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Chapter Text

"I cannot speak much further;
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear…"
— from Macbeth

Cruel Are the Times

Chapter I: Ill News Out of Ghent

The cherry blossoms were in bloom, and San Francisco seemed like the epicentre of paradise. In a quiet arbour on the northwest corner of the Starfleet Academy campus, Julian Bashir lounged in the grass, his PADDs scattered around him like scales from a dragon's hoard. He had one propped in the crook of his elbow, and two more fanned out in the other hand as he cross-referenced the Tellarite physiology textbook with the cellular exobiology reference and the latest edition of the Interplanetary Pharmacopeia.

It was slower going, studying outdoors. He couldn't read at speed where others might observe him. He followed the advice his mother had given him years ago when she'd caught him ripping through The Once and Future King as quickly as his eight-year-old eyes could devour it. She'd plucked the PADD from his hands and silenced his indignant protestation with one reproachful look.

"It isn't polite to read so fast where other people might see you, Jules," she had said, in that kindly censorious voice that never failed to smite him with guilt. "You've got to slow down. Imagine you're saying every word out loud as you read it, and read only that fast. You don't want to be rude, do you?"

He hadn't wanted to be rude. In those days, bad manners had seemed like the worst crime imaginable, the most horrifying transgression he could possibly commit, publicly or privately. His mother had used that conditioning, and his overwhelming eagerness to be liked, to be well-regarded, to be praised by those around him — her most of all — as a means to keep him in line. She had used the spectre of social faux pas to curtail any number of behaviours that would have seemed suspicious to even the most casual observer.

But of course, she hadn't meant it's rude to read so fast, Jules. She had meant you can't be seen to read so fast, or people will realize you're unnatural, Jules. She just hadn't had the courage (or was it the cruelty?) to say it. Over the course of this past decade, while he burned with bitterness over what his parents had done to him, Julian had grown to resent these innocuous little "etiquette lessons" almost more than anything. His father had simply hollered at him. His mother had played to his vulnerabilities. Somehow, that was worse.

The strategy itself, though, was a sound one. If he played out the lines he was reading as if they were being recited in his head — albeit recited with the manic patter of a Gilbert and Sullivan song, almost too quickly for the human ear to follow — he could manage a credible facsimile of a normal human reading pace. It was tedious, and sometimes frustrating, but for the pleasure of stretching out in the shade, and smelling the fragrance of the cherry blossoms on the sweet breeze blowing in from the Bay, it was a small price to pay.

He was so absorbed in his reading, part of his mind already composing the paper that was beginning to look genuinely groundbreaking, that he didn't hear his name the first two times it was called. The third shout was more urgent, and bordering on irate.

"Hey, Bashir!"

He stiffened and looked up, mildly surprised. On the nearest of the neatly raked paths stood Erit, squinting into the sunlight with one blue hand sheltering his eyes. The Andorian's antennae flexed and rippled as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His Starfleet Medical Academy uniform with the peacock-blue shoulder bars was crisp and pristine. Julian raised his eyebrows at his classmate, the closest thing he had to a real friend.

"What do you want?" he asked, bluntly but good-naturedly. "I'm reading."

"You promised to return my lab coat," said Erit. "I have the xenografting seminar tomorrow, and I need it."

Julian sighed in mild annoyance, directed more at himself than at Erit. He'd forgotten all about the lab coat, which he had borrowed on Monday after forgetting his own back in the dormitory. The loan had spared him from two equally unpleasant outcomes: either running back for his own, and turning up late for the seminar, or showing up without one and facing the icy disapproval of Doctor Saavrel. Somehow, the emotionless way she upbraided cadets who failed to meet her exacting standards was far worse than the most outraged of tongue-lashings. But then, Julian had always dreaded unspoken disapproval and disappointment, hadn't he?

He gathered up his PADDs — arguably more devices than anyone needed even for the most complex research, but it was quicker to flick his eyes from one screen to another than to wait for the processors to change between books or articles on the same PADD. Juggling the pile as he sprang nimbly to his feet, Julian trotted down the hillock to join his comrade on the path. Together they started for the glittering glass tower that housed the medical, nursing, pharmacy, counselling, and physical therapy students. The Academy grounds were lush and beautiful on this sunny spring afternoon. The only sombre mark on the landscape was the flagpole, where the emblem of the United Federation of Planets flew at half-mast. A cadet had died earlier that week in a flight accident while on manoeuvres near Saturn.

Julian fell into stride, matching the Andorian's brisk pace. It was a companionable feeling, walking like this. He and Erit had been roommates for their first year, before the attrition rate of a rigorous academic schedule and several semesters of challenging practicum placements had whittled down the size of their class a little. Julian was glad to have his own room, because it afforded him privacy for things he couldn't risk doing in front of another person — like, for example, reading at speed. But he had to admit it was isolating. Erit had always been the one to make the social arrangements, herding a shy and awkward Julian Bashir along. Even after he'd come out of his shell a bit more, discovering the joys of blithe conversation if not quite how to gauge when his listeners grew disinterested, he'd been reluctant to elbow in where he hadn't been invited. Erit never seemed to have that problem.

"It's quite a brilliant seminar, really," Julian said as they passed under the ornate glass awning and into the vestibule of the dormitory building. "I learned a lot. It's fascinating — did you know that if you modulate the cellular mitosis in the donor cells, it's actually possible to mimic the host's own regeneration profile in order to—"

Erit held up a staying palm, laughing. "Easy, there, Bashir," he said. "I'd like to give Doctor Saavrel a chance to teach me something. It's her seminar, after all."

Julian felt the tips of his ears go hot. He'd been rambling on again. He did that a lot, but Erit was the only person he could count on to rein him in when he overdid it. Most other people didn't care enough to interrupt. Either they got progressively more annoyed until they couldn't stand the sight of him, or they just walked away.

"S-Sorry," Julian stammered, abashed. "I just…"

"Yeah, I know." Erit shrugged companionably. After a moment, he took pity on his classmate's discomfiture and tossed him a gentle conversational serve. "Did you get the opportunity to handle the new harvesting laser?"

Julian opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it. Waiting for the lift was Bruce Lucier and his crowd. They were middle-of-the-road students, unremarkable on Starfleet Medical's spectrum of excellence, but far above the average for drive, intelligence and skill when measured against the general Earth population. They drank heavily, played Parrises Squares on weekends, and frequented the more adventurous nightlife establishments down on the docks. People like Lucier had been the bane of Julian's existence since the second grade, and he'd learned to give them a wide berth.

"We should take the stairs," he murmured, but Erit was already strolling up to the others, hand outstretched. The loquacious and personable Andorian feared no social situation. He certainly had no reason to steer clear of a man who had a floor plan of Sarina Kaur's subterranean laboratory facility hanging over his dorm-room desk, exits and routes of attack marked in red. One glimpse of that at the New Year's Eve party that had overtaken the entire tenth floor had been enough to confirm every uneasy feeling Julian had ever experienced in Bruce Lucier's presence.

"Did you hear?" he was saying now, leaning in confidentially to draw Erit into the conversation. Julian hung back half a step, trying not to look out of place but reluctant to draw too near the bull-necked blonde Atlas. "The Planetary Housing Authority's put them up in Ghent. One of the canal-front heritage houses. It's an outrage."

This wasn't at all what Julian had expected the man to say. He'd assumed they would be talking about their course loads: in this final semester before their licensing exams and postgraduate practicum, newly returned from residencies all across the sector, this year's graduands had vastly divergent class schedules varying according to their interests and ultimate goals. Julian's own was heavy on exobiology, surgery, cultural medicine, and virology, while Erit, for example, was focused on gerontology, microbiology, and biotechnology. Julian's primary focus and Erit's tertiary one overlapped where cellular xenografting lay, but that was the only class they had in common this term. Comparing courses and schedules was for the class of '68 as commonplace as comparing feeding anecdotes was for new parents, or swapping accounts of warp coil escapades was for engineers.

But no, these four were talking about something else entirely: an entity almost forgotten within the hallowed halls of Starfleet Medical, where complex problems of physiology and pathology absorbed the daily attention of the cadets. They were talking about current events.

"I heard the CMO onboard the Enterprise pulled some strings to make that happen," Dorian Prinn whispered salaciously. She was of mixed planetary heritage: Risian and human. Slim, athletic and well-endowed, she'd been Lucier's girlfriend since their second year. They'd contrived to have four out of five clinical placements at the same sites, which seemed to Julian to be a waste of educational opportunities.

Then again, neither of them had ever even considered that opportunities might be finite for some people, if not for them. They took their easy access to the broad world of options for granted.

"Why would she do that?" This was Narpak-Eshra, a tall Grazerite and the one member of their group with no human parentage. His horns were covered with a cowl of science-and-medicine blue that matched the shoulders of his uniform. "Why bring them to Earth at all?"

"That's what I'm saying," Lucier insisted. "The whole thing's disgusting, if you ask me. The founders of that colony left the Federation in the first place because they knew their methodology was illegal and immoral. Welcoming them back now after eight generations of tampering is insane. It shows tacit approval of unacceptable practices, and it shouldn't be allowed."

Julian's throat seemed to clamp down as if in the throes of anaphylaxis. He took a hesitant, horrified step backward, looking anxiously around for some way to extricate himself from this. He knew what they were talking about now. He had been following the discussion on the Federation News Service since the Enterprise had appraised Starfleet Command of the existence of the colony. Until today, it had been mostly idle speculation percolating in the background, lost in the vast quantities of information seething through Starfleet's databases.

The lift doors hissed open, and he had lost his chance to run. The others piled in, still talking.

"Did the Enterprise really come all the way back to Earth just to deliver a bunch of Augments?" Ellamaria Rocha asked. "That seems like a colossal waste of resources. Drop them off at a starbase and let them book passage on a freighter."

"You coming, Bashir?" Erit asked, using his palm to block the sensor that kept the doors from closing.

"Or are you just going to stand there and gawk?" Lucier asked. "I swear, the smarter they get, the dumber they come."

This provoked a round of chuckles of the sort that usually followed cracks about the students in the ninety-fifth percentile. Julian had borne his share over the years. Elizabeth Lense was another popular target, as were Cadets T'Priel and Belios. It was part of the complex dynamic of envy, insecurity and scorn that had dogged Julian's interactions with his peers since his first day in his brand new school, in a brand new city, where his parents had brought him to begin his brand new life. The brightest pupils, even here where the last in the class were still among the Federation's academic elite, were frequently accused of being book-smart but not street-smart, or of being able to memorize every base pair in a virus but unable to explain to a worried mother what to do about her toddler's head cold, or of being so socially inept that they couldn't string two words together in public.

