"I simply don't agree with the premise," Bashir was saying, and Ben loosely curled his arm around Jake's shoulder as they stepped aside from the jumja stand, watching Bashir come forward. He was dressed in civilian clothes – it was early in the morning, and Dax had mentioned he was going to be eating breakfast on the Vulcan freighter, the Sehlat's Whisker – and Ben dimly recognised that the shirt he was wearing, a deep brown-green shirt with a high, open collar and thickly embroidered sleeves, as the one Bashir had said Garak had made for him, when Bashir had said Garak could design whatever he wanted.
Bashir wore that shirt very often.
"I was not aware there was anything to agree with," remarked the male Vulcan. "It is a simple fact of the universe."
"Doctor Bashir is Human, with increasing Cardassian influence, Torok," said the female. "He thinks everything requires his agreement or disagreement."
"Illogical," said Torok.
"Quite," agreed the female.
Between the two of them, Bashir was smiling in the way Ben had come to expect of him – it was the smile he wore when he was being teased, knew he was being teased, and was resigned to his fate. Dax brought that smile out of him a lot.
"I concede that sometimes, it's necessary," said Bashir, shaking his head as he came over to the jumja stand, both Vulcans walking with him. "But schools aren't actually about education – they're about socialisation, meeting other children, being exposed to different social styles, different people. I suppose I'm a cynic, but home schooling much of the time seems like a guaranteed way to isolate your children."
"The Vulcan Learning Centre isn't about socialisation," said Torok.
"Did you eat your lunches in your pit, or in a hall with the other children?"
"In a hall – food and drink were forbidden within the pit," said Torok.
"You never spoke to other children at lunch time?" asked Bashir.
Torok leaned back, his hands behind his back, but his lips gave a delicate twitch of approval, and Bashir inclined his head, turning to the woman at the stand and saying, "One jumja stick and a cup of jumja tea, please."
"You're not getting one for Garak?" asked the female.
"The tea is for Garak," said Bashir. "Lora doesn't like jumja sap."
"Is he talking about Adorak Lora?" murmured Jake, and Ben nodded his head. "She's cute."
Ben laughed, squeezing his neck, and Bashir and his Vulcan friends looked over to them, Bashir smiling a greeting.
"She's too old for you," said Ben. "Good morning, Doctor."
"Good morning," said Bashir. "Torok, Saava, this is Commander Sisko, although you've caught him on a rare day off, if the baseball cap's anything to go by. And his son, Jake – Jake, Commander, this is Torok and Saava, they're just stopping in on their way to Cardassia Prime."
"A pleasure to meet you, Commander," said Saava. "Baseball is a sport?"
"That's right," said Ben.
"It's not entirely different to cricket," said Bashir as he took the tea and the jumja stick from the stall-holder, letting Ben grab the one he'd ordered for Jake and passing it down. "The bat and ball are very different – you let the ball fly instead of keeping it close to the ground – and instead of running between wickets, you run around a diamond, but the basic premise of runs and outs is similar."
"You two play cricket?" asked Ben, fascinated, and Saava shook her head even as Torok gave a neat nod.
"My brother lives on Rigel IV, and he is a member of the league in Reddon City," said Torok.
"His brother's wife, it turns out," said Julian, "is my second cousin D'var."
"Small universe," said Jake, and Bashir laughed.
"D'var is an Arabic name?"
"Rigellian," said Bashir, and Ben felt himself smile in interest. Bashir always did have a way of surprising him, and as much as half the time it was infuriating, the other half it was just like this.
"Like turtle-people?" asked Jake, and Bashir nodded.
"My mother's family live on Proxima," said Bashir. "Lots of Pakistanis there, and a lot of Rigellians, too – I've got a lot of Chelarian cousins, but some Rigelians from Rigel III too."
"You play cricket?" asked Ben, and Bashir hesitated, glancing between Ben, the Vulcans, and the baseball cap on Jake's head, the other in Ben's hand.
"No?" he said experimentally, and Ben laughed, clapping him on his shoulder.
"I'll have everyone on this station playing baseball one day, Doctor," Ben promised.
"I'll be your first aider," replied Bashir good-naturedly, and he nodded to the two of them as he went off with his Vulcan friends, toward the Replimat, or maybe to meet Garak and the Cardassian children in his quarters.
"They seem to like him a lot," said Jake, taking a lick of his jumja stick as they made their way toward the holosuite. "I mean… I guess. It's hard to tell with Vulcans."
"They do," agreed Ben. "Bashir keeps company very different to what I expected, when he started on the station. For the first few months, it seemed he wasn't planning on making any friends at all outside of Ops and Garak."
"You guys are his friends?"
"I guess," said Ben, nodding to Quark as they came over the threshold into the bar. "You'll find when you start working that you naturally end up with friends wherever you work – maybe some will be closer than others, maybe some will only be your friends while working. Bashir was a little bit of a shut-in at first, that's all."
"Really?" asked Jake, looking serious as he thought about it, his lips twisting as he ate his syrup. "But he was out all the time, right? Nog said he was always in the bar, that he was always flirting with females," Jake mimicked Nog's pronunciation of the word in Standard.
Ben thought about exactly what to say as Quark put out a tray with two root beers and two hot dogs on it, a packet of peanuts set aside too.
"Sometimes," he said finally, "someone can go out all the time, always be friendly with people, and never actually have any friends. You'll probably find a lot of people like that when you join the commission, actually – some people join Starfleet because that's how they like it. They like people, like to be around them and to socialise, but they don't actually want people in their private lives, to know everything about them. Some people you'll talk to for ten, fifteen years, think of yourselves as good friends, and then you'll realise later on that you never knew anything about their lives – or that you never knew anything about their lives that was important to them. There's nothing wrong with it: some people are just private about that sort of thing. I just thought Bashir would be like that, that's all."
"Why would someone be like that?" asked Jake, taking the data rod for the holosuite and saying thanks to Quark before leading the way up the spiral staircase, letting Ben follow behind him. "Because they have something to hide?"
"Could be," said Ben. "But not everything's about secrets, Jake. Some things are about… pain. Grief. Some people don't want to make close friends at work because they've lost the ones they had, don't want to lose more, or they've never had many in the first place."
"Which is it for Doctor Bashir? Why'd it change?"
"I don't know," said Ben. "But it seems like he grew up with a lot more non-Humans around – maybe it was a change for him going to Starfleet Academy, where Human cultures dominate. Here on the station, he's around all kinds of species, and it's not like serving on a starship."
"It sounds lonely," said Jake as he keyed in the holosuite program's access code, and they moved into the suite together, walking down the stairs into the stands as the crowd cheered watching the pre-game displays. "I mean… I don't know. Having friends, but they never really know anything about you, who you are, I guess I wouldn't see the point. It's hard to understand people, sometimes, and to admit to not knowing stuff or not being right all the time – but isn't that what friendship's about? You can't get that if people don't know who you are. Like, me and Nog, Nog's stupid sometimes, but he tells me stuff about his life, and I tell him stuff about mine, and if we didn't do that, we wouldn't be able to be friends. It's only the, I don't know, the private stuff, that makes us the same. You know what I mean?"
