"As I was going up the stair,

I saw a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today.

I wish, I wish he'd go away."

(William Hughes Mearns, Antagonish.)

"Wait there." Nikos indicated a chair at one corner of the Replimat where the crowd was thinnest. Bashir glanced around him, still puzzled, and a little edgy. But with some hesitation, he obeyed.

"Uh…"

"Wait."

She covered the distance to the far wall, where a brightly luminescent replicator waited like a sleeping sentry. Julian's ears did not catch what it was she'd ordered, but he heard a momentary hum and saw the light around its edges increase and fade.

He counted forty two seconds before Doctor Nikos returned, a determined expression in her wide green eyes and a steaming blue mug in either hand. "Ginger root tea." She handed one to him, and seated herself at the opposite end of the table.

Bashir chuckled, although the sound he made was half a cough. "Just what the doctor ordered." He looked down, feeling suddenly heavy again. "Listen. What happened back there, I…"

"No need to explain," said Nikos. "After two whole days with nothing to do but stare at those walls, I'm sure any one of us would have gone a little stir crazy."

Listening to her words, Bashir sensed the return of his own particularly quirky smile. His tea was close to boiling, and the first three sips were cautious ones. But it warmed him thoroughly like the soft glow of sunbeams. She's right, of course, he thought, glancing around and noting with satisfaction that no-one was looking his way. Sometimes all it took was a taste of normality…

Suddenly he tensed, and his pulse was racing. Glaring across the room, he set down his drink. "What is it?" Nikos asked. Her voice sounded peculiarly distant even from less than a metre away.

A slightly pale ginger haired man sat near the entrance, chatting amiably to a grey faced alien in a dark satin hood. As Doctor Nikos noticed the change in Bashir's eyes, she placed a hand over both of his. But he slid his hands away and continued to stare. He could not hear what the man was saying, but guessed from the trembling of his exotic companion's shoulders that it must have been a joke of some kind. Patting his friend twice upon the back, the object of Bashir's scrutiny stood up and turned as if to leave.

There it was. The glimpse of a profile.

"It's him," hissed Julian, although he barely moved his lips.

He shoved back his chair, which clattered so loudly to the floor that faces turned. Skirting around tables, mumbling apologies to startled patrons, he kept his focus on the retreating stranger. He felt Nikos' hand brush against his forearm, but jerked out of reach and stumbled onto the crowded Promenade.

"Hey!" he called. The stranger was moving fast, but Bashir had already started to run. He sidestepped where he could - and more often collided with anyone who was not alert or ready enough to move aside.

"Sorry," he mumbled to a young woman in a well padded Sciences uniform, who spilled a stack of padds in a scattered ring along the Promenade floor. He clasped her shoulders for a moment. "Sorry."

The woman watched in startled irritation as he continued his pursuit.

"Hey!" he shouted again. His quarry did not turn around, although several others did. Bashir covered the remaining distance in three long strides. "Hey! Stop right there. Who are you?"

With a hand painfully tight around his shoulder, the stranger tensed, and turned to stare at the man behind him. "I… I… That is, erm… Who are you?"

A cold shock spread outwards from the base of Julian's spine. He backed away, throat clenched so tightly that he could barely force a sound. This stranger's face was milky pale, cheeks slightly rounded, eyes small and dark - and terribly confused. "But…" Julian looked about him in every direction. His voice was only just able to struggle into the open. "He was right…"

It was then that he noticed familiar faces in the crowd of onlookers. Jadzia was there, and Kira, and standing further away with his arms folded - just three steps behind them both - was the stern-faced Constable Odo. His eyes met theirs, and he rubbed his forehead, feeling suddenly giddy and more than a little nauseous.

"Julian," said a quiet voice in his ear. Athena Nikos took him by the arm. "I'm sorry," she told the red haired stranger - who turned and strode down the walkway, shaking his head and muttering. Bashir watched him retreat into the distance.

"Let's go," said Nikos, and gently led him past the staring crowd.

