I don't own Star Trek in any form, unfortunately, I just own this story and the others I've contributed over the years.

Sadly this is the final chapter of the collection; I could have written more, but I want to concentrate on other things. I'm moving house and I want to tie up a few loose ends before I leave.

7 Years.

It might have been seven years for the DS9 crew, for Worf it had been three years. But still, much like the original seven he'd spent on the Enterprise-D Worf had seen and gone through so much, and now he was being allowed to go home at last and be the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire!

Never in Worf's dreams had he imagined it would happen - he had wondered just what it was he had been doing in the first place which had made the future version of Alexander coming back in time, but he had never expected to become an ambassador to the Empire - but he hoped what Alexander of that time had seen never happened, though it was possible because the son of B'tor might not have been conceived, though it was possible he was alive.

Worf was not going to try to play God; so many other people had tried in the past - Arne Darvin, and Tolian Soren among them - and if he died, then that was alright with him, although he would have preferred it to be for a more positive reason than being in the High Council chamber on Qo'nos.

But the last few years he had been on DS9…

Even if someone like Q (whom he was relieved to find out did not visit the station as regularly as he had when Worf had been on the Enterprise) came to offer him the chance to change just one thing, Worf wouldn't; he remembered the story Jean-Luc Picard had told when he had nearly died when his artificial heart was destroyed, how Q had offered him the chance to make sure the Nausicaan didn't kill him, only for his entire life to have changed.

Worf would never allow it even though he had many regrets; he regretted not finding another way of ensuring the House of Mogh survived and that what he had done to Kurn never happened, but there was nothing he could do about that now. In any case, Gowron had been in the wrong, and what he had done by igniting the war with the Federation with the Changeling Martok's backing had no way of changing his mind.

Another thing was if he did try to change his life, he might never have met and married Jadzia.

The thought of his now-dead wife filled him with sorrow. They had only been married for a year, and then she was gone. Worf had long since started to wonder if he was doomed to live for the rest of his life without love; K'Ehyler's brutal murder still haunted him, and the sight of Jadzia lying on that infirmary bed had broken his heart almost until it couldn't be repaired.

Worf wondered if he would ever find anyone else who could fill the vacuum left behind by both K'Ehyler and Jadzia; he might have threatened Doctor Bashir and Quark to stay away from Ezri and saying they would dishonour the memory of his beloved wife, but at the same time O'Brien had told him if anyone was dishonouring Jadzia's memory, it was Worf himself because he was treating Ezri like dirt.

Jadzia had told him about Trill culture, told him how when a host died the symbiont would be passed onto somebody else, and on and on it went. A part of Jadzia would always live on, but Worf had always found it a cruel twist of fate the next Dax host would come to DS9.

Worf pushed those thoughts aside. He was happy now he had gotten over his initial treatment of Ezri, but now he had to think of the future. He was going home and he was going to be ambassador to Qo'nos on behalf of the Federation.

He had no idea how to be a diplomat.

Yes, he had witnessed the diplomatic capabilities of Captain Picard, but Worf was not the type to be a diplomat. Then again Martok kept saying he was not the type of man to be a politician, never mind being the Chancellor of the High Council. And yet Worf knew Martok was wrong. K'mpec, the Chancellor before Gowron, had been both a warrior and a member of the council, but while it was true Martok's knowledge of politics was limited, Worf had no doubt his best Klingon friend would rise to the challenge.

Martok was the opposite of Gowron in every way. Thinking of Gowron made Worf inwardly wince. He didn't regret having killed the former Chancellor; the man's hold over the Empire had always been tenuous for so long, and Worf still got angry thinking about how Gowron had rewritten Klingon history shortly after the civil war with Duras family, slighting Jean-Luc Picard who was right next to Benjamin Sisko as one of the greatest captains whom he had ever served with when Picard had needed help with trying to find and retrieve Ambassador Spock when the latter had travelled without permission to Romulus to begin the reunification between Romulus and Vulcan.

But it wasn't until the war between the Cardassians that Gowron had become more powerful, and with the concurrent war with the Federation, Gowron was very popular since he was calling for war with the Martok changeling backing him. When the Dominion War had taken place, Gowron had stayed at home, where he belonged though looking back Worf could understand his reasoning behind suddenly coming out of the silence and trying to embarrass Martok and forcing him to endure defeat after defeat.

Martok would never make that mistake. Worf knew he wouldn't because it wasn't in the General's nature to do so.

Nor would he try to play the same dirty trick Gowron had tried to play on him during that mission on the Defiant and Worf had been accused of murdering Klingon civilians, including children.

At the same time, he would miss this station even though it had taken him months to adjust to life on it. He remembered how he had interfered in an investigation Odo had been conducting into an act of smuggling of which Quark was conducting on the station, which only served to highlight the differences between the pair of them. Worf would have immediately ordered the arrest of a known criminal, a smuggler and he wouldn't have given any thought whatsoever to the connections.

Odo did. He had taken on the form of a bag, and Worf had interfered. If he had left Odo alone, then the whole organisation would have been brought down. It was that incident which served to make him more uncomfortable with living on the station, which forced him to move onto the Defiant full time until his marriage to Jadzia.

His entire life on the station revolved around Jadzia, but he was hoping that now he was leaving he wouldn't be haunted anymore by her memory.

At the same time, many of the crew were gone - Worf had no doubt Captain Sisko was now in the Bajoran wormhole, though whether he would return Worf had no idea, he hoped he did; Worf had always regretted his poor relationship with his son, and while they had patched things up, Worf was always full of regret and guilt about what he had done by sending his son away.

The last thing he wanted was for Jake Sisko and the captain's unborn child with his second wife Kasady resenting Benjamin. Worf knew how it sat in the heart.

The O'Briens were also going (they were not going to Minsk like Worf had suggested, many times in Vic's bar) back to Earth. Worf smiled as he remembered hearing about Keiko being pregnant again, which more or less coincided around the mess where the Borg had tried to invade Earth again, and how he had wanted to be as far away as he could.

Worf still had bad memories of urging Keiko to push when the Enterprise had been heavily damaged and there were no medical personnel nearby to help. Still, he did love being with Kirayoshi, even though that incident where the boy had hurt himself in Worf's care had almost broken the Klingon's heart, and he had been frightened (not that he would admit it, like he wouldn't admit to being intimidated by Sisko, though Ezri had let it slip) the O'Briens would not want to know him anymore.

The Borg attack also brought back bad memories. He had always known Jean-Luc Picard was a dangerous man in the right circumstances but never had he expected his captain to be so dangerous he would lose his good sense.

Worf had come close to relieving Picard of command of the Enterprise-E when the Borg Sphere had opened a temporal vortex back to the eve of the First Contact where the humans would meet the Vulcans, and the Borg had planned to destroy it, something he did not want to do since his respect for Picard was as high as his respect for Martok and Sisko, and the thought of doing that to him would be dishonourable. Picard had lashed out, showing a darker and nastier side to his character, but after a conversation with that woman from Zefram Cochrane's team Picard had returned to the calm, collected and thoughtful man who was a capable commander and always looked for other options.

Worf had no idea how Picard was doing now, but he hoped the man was happy now the war was over. At the same time, he remembered how he had helped his former shipmates defend the Ba'ku, and knew no matter what they would always be honourable people. Worf wondered how his former captain would take the news he was now the Federation ambassador to Qo'nos, and he wondered if Picard would be willing enough to give him some advice on how to be a good ambassador.