"I do," said Ben quietly, feeling his lips shift into a small smile as he watched Jake stand on his tiptoes to look across the stands, looking for their seat. He was getting tall – he'd be really tall, in the next few years, Ben thought, and probably lanky too. What he wouldn't give to let Jennifer see him now, already so much taller than he'd been when they'd first come to DS9…
"I guess that's the point," Jake was going on as they picked their way past some of the other fans. "If you're scared of being vulnerable with someone, I mean – like, if Nog told me everything about Ferengi stuff, and I didn't tell him anything he didn't know back, but just agreed and nodded. Me listening would feel like I was sharing back, right? It would feel equal, even if it wasn't?"
"Probably," said Ben. "When we're sharing our feelings, we don't always notice how much we're sharing, how much the other person isn't, so long as they comfort us."
"Isn't that dishonest? Isn't it lying?"
"Not every culture's like ours," said Ben, sinking down. "Me and your grandfather, for example – he doesn't like to talk much about his feelings with other people, not strangers. He talks about the things that make him happy, the things he's proud of, but he doesn't share pain, complaints… Me, maybe I'm a little more open about those, as a leader, as a man. Maybe it's dishonest to act one way when you know someone's assuming you're acting another, but isn't it worse to say it out loud? If you're telling me about your feelings, and I'm just trying to show you I care about you, about those feelings, that I'm hearing you out, that's compassion, Jake – but if I interrupt that to tell you I'm not planning to reciprocate? That wouldn't help you, and it would only draw attention to what I don't want to talk about."
"Is it worse with Vulcans?" asked Jake. "Or— You know, like, at the Academy, did you find it hard to make friends with non-Humans? Like me and Nog?"
"Not usually," Ben admitted. "But I've always liked other cultures. Coming from where we come from, Jake, if you think about Black history, people like us, a lot of what we were, what we had, was stolen from us – and later on, in America, across the Caribbean, what we started to rebuild anew, make from what we remembered and what we were creating, what we made when we merged with other people, a lot of that was downtrodden, oppressed, outright banned. America was founded on a supremacy of cultures, and it started with stripping us of our identities when we were stolen and brought to America, but even after slavery was abolished, that methodology of oppressing identity, of marginalising who we were, went on. It was the only way that they could keep some power systems intact.
"I suppose I see some of that in the Federation, sometimes – in Starfleet, and on other planets, especially some colonies. Some people see other cultures as dangerous, destabilising. Some people are insecure about disagreement, about anything being challenged, and if you have multiple cultures sharing a space, multiple people and political ideas, disagreement is a guarantee."
"What about Doctor Bashir?" asked Jake, and Ben glanced at him.
"Him having Vulcan and Cardassian friends, you mean?"
Jake shook his head. He had jumja sap sticking to his lower lip, and Ben laughed, passing him a napkin from the tray and watching him try to wipe the sticky stuff off.
"I don't mean his friends, I mean him," said Jake. "He's Human, right? So in the Federation, a lot of our ideas are seen as the default – you've said that before, that it's something we have to make sure we don't hold up. But he's not American, he's English, and… And Pakistani? He's not white."
"He grew up between England and Egypt on Earth," said Ben. "And, I guess, on Proxima I. I don't know, I've never talked to him about it – maybe I should. In the 20th century, the British Empire was still established across Earth, and they maintained something called the Commonwealth, which was based on its member states being free and equal under membership, but these were almost entirely nations that had been stripped of resources and violently colonised by the Empire. They shared in common the English language and some holdovers of British culture, but that was because of the Empire's violence toward them. Pakistan was a member, I think, but not Egypt, although Egypt was occupied by the British military as well. You're really testing my history knowledge here, Jake – it's complicated, and I don't know what his feelings would be about it. Theoretically, every Earth culture is equal, but you know that's not really true, that some cultures are more dominant than others – and white cultures and cultural ideals still speak over Black ones, Arab ones, Asian ones."
"He knows a lot about Cardassian cultures," said Jake casually, and Ben was careful to keep his own position casual as he leaned back in his seat, sipping from one of the root beers Quark had passed over to them. "Rugal and Lora were in school yesterday, just because he was interested in what it would be like, so Lora brought him along, and me and Nog walked with him back toward the Promenade because Lora was talking to a guy outside the shrine. He was saying that Doctor Bashir had been telling him about how different manners and food are developed on Cardassia Prime based on whether they're in desert or marshland, because Cardassia has extreme climates either way, and the dust or the mud influences domestic stuff – like taking your shoes off or your gloves, or cleaning rituals – and we said, oh, Garak told you all that? And he said no, Garak mostly asked him about Bajoran history and politics, and acted like he was trying to pry Rugal's brain open – it's Doctor Bashir who tells him things."
"You think that's weird?" asked Ben, watching Jake's thoughtful expression as he finished up his jumja stick, and Jake took on a half-smile, glancing at him the way he always did when he thought Ben had read his mind. Ben remembered how it used to feel when Dad could read him like that, even though he got used to it, realised how his dad was doing it, learned to do it himself.
"Maybe a little," he said. "Dax says that Garak doesn't tell Bashir anything, that he makes Bashir figure everything out. She said that Cardassians have different kinds of marriage depending on stuff like the gender, the social class, and the jobs of the people involved, that their marriage, if they got married, would be like one between a teacher and a student."
"Dax has explained the same thing to me."
"You think it's crazy?"
"I think it's… different."
"Crazy different."
Ben laughed, rubbing the back of Jake's neck. "Yeah," he said. "Maybe a little. But different's not always bad."
"Isn't the point of being a student that your teacher eventually can't teach you anymore?"
"In your school, sure," said Ben. "But if you think of apprentices under masters, a lot of them might study until their master dies, or for decades, at least. This kind of romance doesn't happen between people the same age for a reason – Dax said it's almost always intergenerational. And it's not just about Garak teaching him: Bashir teaches him back."
"What does Bashir teach Garak?"
"No idea," Ben admitted. "Ask Garak and you won't find out, but Bashir, he might tell you."
"Would you like Cardassians if it wasn't for everything?" asked Jake. "Like— Not the ones who were involved in the Occupation, but just, everyday Cardassians. Because you don't like Ferengi—"
"Jake!"
"But you like Klingons, right, and you understand them pretty well? And they have an Empire."
"I don't know," Ben admitted. "Cardassian culture is… complicated."
"I thought you liked complicated," said Jake in a tone of challenge, eyebrows raised, and Ben smiled, gently pushing the back of his head.
