RECONSIDER ME

Content:
Het
Odo/Kira
Implied or Graphic Sexual Situations
No Violence

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

This story takes place following "A Call To Arms," at the close of the second Cardassian Occupation of Terok Nor and before the return of Star Fleet to Deep Space Nine, in whatever episode TPTB see fit to have that take place.

If you're all alone and you need someone
Call me up and I'll come running
Reconsider me, reconsider me
If it's still the past that makes you doubt
Darling, that was then and this is now
Reconsider me, reconsider me
And I'll never make you sad again
'Cause I swear that I've changed since then
And I promise that I'll never make you cry
Let's let bygones be forgotten
Reconsider me, reconsider me

RECONSIDER ME ~ Warren Zevon

~~~

The deckplates shuddered beneath their feet, and Kira Nerys shuddered too. A low, keening sound whispered through her teeth. Odo, standing as always by her side, studied her profile with concern in his blue eyes.

"It's over, Major," he said. He hoped it was the truth.

Kira's stare remained locked on Dukat's warship, the last of the fleet to leave Bajoran space, as it moved slowly away from Deep Space Nine. Her large eyes narrowed in the glare as the warp engines flared into life and the dreadnought disappeared. Kira shivered. She had been in complete control throughout the occupation, even on that terrible night when her resistance cell had been discovered and Dukat had appeared at her door. But now Odo watched as her body began to tremble, subtly but uncontrollably.

"Kira, it's all right," he said in a level voice. "Dukat ... the Cardassians are gone."

Kira stayed frozen in place, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "It's .... it's hard to believe. After all that's happened ... I feel as if I can't wake up from a bad dream ... a nightmare I've had before." She straightened her posture, and shook her head as if to clear it.

"It's reaction. You'll be all right." Odo reached out to touch her arm, but Kira stepped away. She stared at him bleakly.

"Well, Constable," she said, "no more distractions, eh? I suppose now we'll have to have that little talk we've been putting off." Her tone was terse.

Still angry with me, thought Odo sadly, even after all that's happened to us since Gaia.

"Kira, I'm here because we are friends," he said aloud. "Because I thought you needed me. And you do ... you're exhausted. You need to rest."

"I'll take your opinion under advisement," she said coldly.

Odo assumed his most authoritative Constable voice. "My deputies are in place, and I think that they can keep Quark and Morn under control until Sisko returns. This station will not fall apart, Major, if you miss a few hours of your shift. Now," he softened his voice, "will you ... allow me .... to walk you to your quarters?"

After a moment Kira nodded in resignation. To Odo's surprise, she clasped both hands around his arm and held on as if for dear life. Slowly he paced the edgy woman at his side toward the habitat ring.

~~~

Odo spoke the code and, when the door to Kira's quarters slid open, walked the silent Bajoran through it. He sat her in a chair and walked to the replicator.

"Ginger tea."

Kira glared at him. "I'm fine, Odo. I don't need you to take care of me," she snapped.

Odo ignored her, holding out the steaming cup. She reached for it with a palsied hand and promptly emptied the hot liquid into her lap. "Damn!" She leapt to her feet and dropped the mug, which struck the edge of the table and shattered. Kira shied violently away, stumbled and fell; palms instinctively thrust forward to break her fall came down hard to impale themselves on broken ceramic. "Oh, damn," she cursed again in an unsteady voice.

Odo was on his knees at her side in a heartbeat, helping her from the floor and back into the chair, pulling her wounded hands toward him. Kira winced. Blood stained the shapeshifter's slender fingers as he delicately picked the shards out of her skin. "Stay here," he said and headed for the bathroom, returning with a towel soaked in warm water and a dermal regenerator. Kira watched helplessly as he laved her wounded hands and ran the healing tool over them.

"I'm sorry .... I don't know what the hell is wrong with me...."

