Thank you everyone for your awesome feedback, it's definitely given me some good stuff to work with here. I'm not trying exactly to introduce another character each chapter but it seems to be working out that way so far. And on that note, since this is a weekly update serial type thing while it might not move super quick, consider a chapter a week and it starts to add up to something quite big haha. Anyway no real warnings for this chapter but perhaps a few more hints of the mystery person in Garak's past.


Someone is trying to kill me. Or rather, someone is trying to have him killed. Garak comes to that realization the moment he allows himself a second thought and recalls exactly who Aamin Marrtiza is. Correction. Who Aamin Marritza was. Aamin Marritza, Bajoran sympathizer found guilty for crimes against the State, namely the escape of detainees at Galitep along with impersonating a high ranking official. Though Garak certainly had to hand it to him for the dramatic flair with which he addressed the Central Command along with Bajoran Provincial Government, and likely anyone else within frequency range, having remade himself as Gul Darhe'el. It was a fool's errand in the end and took nothing more than a simple DNA run to prove exactly who he was. Yes, was is certainly the key word in this equation and it's a rather poignant one that this woman seems to be lacking. The woman- Leeta who has been whispering a rushed series of endearments to his ear rather nicely while he's considered all the evidence with a soft circle to her bare back, his thoughts flowing far too easily to distraction.

The dress must not begin then for at least another few inches and your hand is already quite low, Elim. Really, that should've been his first thought soon followed be her shape, her scent- some light flowery smell and... kanar, yes that's definitely some earthy homebrew of kanar Gul how did he not notice how she rather smells of... home. Garak swallows hard knowing that he'll need far more time to piece together the scant facts he has to go by, and knowing that it's certainly not going to happen here and now while she just... breathes against him in that achingly beautiful way. She seems content in that breath of moment that he is in fact her lover returned under the guise of aging tailor which itself is just another guise for Obsidian Order agent Elim Garak. And even that is just another layer upon layer of some pitiful thing at the bottom that hasn't been with a man or a woman in a good few years. Garak sighs, knowing it's just another misunderstood gesture in a long series of unintentional cues that he'll need to clear but he allows this indulgence, this warmth for as long as he dares.

But then... it would be so easy, wouldn't it? To just pretend, to let her believe that you're he and you know now that there's certainly no chance he'll show up to refute the claim, or even his family for that matter. Not to a Bajoran and never for a traitor they've likely disowned, no, it would be just too terribly easy to have this neatly sewn up, make a few discreet inquiries when you're able and allow her to fill in the blanks for you. What's one more thing in your life built upon a lie, after all? It would be so easy. Garak squeezes her tighter even allowing his lips to touch the warm skin of her neck. It would be so Gul's damn easy. He lets himself savor, to commit to memory the feel of her soft breasts pressed against him, the curve of her hip, the tense muscles of her back as she turns her head just as she must have countless times for that ridiculous fool Marritza in the past. And that smell- that near delirious aura of home, of Mila even in it's own odd way. Just one little lie, Elim. Just one. Is one lie really so much to have this, to have something as yours?

Garak lets her go. It wouldn't be his of course, it would be a dead man's and while Garak might not be a particularly noble man he is a man of dignity. At least as much dignity as one can claim while fondling a woman under a deceitful premise. Dignified. Not perfect. He makes a wager as to which hand she'll hit him with. The odds favor the right.

"You're not, him." Leeta says it before he can say a word and really, what can one say to such a bald statement of fact?Garak sighs prepared to accept whatever retribution seems fitting- within reason that is. Instead she just looks at him sadly, infinitely sad and he can see that in spite of whatever sound he heard earlier she has not in fact shed a single tear. When she looks at him of course he imagines a waterfall behind those dry eyes and she just shoots him a sad little smile and forces a small laugh. He wonders if perhaps this isn't the discomfort that most people feel when seeing his own grinning face in their darkest moments. Well now, that certainly would explain a lot.

"So... was it good for you?" Another small laugh. Not angry, not bitter, just terribly lonely, and Garak would have never thought himself a man weak to a guilt trip of even the most heart wrenching proportions. Except this isn't a guilt trip, and that he decides it what makes it the most sympathetic. No, those aren't the self centered tears of an adolescent girl who fancies herself a woman. That's the sadness of a woman who likely doesn't remember what it's like to be able to cry at all.

