Chapter Text
One part of the universe never looked quite like another. From debris to destination worlds, the diversity of the cosmos was so extensive that Julian could turn his ship upwards, sideways, or backwards (or forty degrees upwards-sideways-backwards) and recognise none of the landmarks.
Yet, here, the view through the runabout’s viewscreen was pretty uniform.
Big.
Black.
It had been black for a number of days now. That amount of blackness indicated not an absence of mass, but so much dust all around that no light or comm signal could get through. Julian would’ve steered around the Dead Zone, but he wanted to get back home as fast as possible. Unwilling to spend a week travelling alone, spending a few days cut off from all outside contact seemed a frustrating but reasonable exchange, given it meant this trip would be over sooner. At least he had the computer to talk to.
He was almost out of the cloud. It seemed to be fading...
Any minute...
Julian searched the screen, watching bright patches of stars drift in and out of existence before they were swallowed up by wisps of blackness.
“Computer, how long until we’re out of the Dead Zone? Any second now, surely.”
The computer chirped, “Now leaving Dead Zone. Runabout communication signal reinstated.”
“Aha! Finally.” Julian swivelled in his pilot’s chair and happily dismissed the alert: “Thank yooou, Computer. Alright! Time for a cup of tea.” He turned his chair towards the replicator.
The computer bleeped again, and he twisted back. “Hello? What’s happening now?”
“Incoming transmission from Cardassia Prime,” the computer said.
“On screen,” Julian said, as a small frown of concern pinched between his brows. For a message to come in so soon after he left the cloud, whoever was contacting him had to have been trying to get through every few minutes. Perhaps an emergency...?
Fuzzing onto the screen came a vaguely familiar face, but not familiar enough: he looked Human. The man smiled, his pink lips stretching wider in his glee. “And thus, he emerges,” Garak said. “It’s been far too long, Doctor.”
Julian replied, “It’s only been a few days— Garak, why the hell do you look Human?”
“Oh!” Garak tilted his head back and forth as if admiring himself in the mirror. “It’s one of those ‘filter applications’. Do you like it?”
“Not even a little bit.” Julian scowled. “Turn it off.”
“I will not,” Garak retorted, firmly but playfully. He leaned back into a sunbeam, and more of his flower garden became visible around his façade: pastel-coloured Cardassian lilies glistened with morning dew, beside hanging vines gently swaying as birds hopped between them. Further back were twisted, humongous buds not yet ready to bloom, all set against a pale yellow sky.
“Tell me, Doctor,” Garak said, “how was your trip? I assume you have in fact accepted the oh-so-prestigious Carrington Award you set out to collect?”
“Yes.” Julian lowered his gaze and busied himself adjusting course by a micro-fraction of a degree. “Yes; I am now Dr. Julian Subatoi Bashir, Carrington Award winner at the ripe young age of fifty-four.”
“My heartiest congratulations. Truly, a lifetime’s achievement! I would say it could not have come sooner, but we both know you’ve squandered many an opportunity to win over the years. I’m glad my absolute insistence that you accept first place this time has done you a welcome service.” Garak leaned in to impress: “You deserve this, Doctor.”
“Hm.” Julian adjusted a slider on the console and scrunched his lips to one side. He did enjoy a good compliment, but somehow that particular one missed the mark.
Garak leaned closer, concerned by Julian’s lack of enthusiasm. “I realise that quaint Earth saying of yours has little meaning out there, but... why are you not ‘over the moon’?”
Julian took a breath to answer when a blee-bleep sounded from the runabout’s computer.
“You have an incoming message?” Garak wondered.
“I suppose everything’s catching up with me now I have signal,” Julian said, reaching to open communications. “Excuse me a minute, Garak... On screen.”
The blue face of a recent medical adversary replaced Garak’s on the viewscreen. Their smug smile grew; their eyes flamed; they opened their mouth to speak.
“Dr. Bashir.” A pleasantly weighty voice, though tinged with obvious dislike for Julian.
“Colonel,” Julian nodded in respect, but didn’t keep the terse impatience out of his reply: “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Just wanted to acknowledge your awesome win ‘face to face’, that’s all.”
Oh?
Surprising. They hadn’t seemed so eager to congratulate him at the Carrington event itself...
