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In the midst of war, the corridors of Starbase 375 were never empty.
These days they seemed to be permanently flush with Starfleet personnel moving from one urgency to the next, in a hurry to carry out their orders as quickly as possible. Shoulders bumped. The oblivious risked colliding with one another. No one had any issue with simply stepping around those deemed to be moving too slowly if it meant saving themselves an extra few seconds.
Dr. Julian Bashir did not share their motivation: his slow, thoughtful steps at odds with the brisk pace set by the junior officers and crew members surrounding him. Those forced to slow down behind him diplomatically swallowed their protests once they got a good look at the pips on his uniform; no one dared to criticize a senior officer.
Right now, Julian had a lot on his mind.
He’d just returned from a day-long away mission only a few, short hours ago: a particularly dangerous mission that had skirted the fringes of Dominion-patrolled space. It had been touch-and-go for most of the mission, but they’d somehow avoided detection from the Jem’Hadar and had returned with new intelligence for Starfleet without any casualties. An all-around success.
No doubt Jadzia and Miles were still out celebrating while Julian walked down the hallway with trepidation, feeling more nervous than he’d had in awhile as he attempted to shake away the uncertainties that had flooded his mind. He was a confident enough person most of the time that he worried that he wasn’t carrying his nervousness particularly well; even so, he continued to look around as though expecting someone to demand an immediate explanation of where he was going.
Of course, no one even spared him a second glance. Everyone was far too consumed by their own worries to be concerned with Julian for longer than the time it took to maneuver around him.
Julian turned a corner that led to a long, winding line of guest quarters, out of sight from the busy main corridors. Once he arrived at his destination, he looked up and down the deserted corridor apprehensively, his chest tight as he fought the instinct to leave - to walk away – and come back another day. He found himself wishing that he’d talked to Miles before he’d decided to do this, certain that his friend would’ve tried to talk him out of it and save him all this trouble.
To hell with this, Julian thought. He quickly pressed the door chime before he could have any more second thoughts.
The door opened.
“Well - this is certainly a surprise,” Garak said after a slight pause. He stood in front of the door to his guest quarters, blocking the entrance with an unreadable expression on his face. “Though not an entirely unpleasant one. Am I needed somewhere?”
Garak’s surprise was believable; it had been a few weeks since they’d last spoken alone. Ever since their lunches together had abruptly ended, their interactions had rarely moved beyond a terse greeting or a curt nod of acknowledgement. Julian wondered if Garak missed his company or if his breakfasts with Odo and holosuite outings with Ziyal had made up for it.
Julian shook his head in response to Garak’s question.
“There’s nothing wrong. Can I – Can I come in? I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”
Garak raised an eyeridge and looked at Julian as if he suspected that this was some kind of trick on Julian’s part. Julian tried to keep his expression as neutral as possible, but Garak must have observed some tiny tell because his face relaxed and he graciously extended a hand behind him, inviting him in.
“Be my guest,” Garak said as he backed away from the door to give Julian enough space to enter.
Julian stepped inside and took in Garak’s sparse quarters, which consisted of one single bed and a small dining area. Still, it was almost luxurious in comparison to Julian’s current set-up, especially considering he had to make do with sharing a similarly-sized room with Miles. And here was Garak with a single room all to himself.
“And just how did you manage to get your own quarters?” Julian asked, his nervousness displaced by suspicion. “Even the senior officers are two to a room.”
Garak smiled and traipsed over to sit on his small armchair. Julian looked around. Other than the bed, there was nowhere else for him to sit, and so he remained standing awkwardly. Garak seemed unbothered by this – his usual politeness left by the wayside – as he placed one bent leg overtop of the other and looked up at Julian; completely at ease with their current arrangement as he answered Julian’s question.
“While your superiors haven’t seen it worth their while to explain their motivations to me, I’m sure that it was a strategic move on their part; they wouldn’t want me corrupting any young, naïve Starfleet officers that might’ve had the misfortune of sharing their quarters with me. Apparently, I’ve developed quite the reputation for doing so, or at least according the rumours I’ve overheard. I’m sure that you could attest to those.”
Julian’s ears burned. He turned away and scowled, suddenly wondering why he’d bothered coming at all. If this was even worth his time. It was a shame that it had come to this. Their relationship had steadily degraded over the past year that any conversations they did have inevitably devolved into a series of subtle barbs and retaliations for past hurts. This conversation wasn’t shaping up to be an exception. The potential that it was far too late to fix their friendship – that this amounted to a fool’s errand – wasn’t lost on Julian.
