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All the years of his exile, all Garak had ever truly wanted was to come home. To Cardassia.
She was still beautiful—no matter the state. And he would see to it that the Cardassia of his memory was restored, rising to new glories. If that meant procuring supplies by any means necessary—bought, borrowed, or begged—then so be it. And anyone who had a problem with his methods, had only to look out on the streets of the capital city to remember what pride and isolationism had wrought.
Help came from unexpected places.
While the Federation dithered over bureaucratic policy and precedent, Bajor—to the entire quadrant’s surprise—stepped up. The first transport had arrived three weeks after Garak himself (causing quite a stir by landing in the courtyard of the Central Archives, mind you), and came with a note to be hand-delivered to the former-tailor himself. Though brief, the official statement managed to be both compassionate while still justifiably smug. It had been signed by the Kai, though Garak suspected the Colonel’s hand had penned it. After that, shipments of food and volunteers arrived weekly and showed no signs of abating.
Bajor knew what it was to rebuild an entire people, and they would show Cardassia the way.
He spent a good portion of his job overseeing the procurement and distribution of said supplies, and the rest of it keeping the provisional government from collapsing. He’d been officially named Minister of Some Exceedingly Long Title just hours after landing, though he was surprised how little the title itself actually mattered to him in the end. He was a tailor’s kit of skills—from rebuilding communication systems to agricultural planning to foreign liaison—all his missions coming back to serve Cardassia once more. As such, he undertook any job the council asked of him. Today, it was standard distribution.
The resolution was abysmal (the systems were much better designed for singular messages rather than live communication), but Obret’s stern face was waiting on the other end. Named the leader of her district by its survivors, she’d unintentionally ended up loci of the entire Cuverian province. From what Garak could tell, she had absolutely no charm to speak of, so he quite suspected it had everything to do with her capableness.
“We’ve been able to find four crates of ymirtracel-b,” Garak informed her; in addition to her staunch punctuality, Obret despised preamble.
“Thank you, Minister Garak, but that won’t be necessary.”
Garak frowned. “Are you not suffering from a Berechian endemic?”
“No.”
If there was one thing Garak hated more than having no information, it was having bad information. His new role in the provisional government of Cardassia was not without its frustrations. Still. He forced a smile, sharp though it was. “I...apologize for the mistake.”
After a brief hesitation, Obret cleared her throat—noticeably uncomfortable with the exchange—and said, “Might I suggest the H’andar province? I don’t believe the…repairs…have made it quite that far south.”
Garak inclined his head, in acknowledgement and thanks, and Obret terminated the call.
Cardassians prized duty over all else. Yet, the events with the Dominion had dampened their blind loyalty considerably. He supposed he should view it as a change for the better—hopefully the sort that would keep past mistakes from being repeated, as the Terran saying went. There was a time when no Cardassian citizen would have lied to a member of Central Command. But Central Command no longer existed, and Cardassia was a planet of ghosts.
~ ~ ~
The H’andar province was more than happy to take the ymirtracel-b. When they were offered additional rations as per their report, however, they declined, insisting the added population had already been accounted for.
Surely, Jyncal province had a greater need?
~ ~ ~
Only two medical attachés had made it to the northern continent. Both Bajoran, and both only recently.
The whole of Cardassia had been bombarded in equal measure, but the Northern continent was rural—farmland where it was practical; wilds and desert everywhere else. More of the population had been able to find shelter in the caves and in the jungle. Some, Garak knew, had even been preparing their hideouts since the first Klingon attack.
The death toll on the Southern continent had been almost beyond counting. When Lakarian City alone had been obliterated, her two million inhabitants fell with her.
The immediate crisis for Cardassia was there, in the ruins of their once vast metropolis – but while they walked among ghosts, trying to scrape together some facsimile of order, the Northern continent’s suffering deepened. They were resourceful and they were determined, but they needed food and medicine the same as any other Cardassian, and if Garak didn’t find a way to increase supplies, many would die.
~ ~ ~
As Minister there was absolutely no reason for Garak to directly supervise the delivery of supplies to the outlying provinces. In fact, his aide had asked him if he was certain no less than three times. Yet, something was clearly going on in the Northern continent, and—as his numerous aides seemed incapable of staying abreast of each precinct’s needs—he would just have to investigate himself.
In Jyncal, he ensured the unloading of food crates was well in hand before he enquired after the village’s loci. This generated some confusion; the village head had apparently died of a fever six weeks back and no one had replaced him.
In the end he was directed to Meekhal – an old woman, even by Cardassian standards. Though at least a dozen Cardassians had taken up residence in the half-bombed building, they made themselves impressively scarce as Garak joined Meekhal near the door. Someone had torn out the components for a cooling unit and knocked it on its side to serve as a bench or a bed, probably. Garak sat down and stretched out his legs.
For all intents and purposes, he was another traveler taking rest. His feet did ache, though he doubted the woman was swayed by his performance. He hadn’t put much effort into his deception; it was a poor spy whose face had become recognizable on any vidscreen.
She eyed him, not fooled in the least. Deciding he wasn’t a threat or a bother, the old woman settled herself more comfortably. She readjusted her shawl against the cold night and Garak saw the fresh bandages, the empty space where her left arm had been.
“My own fault.” She nodded toward her arm, catching the direction of his gaze. “Went after a tin of rokat and the whole building came down on top of me.”
