Wasn't there always something? Bashir thought as he traced the ring of condensation his glass left on the cheap plasticine tabletop and split his gaze between the dull circle of water and Ezri who sat on the opposite side of the room between two unfamiliar Starfleet officers. Bashir guessed they were from the Perseus which had docked a few hours earlier. Between the two of them, Ezri looked about six inches high. Bashir killed his drink and left Quark's.
Halfway down the corridor, he paused and wondered if he should turn back. Was he being anti-social? Maybe they were old friends of Ezri Tigan's from whatever that ship had been she'd served aboard. He decided against it. She was her own person, and whether or not she chose to spend some of her life with him was up to her.
So he went back to his quarters and went to bed. In the darkness, perforated only by the pinpricks of stars beyond the viewports and LEDs of the environmental controls, he lay on his back, his fingers laced behind his head. Yes, wasn't it always something?
When she was Jadzia, he was too young, too callow, arrogant. Little more than a child in the face of her eight lifetimes of accumulated wisdom and experience. And when he'd finally reached something close to equal ground with her--when the years of conflict with the Cardassians and the radical Bajoran factions, the Klingons, the Maquis, the Borg, and finally the Dominion--when the weight of those stressors, those brushes with death, those successes and failures all finally caught up with him, there had come Worf. And while he'd been to busy sinking into his own personal darkness--devoid of energy or ambition or passion--they had met and fallen in love. And then Julian knew what he had lost.
And now she was Ezri. Apple-cheeked and perky as a kitten. Hard for him to see her as little more than a child. But then she was would talk, engage him in some conversation that had slid perilously deep beneath the icy-crust of the daily banalities, and he could see her in the eyes. Dax. Jadzia, and all that had composed her. And he knew that that being, the one he'd desired, still walked the same corridors as he.
And what was it now? Was it the fact that she was still a little emotionally wobbly after her joining? Was it the war? That goddamned beast that swallowed more and more lives faster than Bashir could ever comprehend? Was it the blueness of her eyes? The jet-black of her hair? Was it his own fears? His own failures?
Damn it all, maybe it was just the two crewmen on either side of her at the table. And the knowledge that crawled about in the back of his genetically-enhanced mind that he would never see her eyes close softly as she melted into his arms.
He fell asleep at some point-though he wasn't sure when. It was shallow and fitful, and he awoke in what seemed like minutes.
A shape was blotting out the stars.
A human shape.
Bashir didn't bother calling for the lights, but reached out for his phaser in the nightstand, felt bare plastic under his fingers.
"Not there, Doctor."
"Sloan," Bashir hissed between his teeth.
"Not quite. Lights, one-third." A pale glow illuminated the room, and the cold, non-descript features of the man sitting across from him holding his phaser. It was not Sloan, but it could have been. Blond, bland, younger, but with the same utter lack of humanity in the eyes. This was a man that cared about nothing but his own nebulous agendas.
"Who are you?" Bashir demanded, sitting up in his bed, feeling ridiculous at conducting such critical business in his pajamas.
"Agent Tyre. I'm from Section 31. That last part more or less goes without saying, but I like to cover all the bases."
"What do you want? Where's Sloan?"
"Preoccupied. He sent me. Now, Doctor, you look tired. And never let it be said I deprived a man of a good sleep--that's the interrogation division's job--so let's just get down to brass tacks, shall we?"
Bashir looked sullenly at the floor.
"We need all of your compiled data on the Jem'Hadar you encountered. The one who managed to shake their addiction to the white. Shouldn't take you more than a minute to download that onto a data rod..."
"You've already got it. I submitted my report to Starfleet Medical shortly after that incident."
"Yes, your report was most thorough. What we want are your notes. Your field notes. All the information. Period."
"No," Bashir said slowly, shaking his head. "I'm not turning over my notes."
Tyre looked genuinely befuddled. "Why not?"
"I'm not turning my notes over to you! Those are my...A doctor doesn't do that. You can't simply walk in here and demand things of me and expect me to comply! I'm not your trained seal. I won't bark and balance a ball on my snout because you clap your hands."
"A trained seal? Doctor, I'm asking for your notes. Not to engineer a bio-toxin for us. You start talking about seals and snouts..."
"I won't do it."
"We can ask someone else from the command staff," Tyre said reproachfully. "Any one of them could access your medical files with an emergency override."
"But you won't," Bashir replied, feeling confidence climb his spine. "You always come to me. Always play your games with me. As long as Section 31 has only contacted one Starfleet officer, then its existence can still be plausibly denied. You won't dare expose yourself by going to Captain Sisko or O'Brien or Kira."
"True," Tyre said with a half-hearted smile that made Bashir's hackles rise. "I guess it's Plan B then..."
Bashir saw the phaser train on him, but even with his genetically-enhanced reflexes, couldn't avoid the beam.
