punch_kicker15

Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Title: Containing Multitudes
Author: punch_kicker15
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Relationships: Kira Nerys/Jadzia Dax
Summary: Set shortly after Facets. Kira thinks she and Dax are too different for a relationship to work.
Word count: 1127
Notes: Written for am anon prompt for the Kiss Your Girl event: ST:DS9 - Kira/Dax You can't keep running away from yourself. and the

femslashbb Monthly Challenge: Heroes and Villains.

Kira downed the last of her glass of spring wine. "How did you convince Arja Teju to close the restaurant for everyone except the two of us?"

Jadzia flashed a grin that hovered just over the edge of smugness. "Every Trill host bequeaths a lifetime of favors owed."

"Curzon knew Arja Teju?"

"No, he knew Arja’s uncle. And he wrote a recommendation for Arja to attend the Keevo Culinary Academy on Betazed."

Kira shifted in her chair. At some point she’d gotten used to the uncomfortable Cardassian chairs on the station; sitting on a wooden chair felt odd now. “Do you ever get tired of keeping track of all these people that you--well, Dax--have met?”

“It’s not hard to remember the interesting ones.” She stared at Kira with an intensity that Kira couldn’t quite fathom.

Then Arju came by with moba fruit clafoutis, and it seemed silly to worry about what Jadzia’s look meant. This was some rare time off from the station, a chance for both of them to get out of uniform and just relax and enjoy food from one of the best chefs on Bajor.

***
After the third dessert--chocolate-covered Jumja sticks--they walked back to Kira’s room. Just as Kira opened the door, Jadzia moved closer, invading her space. Then, before Kira could escape into the room, Jadzia put a hand on Kira's chin, tilted her head up, and kissed her. Jadzia’s lips tasted of Jumja and were all too tempting.

Kira reluctantly pulled away, her heart pounding hard. "Where did that come from?"

Dax smoothed down the collar of Kira’s shirt, her fingers sending little shivers in their wake. "I got tired of dropping hints. I've tried taking you to the Trill baths in the holosuites. I took you to this romantic little inn in the Holana River for the weekend. I've flirted with you constantly, and you haven't taken me up on it or told me to get lost. I figured some people need subtlety, and some people need to be clubbed over the head."

Kira pulled the door closed and leaned against the hallway wall. "It's not like I didn't notice. It's just that you flirt with everyone. Morn, Quark, even that ambassador who can only live in sub-zero temperatures. I didn't think it was serious."

"And now that you know?" Jadzia took her hand in her own.

"I don't know what to say. Except that it would never work." Kira’s head started to throb, possibly from drinking too much spring wine, or possibly from Jadzia dropping this emotional bomb.

"Why not?" Of course Jadzia would ask that. Life was one big adventure to her, and she’d jump right into a situation without considering whether it was hopeless.

Kira pulled her hand away. “I told Tom Riker a long time ago that terrorists don't get to be heroes. I was a terrorist. Part of me will always be a terrorist. You--you're different. When it came to delivering the killing blow to the Albino, you couldn't do it." She paused, and shoved her hands in her pockets. "I could've in a heartbeat. Still could, if I needed to. You're couldn't, because you're a hero. We're just too different."

Jadzia clasped her hands behind her back. “I might not have struck the killing blow, but I set up Kang to take it. If it hadn’t been for me, it would have been a suicide mission for Kang, Koloth, and Kor, and the Albino would have died of old age. I was the one who insisted on making it a true battle. You don’t just kill people with your hands. You can kill them with words and plans, too.”

There was some logic to that; the Guls like Dukat and Darheel had the blood of thousands of Bajorans on their hands without personally carrying out their murders. Still, Kira shook her head. “I still think there’s a big difference between the kind of person who can kill with their own hands, and the kind who can’t.”

“Fine. We’ll stick with killing someone up close and personal. Have you forgotten Joran?"

"Well, no, but that's different--"

Jadzia continued as if Kira hadn't said anything. "I know everything he thought and felt. Sometimes I'll start playing music that has never been written before, by Joran or anyone else. There's a part of him that lives inside me, and I can't separate that away, no matter how much I might want to. Then there's the Dax symbiont itself. It had been in Joran for six months. You don’t think that’s time enough to integrate? Or that the Symbiosys Commission was more interested in preserving a valuable symbiont than they were in investigating whether the symbiont was also responsible for the murder?”

Kira’s head continued throbbing. There were so many things about Jadzia that she hadn’t really thought about before. “But it’s been through multiple hosts without you or Curzon murdering anyone. That’s a pretty big sign that it was just Joran.”

Jadzia shook her head. “I might have believed that, except for Verad. Verad wasn’t strong enough to force the symbiont to do anything it didn’t want to do. So that means the symbiont was willing to let me die, alone and afraid, and run away with Verad to the Gamma Quadrant."

Kira’s gut clenched at the thought of how close she’d come to losing Jadzia. "But--symbionts can't get too sentimental about their hosts, or they could never transfer, right?" Prophets, she was trying to explain being a Trill to a Trill. Not one of her best moments.

"No, they can't. But there's a big difference between a routine transfer from a dying host and forcible removal from a healthy host." Jadzia ran a hand through her long hair, and Kira couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like, fingers running through those silky strands.

Jadzia murmured, "You think that you're unworthy because you've got one villain inside you? Try living with two or three. The one thing that I’ve learned from becoming Jadzia Dax is that you can’t keep running away from yourself. I’m not afraid of any part of you. Don’t cut yourself off from something that could be good for us--for all of the Kiras and Daxes that live inside us.”

Kira took a breath, made a silent prayer to the Prophets that this wouldn’t end badly for Jadzia, and opened the door to her room. “C’mon in. The bed’s kind of small, so it might be a bit cramped for all of us Kiras and Daxes.”

Jadzia grinned. “That’s all right. All of us Daxes love sharing small beds. Let’s see if the Kiras do too.”

And as it turned out, all of the Kiras did.