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For all the traditional insistence on insightful and riveting literature – or perhaps because of it – Cardassian culture didn’t have much in the way of gallant knights or romantic heroes. And if they had, Garak would certainly not fit the bill. Any romanticism he possessed had been thoroughly drummed out of him well before he was selected for the Obsidian Order, if he’d had any to begin with. He was a realist, especially when it came to what kind of man he was, and a pragmatist besides that.
But even he had to admit there was a certain… charm to the image. Imagine! Dropping everything in one’s life, halting all activities but breathing and striving , to speed halfway across the galaxy and kick down a few doors to rescue an old friend he thought he’d never see again. Imagine being the one to do what others could not, for one who actually deserved it, and be the light in the dark for a moment. A silhouette of mercy in that doorway, not terror.
Imagine.
His imagination, Garak supposed later, was what had landed him in his current predicament. Part of him blamed his relentless proximity to the caustic whimsy of humans over the years of his exile, the other part the kanar he happened to be imbibing when the correspondence came through. The rest of it came together with a speed and precision befitting his heritage and training, irrespective of the singularly warm-blooded behavior driving it.
In the brief moments he’d let himself think between planning and surveillance and action, he’d dared to imagine an emotional, triumphant reunion. And perhaps a few even more … ill-advised emotions.
So when the time finally came, and Garak flung open the door to the cell where they’d been keeping Doctor Bashir – his slow reptilian heartbeat spiking for the first time in the whole operation – he was a little put-out to find that Bashir’s reaction was to laugh.
It was a bitter, ugly sound that he’d simply never heard from the doctor before, and it snagged painfully on the handsome boy’s split lip and bruised cheek.
“You’re good, I’ll give you that,” Bashir drawled, his voice rough but uncowed. “You’ve done your homework, clearly. And it’s not a bad strategy. It might even have worked.”
Bashir used what seemed to be considerable effort to lift himself from where he’d been slumped shackled to the wall – and shackled for quite some time, if the layered bruising on his soft exposed brown arms was anything to go by. At the instant wobble of his knees, Garak took a half-step forward without thinking, only stopping himself at the dark look in Bashir’s eyes.
“But you made one huge mistake,” Bashir continued, a haggard ghost of that preening, self-assured Doctor Garak had first met a decade ago. “You absolutely can’t be Garak, because Garak wouldn’t leave Cardassia for anything.”
It hit like a punch to the gut, though Garak wasn’t entirely sure why. He could certainly understand why Bashir might think so, and their brief correspondence since the end of the war had hardly done anything to disprove it. A small part of him was even proud of Bashir for such clear thinking after who-knew-how-long in his captors’ “care”.
But the rest of him was struck dumb by just how easy it had been to leave Cardassia after all.
After all that time pining in exile, after a bittersweet return and two years of dedicated rebuilding, after all his unspoken determination to devote the rest of his life in service to whatever new Cardassia emerged, he’d gotten a single, unverified message that Bashir was in danger and had procured a ship off-world without a moment’s hesitation.
Who could have imagined?
“Doctor Bashir-” Garak began, entirely unsure how he was going to end the sentence. Bashir saved him the trouble, cutting him off with another ugly, forced laugh.
“Oh, but you do sound like him. It’s a shame you wasted so much effort. But you’ve really overestimated my worth.” And there, finally, his strength gave out and he slumped once more into his restraints with a clatter, his outstretched arms holding all of his weight. Oh, Garak knew from experience the screaming pain of muscles so abused, pain that Bashir was hiding expertly behind a bitter scowl.
The formerly warm, liquid eyes that Garak remembered now flashed in defiance. Bashir glared up through his lashes until his eyes lost focus and slipped closed, blooming orbital bruises stark against his now-sallow skin. His voice slipped into an almost sing-song vagueness as he mused, “I’m sure he hasn’t thought of me since his last letter.”
