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There was a muffled sound tickling his ears amidst the ringing. Julian tried to lift his head to find the source, but he saw nothing but stars and a burst of white. A groan escaped from his throat as his head hit the ground again. With the light impact, the white faded into dark spots in his vision.
Julian noted a concussion as a likely possibility. Scratch that - a highly likely possibility.
When his vision finally cleared, he saw the remains of smoke and runabout. He couldn't remember what exactly had hit it and caused it to crash, but Julian had a suspicion that the ceiling had caved in and collapsed on top of him and Chief O'Brien.
Miles!
Julian tried to sit up again, this time with even less success than before. He grunted with the effort and coughed instead. He also gathered his courage to look down at his own body and injuries.
To say it was bad was an understatement. A massive one. There was something dark and sticky blossoming in his left shoulder, running in thick lines down his arm and staining what was left of his Starfleet uniform. It was harder to make out the rest of his body - grey smoke and ash still lingered in the air, and Julian spotted flames dancing in another empty pocket near his foot. Fortunately, it wasn't close enough to affect him...
Yet.
He'd already wasted enough time with attempting to gather his bearings. It was useless anyway, as Julian wasn't sure exactly where he was in terms of both the runabout and the crash site. He decided to assume that they were stranded on a nearby planet or moon, at least a few light years away from the wormhole leading back to Deep Space Nine. Back home.
Soon the fire would claw its way towards him, and Julian realized he didn't want to test the fire-resistant integrity of Starfleet uniforms.
He looked back down at his wounded shoulder and tried to nudge it ever so slightly. An icepick of pain slammed into his shoulder and blood trickled into the puddle forming beneath his arm. Julian gasped.
A few seconds of precious time dragged by slowly. He held his breath and stole another glance, this time taking care not to jostle his shoulder. Some kind of rod or metal pipe was lodged into the skin and tendons, perhaps an inch or so below the highest point of his clavicle bone. He was pinned down on that one side of his body. The only thing that had protected his head from a similar fate was a bulkhead propping up all sorts of debris and wreckage.
He also realized there was a flashing light on beside his good side. The fog in his mind made it hard to tell exactly what part of the runabout console it had once been, but Julian easily knew that it was only half-working.
"Julian!" He heard Miles yell over the ringing in his ears.
Julian tried to tune it out and closed his eyes, wanting to slip into a restful sleep...
But then he might not wake up. The thought roused Julian back into consciousness. "Miles," he croaked.
There was no response. He cursed and tried again, speaking as loud as he could manage. "M-Miles!"
"Hang on," Miles said. "I'll try and find you."
Julian glanced back at the pole impaling his shoulder and the blood leaking out. Ironically, he knew it was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out. But despite that, Julian was the doctor - he knew he was running out of time.
"Are you hurt?" He asked through gritted teeth.
"My ankle's sprained, but it's not bad. What about you?"
"Uh..." Julian swallowed thickly. "Miles. Y-you'd have a better chance of getting out of here if you left me."
There was a beat of silence where everything was still. No sounds of any kind, whether it was their conversation or Miles trying to maneuver his way through the wreckage in a futile attempt to find him.
"No. I'm not leaving without you, Julian."
"Chief—"
"I said no! Now hang on, I can come help you and then work on sending out a general distress signal."
"Don't get sentimental on me now," Julian mumbled, too low for his best friend to actually hear.
He hated being stuck under a bulkhead and impaled by a stupid piece of metal. He hated himself for getting into this situation, and he hated Miles for being too stubborn to let Julian die. Then again, none of it was actually his fault. Luck in Starfleet worked on an arbitrary system, rigged from the very beginning.
The sound that Julian assumed was Miles digging through debris grew closer every minute.
"How are you injured?"
"I'm pretty sure I have a concussion."
Miles coughed from smoke inhalation. "Your words are slurred, so yeah."
"Well damn."
"And?" He prodded. "What else?"
"There may or may not be a pole lodged in my shoulder."
This time, the beat of silence was accompanied by a loud curse and a sound which Julian realized was Miles dropping something.
"I-I did say 'may not' too, right?" Julian joked. His comment fell flat, so he decided to bring up his next point: "You realize that your digging could just make the situation worse? We could both die if you make even the smallest of mistakes."
"It's not like it could get much better right now," Miles defended himself. "Besides, just before we crashed, you were near the front while I was getting coffee from the back replicator."
"So our best chance of survival..."
"Relies on my digging, Julian."
Julian closed his eyes. He knew he wasn't at risk for falling asleep, because A) the throbbing of his head made it hard not to remain wide awake and in time with it, and B) he found that worrying about more rubble crushing him was a motivating factor. Or maybe blood loss could be associated with adrenaline.
Suddenly an idea struck him. "Chief. Remind me what a distress beacon looks like."
"Er, it's grey and boxy. It also—"
"Has flashing lights," Julian finished, using his good hand to reach over to what he now realized was the distress beacon. "It's right next to me, Miles."
The sounds of digging stopped momentarily.
Miles hesitated. "Can you tell if it's working? Or if we can at least manage an S.O.S on all general subspace channels?"
