Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Sacred new beginnings
That became my religion
Listen"
- Taylor Swift, "Cornelia Street"

/

Odo as a sunbeam was the most awe-inspiring sight Nerys had ever seen. Closing her eyes, tilting her face up to his light and warmth, lifting her hands in praise to the universe that had made him, filled her with a love too pure for words.

That said, being with him in humanoid form did have its advantages.

One was making love. The other was talking.

“Did Laas get away?” was the first question she thought to ask after catching her breath.

They lay together in bed on a tangled nest of blankets, without a stitch of clothing (although Odo never did wear clothes, really, except the ones he shape-shifted for himself). The candles she had lit to pray for his safe departure still burned in their wall sconces, filling the room with the temple-like smell of melting wax. She kept reaching out to caress him, just to remind herself this was real.

“He did. I’ll have to coordinate a search party, but I doubt we’ll find him. Despite my best efforts.”

A wink was one of those humanoid gestures he found difficult to imitate, but he blinked as slowly as a satisfied cat, and she smirked back. How many couples, she wondered, could still conspire to aid a fugitive together while in the middle of a breakup?

“Do you think you’ll see each other again?”

“I doubt it. He couldn’t … we couldn’t make each other understand.”

She searched his face for any sign of regret, but all she saw in his clear blue eyes was sadness.

“Understand what?” Nerys asked. “The reason you came back?”

“I came back because you let me go.” Odo took one of her hands in both of his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, as she had done when they had said goodbye. “He couldn’t understand a love like that.”

“Oh.” Nerys thought back to her decision. Letting him go had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She had so few people left to love, but it would have broken her heart to feel that staying with her was making him unhappy. So she had set him free … and the first thing he’d done with that freedom was to come back to her.

“He was trying to protect me, in his way.” He looked down at their two clasped hands on the sheet between them. “Laas was married once, you know. His wife left him because they couldn’t have children together. He loved her very much, and was terribly hurt when she walked away. It’s been easier for him to avoid humanoids altogether than to take that risk again. He couldn’t understand that for me … for me, the risk is worth it.”

As happy as she was, Nerys bit back a flash of indignation. A relationship, it turned out, was as good as interplanetary diplomacy for teaching her how to think before she spoke. He didn’t really believe she’d treat him the same way Laas’ wife had done, did he? Surely by now he knew her better than that.

“Silly reason to leave someone,” she said coolly. “I mean, they could’ve adopted.”

She peered at the stretch marks on her belly. Being Yoshi’s surrogate had made her think more than once about the possibility of raising children, but that didn’t mean they had to be hers by blood. One pregnancy had been more than enough.

“Is that … something you would consider someday?” Odo asked, in a tone she had learned to recognize as carefully restrained hope. “Adoption?”

“Someday, yes. Once this war is over.”

“Even if they were Changelings?”

Oh. Of course. She thought of the way his whole face had lit up at the prospect of traveling the universe with Laas to search for more lost infant Changelings. It wasn’t Laas the cynical, closed-minded individual that Odo had found alluring. It was the prospect of saving children.

“You’re still thinking about the hundred, aren’t you?” She stroked his hair, as smooth and golden as the sunbeam he had been earlier. “Odo, if it wasn’t for this damned war, I’d hop into a runabout and go searching right along with you. We both know what it’s like to be orphaned. No child should have to go through that.”

“You really mean that?” Joy lowered his voice to a hush.

“Wouldn’t say it otherwise."

“What about … ” He frowned. “What about the difference between our lifespans? Wouldn’t it bother you to have a family that doesn’t age?”

That was a good question, and deserved a well-thought-out answer. It didn’t take her long to think it out, though; she had lived a dangerous life long enough to know how she felt about dying.
“I’ve outlived enough people already,” she confessed. “Honestly, for once I wouldn’t mind going first … unless you mind it?”

“I would,” said Odo, gathering her into his arms, as if even the thought made him afraid to let her go. “Very much … but if my future self on Gaia showed me one thing, it’s that I could survive.”

The strangeness of this conversation made her smile even as she blinked away tears. There had been times in her life when she wouldn’t have believed she’d ever grow old with someone, or even discuss it as if it were possible. She refused to give in to the superstitious fear that had been nagging at the back of her mind, that planning for a life together would invite death. That was ridiculous. Wanting a child hadn’t killed Jadzia. Dukat had done that.

Their lives were in the hands of the Prophets, which meant there was always reason to hope.

“If we live to make peace with the Dominion … if, mind you … you and I are gonna find ourselves a family, and never mind what species they are as long as we can look after them. How’s that sound?”

Odo’s answer was to shower her with kisses until every part of her felt bathed in sunlight.

She took that as a yes.