“But hey, since I’m here...”
Ah, there it was.
“While we didn’t exactly part ways as rivals, but you as the victor and I the woefully overlooked... I do intend to oust you as the Quadrant’s most celebrated medical marvel by this – time – next – year.”
They clearly meant it, too; barely-contained fury blazed behind their casual tone.
“Oh.” Julian shrugged carelessly. “Well. I mean – go right ahead. Go for it. The floor’s all yours.”
“Aw, not gonna fight me this time?” The smirk on the Andorian-Trill’s lips only grew. “Given your weird affection for verbal sparring on the Carrington debate stage I figured you’d have a few choice phrases for me.”
Irritation blazed through Julian’s head and hands. “If that’s why you think I won, because I find a decent argument inspiring every now and then—”
“No, you won because you’re the gifted child who never burned out.”
The Colonel spoke so confidently, both now and at the ceremony, but Julian did wonder if... perhaps, there was an element of fear beneath it all. Given only pure Trills could be joined with a symbiont, Colonel Randy, being half Andorian, had never been allowed that chance. Endless opportunities had been struck from their life’s story at birth. On top of all that, they’d lost this year’s winning title to an off-worlder on their own home soil. Colonel Randy’s anger made sense, as obviously Julian could empathise with anyone who was prevented from doing what they wanted because of something genetic they couldn’t help – but the Colonel immediately ruined their chances with him, because they followed up with a mutter of, “Whether or not someone like you should’ve been allowed to get nominated in the first place is a whooole other debate.”
“‘Someone like me’,” Julian repeated, coldly. “You mean an augment?”
The Colonel recoiled in feigned surprise. “You’re an augment?”
Julian had had enough of people like this. No matter whether someone hated him for coming so far practically unimpeded, despite being a walking, talking crime, or they hated him jealously for having been altered in the first place, the hatred was exhausting to him, and he didn’t care about trying to change minds anymore.
“Don’t you have better things to do, Colonel?” Julian asked. He lifted his eyes and gave the viewscreen a dull stare. “If you’re really set on taking the prize next year then I suppose you have a lot of work to be getting on with, don’t you?”
“Ooh, spicy.”
Julian leaned forward, ready to end the transmission. “Listen here, Colonel Randy. I have actual friends who don’t sit around trying to decide whether or not I should be allowed to participate despite my disabilities, or the so-called ‘corrections’ that were made against my will. Thank you for your opinion, but I’m cutting you off.”
Colonel Randy made a pleased, but not especially pleasant-sounding noise. “As if I’d let you get the last word again. Seeya around, Doc. Colonel out.”
And then, just like that, they were gone.
The screen flashed back to Garak’s Human-looking face. To Julian, the sight was uncomfortably void of the greyness he was used to, void of the friendly reptilian eye-ridges that showed his expressions far better than those funny white eyebrows.
“It seems you have a serious rival to best,” Garak mused. “And a rather unpleasant one, at that.”
Julian raised his eyebrows. “You were listening in?”
“You had both our communication lines open at once, Doctor. I wonder, how does the threat of being usurped so quickly sit with you?”
With a gentle laugh, Julian dismissed the idea. “Look, Garak, I’ve won my award. Like you said, it’s the achievement of a lifetime. It is something I’ve wanted for all of my adult life. Nobody can take it away, can they? Other people deserve the spotlight too.”
“How noble of you to allow it.”
Garak then sniffed a breath in and changed the subject: “My apologies for not being able to attend the ceremony. Given the change in the weather, the garden really did need all of my attention.”
“Oh, please,” Julian smirked. “You just didn’t dare set foot on Andoria. And quite right too – wouldn’t want the cold to aggravate your rheumatism.”
Garak scoffed. “My knees are perfectly fine. It’s the orchids that are fragile.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, I do say so.”
“Any chance you’ve intercepted my messages for me while I was out of range?”
There was every chance, in fact. Garak hacked Julian’s messages daily, and they both pretended Julian didn’t know about it.
“Aah... A certain family has left me with copious praises and compliments to pass on. So copious, in fact, you’d be better off hearing it all from them directly.”
Julian grinned. “Let me guess. Miles and Keiko? Aunt Nerys?”
