It took him a while for him to come down from it.
It had been years, half a decade, since he'd last had a real, honest panic attack – the last time he'd had one had been after he'd fallen down the fire escape after seeing Palis perform in Swan Lake. He'd been rushing to see her but hadn't wanted to deal with the crowd as he'd left the box to go downstairs, had slipped, fallen down the stairs not onto the landing but in between the bannisters, had almost dislocated his hip in the process.
He'd sprained his wrist even though his leg wasn't that badly injured, and without his arm he'd not been able to get enough leverage to push himself out right away. He'd tried to stay calm, but the pain had been blinding and he'd been dazed, had knocked his head even though he'd not done it hard enough to concuss himself – he'd panicked.
Palis had found him half an hour later, and she'd pulled him out with ease: she'd been very strong for how delicate she looked, her arms and her legs packed with muscle, as was only natural for a ballerina and a gymnast. It had been easy to repair his wrist – it had taken almost all day for him to relax again, school his breathing, stop trembling. He didn't know why it had upset him so much, just the idea that he couldn't pull himself free, his leg hanging down in the gap, uncomfortable and pained but mostly just bruised, and yet—
Palis had brought him home with her, and he'd slept the night through with his head in her lap, her hands pulling through his hair, threatening to braid it no matter how short it was, and he'd laughed at that. It had been late in the evening when he'd slowly gotten from the sofa to kneel on the floor, delicately pushing her thighs apart and bending his head between her legs.
It had been so easy with Palis, compared to most people – women, men, anybody else.
She'd been tall, cool, had a flat affect and a stubborn, focused passion, and she scared the shit out most of the ballerinas, no matter that most ballet dancers were neurodivergent, mentally ill, just plain mad, or all three. Julian liked dancers.
Julian had liked Palis' troupe, all of them.
He'd enjoyed Palis, enjoyed their time together, the way that Palis listened to everything he said with quiet, focused intensity until she said one thing she disagreed with, and then she'd pull it out like she was picking a thread free from a fabric, pick it apart, pick him apart. She'd take one sentence and lay out a thesis on it, talk in her cool, severe tones with a slight smile on her face, and he'd want to argue, but it was hard to argue with Palis.
She was always better at it than he was – perhaps that was why it hurt, when she didn't try to argue, when he said he wanted to join Starfleet, no matter what her father offered him.
Garak's chest was very warm. Julian's cheek was pressed against the flat scales of his chest, between the spoon that came up from over his sternum and the ridges that were designed to deflect blows away from the centre of his torso, a natural armour.
Julian was between Garak's legs, and without even asking, without even needing to ask if it was what he needed, Garak knew: his knees were gripping tightly around his waist and belly. The pressure was a crucial balm, like a splint against a broken bone.
He didn't know how long they'd been in there for, but Garak waited until Julian had stopped hyperventilating, until his heartrate had returned to normal, until he was no longer shaking, before he reached up and turned on the hot spray of the water.
The water was steaming with heat.
"Too hot?" asked Garak.
"I can take it," said Julian.
"Yes, I'm sure," said Garak in soft tones. His nails grazed down Julian's back, and where they put pressure on the skin, dragging away the very top layer, not quite hard enough to graze, the water burned a bone-deep, white heat. It felt purifying, but not good. "Is it too hot, though?"
"Yes," said Julian, and Garak reached up to turn the temperature down.
Julian slowly pulled away from the tight hug of Garak's legs, and he sat across from him in the path, his back resting against the other side of the tub, Garak across from him. The Cardassian baths were made of grey stone-looking material that was surprisingly warm to the touch – they'd ripped most of them out of the crew quarters, replacing them with smaller, standard baths or showers so that they didn't dominate the whole of the washrooms anymore.
This bath was big enough for two people – it was big enough for Julian and Garak, big enough for Garak to bask under the water like an alligator, if it suited him. Garak wasn't smiling, but his lips weren't frowning either. He was across from Julian, his hands loosely in his lap, and after a minute or two of them in silence under the hot water together – still hotter than a Human should have been able to take, should have wanted, and he hoped it wasn't too cold for Garak – he put out his foot and curled it against Julian's thigh.
He had wonderful feet.
Garak's toes were more claw-like than Human ones, the sole flatter with than a Human's, with no fine arch, but the top of the foot was ridged and textured, and when Julian slid his hand to cup the base of Garak's heel, pushing up, he felt a hard knot of textured ridging, but no residual dew claw.
