I'm Just a Part of You

Absence of Evidence

Gard had spent most of the thirty-three-hour flight from Tesnia to Deep Space Nine reviewing his memories of Joran Dax. He also read the various TSC notes that he'd been sent, and even watched several counselling sessions from her time at the TSC. They showed an untrained host holding up remarkably well, for someone who'd suddenly had eight lifetimes of memories dropped into her mind. Especially for someone whose personal log had contained references to 'Brain Vampires'.

All if it left him fairly certain that he needed significantly more data. The girl in the recordings was unsure of herself. She often jumped to former host memories and had almost no control over the process. If that was still the case, he wondered what encountering some of the more intense memories from Joran might have done to her mind.

Then he put that sort of thinking out of his head, going through the docking procedures with a sense of routine. His courier was assigned to a shuttle pad which put him right next to the station's core levels.

When he stepped out, he was greeted by a single human. Dark skinned, and with a shaved head, he got the immediate impression this one didn't take bullshit from anyone. A quick glance revealed that he was wearing the insignia of a Starfleet captain.

"Captain Sisko." He said. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Special Operative Gard." Sisko responded in a voice that almost put Gard in mind of a Klingon. "Likewise. What do you want to see first?"

"I'd like to talk to Dax, if that's possible."

"Certainly." Sisko said. "She woke up an hour ago."

Gard didn't comment. He assumed that Starfleet officers developed a fairly regimented sleep pattern, depending on their shift cycle. If Dax would normally have started her shift by now, she'd be awake.

"I don't want to seem forward, Captain, but there is an option to... resolve the situation, if we do turn out to be dealing with Joran. One that would leave Ezri Tigan alive."

"I know." Sisko growled. "I was on Trill with Dax when her sister became ill."

"Ah. If it becomes necessary, do I have your permission as her commanding officer to do what I can for her?"

"I'll make that decision alongside Colonel Kira if it comes to it." Sisko said, levelly. "She's under the jurisdiction of Bajoran law right now, and Kira is the highest-ranking Bajoran I have access to."

When he arrived in the station brig, what he immediately noticed was that someone seemed to have made Dax at home. She was staring at a viewer, which appeared to be showing some form of sappy romance film. None of the logs from her time in the TSC care facility had involved anything similar. And with his experience of Joran, he knew exactly how annoying the rogue host would have found soppy rom-coms. That told him a couple of things: she might be dealing with an attraction to someone, and, if she had Joran loose in her head, she was trying to annoy him and get him to stop paying attention. That spoke well to him about the chances that she was in control.

He also remembered the footage from the camera above the bar in Quark's. Ezri reacting to shouts, simply by kicking a chair into someone's path. She'd then attempted to subdue a human who'd fallen over the chair, before being punched, nearly knocking her off his torso. Almost unerringly, her hand had flown to a knife with barely a moment of hesitation, raising it above her head, and pausing just long enough for a Bajoran security officer to wrestle it out of her hand.

She'd looked entirely in control until that moment.

"Dax." Sisko said, loudly, from beside him. "You've got a visitor."

The girl looked around, her face initially curious as to who it might be. Her expression changed, and barriers went up the instant she saw him. She clearly recognised him, even though she'd never seen him before.