Well, thought Bashir with a touch of irony. It's better than Solitary. The isolation ward was divided into two rows of evenly matched, adjacent cubicles, each closed off by the steady glow of a forcefield generator. A single bed in a small, enclosed room, with little else to break the dark, dull brown of his surrounds. The suggestion of a door was narrowly visible, no more than two or three centimetres peeking around the outer edge of the cell.

But it was no less a prison than any other he had encountered. The temperature in this enclosure was warmer than it had been in many other sections of the complex, leaving him flushed and slightly moist from the sweat across his skin. It kept him drifting in and out of a shallow sleep, barely sensing where the boundary could be found. He wondered if there was something in the air of this particular cubicle - a colourless, odourless chemical infused into the closeted air. Someone must have set the controls deliberately, in order to keep him quiet and drowsy.

That's what I would have done.

"What's that for?" A soft voice, forced through numb, dry lips with no more than a shallow breath to give it substance. He glanced down through lids that still struggled to open, at the band of thin coloured tubes nearly half way around the circumference of his upper arm. Sighing, he glanced back up at Athena Nikos' watchful green eyes. A steady neon glow outlined the edges of her face, and cast her skin in a peculiar shade - neither entirely blue, nor entirely olive-brown. Her approach had been quiet and tentative, almost missed by the man who watched her from the shallowly padded, sloping bed.

"You've stopped eating again," she challenged. "Haven't you? I'm not about to let you starve."

Julian scowled moodily. "I'm fine," he insisted. "Now."

"Oh, really?"

His head still ached as though from a particularly hectic double shift. A dull, throbbing pain - changing its position and intensity with every movement; renewing the discomfort to which he had thought himself accustomed. He scowled back down at the blinking lights still fastened to his arm, until hot tears prickled across the surface of his eyes. "What makes you think I won't just take it off as soon as your back is turned?"

"Julian--" His name, turned to accusation. Nikos allowed her expression of admonishment to turn just slightly hard. "Believe me. I'll know if you do."

But even while he was reluctant to admit it, there were questions remaining - which only she could answer. Bashir looked away, avoiding Nikos gaze as she opened the scanner, and did his best to distance himself from the mechanical song and flashing coloured lights. "What is this place?" he asked her softly.

He watched Athena Nikos pause at his side, and run an open palm over her dark, untamed hair. "I'm not sure I understand…" she began.

"You say I'm here for my own good," he attempted to explain, still with no clear knowledge of where he may have been leading his thoughts.

"I'm not the only one here with enhancements, am I?"

"No." Doctor Nikos showed no surprise to hear him voice this simple assumption.

"But that's not all. There's something else…"

Nikos stopped, deflated as though her head was suddenly far too heavy to lift. "This is wrong," she muttered to herself. "I don't care what Starfleet says - I can't keep doing this any longer."

Pausing for a moment of troubled reflection, Julian allowed the older doctor's response to settle in his mind. Her striking green eyes were closed as she massaged their corners with a finger and thumb. Diffuse light from above and behind her seemed to augment the creases beneath her lower lids.

"The problem is, Julian--" Her gaze never broke away, but she hesitated through the beginnings of a halting confession. "I probably shouldn't be telling you, but… There is more to this than a question of personal safety."

"What do you mean?"

There was something melancholy, a little too attentive, in the doctor's cat-green eyes. "It has to do with what you told Starfleet Command," she explained quietly. "There are some… Not all, but some mind you, who have been very concerned about what it might mean - if the Dominion were to capture you again."

Bashir's breath caught in his throat, but he did not doubt that Nikos had noticed. "That makes no sense," he protested - still with the same hoarse gasp behind his voice. "There are so many others, who would…"

"It's not just that," said Nikos. Julian saw her suppress a grimace, slightly tensing the corners of her mouth. "Think about it, Julian. They targeted you, specifically from the shuttle - not just another random passenger. That has Starfleet very disturbed."

"They're disturbed?"

He sensed the bitter taste at the back of his throat. Nikos shifted, visibly uncomfortable. "It will be all right, Julian…"

"No." He choked on his own voice, wishing he could scream. "No - it won't."

So you keep me moving. Keep me breathing… At least for now. But this isn't about helping anybody. It's about hiding them away from sight. Because whatever you can't see, is so much easier to forget.

Bashir closed his eyes again, hoping with all his will that the silence would continue. Say nothing, he begged of Doctor Nikos. It was the only remaining thread of control still left to him.

"I… I'd like to be alone now. Please."

When next he discovered a way to open his eyes, they were too dry to let him focus on the room around him. As he had wished, Athena Nikos no longer watched from anywhere that he could see. But then… The thought remained unfinished. Somehow, he sensed - for once - that nobody was monitoring him either.

Had he slept? If so, he was as unsettled as ever - half awake, but immobile as though in the middle of a dream. There was something else, something out of place that he could not immediately identify. He hesitated, straining blindly through a veil of blackness. From a shapeless single tone, outlines came gradually, sharpening from a soft edged blur. It took another few seconds for his vision to adjust - enough to notice that his surroundings were never meant to be so dark.