Truthfully, Garak wasn’t surprised. Many of the buildings that hadn’t collapsed in the initial bombardment were only postponing the inevitable. The sturdiest ones had been cleared of supplies and turned over to temporary housing, but the rest were prime for scavenging. As the months went on and the food supply thinned, the people were forced farther out and into more dangerous ruins to search. Too many had died already doing exactly what Meekhal had done.
“Pilka warned me, of course. But what do males know of such things, eh?”
Garak suppressed a smirk and gestured for her to continue. She shrugged.
“Crushed my arm and that damned rokat under a ton of duracrete.”
“May I?”
The arm ended just a few inches below her shoulder, and while he couldn’t see the condition of the site itself the bandages wrapped around it were crisp and clean. The wrappings were spaced almost perfectly even, the ends expertly tucked away and sealed with a discreet closure. Such deliberate care was all but unheard of these days.
“Whoever bandaged this did an admirable job.”
“Bandaged?” She snorted, drawing her shawl back over her shoulder. “The least he could do after he took the whole arm off.”
“You have a doctor—?“
The old woman actually laughed. “Minister--we haven’t had a doctor here in two months. Bajor drops supplies at the major cities, and even there it’s not enough. By the time they reach us out here there’s not much left.”
There was no bitterness. She knew as well as Garak that not everyone would survive; choices had to be made.
“But I was lucky. The wreckage had crushed my chestplate, you see. Awful business, dying.” She rubbed at her chest, her eyes going distant. “An arm was a small price to pay, in my opinion.”
“This man who helped you—who was he?” Garak leaned forward, intending his eagerness to be conveyed—he, so close to finally getting answers; she, the one who could provide them. A transparent manipulation, but generally an effective one. Meekhal patted his cheek, smiling.
“I don’t know."
“When did he arrive in the district--where did he come from?”
His questions seemed to amuse her. “I don’t know,” she repeated.
“It is some story for me to leave with – a terrible accident just as an outsider with expert medical knowledge happens to be passing through? An amusing coincidence, perhaps?”
“Do you want to know something truly amusing, Minister Garak?” Eyes closed, she leaned her head back against the wall. “I don’t even like rokat.”
Garak’s sharp grin softened. “Neither do I.”
He pulled a small carton of standard rations from his bag as he stood—the most he’d been able to requisition without compromising general distribution—and placed it gently beside her. “I shan’t take up any more of your time.”
And on top of the carton he set a single leya fruit.
“Minister?”
Garak half-turned at the door.
“There was…something pleasant about his face,” she murmured. Her hand hovered over her own face, transported by the memory. Meekhal came back to herself with a sly smile. “For a human.”
~ ~ ~
Bashir.
It was something the good doctor would be foolish enough to do. Though the level of duplicity was unlike his old friend, the possibility was high enough to beg further investigation.
Garak leaned back in his chair, the wooden slats creaking softly, and tapped the datapad against his knee. Doctor Bashir.
It had been easy, however bittersweet, to leave Deep Space Nine. There’d been no question about his returning to Cardassia Prime after the war. It was his home. He’d fought for her, bled for her, very nearly committed genocide for her, and now that the yoke of the Dominion had finally been shattered, his duty was clear.
Yet, once the shuttle had disembarked, Garak had looked back at the station growing smaller and smaller in the viewport and felt something in him lessen along with it.
Every waking moment on Cardassia was occupied by the restoration efforts, but even so he’d found the doctor on his mind more than he’d anticipated. He missed their lunches, that part was always destined to be true, but little things, too, began to wear into noticeable holes in the fabric of his day-to-day. The noise, for one. He never thought he’d miss the dull roar of the Promenade, but Cardassia was almost mute by comparison. There was little cause for laughter there, and he found he missed that sound most of all. The doctor had always been easy with his smiles, but genuine laughter had to be pulled and plied from him; a strange instrument Garak had determined to master. It had taken years, of course, but Garak had always been a patient man. To know another person so well was a luxury not afforded to Obsidian Order agents, and one there was certainly no time for now.
He missed it all the same.
The way his nose would furrow—practically Bajoran—whenever Garak was being deliberately obtuse. How, during a particular passionate defense of literature, his accent would thicken, entirely without his noticing. His truly criminal dismissal of. Shoggoth’s enigma tales. The frustrating (endearing) bluntness of humans.
When the Federation had at last signed enough papers to allow an initial team of relief workers to be deployed to Cardassia, it hadn’t been until Garak found himself at beam-in site, skipping two concurrent meetings to do so, that he realized he’d been hoping Bashir would be among them. Hope was often a necessary evil tied to the pragmatism of rebuilding a world, but waiting there it had felt distinctly uncomfortable, like a too-tight collar.
He felt that discomfort now. The suns were setting in a dazzling display of red, and the mUra birds were beginning their sweet song from atop the neighbors roof, but Garak’s mind was elsewhere.
He knew the name of every doctor, nurse, and engineer now deployed across Cardassia, and Bashir was not one of them. No one even matching his description had been logged in the transport manifests—Garak knew; he’d checked them himself. It was impossible for him to be on the planet. And yet…there was a niggling uncertainty that Garak couldn’t quite ignore.
~ ~ ~
The shuttle had dropped him off just after dawn. The morning chill never lasted long, but the walk into the village was still a pleasant one.
A young man and woman were working on one of the small buildings nearest the central square. He had a satchel slung at his side filled with red clay tiles while she held the ladder steady in the crook of her elbow and balanced a small bowl filled with tar in her hands. They appeared to be patching a hole in the roof and Garak admired the craftsmanship as he approached.
