I know that many people believe Star Trek Deep Space Nine is a vastly superior show to Star Trek Voyager, and they're right; there were some good moments in Voyager, I grant you, but there were so many possibilities that were never explored and they were in Deep Space Nine, where there was a vast amount of character development. One of the characters who truly thrived under character development was Dr Bashir, who went from an eager puppy to a mellow, quiet, solemn character who was brought down slowly as the seasons progressed. But it was in season 5 where he was imprisoned by the Dominion and later his genetic secret came out that he grew.

Be warned, some of the dialogue is not included in the original viewing of the episode.

I don't own Star Trek, please let me know what you think.

"Dr Bashir, I presume? Or are you just a fake?"

"I can't believe you set them up like that!" Julian stormed past Chief O'Brien, barely even looking once at the man whom he called his friend, too angry to really give a toss about what the other man was feeling.

"We didn't set them up," Miles protested. "They just happened to walk in when the programme was running. Zimmerman thought it would be an idea to test the programme's ability to cope with an unexpected situation."

Unexpected situations?

Unexpected situations! Did the Chief….really think that was the best excuse imaginable? It was pathetic! Julian wanted nothing more than to shriek with rage. Ever since he had returned from the Gamma Quadrant with Garak and Worf and Martok and the prisoners of the Internment Camp after a month of hell as a prisoner of the Dominion, Julian had become aware of how solemn he had become, but after the horrors he had seen, witnessing and wincing as Martok was barely able to stand up during the fights he had with the Jem'Hadar guards while that bastard Vorta had looked on tolerating the barbarity in the sake of keeping his troops happy, he no longer cared.

When Starfleet Medical had told him about Zimmerman's project with the Long-term Emergency Medical Holographic program, a part of him had been awed. He had known about the EMH program for a long time now. A holographic doctor who was able to diagnose injuries and illnesses who could work with the rest of the medical team or substitute it for short periods if the main medical team was killed off or there were too few of them, but he had never seen one.

The Defiant's computer system couldn't handle the load of the EMH. It didn't help there was little capacity in the computer to handle the EMH systems and DS9's Cardassian built and designed computer was incompatible with the EMH.

Zimmerman had called it holographic immortality, having his face plastered over the holographic templates of millions of new holograms, but Julian had gotten cold feet when he had found out Zimmerman had gone behind his back and brought in his parents. When they had met for the first time in 3 years, Julian had known the old argument would start again. It was inevitable. It was the reason he hardly, if ever, visited Earth and his family.

Those thoughts were thought through in a second after the Chief had uttered his pathetic excuse; a part of him understood the logic in having the new LMH program experience unexpected scenarios, but since this news would shatter his life, Julian didn't want to think about logic.

"And you let it go on?" Julian turned and continued his rant; he knew this would be the only real-time he could vent his spleen on this given how the secret he had been keeping before discovering in his mid-teens what his parents done to him had been revealed by the very people who'd told him not to say a word but turned out to be too stupid to keep their own mouths shut. "You let them stand there and make fools of themselves while the two of you sat in the backroom and laughed?"

That was what angered him the most. Julian had masked it, but he had known when he had first come to the station he had aggravated many of the station's crew. It was only time that allowed them to get along, but surely it would have occurred to Miles to stop the whole thing before it became even worse?

O'Brien had had enough of being blamed for this whole mess. "Look, I'm sorry about this. I wish it had never happened, but it has and now we've got a problem."

Julian calmed down, but not too much. He was still furious with how his idiot parents, who had stupidly lectured him when he was younger not to talk about his DNA restructuring through genetic manipulation had revealed it in a room which wasn't their quarters or his own, where they could speak privately, but he was done talking.

All he wanted to do was sit and think about what he was going to do next. "I don't want to talk about it," he said quietly.

"Julian, Zimmerman is going to file a report saying that Doctor Bashir is unsuitable for computer modelling because of his suspected genetically enhanced background. Do you know what's going to happen when that report gets back to Starfleet Medical?" O'Brien asked.

It was a rhetorical question, they both knew that. Starfleet regulations prevented anyone with genetic enhancements, suspected or otherwise, from joining the service. Julian had had his back to Miles, but he turned slowly and stared at his friend with silent, sad, solemnity. "There's going to be a formal investigation which will lead to my eventual dismissal from the service."

It would happen. While most normal scans wouldn't detect his enhancements, there were scans that would be more thorough. And Starfleet would ensure he was subjected to them. When that happened his fate would be sealed, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Miles gasped, "Then it's true? You're-?" He suddenly found it hard to think of the right word to describe Julian now he had discovered one of his deepest secrets.

