Garak and Ziyal were certainly an interesting pair: the mysterious and intriguing former spy turned tailor and the innocent daughter of Gul Dukat who Major Kira loves like her own daughter. In the start, their friends warn them that it is a bad idea, but eventually it works out. But in the end of the original series, Garak loses Ziyal - Damar kills her in front of her father during the evacuation in "Sacrifice of Angels" - and never finds out why she loved him. But in the Vorta Brides Trilogy, because things were tweaked and Damar does not follow his commander, Dukat still stays behind for his daughter but gets arrested and taken to Federation prison. Garak and Ziyal ultimately become a couple and are married in "Forged in the Desert Heat".

This chapter takes place during "For the Cause", in which they first take their interests in each other.

Chapter Three

Elim Garak and Tora Ziyal: Zen Pause

The tailor did recall seeing the girl the first moment she arrived aboard Deep Space 9, and he had to admit he was exhilarated that another Cardassian was on the same floor as he was now, for he knew things might get more interesting from now on.

Until she stepped a tad closer for his better line of vision, and he saw her nose. Ridged...it was a Bajoran nose. She was half-Cardassian, half-Bajoran. And it was then that he learned from listening around as to who she was.

Tora Ziyal, they said. The illegitimate daughter of none other than Legate Dukat. Apparently during the occupation, he had an affair with a Bajoran woman before her disappearance six years before on a long-lost Cardassian transport - and under Dukat's command, no less. During the next five months to follow, he uncovered that her mother was killed along with eleven others, the remainder - a total of twenty - taken prisoner by the Breen and bound for labor.

Until the good major and the almighty Dukat came to the "rescue".

Nothing gave Garak any pleasure than to see the mighty fallen, but with recent events, his daughter was under the major's care while he fought to regain his rightful place now that his planet was in a war against the Klingons.

And today he could not stop looking at her at the springball match with the good doctor beside him, trying to get him to break his interest with Dukat's half-Bajoran daughter, who was two rows down and on the other end of the audience. Like he asked Julian, what DID the girl expect? She was the only Cardassian, if not entirely, female on the station. That gave him plenty reason to look at her if he wanted to. But she must have no experience in these matters, if her father had not taught her this yet. Having fought alongside Dukat in the past, he was a very busy man and might not catch until too late.

If there was a way to simply and politely speak to her after the game ended, but Bashir was persistent in reminding him how much Dukat hated him. Oh, Elim could NOT agree more, but that did not mean he was afraid. Bashir was a good friend and a wonderful conversationalist at lunch, but right now was an exception in listening to anything the good doctor had to say.

She had been watching him, too, but she made no move on her part, either. The major was doing her part in telling the young woman to keep away from him. Perhaps it was for the best they didn't speak after all, Garak decided.

Unfortunately, the turbolift deprived them of that opportunity.

As soon as everyone cleared off, it was just the two of them side by side. From the corner of his eyes, she looked like she was trying to either think of something to say to lift the strain of the air between them, or she just wanted to get off the turbolift as soon as she could. Perhaps he could do the honors.

"You're not going to hurt me, are you? Normally, I would make a strategic withdrawal at the first sign of trouble, but there doesn't seem to be a way out of here." Whether it was a joke or not was out of the question; the chance was that she might have either a phaser or a disruptor hidden somewhere in the confides of that dress of hers, and somehow he briefly glimpsed the exposed skin of her chest, which had a slight tint of humanoid peach to it...

She looked like she was trying not to laugh. "You could always call security."

"Oh, true, but it would take them a few minutes to arrive, and by then, it might be too late."

"I don't think I'll hurt you then."

"Well, I'm gratified to hear that." Indeed, a relief, but you never knew when another chance would come.

Ziyal went on, smooth as marble and sweet as honey all the same. "In fact, I think it's safe to say you have nothing to fear from me."

The turbolift came to a stop, and the mood lifted by then. The word, should he say, was amicable and relaxing at its best. "And you, my dear," Garak told her as he was the first one off, leaning in by an inch, causing her to shyly look down, "have nothing to fear from me."

He could still feel her eye on him when he walked away for his shop.

