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

Garak

The Promenade

He didn't often have reason to use the skills he developed at the Bamarren Institute, the rare ability to hide in plain sight, but it was exactly what he did as more and more Bajorans gathered outside the temple to hear their new Emissary for the first time. Someone needed to keep an eye and ear out for Cardassian interests. Who knew which way the wind might blow with a different hand guiding the hearts and minds of the volatile and sometimes fickle people? He didn't see Captain Sisko in the crowd, wise of him, he thought, yet Odo and Major Kira stood above the throng on the second floor. Of the Starfleeters, all he saw were a few in security gold. He didn't buy this feigned indifference. He imagined there were several nervous officers scattered throughout the station, probably watching the activity through the security feeds.

The crowd broke into applause. Garak saw the man of the hour emerge from the temple doorway and ascend the podium set up for him. After the applause, a hush fell over the gathered, and Akorem began to speak. The more Garak heard, the more disquieted he felt. Here we go again, he thought, his reptilian eyes going flat at the talk of the great wound of the occupation and the return to the old ways.

The old ways, he thought contemptuously, the last refuge of the unimaginative and those lacking vision. You can't erase the past. If you try, you'll never even learn from it. As uneasy as the old man's words made him, the crowd's reaction was worse. They were divided, some shouting and clapping their enthusiasm, others whispering and glancing at one another with furtive body language.

He had heard and seen enough. For all the good it would do him, he determined he would report this back to the civilian government. They needed to understand that the climate on Bajor was shifting abruptly, not for the better. If they were wise and truly serious about the treaty, they should have sent a permanent liaison or made use of him for the job. He knew the people. Some of them even trusted him.

When he reached his shop he closed and locked the doors. He didn't want interruptions. He quickly compiled his report and sent a scrambled, encrypted transmission. After he was done, he decided to leave the shop closed for the day. He didn't like what his instincts were telling him. He hadn't survived as long as he had by ignoring them. He made good use of the time in his stock room, working on orders until quitting time.

On his way past the Replimat, he heard raised voices. His first instinct was not to get involved, but he recognized one of those voices as Leeta's. Stepping around the tables and chairs that were scattered at the entrance, he made his way further in just in time to see a man shove her out of her chair. “Hey!” she cried out more in surprise than pain, glaring at the man from the floor.

“It's not my fault you don't know your place,” the Bajoran sneered.

Garak approached so swiftly and silently that neither noticed him until he was practically on top of the now seated man. “Do you know the place for those who physically assault others on this station?” he asked pleasantly.

“If you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of it, Cardassian,” the man sneered.

“Or what?” Garak asked. “You'll shove me, too?” Although his tone of voice didn't change, he bored a hole in the man with his gaze. He noticed Leeta climbing to her feet in peripheral vision, not breaking his eye contact with the antagonist.

“I don't need this,” the man said, standing abruptly and flinging the chair aside. “Who wants to eat here with the stench of spoonhead in the air?”

Garak caught himself committing the features and clothing, even the earring, to memory and watching his path on his way out. Shaking himself from a bad habit and a worse impulse, he turned to eye Leeta. Although she attempted not to look shaken, he could tell that she was. She was also rubbing her wrist. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded tightly, her expression conflicted. “Thank you,” she said stiffly.

“Leeta,” he began, but she cut him off.

“Garak, please don't,” she said. “I'm not ready not to be angry with you.”

He nodded. “I understand. At least let me have a look at that wrist.” She bit her lip, indecision flickering in her eyes, glanced toward the infirmary, and suddenly thrust it toward him without a word.

He probed carefully with his fingers and manipulated it in its full range of motion. She winced painfully as he bent it back. “I think you have a sprain,” he said.

“Can you wrap it?” she asked.

It was on the tip of his tongue to send her to the infirmary. He knew she wouldn't go before it ever got out. He nodded assent. “You'll have to come with me to the shop.”

She gestured for him to lead the way. He could feel her at his back as they walked, an angry presence, a burr of rough edged energy in his bio-electric periphery. Had he not known her as well as he did, he believed he couldn't have tolerated allowing her to stay behind him. He led her into his stock room and pulled out his emergency med kit.

“Have you talked to him?” she asked the question to his back.

“Yes,” he said, turning with the self-adhesive wrap.

She held her arm out to him. “I'm sure the two of you will be very happy together,” she said, her voice brittle and glass edged.

He carefully began to wrap the already swelling joint. “You'll have to tell me if it's too tight,” he said gently. He sighed, the conversation unwelcome but owed to her. “We're not together. We haven't been together since he left me.”

“Don't lie to me, Garak,” she gritted. “It's insulting.”

“I'm not lying,” he said, lifting his gaze to meet hers and holding it as surely as he held her wrist in one hand while wrapping with the other. “You're more angry at the deception than you are at anything else. I can tell that much.” He finished with the bandage and tested the hold then settled his free hand atop hers, sandwiching it between his. “I wasn't pretending to be your friend. I don't expect you to understand or to forgive me, but I do want you to know that.”

“You lie to all your friends?” she asked, pulling her hand back gingerly.

“Yes,” he said, “particularly the ones of which I'm fond.”

“I don't understand that,” she said, sounding more confused than angry.

“I know you don't,” he said, having no intention of explaining or justifying himself to her.

“I wish I could tell when you're lying and when you're telling the truth. If you're actually some huge jerk pretending not to be, I know this isn't going to matter to you, but I don't want things to be this way. I don't want to feel knotted up inside or like I was used and made a fool of.”

“I don't believe that Julian was using you. If he has been using anyone, it's me,” he said without any self-pity or rancor.

“Why would you allow that?” Her anger returned, but he wondered if it was directed at him at all.

“I prefer it to the alternatives,” he said simply.

“I really want to stay mad at you,” she said. “It's harder than it should be, particularly when you save me from self-righteous fanatics.”

“Was that incident because of Akorem's speech this morning?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I'm caste-less, the lowest of the low. It didn't matter that he had almost the entire place to choose from. He decided he wanted my specific chair and table. According to the old ways, that means I'm supposed to turn it over to him without a word of complaint. I shouldn't even make him sully himself by having to address me or look directly at me.”

He frowned, no stranger to social stratification or what being at the bottom of the heap was like. He recalled all too well his work with Tolan in the Tarlak sector and the way they were so often ignored as though invisible by those paying their respects at the grand statues of the legates. “I think you need to be careful,” he said. “It may be different on Bajor, but on Cardassia, it's very difficult for those of low to no status to get justice for wrongs done by those who outrank them in importance. Today it's shoving out of a chair. Tomorrow it could be shoving out of an airlock.”

“I've worked hard for everything I have. All my life I've worked hard. Now, some poet from the past comes along and declares none of that matters. I don't matter, just because I don't know my family name. The very occupation he says we need to heal from produced that situation for me, and hundreds if not thousands more just like me. Pretending it never happened may work fine for those of a D'Jarra they find desirable. It does nothing for the rest of us except piling upon yet another indignity and unfairness.” She stopped talking abruptly and focused on him again. “I have no business bringing all of this up to you. I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm sorry,” he surprised himself in saying. It emerged from a part of him that rarely voiced itself, a part that Tain had never touched but Tolan had carefully cultivated, so carefully that not even Mila was aware of his efforts.

She seemed to sense that he spoke of something larger than either of them or their recent division. “I didn't think I'd ever hear that from a Cardassian in a way I could believe.” She touched his cheek lightly with her undamaged hand and let it drop back to her side again. “If I ask you to promise me something and you do, can I trust you to keep your word?”

“You do realize that I could very easily lie about that,” he warned her.

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“Ask,” he said abruptly, intensely uncomfortable with what had just happened and wanting to distance himself from it as quickly as he could. Tolan's path led to rocky ground and uncertain footing.

“Promise me that if you think Julian is getting serious about trying to come back to you, or you think you really want him back, you'll tell me,” she said.

“You're going back to him?” he asked.

“I haven't decided. I'm still furious with him and hurt, way more hurt than I was by you. I won't pretend to understand what it is that pulls you two toward each other, and I really don't want details.” She paced the confines of the stock room and turned back to face him from a greater distance. “But even angry, I know he wouldn't do something like this lightly or on a whim, and neither would you. What do you know of our beliefs?”

“A bit,” he said. He knew more than he wanted.

“Then you know that a pagh's path can sometimes be convoluted and confusing and that sometimes paghs can be bound in ways that are impossible to ignore. It doesn't matter if you and Julian believe in it or not. That doesn't mean you aren't bound in some way.”

He found the talk frustrating. It made him want to shake her. “Please, don't make excuses for us,” he said earnestly. “If you want to go back to Julian and give him another chance, do it because it's what you want. The same applies for if you wish to have me as your friend. See us for who and what we are. Don't use your beliefs to mitigate what either he or I did to you with the deception.”

“I'm not,” she said. “I know it sounds that way to you. As you said earlier, I don't expect you to understand. Will you just promise to do as I've asked? Can you respect me enough to be honest with me if things change or deepen between you two?”

“Yes,” he said. “I promise I'll do that if the two of you are together at the time it happens, not that I expect it.”

“Thank you,” she said. “May I ask one more favor for now?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Would you please walk me to Quark's? I know it isn't far, but I...I suppose I'm still a little shaky from being assaulted like that.”

“I will. I think you should press charges, though.”

She shook her head. “I don't even know who it was.”

“I got a very good look at him. I could easily identify him, and I saw what he did to you. That may be the new law of the land for Bajor, but there are still rules of conduct on this station that don't allow for that sort of violence. If you don't press charges, what's to stop the next one from coming along and doing the same thing or worse?” They walked out of his shop together, and he paused to have the computer lock up.

“I could do that, yes, and then he or his friends could find ways to retaliate. I know how these things go, and I suspect that you do, too. While I appreciate your indignation on my behalf, I think I'll be better off letting it drop.”

She had a point. More frustrated than he was that morning, he walked her in silence the rest of the short distance to Quark's. She visibly relaxed when they passed through the wide doorway. Garak knew that for all of his flaws, Quark wouldn't tolerate foolishness like what happened in the Replimat in his bar. She was safer there. “If you change your mind, just let me know,” he said.

“I will. I'll let you know if I decide to talk to Julian, too. Do you think he actually cares about me?” she asked, somehow looking younger in her sudden vulnerability.

“Yes, I do,” he said, not needing to lie.

She nodded and withdrew from him, heading toward the back to prepare to start her shift. He watched until he could no longer see her and turned to go, much warier on his way home than he had been in a very long time. The entire way he mulled the assailant and the situation, a plan forming that he was positive would earn Odo's ire should he ever learn of it. He supposed he'd have to make certain Odo never found out.

After ordering a mug of hot rokassa juice from his replicator, he sat at his terminal and got to business. The security files were harder to hack than the last time he poured through them. He had to credit Odo for staying on his toes and idly wondered if it was he or Quark who had tripped some alarm last time prompting the change, or if perhaps the changeling simply did it out of paranoia. He searched criminal files going all the way back to the end of the occupation and didn't see a mugshot of his man. It didn't mean he wasn't a criminal, of course. It simply meant he hadn't been caught for anything aboard the station and wasn't notorious enough on Bajor to be flagged.

“Going to make me do this the hard way,” he murmured, sipping from his mug. “I believe I'm going to take offense at that.” The next set of files was easier to access, but the database was tremendous, and he had no simple way to narrow it down other than to key in some very broad parameters, adult male, brown hair, brown eyes, Bajoran. Pictures flipped by on his screen at a speed that would suit a Vulcan. Garak never blinked, watching them all. Almost two minutes later, he said, “Computer stop. Go back ten files.” A slightly younger version of his culprit appeared on his screen. After all of that, it was nothing to discover where he lived. A search of information on his quarters told him that at least officially, he lived alone. It was no guarantee.

“Now,” he said, feeling very satisfied, “let's see where you work and who you work with. Family, either on the station or on Bajor...” Between speaking, he hummed lightly, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Much later in the evening, he left his quarters with a small satchel slung over his shoulder. All was quiet in the H-ring, the lights low, the deep rumble of the station a soothing background noise he barely noticed. It was convenient that they shared the same ring. It made his job of getting there less likely to draw attention. He felt alive all over, every sense keyed and heightened. This was always a dangerous game to play, regardless of the target.

Once outside the quarters, he fished a small tricorder from his bag and ran it. One life sign behind the wall where the bedroom should be, no movement to speak of, slightly lower respiration, temperature, and heart rate than one would expect of a Bajoran who was awake. Asleep. So obliging. It almost puts me in a more forgiving mood, he thought. Almost. He turned it off again and tucked it neatly back into its separate pouch, the entire bag compartmentalized to prevent anything from clacking together inside.

Cracking the door code and disabling the internal computer interface was nothing. He slipped silently into the dark quarters and waited. Did the hiss of the door awaken his quarry? He knew that some Bajoran's hearing was so keen as to seem unnatural to his people. He heard no stirring from the room beyond. The wait allowed his eyes to adjust to the starlight illuminating the quarters from the port and gave him time to take what he needed from his satchel by feel alone. Messy, he saw. He had to pick his way carefully around clutter on the floor. Oh, how he loathed disorder! His opinion of the man fell further.

