Interspecies Romance: the Remedial Course, Part I

[dark_sinestra]

Author Notes: The story spans events from Apocalypse Rising through Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places. I'm trying to fast forward events a little because trying to write six months worth of time for Garak in a holding cell in great detail just would not work, and Doctor Bashir's part in all three of the episodes covered was fairly minimal.

Summary: As events unfold around him, from the Klingon war to the ground breaking discovery of a downed Jem'Hadar ship, Julian feels frustrated to find himself on the sidelines. His progress with Garak stymied, he begins to question the entire relationship and what the future holds for him. Meanwhile, Garak endures his incarceration to the best of his ability and finds some of his own relationships challenged by his actions in the Gamma Quadrant.

Author: Dark Sinestra

Date Written: June 2010

Category: Slashy angst

Rating: PG for mild adult language and adult situations.

Disclaimer: No profit for me, no ownership of characters implied in the writing. I feel like such a broken record.

Word Count: 16,420

 

 

Julian

Quark's Bar

 

Sighing and swirling his black hole, Julian watched Morn putting the moves on a Boslic female. It seemed as though he couldn't catch a break lately. Garak still refused to have anything to do with him beyond answering questions for his mandatory health checks. Now Miles, Odo, Worf, and the captain were off on a mission to expose Gowron as a changeling infiltrator and hopefully put an end to the war with the Klingons before it could escalate. Of course he had an important part to play. No one else on the station was qualified to perform the cosmetic surgery needed to disguise his comrades as Klingons. He didn't like being left behind. It felt like missing out, and he desperately needed distraction.

 

Dax settled onto a stool beside him, dressed in a tightly fitting brown exercise suit. “How much have you had to drink?” she asked.

 

“Not enough,” he said, lifting his glass.

 

She stopped him with a hand to his wrist. “Good,” she said. “That means you can spar with me.”

 

He frowned. “Jadzia, I don't want to spar. I don't like Klingon weapons. I don't really like Klingons, if you want to know the truth of it. Black holes are expensive, and do you know why? Because they do the job quicker than most liquor.”

 

“Have Quark put it behind the bar for you,” she said, standing and trying to tug him to his feet. “You can come back to it afterward.”

 

He resisted, setting his jaw. “Did you not hear a word I said?” he asked testily. “I'm not interested in your Klingon martial arts routine, and I'm damned sick and tired of everyone assuming I'll just go along with whatever they want because I don't usually make a fuss.”

 

She loosened her grip without releasing him. “Then we can do something else,” she said. “It's obvious you need it as much as I do. Please?”

 

“Fine,” he said, passing the glass over to Quark. “I'm not done with that, so don't dump it.”

 

“Whatever you say,” Quark said, shrugging and setting it out of the way and out of reach of other customers. He picked up a small box and opened it, glancing at Dax. “Your usual?” he asked.

 

She shook her head. “No.” She beckoned him closer, leaned over the bar and whispered to him. Julian watched suspiciously, in no mood for her mischief.

 

Quark glanced at the doctor, shrugged again, and pulled out one of the colored rods. “Have fun,” he said doubtfully.

 

Tucking her arm in Julian's and leading him along with her, she said over her shoulder, “We will!”

 

He walked at her side until they reached the spiral stairs and allowed her to ascend ahead of him. When they reached the balcony, they walked the short distance to holosuite two, and Dax inserted the rod into the program slot. The door hissed open. Fresh, clean smelling air wafted out, and simulated sunlight slanted across Dax's dark brown hair, bringing out rich honey highlights. Julian followed her inside and found himself staring at the distant walls of an idyllic castle. A meadow of wildflowers spread before them, bluebells, white mallow, purple knapweed, oxeye daisies, and more that he couldn't readily put a name to. “Computer,” Dax said, “cancel program story parameters. Remove characters. Now...two...” she paused, eying Julian with a squint, “English broadswords, circa 1100.”

 

“This is your Camelot program,” he said.

 

“Usually,” she confirmed. “Tonight, it's just a nice setting for a good workout.” She seized her sword, hefting it and testing the weight. “I suggest you arm yourself, or you're not going to enjoy this much.”

 

He grasped the hilt of the sword and gave a few experimental swings. It was well balanced, and he liked the weight of it in his hand. As he and Dax began to circle one another, the bruised scent of flowers and grass rose sharp in his nose. He felt the vegetation snagging his feet and lower pants legs. He'd have to be careful not to get tripped up. She advanced on him suddenly, her swing fluid and minimally telegraphed.

