"Jules, honey I really wish you wouldn't bring work to the dinner table. You should enjoy this time off."
"Its not time off, I was forcibly removed from active duty, mother." Bashir sighed; this was probably a mistake. Why did he come here? He should've known that he wouldn't get any work done with his mother and aunt Judith around. He remembered likening them to the two widows from an old Earth tale, Huckleberry Finn. They fussed over Julian his whole life and took delight in trying to fatten him up. The feast that they had prepared today for instance was enough to feed a small planet.
"Rather it was forced or not I can see that you have been overworked. Take a break now." His aunt added. Judith was his mother's younger sister; she had come to stay with Amsha shortly after his father's sentencing so she wouldn't be alone.
Julian put his pad down and pushed it to the center of the table and for the first time looked at the feast his mother had prepared. There was a mixture of English and Sudanese dishes, he pulled a bowl of elmussalammiya closer to him and breathed in the soups warm and inviting fragrance.
"It looks good. Thank you."
"I hope it tastes as good as it looks, I have gotten out of the habit of cooking since your father has been away."
"You mean since my father was imprisoned for trying to help his handicapped son."
"Stop it, Jules." Amsha rolled her eyes and took a sip of kava juice.
"I'm sorry, I am grateful for what you and father did for me. It was so hard before…" Julian fought off the memories that were threatening to breach the forefront of his mind. Thanks to his parents he was no longer a joke, the kid who couldn't even spell his own name at the age of 8.
"We would do it again but Jules, we didn't do it because we thought you weren't good enough."
"I know. But even with this genetically engineered brain I can't figure this out." Bashir picked up the pad once again.
"Your friend…" Judith asked.
"Yes, on the surface everything in her body and with the Dax symbiont are working the way they should except that her memory is gone, and the symbiont is alive but dormant. I can't make sense of any of this. Why is this happening and what can I do to make things right?"
"Precedent?" Judith asked.
"Yes, but in all eight cases the host and symbiont either died immediately or lived with no memory of the past."
"Interesting. Sounds like its hiding to me." Judith shrugged her shoulders and put a bite of Cornish hen in her mouth.
"What?" Bashir looked questionably at his aunt.
"What?" Now Judith was confused.
"No what did you just say?" Bashir lay his fork down and awaited an answer.
"Hiding? Oh yes, my first medical assignment when I graduated the Academy was on the USS Gideon there was an incident like what you're describing." His mother took another bite of her food and listened just as intently. When Judith didn't continue Julian nearly shouted.
"Continue!"
"Laren, he was the chief medical officer on the Gideon. One of my good friends on board was a joined Trill, Anka Fel and she was injured during a Breen attack, several of them boarded the ship while our shields were down. Anka ended up taking a disrupter blast to the abdomen. It was touch and go with her for a while. Laren removed the symbiont and repaired Anka's injuries."
"What about damage to the symbiont, was it stuck by the disruptor burst too?"
"Well, no, not on the surface anyway, at first Laren didn't realize that the symbiont was damaged."
"I tended the damage to Dax; it was just when I joined Dax back to Jadzia that everything went wrong and what do you mean on the surface?" This was like pulling teeth.
"It went wrong for Laren too until he took a second, third and fourth look at the symbionts vitals."
"Are you going to make me ask what he saw?" He was getting close to throttling the woman right here at the dinner table.
"The symbiont was hiding." She stated this as if her nephew should know exactly what she was referring to.
"What does that mean?" Bashir snapped.
"Just what I said, hiding, that's the term he used." Now Judith was annoyed by this whole conversation.
"There had to be a reason he phrased it that way!"
"Whatever means he used it worked, Ankas memory was fuzzy for a while, but it didn't take long until it came back completely. It was so long ago and there were so many injuries that day I can't be expected to remember every detail, honey." Judith finished.
"Your friend, where is she now?"
"Oh, I haven't spoken to her since right after the incident. She left Starfleet a few days after the attack and joined the Trill Science Ministry, we lost touch."
"You didn't think that was odd?" Julian questioned, it certainly struck him as odd.
"Why would I, I mean a lot of people were pretty shaken for weeks after? Though she was the only one who resigned."
"You said the doctors name was Laren?"
"Yes Joseph Laren. He had a thing for me but when I met your uncle Cliff it was a no-brainer." The woman giggled. Bashir quickly kissed his mother's cheek and then his aunts before leaving the dining room.
"Jules, what about dinner?" His mother called after him but received no reply.