“Proclamations all co-signed by their offspring, assorted pets, and unborn grandchildren, yes.” Garak added in a mumble, “I do hope I’ll never be that embarrassing.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Julian said. He already looked forward to going through the messages once he got home; his chest grew warmer at the thought.
“Oh!” He straightened in his pilot’s chair now he’d remembered, “My ‘date’ says hello.”
“Does she,” came Garak’s flat reply.
“She wore the most bedazzling dress to the ceremony, Garak,” Julian smiled, enlivened and wistful at once. “You would’ve loved seeing it in action.”
“Mm... And how is dear Ezri?”
Julian sighed, eyes drifting as he recalled the fog of deep thought around Ezri’s person. He’d really had to fight to distract her from it. “Overworked. Frankly I think she was relieved to get some time off from Trill Symbiosis 101 to attend the ceremony with me. But! Now it’s over, she’s off back to Trill, back to her students.”
“Hmm.”
Julian pondered, head tilting a little, “You know, it didn’t even feel like a real date, me and her. Even saying it felt ridiculous.”
Garak brightened up a bit. “Oh?”
Julian threw his head back in exasperation. “You would not believe the number of times I had to explain to people, yes, we were together for a couple of months, twenty years ago, but our romance days are long, long over.” He shook his head at Garak, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “It was great to have a friend along, though, I’ll say that much. I mean, since Mr. Garak had better things to do, and all.”
The computer’s bleep distracted from Garak’s unsaid reply.
“Uh-oh, I’m popular today,” Julian uttered. “On screen. ”
A creature of great poise took up his view now, her coiled bush of red hair tied up around her pale face with a patterned headscarf.
“Ah! Hello, Dr. Renna.”
“Hello.“ Dr. Renna smiled, crinkling her Bajoran nose ridges. “You left your medical scanner on my ship, Doctor.”
Julian set both hands atop his head in dismayed realisation. After all that nonsense being shuttled around between event halls and ballrooms, meeting and greeting a few hundred people, he knew he’d misplaced an item or two. A genetically enhanced brain unfortunately didn’t prevent things from falling out of his bag.
Voice rich with warmth, Dr. Renna went on, “Not to worry. If you and I ever cross paths again, I’d be happy to return it...”
She became distracted, eyes darting away from Julian’s. She hesitated, then said, “And hello to your friend, too?”
“Oh,” Garak said gently, noticing he’d been noticed.
Dr. Renna asked, “Aaaand... you might be?”
“Oh, this is Garak,” Julian said. “I think I... might’ve mentioned him a few times at the afterparty.” Understatement, he thought. But he wasn’t about to specify just how many times he’d managed to steer the conversation back to the topic of a certain Cardassian tailor. Julian added, for Renna’s benefit, “He’s wearing some silly filter, don’t mind his face.”
Renna’s bafflement fell away, and her molten brown eyes widened in astonishment. “Garak! Goodness, he’s even more handsome than you described, Doctor.” She smiled and admitted, “Even as a Human.”
Although embarrassed by that comment, Julian chuckled.
He dared not say it in the moment that followed, but it did strike him how impressive it was that so much could change in a mere twenty years. A Bajoran, complimenting a Cardassian...
Then again, Renna wasn’t like many Bajorans. It was no secret that she was the daughter of Cardassian collaborators – two traitors to her people – but in adulthood, the things she’d done in the medical field to support her fellow Bajorans seemed to be her way of ‘making up for it’. By Julian’s calculations she’d only been a child when the Occupation ended. Of course the deeds of her parents had had nothing to do with her, but Julian knew as well as anyone the effects those choices had on a child. There was no escaping it. Only living with it, and doing the best one could do.
She gave Julian hope, really. Dr. Renna Illa had become a bridge between Cardassia and Bajor the moment she’d married a Cardassian, and through her medical projects comparing and contrasting the physiology of the two species, she became a near-silent spokesperson for peace between the two divided peoples.
Although it was uncomfortable to imagine it, Julian supposed he himself represented a bridge between genetically-altered people and the Federation. If he were to follow Renna’s blueprint, he wouldn’t need to actively advocate to bring people’s thinking around. He just needed to do good work. Win a Carrington Award. Prove to everyone that he could be an augment and still have value to Starfleet, and to all Federation species.
