Limor Prang moved into Julian's quarters slowly and deliberately, and Julian watched his surprise not by looking back at him, but in one of the toy mirrors he'd bought for Truly and Caractacus. He'd found they enjoyed playing with the mirrors and the way they reflected light or showed them themselves, the same way that many birds did.
Prang's face was carefully expressionless as he looked around the room, but there were little tells in it, in the way his eyes moved, their infinitesimal widening as he took in the scope of Julian's greenery, that before now he'd only glimpsed bits of on the holomonitor.
Julian had always kept rather Spartan quarters – now and then, his mother would send something to his apartment in San Francisco, a piece of art or a carpet, but invariably he'd trade them for someone useful, something he actually wanted, something that didn't remind him of his parents, or remind him that he could never actually go live on Proxima.
He still didn't actually have that much in his quarters, not really – he had a few paper books folded away, more than he'd had before, but he still didn't have any art on the walls or anything displayed, or truly, any personality.
What he did have was the garden that spread across pots and troughs and trays and hanging baskets and buckets and shelves, and he could see Prang take in the room's variety, the way he'd changed things for Truly and Caractacus over the past few months – apart from all the plants Garak had grown, different flowers and vines and a few potted trees, specifically for the regnars, there were other ones, too. Ones that Julian and Garak ate from, or traded for things here and there that someone had been growing in the hydroponics bay, because there weren't many people on the station who would or could live in quarters with a climate like the one Julian had accustomed the past six months.
It was warm – it was hot, and humid, and he liked it. It felt natural, completely so, felt like home.
Prang's fingers brushed the soft fruit of a kumquat, and then reached to brush a golden crab apple instead, apparently feeling the difference in the textures of their skin.
"Help yourself," said Julian idly. "You'll like the crab apples better, I think – they're not dissimilar to korat fruit, taste-wise, although the texture is quite different."
He expected Prang to demur, to politely refuse, but he didn't: he took one of the ripe crab apples between his fingers and tugged it free of its mooring on the tree, bringing it up to his mouth. Julian could see the movement of his nostrils and his upper lip as he inhaled, ushering in the scent toward his nose and mouth, and when he bit into it, he did so very delicately, barely scraping off more than the skin and the flesh of the fruit.
He chewed, swallowed.
Smiled his indulgent smile.
"Truly and Caractacus don't much eat the fruit that Garak grows in here, and there's a second tank like the one for them in my bathroom, where we've been growing some Cardassian tubers – it's easiest to keep the soil most in there, you see. But they don't eat them either. They just like the different smells, and the textures, and exploring the different leaves and branches. It's good enrichment for them."
"Enrichment?" repeated Prang, studying the run that Julian had bolted into one of the walls, so that the regnars could climb up high and move around his quarters along little bridges or shelves rather than being stuck close to the floor, the same way that they'd climb along desert ridges and branches in the Cardassian wild.
"It stimulates their minds, the way that they might be stimulated were they no longer pets," said Julian. "It keeps them from becoming bored, listless, depressed. Novelty and exploration keeps them young."
"Is that what you've been providing Elim?" asked Prang. His voice, quiet and unassuming, was very loud in Julian's rooms.
Julian looked back at him, not bothering to hide the surprise on his face, and he watched as Prang took another bite of the crab apple, chewing it, nodding his head at the taste, his lips still shifted into a small smile.
"Is it too cold for you?" asked Julian. "It's a few degrees or so over the Cardassian average room temperature – and very humid, too. My lights put out solar-style light in the day, and mimic a day's rhythm, and the air is hot and wet. The engineers think I'm doing it all for Garak – there's a Norwegian ensign, and the Chief is an Irishman. They think the heat in here is very oppressive, quite uncomfortable, but for me, it's… It's quite a relief, actually. I assume your knowledge of Earth geography is better than you'd admit to, and you understand what I mean when I tell you I grew up as much in Egypt as I did in England, and that when I lived on Proxima, the climate was as warm and wet as North Pakistan, with very hot, wet summers and bitterly cold winters. They forget that our average for Human comfort is based in certain assumptions about the climate that Humans, as a whole, come from. Coming home to my quarters or to Garak's, after a day in the cold, has started to feel like an incredible relief."
