Epilogue 2 

Detin Fahl counted his sixty fourth day in the Tishaben prison camp 
when the first shots were fired.  He was barely awake enough to 
care.  For over two months he'd been beaten, nearly starved, 
tortured both by physical and psychic means, but never allowed to 
die.  It was the only thing he really wanted. 

He had tried and failed to get Chakotay to finish him off on the day 
the captain placed him in the escape pod.  The pod had brought him 
to Cardiassian hands, and to his annoyed disappointment, they 
seemed more interested in keeping him alive while unsuccessfully 
trying to mine his brain.  He had tried and failed to get a Jem'Hadar 
mad enough to shoot him, and even killed a Vorta in the attempt.  
That had only brought a beating which broke his nose and knocked 
out three teeth, and restraints used on him thereafter.  Nothing 
worked. 

All right, he didn't really want to die; he wanted to be killed.  Subtle 
difference, but he wasn't willing to diagnose himself.  If he'd just 
wanted death he could have found a way to employ on himself any 
of the hundreds of ways he knew to kill.  No, he didn't want to take 
responsibility for it.  With the way the ceiling was shaking just now, 
he had a disjointed hope something heavy would land on him and do 
more than just break a leg. 

But then the door was blown inward, jolting him entirely awake, and 
a voice yelled in Standard, "C'mon!  Go!"  He could hear his fellow 
prisoners' cries of hope.  He knew the voice, and sat up only slowly.  
Outlined in the wreck of the doorway were Tom Paris and Chakotay.  
Figured. 

Fahl rose off the cot and followed the others, trusting that his gaunt, 
ruined face and short brown hair would be enough to disguise him 
for now.  He limped unnoticed under Paris' eye, trying to think up a 
name in case anyone asked.