 

He quickly danced to the side and deflected, letting her blade slide down his with a scrape of steel on steel. Following through, he drove her back and swung high, forcing her to block. All of the practice he had with Miles in their ancient Ireland program served him well, because he could tell she wasn't giving him any quarter. They both backed off and regrouped, back to the circling and feeling one another out.

 

She attacked again, her strategy an aggressive one. It sparked something in him, touching the part of him tired of taking beating after beating, being blocked, stymied, and frustrated. His blood rose, and he went on the offensive. Each clang of the heavy swords sent a jolt from his wrist to his shoulder. Dax's blue eyes widened in surprise as she quickly found herself hard pressed to fend off his relentless blows. He didn't see how it happened, only that she suddenly went down backward, landing spread eagle in the turf, her sword flying from her hand. He touched his sword tip to her throat. “Do you yield?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she said, exasperated. “My heel caught in some ivy.”

 

He drew the sword aside and offered her a hand up. “Again?” he asked.

 

“Of course,” she said, striding over to pick up her weapon. “You think I intend to let you win on a technicality?”

 

“Ah,” he said, “but the good swordsman understands the terrain and adjusts for it.”

 

“Listen to you,” she said with a laugh. “I think you've been spending too much time with Miles.”

 

“You're just sore because I bested you,” he said, dropping into a fighting stance. “Less talk, more fight.”

 

“Now you sound like Worf!” He could tell she wasn't complaining, her eyes shining with satisfaction. She was more cautious this time, using her head instead of just agility and brute force.

 

He felt himself beginning to sweat under the high, bright sun and wished that he had insisted on changing out of his uniform first. Their swords flashed and clanged. They closed and tangled, distanced themselves, and did it again, an elaborate dance that could've turned deadly if they didn't watch themselves. It felt good to push his boundaries of what he usually allowed himself physically. She was just enough of a challenge for him not to feel as though he was simply going through the motions now that she was using her head. He saw an opening in her guard and took it, only to have his hand wrenched by a violent twist of his sword. She almost managed to disarm him.

 

He knocked her back with a shoulder check and swept with the flat of his blade, knowing she wouldn't be able to evade in time. She went down on her back a second time, this time holding on to her sword, rolling, and swinging. She struck him a stinging blow to his lower back, also using the flat of her blade. Panting, she said, “OK, now I'm legless, and you're paralyzed. Ready for a rest?”

 

“No,” he said, straightening.

 

“I've created a monster,” she said admiringly, climbing to her feet.

 

The monster has been here a while, he realized as he prepared for another pass.

 

Garak

Holding Cell

 

Although his arms and lower back were shaking and beginning to spasm, Garak held his rigid position, facing the floor and balanced on the ends of his toes and the tips of his fingers. His elbows were bent, his arms close to his sides, hands at chest level, and his stomach less than eight centimeters from the floor. He heard footsteps in the corridor outside his cell and ignored them, believing it to be one of the security guards checking in on him as they did several times per shift.

 

“They're not making you do that, are they?” a soft, feminine voice queried.

 

Leeta. She hadn't been to visit him since his return. He had imagined that she was angry with him after hearing what he had tried to do. He figured he was about to find out. “No,” he said, his voice strained with effort. He heard the forcefield deactivate long enough for her to join him in the spartan space and reactivate once more.

 

“It looks painful,” she said, circling him and taking a prim seat on his bunk.

 

He refused to allow her to break his concentration. “Merely uncomfortable.” The tremors spread down the backs of his legs, his calves starting to knot. She said nothing more until he finished his count and relaxed downward, immediately pushing himself up to his feet so that he could sit at the other end of the bunk. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I don't usually get visitors this late.”

 

“I've been debating whether to come at all,” she said. “I keep asking myself why you're here and not light years away on some prison planet. I finally decided I probably don't want to know the answer to that.”

 

He stayed silent. He knew that nothing he could say would justify his actions in her eyes. She was Bajoran, after all. They had backwards perspectives at times.

 

“I always told myself you were different. It was one of the ways I suppose I...justified...allowing myself to be close to you. I'm having a really hard time justifying that right now,” she said, brows knit.

