Julian stopped for a moment in the centre of the park square as they walked through it, staring at the broad sprawl of the Paldar Sector.

The buildings here were not as tall as they were in the Coranum Sector or the other sectors of the city where the richest and most influential lived – the Paldar Sector primarily housed upper-level bureaucrats and civil servants, and while there was some allowance for building height, more of the space was allowed for personal gardens and small fields, although Julian knew these were tended by people's servants, their gardeners, or other nearby labourers, and rarely by the bureaucrats themselves.

Garak had grown up in the Paldar Sector.

There'd only been a little of it on the holosuite program of Cardassia City that Pa'Dar had brought to DS9, and seeing it now, Julian felt a little breathless at the sight of the flowers, the vegetables and fruit trees and vines, that grew in the yards.

They weren't like the ones that grew on Vulcan, in the neighbourhoods of the Cardassian exiles. There were no trees or fruit bushes growing in the streets, and when they passed by a garden, Julian had seen neatly implemented fenceposts that bordered bushes and hedges, and signs banning the harvesting of fruit or flowers in the sector without prior dispensation from the state.

He'd seen some of the rokassa vines in the poorer sectors of the city when they'd ridden the tram through the city, over the bridge across the Kardasi River: they were picked so empty that they were withering in places.

Enabran Tain's house was a neatly appointed villa, and it had a broad yard with rows of growing crop and flowers, although here and there the vegetable patches were messy or unfinished. Julian couldn't help but think that if this were Garak's patch of land, it would be ripe all over with fruit, and every flower would be alive and broad-petaled and open. There'd be no dead heads or withered leaves as there were amongst the ones he could see here – and no electrified fencing around the fruit bushes and vegetable patches either.

Even if Garak wanted them, Julian would never allow it.

(He didn't think Garak would want them. It was the sort of thing Garak would suggest just for the pleasure of having Julian argue with him, so that Julian would say "absolutely not" because Garak couldn't say it out loud himself.)

If the Federation kicked him out, would the two of them take up together in a house like this one? Smaller, of course, and not in the Paldar Sector – but a house, together, and a garden? Fruit?

"You need a new gardener," said Julian. "Yours obviously doesn't know what he's doing."

"Are you volunteering?" asked Tain.

"I'm sure I know even less."

Which house had Garak grown up in in this sector? Which basement had he lived in with the man he thought was his father, and his aunt, with his father living upstairs?

Tolan Garak had been a gardener – and Garak's real father, who had been called something else, he'd been… What? A bureaucrat? A middle-manager within the civil service – a member of the Detapa Council, perhaps, or of the State Intelligence? Maybe he'd been a senior clerk in the Central High Command, or a Councillor like Pa'Dar without Pa'Dar's good breeding, or a decorated military officer.

Whatever he'd been, he'd been a good friend of Prang's. He'd beaten Garak severely.

Garak had said his father was dead, but he'd said a lot about his father, much of it conflicting whatever he'd said before. He'd said that his father had taught him to plant Edosian orchids more than once – that had been Tolan Garak, he was fairly certain.

What about the rest of the lessons Garak had mentioned? Which of his fathers, the real one or Garak, had taught him to ride hounds? Which had taught him to braid hair and give a manicure? Which had taught him to sew? Which had told him to flirt, how to compliment women? Which had taught him Romulan strategy – which had taught him to play kotra?

Julian wasn't cuffed, wasn't bound in any way as they walked up the garden path to Tain's house. Julian saw a feral lemur chuffing along the other path, and he smiled, automatically bent to click his tongue and try to encourage it toward him, but it caught its tail on a fencing border and yelped in pain, rushing off and leaving the little containment field flashing behind it.

Tain was watching him with amusement, and Julian stood to his feet, looking up to the house as the doors opened, and an old woman in a grey dress appeared. Her hair was turning white with age.

"Your wife?" asked Julian.

"My housekeeper," said Tain. "Doctor Bashir, this is Mila."

Tolan Garak's sister, Mila, was my real father's housekeeper.

