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“Well, you fulfilled your promise,” Garak says, carefully; legs crossed with a glass of tea in his hand, “she managed to give her a chance to see her baby.”
Julian is laying on his bed, nodding distantly. He has a hand behind his head supporting up as he leans on his elbow, staring at the ground. His companion is sitting across from him to the right, on some chairs with a table set in the middle of them. Against the window, against the starlight. If only he looked up. His lips form a straight line, and his mind is taking the test results over and over again. He’s analyzing the data over, and over, and over again. He does it from scratch, he adds in parts he knew he missed. Like checking how their body reacts to the medical equipment they haven’t even been introduced to yet. How could something so small slip his mind to check?
“ And,” Garak carries on, not minding himself to interrupt Julian’s thoughts, “that baby became the hope that planet hadn’t had in possibly centuries. ” Garak sets his tea down and that’s when Julian’s eyes look down at him. He has his usual, knowing smile as if he knew his way around everything that was happening and everything he was going through. “You managed to find a vaccine for a deadly, incurable disease in under a month—Doctor, that, in itself, is a feat.”
“ I know that ,” Julian rushed out as he surged to sit up. He almost looks angry, exasperated, as if Garak had insulted him. Garak’s eyes open wide in surprise. They’re in Julian’s quarters, they are talking about much deeper things than literature at this hour, and Julian couldn’t hold his anger back anymore. He could If he wanted to; he could force his mind to push the emotion back. He could even—though, it would take some time—essentially erase the memory of ever landing on that planet. On that journey with Jadzia, and forget everything they talked about. Forget about the men and women with lesions on their facing, embracing death, in no hope of a cure. He could forget the woman willing to do everything for her baby, and the hundreds of people that died within an hour because every little molecule was deadly to them, the blight . And he never thought to check. Julian Bashir’s DNA had been resequenced to make him a superior human being with the strongest memory of medicine in the entirety of Starfleet Medical, yet he had let hundreds of people die slowly, painfully, as he laughed about his childhood teddy bear outside. Witnessing death was nothing new, not for a doctor. But in this way? It seemed comparable to murder. The way Julian had put his foot down with those people, forced hope back into them as if he had something to prove— that he could do the impossible. And he did. He remembers the face and the smiles and the tears of every person he injected his vaccine into. Even though he had control over every part of his body and brain he is unsure if he could ever really burn those out of his memories.
Sighing, Julian rests himself back down halfway. He lays on his forearms and stares at the wall, kicking his legs out a bit. “Smiling as I gave out those vaccines for the blight… I’ll never be able to feel that much pride again.” Then, once more, he shot up, angrily, “And that’s the worst part, Garak— hundreds of people had just died under my care!”
“And an entire population was saved after,” Garak buts in with his volume raised just enough to match the other.
“ That doesn’t take away the moment! ” That was the only way Julian could describe the pain. He knew the lives of a hundred people outweighed the life of an entire population, but this wasn’t the same. He had felt as though he had to prove something. That unforgettable pride is what killed those people faster than their disease. Slowly, Julian lowered himself a little more, deflated. “That doesn’t take away the moment.” He repeats, looking down in disgust. Garak said nothing. “That’s not going to take away all the people I couldn’t save.”
“It won’t bring them back either,” Garak oh-so quickly reminds him. Frustrated, Julian flopped down on his bed. He doesn’t think Garak is taking this seriously.
“Look—you know what? Maybe just… go, Garak.” Fully, he sat up and lays his head in his head into his hands. He doesn’t look up at Garak as he dramatically throws up his arms, and exclaims, almost in a bitter laugh with a bitter smile. “I’m just boring you.”
Gently, a scaled claw was placed on Julian’s knee. The chair Garak was sat in before is too far away from the bed to touch him. When Julian looked down, he found Garak kneeling at him, looking up to him, expression obscured in the lighting. Julian rationalized that Garak must have thought about that, not wanting to give too much of what his mind is saying. He runs a claw across Julian’s thigh. “Doctor,” Garak says, and for some reason, that’s all he has to say. That is all he has to say for Julian to hunch over, and find his way to brush his finger against that claw. It was late, it was hours, hours after lunch. They discuss much deeper things after lunch. Julian’s other hand covers his face. Or at least he tries before Garak gently takes it in his other clawed hand.