 

“I understand,” he said. If she was hoping he would attempt to justify himself, she was about to be disappointed.

 

“Is genocide and mass destruction the only way your people know how to approach the world?” she asked, her voice tight.

 

He sat up straighter. “Well, I suppose I could have offered to make her a dress instead. Maybe next time.”

 

“Her?” she asked, tipping her head and ignoring his biting sarcasm.

 

“The Founder who told me the Dominion is going to utterly destroy my people.”

 

She dropped her gaze and shifted it to the side. “Oh,” she said. “That doesn't explain my people. What threat were we?”

 

He had hoped that this was a conversation they'd never have. However, he had no intention of shying away from the subject. “You weren't,” he said, “not until incompetent hands bungled the occupation. You were resource rich, and we were resource poor. You're a smart woman, Leeta. Do the math.”

 

“It never occurred to any of you to ask us for help?”

 

He barked a harsh laugh.

 

Her lips tightened. “That wasn't intended to be funny. Have you ever heard of the Oralian Way?”

 

That caught him off guard. He narrowed his eyes, suddenly feeling very wary. “What of it?” he asked.

 

She nodded to herself. “Of course you have. Fire, you were probably one of the ones who helped root them out in the end. If your people had just had faith in your priests the way we did in ours, Bajor and Cardassia might have formed a tremendously powerful alliance. We could have shown you the art of sustainable growth, intelligent stewardship of resources. We probably could have even taught you how to begin healing your own main planet. We had plenty, enough for both worlds, just not the way your people wanted to make use of things.”

 

“Yes, and you were sitting off in your own little corner of the galaxy, drowning in your own isolation and a caste system that oppressed your best and brightest, preventing you from developing the technology that could have kept people like us at bay,” he retorted. “You were less than a six hour journey at full impulse from your very own Celestial Temple and never even knew it.”

 

He could see her chest rise with a deep breath, a visible effort to calm herself. “I'm not even going to try to argue against that,” she said. “You're right. There was a lot we could have learned from you, and we would've learned it willingly had you given us the chance.”

 

“What's the point of this?” he asked, losing patience. “You want to take me to task for the occupation, lay some blame at my feet? If that's what you need to do, then do it. If you need to cast me in the role of villain because of what I did in the Gamma Quadrant, do it. The fact is I'd destroy this entire station and everyone on it, myself included, if it meant keeping the Dominion at bay. Whether that's a product of being Cardassian or my specific training I couldn't begin to say. I'm not a philosopher.”

 

“The problem is I don't know what you are,” she said. “I guess I should've tried harder to find that out before you became my friend, because now I can't even begin to be objective when it comes to you.” She leaned and took his hand, giving it a rueful squeeze, and he knew that against all reason, the crisis between them had passed. She wasn't discarding him. She was venting and clearing the air.

 

“There are things I regret,” he said. “Not about what I did in the Gamma Quadrant, but...the occupation.”

 

“I don't want to hear them,” she said quickly. “I'm only just now finding I can stand to be in the same room with you and not want to give you the beating of your life.” She stroked an idle thumb over the back of his hand. “What's this I hear about you refusing to see Julian? You just said you have no regrets, so it can't be guilt.”

 

“Things worked better between us with you in the picture than out of it,” he said.

 

She released his hand and covered her incredulous laugh. “Wow, you just acknowledged I'm smart and then tried to feed me that line? You're going to give me whiplash if you keep this up.”

 

“Then you figure it out,” he said, dipping his head slightly and giving a half smile.

 

“OK. I know he wants to see you, and I know he has been hurt that you've refused him. We haven't talked about it, of course. We don't need to. I know his moods. He has been drinking more than he should. It doesn't make sense. What would it hurt for you to let him visit?” she asked.

 

“That's a very good question,” he said, watching her face closely.

 

Her gaze softened with realization. “And that's why I can't hate you. You have to go and do something so amazingly selfless and sweet. Maybe he won't be in Starfleet forever, or maybe one day Cardassia will join the Federation.” She said the latter with a wicked twinkle in her dark eyes.

 

“You started that on such a promising note,” he said dryly, amused, “and then you had to ruin it.”

 

“All right,” she said more briskly. “I want a hug, and then I have to go.”

 

“Do you have a date?” he asked archly, standing with her and moving to give her a light embrace.

