"You're not genetically engineered. You're a Vulcan."
"If I'm a Vulcan then how do you explain my boyish smile?"
"Not so boyish any more."
(Garak & Bashir, A Time To Stand.)
"It's quite straightforward," explained the slightly anaemic, fair haired and balding man who peered at Bashir from the panel in front of him. "Have you testified at trial before?"
"Well… Yes," Bashir recalled. "Several times, actually." …Although there had been few instances where he could remember his stomach being so ready to leap out through his throat.
"Well that's something anyway." The man took a moment to sort through his notes. "Really, it's nothing to worry about. Most of the questions will be about what you remember from your experience on Adigeon Prime. And the Prosecution may want to know a little about your medical career, not to mention what you have learnt about your own enhancements since then. But a lot of the scientific questions will be left to expert witnesses. The important thing to remember is, you are not the one on trial."
A flash of concern passed briefly across the man's pale features. "Do you think you'll be up to it?"
No.
Bashir nodded, throat dry, words trapped deep inside his chest.
The man's name was Horst Jenssen. A lawyer. His parents' lawyer. They'd been introduced a little over ten minutes ago. And he was calling on Julian to testify in their defence.
He remembered high walls. White, possibly blue, or more likely something in between. Father's large hand had been tight around his own. Carpet muffled the child's jerky footsteps although he could not help feeling in later years that they should have echoed in the corridors of his memory.
"Good, good." Jenssen filed his stack of padds into a black leather case and clicked it shut. A thin attempt at a smile somehow only made him appear more ill. Bashir noted the man's initials, inlaid in gold leaf on the handle of his baggage.
"And now that's out of the way, shall I ask them in?"
No. Oh, please. No. But Julian forced himself to concede, and nodded again.
Rising from his seat, Jenssen nodded to another of his colleagues who'd been waiting just beyond the scope of the screen. There was a muffled voice - a woman's. "You can come in now."
They approached from stage left, where an unseen door hissed shut, and their middle aged lawyer stepped back to allow them a place in the foreground. Dark creases lined the skin beneath his mother's eyes, but Bashir doubted that his own were looking very much better.
"Hello, Jules-- Julian." Father was wearing his best suit. He tensed a little when he realised his sudden error. Mother had also dressed as if for an important dinner. Both hands held her husband's arm, as two pairs of dark eyes searched the face of their only son, and Julian struggled to hold down a flush of irritation.
"How are you, Julian?" his mother asked.
"I'm fine," he replied, painfully aware of how little warmth had found its way into his voice.
Their smiles were just as forced as his own, as if they believed he couldn't tell. But he knew that Jenssen was watching, and somewhere out of sight, his staff would be as well. So he resolved to play the game, keep his answers polite and make believe that he thought the anxious couple in front of him really deserved his testimony.
"Infirmary to Doctor Hayes."
Hayes frowned, a split second before he looked up and responded. There had been panic threaded clearly through Janet Thompson's voice, and it did not diminish with her reply.
"We need you here, Doctor."
Exchanging an openly worried glance with his good friend Athena, Hayes downed the last dram of coffee in a single gulp and strode purposely in the direction of the Infirmary. It was not a great distance to cover. Nikos followed close at his heels, and he did not object to her presence.
Both young nurses - Thompson and Jabara - stood at one end of the room, so intently focused that neither reacted to the doctors' entry. Both had adopted a wide stance, legs slightly bent, hands forward, fingers splayed as far as they would go. Something thin and dark - a hypospray - was tucked surreptitiously between Jabara's thumb and forefinger.
"What happened?" Hayes asked the closer of the two. When she didn't respond, he gritted his teeth in frustration and hissed in her ear, "Ensign Thompson. Report."
"I don't know," she gasped in a barely audible voice. Her eyes were two anxious circles. "There was a communication from Earth, and then…"
Earth…? Of course! The trial.
The station's one-time doctor stood in a corner, head bowed slightly and with his hair draped in a rough curtain across the top of his forehead. But the eyes beneath it flicked warily from one face to the next, catching even the smallest suggestion of movement and watching the scene with fiery determination.