A grimace which might have been a bitter smile passed over Julian's face. "The word you're looking for is unnatural, meaning not from nature."

Miles looked away from him, and Julian could see that he was thinking things through. Thanks to his accelerated neural pathways and his genetically engineered intellect, Julian knew his friend was shocked. He had hoped that Julian would refute what his idiot parents had said in the lab, but to find out it was true…

Julian walked away from the chief. "Freak or monster would also be acceptable," he said, sneering inwardly as he thought about the arrogant bigotry in the Federation when it came to augmentation; it never ceased to amaze him that for such an enlightened culture, some things were still stigmatised, before he sat on top of a seat, looking away into space as he looked back to that dark moment of his life which both changed it for the better and yet made him frightened of what society would do if they discovered the truth.

When he was 15, Julian had learnt about what had happened to him and he had accessed a computer and discovered genetics was illegal, and why, he had become worried for his wellbeing. And that fear had grown worse and worse as he picked up encounters within the 23-24th centuries into genetic engineering; it seemed like a tragic circle where scientists and doctors exploring new ways of furthering the advancement of medical research became increasingly convinced genetic engineering could provide some good bases for long-term experimentation, only for something new to happen in the galaxy which only made the ban worse.

"I was six. Small for my age, a bit awkward physically, not very bright. In the first grade, while the other children were learning how to read and write and use the computer, I was still trying to tell a dog from a cat, a tree from a house," Julian reflected on those moments, finding it hard to believe that that boy and himself were the same person. "I didn't really understand what was happening. I knew that I wasn't doing as well as my classmates. There were so many concepts that they took for granted that I couldn't begin to master and I didn't know why. All I knew was that I was a great disappointment to my parents," Julian paused for a moment, remembering those days thanks, ironically, to his genetically engineered memory since before his enhancement, his skill at recall was limited, the looks on his parent's faces whenever he didn't do well at school before he moved on.

He had tried on many occasions to recall the day when they had opted for genetic therapy, but he had quickly realised it was a waste of time. His parents had likely come up with the idea while he wasn't around.

"I don't remember when they made the decision, but just before my seventh birthday, we left Earth for Adigeon Prime. At first, I remember being really excited at seeing all the aliens in the hospital. Then they gave me a room and began the treatments, and my entire world began to change," Julian said.

The truth was he had always been in two minds about his argumentation. On one hand, he was happy he had been given the chance to become someone who contributed something, but on the other, he resented the fact his parents hadn't given him, his younger self a chance.

"What were the treatments? Some kind of DNA recoding?" Miles asked.

Julian sighed; he had discovered what his parents had arranged with the scientists at Adigeon Prime when he was in his mid-teens, and thanks to his medical interest, it had given him the means to understand the method. "The technical term is 'accelerated critical neural pathway formation.' Over the course of the next two months, my genetic structure was manipulated to accelerate the growth of neuronal networks in my cerebral cortex, and a whole new Julian Bashir was born."

"In what way did they change you?" Miles asked. Julian was momentarily surprised before he realised Miles wanted to have a better idea of what had happened.

Julian stood up and walked around the room, speaking as he went while he remembered how his mind and body were transformed over a two-month period while the doctors observed his performance and monitored him carefully as they continued the treatments. "Well, my mental abilities were the top priority, of course. My IQ jumped five points a day for over two weeks. Followed by improvements in my hand-eye coordination, stamina, vision, reflexes, weight, height. In the end, everything but my name was altered in some way. When we returned to Earth, we even moved to a different city, I was enrolled in a new school using falsified records my parents obtained somewhere. Instead of being the slowest learner, I was the star pupil," he finished, standing in front of one of the viewports and spent a moment lost in thought about the new life he had on his return to Earth.

He had never really understood how his parents had discovered the genetic therapists, but anything was possible. Their plan had been in the making for months and months, he knew that, and truthfully if he were honest, if he had a child whom he wanted to genetically enhance then he would spend months making plans to disguise their past whatever way he could.

"And no one ever suspected?" Miles' practical question almost had Julian smile as he remembered the time he had gotten into the computers, and he had gotten an idea about the Eugneic's Wars history and the resulting ban on genetic engineering. Once he had discovered that even before his parents told him to be careful, Julian had gone out of his way to hide the full extent of his new IQ.

Julian smiled bitterly again, and his bitterness seeped into his voice. "Oh, there's no stigma attached to success, Chief. After the treatments, I never looked back."

He was telling the truth.