"I imagine he feels the same way," whispered Prang.
"Mmm, well," said Julian. "I don't know if I should be pleased to hear you say that. You call him Elim and he calls you Limor – one would surmise from that, Legate, that you're partly responsible for him being left out in the cold, or at least, not letting him be brought back in again."
Prang didn't say anything, but watched as Julian went to find Truly and Caractacus, who were not in their tank, but had been roaming his quarters, and were asleep in amongst the Edosian orchids, basking under the light of one of the direct sun lamps.
"You're a spy, then," said Julian. "If you knew one another. He spun me a story about you being a good friend of his least favourite uncle – Elim won't ever tell the truth when he can tell a good lie instead. You must know that."
Prang didn't say anything.
"Is it safe for me to be alone with you?"
"If it wasn't, do you think Elim would allow it?"
"Elim letting me be alone with you doesn't necessarily mean he trusts you with me, Legate Prang," said Julian gently, meeting the other man's gaze as he held Truly and Caractacus in his hands, both of them flattening their bodies against his palm and blending in with the colour of it, trying to replicate the wrinkles of his fingers.
Prang looked at him askance, his ridges furrowing slightly.
"It means that, if he thinks you would hurt me, or might try," said Julian, "that he thinks I could hold my own with you."
Prang's smile was a crescent just like Julian's. "The first of your assertions is more likely than the second or third, Doctor Bashir."
Julian's smile widened, and he kept the legate's gaze. "Is that what you think?" he asked. "Or is that what your pride tells you?"
For a long few moments they looked at one another, studying each other, making a measure of one another. Julian felt hot all over under the cool focus of Prang's gaze, and he wished that Garak could see him, watch him, even knowing he'd critique him after – because he'd critique him after.
How long had he and Prang known one another? Who was Prang to Garak, and who was Garak to Prang – how important was Prang? What was his real job, if it wasn't what he did on Vulcan? Who was he, really? What did he know about Julian – what intel did they have on him, based on Garak?
"We don't want the boy to go to Cardassia Prime," said Julian.
Prang's expression didn't change, but his head tilted slightly to the side. The leaves and flowers everywhere absorbed some of the sound in the room, but Julian had designed the hanging bridges and shelves for the regnars quite carefully, making sure they'd bounce around sound in the same way the walls and bulkheads were meant to.
It was meant to accommodate Garak's hearing, not Prang's, but it probably helped all the same.
"We?" Prang repeated eventually.
"Rugal's interested in linguistic analysis, history," said Julian. "He's a young man who is not entirely at home with accepting an established truth, or a dictated history. It's one thing to say the wrong thing and be stupid – I know what Cardassia does with boys like that, because it's Cardassian military members that I see most. But a boy that says the wrong thing and isn't stupid, that's quite dangerous."
"When you implied a desire for some quid pro quo, Doctor Bashir, I had no idea your intention was to request I assist you in kidnapping him."
"I don't want to kidnap him. But I'm sure you can understand, Legate Prang, that the thought of saving him from misery on Bajor only to dispatch him for execution on Cardassia isn't the one that prompted me to give you a call."
"Is that what you think we do to our children?" asked Prang softly. "Execute them for asking inconvenient questions?"
"It's only adults that get that treatment, I suppose?"
"Some," said Prang, his gaze on Julian's feeling very deliberate.
Julian waited for him to go on.
He didn't.
"Elim's thinking of applying for Federation citizenship and denouncing Cardassia," said Julian, and Prang laughed. It was a soft and rasping sound, full of genuine joy and affection, the sort of laughter other people weren't accustomed to hearing from Cardassians, but Julian was. Julian heard it from Garak, and he heard it from Madrel, and he heard it from the other exiles – and of course, he heard it from Limor Prang.
"No," he said indulgently, voice warm with affection, "he isn't."
