Chapter Text
Deep Space Nine feels different when he returns. Of course, there’s a war on, and it’s more battered in parts than he’d remembered. But after Empok Nor, it feels chilly, and the lights always seem just a little too bright. There are so many people around. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d grown to solitude and quiet until he came—home.
Certainly, there are many benefits. There’s far more variety at the replimat here. But meals with Miles feel lacking, somehow. After he’s been back for a week, he meets Miles for lunch, and halfway through, he says, “I mean, if you ask me, modern theater has been on the decline since the late twenty-third century. Just look at the plays to have come out of Earth in the last fifty years and compare them to the works of Willemheld, or Barton or Chow-yun.” Miles points at a roll on his plate and raises an eyebrow. “Yes, yes,” Julian says, and Miles takes it. “Modern playwrights have become obsessed with writing human interpretations of alien theatrical works instead of embracing the alien nature wholeheartedly—are you listening to me?”
Miles looks startled. “What? I heard every word you said.”
“And what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Any of it.” He’s been waving his spoon in the air, but he sets it down into his soup now.
Miles shakes his head. “I don't know. Look, what do you want me to say?”
“Say you agree. Say you disagree. Say you hate theater! Just say something.” He’s hungry for something and he’s beginning to realize that the food isn’t the problem.
“Look, Julian, you said you wanted to have lunch. We’re having lunch. My mother taught me that if you combine eating and talking, you'll end up doing neither very well.” Miles takes a pointed bite of Julian’s roll.
“Right.” Meals with Garak weren’t like this. Meals with Garak were—a sort of arena for philosophical debate, for literary critique, for arguing about anything and everything they could come up with. There’s no one here to do that with. “Of course.”
He returns to the infirmary, hoping for something interesting and non-fatal to occupy his attention. For once, though, the station’s residents appear to be keeping themselves intact, and even the longer-term patients are entirely stable. There’s nothing to keep him from thinking, from considering, perhaps even obsessing. Finally, Julian gives in and sends a long-range comm to Empok Nor. At first, it goes unanswered, and there’s a moment where Julian feels a spike of fear. Then, after a few long minutes, Garak comes into view. He’s a little rumpled, his wild hair messy. “My dear doctor,” he says. “I admit, this is unexpected.”
“I wanted to—see how you were getting on,” Julian says lamely. Then he clears his throat and braces himself. “I read Shoggoth’s third enigma tale.”
“Oh?” Garak’s tone is arch. “You’ve made time for Kardasi reading, there on DS9?”
“It’s not every minute that someone is coming in with a severed limb,” Julian begins, thus dooming himself to the immediate arrival of such a patient. “I’m sorry—I have to go—” If Garak responds, he doesn’t hear it.
The next time he has a minute to think—more than a minute—it’s 2255, and he’s cutting it fine but he hopes Garak has stayed stable and he wants to hear his voice. “Doctor,” Garak answers, when he comms. “Did you reattach the severed limb?”
“No,” Julian says shortly. “No, it was too late. Septicemia had already set in. The others too.” She’d only been the first of four patients like her, and they’d all slipped away from him. “I just—” Why is he talking to Garak, instead of one of the nurses? “I just wanted—”
“To express an undoubtedly uninformed perspective on Shoggoth’s literary abilities?” Garak’s words are careful, and Julian wonders just how bad he looks over the video screen. “Dazzle me, doctor.”
Julian musters his energy. “I can’t imagine that Cardassian detective work is particularly interesting,” he says. “The suspects are all always guilty.”
“Yes, but of what? The search is for the one who committed the particular crime, set against the obvious fact that everyone is guilty of something.”
“But they all end up dead by the end,” Julian says. He’s collapsed onto his bed, more or less in a sitting position, facing the video screen. Usually he would never make a holo-call in his bedroom, but it isn’t a usual day. “So what’s the victory?”
“It’s a puzzle,” Garak insists. “Come now, doctor, there are all sorts of logic puzzles in the galaxy, and it’s rare that the answer to any one of them should matter except as an abstract accomplishment. Why should it be any different in an enigma tale?”
“I’m going to make you read a mystery,” Julian threatens. “A proper mystery. Where no one knows anything about anybody.”
There’s a strange expression on Garak’s craggy face. “I suspect, doctor, that you didn’t deduce who was guilty of the murder in the enigma tale, and that’s why you’re complaining.”