"Uh, now remind me what a fully functional beacon looks like."
"They should have updated us on their progress at least an hour ago," Benjamin Sisko said as he began to pace his office again.
Kira, displayed on the view screen, shook her head. "Our sensors haven't picked up anything unusual yet. We'll keep searching, Captain. Rio Grande out."
She ended the transmission and leaned back in her seat. Her eyes darted across the runabout's consoles, but they didn't reveal some miracle or anything that she didn't already know. There was only a small map of planets and moons in the Gamma Quadrant - both charted and uncharted. The area was huge, and Kira knew that there was an endless stream of possibilities for what could've happened to Doctor Bashir and Chief O'Brien.
"Raktajino?" Jadzia asked as she slipped into the seat besides her, carrying yet another cup of Klingon coffee.
Kira raised an eyebrow. "How many have you had today?"
"Forgive me if I'm a little on edge. Caffeine is supposed to help me calm down."
"Okay then," she said wryly. "Knock yourself out."
Jadzia put the glass down, her hands dancing over the console as she examined the latest readings from the runabout's sensors.
"Hmm. We can't hail them, so you'd assume that something must have happened. If something did happen, you'd think they would have send a distress signal."
"Maybe this 'something' happened too fast for them to realize what was happening."
Kira leaned over to glance at the readings. "Either an even stranger than usual first-contact, or an anomaly of some kind."
"Well personally, I'm hoping for the latter," Jadzia said, smiling despite herself. "You can find a reliable answer in science, but alien governments can't say the same thing. Believe me, I've—"
She got interrupted by the sudden trill of beeping from the console. A second later, her eyes widened.
"It's a distress signal! Give me a second to clear it up and I can identify... It's definitely from a Federation runabout."
Kira nodded, relief evident in her features. "Setting a new course. It'll take a few minutes - I just hope that's not too late."
Julian lie there for a few seconds, catching his breath. His good hand lingered on the distress beacon. He knew that neither him or it would go anywhere anytime soon, but he still felt safer clinging to something.
"I think that should do the trick," he breathed. "And now we wait."
"Those engineering extension courses finally paying off, ay Julian?"
Julian laughed. A white-hot pain shot down his shoulder at the movement, and he abruptly stopped to blink the spots out of his vision. He tried not to notice how they lingered for much longer than they had the first time. Time was running out at a fast rate, and there was nothing Julian could do that would slow down the clock.
"D-did you ever do something with that hurt ankle of yours? Wrap it?"
"Yes, Doctor." After spending so much time with Garak, Julian could spot the lie.
"Acknowledged, Chief. But you're not fooling me that easily."
Miles cursed. "You're injured worse than I am!"
"That doesn't mean—"
"We're not having this conversation," Miles said. "It's just a waste of time..."
Which we're short on, at the moment. The words remained unspoken, but not unthought of.
"Miles."
"Hm?"
Julian swallowed. "I... I wanted to say thank you."
"No. No, no, Julian! Don't get sentimental on me." He could hear pleading in Miles' voice, but he forced himself to keep going and ignore the irony of the Chief's words.
"There's no one I-I'd rather be in this situation with than you. You were my best friend for the past few—"
"Julian Bashir, you better change that past tense nonsense!" Miles yelled. "You can't just give up and believe you're going to die here! You won't!"
His eyelids grew heavy, and Julian fought to keep them open. "I'm loosing consciousness. Miles, Miles, M-Miles..."
Tears pooled in his eyes as Julian's life flashed before himself. He wouldn't get the chance to see Molly and Kirayoshi grow up. There would be no more games of darts or battles in the holosuites. No more "book club" talks with Garak during lunch. No more of anything, because Julian would be dead and unresponsive soon.
He wished he only had more time.
Maybe the clock would stop - but instead it was the clock documenting Julian's existence.
The seconds were running thin.
Julian thought he heard Miles' voice, probably begging him to stay awake and in the land of the living. But it was muffled, and he couldn't find the energy to actually listen and decipher any of his words.
Just when he finally felt the life drain out of him, vision darkening, there was a familiar sensation of tingling throughout his entire body...
Apparently he was destined to getting more time.
Julian opened his eyes to the harsh lights of the Infirmary. He shut them quickly and instead chose to lie there in silence and tranquil. Of course, there was still the repetitive beeping from the computer that confirmed that yes, he was miraculously still alive.
When he mustered up the courage to reopen his eyes, Julian lifted his head ever so slightly. He spotted Miles lying on the next bed over, Keiko in a chair next to him. In her arms was the bubbling bundle of excitement - Kirayoshi - and Julian couldn't see Molly, but he could hear her voice.
"Don't wake up just for my being here, my dear Doctor," came a smooth voice to his other side.
"Garak," Julian said, voice hoarse.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Keiko look over and smile. She said something to her husband, but Julian didn't hear.
"I already feel like I got crushed by a runabout, no need to give me a heart attack."
"My apologies. But I am quite happy to see you awake."
Garak smiled, a sight that was beautiful in every way to Julian.
"Me too, Garak. Me too."