DS9 - The Spinning Wheel [3/5]
Mar. 7th, 2014 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seikilosTitle: Like I Have Nothing To Hide
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 (slight dubcon, hairpulling)
Betas: tinsnip and Yosie
Words: This part 4090, appr. 15k overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: When Miles returns from a wartime engineering course, Keiko is glad to have him safe at home again--but soon she realises that all is not well. Now she must gather evidence while protecting her family and without letting on that she knows something is wrong. This chapter: Strategic meetings.
Author's Notes: So, the other thing I had spent a great deal of time thinking about, in addition to how Keiko might be able to realistically deal with a threat on her own, was how to detect Changelings more effectively than using blood samples. I probably spent the better part of a month mulling this over on my various walks, because as intimidating as DS9 made the Founders, once I saw them introduced, I thought there had to be a loophole or two to exploit--otherwise, well, the Federation was doomed.
I didn't write all the ideas I came up with into the fic, though I did cover a good number of them. It was fun to get the chance to put them to use, so yup!
(3)
The children were in bed now. Nerys had just bid her good night. The lights had begun to dim automatically some time ago, simulating the close of the day to work with the natural bodily rhythms of anyone left awake. And Keiko could no longer keep at bay what she'd known all along: soon, she would need to go to sleep.
She would need to lie down, close her eyes, and become unconscious, leaving the Changeling free to do whatever he wished. She would be defenceless, but worse than that, her family would be defenceless, with no one to guard them.
She knew that attacking any of them would be one of the most foolish moves the Changeling could make. If he wanted to impersonate Miles O'Brien, a man who would do anything for his family, he could never let any kind of harm come to them as long as he remained undercover. The same had been true when Miles had been replaced by that replicant years ago. Knowing that, as had been the case that time, did absolutely nothing to erase her breath-stealing sense of vulnerability.
What if he'd realised she knew what he was? When she was asleep would be the perfect time for an "accident" to befall her. But if she refused to sleep in his presence and he didn't yet know she wasn't fooled by him any longer, he almost certainly would figure it out.
She had no choice. Eventually, before "Miles" returned from playing darts with Julian and with one last check on her children, Keiko forced herself to her bedroom.
It wasn't a large room, but tonight, it was a cavern. It was no longer cosy and homelike; the room felt bare, with her and Miles' belongings superficial and inconsequential additions. She had never before felt so exposed in her own home, not even when she had first arrived on the barely functioning station.
She went to the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a pair of pyjama pants and a long-sleeved top. Miles had perfectly calibrated the environmental controls of their quarters (after about six months of decreasingly gentle reminders) so that she rarely had to wear anything heavy. Though there was no problem with the thermal regulator, right now, she wanted full sleeves, and—a nightgown was impossible.
She went to braid her hair by the mirror and spent most of her time watching over her shoulder in it and listening for the sound of the door to their quarters. When she reached the tips of her hair, she caught her breath—she'd finished the braid without realising it. She selected a ribbon at random and went to bed.
When she had lain down on her back, she pulled the covers all the way up to her chin. Her lips compressed and she adjusted them down slightly. She probably look like a little girl who believed there was a monster under her bed. When the monster came to get in with her, that would definitely draw his suspicion.
She closed her eyes. At once, all the background sounds of the station—the generators, the settling of metal, the noises of conduits, everything—pushed into her head. She only realised she wasn't breathing beneath their soft and insistent weight when her chest grew tight.
She had to stop this. She had to go to sleep.
Without particularly thinking about it, she fell into the patterns of the Bajoran meditation Nerys had shown her right before Yoshi had been born. She wasn't habitual in her practice, but that didn't matter. If she immersed herself in her breathing, then perhaps sleep would come.
It did. Though it was gradual and light, it still came.
*
She woke up a few hours later to darkness. Now the only illumination came from the panel directly above her head. It was enough to make out the shape that filled the sheets beside her, although she would have been conscious of the second body in her bed even were there no light at all.
She closed her eyes and lengthened her breathing, and then she had to brace herself against the urge to laugh, because the Changeling was doing exactly the same thing. There they were, side by side, two enemies lying in the same bed and feigning sleep. The only difference between them was that only she knew they were both pretending.
. . . It really wasn't funny at all.
She fought off an urge to look in on Molly and Yoshi and went back to meditating, but always a part of her was listening, listening, listening, until the exhaustion of constant watchfulness and fear dragged her under.
*
"Whoa. You don't look so good," the Changeling observed the next morning when she stepped into the main room for breakfast.
Keiko wasn't sure who she was glaring at: the impostor who was holding her family hostage or the man he was imitating, because that was exactly what Miles would have said and she didn't want to hear it from either of them.
"Thanks," she said flatly. "I had a lot of nightmares again last night. They kept me up. Where are you going so early?"
Once again, he hadn't been in her bed when she'd woken up that morning. He hadn't even been at the table but was apparently doing a last-minute check of his kit. Probably she was supposed to assume he'd already eaten breakfast and had reclaimed the dishes.
