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Chapter Text

Jadzia leaned on the armrest of the captain’s chair of the Defiant trying to appear nonchalant, but she suspected her agitation was obvious from the way she kept reflexively clenching her fist and then releasing it when she became aware of what she was doing.

“How are you progressing, old man?” Benjamin’s voice was strained, and his image on the viewscreen shook as the station around him weathered an intense bombardment from the Cardassian-Dominion fleet. Behind him, DS9’s Ops crew were hyper-focused on their consoles. 

“We’re almost there, Benjamin. Another ten minutes, maximum, and we’ll have laid the last of the mines.”

She saw Benjamin relax incrementally, a tiny bit of the tension leaving his shoulders. “I think we can give you that long. We’ll have to hope the Dominion will call off this attack once they realise they aren’t going to be reinforced through the wormhole.”

Jadzia nodded. That was the hope. DS9 had been blindsided when the Dominion attack force had appeared through the wormhole two days ago, and even more so when the Cardassians had abruptly joined with the Dominion fleet, appearing out of the badlands to launch a joint attack on the station. That smarmy bastard Dukat had clearly been enjoying himself, smirking at Benjamin across the subspace connection, reminding him to take his baseball with him when he evacuated the station. 

Dukat was a fool if he believed the Dominion would allow him any more than nominal control over an alpha quadrant ruled by the Founders, but perhaps the illusion of power was all a man like Dukat wanted? He could enjoy the parades and the hollow adulation of a cowed Bajoran population without actually having to govern. That would be left to the Vorta and their shadowy changeling puppet-masters, while the alpha quadrant species were slowly subsumed as subservient client states to the Dominion. 

Or were wiped out if they mounted any opposition.

“We can only hope these self-replicating mines do the trick. At least buy us some time,” said Jadzia.

It had been a desperate strategy on their part, mining the wormhole. It had taken time for the Cardassian fleet to mobilise and form up with the smaller Dominion attack force, and then Starfleet Military had been able to engage them and keep the enemy beyond weapon’s range of the wormhole for the past two days. The Cardassians and Dominion were fighting in a desultory way that suggested they were keeping their strength in reserve, most likely awaiting further reinforcements from the gamma quadrant so as to be able to defeat Starfleet Military decisively. In that time, DS9 had not been idle. The idea of using self-replicating mines around the wormhole aperture to prevent anyone from entering or leaving it was not new, but all of a sudden they’d had just a few hours to actually implement the plan. 

Jadzia had been working round the clock with KJ, Rom and the Maquis Klingon, B’Elanna, to design and fabricate the mines. Now, at last, they were using the Defiant to lay these barely-tested prototypes around the wormhole aperture, while the station and the Starfleet Military fleet held off the Dominion in repeated small skirmishes.

If they could just complete laying the minefield, they could activate the mines and that would prevent further Dominion reinforcements coming through and crushing the Federation. Perhaps that would be enough to force the existing Dominion forces to retreat back to Cardassian space, rather than continue a bloody battle with Starfleet Military that they could not be certain of winning.

“Commander, we need to come about to lay the final row,” said B’Elanna. 

Jadzia’s attention was brought back to the Defiant. KJ’s Maquis were proving a useful addition to the DS9 crew, and they were sorely needed given the political situation. “Thank you, B’Elanna. Come about, helm. KJ, are you ready to lay down the last set of mines?”

KJ nodded, as if not trusting herself to speak. She was bloodlessly pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed. She’d been silent throughout this entire mission, except where absolutely required to speak. Not just during the laying of the mines, but also throughout the preceding development of them. She’d performed her duties with her usual admirable efficiency - sending the results of her simulations to her colleagues, even coming up with a more energy-efficient way to maintain the cloaks on the mines - and the entire time she had looked as if she were breaking inside. 

Jadzia and Deanna had tried to hug her, to tell her the mines were a temporary measure, that they would be able to bring down the minefield once this threat had passed, and then they could go in search of Riker in the gamma quadrant, but of course KJ hadn’t been comforted by that. She’d shaken them off angrily.

“I’m not an idiot, Jadzia,” she’d spat with a venom that stung, although Jadzia could hardly blame her for it. “I know every day we don’t go in search of him makes it all the more likely he’s been captured and killed. I know this minefield will be in place for months. I know what it is we’re doing. Even if he hasn't been captured by the Dominion yet, he can't return with the minefield in place, and the longer he stays there the more certain it will be that the Dominion will find him. We’re cutting off our last hope of bringing him home. I’m doing it. I’m abandoning Will to the Dominion. I know it’s necessary. I know if we don’t do this my children and my friends will all be killed or enslaved. But that doesn’t make it easier. Please don’t give me platitudes about the minefield coming down in a week or two.” Her voice had cracked. “I know I’ve lost him.”

KJ hadn’t cried, and that had been the worst part. It was obvious that she had shattered inside, that she was barely holding herself together, but she wouldn’t allow that emotion out. She’d turned away from Jadzia and Deanna, tension in every line of her body. Jadzia had tried to go to her again, but Deanna had shaken her head at Jadzia and said, “Kate, we’re here for you, remember that. We’ll leave you now, but please come to us when you need us. We can’t understand the pain you’re going through, but we do want to support you however we can.”

Kate hadn’t replied, simply staring blankly out at the stars through her viewport with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Jadiza had followed Deanna out, feeling helpless.

“What will happen?” Jadzia had asked Deanna when they were alone, not really sure what she meant by that.

“I don’t know, Jadzia. I’ve never seen Kate like this. She will have to come to terms with Will’s… disappearance. That will take a long time. There will be denial and anger, and then the most terrible grief. There’s no easy way through this for her. All we can do is watch out for her and try to help her through it. It’s going to be the hardest thing she’s ever had to endure, I think. She loves him terribly. I doubt… I doubt somehow she will ever fully recover from losing him, but in time she may come to some sort of acceptance. At least she has the children to focus on. They might give her some hope for the future.” There had been tears standing in Deanna’s eyes and her voice was bleak. She had been close friends with Riker, too; closer than Jadzia had been. And, of course, she felt KJ’s pain acutely on top of her own. 

Jadzia had nodded glumly, her heart heavy. After that, KJ had simply withdrawn. She’d carried out her duties, she’d worked on the design of the mines, but she was lost deep within herself, a vacancy behind her gaze. She never cried in front of them, but her eyes became sunken in dark circles, and there was a strain in her face that spoke of despair. She most likely hadn’t slept since the Dominion had arrived in the alpha quadrant. Julian had talked about prescribing her medication, but Kate had laughed at him bitterly, and told him that no amount of serotonin was going to bring back Will for her.

Jadzia was jolted out of her melancholy memories of the past few days by Benjamin appearing suddenly on the viewscreen again. Behind him, Ops was filled with smoke from venting plasma ducts. People were staggering at their consoles, and there was a high thin wailing cry in the background.

“Report, Dax,” said Benjamin urgently. “How much longer? We need those mines active. The Dominion are starting to throw everything they’ve got at us now. Their reinforcement must be close. Starfleet Military have engaged our reserves. Our only hope is if the minefield makes the enemy pull back.”

Jadzia looked at KJ, who said tonelessly, “Two minutes.”

Another ferocious blast on the station knocked Benjamin off his feet. The wailing in the background turned to a shriek and then cut off abruptly. More smoke filled Ops, obscuring Jadzia’s view of the DS9 crew. 

“Shields down!” someone half coughed, half shouted. 

Oh hell. Had Lenara managed to evacuate in time? Jadzia’s stomach roiled. If they lost the station, what would happen to them? There was nowhere to retreat to. Earth was under the control of KJ’s father’s faction. The Starfleet officers on DS9 and in Starfleet Military were renegades and outlaws, and they had no base but this one. Jadzia herself was an exile from her own planet. What would they do? Where would they go? Would Vulcan take them?

Benjamin stood up again, wiping a smear of blood from above his eyebrow. “All phasers on that Jem'Hadar battleship!” he roared. “If we can just slow it down…” His voice was lost in a fuzz of static and the general clamour on the station.

“Ninety seconds to minefield completion,” said KJ blankly, without urgency, her eyes on her console.

The Defiant was facing away from the battle around the station, but at that moment a Cardassian Keldon-class warship appeared in her viewscreen and began to open fire. It had broken through the Starfleet Military lines. Shit. 

Everybody clung to their consoles as they were shaken by a direct hit from two quantum torpedoes. 

“Return fire!” said Jadzia, trying not to allow panic into her voice.

The mine laying was taking up a great deal of their energy usage, so they didn’t have enough energy available to operate phasers at full power. The phaser fire that raked the back of the Cardassian warship must barely have made a dent in its shields. The warship blazed back at them and plasma fires erupted from the weapons console. Nog fell back with a cry, clutching his hand.

“Shields at 47%!” yelled Chief O’Brien. How had that happened so quickly?

“One minute to minefield completion,” said KJ emotionlessly.

The Defiant rocked again as a fresh burst of torpedoes struck the ventral hull.

“Shields at 20%! We can’t take another shot like that!” said O’Brien. “We have to redirect power from the mine laying to shields.”

The viewscreen showing Benjamin on DS9 fuzzed with static once more. “…. no… unable to… ….. …. breaking through.” The screen went black.

Shit. There were more Keldon-class warships coming towards them.

“Maintain mine output,” said Jadzia. “It’s all for nothing if we can’t lay the final mines down now. We have to do this.”

“Thirty seconds to minefield completion,” said KJ.

The Cardassian ship was coming about, readying itself to launch more torpedoes at them.

“Hold our course. Steady as she goes,” said Jadzia. Both her fists were clenched now. “Throw everything we have at them. Just a few more seconds. We only have to hold on for a few more seconds.”

Another starship appeared on the viewscreen. It was Federation! Galaxy class. The Enterprise! It was being harried by Jem’Hadar fighters, but it was concentrating its own phasers on the Cardassian ship, trying to draw its fire. For a moment the Cardassian ship seemed to hang in space, and then it turned slightly to port, trying to bring the Enterprise into range of its forward phasers.

“The last mine has been laid,” said KJ robotically.

“Activate minefield!” shouted Jadzia, uncaring now whether she came across as panicked to the crew.

B’Elanna pressed a sequence of controls on the console. For a tense moment nothing happened. The Cardassian ship, the Enterprise,  and the Jem’Hadar fighters continued to fire on each other in the viewscreen, their shields flashing briefly as they took hits. 

Then a wave of activation signals began to spread from mine to mine on the display console in front of Jadzia. On the viewscreen, the mines winked out one by one as their cloaking devices came online.

Cheers erupted around the bridge and Jadzia breathed out a sigh of pure relief. They’d done it! 

The Cardassian warship and the Jem’Hadar fighter ceased fire for a few moments, briefly quiescent. Then they turned about abruptly and withdrew to the Dominion front lines. The Enterprise, scarred by torpedo hits on the stardrive and along the dorsal plating of the saucer, also ceased fire. The signal from DS9 flickered on the viewscreen once, twice, and then there was Benjamin, smiling broadly in spite of the sooty smuts covering his face and uniform. 

“They’re pulling back, old man. Congratulations! We’ve prevented any Dominion reinforcements coming through.”

“Congratulations to you for holding out there,” said Jadzia warmly. Then she addressed the rest of the Defiant bridge crew. “Well done, everyone! I think we’ve all earned ourselves a drink in Quark’s, don’t you? Helm, bring us back home.”

The relief among the crew was palpable, everyone talking with that too-loud jocularity that often followed a tense military encounter. People were slapping each on the back, some even hugging. 

Jadzia rose from the captain’s chair and went to where KJ was sitting at the science officer’s seat. KJ was not joining in the good humoured bonhomie of the rest of the crew. She was staring bleakly into the minefield, and there were silent tears running down her face.

“He’s gone,” she said hollowly. “I’ve lost him. I’ve loved him almost all my adult life. And now he’s gone." She closed her eyes and her next words were almost a whisper, the husk in her voice making them come out hoarse. "I’ll never feel him hold me again.”

Jadzia placed a hand on KJ’s shoulder, unsure what she could possibly say to ease her friend's pain. 

KJ pushed her away.

Chapter Text

Six months later. 

Kathryn rubbed at her dry eyes and stared at the computer screen. She adjusted the tensor matrix parameters of her artificial wormhole generation model and allowed the model to run. Good. It projected that the aperture of a wormhole created under these conditions would be stable at up to 150 metres width. She was pushing the boundaries of what could be stable to larger and larger sizes. She suspected that she could achieve even greater aperture widths by completely reconfiguring the tensor matrix and providing a substrate of more highly condensed boronite at the generation site, but it was better to be careful and expand aperture width by optimisation of her established method first, before trying anything new and drastic.

Her eyes were stinging again. She really ought to increase the light levels in the room because the strain on her eyes was starting to tell, but it was late and she found that, unless she kept the light dim in the lounge, one or other of the triplets was likely to be disturbed and come out to her. They were sleeping badly. They had been for six months. 

Because of Will.

She felt the now-familiar welling up of despair. It bloomed inside her like ink diffusing through water, great billows of it threatening to overwhelm her, oozing into every crevice of her psyche. No. No, push it back. Don’t think about Will. The work. Focus on the work. That was the only thing that kept it at bay. That and the fact that she had to stay strong for the children. She couldn’t break down because then… then they’d lose both their parents.

Don’t think about that.

She knew she was snapping at them, poor things. They needed her to be warm and loving, and often she could be. When she was able to lock the pain down. But sometimes it erupted in unpredictable bouts of fear and anger. Sometimes, one of the children would interrupt her while she was working - work was the only reliable distraction - and she would look at Jimmy and see his father’s grin, and something would break in her. She’d find herself speaking harshly to the triplets, the cold ice in her voice that she’d told herself she would never use to her children. It would only last a moment before she’d snap her iron control back in place, and then she would feel horribly guilty and apologise to the children and cuddle them. Still, she feared her unpredictable moods were making them anxious. 

Deanna had tried to help, but what could she do? What therapy was possible when you’d lost the single most important person in your life? Perhaps if Kathryn knew he was dead she would be able to process it. Grieve and learn to live with the pain of her loss, knowing the best part of her life had passed forever, but able to look back on it with nostalgia and comfort? 

No. No, no, no, no, no . He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. It was unthinkable. He was the strongest, most resourceful man she knew. The Dominion wouldn’t want to kill him. They kept important political prisoners alive. He was just trapped, imprisoned. He must be. But oh God, that meant they were torturing him. Torturing him. 

She should have gone with him. Insisted more strongly that he take her with him while attempting to rescue Martok from the Jem’Hadar internment camp that Sirella had discovered in the gamma quadrant. It had been madness for him to try it with only Garak for backup, but Patterson and Picard and the rest of remnants of Starfleet Command had said it was too risky to send a whole warship after Martok. The Jem’Hadar would be sure to notice it, and then the Dominion would likely take the appearance of a Starfleet ship in their space as an act of aggression. It might have been just the excuse they needed to launch their war against the alpha quadrant.

Hah, she thought grimly. As if they needed an excuse. It had turned out that the Dominion had been planning their assault on DS9 the entire time in any case. 

Yet, at the time, the arguments from Starfleet Command had made sense. They’d said that Will was a skilled tactical officer, that he had experience at conducting one-man or small-team rescue operations. He had always returned home from missions in the past, and he’d also had Garak with him this time; that had given her an obscure sort of comfort. Because who better to have in your side than a Cardassian spy and probable assassin? 

And then… and then it had all gone to hell. Out of the blue, the Cardassians had allied with the Dominion and launched a huge attack on DS9, and within a couple of days Sisko had mined the wormhole to the gamma quadrant to prevent the Dominion bringing through more Jem’Hadar. Which meant that Will couldn’t get back to the alpha quadrant, even if he could escape the internment camp. 

And she had helped. God help her, but Kathryn had helped Jadzia and O’Brien and B’Elanna develop those self-replicating mines. She’d had to, of course. With the Cardassians making common cause with the Dominion, the station couldn’t hope to survive if the Dominion kept bringing ships through to the wormhole to reinforce their troops in the alpha quadrant. As it was, even with the wormhole mined, DS9 was barely clinging on - the Cardassian-Dominion alliance was making gains into the former demilitarised zone every week. 

So, Kathryn had had to mine the wormhole to keep her children safe, even while tears filled her eyes because she knew she was cutting off any chance of finding Will alive. She’d clung to the hope that somehow it wouldn’t last long, that the Cardassian-Dominion alliance would crumble and they could reopen the wormhole. But of course that hadn’t happened. 

Oh God, oh God, she’d lost him. She’d lost him. She loved him so desperately and she would never see his face again. Never feel his strong arms around her, holding her close to him. The Deep Space Federation - the legitimate government of the Federation based on DS9, not her father’s regime on Earth - had lost one of its best generals too. But that was of secondary importance. Kathryn simply couldn’t find it in her to worry about Earth when she had lost everything that mattered to her.

Not everything. She dashed the tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. She must be strong. She hadn’t lost everything. Her children. Her babies. Not babies any more, of course - they were seven already - but they would always be her babies to her. She loved them, and she was failing them by being so caught up in her own grief. They were suffering and she was allowing it to happen because she wasn’t strong enough. She must focus on them. Use the work to distract her if she must, but she had to make the galaxy a safer place for them. It was what Will would want. 

She felt the crack reopening, the wound bleeding afresh as she thought of him. He was out there. Alive. Being tortured by Jem’Hadar. And there was nothing she could do about it. The sob rose up in her throat before she could force it back.

“Mommy?” Mandy was standing hesitantly in the door that separated the lounge from the bedrooms. Kathryn turned to her daughter, hastily dashing the tears away, plastering a brittle smile in her face that she was sure was fooling nobody. It made her heart ache a little, to hear Mandy call her ‘Mommy’. Recently the triplets had started calling her ‘Mom’. No doubt part of growing up, trying out what seemed to them a more mature way of referring to her. But they still called her ‘Mommy’ when they all cuddled up together before bedtime, when she stroked the hair back from their foreheads and kissed them goodnight. And when they were feeling sad or vulnerable.

“What is it, sweetie? Can’t sleep?” Kathryn asked, holding out her arms for Mandy. Mandy came to her and Kathryn wrapped her arms around her daughter. Mandy was getting too tall to fit comfortably on Kathryn’s lap now - she was going to have Will’s height. 

No. No. Don’t think about Will.

“Shall we go to the couch? We can snuggle up there?” Kathryn said, making her voice strong.

Mandy nodded, uncharacteristically silent, and Kathryn led her to the couch. There Mandy burrowed into her, like she had when she was younger, and Kathryn held her quietly. She didn’t say anything, leaving space for Mandy to talk.

The silence stretched for a minute, two minutes, with Kathryn just running her fingers through her daughter's hair. Eventually Mandy snuffled a little and said, “You’re really sad about Daddy aren’t you.”

Kathryn’s first instinct was to deny it, but then she checked herself. It was blatantly obvious that she was struggling with Will’s disappearance. To lie to her daughter about this would be unforgivable.

“I miss him terribly, Mandy. I’m sorry that means I can sometimes get cross with you and your brother and sister. It isn’t your fault. It hurts me a lot to be away from him. I’m trying to get better. And I know it also hurts you a lot that he’s not here.”

Mandy nodded, her little face serious. “I miss him so much, Mommy.”

Kathryn hugged her. “I know, my darling. I’m so sorry you’re having to go through this.”

Mandy pressed her face into Kathryn’s shoulder and sobbed, and Kathryn felt her own tears running hot down her face. She hugged Mandy fiercely. Her poor little girl. This wasn’t fair on her. 

The guilt rose up on Kathryn again, threatening to choke her. She’d always worried about the effect on the triplets of having parents who worked such dangerous and unpredictable jobs. She’d worried about bringing them up on starships and starbases that encountered hostile species from time to time, directly endangering the children themselves. She’d worried about it, and then blithely carried on, because it was inconvenient for her and because, since she was willing to take the risk, she was ready to inflict it on her own children. How thoughtlessly cruel of her. She should have given up Starfleet when they had the triplets, she should have become a planet-based academic. She should have raised her children in security and comfort on Earth, not subjected them to the precarious security of life on DS9. 

But would that have been so much better? After all, Earth had turned from near-idyllic representative democracy to a military dictatorship in just a few months. If she’d lived there with the triplets they might be safe from the horrors of war, but for how long? Her father seemed to be pursuing a strategy of isolationism, reinforcing the bonds between Earth and a select few former-Federation worlds, while encouraging xenophobic sectarianism against those worlds that had seceded following his coup, and all the time railing against the ‘traitorous renegades’ who had set up a government-in-exile on DS9 in opposition to his regime. 

Had Kathryn chosen to live on Earth the children would be growing up surrounded by paranoia and propaganda, which would have been especially pronounced as they were the grandchildren of the autocrat who had installed himself at the head of what had once been the Federation and was now being styled as the ‘Terran Union’. Her father’s propaganda machine had been trumpeting this supra-planetary rebranding for months. The change in name was meant to emphasise the closer bonds between Union worlds, which were in her father’s words, ‘no longer a loose confederation of squabbling tribes, but a truly united nation of humanoid-kind’. A rather chilling statement, in spite of its surface-level anodyne innocuousness. When one really dug down into the meaning behind her father’s words, the very concept of the Union seemed to Kathryn to fly in the face of IDIC, which had always promoted tolerant diversity over the insidious conformity her father was demanding of his ‘united peoples’. 

Her father. It didn’t seem real. Somehow the man who had once seemed to her the model of justice and Federation values had turned into a despot of the kind Kathyrn had thought relegated to Earth’s dark past for centuries. How had it happened? No doubt he didn’t view himself in that light. Most likely he saw himself as the staunch bulwark against the Changeling Threat, the man to bring together the disparate people of the Federation and meld them together to fight against the looming manifold threat of the Dominion, the Borg and the Romulans. He probably saw his autocracy as a temporary necessity. Wasn’t that what most despots thought? Or at least what they told themselves?

Kathryn shuddered inwardly. She didn’t want her children growing up on the world her father was shaping on Earth; even though they may have been in less immediate danger there, that was not a life she wanted for them. 

She stared bleakly over the top of Mandy’s auburn head. There was no way out. There was nothing Kathryn could do. Normally, Will would have enfolded both of them in his warm, infinitely reassuring embrace and the pain would have eased, and she would be able to turn her thoughts to positivity and hope. But he was gone. He was gone. He was gone. He was gone. The love of her life was gone. She closed her eyes and allowed the tears to trickle silently down her cheeks. He was gone, and she didn’t know how she could face the future without him. Without the children, she wasn’t sure she could. But she had to, for them. They couldn’t lose both their parents. Don't think about that.

After a while, Mandy’s sobbing calmed into little shuddering breaths as she exhausted herself. Kathryn wished she could cry herself out like that, but however much she sobbed, there always seemed to be more. She resolutely wiped the tears from her face yet again, determined to say something positive for Mandy to focus on so she could sleep.

Before she could speak, Mandy piped up first. “When is Dad coming back?”

Kathryn’s heart ached anew. Mandy didn’t really understand, did she? Here Kathryn was, thinking her daughter had shown an unexpectedly mature attitude to Will’s disappearance, but the poor girl didn’t really understand the implications. How could she? She was seven, and Kathryn had been trying to be remorselessly cheerful about it in front of her. What to say now? How could Kathryn explain that Will was probably never coming back? 

She blinked at her daughter, terrified at what she was about to say, but knowing she was going to have to find the words somehow. 

However, once again Mandy spoke before she could. There was a note of excitement in her voice. “Are you going to go after him soon? Because if you’re so sad about him being away, we think you should go tomorrow. Or maybe the day after because it will take time to prepare.”

“Sweetie,” said Kathryn gently. “You know he’s in the gamma quadrant? And the wormhole is blocked. Ben and Auntie Jadzia blocked it with mines.”

Mandy waved this away excitedly. “I know, but you can make new wormholes can’t you? Jimmy said he heard you say to Auntie Nara that you can make wormholes big enough for a runabout. And maybe a starship soon! That’s why you’ve been working all the time isn’t it? To make wormholes big enough so you can go after Daddy.”

Kathryn stared at Mandy. She tried to formulate the words she should say. That her work was still experimental, that they had yet to try sending a manned mission through an artificial flexure, that the chance of the artificial wormhole collapsing was still dangerously high, that the apertures were only just big enough to get a medium-sized starship through, that she would never get permission from Ben to go on such a crazy rescue mission. All the words died on her lips. Because, although Mandy’s suggestion was just a childish dream, she couldn’t crush the trustful hope she saw in her daughter’s face. She just couldn’t.  

Mandy believed that Kathryn could make everything alright again. The triplets, with their naive sense of childish stoicism, had been putting up with Kathryn’s workaholism and her short temper, because they believed their mother was trying to get their daddy back. The guilt and shame redoubled and threatened to completely overwhelm her. It would have been impossible in that moment for Kathryn to tell Mandy that she wouldn’t go after Will. 

And in spite of everything, Mandy’s words had sparked just a tiny flame of hope. It was crazy. The artificial flexures weren’t ready for real-world application. It was far too soon. Kathryn couldn’t control where the further apertures of her artificial wormholes emerged with sufficient accuracy. Not over those distances. She could strand herself and any crew she brought along in the damned delta quadrant for all she knew. If the wormhole collapsed, she would condemn her crew to being simply winked out of existence, or possibly trapped in subspace until their power ran down and life support failed and they all died of cold or suffocation. And yet the hope was kindled, and for her own sake as well as her children's Kathryn wasn’t going to let it die.

Her voice was hoarse when she finally spoke. This was utter madness. “It will be difficult and dangerous, Mandy. If I go after Daddy. I can’t promise I will find him. But I will try.”

Chapter Text

Benjamin Sisko held his baseball between the fingertips of his left hand and passed it to his right. Then he passed it back again, let out a sigh, and met Dax’s eye across his desk.

“What do you think, old man? You know her better than anyone else on this station. Should I insist she take some leave? Make her go to Bajor?”

Dax was sitting slumped in an uncharacteristic attitude of dejection. “She wouldn’t relax. You know that. I think the work is the only thing keeping her going. If she stops, she’ll have to face up to the reality of the situation. KJ is good at burying her feelings, but if she doesn’t have a task to focus on at times of stress she… crumbles.”

“It isn’t sustainable. She was brilliant when we were laying the minefield. And in those initial skirmishes with the Dominion. But you only had to look at her to see she was about to snap.” 

There had been a hectic, feverish look behind Janeway’s eyes at that time. Ben hadn’t had the luxury of being able to worry about her then. He’d been too intent on fending off the attacks on DS9 from Dukat and his Dominion puppet masters. But now - now that the wormhole was mined, now that the Cardassians and the Jem’Hadar had been forced back to Cardassian space by Starfleet Military, now that an uneasy temporary truce had been reached with the Dominion -  now he could start worrying about his people. And Janeway was the most worrying of the lot.

Ever since Riker had disappeared she’d existed in a state of high nervous tension, throwing herself into her work with frenetic abandon, sleeping erratically, eating infrequently and only at the behest of her friends. Bashir had prescribed her medication and rest, advice which she completely ignored. She point blank refused to talk about Riker, shutting down any attempt at addressing his disappearance. Even Deanna Troi and Dax had been turned out of her quarters with a cold lack of ceremony whenever they tried raising the subject. 

“Deanna thinks it’s the uncertainty,” said Dax. “Not knowing whether he’s dead or alive. She can’t grieve him because she still has hope, and she can’t bring herself to give that up. But even if he is alive, he’s stuck in the gamma quadrant with a minefield blocking the wormhole. So she just ignores it, tries to block it from her mind. As you say, it’s not sustainable.” Dax’s voice broke slightly. “I just feel so sorry for her, Benjamin. But she won’t let any of us near her. It’s as if, if she accepts our comfort, she’s admitting that he’s gone.”

“So what should I do?” I can’t have one of my key members of senior staff on the perpetual brink of a nervous breakdown. Not now. The Dominion have signed non-aggression treaties with practically every major power in the alpha quadrant: the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Tholians. They’re even said to be in talks with the Klingons. The only government they haven’t co-opted is the Terran Union - and Edward Janeway’s regime is only marginally less hostile to us than the Dominion. The alpha quadrant is a powder keg ready to blow.”

Dax shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I wish I knew what to suggest, Benjamin.”

“Captain?” Kira’s voice sounded through the comm system. “Commander Janeway is requesting an urgent meeting with you.”

Sisko exchanged a glance with Dax, and she responded with a 'don't ask me' shrug. What could Janeway want to see him about? She rarely requested one-on-one meetings, preferring to work independently, and she usually required little oversight. He replaced his baseball on its stand.

“Alright, send her in,” he said to Kira.

He rose to greet her, and Janeway strode in with her quick tread. She looked superficially calm, but she had that worrying feverish glint in her eyes. Her cheeks were slightly too pink and her hair, usually impeccably neat in its French plait, was slightly disarrayed.

“Thank you for seeing me, Captain.” Her voice was low and husky. Hard to tell if that was her usual rasp or if she’d been crying. Not that she ever allowed anyone to see her cry.

“How can I help you, Janeway? Please, take a seat.” He gestured to the spare chair next to Dax’s. 

Janeway almost spoke over him, a note of excitement in her voice that had been absent for the past few months. “Captain, I have a proposal to run past you. No, don’t go, Jadzia, I’d like to hear what you think too.” 

Dax had risen to her feet as Janeway began speaking, but now she reseated herself.

Janeway pulled up the other chair, and continued speaking, a slightly feverish light glinting in her eyes.

“I need you to lend me Voyager,” she began.

Sisko frowned. He’d been allowing Janeway to use one of the new Intrepid-class vessels to test out her artificial wormhole generators. She’d taken the Command examination just before the coup on Earth, and had passed with flying colours, so she had high enough rank to command a starship. For the past few months she had been carrying out extensive modifications to Voyager to fit the ship with a prototype wormhole generator.

