To The O'Briens With Love

By Fire Frog

"Elvis? You can't name your baby Elvis! He's the worst president Luna ever had."

"Not after him." Miles O'Brien frowned up at his taller friend and drew his mouth in a disappointed line. Why do they always think I mean him? "You know, Elvis, the King of Rock and Roll!"

"Oh, him." Julian Subatoi Bashir nodded sagely, the hint of a twinkle in his hazel eyes. "The singer who had all those hit songs on Earth in the nineteen-seventies: Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Teddy Bear," the slim doctor did something with his hips that had half the promenade staring at them, "Viva Las Paris!"

"Yes! I mean, no, Vegas, not Paris, but he sang all of those. And more," the chief engineer lauded. "The man was a musical genius, a legend in his own lifetime. They made him a saint on Telimus you know. I…" Miles pulled Julian closer so he could whisper conspiratorially in his ear. "I've been to Graceland."

"That's out by Pluto Four, isn't it?" They had reached the entrance to the shuttle bay, so the doctor placed his bag on the ground and eyed his friend speculatively.

"Not the planet, though I've been there and all." He lent in closer still. "The Grave," he hissed, sending a delicious shiver down Julian's spine. The doctor rewarded his friend with a wide-eyed stare of amazement.

"That's harder to get in to see than the Hideous Lucky Frog on Ferenginar!" Julian gasped. "How did you do it?"

"Ah, that would be telling." Miles leaned back a bit, satisfied Julian was duly impressed. "If I thought you knew, I'd have to bundle yer skinny self into the nearest energy coupling and fry yer like a bug," he warned, smiling at his friend affectionately.

"What a lovely image. Something to take with me on my flight, which I believe is about to leave." The doctor glanced at a chronometer on the wall, picked up his travel kit and swung it onto one shoulder. "What does Keiko think of 'Elvis,' by the way?"

"It's growing on her." The other man smirked, then put one hand on the doctor's elbow, stopping him from entering the shuttle bay. "Julian, do us a favor, eat something while you're down there, you're skin and bones. When Keiko sees you, she's going to have a fit! Then she'll go on at me endlessly when she gets back, how I've not been taking proper care of you."

"She does like to mother me." Julian smiled. "Getting in practice for the new baby, I suppose."

"Yeah." Truth be told, Keiko often worried about her husband's friend. She had told Miles once that the doctor reminded her of a schoolmate called Anna, who had worked herself into the ground over her exams and died of a silly blood disease. It could have been easily cured if only Anna had taken the time to have it looked at properly. "Keiko does think of you as a big baby at that!" Miles continued, teasing the doctor in order to mask his darker thoughts.

They smirked at each other, Julian acknowledging that he had walked into that one. Miles' demeanor grew a bit more serious and he studied the walkway as he added, "Erm, and thanks for offering to swing by and pick Keiko up, by the way. I don't trust those Bajoran land transports." He scowled. The Bajorans had insisted on using their own designs for rebuilding their travel networks, instead of good, reliable Federation ones. Some people just could not be told!

"Well, we are both coming back with Major Kira, it only seemed right to give your lady love a lift," Julian answered gently.

"Don't tell Keiko I told you about calling her that, either. Or about that cabin boy fantasy she has," Miles added hastily. "You can let her know that Molly misses her..."

"And you do, too. Willco, flight commander." Julian gave him a little mock salute. "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back in time for breakfast."

"Get on with ya," O'Brien groused good-naturedly, then gave his friend a hard shoulder hug. "'Bye, Julian. Take care." He gave him an amiable shove in the direction of the shuttle bay. "And eat something!" he admonished.

Julian waved, then scurried aboard his flight, hastened by the sight of the departure lights signaling.

Benjamin Sisko stretched his long legs out under the desk, easing the ache of prolonged inactivity sitting in the one position. He automatically angled his legs to one side as he stretched, avoiding the sharp edges of the desk's draws. Well, I'll be, he thought ruthfully. I'm finally learning how to fit into this damn place.

He was considering getting up to order a raktajino from the replicator, when he heard a commotion from out front. Being the hands on kind of captain he was, he immediately went to investigate.

"What's happening?" he asked, moving down to the communication console.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Gere glanced at him worriedly. "We've had a distress call from the Rubicon. They've been involved in an accident of some kind. Sir, Chief O'Brien's wife is traveling on that shuttle."

"The baby!" exclaimed Ensign Italie, her orange eyes fixing on the spot where Chief O'Brien usually worked.