But whether this was a mistake or not, it was too late to turn back now.
“Moving on to the purpose of your visit, I expect that this isn’t entirely a social call on your part,” Garak said, recapturing Julian’s attention. “What is it that you need from me? I’m afraid that I’ve temporarily moved on from the tailoring business so if it’s alterations or a patch-up you need, you’ll just have to make do with replicating a new uniform.”
“I just wanted to see how you were doing. I don’t need anything from you,” Julian answered in an affronted tone.
Garak’s slight pause before he spoke gave away his skepticism. He frowned at Julian as if Julian had just told a particularly unamusing joke.
“Really? Or did Captain Sisko ask you to come here under the guise of conversation? You can assure him that I’m not up to anything. I’ve kept myself sequestered in my quarters unless asked for, just as he asked.”
Julian shook his head, his defensiveness shifting into exasperation.
“There’s no ulterior motive here, Garak. I honestly just wanted to talk to you to see how you were doing.” Julian crossed his arms in front of his chest and he frowned. “I’ve sought you out before just to talk and you were never so suspicious.”
Garak looked at him almost pityingly.
“That was a long time ago, Doctor. Things have changed since then.”
The open acknowledgement of their fractured relationship made Julian shift in place uneasily. “I suppose that’s why I’m here,” Julian admitted. “It's been a long time coming, but I wanted to apologize to you.”
He resolutely held Garak’s gaze to see how Garak would react, but his admission didn’t appear to move him.
“Apologize to me? I think your priorities are a tad misplaced Doctor - I would have thought your attention would be focused on more important matters. Need I remind you that the Federation is at war?”
“You don’t have to remind me of that,” Julian said dryly, the loss of the Station still fresh in his mind. “I live it everyday.”
Julian took a deep breath, ready to reveal the truth.
“But it is partly because of the war that I’m here. When you joined us on the Jem’Hadar ship to help us, I was – well I was happy to see you. Thrilled, actually. And it only made me realize that we haven’t properly spoken to each other since the Dominion prison camp. It’s been even longer since we stopped having lunch with each other. I shouldn't have let that happen.”
“I’m sure that you were extremely busy and had little free time to spend with a simple tailor,” Garak replied smoothly. He directed a bland smile at Julian and waved a hand at him as if dismissing his concerns. “As you humans say: there are no hard feelings. If you’ve come here to sooth your conscience, than I accept your apology.”
It was almost impressive how Garak managed to reel off that sentence without any of the bitterness that Julian might’ve expected from him. In fact, Garak’s smile hadn’t dropped an iota. He seemed resolved to persevere through this conversation with his passive demeanor intact, to fight against Julian’s efforts to revive their friendship through casual indifference.
“I was busy,” Julian affirmed. Patient and calm. “But I should have made more of an effort for a friend.”
That finally provoked a real reaction from Garak, though not one that Julian had hoped to see. Garak threw back his head and laughed – loudly – and the sudden bitterness of it caused Julian’s stomach to jolt. Garak then leaned back in his chair, hands clasped in a death-grip on his lap, and his pale blue eyes were vivid with anger.
“Doctor, forgive me for being so blunt, but I don’t think that I would consider us friends. You’ve given me no reason to believe otherwise. Before today, I never would have dreamt that you’d felt differently.”
“And I wonder why that is,” Julian responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm and repressed anger; no longer willing to apologize if Garak wasn’t going to meet him halfway and instead treat him with such apparent disdain. “I can think of a few good reasons if nothing is coming to mind: first, you were willing to end a Holosuite program that would’ve killed my friends and then you almost murdered an entire species – while Odo, the Captain and myself were still on the planet!”
Garak shrugged as if he had moved past all this long ago and couldn’t understand why it still preoccupied Julian’s attention.
“All regrettable instances,” Garak agreed. “But the fault lies on both our sides.”
Julian blinked, taken aback by Garak’s assertion.
“Pardon me?”
“It’s only that if you’d been a bit more open about your genetic enhancements I likely would’ve abstained from taking such drastic action. Looking back now, it all makes sense. How else could you have managed so spectacular a shot without killing me? But I was never in any actual danger at all; you had the entire situation well in hand.”
“You’re lecturing me for keeping secrets,” Julian asked, stunned by the absolute nerve of Garak’s argument.