The bedroom door was open. He stepped through it very quickly and to the side, hugging the wall. Doorways were a danger zone, the place where one was most likely to be spotted. He saw a pale face above a rumpled blanket, the man asleep on his back. He smiled closed lipped and stepped forward. The first magnetic clamp in his thinly gloved hand clicked very softly as he set it into place at the underside of the bed platform. He froze and watched the slack face. Not even a twitch, he thought, still waiting a bit longer to be certain. Extending a fine wire from its tight spool, he snapped it into place in the small slots on the clamp designed just for that purpose and circled the foot of the bed, allowing the wire to extend and retract again to accommodate his movements.

At the other side, he supported the wire gently beneath the fingers of one hand while setting a twin clamp with the other, still no reaction from his quarry. His next move was fast and precise, allowing the wire to pop down onto the bare neck while securing another end beneath the other clamp and using the snip on the spool to cut it to length. As expected, the man snapped awake from the sudden sting, only Garak's firm hand at his shoulder preventing him from slitting his own throat.

“I see I have your attention,” he hissed softly.

“Computer, lights!” the Bajoran croaked in a panic. Nothing happened.

“No,” Garak said, tutting him. “We can't have that. You see, there's a place and time for everything, wouldn't you agree? Darkness suits this sort of activity.”

“I don't know who you are, but I swear you'll pay for this,” the man growled. Although he attempted to sound menacing, Garak could hear the underlying waver in the bravado.

“Oh, how rude of me not to introduce myself,” he said. “I'm the spoonhead. I'm surprised you couldn't tell by the smell, but I suppose your sensory lapse is understandable due to the circumstances.” He saw the chest rise sharply with the man's semi-panicked inhale. Good. He did fear Cardassians. Garak honestly didn't care why. “I'm going to take my hand off your shoulder. You'd be very wise not to try to move much. There's a wire across your throat taut enough to slit it if you try to sit up and thin enough to slice your fingers off if you're foolish enough to pry at it. You are, of course, welcome to test this for yourself.”

He released his pressure and squatted back on his heels so that his face would be at the bed level, watching intently. “I'm glad to see you're not as stupid as your actions earlier this evening led me to believe.”

“So this is revenge for that tun'jarra?” He sounded incredulous and a little outraged on top of his obvious fear.

Garak chuckled low, an ugly sound. “Oh, no. You completely misunderstand. You see, I found the Emissary's speech quite inspiring. All that talk of a return to the old ways. Do you know that my people have something of a caste system, too? Hearing that talk made me homesick. It made me realize that I've been untrue to my calling, settling for the dull life of a simple tailor. Would you care to guess what my 'D'jarra' is?” he asked liltingly. Nothing but shallow breathing followed his query. “No?” He pressed gently on the wire with a gloved finger.

“Y-you're an assassin,” the man yelped.

Garak let up. “Rather crude, not entirely accurate, but close enough for my purposes, I suppose,” he said in a way that voiced disappointment. “You could, of course, report me to security. Once I leave this room, I have no real control over what you do. Knowing Odo, he's going to want more than your word to have me arrested, particularly after Leeta tells him how I prevented you from doing her further harm. As efficient as he is, a thorough investigation will still take him at least twenty-six hours, possibly more because I'm very good at covering my tracks. Do you have any idea what I could do in twenty-six hours? Think of the collateral damage of our little disagreement, your work detail in maintenance, cute little Jerra Revan in Dahkur Province.”

The man swallowed heavily and a thin line of black appeared on his throat, all color leached from the room in the pale starlight. It trickled downward toward the mattress, and Garak watched him twitch. “Please,” he said, all bravado gone, only naked appeal left. “What do you want from me?”

Garak leaned closer so that his breath would tickle the large curve of ear. “I've known people like you,” he whispered. “Frustrated little people who covet the power of others but don't have the...initiative...to seize any of their own. This return to the old ways must seem like a windfall from the prophets for you, an excuse to tread on those lower on the rung by accident of birth or misfortune of the occupation. The way I understand it, and please, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm hardly a scholar of Bajoran history.

“Yes, those of lower caste and the tun'jarra, those with no status at all, are expected to defer to their so-called betters, but you have a duty to them not to abuse them. I suggest you study your own texts, or I may find myself completely overwhelmed with nostalgia and have to pay your friends a visit before I come back to see you again. Do we understand each other?” he asked.

“Yes,” the man said, his voice now starting to shake. Garak could see a sheen of sweat on the pale face. The stress of the situation was beginning to wear his victim down.

“Another thing,” he said. “I find the term 'spoonhead' to be quite hurtful, and I can't seem to keep myself from lashing out when I'm hurt. Do you think I should see someone about that? Is it...normal?”

“N...no. I mean yes! I mean, you don't need to see anyone. I...I apologize for offending you,” he said in a rush.

“Apology accepted,” Garak said, sliding one hand down the man's arm until he reached his hand and bracing him at the shoulder with the other. He loosely clasped his fingers around his index finger and gave a sharp jerk. The Bajoran howled in pain, Garak's hand at his shoulder preventing further, graver injury to the pinned throat. “You sprained my friend's wrist,” he said coldly. “Shall I convey an apology to her as well?”

“Ye-es,” came the ragged reply.

“I'm happy to see you're more reasonable than I expected,” he said. He released the clamp closest to him and circled the bed to release the other, tucking everything neatly back into his pack. He wasn't at all surprised that the man didn't move. His eyes glittered as they tried to follow Garak's movements, but it was obvious to the Cardassian that it was too dark for the man to see him as anything more than a disconcerting shadow. “I'm leaving now. I do hope that you'll set a good example for all of your friends in how to behave toward those of lesser status than your own. The very best way to teach is by example. Good night.”

He exited as quietly as he entered and took as much care returning to his quarters as he did upon leaving them. He knew there was a possibility his victim might do something stupid and actually file a report. It would be a shame if it came to that, as he didn't make idle threats. All in all, he believed the excursion was successful, even if it truly had left him feeling a bit nostalgic.

The Promenade

The picket line outside Quark's that morning caused quite a stir. The entire area was abuzz with rumors and gossip. Julian saw Leeta prominently to the fore with Rom and gave her his most encouraging smile. He had to admire the workers for taking a stand, particularly the Ferengi for whom this could be an utter disaster. It quickly became apparent that getting any work done was going to be difficult, especially when Miles showed up, fired up and enthusiastic about the stir.

“C'n you believe it?” the Irishman asked. “A real, honest to goodness strike right here on Deep Space Nine, and it's all because of you.”

“Me?” Julian widened his eyes. “Hardly. You were there when he came in to talk about it. I didn't even remember saying anything to him about unions. I was probably just trying to make him feel better or get him to stop complaining. I was tired that night.”

“Whatever your intentions, it was the right fuel to throw on the right fire at the right time. Look at 'em. I bet we'd get a better look from the second level.”

Nodding, he followed the engineer up the stairs, the two of them positioning themselves with a good view of the striking workers below and the second level entrance. “I wonder why they didn't block this one off, too?” Miles said.

“I would imagine Captain Sisko had something to do with that,” Julian replied. “I don't think it would be legal to allow them to close the bar off entirely.”

“Probably not,” the engineer agreed. “I'm surprised he's allowing as much as he is.”

“It's a fine line to tread, not infringing on their rights or Quark's and not interfering with an alien society. Makes me glad I'm not a captain,” he said. “As upset as I've seen Leeta at Quark at times, I'd be tempted to run him off the station, the bar be damned.”

Miles snorted a chuckle. “So, you'd say you've started feelin' more protective of Leeta lately?”

Julian eyed him warily. “I said no such thing.” To get him off the subject, he pointed at a Tellarite walking past. “What do you think? In, our out?”

“Huh?” Miles asked.

The Tellarite walked into the bar from the upper level. “Oh, too late!” he said, grinning. Miles returned the grin, catching on. They made quite the entertaining game of it until Worf unexpectedly walked inside. Before he could even think to stop him, the engineer started off after him. “Where are you going?” he asked, hurrying to catch up and not liking where this was heading.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the lower light in the bar. The scene was almost surreal, as what few customers there were all seemed to be served by identical clones of Quark. It distracted him to the point that he tuned out Miles' conversation with Worf to try to see what was actually going on. One of the Quarks rippled with static, a tray he was bearing crashing to the floor in a messy spill of drinks. Another Quark cried out, “Not again!” and hurried over to the site with a large rag.

Holograms, he realized. He's using holograms. He had to give it to the bar owner for ingenuity, however flawed. Worf's roar snapped him back to his true reason for entering the bar. He looked over just in time to see the Klingon lunge at Miles. “Hey!” he snapped, quickly trying to interpose himself between the two before things got ugly. He couldn't tell who did it in the confusion that followed, but the next he knew, he was flying over a table and falling to the floor head first. He managed to get his hands under him at the last minute, taking a grazing blow instead of a full on face plant.

“No fighting in the bar!” Quark bellowed from the first floor. “Security! Security!”

He didn't resist the Bajoran officer who hauled him to his feet, gruffly checked his forehead, and snapped him in holding cuffs. To his relief, neither did Worf or Miles. Odo marched the three of them out of the bar with such a look of disgust that he felt like a misbehaving teenager. It was completely humiliating. The security chief held his tongue until he had them in his office, only then whirling on them. “If I lock the three of you in one holding cell, will you beat one another senseless?” he asked.

“No,” came three muttered replies, not a one of them able to look Odo in the eyes.

“Pity,” Odo said. He shoved them into a cell and removed their cuffs, leaving them without another word.

He knew that if he looked at either one of them, he'd say something he'd regret. Setting his jaw, he stood at parade rest in front of the energy barrier. The other two joined him, and that was how the Captain found them not much later. “I don't believe what I'm seeing,” Sisko said.

Julian could hardly believe it himself, particularly when Miles tried to blame him for his injury. It wasn't serious. His pride was hurt far worse than his head, but it was the principle of the matter. He didn't allow the accusation that he got in the way to stand unchallenged. In the end he wasn't surprised to hear that all three of them would be cooling their heels in the cell together overnight. “I hope you're proud of yourselves,” he said coldly after the captain had left, and he staked his claim to the bunk. Those two idiots could sleep on the floor for all he cared. Miles looked at him and seemed to think better of trying to talk. That suited him just fine. It was going to be a long sixteen hours.

Garak

Garak's Clothiers

Garak had to admit that what was bad for Quark's business had turned quite profitable for him. Deprived of the bar, people were more inclined to shop and gossip. He had only to look outside his door to see the picket line. What he had missed but was told about by several different customers with great glee was the arrest of several Starfleeters by security earlier in the day. The figure varied from two to seven, for reasons that ranged from brawling to vandalism of the bar. He found the latter claim difficult to believe. In nearly every story Worf was implicated, with the other officers and personnel changing with each wild tale.

The only name that truly interested him was Julian's. He left his shop for a late lunch, only to see Leeta beckon quickly to him. He veered her way, greeted Rom cordially, and leaned in close to listen to her whisper. “I heard Julian got hurt,” she said. “Could you find out for me, please? I'm worried, but I can't leave the picket line.”

“I was trying to find that out, myself,” he assured her and squeezed her shoulder. “I'll return when I have news.”

“Thank you, Garak,” she said, smiling and offering him a slip of latinum, “and thanks for not patronizing Quark's Bar.”

He held up a hand palm out, refusing the money. “You don't have to pay me for that.” Several strides down the Promenade had him at the infirmary. Not surprisingly, the nurses were completely mum about the rumored incident. They wouldn't confirm that Julian was injured or that he had been involved in anything, only saying that he wasn't there. Undaunted, he continued on to security. Odo stopped him at the office. “If I were you, I'd stay out of it,” he grated the moment he saw him.

“I have no wish to be involved in anything, I assure you, Constable,” Garak said smoothly. “Leeta is worried about Doctor Bashir. Someone told her that he had been injured. Can you at least tell me if he is all right?”

Odo nodded grudgingly. “He's fine. Anything else, you'll have to ask him in the morning.”

Both of Garak's brow ridges lifted in surprise. He was to be incarcerated for the entire night? That was something he never thought he'd see. He inclined his head respectfully and stepped back out onto the Promenade. Who would have suspected that this strike of Rom's would have such far reaching effects? He was dying to know who started it and how Julian got involved. That would have to wait. He returned to Leeta and told her what little he knew. She didn't seem to take the news that Julian would be held overnight well, her eyes flashing, but she thanked him nonetheless. He took his late lunch and cut it short so that he could be sure to be present for the heavier traffic of customers. He left for his quarters long before the picket line was due to dissipate, his curiosity not enough to override his hunger and fatigue.

Private Quarters

He was already in his pajamas when his door chime rang. Throwing on a robe, he asked the computer who was at his door and reluctantly answered when he discovered it was Rom. The waiter seemed more agitated than usual. Garak couldn't be quite sure if the agitation was for a good or bad reason. Ferengi grimaces could sometimes be difficult to read. He didn't let him in far. “I hope you don't intend to make a habit of this,” he said irritably.

“No, but Doctor Bashir and Chief O'Brien are locked up, and Odo won't let me talk to them,” Rom said.

So the rumor about O'Brien was true. It couldn't have happened to a better man, Garak decided, although he still wondered how Julian got tangled up in that mess. “What do you need?”

“Brother tried to bribe me,” he blurted excitedly. “That's good, right?”

“It could be,” Garak conceded. “However, consider your brother. If he's down to offering you money, it also means he's getting desperate. Desperate people sometimes do dangerous things.”

“I'm not afraid,” Rom said staunchly. “I think we're really making progress. I need to call a meeting. Sorry for barging in like this. I just wanted a little advice from someone I trusted. You may not know a lot about strikes like the chief and the doctor, but you've never led me wrong.”

