"So," Bashir muttered, pausing just beyond the outer doors of Sickbay. He took a backward step, just far enough to allow him to rest his back against the closest wall. "Where do we go from here?"
"I wouldn't even attempt a guess," said a voice at his side.
Bashir turned his head until Garak's had come into the range of his visual field. He snickered. "That's a first."
"Possibly. But we do have some time before the Defiant is due to arrive. What do you think? Lunch as usual?"
"Perhaps later."
Inwardly, he held back a shudder. It was unusual enough to find himself with so little to say. With Garak, practically unheard of. But all of their usual topics of conversation - the fragments he uncovered of his companion's elusive history, the relative merits of Shakespeare and Preloc, even their occasional forays into the current state of galactic affairs - nothing seemed right for the over all mood. Like a humanoid body whose limbs had never been effectively attached.
Even Garak's staring blue eyes stirred some memory inside of him, which he could not allow himself to bring into the light. Lest it burn like the desert sun that had illuminated his most recent dreams.
"No offence," he promised the Cardassian. "It's just that…"
Garak responded with a nod of understanding, which came very close to a bow. "Some other time, then."
And I used to be the one having to tell him to mind people's privacy, Julian thought, with some relief that the mysterious tailor was not the kind to force such issues into the light.
Wandering through each evenly curving hall presented him with an even more pathetic distraction than the scratches and shadows that marred the upper corners of Sickbay. Every wall was a dull, all-over beige, with barely a speck to break its pristine monotony. He came to an occasional arch - where the passage narrowed abruptly for a moment and quickly returned to its original breadth. Structural arches, he reminded himself. Something to fortify the corridor's frame. An extra measure of resistance in case of damage or attack.
When had he last seen the interior of a fully sized starship? Long enough to forget how spacious and clean their surfaces could be, even while patrolling the edge of enemy space. With a few patches and a splash of paint, even battle damage could be far too easily repaired - cleaned and polished and forgotten as if whatever disaster had caused such destruction had never even happened.
Was medicine really so very different? A humanoid could be just as readily patched together as a ship, it seemed. At times. But these were questions better left to philosophers, speculations which were already inflaming the ache beneath his skull.
He stopped for a moment and leant against a wall, waiting for a pair of yellow-shirt ensigns to hurry past, wishing that at least a part of the passage would give way. Perhaps to an alcove where he could tuck himself inside, then remain concealed for as long as it took for him to be alone.
Bashir forced a smile and a brief, cursory greeting, reciprocated by the two young officers as they passed. They strode away without a word, never once glancing back at the other man, whose eyes now focused on their backs. A long time ago, he might have been the one hurrying past. But that was a part of some other life now. One that barely felt like it had ever been his own.
So, he wondered. Where to now? The corridor before him was divided into two alternate passageways, one with letters above a closed door - which only now had resolved themselves clearly enough to indicate a turbolift. He imagined closing his eyes, back pressed against the wall, and allowing his pensive, melancholy thoughts to drift into peaceful oblivion. Every step he had taken was a drain on his energy, but even this was not enough to quell the current of agitation running in irregular bursts along the nerves of his back.
Kalandra was right, of course. If he had been giving advice to one of his outpatients, it would not have included randomly wandering through the arteries of the ship. There had to be some option other than staring at walls and struggling not to think. He could always make a new, concerted effort to get through every chapter of The Never Ending Sacrifice. If nothing else, it might afford him something less dubious on which to focus his attention than the persistent, ghostly voices of his memory.
"There's more to life than duty to the state."
He stopped walking, only distantly aware that he had muttered the phrase out loud. And what had Garak called him in return, the first time that same phrase had passed his lips? A victim of Federation dogma… Perhaps not such an inaccurate assessment, after all.
"Half rations?" Bashir glanced back at the line of pale, gaunt faces behind him - and then once more to the pebble-skinned visage of the guard. His pulse had accelerated so rapidly that he was astounded to find that heart still hadn't leapt from his body. Secretly, he trembled, terrified. But if the guards had noticed, they gave no sign of it - and he couldn't stay silent. Not this time.
The prisoners of Barrack Six were barely managing as it was. Even with his Klingon pride to aid him, Martok could not fight the Jem'Hadar on half rations. Others, including himself, were already looking far too thin. And as for Tain…
Tain was dying. Fighting for every moment of survival, true, but there was no more denying the inevitable. Without the proper medical care, his life would end in less than a week. And Julian's struggles were useless. He would not be able to rescue Tain now - not when all he could scavenge were a few thin bandages, a blade that he was managing by some miracle to keep dry and nearly clean, and a single vial of weak antiseptic that was only marginally better than water.
