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Chapter Text

He’s watching from the upper level of the Promenade when the ship docks. To Garak, the place has never looked so bright and cheery, but to the Federation and the Bajorans, it must still seem depressingly dark. The Bajoran men and women below no longer wear the tattered rags of poverty, but red and brown uniforms he would have to classify as beyond crimes against fashion. It’s strange to see them order themselves about in the way the black-clad soldiers of Cardassia once did, trying to make a home out of the destruction. His fellow Cardassians performed an excellent job of wrecking the station as irreparably as possible before they left. If only they were quite as proficient at not losing it in the first place.

Garak glances briefly over to his own ‘shop’, a torn-apart hovel of a complex he’s sure Dukat would be delighted to see him left with. Like half the rooms on Terok Nor, it looks as if a bomb went off inside it. What might have once been furniture is reduced to rubble. It’s going to take a great deal of time to repair the damage done, but as it stands, he can’t be sure he won’t be doing the whole thing himself. What Bajoran worker, after all, would be willing to help a Cardassian?

Commander Sisko – the one the Federation sent to keep the Bajorans in line – stands with Major Kira on the Promenade down below, talking. Garak has already figured out both of them. Sisko is the kind of intelligent but sentimental figure of inspiration the Federation was guaranteed to choose, though perhaps a little stronger and wiser than Garak was expecting. He speaks with the gravity and concern of a born leader. Difficult to use. Major Kira is another thing entirely. Kira Nerys. A hero of the Bajoran resistance, hot-tempered, clever. As opposed to the Federation’s interference as Garak is, but that is the only thing they share. He can’t imagine a scenario where he approaches Major Kira and is not rewarded for it with a broken nose. And since whichever soft-hearted medical staff the Federation are offering are yet to arrive, he would be wise to avoid any serious injuries.

Sisko and Kira disappear through a door. Garak waits around in his shadowy place on the upper Promenade, watching. He doesn’t exactly have anything better to do. He’s tried reaching out to contacts, tried bribes and threats, even one or two appeals to emotion he didn’t know he had in him. Nothing is working. Of course it isn’t, his old friends have made sure of that. Garak has nowhere to go, nothing to do. He was a fool to come to Terok Nor. He could still leave. But the lease of the ‘tailor shop’ is under his name, now, and at least here he can sometimes imagine Cardassia is not so far away after all. He’ll hover around the Promenade until the shapeshifter tells him to stop lurking and then the next day he’ll return to lurk again.

The door across from him on the lower level opens again and Sisko and Kira reappear. They’re joined by two other officers. Starfleet officers, evidently, from the geometric uniforms only a slightly less obnoxious to the eye than those of the Bajorans that they wear. Blue uniforms. Science and medical. Even from a distance, Garak can make out the curious pattern of a Trill marking the woman, who talks and smiles with Sisko like an old friend. The other one is a Human, a young man who bounces along in a way that reminds him comically of a Cardassian vole. His demeanour screams naivety – a temperament so eager to please it ends up offending. He talks excitedly at the others, seeming not to notice the vague irritation on Commander Sisko’s face, the disbelief on Major Kira’s. Garak watches and wonders.

As if sensing his gaze, the man glances up. His expression is so bright and curious. Even from a distance, it betrays every emotion he feels, every thought that crosses his mind. He looks towards Garak with interest, eyes obviously straining to see his watcher in the weak light. Then Sisko and the other new arrival start to walk away and he becomes distracted, hurrying to chase after them. Garak checks a small smile. He may have just found his source, after all. The shine in the man’s eyes is distinct from Sisko’s calm manner or the battle-hardened coolness Kira always carries in her gaze. Different from the dark burden the Bajorans keep with them most of the time. Garak knows that look, that energy. It’s a kind of hope that won’t last long in a place like Terok Nor. He must make use of it while he can.

*   *   *

His name is Julian Bashir, as it turns out. He’s a lieutenant – junior grade – and twenty-seven years old. By his own account, something of a genius. He fell behind to second-best in his class in Starfleet Academy, a result of his “mistaking a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve”, as he is fond of reminding people. He was a champion racquetball player, too, whatever that actually means. He’s righteous and self-important and talks the ears off half the people he comes into contact with. That much Garak has determined from watching and listening from a careful distance. The doctor of Deep Space 9 is not good at keeping things to himself. Precisely what Garak was hoping for. Now the Federation appears to be here to stay, he needs a contact.

Doctor Bashir eats lunch alone in the replimat each day, caught up in his own little world. He barely notices the station around him. He barely notices Garak approaching. And when he does, he stares up at Garak with wide, atypically unassuming eyes. He’s been caught off-guard. A few days of careful research taught him Bashir’s mask – a performance of confidence and cool, playing the important doctor, assuring patients of his competence. But when he annoys someone enough to make them bite back, when he takes a joke too far and feels the repercussions, it’s possible to see the mask slip, even just for a split second. His smug smile falls, his eyes go wide. A moment later he recaptures it, but a moment is all Garak needs. And it seems he might be lucky enough to get several.

“It’s Doctor Bashir, isn’t it?” he greets warmly, pretending that this meeting is all chance and circumstance, nothing more. “Of course it is. May I introduce himself?”

Bashir stares up at him, mouth open. “Uh… yes, yes. Of course.”

And there it is. Openness, curiosity, a shock at being the addressed for once instead of the nagging addressee. All Garak could possibly need. An open mind – the essence of intellect, he says, and he means it. Oh, Bashir is certainly clever, but he has much to learn. He watches him awkwardly bat away an iris stem, feels him jump slightly beneath his hands when he touches him, with an overwhelming sense of victory. His enemies have not won yet. He is definitely glad to have met such an interesting new friend.

He watches Bashir leap to his feet the second he thinks Garak is out of sight and rush to the nearest turbolift. Off to inform anyone who will listen of his latest acquaintance on Deep Space 9, no doubt. Garak would expect nothing less. He has his connection, his chance. Bashir’s pretty smile and unchecked enthusiasm will be there to entertain him in the meantime.

*   *   *

Doctor Bashir is not all Garak was expecting him to be. Almost unfortunately, he is so much more.

Chapter Text

“You’ve missed the point entirely,” Julian sighs over his cup of tea. “It’s supposed to be about politics, not actual witches.”

“Yes, I was capable of reading through that rather thinly-veiled allegory,” Garak replies, holding back a smile. “In the end, however, it’s simply a question of loyalty, isn’t it? Loyalty-”

Julian rolls his eyes. “Loyalty to the state, I know. But here’s an example where the state is obviously wrong. Its beliefs are founded on lies. Should the townsfolk just sit around and let innocents be executed simply because the people in charge say so?”

“Ah, you’re finally getting there. We might make a Cardassian out of you yet.”

“The thing is, Garak, I know you don’t actually think all those things,” Julian says. “At least, not anymore. It’s making me wonder whether you only bring them up to annoy me.” He looks up with the kind of knowing brilliance in his expression Garak has found so charming over the years. How many hundreds of lunches have they shared in that time? And on each occasion Julian looks at him like that – a sort of got you moment that Garak evades with ease.

“And I wonder whether you, my dear doctor, insist on choosing works of Earth literature that you know will provoke us to such discussions in the first place,” he responds. “They tend to lack a certain subtlety.”

“Oh, and yours don’t? I’m sorry if reading about twenty generations of flawless protagonists dedicating their lives to Cardassia is the essence of subtlety to you, to me that’s more like being repeatedly hit over the head with a hammer while someone yells about obeying the state right into my ear! Besides,” Julian adds, “would you rather I started making you read Human romances again?”

“Anything but that,” Garak agrees. “If I have to suffer through a repetition of the lack of substance you subjected me to with Pride and Prejudice I may consider making a one-way trip into Dominion space.” And there, that did it. Garak watches the shock and indignation and frustration chase themselves around the doctor’s face with a glow of satisfaction.

“You’re kidding me. Pride and Prejudice, the- the social commentary of a… of a millennium, lacking substance. You’ve officially lost your mind.” He sputters and shakes his head through a vehement defence of the novel that Garak listens to with enjoyment, though he privately remembers liking that particular work better than most of the alleged ‘romances’ Julian has introduced to him. The dynamic was appealing and surprisingly reminiscent of Cardassian courtship, until the end, that is. But Garak has come to accept the sentimental Human desire to give their stories a happily ever after, as unrealistic or sanguine as it may be.

When his rant is over, Julian sits back in his chair with flushed cheeks and even more zeal in his eyes than usual, looking pleased with himself. Garak gives a small shrug as if to say, you can have this round.

“You know… you might like Earth literature better if you let me show you the actual stage productions and old films,” Julian suggests. “We could even get the holosuite programs for some of them. It would make it seem more real.”

“If this is another poorly disguised attempt at tricking me into viewing those saccharine 20th-century horrors of yours with you, I’m afraid it won’t succeed.”

“Come on Garak, it could be fun. Jadzia and I would love it if you came. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Dirty Dancing drunk at least once and tried to recreate the final lift only to end up smashing at least one vase or glass coffee table.”

“That description hardly makes the idea seem more appealing,” Garak points out. “In any case, if I go, Commander Dax will undoubtedly force Major Kira to attend also. Does that sound like a recipe for a harmonious evening to you?”

“You never give in, do you?”

He smiles. “Never.” Except for the one time he did, the one time he just resigned himself to giving up forever – giving up on returning to Cardassia, on meeting Julian for lunch again next week, on all of it. That moment of… weakness is still potent in his mind, despite all the time that has passed. Those few days seem like they were from another world now, the memories of an Elim Garak from a different timeline both distant and detached and too close to him, all of the time. And the fact that he is still alive today is because of Julian Bashir – a Human, a self-important Federation doctor, his friend.

Perhaps he should agree, just for one evening. The doctor has needed a lot of cheering up recently, since his little quest to cure the Blight on that Dominion-doomed planet. He still refuses to hear a word of congratulations from anyone over that affair. Garak has not tried. He’s glad to see Julian smiling again, back to his usual irritating self. It makes for better conversation, anyway.

The moment is so captivating he almost knocks over his glass when the siren starts to sound, an occurrence so common on Deep Space 9 he ought not to be bothered by it by now. Every month, every week brings its own possible disaster, more in the past year than ever before. Across the table from him, Julian’s combadge chirps.

“Doctor Bashir here.”

“Julian, a damaged ship’s come through the wormhole. It’s being followed by the Jem’Hadar,” comes Major Kira’s voice, cool and in control. “We’re sending the Defiant out to meet it. I want you on board. We’re going to have a lot of casualties.”

Julian doesn’t even flinch. “Understood. I’m on my way.” He glances apologetically at Garak, as if the situation is as every day and minorly inconvenient as someone falling down the stairs. “Sorry,” he says. “Duty calls, I’m afraid.”

“So it does.”

On his way around the table, Julian pauses and leans into Garak’s space, bearing the grimace of a man going into battle. “Don’t look so worried, I’m going to be fine. I always am.”

Until you aren’t, is the thought in Garak’s mind, but he merely nods and says, “of course, Doctor. I await your return.”

After Julian is gone, he goes up onto the upper level of the Promenade to see the Defiant leave its dock and sail away into the darkness of space, towards the mystery ship and its Jem’Hadar pursuers. He watches it disappear, feeling nothing much at all. Eventually Odo notices him lingering and yells at him to get to one of the approved shelter areas for Dominion intrusions in the Alpha Quadrant and he’s forced to give up his post. He can’t be sure his tailor shop is what the Constable had in mind, but his sewing is the only thing with any chance of distracting him. There’s always something more to do. Another one of Quark’s jackets. Commander Dax’s dress she tore while trying to play springball with Major Kira in evening clothes and high heels for some unfathomable reason. The in-need-of-altering tuxedo of Julian Bashir – secret agent – sitting on his desk.

Well, that puts an end to that. The complication of having friends, he’s found, is that they manage to insert themselves into every situation. Whenever he discovers himself doing or saying something of which he knows Julian would disapprove, he can almost hear the other man’s tired chiding in his mind, interrupting his actions. At this moment he has his dear doctor’s voice teasing him for being so sentimental, when sentiment is the thing he has often warned against as the great Federation flaw.

Leaving tailoring behind, he takes to reading one of the other Earth novels Julian had gifted him with, a story he remembers the doctor promising was far more depressing and tragic than the others and definitely devoid of any happily-ever-after.

“It’s sort of a romance,” Julian explained all those weeks ago. “But sort of not. It’s not romantic, it’s more about… yearning. I think you might actually like it. It’s- well, anyway, it’s one of my favourites.”

He sounded so earnest when he said it that Garak hadn’t even been able to find the sarcastic response appropriate for the situation. And the honest belief that Garak might genuinely enjoy the work had been another reason to avoid it. There isn’t much engaging debate to be had about a sombre book they both agree upon the quality of. He has never been comfortable with that particular kind of wordless conversation, in any case. They provoke and tease and argue and are always two steps ahead of one another – their literature exchanges are only extensions of their oral competitions, they’re not meant for heartfelt sincerity. But since his dear doctor is somewhere out there in space, facing off against the Jem’Hadar as the brave frontier medical practitioner, he could at least give the book a try, could at least attempt to understand.

He flicks through the first chapter distractedly, skimming past strawberries and a bottle of Château Peyraguey and a low door in the wall and a magically beautiful boy who seems to float through the lyrical prose in a whirl of summer sun and promises that the glories of youth can never last. The details refuse to register, but Garak can see Julian in its form. Too many words, wistful imagination, a predilection with love and pining and the past. All Julian. And that does not help him at all.

An hour or four later, the state of emergency is over, and Garak has not left his shop. He isn’t even sure what he’s hiding from. There’s still commotion out there on the Promenade, but clearly the Dominion threat is over and the Defiant docked long ago. Eventually, on the pretence of picking up some materials he’s been keeping in a storage room on the far side of the station, he goes. Passing by the Infirmary, at first there’s no sign of Doctor Bashir. He recognises the other doctors and nurses rushing around the room, scrambling to tend to patients. There are people everywhere in there – on the beds and floor – bleeding and hurting and probably dying. He searches for the warm glow of brown skin under the overhead lights and the dark eyes with their endless shine, but-

He’s being ridiculous. Doctor Bashir could be anywhere on the station. He could be in one of the back rooms of the Infirmary, he could be working on the Defiant. Wherever he is, Garak can wait to see him. He changes course and heads towards his own quarters instead. This is hardly the first time the doctor has gone off on a life-threatening mission, indeed, it seems to happen every other week. Usually they don’t even get a goodbye. But something is unsettling about today. The repercussions of having a friend, he reminds himself. Just one friend is so few, too. When it’s gone, there’s nothing left.

Garak had friends before, as much as any member of the Obsidian Order could. All dead now. Victims of bitter and unfortunate ends. Nela Prel comes to mind – one of the few who ran out of luck before she ran out of patience for Garak, and he recalls clearly the day she died. Rassar Lonrac. Vilit Dronek. What would they say if they knew that Garak outlived them all? Nothing pleasant, he imagines, but that was the nature of his Cardassian companions.

Arriving at his quarters, he makes quick work of rearranging his furniture, pushing it all to the walls to open up the room and give him more space to breathe. He doesn’t even notice the hours pass by, somehow, and in space there is no setting sun to shock him out of it or to cast a reassuring light. The door chime goes several times before he notices, his visitor pounding against the door like they’re trying to beat it down.

“Major Kira, what an unexpected surprise,” he says when he opens it, and his voice is distant.

“Garak,” she replies coolly. The exhaustion and heaviness in her tone hide beneath a mask of determination. He sees her sharp eyes glance curiously into the room beyond, snapping back to his face a moment later. It’s difficult not to look away. “I’m… sorry to bother you. I just came to see if you’d heard. Jad- Commander Dax said you’d want to know.”

“Know what, exactly?”

“That he’s going to be okay.” When he does not reply, she blinks in confusion. “…Julian? He’s out of surgery, he’s going to be fine. Did you even know he was hurt?”

“Yes, of course,” he snaps hurriedly, harsher than he meant. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Just like that, the Major’s face closes off and she steps away. “How considerate of you. Well, I’m sure he’d appreciate a visit at some point, that’s all.”

She’s halfway down the hall before Garak finds the words to stop her. “If you don’t mind-”

Kira turns on her heel and stares down the corridor with more distaste than he remembers receiving from her in a long time. “Make it quick.”

“I only wished to ask how Doctor Bashir was injured.”

Something in the Major’s expression softens slightly. “Julian was in the medical bay when the Jem’Hadar beamed aboard the Defiant. He was lucky. We’re still trying to determine why the Dominion was in pursuit of the ship we rescued and how they managed to get through our defences. He’ll have to spend a few days in the Infirmary, but the nurses say he’ll recover.”

“Well, I am glad to hear it,” Garak replies. “Good day, Major.”

“It’s night,” she says. “You should get some sleep.” And beneath the tiredness and frustration and bitterness in the way she speaks is something he might go so far as to classify as pity. The sympathy digs under his skin like a needle, sharp and injecting poison into his veins. It’s disgusting. It isn’t even the irony that bothers him but the cruel laughter echoing in his ears, the jeers travelling from thousands of light-years away. Elim Garak, once the pride of the Obsidian Order – a man of stone and hard edges and feared – now pitied by a Bajoran. He almost misses the hatred. He misses the time when Sisko distrusted him and the Major loathed him and Doctor Bashir was merely an object of interest on the outskirts of his world. It was cold and bright and empty, then, but at least Garak had felt like he was winning. He was still alive, he was still Cardassian, still a dark figure of mystery who people feared.

The day he met Doctor Julian Bashir – lieutenant junior grade, twenty-seven and the most obnoxiously persistent young genius the Federation could’ve deigned to send to Terok Nor – was the day he condemned himself. He allowed himself to be charmed, allowed himself to forget he was not just plain, simple Garak, the tailor of Deep Space 9.

Discovering himself outside the Infirmary at 0100 hours seems to confirm it. That, and his unwillingness to take suggestions from the likes of Major Kira. It’s dark in the station, as dark as it used to be all the time under Cardassian occupation. The only light comes from within the Infirmary itself.

He can hear and see flashes of the night-shift nurses inside. The emergency exit to the Infirmary around the back only opens from the inside, Garak knows, and his eyes are too tired to bother undoing the security protocol on the door. Once assured by a quick glance that the only people around are the last dregs of patrons at Quark’s, too drunk to be worried about, he removes a panel from the wall by the main entrance and flicks off the switch that controls the lights. One of the nurses inside complains loudly as the room descends into almost total darkness. Garak slips inside, his superior night vision allowing him to give the workers a wide berth as he crosses the room. The shadows cover him.

Doctor Bashir is in one of the smaller, long-term treatment rooms in the far reaches of the Infirmary. Fortunately, he is there alone. The other wards are full of casualties of the encounter with the Jem’Hadar, but far less than there had been that afternoon. He doesn’t recognise the race of many of them – some persecuted species of the Gamma Quadrant, no doubt, trying to escape the Dominion. People in need of help. And Julian coming close to death to help them. He will never understand it.

Julian is perfectly still with sleep when he finds him. The stillness reminds him of something – a Cardassian face, though, not a Human one, and in the memory it is all so much colder. The shadow of a mostly-healed bruise remains on Julian’s left cheek, stretching around the side of his face. Aside from that, he seems almost fine. It’s only when he looks more closely that Garak sees the tip of a long scar curling around Julian’s shoulder where the clean Starfleet uniform they changed him into cuts off, a laceration like thread abandoned on a workroom floor.

He stands over Julian for a few minutes to assure himself of the rise and fall of the doctor’s chest, steady and unwavering. Still alive. No one has managed to take this from him yet. He’s going to be okay, going to be fine, Major Kira said. I’m going to be okay, I always am, Julian had agreed only hours before. A reassuring doctor’s fib, a friendly insistence only true in the fantastical tales of literature.

“Garak?”

His gaze snaps back to Julian’s face, suddenly alive with awareness. Even after everything, even with the seeping darkness in the room combatted only by the faint glow of emergency lighting and the red, blue, green of all the medical gadgets surrounding them, the doctor’s eyes glitter with warmth and fondness.

“What time do you call this?” Julian’s voice is heavy, hoarse.

He permits a small smile he knows that the shadows will hide. “0100 hours,” he answers.

Julian hisses in pain as he tries to push himself into more a sitting position. Garak places his hand gently on his shoulder and nudges him back down. “I’m afraid you’ve been through quite a lot, Doctor. It would be wise to rest now.”

Eyes half-closed, Julian sighs. “What on earth are you doing here? You have to stop doing this – creeping into my room and standing over my bed in the middle of the night.”

“I only wished to enquire as to your health without a bothersome nurse hovering over my shoulder,” he replies. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“Well, you have now. As for my health, I’m doing pretty well for someone who got shot twice by the Jem’Hadar and thrown against a wall.” He cracks a smile, so casually one would think this happened every day. “Nearly got me right in the spine, you know. And that would’ve been goodbye dear old Doctor Julian Bashir.”

Garak flinches. “How fortunate, then, my dear doctor, that the Founders do not create the Jem’Hadar with eyesight quite as brilliant as your reflexes.”

For a moment, Julian’s expression turns nervous, but the fear is replaced by another half-smile a second later and Garak laments as always the uncontained nature of the doctor’s emotions. He would never survive an Obsidian Order interrogation. He is too honest with how he feels, too unguarded. They would read through his disguise in a heartbeat.

“I fail to see what can be so amusing to you about this situation,” Garak says when Julian lets out a breathy chuckle, taking a step closer to the medical bed.

“Oh, just you, Garak,” Julian sighs, letting his eyes fall closed. “Usually you’re the one the bed in the Infirmary, being inappropriately light-hearted about whatever… about whatever mysterious figure from your past is coming after you or whatever child bit you this time.” He coughs slightly, wincing.

“I do apologise for not coming sooner,” Garak adds, “I was absolutely tied up with this business over a dress that-”

Julian’s eyes, dark as space and just as pricked with the shining flecks of stars, open again, and Garak falls silent.

“Garak, you don’t have to apologise,” he murmurs. “I understand. You didn’t want to make a thing of it – I’m not angry about that. It means a lot to me that you broke into the Infirmary in the middle of the night just to come see me.”

“I promise you, Doctor, the door was wide open. Besides, how can you know I’m not here to gather intelligence on-”

“-top secret Starfleet medical records? Of course, I’m sure the Cardassian government is just desperate to get their hands on reports on Tracerian white fever or the treatment I prescribed for Miles’ latest shoulder injury.” Julian’s smile is bright and genuine now, enticing Garak closer, tugging at his desire to return the expression. That delight reaches his eyes. Honest. Unrestricted.

The truth is – a truth he would never put into words – Garak has not been in contact with the monolith that is Cardassia in some time. He has no real Cardassian acquaintances anymore, barely any who would even consider speaking with him these days. Although he has been living in one place for years, each month has left him drifting further and further from his home planet. Elim Garak is more of a true tailor than a spy, whatever he may like to imply. The place he used to occupy in the universe does not exist anymore.

“Do we know how they did it?” Julian asks.

“Hm?”

“The Jem’Hadar. How did they manage to beam aboard the Defiant like that?”

“Ah. The last I heard from Major Kira, they’re still investigating that particular nasty little surprise.” He lets his hand fall to trace the tips of his fingers along the soft fabric of the mattress Julian lies upon. Jem’Hadar warriors run around his mind like a swarm of bees scattered across the sky, buzzing and taking up his thoughts. The dead coldness in their gazes persists and pervades, overwhelming.

The sudden touch of smooth, warm skin chases the creeping soldiers away in a moment and his attention drifts to the place where Julian’s hand has found his own. An intruding sense of what he has heard Julian refer to as ‘déjà vu’ brings him back to the last time, though they were in opposite places then.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Julian says.

Garak cannot help but smile indulgently. There’s only one person in the galaxy who would say that to him. It’s the sort of thing that would happen in those ancient Earth romances, novels and films alike. A universe reduced to Garak and Julian, fingers intertwined, or the two of them at a table in the replimat, or in an alternate reality of dark suits and vodka martinis and words as loaded as the guns they use. And it’s silly, really. It’s unreal and far out of reach.

“My dear doctor, you don’t need my forgiveness for doing your duty. I was a man of duty once. There are always risks.” Nela Prel. Rassar Lonrac. Vilit Dronek. Majil and Nasec Priyam. Dead bodies in buildings, in ditches, in deserts.

One of the nurses out in the main body of the Infirmary laughs and Garak lets go of Julian’s hand with reluctance. The scars creeping around Julian’s shoulders and neck – sharp incisions of intention, random marks of careless battle – arrest his attention again. Those lines will be gone soon, removed by the magic of modern Federation medicine, but their existence will stain the timeline like every other moment the inhabitants of Deep Space 9 would rather forget. A chip inside Garak’s head feeding him joy laced with poison. A moment on a ship far from home where one realises they must leave unacknowledged family behind. A man thought dead – temporarily, but long enough for the loss to stick and sting.

The low door in the wall of the doctor’s wistfully romantic novels is not open to him; no gate leads to a secret garden of joyous innocence or freedom from fear. Garak never had that youthful brightness in his expression, the kind that made Julian Bashir so stunningly beautiful – that still does. His imagination is tempered by a comprehension of horrors his dear doctor may never understand. And every moment when he looks at Julian he forgets and becomes that other Elim Garak rarely ever seen without Doctor Bashir by his side. Elim Garak who smiles at everything, delightedly detached from the world.

“You should go to bed,” Julian tells him. “Before one of the night shift team find you. In this state I won’t be able to do much to prevent them from stunning you. There’s an emergency exit-”

“Thank you, Doctor, I know where it is,” he interrupts. “Goodnight.”

Julian smiles through closed eyes and a body settling back into the comfort of sleep. “Goodnight, Garak.”

Before he goes, Garak casts his gaze over the room, into every shadow. He’s not sure what he expects to see. A Jem’Hadar warrior completing his mission. Ignoring the blue of Julian’s shirt and seeing that sickeningly Federation shine of hope in his expression as something to be exterminated.

The station is a dream at night. Like a holosuite program or a prison of the mind. Only half real.

*   *   *

“Priority one message for Elim Garak. This transmission was sent with a high level of urgency. Priority one message for Elim Garak. This transmission-”

“Computer, display message.”

In the darkness of his room, the brightest light comes from the green glow of the text on the screen. The transmission code. He’s back on Cardassia, briefly, in the hidden tunnels and halls of the Obsidian Order. To most, the random assortment of characters might look scrambled and nonsensical, but Garak remembers. There is no appropriate translation in Federation standard. He might say the eyes and ears of Cardassia or the watcher or, being less literal, the one who sees all. And then the personal identification code of the sender, which he feels like he’s seen before but can’t quite place. It’s all so distant in his memory now.

The Order is nothing anymore. Nothing – odo’ital. It fell long ago, far from home in the depths of Dominion space. And yet here it is, clear as the glass dividing the safety of the station from the emptiness of space beyond.

The message itself is difficult to understand. It takes longer than it should for him to realise it’s a passage from an old Cardassian work of literature, from Footprints on the Silver Lake. All Cardassian children read it. He knows this part, remembers it with clarity.

But when Ossad came down the flowing dunes to the place by the water where they had met many times before, the pale ripples of the lake were tainted by blood. He saw the body of Sin Lemor there on the shore, and her hair was loose and fell around her in a pool of darkness. It swirled on the surface of the silver lake, the only part of her that still moved with the energy of life while the rest of her lay there still and dead.

Ossad fell down beside his love, for whom he had given up all, and shed a tear that slipped from his cheek to join the ripples of the blood and water. But the mark of his grief was too small to quench the fire he set upon the flag that had once flown from his window. The flames burned until they turned his honour to ash, the desert wind howled with the memory of his falseness.

“How I have cast aside the honesty of my upbringing, which I knew to be right and just,” Ossad wept, as the silver lake bathed him in the pervasive chill of his treachery. “I have gone against the order of law and loyalty for love, and now I have lost love and have nothing.

I met her here, those five years past, and thought I had seen the universe in her eyes. But the light they shone with was a lie. Though her youth and beauty and kindness comforted me, she is gone now – I have nothing, I have odo’ital. I cannot blame those who ended her, for what fault is it but mine? I took us both to the ocean of traitors, the sea that drowns and sinks us without regret. I shall have no ancestors to say my name in favour, no- my line is cursed and ends with me; I have doomed it so.

This water cannot wash my crime away, I loved a soul and for it hated my country. She was young and free and I envied the wonder she found in this place, where I saw only a lake. What madness corrupted my vision – see here the danger of love, when it is wanted above servitude! See here the death of Kruvan Ossad! I am passed on, and there will be no mourners for me. My love has payed the price, as will I, in time. My sentence is served. My bones will know no rest.”

On the breeze, he heard the voice of the life he had chosen, a voice now separated from the body that had once used it. That body lay before him, cold. Live on, she whispered, with the carelessness of one who had forgotten the ways taught to them in youth. Live on and be great.

“No,” Ossad spoke back as he sunk into the soil. “It is too late for me. What was given up cannot be reclaimed; this is what I have chosen – I have chosen illness and misery. I have chosen the freezing waters of the silver lake, mingled with blood. There is no escape. It is too late for me now. It is too late.”

Garak rereads the passage several times, searching for meaning in the words. Ossad’s story is one that has prevailed throughout the centuries, studied to this day in Cardassian schools. His tale is told in the courts, there are turns of phrase that take his name. His final monologue, spoken over the dead body of the woman he betrayed Cardassia for, is one of the most famous extracts of Cardassian literature. But why has he received it? And from who?

He tries to trace the message to no avail. There’s nothing but the transmission code, whose owner’s identity he can’t recall. It must have been intentional though, to leave that marker. The sender wanted Garak to know who they were. It’s a warning – a threat. Or perhaps just a reminder. What other reason could there be for sending him such a… pointed message of distaste. Garak is no fool. He knows he is the Kruvan Ossad, the traitor exiled for his crimes. It’s the Sin Lemor part that confuses him. There is no Lemor in his life. Other parts of Footprints on the Silver Lake are far more applicable to his fall from grace.