"Everything that's wrong with you left the station on that Cardassian warship," Odo said matter-of-factly. "You'll be fine once you've had some real rest." He placed the regenerator in Kira's healed hands, and helped her to her feet. "Now," he said gently, as if speaking to a child, "go clean up, and get out of that uniform. I'll wait for you ... I'm not leaving until you're in bed."

Kira walked out of the room as if in a trance. Odo touched the wall communicator. "Quark," he said in a low voice.

~~~

When Kira returned, her small body lost in a loose, shapeless tent of soft blue cloth, Odo was waiting with a glass of Mauraltian seev-ale and a syringe in his hands. Without asking he put the syringe to her bare wrist and pushed the release; she did not seem to object or even react. Odo lay the spent tool on the table, slipped an arm around Kira's shoulders and lifted the glass to her lips. She sipped obediently, coughed a bit and, raising her hands to the glass, drained it. She swayed slightly as both sedatives took hold. Odo turned her around and steered her back into the bedroom. He drew the bedcovers back with one hand and steadied Kira as she sat down, then slipped one arm beneath her legs, swung them into the bed and pulled the sheets up to her chin. Kira blinked sleepily.

"Odo ... " She made his name a question.

The changeling nodded, and allowed himself a familiarity. "Go to sleep, Nerys. I'll be right here."

Kira closed her eyes. Her head turned away from him, from the light, and her breathing deepened and became more even. When he was sure she was asleep, Odo allowed his own exhausted body to slump into a heap of golden matter on the floor at her bedside.

~~~

Odo was dreaming himself when Kira's nightmare woke him.

He had been flying, soaring above a shadowy place that he knew was Home but which seemed to offer no place to land, when he felt her thrashing disturb the air in the room. Coming swiftly to consciousness and taking his humanoid shape, Odo leaned over Kira, who was trapped deep in tormented sleep. Her eyes darted back and forth beneath her closed eyelids, and a muffled cry strangled in her throat. Odo sat on the bedside and took her hands in his.

"Kira ... Kira, wake up."

"No...."

"Kira, wake up. It's all right."

She came to awareness with a start, terror pulling her skin taut across her face. "Odo?"

"Right here, Major."

Odo searched for recognition in the wild brown eyes that bored into him, and felt a small measure of relief when that recognition began to set in. "Odo...." Kira woke fully and sat up, but she did not pull her hands away from his. Odo could count every tendon pulled taut between her pale, claw-like fingers. He noticed that her nails had been bitten to the quick.

"It's all right, Kira," he murmured soothingly. "It's all right." The low rumble of his voice seemed finally to reach her, and she turned her unguarded eyes to his. Odo could see the part of Nerys that lived in her own private hell, suddenly very close to the surface. He could not help it ... all the promises he had made to her and to himself flew out of his mind and he leaned forward, wrapping her in the small sanctuary of his arms.

He was amazed when she allowed it, to him and to herself ... she dropped all defense and huddled, tearless but frighteningly silent, in his embrace. Her body, tense and tight-muscled, leaned into his; Odo rocked her back and forth for what seemed a long time. Finally, he felt her head stir against his chest and relaxed his embrace, thinking that she wished more freedom. But instead of withdrawing, she tilted her head back and lifted her mouth to his. He could not taste salt, of course, but her lips felt damp against his own as she kissed him.

Odo turned his face away, breaking the contact. "Kira, you're very tired. Go back to sleep," he whispered, pushing her back into the bed.

"Odo," she murmured, reaching for him again, but Odo pushed her away. She made a small sound that might have been a sob.

Essentials, Odo thought.

He reached out and turned Kira gently away from him so that she lay face down on the bed. "Lie still," he commanded in a gentle growl. Slowly he began moving his hands in firm circles across her back, kneading her knotted muscles through the nightshirt. It was difficult; human hands were so limited in what they could do, and the cloth of the nightshirt kept clumping between his fingers. Kira stirred restlessly. Odo made a decision.

