“Or maybe this is where your path is supposed to take you.”

Rena snorted.

“Seriously, Rena. Last year, I thought I lost my father,” Jacob said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I believed that if anyone could find him, I could. So, believing I was doing the right thing, I went searching for him.”

“You said your father was living farther up in Kendra, so I take it he wasn’t dead.”

“No. He wasn’t. But Ididn’t find him. I ended up on a wild-goose chase, having some crazy adventures, visiting places I never imagined I would, and ended up bringing several someone elses home with me. None of it made sense. Looking back, I know that what seemed like a mistake at the time was just part of a larger pattern that I couldn’t see while I was in it. My hopes came true—my father came home—but not the way I planned. Maybe that’s where you’re at.”

Rena, still puzzling over the image conjured by the term “wild-goose chase,” understood the spirit of Jacob’s words and wished they could be true for her. She allowed his words to hang in the air while she contemplated what she should disclose in return for his confiding in her. “My grandfather died several weeks ago, before Unity Day,” she began, slipping back into memories. “He had a degenerative illness that could have been cured if he’d received treatment in his youth, but the Cardassians didn’t care about helping Bajorans. So he lived out his last years enduring excruciating pain in a body that betrayed him. He was so miserable and yet so brave that when he asked me to leave university to help my aunt take care of him, of course I left immediately. Before he died, he made me promise some things. So far, I’ve only been able to honor one of my promises—going to Kenda Shrine. I need to go home to Mylea to finish the others. Right now, it just feels like my life isn’t going to start until I honor my promises to Topa, so I just want to get on with it.”

“He didn’t ask you to give up your art, did he?”

She could sense the disapproving look on his face. “Oh no,” Rena said, smiling. “But he asked me to commit to building a life that would honor Bajor, to preserve what is unique about us in the face of all this change….” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to offend Jacob by expressing uncertainty about the Federation. Like most Bajorans, she supported joining but she had her concerns as she watched the generation younger than hers being plied with holovids from Risa and recreational technology she couldn’t have even fathomed. Would their fortune in being born in a time of prosperity—without the demons of Cardassia and the Occupation haunting them—change what being Bajoran meant to future generations? She sighed. “I can best honor Bajor by living in Mylea. After my aunt retires, there is no one in my family to run the bakery. The unique way Myleans have worked, recreated, lived for thousands of years feels like it is on the cusp of slipping away unless some of us try to hold on to our traditions.” The lower bunk creaked; Rena assumed that Jacob was making himself more comfortable, but moments later his silhouette appeared at the foot of her bed.

“I hate not being able to see your face when we talk,” he said by way of explanation. “If you really mind me being here, I’ll go back down.”

Sitting up beneath her covers, Rena gestured for Jacob to sit down. He assumed a cross-legged position at the foot of her bed. “I know what you’re saying, Rena, but from the way you’ve talked about your grandfather, I have a hard time believing he would want you to give up your art studies.”

“I won’t give up my art exactly. More like, instead of finishing at university, I’ll help Marja with the bakery and when I have time, I’ll pursue my painting as I always have.”

In the half-light, his inscrutable expression made her nervous. She knew, without him saying, that he disagreed with her choice.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she said, “Look, nothing against you Federation people, but you don’t have tens of thousands of years of history to protect. I owe it to Bajor.”

“You owe it to yourself to paint.” Leaning closer to her, he rested a hand on her knee. “I saw you out there, screaming at the Prophets, more angry than almost any person I have ever seen in my lifetime, and considering that I’ve seen Kira Nerys angry, that’s saying something.”

Rena’s mind caught on something. Kira Nerys?The Kira Nerys?

He raced ahead before she could answer. “You weren’t screaming about preserving Bajor, you were screaming like someone who was having her soul—her pagh—torn out of her,” he whispered. “Tell me again that you need to give up your art.”

Swallowing hard, Rena formed the words, in her mind, but her mouth opened soundlessly, then closed. Her eyes burned with the beginnings of tears. She’d been wrestling with this conflict since returning from school, torn between her past and what she imagined her future to be. My promises to Topa. He devoted his life to raising me; I promised him I would help save Mylea for his grandchildren.She clasped a hand against her breastbone, took a deep breath, and said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do what I have to…” Her shoulders quaked with silent sobs.

Before she could finish speaking, Jacob had folded her into his arms and was rubbing her back as if she were a small child. He spoke gentle, quieting words in her ears. She was too tired and overcome to question whether or not this was right or wrong. Real and true in this moment were his strong arms and the compassion flowing from him. And as she drew comfort from being close to him, barriers that had held back other feelings gradually dissolved, feelings that had hovered around the edges of her emotions since she first saw him in the rest-and-sip.

Beside her, Jacob accidentally pulled her bedcovers away when he shifted, allowing their legs to touch; Rena’s heart jarred into a quickened rhythm. A long pause. He moved his leg away. She still felt the ghost of his touch. And she liked it. Unthinkingly, she moved her leg back toward his, heard his sharp intake of breath, felt satisfaction that she evoked in him what he evoked in her.

She couldn’t clearly see his face; she didn’t have to. Tentatively, he traced the line of her jaw, tangled his fingers in her hair, touched her lips. She inhaled sharply in blissful shock and drew closer.

He kissed her.

Rena knew she should stop this. She had made promises—some of them implied, but promises nonetheless. The late hour, the charged emotionality of the night, never mind the huge risk she took being with an alien stranger this way—all of it warned of foolishness. But Jacob felt neither alien nor stranger: rather familiar and comfortable and home. So she yielded to Jacob’s wordless entreaties, parting her lips, allowing the kiss to deepen. He wound his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, and she aided him by draping her leg over his, pulling their bodies flush. The first kiss blurred with another. Kisses gave way to tender caresses and more kisses until Rena joyfully abandoned all reason.

After a time, they collapsed in drowsy oblivion. Drifting off to sleep, they spooned together, Rena noted ironically as she dozed off, with the comfortable familiarity of experienced lovers.

A knock on their door roused Rena from a sound sleep. “Wha-what-what is it?” she said, half-yawning. Beside her, Jacob mumbled something incoherent.

“Mylea Harbor in twenty minutes,”came the muffled announcement.

Home.

Disentangling herself from Jacob’s arms, Rena sat up in bed and ordered the lights illuminated. She rubbed her eyes and yawned again, realizing that she had no idea what time it was when the gradual recollection of what had happened last night began returning to her. She flushed hot. Swinging her legs over the side, she dropped down to the floor.