“May I say,” Garak said, addressing Renna warmly but remaining unseen to Julian, “what a splendid headscarf it is you’re wearing.”
“Oh! Thank you! It has moba leaves on it,” Renna smiled. “And it’s actually hand-painted Tholian silk! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find good fashion these days...”
“I’m— I’m sorry for the interruption, Doctor,” Julian said with a handwave. “My ‘friend’... is certainly not meant to be poking his nose in where it doesn’t belong, but he does do that no matter what I tell him.”
“Ohh, it’s no trouble at all! In fact, I’m glad I caught your... ‘dear Mr. Garak’.” Her attention skipped to another part of the viewscreen, bright-eyed. “I was wondering... any chance I might commission you for a... sartorial piece? I gather you can do mighty splendid things with fabric.”
“Apologies, dear lady, but I’m retired.” Garak sounded a bit impatient now. “Thank you for your message, Dr. Renna, but if we could just – move along—”
“Pity...” Renna looked like a kicked puppy. “It seems all the good tailors are either retired – or dead. And Dr. Bashir was so eager to inform all the other nominees that you designed his entire wardrobe. Tell me – is it just a hobby these days?”
“Yes. Yes! A hobby!”
What a ridiculous thing to lie about. Julian lurched forward to interrupt: “He’ll take your commission, Renna. Won’t you, Garak?”
Garak huffed, but didn’t fight. “Fine. I suppose. Contact me at Garak’s Clothiers on Cardassia Prime.”
“There we go. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Julian smiled. To Renna, he said, “The new shop is a little out of the way, since Garak decided he needed some country air after the great Cardassian rebuild, but you’ll find it. Um – well done, by the way, Renna. For being runner-up.”
“No, well done to you, Dr. Bashir. Well-deserved! I will hold onto your medical scanner, and see when I have time to drop by.”
“Of course,” Julian said, grateful.
“I hear Cardassia’s just lovely this time of year.” Renna gave a little wave, then sang, “Renna out!”
Garak, back on screen, seemed ponderous.
“Garak,” Julian said, slightly bothered, “what was that all about? She was perfectly lovely to me at the ceremony. You didn’t need to hurry her along like that.”
“I was in the middle of a conversation with you, Doctor!” Garak exclaimed. “You can hardly begrudge me for wanting to get back to it...” His expression grew ponderous. “She was a bit young...”
“Young?” Julian searched Garak’s face for a sign of what he meant, but the lack of familiar Cardassian features made it tricky. “What do you mean, ‘young’?”
“Only that most of the Carrington Award nominees seem to be little more than larvae these days.”
Julian muttered, “Yes, well, the idea of waiting until you’re a hundred years old before collecting all due accolades has fallen out of fashion a bit.” He felt discomfort creep down his throat and tickle his belly cold; now he was bothered by what Garak said. “All the other nominees this year... were younger than me, weren’t they?”
Determined to reason with his anxiety, he added, “I could’ve won the award twenty-five years ago, but I didn’t want to win it when I was younger. Once you win this thing – your medical career’s peaked. There’s basically nowhere higher to aim.”
Garak purred, “Ohhh, I’m sure you’ll find something productive to do to occupy your time in the coming years.”
“Like you?” Julian gave a smile. “You, collecting every Cardassian flower in existence for your garden. Sewing dresses. Knitting.”
“There is contentment to be found in the simplest of things, my dear friend. For example—”
A computer blarped in a somewhat sickly manner, and Garak huffed in annoyance.
“That’s definitely at your end,” Julian grinned. No Starfleet computer made a noise that silly on purpose.
“It’s just a message,” Garak grumbled. He looked down and fiddled with a handheld device. “Yes, the seeds— Oh— OH, the seeds! The seeds I ordered will be delivered tomorrow before noon!”
Delighted now, Garak dismissed his message and looked eagerly back to Julian.
Julian couldn’t help but grin. “Well, by the sound of it, my dear Mr. Garak, we’ve both achieved our life’s goals. Aren’t those the last flowers you need for your collection?”
“They’re hardly flowers, Doctor. There’s little point in counting blooms before the seeds are sown.”