After the treatments, and after he had discovered the dark history of genetic manipulation when he was old enough, Julian had sworn to look on the plus side of what he was now instead of what he had been before and never thought about his past. He had always assumed the doctors had done something to him miraculously but he quickly worked out what the truth was. But it was impossible. He did occasionally think of his younger self, incapable of comprehending the most basic concepts, barely able to understand language, technology, or normal life, and he did wonder what life would have been like had his parents just left him alone.

"But the truth is I'm a fraud," Julian finished sadly, deciding to push the image of himself, unaugmented, out of his mind for good. He knew if his parents hadn't given him his future then he wouldn't be who he was today. But at the same time, he resented how his parents had forced him to hide who he was for so long, on top of the issues he'd always had with them and what they'd wanted from him all of his life.

Julian was actually proud of what he had accomplished, and he knew he couldn't have made them without his genetic enhancements. But he had always been frightened of discovery.

"You're not a fraud. I don't care what enhancements your parents may have had done," Miles stressed. "Genetic recoding can't give you ambition, or a personality, or compassion or any of the things that make a person truly human."

"Starfleet Medical won't see it that way," Julian hated to point out the cold, hard, cynical truth of the matter. "DNA resequencing for any reason other than repairing serious birth defects is illegal. Any genetically enhanced human being is barred from serving in Starfleet or practising medicine."

That was what frightened him the most, and was another reason why he resented his parents despite the gift they had granted him. Thanks to their blunder, Julian's entire career was over. There was nothing he could do about that, and it saddened him. Genetics always made him think.

The Federation had an extremely long history with a ban on genetic experimentation, and United Earth had made it clear to the other Federation members that the dangers of it were too great to allow into Starfleet or any kind of military service. Of all the moments in human history, it was the mess that was the Eugenic's Wars that made Julian worried about what would happen to him when Starfleet discovered the truth.

As a scientist and a doctor, Julian had a good knowledge, ironically, of genetic engineering, and he knew as a science and the idea behind the creation of augments like Khan Noonien Singh had been worthwhile before the scientists of Project Chrysalis took it too far.

Oh, Julian could understand the point behind the project; create a new race of humans who were faster, stronger, capable of great feats of intelligence and use them to help enhance the rest of humanity. But they had made a mistake with the genetic matrix of the augments. The new humans were arrogant, warlike. All of them were ambitious and believed it was their right to rule. Millions of people were swiftly conquered and outnumbered by the augments. It was only due to the augments ambitions which made them fight among themselves that allowed ordinary humans to fight back and retake their world.

Genetics had been banned as a result. The planet had been devastated by the Eugenic's wars and millions were wiped out. Genetics was banned because everyone was frightened another Khan or one of the other more brutal warlords could be reincarnated in a new generation. And it had happened.

What about that colony on Bringloid where a United Earth colony ship crashed and only a few survivors meant they had no choice but to practice cloning just to survive?

What about the so-called 'Masterpiece society' where a long-lost colony of humans arrived on a planet, Moab IV and deemed it perfect by its founders to create a society of genetically engineered people who were perfectly placed to fill roles in society? Julian had been at the Academy at the time of the Enterprise's well-meaning intervention, but he had watched in horror as the people brought to Earth were treated badly, and he knew if he wasn't careful that would happen to him. It was a textbook example of how people viewed genetics as a great sin to be hated and reviled at all costs. But at the same time, Julian and other doctors and scientists had worked with genetics and knew it was a worthwhile science if used properly, but it was all too easy for someone to abuse it and recreate Project Chrysalis's mistakes and ignite the Eugenics' Wars somewhere else.

Oh, Julian understood the reasons why the Federation put the ban in place, but it was just so stringent. If they had thought it all through over the decades that if they put in safeguards and supervised the work and treatment, the chances of someone like Khan rising were remote.

But it would never happen.

Miles was still trying to find a good argument. It was too bad Julian knew it was futile. "I don't there's been a case dealing with any of this in a hundred years. You can't be sure how they'll react," he said as he walked over to Julian.

Julian was certain. The ban was still in place. There was nothing he could do about that. "Oh, I am sure. Once the truth comes out I'll be cashiered from the service. It's that simple."

But Miles, bless him, still refused to give in. "There must be something we can do. We can't just give up."

Julian had already made up his mind. Standing up, he stood up and regarded his friend sadly. "There is something I can do. Resign before Doctor Zimmerman files his report."

He didn't know for sure what kind of life he would have when he told Sisko the truth. The Captain would demand to know why he was resigning now, especially when he knew how much he, Julian, loved his job and career. Julian hated the idea of telling him the truth. But needs must.