Some of Garak's irritation receded. “Well,” he said a little less crossly, “allow me to offer you cautious congratulations on your progress, then. Remember what I said. Don't get over-confident.”

“Garak,” Rom said, “I don't think I'll ever have that problem. Good night!”

He couldn't argue with him there. “Good night,” he said, smiling faintly at the door for a couple of seconds after the man retreated. Interesting times, he thought. Interesting times indeed.

Julian

Private Quarters

The door chimed just as Julian finished zipping his new turtleneck. He took a deep breath and let it out. He had done a lot of thinking during his night of incarceration, and he knew he had a lot of things to explain to Leeta. “Enter,” he said, emerging from his bedroom and facing the door with resolve.

Leeta skip walked over to him and hugged him tightly then stepped back to look at him, both hands to his shoulders. “I'm glad you're all right,” she said. “I was worried about you. I wanted to come see you today in the infirmary, but Rom says it's really important we keep our united front.”

“I'm fine,” he said. “You didn't need to worry. I...there's something I need to talk to you about.”

To his surprise, she kissed him fully on the lips. “You don't have to explain, silly. I know why you were in the bar. I think it's really sweet that you and Miles were trying to keep Worf from crossing the strike line. I'm proud of you for standing up for what you believe in, even though it cost you. You're not in too much trouble, are you?”

He gave a weak smile. “No. No, I'm not.” There was no way he could approach her about Garak when she was looking at him that way. It would just have to wait. “So, are you hungry? And do you want to eat in, or go out?”

She smiled slowly and guided him back toward his sofa with her hands sliding down to his chest. “I'd say...” she said, pushing him down and straddling his lap with a grin, “let's eat...in.”

It wasn't until hours later that they got around to replicating food. By that time, he was ravenous but feeling no urge to complain. Her energy and enthusiasm had been very infectious. Smiling to himself, he loaded up a tray of finger foods and started toward the bedroom with it, still naked and feeling deliciously sated.

“Infirmary to Doctor Bashir,” Nurse Frendel's voice came over the comm.

“Bashir here,” he said. “Go ahead.” Leeta appeared in the bedroom door with a look of concern.

“We need you right away, Doctor. It's Quark. He's dying.”

Leeta hurried forward and took the tray out of his hands, staying out of his way while he rushed into the bedroom to dress in his uniform. “I'm on my way,” he said, hopping on one foot while thrusting a leg through the trousers. He was still zipping up as he said, “Bashir to Ops. I need a direct beam to the infirmary, now.”

The moment he arrived, he got straight to work. “Status report,” he said, moving to run his hands under the disinfecting beam. “What happened?”

“Constable Odo found him being beaten by two Nausicaans. One of his lungs is filling with fluid, and we haven't been able to stop it from collapsing.”

He nodded, barking orders left and right and taking a quick look at the biobed feed. “We're going to need to vent it. I want him fitted with a neural caliper right now. Let's induce a coma before shock finishes him off.”

As he donned his surgeon's uniform, he considered how fortunate it was that Odo found the bar owner when he did. Ferengi weren't the most hearty of species to begin with, and a beating from a Nausicaan was nothing to sneer at. It took close to three hours of careful, painstaking work to extract the rib and bone fragments that had been driven deeply into the lower lobe of his left lung. Only then did he feel comfortable trying to address the damage to his eye socket. Just a little more force, and Quark would've been blinded in one eye and possibly suffered brain damage.

He finished up and straightened his aching back. “All right,” he said, looking at his surgical team. “I feel it's safe to say he's going to make it, but let's not get cocky. Good work, all of you.”

They nodded and dispersed to their various stations, and he retreated to the back to strip back down to his uniform and clean up. Nurse Frendel joined him. “I've had word sent to his brother,” he said. “Is there anyone else we should notify?”

“No,” Julian said. “Let Rom handle that, and needless to say, no visitors right now. If Quark remains stable when we remove the caliper, I'll consider letting Rom see him. Make sure you let me talk to him first if he comes when I'm not in the front. I won't have him upsetting our patient.”

The nurse nodded and left him to finish cleaning up. He felt a twinge of guilt, considering he was the one who put the whole union idea into Rom's head in the first place, but he didn't actually blame himself. Quark had brought this on his own head with his behavior.

Julian checked back in on Quark before retreating to his office to work up his report. A couple of hours later, he believed his patient was stable enough to be awakened. They removed the caliper and monitored him closely. After another twenty minutes or so, Quark's eyelids fluttered, and he opened his eyes. “How are you feeling?” Julian asked.

“Like I've been trampled by Morn on his way to a two for one drink special,” Quark rasped.

Julian smiled wryly. “Well, it's good to see your humor is intact.”

“I'm not joking, Doctor,” Quark said.

“No, I imagine not.” He explained to him all of the damage he had suffered and told him of what he knew of the situation from Odo's end of things. “All in all, you're very lucky to be alive.”

“When can I get out of here?” the Ferengi asked.

Julian stared at him and shook his head. “When I say so, and not a moment before. No visitors, either. What you need to do right now is to rest. I'll check back in on you later to see how you're doing.”

He left the recovery room and heard Rom's raised voice from the entrance lobby. Hurrying down the short hallway, he shooed his people back to their stations. Rom drew himself up to his full height and met Julian's gaze squarely. “Brother and I have unfinished business,” he said.

Julian sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, beckoning Rom back with him to his office. He turned to face him once they had some privacy. “I'll let you see him,” he said, “on one condition. Don't get him agitated. Those Nausicaans nearly killed him. I won't stand by and let you finish the job with stress after operating on him for over three hours. Understood?”

Rom nodded. “I never wanted any of this to happen,” he said flatly, “but I'm not sorry for it.”

Julian nodded slowly. “I understand. Rom, I...admire...what you've done with this. I know it has been difficult, particularly with the Liquidator aboard the station making threats. As a Starfleet officer, I can't officially take sides or weigh in, but off the record...well, I think you should be proud of taking a stand, regardless of how it all turns out.”

The Ferengi eyed him a bit strangely before nodding. “Thank you, Doctor. I never expected to hear that coming from you.”

“I suppose we're all allowed to surprise each other now and then,” he said with a crooked half smile.

“I suppose so,” Rom said. “I'd like to see Brother now.”

“Of course,” Julian said, showing him the way.

Garak

Garak's Clothiers

Garak hummed to himself as he hung some of the newest wares in his window displays. The new fabrics were not only a joy to work with but were proving very popular. He hadn't been so busy with orders since the trouble started with the Dominion. It was past closing time. He should have left over an hour before, but it didn't hurt to put in extra hours now and then. He felt eyes on him from behind and turned to find Rom standing in his doorway, dressed in Bajoran maintenance worker's overalls. He finished arranging the dress he had in hand and stepped away from the display. “I wish you had told me you intended to do this,” he said smiling. “I could've given you a much better fit with that uniform.”

Rom grinned. “I'll get an alteration with my first paycheck,” he said.

“So tell me,” Garak said, beckoning him toward the back for some tea and privacy, “are the rumors true? The strike is settled, the Liquidator sent off with some...creative bookkeeping, and the workers' demands met under the table?”

“One of these days, I'm going to figure out your sources,” Rom said. “Yes, it's true. The union is dissolved, but they don't need it anymore.”

“They. So you've cut all ties to the bar?” Garak asked. “Two red leaf teas,” he ordered from the replicator and turned to hand Rom one.

“Yes,” Rom nodded. “I should've done it a long time ago.” He sipped his tea thoughtfully and took the stool Garak pulled out for him. “I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I just always held onto the idea that one day I'd be what's expected of a good Ferengi.”

“And now?” Garak asked, also taking a sip of tea.

“Now I just want to be paid for what I'm good at,” he said. “I'm a very good engineer. My methods may be unorthodox compared to what the Starfleeters or Bajorans are used to, but I can make do with a lot less than what they provide and do a lot more than what they expect.”

“I always did have faith in you,” he said, genuinely happy for the man and privately proud of his progress. It was a long time in coming.

“I know,” Rom said with a nod. “You're one of the first who ever did, and I won't forget that, Garak. I want to tell you something else. Leeta kissed me.”

He was thankful not to have been taking a sip of tea in just that moment. Rom might have wound up wearing it. “She did?”

“Not on the lips. Just on the forehead, but it's a start. She respects me now. You gave me good advice on that, too. If there's ever anything I can do in return, I want you to let me know. I mean it. You've been a good friend. I want to return the favor.”

“My dear man,” Garak said, “you already have, many times over. Now, please don't embarrass me any further with this...startling honesty. It's almost more than I can stomach.”

Rom snickered and stood, offering him the mug back. “All right,” he said. “It's time for me to go gloat a little to Brother, anyway, and let him serve me for a change.”

“That sounds like a marvelous idea,” the tailor said. “When I finish up here, I may even come watch the fireworks.” There were worse ways to spend an evening, he decided as he put the mugs in the recycler. If someone as tradition bound as a Ferengi could become a radical and throw off the shackles of his societal expectations to follow his dreams, who was to say that Garak couldn't practice being radical in his own way and seize contentment when it presented itself, even if only for an evening? A marvelous idea, indeed, he thought and hurried to finish his displays so that he could do just that.

The end.

Author notes: This story covers the episodes Return to Grace through Bar Association. Some of the dialogue with a few modifications comes from Bar Association, but mostly not. The three poems included in the story are attributed accurately within the story itself and are the creative property of their respective estates.

Summary: Shortly after Garak is faced with the prospect of co-existing on the station with the daughter of his hated enemy, Gul Dukat, everyone is given much more to worry about. Quark's Bar is rocked from within and without, and Deep Space Nine is thrust directly into the heart of a contentious labor dispute. Lines are drawn, tempers flare, and at least one station denizen nearly pays with his life.

Author: Dark Sinestra

Date Written: April 2010

Category: Slash, Het

Rating: R for strong sexual content, adult situations, and implied violence.

Disclaimer: None of the boys and girls are mine, but they are very cooperative in the situations I play with, alter, or outright concoct. I should probably be grateful.

Word Count: 14,555

Julian

Garak's Quarters

“You'll never guess who was on the station today,” Julian said as he reached for a slice of bread from the shared platter at the center of the table between him and Garak.

“Gul Dukat,” Garak said with a gleam in his eyes that even after all this time of knowing him gave Julian pause.

“Yes,” the doctor said, a little disappointed that his news apparently wasn't all that newsworthy to the tailor. “How did you know? He wasn't here long enough...”

“I've been keeping tabs on the gul,” Garak replied. There was that look again. It seemed centered on that very particular word, “gul”.

It made sense now. Garak had been particularly offended when he learned of Dukat's promotion to legate. Naturally, he was taking great satisfaction in his fall. He studied the tailor while he chewed his bread. Was there more to it than that? Had Garak had some clandestine hand in the situation? He wouldn't doubt it. He knew better than to ask. “So then you know that Major Kira left with him, I assume?”

Garak nodded, chewing his food and swallowing before speaking. “I wouldn't worry about the major,” he said. “She knows how to handle him.”

“In part thanks to you,” Julian said, smiling slightly. He would never tell Garak, but he was pleased that the Cardassian and his Bajoran colleague seemed to have come to an understanding of sorts. He had seen them be almost cordial on more than one occasion after Bareil's funeral. “Since my interesting news isn't so interesting after all, what about you? Anything noteworthy happen today?”

“I don't know yet,” the tailor said. “Often the true significance of events fails to reveal itself until some time down the line.” He paused and wiped his mouth, a mischievous twinkle in blue eyes.

Julian shook his head and smiled wider. Since Garak's disturbing instance of “Starfleet honesty” in the Infirmary a couple of weeks before and their uncomfortable confrontation later that day, the tailor had been back to his old self, more his old self than the doctor could recall in a very long time. He didn't delve too deeply into the facade. He didn't want to know how much of it was for his benefit, for Garak's, or for an unknown purpose at which he couldn't begin to guess. Nor did he want to know how much of it was real. Just as the fiction of the holosuite had provided distraction and stress relief, this fiction of theirs did much the same, at least when he was actually in the man's presence.

“You're not wolfing your food like a ravenous beast,” Garak observed lightly. “Are you ill?”

“No,” he said, automatically taking another bite at the prompting. “I was just thinking.”

“That's one of the things I actually like about your guttural language,” Garak said. “The way that so many of your words have layered meanings. For example, I could say at this moment that you are ruminating, and it would apply to your food as much as your thoughts, or that odd concept, 'food for thought'. Come to think of it, you humans place a tremendous emphasis on food.”

“You've never said you like my language before,” he said, surprised. It was rare for Garak to give any sort of compliment unprompted, or when he didn't want something. He narrowed his eyes slightly. “What are you angling for?”

He widened his expressive eyes. “Your paranoia knows no bounds,” he said approvingly. “In this case, you're wrong, but I do admire the thought process.”

“Someone has had a certain influence on me,” Julian said dryly. He dunked a torn piece of bread into the hearty broth of his beef stew. In more ways than one, he thought, feeling some of his light mood drain away. He thrust that thought aside, refusing to break a promise he made to himself about tonight, that he would enjoy the moments for what they were, divorced from context and devoid of greater meaning. For two weeks, he had treated Garak as nothing more than a friend and acted as though the day in the dressing room was a fluke when they both knew differently. Was that why Garak bantered with him so easily now? He knew that if he waited long enough, Julian would come to him again? That thought alone was enough to send a small tingle through his belly.

