It'd taken Ezri hours of meditation to find her calm place.

Without access to her quarters, she couldn't complete the ritual to get rid of Joran. Six hours of sappy romance films had been enough to silence him, however, even if she'd been forcing herself to watch.

She was more than slightly surprised when Sisko walked into the holding area, followed closely by Gard.

"I've got some good news, Old Man. You're not free to go." Sisko said. "But you're no longer a suspect, either."

Ezri gave her friend a rather confused look.

"We need you to help us with a plan. We'll keep you as safe as possible, but I can't promise everything will be fine." Sisko continued, looking the frighteningly young Trill up and down. He could barely imagine putting Jake in such a situation, and even though Dax was more than three centuries older, she had fewer than nine months on his son in this body.

"What do you need me to do?" She asked.

"Be yourself. And spend another night in here, while we set a few things up."

"Do I want to know?" Ezri asked.

"Only that we're shaking the branches, old man."

"So that's a no." She replied.

"We've decided on one thing, though. That it's time for us to do something for you." He clicked his fingers.

Rom entered the room, carrying a table, followed closely by one of the Ferengi staff from the bar hauling a pair of chairs. Quark soon followed, to her surprise. He was carrying a candelabra, complete with a pair of candles, with a tablecloth folded over his shoulder. A sly wink from Quark drew an answering smile from Ezri, as the Ferengi slipped something under the table cloth when no-one else was looking.

Before long, the corner of the holding area outside of her cells had been dressed into something resembling a French restaurant, straight out of Emony's memories. To her surprise, Garak dipped in, briefly, holding a dress. She remembered once having spent a few seconds admiring the garment while walking past his shop with Kira.

To her surprise, the forcefield was lowered, and it was handed to her. Garak didn't look away, which left her more than slightly disconcerted, given that he had a photographic memory. Sisko and Gard had turned their backs and were talking in low voices. Shrugging, she skinned out of her jumpsuit above her shoulders, sliding the dress on almost immediately. Once it was in place, she stepped out of the jumpsuit, before ducking down and offering it to Garak with a sly grin on her face.

The Cardassian tailor, refusing to be outdone, accepted the somewhat aromatic jumpsuit with a broad smile. ""Well, my dear Ezri, I don't think that's your colour in the slightest. And could I suggest some small adjustments, around the shoulders and maybe a little around the hips, as well?"" He asked. "Although I will say that prison jumpsuits are rarely the most fetching garments, in my experience. Something about institutions seems to always dampen true style. Alas, we can only try, us artistes."

Even Ezri couldn't quite keep in the grin at the somewhat droll commentary.

"Now, about the accessories." Garak said. "What would you say to some nerve agents? Perhaps a small flamethrower… or how about a weaponised hat?" Without preamble, he pulled out what looked like one of the little hats from Vic's.

Much to her annoyance, Joran picked that moment to revive from his sappy-romance-induced coma. "Why not all three?" He asked. "And you can test them on this nuisance." He glared at Gard.

Ezri couldn't think of what to say for a few seconds. "Why would I want any of those for what I assume is supposed to be romantic meal?" She asked.

"Aren't such times the best for an assassin to strike?" Garak asked. Ezri had seen him sparring with Julian enough times to recognise the tone and expression though.

"Not on a highly secure space station." She replied, as Quark returned, muttering about how 'two days without in-depth inspections of my goods is not nearly enough for this." He laid out several layers of cutlery on the table, before stalking off again.

"What's got to him?" She asked.

"The fact that he's not being paid for this." Sisko replied. "And… well…"

Ezri looked rather flummoxed at that.

Sisko let the matter drop. One Dax had known about Quark's feelings. This one didn't need to be reminded, if she'd even noticed.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

"Do you think this is actually a good idea?" Bashir asked O'Brien. "And that it's anything other than a convenient way of getting her to help?"

"I think you just answered your own question." O'Brien replied. "If this wasn't a good idea, why would Dax have agreed to it?"

"You're right." Bashir admitted. "I just don't know if…"

"If what?"

"Oh, I don't know, Chief." Bashir spat, frustratedly. "Ever since she arrived… It's been like it was before Worf turned up, but worse. I can't stop thinking about her."

"Can't stop thinking about her…" O'Brien repeated. "I know what that feels like, all right."

"She's not Jadzia. I know that. But… she's Dax. Sometimes, her brain seems to jump around like a trivia quiz. One second, she'll be talking about something Emony did, and the next she's complaining about how Worf is avoiding her. Or about how hard it is to figure out what you want to eat with eight lifetimes of memories to wade through."

"And she's easy to look at, of course." O'Brien said, in a guileless voice, as if he was commenting on the weather or what jobs he'd got to do before he finished his shift.

"That's an understatement. She's beautiful. So was Jadzia…" Bashir trailed off suddenly. "What did you put in that raktajino?"

