The nascence of summer has scorched the sky, the air is thin and parched and the sun is merciless, but Bashir's sickroom is a constant, wintry twenty-two degrees.
His medical team have questioned the wisdom of it and repeatedly pored over their charts and readouts looking for tell-tale evidence of distress in Bashir's vital signs, ignoring Garak's reassurances that the temperature is positively tropical for a human.
Perhaps even too warm, because oftentimes Bashir's brow looks clammy, beads of sweat glistening at his hairline and outlining the curve of his top lip. Once, doubting himself and the tick-tock bleeping of the monitoring equipment, Garak had taken light hold of Bashir's wrist and grazed his fingertips across the thin skin on the underside of it, gliding over the delicate peaks of fine bones and tendons to the pulse point at the heel of his palm. He could feel Bashir's heart beating there, a faint but regular, unhurried lub dub rhythm that suggested, despite any appearances to the contrary, that Bashir is as comfortable as his unfortunate circumstances will allow.
Garak is decidedly less so. The chill of the room reminds him of his time on Deep Space Nine, and how the ceaseless cold clawed at him. How it made his joints throb and his muscles ache, and how he had to smile through it all, pretending it wasn't yet one more torture wrought by his exile.
At least here, in his own residence and alone save for Bashir and the non-judgemental Kukalaka, there is no-one to fool. He can wrap up warm, chafe his hands, and, most importantly, wax lyrical about his hardship, which makes it a great deal easier to endure.
And spurred on by Parmak's mild and well-meaning admonishments, and no small measure of his own guilt, Garak has endured far more frequently of late. By standing firm against the increasingly strident demands on his time – turning down the most frivolous of the many invitations he is issued and curtailing meetings that threaten to overrun – and, though it pains him, occasionally postponing his postprandial games of kotra with Parmak, he is able to snatch back enough time from his evenings that he is able to visit Bashir near every other day.
It's never for long, an hour or so at best, but sufficient that, by the start of the third week of this new schedule, he finally reaches the end of tale twelve, the last in Sayak's book.
The author has not included any parting thoughts addressed to the reader, and Garak cannot summon up any words that feel fitting for the moment, so he simply sets his padd aside, leans back in his chair, and waits. And waits, but there's nothing to reward his patience but the soft susurrus of Bashir's breathing, interweaving with the far harsher sound of his own.
It would have been foolish to have anticipated anything else, but as a cold, hard knot of sorrow forms in his heart, Garak has to admit that he had done so anyway.
A small part of him, largely unacknowledged before now, had really believed that Sayak's tales were the answer to Bashir's predicament. Through all the many days and weeks he had denied himself the enjoyment of reading them – the many days and weeks he had procrastinated and avoided visiting Bashir – postponing his pleasure until he could share it with his friend, he had imbued them with a significance they did not deserve and they had somehow become tangled up and entwined with Bashir's condition in his mind.
The book had become emblematic of Bashir's recovery; its conclusion synonymous with his reawakening.
Ridiculous, superstitious nonsense, and unbecoming of him, but still the disappointment remains.
Garak takes two days to reason himself out of the feeling, and two more to grieve, then diligently embarks on the task of selecting a new book to read to Bashir. It's a difficult one, fully demanding the many hours he sacrifices to it, even though he is able to discount more than half of his extensive library from the start.
Many years ago, Bashir had made his thoughts on the deficiencies of Cardassian novels very plain, and it seems somewhat unkind to subject him to another when he has no recourse for escape from it. Of the rest of his collection, not one of them feels right, not in same way Sayak's book had done, and eventually Garak has to admit defeat, stop prevaricating, and beg Paramak's advice in the matter.
His answer is one Garak should have predicted, given that he's heard it so often since Bashir was ceded into his care: familiar is the watchword.
A human work, then, and preferably one that Bashir had already expressed a fondness for. That narrows the field significantly, and Garak finds himself drawn time and again to the same volume: a paper book, an antique, that had been presented to him during a visit to London when he was serving as Cardassian ambassador to the Federation.
He treasured the gift in the generous spirit it was given, and still does, but has hitherto hasn't felt equal to reading it. His memories of that visit are just too bittersweet.
He had liked the city, admired its architecture and the lingering scars of its history that were still written into its stones, but Bashir was never far from his thoughts no matter how deeply he tried to immerse himself in his sightseeing. As he walked London's streets, he couldn't help but wonder how Bashir felt about his birthplace; what his favourite parts of it were and what stories he might have to tell about them.
But Garak had never thought to ask about such things earlier in their acquaintance, and Bashir had never offered to tell, and by the time Garak was posted to Earth, it had seemed too late to pose the question. They had written to each other, even then, but their letters had become not only sporadic but flimsy and inconsequential, and Garak's curiosity seemed to have no place in them; doomed to go unsatisfied.
Thus, he cannot be certain that Bashir had liked London too, in his turn, but the setting there is at least familiar. Just as the stories themselves will be, if Garak's vague recollection that he had mentioned reading them as a young man is to be trusted.
He takes the book with him when he next manages to find the time to go upstairs to Bashir's room, and after he offers his customary, cheerful greeting to Kukalaka and seats himself in his customary chair, he opens it carefully, mindful of its cracked binding and fragile pages, and with mingled trepidation and hope, reads aloud:
"Adventure I: A Scandal in Bohemia."
No flicker of recognition mars the serenity of Bashir's expression as he hears the words, his breath does not catch and there is no mistaking the lax line of his lips for a smile. Garak shouldn't have expected any other outcome, but the disappointment still blooms anew in his chest once more.
Thereafter, everything continues in much the same way as it had before, though with Arthur Conan Doyle in place of Sayak. Garak reads, Bashir sweats, and Kukalaka takes the odd tumble whilst the days grow ever longer, the sun climbs towards its zenith, and summer settles over Cardassia in earnest, as heavy and suffocating as a pall.
Garak has almost resigned himself to this stultifying routine repeating itself for the foreseeable future – or in perpetuity, though that fear is reserved solely for sleepless nights, and quickly buried again come morning – when it's disrupted by a message he receives from Ezri Dax, requesting his permission to pay a visit to Bashir.