Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Suthossem, how was your day?” Kelas asked as he bustled round the kitchen, spooning red leaves into the teapot and pouring water from the stove-top kettle over them. He stirred the pot.

“Good, thanks,” Elim replied, taking a seat at the large, scrubbed ithian wood table which took up two-thirds of the kitchen space. “I worked in the garden this morning—speaking of which,” He paused to fish in his pocket and withdrew two large, oval, smooth-skinned, yellowish-green fruits, “The rokassa are ripening.” Elim placed the fruit on the table.

“Ah, you brought dessert!” Kelas turned to grin at Elim. He reached two mismatched chipped mugs down from hooks on the wall and, bringing them and the teapot to the table, sat down opposite his partner. “Tea?” He asked, pot poised over the larger of the two mugs.

“Mmm, please,” Elim nodded. “And Alon came over this afternoon,” He continued.

“Oh? What did he want?” Kelas asked, handing over a steaming mug.

“Thanks dear,” Elim smiled, taking the mug and sipping before he answered. “He wanted to pick my brain about that group protesting outside the Assembly Building.”

“Ah yes, what do they call themselves? The Bodily Autonomy Movement?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Elim scowled at the mention of the name. “They’ve been extremely vocal in recent weeks.”

“Don’t they have a right to be heard?” Kelas probed.

“Not in public!” Elim exclaimed. “Children might hear!”

“I see.” Kelas picked up a rokassa and squeezed it gently to test its ripeness, keeping his expression carefully neutral. “What’s Alon’s position on the matter?” He asked.

“Well, I was surprised actually.” Elim took a swallow of tea. “He’s really quite sympathetic to their demands.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Kelas! We’re talking about—“ Elim paused to look around furtively, checking for eavesdroppers in the doctor’s otherwise-empty home. He lowered his voice to a half-whisper. “—abortion.”

Kelas took a long draught of his tea, staring in silence at the fruit in his hand for several seconds. “Cardassians should have a right to choose what happens to our bodies, Elim,” He said at last.

“My dear, you’ve been spending too much time at HARF listening to propaganda from our Federation visitors.”

“I think you’re the one who’s been listening to too much propaganda, suthoss.” Kelas replied, a dangerous undercurrent creeping into his tone.

“Nonsense!” Elim retorted, banging his mug down on the table. “Children are our future, Kelas. If we destroy them before they’re even born, how will we ensure the continued survival of the Cardassian species?”

“Ah, that old State-sanctioned line,” Kelas sighed, “I think working in healthcare all my life has given me a more nuanced view.”

Elim regarded the other man with open astonishment. “How can there be any nuance when it comes to killing babies?” He asked, “It’s wrong whichever way you look at it.”

“No-one is killing babies, Elim. A foetus is just that until it’s born.”

“The Federation thinks so, yes,” Elim replied, “Cardassian Law, however—“

“Is wrong.” Kelas interrupted, voice rising as their disagreement intensified.

“Shh,” Elim urged, casting sidelong glances around the room, “We don’t know who might be listening. This is dissent!”

“You might have noticed, Elim,” Kelas said, pouring himself a refill from the teapot, “That we can express our dissent openly in the streets now without fear of being disappeared.”

“Say what you like about the Order, and I’d be their first to say it engaged in some terrible excesses, but we did do a good job of keeping poisonous thinking out of the heads of the populous,” Elim countered.

“No, you didn’t.” Kelas pressed his palms to the edge of the table in an effort to control his temper. “I did three years’ hard labour for my ‘poisonous thinking’, or have your forgotten that interrogation, Elim?”

“I’m sorry,” Elim conceded, neck ridges darkening with shame at the memory, “That was thoughtless of me. But, to come back to the protesters, why would you advocate for the killing of children?”

“Well,” Kelas drew a breath, held it for a second and let out out slowly, “Leaving your emotive language aside for a moment—No,” He held a hand up, silencing Elim who had drawn breath to object, “Please don’t interrupt—It isn’t a simple matter of killing or not killing,” He explained, “There is more than one life—if you can even call a foetus a ‘life’—at stake here.”

“Oh?” Elim lifted the lid of the teapot and examined the stewed leaves as he listened.

“There’s the foetus, but also the ovoviviparous parent to consider. How might carrying the child to term affect the parent’s life? Can they afford to feed it? Clothe it? Is childbirth likely to put the parent’s life in danger? Will the arrival of a sibling have a detrimental impact on any other children under the parent’s care?”

“But what if that child would have grown up to be the next Preloc or Corac?” Elim countered, “It would never have had a chance at life and that would be a great loss to our people.”