He checks the time. 0703. The station will be well awake by now. He glances back at the last lines of the passage – I have chosen the freezing waters of the silver lake, mingled with blood. There is no escape. It is too late for me now. It is too-

“Garak! Open this door!”

“Computer, end message display,” he says hurriedly.

From the sound of the banging, it seems like Major Kira is attempting to break down his door with her fist alone. He walks over and opens in manually, trying to school his expression into one of neutrality. The lyrical phrases of Footprints are floating around his mind, shrouding all other thought.

Both Major Kira and Commander Dax stand outside his quarters, fully dressed. The Commander appears worried, while the Major’s face is flushed with anger and suspicion.

“What’ve you done with him?” Kira asks before he has the chance to get a word in. She steps inside of his room, looking around like she expects to see something.

“My dear Major,” he replies, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

She reels around and stares at him with her unyielding eyes. “Don’t you?”

“What Kira means to say is-” Commander Dax interrupts, crossing the threshold.

“What I mean to say is,” Kira continues for the Trill, “is why were you in the Infirmary in the middle of the night last night. The new sensors they installed last week after that attempted robbery recorded you entering and leaving between 0100 and 0200 hours. Why?”

Garak doesn’t allow himself to be at a loss for words. “I was merely checking on Doctor Bashir’s condition. If I remember correctly, it was you, Major, who suggested I do so.”

“I meant during normal visiting hours,” she bites back. “Where did you take him?”

“I didn’t take him anywhere. I think you must have the wrong man.”

Commander Dax lays her hand on Major Kira’s shoulder. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

“He is, isn’t he?” Kira agrees, and she sounds almost disappointed. “Garak, was Julian okay when you left him?”

He shoves his mounting fear down deep, below his throat where it can’t choke his speech and nods. “He was perfectly fine, to my knowledge. Major I-”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Kira snaps, cutting him off. “He was fine when Garak left at around 0120 hours, that gives us around a five-hour window. But there are no transporter traces – not that that’s even possible – no sign of any ships leaving at that time, either. Nothing.”

“If you don’t mind,” he says loudly, “may I ask what is going on?”

“It’s Julian,” Dax explains, “he’s missing.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kira sighs. “The nurse went to check on him first thing this morning and he just… wasn’t there. He’s disappeared completely. And aside from you, we had no leads on where he might’ve gone.”

“But that’s quite impossible, surely,” Garak says.

“We thought so too,” Kira replies. She turns to the computer station on Garak’s desk with a grim expression on her face. “Computer, this is Major Kira Nerys. Locate Doctor Bashir.”

A pause, and then, “Doctor Bashir is not on the station.”

His Sin Lemor, he realises. His body by the silver lake. For the first time in years, the nothingness descends again, and the chair across from him in the replimat is empty, so empty.

“Nela Prel,” he murmurs.

Dax turns to him sharply. “What was that?”

“The code,” he continues, mind only half-aware of his words and the company he shares with them. “But it can’t be…”

“Garak, what are you going on about?” Kira asks, exasperation increasing.

Suddenly aware, he shakes his head. “Nothing of importance, Major. I do apologise. Please, inform me if you come any closer to determining the whereabouts of Doctor Bashir.”

“Of course. We’re sorry for disturbing you.”

The many months of blissful – willful – ignorance he enjoyed by Julian’s side are receding before him in a whirl of terror. Something like this had been on the horizons for years, ever since the day one Doctor Julian Bashir visited Enabran Tain, searching for answers. Probably before that, too. The Obsidian Order knew all then, and they know all now, even in death.

 Garak believes in coincidences. He just doesn’t trust them.

He trusts nothing but himself. The last words of Footprints on the Silver Lake play on his mind.

…So Ossad lay down there, made his grave in the silver lake. And as the sun set over the edge of the horizon, lighting up the water with the shine of false promises, he let the tide wash over him and carry his body away. Back in the city, his home stayed dormant, dark. No one walked its halls. The fire-damaged flags of the duty he had forgotten – once so vibrant, so great – faded, and rotted away.

*   *   *

Gatera II has ten moons, though not all of them are visible from the ground. In the weak light of the early morning, Garak can make out at least four of them – silver circles against a pale lilac sky. Ranging in size and patterns of craters, they’re considered one of the great wonders of the solar system. Something to look at while he waits in line in immigration, at least. All the ships that come into Gatera II, a small habitable planet mostly empty but for a few main cities and farming regions, dock at one of these ports so the new arrivals can be processed. The planet has strict tourism rules, not in how many or what kind of people can come, but in recording the identities of those who visit. It’s a pathetic façade held up over the crime and degeneracy of the inner-city regions, a promise to a self-important Federation and neighbouring planets that they’re doing something. The truth is, no one needs proper identification to enjoy the wonders of Gatera II, they just need the money to pay for a new one.

Garak blinks the exhaustion out of his eyes and assesses the queue ahead of him again. He’s tired of waiting. He waited a day for his ship to depart Deep Space 9 for Sicrinus, waited on ships and in spaceports for hours on his way to his destination, he waited and waited while just beyond the edge of his vision, Doctor Bashir slipped further and further beneath the surface of the silver lake. And now he’s here, waiting again. He might fear that the doctor could already be dead, but he knows better than that. People like him are rarely ever kidnapped just to be killed. Besides, his receiving a cryptic message of pointed excerpts from Cardassian literature, sent with the calling card of a long-dead Obsidian Order agent, was not merely happenstance. It was a warning and an invitation. One Garak intends to accept, just not in the way his enemies would most wish. His greatest concern is for the doctor’s health, given he was torn from the Infirmary long before the treatment for his injuries was complete. The rest, Garak can protect him from. He simply has to find him first.

Julian. On the day before he finally deserted Deep Space 9 on his convoluted journey to the city where Nela Prel had once lived, he remembered looking out of the windows on the Promenade and thinking, quite ridiculously, that the stars were duller knowing that the doctor was gone. Perhaps because Julian was always insisting the stars were brighter some days, usually when he was excited about some new scientific discovery or the intriguing results of one of his studies. He would laugh and his smile would be reflected in the glass as he looked out into space and insisted to a sceptical Garak that the stars were definitely shining with more brilliance than they had the day before.

It was small moments like those that had begun to undo Garak’s defences. He knew when he met the doctor that he was going to like him – Julian Bashir was clever, if not discreet, and he loved to talk. He was quicker on the uptake than most people and could be perfectly charming when he didn’t let his enthusiasm run away with him. And he was handsome, too, most of all when his brow furrowed with indignation about some statement of philosophy Garak just made, when one could see the emotions and thoughts running across his face. Like the stars out in space beyond the confines of Deep Space 9, his eyes shone with mystery and wonder, a sort of optimism Garak had once put down to blind Federation sentimentality that had since proved itself to be so much more. Garak could always tell when the doctor’s mask was off, always noticed and revelled in those moments when he saw what he liked to imagine was the real Julian Bashir, who so few ever got to meet.

Over the first months of their undefined relationship, after countless lunches of debate and deliberation and Julian’s overly dramatic complaints about the petty struggles of his daily life, Garak began to forget why he ever approached the doctor in the first place. It was easy to tell himself he was discovering useful crumbs of information in their hours of conversation – crumbs that might one day ensure his return home – when he knew all he was doing was indulging in Julian’s pleasant company.

He saw a glimpse of it during the affair with the implant, but once that was over he pushed it to the edge of his mind like he pushed away the furniture in his room when the space seemed especially small and suffocating. Saw a glimpse at the airlock when he felt as if he was saying goodbye to Julian and Deep Space 9 for the final time. In a holosuite with blood trickling down his neck as he realised he had been wrong after all, had made the mistake of underestimating a man who was always full of surprises. Or simply sitting across from the doctor in the replimat or that hideously decorated Hong Kong apartment they frequented in ancient Earth fashion and noticing that he felt… content, and how wrong that was, when his past loomed like a shadow and home was so far away. He could enjoy Julian’s company – he had nothing better to do but mend clothes, after all – but that emotion was too much. It eclipsed his anger and fears and the persistent memories of the man he had once been.

It was a fairly innocuous moment, in the end, that made him realise the extent of what a fool he’d been. The two of them were walking along the upper part of the Promenade after lunch – Garak had insisted they go for a stroll after watching the doctor fail to sit still for the entire meal because of all the nervous energy apparently overtaking his system – when at the top of the stairs, mid-rant about some aspect of his life on Earth he was missing, Julian tripped. Garak caught him by the arm and steadied him, trying to ignore the comfort he felt in sensing the warmth and life that radiated off the doctor’s body.

“Do be careful, Doctor,” he said, and his voice came out more tired, more worn down than he ever usually allowed it to be. “If you go tumbling down the stairs like that, Chief O’Brien will have no one to go to the next time he injures his shoulder.”

“At least you’re always there to catch me when I act like an idiot,” Julian breathed, shaking away the obvious fright of his near fall. He glanced at Garak, who stared back in silence. Something seemed to dawn on the doctor then, a realisation that washed away the last of the smile from his face. “Oh, Garak, I’m sorry. That was so insensitive of me, complaining about missing Earth when I could go back any day and you… I couldn’t hear what a prat I sounded like.”

“My dear doctor,” Garak replied, “there’s no need to apologise. After all, there is no place in the galaxy I would rather be than in your company.” And it was only when he said it when he realised it was true.

Until things changed, Cardassia held nothing for him. He had no one there now. He had no one anywhere, except for on Deep Space 9.  Julian Bashir, a Federation doctor, was his closest and perhaps only true friend. He didn’t even want Cardassia anymore. He wanted the old Cardassia, the one he’d been proud to serve when he was younger and less aware of the truth that nothing he did would ever really matter, it was all one pointless exercise of always keeping an eye out for a knife heading towards his back, and no matter whatever happiness it might’ve given him, he was not content. When he tried to picture the place he would most rather be at any given moment, Julian appeared every time, and with him came the dark corridors and busy Promenade of Deep Space 9. His dream of Cardassia was filled with blank, blurred-out faces; in his dream of the station, Julian’s face was in perfect clarity.

He saw his fatal error as those brief seconds ticked by, but he did nothing. He was selfish and lonely and liked the dear doctor more than he should’ve, and he didn’t want things to change. And now he’s paid the price, or- Julian has. Julian is suffering because Garak was too weak to choose the less terrible alternative of two bad options, put off immediate pain for the sake of being happy one shared lunch longer. It is too late now. He hopes it isn’t. He is determined that Ossad’s lament will not ring true.

When he reaches the front of the line he offers up his fee and fills out his form, picking out a name for himself as fake as the ones all the other arrivals are giving. The price is high for entrants without contacts to vouch for them on the other side, but Garak is willing to pay. He even hands over a little extra to skip the next line for the shuttle into the city – it’s more latinum than he makes in a month in total on Deep Space 9. He can only hope Sisko will be willing to let a few weeks of his rent slide in return for Garak returning his precious doctor.

You should tell them. Ziyal’s voice is sharp in his mind, a frustrated plea as she struggles to understand why she can’t just go to Major Kira and let her sort everything out, because while her blood might be half-Cardassian, she doesn’t understand the ways of her father’s people. She met him outside the airlock unexpectedly on the day he left. If he hadn’t been so focussed on Julian, he would’ve been quite impressed at her deduction.

“You know where he is, don’t you?” she said when she confronted him. “Doctor Bashir.”

Garak looked around and was relieved to see Ziyal had not yet deigned to inform Kira of his plans. “Please, my dear, try to keep your voice down,” he replied, ushering her to the side.

“You know where he is and you’re going to find him,” she continued. “Why did you lie to Nerys and Jadzia? Does Captain Sisko know?”

“He does not, and I intend to keep it that way. I am only acting in Doctor Bashir’s best interests.”

“How can you say that? You’re just going to go save him, all on your own? If we go to Captain Sisko they can take the Defiant and-”

“The Defiant is needed here to protect against Dominion assaults on the station,” he interrupted. “Trust me, the Federation cannot help, however much they might want to.” Seeing the expression on her face, he sighed. “A compromise, then. If I haven’t returned in two weeks, you will find the answers in my quarters. The desk, second drawer.”

“You’re not making any sense,” she told him, voice rising.

His ship was about to leave. He had to go. He looked at Ziyal, the girl barely more than a child and still so unaware of the horrors she’d been born into, feeling an uncomfortable sense of regret. By telling her the truth, he would be condemning her as he had condemned the doctor, would be adding her to the ever-growing list of people who could be used to hurt Garak and ensure he got the drawn-out, miserable, lonely death he had been promised.

“Do this for me, Ziyal, please.” There was no time for anything more than that. If he missed his ship, it would force him to take a more direct, more traceable route. “Goodbye, my dear. Take care of yourself while I am gone.”

She would probably be safer on Deep Space 9 without him, after all. Major Kira had her enemies, but they were not the same as Garak’s. The more his old acquaintances knew he cared for Ziyal, the more likely it would be that she would suffer the same fate as Julian.

Throughout the following hours of space travel, he wondered whether Ziyal could be trusted to keep what she knew to herself until the promised two-week return date came and went. He hoped she would. It was not pride or self-importance that made him say the Federation couldn’t help. They would try diplomacy and reason to rescue Doctor Bashir, two things that would never work with an Obsidian Order operative. The kidnapper didn’t care about the doctor or the Federation – this was about Garak. Just Garak.

The streets of Gatera II’s capital city are already alive with energy and danger despite the early hour – the wide road leading to the famous tiled square in the centre of town is lined on both sides with busy rows of market stalls and buildings with bright flashings signs, promising that a thousand different wonders lurk within their walls. The place has changed little since Garak was last here, all those years ago. The tourists still stick to the central streets, the criminals keep to their back-alley endeavours, and on its face, Gatera II is an unremarkable planet.

Despite his exhaustion, Garak goes uptown first. The house that once belonged to Nela Prel, agent of the Obsidian Order, sits on a hidden road of mansions in all the majesty of its stark white walls and wide windows. It’s fronted by a wide lawn of neat grass, walkways, statues and fountains, and Garak is surprised to see the death of its previous owner has had no effect on its appearance. Prel used to use it as the base for her operations in the system, gathering information on criminal syndicates and the Federation alike. She was one of the few members of the Obsidian Order who lived off Cardassia almost permanently, who spied for her home planet in the galaxy at large. Garak could never comprehend how she did it, at the time. He supposes it’s something he understands now. Although they only met a few times, he remembers thinking Prel was talented.

And apparently, not actually dead. From across the street, hidden behind a tree, he sees a woman step through the front door and into the garden. A Cardassian woman. He saw the images of her dead body himself; he was there when the Obsidian Order wiped her name from their records. And yet, here she is. There are, of course, endless possibilities. Prel faked her own death. Somebody else faked her death. This woman is not the real Prel but another surgically altered to resemble her. The Nela Prel Garak knew in the Obsidian Order never even existed. He’s come to expect anything when it comes to these kinds of plots. Perhaps Prel is just a prop in the show his true enemy is putting on for him. It doesn’t really matter. Julian is all that matters.

He scans for any Federation-issue tech signals first, but unsurprisingly there is nothing. The life sign scanner is harder to operate when he’s surrounded by a growing crowd of people, many of whom are human. He focuses its range to the home of Nela Prel, attempting wade through a buzzing city’s worth of interference. Down to fiving matching life forms. To two. To one. The bio-signature flickers in a small spot of yellow light, somewhere below the structure of the house. An underground complex, no doubt. Garak had a similar thing beneath his home on Cardassia. He stares at the blinking pinprick of yellow before him and feels uneasy at the simplicity of it all. Something is wrong.

Agents of the Obsidian Order do not leave trails when they do not want to be followed. They do not reveal their identities unless they wish to be known. And they certainly do not make things easy for their enemies if their intention is to get away unnoticed, unfound.

Three more figures to exit the building – two hooded people whose species Garak can’t even identify, half-dragging between them a body he painfully recognises. They hadn’t even bothered to get him out of his Starfleet uniform. The deep blue is visible even from a distance, the black and grey, a body usually so… springy, overenergetic, leaping about the room. Maturity never managed to temper its eagre, delighted movements, could never steal that beauty away. Garak can only watch as Nela Prel leads them down the white steps, the tiled paths, out the front gates to a hover transport waiting outside. The vehicle looks rather militaristic, a hunk of dark metal bearing no symbol to show its allegiance. No registration number either.

Confrontation is the first possibility that springs to mind. He crosses that out when he notices a third mysterious servant of Nela Prel standing in the shadow of the doorway, bearing a weapon twice the size of power of the ones attached to the belts of the doctor’s carriers. Besides, Garak is curious. A brazen firefight and a quick rescue will answer none of his questions. The doctor himself is in no position to participate in such a battle, in any case. His body hangs so limply from the two hooded figures’ arms.

No, this is no place for brute force. He always performed better utilising other methods. He hurries to the end of the street and waits for the transport to pass. It isn’t difficult to attach a tracker to its defensive exterior as it goes. What’s difficult is standing by and letting it drive away, knowing that Julian is inside, trapped with Prel and her threatening associates. Two more of Gatera II’s moons have faded from sight now.

He pictures the place he’d most like to be. Somewhere where the lights aren’t too harsh and the air is warm enough to be comfortable and the only face in sight is one of a friend who rolls his eyes fondly at something Garak has just said. He can never have that again, he realises. All he can do is ensure that someday, someone can, someone else can take that seat opposite a bright smile and even brighter eyes and he can watch from a distance with the assurance, at least, that his selfish mistake didn’t lead to the death of the only true friend he ever had.

*   *   *

Darkness covers Garak as he drops down from the wall onto hard, dust-covered ground, listening for any sound in the silence of the very early morning on Gatera II. Night on Gatera II lasts for almost twenty of the standard Bajoran hours used on Deep Space 9, ten of which have already passed. That gives Garak another ten hours to locate Doctor Bashir, extract him from the property and find someone to bribe with the rest of his latinum to get them off this planet. He’s certain his enemy, whoever they may truly be, would have different plans in mind for him. The doctor is the bait, and Garak is taking it. He just has to be quick enough to escape the hook before the sharp barbs of metal dig in too deep.

The tracker led him far from the inner city, beyond even the run-down suburbs and ramshackle half-houses. Deep in Gatera II’s golden desert, the complex emerged like a dark blight upon the landscape – black and matte and marring the otherwise untouched plains. It took Garak a long time to trek all the way from the furthest outpost, walking for hours under the blazing Gateran sun. The structure is a strange oasis of untamed wilderness with a bunker within, all encircled by a high wall. There were no guards by the main gate, no guards within, either, as far as he could see. He sat up on a ridge above the oasis for hours more until sundown, and hours and hours after that until he felt confident, certain. Night permeates and prevails around him, so much colder than the day.

He scans for alarms, security systems waited to be triggered, and keeps to the blind spots. A cool breeze rustles through the Gateran trees with their drooping branches, like the willow trees in that holosuite Earth city Doctor Bashir took him to once or twice – Cambridge, early 20^th century, with a river cutting through its heart like a stitch of thread. He shivers in the whisper of cold air and crosses the oasis to skirt the edge of the inner bunker’s wall. The complex appears to be at least two levels deep below the ground and crowded in places with possible life-signs, none of them Human except for the one. Thick walls prevent him from pinpointing any exact location, but the signal seems to be somewhere in the east side, almost directly below him.

He looks down to see he stands on top of a long grate running along the side of the bunker. His scan shows the drop is five or six metres deep. Entering the gap would certainly put him on the same level as the underground complex. Whether from there he can actually get through the bomb shelter-like walls is another matter and far more dubious. Facing the wall, the gap would just accommodate him. Barely room to breathe. Something constricts inside him.

The doctor. He has to think of the doctor. That’s all that matters.

It only takes two minutes to detach the section of the grate closest to him. Even with his eyes which work better in the dark than those of Humans, he cannot see the bottom. A wave of nausea hits him. His hands and fingers feel numb by the time he’s lowering himself down into the abyss. For a split second, he’s falling, and then his feet touch the bottom and a soft splash of water disturbed by his movements. He’s in a drain, then. The harsh smell of some kind of chemical fills the air.

His back is to one wall. The other is just centimetres away from the tip of his nose. Garak breathes. Slowly, joltingly, he begins to inch his way along. The only light except for the weak, almost infinitesimal glow coming down through the grate above comes from the blinking yellow dot on his scanner. Human. Alive. Julian.

“Come on, Elim,” he says, surprised at the sound of his own voice in the taught silence. “There’s no need to panic.” The open air is still there, just a few metres above him. He thinks he might even be able to see one of Gatera II’s brighter moons through the cracks. The rising ocean of emptiness in his mind is held back only by images of a victorious and dramatic arrival back on Deep Space 9. He tries not to imagine what must come afterwards.

The yellow light blinks a little closer than it was before. A few more steps. It’s almost on top of him. The scanner beeps and he knows he must be next to the room where the doctor is now. He runs his hand along the wall, feeling for cracks, panels, anything. A ridge reveals itself – the edge of something promising. The metal is so cold and smooth beneath his touch. When he crouches down and follows the break in otherwise singular surface, his fingers find purchase on a mechanism, what feels as if it could be a latch or handle of some kind. He dares to open his eyes.

It looks like an access hatch, just tight enough to crawl through. He’s immediately reminded of the Jefferies tubes on the station, as the Federation like to call them. Tight, suffocating places. The cool water soaks through to his knees where he kneels in the drain, frozen mid-movement, thinking. It’s as if he’s trapped between two places, two opposites. The air above is open and free and carries the scent of the flowers blooming in Nela Prel’s garden, the path laid out before him is pitch black and worse than being trapped in a turbolift for a few hours. Above is out of reach. Forward is tangible, but fills him with unbearable terror. He sits like a statue, feeling too much and too little and struggling to breathe.

The sound of the wind wailing somewhere far off in a canyon him to attention, cutting through the otherwise dull blur of the world. Garak fumbles for bolt cutter tool he swiped from one of the junior engineering workers and hastily cracks the lock off from the latch. It falls into the drain water with a soft splash. His scan shows no shielding or detection equipment beyond the access hatch. Most likely an intentional flaw to lull an invader into a false sense of security, either that or he’s not dealing with an Obsidian Order agent after all. One of them would never make such an obvious mistake in the protection of their property. The handle clicks and the hatch door swings open silently. Garak peers into the access tunnel with suspicion. He scans again. Still nothing.

Crawling through the tunnel is even more cramped and constricting than the drain, though without the bitter scent of whatever nasty chemicals are running through that water. He reminds himself that he only has to go so far. The room containing the Human life sign is only a few metres ahead of him, to the left. That little spark of yellow light is enough to ground him as he delves further into the darkness. He keeps moving until he finds a panel in line with the biosignature, the metal a slightly different texture to the rest of the wall. Magnetised screws keep it in place. So simple. So lax. So intentional.

Garak is not an idiot. He was a spy, once, himself – he knows how these things work. A cryptic message arrives for him bearing Nela Prel’s name. When he arrives at her home, nothing stops him from getting inside. The intelligent choice is to walk away, not step willingly into a trap so obviously laid. Then again, if the doctor’s kidnapper knows him at all, they know Garak would think of this. His mind spirals. Another pointless exercise. He uses his altered phaser to demagnetise the screws and lifts the panel inwards and out of the way. The room beyond is just as dark as the access tunnel and the drain that came before it, but he can tell the space is much wider. That alone is enough to encourage him through, one hand staying his phaser as he breaks through into open air. Although his scan didn’t show any other life signs in this room, he is not one to take chances. His back presses up against the wall.

There’s a faint sound of fabric brushing and a thud and Garak’s grip on his weapon tightens. He can see very little in darkness as thick as this. Everything after a metre or so is completely impenetrable.

It comes at him so fast he nearly fails to duck out of the way in time. If the sound of stifled breathing was not enough to make him deeply aware of the other person in the room, the close call on an extremity to the face confirms it. He sees a blur of blue and grey sweep past him, hears footsteps as the assailant retreats away. When the next blow comes towards him, he catches it. The fingers of his left hand curl around a slim wrist, stopping the strike before it can collide with Garak’s shoulder. His attacker resists, trying to wrench their arm away, but Garak holds on tight. Something clenched and uncomfortable in his chest is beginning to soften, a tension relaxing as he hears a familiar pattern of nervous breath. The faintest glimmer of anxious eyes unable to see what is right in front of them.

“Please, Doctor,” he says, voice too breathless and dry from the suffocating of his journey from the outside. “It’s only me.” He loosens his grip on the doctor’s wrist, who remains frozen in place, hidden by shadows.

“…Garak?” The sharp whisper is filled with incredulity and confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you,” he replies, regaining some of his usual coy detachment. “What else?”

A few seconds of tense silence pass. Garak can feel the doctor thinking, pictures the little furrow in his brow that the darkness obscures. He suddenly retracts his wrist from Garak’s hand and slips away, disappearing for a moment before remerging on Garak’s right side. Before he knows what’s happening, the doctor tears his phaser away from him. There’s a click as he changes the setting on the weapon – changing from kill to stun, undoubtedly, in typical Federation manner.

“You’re not real, are you?” Julian says from the darkness. All that is visible of him beyond a faint impression is his slightly shaking hand and the silver glint of the phaser, pointing directly at Garak. “What are you, really? An imposter? Some kind of holoprojection? A figment of my imagination?”

“I assure you, I am quite real,” he promises, taking a careful step forward. The doctor’s face comes into focus feature by feature, last of all his eyes, too shadowed to read the emotions within.

“Well… prove it.”

Garak smiles at the doctor’s secret agent story-like expectation that there is anything Garak can say that would prove his identity. Organisations like the Obsidian Order are the ones who see all, and if these truly were just events projected in Julian’s mind, Garak would know everything he did. Still, he ought to indulge the doctor’s concerns.

“What would you like to hear?” he asks as he moves towards Julian again. “Something about a low door in the wall, perhaps? An enchanted garden in the heart of a grey city?”

The recognition of a reference to his favourite novel registers on Julian’s face in a wave of surprise to relief and back to uncertainty again. “Anyone could know that.”

“Anyone can know anything, Doctor.” He reaches up slowly and puts his hand over the phaser. Julian complies, allowing the weapon to be lowered out of the way, back under Garak’s control. He stares at Garak like he’s not sure whether the man before him is a harmless tribble or a Matizian mountain lizard preparing to tear his throat out. Garak supposes that Cardassians fit quite neatly between those two extremes. His free hand comes to rest on the doctor’s shoulder, at the collar of his uniform where the fabric ends to reveal delicate brown skin. The edges of those nasty phaser-fire scars that never got the chance to be healed appeal to his attention. The touch is one of reassurance, the kind that Julian is always making to his friends in their times of need. Never to Garak, though. The action is more intimate and honest than Garak would ever care to be if the light was any brighter. It’s barely been a few days since he saw Julian last, lying the Infirmary far away on Deep Space 9. Something inside him recoils.

“It is you,” Julian states.

“Really? How do you know?”

“I… I’m not sure. Doctor’s intuition?”

Garak lets his hand fall from Julian’s neck and steps away, far enough so that the entrancing shine in those dark eyes can no longer make a fool of him. “That hardly sounds very scientific to me,” he remarks. “But after all, what would I know. I’m only-”

“Plain, simple Garak?” Julian suggests. “The tailor. I know. But did you get here?”

Garak detaches his scanner pad from his belt and turns the brightness of display up as high as it will go, casting a weak orange light over the room. The space is quite small, a cell large enough to hold four or five people at the most. It’s empty except for stretcher beds set up along each side of the room. On the wall by a foreboding looking door is a button marked with Gateran script he can’t read.

Julian follows his gaze. “I wouldn’t press that if I were you. I was told to use it if I needed anything during the night. One phaser against five doesn’t seem like good odds to me.”

“Yes, about that,” Garak replies, setting the scanner down on the edge of one of the beds, “who might the carriers of those five phasers be, exactly?”

“You don’t know? Garak, can’t you tell me what’s going on? One moment I’m falling asleep in the Infirmary on DS9 and the next thing I know I’m being dragged onto a transport by a pair of Milodish mercenaries and then down into this awful… laboratory. They didn’t even have the decency to leave the lights on!”

“Milodish mercenaries, you say? That is most interesting. Tell me, Doctor, did you happen to see a Cardassian on your way here, by any chance?”

Crossing the room to crouch beside Garak in the light, Julian nods. “There was a- a woman, at the house where they first brought me. She came on the transport here with us. I only saw her for a moment, but I’m sure she was Cardassian. Do you know her?”

“I did,” he answers. “Once. Nela Prel – an old acquaintance of mine.”

“Let me guess, Obsidian Order. But why did she bring me here?”

“The greater question is how. The Nela Prel I knew has been dead for several years.”

Julian sighs. “Of course she has. It never is simple with you, Garak, is it? Where are we?”

“Gatera II.”

“Are the others here? Sisko? Kira? Dax?” He sounds so hopeful, so optimistic at the idea of a daring rescue, that Garak is more sorry than he expected he would be to disappoint. Still, if he told Starfleet where their missing Doctor Bashir was, Julian might already be dead by now. If the Milodish mercenaries were anything to go by, their enemy was powerful enough to secure the very best.

“I didn’t see the need to get them involved. It’s only me.”

“And this is coming from the person who once violently berated me for trying to play the hero,” Julian mutters, taking the scanner and using its screen to light up the gap in the wall Garak entered through. “This is our way out, I assume?”

Garak follows him over to the access tunnel. “It is. Unless, of course, you’d rather we press that button over there and try fighting our way out. It may make for a better story.” He means to say it in jest, uncomfortable with how much honesty comes into his words as he speaks. Even odds of a hundred to one seem more desirable than re-entering the cramped space of the tunnel and drain. He kneels beside Julian, staring into the gaping black maw left by the panel he removed. How did he do it before? He can’t seem to recall.

“Well, no point sitting around here for this Nela Prel finds us,” Julian mutters. He reaches out for the side of the hatch to pull himself through.