Garak continued to eat and allowed him his silence, a rare thing. Conversation and food seemed almost inseparable to the man. Nonetheless, he could feel his eyes on him. He wondered how much of his internal musing showed on his face, if he'd be able to pinpoint the shift in mood and focus. He wondered if this time, Garak might seduce him? Now it was more heat than tingle. He swallowed heavily and took a long drink of synth ale. Partially to fill the silence and partially to try to distract himself from that line of thinking, he asked, “How long ago was Dukat demoted?”

“Oh, not terribly long after he arrived on Cardassia with his daughter,” Garak replied casually.

“That's something I don't fully understand,” he said between bites of stew. “How is it that practically everyone knows that a Cardassian male in the military will have mistresses on his excursions, but as soon as there's actual evidence of it, everyone turns on him? It all seems a bit...hypocritical to me.”

“There was an ancient earth culture known as the Spartans,” Garak said.

“Yes, I'm well aware of that,” Julian replied, resigning himself to yet another convoluted answer that might or might not reveal anything of what he wanted to know.

“Quite a fascinating people,” Garak continued. “As part of a male's training on the way to adulthood, he was deprived of all but the barest of necessities, expected to endure the harsh winter in nothing but a threadbare cloak, and given such meager rations that if he expected to survive, he was forced to steal food.” He took a lengthy pause to take a bite, take a drink, and wipe his mouth. Julian suspected he enjoyed holding his attention like that, secure in the knowledge that he wouldn't interrupt him. “If, however, he was caught, he was taken to the steps of the temple and beaten until the flesh of his back hung from him in strips.”

Julian winced at the visceral image the tailor painted. He had never studied that part of Earth's history in depth. He wondered when or why Garak had, knowing that if he asked, Garak was likely to stop telling him anything. He was so stubbornly contrary at times. However, as the silence once more dragged, he asked, “That's it? That's all you're going to say?”

Garak let out an impatient huff of breath. “I would think that's all I needed to say. I went so far as to relate it to an episode from your own people's history.”

“With all due respect, my people aren't Spartans, and we don't have much in common with them.”

Garak widened his eyes again. “I'll say,” he murmured.

Julian frowned. “All right. So what you're saying is that it's not the act that's frowned upon nearly as much as getting caught?” At Garak's expectant look, he knew he was supposed to take it further than that. “Getting caught, or...allowing evidence of the indiscretion to surface...shows a lack of subtlety and decorum, thereby insulting the foundations upon which your society is built and proving the man unworthy of his family.” Garak had started to smile when Julian added, “But I don't see what that has to do with the Spartans.”

The smile instantly turned to a displeased frown. “I don't know why I bother,” he said with a mock look of long suffering. “I've told you more than enough about our society for you to make the connection if you'd just think.”

“Survival,” he said suddenly. “Practically everything your people do or say boils down to that at the most fundamental level, so a blunder of that magnitude made off world and brought back would show that the individual is dangerously reckless and can't be trusted to look after his own. The Spartans would have frowned on a boy incapable of taking care of himself without getting caught. He'd be not only a danger to himself but possibly his entire unit.”

This time the smile blossomed without reserve. I could almost die for that smile, he thought. It was one he almost never saw, certainly not since he split from the tailor what seemed a lifetime ago. “I wish you'd do that more often,” he found himself saying aloud.

“Do what?” Garak asked, the expression already nothing but a memory.

“Smile that way. You have no idea what it does for your face,” he said.

A faint shadow passed over the Cardassian's expression, so fleeting Julian wasn't completely certain he had seen it. “I'll keep that in mind,” he said smoothly.

He wished that he could ask him to tell him about that shadow, whatever thought might have prompted it. They weren't that kind of together, though. He sensed it would be a violation of the unspoken rules. As they finished their companionable meal, he came to the realization that if he wanted anything to happen between them that night, he was going to have to initiate it.

He waited until they were cleaning up to make his move, a touch to a strong, gray hand as they both reached for the same dish, a look, a kiss. Garak yielded to him readily, but it was the way sand or water might yield, pliant yet impossible to hold in a tight grasp. He knew without being told that although he had full access to that amazing body that was both familiar and alien at once, that was all he had access to. Anything else was as closed as the clothing shop after hours. He pretended it was enough, and he left shortly after it was over. He couldn't bear the way Garak's eyes seemed to lay him open in silent regard once they lay sated and panting in near darkness. It felt too much like accusation.

Garak

Private Quarters

Settling his palm into the cooling spot on his mattress so recently vacated by his lover, Garak half dozed, dreams interweaving with his waking solitude. Some of the faces that emerged in the darkness were welcome, others not so much, victims and colleagues, lovers, friends, classmates, frozen in their youthful state in perpetuity in his mind although he had grown beyond them. He envied their optimism and ambition, their clear eyes, unclouded and unblemished by the doubt that only harsh experience could bring. The hot sun of the Cardassian system created mirages in the badlands that shimmered and dissipated. His bedroom star port reflected his room back at him almost as well as a mirror, the light level just high enough to show him his own curled form on his bed, a leg thrust from beneath the covers bunched at his waist. For one disorienting moment, he saw both equally, and the dream faded away.

He made no attempt to divine meaning in the shards of memory his mind presented to him as it slowly unwound from the day. The fact that it all came to him without the usual accompaniment of a migraine was a welcome change. He stroked his fingers down the mattress lightly then turned onto his back. “Computer, lights off,” he said. His room plummeted into darkness until his eyes adjusted to take in the starlight. He idly wondered when or if Julian would figure out that he alone held the reins to their trysts and what he would do when he did. He wondered if he would understand the significance of it, something he doubted. For all of his intelligence, he was still hopelessly human. Grunting softly to himself, he closed his eyes. Moments later, he was asleep.

Garak's Clothiers

A few days later, it was business as usual. He was particularly pleased with the fabric selection coming out of the Deltan system this season and could hardly wait to get his hands on the lighter silks. As it was nearing closing time, he worked to complete his order, not expecting customers. He glanced up to see Major Kira standing just inside the doorway, her expression a strange mixture of apprehension and determination. Lacing his fingers lightly together on his counter top, he offered her a pleasant smile. “Good evening. Is there something I can do for you?”

She strode closer, her black eyes fiercely focused. “I'm going to be blunt,” she said. “Gul Dukat's daughter has come to live on the station. I want you to stay away from her.”

Taken aback, he allowed none of it to show. “Major,” he said with laughter in the word and held up his hands, “I can assure you that I want nothing to do with a Dukat. You needn't worry.”

She looked skeptical. “Please,” she snorted. “I know how you feel about him, and I know how Cardassians operate. His daughter would be a perfect opportunity for you to get at him, and I'm here to tell you now that if you do, if you hurt that girl in any way, I'll toss you out an airlock and work the details out with your government after the fact. I doubt most of them would miss you.”

He should have been annoyed. Instead, it felt good to be viewed as a Cardassian for a change, teeth and all. He favored her with a much sharper smile. “You'd be welcome to try,” he said pointedly. “Is there anything else? A dress for First Minister Shakaar to remove in record time?” The rumors had been making the rounds. He wasn't above using them.

Her lips and jaw tightened, and her eyes flashed. “No. Leave my personal life out of this.”

“Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. I have business to finish, and the hour is late.” He let her get halfway out the door before adding, “I should thank you for the warning about the girl.”

She stopped and turned. “What's that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“She may be half Bajoran, but she's half Cardassian, as well, and she has spent a good deal of time with her father.”

“Ziyal is a sweet, kind girl who has been through hell. You watch what you say about her and who you say it to,” she snapped. Whirling on her heel, she left before he could say more.

He turned his attention back to his computer and caught himself smiling. He believed that he might genuinely have reason to be concerned about their new guest. It could make for some very interesting times. He wondered how disturbed the major might be if she learned she just made his day and smiled wider.

Julian

The Infirmary

So much for getting off on time, the doctor thought as Leeta and two Ferengi waiters rushed in carrying an unconscious Rom. “What happened to him?” he asked while two nurses hurried over to help get him settled on a biobed.

Looking furious, Leeta said, “He collapsed in pain. He said his ear has been bothering him.” She pointed to one of the large ears. “That one.”

“All right,” he said, glancing at the trio. “We'll take good care of him. It would be helpful if you gave us some room.” He shot Leeta a look that promised they'd talk later, but for now he needed to focus on his patient. She nodded silent understanding and helped to usher the two curious Ferengi out ahead of her.

Activating the bed and scanners, he watched the information scrolling by on the screen. He frowned, his brow furrowing. This was a serious infection. “Get me...two ampules of thelidrazine,” he said to one of the nurses, “and twenty milligrams of drozanacin.” Addressing the other nurse, he said, “I'll need a telescoping otoscope. I want to get a better look in that ear.”

He took the ampules and squirted the clear contents onto Rom's tongue. The liquid instantly absorbed. He then gave him a hypospray of the drozanacin and took up the scope. After a moment, he frowned again. “There's some sort of...gunk...in here. Flush it out, please.”

Stepping back, he allowed the nurses to do their jobs and took a blood sample for an analysis. “His yellow bodies are very elevated. This is no new infection.” He initiated a full body scan to check for organ or circulatory system damage. “Striations in the lower lobe of the secondary liver,” he said absently for the diagnostic recording.

“Doctor, his ear is clean,” the first nurse to have arrived said.

“Good. I'm going to need 30 milligrams of azropanethol in a deep tissue syringe.” He glanced at the second nurse. “Unfasten his clothing and sterilize his abdominal skin.”

While the two hurried to do his bidding, he returned to the ear and activated the otoscope. No wonder he passed out, the poor bastard, he thought. He had rarely seen a more inflamed ear canal in any species. He was surprised that the tympanum hadn't yet fully ruptured. Rom had to have been in agony for quite some time now. Retracting the scope, he set it aside and took the syringe. As soon as Rom was prepped, he delivered the injection to offset the damage done to his liver by the raging, now systemic infection.

“Give him a mild sedative,” he said. “I don't want him awakening just yet, not until we can get some of this inflammation under control. If he awakens when I'm not here, I want to be called immediately.”

“Understood, Sir,” both nurses said.

He continued to run some tests on the patient until he was sure there wasn't any more hidden damage. It angered him that anyone would allow himself to get in such a state without ever darkening his door. The man quite literally could have died within just a matter two more days. What was he thinking?

A few hours later, Rom's body responded sufficiently to the medication to allow him to awaken, and a bit after that he had enough strength to sit up and respond to Julian's questions. He still didn't like the look of that ear. He liked even less what he heard, that the infection had been painful for a full three weeks and that Rom's reason for avoiding coming in for an examination was because of his work contract with Quark. Without even thinking, he said, “What you people need is a union.”

Rom looked at him as though he had just suggested that he should surgically remove his lobes. “A what?” the waiter asked.

“You know, a trade guild, a collective bargaining association. A union. Something to keep you from being exploited,” he replied.

“You don't understand,” Rom admonished him. “Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation. We want to find ways to become the exploiters.”

“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug. “But I don't see you exploiting anybody.” As Rom hurried out, he called after him, “Don't forget! First thing in the morning, I want you back in here so I can check that ear.” He couldn't be sure if he heard him or not, but given Ferengi aural acuity, he believed it likely.

The staff had already long since shifted over to the graveyard shift. It was past time to leave if he wanted the chance to spend any time with Leeta before she would be getting to bed. He keyed a final entry on Rom's chart, said his good nights, and hurried to her quarters so that they could have a meal together, her late supper.

“How's Rom?” she asked the moment he came through the door, her brow furrowed anxiously.

“He'll live,” he said. “Barely. I can't really discuss his case, but I can't believe that Quark would be so careless with his own brother.”

“He doesn't care,” she said tightly, gesturing for him to have a seat at the already set table. “He claims that when he's at the bar, he's not family. He's just another employee.”

They each took their seats and began serving themselves. “Even so, one of you could die in conditions like that. You know, I've tried very hard not to make much of an issue of how much you work, but I'm starting to think it's not such a good idea.”

She frowned at him. “And what exactly is it I'm supposed to do?” she asked.

He blinked at her. “Well...anything. Anything is better than that. Work at one of the kiosks, or...or...the temple. I don't know about employment opportunities around here.”

She pressed her lips together. “Obviously,” she said flatly.

“Leeta, I'm not the enemy here,” he said, holding up his hands. “I'm trying to help you.”

“I don't recall asking for your help,” she retorted, dumping a scoop of food onto her plate hard enough to splatter it slightly.

“You're as bad as Rom,” he said without thinking, instantly regretting it.

“What's wrong with Rom?” she demanded, glaring.

“Look, forget I said anything. I don't want you going to bed on a bad note, OK?”

“Too late,” she said, still glaring. “Go ahead, Julian. I want to hear this. You've never liked him.”

“I've never liked...?” he asked, incredulous. “He's the one who doesn't like me. He hasn't liked me from the start. I have no idea why. To my knowledge, I've never done anything to him.”

“And you just can't stand the thought that somebody doesn't think your Prophets sent, can you?” she asked. “Is that it?”

Where was this coming from? Now he was glaring, too. “Fine, you want my honest opinion? Here it is. He's an utter milquetoast. He allows Quark to run roughshod all over him without ever doing anything to stop it. He cringes and wheedles, complains, and sneaks around, more so than most Ferengi I've met, and that says a lot. He seems to be waiting for the universe to drop the bar miraculously into his lap without ever having to do a thing for it. Is it any wonder that Nog wanted to get as far away from him and that bar as he could?”