That last, at least, was true at this moment. Julian couldn't think of a single thing to say. The very believable excuse that he wanted to take the stairs to maintain his cardiac fitness died on his lips. So did the story of how he must have forgotten one of his PADDs outside. A dozen plausible reasons not to climb into that lift battled for primacy in his head, and not a single one rose to his lips. He had no choice. He stepped in, and the door hissed closed behind him.

"Tenth floor," said Lucier, and they began to ascend. "It's not just the Augments; that's only a bonus. Captain Picard is delivering the Commencement Address at the Academy graduation next week. They probably showed up early for some shore leave."

Julian stared resolutely at the seam of the door, trying to shut his ears to that hideous word. It carried with it the burden of psychosis, of genocide, of evil incarnate. Applying it to the Moab IV colonists, who from the sketchy reports that had been released for general consumption within Starfleet Medical sounded like well-adjusted, competent, and highly skilled individuals, seemed galling and unfair. But maybe it only seemed that way to him, Julian Bashir. He didn't dare to speak up. He didn't dare to express a conflicting viewpoint, as he might have done on any other issue. It was far too dangerous.

"Lucky devils. Wish our commencement was next week!" Prinn said. Everybody laughed. Everybody but Julian.

"You'll be missing this place before you know it," Rocha warned. "There are no cherry blossoms in space."

Lucier snickered, but Prinn sighed happily. "Aren't they beautiful this year?" she enthused.

"Exquisite," agreed Erit.

"They taste good, too, but don't let Boothby catch you picking them," Narpak-Eshra advised. Again, airy laughter filled the turbolift.

Julian closed his eyes, still fighting off the crawling dread that spidered up his spine. It was easier not to think about how he'd been enjoying the fragrance and the ethereal, lacelike grace of the blooms himself. He hated moments like this, when he could see both his similarity to those around him and his otherness so clearly at the same time. Like a badly-aligned stereoscopic hologram, the two images of himself never quite fit together, leaving only disorientation and cold nausea in their wake.

Why did you do this to me? a wounded part of his heart wailed, crying out to parents who were not here to hear, and had never been there to listen.

The lift jolted to a stop and the doors hissed open. Lucier cleared his throat. "Uh, egghead?" he said, prodding Julian in the flank with two stiff fingers. "Either get off or move over: this is our floor."

Julian stepped hurriedly aside, the PADDs shifting and clattering in his arms as the husky young man jostled him unnecessarily. His entourage followed him, but at least they didn't feel the need to assert their social dominance or assuage their academic shortcomings quite so physically. As they walked off down the bright corridor to the bank of windows overlooking the Bay, they were already talking about the weekend's intramural round robin on the Parrises Squares courts. The doors closed on their conversation.

"Fourteenth floor," said Erit, startling Julian out of his dark thoughts. The lift rose again. "Sorry about that. I know you don't like them."

"It's n-not that I don't like them," Julian said, painfully aware of his stammer. It always flared up when he was distraught or overexcited or embarrassed. He closed his eyes again and sucked in a deep breath to calm his nerves. "Have you been following that?" he asked. "The Moab IV colonists coming to Earth?"

"Sort of," said Erit. "We discussed it in Biomedical Ethics on Wednesday. You know how Professor Xanyr'oyr loves to be topical."

"And?" asked Julian, knowing better but still feeling the need to sound out this person he liked to consider a friend. Almost a friend, anyway. Mostly a friend? Theirs was really just a comfortably collegial relationship, but Erit had bothered to reach out to renew it when they'd come back to San Francisco after their last practicum, which was more than any other "friend" in Julian's life had ever done.

"And nothing," said Erit. "It was just like our debate about the eugenics laws in second year: three-quarters of the class came down firmly against. The rest were indifferent apologists: try to be open-minded; give people the benefit of the doubt; don't judge too harshly, lest ye be judged. That sort of thing."

His tone wasn't contemptuous or mocking, but it was dreadfully detached, reciting the clichés of social consciousness as if they were meaningless. In this context, they probably were. There were always a few people in the class willing to take the opposing viewpoint, however unpopular, in the name of intellectual discourse. In second year, most of those who had spoken up in favour of leniency for the genetically enhanced had been doing just that.

Julian knew he should leave well enough alone, but he couldn't help himself. He pushed a little harder. "And what's your opinion?" he asked.

"About genetically enhanced humans?" asked Erit.

He didn't say that word. Even in his mind, Julian couldn't bring himself to form it again. That's something, isn't it? He knew he was being ridiculous. Erit would never know the truth, so his opinion didn't matter. Only it did, somehow.

"Yes," said Julian.

"Is an Andorian even qualified to have an opinion?" Erit said, shrugging boredly. "Your Eugenics Wars had been over for more than a century before we made First Contact. It's always just been something you humans were determined not to do. Whereas we didn't have the technology to do it at all until we joined the Federation anyway. What difference does it make? It's ancient history."

"Not to the colonists from Moab IV," Julian said softly. Not to me, his traitorous mind added.

The lift stopped again, and the two of them stepped out. Four floors higher, the view was even more spectacular. Julian supposed that was just another reason for the middle-of-the-pack socialites to resent him and the rest of the high fliers. There were certain privileges allotted according to achievement, and dormitory location was one of them. So was the new crop of duty assignments offered to graduates every year. When it came time to choose, Julian would have one of the premier picks. Valedictorian was his for the taking, if he held his current course. He'd be able to claim any post he wanted, while Lucier and his ilk would be stuck with the leftovers.

Or, Julian thought as he turned the corner and opened the door to his room, he could take his degree and his licence, and resign his Starfleet commission. There was a place for him at the most prestigious medical complex in continental Europe if he wanted it. Docteur Delon had made the offer last month, in light of Julian's extraordinary work as an intern at the facility and his academic excellence since. Palis had been almost unable to contain her excitement when her father had brought the conversation around to that subject, the three of them sitting in the sunny drawing room of a stately West Bank château. Julian hadn't known what to say. It was an incredible opportunity. Such jobs were rare, especially on Earth, and the scope for advancement was dizzying.

With your brains and those hands, you could be Head of Surgery in five years, Docteur Delon had said. In fact, I'll guarantee it. Don't waste your talents out in space! Our complex is a destination for patients from across the Federation. Anything you can do out there, you can do right here in Paris!

Options. Opportunities. The vast Galaxy of dreams and aspirations spread out before him like San Francisco Bay was spread out beneath the window Julian now went to, moving almost hypnotically. There was nowhere he couldn't go, nothing he couldn't accomplish, and all for the price of one simple lie.

One simple lie.

"Where is it?" Erit asked, looking around the room.

Julian's living space always exhibited a bizarre combination of personal meticulousness and academic chaos. Clothing, toiletries and personal effects were always neatly tucked away, everything in its place. He made his bed perfectly every morning, and never let more than two days' worth of dust (almost a nonexistent problem in this building with its state-of-the-art filtration system and atmospheric controls) accumulate on any surface. That was just as well, because almost every available surface was covered in study materials. PADDs, styluses and isolinear data chips were scattered about. There were real, bound books heaped on the shelf over the bed, and old, fragile medical periodicals spread across the little dining table in the corner. His computer terminal was practically buried in charts and hastily handwritten notes on pages torn from replicated notepads. Most of his classmates eschewed paper completely, but Julian took a tactile satisfaction from writing out some things with a pen. He didn't know why he found it soothing, but he did. PADD and stylus were convenient, but they just were not the same.

He deposited his armload of materials on the foot of the bed and raked a hand through his hair. It was getting shaggy again: time to visit the barber. "What's that?" Julian said, not quite understanding the question. He hadn't really been listening.

"My lab coat," Erit said, enunciating slowly as if Julian might be struggling with basic language comprehension. "We came up here so you could give me back my lab coat."

"Of course," Julian said. He went to the small closet and hooked the first hanger draped in pale blue he laid eyes upon. "Thanks again: you really saved me the other day."

"I know," Erit said sagely. He took the garment, looked at it, and then handed it back with a roll of the eyes. His antennae curled, echoing the expression. "This is yours, Bashir. I'd tear out the sleeves trying to get into it."

"Oh. Sorry." Julian looked down at the coat, which was indeed too narrow for the Andorian's muscular shoulders. He returned it to the rail and found the other one. "Here. It's clean."

"And pressed," said Erit, mildly admiring. "How'd you find the time for that? I can barely remember to tip my uniforms into the reprocessor at the end of the day."

Julian shrugged. "I like things neat," he said.

Erit raised a feathery white eyebrow, looking around at the clutter of academia. Julian raked up a self-deprecating little smile. "I like most things neat," he amended.

"You'll have to break yourself of the untidy workplace habit," the Andorian warned. "It'll never pass muster in a Sickbay."

He was probably right, but Julian wasn't about to admit it. There was no fun in that. "Maybe wherever I go, they'll just have to learn to adapt to my habits, not the other way around," he said.

Erit laughed. "Maybe. And maybe you'll be a perennial Lieutenant until the day you retire, because nobody wants to promote a disorganized CMO."

"It's not disorganized," Julian said pertly. "I know where everything is."

As soon as the words were out, he was second-guessing them. Was that a normal thing to say? Was it worse that it was true? It seemed like something he'd heard other classmates say, usually to justify their clutter… but what if he was misremembering? What if whoever had said it was a member of a species with a more highly developed eidetic memory than humans? Damn it, he tried so hard to fit in, to be inconspicuous even in excellence, but at times like this he didn't know what was a slip and what was not! How smart was too smart? What was not smart enough to justify his grades? And why was he suddenly agonizing about this now, when he hadn't had a fit of these anxieties since his second year of officer training?

He knew why. The Moab IV colonists. The conversation in the turbolift.

"I really need to get back to work," he said, hoping the words sounded casual. He didn't want Erit to see his inner turmoil. Erit had been in the lift, and he'd heard Lucier's words. He might put two and two together if he noticed Julian was upset. "This paper… it's going to be very important, if I can just get it all sorted out on the screen."

"You do that," Erit chuckled, moving to the door. "I can't tell you how many very important papers medical students turn out in their last semester of study. It's a wonder anyone bothers to publish after graduation at all."

"All right, no need to tease me," Julian groaned, flapping a hand at his erstwhile roommate. "You must have work of your own to get to. I'll see you at dinner?"

"Probably," Erit said, noncommittal. He winked as sidestepped over the threshold. "You never know: it's cherry blossom season!"

Julian chuckled at this suggestion, but only until the door hissed closed. Then the smile vanished from his face, and his eyes slid to the computer terminal in the corner.

