He's No Romeo: Part II Conclusion
Dec. 11th, 2009 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dark_sinestraGarak
Replimat Café
Although he knew that Julian was thrilled with their relationship out in the open, Garak was not. Every public display of affection, however slight, had him looking over his shoulder and scrutinizing every face he even thought might be turning in their direction. Quark made much of them, downright pushy about his holosuite programs. He had started to believe that the shrewd businessman had a genuine soft spot when it came to romance, something he would never have believed of Quark before seeing it directed their way. The reactions of Julian's fellow officers were much less favorable, with those who had been neutral toward him before seeming more hostile and those who had been hostile turning sometimes nasty. He told Julian none of this simply because the man was genuinely happy. You're getting sentimental in your old age, he thought. Where was Julian, anyway?
He decided that he must have gotten tied up in the infirmary, so he left their table to order his lunch. Bit by bit, he was managing to win his lover over to the pleasures of Cardassian food, explaining that much like some Terran cheeses, the smell and the taste were not the same. It would've been so much easier, he believed, if he had more than replicated food to work with. He returned to the table with his sem'hal stew and began to eat. The doctor joined him when he was close to halfway through, his expression promising a storm. Garak knew that it was best simply to wait him out in such moods. After standing and offering his palm to press in greeting, he said nothing and continued to eat.
Instead of fetching a food tray, Julian flung himself into his chair opposite Garak with his arms folded and glared at him. True to form, he couldn't stay quiet for long. “How long have you known?” he asked flatly.
“I beg your pardon?” Garak asked, blinking at him. His bafflement was no mere act. He didn't have a clue what the man was talking about.
“About Chief O'Brien,” the doctor pressed.
Garak set his spoon aside and carefully wiped his mouth on his napkin. “What is it that I am to have known about the Chief?” he asked mildly.
“Oh, stop it,” he said, unfolding his arms and leaning forward. “What I can't decide is if you actually set it up, or if you just let it happen.”
The older Cardassian felt his patience wearing a tad thin. He loved games as much if not more than most of his people, but he didn't enjoy vague accusations when he had no idea what they were about. “Well, which seems more likely to you?” he asked.
“I doubt you have the influence to set it up,” Julian said spitefully, “so I'll just go with you let it happen.”
He gave a mocking smile. The dear man was learning. That first remark was almost worthy of a Cardassian. “Since you already have it figured out, why are we even having this conversation?” he asked and lifted his spoon again.
Julian stood abruptly and leaned over the table, gripping it with both hands. “I can't figure out why,” he said angrily. “Why would you allow such a thing? The only reason you're not being asked this in a holding cell is because I asked them to let me try to get to the bottom of it first.”
“Don't do me any favors,” Garak said tartly. “If your Federation superiors want me in a holding cell, well then, you had best take me there, hadn't you?” He glared ice across the table, his patience with whatever Julian was playing at having come to an end.
“You really don't care, do you?” he asked, his voice rising.
“Doctor,” he retorted, “I'd find it much easier to care if I knew what you were talking about.”
After glaring at him for several long moments, he seemed to decide he'd get nothing out of him that way. Sitting back down, he folded his arms again and said, “Fine. We'll play this your way. Chief O'Brien is currently being held on Cardassia Prime pending a trial. Does that jog your memory any?”
He was surprised; long habit prevented him from showing it. “No,” he said, “I can't say that it does. On trial for what?”
“Supposedly supporting the Maquis,” he answered. “Don't think that just because I'm playing along with you that I don't believe you already know about this.”
“Your paranoia is commendable,” he said approvingly. “I assume there's evidence to support this charge?”
“You know there is, and if they find him guilty...”
“If?” Garak asked, appalled. “My dear Doctor, have you learned nothing at all from reading all of that literature I've been gifting to you for nearly three years now? Everyone who goes before a court in Cardassia is guilty. If your Chief is there on trial, that's a foregone conclusion.”
“You can't let this happen,” he said, his frustration and worry obvious.
“As you already pointed out,” Garak replied, “my influence on Cardassia is hardly what it was. Whether you believe me or not, I'm sorry about your friend. The best thing that you can do is to adapt to the idea of what is about to happen to him and move on with your life.”
“I can't believe you! You mean that, don't you? That I'm just to give up, grieve, and go about my business. Well, I have no intention of doing that. I don't believe for one instant that Miles would ever do anything like this.”
“Please,” Garak snorted.
“What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Ignorance can be remedied, but there is no cure for deliberate blindness,” he answered cryptically. “If you're not going to eat, then please leave me to finish my lunch in peace.”
“No, for once, I'm not going to just kowtow to anything you say. I want to know what you meant by that remark. Why do you believe the Chief would support a terrorist organization?” he asked.
Garak stared glacially at him in response, taking a very deliberate bite of his stew.
“Look,” the doctor said in a more conciliatory tone of voice, “I know he doesn't exactly like Cardassians...”
“That's one of the things I enjoy about you,” the tailor interrupted him. “Your delightful penchant for understatement.” He smiled broadly.
Undaunted, Julian continued. “That doesn't mean he'd throw away his entire career to support illegal activity against them. I know this man. I know how he feels about his family and his job. I know his ethics. This is not him. If you really had nothing to do with this, then please, help me help him.”