Julian inhaled, looking around the garden, and then up to the house that Garak had grown up in when he was a little boy. He smiled as he stepped forward, although Mila was looking at him with uncertain suspicion, even as he bowed and greeted her.

"Good tidings, Mila," said Julian. "It's an honour."

"Is it?" asked Mila, arching her eyebrows. She used a negative inflection, denoting his alien status, and Julian gave her a smile, making sure that he could see Tain's reaction in the mirrored glass of the window as he readied himself to reply.

"It is," said Julian cheerfully. "We aren't officially enjoined, but I'm involved with your nephew. Elim always speaks very fondly of you."

Mila's mouth opened, her eyes widening, and she looked past Julian to Tain: in the glass of the window, Julian watched Tain's lips twist in displeasure, even as he raised his head.

He thought that Julian had known this whole time exactly who he was, who Mila was – good. That made Julian look better, and he would rather that Tain didn't feel as though he could make accurate estimations of him. Julian's whole head was screaming with the sudden, painful knowledge that of all the people to kidnap him, it was Garak's father who had done so, and he wished he could believe that meant he was in less danger, not more.

"The exile has taught you to lie, I see," said Mila.

"I already knew how to lie, Ma'am," said Julian pleasantly, not showing his deterrence at the coldness in her tone. "Elim's just honed my instincts. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"You're a guest of Tain's," said Mila. "You want to scrub pots and tend the garden?"

"Anything's better than talking to him," said Julian, nodding behind him, and Mila stared at him: there was disgust on her face, and anger, but there was amusement too, albeit as well-hidden as she could manage.

"Such ingratitude for your host," said Tain scoldingly. "That won't get you far on Cardassia, Doctor."

"Oh, I'm only teasing, Tain," said Julian woodenly, not looking away from Mila's face. "I'm your prisoner, after all. I'll be as polite as you want me to be. Just like other young men you've had in this house." He looked back at Tain, whose expression was cultivatedly blank. "I'm like him, after all, aren't I?"

"Oh, yes," said Tain softly. "And as provocative as he was, too."

"Still is," said Julian. "You should see him twist people in knots on DS9. Oh, wait. You probably do, with all those little bugs of yours."

"Show him to the guestroom," said Tain. "Allow him free run of the house – let him scrub pots if he wishes it. I'll return in the evening."

"Wait," said Julian. "Where's Garak?"

"Safe," said Tain, and kept walking away from them.

Julian scowled after him, and when Mila leaned back, gesturing for him to follow her inside, Julian powerlessly stepped in after her.


Garak's throat was hoarse, he thought from screaming, and his whole body was raw and heavy with an aching, gnawing pain the likes of which he had never before experienced, although it was not in any way as painful as the agony that had come before.

Time had blurred together, such that he had no idea how long he'd been embroiled in it, but the pain had come from everywhere at once, and it had been like being electrocuted, like being wrenched apart, like being murdered, all at once, over and over again.

It made sense that after that all-encompassing agony, where he'd begged and screamed and sobbed for his death, that his body should ache with emptiness in the aftermath. With so much pain pulled out of him, how could there be anything left?

It was cold in the hospital room, although he was wrapped in a heavily quilted blanket, and there was a strange hollowness in the comforts of home, in the dark purples that healers wore on Cardassia, in the Cardassian heat and humidity, in the fact that when people passed by they spoke in Kardasi.

He was either soon to die here, or to be exiled again – how could he take comfort in home's embrace, knowing it would be fleeting?

And Bashir, where was he? Where was Major Kira, who they'd been going to meet – had she truly been there at all, or was there simply a ruse? He thanked his stars that he'd stepped through to the contemplation gardens instead of slipping away to drop in on Keiko, because if he hadn't, then—

Then.

Then, then, then.

Then, what?

The door opened, and it wasn't Parmak or one of the other doctors at the facility here in Cardassia City.

It was Tain, and Garak stared at him from where he was wrapped, so pathetically, in his quilted blanket, his body trembling and cold and his eyes with unhealthy, chalky gleam, his scales dry and flaking.

