"There's a Vulcan trading vessel incoming, Doctor Bashir, and they've been hit hard. Part of their hull plating blew apart – electrical burns and air deprivation are the main problems. Estimated thirty injured with moderate to serious injuries, ETA twelve minutes." Kira's tone is clipped and sharp, and Julian nods even though she can't see him.
"Got you," Julian replies to Kira over the comm link, and when the line goes quiet, he snaps into action. Ordering the other doctors to ready beds and get into place, he moves swiftly down the length of the medical wing, putting things into place – thirty people is a lot for a sudden intake, but he's ready.
Or, at least, he thinks he is.
It actually takes less than twelve minutes for them to start arriving into the medical bay – members of security beam those injured directly into the infirmary, and Julian barely takes notice of anything around him.
When he's thrust into situations like this, everything around him dims to darkness. Julian sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing except his medical duties: he takes pulses, asks short, pointed questions and does diagnostic tests, and as best as he can, he does what he's been trained for – he heals. This is what he has trained for since he was a child, nursing Kukulaka and tenderly stitching up his wounds – this, Julian honestly believes, is what he was born to do. Or at least, a rather bitter voice at the back of his head says in an undertone, what I was genetically resequenced to do.
"Who's this?" he asks crisply of the last patient to be brought into the room; a broad-shouldered man lays her on a bed. She's a Vulcan woman perhaps some way into her fifties, and there's a deep laceration across side of her scalp, baring thick, green ooze that has soaked into her dark hair. He runs his tricorder over her, frowning deeply – as a nurse draws a dermal regenerator over the cut, he takes in evidence of something a little more severe.
Most of the injuries had been easily healed – the crew is primarily Vulcan, with only a Caitian and an Orion creating any extra diversity in the medical practices, and Vulcans are an especially hardy race who aren't injured too easily. With dense muscle, excellent posture and thicker bones than other species of similar build, they tend to resist a lot of the damage that would easily kill a Human or a Bajoran, but unfortunately, this woman had been crushed by something, and Julian reads evidence of a rather severe spinal injury. He knows, grimly, that the injury was undoubtedly exacerbated by the way in which she was carried aboard, but there had hardly been time for a stretcher.
"This is Captain T'ran, of the merchant ship Aronnax." Julian glances up from the tricorder, setting his jaw, and he freezes. Immediately, the dozens of streams of thought running side by side through his genetically-improved mind screech to a halt, and his eyes widen slightly. The man speaking – the man who'd carried the Vulcan commander into the medical bay – is a Cardassian. He has a heavy, black bruise blooming on the side of his chin, and his leftside brow ridge is cut to the bone, bleeding purple-blue down his face. It shouldn't stop him as it does, but Julian often feels uncertain about Cardassians when he expects them to be in the room with him, let alone when he's suddenly thrust into a situation with them. Shifting his neck, Julian does his best to bring himself back to his "groove".
"Right. You should sit down," Julian says. It is his medical voice, crisp and not to be disobeyed, but the Cardassian doesn't move, staring stonily at Julian. A heavy drop of blood drops from his cheek onto the fabric of his tunic. The haze of medical focus has been popped like a balloon, and although his concentration isn't entirely broken, he is… Distracted. Why would a Cardassian have been on a Vulcan merchant vessel? "Look— The captain has serious injuries. These can't be easily fixed with a dermal regenerator. You need to be looked at yourself – Doctor N'daya—"
"I will remain here, Doctor. Our ship's databanks were partially destroyed, and you'll have need of her medical history." the Cardassian says lowly, and he settles slowly into the chair beside the bed. Straight-backed, he doesn't look as if he could be moved with all the power in the warp cores, and Julian slowly inhales. "Captain T'ran suffers a severe allergy to penicillin, for example." Julian makes a note on the new record for T'ran, then calls over his shoulder.
"Doctor N'daya," Julian says crisply, forcing himself to concentrate as much as he can, "Look after this man here, will you?"
The best he can, he sets himself back to work.
- ARONNAX IN THE ABYSS -
"Major Kira," Julian says several hours later, quietly into his own comm link. The Cardassian, whose name Julian has discovered is Jasek, is sat very straight beside T'ran's bed. The Vulcan woman is laid out on her belly, and a yellow strip of softly shining fabric is laid over the length of her spine. T'ran is heavily anaesthetized, and even unconscious, her expression is drawn into a tight, Vulcan expression of firm neutrality. "First Officer Jasek, of the Aronnax, is here in the infirmary."