“You're asking me to work against my government to help yours, as what, a personal favor to you because of our relationship?” Garak asked incredulously. “And you claim you care about me.” He pushed to his feet, his appetite gone. “I don't want to talk to you again until the situation is resolved one way or the other.” He pressed his lips together. “Regardless of how little you share my values, I thought that you at least understood and accepted where my loyalties lie. If you don't or can't, then don't talk to me after the resolution either, because we'll have nothing left to say.”
He stalked away with as much dignity as he could muster while feeling gut punched. He had feared that eventually they might run into such a situation, where their governments were at odds. However, he had never seriously considered that the doctor would ask him to betray his own people. No matter how much trouble he had trusting others, he believed that Julian was intelligent enough and sensitive enough to understand that some lines couldn't be crossed, regardless of feelings. Unlike Julian he didn't have as much trouble believing that Chief O'Brien may have done exactly what he was being accused of, given some of the things he had said to Garak in private once he found out about the relationship. His race hatred and bias had been palpable in every word. Actually guilty or innocent, it didn't matter. The Cardassian state was a machine that ground those in its cogs to powder. No amount of sentiment would change that.
He entered his shop and closed and locked the doors. He didn't feel like pretending to be friendly to customers in his black mood. He had inventory to take, an exacting task that would easily fill the rest of his afternoon. He set about it methodically, shunting aside his hurt and outrage. It was hard not to appreciate the irony that this shop, designed by then Prefect Dukat to be his humiliation in his exile, had turned into the salvation of his sanity and dignity. Against all odds, he was finally turning a profit, not relying on the charity of the Fleeters to make his living. He had thrown himself into it at the beginning of his exile, when the station was still known as Terok Nor. He could do it again if necessary until he managed to exorcise his inexplicable weakness for the doctor. The only question that remained to him in that moment was would it be necessary?
At the end of the day, he left his stock room. Quark stood just beyond his doors, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck to peer inside. Garak made a soft sound of annoyance. He hadn't taken the Ferengi seriously when he said he might come by for a fitting some time that week. It was the vague sort of thing Quark always said to grease the social wheels. Garak strode to the front of the shop and opened the doors. “I'm...”
“Closed, yes,” Quark interrupted him, “and your doctor was in my bar earlier looking as glum as Morn at last call. Naturally, I put two and two together and decided that what you two need is an intervention.”
“That's very kind of you, but unnecessary,” Garak said smoothly. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some lint to brush this evening.”
Quark tsked. “Garak, you're forgetting that I've been in a relationship with a Cardassian. You people put up a good front, but underneath all the cold denials and stiff lips beat hearts as sensitive and tender as the rest of us.”
Stepping out of his shop and closing and locking his doors, Garak graced Quark with his most saccharine of smiles. “Mm, yes, funny that you should say that, because 'sensitive' and 'tender' are of course just the words that come to mind when the name 'Quark' is mentioned in conversation. I'm sure your brother Rom would agree.”
Quark put a hand to his chest and fell into step beside Garak as he began a brisk walk toward the turbolift. “You wound me,” he said. “I love my brother despite our differences. Can't the same be said of you and Doctor Bashir, love in spite of differences?”
“I think you've been attending too many of your own holosuite programs,” Garak said, never slowing even though the much shorter man was having to trot to keep up with him.
“I think you haven't attended enough,” Quark said brightly. “What a marvelous idea, Garak! I can set you up with one. I'll even offer you a discount in the name of smoothing over your rough spot.”
“I knew that's what this was about,” the Cardassian said, rolling his eyes. “I'm not interested, Quark; now please go away before I decide to get testy.”
Quark stopped walking and raised his voice, saying to Garak's back, “You're wrong. Love is rare enough in this universe, but something like what you and the doctor have is almost unheard of. Haven't you ever read 'Romeo and Juliet'?”
Garak stopped then, turning on the Ferengi with a cold, measured stare. “As a matter of fact, I have,” he said with deceptive mildness. “You seem to have forgotten they both die in the end.”
Given that his hearing wasn't the best, he didn't know if he actually heard or imagined the muttered response. “But it was a beautiful death.” He took the turbolift alone, his outward calm belying his inner turmoil. What was he doing, sleeping with the enemy? Make no mistake. Starfleet was the enemy, and if Julian couldn't separate his personal life from his professional one, then he had to be counted in the enemy camp. As always, Elim, you leaped before you looked. You gave in to sentiment when you knew better. How many times does that make now, three? Twice with the same person! Why did you think the third time with someone new would be the charm?
He stepped off the lift at his corridor and walked toward his quarters. He and Julian were always butting heads in one way or another, which was natural and to be expected of two strong-willed, very different individuals sharing space and relating closely. Usually, he enjoyed the fights, but this felt like cruel betrayal, a strike at the very heart of what made him who he was. It hurt to have thought he was understood at a very basic level only to find that not only was he not, but that the very thing he prized the most about himself his lover found contemptible.
He let himself into his quarters and changed his lock code. It didn't matter to him that Julian could override it with a medical emergency code. If he wanted to get to Garak uninvited, that was exactly what he'd have to do, and Garak would in turn file a complaint against him for abuse of his position. He took little satisfaction in something so petty, but that was better than no satisfaction at all.