"I've done you a favour, Elim," said Tain softly. "I've had your wire disabled – otherwise, within a few more months, it might have killed you. You know, months ago I might have thought of that as one last torture, forcing you to go on living, but I rather see what you find so pleasurable about your time on Terok Nor with that… charming little creature in your bed. You've told him so much, haven't you?"

Garak said nothing. Nausea rolled in his belly like a raging sea, and he felt so, so cold.

"So young," said Tain. "So intelligent, so vibrant, so curious. He's a biting and mischievous thing, much like a lemur – he seems to delight in teasing poor Mila. Tugging at her skirts, bickering with her."

"She likes him, then?" Garak managed to say. His voice was so hoarse that it came out as little more than a dusty whisper.

Tain's smile was almost as cold as Garak felt.

"You always had such a habit of picking fruit that wasn't yours to harvest," said Tain. "Palandine, Lok… And now, Bashir."

"At least I pick fruit once it's ripened on the vine, Enabran," said Garak. "When it's ready to be picked, and not before."

"Exile has blunted your tongue."

"No," said Garak. "Merely that I am in such extravagant pain, at this moment, I couldn't care less what I say to you. I expect I'm likely to die either way."

"Death is not a mercy I would ever give you, Elim," said Tain. "I thought by now you would understand that."

"That's what this is, then? You disable my wire, the better to preserve me for further agony?"

"You're not being preserved for you at all, boy," said Tain frankly, his hands flat over his paunching belly, his head tilted slightly to the side. There was a smile on his face that was gathering warmth, and that unsettled Garak to his core. Even through the haze of the emptiness that engulfed him from the inside-out, some ancient, instinctive part of his brain sensed the danger in that smile. "You appear to have lost interest in yourself, the better to invest attention in your Human doctor friend – it seems natural to me that I should follow your example."

Garak stared at Tain, and Tain sighed in satisfaction.

"You're training him for something, it's evident to me," he said quietly. "Either you think he's the key to your return, or he somehow factors into it, once you're home. Plan to make a wife of your doctor boy, do you, and fill a house with half-breeds?"

Garak didn't say anything, but this time, he didn't need to. He couldn't feel any of the emotion he knew that he ought to, couldn't grasp hold of the fleeting feelings that were on the edge of his awareness if not close enough to comprehend – Tain was wavering. Tain knew Garak well, well enough to have understood the level of his investment in Bashir, but as much as he could see Garak's heart, Garak could see Tain's.

Tain was nervous of Bashir, which was curious. Whatever would Bashir have, display, do, for Tain to be frightened or uncertain of?

Perhaps Mila really did like him? That would unnerve Tain, but then, it would unnerve Garak. He'd learned to never be entirely certain of himself or the foundation beneath them when Mila displayed affection for someone – she didn't even display particular affection for Garak or Tain.

Was it possible that Bashir knew things Garak hadn't intended to teach him, that he'd needled at Tain's own insecurities, extrapolated some details that Tain didn't care to see extrapolated?

Garak was smiling.

Tain didn't like that: his own smile widened.

"What is it about this Federaji child that you think might endear you to Cardassia, and encourage her arms to once more embrace you?" asked Tain softly. "He's quite skilled in medicine, evidently – what's your intention, that he should work on some a vaccine or cure-all for Cardassia Prime? Or is it through these half-blooded orphans you think you might manage your return – by removing them from Bajor, dispatching them as he wants to Vulcan's cold embrace, you think he might be endeared to Pa'Dar's office, to the Central Command, the Detapa Council? Or is this a means to an end you're counselling him through, to some further control he might have over Bajor, or within the Federation?"

"So many questions, Enabran," said Garak softly. "It used to be that I thought of you as the man with all the answers."

Tain chuckled. "Answers, questions. Always plain and simple with you, isn't it, boy?"

"I'm sorry my Federaji child," said Garak idly, although he was struggling to moderate his tone, couldn't tell if he sounded wooden or sarcastic or truly in control, "is causing you such distress."