Tentatively he reached for the collar of the nightshirt and gently drew it back. As Kira's bare shoulders were revealed, he froze in horror. Her back was laced with pale white scars ... old, vicious wounds, ugly reminders of her violent past. Unconsciously Odo imitated the sharp exhale of breath that signaled distressed surprise in his humanoid acquaintances. Kira heard, and immediately understood.

"That was a long time ago," she whispered. "It doesn't hurt any more."

Her flinch was almost imperceptible as he reached for her again, but Odo felt it nonetheless. With great gentleness he tucked Kira's nightshirt around her hips. Carefully, and trusting that her inability to see would help her to accept, the changeling shifted his hands into appendages which flowed smoothly over her back, brushing some places lightly, digging with healing pain into others, easing the strained tendons and loosening the hard places.

It worked. Kira stretched and snuggled down into the soft sheets of her bed. Her body, wracked with tension for months, slowly uncoiled beneath the blanket of warm and comforting pressure her friend was exerting from the nape of her neck to the base of her back. A touch in which she could relax with complete trust ... Odo's.

Feeling Kira's body finally begin to relax beneath him, Odo felt his concentration on her falter as the sensations caused by the feel of her skin against his own began to overpower his senses. Quickly he reshaped human hands and drew her nightshirt back over her shoulders.

"Better, Major?" he inquired gruffly.

"Much," Kira murmured. She turned on her side and, looking up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, reached out and wrapped her fingers around Odo's wrist. She pulled his hand to her, pressing it to the folds of cloth that covered her body. Odo felt her breath lift the swell of her breast into his palm, and reveled in the touch for an irresistible moment before pulling his hand away.

"Kira ... I don't think--"

"Don't think ... don't make me think. I've thought about it too much already. Please ... " She pulled herself up into Odo's embrace, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"No," he said gently. Another night, the changeling thought, if you still wish it ... when you're rested and well....

"Please," she said again. Kira's hair brushed Odo's face enticingly, and he felt her lips find his neck and kiss him. Leaning back, she shrugged her shoulders and the nightshirt fell away. Shyly, Odo allowed himself to look.

His shyness quickly gave way to concern. So thin.... The curves of her body were sharpened by bones too close to the surface; the terrible months she had been through had worried the flesh from her bones. His anxious eyes took in the shadows beneath her collarbone, the slight furrows between her ribs.

Kira did not allow him to look for long. Odo felt her hands slip behind his head and pull his mouth down for a deeper kiss. There was an urgency, a harshness in her movements that cut through his dizzy consciousness with a pang of concern, but Kira left him no time to think on it. With a gesture that was almost rough, Kira pulled his hand to her breast again. The changeling felt her lips move against his shoulder, her inaudible plea vibrating through his skin.

The touch was more than Odo could bear. If she exiled him from her life the next day, so be it. Tonight, Nerys wanted him and needed him. He would take the risk. He would allow himself to believe that it might come out all right in the end, believe that something he too wanted and needed might actually be his.

Slowly, gently, Odo caressed the soft skin beneath his hand. Kira made a small sound and leaned into the caress; encouraged, Odo shifted his palm ever so slightly.

Kira gasped and looked down in alarm at the sensation. Odo groaned in regret.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry ..." He pulled away but she stopped him, caught his hand in hers and guided it again to her body. "No, it's all right, it's wonderful...."

Kira threw her shoulders back, pressing herself again into his caress, but Odo sensed her tension and dropped his hand.

"I ... want this to be good for you," he said, his voice strained.

"Don't worry, " she whispered. She ran her hand up his arm and smiled tightly. "Constable, you're off duty. Don't you think you should get rid of your uniform?" She pushed him onto his back and settled on his chest, her breasts pressed against his mirage of clothing. The heat of her nipples burned into the changeling's skin. A hard look of urgency was in her face again.