He was skilled, adept in fact, at going about his business regardless of his internal emotional state. One of the things Quark had said about his people was entirely true. They were almost unsurpassed at making others see exactly what they wished for them to see, nothing more, nothing less. He didn't close his shop again or treat his customers any differently or any less professionally than he ever had over the next few days. He still lunched at the Replimat. The few times he saw Julian, he looked through him as though he wasn't even there, and despite the strong temptation to do so, he avoided using any of his contacts to discover the status of Chief O'Brien's trial on Cardassia. As far as he was concerned, it was never a matter of if the Chief would be executed, only a matter of when. If the trial was still ongoing, Julian's lack of contact with him was his way of doing as he had been asked. If the trial was already over and he was still avoiding him, then it meant that they would never speak again. He tried to be dispassionate about the second possibility without much success.
Mid-afternoon of the third day after the fight, someone he never expected to see in his shop walked through his door. Lieutenant Dax nodded a cool greeting his way and began to examine his wares. As he would with anyone else, he said, “Do let me know if there's anything I can help you with, Lieutenant.”
“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Garak.”
“Oh, please, just Garak,” he said reflexively.
She nodded and continued to look. He watched her without seeming to do so, wondering what her real reason for being there might be. He didn't believe for an instant that she wanted to buy something. She lifted a flowing, one shouldered dress from one of the racks and held it up to the light. “This is really beautiful,” she said, turning to him. “I have to confess, I'm not always the best judge of what looks best on me. Do you think I can pull off this color?”
Garak eyed the pale rose silk with a critical eye. “I'm afraid it would wash out your complexion,” he said. “You'd do well to stick to a bolder palette.” She put the dress back, caressing one hand down it a little regretfully. “If you really like the style,” he offered, “I can help you choose a fabric and make one for you.”
“I'd like that,” she said, surprising him. “Can you take my measurements in my uniform?”
“Of course,” he said, pulling his tape measure from beneath the counter and walking over to her. “This won't take long.”
As she allowed herself to be measured, she said casually, “You know, occasionally I wonder if I made a mistake in letting Julian get away. Please, don't tell him I said that.” She smiled disarmingly.
Garak committed each figure to memory, his hands quick and precise with the measure. “I wouldn't dream of it,” he said lightly.
“I suppose it is hard to tell someone something when you're not speaking to him,” she said just as lightly.
He bent to take her inseam and stood. “If you have a point to make, Lieutenant, I'm sure I'd love to hear it,” he said, irritated that she thought she had the right to butt into his business at all.
“Curzon had quite the eye for the young ladies,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “He appreciated their unbridled enthusiasm and zest for life, but one of the things he constantly wrestled with was their lack of life experience. No matter how much he tried to advise them or help them, they usually insisted on doing things their way and made embarrassing and sometimes costly mistakes. He found in the end that the best approach was to let them live their lives but to be open if they decided to come to their senses.”
“How interesting,” he said in a way that he knew would convey just the opposite. He rolled up his tape measure and quickly input Dax's measurements into his computer. “Let me get you some swatches.” He felt her eyes on his back as he retreated to the stock room. He didn't need some young woman with a worm in her gut telling him how to conduct his affairs. She hadn't even lived those experiences herself. He found it very presumptuous.
When he returned, he opened the swatch book on the top of his counter to the appropriate section of material. “What color range do you like?” he asked.
“I have a weakness for greens and reds,” she confessed.
“Not together, I hope,” he said, glancing at her.
She laughed easily. “No, not together. Some people say any cool and warm clash. Do you agree with that?”
“No, I don't,” he replied, warming to the subject. “It all depends on the quantity and proportion of each, the shade; there are many factors that determine whether colors will complement or clash. Cool and warm has nothing to do with it.”
“I'm glad you think so,” she said. “It probably took you years of practice really to grasp that well.”
As he met her light blue gaze, he realized she had managed to trick him into subtext, no easy feat. His respect for her inched higher. “Not as long as you might think,” he said. “It's amazing what one can accomplish if one just sets the will and mind to it.”
She covered his hand lightly with hers. He only just avoided acting on the impulse to snatch his hand back. His species' natural aversion to casual touch from those not close to them was much stronger in him due to his training and experiences. “He loves you,” she said simply. “He's young, and idealistic, and he has a lot to learn. Believe it or not, I think you're good for him, Garak. Even though I don't know you very well, I'd wager that he's also good for you. I'd hate to see either of you make an avoidable mistake.”
“I'm surprised to hear such sentiments from a Starfleet officer,” he said, directing a pointed glance down at her hand.
She squeezed lightly and released him. “I'm not speaking as a Starfleet officer. I'm speaking as somebody who has kicked around the quadrant more than a few lifetimes and who considers Julian a friend. Anyone he could love as much as he loves you has to have more than a mysterious past and a gift for the gab going for him to move him like that. I'd like to get to know you better, regardless of how things turn out for the two of you, but mostly, I'd actually like to see them work out.”
“I don't know if that will be possible,” he said. “There's more at stake than sentiment here. If he has spoken to you about this, then you're already aware of that.”
“He made a mistake,” she said bluntly. “He should never have asked of you what he asked. He knows that now, and the only reason he hasn't come to tell you that himself is because you told him to stay away. Garak, you're a tailor,” she said gently. “You know better than most that a rip will only get worse the longer it goes without mending. As the older—and wiser, I hope—of the two of you, sometimes you're going to have to swallow your pride and do the mature thing, even when you're in the right and he's not.”
He took a slow inhale, not enjoying the sensation of having to admit that she was right. “I think this lovely shade of teal would suit you very well,” he said, setting a fingertip to one of the swatches. “It will bring out your eyes.”
She graced him with an ambiguous smile and nodded. “I trust your judgment,” she said. “I can't wait to see how it turns out.”