There’s no time for a verbal warning, no time for Garak to quip humorously as he usually would – there is only time to act. Garak throws himself forward and grabs the doctor around the chest, dragging him back just as Julian’s fingers skim the edge of the gap and the light flashes. Julian falls back into his arms with a sharp cry. The weak light from the scanner pad flickers and dies, sending the room into almost total darkness again. All Garak can see is a tiny red light somewhere ahead where the hatch was; the only sound is Julian’s stuttering breath and a faint, high-pitched whistle cutting through the air, a warning of something Garak had very much hoped to avoid.

“Doctor, are you alright?” Julian’s body is so limp he would be concerned if it wasn’t for the doctor’s constant tremoring, the half-sobs of shock and pain breaking out of him. “Doctor.”

“I’m- okay,” Julian whispers. “God, Garak, my hand.”

“A selective dual-system shock deflector,” he says, cursing himself. Shields that run on that frequency are rare – they render most of the more common computer systems useless, interrupting the processing patterns of devices such as their Federation-make scanner, which now lies dormant on the floor. He hadn’t thought to look for one. He was a fool.

“What does that mean?” the doctor asks through gritted teeth. He does a poor job at repressing the undercurrent of pain in his tone. It cuts through like the persistent racket of Quark’s on the Promenade, an hour or two before closing.

Garak attempts to help Julian into a sitting position, but it’s hard when the darkness in the room is more overbearing than ever before. He accidentally brushes the unfortunate injury as he removes his arm from around Julian’s torso, resulting in a sharp hiss of agony. “It’s quite a clever device, really,” he explains. “Perhaps best summed up with the phrase – you can get in, but you can’t get out.”

“A one-sided shield? Did you know it was there?”

“Show me some faith, Doctor. I would hardly have suggested you try to use the exit if I had realised earlier. Lucky you did not attempt a head-first approach, or we might’ve just witnessed a far more unfortunate accident. How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad. I can’t tell how deep the burn without light. But it’s-” He breaks off with a shaky breath, leaning away out of Garak’s reach. “It’s bad.”

Something clicks and chimes, so faintly Garak almost misses it. “As much as I would like to offer you a period of rest and recovery, I believe we may soon have company that would be unsupportive of such an idea,” he says, touching the back of Julian’s shoulder in an effort to jolt him out of his spiral of pain. They do not have time. “You mentioned, I think, a transport? The one that brought you here?”

“Yes, yes- they left it out by the side this… bunker thing. But Garak, there are ships, too. They looked fit for space travel. If we could just get to one-”

The sound of a door opening and closing cuts through, far too close for comfort. “Let’s hope your memory is not at fault on that matter,” Garak says, grabbing the doctor under his arms and dragging him to his feet. They stumble through the darkness to the still-shut metal door, stepping to the side so as to be out of direct sight when it opens.

“Where’s the phaser?” Julian mutters.

“The answer to that question is no longer relevant, unfortunately,” he replies. He hears footsteps outside of the cell. The moment of discovery has arrived. Garak waits, poised and ready to strike, focussed on feeling his surroundings. The cool metal of the wall he leans on, the oppressive tension in the air he wonders whether the doctor can feel. Years of practice taught him to identify it perfectly – taught him how to manipulate that uncertainty on the precipice of violence to his own advantage. Julian’s stuttering, stifled breath is warm against the back of his neck. He counts the seconds.

Blinding white light fills the room as the door slides open. Garak ignores the way his eyes burn in the sudden brightness and only lets their visitor a few steps into the room before he attacks. The Milodish man crumples under the blow to the back of his head, rolling over on the ground to let his phaser skid across the floor. He retrieves the weapon, set to kill, and shoots the unconscious mercenary right between the shoulder blades. Beside him, Julian winces.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Never leave anything to chance,” he replies. “The first rule of intelligence agents.” Garak can’t feel pity for the Milodish. He’s the kind of casualty that occurs in this business

Julian steps around the corpse with a sort of regretful expression on his face – the mark of that Federation sentiment of individual worth, where even a man involved in your own kidnapping is deserving of sympathy. He picks up Garak’s lost phaser from where it lies in the corner of the room. He tries first with his right hand, but drops it quickly and goes with his left instead. The flesh on his fingers and palm is a deep red, almost mottled, and already covered in blisters. So much worse than a dead Milodish, than a thousand dead Milodish whose lives were ended by his hand, to Garak. Another result of his habitual failure to follow his own advice, the unsurprising result of caring for the doctor a deal more than he ought to.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Julian says as he joins Garak by the door, craning his neck to see out into the bright corridor beyond. “It hurts, which means I’m lucky. Well, lucky to have you around to rescue me.”

“Do save the flattery, Doctor. That space-worthy ship you mentioned – do you know the way?”

“I think so.”

“Then after you.”

The holding cell opens onto a hall lined with identical dark doors, most of them shut. The ceiling is covered with pale, harsh lights, bearing down like bitter watches on the whole affair. Julian pauses for a moment, then turns right down the corridor with his phaser raised. His holds his right hand up out of danger from brushing past something, cradling it close to his chest. Soon they will be back on Deep Space 9 and the nurses will make it look like it never happened, will fix up the rest of Doctor Bashir’s injuries. And the week after-

The week after, Garak will make his excuses. He’ll suggest Julian meet with Chief O’Brien or Commander Dax instead, will feign illness or an overwhelming amount of high-priority work as long as it takes for him to understand. There will be time to think over all that later. Before he can lose the doctor on his own terms, he must ensure he survives. Seeing Julian alive, even if only from a distance, will be enough. It has to be.

They take a left at the end of the corridor, into a large room filled with benches and shining glass and complicated computer displays that glow in every colour a Cardassian can see.

A phaser shot echoes through the room, confirming itself in the sound of glass shattering somewhere in the shadows just to Garak’s right.

“Get down!” Julian yells as he throws himself down behind a high bench.

Garak spots two of the Milodish guards, armoured in silver metal that catches all the reflections of red, orange, green and blue. Ducking down behind a cabinet against the wall, Garak takes aim and fires. His first shot only manages to hit the nearest guard’s upper arm, disabling him. The second is more accurately aimed. The bolt of light finds its target and the Milodish falls to the ground, smoke rising from the searing metal in the centre of their chest. When he moves across to direct his phaser at the other guard, the fool has finally worked out what’s going on and divide into the shelter of another bench. Garak can only catch small glimpses when their assailant peeks out to return fire. They don’t have time for this – the alarm is ringing, there were at least thirty life signs in this complex at Garak’s last scan before he entered. It’s then that he notices Julian has disappeared from his initial place of refuge, spots him a moment later on the other side of the room, on his feet. The doctor raises his phaser with a slightly shaky left hand. He should miss, but he doesn’t. The second guard drops dead with a direct hit to his exposed neck.

“My dear doctor, I had no idea you were so ambidextrously skilled.”

Julian hurries over to the door the guards were posted at, examining the control pad by the entranceway. “Lucky shot,” he replies. “We need a registered fingerprint to access this panel.”

Garak wastes no time in grabbing the nearest Milodish corpse, hauling it to the door and gracelessly using the recently deceased's limp extremity to gain the permissions they need. Julian grimaces but doesn’t have cause to object. His own injured hand catches Garak’s attention again. He’s seen all the worst, most painful mutilations in his life, witnessed all the worst ways to die. But one mildly severe burn on the doctor’s hand gives him more unease than all of those nasty memories combined. More damning proof.

The door slides open, and thankfully there is no army of raving mercenaries on the other side. Just more metal walls, more bright lights.

“I do see what you meant by laboratory,” he remarks, taking one last look at the room around them. The air is sharp with the bitter scent of chemicals, the same thing he smelled in the drain on his way in. There’s something very dangerous and foreboding in that smell – a promise of death Garak doesn’t doubt. Some scheme of deadly production is clearly taking place down here, below the surface of Gatera II.

“What do you think they’re making?” Julian wonders aloud. “Drugs?”

“Hm. Poison.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” the doctor mutters, leaning around the edge of the doorway. “Coast’s clear. Come on, let’s go. I think they brought me this way.”

They leave the lab and climb a flight of steep stairs, leaving behind the foul taste of wicked death in the air. “A curious turn of phrase,” he says, quietly so his words do not carry far. “Which coasts are we speaking of?”

“The Spanish ones,” Julian replies, “and they’re safe places for us to land our ships – for now.” At the top of the stairs they make a sharp turn and take a second flight, Julian leaping up two at a time. When he trips on the landing halfway up, Garak catches him before he has to steady himself with his unoccupied, awfully injured hand.

Somewhere above, a commotion is sounding out like the roar of a crowd at one of the Deep Space 9 springball championship games. He can hear thudding footsteps and yelling and an alarm wail. If they were trying to be subtle, they’ve failed. He wouldn’t be surprised if every person alive in Prel’s complex is aware of their little jailbreak now. They pause at the top of the stairs for Julian to check the next corridor. He turns back to Garak holding up four fingers – four threats to be neutralised, four more barriers soon to be removed. Garak checks his phaser and turns up the strength of the blast a few notches.

Julian counts them down, mouthing the words silently. Three. Two. One. He whirls around the corner with all the confidence of a flighty Federation hopeful; Garak goes with the cold determination of a Cardassian to make up for that failing. They only take the Milodish half by surprise. Garak makes eye contact with the pale, furious gaze of one on the far left, holding the look for a moment before he has to duck into another doorway to avoid the bright flashes of fire. He takes out one from his place of shelter, Julian manages to bring down another before he has to join Garak under cover. Something slips inside Garak as a phaser bolt cuts dangerously close to the doctor’s body on his way across the hall. He puts his arm around Julian – an untenable instinct he cannot repress.

The phaserfire is coming on thick now.

“Garak,” Julian warns, elbowing him hard in the side. “Garak, we’re going to get cornered in here. We just have to-” He squeezes back further into the tight space of the doorway, under Garak’s arm, as another phaser bolt flies through the air to strike the wall just by the door. Garak glances behind them to see more of the guards approaching from the far end of the corridor, more than the two of them can take alone. “We just need to get to that door. It leads outside. I know making a run for it isn’t quite your style-” He pauses to fire a few shots at the Milodish coming up on their rear, who seem to have set up a blockade to fire from down the hall. “-but this might be a good time to try something new.”

“I must say I’m surprised,” he replies, having to shout to be heard over all the noise. “I never knew you to be one for taking your chances at success.”

“What’s a daring adventure if you don’t enjoy a bit of risk every now and then?”

“My dear doctor, I do hope you’re taking this a little more seriously than a daring adventure.”

“Oh, shut up Garak. On three?”

Garak smiles. “On three.”

As much as he might prefer to be back on Deep Space 9, relaxing in good company or alone, fairly certain for that night at least, he won’t be facing death… As much as that concept is safe and comfortable, the exhilaration is nearly unmatchable. He used to feel this way all the time, before his work lost all its joy for him. The implant could never truly recreate it afterwards. He lets the doctor lead the charge towards possible death and doom with something bordering on glee, casting forward and back as much fire as he receives.

The two remaining Milodish mercenaries are dead, or as good as it, by the time they arrive at the door. It’s locked as the other one was, but Garak takes great delight in firing carelessly on the control panel until the thing decides to open. Funny, how that always seems to work. Phaser bolts are still flying towards them from behind, hitting every wall, striking a place where they were just standing before or were just planning to move to. It’s why, though he might not like to admit it, he cherishes the hours spent with Julian Bashir, secret agent in the holosuite – the drama, the violence, the confusion, it’s all a drug, a disruptor of the awful monotony of life.

A cool breath of clean, Gateran desert air greets them as the door slides slowly open, helped along by a rough shove from the doctor. The oasis is a thicket of thorns and dark beauty at the base of the steps before them, accentuated by the silvery glow of the light coming from the bunker. Julian seems to have lost his phaser. He grips Garak’s free hand and drags him down the stairs.

“It’s not far,” he promises breathlessly. “At least, I think it’s not.”

The air is filled with the whistling and chirping of nocturnal insects as they stumble between those drooping trees, an audible promise of the Milodish following them carried on the same wind. They push through spiky grasses and patches of barbed plants. Garak hates to think what it’s doing to his clothes.

“There!” Julian gasps.

A pale light blinks ahead, appearing on the other side of a clump of thin, spindly trees. The oasis gives way to a wide clearing, centred around a platform of metal. The ‘ship’ is really just a shuttle, but it’s more than Garak could’ve hoped for, given the unfortunate circumstances. Only one guard stands by its lowered ramp. A quick shot from Garak’s phaser makes short work of him. Garak can taste the freedom now, the glory of a well-earned victory. Julian bounds up into the ship without a second thought.

“I’ll get her going!” he yells over his shoulder. “Shut that door!”

The computer system – Milodish, he presumes – is not one he has interacted with before, but it seems simple enough. It takes a few tries until the ramp decides to agree on retracting. He’s a little sorry to say goodbye to the oasis. It’s a rather pretty, if falsified, spark of life in the desert. Coming from Cardassia, he’s always appreciated things like that.

“Garak, get in here!” Julian calls from the front of the ship. “Garak!”

Their method of escape shudders and jumps into life as the engines power up. He imagines the frustration of Nela Prel, or whoever it truly was trying to prove something by all of this, with too much satisfaction. He imagines the annoyance and impressed smiles of Deep Space 9’s personnel, delighted to have their dear Julian back again. A part of him says, too good to be true, and he knows he ought to listen.

Barrages of phaserfire strike the outside of the ship, having little effect as power begins to flood through its once-dormant walls, lighting the way to pilot station. The shuttle is rather like the runabouts used by Deep Space 9, but without all the lovely systems that make the Federation ships capable of essentially flying themselves. Julian’s brow is furrowed – deep in thought – when Garak arrives at the front of the ship, his hand left hand darting across the pilot’s control pad while the right balances against the edge of the station so none of the skin touches it. Garak looks pointedly away as he takes his seat, unable to stand the sight of the injury.

“Can you take control?” Julian asks. “It’s so slow, with my hand-”

“Of course,” he replies, leaning forward as the display of his station flickers on. Although he hasn’t used a Milodish system before, it really isn’t too different from the rest of them. The ship lifts off the ground with a rather violent jolt, enough to accidentally knock Julian into brushing his burned hand against the fabric of his upper arm. The doctor coughs through an awkward attempt to suppress his pain, turning away so Garak can’t see his face.

“Don’t apologise,” he says before Garak can get a word in. “It’s fine.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of it more than he is Garak. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Their ship rises higher, climbing above the tops of the willowy trees and into the darkness of Gatera II’s night sky. The phaser blasts have faded from hearing. Garak catches one last sight of the lights now casting a cold glow over the unnatural oasis and the lifeless metal bunker within before it’s all replaced by an endless shadow, the silhouette of the desert that looks as if it could stretch on forever, uninterrupted by cities and corruption. The up until now unaddressed anxiety that had been tightened around Garak’s chest since he first slipped down into that suffocating drain eases slightly, melting away with the faint roar of the ship’s engines as he pilots them further into the atmosphere. It’s more of a cold dread that afflicts him, rather than panic that burns like wildfire. The tendrils are still snaked around him now, vines that twist and tighten around his windpipe so he can barely breathe.

He turns his eyes back to Julian as their ship breaks through to outer space, taking a random course into the nothingness beyond the surface of Gatera II. The doctor looks worse than he has ever seen him. His appearance on the station is always clean and unbothered by the drama of his daily life – he is the Chief Medical Officer of Deep Space 9, after all – the image he presents is impeccable. In the harsh, graceless light of the Milodish ship, Julian seems half-dead. His skin is dull and bruised and his eyes are those of someone who has barely slept for days. He’s unshaven, his Starfleet uniform is dirty and fraying at the seams. The expression in his gaze is so numb, so blank. Any bright spark is gone, from more than just exhaustion or the pain of his terrible burn. He can’t look at it for long. It’s dark addition to Garak’s conscience, the final proof he shouldn’t need, after everything. Return Julian to the station, and light in his eyes will return, in time. Too much of Garak, too much of the evil his past inflicts uncontrollably, and it may be lost forever. Garak would give anything, give up on ever seeing Julian again, to prevent that. He has done enough harm already.

Something chirps shrilly over on the console, a flashing yellow light catching Garak’s attention.

“I think… someone’s hailing us?” Julian says, glancing over his pilot station. “From the surface of Gatera II. The signal’s growing fainter.”

Garak brings them to a temporarily slowed pace. Against his better judgement, curiosity drags his fingers over to the communications controls. A screen up against the dashboard awakens, and a face Garak never thought he would see up close appears. Nela Prel’s expression is unreadable and icy as over-zealous air conditioning in the station Infirmary.

“Garak,” comes her voice through the speakers, “Doctor Bashir.”

He does not dare a look at Julian.

“Ah, Prel,” he greets. “I am sorry we couldn’t stay long enough to see you, unfortunately we are running on quite a tight schedule.” He offers his most sycophantic smile.

“You have made a serious error,” she says coolly.

“As have you,” Garak replies, “in imagining I would simply allow you to use Doctor Bashir as some kind of incentive for me to co-operate in your undoubtedly wicked schemes of vengeance. I must say I am surprised. By your underestimation, as well as your… how should I put it? General state of being. How did you do it?”

Prel does not appear impressed. “If you are referring to the fact I am alive, it is no concern of yours. Imagine your own explanation. You always did have a vivid imagination, Elim Garak – it was rather your ally, if I remember correctly, before you allowed it to run away with you. You will certainly see your mistake in this matter soon.”

“I am more than sorry to disappoint, but we have no intention to remain to prove that point,” he says. He turns his attention to the control panel and pushes the ship back into motion. “Goodbye, Prel. I don’t believe we’ll meet again. I know how much that must pain you. Let us simply hope the Federation doesn’t somehow hear of your uh… current business endeavours.”

Unnervingly, she smiles. Even in the small computer display, Garak can see the gleam in her eyes – a dangerous promise. “I am not worried. Recognise that it is too late for your baying now – you’ve already lost. Perhaps you ought to be glad I am not the one who truly wants you, Garak, or you would soon be wishing for death. I was only repaying a debt. Enjoy these last hours, old friend.” She speaks with all the cold detachment of the Obsidian Order, all the delight of someone who has just deemed certain events a great success.

“Garak,” Julian says, speaking for the first time since Prel’s address began. “Garak, sensors show another ship approaching our location. It’s less than three minutes out of firing range.”

“So Ossad lay down there, made his grave in the silver lake,” Prel quotes. “You remember the rest, don’t you?”

Garak ends her transmission. He lays in a course off the top of his head, one vaguely in the direction of Deep Space 9, and forces the engines to carry them forward as fast as they will go. A few tense minutes of looking to Julian, hearing three or two or less than one pass as he tries to operate the Milodish system, which is more unfamiliar to him than he initially thought. He doesn’t understand the commands, can’t seem to access half of the controls.

“In firing range now,” Julian says. “It’s a ship like this one, as far as-”

The first shot is something of a battering ram against a weak wooden door. Garak narrowly avoids slamming his head right into the console.

“Get our shields up!” Julian yells.

“I am trying.” A damage report flashing on a nearby display shows worrisome but far from damning results – Garak just has to incapacitate their follower before they land too many more direct hits and it will all be fine. He can even sacrifice a bit of his shock and glory and send a message ahead to the station and it will not be too late, not ever.

The pursuing ship strikes again. Garak’s uncertainty is returning in thick waves. He is never out of his depth, because Elim Garak is everything anyone could possibly imagine him to be. This situation, however, is more than he can lay out easily in his own mind. He keeps waiting for the doctor to spring back to his usual lively self with the miracle solution they need, as he often seems to do in times when Garak has nothing.

“We can’t take much more of this,” Julian warns, leaning across to alter some stabilisation settings as their ship struggles under the heavy fire. “They’re going to blast us right out of space within minutes.”

“Prepare to return fire,” Garak commands. He checks the sensors one more time. This should work – it simply must.

“What the hell are you doing?” Julian cries. He has to yell to be heard over the impact of the other ship landing another hit.

“I need you to trust me, Doctor. Be ready to fire on my order.” He looks at Julian, looks him directly into those rich, dark eyes that the past few days have dulled to shadows of their usual selves, and tries to offer a promise. He is excellent with his words, except when it comes to times such as these. Except when it comes to the doctor. Something seems to tug at Julian’s expression.

“Prepared to fire on your command, sir,” Julian says. The look on his face is very near a smile.

Garak’s moment arrives. As the enemy ship swerves in a brazen attempt to cut them off, he increases their speed only to reel it back sharply half a second later. They fall back behind with the belly of their ship exposed, and Garak winces as two heavy blasts from their attacker strike. Still, it gives him the opportunity he needs.

“Target the space below their rear deflector and fire at will.”

Julian’s good hand darts across the control pad. The third shot they fire catches the enemy ship just in the right place as they start to turn, hitting an external power regulator that explodes in a bright blast of glittering purplish light. A second passes, Julian shields his eyes from the viewscreen, and the entire ship combusts in sparks and rings of energy, like a star going supernova somewhere far off in the galaxy. Inside their shuttle, the lights flash red for danger. An alarm pulses in the background of the beautiful destruction, cutting through like a pair of sharp scissors slices strips of fabric in two.

“Damage report?” he suggests.

“How did you know that was going to work?”

“I didn’t,” Garak replies, trying to get the ship back on course, trying to ignore the thousand warnings on the ship’s console desperately aiming to catch his attention. “I suspected. They targeted a similar area on our own vessel.”

“And they hit it, too,” Julian mutters. “God, Garak, this is a disaster.”

“Really? I wasn’t aware.”

Julian glares. “I’m not joking around. We’ll never reach the station in this thing now. If we don’t land it soon and get these engines offline, they’re going to explode. That or we’ll be left floating dead in space with failing life support. I can’t say I’m particularly enamoured with either option, so we’ve got to come up with something else now.”

Gatera II is too far behind them. They would never make it in time. Besides, their enemies lie in that direction, no doubt waiting for Garak and his Federation doctor’s shameful return. He checks all the scans, all the sensors, searching. “It seems there are no inhabited planets in the general vicinity, regrettably.”

“Is there anything?”

“A class L planet – I believe is what you call them. Not too far from here. The atmosphere is breathable.”

“Perfect,” the doctor says. “I give us less than ten minutes before this ship becomes a complete death-trap, so you’d better get us there fast. I’ll try to send a message on all Federation channels, just to let them know we’re alive, where in the galaxy we are. Deep Space 9 will have found us within a day, I’m sure.”

That sounds rather overly optimistic to Garak, but he does not object. They have no other choice, after all – the class L planet is their only chance. Keeping the ship in space can lead only to embarrassing self-imposed destruction or rediscovery by Prel’s forces, who they have no chance of defeating now. He monitors the system damage reports as they sail through space towards the planet, sees their ship edge inexorably closer and closer to total failure.

“This is Doctor Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer of Deep Space 9. Myself and another citizen have been stranded in space after escaping capture by an unidentified group on Gatera II. We request immediate emergency assistance. I repeat, this is Doctor Julian Bashir. If you can hear this, please send help.”

If the transmission manages to send, they have no way of telling.

“Well, that’s it, then?” Julian asks.

The planet is pale and small and the area they approach reads zero humanoid life signs. The ship shudders. There’s a sound like a bomb going off as they break into the atmosphere.

“Garak…”

“Yes, I know, Doctor.”

“Garak, we’re going to crash.”

He’s trying to stop it. He’s trying to slow down their descent towards rocky, barren landscape below, soften the sharpness of the angle. Hardly anything responds to his orders now, the engines are somewhere between dying and catching fire, sparks fly from every direction. It’s night on this side of the planet, meaning Garak has to rely on the sensors alone to see the landing place they are headed towards. Their readings jump around carelessly, taunting him. They could be heading directly towards the side of a mountain, for all he knows.

Garak breathes in and tastes the chemical bitterness of smoke in the back of his throat. He thinks he can hear Julian saying something, but it’s all drowned out in the terrible roar of their fall. His eyes see only shadows ahead. Shadows, and flashes of silver that sear through his world, burning, reminding him, refusing to let him rest.

Chapter Text

Garak.

If this is death, it’s a lot more uncomfortable than he imagined it to be. There is no blissful void, no sensation of floating far from his body… no nothing, either, which is even more disappointing. He was hoping for at least a little bit of nothing. It is very dark, but perhaps his eyes are just closed. It’s cold too, colder than the iciest corners on Deep Space 9 Garak has had to avoid since the Federation took over Terok Nor and tailored it to their own hot-blooded needs. He might even call it freezing. The chill has settled deep beneath his skin, and when he first notices himself breathing in it seems to have put a tight, clawing clamp around his trachea, his lungs. Cold air twists and curls about him and inside of him and feels as if it is lulling him further into empty, black space.

There is something warm, though – a soft touch against his cheek, insistent. He finds himself leaning into the gesture, lolling sideways in a weak attempt to capture more of the heat, so rare in a world that feels like it’s sinking him below the surface of an ice-covered lake.

“Garak… Please, Garak, wake up.”

He wants to speak, wants to open his mouth and reassure the worrier that he is awake – he simply can’t. Everything is so distant. Warm fingers stroke the side of his face, persistently keeping him conscious, when his mind is wishing for him to fall back asleep. Maybe if he does, that elusive void will find him after all.

“Oh, Garak, really. Are you just going to lie there and die?”

That captures his attention. It’s almost that sense of the doctor’s ‘déjà vu’ again, as if this has all happened before. The doctor? Julian?

“Yes, yes, it’s Julian. Garak, can you open your eyes? It’s not too bright, I promise.”

He has no way of refusing. When his eyes crack open he is greeted by more darkness, darkness that slowly fazes into reality. The light that is there is weak and pale orange and forms a sort of halo around Julian’s head. Dark eyes are barely a few centimetres from Garak’s face, anxious and searching. The hand falls away from his face. Garak wishes he had the strength to reach out and take it back, because it really is so cold.

“Doctor.” For the first time he hears his own voice properly – a grainy stage whisper that slurs slightly, like the words are taking too long to travel from his brain to his mouth.

“Yes, it’s me. We crashed.”

“I assumed as much.” He tries to move, resulting in a wave of dizziness that overcomes and overwhelms, as if he’s been caught up in a whirlpool that spins him around so fast that nothing can come into focus. Julian has taken off the outer layer of his top to wear just his undershirt, and a thick band of fabric is tied right around his middle, like a bandage or a brace. His knees press into Garak’s side where he kneels beside him, a vague tether in a world doing its very best to disorientate and blind.

“Does anything hurt?” Julian asks. He sounds strained.

Everything hurts. Well, that’s the way it seems. Garak has suffered through much in his life. Tzenketh comes to mind – he remembers being crushed beneath the weight of toppling walls, remembers how worse than any of the bruises or broken bones that pure panic of that oppressive darkness, how little air there was to breathe. He can’t recall a time when things were ever this depressingly painful before, though. It’s something about the cold.

“My head,” he answers. “That’s all.”

Julian nods and slides back against a wall, clutching his side with a small hiss that suggests the action is hurting him. “You’ve got a concussion,” he says. “You were conscious a little while ago, but I don’t suppose you remember. You were fairly out of it. I shouldn’t have let you fall asleep, I just didn’t know what else to do. I woke you up a bit every now and then. Not that I could’ve done anything if you did have bleeding in your brain, but… Well, nothing’s broken or bleeding internally, as far as I can tell. At least that’s something.”

“I take it you weren’t so lucky.”

“At least two or three broken ribs.” Julian offers a forced smile. “I wouldn’t usually bind them – it’s hard enough to breathe with a bunch of bone daggers in my chest. But since I couldn’t lie down there weren’t many other options. Try to stay awake, now.”

Garak looks around. He’s lying on the ground in the front of the ship, propped up slightly against the base of the control station. Most of the lights are off, most of the consoles dead. Boxes of supplies and bits of pieces are spilled out onto the floor, presumably recovered by Julian from other parts of the ship.

“How long has it been?”

“Hours,” the doctor replies, tugging uselessly at the frayed edge of his undershirt sleeve. Garak can’t imagine how he bears the terrible chill in the air, wearing so little. “I woke up pretty soon after we crashed, I think. I’m sorry it’s so cold in here, by the way,” he adds. “I had to open the door to get outside, and it let all the heat out. It should warm up again soon.” And he’s back to being practical Doctor Julian Bashir, drugged up on an optimism and determination Garak has always been in awe of. It’s a trait one might blanketly ascribe to the Federation and Starfleet as a whole, a naïve desire born from their perfect lives devoid of poverty and hunger. Usually, its bearer will come to a place like Deep Space 9 and it will break them. They’ll leave the safety of their no-necessary-evils world and their own mentality will condemn them and everything that they see. He was surprised by how wrong this generalisation could be when the Federation took Terok Nor. The doctor has surprised him most of all. A recent graduate, rose-coloured glasses practically glued to his face… stronger than he’d thought. Capable of making hard choices, where there is no happy, miraculous solution. It’s why Garak-

“Do you want me to be optimistic about our situation, or realistic?” Julian asks, cutting through his thoughts. A small blessing, perhaps. Garak is losing his discipline.

“Try telling it like a Cardassian,” he suggests.

“Realistic, then. Well, there are a few positives. The air is breathable – I can personally confirm it. And the ship is still contained, so we’re probably not going to freeze. I found some food onboard… mostly rations though, and I don’t have the faintest idea what’s in them. Something Milodish. Anyway, that’s the good news. The bad news is, the planet’s pretty awful. Alpine, coniferous vegetation, no wildlife you can see without a microscope. And uh- cold, obviously. Plus, who knows what bacteria and- and viruses are out there. The ship’s scanners are barely working, so it’s difficult to get a good picture. There are a lot of mountains.”

“I can’t imagine the engines have survived this.”

“No. The engineering extension class I took at Starfleet medical only taught so much, but even I can tell this thing is never flying again. I’m honestly amazed it didn’t smash into pieces on impact.”

“Do credit me with some ability to fly a ship competently, Doctor,” he replies, with as much of his usual overdone charm as he can muster. It’s not an easy feat when the waves of nausea and dizziness lap at the edges of his being with every heartbeat, threatening to drag him back beneath the surface.

“Of course.”