He knew he shouldn't do it. He knew it was a mistake. He couldn't stop himself. It was better to know the truth, wasn't it? Better than constant anxious speculation and the parade of worst-case scenarios his imagination could conjure up at will.

He slid into the chair and called up the Federation News Service.

(fade)

They were protesting on the waterfront in Ghent. The FNS had footage of the throng on the cobblestones in front of a beautiful old house with mullioned windows. Some waved flags — not just the sky blue and argent of the United Federation of Planets, but the defunct United Earth Government flag with its golden laurels, and even the flags of old nation-states. Julian recognized enough of these to know they belonged to the countries that had suffered the highest death tolls in the Eugenics Wars. Other protestors brandished stencilled banners and even hand-lettered placards. On his small computer screen, Julian had to freeze and enhance the images in order to read them. Some seemed innocuous enough at first glance. Others were horrifying.

Nature is Beautiful.

Superior Intellect = Superior Ambition

Banish Frankenstein's Colonists

35 Million Murdered — NEVER AGAIN!

Our Genes are Our Heritage: Hands Off!

Julian stared at that one for a long time before he could quite make himself believe it. Then he had to switch to footage taken later in the day, to see if the sign was still there. It was, and it had multiplied: two more protestors had adopted the same slogan. The meaning in this context was clear, but the words could be so easily twisted to an anti-interspecies-marriage dogma that Julian was shocked no one had spoken up against it. Ordinarily the social pressure to avoid the appearance of such bigotry made it very uncomfortable to come out with anything that undermined the Federation values of harmony and sensitivity.

Then again, the genetically enhanced were so universally reviled that apparently even the most considerate were content to look the other way.

Julian unpaused the feed, tapping his communicator to disable its Universal Translator and switching the footage to native language mode. The protestors were chanting in half a dozen tongues, all of them from Earth. French and English were most prominent, but he heard a smattering of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, German and what he thought might be Dutch. As he watched, there was a lull in the cacophony, followed by a rising swell of new noise: half a dozen voices chanting wrathfully, clapping hands and stamping feet to keep the rhythm. The first two repetitions, before everyone else in the crowd caught on and joined in with their own languages, were in Punjabi. Although his father's side of the family boasted distant ancestors from the region, Julian didn't speak Punjabi: he only recognized the cadence and the phonemes from attending the occasional cultural holiday celebration in the Academy's enormously diverse calendar of such events. But he understood one word perfectly, and in this circumstance its meaning was clear. It appeared twice in each couplet, four times in all: Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.

His thumb smacked the control panel, muting the feed. Silent now, the protestors continued to wave their signs and fly their flags and shout their recriminations at the silent building before them. The blinds were drawn, the windows eyeless. But as Julian watched, a curtain fluttered on an upper floor and a pale, wrath-like face appeared for a few seconds, looking skittishly down into the street before vanishing again.

He took his foot off of the running board at the back of the desk, and sat forward in his chair, eyes fixed on the screen. "Computer, freeze and go back two point eight seconds," he instructed, hearing the intensity in his voice. The computer obeyed. "Isolate grid Beta-3 and enhance."

The window filled the screen. The image sharpened and clarified, and Julian found himself staring into the frightened eyes of a beautiful woman. She was about his own age, and she was of mixed ethnic heritage, just like him — in her case, a blending of East Asian, European and South American features. Smooth, dark hair cut in an outdated fashion framed the oval of her face. The fear and disbelief upon it was heartrending. She was staring down into the street below in consternation, watching the protestors.

The founders of the Genome Colony had left Earth two centuries ago, intent upon creating a genetically integrated society. The return of long-lost colonists to their planet of origin should have been a joyous and exciting occasion, celebrated and lauded as proof of humanity's ability to thrive among the stars. The people from Moab IV should have been welcomed like family, treated as honoured guests and shown all the beauty and bounty that Earth had to offer. If they had been from any other colony, that's exactly what would have happened.

Instead, they had to face this.

Julian couldn't tear his eyes away from the woman's face. She was like him: her DNA had been manipulated, resequenced to enhance intelligence, memory, physical capabilities, general health. The methodology differed: the Moab IV colony employed embryonic splicing methods, while Julian's augmentations had been imposed upon a metabolically independent and self-aware child of six. She would have been groomed with a particular societal role in mind; talents, aptitudes and disposition all tailored to that. Julian's modifications had been more general: critical neural pathway development, improved hand-eye coordination, changes to height and body mass and cardiac efficiency. Even so, they were more alike than they were different, and Julian was transfixed.

There she was, someone like him: a genetically enhanced human who had managed to grow up and prosper despite the changes made to her genome. She was alive and real, present right here on Earth. He had never seen another person like him, except in images in the historical databases. Images of the warmongers of old: Austin, Joaquin, Kati, Chen, McPherson. Images of Arik Soong's adopted children, awakened from cryogenically frozen embryos dating from the same dark period in Earth's history: Malik, Persis, Lokesh, Raakin, Saul. And of course the most infamous of all: Khan Noonien Singh, both as he had looked when he had reigned over a quarter of the Earth as a covert autocrat and a tyrant, and during his final resurgence, weathered and aged but still deadly: as hard and unyielding as a chip of lonsdaleite.

Looking at this woman's face, even though it was still just an image, even though he didn't know her name or anything else about her, made Julian feel just a little less isolated, a little less alone. Maybe even a little less like an aberration, an outlier, a freak. She was real, she was living, she was here on Earth, and she was just like him.

And she was functionally imprisoned by an angry mob, crying out for her banishment from the surface of the planet that was her ancestral home. The message was clear: the genetically enhanced were not welcome, not on Earth, not in the human genome, not in Federation society.

Julian's hand moved to the panel again. He meant to turn off the terminal, but his fingers seemed to move of their own accord. Instead of shutting down the feed, they changed it: from the raw footage to the commentary he had been deliberately avoiding. The mute command was overridden by the data transfer, and a brisk, professional voice cut in, mid-sentence, over footage of the protest.

"…in Belgium today, following the arrival of several genetically-engineered humans from the rogue colony on Moab IV. Noted historian David Makepeace of Oxford University, where one of the colonists has been invited to take on a fellowship in astrophysics, offers his perspective."

The view changed to a head-and-shoulders shot of a distinguished sexagenarian in an elegant, classically furnished office. He looked into the camera with sober eyes and said, in an accent closely akin to Julian's own; "What these protestors are doing is reminding us of the slippery slope of permissiveness. If we allow these people to integrate into Earth society, to take up important positions at our institutes of research and higher learning, perhaps even to collaborate with Starfleet, what we are in effect saying is that it is acceptable for those with altered DNA to work alongside normal, natural people."

He frowned to emphasize his point. "And if it is acceptable for them to do that, to compete and contribute without restriction, what is to protect us from the pressure engineer our children to measure up to their falsely elevated abilities? The laws against genetic recoding and the restrictions on opportunities for the genetically enhanced were put in place because there is no other way to prevent humanity from creating the next race of Augments. Today, a colonist from a minor world is allowed to take up a fellowship at Oxford. Tomorrow, ordinary men and women will awake as slaves to the next Khan Singh."

The image changed again, this time to a transporter facility somewhere on Earth. A full pad of passengers materialized: three women, two men, and a child of about ten. Their clothes were bright and unusually geometric. Their bodies and facial features were flawless. They looked smiling and hopeful: eager to be setting foot on Earth. The caption at the bottom of the feed read, Genetically Enhanced Colonists Arrive in Europe — 1330 Yesterday.

The newscaster was speaking again. "Critics are calling for the colonists to be barred from taking up the proposed positions at several key academic facilities planet-wide, and for the usual restrictions on the employment of the genetically-enhanced be applied and enforced with immediate effect. Doctor Beverly Crusher of the U.S.S. Enterprise addressed the governing board of Starfleet Medical via subspace three days prior to the colonists' arrival, but no statement has been released to the press. Doctor Crusher has been unavailable for comment since the arrival of the Enterprise in Earth orbit yesterday: sources say that she is dividing her time between the flagship and the Starfleet Academy campus, where her son is a cadet."

They were showing a picture of the doctor in question now, wearing her duty uniform and a lab coat identical to the one Erit had collected this afternoon. She had her arm around the shoulders of a boy who was presumably her son — but if that was the case, the image was several years old. The child in that picture couldn't have been older than fourteen.

"We now join our legal panel," the newscaster said; "for a more detailed look at the laws governing the genetic enhancement of humans, and how they pertain to this case…"

This time, Julian did reach to turn off the screen. But his hand was shaking and his fingertips were numb. They glanced off the smooth glass, and again the feed changed. For a ghastly moment he thought he'd found some other coverage of the same story, because an image of five cadets appeared on the screen, and the second from the left was clearly the boy from the other picture. He was older, his face set in proud, inspirational lines instead of crinkled into a lopsided grin, but it was undoubtedly Doctor Crusher's son. He and the other four were posed for a formal portrait. Behind them hung the emblem of Nova Squadron, one of the most elite show-flying teams at Starfleet Academy.

"…details have been released about the tragic death of Cadet Joshua Albert on the Titan Flight Range earlier this week. Speculations that a mechanical failure was responsible have not yet been confirmed by the Academy's aeronautic forensics experts at Utopia Planitia. Cadet Albert's teammates have all been released from hospital, and are recovering well—"

Julian found the right key at last, and the screen went blank with a faint crackle of isolinear circuitry. Everyone on campus had been following the Nova Squadron crash, but information was thin on the ground. His own knowledge of the situation didn't extend much farther than the fact that Elizabeth Lense had been the resident called in to assist in treating one of the pilots in the Academy Infirmary. Julian had been envious — he still was envious. She was top of the class in Advanced Burn Trauma and Regeneration this term, so she was fresh in Doctor Traegar's mind: that was all. Still, Julian (who had taken the course last year and excelled) couldn't help but feel a little jealous that his great academic rival had been hand-picked for the patient, and he hadn't.

But then again, didn't Lense have a better claim to that opportunity? She was the one who was actually legally allowed to be here, after all. She was the real human, the natural human, the one who hadn't had to lie on her application to Starfleet Academy. Never mind failing to be called in to help with an emergency: if the truth came out, Julian wouldn't even be allowed to be in this room, in this program, on this campus.

If the protests in Belgium were anything to measure by, there were people who were prepared to question whether he should even be allowed on this planet.

He launched himself out of the chair, nerves afire with sudden impotent energy. He wanted to pace. He wanted to run. He wanted to throw himself down on the floor and beat it with his fists and his feet like a toddler in the throes of a tantrum. He didn't do any of it. He just stood there in the middle of his bright, pleasant lodgings, quaking with emotions he couldn't identify, much less untangle or control.