Leeta had gone pale, her eyes seeming larger and darker than usual because of it. “How easy for you to judge,” she said quietly. “Coming from a life of privilege, in a prestigious medical program where your biggest regret was mistaking some gangly nerve for some stupid fiber, or whatever it is you like to tell every single person you meet. Rom has been on his own with Nog since Nog was a little boy, had his heart broken by Nog's mother, and everything he has done since then has been to put food on their table and to ensure that his son has more choices in his life than Rom ever did and knows above all else that he's loved and it's not his fault his mother left. You have no idea what it's like to be abused and beaten down every day of your life, and while I hope to the Prophets you never find out, I'm extremely disappointed that you can't have a little more empathy for someone who has been.” She stood abruptly from the table and headed toward the bedroom.

“Leeta,” he called after her, half rising from his seat.

“No,” she snapped. “Stay there and eat. I'm not hungry anymore, and I don't want to talk to you right now. I'm too angry.”

He settled back in the chair, his appetite gone, too. However, he knew if he didn't eat, it would just make her angrier. She went through the trouble of preparing the meal and setting the table for him. It wasn't fair, that anger of hers. She had no idea what his life had been like. How could she? You've never told her. That thought just made him more irritated. He wolfed down the food without tasting it. A few moments later, the bedroom door whooshed shut, locking him out. “Marvelous,” he said with dripping sarcasm.

He started clearing the table. As he did so, he thought about what she had said and her seemingly disproportionate fury. What if that hadn't been about Rom at all, or at least if it was about more than just Rom? She had always been very vague when it came to her past, never revealing much more than the fact that her family was killed when she was very young, and she was placed with another family. Obviously, they never adopted her, or she'd have taken a family name. She never even mentioned their names. Did they treat her like Quark treated Rom? Worse? “You're a damned fool is what you are,” he said aloud in disgust.

He was no longer angry with Leeta at all. He felt ashamed, and not just of his reaction to her anger, but of how harshly he judged Rom. There was more than a little truth to her accusation that he took the Ferengi's dislike personally. What if it wasn't all that personal? What if Rom resented what he saw as Julian's advantages? The privileged upbringing Leeta mentioned with such heat? He decided he'd apologize to her the first chance he got, hoping that she wouldn't make him wait too long to see her again.

He returned to his quarters, changed out of his uniform and took a long shower, then dressed in comfortable pajamas and climbed into bed with a PADD to catch up on some of the latest medical publications he saved for sleepless nights. The next morning, he saw Rom as promised, treating him more respectfully than he had in the past. He hoped that Leeta would come by the Infirmary when she awoke, or that she'd answer his hail to meet him for supper once he got off. He had no such luck.

After spending some time in his own quarters after hours, he decided to go to hers. He normally didn't let himself in when she wasn't around; however, he believed the longer she stayed angry the less chance they'd have to get the issue ironed out properly. He changed into the spare pajamas he kept there and settled into bed, determined to stay awake. His sleepless night prior made that more difficult than he anticipated, and he fell asleep long before she was due home. He awoke to the feeling of the bed shaking in utter darkness. “Leeta?” he asked groggily, reaching a hand to the side.

She jerked away from his touch. “Go back to sleep,” she said, her voice choked.

“What? No,” he said, concerned, and reached for her a second time. Her shoulder felt hot to the touch. “What's wrong? Is this about yesterday? Why didn't you awaken me?”

“Don't worry about it,” she said. “It has nothing to do with you.”

“I'm really, really sorry. I was completely out of line. Please, talk to me. I can tell you're upset.”

“Upset?” she asked, her voice cracking. “I'm ruined is what I am. I have...no idea...what I'm going to do.”

“Hey,” he said, reaching to pull her into his embrace. She reluctantly allowed him to turn her. He felt hot tears on his chest, wetting the pajamas top. “What happened?”

“Quark cut my pay,” she said on a shuddering exhale. He felt her jerk with a suppressed sob.

“What? Why?” Concern turned to anger in the blink of an eye.

“The Bajoran Time of Cleansing has cut into his profits. It's not just me. It's everybody he's docking.”

Her efforts to control herself made him feel that much worse for her. “It's OK to cry,” he said softly.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, bitterness creeping into her voice. “I can just lie here and cry. That'll pay the rent.”

“Leeta, if you need to borrow some money to pay rent...”

“No!” she said with such vehemence it took him completely by surprise. She sat up and pushed the blanket off, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Computer, lights.” The room flooded suddenly with bright light, leaving Julian squinting and blinking back spots. “I'm sorry,” she said, wiping swiftly at her face with the back of a hand. “I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I know you're trying to help, but there's no way I'm going to borrow money from you, or anyone else for that matter.”

“If it would make you feel better, I could insist that you pay me back,” he said, sitting up, too.

“I said no,” she said, a thread of steel under the usually soft tones. “I'll figure out something.” Sniffling once, she stood and headed into the sitting room.

Feeling helpless, he pushed up from the bed and followed. “Could you...could you at least tell me why you're so dead set against letting me help you?”

He didn't like the deep hurt he saw in her eyes, an old hurt from the look of it, partially veiled behind unshed tears. “I made a vow to myself some time ago,” she said softly, “that I would never be beholden to anyone for anything again.”

“Does this have something to do with the family that took you in?” he asked hesitantly.

Her lips trembled slightly. “I love you very much,” she said, “but don't go there.”

Being shut out stung. He recognized the blatant hypocrisy in that as he felt it. It didn't change anything.

“I love you, too,” he said. “What can I do?”

“The fact that you want to do something means more than you can know,” she said. “You're going to have to let me handle this. I'd like some time alone now, please.”

He nodded slowly, trying very hard not to take it personally. He had the feeling that there was no one in the galaxy she would accept in her presence at that moment. “I just need to get dressed.”

She nodded and turned away from him, padding barefoot over to the replicator to make herself something. She spoke too low for him to hear the order. He watched her a moment more before heading to the bedroom to get dressed. When he emerged, he found her standing beside the star port and gazing outward, lost in thought.

“I'm leaving now,” he said quietly, feeling awkward standing in the middle of her sitting room with nothing to say or do that would make any difference at all.

She glanced at him and nodded, her gaze softening slightly. “Thank you for understanding.”

He didn't understand, but he had no intention of telling her that. “Of course,” he said instead. “If you need anything, even if it's just to talk, you know where to find me.”

“I do,” she said, nodding and turning back to the port. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he replied, stepping into the corridor and going back to his own quarters. He felt angry with Quark, angrier than he had ever been at the obnoxious Ferengi. Most of all, he was angry with himself for not being able to be open enough with Leeta that she would feel able to be open with him. Somehow, his pretense with Garak felt more honest in that moment. When he reached his quarters, he threw his PADD against the wall and watched it shatter.

Author Notes: The story begins during Starship Down and ends shortly after Crossfire. While time-wise, I know that's a huge span, much of what happens is between or behind the scenes. I made the decision not to directly include anything from the episode Our Man Bashir largely because that episode was so tautly paced that there wasn't much room for writing in the margins. It does, however, have a large impact on the story itself.

Summary: A brush with death has Julian considering his life and the stresses of the job, but a trip into escapism doesn't go quite as planned, threatening the very foundations of his friendship with Garak. As the two try to find a way to negotiate the new pitfalls, Odo faces some challenges of his own, and nothing goes as planned.

Author: Dark Sinestra

Date Written: March/April 2010

Category: Slash, Het

Rating: R for strong sexual content, adult situations, and mild adult language.

Disclaimer: If there's still anybody out there who thinks that fanfic authors profit from fanfic or that DS9 characters could ever belong to a fanfic author, point me to them. I'll give them a little smack with a wet fish.

Word Count: 17,542

Julian

USS Defiant

Cold. He couldn't remember the last time he had been so cold. It wasn't quite the cold of the vacuum of space, but that was only by a matter of a few degrees. The upper level of a gas giant's atmosphere was nowhere to stay for any length of time without things like environmental controls and recycling breathable atmosphere. Both he and Dax were shivering constantly now, not the small, intermittent shivers that helped regulate body temperature on a nippy day but the deep body shivers that heralded the beginning of the second stage of hypothermia.

They had stopped talking to one another some time ago. The chattering of their teeth and muscle spasms of their jaws made it difficult. Besides, both of them knew that talking used more oxygen. Freeze or suffocate, he thought, idly wondering which would be worse. He knew the cold was beginning to affect his brain function. Otherwise, he didn't think he'd be nearly as detached about their impending deaths. He thought perhaps he gripped her more tightly to himself, but he could no longer be sure. He had little control of his limbs.

How ironic it was that it came to this. It took being locked in a room together without life support for them finally to finish clearing the air between them after years of association in a dysfunctional pattern of pursuer and pursued, to behave as the rational adults they were and come clean. Why? Why did it take something like this? He tried to slow his breathing, but it was no use. His diaphragm was beginning to spasm. It wouldn't be much longer before heart arrhythmia set in. If he still had the control for it, he would've laughed. He had something he had dreamed of nearly steadily for two years straight, and now all he wanted was to see Leeta. Liar, a deeper part of his psyche whispered. You want to want to see her. You know who you want to see.

“J-J-Julian,” Dax stuttered, “y-you're muh-moaning. A-are you a-all right?” She shifted her head and looked up at him.

She was so pale, even her delicate markings starting to fade. He nodded convulsively and tried to lift her so that they could rest cheek to cheek and provide one another just a little more warmth. He gave up after a few moments of futility. It seemed as though she was stuck to him like a limpet to a rock, her arms so cramped in their hold that he couldn't budge her. “S-s-sorry,” he managed.

She didn't answer, her head lowering again so that all he could see was the dark curve of her hair. Who did she long to see? In whose arms would she rather be dying? Lenara's? The captain's? Someone else's? Was there even anyone else alive or capable of reaching them, or were they all off in various parts of the ship dead and dying in different ways? Blunt force trauma, fire, electrical shock, suffocation. Each thought brought with it a clinical list of symptoms, internal bleeding and organ damage, burns, cellular death from oxygen deprivation. Stop it, he told himself. You actually want to die cataloging ways to go?

I'd just as soon not die, if it's all the same, he retorted to himself feeling inappropriately amused. I'd rather have tea, Tarkalean. Double sweet.

“Ju-Jul-Jul...” Dax gasped. He felt her fingers digging into his back as a distant sensation. She struggled to lift herself again.

Save your strength, he thought, or perhaps he said it. He couldn't be sure. Confusion was starting to set in. Why couldn't she just leave him alone? If anyone had told him how bloody painful hypothermia was, he might have gone ahead and let the both of them suck down the fluorine gas in the flooded corridor.

How morbid of you, a thought came in a voice that wasn't his.

He knew that voice. He tried to smile. Garak, he thought. I should've known you wouldn't miss the party.

If this is a party, I'd rather be at work, the voice came again, something strangely comforting and reassuring about its familiar sarcasm. You need to pay attention and look at the light.

He felt a vague stirring of irritation. When had Garak become a mystic, and why was he trying to encourage him to die? He then realized that the light he saw was quite real. He blinked and squinted against it right along with Dax and felt someone pulling them up. His mind gladly released the reins then, and for quite some time, he knew no more.

When he came to, he found himself on one of the sickbay beds of the Defiant. “Dax,” he croaked, trying to look around.

“Is fine, Doctor,” one of his hand picked medics assured him. “You need to rest.”

He thought he saw the captain lying in the next bed over. “Is he...” he started to ask.

“Also fine,” the man said. He felt the cool nozzle of a hypospray against his neck and a rush of warm comfort. He knew he had just been given a sedative and was powerless to resist the pull back into welcoming blackness.

The next time he awoke, he realized that he was in the infirmary back on the station. Unused to being an occupant of one of the biobeds, he tried to look around, only to realize that he was in one of the private rooms. Two blurry shapes at the side of his bed resolved into the figures of Leeta and Garak. The dabo girl had her head resting on the Cardassian's shoulder, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open in sleep. He met Garak's gaze, only to have the tailor put a finger to his own lips and then smile at him warmly. He returned the smile and settled back. He was so tired, sore, and drained he felt that he could sleep another week.

Garak carefully awoke Leeta, his gentleness touching Julian in a way he couldn't begin to explain. The Cardassian was such a conundrum. He thought he could study him a hundred years and still not understand who he really was. “Someone would like to see you, dear,” Garak murmured as she sat up, blinking at him sleepily. He gestured at Julian.

Her attention snapped over to him, her smile like sunshine emerging from cloud cover. “Sweetie,” she said, immediately leaning forward and taking his hand between both of hers, lifting it, and lightly kissing the backs of his fingers. “You had us so worried.”

Smiling benevolently at both of them, Garak stood. “I'll come see you later,” he said, inclining his head to Julian and stepping out of the room.

Julian followed him with his eyes, wanting to call him back. Reluctantly, he looked back to Leeta and offered her the best smile he could muster. “I'm OK,” he said. “How long have I been here? Did we...who didn't make it?”

“I'm not allowed to talk to you about any of that,” she said, patting him lightly and standing. “Let me go get Nurse Frendel.”

He nodded and watched her go, too, anxious and wanting more than anything to get up and out of that bed. There were bound to be other people who were hurt, people who should have been his patients. His head nurse came back into the room with Leeta in tow and offered him a reassuring smile. “Welcome back,” he said. “You've been here a few hours now. I'm keeping you overnight for observation. I don't need to tell you that's standard procedure for hypothermia patients, Doctor.”

