InsaneJournal

It had definitely been one of those nights, though Jadzia wondered if they were really ghosts if most of them hadn’t been born yet. She missed Worf (part of her always would), but for some reason she kept thinking of Benjamin. What would Ben do without his old man to keep an eye on him? What was Jadzia doing without him? They’d had the strangest sort of relationship. As Curzon Dax, she’d been Ben’s mentor, but as Jadzia, Ben had as often been her mentor and some nights she could really use a patented Sisko hug. Nerys too was on her mind, and Julian, and the Chief.

She realized she was homesick.

Homesick for the cramped hallways and angular designs of Deep Space Nine. Homesick for the people, for playing Tongo with Quark and teasing Julian and Miles. For talking to Jake and watching him grow up, and for her lunch dates with Nerys. She missed her lab, and her instruments, and she missed the Defiant. Commanding the little ship after DS9 had been captured had been one of the highlights of her career. She’d always enjoyed getting to be called captain, if only for a few months. And if she was honest with herself, she’d developed a love of combat.

She chose to pull out her old uniform, the grey and black with the sciences teal at the collar. For this, she needed to belong. It occurred to her as she waited outside the holodeck that this wasn’t much different from dressing up for any holodeck program. She didn’t know whether to be depressed over that or not.

Using the replicator in her quarters’ common room, Susan had programmed a small cup of coffee and drank it down before she dressed and left the room. She had completed her Communications training - at least the initial parts of it, and now had a Starfleet uniform, but when she wasn’t on duty Susan chose to wear standard clothes. As she walked to the turbolift, Su braided her hair, having decided not to take the time in her room because Jadzia’s tone in her messages had been, well, almost a little urgent.

It didn’t take long to reach the holodeck, but once she did Susan smiled at seeing Jadzia, though she was turned away and dressed differently. Moving quietly, Su reached her lover and reached out to slide her hand into Jadzia’s as she reached her side.

“Good morning,” she said softly, her voice heavy with her accent thanks to the faint remnants of her own sleepiness.

Jadzia squeezed Susan's hand, then gently pulled her closer. She couldn't help the grin at Susan's sleepiness, nor the accent. She reached up and smoothed some of Su's hair just a little adoringly. "You missed a spot. Sorry if I woke you."

“Thank you, and it’s fine,” she replied, then smiled at Jadzia. Since no one else was around and they weren’t on duty, Susan hesitated a moment, then leaned in to give Jadzia a quick, soft kiss.

After drawing back again, she glanced at the holodeck. “So what’s behind there?”

It was a little distracting, and for a moment Jadzia forgot where they were. "Uh. Oh. I wanted to show you where I came from. The place that was home to me for most of my career."

The door opened, revealing a large, circular room made of grey metal. The center of the room was lower than the outer ring, with tables, stations and displays of mostly blue and teal. Round windows looked out into space from above, framed in bronze. Across the other side to them was a set of doors that led to an office.

The room wasn't populated, and Jadzia pulled Susan inside. "Welcome to Deep Space Nine. This is the operations center." She tapped a nearby console, showing Susan a picture of what the station looked like from outside.

“The station?” She asked, and she let Jadzia pull her inside once the doors had opened, gazing around with interest as the sight woke her up more fully. “This is amazing, truly,” she said. Letting go of Jadzia’s hand, Su turned in a slow circle, then walked over to the console as Jadzia pressed it.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, as she studied the image. “It looks large - but at the same time it doesn’t look large enough to hold the number of people you told me about.” To her eyes, it looked almost akin to a spider’s web, with the large metal ring and what looked almost like spikes rising from above and below.

“That’s...how long does it take people to reach the other side? It looks as though walking it would take hours.”

"Not too long. You can walk around the habitat ring in an hour or so, and that's without hurrying too much. There are lifts and other ways to get around quickly, as well. The station can hold up to seven thousand people in an emergency, but it's usually about two-thousand on average. The diameter is almost one and a half kilometers."

Jadzia put her arm around Susan, "So the inner ring is where people live. Ships dock on the pylons and the outer ring. The promenade takes up a large portion of the central structure below Ops. We're at the top. This is a repurposes mining station, originally built to process ore."

She shook her head in amazement, even as she leaned into Jadzia while she listened to her description of the station. “How long did you live there? Did you have the opportunity to explore the entire thing?”

She smiled at Susan. "I was here for six years, and I've explored every inch of it. Sometimes I had to, as I had duties that involved crawling into tight places."