Julian, with mounting unease about his own situation, said, “But what will you do once you’re done? What do you want from life now you’ve achieved the thing you set out to achieve? Now you have to maintain a garden, and keep up appearances, and that’s a whole job, isn’t it—” He realised he was babbling but couldn’t stop. “I mean, did you wait too long? Or did you finish too soon? You have other hobbies – creativity left, right, and centre – but what are my special interests, what do I have? I mean, there’s the holosuite games, and the literary analysis with you over lunch, but there’s nothing I can really devote my life to besides medicine – and I’ve won that game, haven’t I, so unless I take up tennis again and rip my shoulder to pieces, what—”
“Doctor! Doctor...” Garak smiled. “Julian.”
He collected up a thought, then presented it in gentle tones: “Between a rock and a hard place, the strongest and most unexpected of flowers will set down their roots. Your future may seem like a wasteland to you now, but with unmediated devotion lavished upon yourself, the second half of your life could in fact become a thriving—”
The runabout’s computer bleeped.
Garak exploded, “Oh, for pity’s sake! What must I give to have a decent, uninterrupted conversation with my husband?!”
Julian gave a grim smile and reached to check the incoming message. Another of his competitors. “Computer, dismiss message.”
The notification disappeared and didn’t come back.
Garak sighed heavily. He gave Julian a fond and encouraging look. “There is plenty to do here on Cardassia, Julian. Perhaps you’ll call me a hypocrite for saying it, but there’s no need to lie to yourself. You do tend to put on a mask, a filter...” He gestured at his own disguised face. “You’ll play the role of a determined man, one eager to best all and come out on top. Yet it’s clear you’re most alive when you’re—”
“Losing?”
“Kept busy!” Garak countered. “Helping people! Elbow-deep in a problem without a visible solution, tackling one small task at a time until you discover the end result. You don’t need awards, Doctor. As I’ve said... the simplest things can be their own rewards. You only need to impress yourself.”
“Oh, here we go.” Julian’s mocking tone was softened by his fondest smile. “And how might I do that? ‘Impress myself’.”
“How might you, indeed?” Garak answered: “By tending a seedling for a year until it presents its first dewy bloom. By cooking a meal for our friends and family, as you have done with remarkable skill all this time. And, needless to say, my dear, by making a grouchy old Cardassian feel exceptionally loved.”
Julian smiled so hard his eyes started to ache, skin all crinkled up beside them.
“Now, I suggest,” Garak said, “you turn this empty space in your life into a garden. Achieve nothing. Yet appreciate everything.”
Alright.
Fine.
Garak really did like his gardening metaphors, didn’t he?
“‘Empty space in your life’,” Julian echoed, tiredly. “Talking of empty spaces, Garak, why aren’t you here? Why didn’t you come with me to collect my award? And don’t tell me it was the orchids. Or your knees.”
Garak seemed surprised that his ‘good advice’ was being opposed. But then, he smiled, and it was a wide and sly smile, his head tipped slightly down, eye contact intense. “My dear Doctor, do you mean to say you miss me?”
“Garak...”
Garak tutted. “Tell me, why do you think I made sure you collected your prize at long last? Are you surprised to discover that such academic triumph leaves you underwhelmed these days? Did it ever truly please you, Doctor? Or are you still trying to impress your parents?”
“What?!” Julian drew his head back, squinting, lip quirked up in repulsion at the idea. “I’m not trying to— I haven’t talked to either of them in years, why would I be—? For goodness’ sake—”
He grappled with the concept, still gaping unsurely... but then glanced down and shut his mouth.
“Hmm. God, you’re right.”
It wasn’t just his parents, either – he wanted to win over the entire Federation, didn’t he? Desperate to prove he wasn’t a bad augment. Desperate to make people like him, and make them change their minds about all the other augments too. He’d been so sure he didn’t care, so sure he’d grown past worrying about how he was perceived – but as always, Garak knew him better than he knew himself.
“Of course you’re right,” Julian admitted, quietly. “I mean, it’s not that I’m trying to please them, or anyone, really, but it is immensely hard to let that sort of thing go, isn’t it?”