“Minister!” The woman dropped the bowl in shock, and Garak lunged forward with shocking alacrity and caught it.
“My apologies—I did not mean to interrupt your work.”
“I-It is our privilege, Minister,” she stammered, the scales below her ears flushing a darker gray.
“The privilege is mine,” he assured her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, marvelously direct.
“Old habits die hard,” he explained, opening his arms as though somewhat sheepish. “I’ve found I trust secondhand reports not at all, so I came to see the state of things for myself.”
That at least was true.
He gestured. “May I?”
Even more startled than at his sudden appearance she looked up at the young man, who had remained silent all this time. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen years, though the gauntness in his face aged him. After a moment of consideration, he nodded—restrained but out of practice—and climbed up onto the roof. Garak shed his jacket and draped it through the opening of a window. Then he rolled up the thin linen of his sleeves, something not even the young man had dared do, and followed him up the ladder.
The two men worked in comfortable quiet for nearly an hour, and if the young man was surprised the Minister knew how to lay tile, it didn’t show on his face. It was precise, but relaxing work, and the rhythm of it was not unlike stitching, though it had been some months since he’d last held a needle.
When the two men descended with empty satchel and empty bowl, the young woman greeted them with water. Garak wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist and happily joined them under the awning’s shade.
“Thank you..?”
“Deema,” she offered quickly. “And this is Lekar.”
“A pleasure.” He examined his cup thoughtfully. “You’ve managed to keep the water clear.”
Deema shook her head. “There is no water. The well dried up weeks ago.”
“We’ve been tapping the mitka plants,” Lekar explained. And when Garak scanned the area he saw that the hills beyond the village were indeed filled with the thorny succulent, many of them peppered with pink flowers just beginning to bloom.
“It’s slow work,” Deema jumped in, something almost like laughter in her voice. “But we hardly ever get needled now. We used to candy the blossoms too. Before, I mean.”
Garak took a long, grateful drink. It was as warm as the air around them, but there was a sweetness to it that was almost as good as ice. “Ingenious,” he commented, entirely sincere. “It seems the plants are able to filter out the ground toxins?”
Lekar nodded. “The village was willing to take the risk, but we couldn’t be certain until we scanned them.”
Now that was surprising. “You had the means to do so?”
“Not right away! I’m a fair hand at circuits, but even I can’t make a scanner work without power cells,” Deema rushed out in that same half-amused voice. “Thank goodness, the Traveler came when he did or—“
“Deema!” Lekar snapped, at the same time Garak asked, “The Traveler?”
Deema was back to looking startled again. She glanced between Lekar’s frown and Garak’s keen interest before fixing her attention on the latter. Despite her youth and the openness of emotion that had clearly been left unchecked since Cardassia’s fall, there was an intentness to her gaze.
“That’s why you’re here,” she said at last. “Isn’t it.”
Garak set aside his cup and leaned forward. “Who is he?”
Deema considered this. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Does it matter?”
It was clear by their expressions that it did. How interesting. He’d observed the doctor’s particular trait of inspiring fierce loyalty in those around him—patients, strangers, and now Cardassian children. It was as though they could sense his earnest compassion, his drive to simply help, and it pulled them to him like a magnet.
Garak breathed deep to ease the sudden tightness in his chest.
(Tailors too.)
“I swear to you: no harm will come to him.”
“He was…kind to us.” Deema whispered, the word soft in her mouth. Holy.
“He came when no one else did,” Lekar said. The accusation radiated off him.
Garak met his look deliberately. “I know,” he said, and he didn’t hide his shame from the boy. His failure. “That’s why I want to find him.”
Lekar and Deema looked to one another, a silent conversation passing between them. At last Lekar nodded, stiffly, and got to his feet.
“If you’ll excuse me, Minister. There is much more work to be done.”
Garak nodded and watched the young man stride away across the square. Then he turned to Deema, raising one eye ridge in question.
“He doesn’t tell us where he’s going,” she said without preamble. “Or his name. That’s why most of us just call him the Traveler.”
“Was this the first time he came to your village?"
She shook her head. “The second.” Then she smiled, “We’ve been lucky.”
“You said he brought you power cells?”
“Only two. If we ration them, the scanner should last six months he said. Maybe seven?”
“What else?”
“Bet’to roots from Tovek province, strong enough to plant. Some purifying tablets for when the mitka runs dry. And the tiles.”
“The tiles?”
Deema pointed up at the roof he had only too recently been repairing. “He helped Lekar and his father make them.” This time she did laugh. “He wasn’t very good.”
That Garak could believe, if this ‘Traveler’ was in fact Bashir. Still, he wondered, “No medicine?”
Deema looked at him oddly. “It wasn’t medicine we needed.”
~
Deema had told him all she could before she returned to her own duties, yet Garak found he was still frustratingly absent any real information. He wandered across the square and into the shade of a large tree, stretching his time before he would be forced to rendezvous with the shuttle.
When he returned to the capitol he’d send workers to help dig a new well. If it was contaminated, their purifiers would last a little while. Longer if they continued to harvest from the mitka. Gyruvian Fever was better than no water at all.
Two small children were playing ball with a large duvrak seed. It’s uneven roundness made the game more challenging as it would often begin rolling off in strange new directions and one would invariably have to chase after it, both laughing. Brother and sister, possibly, judging by the familiarity—but that was no guarantee. Necessity had dissolved the lines of family and neighbor.
The duvrak rolled past him and he stopped it with a foot. The children skittered to a halt next to him, stirring up dust.