"No," Julian agreed softly. "He isn't: he never would. But he's done some things you never expected of him, hasn't he? Me, for example. I'm probably a surprise."
"No," said Prang pleasantly. "You, or someone like you, this is… very in-character for Elim."
"Ah," said Julian, not giving Prang the reaction he assumed he was looking for – for Julian to get defensive, jealous, to assume from Prang's implication that Garak had had a great many young students like Julian. It was natural to try to get him to make that inference and try to make him jealous, especially given that Julian was Human and was more likely to consider himself special in a cultural relationship not as enfranchised or culturally significant to his own background. Prang had no way of knowing that Julian had been with his share of older partners, that he'd slept with no less than three of his professors at Starfleet Academy, and a fair few superiors on one placement or other. "You mean the woman he was exiled for."
The lift of Prang's head was the barest of movements, but although he showed nothing in his face, Julian could see the ever so slight twitching of the scales over his neck, and he decided to tack something on – he might not be able to get Prang to tell him anything, but that didn't mean he couldn't find something out about Garak, or imply to Prang that he knew more about Garak than he really did, so that Prang would be more relaxed later – or better, more guarded with Garak, so that Garak told him something.
What to say?
What did Garak most seem to dislike about himself, his work – his betrayal of Cardassia was simple, and anyone could comment about it. Julian couldn't really use his mother or father, and Garak had never said anything very useful about children.
He complained about Federation multiculturism, but Julian was pretty sure the woman, Palandine, had been another Cardassian – what did Garak hate? He hated people treating mothers badly, disapproved of infidelity, but Julian couldn't be certain that Palandine had had children, or that she'd been married or cheated on or what…
No, something more all-encompassing. What did Garak like? Imagination. Culture. Strength. He disapproved of naivety, of oversimplicity, and—
"I think he's learned his lesson," said Julian, "that sentiment can be such a dangerous thing."
Prang's stare might as well have come with a flashing sign that said BULLSEYE!
"But what do I know?" asked Julian, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not much better than a Bajoran bedwarmer, am I? All soft and ridgeless, a doctor, so full of sentiment myself?"
"Not as full of sentiment as perhaps we assumed," said Limor Prang softly.
Julian let it hang between them for a moment, and then repeated, "We?"
That one had been free, a bonus prize, a little reward for how much he'd been trying – Limor Prang's warm smile had no surprise in it at all.
Julian wondered if Prang had been Garak's teacher, in one way or another, once upon a time.
"I assume you wanted something from me," said Julian. "Something other than to see my regnars." He had the two of them cupped against his chest now, and Caractacus was on top of Truly's back, the both of them sandwiching themselves as best they could between the warmth of Julian's hands and the heat of his chest. "Or did you just want to make sure there's a record of me with a strange Cardassian national alone with me in my quarters, so you can try to pretend I'm a double agent?"
"Perhaps I'm here to offer you a chance to turn," said Prang.
"Mmm, I see how that might be the case," said Julian. "After all, it's so obviously suspicious, the Federation would never suspect a thing."
"Were you like this before you met Elim?" asked Prang softly. "I don't know that I've ever met a boy so caustic with his wit."
"Rumours of Cardassian venom are greatly exaggerated," said Julian wryly, although inwardly he felt a flare of panic, wondered if that meant that Prang knew something, somehow, if he suspected… But how could he? "That you don't hear rumours of the Human equivalent is part of the threat."
"Proka Rugal's father," said Prang, "is Kotan Pa'Dar. Pa'Dar is an important man – his family has always been a guiding hand in Cardassia's history books, and apart from being an exarch on Bajor, he is currently an increasing influence within the Detapa Council. From what I have been able to gather and surmise, during an attack on Bajor in which Arys Pa'Dar was killed, the boy was taken to a resettlement centre on the other side of the continent. A political enemy of Pa'Dar's thought to make use of him."
