An older Jake tells a story about his father's fate.
In the future, an elderly Jake Sisko tells a young writer, Melanie, why he stopped writing. When Jake was eighteen, an accident on the Defiant during a wormhole event made his father vanish, and Benjamin then began to reappear for brief moments, years apart, trapped outside normal time.
Jake becomes a successful author and marries, but after a visit from his father he gives up his career and his marriage to study subspace and bring him back. His father begs him to live his own life. Finally, knowing his father will appear that night, Jake takes his own life, which breaks the link and returns Benjamin to the moment of the accident so it can be avoided.