"Distress? Elim, by no means," purred Tain. "Such an exciting puzzle he is – so much potential is wrapped up in that handsome little body of his. Perhaps I might grow to see the appeal in ripened fruit after all – and I expect you ripen him yourself, don't you, as any Cardassian does with an alien like him? Make him as fat and plump as the ripest berry on the vine? What a prize you've stumbled into, a doctor's mind in a whore's alien body. I almost want to set him loose on the streets of Cardassia City now, and see what he gets up to."

"Has exile blunted my tongue, Enabran, or yours?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Tain, chuckling. "Ought I speak politely of your pet lemur? You indulged yourself with Vlatvlat as a child, and now you indulge yourself with this one, far more salaciously, as a man."

"You're so desperate to make this about sex, Enabran," said Garak, and did his best to write sympathy of his face, although he could barely feel his lips, his eyes, his cheeks, had no ide what his face looked like. "Have you succumbed, as the most unfortunate rhodruns do, to the call of your libido? No wonder you're retired, if you can't follow a conversation without satisfying your basest urges. But then, that was always your problem, wasn't it?"

Tain took care to hold back his snarl, but Garak could see the ghost of it nonetheless, see it written in his pulse if not on his mouth.

"You want to sit back and watch the havoc my lemur causes," said Garak pleasantly. "You want to indulge him? You want so badly to be in his good graces, do you? What are you worried he could do to you?"

"What are you hoping he could do to me?"

"Enabran, please," said Garak, spreading his hands, although it made him open the blanket and left a horrible chill on his skin before he let it close again. "I'm an exile – I couldn't hope to do anything to you, least of all strategise against you using a piece of Terran jewellery as my game piece. Don't let your petty insecurities darken your days. Where is he?"

"Bashir? In my kitchen, I have no doubt, peeling vegetables, scrubbing pots, clinging to Mila's skirts. Rather a strange thing for you to do, I think, to fuck a boy who so mirrors your youth."

"Strange indeed," repeated Garak softly. "You really don't understand, do you? How out of your depth you must feel."

"I hope you do have a plan for him, Elim."

"Why do you ask?" asked Garak. "Have you plans in mind for him yourself, already?"

Tain had had enough of this dance, scoring some points but no victories, and he raised his chin, stepped out of the doorway.

"My condolences," said Garak, "on Prang's abandonment of you. You must be so lonely without his marital comforts – as attractive as you might find the boys you're so preoccupied with, they can't satisfy your other needs like he used to, can they?"

Tain's face darkened as he stepped out into the corridor, the light no longer showing his features in such relief.

Only after he heard his father's footsteps retreat did Garak wrap himself in the quilt once again, and laid himself down on his side.


"He speaks of me?" asked Mila curtly.

It was the first thing she'd said in some hours.

Julian had fallen into step behind her in the kitchen, doing as she was doing, peeling root vegetables and setting them to soak, washing the dishes with water from the rain reservoirs that drained into the kitchen from the roof. It was enough to wash dishes with, wasn't acidic enough to do any damage to the skin or the eyes – really, a man could drink it, but Cardassians didn't tend to drink water on its own unless for medicinal reasons, and tended to take in their hydration from juices, teas, and everything else.

Water was heavily rationed on Cardassia – it was possible to get more water from local wells and from within the plumbing system of houses like this one, but it came at a significant premium, and most tended to make do with rainwater before that. Apart from the small amount used in cooking and cleaning, preparing teas and so on, almost all of it was used to water plants and keep them sufficiently watered and hydrated, because the rain was heavy when it fell, but didn't fall for long enough, or enough days in the week. It was different, on the northern continent – there, it rained almost all the time, and instead of fighting against the desert's arid soil or a climate that lent itself easily to humidity but not to actual moisture, the fight was against the constantly encroaching swampland and marshes, where the water in the soil spread whatever soluble poisons were hidden under the ground rock.

"No," admitted Julian, not wanting to lie to her. "But I thought that if I said that, it would unnerve Tain."

