They call him an exception.
"Know this," Tain once told Garak. "You will get no thanks for this work. You are not a hero. If you save a thousand lives, you are still a villain. Your job is not to save anyone, or to fight for justice. Your dirty your hands with torture for the good of us all, but a better man would turn away."
Tain was quiet, then added, "We are not better men."
On Deep Space Nine Garak had watched the changeover of the station with quiet resignation, already anticipating the sneers of Federation scum through a faint, careless haze of drugs and bitterness.
From the ranks of the officers one character sought him out. A young man with a guileless grin and cheerful smile.
"Julian Bashir," he said.
When Garak was in the Obsidian Order -
"I am a simple tailor," he told Julian, smiling. Julian smiled back uncertainly, but he was intrigued, and Garak thought -
When Garak was in the Obsidian Order he tortured a man named Jukian Banshiri. The man worked with fabrics and mended outfits, and he had the misfortune of marrying a military officer-turned-traitor. He refused to give up his wife, acting brave despite the inherent weakness of his slender, shaking body.
He screamed until his throat gave out.
They call him an exception.
"It's alright!" Julian laughs two weeks into their mission, when a visiting Starfleet admiral flinches at the sight of Garak strolling through the halls. "He's our Cardassian."
"I was not aware I belonged to anyone," Garak murmurs.
O'Brien claps him on the back from behind. "Like it or not, you're stuck with us now," he snorts. He is only half-joking.
That sounds about right.
If Cardassians have any flaw -
"You seem tense," Julian says.
"Do I?" Garak asks. "We're in the middle of a war-zone, losing hopelessly against superior forces, and I'm on a Federation ship helping kill my own people." He pauses a beat. "Well, perhaps I just need a little sun. Life on a starship, you know."
Tain once told Garak, "Other races have their own virtues. But only a Cardassian can recognize another in spirit. No alien can ever - "
"We got 'em!" Dax crows. "And - the last ship is turning around, sir!"
"Should we pursue?" Nog asks.
Garak watches a sparking spire twist slowly across the viewscreen. A broken pylon explodes as the Cardassian ship drifts through space. Silent. Dead.
Are those tiny flecks pieces of metal, or - ?
"A dull game," Garak commented, eyeing the bristling dart board. "No strategy, no challenge - "
"No deceit?" Julian prodded.
"Your words, Doctor."
"I've seen you with a weapon, Garak. You can't tell me you don't see the value in practicing your aim."
"Practice, certainly. But only for practical purposes."
"So if we were using phasers - "
"Well," Garak grimaced, "I would ask in that case you be somewhat more cautious about not hitting me with stray shots."
Julian laughed. "I'm starting to think Miles was doing that on purpose."
"Starting? I am sure of it."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Of course not. Unlike our resident Chief, I do practice with phasers."
Some people are traumatized by the war.
"Should we pursue?" Nog asks.
Garak stays facing the screen when he feels Sisko's glance. No, he will not let his opinion affect the war. And he will not, cannot, be used to justify Sisko's guilty conscience. Not again -
"Sir?"
"Not today," Sisko says, and also, " - I think the Conquest is in their path anyway."
If Cardassians have any flaw -
When Garak was in the Obsidian Order he did not hold any illusions about his work. He tore apart families, rifted loved ones, tortured and broke uncounted lives - some already corrupt, some not. He did not do it for Tain, as Julian still thinks. He did it for Cardassia, for her people, for the planet. He did it for the idea of Cardassia. Every scream in his ears tore at his battered conscience, and in turn he offered his victims' blood, like a sacrament, to his people. The Obsidian Order was a necessary evil, and also righteous, as was everything that benefited the good of Cardassia.
He had no illusions -
Garak chants the names at night. First it is Gul Terrek, Gul Forrak, Gul Dujat, Glinn Trestam, until there are too many Guls and too many Glinns he knows personally and he has to change the lists. Guls: Terrek, Forrak, Dujat, Belat, Tukan, Yetrar, Urrel...
One day he thinks about the endless names that slipped away under his knife in the Order. He stops counting, then. Instead he turns to his pillow each night, and whispers vain promises that he can't keep. Things like, It will end soon and Cardassia will be saved and I won't destroy my people -
Some people are traumatized by the war. A lieutenant breaks down in tears right in the hallway when Garak is heading to the bridge. A few people hesitate, looking uncomfortable as a friend of the man kneels down and embraces him.
The lieutenant looks up and meets Garak's eyes, grief flowing in smooth trails down his face.
"If you can't face death," Garak tells him coldly, "Don't burden us with your weakness."
He leaves.
(Later people will point and whisper about him, even more than usual. Julian and O'Brien join him for lunch, and neither says a word).
(Garak isn't stupid enough to think they understand, though).
The Never-Ending Sacrifice was originally written by a man named Elijan Tain.