“There were no clues! At the end of a proper mystery, the reader should be able to look back and see how all the pieces fit together.” This, this is familiar, almost comforting. “There was nothing to suggest that Fedal had committed it—”
“Nonsense,” Garak says. “You simply don’t know enough. The tarry substance at the crime scene was clearly the gum used to caulk faulty seams in illicit art museums. Fedal expressed his interest in Cardassian sculpture several times in the tale. It was almost laughably obvious.”
“Well, yes, I didn’t know what Cardassians use for construction in cheap art museums!”
Garak looks unimpressed. “Is an enigma tale only worthwhile if it’s accessible to anyone unfamiliar with Cardassian history or culture? Would your mystery novels fit together for me, when I came to the end?”
“Yes, yes, the experience of art is subjective and depends on context, I know,” Julian says, and he sees that hint of a smile on Garak’s lips. “I read ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ as a tragic poem, and you read it as a patriotic paean worthy of Cardassia until the last few lines.”
“And both of us depend on the history that we have learned, not only what we’ve experienced personally, to gain any meaning from it,” Garak points out.
“I wish you were here.” The words escape Julian’s mouth, and he blames the fact that he’s tired and heartsick after those deaths and somehow lonely in this place full of people he likes, because it’s a terrible thing to say after leaving Garak behind. “Sorry.”
Garak hesitates. “Do you?”
“There are all kinds of people here,” Julian says. He knows it’s not quite an answer. “Coming and going all the time. You wouldn’t—” It would be a lie to say stand out, but he wants to.
“I’m not exactly safe.”
Julian checks his chronometer—it’s 2305 there, and Garak is still talking to him. “We could—take steps. If we needed to.” He’s trying not to promise anything to Garak, anything beyond a place less isolated than Empok Nor, but he knows every word that he says is telling Garak something else.
“And the fact that I held a Starfleet officer captive for weeks?”
“What, my special medical research program?”
“I suppose you learned a great deal about Cardassian physiology,” Garak says slowly. “Information that I assume was erased from the Terok Nor database before the Cardassian withdrawal.” Julian nods. “Tomorrow,” Garak says. “I’ll speak to Captain Sisko. I may have an offer to make him.”
“Good.” Julian never expected him to agree, but there’s something incredibly relieved in him, like the feeling of sinking into bed after a long day. Of all the absurd things, he remembers a particularly self-indulgent speech in one of the novels of his childhood—“It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”
“And you, my dear doctor, do not look like you’re in any condition to offer your thoughts, ill-informed as they may be, at the moment.” Garak’s voice turns gentle. “You should sleep. There will—be time yet, to see the error of your literary ways.”
* * * * *
Garak’s offer to Sisko turns out to be bringing Empok Nor to the Bajoran system, where it will be something between a parts shop and a second weapons platform. Miles, when he hears it, turns purple at the idea of trying to merge the warp fields of multiple starships around an entire space station, that particularly excited purple that means it’s just the impossible task for him. If the Trivas system was more than three light-years away, or if a good portion of the fleet wasn’t in a holding pattern nearby, or if the need for a secondary defense was just a little less urgent—then there would have been no chance of it happening.
Instead, Julian joins the crush of people on the upper level of the promenade, watching the rather extraordinary sight of fifteen starships coming out of warp with a space station in tow. Garak is on one of those ships, Julian knows. There’s an empty storefront on the promenade that Sisko has promised to Garak, and quarters in the habitat ring near Julian’s own. There hasn’t been time for the two of them to talk much—certainly not to discuss literature—but Julian can imagine it so clearly it almost feels real.
Julian wants to be there to greet Garak when he arrives, to guide him through the gawkers, but there’s an explosion on one of the ships as it releases Empok Nor and three engineers appear in the infirmary, their skin half-melted together. The smell is unspeakable, their agony deafening, and Julian loses all track of time as he and his team work to save them. In the end, they survive, or at least stabilize, and Julian stands in the infirmary’s sonic shower until his pores are scoured clean before he puts on a fresh uniform.
When he steps onto the promenade, he sees the knot of spectators outside of Garak’s new storefront and finds himself drawn there inexorably. They have their faces pressed to the windows, but no one has stepped inside yet. Garak is methodically unloading crates, but he looks up when Julian walks in and breaks into a smile. “My dear doctor!” There’s a hint of a question beneath it.