Mila let out a low "hmph" of noise, but Julian caught a glimpse of her face, and he didn't think he was imagining the slight shift of her lips into a smile.

Meeting Mila had put Tain's reaction to his comment about housekeepers into context, but judging by the way Mila conducted herself, Julian didn't think that she and Tain were still involved – or maybe they were, and he just didn't know what the signs were between Cardassians, or it was intermittent, or weird, or complicated.

Or maybe Garak's name was Garak because it was Mila's name, not Tolan's, and Mila wasn't Garak's aunt, but his mother. He studied her face, the pale colour of her eyes, the specific pattern of the ridges around her eyes, down over her nose, around her jaw and neck.

There was a familial resemblance, either way, and Julian's head felt like it would explode.

He almost wanted it to. He should be trying to escape, he knew, but how could he, when this was Mila, when this was Garak's aunt, when he was in Garak's home? If he tapped into a databank here on Cardassia, he thought he might be able to make sense of most of the records.

He thought of all the times Garak had made him search through Cardassian records instead of doing it himself – going through databanks for the orphans on Bajor, looking through old files on DS9, even occasionally combing through isolinear rods for the information he'd asked for, that Garak would die before he just gave it to him.

He'd known already that it was preparing him for Cardassian bureaucracy, that it was a study intended to ensure he could adjust as easily as possible if they were exiled here, but didn't that knowledge feel heavy now? Off-planet communications were heavily monitored, and most people didn't have the capacity for that sort of thing within private homes unless they were high-up in the bureaucracy or the aristocracy – but Tain was the former, wasn't he?

And no proper Cardassian locked their office from the family.

"Do you miss him?" asked Julian, because he had to say something.

Mila rolled her eyes, and moved away from him, which he would like to think meant "yes", but he couldn't be certain of that, either.

"I hate him, at times," said Julian.

"That's only natural," said Mila.

"Because that's how Cardassians do romance," muttered Julian, and Mila laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound.

"No, child," Mila said – no modifier for his alien status, and when he beamed, she wagged a finger at him – and shook her head. "Because it's Elim."

"He lies to me," said Julian, feeling like a weight was off his chest as he said it. "Constantly, he lies to me – and I'd love to say I hated it, that I didn't like it, that it drives me mad, but I've come to expect it from him. To love it. The times when he tells me even a fraction of the truth feel like… victories. More than that, they feel so… intimate."

"Yes," said Mila. "It's a dangerous love. Take care you don't cut yourself with it."

"I'm here bleeding, aren't I?"

"Not yet," said Mila: she was stout, unshakable, severe. "But I expect you will. Take care you learn to stem the wounds yourself, and don't rely on the thought that Elim might attend them for you."

"Why's he brought me here?" asked Julian. "Tain?"

"How should I know? I'm his housekeeper – you think he asks me to keep his confidences?"

"Does he?" asked Julian.

"Enabran Tain is a very powerful man," said Mila. "Elim Garak isn't, and hasn't been for some time. Where do you think Julian Bashir factors in, young man?"

"I don't know that he does."

Mila laughed her barking laugh. "Think again," she said, and her voice was very stern as she looked at him, her expression severe. "A price is always paid for power on this planet, Doctor, for its gain or its loss, and as soon as you began this little game of yours with Elim, you stepped up to the table. Take note of the pieces on the board, which are yours, which you can predict, which you can't. Have a strategy, but be ready to change it. Always adapt to the players in front of you, those you can see, but remember to consider those you can't."

Julian sighed.

"What ever are you smiling about?"

"Nothing," murmured Julian. "You taught him to play kotra, didn't you?"

Mila stared at him, her expression strangely wary, and then said quietly, "My brother was never any good at kotra, Doctor. He is dead, and we survive."

"Yes, Ma'am," said Julian, and followed Mila to work on something else.


When Garak woke, he was immediately aware that Parmak wasn't the only other man in the room. Parmak had come to sit at the foot of his bed, a PADD in his lap that he was idly reading, but the other Cardassian was behind Garak, up against the wall, his pulse almost blending into the natural thrum of the air, but not quite. It was difficult to mirror, what with the medical equipment all about, but he wasn't trying very hard.