Julian took this in, his brow furrowing as he moved across the room, gently placing Truly and Caractacus back under the lamp, in amongst the orchids. It wasn't just about hurting Pa'Dar in a simple way – if that was it, they'd have killed Rugal alongside his mother, and just made it look like part of the attack. It wasn't just about leaving him on Bajor, either, or no one would have paid for Bajorans to adopt him and tell him how awful Cardassians were.
"He's a sort of sleeper agent, isn't he?" asked Julian, turning his head and looking at Prang. "Adopt the boy out to Bajorans who teach him to hate what he is, and once he returns to Cardassia, what embarrassment he'll cause. It's not about Rugal getting killed once he gets back to Cardassia Prime, although I'm sure that's a pleasant benefit. It's about the humiliation he'll bring to his father when he criticises Cardassia, when he doesn't assimilate – and doesn't just assimilate, but actively resists. What better a tool to ruin a man's reputation, and undermine his loyalty to the state?"
Prang was smiling, his eyes sparkling. "It is no surprise to me," he said softly, "that you and Elim are so well-matched."
"I'm right, then?"
"No, you're quite wrong," said Prang. "You have the same flaw Elim did, when he was your age – your intelligence blinds you to the simplicity of reality, Doctor Bashir. This scheme was not thought out by an intelligence agent or a politician, nor executed by them – were that the case, I have no doubt that the end result you imagine would have been the intention."
"You've got quite a bit of scorn for whoever thought this up, haven't you?" asked Julian, hearing the slight stiffness in Prang's quiet tones, and he wondered if the man was quite so quiet, much of the time, because of how much his voice could reveal. Prang's lips quirked up at their edges. "But what sort of idiot would think up another end? What, the point is to reveal Rugal's existence before killing him dead again?"
"Not quite that simple, Doctor," said Prang. "Cardassians value family, after all."
Julian furrowed his brow, tilting his head to the side as he looked at the other man, trying to take that in. "I don't understand," he said. "What, they took aside Rugal and abandoned him in an orphanage, paid him to be looked after by Bajorans, so that when it came out, they could pretend that he left his son on Bajor on purpose? That he, what, abandoned him to Bajorans? Who'd believe that? What sort of fucking idiot would—" Julian trailed off, partly because he didn't know how "fuck" translated to Kardasi, knew that it came up with a very catty translator's note into most Vulcan dialects, and partly because a sinking feeling had made itself known in his chest, and he sighed. "When you say a political enemy, you don't by any chance mean Skrain Dukat?"
Prang's smile was full of pleasure and approval as he said, "You're the one that remarked, Doctor, upon the simplicity of our military men."
"If that man was half the menace he was on purpose as he was out of ignorance and stupidity, he'd probably be the Detapa Council's leader by now," muttered Julian.
"Elim's never liked him either."
"Yes, well, much as I've no doubt you'd like to put all my opinions down to Elim's influence, Legate, I'm afraid everyone on this station is perfectly capable of knowing a dangerous idiot when we see one without Elim showing us the way." Julian exhaled hard, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head. "Pa'Dar is on his way?"
"He is."
"Dukat will have heard he's travelling here. Is he following?"
"Yes."
Julian shifted on his feet. "How far behind is he? A day, two days?"
"Three at the very most."
"You're obviously telling me this before we go to dinner for a reason – and you're obviously telling me on my own for a reason too."
"Pa'Dar's influence in the Detapa Council can be leveraged, Doctor," said Prang. "If this happened to one child, it is quite possible it has happened to others, that other Cardassian children were thought dead, but are in fact alive."
"But this sort of acknowledgement will be a commitment to actually do something," said Bashir softly, "and might lead to all those children going back to Cardassia Prime or another Cardassian colony, not to Vulcan. Or at least, movements in that direction – they don't actually want the hybrids, for the most part, but just the government saying it wants to help them instead of demurring might lead to them being stuck in limbo."
Prang inclined his head.
"Do you have a suggestion on how to proceed?"