But what would he do after? Just because the Federation refused to allow genetically engineered doctors to practice medicine, Julian knew he was smart and resourceful enough to work on a solution. The problem was finding it.

"Oh, Julian-!" Miles stared at him in horror and sadness, but Julian knew nothing he could do would change his mind, ever.

"It's over, Miles. I always knew this could happen," once more an image of the people from the Masterpiece Society from the Genome Colony being badly treated when they arrived on Earth jumped to his mind. "Now it has. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to be alone.

X

His parents were late.

One of the things he had never liked about either of them was how they just could not come on time, they were usually always boasting to people they had just met, or they didn't take into account there were more important matters to take care of. As he sat on one of the window seats, looking out at the familiar, comforting blackness of space, Julian wondered how this meeting would go. His parents would likely offer solutions that had as much chance of working as the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance offering reparations to the Terrans in that parallel universe he had visited with Kira a few years ago.

Finally, the door chimed. Julian closed his eyes, mustering patience. "Come in."

Julian didn't need to turn, he had positioned himself so he could catch his parents dulled reflection in the transparent aluminium pane.

"Hey, Jules, here we are!" His father grinned.

"Close the door," Julian whispered with a snap in his voice, too angry to care how his parents felt, but he spoke up again before either of them could speak. "You met me in a lab, earlier today, right?"

Thanks to the reflection, he could see the concerned glance his parents exchanged, but neither of them comprehended what he was driving at. Good.

"Yes, Jules, we did. What's happened? Is there something wrong with that?"

"And while you were there… you opened your mouths without engaging your brains, and you blabbed about my being genetically enhanced?" Julian watched as his mother's eyes started to widen; thanks to his genetically engineered eyesight, he could see her pupils widening by a millimetre. She was starting to become worried, and he could see she was working it out.

His father, on the other hand…

"Look, Jules, what's this all about? Yes, we met you, but I don't understand-."

"No, you don't understand!" Julian swung around so fast that to his parents he might have been a blur. "You don't understand that the me you saw was not me, but was a hologram while Dr Zimmerman and Chief O'Brien were in the next room and they could hear everything you were saying!"

Amsha clapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh my god!"

In contrast, Richard Bashir's face went pale.

"Are you finally getting it now, are you? Do you finally understand!?" Julian didn't care about either of his parent's feelings, he was too angry to care. "They tricked you, that hologram had been set up to give it parameters to adjust and adapt to unexpected situations, but why did you go to the holographic lab Zimmerman had set up in the first place? Did it never occur to you to wait until my shift had ended, when I was in my quarters so we could talk in private? Why didn't you drop me a message?"

"Jules… we-," his mother tried to say, but he waved her to silence angrily.

"Do you remember all of those times you told me to not say a word? Practice what you preach. This is what I was hoping to avoid. I knew this was going to happen, because neither of you has a clue, not one clue, about how to keep your mouths shut!" Julian suddenly let out a choking sob that was more like a bellow of rage.

"J-Julian?" Amsha's quiet voice broke through his anger, but only just; he was still angry, deservedly so after what his parents had done inadvertently. But the thing that broke through his mind the most was her use of his full name and not the shortened version of it. Clearly, she could see how serious this mess was and had realised the best way to get to him was by treating him as an adult. When he looked up, Amsha went on, "What's going to happen?"

Julian sighed. "Dr Zimmerman by now will have filed a report, detailing how I am unsuitable as the template for the LMH program. Starfleet Medical will launch an enquiry, and they will dismiss me from service."

Once more Richard Bashir demonstrated two of his seemingly never-ending capacity for melodrama, it was one of his many irritating gifts. But the second irritating gift was how he believed he was more important than he actually was. "We're not going to just take this lying down, that's for sure. I'll arrange for legal counsel. We're going to fight this all the way to the Federation Supreme Court."

Julian stared at him in disbelief. This was the man who - patronisingly - told him not to tell anyone about his enhancements, all the time forgetting the fact Julian had been looking through the computer records about genetic manipulation and the stigma attached. "We can't fight this," he said simply; at any other time Julian might be prepared to fight, but ever since Miles came to him he had been driving himself mad with the knowledge it was over.

All because of these two.

He was just too tired to fight back.

A part of him wished he could have told Captain Sisko about his secret a long time ago, but Sisko would have been compelled to tell Starfleet Command about the news and then he would be kicked out. Genetic enhancements were one thing that simply could not be ignored. On top of that Julian had kept it secret out of habit for a long time.

Richard turned around and glared at him. "You'd better change that attitude right now if you want to hang on to your career."