He knew he couldn't fool Garak – after all, Garak had taught him how.

"You turned your wire on some time after coming to Terok Nor, and never turned it off," Parmak said. "Whilst you were still amongst Cardassians, before the Federation had arrived, and you turned your wire on."

"Yes," said Garak.

"Because the pain was so unbearable."

"The isolation, the humiliation," said Garak quietly. "The boredom, the rejection. It seemed more dignified than turning to kanar, and less visible to others."

"And later on, when you found you no longer needed—"

"I was reliant on it," said Garak lowly. "I made attempts to go without, early in my… relationships. The lack slowed my thinking to nothing, my whole body hurt, I would be nauseated and unwell for days, weeks on end, unable to complete my work."

"Withdrawal," said Parmak. "Better than what you're feeling now, I would wager."

"Much better," admitted Garak freely, with a simple smile. "But the past is behind us now, isn't it?"

"Long gone," agreed Parmak, with the same sort of sharpened irony, although there was a sadness, a grief in his eyes, that Garak didn't like to see, and didn't know precisely what to make of. "At what point did the device you made to control the wire cease working entirely?"

"… Six months ago."

"And you noticed the intermittent malfunctions…?"

"Recently."

"Six months ago," Parmak challenged him.

Garak kept his gaze.

"Do you understand it could have killed you?" asked Parmak, leaning forward. The light caught the unnatural paleness of his damaged scales and almost seemed to light his ridges from within. "Your partner, Garak, is a doctor. Soon to be your enjoined, if I'm to believe the agents who brought you to me, and an extremely skilled medical professional – why wouldn't you tell him? Why couldn't you ask for help?"

"And here I thought these were medical questions," Garak said softly. "But here I see, Doctor Parmak, that as ever, you are blinded by sentiment and this strange compassion of yours. I would have thought all you've been through would have trained you out of that."

Parmak smiled back at him. "I almost want to voice the opposite sentiments to you, Mr Garak," he said quietly. "But I expect they'll do just as much good as yours to me."

"Where is he?"

"Bashir? I couldn't tell you."

"And the Bajoran woman who was captured with us? Kira Nerys?"

Parmak stared at him blankly a moment, and Garak saw him slowly shake his head, not recognising the name, seeming ignorant of the fact that Kira had ever been a member of their party. His flinch was full-bodied as Pythas Lok stepped from the shadow he'd created for himself, and materialised at Garak's side.

"That's enough, Doctor," he said. "If you'll leave us?"

"Captain Lok," said Parmak, standing quickly to his feet, and he gave a deferential bow before he swiftly left the room.

Pythas didn't sit at Garak's feet as Parmak had, but remained standing, and looked down at him. The years had been rather cruel to him, and shown no sign at all of their passing on his beautiful face: Pythas Lok's eyelashes remained long and his eyes remained wide, his lips plump, his cheeks rounded, and the lines of age on his face were paper-thin, such that you almost couldn't see them at all.

Garak, following after Tain, showed more age than he had a right to, seemed older than his years, and he smiled when Pythas Lok made no attempt to hide his jealousy and his lingering attraction, his gaze roving over Garak's face and his body with his quiet hunger, the way it had once upon a time.

"Hello, Elim," said Pythas.

"Hello, Pythas," said Garak. "You look young."

"I do," murmured Pythas quietly. "It's a curse. How are you feeling?"

The agony that suffused Garak's body, his every cell seeming to cry out in pain, was unspeakable. "Quite well, thank you," said Garak pleasantly. "Given the circumstances. What have you done with Major Kira?"

"Corbin Entek wanted her," said Pythas. His voice was so quiet, so quiet and yet so clear – Garak had missed it, he realised, more than he knew. "She was the reason I was dispatched to DS9, and Tain intercepted. He wanted the doctor, too."

"He didn't want me at all," Garak said mildly. The double meaning inherent was quite clear, and Pythas knew Garak enough to recognise it without making any commentary on it. Garak still wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't dead: it all seemed far too surreal.

