[Author's note: This story is A DEEP SPACE NINE alternative vision.

It differs from my others in that I made no attempt to stay true to the canon set by the show. Instead, I took Odo's circumstances in the episode "Broken Link" and asked myself -- what if? In this case, what if this momentous event -- his transformation into a human -- were to occur in the timeline set in my stories "Dreams Into Waking" and "Basilisk". I completely ignored the "great baby beam-in" from the episode "Body Parts", figuring that Odo and the Major would have enough to deal with without it! :D

The results will, hopefully, prove interesting.

If you haven't read the prior stories, my first suggestion would be: read them! :-) However, if you don't want to wait (and after all, this is in your hands right NOW), the basic premise is this. Security Chief Odo and Major Kira Nerys are in a romantic relationship as established in "Dreams Into Waking". In "Basilisk", they went so far as to become engaged, and during the interim between that story and this they have married. (LOTS of other stuff happened, but would be far too difficult to go into! Like I said, you should read them. You can e-mail me for details.)

As is the case with practically everything I've ever written since my 21st birthday, this story is rated "R" for sexual content.

Enjoy!]

Separation.

They had cast him out.

His first consciousness in the aftermath one of pain, and desolation -- isolated in a body strange and unfamiliar, trying to cough his life out through lungs he had never before possessed. Hard earth biting into his back, pebbles like nails gouging him, hammering him to this solid form...

Solid... what he had never thought to be...

She was waiting for him as he came through the docking port, tension written in every line of her face.

He hadn't allowed her to accompany him, had flatly refused despite her insistence, to the point of finally screaming at her. "What if they decide to punish me through you? I killed another changeling, but they don't believe in that - what if they decide to kill you to punish me? Do you really want me to have to live with that, Nerys? Do you?!"

Still protesting, she had stayed. And now she awaited him, seemingly frozen in the same spot from which she had watched him go.

He wondered, Will I seem different to her? I don't look different, from what they tell me - - I haven't had the nerve to look in a mirror. Dark reflections from computer consoles, reflective surfaces show glimpses of the same unfinished features -- but how could it possibly be the same, after what's happened to me?

Security Chief Odo smoothed down the unfamiliar uniform -- it fit well enough, being replicated to his measurements, but the Defiant had no specifications for a Bajoran Security Force uniform stored in its computer banks, and so Odo was wearing a Starfleet uniform, black and gold, civilian clothing being another issue the Defiant refused to address. Consequently, Odo felt distinctly uncomfortable, all questions of fit being irrelevant -- this thing didn't fit because it was something he was not entitled to wear, something he had never wanted to wear in the first place. Part of him wondered if a Bajoran uniform would fit either after the changes he had undergone -- can I still do my job? Can I still make a difference? Am I still the best law enforcement officer, as Sisko put it, 'in the sector -- hell, maybe the whole damned quadrant'?

It was a question that he didn't dare ask himself, not yet. The most important question was the one that confronted him right now -- what would he see reflected in the wide brown eyes and heart-shaped face of the woman who awaited him? The insane thought flashed through his mind, Prophets, will Nerys even recognize me? He hung back behind Bashir as they stepped out into the corridor, fearful of what he would find in those too-expressive, beautiful eyes.

"Odo?"

Her voice pitched half an octave higher than usual, Kira Nerys stepped forward to meet her husband -- my wife, Odo reminded himself, Nerys is my wife. He looked into her eyes, saw her passionate concern, her overwhelming love, and came to fully understand the meaning of the human expression, 'weak in the knees' as relief surged though him. Kira, usually not the most demonstrative of women, at least in public, for once let military decorum be damned and stepped forward to gather him into her arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"I'm so glad you're back," she whispered. "I was afraid I'd never see you again -- that they'd never let you go."

"It's all right," Odo said gently, resting his cheek against the side of her forehead. "I'm home." A faint, fresh scent filtered into his nose -- her hair, he realized, it's the smell of Nerys' hair. So much has been lost ... but I can smell my wife's hair. That must count for something ...

Kira finally detached herself from his arms, resuming her usual no-nonsense, take-charge attitude. "How is he, Julian?" she asked the young doctor, standing quietly by as though he suspected his services, or at least his blessing, might be required. "Is there any reason I can't take him home?"

"None at all," Bashir said, with a smile. "He's a perfectly healthy human male."

It felt so odd to have Kira fussing over him -- Kira just wasn't a fusser by nature. But on this occasion she positively bustled, making Odo sit down, and then, that suddenly not good enough, put his feet up on the sofa. It was an unfamiliar and consequently uncomfortable posture -- nonetheless, Odo retained it obediently while he watched Kira go to the replicator and order a pitcher of some pale gold liquid with two glasses.

A drink, he pondered. I can drink with her now. I can take her out to dinner and not feel like a total fool -- or an outsider. I suppose that every prison has its chinks where some light can come through ... he circled his wrist with the forefinger and thumb of his other hand, feeling the bones and skin of this strange, new, limited form.