“I know you miss it.” She turned her head to look at Jadzia’s face. “Have you recreated most of it here, on the holodeck, or just the operations center?”

"I created all of it. It's probably a little much." Jadzia walked down the three steps to the operations area, and ran her hand along a console. "This was my station." The holodeck would respond to commands as if it were real, but it wouldn't do anything. Not really.

"I like to walk around the promenade sometimes. Shops and restaurants, public spaces, the Temple. When it's filled with crew and visitors it's like a little town, bustling and alive."

She stayed where she was for a moment, looking down at the image on the console again, then followed her over to the other console. “It sounds much more active, culturally speaking, than the Enterprise.”

"Yes. Before the war, DS9 was a hub of trade and exploration. Since we sat at the mouth of a Wormhole, ships coming and going through it would come to the station to trade or resupply, or just to relax. Bajorans and Starfleet had the largest amount of people, since we manage the station for Bajor. It proved to be a good relationship for both the Bajorans, and the Federation."

Jadzia took Susan's hand again, and pulled her towards the lift. Unlike the turbolifts on the Enterprise (and those elsewhere on the station), this one was open, with no walls and only a railing. She took Susan to it, and ordered it to go to the promenade, then added, "Computer, populate the station, Pattern Alpha six."

She'd created different population levels. Alpha six was a generic, if accurate mixture, without most of the people she knew well. The only exception was Quark. Because the promenade just wasn't the same without Quark and his bar.

When the lift stopped, it looked out into a circular area. There was a single, very wide hallway that stretched three stories above them, though there was only walking on the second and first levels. Bajoran, Federation and Klingon flags hung at intervals, and people of all type and species walked between the shops and restaurants. A trio of Klingons walked past in their sharp armor, sharp teeth and sharper weapons, laughing boisterously.

"Those are Klingons," Jadzia said fondly, then pointed to a woman with ridges on her nose and an earing with a chain to her nose, "She's Bajoran."

Susan’s free hand grasped the railing of the turbolift as she leaned into Jadzia a little. It was very different from the ones on the ship, and unusual. When they reached the Promenade, her eyes widened, and she froze in place, staring in amazement. This was even more spectacular than seeing future London had been.

Blinking when the Klingons were pointed out, Susan glanced at Jadzia, trying to mentally resolve the picture of her married to one, then followed her hand to the woman she indicated. “I honestly am not really sure what to say, except that I couldn’t have thought of this in my wildest imaginings.” Even after visiting that one alien planet so far.

Leave it to the Cardassians to have iffy OSHA rules. There were times that Jadzia was certain DS9 had been designed as a death trap. Usually when some old Cardassian booby trap had been triggered.

"I love it. I love the bustle, I love the voices of a hundred languages all mixing together. Old allies meeting, enemies putting aside their differences for a few hours. This place had once been a nightmare of the Bajorans and we turned it into something good. Into a home."

She gave a slow nod, starting to understand how Jadzia felt. She squeezed her hand softly
even as her eyes followed all the people who passed. “Will you show me more of it?”

"Of course." Jadzia turned, taking both of Su's hands. "What would you like to see first? Quark's bar? The Temple? Oh! I know first. Come on."

She started to jog, pulling Susan along to a large, oval window. She pointed at an area of space. "Watch closely. Computer, time index 1.43."

The people around them popped out and reappeared in different positions, and then there was a flash of light out the window. A swirling mass of blue and purple spiralled out from the point of the flash, like a kind of interstellar whirlpool swimming with stars. "The Wormhole."

Su let herself be pulled along, smiling as she studied Jadzia from behind, glad to see her so excited and happy about all this. “What am I watching for-” Her question broke off in a sharp gasp as she stared, clutching Jadzia’s hand tightly. “That’s...how is that even possible?”

"Wormholes are rare, and this is the first and only known stable one. Meaning it can be used to travel across the galaxy in a fraction of the time." Jadzia spread her hands out. "Think of it like a tunnel, connecting to points in space time. You travel through a conduit that's outside of normal space. Since the conduit is shorter than traveling the normal way, it's perfect for rapid transit. Many are natural, and only last a few seconds or minutes at a time."

She let her hands fall to the side, though put an arm around Susan. "This wormhole is artificial, create by aliens the Bajorans call their Prophets. The Prophets are non-linear entities. Basically, they exist everywhen in every time, all at once."