"Do you have a tail stub?" asked Julian.
"No," said Garak. "No back claw, as you see, either."
"Mmm mmm," hummed Julian.
Garak slowly inhaled, his nostrils flaring. The water was streaming down his grey skin in rivulets, falling around the spoons on his face, his chest, over his groin, trailing down his ridges, the careful sculpting of his belly, his chest, his thighs and shoulders. The water fell down around his eyes like he was a face carved under a waterfall.
"Does your tongue curl?" he asked.
"If I want it to," said Julian. "I don't have a lingual frenulum."
"No cleft in your chin. Unattached earlobes. No facial dimples. Show me your hands."
Julian lifted his hands, showing his left palm and the back of his right hand.
"No mid-digit hair," observed Garak quietly. "Bent pinky. Why ever is it called that, dare I ask?" Julian wondered if Garak spoke Federaji with him, or Kardasi, or something else. He wondered how much work the UT was doing, and how much Garak was.
"It's from the Dutch," said Julian. "Pinkje. Dutch loaned words to English, which loaned words to Federaji. How extensive was your human anatomy course?"
"Not as extensive as my Bajoran one." Garak reached up and turned off the water. The sonic shower thrummed over their skins, and Julian was distantly aware of Garak's come pouring between his legs, down his thighs – it had been washing away with the water, and now it puddled underneath him, still warm.
"Well," said Julian, crossing his arms over his chest. "At least you don't have to be in exile any longer."
Garak frowned at him, seemed genuinely perplexed, his head tilting to one side. "Beg pardon?"
"They left without you," said Julian softly. "The Cardassians. Did you even know they'd gone, when you left your shop, on the night they left? What a curious way to be exiled, Mr Garak – not to be pushed out from the border, but for the border to be pulled out from underneath you."
Garak's jaw was set.
"I don't know what you did," said Julian. "I don't know what you were, what you wanted to be, if you really were a spy, if you're a spy now. I know that if you could go back, you probably would, that you have to pay off a debt, or make what you did right, impress someone… So on the bright side of my entire life falling around my ears, at least you get to go home. It's a pretty big prize, isn't it, being able to report to your superiors that the Federation has been hiding their own Khan Noonien Singh on DS9, no matter what they say about eugenics and genetics and accords?"
He was crying. He knew he was crying, tears dripping down his cheeks, and he felt stupider than he had in his life – of all the people it had to be with, why did it have to be Garak? He was already walking a tightrope with him, already living on more than the wild side, taming something worse than a tiger, and now…
Garak was just staring at him, his expression almost blank, but not unfeeling. It seemed very feeling indeed, to Julian, although what those feelings were, he hadn't the first idea of knowing.
"Gene resequencing?" asked Garak softly.
"I had learning difficulties," said Julian. "On top of being autistic, I had learning difficulties – issues with my co-ordination, speech and language development, just some general cognitive impairments. Most children with mild to moderate learning disabilities are able to develop their own skills and coping mechanisms by the time they're older, given time and support, patience. For all my dyspraxia, I'd done my first surgery on my teddy bear by the time I was that age; I had a fair few friends, I was kind, patient, far more controlled than a lot of other children my age. I wasn't defective, no matter what Cardassian philosophy or, indeed, that of my parents might have dictated. I was just slow. I needed more time than other children – given more time, more support, I would have been quite alright, I'm sure. My parents didn't want to wait. They were two geniuses, and they felt they deserved a genius child, so they killed the one they had, and remade what was left of him into something that suited them better."
"What was his name?" asked Garak.
"Jules," said Julian. "I never changed my name, when I transitioned – I changed it when they told me what they'd done."
"You'd never have been a doctor, if they hadn't done what they'd done," said Garak.
"You'd never have been exiled," Julian retorted, "if your parents hadn't done whatever they did to you."
Garak laughed, his head tipping back against the stone. The sonic shower was still thrumming over Julian's skin and Garak's scales, and Julian shifted slightly, spreading his legs apart and pushing down on his belly. He grunted at the strange sensation, and Garak kept smiling.
"Enhanced strength," said Garak. "Double or triple what you ought have, I would wager. An increased density of the muscle fibres, the tendons."