Kira returned to his side with a smile, putting down her tray on the table that fronted the sofa. "I thought you might -- you might be thirsty." She stumbled over the unfamiliar concept. "And I know I am."

Odo considered her words carefully, running his tongue thoughtfully over the roof of his mouth. "You're right," he decided, "I am thirsty." He accepted the glass she handed him with a faint smile. "What is it?"

"Oh, it's tea. Cold ginger tea. It's very good." Kira sat down on the sofa at his feet, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. Only after she was seated did she realize that her own glass still sat on the tray, and started to stand up to get it.

"Don't." Odo held up his free hand. "Let me get it for you." He reached out, stretching -- and overshot the unfamiliar limits of his new sense of balance. He ended up on the floor between the sofa and the table, with his own glass shattered and tea everywhere as the pitcher on the table and Kira's glass both spilled on top of him. Not trying to move at first, Odo surveyed the wreckage ruefully.

"I'm sorry, Nerys. I haven't quite gotten the hang of it yet."

"Are you all right?" Kira scrambled to her feet, rushing to clean up the broken glass from around him. "Don't move until I get all of this -- Did you get any glass on you?"

"No, I don't think so." Odo waited quietly while Kira finished her task. "Just a whole lot of tea." Kira finally discarded the broken glass and reached down to help him to his feet. A sharp pain shot through his hand, and he winced.

"What is it?" Kira turned up his hand and examined it. The smear of blood across the palm stood out sharply, an exclamation point against his skin. "You've cut yourself. Let me get the medkit."

Kira ran the skin regenerating laser over Odo's hand carefully, until the readings it gave finally satisfied her. "Just wash it off and it should be good as new," she announced.

"It is new," Odo commented. Kira looked up at him, wide eyes startled, and Odo realized at last that she was even more nervous than he was. "Nerys," he whispered, starting to raise his hand to her face, before he remembered the blood and froze awkwardly in position. He started to lower his hand to his side, only have Kira catch it in both of hers and press her lips fiercely into the palm. Odo started as he felt her tongue, delicately lapping away the blood that remained, and he trembled at the rush of heat centering in his groin. The newly acquired, seemingly separate entity now dwelling in his trousers reared its head in interest. Kira, choosing that moment to step against him, gave a little sigh of -- relief?

"I didn't know if you'd feel the same way about me," she finally ventured. "Chemistry's such an odd thing ..."

"I don't think we have anything to worry about," Odo assured her, "at least not from me. How about you?"

In response Kira pressed even closer and, blessedly unsubtle, ran her hands down his chest and belly, before fondling his newly acquired genitals through the fabric that oppressed them. Odo inhaled deeply, catching the faint, musky scent that rose from Kira's body, and let his hands close on her shoulders, gently kneading the taut muscles. "Come on," Kira whispered, "You need to take off those wet clothes anyway. Let's go to bed."

Odo looked into Kira's eyes, his expression matching hers as he solemnly contemplated her invitation. Kira managed a tiny smile.

"It's going to bother us until we do it," she said simply. "We might as well get it over with."

Odo chuckled a little at her choice of words. "Well, it's certainly 'bothering' me now," he admitted. "But I thought you were thirsty."

"It'll wait." Stepping ahead of him, Kira took Odo's hand in hers and drew him after her into the bedroom, where she started to fumble at the closure of her uniform. Smiling, Odo slipped his hands over hers.

"Now that is something I think I can still do," he commented, starting to undo the fastenings himself. But he was startled to find it trickier than he remembered it to be -- it was amazing the tiny adjustments he was used to his body making, when he was still able to shapeshift, to enable him to perform so many tasks with such seemingly effortless energy and grace. Like making love to my wife, he thought, with a tiny shiver of apprehension.

However, all the signs were hopeful as further efforts brought Kira's breasts into view, dusky rose nipples standing taut with anticipation. Odo swallowed hard as the fit of his pants went from uncomfortable to intolerable. Pulling the Starfleet tunic off over his head, Odo sighed as he felt Kira's hands working expertly at the closure to his trousers, letting them fall to his feet. He struggled out of his briefs himself -- and watched Kira's eyes widen, the faintest trace of a smile curling the corners of her mouth.

"Well," she said finally, a distinctly appreciative note in her voice, "at least the Founders weren't stingy."

"What do you mean?" Odo asked, curious. He remembered back on the Defiant, when Bashir was finishing his physical and made the incomprehensible comment, 'Don't worry, Constable -- Nerys will have nothing to complain about.' Kira glanced up into his eyes, startled. Her lovely face blushed a dull crimson.

"You -- your --" Kira sighed and bit the bullet. "It's big."

"Big?" Odo thoughtfully considered her words. "Do they come in different sizes?"

Kira stared at him, before bursting into delighted laughter. "You would be amazed," she assured him. Finishing removing her own clothes, Kira stepped up against him, the soft skin of her belly like heaven against his straining member as she fastened her mouth hungrily on his. Odo let her push him back onto the bed, watching as she angled her body down to straddle his thighs, taking hold of his unruly organ to guide it into her moist depths -- into a place that was both familiar and unexpected.