"Back to the grind," he answered, snapping his kit shut. "If don't have the Defiant in perfect shape by tonight, the Commander's going to kill me."
He came over to kiss her, and god, why was he so insistent on that one piece of Miles' routine? But before he could, he stopped and squinted at her.
She was too exhausted to feel much of anything; if she'd ever received a blessing in a bigger disguise than this, she couldn't think of it. "What?"
"You really don't look so good, sweetheart," he told her. He cupped her upper arm; she tensed—and he frowned. "Maybe you should be the one to go see Julian."
"I don't need to—"
She stopped. During one of the times she'd been awake last night, she'd searched for a plausible reason to go to the infirmary. Now the Changeling himself had given it to her.
". . . Maybe you're right." She let herself sigh. "One more night like the last couple and I'll be fertilizing you and serving stew to my plants. I'll go see what Julian can give me to help me sleep."
"Good idea." He smiled. "I bet your fertilizer tastes awful."
She returned it wanly. "Let's not find out."
"Well, I'm off." He leaned in to kiss her cheek; she let him. "Oh, I might be working overtime tonight, depending on whether I can get the Defiant up and running by this afternoon. Don't bother replicating anything—I'll just make something when I get home."
"All right. Have a good day at work."
He left then, and as he strolled out the door, he whistled the opening notes of "There's a Hole in My Bucket." She could have thrown something at him.
Nerys had already left for her own shift, and so Keiko made her own check on Yoshi and went to wake Molly for breakfast. Ordinarily, she would have let her sleep, but the idea of waiting any longer than necessary to go see Julian was unbearable.
After Molly had eaten—Keiko didn't even bother trying—and the breakfast dishes had been reclaimed, Keiko cleaned her up and settled Yoshi into his carrying sling. She took Molly by the hand without Lupi and all together they set off for the promenade.
If she received her usual share of smiles at the sight of Yoshi cuddled up against her, she didn't notice. Her focus had narrowed to the hallway before her, and that was all. She stared straight ahead, taking the turns by rote, slotting herself into space left by others riding the turbolift and staring ahead without speaking. She kept Molly tethered to her at all times.
Once they reached the promenade, Molly started tugging on her hand, wanting to see this bit of colour, talk to that person, and could she have a jumja stick? Please? The answer to each question, however, was always no. Keiko grimly kept walking and only the promise that they were going to go visit Julian and see him be a doctor was enough to forestall a noisy argument.
Julian was seated at the main infirmary computer, but the instant he glanced over at her, he hastily unfolded himself and hurried on over. She smiled tightly. She must have looked a wreck to inspire that reaction in him. Probably she'd be the subject of promenade gossip for a good three days.
He reached out to cup her upper arm in sympathy. When she flinched, remembering the touch from the Changeling earlier that morning, he immediately let his hand drop and squatted down to speak with her daughter.
"Hello, Molly. Here for a visit?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Mommy said we could watch you be a doctor."
"Well, I don't know about that" —he partly turned on the balls of his feet— "but if you'd like, Dr. Rawat can show you what your heart looks like on the computer. How does that sound?"
"Yeah, okay."
Molly didn't need any encouragement to run over to the smiling, dark-haired doctor in question as he set aside a padd. As soon as she was certain Molly was engaged, Keiko looked back to Julian, who had risen and was standing in front of her.
"I'm here to see about getting something to help me sleep," she told him. The next part was hard to force out: "Miles thought it would be a good idea to come see you."
It was foolish of her, but every time she used her husband's name on the Changeling, it felt as though she were helping him to root even deeper in the real Miles' life. She knew it wasn't true, but—she'd read too many stories about the power of names.
"Well, I'm glad to see one O'Brien, at least, takes their health seriously," Julian said, inviting her to smile.
She didn't. She was sick of smiling when she didn't want to. She had a reason to stop pretending right now, and she was going to take it.
Julian ran through what she assumed was a standard checklist of questions about her sleeplessness, then put together her prescription. As he was fitting together a hypo, he remarked, "Miles and I had a good game of darts last night."
She couldn't help herself: she tensed. "Did you?"
"Yes, we did, even if he beat me three games running." He looked up from the hypo. His hands stilled and his features softened. "He must have shaken off whatever was bothering him earlier—I didn't see any sign of him being out of sorts."
"I see."
The chances of the Changeling observing them were extremely low, she knew, but it was still possible. She might have had an excuse not to smile, but there was nothing she could use to explain a lack of concern for her husband's health.
With that in mind, she feigned relief. "That's good. I have to admit, I was getting worried."
"Well" —Julian held out the hypo; she took it— "keep an eye on him anyway. For all I know, he might have been putting on a good face. You know how much he loves visiting the infirmary."
"I do." She looked down at the hypo in her hands for a moment, then tucked it in one of her sling's pockets. "Thank you."
"Oh, it's my pleasure. I hope that's enough to do the trick, but if it isn't, come pay me another visit. You know where to find me."