Athena sighed as she keyed in the code for an open subspace channel. "Sure you aren't bothered by me using your console?" she asked, turning slightly to her left.

Hayes waved a hand in her direction and continued to frown at an armful of research notes. "Don't mind me."

Nikos nodded her thanks, but the ginger haired doctor didn't appear to have noticed. In the time it took to receive a reply, she paused to rub some tension from the muscles of her neck and back, but failed to loosen the tight anxiety she'd felt since leaving the Replimat behind. Bashir had not said a word since their return, but enough had been said for one day, so she let the matter pass without comment. Shortly after that, he curled up on one of the Infirmary beds, and it had not been long before he was asleep.

Which is probably not such a bad thing, Nikos told herself. He needs it.

The lieutenant on the computer screen was just slightly younger than her colleague, fair haired, with lines of constant concern etched clearly upon her tight-skinned face. She greeted Athena with an weary expression as though weighted down by a never ending mountain of burdens.

"Hard day?" Nikos asked her after they'd exchanged their standard cursory greeting. The woman managed an exhausted smile.

"Is any day not?"

"Jack again?"

"Something like that." A barely discernable chuckle, and then the look of cautious resolve came back into her eyes. "What can I do for you, Athena?"

Listening with careful attention, she waited until Doctor Nikos had finished, and paused to study her subtly darker face. Nikos waited, allowing her time and silence to mull over this new message.

"Are you certain?" she asked eventually. The creases upon her brow deepened slightly. "I'd be the first to admit that common denominators aren't easy to find, but… In the majority of cases I've come across, if there had been any genuine problems, they would never have been able to stay hidden for so long."

"I can't be certain," Nikos assured her. "Not without a proper evaluation. And perhaps not even then, which is precisely what has me worried. But for the moment… Let's just say I have reason for concern."

"Very well." The woman nodded, her countenance heavy - but resigned. "Come by on the next transport, and we'll see."

Athena Nikos felt herself relax, followed by a stab of guilt at the relief that had been so surely gained from the same source as her colleague's discomfort. "Thank you, Karen. That's all I ask." She signed off, and the worn out face of Doctor Loews was abruptly replaced with a standard background stream of numerical data.

Hayes was watching from across the room, his raktajino already tepid in his hands. "Good luck convincing him to agree to that."

Sitting back, Nikos rubbed her face with both hands. She felt a twisting pain deep within her gut. "That's the thing, isn't it?" she muttered. The kind of decision she always hated to make. But there was a life to be saved, and they both knew that Hayes' words meant very little when weighed against their obligations. It hurt her even more to admit it, but she was no longer certain that their patient was in any position to be granted a choice.

They both turned towards the unexpected sound of somebody entering the office.

"Sorry," stammered Dax, the expression in her eyes both startled and apologetic. "I was actually hoping to speak to Julian. You wouldn't happen to know…?"

"He's asleep, Jadzia," Hayes replied. "If you come back later, I can let him know you dropped by."

A puzzled frown superimposed itself onto Dax's pale face. "I don't understand," she said. "There wasn't anyone in there when I…"

She gasped, and Hayes felt a shock run all the way down his back. He glanced at Nikos and saw the same horror mirrored in her wide grey-green eyes. Leaping from his seat so suddenly that he banged one of his legs against the bench, he sped towards the main ward with Dax and Nikos close behind him.

"Damn," Hayes cursed, running a hand through his sparse copper hair. "Now where's he got to?"

You idiot, Nathan - you should have known he was faking all along.

"I'll get Odo," Dax offered, and slapped the tiny arrowhead badge attached to her uniform. As she relayed whatever particulars she could to the hyper-enthusiastic Bajoran sergeant who answered, Doctor Hayes sensed a headache from earlier that day about to return.

Nikos had paused in the middle of the room, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. Something in her stance drew Hayes' attention. "What is it, Athena?"

"Of course!"

His friend pounded one manicured hand against the other. "Stay here for when Security arrives," she told her startled audience, and slapped her friend's arm on the way out. "I think I have an idea where he might have gone."