"Would you?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Jake. "Nog says that talking to Cardassians always feels like when Mrs O'Brien sets us a poem where we're meant to analyse what all the words and lines mean, and I kind of get what he means."
"Aren't you good at that?"
"Sure, on paper. Not when I'm talking to someone."
Ben laughed, pulling Jake close to him and pressing a kiss to his head. "I love you, Jake."
"Because I don't know how to talk to Cardassians?"
"No one knows how to talk to Cardassians," said Ben, putting his chin on top of Jake's head and feeling Jake lean in closer to his chest. "I love you 'cause you care."
"Uh, Dad?"
"You got jumja sap on my shirt, didn't you?"
"The stick is stuck to the fabric."
"Jake!"
"I thought you loved me!"
"I'll see you when you next come through," Bashir was saying, and Miles sat back in his seat beside Keiko, watching the way that Bashir gripped the Vulcan man's shoulder and casually kissed the woman's cheeks. "Tell your navigator thanks again, because the primer's genuinely been more helpful than almost anything else in the computer system, and even the books I bought on Vulcan."
"Peldian Kotra, not Garenne?"
"Yes, but by no means go out of your way, I—"
"I wasn't planning to go out of my way, Doctor," said Saava mildly. "No more than Garak did for my suit."
"A pleasure to see you again, my dear," said Garak, and like Bashir had, he kissed her cheeks.
When the Vulcans departed, the both of them doing that funny, straight-backed walk that Vulcans did, Miles looked back to Garak and Bashir as they sat down together, Bashir putting a cup of tea in front of Garak and passing a jumja stick over to Rugal, who smiled and murmured a thank you in Kardasi.
Garak had given his seat to Bashir when he'd stood to see off the Vulcans from the Sehlat's Whisker, and as Lora set the pieces back into place, Bashir asked, "Who won?"
"Garak," said Keiko. "Again. I don't see why you can't go easier on her."
"If he goes easy on me, I won't learn," said Lora, raising her chin. "Besides, if I want to win, there's always Doctor Bashir."
"She doesn't go easy on me," said Bashir tiredly, looking at Keiko with an almost pleading look in his eyes, and Keiko laughed, bouncing Molly on her knees.
"What is it, like chess?"
"It's not that different," said Bashir, nodding his head. "Sort of like chess crossed with Reversi. I'm not great at it."
"You can see the big picture or the details," said Miles. "You struggle to look at both at once."
"Garak said something similar the first time he beat me," said Bashir.
"I'm sure you'll beat me one day, my dear," said Garak, with a sort of flirtatious rumble in his voice, and Miles looked away Bashir smirked back at him, meeting his gaze and brushing their hands against one another. He supposed he preferred for them to kiss like Vulcans and Cardassians kissed, instead of kissing like Humans, but it still seemed uncomfortable, somehow, seeing Garak lean into Bashir with so much affection.
Miles couldn't shake the certainty that any second, Garak was going to pull a knife and slit his throat open.
"Are you about to start your shift?" asked Bashir.
"In about ten minutes."
"I'll walk with you up to Ops," said Bashir. "I have a data rod to give to Jadzia, and I'm on afternoons. Catastrophe notwithstanding, I don't expect to be in Ops today."
"Don't say catastrophe notwithstanding," said Miles. "They're very dangerous words, like "oh, it looks like the weather's going to be nice after all", or, "I'm sure it will turn out alright, once we get there", and things like that."
Bashir laughed, sipping at his raktajino. "You see, Lora? Humans can be cynical."
"I'll put it down to a personal failing of yours, then," said Lora coolly, with a slight smirk on her lips, and Miles smiled when she met his gaze with her eyes glinting with humour, although he felt a little uncomfortable about doing it. He'd read the brief about Lora and Rugal when they'd come up in Ops, and Keiko had told him a little more of what Garak had said. For a girl of sixteen, she held herself as if she was older, and especially knowing what she'd been through – knowing a fraction of what she'd been through – Miles twitched with how cool she was, how collected. She came off just as finished and cold and severe as any of the other Cardassians, no matter that she was barely more than a little girl herself, and he had no way of knowing how much of that was being Cardassian, and how much was…
And despite himself, he liked Rugal, who was reading from a PADD and occasionally looking up from it to talk to Garak, who was doing a small piece of hand-stitching in his lap. He was a smart boy, curious, focused, and he was good with Molly and he made her laugh, although he was brittle and would go suddenly stiff the same way Lora could.
He didn't like it: it left a bitter taste in his mouth, most of all because part of him wanted to believe they deserved it, even though he knew they didn't, that no child could deserve all that shite, and never could.
Lora and Rugal looked at home between Julian and Garak, and that had surprised Miles most of all – for all he didn't like how much Keiko trusted Garak with Molly, he'd seen Garak with Molly and with other kids on the station, even some of the Bajoran kids, and he knew that Garak was good with them, that they found him funny, comforting. It wasn't really a surprise that he was just as good with Cardassian children.
Bashir, he was the surprise.
He was a little awkward with Molly sometimes, too condescending or too nervous – great if she hurt herself, but not so good otherwise. Miles figured that that anxiety was because she was so young, because he was a lot better with Rugal, and leagues better with Lora – and funnily enough, if Miles was looking at them as parents, which they weren't, but if he thought of them like they were, Bashir was the stern one, more so than Garak.
That was funny to him, for some reason.
"Keiko said you two went along to school yesterday," said Miles. "How'd you find it?"
Lora didn't say anything, tilting her head and looking to Rugal, who gave a slow nod of his head.
"I liked it," he said. "I know you're just one teacher, but you must find a smaller class size easier – on Bajor, most classes are thirty or forty students, and we don't have access to full computer consoles the way that you do."
Miles immediately regretted asking, but Rugal didn't seem upset.
"I believe that Chief O'Brien was asking, dear child, more what you thought of your lessons' content, not their logistics," said Garak, and Rugal looked up at him, at Keiko and Miles, and then laughed, dipping his head forward.
"Oh," he said. "Yeah. It was interesting, um, we learned about mushrooms and how they form fungal networks to communicate with each other. It was pretty cool."
"I learned quite a lot about mycelial networks myself," said Lora, moving one of her pieces and making Bashir exhale loudly in frustration as she turned over several of his pieces at once. "I knew that mushrooms were simplistic lifeforms, but I had no idea precisely how simple they were, and at the same time, how complicated."
"Nobody in that room would have known you weren't already educated on the subject," said Keiko immediately, shifting her position so that Keiko could move around the page she was colouring. "Have you given any thought as to what sort of work you'd like to do, Lora? You'd be a wonderful teacher."
"It's very kind of you to say, Mrs O'Brien," said Lora, "but realistically it would be very difficult for me to find work as an educator on Bajor."
"Bajor's not the only planet in the universe," said Keiko. "There are other Bajoran colonies, or stations like this one – or elsewhere in the Federation."