His own smile at last coaxed a small one out of her. "Either here, having lunch with Garak, or playing strange games with my husband in the holosuites."
"You make our holosuite time sound so unsavoury," he protested, and her smile actually grew.
He moved forward, then seemed to reconsider when the logistics of hugging a woman with a now alert and wiggling baby strapped to her front defeated him.
Instead, he settled for taking her hands as he had yesterday and giving them a squeeze. (Now everyone really would be gossiping.)
"Good luck, Keiko, and don't worry—everything is going to be all right."
She nodded, but it was more acknowledgement than agreement. She profoundly wanted to believe he was right, but after a life as full as hers, she knew very well that wanting something was no guarantee of it happening.
She squeezed his hands back, then pulled free. "I'll see you later, Julian. All finished, Molly?"
"No," Molly called back without turning away from the computer screen. On it was a perfect image of her heart, beating away and delighting its owner.
"Try some jumping jacks—and then after that you'll have to go," Dr. Rawat told Molly.
"But I want to watch some more. . . ."
"You can come back later. I'm sure your mother won't mind."
Molly began bouncing about and gave a happy little crow when her heartbeat on the monitor sped up accordingly. Keiko took a step forward, then another. Then she paused and turned, seemingly remembering something. "Oh, Julian. I'll be walking by Security Chief Odo's office on my way back. If there's anything you need me to drop off to him, I could take it for you."
Julian's eyebrows twitched together. "No, I . . . can't think of—" And then he understood. "Oh! Never mind, there is something. Hold on just one minute."
He all but flew across the infirmary and selected a padd from a full shelf of them. His fingers ran across the manual entry controls, and then, at a somewhat more normal speed, he returned to her.
"Here." He held the padd out with its screen blanked. She accepted it and deftly manoeuvred it out of Yoshi's reach. Her son made an unhappy noise. "Thank you, Keiko. I'd nearly forgotten about this."
"You're very welcome." And now it was time for her to smile again. "Have a good day. Molly!"
Molly looked a little huffy at being called away from her fun new game, but it didn't last. She gave Julian's legs what she clearly thought was a bone-crushing squeeze (and Julian was kind enough to indulge her with an "Oof!" and exaggerated praise of her strength), and then they set off once more.
Molly was further cheered when Keiko told her their next destination. While neither of them had a great deal of contact with Security Chief Odo, Molly found him fascinating, and the prospect of a visit was enough to get her skipping along at her side anytime there was enough space in the crowd to do so.
The sight was startling: when was the last time Molly had seemed so content in a crowd? She had noticed how all the new stresses in their life had affected Molly . . . but the degree to which her daughter's behaviour had changed was clearly greater than she had realised. Guilt cut through her exhaustion—when (when) Miles was back with them again, she would have to pay a great deal more attention to her little girl to make her feel safe once again.
Fortunately for her, it wasn't far from the infirmary to security. While Molly was happier than usual to be surrounded by people, she wasn't. Ordinarily, she enjoyed her time on the promenade—there was always no shortage of interesting things to see and it was good to get out and chat with friends and newcomers alike—but today, each jostle and bump felt deliberately aimed at her. Maintaining a pleasant expression was becoming more difficult by the moment.
Just before they reached security, she and Molly passed a grumpy-looking Quark heading in the direction of the bar. Once she spotted him, Keiko sped up as much as Molly's pace allowed. If Odo had just finished a meeting with Quark, it probably meant he was alone for the moment. That was just what she needed.
As she arrived, she peered through the viewing panes that made up most of the front wall of his office. There: she could see him seated in his chair, his head bent over what she assumed was a report of some kind. No one else was in sight.
The moment the doors to the office parted, Odo looked up. Before she could even greet him, Molly chirped, "Hi Odo! Mommy has something for you. It's from Julian."
Odo's body language immediately acquired an overlay of awkwardness, something she ordinarily would have found equal measures amusing and endearing. It was clear he wasn't very used to interacting with small children.
"Does she?"
Keiko held out the padd. "That's right."
Odo turned on the padd and began reading almost the second it touched his hand. His eyes flicked over the opening lines—and then he went still.
Julian must have explained the situation for her, she realised. Now she didn't have to rely on conveying what was wrong through implication alone. Oh, she could have kissed him! (. . . And thereby given the station conversational fuel for the next six months.)
As Odo resumed reading, she rubbed Yoshi's back, more to soothe herself than him—though it did forestall the beginnings of fussiness in her son. She knew Julian couldn't have included much in his report, given how quickly he'd written it, but from how long Odo was taking, it felt as though he'd written up every last detail. Her nerves weren't helped when Odo set down the padd without speaking. Instead, he kept staring at it, almost certainly absorbing what he had read. When he suddenly jerked up his head, she actually gasped.
"Don't touch that," he warned, and for a moment, she thought he was talking to her.
Then Molly responded with an affronted, "I'm just looking," and only then did Keiko notice her daughter had wandered away to scrutinise the images of wanted criminals on Odo's wall.
She at once held out her hand. "Molly."
