Star Trek: The Emissary’s Return…

 Many years later…

Kasidy sat in her cabin, alone, feeling her bones, feeling alone, feeling…lost. Something told her to go digging in her closet.

She’d moved into the old cabin recently. It’d sat at the edge of the property where she had built their home, in Kendra Province, when she had still hoped for his return, when she would take Jake’s daily transmissions in the spirit in which they were intended. 

There had always been…something that drew her to it. Certainly not the state in which she’d found it. Abandoned even before the Occupation, by the look of it. Ancient. Waiting to collapse. Like she was, when she finally moved in.

Rubbish, refuse, decay…Yet she found herself…digging. Someone had told her something of the history, in town, how there had been a vedek retreat here, long ago. 

There were…crawling insects. She slipped on a pair of gloves, reminded herself that she used to be captain of a cargo ship, long before she ever met him, before she had adjusted to…

Near the bottom of all the detritus, there was a scroll. In the old days on Earth, there was something called the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hers was sheltered in much the same way, preserved, lost to time. Waiting to be found.

She’d taught herself how to read such things. Of course she had. She’d married the Emissary.

Yet she still couldn’t…

The Emissary had returned. In the distance past…When the Prophets had first spoken to the Bajoran people. The forgotten origins…Her Benjamin. 

He’d known, somehow, all along. He’d known she would find out. He’d known she would find him. Again. 

She felt her heartbeat.

She could…feel his presence. If she just turned around…But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to. 

She held the scroll to her chest. She could feel his heartbeat, too. 

The Last Judgment…

In her final moments Jisoo labored just to breathe, forgetting all else, a lifetime, and then…

There she was. 

There were no longer doubts in her head. She knew everything that there was to know. She knew where she was. She was in purgatory.

She was remote from him. Remote from God. That was how she knew. But she could still feel his presence. Here, there was the Holy Spirit. Here, she was aware for the first time, the Holy Spirit had always been somewhere close by…Elusive, but there.

And it was Judgment Day. It was always judgment day, on the day someone died. Everyone skipped immediately to the end…

Christ was the aspect that understood time, that experienced its passage, although God otherwise saw all of it, all at once…Christ was presiding. She saw him, in judgment. An inversion of how his life had ended. 

She did not feel judged. She didn’t feel pure, either…She’d known, in her life, but had always been able to find…excuses. To believe she was, ah, good enough…

The judgment had been rendered. There had been two judgments, under Christ, one upon his death, and the other, at the end. 

In life she had always feared this. In life she had been led to believe in fire. But she found that she was cold. And those…elsewhere, surely colder still…Remote, removed. Knowing what they had turned against, no longer able to deny it. Run fresh out of excuses. 

Judgment, not condemnation. What had been earned freely. The judge, Christ, the human aspect…sad. Disappointed. The only real judgment.

She waited. She didn’t know how long it would be…

But she supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

Star Trek: Ballad of Dartog

Worf stayed awake late into the night watching over the body of Jadzia…It had been many days since he had slept. Sisko, Bashir, O’Brien…they’d all tried convincing him to rest, even Martok. He couldn’t. And he did not know how to explain it to them, not anymore. Their patience had ran out. His had not.

The silence, though, had become oppressive. Jadzia had never…allowed space to be filled with so much of it. In that moment that was what he missed most. He needed to hear…

He requested the computer play the Ballad of Dartog. Since he was a boy he had always found comfort in it, a connection to his lineage that often proved…elusive. Dartog was a warrior of the generation after Kahless, whom many Klingons honored with establishing the foundation of the new way Kahless had introduced into their society. Kahless had been unforgettable…Dartog hadn’t had such luxury. In fact his role had been thankless, and for three generations he had been forgotten. 

A playwright brought him back into polite society, and then the opera had been composed, and from it, the Ballad. 

Worf found the idea of Dartog’s rediscovery…comforting. Perhaps a part of him yearned to be found by his own people…But that had never happened. He joined Starfleet, and his debut in Klingon society was…complicated. He met his brother, he fought for the honor of his late father. And he met his son.

Listening to the Ballad now…Worf realized he’d heard that voice before. It was Alexander’s. He’d had no idea. Their relationship had been repaired, but they had never again lived as father and son. He still missed…much of his son’s life, it seemed.

It was a good voice. He opened a communications link, and found Alexander…busy. So he left a message. He talked about the Ballad, he talked about Jadzia, he talked about the war…Alexander’s service had become…acceptable. He didn’t mention how he appreciated his son’s talent. He thought it was implied.

When he brought it up with Martok, it was only in recommending the recording. Martok recognized Alexander immediately. Worf ground his teeth. Of course he had known…

After this war, he knew now the path his son would follow. He felt…pride.