"Well, here we are," Julian said to an empty runaway. He sat in front of the piloting console and stared blankly at the nothingness on the view-screen. It was a tad gloomy, the whole situation, but Julian was determined to not let it get to him.
The facts were these: it was Christmas Eve, just about everyone he knew on the station was on leave, and he was on a lone reconnaissance mission, ready to leave for the Gamma Quadrant. It wasn't a very important mission either, but Starfleet wanted its samples, Christmas or no Christmas. Of course, Julian was the only senior officer on duty. Of course.
Sisko had been rather pleased with him for accepting the assignment, going so far as to promise he'd be infinitely grateful. But Julian wasn't really after his commander's gratitude, nor was he seeking approval. He had accepted because… well, because he had nothing better to do. There. After all, Chief O'Brien was on Earth with his family, Jadzia and Kira were on a three-day leave on Bajor, and Garak was off-station for some kind of interplanetary tailoring event – or so he'd said.
Anyhow, it didn't really matter. Julian was leaving Deep Space Nine now, and he did not want to mope around. He watched the station's lights shimmering in a sea of darkness as the runaway took off. They quickly started to blur and fade, but they still reminded Julian of Christmas lights, hung on a particularly crooked Christmas tree.
It was chilly in the piloting section of the runaway. Julian rubbed his hands together and blew on his freezing fingers. It was decidedly a real icy cold holiday. "Computer; heat. 20 degrees Celsius." Right. That was done. Now plot a course – that wasn't too difficult.
"Computer; charting map, please." All right. There it was. His heading. He was going to the planet 'Thalj', which was about 1.2 lightyears away from the wormhole. Julian smiled to himself: 'Thalj' coincidentally meant 'snow' in Arabic. That was another reason to smile, wasn't it?
Still, as he bent over the map and distractedly plotted his course, Julian couldn't help but think of how painfully boring this entire mission was. Plot a course, get your samples, and then back to station. Merry Christmas.
Not to worry though, he told himself. He had a few things to do to keep himself busy. "Alright then," he rubbed the back of his neck, looking around the shuttle, "this place needs some decorating."
He reached into his Starfleet-issue shoulder-bag and rummaged around inside. He pulled out Kukalaka. "Keep me company, lad," he patted the stuffed bear gently on the head and placed him on the second pilot's chair. "No one wants to be alone on Christmas."
And yet it seemed like that was exactly what he'd been doing the last few years. Oh sure, he'd been to plenty of Christmas parties at the Academy, and last year Lieutenant Martinez had created a special holosuite program for New Year's Eve, but even then Julian hadn't felt entirely ridden of his unshakable holiday solitude. Drink after drink had gotten him drunk and he'd danced on tabletops and kissed under mistletoe, but for what? He'd woken up the day after with a splitting headache and blurry memories of the night before. Ultimately, he'd been drinking and dancing and kissing alone.
Julian sighed and shook his head. "How about a little music?" he told Kukalaka, who didn't seem to mind but didn't seem overly enthusiastic either. "Computer, play 'bashir xmas mix'."
The first notes of 'Rocking around the Christmas Tree' filled the runaway with a teeny-tiny bit of holiday cheer. Much better. Right, now he had to decorate.
Out of Julian's shoulder-bag came shiny ornaments, tinsel, strings of light, Risian light bulbs and even an Edosian glitter bubble. He grabbed the decorations and promptly started to stick them around the piloting section of the runaway in no particular order. He liked decorating at random: spontaneity made everything a bit more festive. He remembered decorating the Christmas tree as a child, how his parents would 'ooh' and 'aah' at the cleverness and sophistication of his decorating skills, and he'd been so proud of himself, and how pathetic was that? He'd been proud of the fake skills he'd gotten from fake intelligence. All his ingenuity and dexterity had been made in a laboratory.
Inevitably, the memory of that particular Christmas came back to him, just as he placed a Risian light bulb over the replicator. He remembered storming in and out of his room, the automatic doors swooshing open and closing behind him with a thud. He remembered that warm winter, no snow, no rain, just the sun seeping through the curtains. And his mother's voice, begging him to understand, begging him to stay, please Jules, it's Christmas. But if the weather wasn't cold, Julian's heart was ice. He remembered tearing down holo-pictures, kicking the furniture with a violence he hadn't known himself capable of.
And then all the other Christmases. First the angry ones. Then the lonely ones. After that came the overwhelming feeling of betrayal every twenty-fifth of December, and finally he'd learned to shake it all off. His parents had lied to him. So what? He was a genius now, wasn't he? He didn't need them. His secret would die in his childhood house, with all his childhood memories. And so the secrets died, but the shame stayed. As long as he didn't share that shame, he knew he'd be spending all his Christmases alone.
But Julian Bashir loved Christmas, no matter how hard he tried to hate it. He loved the lights and the carols and the food and the laughter. Even in deep space, he was trying to recreate the holiday.
'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas', Frank Sinatra sang, his voice flowing through the runaway. Julian sighed. He hadn't called his parents on Christmas since he left the Academy. And even though he was still angry, he felt a pang of guilt at the thought of them eating dinner alone back on Earth, not knowing whether he was dead or alive.
"Kukalaka," Julian whispered to the bear, "is it okay to be selfish? Even if it's Christmas?"
Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't, the stuffed animal seemed to shrug, how would I know? I'm just a teddy bear.
It wasn't complicated though. Julian knew he'd feel bad if he didn't at least send a text-message via subspace. It wouldn't take him long.
And so he typed in a brief message wishing his parents a merry Christmas. Just as he punched 'send', the computer chirped, announcing a visual call. The view screen was suddenly filled with multiple familiar faces, cut out on the background of Quark's Bar.
"Jadzia? Kira? Garak!" Julian exclaimed, recognizing his friends, "Commander Sisko! I don't understand..."
"Merry Christmas Julian!" Jadzia smiled.
"I thought you two were on Bajor," Julian frowned, "and Garak, weren't you off-station when I left? God, this is confusing."
Kira was sipping a purple drink, Garak had a tiny smirk tugging at the corners of his lips, and Sisko was sitting behind them, looking a bit sheepish. Even Odo was there, and Quark too, but they were too busy arguing.
"We weren't going to leave you alone on Christmas," Jadzia said indignantly.
"But – you don't even know what Christmas is."
"Of course I do!" she replied, "I've been hanging out with Humans for over a century, I ought to know."
"That still doesn't explain anything."
"Well," Kira said, "Jadzia came up with the idea. The original plan was to surprise you tonight by coming home early and throwing you a Christmas party."
"But Benjamin forgot all about it and sent you off into the Gamma Quadrant," Jadzia added, squinting at Commander Sisko, who just gave her a pained look. She looked back into the screen and smiled softly at Julian, "We're so sorry. We knew Chief O'Brien was leaving, and that you were bound to feel homesick and all, we really wanted to be there…"
Julian felt his cheeks go crimson. "You guys," he started, then had to clear his throat. Don't cry don't cry don't cry that's ridiculous. "It doesn't matter if you're not physically here with me. This is already the best Christmas I've had in ages."
And it was true. He'd never felt more at home than in that moment, looking at his friends through the viewscreen, their familiar faces beaming at him through parsecs and parsecs of space.
Let it snow all it wanted down on the planet 'Thalj'. Julian finally found a family on Christmas.