"What does the distress signal actually say?" Sisko demanded of Gere, leaning over the man's shoulder, wishing he could decipher the broken symbols himself. Gere frowned down at his screen, then turned to address the captain directly.

"Doctor Bashir and Keiko O'Brien have both been injured. Bashir advises that we contact the nearest micro-surgeon and get them here straight away. It sounds critical, sir."

"How long 'til we can beam them aboard?" Sisko's hands tightened uselessly at his side.

"Negative on that sir. Major Kira requests the medical team meet them at the airlocks, with enough blood to start two immediate transfusions. I'm relaying that to the infirmary."

"Good. Have the Rubicon dock at bay three; it's closest to the medical facilities. Italie, get hold of the Excelsior, I think their doctor may have experience in micro-surgery. Get them on course for DS9 as soon as possible. You know where to find me should there be complications."

Sisko moved to the turbo lift, tapping his comm badge as he went. In moments he had Worf securing a clear passage between bay three and the infirmary, maintenance preparing for the docking of a damaged shuttle and Odo hunting the bowels of the station to retrieve Miles O'Brien.

"Promenade," he commanded, and the turbo lift whisked him away.

The medical staff waited tensely as the airlock door slowly began to roll open. Behind them, Captain Sisko and Lieutenant Worf coordinated efforts to hold back the curious. The door continued its slow progress, still not fully open when the medical team impatiently pushed through.

They immediately encountered Major Kira. She was in shock, blood-stained from knee to chin and crouched down besides one of the shuttle's emergency medical beds. It held a pale and unconscious Bashir. There was a sterile field set up over his abdomen and the bed sheets were drenched in streaks of blood. The team homed in on him imediatelyy; Kira forced a data pad on the head nurse, Tagana, as she begun hooking up the blood transfusion they had been directed to bring.

"He gave me this," Kira rasped hoarsely. Her throat burned from the bile she had been throwing up for the last half-hour. Her hands shook, but her eyes stared fiercely into the other woman's face. "It has instructions. He said, keep the placenta attached at all costs."

"Thank you," murmured Nurse Tagana, leaning closer to the doctor to see what the sterile field held. "Mother Bird..." she gasped, then indicated the assistants were to power up the bed's anti gravs and follow her. Moving at a near run, Tagana activated the data pad Kira had given her. Doctor Bashir's mellow tones rolled out in his best dictational style.

Bless the man, thought Tagana, knowing they desperately needed his guidance if they were to pull this off.

Nurse Hortak led Major Kira aside to begin treatment on her shock, while the second medical team retrieved Keiko O'Brien from further inside the shuttle. Her bed was also covered in blood, and the nurses scrambled to link up transfusions. The movement caused by the anti gravs powering up awoke their patient and she called out for her husband.

"I'm here, sweetheart." Miles appeared at her side, brushing at her dark hair. "It's all right. You're back on the station now. Everything's going to be fine."

"Oh, Miles." Keiko looked up at him, blinking back a shimmer of tears. "Where is Julian? Find Julian, Miles. Look after him. He has our baby. He has our son."

Jadzia Dax had her work cut out for her. Without the presence of Garak, the station's number one rumormonger, the job of gossiping...er...information dispensing...had fallen to the lovely joined Trill, and Quark. Taking the role seriously, they were both hard at work in the bar. Wheedling another drink from the cargo pilot she was with, Jadzia again began answering questions.

Yes, there had been an accident with the Rubicon and Keiko O'Brien had been injured. Unable to sustain the pregnancy, Keiko had agreed to have the baby transferred temporarily to Bashir's body. Doctor Bashir had performed emergency surgery upon her, her baby and upon himself to keep the little one alive.

No, Major Kira's incompatible Bajoran blood had meant that she could not carry the child. Instead, she had been drafted in to performing the delicate transfer operation while the shuttle raced back to DS9.

Jadzia took a long sip from her drink. Poor Kira had yet to recover from the experience. As she had explained to Dax at the briefing an hour ago, the sight of Keiko's pulsing blood vessels and throbbing organs had been too much and she had abandoned her professionalism thoroughly.

At first merely gagging, she had soon progressed to throwing her stomach up. She had unhappily continued to do so through out the operation. Julian had been very understanding and Kira still couldn't believe he had stayed awake to supervise the procedure.

"Thank the Prophets he did. There was no way I could have done it otherwise. Just the thought of that heaving, tangled...warm...pulsating..." She raced for a disposal bin. Kira's time in the resistance may have hardened her to the sight of ripped open dead bodies, but nothing could have prepared her for digging about in a still live one.

