Chapter Text
Julian Bashir is fairly certain that he has never been this popular. Not that people ignore him usually, of course. Not most of the time. But at least half of the DS9 Starfleet contingency has approached him at this point, offering their welcome backs and glad your okays, and several of the station’s other residents catching him to give their own commentaries besides. The jumja stick cart attendant, one of the dabo girls… even Quark told him he was relieved to see his favourite Chief Medical Officer (and holosuite renter) had made it back alive.
Right. Because they’d thought he was dead. He’s seen the footage the T’Lani and Kelleruns sent to Commander Sisko and it is really quite convincing. To be honest, he’s not so sure how to deal with all of the attention. He’s retold the story of his and Chief O’Brien’s daring escape and near-death experiences on T’Lani III what feels like a thousand times, and the more he revisits the whole thing the more he questions himself. It begins to feel a lot less heroic and exciting than he laid it out in his incident report for Sisko. Sometimes he thinks he might’ve acted like a bit of a prat, though he quickly buries this thought with the memory of their miraculous survival.
They should be dead. Officially were, for a short while, but still long enough for Commander Sisko to inform their next of kin. Therein lies the miserable twist of fate. He knew he should’ve changed his emergency contact to someone else, would’ve if he had an appropriate replacement. Because while Chief O’Brien had his lovely Keiko, Julian’s supposed untimely passing was reported to…
“My parents. I’m going back to Earth to stay with them for a bit.”
“Ah, I see.” Pale eyes peer across the replimat table in that piercing way that makes Julian twitch in his chair. “I take it this charming visit is related to your recent brush with death?”
Julian grimaces into his plate of replicated rice and vegetables. “I think my mother wants visual reassurance that I’m not dead in a T’Lani ditch somewhere. It’s been a long time.”
“Not a man of close family ties, Doctor?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, and I suppose you are, then?”
Garak’s smile is a little too devious for this early in the afternoon. “Of course, what else? You know as well as I that family is highly prized among Cardassians – it is, after all, the very basis of our society.”
“I know, I know,” he sighs. “I read all of that book you gave me, didn’t I?”
“Then you would also know that loyalty to one’s family, loyalty to one’s parental lineage, comes second only to loyalty to the state in Cardassian culture.”
His groan is only about half-repressed. “Really, Garak, I’m not up to this today.”
“I see I’ve struck rather a nerve.”
Julian meets his gaze, doing his best to look annoyed even despite the knowing little smirk that greets him. “Well, make sure you write it down somewhere so you know how to strike it again if and when you need to torture information out of me for your nefarious Cardassian purposes,” he suggests.
“Now, my dear doctor, whatever could you mean by that?”
He supposes he’s not sure of that himself. He’s spent a lot of time watching the way Garak moves, the look in his eyes, trying to decide how much weight there is to the whole Cardassian spy rumour. Of course he can’t just be a socially ostracised man of simple trade, unless Gul Dukat is the kind of colonial overseer to pick fights with petty tailors. But what, what exactly Garak might be remains elusive. Spy, maybe. But for who?
“The basic point is that I won’t be able to be able to join you for our lunch next week,” he says, ignoring the challenge. “Or the week after, probably.” He wishes he’d chosen something more inspiring to eat. The rice is bland and feels lumpy in his throat when he swallows.
“Well, I shall miss our scintillating conversations,” Garak replies. “Especially so soon after I was last deprived.”
Coming from Garak, that could almost mean I was really sorry when I thought you were dead.
“Believe me, Garak, I wouldn’t be depriving you if it was up to me,” he mutters, poking around at his lunch with his fork in the hopes it will magically become more appealing. What is it, when it comes down to it? Replicated rice and replicated, soggy vegetables. The kind of miserable tosh they would’ve been served for school lunches without even a bit of limp, replicated chicken on the side to offset adolescent suffering.
“Now, now, Doctor, whatever happened to that optimistic young man I met in this very replimat a year ago?”
“You haven’t met my parents.”
“More the pity, I’m sure.”
He frowns. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d lived with them for eighteen years.” When Garak makes no reply, he lets out a sigh and finally puts down his fork, accepting defeat over the food. They’re no more real than money or holodeck characters. Just energy and matter, reabsorbed, repurposed. “Sorry, I’ll cheer up. How’s the tailoring trade at the moment?”
“Hardly profitable in this dreary economy,” Garak answers. “Nonetheless… fulfilling.”
Julian considers he probably could’ve benefited from a few more of Garak’s personalised garments for the journey to Earth, but then again, he’s not sure their local Cardassian tailor would have any better understanding of the current fashions than he does. He says as much and finds himself rewarded with a rather affronted expression and equally indignant deconstruction of the various trends noticeable within Deep Space 9’s human population.
“There is simply no justification for vivid blues and greens in a colourblock design, unless, of course,” his companion adds, “the wearer in question is blind to certain sections of the spectrum of light. It’s most grating on the nerves, not to mention offensive paired with these lighting arrangements.” The glare directed towards the nearest source of the replimat’s purple and blue-tinted illumination is so sharp it’s surprising that it doesn’t cut right through the wires and smother them all in shadow.
