dax...."

"They said I did?" Odo inquired carefully.

"Yes! Well, no, but...."

Blue eyes and brown ones locked across the security desk. Slowly, comprehension dawned behind them.

"Quark," said Odo.

"Dax," said Kira. A small smile touched her lips for a moment, then faded.

"You don't like Bajoran lilacs?" It was an offer to her; Odo waited to see if she would accept it. But an icy veil descended over Kira's eyes.

"No."

He tried again.

"Why not?"

She looked away. "My mother...."

His heart lifted. Yes, Nerys ... talk to me ....

But the moment passed.

"Oh, never mind," she said, rising to leave.

Odo spoke quickly, not allowing himself time to think of the consequences.

"You are angry at your mother because of her liaison with Dukat."

Kira froze.

"How do you know that?" Her voice was cold, controlled.

"I know that you received a transmission from Gul Dukat last week. I know that you went to Bajor to consult the Orb of Time. And I guessed that the Orb would tell you about your mother."

Stunned, Kira sat heavily in the chair again. "How...."

"I make it my business to know everything I can about those around me, Kira. Including Dukat. And you." Anger flared in her eyes, but Odo held up his hand. "And Quark," he continued. "Commander Sisko, and Jake. O'Brien and his family. Worf, and Dax, and Morn, and Bashir. Everyone. It's my job, Nerys."

Kira was silent. Odo steeled himself, and spoke aloud the last secret he had from her.

"I never met her, of course. It was over long before I came to work on Terok Nor. But later, when you and I met, when we began to work together and became ... friends...." he paused for a moment. "I remembered the name from Dukat's files."

"And you never told me?"

"Your father never told you. Does it surprise you that I made the same choice?"

"How could you keep this from me all this time?" Her tone was flat.

"How could I not?" Emotion finally broke into the changeling's voice. "It could only hurt you. I saw no reason to inflict unnecessary pain."

"I deserved to know the truth."

"I have never cheated you by giving you less. I value you too highly to do that. And I didn't lie to you about this."

"You might as well have."

"There have been secrets between us before, Nerys," he reminded her.

She dropped her eyes, remembering Vatrick. Odo saw the pain in her face, and it burned straight to the core of his being. He cursed himself for his brutal bluntness, and tried to gentle his voice.

"Meru's sacrifice saved your family. She did what she thought was right. "

"She did it because she wanted to!" The anger burst through and slammed into him. "She did it for the food, and the clothes, and the comforts."

"She did it for you."

"She slept with Dukat! She bought the whole act ... believed everything he said. She even tried to defend him to me!"

"Would you feel better about it if she had been miserable?"

"I tried to kill her, Odo."

Kira looked at him then, and the shapeshifter was struck through with horror at the self-loathing he saw in those honest eyes.

"I know," she said bitterly, misreading his expression. "What kind of a woman tries to kill her own mother? But I did ... and I almost succeeded." She curled in upon herself then, huddling in the chair, and Odo thought that she had suddenly shrunk somehow. He rose slowly and circled his desk to stand before her; carefully he reached down and touched her shoulder.

"Nerys, listen to me. I understand how you feel. That day on the Defiant ... the changeling who was trying to destroy the ship...."

Kira did not look up, but Odo's fingertips felt her trembling. A small voice came from her lowered face.

"It's not the same, Odo. You were trying to save us all. And he wasn't your family. It wasn't the same."

"He was my family, Nerys. They are all my family."

Kira made a small sound; her face stayed hidden. Odo dropped to his knees before her. Reaching out, he wrapped his slender fingers around her clenched fists.

Her hands are so cold....

Gently he unfolded her arms, pulling her hands to his chest and holding them tightly, as she had once done for him in a moment of terrible loss, long ago on his home world. Kira looked up at his touch; Odo saw the torment in her eyes and cursed the Prophets again. Her damned Prophets, who never seemed to tire of inflicting pain on their children. They had brought her to the brink of madness, then abandoned her to face it alone. Odo could not understand the why of it.

"Nerys...."

"She was a collaborator." Bitterness infused the words.

"I was a collaborator, too."

Kira was silent. Odo pressed on. "But you looked past that. You can do it again, Nerys. You have to ... for your mother's sake, and for your own."

Kira shivered. Unshed tears glittered and were blinked away with determined fierceness. Odo held her hands tightly.

"Why do you think Dukat told you this? He's beaten ... the only power he has over you now is the power to hurt you. Don't let him take your mother from you a second time, Nerys."

Wide brown eyes met, fixed on blue ones. Slowly, slowly, Kira's clenched fingers relaxed in her friend's grasp; slowly, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. A long, weary sigh escaped her; Odo shivered as the sweet warmth of her breath brushed his face. He knelt unmoving, anchoring her trembling body with their clasped hands, as the silence stretched between them.

"All right," she whispered finally.

Odo longed to reach out, to fold her in his arms and kiss her, to hold her safe and comfort her with his embrace. Instead he drew back, rising to his feet and drawing Kira up out of the chair with him. Releasing her hands, he lifted the battered bouquet of Bajoran lilacs from his desk and pressed the flowers into her arms.

"Take these, Nerys," he urged gently. "They were given to you by people who care about you."

Kira stared down at the blooms. After a moment, she brought them up to her face and inhaled deeply; then she raised her eyes to Odo and smiled at him. A small, tight smile, but a smile nonetheless.

"Then I guess they must have come from you, after all." Impulsively, she tugged a stem from the bouquet and held it out to him. "Thank you, Odo."

He tried to master the trembling that ran through his body as he took the offering. Without another word, Kira turned and left his office, the flowers clutched to her breast. Odo watched her through the door panels as she disappeared in the crowd.

Ah, Nerys.... Why is it always my job to give you the hard truths, to force you to make the painful choices, to be the one standing by you when things are at their worst? Will I ever have the chance to offer you happiness, or love?

Odo looked down in wonder at the lilacs she had pressed into his hand. The changeling was well aware that her trust was as fragile as the tattered blossoms, yet Kira had given both to him. For now, it was enough.