He shook his head, resigned to the overnight stay. He knew arguing would just be obnoxious and get him nowhere. “The crew?” he asked anxiously.

“There were some losses,” the nurse said. “No one from the command staff. Once you've been released, you'll have full access to the list. For now, I would suggest you rest. Once you're up and about tomorrow, you're going to be busy dealing with a full facility.”

He nodded again, saddened to hear of the losses. The Gamma Quadrant seemed more dangerous by the day. It was very rare they managed any incursions that didn't involve an encounter with Jem'Hadar attack ships. I need a break, he thought. We all do. “Thank you, Nurse Frendel. I know the infirmary is in good hands,” he said. It didn't stop him from wanting to be the one already treating the wounded.

The Bajoran nodded and left him with Leeta and the final instructions to call him if he needed anything. “I'm so glad you're OK,” she said. “Do you need anything?”

He didn't dare ask for what he most wanted right at that moment. “Water would be nice,” he said instead. “How long have you been here?”

She poured him a glass from a nearby pitcher and helped him adjust the bed so that he could sit up and drink. “Ever since they brought you in. Quark was just so happy to be alive, he didn't even question me when I demanded the time. I would've quit had he said no.”

She was such a good woman. He felt a pang of guilt. “I'm glad it didn't come to that,” he said quietly, sipping his water. “Are you tired? You look tired.”

“I'm fine,” she brushed the question off. “I don't think I would've been calm enough to catch a few winks if Garak hadn't been here. I think Nurse Frendel let him stay for my sake more than yours,” she said sheepishly. “I was a little emotional.”

Now that he looked at her more closely, he could see the puffiness of her lids and the reddish tint to the whites of her eyes. “I'm harder to kill than that,” he said, attempting humor. He didn't know if he had ever been closer to death, a fact he thrust away as soon as he thought it.

“Every time you go away on that ship, I know something like this can happen,” she said softly. “I'm just glad it usually doesn't. Rom was beside himself worrying about Quark.” She lapsed silent with a guilty expression.

“What?” he asked, curious.

She looked over her shoulder, even though there was no chance of their being overheard and leaned in closer. “It wouldn't be so bad if Quark died,” she said with a low ferocity he hadn't expected from her. She sighed. “That sounded so horrible, but he's horrible. Horrible to Rom. Horrible to all of us.”

“You know,” he said, “if you're so stressed out you wish your boss was dead...”

She cut him off. “I don't really. I just hate how he treats Rom. He makes me so mad!” She made a fuss of smoothing his blanket and getting him more comfortable, taking the empty water glass and lowering the bed, despite his protests that he'd rather sit up. “You've been ordered to rest, Doctor,” she said pertly.

“You're so cute when you get stern,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.

“You haven't seen stern,” she said, “but if you keep talking, you're going to.” She ran her fingers gently through his tangled hair, teasing out the snarls. “Would it be easier for you if I let you sleep?” she asked.

He nodded. “I hate to say it, but yes. If you're here, I'll want to talk. If I want to talk...”

“You won't sleep,” she finished for him. Leaning down, she kissed his forehead. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said at last. There was no way for him to ask her to send Garak in without upsetting or insulting her, not after her just told her he wanted to sleep.

“I'll be by in the morning,” she said, giving him a final kiss and leaving.

He closed his eyes and sighed softly. Why did things have to be so confusing? He couldn't argue with his psyche's desires when they came from a moment of finality, could he? He had been convinced that they were going to die, and his supposed last thoughts were of Garak. What did that say about him?

He felt a cool touch on his hand and almost jumped out of the hospital bed, his eyes flying open. “I'm sorry,” Garak said. “I thought for certain you heard me come in.”

“No,” he said, twisting his hand so he could clasp Garak's. “I didn't think you'd come back tonight.”

“After the look you gave me when I was leaving? Julian, please, give me a little credit,” he said, reaching behind himself and pulling a chair close enough to sit next to the bed. After he resettled, he gave him his hand again.

Julian, not “doctor”, he thought. It was rare that Garak called him Julian these days. He wanted to tell him of his last thoughts before they were found, all of it. The words wouldn't come. “Thank you,” he said instead.

“I recall a time when a frightened, bitter man believed that he was dying, and a dashing, yet strangely irritating, young man came to his rescue,” Garak said with an undercurrent of warm amusement in his rich voice. “All the man really needed was someone to hold his hand.”

“Strangely irritating, eh?” Julian asked, his face creasing a smile.

Garak made a soft tsking noise. “In all that blatant flattery, you seize upon the one criticism? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?”

He suddenly felt hot tears slide from the corners of his eyes into the hair at his temples, relief to be alive, release of all the previous pent tension and fear, gratitude that for once in his life, the one thing he wanted most in the world was at hand at the time he needed it most. He would have tried to speak had Garak not laid the index finger of his free hand against his lips and shaken his head subtly. Taking a convulsive breath, he let it out audibly and turned his cheek into the cool hand now against it, both eyes squeezed shut.

“You're all right now,” Garak told him quietly. “As I've told you before, you're strong. Whatever happened on that ship is behind you, and you're in control of much of what lies before you.”

He followed the cadence of his voice and felt himself slip past the momentary loss of control. He exhaled most of the tension from his body and lay passive while Garak lightly stroked his cheek with his thumb. When he opened his eyes again, he felt calmer. “You are such a damnable contradiction,” he said softly. “And you know it, don't you?”

The tailor smiled faintly. “I've been under the impression for quite some time that you wouldn't have me any other way.”

“I haven't had you in quite some time,” he said. Perhaps his brush with death had made him bold, or perhaps it was the residual effect of the sedatives. He didn't care. He had said his piece earlier with Dax. Now it was Garak's turn.

“Are you prepared to break Leeta's heart?” Garak asked, a world of complexity in the look with which he favored Julian.

Why? Why did he always do that, say the one thing that would keep him from throwing caution to the wind and just acting on his own desires? He dropped his gaze, chagrined and shamed both.

“I didn't think so,” he continued in the same gentle tone of voice.

“What about your heart?” Julian asked.

“Have I ever given you the impression that it's fragile?” the tailor asked, amusement in the depth of blue eyes. Thankfully, it wasn't his usual cruel or caustic humor. That had yet to rear its head that night. He smoothed Julian's hair back from his forehead.

“I don't know why you put up with me,” the doctor said, largely feeling he deserved none of this care. He was no closer to divesting himself of the biggest wedge between them, and he knew that no amount of tenderness on Garak's part would change that.

“I often ask myself the same thing,” Garak said. “I decided it's because of all of the officers on the station, you're the only one with any hope of saving me should an assassin come along and succeed where others have failed. Personal motivation can be quite strong for taking decisive, life saving action.”

Julian stared at him for about two seconds before finding himself shaking with suppressed laugher. He didn't want the nurse hearing him and coming to find if anything was wrong. “You're dreadful. You are a horrible, horrible man. Half of me thinks I should take that at face value.”

“Half of you is right,” he said, beaming.

“The tragedy of it is that I'll probably never know which half,” he said, still amused. He grew more serious as he allowed himself to look into the lovely alien eyes, inscrutable as ever. “You were there,” he blurted.

“I beg pardon?” Garak asked, arching an eye ridge.

“Not literally, of course,” he said, reaching up and taking the hand in his hair between both of his and settling it against his chest. “But toward the end, when I was starting to lose consciousness, you're the one my oxygen deprived mind conjured.”

“I have never felt sorrier for you,” Garak said, wide eyed.

He chuffed a soft laugh and shook his head. “Oh, I give up. You're not going to take the compliment, are you?”

“Was it a compliment?” he asked innocently. “After all, you didn't say what I was doing. For all I know, I was the one sucking the air and heat out of the room in your elaborate delusion.”

“Every time I think I might just once like a peek into your mind, you go and say something like that,” he said, both exasperated and amused in equal parts. “You were telling me to pay attention to the light.”

“Oh, lovely,” Garak said, rolling his eyes. “Isn't going into the light some insipid euphemism you humans have for dying?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. I was quite irritated with you, until I realized the light was real, and you were basically telling me to get my head out of my arse and hang on just a little longer.”

“What a relief to know that at least one part of your mind has a sound grasp of my mannerisms,” he said. “Now, wrap that wonderfully sensible part of that mind of yours around this. You need to sleep, and, therefore, I need to go.”

He wanted to clutch his hand like a child in the dark, but he knew better. Garak had made up his mind. He pressed his palm against his sternum with both his hands and then released him. “Thank you,” he said again, “for coming back.”

“I could say the same thing to you, Doctor,” he said, pressing a moment more than Julian held and standing. “This place simply wouldn't be the same without you.”

He felt that pressure long after the man was gone, a weight on his heart in more ways than one. He wasn't ready to break Leeta's heart. It was true. He couldn't walk away from her and back to Garak with open arms and a clean slate. He couldn't force him to endure his self-imposed barriers of “this close and no closer”. He couldn't bear it if love finally turned irrevocably to hatred. Leeta wasn't as quick to pick up on his distance since he had gotten more careful. Garak still felt it just then when his barriers were down lower than they had been in years. For the first time, he believed he understood exactly what the Cardassian had done in letting him go and the depth of love it took to have such grace. He understood, because now he was having to do the same. Were it not for the steady sound of his heart monitor, he might have believed he was in trouble. The pain in his chest was nearly unbearable.

Garak

The Infirmary

Garak stepped into the corridor outside Julian's room and rubbed at his eye ridges. It had been a long night of worry, and it was very late. On his way out, he noticed Major Kira still seated in the waiting area, looking a little lost and out of place. “Major?” he asked, pausing near the front entrance.

She frowned slightly, stood, and headed over to him. “I probably should leave for a while,” she admitted. “They said I'm not in the way, but I'm not doing much good here, am I?”

“I'm not sure,” he said. “Who are you here for?”

“You wouldn't understand,” she said, gesturing for him to start walking again. She fell into step beside him. “How's Julian?”

“He seems OK,” he said. “Tired.”

“He saved Jadzia, and she saved the rest of us,” she said. “He has really...come a long way, hasn't he?”

“That he has,” he said fondly. He wondered where she intended to go. Surely she didn't intend to follow him all the way back to his quarters?

She answered his unasked question by stopping in front of the temple. “I think I'm going to pray for a while,” she said. “Good night, Garak.”

“Good night, Major,” he replied, inclining his head. He had no patience for mysticism. It seemed like a waste of time, petitioning something or someone to fix one's life or offer guidance, time better spent doing the hard work oneself. He climbed the stairs to the second level of the Promenade and looked out one of the star ports into the deep black of space.

Death could come for any one of them at any time. It was a reality he accepted. It had been part of his life for as long as he was of school age and beyond. He thought back to a long ago school team member, partially blinded by a honge during one of the exercise raids. One minute, he was near the top of the class, a heavyset bully that few dared to cross. The moment the predatory bird took his eye, all of that was over. He was a cripple, pitied by a few, simply forgotten and discarded by the rest. Without his full vision, he could never hope to be useful in the Order or Central Command. Better off dead, many said, and there had been a time Garak was in full agreement.

He never let himself care, not for the longest time. Even when Tolan had died, it was more of an inconvenience having to go home and see him, weak in the bed, a skeletal parody of his former strength, and listen to him go on and on about the Oralian Way. He still had the recitation mask. Why had he kept it? Then to find out the truth that Tain was his father, not Tolan after all, Tolan his mother's brother. So much of a family puzzle fell into place then and left him feeling empty and hollowed out, part of him ashamed for the relief he felt that he wasn't the son of a mere gardener, part of him appalled at the depth of the deception, part of him angry at the things they had allowed Tain to do. All of those parts were there and yet distant, almost as though he had watched someone else feel them. That detachment had been so carefully cultivated in him by every influence around him and served him so very well for decades. It wasn't until later in his adulthood that it started to erode.

Where was it now? He hugged himself against the perpetual chill of the station and the deeper chill that came from the knowledge that Julian had escaped death by a narrow margin. He had come so close to giving up on pride and simply accepting what the doctor was willing to give, letting him have his distance and his inconsistency and saying it was enough for him. How much of himself could he give away before there was nothing left? With detachment gone, he needed his pride more than ever. Otherwise, what did it mean to be Cardassian? He refused to reduce that to a label or a title. No, it had to mean something. Flesh, blood, and DNA was not enough. If it were, that war “orphan” Rugal that Dukat tried to use would be Cardassian. Even the boy had sense enough to know that it was not so.

He ached for home. Often it was background pain, a constant presence that could be ignored and put off for its very consistency. At the moment, it was nearly crippling. He knew that if he could go home, he could put every hellish day on this station behind him. Oh, it would be with him in the way that all experiences he had ever had always were, but the emphasis would make all the difference. He believed—he had to believe—that he could reclaim himself, that he could become who and what he had been raised to be. Perhaps there would be some small differences, yes, but he could be a Cardassian again, not this strange creature that looked and talked like one but was hollow inside. It was that hollowness that was the problem, he realized. Nature abhorred a vacuum and had conspired to fill his with pain.

Go back to your quarters, he told himself and instantly moved to obey. The only thing worse than feeling like an empty shell was putting himself on display. No one needed to see that.

Julian

Private Quarters

Julian could hardly wait. He tore into the small package that had arrived for him on a freighter earlier that day and all but crowed his delight. His long awaited holoprogram had arrived. He grinned wide and set it aside on his table, hurrying to change out of his uniform and into a tuxedo he had ordered from Garak some time ago with no explanation as to the style beyond a vague, “It's a type of Earth formal wear.”