"The Federation's Prime Directive dictated that the matter of Bajor's occupation, Mrs O'Brien, was an internal matter between the Cardassians and a subject race," said Lora in the same pleasant, conversational tones, but Miles felt like the room had dropped in temperature by several degrees. "Without meaning to impugn whatever loyalty or national pride you might feel toward the Federation, I would no more lend them my services than I would serve Cardassia. The Federation permitted Bajor's suffering for years, and were it not for Cardassia's expanding borders, they'd have allowed us to be reduced to dust and rubble before they'd have intervened for our sake. One empire is not much less despicable than the other. Rugal, you're going to get that down your wrist."
As Lora handed him a napkin, Miles looked from Bashir, whose expression was not surprised, but slightly pinched, to Garak, whose lips were shifted into a small, cold smile.
Keiko looked ashamed and sympathetic, one hand twitching as if she was going to reach out to touch Lora's, and Miles wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze.
"I'm losing fairly badly," said Bashir. "You ready to go, Chief?"
"Yeah," Miles murmured, kissing Molly on the top of her head and kissing Keiko as he stood to his feet.
Garak had taken Bashir by the hand, and he said something seriously to him that Miles didn't hear, but Bashir shook his head.
"… already disappeared," he said. "Just like he said they would. His shuttle is due to come in late tonight, but he's called ahead for a contingent from Cardassia Prime, too, I don't know when they're arriving."
"Does that mean I have relatives on Cardassia?" asked Rugal.
"I expect so," said Bashir. "Prang will explain more to us later tonight, I expect – the ship he's on is fast, coming from Vulcan, but to put everything he was doing aside like this and come straight away, he's probably busy on the ship."
"I don't want to go to live on Cardassia," said Rugal.
"What is it you're hoping for, child, for us to promise you we'll keep you from going?" said Garak. "You're old enough to know that's beyond our power."
"You could try," said Rugal.
"And we will," said Bashir. "But if it is a living relative, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, wouldn't that be something that might make you want to go Cardassia?"
"I don't know," said Rugal.
"Well cross that bridge, as goes one of Doctor Bashir's charming aphorisms, when we reach it," said Garak.
"Come to it, Garak," said Bashir, and Garak gave him a funny look, but kissed his mouth at the same time they pressed their fingers together, before the two of them came apart.
Miles and Bashir didn't speak to one another as they initially walked away from the Replimat, moving toward the turbolifts. They had to wait to catch the next one when a family crammed inside – Vilix'pran with four of his hatchlings crawling all over him, smiling exhaustedly as he tried to get the biggest one to leave the service hatch alone – and Bashir said, "Sorry about what Lora said."
"It's okay, I didn't, um, I didn't take it personally," mumbled Miles, feeling a little ill. "The boy, he doesn't want to go back to Cardassia?"
"He doesn't know what he wants, and I can't blame him," muttered Bashir. "He doesn't want to leave Bajor, but he doesn't want to struggle there, doesn't want to live on a world where everyone hates him, but he doesn't want to go to Cardassia when he doesn't know anything about Cardassian culture, when people would be so judgemental, and as for anywhere else, well." They stepped in the turbolift, and Bashir leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Lora can't go, obviously, she'd be liable to be executed for treason within a month, and probably quite gladly. Rugal… He's very inquisitive, but he's pretty blunt, he says what he means, and he doesn't see the point in hiding it, or going along with a pretence just to be polite."
"What's wrong with that?" asked Miles.
"Nothing," said Bashir. "Except that on Cardassia, that attitude will get him killed."
He said it so bluntly, with so little emotion, that Miles whirled on it to make sure he was actually taking it seriously, but Bashir's gaze was dull, and his lips were twisted in a small frown.
"It depends," he said to Miles, "what his family are like. But if…" He sighed. "If someone's leveraged this whole thing, Chief, I'm guessing that his parents, or some other relative, were important – or are important. In the military or the government, the judiciary, it doesn't matter – but if they're any kind of public figure, it'll put him under a lot of scrutiny. He's a passionate historian for his age, does all sorts of analysis, knows all about, you know, unreliable versus reliable sources, has a lot of opinions about how you judge reliability. He's only twelve, he's still a boy, but twelve is more than old enough to… ask questions. Asking questions isn't a quality that lets you thrive in a fascist police state."
Miles stared at Bashir, trying to comprehend exactly what he was hearing, and Bashir looked at him, looking baffled by Miles' bafflement.
"What?"
"I thought you liked Cardassia," said Miles. "I thought you— You like Cardassians. You're learning all this stuff about Cardassian food, and culture, and manners—"
"Yeah, because Garak is Cardassian, and because I'm looking after the interests of Cardassian children, Chief, not because I've become an authoritarian, or because I've suddenly turned around and thought to myself that perhaps the Nazis had a good idea or two."
"Well, what's someone supposed to think!?"
"Not what you've been thinking, evidently!" said Bashir. "Learning a recipe for Halant stew and losing at kotra isn't exactly tantamount to accepting a justice system where you're pronounced guilty upon arrest, and the purpose of your trial is for you to accept the wisdom of Cardassia in punishing you for your crimes. You do realise that if Rugal does go to Cardassia, the first thing they'll do when registering his citizenship is pull out one of his back teeth?"
"Jesus," said Miles, and Julian sighed, then laughed in a sort of powerless, exhausted way.
"There's a reason I want all those children to go to Vulcan, Chief," he murmured. "Not to their glorious homeland."
"You don't agree with Lora, then?"
"About what?"
"About the Federation being as bad as Cardassia?"
"I…" Bashir sighed. "I don't want to think we are," he muttered. "It seems insane to say we are. We've got to have rules, haven't we? We can't just interfere in every other planet's business, because then we really would be an empire, no matter how benevolent we said we were, because we wouldn't be respecting anyone else's right to self-govern, but…" He trailed off, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. "I've read some of the histories. The ones written by Starfleet – the ones written by Federation citizens, and not. The ones written by Cardassians. And the way I see it, the reason that the Federation let Cardassia take Bajor was a simple one: Bajor had everything that Cardassia wanted, and nothing we wanted. It was a matter of economics, and that was factored over compassion."
"What does Garak say?"
"Different things at different times," muttered Bashir. "He doesn't give straight answers to me, you know that."
Miles inhaled, slowly, and then asked, more slowly, "What do you think he thinks?"
"I think he thinks the Occupation was a mistake," said Bashir. "Which should comfort me – but it doesn't. Because most Cardassians think the Occupation was a mistake, and they think that because they were turfed out. It has nothing to do with the Bajorans."
"I don't know how you can love someone like that. Someone who… someone who might believe something that fucking ugly, that's so at odds with anything you believe."