The blaze of colour beyond the windows drew his eye. The sun was setting over the ocean. It was a breathtaking sight, one that never failed to make him pause and watch, no matter how absorbed he was in his studies. He couldn't bear to look at in now: the splendour of a world to which he didn't truly belong. And if he didn't belong here on Earth, where he had been born, where he had spent his formative years and most of his adolescence, where did he belong? Anywhere? Nowhere?

"Computer," he said hoarsely, trying to force enough volume from his lungs that the machine would be able to pick up his voice. "Close blinds."

Suddenly the rosy glow was cut off, and he was standing in the gloom only broken by the glow of the instrument panel on the desk and the three keypads for the doors. One led into the corridor, one into his spacious bathroom. He went to the third instead, stumbling clumsily even though he knew the way. His legs were just as unsteady as the rest of him. He slapped the panel and dropped to his knees as the door hissed open, groping into the dark at the bottom of his closet.

There was a small strongbox in the rear left corner. Strictly speaking, cadets were not supposed to have any luggage with nonstandard locking mechanisms, and to the idle eye this one looked no different from those issued to every student at the Academy. Julian had, however, made some modifications to the algorithm. He hadn't wanted any of his classmates to be able to pick the lock if they got curious, or simply wanted to haze him. As far as he knew, nobody had ever tried, not in the officers' education program, nor at medical school. Then again, if someone had tried and failed, they were hardly going to tell him about it, were they?

He might have earned a demerit or a reprimand if a room inspector had ever tried to open it with the Academy's passkey — but then again, Julian would have willingly opened it for an inspection if he'd been commanded to. He wasn't hiding anything illegal or even frowned upon, at least not in the box. He just didn't want to be ridiculed by his classmates. He could only imagine what Lucier and his crew would have made of Bashir's Big Secret.

Only this wasn't his big secret, was it? And the consequences if the greater truth came out would not be merely mortifying, but absolutely catastrophic.

Julian did not open the lockbox. He told himself he didn't have to. Just kneeling here with his palm against the lid was enough: the comfort of proximity, a reminder that he was still in control of everything: of his life, of his secrets, of his feelings. He breathed slowly, compelling his heart rate to drop. He'd discovered he could do that when he was twelve, and his tennis game had started to get serious. It had taken the better part of two years for him to realize his opponents could not do the same, and another six months to understand why.

Those memories weren't comforting. He pushed them away. He closed his eyes against the darkness in the room, and thought about the bones of the hand. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform. Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate.

"Metacarpals," he whispered, unaware that he was speaking aloud. He was calmer now. It was helping. Beneath his palm, only the durable parsteel shell separated him from the one constant in his unsettled life, the one binding tie between who he was now and who nature had intended him to be. That thought soothed him, as did completing his recitation. "Phalanges."

When he felt able, he picked himself up off the closet floor, and got ready for bed. Only after he was barefoot and pyjama-clad did he realize he hadn't gone down to dinner. He didn't care. He wouldn't have been able to eat anyhow.

(fade)

Note: This shorter work will be updated weekly on Thursdays, health and schedule permitting. More frequent updates will continue to be made to "The Viewless Winds". Thank you for reading!

Chapter Text

Chapter II: Friday's Pains

He went to bed, but he didn't really sleep. The following morning, Julian descended to the mess hall as usual: showered, freshly shaved, clad in a crisp, fresh uniform. He waited his turn for the replicator and ordered his customary breakfast — scones with butter and jam — and a small pot of Earl Grey tea. It wasn't his favourite, but unlike Tarkalean tea, it was caffeinated, and after his unsettled night, he was going to need some help to get through the day.

Julian took his usual seat at the quiet table near the back of the room, where he could observe the goings-on that he usually found so fascinating. This morning he wasn't interested in watching his fellow students, and he especially did not want to listen to them: almost everyone in the room was talking about the Moab IV colonists and the protests in Ghent. He tried to close his ears to the chatter, most of it either morbidly fascinated or outraged or repulsed. Consequently, he was startled when the chair across from him was drawn away, and Cadet Nawrell slid into it, depositing her tray as she went.

"Good morning, Captain," she said, eyes twinkling. She was a second-year medical student, Hekaran by birth, and had been the consistent top performer in wall volley drills throughout the racquetball season.

"You don't need to call me that," Julian demurred. "The season's over, and there'll be a new captain next year. You might consider trying for the position yourself."

"You think so?" her cheeks coloured prettily and she leaned in as she took a bite of her breakfast. Julian didn't recognize the food, but it was very colourful: puffs of bright pastry in an array of saturated primary tones. "I thought maybe Jefferson…"

"I think it'd be good to have a non-human captain," Julian said sincerely. "Just because the game originated on Earth isn't an excuse for a lack of imagination. And you're one of our top players."

"That means a lot, thanks," Nawrell said. She frowned, and the T-shaped cleft in her brow tightened. She leaned in over the plate, glancing from side to side before murmuring; "Have you heard?"

Julian's heart sank. He had just been settling into the conversation, almost forgetting last night's misery and the eddying condemnation everywhere around him. Now Nawrell wanted to talk about the situation with the Moab IV colonists, too. "I…" he began, crumbling the corner of his scone and longing to dissolve into a submolecular energy pattern so that he could materialize — where? Anywhere but here.

"The Nova Squadron inquiry is convening today," she said.

For a moment, Julian had no idea what she was talking about. Then relief washed over him and he had to restrain himself from hanging his head in gratitude. She wasn't interested in the situation in Belgium after all, at least not at the moment.

"Oh!" he said, a little flatly. "The flight accident."

She nodded. "I think it's just awful, don't you? Forcing those cadets to relive it all so soon. Some of them were only released from the Infirmary the other day. And they all lost a friend. If Nova Squadron's half as tight-knit as our team is… I couldn't imagine losing Drexler or Borell. Or you."

Nawrell gnawed her lip as she said this last, and Julian felt a little abashed. He'd suspected for a while now that his younger teammate harboured a crush, but he'd never been in a position to explore it. He was in a committed relationship that was starting to look as if it might last a lifetime. Studiously ignoring the suggestion in her manner, he addressed her words instead.

"It's not really the same," he said. "It's hardly likely one of us would get killed at practice."

The Medical Academy racquetball team spent their time leaping nimbly around indoor courts, chasing rubber balls that capped out at a speed of about two hundred twenty kilometres per hour. Nova Squadron executed precision high-impulse flight manoeuvres in the cluttered gravity wells of gas giants. There was a reason they were a legend, while Julian's team — despite their claim to the Sector Championship — was something of a joke.

Nawrell smiled a little sadly. "I suppose that's true," she said. "Still, those poor cadets! They're just kids."

Julian didn't point out that most of the people who had graduated with her from the Academy proper were already out in space, serving on starships that faced deadly risks as a matter of course. His own classmates had been on active duty for almost four years now: some of them would have already made lieutenant. Starfleet Medical's officer training prerequisite meant that its students had the luxury of taking a few more years to enjoy their studies. That they were studies in life and death didn't change the fact that there was something carefree about being able to abdicate the responsibilities of a commission while you grew up a little more.

"I'm sure it's just a formality," he said. "It's standard procedure after a ship is lost, never mind a life."

"Did you know him? The cadet who died?" she asked.

Julian shook his head. He didn't mix much with anyone but the Medical Academy crowd. They were enough of a challenge for his scattered social skills. He felt selfish that it should be so, but talking about this was a welcome distraction from his earlier fretting and the conversation all around them. His appetite was returning, and he picked up his knife to smear a thick layer of jam on his scone. He bit into it, savouring the sweetness.

"I heard he was supposed to graduate this year," Nawrell continued, nudging several of the brilliantly coloured confections around her plate. She shook her head, trying to shake off the troubling thought with it, and she looked up at him with academic eagerness. "So what do you think?" she asked. "About the genetically engineered colonists in Belgium?"

The scone fell from boneless fingers, landing with a plop in the puddle of jam. Julian was halfway to his feet before it even occurred to him that this wasn't the subtlest way to make an exit.

"I really must be going," he said hurriedly as he climbed out of his chair and picked up his tray with hands that couldn't really feel it. "I've got to have a word with Doctor Prawlyk before class."

His teammate looked up at him, bewildered and a little affronted. "But you haven't finished your breakfast yet," she protested.

"No time," Julian mumbled, already striding away. "Not really hungry, anyway."

And he wasn't: his throat had clamped down and the few bites he'd taken sat like a stone in his uneasy stomach. As he put his tray in the replicator, however, he snagged the glass mug of tea and bolted down its contents in one long, sharp draught. He hardly tasted it. It was purely medicinal: he knew he needed the caffeine.

(fade)

He was quieter than usual in his seminars that morning, volunteering no answers and offering his opinion only when his instructors solicited it directly. On Fridays, Julian had his Engineering Extension Course, Level 4, just before lunch, and that made for a welcome distraction. There were only three medical students in that class, and because they were learning how to rewire a plasma conduit, there was not a lot of talking. Even the mustard-coloured jumpsuit he wore to protect his uniform made him feel more like himself.

That was odd, because ordinarily he hated the thing. It always smelled faintly of hydraulic fluid, even when freshly laundered, and the colour was terrible on him: it made him look bilious and half-dead. But somehow today it made him feel a little less like an impostor. He didn't know if people like him were allowed to work as technicians — civilian technicians, of course: Starfleet had been barred from the genetically enhanced since its very inception. But it was comforting to know that there was something, at least, that he was halfway good at that didn't involve that most prohibited of all professions.

Julian had not realized when he'd chosen his path how intertwined it was with the history of eugenics, nor how deep the feelings against genetic engineering ran in a community always ready to proclaim, as loudly and as fiercely as possible, never again.

Julian understood the aversion. He probably had stronger anti-enhancement feelings than anyone else in his class. What had been done to the DNA of the twentieth-century Augments was horrific. What had been done to him and to children like him was unconscionable. Trying to obliterate natural human variation as if it were "weakness", trying to erase disabilities as if the people who lived with and overcame them were somehow less valuable to society, was disgusting. He would never forgive his parents for throwing away the son they had been given by nature, just because he didn't measure up to some arbitrary standard of achievement — or hadn't seemed to measure up to the imprecise milestones of early childhood education. He thought about that little boy, whom he remembered indistinctly as a sweet, well-meaning dreamer who had adored his parents and wanted only to please them, and Julian's heart hurt.