"My dear doctor," said Prang softly, and Julian caught the inflection on the dear, the Kardasi phrasing it came from: an affectionate diminutive, a reminder of age, lesser social class and/or influence, a tone of familiarity. It was appended to titles, was very different to the phrasing that was applied to names, or an equivalent diminutive on its own. It was used in schools and workplaces – it was the affection an educator showed for a favourite student. Prang was spreading his hands. "I only seek to equip you with the relevant facts."
"My dear Legate," replied Julian in Kardasi, appending the affectionate term for a favoured educator, and Prang's smile was dazzling, "the more Cardassians seem to show they like me, the less I like them back. Moments like these are part of why."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," said Prang insincerely.
"Are you Elim's father?" asked Julian, and Prang's jaw actually dropped, his whole body recoiling slightly as he stared at him, and Julian watched with interest as he worked to collect himself again. "Sorry," he said, just as insincerely as Prang had apologised himself. "I was just curious. Give me a minute – I'm just going to change for dinner. And— Legate?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Make sure you don't forget the listening device you put in our crab apple tree," said Julian. "Caractacus hates them, and I'd hate for it to come to any damage."
Prang smirked at him, and Julian smirked back as he went to pick out the green shirt that Garak had made for him, all those months ago.
Prang spoke very little at dinner, which Garak wasn't surprised by. He had eaten lunches with Prang before, and over a shared meal with one other person, Prang was very polite and really quite affable, despite being laconic by his nature, but at a dinner with a group of people, he rarely spoke much.
Tain had had the trick of it.
Tain had had a way of dropping a thread into conversation, almost an aside, that would provoke Prang so much as to prompt him to join the conversation, and Garak distantly recalled dinners as a young man, himself and other young men quiet and awed as the great Enabran Tain drew the infamously silent Prang into a debate. The way they would speak with one another was a thousand lessons – Tain, gregarious and charming and with moments of perfect savagery; Prang quiet but remarkably emphatic in his points, calculated and ever full of a reserved and burning passion for his subject.
They might have been the image of a perfect marriage, were it not that Prang were too old for Tain's tastes, as far went men.
Garak, abruptly robbed of his appetite, wiped his mouth and set his napkin down. Bashir, of course, had already cleared his throat, young Dax not far behind him, and the boy Rugal had eaten almost as fast – mercifully, apart from Garak himself, young Lora ate with the dignity and deliberation appropriate of a Cardassian, and she ate apace with Prang.
Prang was as scandalised by the girl as he was delighted by her, of course; he showed a great deal of approval for Rugal's intelligence, his engagement, as Garak had expected him to.
Bashir was surprised, of course.
It wasn't until they had come away, all of them moving toward Quark's – it wasn't quite 2100 hours, and Rugal was asking Dax his typical thousand questions, occasionally asking Prang one as well, although as he was with Garak, he was a little frightened of looking up at Prang's face, and kept looking at Lora or Bashir as he asked them instead. It was nice for the young man, to be met with people who actually permitted him, encouraged him, to engage – that Bashir, his arm through Garak's, his body leaned against Garak's, said, "Is Rugal an aristocrat's name? More common with the upper classes, I mean, than the working classes?"
Than names like Elim, you mean? Garak almost asked, but didn't. "Yes," he said instead.
Bashir slowly nodded his head. "You suspected this. You don't want him to go back to Cardassia Prime, but it's different, if he's an aristocrat. His father's money and position can protect him from the consequences a bit, can't they? Of how he is?"
"It remains to be seen," said Garak softly. "The boy is old enough to make his own decisions. If he embraces his education and his position, perhaps he might be protected. Do you think that likely?"
Bashir's cheek on his shoulder was almost indecent, but Prang and Lora were facing the other way, and there was no one else around who might know better. Bashir was leaning into him for comfort as many people did to their spouses. "Will Pa'Dar kill Dukat for this?" he asked, breathing out the words.
"I don't believe so."
"Will Prang?"
"No."
Bashir's voice was almost wheedling when he asked, "Will you?"
Garak pulled Bashir closer with a hand around his waist, pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "If I did, my dear," he said softly, "would you ever forgive yourself?"
"Maybe I wouldn't," said Bashir. "But I'd forgive you."
"Sentimental."