What was unexpected was Odo's own intense, extremely localized response, like every nerve ending in his body terminated in his erect penis. Kira's folds were tight -- hot -- wet around him, the first truly exquisite sensation he had experienced in this new human form. Instinct taking over, he thrust up into her, his own pleasure magnified by her soft groan of delight. It was delicious, it was mind-numbing, it was ecstasy ...

It was over.

Odo's gasp was an unprecedented mixture of primal bliss and utter dismay as, with that single thrust, his orgasm exploded into Kira's warm depths. Kira herself, nowhere near the point of the usual corresponding response, looked down at him, startled, and then tried with a compassionate smile to make little of the fiasco.

"Don't worry about it," she said simply. "You just have to get used to it."

"Nerys, I --" Odo felt sick with his sense of failure. A recent conversation with Kira came suddenly back to haunt him, and with it the fox of fear to gnaw at his vitals. It was one of those silly, teasing conversations, unique to lovers whose bodies were perfectly attuned to each other. Kira had snuggled into him drowsily, murmuring, 'You don't think I married you for your brains, do you? It's just that I could never go back to plain humanoid after great sex like this.' And then he remembered another comment, one from the very beginning of their relationship as lovers: "Let's put it like this -- I have never made love to a man without wondering at the beginning -- not will I enjoy it, but will I enjoy it enough? Men don't have that problem -- they seem to come no matter what. But me -- half the time I'm lying there saying, 'Excuse me?' At least I was before I started making love with you."

Yet here she was -- here they were -- he not even 'plain humanoid', with the Bajoran ridges he had learned to shape so perfectly elsewhere, if not yet on his nose. Just plain human. In a body not particularly young for all its newness. A body that had just disappointed her in a way that he himself had taught her to no longer expect. And Kira, his beautiful Nerys, smiling and trying to make the best of things.

Her words finally penetrated the fog that filled his agonized brain. "Besides, you only cut that hand -- you didn't break it, did you?"

Slowly comprehension dawned. Odo slipped his hand between Kira's thighs and began to fondle her, noticing with some relief that her renewed, soft sighs were rekindling a certain interest of his own. Soon he was able to replace his exploring fingers with something more substantial, and this time more controlled. He moved against her in strong, even thrusts, slow at first but rapidly gaining speed until Kira cried out and collapsed against him, and he could finally welcome the surge of rapture that filled him as his semen burst from his body to whatever welcome awaited it.

Prophets, Odo thought, shocked, she'll have to start taking those shots now ... or not taking them, with all the potential consequences. Or maybe -- am I the one who should be taking the shots? Human male with Bajoran female . . . who takes the damned shots? The idea was too much to contemplate, at least right now ... Odo closed his eyes tiredly, letting his head loll against the pillow as he ran his hands up and down the smooth contours of Kira's back. Kira snuggled happily into his chest, and he caught the sweet, faint scent of her hair, overlaid with the rich smell of sex.

Suddenly curious, he raised a hand to his face, breathing in deeply before cautiously putting a finger in his mouth. Kira opened her eyes to stare at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I wanted to know what you smell like - what you taste like." Odo considered the results of his research, and shook his head. "I don't have much for a frame of reference yet."

"Well, that's actually more than me you're tasting there," Kira observed, amused. "Besides, maybe you need to taste some other things first." Kira giggled as Odo finally abandoned his solemn appraisal. "I thought later we might -- go out to dinner." The suggestion was made shyly, almost diffidently, and Odo realized with a sense of shock, she's afraid I won't love her like this. Prophets know why, but somehow she thinks that my feelings may have changed.

Odo suddenly rolled Kira over so she was lying on her back looking up at him, as he stared intently into her startled brown eyes.

"Nerys, my body may have changed, but one thing hasn't. I will always love you, no matter what. And I will always love -- expressing my love for you --" he kissed the hollow of her throat "-- in whatever way I can."

"Oh, Odo." Kira wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly. "I was so afraid ..."

"Afraid of what?"

"That you -- that you'd blame me, somehow."

"You? Why?"

"Because I was one of the reasons you stayed here -- when you first found your people ... when you could have stayed there and joined the Great Link."

The Great Link ... experienced so briefly, then ripped away never to be replaced. Odo shuddered at the memory, even while his arms around Kira tightened. He exclaimed with sudden passion, "Nerys, don't you understand? The Link -- it was -- incomplete."

"Incomplete? How?"

"Incomplete for me -- because you weren't in it. No Link could be complete for me without you."

He kissed her gently, then with abandon as her body responded gratefully, avidly to his. But as he did so he wondered: 'Can any Link be complete for me without them as well? What sort of Links can I still hope to forge?'

Any comments thus far? E-mail me at odofiles@aol.com or kirys@ix.netcom.com.

Well, it's not finished, but there's more than THIS! Go on to read more of "Changed Perception" ...

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