[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ds9_thevisitor_539.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''"I've been dragging you through time like an anchor. And now it's time to cut you loose."'']]
->''"To my father,''\\
''who's coming home."''

-->-- '''Jake Sisko'''

An old man in New Orleans injects himself with a hypospray just prior to a knock at the door. It's a young woman who introduces herself as Melanie and identifies the old man as Jake Sisko. Jake welcomes her in to dry herself from the rain. As he serves tea, Melanie says that Jake is her favorite author and has visited him to learn why he stopped writing after only publishing a single novel, ''Anslem'', and a collection of short stories. Jake tells her that tonight, of all nights, is the one time he'd be willing to tell the story of why he stopped telling stories: "[[WhamLine My father died.]]"

We {{flashback}} to the USS ''Defiant'' in the "present day" of ''[=DS9=]'' with the elder Jake narrating. His father urges him to come out to the Bajoran Wormhole to watch it undergo an "inversion," a natural wonder that only happens every 50 years or so. Jake is nose-deep in writing the earliest version of ''Anslem'', but Sisko manages to convince him to come, saying, "I'm no writer, but if I were, it seems to me I'd wanna poke my head up every once in a while and take a look around, see what's going on. It's life, Jake. You can miss it if you don't open your eyes."

However, Jake gets more excitement than he bargained for. A StarTrekShake rattles something loose in the ''Defiant'''s warp core. Disobeying orders, Jake follows Sisko down to Engineering, and father and son successfully get the core stabilized before it explodes. All is well, and Sisko hands back the bit of AppliedPhlebotinum Jake gave him... as a bolt of energy slants out of the warp core and vaporizes him.

Jake, now totally orphaned, rattles around [=DS9=]; everybody is nice to him, but that doesn't help a whole lot. Even worse, his father appears to him while he sleeps--not as a ghost or a nightmare, but seemingly whole and disoriented, before immediately disappearing again. The first time Jake thinks it was a dream, but the second he is able to rush Sisko down to Sickbay, where Dax and Bashir confirm that this is the real Sisko, somehow UnstuckInTime. Unfortunately they are not able to re-stick him before he disappears again. Even worse, between the loss of [[CrystalDragonJesus The Emissary]] and the increased Klingon aggression showcased in [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E01E02TheWayOfTheWarrior the previous episode]], the Bajorans have lost faith in TheFederation. Jake and all other Starfleet personnel are obliged to withdraw from the station.

While on Earth, Jake (now played by Tony Todd in flashbacks as well as in "the present") settles down in Louisiana with his grandfather, marries a Bajoran painter, Korena, and appears ready to put everything behind him. That is, until Sisko drops in again. Sisko only wants to know about what Jake is doing with his life and repeatedly assures his son not to worry about him. But Jake cannot bear see his father in such a state and dedicates all his energy to rescuing his father.

Jake goes back to school for a degree in temporal mechanics, abandoning his writing career. His rockets through his education, not realizing until it's too late that let his marriage fall apart in the process. Undeterred, he deduces that his best opportunity to get his father back will be to take the old ''Defiant'' back to the wormhole as it undergoes another inversion. Aided by Captain Nog and the now-elderly Bashir and Dax, he sets up a device that will hopefully pull Sisko back into the timestream. Instead, it pulls ''him'' out of time for a short chat. In a WhiteVoidRoom, Sisko again begs Jake to move on and live his life, but to no avail. Jake gets sucked back to normal space-time more determined than ever.

This brings us back to "the present," where the elderly Jake and the young Melanie sit in that house in Louisiana. Jake explains that he has finally worked out the nature of the connection between himself and his father: Jake acts like an anchor, continuing to drag his father forward through time. If Jake were to somehow sever that connection when his father is present, it should act as a giant ResetButton, sending his father back to the moment of the accident.

It's now morning, and time for Melanie to go. Sisko gifts Melanie a copy of his last unpublished work, with all his notes still intact, to give her inspiration. As she opens the door, he repeats his father's advice to look around every once in a while to experience life. She completes the quote, "And you can miss it if you don't open your eyes."

