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“Are you sure you would be welcome at such a conference?”
Garak sighs at his boyfriend. “It is about building a proper historical analysis of the occupation. Shouldn’t at least one Cardassian be there?”
Julian shakes his head. “Just don’t be surprised if your view isn’t exactly welcomed. Not everyone shares your taste for the devil’s advocate.”
“Doctor Bashir, meet me in transporter room five, medical emergency.”
Worf’s voice startled Julian, who had been examining some fascinating blood cultures from a Trevilian visitor to the station who agreed to help him with a study. “I’ll be right there,” the doctor replied.
They beam directly into the runabout. Julian can’t help but let his eyes fall on Garak first. It looks as though he could be asleep.
“Check the Aft compartment,” Worf tells the other crew member. Julian immediately takes out his tricorder scanning each person. Increased neural activity but nothing else is wrong with them.
They are settled into biobeds being monitored. None of the readings make sense. Julian can’t help but look closer at Garak’s face. He looks at peace. Even sleeping he doesn’t look at peace.
Julain’s head fell into his hands. A small tear threatened to escape. No, he can figure this out. He is one of the best doctors in Star Fleet. This is frontier medicine. He just needs to keep working on it. He settles into his chair to make a few subspace calls. None of them amount to much.
“There is a high level of neural activity, which suggests that their conscious minds are still active, and yet there’s no response to external stimuli,” Julian reports. “What’s the word on the runabout.”
“Preliminary scans indicate the runabout encountered a level-2 plasma storm, which irradiated the vessel,” Worf replies.
Finally, a lead! “Computer, are the neural readings for subjects Odo, Dax, Sisko, and Garak,” Julain tries not to let his voice break at his boyfriend’s name. “Consistent with the effects of encountering a class two plasma storm?”
The computer reveals that it isn’t going to be that easy and Julain can’t help but let his heart sink. Worf promises him more information from the runabout, but he doesn’t think that will get him anywhere. Off to reading medical logs, it is.
Julian is staring at the neural scans, trying to make them make sense. Every treatment scenario he has run through the computer kills them almost instantly. He is almost afraid to feed or give them fluids. Worf almost sneaks up on Julian. He glances at his captain. The Bajorans need their emissary almost as much as this station needs Ben Sisko.
“Doctor!” Worf says from across the room. He is standing by Garak’s bed. The Cardisian’s nose is leaking crimson red. Julian pulls out the medical tricorder. The septal capillaries burst. How the hell?
He rushes over to the computer and brings up the ongoing neural scans. Backing it up slightly, there is unusual neural activity. A quick look at the physical monitoring shows that the timing lines up. Maybe it is a psychosomatic response.
He looks over the scans again and again, but nothing is making sense, and there is no clue about how to revive them. If they continue to respond to subconscious stimuli, they could be killed any moment now and Julian will be unable to help them.
He walks over to Garak and takes over from the nurse with a dermal regenerator. As he wipes the blood from his boyfriend’s face, he sighs. He can’t lose the people closest to him, and not in his med bay.
Bashir is asleep at his desk, his head resting in his arms. The loud beeping beside him scares him awake. His eyes snap to the neural readings. Normal. He whips around to his patients. He is up in a moment. Awake. He lets out his first breath in days.
“As far as I can tell, the four of you were locked into some version of the great link,” Bashir says.
“How is that possible? I’m a solid now. “
“Well, it seems you’re not as solid as you think,” Bashir replies, passing him a pad. “When I ran a neurochemical scan of your brain, I found residual traces of morphogenic enzymes which I’ve only detected before in changelings.”
“When the plasma storm hit the runabout, it activated the enzymes and initiated a telepathic response,” Odo replies. Julian nods.
When he gets back to his quarters, Julain is still exhausted. He puts on pajamas and crawls into bed, but sleep doesn’t come. He almost let his boyfriend die. The door dings.
“Lights,” Bashir whispers. He sits up. “Come.” In walks Garak. Still looked like he had been hit by a truck: bags under his eyes, a rounding of his spine, and slumped shoulders.
Julian is standing in a moment. He settles Garak on the bed with minimal protest. A medical tricorder scan later and he is ordering hypos. The little hiss of the medication comes only seconds before Elim visibly relaxes.
“You should be resting Elim.”
“I couldn’t sleep without seeing you my dear Julian.” Elim’s eyes are genuine, and Julian can’t help the honesty that breaks past his lips without permission.
“I almost let you die.” His voice is barely above a whisper.
Elim takes a moment to choose his next words. “I am here. My dear Julian, I am alive and here with you.”
“I almost failed you.” Julian surprises both of them with those words.
“I will not have thoughts like that running loose in your head.” Julian feels almost like a child being scolded. “Will you allow me to reassure you that you saved us?”
“Always.” Julian’s tone regains confidence. The cardassian guides them to the bed and hovers over his partner. “Always,” Julian says again.
Elim takes his time stripping Julian in between kisses. The doctor’s hands are everywhere, stroking his neck ridges in a way that makes his eyelids flutter, running along his spine and arms, caressing his thighs, reassuring the human that Elim is alive. Garak’s clothes come off quickly and are neatly folded in the corner. Julian can’t help but gasp at the exposure of gray scales in the dim lights of the station.
They finish together, back arching and gasps filling the small space between their faces. “You did it,” Garak reassures his partner once more. “I am here.” Julain believes him.