“Thank you!” The boy chirped. “What were you and Deema talking about?”
Garak chuckled. “I was asking her about the Traveler.”
“Ohhhh,” he said. “Why?”
Garak crouched down beside them. He looked over his shoulder as if checking for eavesdroppers and the children leaned in eagerly for a secret. “I think he might be an old friend.”
“Have you seen him?”
Garak shook his head.
“Then how do you know?”
“An astute question, young man,” he said and the boy preened at the compliment. “I…suppose I just have a feeling.”
“Is he hiding?”
Garak blinked. “Maybe.”
The boy nodded sagely. “Mama calls him tasChopris.”
tasChopris. The unseen.
“Ghost,” the girl whispered, practically vibrating with delight. It was the first time she’d spoken.
She clung to the boy’s hand, her wide eyes as blue as Garak’s own. When she smiled tentatively up at him, Garak returned it. Then she held out her small fist and opened it. There in her palm was the bright foil of a candy wrapper.
~ ~ ~
“I don’t know what to tell you, Minister. Doctor Bashir hasn’t left the station since the reconstruction began.”
“Then perhaps you’d be so kind to transfer my call to the Infirmary,” he pressed—all pleasantness—adding, as if an afterthought: “Colonel.”
Kira scowled at him—no one could quite master it the way she did. Hands on hips, she shook her head. “I’m not your secretary, Garak.”
“And if it was an urgent medical matter?”
“—you wouldn’t have bothered going through me,” she supplied for him. Though true, her perceptiveness did not serve him well at this particular juncture. Nor did he find it necessary to reveal he had tried just that several times before, to no avail. The doctor had not responded to any of his communiqués.
If he had been on Cardassia in her prime—the vast network and technology of the Obsidian Order at his disposal, he could have easily manipulated the subspace link, opened a backdoor signal straight through to the Infirmary or the doctor’s quarters. But once again he was limited by the aftermath of the war, and would—state-help-him—have to rely on the cooperation of those around him for the foreseeable future.
“Very well,” he replied curtly and ended the transmission.
His conversation with the Colonel had done nothing to allay his suspicions, but rather deepen them. She could have simply been obstinate with him for the sake of it, but Garak saw no reason for her to refuse to transfer the call—especially not with the peace accords between Bajor and Cardassia stronger than ever due to Bajoran relief efforts. No, there was something afoot on Deep Space Nine.
He would simply have to go there to figure out what.
~ ~ ~
The Promenade had changed.
There remained the old standbys of course—Quark’s, a garish and loud alternative to the more sedate replimat. But many other shops had turned over in the last few months. A large percentage of the civilian population had already begun taking their leave of the station during the War with the Dominion and it seemed many of them had no desire to return following its conclusion. The colorful trinket shops, the jumja stall—all gone. His own shop had been converted into a truly depressing looking Bolian restaurant.
He might have lingered, but there wasn’t time for ill-placed nostalgia. He had twelve minutes at best before the station’s newest Commander picked apart his false transport id and sent her little soldiers out looking for him. A pity, really. The constable would have managed it in nine.
By contrast, the Infirmary had changed so little, it was almost disconcerting; that something should remain so much as it had been before after all that had happened.
The lights were dimmed, yet the room was still occupied. A familiar lanky form bent over a medi-console. Ten months—that was all—yet the sight of the doctor tugged at him. Memories of lunches, their arguments—both playful and...cruel--, suits and holosuites. He keyed in the override and slipped inside. His entrance was silent and he allowed himself one selfish moment more to study him before he intentionally heavied his steps and revealed his presence.
Julian spun, jumping out of his seat, his eyes gone wide. “Garak!” His surprise curled into a smile, a frission of energy sparking in Garak’s chest. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
Garak spread his hands wide, and smiled back. “You don’t call, you don’t write.”
Julian huffed a laugh, but there was guilt in the lines of his shoulders. Time was, Garak would have smoothed that tension away with a coy hand, a chiding remark about the human’s inability to hide his feelings, to match his second tongue to his first--or at the very least, learn to silence it. But that was another life.
“I’ve meant to, truly.” He took a hesitant step forward. Stopped. Tapped the edge of his PADD against his palm: a nervous gesture. “There’s been so much to do on the station.”
“Oh?”
Julian’s eyes widened in realization. “I mean, not like on Cardassia—of course! I didn’t—what I meant was—“
Garak held up a hand, forestalling the doctor’s anxious stammering. He grinned, more sly than pleasant, and pulled from his not insignificant memory: “ ‘What is there but duty, when devotion and death come calling,’ hm?”
He’d meant to rile him—to stir up a spark of that old, argumentative young doctor. But when relief spread across the doctor’s face instead, Garak could barely contain his own expression of surprise.
“Exactly,” Julian sighed, smiling now. “I’d hoped you’d understand.”
Something wasn’t right.
Not only had he not reacted to the quote from The Never-Ending Sacrifice, it was as if he hadn’t recognized the book at all. Perhaps he was simply out of practice. With mostly humans and Bajorans left on the station there was no one worth having a decent argument with. He smiled overly-wide, the old mask a familiar one, and gestured to the door.
“Shall we have a meal, for old times sake?”
“I would love nothing more, Garak, but I’m, I’m terribly busy.”
His suspicion, at first only a whisper, now filled his head like a drone. Incessant and perplexing. Garak knew it wasn’t solely ego that told him that, after nearly a year, Bashir would have made the time. He knew the doctor—his excuses and his dissembling, the overly-charming smile he put on when he was overworked and trying to convince his colleagues otherwise—and though the man before him wore his face handsomely, scratched at Garak’s resolve with the familiar cadence of his voice…he was not the doctor.