Now it was Odo's turn to tense. Carefully, quickly, before he could frighten her again, he shifted beneath her. An impression of fluid amber blurred the transition from uniform to skin but, as he had hoped, it happened so quickly that Kira barely noticed. She sighed deeply and rubbed against him. Odo grew more confident with the sound of her pleasure, and concentrated carefully on the next thing she would expect. Distracting Kira for a moment by rolling her onto her back, Odo quickly added detail to his nudity. He slipped his thigh across hers and pressed the new shape against her.

To his surprise she flinched away, although she recovered almost immediately. "Odo, I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to do that!" She kissed him insistently, pulling his hips back toward her, opening her legs to him.

Odo was confused ... didn't she want more touching first? He knew that he did. Odo wanted to spend hours touching her, exploring the play of gravity on her body, memorizing her many shapes. He wanted to erase her scars with his lips and fingertips.

"Odo...."

His name was a throaty whisper in his ear as she arched her back and lifted her graceful legs to wrap them behind his knees, "... please...."

But Odo saw her turn her face away, her lips and eyes shut tight. Anguished insight killed the intense pleasure of her touch with cold pain.

She was still afraid.

Not of him, alien to her as he was. Of coupling. Odo remembered with a pang of grief that, for Kira, the act had not always been of her own choosing, with a partner who was gentle, with someone that she loved. Kira's scars from the Occupation were more than skin deep. Dukat had resurrected old, ugly memories and made them all too vivid. Now Kira was fighting them back down in characteristically direct, unsubtle fashion. This time, Odo realized, his body was her weapon of choice. This would not be an act of love, but a rite of exorcism.

The changeling allowed himself a moment for his heart to break, to force himself to shake off the sensations he'd been lost in. Kira did not love him, but she did need him. Odo knew that he must not fail her in this most important need, even if he never touched her again. The knowledge terrified him. I must do this exactly right, he thought. He tried to banish the passion from his body, withdrawing from his own pleasure and concentrating on hers. Slowly, carefully, Odo began to shift.

Kira gasped. Odo's face still looked down on hers with love he could not hide in his blue eyes, and his arms still circled her shoulders with a comforting strength. But elsewhere, out of her sight, in the soft small place between her legs, Kira felt no harsh invasion ... just Odo flowing smoothly into her, growing inside her, stretching her hungry hidden places with a pleasure thrillingly free of hurt. She pushed her hips up, meeting Odo's cautious motions with unaccustomed abandon, reveling in the intensity of his caress inside and out, stroking her skin and bringing her suddenly to an ecstatic release of twisted muscles and harried nerves.

It over with a brevity merciful to the changeling. Odo felt Kira's body arc beneath him, heard her small cry, and then she seemed to melt away from him into the bed, lost in the tangle of sheets and her discarded nightshirt. Gratitude and guilt illuminated the dark circles around her eyes, and burned beneath lashes grown suddenly heavy.

For Odo, the parting of their bodies was even more intense than their coming together had been; a tremendous feeling of loss sank into him as he reluctantly released her from his embrace. Shakily he reformed, taking care to recreate his uniform, and left her bed. He reached across Kira to draw the sheets over her bare and trembling body; she looked up at him with an expression of regret on her face.

"Odo...."

He put a finger to her lips. "Shsssh, Nerys," he murmured soothingly. "Go back to sleep."