 “I don’t understand,” Ben said. “You already have access to Voyager, Janeway?”

“No, no. I mean I want to generate a wormhole and take Voyager through it. A manned mission.”

It was Dax’s turn to frown. “Surely you’re jumping the phaser a bit, KJ. I know all the probes with live samples have got through fine, but a fully manned mission? The risks are… they’re huge . The wormholes still sometimes collapse. And would Voyager even fit through?”

“All our latest simulations and practical tests suggest we can generate wormholes with apertures of 150 metres with our existing prototype. I'll send some more unmanned probes through a large-aperture wormhole before we attempt the mission, but as you say, Jadzia, there is nothing to indicate that living people will be harmed by passage through the flexure. The risk of collapse is there, but we’ve reduced it down to just above 1% of all wormholes generated. I’d only take people who volunteered. B’Elanna is already keen.”

B’Elanna was the former Maquis engineer whom Janeway had convinced to help her with the engineering side of wormhole generation. The two had struck up a rather unlikely friendship, part combative, part collaborative. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange - Janeway had freed B’Elanna from imprisonment after all, just as she had freed Chakotay. His entire band of Maquis had stuck around on DS9 after the Cardassian advance on the DMZ, seeming lost without a home to return to. They’d offered to make common cause with the Deep Space Federation without officially joining them. Mainly, Ben thought, because the Deep Space Federation was the only faction in the alpha quadrant that might offer some hope to the annexed colony worlds. 

“KJ…” Dax spoke slowly. “Voyager is 116 metres wide. If the flexure is 150 metres… that’s not much margin for error.”

“I know.” Janeway brushed this off impatiently. “Tom Paris is an excellent pilot. He’ll take us through safely.”

“You can’t mean to take just B’Elanna and Paris with you?” said Ben.

“Of course not. Lenara wants to test it too, of course. And Chakotay will help with ship’s ops, so I won’t even be taking many Starfleet personnel from the station. Just a few crewmen or something to keep things running. A skeleton crew. I’ll use the EMH if we have any medical emergencies, so I won’t take Julian away. Seven wants to come, but I’ll leave her behind if you insist.” Janeway was almost pleading now.

“Kate.” Ben spoke slowly and gently. “What’s the rush? You’ve been working on wormhole generation for years. Why is it suddenly so urgent to send a manned mission?”

Janeway stared him right in the eyes. He could almost see her preparing to lie to him and then deciding against it. She took a deep breath and tilted her chin up. “I want to go to the gamma quadrant,” she said decisively. “I’m going to rescue Will.”

She could see that Ben was about to dismiss her out of hand, so she ran over him quickly.

“Don’t you see, Ben? The Dominion doesn't kill political prisoners. He’s out there, in that internment camp. And we need him. Don’t deny that. You and Picard and Patterson, you’re doing a tremendous job defending DS9 and Bajor and the Deep Space Federation. You’ve done such a lot to keep this station from the Dominion. But you know my father is gearing up to attack us. And frankly, Ben, my Uncle Theo is a great admiral for peacetime, but he isn’t the tactician Will is. Will set up Starfleet Military, those men and women would follow him anywhere. He’s the leader we need right now.”

“I don’t deny it would be a huge boost to the troops to have Riker back in command…”

The unspoken ‘but’ in his sentence hung ominously and once again Kathryn spoke over him. “And there’s still a chance Martok is with him. The Klingons are teetering on the brink of joining the Dominion, but the kind of pussy-footing politicking of the Vorta doesn’t sit well with them. If Martok were to return, provide a rallying point in all this mire of dissimulation and deception, don’t you think they’d jump on the chance to fight honourably again? The Great Houses don’t like all this vacillation and uncertainty. They’d far rather fight the Dominion than not. And Martok returning would be just the spur they need to ditch the Vorta and join with us.”

“It’s all very well, Kate. I agree, if Riker and Martok were to return that would be a huge boost for morale and might even bring the Klingons onside, but - forgive me, Kate - the chances of finding them alive are slim, and even if they were alive, we’ve already lost one rescue expedition trying to bring back Martok. I can’t keep throwing good officers into a doomed venture.”

“A small task force. That’s all I’m asking for,” said Kathryn, not caring now if she sounded desperate. “The people I’ve mentioned, to get us through the artificial wormhole, and a few others from Starfleet Military. Volunteers. I’m sure there will be no shortage of people wanting to help Will.”

“That’s not the point, Janeway. It’s my job to assess the risks against the potential rewards and-“

“Benjamin,” Jadzia cut in. “I know I just said that the risks are huge. But the rewards could be even greater. I mean, it’s not just a morale boost. If the Klingons joined us… that would mean long-term security for the Deep Space Federation. A position from which we could push back against the Dominion and the Terran Union.” 

Gratitude flooded Kathryn. She knew she’d been behaving atrociously to Jadzia and Deanna ever since Will disappeared, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from trying to freeze them out. Because if she once broke down in front of them she might never pull herself back together. It was selfish and cruel of her, and yet they still had her back through all this. She gave Jadzia a small smile before turning hopeful eyes back to Benjamin.

"Dax," he said, "I want your honest assessment. Is the wormhole generation technology sufficiently advanced that a manned mission is truly feasible?"

Jadzia glanced at Kathryn and then back to Benjamin. "In normal times, I would say it's still a few months away from the point where it might be approved by Starfleet Scientific for manned missions. However, these aren't normal times, and we aren't operating under usual procedures. We're taking risks all the time that we would never have contemplated before the Dominion attacked. Mining the wormhole as we did, with untested prototype mines... that was a far greater risk than this. KJ and Lenara have been working on wormhole generation for years, and they've been painstaking and thorough at every phase of development up until now. So it is a risk, yes. But, in my view, not such a great one that is isn't worth taking given the extraordinary political circumstances."

Ben subsided into his chair again, leaning back and picking up his baseball. He contemplated it for a few moments.

“Will is your friend, Benjamin,” Kathryn said softly. You’ve always gone after crew members who’ve been lost before. What about when we flew the Defiant to the Founders’ planet to bring back Odo? You almost defied orders to do that.” She paused. “You know Will would do the same for you.”

Was that true, or was Kathryn just playing every piece of shameless emotional manipulation she had in her arsenal? Will would do what was best for the Federation, and he might not risk a valuable asset like wormhole generation technology being sent into enemy territory. But Ben was somewhat less able to compartmentalise than Will and was less likely to risk the lives of his friends for the greater good of the Federation. He was more like Kathryn in that regard, and she knew that, and was using it against him. It was manipulative of her and she ought to feel ashamed, but she didn't give a damn.  

Sisko looked up from his baseball, meeting her eyes. For a long moment he said nothing, and she could nothing in the expression on his face. She could feel herself holding her breath.

“This scheme of yours is crazy, Janeway.” He sighed aloud. “But it might just work. Alright. You can take Voyager. Volunteers only. And you’ll make sure they fully understand the risks.“

He'd said yes! He'd actually agreed! She was almost light-headed with relief. She opened her mouth to thank him, feeling real hope flood her for the first time since Will disappeared, but he cut her off, raising his hand.

“Not so fast. You can’t command this mission, Kate. In my opinion your judgement is severely compromised by your personal relationship with Riker and the stress you’ve been under since he disappeared. So, you can captain Voyager… but the Defiant is going with you. Dax will captain the Defiant and has overall command of the mission. And if she tells you to withdraw you will damn well withdraw, you understand me, Janeway?

She nodded mutely. Her heart was soaring. She would have agreed to any conditions he placed on her just then.

Sisko nodded. “I hope you do understand. Because I won’t hesitate to have your commission if you disobey orders. And Dax, we take no unnecessary risks here. The moment you feel you might not be able to successfully pull Riker and Martok out of there because you're facing too much opposition, you come right back here and reconsider an alternative strategy. You understand?”

"I understand, Benjamin."

"I must be completely crazy to be allowing this." 

Something occurred to Kathryn suddenly, and much as she was reluctant to jeopardise her mission she felt duty-bound to raise it. “Won’t this leave DS9 without a senior science officer? If Jadzia and I both go.”

Sisko shrugged. “I can’t go with you myself. I’m needed here on the station. So is Kira. And Dax is the only other member of the senior staff I think you might listen to, Janeway. As for leaving us without a senior science officer...” He passed the baseball from one hand to the other with a decisive gesture, “You’d better complete your mission quickly, hadn’t you?” With that he smiled at her. “Good luck, Kate. Bring Riker and Martok back to us as soon as possible.”

Chapter Text

His jaw made a cracking sound as his head collided with the Jem’Hadar’s elbow, and there followed that moment of crystal clarity while the pain lurked in momentary abeyance. Will knew from bitter experience to take advantage of that moment. He strained, raising his axe to shoulder height, slipped on a slick of blood, and crashed to his injured knee. 

The pain from his jaw hit first, but it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. A loose tooth. The internment camp’s medics would probably fix that for him before his next bout. He would argue that teeth could be used for biting your opponent, and were therefore essential to maintain his fighting competency. Then Will felt his knee give way and he let out a grunt, despite his usual iron control. They wanted to see him hurt. When he howled in agony it gave them satisfaction. And he wasn’t fucking going to give them any more of that than he had to.

He’d been lucky. Slipping like that had allowed him to evade the Jem’Hadar’s swinging axe blade, and the momentum caused his opponent to stagger slightly. 

Will had fallen beside one of the three columns around the edge of the ring. The rules were that if you fell to the ground you had to press the top of the column within ten seconds to indicate that the fight was going to continue. Will pushed himself up to kneeling again and savagely thumped the top of the column. He could have bowed out, of course. But he never had yet. If he did, he would have outlived his usefulness as a training opponent for the Jem’Hadar guards; he didn’t doubt that if he ever failed to hit the column when he could have physically continued, Itak’ika would have stopped interceding with Deyos, the Vorta supervisor, and allowed Will to be executed. Or simply not allow him medical treatment, which would come to the same thing.

As Will hit the column he caught Itak’ika’s eye. The First was standing outside the ring, observing the fight, expressionless as ever. But was that the slightest nod he gave Will, as he staggered back to his feet?

Quickly Will returned his attention back to his opponent. Couldn’t afford to get distracted. The Jem’Hadar was facing him at a wary distance, clearly expecting Will to circle him looking for an opening. Without warning, Will pushed forward on his uninjured leg in a sudden adrenaline-fuelled burst. The Jem’Hadar had anticipated him and his left arm shot out, meeting the haft of Will’s axe with a sickening jolt that would have broken a human’s arm, but which the Jem’Hadar shrugged off. 

But Will had been fighting this fucker’s kind for six months now, for at least two bouts a day, and he wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t learned a trick or two. While the Jem’Hadar was focused on pushing Will backwards by the axe haft, Will dropped his left hand, weakening his grip on the axe so that the Jem’Hadar stumbled forward at the sudden loss of resistance. Will side-stepped neatly, his free left hand shooting out to rip the white tube from the Jem’Hadar’s neck. It came free with a wet, slopping sound, trailing black-purple gore behind it. 

The Jem’Hadar howled, reeling with shock. He swung his axe wildly, and Will had to leap to one side, his bad leg screaming with agony, about to give way once more. But they’d been pumping him full of a potent cocktail of drugs: adrenaline, dopamine, testosterone and god knows what else, so that his pain tolerance and aggression were through the fucking roof and all he wanted was to kill this bastard. This fucking soulless killing machine. This monster who was keeping him here like a fucking caged animal, out of his mind on their fucking drugs, making him fight and fight and fight every day and then having him healed so he could do it again. All as some sort of fucking cross between fucking gladiatorial entertainment and a training ground for Jem’Hadar youngsters. 

How many Jem’Hadar had Will and Martok killed or maimed by now? Dozens, and many more injured, although they were healed and allowed to live if they performed to Itak’ika’s satisfaction. But there always seemed to be more opponents ready and eager to take up the challenge of facing Will or Martok.

And Will was so fucking tired of it all. Of the monotonous, relentlessness of it. He just wanted to give up and throw down his axe, or his bat’leth or whatever weapon they’d given him that day, and lie down in the dirt. But he couldn’t because his whole body was on fire, effervescent with such fury. The need to fight, to kill, to destroy these fucking bastards. 

The Jem’Hadar’s flailing with his axe was becoming more controlled. They could survive without the white tube for a long time. Removing it only really gave you the advantage of shock, but it had allowed Will a moment to position himself side-on to the Jem’Hadar. As his opponent twisted to bring his axe round, intending to bury it in Will’s hip, Will brought his own axe up to meet it, the heads clashing together with a metallic clang that sent painful jolts through both Will’s arms. The two axe heads were caught together, and it became a contest of brute strength, Will and the Jem’Hadar each pushing two-handed on their axe hafts, trying to force the other backwards. Will met the Jem’Hadar’s eye and they growled at each other, teeth bared. 

His muscles strained, sweat dripped down his face in front of his eyes and suddenly everything took on a reddish hue. Either it wasn’t sweat dripping into his eyes, but blood from the head wound he’d taken earlier, or else one of the veins in his eye had burst again. The Jem'Hadar gnashed his teeth and roared, but Will stood his ground, ignoring his screaming knee. However, even if the adrenaline dulled the pain, there was a physical limit to how much force the damaged cartilage and tendons could take, and Will feared the knee would give before the Jem’Hadar’s strength waned. 

With a final desperate roar, Will flung all his power into the axe haft and the Jem’Hadar faltered, falling back into a defensive stance. But his opponent was anticipating that Will would move straight into a downward chopping stroke, so instead Will shifted the axe to one hand and struck a backhanded blow across the Jem’Hadar’s upper arm. The Jem’Hadar roared as the axe bit through the tough leather and his hard scaly skin. Dark purple blood sprang from the wound. Will tried to pull the axe back, but it was stuck, so he dropped the haft and brought his bad knee up straight into the Jem’Hadar’s solar plexus. 

It hurt like fuck.

The Jem’Hadar folded over with a low hooting sound, his hand still scrabbling at his injured shoulder, purple blood gouting between his gloved fingers, his axe sliding from his blood-slicked grip. Will grasped his opponent’s slippery axe haft and brought it up sharply, the flat top of the axe crunching into the Jem’Hadar’s face with a sickening crack of crushed cartilage and bone. The Jem’Hadar fell to the floor, twitching. 

Will was about to raise his opponent’s axe for the killing blow, when Itak’ika’s voice rang out. “Victory is life, William Riker, and you have earned your life for another day.”

Will knew better than to carry on fighting when Itak’ika had decreed an end to proceedings, so even though his every muscle was straining to finish it, he paused with the axe raised over his shoulder. Then he let it drop to the floor with a clang, abruptly overcome with weariness.

Martok strode into the ring and clapped him on the shoulder. “Another glorious battle, my brother.”

Jesus fuck, his knee felt like it could barely hold his weight. He had to hold onto Martok’s shoulder as he limped out of the ring.

“Hardly glorious, Martok. What’s the fucking point of doing this day after day? You and me taking turns in the ring, so Itak’ika can train his warriors to fight humans and Klingons? Even if we kill or injure them there are always more. It’s endless.” A fucking Sisyphean nightmare where he fought almost to the death and was then patched up so he could fight them all again. Pointless, ceaseless, unremitting torture.

“You know why we do it, brother,” hissed Martok under his breath. Then he raised his voice for the benefit of the loitering Jem'Hadar soldiers, “Allow me to take you to the medical bay, so they can heal that leg.”

Yes, Will knew why he and Martok were doing this. He knew why they were playing the Jem’Hadars’ game.  Because Garak and Tain needed time: time to work on modifying the life support systems to send a signal to Sirella’s cloaked ship. Because while Will and Martok fought these Jem’Hadar fuckers, Garak could creep unnoticed into the cavity in the wall between their sleeping quarters and the environmental control room where the life support systems were located. And then he might, he just might, be able jury-rig a makeshift transmitter to remotely activate Sirella’s transporter and beam them all out of this fucking hellhole. If they could trust that Garak was actually doing what he said he was doing in there. 

Will ground his teeth. If there were any other way he wouldn’t be leaving such a task to a Cardassian spy. But he had no choice. Will was too large to fit in the wall cavity - he’d tried and got his shoulders stuck before he reached halfway to the life support systems - and Garak was the only other person with the skills to modify them. Well, no doubt some of the Romulans who shared their imprisonment had the necessary skills, but Will trusted them less than he did Garak, and that was saying something. 

Will and Martok passed several expressionless Romulans as they made their slow and painful way to medbay. The prisoners had free run of the corridors and could move between cells and the fighting ring without interference. The Jem'Hadar weren’t worried about escape attempts; they far outnumbered the prisoners now that all the Cardassians had been sent home after that reptile Dukat had formed an alliance with the Dominion. All Cardassians except Garak and Tain that is - they were not in favour with Dukat’s regime. 

They rounded a corner and continued through clanging metallic corridors, Will leaning even more heavily on Martok’s shoulder, as the agony of his knee finally began to hit him. The internment facility had once been a mining camp; it was rough and utilitarian, a dome of reinforced tritanium half-burrowed into an asteroid. There was only frigid airlessness beyond its walls, which probably also explained why the Jem’Hadar were not concerned about the prisoners roaming about: even if someone organised an escape attempt, where would they go? There were no ships docked at the camp. So, as far as the Jem’Hadar were concerned, the prisoners could do as they pleased as long as they didn’t disrupt the guards’ fun, which consisted solely of the brutal gladiatorial fights in the ring, during which Jem’Hadar soldiers tested their mettle against the strongest of the prisoners.

They’d finally reached medbay and Will sank onto a biobed with a groan. A T-Rogoran approached with a medical tricorder and began scanning him with business-like efficiency. The T-Rogorans were a Dominion client state, and were regarded as particularly skilled in medicine and biotechnology, although if you asked Will they were somewhat lacking in bedside manner. This one tsked over Will’s knee and began setting up a regeneration cuff, encasing the whole of Will’s lower left leg.

“What’s wrong with it, doc?” he asked.

The T-Rogoran merely stared at him. “Torn ligaments. Fracture to the tibia. It should heal in a few hours in the biobed. It will be stiff.” 

“And my tooth?” Will pointed at the bloody gap where his upper right canine had been. 

The doctor examined it perfunctorily. “Come back tomorrow before your bout and I will have an implant fitted.”

“Can’t you do it now?”

“It is non-urgent. It doesn't impair fighting function significantly. I am busy.”

“But-“

“Tomorrow morning.” With that the T-Rogoran turned away.

“Hey, how about my other injuries?”

The T-Rogoran turned back impatiently. “All other injuries are superficial. Use a dermal regenerator.” He swept off, clearly dismissing Will from his mind in an instant. 

Martok helpfully located a dermal regenerator among the medical detritus that littered medbay and offered to help Will with the head wound. 

“See to your own wounds, Martok. I’ll deal with mine. That gash on your arm looks nasty. You don’t want it to get infected.”

They sat in silence while they tended their wounds, each lost in his own thoughts. Will was coming down off the high of his drug-induced berserk state of heightened aggression and it left him feeling utterly drained. As the adrenaline receded, his injuries hurt more too, and he discovered gashes, nicks, bruises and even open wounds where he hadn’t realised he had them. 

How much longer could he keep doing this? They’d been here for six months and so far they’d been lucky, but they couldn’t sustain this. Martok had already lost an eye. Sooner or later Will would be faced with an opponent he couldn’t beat, and then, when he had outlived his usefulness as a training opponent, they would no longer bother to heal his injuries and leave him for dead.

But they didn’t have to last that much longer. Garak was close. Or so he said. If you could believe that Cardassian snake. Will didn’t trust him an inch, but he had no choice but to hope Garak was making progress. It was the only thing keeping Will going. That little spark of hope. That one day he would get out of this hellhole and return to DS9. To his old life. To Kathryn and the kids.

He closed his eyes, blotting out the pain of the reknitting ligaments in his knee and thought about her. He felt his erratic breathing calm. He could picture her face exactly, her cool blue-grey eyes, her rich auburn hair, the slightly teasing half-smile. The feel of her in his arms, that intoxicating combination of slender litheness, and softness. Her body cooler than his, her grip on his shoulders or arms somehow both firm and insistent and yet yielding. Kathryn… 

Doing this had become a ritual, the only way he had found that allowed him to wind down after his gruelling hours in the ring. 

Pain was a constant for him - the exact location changed day to day - but there would always be pain. The dull hollow breathless pain of the punch to the gut, the exquisite agony of a knife wound, the grinding wrongness of a dislocated shoulder. Every evening, as the cloud of aggression and tension from the fight wore off, he’d feel all the accumulated injuries of the day as he lay on the biobed and tried to turn his mind off. When he was fighting there was just the immediate exigency of deflecting the next blow and working out how to get around his opponent’s guard, but afterwards all he could think about was that he was going to have to do it all again the next day. And the next day and the next. 

And then the only way he could break the cycle of terror and desolation was to fix his mind on Kathryn and his kids. Remembering happy days with them. Teaching Jimmy how to fish on Bajor, taking all the kids through the wormhole for the first time and seeing their faces lit up with wonder. Kathryn laughing at something he’d said, her head thrown back before she smacked him playfully on the shoulder and hugged his arm. Mandy excitedly running up to him when he came off shift, her arms held out wanting to be picked up and flown through the room like a starship. Amy showing him a drawing she’d made of Totaq, Martok’s targpup, the son of Martok’s old faithful HoJejchIS. 

But the wholesome memories only partially blotted out his reality - by the time he’d finished his medical treatment and collapsed exhausted into the illusion of privacy afforded by his bunk, he’d usually worked through his stock of innocent pleasant memories and he’d have to give his mind something stronger to work with. He imagined Kathryn and all the things he wished he could do with her. How she’d look up at him when he pinned her to the bed, her expression full of mischief and delicious invitation, her hand curled into the short hair at the back of his neck while she gasped in his ear. Her skin always cooler than his and incredibly smooth, except for the small callous on her right thumb which was where she habitually held her PADD. Lips so soft when she kissed down his chest, and abdomen, her smirk when she was about to take him in her mouth but then teasingly returned to his navel. The way her voice got lower and huskier the more worked up she was. That was how he knew she was on the edge, when her pupils dilated and her words slurred into gasps and those exquisite little half-whimpers. That was when he knew he could get her to beg for him and she would mean it and nothing felt so good as that - the woman he adored telling him she was all his.

Fuck. It was too soon to be thinking like this. He usually waited until he’d got to his bunk before allowing his brain to run off in this direction. Then he could take care of himself discreetly, a terrible anticlimax in which he tried to trick himself into thinking his own hand was Kathryn’s smaller one, and failing miserably. Finally reaching some inadequate partially-stalled release which felt like relief for half a minute before the icy drench of his situation came over him and he knew tomorrow would be yet another series of endless bouts in the fighting pit.

“Your ligaments have been repaired.” The medic’s voice was clinical and unconcerned. “Return to your cell.”

“Are you feeling recovered, brother?” asked Martok, in as solicitous a tone as a Klingon could manage.

It was alright for Martok, Will thought ungenerously. His wife was incarcerated with them. She had come searching for Martok before Will, and been captured by the Jem’Hadar. Given the relative freedom of movement within the compound and the unconcern of the Jem’Hadar guards, the two Klingons were able to cling to some semblance of their old life. At least they weren’t parted from everything they cared about.

“Yeah,” Will said heavily. “Pain’s gone.” 

Until tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Kathryn couldn’t sit still in the captain’s chair. Every time she sat down she felt the urge to get up and go to the science station to hover at Seven’s shoulder and watch her input the commands for the prototype flexure generator, or to triple check Lenara’s calculations for maintaining the tensor matrix.

Very deliberately, she forced herself to sit back in the chair. Lenara had probably performed more tensor matrix calculations than Kathryn had herself, and Seven had used the flexure generator countless times. Kathryn had taken the young former-Borg under her wing ever since their escape from Starfleet Main Brig. At the time of Kathryn’s father’s coup, both Seven and Tom Paris had been about to graduate from the Academy, and Deep Space Starfleet had chosen to recognise that by giving them their first pips. Nobody had quite known what to do with these new ensigns, however, and so Kathryn had taken Seven on as a junior science officer on DS9, and given Tom the conn on Voyager .  

It was lucky that construction of the new Intrepid-class starships had mostly taken place in non-Sol based shipyards in the Tesnia, Tyree and Zayra systems, and that two of the three planets had chosen to align with the Deep Space Federation, bringing a lot new Intrepid-class ships to their side. Kathryn had been given Voyager to turn into a prototype wormhole-generating ship, and Seven had spent most of her first six months as a Starfleet officer working alongside Kathryn and Lenara to optimise the flexure generator. She didn’t need Kathryn’s supervision to input commands now, and besides, Kathryn had more to worry about than simply establishing the new artificial wormhole to the gamma quadrant. She had the whole ship to command. 

“Report,” she said, more sharply than she’d intended.

“All systems, standing by,” said Chakotay. 

She was immeasurably grateful that Chakotay had volunteered to come on this mission. Ever since the outbreak of the Federation civil war and the opening of hostilities between humans and the Dominion, the Maquis had been caught in an untenable position. The Cardassians had annexed those worlds in the demilitarised zone that they deemed their territory and those human colonists who hadn’t been killed had fled for Bajor or DS9. The Maquis couldn’t challenge the Dominion, but they also didn’t trust Earth and the Terran Union, so they had reluctantly formed an alliance with the Deep Space Federation. Chakotay had helped bridge the divide between Patterson’s Starfleet and the more intractable Maquis leaders, but the alliance was still tenuous at best. 

Kathryn wasn’t quite sure why Chakotay was helping her now, though. This mission went far beyond opposing Dominion-controlled Cardassia. She supposed a certain trust had grown up between them since she’d helped him escape from Starfleet Main Brig. 

“Engineering?” she asked, tightly.

“Warp core standing by,” came B’Elanna’s voice through the comm. B’Elanna had been helping Kathryn with the engineering aspects of the flexure generator, mostly from the sheer love of the challenge, Kathryn thought. 

“Mr Paris?”

“Ready to fly this baby through the eye of the needle, Commander Janeway, Ma’am.” She must talk to him about his flippant tone to a commanding officer, but now was not the time.

“Lenara?”

“The boronite has been released. Tensor matrix parameters inputted.” Lenara gave her a gentle encouraging smile. “We’re ready to go.” 

“Seven?”

“Distal aperture coordinates entered. Flexure generation ready to commence.”

Kathryn stood again, unable to simply sit in the chair. “Get me the Defiant.”

Dax’s cheerful face appeared on screen.

"Ready to go, Janeway?”

“Yes. Waiting for your order.” She couldn’t find it in her to say more than that. If this failed she would never see Will again. Even supposing he wasn’t already dead. The hopelessness flowered inside her again, threatening to engulf her. She shoved it savagely aside. This would work.

“Alright,” said Jadzia. “Let’s get going. Voyager should lead the way through the wormhole. Maintain communication link throughout transit, if possible.”

“Generate the wormhole, Ms Hansen.” Kathryn’s voice was rough with emotion. She couldn’t break down now. She mustn’t.

Seven inputted the final commands and the new artificial wormhole boiled out of subspace in a turmoil of neutrinos and electromagnetic radiation. For once the appearance of a new flexure didn’t fill Kathryn with wonder. She was simply impatient for it to be confirmed stable.

“Report, Hansen,” she barked. Too harsh, too harsh. She must tone it back.

Seven was unperturbed. “Flexure stable, Commander. Distal aperture is within 0.2 lightyears of targeted location.

“Width of flexure at its narrowest?”

“145 metres.”

“Can you do it, Paris?”

“You betcha, Commander.”

“Do it.”

KJ was looking thin and wan. She hadn’t eaten properly for weeks, as far as Jadzia knew, and she doubted she’d been sleeping much. Jadzia could feel the tension thrumming off her - she was drawn so tight she might snap at any moment and Jadzia wasn’t sure whether she would lash out with all her pent-up grief or shatter into pieces. She really wasn’t fit for command right now. 

That was why Jadzia was here, of course. When they failed to find Riker, someone would have to pick KJ up and take her home. Jadzia was dreading it. She wished Deanna could be here; this was much more in her line. But Deanna was still on the Titan, which was under the ‘temporary’ command of Admiral Patterson. They called it temporary, but everyone knew Riker wasn’t coming back to claim his ship, and when KJ was finally forced to confront what they all already knew, Jadzia would have to make sure she and the Voyager crew got back to DS9. That’s why Benjamin had given Jadzia command of the Defiant and the mission. He had recognised that KJ needed to do this, that she would never find peace while she did not know for certain that Riker was dead. Benjamin's compassion had led to him giving KJ this final closure. But there was expediency mixed with the compassion. The war effort needed KJ functioning and someone would have to drag her back from the gamma quadrant.

When Jadzia had left Benjamin’s office after that meeting with KJ, they’d shared a nod which conveyed that they both understood what this mission was really about. 

“Bring her back,” was the last thing Benjamin had said when she left. Jadzia selfishly wished it wasn’t her responsibility. 

But Jadzia owed KJ. She owed it to her to be there when KJ finally broke and to help piece her back together. KJ had stuck by her, after all. When Jadzia had been ill, on the brink of death in the Symbiosis Commission, KJ had held her hand. When Jadzia and Lenara had been exiled from Trill, KJ had been there, bolstering them up, fighting for them. When Jadzia and Lenara had decided to confront Trill society with the reality of joining by revealing that almost all Trills could join successfully, KJ had supported them. And when it had all gone so horribly wrong, when Trill fell into civil war and the Federation suddenly wasn’t there to guide them through it, KJ had been there, reassuring them that it hadn’t been their fault.