“My dear, you misinterpret my intentions; I don’t mean to reprimand you at all. I was actually quite impressed that you went to such lengths to hide it,” Garak said reassuringly. “To your second point, well, I don’t see how you can really fault me for what I attempted to do considering that we now find ourselves embroiled in a war against the Dominion. A war that may cost millions of lives – my own people being the ones who are under the greatest threat.”
Julian wasn’t going to give Garak the satisfaction of agreeing that there was some truth to his claim – not that he would ever see eye-to-eye with such distorted moral reasoning.
“I guess we have our own ways of interpreting what happened,” he said stiffly.
Garak waved a hand at him for a second time. “It doesn’t truly matter. I’ve always suspected that you chose to cut ties with me for entirely different reasons than you’re willing to admit to.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Julian said as he leant against the wall, his body rigid. “And what exactly did I find more objectionable than attempted genocide?”
Garak’s smile was cold: the only advance warning Julian was given that he was about to say something devastating.
“If you were merely upset because you couldn’t stomach the actions I took than this whole apology would be rather pointless. I think that you had another concern in mind when you ended our lunches: the risk to your image.”
He held up his hand as Julian tried to interrupt.
“Come now Doctor, it wasn’t too long ago when you were Starfleet’s Golden Boy; a young, handsome and celebrated Federation doctor. You were overly pompous and brash to be sure, but the only real blemish that could be held against you was that you were a little too friendly with the Cardassian outcast – with the untrustworthy Cardassian spy. You were starting to attract attention – people were talking – and you couldn’t have that. Not when you had such important secrets to keep.”
“So you solved the problem: you stopped associated with me entirely. And when you were forced to acknowledge me, you made it very clear that you couldn’t stand to be around me; that you found me unworthy of your time. Now that your little secret is out in the open, what do you have to lose by apologizing to me? You're still secure in your position and you've lost no standing amongst your peers. I'm sure you never would've expected me to refuse an apology from you.”
There was raw anger in Garak’s voice. It was obvious that he was hurt and he was lashing out because of it, no matter how cruel his words.
But there was no doubt that Garak had struck a nerve; had hit on a sensitive and long-unacknowledged truth. Julian exhaled a long, controlled breath and drew in another tremulously. His hands clenched into fists so tight that his nails threatened to break skin.
His distraught reaction seemed to unnerve Garak, and the longer the silence persisted, the more Garak’s anger seemed to seep away into concern.
“Doctor?” He stood up from his armchair and started to approach Julian. “…Julian?”
“Do you have any idea how difficult it is to have to hide who you are all of the time,” Julian managed to say and Garak froze in place. “How hard it is to live under the possibility that one slip-up, one single mistake, could mean the end of my medical career or of ever having a normal life because people think that I’m some kind of aberration for something that isn’t my fault? Based on a decision my parents made when I was only a child?”
Julian shook his head and looked straight ahead, finding it impossible to look at Garak while he spoke. His voice shook.
“Yes, I avoided you. And it did it on purpose. I could still be a brilliant doctor without giving myself away because I knew how to be careful. I knew how not to draw people’s attention; how to avoid suspicion. But I always knew that I could never get too close to anyone without risking absolutely everything.”
“Once my genetic enhancements were an open secret – once the whole station knew about it, I had more attention on me than I knew how to handle. I wasn’t forced to resign – although I nearly did – but I knew Starfleet would be watching me closely to make sure that I stayed in line and didn’t become another Khan. I was already angry with you even while all this was happening – but I still regret the way I treated you. I regret breaking things off, and I'm sorry. But if you feel like you can't accept my apology; I'll just have to live with it.”
There was a long pause where Garak had nothing to say.
“I apologize,” Garak said after a moment, backing away a step to put some distance between them. “I took things too far.”
Whether he meant the apology or not, Garak looked contrite.
“But you got one thing wrong,” Julian continued, his voice even once again. “I didn’t stop our lunches together because I was angry with you or because I was afraid that you or someone else might discover my genetic enhancements. At least, those weren't the only reasons.”
“Oh?” Garak said cautiously.
Julian closed the distance between them and put his hand on Garak’s arm. He looked deeply into Garak's eyes as he pondered his next move.
The past year had been the most difficult year of Julian's entire life. He’d had to come to terms with too many long-hidden truths about himself and had been forced to reveal those truths to others. What he wanted more than anything was to make a decision for himself – to do something reckless but something of his own choosing – and be brave enough to face the consequences.