"Jules, listen to your father. He's trying to help you," Amsha, as always, had to be the blind, devoted wife, the voice of reason. The sensible one. The dreamer.

Julian shook his head in disgust. "Neither of you is listening to me. I don't want to drag this through the courts."

For one thing, he knew it would not work. Even if he could drag this mess through the courts, the end result would just be the same. For another even if he did fight this, Julian didn't know or want to know what would happen.

"We're a little beyond worrying about your wants, Jules. We have a serious problem here. We have to stop the whining and concentrate on coming up with a new plan," Richard said.

The tone and the wording his father was using might have been reasonable in his mind, but Julian was angry by his patronising attitude. Didn't he understand what was going to happen, he locked onto the last few words of his father's statement and he used that to fuel his anger.

"A new plan," Julian sneered back in disdain. "Yes, let's come up with a new plan. That's the way we do things in this family, isn't it? We don't face our problems, we come up with new plans. Don't like your job? Well, move along to the next one. Don't like the law? Well, find a way to get around it. But whatever you do, do not accept responsibility."

Richard glared back at him, anger burning in his eyes, "All those gifts, all those accomplishments, and you still want to behave like a spoiled child. Well, you'd better grow up right now or you're going to lose everything!"

"You mean you're going to lose everything," Julian retorted angrily. "You're going to lose your only real accomplishment in this life. Me. You said before, I'm your legacy, your proud gift to the world. Well, father, your gift is about to be revealed as a fraud, just like you."

"I'm still your father, Jules, and I will not have you talk to me like that."

"No, you used to be my father. Now, you're my architect. The man who designed a better son to replace the defective one he was given. Well, your design has a built-in flaw. It's illegal," Julian retorted angrily, his mind flashing to the horrifying reaction the unthinking Enterprise D crew had caused with the Genome Colony.

"You're so smart. You know so much that you can stand there and judge us. But you're still not smart enough to see that we saved you from a lifetime of remedial education and underachievement!" Richard shouted.

Ah, nowhere was the crux of the matter. "You don't know that. You didn't give me a chance."

A part of him had always wanted to know what if he hadn't been enhanced. Would he have become a later developer, a kid who grew out of his disabilities and became someone? It was possible.

"You were falling behind," Richard argued while mother/wife just stood there in the background, looking fearfully between them.

It was impossible to not hide the resentment in his voice, and Julian planned on unleashing it. "I was six years old. You decided I was a failure in the first grade. You don't know what I could have been; now don't understand me, I am grateful for the genetics that gave me a chance to be more, but what I do resent is the fact I have to hide who and what I am."

To anybody else, Julians's reply would actually be reasonable enough to move the conversation along. But not for Richard Bashir. "You don't understand, Jules," he said patronisingly. "You never did."

Julian glared back at him. "No, you don't understand. At Starfleet Academy, I-I stopped calling myself Jules when I was fifteen and I'd found out what you'd done to me. I'm Julian."

"What difference does that make?"

Julian sighed but he refused to give up. "It makes every difference because I'm different! Can't you see that? Jules Bashir died in that hospital because you couldn't live with the shame of having a son who didn't measure up!"

That was too much for his mother. "That's not true! We were never ashamed of you. Never."

"I'm sorry, mother, but the truth is-," Julian just shook his head wearily; ever since he was locked up in that prison by the Dominion, he had felt like he had lost a chunk of his youth, and that upset him.

"You don't know," Amsha looked like she was on the verge of breaking down completely, and not for the first time he cursed his family's secrets. "You've never had a child. You don't know what it's like to watch your son. To watch him fall a little further behind every day. You know he's trying, but something's holding him back. You don't know what it's like to stay up every night worrying that maybe it's your fault. Maybe you did something wrong during the pregnancy, maybe you weren't careful enough, or maybe there's something wrong with you. Maybe you passed on a genetic defect without even knowing it."

"Amsha-!" Richard tried to say, but his wife carried on.

"No, this is important. You can condemn us for what we did. You can say it's illegal or immoral or whatever you want to say, but you have to understand that we didn't do it because we were ashamed, but because you were our son and we loved you."

Julian stared at his mother, realising that despite their imperfect relationship, they did love him, but he knew they had thought they were trying to help him, that even now they wished they could help him. That more than anything helped Julian make the move. He and his mother hugged together.

"What do you want us to do?" His mother asked quietly.

"Nothing. I'm going to visit Captain Sisko in the morning to explain the situation to him and tender my Starfleet resignation."

"Are you certain this is what you want?" Amsha asked, knowing how much he loved his career.

"Yes. I just want to leave the station quietly," Julian said quietly.