Work Text:
INT. REPLIMAT - LUNCHTIME
A somewhat bustling space-cafe setting, chatter in the background. GARAK is seated and looking down at the beverage and tray of food in front of him. Enter JULIAN from stage left with a tray and glass. Garak looks up.
GARAK
You’re late, doctor.
JULIAN
Tell me something I don’t know.
GARAK
(wide-eyed and smiling:) Oh, but where do I start?
JULIAN
(dry:) Very funny. I know you’re familiar with that saying by now. A freighter came in with thirteen ill passengers; I couldn’t abandon them for a lunch outing.
GARAK
(sarcastic:) Oh no, of course. Not for a mere lunch outing.
JULIAN
Garak.
GARAK
Doctor?
JULIAN
You know what I meant. Now, are we going to discuss the books or are you going to be touchy?
GARAK
I don’t see why it can’t be both. Both can be good.
JULIAN
(digs into food, shaking head, smiling despite himself.) I’m tempted to ask what’s gotten into you lately, but I know it won’t get me anywhere so I’m not going to bother. What did you think of the book?
GARAK
Gotten into me? I don’t know what you mean.
JULIAN
(looks up, trying to judge if he’s being lied to.) You’ve been deliberately provoking me lately, more than usual. I don’t know if I’ve done something to upset you, or if something else is going on.
GARAK
I’m quite certain I could never be upset with you, my dear.
JULIAN
Liar.
GARAK
But I may be upset with your choice of text, if we’re to be honest.
JULIAN
Now I don’t know if you loved it or want to go back in time to murder the author.
GARAK
What a shocking allegation. I would never kill someone for being a poor author.
JULIAN
(looks at him, waiting.)
GARAK
(with a completely unconvincing smile:) That’s never enough motivation. Now, if they were also writing subversive themes into their literature...
JULIAN
Of course.
GARAK
(smile widens) But even you must admit Faulkner should have been stopped.
JULIAN
He’s widely regarded as the first literature author in the United States of America, Garak. He’s in the canon, vitally important to historical understanding of how the novel form evolved. You can’t dismiss him, and you certainly can’t ignore his contributions.
GARAK
Contributions? Was there a punctuation fund for other poor authors that he donated all of his to? One of his sentences went on for five pages!
JULIAN
It’s stream-of-consciousness narration! He was a master of the craft!
GARAK
If that’s how human stream-of-consciousness works, it’s no wonder you had to forge a Federation with other races to get anywhere.
JULIAN
Garak!
GARAK
It was vague meandering down a dark path, deliberately adding more shadows and gloom to make it all the more confusing. I read the book twice and I’m still not sure of what it was trying to convey.
JULIAN
Intruder in the Dust is a statement on widespread racism, particularly in the South, one of the greatest, deepest-set issues that the United States faced.
GARAK
Racism against other humans.
JULIAN
Yes. We’ve had, we’ve struggled... Surely Cardassians haven’t always accepted other Cardassians. There haven’t been groups that were thought of as lesser? You have a loose class system, don’t you?
GARAK
One that can be surmounted. But this seemed to be about human skin pigmentation, if I’m interpreting it and your words correctly.
JULIAN
Well, yes.
GARAK
(shaking his head:) Humanity will never cease to astound me.
JULIAN
Cardassians aren’t exactly the most loving and welcoming people. Look at how your people treated Ziyal.
GARAK
My dear doctor. Ziyal was an exceptional case, and--
JULIAN
No. She wasn’t. Your people are so convinced of their own superiority that they didn’t have room for her. Just as white people in Earth’s past were so convinced of theirs.
GARAK
Except we are sup--
JULIAN
(heatedly) No. No one race is superior, Garak. It’s people that matter, not how or what they’re born. Cardassian, Human, Ferengi, it doesn’t matter. It’s what they do with the life they have that matters.
GARAK
(slightly taken aback but also very interested) Really, doctor. I’ve rarely heard you quite this bothered about anything except where your patients are concerned.
JULIAN
I’m not going to apologize for it. I gave you Faulkner to read not just because of his place in the canon, or his unique writing style--
GARAK
If only it was completely unique.
JULIAN
--but because what he was saying matters. Whether you appreciate his prose or not, discrimination is a problem in any form.
GARAK
Ah, against augments as well? Should augmentation then be allowed in the Federation?
JULIAN
Don’t even try to turn this around on me. Augments are artificially created and completely beside the point.
GARAK
But you’re now facing discrimination because of it.
JULIAN
The point, Garak, that Faulkner was making, is that hatred, particularly hatred based in race, only destroys. It builds nothing, it strengthens nothing, it ruins what is valuable and vulnerable and precious.
GARAK
Is that the point he was making? Maybe that was in the sentence that was merely three pages long, as opposed to the seven-page long one.
JULIAN
(angrily) Garak!
GARAK
(grins)
JULIAN
(eyes him, expression changing) You’re doing this on purpose.
GARAK
Doing what?
JULIAN
Riling me up. You’re trying to get a reaction out of me.
GARAK
Now why would I do such a thing?
JULIAN
I have no… (trails off, looks past Garak for a moment and his eyes narrow.)
GARAK
...Doctor?
JULIAN
I’m suddenly reminded of when the Cardassian scientists visited. Gilora Rejal, in particular.
GARAK
A rather competent woman, but I fail to see the point of this sidetrack.
JULIAN
She spent quite some time with Chief O’Brien.
GARAK
Really. I can’t recall, was this before or after he started overcoming his hatred of my people?
JULIAN
He said she flirted with him, aggressively.
GARAK
He’s intelligent enough, but I can’t see the appeal.
JULIAN
By trying to pick fights.
GARAK
That hardly sounds accurate. Are you certain that’s what she was doing?
JULIAN
That’s what she told Miles.
GARAK
Well. My people aren’t always known for being straightforward.
JULIAN
No. They’re not.
(a few moments of silence pass, Garak smiling at Julian, Julian studying Garak.)
JULIAN
I can’t help but remember how we met.
GARAK
Ah, yes. You were in the process of losing a battle with the table arrangement, I believe, and I needed a Starfleet officer to use against the Duras sisters.
JULIAN
Is that really all you needed?
GARAK
Oh, I needed lunch too. And perhaps a friend. I believe I ended the conversation with one of those, but I wound up quite hungry later.
JULIAN
You’re not going to answer me, are you.
GARAK
Doctor. All I give you are answers. It’s hardly my fault if they’re not the answers you’re looking for, or answers you know how to interpret.
Garak stands and inclines his head.
GARAK
I fear our time for today is at an end; I have several commissions to finish up and you likely have more patients. A doctor’s work is never done.
JULIAN
Dinner.
GARAK
You'll forgive me, but I’m fairly certain this was lunch.
JULIAN
My work will be done by dinnertime. You’re welcome to join me at 20:00 hours, in my quarters.
GARAK
(clearly taken by surprise and working to cover for it) How...bold. I’ll examine my schedule.
JULIAN
(smiling) Good.
Garak exits, and Julian remains seated as the smile slowly fades into a look of dawning, terrified realization.
JULIAN
(tapping combadge) Bashir to Dax. I… I need some help.