Chapter Text
It takes only a few minutes—enough time for the waitress to ask what they’d like to eat, and write down two orders of the special—for Julius to notice that there’s a man watching them. He glances at Polly. “Apparently we’re very interesting,” he says. “Do you suppose we shouldn’t have picked the special?”
Polly raises an eyebrow. “I understand your point, Mr. Eaton.” She sips at her Coca-Cola and doesn’t quite grimace at the carbonation. “What do you propose to do about it?”
“I suppose asking him where our friend might be is out of the question.”
Polly’s eyebrow rises a little higher, as if to say, amateur. “I suspect it would not yield results. Certainly not useful results.”
There’s a tightness through his whole body, and he has to remind himself to relax each muscle, one by one. He wants nothing more than to put his hands on the men and take him apart, piece by piece, until the man confesses Garak’s location—until he takes them there. “You know, I might have left the car unlocked,” he says. “Would you give me the key? I’d like to check.”
Polly hands over the key wordlessly. The man watching them flinches slightly, but he remains at his table watching Polly as Julius walks out to the parking lot. The man is in an excellent position to see her, but Julius sees that his view of the parking lot is limited. Perfect.
There are only a few cars in the parking lot other than theirs, which makes his task easier. One is a battered Ford truck, more than a few years pre-war. Pre-Julius’s war, that is. He has trouble believing that whatever organization with the resources to kidnap Garak has its operatives performing surveillance in twenty-five-year-old vehicles. One of its mirrors is missing, an easy reason for a police officer to perform a stop. He rules out the truck.
There’s a long, mean-looking Impala with a sharp tail, shiny and light blue, parked a little unevenly between the lines in the lot. Something about it catches Julius’s eye—something beyond the admittedly dramatic styling. The uneven parking suggests the slightest amount of haste. The wheels and undercarriage are dusty, and Julius pulls out a handkerchief to wipe off a good amount of the dust to examine under better light. He tucks the kerchief back into his pocket and continues his examination. There are minute scratches all along the undercarriage too—gravel, perhaps? Hardly a surprise that a dusty road would include gravel.
When he tries the handle very gently, the door is unlocked. Sloppy, but consistent with haste. He moves quickly—Polly can’t hold the man’s attention forever—and riffles through the glove compartment until he finds what look like two different identification badges—one for a janitor at Edwards Air Force Base, and another for a security guard at Dominion Enterprises. He memorizes the appearance of both. Then Julius replaces everything where it was and closes the door quietly.
When he returns to the restaurant, he announces, “The door wasn’t locked. We need to be more careful—there might be car thieves!”
Polly looks up at him from her hamburger and gestures at his own rapidly-cooling plate. “Did you find something?”
“Dust and gravel scratches on the undercarriage—I took a sample.” Julius pats his breast pocket. “Security identification for Dominion Enterprises.”
Something that’s almost an expression crosses Polly’s face. “I am familiar with Dominion Enterprises,” she says. “I believe they have a secondary storage location in the desert. The road is—poorly improved.”
Everything clicks into place as she says it. “Let’s go, then,” he urges. “Now that we know—”
She dabs at her mouth. “Our friend will notice.”
“Can’t you—incapacitate him? I’d rather take his car.”
Again, the tiniest hint of expression—this time, maybe a smile at the corner of her mouth. “Is car theft your area of expertise, Mr. Eaton?”
“I’m a fast learner.”
They leave a ten-dollar bill on the table and walk out of the restaurant together. Julius goes directly to the Impala, while Polly waits for the man to exit the restaurant and approach the car so that she can incapacitate him with a grip to his neck. Julius has never seen anything like it, but Polly plucks the keys from his pocket and dumps the man into the backseat. “We can dispose of him once we’re out of the city,” she says.
“Are you going to kill him?” He thinks Garak might have. Polly starts the car and it growls almost eagerly.
“Not unless it becomes necessary.” She’s exactly at the speed limit as they drive south out of town, back into the maw of the dark night. “I was going to leave him by the side of the road on our way, if that’s acceptable to you.”
“Yes, quite acceptable,” Julius says. Polly hands him a gun and he starts a little, but accepts it. “What’s this?”
“It’s a Makarov. Can you shoot a gun?” She doesn’t look away from the road.
How vividly he remembers Garak’s wholly unnecessary lesson. “I can,” he says, instead of explaining.
“Good.” Polly pulls off the road. “Roll him down the side of the ditch,” she says. “He shouldn’t wake for another few hours, but there’s no sense taking him all the way with us.”
Julius awkwardly drags the man out of the backseat and pushes him down the hill, then gets back into the car. “How far are we?”