And finally, Kira did. Odo sat in the chair beside her for a long time, watching to be certain her sleep was peaceful, before he left. But the ghosts that had haunted Kira's dreams abandoned her to follow Odo back to his own quarters, denying him rest.

~~~

The message was there in his computer the next morning, as expected.

Constable, I'd like to see you in your office at the end of the day.

It glowed in tiny green dots on his console ... the end of the world. Dutifully Odo tapped in, Of course and, after a moment's hesitation, touched the SEND key. Then he slumped back in his chair. Odo was feeling, as Miles O'Brien often put it, "all in." It was a Terran phrase which Odo found an oddly apt description of just how a weary, heartsore shapeshifter felt.

And heartsore as he was, Odo was wearier still. Unknown to the Major, her Security Chief had forsaken his own quarters during the Cardassian occupation to regenerate each evening in a small crawl space a few feet down the corridor from her rooms. Kira had never asked how he had come to be there so quickly the night Dukat had forced her door ... how he'd known what was happening in time to prevent the worst of the Gul's plans from coming to fruition. Odo's exhaustion, the distasteful things he'd been forced to do for Dukat, Weyoun's persistent reminders that Home was just an acquiescent nod away and, worst of all, the constant worry about her ... all had combined to wear him down to nothing. Odo Ital. And now, the memory of the night before burned his skin and froze his heart. He had finally made love to her and it had ended everything between them, as he had always feared it would. In his despair, the changeling almost didn't care what Kira said to him, as long she was brief.

Less than a beat after his shift ended, Odo's office door rolled aside and Kira entered. The expression on her face was unreadable. "Computer," she said quietly, "lock and opaque doors." The machine did as it was told. Slowly Odo stood behind his desk as if for sentencing, and began the ritual.

"Something I can do for you, Major?"

She stared at him, eyes wide and brighter but less direct than usual. Then she began to pace. Finally she stopped in front of his desk, at attention, and barked the words. "You can start by forgiving me. For last night."

She glared at him, almost daring him not to. Bleakly, Odo returned her stare. Kira felt her bluster dissolve in the face of the anguish apparent in those blue eyes. Embarrassed, she looked away, her gaze wandering around the office.

"You saved my life here, the second time we met," she murmured, in a softer tone. "From Dukat. Remember?"

"I remember." Odo remembered it all.

"Ever since then, this room has felt like a ... a sanctuary to me. I could always come here to talk about anything. You know so much about me, and I know almost nothing about you ... why is that?"

"You never asked, Major," he replied sadly.

"No, I never did. But you never volunteered anything, either. Why not, Odo? Why didn't you ever tell me how you felt about me?"

Odo hung his head. "What would you have said if I had?"

Kira was indignant. "I would have--" she began her retort, and then remembered Gaia.

Odo plunged forward, anxious to get it over with. "Kira, did you want what happened between us last night to happen?"

"No! I mean...."

"No is an answer, Major." Odo dropped his eyes to the floor. "I ... apologize for my behavior last night. I never intended to jeopardize our friendship, or betray your trust."

"I know," she said softly. "I'm the one who did that. Can you forgive me?"

Odo, taken by surprise, replied without thinking.

"Of course, Major."

"Of course," she repeated, almost to herself. "You always do." Kira closed her eyes, seeming to offer up a silent prayer to her Prophets.

Odo's shape wavered. The station's artificial gravity was tugging irresistibly at his form; his heart was broken, his soul bereft. Odo simply wanted to be left alone to grieve. Stepping out from behind his desk, he headed for the door.

"I have to leave." He offered her no explanation. "You may have the use of the office for as long as you need it, Major."

Without waiting for Kira's response Odo walked out, leaving his commanding officer and the woman he still loved sitting alone in the room.

~~~

Odo lost his composure along with his shape as the door of his quarters closed behind him. He huddled on the floor, quivering under the arcing struts of the large sculpture there, a golden heap of sadness and resignation. The changeling wondered idly, in a painful sidebar to his greater sorrow, how many times he would have to rebuild his life from scratch. He thought about Home. Surely the leader of the Founders knew what had happened by now ... she seemed to know everything. She was probably well-pleased by this latest ignominy. "I told you, Odo," she might have said to him, and she would have been right.

He felt the door chime, but ignored it. He needed to rest, to mourn, to regenerate body and soul before he spoke with Kira again. Odo had no doubt that it was her on the other side of the door. The chime demanded a response .... the changeling contracted in upon himself and tried to ignore the vibration. He knew when the door opened by the subtle change of air pressure in the room. Only Kira, Dax and Quark had his door code; Dax was not on the station, and Quark would have displaced less air. Odo winced ... was the rest of his life going to be spent responding to her impulses? Didn't she have any thought for his own feelings?

