Title: What You Know
Author:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter
Written For:nenya_kanadka in the Awesome People of Colour Ficathon Comment-a-thon
Fandom: Deep Space Nine
Prompt: Kasidy Yates, finding out about Sarah Sisko and the Sarah Prophet
it's not what you don't know that gets you in the end, it's what you know that isn't so
***
Kasidy knew what she was getting into, getting involved with Benjamin Sisko. She went into it with her eyes open. At least, she thought she did.
It's not the lack of time spent together. She's a ship captain, he's a Starfleet officer who commands what is fast becoming one of the most important outposts in the Federation. They're both busy, and their work takes them far away from one another. She's okay with that; it's nothing new. Letters and visits when they're close enough are just fine.
It's not the religious stuff, either. Like most Humans, Kasidy doesn't really get religion; some of the colonies have preserved it, but most discarded it long ago, when Earth did. Ben shares the same basic attitudes; he was raised in the same culture.
The Bajorans, however, don't. They consider Ben a religious icon in ways that make both her and Ben uncomfortable, however much Ben's learned to live with it. But that's not the problem, either; Ben's gotten good at separating his personal life from his religious status. Kasidy is respectful of the Bajorans' beliefs. She learns a little bit about them because it matters to Ben just like he reads up on shipping routes and maintenance schedules because they matter to her. Mostly, it doesn't really affect her life, just the fringes of it. Ben's worth the occasional hassle.
The wormhole aliens are a little more worrying; she doesn't trust anything that powerful that poses as a god. And they, too, believe Ben has religious significance. But if they creep her out more than the Bajorans do, they don't actually affect her life much, so it all works out in the end.
Then, one night, their first night together in a long time thanks to the war, when they're lying together in bed, Ben tells her a story. About the wormhole aliens--the Prophets, he calls them, bowing to the religious weight the Bajorans give them--and his mother. Sarah.
It's a hard story to hear. Her skin crawls as she thinks of Sarah, possessed, raped in mind by aliens who controlled her every move for two years, raped in body by a good and honorable man who believed (with every reason to!) that she had chosen him, that she had wanted him. All so the wormhole aliens could have their Emissary. Sarah and Joseph, treated with no more weight than characters in a book, used and tossed aside when they were no longer needed.
And Kasidy has to wonder, lying in the dark, after Ben has gone to sleep. They did it once, to make sure that Benjamin Sisko's life came out just the way they wanted. Would they do it again?
Author:
beatrice_otter Written For:
nenya_kanadka in the Awesome People of Colour Fandom: Deep Space Nine
Prompt: Kasidy Yates, finding out about Sarah Sisko and the Sarah Prophet
it's not what you don't know that gets you in the end, it's what you know that isn't so
***
Kasidy knew what she was getting into, getting involved with Benjamin Sisko. She went into it with her eyes open. At least, she thought she did.
It's not the lack of time spent together. She's a ship captain, he's a Starfleet officer who commands what is fast becoming one of the most important outposts in the Federation. They're both busy, and their work takes them far away from one another. She's okay with that; it's nothing new. Letters and visits when they're close enough are just fine.
It's not the religious stuff, either. Like most Humans, Kasidy doesn't really get religion; some of the colonies have preserved it, but most discarded it long ago, when Earth did. Ben shares the same basic attitudes; he was raised in the same culture.
The Bajorans, however, don't. They consider Ben a religious icon in ways that make both her and Ben uncomfortable, however much Ben's learned to live with it. But that's not the problem, either; Ben's gotten good at separating his personal life from his religious status. Kasidy is respectful of the Bajorans' beliefs. She learns a little bit about them because it matters to Ben just like he reads up on shipping routes and maintenance schedules because they matter to her. Mostly, it doesn't really affect her life, just the fringes of it. Ben's worth the occasional hassle.
The wormhole aliens are a little more worrying; she doesn't trust anything that powerful that poses as a god. And they, too, believe Ben has religious significance. But if they creep her out more than the Bajorans do, they don't actually affect her life much, so it all works out in the end.
Then, one night, their first night together in a long time thanks to the war, when they're lying together in bed, Ben tells her a story. About the wormhole aliens--the Prophets, he calls them, bowing to the religious weight the Bajorans give them--and his mother. Sarah.
It's a hard story to hear. Her skin crawls as she thinks of Sarah, possessed, raped in mind by aliens who controlled her every move for two years, raped in body by a good and honorable man who believed (with every reason to!) that she had chosen him, that she had wanted him. All so the wormhole aliens could have their Emissary. Sarah and Joseph, treated with no more weight than characters in a book, used and tossed aside when they were no longer needed.
And Kasidy has to wonder, lying in the dark, after Ben has gone to sleep. They did it once, to make sure that Benjamin Sisko's life came out just the way they wanted. Would they do it again?