"Yes," said Julian. "Eidetic memory, learning abilities, further mental discipline, finer reflexes. I can hear better – lower volumes, yes, but a little bit wider in terms of frequency, too. I have to be careful sometimes. I never know what I can hear because I'm autistic and I don't tune it down like allistics do, and what I can hear because some doctors opened me up and rejigged my genetic structure like they were recoding a computer unit. I can go for longer without food and water, withstand more pain, more pressure. Heal quicker. My parents didn't need all that, of course, but in for a penny, in for a pound."
Garak arched his eye ridges.
"Um," said Julian, "if you've invested a small amount in a venture, you may as well invest more."
"I believe the economic descriptor for that, my dear, is sunk cost fallacy."
Julian laughed. It hurt, dragging at his chest, but it felt good, too. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yes, that's right."
Garak reached up, and turned off the sonic shower now too. Without the thrum of the vibrations over their skin, Julian felt his skin throb with sensitivity, and the bath seemed unfathomably silent, the two of them sitting together in the slight damp.
"Did you have an enjoyable time on Vulcan?"
"Is that what we're doing now?"
"You flatter my capacity for recovery, my dear, but before we do anything else, you must wait at least another hour."
Julian stared at Garak, his eyes narrowed, trying to understand, trying to glean something, but he couldn't. Garak revealed almost nothing, unless he really wanted to, or unless you could get the actual reveal from someone else – from Odo's records or from what had remained of the scrubbed Cardassian info.
"I met some Cardassians," said Julian.
"I gathered. You were in ShiKahr?"
"Revaht."
"Revaht," repeated Garak. "The Embassy there hasn't been active for least fifty years."
"There's still a market. There's still Cardassians."
Garak's expression changed slightly, his lips smirking. "Ah," he said. "Exiles."
"Just like I get at home," said Julian.
"Mmm, not quite like," corrected Garak. "It does explain why you returned with such improved medical knowledge, however, I expect they're a lot more free than state medical people might be. A Cardassian took your education in hand?"
"A woman named Doctor Madrel let me work the week out in her surgery, shared some medical research, and I bought quite a few books. A lot of them are biased toward the Cardassian diaspora on Vulcan, and to a lesser extent Vulcan-Cardassian hybrids rather than the Bajoran-Cardassians I'm more likely to see here and on Bajor, but nonetheless, it was… Invaluable. Even more so, now that my Starfleet commission's at an end."
"You're so certain, my dear, that I will betray you?"
"I like you very much, Garak," said Julian softly, "and I'm fairly certain you like me. But you're not going to choose me over Cardassia. You're not going to choose preserving my Starfleet career over going home."
"You really think you're valuable enough, my dear, to pay my passage home, if my exile is truly so severe as you say?"
"It's not about me, is it?" asked Julian. "It's about what I represent, the bargaining chip. It's about what Cardassia can do, accusing the Federation of leveraging power over Bajor with their secret genetically enhanced spy."
"Ah," said Garak, "but you've kept it secret all these years, haven't you?"
"I know that. Starfleet would know that – Hell, Cardassia will know that, once you tell them. But it's not about the truth, is it?" His voice was wooden and tired, and Garak, somehow, looked softer than Julian had ever seen him before. Julian knew it was pathetic, knew it was stupid, but all he wanted to do was crawl into his lap and feel the heat of Garak's chest, the softness of his belly, wanted to make Garak hold him if he was going to cut his lifeline with his free hand.
Garak smiled at him. "You must be hungry," he said. "I'll leave you to rinse yourself a little more – I have a robe you might wear, if you're sensitive to your skin being bare. Shall I lower any of the environmental controls?"
"No," said Julian. "It's nice."
Garak reached across, cupping his cheek, his thumb sliding over Julian's cheekbone. "Beautiful," he whispered, as he was making a habit of doing, and left Julian alone in the bath.
There were no Obsidian Order listening devices in his quarters, or even in his shop. It had been a final insult, really, no matter that he'd done sweep after sweep for them, imagined to himself that they had just been that well-hidden – no, the Obsidian Order did not bother to listen in on Elim Garak's home or his tailor shop.
He wasn't worth the effort any longer.
Garak had no doubt whatsoever that the Obsidian Order had some agents either on DS9 or regularly passing through, and that some of their old information harvesting subroutines remained in place in the likes of Quark's, and that more than that, certain moles and listening devices were no doubt still in place, perhaps in Ops, perhaps elsewhere around the station.