 

“I do not,” she said primly, kissing his cheek and pulling back. “And you will not say things like that again until after Julian and I have had the chance to have our breaking up ceremony.”

 

“Neither of you is getting any younger,” he said.

 

She swatted him. “You're horrible. One more thing. Now that you're standing long enough for me to get a good look at you, I can see you don't need to lose any more weight. Are they feeding you properly?”

 

He didn't want to tell her he hadn't had much of an appetite. His captivity may have been positively cushy by Cardassian standards, but it was still captivity, a condition his people didn't endure well. “If you must know, Aroya has been bringing me food, as has Ziyal. If I were to indulge them to their hearts' content, I would gain back every kilogram plus interest.”

 

“I will be checking your story,” she said, shaking a finger at him. She pressed the button to summon the guard. “I'll be back to see you soon,” she added when the officer came into view. “Somebody has to fill you in on all the gossip. I hear the best of it in the bar.”

 

“Thank you, Leeta,” he said sincerely. He had missed her and regretted the thought that perhaps their friendship had ended. It was good to know he had been wrong. After she left, he resumed his exercises, lying on his side on the floor and balancing himself on one hand, both arms straight and spread wide, his core muscles tight and body in a straight line from head to feet. His fight with Worf illustrated all too well the dangers of going soft. Never again would he allow his physical conditioning to take a lower priority than was warranted.

 

Julian

The Infirmary

 

He had just finished vaccinating the last of three Bajoran children brought to him by their mother when he heard a commotion in the waiting area. “Excuse me for a moment, won't you?” he asked the woman, giving her small daughter seated on the exam table an absent pat on the shoulder.

 

“What's going on?” he asked, finding Odo and a Bajoran security officer in the front, both of them wearing grim business faces, trying to push past one of the day nurses.

 

“You're under arrest,” the security chief said, “for the trafficking of Regalian fleaspiders without a permit and conspiring to smuggle Regalian liquid crystals, a controlled substance.”

 

“What?” Julian demanded, outraged. He shrugged out of the officer's grasp only to be grabbed harder and glared at. The two ushered him quickly out onto the promenade where Quark was being held by a third man. “You!” the doctor said, lunging for the Ferengi without thinking.

 

Odo shoved his way between them and grabbed Julian by both arms. “None of that, Doctor,” he growled, “or I'll have to put an assault charge on top of everything else.”

 

“I want to see Major Kira,” he said through gritted teeth, glaring daggers past Odo at Quark.

 

“Fine,” Odo said, turning to grasp Quark's upper arm. “I'll take you both. I'll strongly advise you not to give me any trouble on the way. I may not be a changeling anymore. That doesn't mean I can't stun you with a phaser.”

 

This was beyond the pale. Odo knew damned well he wasn't a smuggler and didn't traffic in drugs. He clenched his fists so tightly the nails bit his palms. It didn't help that Quark was running his mouth non-stop just on the other side of their escort. “I have no idea what the doctor wants with fleaspiders. I told him it was a bad idea.”

 

“You told me it wouldn't be a problem,” he said, trying to catch sight of him around the constable.

 

Odo swung them around with him in the turbolift to face outward and gave a tighter squeeze to Julian's upper arm as though to emphasize that he should behave.

 

“If they get loose, we'll have an infestation,” Quark continued. “I'm all for importing live insects for food. Ferengi insects only breed under very specific conditions, conditions we don't have on the station. You'd never have to worry about say...a tube beetle infestation. But fleaspiders! Now that you're hew-mon, they should worry you, Odo. They can give you the worst sort of rash, particularly if you're allergic.”

 

“And the liquid crystals?” Odo asked.

 

“What do you have against love?”

 

“Hmph,” Odo replied, rolling his eyes. As they stepped from the lift into Ops, Julian found himself grateful that both Miles and Dax were gone on a mission. He didn't think he'd ever live down what was happening had they been there to witness it.

 

They entered Captain Sisko's office only to find it empty. Quark immediately began insisting that if Odo truly intended to prosecute him, he should prosecute Doctor Bashir, too. The argument became heated by the time Kira walked in on all of them. He thought he'd be off the hook once he explained the situation to her and that the spiders were for her benefit. Instead, she announced she was leaving on the Defiant to help Captain Sisko with the recovery of a downed Jem'Hadar ship, and he would be staying behind to sort out his own mess. He wanted to slap the smug grin right off of Quark's ugly face.