In fact, aside from the fact she was the first of his people to be in his presence, it had been so long since he had even had a taste of Cardassia that he remembered it when she came to him not that long later with the invitation to a holosuite from Quark - that of a Cardassian sauna, where there would be unlimited heat. This station was so cold, lower than his natural heat tolerance level would bear, that he could use the company.

In two days at twenty-one hundred. Late enough to be just the two of them.

Until Major Kira pinned him to the wall in his own shop and threatened to murder him if he so much as did anything to hurt the girl she was responsible for. Now why would she do that? To warn him that Tora Ziyal would in a manner give his head as a birthday gift to her father. Paranoid, according to Quark? That was a word for anyone who imagined threats against their lives, not for a long-time agent of the Obsidian Order. The threats against your life never ended.

That meant Ziyal might want to kill him after all, and the major was only trying to warn him away. Unless this was only a setup to have him killed anyway if he chose to go anyway. He would go armed, just to be safe.

Two nights later, he arrived at the holosuite, finding her laying on the rock slab with the heat source flaring overhead. Somehow, the sight made Garak burn with more than just the desirable fire his body tolerated - but it also reminded him he was not a predator. Ziyal had spent six years in a labor camp, and he doubted the Breen would do something even that far than beat her to near death, or if any of the Cardassian prisoners there had already done so - or at least tried. But even if she had been touched, she would be even harder than she already was. Disruptor hidden safely, Garak slowly approached the slab of rocks where the female was basking in the energy. The manner was very much like a lizard would savor the sun, given the Cardassian ancestry stemmed from such a creature.

Hearing him come in, she raised her head and smiled at him. "Doesn't it feel good?" she asked. "The station is just so chilly sometimes."

"Oh, yes, quite pleasant." He shuddered as his scales and bloodstream allowed the savory waves to wash over him, still standing where he was. She frowned when she noticed this.

"Aren't you going to lie down?"

"Uh, not just yet." Not until he said his part. He had to know the truth as it was just the two of them now. "I have a question I'd like answered first. Why am I here?"

She reeled back, shocked at the question. "Excuse me?" she said, flabbergasted and offended.

"Am I to believe that you've invited the sworn enemy of your father simply to enjoy the heat?"

Ziyal sat back, angry now. Her eyes flared with the red light overhead and matched her words. "You really think I asked you here to kill you," she seethed. "Well, to satisfy your answer, it DID occur to me. Kira and my father both told me that you used to be an agent of the Obsidian Order - that you had my grandfather tortured and killed, and that you could easily kill me without a second thought."

Well, what could he say? Dukat's father was not, shall he say, the most admirable of men that he remembered. "Although," Garak answered calmly, "I seldom credit the major or your father with being entirely trustworthy, they are both telling the truth in this case." She huffed.

"You know what else is true? I...don't...care. I'm half-Bajoran, and that means I am an outcast back home. I can't go back, and neither can you. So, we can either share some time together - or we can ignore each other. I spent five years as a prisoner of war in a camp; I don't need your company, but if you'd like to stay and share the heat with me, maybe tell me something about home that I don't know, then I would welcome your company...and I get the feeling you would welcome mine."

So, this was all about sharing mutual company in the events of their similar exiles from home. Garak could gladly welcome that, but what else would there be? This was up to him now, either way, and he would gladly stay - and it seemed he no longer needed his disruptor, after all. He set it down and gladly joined her underneath the heat lamp.

"So," he said casually, "what shall we talk about first?"

~o~

Tora Ziyal found she liked Elim Garak more than she did at first. Besides Major Kira, she found a new friend. Everyone else aboard Deep Space 9 welcomed her, but some were not so pleasant as it was obvious why. She was half-Cardassian, daughter of the man who had ruled over them long before, but that was not her fault.

Garak was an intriguing man. He was still full of mystery, and she supposed some of the things he told her in the first hour they spent were true, and others not. But as he put it, all of it was true - even the lies. Dr. Bashir was his friend, and he received the treatment himself. They even shared lunch together that it made Ziyal decide she wanted dinner with Garak as often as they could manage. He might have tortured her father's father to death, but he was not going to do it to her. She might be innocent in those ways, but at least five years in a labor camp taught her to never take anything lightly. She was not naïve, either; she knew what she was getting herself into.