The world, which a moment ago had seemed so tremendously dark, Bashir but a comforting candle to warm his hands by, was suddenly painfully bright with opportunity, and as Garak went to the replicator, he listened for the sound of the hot water running in the washroom. The sound was muffled by the water, but he heard a soft moan from Bashir, too, no doubt working the last of Garak's spend from within him.
So Bashir was genetically enhanced – more than a subject of genetic enhancement, but DNA resequencing. Cardassian thought, like that of the Klingons, did not look so poorly upon the process of genetic enhancement as Federaji did, particularly Humans – it was a process by which to hone certain traits in one's subject, used as a tool to correct error or illness, or to focus certain aspects.
What Bashir had described, however, was something else entirely. He was an invaluable resource, undoubtedly, a treasure he had no doubt Cardassia would be delighted to lay claim to even were he not from the Federation – with his memory, his advanced skills, his medical prowess, he could offer insurmountable ingenuity to any research facility of which he was apart.
Yes, Bashir was right – this knowledge could more than pay his passage back to Cardassia, out of exile, but what Bashir did not understand was that a blade honed so very sharp could easily cut from both ends.
Were he to simply send the information home, advise the Order, there would be no guarantee at all as to how the information was used – and if anything, there was a guarantee that Garak himself would not benefit from it. Were he to inform the Order, or even the Cardassian Military, of his discovery now, it was likely he would not immediately be believed, and the process of verification would by necessity be clumsy.
The Order could subtly research the matter, look into whatever institution had performed this resequencing, but they wouldn't like to reveal it unless they could benefit from it immediately.
Bashir was right, this was valuable, but Garak rather liked Bashir – and what the young man didn't understand, naïve and simple as he was, is how useless it would be to use him as a simple political tool, accuse him of being a spy, accuse the Federation of going back on the dreaded eugenicist notions they so hated in the Cardassian Empire.
After all, that was little more than political posturing, all to do with appearances and public embarrassments – the sort of thing the Military might enjoy, or even the Civilian Government, but anyone with sense, anyone with true understanding of Cardassia and her ways, would see that the real value here was not anything Bashir could or would do to the Federation, what chaos his existence might cause, but the young man himself.
Garak's young man.
His very own Human protégé, not just a simple distraction now, not merely a toy a few steps above a bedwarmer – Bashir was almost as good as a Cardassian, if not better. Bashir could be Garak's own, and knowing the Federation's self-sabotaging ways, not content to use a weapon when they could destroy it, not content to use their best if they could imprison them instead, as soon as the Federation found out precisely what he was, he would be.
It was at this moment that Garak decided to be frank with him, and tell him the truth.
A young man needed such things, from time to time.
"It smells good," said Bashir as he came out of the washroom. He'd dried his skin with the sonic shower, but his hair remained a little damp – his belly was flat, and Garak didn't resist the urge to reach out and stroke his fingers over it, pressing on the slight marks where it the flesh had been forced to stretch. "Disappointed?"
"Is a farmer disappointed when he sees fresh soil, ready to be ploughed again?"
"Ugh," said Bashir. "I can't decide whether that's disgusting or insufferably romantic."
Garak laughed, and pushed the plates closer to Bashir. "This is neemuk: cured meat, to be eaten with his flat bread here, and this is feyt, a bean paste. These elta leaves are stuffed with meat."
"You'd like hummus," said Bashir as he spread a little of the feyt on a piece of bread, taking a slice of neemuk to lay on top. "It's made from chickpeas – the texture's very similar to feyt, although feyt tastes more iron-y."
"I will endeavour to sample some at our next lunch together," said Garak.
"Will we have time for one?"
Garak sighed, taking a stuffed leaf and biting into it, chewing on the mince and shredded roots within, watching Bashir bite into his bread. He ate too fast, and more than that, he ate with a sweet but embarrassing gusto: his eyes closed, and he let out a low noise at the taste, immediately taking another piece of the neemuk and chewing it in his mouth.
"I do believe I told you not to be so dramatic, my dear."
"They won't let me keep my commission. Genetically enhanced individuals aren't allowed to serve in Starfleet, and they especially don't like for us to be doctors to scientists. That's assuming they don't lock me up."
"Quite right on all counts, I'm sure. But then, you knew that, didn't you, hm? This was always the risk, joining Starfleet."