"I just wanted to see," Molly complained but returned to her side.
As this had been going on, Odo had risen and done something to the wall. When she looked back at him, it was to see him take what appeared to be a modified phaser rifle from a compartment in the wall she hadn't noticed.
Before Molly could get nervous, Keiko quickly explained, "The Security Chief is just going to make a little light in here. We'll step outside for a minute now and let him do his work."
"Okay."
Keiko met Odo's eyes; he nodded. Then she and Molly left.
It took effort not to hold Molly's hand too tight as Odo moved from one end of his office to the other, firing expanding energy pulses at the floor, the ceiling, the walls. The bursts of light spilled into the promenade and she tried not to cringe at every head that turned.
"Hey, is this a drill?" someone called to her.
Lightly, she called back, "Just a random check!"
"Okay, sure. You never can be too careful, right?"
Her laughter was brittle. "Right."
When the pulses stopped and she saw Odo nod at her from within his office, she let out the breath that had trapped itself in her lungs and led Molly back inside.
"So," he began the moment she stepped inside, "how long have you known about this?"
"I wasn't sure until yesterday," she said as steadily as she could. Once again, it was the prospect of getting help, not of being the only person between the Changeling and her family or the danger Miles was in, that was challenging her composure. "But for the two days before that—I wasn't sure what was wrong. I just thought Miles seemed . . . off."
Odo looked down at Molly, then back at her. "So you believe something happened at the conference."
"That's right."
He grunted and, for a moment, didn't respond further. Then: "And you're certain he's not just—out of sorts?"
"I'm sure." With an eye on Molly, who was steadily edging closer to the wanted bulletins again, she said, "He's refused intimacy and didn't remark on some, ah, culinary changes I made."
Odo's face wasn't quite as expressive as many humanoids, and consequently, she sometimes had trouble reading him—but that wasn't the case right now. It was more than clear to her that he did not like what was going on. "Has he talked to you about his work at all since returning to the station?"
"Yes, he's mentioned working on the station computers and on the Defiant." She'd expected the question, though she wasn't sure how useful her information was going to be. The likelihood of the Changeling telling her exactly what he was sabotaging was nearly nonexistent.
"That's easy enough to verify. But that still leaves us with the question of where else he's been and what he's done."
He glanced about, then returned his gaze to her. "You'd better keep moving. I'll pass this information on to Captain Sisko and the rest of the senior staff. If you notice anything else out of the ordinary, notify one of us, but don't go trying to pry any more information out of him. We don't want to raise his suspicions, or he might do something . . . unpredictable."
"I won't, sir." She smiled briefly. "I'm sure he knows I don't take that much of an interest in the details of Miles' work."
Another grunt—and then Odo tried a softer expression. "Good luck."
Those two curt words dropped calmness like a blanket over her shoulders, just for a few beats. When she smiled again, it lasted. "Thanks. You too."
"I don't believe in luck," he told her as she went to take Molly's hand. (She had the feeling those bulletins were going to inspire quite a few questions later.)
"Then why did you say it?"
"It seems to be something you humanoids like hearing," he explained, and—he actually looked embarrassed.
"We do," she answered, touched by his concern. Over the past five years, it seemed she had missed out on getting to know a surprisingly considerate person. That was something she needed to change. "Or at least, I do. Thank you, Odo." She turned her attention downward. "Say goodbye now, Molly."
"Goodbye," Molly repeated obediently before, hand in hand, they left.
She had been planning on returning directly to their quarters—Yoshi was becoming increasingly unhappy about his confinement—but when the jumja stick stand came into view and Molly turned a longing but silent gaze on it, she felt guilty once again. All things considered, Molly had been extremely well-behaved. It hadn't just been today, either, but since Miles had left for his conference more than a week ago. A jumja stick wasn't nearly enough of a reward, given how much of a help that good behaviour had been, but she suspected it wouldn't go amiss.
Of course she was right. Molly's delight was heart-warming; even the man running the stand must have agreed if the fuss he made over her was any indication. She was going to have a very sticky little girl to clean up later, but right now, she didn't mind.
"Excuse me, ma'am?"
Keiko straightened from tucking a napkin into the front of Molly's shirt and looked for the speaker. She found a Bajoran woman at the stand next to the jumja stick seller trying to get her attention. Oh—she was new, wasn't she? What had been there before?
"To celebrate our new location on Deep Space Nine's promenade," the woman went on, "all our perfumes are currently twenty-five percent off."
"Thank you," Keiko said. To be polite, she picked up a squat glass bottle and unstoppered it. The scent of—relinna flowers, yes—reached her nose, and at that exact instant, she sucked in a sharp breath. Too much of the perfume swept into her lungs, making her cough.
After assuring the worried seller that she was all right and that she wasn't about to splash her merchandise everywhere, she put on a friendly smile. She straightened, and with a dry mouth, said, "This is going to sound a bit strange, but . . . you wouldn't be able to sell me an empty bottle, would you?"