“Garak!” He throws more energy into his greeting than he feels, for the benefit of the gawkers. “So glad you’re finally here!” That’s a little too honest, so he thrusts out a hand for Garak to shake. Garak takes Julian’s hand in his own larger one, clasps it gently, and shakes twice before releasing Julian.
“Indeed I am,” Garak says. “Your Federation has their second station, and I have my book shop.” He gestures around him. “How do you like it?”
“A bit bare so far.” It’s warm, but nothing like the heat of Empok Nor, and a little dimmer than the rest of DS9. With the right decorating, it might even seem cozy. He’d wondered what Garak would do with this space. “I take it you have plans?”
Garak waves one hand enthusiastically. “Oh, yes. The rare selections in this area, the drivel here, perhaps a featured new holo-novel or two to draw in the customers at first, and then some sort of—discussion area.”
“Discussion area?”
“I’ve arranged to have a replicator installed with limited beverage programming,” Garak says. He continues removing racks of data rods from the crates. “Coffee, raktajino, tea—the usual beverages that accompany literary debate. Perhaps there will be—book clubs,” and the words sound so strange in his mouth that Julian really does grin.
“Book clubs.”
“There has to be some entertainment on this station that doesn’t involve holosuites and overpriced alcoholic beverages,” Garak says. “Though I’ve arranged the use of Mr. Quark’s holosuites for brief previews of holonovels.”
“Garak.” He’s at a loss. “This is remarkable. You organized all of this in the last two weeks?”
Garak looks at him wide-eyed and lies, “It was fairly simple, my dear doctor.” Somehow those last three words feel different when Garak says them now. “After all, there was already the entire Cardassian library on Empok Nor. As for the rest of it, well—even with the war, publishers are eager to get their books into the hands of visitors. What better place than a space station?” He takes out a small box, made of some kind of unfamiliar wood, and offers it to Julian. “You left your books behind when you departed.”
“For you,” Julian says, but he accepts the box. It’s heavier than he would expect, given the number of books that he brought with him. “Did you read any of them, while I was gone?”
“Oh, one or two.” Garak turns away. “I’m afraid there’s been some delay in the arrival of shelving, which will delay my opening, but the rest of the furniture should be here soon. I think you’ll be impressed when it’s finished.”
“Yes,” Julian says. He runs his fingers over the shape of the box. “Yes. Would you like—” He hesitates. Garak looks at him sharply, and Julian plows on. “When you take a break, if I’m not up to my arms in someone’s viscera, I’d be happy to introduce you to the wonders of our replimat.”
“That sounds delightful, doctor.” Garak’s voice is all cheer, none of the sentiment beneath it that Julian has heard over the last weeks. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“1900, or thereabouts? Just come by the infirmary.”
“Very well.” Garak turns away from him. “Until then.”
* * * * *
It takes Julian the span of their walk from the infirmary to the replimat to realize that the replimat was a poor choice for their first dinner together since he left Empok Nor. It’s the busiest place to eat on the station, and quite bright, and Garak hasn’t experienced either since before he went to Empok Nor. But Empok Nor’s matching space was the site of all their dinners together, and Julian hadn’t had the—guts to suggest that they eat in his quarters, and he had a sense that such a suggestion might be taken the wrong way, whatever the wrong way was. So here they are in the replimat, where people are staring.
Garak, for his part, acts as though he’s a longstanding customer. He smiles at the people who stare at him, even greets Jadzia, who stares at them with some suspicion, and actually says, “Lieutenant Dax, won’t you join us for dinner?” He gestures with his tray a little. “Dr. Bashir is introducing me to the foods of the Federation.”
Julian ruthlessly tamps down a curl of disappointment. He was looking forward to dinner alone with Garak, or as alone as they could be in this busy cafeteria. Jadzia looks at him, a little uncertain, and Julian forces a smile. “Yes, Dax, please do.” Everyone loves Dax. If she sits with Garak, it will go a long way toward dispelling suspicion of him.
“Lieutenant,” Garak says, when they’re seated, “I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to converse with someone whose outlook is not so entirely Human.”
Dax laughs at that. “Julian isn’t exactly an ordinary Human,” she says, and Julian freezes minutely, just enough for Garak to notice.
“I’ve found his philosophical and literary understanding quite valuable, but his perspective is necessarily limited by his own experiences.”