Garak is weak, sometimes, and it will never stop being ironic that the humans seem to respect him most at these times.
(They call him an exception)
Garak speaks openly of his days in the Obsidian Order now, when it is far past the point where anyone cares. He tells Sisko about the Gul of an opposing ship, and adds flippantly, "Please try not to get us captured. I tortured him for information once, he might hold a bit of a grudge." He says of another, "His sister, ah, her I remember well - very pretty until I was through with her." He says, "I may have been responsible for a few disappearances in that one's family..."
They nod absently. The words don't register, not really. In war, tragedy is a matter of relativity. The Cardassians are Other, now. Enemies. Monsters. And Garak is an exception, so what does it matter that he once laughed at the pleas of his people when the Federation is tearing them apart by the shipful?
For once Garak reveals every secret he has, and these people don't even hate him. The irony, at least, will have to be punishment enough.
"You're not responsible for them, you know," Julian says one day.
"Who, now?" Garak asks blithely.
"The Cardassians made their choice, Garak."
Garak pauses, sips his tea, and carefully sets it down. "Did they? Tell me, doctor. Tell me you really, sincerely believe that all the men and women on those ships are entirely behind the Dominion, and happy to bow to some scheming science experiments and pray to their beloved Founders."
Julian winces. "If they joined the military - "
"If they joined the military they expected to serve Cardassia, not the Dominion. Spare me your platitudes. Do you think I'm so unique, Doctor? That I'm the only one of my people who realizes what a travesty this is? If we have any sin..."
"It's your loyalty to the government," Julian predicts.
"No," Garak contends. "It's our love for Cardassia."
Ensign Teya whispers loudly about the 'Cardie scum' serving on the Defiant. Hearing, Garak turns and gives her a toothy smile. She pales rapidly.
When the ensign leaves Garak turns back to his empty table. Let them hate him.
They should.
If Cardassians have any flaw, it is a universal passion for their identity.
Terrans don't understand. They say they love Earth, but to them the distant planet is a 'homeworld', not a home. Theirs is a pioneering people. Of all races there is none as prolific as humanity. Within just a few hundred years of space-travel they have come to populate nearly as many planets.
They do not understand the heritage, the legacy, of Cardassia.
"Surely your people have fairy-tales!" Julian exclaimed. "And no, Rapunzel is certainly not meant to advocate using one's body to escape unpleasant situations - we don't typically encourage our children to be prostitutes."
"I am becoming more and more skeptical of your interpretations, Doctor - it's very cruel to trick people about such things, you know. And while we do not have 'fairy tales', or indeed any notion of 'fairies', we have our own cultural stories."
"Such as?"
"The Never-Ending Sacrifice, which I have shown you, is a classic. Then there is Our Duty Eternal, and The Bond of the State, and of course The Loyal Pauper..."
"That's not the same thing," Julian chuckled.
"They are stories told to children to encourage certain morals, values... The only difference, Doctor, is that yours teach creativity and independence as opposed to..."
"Deceit? Paranoia? Fanaticism?"
"Love."
Julian laughed, taken aback. "Almost all human fairy-tales center around love!"
"Not Cardassian love," Garak said.
When Garak was in the Obsidian Order, he doubted himself, Tain, and the cruelness of the universe. He doubted his superiors. He doubted his right to live and the guilt of his victims. He doubted reality, at times.
He never doubted Cardassia.
"Some people are talking about a treaty," O'Brien says bitterly.
"I find that hard to believe," Julian comments.
Jadzia shakes her head, taking a quick chug of raktajino. "The admiralty would never go for it. Besides, the Cardassians are living proof of how Dominion treaties go."
"What do you think, Mr. Garak?" Sisko asks.
The spy considers quietly. "I rather hope it is a lie," Garak says finally. "If only because it would be quite tiresome to hunt down another ship to fight with. Much less with any crew so foolish yet fortunate as the Defiant's."
They laugh at him, and think he is bantering. This is not banter. This is the truth. As long as there are Dominion soldiers on Cardassia, there will be a war.
At least for Garak.
"Do you often miss Cardassia?" Julian asked once, amid the obnoxious chatter and shouts of 'Dabo!' in Quark's Bar.
"It is my home," was the only answer, and for once that was enough.
When the war is over and Cardassia is a shell of her former glory Garak steps out into the barren streets, wandering a slow, meandering path through the debris. Weeks after the last battle men, women and children still toil through the days and nights carting stacks of concrete and metal, endlessly reshaping roads, houses, hospitals...
He takes a picture of a young, weary boy raising a huge stone over his head and peering into the sun across an endless landscape of devastation. The child's scales are caked with mud, colored dull gray with exhaustion, and there is a look of haunted, pained desperation in his eyes. It is a desperation that only comes with love.
He sends the picture to Bashir, and writes, This is a Cardassian fairy tale.