How perfectly strange.
Garak’s part was an easy one to play: he raised his eye ridges and made a show of looking around the room. The Infirmary was empty—for once devoid of any overnight patients. Most of the monitor banks too were black and quiet. Only Julian’s personal console was active, its contents too distant for Garak’s eyes to see, even in the blissfully-dimmed lights. His appraisal did not go unnoticed. Julian, sheepish, rubbed at the back of his neck. “Immunotherapy results from Bajor; I’m hoping I can find a way to modify them to help with the current outbreak of Gyruvian Fever on Cardassia.”
The fever had been ravaging some of the outer provinces where many were still without access to clean water. It was the most recent in a long line of diseases taking hold on a planet now marked by famine and scarcity. Cautious, Garak inclined his head in thanks. “That is…most kind.”
“Garak.” Julian’s voice was soft. “I’m a doctor. Whatever the Federation’s official stance, I won’t leave Cardassia without aid. But more than that, you are my friend.”
“A sentiment, I assure you, that does not go unnoticed—“ though markedly dimmed by whatever charade was currently being played out “—and as such, my dear doctor, I really must insist—“
With a firm grip on the doctor’s wrist, he began to pull him towards the Infirmary’ door.
Julian put up a sizeable protest—even going so far as to dig his heels in—yet he stopped short of exerting the full extent of his strength and dexterity. Garak knew his secret; there was no reason to hold back.
“Now, see here!” Julian exclaimed. “You—“
Garak’s hand closed on empty air, Julian’s disappearing as soon as it crossed the threshold of the Infirmary. Garak turned back to see the doctor’s mouth continue to form words without sound. Still silently chastising Garak, the doctor didn’t seem to notice that his arm had disappeared. Then he simply blinked out.
Ah.
A moment later he reappeared. Sat at his console, just as he’d been when Garak had first entered. He spun in his seat, delighted again.
“Garak! What an unexpected pleasure.”
An EMH. How quaint.
Garak walked out.
~ ~ ~
“Computer – locate Doctor Julian Bashir.”
“Doctor Bashir is in the Infirmary.”
“Locate the real Doctor Bashir.”
A pause. “Clarify.”
“Computer…” Garak sighed, rubbing at the space just below his brow ridge. “Has there ever been two Doctor Bashirs on Deep Space Nine?
A positive trill. “Affirmative.”
“Specify.”
“Two humanoids identified as Doctor Bashir by ship computers were present on Stardate 52903.1.”
“Last known time and location for the Bashir not currently stationed in the Infirmary?”
“Runabout Pad C, 52904.3.” 8 months ago.
“Thank you, Computer. You’ve been most helpful.”
The computer emitted a low tone. “Clarify.” It’s confused question echoing in the empty corridor.
~ ~ ~
He investigated what and when he could, but Garak’s presence had become so intrinsic to the functioning of the interim government that the opportunity to go snooping after an old friend was rarely afforded him. Each sighting was archived away, of course, but he knew that, barring immediate action on his part, the data was for the most part useless. “The Traveler” never stayed in one place for long; by the time Garak managed to force an opening in his schedule he’d be long gone.
The rumors persisted. Bandages and antiseptic appearing overnight in village squares. Farming equipment repaired just before the Bet’to root harvest. A veiled shadow seen crossing the desert at night.
Always disappearing mysteriously and reappearing somewhere else just the same. Always where help was needed.
~ ~ ~
Just as the Cardassian spring was wending to a close, the Gyruvian Fever was cured. The official formula was dispatched from Starfleet, signed off by DS9’s CMO but otherwise impersonal and to-the-point. Garak would have been offended if he hadn’t known it was a hologram doing the sending.
He scanned it briefly—not entirely incapable when it came to microgenetics—before handing the information over to his aide. Their medical stock was still woefully short of anything close to sufficient, but the unorthodox peptide-coupling required by the vaccine helped to mitigate both the time and components needed.
“Pull the medical teams from Districts 2 and 4 and have them get started synthesizing the vaccine,” he instructed. Garak had already moved on to other matters, when a puzzled “Minister?” interrupted him.
He raised an eye ridge and asked pointedly, “Is there a problem?”
The aide swallowed, but otherwise masked his discomfort well. “I was under the impression you’d already begun distribution.”
And before Garak could ask, he pulled a datapad from his stack and handed it over. Gyruvian Fever was down 67% across the Northern continent. The reports went back at least a week. Well before Starfleet’s transmission.
“Districts 2 and 4,” Garak repeated crisply. “It won’t do for us to fall behind, would it?”
The aide bowed and exited, leaving Garak to muse over the medical reports. So the hologram had been truthful after all. And capable. Enough that Bashir had clearly been willing to go ahead with the vaccine in advance of Starfleet’s all-clear. It was typical to the point of being predictable, but Bashir’s impatience provided an opportunity.
The good doctor had received the information from his duplicate in some way. And when he discovered how, Garak would find him.
~
It took several days, but Garak was able to trace the vaccine’s distribution back through four villages to its origination. Then it was a simple matter of combing a 50-mile radius, and discovering a small, sub-atmospheric probe. Beautifully designed, its radiation signature was almost nonexistent, and thus virtually undetectable by scans. The best Garak could surmise from distance was that it bounced a signal off the orbital satellites until it found a compatible starship, where it would disguise itself as ambient theta emissions and hitchhike its way to Deep Space Nine.