Had Jules really been so pitiable, so worthless, that it had been better to throw him away instead of helping him, nurturing him, and cherishing him for who he was? Julian didn't believe it. He'd deliberately taken his pediatrics internship at a centre that specialized in acute medical care for children with chromosomal abnormalities that brought with them physical and intellectual challenges. While there, Julian had learned a great deal about hematology, oncology, immunology, and occupational therapy. More importantly, he had loved his time in that clinic.

He had delighted in greeting each of the children with a hug or a handshake or, in the case of one little boy who had an aversion to physical contact, a series of three claps: two quick, one slow. Many of them had come to know him by name over the course of his placement — as Julian, of course, not Cadet Bashir. They loved to tell him stories, or share their chaotically beautiful drawings, or show off their toys, or just to sit on his lap while he took their vitals, transfixed by the pattern of lights on the tricorder. Many had been verbal, some hadn't, and they had ranged in age from tiny toddlers to preadolescents with the mental age of children much younger. All of them had been beautiful. All of them had been precious. There was no gene for joy, but these children — even the sickest of them — had all possessed it in abundance.

At the end of a shift, Julian would retreat to his quarters on the junior officers' level of the orbital habitat that housed the clinic, and lie awake long into the night. While he was on duty, the children had absorbed all of his focus. Alone in his spartan little berth, he had thought about their parents instead. They came from all over the planet to seek this specialized care environment for their children; one of the reasons the clinic was in orbit was to ensure that it was only a single transporter journey from anywhere on Earth. Some of the parents were in committed relationships; others were raising sick children alone. Some were harried, some were tired, most were frightened. But not one of them resented the little lives in their care. Not one of them was impatient or critical or harsh. When they looked at their children, their eyes were filled with such love, and every little milestone was greeted with joy.

Julian remembered one man in particular: a broad-shouldered ensign who had worked with Starfleet Security at Utopia Planitia before his daughter's leukemia had brought him back to Earth for the clinic's particular expertise. The little girl had been six, with the mental acuity of a two-year-old, and she loved butterflies. She wore butterfly-print dresses, and butterfly clips in her hair (though they never stayed there for long, as she would pluck them out at the earliest opportunity). After his first time sitting in on her treatment sessions, Julian had scoured the database at the Federation Children's Library until he had found a book with vibrant illustrations of butterflies from around the Quadrant. Because she had vision abnormalities in addition to her other health problems, she couldn't endure the glow of a PADD. Julian had requested a replicator pattern for the book instead, and he'd made her a copy with smooth, sturdy cardboard instead of flimsy paper pages. Every day, while she sat patiently for her transfusions and immunotherapy, he had read it to her.

On her last day of treatment, they'd gone through their usual routine, Julian sitting on a stool by the padded biochair, his long legs tucked up as he turned the pages and talked to her about each of the butterflies. She never said anything: her language skills were comprehension-only and she couldn't speak. But she kicked gleeful feet in anticipation every time he turned a page, and she would touch the glossy prints with her fingertips as gently as if she were touching the real insects. Her father, as usual, watched from his perch at her side while the medical intern — who really should have been on the other side of the treatment bay, watching his supervisor do a complete thoracic imaging series — read to her. When the procedure was finished, Julian went through the usual routine of removing the IV cuff and the cortical monitor, taking one last set of vitals, and unbuckling the seat belt that kept the little patients from trying to wander off. Then he'd crouched down in front of her to say his goodbyes.

"You're all done now," he said. "You'll come back and see us in six weeks, but hopefully you're good as new." He'd known he wouldn't be there in six weeks: by then he was due at his next placement. But she didn't need to know that. Then Julian had given her the book. "This is yours, now," he'd said. "Maybe your dad can read it with you."

He had cast a half-glance at the father, who didn't really look like the type to sit down and read a butterfly book over and over again at the whim of a little girl. But the man had been nodding. Julian's attention was drawn back to his small patient then, however, because she reached to take the book he held out to her, hugged it to her little chest, and said rapturously, "Mine!"

Julian had grinned and said something along the lines of, "That's right: it's yours." But her father, the burly Security officer who had borne stoically the news of his child's cancer and all the intricacies of her laborious treatment, had started to weep. When Julian, at twenty-three still inexperienced in his chosen field and completely uncertain how to handle something like this, had risen to his feet in consternation, he saw that the man was not distressed, but overjoyed.

"That's her first word!" he had said, jubilant and awestruck. "She said her first word!"

He had looked as proud as if his daughter had just taken first place in the Interstellar Interscholastic Olympics. He had scooped her up into his arms, her long, gangly six-year-old's legs dangling. She twined one arm about his muscular neck, still hugging the butterfly book in the other. "Mine!" her father had crowed, jubilant. "Mine!"

"Mine!" the child had echoed in delight.

Other staff and even some parents had gathered around, listening as the father boasted of his little girl's momentous accomplishment. They had all been eager to celebrate with him. But Julian, the catalyst of this moment of pure and heart-warming delight, had retreated from the treatment suite as quickly as he could. He'd fled to the dispensary, seldom occupied by the pharmacist who spent most of her day doing medication assessments and dosage adjustments bedside. Hidden from his colleagues, his teachers, the patients and their parents, Julian had slid down the wall and drawn his knees to his chest, burying his head in his hands and struggling to master himself.

That man had been so proud of his little girl, seeing her first word for the beautiful milestone it was. He hadn't paused to measure her against other six-year-olds, or to wonder why his daughter wasn't as talkative or as academically skilled as they. He had simply been there, in the fullness of the moment, to rejoice with her.

What was so broken inside of Julian's own father, that he had been incapable of doing the same? What had been so broken about little Jules Bashir that he hadn't been worthy of that kind of unconditional love? And what was wrong with a doctor who thought they could take their oath and their knowledge and their skill, and erase such children from the world?

Julian's hand slipped. There was a crunch of glass and a squawk of outraged optronic circuitry as the tool he had been using to rewire the relay smashed an isolinear chip to shrapnel. He swore under his breath and brushed the debris off the front of his jumpsuit, propelling himself to the side with one foot so he could slide out of the modelled crawlspace. It served him right for letting his mind wander while he worked.

He was just hitching himself up onto his elbows, still on his back, when Professor Eaves sidled over. "What's going on here, Mister Bashir?" he asked.

Julian scowled in irritation. "I need another 58966-stroke-Delta isolinear chip," he said, holding up the base of the shattered one.

Professor Eaves whistled. "How'd you manage that?" he asked. "Takes a lot of force to smash one of these babies."

On any other day, Julian would have laughed it off with an airy remark about his clumsiness. Today, the suggestion that he had done something strange made his blood run cold. Was Eaves suspicious of his strength? Would he wonder? Would he guess?

Julian had to get a grip on himself. He'd learned very early on that he couldn't live his life in terror of discovery. The strain of doing so had made him ill in his next-to-last year of secondary school. Worse, the more anxious he got, the more suspect his behaviour became. He had taught himself to bury the dread, to put on an easy smile, and to let himself shamble happily through life. For the most part, it worked, and he was able to get on with everything quite pleasantly. There were moments of doubt and self-loathing, of course, but for the most part he was content.

It was different today. All the careful ramparts he had erected in his mind, walling off truth and pain alike, were crumbling. Everything seemed like a threat, and Julian knew he couldn't keep trying to function like this. But what could he do? He couldn't switch off his mind, and it was capable of maintaining dozens of trains of thought at once. Even these last few anguished contortions, which seemed to have dragged on for a protracted eternity, had taken only a couple of seconds.

He forced a sheepish little grimace. "Sorry. I guess I'm clumsy today," he said.

Professor Eaves shrugged, and went to the supply drawers. He returned with the appropriate isolinear chip, handed it to Julian, and moved on to the next student's workstation. "Fifteen minutes left, everyone," he announced. "If you need advice, now's the time."

Julian lay down on the floor again, and slid back under the conduit, forcing himself to focus on his work.

(fade)

"Mister Bashir, a word if you please."

Julian froze, halfway to the door of the lecture hall, his heart hammering at seventy beats per minute. For any of his human classmates, that would be close to normal. For him, it was double his resting heart-rate, and it was a sure measure of his paranoia. It wasn't unusual for one of his professors to hold him back, sometimes to ask for a favour, more often simply to congratulate his performance. Today, however, he was so on-edge that Doctor Norton's crisp request was enough to chill his blood.

He forced himself to turn with deliberate smoothness, and walked to the counter that ran along the front of the room. "Yes, Professor?" he said, managing somehow to keep his voice steady.

Doctor Zendaya Norton was sixty-seven years of age, plump, personable and patient. She was the only one of Julian's professors this term who had never served in Starfleet. She divided her time between San Francisco and Oxford, Mississippi, holding tenured positions both at Starfleet Medical Academy and Ole Miss. Her seminar on the ethics of medical research was one of the most sought-after courses available to students in their final year of the various medical programs. Julian had been fortunate to secure a place with ease: his exemplary record and near-perfect grades had paved the way without question.

Doctor Norton waited for the last two students to leave the room — a pair from the pharmacotherapy program, deep in conversation and dawdling accordingly. Then she pressed one of the keys on her computer terminal, and the door hissed closed. She fixed dark, intelligent eyes on Julian. He fought the urge to look away, but he couldn't meet them. Instead, he focused on the cultivated rows of tiny braids that swooped up from her left temple into the cascading halo of white curls that framed the rest of her head. The contrast between silvery twists and dark scalp was striking, the dignified beauty of the ornate style strangely soothing.

"You didn't have much to contribute to the discussion today, Mister Bashir," Doctor Norton said quietly.

There was no objective note of reproof in her words, but Julian heard it anyway. He dropped his eyes to the smooth metal surface between them and hugged his PADD closer to his chest.

"I'm sorry, Professor," he mumbled. "I kn-n-now that participation is an important part of our grade, and I'll t-try to do better—"

"You don't need to worry about that." Now she sounded almost gentle. "You've participated enough over the course of the semester that you've earned full marks in that department. You don't need to worry about my class stunting your ambitions for valedictorian."

Julian looked up in astonishment, momentarily forgetting his anxiety. As his eyes met hers, he saw them crinkle at the corners as she smiled.

"Aw, honey, everyone knows you've got your eyes on the top spot. It's been you and Cadet Lense, neck-and-neck for the last eighteen months." Her smile faded a little, and took on a shadow of concern. "That kind of pressure can wear on a person after a while. That's why I wanted a word. Is everything all right?"

"A-all right?" Julian knew he was stammering, and he tried to make it stop. He didn't usually fall back on the nervous habit when talking to his professors — but then again, such conversations were usually professional in nature, and he was always at his best when discussing medicine or academics. "I'm… I'm… why would you as-sk that?"