It was a statement so wrong it knocked Garak from the strange limbo he’d been suspended in. They had limited time, and he needed to get Bashir to trust him so he could get him out of there before reinforcements showed up. They could surely talk themselves around in circles with drippy emotional platitudes and empty reassurances, and he’s sure that’s how Bashir’s Starfleet colleagues would have approached it. Luckily for both of them, Garak was a Cardassian.
Cardassians dealt in secrets and knowledge, and there was one sure-fire way to prove who he was: Share a secret no one else knows.
“Doctor Julian Subatoi Bashir,” Garak announced, leaning a touch into the dramatic to ensure he had his full attention. “You were witness to my father’s shri-tal. You saw the last moments of Enabran Tain, the only leader of the Obsidian Order to live long enough to retire.”
Bashir was completely still, barely breathing, but he was looking at him again at least. Garak risked crossing the room to him, reaching to rest just the fingertips of one hand against his bleeding cheek.
“You are likely the only human to ever have the honor of witnessing such a ritual, and it was allowed because I wanted you to see.”
And Julian just looked up at him like he was a damned miracle made flesh.
His eyes shone with a look so bright and wondrous and grateful and personal that Garak could feel something rearranging in his chest, one carefully constructed wall finally crumbling to dust, and he had to look away as he freed Bashir from his restraints as gently as he could. He caught him around the waist when his trembling legs gave way, and the sudden rush of human warmth and smell nearly knocked his own legs out from under him.
“How?” Bashir managed as he slumped against him, shoulders and arms twitching miserably.
Garak shushed him, soft but distracted, as he gave him a quick check over for serious injuries. “We’ll have time for details, but right now we need to escape.”
Bashir nodded, shifting as if to pull away as he got his feet under him, but Garak didn't let him go far. He was satisfied that the doctor was well enough to make the trip back to the ship, but the evidence of his time in captivity was clear: a scattering of dark bruises, a few sluggishly bleeding cuts, a weakness to his limbs, and an exhausted paleness in his face.
Garak wished he didn’t know what each detail meant, or that he could turn off the part of his brain that assembled the evidence into its obvious conclusions. But it was clear what they’d done to Bashir over the week he’d been in captivity. He’d been dehydrated, sleep-deprived and shackled in isolation for extended periods. He’d been beaten, several times and across his entire body. And that was just the physical torment.
His captors were known to have limited telepathic abilities, which they could use to change their appearance. They’d obviously been playing with Bashir’s perceptions, most likely appearing to him as friends or colleagues. Perhaps trying to convince him that he wasn’t the only Starfleet prisoner taken, and if he just told them what they wanted to know …
Well. It’s what Garak would have done in their place, at least.
It could have been much, much worse. He knew that. Garak himself had done worse, and often.
His throat was thick with cold fury anyway.
Garak steered his charge out into the cold, stark hallways of the subterranean base. They’d need to get closer to the surface before they could beam to the shuttle he had hidden in orbit. It wasn’t far, but it was unlikely to go quietly. Surely, they were aware of his presence by now.
With a careful, quiet pace, they made it down several nearly identical halls, retracing Garak’s steps as he’d infiltrated the base. The security was still disabled along his route, surveillance carefully re-directed, but it wouldn’t do to underestimate the enemy. Better to assume they could be waiting around each corner.
They were lucky for a while, but soon enough they could hear the quiet thuds of footsteps approaching around the next corner. With no options to hide, Garak raised his weapon, angling Bashir subtly behind him, and fired as soon as he saw the first flash of the aliens’ orange skin.
Two guards, caught off guard with their weapons still holstered, fell to the ground before them. And the hallway was quiet again.
Garak had aimed for their broad chests to ensure he could bring them both down quickly, and though the disruptor's force had knocked them off their feet, their armor would surely be enough to stop one shot from being lethal. As he carefully maneuvered Bashir around them, he could see that they were unconscious. They wouldn’t be coming after them any time soon. They weren’t a threat.
Garak raised his weapon again anyway.
“Garak,” Bashir murmured over his shoulder, something like a warning and a plea in his voice, but it was as weak as the legs barely carrying him forward.