So Julian did something impulsive – something he’d wanted to do for a very long time. He leaned down and kissed Garak.
It was only a light kiss, a soft brush of lips, but to his dismay Garak merely accepted the kiss without reacting and Julian instantly feared that he’d overstepped his bounds. He quickly broke away to take in the slight bewilderment on Garak’s face.
“Forgive me,” Garak said, looking away. “That was just very…unexpected. And a bit at odds with the verbal tongue-lashing that I was receiving earlier.”
“Garak, I'm sorry I shouldn't have...” Julian stammared, already shifting away from Garak in sheer embarrassment.
Garak’s eyes widened and he pulled Julian back towards him into a half-embrace.
“I didn't mean that I wanted you to stop, my dear.”
Julian smiled, hopeful and reassured.
“Then can we get back to it?”
“With pleasure,” Garak said, and he proceeded to kiss Julian with much more enthusiasm the second time around. A soft pleased sigh escaped Julian and he held Garak close against him.
They merely lay together on the bed afterwards, the bond between them still too fragile for anything more intimate. Julian was settled half-overtop of Garak with his head nestled on top of his shoulder while Garak had one arm wrapped snugly around the back of Julian's shoulders, snaking down to his upper back to hold him in place.
“I do owe you an actual apology,” Julian murmured. “I was quite rude to you at times.”
“My dear, you’ve more than made up for it. Plus, as you mentioned, there were a few instances that I deserved it.”
Still, Julian’s mind wandered back to their pointed silences after his genetics enhancements had been revealed; to his criticisms of Garak’s friendly interest in Ziyal; and to the lack of comfort he’d given Garak after his traumatic experience at Empok Nor.
He was glad that he’d been willing to brave this past evening, that he’d finally taken a chance that he’d never dreamed of taking before.
“As long as we’re on the topics of apologies, I probably should've asked before I kissed you,” Julian added.
Garak shrugged. “I’m getting used to it actually. That was the second time in so many weeks that I’ve been unexpectedly kissed by someone.”
Julian tilted his head up to look at Garak, curious and slightly worried. “Who’s my competition?”
“I don’t kiss and tell, Doctor. I wouldn’t want you to get jealous,” Garak teased without bothering to open his eyes. “But rest assured that there is no competition. The other party – well their heart is in the right place – but I have no interest in pursuing any sort of relations with them.”
Content with Garak's answer, Julian rested his head back on Garak's shoulder. An hour or so passed without a word passing between them, only soft breaths and stolen touches to fill the time, that the two of them dozed off.
Eventually, however, Julian couldn’t justify staying in Garak’s bed any longer. Not unless he wanted a stern talking-to from both Captain Sisko and Jadzia for being late. As much as he didn’t want to leave this bed, there was important work still to be done. They had a Station to retake and a war to win after all.
He looked at Garak fondly and delicately extricated himself out of the Cardassian’s loosened grasp, taking care not to disturb him from his sleep. In the end, his carefulness didn’t do any good at all. Garak immediately sat up as Julian stood away from the bed, awake and alert as if he hadn’t just been on the cusp of sleep.
“You’re leaving?” Garak asked, peering at Julian intently from the bed.
Even after everything that had just happened, Julian had the impression that Garak was ready to take his cue from Julian's reaction to that question. If Garak even suspected that Julian was intending to run off - that he regretted what had happened - he would revert back to the same persona he'd presented when Julian had first arrived. Cold and indifferent.
“My shift starts in an hour,” Julian told him, apologetic. “I need a proper wash and change of uniform before I go on duty.”
Garak nodded, still stiffly formal.
“Will I be seeing you again?”
Julian didn’t answer right away, thinking hard. He stared down at feet as he slipped into his shoes.
“Miles snores,” he said as he looked up at Garak. “It would be nice if I had someone else to bunk with so I can get a decent night’s sleep.”
Garak slowly smiled, a wicked and mischievous gleam now in his eye, and he too left the bed to stand with Julian by the door.
“Of course. Though I can’t promise that you’ll be getting much sleep if you choose to stay here.”
Julian laughed - the idea of having sex ludicrous with such a small bed at their disposal - but he was quickly stunned into silence by a hard, bruising kiss.
“Tonight then; I’ll be expecting you,” Garak murmured into his ear before he pulled away, and Julian instantly missed Garak's solid warmth - was already looking forward to holding Garak in his arms again once his shift was over.
“I’ll be here,” Julian promised and drew Garak towards him for a final kiss of farewell.