"Is it?" asked Bashir. "At odds with what I believe? Look at what Lora said – I try not to look at things the Federation does all the time. All that fighting I'm doing about the contraceptive program on Bajor, a lot of our colonies, our mining operations, the way we police our borders, the way that we wield the Prime Directive like it's a cudgel sometimes, the way that we use membership of the Federation like bait for the planets we can benefit most from. No one was remotely interested in Bajor joining the Federation ten years ago – I don't think it would be that different now, if it weren't for the wormhole. Suddenly, Bajor's worth having, and now we want it. At least Garak says it all out loud, even if he contradicts himself the next moment. Most people in Starfleet wouldn't feel comfortable saying it, or even thinking about it. It's not the sort of thing we like to think about, when we all wanted to join Starfleet in the first place because we wanted to feel like we were the heroes – like we were the good guys."
"The ones doing frontier medicine, you mean?" asked Miles, and Bashir sighed, nodding his head.
"Yeah," he said. "Arseholes like me."
Miles patted his shoulder, and Bashir gave him a tired smile. "You ever wish it would be simple for once?"
"Nope, never," said Miles, wagging a finger. "Wishing it could all be simple, that's like saying, catastrophe notwithstanding."
"Ah," said Bashir, nodding his head as they stepped into Ops. "Of course."
As Bashir went over to Dax, leaning over the console to hand her a data rod, Miles watched him go, wondering if he should have said something else – but then, what was he meant to say? He wasn't good at talking, least of all about shite like this.
"Morning, Chief," said Kira. "We've got another problem with Lower Pylon 3."
"How many problems is that now?" asked Miles, on autopilot, as he came over to look at the screen.
"Ooh, I don't know, twelve or thirteen…?"
"Good afternoon, Constable," said Adorak Lora, and Odo turned to look at her and Rugal as they moved in the queue in the Replimat.
"Miss Adorak," said Odo. "Rugal."
"Have you ever killed anybody?" asked Rugal. "In the course of your duties?"
"Yes," said Odo, "but only in situations where it was unavoidable. When I had to make a decision to end a life in order to ensure they could not harm someone else – and not directly. We set our phasers to stun, usually, and try to save the life of anyone harmed during the course of an arrest."
"Did you always want to be a policeman?"
"I never wanted to be anything," said Odo. "I'm simply what I am."
Rugal furrowed his ridges, not seeming to like this answer, and Odo, pleased, raised his chin. Lora was smiling slightly, her hand resting on Rugal's back as they stepped forward.
She had only known the boy a few months, if that, but it seemed that she'd taken him on as closely as a younger sibling, and Odo approved of her sense of duty to the boy, although he had no idea if she would linger on the station after Rugal went back to Cardassia, or returned to Bajor.
She was sixteen, and Odo thought that she looked sixteen, although with the combination of her Bajoran and Cardassian facial features, she either looked unusually young or unusually old for her age, but she held herself with a grace and a calm that was not normally found in girls so young.
Kira had sighed when they'd looked at the brief Bashir had included about her and Rugal. "If it was still the Occupation," she'd said, "she'd be a comfort woman by now, or she'd sell sex. Girls like that take rape and they turn sex and femininity into their armour, wield it as easily as a phaser rifle."
Odo knew that she was probably right, but he didn't like that she was.
If she stayed on the station, Quark would probably want her for a dabo girl, and Odo made a mental note to say to him very explicitly and very pointedly this evening that under no circumstances was that to happen.
"What about you?" he asked, and Lora looked at him archly, her lips shifting into a small smile that looked far too adult for her young face. Odo couldn't experience the sensation of nausea as the humanoids around him could, but it didn't sit well with him.
"You're asking me what I want to be when I grow up?" she asked.
"I suppose I am."
"I really don't know," said Lora. "I mostly clean on Bajor. This week, Major Kira has advised me that she has friends at a university on Bajor, that I might go along to study art or music."
"That doesn't meet with your interests, I take it?" asked Odo, and the girl chuckled.
"I can't sing," she said. "And I never understood the point of paintings and sculptures. Garak's said he'd take me on as an apprentice, if I wanted."
Odo looked at her in surprise. "Did he?"
Lora laughed, pushing Rugal forward as they came to the front of the line. "It's funny you say that. By all accounts, Garak is unusually generous with his time and his expertise, but everyone seems very surprised by his magnanimity whenever it comes up, even when they've been on the receiving end."
Odo wondered how a girl of sixteen, an orphan, came to use words like magnanimity so casually, and with such ease – she was speaking a dialect of Bajoran with a native speaker's accent, her voice clipped and polished. She'd had an education, during the Occupation, it was plain to Odo, and somehow, that made the fact of her person even worse.
"He charges very highly for his tailoring services, Miss Adorak," said Odo. "Perhaps we forget his generosity because he's so exacting in the costs he charges."
"Perhaps," Lora assented, giving an inclination of her head. "But one would hope he turns a significant enough profit to pay an apprentice a good wage."
"You wouldn't rather go to Cardassia?"
"Would you?"
"… I beg your pardon?"
"You alighted on this station during the Occupation," said Lora cleanly. "If you did not grow up, sir, you developed into the adult you are under Cardassian rule, Cardassian law, Cardassian culture. You ask me why I don't go to Cardassia – why don't you?"
Odo smiled a tight smile, and received a similar one for his troubles.
"Garak is an exile, you know," he said. "Take an apprenticeship from him, and you might never be admitted to Cardassia."
Lora leaned in slightly toward him, and Odo leaned forward himself. "I aided members of the Resistance during the Occupation, Constable," she said quietly, glancing to make sure Rugal was focused on the replicator and not on them, "and the rape of children is not looked on kindly, even on Cardassia. My presence there would be an unwelcome reminder of the past crimes of several military commanders." She leaned back, and studying Odo's face, her small smile widened slightly. "Garak said you weren't like the Bajorans or the Starfleet people."
Odo frowned, his brows furrowing as he kept her gaze. "How so?"
"They're uncomfortable with what I am, with what's been done to me," said Lora. "They don't like that I don't act like a child. It makes them uncomfortable, because it's not something they can fix or make better. You know you can't fix or make it better, so you don't go on about it. You don't make what's happened to me about you."
Odo took this in. "You're welcome," he said after taking a few moments to digest it, and Lora laughed – it was a girl's laugh, not quite as cold and controlled as the rest of her, and he smiled to hear it.
Lora took a tray with bowls for her and Garak, and Rugal carried his own as they made their way back toward Garak's shop, and Odo walked with them.
"What do you think of Garak and Bashir?" asked Rugal.
"Bashir is a very capable doctor," said Odo. "Garak is a criminal."
"Really?" asked Rugal. "What have you charged him with?"
"Nothing, yet," said Odo. "But I will."
"Did you know that Bajorans didn't have anything equivalent to a police force or military prior to the Occupation?" asked Rugal, and Odo blinked at him.
"I… didn't."
