He opened his eyes, and the moment between moments receded. Pale green light dancing through a leaf canopy. Garden. He touched the patch of grass beside him and felt the chill. Kasidy must have abandoned him once he fell asleep. A sigh-breath against his bare collarbone. Baby. She stirred, hitching up farther on his chest, curling her knees against her body and snuggling into his chest. Sisko smiled, tucking her dislodged blanket back around her legs. But, yes, there was music playing. Coming from the open patio doors. Dave Brubeck, he thought, recognizing the tune. When did Kas start listening to jazz?He had done his best over the years to introduce his wife to good music, but she had willfully resisted every entreaty. Kasidy liked what she liked: modern classical, Centauri folk, and the occasional piece of youth-contemporary for mindless humming. Nothing wrong with most of it, Sisko generously concluded.
The bundle on his chest shuddered with a sneeze.
Bless you,he thought, patting the bundle comfortingly.
A shadow passed between him and the dappled sunlight. Kasidy. She plopped down beside him, propping herself against the tree trunk. “I think Rebecca has caught a cold. Which means we’ll both have colds in a day or two if we don’t take antivirals.”
“Can’t we immunize her for all these little diseases?” he asked. Careful not to disturb Rebecca, he lifted his head off the ground and pillowed it on Kasidy’s lap.
She inhaled deeply, caressed his face. “We can, but Julian recommended we let a couple of these run their course so she can build up immunities. Nothing works better than nature.”
“Except when it doesn’t.”
Kasidy shrugged.
Sisko tried to remember the last time he had lived through a cold. Sneezing, runny nose, headache, congestion. “If she has to be miserable,” he asked, “shouldn’t we be miserable, too?”
Kasidy laughed. “Sorry, I don’t subscribe to that theory.”
“Think of it as an anchor to corporeal life.”
“I prefer what we did last night,” Kasidy teased.
Feeling the residual ache in his stomach muscles, Sisko had to admit he did too.
“When did you start listening to Dave Brubeck?” he asked.
“Is that who this is?” Kasidy asked. “It was on one of Jake’s mixes and I liked it.”
“Jake’s?” He was genuinely surprised. “Something that happened while I was gone?”
“I don’t think so,” Kasidy said. “The recording was a few years old, from back in that period when he and Nog tried to convince Quark that he should open a dance club.” Rebecca, who had been dozing, awoke and immediately began to nuzzle against the cloth of Sisko’s flannel shirt. Breathless, frustrated grunts gave way to a puckered-up scowl: the bundle trembled with mewing cries.
Sisko wrapped his arms around her, whispering soothing words to his daughter, but Kasidy pushed him out of her lap and plucked the baby out of his arms.
“Goodness, little girl. How can you be hungry again so soon?”
“I remember that,” Sisko said, “but I don’t remember Jake listening to jazz. How could I have missed that?”
“I can’t imagine,” Kasidy said, loosening her shirt. “I seem to remember something about a war. Ring any bells?”
“Seems vaguely familiar.” He sighed, rolling over so he could prop himself on his elbows. Rooting around the grass, he plucked out stems of miniature, blush-faced daisy flowers and started piling them up. “I should make lunch.” Deftly, he knotted the flower stems together, making a chain of blossoms.
“Yes you should,” Kasidy agreed. “Why not reheat the gumbo you made yesterday?”
“Excellent suggestion. But none for you, little girl,” Sisko said, stroking her velvety cheek with his index finger. “Maybe when you’re older. None of that replicated lunch food at school. I’ll send you jambalaya.” He continued the flower chaining, his fingers smudged with powdery orange pollen grains.
Rebecca squirmed and tensed, followed by an unmistakable series of gaseous “phlbets.” Relaxing, she pulled away, bloated and happy, offering her mother a tipsy half-smile.
Kasidy draped the blanket over her shoulder, then lifted the baby up and began to gently pat her. Looking at her husband, she asked seriously, “Will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Pack her lunch for her on school days? Do you really see that as part of our future?”
Sisko kept his eyes on Rebecca. “What makes you think I can see the future?”
“Then what do you wantto happen next?” Kasidy asked earnestly. “You must have some hopes for how you want our lives to unfold, or it doesn’t matter whether you can see the future or not.”
He rolled off his belly, onto his back, watching the frantic ministrations of a mother bird delivering squirming insects to her nest of young in the branches above. “What I want,” he said soberly, “is to be here with you and the baby. But you know the truth: It’s never going to be about only what I want. I still have a duty.”
“To whom?”
Sisko stared out over his tessipates of land, the miasma of variegated greens and browns garnished with straw-colored seed clusters ripening as midsummer approached. He inhaled deeply, drawing in the scents of moldering leaves, the scents of the river, deep into his lungs. In a split second of awareness, he knew the insects gnawing through the tree bark, the schools of fish darting around the water lilies, the plump seed grains burgeoning with life, the katterpod seedlings twining up the garden arbor. The land infiltrated the marrow of his bones, binding him. Just as the sky still did.
“To the Bajorans,” Sisko said. “To these people who have placed their trust in me. To the Prophets who allowed me to return here. To Starfleet. And to those others…”
“What others?” Kasidy asked, her voice rising with emotion. “Who else is there who’s more important to you than your family?”
Scooting back to sit beside her, Sisko threaded his arm behind Kasidy’s waist, drawing her head onto his shoulder. The baby heard him coming and, head wobbling, turned toward her father’s voice. “My dear love,” Sisko said softly, touching her knee, “none of them is more important than my family. But consider this: What do you think we need to do to protect our daughter?”
Kasidy’s eyes, which had been growing red-rimmed, suddenly narrowed. “What do you mean, Ben? Do you think someone is going to try to hurt Rebecca?”
“No,” Sisko said, trying to keep his voice low and reassuring. “Not specifically for Rebecca, but, yes, something is coming. The Prophets tried to explain it to me.” He shook his head. “I wish I could be plainer than that, but it’s difficult. The way they communicated—when I was there with them it all made sense, but now, here, meaning fades.”
“But it’s something that could harm Rebecca?” Sisko saw the fierce gleam in his wife’s eyes.
“It’s something that could affect us all, every Bajoran, yes.”
“Bajoran, Ben? Is that what we are now?”
Sisko held her eye for several seconds, then smiled. “Aren’t we?” he asked. He nodded at the world around him. “If Rebecca could answer, what would she say about this place?”
Kasidy looked. Sikso followed her gaze. The tree branches curved to form an archway over the dirt road; wildflowers, a riotous burst of color, carpeted the beds around the house; trails of cloud tufts lazed out over a luminous blue sky. And the house: He had designed it, Kas had built it.
“It’s home, Ben. It’s our home.”
“Yes, it is,” Sisko said. “And if we need to defend it…”
“…We’ll do what we must.”
He kissed her on the forehead, then quickly scrambled up to his feet. “I hear that gumbo calling to me.”
Kasidy chuckled, and the sound made the baby jump, then hiccup, a bubble of milk exploding on her lips. Her mother wiped the baby’s mouth, then called out to her husband again, suddenly serious. “So what do we do now?”