He realized that the Chief's situation must not have yet reached resolution after his conversation with Dax. He wasn't sure that it would be such a good time to approach the doctor while he still worried over the fate of his close friend. However, if he waited until afterward, Julian's anger at his government might be too much to overcome. He closed up shop and approached the infirmary with no small degree of trepidation. When he stepped inside, he saw Julian at one of the work stations, apparently entering data. A couple of other staff members circulated on their own business. He cleared his throat.
Julian turned, unable to hide his surprise and anxiety, his brow creasing. He gestured Garak toward the back and fell into step behind him, closing the office door once both of them were inside. “Have...have you heard something I haven't?” he asked, his voice taut with concern.
“What?” Garak asked. “Oh, no,” he said quickly. “I haven't heard anything about the trial. Dax came by the shop today.” The man's instantaneous expression of irritation and chagrin convinced Garak that Julian hadn't sent her. The tension in him eased slightly. He hadn't liked the notion that Julian would use a proxy to get around the condition he set for their communication.
“Dax has a big mouth,” he said, turning away to fidget with something on his desk.
“I can see why you chased her for so long,” Garak said.
“What? You can?” he turned then, frowning at Garak. “I was under the distinct impression that you don't like any of my friends.”
“I didn't say I like her,” he said, more out of habit than anything else. He grimaced slightly. He couldn't afford to be his usual irascible self, not if he intended to follow the Trill's unsolicited yet sound advice. “Although in time, I believe that I could,” he added.
“What do you want, Garak? I'm busy,” he said gruffly.
Garak considered his answer very carefully before speaking. “I want to know,” he said, reaching to turn Julian to face him, “that we're not doomed to share the fate of those people in that wretched play you like so much. As much as I hate it, there are more than a few disturbing parallels. You may think the whole idea of star crossed lovers is romantic, but the harsh reality is that they die. I can't find anything to love about that, that two people defy their respective families out of sentiment and pay with their lives. I'm no Romeo, and I'm certainly no Juliet. I'm not willing to go that far,” he said, his gaze burning. “Is that the only definition of love that matters to you? Self-destructive insanity?”
Julian swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. “No,” he said quietly, his eyes softening as he took both of Garak's hands in his own. “I don't want Miles to die,” he said, “but I had no right to ask you to risk yourself for him. I never knew...” He trailed off then tried again. “The person who came here to plant evidence against Miles is actually a Cardassian. He was disguised as someone Miles knew in the war, and he had everyone fooled for a long time. For the first time, I feel as though I understand some of what I always thought of as your paranoia, and I feel very...small... for what I asked you to do. I wanted to tell you this yesterday, but I felt that the least I could do after...betraying you that way...was to respect your wishes. Can you forgive me?”
“I wouldn't be here right now if I couldn't,” he said. “You have to understand that where Cardassia is concerned...”
“I know,” Julian stopped him. “I can't promise that there will never come a time that either of us has to choose duty over love, but I won't be the one to put you in that position again. I do love you, Elim. I've avoided saying it before now, because I honestly don't know that you feel the same way, or even if you ever will.”
He was quite certain that he didn't, at least not in the way that the young human meant. He didn't even know if he was capable of the same degree of sentiment. All of this ran through his mind lightning quick, but he could bring himself to say none of it. He frowned uncomfortably.
“The point is,” Julian pressed on gamely, lifting his hands and kissing the backs of his knuckles, “my feelings aren't predicated on yours. I know you care. You've shown me in more ways than I deserve given how I treated you. It's enough. It's enough for me that you let me love you and that you don't push me away for it. If that's all we ever have,” his voice wavered slightly before he regained control of it, “then it will be enough. I love who you are, not who I wish you were or who I think you can be, and if what I did made you think either of those things, I can't apologize strongly enough.”
He didn't deserve this dear man. He felt so old in that moment, so irredeemably tainted. How could Julian think he loved him for who he was when he didn't know who he was? How would the compassionate healer feel knowing the hands he held and kissed so tenderly were so stained with blood they would never come clean? He wanted to rail at him and confront him with all of the ugliness of what service to the state really meant when it came to people like himself, but he found his tongue frozen and his words bottled beneath a knot in his throat. He had been humbled to helpless silence, and all he could do was to stand there and let his hands be held.
“You look so sad,” Julian said, giving his hands a squeeze and pulling him into his embrace. “If I do nothing else for you in this life, one day I hope to at least change that.”
At last, he had something to which he could respond without weeping. “You already have,” he said, returning the embrace without reserve. At least in that, he told the truth.
The End
Replimat Café
Although he knew that Julian was thrilled with their relationship out in the open, Garak was not. Every public display of affection, however slight, had him looking over his shoulder and scrutinizing every face he even thought might be turning in their direction. Quark made much of them, downright pushy about his holosuite programs. He had started to believe that the shrewd businessman had a genuine soft spot when it came to romance, something he would never have believed of Quark before seeing it directed their way. The reactions of Julian's fellow officers were much less favorable, with those who had been neutral toward him before seeming more hostile and those who had been hostile turning sometimes nasty. He told Julian none of this simply because the man was genuinely happy. You're getting sentimental in your old age, he thought. Where was Julian, anyway?