She adored Nerys, but the major could not protect her forever. She needed to start thinking for herself. She might be learning to combat Klingons and other enemies, but the point was to be fierce and vengeful - sometimes Ziyal was not sure if she ever could be.

Being near a former spy and now a tailor was a new and exciting adventure. If she was a younger girl again, she might have fallen head over heels - a Terran turn of phrase - for him and his stories of adventure. Cardassians could exaggerate their tales of woe and bravery, but they enthralled Ziyal that she began to see more to this man than she was told, even more than he let on. He could say that she was still too young and too trustworthy, not like she would care.

It was then that, sometime into the next hour to follow, her body heat began to become too comfortable, tingling in another place besides other parts of her body. She had never felt this before, but in her memory, the Cardassian men sometimes gave her certain looks that disgusted her and tried to come onto her, but whenever Breen were present or happened to watch, they would light up their sticks and shock the beasts to keep away from her. Nothing further ever happened, but it wasn't like young Ziyal ever prepared for something like this. And right now, in Garak's company, the bothersome tension began to get worse and interfere with the comfort of the atmosphere.

She got up from her side and walked around to his side, baffling him when she sat down beside him. "Wh-what - Ziyal, what are you doing?"

The darkening of his blue eyes was no different than the other Cardassian males, but they were also soft and concerned, bordering on the opposite of animalistic. Could this have been what her mother, Naprem, told her when she was twelve, before she died? "I think we both know what this is, Garak. I saw the way you were looking at me all those months, and right now, this heat is bringing it out."

He sat up quickly, backing away from her. "Ziyal, you don't know what you are asking! You're not entirely Cardassian, and we are just getting accustomed. You're still so young..."

She interrupted him harshly, following him. "Naïve or not, Mr. Garak," she said furiously, "I'm not that young. Or did you forget I had near-experiences with other Cardassian men in the Breen camp, experienced more than any other being of our people must have? Did you forget the last two hours of nonstop revealing each other's darkest secrets? Aren't our people supposed to see the opportunity and go for it?"

He stared at her, speechless for a long moment, and in that moment, the fire consumed her that she moved forward so she was sitting on his lap, smashing her mouth against his for a demanding kiss that became wild and frenzied, mad with immediate passion unleashed from the cores of their brains that shot straight down from the core of their bodies. Cardassians never poured perspiration, but the moisture gathered below the waist and turned the arousal switch on - that was in Ziyal's mind, at least, based on what she was currently feeling beneath her dress. She reached down between their bodies and felt how swollen and rough he was in his pants. His hips bucked against her hand, on the verge of the madness cliff.

He broke off the kiss. "Ziyal, for a girl who's never...done this," he panted, "you seem to know what you're doing."

She grinned at him. "It's basic instinct, I think."

They reversed their positions so she was on her back, her legs parted so he was in between them and her skirt being pushed up so he had access to feeling her beneath, going right for the goal unlike the game of springball. However, despite the insane frenzy of fire, the actions were quiet and tender, taking each other's time in reveling each other's textured forms. She could not say the same for herself as her torso was smooth in the front but rougher on the back. Garak seemed to enjoy the sight of her; she enjoyed the sight of the broad expanse of his plated, armored chest and his leaning over her while he inserted himself into her body. She cried out at the immense pain shooting through her as this was her first time; she wanted more that she begged him to pick up the speed. Ziyal did not want him to stop, ever.

And he didn't want to stop, either, no matter insisting this was too soon - too much. But a man always gave into desire in the end.

The pace slowed down when they neared the end. Their hearts were pounding by this time, their legs intertwined in the midst of the low simmering of their coupling. He leaned forward, breathing heavily as she was, hips grinding a bit firmer again as they began to build toward the biggest sensation she ever felt in her life, soiling heat never so sweet that she ever felt before.

Honestly, it flowed from me just like that, the point of views of both of these amazing characters. I didn't think I'd do Garak or Ziyal well, but to do the intimacy of Cardassians was another matter. Basically, as Andrew Robinson put it, it "stems from their reptilian brains".