"Throughout Bajoran history, we've favoured centralised methods of addressing crime and punishment, most of all addressing the root causes of crime, such as inequality, poverty, and hunger. It could be argued that the adoption of a Bajoran militia and security forces like your own are a sign of how Cardassian interference has caused our society to regress and devolve."
Odo stared at him, not knowing what to say, but obviously Rugal had known he'd get this reaction, because he ran ahead, laughing, into Garak's shop.
"Did you tell him, Rugal?" asked Garak mildly, meeting Odo's gaze, and Odo scowled at him as Lora laughed too, stepping into the tailor's shop and putting Garak's food on his desk. "The constable loves history."
"I might have known," said Odo, and Garak beamed at him.
"Good afternoon, Constable Odo," said Lora pleasantly.
Tutting loudly, Odo shook his head, and walked back toward the Promenade.
The Temple services had left Nerys feeling far calmer than the day before had, and she did her best to retain that calm as he stepped out from one of the chairs, allowing past an elderly couple before she started making her way out herself. Adorak Lora was just getting to her feet, having seated herself in one of the back chairs, and Nerys saw the way that one of the Vedeks looked at her as she passed him by, his expression pinched and uncertain, but not angry at her.
She was Bajoran, after all, with ridges on her nose as much as around her face, and Nerys saw as she came down the aisle that Lora was wearing a D'ja pagh, although as they stepped out onto the Promenade, she reached up and delicately unclipped it.
"I didn't realise you had an earring," said Nerys. "Is it yours, or did Garak lend it to you?"
"It's mine," said Lora, and held it out.
Nerys took the earring, resting it in her palm and examining the clips. It was a beautifully made piece, made of a fine, surprisingly heavy silver, and she traced the symbol for Lora's name – Lora was written in sweeping calligraphy, but her family name was printed far more bluntly, square and obvious.
"The Adoraks were of the Va'telo D'jarra, before the Occupation," said Lora. "My father was a sailor."
Nerys looked up at her in surprise. "Your father was Bajoran?"
"Yes."
"That… Right," said Nerys. "Then your mother was a… she was a soldier?"
"My mother was a clerical officer," said Lora. "Her husband was Legate Ligor."
"Oh, I see," said Nerys. "He— They had an affair?"
"You don't see at all," said Lora, and it made Nerys feel sick and out of her depth, because she didn't know someone could speak so cuttingly and so warmly at the same time – it was something Cardassians were adept at, obviously, but she handed the earring back. "My mother and father were killed in an attack by the Resistance," said Lora. "I was eleven at the time. Ligor died later on."
"Another attack?"
"Of his heart," said Lora. "He ate too richly, drank too much, and exercised too little. Two years before the end of the Occupation."
"You would have been thirteen?"
"Yes."
Nerys didn't know what to say. She didn't want to ask questions, because she knew in what direction the answers were, and what the Hell else could she ask questions about?
"It's alright," said Lora, dropping her earring into her pocket. "Most people are uncomfortable with me."
"It's not alright," said Nerys. "It's not your fault."
"It isn't," agreed Lora. "It's not my fault I am what I am anymore than it is yours – but we are what we are, Major. The Occupation made us this way, and the Occupation's end doesn't end us, and won't."
"It's weird hearing someone your age talk like that. When I was your age, I…"
"Major," said Lora, "when you were my age, weren't you bombing Cardassians?"
"I—"
Lora laughed, and it was mercifully youthful coming out of her mind. Nerys, helpless to do anything else, laughed too, and Lora offered her arm, which Nerys took, walking arm-in-arm with the girl across the Promenade.
"This must be hard for you," said Nerys. "Knowing that Rugal might be going back to his… to his family. Do you have any family left on Cardassia Prime?"
"My mother's family wasn't very big, and most of them also died during the Occupation," said Lora, "but Ligor's family have contacted me a few times, mostly his mother. She's offered to pay my passage to Cardassia a few times, even before the end of the Occupation, but still now. He was their only son, and he and my mother had no children. I'm the closest thing she'll get to a grandchild."
"Why don't you go?"
"I don't know," said Lora. "I wouldn't do well on Cardassia, I don't think, with the culture the way it is. I'm too much of a dissident, and I love Bajor, no matter that it hates me. I don't want to leave, so I won't. I'm stubborn, you see."
Nerys squeezed her arm, and Lora gave her a small smile. "What have Garak and Bashir told you?"
"Oh, lots of things, they're passionate about education," said Lora. When this evasive answer earned her an expectant look, she sighed, still smiling. "Garak thinks I would do very well in the Cardassian intelligence services. Julian thinks I'd be executed for treason. The most likely reality would be somewhere in between, probably one then the other. Suffice it to say, they both agree that me going to Cardassia would be a bad idea. Julian wants me to go to Vulcan, if he can arrange for more of the Cardassian war orphans to go there, and if not Vulcan, to another Federation planet with a significant Cardassian diaspora – of exiles, ideally."
"Julian wants you to go to Vulcan? Not Garak?"
"He hides it quite well," said Lora, "but he's really quite scornful of the exiles. Garak, I mean. He's quite the staunch nationalist, isn't he?"
"I have no idea what Garak is," Nerys muttered. "I think that's how he likes it."
"It's difficult for people like us," said Lora. "Caught between the facts of life as we were taught them and the ones as we've learned them, people's idealism versus the reality… And both within and without the Occupation, some children grow up knowing that things happen to them, will continue to happen to them, that adults never want to admit to. It hurts too much to acknowledge it, so they let us suffer, because to stop us suffering, they'd have to say it out loud."
Nerys felt like her heart was being twisted in her chest, and she swallowed around the lump that had appeared in her throat, keeping her gaze forward.
"Well," she said, "I guess when you say it like that, the two of us have a lot in common."
"Oh, I meant me and…" Lora trailed off, and she smiled, squeezed Nerys' shoulder. "But yes. You and I, Major. Would you hate it very much if I stayed on the station?"
"Where would you work? Not at Quark's?"
"No, I hate gambling," said Lora. "Garak offered me an apprenticeship – and he offered to ask about other apprenticeships if I wanted. Said he'd pay my wage if I'd rather apprentice under somewhere else – in one of the restaurants, the martial arts gym, in cybernetics or security… He said that even if he couldn't swing the favour, that Doctor Bashir probably could."
Nerys pressed her lips tightly together, her hand twitching her hand on the other side. She didn't much like the idea of Garak looking after a girl of just sixteen, of any male Cardassian looking after a young Bajoran girl, whether she was half-Cardassian or not, but she wasn't stupid enough to think that Lora would be that much better off on Bajor than up here on DS9.
Lora hummed, smiling. "You don't like him, Garak. You don't like Julian, either?"
"Bashir's a good man," said Nerys.
"Lots of men are good," said Lora. "It doesn't make them worth liking."
"You don't like him?"