He decided that he must have gotten tied up in the infirmary, so he left their table to order his lunch. Bit by bit, he was managing to win his lover over to the pleasures of Cardassian food, explaining that much like some Terran cheeses, the smell and the taste were not the same. It would've been so much easier, he believed, if he had more than replicated food to work with. He returned to the table with his sem'hal stew and began to eat. The doctor joined him when he was close to halfway through, his expression promising a storm. Garak knew that it was best simply to wait him out in such moods. After standing and offering his palm to press in greeting, he said nothing and continued to eat.
Instead of fetching a food tray, Julian flung himself into his chair opposite Garak with his arms folded and glared at him. True to form, he couldn't stay quiet for long. “How long have you known?” he asked flatly.
“I beg your pardon?” Garak asked, blinking at him. His bafflement was no mere act. He didn't have a clue what the man was talking about.
“About Chief O'Brien,” the doctor pressed.
Garak set his spoon aside and carefully wiped his mouth on his napkin. “What is it that I am to have known about the Chief?” he asked mildly.
“Oh, stop it,” he said, unfolding his arms and leaning forward. “What I can't decide is if you actually set it up, or if you just let it happen.”
The older Cardassian felt his patience wearing a tad thin. He loved games as much if not more than most of his people, but he didn't enjoy vague accusations when he had no idea what they were about. “Well, which seems more likely to you?” he asked.
“I doubt you have the influence to set it up,” Julian said spitefully, “so I'll just go with you let it happen.”
He gave a mocking smile. The dear man was learning. That first remark was almost worthy of a Cardassian. “Since you already have it figured out, why are we even having this conversation?” he asked and lifted his spoon again.
Julian stood abruptly and leaned over the table, gripping it with both hands. “I can't figure out why,” he said angrily. “Why would you allow such a thing? The only reason you're not being asked this in a holding cell is because I asked them to let me try to get to the bottom of it first.”
“Don't do me any favors,” Garak said tartly. “If your Federation superiors want me in a holding cell, well then, you had best take me there, hadn't you?” He glared ice across the table, his patience with whatever Julian was playing at having come to an end.
“You really don't care, do you?” he asked, his voice rising.
“Doctor,” he retorted, “I'd find it much easier to care if I knew what you were talking about.”
After glaring at him for several long moments, he seemed to decide he'd get nothing out of him that way. Sitting back down, he folded his arms again and said, “Fine. We'll play this your way. Chief O'Brien is currently being held on Cardassia Prime pending a trial. Does that jog your memory any?”
He was surprised; long habit prevented him from showing it. “No,” he said, “I can't say that it does. On trial for what?”
“Supposedly supporting the Maquis,” he answered. “Don't think that just because I'm playing along with you that I don't believe you already know about this.”
“Your paranoia is commendable,” he said approvingly. “I assume there's evidence to support this charge?”
“You know there is, and if they find him guilty...”
“If?” Garak asked, appalled. “My dear Doctor, have you learned nothing at all from reading all of that literature I've been gifting to you for nearly three years now? Everyone who goes before a court in Cardassia is guilty. If your Chief is there on trial, that's a foregone conclusion.”
“You can't let this happen,” he said, his frustration and worry obvious.
“As you already pointed out,” Garak replied, “my influence on Cardassia is hardly what it was. Whether you believe me or not, I'm sorry about your friend. The best thing that you can do is to adapt to the idea of what is about to happen to him and move on with your life.”
“I can't believe you! You mean that, don't you? That I'm just to give up, grieve, and go about my business. Well, I have no intention of doing that. I don't believe for one instant that Miles would ever do anything like this.”
“Please,” Garak snorted.
“What's that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“Ignorance can be remedied, but there is no cure for deliberate blindness,” he answered cryptically. “If you're not going to eat, then please leave me to finish my lunch in peace.”
“No, for once, I'm not going to just kowtow to anything you say. I want to know what you meant by that remark. Why do you believe the Chief would support a terrorist organization?” he asked.
Garak stared glacially at him in response, taking a very deliberate bite of his stew.
“Look,” the doctor said in a more conciliatory tone of voice, “I know he doesn't exactly like Cardassians...”
“That's one of the things I enjoy about you,” the tailor interrupted him. “Your delightful penchant for understatement.” He smiled broadly.
Undaunted, Julian continued. “That doesn't mean he'd throw away his entire career to support illegal activity against them. I know this man. I know how he feels about his family and his job. I know his ethics. This is not him. If you really had nothing to do with this, then please, help me help him.”
“You're asking me to work against my government to help yours, as what, a personal favor to you because of our relationship?” Garak asked incredulously. “And you claim you care about me.” He pushed to his feet, his appetite gone. “I don't want to talk to you again until the situation is resolved one way or the other.” He pressed his lips together. “Regardless of how little you share my values, I thought that you at least understood and accepted where my loyalties lie. If you don't or can't, then don't talk to me after the resolution either, because we'll have nothing left to say.”
He stalked away with as much dignity as he could muster while feeling gut punched. He had feared that eventually they might run into such a situation, where their governments were at odds. However, he had never seriously considered that the doctor would ask him to betray his own people. No matter how much trouble he had trusting others, he believed that Julian was intelligent enough and sensitive enough to understand that some lines couldn't be crossed, regardless of feelings. Unlike Julian he didn't have as much trouble believing that Chief O'Brien may have done exactly what he was being accused of, given some of the things he had said to Garak in private once he found out about the relationship. His race hatred and bias had been palpable in every word. Actually guilty or innocent, it didn't matter. The Cardassian state was a machine that ground those in its cogs to powder. No amount of sentiment would change that.