Doctor Norton sighed. She stepped around the countertop, and took him by the elbow, guiding him to the first row of chairs. "Let's sit down a minute and talk about it, all right?" she said. "There's no need to be so nervous. One privilege of being a civilian professor at the Academy is that I don't have to worry about the chain of command getting between me and my students. Anything you say to me can stay between the two of us: I don't have a senior officer's duty to report."

Julian let her propel him to a chair, and sank down gratefully. He was exhausted. He hadn't dared to go to the mess hall at lunch, telling himself he wasn't hungry anyway. While that continued to be true — nausea, not appetite, was what had gnawed at his stomach all day — he had also forfeited his chance at a fresh dose of caffeine. His broken night was weighing him down almost as relentlessly as his emotional turmoil.

Doctor Norton took the chair at the next table, swinging it to the side so they could face one another across the aisle. She leaned forward, resting an elbow on the desk.

"Do you have a class to get to?" she asked. "I can call ahead and tell them I need to keep you late."

Julian shook his head. "Th-This is my last class of the week," he mumbled.

She grinned. "Mine, too," she said. "I'm looking forward to stretching out in the hammock with a good book. But first, let's talk about what's troubling you today. When a student who's always ready to offer his point of view suddenly goes silent, I have to wonder what's happened."

Suddenly Julian understood what she was doing. He had been trained to do the same thing: to watch for changes in behaviour, and to approach the affected officer with compassion and circumspection, offering them the opportunity to get help before manageable mental health struggles became catastrophes. It was part of a Medical Officer's duty, falling partly under the purview of diagnostics, and partly under preventative care.

"It's nothing," he whispered, staring down at the PADD now flattened across his lap. His last two fingers were curled so tightly around the stylus that they were beginning to ache. He forced them to loosen a little. "I'm just… I'm n-n-not in the mood to talk today."

He almost flinched at the imprudence of such a statement. A sudden loss of interest in activities one normally enjoyed was a glaring red alert for anhedonia and depression. And it was no secret that he enjoyed talking — all the more so when he felt confident he could bring something interesting and worthwhile to the conversation. In social situations, that was a gamble at best, but in the classroom it was practically guaranteed. He never missed an opportunity to raise his hand, to give an answer, or to put forward an opinion.

"Not in the mood to talk in class, or not in the mood to talk at all?" Doctor Norton asked. When Julian didn't meet her eyes, she tilted her head to one side and moved her chair a little farther into the aisle. "If the academic pressure is getting to you, there are ways the Academy can help."

"It's not!" Julian said, hurriedly and a little too sharply. He felt his shoulders sag. "It's stressful sometimes," he admitted quietly. "But it's also… invigorating. I worked hard to get here. I'm at my best when I'm doing my best. The pressure… it's not so bad."

He meant it, mostly. There were times when his efforts to excel wore him down, leaving him feeling beleaguered, exhausted, and unable to catch his breath. But it was exhilarating, too. It was a little like tennis, actually: constant fluid motion just to stay on top of the game, with the fearful but thrilling knowledge that a single misstep could cost him the match. All the passion he had funnelled into his sport as a young teen, he had channelled into his studies once that avenue was forbidden him. He loved it, even when it was stressful. And it certainly wasn't the cause of today's reticence.

But he couldn't tell Doctor Norton what the true cause was, and she wouldn't be put off by his platitudes. He had to give her something more.

"I'm just tired today," he tried. He heard immediately how flaccid that excuse sounded, but it was too late to take it back. He forged ahead instead. "I didn't get much sleep last night, I missed lunch, and I'm just… out of energy."

He had missed lunch, all right, hiding in one of the reading alcoves on the holodeck floor instead of braving the eddies of conversation in the mess hall, all those voices gossiping about the Moab IV colonists, and the protests in Belgium. It felt like an act of personal cowardice, and somehow that made him feel even more unworthy to be here.

"Well, that makes sense," Doctor Norton said. "Sounds like the end of a hard day for you, then. But why did you have trouble sleeping in the first place? Is that something you struggle with often?"

"No…" Julian said reflexively, but as the word came out, he knew it was a lie. He wasn't particularly prone to insomnia, but there were other things that could prevent a person from getting a good night's sleep. Nightmares, for instance. The kind that crept up from the darkest recesses of your soul and dug their tentacles into your mind, until the only way to escape was to scream yourself awake. After a nightmare like that, falling asleep again was out of the question. He had passed his fair share of hours staring wide-eyed at the ceilings of darkened bedrooms, waiting breathlessly for the dawn.

"I don't suffer from insomnia," he said. "I just had a lot on my mind."

He hadn't meant to say that. He couldn't answer the obvious next question: if he hadn't been fretting over coursework, just what had he had on his mind? He had a feeling Doctor Norton would be able to smell a lie, but he couldn't tell the truth.

Or he couldn't tell the truth head-on. He struck a tangential trajectory and came at it from a different direction.

"It's family business, Professor," he said with the reluctance of a shamefaced confession. "My parents and I… we have bad blood between us, and last night some of it came up to the surface again. It's nothing, really. Nothing I haven't had to deal with before."

In one sense, that was true: grappling with his unnatural identity was just a routine part of his existence now. It waxed and waned, like a virus lying dormant along a nerve, only to flare up periodically when external stressors grew too great or immune defences were compromised. In this case, both were true: the news coverage of the anti-eugenic protests was an enormous stressor, and Julian's emotional defences were worn down — by academic pressure, and by the weight of the life decisions looming ahead in just a few short months. He hadn't been prepared for this onslaught of dread and self-loathing, and he wasn't coping well at all.

Doctor Norton looked grave, and there was earnest compassion in her voice as she said; "I'm sorry. Is it something you'd like to talk about? I'd be happy to help in any way I can, or we can connect you with someone at Counselling Services."

Julian shook his head. "It's fine, Professor, really," he said, and he was relieved to note that he had his stammer under control again. "It's an old argument. I'm used to coping with it. One of the lovely things about being an adult is that I don't need to see them very often."

"Do you have someone to talk to?" she pressed gently. "A friend? A partner?"

He nodded fervently. He had no friends he could take his troubles to — not even the troubles that weren't bound up in layers of criminal deceit. But he did have someone in his life he could trust, someone to share his burden of ordinary worries. Not this, of course: never this. But all the same, the thought of her bolstered his courage a little, and lightened the weight on his heart.

"I do," he said. "My…" He paused, and actually found himself smiling a little. Palis didn't like the word girlfriend. She preferred he call her "ma copine", which didn't have the same juvenile feeling as its English equivalent. But if he said ma copine now, the Universal Translators both he and Doctor Norton wore in their combadges would change it to girlfriend for her anyway. Palis wasn't his fiancée yet, though that was something they'd been talking about rectifying soon. Julian had been wanting to ask her to marry him for months now, but it didn't seem fair to do so until they resolved the question of what they were going to do when he graduated from Starfleet Medical.

Lover seemed to reduce their relationship to the sexual, when it was so much more than that. He didn't mind partner, but it wasn't very descriptive — especially to a cadet who had study partners and lab partners and drill partners in abundance. Julian didn't talk about his private life often enough with anyone other than Palis to have settled on the best way to describe their relationship to a third party. He felt a hollow little shiver in his heart at that realization.

Moments like this drove home how isolated he was, how few true relationships he had in his life. Estranged from his parents, alienated from his peers because of his intelligence and his ineptitude with the mysterious codes of social interaction everyone else had learned to navigate as children, preteens, adolescents. In primary school, he had assumed most kids' parents expected them home promptly after school. He'd thought it was the best way to get away from the bullies who took exception to his cleverness and delighted in tormenting him whenever the teacher's back was turned. On the rare occasions when he was extended an invitation to another child's birthday party or seaside excursion or autumn féte, his mother had always declined. You don't really want to go anyway, Jules. It will be crowded. Noisy. What if they serve food you don't like? Better to stay home: we'll have our own party.

When he got a little older, Julian thought his parents were being overprotective. It had irritated him, and he'd tried to push back — only to discover that when he did finally argue his way into being allowed to attend Lucy Cardinal's thirteenth birthday with the rest of his class, he wasn't wanted anyway. Ostracized as if by prearranged signal, he'd spent most of the afternoon sitting under the oak tree at the bottom of the Cardinals' back garden, playing patiently with Lucy's little brother, who was four years old and so delighted by the older boy's attention. Julian hadn't known how to disappoint the child, and he hadn't had the courage to try to insinuate himself back into the throng. At the end of the party, the taller Mrs. Cardinal had given him a hug, thanked him for being so sweet to her little boy, called him an upstanding young man, and slipped him an extra slice of chocolate cake to take home. For years afterwards, Julian had tried to convince himself that the adult's approval made up for the hurt of being rejected by his peers. It hadn't really worked.

Then when he was fifteen, he finally understood. All those years when his parents had proved so reluctant to let him out of their sight, they hadn't been protecting him, but protecting their secret. They had been afraid he might slip up, might do something suspicious while they weren't around to offer a distraction or an airy excuse. Outrun every child in footrace after footrace, maybe, or solve a Vulcan brain teaser in record time, or deduce who had killed Mr. Boddy after only two rounds of clues. It had been nothing more than a variation on his mother's old theme: it's rude to read so fast when other people can see you, Jules.

Once he had understood what they were doing, he'd been able to fight back. They hadn't dared to interfere, not really. His father shouted and his mother wheedled, but Julian had stayed out after school, tagging along to the town green or the library or the local Replimat or the holopark — wherever his schoolmates congregated in their free time. But no matter how he tried, he had never been able to penetrate deeper than the corona on the fringe of their close-knit social circles. Teenagers, it turned out, were just as intolerant of difference as their small-school counterparts. They had all been taught from toddlerhood never to exclude a person because of species, ethnicity, belief system, language or gender or romantic preference or body type or disability. No one had taught them to be forgiving of the social missteps of the cleverest pupil in the class, who was supposedly just like the rest of them but who had somehow never learned how to join in their lives. Julian had tried to decode the secret language of camaraderie, but it didn't come to him as quickly as Vulcan, or French, or Mandarin, or German. And by the time he turned sixteen, he was too near the precipice of a nervous breakdown to dare to reach out to others. He had let his efforts lapse, resuming them only when he arrived at Starfleet Academy. By then, he had been even further behind.

"Mister Bashir?" Doctor Norton's voice called him back to the present, and Julian's cheeks flared with hot embarrassment. She was watching him, gently pensive. "You seemed awfully far away there, for a second."

