Remember Her Smile

Paramount owns everyone, except for Lynne Karma, who lives
of her own free will.

Please Note: I was (AM) a J/W supporter, but this story needed to be

told as J/J.

Remember Her Smile

by Celestia

Dead.
The word floated around in her brain and tried to
permeate the
cloudy haze, but it did not succeed.
Dead.
She sat there in The Infirmary, staring at the
medical logs that Dr. Bashir
had carelessly left strewn around, yet not really paying attention to
what
was really in them, for she already knew.
The body, of course, was no longer there, it had
been blown out into
space at the memorial service.
But still, Jadzia Dax had last been here, and Lynne
Karma, a young
half Bajoran half Betazoid girl of 14, had thought that maybe, just
maybe,
she might have been able to sense something, maybe even a message from
beyond the grave…
*She didn’t even say good-bye…*
The thought came unbidden to her mind before she
could stop it. Of
course she didn’t say good-bye! How was Jadzia supposed to know that
she was
going to die?!
Tears were slowly spilling onto the young girl’s
face. She didn’t
even know if she was supposed to be here, in The Infirmary, especially
when
Dr. Bashir wasn’t. Lynne was, after all, only a young civilian. Her
Bajoran mother and Betazoid father were both in Starfleet, and they
were
both stationed at DS9. It was not really a good place to be, with the
war
and all, but there were a lot of really nice people there.
Jadzia Dax had been one of those nice people.
Lynne heard the doors swish open behind her, and she
quickly turned
around.
“Lynne!” Bashir exclaimed as he entered The
Infirmary. He hadn’t expected
anyone to be here, much less her.
She was fairly new to the station, her parents had
been reassigned
to DS9 six months ago. He only knew her because Jadzia had introduced
them…
*Jadzia.*
The name surged through his body, leaving him weak,
but mostly it
reminded him of the hole in his heart.
He tried to turn his attention to other things, such
as what the
hell Lynne was doing in The Infirmary.
*Jadzia’s medical records.*
He had left them out, he had been trying to write
the “official
statement of death” when Captain Sisko had called all senior officers
to
Ops to announce his departure.
The Captain had left. Jadzia was dead. The wormhole
had closed…
this had been a hard few days. The only good thing that had happened
this
week was…
Had there been a good thing? He didn’t remember with
so much grief.
He walked over to where the young teen was standing,
reading the
PADDs with misty eyes. He didn’t try to take them away from her. What
was
the point? There was nothing there she couldn’t see.
“You miss her a lot, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said quietly, almost whispering as if
talking aloud
would make it seem all too real.
“She was…so many things. A mentor, confidant,
friend…sometimes
just a nice person. She helped me learn my way around the station,
introduced me to everyone. She noticed that I was a pretty lonely
person,
and she told me I could talk to her anytime…she helped me so much! I
felt
like I could tell her anything. And she was so *happy*! She almost
always
had a smile on her face. There was no *way* to stay in a bad mood when
you
saw her…” she trailed off, not knowing what else to say.
*Jadzia never told me that*, Julian thought. But
what did it matter
anymore?
“If it’s hard for me, how must it be for you?” Lynne
wondered aloud.
Julian looked up from the floor that he had been
staring at since
he entered The Infirmary.
“I-I mean,” she started, falling all over her words.
“I’ve known
her for only six months, you’ve known her for six years. And, it must
be
doubly hard for you. First, you’re a doctor, and it’s always hard to
loose a
patient. And second,” she stared straight into his eyes. “You loved
her.”
He sat down on a nearby biobed and put his head in
his hands,
returning his gaze to the floor. “Was it really that easy to tell?” he
asked.
Lynne smiled a little half smile, even though
inwardly, she felt
like she could never fully smile again. “You looked at her with
these…sad
little puppy dog eyes,” she said, staring off into space. “Anytime
anyone
talked about her and Worf, your face just fell. Like someone had dropped
a ten ton weight on you.”
If the situation hadn’t been so depressing, he might
have smiled.
That was *exactly* what he felt. Was he really so transparent as that?
“But,” she said, shifting her gaze as if she knew
that he felt
uncomfortable. “I’m half Betazoid. Maybe I just sensed that.” But they
both
knew the truth.
“She was just a lovable person.” He didn’t say it
all. Such as the
fact that it had been truly heartbreaking for him when Jadzia had
announced
that she and Worf wanted to have children. And he, being her doctor, was
supposed to help her over come the medical barriers…
Even the wedding had been hard to get through, not
to mention that
the so-called “bachelor party” Worf had had made him exhausted, angry,
and *hungry*. The only thing that got him through that wedding was that
he
wasn’t even thinking of Jadzia, just the pain he wanted to inflict on
Worf…
And ever since, all he had done was feel sorry for himself.
Lynne was staring into space, obviously lost in her
own thoughts.
“Are we mourning for her…or are we mourning for ourselves?” she
pondered
aloud.
“Pardon?” Julian asked, thinking that he might have
not heard
correctly.
She turned to look at him. “I mean, in almost every
religion,
including my own two, people believe that, when someone dies, they go
off to
a better place…if that’s so, and if people take so much comfort in
their
beliefs, then why are we crying? I mean….she could be in…where ever
it
is that Trills believe in…smiling her smile…being happier than
us…heck,
right now, anyone could be happier than us, than anyone at DS9…but…”
“I know what you mean,” said Bashir, even though he
didn’t quite
understand what Lynne was getting at. “Then, if we are the losers in
this,
and Jadzia is still happy…” he thought of the time he and Quark had
spent
in the holodeck with Vic Fontaine, only 2 short days ago…”Then,
here’s to
the losers.”
And Lynne knew that this would be a good time to
leave him alone
with his thoughts. “See you later, Doc.” She started to walk towards
the
door, then, just as an afterthought, she added, “Just remember her
smile.”
And she walked out.
Julian remained in The Infirmary, sitting on the
biobed with his head in
his hands, a million thoughts that shouldn’t be there swirling in his
head.
He couldn’t think like that, she was a married woman!
*Was.*
He took a deep breath to try to calm down. He got up
and walked into
the small room that he had made into his office. He reached into the
drawer
of his desk and pulled out a photo. He had shoved it into the drawer
after the
wedding, he couldn’t bear to see her face every time he sat down in
here.
She didn’t even know that he had it.
He set the picture down on top of his desk, the
shimmering blue
eyes and teasing smile ever immortalized inside the oaken frame.
*Just remember her smile…*
And then he heard a groaning from The Infirmary, and
went to tend to his
patient, leaving the ever-smiling picture of Jadzia Dax sitting on his
desk.
And as he left, he smiled back.

FYI: There were a bunch of alternate titles to this one.
The other one that I mainly
considered (in case you
wanted to know) was “Here’s
to the Losers” I just thought
that you might want to know
that.

send all your wonderful, wonderful, email to celestia@innocent.com