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Action
Rating & Warnings: PG-13 (slight dubcon, hairpulling)
Betas: tinsnip and Yosie
Words: This part 4090, appr. 15k overall
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Summary: When Miles returns from a wartime engineering course, Keiko is glad to have him safe at home again--but soon she realises that all is not well. Now she must gather evidence while protecting her family and without letting on that she knows something is wrong. This chapter: Strategic meetings.
Author's Notes: So, the other thing I had spent a great deal of time thinking about, in addition to how Keiko might be able to realistically deal with a threat on her own, was how to detect Changelings more effectively than using blood samples. I probably spent the better part of a month mulling this over on my various walks, because as intimidating as DS9 made the Founders, once I saw them introduced, I thought there had to be a loophole or two to exploit--otherwise, well, the Federation was doomed.
I didn't write all the ideas I came up with into the fic, though I did cover a good number of them. It was fun to get the chance to put them to use, so yup!
There's a forest in my heart that will comfort me
One day you will find me and oh I will run
I will run to the dark
The night will cover my face
You will never guess what's on my mind
You will never find what is in my heart
The children were in bed now. Nerys had just bid her good night. The lights had begun to dim automatically some time ago, simulating the close of the day to work with the natural bodily rhythms of anyone left awake. And Keiko could no longer keep at bay what she'd known all along: soon, she would need to go to sleep.
She would need to lie down, close her eyes, and become unconscious, leaving the Changeling free to do whatever he wished. She would be defenceless, but worse than that, her family would be defenceless, with no one to guard them.
She knew that attacking any of them would be one of the most foolish moves the Changeling could make. If he wanted to impersonate Miles O'Brien, a man who would do anything for his family, he could never let any kind of harm come to them as long as he remained undercover. The same had been true when Miles had been replaced by that replicant years ago. Knowing that, as had been the case that time, did absolutely nothing to erase her breath-stealing sense of vulnerability.
What if he'd realised she knew what he was? When she was asleep would be the perfect time for an "accident" to befall her. But if she refused to sleep in his presence and he didn't yet know she wasn't fooled by him any longer, he almost certainly would figure it out.
She had no choice. Eventually, before "Miles" returned from playing darts with Julian and with one last check on her children, Keiko forced herself to her bedroom.
It wasn't a large room, but tonight, it was a cavern. It was no longer cosy and homelike; the room felt bare, with her and Miles' belongings superficial and inconsequential additions. She had never before felt so exposed in her own home, not even when she had first arrived on the barely functioning station.
She went to the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a pair of pyjama pants and a long-sleeved top. Miles had perfectly calibrated the environmental controls of their quarters (after about six months of decreasingly gentle reminders) so that she rarely had to wear anything heavy. Though there was no problem with the thermal regulator, right now, she wanted full sleeves, and—a nightgown was impossible.
She went to braid her hair by the mirror and spent most of her time watching over her shoulder in it and listening for the sound of the door to their quarters. When she reached the tips of her hair, she caught her breath—she'd finished the braid without realising it. She selected a ribbon at random and went to bed.
When she had lain down on her back, she pulled the covers all the way up to her chin. Her lips compressed and she adjusted them down slightly. She probably look like a little girl who believed there was a monster under her bed. When the monster came to get in with her, that would definitely draw his suspicion.
She closed her eyes. At once, all the background sounds of the station—the generators, the settling of metal, the noises of conduits, everything—pushed into her head. She only realised she wasn't breathing beneath their soft and insistent weight when her chest grew tight.
She had to stop this. She had to go to sleep.
Without particularly thinking about it, she fell into the patterns of the Bajoran meditation Nerys had shown her right before Yoshi had been born. She wasn't habitual in her practice, but that didn't matter. If she immersed herself in her breathing, then perhaps sleep would come.
It did. Though it was gradual and light, it still came.
She woke up a few hours later to darkness. Now the only illumination came from the panel directly above her head. It was enough to make out the shape that filled the sheets beside her, although she would have been conscious of the second body in her bed even were there no light at all.
She closed her eyes and lengthened her breathing, and then she had to brace herself against the urge to laugh, because the Changeling was doing exactly the same thing. There they were, side by side, two enemies lying in the same bed and feigning sleep. The only difference between them was that only she knew they were both pretending.
. . . It really wasn't funny at all.
She fought off an urge to look in on Molly and Yoshi and went back to meditating, but always a part of her was listening, listening, listening, until the exhaustion of constant watchfulness and fear dragged her under.
"Whoa. You don't look so good," the Changeling observed the next morning when she stepped into the main room for breakfast.
Keiko wasn't sure who she was glaring at: the impostor who was holding her family hostage or the man he was imitating, because that was exactly what Miles would have said and she didn't want to hear it from either of them.
"Thanks," she said flatly. "I had a lot of nightmares again last night. They kept me up. Where are you going so early?"
Once again, he hadn't been in her bed when she'd woken up that morning. He hadn't even been at the table but was apparently doing a last-minute check of his kit. Probably she was supposed to assume he'd already eaten breakfast and had reclaimed the dishes.