“Now, wait just a minute!” Julian can’t help interrupting, even though he knows Garak is just teasing him. “This from the man who thought that Milton was ‘tedious’? Your interpretation was extremely limited, based on your own experience—”
“Oh, no,” Garak says. “Fantastical religious narratives are universal. My objections have nothing to do with a lack of perspective, only Mr. Milton’s melodramatic recitation of Lucifer’s fall—”
“It—you think everything is melodramatic, Garak. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same? That’s not melodrama, it’s insight—”
“My dear doctor, you’ve plucked a single phrase out of a poem that rivals the Odyssey for repetition—” He ignores Julian’s outraged noise “—as though it can be removed from the context that surrounds it. You conveniently ignore what comes just before it, Farewell, happy fields where joy forever dwells: hail horrors, hail infernal word, and thou profoundest hell receive thy new possessor. The melodramatic nature—”
“Repetition? May I remind you that you’re the man who claims that the repetitive epic is the highest form—”
Jadzia laughs again, and Julian remembers that they’re in the middle of the replimat shouting at each other about Paradise Lost. “Not much room for a third in this conversation, is there?”
Julian knows he’s blushing and hates it. Garak picks up his fork and takes a delicate bite of the blazingly hot green curry he’d insisted on trying. “The discussions at my bookshop will be significantly more decorous,” Garak assures her. “Please excuse my table manners—it’s been some time since I ate with someone other than Julian, and I’m afraid we grew accustomed to poor behavior.”
“Oh, no,” Dax says. “Don’t stop on my account.” She props her chin on both hands with, Julian thinks, a rather Cheshire-cat smile.
“No, no.” Garak clearly likes the green curry. Funny, given how bland the food was that came out of the replicators on Empok Nor. “Please, tell me more about what to expect on this station. Is the war substantially affecting it, day-to-day?”
Dax’s face darkens, and she sits back in her chair. “Sometimes nothing happens for weeks,” she says in a low voice. “Sometimes it feels like we’re under siege. Everyone’s a bit—on edge, all the time.”
“I see.” Garak does see, of course. Julian knows that Garak sees everything. For all that Julian’s genetically-enhanced brain gives him perfect recall, Garak seems to have an instinctive feel for the tensions, the danger points, the weaknesses, in people. “Well, I intend to host a grand opening for my bookshop in two days, assuming the furniture is ready. If the Dominion has the courtesy not to attack during that time, I would welcome your attendance.” And that of everyone else you can muster is implicit.
“I’d be delighted.”
“Excellent! Now, please excuse me, I’ve a great deal to get done before then.” Garak stands, nods a farewell, and walks away. Julian snags the half-full plate of curry from his tray before he leaves.
“Julian,” Dax hisses. “What was that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He doesn’t even sound convincing to himself.
“Is that what you’re like together, all the time?”
“Not always,” Julian says. He hadn’t thought what it would be like to have other people around them. He takes a bite of the curry. It’s really quite good. “Sometimes we talk about things other than literature. It’s less heated then,” and what an unfortunate choice of words, remembering what Garak told him while reading Much Ado About Nothing. “He’ll come to fit in here. Maybe I’ll even find a cure.”
Jadzia shakes her head. “I’m your friend, Julian. You don’t have to lie to me.”
Startled, he tells her, “I’m not lying.”
She watches him carefully. “Then you’re lying to yourself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He knows what she’s not saying. “If I felt that way—” If Julian felt that way, Garak wouldn’t still look like he does, because all that has to happen is that Julian has to fall in love with him to break the curse. No, that’s not quite true. All that has to happen is that they have to be in love at the same time.
And so begins a grim few days in which Julian tortures himself with the idea that maybe he is in love with Garak but that the curse hasn’t ended because Garak doesn’t feel the same way that he did. He drags his entire medical staff to Garak’s book shop grand opening, persuades all of the senior staff to come as well, even goes to Keiko and says, “You could bring your students to pick out a few books.” He goes to Quark and tells him, “If you let a few of the dabo girls take an hour off and come to the celebration, you know the guests will go directly to Quark’s and to the holosuites when they leave.”
By the time the grand opening comes around, Julian is realizing that he may have gone a little overboard. When Garak opens the doors, he looks stunned for the briefest moment before beaming and waving in the crowd. They stream in, no fear of him, and Julian can see what he thinks is genuine delight in Garak’s eyes.