Jadzia grimaced at a sudden bloody memory from Joran. There were times she wished his memories could be shut up again for good. For now she had a job to do, so she placed Kira's reactions and her own former host's memories behind her and got on with it.

Yes, the specialist micro-surgeon Bashir had requested had arrived. Even now he was working on stabilizing the O'Briens' child so that the fetus could be returned to his mother's womb. He would have to do something quickly or child and surrogate would die. Julian had not regained consciousness since returning to the station and his staff was worried.

Further along the bar, Quark began running odds on whether the O'Brien kid could be put back, or if he would be placed in an artificial womb. There were even some bets on Bashir carrying to term, though the probability wasn't in that arrangements favor. Quark had a small sum placed, anyway. You never knew....

In the infirmary's tiny waiting room, Chief O'Brien paced fretfully, going slowly insane with worry over his son, his wife and his best friend. He couldn't decide if he wanted to hug Julian with all his might or throttle him for being such a bloody idiot. The man was a menace, no doubt, a trouble magnet. But, God, he was glad Julian had involved himself this time.

It had been typical Bashir foolishness, attempting to save the baby's life by risking his own. Bless the man. Bless him. The little idiot.

O'Brien turned to retrace his steps, the room's other occupants quickly getting out of his way. Leeta, Jake Sisko and Morn followed his pacing with compassionate eyes. They knew that Keiko was asleep in the recovery ward and that Miles had been chased out of there ten minutes ago by a harried nurse. It had not improved his temper, nor did this infernal waiting.

A worried and belligerent O'Brien wasn't all the nursing staff had to deal with. It seemed that despite Jadzia's and Quark's efforts, people wanted to hear of the recent events in person. It felt as though everyone in the station was determined to stake out the little medical waiting room and the nurses were constantly having to turn people away.

They were also getting inquires from all over the sector on subspace, a constant demand for answers that they didn't have time to give. Unfortunately, being the only Federation medical facility in the area, they couldn't afford to ignore any of the incoming calls, just in case one was a genuine medical emergency.

The drain on their time grew critical, then just as they started to get frantic, the mob began growing at the infirmary doors. They called security.

The security chief was there now, making his way through the surprisingly large number of Bajorans gathered outside. Odo felt the wary looks the mob were giving him and overheard someone mutter, Sacrilege.

He decided to investigate further and moved slightly out of the crowd again to tap the shoulder of a stall-holder who often gave him the feel of the locals. After only a brief word with the woman, he ordered the infirmary's immediate area cleared and called in the few Starfleet security people they had on the station. He dismissed all Bajoran guards and had Starfleet personal stand in for them.

Bajor, he had discovered, had never medically advanced enough to allow males to bear their young as well as females. Their modern medical pursuits had never delved into reproductive technologies. They were too busy patching up folk who had been ripped apart in bloody rebellion.

Never having the medical capability for male pregnancy, they had never grappled with the ramifications of such an act before. There were several moral issues, of parentage and gender stereotyping that Bajor had never truly dealt with.

The news of Doctor Bashir, the Saint of the Orphanages, carrying the child of a woman he was not even married to was extremely provocative and had spread around the station like wildfire. The people had come to see this outrage for themselves and to comment on its profanity.

Odo couldn't see how this was any of their business. He had run into similar situations before, usually in cross-species attempts at dating. As an officer of the law, he knew that misunderstandings in gender protocol could often lead to violence. He knew that solids held the act of procreation, even the divides between the sexes, as sacred. What makes a man a man and a woman a woman was often rigidly laid out.

Ridiculous, especially as what was held masculine by the species on one side of a planet might be considered feminine by that same species on the other side. The constable gave a mental shrug as he entered the medical bay; he never would understand solids.

Once inside the infirmary he had contacted Major Kira via comm link. The major sounded a little distracted after her ordeal, but she agreed to look into the Bajoran reactions and report back to him on her findings.

Next, he organized for Ops to reroute the numerous incoming calls to the medical facility. They weeded out the inquiries from the genuine medical calls, saving the infirmary staff a great deal of wasted time.

He'd no sooner finished organizing that than he had had to forcibly restrain a male Bajoran who broke in, claiming to have a message from the Prophets. Ranting at the top of his lungs, the man had tried to enter one of the medical rooms (the wrong one, as it happened) and deliver the message from his gods.