“Sorry, Doctor, but this isn’t the Federation.” He fired two clean shots behind them. It was the only vengeance he allowed himself, when he would have rather killed every last one of them. Just to keep his exit clean.
There was a cold pleasure in knowing that his long acquaintance with humans had neither softened him intolerably nor spurred him to give in to undisciplined violence. And if he was sure to keep Bashir angled away from the sight of it? Well, there were different ways of going soft.
They made it to the beam-out point with no more trouble, the first alarm only sounding as the base was dissolving around them. Bashir had done an admirable job staying mostly upright as they escaped, but the moment the warm, close air of the shuttle surrounded them, he began to flag. Garak practically carried him the few steps to the living compartment and lowered him into the bunk. Bashir made a vague sound, swollen fingers curling and twitching into the tatters of his tunic, and then he was out.
Garak remained where he was for a moment, watching Bashir’s breathing even out and eyeing the worst of his injuries. He was torn by sudden, wild impulses. He wanted to clean the dried blood from his face and dote on each small bruise until nothing hurt. He wanted to beam back down to the base and find the exact soldier who had dared do this to Bashir, torture him until he died drowning in the blood in his lungs, and torch the place to the ground. He wanted to crawl into the narrow bunk with him and never leave. He wanted to stand there and drink in the sight of him, safe and close enough to touch after two long years.
He did none of those things. He returned to the pilot’s seat and set them on a course back to Federation space.
Garak was still there, piloting manually merely for the distraction, when he heard Bashir wake a few too-brief hours later. He turned on the autopilot and waited, giving Bashir space as he listened to him putter around, activating medical equipment and the replicator and the sonic shower.
Garak had no idea what he would say when he saw Bashir. It was just dawning on him that this may have been a terrible idea, that it was going to be so much harder to say goodbye this time, when the woosh of the doors announced Bashir’s arrival.
Bashir didn’t immediately say anything, so Garak took his time fastidiously checking the autopilot and a few other settings before standing up and facing the music.
He looked better, standing there in a fresh blue uniform and clean curls. His cuts and bruises had been healed as well as the shuttle’s equipment could handle, and with the tightly contained frown he was sporting, he looked basically the same as he had that last day Garak had seen him. He could almost believe nothing at all had happened, if it wasn't for the pink of freshly healed injuries and the dark shadows under his eyes.
Garak vaguely wondered if the sight of this man would ever stop taking his breath away.
When Bashir spoke, it was the expected question. “What are you doing here?”
“I still have contacts in the field,” Garak answered smoothly, “and one of them thought I’d be interested to know you’d been taken prisoner. I assumed I would be faster at locating and extracting you than Starfleet. Turns out I was right.”
Bashir flapped a hand, dismissive, and his voice rose sharply, enunciation poisonous. “Sure, fine, but what are you doing here ?”
He seemed surprised at his own anger, but Garak wasn’t. Anger was a natural response to what Bashir had been through, and it was preferable to the alternatives – to the dead-eyed stare he’d seen when Bashir had looked at him and thought him a hallucination. If what his doctor needed right now was a fight, Garak could take it.
He raised an eyebrow, skeptical, knowing his own calm would further inflame Bashir. “Did you expect me to leave you to your fate?”
“I don’t know, Garak,” he spat, tugging a hand through his curls in wild frustration. “When you left, you couldn’t even admit you were going to miss me. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear from you again, much less expect to find you swooping in to save me like some … goddamned white knight.”
With too much effort, Garak kept his face and tone blank. “Are you angry that I came to free you?”
Bashir paused and squinted at him. “No, obviously, thank you.” The sentiment was softer, clearly genuine, but the anger was back the next moment. “But seriously, what the hell is this, Garak?”
Off-kilter. Exhausted. Furious. The dregs of adrenaline and pain still swirling in his blood.
“I mean, how dare you,” he continued, working himself into a proper fury. “How dare you do this whole fucking romantic hero routine after making me think I mattered so little to you?”