"The Cardassian?" Kira asks, tone slightly biting. She sounds ready to call security in at the very thought, and Julian suppresses the urge to sigh. "What's the problem?"
"He's exhausted," Julian says, his hand going up to his brow and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "I need him out of here, to go and get some rest, but he won't leave. T'ran is going to be unconscious for several days while the damage to her spine is repaired – she'd be in too much pain, even as a Vulcan." Julian had even offered Jasek an infirmary bed, although they had really lacked the space, and Jasek had quietly retorted that he would prefer to stay precisely where he was.
"So tell him to leave." Julian does sigh now. He considers telling Kira that he has told the man to leave, three times now, and has been ignored each time. He considers telling Kira that he himself is tired, that he doesn't want to argue with a patient, and he doesn't want to call security on him, but—
"Doctor," Odo says, stepping over the threshold of the infirmary, and Julian mutters a quick, "Bashir out," before turning to the door. Odo looks up and down the infirmary – the Caitian is lying unconscious, breathing steadily as his ribs are knitted back together, and the rest of the crew are all gone. "How is the condition of Captain T'ran?"
"She'll be unconscious for several days, Odo, you can't talk to her right now. That's her second in command, there." Julian nods to Jasek, and he sees the way Odo's not-eyebrows raise as he looks at the other man, but the Cardassian doesn't so much as glance in their direction. Cardassian hearing, from what Julian has managed to assuage, is not as well-defined as the hearing capability Humans have, but he is certain Jasek will have heard their conversation, or at least realized they were having one.
"Jasek," Odo says, with some apparent familiarity as he takes a few steps forward, and the Cardassian glances to him. Recognition shows in his tired, green eyes, and Julian wonders how old he is, exactly. His shining black hair is long and tied at the nape of his neck in a tight braid, and he sees that there are a few wrinkles around his ridges, but Julian knows he would struggle to tell the difference between a fifty-year-old Cardassian and a one-hundred-year-old one. "I need to ask you some questions about what happened on the Aronnax, sir."
"With respect, Constable Odo, my—"
"Your wife is unconscious. She will be unconscious for several days. Your crew has need of you." Julian stands for a second in heart-stopping silence, and he stares open-mouthed at Jasek.
"His wife?" Julian repeats, and Jasek takes in a soft breath. It's only now that Julian looks at him, actually looks at him and thinks critically – Jasek isn't wearing the Cardassian armour Julian would expect, or the big, square garments he sees on Garak. Jasek is wearing a Vulcan tunic, the Chinese collar adjusted for the shape of his long, ridged neck, with his blue-grey blood dried into the thick, yellow fabric. Jasek is wearing Vulcan boots, made of some rubbery material made from trees, and he has two woven bracelets around his wrist that don't look anything like Cardassian materials. He's a Cardassian, sure, but he's wearing Vulcan clothes. And Jasek is old – older than middle-aged, at least, and settled on Vulcan. Of course he must have had some personal connection to the ship, for no one ever sees non-military personnel on Deep Space Nine these days (barring Garak, he thinks snidely).
"Very well," Jasek says, reluctantly, and he stands. He's a very tall man, over six feet tall, but he moves with a slight rigidity on his left side: immediately Julian freezes, his gaze going to the Cardassian's knee, but before he can say anything, Jasek says, "An old injury, Doctor. Psychosomatic, so my wife insists." His voice is strangely kind, for that of a Cardassian, and Julian doesn't feel as if he's being laughed at. He feels intensely guilty for his ignorance, at assuming Jasek could be nothing more than T'ran's first mate, and really—
"I'll inform you of her condition if it changes," Julian says. Guilt flushes through him; he's coming to the end of his shift, but fatigue is no excuse – he's an absolute genius, and he'd noticed next to nothing about this man. "I'm— I'm sorry, I, er— I didn't realize-"
"Thank you, Doctor," Odo interrupts him, obviously seeing no point in Julian's apologies, and he puts his hands neatly behind his back, walking from the room with Jasek in his wake. Despite his limp, he moves quite fast, and Julian glances back to T'ran on the bed. T'ran is as still as a corpse, the only movement around her that of the machines measuring her heart-rate and breathing.
Julian's never heard of Cardassians marrying any other species, and Vulcans— well. Vulcans marry outside their species, of course, but with Humans or Orions or Betazoids… Not Cardassians.