"Blasphemy! You shall be damned to the deepest fire pits! We need to rid ourselves of the cursed!" he had raved savagely before being hauled off to the cells. Luckily the other Bajorans weren't at the point of joining him in his actions. Yet.

Odo wasn't taking any more chances, he had the infirmary doors locked. The only way in or out was by transporter and then only by agreed codes. After some frantic and somewhat strained negotiations with the orbiting starship, Excelsior's sickbay had agreed to treat any new patients. This enabled them to seal the infirmary that much more securely.

By this time the first round of surgeries had finished and the doctor was left to recover before the next set began. The constable had stationed himself at the head of the doctor's bio bed, keeping a watchful eye on the dim room. All had been uneventful since then, the nurses and the Excelsior's doctor coming and going, the lights automatically dimming as a rest period approached. Nothing more exciting than that. Bashir had appeared to wake several times, but had quickly returned to unconsciousness.

Now the glowing blue sterilization field over the doctor's abdomen was nearly the cubicle's only illumination. It lent the tiny medical room they had placed Bashir in an unearthly pallor. In the semi dark, Odo found his eyes drawn to the shimmering field. He was tempted to take a closer look inside, when a slight movement caught his attention. The human was waking again.

Julian's eyelids fluttered open and his hands moved restlessly, as if seeking something. His gaze settled on Odo and tired hazel eyes took in the shapeshifter with a curious intensity.

"I'm sorry," the quiet British accent oddly held immense sadness.

"Sorry? I'm afraid I don't understand, Doctor. Sorry for what?" Odo frowned impatiently, glancing up at the air ducts, reminding himself to get motion sensors placed up there as soon as possible. Mind as usual on the job, Odo waited restlessly to hear what foolishness the young Starfleet pup was going to spout now.

"Sorry for not being able to save the changeling child. I wasn't sure if I had told you or not—but I am so, so very sorry."

Odo turned to look at the doctor. He appeared...sincere.

As memories from the unfortunate incident appeared and stabbed freshly at the shapechanger's non-existent heart he struggled to find the correct words to say. It was important to let Bashir know that he understood the doctor had done all he could to help.

Trite clichés of comfort formed in the changeling's mind. All the standard platitudes—'It wasn't your fault,' 'There wasn't anything anyone could do,' even, 'You did your best.' All of them were true, of course. It did not, as Odo knew only too well, help to hear them.

Words wouldn't ease the doctor's guilt, or his own, for that matter. He knew that nothing could. So instead of voicing the empty words, he gently moved to pat the doctor's shoulder and looked determinedly into his eyes.

"We will save this child, Doctor. Everything will be just fine. You can depend on me."

Julian searched his face, looking for something. "But can you forgive me?" he whispered.

"What have I to forgive you for?" The worry in those eyes concerned him; Odo could think of nothing that the young human had done to warrant it.

"Forgive me because I can save this one. And I couldn't..." One of the machines by the bed made a soft beebumb noise, responding to the doctor's distress. It measured a tiny dose of sedative and administered it directly into his blood stream, so that he lapsed into unconsciousness again, leaving Odo staring uneasily at the human's still face.

As his watch continued Odo examined the doctor's words. It took some careful analysis of humanoid psychology and contemplation of what he knew of Julian's character, but finally he understood what had upset the soft-hearted doctor so.

The young Starfleet officer was afraid Odo would not forgive him for being able to save the O'Briens' baby, while being unable to save the changeling's. Closing his eyes in pain the security chief allowed himself to see the truth. The doctor was correct. He did resent it. It was entirely irrational, yet he couldn't help himself.

Still, he was not an uncompassionate being. It was clear now that he had made a mistake in not acknowledging the shared pain Bashir had suffered at failing to save the young changeling. Odo had been too wrapped up in his own pain and the conflicting joy of the little one's gift to him. What a marvelous gift it had been—giving him back the ability to change form once more, an ability which the Dominion had stolen from him.

Yes, he was resentful that this child could be saved, while his had died. But he wasn't resentful of Bashir. No, it was life that had proven to be so unjust, that he riled against.

Odo moved down to look at the blue glare of the sterilization field. Within the flayed open skin of Bashir's abdomen the barely visible form that would one day be a sentient being lay curled in safety.

Flushed with micronutrients and oxygen-rich fluids, the abdominal cavity cradled the child, resting secure against a spur made from the doctor's own flesh. Near invisible lines carrying chemicals and hormones were attached to the miniature being, the placenta nestled into a section of the doctor's intestine, struggling to gain nutrition from the unexpected source.