Julian chokes, holding back what could have been a sob. “Garak, this wasn’t a medical failure, this was mass m—”
“You are no murderer , my dear,” Garak says, before weakly laughing, “and trust me, I know a killer when I see one.”
Julian wraps his hand around Garak’s and brings it down to his other thigh. He nods, slowly, continuously, as he says. He’s smiling, oddly, as he says, “I’m sure you do, Elim.” Julian’s chest began to shake, suddenly, as he swallows down a sharp inhale. “I’m sure you do.”
That’s the last thing Julian says before Garak stands up for him to have someone to fall into. He feels strong, large arms wrapped around him. Julian heaves, and he hates that he can’t control it. He hates that there’s still some part of him that’s still this human. That he still is a person. That’s something he wants to take joy, comfort in; but he can’t. He can’t allow himself to settle in what he stole from others. His hands clutch Garak’s shirt hard enough for him to feel the skin on his knuckles stretch. Garak does nothing but soothes his hair with a gentle hand on his back. Julian almost wants to pull away; to yell at Garak to leave, to fully absorb all his mistakes in what he is. This was not human error. Julian isn’t human.
“Dearest,” It’s barely above a whisper when Garak lowers his head to Julian’s ear, “this is not your first plague. What is so different about this one?”
“It was my ego that killed them,” Julian’s voice was hoarse, rough, and loud. It almost sounded like he was just short of a scream in his sobs. He hadn’t been able to hear himself before. He had moved closer to Garak’s chest, closer to only hear his heartbeat, “far before any of my medical equipment.” He sniffles, and he moves back a bit. Garak lets him. Looking up at him, Garak’s face is somber in the gentlest of ways. His eyes tell Julian that the only thing he wants to do is to scoop him up in his arms and take it all away. Hold him until all that was left was comfort and contentment. Both of them knew that was impossible. Gently, Julian pushes on his chest for him to stand back, so both of them can stand. Once he’s on his feet, his head is in Garak’s shoulder. “The moment I knew of their illness, their lack of a cure—I couldn't just leave them.” Julian closes his eyes tightly. “But it wasn’t just that.”
He separates himself from the other. He moves to the chair and tables, to where Garak had been next to the stars. The blight. A disease that was always fatal, that was killing an entire population. Born with lesions on their face, excruciating pain doing nothing but grow along with the lines. Quickening is what they called the final and fatal stage of the blight, where the lesions become inflamed and the person becomes incapacitated. The only way to relieve the pain were herbs that created a fast and painless death. No one hoped for a cure. No one hoped that the blight would stop, all they hoped for was that swift, merciful death. It made Julian sick. To be so ill to the point where death is something that was almost worshipped. There was no living on that planet. The moment Julian started to research the disease he was mocked, laughed at for wanting to end this cycle of hell. But when everyone was against him, everyone telling him it was hopeless, suddenly Julian was motivated in a different direction.
“There was a challenge,” Julian says, voice empty, hollowed out from carefully carved screams. “I went into a medical experiment as if it were a game. ” He moves. He walks from one end of the table to the other and repeats. “I wanted to play God, Garak. I wanted to play God, and I wanted to win. ” That realization hits him after the words left his mouth. His arms go limp at his sides. Slowly, he turns his head over his shoulder to Garak, but he can’t meet his eyes. “It disgusts me that I can’t decide if I have.”
Julian isn’t sure when Garak came up behind him, but he did. Strong arms wrapped around Julian’s torso with his forehead gently pressed into his back. When he registers his presents he places his hand on scaled arms, feeling drops fall past them. He’s crying.
“I’m sorry, Julian,” Garak whispers and that’s all it takes for Julian to truly break, because when Garak apologizes that means Julian has made him a loss for words. He crumples down forward but Garak catches him, turns him around, and holds him. Julian can hear himself now. He can hear the sobs he screams, the heaving, the pleas for it all to go away. He can’t control it. He can control his metabolism, his strength, the rise and fall of chemicals within his body, but not this. A natural human reminder. Garak’s claws swim through Julian’s hair through all the anguish. He stands steady in Julian’s agony and holds him at bay, holds him from being swept away with all of the woes he cries. Low and soft like a loving lullaby, he whispers, “You are no God. You are simply my dear, dear doctor.”