Garak sits in silence for a few minutes, trying to think. When the thoughts refuse to come, he turns back to Julian and attempts to focus on the energy the doctor inherently embodies – something alive in a dull, depressing world. “Medical supplies?”

“Barely anything. No dermal regenerator. No bone knitter. It’s all rudimentary stuff, really.”

“I see.”

Julian reaches over for a metal box labelled in Milodish with a huff of pain, the effort of bending over clearly a trigger to the agony of his broken ribs. Garak very much wants to drag himself over and force the doctor to sit still, but the concussion symptoms suggest he might be sick or faint if he tries to do so. He watches distantly as Julian retrieves sachets of emergency rations from the container, small silvery slips Garak dreads to find out the taste of.

“There’s about… oh, a week’s worth of this stuff? Or maybe closer to two,” Julian remarks, throwing one of the sachets over to Garak so it lands in his lap, like a dart hitting the bullseye of a board. A terrible game, that. Julian tried to teach him once, while Chief O’Brien glared from the corner. In turn, he had done his best to instruct the doctor in the strategy of kotra – an equally abysmal failure. He recalls the endearing frustration on Julian’s face as he struggled to make sense of all the game pieces and Garak’s complicated manoeuvres, swore under his breath and accused Garak of cheating somehow when he lost for the fifth time in a row. The doctor had never been very good with patience. He likes to rush in, try to catch the cards before he even gets the chance to see where they’re going to fall.

He tears open the sachet and eats his ration obediently, ignoring the bland, slightly salty taste of the foul puree. Julian tucks into his own pathetic meal with the ferocity of someone determined to make a marooning on an uninhabited planet bend to his will. Garak does hope they make it even just for the sake of the doctor having another excellent story of survival against the odds to impress people with. Too many of them involve him, he realises. Too many of those tales begin with Garak and I- you know Garak, he’s the Cardassian, the tailor, oh, I don’t know if he’s really a spy, anyway, he and I-

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Julian says brightly when they’re finished eating, silver sachets discarded. He speaks in the way he might address a small child who has just received an uncomfortable immunisation for the first time, prompting Garak to roll his eyes.

“I could hardly stomach it.”

“Well, try not to throw it back up again – that’d be a waste. At least now you’ll never have a reason to complain about the replicator food once we’re back on DS9.” Like it’s a certainty. Like Julian is incapable of conceiving a future in which they starve or freeze or waste away unfound on the surface of this lonely planet, or one where they are discovered but by all the wrong people. His faith is admirable.

“Oh, come on, Garak. Don’t look like that. I did a bit of digging through the communications systems, what of them that are still functional. I’m ninety-nine percent sure the transmission I sent on Starfleet channels worked. Since we’re in Federation space, it shouldn’t be long before someone finds us. You’ll be back to mending clothes in no time. And… whatever else it is that you do,” he adds, offering a knowing smile. Garak has missed that – their game.

“Nothing more nefarious than the occasional avoidance of my taxes, I promise you,” he replies. “I am but a simple tailor, after all.”

Julian picks up a silver cylindrical flask and rolls it over to him. It’s freezing to the touch.

“Only water,” the doctor tells him. “It’s filtered, don’t worry.”

The liquid is perfectly clear and as cold as ice. Garak sips at it slowly, feeling it trickle down his throat with a deadly chill. Across from him, he notices Julian pull a smaller container towards him and rest his right hand inside. A few drops of water slosh over the side and leave tiny puddles of reflected amber light on the ground.

“Cold water for my hand,” Julian explains when he sees Garak watching. “To help with the burns.”

Garak had forgotten. “Where did you acquire it, if I may ask?”

“There’s a sort of lake thing, a few minutes’ walk from here. It’s enormous. We’re lucky we didn’t land in it.”

“Lucky indeed.”

“You know, I’d been feeling pretty down about this whole thing – being stranded on some random class-L planet with no working communications and no proper food and all that… And I was getting worried you weren’t going to wake up, even though I knew you were, because I kept thinking about what would happen if I was- if I was alone and I just couldn’t bear it. But then I came over this hill and there was this huge lake – the sun was just coming up over the mountains then – and I knew we had a water source, which is great because did you know in something like seventy percent of fatal marooning situations people die from thirst? I think I read that somewhere. But it was also so beautiful, the lake, I mean, I really just thought wow, we are lucky, aren’t we? It could be a lot worse.”

“That is certainly one way of viewing the situation.” If his head didn’t hurt so much, he would say something to prompt Julian to talk further, to rattle on about the world outside of their little ship or anything else that took his fancy. It was something he had noticed could bother other people – Julian’s propensity for losing control of his tongue and talking on for hours about nothing anyone else can properly understand. Garak enjoys hearing Julian talk. He enjoys it because it makes Julian happy, allows him to see that shining light in the doctor’s eyes that others can accidentally dull with their irritated comments or disinterested glances. He enjoys it because he’s often quite tired and has made a business out of listening in his life and no one is quite as enchanting to listen to as Julian Bashir. There it is, again. His weakness. He is a fool.

Garak takes another small sip of water, holding back a shiver. It really is terribly cold.

“It’s about midday, just now, I would say,” Julian continues. “I suppose there’s not much else to do but sit around and wait for something to happen, is there?”

“No, I fear not.”

 “I hate waiting.” Julian grabs a ridge in the wall above his head and uses it to help himself up, breathing in sharply with the obvious pain of the action. Garak stays still as Julian approaches.

“Ouch,” Julian mutters as he kneels beside him just as he did before, awkwardly attempting to keep his back straight in the process. He reaches up to rest his warm palm on Garak’s forehead. Garak can feel the doctor’s unsteady exhales against his cheek.

“My dear doctor, is something the matter?” he asks, voice much quieter now. There’s no need to speak loudly when Julian is so near.

“I’m only checking your temperature,” Julian replies. “Garak, you didn’t tell me you were so cold. I don’t know exactly what it’s supposed to be like for Cardassians, but this is definitely wrong.” He leans over and takes something from behind Garak, out of his line of sight. There’s a harsh ripping sound, and then Julian is laying soft, thick fabric across his chest. A blanket of standard-issue material, suitable for almost all climates, insulated. “I hope that’s an improvement,” Julian says. “I wish I could give you something better.”

Garak’s fingers curl instinctively around the edges of the torn open uniform, holding onto it as if he were holding onto life. “More than enough, Doctor. Though it certainly wasn’t necessary to ruin your clothes on my account.”

“Not to worry, I happen to know a very excellent tailor.”

Somewhere distant, somewhere outside the safety of the ship’s interior, the wailing sound of relentless wind echoes.

Julian glances up. “I hope that’s not a storm.”

“It might be wise to use this opportunity to rest,” Garak suggests, unable to look away from the exhaustion and pain on Julian’s face, or the burns he now sees too clearly on his right hand. “Do try to lie down.”

“Alright.”

It takes the doctor a minute or two to get himself into a comfortable horizontal position on the thinly carpeted ground, wincing at every turn. Garak has had broken ribs before – many of them. And ever since Terok Nor was lost and Deep Space 9 rose up from the horror of it all to replace it, Doctor Julian Bashir has been there to fix them. He lies there, helpless, unable to do the same in return.

“Garak, do you mind if I talk for a bit? I think I’m too awake to sleep just now.” Unspoken is the and my broken ribs and phaser wounds from the Jem’Hadar and horribly burned hand are all very painful and distracting and there’s nothing else I can do if I want to stay sane.

“I would enjoy nothing more,” he replies. “I did mean to inquire at our last lunch, before it was so… rudely interrupted, about how your prion replication research was going.”

He can almost see Julian’s smile growing before his eyes.

“Brilliantly.”

*   *   *

The first day and night passes in a chilly stretch of interrupted sleep. It does warm up in the ship as Julian promised, more when the doctor manages to get the door to the pilot area to shut with jamming. The wind outside settles after a while, leaving them in almost total silence. Julian eventually drops off to sleep from pure exhaustion, and Garak lies there listening to his breathing for a long time to come. After spending most of the past day unaware of everything, he feels painfully awake, though the first time he tries to stand up he does have to grab the wall to steady himself. It does rather feel as if someone has hit him over the head with a brick.

The outside world calls him – the mysterious landscape beyond he is yet to see, but a without a conscious Julian it doesn’t seem wise. Instead, he busies himself with tidying up the mess made in the crash and Julian’s rifling through of the supplies, trying to open up the space within the ship to give them more room to operate. The interior of their little compartment is not nearly as small as the tunnels on Gatera II, it may even be larger than the cell he rescued the doctor from. Still, with the darkness and the low ceiling he does feel slightly unsettled. It helps to warm him up, too. To feel more present in the room, which for a few days the whole of their spiralling star-filled universe must be reduced to. The thought of the cold keeps curious temptation at bay for the hours more that the doctor sleeps through.

Once he’s organised and divided up all of their supplies and tidied up some of the mess, there isn’t much to do. He watches Julian for a short while before realising the strangeness of it all and taking a seat on the other side of the cramped room. His study of Julian revealed a shiver he amends by returning the favour of the ruined uniform. Since it’s some of the little transferable warmth they have, he should at least share. Julian mumbles something incomprehensible in his sleep and tucks his nose under the dark fabric, looking so much younger and softer. The burdens of his occupation and Deep Space 9 wear at him in the daytime, stealing away his carefree, delighted demeanour. He is simply Julian when he sleeps – not Lieutenant Julian Bashir, Chief Medical Officer of Deep Space 9, practitioner of real and confronting frontier medicine. He is peaceful. Unguarded.

Garak finds a repair kit of poorly kept tools the Milodish didn’t seem to have found much use in when the ship was in their hands, a jumble of low-quality and forgotten items he supposes might be helpful. The communications controls are so ruined he can’t bring himself to even bother assessing the damage, so he tries the meagre sensor systems instead. The sensors are mostly inoperative or prevented from functioning by atmospheric issues. He’s sure he can fix that. It would be a good idea to know when someone’s coming for them.

A loud yawn and string of muttered curse words alert him to Julian’s awakening another hour or two later. The wind has settled completely, leaving only silence and the faint buzzing of some back system Garak’s managed to get working, doing who knows what.

“Good morning, Doctor,” he says, not turning around.

Julian yawns again and huffs with the effort of standing up. “Is it morning?”

“I suppose I don’t exactly know.”

“You haven’t checked out the planet yet?” The soft fall of Julian’s footsteps grows closer, the tips of his fingers – those of his unburned hand – hovering just above Garak’s shoulder.

“I am Cardassian, and in case it had slipped from your mind, Cardassia is a desert planet. I hardly think going outside would be a wise idea.”

“You’re not even a little bit curious?”

That finds a nerve, twitches upon a thread hidden somewhere only the doctor would know to find. Garak is unfortunately curious by nature – it was a significant factor behind his downfall years and years ago. It’s how Julian draws him in, drags him down the path of some new foolish venture or daring escapade. Usually within the safety of a holosuite, however, not on a distant deserted planet that threatens to freeze Garak to death.

“Well, I’m going to stick my nose out the door for a few minutes until I get too cold. You’re welcome to join me. I promise I wouldn’t let you freeze.”

Garak couldn’t possibly refuse. The doctor has that way with him. He watches Julian scoff down a small portion of the awful Milodish rations, consuming it with the rapidity and enthusiasm he might usually reserve for his favourite date and white chocolate slice or an ice cream sundae.

“You seem particularly cheerful today,” Garak remarks, noticing the way the doctor’s foot taps against the floor with nervous energy.

“I feel better now. I think my brain has started to filter out all the pain from my ribs somehow. And my hand’s improved a lot after I left it in the cold water for a while. Don’t you think this is might actually be such a great opportunity? We could find anything on this planet.”

“Or nothing. My dear doctor, if you continue like this much longer, I maybe have to declare you unfit for duty and confine you to quarters until you’ve stopped approaching possible starvation with such apparent levels of delight.”

“Come on Garak, we’re not going to starve. Try to see things with a bit more optimism for a change!” He leaps up, evidently forgetting his injuries and stumbling with another spiel of frustrated curse words. “Damn,” he mutters. “Maybe my brain is still feeling some of it. Anyway, I’m going outside.”

Rolling his eyes, Garak struggles to his feet to follow the doctor. The least he can do is keep him out of the trouble he’s blindly sprinting towards for as long as possible. He picks up the makeshift Starfleet uniform jacket and catches hold of Julian before he can make it through the pilot station door. When Julian looks as if he’s going to protest, Garak tuts and insistently pulls the article of clothing over the doctor’s shoulders. “I won’t hear objections,” he says. “It’s far more your style than mine, after all.” Employing all his tailor’s precision, he retrieves a long-abandoned safety pin from the depths of a pocket and fastens the open front of the uniform. He’s certain Julian is staring at him and ignores it. He’s already breaking enough of his rules.

It takes them a while to get the pilot station door open and closed again, and even longer to deal with the door to the outside. Garak cringes when Julian forces the exit open and a wall of icy air greets them, as well as a large pile of fresh snow that spills in through the doorway.

“Oops,” Julian sighs. “I’ll shovel that back out later.” His cheeks are immediately flushed from the cold. “You know something I’m grateful for? That the nurses let me change into a new uniform rather than patient wear before your Cardassian friend decided to kidnap me. Imagine if I was walking around in one of those purple things and no shoes. Even if it does mean both of my spare uniforms are ruined.”

Garak finds himself smiling a little despite himself. There is something charming about the doctor’s ability to take joy in small things like wearing one outfit inappropriate for the situation at hand compared to another. He braces himself against the chill of a snow-covered planet and follows Julian out into the light. The brightness of the sun blinds him momentarily. White fades into shades of deep green and brown and grey as the landscape appears piece by piece. Mountains stretch up before a blue sky, complete with snowy peaks and coverings of dark coniferous trees. The planet is quite boring, on a surface level. It seems to be enough to entertain Julian, however, who strides out into the scene with his breath forming a pale cloud before him.

“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” he calls from the top of a low incline, voice short and breathy from the cold and unsuitable atmosphere.

“It’s a wasteland,” Garak replies.

“What are you talking about?” Julian runs back down the slope, almost barrelling right into Garak on his way. He recovers from his overshoot by grabbing Garak’s elbow and using it as a tether to turn himself on. “Look at the trees!”

“I see them.”

“Well, that species of tree has probably never been recorded before. It’s like we’ve discovered something. It may just be a tree, but it can be our tree. The Garak-Bashir pine.”

Garak manages a few minutes in the mercy of the wind before he gives in and retreats back to the shelter of the ship. There isn’t much to see but mountain ranges and snow and forbidding dark clouds on the horizon that promise more storms to come. He follows Julian around the nearby patches of foreign vegetation, hanging on the doctor’s every excited word until his body starts to struggle with the temperature and he has no choice but to go back in. He sits inside the doorway, just around a corner in a side corridor, as Julian uses a bucket to move mounds of snow away from about the door. He sits and shivers and listens to Julian talk on and on about some recently found new species of deep-sea fish back on his home planet of Earth, a rare and bizarre creature that glows in the darkness of the unexplored ocean.

“If only our communication systems were working…” Julian sighs when he finally gets the door closed again, shutting out the wind and the harsh light of the sun. “I wish… I wish we could be sure someone is coming.”

In a moment of softness, Garak forgets about his dedication to realism and offers Julian a kind smile. “I’m sure they are. And if not, certain systems are not beyond repair.”

“Don’t lie to me, Garak – we both know the communications have no chance. Even Miles probably couldn’t fix that damage. Besides, I doubt we could ever get a message through this atmosphere so low down. My ribs are too badly broken for me to get a communicator to higher ground and I don’t think you’d make it in the cold.” He glances at Garak with a tentative fear and despair inching into his expression. “Sorry. I don’t mean to cast a pall.”

“That’s quite alright. You’ve been through a great deal over the past few days. But I have great confidence your transmission will have reached some Federation outpost somewhere, and if not, I did happen to leave instructions with young Ziyal should I not return with you in a reasonable amount of time.”

“Ziyal?”

Garak follows Julian back into the pilot station, which has thankfully retained its warmth. His fingers and face feel numb and it seems to pinch and burn slightly to breathe. “Yes, I left her with the details of my journey – not that she left me with many choices. I think she learned that particular trait from the Major. You’re not going to be jealous again, are you, Doctor?”

“Jealous?” Julian snorts. “Of what?”

“It is possible for me to make multiple friends and still maintain all my… admiration for yourself.”

“Of course it is. I never said it wasn’t. I’ve don’t complain about your eating breakfast with Odo too often, do I? And in any case, I like Ziyal.” Julian scoops up his bottle and drains it. “I’ll have to go back to the lake sometime later today to get us more water. I guess you should probably stay here out of the cold. I really don’t want you to catch Cardassian pneumonia or anything.”

“Do try to keep in mind that this planet’s climate is barely more suited to your physiology than mine,” Garak reminds him. Julian is always pushing himself too far. “You also have broken ribs and unhealed phaser wounds form the Jem’Hadar.”

“Trust me, I know.”

At some point, Julian disappears into the other half of the ship to look through the still unexamined supplies tucked away in nooks and crannies, while Garak sits in the pilot’s chair and works on the sensor systems. The electronic signature sensor is functioning haphazardly, but at least it’s doing something. The climate reading routines are dead. Although Garak’s past taught him some useful engineering information, none of it is capable of bringing a computer back to life. He abandons them in favour of a smaller hand-held scanner found in a compartment of discarded tech. It actually turns on when he tries to access it, which is a promising sign. If only he could get it to display in some language other than Milodish, that would be excellent.

The loud cry of what comes across as a very offensive swear in Kardasi draws his attention away from his work. Not even a moment later Julian calls out to him from the other side of the pilot station door.

“I’m fine! Just ignore that!”

“Are you sure, Doctor?”

“Yes! Don’t come through the door. It’s uh- too cold in here?” He says it as if it’s a question. Julian Bashir always was a fairly terrible liar. Well, when it came to words. Actions were another matter.

An hour or two later Julian stumbles back into the room, looking rather pleased with himself. Whatever his great achievement is, however, he doesn’t care to share it. Garak notices him trying to hide his left hand from view – a vain attempt to keep Garak from seeing a thin scratch across his palm. Despite the sharp increase in his curiosity, he says nothing. Julian will tell him when he needs to.

“What’ve you been up to?” Julian asks, leaning over his shoulder to see the scanner in Garak’s lap.

“Well, several of the sensor systems are now online. All the most useless ones, I’m afraid. This scanner is functioning, though the language barrier may prove something of a hindrance in its operation.”

“Hm. I don’t suppose you speak a word or two of Milodish, do you? Not another one of your secret Obisidian Order skills?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“We could try hooking it up to this ship’s universal translator – assuming it has one that wasn’t completely destroyed in the firefight or the crash. Though I wouldn’t have the first idea of how to do that. You know, I stuck my head out the door a moment ago and it’s still bright as ever out there. The daytime lasts so long on this planet, I swear. It’s warmed up a bit, too. I’m absolutely sure an insect or something flew into my face, so maybe there is life around here after all. What do you think of that?”

A hint of a smile creeps its way onto Garak’s face. “Truly fascinating. I’m glad to learn we’re not alone down here.”

“I am, too,” Julian says earnestly, flopping down against the wall and raising his eyes to the ceiling, as if he can see past it and into the stars beyond their planet’s blue skies. “I used to find it a bit overwhelming, being on the station. There are people everywhere all the time – even with the Dominion it still feels like it’s all so crowded and loud. But now we’re here and I don’t like this either. It’s too quiet. Too lonely.”

“There are other factors,” Garak remarks. “This situation in many aspects is far from ideal.”

“Yes, but… Oh, I don’t know. I’m sorry you have to hear me talk so much. About prions and scientific discoveries and all that as well. I know you don’t care about a lot of it, so it must be annoying.”

“Quite the opposite.”

“But how can that be true? You don’t understand it.”

Garak stares at his hands, lying useless on the scanner. “It isn’t necessary for me to in order to appreciate your expertise and ideas. If I wanted quiet, I hope you could rely on me to tell you so.”

“I…” For once, Julian seems to have lost his words. “I… think we should turn off all the systems we’re not going to be using, even if they’re working. To conserve power. We don’t know how much we have left.”

Agreeing with a polite nod, Garak refocuses on his work. He is failing. What would the others say to see him now? Even the most basic principle – draw away – is one he cannot follow. He slips closer and closer instead, falling with the grace of Morn tumbling down the stairs after another day’s drinking at the bar. Worse, he knows even a vow of silence wouldn’t help. His thoughts, his movements, betray him. They have since the very first moment Garak approached Julian Bashir during his morning cup of tea, back when he could still convince himself he had a motivation beyond being lonely and seeing someone who shone, who stood out in a crowd of drab uniforms and haunted faces.

“I hope they find us some time in the next five days,” Julian says quietly, later when they’ve boarded up the door against whatever storm decides to rage tonight and Garak has switched off the last working overhead light. “Jadzia’s birthday is on the sixth. I was away for the last one, she’ll murder me if I miss another.”

“I’m sure the commander will understand. And if she insists on murdering someone, let it be me.”

“Why? What’ve you done?”

It’s such a ridiculous question to ask someone like Garak. What hasn’t he done? What terrible crime the Federation would condemn in their courts hasn’t he committed? Julian would say, but that was years ago. You’ve changed. He would grimace at Garak’s past but declare it only that – a past, left behind, contained. Perhaps Garak has changed. If he has, that change came too late. “Did you suffer a case of amnesia in the crash, Doctor? It was a former Obsidian Order agent who stole you away from Deep Space 9 in order to draw me out. In my eyes, that must constitute some amount of responsibility for failing to wish Commander Dax a timely happy birthday.”

“Oh… well, I don’t blame you for that.”

He should. Garak certainly does.

*   *   *

Garak hardly notices the next two days passing. They go unacknowledged, except for the polite good mornings and goodnights he and Julian exchange at the appropriate times, punctuating conversations about sensors and subroutines and stories from back on the station. Saying more about it would be pointing out they’ve already been waiting for too long. It would suggest the still small possibility hanging in the dark clouds on the edge of the horizon, the one neither of them wishes to face.

No one is coming.

The Garak-Bashir pines creak and groan in the night, swaying under the strain of the ceaseless wind.

*   *   *

“I think we need to strategize.”

Garak glances up from the elemental sampler he’s been working on for the past few hours to see Julian in the doorway, lugging a bucket of water fresh from the lake. He still hasn’t seen the thing. A few minutes of pottering around the outside of the ship is already difficult enough, as the cold seeps in and his body slows and refuses to function. Julian likes to go out for longer than he should to explore. He returns shivering with numb fingers and face, often carrying some interesting sample or discovery he sits examining for the next half an hour in the weak light.

“About what, exactly?” Garak asks.

“When I was at the lake, I was thinking. The Defiant could come for us tomorrow or it could come for us in two weeks.” Or maybe never, is the final option Julian doesn’t voice aloud. “And if it is going to be a while… we should be prepared. I’m worried about food most of all.”

“Yes, that is an issue.” Their supply of rations has been slowly dwindling, even with Julian and Garak having just two of the small silver sachets each day. No obvious food sources have presented themselves on the planet, and Garak isn’t too keen on the idea of relying on tree bark for nourishment.

Julian sets the bucket of water down and takes a seat beside it, resting his right wrist over the rim so his hand trails through the icy depths. His burns still bother him, days later. Garak does his very best not to look. The doctor always promises it’s not really that bad, that the burn only goes so deep and will heal up fine once they’re back on the station.

“Any update on that scanner? Is the translator working?”

“Somewhat. You should feasibly be able to put it to use.”

The doctor nods. “That’s good. I want to work out if there’s anything around here we can eat, something small the life sign scanners didn’t pick up before. I also think we should try to fix the communications.”

“The atmosphere of this planet-”

“I know, I know,” Julian interrupts. “It won’t get through the interference, even if we can fix it. But we could build something to boost the signal, right? If that doesn’t work, we could look at creating a portable communicator that can transmit from higher ground. Of course then we’d have to work out how to get up that high without freezing or passing out from how thin the air is, like I said, that’d be difficult – I just don’t like sitting around when we don’t even have a way of telling anyone we’re here.” He removes his burned hand from the water and examines it carefully, clinically, with that small frown furrowing his brow. The way he stares at the terrible injury is like how he might look at a confusing lab test result, not a wound causing him constant suffering. For someone who falls into the overdramatic for the tiniest inconvenience, when times are troubled, he becomes so detached and coolly in control.

“My dear doctor, I am at your command,” Garak tells him. “And willingly put my trust in the effectiveness of that engineering extension class of yours.”

Julian chuckles and resubmerges his hand. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Never better.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. If you need a dose of the painkillers I found the other day, tell me. I don’t know if they’ll work on Cardassians – you’re a lot different to Humans and Milodish physiologically – but it ought to do something.”

“My bruises hardly warrant medication,” he insists. “Especially compared to your own injuries.”

“Mm. I’m pretty sure at least one of my ribs isn’t setting right at all. It hurts like hell.”

“I can imagine.”

If Julian had looked bad after their escape days ago, now he appears positively corpse-like. Garak can only assume he is terrible too, but the wear and tear are so much more visible on a Human face. Julian’s skin is clean, scoured by the freezing lake water, but his face is unshaven and the circles beneath his eyes are as dark as the bruises he sustained in the crash. He pretends to sleep well at night, when in truth Garak knows the pain often keeps him awake. His body is something of a tapestry of injuries now – the burn on one hand and scratches and callouses on the other, the fading bruises staining his cheeks and the lacerations from the Jem’Hadar phaser shot still curling up around the base of his neck. The rest of him is undoubtedly the same. Marks on Julian’s body. Marks on Garak’s conscience.

“The lake was beautiful today,” Julian comments. “I wish you’d come to see it. It’s not really that far.”

“Perhaps tomorrow.” Garak knows the often spoken-of lake is well within reach. He’s become more and more used to the cold with every day that passes, the perverse chill easier to bear as his body acclimatises. But the lake… it feels like tempting fate. Playing into a prophecy like the ones he’s heard Major Kira recite under her breath sometimes when she’s walking on the Promenade. The words of Ossad, his terrible lament by the silver lake, ring in Garak’s ears. It’s entirely unreasonable – Julian’s lake just a coincidence, of course. Yet a part of him recoils at the image of the pale waters, half-frozen, lapping at a shore of snow.

The distraction of Julian’s entrance has broken his focus on the elemental sampler, the situation not helped by the way the doctor clicks his fingers on his left hand. It’s a nervous tick he never noticed before, but now he thinks about it it’s the kind of thing Julian does often. With the inhospitable climate and lack of a racquetball court, restlessness rules Julian Bashir.

“Garak, can you- could you just come over here for a moment?” Julian’s voice sounds strained.

“Of course, Doctor.” Garak gets up from the pilot’s chair he feels like he’s been sitting in for weeks and crosses the cramped space to the area that’s become Julian’s by default, the darker corner of the room where a bed of a torn-up carpet and dried pine needles lies. They’re like birds nesting in an abandoned building, building a temporary home. Garak takes a seat beside Julian against the wall. The doctor’s eyes are closed. His unburned hand reaches blindly and finds purchase on Garak’s right wrist, gripping like a vice.

“Is something the matter?” Garak asks, trying to keep his concern polite and distant.

“I’m strategizing,” Julian replies, eyes squeezing shut harder. “It’s just hard because- because the thoughts in my head won’t get in order. I can’t explain it. They’re in all the wrong places.”

Garak doesn’t understand, exactly, what role his presence plays in the success of Julian’s formulations, but he sits in silence and obedience while the doctor gets his thoughts in order. The tips of Julian’s fingers reach Garak’s bare wrist, shockingly cold. Garak is quite aware of the minutes ticking away in the tense air, though Julian does not seem to be. He often doesn’t recognise those kinds of things. Maybe because such forms of intimacy feel natural to him, while for Garak the close silence is too close, too silent. There are no spoken half-lies to cover up truth. And Garak’s discipline is not what it once was. Julian has worn away at it for too long and made a man out of the machine.

“Alright,” Julian says. “I’ve got it.”

“Got what, precisely?”

“A list.” Julian lets go and stands up, Garak regretting the break in contact the moment it’s gone. “A plan. Keep working on the sampler for now, I’ve got something to finish up that’ll make it so you can stay outside for longer. Then we should go out – to the lake I think – and try to take some scans before the sun goes down and it gets too cold.”

There is no reasonable objection. “Very well,” he replies, falsifying an exasperated sigh.

The elemental sampler whirs to life in a sudden miracle when Garak tries, as he had a hundred times before, to access it. The screen flickers with lines of incomprehensible Milodish script and the last readout it ever performed, showing the universal lettering representing mersidarinium compound. Curious. Concerning. Referred to more commonly as mersi, the chemical takes on an ironic colour in Federation standard. It’s is no ‘mercy’ to those unlucky enough to get it into their systems – it’s a drawn-out and painful death. A rare and revered poison. How a party of Milodish mercenaries got a hold of it would be a mystery if the involvement of former Obsidian Order agents such as Nela Prel was not known to him. Mersi is the kind of thing she would enjoy. For what, though? The question tugs at the back of Garak’s mind as he tests the sampler on himself. Carbon. A simpler matter that permeates the universe in all its many forms, a constant.

“Are you ready for your surprise?” Julian calls from the narrow corridor that runs through the ship, voice bright with an excitement reminiscent of when the new Julian Bashir, Secret Agent program arrives on Deep Space 9.

“I didn’t know I was to receive one.”

The door creaks open and Julian re-enters, his quick and careless step a sign he’s forgotten about the injuries to his ribs once again. For a moment Garak assumes the bundle he’s holding is more of the unkempt carpet torn from the floor in the other room, until he notices the darker colour and un-carpet-like texture.