Jake settles himself in to wait, eventually drowsing; when he wakes up, Sisko is there. He clearly plans to make the best of what little time he has with his son, but Jake reveals his plan to "sever the connection," and Sisko finds the hypospray that he'd injected himself with at he beginning of the episode. It's poison, and Jake has only a few moments left. Sisko is heartbroken that his son has tossed his life away for his sake, but Jake assures him that his sacrifice is not just for Sisko, but "for the boy that I was. He needs you, more than you know. Don't you see? We're going to get a second... chance."

Jake dies, and Sisko is sucked back to the moments just prior to the accident. This time, he's ready, and he makes a DivingSave, shielding both him and Jake from the blast of energy. Jake is astonished: How did Sisko know that was going to happen? But Sisko is more preoccupied with his son, who gave up his life to save them both.

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!!Tropes:

* ADayInTheLimelight: For the first time in the series, Jake is front and center, though ironically, Cirroc Lofton is absent for much of the episode.
* AlternateHistory: What happens in ''Deep Space Nine'' in the prime timeline never occurs in this one, all because of one accident.
** Rather than [[spoiler:[[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence joining The Prophets]]]], Sisko is caught in a temporal shift that sends him popping in and out of time at random intervals. His seeming death scares the Bajorans, who enter into a defensive alliance with the Cardiassians, angering the Klingons enough that they kick Starfleet off the station, and only let them back into the Gamma Quadrant a few years later thanks to Worf being a major influence on them--Worf in particular does not rejoin Starfleet, or become Captain of the ''Enterprise''-E like he did in the Prime reality.
** Nog manages to obtain the rank of Captain, whereas his Prime counterpart's current standing in Starfleet is unknown.[[note]]The non-canon ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' shows he did obtain this rank.[[/note]]
** Jadzia [[spoiler:isn't killed by Gul Dukat]], meaning that Bashir [[spoiler:never starts a relationship with Ezri Dax]].
** The Dominion War, and thus everything that follows from it, does not occur in this timeline.
** The ''Defiant'' herself isn't [[spoiler:destroyed by the Breen, leaving the ''San Paulo'' to take her name before she was retired to the Fleet Museum]], but is stored until it's pulled out of mothball.
** And Jake himself [[spoiler:never stays behind on the station]], but is forced to head down a path that leads him to desperately try to save his father, at the cost of throwing his own life away.
* BackToSchool: Adult Jake earns a degree in subspace mechanics as part of his plan to save his father.
* BigNo:
** Ben, when he realizes that Jake has committed suicide for him.
** Jake gets one earlier when his father disappears, and again later when his first attempt to save Sisko fails.
* BittersweetEnding: One version of Jake throws his whole life away to save his father, but he succeeds, allowing both his father and another version of him to get a happy ending.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: The ''Defiant'' gets de-mothballed in the future by Jake & friends, presumably in order to recreate the accident as closely as possible. Dax states that just about the only thing that still worked, when they started rehauling her, was the replicator!
* CoolOldGuy: Old Jake is nothing but kind and polite to Melanie during her visit, gladly telling the girl his story after granting her shelter from the rain and gifting her his collection of writings. He even shares his father's advice with her before she leaves.
* ContinuityNod: The Starfleet uniforms worn by the ''Defiant'' crew in the future are the same as those shown in the future of TNG's "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E24AllGoodThings All Good Things...]]".
* CostumeEvolution: This episode is the first appearance of Kira's new uniform and O'Brien's embroidered rank insignia.
* {{Determinator}}: Jake, hoo boy. He devotes his entire adult life to getting his dad back.
* DisappearedDad: Stuck out of time, but still.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: "The Visitor" could refer to Melanie, who visits Jake on the night he dies, or to Sisko, who repeatedly "visits" Jake for a few moments throughout his life.
