“The orders came through yesterday,” Ben had explained. “I was planning to take a shuttle to Earth tomorrow.”

“He won’t be happy about this, you know.”

“I know. But he’ll get over it…” Ben must have seen how angry that response had made her, because he added quickly, “…because chances are the assignment won’t last, anyway. Nothing I’ve heard about the political situation on Bajor makes me optimistic about their readiness. And…I’ve been giving serious thought to resigning, coming back to Earth.”

Judith frowned. “Let me get this straight. You’re accepting a new assignment at the edge of Cardassian space, just so you can quit after you get there? Ben, who are you kidding?”

“Jude—”

“I’m your sister, Ben. I know you. Lie to yourself if you want, but don’t lie to me. Or to Dad. If you were serious about resigning, you wouldn’t take this assignment. Much less take your son with you. This is about your need to run from your pain. About trying to distance yourself from Jen’s death.”

Ben slammed his hand on the viewport ledge. “That’s enough, Jude.”

“But what you don’t seem to get yet,” Judith had persisted, “is that no matter how far you go, that pain is going to stay with you until you turn around and deal with it.”

Ben said nothing. Judith walked back into the living area and began gathering her things. He followed her. “You’re leaving?”

“I need to get dirtside. I have to get some sleep before rehearsal tomorrow.” She was rummaging through her shoulder bag.

“You could stay here,” Ben suggested. “Jake’ll be disappointed if you’re gone when he wakes up.”

Judith refused to look at him. “He’ll get over it. Here.” Finding the item she sought in her bag, Judith handed her brother a small gift-wrapped package. “I was going to give this to you guys tomorrow, but…here, just take it.”

Ben accepted the gift. “What is it?”

“Holoprogram,” she’d said. “The Early Years of Baseball. A friend of mine designed it. I thought we could all try it next week after I was done in Brad bury City. But maybe it’ll give you guys a way to pass the time during the voyage.”

“Jude, please don’t go yet.”

“What do you want from me, Ben? You want me to pretend I don’t see what you’re doing? Well, I can’t. Jen’s dead, and that’s a tragedy. But you’re never going to heal by running from it.”

No other words had passed between them as she walked out, and part of her believed she’d seen her brother and nephew for the last time.

So it was with some surprise that she returned home to Portland a few weeks later to find a subspace message from Starbase Deep Space 9 waiting for her. It was from Ben. Something had obviously happened to him: she could see it in the piercing, purposeful look in his eyes, smiling with an excitement and a self-awareness she hadn’t seen in two years. His message was brief and to the point.

“Just thought you’d want to know…I’ve stopped running.”

She learned the story later, in subsequent letters and messages from him and Jake, and from their rare visits to Earth: about the discovery of the wormhole and Ben’s first contact experience with the entities inside it. And later, his growing connection to the gods and the people of Bajor…until he even came to believe that the wormhole beings had brought about his very existence. She’d been skeptical about that last part, and remained so, but she couldn’t deny the transformation in him.

Ben had indeed rediscovered himself. But true to her fears, and their father’s, she knew also that in doing so, he was lost to his family, maybe forever.

And now Jake, too…

Dad stirred, pushing her away. “Go,” he whispered, turning back to the window, turning away from her. “Just go. I want to be alone.”

Unhappily, Judith respected her father’s wishes and withdrew. At the bedroom door she looked back to see him once again as she had found him, hunched over as he stared out the window.

“I just don’t know what to do about him, Kasidy,” Judith said into the companel late that night, after Joseph had finally fallen asleep. His hopelessness that morning had stayed with her, feeding the stillness and silence of the old house. He simply wasn’t the man she once knew. “I knew Ben’s disappearance hurt him, but Jake vanishing without a trace so soon after…it’s like his heart has been torn out. He hasn’t been in his kitchen in days. He just sits in his chair by the bedroom window. I think…I think he’s waiting to die.”

Kasidy Yates, her brother’s second wife, now more than eight months pregnant, looked back at Judith across the light-years that separated Earth and the planet Bajor and sighed. “It’s been hard on everyone. There isn’t an hour that passes that I don’t think of them both, hoping for word, hoping they’ll walk through the door together. But I knew this would be hardest on Joseph. He loves his boys so much….”

Judith smiled. She liked Kasidy. And though they’d only spoken a few times since Ben had announced their marriage last year, she’d warmed up to her new sister-in-law instantly. Maybe part of it was that she was so different from Jennifer. Judith had loved Jake’s mother and missed her terribly, but it pleased her that Ben had found a new relationship that hadn’t come about merely to fill the void Jen had left in his heart. Kasidy and Ben’s love defined itself not by what had been lost, but what they might find together.

“I wish I knew what to tell you, Judith,” Kasidy went on. “I call him every week hoping to bolster his spirits, but the conversations have been getting shorter and shorter. I’ve begun to think that hearing from me is only making his pain worse.”

Judith sighed. “He loves you, Kasidy. Don’t doubt that.”

“I don’t,” Kasidy assured her. “Not for an instant. I just wish there was some way we could get through to him. Show him that no matter what else, he’s about to have a grandchild who’s going to need a grandfather….” She trailed off, thoughtful.

“What is it?” Judith asked.

“I just realized…maybe there is someone who can get through to him.”

The next afternoon, after Dad awoke and resumed his mournful vigil upstairs, Judith waited in the abysmally silent main dining room of the restaurant, wondering what she would do if Kasidy’s idea didn’t work. His doctor had been clear: Dad needed to get out of that room, and soon. His refusal to take proper care of himself was the reason he’d suffered his collapse in the first place.

A rap on the door. Hushed voices and the unmistakable sound of high-pitched giggles as might come from children. Even muffled by the front door, the sounds seemed to push back the suffocating silence of the house like a cool breeze. Judith went to the door and opened it.

A family stood there: a father, a mother, and two children, a girl and a boy. The father wore a Starfleet uniform. “Ms. Sisko?” he said hopefully.

“Yes?”

“We’re the O’Briens. Kasidy Yates asked us to come.”

1

All things considered,Dax thought, this has been one helluva voyage.