“Okay, look, I know it’s pretty awful to look at, but for an inexperienced tailor like myself… I think it’s a pretty good effort.” Julian unfolds the furry bundle and offers it out for Garak to see. The creation is truly a monstrosity. Garak has witnessed a million crimes against fashion in his life, and usually takes delight in pointing them out on the Promenade to whatever company is around. He is an expert in the area of sorts, even if it wasn’t his first profession. And this… thing is high on his list of all-time horrors. The beast is halfway between a blanket and a jacket, though Garak wonders whether any word exists in either Federation Standard or his natural Cardassian tongue capable of aptly describing it. But it’s also the greatest gift Garak has ever received.

“Admirable work indeed, Doctor,” he remarks, reaching out to feel the material between his fingers. It’s soft and promises the warmth Garak has dreamed of for days. Julian has attached the separate parts of the article with crude stitches of rough string, the inside still the clean hide of whatever animal it was cut from.

“It’s quite avant-garde, don’t you think?” Julian says. “And it’s Milodish wild cat fur, if I’m not mistaken.”

Garak’s brow raises to the roof. “Worth a fortune, then, too. Your rather abstract style may only even add to its value. I’ve found the richest patrons tend to want the most…”

“Ugly?”

“Experimental items.”

“Hm. Well, unfortunately for them it’s not for sale. I made it for you.”

Garak exercises great care as he takes the fur jacket from Julian and slips his arms into the sort-of sleeves, finding himself enveloped in sudden warmth. He forgot that the Midolish came from a planet almost as cold as this one, where the creatures that roamed were well-adapted to surviving icy winters. The wild cat’s oversized, oddly-sewn pelt is like a wall between him and the chill, unyielding.

Outside, the darkest clouds Garak has seen yet stain the morning side of the sky, floating in the direction of the place where the sun sets between a pair of pale mountains. Another nasty storm, no doubt, one he hopes will have the decency to pass them by. The ship becomes more beaten up and broken with every natural torment that passes. Their sojourn beyond the safety of its metal walls reveals to Garak the extent of the doctor’s daily efforts. It’s surprising to see how much he’s achieved in so little time, given the unfriendly character of the landscape. Julian has shovelled the snow away from around the base of their crashed vessel, creating a defensive ditch. Broken branches have been dragged away into a pile of rubble on the hill before them. Garak can even spot symbols Julian must have scored into the trees with his phaser to mark the way to certain places. An uneven circle burned into the trunk of one ancient pine to the left leads the way to Julian’s lake.

Despite the discomfort of the cold – still painful even with the awful jacket – Garak feels quite happy to let Julian lead him on between the trees. Julian looks bright and determined again, stumbling through the snow with more joy than anyone stranded on an uninhabited planet should experience. His burned hand in wrapped in water-soaked cloth, torn from the inside layer of the much-maligned Starfleet jacket. A silver pin keeps it in place over his palm. Garak did that a few minutes ago. The moment already goes high on his list of and we shall never mention it again. He could’ve feigned illness and stayed inside, but then Julian probably would’ve felt the need to remain with him at least until the next morning. Although there are few positives to the brisk, burningly cold open, it does mean Garak can keep his distance.

Julian hums to himself – a repetitive, tasteless tune Garak seems to have heard somewhere before.

“Which song is that?”

“What?” The wind picks up and gives their conversation an undercurrent of rustling pine needles.

“The song you’re singing, Doctor,” Garak sighs, more exasperated with himself than with Julian. He can’t even keep to himself for two minutes. Julian is so eclectic and occupies every corner of reality, always drawing him in.

“Oh. It’s the happy birthday song. I guess I was thinking about Jadzia’s birthday again.”

The twinge of jealousy Garak feels is nothing short of ridiculous. Commander Dax is like Major Kira, or even Sisko, in many ways. Realistic by experience, and he respects her for that. But a pathetic and lonely part of him envies the casual and warm friendship she and Julian share. It bothers him how they so easily laugh at the way Julian used to be infatuated with her when the Federation first took over Deep Space 9. Bothers him how they can have their platonic embraces and flop on top of one another when they’re drunk and laughing like at Julian’s last birthday party, which Garak attended out politeness though he knew his presence would just make things awkward until everyone had enough glasses of Quark’s latest favourite to forget he was there.

They come up over a crest, bordered by pines on both sides, and Garak has to shield his eyes from the brightness of the light reflecting off the surface of the water. Sharp, white, shining. The lake is wide and reaches all the way to the base of a mountain in the distance, in line with the sun beginning to sink towards the edge of the horizon. He stares for a moment. Not quite silver. More white and grey and in some places iced over. The shore is devoid of bodies letting fresh blood flow into the waters. The stretch of icy pebbles is empty.

“When’s your birthday?” Julian asks unexpectedly. “You’ve never mentioned it before.”

Garak glances sideways into Julian’s curious, glittering gaze. “I am sorry to have deprived you,” he replies. “But the fact of the matter is, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know when your birthday is?”

“Cardassians are hardly renowned for their celebrations of the individual, are they?” he points out, hoping to deflect from his accidental honesty.

“I wouldn’t know. Do you mean to say you have no idea when you were born? Not even a date? What does it say on your birth certificate?”

Garak can’t help but laugh at the idea that someone like him would be in possession of a birth certificate. Invisible people don’t have their names in books, don’t have their details in writing. “Believe me, Doctor – if I could give you a date, I would.”

Julian frowns down at the scanner in his hands as he tries to input orders, shoulders hunched. “What about your… parents?” The final word sounds strange in his voice, unnatural. “Didn’t they ever tell you?”

“No.” It’s all he can say. He has no other answer he knows how to give.

“Oh.” A moment passes, punctuated only by the scanner’s chirping and the sound of the wind. Then Julian turns away a little and his fingers tighten around the device he holds. “I’m sorry.”

“My dear doctor, I can’t possibly imagine what it is you’re apologising for.” It comes out too quickly. Not a good lie at all. He’s losing his touch out here. The more he thinks about it, the more he realises he’s been losing it for years.

“It’s not fair,” Julian breaks out suddenly, digging the toe of his boot into the snow. “It’s not fair at all.”

“If you’re concerned about my lack of birthday celebrations, please, do discard that pity. I don’t believe I’ve been missing out on much.”

“Stop it, Garak,” he says. “I know you know what I mean.”

Garak does.

The lake could look quite silver, he thinks, from a certain point of view. The colours blend with the light and form a metallic shine, painfully pale. But colours are just waves. Waves. Waves of a wide body of water lapping at his ankles, tinted with red. The world is made up of waves – some perceivable and some not – and its inhabitants can only try to tread water until eventually the whirlpool drags them down and they are drowned in the emptiness of it all.

“Do you want a birthday?”

Garak wants to be home. He wants the uncomfortable chill and the slightly too bright lights and the cramped room with furniture pushed to the walls and the awful excuses for Cardassian cuisine they serve in the replimat. He wants to wake up in the morning with nothing more pressing to do than mend a dress and sell a suit or two with the anticipation of a lunch spent in good company – conversations about literature and ethics that dance around honesty, skimming stones across its elusive surface, and a smile that reaches the eyes of its owner with all the warmth and strength of a sun in its brightest hours. He wants to be able to say it. That’s what he really wants. He wants to say home, where it doesn’t mean Cardassia or even Deep Space 9 but what truly is the tether to meaning for Elim Garak, that terrible piece of thread frail as a heartstring, an artery, that ties him down. He’s come close, once or twice. His lips parted, ready to say something of worth for once in his infinitesimal existence, only for the silver tailor’s scissors raised by a foreign hand against the skin of a neck, soft and brown, to hold him back. They glint in the light, falling down with wicked force towards their victim, all because of Garak. He can catch the wrist if he tries, might manage to stop the final blow. But the hand will keep fighting, keep striking, unless he can convince it to hunt a new prey. Hunt him. He feels like the mother of Ossad when the authorities turn up on her doorstep, a sad and selfish sight as she begs please, I will take his place. I will confess. Take me, take me instead. I would be your traitor, your beast for public slaughter.

The writer knew what he was doing, when he wrote those words. There is more to Cardassian literature than Garak chooses to tell Julian, greater depths he’s sure the doctor must be cognisant of, though he never cares to bring it up. Every lament sympathetic as it is pathetic, layered in subtext the schools might rather have their students forget.

Garak keeps his laments quiet. A lament is the predilection of death.

“If you wish to assign me a birthday, I have no objection,” he says. “But absolutely no parties.”

“No,” Julian agrees. “No parties.”

They trudge down the slope to the pebble-lined shore of the lake, Garak taking care not to slip on the icy stone. As much as he wishes to keep his distance and escape the uncomfortable honest tension between them, he keeps close in case Julian falls. His tests with the elemental scanner are unsurprising, for the most part. Hydrogen. Helium. Oxygen and carbon. Most common of the impossibly small pieces making up the universe, defining existence.

“Anything interesting?” Julian asks.

He shakes his head.

“Well, that’s probably for the best. In a doctor’s world uninteresting is always the result you hope for. This scanner’s showing a few signs that could be life forms, I think, but it’s hard to pinpoint anything with the interference.” He sighs and looks out towards the lake. “Do you ever think about how we could destroy this planet? Or any planet?”

“That sounds unlikely.”

“Not physically – obviously I don’t think you and I could blow up an entire planet. But maybe there is something living down here, and we just wiped it out with all our alien bacteria or viruses. Did you know that kind of interplanetary contamination is the leading cause of pandemics in Federation space? Whatever life signs I’m picking up on this scanner, they could all be dead by tomorrow.”

“I do believe you’ve found the core tenants of the universe, there, Doctor. Uncertainty and unpredictability. Risk.”

Julian slides down onto the snowy bank, the sudden weight of his philosophical musings apparently too heavy to bear standing up. The scanner falls into his lap, discarded. Like the tidal waves of the lake flowing in and out, Garak sees his mood begin to slip back into glumness. Garak never seems to see it coming, the swings in emotion. He watches as Julian picks up a handful of the pale snow around him and packs it into a sphere between his palms.

“What are you doing now?” Garak asks, unable to hold his curiosity when Julian sets the first sphere down, scoops more snow into his hands and begins to make another.

“Making snowballs. I haven’t been in real snow since I was a child.”

“I see.” He doesn’t, really – perhaps it’s some piece of general knowledge denied to those from desert planets like he is, but the snowballs seem rather pointless. Julian is determined in his craft, however, and soon has a pile of three with a fourth in progress. “I would be interested to understand the use of these… uh, snowballs,” he remarks.

Julian pauses and looks up at him with a very serious expression on his face. “You wouldn’t like it.”

“An unjustified assumption, I’m sure.”

“Alright. But I did warn you.” With shocking speed and accuracy, he picks up one of the snowballs and throws it right at Garak. The sphere strikes him in the middle of the chest, crumbling against the fur of his makeshift jacket. Garak stares at the slightly damp place where the snowball hit. It takes longer than it should for him to replace the uncharacteristic dumbfounded expression he wears with the fair indignation of a man under surprise attack.

“Now, what was that about?”

“You asked me to show you what they were used for. I told you that you weren’t going to like it.”

“Is this some kind of ancient Human strategy of war? Throwing ineffective balls of snow at the enemy?”

Julian rolls his eyes and stands up, resuming his use of the scanner with an air of exasperation. “It’s a children’s game, Garak. For fun.”

That seems dubious. Garak walks over to where the remainder of Julian’s weapons of adolescent war lie and picks one up. It’s cold. “I can’t say I see the appeal,” he says, turning the thing over in his hand. “Though…” He takes aim and fires. The snowball smashes to pieces against the side of Julian’s head, leaving specks of white snow all over his eyelashes and shoulders. “Perhaps I spoke too soon.”

“What the hell was that for?” Julian cries, reeling back and coming close to toppling himself in surprise.

“Have I broken one of the rules of the game, Doctor? I do apologise.”

“Oh, you’re in for it now!”

The battle, it seems, has begun. Garak finds himself with the advantage of the two other snowballs Julian created, but in the time it takes for him to pick them up the doctor dashes behind the cover of the old, deeply rooted pine trees. Thick, dark trunks of worn wood hide him from view. Garak’s senses seem to heighten, focus narrowing despite the distraction of the cold wind and the lapping of the waves on the lake shore. Julian has unmatchable aim when it comes to projectiles – it’s the very essence of his chosen sports, after all, but Garak has the ruthlessness. And the determination. He’s survived assassination attempts. Warzones. He can win this.

The breeze buffets him on towards the trees as he creeps across the snow, watching carefully for any sign of movement. Any flicker of unnatural, youthful vividness against the paling colours of the alpine environment. Julian will have the light of the setting sun shining into his eyes. Another advantage he’d be wise to use.

No part of Julian reveals itself from behind the tree, leaving Garak only the impression of the doctor’s presence rather than the certain knowledge of it. It’s a very specific awareness, one he’s not sure he could pinpoint so exactly with any other person. He knows Julian’s energy too well. He feels it from far away, through wind and snow and air that’s just not quite thick enough to be comfortable. The snowball is starting to melt in his hand.

Decisive action is always a good strategy, in Garak’s opinion. Not something they teach enough of at Starfleet academy. He bounds up the bank in three long strides and rounds the tree with his projectile raised. Surprisingly – or perhaps it should’ve been unsurprising since everything Julian does is some kind of unexpected – the space is empty. He recognises his mistake too late. A cold blow hits him right in the back of the head, hurting more than he would’ve imagined possible for a lump of snow. When he turns, Julian stands triumphant a few metres away.

“Never underestimate a master of stealth,” Julian declares, running a hand through his snow-dusted dark hair. “Did you know I won our dorm’s hide and go seek gang-up tag tournament two years in a row? Though, uh, the first time was more of a my existence being forgotten kind of thing. Still, it counts!”

“One of your many crowning achievements, I’m sure. But I believe there’s something of a flaw in your plan.”

“Which is?”

Garak holds up his remaining snowballs. “You’ve expended your ammunition, Doctor, while I find myself fully equipped to strike back.”

Julian freezes, a vole caught in the scope of a pest controller’s phaser. Tense. Then he does something no half-intelligent vole would ever do, and charges. It takes Garak so completely aback the thought of using his icy weapons doesn’t even occur before they’re knocked from his hands. Julian barrels into him with the weight of his entire body, tackling Garak around the middle. The snow comes up to meet Garak instead – a freezing, damp bed he falls into, shockingly cold. Air is knocked from his lungs. The doctor hovers just above, propped up on Garak’s chest with a pained grin of satisfaction. It seems to have taken far more of a toll on him than it has on his victim. An understandable result given the existence of Julian’s broken ribs and numerous other injuries.

“That,” Garak says, struggling to regain his breath, “hardly seems like it would comply with rules.”

Julian’s weight disappears as he rolls off onto the snow beside Garak, still smiling despite the obvious agony. His burned hand, wrapped in the uniform-born bandages, rests against his side where the offending rib bones lie. The other reaches to brush snow off Garak’s face, almost apologetically.  “Different game,” he replies, not so loud now there’s no need to shout over the wind.

“Another horror of your Human childhood, I assume?”

“British bulldog. An awful thing – schools have been banning it for centuries. It’s amazing how children end up with broken bones if you let them throw each other onto hard surfaces all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever managed to tackle someone before.”

Garak snorts, more fond than anything else. “Be grateful this cold dulled my senses enough for you to do so.”

“Ah, of course. As if the great Elim Garak could be defeated by anyone without the help of nature itself.”

He always wonders where Julian learned his given name. Not that it would’ve been hard to figure out if the doctor really tried – he could’ve asked the Constable or even Quark, two people guaranteed to know that sort of thing. But it was always Garak and Doctor between them, which worked well enough. Julian is a word restricted to Garak’s mind, an internally repeated turn of phrase he never speaks aloud. It would be a change to address the doctor by his first name, and changes of that kind are things Garak tries to avoid. Especially when it comes to Julian. But now that change is inevitable once, if, they make it back to Deep Space 9. He may as well try to be at peace with it.

Who told you my name was Elim? The question perches at the edge of perception, meaning so much more. Who is Elim Garak, in the world of Julian Bashir? How much of a gaping wound will he leave behind in the world when he’s gone?

“Didn’t we come out here to do something important?” Julian asks.

“Hm.”

The snow is deeply uncomfortable. Garak’s body already feels slower, the pervasive cold sinking him further and further into exhausted weakness. He does hate the cold. It never stops biting. He sits up. The stitching on the left sleeve of the fur jacket Julian haphazardly made for him is coming loose.

“Oh, look,” Julian says in a sudden hushed tone. “Garak, look at that.”

He sees what the doctor means right away. The creature appears in a low bough of the nearest pine, a few metres above their heads. Small. Inquisitive. Garak supposes it looks mammalian, with its thick coating of dark fur and mouse-like appearance. It’s about the size of two fists put together, almost unnoticeable. His hand moves towards the phaser digging into his hip, feeling the metal with fingers numb from the bitter chill.

“No, don’t,” Julian orders gently. “Leave it be. We’re not starving yet.”

Being reasonable, being wise, Garak knows his instinct is right. But he’s learned to appreciate Julian’s tendency to self-sacrifice for even the smallest cause. It’s a very earnest, very sentimental trait years on Deep Space 9 still haven’t managed to tear away from the doctor’s character. The creature peers at them from above for a few moments more before disappearing back into the foliage.

“If it wasn’t prepared to be hunted, it shouldn’t have made itself such easy prey,” Garak complains.

“It didn’t know any better. There’s probably nothing big enough to hunt it around here. It’s never faced the threat of another species before.” Julian stands up wearing a weary expression. When he offers out his unburned hand to help his former tackling victim up, Garak finds himself taking it without hesitation. At least the overwhelming numbness exists to dull a little of the gesture’s meaning.

They recover the technology they discarded during their game, take a few more scans. Julian tries to trace the mammalian animal they saw to unsatisfying results. Garak tests the water, the soil. The last of the day’s minimal warmth is beginning to fade away with the light of the sun, the sun now falling behind the mountain on the other side of the lake. It casts a golden glow over the waters. Over the whole world. Julian stops and stares out at it for a long while, until Garak brings him back to the physical plane with a polite tap on the shoulder. The ship is waiting for them. A necessary entrapment to survive this planet’s stormy, freezing nights.

“You know, thanks for putting up with me, Garak,” Julian murmurs, turning away from the light.

Garak hates to hear that. It angers him for reasons he can’t describe – he isn’t frustrated with Julian, but with something else, distant and barely tangible. “Not at all, Doctor,” is all he can find the words to say.

*   *   *

Back in the ship, Julian divides the ever-dwindling pile of rations between them with a forlorn look on his face. The silver sachets of foul mush have become one of the few constants in their lives over the past days. Garak has taken to tearing them open carefully and stacking them up into neat piles in the corner of the room. Julian was right. He does miss the replimat food now. At least it tasted of something.

“It really is a problem, isn’t it?” Julian says, repeating his sentiment from that morning. His eyes are fixed on what remains of the rations, uncertain. Garak can tell he’s starting to second-guess himself, doubting his decision to let the creature they saw live.

A distant rumble draws both of their attention before Garak gets the chance to reply. A roaring, crashing sound. For a few moments, he fears an earthquake or an avalanche. But then the thunderous noise subsides, leaving them in silence.

“What was that?” Julian asks in a hushed whisper.

“Perhaps something for tomorrow morning,” he suggests. “Doctor, I do hope you’re not considering going to investigate at this hour.” Unspoken is, with all this cold and darkness, you probably wouldn’t survive. Besides, the commotion sounded far off, and they’re still yet to explore beyond the surrounding valley and lake. Going further this late at night would be an act of potential suicide.

“No, you’re right,” the doctor sighs, lowering himself back into a slumped position. The light from one of the ship’s panels shines from behind him. A circle of golden glow that obscures his expression, makes him a silhouette. He sits so still, as if caught between two states of being, a statue made by a sculptor with no idea of what his end product would be.

“Do you have something to say?” Garak prompts. The space between them seems too wide.

“Oh, nothing.”

When Julian turns, Garak thinks he catches sight of what might be a tear, a place on the bruised, smooth brown skin that shines a little in the light. Like the lake set on fire by sunset from before. He has no premeditated response. No soothing words that Julian would like to hear. The taste of the ration he ate is still bitter on his tongue. He tries swallowing a few mouthfuls of the filtered lake water, but nothing seems to take it away.

*   *   *

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Quite sure.”

“How sure is quite sure?”

Garak gives Julian a withering look. “Would you like to lead the way, Doctor?”

“No, no, go ahead.”

They’ve been walking for over an hour now, following the guidance of the scanner picking up a strong electromagnetic signal somewhere to the east, a wave of bizarre radiation that wasn’t there the day before. Likely the aftermath of whatever mysterious event took place on the other side of the valley last night, the one that caused those awful quaking sounds. Some kind of tectonic incident, maybe, or even a sign of civilisation on this forsaken planet. It was a hard climb up the hill out of the valley, though worth it just for the view of the surrounding area they were rewarded with near the top. When Garak glances over his shoulder, he can see the whole of the lowland – patches of dark pine forests, plateaus and stretches of flat pale grass, and in the middle of it all the wide lake the shines white where it reflects the sky. Their crash site is just visible. Looking back down, they haven’t made much progress at all. It would take days and days just to ascend the smallest mountain. A journey Garak can’t imagine either he or Julian would survive.

Both of them are already starving, already dying. Behind the shield of optimistic determination, more faded today than ever before, Julian’s face is marred with his exhaustion and pain. Disillusionment has wracked his tired frame for half a day now, longer than Garak would ever expect or feel comfortable to see in the doctor. There’s certainly no bounce in his step now. His feet drag as he trudges through snow up the hill, teeth chattering.

“We ought to be getting close,” Garak says. “Though I wouldn’t even trust in the ability of this device to do the washing up in Quark’s bar.”

“No, I can’t see how a signature scanner would be at all good at doing that,” Julian mutters. “Still no idea what it might be?”

“Something rather large, if it shows up on the radar through all this terrible interference.”

“Well, if we don’t find whatever it is within the next hour, I’m turning around and going home.”

Home. That’s a funny word to use. Humans, he’s noticed, have an odd tendency to take any current place of rest as ‘home’ – home is their hotel room, their camping tent, their crashed ship half-buried in the snowy surface of an uninhabited planet. It used to bother him, the way they used words so fluidly, without much awareness of specific meaning or implication. It used to make him look down upon humanity for its imprecision. Its inconsistency.

“What is that smell?” Julian asks as they come over a ridge, craning his neck.

Garak can taste it in the air too. Awfully bitter, like something foul burning. He checks the scanner again, looking through the readings in search of an answer. The signal they’ve been chasing only grows stronger.

“Oh my God.” Julian’s voice falls suddenly. “Oh God, Garak, I know what that is.” He adjusts the strap of his bag and dashes off down the snowy slope towards the nearest wall of trees. Rising above the sharp points of the pines somewhere distant is a column of dark smoke, being carried through the winds towards them.

“Doctor, please!” he calls as Julian stumbles away into the forest, evidently forgetting the need for care in an unfamiliar environment. The doctor seems to have deduced something about the situation he hasn’t, something dragging him on further down the hill. Garak isn’t as quick on his feet as he is, and with all the horror of the cold, his agility is more lacking than it’s ever been. Soon enough Julian is out of sight, only his footprints remaining to lead Garak on through the forest. The terrible burning smell gets stronger and stronger. It really doesn’t seem like a good sign at all. His sense of anxiety only grows when the smoke becomes visible – a dark, suffocating cloud of burning chemical that sears the back of his throat when he breathes. The trees part, some of them snapped in two and lying sideways under a fresh coating of snow, opening up into a bright, wide clearing.

Garak covers his mouth with his sleeve, trying to avoid the smog. It’s so thick and terrible to taste and he can’t even see Julian, can only see the slowly burning wreckage in the centre of it all.

A ship. It’s a ship. And unlike their own, it did not have such a fortunate landing. The metal hulk is ablaze somewhere, must’ve been for some time, sending its foul waves of smoke out over the untouched landscape. Through the smoke, it’s difficult to tell the make or affiliation, though Garak does have a strange sense he’s seen a vessel of its like before. The pollution the fire exudes is poison itself, a promise of certain death or brain damage if inhaled for too long. And the doctor is out there in it somewhere, choking the life out of himself in the destructive storm. Of course he is. He always is. He never knows when to accept the helplessness of a situation. When has Doctor Julian Bashir ever chosen to stand by while the fire rages?

Garak uncovers his mouth, immediately tasting the smog again. “Julian!” His cry barely cracks through the roar. The doctor’s given name hovers in the swirling cloud of smoky air, a sudden change brought about by necessity and fear. After all this, for Julian to die suffocated on a heroic fool’s errand. This ship has been on fire for hours and hours. If any of its crew remained inside upon their crash the night before, they are long past even his professional help. “Julian!”

He looks down. A bag lies abandoned at his feet. The trail of footprints – marks in the shape of Federation boots cutting through snow to the dirt beneath – leads to the wreckage. As he struggles closer, the ship begins to reveal itself. Silver bulkhead, torn open. Worn letters reading Valkyrie down the side in Federation standard. He doesn’t recognise the word, but he recognises the ship. Starfleet. Not dissimilar from the runabouts they have on Deep Space 9. Small, fragile things made for survey and transport, not for battle. As he reaches the ruined outer wall of the ship, he begins to see the signs of an attack torn into the metal. A nasty feeling reaches his stomach. There are few answers to the question of who might be responsible for this damage, for the destruction of such a ship above an irrelevant planet where a Starfleet officer just happens to have been marooned.

He feels his way inside the bulkhead, blinking rapidly in a feeble attempt to stop his eyes from stinging. It’s lucky he knows his way around these little vessels, can guess the path Julian has taken. He’s not sure he can stay conscious for more than a minute or two of breathing this poison. Who knows how long Julian has already been filling his lungs with it? Julian Bashir. That idiot, idiot doctor.

His vague hopes that the front of the ship, away from the source of the fire, would be any better were evidently unfounded. It’s anything, it’s worse. He sees Julian first, the body second. The doctor is crouched by it, beside the pilot’s chair. A Starfleet officer in gold – a young man, run out of luck. Julian’s hacking coughs punctuate the roar of the ship on fire, the ceaseless whine of a thousand warnings that have been sounding for long after anyone remained to hear them.

Garak grips Julian’s shoulder, attempts to drag him away from the dead man. “Doctor,” is all he manages, before it becomes too hard to speak. He takes Julian under the arms, helping him back up.

“Wait,” Julian chokes out, pulling away. He falls against the nearest control pad, desperately entering commands while his body convulses with more coughs. A light flashes. “This is Julian Bashir, Deep Space 9. Is there anyone out there? I repeat, Julian Bashir. Please, if you’re hearing this-” He devolves into hoarse gasps for air. Their time is running out.

A pause. The communications crackle to life.

“Julian?”

The voice is so oddly familiar, even with the distortion masking it.

“Julian, we hear you. Hold on tight, we’re trying to-” The transmission cuts off like a guillotine dropping. Julian slumps forward over the pilot controls, slipping down in a rag-doll fashion that cuts right into the most primitive, terrified corner of Garak’s mind. The smoke must be getting to his brain now, with the way the world fades and darkens at the edges, makes him feel so distant from it all. He’s so detached that the weight of Julian’s body isn’t even noticeable as he drags him from the ship. A thousand questions permeate – the ship, the voice, the sense of impending doom that comes with the way that communication broke so suddenly. Not just interference. Intention.

Halfway to the trees, Garak’s arms give out and Julian’s unconscious body slides from his grasp into the snow. Smog-stained warm skin against the freezing white of this awful world, a figure far too still for comfort. He falls to his knees beside Julian, wondering where the doctor’s bag went, where home has gone.

“I do warn you about- about trying to play the hero, Doctor,” he says, each word burning in his throat. Julian lies there without the ability to respond. He looks around. A rather silly, sentimental side of his hopes to see Commander Dax miraculously standing there, ready to finish the sentence she was cut off from completing in her transmission. It was the commander, he’s certain of it, though her voice was so difficult to hear with lack of clarity in the message. But there is only the swarm of dark smoke still pouring from the ship, burning up the chemicals it used to run on, and trees turning black from the exhaust. Where has his strength gone? Into what galactic void did those years of intense training dissipate into, to be forgotten forever? His fingers feel numb again. The mountains around are caving in, pointing in shame, converging to swallow the world as their retribution.

How ridiculous.

Somewhere behind him, part of the ship’s bulkhead creaks and collapses in another violent groan. Garak looks back to Julian, whose chest rises and falls in weak, uncertain jolts. He wishes he paid more attention to those medical rants the doctor used to espouse on their walks along the Promenade, taken that first aid course that was always being recommended. Perhaps he would know what to do. He had never been in the business of saving lives, not until very recently. The ash is beginning to settle on his skin too and in his lungs, and on his tongue and in his eyes, and the silver lake seems so far away.

He takes a deep breath, sucking in more of the polluted air

“I’ll return in just a moment,” he promises, even though Julian can’t hear him. The sleeve of his fur jacket is soft against his mouth as he struggles back towards the ship, scanning the ground. Through the smog his eyes find Julian’s bag, bearing the symbol of the Milodish mercenaries to whom it once belonged, half-buried in snow. It’s the lesser of two weights dragging down on his shoulders when he finally makes it back up the bank under the cover of the pines. Every few steps he has to stop to recover, and to check that his unconscious companion’s heart is still beating. He reaches up to place his hand against Julian’s back, feeling for the frail pitter-patter of life struggling on within. It takes more strength than Garak knew he had in him to keep the doctor slung over his shoulder, when the force of gravity is fighting so hard to force them down into the cold. The trees stand around as silent watchers, seeming to mock them.

There is no way, he realises, that he can carry Julian all the way back up and over the ridge and down into the valley on his own. Until the doctor awakens, they’re trapped in this smoke-scented basin with its wall of mountains, and only the vague hope of a rescue by their friends from Deep Space 9 on their side. He finds himself doubting whether the voice was really Commander Dax’s at all. The way it cut off so suddenly – a pair of tailor’s scissors slicing through thread. But who was holding the scissors? He looks up at the sky like he might just see a space battle raging. All of it is grey. Deep, dark, endless grey. His shoulders and back ache from the strain of keeping Julian suspended. He turns his feet north and begins to walk again.