"Of course I do," said Lora. "He's collected, intelligent, surprisingly fun in conversation, a lot wittier than he looks. He's too sentimental, and maybe a bit too naïve – too emotional – but I like him. I like Garak, too. I like that he doesn't pretend that he isn't pretending, the way that most people do."
Nerys had no idea what to say to that, but if Lora noticed she had Nerys stumped, she didn't show it. She was craning her head to watch the Klingons coming out of Quark's, the two of them butting heads with one another as they moved.
"I think Garak is a liar," said Nerys. "And I think that he was a Cardassian during the Occupation, that he was a collaborator, and that the Cardassians disliked him so much that they left him behind. That's… suspicious."
"You don't agree, then, that the enemy of my enemy is my friend?"
"It depends on the enemy," said Nerys. "Would you even consider Garak's offer if he wasn't Cardassian?"
"Probably not," said Lora. "If Julian made it, maybe. But if he was Bajoran, or some other person I didn't know, no, probably not. But I understand Garak's reasons for making his offer, and enough to know that I respect them."
"Just because he's a Cardassian?"
"Him being a Cardassian isn't why," said Lora.
"You want to be a spy?" asked Nerys.
"No," said Lora. "I told you, Major, I'm a dissident. I'm too loud to be a good spy – and I'm not interested in being quiet."
"I don't think you should trust him," said Nerys.
"Alright," said Lora. "And Julian?"
"He's… Of course you can trust Julian," she said, and Lora smiled, giving a neat inclination of her head. "I— I'm sorry. I'm telling you what to do like you should care what I think."
"You and I are the same just like Garak and I are the same, Major," said Lora. "I trust you just like I trust him, but I wouldn't expect you to trust each other."
"How could you possibly be like Garak?"
"I'll see you tomorrow," said Lora. "For the meeting with Rugal. Thank you, Major – for your honesty, and your compassion."
"I'm sorry," Nerys said again. "You don't need… I was too angry."
"Major," said Lora, "I'm just as angry as you are. I just show it differently to the way you do. I know I can come to you, if I need to – thank you."
Nerys gave the girl a nod, and it ached, watching her walk away. She went into Odo's office on autopilot, and he turned around in his seat to meet her gaze, exhaling.
"I saw you with Adorak Lora," he said.
"I wish we could do something," said Nerys.
"We can't," said Odo.
"I know," she said, and dropped into the chair across from Odo's desk, putting her feet up. "Fuck, Odo."
"Yes," Odo agreed, so seriously that it made her laugh, and she swung slightly in her chair as he pushed a cup of tea across the desk to her.
Jadzia met Julian just as he exited the infirmary, a mug of raktajino in her hands, and he laughed when he saw her, putting out his hands and making a grabbing motion for the mug, which she handed over. It was a little past 2100 hours, and Julian's shoulder nudged hers as they fell into step together.
She liked that they'd managed to fall into an easy routine together, a casual friendship – she'd liked Julian from the beginning, and although he mostly didn't flirt with and pursue the way he had at first, not now that he was into this relationship with Garak, they had a rapport that she was glad of.
It was funny – at first, she'd thought that he didn't know himself too well, because he was always a little closed off, bragged a lot but didn't actually share much about himself, always seemed way more interested in soaking up whatever he could about her or other people, their cultures…
It wouldn't have been the first time someone without much of their own identity had latched onto her in the hopes she'd give some guidance, but now that she'd known Julian for longer, she realised that just wasn't true. He did seem to know who he was, knew what he cared about, what was important to him – he just didn't like to share it that much unless it was about medicine.
For being so gregarious, he was a surprisingly private man, guarded about his personal life, but he was relatively open about his relationship with Garak, and that was the stepping stone, she'd found, into other things about his life.
She wondered if he realised, sometimes, how little he talked about himself, really talked about himself. Some doctors were just like that, were self-centred and arrogant without realising how little of the important stuff they shared, and other men hid that stuff on purpose, because they felt it made them too emotionally vulnerable, but she'd never gotten that impression from Julian.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Tired," he said. "Stressed. A little bit anxious."
"What have you got to be anxious about?" she asked. "Julian, you've gone above and beyond for Rugal – the only thing you can do now is see how it plays out." Julian nodded, and given this assent, she said, "So…"
Julian's answering smile was guarded, and he didn't quite meet her eyes as she replied, "So…?"
The two of them were walking together toward Upper Pylon 4, where the ship from the Cardassian Embassy on Vulcan would be docking in the next few minutes, if it hadn't already docked.
"Well," said Jadzia, "this has been, what? A week? With you and Garak, and two kids. How's it been?"
"Stressful," said Julian. "Tiring."
"Fun?"
"Perhaps a little fun."
"Something you'd like to do some more?"
"Garak and I aren't about to open an orphanage, Jadzia."
"I wasn't talking about an orphanage."
"Jadzia."
"Your kids would be so cute," said Jadzia. "I bet they'd have his little snub nose and your jawline."
"I don't think they'd match," said Julian, but he was smiling as he said, more seriously, "I don't think I want children."
"Not ever?"
"Maybe some day," said Julian, his gaze far away, and Jadzia couldn't help but wonder if he was imagining Garak in that scenario, if he was imagining DS9, or if he was imagining somewhere completely different, if he was maybe thinking of going back to Earth, or to Proxima, maybe with Garak in tow. "But not for at least a few years. I don't have time for children – I work too much, and I don't want to work less because I love my research, everything I do, but I barely have enough time to spend with Garak, with everyone else."
"That's understandable," said Jadzia, warmer now, wanting to make sure he knew it was okay, that she wasn't judging, that she wouldn't nag, not on this. "And you don't have to have children at all, if you don't want to – or if you do, you can adopt."
"I've read people talking about pregnancy," said Julian softly. "I can't really imagine it myself. You've got this… this thing hooked into you, taking energy, your blood, your oxygen, the food you eat, your nutrients, and just trying to carry it around might kill you in a hundred ways, and getting it out is traumatic no matter what way you look at it – but it's not a thing. It's not a parasite. It's… yours. Not just yours, but someone else's, it's pure life, and you make it with your body and someone else's, carry it with you, nurture it, love it before it even knows it exists, and it grows and lives and thinks and has a soul. I can never decide whether it sounds horrifically violent, from start to finish, or unspeakably loving and intimate."
"It's both," said Jadzia simply. She remembered at once the occasional strange horror at what she'd done, feeling kicks and movements inside her, the strange feeling that the baby was trying to throttle the symbiont, that the two were wrestling in her abdomen; she remembered, too, the simple glow she existed with every time she'd been pregnant, knowing that there was a new person inside her, growing day by day, their hearts beating because hers did. "They're not as contradictory as they sound. But it's not for everybody."