"Well, Doctor, if I thought you were going to be this recalcitrant with my associate, I would have run this errand myself."
"Hello, Sloan," Bashir said laconically, even though he couldn't yet see the man. A moment later, his pale features emerged from the darkness, followed by Tyre. The black tunics they wore gave their heads and hands the illusion of being disembodied until they moved into the small circle of light that surrounded him.
"I must say, you never fail to disappoint me."
"Words cannot convey how that troubles me," Bashir shot back. Sloan continued, nonplused.
"I told Mr. Tyre that you wouldn't be so quick to give up your notes--Medical ethics and Starfleet morality and all--but he just had to see for himself. I'm afraid he's slightly more cynical about human nature than I."
"I find it hard to believe that anyone is more cynical than you, Sloan."
Sloan's dead-fish features twisted into a humorless grin. "Julian, I'm a regular Polyanna compared to some of my colleagues."
"Sans braids of course," Tyre remarked dryly.
"What's this really about, Sloan? I can't believe you'd go through all this trouble just to try to appropriate my notes. Notes that contain information you most likely already have."
"Sometimes, Doctor, the effort is its own reward."
"After all," Tyre continued, "if we can't coerce one Starfleet Doctor to turn over his notes, we wouldn't be very good covert operatives would we?" He crouched next to Bashir and spoke at his left cheek. "I mean, how could we go on toppling governments or subverting societies and still respect ourselves?"
"I rather suspect you've all the self-justification you need," Bashir answered frostily.
"But there would always be that niggling doubt, floating at the back of my mind. Pretty soon I'd start making rookie mistakes--killing the wrong diplomat, setting the bomb for low-yield instead of high-yield. No, Doctor, this process is integral for both of our mental health."
"This is a farce!"
"Possibly," Sloan's tone hardened. "Maybe we just want the notes. You did omit things, didn't you?"
"You won't know."
Tyre sighed. "Okay, let's start with the neural transfer."
"Patience, Agent Tyre. There are other routes to take before we download his brain-cells."
Bashir looked up at the pincers. "Go ahead and download, Sloan. Whatever it takes to get this over with. I'm tired and I want to get some sleep."
"I doubt you'll get much," Sloan deadpanned. "You haven't these past few weeks, have you?"
"We're at war. No one's sleeping well."
"I wonder what kind of noise this thing'll make as it carves through the layers of Doctor Bashir's genetically-enhanced neurons, " Tyre commented wistfully as he absently poked the machine.
Sloan ignored him. "Oh, but your insomnia has more ordinary but elusive source. An old one."
"What the hell are you talking about, Sloan?" Bashir sighed. Sloan's mask of impassivity stayed fully in place as he punched a button on a wrist-pad Bashir could barely see. A moment later his stomach turned to ice.
Ezri's holographic image appeared at the opposite end of the room. It wasn't a file image, but one captured in a candid moment, her head cocked, eyes glittering, her mouth half open. Bashir felt the ice claw its way up into his chest as he felt the instant tug of recognition. The slight flush of her spots, the widened eyes, she was getting ready to tell something that excited and elated her.
It was, perhaps, his most beloved of her manners.
"She's cute," Tyre commented neutrally.
"This is Lieutenant Ezri Dax," Sloan explained with aplomb, "formerly Ezri Tigan until she received the Dax symbiont. The good Doctor was in love with the last Dax--Jadzia Dax--and now he finds himself plagued with similar feelings toward Ezri Dax. Even if he wasn't so loquacious about it in his personal log, it's so very obvious from his body language when he's around her." Sloan bent down to stare into Bashir's eyes. "I could show you the surveillance vids. Point out all the telltale signs that our behavioral analysts showed me."
"Go to hell," Bashir said, his mouth suddenly dry as the metal around him.
"I'm bored," Tyre griped. "Lemme climb in his skull, do a little shuffle-step with his synapses."
"We're just getting to good part, Agent Tyre. Patience. The question before us now is: what would the good Doctor Julian Bashir do for this Dax? This Dax, the love for whom, he doesn't fully understand or accept. It's really a fascinating emotional conundrum here."
Bashir gritted his teeth, imagining his arms tearing loose from their bonds, visualizing Tyre's and Sloan's bodies writhing in pain after he threw them out the nearest airlock on this ship or station or whatever it was. "If you hurt her..."
Sloan laughed good-naturedly. "Doctor, you have such a low opinion of us."
"Extortion," Tyre spat. "That's just vulgar. Blackmail...no...I'm offended."
"Well, the Doctor has plenty of reasons not to trust us, Agent Tyre, but what he has not yet seen are the rewards of Section 31. The loyalty we feel to those who've been cooperative with us. The things we'll do for them."
Cold sweat trickled past Bashir's ears, down the sides of his neck. "Where are you going with this?"
