Chapter Text
Quark's at 21:00 station time smelled like spilled synthale and the faint burned-sugar note of someone's failed dessert experiment two tables over. The lighting had been dialed down to evening warmth, the dabo wheel was quiet, and someone in the back was losing badly at dom-jot (the soft clack of a missed shot followed by Morn's commiserating rumble).
The Jenga tower stood on the round table near the bar, taller than was reasonable. Twenty-six levels. Twenty-seven, counting the half-completed top row.
Julian crouched at eye level with the tower, one hand hovering. He was in civilian clothes: soft grey shirt, sleeves pushed to the elbows. Index and thumb pressed together, then apart, calibrating.
MILES: You're overthinking it.
Miles was leaning back with a pint of something dark, boots up on the chair across from him.
MILES: It's a block. Pick a block. Move the block.
JULIAN: There are four candidates.
Julian didn't look up.
JULIAN: Two are load-bearing. The third is bowed because the climate control did something interesting around the eighteenth level. The fourth…
MILES: Pick the fourth.
JULIAN: …the fourth is wedged.
MILES: Pick a different fourth.
Ezri was sitting beside Cat with her legs folded under her on the bench, nursing a glass of something pale. The corners of her mouth were already pulled in. She was watching him sideways.
EZRI: He's been like this for six minutes.
MILES: I counted seven.
EZRI: Seven minutes is generous.
Cat leaned forward over the table, one hand half-covering her mouth, mug abandoned somewhere behind her.
CAT: Okay but the bowed one is interesting because if you go underneath it…
JULIAN: Cat.
CAT: …I'm just saying, structurally…
JULIAN: Cat.
CAT: Sorry. Sorry. I will be quiet. I am being quiet.
She mimed sealing her mouth, failed within three seconds.
CAT: But you know I'm right.
Julian's mouth twitched. He selected the bowed block.
MILES: Oh, he's taking the bowed one.
Miles addressed his pint.
MILES: He's listening to her. This is a mistake. This is a mistake in progress.
Julian's fingers settled against the wood. The pressure shifted. The block slid (half an inch, then another, then with the deliberate slowness of something easing free) and was out, and Julian's hand was steady, and the tower stood. He placed the block at the top of the half-row and exhaled through his nose, slow.
CAT: Twenty-seven.
The word came out reverent.
MILES: That was unsportsmanlike. That was augmented unsportsmanlike.
JULIAN: That was physics. And patience. You should try them.
MILES: I have plenty of patience. I'm sitting here, aren't I?
Ezri's laugh was the soft one, hand-to-mouth, eyes crinkling. She looked at Julian over her fingers. He caught her gaze. The corner of his mouth lifted. Hers matched it. Then he was already turning back to the tower because his turn was over and Miles's wasn't.
MILES: Right. My turn. Watch and learn.
He sat forward, planting his pint.
CAT: Watch what, exactly?
MILES: The block. The block, woman, the block.
Miles's hand hovered. He squinted. He tapped two different candidates, dismissed both, settled on a third near the bottom. His tongue pressed into his cheek. The block was wedged. He worked it side to side. The tower shifted (not fell, just shifted) and Cat made a high, involuntary noise of distress and Ezri reached out to grip Cat's wrist without taking her eyes off Miles, and Julian had gone very still.
The block came free. The tower held.
MILES: Thank you. That is how you…
AMSHA: Julian.
The voice came from the direction of the entrance. It was warm and tired. Julian's hand, mid-reach, paused. His shoulders set.
AMSHA: Julian, dear, we finally found you.
Amsha Bashir was crossing the floor from the doorway, her travel bag still over her shoulder, Richard a half-step behind her with an indulgent smile already prepared. She was waving slightly. She had not noticed the tower.
She arrived at the table.
Her hip brushed the edge.
The tower swayed once (slow, top-heavy) and then it came down in a clattering rush of wood, blocks bouncing off the bench and rolling under the table and one piece skittering across the floor toward Morn, who picked it up and looked at it with mild puzzlement.
The silence that followed was brief and total.
AMSHA: Oh. Oh, were you playing?
Cat's hand was still on Ezri's wrist. Neither of them had moved. Miles had picked up his pint, slowly, and was now holding it without drinking. Julian was looking at the table where the tower had been. His hand was still in the air, fingers in the precise position they had been in when he had been placing his block, and then it lowered, deliberately, and rested flat on the wood.
JULIAN: Hello, Mother. Hello, Father.
His voice was very even.
RICHARD: We thought we'd surprise you.
Richard was beaming.
RICHARD: We had a window in the conference schedule and Amsha said, well, when's the last time we just dropped in…
JULIAN: Yes. When was?
Ezri's thumb moved against Cat's wrist, once, light. Cat closed her mouth.
AMSHA: And here you are, having fun!
Amsha's hand found Julian's shoulder. She didn't squeeze it; she just left it there.
AMSHA: We can join you. Quark, hello… Quark, can we get a table…
JULIAN: Mother.
Julian turned his head a fraction. He was looking somewhere just past her left ear.
JULIAN: It's nearly twenty-one-thirty. The bar is busy. Perhaps we could find you quarters first.
AMSHA: Oh, we've already arranged quarters! Major… Captain… what is Kira now?… was lovely about it.
Her hand was still on his shoulder.
AMSHA: We just wanted to see you first. We can talk now and do everything else in the morning.
A block, knocked toward the edge of the table by the collapse, finally tipped over the side. It hit the floor with a dry click.
Julian looked at it. He did not move to pick it up.
JULIAN: Sure. Let's talk.
Miles set down his pint without drinking from it and reached, casual, for his combadge, and left his hand resting beside it. Cat had finally let go of Ezri's wrist. Ezri's eyes had not left Julian's face. Her mouth was flat. Her jaw was set.
In the back, the dom-jot game continued. Someone won. Someone else groaned.
The tower stayed down.