And that, that was wrong enough to derail Garak’s strategy completely. Any artifice bled away in the face of the unexpected pain in Bashir’s voice. Familiar, yet not, like that snarling laugh.
“You think you don’t matter?” he asked softly.
Bashir just watched him for a long moment. Then he took a deep breath, and some of the anger visibly drained from him as he considered his words. When he finally answered, it was slow and careful and tinged with a familiar grief. “I think you got the one thing that ever truly mattered to you when you returned to Cardassia. Everything else was a distraction. So why are you here?”
Then, small and exhausted: “You don’t owe me anything, you know. You never did.”
And oh, Garak would’ve loved to smooth things over with a pretty lie, or obfuscate with a cunning story, but the last two years had worn him down in immeasurable ways. All he could think of in that moment was the truth.
“You’re right that what I wanted most was to return to Cardassia,” he began, scowling. He kept his tone flat as if giving a lecture, but he could feel far too much truth bleeding into his expression, with no hope to stop it. He raised a hand to his forehead ridges and pressed, almost begging his facade to hold. “But in that moment, when it finally came time to part ways, I hesitated. I’m a pragmatist, I’ve had to be, and I knew I would likely never see you again. And I almost … I thought I might …”
Stay . It was too much, too big to say when he’d barely let himself think it – imagine! – but Bashir seemed to understand even in his silence.
The moment stretched, long and overflowing the small space. Bashir stood there watching him, his face surprisingly unreadable while Garak felt impossibly, intolerably exposed.
When Bashir finally spoke, it was quiet. Almost frightened.
“I … I thought I’d be okay, when you left. I knew I was going to miss you, but I also knew that this was how things had to be. But when you said goodbye, I had this wild urge to ask you to stay, or to volunteer to go with you … anything just to not have to say goodbye.”
Garak nearly turned away at the wet shine of emotion in the doctor’s eyes, but he wasn’t a coward. Wouldn’t be, this time, when it mattered.
“But I didn’t do either of those things,” Bashir laughed, rough, “because you seemed okay with it, and I thought you needed me to be okay too. You were going where you were meant to go, and I was staying where I was needed, and that had to be enough.”
He stepped forward, close enough to touch, and Garak didn’t dare look away from his eyes, even as he continued.
“And god, I couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Even with everything that happened, even knowing how much work and pain was waiting for you, you were finally going home,” Bashir said. “But damn, I missed you. Every day.”
The doctor’s big warm eyes shone with wonder in the dim shuttle lights, his alien warmth radiating like the desert sands they were both born to, and really, there was only one thing Garak could do.
“Tell me if I’m misinterpreting this,” he murmured as he closed the distance to pull Bashir into a kiss.
It was little more than a soft press of lips. Julian was exhausted and felt fragile in his hands, and Garak was suddenly aware he was startlingly out of practice with intimacy of any kind. Perhaps, to a human – particularly one as experienced as the doctor – it would have been clumsy, childish.
It was, without a doubt, the most romantic moment of Garak’s life.
And from the blissful expression on Bashir’s face as they broke apart, perhaps it ranked highly for him as well. Still, Garak gently pushed himself back, chest hollow with regret.
“I still have to go back,” he forced out, voice caught between conviction and apology. “There’s so much work to be done. Enough for a lifetime.”
Unspoken, but not unheard: that he owed it to his home to try to rebuild a better world, one that wouldn’t need men like him.
“I know,” Bashir assured him, smiling brightly with his cracked lips. “Which is why I’m going with you.”
With those words, it was as if the shuttle had no air. Had they hit a meteor, was their atmosphere being torn out into space? How long would the artificial gravity hold?
“What?” He could only manage a whisper. No air.
“As you said, there’s work to be done.” Bashir reached up to stroke his fingertips along Garak’s eye ridge, and although he initially flinched out of nerves and movement , it did an excellent job of almost distracting him from the madness the human was spouting. “I’m sure Cardassia could use doctors, and I’m a damn fine doctor.”