He entered his shop and closed and locked the doors. He didn't feel like pretending to be friendly to customers in his black mood. He had inventory to take, an exacting task that would easily fill the rest of his afternoon. He set about it methodically, shunting aside his hurt and outrage. It was hard not to appreciate the irony that this shop, designed by then Prefect Dukat to be his humiliation in his exile, had turned into the salvation of his sanity and dignity. Against all odds, he was finally turning a profit, not relying on the charity of the Fleeters to make his living. He had thrown himself into it at the beginning of his exile, when the station was still known as Terok Nor. He could do it again if necessary until he managed to exorcise his inexplicable weakness for the doctor. The only question that remained to him in that moment was would it be necessary?
At the end of the day, he left his stock room. Quark stood just beyond his doors, standing on tiptoe and craning his neck to peer inside. Garak made a soft sound of annoyance. He hadn't taken the Ferengi seriously when he said he might come by for a fitting some time that week. It was the vague sort of thing Quark always said to grease the social wheels. Garak strode to the front of the shop and opened the doors. “I'm...”
“Closed, yes,” Quark interrupted him, “and your doctor was in my bar earlier looking as glum as Morn at last call. Naturally, I put two and two together and decided that what you two need is an intervention.”
“That's very kind of you, but unnecessary,” Garak said smoothly. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some lint to brush this evening.”
Quark tsked. “Garak, you're forgetting that I've been in a relationship with a Cardassian. You people put up a good front, but underneath all the cold denials and stiff lips beat hearts as sensitive and tender as the rest of us.”
Stepping out of his shop and closing and locking his doors, Garak graced Quark with his most saccharine of smiles. “Mm, yes, funny that you should say that, because 'sensitive' and 'tender' are of course just the words that come to mind when the name 'Quark' is mentioned in conversation. I'm sure your brother Rom would agree.”
Quark put a hand to his chest and fell into step beside Garak as he began a brisk walk toward the turbolift. “You wound me,” he said. “I love my brother despite our differences. Can't the same be said of you and Doctor Bashir, love in spite of differences?”
“I think you've been attending too many of your own holosuite programs,” Garak said, never slowing even though the much shorter man was having to trot to keep up with him.
“I think you haven't attended enough,” Quark said brightly. “What a marvelous idea, Garak! I can set you up with one. I'll even offer you a discount in the name of smoothing over your rough spot.”
“I knew that's what this was about,” the Cardassian said, rolling his eyes. “I'm not interested, Quark; now please go away before I decide to get testy.”
Quark stopped walking and raised his voice, saying to Garak's back, “You're wrong. Love is rare enough in this universe, but something like what you and the doctor have is almost unheard of. Haven't you ever read 'Romeo and Juliet'?”
Garak stopped then, turning on the Ferengi with a cold, measured stare. “As a matter of fact, I have,” he said with deceptive mildness. “You seem to have forgotten they both die in the end.”
Given that his hearing wasn't the best, he didn't know if he actually heard or imagined the muttered response. “But it was a beautiful death.” He took the turbolift alone, his outward calm belying his inner turmoil. What was he doing, sleeping with the enemy? Make no mistake. Starfleet was the enemy, and if Julian couldn't separate his personal life from his professional one, then he had to be counted in the enemy camp. As always, Elim, you leaped before you looked. You gave in to sentiment when you knew better. How many times does that make now, three? Twice with the same person! Why did you think the third time with someone new would be the charm?
He stepped off the lift at his corridor and walked toward his quarters. He and Julian were always butting heads in one way or another, which was natural and to be expected of two strong-willed, very different individuals sharing space and relating closely. Usually, he enjoyed the fights, but this felt like cruel betrayal, a strike at the very heart of what made him who he was. It hurt to have thought he was understood at a very basic level only to find that not only was he not, but that the very thing he prized the most about himself his lover found contemptible.
He let himself into his quarters and changed his lock code. It didn't matter to him that Julian could override it with a medical emergency code. If he wanted to get to Garak uninvited, that was exactly what he'd have to do, and Garak would in turn file a complaint against him for abuse of his position. He took little satisfaction in something so petty, but that was better than no satisfaction at all.
He was skilled, adept in fact, at going about his business regardless of his internal emotional state. One of the things Quark had said about his people was entirely true. They were almost unsurpassed at making others see exactly what they wished for them to see, nothing more, nothing less. He didn't close his shop again or treat his customers any differently or any less professionally than he ever had over the next few days. He still lunched at the Replimat. The few times he saw Julian, he looked through him as though he wasn't even there, and despite the strong temptation to do so, he avoided using any of his contacts to discover the status of Chief O'Brien's trial on Cardassia. As far as he was concerned, it was never a matter of if the Chief would be executed, only a matter of when. If the trial was still ongoing, Julian's lack of contact with him was his way of doing as he had been asked. If the trial was already over and he was still avoiding him, then it meant that they would never speak again. He tried to be dispassionate about the second possibility without much success.
Mid-afternoon of the third day after the fight, someone he never expected to see in his shop walked through his door. Lieutenant Dax nodded a cool greeting his way and began to examine his wares. As he would with anyone else, he said, “Do let me know if there's anything I can help you with, Lieutenant.”
“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Garak.”
“Oh, please, just Garak,” he said reflexively.
She nodded and continued to look. He watched her without seeming to do so, wondering what her real reason for being there might be. He didn't believe for an instant that she wanted to buy something. She lifted a flowing, one shouldered dress from one of the racks and held it up to the light. “This is really beautiful,” she said, turning to him. “I have to confess, I'm not always the best judge of what looks best on me. Do you think I can pull off this color?”