If things became truly desperate, he could still pass along some of his own rations to the others, but he had little chance of ever getting away with that. Martok had already caught him trying to do so twice.
Ikat'ika's eyes - the colour of a trace of sky that might partially show itself from behind a thin, grey cloud - regarded the Human with cold disdain.
"Doctor." That was a Klingon's strong hand upon his arm. The general's voice had turned to a cautionary growl, and even their Breen companion, who rarely paid any obvious attention to his fellow prisoners, was sitting upright and watching the drama with interest. Having caught Bashir's attention, Martok shook his head.
But no. He didn't understand. Even if they never escaped from their chill confinement - as the thick-set general still hoped they might, Julian Bashir was a doctor. To give in now would be to deny that knowledge.
"You can't do this."
"The Vorta has ordered half rations for all prisoners," the bulky, reptilian soldier repeated. "So this is what you will eat."
"I don't care what the Vorta…"
He gasped, choking, clutching his belly as he doubled over - and just as suddenly dry retching as the butt of a rifle jabbed hard against his unprotected torso. Another blow came down upon his back, expelling the air from his lungs before he was able to muster a cry.
Forcing his eyes to open, even as he struggled for breath, he found the blurry outlines of his cell mates' faces. They watched from beyond the booted feet of a Jem'Hadar, their expressions ranging from concern to stoicism, to open horror.
"Kill him," growled Ikat'ika. The soldier beside him obediently shifted his gun to aim at the doctor's head.
"No."
Another set of feet positioned themselves directly between the swamp-grey boots of the guards. Smaller this time, and wrapped in dark leather. With the cold floor still painful against his skin, and both arms wrapped around his abused and queasy stomach, Bashir forced his gaze further upwards - until it settled on the sour-cream complexion of the Vorta overseer.
Deyos stared down at the man at his feet before turning deliberately to his First. "We need this one alive."
Satisfied with Ikat'ika's automatic compliance, he cocked his head to study the prisoner. "Solitary," he decided after no more than a momentary pause.
Two pairs of large, coarse hands hauled Bashir roughly up by the elbows. He sagged forward with an involuntary grunt of protest, alarmed to find himself still hunched like a weak old man. But now on his feet, he could at least snatch a glance at the worried faces behind him. He suspected, without having to ask, that it would not be long before the other prisoners gave him up for dead.
Julian jerked back with a jolt of surprise, and an even more startled yelp from the woman in front of him. But it wasn't until his heart had calmed again that he realised, he already knew who she was. "I…" The same green-shirted ensign backed away, lowering her gaze and blushing slightly. Her skin turned to a shade of whitish pink. "Sorry. Hi."
Again, that strand of straight black hair had fallen down across her eyes. She brushed it away with slender fingers.
"Ensign…" What was her name again? He focused hard for a passing moment. "…Tigan, wasn't it? Ezri Tigan."
"You remembered," the ensign exclaimed, answered by a shrug - the same gesture he might have used before his secret was public knowledge.
"I suppose I just have a good memory." One more thing his parents had purchased for him: The dubious ability to recall every name and number on every list he'd ever seen.
Tigan was fidgeting, as though unsure of exactly where her hands belonged - but then she finally clasped them together at the central point of her lower back. Her clear blue eyes sparkled with reflected artificial light. A soft, vaguely nervous chuckle hovered in the air between them, its echo lingering for little more than a second before fading to the irretrievable past.
What's that all about? Julian held his breath, suddenly uneasy.
"Well, I won't keep you." He slipped quietly past her, nodding as politely as he could, but had only taken three more steps before he turned again. "Do you think…?"
He stopped, realising that Ensign Tigan had also stumbled through the beginnings of a nervous query. "Go ahead."
"I was just wondering, were you trying to get anywhere in particular?" she inquired. "It's just that there's nothing over there except for a couple of meeting rooms and one other that used to be Stellar Cartography."
"I'm not really sure," admitted Bashir. He hadn't given much thought to where he expected his journey to take him, content instead to continue walking like an aimless ghost. He shifted forward to peer both ways along the corridor - realising only then that his stomach had long since started to growl.
"I was thinking of getting something to eat." He paused. "Perhaps you might know…?"