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she murmured softly, eyes wide. She tried to pay attention to what Jadzia was telling her, but honestly Su was distracted by the view, and let her pull her in.

“Someone created this - but how? No, wait - I probably wouldn’t understand,” se said with a soft laugh, lifting one hand to rest it on the glass. The wormhole closed nearly as quickly as it opened, and she was left blinking at the black puckered with stars.

“Why can’t we see it now?”

"To be completely honest, I don't fully understand it either." Jadzia smiled at her. "It's closed. It only opens when something needs to go through. There's always a little leakage, so you know "it's there, but it's not open all the time."

Susan turned so that she could look at Jadzia, frowning uncertainly. “What do you mean by leakage? I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

"You know how if you close the curtains, you still get a little light through the crack in the middle? It's the same with a wormhole and its energy." Jadzia answered calmly and understandingly.

She nodded at the analogy, then glanced back out of the sky as she leaned into Jadzia. “The stars look different here. It’s still - confusing? Disorienting,” she said softly, finding that to be a better word.

"We're about 50 lightyears from the core worlds of the Federation, which includes Earth. And even the constellations you're used to will be just a little different. Eventually, Earth's constellations will be completely different. Even from the age of the Egyptians to your time, the stars changed as the galaxy moves."

Jadzia turned to Susan, lifting a hand to her cheek. "Look at it with wonder. Somewhere out there, there's a star with someone looking back, right at us."

She tilted her head against Jadzia’s hand even as her eyes pulled away from the stars and met the other woman’s. She smiled softly. “I do,” Susan told her. “It’s amazing. Like you.”

Jadzia wasn't normally one easily embarrassed, but her cheeks turned a little darker at Susan's compliment. She dealt with the flattery in her usual way. "Well, you're right. I'm very amazing. But only half as amazing as you."

Su smiled a little wider, reaching up both hands to cup Jadzia’s cheeks. “I beg to differ,” she said lightly, then grinned and gave her a hug. “I’m glad you shared this with me.

"It was... really personal," Jadzia admitted. She'd built DS9 as the first test for the holodeck, then tweaked it as close to perfection as she could. But she still hadn't been able to bring herself to show anyone but Tony. And then he'd gone before she'd had the chance to. So Susan was the first, and in some ways that made it more special.

Susan stepped back a little to smile softly. “I understand,” she said, and it suddenly struck her that perhaps she should share something just as personal with Jadzia. She made a mental note to speak to someone else about creating a program on the holodeck, to see if she could recreate a piece of Narnia someday, but she was hesitant as well. Brushing the thought aside, Susan turned to watch as people passed by, just studying them curiously. “I’m sure you miss this very much.”

Jadzia nodded. "Maybe one of my flaws is I feel too much. And I think of this place and all the memories and people. For my people, everything is transient. But it's one thing to say that, and another to live it. But as long as I live, and as long as this Symbiont lives, they'll always live on. And that goes for you too. Immortality, in a way."

“I don’t think that’s a flaw,” Susan replied. “I’m glad that you are able to have those memories.” She took Jadzia’s hand in hers, then squeezed it. “And they all live on through you. If you didn’t feel, it wouldn’t matter, Jadzia.”

She gazed down into Susan's eyes, and words kind of tumbled out. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

Susan blinked, staring up at her, and felt her own heart stutter in her chest. She’d kept it guarded for so long that, even with Jadzia, she’d kept herself cautious, desperately trying to not get too close emotionally, so this was a surprise. Letting go of Jadzia’s hand, she cupped her face again and leaned in to give her a slow, tender kiss, letting her feelings through in that way.

Jadzia's heart was quick to fill, and she loved fast and hard and forever. But there was room for others, and especially for Susan and somehow the former queen had snuck her way inside. She returned the kiss, just as tender, if not a little nervous.

Jadzia? With nerves? Say it isn't so.

Susan let it end slowly and drew back to lean her head against Jadzia’s, meeting her eyes. “...I think I am too, with you,” she said softly.

"That's a relief," Jadzia broke into a slow, slightly giddy smile. "Otherwise this would have been really embarrassing."

Chuckling softly, Su brushed her thumbs across the other woman’s cheeks, then lifted her head. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

"Really get breakfast, or get breakfast?" Jadzia asked, her eyes glimmering with mischief.

“Breakfast, then breakfast,,” Su replied slowly, then smiled and took her hand again.