"We can give her to you, Doctor."
Bashir sized up the man. Saw no trace of mockery, duplicity or even much regard in Sloan's expression. It was as if the business was too banal to even lie about. "Where are you going with this?"
Sloan shrugged. "She's admitted that Jadzia was attracted to you. Until Commander Worf came along, that is. A few basic alpha/theta-band waved at the right modulation and bandwidth, and we can make those emotions, which are now just a hazy memory in the collective Dax, reassert themselves. Trills are very easy to manipulate in this manner. We'd discovered this some time ago, but never found a need to apply the knowledge. But here, now, Doctor, our knowledge can be your gain. If you'll simply turn over the notes."
"A love potion, Sloan, you must be mad to think I'd believe that."
"We don't bluff, Doctor," Tyre said.
"Just like Vulcans," Bashir commented acidly.
"Not exactly," Sloan explained. "Vulcans don't lie so they cannot bluff. We don't bluff, Doctor, because you run the risk of someone calling it. Then you lose face. You lose credibility. When you can deliver on all of your claims, your promises carry more weight. As do your threats.
"But to respond to your charge, no, it's not a love potion. She already loved you once. We're just doing some basic emotional manipulation."
"Simple, really," Tyre said, and Bashir could see the same level dullness in his features too, and at that moment he knew that they weren't lying. They could do it. Hell, he could probably do it himself with a few nights work at the medical mainframe. What they were describing was just so simple...
"What'll it be Doctor? Your notes for Dax. This war, the Dominion, the Jem'Hadar, they're all fleeting. Your love will endure."
Bashir concentrated on the image of her, imagined her tousling her hair involuntarily as she spoke. Her upper lip curling upward at the right edge when she was perplexed. Her blue eyes flickering downward when she was uncomfortable. She was so worldly, so lived, and yet so unsure and vulnerable. He could protect her, he thought suddenly. Wasn't it a commitment to her?
"And wouldn't it be so much easier to live through this war with her at your side? Facing casualty report after casualty report, names of the dead, Doctor, knowing that she'll be waiting for you at night? When those names and faces come for you in your sleep."
He thought of O'Brien and Keiko. How frail she seemed beside him, but managing to anchor him more solidly than the uniform or his responsibilities or anything else. This was the miracle of love. This was the joy of it. A joy he'd never known.
Sloan's face blocked his view of her. "What'll it be, Doctor?"
Bashir licked his dry lips, felt no moisture. "No," he said. Sloan's face hardened. He heard Tyre sigh. "Maybe Jadzia loved me. And maybe Ezri does too, or could, or never will. But whatever will happen, it will happen because of who she is, and who I am, and that's all. You won't have anything to do with it, Sloan. Not you, not your 'associate', and certainly not Section 31. What did you think? What did any of you think? Did you really believe I could put my hands on her, knowing that she'd been delivered to me by you? I'd leave a stain every time I kissed her."
Sloan's lips tightened until they were white, and he stood abruptly. "Very well, Doctor," he said, sounding slightly agitated. "Then we do it the other way."
"All rightey then," Tyre said enthusiastically and pressed some controls on the pincer-device. It slowly descended until Bashir felt his head touch metal. His heart suddenly seemed to explode in his chest.
"Doctor," Sloan said, "this disappoints me to say, but the procedure won't hurt a bit."
Bashir thought of Ezri, imagined the feel of her Trill-soft skin against his as they slipped together into a luxurious bubble-bath on a luxury dwelling someplace. He held onto the image until the machine robbed him of everything.
So they'd won again. Section 31 had simply taken what they wanted and disappeared into the darkness where they dwelled.
But this time, they hadn't totally won.
His chest still hammering in his chest, He scrambled to his bare feet and ran out of his quarters, didn't stop until he reached hers.
"Julian?" she asked, bemusedly. Her face was puffy with sleep, her crisp, blue eyes slightly confused. In her black peignoir, her collarbone and shoulders looked fragile enough to snap in his hands. "Julian, what is it?"
He opened his mouth, but the words didn't come. He couldn't stop looking at the trail of spots that extended up her neck, around her forehead..."Ezri," he managed. "I have a story to tell." And then he broke down, his chest heaving with sobs.
She wound her fingers into his hair and drew him into her embrace. His arms encircled her, and held on to her as if she were the only thing there was in the Universe to believe in.
"Might as well," Sloan was looking at the downloaded notes. "She earned it."
"I wouldn't've believed it," Tyre shook his head. "A phaser-calibration array, an image of Dax, your silver tongue, and twenty minutes. And that's all it took to get him in her quarters."
"It's just a matter of which buttons to press, Agent Tyre," Sloan said, downplaying the triumph. "You will learn, in your time with me, that all of human behavior is simply a matter of knowing which buttons to press."
Tyre grinned. "I bow before the master..."