Garak eyed the pale rose silk with a critical eye. “I'm afraid it would wash out your complexion,” he said. “You'd do well to stick to a bolder palette.” She put the dress back, caressing one hand down it a little regretfully. “If you really like the style,” he offered, “I can help you choose a fabric and make one for you.”
“I'd like that,” she said, surprising him. “Can you take my measurements in my uniform?”
“Of course,” he said, pulling his tape measure from beneath the counter and walking over to her. “This won't take long.”
As she allowed herself to be measured, she said casually, “You know, occasionally I wonder if I made a mistake in letting Julian get away. Please, don't tell him I said that.” She smiled disarmingly.
Garak committed each figure to memory, his hands quick and precise with the measure. “I wouldn't dream of it,” he said lightly.
“I suppose it is hard to tell someone something when you're not speaking to him,” she said just as lightly.
He bent to take her inseam and stood. “If you have a point to make, Lieutenant, I'm sure I'd love to hear it,” he said, irritated that she thought she had the right to butt into his business at all.
“Curzon had quite the eye for the young ladies,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “He appreciated their unbridled enthusiasm and zest for life, but one of the things he constantly wrestled with was their lack of life experience. No matter how much he tried to advise them or help them, they usually insisted on doing things their way and made embarrassing and sometimes costly mistakes. He found in the end that the best approach was to let them live their lives but to be open if they decided to come to their senses.”
“How interesting,” he said in a way that he knew would convey just the opposite. He rolled up his tape measure and quickly input Dax's measurements into his computer. “Let me get you some swatches.” He felt her eyes on his back as he retreated to the stock room. He didn't need some young woman with a worm in her gut telling him how to conduct his affairs. She hadn't even lived those experiences herself. He found it very presumptuous.
When he returned, he opened the swatch book on the top of his counter to the appropriate section of material. “What color range do you like?” he asked.
“I have a weakness for greens and reds,” she confessed.
“Not together, I hope,” he said, glancing at her.
She laughed easily. “No, not together. Some people say any cool and warm clash. Do you agree with that?”
“No, I don't,” he replied, warming to the subject. “It all depends on the quantity and proportion of each, the shade; there are many factors that determine whether colors will complement or clash. Cool and warm has nothing to do with it.”
“I'm glad you think so,” she said. “It probably took you years of practice really to grasp that well.”
As he met her light blue gaze, he realized she had managed to trick him into subtext, no easy feat. His respect for her inched higher. “Not as long as you might think,” he said. “It's amazing what one can accomplish if one just sets the will and mind to it.”
She covered his hand lightly with hers. He only just avoided acting on the impulse to snatch his hand back. His species' natural aversion to casual touch from those not close to them was much stronger in him due to his training and experiences. “He loves you,” she said simply. “He's young, and idealistic, and he has a lot to learn. Believe it or not, I think you're good for him, Garak. Even though I don't know you very well, I'd wager that he's also good for you. I'd hate to see either of you make an avoidable mistake.”
“I'm surprised to hear such sentiments from a Starfleet officer,” he said, directing a pointed glance down at her hand.
She squeezed lightly and released him. “I'm not speaking as a Starfleet officer. I'm speaking as somebody who has kicked around the quadrant more than a few lifetimes and who considers Julian a friend. Anyone he could love as much as he loves you has to have more than a mysterious past and a gift for the gab going for him to move him like that. I'd like to get to know you better, regardless of how things turn out for the two of you, but mostly, I'd actually like to see them work out.”
“I don't know if that will be possible,” he said. “There's more at stake than sentiment here. If he has spoken to you about this, then you're already aware of that.”
“He made a mistake,” she said bluntly. “He should never have asked of you what he asked. He knows that now, and the only reason he hasn't come to tell you that himself is because you told him to stay away. Garak, you're a tailor,” she said gently. “You know better than most that a rip will only get worse the longer it goes without mending. As the older—and wiser, I hope—of the two of you, sometimes you're going to have to swallow your pride and do the mature thing, even when you're in the right and he's not.”
He took a slow inhale, not enjoying the sensation of having to admit that she was right. “I think this lovely shade of teal would suit you very well,” he said, setting a fingertip to one of the swatches. “It will bring out your eyes.”
She graced him with an ambiguous smile and nodded. “I trust your judgment,” she said. “I can't wait to see how it turns out.”
He realized that the Chief's situation must not have yet reached resolution after his conversation with Dax. He wasn't sure that it would be such a good time to approach the doctor while he still worried over the fate of his close friend. However, if he waited until afterward, Julian's anger at his government might be too much to overcome. He closed up shop and approached the infirmary with no small degree of trepidation. When he stepped inside, he saw Julian at one of the work stations, apparently entering data. A couple of other staff members circulated on their own business. He cleared his throat.
Julian turned, unable to hide his surprise and anxiety, his brow creasing. He gestured Garak toward the back and fell into step behind him, closing the office door once both of them were inside. “Have...have you heard something I haven't?” he asked, his voice taut with concern.
“What?” Garak asked. “Oh, no,” he said quickly. “I haven't heard anything about the trial. Dax came by the shop today.” The man's instantaneous expression of irritation and chagrin convinced Garak that Julian hadn't sent her. The tension in him eased slightly. He hadn't liked the notion that Julian would use a proxy to get around the condition he set for their communication.