Bashir laughed, the sound soft and full of an ache he didn't expect – he wondered how much Julian would tell him, later on, about his conversation with Prang. "Yes, Elim," said Bashir. "I'm very sentimental. It's something the three of us have in common, it seems."
Garak led him forward, into Quark's, and they took a table together, waving over a waiter.
"No kanar," said Bashir loudly, interrupting the Ferengi before he could start his spiel at Prang. "We want a bottle of the '33 ithkara and four glasses, please, a mug of sweetened gelat with mallow pieces for the boy, and a plate of ikri buns."
The Ferengi waiter shut his mouth, staring at Bashir – he was a recent transplant from Ferenginar, and he didn't know what to do, faced with a Human giving him such a Cardassian order – and, having forgotten himself, giving it in Kardasi, too.
To Prang, he said, "Quark can't water down the ithkara like he can the kanar. He tries anything he can to avoid selling it." To Dax, he said, "Sorry. Order whatever you want, on me."
Lora laughed, hiding her smile behind her mouth, and Bashir nudged her, laughed when Lora nudged him back.
Prang met Garak's gaze over the table, and for just a moment, Garak was home. He was standing in Tain's office or their dining room, pretending not to know his own mother and pretending that his father was his superior's gardener; he was standing in Prang's office and taking his newest briefing; he was in a geleta house and listening to other operatives talk, as silent at the table as Prang was. In Prang's smile, there was a distant familiarity.
And then, the ghost of home was gone again, and Garak was in exile, and Prang was a stranger amongst strangers.
He almost felt maudlin about it, until Bashir said, "Yan-pret Kardasa-zchak," in a very dry voice after the Ferengi had finally walked away – he'd done it for Lora, to make her laugh, but it had taken Prang and Garak both by surprise, and they laughed as mirrors of one another.
Here was Julian Bashir, lover of exiles, sentimental fool, a quadruple-agent on the side of whatever side deserved him most, by whatever maddening logic he was applying to the situation.
"It means for the love of Cardassia," Garak told Rugal, but he made contact with Dax right after, who seemed somewhere between overwhelmed and utterly delighted. Dax, of course, was a passionate believer in cultural exchange.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I'm the only non-Ferengi when I play Tongo – it's not so different being the only non-Cardassian with you guys." She grinned as she said it, meeting Bashir's gaze.
Bashir's expression faltered, showing the barest shame and uncertainty, and Garak saw Dax's eyes widen, her expression showing regret.
"Oh, Julian," she said, "I didn't mean—"
"My dear Lieutenant," said Garak, catching her arm before she could bring too much attention to the moment, before she could stretch it out that Bashir couldn't shrug it off, "speaking of Tongo… I don't suppose they might let us use his board?"
"Garak," hissed Bashir. "You're not going to teach Rugal to gamble."
"My dear," said Garak woundedly, "I've not the slightest idea how to play Tongo! I thought that young Dax might educate Lora."
"No, Garak."
Dax leaned forward, her chin on her hands, and she fluttered her eyelashes at Bashir as she asked, "What about dom-jot?"
Without looking over at the dom-jot table, Bashir said flatly, "There's already people playing."
"Okay," said Dax, tapping her hand on the table as she stood to her feet, "I'll go put us down to play next."
"Jadzia!" Bashir called, but she was already rushing away.
"I'll teach you another time," whispered Garak to the boy in a stage whisper, and between them, Rugal laughed as Bashir tried to reach over his head to smack Garak in the arm.
"I thought you didn't know how to play Tongo, Garak," said Lora pleasantly. "That's what you told us yesterday."
"Did I?" asked Garak in equally innocent, unassuming tones. "I must have been thinking of another game."
"Yan-pret Kardasa-zchak?" Rugal asked Bashir, who sighed, and nodded.
"It's as good an exclamation as any," he said resignedly.
Across the table, Prang was still smiling, and Garak wondered what it might be like were it Tain with them instead of Prang, and then swiftly looked away, seeing if the waiter was yet on his way back with their drinks.