Slowly Odo reformed into a humanoid shape, attempting to claim some dignity by assuming a rigid posture. His blue eyes focused and took in large brown eyes he knew too well, eyes full of hurt, questioning and ... something else. Odo was too tired to be curious.

"Major, I left the door unanswered for a reason," he said, in a tone more harsh than he had meant to use.

"We have a conversation to finish," she said.

"Do we?"

"Odo, even without you there, that office helps me think. And I finally figured out something very important. Tell me if I'm right."

Odo swayed a bit. "Major, must we have this conversation now?"

She ignored him and kept talking.

"All those times I came to you for advice, or comfort, or safety, I was really coming to you for love, wasn't I?" Kira's voice trembled. "And then, when you gave me more than I'd ever dreamed of, I was too blind to see it." The brightness in her eyes spilled over onto her cheeks. "I owe you another apology, Odo," she continued.

"Oh?"

"Yes. For taking so damn long to realize that I'm in love with you."

What did she say?

"Odo ... last night ... I'm so sorry. I ... I'd like to ... to start over...."

Kira was smiling now, a small smile tempered with apprehension. She walked up to him, wrapped her arms around him, and Odo started as he felt her full lips press against his thin ones. He froze for a moment but she did not allow his resistance, although her urgency was much more gentle and loving than it had been the night before. Slowly, Odo felt his arms creep around her without conscious intent. His hands met each other at the small of her back. Kira sighed with emotion and pressed herself against him.

"Odo, I hope you have a bed in the other room."

"Major ... I mean, Kira ... Nerys. I don't ... use ... the bed."

"That's not what I heard," she said warmly, taking confidence from his hesitancy. Releasing him from her arms and capturing his hands in hers, she began walking backward toward the bedroom. Odo, blinded by her smile and confused by the sudden turn of events, followed obediently. Once in the semidarkness, Kira looked around briefly. Thank the Prophets, there was indeed a bed there. The thought of that woman who had told Odo he had bedroom eyes scratched across her heart. Odo, searching Kira's face for any clues as to how to proceed, did not miss the change in her expression and misunderstood it. His pride flared.

"Kira, you don't have to do this," he growled. "I am not an obligation. And sleeping with me is not absolution for whatever you think you're guilty of."

The hurt in her eyes was obvious; it manifested itself in anger. "Odo! This is not something I'm doing to you, or for me ... this is something we're doing together. If you still want to. If you still love me, after all that's happened."

The fear was in her eyes again. She dealt with it as she always did, by plunging forward. Releasing Odo's hands, Kira stepped back and kicked off her boots. Tugging at the back of her collar, she undid the clasps on her tunic and shrugged out of it. The white underblouse followed it to the floor, as did the rest of her clothing. She stood before him in the dim light; beautifully nude, uncharacteristically shy, and bravely hopeful.

Odo's passion for her flared with an intensity that shook the shapeshifter's form throughout. His blue eyes dropped helplessly to take in the sight of her. Odo thought no one could ever be more beautiful, even without the terrible scars. The scars were part of Nerys, her badge of moral courage and inseparable from her loveliness. He stood very still, as if movement might shatter the mirage that he was certain she must be.

Kira misread his stillness. The hope in her eyes faded, forced out by new tears.

"I ... dammit, I've done it again. I'm sorry." She bent and swept her clothing up from the floor. "Let me get dressed, and I'll go." Turning her back on him, Kira headed for the bathroom.

"Nerys, wait!" He didn't know what else to say, but he couldn't let her leave before he had a chance to try and think of something.

She stopped, but did not turn to face him. "Odo," she whispered in a trembling voice, "wasn't there anything about last night that you liked?"

Why was it so hard to say it aloud, even now? "The touching ... " he stammered, "... touching you...."

Kira turned around and dropped her crumpled clothing to the floor.