- ARONNAX IN THE ABYSS -
Garak is already in Quark's when Julian comes in for lunch the next afternoon. He leans back in his seat, sipping very leisurely at a fragrant, steaming tea that Julian hasn't seen him drink before. Julian follows his gaze to a mirror, which reflects a window across the bar, which, in turn, reflects the form of Jasek seated at a table, examining the multiple PADDs stacked in front of him. With his right hand, he holds a Vulcan ink pen, and he writes neatly on soft, cream-coloured parchment. Julian's UT doesn't work on hand-writing, and of course he shouldn't be able to read the pages from so far away anyway, but he recognizes the curving lines of Vulcan script, covering each page. It seems strangely traditional, and initially he thinks that Jasek must be writing letters of condolence for the families of his crew, but then he realizes it is something rather different – they aren't letters, he imagines, but some sort of prayer scroll, to be burned in the Bajoran chapel on the Promenade. The idea catches at Julian's heartstrings, but also prompts in him a little perplexity, a little curiosity – what Cardassian would do such a thing?
"Making friends?" Julian asks, slipping into the seat across from Garak, Garak's blue eyes meet Julian's, and Julian doesn't see curiosity in them, but something else. Anger? No… Garak looks almost territorial. Julian thinks of everything that he has done in his approach, wonders if he has somehow stepped out of place, if he has somehow been too bold with Garak. It hasn't been so many months, after all, since Julian was forced to go to Enabran Tain for a sample of his leukocytes, since he was forced to augment the device in Garak's own skull…
"I think not. Why should I want to be friends with a disgraced Cardassian, cast out from the Empire?" Julian frowns slightly, examining Garak with interest, and then he turns his head, looking directly at Jasek up on the balcony.
"Misery loves company?" Julian asks, dryly. That tears Garak's gaze away from Jasek's reflection's reflection, and Garak's eyes stare into Julian's own, the stare intent and piercing, but Julian knows better than to shyly look away, as he might have done when they had first met. If Julian has already overstepped, already piqued Garak's temper in a way he had not intended, he may as well provoke him on purpose. But Garak isn't angry: his teeth show as he displays a rather dark smile, and Julian feels a slight flutter in his heart. Why is it, he wonders, that even now, Garak is such a delight, such a curiosity, so difficult to predict? Even in using Julian's every power of analysis, his every hypercompetent sense and capability, Garak remains an enigma in himself… And how is a man like him to resist an enigma?
"He's been here all night, Quark tells me," Garak murmurs. His tone has lost the anger, the Cardassian pride, it had been tainted with a second ago, and now he looks only at Julian, and Julian feels the heat of Garak's gaze on his face. Julian is confident, entirely confident, that he knows Garak better than anybody else on the station, and vice versa… But what of that? Garak knows Julian better that anybody else on the station, but that doesn't really matter – even Garak, as much as he thinks Julian is a stupid, little boy at times, doesn't know what Julian is, where he comes from.
"Does Quark often feed you information?" Julian asks, before adding, "Is that why you wanted to meet here instead of the Replimat? So that you could watch him the whole time? Garak, you've really wounded me here. How am I supposed to remain my charming, arrogant self if you rank an exile over me?" Garak looks at Julian, and Julian wonders for a moment what it would be like if Garak knew. What if Julian just told him? Would that be so entirely insane? What if Julian told Garak that he was a freak, a product of genetic resequencing, a genius the unnatural like of which Garak could never conceive of?
Are you flirting with me, Doctor? Garak's glittering eyes seem to ask, and Julian wonders if he is, or if he isn't – it's honestly hard to tell with Garak. They argue and they dance in circles, and Julian tries to say without saying that he'd be alright with Garak kissing him, that he'd be alright with Garak biting him…
"Are you not curious, Doctor?" Garak asks softly (Oh, God, I'm curious! What does your mouth taste like?), adjusting his grip on his mug and bringing it to his lips. He doesn't sip from it, though – he just inhales, his nostrils flaring slightly, and not for the first time Julian wonders what it must be like to smell with a Cardassian nose. He likes the twitch of the nose's ridge as Garak's nostrils flare almost imperceptibly: would Julian trade his Human hearing for a Cardassian taste and smell? Perhaps. "Jasek was exiled from Cardassia some forty years ago – he served in the military for a time and was forced to resign his commission after an injury. Some say it was self-inflicted. But then, three years later, he left Cardassian space entirely, without permission at all from the Imperial Command. And married an outsider." Some say it was self-inflicted. What absolute nonsense: for all Julian knows, it's entirely true. Garak's gaze is wandering, and Julian presses his shoes flat against the tiled floor of Quark's bar, feeling its slight stickiness.