"Good enough to make me deeply regret that I'm not in fact Aamin Marritza," he answers and realizes it's strangely true. Not for the reasons she might imagine but that doesn't seem terribly important. Garak finds his usual wit has deserted for just a moment as he hedges cautiously. "If I had news of him, would you-"

"He's dead," Leeta declares with a finality that he doesn't argue. She wipes her hands over her skirts smoothing them, taking a few steps back. "I thought I knew that ya know? I thought I believed it back then... when he never showed up but... Guess I held out hope. But I felt it just now. I mean I'm not saying you hug like a dead man or anything but it's just a... a feeling." Leeta shakes her head breathing out exaggerated, the gesture intended to lighten the mood as her breath puffs bangs up far worse than they were falling in her eyes. He doesn't know her nearly well enough to brush aside that easy facade.

"You have my assurances that's far from the worst I've ever heard a woman say about my embrace." He smiles at her with a slightly self deprecating humor.

She laughed politely and Garak turned to the door.

"The woman... Kira I believe she's a... friend of yours?" he gently probes for that little bit of information to see if he can possibly determine anything further to this mystery. Leeta shakes her head seeming slightly distant all of a sudden.

"We're not friends we just... share a few of the same memories is all. Maybe not that anymore but hey I didn't survive all these years worrying what other people thought about me. Let me get you that stew, okay? On the house just this once. I guarantee you'll be coming back for more." She stops suddenly in the doorway, fingers touching the wood and Garak notices they're just a touch unsteady, that lightness in her tone fading out just a fraction of prismatic sunlight refracting off to nothing. She starts, looking about to ask something before thinking better of it. "I wasn't a collaborator." That's not what you were going to say. But even so it seems important in its own way. Garak nods.

"And your cook," he calls after her as a bit of an afterthought.

"C'mon, Garak, you seem like a smart fella I'm sure you'll figure it out!"

Her voice is muffled from the kitchen as as he hears only one set of footprints he shakes his head grinning slightly. Of course. There is no cook. And the Ferengi seems to have been pulled into some fantastical abyss and will likely return in the dawn brandishing some fabled artifact declaring him Grand Nagus or some nonsense like that. No, there is no cook. Only, one angry Bajoran and a subterfuge masking someone who clearly wants to kill him. Or is that just your paranoia talking? He second guesses himself taking a seat at the table this time choosing Dr. Bashir's chair out of a sense of whimsy. No, there is paranoia and then there is the perfectly logical questioning of the motives of putting a bounty on a dead man.

Garak pauses, seeing the notebook still lying on the table, small writing implement laying beside it. That grin splits his face wider as he realizes that much like the greedy miners who come to this town dreaming of striking mineral riches in the mountains he's done in fact just that. Oh... oh yes, this is absolutely too perfect. Garak swipes the notebook quickly lest Dr. Bashir return unexpectedly. He notes, before he flips the pages closed and carefully tucks it into the deep pocket of his trousers, that assuming all pages contained writing the book should be at least half full of observations, suspicions, all the little things that the doctor has likely made note of- no pun intended. It's is a veritable gold mine of information and he can feel himself start to buzz with anticipation at the thought of hurrying up to his room to begin reading, to begin taking his own notes on one of the PADDs in his room. It's an almost tangible feeling, almost like static making his skin shiver for just a brief flickering moment before it fades away. Or is that really just your body's own reaction or something else? He doesn't consider it long.

Such, strange technologies they have here, he muses to himself not knowing for the life of him why this planet is still so primitive. There's no indigenous sentient life that he's aware of. All the inhabitants are from Federation or other similarly advanced worlds. And even if by some strange happenstance the planet were founded by some technology eschewing cult there's no central government and to the best of his knowledge most of the towns are self contained cultural centers of a variety of different races themselves with little commonality except perhaps their shared speech and lack of technology. No, not lack per se but difference. A great difference in methodology and application. That damned torture device masquerading as some magical lift should be proof enough of that. Garak curses once again the immediacy of the mission which hardly allowed for him to download even the few files that he has. Pouring over them, the scant paragraphs, clearly dated blurbs has yielded little useful information except a few mentions of Cardassian settlers in the jungle of the West Continent. Garak sighs, and feels that buzz again deciding while he's waiting that it couldn't possibly hurt to jot down a few observations to consider while he's back upstairs. He takes the PADD out from his other pocket powering it on and... and realizing that it's not in fact powering on.