"Is that your way of saying sorry?"
"It's my way of informing you, my dear, that I won't be saying a word about this just yet. Not to Starfleet, and not to my once-superiors."
Bashir froze with his bread halfway to his mouth, and glanced up to Garak's face. "What?"
"What do you imagine will happen, my dear doctor, if I send word back to the Empire as to what you are? You think they'll use the leverage to embarrass the Federation, perhaps to push you out of Deep Space Nine, even out of Bajor, by spreading rumours as to their eugenics program, something like that?"
"Seems as likely an outcome as any."
"I agree," said Garak. "And what comes of it, might I ask? For you, the loss of your Starfleet commission, perhaps even your medical license – depending on how ill the Federation looks upon the debacle, they might even imprison you for a period of time. And as for me, what will I get? An invitation home? A small military command or a minor position in some bureaucratic office – if the order of which I was once a part allows me a return, I might be permitted a probe's position, a very basic information gathering role, not very illustrious at my age."
Bashir stared at him, setting down his bread and taking a sip of his water. "You're saying," he said, "that you're not going to turn me in because I'm not worth enough?"
"Not to me," said Garak. "And not to you, either."
"Not to me?" Bashir repeated. "Garak, in what world is this going to be worth anything to me?"
"They're going to find out, my dear," said Garak. "Your Federation. If I tell them, you lose your commission and your career, and I lose your friendship forever; if I tell the Cardassian government, we each lose the same, and perhaps I benefit in some small way. But if I wait until someone suspects, until you make another mistake, until your parents err, until the institution that created you loses its way, why… It seems to be that it would be very, very valuable for you to have me here beside you."
"What?"
Garak smiled, showing his teeth. "Julian," he said quietly, "the value of a bargaining chip is not merely its worth – it is the time at which it's used. When your Federation discovers you, which they will, I've no doubt of that, you have two options: accept their ruination of you, accept all that they will take from you to punish you for the sins of your mother and father, perhaps even lose your liberty to wallow in a Starfleet penal colony for your crimes of practising medicine… Or come to me. Let me help you. Allow the Federation to strip you of everything, or allow Cardassia to give you liberty."
"I wasn't aware that liberty was permitted on Cardassia," said Bashir, through clenched teeth, but his eyes were wide, searching the air between them as he thought, the handsome engine of his brain all but audible behind their movement.
"Easy to quip as we are now, enjoying supper together," said Garak. "You might not speak so coolly of the lacking liberty on Cardassia, when you're behind the bars of a Federaji prison cell."
"Why would you do that?"
"If I offer you now, you're little more than currency – and worth just as little. If I contact Cardassia when you're immediately to be arrested, and give Cardassia the leverage needed to claim you as an agent of ours, I will be the man who gave Cardassia one of the most brilliant doctors in the Alpha Quadrant."
Bashir's laugh was disbelieving as he fell back in his seat. "You want me to be a double agent? Garak, I'm not going to do that."
"Now? No, I have no doubt. For now, you don't have to do anything – let us, each of us, live our lives as we have been doing. Continue our work, and continue this charming romance the two of us have begun – and when your Federation discovers what you are, and seeks to destroy you instead of protecting you, you might ask for my protection instead."
"You won't tell anyone?"
"Not until you give me the word."
"You won't look into it?"
"My dear, why ever would I? Ought I doubt the veracity of what you've told me?"
"I don't trust you."
"Ha! You shouldn't, dearest child – and if you don't, it is a sign you're taking at least some portion of the education I've been offering you to heart. What more education might I give you, I wonder, now such a secret between us has been laid bare?"
Oh, but he was beautiful. How fierce were his lovely eyes now, narrowed in careful thought, his lips twisted, his brow furrowed. What intelligence showed in his eyes, what focus, what discipline – what could he be, with the right hands to hone him? What could he grow into, what fruit could be bear, if he might only be rooted in fertile soil?
"You were a spy," said Bashir.
"I was."
"A good one?"
"One of the best."
"What did you do?" asked Bashir, and when his gaze met Garak's, his gaze was exquisitely hard, so much so that Garak could feel a certain stirring in his loins, a sign of things to come. "To be thrown out?"
"I betrayed Cardassia."
"No," said Bashir, and Garak laughed.
"No?" he repeated, but Bashir didn't look away, and he didn't soften.