“Another ten minutes, if I remember correctly.”
It’s a strange experience, especially when Polly cuts the headlights, turns off the road, and uses the moon as her only source of illumination. A few times, Julius has to say, “A little more to the left,” and he realizes that his vision is better than Polly’s. Perhaps unsurprising. They drive very slowly up the gravel path, and Julius can’t help wincing at the soft noise of the tires over the gravel. Even with his enhanced eyesight, Julius spots the building only when they’re pulling up off to the side. It’s dilapidated, unlit, with a fading DOMINION ENTERPRISES logo painted on one wall and a large NO TRESPASSING sign. There are two trucks parked in front. It looks like the perfect place to hold someone prisoner.
“How many guards, do you think?” He pitches his voice so low that he isn’t sure Polly will hear him.
“At least four.” Polly meets his eyes. “I can deal with the guards if you can find Garak.”
Julius breathes in deeply. “I can.” If Polly can handle the guards with her death grip, it means that he’s less likely to have to shoot anyone—Julius has shot plenty of people, but he feels no need to add to the total.
The side door that they try is locked, but Julius manages to pick it open. He takes in as much of the building as he can at a glance—a large warehouse, turned into a maze with incomplete construction everywhere and piled wooden pallets. He spots a few tiny beams of light, which must be security guards patrolling. Julius avoids them, picking his way through the skeletal frames of future hallways, looking for a closed door where someone like Garak could be kept.
He pauses. There’s heat coming from somewhere, which means a boiler room. An ideal place to imprison someone, in a pinch. Julius follows the heat, ducking into corners or behind a stack of pallets if one of those flashlights approaches.
Rather prosaically, the door to the boiler room doesn’t even require a key. It’s just a deadbolt. With very light fingers, he slides the deadbolt open and walks through the door. He finds Garak there, in the tiny boiler room, shaking and gasping for breath. One eye is swollen shut, the other open wide in—fear? Garak, afraid? “It’s me,” he says. “It’s only me.”
“Julius?” Garak squints in the darkness. “I’m afraid you’re not real.” His voice is regretful. “But I appreciate your company nonetheless. This room is—quite small.” He gasps as he inhales.
“It is,” Julius agrees. He fights to keep his voice steady. He pulls out a lighter and flicks it open for a little light, so that Garak can see him, and then offers his hand to Garak. Garak grips his hand almost convulsively. He flexes his fingers, stretches his wrists, and then reaches out very slowly to lay the lightest touch on Julius’s face. “You’re alive?” He still doesn’t sound like he believes it.
“Very much so,” Julius says. If not for Garak’s bloody lip, he would kiss Garak to make the point. “I’m glad to see that you are too. We should hurry—Polly is dealing with the guards, but another is coming.” He can hear the dull rhythm of the guard’s footsteps. “I’d like to be gone when he gets here.”
“If you say so.” Garak is suspiciously malleable. He lets Julius lead them back through the series of half-constructed hallways and piled pallets until they’re out of the warehouse in the cold night air. The moon is a brilliant waning gibbous, and it casts bright silver light over everything. Their shadows are sharp as Julius steers Garak to the meeting point. Garak didn’t react badly to Polly’s name, which seems like a good sign.
The car looks abandoned, but Polly stands up from behind it. “I see you have recovered him. Please get into the car. His absence will be noticed soon, if it has not already.” They slide into the front seat, all three of them, and she takes the wheel.
Julius remembers everything, but this car ride will stand out most clearly in his memory: the light of the moon overhead, illuminating their way; the way that Garak touches Julius’s cheek again almost disbelievingly with his chilly fingers; the feeling of Garak’s bloody lips beneath his own, when Julius ghosts a kiss across his mouth, and the faintest taste of blood transferred between them. Garak’s hand comes up to clutch the back of his neck and pull Julius in closer, until their foreheads meet gently. “You’re alive,” Garak repeats.
“I didn’t realize that was in question.” Julius tries to put a little humor into it. “I’m not the one who was kidnapped. You left me a message in my typewriter.”
“I hoped,” Garak murmurs. In his peripheral vision, Julius sees Polly look over sharply, but she doesn’t say anything. Garak sounds woozy to Julius’s ears, but at least his breathing has started to return to normal.
“Did they give you something?” He puts his hand on Garak’s cheek to ground him. “Garak. Did they give you something?”
“Oh yes,” Garak says. “All sorts of things. Marvelous things.” He touches a finger to Julius’s lower lip.
“Did you tell them anything?” Polly’s voice is sharp.
“How could I do that?” Garak asks. “I’m only a tailor.”