“Well, whatever you say, Garak.”
Garak’s only reply is a twitch and narrow glance down the Promenade as an ever so slightly alarming hiss between the teeth punctuates the air. Julian is on the verge of throwing an are you all alright out there when his companion leaps into action like a startled viper, withdrawing a data stick from that mysterious extra-dimensional storage that ever seems to haunt the person of Garak. It’s funny, because Julian has never known Garak to sew pockets into anything. Something to do with disrupting the silhouette.
“For the long journey home,” Garak announces.
Julian takes the data stick and examines it, but much like all of Garak’s various gifts, it reveals nothing.
“Lontal’s Dadric Anthology, the most current translation.” Garak makes a show of an assuming little smile as he leans forward across the table. “An undisputed classic of Cardassian literature, perhaps a little more suited to your Federation sensibilities than our previous studies.”
“Let me guess – family, duty, the state? Twenty generations of people dying miserably and alone?”
“Not alone, Doctor. Never alone among the fruits of their unwavering loyalty and dedication.”
Not exactly enthusiasm-inducing. Although he’s still not sure it’s not part of some extended plot (perhaps there are viruses buried in the code of the data sticks infecting his Starfleet technology with malware, or some hidden message derived from the first letters of each chapter waiting to be found, so on so forth, maybe terroristic nanotechnology akin to the central threat of 2003 video game James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing and the less critically favoured 2015 theatrical release Spectre), he appreciates Garak’s efforts to interest him in Cardassian literature. The problem is that it’s so long and never really seems to go anywhere.
He is Deep Space 9’s Chief Medical Officer, after all. He has more important things to do. Reports to write.
“How did you know to bring this with you?” Julian asks, frowning. “Unless you were already planning to give it to me anyway…?”
Garak’s smile widens.
Damn it, he really doesn’t have an excuse not to read it now. Anthology – that sounds even longer than collection or selected works. He’s not sure whether he’s strong enough for another two to three hundred thousand words of preaching about duty to family, not now.
“I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from my parents,” he says, apropos of nothing. “And all of their… their- you know. I came to the very limits of deep space. And now look at me…” He stares into the glassy amber surface of the data stick, watching the distorted version of his reflection ripple in the light. “…Going right back to where I started.”
That starts Garak off on the cyclical nature of existence and the significance of patterns as viewed through Cardassian historical and literary lenses, which is more than enough to be getting on with.
“See you in a few weeks,” he says when the lecture comes to an end, by way of a goodbye.
“I will await your return with – how did I hear Lieutenant Dax put it? Bated breath,” Garak replies, leaning close enough to make the promise come off rather intimidating – probably on purpose. “And in the meantime, Doctor,” he adds with a jolt, “I shall endeavour to put the final stitches to that suit of yours.”
“What suit?” Is ‘suit’ a code word he’s supposed to have worked out by now?
Garak only taps the side of his nose in a disconcerting gesture of humanity before wafting away down the Promenade, absorbed within moments into the early afternoon crowd.
“Right,” Julian remarks to the universe at large, and goes back to work.
The PADD containing the message from his parents sits on his desk in the Infirmary beside data on neurogenic decay and a half-eaten plate of hasparat he buys himself for commiseration purposes after the rice/vegetables failure of lunchtime. The little bit of metal and energy seems to glare at him from across the room. He hasn’t read anything beyond the first lime (Dear Jules, We are so relieved…), but Commander Sisko covered the main points. Happy you’re alive, miss you, please come home.
So that’s what he’s doing. Coming home.
Richard and Amsha Bashir own a narrow, two-storey stone building just off the main street of Chipping Campden, a small town whose idyllic historicism makes it rather more out of place in the 24th century than charming – a perfect monument lost in the confusion of centuries of rapid change. At least, that’s what the travel guide he found in a Federation database says about it. His own memories are vague and confuse parts of it with a variety of other towns, cities and self-contained living complexes across that western continent on which his parents lived over the years. He stayed in that town for two years, no – maybe eighteen months, and half his weekends were spent in town anyway, as far away as the high-speed land rail would take him. He grew up in town and provincial life didn’t agree with him. It didn’t agree with any of them but by then Richard Bashir was beginning to run out of options, having come to blows with at least three municipal governments.
Dear Jules, We are so relieved to hear you’re alive. It’s made us realise how long it’s been since we last saw you – we miss you. If you have enough leave-
Julian slams the PADD down on his desk with a little more force than necessary.
Actually, provincial life had agreed with Amsha Bashir a lot. She liked gardens and there were a lot of them in the countryside.
“Hey, Julian.”
He nearly jumps out of his seat. “Oh, hello- Jadzia. Hi.”
“Hi.” Jadzia waltzes around the corner into his office space, arms behind her back.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you come in.”
“I can tell,” Jadzia remarks, squinting at the discarded PADD. “Report-writing blues?”
“Oh, just some light reading,” he replies. And then, “a letter, from my parents. I’m going back to Earth to see them. You know, just so they can make sure I’m still alive and not floating around T’Lani III in a thousand pieces of space dust.”
She offers a sympathetic smile. “Yes, Benjamin told me you were taking some time off.”