"A few drops of honesty." The chief smiled. "Always works wonders with you reserved stuffy types, I've found."

"Honesty?" Bashir asked. "Is that some sort of drug I haven't heard of before?"

"No. It's called 'being open and honest.'"

"And I just admitted to myself… how I feel about Ezri… without even thinking about it." Bashir muttered. "Is it normally that easy?"

"Only if you're not emotionally constipated." O'Brien commented.

"And how about you and Keiko?" Bashir retorted. "How long did it take you to ask her out, exactly?"

"Not six months, that's for sure." O'Brien shot back.

Bashir shook his head, before crossing to the wardrobe in his quarters. "Which one?" he asked, thumbing through his collection of assorted garments from the 20th century.

O'Brien picked out a garment without hesitation. "I think this one." He said, holding up the tuxedo Bashir wore for adventures in his Cold War era spy holoprogram.

"Why?" Bashir asked.

"Because you associate it with being relaxed around women, for a start."

"Miles, normally, when I'm wearing that, I'm waiting for someone to try and kill me." Bashir objected.

"So what?" The NCO was unrepentant. "If you are sitting down to a meal with Joran, even if that is unlikely, at least you'll be prepared."

"That's true." Bashir admitted, stepping behind a partition while he pulled the suit on. "In the unlikely event that someone tries to kill me and Ezri over dinner, I will be fully prepared to spring into violent action immediately. Pistol." He said.

O'Brien handed him what looked like a PPK. Bashir slipped it inside his jacket. The fact that this one in fact had been modified to contain the inner workings of a type-one phaser was an entirely separate matter.

Pulling on a pair of black leather wingtips, Bashir for a moment felt slightly ridiculous. He was a Starfleet officer, not a super-spy, regardless of how he dressed. He felt like he was wearing fancy dress on a date with one of the most desirable women he'd ever met.

He was actually grateful he was being 'escorted' by O'Brien. Otherwise, he silently admitted, he might have chickened out.

When he arrived, there was a triple candelabra carrying cream candles, all of which were lit. Around it, someone seemed to have transformed the station's security holding area into a French restaurant. Waiting at the single table, Ezri was wearing a simple green dress, cut modestly and elegantly. There was barely a hint of cleavage, although it left her arms bare. She smiled at him, somewhat shyly.

"Julian." She said. "This is so nice, isn't it?"

"It has a certain charm to it." He replied.

"Ben must have researched it." She continued. "Emony had such fond memories of a place like this."

"And of what happened afterwards, no doubt." Then Bashir flushed slightly.

"She did rather enjoy that." Ezri admitted, feeling her own cheeks warm. "But she was always emotional."

"You've said."

"I know. But it's hard to keep track of these conversations. And of what I want to eat. And drink. And remembering that I don't want to stand on my head." She grinned, self-consciously. "And then you've got everything else at once, and you're trying to remember that the TSC don't need a report from you any more… that I don't have any children right now… and that I'm not a man…"

"It gets overwhelming." Bashir commented. "I can tell."

"You have no idea. I've woken up wanting things that this body is allergic to. Or that I hate the taste of. And that isn't as bad as when I tried to dismantle my sonic shower…."

"Miles said something about that. And how allergic exactly are you to these… things?" Bashir asked, cautiously, unable to help slipping into Doctor mode.

"It wasn't working, and I thought I knew how to fix it. As it turned out, that fix doesn't work on Cardassian showers, and I electrocuted myself. Not seriously. Just enough to make my hair stand on end." Ezri paused to take a breath. "I'm not that allergic to them. If you hear me sneezing a lot, it's because I decided I wanted to drink autumnflower wine."

"I'll make a note to give you an epishot in that case." Bashir commented with a smile.

Then Rom arrived, carrying a bottle of wine. He offered it to Ezri, who recognised the ritual from several sets of memories. She nodded, before he poured a small amount of it into a wine glasswineglass. A small sip of the red allowed the smoky, lightly spiced flavour of Chateau Picard to flow over her tongue, bringing back a cluster of Emony-Memories. Combined with the soft scent of the candle smoke, she had to stamp on her own foot to remind herself she wasn't remembering this. Even the fact that she was looking across the table at a painfully eager human seemed the same, for a second.

She nodded at the Ferengi, far more enthusiastically this time. He poured three fingers of the wine into each glass, before placing the bottle on the table. As he disappeared out of the room, Ezri couldn't help asking the question.

"When did Rom learn to serve wine?" she asked, curiously. "Jadzia never saw him doing it."

"Leeta." Bashir replied, knowingly. "She has a taste for springwine."

Ezri nodded her acknowledgement as she took another sip of the wine, before raising her glass to Bashir. "To friendship across lifetimes." She said, as they clinked glasses.

AN: Feedback is very welcome