"Back to the grind," he answered, snapping his kit shut. "If don't have the Defiant in perfect shape by tonight, the Commander's going to kill me."
He came over to kiss her, and god, why was he so insistent on that one piece of Miles' routine? But before he could, he stopped and squinted at her.
She was too exhausted to feel much of anything; if she'd ever received a blessing in a bigger disguise than this, she couldn't think of it. "What?"
"You really don't look so good, sweetheart," he told her. He cupped her upper arm; she tensed—and he frowned. "Maybe you should be the one to go see Julian."
"I don't need to—"
She stopped. During one of the times she'd been awake last night, she'd searched for a plausible reason to go to the infirmary. Now the Changeling himself had given it to her.
". . . Maybe you're right." She let herself sigh. "One more night like the last couple and I'll be fertilizing you and serving stew to my plants. I'll go see what Julian can give me to help me sleep."
"Good idea." He smiled. "I bet your fertilizer tastes awful."
She returned it wanly. "Let's not find out."
"Well, I'm off." He leaned in to kiss her cheek; she let him. "Oh, I might be working overtime tonight, depending on whether I can get the Defiant up and running by this afternoon. Don't bother replicating anything—I'll just make something when I get home."
"All right. Have a good day at work."
He left then, and as he strolled out the door, he whistled the opening notes of "There's a Hole in My Bucket." She could have thrown something at him.
Nerys had already left for her own shift, and so Keiko made her own check on Yoshi and went to wake Molly for breakfast. Ordinarily, she would have let her sleep, but the idea of waiting any longer than necessary to go see Julian was unbearable.
After Molly had eaten—Keiko didn't even bother trying—and the breakfast dishes had been reclaimed, Keiko cleaned her up and settled Yoshi into his carrying sling. She took Molly by the hand without Lupi and all together they set off for the promenade.
If she received her usual share of smiles at the sight of Yoshi cuddled up against her, she didn't notice. Her focus had narrowed to the hallway before her, and that was all. She stared straight ahead, taking the turns by rote, slotting herself into space left by others riding the turbolift and staring ahead without speaking. She kept Molly tethered to her at all times.
Once they reached the promenade, Molly started tugging on her hand, wanting to see this bit of colour, talk to that person, and could she have a jumja stick? Please? The answer to each question, however, was always no. Keiko grimly kept walking and only the promise that they were going to go visit Julian and see him be a doctor was enough to forestall a noisy argument.
Julian was seated at the main infirmary computer, but the instant he glanced over at her, he hastily unfolded himself and hurried on over. She smiled tightly. She must have looked a wreck to inspire that reaction in him. Probably she'd be the subject of promenade gossip for a good three days.
He reached out to cup her upper arm in sympathy. When she flinched, remembering the touch from the Changeling earlier that morning, he immediately let his hand drop and squatted down to speak with her daughter.
"Hello, Molly. Here for a visit?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Mommy said we could watch you be a doctor."
"Well, I don't know about that" —he partly turned on the balls of his feet— "but if you'd like, Dr. Rawat can show you what your heart looks like on the computer. How does that sound?"
"Yeah, okay."
Molly didn't need any encouragement to run over to the smiling, dark-haired doctor in question as he set aside a padd. As soon as she was certain Molly was engaged, Keiko looked back to Julian, who had risen and was standing in front of her.
"I'm here to see about getting something to help me sleep," she told him. The next part was hard to force out: "Miles thought it would be a good idea to come see you."
It was foolish of her, but every time she used her husband's name on the Changeling, it felt as though she were helping him to root even deeper in the real Miles' life. She knew it wasn't true, but—she'd read too many stories about the power of names.
"Well, I'm glad to see one O'Brien, at least, takes their health seriously," Julian said, inviting her to smile.
She didn't. She was sick of smiling when she didn't want to. She had a reason to stop pretending right now, and she was going to take it.
Julian ran through what she assumed was a standard checklist of questions about her sleeplessness, then put together her prescription. As he was fitting together a hypo, he remarked, "Miles and I had a good game of darts last night."
She couldn't help herself: she tensed. "Did you?"
"Yes, we did, even if he beat me three games running." He looked up from the hypo. His hands stilled and his features softened. "He must have shaken off whatever was bothering him earlier—I didn't see any sign of him being out of sorts."
"I see."
The chances of the Changeling observing them were extremely low, she knew, but it was still possible. She might have had an excuse not to smile, but there was nothing she could use to explain a lack of concern for her husband's health.
With that in mind, she feigned relief. "That's good. I have to admit, I was getting worried."
"Well" —Julian held out the hypo; she took it— "keep an eye on him anyway. For all I know, he might have been putting on a good face. You know how much he loves visiting the infirmary."
"I do." She looked down at the hypo in her hands for a moment, then tucked it in one of her sling's pockets. "Thank you."
"Oh, it's my pleasure. I hope that's enough to do the trick, but if it isn't, come pay me another visit. You know where to find me."