His limited information network had reports of the Traveler sighted twenty miles away, and as the inoculation rate of the Northern continent continued to rise it was reasonable to assume it would be some time before he returned. So, Garak waited.
And 15 days later, the probe activated.
~ ~ ~
He had the transport drop him off a kilometer east of the signal. It raised the probability of the doctor concluding his business there and leaving before he could…greet him, but Garak weighed the odds and decided in favor of a discreet entrance. It wouldn’t do to have a thundering shuttle send him to ground. The walk itself was pleasant enough, the river nearby keeping the dust clouds at bay.
He was aware of how quickly he was walking, but not how much time had passed until he rounded an outcropping of rocks, and then he was there. Bashir. Ankle-deep in the river. More real than anything. Long-limbed in grace and so clearly present. How could he have been fooled by the hologram for even a moment?
He’d grown a beard. His hair, slightly overgrown, now curled just under his ears, but still sleek and dark; it showed no trace of the grey that tinged the line of his jaw. The beard transformed his face–heavying the set of his brow, obscuring his boyish grin with thorough seriousness. Though, perhaps that had been the war’s doing.
“My dear doctor…”
To his credit, Bashir didn’t jump. Nor did he seem at all surprised to see him. In fact, he looked rather pleased.
“Hullo, Garak.”
Garak approached at an easy stroll, following the riverbank. He made sure to keep the elusive doctor in his periphery, but had no issues scanning the makeshift camp as he passed. A large, dull-gray crate was serving as a table—half a ration bar and a canteen atop it—but whatever was contained inside it was a mystery. The label had been peeled off and the serial number scoured away. A pair of boots were propped against a second, smaller crate—drying.
“Or should I say, my dear Traveler?”
Bashir had been watching him approach, hands on hips and arms akimbo. Now he made a face. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he replied archly. Garak lifted a placating hand, then tucked both behind his back.
“I thought you were tired of being a hero.”
“I’m being a doctor.”
“So you are.” There was half a river between them, but Garak stopped at the water’s edge and Julian didn’t come closer. Garak didn’t mind; he could admire him well enough from where he was. “A doctor not technically assigned to this planet, I might point out.”
Julian laughed. It was exactly as Garak remembered. “Must you?”
He crouched to splash water against his face, over his head. He’d clearly been in the midst of his ablutions when Garak had discovered him and saw no reason to stop for their conversation. He dipped his hands under a few times more, scrubbing at his hair and then at his hands themselves.
“A curious man might question the need for such secrecy.”
Julian straightened and turned to face Garak. Water dripped from his hair, his chin, slipping below the collar of his tunic now dark and damp.
“Oh?”
Garak’s gaze snapped back to his. Was that amusement in the doctor’s eyes?
He smiled wide and pleasant; a reflex. “Not mistrust, I hope?” he cajoled, pulling on the guise of simple tailor like an old coat. He saw the recognition flicker across the doctor’s face, and a moment later he too flashed a toothy grin.
“And deprive you of a mystery?”
They could have been back at the replimat—if not for the dust, and the heat, and the damned distance.
“Now—don’t tell me the Colonel fell for that little hologram of yours.”
It was Julian’s turn to flush. Embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t my best work, but—for a little while. I felt time was something of the essence.” 800 million dead.
“She told me you were still on the station.”
“Of course. Couldn’t let slip the genetically-modified CMO had abandoned his post,” Julian quipped with false levity, waving the explanation aside to say instead: “You called for me?”
Garak ignored the question. “I’m rather surprised she didn’t chase you down herself; I recall she was quite stubborn.”
“I didn’t—“ Julian’s brow knotted, momentarily confused. “Nerys doesn’t know I’m here, Garak. No one does.”
He shifted slightly, his expression carefully closing, adopting a neutrality Garak had once believed endearingly out of reach for the good doctor. “Only you.”
There was that tightness again, a constricting weight across his chest. Bashir was staring at him intently, giving nothing away. Of all the times for the man to guard his intentions and he chose this moment? Garak might have laughed if he’d had the breath. Surely the suns hadn’t been this hot a moment ago; he could feel their heat rising in his throat, darkening the scales there. Just the suns.
Bashir’s head tipped slightly—just a little and so very Cardassian.
Garak swallowed. “Forgive my impertinence,” he said at last.
The smile bloomed slowly on the doctor’s face, and it was like a balm, cooling the burn of the suns, easing the ache in his chest. He was entirely disarmed. Bashir must have sensed it, because he ducked his gaze—the gift of a microsecond to re-gather his wits—and when he looked up again the soft brilliance of that unfamiliar smile had resettled into the shape of his familiar sloping grin. Matching masks again.
“It’s been quite easy to go unnoticed.”
Julian gestured to Garak’s left. There, at the edge of the river, was a strange pile of linen and metal, though it had clearly been set aside with care. Taking the gesture as permission, Garak scooped up the pile and sorted it out in his hands. Ah. He didn’t need to be a tailor to deduce it was a headpiece. The cloth was light enough to allow a breeze without collecting heat (or dust) and seemed to be cut from the same material as the doctor’s clothes. What the headpiece left exposed was covered by goggles and a respirator—neither Starfleet regulation, he noted.
“A shame to cover such striking features,” Garak commented regretfully, though he examined the pieces with interest. With his head wrapped and face shielded against the terribly invasive dust, it explained why no one had been able to say exactly what he looked like.