"And even if it was, I don't know what the position's going to look like in ten years, in fifteen, in twenty. With us and the Cardassians, I mean," murmured Julian. "Look at the way people on this station look at Lora, the glares some of them give her, the coldness people treat her with – that's nothing compared to how they look at her on Bajor. I don't know how people would treat a Cardassian-Human hybrid, let alone between a… A Starfleet officer and a former Cardassian spy."
"It's never not complicated," Jadzia murmured, "but in this case, it's… extra complicated."
"I'm glad you'll admit it," murmured Julian as they got onto the turbolift together. "Did you ever… As Jadzia, or in any of your other previous hosts, have you ever been frightened of the feelings you've had for someone? In a relationship, I mean?"
"Wow," said Jadzia slowly, feeling herself grin. "You got it that bad, huh?"
Julian laughed. "I don't mean I'm ready to sing my praises for him from the Promenade," he muttered. He hesitated, and then said, "I was engaged before, you know, on Earth. For five years."
"I didn't know," she said, looking at him in surprise. "Why'd you break up?"
"Because I wanted to join Starfleet," said Julian, sipping at his coffee. "Staying with her would have meant staying on Earth, and I wasn't prepared to do that. But with Garak, sometimes, I just…"
"What, you'd think of giving up Starfleet for him?"
"Not giving up Starfleet," Julian said, waving a hand. "Just that, he's so so different to me, so different to anything, anybody, I would ever have imagined. He challenges me, in ways I'd never have expected."
"And that frightens you?" asked Jadzia, and Julian exhaled, tipping his head back against the turbolift wall.
"It frightens me that I like to be challenged," he said after a moment's thought. "I… I feel like I could change for him, would change things about myself, or let them change, that I'd never have considered if not for meeting him. Does that make sense?"
"Of course," said Jadzia. "You've just described the essence of marriage – and of symbiosis."
Julian laughed, giving a nod of his head. "And here was me, thinking I was unique."
"Maybe not unique," said Jadzia, "but that doesn't mean the intensity isn't surprising. The relationship is still early days, sure, and you're still young, Julian, but it's a surprise to realise that what you thought was solid about your personality might not be, given the right lubrication. It's not like it's just Garak – I bet you've discovered a lot about yourself since coming to DS9 you didn't expect."
"You're not wrong," said Julian as they stepped off the lift.
The Legate's ship had docked, and the airlock was just opening as they came toward the docking port. Julian passed Jadzia his mug, and she watched how fluidly, how easily, he presented a traditional Cardassian greeting, a neat and angular bow before he extended his hand.
The Cardassian, who was tall and thin, wearing a grey-green woven armour rather than the military carapace she was used to, touched their fingers and thumb together, nodding back.
"Legate Prang, this is Lieutenant Commander Dax," said Julian. "Jadzia Dax, meet Legate Prang."
"Welcome to Deep Space Nine, Legate," said Jadzia. "Is it your first time?"
Prang inclined his head in a simple nod.
"Our meeting is in the morning," said Julian. "I thought we'd all grab something to eat at the Klingon Restaurant, unless you'd like to go directly to your quarters."
"I'd like to greet Caractacus and Truly," said Prang. "It's been quite some time since we last met face to face."
Something passed between Prang and Julian that Jadzia didn't understand. Prang's expression remained calculatedly polite and blank as he met Julian's eyes, having to look down to do so – Prang was probably the tallest Cardassian Jadzia had ever met, easily six foot four if not taller, and extremely slim – and Julian's expression was… difficult to describe. The slightest surprise showed in his face, a tiny furrow of his eyebrows, but he didn't look offended or extremely shocked.
What was telling was the way he looked to Jadzia, and then back to Prang – what, they wanted to talk in private, without her there?
"Would you like me to walk with you guys down to your quarters?" asked Jadzia, looking at Julian instead of Prang. "Or I can go ahead and let Garak know the legate is here, and we can all get ready for dinner."
Are you okay being alone with him?
"That'd be really helpful, actually, help Garak and Lora juggle Rugal," said Julian. "But…" He tapped his chest, meeting Prang's gaze and smiling at him. "Bashir to Garak's shop."
"Yes, my dear?"
"Limor's here, Elim," said Julian warmly, and Jadzia tried to not show the surprise on her face at learning Garak's given name – she almost hadn't known he had one – and at the surprise on Prang's own, a slight tightening in his features, although they remained almost entirely blank. Prang's smile, to her surprise, hereafter widened. "I'm just going to show him the regnars, and then we'll meet you Kaga's. Jadzia's going to come down to you now."
"Very well," said Garak without missing a beat. "Do resist the urge to bring the regnars with you."
"But they're such excellent dinner guests," said Julian, and the comm link went quiet.
He smiled at Jadzia: I'm okay being alone with him now.
Prang had barely glanced at Jadzia since they'd arrived, and now he was looking at Bashir with a single-minded focus that made her skin itch. They were on first name terms with him, Julian and Garak, and she didn't know what to think about that, or the fact that Julian wanted Garak to know he was showing Prang into his quarters – but then, for all she knew, that had a lot more connotations for Cardassians than it did for Humans or Trill.
Come to think of it, it probably did.
"See you in half an hour," she said, and as Prang and Julian went into another lift, she went straight down to Garak's shop. He was pulling down the shutters – Lora and Rugal were talking across the way with Odo and Kira. "Should I have gone with him?" she asked. "Is it— Is it dangerous, for Julian to be alone with the Legate?"
"My dear," said Garak with affectionate bemusement, "what a curiously suspicious imagination you have. What risk do you possibly think Prang might pose to the young doctor?"
"He called you to tell you he was taking Prang into his quarters," said Jadzia. "You can't tell me he wasn't asking permission calling you like that. That he wasn't getting you to do a risk assessment."
Garak's smile widened, becoming more indulgent, and he glanced to the children before he looked back to Jadzia, and said in a low voice, "He most certainly was asking for permission, Lieutenant, taking a man into a shared bedroom of ours, which is where Truly Scrumptious and Caractacus Potts are. Salacious or violent as your imaginings might be, it's more a matter of etiquette between partners."
Jadzia's cheeks felt like they were burning. "Right," she said, trying not to laugh at herself, and Garak chuckled quietly as he locked the shutters closed.
She was pretty sure it wasn't the whole story – it never was, with Garak, and not often with Julian either. But she did feel silly for jumping to conclusions, and it made her say, "It reminds me of the first time you talked to him. He came running into Ops, bouncing on his feet, telling everyone that would listen that Garak, the Cardassian spy, had approached him for a rendezvous."
"A private rendezvous with an active intelligence agent," said Garak mildly. "If he celebrated the Terran Christmas, my dear, I would know precisely what to get him. Perhaps for his birthday I'll organise such a rendezvous with some sort of Romulan secret agent."
His smile stayed on his face as he turned to Lora and Rugal, but Jadzia thought there was something static, frozen in it, and wondered what that meant.