It was Jadzia’s fault, of course. How could she have been so naive as to think that Trill society could simply absorb such information as that and continue peacefully? Of course there had been riots, of course there had been uprisings. KJ had said that, had the Federation been functioning and united, it would have helped to reform Trill government peacefully. Democratically. There would have been orderly referenda to reorganise Trill governance, the Symbiosis Commission would have entered talks with the disaffected unjoined majority. It would have taken time, but Trill would have adapted to its new reality. 

Instead, the riots had come at the precise time Edward Janeway had taken over the Federation government by coup. He had offered immediate military support to the embattled Symbiosis Commission, and the riots had been quelled by sheer brute force. The unjoined majority, already underrepresented in the Trill cabinet, were entirely disenfranchised. The leaders of those calling for greater equality between joined and unjoined had disappeared, nobody knew where. Disappointingly few joined Trill spoke up in protest. A very few had left quietly and come to DS9 for sanctuary with the Deep Space Federation government. There were rumours, unsubstantiated, but repeated often and in hushed whispers, that joined Trill who vocally opposed the Commission were having their symbionts ‘rehosted’ - forcibly removed and given to those who were more supportive of the regime. Surely not? That must be an exaggeration. Her planet couldn’t have degenerated to that extent so quickly? Could it? 

But it had happened before. The Symbiont Wars had happened centuries ago, but they had only ceased because Trill had recognised the value of joining the Federation, and that had provided the impetus to try to smooth over the differences between the joined and the unjoined. That was the problem wasn’t it? The two groups had not come to a natural accommodation. They had just papered over the cracks. And once the Federation faltered, those cracks broke through.

Oh what had she done, what had she done? Why couldn't she have kept quiet? Why had she gone blundering into such a precarious situation with her strident self-righteousness and upset the delicate balance right at the crucial moment? Now her fellow Trills were paying the price for her sanctimonious self-importance. She had ripped apart her own people.

“Time to the gamma quadrant?”

KJ’s voice came over the subspace link, but it was directed at her own crew on Voyager, not at Jadzia. KJ was standing again, hands on hips, and now there was a feverish excitement in her eyes. She was smiling for the first time in months.

“Two minutes,” said young Paris.

With an effort Jadzia brought her mind back to the mission at hand. KJ had been there through all of Jadzia’s self-flagellation after Trill fell apart. She owed it to her to be there for her now. When KJ’s world fell apart. 

“Two minutes,” said Paris. 

Thank the ancestors for that. Chakotay had fully understood the risks of travelling through one of these artificial wormholes, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking when you were trapped inside one, hoping it wasn’t going to collapse.

He tried to relax back in the first officer’s chair and, looking over his shoulder, caught Seska’s eye briefly, where she was standing by the Security console. She smiled at him, a small, slightly conspiratorial smile, that he knew she only ever shared with him, and he felt warmth flood through him. 

He shouldn’t have allowed himself to start sleeping with a member of his crew - he knew he shouldn’t - but he found it hard to bring himself to care when she smiled at him like that. He wasn’t in Starfleet any more, after all. The Maquis was built on personal relationships between its members; that was what he liked about it rather than the rigid command structure of Starfleet. It was more personal in the Maquis. They were helping real people down on the ground, the individuals who most needed support - not sacrificing those little people to the beautiful but cold ideals of the Federation. So why should he feel guilty at having a personal relationship with Seska? He’d never hidden it from the rest of his crew. They were all supportive of them. Nobody cared. Yet still, he felt he shouldn’t be doing this. It could get messy.

No. This was stupid thinking. It was because he was working with Starfleet again. It made it difficult to shake off their way of thinking; he’d been one of them for so long. But he’d lost faith in Starfleet long ago; their way of doing things disregarded the lives of the individual far too much for Chakotay’s comfort. He’d put Starfleet aside quite deliberately. He’d debated with himself long and hard and consulted with his animal guide and he knew the Maquis way of doing things was preferable for him. So why was he still feeling guilty about it?

Perhaps it was because he was allowing Seska to influence him a little too much? After all, would he even be here if it weren’t for her? 

When Janeway had first proposed this insane mission to the gamma quadrant, his first instinct had been to tell her it was simply too risky for him and his people. This went far beyond allying with the Deep Space Federation temporarily while they fought off the Cardassians from the DMZ. This mad jaunt to the gamma quadrant wasn’t really going to help the colonists in any meaningful way, was it? Of course not.

And yet Seska had been unexpectedly enthused about the mission. 

He’d told her about it one night when they were lying tangled up together in a sweaty glorious mess among his sheets, and she’d looked up from where her head had been resting on his chest and said, “But we have to go!”

He’d blinked at her in confusion. “Why? I’ve told you, there’s a not insignificant chance we won’t even make it through the wormhole. It might collapse. And if we do, what are the odds of rescuing Riker? Slim to none. I’m really surprised Sisko is allowing Janeway to do this at all, even with volunteers only.”

“Don’t we owe her?” Seska had said.

That had made Chakotay pause. Because it was the one thing that had stopped him from dismissing Janeway out of hand. He did owe her. She had broken him, and B’Elanna and Seska out of Starfleet Main Brig. It had been she who had smoothed things over between them and Deep Space Federation Starfleet Command. She who had given them their lives back. If it hadn’t been for her, they would still be stuck on Earth, and what would Edward Janeway have done with them? Executed them? Or just kept them locked up for the rest of their lives? Either way, they certainly would not have received anything close to real justice from the new regime on Earth. 

So, yes, he did owe her, and he did feel sorry for her. For the past few months he had watched as she became a pale shadow of the vibrant woman who had so effortlessly marshalled him and his people to break out of the brig. Gone was the slightly mischievous sparkle in her eye, gone were her previously ready smiles, leaving only the brittle core of her: efficient and ruthlessly hard-working and driven, but hard and unsmiling and ready to shatter. He owed it to her to at least try to bring back the man she loved. After all, he had left Starfleet in favour of the more personally driven passion of the Maquis - wasn’t this the sort of thing the Maquis should support? A brave, emotionally-wounded woman trying to rescue a decent man from a cruel enemy.

Chakotay had looked into Seska’s open countenance, the wrinkles of her Bajoran nose giving her a perpetually slightly amused expression to human eyes, and he had agreed with her. They ought to support Janeway.

It was only now, sitting in the first officer’s chair, smiling back at her, that Chakotay considered: Seska had never really warmed to Janeway. Unlike B’Elanna, who, although she had been initially hostile to Janeway, had eventually yielded to what were probably deep-rooted Klingon tendencies to bond with those with whom you had fought. B’Elanna now regarded Janeway with respect, even with a tentative friendship, he thought, but Seska had always remained cool towards her. That time, in bed, that had been the first time she had ever mentioned ‘owing’ anything to Janeway. Did she mean it? Or had she only said that because she knew that was how he felt? And if so, why did she really want to accompany Janeway on this suicide mission?

He quashed down the unworthy thought, uneasily. This was paranoid stuff. Seska was simply an honourable fighter. She had fought with the Bajoran resistance for years, and then the Maquis. She understood all about the loyalty owed to comrades who had fought for you. Even if she didn’t personally like Janeway much, she likely felt indebted to the woman. That was what it was. What other reason could she possibly have?

The smile Seska was casting him deepened, crinkling her nose still further, and Chakotay smiled back at her. He was being an idiot. 

Garak’s breath was coming raggedly and he dug his nails into his palms and closed his eyes. If his eyes were scrunched shut then the blackness was due to his eyes being closed, not due to the walls creeping closer and closer to him. He could fool himself into thinking he wasn’t in the cramped duct shaft in the wall behind their cell, that he was lying on his bunk instead, sleeping, that his breath wasn’t coming faster and faster as he tried to gulp in air, that his heart wasn’t hammering so hard he must surely burst a major artery. 

That he wasn’t back in that closet, panicking while Tain, his father - known but never acknowledged - jeered outside. Knowing that as soon as he left the closet he would be in for yet another beating. Because he was weak, such a skinny boy, not the manly Cardassian ideal Tain could have been proud of. 

No, calm. He wasn’t in the closet. That had been years ago. That would never happen again. But he still couldn’t stay in here, he couldn’t, because the walls were squeezing him now, he could feel the scalding metal of the duct shaft even through the tough scales on the outside of his arms, and the darkness was growing blacker and blacker, he was having to take deeper breaths to eek out the last of the oxygen. He was feeling faint, but if he shouted, if he screamed, Tain would pull him out of the closet by his neck and kick him, or worse, tell him he was ashamed because Elim was so feeble a specimen. No matter that he had made his first kill already at the age of twelve; that counted for nothing. He was small and scrawny, and although he knew how to stop a grown man’s heart with a single finger jabbed just so into the base of the neck, he was pathetic. He was no true Cardassian, he was scared of a closet. And now his eyes were open and the blackness was pressing like a physical entity into his eyeballs and the pressure was growing, growing, growing, growing. His eyes were going to burst and his lungs were screaming for air. 

“Get him out of there.” Riker’s voice, commanding as always. 

There was a scrape of metal as the bunk was pulled away from the wall and the panel that covered the entrance to the duct was removed. Hands grasping him roughly. Riker’s? Martok’s? No, they were both too big to fit in here. It was the Romulan, Saloka. No feminine gentleness in her touch - the woman seemed to be made of steel. The light was blinding after the blackness, but the air, the wonderful cool air on his overheated skin, was pure delight. Even the unforgiving harsh metallic sterility of the cell he shared with Riker, Tain, Saloka and the Klingons felt like glorious release after his confinement in the duct.

He heard himself make a sound, part sob, part whimper and heaved in another breath. He wanted to retch. 

He saw Tain, lying weakly on the opposite bunk, and thought he heard a snort of disdain as he turned his face away from Garak. The ungrateful bastard. Garak had managed to extract a promise from Riker that he would take Tain with them when they broke out. That had been Garak’s price for enduring the duct in the first place, and that bastard was repaying him with contempt. Garak's breathing and heart rate were slowing and Martok was helping him sit up. He closed his eyes again, just for a moment, and this time it was not in denial, but in relief. Sounds started to return to normal, losing that echoing quality.

His trousers were damp. For a hideous moment Garak thought he had soiled himself, but then realised it was only blood from where he had cut his leg on a jagged piece of metal in the duct.

“What happened?” Martok’s voice was concerned. 

Garak wasn’t sure how much he had said while he was in there. Cautiously he ventured, “The light went out. I became confused and disoriented in the dark.”

“I think Garak had a panic attack.” Riker sounded matter-of-fact.

Garak turned his blandest smile on him. Riker was the kind of unimaginative oaf who was never scared of anything. He went back into that ring, day in, day out, had his wounds healed, and always seemed willing to take more punishment.

Garak deliberately quashed those thoughts. No, he shouldn’t underestimate Riker, that would be foolish. Riker was intelligent, for all that bluff masculinity. He had a tactician’s intelligence. He could take in a battlefield and the disposition of enemy troops at a glance and come up with multiple unorthodox strategies to get the best of the situation. No doubt he had many other admirable attributes: he was loyal, honest, courageous, full of vim and vigour. All the qualities of a really excellent Terran dog. 

He could never orchestrate a subterfuge to save his life. Guile was entirely beyond him. He would have been eaten alive in Cardassian Central Command, let alone the Obsidian Order. It had often baffled Garak why a woman as subtle and complex as Kathryn Janeway was so taken with the man, but then he supposed bluff masculinity and physical vigour had their attractions.

“What,” said Sirella with a sneer, “is a ‘panic attack’?” Did the woman ever say anything without a sneer? 

“It’s a sudden period of extremely heightened and acute anxiety,” Riker told her. “Often accompanied by physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, hyperventilation, dizziness, sometimes feelings of suffocation. It’s not something that can be easily overcome in the moment.” Riker gave Garak a friendly pat on the shoulder and Garak had to stifle his urge to bite Riker’s hand. He didn’t want the man’s pity.

Pity was not on offer from Sirella. She sniffed. “Klingons do not have panic attacks.” Her voice creaked with the weight of her disapproval.

Garak was feeling a lot better. He always did enjoy being disliked and underestimated. “Indeed, dear lady. It does not surprise me that Klingons have poorly developed emotional range. In my experience they also lack the skill, patience and, dare I say it, the intellectual stamina to spend weeks locked in that glorified coffin, remodulating the life support systems to contact your ship through its shields.”

“Are you mocking me, Cardassian?”

He opened his eyes wide in exaggerated guilelessness. “I always treat ladies with the respect they deserve.”

Martok bristled at that and Sirella drew herself up to her full height, unsure whether she had just been insulted or not.

“Elim,” wheezed Tain. “Stop it.”

Garak shut his mouth instantly and hated himself for it.

“How far have you progressed?” asked Riker, clearly trying to change the subject.

“I believe it will take me another day, perhaps two. We must consider when we wish to attempt the breakout. If you dematerialise in the middle of a fight, the Jem’Hadar will be alerted at once, and even though Sirella’s ship is under cloak, they may be able to locate it if they know to look for it.”

“They know it’s out there already,” said Martok. “They must realise Lady Sirella arrived on some sort of ship when she tried to break us out. They clearly can’t break the cloak.”

Garak suppressed a sigh. It was tedious having to explain the most obvious things to people. “Perhaps they assumed she’d had an accomplice who turned tail when she was captured? Regardless they have had little incentive to hunt for the ship, given we are all prisoners. If we all dematerialise don’t you think that might spur them on to more than a cursory search?”

Martok grunted.

“Very well,” said Riker. “So we need to make our move at night, when we’re all tucked up in our bunks. Can you do it tonight, Garak?”

Garak sucked his teeth. “I don’t know about that.”

“You see, Itak’ika’s starting to run out of Jem’Hadar who haven’t yet faced me and Martok. I’m not sure I like my chances once I’ve served my purpose. And before you say that doesn’t concern you, Garak, let me just remind you that if the guards aren’t watching the fights they’ll be watching the cells more closely.”

True. And besides he did rather owe it to Kate to bring Riker back intact. She’d saved his life once. Why that should matter to him, Garak wasn’t sure, but somehow it did. More importantly, there were also strong tactical reasons for returning Riker to DS9. That puffed up idiot Dukat was busy handing Cardassia over to the Dominion, and right now the Deep Space Federation and its military leaders were the best hope for kicking the Founders and their minions out of the alpha quadrant.

It would require Garak to spend more time in that duct. Fewer breaks, less time in the relative openness of the cell. 

“I think I can manage it,” he said. 

The things he did for Cardassia.

Chapter Text

“Congratulations, KJ,” said Jadzia softly over the subspace link.

“Hmm? What?” Kathryn looked up at the viewscreen impatiently. She had finally yielded to temptation and pushed Wildman away from the navigation station so she could input the last known coordinates from Sirella’s ship herself.

“That was the first time a starship has travelled through an artificial wormhole.”

“Oh… yes, I suppose it was.” It had gone more smoothly than Kathryn had anticipated. The wormhole had brought them through to within about 40 minutes' distance of where Sirella’s ship had been. “Collapse the wormhole behind us, Lenara. We don’t want the Dominion discovering it. Mr Paris, prepare to go to maximum warp.”

“Belay that order, Mr Paris,” said Dax. “Janeway, we can’t go charging in at maximum warp. Energy requirements to the warp drive will leave weapons and defensive systems vulnerable.”

Kathryn bit back a tart retort. Jadzia was right, damn her, but she shouldn’t be belaying orders to Kathryn’s crew like that and undermining her.

“They’ve been there for six months, KJ. Another hour or so won’t make a difference.” 

Did Jadzia always have to talk to Kathryn so gently and reasonably? Kathryn wasn’t an invalid, nor was she a fool. She’d just had her mind on other things. 

Once again, Kathryn made the effort to suppress her impatience with Dax and said, “Warp 6, Mr Paris. Shields at maximum. Mr Chakotay, keep scanning for anything unusual: ion trails, comms traffic, evidence of any moon or planet that might support life.”

Dax nodded at her over subspace, but Kathryn was already turning her attention to the scans. She was so close to Will. In less than a day she would be reunited with him. She had to believe it. It must be true. The alternative was unthinkable.

Will held up a bloody fist. He didn’t roar his victory or smack Martok on the shoulder in a show of triumph. He was too tired to express his conquest in any other way than to stand over his latest Jem’Hadar challenger, who lay unmoving at his feet. 

Will didn’t think he had broken anything in that last round, but being head-butted in the stomach by a Jem’Hadar was no fucking picnic. He’d lain on the floor for a count of seven, the world spinning around him, wondering if he would ever be able to draw breath again, before he’d finally summoned enough strength to drag himself to the post at the edge of the ring and thump the top of it. A short time later he’d managed to grapple the Jem’Hadar into submission, and then cracked the man’s back over his knee.

Itak’ika was expressionless as ever while the unconscious Jem’Hadar was dragged off by his comrades. 

“That was the last of my men, William Riker,” Itak’ika said gravely. “They have all faced you and Martok. None of them has killed you. Some of them have bested you, and sent you beaten and bloody to the medbay, your limbs broken or your internal injuries severe enough to kill you if left untreated. They will be rewarded with higher positions within their units. I have permitted you to live because you have never conceded defeat. None of them has broken you. Now you have just one challenger left to face.”

“You?” Will spoke through a thick mouthful of blood. 

Itak’ika inclined his head in acknowledgement. Will had no patience for this ‘honour among warriors’ bullshit. He had no interest in earning Itak’ika’s respect. If he could kill this bastard he would, but that probably wouldn’t be sensible at this stage. If he killed Itak’ika, he would be executed for sure. Fuck, his side was aching like hell where the bony spines of his last challenger’s skull ridges has dug in.

“What is this nonsense?” Deyos pushed his way through the ranks of Jem’Hadar to the front. “Haven’t you allowed this spectacle to continue for long enough, First? For months you and your men have been distracted by the human and the Klingon.”

Itak’ika turned cold eyes on him. “I do not consider training against our enemies to be a distraction.”

Will had never heard a Jem’Hadar contradict a Vorta before. He might have found it heartening if he didn’t feel he wanted to double over and retch. 

Itak’ika and the Vorta stared at each other for several moments until Deyos glanced away and said breezily, “Very well. If this is what passes for entertainment for your men, so be it. Be sure it does not interfere with your duties.”

Itak’ika nodded his head curtly and then barked out orders to his Second. “Take the human to medbay. Get him fighting fit.”

Fuck. The import had just dawned on Will. This was to be his last fight. Would he be able to drag it out long enough for Garak to complete his work on the makeshift comms array? He’d damn well better. 

Will met Martok’s eyes as he stumbled after the Second, and tried to communicate the urgency of the situation with a grimace and a jerk of his head toward the cells. Martok nodded minutely. He would tell Garak to hurry.

When they were within 400,000 kilometres of the asteroid, Kathryn, Seska and Seven beamed over to the Defiant, so that they could approach under cloak. Voyager was left with a skeleton crew, skulking around the outskirts of a small local nebula, under orders to destroy the flexure generator at all costs if they were discovered. There was no sign of Sirella’s ship, but of course there wouldn’t be if it were under cloak too. This was Sirella’s last known location and the location from which DS9 had first received those messages purporting to be from Tain. Will must be nearby.

Kathryn watched avidly as readings from the sensor sweep of the asteroid came through. It was about 300 km long, and approximately 5 AU from its weak white dwarf star. There were no planets in this system and this was the largest body anywhere for millions of kilometres. What an absolutely desolate place.

Kathryn grabbed Dax’s arm. “Look! Look, Jadzia! That heat signature! Where’s it coming from?”

“It must be from the far side of the asteroid.”

“It’s consistent with some sort of facility to support life isn’t it?” Her own voice sounded painfully eager in her ears.

“Maybe,” said Dax noncommittally. “Helm, bring us around to the other side of the asteroid.”

It seemed to take an age for the Defiant to manoeuvre at one-quarter impulse around the asteroid. The other side was lit by the wan light from the tiny sun, which was barely more than a bright star at these distances. It cast barely perceptible shadows over the uneven surface of the asteroid. Kathryn could hardly make out anything but the largest of the craggy ridges. She felt her heart plummet.

“There is a facility on the surface.” Seven’s uninflected tones had never been so welcome. Kathryn almost hugged her, although she refrained at the last moment, knowing how uncomfortable that would made the ex-Borg.

“Where? Show me, Seven.”

Seven blew up an image of the asteroid surface on the console. There, in an ice-filled crag, so rimmed around with shadow it could hardly be distinguished, was a circular dull-metal structure.

“Scan it! Life signs!”

Several torturous seconds passed. “There is an interference field in place,” said Seven. “Sensors are being scrambled.”

“That suggests the station isn’t deserted!”

“The design of the building suggests Dominion origin,” cautioned Seska.

Well of course it was Dominion. What had they expected?

“I suppose the interference field prevents transporter function?” asked Dax.

“Confirmed,” Seven replied.

“Alright. Seska, see if you can work out where that field originates. In the meantime, Seven, O’Brien, see if you can find a way to bring it down that doesn’t involve alerting a garrison of Jem’Hadar to our location.

Kathryn couldn’t even find it in her to resent the way Jadzia was ordering her people about. She fizzed with elation.

“KJ,” said Jadzia quietly, drawing her to one side, “you know it doesn’t mean he’s alive, don’t you?”

Kathryn wasn’t going to let that kind of thinking get in the way. She brushed off Jadzia brusquely, “Let’s think of alternative strategies for getting down there in case we can't use the transporters. In the worst case scenario we could get a shuttle from Voyager, tractor beam it close to the Defiant so it’s covered by the cloak and then fly down to the surface.”

Jadzia was giving her that concerned look again. Kathryn was getting fed up with it. 

“I’m going down there, Jadzia,” she said insistently. You don’t have to come with me, but I am going down there. Even if I have to defy orders to do it.”

Jadzia sighed and rubbed the spots at her temples.

“Garak!” 

He was shaken awake roughly. It felt like it had only been a few minutes that he had been asleep. It couldn’t be time to go back in that hole again, surely?

“Martok,” he muttered. “What is it?”

“You must complete your work on the communication device. At once. We have little time remaining.”

“What’s happening?”

“Riker is being prepared for a final fight with Itak’ika himself. If I know my blood brother he will make the fight last as long as possible, but if he kills Itak’ika he will be executed. And if Itak’ika defeats him… then he may still be executed, if he is not killed outright in the fight. But even if he is not killed, these fights will cease and we may no longer have access to the duct. You must complete the work now.”

“There’s still hours of work...”

“Then you must begin at once. I will return to support my brother. Sirella and Saloka, you will keep a watch for guards and distract them if necessary. At all costs Garak must be allowed to complete his work.”

Garak groaned and dragged himself from his bunk. Tain was watching him, his gaze a complicated mixture of pity and malice. Garak met his eyes and straightened his back and Tain laughed. It was a mocking laugh and it followed Garak to the cramped confines of his personal hell. The walls closed in around him, swallowing him in the suffocating heat and dark of the duct. He heard a clang as a bunk was pushed up against the access panel, blocking him in. The sound had a finality to it.

He turned his tiny torch on the isolinear interfaces and tried to block his surroundings from his mind.

Will's every nerve felt like it was on fire, and his blood was pumping sure and fast. The pain of the last bout melted away as the drugs spread into his system from the hypospray, perfusing his bloodstream, reaching every cell of his body. He was effervescent. He was furious. 

Those motherfucking bastards. Keeping him like this, like an animal, making him fight and fight and fight. Reducing him to this core of bestiality, stripping him of everything that made him human, so he was just a fighting machine for their entertainment. He bunched his fists, saw the veins stand out on the backs of his hands and his forearms, his biceps bulging. He felt the tendons tense on his neck, his vision turning bloodshot again. Just let him at Itak’ika. He’d take him. He’d take every Jem’Hadar in this station and then he’d get the Vorta. Smash his soft, wax-pale face against the tritanium floor again and again, until it was a bloody mess, until it wasn’t recognisable as a face any more. He would-

“Brother, it is time to go to the ring.” Martok spoke gently, a wary hand on Will’s shoulder. It took everything he had not to slam his fist into Martok’s face. If it hadn’t been for Martok, Will would never have come here. He would be home on DS9 with his wife and kids and he would never have been brought down to these depths.

Martok was speaking very slowly. As if Will was fucking stupid. “You must not waste your energy on the initial attack, brother. If you kill Itak’ika, you will simply be executed. You must draw it out, make it last as long as possible. Give Garak time.”

Garak. That smarmy little reptile. That fucking spy. And Tain. If there was evil in the world that man embodied it, and here was Will, giving his fucking life to return the man to safety. 

He made a sound, trying to form words, but failing, and it came out an indistinct growl. Spittle flew from his lips and he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

He was a fucking animal. They had done this to him. The Dominion had done this to him.

“Where is the second Cardassian?” The Jem’Hadar’s voice echoed in the bare cell. 

Kahless and Lukara, it was pure ill chance that it should be this guard on rotation this shift. Sirella cursed to herself under her breath. Most of the Jem’Hadar did not bother to identify where every prisoner was. Prisoners had free run of the compound and might be anywhere, from their cell, to medbay, to the refectory. After all, they could not escape. There was only vacuum and icy nothingness beyond the compound. 

Most of the guards only looked in the cells perfunctorily, to check the prisoners weren’t fighting each other, but otherwise they lurked, surly and sullen in the corridors, anxious to come off shift so that they could join the group around the fighting ring. Watching her husband and Riker get torn apart appeared to be their main entertainment. This guard, however: he was different. Smaller than the others - although he still almost matched Martok for height - he seemed to take a perverse delight in rounding up the prisoners of each cell and making them stand in line while he inspected them. 

Sirella reflected that every species seemed to be afflicted with this type of small-minded bully. 

“Perhaps he is watching the fight?” Saloka, the Romulan targ-bitch suggested.

“There are no prisoners watching the fight except the big Klingon,” said the Jem’Hadar. In a Klingon or a human she would say he was enjoying this, but who could say whether a Jem’Hadar enjoyed anything. He strutted around the cell. “Now where is the other Cardassian?”

Sirella reclined on the bunk and deliberately put her arms behind her head. Not a posture befitting her dignity as a High Lady, but hopefully indicative of how very unlikely she was to move from this position. “We are not his keeper, Jem’Hadar,” she said icily. “Why should we do your job for you? He may be anywhere in the compound.”

Jem’Hadar faces were not very mobile, but she was certain he scowled at her. “Stand up Klingon. And you.” He pointed to Tain.

“He’s too weak to stand,” said Sirella.

“He will stand or his corpse will continue to lie there. MOVE!” he yelled.

Slowly, Sirella rose to her feet. It would be foolish to resist further, although every fibre of her was longing to tear out the heart of this insolent targ of a Jem’Hadar. Her mind was racing. They had taken her d’k tahg from her when she was captured. Could she subdue the Jem’Hadar bare-handed? She was strong and he was small for a Jem’Hadar... but he was still a Jem’Hadar.

Sirella moved slowly to Tain and helped the hideous old PetaQ to his feet, still thinking furiously. He leaned on her heavily. Kahless, but she could do without this encumbrance.

“Line up!” The Jem’Hadar gestured with his disruptor and she, Tain and Saloka stood against the wall. “Now-“

At that moment there came a harsh clanging sound from deep inside the duct. It seemed to reverberate for several seconds and Sirella froze, willing the Jem’Hadar to have somehow, impossibly, failed to have noticed it. 

The Jem’Hadar’s attention snapped towards it.

Chapter Text

Jadzia had vetoed KJ’s insane shuttle scheme, and KJ had taken it with suspicious gracefulness. Jadzia didn’t trust it. She just knew that KJ was going to try something. She could only hope that they could find a way to neutralise the interference field in the meantime, so they could beam down to the asteroid. Of course, that wasn’t much less insane than the shuttle idea, because even if they got transporters working, they knew nothing of the layout of the facility below. They had no idea where prisoners would be held, or even if there really were prisoners down there, and to transport down they would have to drop their cloak.

“Can we modulate the carrier wave frequency to cancel out the interference?” KJ was asking O’Brien. She had thrown herself into the transporter problem with characteristic single-mindedness.

“Sorry, Commander. It keeps changing too quickly for our computer to compensate.”

“Damn. Seska, any luck locating the source of the interference field?”

“It appears to come from that central turret.”

“Hmm,” KJ mused. “In most stations that would house life support, environmental systems and so on. We can’t risk taking that out. If the facility lost vacuum containment, everyone in there would be killed instantly.”

“That was my thinking too, Commander.”

“Alright. Let’s focus on trying to cancel out that field without taking it out at source. If not, we’ll have no option but to use the shuttle.” Kathryn met Dax’s eyes defiantly and Jadzia suppressed a sigh. KJ was probably right.

Will staggered as Itak’ika swung the axe head into his side. He’d let his guard down on his left side and Itak’ika had taken immediate advantage of it. He blocked the downward blow with his arm, catching the haft of the axe with his forearm. The jolt ran through him and he was fairly sure he heard one of the bones crack. 

Will had known from the first few seconds of the fight that he was outmatched. Itak’ika was a better fighter than any of his men. He was strong as a Klingon, agile as a Romulan, he had the raw aggression of a Nausicaan. It was all Will could do to block the flurry of blows Itak’ika rained down on him, giving ground with every one, backing up to the edge of the ring.

Now he fell to his knees near one of the columns as the pain from his broken arm hit him. But the pain was muted, the adrenaline and painkillers and god-knows-what he’d been pumped with were doing their job. The fury was still burning in him, red hot and barely under control. Fuck Itak’ika and his gladiatorial combat. Fuck the Vorta. Most of all, fuck the goddamned Founders for creating all of this. Fuck them for thinking that they somehow had some right to impose themselves on the whole goddamned galaxy, for seeing solids as either enemies or slaves. Fuck them, he hoped the Borg took them. Except Borg who had assimilated shape-shifting abilities would be even more fucking terrifying, so perhaps it would be better if a goddamned subspace rift opened up and swallowed the Dominion whole. 

