"If you prick me, do I not bleed?"

(Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice)

"Greetings, Doctor." A hand slapped his back with such force that he felt it in the bones of his teeth. Still smarting a little from the blow, Bashir looked around to discover the heavily scarred and monopthalamic visage of the Klingon General, Martok.

He offered the general a wary smile. "I'm not a doctor any more," he pointed out.

Martok responded with a grunt of annoyance, and waved the comment away like he was swatting a bug. "A mere technicality, my friend. And what are technicalities to men such as us? Now, to business. My wife, Sirella, is a prideful woman, but also extremely generous. She has sent me a crate of the finest quality gagh in the Quadrant. There's none better to be had between here and the Empire."

Bashir swallowed, hoping he did not sound or appear as green-faced as he felt. "Gagh."

"That's right." The general's single blue eye regarded him with a level stare.

"But what does that have to do with me?"

"I'd have thought that part would be obvious," grumbled Martok. "A full crate of quality gagh, as fresh and squirming as it comes, and nobody to share it with? Come. You must join me."

It's far too early… Bashir despaired, and struggled to hold back a groan. "But surely, Worf…"

"I dined with Worf yesterday. Today, I wish to dine with you."

Bashir forced a smile. "I'd love to join you…"

"Then it's settled. Come."

"But… But…" He took a deep breath. "I'm already late for an appointment."

"Lunch, then." Martok nodded to himself, and slapped Bashir's arm. He was halfway along the Promenade by the time the bewildered young man could find the voice to respond.

"You're late," Doctor Hayes scolded as he looked up from a slender grey padd.

"By all of three minutes and thirty three seconds." Bashir heaved a sigh when he saw the older man's questioning stare. "Genetically engineered, remember?"

"Of course." Hayes motioned in the direction of the examination room. "Shall we?"

By the time the new doctor had finally begun to stash away all the scanning equipment and make some last minute adjustments to his notes, Bashir was aching from lack of movement. He felt there wasn't a single part of him that hadn't been weighed, measured, scanned, re-scanned, and poked so frequently that he was certain that he would bruise by lunch time. "How was dinner?" asked Hayes, shining the same flashing light into each of Julian's eyes.

"It was fine." Hayes finally turned the light off, and Bashir took a few moments to blink away the afterimage. "But I'm sure you'll hear all about it in Chief O'Brien's 'report'. Are we done?"

"Almost…" Setting his medical case to one side, Doctor Hayes turned back to face him. "You realise I was about to send someone after you?"

Bashir rolled his eyes. "All right. I'm sorry. If you must know, I ran into General Martok on the Promenade."

"Martok?" said Hayes, cocking his head slightly and frowning. "What did he want?"

"Apparently he wants to share a crate of fresh gagh with me."

At this, a lopsided grin crept up one side of Hayes' mouth. "Good."

"Good?" Bashir raised his eyebrows. "Do I have this entirely wrong or are you about to be the first doctor outside of the Klingon Empire ever to prescribe gagh?"

Hayes chuckled. "Plenty of protein. It's good to see your mood's improving, anyway."

"Does that mean I don't have to go to counselling?"

"Don't push your luck."

Standing upright, Bashir cast a questioning glance at his orange and indigo hospital gown. He recalled for a moment how the colours, slender lines, and even the rounded necklines of Bajoran Infirmary garb had made his friend Garak cringe in disgust. The Cardassian tailor cum possible spy may have had disputable taste in literature, but his opinion on hospital garments was one which Julian Bashir wholeheartedly shared.

"So are we…?"

Hayes nodded, then grinned at his patient's expression of unparalleled relief. "You can get dressed."

But before Bashir could vanish into the privacy booth, he called out again. "Tell me something, Julian."

The younger man turned. "What's that?"

"Are all my patients going to be as difficult as you?"

Memories flashed through Julian's mind, of Miles, Kira, Odo, Garak, even Sisko. He cast his most earnest gaze at DS9's new doctor. "Not at all," he replied. "Often, they're worse."

"You're right," the counsellor told him after fifteen minutes of loaded pauses, broken only occasionally by yet another question and a short, perfunctory answer. "I've never seen the inside of a prison camp. I don't know what it's like. But you can tell me."

Bashir frowned. "It was like… a prison camp. A lot of crowds. A lot of Jem'Hadar. Why are we bringing this up again?"

Grey. And coldly ominous. Mildew in every corner. Never enough food. The guards had been quick to discover that simply beating Julian was not enough to make him as compliant as they would have liked. They forced him to watch in impotent silence as others around him were beaten instead with fists, feet and guns.

"Because you haven't really talked much about it, have you? Not even in your official report."

"No, really. It was boring. There's practically nothing to tell."

The slackening horror on the face of one Cardassian as his cold grey body floated into the sterile void of space. The helpless shock of his Romulan cellmate, when he realised that his end had come. The weak, thready pulse just beneath the chest of Enabran Tain as strength and power faded slowly into nothing. Garak's steady, pleading voice. "Father, you're dying." That one secret, he'd at least been able to keep.

He resisted an urge to rub the fatigue from his eyes. "Can we please change the subject?"

Counsellor Dion studied him silently, eyes slightly narrowed. "Alright." She nodded. "When do you go to Earth?"

Well, he'd asked for it. "The Ariadne leaves tomorrow."

"That doesn't give you a lot of time."

"I don't need a lot of time."

At this, a glint of amusement crept into the counsellor's blue-grey eyes. Bashir held back a scowl.

"Your father was asking after you," she told him, suddenly serious again.

The young man felt his muscles tense. "Was he?"

She leaned forward, fingers locked across one knee. "Don't worry, Julian. I'm not going to force you to talk to him. But I really think you should."

Landscape architecture, interior design… Genetic recoding. It was all the same. The son of Richard and Amsha Bashir had just been another in a long line of failed "projects". Something to be evaluated, taken apart, and reassembled like a faulty old machine.

When she did not receive a reply, the counsellor settled back into her chair. "No rush," she said. "It's a good two week's journey. You can always call your parents once you get there."

The atmosphere in the counsellor's office had been cramped and stifling, a good ten degrees warmer than he liked. He made no mention of the heat - there was little point in offering the woman any more words to twist into whatever shape she wanted. But the whole experience had left him feeling flushed and exhausted.

The Promenade was more crowded than it usually was at that time of the day. But Bashir paused, breathing deeply, and held onto the momentary chance at least to imagine that he was free to move. The bustle of activity soon faded into the background. There was a smell of spices in the air, and if he closed his eyes for just a moment, he could even believe that no-one was watching. No more unwelcome distractions.

Then he remembered General Martok.