“Better than a face stricken by all this damned dust.”
“This season is the worst,” Garak agreed. “You have my sympathies, doctor.”
“Is that all?”
Half-coy, half-probing, the question was weighted in an intriguing way that he wanted perversely to poke and prod. “Is that all?” Garak countered, tossing back the headpiece.
“Come have a look.”
They held each other’s gaze across the water. Garak waited for something beyond the obvious challenge, but Bashir continued to smile invitingly, and, seeing no trick or secondary motivation, Garak toed off his shoes.
“Isn’t it typical of Terran spies to broadcast their presence – martinis and suits? Gunfire and gadgets?” The water was blessedly cool, the bottom sandy and pleasantly traversed. He wondered if he could persuade the doctor to go for a swim.
“I’m not the spy, remember?” Bashir quipped, the old accusation soft and warm in his mouth. “I’ve still got the suit though. Of a sort.”
His interest piqued, it was nothing compared to when Bashir tugged his collar down, now almost dry again. When he began unlacing the ties in the front, Garak automatically took a step closer, the water surging around their legs at the motion. The urge for a teasing remark rose instinctively in Garak, but was replaced by amazement when Julian succeeded in undoing the last troublesome knot and the vee of his collar opened wide.
Rather than bare flesh, a sleek, dark blue material stretched across the doctor’s chest. It ended just above his clavicle—(pity)—and presumably covered the rest of his body, wrist to ankle, though Garak’s perusal was stymied by the rest of his clothing. Micro-metallic conduits seemed to be stitched into the material itself they were so thin—and a compartmented portion of his brain began picking apart the technique, wondering how to reproduce it himself—before he got to the network of tubes embedded in the second skin.
He grinned, feeling it curl across his mouth. But really, how could he not?
A water reclamation suit. It was ingenious, really, in its simplicity. Any water lost in the course of the day was captured, filtered, recycled, and stored. He traced the thin tubing that ran the length of the doctor’s forearm, surprised to find it cool to the touch.
“The cooling mechanism is powered by solar receptors,” Bashir explained without prompting. “Ironically.”
“How splendid,” Garak effused, bringing up Bashir’s wrist for closer study.
“It’s a devil to get off, I assure you,” the doctor grinned. Garak dodged the bait, however revealing it would have been to pursue.
“I must say it is a marvel what you were able to accomplish once you stopped worrying about concealing your ‘gifts’,” he said with deceptive lightness, still studying the suit. The compliment was genuine and he hoped the good doctor would read it as such without gathering his usual storm clouds. “It’s allowed you to be as clever and as quick as…well, as any Cardassian.”
He flicked his gaze upward, carefully releasing the doctor’s wrist. No storm clouds. Just an odd smile. Garak felt its pull, like a magnet.
“You did say it wouldn’t matter on Cardassia.” That it wouldn’t matter to you.
He resisted the smile’s pull. The urge to lean in.
“And haven’t my countrymen proven it true?” It doesn’t.
The doctor tilted his head again. “They’ve been very hospitable.”
That said, he began to wade back to shore, his shoulder just brushing Garak’s as he passed. It was easier to cast the question at the man’s back.
“Is that why you came?”
Julian paused. When he looked back over his shoulder, his eyes caught in the refracted light of the river. “I knew I was coming the moment you left.”
The doctor’s bluntness would be the death of him he was sure. Once again, the playful banter had turned into something else with all the grace of a stampeding targ and Garak felt hyperaware of his own cumbersome attempts to catch up.
“So long?”
Bashir met his smile with a thoughtful look. A visible and familiar turning of the gears, though his eyes were still intent. Then he broke the connection and resumed his walk to shore, decision made to ignore him: “It took me two months just to requisition the necessary supplies.”
He followed him. “What foresight, doctor.”
If Garak were to make an educated guess, he supposed Bashir had drop sites all over the northern continent. Medicine caches. Rations. Power cells. He probably had replacement components for anything from surgical tools to Cardassian replicators.
“Naturally, there were some needs I wasn’t able to anticipate, but I’ve managed to make do.”
“I’m sure,” Garak murmured. “And when your carefully hoarded supplies run out?”
“As long as Kira doesn’t report the EMH, the ship computers continue to register him as a living, breathing member of the crew. One who needs food, toothpaste, the occasional blanket…” the doctor raised both eyebrows. He was failing miserably at his ploy toward innocence, though Garak was reassured to be back on solid ground (however tentative).
“You are enjoying this.”
“Hey!” Julian tried for affronted. “Those replicator credits are still mine you know.”
Garak smirked. “For active Starfleet members, I believe.”
“Yes, well…” Julian’s lips twitched. He prodded his boots with a finger and, satisfied they’d dried, sat down on one of the crates to pull them back on. Garak retrieved his own shoes from the water’s edge and sat beside him. Their bodies touched from shoulder to hip, a pointed line of heat. When Julian got to his laces, they occasionally knocked elbows.
“How do you plan to keep our determined Colonel from tracking your replications to Cardassia?”
“For a handsome fee, I can get a passing freighter to make the pick up.”
“And not abscond with clearly-prized supplies?”
“A very handsome fee,” he emphasized. “Among other precautions.”
Standing he turned back to offer Garak a hand. Hardly necessary, Garak took it without a second thought and let the doctor pull him back to his feet. “You picked up a few things from our lunches, I see.”