 

Odo hauled them back through Ops. “You're actually arresting me?” Julian asked, incredulous.

 

“Doctor, I have no choice,” Odo said. “I'm sure the magistrate will get the details straightened out. I can hardly give you preferential treatment just because your a Starfleet officer. You ought to know by now to check to see if you need a permit for transporting live cargo. As for you,” he said to Quark, “I'm going to do everything I can to see you get the maximum fine.”

 

“For Regalian liquid crystals? You can't be serious! They're not that dangerous!”

 

“No, but you're taking our station doctor out of commission during a time of heightened alert with this foolishness and could have damaged his career and reputation if he were any less upstanding than he is,” he said tersely.

 

Julian stayed stubbornly silent for the rest of the lift ride and the walk back to the security office. He cooperated with processing and didn't struggle when Odo took him back to the holding area. He caught nothing more than a glimpse of Garak seated on his bunk and reading a PADD, blue eyes lifting quizzically when he passed. Fortunately, Quark was put in a cell on the other side of Garak's. He couldn't see him at all. Too bad the cells weren't sound proof.

 

“You can thank me now,” Quark called out.

 

“You had better not be talking to me,” Julian snapped.

 

“Who else would I be talking to?” he asked. “Garak? He's the one who has been trying to avoid you. I got you in. Now you can talk.”

 

“Come off it! You didn't do this for me, and Odo was right. You could've gotten me into some very serious trouble. Furthermore, Major Kira is now headed into the Gamma Quadrant on a dangerous salvage mission without a doctor. I'm going to put any deaths firmly at your feet.” He paced the tight confines, too furious to sit.

 

“Wow,” Quark said. “He's really mad.”

 

“Don't drag me into this,” Garak said.

 

“It's just you know him better than I do,” the Ferengi continued. “Should I be worried?”

 

“If someone dies due to the station's Chief Medical Officer being incarcerated because of something you did?” Garak asked. “I'd be worried in your shoes.”

 

“How is that fair?” Quark's voice rose. “You're the one who tried to kill everybody, and they've barely slapped you on the wrists! Do you have any idea what they'd do to me if I had done what you did?”

 

“Oh, please!” Garak retorted. “With everything you've gotten away with since I've been on this station...”

 

“Both of you shut up!” Julian bellowed. “I don't care who has gotten away with what or how either one of you feels about each other and your respective...illegal activities. If I have to sit here and wait for my case to go before the magistrate, by damn I'm going to have some peace and quiet doing it.”

 

“No wonder Garak has been avoiding you,” Quark muttered. “Touch-y.”

 

Silence descended among them, and Julian took a seat on the thinly padded bunk, folding his arms tightly. The worst part about it was that he did want to say a few choice things to Garak, something he would never do in front of Quark. The longer he had been kept away, the angrier and more resentful he had grown. He didn't care what excuse Garak thought he had. There was no way it was good enough.

 

A couple of hours passed. He could hear Quark fidgeting and pacing in his cell. He heard nothing from Garak, not surprising considering how very quiet he could be when he wished. In addition to anger at the entire situation and Garak, he felt some of the resentment spilling to Major Kira. She seemed to have no idea about or appreciation of how very difficult it was to find substances that could treat her pregnancy symptoms without being dangerous for the human child she carried. Her spirit of cooperation had faded over time, with Miles reporting several heated arguments between the two of them.

 

Odo came for Quark. “I'm going to question the two of you separately,” he said as he drew the bartender from his cell. He added to the doctor, “I couldn't get you an appointment with the magistrate today, unfortunately. The earliest he can take the case is fourteen hundred hours tomorrow. I'll be back for you in a little while. Try to relax.”

 

He said nothing until both of them were gone. “I've put up with a lot from you,” he said harshly. “But this? Shutting me out and using Odo to do your dirty work? I'm sure you think you have some perfectly good excuse. Well, go on, Garak. I'd love to hear it.”

 

“You're a weakness I can't afford,” came the cold voice in answer. “Living on this station, it was easy to forget that. I had to be awakened by the type of threat to my home I used to face on a regular basis to remember it. I won't forget it again.”