He launched himself at the column and thumped it to show he meant to continue, feeling the blood and fury pounding behind his eyes. Itak’ika fell back into a defensive stance and they circled each other for a moment. Will tried to take his axe in a two-handed grip, but his left hand wouldn’t close, so he let it dangle uselessly by his side and hefted the axe in his right hand. Six months ago he could barely lift the axe one-handed, but now he could hold it raised and steady over his shoulder. 

His left arm was starting the throb, and the hand had turned a peculiar pinkish-red colour. He had no time to worry about that. He must take the initiative. If he allowed Itak’ika to gain control of the fight again he would be worn down quickly. Itak’ika had a tendency to favour his right side, but Will wasn’t sure whether that was feigned or not. He didn’t think so. Jem’Hadar were not much for subterfuge. He rushed at Itak’ika, covering the distance between them in a couple of strides, swinging the axe as if to bring it down across Itak’ika’s haft and break it, but at the last moment he swivelled the axe round and drove the blade hard towards Itak’ika’s left flank. Yes, end this fucker, watch him bleed! Then the others. He’d bring down at least two or three more Jem'Hadar before they killed him. Hopefully that little Vorta worm would dribble out the last of pathetic life before Will’s eyes when he smashed his head in.

Will’s intention had been to inflict a devastating blow to Itak’ika’s abdominal region and then follow it up with a swift chop to the neck, severing his white tube and his goddamned spine in one go. Swivelling the axe one-handed against its momentum strained Will’s shoulder muscles, but he’d trained hard and brutally, and he could manage the manoeuvre. Only he wasn’t quick enough. Itak’ika twisted away at the last moment so the blow to his side bit into his thick leather armour and through his scales, but it wasn’t by any means fatal. Itak’ika grunted in surprise, a little purplish blood oozing between his fingers, then rolled swiftly across the floor to the nearest column and gave it an almost perfunctory tap. He met Will’s eyes. Will’s blood was thumping hard and erratically. He’d nearly had him, he’d drawn blood, he could do this. He’d see this bastard fucker bleeding out on the floor of the ring before this was done.

It seemed to happen instantly. One moment Itak’ika was staring at him from the edge of the ring. The next he was up in Will’s face, their axe hafts crossed in front of them, each trying to overcome the other with sheer brute force. Will gnashed his teeth with the effort, he could hear his straining growls. But he only had one arm to hold the axe, and Itak’ika had two and Will was falling back. He brought his knee up, hard, into Itak’ika’s abdomen and the Jem’Hadar grunted again. But then Will was off balance and the next moment he felt a ringing pain in his ears and agony in his left leg. He was on his knees and he tried to reach out with his broken left arm to catch himself. He roared at the shattering pain, and then white light exploded over his vision, followed immediately by darkness.

“Anything, O’Brien? Seven?”

“I’m afraid not, Commander Janeway.” O’Brien sounded apologetic. If we only knew the parameters that regulate how the interference field frequency changes, we could modify the transporter confinement beam to get down there. But I can’t get any readings at all from the interference field. Everything bounces off.”

“I think it’s time to return to Voyager to fetch a shuttle.” KJ turned to Jadzia. Her eyes were still alight with excitement. She was more engaged and full of life than at any time since Riker disappeared. 

Jadzia hated to crush her, but she was in charge of this mission and she couldn’t allow KJ to go down to the Jem'Hadar base in a shuttle with just two or three other crew members. They would be butchered.

“KJ.” She placed a hand on her arm. “I can’t let you do that. You know that. Let’s keep trying with the interference field.”

“You heard O’Brien. We’ve been trying for hours. It’s not going to work. You have to let me go down there, Jadzia. I won’t risk anyone else. Just let me take a shuttle down.”

“No, KJ. I won’t let you commit suicide like that.” 

A desperate look entered KJ’s expression.

“We’ve come so far. We’re so close. You’ve got to let me try.”

“We have no evidence that Riker is down there, KJ. I think you need to take a break. Go and get some food from the mess.”

KJ shook her off angrily. “No! I can’t possibly sit in the mess hall and twiddle my thumbs. Move over, O’Brien. Let me have a go at that interference field.” KJ actually pushed a startled O'Brien away from his console.

“Don’t make me order you off the bridge, Janeway.”

Dax felt a tugging sense of dismay inside her. This wasn’t going to work. This mission wasn’t going to demonstrate to KJ that Riker was lost and allow her to finally start grieving him. She wasn’t going to be satisfied until she risked herself down on that asteroid. And that would inevitably get her killed.

The metallic clank of Garak’s makeshift duonetic coupler hitting the wall of the duct continued resonating for what seemed an eternity. Garak held so still he could feel himself trembling with the effort. Stupid. Pointless now. He’d already given the game away. The rawest recruit to the Obsidian Order wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. He could almost see Tain’s sneer.

He heard the voices outside stop abruptly, and then, distant and muffled, the deep tones of a Jem’Hadar guard. “What was that?”

Garak turned off his torch. How pathetic. Cowering in the dark like a vole. As if lack of light would protect him once the Jem’Hadar realised he was in there. They would haul him out by his ankles, like a grub pulled out of a rotting tree trunk, its soft, glutinous body exposed to the light, flexing and squealing in contemptible impotence. And yet somehow that was preferable to staying wedged in the suffocating blackness. He could already feel the black pressing on his eyeballs once again, the gorge rising in his throat, the dizziness fogging his mind. 

There was a murmur of female voices. Sirella and Saloka, trying to argue with the Jem’Hadar guard. Buying Garak time. Time for what? He wanted to scream, to call the Jem’Hadar to him because then at least he wouldn’t be in the dark. No matter how they tortured him, he wouldn't be in the dark. 

They were buying him time. Sirella and the Romulan were buying him time. He only had two circuits left to reintegrate into the makeshift transmitter. His hands shook and he fumbled his torch. He had to reach out into the unknown black and scrabble to find it. It had rolled. He had to reach further and further into the darkness, but at last his fingers touched the smooth cylindrical surface. It took a second or two for him to find the switch, and then there was light again. He gasped in relief.

He’d been halfway through one of the circuits when he’d dropped the duonetic coupler. There wasn’t much left to do. Just roughly couple that isolinear interface to the other. Focus on that. Not on the walls looming around him. 

He was working quickly, methodically. This was working. The circuit was complete. One more left.

There came a sudden metallic scrape and instantly there was light coming from just beyond his feet. The Jem’Hadar had moved the access panel. No, he couldn’t think about that either. One more circuit and he would be transmitting the parameters for modulating the interference field so that Sirella’s ship would compensate. Then he just had to send a signal to Sirella’s ship telling it to beam up all Klingon, Cardassian and human lifesigns. He had no intention of taking the Romulans. It wasn’t a complicated instruction to send, but it would take precious seconds. 

The last circuit was almost complete.

“Hah! You tell me you didn’t know the Cardassian was in there!” The Jem’Hadar sounded triumphant. 

Garak pulled his feet up, crushing himself into a foetal position. He was so jammed in here he might never be able to leave. His heart started racing again, but he focused his mind on the circuit. The circuit. The circuit. Complete the circuit. Send the signal to Sirella’s ship to counteract the interference field. Send a second signal to beam them up. Circuit. First signal. Second signal.

Circuit. First signal. Second signal.

Circuit. First signal. Second signal.

A thump and a groan, and a Klingon cry of triumph. They’d overpowered the guard! 

Circuit. First signal. Second signal.  

Garak shifted slightly to focus his light on the circuit board, his hands trembling as he wielded the duonetic coupler. It didn't matter that he was shaking; it didn’t have to be pretty. It only had to last a short time.

And the circuit was complete! This was going to work! 

The first signal was the easiest to send. His hands were still shaking, but he was inputting the interference field modulation parameters. Fortunately the Jem’Hadar had allowed him to keep his tricorder when he was first captured, so he’d been able to calculate them beforehand.

Shouting from outside. The heavy tread of multiple feet. A Jem’Hadar telling Sirella and Saloka to back up. A Romulan hiss of fury. 

He inputted the last of the parameters. They were sent, travelling at the speed of light to Sirella’s ship. A few seconds passed while the ship responded. 

Garak watched his makeshift transponder for the indication that the ship had received and understood the signal. He tried desperately to ignore the sounds from the cell, but he couldn’t tune out the metallic ripping sound, as the Jem’Hadar pulled another sheet of plating off the wall beside the access hatch. More light. More glorious light. But the Jem’Hadar were close. They would be able to reach his feet any moment. He pulled up his knees a fraction more. 

Another second. And another. Several of his erratic heartbeats between each one. A thumping sound from behind him, but he ignored it.

His transponder beeped; the ship’s return transmission. It had received the parameters! It could transmit through the interference field, which meant it could transport through it too! 

Just one more signal to send. 

Garak felt the Jem’Hadar’s grip close around his ankles like twin bands of steel. He tried to kick himself free, but succeeded only in hitting his knee painfully against the duct wall. His captor’s grip didn’t loosen. Garak was frantically trying to enter the commands for the final message to the ship, telling it to beam him out, but he was being dragged inexorably backwards. He felt his fingers slipping on the smooth metal of the duct, scrabbling to reach for his makeshift transponder.

It was no use. Garak had failed.

Chapter Text

“Don’t make me order you off the bridge, Janeway.”

Jadzia couldn’t mean it, could she? She knew how important this was to Kathryn. She couldn’t mean to let them come so close to finding him and then just… not do anything.

Jadzia placed a hand on Kathryn’s arm. God, Kathryn was so sick of everyone treating her like she was about to break in half. 

“We can return to DS9 with the intelligence we’ve gathered here, KJ. If you go rushing in you’ll just get yourself killed and do Riker no good at all. Come on KJ, this isn’t the end.”

If only Jadzia had been more resistant, Kathryn would have powered through belligerently. But kindness always collapsed her defences. Oh damn, damn, damn, why was Jadzia being so reasonable? Kathryn had to turn her back on the bridge crew as a sob threatened to rise up unbidden in her throat. She couldn’t let them see. 

Seven’s dispassionate voice cut through the raw emotion. “We are picking up a signal from the facility.”

“Have they detected us?” asked Jadzia urgently.

“I cannot be certain.” Seven put her head on one side, contemplating her console screen for several seconds. “The message contains a datastream with parameters for adjusting a transporter confinement beam such that it will neutralise the effects of the fluctuating interference field.”

Hope. Wild, unconstrained, glorious hope. Kathryn let out a little involuntary gasp. She brought herself back under control with an iron hand. She mustn’t get carried away. They must be cautious. This was too neat, too convenient.

“A trap?” she said hoarsely, “It must be a trap. They’ve detected us and they’re hoping we’ll just beam down and save them some trouble.” Yet the hope was still bubbling away inside her.

“It may be,” said O’Brien. “But look at this, Commander! The signal isn’t coming from the control centre, it’s coming from somewhere in the East wing of the building. It doesn’t look like a communication centre. And the signal’s weak. It’s what you might expect if someone had jury-rigged a transmitter.”

“Exactly,” said Jadzia flatly. “It’s the perfect trap. If it really were coming from prisoners, how could they possibly know we’re here to receive the message? We must have been detected by whoever is in charge down there and they’re trying to lure us down.”

“That doesn’t sound like something Jem’Hadar would do,” Kathryn said, allowing the hope free rein again. “They’re straightforward fighters.”

“It’s something the Vorta might do.”

Seven had been rapidly inputting commands at her station. “I have modelled the effect of the parameters in the datastream on a transporter confinement beam. They ought to circumvent the interference field. The parameters are genuine.”

Kathryn turned her eyes on Dax. She would plead if she had to, no matter if that wounded her pride.

Dax wavered for a few moments then let out a long sigh. “Well, we can’t very well turn around now, can we? Seven, can you use that data to get through the interference field and model the interior? Find us somewhere to beam down that looks out of the way. Close to where that signal is coming from, but not right on top of it.”

Seven gave her a brusque nod and turned her attention back to her console.

Will’s eyes felt gritty as he tried to blink them open. There was blood in his mouth. Something hard and sharp. He spat. A tooth. He stared at it. His teeth had always been one of his best features. Back in his lady-killer days his grin had served him well. Would Kathryn mind if it wasn’t what it was? He could always get the tooth replaced. It was hardly the first he had lost while he was here. 

Stupid thoughts. The tooth didn’t matter. And he was never going to see Kathryn again anyway.

His cheek was pressed against hard tritanium. He tried to raise his head and his vision went black. A moment, and another, while his heart struggled to pump enough blood to his brain. He was tired. So very tired. He needed to sleep. Sleep. Darkness. Pain. So much pain. If he slept then it would all be over. He wouldn’t have to wake ever again.

A voice. Deep and harsh, but also familiar and welcome. Martok. The words garbled. Hearing him through water. “Come, brother, you have done enough. Honour has been more than satisfied.

Shaking his head. Raising it. Successfully this time. The ring. The fight. Itak’ika standing patiently to one side, blood all over him - his and Will’s - but he was still in a fighter’s stance while Will lay on the floor. 

Time. Garak needed time. Will needed to buy him time. Maybe there was still a sliver of hope. Maybe he would be able to see her again. 

He tried to push himself up with his arms and howled as his left arm buckled under him. He didn’t have long. If he didn’t hit the column within ten seconds he forfeited the match, and he didn’t know how long he’d been out for. He pushed himself forwards with his legs, half holding himself up with his right arm, ready to topple over at any second, his face hovering inches above the floor. He became aware of a new searing path in his left leg. The old wound from a few fights ago reopening, or perhaps a new one in the same location that he didn’t remember taking. Blackness still lurking at the edges of his vision. No! No, he had to make it to the column. He had to keep fighting! Then he might be able to see her again. The world contracted down so that all it contained was Will and the column and the metre or so of solid tritanium floor that separated them. There were slicks of blood on the metal sheets under his face. Or were those spots in his vision? There was a greenish halo to them and they kept blending with each other. He shook his head to clear it again, but his neck wouldn't turn properly. It fucking hurt so fucking much. Half a metre to the column. He would have to lift himself somehow to press the top of it. Think about that when he got there. 

“Enough,” said Itak’ika. 

Will twisted his neck to look at him and blinding white hot fire shot through his spine. 

“What are you waiting for?” came the petulant tones of Deyos. Why did the Vorta always whine like that? “Kill him and be done with it. You have defeated him.”

Through Will’s blurred vision, he saw Itak’ika turn on the Vorta. “You are mistaken. I cannot defeat this man. I could kill him, but that holds no interest for me. I cannot break him.”

Will made a hacking sound that bubbled wetly with blood. He had no idea why he was laughing.

He supposed he ought to be feeling relieved. Perhaps reciprocate Itak’ika’s display of Jem’Hadar honour by grasping the man’s hand and looking him in the eye as an equal. But he felt only fury. Itak’ika was sparing his life, but the only thing stopping Will from killing Itak’ika was that his body was too broken to lift his own head. There was humour in there, somewhere, wasn’t there?

Sirella spat at the Jem’Hadar and was cuffed across the mouth for her trouble. How dare they! She was the daughter of Emperors! Insolent PetaQ s! If she’d had her d’k tagh with her…

The Romulan had proved herself quite useful in the fight. As soon as Sirella had chopped the first Jem'Hadar guard across the back of the neck, Saloka had moved to the side of the doorway and taken out the next guard who came into the cell, buying Garak an extra minute or two. 

However, now both Sirella and Saloka had both been subdued, the Romulan almost unconscious from the beating she had taken. Green blood was running ominously out of one pointed ear. Sirella herself sagged in the grip of two Jem’Hadar guards, dizzy from the blows she had received. She straightened her spine. Sirella of the Houses of Martok and Linkasa would never cringe before her enemies.

Tain had been utterly useless of course. Hah! A Klingon, even suffering from a heart condition, would not have simply lain there feebly while others fought to save his miserable skin. The old QIncha’ had even had the sheer audacity to sneer at Garak when he’d been dragged, struggling frantically, from the duct. Garak may be a coward - Sirella could not understand how someone could be so spineless as to admit to being afraid of the dark - but at least he had returned to face his fears, and that took courage of a sort. Tain had done nothing but carp and criticise.

“What were you doing?” The Jem’Hadar in charge of the group who had subdued them was saying to Garak, in that quietly menacing tone of theirs.

“Merely resting in the duct as a little diversion from my tedious day-to-day in this cell,” said Garak with chirpy impertinence. “A change of scenery can really do wonders for the constitution. Really, I do think that you Jem’Hadar should try it. It’s no wonder you’re all so angry when you’re always stuck in desolate little hunks of rock, lightyears from anywhere. Perhaps a trip to a tropical paradise or a nice little spa planet-“

The Jem’Hadar hit him deliberately in the middle of his face. Her respect for Garak increased. Perhaps he wasn’t quite the pusillanimous little worm she’d thought him, if he could bait a Jem’Hadar to his face.

Other Jem’Hadar were systematically pulling away the panelling from the wall of the duct.

“Third,” said one of them. “The Cardassian has modified the life support systems into some sort of transmitter.”

The Third turned his attention back to Garak who was wiping streaming blood ineffectually from his nose. “Who were you trying to contact?”

“My aged mother - she worries so when she doesn’t hear from me. You know how it is with elderly female relatives. Ah! Of course, you wouldn’t know, would you? Being grown in vats? Doubtless your tendency to fall back on violence is an unsuccessful attempt to distract yourself from the gaping psychological hole where your mother’s love should have been. I-"

All the Jem’Hadar in the room had now turned their attention on Garak. They were still cold. A Klingon would have responded to Garak’s jibes with instant violence. Jem’Hadar did not react so quickly to insults, but they tended to exact their revenge with cool deliberation. Still, Garak was getting to them. Every single one was looking at him as the Third punched him with measured calm in the gut. Garak let out a little whoop and doubled over, gagging.

Why was he doing this? He was deliberately drawing their attention to himself, keeping them focused on him. Unobtrusively, Sirella raised her head very slightly and looked around with her eyes only, not moving her neck from side to side.

Her heart leapt inside her. Her blood-sister by marriage, Lady Kathryn of the Houses of Janeway and Riker, was pressed to the wall just outside the cell door, touting a phaser rifle. And there on the other side of the door, was a tall woman with Trill spots, also in a blue Starfleet uniform. Garak must have seen them already and was keeping the Jem’Hadar’s attention away from the door. The Trill pressed her finger to her lips and then signalled behind her with a series of complicated hand gestures. There was a movement further back in the corridor. More Starfleet officers.

Sirella tensed, ready for the attack. Garak was lying on the floor, his breathing laboured. Good, that would keep him out of the firing line. 

The moment Lady Kathryn fired her phaser into the room, Sirella ripped herself free from the grip of her distracted captor and flung herself at the dazed, slumping figure of Saloka, bearing her to the floor. The Jem’Hadar who had been holding the Romulan grunted with surprise and Sirella brought her elbow up hard into his groin. He stumbled back and then a phaser shot caught him squarely in the chest. There was a quick flurry of phaser fire and then all four of the Jem'Hadar guards were stretched out on the floor. 

Lady Kathryn stepped from the small group of Starfleet officers and hugged Sirella fiercely, a liberty Sirella would not normally have permitted even to a blood sister, but the circumstances were somewhat unusual.

“Sirella! You’re alive! I’m so glad!” An expression of terrified hope moved across Lady Kathryn’s face. “Is Will?…” Her voice cracked.

“William Riker is alive, but you must be quick. He is fighting for his life in the combat ring in the central concourse. Martok is with him.”

Kathryn looked completely stunned. Almost dazed. She stared at Sirella, unblinking, her mouth slightly open.

“He’s alive,” she whispered. “Oh. Oh thank God. Jadzia, I’m going to get him.” She raised her rifle and turned to the door, but the Trill woman grabbed her arm.

“Steady, KJ. No charging into the most dangerous part of the facility if you don’t have to.” The Trill turned back to Sirella, speaking urgently. “Have you been administered with any agents or injected with any devices that would block transport?”

“I do not believe so.”

The Trill was tapping her comm badge. “ Defiant, lock on to all Klingon, human and Cardassian signatures at this location, and one human and one Klingon signature at the central concourse. Prepare to beam us all up. There’ll be a lot of us, better put us in the mess hall.”

“You will take the Romulan woman too, or I will refuse to accompany you.” Sirella drew herself up to her full height. She may be dirty and abused, but she was still the High Lady of the Houses of Martok and Linkasa and she was under obligation to the Romulan.

The Trill looked like she was going to argue, but Lady Kathryn said, "Quickly, Jadzia!"

“Oh, very well. Defiant, lock onto one Romulan at this location too. We can’t take all the Romulans and in this camp, Sirella.”

“Lady Sirella," Sirella corrected her. This Trill was really rather impertinent. "I do not care a snap of the fingers for the other Romulans. This woman, however, has proved herself honourable.”

Saloka was looking at her without expression other than that perpetual frown all Romulans seemed to wear. She nodded almost imperceptibly. A Klingon would have thanked Sirella effusively for her magnanimity and sworn undying loyalty. Romulans had no honour, it seemed. Even one who was capable of fighting bravely. Sirella would never understand them. Well, by freeing Saloka from captivity, honour had been satisfied and Sirella could forget about her.

The Starfleet officers were guiding them all to stand in a small group. Garak limped over to join them. A sharp-featured Bajoran woman was helping Tain to his feet, directing him to put his arm over her shoulders. Why a Bajoran would want to help a Cardassian as notoriously cruel as Tain, Sirella could not fathom. But then why they had to bring the evil old QIncha’ back with them at all was beyond her. Let him rot here for all she cared. 

“Hurry! We have to get Will out now.” Lady Kathryn looked as if she still wanted to run out of the cell.

“Transporter lock established,” came a voice through the Trill’s comm badge.

“You’re right, KJ. Let’s get moving. O’Brien! Energise!”

The tingle of the transporter beam through her body had never felt so welcome to Sirella.

Chapter Text

Will couldn’t make sense of anything. It was all muddled and dreamlike. The harsh, bright lights of the combat ring blurred, becoming softer, but the pain was all-consuming. He might have screamed or it might have been someone else. Martok’s voice, moving feet. Then absolute darkness.

Now he was floating. There was no pain. They must have taken him to medbay, except the lights were too gentle. 

Then her voice. He knew it was only a dream, but the longer he could escape into it, the less time he had to spend in his reality. She was stroking back his hair from his forehead, saying his name with that soft burr of hers. He couldn’t make out anything else she said. She was holding his hand, stroking it and he could see her beautiful face so close, even though he struggled to focus on it. He wanted to kiss her, but he knew if he did the dream would dissolve and so he just held on to her hand. Hell, if he could just keep holding on perhaps it would never end. She was smiling at him, unshed tears in her eyes, and he tried to imprint the image in his brain. 

He made the mistake of closing his eyes and then the dream shifted. He was looking up at that arrogant, obnoxious ass he’d once met on Jupiter Station. Damn it, if a man was dying he wanted to see dream images of his beloved wife, not Lewis fucking Zimmerman.

Zimmerman was wielding a hypospray, but Will wasn’t going to allow them to give him any more of their fucking drugs. As Zimmerman approached, Will growled and flung himself at the man, raising his fist. In the way of dreams, he passed straight through Zimmerman and then he was letting out a great roar of frustration and smashing his fist into the bulkhead. He could stand, with trembling effort, his left leg shifting unsteadily under him. Blood dripped from his hand, which had started throbbing in the familiar way that told him he’d broken a metacarpal. People were speaking to him in placating voices, and Zimmerman had appeared at his elbow again. Will struck out, backhanding him smartly. Except Zimmerman just wasn’t there any more. Will's throat felt raw; he realised he’d been roaring almost continuously. With an effort, he brought himself under control and stood panting and shaking and waiting for the next attack. He’d fucking kill them all. All of them. His left leg finally gave way in splintering agony and he collapsed to the floor.

Just before blackness claimed him again, he heard Kathryn's voice once more, soothing. “It’s alright, Will. It’s alright, darling. You’re in sickbay. You’re being treated. Let the EMH give you a hypospray to calm you down so he can look at your leg and your hand.”

He snapped his eyes open again and her lovely face was hovering inches from his own. His fantasies hadn’t felt this real for a long time and he snatched at the threads of his imagination, trying to keep dream-Kathryn here with him and banish Zimmerman. He sat up abruptly and pulled her to him, crushing her lips under his, pushing his tongue into her mouth, his hand on the back of her head to press her face to his. She let out a small cry of surprise and resisted momentarily, so he tightened his arm around her waist and rolled so that he was on top of her, pressing her into the floor, never releasing her from the brutal kiss. The pain in his left leg was excoriating, but he was used to continuing much more unpleasant activities while in a lot more pain, so he merely grunted his discomfort into her mouth and ignored it, focusing on how damn good it felt to have her firm breasts pressing against his chest.

He could feel his hunger for her ramping up. This was one of the best dreams he’d had in ages. He redoubled his claim on her mouth, one hand buried in her hair, yanking her head back hard, forcing his tongue deeper into her throat, pinning her hips down with his weight. He ground his rapidly-hardening erection against her, and hell, but that felt good. He wanted nothing more than to be inside her once again, making her cry out with ecstasy, feel her warm, welcoming heat surrounding his aching cock, and then he’d fuck her and fuck her and fuck her until she-

Dream-Kathryn was turning her head away from him again, breaking his ravenous kiss, and the anger surged in him again. He snarled at her wordlessly, but then she spoke, and it wasn’t with the purring sultriness of his usual fantasies. Her tone was hard and caustic. “Will. Stop it. You’re hurting me and you’re not in your right mind. Let me up.”

He blinked down at her, tousled and beautiful underneath him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed. She wasn’t nearly strong enough to have actually shifted him if he hadn’t wanted to move, but the force of her rejection hit him like a freighter. Now even his fantasies were turning against him.

He swayed over her. The pain in his knee slammed back into his consciousness. There was blood on her lip where he must have bitten her and red marks on her wrists where he’d held her down. He’d done that to her. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt her. Horror and self-disgust drenched him in an icy torrent. He tried to come up with something to say, some apology that would be adequate for the magnitude of what he’d done, but he couldn’t even piece fragments of a sentence together.

The dream shifted again and Lewis Zimmerman was there once more, still brandishing a hypospray. This time Will was too numb to resist and surrendered himself to the blackness.

Lights burning up the back of his retina. A thumping pain at the back of his skull. Throat cracked and dry. Whole body shaking.

“He’s stirring again, Doctor.” Her voice.

Lewis Zimmerman’s clipped precise tones expressed exasperation. “If you would take my advice, Commander Janeway, you would not sit so close. The patient has already proved himself to be dangerously volatile.”

Will felt an increase of pressure on his right hand. 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“His catecholamine levels are still exceptionally high. The only reason he isn’t tearing up my sickbay is because I’m also keeping him sedated.”

“When can we reduce the sedation?” 

“When we return to Deep Space Nine we may have more tools available to us. We cannot simply withdraw him from the high-dose stimulants and anabolic steroids he was being given - he needs to be weaned off them gradually to keep him physiologically stable. However, you can see the effect they have on him mentally. He is not rational or in control of his actions. Sedation is necessary for now.”

Will blinked, trying to focus against the bright lights above him.

“You think Dr Bashir will be able to synthesise something that will keep him stable without these side effects on his aggression?”

Lewis Zimmerman sniffed. “I would certainly be able to. Whether Dr Bashir had the capability-”

“Yes! Yes,” she said hastily, “we don’t need to get into that again. I know it’s outrageous they’re developing Mark 2 EMHs based on Julian. I know you’re just as capable as he would be.”

“Indeed. Well, it is to be hoped that Dr Bashir-“

“Kathryn.” Will’s voice was slightly slurred, his tongue felt too thick. She had turned to speak to the EMH, but now her head snapped round to Will and he saw her beautiful smile spread across her face. He tried to smile back. She was here. She was real. Her hand was warm in his. He squeezed it back, carefully, scared he might hurt her.

“Will! Darling, you’re awake!”

“Yeah,” he managed. It was an effort. His brain was foggy, but it felt more like deep bone-aching tiredness than the crazed blood-mania that came over him during a fight. “You… found me?”

“Yes!” Her hand clasped his tightly. “Will, you’re safe now. We’re on Voyager. We’re travelling through an artificial wormhole back to DS9. It won’t be long before we’re home.”

“Martok? …The others?” With a huge effort he pushed himself up with his hands so he was sitting.

“We’ve got Martok, Sirella, Garak and Tain.” She said the last name with distaste. “And a Romulan woman who was with them.”

“That’s… good. Everyone out.” His throat felt dry and his voice cracked slightly on the last word.

“Let me get you some water, darling.”

She rose from her seat, but he tightened his grip on her hand, pulling her back towards the bed. “In a minute… Stay?”

“Of course, if that’s what you want. Doctor, could you fetch a glass of water, please?”

The EMH made an audible sound of affront, but disappeared from the bedside.

Will was still feeling dazed. “You… you’re real. You’re my Kathryn… Not a dream?”

“Yes, darling. I can hardly believe it myself.” She was talking much more quickly than she usually would, her voice had a peculiar edge to it. A kind of feverish distress with the suggestion of tears on the point of breaking through her gabbled words. “It was… It was awful, Will. When you went missing, I just… I don’t know how I kept going. I was distraught, and I thought you must be dead, but I also never really believed that. But everyone else thought you were and I… I couldn’t cope with that thought. I just… I didn’t know how to carry on without you. I just blanked the idea out of my mind and-“

He let out a groan. He was feeling so damn woozy, he couldn’t keep sitting up, but he was also desperate to hear her keep talking, so he could convince himself she was real. The darkness fuzzed the edge of his vision.