His own smile at last coaxed a small one out of her. "Either here, having lunch with Garak, or playing strange games with my husband in the holosuites."
"You make our holosuite time sound so unsavoury," he protested, and her smile actually grew.
He moved forward, then seemed to reconsider when the logistics of hugging a woman with a now alert and wiggling baby strapped to her front defeated him.
Instead, he settled for taking her hands as he had yesterday and giving them a squeeze. (Now everyone really would be gossiping.)
"Good luck, Keiko, and don't worry—everything is going to be all right."
She nodded, but it was more acknowledgement than agreement. She profoundly wanted to believe he was right, but after a life as full as hers, she knew very well that wanting something was no guarantee of it happening.
She squeezed his hands back, then pulled free. "I'll see you later, Julian. All finished, Molly?"
"No," Molly called back without turning away from the computer screen. On it was a perfect image of her heart, beating away and delighting its owner.
"Try some jumping jacks—and then after that you'll have to go," Dr. Rawat told Molly.
"But I want to watch some more. . . ."
"You can come back later. I'm sure your mother won't mind."
Molly began bouncing about and gave a happy little crow when her heartbeat on the monitor sped up accordingly. Keiko took a step forward, then another. Then she paused and turned, seemingly remembering something. "Oh, Julian. I'll be walking by Security Chief Odo's office on my way back. If there's anything you need me to drop off to him, I could take it for you."
Julian's eyebrows twitched together. "No, I . . . can't think of—" And then he understood. "Oh! Never mind, there is something. Hold on just one minute."
He all but flew across the infirmary and selected a padd from a full shelf of them. His fingers ran across the manual entry controls, and then, at a somewhat more normal speed, he returned to her.
"Here." He held the padd out with its screen blanked. She accepted it and deftly manoeuvred it out of Yoshi's reach. Her son made an unhappy noise. "Thank you, Keiko. I'd nearly forgotten about this."
"You're very welcome." And now it was time for her to smile again. "Have a good day. Molly!"
Molly looked a little huffy at being called away from her fun new game, but it didn't last. She gave Julian's legs what she clearly thought was a bone-crushing squeeze (and Julian was kind enough to indulge her with an "Oof!" and exaggerated praise of her strength), and then they set off once more.
Molly was further cheered when Keiko told her their next destination. While neither of them had a great deal of contact with Security Chief Odo, Molly found him fascinating, and the prospect of a visit was enough to get her skipping along at her side anytime there was enough space in the crowd to do so.
The sight was startling: when was the last time Molly had seemed so content in a crowd? She had noticed how all the new stresses in their life had affected Molly . . . but the degree to which her daughter's behaviour had changed was clearly greater than she had realised. Guilt cut through her exhaustion—when (when) Miles was back with them again, she would have to pay a great deal more attention to her little girl to make her feel safe once again.
Fortunately for her, it wasn't far from the infirmary to security. While Molly was happier than usual to be surrounded by people, she wasn't. Ordinarily, she enjoyed her time on the promenade—there was always no shortage of interesting things to see and it was good to get out and chat with friends and newcomers alike—but today, each jostle and bump felt deliberately aimed at her. Maintaining a pleasant expression was becoming more difficult by the moment.
Just before they reached security, she and Molly passed a grumpy-looking Quark heading in the direction of the bar. Once she spotted him, Keiko sped up as much as Molly's pace allowed. If Odo had just finished a meeting with Quark, it probably meant he was alone for the moment. That was just what she needed.
As she arrived, she peered through the viewing panes that made up most of the front wall of his office. There: she could see him seated in his chair, his head bent over what she assumed was a report of some kind. No one else was in sight.
The moment the doors to the office parted, Odo looked up. Before she could even greet him, Molly chirped, "Hi Odo! Mommy has something for you. It's from Julian."
Odo's body language immediately acquired an overlay of awkwardness, something she ordinarily would have found equal measures amusing and endearing. It was clear he wasn't very used to interacting with small children.
"Does she?"
Keiko held out the padd. "That's right."
Odo turned on the padd and began reading almost the second it touched his hand. His eyes flicked over the opening lines—and then he went still.
Julian must have explained the situation for her, she realised. Now she didn't have to rely on conveying what was wrong through implication alone. Oh, she could have kissed him! (. . . And thereby given the station conversational fuel for the next six months.)
As Odo resumed reading, she rubbed Yoshi's back, more to soothe herself than him—though it did forestall the beginnings of fussiness in her son. She knew Julian couldn't have included much in his report, given how quickly he'd written it, but from how long Odo was taking, it felt as though he'd written up every last detail. Her nerves weren't helped when Odo set down the padd without speaking. Instead, he kept staring at it, almost certainly absorbing what he had read. When he suddenly jerked up his head, she actually gasped.
"Don't touch that," he warned, and for a moment, she thought he was talking to her.
Then Molly responded with an affronted, "I'm just looking," and only then did Keiko notice her daughter had wandered away to scrutinise the images of wanted criminals on Odo's wall.