* EnemyMine: Former mortal enemies, the Bajorans and Cardassians, formed a mutual defense pact against the Klingons in the future timeline.
* ExactWords: After Jake reveals to Melanie that [[YouSeeImDying he's dying]], he adds "You must understand, when a person my age says he's dying, he's only admitting to the inevitable." However, he doesn't actually ''say'' it's old age that's killing him. It isn't; it's the shot of poison he took before she arrived.
* FramingDevice: An elderly Jake Sisko relates the reason he stopped writing to a young fan of his.
* HeroicSacrifice: Jake's eventual solution.
* HolographicTerminal: Bashir on the un-mothballed ''Defiant'' comments on how long it's been since he's used a two-dimensional console, suggesting that Starfleet has switched to these.
* {{Homage}}: Writer Michael Taylor said the episode was inspired by reclusive writer Creator/JDSalinger doing an interview with a high school student in 1980 who just showed up at his door.
* HowWeGotHere: Albeit with Jake Sisko as an old man.
* IWantGrandkids: Sisko says this when he visits Jake and Korena in New Orleans.
* ItWasADarkAndStormyNight: This actually is how the episode begins.
* LapPillow: A platonic, maternal example with Jadzia comforting Jake in this manner after his father's apparent death.
* MandatoryLine: Worf gets one, urging Jake to abandon the station. The episode was written before it was decided that he would join the show.
* ManlyTears: Jake practically spends half the episode with this!
* MarriedToTheJob: Jake lets his marriage fall apart by devoting all of his attention to his work rescuing his father.
* TheMourningAfter: A filial rather than romantic version, and justified given the nature of it. It's hard to find closure for a disappearance under ordinary circumstances, much less when your loved one keeps ''re''-appearing. Ben, however, repeatedly insists that Jake needs to move on with his life.
* OpenMouthInsertFoot: Melanie tells Jake that once she'd read his work, she wished she hadn't. Then she winces and clarifies that it's because she wanted to experience them again for the first time.
* OutOfFocus: Odo appears at Sisko's funeral, but gets no lines. Miles O'Brien was in the script with a large role, but Colm Meaney was unavailable.
* ParentalSubstitute: Dax steps in as a maternal figure for Jake after his father's apparent "death."
* PetTheDog: Quark gives Nog some time off work so that he can cheer up the mourning Jake.
* PuttingTheBandBackTogether: Jake does this with the ''Defiant's'' crew during the rescue mission.
* RankUp: Nog does this a few times, eventually becoming TheCaptain.
* ResetButtonSuicideMission: Benjamin Sisko is trapped in subspace by a NegativeSpaceWedgie and periodically comes back for a few minutes at a time into the life of his son Jake, at ever increasing intervals. Jake abandons his writing career and spends his whole life trying to find a way to save his father. Eventually he determines that the tie between them can only be severed at the point of Jake's death. He poisons himself so that he'll die at the exact time of Benjamin's next visit, sever the tie, undo about sixty years, and put Benjamin back a few seconds before the anomaly, giving him time to jump out of the way.
* RippleEffectProofMemory: Even though Sisko is able to dodge the discharge the second time, he still remembers that Old Jake had used up his life to try and recover him.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Jake spends his whole life trying to do this. It's only when his life ''ends'' that it happens for real.
* ShoutOut: A close look at the manuscript Jake is editing in the first flashback reveals it to be "[[Literature/HoratioHornblower Commodore Hornblower]]". It's quite appropriate, as ''Star Trek'' took in a lot of inspiration from the Hornblower books.
* TheSlowPath: Jake has to wait decades before each attempt to fix his father's condition, while his father experienced only a moment going by.
* ThisIsMyStory: The general FramingDevice of the episode, as an elderly Jake tells Melanie about his tragic tale.
* TokenMinorityCouple: A rather strange example. The wife of Jake (who is African-American) is a [[InterspeciesRomance Bajoran]] - who is played by a black actress.
* WholeEpisodeFlashback: Most of the episode is told in flashbacks leading up to the present moment.
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