Things were not going well; Odo had heard the concerns in the operating doctors' voices. Their findings were adding up to a less than cheerful diagnosis. The child could not be returned to the mother, nor to an artificial womb. Julian was going to have to make a choice and with the guilt he felt already at losing the baby changeling, Odo knew what it would be.

"Doctor," Odo ground out, moving back once more to stand by the head of the bio bed, reaching over to brush at a few disarrayed strands of Julian's hair, "I wish we had talked."

The infirmary was still in darkness when Julian awoke. He was in about as much discomfort as the previous times he had briefly surfaced from unconsciousness. That is to say, not in agony as such, but not free of pain, either. The sound of angry voices came to him from the next room and he wondered what was going on.

Odo was no longer with him and he had a moment to wonder why the constable had been by his bedside in the first place. Surely, it was not by choice.

The angry voices eventually stopped and a tall male Trill in a Starfleet medical uniform entered the room.

"You're awake," he said, with a professional smile.

"Kind of hard to sleep with all the racket going on out there. What's happening?" Julian looked at the doorway in groggy annoyance.

The smile slipped from the man's face a little, but was back with force when the Trill picked up a data pad and compared it to the diagnostic readings.

"You have stabilized nicely. Good, very good. And, no, I'm not changing the subject; you were just touch and go there for a while. I'm Doctor Lynwittica, by the way. The noise you heard earlier was the sound of my collogues and me trying to decide on your treatment. I'm sorry if we disturbed you."

"There are other doctors here?" Julian raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"No, they were on subspace. Which I believe is a good thing or Doctors Brown and Yin may have come to blows." The Trill gave a ruthful chuckle as he gathered something from the gurney nearby. "Again, sorry for the disturbance."

"It's quite all right." Julian took a cautious sip from the water bulb the other doctor produced and held up to his lips. "Um...what did you decide?" he asked.

The Excelsior's doctor waited for Julian to drink the rest of the water before saying anything. "First, let me ask you a few questions." He placed the empty bulb in the recycling unit, then returned to look into his patient's eyes. "How would you feel about carrying the child full term?"

The hazel eyes went wide in shock, although the pupils stayed relatively normal. A monitor beedumbed uselessly, its sedative function having been turned off in advance. The Trill noted it, but did not react to its warning. You'd have to be in pretty bad shape not to have a shocked reaction to that question.

"That won't be necessary, will it?" Julian fought against a wall of tiredness to stay focussed on the discussion. He knew Doctor Lynwittica was only allowing him to remain awake because something awful must have come up that needed the patient's, in this case his, consent. He dreaded hearing what it would be.

"I'm afraid the placenta was quite damaged in the transfer. You and the station's, um, Major Kira? Yes, you both did a remarkable job. Especially given the equipment you had to work with, but I'm afraid that any attempt to move the placenta again will result in its shutting down, it has been too traumatized already. We can either strengthen the attachment where it is, or remove it and allow nature to take its course."

"Let him die, you mean."

"Yes, Doctor, let him die." There was a world of compassion in the Trill's eyes as he spoke.

"I'm afraid that's not an option," Julian told him firmly.

He thought back to a young woman named Koria and the struggle she had gone through to have her perfect child, free of the Blight. Could he fight any less? Besides, he had failed Odo; he wasn't going to fail another friend. He would not give up on the O'Briens' baby.

Doctor Lynwittica nodded, he had thought that would be the case. Brown had, too, but he hadn't wanted to ask Bashir his opinion first, preferring to save the boy the burden of decision. Yin had disagreed, loudly.

"Very well." Lynwittica pulled out a seat from in front of a monitor and sat down. "We've constructed a spur around the child, as you asked, and can reroute blood and produce a loop for nutrient-sharing in the intestine, but this is still not going to be an easy pregnancy."

"I don't imagine so." Bashir closed his eyes, worry nipping at his features.

Lynwittica thought he knew why. The human was undoubtedly going over the likely outcomes of his decision. From the frown creasing the human's brow, he was realizing just how difficult this was going to be.

Julian suddenly snapped open his eyes and looked at the Trill, catching the man off guard. "There's something you want to suggest, but aren't sure if I'm in a fit condition to make a decision on, yes?"

Lynwittica nodded hesitantly.

"I'm remarkably resilient, you know. Please, tell me what it is. Will it help reduce the risks?"

"Perhaps," the older man agreed, mouth turning down with indecision. "But there will be consequences...."