“Oh, Will, I’m so sorry. You don’t need to hear all this now. You need to rest. Lie down. You’re going to be alright. Your injuries will heal.”

“Itak’ika?” His voice was thick again.

Her face was hovering over him once more. “What’s that?”

“Next fight? Need to be ready? Leg’s got to be ready again soon.”

“No, darling. You don’t need to fight like that anymore.” There was a definite suggestion of tears in her voice now. “Nobody’s making you go back in the ring. Here, drink this, my love.”

Her voice was just a soft burr again. It was infinitely comforting as he slipped back into the dark.

Her poor Will. What had those monsters done to him? His hospital gown had been pulled down partially in the earlier fracas and the whole of his torso was criss-crossed with scars and purplish, partially healed wounds. She had seen his leg wound when the EMH redressed it, and it had almost made her throw up. She thought she could see whitish bone among the mess of ripped muscle and oozing blood. How had been able to stand on it, even for a few seconds, let alone cause the damage he had to sickbay? What had they been pumping into him to ramp him up to that level of aggression, that he could just ignore such a wound?

He’d looked crazed, his eyes bloodshot, lips curled back from his teeth, his right hand a claw of tensed muscle and tendons, his left another bloody mess. His beard hadn’t been trimmed for weeks - possibly not for the whole of the last six months - ragged and matted with what must be his opponents’ blood from the rounds of fighting they’d forced him to endure.

Martok had explained it to her: what the Jem’Hadar had put him through. She could hardly bend her mind around the horror of it. Her poor dear darling Will.

“The leg will heal,” said the EMH. 

He’d told her this already, but she still found it hard to believe. 

“You’re sure?” she asked. 

“Of course.” The EMH drew himself up. “I assure you, Commander, I know what I am talking about.” Goodness, who would have thought a holographic doctor would have such an ego. She looked forward to having Julian in charge of Will’s care once they arrived back home.

Home. They were going home. She had found Will and they were returning to DS9 together. He was alive. He was alive! He was alive! He had come back to her. For a moment, the effervescent joy was too much for her. She felt light-headed, she was floating. He had come back to her. He had come back to her.

Her tears overtook her entirely without warning, springing unbidden to her eyes, her shoulders wracked with grateful uncontrollable sobs. He had come back to her. He had come back to her. It was over. He had come back to her. He had come back to her.

The EMH was looking at her with horror. “Come now, Commander,” he said, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I’m a field medic. My programming doesn’t contain extensive instruction on how to comfort the friends and family. If you insist on making this spectacle, I’m afraid I won’t be able to offer much more than this in the way of bedside manner.”

She hugged him suddenly, fiercely, and his expression became, if possible, even more horrified. “He’ll recover? His wounds can be treated?” she snuffled. Stupid. They’d been over this several times already.

“Some of those scars may be difficult to remove. But there are no injuries that will result in permanent loss of function. It will take months before we are able to fully wean him off the drugs the Jem’Hadar were giving him - if we want to ensure he comes off them safely that is. And he has evidently suffered extreme psychological trauma. Fortunately that is not within my sphere of operation.”

This should not have been particularly comforting, but she felt cheered nonetheless. Will was back. His injuries would heal. It would take him longer to recover psychologically, but he was back. He was back. She had him back.

Her commbadge blipped. “Dax to Janeway.” 

Kathryn wiped the last joyful tears from her eyes, and replied, her voice still slightly muffled by emotion. “Go ahead, Dax.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you with Riker, KJ, but we’re approaching the alpha quadrant aperture of the wormhole. Please return to Voyager’s bridge to oversee our re-entry to normal space.

“On my way.”

The maelstrom of light and neutrinos thundering around the ship vanished abruptly, giving way to the calm blackness of deep space with its scattering of pin-prick stars. 

“Navigation, report.” Jadzia’s voice was clipped.

“We are in the alpha quadrant. Approximately 1.4 lightyears from DS9.”

Jadzia let out a sigh of relief. Even though she knew exactly how much work KJ and Lenara had put into the artificial wormhole generator, it was still a prototype. She had been braced throughout their entire journey for the matrix to collapse leaving Voyager and the Defiant adrift in subspace, unable to re-renter normal space, or else for them to be flung tens of thousands of lightyears from home.

There were smiles all around the bridge. Through the commlink to Voyager there came a whoop and a fist pump from Tom Paris. “Told you, Katie,” he said to KJ, who was leaning forward from Voyager’s captain’s chair. “I said I’d thread that needle no problem. Now I’m the best pilot in the alpha, beta and gamma quadrants.”

KJ rose with a smile. “Well done, Mr Paris. Very impressive flying. But the correct term of address is ‘Commander’, or more properly ‘Captain’, since I’m in command of a vessel on detached duty.” She softened her words by grasping his shoulder briefly, then turned to look at the Science Station. “Seven, initiate wormhole closure. We don’t want any Jem’Hadar following us through.”

Then she looked up at Jadzia through the viewscreen. “Are you happy for us to set a course for DS9, Dax?”

Jadzia was about to reply in the affirmative when her tactical officer spoke up. “Captain Dax, a ship is approaching at warp 9. Bearing 152 mark 35.” There was a tense pause. “It’s a Deep Space Federation vessel.”

Two bridge crews released a collective sigh of relief as a California-class ship dropped out of warp.

“They’re hailing us.”

“On screen.”

“Defiant? Voyager? This is Captain Carol Freeman of the Deep Space Federation Ship Cerritos. I’m afraid we have some troubling news for you. Please would you accompany the Cerritos at maximum warp until we have cleared DS9 by three light years?”

“What’s happened, Captain Freeman?”

Benjamin appeared on the viewscreen, coming to stand next to Freeman on the bridge of the Cerritos. He spoke heavily. “Bad news, old man. While you were gone, the Dominion launched another enormous assault on DS9. The station is now under Dominion-Cardassian control.”

Chapter Text

Two days later, Picard welcomed Kathryn and Jadzia as they materialised in Transporter Room 3.

“Welcome back to the Enterprise, Commander Janeway,” he said formally to Kathryn. Then he turned with his diplomat’s smile to greet Jadzia. “I have heard a lot about your abilities from Captain Sisko, Commander Dax. I’m glad we have you both back with us in the alpha quadrant.

It was good to see the captain again, looking the same as ever - same trim figure, same thin greying hair around the back of his head, same slightly stern demeanour, tempered now by warmth as he smiled at her in greeting. 

“It’s like coming back home, Captain,” said Kathryn. “Ah…” she stumbled a bit. “I mean Admiral.” Starfleet Command had promoted Picard shortly after her father’s coup. In the frantic chaos as the legitimate Federation government retreated to DS9 it had been necessary to make several very quick promotions. Kathryn could hardly think of anyone more deserving than Picard to take on a leadership role in such times.

Picard waved away her apology. “Not to worry, Janeway. How many years did you serve on the Enterprise? Six? Hard to break such an ingrained habit. Please, both of you, come with me to the Observation Lounge. We’re all gathered there.”

“My children?” she asked anxiously.

“Are in the crèche. All the children on DS9 were evacuated to the Enterprise as a priority before the invasion fleet engaged the station. They never even saw the fighting.”

Kathryn blew out a pent-up breath. Ben had already told her, while they were travelling back to meet the fleet, that the children were safely on the Enterprise, but it was an added relief to hear from Picard that they hadn’t witnessed anything too distressing.

“Thank goodness for that. Thank you, Sir.”

“You can see them as soon as you’ve been apprised of the current situation. Come,” said Picard, indicating that they should precede him into the corridor.

The Observation Lounge was full of people seated around the long conference table, all of whom Kathryn knew from various periods of her life. As soon as they walked in, Deanna rose and greeted both her and Jadzia with a tight hug each. Sisko nodded to them and smiled, as did Beverly Crusher, while Data cocked his head at her, and her uncle, Theo Patterson, greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. Martok raised his fist at them in friendly salute from across the table, while Sirella graciously inclined her head. The Romulan woman, Saloka, whom they had rescued from the internment camp, was looking almost Vulcan in her expressionlessness. Garak gave her his usual blandly genial smile, but Tain was conspicuous in his absence. Picard seated himself at the head of the table.

“Please be seated, everybody,” Picard said.

“Why are we all here, Admiral,” asked Kathryn. “I thought this was intended as a debriefing for Dax and myself.”

“Indeed it is, Commander Janeway. A debriefing following your successful mission to liberate prisoners in the gamma quadrant, and also an opportunity to apprise you of the situation with DS9. I know you will have heard something of the events while you were travelling back with the Cerritos to join the fleet, but you will no doubt want to hear more details. We have also asked our Klingon and Romulan… friends to be present so that they too can hear of the situation and inform their respective governments. We have no doubt Qo'noS and Romulus already know of recent developments, but it may be helpful for them to hear straight from the horse’s mouth as it were.”

“Forgive me, Admiral,” cut in Dax, “But what the hell happened on the station? How could it have been allowed to fall to the Dominion?”

Martok spoke over Picard’s reply. “You are trusting a Romulan with sensitive information? Saloka has proved herself honourable for a Romulan, it is true, but really you Federation types are too trusting for your own good.”

“This is not a council of war, General Martok. We will not be discussing future strategic plans, merely apprising those gathered of our perspective on a situation which must already be common knowledge throughout two quadrants,” said Patterson gently.

Throughout, Saloka had remained blankly impassive.

Dax could clearly restrain her impatience no longer. “Please. What happened to the station?” 

“We were attacked in overwhelming force,” said Sisko simply. “It seems Dominion shipyards are capable of a level of production we simply cannot match. And they’ve been building a new type of Jem’Hadar battle cruiser we haven’t seen before. As you know, it was just six months ago that we repelled the Dominion from DS9 - we weren’t expecting the Cardassians to ally themselves with the Dominion at that time and it was only by mining the wormhole that we won the day. Both sides were badly bloodied and the Dominion took heavy losses. We weren’t expecting such an enormous force to attack us so soon after that. They must have over-extended themselves considerably and left Cardassia practically defenceless. But it paid off for them.”

“It seems to me,” said Garak drily, “that in both instances you suffered from a severe lack of accurate intelligence.”

“It seems to me,” growled Martok thumping the conference table, “that you humans did not have the heart to stand your ground and fight.”

Sisko’s jaw tightened slightly. He clearly was not happy with the situation. “Perhaps you’re not entirely wrong Martok. Morale is low, and has been since the Dominion allied with the Cardassians. And frankly, also since Riker went missing. Starfleet Military was his creation - it’s been heavily moulded according to his vision. The troops are of course loyal to the Deep Space Federation, but the loss of such a charismatic leader at a crucial moment has had a detrimental effect on morale.”

Patterson cut in. “It’s not just a question of morale. Following our split from the Terran Union,” He said the last two words with distaste, “we have had to spread our Starfleet Military ships across a much larger area in order to be ready to meet attacks not only from Cardassian space, but also potentially from Terran space. We were stretched thin, and the Dominion took advantage of that. Even so, they must have been quite desperate to overextend their lines as they did. We speculate they must be running low on white, and this was a last-ditch effort to destroy the minefield and re-establish supply links with the gamma quadrant.”

“We made the tactical decision to retreat from the station in the face of such heavy opposition with minimal loss of life. To regroup and plan a coordinated assault to retake the station,” added Picard.

“You have left yourselves without a base!” Martok looked round incredulously. “You hope to retake the station without safe territory to retreat to? You are mad! You should have stood and fought to the last man rather than have given up the station.”

“You did not see the Dominion attack fleet, Martok,” Sisko snapped. “There were in excess of 200 Jem’Hadar fighters and fifteen of the new heavy battleships. To say nothing of the Cardassian warships. Now that they have taken the station, a significant proportion of those Dominion ships will have to return to ensure Cardassia is adequately defended, so in an assault to retake the station we won’t face quite such overwhelming opposition. Our hope is that we can persuade the Klingons, and perhaps the Romulans, to ally with us in the assault. We have only a narrow window of opportunity. It may take the Dominion some time to figure out how to bring down the minefield, but only a couple of weeks at most. If the minefield is destroyed… we don’t stand a chance in hell of surviving. Not the Deep Space Federation, and ultimately not the Klingon Empire or Romulans either. If the Dominion establishes a permanent link with the gamma quadrant, you know your people will be sublimated under Dominion rule one way or another.

“I take it you wish me to carry a message to my government? You are requesting military assistance?” Saloka put her head on one side.

“We are,” said Patterson heavily.

“I cannot speak for my government. I am not a diplomat, merely a soldier.”

Garak, sitting across the table from Kathryn, raised his brows at her in silent amusement. They all knew Saloka was Tal Shiar. She had been captured by the Jem’Hadar following the unsuccessful joint Tal Shiar-Obsidian Order attack on the Founders’ world. Of course she was no mere soldier.  

Saloka was still speaking. “However I will convey your message. What are you offering in return?”

“As we’ve just said. All alpha and beta quadrant powers are at risk from Dominion rule if they are permitted control of the wormhole. We must work together to prevent that from happening.”

“A noble cause,” she said drily. “I am not so sure the Continuing Committee will see such a dire threat in the Dominion as you do. Might I suggest that an additional… sweetener may be in order?”

“Do you have something in mind?” asked Patterson.

“Access to your wormhole generation technology.” Here Saloka looked directly at Kathryn with a disconcertingly penetrating gaze. “Send Commander Janeway back with me to Romulus. I, personally, will vouch for her safe treatment. I have… contacts within the Continuing Committee. She will be granted diplomatic immunity, but her presence will serve as a gesture of goodwill.”

“Out of the question, of course,” said Patterson.

“I expect the Continuing Committee could be persuaded to send a high-ranking officer to you, to serve as a guarantor of her safe treatment.”

“We are not in the business of exchanging hostages,” said Patterson severely.

Kathryn couldn’t help but breathe out a sigh of relief. Surely Saloka couldn’t really have thought Patterson would agree to that? 

Saloka shrugged, a motion that was emphasised by shoulder pads of her uniform. “Without such a gesture I doubt very much the Continuing Committee will risk Romulan lives in a foreign war.”

“If Romulus were to enter the fight on our side…” Patterson spoke slowly, “the question of wormhole technology may be brought to the table. After the defeat of the Dominion.”

Saloka remained unblinking, unsmiling, staring at Patterson. “I will convey your message to the Committee.”

“Thank you, Sub-commander. We will provide you with an escort to the Neutral Zone, where we will meet with a transport ship sent by your government.”

She inclined her head at him.

Martok shifted impatiently in his seat. He growled something under his breath which sounded like “Tchah! Romulans!” but Patterson pretended to ignore it. Martok spoke up. “I suppose you want me to convince Gowron and the rest of the High Council to come to your aid?”

“If you would intercede with them on our behalf, General, we would be most grateful. We have, of course, sent out messages already, but have so far heard nothing in response.”

Martok grunted. “I can promise nothing. I have been absent from Qo’noS for six months. I know nothing of the current political situation. However, my people are always loath to stand by while others fight, and we have small love for Cardassians or the Dominion. I will do what I can to persuade Gowron to enter the fight.”

“Your support is appreciated, General Martok.”

“It will likely be easier to persuade them if a known warrior commanded your troops. Captain Sisko is much respected by my people, but it would be an added reassurance if my brother were to have overall command of the Federation attack fleet.”

Kathryn looked up sharply. Martok couldn’t be serious could he? He knew what Will’s condition was. 

Patterson replied, “Fleet Captain Riker is making a remarkably swift recovery. Doctor Bashir estimates that he will be on his feet again in a day or two. We hope he will agree to command the fleet.”

“If I know my brother, he will most certainly agree.”

“Admiral, no!” Kathryn put in urgently, “he’s just returned from the most horrific experience. You can’t just expect him to return to duty as if nothing has happened.”

“In normal circumstances I wouldn’t, Katie,” said Patterson gravely, “But if he’s medically fit, we can’t hold him back. He’s the man we need for this assault, and we cannot afford to wait too long to retake DS9. As Martok says, we cannot hope to survive long without a base. We have no choice.”

Kathryn opened her mouth to object vociferously, but Garak spoke up at that moment. “Might I make a suggestion regarding your battle plans?”

“As was explained earlier, Garak, this is not a war council. We will not be discussing specific battle plans in front of parties who may or may not become our allies.”

“Very correct procedure, I am sure. However, I cannot help but note that you have trusted some considerable, potentially sensitive, information, to two powers who have both, historically, been at odds with the Federation. However, you have notably omitted Cardassia from your plans.”

“What are you getting at, Garak?” Sisko narrowed his eyes at him. “Cardassia is the enemy. Of course we haven’t included them in our plans!”

“Not all Cardassians are in favour of the alliance with the Dominion. I have only been back in the alpha quadrant for a matter of two days, and already I have heard from a number of dear friends that they are not entirely content with Dukat’s… subservience to his Dominion masters.”

“How can you have heard anything, Garak? Communications outside the fleet are restricted.”

“Suffice it to say, I have my sources.”

“I don’t see how that information changes anything, Garak. No doubt there is disaffectation among a segment of Cardassian society. It takes time for that sort of thing to coalesce into genuine opposition. This battle has to take place within the next two weeks. You think your ‘sources’ are going to rise up and help us defeat the Dominion from within during that time?”

“Hardly, but we may be able to access helpful information. And my… ah… mentor, Tain, was head of the Obsidian Order for decades. He understands how the military operates. He would be a valuable addition to your war room, at such time as you choose to assemble one, of course.” 

Kathryn could never help but admire the smooth way Garak insinuated himself into this type of discussion. He wasn’t to be trusted an inch, of course, but his arguments made sense. What was he up to?

Annoyingly he had diverted attention away from Will. She was about to speak up again in Will’s defence, when Patterson rather abruptly brought an end to the discussion. “We will bear that in mind, Garak. Although Tain will remain in detention and under strict communications lockdown.”

“Why?” asked Garak innocently. “He is accused of perpetrating no crimes against the Federation.”

“He has perpetrated a great many crimes against Bajor, as you well know,” growled Sisko.

Garak gave him his wide-eyed look of injured innocence. “But Captain, hasn’t Bajor submitted itself to Cardassian rule once again? I thought that was why none of our erstwhile Bajoran colleagues were with us? They have remained on the station to serve at Dukat’s whims once more.”

Sisko ground his teeth. “Temporarily, Garak. Bajor has no means of defending itself from the combined Cardassian-Dominion fleet with the Federation having withdrawn from DS9. Until we retake the station, they are forced to pretend to be serving Dukat and his puppet masters. They’ll turn on their oppressors again as soon as they’re given a fighting chance of surviving it.”

“Can you be quite sure of that, Captain? Bajor was under Cardassian rule for ten times as long as it was independent. Old habits die hard.”

“I believe guerrilla warfare was, indeed, quite a habit of the Bajoran people. I doubt they’ve forgotten how to undermine a more powerful enemy from within.”

“Touché, Captain. And if Major Kira is still on the station, I doubt she has forgotten her extensive experience of resistance fighting. She will no doubt be making Dukat’s life a misery for him.” Garak smiled cheerfully.

Sisko leaned across the desk. “Whose side are you on, Garak? You’re suggesting that you and Tain might help us with information, but why should we trust you?”

“Why, Captain, I am on Cardassia’s side. Always. And I do not see how becoming a client state of the Dominion serves Cardassia.” There was a steely undertone to his voice, lurking behind the blandly smiling exterior, that Kathryn found difficult to attribute to anything but sincerity. It was only there for a moment before this usual smirk was back in place. “And as for trusting me, I can assure you that even if you do not trust my loyalty, you can trust me to do anything in my power to bring down Dukat.” He laughed as if it were a joke.

Patterson was shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “Thank you for your input Mr Garak. As we have said, we will consider the matter of your and Mr Tain’s involvement in the effort to retake the station. Now, I would rather like to let our Klingon and Romulan friends return to their respective homeworlds. Time is of the essence. If there is nothing more, I will conclude this debriefing. Janeway, Dax, we will discuss the events of the rescue separately. Thank you for your attendance, everyone.”

With that, the meeting was over, and Patterson left quickly with Picard. Kathryn made a grab for Sisko’s sleeve. “Ben,” she said urgently, “They can’t let Will return to duty so soon. Is there nothing you can do?”

“I’m sorry, Kate,” he shrugged helplessly. “If he’s medically fit, and if Riker raises no objections himself - and I somehow doubt he will - then we must place the best tactical mind in charge of the assault.”

She closed her eyes in frustration. 

“Once we’ve regained control of DS9 we’ll make sure he gets sufficient time for R&R,” said Ben gently. “The station must be our first concern.” Of course it was Ben’s first concern. Nothing mattered to him like DS9. Frustrating as it was, she found it difficult to blame him for that.

“There’s another issue Patterson and I would like to discuss with you, Kate,” Ben continued, “although again, that can wait until we have DS9 back.”

“What?” she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

“Garak was right about us suffering from a lack of intelligence data. Starfleet Command has been discussing the matter for a few weeks. Ever since we broke from the Terran Union, we’ve lost access to even the small amount of intelligence your father was allowing us to see. We need to establish our own Intelligence division.”

Comprehension dawned on her slowly. “You… you want me to run our own Intelligence? I have absolutely no experience in that field.”

“Not quite. We thought of putting Justin Tighe in charge, but he will need operatives under him. People who aren’t too obvious, who have their own independent roles already, so might not be suspected of undertaking additional undercover work. For now we are considering you, Doctor Bashir and Dax to work under Tighe.”

“I… I’m not sure how I feel about that. What would my role be exactly?”

“That is something we would discuss after we’ve retaken DS9. I just wanted to sound you out on your initial reaction?”

“I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“No. But you have the right mind for it. You’re quick-thinking, a problem solver. I believe you could dissemble quite easily if you wanted to… ah, that’s not a criticism.” He held up his hands in mock-surrender. “But I’ve played enough of Doctor Bashir’s spy holoprogrammes against you to know that.”

“Playing a spy holoprogramme is not the the same as-”

“I know. I know,  Kate. But we’re having to scrape together everything from scratch here. We’re all having to do things we wouldn’t normally consider. We’re at war. With the Dominion on one side and the Terran Union on the other, and we can’t be sure if the Klingons and Romulans will come down for or against us. We’re desperate.”

She gulped. “Yes, I suppose we are.”

“What do you say?”

“If the Federation needs me to be an intelligence agent. I suppose that’s what I’ll have to be.”

He placed a large hand on your shoulder. “I knew we could rely on you, Kate.”

Kathryn’s mind was still whirling as she left the Observation Lounge. An intelligence agent! Her! It was never something she had considered before. She was a scientist, first and foremost; she had never had much interest in security, and she assumed most Intelligence agents came from a security background. But now that she considered, that couldn’t really be the case. Intelligence would need people with diverse skills to carry out the kind of work they did. It wasn’t all hacking computer systems, which she didn’t doubt she could do, but would find rather tedious. Intelligence was, at its heart, problem solving, like Ben said. And she was nothing if not an excellent problem solver. More than that, she knew she had the temperament for this type of work. She didn’t mind taking risks, she could command when necessary, and she thought quickly in a tight spot. Hadn’t she led the Maquis to break out of Starfleet Main Brig with just a tricorder and a commbadge? She could do this! Kathryn could feel excitement bubbling inside her. What a challenge this would be! 

Will would hate it, of course - he didn’t like seeing her go charging off into danger - but she had no doubt she could argue him round to accepting it. Will. Oh, her poor Will. The memory of him as she had left him in sickbay earlier in the day, flooded back to her. Those horrific injuries. They were healing now. He had been handed over to Julian’s care - working temporarily on the Enterprise - when they had rejoined the Deep Space Federation fleet, and he had confirmed the EMH’s prognosis. A few days to heal his injuries, that was all. Except of course that wasn’t all. He was traumatised! His reaction that first time he had woken up on Voyager was surely enough to demonstrate that! 

“Kate! Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” It was Deanna, appearing seemingly out of nowhere in the corridor, interrupting Kathryn’s reverie.

“Deanna!” In spite of her troubled thoughts, Kathryn felt a smile forming on her face. “Oh! It’s wonderful to see you.”

Deanna hugged her hard, beaming over her shoulder. “Congratulations,” she squeezed her a little more. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you found Will and brought him home.”

That was all it took. Just a little kindness from her dear friend and all the cracks she’d been papering over for the last six months split apart. Abruptly, Kathryn was crying on Deanna’s shoulder. What an absolute fool she was. She ought to be bubbling over with happiness. Will was back! Why was she breaking down like this? 

She couldn’t help it, she blubbered stupidly over the blue shoulders of Deanna’s uniform jacket.

Deanna, who always knew exactly what to do, simply pulled her gently into one of the smaller meeting rooms along this corridor, and allowed her to cry herself out. Kathryn wasn’t sure how long the tears fell, but eventually they died down to snuffles.

“I think you needed that, didn’t you, Kate?” said Deanna gently.

“Yes,” she sniffled pathetically. “I suppose I did. I’m sorry, it’s ridiculous of me.”

“It isn’t ridiculous at all. You’ve been operating on nothing but coffee and nervous tension for months. You were always going to have to allow these emotions out eventually. I’m just so glad that the release of tension is because you’ve found Will, rather than definitively lost him. You have months of feelings to process, Kate. Be kind to yourself. Let yourself feel them now. The fear and the grief, and the happiness too. You’ll be able to feel that properly when you’ve let go of the others.”

“I won’t if Command sends Will off to get killed in battle!” Her tone was a peculiar mixture of hollow bitterness and petulance. She hated being like this. This wasn’t how she behaved. “He’s just come back from six months of being tortured, Deanna. How can they do this to him?”

“I know. I’m sorry, Kate. I tried my best to tell them. He may be medically fit in a few days’ time, but he’ll still have to be taking those amphetamines while they wean him down to more normal levels. And even if he weren’t, the psychological trauma of what he’s been through… I can understand why they’re doing this from a tactical point of view - they're desperate - but it isn’t what’s right for Will. I’ve seen him, Kate. Only briefly, when I popped my head into sickbay a short time ago, while you were greeting Picard, but it was enough for an empath. I’ve felt him. He’s not well, he’s suffering from terrible post-traumatic stress. He will get better, I’m sure of it, but his mood is very unstable. I wish I could have done more to convince Command.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could, Deanna. If they won’t listen, they won’t listen. I only hope Will can make them understand himself.”

“I… don’t see Will stepping back from a battle where he thinks he’s needed. In fact he got quite angry with me when I suggested it to him earlier. He’s not going to tell Command he won’t do this.”

“No,” said Kathryn defeatedly. “No, you’re right. Well, in that case, we have to make this battle as quick and decisive as possible. Get us back on the station, and then maybe Will can settle down.”

“I know once he can return to normal family life with you and the children that will help him a lot.”

Kathryn managed to smile at Deanna. She wished she could believe that. The problem was that Will simply wouldn’t talk to her. For the past few days Kathryn had sat by his bedside in sickbay and rattled on about everything that had happened during his disappearance, but he would do nothing but murmur platitudes and hold her hand. He was alert - it wasn't that he couldn't think clearly - only he was so uncharacteristically quiet it was unnerving. There seemed to be distance developing between them she had never felt before and it terrified her. 

“Thank you, Deanna,” she said rather bleakly. “That is reassuring to hear from someone with your experience and who knows him so well.”

“Kate,” said Deanna quickly. “Now remember what I’ve said. You’ve been through a terrible experience too. You need to look after yourself, not just Will.”

“I’ve not been through anything like what Will has.”

“Physically, no. Psychologically, you’ve been suffering a great deal.”

“I’m fine.” She brushed away Deanna’s concern. She had control of herself again now. “Thank you, Deanna. I think letting it all out like that really helped. It’s my job to support Will now. I’ll be fine. Really.”

Deanna did not look at all convinced. “Kate...”

“I’m fine!” Kathryn said brightly. “Now, since we’re back on the Enterprise, why don’t we go to Ten Forward for old time’s sake? Chocolate ice cream for you and coffee-flavoured for me?”

Chapter Text

Will slid himself carefully off the edge of the biobed and shifted to allow his left leg to take his weight. There wasn’t even the slightest twinge. He had to admit that Bashir and the EMH had done some sterling work between them. Will strode up and down sickbay, increasing his pace until he was sustaining a light jog. Even when he had to turn and swivel to come back the other way, he felt only a very slight straining sensation in his knee.

“You’ve made a remarkably swift recovery,” said Bashir cheerfully. “Who’d have thought that just three days after your rescue you’d be charging about like that? Although, I must ask you not to run in sickbay. Especially as it’s not my infirmary. Doctor Crusher has been very kind to let me move in here with her.”

Will grunted. “It’s temporary. We’ll get you your infirmary back soon, Bashir.”

“So they keep telling me. Less than two weeks if Patterson and Picard are to be believed. Are you really going to command the fleet?”

“You’ve declared me fit for duty.”

“Yes, but I did emphasise to the brass that I believed you were also in need of some extended leave for your psychological health. Counsellor Troi agrees. You’ve been through hell, Riker.”

“You said you thought I was stable. We’ve already started tapering down the drugs. I’ve suffered no major ill effects. Some headaches, that’s all.”

Bashir grimaced. Will knew he hadn’t liked signing Will off, but everyone agreed the circumstances were extraordinary. Picard had come to Will and told him that there would be no shame in Will saying he still felt unfit, and that he should speak up if that was the case. But Will had been debriefed: he knew the situation with DS9, he knew the Deep Space Federation was in dire straits unless they could retake the station. He was the commander of Starfleet Military; it was his job to win back the station and secure their future. Just two weeks and then he could take a break.

“We’re still in the early stages of withdrawing you from the amphetamines and steroids. You were on them for months, Riker - you’re stable, but you aren’t just going to return to how you were overnight. You must tell me immediately if any of your symptoms worsen.” 