*   *   *

They had been in their ship, their odd temporary home they had expanded upon as the days passed. Julian seemed to have a genuine spark about him, now that his ‘strategizing’ was completed. They had the scanner, the elemental sampler. A journey to the lake before them. Seeing the bright strength in Julian’s eyes, Garak had felt, for the first time in a while, a sense of optimism. The answers were out there somewhere, in the snow. Just waiting to be found.

“Garak, can you help me with this?” Julian asked. His right hand was loosely wrapped in dark fabric, apparently ripped from the inside layer on his uniform. In his other, he held the silver pin. “I just need a hand fastening it.”

Garak hesitated. There was really no reason to, but he did. His gaze held with Julian’s for a few strange moments where their eyes seemed to exchange messages even he couldn’t quite understand. As if on the precipice, like other occasions he remembered from before. “Of course, Doctor. Do come here.”

He took Julian’s hand so carefully in his own, holding it with the delicacy he would an irreplaceable historical artefact or a priceless piece of jewellery, like it was worth the world. It was the first time he saw the burns up close. Despite the speed of his efforts to stop Julian before he touched the shield, it’d got him badly. A few days of ice-water baths had helped, kept it from becoming infected or foul, but the blistering was still terrible enough to make Garak feel nauseous. It wasn’t so much the thing itself – Garak had seen far worse injuries in his life, had inflicted them with his own hand – but the reason it was there. Supporting Julian’s wrist, he took the silver pin and used it to fix the cloth together over the injured palm. The surface of the skin was too hot, even for a Human, burning up despite the coolness of the water-soaked fabric. Garak felt the whispers of warm breath against his cheek.

Strange thoughts kept occurring in that moment, unrelated to the task at hand. Standing by Julian on the upper level of the Promenade, by the window, where quiet people often gathered to watch the wormhole now that Jake Sisko and his Ferengi friend Nog had grown up and stopped noisily haunting that place with their juvenile games. In the snapshot, it was rather late at night, and their faces were reflected in the glass as they looked out into the emptiness beyond. Julian wasn’t talking, for once. His eyes were filled with a silent contemplation Garak did not quite understand.

He remembered, just a few days before, being in his shop waiting for the Defiant’s return, reading that Earth novel of Julian’s, Brideshead Revisited – ‘Sebastian’s eyes on the leaves above him, mine on his profile’ – a moment oddly fixed in his mind. Even more bizarrely, a picture of Major Kira on a dark-hearted day in Quark’s bar some months ago, Commander Dax approaching and offering a gesture of comfort in the way she squeezed the Major’s hand and sadly smiled. It seemed to be such an easy thing between them in that shadowed pause, Garak watching the moment over his meal with Julian from the other side of the room. Julian had turned to see what he was looking at.

“Poor Nerys,” he sighed. “Did you hear? Her second cousin died in an accident. They hadn’t really spoken in years, according to Jadzia, but he was just about the last blood relation she had left.”

“Most unfortunate,” Garak agreed. He let the conversation lie there. Any more and it would’ve turned to the occupation of Bajor, to the acts of his fellow Cardassians that hung always above life on Deep Space 9, and there was nothing Garak could say on that subject at all worth hearing these days. He’d grown tired over the years of spitting his incensing non-opinions where they no longer brought entertainment. In a way, it’d been an act of isolation, an attempt to force a divide. So then, at that moment, there was nothing to say. Or perhaps there was, but he didn’t know how it could be said. Not without a thousand layers of lies and distractions, to keep up the professional façade he had gracelessly survived under for decades.

And then in their shipwreck, on their planet, chilled by the icy air, Garak let go of Julian’s hand with reluctance and relief. He felt the tension break. He quelled the words flickering in the back of his mind, those unvoiced phrases forbidden from use by the strange game he and Julian played.

The interaction happens again in his mind, though none of the details are quite right, and the whole scene seems eerie and unnatural. The images are unclear – Julian’s face is blurred and jumps around, while the world behind him swirls, never remains stationary. Then he lets the doctor go, walks out the door of the ship and right onto the Promenade of Deep Space 9. It’s like it used to be before the Federation arrived, in the period where the Cardassians were laying waste to the station that’d once been their power and pride, and down on Bajor they were killing without discrimination, destroying, trying to tear the last laugh from the throats of the people they had beaten and enslaved for decades. The corners are full of shadows, the lights dead, the air filled with wisps of smoke.

It’s abandoned. Not even a single Bajoran worker or Cardassian soldier. He turns around looking for Julian, but the doctor is nowhere to be seen. He was there just a moment ago, Garak is sure of it. He can still feel the warmth of Julian’s hand in his own, the soft flutter of Julian’s pulse where the blood flowed through his wrist, carrying his heartbeat.

A rough, strained breath to his right draws his attention and he notices a body lying on the floor. Black, ornate armour, the silver badge of a gul pinned to the breast. In the pale light he sees a thin face with dark eyes, wearing a cruel, smug smile he recognises. Garak reaches for his phaser, but it isn’t there.

“Dukat,” he says.

His old enemy laughs. Although it’s impossible to see where the fallen Cardassian hero is injured, Garak can tell he is dying. Concerning is the fact Dukat doesn’t even look sorry about it. It’s as if he still believes that he’s won.

“Ah, Garak.” He coughs and chokes upon his own blood. “You’re too late, you know.”

“Late for what, exactly?” Garak asks, his own voice sounding distant and detached from his body.

Dukat smiles wider. His sneer strikes something small and cowering inside of Garak – a vole quivering at an uncertain prospect, afraid. “Well, I do hope it was worth it.”

Garak backs away from the dying body, watching as the last of its life drains away. There is no satisfaction in Dukat’s death. You’re too late, you know. Well, I do hope it was worth it. He knows what he’ll see at the end of the Promenade if he looks. How he knows, he can’t say. He can’t say anything at all – his throat feels closed over, burning, his eyes sting, his heart beats too fast. Caught between facing it and running, he just stands still. The number of bodies is increasing; they hang over the balustrades, slump down the stairs, sit at the tables lining the hall.

“Come, now,” he murmurs to himself. “This is not remotely real. Stop behaving like a child crawling into its parent’s bed after a nightmare. Really, Elim, calm down. It’s not at all becoming of someone of your profession. None of this is real at all.” But it could be. It could be and that is unbearable – what Garak sees is his failure, the result of his being a spy, not a bodyguard, and somewhere on the Promenade the slim, once lively form of his only true friend lies. It lies in a cell, in a deserted Deep Space 9 corridor, in Garak’s quarters or his own, in the Infirmary, Ops, the replimat. On a long-forgotten planet, uninhabited, covered with snow. It’s the dust of a destroyed spaceship, floating through nothingness. He is afraid to look down. The walls are collapsing in on him, suffocating him.

Garak opens his eyes.

*   *   *

To call it a cave would be being generous. It’s more of an indent in the cliff face, really – a concave cut-out that tucks them out of the way of the wind, though only just. Garak leans against the cold stone wall, slipping in and out of clear consciousness, in an out of dreams. Not much question as to why. If inhalation of toxic chemical smoke wasn’t enough, he hasn’t eaten in far too long. Skipping breakfast that morning had seemed like a wise decision at the time. Preserving resources for Julian, where Garak could survive without. Now he’s very much feeling the effects. There are a few rations in Julian’s bag, but he can’t bring himself to even look at them while the doctor lies unaware on the ground just a metre away. He did allow himself a sip of water, to ease the burning in his throat. The rest must be left for his unconscious friend, whose thin wrist he holds delicately between his fingers so Garak always knows that the heart within is still beating.

The tendrils of his half-memory, half-dream curl around like twisting vines, like poison ivy. He remembers Julian telling him once about a time young Molly got into Mrs O’Brien’s greenhouse and decided to roll around in a patch of that particular plant, resulting in some nasty rashes. The tips of the figurative vines feel like they’re pushing their way down his swollen throat, making it even harder for him to breathe. Julian has been stirring for half an hour or so, but every breath he takes is still so weak. Garak is not sure what his plan will be if the doctor doesn’t wake up. Night is beginning to threaten them. He’s already so intolerably cold.

Garak feels disgusted. The loathing overwhelms, encompasses.

Julian twitches again, eyelids fluttering ever so slightly.

“Doctor,” Garak murmurs, giving his wrist a squeeze. “Now would be a useful time to reawaken, if it suits you.” He does sound terrible, as if he hasn’t had a drink of water in days. Perhaps that is the equivalent to swallowing as much of that awful smog as he did. What worries him is the fact that Julian managed to breathe in so much more.

“…Garak?” The doctor’s voice is grinding pieces of gravel beneath the heel of a boot. When Julian’s eyes ease open, they’re red and painful looking, seeming not to focus on the world before them. He sees Julian try to lift his head and shoulders off the ground and quickly eases him back down.

“I would avoid doing that if I were you, my dear doctor,” he says. “You’ve given me quite the scare.”

“Sorry.” Julian closes his eyes again, a grimace forming on his face. “What… happened, exactly?” His expression suddenly springs into anxiety. “Garak, the ship! Jadzia-”

“Commander Dax’s transmission was cut off rather abruptly, I fear. No doubt the result of some kind of intentional interference.” He reaches for the bag and takes out their flask of icy lake water. Not trusting Julian to do it for himself, Garak lifts him up and sits him against Garak’s knee to drink. Julian is barely awake, barely capable of lifting a finger. He tips the flask and helps the doctor to take a few sips. His hand comes away from holding Julian’s chin in place with a thin coating of soot.

“Where? What time?” Julian asks, single words making up for sentences too long and difficult to say.

“I could hardly carry you all the way back to our ship. We’re at the base of one of those mountains, out of the weather. As for the time, I can’t say with certainty. An hour or so of daylight left, perhaps.”

For a few moments, Julian is silent. “We should’ve gone last night. We could’ve saved that officer.”

Somewhere too close for comfort, the wind wails louder, the sky and earth rumble and strain. Yet another storm. A certain helplessness feels like it’s descending upon them.

Garak lifts Julian up into a proper sitting position against the wall of the cave. “We oughtn’t have come at all,” he replies, turning away.

“But at least now Dax and the others know we’re here,” Julian points out. “It won’t… it won’t be long now.”

“Is that so? Did it occur to you, Doctor, before you brazenly swung into action and sent out that transmission – nearly killing yourself in the process, I might add – that our enemies would learn our location too?”

The strength of Julian’s gaze bears into the back of his head. “And which enemies are those again? The Obsidian Order? The Dominion? Some other old acquaintance of yours you’ve never cared to mention? If you could’ve just explained for once what’s going on, maybe my silly little Human brain would’ve known better.”

He says nothing.

“You don’t know, do you?” Julian says, disbelieving, his sore throat forgotten. “You don’t even know what threat it is you think you’re protecting me from. That is what you’re doing, right? That’s why you won’t even look at my hand. Just because I got hurt, just because we’re probably going to have to be stuck out here in the cold for one night… that doesn’t mean all hope is lost and it’s time to pull out some of your depressing Cardassian philosophy. We’ve been through this so many times before, Garak. You can’t give up whenever things get tough!”

Garak laughs coldly. “You don’t know just how tough things can get. Of course, I can see how you might forget it, with your lovely Earth life, your perfect career where your greatest complaint is how you were only second best in your class. I was beginning to believe that you knew how to make those hard decisions they allegedly teach you about in Starfleet, but now I’m wondering whether I was wrong.”

“Is that really what you think about me?” Julian sounds beyond frustrated now. His rasping voice carries layers of bitter hurt. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know what it’s like to grow up being in the Obsidian Order – I don’t. But at least you could’ve walked away. I’m sure there would’ve been consequences, but you had a choice. Not all of us had the privilege of having outside problems, instead of ones that would follow wherever we went.”

“Am I supposed to pity you? Am I supposed to feel sorry for whatever minor trials of the soul you’ve been through?”

“You have no idea what I’ve been through!” Julian yells, as close to yelling as he can really come in his state. His demeanour suddenly falls, tension slipping from his shoulders. He shakes his head. “No idea…” Garak stays still, unsure, as Julian sits forward and lets his unburned hand fall onto Garak’s knee. An odd gesture. “We don’t tell each other things,” he says quietly. “Never with words. And I’m… not angry about it. Any of it. But sometimes I wish…”

Garak forces himself to meet Julian’s eyes. They’re on the precipice again, the proverbial cliff-edge. The last of his detached levity has abandoned him, giving way to confusion. “What is it that you wish, Doctor?” He knows that Julian is far too close, beyond the bounds of the justifiable, but his curiosity is creeping out to suffocate his fear.

Wincing in pain, Julian shuffles closer over the damp ground – lined, Garak notices, with a soft green moss that he’d somehow failed to see before – until his face is only centimetres from Garak’s own. The fingertips of his injured hand reach up to trace the line of Garak’s jaw, shaking slightly from the cold or perhaps something else, something undefinable caught between the known and the uncertain that has threaded through their years of friendship. Garak stays perfectly still, replicating the statues of Cardassia’s capital city that stand resolutely in defiant obedience. He doesn’t have words. He never does, when it matters.

“What did you think of Brideshead Revisited?” Julian asks, a searching look in his eyes. The question appears out of nowhere, to many would seem strange and irrelevant. Garak understands.

“I’m sorry to say I never got around to picking it up.”

Julian smiles. “Liar.”

Given that Garak referenced the novel himself just the other day, it was never going to be very convincing. “What if,” Garak says quietly, “I said I thought it was saccharine and… sentimental?”

“Well, then I’d said you clearly hadn’t read the whole thing, or you’d know it ends up getting pretty miserable and cynical pretty quickly. That’s what the title of the first part means – et in arcadia ego.”

He remembers that phrase, remembers seeing its confusing translation into his own language. “‘And in Arcadia, I’?

“Even in Arcadia, I am,” Julian corrects. “It’s Latin. It means that even in a sort of paradise, death and ill fortune exist. That there’s a dark truth to every idyllic appearance.”

“Perhaps such a concept would have been better conveyed if the author had taken more time to explore it rather than focussing on his unbearably lyrical and overdone prose.”

“I suppose you’d prefer the cold, hard simplicity of Cardassian moral writings, then,” Julian suggests with a small, light-hearted laugh that brings back some of the shine in his gaze.

“Not at all,” he replies. “But… I can hold a certain appreciation for getting to the point.”

Julian raises an eyebrow. “Really? And here I was thinking you were the patient one.”

“In most respects, I am. But there is a point when one tires of waiting.”

The doctor’s fingers pause high on Garak’s cheek, faint touches of warmth in the cold and forbidding environment. With the sunlight outside beginning to fade, the once sharp edges of Julian’s fading face are blending into the shadows, making the whole scene seem even more like a dream. Perhaps it is. Perhaps this is simply another symptom of Garak’s weak and desperate and toxin-addled mind, clinging to impossibilities, selfish in its imaginings. But looking up at Julian, into the eyes revealing a transcendent glow, he can’t bring himself to push it away.

“Do you actually mean that, I wonder,” Julian says.

The fork in the road. He still doesn’t know which path he plans to choose until he’s already taking his first footsteps down the way. “My dear doctor, I never say anything I don’t mean.”

Julian smiles a little wider. He looks too happy for this place, for the week of bruises, burns and breaks that wear away at him. The smoke soaked into his skin and clothes, the dark circles beneath his eyes – it’s all secondary to Julian’s beauty, which is as enchanting and unbearable as it ever was. From the first moment they met, Garak never knew how to resist it, never knew how to stay away when the offer of that company was so close. He was a fool. He’s being a fool now, betraying the one promise to himself he still thought he could keep.

He doesn’t get a chance to regret the admission in his words before Julian is kissing him. The doctor falls further into Garak’s space, blocking out the light coming from the entrance to the cave as he settles on Garak’s outstretched legs, almost in his lap. One hand clutches more desperately at his cheek, the other coming to rest at the base of his neck. The sudden warmth is shocking in itself, but none of it compares to the staggering totality of the act itself.

Garak had imagined it many times before. It would be dishonest to suggest it wasn’t one of his first thoughts about the then young lieutenant Julian Bashir, who exuded all of the naïve appeal and infatuation of someone not even aware of his own attractions, someone who would run right to his exasperated acquaintances wondering aloud, why me? Why of every ranking officer aboard this station, why would Garak, the Cardassian, the spy, choose me?

At first, he’d told himself that resisting the doctor’s charm was part of the wider game, in which Julian was just one of the many cards in Garak’s hand. Then he let himself become… involved. Julian was more than pretty to look at and interesting to talk to – he was enrapturing, he eclipsed the dullness of Garak’s world and gave it direction, he was the only thing that ever offered Garak true joy anymore. He was the Sin Lemor to Garak’s Kruvan Ossad, the temptation to the tragic fallen hero. So then Garak imagined it all to be a kind long-form kind of competition between them that would inexorably end in something more, but that was far away in the future and nothing to be concerned about now. Years passed. Julian stayed at arm’s length. Garak turned his eye away from the affair. Let the guilt, the desire, the fondness lie there festering in the ditch, growing and spreading. Until it was too late.

Kissing Julian is warm and gentle, soft in the harsh setting around them. Julian cradles his face in his hand as if they have all the time in the universe – like they exist in some separate dimension away from danger, from desperation. Not what he expected at all. Far from the image of sudden and clandestine encounter well within Garak’s control that he used to predict, before he decided to be noble and swear off Julian forever. Julian’s mouth isn’t demanding, isn’t characterised by a fear that if he slows down, the moment will be lost forever. The contact reveals something besides the much stepped-around mutual attraction that has persisted between them for years. It’s terrifyingly earnest.

When Julian finally pulls away, he leaves a line of affectionate kisses along Garak’s cheek and jaw, not seeming to mind the substitution of cool scales for the smooth, hot surface of typical Humanoid skin. Then again, Garak is nothing much like individuals Julian has pursued before in any respect. They were always stunning, noticeable people far out of the doctor’s league. As opposed to Garak, who occupies a place well below it.

“Do you still mean it now?” Julian whispers, raising his head to look right into Garak’s eyes. He doesn’t seem worried. He can read Garak too well.

“Of course, my dear… Julian.”

It feels less strange than he expected it to. As innate as walking, as taking one simple step after another. My dear Julian. He wonders why he never said it before. Doctor is the character, Julian is the intelligent mind, the determined soul, the shining smile beneath.

Julian looks dumbfounded, staring in mute shock at Garak like some life-altering secret was just revealed. His hands are frozen – the only movement in him is his eyes, which dart across Garak’s face in search of answers. Garak doesn’t know how to give them in words. In a decisive move, he reaches over to take Julian’s head in his own hands, lifting the light frame of the doctor up with all the care afforded to him. Swapping between arms to support Julian, he shrugs off the makeshift fur jacket and bunches it up as a pillow for Julian to rest his head against. He’s too aware of the frailty in Julian’s body, the bruises and wounds that mar it. In other circumstances, Garak would not be so delicate, but more than ever the man before him appears fragile – an antique lightbulb preserved from centuries ago, made of thin glass so easy to break.

He hovers above Julian for a moment, looking into the dark eyes before him and contemplating their captivating shine. Julian’s chest rises and falls in nervous shudders, caught up in the tension. It hardly matters that when Garak lifts Julian’s chin and returns the favour that all he tastes is smoke and lacings of salt, the tainted experience a most poetically accurate reflection of the strange thing that exists between them. No longer in control, Julian becomes more frantic and sudden in his movements, straining to raise himself up and be closer, always closer. His hands are clutching at Garak’s face and neck, running through his hair, trying to gain purchase. Garak being the one to kiss Julian does have something of the illicit about it, as opposed to doctor’s pure affection. Perhaps because he knows he shouldn’t be doing it, not ever, but particularly not now. The soft warmth of Julian’s mouth on his own is the removal of the last piece of armour – guaranteed to make the eventual blow so much worse. He imagines what someone freer, someone like Commander Dax or even Julian might say to that. Something sanguine about living in the moment, no doubt.

Still, he kisses Julian, keeps him pressed to the cool ground with a gentle hand against the chest. He makes certain to avoid broken ribs and bruises. He wonders how Julian can bear to be so vulnerable, below Garak. It’s a very Human thing. Not Cardassian at all.

“That- wasn’t fair,” Julian breathes into Garak’s ear when he pulls away, fingers of his unburned hand slipping beneath the edge of his collar and tracing the scaled ridges beneath the thin, dark fabric. “You can’t just drop things like that out of nowhere.”

“My apologies if I broke some sacred rule of Human engagement,” he replies.

Julian offers an earnest, albeit dazed, smile. “Well, you know what they say. All’s fair in…” He trails off, smile fading.

Garak scrambles to find the place in his mind where the particulars of that Human proverb lie. He’s certain he’s read it before, the final words just beyond the reaches of his peripheral vision. All’s fair in… In what?

He pulls away abruptly, feeling Julian’s hands fall away from his neck. A sudden sinking sensation twists in his stomach. The sharp sting of shame he knew was coming, knew he could only put off for so long.

Julian follows him up with a growing flicker of fear in his gaze. “Garak, is everything alright?”

Backing up against the cave wall and torn from both the warmth of his fur jacket and Julian’s body, Garak feels a shiver dig its way beneath his skin. His thoughts are scattered.

“I’m sorry if I took things too far,” Julian murmurs, just able to be heard with the way the wind is beginning to howl outside.

“Believe me, Doctor, you are not the one at fault.” His reversal to Julian’s usual nickname sticks out like a Cardassian on a Bajoran space station, a harsher condemnation than he meant it to be when he said it.

“Why? What’ve you done wrong?”

A lot, now. None of which he can rescind, all of it a permanent addition to his long list of life regrets. “I don’t expect your understanding,” he says coolly, “but for many reasons, I shouldn’t have done that.”

For a few painful moments, Julian is silent. Garak doesn’t dare to look to see the expression on the doctor’s face, no doubt hurt and confused and struggling to comprehend the hidden meanings behind the words. “What… what exactly do you mean?”

“I am sorry for taking advantage of your… willingness,” Garak replies. “Call it a moment of weakness.”

“A moment of weakness?” Julian repeats, voice slipping down into a half-desolate, half-outraged tone. “A moment of weakness? You can’t just say a thing like that to someone when you were kissing them two seconds ago! I know you’re not the softest person around the edges, but that’s just… cruel. I would think you cared more about my feelings a bit than that, you know.”

Garak stares resolutely in any direction other than towards Julian, trying to busy himself with picking a loose thread from the sleeve of his top. “Your feelings are of great importance to me. More than that, though, I value your life. I must say I’m surprised it hasn’t occurred to you that if it were not for me and my unfortunate past, you would be recovered and back on duty on Deep Space 9 at this moment. None of this would’ve happened.”

“Is that what you wish? That none of this ever happened?”

“I wish that you would make an effort to recognise the danger our… friendship poses to your general wellbeing.”

“Apparently so. It’s not doing a whole lot for my emotional wellbeing right now, to be honest. But fine, whatever,” Julian says, spitting the words with deprecating venom. “If kissing Julian Bashir is the greatest mistake of your life, I think you’ll be okay. I’ve heard it’s becoming a bit of a club, actually.”

“The greatest mistake of my life, Doctor,” Garak bites back, “was ever meeting you.” He forces himself to look now. Julian seems on the verge of tears or shouting or both, mouth drawn in a thin line of anger. A justified reaction. It still cuts like a blunt knife to see. “I’m only trying to ensure your safety.”

“No, you don’t get to say that,” Julian snaps. “And not just because none of us gets to be safe on Deep Space 9 doing what we do. Because I don’t think this is only about my safety, you keeping me safe for my sake. This is about you. This is about you keeping me safe for your sake, so you don’t have to deal with the guilt when I get hurt because someone from your past decides they want to get back at you. Do you think I don’t know you’re dangerous or that it’s- that it’s dangerous to me to be friends with you? I stay because you’re important to me, Garak. I’ll survive a few broken ribs, a few bruises. And I’m sick of you trying to decide for me whether I’m allowed to care about you or not.”

The blow upon the bruise.

“Because I do care,” Julian continues, softer than before. “Differently to how I care about… other people. I can’t just not. I really thought you felt at least a little bit the same way. Even just a little bit.” He looks away from Garak suddenly, looks beyond him, eyes widening. A strange shadow falls across them, blocking out the last of the paling light.

“My, my… what a touching sentiment.” The voice echoes against the stone walls of the cave, cold and self-satisfied. Garak has heard that voice before. Years ago. He never thought-

Then an order, a sharp command that cuts through before he has the chance to turn around. “Well, do fire at will.”

Endless space. Darkness. Empty stretches of barren land. Gaps in his memory. Julian.

Darkness again.

Chapter Text

For a while, Garak lets himself believe they’re still down on the planet’s surface, in the cave or the shadowy depths of a forest or even the crash site they made their temporary home. It certainly feels cold enough. The freezing air burns when he breathes it in, pinching his lungs like a vice. The faint roar may only just be the wind or thunder or a distant earthquake, nothing more. The fingers grabbing at his face, roughly lifting his head up for examination must be Julian trying to see if he’s okay – perhaps he was the one who passed out from the toxic smog, perhaps the entire past week was all somehow a figment of his imagination, or a Dominion simulation, or anything other than real. Real would be unfortunate, to say the very least.

The air is still and tasteless. Where Garak was becoming tired of the pervasive scent of wet earth and overgrown pines, was sickened by the foulness of chemical smoke and the way it soaked into skin and clothes and hair, he finds himself regretting its loss. The room is sterile and feels far too small. He opens his eyes to a bright flash of white light, slicing through the shadowy haze. The cold fingers leave his face.

“He’s awake, sir.” The voice reaches his ears from somewhere behind him, the formal tone of a subordinate.

“So I see.”

Someone steps into the light shining in Garak’s face, forming a tall, angular silhouette. He recognises the sharp shoulders and jaw of a Cardassian, but nothing more. Though his captor’s manner of speaking is strangely familiar, it fails to strike a chord of memory like Nela Prel’s icy tone. It’s somewhere between her cold, careless manner and the simpering smugness of a man like Dukat. Garak tries to move his hands and finds them bound to the arms of the chair he sits in.

“Oh dear. I am sorry about that,” the person in front of him says with mock concern. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Garak, but I have to take certain precautions.” The light behind them brightens by a few notches, stinging Garak’s tired and still adjusting eyes.

“Please, less of the theatrics,” he requests, fighting to keep his chin from falling back down against his chest. “More than being visually offensive, it reveals a certain lack of taste.”

The consequences of his retort take a moment to be felt. Someone cuffs him hard enough to bruise over the back of his head, shoving his face forward. He takes the blow silently and draws himself back up wearing a defiant smile. His old instincts are kicking in again, slipping the mask back over his face.

“Now really, is that the way we treat our guests?” The man standing before him takes a step forward into the harsh light, the pale glow reflecting off his very Cardassian scales, putting pinpricks of white in his very dark eyes. Garak does know him, he’s sure of it. Someone from long ago, someone he remembers seeing in dark corridors beneath Cardassia’s great cities. He’s tall but otherwise undistinguished in his appearance, his aloof smile not nearly as satisfying as Garak knows his to be. Even Dukat, ridiculous as he is, pulls it off better.

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognise me,” the man sighs, pretending to sound hurt. “How disappointing.”

“My apologies,” Garak replies. “I’m afraid my memory is not what it was in my younger years.”

A cold laugh. “Your sense of humour is just the same. Kaarmas Kraltar, pleased to make your… reacquaintance.” It’s then that Garak notices the silver badge pinned to Kraltar’s breast. A faceless hooded figure in sharp edges, glittering in the white shine of the unnatural lighting. There’s no place for that symbol in the universe anymore, not now that the Obsidian Order has fallen from whatever grace it had left like Ossad in his tragic tale of betrayal. A curious detail – embarrassing, too. Taking pride in the Order was always a warning sign.

“I would offer my own introduction, but then, I believe you already know who I am.”

Kraltar smiles. “Of course! Who hasn’t heard of the great Elim Garak, after all? I remember when I first joined the Order, the young subordinates who came and went all the time used to whisper to each other about Garak, the most callously efficient, the one with all the cards in his hand. That little stunt you pulled with the Romulan was quite something, if I recall correctly. You can imagine the shock of learning you were not all you were said to be.”

Garak is already well sick of the games. He remembers Kraltar vaguely – a face in the background, insignificant. Like Nela Prel, much of Garak’s time in the Order had been spent off-world, and it’s been so many years that a lot of the details have faded into obscurity. He takes a subtle breath in to centre himself, glancing sideways to scope out the room. The low rumble running in the background can only mean one thing, unfortunately. The Defiant let them get away. That does not bode well.

“If you’re looking for your doctor friend, you won’t find him,” Kraltar tells him with an air of wicked delight, like he was just waiting on the edge of his seat for Garak’s attention to slip in that direction. It’s really quite pathetic. Garak would point that out if he was at all reassured by Kraltar’s apparent aversion to direct physical violence. He did have Garak stunned in the back down on the planet. Not exactly a pacifist move.

When Garak doesn’t reply, too occupied with mapping the cramped space around him to find a suitably devastating response, Kraltar presses it further. “I don’t mean to worry you, of course. That strange little Federation piece of yours is quite alright… for now.”

It takes all his willpower not to roll his eyes at the exhausting lack of originality.

“I may even be kind enough to let you see him, if you comply.”

“With what, precisely?” Garak sighs, meeting Kraltar’s eyes with his most convincing expression of disinterest.

“Ah, and now we reach the point of the matter,” Kraltar says. He takes another step closer, revealing himself in the harsh light. Garak notices a thin scar in the scales beneath Kraltar’s chin. The mark is familiar in a way that the face above it isn’t. “I have just one question, at this moment. Tell me, Garak, do you remember Tzenketh?”

Despite himself, Garak snaps to sudden attention, hands gripping hard onto the arms of the chair. How could Kraltar know about Tzenketh? How much does he know? Tzenketh, for years, had been the single stain on Garak’s perfect record of professional achievement. The mission had accomplished its aims overall – he prevented the assassination of the Autarch and exposed his would-be attackers, ensured a continued alliance between Cardassia’s political underground and Tzenkethi officials. But no one, especially not Tain or the other higher-ups in the Obsidian Order, would’ve called it a success. Garak had been supposed to save the Autarch’s life without bringing the entire ministerial house down on all their heads.