“Jadzia... have you ever been to Oxford?”
“On Earth? No, I don’t think so. Curzon was friends with one of the leading xenobiologists of the university.”
He leans back in his chair, watching the grey-paved streets unfold and pigeons take flight from the eaves of the colleges, lit in fantasy by a near-tropical summer glow he knows well the city never encountered. “Oxford is home to one of the largest viral institutions in the Federation. It’s marvellous, actually – their data was invaluable to the creation of that inoculation I had to develop for the epidemic on Czalik VII last month. They’ve invented whole new methods of cell deconstruction and antibody development, they’re right on the front lines of medical progress. I always hoped to work there someday.”
“But?”
“But then there was medical school, and Palis, and Starfleet, and-”
“And Deep Space 9. If it means anything, Julian, I’m glad you ended up on that Starfleet transport two years ago.”
Julian winces slightly. “Really? I’m not sure I made a good first impression.”
She shrugs and takes a seat perched on his desk, looking at him so intently with those bright blue eyes that his brain loses a bit of its structural integrity. It’s a wonder that destabilised nebulas don’t just return to dormancy of their own accord under the weight of that stare.
“Oxford,” he says again. He averts his gaze to the floor (carpeted – why carpeted in an Infirmary? Just because they have chemical weapon-grade cleaning equipment these days doesn’t mean it’s right to let blood and other miscellaneous bodily fluids get trampled into the floor in the meantime.) and watches it very hard until he can see all those odd little specks of vision that he’s half-convinced himself are only there in his imagination. His palms are sweaty but there doesn’t seem to be a way to move them from the desk to his trousers without being obvious. “I, er- received gender counselling there. When I was about seventeen, eighteen.” When did the ambient sound in his office become so loud? He should ask Chief O’Brien to check the relays for energy build-up.
“It sounds like this city was a very important place to you,” Jadzia says.
“Yes,” he agrees with a breathy chuckle.
“Maybe you should pay it a visit while you’re on Earth.”
“Maybe.”
Jadzia procures a datapad out of the thin air behind her, placing it down on the desk beside the letter. “I thought I should return your diary entries.”
“Oh.” Julian’s face burns even hotter than it had done moments before. “You read those?”
“Julian,” she says gently, “I thought you were dead. It seemed like the least I could do, to honour your wishes.”
“Read anything interesting? To be honest, some of them were so long ago I don’t even remember what was in there.”
“Well, I read enough to make me glad I never sent the files to your parents. That was my first thought when we got the news about you and the Chief,” she explains. “Luckily I decided to skim them first.”
“Yes. Lucky.” He gives in and wipes his palms on his uniform, dragging his eyes up from the floor to somewhere just below Jadzia’s eyes. He can see individual pores in her skin, he can calculate the approximate distance between her right cheek and the Infirmary wall. Though to be fair that isn’t particularly impressive, anyone could guess and get close enough to the truth (about 0.85 metres). It’s thoughts like these that prevent him from rambling when he says, “thanks for bringing them back, Jadzia. And thanks for… well, yes. Thank you.”
“No worries, Julian. Any time. Can I come see you onto your transport tomorrow morning?”
He manages to meet her eye for a moment and smiles. “Sure.”
At this time of year, on Earth, the Oxford Botanic Garden will be pale and still, grass frosted over in the mornings, deciduous trees stripped of their leaves. The ivy plants over the archway, all eighty-nine distinct varieties, will be dormant, bodies in stasis. The botanic garden was created 750 years ago and remains one of the oldest surviving scientific gardens in the world. Julian once had a professor in medical school who said that the hyposprays of the future would be filled with the poultices and drafts of the past.
He hopes the heating system in his parents’ old stone house has improved since he last lived there.
“Take care of yourself,” Jadzia says to him at the airlock at 0729 hours.
“Make sure you keep an eye on Garak while I’m gone,” Julian suggests. “I think he’s up to something. More so than usual, if that’s even possible.”
She winks. “I’ll mention it to Benjamin.”
As his ship departs, detaching with a wrenching jolt from the station’s docking ring, he wishes for the first time in two years that he hadn’t chosen such a deep deep-space posting. It’d seemed logical then to run away as far as possible. But he was a doctor, wasn’t he? He healed, improved, made things better. Sewed split skin together – metaphorically, of course. They have dermal regenerators these days, needles and stitches and other indelicate methods of wound treatment are nothing but relics now. Either way, running is not in his job description.
Dear Jules, We are so relieved…
So is he. Being dead lost its entertainment value after a while.
Leaning back in his seat he lets out a shallow breath and fumbles through his travel bag for a distraction. It’s not nearly the massive torment he’s making it out to be, only a few weeks. The least he can do is visit.
He retrieves Garak’s data stick and downloads the text to his PADD. Lontal’s Dadric Anthology stretches out before him, a veritable wall of text whose elaborate contents page alone takes ten minutes to decode. At this rate, he might even finish the first chapter by the time he makes it to Earth. He supposes it will give him something to talk about when his mother inevitably remembers to ask him what the journey was like, and how the food was, even though replicated meals are just about as good in one place as they ever are at another.