"Sorry." He tried to smile sheepishly, and raked an unsteady hand through his hair. "I was just… what was I saying?"

"That you had someone to talk to?" she prompted.

"Right." He let out a little, grounded sigh. "Palis. She's my… she's the woman I'd like to marry. We talk about everything." Almost everything. "I'm taking a day's furlough tomorrow, actually, to go and see her. She lives in Paris."

For the first time since calling him back, Doctor Norton smiled broadly. "Good," she said emphatically. "That's good. Taking time out for yourself and those you love is important. How long has it been since your last leave?"

"Four weeks," Julian admitted. It was entirely too long, and even without the upheavals of the last few days he would have been aching to see Palis. "It's hard to get away. With coursework and research and the papers I've got to write — and my shifts in the Academy infirmary, and my mentorship obligations…"

He stopped, aware that he was babbling. He shrugged apologetically. "But she has a exhibition recital tomorrow evening, so I wanted to make time to attend."

"Oh, she's a musician?" Norton asked. She was coaxing him to talk about something that engaged him: another tactic to measure his mental state. Julian decided it was best to cooperate, now that they were away from the chasm.

"A danseuse," he said, knowing the Universal Translator would thwart his effort to use the proper term. "With L'Opera National. That's a preeminent ballet company," he added, in case she wasn't aware. "She's a Danseuse Étoile, which means…"

"She's one of the best," said Doctor Norton, nodding. "Top of her field, like you are in yours. It sounds like you're meant for each other."

"I like to think so," Julian said shyly. "She's gifted, and she's intelligent, and she's charming… I don't know quite what she saw in me, but these days we're inseparable."

"I'm glad," Norton said earnestly. "You're beaming out tomorrow? What time?"

"Around 0930 hours," said Julian. "That's 1830 in Paris. She won't have time for me before the performance."

"And you'll spend the night?" asked Doctor Norton. It sounded like an invasive question, but her tone was still tinted with concern. She was trying to make sure he had enough time to unburden himself, and to relax in the company of someone he loved, before he had to be back in the med school crucible. Julian was touched.

"At least," he said. "I don't actually have anything to do back on campus until Sunday evening. I've got the overnight shift at the Infirmary."

"And I'll bet you're looking forward to that, too," Norton mused. "You always seem to be at your best when you're working with patients."

Julian's brows furrowed in puzzlement. "How did you—" he began, then stopped himself. It was an impertinent question, no matter how valid. Doctor Norton didn't teach any practical courses: she had never supervised him with patients.

"Oh, I make it my business to know which of my students are strong on the theory, and which of them have a decent bedside manner," she said. "Just so happens, you're both. You'll make a good doctor, Mister Bashir. From what I hear, you're already a good doctor, in all but name."

His cheeks burned again, but this time the flush was one of pride and pleasure. "That's kind of you to say, Professor," he mumbled, managing to keep from stammering in embarrassed delight.

"It's true," she said, getting to her feet. "Why don't you go and get yourself some supper? Can't run that mighty brain of yours on nothing but coffee fumes and sea air."

Julian's attempt to rise gracefully was thwarted by the words mighty brain. He knew there was no subtext behind them; no accusation. He heard one anyway. His momentary reprieve, when he'd been thinking of nothing but Palis and his professor's words of earnest praise, was over now, and he was back to thinking about his secret. His mighty brain, which he owed to illegal genetic enhancement.

"Thanks, Professor," he said, a trifle hoarsely. He moved for the door, even as she tapped her computer to release the lock.

"And Mister Bashir?" she said, as he stepped over the threshold. Julian looked back, wide-eyed and wary. Doctor Norton was smiling warmly. "If you ever do want someone to talk to on this continent, I'm always ready to listen."

He thanked her, but he hurried away, trying to recapture the carefree serenity that had filled him while he spoke of his beloved. Palis. He'd be able to see her in seventeen hours, to speak to her in nineteen. Surely he could hold out until then, provided he stayed away from the Federation News Service and tried to avoid the gossip.

He would have to hold out until then. Somehow.

(fade)

Chapter Text

Note: Translations of French phrases are included in the glossary at the end of the chapter. The English translation is in italics, with any necessary commentary in plain text after it. For clarity, this story employs only the American-style quotation marks, as are in standard use by Starfleet, rather than the French guillemets.

Chapter III: Cherry Blossoms 

Julian always dithered over what to wear when he went to the ballet. His three changes of civilian clothes were neither particularly inspiring, nor especially up-to-date. He didn't have any real formalwear, apart from his Academy dress uniform — which always made him feel overdressed and foolish, as if he were putting on airs above his station. The grim thought visited him now that he was putting on airs above his station any time he wore a uniform at all. He had no right to be here, however hard he had worked to earn his place: he was barred by law from the service.

But here he was, regardless, standing in the middle of his quarters in the Medical Academy barracks, staring into his closet and flailing over a question he'd asked himself a dozen times before, even though he knew the answer. What did a promising young cadet wear to his partner's showcase recital at the prestigious and historic Palais Garnier, when all the civilians would be decked out in their elegant suits and evening gowns and a rainbow of multicultural finery? His Starfleet uniform, of course. Even the durable one issued for routine wear carried with it a legacy of service, dedication, and pride that was more than good enough for any environment, however splendid.

If he'd been headed to a major performance or a headlining premiere, Julian might have reached for the dress uniform instead. But this was an exhibition, not nearly as formal. There would be school groups in attendance, and people who didn't ordinarily patronize the ballet because they didn't enjoy sitting through three-hour performances with multiple intermissions. There would most likely be other Starfleet personnel present, if not cadets then active-duty officers, and at least some of them would probably be in uniform. Julian wouldn't look out of place, and even Palis's pretentious and exceedingly traditional parents could not possibly object. Docteur Delon might believe Julian would waste his talents in Starfleet, but there was no denying the prestige of studying at the Medical Academy. It was the most competitive and coveted medical school in the Federation, and Julian Bashir was at the top of his class.

His mind made up, Julian took out the most pristine of his four duty uniforms, and laid it out on the bed. It settled the question of undergarments, too, which would have been a consideration today as they weren't when he took an evening's liberty in San Francisco. After all, when he did that, no one was going to see what he had on under his civvies, were they? But he'd be spending the night in Paris. It was a pleasant thought, and Julian dug out his standard-issue singlet, trunks and socks. Palis liked the clean lines of Starfleet undergarments, so she said. In any case, they never stayed on him for long once the jumpsuit came off.

He dressed with more than his usual considerable care, then lingered a little longer than normal in front of the mirror, combing his hair out of its sleep-tousled curls. He'd actually managed to get some rest last night, at least until 0300 when he'd awakened abruptly out of a nightmare of glittering, many-coloured lights and strange sounds and solemn alien doctors who ignored his pleas for his mother. At least he hadn't had to scream his way out of the dream. He hadn't had to do that in a year, maybe longer. He was always at his best when he was busy and engaged by his work. It was easier to keep his mind from slipping into awkward areas. His last visit home had made that harder, and the most recent spate of screaming nightmares had followed that. Now this business in Belgium…

Julian shook off the thought. He focused on cleaning his teeth, then tested out his smile in the looking-glass. He didn't feel the first one, but the second came more readily and by the third he was genuinely grinning. He was going to Paris. He would spend the whole night with Palis. He had a full twenty-four hour pass: he could spend almost all of it with her. Or watching her on stage, which was almost as marvellous. It was with a far lighter step that he left his quarters this morning, and he strode swiftly to the turbolift.

He wasn't due in Paris for another forty minutes, which left plenty of time for breakfast. But Julian wasn't quite prepared to face the prospect of eating in any of the campus mess halls again. They'd be less crowded on a Saturday morning, but they wouldn't be empty. And everyone was sure to be talking about exactly the same thing they'd discussed yesterday: the colonists from Moab IV, and what an outrage it was to allow genetically enhanced humans to live on Earth, to work and study and contribute as if they were Federation citizens. As if their membership in the human race shouldn't be forfeit because of decisions made by others before they were born. Or before they were capable of making such choices for themselves, Julian could not help but add in a feeble attempt at self-defence.

He knew he had no right to the kinship he felt with these colonists. Their situation was quite unlike his. They had been born into a society that did not condemn - and indeed, uplifted - genetic enhancement. Their DNA had been altered in the embryonic stage, where the alterations to his had been done far later in life; meaning that they had not erased, by their very genesis, another worthy life. And, of course, they had never chosen to lie about their genetic status. But however unwarranted, the bond he felt was undeniable. He couldn't refute it. His engineered brain wouldn't let him forget it. All he could do was try to ignore it. To focus on Paris and Palis. To do his best not to think about the broadcast he'd watched last night before taking refuge in bed.

He hadn't meant to look. He'd left Doctor Norton's classroom absolutely determined not to switch on FNS — or any other news feed, for that matter. He'd departed the mess hall with the same clear resolve. But his evening routine required checking his correspondence, which meant sitting down at his computer terminal. And after he'd read his dispatches and sifted through a few messages from his team on the nephrology research project and checked — for about the seventeenth time that week — that his overnight leave request was still marked as approved, his hand had simply moved, as it always did, to the shortcut on the control panel that called up the Federation News Service.

Usually he just scanned the day's top headlines, perhaps perusing an article or two if something piqued his interest. It was always good to keep an eye on science and medicine press releases aimed at the layperson, so he knew what his patients would be seeing in their media. In interstellar news, the situation along the Cardassian border had grown increasingly interesting over the last couple of years, as negotiations spun on. Starfleet had finally secured a commitment from the Central Command to pull out of the Bajoran sector, and diplomats on both sides were dickering over timelines. The more optimistic predicted a three-month schedule. Pessimists seemed to think it could take years. If the murmurs Julian had heard around Starfleet Medical were true, plans for relief efforts were being made with a goal of establishing a Federation presence on Bajor sometime in the new year. As someone who'd be dispatched to his first posting at precisely that time, Julian was intrigued.

Last night, however, he didn't even look for news from the frontier. His eyes were drawn immediately to the top three headlines, all of which referenced the disturbances in Ghent. Julian had felt the colour drain from his cheeks, and a band of dread close about his ribs, and he'd tried to switch off the display. But his fingers wouldn't obey him and he couldn't find his voice, and the second headline had almost compelled him to select it.

"We Are Worthy": Disability Advocates Condemn Eugenic Leniency.