Fucking hell, Will knew all this. He was about to snarl at Bashir, but caught himself in time. If he went about getting aggressive at the drop of the hat, Bashir might rescind his decision to declare him medically fit. So Will just flexed his formerly injured hand to show Bashir he could move it normally. There was no pain, just a little stiffness. “I will,” he said, trying to plaster on a cheery smile, which he suspected was fooling nobody. “Thanks, Bashir.”

“My pleasure. Now hadn’t you better go and find Kate and the kids before the war briefing tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” said Will rather flatly. “See you later, Bashir.” 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see them. He’d longed to see them the whole time he’d been in the internment camp. Every night after those motherfuckers had patched him back together, he’d lie there trying to ignore his pain and thinking of his family. Only now it came down to it, he felt curiously reluctant to be close to them. 

Would he be able to be the same with the triplets? He looked different from when he’d left - bigger across the shoulders, harder somehow in the face. There was a scar on his right cheek they hadn’t been able to remove and his beard grew white there. And although they’d cleaned and roughly trimmed his unkempt beard in sickbay, it was still more ragged than he was used to. The kids hadn’t seen him for months. What if they were scared of him? That would break his heart.

Of course, they’d have good reason to be scared of him because he’d fucking attacked their mother. Oh Jesus, he’d held her down and shouted in her face, and if the EMH hadn’t sedated him he didn’t want to imagine what he might have done. She’d been scared of him. He knew she had. He’d seen it in her eyes. What was worse, he’d actually been aroused when he did it. What would he have done if the EMH hadn’t intervened? Would he have taken it further? Fuck, he didn’t think so, but what if, what if... 

He hadn’t been in his right mind. He'd been off his head on the drugs.

No excuse. He’d hurt her. He’d hurt Kathryn, and the three days since that incident had been a living hell, worse than anything the Jem’Hadar had done to him. 

She’d come to see him whenever she was off duty, and held his hand in sickbay, talking to him about what had been happening while he’d been imprisoned. Told him all about the past six months, and about how they’d mined the wormhole.

She’d been upbeat, almost unnaturally so, and that was what alerted him to the fact that all was not well with her. She was scared of him, and covering it up with this cheerful chatter, he was sure of it. The more he worried about it, the more difficult he found it to relax with her. He was always on high alert to make sure he didn’t lose it with her again, so sometimes he found it easier to just stay quiet and let her talk. Then she’d eventually run out of things to say to him and sit looking at him bleakly, before plastering on a smile - not her real smile, but the one she reserved for visiting diplomats - and he’d become all the more aware that he was making her uncomfortable and subside into morose silence. 

He fucking hated this. What could he say or do to make it right? He’d tried to apologise for attacking her and she’d just told him there was nothing to forgive, but he hadn’t felt any less of a heel afterwards. Why was it so awkward between them? Because she was still scared of him, that was obvious, and who could blame her? Oh fuck, oh fuck, he’d hurt his darling, beloved wife and now she was drifting away from him and he couldn’t think. And the damn brass needed him to retake DS9, so he had to keep putting off talking to her, and the more he did, the more strained it all got. What if it got so bad he couldn’t fix it? What if it was already too bad to fix? He’d attacked her, he’d hurt her, he was dangerous, and he loved her like hell. She was his life, and he might be losing her; he might be losing her, and it was all the fault of the fucking Dominion.

Somehow without realising it he’d reached the quarters on the Enterprise where Kathryn and the triplets were being temporarily housed - it had been decided that Voyager wasn’t suitable because of all the prototype technology it was carrying. He dimly remembered striding along the gently curving corridors, people greeting him cheerfully, their faces falling when he did not respond and continued to glower at them. Fucking hell, he needed to pull it together. His hands were balled into fists and his breathing sounded loud in his ears. Was he even fit to meet the triplets? He couldn’t imagine ever hurting them, but then he hadn’t thought he could ever hurt Kathryn. True, he was lucid now - not like he’d been when he’d first woken - but could he be sure he wasn’t a risk? Bashir and Crusher both said he was stable, but they didn’t know what it was like inside his head. Fuck the Dominion, he was going to destroy them once he was back in charge of the fleet.

He waited outside the door for almost a minute, breathing slowly and evenly, as Deanna had shown him, recentring himself and allowing the anger and fear to subside. Calm. He was calm. He was Will, he was Kathryn’s husband and the kids’ dad, not a prisoner of the Jem’Hadar. 

Will pressed the buzzer and heard a scuffling from inside. 

“Is that him, Mommy?”

Kathryn’s voice, low and humming, “Why don’t you go and see, Jimmy?”

The door swished open and there they were. His three kids framed in the doorway, huge smiles on their faces - all of them with big Riker grins, and he couldn’t have stopped himself grinning back if he’d wanted to. They’d grown, shooting up like weeds, but it was still easy to pick them up. Mandy flung herself into his arms without pause, and he scooped her up and spun her round while she shrieked “Daddy!” at the top of her lungs. Jimmy launched himself at Will’s legs so he had to stop spinning Mandy and reached down to ruffle his son’s auburn head. Amelia, always the more shy of the three, was hanging back slightly, but still smiling eagerly, and he crouched down and held out his arms. Then she was hugging him fiercely round his neck.

For a moment his fears and anger melted away. This was where he was meant to be. With his three kids in his arms, holding on tight, knowing they were all safe.

“We knew you’d come back.” Jimmy snuffled into Will’s side. “We knew mom would find you with her wormholes and bring you home.”

“Mommy said you were sick,” said Amelia, her blue-grey eyes very serious.

He regarded her with equal gravity. “I was, sweetie, that’s why I couldn’t come see you as soon as I got back. I broke some bones and it’s taken a while for me to be patched up.”

“But Uncle Julian mended the bones?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And you’re not going away again?”

“I’m going to win back DS9 from the Dominion and then we’ll all live there again just like before.”

Amelia looked uncertain at this. Damn, she was growing up. She wouldn’t be fobbed off with platitudes. He could see in her worried expression - so like Kathryn’s - that she understood it wasn't all that simple. That winning back the station may not be that easy. 

Fortunately perhaps, Mandy interrupted. “You look different!” she said accusingly.

He grinned at her. “You mean my beard? They wouldn’t let me cut it properly in the prison camp. That’s why it looks funny.”

“Are you going to keep it like that?” Mandy wrinkled her nose, another expression that reflected Kathryn almost perfectly. 

He laughed. “Don’t worry sweetie, I’m going to trim it properly later. But first, let’s sit on the couch and have a snuggle shall we?”

“There’s cake,” came Kathryn’s voice. She’d been standing back a bit, smiling at Will and the kids, but now she gestured to the coffee table, where she’d laid out five plates with generous slices of chocolate cake. The kids made a rush for the lounge area with squeaks of delight, and Will gave Kathryn a small smile. He longed to take her in his arms and hold her close, and breathe in her scent, but then he remembered that he’d hurt her. He’d fucking attacked her and he couldn’t trust himself not to lose it again, so he just said, “Thanks, sweetheart,” and padded after the kids into the lounge. Kathryn followed him with her eyes, her happy expression faltering for a moment before she plastered on another smile.

“Now, I want to hear all about what you’ve been doing for the last six months.” he said in a deliberately jovial boom.

“I got in the Jefferies tubes! I went all the way from the habitat ring to the promenade before Chief O’Brien caught me,” said Jimmy proudly.

That was his boy! Will had to suppress a grin as he flopped down in the middle of the triplets. He needn’t have worried about how they’d react to him. The moment he sat down they were clambering on him: Mandy on his lap, Amelia and Jimmy against each side, all consuming chocolate cake with extraordinary rapidity.

Kathryn sat next to them, and he felt a little relief that Jimmy was between them. If he touched her he might do something stupid.

Kathryn gave Jimmy a reproving look. “You know that isn’t something to be proud of, don’t you, James?”

“Oooooh,” said Mandy delightedly, “You got called James.”

“You get called Amanda all the time. Like, what about that time you got hold of Captain Sisko’s baseball for that bet with Molly? Mom called you Amanda for a month after that.”

“I returned it straight away. It was fine. I had it for... a minute.”

Kathryn was trying to keep her reproving mask in place, but Will could tell she was trying to stifle amusement. He caught her eye over Jimmy’s head and she smiled at him, almost shyly, and for a moment he was swimming in resplendent golden happiness. This was it. This was what he’d missed, what he’d longed for in that camp. 

Then the ice-cold memory of how he’d pinned her to the floor came flooding his veins again, and he looked away from her hastily.

“What did you do in the Jem’Hadar camp, Daddy?” piped up Amelia. “Is it true they made you fight them?”

Smashing in a Jem’Hadar’s face with the back of his axe. Bone fragments and blood and teeth and the roaring triumph of fucking ending one of those bastards. 

No. Not here, not with the kids here. “Yeah,” said Will, “They made me fight them.”

“And did you beat them all?” asked Mandy eagerly.

Lying supine on the hard tritanium floor, screaming his agony, looking down to see shards of bone sprouting from his leg, his mind going foggy.

“Mandy,” cut in Kathryn, “It wasn’t like a fight for fun in the holosuite. Your dad got badly injured.”

“Yeah, but he beat them didn’t he? And then the First said he couldn’t defeat Daddy no matter how hard he tried.”

“Where did you hear that?” asked Will.

“Uncle Martok,” said Mandy. 

“Martok shouldn’t be glorifying what happened to your dad, Mandy. The main thing is that he’s safely back with us and he doesn’t have to fight the Jem’Hadar any more.”

She tried to catch his eye with a slightly tremulous smile of sympathy, but he couldn’t take it. He didn’t deserve it after what he’d done to her and he looked away at once.

“Why don’t we talk about how your mom and Auntie Jadzia busted us all out of there?” Will said hastily. “And how Sirella distracted the guards so Garak could get round the interference field?” He launched into a description of how they had been rescued, even though he’d heard most of it second-hand himself, and fortunately the kids were distracted. 

Kathryn was looking at him with an odd expression on her face, the colour high on her cheeks and a redness about her nose that almost made her look like she was about to cry.

Four hours later

Garak waited for the security guard to return to his station before he began speaking to Tain. They didn’t even trust him enough to lower the forcefield across Tain’s cell so that they could speak comfortably. After all that Garak had done for the Deep Space Federation they wouldn’t allow him this small courtesy.

Well, perhaps they weren’t all fools after all. Someone, somewhere still considered him a threat.

Tain was looking better than he had in the camp. They’d given him a comfortable bed, but even so, he wasn’t lying down. Julian had been treating his heart condition far better than the Dominion medics had, and Tain was rallying. 

“So Garak, you have failed me yet again. I would have thought you might have persuaded some of your little human friends to at least keep me under arrest in some comfortable quarters, rather than in the brig.”

The ungrateful bastard. It had only been Garak’s pleading that had resulted in Tain being rescued from the internment camp in the first place. Garak had abased himself before Riker and the Klingon, and did Tain show the slightest appreciation for Garak’s loss of pride? Of course he didn’t. All he ever did was nitpick and criticise - and occasionally try to have Garak killed. Why did Garak always come crawling back to him like this? Ready to take more punishment, hoping - always hoping - that maybe this time Tain would say that Garak had done well. That he had made Tain proud. That Garak was his son in truth. Even though Garak knew that would never happen, and every time his hopes were dashed yet again he told himself it was the last time. Yet he always came grovelling back for more. It was masochism, pure and simple. 

And it was also what Cardassia needed him to do. Tain was the only man now who could save Cardassia, now that that pompous, arrogant, egotistical half-wit Dukat had delivered Cardassia into Dominion hands. No doubt Dukat thought he was being ever so clever. That he would use the Dominion to defeat Cardassia’s enemies and rivals in the alpha quadrant and then turn on them. He was a fool. The Dominion was too powerful and too wily to fall for Dukat’s juvenile tricks.

Garak plastered his best smile on his face and ignored his father’s jibe. “I am pleased to see you looking in better health, Tain.”

Tain grunted. “That doctor friend of yours is not entirely incompetent, considering he is not a Cardassian.”

“Doctor Bashir is a man of many talents.” 

Tain looked up sharply. “Have you taken him to your bed, Garak? I should not be surprised, although, as ever, you disappoint me. It is disgusting enough that you consort with men, let alone with aliens.”

Garak blinked. How had Tain known? How could he always penetrate Garak’s mask when almost nobody else could? It had only been the one occasion that he had slept with Julian, during that zanthi fever incident, but he had toyed with the idea since. He must make a better effort to conceal his affections.

“I sleep with women too, Tain,” he said with deliberate insolence. “Some of them have even been Cardassians.”

Tain made a grimace of disgust. “That you are indiscriminate in your degeneracy is not a recommendation, Elim.”

Garak smirked inwardly. He was getting to Tain.

Tain, however, was continuing. “Well, and how have you progressed with the other matter?”

Garak allowed himself to slide into his professional mode. Always easier to deal with Tain like this, because Garak was nothing if not competent at his job, and although Tain would never acknowledge it openly, the old brute knew that. “Riker is being reinstated as commander of Starfleet Military as we speak, and he’s putting together a battle plan this evening. You will be invited to attend the war briefing tomorrow morning. In a purely consultational role. They want you to provide tactical and strategic advice that may be helpful when facing Cardassian ships.”

Garak allowed some of his distaste to come through in his voice. That Tain, and indirectly Garak, would be helping to take Cardassian lives - it was not the first time he had done so in the service of the greater good, but it always made him uncomfortable.

Tain nodded. “Very well.”

Not even a curt ‘good’ or ‘well done’. No, Tain couldn’t possibly offer Garak even a modicum of praise, could he?

“The Federation are in dire straits, Tain. This last assault on DS9 may be the last chance we have of freeing Cardassia from the Dominion.”

“Indeed, we must do all we can to ensure the Federation is victorious.” Tain‘s voice was so bland that Garak was immediately alert. What was he missing? Was Tain just saying platitudes for the benefit of the security guards? Was he not sincere in wanting the Federation to defeat the Dominion at DS9? But surely he couldn’t want Dukat to remain the puppet of the Founders while throwing away Cardassian lives on their war? What was he after? What was Garak missing?

He wasn’t going to get anything out of Tain, he knew that. Even if the guards weren’t hovering nearby, Tain had never been open with his plans to his subordinates. Garak must think this over.

“I’ll leave you then,” Garak said stiffly.

“One more thing before you go.”

Garak turned back. “What can I do for you?” he said, with exaggerated unctuousness.

“When I’m returned to this cell after the war briefing, can you arrange it so that that Bajoran officer from Voyager accompanies me? The engineer. Seska is her name, I believe.”

“Why?” asked Garak curtly.

“Why, Garak?” Tain laughed loudly. “Why, only because she is a pretty little thing, that’s all. Even if I’m a prisoner, shouldn't I be able to look at a pretty girl once in a while?”

That was evidently not the real reason, but it still made Garak itch with the sheer hypocrisy. Hadn’t Tain just been criticising Garak for consorting with aliens?

“I’ll see what I can do.” So, this Seska was working for Tain was she? Well, she wouldn’t be the first Bajoran who had been convinced to collaborate with Cardassia against her own kind.

“See that you do, Garak.”

Chapter Text

Kathryn hovered uncertainly in the door to the bathroom of the captain's quarters of the Titan. Will, naked from the waist up, had his back to her and was leaning slightly over the sink, peering intently at his face in the mirror. He raised his chin and carefully scraped at the stubble on his neck with his razor. He’d trimmed his beard back to its former length and shape, the lines of it neat, precise and perfectly straight. He nodded to himself briefly in the mirror, then straightened and began rinsing his razor. If only he’d smile he’d almost look like himself again.

She quashed the thought as soon as it rose in her mind. She couldn’t expect him to be his old self again after what he’d been through. How could she imagine he’d be back to laughing and joking around with her after he’d been forced to fight like a caged bear for months on end? 

Guiltily, her eyes were drawn to his bare back. It was his chest and back that showed most clearly what had been done to him. His body bore dozens of stigmata - the wounds of a hundred fights that had healed only imperfectly. The medics in the internment camp had taken care to restore function to his body - any breakages of limbs and any life threatening internal injuries had been fully healed - but they hadn’t bothered to make it look pretty or relieve him from anything but the most debilitating pain. Scars and gashes - some pale and milky, some still a raw red - criss-crossed his skin. Some were quite small, but the puckering of the skin around the edges told of a deep puncture into his flesh. Some were large, like the one that wrapped all the way around him from just below his heart, around his flank, almost to his spine. His abdominal muscles were no longer distinct, although the constant brutal combat had bulked out his arms and shoulders, and his neck was thick and bullish. He looked less defined, but he was much bigger and stronger. What would it feel like when he held her again, when he pressed her into the mattress with his bulk? Would she like it? Or would it be frightening? 

The sudden spike of arousal was rapidly succeeded by horror. How could she be thinking like this about what had been done to him? She shouldn’t find this attractive. They’d tortured him, given him a dangerous cocktail of who-knew what drugs that he was having to be weaned off slowly. There might be lifelong impact on his cardiac function. And here she was thinking that she liked the look of his thick biceps and wanting him to take her to bed. It was utterly disgusting of her. 

Kathryn took a step backwards. She hadn’t been sure what she was going to say to him when she came in here in the first place, and now she felt even more confused. She’d had a vague idea that they should talk; that they needed to discuss what was happening now, that he needed to think about whether it was too soon to be rushing back to command the Titan, that they needed to talk about them and how they’d both felt while being apart, and... there was just too much to talk about.

They’d barely had a chance to even be alone together since Will had returned. His recovery had been extremely quick after his return to lucidity in sickbay on Voyager. Julian had come to meet them on the Cerritos and had taken over Will’s care, much to the EMH’s displeasure. Now, three days after returning to the alpha quadrant, most of Will’s serious wounds had been healed, and he was no longer delirious or violent. Julian was prescribing gradually reduced doses of some of the drugs Will had been receiving from the Jem’Hadar. 

He’d made such good progress that he’d been discharged from sickbay and had spent a few hours with her and the children. The triplets had been all over him and he’d been almost like his old self, booming with laughter, grinning all over his face as he picked them up and whirled them around. Later, snuggling with them on the couch, Will had recounted the story of his capture and then his escape - carefully skipping over the months in between - turning it into a thrilling adventure story for the children. It should have been blissful, a golden time, everything she’d longed for during the long months he’d been away, and yet, and yet… although he’d joked and laughed with the children as he always had, he’d been so distant and cool with her. Avoiding her eyes, pulling away when she approached too closely, never speaking directly to her, only to the children. He’d talk about her and about her role in rescuing him, but she’d almost felt like an observer of this happy family group. He’d put his arms round the triplets in his usual rough and tumble way, but even when they’d all sat together to listen to his stories, he’d made sure to put Jimmy between himself and Kathryn, and moved his knee away from touching hers when they’d accidentally brushed each other. 

She’d had to struggle to hold back tears because she knew it was unfair of her to expect everything to return to normal straight away. She was demanding too much of him when he’d been through something so terrible. It was no wonder he didn’t want to talk about it, and yet she was sure that if only they had some time alone they could discuss the problem, then she could help him. It would go back to how it had been. It must. It must. 

Only then Will had received a comm call from Patterson and he’d rushed away from her and the triplets before she could even exchange one word in private with him. When he’d responded to Patterson to say that he would join him at once, there had been an undercurrent of relief in his voice and that had made her stomach clench with nausea. He hadn’t even given her a peck on the lips before he went charging off to this impromptu meeting with Starfleet Command, his face reverting back to that grim, unsmiling glower he’d worn most of the time he'd been sickbay. 

During that meeting, Patterson had apparently handed back captaincy of the Titan to Will, along with command of Starfleet Military and a field promotion to rear admiral. Will had transported straight back to his ship without even telling Kathryn - she’d had to find out through Deanna - and now here he was, trimming his beard and with his newly replicated admiral’s uniform laid out on the bed. Kathryn had known they would be recalling him to duty, of course, but she was still outraged by how Command was disregarding his welfare. It had all happened so quickly - it was all too soon. How could Patterson and Sisko and Picard expect him to just return to duty less than a week after his ordeal had ended? Of course the Federation was in dire straits, but this wasn’t fair to him. 

Deanna had been shocked by the turn of events too and had expressed her concerns, but she had been overruled, not least by Will himself. He was needed. The fleet would likely be going into battle very soon. They had to recapture DS9 or they would all be finished. Will was the best military commander they had. It was simple, as far as he was concerned. 

Kathryn must have made a sound as she hesitated by the bathroom door because Will spun on his heel, assuming a low fighter’s crouch, his whole body tensing, searching for the threat. His expression was hard, his eyes angry and cold.

He relaxed a little when he saw her and straightened. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t realise it was you. Did you beam over just now?” 

“Yes. Will, are you going on duty right now?” She glanced at the uniform on the bed.

“Soon. We’ve got the war briefing at 07:00 tomorrow morning. For the assault on DS9. I’ve got to put together a battle plan before then.” Normally, he would have moved over to her by now, or at least come into the bedroom to join her, but he was still standing by the sink, not approaching her. It was awkward to talk over several metre’s distance, but he was still extremely tense, so she didn’t cross the space between them. 

“Will, you were only discharged from medical this morning.”

“I know. I wish I could spend a bit more time with you and the kids before I get back on the treadmill.” He wasn’t meeting her eyes. “But we just can’t afford to wait to plan our counterstrike. We’re not going to survive long without a base and-“

“Will. It’s not that. Well, it is, but that’s not the main point. You’ve been through a horrific ordeal, darling. Are you sure going straight into battle is-“

“I’m fit for duty,” he said roughly.

“Physically fit maybe, but Deanna-“

His tone became distinctly annoyed. “Look. Deanna is an excellent psychologist, but she’s not a tactician. In peacetime of course the best thing would be to take a break, have a bit of R&R, get back on an even keel. We don’t have that luxury. I’m fine, I promise.”

“Are you, Will? The way you turned round just now like you thought you were being attacked…”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not necessarily a bad thing to be alert right now. If nothing else, my fighting reflexes are pretty damn sharp.”

She looked at him for a few seconds, feeling her stomach churn. There was that distance between them again. It was as if his shields were up and an invisible forcefield divided them. Just as it had been earlier with the children, when Will had kept looking at her and then quickly away again, never talking to her directly. He was shutting her out and she couldn’t bear it. She’d never imagined there could be anything that they couldn’t talk about together, yet here it was, and he wasn’t even acknowledging it.

She shouldn’t be bothering him with this now. He needed his mind focused on the tactical situation, not her. But God damn it, she’d gone through hell for the past few months. She finally had him back and while the Federation had claims on him, hers were greater. She damn well wasn’t going to step back meekly and allow whatever had come between them to fester. Not even for the Federation. 

She felt her head snap up and she put her hands on her hips. “Will, why aren’t you coming near me?”

“What do you mean? Look darling, I’ve got to get ready for this meeting and-“

“There are twelve hours until the meeting starts. We’re going to talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“I don’t know, Will. You tell me. Why have you been avoiding me? Why won’t you touch me? What’s wrong?”

He shrugged again. “You said yourself. I’ve been through a pretty rough time and it’s not ideal going back on duty right now. Got to power through, I guess. I wish I could just have some time with you, but-“

“But the moment you finished your last meeting you beamed over here without telling me. We could have spent some time together then, before the next meeting.” God, she sounded so whiny and unreasonable, but she said it anyway. She knew there was something wrong. She just couldn’t put her finger in it.

“Sweetheart, it’s crazy right now. You know that.”

She took a step towards him, entering the bathroom. For a moment he looked startled and his eyes darted to the sides, as if seeking an exit that wasn’t there. He tensed up again. 

Her heart plummeted with despair. She stopped where she was, and then backed out again.

“Will,” she said gently, “Don’t you see? You’re not letting me near you. That’s alright, I understand, you don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable. I’ll go outside again. But, please, you’ve got to see it’s a problem?”

She took another step backwards and then he bounded forwards and grabbed her by the wrist. “No, don’t go. You’re right. Just… fuck, Kathryn, we don’t have time for this.” He ran a hand through his freshly-trimmed hair, releasing a small flurry of short clippings, which fell onto his shoulders.

“We have this evening. Why don’t we sit on the bed and talk about it?”

He grunted, an acquiescent sound, and she gently disengaged his grip from her wrist and led him by the hand to the bed. He sat next to her, keeping an arm’s distance between them. He didn’t speak. Neither did she, hoping he might fill the silence. It stretched for what felt like minutes, but was probably seconds.

Eventually she couldn’t bear it, and asked half tenderly, half exasperated. “Is it that you don’t want to talk about what happened in the internment camp? Because I can understand that, darling, and you don’t have to. Only, please don’t shut me out completely.” She sounded mortifyingly querulous, her voice taking on the cadences of a sulky teenager in a fit of pique. She ploughed on regardless, and horrifyingly the pitch of her voice continued to rise in near-hysteria. “Darling, I’ve missed you so much. It was awful without you, I was such a mess! And now you’re back and all I want is for you to hold me again and you won’t.”

She ended on a strangled sob and she was disgusted at herself and her complete lack of self-control. Good God, what a scene she was making! Forcing him to cater to her emotions and her needs when he’d been through something so horrific. She should be supporting him, asking him what he needed, and here she was almost breaking down on him in the most horrendously insensitive display of self-pity. Petulantly blaming him because his return hadn’t been what she’d imagined. The shame threatened to overwhelm her and she stood, abruptly, meaning to take herself away, so that he wouldn’t see her like this. There were tears in her eyes, stinging painfully. She couldn’t remember ever having made such an exhibition of herself.

“Sorry,” she gabbled, “that isn’t what I meant. Please, don’t worry about what I just said. You’re right. We should talk about this when we’re not under time pressure. When we can sit and think. I’m sorry.” She stumbled towards the door trying to shake the tears from her eyes.

Will sat for a moment dumbfounded. He’d never seen her like this before. He’d seen her angry, stiff with hard, coldly burning fury. He’d seen her unhappy, he’d seen her self-flagellating. Occasionally - rarely - he had seen her cry before, and on those occasions she’d buried her face in his chest and he’d held her while her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs. 

He had never seen her hysterical. Even when she’d cried, she’d retained some control over her emotions. Now her voice shifted between the rough raspiness of barely contained tears and a high violin-string twang of something close to panic. She was unsteady on her feet as she jumped up and lurched suddenly towards the door. He had never in his life seen her so distressed; it was as if something had snapped inside her and now all the raw suffering she’d pushed down inside her was pouring out.

Fuck. His poor darling. How must it have been for her? Not knowing if he was alive, hope slowly dwindling but never dying, keeping strong for the kids, but every day having her energy depleted still further. Seeping out of her like latinum leaching from gold dust until she became as brittle as glass, ready to shatter, held together only by her phenomenal will power.

“No! Don’t go, Kathryn!” Forgetting all his promises to himself, he lunged after her, catching her just before she reached the door. He grabbed her around the waist, almost tackling her, dragging her backwards into his embrace, turning her to face him, his arms tight about her.

She’d lost weight in the months they’d been apart, her familiar slimness becoming a kind of taut fragility. She hadn’t been eating properly, no doubt working herself to the bone. He could feel the angularity of her narrow shoulders as he pressed her into his bare chest. The fear that he might hurt her redoubled, but now he was holding her, nothing would make him let go. 

She let out a muffled gasp into his chest and he released her enough to allow her to look up at him. He wanted to kiss her so damn badly, but if he did he might lose control again, like he had in sickbay. He remembered the sick horror that had flooded him when he’d first realised that he’d attacked her. That he’d hurt her. That his foggy memory was accurate and that he’d actually pinned her to the floor and shouted in her face and practically rutted against her like an animal until he’d been hyposprayed with a sedative. 

He longed to press his lips to hers now, but if he lost control here there would be nobody to stop him. She wouldn’t be able to fight him off. If he hurt her - Jesus Christ, if he raped her - he would have truly become the monster the Jem’Hadar had tried to make of him. And he would lose her forever. 

She was looking at him, her tear-streaked face upturned to him, seemingly confused and bleary-eyed. Then she flung her arms around his neck and hoisted herself up by his shoulders to kiss him passionately. He jerked his head away and stumbled backwards, losing his balance so that they fell heavily onto the bed.

The horrified expression was back in her face again. “Sorry,” she said hoarsely. “I’m sorry, Will. I thought- It’s just when you held me like that, I thought you wanted… I’m so sorry. Of course after everything you’ve been through you don’t want to be touched. I’m so so sorry. I didn’t-“

He cut her off quickly. “I do.” He rolled over, grasping her head between his hands, making her look into his face. “Darling, listen to me, I do want that. Fuck, there aren’t words to express how much I want you. But I’ve got to hold off. I can’t give in to it no matter how much I long to kiss you, to hold you close, to make love to you.”

She blinked at him in startled incomprehension. “So you’ve been deliberately holding back? Why ? Why, darling? I thought after all the fighting, you couldn’t stand anyone touching you, that you thought it was a threat?”

“No. Yes. But not exactly.” He tried to articulate his thoughts, but it was difficult now that he was lying half on top of her, with his face so close to her that he could see the individual auburn lashes framing her blue-grey eyes, which were wide with confusion. His cock was rapidly hardening now that he had her pressed against him. 

“You don’t want to be touched?” Suddenly the intense seriousness of her expression broke and she glanced down at their bodies, their limbs entangled. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

It was the first sign since their reunion that he had seen even a particle of humour from her. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been missing it. Somehow, it helped him regain his own self-control. He hadn’t felt amused for months, and now he found a tiny smile was pulling the corner of his mouth. For just a fraction of a second he was himself again. He was Will Riker, laid-back jokester, bantering his beautiful wife into bed with him.