Yes, he could have had the program clothe him, but there was something magical about a good fitting tux, something that transformed the mundane to the extraordinary. At first he hadn't intended to keep it all a secret, but Leeta's disdain for most of his favorite programs had him feeling a little self-conscious. There was more to it than that, as he well knew. It had been a very long time since he kept anything just for himself. In his job and in his personal life, he was expected to give and be far more selfless than most of his peers. Although he didn't begrudge his co-workers or his loved ones time and energy spent on them, more and more these days he was feeling he had less of a reserve from which to give. He viewed this as a way to recharge his energy cells with some harmless fun that most of his friends simply wouldn't appreciate or understand.

The program was everything it promised to be and then some. He was entranced with the sleek, gleaming world of the mid-1960's, replete with wonderfully impractical spy devices disguised as everything from shoe heels to boutonnières, campy names, lovely ladies, and no one expecting him to be anything other than charming, debonair, and clever. There was just enough challenge within the built in plots and scenarios that he didn't feel bored, but everything retained a lighthearted humor that was the perfect antidote to the deadly serious conflicts they continued to face in the Gamma Quadrant and closer to home. His most recent brush with death brought home to him his need for some immersive escapism.

He didn't give much thought to how much time he was spending in the holosuite over the next few weeks. Leeta seemed grateful that he was pressuring her less for together time with her punishing work schedule. Miles had some of his own programs that weren't of as much interest to Julian, and Dax was either working extra hours or spending quite a bit of off time with Kira in their historical fantasies. He knew better than to try to spend more time with Garak. The temptation to act on his personal revelations would be too strong and ultimately selfish. He might not be able to do much for the Cardassian, but he could do that. In the latter, he made a mistake. No one enjoyed ferreting out a juicy secret quite as much as the tailor, and no one excelled at it more.

Garak

Quark's Bar

His mother told him years ago that his curiosity would lead him to ruin. At some point in early life, he stopped listening to Mila. After all, what was she but a housekeeper and occasional secretary to Tain, when he had larger goals and nearly bottomless ambition? The older he got, the smarter Mila seemed to be. Garak emerged into uncharacteristic quiet in Quark's bar. Due to the power requirements of storing the crew's personal patterns in Deep Space Nine's computer system, Quark had been forced to close down and evacuate the patrons for safety reasons. Cables that resembled shadowy, tentacled leviathans coiled and stretched away from the holosuite as far as Garak could see. He slightly arched a brow ridge.

Quark approached him and the doctor, looking decidedly put out. “This is bad for business,” he said flatly. “Not only that, I figured it out. I realized where they were, but did I get any thanks? No, of course not.” He squinted at both of them. “You're welcome.” He squinted harder, this time focusing on Garak. “And you're bleeding,” he said. “I hope you didn't bleed everywhere in there. It's unsanitary.”

“I'm fine,” Garak said rather pointedly. “Thank you for asking.”

Julian glanced back at Garak, his large, dark eyes unreadable for a change. “Do you need me to treat that?” he asked a little awkwardly.

Garak lifted a hand and shrugged off the concern. “No,” he said, “it's little more than a nick.”

“Nick or not, you're bleeding in my bar,” Quark said, ushering both of them ahead of him. “As you can see, I'm closed. I just hope this doesn't damage my holosuite rentals. People have expectations that those things are safe. They'll take one look at you two and change their minds.”

“We're leaving, Quark,” Julian said irritably. “You don't have to be a nag about it.” He shot a look at Garak, shook his head, and the two of them headed quickly out of the bar. More cable sprawled across the Promenade, leading down a side corridor. “I suppose I should go report to Captain Sisko,” Julian offered, hesitant in a way that lent hidden weight to the seemingly innocuous words.

This is a form of good-bye, Garak thought as he watched the younger man. Everything now paid lie to what they said to one another in the holosuite a few minutes before. Would they still lunch tomorrow? Garak didn't believe it. Would he be the one to cancel to spare his friend the discomfort? No, he rather thought that he would not. In all their dealings, he had never truly attempted to hide his nature from Julian. In fact, he had warned him on more than one occasion that he was ruthless and not to be trusted. For a time, he believed that the doctor truly understood that. Now he knew that he had not. He inclined his head and put on his most pleasant, professional smile, waiting for Julian to turn to go before resuming his own progress toward his quarters.

He wondered if he should have pushed the man the rest of the way, forced him to make a decision. Would he have killed Garak on the spot in order to save his friends and co-workers? Well, that was the real question, wasn't it? The truth was that Garak didn't know, but the possibility had been strong enough that he hadn't wanted to risk it. The stakes had been high enough as they were. You know what I am! He wasn't surprised at the vehemence of the thought, just the bitterness. He knew for certain that any glamor he held, any residual charm, had dropped away in Julian's regard that night. The doctor had his first glimpse of Garak's core unmasked and had, not at all surprisingly, found him lacking. Again, he felt a small frisson of anger.

Once back in his own quarters, he thoroughly cleaned the small scratch on his face and the deeper wound at his neck ridge. It throbbed and burned, but he could see that it was neat and clean. There would be a scar if he chose not to get it tended. Let there be a scar, he thought. It would be a good reminder of the cost of too much trust.

Julian

Private Quarters

It took three stiff drinks to take the edge off of his adrenaline rush. Even so as he sat on his sofa, the entire scene seemed to be limned by an aura of unreality, jagged at the seams. How had things gotten so horribly out of hand, and how could he ever look at Garak the same way again? He wished he had never even heard of that stupid holosuite program. How fitting that for once it was his secrecy with Garak that led to disaster, rather than the other way around. Hadn't the two of them been switching places in their painful dance back and forth all along?

He had pretended that everything was the same when they parted ways, that they would continue to meet for lunch, that they would further indulge in the silly escapism of the campy spy holoprogram. It was a lie. At the time he said it, he knew it to be a lie. He simply couldn't articulate the truth beneath it, that before this day, he had never seen Garak's true face, and he wasn't certain he could accept him for who he was. It wasn't that Garak had ever lied to him about that, perhaps most ironically of all. The Cardassian always insisted he was exactly what he proved himself to be when he nearly ended the program, risking the deaths of most of the command crew in the process, Julian's closest friends in that roster. It was Julian who glossed that over, who decided that all of that was in the past for Garak and didn't apply to him now.

Recent memories flashed across his mind's eye in a dreadful sort of collage, Garak looking better in a tuxedo than anyone had a right to look, the jolt of Kira on the bed in place of Ana, the photo of Dax as Honey, the cut on Garak's face when they both realized that the safety protocol was no longer functioning, the flash of his gun barrel, Garak's blood, his wound, his expression. Julian ran a slow hand down his face. I shot him, he thought. He wasn't sure what gave him more dismay, the fact itself or the fact that given the same choice, he'd do it again. He would always choose the life of his friends and co-workers over Garak's instinct for self-preservation. He would have shot him dead had he forced the issue. He tried to ignore the light tremor in his hands. Why did you make me choose? The thought contained anger and sorrow both. He knew without articulating it that something inside him died the moment he pulled that trigger, but what?

Julian

Quark's Bar

Julian had been surprised when Captain Sisko approached him and Dax at their table, asking to join them. It wasn't as though the three of them never socialized, but the captain usually liked for such things to be planned and not spontaneous. It quickly became obvious that he was after more than just company when he spoke of his recent, somewhat disastrous exchange with Kasidy Yates, a woman he had been seeing with more frequency of late.

Although he tried to be diplomatic, Julian privately felt the captain truly had bungled the conversation. When a woman announced that she would be moving somewhere her romantic partner lived, “It's a big step,” wasn't exactly an encouraging response. In his experience with such situations, complete and abject apology was usually the best route to take, unless of course, one wanted the woman in question to go away.

He and Dax both did their best to help. In the end, they were left wondering what Sisko intended to do. Dax looked at him after the captain was out of earshot. “So, just between you and me,” he asked her, “what do you really think about Kasidy moving onto the station?”

She mulled it over for a bit. “It's a big step,” she said finally.

“A very big step,” he agreed. He wondered if Sisko truly was ready to take it. He knew that he still had lingering issues over his wife's death, something natural in such circumstances, and there was the added complication of Jake.

“Speaking of big steps,” she said, giving him a nudge, “how are things going with you and Leeta? You seem to be spending an awful lot of time together.”

He took a swig of his drink. “Not when you consider how much she works,” he said.

Dax sat back in her seat, folding her arms and favoring him with a raised eyebrow. “And you don't?” she asked, smirking. “Please, don't say 'that's different', because you know it isn't.”

“It is when you consider I actually receive fair compensation for the work I do and adequate recognition,” he said somewhat defensively.

“So if she was doing something that paid better and people appreciated more, you'd be fine with how much she's working?” she asked, clearly skeptical.

“I'd feel better about it,” he said. “Look, it's about more than just how many hours she works or how much time we have for one another. She's constantly stressed out. Over half the time she has to badger Quark just to give her what he actually owes her. I care about her. I don't like to see her treated that way.”

“Hmm,” she said, eying him curiously.

“Hmm?” he asked. He never liked her “hmm's”. They usually came with a laser judgment that while more often than not accurate was something he rarely wanted to hear.

“I just find it telling that you say you care about her, but you don't say you love her.”

“When you think about it, it's not as though we've been dating for a long time, just a few months now,” he said, feeling defensive. What did it matter if he didn't love Leeta yet? He had stayed with her longer than he had with most people. After what he went through with Garak, he thought it nothing short of miraculous that he was willing to try a relationship with anyone at all. Who was Dax to lecture him when she was single? He decided it was high time to go on the offensive. “What about you? When are you going to act on your obvious attraction to a certain Lieutenant Commander?”

“We aren't talking about me. We're talking about you,” she deflected. “Do you really want to talk about obvious attractions?”

“You lost me,” he said, blinking at her in confusion.

“Did I?” she asked with such a significant look that it hit him suddenly. She was talking about Garak.

“Jadzia,” he cautioned.

“Julian,” she retorted, an impish light in her blue eyes.

He sighed in defeat. He should have known better than even to try to play this game with her. She was far too good at it. “I'm not going to sit here and try to pretend that there's no longer an attraction. As far as I'm concerned, that's natural. We were together a long time. We have a lot of history. Something like that doesn't just go away overnight. It doesn't mean I intend to revisit old territory. We've both moved past that.”

She looked utterly unconvinced. “Uh huh,” she said.

He made an impatient noise. “Be as skeptical as you like. It doesn't mean you're right,” he said crossly. “I'm with Leeta now, and that's the end of the discussion as far as I'm concerned.”

“Fine,” she said, holding up a conciliatory hand. “I didn't mean to make you angry. Speaking of that, have you patched things up with Miles yet?”

“How did you know about that?” he asked, startled.

She smiled serenely. “You ought to know by now that precious little happens on this station without my awareness.”

“You're as bad as a Betazoid,” he said sourly.

“I'm going to take that as a compliment,” she said, her smile inching wider.

“Well,” he said sweetly, “if you know so much, you should already know about me and Miles.” He smiled as her expression soured. It was so rare that he actually got one over on her, he was determined to savor the moment to the fullest, which included ordering a fresh drink.

Kira

Dozaria

It quickly became clear to both Kira and Dukat that the Ravinok didn't just crash but quite possibly was shot down, judging from phaser fire scarring of the hull. After just a little bit of arguing, they determined that Kira would handle trying to wrangle information from the sand choked computer systems and consoles of the Ravinok while Dukat handled the twelve graves they discovered in the sand and grit. Although she didn't understand Cardassian obsession with privacy for their dead, she did understand the importance of ritual. She decided that the least that she could do was to be respectful of Dukat's beliefs. It wasn't as though she was particularly eager to dig into graves, at any rate.

The ship was a total mess. She doubted that she'd be able to get much of anything out of it, or even if she'd be able to reactivate most of the systems, but she had to try. More than ever, she wanted to know the fate of her friend Lorit and all the other Bajoran prisoners carried on this ship. She got down to the dirty, gritty work of prying open access panels and trying to clean away enough debris to get decent connections.

The wind continued its incessant howl, scouring the half buried hull with hissing grit. Kira continuously blinked stinging sand from her watering eyes, sweat soaking through her thick uniform and making it cling to her uncomfortably. Ignoring her own discomfort as much as she could, she worked doggedly at the various control systems, hoping for a little luck more than anything else. She spared little thought for Dukat at the grave site. She would be able to examine any earrings he found and compare them to a list. To the possible dead Cardassians, she gave no thought at all.

After some time, she managed to clean a coupling well enough to attach one of the main cables. To her satisfaction, lights came up and the system hummed to life. “Hello, Ravinok,” she muttered to herself, standing and dusting her pants off, then approaching the console to see what she could access. As information streamed across the console, she hooked a PADD to one of the ports she had cleaned and downloaded what she needed.

She took it in hand and left the ship. “Dukat, I was able to reactivate the—” She cut off mid-sentence as she saw him, slumped on the ground with something in his hand, his shoulders shaking. Was he? He couldn't be crying. “Dukat...” She stepped closer, her brow furrowing.

“It's nothing,” he said quickly, “nothing at all,” but he couldn't hide the tears in his eyes, and he couldn't wipe them away fast enough.

Kira took what he held in his hand and recognized it for what it was, a Bajoran pledge bracelet. She was too taken aback to give him anything other than her natural reaction, sympathy at his plight. Garak had been right after all. Dukat had an ulterior motive for coming all this way, although it was probably far more benign than Garak would have expected. “Who was she?” she asked gently.