 

“You don't have to worry about that,” he said just as coldly. “I wouldn't give you another chance even if you wanted it. I've been talking to Jadzia a lot lately. She has given me a good perspective on all of this.” He waited for Garak to say more and hugged himself tighter when he didn't. So that was it, then? After years of their trying to find a way to bridge the many gaps between them and a brief period of getting it right the second time around, the Dominion came along and destroyed their last chance to be happy together? Would he have been so quick to give up on Dax without Garak there to distract him? Had he made two of the greatest mistakes of his life in rapid succession? Maybe there was still time to correct at least one of them.

 

He spent another hour in silence before it was his turn for questioning. His session with Odo didn't last nearly as long. He felt only slightly comforted that the constable truly seemed to believe he was blameless in the matter and being held only on technicalities. He hoped that the magistrate would be as understanding.

 

The night and part of the following day in the holding cell was pure misery. He didn't want that sort of proximity to Garak. It hurt too much. He felt stupid for ever turning his eye toward the Cardassian. Everyone, everyone had warned him it was a bad idea. All he had seen was the charm and mystery, the experience, the challenge. What had he offered in return? Someone malleable, pliable, easily manipulated and dominated, because at his core, at his very heart, he had the unshaken belief that he was inherently unlovable without negotiating some measure of value. Dax was right. Garak had preyed on him, maybe not even intentionally. Maybe it was a case of two dysfunctions meshing in all the right ways for all the wrong reasons. He couldn't do it anymore, but if that was the supposedly healthy attitude, why did it hurt so damned bad?

 

Before hauling him into court, Odo allowed him the courtesy of a trip to his quarters so that he could take a shower, make himself presentable, and don a clean, pressed uniform. Having never been before the magistrate, he didn't know what to expect. His stomach felt knotted, and he was beginning to regret the two scones with jam and clotted cream he had ordered for breakfast. It sat heavily despite being past lunch time.

 

He stepped into the crowded courtroom with Quark, Odo between the two of them. Although it wasn't actually the case, he felt as though all eyes were on him from the people seated on the backless benches, friends and family members of various accused and likely just some gawkers who had nothing better to do. Bajor's flag draped a large part of the wall behind the somberly dressed magistrate, his hood covering his ears and neck, leaving only his stern face free.

 

Julian squeezed onto a bench near the front, frowning to himself at the motley company he found himself a part of. Most of them were Bajorans, but there were also a few aliens in the group. He supposed that most of the offenses were so petty and minor as not to require incarceration before the case. The thought made him hang his head a little lower. He was too nervous to pay attention to any of the other cases, waiting tensely for his name to be called. After what seemed like ages, he heard, “Quark, and Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir, approach the magistrate.” Glancing once at Quark, he did so. He forced himself to keep his head up and meet the man's gaze, not defiantly, but honestly.

 

“Constable, would you read the charges?” the judge requested.

 

“Quark is charged with importation of live cargo without a permit, importation of a controlled substance with intent to sell, and obstruction of justice.”

 

“I object!” Quark said. “Obstruction?”

 

The magistrate banged his stone on its pad. “Quiet! One more outburst like that from you, and I'll hold you in contempt of this court. Continue, Constable.”

 

“Doctor Bashir is charged with conspiracy to import live cargo without a permit.”

 

Julian breathed a small sigh of relief. At least he wasn't being associated with the illegal substance. It wouldn't have mattered if he had been acquitted of the charges. Something like that could be a large smirch on his record.

 

The magistrate looked through a file PADD for a few moments and addressed Julian first. “What do you have to say in your defense, Doctor?”

 

He cleared his throat. “I was careless in not researching whether Regalian fleaspiders required a permit, and I was stupid ever to trust Quark to do anything for me properly, but my intentions were not criminal. I needed the spiders for their venom for legal medical treatment of circulatory problems. It had been so difficult to determine the proper treatment that I was too hasty in attempting to procure it. I can assure you I have learned my lesson.”

 

“I've never seen you in my court before,” the judge said. “I trust I won't see you again?”

 

“No Your Honor, not as a perpetrator, at least,” he said gravely.

 

“I'm letting you off with a warning only this time, Doctor,” the man said, banging the rock down once more. “Please, take more care in the future.”

 

“I will, Your Honor. Thank you,” he said, bowing slightly from the waist. He waited until he was dismissed to turn and head out. He didn't care what Quark's sentence would be. All he wanted was to get back to work and put the whole thing behind him. Besides, he still had the fleaspiders to deal with before they died.