It only lasted for a moment before reality came crashing back. He wasn’t what he had been. He was a violent monster who had assaulted his wife the moment he’d seen her, who turned on anyone who approached him with unhinged rage. She must have seen his expression change because she very gently ran her fingers through his freshly trimmed beard and whispered, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked about something so raw. Please. Forgive me. I don’t seem to know what I’m saying today.”

“You don’t need to keep apologising, sweetheart. You’re doing nothing wrong. I’m the one who should be apologising. I… oh fuck, Kathryn, I attacked you. I hurt you. I’ve been practically frantic ever since. Couldn’t quite believe you still seemed to want me to share quarters with you and the kids.”

“Will, stop. What are you talking about?”

“Sickbay. When I woke up and just… assaulted you. You were hurt. You shouted at me to stop and I didn’t, I-“

“Will. Did you talk to the EMH? Didn’t he tell you what your body was going through then? You were out of your mind on whatever the Jem’Hadar had given you. Besides, you didn’t even hurt me badly.”

He shook his head. He wasn’t going to allow her to make excuses for him. “I’m dangerous. I’ve been fighting every day for months. Killing and maiming, and fucking enjoying it, Kathryn. I can’t risk letting you near me.”

“Is that why you’ve been keeping your distance?”

“Of course. You think I’m not desperate to be close to you again? It was the thought of you that kept me going in that hellhole, Kathryn. But I can’t get too close to you until I know I’m safe to be around you again. 

“Do you imagine for one moment that I’d have let you near the children if I thought you were dangerous, Will? You were delirious that time in sick bay. But it’s different now - Julian is weaning you off the drugs. You’re stable, you’re lucid, you’re in control.” 

“You don’t understand. You saw for yourself I’m on a fucking hair trigger. When you came into the bathroom just now I almost went for you.”

“You were alarmed and alert. You didn’t attack me.”

“But I might have done. If you’d touched me I might have lashed out before I realised who you were.”

She looked into his eyes earnestly and for a moment it seemed as if she were about to argue further. He watched as she decided against it and her expression softened.

“Alright,” she said. “So you’re worried you might hurt me. I accept that taking you by surprise might be risky. I can see you’re scared you’ll lose control, even if I don’t believe for a moment you’d ever consciously or willingly harm me. How do we work around that? Because I don’t think that living apart and never touching each other is going to work for either of us, do you? I can’t imagine not sharing an intimate moment with you until… when? When the war is over? When you no longer need the drugs? When you’ve had years of therapy? I think staying apart from each other is going to make you worse, not better. I know you Will. Better than anybody else knows you, I like to think. And you’re a very physical and passionate man. Holding yourself aloof and restrained - that isn’t how you heal. You work things out physically, in combat sims, in the anbo ring, with sex-“

He heard himself bark with laughter. “Are you offering to have unlimited sex with me until I’ve worked out my issues? Because, you know, you always say I think a lot of myself in the bedroom department, but I’ve never suggested that having sex with me has actual healing powers, Janeway.”

“You big idiot! I wasn’t saying that!”

“You were!” God, it felt good to be laughing with her, to tease her and have her gently mock him in return. She was smiling at him now with a light of mischief in her eye. Unable to hold back any longer, he leaned down and kissed her. Gently. Tentatively almost. He was still terrified he might lose control and hurt her, but it was damn near impossible to keep resisting when she so clearly wanted him to take her to bed.

Her lips were soft, moulding to his as soon as he met them. She tilted her head to the side to allow him to deepen the kiss, letting out a sigh into his mouth that went straight to his cock. Fuck, but she barely had to do anything to work him up, a simple kiss had him rock hard within seconds. 

Kissing her was wonderfully familiar - the way she pressed her teeth very softly against his lower lip, the way she slipped her tongue into his mouth, the slight coffee taste of her. He was instantly aware that he was back home, back where he should be, and yet at the same time, it all seemed so excitingly novel. So damned long since he’d done this, so damn long since he’d run his hands up from the flare of her hips, into the dip of her waist, up to her gorgeous breasts, so fucking perfect. So damn long since he’d pressed his rigid cock insistently against her body and felt her move against him, felt her hands run over his bare shoulders and chest. He was fully on top of her now, and his left hand was still palming her breast while the other grasped for her wrist to hold her down. 

Hold her there and keep her there, immobilise her, pin all her limbs down so she couldn’t knife him. Keep her in place for the full ten seconds.

He drew back suddenly, horrified, hauling himself off the bed, putting a good couple of strides between himself and her. She pushed herself up on her elbows, blinking at him.

“Darling, what is it?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You didn’t.” 

“I almost hurt you. Haven’t even undressed you. Just kissing you and I almost lost it. I’m a fucking animal.”

She sat up, regarding him seriously. She moved her hand as if she was about to reach out to him and then thought better of it. He could see a slight twist of pain in the set of her mouth. “No, Will, I’m sorry. I think I was pushing for too much too quickly. We really don’t have to do anything now if you don’t want to.”

Fucking damn it. Everything he did hurt her. He wanted her like hell; he’d always found it difficult to disentangle love and lust and it had never mattered before now. Because he’d always been able to show her both at once. Because she was as passionate beneath her composed surface as he was and welcomed his physical expressions of love with equal enthusiasm. He’d tried every so often to give her pure romance, but she was just as liable to seduce him into bed following a chastely tender candle-lit dinner as he was. Serious talks about the state of their relationship - discussions about their future, or about how they would navigate important changes in their lives - were almost always finally concluded in a tangle of sheets, her head resting on his bare shoulder while they talked through whatever issues needed discussing in the clearer yet deeply intimate headspace afforded by post-coital languor. She was right; he did tend to express himself physically and she seemed to need physical closeness almost as keenly as he did. 

Only now that intimacy they both craved was denied to them because he couldn’t be trusted to control himself. His libido was out of control and might spill into violence at any moment, and even though it twisted his gut to see her hurting when she couldn’t be near him, it was better than causing her bodily injury. Fuck. He had no idea how he could make this better for her.

Kathryn was so angry with herself she could hardly think straight. What had she been thinking? Throwing herself at her poor traumatised Will because of her own selfish desires, pushing him when he’d already expressed his fears and hurting him still more. 

“I’ll leave, darling,” she said, choking back yet more ridiculous self-pitying tears. “Let’s talk tomorrow. After you’ve had your meeting. I’ll stay on the Enterprise tonight, so you don’t need to worry about me. I won't push you for more when you're clearly not comfortable.”

He did not look reassured. His expression was a rather disconcerting mixture of desolate loss and fury, but she couldn’t identify whether he was angry at her or something else. 

“No,” he rasped, his voice unusually rough. “That won’t fucking do, Kathryn. Listen, sweetheart. Just listen.”

She felt guilt rise up in her again. She was always pushing him towards one course of action or another, when he just needed her to listen and to follow his lead. Even when she was trying not to be selfish, she managed to make it about her. She gathered her fraught, shattered emotions with a deep breath and sat herself quietly on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m listening, Will.”

He approached warily, taking a step back towards the bed. “Kathryn, you need to stop apologising. I know I’ve been through hell, but so have you, sweetheart. In a different way. You’re so strong, but it’s clear you’re on the edge of cracking under the pressure of the last few months. Take it easy. Stop hurting yourself with blame. I’m not angry with you, and I don’t want you to be either.”

“Thank you.” Her own voice was choked. She couldn’t seem to think of anything else to say. She didn’t think she had ever loved him so desperately before. She felt her hand jerk towards him of its own volition and pulled it back, but he took another step, closing the distance between them and caught her hand. He bent his head, leaning awkwardly over her, and brought her hand to his bearded cheek. He held it there with his eyes closed for several of her rapid heartbeats. Finally he turned his face and kissed the palm of her hand. 

“You mean everything to me,” he said hoarsely. Then he knelt on the floor next to the bed and laid his head in her lap, his arms moving around her waist. She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders, his skin unfamiliarly rough where her fingers encountered puckered scar tissue. She bent her head over his and saw her tears fall onto the slightly reddened skin where his hair had been freshly trimmed at the back of his neck. His shoulders shook and he made a sound as if he were choking.

They had been together for nearly fourteen years. She knew him almost as well as she knew herself. She knew that he trusted her absolutely, but she had never seen him cry before. From boyhood, his father had instilled in him the belief that strong men didn’t cry, and much as Will acknowledged that his father had been cruel and abusive, he had never been able to shake that fundamental belief. Yet here he was, sobbing into her lap. She closed her eyes, her own tears leaking from under her eyelids and she bent to kiss the thick chestnut hair at the crown of his head. “It’s alright, my love,” she whispered. “You’re home. We’re together. I love you. I will never stop loving you, Will. There’s nothing more that I want in the world than to be here in this room holding you and knowing you’re back with me.”

The shaking of his shoulders intensified, although he suppressed the sounds of his sobs. His arms tightened around her, almost crushing her waist, and it hurt, but nothing in the four quadrants of the galaxy would have made her ask him to stop. Her own sobs became audible as she lost her wavering control. She dug her fingers into his hair and allowed herself to weep freely, fear and suppressed grief and near-hysterical relief combining to blot out any sensation but the smell of his hair and the deliriously wonderful sensation of being crushed by him. He was back. He was back. She had him back and she wouldn’t have to live the rest of her life without him.

She wasn’t sure how long passed. Minutes? An hour? She was still trembling, but her tears were coming with that involuntary shaky little intake of breath that meant the storm was passing. He still hadn’t made a sound since the very first sob, but he raised his head to look up at her, his eyes red but dry. His voice was like rust. “There’s nothing I can say. There are no words for what I want to say to you. Nothing matters like you do. You kept me alive. In that place. You brought me back. I’m yours forever. Even more than I was before.”

As he spoke he rose to his feet, stumbling slightly, and then sat beside her pulling her against his chest. She pressed her face into his thick chest hair. A streak of it from his right shoulder to just over his heart had grown back white over tough-looking scar tissue. Her voice came out muffled. “And I’m yours, Will, my darling, my love. Always. Completely.”

He held her tight against his broad chest and for the first time since he’d been gone she was safe again.

“Can we just lie together here?” he murmured into her hair.

She tilted her head to look into his earnest handsome face. “Of course. For as long as you want.”

He lay back on the bed, pulling her with him, pressing her face into his chest again, and she clung tightly around his neck. He curled around her, throwing a leg over hers, and he pressed his lips into the hair on the top of her head. She wasn’t sure how long they lay like that, unmoving, listening to each other breathe, but she felt herself settle incrementally into his embrace as he slowly, slowly released the tension in his arms and shoulders. 

The tight knot of fear and distress loosened a little inside her, and she nuzzled into his neck as his breathing became rhythmic with sleep.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Starfleet Command gathered in the Tactical Room of the Titan: Will was there as head of Starfleet Military; Patterson as Commander-in-Chief of Deep Space Starfleet; Picard as commander of the Starfleet Exploratory wing of the fleet; and a number of other admirals of various divisions and expertises were also present. Sisko was also there with his expert knowledge of DS9 and its systems, as well as Tighe as their head of Intelligence, and then there was that snake Tain. Will hadn’t wanted him there, but the others had talked him round. Tain understood Cardassian strategy and ship and ordnance capabilities better than almost anyone else, and deeply as Will distrusted Tain, he had spent six months in the man’s company in that hellhole of an internment camp and he did believe Tain loathed the Dominion even more ferociously than Will himself did. Will would take his recommendations with a heavy pinch of salt, whatever the man said, but the fact was that Tain was their prisoner and could hardly communicate with the Dominion had he wished to do so. 

The Tactical Room was an innovation Will had introduced to the warships under his command. It occupied the space immediately behind the bridge and ready room, and could seat a dozen people comfortably around a central three-dimensional holographic display on which battle formations could be simulated. Will had never understood Starfleet’s over-reliance on old-fashioned two-dimensional tactical displays. Space battles, unlike ground battles, were fought in three dimensions, and Will had always thought the use of 2D displays tended to limit strategic thinking into just one plane. Tacticians discussed their forces in terms of ‘lines’ when they should be thinking about maintaining a ‘plane’ that moved through 3D space, or they considered only the left and right flanks, while ignoring the ventral and dorsal flanks. With 3D displays it became far easier to visualise how a space battle actually progressed. 

Once everyone had seated themselves around the table, Will launched into the briefing with only the briefest preamble. Right now he wasn’t in the mood for pretty speeches and introductions. 

“Good morning. We all know why we’re here: we have a very limited time window in which we can realistically hope to retake DS9. We are currently in a very precarious tactical position, with no military base. Although our fleet remains largely intact, we need DS9 as a command post from which to resupply and to which we can withdraw in future engagements. That is to say nothing of the strategic importance of maintaining DS9 as the first line of defence against incursions from the gamma quadrant. The minefield Captain Sisko deployed around the wormhole will likely be removed by the Dominion within weeks, if not days, if we do not regain control of the station. If that happens, this quadrant will be flooded with fresh troops from Dominion heartlands, and we can give up all hope of resisting Dominion rule over the Federation. We must retake DS9 at all costs and we must do so quickly.”

There were nods from everyone around the table. Will jerked his chin at Tighe, who brought up a simulation of DS9 on the tactical display.

“We received an encrypted transmission from Major Kira today,” Tighe said. “As you know, she and her Militia colleagues have remained on the station, ostensibly accepting the Cardassian annexation. However, she has been feeding us tactical information whenever she can, so we have up-to-date intelligence about enemy deployment. They have approximately 75 Jem’Hadar fighter vessels deployed within half a light year of the station and 10 of the new heavy battlecruisers. In addition there are 50 or so Cardassian Keldon-class warships. We can also assume that in the event of an attack, reserve troops, numbering approximately half that again, could be deployed to reinforce the station. Although we could probably reckon on at least a day before they could be brought up.”

There was a heavy silence around the table which stretched for several long uncomfortable seconds. “That is a very large opposing force,” said Admiral Skulov with dispassionate Vulcan understatement. “What are our own capabilities?”

“We have 52 Luna-class vessels, 21 military raiders, 5 Galaxy-class, 17 Intrepid-class, and approximately 60 vessels of other classes with some level of military capability," said Will.

“Then we outnumber the enemy.”

“We outnumber them before we take into consideration their reserves, and the fact that they are the defenders. They already hold the disputed territory, and they have full access to DS9’s weapons systems, which have considerable firepower. We are disadvantaged by having no base to retreat to, and although we do have a decent-sized fleet of warships, many of our ships were not built with battle specifically in mind.”

“Galaxy- and Intrepid-class ships may not be warships, but they’ll hold their own in battle.”

“True,” Will acknowledged, “but some of the smaller starships, particularly Cali- and Miranda-class, won’t stand much chance against those huge Jem’Hadar battlecruisers.”

“You think you're out-classed? You can’t win this battle?” Tain’s voice had a slight sneer in it.

“I didn’t say that. If I truly thought this a lost cause, I wouldn’t be in favour of engaging the enemy at all, in spite of what we’ve said about the necessity of retaking the station. But we need to be realistic. We need to understand what we’ll be ordering Federation men and women to do. We are disadvantaged in this fight. We’re going to take heavy losses, even if we’re victorious. I’ve put together a battle plan, and… well… simulations predict casualties ranging from 18 to 29% with only a 76% chance of victory, and that assumes no unexpected surprises. Under normal circumstances I would never advocate for proceeding with a plan with such high risks and uncertain chances of success. 

“These are not normal circumstances, Number One,” said Picard. “I too baulk at numbers like that. But, as we’ve already discussed, this is probably the last chance we’ll get to prevent the Dominion from putting a stranglehold on the alpha and beta quadrants. We have little choice. I’ve reviewed your battle plan. It’s a good one, given the adverse circumstances. Relatively simple, flexible in the event of a change of circumstances. I think it is the best chance we have.”

“Perhaps you would care to share this marvellous plan with the rest of us,” Tain cut in.

Will had spent hours putting together his plan last night. After falling asleep holding Kathryn snugly against him and dozing for a short time, he’d woken feeling refreshed and energised for the first time since he’d returned home, even though it was the middle of the night. He’d dropped a kiss on Kathryn’s forehead and left her to continue slumbering - she clearly needed it after the strain of the past few months. Then he’d spent the early hours of the morning trying out different scenarios for retaking DS9 in the tactical room, desperately trying to reduce projected casualties and increase the chance of victory. Part of the difficulty was that the Federation was so rarely the aggressor in large-scale space battles, and their tactical computer systems and training was lacking for such scenarios. The formation of Starfleet Military had mitigated this to some extent, but Will was still operating outside his area of experience: outside the area of experience of almost anyone in Starfleet.

Will nodded brusquely at Tain. “This is the plan as it currently stands. When the Dominion detects us approaching DS9, the majority of their force will fall back on the station to defend it. We can almost certainly expect them to form a spherical shell of ships around the station.” 

The tactical display modelled a cloud of Dominion and Cardassian ships around DS9. 

Tain nodded. “That is standard Cardassian protocol in the event of an attack on a fixed location. I can’t imagine the Dominion would act otherwise. It’s elementary space tactics. However, you should be aware of any small squadrons breaking away from the main defensive shell to circle back and harry you from behind your lines.”

“Indeed. I’ll come to that. I propose splitting our force into two, approximately 65% to 35%. The first, larger group will be composed mainly of Starfleet Military ships, with a few Intrepid- and Galaxy-class as well. This group spreads itself across a circular area. Luna-class ships will be concentrated in the centre of the circle, around the circumference and along four radial spokes. The rest of the circular area will be filled with military raiders and Intrepid- and Galaxy-class vessels.”

“And the Defiant ?” asked Sisko. 

“In the centre, along with me in the Titan.”

Sisko nodded and Will continued, the tactical display updating as he spoke. “During the attack, the centre of the circle forms the vanguard, and will lead the attack on the station in a wedge formation, with the rest of the circle spreading out behind us to form a short cone. Once the central wedge units engage the enemy, the cone folds back on itself, completely enveloping the station and its defending ships. Like an amoeba enveloping its prey. The aim is for the ships from the cone to keep Cardassian and Dominion ships busy on all sides of the station, so that they are unable to assist those bearing the brunt of the central attack. Central units’ primary task is to break through Dominion lines, and then to disable DS9’s weapons and shielding so that we are able to transport ground troops onto the station to take control. I will personally be leading the mission to take the station, with Sisko assisting. Admiral Patterson, and Military Captains Cusak, Xalin and V’Lik will be commanding the right, left, dorsal and ventral wings of the cone, respectively. Starfleet Military ships are to concentrate their fire on the heavy battlecruisers first, and then the Keldon-class warships.”

“Where will we concentrate the central attack?” asked Patterson.

“That will depend on the disposition of the Dominion troops when we arrive. We will have to assess where we consider their weakest position. Any sensible military leader would spread their ships evenly around the station.”

“It’s possible,” said Tain, “that the Cardassian-Dominion alliance may organise its ships in a more heterogeneous pattern. My people are proud, and from what I’ve seen of the Jem’Hadar, so are they. I think it unlikely a Cardassian Gul would willingly take orders from a Jem’Hadar First, or vice versa. Such potential disunity may be something we can exploit. It’s likely that Cardassian units will tend to clump together, even if such were not the original plan. The borders between groups of Jem’Hadar and groups of Cardassians are likely to be weaker than the centre of any particular group, and I would suggest sticking your knife in there, as it were, to crack this particular nut.”

Will exchanged a quick glance with Tighe. They’d already discussed this possibility, but Will hadn’t expected Tain to volunteer something like this. Was the man actually acting in good faith? Will didn’t trust it at all. “That’s a possibility, of course,” Will said blandly. “We shall have to see when the time comes.”

“But you haven’t answered my earlier question, Admiral Riker.” Tain met Will’s eyes, his own gaze reptilian and unblinking. “What happens if there are squadrons of Dominion or Cardassian ships kept back from the main defence, so as to come at you from behind?”

“That’s where our second group of our ships come in. Inevitably, some Dominion ships will break through our attacking circle, and then be free to take us in the rear. There may also, as Tain says, be some squadrons left behind deliberately for this purpose. Our second group of ships will arrange themselves in a second circle, following behind the first, and forming a second enveloping sphere. They will engage any Cardassian or Dominion ships that have broken through the first circle. This should leave the ships from the first circle free to concentrate on their primary tactical objectives. The second circle will be composed of a smaller number of Starfleet Military vessels and the remainder of the fleet. It will be under the command of Military Captain Arbor.”

There were general nods of approval around the table.

“Yes,” said Patterson slowly, “I see. It’s a good plan Riker.”

Skulov had been leaning forward to examine the tactical model in more detail. “I see only four Galaxy-class vessels in your formations. Where is the fifth?”

“The Enterprise will not be engaging in the battle. I propose that all civilians should be assigned temporary quarters on the ship today, and then the Enterprise is to retreat immediately into Vulcan space in anticipation of an unfavourable outcome.”

“The Vulcans have been maintaining neutrality since their secession from the Federation.” Skulov spoke without inflection, but was that a slight tightening of his jaw? It was said that the the most senior Vulcan in Deep Space Starfleet had had what, in any other species, would be considered a flaming row with the Vulcan High Council over the decision for Vulcan to remain neutral while they waited for the Deep Space Federation and the Terran Union ‘resolved their differences’.

“True, but I cannot believe that Vulcan would withhold aid from our refugees if it should come to that.”

Will was damn well not sending his kids back to the Terran Union, and Vulcan was really the only planet that might stand a chance of holding out for longer than a few months if the Deep Space Federation fell.

“We may need Admiral Picard’s combat expertise in this battle,” Tain objected, “and a Galaxy-class vessel is too great a military resource to waste in ferrying about civilians.”

“The battle won’t be won or lost on the presence of the Enterprise,” said Will sharply. “I agree, it would be invaluable to have Admiral Picard with us. However, if we are defeated, our civilians will need protection. The least we can provide them with is a well-armed Galaxy-class vessel and one of the most experienced officers in the fleet. Ultimately, we are fighting this battle for our civilians. If we lose them, we’ve lost everything.” And if Will couldn’t protect his kids directly himself, he was damn well placing them under the protection of the best Starfleet officer he knew.

“And where will our remaining vessels retreat in the event of a defeat in which we are not completely destroyed?” asked Patterson. “Since we are discussing these unpleasant contingencies, I think it is best we have a plan in mind for this eventuality. Will we throw ourselves entirely on the mercy of the Vulcans and hope they accept us, even though they seem to want to avoid provoking the Union? Do we regroup around one of our Deep Space Federation worlds and fight to the bitter end? I would say Betazed, only it’s too close to Dominion-held territory. Andoria or Tellar? Both tend to look inwards in times of strife - neither are likely to be welcoming to us if we lose much of our military capability. Where will we go? None of the planets that took our side in the splitting of the Federation have sufficient military presence to stand against the Dominion, and I doubt, when it comes down to it, that any of them would want to attract the combined ire of the Dominion and the Union by harbouring the remains of our fleet.”

The assembled officers looked glum. The fact that they even had to consider this was testament to how close to defeat they really were.

“I had some thoughts about that,” Will said with deliberate cheerfulness. “It may be somewhat unorthodox, but…” Well he might as well come out and say it. “What about Empok Nor?”

“Empok Nor!” Tain looked up at him sharply. “It’s a Cardassian station.”

“Abandoned for years, and it’s no longer in Cardassian space. Not since you withdrew from the Trivas system. It’s not even that close to the current border.”

“Precisely,” said Tain. “It’s in the middle of nowhere. It was originally intended as a stopping and resupply port to maintain our supply lines in the event of an expansion of territory. When we consolidated our territory after the withdrawal from Bajor it was found too cumbersome to maintain.”

“It still has its weapons systems intact, though, doesn’t it?” Will looked at Tighe, who nodded in confirmation.

“Yeeess,” said Tain slowly, “although the station was left with certain safe-guards in place to prevent any opportunists, such as yourselves, from taking control of it.”

“Safe-guards, which, as the head of the Obsidian Order, you can give us full information on how to circumvent.”

“I could,” said Tain primly, “If I wished. You have yet to convince me of Empok Nor’s suitability as a fall-back location. It surely suffers from the same problem as Betazed. It may not be particularly close to the current border, but if you were defeated in the upcoming battle, the Dominion would surely seek to expand its borders, and Empok Nor would become a target.”

“Not immediately. Whoever wins this battle, even the victors will take months to recover. It would give us enough time to establish ourselves on Empok Nor, and upgrade its weapons systems so they are at least as effective as DS9’s. And unlike Betazed there would not be a large civilian population to protect. It would be a highly armed military installation in a central location relative to both the former Federation and the Cardassian Union. True, it lacks the tactical advantage of being near the wormhole, but other than that it would effectively be a second DS9. Still a force to be reckoned with, providing enough of our fleet survives this battle.”

“You would lose your Bajoran shipyards.”

“Of course. We would be severely weakened, there’s no denying it. But we wouldn’t be destroyed. We would still have hope. There are several systems nearby with dilithium and duranium deposits. In time, shipyards could be built. And supply lines to Betazed would be relatively short. It would be something.”

The other admirals were almost all nodding along soberly. Will wasn’t actually at all sure how much he believed of what he himself was saying. It was all pretty desperate stuff. Empok Nor would immediately become a target if they tried to establish themselves there. But they needed to have hope beyond this battle. They needed a fall-back plan, and this was something rather than nothing.

“You would need my assistance,” said Tain, “and I see little advantage in this plan for Cardassia.”

“We’re your only hope of freeing Cardassia from the Dominion. You know that. That’s why you’ve attended this meeting, after all.”

“Is it? How very interesting.” He smiled at Will then, and for a moment he looked so like Garak that Will was knocked off-balance. He never had trusted the man. Could he be working for the Dominion after all? But Will had been with him in the internment camp, and had never witnessed a purer emotion than Tain’s hatred of the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta. He couldn’t be working with them, surely?

“We should secure Empok Nor as soon as possible, if we intend to use it as a fall-back position,” said Patterson. “Have you given any thought as to who should command that mission?”

“I have,” said Will. He took a deep breath. “I suggest we send Commander Janeway and her crew on Voyager.” He held his breath while he looked around at the assembled admirals. Would they see through his motives? He had first thought of sending Voyager to accompany the Enterprise and its civilians, but that would make it too obvious that he was keeping his wife out of harm’s way. This was different. An essential, but only moderately risky mission. Somebody would need to secure Empok Nor, and why not Kathryn? Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to have her fighting on the front lines. Over his dead body would he be sending her into the main assault.

Patterson nodded. “I see your thinking. We have to keep the wormhole generation technology out of Dominion hands, so we can’t send Voyager against DS9.”

“Exactly,” said Will with relief. “In addition, her scientific expertise and problem-solving abilities will be invaluable in overcoming Empok Nor’s booby-traps.”

“Will she be keeping her rather eclectic crew from the rescue mission?” Tain asked unexpectedly. “All those former Maquis - they aren’t trained for battle-style combat, so they wouldn’t be much use in the main assault, but what they do have is an understanding of how to circumvent and hack into Cardassian technology. I believe that half-breed Klingon is particularly skilled in that department.”

Will looked at Tain sharply. He seemed a little too eager all of a sudden. Far too positive about the Maquis crew for Will’s liking.

“That would be a good use of the Maquis who’ve joined us,” said Patterson musingly.

“You should also consider making use of my… ah… protege,” said Tain. “Garak has many unusual skills, which may prove useful in a mission such as you describe. And I somehow doubt you will be taking him on any of your warships.”

Will didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. Damn it, what was Tain after? It all made sense on the surface, but it was all too neat, too convenient. Why had Tain specifically mentioned B'Elanna Torres? Could she be working for him, however wildly unlikely that seemed? Well, Will damn well wasn’t going to allow Tain to communicate with Garak or Torres or anyone between now and the attack on DS9, that was for sure. Straight back to the brig with him and no visitors until after they’d recovered the station. 

“Very well,” said Patterson. “We send Janeway to secure Empok Nor, assuming you are willing to assist us with information required to disarm its booby-traps, Mr Tain?”

Tain inclined his head in agreement. “I will do my best to provide you with the information you need. I may not remember every little detail of the protections we put in place on the station, but that is where Garak will be able to assist you. I has a knack for dealing with the unexpected.” He smiled at them all with that Garakian good-humour that made Will's skin itch.

Patterson nodded curtly. “Good. Now I believe all that remains is to brief the individual commanding officers in charge of major subdivisions of troops for the coming battle… and of course, to decide on a time-scale.”

“I want to give the Klingons as much time as possible to respond to our request for assistance,” said Will. “I think we can safely reckon on it taking at least ten days for the Dominion to work out how to take down the minefield. Most likely two weeks, but we also need to keep an eye on them bringing in additional ships from Cardassian territory. We’ll have to be flexible and ready to go at a moment's notice, but we can probably spend a week or so on preparation and training. And we can hope the Klingons will join us in that time. That would make the whole assault a lot more likely to succeed.”

“You’ve done well, Riker, to plan this without them. I agree. Let us hope Martok is successful.”

“What about the Romulans?” one of the other admirals asked.

“It’s an outside chance that they may choose to assist us. Extremely unlikely, I should think.” Will replied.

“I would say impossible,” grunted Tain.

“You may well be right. Now, I don’t believe your advice will be required, Tain, while we call in the commanding officers for their briefing.” Will tapped his comm badge. “Riker to bridge. Send in security to remove Mr Tain,” he called.

“Is he to be returned to the Enterprise brig, Sir?” 

Will considered for a moment. “No, we’ll move him to the Titan’s brig.” The Titan would be more secure than the Enterprise.

“Understood, Sir.”

“I need hardly say,” Will added once the connection had dropped, and addressing the whole briefing room, “that everything we have discussed in this room is strictly top secret. The only people who will know of these battle plans are the individuals here and the commanding officers of the subdivisions who we will brief now. Even our first officers are not to hear the details of the attack plan. We cannot risk this information being leaked to the Dominion.”