Garak’s eyes turned glossy, his expression soft and hurt. “Yes,” he said, almost to himself.
His story wasn’t so different.
“Even after years,” Julian went on. “Everything in my life taught me I’m only worth the air I breathe if I do something useful with my time and have the credentials to prove it.
“And quite the fallacy that is.”
Julian exhaled, starting to smile again. “Look, Garak, thanks for the therapy, but you’d better not have sent me out here by myself to have a grand old time being disappointed just to hammer home a point. You’ve spent twenty years learning how to communicate in healthier ways, so if I were you, I’d put all that practise to good use and tell me what you’re really trying to say here.”
Garak laughed gently, eyes sparkling with glee. “You truly expect me to tell you? Just like that? My dear Doctor, why express something outright when one can imply?”
“Oh, right! Like you ‘imply’ whenever you want a ‘foot massage’?” Julian chuckled. “Come on, out with it, Garak! I know you’re capable.”
Garak gave a huge, beaming sigh, and evidently decided he valued trust over a few more moments of mischief, because he opened his mouth and said, “I had hoped... that solitude would make you more acutely aware of what you value for yourself, and nobody else.” He softened further, holding Julian’s gaze. “Perhaps you’d realise that your biggest successes, Julian... are in fact the little achievements.”
He shifted in his garden chair, growing uncomfortable, but carried on, “In all our years together, my dear, it seems your excessive ‘sentiment’ has rather corrupted my thinking. It does repulse me to say it, but—”
“Don’t! Don’t. Don’t say it.” Garak went silent, so Julian nodded, and suggested, “I’ll say it.”
Julian rolled a shoulder, then relaxed, determined to believe whatever came out of his mouth next. Maybe if he spoke his intentions, they would be easier to put into effect.
He began: “The important things in my life are what I value and what makes me feel fulfilled. Even if they’re tiny, everyday things. Or even if they’re not measurable. They’re meaningful to me.” He gave Garak an uncertain look. “Is that what you were going for? Kind of?”
Garak hummed. “Well, I would not have used a single one of those words, but... yes. That was my meaning.”
Julian smiled. “And I’ll say something else, Garak. I think...” He swallowed, becoming more certain of his stance with each cool, measured breath taken in and exhaled out. “I think you’re right.” Softness took hold of his heart, and he pondered aloud, “If anything, the biggest success in my life is somehow keeping you around all these years.”
Julian blinked, then realised with a jolt how many strings Garak must’ve pulled to get him into this position, if only so he could come to that realisation.
“Garak... Did you... send me away so that I’d... miss you?” He couldn’t help his smile, having seen Garak’s fond reaction on his viewscreen. “And then what? I’d realise exactly how much I love you?”
Garak just smiled his glitter-eyed reptilian smile, an expression wholly unchanged by his Human appearance.
Julian shook his head, feeling both dazzled and disturbed. “You did, didn’t you! My god, you’re the same as you ever were!”
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, now!” Garak chuckled. Tenderly, as tenderly as he’d ever said anything: “We all change, Julian. For better or for worse. It is inevitable.”
He breathed in, then out. Then he said, with all the love in the universe coating his tongue: “But please... Come home to me, my dear.”
Julian looked into his eyes, heart warm and aching with affection.
He saw a life before him all of a sudden, and it was a good one.
So he made a promise.
“I’ll be there soon, Elim.”
Garak nodded, then nodded again. “Good.”
He vanished from the screen, and Julian again looked upon the expanse of space: a starfield that seemed more familiar to him now.
Of course there was work to do, mending the social rifts in the universe they lived in. But there would always be work to do. That work didn’t always have to fall on his shoulders, did it? Garak was right. Julian shouldn’t need to prove anything to anyone.
He could stop for a while.
Because he wanted to... or because he needed to. What good were awards and grand successes, when all he really wanted waited for him when he finally stopped to rest?
He could achieve nothing. And appreciate everything. He could turn the second half of his life into a thriving garden. Someday he might return to this life, but when that time came, he’d be a different man.
Julian reached to adjust controls, letting the computer take over navigation. He smiled, feeling himself become a little more comfortable in his own skin.
“Computer,” he said.
The computer bleeped acknowledgement.
“Set a course for home.”
{ the end }