"No," Pythas agreed. "But here you are. You're not dead yet."

Pythas always was good at picking up on a man's thoughts before he voiced them.

"Parmak says you brought a street whore into his hospital."

Pythas smiled at him. It was a thin, cool smile, "No, he didn't. Kelas Parmak is quite a polite and genteel man, unlike some I could mention. When did you catch a glimpse of Brava?"

"He was peering rather obviously through the observation window," murmured Garak, grunting in pain as he shifted up on the bed, his shoulders falling back against the back wall. "You haven't been able to convince him to stop painting his forehead like that?"

"He doesn't need to paint it," said Pythas, with a quiet smugness.

"That pigmentation is natural?"

"His lips, too."

"He's a fine specimen," said Garak politely, and Pythas' ever-serious laugh was quiet and had a delicate warmth in it. Age had done little to mark his face, but it had deepened and hoarsened his voice, and he spoke louder than he once did.

"I'm glad you like him," said Pythas. "Your handsome little friend made him feel quite insecure. He's certain everyone can tell at a glance that he used to be a sex worker."

"Everyone can," Garak pointed out. "I assume that's what you find so enticing about him. You should tell him so."

Pythas' lips curled at their edges.

The two of them existed for a few minutes in silence together, Garak lying back against the backboard of the bed, Pythas on his feet, and Garak existed in the moment not only here, in a modest hospital in Cardassia City, but also in the Bamarren Institute, resting in his cell with Mila in his lap, sitting out on the training ground listening to Calyx lecture another student, in Pythas' office in State Intelligence, a bottle of kanar on the table between them.

Cardassians did not experience memory, time, in quite the same fading way many other humanoids did, and when experiences a hundred years ago were as fresh in the mind as those of the same morning, one didn't miss things in precisely the same way – time moved on and on, the past falling behind the present, and stopped for no man.

One never truly missed the past, anyway – one missed the sensation of fresh opportunity musing on the past came with, the fantastical idea that return to one stitch in time meant that one could embroider what came after anew, and with that return, unstitch the tapestry of life as it had unfolded.

Garak missed Bamarren, at times.

He missed Pythas – he missed Palandine.

He missed most of all the illusion of simplicity that life had come with, although it had never been predictable, except to know that Tain would control his path.

"How is Entek these days?" asked Garak.

"The same as he ever was," said Pythas. "Much like you and I. None of us really changes."

Garak didn't agree, but he was tired, and in pain, and he lacked the spirit in him to argue, lacked the energy – and there was so great a ravine between he and Pythas, with so many years behind them, the trench of exile dug deep between them, that he found he lacked the motivation.

Experimentally, he considered reaching out and touching Pythas' skin, feeling Pythas' heat and wiry strength under his own body, Pythas' lips on his. He considered inviting Pythas into himself, as he had so many times before, and feeling the strength of his grip around Garak's waist, and more than that, thought about – remembered – lying in bed with Pythas, gazing into his big, youthful eyes.

They were pleasant ideas, but held no inherent draw. The passion that had once accompanied them, one that he well-recalled, was gone. Even Palandine, in these times, didn't hold the draw and appeal she once did – oh, he romanticised her, yes, dreamed of Palandine and her daughter, imagined reuniting with her, but it was a pastel-painted nonsense, divorced from reality, from the passage of time, from anything.

In his foolish daydreams, Palandine was untouched by age, her daughter still a child, and Garak, too, was a young and stupid, sentimental man.

Now he was older, and just as stupid and sentimental: little had changed, except that everything had.

"Do you think you're ready for a walk in the sun?" asked Pythas.

Garak stared at him, struck speechless. "No," he whispered, quite honestly, as he imagined the Cardassian sun kissing his skin for the first time in years, thought of the balmy heat of the air of the city, all the people moving past, and knowing it was real, not merely the false recreation of the holosuite. "But I would like to."

Pythas nodded his head, and stood to his feet, picking out Garak's clothes from the wardrobe, and helping him stand to dress.