"Then touch me, Odo," she whispered.

The changeling struggled to regain his composure. Odo, you've done this before, and you were good at it, he told himself fiercely. Last night, you made her happy ... you can do it again. And this time, it's not because she needs you to chase her ghosts away. This time, it's because she loves you.

Odo forced shaky legs to carry him forward, lifted unsteady hands to Kira's shoulders. He touched her carefully, as if she were not a solid and his fingers might break through her delicate skin and plunge into her if he did not take care. Slowly, slowly, his palms barely brushing her body, he moved his hands down across the smooth sweep of her chest and around the outside of her breasts, cradling them in his hands, his thumbs reaching in to the brown swell of each nipple and marveling at the way they changed shape at his touch. Kira drew her breath in sharply and closed her eyes.

Encouraged, Odo allowed his fingertips to explore her further, skimming her gaunt body with a tenderness that made Kira shiver. He swept over her ribcage and across the span of her stomach, framed between the sharp protrusions of her hipbones. His fingertips brushed the small coppery thatch where her legs met, bringing another sharp intake of breath from her, then returned to her waist and stroked the curves of her hips before circling to her back. Odo's thumbs pressed into the dimples where her pelvic bone anchored muscles that quivered at his touch. The cleft between her buttocks was traced with a gentle finger, and Odo stepped forward to allow reach for his hands to move into the place where her flesh curved back to meet the tops of her thighs.

Kira could stand still no longer. She kissed him again, for the first time receiving a response from his uncertain tongue. She pressed the length of her body against him, moving subtly but urgently, remembering that his uniform was only the illusion of a barrier between them. Overwhelmed, Odo swept Kira up in his arms and carried her to the bed. It turned out to be a much more awkward maneuver than it had seemed in the books that he had read. The changeling's knees, none too solid in his distraction, suddenly buckled and he dropped Kira on the coverlet. She landed with a surprised "umph!"

Kira looked up at Odo in astonishment, then burst into laughter. Mortified, Odo looked away, which only increased Kira's laughter. But she saw his discomfort and turned her blinding smile on him; Odo's embarrassment was burned away by the light shining on her face. Tenderly, Kira reached up and drew him down next to her. Then she chuckled again.

"Odo, you're overdressed."

Odo's embarrassment returned. He had no hope of distracting her from his shifting this time. He faced her with a grave expression. "Would you ... look away for a moment?"

"No," she said warmly, emphatically. "I want to see. I want to ... feel." She draped herself over him and waited expectantly.

Odo felt a twinge of an old pain at being expected to perform. But he reminded himself that Kira was not Gul Dukat and his officers, nor the scientists in the research lab. He stroked her arm with his hand and felt the warmth of her skin pressed close. No, Nerys did not want what they had wanted of him. This, too, he could manage for her.

Odo's form rippled in a leisurely and shimmering golden wave beneath the pale skin of his lover. Kira's hands stroked him in wonder as the course weave of his tunic melted away into molten gold, and then became smooth humanoid flesh. She gasped at the sensuality of the movement. The intensified heat of his skin seemed to soak into her own, exciting each nerve. His transformation complete, Odo smoothly rolled Kira over onto her stomach, kneeling on the backs of her legs. With her unable to see, Odo melted over Kira's back, blanketing her body, rippling in a massage that made her writhe beneath him. Elated at her passionate acceptance of his natural form, Odo allowed part of himself to flow between her legs and gently stroke that place that he knew gave her intense pleasure. Kira moaned softly as her body reacted.

"Odo .... " she whispered breathlessly.

The changeling was reluctant to relinquish the intimacy of loving her in his own form, but reshaped himself and allowed Kira to turn beneath him until she looked up at his face. She pulled him down onto her and ran her hands over his body, everywhere she could reach and with many different touches, soft and not so soft. Odo's skin rippled helplessly beneath her hands. Maybe her Prophets did hear me, he thought dazedly, and he gathered his shape into a new form and flowed into Kira with gentle but irresistible passion.