“I take it from your face that you do,” Kraltar continues, not waiting for Garak to speak first. “Well, I might just let you… stew in that for a while. Perhaps some reflection will jog your memory.”

Jaw clenched, Garak glances away from Kraltar’s self-satisfied gaze, to the wall behind him. If the silver Order badges weren’t enough to go by, the deep red and grey banner hanging by the doorway practically screams Obsidian and proud of it. He’d expect this kind of brand posturing from someone like Quark, not an Order operative. Something about Kraltar makes him uncertain. He’s not like Garak, not like Tain or Prel or the long-dead Priyam twins. He’s a shadow of a person, not quite whole and present. The wall beyond the banner is curved and decorative in classic Cardassian make. It almost reminds him of Deep Space 9, in a disturbing way. The universe seems intent on taunting him today.

“Take him to his room,” Kraltar orders abruptly, stepping away. When he turns, Garak gets a better look at the scar. It’s not even that distinctive, but he can sense it tapping into something deep in his memory, hidden beneath the surface.

The cuffs holding his wrists down release and a rough hand grabs the collar of his top, dragging him to his feet. Garak’s body is sluggish and aching. He almost trips stepping over the threshold as Kraltar moves aside to let them through. A quick glance confirms the other man is also Cardassian, bearing a smaller version of the same Obsidian Order badge. Perhaps the Order is in a lesser state of disaster than he believed, but it doesn’t seem likely. Kraltar is something different.

His ‘room’, found down the far end of a shadowed corridor, is definitely more in the ‘prison cell’ category – a tiny space with a low ceiling and complete darkness but for the glow of the exit light above the door. The nameless subordinate shoves him inside, so hard Garak falls into the opposite wall with a painful thud. There’s no bunk or chair, nothing adorning the walls. All that’s missing are the manacles dangling to chain unlucky prisoners up with.

But no. That’s not Obsidian Order style. The greatest breakers of people in the galaxy generally had better taste, in Garak’s experience.

The door slams. Garak slides down to the floor. The cell is freezing, cold in a way that suggests intention. It’s the best way to get under a Cardassian’s skin, after all – there aren’t many things their kind hate more. He wishes he had the fur jacket Julian sewed for him. He wishes he had Julian.

Garak feels closer to death than he has since his misguided attempt at property destruction back on DS9, before Julian wore it into him that if he was ever in that kind of trouble again, he had better say something rather than resort to blowing up his own shop for attention. As painful as his injuries are, dehydration and hunger are greater concerns. At this point, he hasn’t eaten in days. He’s had barely any water. All of it for Julian’s sake, all a waste. His head feels close to bursting, as bad as it ever was with the implant. The air is so still and clean. The room is so small. He tries to imagine the endless ocean of star-speckled black space beyond the confines of this Cardassian vessel, but the only darkness he sees is that of the suffocating cell.

*   *   *

The sound of the Tzenketh Autarch’s strained breathing punctuates the overbearing silence, a distant rasp that Garak uses to count the seconds. His own lungs struggle and fight for air that isn’t there, collapsing under the weight of the wall that crushes him. Of course, of course the assassins set triggers in the door controls. That was why the thin-faced rebel hadn’t even seemed sorry to be caught – he thought he had still won, knew the blast from the explosives would probably blow the Autarch to pieces, and Garak with him. He should’ve seen it. The rubble burying him forces plaster dust down Garak’s throat, stings in his eyes. All he can see is darkness anyway.

His free hand shakes uncontrollably, stretched out before him on a painful angle. The rest of his body squirms and struggles in the mountain of broken cabinet and pieces of wall, his mind reduced to a constant stream of suffocating get out can’t breathe am dying can’t breathe get out get out get out. His chest feels like someone has their fist closed around his internal organs, squeezing it brutally between iron fingers. He tries to count the seconds. He manages to get to three before the terror takes hold again and pulls him back down beneath the surface.

“Sir, over here!” someone calls, sounding distant.

A weight is lifted. Garak opens his burning eyes to see a pale-skinned, scaled hand held out to help him. When he fails to take it, the hand reaches over and grabs Garak’s wrist, drags him upwards. He sees more scales. A thin white line cutting across greyish skin.

“The Autarch is dead,” says the same voice, accusatory.

“No,” Garak replies. “No, that’s not right. He was breathing.”

“He’s dead. Look.”

Garak looks. It isn’t the Tzenketh Autarch lying under rubble in what once was the far corner of the room. He wears the same Tzenkethi robes, the same fine jewelled earrings and bracelets. The same crown of gold lies a metre away from where it fell from his head in the destruction. But he’s not the Autarch. He’s not Tzenkethi. Garak tries to turn away but ends up facing in the exact same direction. He’s sick of these dreams. Sick of how they seem so real.

“I told you,” says Dukat, who has appeared in the broken-down doorway. “Didn’t I tell you?” He’s not wearing his gul’s armour, but the same Tzenkethi clothes as the doctor. His are pristine, though, devoid of pale dust and blood. Julian’s face has gone blue from suffocation. They haven’t even taken the bookcase off his back – he just lies there, abandoned to rot in the ruins.

“I can’t believe it,” Commander Dax sighs. He doesn’t remember when she got here. “He always misses my birthday. Have you seen the vole?”

“What vole?” Garak asks.

“Kira’s vole. It’s her pet – it ran away.”

“No, I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh. That’s a shame.”

Part of the wall that’s still standing groans and splits. When it collapses it sweeps up another cloud of fine particles that blur his vision and settle in his mouth and throat like ash.

*   *   *

He wakes up again on the ice-cold metal floor of the cell with a jarring stab of anxiety. The small yellow-green light above the doorway still pulses in regular beats, but the room feels different somehow. More confined. Being in it is like being back on Tzenketh, like being back in that odd dream world with its perverse background chatter of people who didn’t belong there. His restless sleep has left him almost worse off than before. He’s fallen off the edge of his cliff of panic by now, leaving him in a comatose state of staring blankly at the wall and shivering. It’s impossible to keep track of the time passing. The low thrum of the ship’s engines carrying them along through space is the only evidence of a world existing beyond Garak’s cell. Otherwise it could just be him, alone in the universe. Misplaced among stars.

The door slides open with a whoosh, revealing the silhouette of the quick-tempered subordinate from his first meeting with Kraltar. The man looks nervous to Garak, agitated beneath his cold and imposing exterior and condescending glare. Spoiling for a fight, obviously. He won’t be getting one from Garak today.

“Get up,” he orders, raising his phaser in a rather pathetic show of strength. He holds the Cardassian make weapon awkwardly, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

Garak stands. He keeps his head bowed low, promising no resistance. There isn’t a point trying to glean answers from this one. It’s Kraltar he needs. The truth is somewhere in that estranged piece of a complete being. Once he knows why, he can get to what he does best. Talking.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he says, cringing at how rough and worn-down his voice sounds in the still air, “where are we going?”

The soldier gives him a sharp shove down the corridor for no real reason at all – he just seems to enjoy it. “You’ll see,” he replies. Garak doesn’t like the satisfaction in the other man’s tone at all. The smugness doesn’t predict anything good.

They take a left into another, wider room, empty except for a few stray chairs sitting around a central table. It looks like a meeting room, not too unlike the ones the command team uses on Deep Space 9. A wall of wide windows reveals the navy sea of space beyond. The stars are few and far between, pale freckles against the darkness. Garak half expects Kraltar to swivel around in one of the chairs like a villainous character for the Julian Bashir, Secret Agent holosuite programs, but the room is deserted.

“You have one hour,” his escort spits, jabbing Garak in the back with the barrel of his phaser to force him inside. “Don’t waste it.” No explanations, then. The door shuts behind him and locks with a soft chime. He supposes he could try – could probably succeed – in breaking himself out through the control panel, but Garak is wise enough to see that couldn’t do any good. He recognises this model of ship. It’s large enough to hold more than fifty. Even a quarter of that crew would be impossible odds for Garak. His body feels close to collapsing already.

There is a set of fine crystal glasses on the table, sitting by a jug of water. He approaches it with suspicion. The possibilities run through his mind as they always do – the drink is poisoned, or an illusion, or it is real and a poetic final grace given by Kraltar and his followers. A reminder of who has the power. Garak is the prisoner, beholden to his captors’ will and reserved generosity. Julian wouldn’t touch it. He’s defiant like that. Garak is thirsty. And dying, in any case.

He pours himself a glass of water and drinks it one go, vaguely relieved by its very normal and non-toxic taste. If Kraltar is laughing at him through a monitor just now, he can’t bring himself to care. The void his panic has left in him is all-encompassing and sinks his tired mind into apathy. Two glasses later, his mouth feels a little less dry. The word is slowly coming into sharper focus.

“Garak.”

At first, he thinks he imagined the hoarse whisper, glancing around to see the room just as empty as before.

“Garak, here.”  He’d just about given up on the prospect of hearing that voice again, despite what Kraltar had said. Garak’s ‘Federation doctor friend’ was a means to an end to these odd Obsidian Order loyalists. The twitch upon the thread, pulling Garak within their reach. He steps around the table, wondering whether this might be just the next phase in his feverous dreams. The shadows seem to dance like figures in rapture at the edge of his vision, like revellers. 

“My, you’ve certainly looked better,” he breathes, sliding down to the smooth, carpeted floor.

“Felt better, too,” Julian replies with a bittersweet laugh. There’s no real humour in his eyes, only a wall of dull resignation. His appearance is that of a body dead for hours. His skin is too pale and tarnished with sweat and smog and grime. A fresh wound, still sticky with blood, cuts across his left temple in a shallow line. The doctor sits, slumped in the corner of the room, with his head drooped in defeat.

“Have you had anything to drink?”

Julian shakes his head. He speaks so softly, it verges on impossible to make out the words. “No. Couldn’t get up.”

As Garak retrieves another clean glass and helps Julian to a few sips of water, he tries to find the source of weakness wearing away at the doctor. It’s more than just a broken rib or a bruised cheek. What did they do to you? The question is caught on the tip of his tongue, bitter and vengeful. Julian’s teeth are chattering.

“Doctor, are you quite alright?” he asks, placing his hand on the doctor’s forehead to feel the chilly, clammy skin.

Julian hesitates. “Yes, it’s just- so cold in here.”

It isn’t. Garak may have spent the night in a cell so freezing even Deep Space 9’s iciest dark corner would feel like a bathhouse, but the temperature controls in the derelict meeting room are set to almost typical Cardassian standards. Julian ought to be a little too warm.

“I think I- I caught a cold,” Julian adds quickly. “I have a fever.”

“Yes,” Garak agrees. “I can see that.” Calling it a ‘cold’ is probably the doctor’s best attempt to downplay the severity of his illness. It’s some awful virus, no doubt, one of those diseases Julian mused about down on the snow planet’s surface days and days ago. But given the circumstances, that might be the least of their concerns. A thousand things are more likely to end their lives today – highest on the list an Obsidian Order operative named Kraltar.

“Who is he?”

“Hm?”

“Kraltar,” Julian clarifies. “The Cardassian. I noticed his badge thing. He’s from the Obsidian Order too, isn’t he?”

Garak nods. “Yes. A less significant figure than Nela Prel – I’m afraid I barely remember him. But he does seem to have some kind of… gripe with me.”

Julian’s smile is strained. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Mm, it is rather a mystery.”

“I overheard two of the other soldier sort of people talking. We’re currently heading towards Cardassian space. I think the Defiant might be in pursuit, at least, I think that’s the ship they were referring. They sounded worried that we might be cut off by Starfleet forces before we make it out of Federation jurisdiction.”

Only a temporary fix. Starfleet would never allow the Chief Medical Officer of their prized space station to be whisked off into Cardassian space against his will. The Cardassian government wouldn’t allow it – not publicly, at least.

“The man who brought you here,” Julian says. “He said we had an hour.”

Garak struggles to find a reply.

“Sounds a bit doom and gloom, don’t you think? Like that poor woman in The Locked Door That Splinters. What was her name again?”

“Reshia Kiam.”

“Oh yes, that’s right. The chapters of the novel were counting down to her death. Chapter Thirty: One Day Remaining.” He says it with such resigned finality. One day remaining. Or one hour, in their case. At least in reading The Locked Door That Splinters, one knows how the story ends. The prologue tells the reader how Kiam dies before any of it even begins. He can’t see far enough ahead in his and Julian’s path, where it turns into a dark corridor on a Cardassian ship, into rooms of men wearing badges for fallen causes, where shadows outweigh light. Julian’s eyes are dark and seem to Garak like false reproductions of the real things, so devoid of spark and feeling. What happened to the young doctor Garak met in the replimat that day? Where did he go?

When he glances down, he sees an impression of the knife in his own hands, the one that cut the bright edges of that young man away and left only the desaturated shell. His final crime against life. The one he regrets most.

Julian shivers harder, drawing his arms around himself like a scared child. The fever seems almost to be draining the life and colour from his face; the cold sweat leaving him looking sallow and half-dead. Garak wonders whether it’s contagious. He doesn’t particularly care.

“Sure wish they made Starfleet uniforms out of Milodish wild cat fur,” Julian jokes through his chattering teeth, wiping his slick, smoke-stained forehead with the torn sleeve of his top.

Some last piece of resistance inside of Garak breaks. There doesn’t seem to be much worth in detachment when the guillotine sits just around the corner regardless, sharp silver edge glinting in the dim light of a Cardassian ship. He feels at least half as terrible as Julian looks, exhausted by his panic and hungry and weak and hurt beyond the physical level. As his thoughts flicker by in steady, singular beats, it all seems rather pointless. The game. Dancing out of reach, keeping his distance. Garak never does anything without a reason, but now the shadows have descended he struggles to remember what it was all for. It didn’t save Julian. It didn’t save either of them.

Supporting himself with shaking arms, he crawls over and tucks himself into the dark cranny beside Julian. The wall is a cool tether to the world, keeping them both upright and breathing. He gently pulls Julian’s thinning frame into his arms, a careful hand keeping the doctor’s face held to his chest. The shivering subsides a little, and Garak rests his chin on the top of Julian’s head and feels tranquil, if not quite calm. Julian’s left hand, the one that wasn’t burned, clutches at the fabric of Garak’s top and holds onto it tightly.

“You know, I’ve always felt real with you,” Julian murmurs, voice muffled. “Not like I’m just watching everything happen around me. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I believe so, Doctor.”

“Julian,” he corrects. “I know you can do it now, so you don’t have an excuse.”

Garak finds himself smiling despite it all. “Perhaps when the occasion calls for it, my dear Julian.”

Julian lets out an unsteady breath and buries himself further in Garak’s arms. “Maybe that shouldn’t mean so much to me,” he says, “but it does. I think it’s because it’s all… well, references to literature and suppositions and clever jokes with us, isn’t it? And I used to think that was just the way we were – that was Julian and Garak. But sometimes I wondered whether it was because we’re afraid.”

The thought hangs in the still air for a long while before Julian continues.

“And you know what’s worse? I still can’t- I still can’t say it, even knowing that.”

Garak does not need to ask what ‘it’ is. “I would hope it goes without my articulating it but… I am sorry about the things I said. I would never wish to cause your feelings any harm.”

“Is it true, though?” Julian asks, a hint of fear creeping into his tone. “Do you really regret... everything?”

“Perhaps I should,” he sighs, “but I’m afraid I’m a rather selfish creature, when it comes down to it. This,” he adds, fingers tracing around the abrasion on Julian’s forehead, “is the proof of it.”

“Well, it was worth it.”

As much as he appreciates Julian’s determination to see only the positive light in all things, that seems rather a stretch. Even Julian, with all his wilful sentimentality and unbreakable affection, is only a humanoid being. They choose life, not death. And whatever their philosophy says, whatever they’d like to imagine, they end up choosing it at any cost. “My dear, you can’t truly believe that.”

“I don’t know if I believe it. It’s how I feel. I feel like I wouldn’t give it up even if it meant avoiding all of this. You’re too important, Garak. You’re a part of… of the enchanted garden Charles Ryder discovers in Brideshead Revisited. I couldn’t just let you go, live in a world where it never happened.”

“Now how exactly does that novel end, again?”

Julian sighs. “They break up. She thinks he doesn’t understand. He says... he says he hopes her heart will break, but he does understand. Because he does, despite it all. There’s a rift between them that won’t ever heal. I don’t suppose they ever meet again.”

“There’s a Cardassian novel, Doctor, one I don’t believe we ever had the chance to discuss before, that has made itself rather relevant to recent events. Footprints on the Silver Lake. The tale of a tragic fall from grace. At the end of the story, Kruvan Ossad finds in choosing the woman he selfishly loves above loyalty, he condemns them all. He dies. So does she. Without respect or honour. No one mourns.”

“I’m not a Cardassian,” Julian replies. “I’m Human. And in Brideshead Revisited, there’s an epilogue. Him at what was once her house, many years later. It’s not easy to summarise but the point is – it wasn’t all in vain. It was worth something. It’s all worth something. It’s got to be, or what’s the point?”

“Ah. Kruvan Ossad’s fatal flaw. In Footprints. He looks out across the waters and wonders what is the point?”

“Well, I can’t say I know the answer to that. I like to think it’s about trying to do as much good as you can in the universe before you’re gone.” Garak smiles to himself at the ridiculous levels of Federation and Starfleet and Julian Bashir imbued into that suggestion. “It’s about being kind to yourself and to others, wherever possible. Just... doing your best to help make things better.”

“Unfortunately not quite my area of expertise.”

Julian twists his neck to look up at him, eyes shining with a gentle, fond amusement that reaches right into Garak’s soul, to the sentimental part of him he had learned to distrust so strongly over the years. “It’s never too late.”

It’s never too late. Julian would be the sort to believe something like that.

He supposes he never liked Footprints on the Silver Lake very much when he was younger. Too trite, too heavy-handed. And much of the prose is really something dreadful. And Sin Lemor deserved better than being a mere symbol within Ossad’s story. He remembers her famous lines, spoken during the final scene in which she appears alive. Is this all you dare to say? That you love me? But love is nothing, in the halls of men who choose freely and discard unwanted the broken pieces their affection leaves, like a teacup, smashed in careless haste. I will believe that you love me, but I wonder, will I believe that you will stand, when the time comes?

“It all feels a bit like a dream, doesn’t it?” Julian murmurs after a while.

“I can’t imagine what you could mean by that, my dear.”

“Oh, you know.” Julian’s fever seems to have subsided a little, and he curls up still and calm in Garak’s arms. “I hope they publish my prion research,” he adds, almost light-heartedly. “I’ll be a legend in the field of quantum dynamics.”

“I’m sure one day you will be able to share it with the world of science yourself.”

“Garak, that would be overly optimistic coming from me.”

He knows Julian is right – he always is, in his own way. It doesn’t matter how close the Defiant is on their tail, how likely it may be that another Starfleet ship will cut off this Cardassian vessel before it arrives in friendly space. He saw the glint in Kraltar’s eyes, that unwavering dedication to a goal that prevails whether the cause is hopeless or not. They’re already dead. All that’s left is for them to wait for the servants of gods to come down and carry them away to whatever exists after – Heaven, the Divine Treasury, the lonely void into which souls dissipate like mist in the air. At least these days, Garak may be rest assured that he will be remembered.

“The sun had sunk now to the line of woodland beyond the valley; all the opposing slope was already in twilight, but the lakes below us were aflame,” Julian quotes, very softly, and Garak recognises the lurid and sentimental prose of Brideshead Revisited once again. “…the light grew in strength and splendour as it neared death, spreading long shadows across the pasture, falling full on the rich stone spaces of the house, firing the panes in the windows, glowing on cornices and colonnade and dome, drawing out all the hidden sweetness of colour and scent from earth and stone and leaf, glorifying the head and golden shoulders of the woman beside me.”

The sharp contrast between the lyrical words and the dark, lonely room that holds them only heightens the surprising poignancy they carry. Garak supposes the lapping waves of Ossad’s silver lake are really not so terrible, in the end. Unlike that tragic hero, he cannot find much regret anymore, for the choice he made.

“Your memory is very precise,” he remarks.

“When something is important to you,” Julian replies, “it’s not easy to forget it.”

*   *   *

Garak knows their hour is up when the door slides open to reveal a pair of armed soldiers, wearing the same black armour and silver Obsidian Order badges as the ones from before. He doesn’t have the strength to resist as one of them wrenches Julian away from him with a cold look in her eyes, can only watch as the doctor slumps out of weakness and has to be half-dragged across the room. The other soldier grabs Garak by the shoulder and shoves him towards the door. They go together, it seems.

Appraising eyes watch them from doorways and corner posts as they make their way down the central hall towards the front of the ship, up two floors in a turbolift, tension growing. Julian is basically unconscious in the Obsidian Order soldier’s grasp, breathing even more erratic than before. It’s odd to see that symbol of the hooded watcher attached to the breasts of warriors who look more fit for a gul’s command than the work of an intelligence agency. His fingers itch to find purchase on one of the phasers and take advantage of their obvious inexperience. But then the door to the turbolift opens, revealing the shadowy bridge of the ship. Silhouetted against the viewscreen is Kraltar’s sharp-cut figure, one hand resting on the back of a commander’s chair. The bridge is bizarrely silent, like every single member of the crew stationed there was waiting in tense anticipation for their arrival. Kraltar is making a scene out of this, he realises. That is very Obsidian Order, at least. There is little power in a back-alley stabbing or a subtle poisoning that nobody sees. People need reminders.

“How good of you to join us,” Kraltar greets, as if they had a choice. “My, he doesn’t look too well, does he?”

Kept upright by the hold of two guards, Julian’s chin drops to his chest like the effort of raising it might kill him.

“I can hear you, you know,” Julian mutters in a venom-laced tone. Garak feels a flicker of pride at the doctor’s defiance, still so sharp and determined. For once, it can’t exactly make things much worse.

Kraltar looks slightly taken aback. “Well, I admire your courage, Doctor. It’s not an easy thing to face.” He turns to Garak as he speaks, wearing a victorious expression.

“I may not be the man I used to be,” Garak snaps, “but you’ll be disappointed if you expect me to beg for my life.”

“No?” Kraltar takes a step forward, reaching over to lift Julian’s drooping chin between forefinger and thumb. “What about his?”

What of Julian’s eyes Garak can see is filled with contempt. “Nice try,” he spits, glancing up to stare right into Kraltar’s hard gaze. “But it won’t work. He knows there’s nothing I’d hate him for more than giving into you.”

“Is that so?”

When Kraltar lets Julian go, the doctor visibly fights for the strength to keep his head raised, squares his shoulders for the struggle. It was something Garak learned about Julian Bashir quite early on, something he often wondered whether others were able to see. Julian gives off an air of the overly-dramatic – the kind of ridiculous Federation character guaranteed to break down the moment he’s faced with an actual situation of life and death. That had been his first impression of the doctor too, that of someone who never took anything seriously enough, too caught up in his own petty issues. He knows better now. Julian has always been stronger, in the end, than most people would give him credit for.

“Are you sure you can just stand by, Garak?” Kraltar presses. “Watch this innocent young man you’re so fond of enjoy the rest of his drawn-out and excruciating death? When the cure is within your reach? I wonder if you can.”

Garak frowns. “I can’t imagine what you might mean.”

“He didn’t tell you.” An awfully delighted smile spreads across Kraltar’s face. “He lied. How curious.” He crosses over to a stack of metal packing cases, opens one with careful hands. Beside Garak, Julian winces and hides his face. The tiny cylindrical object Kraltar removes shines in the amber light of the bridge. Silver metal, a ring glass revealing silvery liquid. As Kraltar brings it closer, he sees its thin, pointed needle. It’s a syringe. The old kind, from before hyposprays became so widely available. There aren’t many substances that still use it but for-

“Go on, take it,” Kraltar insists.

The metal is cool in Garak’s hand.

“He only had a small dose – I didn’t want it to be too quick for him. I would say your dear doctor has an hour or so left, at the most.”

His heart drops like a stone in still water. The swooping sensation of terror takes him so suddenly he almost drops the syringe to meet its fate on the hard floor. He could recognise the acrid, bitter scent of those chemicals from half a world away, but even without his sense of smell, the universal lettering printed in small white characters down the side. Mersidarinium.

“A gift courtesy of Nela Prel,” Kraltar adds, leaning over his shoulder. He sounds ecstatic.

Garak looks at Julian. Now he knows, all the signs seem so clear. The fever. The weakness. Julian’s body slowly shutting down and failing. One of the worst deaths anyone could ask for. Julian raises his eyes to meet Garak’s, his face showing all the wordless anguish of I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

He shoves his panic deep down. A station manned by one of Kraltar’s lackeys in the right corner of the bridge has caught his attention. He didn’t believe it before, but now it pounds in his ears like a heartbeat, insistent. It’s not too late. It can’t be.

“Is she a conspirator in your little scheme, then?” Garak asks, giving the triumphant Kraltar his full attention. “I’m surprised. I thought she had better sense than that.”

He falls for it. “Now, there’s the Elim Garak I remember,” he replies. “Always superior, always arrogant. Are you that blind to how far you’ve fallen? I used to think they were exaggerating when they said you’d gone soft and sentimental and… Starfleet. But it’s true, isn’t it? You’ve forgotten what the old world was, you’ve forgotten the rules.”

“I remember plenty of petty personal grievances taken too far,” he says. “Though I can’t say I can remember anyone who went to such pains as you just to kill one man. Tell me, what was it? Did I insult you? Betray you? My memory isn’t perfect, but those all sound well within the rules to me.”

Kraltar turns on his heel with a dramatic sigh, gazing out towards the viewscreen. Two subordinates at the helm down below exchange an uncertain look. The red light flickering in the corner station flashes brighter. Garak waits.

“Your… conceit is astounding, I must say,” Kraltar says. “To imagine this is solely a personal matter. Do you really think that much of yourself – think I would take on a swarm of Starfleet vessels, including the famous defender of Deep Space 9 under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko, just to lay my hands on you?”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“This isn’t about you, Garak. You’re not the first fraying thread I’ve cut loose, you won’t be the last. You’re- you’re just another vole drawn out from the nest of vermin for execution. No, this isn’t about you. This is about the Order.”

“That was my other question,” Garak interjects quickly. “Those lovely badges you and your friends here wear. Perhaps you missed the news – the Obsidian Order is finished. It died with Enabran Tain in the Gamma Quadrant, a long time ago now.”

“Now that’s where you’re wrong,” Kraltar tells him, voice taking on new vigour. “My comrades and I, those of us who were loyal to Cardassia, even when all the galaxy was against us… we are rebuilding what once was. The Obsidian Order will rise again. Cardassia needs us now, more than ever. Cardassia needs the Obsidian Order.”

“And Nela Prel, I suppose she’s one of your comrades, then?” Out of the corner of his eye, Garak sees Julian slump further in the grasp of the guard. He hopes the doctor knows to keep fighting just a while longer.

“Oh yes, she is imperative. You might be interested to hear it was Prel who suggested we use that one-” He points at Julian, the doctor still inching his way closer and closer death as the mersi takes him. “-to tempt you out of your nest. I doubted it would work, but she insisted. Indeed, he has proven herself very dedicated to our cause.”

“And you don’t care to extend that offer of co-operation to me?”

Kraltar turns back with a smile. “Garak, you know as well as I that when a tree is diseased from the roots, the only answer is to tear the whole thing from the ground and start the growth anew. Do you want to know why I asked you about Tzenketh? Because I was there that day, and I remember you – I remember when some small part of me realised you were nothing like they said you were. You were weak, and it was people like you who were rotting the Order from the inside!”

So that was it, then.

“You’re more of a fool than I thought,” Garak says. “The Order was a victim of its own pride. Hubris was the end of Tain, and it will be the end of you too. And Prel, and all the rest of your comrades. Any man who wears that badge,” he continues, jabbing his finger towards the pathetic piece of silver on Kraltar’s chest, “has no concept of what the Order stood for in its prime.” He winces at the soft thud of Julian slipping down to the floor. “I have learned much living among people of the Federation. I’ve learned you could kill me, could kill every current and former agent who displeased you, and it wouldn’t make a difference. There’s no use in replanting the tree when the soil itself is poison.”

Incensed, Kraltar opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off abruptly by the agent at the station in the corner. Garak breathes an unsteady sigh of tentative relief. There’s still time for Julian. There’s still time.

“Sir, the Defiant is closing. They’ll be within firing range in minutes.”

Kraltar gives a hiss of frustration. “Will we reach Cardassian space in time?”

“Not likely, sir.”

“Then we’ll do what they least expect,” the flustered commander snarls. “Prepare to reverse course on my order.”

“You don’t have a chance, you know,” Garak says, taking a careful step forward. He feels the guard standing by the turbolift door behind him tense.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Kraltar replies, furiously entering commands into the main console of the bridge’s upper level.

Garak isn’t sure at all. For all he knows, the Defiant is one direct hit away from destruction. He’s taking a chance. For once, with Julian slumped there on the ground just out of his direct line of sight, with salvation just one transporter beam away, the thought of accepting defeat is too abhorrent. Perhaps it is selfish, or foolish, or the greatest mistake of his life, but he isn’t willing to give up anymore. He clutches to the thinnest threads of possibility with all the strength he has left.

“Go to active combat alert!” Kraltar yells. “Full stop and come around on their tail! On screen!”

“Can you hear yourself?” Garak demands loudly over the roar of the ship’s struggling engines. If nothing else, he knows how to capture someone’s attention and hold it there. It’s the skill of a real intelligence agent, as opposed to the carelessness and blustering commands of a poser like Kraltar. He knows how to tug the needle through. The syringe of mersi is a cold metal promise clutched in his left hand. “You’re trying to be a war hero, not an agent of the Order!”

“You will be silent!”