That's odd, it was only in sleep mode and there was certainly plenty of power cycling through the caps so why would it?... He frowns, trying a few more times before putting it away. He's no engineer by any stretch and even if he were he lacks the tools and diagnostics needed even for this simple task. But that doesn't hold his attention for long, the thick rich broth of the stew wafting out the door to the kitchen before he even looks up. The broth is the strongest, the root vegetables giving an earthy flavor and aroma when blended with the stock, simmer bones meaty, fatty, the top skimmed until every mouth is silk with just enough flour added to coat the tongue richly. He feels almost like a child waiting for the bowl, waiting for the street vendor to hand him the heatproof dish that somehow still feels warm and he sees Leeta come out with that same large spoon just made for dipping. He remembers hearing once that a man knows he's old when a culinary dish excites him far more than a sexual one but even with that nagging at him the sight of dark leafy greens peeking over the bowel and the few white bits of meat perfectly flaked in almost a swirl of symmetry makes him just not give a damn.

Still, he contains that flash of nostalgic exuberance to a small resettle in the seat as Leeta sets the bowl down accompanied with a small saucer of the pale yellow sauce. There is no way. Oh there is no possible way without a replicator that the proper conditions could ever be cultivated for the main ingredient, for the yeasts, for the heart of the tang for the-

"First one's on the house," Leeta reminds him and Garak can see as his hand practically trembles taking that tiny saucer with a small whiff, an olfactory sample that should he eat this whatever price on the menu will hold him in its thrall forever. Perhaps it was too soon to deny his mistaken identity after all. Garak sighs pouring a small circle to settle over the top and seep in the faint bubbling from the chemical reaction already starting. By the Guls it is the real thing.

Garak takes the spoon and says a silent prayer to ancestors he no longer believed in. He pauses when he feels eyes on him, her eyes to be specific. He knows it's her, he feels the expectation in that gaze and realizes that for all her words, for all her cold call to reality-

"How did you know the answer to that line, Garak?" So that's what stopped her before. Of course, a Bajoran servant no matter how gifted would have no reason to know, to understand the commonality of the poem. And thus the stare that she fixes him with now, that final confirming question remains the product of a highly deductive mind and not merely the hope of a love blind fool. The answer of course is easy, simple really when it comes down to it . Of course everyone who paid half a bit of attention in any respectable schooling would know and the fact that this unwise fool used such a common code only speaks to the justice in his execution for a frightening lack of sense if nothing else.

But Garak finds that that answer this time doesn't easily come to him, and just as Marritza was clearly a fool, Garak is a professional tasked with an assignment of monumental importance, and the time it would take to truly work trust to a solid ally is a slow and cautious trek. But here is a gift, given to him with a far less complicated charade to maintain. He stares hard at that spoon held steadily in his hand, allowing it to waver just a trace for her benefit. He once more calls Marritza to mind, and now that that memory has been unlocked, a million others flood his brain as vividly as if he were still seeing them: the spectacle of his denouement, his trial, everything down to his last pathetically sobbed words that give Garak exactly what he needs. That garbled mess of nonsense hits him with the realization that it was not in fact nonsense at all but a plea to the woman currently standing at Garak's side, hope hanging on the next words that he speaks. But hope is nothing but cruelty masquerading as kindness as they would say- as you would say- to any initiate into the order. He ducks his head, turning away just a fraction, breathing deeply, carefully, sure to convey every proper emotion.

"I can't tell you that... Leelin."

A gasp, a hand to her breast, to her mouth, whatever gesture of shock he can practically feel it as he can feel that desire of hers to run back to him again. He forestalls it with a raised hand.