She cried out at the touch. Odo looked down in alarm, but her head was thrown back not in pain, but in ecstasy. He relaxed, allowing himself to enjoy the feeling of their link, that joining where her body almost felt like his own, where she became liquid and he became solid. They rocked back and forth together like waves in that link, Kira moaning as her body responded to Odo's touch, Odo overcome by the intensity of her feeling and his own longing finally fulfilled. They reveled in each other's touch until suddenly Kira cried out, her hips thrusting up against Odo and the changeling, dizzy with happiness, lost his shape completely to embrace her in her climax. They lay locked together, their bodies shaking as the ecstasy faded.

Odo reformed his human shape slowly, ebbing from his lover's body like a receding tide but never relinquishing his embrace. He felt Kira's lips press against his temple, and her cheek curve against his as she smiled. Lifting his face from the pillow Odo covered her mouth with his own, the first kiss he had initiated. It was long, slow, and thorough, and it left Kira breathless. Sea-blue eyes looked deep into earth-brown ones; years of emotion blazed there. And, his ego bolstered by the love he saw reflected back at him, Odo smiled too, a bit smugly.

"Apology accepted, Major," he said gravely.

Kira looked up at him in surprise, and her nose crinkled as her own luminous grin crept across her face. Then a shadow crept into her eyes. "Odo, I can't remember when I've seen you smile. You have such a beautiful smile.... Prophets, I have a lot to apologize for, don't I?"

"Not to me, Nerys." He kissed her eyes gently, one at a time. Unable to stop himself, he tangled one hand in her hair as the other moved over her, folding around her breast, skimming down her side and coming to rest in the damp fur he found further down, stroking her softly in a way that made her sigh and part her thighs again. "However, if you still feel an apology is necessary ... "

Odo's lips left her eyes and brushed her cheek, then pressed themselves to her mouth again, swallowing the sounds she made deep in her throat as his hand grew soft and crept into her body in a shape no longer that of a hand. Slender legs lifted and wrapped around him, and the rhythmic rocking began again....

~~~

Quark frowned at the datapadd in his hand. What the devil am I going to do with all this Kanar? he grumbled to himself. Unless Garak throws one hell of a party, I'm going to be dusting those bottles for a long time to come. Too bad ... I expected Dukat to hold onto this place a lot longer....

He glanced up as the station's acting commander and her security chief walked into the bar. Quark forgot his inventory as he watched Odo and Kira take a table together. Something odd about those two today ... what is it? he mused. The Major certainly seemed to be in a good mood, and even Odo was ... smiling? Quark watched their body language for a moment, his lobes tingling, before a flash of insight struck him. I don't believe it, he thought as he swiftly stocked a tray and headed for the table.

"Major! Constable!" the barkeep said in an overtly cheerful tone as he approached. "How nice to see you! I think this occasion calls for something special ... something with bubbles, perhaps?" Quark made a great show of uncorking a bottle and filling a glass, which he set down in front of Kira. "Drink up, Major," he urged. "This one is on the house."

Kira regarded the offering with suspicion, while Odo leveled probing eyes on the barkeep.

"To which occasion ... exactly ... are you referring, Quark?" he growled.

The Ferengi looked back and forth between his two guests with a grin so wide that the corners threatened to disappear into his ears. "I've lost a bet, Constable. The Defiant will be returning tomorrow, and when it does, Dax will be relieving me of ten strips of gold-pressed latinum."

Odo and Kira looked at Quark, and then at each other, in disbelief.

"You lost a bet," repeated Kira.

"And you're celebrating," finished Odo, intrigued. "With us. Why?"

"Now, Constable, that would be telling," chided the barkeep. "I'm sure you're a good enough detective to figure it out eventually."

But believe me, Odo, Quark thought to himself, I've never been so happy to lose a bet in my life.

~ 30 ~

~ Return to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" ~

~ Return to The Library ~