“What if Preloc had died a medically preventable death caused by ectopic ovoviviparity before she had a chance to write Meditations on a Crimson Shadow?” Kelas rebuffed, voice cracking as tears threatened.

Elim shook the teapot, making the leaves swirl. “I’m not sure I have an answer to that one,” He admitted. “What is ‘ectopic ovoviviparity’ anyway?”

“It’s when the embryo develops outside the eggshell.” Kelas explained, “It won’t survive to term because it can’t get the nutrients it needs from the yolk, but it will rot and kill the parent if it isn’t removed.”

“I see.” Elim let out a long breath, still staring into the teapot. “But what if the baby is healthy? What if it could have lived a long and selfless life in service to the State, but the mother had it killed because she didn’t want it?”

“Not everyone who gets ovoviviparous is a woman,” Kelas snapped.

“True,” Elim conceded, “But what if the parent did kill their healthy baby? That would deny Cardassia a future servant.”

“Elim,” Kelas scraped his chair back and rose from the table. He picked up his mug and stick and, leaning heavily on the mobility aid, deposited the mug atop a pile of dirty dishes crowded into the sink. “When was the last time you went to bed not feeling hungry?”

“Uh...” Elim faltered.

“Just look outside.” Kelas gestured to the window above the sink. “Would you want to bring a child into this?”

“As far as I know, dear, I am not currently ovoviviparous.”

Kelas turned from the sink in time to catch Elim’s tight-lipped smirk. “That’s not the point and you know it,” He snapped.

“Ok, ok.” Elim held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “But if we enact legislation now, when we’re at a crisis point socially and economically, that law will still be in force when the situation has improved, and then where will we be?”

“The Federation does alright with its liberal abortion law,” Kelas, leaning with his back against the edge of the sink, pointed out.

“And their birth rate has declined over the last half-century.” Elim waved a hand dismissively.

“Which is a good thing because their population had reached capacity in many of their colonies!” Kelas exclaimed. “Listen, easy access to safe, free, abortion and family planning, alongside proper education about our biology and forming healthy relationships, and the creation of social conditions which allow Cardassians who want children to have them without suffering a loss of income, or a worsening in their living condition or health, will result in the population stabilising at a sustainable level. We’ve seen it in the Federation and the Klingon Empire.”

“I suppose you’d hand out contraceptives like they’re jumja sticks, too?” Elim’s dig was only half-hearted.

“Yes,” Kelas fixed his partner with a look of utter sincerity, “I would. As it is, I resort to intentionally misdiagnosing my patients and prescribing certain anti-psychotic drugs which have a contraceptive side-effect. It is far from ideal.”

“You do that?” Elim’s mouth formed a ‘O’ in shock. “I thought you treated people who were afraid of the doctors at the hospital?”

“Yes, I do,” Kelas tidied the teapot and remaining mug off the table as he spoke, “And when you legislate away people’s reproductive rights you turn doctors from healthcare providers into proxy agents of the Obsidian Order.” He returned to the sink and poured water from the still-warm kettle over the china. “The Order might be gone, but there’s still the Constabulary, who may be busy with other matters right now, but people still fear criminalisation if they seek help through official channels, and it’s going to be denied them anyway.”

“Alright.” Elim rose from the table and approached his partner at the sink. He touched him lightly on the shoulder. “You make some good points and you’ve given me much to think about. Now, will you tell me about your day?”

Kelas heaved a sigh and turned to his companion. “It’s funny you should ask,” He said wearily.

“Busy?” Elim rubbed his shoulder affectionately.

“Yes,” Kelas replied, rinsing the teapot and placing it on the draining board. Elim picked up a towel and began drying. “I had planned to catch up on some paperwork for HARF, but I had two emergency call-outs and then a boy from East Torr showed up in a right state, so I spent my afternoon performing a late abortion on this table.” He gestured behind himself.

Elim took a step away from Kelas, tea towel slipping from his grasp onto the floor. “You did an abortion?” He asked slowly.

“Yes,” Kelas confirmed.

“Here. On that table.” Elim pointed.

“Yes,” Kelas repeated, exasperation creeping into his voice.

“On a... boy?”

“Yes. As I said, not everyone who gets ovoviviparous is a woman, Elim.”

“I know that.” Elim reached behind himself for the chair Kelas had vacated and lowered himself into it. “But... how old was he?”

“Fifteen. He does survival sex work down at the docks.” Kelas replied. “If he’d been able to access free contraception I’d probably be well into the paperwork backlog by now.”

