Chapter Text
Dr. Julian Bashir was laughing, his eyes crinkling at the obvious displeasure of his lunch companion. “You see,” he said, catching a breath and trying to form a coherent sentence, “what he meant was—”
“Dr. Bashir to medical emergency in Quark’s,” chirped a voice from Julian’s combadge.
Julian threw an apologetic look across the table and dashed off, his long legs carrying him briskly across the Promenade and away from the sigh of resignation from Elim Garak sitting still behind him.
“What’s the emergency?” Julian asked as he entered Quark’s and pushed his way through the gathered crowd. He held steady as the station tilted and righted itself, another in a series of shakes that morning that left everyone unsettled.
“Ruptured plasma relay,” said Miles O’Brien as Julian knelt next to him and the crew member writhing on the floor. “This damned ion storm is making the systems go haywire and one of them overloaded.”
Julian looked over the burns on the crewman and tapped his combadge. “Emergency medical transport; two to beam out.” Miles stepped back as the pair shimmered into light—
--and Julian pitched forward onto his hands on an unfamiliar surface. A transporter pad? He looked up and met the very confused eyes of a man he’d never seen before in a blue jumpsuit with red trim.
“Captain,” the man said as he tapped a button on the panel in front of him. “There’s been a problem. Please come to the transport room.”
Julian stood, dusting himself off. “I don’t know what happened, but I need to get to the infirmary.” He suddenly found himself staring down a—was that a phase pistol? It looked like an antique, bizarrely situated in this already strange situation.
“You’ll stay where you are,” the man in blue said.
“Look, I have a patient—”
“Where you are.”
Julian knew better than to argue with that tone, patient or no—and he was beginning to think he wasn’t anywhere near Deep Space Nine to be helpful to the patient, anyway. He looked around the room to try and get his bearings. That the man in blue was human was somewhat reassuring, although it wasn’t impossible that he was a changeling. This seemed elaborate even for the Founders, but Julian wasn’t about to discount the possibility. The pad on which he stood reminded him of the transporter room on the Enterprise when they had docked at the station several years ago, but it wasn’t quite right. He looked at the man again—there was a patch on his sleeve, what…?
Oh. Oh, no. Julian hadn’t paid as much attention in his history courses as he should have, perhaps, but he recognized that patch. He recognized this configuration. And if he was right, then the captain was—
“What’s going on, Malcolm?” said Jonathan Archer as he entered, and Julian closed his eyes and groaned. It was going to be a very long day.
“Sir, there was a momentary glitch in the transporter beam as I was working on compressing it and then—well, then he appeared.” The man named Malcolm gestured to Julian.
Archer took a step toward the transporter pad and Malcolm stepped with him protectively; security, Julian felt part of his mind register, even though he was in command red. The colors changed in the last century, Julian remembered; red was tactical, gold was command.
“I’m Captain Jonathan Archer,” the man with gold stripes and four insignia pins said. “Since we’re not near any planets or other ships at the moment, I’m going to guess that you aren’t from around here.”
“Ah,” said Julian, his brain freezing. Time travel was annoying at the best of times and this sideways jerk was not the best of times. Maybe it was that ion storm, his mind supplied unhelpfully with the one part that had continued working on the how rather than what now.
“Do you have a name?” Archer asked politely.
“Ah,” said Julian again, wondering how best not to contaminate things.
“Can you understand me? Malcolm, see if you can call Hoshi—”
“I understand, Captain,” said Julian, not wanting to bring in any more personnel than was necessary. “My name is—Julian.”
Archer looked him over. “I don’t want to assume, but you seem human.” Julian smiled grimly at how accidentally apt the description was. “How did you get on my ship?”
This, at least, Julian could answer truthfully. “I’m really not sure, Captain.”
“Where were you?”
Some two hundred years in your future, Julian replied silently. “I was in a bar,” he said, honestly.
“A bar.”
Julian did his best to look innocent.
“Interesting kind of bar that gets you covered in blood.”
Malcolm was rather more direct. “Since we’re in deep space, I’m having trouble with the idea of finding a good bar near here. You have any coordinates you could share for this bar?”
Julian held in a sigh and tried to think of anything plausible that he could say that wasn’t actually the truth. The man named Malcolm continued to eye him watchfully, his hand still on the phase pistol ready at his side. “Coordinates?” said Julian, opting to play dumb. “Wouldn’t know anything about coordinates.” He had no idea how to reverse this mess, but he couldn’t very well ask to take over the transporter panel and check. It was also a good idea to show he wasn’t a threat—well, he’d said he was in a bar.
Drunk it was.
“Fact, I wouldn’t know anything at all,” he said, deliberately slurring his speech and letting his body tilt clumsily. “Was a pretty good bar,” he added. He stumbled forward, pretending to catch himself against the wall.
Archer started forward to help him and Malcolm called out, “Captain! Be careful; we don’t know what he might have on him.”
Besides a tricorder that there was no way he could allow them to see and a Starfleet badge that was entirely out of place, there was fortunately nothing that could be construed as a weapon. Julian thanked the stars for small favors.
“We should get you to Dr. Phlox,” Archer said to Julian. “Then we can talk about whether you really don’t know anything.”
Malcolm came around the transport console, pistol raised, and Julian submitted to being patted down. There went the tricorder; Julian sighed at how completely impossible it was to hide anything in Starfleet uniforms. He looked at the seemingly hundreds of pockets on Archer and Malcolm’s coveralls covetously.
“And what’s this?” Malcolm said, showing Julian the tricorder.
Julian shrugged. “Man’s gotta have some way to keep dates straight,” he said, almost wincing at the terrible lie. Garak would be so disappointed.
Malcolm flipped the tricorder open and Julian sent up a prayer of gratitude that it remained silent and blank; perhaps whatever had gone wrong in the transporter beam had fried its circuitry, which wouldn’t be a blessing in his own time but saved him considerable explanation here.
“And this?” Malcolm continued, tapping the Starfleet combadge.
“’s nice brooch, y’think?” Julian slurred.
Malcolm gave him a calculating stare and Julian was oddly reminded of Odo for a brief moment; they shared that innate suspicion. Yes, this Malcolm was security all right.
“Can you walk?” Archer asked.
Julian pretended to consider. “Bit,” he said, taking a step forward and missing his footing.
Archer caught him and slung Julian’s arm over his own shoulders. “Wouldn’t be good hospitality to let you fall on your face,” he said. They hobbled to the door and Archer pushed a button. “Archer to Phlox.”
“Phlox here.”
“I have a rather—unusual guest here in the transport room; we’re heading your way.”
“Acknowledged,” said the disembodied voice.
“Come on,” said Archer, hitching Julian up a bit. “Let’s go to sick bay.”
“Captain, I must insist that I accompany you,” said Malcolm.
“You can get his other arm, then,” said Archer. He explained to Julian, “You’re a lightweight, but it’s a bit of a walk.”
Julian let his head loll as Malcolm reluctantly took up his other arm, grateful that the matter of the combadge had been left for the time being. The three of them stumbled off to the sick bay, all of them wondering just what on Earth was going on.