“My dear doc-”
“Julian,” he interrupted to insist.
“Julian,” Garak allowed, taking a moment to savor the feel of the name on his tongue before frowning at him. “Do you know what you’re offering? We’re still struggling. We can barely keep the power on from day to day. And even with things changing, my people are still suspicious of outsiders. You’d be one of the first humans to stay on Cardassia. Ever.”
Julian’s smile turned roguish, carefree, and for a moment it felt like the years between them melted away. As if it could all be just that easy.
“I’ll adjust,” Julian said with a shrug, sliding his hand down to cup Garak’s cool cheek. “I know what you’re facing, Garak. I want to help. And as for your countrymen, well … I can be rather charming. I’m sure I can bring them around. As long as they let me treat them, I don’t really care what they think. I’ll be doing my duty. I’ll be satisfied, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Despite himself, Garak leaned into the touch, reaching to hold Julian’s waist even as he dutifully reminded him of the reasons this wouldn’t work.
“You do know we’re a desert planet. I’m told our weather is quite uncomfortable for other species.”
“My people are from earth’s deserts. I’ll live.”
“And what of your Starfleet career?” Garak pushed, somewhat hysterically. He could not dare to hope this could actually happen. If it was foolish to want things this badly, it was even more foolish to believe he could have them. “Cardassia’s relationship with the Federation is still undetermined.”
At this, Julian finally sobered, but he didn’t pull away. “Believe it or not, I’ve been thinking of resigning my commission.” His voice was careful. Strained. He looked aside. “The war … changed things. Changed me. I think I need something different.”
Garak stared at him, mind racing, but just as he opened his mouth to voice another concern, Julian slid his other hand up to lay softly over the dip of the chula on his chest and leaned in close.
“Garak. You bastard. You just pulled me out of isolation from an unknown location with nothing but a third rate shuttle and a phaser. Stop thinking of reasons it won’t work, and just say yes.”
And finally, in a low voice, Garak dared to breathe the real question between them: “Why?”
Why do you want this? Why do you want me? Why am I worth this?
Julian held his gaze for a long moment, his face serious but intent, no trace of deception to be found there no matter how hard Garak looked. “It’s a chance to help people. A chance to help rebuild. A chance, above all … to stay close to you.”
And really, what was Garak supposed to do with that? He darted forward to press another firm kiss to his lips, before saying, in an embarrassingly wet voice, “Cardassia would be lucky to have you.”
From his blinding smile, Julian clearly heard what he really meant.
“Of course, I’ll need you to make introductions, but I won’t get in the way of your work,” Julian assured him, winding himself somehow even closer. “And I can find my own accommodations. I don’t want to presume anything, I just want to be close.”
Garak shook his head, exasperated, as he slid his hands up the smooth planes of Julian’s back. “Don’t be foolish, my dear. Of course you’ll stay with me.”
Astounding, how the nagging epithet “My Dear Doctor” arrived again after so many years, but discarding all pretense. My dear. It made his gut churn and his grip on Julian tighten.
Julian, ever one with a flair for the dramatic, leaned back just enough to shoot Garak a familiar flirtatious smirk. It made him yearn fiercely, suddenly, for sub-standard replimat cuisine and the chance to touch a beautiful man’s hand while passing books back and forth. “Moving a little fast by Cardassian standards, aren’t we?”
Of course, Julian wasn’t the only one with a dramatic streak. No, far from it. Garak tilted his head and pretended to seriously consider the issue. “One could argue we’ve been courting this whole time. By Cardassian standards.”
Julian’s laughter was almost joyous enough to distract from his wandering hands. “What will the neighbors think, you shacking up with a human?”
Garak’s heart raced obscenely, but he forced himself to say the words before he could rethink them. “A Cardassian couple uniting households would be considered an engagement.”
“Well, as you said, there’s plenty to do,” Julian said earnestly, pressing their foreheads together and holding him close. “Enough for a lifetime.”