There were solemn nods all around the room.

Will’s comm badge bleeped. “Admiral Riker, the security officers are here for Mr Tain.”

“Send them in.”

Two security officers entered the Tactical Room. One of them - a Bajoran woman - was not one of Will’s usual crew. Damn it, he had to get up to speed on the new crewmembers who’d been brought in while he was stuck in that internment camp. The Bajoran woman caught hold of Tain’s arm rather roughly as she escorted him out. He rather sympathised with her obvious antipathy towards Tain, but much as Tain had more than earned a little rough treatment, they would have to make sure Bajoran officers were trained to treat Cardassian prisoners with a basic level of respect.

He watched the doors slide shut behind Tain and then tapped his comm badge again. “Riker to bridge. Send in Captains Cusak, Xalin, V’Lik and Arbor for their briefing.”

“Aye, Sir.”

Chapter Text

Nine days later

“You are deliberately keeping me from the front lines.” She glared up at Will and she had that cold hard edge in her voice that told him just how displeased she was with him. 

He’d known she was going to be angry, but he would much rather weather her fury than have to watch Voyager get shot down by Jem’Hadar. It would have been better if he could have talked to her about the battle before now, but the commanders of the fleet had agreed that no vessel would receive its battle orders until the day before the engagement. They couldn’t risk the plan leaking to the Dominion. So for over a week, Kathryn had simply assumed she would be part of the campaign to retake DS9, and Will had been unable to disabuse her. 

He was paying the price for it now. Looking down at her, he took in the set, hard lines of her face. She was more angry than he had ever seen her before in his life. Even when they had argued over returning Seven to Earth she hadn’t been this coldly furious.

“Yes,” he said simply. “You are being kept from the front lines.”

“You’re not even pretending to have tried to treat me equally with any other crew member.”

“You’re not any other crew member. Your being on the battlefield could jeopardise the outcome of the whole damn engagement, Kathryn.”

“You…” she sputtered. “How dare you say that to me? On what basis are you questioning my competence? You aren’t even my commanding officer! You have no right to do this, Will.” She’d raised her voice in a taut raw fury to which he rarely saw her give free rein. 

It left him remarkably unaffected. He usually recoiled from her infrequent anger with panic, terrified he might lose her, but in this case he knew he had absolutely no alternative. He was incapable of leading her into battle. He would be unable to give the order to advance. He simply had no choice but to do this. 

That knowledge made him speak with an unruffled coolness that he knew would inflame her anger further. “I have every right. I am a Starfleet Military flag officer on combat duty in a time of war.”

“You’re pulling rank on me!”

“Yes.” He assumed his sternest command tone. “Commander Janeway, you are under orders not to approach the battle to retake Deep Space Nine under any circumstances. As long as Starfleet troops are engaged against the Cardassian and Dominion fleets you are to remain at a distance of at least one lightyear from the battlefield. Do you understand your orders, Commander?”

She blinked at him, stunned to speechlessness. 

“Do you understand your orders, Commander?” he insisted more loudly.

“Yes.” She spoke a little faintly. “Yes, I understand. I will not approach Deep Space Nine while the fleet is engaging the Cardassian-Dominion alliance.”

She stood staring at him for several heartbeats, her anger seeming to drain away from her, her hands hanging limply by her sides. Uncertainty replaced her fury, her brows crinkling. She didn’t seem to know how to react.

Relief was flooding through him, singing in his ears. Whatever happened now, she would be safe. He took a step towards her and wrapped her in his arms, pressing her tightly to his chest. She didn’t move, except to place her hands on his shoulder blades very lightly, not really hugging him back.

“Will, you’ve never given me an order like that before.” Her voice was muffled by his chest.   

“No,” he agreed, “I haven’t.”

“You’ve taken away my agency. My right to fight for what I believe in. The Federation and its ideals - they’re what I’ve always lived by. To defend them should be my choice, my most basic freedom.”

He pulled back enough to look into her face, to see the bleak expression there. Not anger any more, but a deep sadness. He’d hurt her. Damn it to hell, she was right - he’d taken away something precious from her today. Her fierce independence, a quality about her that loved almost more than any other, had been stripped from her, and he was responsible.

“I’m sorry.” The words were utterly inadequate, but what else could he say?

“Quite clearly you are not sorry, Will.” The anger was back in her voice and she tried to pull away from him. 

“Sweetheart, let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain. You’re insisting on infantilising me no matter what my wishes are in the matter. I’m a distraction to you in the field. A liability because I’m ‘just’ a scientist. Your precious little wife to be kept safe with the children and civilians. No matter that I’m a Starfleet officer with as much experience as you. I’ve been on countless away missions. I broke you out of that prison camp. But, oh no, I couldn’t possibly be sent into battle; I might get hurt.” Her voice was greasy with sarcasm.

“Kathryn, it isn’t like that.” He flailed for something more to say. “You know we can’t risk the wormhole technology falling into enemy hands.”

“What a convenient excuse for you. I don’t have to stay with Voyager you know. Send her with the Enterprise and let me serve on the Defiant.” She’d taken several steps away from him, gesturing emphatically with her arms. Then she turned and took up the characteristic pose she always assumed when she was annoyed, her hands on her hips.

“We need someone to access Empok Nor-"

“Oh please, Will, anybody could do that. Don’t treat me like a fool.”  

He felt his own anger bubbling up, even though he knew he was being unreasonable. She was right - he’d known she wouldn’t be taken in by his reasons for sending Voyager away, but he’d used them anyway. He stepped close to her, grasping her by her elbows and yanking her sharply towards him when she tried to pull away.

“Alright,” he growled. “I admit it. Sending Voyager to Empok Nor was a convenient half-truth to tell Patterson and the others. I’m sorry you feel I’m condescending to you, but-"

“But you’re going to condescend to me anyway.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kathryn,” he growled. “Can’t you see this is nothing to do with you and your capabilities and everything to do with me and mine?” He was still holding her tightly by her elbows and looming over her. He could feel the familiar fury lurking at the corners of his psyche, his muscles tensing, ready to thrust or block or parry. Ready to drive the axe head into his opponent’s belly and watch his guts spill out. He forced the aggression back, but he couldn’t keep it out of voice completely.

“I can’t order you into battle, Kathryn.” He was growling into her face, not loudly, but low, almost threatening. “I did it, once. When I sent you to that Borg cube and you almost damn well died. I cannot do it again. If you’re there on the battlefield I’d make decisions to keep you safe rather than whatever was best tactically.”

“No you wouldn’t, don’t be ridi-"

“OF COURSE I FUCKING WOULD,” he bellowed at her and she took half a step backwards, confusion written across her features. However, she seemed to be listening to him at last, and he pressed on, his voice low and insistent now.

“Of course I would do anything in my power to protect Voyager. I would order a retreat if you were under heavy fire. I would divert other ships to cover you, even if it weren’t necessary. More than that, Kathryn. I would sacrifice half the fleet to keep you safe. I would surrender to the Dominion if it prevented Voyager from being destroyed. I would hand over the wormhole generator with a goddamned smile on my face if they were keeping you prisoner and I thought there was a chance of exchanging tech for you. Do you understand? I’m the liability, not you. I’m the one whose skills on the battlefield would be compromised.”

He shook her slightly, willing his words to make sense to her. She stared at him, shocked by his aggression, but there was not the slightest hint of fear in her expression. Then she reached up with one hand, caressing his bearded cheek. For several long moments they stood like that, neither of them moving, until he turned his head to press a kiss into her palm. He heard her sigh, and she closed her eyes, the hand at his cheek sliding through his beard and around the back of his neck, pulling his face down to hers and pressing her forehead to his. Her breath was warm, her breathing fast and slightly uneven.

“I didn’t understand, Will. I’m sorry. I should have realised you weren’t criticising my competence in the field.”

“No, I’m sorry, my darling. I’m sorry my weakness is preventing you from doing the job you feel you need to do.”

Her voice was shaky. “I just… I didn’t understand. You always do your duty whatever the cost. You sent me to the Borg cube. I don’t… the idea that you wouldn’t be able to because of me… it never occurred to me. I don’t deserve that kind of devotion.”

“You do, but it’s not about deserving it. It’s just the way it is. I love you too much, and it’s a risk to the Federation, so I’ve got to keep you away. Do you understand now?”

“Will, my darling. My love.” She looked right into his eyes, and he found himself captivated by the tiny flecks of silver in the pale blue of her irises. “I don’t believe you actually would sacrifice your duty to the Federation for me.”

He opened his mouth to protest but she cut him off. “Ah, I haven’t finished. As I said, I don’t believe you actually would, but I can see that you do believe that. At least right now. I’m sorry, I should have been more aware of your feelings about this. I know you’ve always struggled with sending me into danger, and it’s only natural you’re finding it even harder to keep control of those feelings after your recent experience. I understand. I’m not happy about being kept from the battle. But this is about the good of the Federation, and you’re needed here more than I am. We’re going to have to work out some sort of compromise for the future, because I can’t sacrifice my need to serve in Starfleet for the rest of my career. But for now, I’ll carry out the mission to Empok Nor and you won’t have to worry about me during the battle. I promise.”

He closed his eyes and turned his head to kiss her palm again, slipping both his arms around her waist and holding her close to him. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“I’m going to worry about you during battle terribly,” she whispered into his chest. “I’ve just got you back and tomorrow… tomorrow you’re going off to war and I might lose you again.” Her voice became choked. ”I don’t think I could cope with losing you a second time.”

“I know, my love. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. It’s not fair on you.”

She straightened slightly, her head snapping back as she visibly took control of herself. “No,” she said, and when she spoke, it was with her usual firmness. “No, you mustn’t worry about me. You have a job to do, and the Federation needs you to do it. You can’t be distracted by my feelings. Just know that I am so incredibly proud of you, Will. You’re going to win back DS9 for us - I know you will - and in doing so you’ll bring back hope to the alpha quadrant.”

“You give me too much credit. I’m just a Starfleet officer doing my duty.”

She looked up at him with a small smile. “I know. That’s what makes you so extraordinary. You always ‘just do your duty’ and in doing so you make the galaxy a better place.”

“I think you’re a little biased,” he said with a sigh, “but thank you. Honestly, making you proud of me is one of the strongest motivators I have. That and keeping you and the kids safe, much as I know you’ll object to me trying to wrap you in cotton wool.”

“I do understand, Will,” she said softly. “I just wish I could do the same for you. I love you so much.”

“And I love you. With everything I have.”

She pressed herself into his chest once more and he leaned over her awkwardly, having to hunch over, but the impulse to bury his face in the auburn hair around the crook of her neck was so imperative no amount of discomfort could have stopped him. So long. So long since he had had her. For the last week they had been cautious and shy with each other, cuddling together every night, but never pushing it further than that. Every night he longed for more - to forget all the pain by burying himself in her warm embrace and her love for him - but every time he kissed her, every time he found himself half on top of her with the sweet impress of her kisses on his neck, then the memory of how he had attacked her returned with icy clarity. He would recoil, horrified at himself, and she would murmur apologies for pushing him, and they would end up curled awkwardly into each other, each longing for the other, but scared to take it further. He in a chaos of guilt and fear and she no doubt castigating herself for expecting too much too soon, but both of them incapable of pulling away - clutching at each other desperately, needing each other and unable to find fulfilment, until they eventually drifted into uneasy unsatisfying sleep.

His dreams were full of her. He would wake in the early hours of the morning, with vague, half-formed images still in his mind: of smooth pale skin, lightly sheened with sweat, of the plane of her cheekbone as she gasped open-mouthed, of her breath hitching, of the dampness of the dark-red curls at the apex of her thighs against his face while he kissed the velvet softness of her folds and teased more half-formed cries from her with his tongue. His cock would be rigid when he woke, pressed into the dip between her asscheeks and his hips would be moving automatically, seeking relief. Then he’d realise what he was doing and have to take himself to the bathroom to see to it himself. He’d ramp the sonic shower up high, one hand on the wall, the other round his cock, trying to recall the delicious dream while he dealt with his erection with swift efficient strokes, all the time wishing it was her smaller hand around him rather than his large one. He’d come, quickly and joylessly, and then he would return to the warmth of the bed and gather her against him again, and try to find sleep once more.

It wasn’t sustainable. He’d done this for less than two weeks, and it was driving him crazy. 

He stood bent over her, breathing in her scent - jasmine and orange-blossom - and kissed the crook of her neck. There were tiny red-gold hairs there, her skin downy soft. She was stretching, arms twining round his neck, pressing her taut, svelte body against his chest, breasts firmly pressed to his pectorals. Her hand was still on the back of his neck, pressing his face into her hair, her mouth by his ear, and she was gasping with the hitched breath of his fevered night-time fantasies.

“Will, darling, I want you so. I’m sorry, I know you’re still not sure about this, not ready yet, but… Oh, Will, I long for you every night.” She was pressing desperate kisses down his neck and fog was descending on his brain. “I’ve been away from you for so long. Just one kiss from you and I’m molten inside. I need you to touch me.”

Jesus Christ, how the hell was he supposed to hold back now?

He turned her face towards his with a hand at her chin and kissed her with such savagery their teeth clicked together. His tongue plundered her mouth and fucking hell the sound she made in response: a moan deep in her throat which trailed off into a breathy sigh. He was harder than he’d thought possible, his erection pressed against her abdomen, and his hands dropped to her hips, grasping her hard enough to bruise as he ground his cock against her. Impossibly he grew harder still - he’d never been so aroused in his goddamned life and all he’d done was kiss her. He made a sound, a growl compounded of lust and frustration and need.

Hell. Fuck. No, he was losing control. He couldn’t let go because what if he-

She must have seen the terrified expression on his face, because as he pulled back from her, she flung herself at him, clinging on around his neck with renewed passion, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his neck and beard.

“Will, darling, I love you. I don’t believe for a moment you’d ever really hurt me. I trust you completely. We both need this. It might be… it might be the last time. Darling, just take me. I love you, I love you, I’ll never stop loving you. I’m yours. Yours. Always. Forever. I don’t care if you’re rough with me. Just take me. Please.”

He didn’t think there was a man in the galaxy who could have resisted that. He’d never seen her like this before - so out of control, desperation in every earnest line of her face. He’d fantasised about this for years, about pushing her into such a frenzy she’d cling to him like this and beg him to do all the things he longed for most. Sometimes he could get her close to this state, usually by tying her down and teasing her into desperation, but he’d never seen her quite like this before.

He clamped his arms around her and lifted her off her feet, her legs wrapping around his waist, and then he carried her to the bed. 

“Oh Will!” Her gasp into his ear was so redolent with love and gratitude he couldn’t hold onto the last shreds of rationality, and they slipped from his mind to be engulfed in lust.

She shrieked his name as he fell on top of her and then held on for dear life around his neck. The muscles of his neck and shoulders were rather thicker than they had been before his imprisonment and she had to adjust her grip to the unfamiliar bulk. So solid under her fingers, not the slightest give in his pectorals. 

She was too addled to be able to feel embarrassed by how she was behaving. She wasn’t in control. She just wanted to feel him on top of her, inside her - to join with him once more and be complete at last. The past few days had been a nightmare of longing and self-rebuke. To cuddle with him, knowing he was safe, ought to have been enough for her, but she’d lie awake for hours with his arm heavy and warm around her and feel not a scrap of contentment. Only the fear that the coming battle would deprive her of him once more, combined with the horrible need welling up inside her: the insistent dampness between her thighs, the tingling heat of her clit. She ached to rub herself against him, to feel his large fingers pressing right there between her legs, wanting to arch her back to give him better access, to feel his erection pressed solidly against her behind. Wanting, longing, needing, knowing he wasn’t ready, but also that neither of them would ever feel whole again until they came together.

Sometimes he would get up in the night and she’d hear the sonic shower, and she’d know what he was doing. She’d imagine going in there, sinking to her knees in front of him, taking the thick solid length of him in her mouth. His hands in her hair, the salty taste of him on her tongue, her jaw aching from having to accommodate him, clamping down on her gag reflex as she pushed herself to take him deeper, deeper. Yet the discomfort would be worth it when she looked up at him through her lashes and saw his handsome face contorted in pleasure: knowing she’d made him feel like this, that she could make this incredible, powerful, brilliant man fall apart. Knowing beyond a doubt that he was hers when she heard his deep voice groaning her name.

Groaning her name just as he was doing now, because after all that aching longing it had been she who had snapped, she who had thrown herself at him like a bitch in heat and gabbled out who knew what - anything to get him to take her to bed at last. She ought to be ashamed and appalled at herself for pushing him like this, but she didn’t care a damn about that, because now he was finally yanking her uniform jacket off her - so hard the fabric tore a little, catching her arm and jarring it painfully in the shoulder socket - but it didn’t matter at all, because she just wanted the damn uniform gone. 

She was scrabbling at his uniform with equal ferocity, swearing under her breath as her fingers fumbled with the buckle of the damn stupid admiral’s belt, while he growled curses into her neck, trailing his tongue down her throat, making her cry out wordlessly and flop back on the bed, her back arching, heat pooling low in her abdomen. God she just needed him to take her. She needed to be full of him right now.

He fought himself out his uniform and then pulled down her trousers. She kicked so hard to be free of them that she worried she might hit him, but he caught her thrashing foot and guided her leg out. Then he pounced on her again with another tide of ravenous, brutal kisses that left her gasping. His chest, so heavy, immovable, bearing her down, forcing breath out of her lungs. Having to actively suck in air, because the pressure was inexorable and glorious, because she was trapped under him. Him. The man she loved, the only man who could rip down the emotional walls she constructed around her heart, shred them to pieces and force the core of herself into the light. She loved him, she loved him. She could never love anyone else as she loved him. 

His erection was hot and hard, pressed against her belly. Her mind was fuzzy, all she could manage to grasp was that she needed to feel the thick length of him inside her. She needed to feel him closer, his arms more tightly around her, engulfing her, pressing her into the mattress. She broke from the savage kiss to gasp into his ear, her cheek brushing the coarse bristles on his neck where he had imperfectly shaved the line of his beard, “Will, I need to be yours. Completely. Being apart from you is hell. Please, my love, my own, my darling. Please take me. Make me yours.”

His expression was a set rictus of a snarl, lips pulled back from his teeth, tendons standing out on his neck as he strained over her, his eyes wild. It would be frightening, except that she knew her Will would never harm her. 

“Kathryn.” He stared down at her, and it seemed for a moment that that was all he was going to say: as if her name alone were sufficient for him. Then the words began to pour out of him in a low, insistent growl, all the more unsettling for being so gentle. “You’re the love of my life. Without you nothing matters a damn. It was only thinking of you that kept me going in that hellhole. God help me, I’ve wanted you so fucking much since I’ve been back. I can’t string together coherent thoughts when you’re in the room. All I’ve been able to wrap my mind around is the idea that I have to protect you from what I’ve become, but I’m not strong enough to hold myself back any more, because you… you… you’re the centre of my universe. And you’re my wife, Kathryn. You belong to me. And I’ll never stop loving you, and if I have to sacrifice the Federation or the alpha quadrant to keep you then so fucking be it.”

He paused, fumbling with his right hand to line up the head of his cock with her entrance, slick and wet and almost quivering with the need to feel him there. She thought he’d finished speaking, and had been staring at him blankly trying to find adequate words to reply with, when he continued. “Now I’m going to fuck you. Fuck you like I’ve dreamed of doing every day for the past six months. And I’m going to bring you to the edge, and then make you tell me you belong to me, and then you’re going to come for me. Again and again. And I’ll fuck your gorgeous body so hard you’ll scream my name and cling to me and beg me for more, and then you’ll finally be mine like I’ve always fucking fantasised. Years, Kathryn. Years, I’ve wanted this. Even though I know you love me, it’s never been enough. I’ve never quite shattered that self-possessed core of you, have I? I’ve made you love me, but tonight I want you to fucking worship me.”

She made a sound that was more a gulp than either a moan or a whimper. They’d had intense sexual encounters of all kinds throughout their years together. Will had almost always taken a more dominant role, and she’d always enjoyed the release of submitting to him in the bedroom, but it had always been a conscious sexual game - roles they assumed for a few hours of mutual enjoyment. This. This felt real, and she ought to find it frightening, just as she ought to find his roughness frightening, but it only made her all the more molten with wanting.

His eyes were fixed on hers. He was pinning her to the mattress with one arm, the other holding his engorged cock, but she knew from experience that one arm was enough to keep her subdued. The snarl hadn’t left his expression, and Christ in heaven, but she didn’t want it to. She wanted him to ravage her, she wanted to give herself up to him. She could be weak with him as she could with nobody else; he would always take care of her. And in the frenzy of giving herself to him she would be able to forget that she might be about to lose him again.

She met his gaze steadily and then she nodded - a tiny almost imperceptible nod, but he seemed to understand what it meant.

He pressed the head of his cock to her entrance, and she felt the pressure of him filling her. It had been six months, and she was unpractised at this. She felt tighter than usual, more resistant to him, even though she must be wetter than she had ever been in her life. She let out a slight whimper at the soreness, but he didn’t stop, only moved his free right hand to her chin, holding her face in place, making her look into his eyes. 

Had he always been this large? Of course he couldn’t possibly have grown, but somehow he felt bigger inside her. He was stretching her painfully, but she was damned if she was going to complain about it or ask him to slow down. She'd told him that she was his, and she wanted nothing more than to be filled to the brim with him. 

“Damn it, Kathryn,” he grunted. “So damn tight. Were you always this tight?”

“Will,” she whispered, “It feels so good. So incredible.” And it was true, in spite of the slight stinging pain.

“You want more, sweetheart? You want all of me?” He shifted his angle slightly. He knew her well, and now he was pressing firmly on that internal spot that had her gasping, her hips flexing almost involuntarily, seeking more. More pressure. More fullness. More everything.

He grinned at her, a feral, gleeful expression she didn’t think she’d seen him wear before. “So eager, my love. Of course you want more. I don't think so, though. Not yet.

And he insinuated his hand between their bodies, holding himself up with the other, his pectoral muscles flexing fascinating under the chestnut hair of his chest, pulling at the slightly puckered skin of his scars. It shouldn’t be arousing, and surely she was already so aroused it couldn’t possibly be more so - and yet it was.

She moved her hands back to his shoulders and made a wordless sound as he pressed a single thick finger against her clit. The feral grin intensified in delight. “Fuck, you’re so ready, aren’t you, my darling? All I’ve done is kiss you, and stuffed you barely half-full with my cock, and now you’re about to come for me, aren’t you?”

She moaned slightly, clasping around his neck tightly. She felt herself twitch around his cock, and tried to shift to take more of him, but he withdrew a little. “No, darling. I’m in charge. You’re mine. I’m going to fuck you in my own good time. But first, you’re going to come like this, knowing I barely had to touch you to get you off.” He was pressing very gently on her clit, rubbing tiny circles against it.

“Willllllll .” She allowed all her desperation into her voice.

There was sweat forming beneath the hair on his chest, a light sheen. It must be difficult for him to hold his full weight up like that with one arm while she was pulling down on his neck, but he was steady as a rock. She didn’t think it was possible to feel light-headed while lying down, but everything was swimming slightly. Her clit was sodden, the gentle pressure so tantalisingly insufficient she thought she would go mad if she couldn’t rub against his hand properly. However, when she tried, he moved his hand up to rest firmly on her abdomen.

“What did I just say, Kathryn?”

Her breath sounded very loud in her ears. “You’re going to fuck me in your own time.”

“Exactly. If you try to take control of this, I simply won’t let you come. I’ve waited years to have you like this. I can wait a bit longer to make sure you’re giving in to me completely.”

He spoke calmly, matter-of-factly, and she believed him. He was going to make her fall to pieces for him before he allowed her release.

“Now apologise.”

“I’m sorry, Will.”

“Good girl.” 

She let out another pathetic whimper. God, she was so far gone. Praise didn’t usually have this effect on her, maybe because, when they were playing, some part of her knew it wasn’t real. But this was real. He really was pleased with her and it was making some small, desperate, suppressed part of herself ache with joy.

He’d returned his hand to between her legs and resumed that gentle tantalising pressure again. She felt her breath hitching, taking in a deep lungful of air that was filled with the scent of his sweat and his aftershave and the muskiness of his cock. Her pulse was racing, drumming in her foggy brain. She felt the strength leaching out of her limbs. All she could do was lie there shaking slightly, running her fingers over his chest, feeling the surprising silkiness of his hair, interrupted now by the gashes of his scars. She had to make a conscious effort not to buck her hips to seek more friction. She was starting to feel accustomed to having his cock halfway inside her now, and she wanted more. More pressure, more of that fullness, more of him.  

He was crooning in her ear, reversing the direction of the finger circling her clit. “Yes, sweetheart. That’s right. Clamp down on me just like that. Feels so damn good, my love. You want more don’t you? I can feel it, you’re squeezing round me so tight. Unbelievable. So warm and wet. You’re perfect, my love. But before I fill you properly, you’re going to come for me. And before you come you’re going to beg. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, Will. Please. Please let me come. Please fuck me full.”

“That’s very good. But we both know you can do better. Tell me.”

“I’m yours. Always yours. Please Will, just let me come.”

“More than that, Kathryn.”

“I love you. Please. I’ve already told you. I love you so much, Will. I need you. You’re the only one. The only one there’s ever been or ever could be.”

He let out another subdued growl, as if reining himself back. “You’ve no idea what you look like. You’re so fucking lovely. My gorgeous wife, your hair falling over your shoulders like that, your skin flushed, your eyes fixed on me like I’m the centre of your world. Trembling for me, so velvety slick between your legs, so warm, so wet, I feel fucking huge inside you. Gonna take you so hard you won’t remember your own name, but you’ll remember mine and you’ll be coming and coming and fucking begging me for more.”

“Yesss, Will. Yes. Please. I’m yours.”

“Come for me now.” Abruptly he increased the pressure on her clit and her orgasm built, gradually at first, teetering on the cusp and then rapidly crashing down on her at the same moment as he thrust himself fully inside her. The sudden unexpected pain made her cry out sharply, but then it was merging with the pleasure, intensifying it, and she was screaming. Screaming his name in a long drawn out shriek, her back arching as she crested a second wave of pleasure while he roared a single word at her: “Mine”.

Her hips jerked as aftershocks followed rapidly after her orgasm - she tried to prolong them, but she didn’t need to because Will had slammed both her arms down beside her head, and he was thrusting into her violently, his face set and grim. Then he was hissing at her through clenched teeth, somehow still perfectly in control of himself, even while she shattered around him. “That’s it. How does it feel, my darling? To come like that and then still want more? Because you do want more, don’t you? You want me to keep fucking you like this. Like a goddamned animal, no fucking restraint, until you come all over again. Well it’s a good job you’re so fucking sexy you drive me out of my goddamned mind, because I sure as hell don’t intend to let up until I’m too exhausted to move. And by that time you’ll be an incoherent beautiful mess, won’t you? Mine. Jesus Christ, you’re mine. I adore you, I need you, I crave you. Mine, Kathryn, Say it.”

“I’ve told you! I’m yours! Will!”

It was so much more than she’d ever experienced. Thankfully he’d removed his hand from her oversensitized clit, but he was pounding inside her brutally, and although it was rough, he was managing to press against just the right spot, and the pain was exquisite. She was letting out little yelps of excruciating pleasure, barely able to make sense of what was happening, his heavy arms and chest a cage around her, her mind hazy, drifting. There was only him. The smell of him, the size of him, his weight, pressing her down, filling her. Him, him, only him. Only ever him.

“Will,” she said, her voice far away, floating. Then he was roaring her name, and her own pleasure was golden, resplendent around her, and he was still there. Everywhere. And she was safe and content. She never wanted to be anywhere else.

He murmured into her hair, soft incoherent words, love and desire and need and tenderness all mixed together. She was awake, but she hadn’t said anything, passively allowing him to arrange her comfortably in his embrace. He couldn’t find it in him to regret what he’d done. He ought to be disgusted with how he’d treated her, but he’d seen her beautiful face when she came, and he knew she had never experienced ecstasy like that before. And he had done that to her. In that moment she had been his utterly, they’d both known it, and he could not regret anything that had given the woman he loved such total satisfaction or anything that finally made him feel so complete.

He waited for a few minutes, the time measured in slow heartbeats, the sweat cooling on their skin, goose pimples forming on her pale toned limbs. She needed time to accustom herself to what had happened between them. The emotion was so raw it had scoured both of them to a kind of blank euphoria. Perfection. This was perfection - he could hardly believe he was experiencing this total joy, all the more absolute because it had followed the period of greatest pain and horror in his life. They were together at last. 

He ran his hands gently up and down her arms, and she turned slightly to nuzzle contentedly into his chest. His. She was still all his: vulnerable and emotionally exposed as she would never allow anyone else to see her. He moved one hand to card gently through her hair, having to move slowly through the tangle. “Are you alright, sweetheart?” he asked gently.

There was a long pause, and then she spoke, her husky voice muffled by his chest. “Alright? I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an inadequate word to express what I’m feeling right now.” She paused again, this time for so long he thought she might have drifted off again, but eventually she said, “There aren’t words for this. I can only trust that you understand. I don’t think it can be possible to love harder than this.”

He closed his eyes and breathed her in. “No. It isn’t possible.” 

There was nothing else to say.

For another timeless period they lay together, breathing in time together, soaking each other up. He knew that tomorrow was going to bring fresh pain and terror and he was going to have to watch his people die, but for now he was here. He was holding the woman he loved more than he had thought possible. She was going to be kept safe through the coming battle and that was all that mattered. 

Will’s eyes closed and he sank into dreamless sleep.