Just as Garak catches a silver flash of the Defiant on the viewscreen, a blast strikes their vessel on the starboard side. He prepares himself for impact in time, Kraltar does not. Julian, convulsing now from the fits of his fever, slumps against the support of a control panel. Alarms blare, sparks fly. The bridge begins to smell like smoke.

“They’re firing, sir!” a subordinate calls.

“Yes, I see that,” Kraltar snarls, trying to right himself. His Obsidian Order badge has been knocked off centre. “Return fire! I want that ship destroyed!”

“You might not have learned this yet,” Garak says, “but we don’t always get what we want in this life. What happens if you’re overpowered? What then? Will it have been worth it?”

Kraltar leaves his command station behind to approach Garak, a menacing look of pure loathing and contempt characterising his upturned lip and dark eyes. Another hit from the Defiant rocks the ship. A cascade of bright white sparks falls behind Kraltar’s head like stars. “Of course,” he breathes. “Of course it’s worth it. It doesn’t matter if I die today, we are but a part of the plan. And if I die…” He glances around, taking in the chaos. “I die for Cardassia.”

“You die for yourself. What is the phrase again? ‘What was given up,” he adds, thinking suddenly of the silver lake, of Ossad, “‘cannot be reclaimed’? Your cause is a rather hopeless one, I’m afraid.” The Obsidian Order is gone. The hole it left has already been filled, and men like Kraltar are only wanderers, searching for what they can never have. He wandered, for a long while. He believed he knew the only way home, the only road that could lead him back to what mattered. He was wrong.

“Shields barely holding!”

“Sir, they’re coming back for another pass!”

“What a pity,” Garak sighs. “It seems you’ve lost.”

Then Kraltar does something unexpected. He turns from Garak, turns towards Julian, yanks the doctor back onto his feet with a sharp tug. Garak recognises the signs of suffocation beginning to take hold, the first of the mersi drug’s final stages. Now would be an excellent time for Commander Dax to bring the shields of Kraltar’s ship down, truly.

“The only way I could lose would be to fail in ending you,” Kraltar says, spitting every word. “You, Garak, are the parasite. While you still live, the host can never recover.”

“I wonder why you don’t just do it, then. Why keep me alive for so long? Why not kill me on Deep Space 9, or when you found us on the planet’s surface? Do forgive me if I can’t quite understand the logic in that.” He keeps his eyes on Julian, still half-conscious, but only just. Kraltar holds him up by the collar of his shirt like a doll. The sound of Julian’s ragged breathing is just present beneath the storm of battle. Garak has the mersi syringe, Kraltar has a phaser on his hip and control of ten competent, albeit poorly-commanded, Order associates. Not brilliant odds, but he has known worse. He just has to keep the conversation going. Just has to distract Kraltar with his taunts until the Defiant can rescue them. Then Julian will live. It won’t be too late.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” Kraltar asks. “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know how these things work, Garak. It wouldn’t be enough for you to be dead. You need to be a lesson. I know you remember how we would read about the story of Kruvan Ossad in schoolrooms. You quoted it during an interrogation once – I was there, I heard. And I was there on Tzenketh when you proved you were nothing more than a coward. I want the last thing you hear to be your own pathetic cries for mercy. I want the last thing you see to be this badge you think of so derisively, because it will remind you of how far you’ve fallen. You will die sorry. You will die with nothing.”

Garak smiles and laughs without humour. Under any other circumstances, it would truly be funny. “Such a lovely sentiment. It’s a shame this ship is about to be blasted into pieces, and all of us along with it.”

Almost on cue, the helmsman cries out a single warning. “Shields failing!”

The timing couldn’t be more impeccable.

“Sensor range dropping, we’ve lost life support in lower deck two!”

“Sir, we’re being hailed. Voice-only transmission from the USS Defiant.”

Kraltar glares at Garak. “Why don’t we see what your new friends have to say for themselves?”

The crisp, commanding tone of Benjamin Sisko fills the bridge, dramatically calm in the chaos. Garak wonders whether he has ever admired many people more. “Unidentified Cardassian vessel, you are in violation of Federation law and known to be holding a Starfleet officer and a protected resident of Deep Space 9 against their will. Surrender now or you will be forced to do so. I repeat, power down your-”

“It seems you’re right about some things,” Kraltar growls over the sound of the captain’s voice, seeming blind to the way his ship, his precious dream of the Obsidian Order rising once again, is burning around him. He looks down at Julian with disdain. “Well, Doctor Bashir, it seems we’ve run out of time. It is a shame. And a waste of good mersi, too. Still-” He meets Garak’s gaze. “-I suppose we at least were able to let you suffer.” A glint of silver in the flashing red and amber lights of the bridge. A swooping sensation in Garak’s heart. The walls are closing in.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warns, speaking too quickly, too desperately. “Starfleet doesn’t appreciate people brazenly killing off their prized officers, I’ve found.”

Kraltar smiles. “Oh, Garak. You are predictable these days.”

Julian must be able to feel the point of the metal pressing into his side. “It’s okay, Garak,” he says, voice hoarse and low. “It’s okay.” Garak wonders whether he means that it’s okay that he’s going to die, or that it’s okay because he won’t. For the first time in days, Julian’s eyes shine with all the untameable brightness that enchanted Garak in the beginning, glistening in golden light, all that warmth and promise of the universe contained within. Whether from a final flicker of life in the throes of death or from tears, Julian’s expression is like fire. It sears into Garak, brings to mind a thousand books they never had time to read, a hundred lunches in the replimat never to occur, things he wishes he knew how to explain in truths instead of lies that now hang in the empty space between them – barely more than a metre or two, but uncrossable, a permanent rift the enemy makes with his twisted smile. A knife between the ribs. Silver metal, soft flesh.

Julian crumples.

The blade twists as he falls, cutting deeper. When Kraltar steps away, holding the jagged dagger up in the smoke-filled air to see dark blood drip off it and onto the floor, he leaves Julian there, slumped in the space between them. A black pool begins to spread out from the doctor’s right side.

“Shields down!”

“Helm controls aren’t responding!”

It all fades to nothing. The sirens are nothing. The lights are nothing. The yells of Kraltar’s agents are just distant birdcalls in the shadowed forest, irrelevant.

“Go on then,” Kraltar breathes, smiling in satisfaction. “I’ll give you two a chance to say goodbye.”

Julian’s blood has soaked his clothes, soaks into Garak’s clothes, too, stains his sleeves as he lifts Julian into his arms. It’s on his hands, on his cheek when Julian raises a trembling arm to run his fingers down Garak’s face. He feels the dark substance smear across his skin, hot and sickening, tasting like rusted metal in the air.

“Thank you for trying,” Julian murmurs. “Wish Jadzia a happy birthday for me.”

Garak does not think he has ever cried. He’s known emptiness and fear and even despair, all of it survivable, in the end. He has never known pain like this. “My dear,” he replies, wishing he knew what to do to make it stop bleeding, to make it stop, “I’m sure you can tell her yourself, when she arrives.” It will only be a matter of moments now. But Julian’s eyes are already unfocused, his breath weakening and turning to nothing more than a whisper. His blood is everywhere. Garak never realised one person could bleed so much in so little time.

They’re beaming aboard. A console explodes in sparks and flames. Initiating self-destruct sequence. Garak hears a voice in his ear, sharp and taunting. He looks up. Kraltar hovers just above, his knife coming to rest against Garak’s bared throat and pressing into the skin. He doesn’t wait to hear what Kraltar has to say, doesn’t care. In a swift move that catches the other Cardassian by surprise, he raises his free hand and plunges the mersi syringe right into Kraltar’s neck. It only takes one press for the vial of poison to empty itself. Kraltar drops the knife out of pure shock, and it clatters to the ground as he falls back. Garak sees the flash of phaser fire out of the corner of his eye. The bolt that manages to catch Kraltar strikes him just below the heart. Burned flesh. Shouting. A distant cry of two to beam to sickbay and I don’t care get them out now.

Garak pulls Julian’s body closer to him, ignoring the slick feeling of the blood and how he can’t seem to find the feeling of a heart beating anymore. He bows himself over the doctor, shielding him from the warzone that has broken out on the bridge. Julian’s hair is surprisingly soft and comforting, even with the dark red stains Garak’s hands have left in it. It still smells like Julian, where the rest of the world is bitter and acrid and filled with death.

By the time the phaser fire arrives, the waves of the silver lake have already taken him.

*   *   *

ACCESS TEXT: BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (1945), author EVELYN WAUGH – EPILOGUE

“…Something quite remote from anything the builders intended has come out of their work, and out of the fierce little human tragedy in which I played; something none of us thought about at the time: a small red flame—a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; the flame which the old knights saw from their tombs, which they saw put out; that flame burns again for other soldiers, far from home, farther, in heart, than Acre or Jerusalem. It could not have been lit but for the builders and the tragedians, and there I found it this morning, burning anew among the old stones.”

*   *   *

The little workroom tucked away behind Garak’s tailor shop has never looked so productive. A rack hangs with a beautiful array of dresses – a soft pink gown the Dabo girl, Leeta, asked for; something new and more fashionable for Ziyal he made as a thank you. Even an old olive-branch request from the Major made in a Bajoran style, a jumpsuit with a flowing skirt around it and wrapped top, not unlike the one she wears to the Gratitude Festival celebrations on Deep Space 9. The rich red and orange tones of the outfit will match her complexion well. Whether Major Kira will be interested in accepting it now remains to be seen. If she does, he certainly won’t be asking her to pay.

His workbench is a mountain of items in progress, sewing machines and fine threads – a testament to the dangers of one having too much time on one’s hands, because it’s made it him quite disorganised, and there are few things Garak despises more than imprecision. Each morning he arrives in his shop in the early hours, when the Promenade outside is still dark, and picks up the first thing he sees. He works until it’s late enough for the walkways to be deserted again before returning to his quarters. On occasion, he does not return at all. His workshop chair is hardly a comfortable place to sleep, but it suffices. He’s rather taken to avoiding people over the past week or so.

The sign out the front of the shop reads, Temporarily Closed – Purchases by Appointment Only. Paranoia keeps the door locked. Isolation feeds off his thoughts and memories and twists the world into a sequence of loud noises and flashes of light that make Garak jump like a frightened animal.

His meeting with Sisko was brief and uncharacteristically honest. Garak was distracted by the baseball passing between Sisko’s hands as he spoke, by the sound of Major Kira and Commander Dax’s conversation just outside in Ops.

The facts were simple enough. An invasive form of transporter that used undercurrents to bypass security measures was employed to extract its target from the Infirmary and onto a Milodish ship, departing that night. A week ago a small Federation base received an urgent cry for help on Starfleet channels, passing the message onto Deep Space 9. A conflict over the uninhabited planet resulted in no casualties but for the starbase officer shot down by the Cardassians, the one in the burning wreck they found. Commander Dax led the boarding party. She and her team are all fine.

“I’ve spoken with the Constable,” Sisko said coolly, “it seems he had heard of this… Kaarmas Kraltar. A low-ranking Obsidian Order agent who fell out of favour some years ago, started acting independently. The Cardassian government has distanced themselves from his actions and decided not to see an issue with the fact he was killed in Federation space. Authorities on Gatera II were notified about the operation of this organisation on their planet and managed to seize Nela Prel’s stores of mersidarinium, but she had already escaped by the time they arrived.”

“Yes,” Garak sighed. “I was expecting as much.”

“I imagine you’ll be equally unsurprised to hear that none of the agents we apprehended on Kraltar’s ship have agreed to co-operate with Starfleet investigations so far.”

“We’re not known for being the most compliant types,” he replied, offering a weak smile.

“Well, they’ll have plenty of time in prison to rethink their attitudes.”

“If that’s all, Captain?”

Sisko gave him one of his lasting looks and nodded. “Yes. You’re free to go. But I will need a report from you for Starfleet command by the end of the week. Major Kira has already sent you the details – it shouldn’t take too long.”

“Of course. I’ll make it my top priority.” He didn’t. It took three days before Garak was willing to open up the list of instructions from Major Kira on filling out an official report. He tried to write down the events of the past week – or however long it’d really been, because it’s so hard to remember now – like a dry academic summary of a fictional novel, half-imagining that none of it was real. Much of it doesn’t feel real, more like a storm of false memories and confusion. The report still sits on his desk, uncompleted. It’s the last part of the story that he doesn’t know how to describe. And that, arguably, is the piece of awful mess most important to understand. Lives could depend upon it. One thing is certain – Kaarmas Kraltar was not acting alone, his ship was not the only one to carry a crew of silver badge-wearing soldiers dreaming of a day when the Obsidian Order would reign supreme once again. More are at risk, some guilty, but most innocent. Garak is surprised to find himself caring. He never would have before.

Major Kira’s rebukes were delivered without pretence and carrying an underlying air of sympathy that made him uncomfortable to hear. Commander Dax was slightly more forgiving. Poor Ziyal had tried to apologise for breaking her word to him. His conscience is still punishing him for that one. He looks over at the dress he made for her, hanging from the rack, and grimaces. The time, just past 2100 hours. He goes back to his work. Further down the Promenade outside, Quark’s bar seems to be doing an excellent trade – he’s never heard it so noisy and rambunctious. No doubt the Constable is already on his way down to tell his Ferengi nemesis in public disturbances off, to no avail. Garak doesn’t mind. It interrupts the oppressive nature of the silence.

He hears a soft rush of air. The sound of the front door of his shop opening and closing. The sewing needle he’s holding slips from his fingers, falling down onto the workbench in a flicker of silver. He gets swiftly to his feet and crosses his workroom to the door, the one that opens onto the main body of the shop. The overhead lights are off, the room illuminated by a decorative lamp of black glass sitting on the counter. Beyond it, a figure stands silhouetted, slim and supporting themselves against a pillar. They step into the light.

“Doctor.” The word falls from his lips, a pebble skimming across the surface of still waters.

“Julian.”

Garak blinks foolishly, stares into dark eyes with even darker marks of exhaustion and pain etched beneath. It’s the first time they’ve been so aware since the chaos of the bridge. He recalls sitting on the ground outside the Infirmary, soaked in blood, shaking as Commander Dax tried to urge him up, tried to reassure him Julian had a good chance of pulling through. He didn’t believe her for a long time. There’d been so much blood. So much. “Julian,” he agrees, correcting himself with a very uncertain smile. “I do believe I left that door locked, you know. Surely you wouldn’t have used your ability to perform medical overrides to gain access without justification?”

“I didn’t want to startle you by knocking.”

“Ah, of course. Instead you broke in without warning and crept around like a thief in the night. Your Federation philosophy never fails to justify itself.”

For a long moment, Julian stands still, barely five metres away. His skin has recovered most of its usual life and the bruises are gone. It’s the first time Garak has seen him out of either ruined clothes or patient gear in what seems like a long time. His dark blue shirt has a high collar, leaving Garak with no choice but to wonder whether the phaser wounds from the Jem’Hadar remain or have since been erased from existence by the nurses. Really, aside from thinking he might’ve missed a night of sleep, you wouldn’t know what’d happened to Doctor Julian Bashir at all. He glows in the warm light of the lamp with all his eternal beauty – a soft smile, hopeful but uncertain. No smoke, no sweat, no blood. Only a slight slant in the way he stands, a limp in his step as he crosses the space between them in unsteady strides.

Julian throws his arms around Garak’s neck, burying his face in Garak’s shoulder. Garak finds comfort in hearing the doctor’s heart beating, counts the tempo of its faint pitter-patter just to be sure. Not quite knowing what else to do, he lets his hands come to rest – one on Julian’s back, one in his hair – and holds the warm body closely, carefully. Not like last time, he reminds himself. Hearting beating. Lungs expanding. And all of Julian’s blood thankfully staying where it belongs, rather than spilling out onto the floor.

“My dear doctor,” he murmurs, thrown off from his usual exactness. “I am sorry for not being there to welcome you back to the world of the living. I had no idea you had awoken.”

“I only came to properly a little while ago,” Julian replies. “Jadzia wanted to come to tell you right away, but I thought I’d wait to come to you. So it’s just us.” Just them, standing alone, and night on Deep Space 9 descending all around in a wave that rises to eye level, obscuring the world in comforting shadows.

“Dare I ask how you feel?” Garak asks, stepping back a little so he can look into Julian’s eyes.

Julian smiles. “Oh, shocking. Tends to happen when you’re hit with phaser fire, burned, involved in a ship crash, frozen, starved, injected with deadly poison and stabbed all within one week.”

Garak can’t help but wince. “You might spare me the replay, Doctor. I do remember.”

“Don’t you dare go blaming yourself again,” Julian warns, frowning. His fingers reach up tentatively to touch Garak’s face, as they did the other day on the bridge of Kraltar’s ship when the universe was imploding and that smooth skin was slick with blood. “I thought we were past that.”

“Almost.” He catches Julian’s wrist, glancing over the hand. His right hand. The blisters and red, peeling skin are gone, but scarring remains. Julian sighs.

“I know it looks painful, but it doesn’t hurt at all, I promise,” he says. “I would have to have more intensive surgery to fix the scarring that resulted from it not being properly treated for a week. And since I’m not in pain, it didn’t seem worth it just now.” He looks up again, meets Garak’s eyes. “I really just wanted to check in with you. Make sure you’re not… planning on blowing up your shop again and disappearing without a trace.”

“I do believe that plan has been permanently removed from my list of possibilities, as disappointed as Quark will be to hear his dream of a franchise massage parlour must suffer another blow.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. I was worried you might run away while I was unconscious.”

“No, I’m afraid you might be stuck with me now, my dear.”

Julian smiles wider, laughing softly beneath his breath. “Cheers to that. I’m quite happy to be stuck, if it’s with you.”

“Really?” Garak asks, not quite reassured. “Beyond the uh- murderous intentions of many of my former associates, I must say I’m not your usual type.”

“Who says I have a type?” Garak’s brow raises. “Alright fine, so I haven’t gone out with any reformed Cardassian spies before. But I don’t think you’ve ever dated a Human before, either, especially not a Starfleet officer. So it’ll be new to both of us. Or, perhaps not so new. We have been basically doing this for the past few years now, haven’t we? It just took being kidnapped, stranded on a planet and nearly killed for us to realise it.”

“That’s certainly… one way of seeing it.”

“Can you promise me something?”

Garak tilts his head as if to say, go on.

“Promise me you’ll forgive yourself. Because there really isn’t anything to forgive, at least not from where I’m standing. I know what it’s like to feel as if someone else’s life is in your hands,” he adds. “I know it’s hard. But I’m choosing it, Garak, if we’re doing this. I’m choosing you.”

“Let’s hope you don’t come to regret that choice.”

“I won’t,” Julian says. “Especially if it means I get to kiss you again.”

He glances quickly over Julian’s shoulder to the shopfront beyond, almost expecting to find the disapproving glare of Major Kira or one of Commander Dax’s painfully knowing smiles staring back at him through the glass. The Promenade is abandoned, though, except for a young couple stumbling along towards the turbolift after a night of drinking at Quark’s bar.

“You do realise you’re not going to get in trouble, right?” Julian murmurs, gently easing Garak’s cheek back so their eyes meet again. “Nobody’s going to tell you off for kissing someone who just happens to wear a Starfleet uniform. But I will tell you off if you don’t and that’s your only reason not to.”

“Your friends can be rather protective, on occasion,” he points out.

“Don’t worry, I think they know I can handle you.”

 That sounds rather like a challenge. He remembers Julian days and days ago, in the replimat just before the Jem’Hadar swooped into the Alpha Quadrant to begin the whole affair, remembers, you never give in, do you? It hadn’t meant much at the time. Elim Garak and Julian Bashir were both stubborn kinds of people, always determined to carry a point through until the end, so firmly set in their values as well as their fears. That was common knowledge. Many found it annoying and admirable in equal measures. But that stubbornness, he’s found, extends to a desperate resolution to stay alive that surprises even him. He didn’t realise before he had that much to live for. Perhaps it’s mere self-preservation, that aspect of being that condemns people to cling onto life with all their strength, even in the darkest of times. But Garak would like to imagine, in his own silly sentimental way, that it’s a higher quality they share – the benefit to being so relentless. It’s that they never give in. Garak has had his brushes with nihilism. More in the last week than he can recall happening in years. He’s beginning to feel it’s never done anyone much good at all.

“You know, every year I live on this station,” he says, trying to sound disapproving, “I fear I start to believe more and more in your Federation optimism, Doctor. It’s quite unnerving.”

“You just don’t want to admit that we might’ve been right all along,” Julian teases. “And that your Cardassian philosophy was really only a bunch of old books droning on about how important it is to be miserable so long as it makes your local politician happy.”

“If you think my… openness to entertaining other perspectives means I’m willing to stand here and listen to revered works of literature be disparaged with justification, I would reconsider.”

“Well if you’re sick of having to hear me complain, then do something about it.”

Garak supposes he may as well do just that. It has been a very long time since he kissed someone aside from the doctor and truly meant it – in general, it’s not the first thing that ever comes to mind. But it was of the initial thoughts flickering through his head on the day he introduced himself to Julian Bashir, suppressing other considerations as he stared down at the ajar mouth and awe-filled eyes, entranced. It wasn’t just because the young man was pretty and charming and so earnest, but because some small part of him guessed that there would be more, that there had to be. More to the doctor, more to them, more to Garak’s future than the dull work of a despised tailor. He wanted Julian. He wanted everything Julian meant – honesty, affection, possibility. He does still, and it’s why he slips his hand behind Julian’s head and tugs him in gently, remembering all the times they stood this close before and he felt the embarrassing impulse to ignore his better judgement and show Julian what he meant by enjoyable company.

He would’ve been very sorry if the freezing cold and choking smoke of the snow planet cave was the last time he was ever allowed to kiss Julian Bashir. Because it really is incredible, even leaving aside the wonder of having wanted to do it for so long and wasting his first chance with cowardice and self-loathing. Julian yields, sighing, into Garak’s arms, seeming to lose any idea of supporting himself with Garak there to hold him. He reaches up to clasp Garak’s face between two hands and pulls him closer, drags him down into the tempest.

The way Julian kisses him now is outrageous compared to before, perhaps because there’s no pressure to make it meaningful, no pressure to make the most of the moment with the threat of imminent death locked outside. That’s a strange thought – they can do this now, they just can, they’re over the precipice and barred from return. Not that Garak would ever want things to go back to the way they were, despite the rather unfortunate circumstances responsible for bringing about the change. Julian’s mouth keeps pressing further, demanding more, and he is happy to oblige. Happy to stand there in the warmth, in the weak light, with Julian held close and letting out muffled sounds he can only assume are satisfied ones. It’s a shame they ever have to leave.

He breaks away to allow the doctor a chance to breathe, but evidently Julian does not have that in mind. He kisses down Garak’s neck, hot mouth against cool scales, bringing an unusual flush to the surface of the skin. His hands seem to be everywhere at once – running through Garak’s hair, on his face, his neck, his shoulders, his heart. It’s very understandable how he developed his reputation as a bit of a… people’s person, if this is the way he behaves.

“You’re quite a pest,” Garak chides, ducking away artfully. The doctor is quick to forget the value of patience.

Julian’s smile when he looks back up is radiant. “Yes, but you love me for it.”

“Hm.” It’s supposed to sound non-committal. It doesn’t. He feels Julian’s hand take up his own – warm and soft but for the burn scars that run in starbursts across it, feels their fingers intertwine.

“I’m really glad we didn’t die,” Julian says.

“Yes. That was fortunate.”

“I’m really glad we met in the first place, too. I keep thinking, you could’ve chosen anyone in the replimat that day – I wasn’t the only ranking Starfleet officer. And I’m just happy it was me, even if I have a few extra scars to show for it.”

Garak gives Julian a knowing look. “I do hope you’re not about to devolve into suggestions of fate and destiny, my dear. I promise I had fully justifiable and strategic reasons for approaching you all those years ago. The will of the Prophets had nothing to do with it.”

The little shrug Julian offers suggests it doesn’t matter much, in the end. It happened. The small corner of the universe they occupy is better for it.

“Please don’t ever stop doing that, by the way,” Julian adds, squeezing Garak’s hand in a small gesture of affection.

“Doing what?”

“Calling me my dear. I think it might just be my favourite thing in the world.”

It’s a great effort not to smile like a fool, he feels so strangely light and… contented. He can’t bring to mind a time when he ever felt this way before. Patience may have its rewards, but so does honesty, on occasion. He puts his arms back around Julian, pulls him into a more gentle embrace. Julian nestles his head down into the crook of Garak’s neck like he did before, and it’s safe. Comfortable. “Anything for you, my dear,” he replies, and there’s no need to look to know of Julian’s smile. No need to look to see the light behind his eyes, the tiny flame still burning bright through all the tragedy, indescribable and sacred beyond prayer or promise.

Chapter Text

He’s watching from the upper level of the Promenade when Julian arrives, strolling arm and arm with Commander Dax, his apparent escort as they obsess over the latest scientific discovery or station gossip. He still walks with a hint of a limp, more a force of habit than the result of any actual discomfort. It’s been weeks since the damage of his stabbing and broken ribs was repaired. He glances up and sees Garak right away, waving and quickly turning to make his excuses to the Commander. The far end of the Promenade is almost deserted at this hour, and he hears the voices floating up from below – glad you two sorted things out and really appreciate it, Jadzia and more phrases that fade into the distant whir of the station at night.

Julian had asked to meet that afternoon, but an unfortunate array of medical emergencies and the birth of an Ensign Zhou’s long-awaited baby had delayed their meeting until late into the evening. Garak doesn’t mind, not simply because the low light is kinder on his eyes and night leaves them free of noisy crowds. The stars are brighter beyond the panes of glass when the Promenade lights are off, he thinks. Or at least they seem that way. The sea of speckled, glittering white on black is the most entrancing thing in Garak’s world, except for Julian. He might just be turning into an old man, but he could watch it for hours.

Despite the exhaustion of his long day, Julian bounds up the stairs to the second level two at a time. He’s wearing that purple and blue shirt of it, shining material catching in the weak glow. Garak notices a paper bag hanging from one of Julian’s hands, with the words To Garak written haphazardly down the side.

“I’m so sorry,” Julian gasps, pausing to press a quick kiss to Garak’s lips – his customary casual greeting whenever there aren’t too many people around to see and think things about it. “I got away as soon as I could.”

“No need to apologise,” Garak tells him. “It’s hardly your fault if people decide to start going into labour at inopportune times.”

Julian glances over to the window, staring out at the dark ocean that lies just on the other side. It holds his attention for a few long moments before his gaze snaps back to Garak, brighter than before. “Well, I’m about to drop dead on my feet, but that’s beside the point. Today- Tonight is about you.”

“Is it?” Garak asks, curious. “You’ve yet to explain what the significance of this meeting is.”

“You’ll see,” Julian replies cryptically, reaching into his paper bag to retrieve a thin object – what looks like some kind of letter, a physical one. He offers it out. “Don’t get too excited,” he adds. “I’m not sure it’s that great, but… anyway, like I said, you’ll see.”

Garak takes the square envelope, tucked in rather than sealed. He slips it open and removes the object inside. It’s a card of sorts, decorated with pretty scribbles in fine black pen of mountains and coniferous trees and in the centre a rippling lake. The inside is plain except for a short message, printed in a careful hand on the right side. Dear Garak, Happy birthday! I know it’s not your actual birthday-birthday, but I remember you said you didn’t have one and I could choose one for you, so I did. You will probably think these are all very silly Human traditions and you’re also probably right but I hope you like them in any case. Lots of love, Your Dear Julian. P.S. For the record Ziyal did the art on the front, not me. I can’t draw.

He looks back up to Julian’s hopeful expression, more touched than he has any right to be. It is very silly, and no doubt he’s only seen the start of it. But it means something that Julian didn’t forget.

“Now for your birthday present,” Julian says, giving a tentative smile. He passes Garak the paper bag.

“Why, thank you.” The bag is quite light, rustling softly as he reaches inside. His fingers close around a handful of fabric. The item he withdraws is quite a surprise – it’s only the size of Garak’s hand, perhaps, but the design is unmistakable. Blue and black and grey, a little triangular gold button sewed to the front. Normally, Julian would be wearing an exact replica scaled up to normal Human size. When he looks closer, he notices the hand stitching, a little messy but very charming.

“I’ve been brushing up on my tailor skills,” Julian says, as if that’s an explanation that helps much.

“I see that but, my dear, I fear your grasp on proportions might need some work.”

Julian rolls his eyes. “It’s not for you to wear. Keep looking.”

At the bottom of the bag, soft and fluffy to the touch, is a toy. Garak knows it right away, remembers the one just like it that sits on Julian’s shelf. A Human teddy bear. The tiny Starfleet uniform would fit it just right, he realises.

“I remember you were so fascinated by Kukalaka when you first met him,” Julian says, “I thought you deserved a bear too. So now you have your very own certified Julian Bashir teddy with authentic shirt and Starfleet badge. I’m working on sewing some Cardassian clothes for it too, but they’re a little trickier to master. Teddy bears are a classic first birthday present,” he adds, “and this is your first birthday in a sense, so it’s extra appropriate.”

Whether or not that’s true, Garak doesn’t mind. “He’s quite wonderful,” he agrees, turning the toy over in his hands. “How about Khosett for a name?”

“Hm? I didn’t catch that one.”

“You really must brush up on your Kardasi, Doctor. It means dearest one.”

“Oh.” Julian’s face heats and he ducks his head to hide the smile creeping out across his face. “Right. Well, I know it’s getting late now, but there’s still dessert in my quarters if you want it.”

“Dessert?”

“Birthday cake,” Julian clarifies. “But I bet you already knew that. Come on, let’s go. And stop trying to make me blush.” He sniffs, turning his nose up in mock disapproval. “It’s not gentlemanly behaviour.”

Garak smiles. “Ah, but you do make it so easy.”

The Promenade is beautiful on calm nights such as these, still and safe as Garak allows Julian to take his hand, keeping the newly-christened Khosset safety tucked under the other arm. The shadows come as comforts. They have a night of peace, at least. It’s all they could really need.

*   *   *

Julian Bashir is not all Garak was expecting him to be. Quite happily, as it turns out, he is so much more.