"Sure," agreed Tigan. She flashed him a grin that caused the blue of her eyes to sparkle like gemstones, and strode back to where he'd left the turbolift behind him. "There is one place I could show you. It's not far."
The sounds of the café were energetic, but subdued. Julian remembered how the first round of arranged, formulaic conversations had been with Counsellor Dion, a lifetime ago on Deep Space Nine. The ache in his bones was so heavy and constant, like a stone across his shoulders, that he was unable to distinguish whether it had ever relented - or whether perhaps he had just grown so used to feeling this way that he could no longer have imagined any other.
It was strange how little Ensign Tigan resembled others of her profession, even Hsu Mae, her own superior on board this ship. Or could it simply be his feelings that were different? Perhaps it was the knowledge that she was still not quite a full counsellor, or more likely that the two of them had met by chance - without some preset arrangement, appointment, or agenda. Whatever the reason, he was comfortable with her, allowing them an easy interaction - a brief respite from all that was forced or officious.
Carefully, he steered away from any personal information, revealing as little of his story as was politic. The state of the Federation, inconsequential technical aspects of the latest ship designs, the particulars of his companion's early life - in a large house above one of the Sapporo Systems most successful industrial mines. These were all far easier topics - but still he grew increasingly anxious with every moment of their exchange. He could not spend forever trying to edge the conversation away from himself.
"So what were you doing earlier?" Tigan asked finally, leaning forward to sip her shallow glass of iced tea.
Bashir shrugged. "Walking. Thinking."
Once, he might have welcomed the chance to speak. So many details of his young life were a perfect means - he had thought - either to enhance his own self image, or to prevent the wrong people from wanting to know. So long ago, he barely recognised the excitable twenty-something year old man at the centre of these distant memories.
He watched Tigan's hands as they repeatedly turned the clear brown liquid, together with its container, once, twice, three times around on the table's almost sterile surface.
"About your friends?"
Julian pushed back a frown, uncertain of where this dark-haired ensign could have met either Garak or Miles. But then, they had been on the ship for several days. Rumours could travel anywhere. Especially in an enclosed community like a starship.
Or a space station. O'Brien had not seemed to happy about the idea of seeing Captain Sisko. Garak had already mentioned that the Chief was still working feverishly on the runabout, checking everything to be sure that there was not a scratch to be found.
"I hope I didn't get them into too much trouble." Julian kept his voice light, but looked away, discovering that he was nervously grasping one of his own hands with the other.
"What makes you say that?"
There it was again - the sharp twist of suspicion, that hint of something further below the surface of her words. Bashir studied her thoughtfully. "No reason," he responded. "It's nothing at all. Just a thought."
He flashed her a hurried smile. "Well, thank you for the company, but I'd better not keep you too long from your duties."
"I've been off duty for half an hour already," Tigan promised in the same clear, pleasant voice.
"Ah." Bashir raised his eyebrows. "So you chose to share you free time with a stranger you happened to meet in Sickbay."
"I suppose." She didn't even hesitate. "But if half of what I've read about your captain is true, he certainly seems like the kind who would understand. And your friends must be able to take care of themselves pretty well, or they would never have gotten out of as many scrapes as they have."
"Well - that's something," muttered Julian. But a further thought still nagged at the edge of his awareness. He was taking far too long to work out what that might be.
The answer came to him with the force of a colliding shuttle. He looked once more towards the wide-eyed Trill, so quickly that he regretted the sudden movement - and found himself wishing that the pounding in his head would stop. Read about…?
"How much do you know?" he accused, his voice hard-set, clouded with a moderate but unmistakeable trace of hostility.
"Not a lot." Tigan hesitated, and shifted back as if to dodge the intensity of his suspicions. "Just… Just the basics."
"The… The basics." Strange. For a moment he may even have forgotten that she was just another counsellor. Nodding quietly to himself, Julian curled his lips into a bitter sneer. "How?"
The answer was reluctant, delayed - and accompanied by a soft, almost apologetic sigh. "I read your profile."
"Oh. Wonderful."
"You have to believe me - it wasn't anything…"
"What did you find?" The cold, defensive edge had returned to his voice. "Was it informative? Did it leave you wanting to learn a bit more? Perhaps you could set up a tidy little case study. Make a name for yourself in some highbrow medical journal. Quite an opportunity - isn't it - for a counsellor in training?"
With a tiny gasp of anxiety, the pale skinned Trill shook her head. "It's not like that at all," she insisted, her words pitched high. "I was curious. That's all. Just…"
"…Curious," Bashir finished for her.