"Stay away!" he shouted at Nikos, who took a step back, hands raised.
"Julian, what's going on?" she asked him.
"Nothing." His words were venomous. "Nothing's 'going on'. Everything's just fine. So why worry?"
"Was it your family?"
Bashir pounded the nearest wall, so loudly that Jabara and Thompson visibly flinched. Then he turned towards it, and threaded agitated fingers through his hair. Hayes risked a cautious step in his direction.
"Back!" The young man spun to face him, hands curled into half-clenched fists. Every muscle in his body was taut as though set to pounce. There were tears in his eyes, and a single raised vein bisected his forehead.
But all that showed on the face of Athena Nikos was an aura of calm resolve. "What did they say?"
"Nothing." Bashir shook his head, allowing a tear to spill over one cheek. His voice was slightly hoarse. "At least, nothing that meant anything. Just, hello, how are you? How's the weather on Earth? Oh, it's fine. That sort of thing."
"They're worried about you," guessed Hayes.
Bashir was silent, but he kicked a nearby bench with the heel of one foot.
"It's not unreasonable," Nikos persisted, seamlessly following the direction of her friend's own thoughts. She took a deep breath, and her expression changed to one which Hayes could have recognised anywhere. It came from their student days, long nights spent defeating her at poker. At any other time, he would have been slightly amused to see it again - that definite shape of her eyes and mouth when she knew there was one more card to play, and she was bracing herself to play it.
"Julian." She waited until she'd caught his gaze. "You tried to kill yourself. Twice."
"I already told you, I didn't…"
"And the first time?"
He paused, leaning against the wall, but did not take his eyes away. "I was tired."
"Julian, please."
"Will you stop that?" His voice was low and dangerous, fringed with a distinctive hiss. "You don't know me. You saw me once. In a crowded lecture hall. Nobody's known me, not for a long time. Not even my best friends, so what makes you think you can even come close…?"
"I can't," conceded Nikos. But even Hayes could see that she was back-pedalling. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend..."
"You want to know the truth?" Bashir demanded. Her apology seemed to have calmed him a little, but there was still poison in every word. "The whole truth? Well, here it is. So much of what's happened since I came here - Ajilon, the prison camp, all of it - it was horrible, sure. But the point is, it was worth it. Because at the end of the day I was a Starfleet Doctor, and there were people who needed me. And those same people who kept telling me that I was good at my job are the very ones who took it all away."
For a moment, there was silence all around. Athena Nikos felt Nathan's eyes upon her, but she did not turn to see. She'd had easily enough experience to know that it was by no means a frequent occurrence, to find exactly the right words to say what needed to be said. And when those moments came, if a person needed to be quiet, or angry, or even spiteful, it was important to allow the time for it to happen.
Bashir's dark hazel eyes looked deep into her own, and for a moment, Nikos felt his pain, disappointment, helpless frustration. Then he reached up, pressing the balls of his hands against his face, and slid all the way down the wall.
Signalling to Hayes and the others to stay where they were, Athena took a cautious step forward and quietly crouched beside the slender young man. With one hand on his arm, her other came to rest upon his upper back, in the space between his shoulder blades. He tensed momentarily, but made no move to shy away, and Nikos sensed that he was trembling.
But his jaw was beginning to clench. His eyes were lowered, their gaze already turning hard.
"No," whispered Nikos. "Don't fight it. Don't bury it." A near identical expression had been on Nathan's face when he met her at the airlock. And she'd known for a long time that too many officers turned out just the same. They would push away their darkest feelings, lock them deep within the shadows of their memory. How much more a man as practised at concealment as Julian Bashir so evidently appeared to be?
Nikos looked up and sought the eyes of Doctor Hayes. He was frowning, arms folded across his chest, but he seemed to catch her meaning. And he nodded.
She inclined her head - a brief but sincere expression of gratitude, and took the younger man by the hand. Bashir's shoulders were still hunched, eyes veiled in shadow, but he did not resist as she helped him to his feet. When she spoke, her voice was soft and firm. "Come with me."
He followed her without another word.