"Do Cardassians not believe in relationships with outsiders? I've known Cardassian soldiers to seek out Bajorans, Klingons, even Humans." Julian says casually, and Garak's gaze locks with his once again. Garak's lips twitch, as if Julian has said something significant, and for a little while he doesn't turn to glance at Jasek in the mirrors.
"Perhaps, my dear doctor, but hardly marriages. And Vulcan marriages, at that! They have children."
"He's got two bracelets on his arm," Julian says quietly, following Garak's gaze to Jasek's reflection, and says, "They look handwoven." Do Vulcan children weave bracelets, as Human children sometimes do? They must, he thinks. Vulcan children can't possibly spend all their time in those awful learning pits – oh, how Julian had desperately wished to try one of those, when he'd been a child. But his father had once wrenched him back when a Vulcan boy in London had bitingly invited "Jules" to have a go, and Julian knows in hindsight that a boy like him would have excelled in the Vulcan education system, but that it would have let the whole cat out of the bag. Julian wishes he'd thrown off his father and launched himself into the pit, wished he'd enjoyed the chance while it had been proffered to him.
"Ah, you see," Garak murmurs, amused. "You can pay attention, hmm? But just look at him. Vulcan clothes, Vulcan boots, Vulcan children! He's forgotten Cardassia quite entirely." He seems so angry, so incensed, even though the anger is masked with Garak's genteel speech patterns. Julian can't truly find out much about Cardassia, given how difficult it is to get hold of real, unbiased information, but he's always intrigued when Garak becomes passionate about one Cardassian tidbit or other – though he never can know for certain if the spy is telling the truth or not. He feels himself smile. "What do you think of him?"
"I think he loves his wife," Julian says. He doesn't know why he says it precisely like that, but the words come softly out of his mouth: it just seems so out-of-character for a Cardassian to be so focused on another person, let alone someone outside their species, but he hadn't left her side for hours, even knowing she wouldn't wake up. "I didn't realize they were married until Odo came in. That's awfully stupid, I know, but I was actually rather surprised to have a Cardassian in our midst, and it rather threw me off-kilter." There is no reason for Julian to make the confession, except that he can, and he thinks it seems relevant. Garak neither complains nor jumps upon the point to needle at him, but merely looks at Julian with that occasional, analytical curiosity that Julian thinks about in his off-hours and in the minutes, sometimes, before he goes to sleep.
"Chief Constable Odo and Jasek are, of course, acquainted." Garak takes another sip of his tea, and he catches the eye of a Ferengi waiter, waving him over to take their lunch orders. "And Odo never forgets a face." Julian takes the opportunity, as Garak is making his own order, to look at the reflection's reflection: Jasek shifts in his seat, and Julian gets a look at his eyes from under the shadow of his eye ridges; the bruise on his chin, which he hadn't allowed the medical staff to take care of, is being broken down from black to an obnoxious lilac. His eyes are watering slightly, a sign Julian recognizes as one of fatigue – he hasn't slept, Julian realizes, since he arrived on the vessel. Can prayer scrolls truly be so important to him? Wouldn't it be prudent – logical – to put them off until Jasek is well-rested?
"And what would you like to order, Doctor Bashir?" The Ferengi prompts him, not, judging by his slightly impatient expression, for the first time.
"Oh," Julian says distractedly, and he turns his head reluctantly from the Cardassian for a few moments as he looks to the Ferengi. This one, Mag, is in his early thirties, and he and Garak seem to have a rather dangerous rapport, but as much as Mag shows his impatience, Julian never gets the impression the Ferengi personally dislikes him. He makes his order in rather a hurry, for his own sake if not the Ferengi's, and then he glances back… But by the time he looks, Jasek is gone. Julian frowns, furrowing his brow, and Garak smiles like an angry dog.
"Jasek, isn't it?" Garak asks sweetly. Mag looks between the two Cardassians, his gaze shifting between them as if following an invisible tennis ball between two racquets, and then he resolutely turns on his heel and makes his way over to the bar.