He tried to put her off, but she'd have none of it. She finally got the story out of him, that he was in love with this woman, Tora Naprem. She might have had a harder time accepting that at face value were it not for the fact that she found him initially overcome with his grief. Even now, he was very reluctant to discuss the issue, deflecting her attention from it by handing her seven Bajoran earrings. Much to her relief, none of them belonged to her friend. Wherever he was, alive or dead, he had not met his fate in this spot.

She shared her findings with him from the ship, that it had been attacked by two unknown warships, and they tried to decide what to do next. Scanning from orbit was no good. The same ionic field that made it impossible for them to beam down would interfere with any scans and render the data meaningless. She didn't like having to reveal any secrets to him from the occupation, but she had no choice. She told him of the implants resistance fighters had and activated when captured, and she then scanned to see if she could pick up any readings on her tricorder. Much to her satisfaction, she did. “I think I've got something,” she said. “That way.” She pointed.

Dukat carefully tucked the bracelet into his pack and stood, shouldering it. “Let's go,” he said, immediately beginning to walk.

He set a rapid pace. Kira found his doggedness strange in the face of their discoveries. If anything, she would expect someone so grief stricken to be less determined, possibly even difficult to motivate. Maybe he's different, she thought as she followed, noting that he no longer seemed to care if she was at his back or not. She was still having a hard time adjusting to the thought of him actually loving a Bajoran at all, much less grieving her loss.

When night fell, darkness descended rapidly. The temperature dropped several degrees, and the night sky was pitch black. Just because they hadn't yet discovered major terrain issues didn't mean that they wouldn't or couldn't. Despite being eager to see who might have survived, Kira decided that it was a good time to stop and set up camp. “Hey, Dukat,” she said, “come back and help me. It's time to set up camp for the night.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” his voice came from the darkness. “I'm fine, and so are you. It's cooler now. I'd think that would make it easier on you.”

He sounded strangely testy. “Be that as it may,” she said, trying to be patient in light of what had happened earlier, “I think it's time to stop. This is my mission, remember?”

She heard him hiss and the crunch of his boots over the sand as he approached her. At least he wasn't directly disobeying her and forcing her to play catch up in the darkness. She took out a portable light and set it up. Instead of helping her, he just paced restlessly back and forth. “I don't understand why we have to stop,” he said, sounding almost petulant.

He was worse than dealing with a child, she thought. Still trying to be patient, she explained her reasoning and managed to convince him to sit down near the heater, only to have him cry out in pain and writhe around on the ground with both hands clutching his buttocks. She didn't want to laugh. She truly didn't. Clamping down hard with her lips, she managed to get him to let her see what was wrong. An enormous spine protruded, buried well in his posterior. Wincing in sympathy, she warned him that removing it was going to hurt then gave a good twist and a yank. “Ow,” she said ruefully.

She found her dermal regenerator and handed it to him then watched him try to treat himself. Her pinched look gave way to a smile, her smile to laughter. She just couldn't help it. He looked so ridiculous!

“It's not funny!” he said crossly.

“It is from this angle,” she said, laughing harder.

To her surprise, he started to laugh as well. “You know what's even funnier?” he asked. “It's not working!”

Almost in tears, she realized he hadn't turned it on. “You have to activate it first,” she managed to choke out.

When he began to heal himself, she finally got hold of herself. The whole trip had been so odd so far, but now that things had taken such an unexpected turn at the grave site, she was finding it harder to heed Garak's advice. She could no longer see Dukat as the symbol of the occupation and everything that had been so wrong with it, at least no longer just as that. She was starting to see him as more, as a person, and it was disconcerting. His attitude toward her had changed, too. When had that happened? She couldn't even say. She dug in her pack for field rations and tossed him one. As the two began to eat, she brought up something that had been bothering her ever since she found him weeping over the bracelet, and he told her who the woman it belonged to had been. “Tell me something. Who's Tora Ziyal?”

He stopped chewing mid-bite and simply looked at her. She pressed on, explaining that she found the name in the manifest, along with the crew and prisoners two civilians, Tora Naprem and Tora Ziyal, a thirteen year old girl.

“I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I told you she was Naprem's sister?” he said reluctantly.

“Ziyal is a Cardassian name,” she pressed. “The way I see it, there's only one explanation. Ziyal was Naprem's daughter, and...”

“And I was her father,” he said.

“Now I know why you're in such a hurry to find the survivors,” she said, feeling relieved at finally having discovered the motivation behind his strange behavior ever since they located the Ravinok. “You're hoping she's still alive so you can rescue her.”

“Not quite,” he said, his blue-gray eyes catching the camp light and glittering. “You see, if my daughter is still alive, I'll have no choice but to kill her.” Without another word, he set the remainder of his rations aside and rolled over with his back to her, effectively ending the conversation for the night.

Kira felt gut punched. That was the last thing she expected him to say. Stupid, she said to herself. You were stupid for letting your guard down. Garak warned you. Not that in the bigger scheme of things that meant all that much to her, but the fact remained. Dukat was the former Prefect of Bajor. He was responsible for countless deaths and atrocities. In light of that, why should she be surprised to discover he had murderous intent toward a family member, particularly one who was half Bajoran?

She was reluctant to sleep around him, yet she knew she needed the rest. Always a very light sleeper, she decided to trust to her instincts and abilities to see her through this, lying down and settling in. It was difficult to find sleep, though. She kept thinking of the unknown girl, Ziyal. One thing was certain. She'd kill Dukat before she'd let him touch a hair on that girl's head. If he thought otherwise, he was sadly mistaken.

Garak

Private Quarters

It had been a long time since Garak had poked so deeply into the station computer system. He was almost certain he had tripped one or two of Odo's security protocols. It didn't matter much. Odo could hardly fault him or be too irritated with him for trying to dig into Dukat's background and activities there. The system purge when the Cardassians left had been fairly thorough, but not complete. The Fleeters had done more to dump and eradicate the rest of the files, particularly after the self-destruct scare. There wasn't much to go on.

Undeterred, Garak had next contacted one of the few people he had left on Cardassia with possible relevant information and almost as much reason to dislike Dukat as he had. He had been told that the man would look into it and had been waiting for a little over a day to hear back. He had almost given up hope of having his request actually taken seriously when he received an encrypted and cryptic message. “Possible family ties,” was all it said. Well, that could mean almost anything, couldn't it?

After giving it more thought, he decided that perhaps he wasn't completely out of resources. He got dressed to go out, despite the late hour, and made his way to the Security office. Odo glanced up at him from his desk. “I should thank you for saving me the trouble of bringing you in to question,” Odo said, gesturing for Garak to sit down. “Give me one reason I shouldn't lock you up for your recent excavations into our system.”

“I was doing it for Major Kira,” Garak said simply. He smiled in satisfaction at Odo's expression. He knew he had him.

The shape shifter wasn't going to let up quite so easily, however. “You expect me to believe that the major came to you and asked you to poke around in the computer?” he demanded.

“Constable, I said no such thing,” he said, adopting a wounded manner. Odo folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. He knew that his patience was already wearing thin. Garak tried a slightly different tack. “She came to me before she left on her mission with Dukat. She was...concerned...about his attitude toward her.”

Odo unfolded his arms and leaned toward Garak. “I'm concerned about that, as well,” he admitted, looking wary.

“As you should be,” Garak said, nodding and widening his eyes slightly.

“All right, Garak,” Odo relented. “I'm assuming you didn't come here to confess to me something you had to be aware I already knew, so why are you here?”

“Dukat was fairly thorough in erasing records involving him and his activities here,” Garak said. “However, I find his interest in the Ravinok strange. I'm not the only one. You knew Dukat during the occupation. Is there something in particular about that ship that would spark his interest above and beyond the fact that he was the commanding officer when it went missing?” Odo's expression grew more guarded. Garak watched him sharply. He knew something. He was almost certain of it. “I don't need to tell you how dangerous he can be,” he said reasonably.

“I...can't help you, Garak,” Odo said reluctantly.

“As I said, this isn't for me,” Garak retorted. So what if it was a lie, or at least not the entire truth? He actually was somewhat concerned about the major's safety in regard to this.

“There's nothing you can do to help Major Kira,” Odo said in such a way that Garak knew he'd get nowhere with him.

Garak stood abruptly, irritated. “I hope for her sake and yours that you're right about that,” he said. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were actually protecting Dukat.”

Odo shot him an icy glare. “Then I'd say it's a good thing you do know better. I have work to do, Garak. Don't make me change my mind about my decision to let your computer indiscretion slide.”

Garak inclined his head slightly and left. That went nowhere. Still, he wasn't completely without any recourse. Smiling grimly to himself, he headed further down the Promenade and dove into the madness of the night crowd at Quark's, something that he would usually avoid like the Rigellian flu if he could help it. If anyone knew about personal details he shouldn't know, it was Quark. The only question was how to motivate him to tell what he knew without winding up in his debt. Devious gears turned in his mind as he approached the bar, allowing his irritation to show.

“Garak,” Quark said when he saw him, moving closer, “what brings you to my humble establishment tonight? I don't usually see you at this time.”

“I don't usually need a drink so close to bedtime,” Garak said, making sure he sounded put out. “Kanar, please, and keep them coming until I say otherwise.”

Quark looked a little concerned. “You feeling OK? You're not going to get...agitated on me, are you?”

“No,” he said. “Honestly, it hurts me that you'd even bring that time up. As often as Morn gets raucous and fights, I'd think you'd be far more concerned over his drinking than mine.”

Quark shook his head and handed Garak his kanar. “When Morn gets out of sorts, people get black eyes or smashed fingers. When you get out of sorts, it's just as likely somebody will die, and it's just as likely that someone will be me,” he said.

“I'd never kill you unless I had to,” Garak assured him, downing his kanar and gesturing for another.

“How...comforting,” Quark said dryly. “So what is it that has you so out of sorts, anyway? Pining over the handsome doctor?”

“I don't pine,” Garak said primly. “No, I'm afraid this is much more serious,” he said gravely. He paused, glanced to either side, and lowered his voice. “Possibly a matter of life and death. Really, I shouldn't be talking to you about it. If Odo wouldn't take it seriously, why would you?”

Quark snorted. “Odo isn't nearly as good as he thinks he is. Who's in danger?”

Garak shook his head and took a long swallow of his kanar. “Forget I said anything,” he said. “I insist. It's bad enough I almost got myself arrested over this. You don't need to be in trouble, too. You have thirsty customers. Be a good man, and just leave me that bottle of kanar. I'll tend to myself well enough.”

He could tell that Quark was about to burst with curiosity, as well as a desire to one up Odo, the Ferengi's blue eyes darting between him and the customers with torn intent. Grumbling to himself, Quark walked away from Garak to tend to a Bajoran couple who had started to look impatient. Garak drank steadily and deliberately. His alcohol tolerance was still abnormally high, likely a lingering side effect of his permanently changed brain chemistry thanks to the wire. Quark didn't know that, nor did he ever intend for him to find out. He adopted a troubled, brooding look as he watched the rest of the bar activity.

Over time, the crowd began to thin. Garak swayed very slightly in his seat and gave a bleary blink into his almost empty kanar glass. Quark reached across the bar and plucked it deftly from his hand. “Let me get that for you,” he said, pouring the last of the kanar from the bottle into it and handing it back to Garak. “Now, Garak,” he said reasonably, “it's clear whatever is going on is really troubling you. You said Odo wouldn't take it seriously. Why not?”

Garak blinked owlishly at him and said overly loudly, “I don't know. It doesn't make sense given how he feels.”

“How he feels about what?” the Ferengi asked, leaning closer.

“Don't we have breakfast together almost every day?” Garak asked plaintively.

“You do,” Quark nodded. “I don't understand it, but you do. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Everything,” Garak said. “I'm...trying to be a friend. That's what friends do, right? Look out for each other and each other's...friends?”

Quark sighed. “I'm really not following you. I think you've had too much kanar. You should probably go sleep it off.”

Garak grasped his forearm. “I bet you know,” he said gravely. “You were here during the occupation. You heard things about Dukat.”

“Who didn't?” Quark asked offhandedly. He suddenly seemed to get it. “This is about Major Kira, isn't it? Isn't she on some sort of joint mission with him?”

“She is,” Garak said, nodding too vigorously. “Now you see. Think about it.” He let Quark's arm go, only to tap his index finger on the bar top emphatically and narrow his eyes. “Why would a Legate come all the way from Cardassia to investigate the disappearance of a Bajoran prison transport, unless someone important to him was on that transport? Someone he didn't want anyone else to know about? Someone he wouldn't want Kira to know about?”

“You know,” Quark said thoughtfully, “there were rumors of a comfort woman he got...a little too close to. Some of the guards would talk about it sometimes when they didn't think I could hear them. No offense, Garak, but you Cardassians can't really whisper to save your lives. There were even rumors of a child. I didn't give it much credence at the time. Dukat hardly seemed the type, but...”

Garak was no longer listening. He had already stood and strode halfway across the bar before Quark called out to him, “Hey! You didn't pay!”

“Make me a tab,” Garak retorted, not slowing for one moment. He needed to make another contact on Cardassia. If what Quark said had even a remote possibility of being true, he needed to get some balls rolling before Dukat had a chance to get back and cover anything up. Of course, this also meant that Major Kira was in much more danger than he initially realized. However, as Odo had said, there was nothing he could do about that now except to hope that she took his sincere warnings to heart.