“Fifteen,” Elim repeated, “That’s young.”

“Yes.”

Here... You did it here?” He asked again.

“Yes, here. I couldn’t take him to the hospital and do it there, could I?” Kelas rinsed the last cup and pulled out the plug. The water gurgled in the drain.

“I need to...”

The chair wobbled as Elim hurried to stand up. Kelas reached for his partner’s sleeve but he was already at the door, tugging on his dust mask and tightening the straps.

“Ok then,” Kelas sighed as the door banged shut and Elim disappeared into the early evening smog. He kicked the tea towel into a corner and took a fresh one from the drawer. As he dried the last few plates Elim came into view through the window, which overlooked a patch of barren, stony ground Kelas called the ‘garden’. “Let’s not fight, suthoss,” He addressed the other man’s back under his breath, “I can’t bear it.”

Dishes dealt with and his partner standing in the garden, hands clasped behind his back and staring at nothing, Kelas was at a loss as to what to do next. Should he cook dinner for one or make enough for Elim too? He wiped the damp tea towel over his face and twisted his long plait into a bun, securing it with a fork, while he considered his options.

If he cooked for two and Elim came back everything would be fine, but he might not come back tonight, or at all—this impasse they had reached certainly felt insurmountable—so perhaps he should assume Elim would set off for home soon, and make only enough for himself? But what if he just needed some time to himself to calm down before returning? Fifth Evening was their regular dinner date, and Elim might feel slighted if Kelas didn’t make enough for him. Ah, but what if he cooked for two and Elim didn’t come back? He was down to his last few Federation Food Aid ration packs and had been eking out a small basket of vegetables for the last week and, with the power off more than it was on, the leftovers wouldn’t keep in this late-summer heat. He couldn’t waste an entire portion of food, not at a time like this.

Kelas’ stomach growled as if to hurry his decision along. He picked up a knife and selected the smallest, most wizened and definitely past-its-best aytlik from the basket and set to work peeling it over the draining board. If he worked slowly enough, he reasoned, perhaps Elim would either leave or return to the house before he had peeled one portion’s-worth and he wouldn’t have to guess at how much food to make.

Kelas watched Elim pace the narrow strip of ground, expression unreadable behind his mask, while he peeled and sliced three aytlik and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. Unable to stand the uncertainty around the food and not knowing whether Elim was working up to breaking- or making up with him, he put his knife aside, took a deep breath and made for the door. He slipped his feet into his outdoor boots and tightened the dust mask over his face, then cracked the door open just wide enough to slip through, closing it quickly behind him to minimise the opportunity for dust to blow into the house.

“Elim?” He called, voice muffled by the mask, as he rounded the side of the house, “Elim?”

Elim halted his pacing and turned to face Kelas, waiting.

“Elim,” Kelas stopped just short of his partner, “Would you like some dinner?”

Elim pulled his mask down, uncovering his eyes. He blinked slowly. “Yes, dear. Yes, I would. Thank you.” Slowly, cautiously, he reached out a hand. Kelas took it and led him into the house.

Elim speared the last slice of rokassa on the tip of his knife and offered it to Kelas.

“No, you have it,” Kelas waved his hand. “Listen,” He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table, “I need to deal with something outside. Will you be ok here for half an hour or so?”

Elim swallowed his mouthful. “Of course, dear,” He replied, “But wouldn’t you like some help?”

“No. This is best done alone.”

“Is it...?” Elim began but trailed off, not wanting to make what he feared it was real by saying it aloud. “Is it... from this afternoon?”

“I need to dispose of some clinical waste,” Kelas sighed.

“I see,” Elim pressed his knee against Kelas’ under the table. “In the garden?” Kelas nodded once. “The ground is very hard there. It will be difficult to dig.”

“I’ll manage.”

“We could bury it at the memorial.”

“Wouldn’t that defile it? You spent an hour telling me how un-Cardassian I am for even condoning abortion, never mind performing the procedure.”

“No, I don’t think it would.”

The long shadows of the twisting rubble spires spread like fingers across the ground in the low sun as Elim jabbed the spade into the soil beside the small freshly-dug hole. “Over to you, dear.” He gestured to Kelas, who knelt awkwardly at the side of the hole and lowered a small polyduranide container into it. Elim helped him up before pushing the soil back into the hole with his spade.

The stood side-by-side in silence for a while, then Elim knelt and pressed his palms to the little mound of soil. He closed his eyes and, in a voice barely audible behind his mask, began the Chant for the Dead.