"But you know. If Aamin Marritza is dead, and I'm not saying he is-" and nor did he earlier in fact, "then perhaps you might consider there to be a reason. Perhaps you might consider that he must remain that way for the present if not for the future, if not even for a lifetime." Namely because he is in fact dead. Garak sets the spoon down knowing he still has time before anything truly starts to cool to below optimal temperature. "Perhaps you might even consider that as you said he does not feel like he ought to to you and there are reasons for that as well." Namely because I am not he. "And lastly, you might consider as well that if he is returning now but not to you, not to your dutiful and faithful heart then there must remain that last undisclosed reason that he dare not speak." Namely a vengeful sycophant named Dukat and a paranoid old man named Tain conspiring to make his erstwhile predecessor's life a living hell if not ending it altogether.

Garak considers the yamok sauce slowly becoming one with the stew, his legs just a small impatient twitch.

"I hope that you can tell me that you... understand what I'm saying to you." He hears a step closer, the loud clack of a heel on the hard floor before it retreats back. He briefly prays that this doesn't end with any further cloying sentiment that might settle poorly in his stomach. If she doesn't disappoint him he might appropriate Dr. Bashir's paper for his own use should the PADD prove to be a loss; he has a strange suspicion the sudden demise might not be limited to the unit on his person. Contact number one. Oh for Gul's sake if you cannot remember one single name in the vole's nest infesting that head of yours-

"I understand." Leeta answers slowly choosing her words carefully. Garak listens, the silence of the room, the acoustics letting her voice echo so that even he can hear every nuance with clarity. He is certain to take nothing for granted, sure that his face is not so much a shrewd study of her tone, but instead the raw expectation of a man betting his life on the woman who has spent by his estimation the better part of a decade awaiting his return.

"How can I ever know what you're thinking Elim when you lie just as easily as you breathe?" Words meant to hurt spoken by one of the few with the ability to do so. The fact that they didn't was the moment that Garak knew it was over between the two of them. That maudlin memory flush to the surface hovering, skimming the top like bright algae allows that ruse its most genuine effect.

"Aamin Marritza is dead," she repeats carefully and this time it sounds far more like the truth. Good. Good girl. "But as for you... Garak. Do what you have to do, right? And so will I. I'm good at that, ya know? But if you need me... whatever you need." Those heels walk towards him this time and he just knows but that instinct that's served him so well the exact moment to turn, to breathe deeply, raise his hand and let her fingertips touch his for that fleeting moment. The hand doesn't linger. Her eyes do. But that's a look shared only between the two of them when the door opens abruptly and a man steps through with a strangely incomplete face half shrouded by the brim of a wide hat there is nothing to witness.

Garak watches him carefully. Leeta less so as she makes to fuss with his plate the picture of steady professionalism. Ah, the lessons we learn from the occupation as conquerer and conquered.

"Evening, Sheriff Odo," Leeta calls out brightly heading back towards the kitchen, the address for Garak's benefit alone."I guess you've been to the doctor's already, huh?" Yes, very good girl, and a very wise decision, Elim. Garak watches as the man walks towards him with a small incline of his head to Leeta.

"Briefly, Miss Gallek..." Gallek? That's a Cardassian surname. And as I live and breathe there is no way possible that this woman has enough Cardassian blood to have such an honor. Another thing to be investigated. "...assure you, given the circumstances my visit here should be brief as well as long as I have cooperation." Garak looks up to find the sheriff staring at him with the look of a fellow inquisitor. That pleases him. Tight security has always been beneficial to his method of operation.

"I can only assume judging by the evidence that you are Mister Elim Garak nee Aamin Marritza." Garak looks pleasantly, innocently back.

"Just Garak. No Mister. Just plain, simple, Garak." The look he receives in return promises that while the sheriff's visit to the restaurant may be short, Garak's time with him likely will not be.

"Is that a fact?" Garak spares one last half despondent thought for the stew that will have to wait for another night as he stands.

"Facts, Sheriff," Garak begins easily knowing he's doing himself no favors with the tact he's taking, "are very curious things..."


Much thanks to a tumblr post by Tinsnip for the note on Cardassian endearments. It was exactly what I needed!