"I didn't realize there were other Cardassians aboard," Jasek says in a quiet, serious voice. He stands beside Julian's chair, his PADDs stacked neatly under one of his arms, and Julian's fast gaze runs quickly over the parchment paper in Jasek's hand, and he makes out the little parts of the Vulcan script he can read: the name of a crew member, and a wish for his spirit to continue onward.
"Other?" Garak repeats in an innocent fashion with his eyes wide, his tone saccharinely sweet, and Julian feels the distinct urge to step on his foot under the table, but Garak would only make a scene about it rather than taking the hint like someone else might do.
"Garak owns a tailor's here on Deep Space Nine, Mr Jasek," Julian says. Jasek looks to Julian, making eye contact with him, and Julian adds in a quieter voice, "I will let you know if her condition changes, sir." Jasek shifts his head, and his neck moves in the odd, reptilian fashion that Cardassians have, even under the high Vulcan collar; Vulcan clothes are much tighter and formfitting than the armour-like wear of most Cardassians Vulcans has seen, and Julian's medical curiosity is more than piqued at the shape of Jasek's body. Cardassian physiology remains something of a mystery, but just the square shape of his torso, lacking a dip at the waist one might see in a Vulcan or a Human, and with the ridges just slightly visible under the soft fabric, is a clue Julian hasn't had before.
Jasek looks back to Garak, meeting his icy gaze, and for a long few moments they stare each other down. Back on Earth, there had been a few feral cats on the campus of Starfleet Academy – they were kept healthy, but allowed to keep to themselves, and were often friendly with different members of the campus corps. Julian had seen, once or twice, the stand-off between two cats as they stared each other down and refused to blink, slowly raising their hackles and arching their backs, until one lost their nerve.
It's Jasek who looks away first, but Garak seems irritated rather than pleased at his victory, and a ghost of confusion passes over Jasek's face in response – Yes, Mr Jasek, Julian wants to agree, Isn't it bizarre when he reacts exactly as you don't expect? I rather know the feeling.
"I will see you, Doctor Bashir," Jasek says, with a polite bow of his head: even the way he holds himself reminds Julian more of the Vulcans than Cardassians – it's stiff and measured, and while he has a heavy sense of grace, it lacks the reptilian slink that Cardassians usually have. Vulcans have a measured way about them, a quiet step, but it's to do with the conservation of energy and the most logical, rational way to move around, not to do with desiring stealth.
Julian watches after him as he goes, with mild curiosity, and then he turns back to Garak. Garak's jaw is set, his lips pursed together, and he is watching Julian with an alarming intensity. "What, Garak? Are you jealous?"
"I would be careful, Doctor," Garak murmurs, softly. "If you're not careful, you might become friends with the wrong sort of people." His tone is laden with implication, and he leans forwards, stacking one of his hands over the other and laying his chin on the back of his hands: mirroring his movements exactly, Julian reflects Garak's position, and he relishes how it closes some of the distance between them, although the table is still a woeful barrier. The position they're in isn't a naturally Cardassian one, which is perhaps why Garak chose it – perhaps he felt it might disarm Julian or confuse him!
Or perhaps it's just the position he felt like settling in, and there was no ulterior motive at all, and to Garak, Julian seems like a ridiculous, naïve child for copying him.
"You might well be right," Julian says in an equally quiet voice, arching his eyebrows meaningfully as he does so. The flirtation does little to dissuade Garak's frown. "What do you think happened? Odo said there was a hull breach, but it was more than that – it was an explosion. It was an attack on the ship." Julian had listened to Odo's debriefing about it this morning to the command staff – he suspects the Maquis, thus far, and Julian won't tell Garak that. But why would the Maquis try to attack a Cardassian that had been exiled for so many years? He knows Odo has instincts Julian himself lacks, but logically it seems like there's a few missed connections between the concept and the result.
"There are many reasons one might wish to kill anyone on the ship, my dear," Garak murmurs shrugging his shoulders loosely. Not for the first time, Julian wonders what Garak's shoulders are like under all that stiff fabric – even in healing Garak's broken ribs or bruised organs, Julian has never gotten a proper look at the way his body is built. "But the investigation ought reveal the truth. A version of it, at least." Mag brings along their meals, hot from the replicator, and Garak changes the subject to something rather more innocuous.
Julian remains distracted, nonetheless. The Aronnax must have been attacked for some reason, after all, and he's certain there's more to this situation than he can yet ascertain.