She at once held out her hand. "Molly."
"I just wanted to see," Molly complained but returned to her side.
As this had been going on, Odo had risen and done something to the wall. When she looked back at him, it was to see him take what appeared to be a modified phaser rifle from a compartment in the wall she hadn't noticed.
Before Molly could get nervous, Keiko quickly explained, "The Security Chief is just going to make a little light in here. We'll step outside for a minute now and let him do his work."
"Okay."
Keiko met Odo's eyes; he nodded. Then she and Molly left.
It took effort not to hold Molly's hand too tight as Odo moved from one end of his office to the other, firing expanding energy pulses at the floor, the ceiling, the walls. The bursts of light spilled into the promenade and she tried not to cringe at every head that turned.
"Hey, is this a drill?" someone called to her.
Lightly, she called back, "Just a random check!"
"Okay, sure. You never can be too careful, right?"
Her laughter was brittle. "Right."
When the pulses stopped and she saw Odo nod at her from within his office, she let out the breath that had trapped itself in her lungs and led Molly back inside.
"So," he began the moment she stepped inside, "how long have you known about this?"
"I wasn't sure until yesterday," she said as steadily as she could. Once again, it was the prospect of getting help, not of being the only person between the Changeling and her family or the danger Miles was in, that was challenging her composure. "But for the two days before that—I wasn't sure what was wrong. I just thought Miles seemed . . . off."
Odo looked down at Molly, then back at her. "So you believe something happened at the conference."
"That's right."
He grunted and, for a moment, didn't respond further. Then: "And you're certain he's not just—out of sorts?"
"I'm sure." With an eye on Molly, who was steadily edging closer to the wanted bulletins again, she said, "He's refused intimacy and didn't remark on some, ah, culinary changes I made."
Odo's face wasn't quite as expressive as many humanoids, and consequently, she sometimes had trouble reading him—but that wasn't the case right now. It was more than clear to her that he did not like what was going on. "Has he talked to you about his work at all since returning to the station?"
"Yes, he's mentioned working on the station computers and on the Defiant." She'd expected the question, though she wasn't sure how useful her information was going to be. The likelihood of the Changeling telling her exactly what he was sabotaging was nearly nonexistent.
"That's easy enough to verify. But that still leaves us with the question of where else he's been and what he's done."
He glanced about, then returned his gaze to her. "You'd better keep moving. I'll pass this information on to Captain Sisko and the rest of the senior staff. If you notice anything else out of the ordinary, notify one of us, but don't go trying to pry any more information out of him. We don't want to raise his suspicions, or he might do something . . . unpredictable."
"I won't, sir." She smiled briefly. "I'm sure he knows I don't take that much of an interest in the details of Miles' work."
Another grunt—and then Odo tried a softer expression. "Good luck."
Those two curt words dropped calmness like a blanket over her shoulders, just for a few beats. When she smiled again, it lasted. "Thanks. You too."
"I don't believe in luck," he told her as she went to take Molly's hand. (She had the feeling those bulletins were going to inspire quite a few questions later.)
"Then why did you say it?"
"It seems to be something you humanoids like hearing," he explained, and—he actually looked embarrassed.
"We do," she answered, touched by his concern. Over the past five years, it seemed she had missed out on getting to know a surprisingly considerate person. That was something she needed to change. "Or at least, I do. Thank you, Odo." She turned her attention downward. "Say goodbye now, Molly."
"Goodbye," Molly repeated obediently before, hand in hand, they left.
She had been planning on returning directly to their quarters—Yoshi was becoming increasingly unhappy about his confinement—but when the jumja stick stand came into view and Molly turned a longing but silent gaze on it, she felt guilty once again. All things considered, Molly had been extremely well-behaved. It hadn't just been today, either, but since Miles had left for his conference more than a week ago. A jumja stick wasn't nearly enough of a reward, given how much of a help that good behaviour had been, but she suspected it wouldn't go amiss.
Of course she was right. Molly's delight was heart-warming; even the man running the stand must have agreed if the fuss he made over her was any indication. She was going to have a very sticky little girl to clean up later, but right now, she didn't mind.
"Excuse me, ma'am?"
Keiko straightened from tucking a napkin into the front of Molly's shirt and looked for the speaker. She found a Bajoran woman at the stand next to the jumja stick seller trying to get her attention. Oh—she was new, wasn't she? What had been there before?
"To celebrate our new location on Deep Space Nine's promenade," the woman went on, "all our perfumes are currently twenty-five percent off."
"Thank you," Keiko said. To be polite, she picked up a squat glass bottle and unstoppered it. The scent of—relinna flowers, yes—reached her nose, and at that exact instant, she sucked in a sharp breath. Too much of the perfume swept into her lungs, making her cough.
After assuring the worried seller that she was all right and that she wasn't about to splash her merchandise everywhere, she put on a friendly smile. She straightened, and with a dry mouth, said, "This is going to sound a bit strange, but . . . you wouldn't be able to sell me an empty bottle, would you?"