Julian’s expression shifted, too quick for Garak to grasp. “More than I realized at the time,” he murmured. A phantom pressure on their clasped hands and then Bashir’s back was to him, both hands digging through an open crate. Garak’s fingers flexed reflexively, chasing the fleeting sensation. That expression…almost like regret.
“Kanar?”
Garak blinked; repeated dumbly, “Kanar?”
From the smaller crate arose a familiar twisted glass bottle. Garak hadn’t seen kanar in six months, yet there was no mistaking what the doctor held in his hands, nor the familiar scent when he broke the seal and poured a measure into two cups.
“You continue to surprise.”
“Good,” Bashir said with warmth. He saluted him with his cup. “As you said, I did learn a thing or two.”
Garak returned the gesture and tipped back the drink. The alcohol was sweet as syrup and just as pleasant. A welcome reminder of a more civilized time. He rolled the cup between his fingers, a battered thing of composite-tin, and waited as the doctor finished his at a more leisurely pace. A ‘thing or two,’ indeed. “Though,” Garak drawled, finding himself unwilling to let an opportunity pass to boast and tease in equal measure. “I still found you.”
And Julian laughed. He ducked his head and when he looked up through dark lashes, the expression he gave rooted Garak to the ground. “Did you?”
Garak stared at him. No witty retort, no reply at all came to him; only the white static of surprise.
Julian didn’t wait for him to speak, though it was clear he enjoyed the reaction his words had caused. He gestured broadly to the landscape around them.
“ ‘Here, alone, at the river’…”
“…‘I found my love of Cardassia.’” Garak finished, softly. Meditations on a Crimson Shadow.
Julian fixed him with a look, impossible to read but no less intense. “And it is such a compelling planet.”
He’d spent so much thought on finding Bashir, on what they might say to one another after so long apart, so many missed lunches—and now they’d pushed each other to the edge of the cliff, where Garak felt less certain of his footing than ever before. He sighed.
“Doctor—“
“Julian.”
“Julian—“
“Elim.”
Garak shook his head, amused even in his exasperation, but his insistent interruptions weren’t going to distract them this time. He lifted his chin and fixed him with a narrow look. “What are you doing here?”
The threat, he assumed, was implicit. Garak had forgotten how fast he was.
As soon as the doctor decided to do something, it was done: with Garak’s right hand in both of his own, he’d lifted the Cardassian’s hand to his throat and pressed his palm flat against its curve. His human neck was painfully slender and smooth but the placement was no accident—not even the doctor, as endearingly naïve as he was, could have made that mistake. The sun’s heat was in his chest again, his own neck scales flushing dark. This was dangerous, tantalizing ground.
He should really say something.
Julian’s dark throat was beaded with sweat, but the skin along his collar was cool to the touch. The doctor’s hand fell away, but Garak didn’t dare move his own; it might have been the only thing anchoring him to the planet. Julian leaned into it, pressing the apple of his throat against Garak’s thumb.
“I’m staying,” he murmured, that beautiful lilt to his voice undimmed by the declaration. His gaze slid across Garak’s. Heated. Familiar. “For as long as it takes.”
Garak traced a slow and careful line with his thumb—an experiment—and was rewarded with a fluttering of lashes, a hitched breath. An act of will kept his voice neutral: “Are we at last on the same page, my dear doctor?”
“My dear tailor,” and the inexplicable fondness in Julian’s voice staggered him. “We always were.”
Always were. Always this game—these little word battles of theirs. He’d been so pleased to find a decent conversationalist on the station; he’d never dreamed the doctor would take to Cardassian arguments so completely. Would take to him.
Even now, Julian seemed to follow his line of thought. “I believe it was the book that differed.”
Garak hazarded another touch, his fingers encircling Julian’s wrist. The thrum of his pulse echoed down Garak’s arms, matching and steady. “We never were able to agree on literature.” He hardly recognized his own voice.
Julian hummed in agreement. “If it had been easy, would we be here now?”
“No,” Garak murmured. “I suppose not.”
That unfamiliar smile surfaced again, and it sent a small thrill though him—clear now that it was meant for Garak, and him alone. A cliff was a marvelous place to stand.
“I have a gift for you.”
Garak frowned, off-balanced by the sudden shift. The doctor’s proximity was proving distracting. “I beg your pardon?”
“A gift,” Julian repeated, and Garak was pleased to hear a sliver of his own frustrations echoed as he went on. “I spent seven years blindly returning volleys. I insist on a chance to do it properly. The Cardassian way.” And he turned his hand so that it touched Garak’s, palm-to-palm in classic Cardassian affection.
Garak couldn’t help but look down. Oh, they’d touched hands all the time in the course of their time together, even held them on occasion—one dragging the other out of holosuites or towards mysterious runabout missions to Bajor. But never this; Garak had been careful.
“How very scandalous, doctor,” he teased, but feared the affection in his voice was embarrassingly clear. And then Julian pressed his fingers to the soft scales just below his jaw, and drew back both his attention and a low hiss.
“One. Last. Game.”
Before Garak could even begin to argue, Julian followed the words in brazenly human fashion—and kissed him.
Garak tightened his grip and Julian moaned into the kiss. His mouth, sweetened by the kanar, was deliciously hot against his own, and when he moved against him the sudden loss of his lips burned electric. Garak leaned into him, but Julian’s mouth slid away, ghosting across his jaw, the shell of his ear. “Enjoy the kanar.”
Garak’s eyes snapped open—in time to see the doctor’s flushed and grinning face dissolve into light as the transporter took hold and he was beamed away, leaving Garak alone (again) at the edge of the river.