“Dax has a big mouth,” he said, turning away to fidget with something on his desk.
“I can see why you chased her for so long,” Garak said.
“What? You can?” he turned then, frowning at Garak. “I was under the distinct impression that you don't like any of my friends.”
“I didn't say I like her,” he said, more out of habit than anything else. He grimaced slightly. He couldn't afford to be his usual irascible self, not if he intended to follow the Trill's unsolicited yet sound advice. “Although in time, I believe that I could,” he added.
“What do you want, Garak? I'm busy,” he said gruffly.
Garak considered his answer very carefully before speaking. “I want to know,” he said, reaching to turn Julian to face him, “that we're not doomed to share the fate of those people in that wretched play you like so much. As much as I hate it, there are more than a few disturbing parallels. You may think the whole idea of star crossed lovers is romantic, but the harsh reality is that they die. I can't find anything to love about that, that two people defy their respective families out of sentiment and pay with their lives. I'm no Romeo, and I'm certainly no Juliet. I'm not willing to go that far,” he said, his gaze burning. “Is that the only definition of love that matters to you? Self-destructive insanity?”
Julian swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. “No,” he said quietly, his eyes softening as he took both of Garak's hands in his own. “I don't want Miles to die,” he said, “but I had no right to ask you to risk yourself for him. I never knew...” He trailed off then tried again. “The person who came here to plant evidence against Miles is actually a Cardassian. He was disguised as someone Miles knew in the war, and he had everyone fooled for a long time. For the first time, I feel as though I understand some of what I always thought of as your paranoia, and I feel very...small... for what I asked you to do. I wanted to tell you this yesterday, but I felt that the least I could do after...betraying you that way...was to respect your wishes. Can you forgive me?”
“I wouldn't be here right now if I couldn't,” he said. “You have to understand that where Cardassia is concerned...”
“I know,” Julian stopped him. “I can't promise that there will never come a time that either of us has to choose duty over love, but I won't be the one to put you in that position again. I do love you, Elim. I've avoided saying it before now, because I honestly don't know that you feel the same way, or even if you ever will.”
He was quite certain that he didn't, at least not in the way that the young human meant. He didn't even know if he was capable of the same degree of sentiment. All of this ran through his mind lightning quick, but he could bring himself to say none of it. He frowned uncomfortably.
“The point is,” Julian pressed on gamely, lifting his hands and kissing the backs of his knuckles, “my feelings aren't predicated on yours. I know you care. You've shown me in more ways than I deserve given how I treated you. It's enough. It's enough for me that you let me love you and that you don't push me away for it. If that's all we ever have,” his voice wavered slightly before he regained control of it, “then it will be enough. I love who you are, not who I wish you were or who I think you can be, and if what I did made you think either of those things, I can't apologize strongly enough.”
He didn't deserve this dear man. He felt so old in that moment, so irredeemably tainted. How could Julian think he loved him for who he was when he didn't know who he was? How would the compassionate healer feel knowing the hands he held and kissed so tenderly were so stained with blood they would never come clean? He wanted to rail at him and confront him with all of the ugliness of what service to the state really meant when it came to people like himself, but he found his tongue frozen and his words bottled beneath a knot in his throat. He had been humbled to helpless silence, and all he could do was to stand there and let his hands be held.
“You look so sad,” Julian said, giving his hands a squeeze and pulling him into his embrace. “If I do nothing else for you in this life, one day I hope to at least change that.”
At last, he had something to which he could respond without weeping. “You already have,” he said, returning the embrace without reserve. At least in that, he told the truth.
The End
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-11 04:57 pm (UTC)Holy smokes!
Fantastic writing!
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Date: 2009-12-12 10:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-11 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-11 09:01 pm (UTC)Usually, any story that uses Dax as a conduit to get the guys together (or reunite them) jars me. Before I rewatched the series, I loved that construct, but in watching the series, I saw how little Dax really liked Garak almost up to the very end of the series. So the idea of Dax playing Cupid doesn't generally ring true to me as a result. But it worked here for me because I could see her having that attitude were Julian and Garak to go public with their relationship. I always thought Dax felt sisterly affection for Julian, and I loved how she goaded Garak into subtext. Very well done! I cannot wait to see what you come up with next!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:51 am (UTC)It means a lot to hear that the characters ring true. With Garak in particular, it can be a real challenge to strike the right note from his POV.
As far as Dax goes, after rewatching a lot of DS9, I saw a real wasted opportunity of character interaction. I think that conversationally, she and Garak would have made a fascinating pair. She was very subtle and intelligent, not somebody he could manipulate or out talk easily. It made a lot of sense to me that as somebody who cares a lot about Julian, she would reach out to the person she saw as making her friend happy, not because she automatically liked or trusted Garak, but because of how he made Julian feel. You haven't seen the last of Dax in these fics. Thank you tons for the really thoughtful review!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-11 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 04:16 am (UTC)Ahavia
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 10:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-12 04:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 11:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 07:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 08:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-15 11:04 pm (UTC)I loved everything about this and I love Dax's intervention too. I think she really would feel that way about Julian if she hadn't met Worf and Garak had taken Julian first. Another delight is how you weave your story into the events of the episodes. Just perfect and amazing how well you manage it.
I can't thank you enough for sharing this with us and how thrilled I am knowing you have more stories yet to share with us.
You deserve a standing ovation for this one. Please take a bow.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-16 04:17 am (UTC)