"You wouldn't betray Cardassia – or if you did, it's not something I would consider a betrayal, and you're saying it like that on purpose. You mean that you did something else, something that was indirectly a betrayal, from a Cardassian perspective. Tell me what you actually did."
"I disobeyed the orders of my superior," said Garak, and Bashir stared at him, unblinking, before slowly nodding his head. He held his space tremendously, so solid, so unwavering – he exuded such strength, when it suited him to do so.
"That's closer," he allowed. "Still vague. Something you did on Bajor?"
"You're very astute, my dear."
"Well, if you're saying that, I'm way off," said Bashir. "Something you did on Cardassia, then. You lost your temper with someone you shouldn't? Said the wrong thing with the wrong person – provoked someone? Fell in love?"
He didn't need to let it show in his face. He could easily have held it back, but he chose not to, chose to let Bashir think he'd uncovered it himself – a small victory, the better to keep the young man's interest and his engagement, the better to draw him in.
Bashir's face softened. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. What was his name?"
"Her name was Palandine."
"They sent you out this far to keep you away from her."
"Yes."
"I had a fiancée," said Bashir. "Before I left Earth. Five years, we were together."
That sweet, Federaji sense of fairness – here, Bashir had Garak powerless before him, or so he thought, revealing a secret under duress, and even now he felt compelled to reveal a more minor one of his own. However was Garak to train that infuriating tendency out of him?
"Oh?"
"I loved her. Very dearly, I did – but I loved my dream of joining Starfleet, being a doctor, even more."
"You're asking what hold this woman had over me, that I should risk everything for her?" Bashir nodded, and Garak smiled. The best lies were always the ones that were truthful at their core: "I wish I knew myself."
Bashir ate another piece of meat. "What if they never find out?"
"They will."
"You'll tell them, you mean."
"No, I don't believe I will. But I have no doubt, my dear, that one way or another, your secret will be discovered."
"And if circumstances change?" asked Bashir. "If you need something from Cardassia, if you need something else urgently – will you betray me then?"
"Perhaps. Are you asking me to?"
Bashir scoffed. "You're impossible." He chewed a few bites, and then mumbled something so quiet that Garak really couldn't make it out.
"My dear?"
Bashir swallowed, looking as if he was steeling himself, and then asked, "You'll teach me, then?"
"Isn't that what I've been doing?"
"More than what you've been doing. Properly."
"My education thus far hasn't been proper enough for your liking?"
"You've taken my childhood dreams of being James Bond," muttered Bashir, "and made it so that at the end of the line, I'll be more of a Guy Burgess."
"Am I meant to know who either of those people are?"
"Do you like it?" asked Bashir, nodding to the table. "The Never-Ending Sacrifice?"
"My dear," said Garak softly, "it is, without a doubt, my favourite of any book I have read. Do you think I planned to grab you by the neck before an audience of scandalised Bajorans and haul you back to my quarters as though you were a prize?"
"Odo did look a little concerned," murmured Bashir, his cheeks darkening, his lips smiling, even as he looked away from Garak. "Do you think anyone submitted a report?"
"The Vedek watching us certainly did, perhaps a few others," said Garak. "I have no doubt rumours are already flying fast about the station that the young doctor returned from his holiday immediately to be abused by his Cardassian paramour."
"Well, not to worry, Garak," said Bashir. "I'll set them right tomorrow morning and tell everybody that only a certain part of my anatomy was enjoying the abuse in question."
"Lewd, my dear, and quite salacious."
"Teach me a lesson, why don't you?" Bashir retorted.
Garak stood to his feet, and Bashir shuddered, but he raised his chin when Garak put out his hand, so that Garak's fingers traced the vulnerable line under his throat, down toward his neck. When he was close enough, Bashir dipped his head forward, burying his nose against the softer flush of Garak's rounded belly, and Garak dragged his fingers through Bashir's hair, feeling the warmth of his exhaled breath.
"Can I tell you the whole story?" asked Bashir in a mumble. "All of it?"
"You want to tell me more secrets, my dear?"
"I've never told anybody before," he said. "I've never been able to. I just… If you know, I want you to know all of it. Feelings and all – I don't care if Cardassians don't have feelings. I do."
We do have feelings, Garak almost told him. We just understand that other things are more important. You'll understand that, soon enough.
"Eat, my dear," said Garak. "Then tell me everything you wish."