Julian had called up the article with a swipe of one numb fingertip. His vision had been blurring, and he couldn't actually read it, but the accompanying holocam footage played without needing a prompt. In a stately auditorium somewhere in Europe, a group of people representing a range of ages and ethnicities — mostly human, but with an Aenar, a Bolian, and a Betazoid among them — were gathered on stage. Some sat in antigrav chairs or wore neural transduction braces on their limbs. Others had the characteristic physical features of Trisomy 21 or other chromosomal abnormalities that did not preclude a happy and essentially healthy life. Two had VISORs, and another wore a visual translator, a translucent monocle-like screen that converted spoken language to text for the Deaf who eschewed aural implants for cultural reasons. Three generations of a family with achondroplastic short stature were dressed in the tartan of one of the old Scottish clans. A few of those assembled displayed no visible signs of disability, and likely lived with autism or neuropathic pain syndromes or a host of other hidden challenges that standard medicine, miraculous as it was, could ameliorate but not remove. There were young adults and mature faces, elderly people, and four schoolchildren of various ages. Each person on the stage took a turn addressing the assembled crowd, and when the woman with the visual translator stood up, one of her companions interpreted her sign language.

The headline was misleading. There was no outright condemnation, not of eugenics in general and certainly not of the Moab colonists. These people simply wanted to tell their stories, and to remind their audience — both in the room and in the much broader sense — of the grim history of the fight for the rights and acceptance of people living with disabilities. They wanted people to remember how easy it was to marginalize, ignore, and erase differences in the name of "advancement". They wanted people to remember that when fascist and tyrants rose to power — of which Khan and his contemporaries had been only the most recent — it had always been they, Earth's most vulnerable, who were the first to die.

It was moving, heartrending, and important testimony. Julian was glad they had the courage to offer it, and glad that society had progressed to the point where theirs was one of the most important broadcasts on a service that provided a voice to dozens of species on hundreds of worlds. He was glad they were speaking, and he was glad people were listening. But it had gored his heart to watch, to think of his little patients at the orbital clinic, and to know that his own parents were the very sort these advocates were warning against: people who were so intolerant of difference, so driven by the allure of easy success, prestige, and pride, that they had taken steps to remove at least one such child from the world.

It had made him feel vile. It had driven him to shut off the computer as soon as the last speaker said her piece, and the commentators started talking instead. And it had almost certainly brought on the nightmare.

Now, stepping out into the sunshine and the riot of spring fragrances that danced on the ocean wind, Julian tried to will away the emotions and the memories. Paris. Palis. And cherry blossoms?

It was customary to bring flowers for a danseuse. Roses were traditional, but uninspired: there would be florists' carts thronging in the cobbled courtyard before the Palais Garnier, with bundles of roses of every colour and variety imaginable there for the asking. Sometimes Julian enjoyed sifting through the dizzying selection to find a single perfect blossom. Once, he'd brought Palis four dozen, so they could strew them all over her bedroom until the whole flat smelled like a damp conservatory. But at the end of the day, roses were dull. De rigueur. Impersonal.

A stem of cherry blossoms, on the other hand, plucked by Julian himself just before leaving campus… that was perfect. A little slice of San Francisco, a taste of Starfleet Academy. He'd been luxuriating among the cherry blossoms for the last two weeks, and they wouldn't be in bloom much longer. It wasn't as though there were no cherry trees in Paris, of course, but the San Francisco variety were special, intertwined with the city's history as a Pacific port. They were a part of his daily life that he could share with her, and bringing her a branch would show creativity, imagination, and personal effort: all the things that were most meaningful about a gift.

Delighted by the idea and very glad of the distraction, Julian meandered down one of the neatly-raked paths in search of the perfect branch. He studied the hazy pink clouds of fragrant loveliness as he went. The air was crisp but balmy: it was going to be a hot day. There was something satisfying about beaming to another continent knowing you were leaving a pleasant day behind you for everyone else to enjoy in your absence. Almost as satisfying as the magic of escaping a bitter winter storm for some sunny beach halfway around the planet. Transporter technology had completely erased the tedium of the seasons: there was always something fresh just the touch of a button away, even if you weren't always free to go there.

Today, though, Julian was free, and he felt it! He wasn't sure he had ever needed this escape so desperately. Getting away from the stress of his final semester was important, to be sure. But getting away from the shadow cast by the arrival of the Moab colonists, and the tremors it was sending through the bedrock of his haven at Starfleet Medical? That was too great a mercy to quantify.

He found the tree he wanted. It was just off the path, one of the ones surrounded by manicured greensward instead of flowerbeds. The groundskeeper and his staff made sure to sprinkle such spots around generously, in the hope it would encourage wayward cadets to study where they wouldn't trample the flora. Julian had learned over the last eight years that it didn't always work: teenagers and those in their early twenties were legendary for their obliviousness, and there were bound to be careless personalities in any group of young people. For his part, he did try to mind the flowers when looking for a place to spread out. He preferred the grass anyway, possibly as a consequence of growing up in a land of rolling meadows where the flowers, for the most part, were grown behind low garden walls.

Having found his tree, he surveyed the branches. He only needed one small, slender cutting. About forty centimetres long, with a cluster of offshoots laden with blossoms. Julian craned his neck, gazing up into the downy canopy, until he saw just the right branch. It reached out from a limb just over his head, and he got up on his toes to achieve better leverage as he closed his fingers around the root of the branch and prepared to apply a careful counterforce with his thumb. His tongue found its way into his cheek as he focused on the task at hand…

"Just what do you think you're doing?" a stern voice demanded, disapproval and accusation cutting a chilling swath through the gentle wind.

(fade)

Julian's heart was in his throat, and he eased back down onto the flats of his feet, his left arm sinking with his stomach but his right still reaching up into the tree. He turned his head, rueful apology starting to crease his features as he realized he had been caught in the act by the only person on the Academy campus who would frown upon what he was doing.

The elderly human man stood on the edge of the path, feet widely planted in their rubber boots, and arms crossed over the bib of his overalls. His wispy white hair was whipping in the breeze, and his bushy brows were furrowed into deep crevices not just of accusation, but of outright condemnation. It was Boothby, the groundskeeper and the perennial foe of the clumsy and the careless.

"I… er…" Julian began. He knew he should get his hand the hell out of the tree, but he couldn't quite coordinate the necessary muscles. He didn't feel much like a Starfleet cadet, top of his class and mere months from becoming a practicing physician and surgeon. Instead, he was yanked back in an instant to the age of nine, when he'd broken an upstairs window trying to figure out how to use his first tennis racquet.

He'd been inspired by footage from Wimbledon that year, and had replicated a model far too large for his body. And he'd been practicing against the back wall of the cottage, because he had no friends — again — so soon after the move to yet another quiet village for reasons he'd been too innocent to understand. He'd been enjoying it, too, solitary endeavour though it was, until he heard the glass shatter.

He'd known he would be in trouble. His mother's disappointment and gentle scolding had been bad enough, scalding his conscience as she ushered him inside and confiscated the racquet. She'd gone upstairs to gather the shards of glass, and Julian (in those days still thinking of himself as Jules, as he'd been born) had been so stricken with guilt that he'd flung himself on his knees next to her, trying to scoop up the shattered panes as quickly as he could. The result had been predictable, and he'd felt even more guilty as his mother fussed over his sliced fingers and scored calves with the dermal regenerator. She'd cried, and he'd cried, and then she'd settled him in his bedroom with Kukalaka and a cup of sweet, milky tea while she went to finish cleaning up his mess. As the remorse had dimmed a little, dread had set in — because Jules had known all too well by the age of nine that it was going to get exponentially worse when his father got home.

Over the years, Julian had deliberately lost track of his father's mercurial employment history, and he didn't care to remember if he'd been working at the power relay station that summer, or at the interior design firm where he'd been engaged to manage employee timetables but had spent most of his brief tenure making a hopeless tangle of the swatch collections and colourbooks. Either way, he'd been near the end of his hitch, at that dangerous time when he knew he was looking down the barrel of another pointless failure, but no one had actually suggested the inevitable parting of the ways. That phase of any new venture was always accompanied by foul moods, and on that day coming home to a broken window had been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Julian's mother had barely got the words out of her mouth when the shouting began. He'd heard his father storming around below, and then the thunderous percussion of his boots on the stairs. The Bashirs didn't customarily wear shoes in the house: they were supposed to come off in the vestibule, so as not to track in muck or to mark up the floors. Jules had known he was in terrible trouble when he realized his father had forgotten this rule. And the bedroom door had flown open with almost enough force to take it off its hinges, and the shouting had resumed afresh — only this time, it was right in the room with him, towering over him, getting closer and louder by the second.

"I… I—I—I—" Julian stammered, trying to tear himself free from the memory's icy tentacles. Boothby was still glaring at him. He knew there really was no excuse for the position he was in, and he silently upbraided himself for not even pausing to wonder if he was allowed to take a branch from one of the trees. And realizing in the next agonizing moment that he shouldn't have had to wonder, because obviously he should have known it was forbidden! All his intelligence and all his accomplishments, and he was still a wooden-headed fool now and then.

And that sounded so much like the voice of his father that the last shreds of his courage very nearly abandoned him on the spot, dragged back into the depths again.

He remembered every word of the lecture, or tongue-lashing, or tirade, that Richard Bashir had levied at him as the price for an exuberant moment of childish abandon. But what stood out in Julian's memory most starkly weren't the attacks upon his clumsiness, his ingratitude, his lack of common sense and common decency, and his general dearth of consideration for his mother's efforts to keep the house presentable or his father's right to return to a peaceful home after a hard day at work. What he remembered was how his father kept coming back to one recurring demand, repeated over and over again at ever-increasing volume. How the hell does anyone hit a tennis ball hard enough to break a window, anyway?

Even after his father started to wind down, and shifted the focus of his rage from his son to the previous inhabitants of the cottage (Just because it's a historical building doesn't mean they need to use historical glass, now does it? Bloody idiots!), Julian remembered how terrified he'd been. Not just of the shouting, and the punishment to follow, but of the undercurrent of panic in his father's voice as he came back again and again to that impossible question: How the hell does anyone hit a tennis ball hard enough to break a window?

He hadn't known then what his father feared. He hadn't known why the incident had scared his mother. But he'd felt their fear, and it had fed his own. Years later, of course, long after he'd been fitted for a racquet that fit his body, and a whole series of ever more high-quality replacements, long after he'd been put into tennis lessons where he was able to play with other like-minded youth whether they liked him personally or not, Julian had finally understood. Genetic engineering had side effects: everyone knew that. His own apparent lack of any detrimental consequences was an aberration Julian still couldn't explain, and it had only been proved out by the test of time. When he was nine, his parents had no way of knowing he was going to grow up as he had, healthy, functional, and perfectly well-adjusted. They had been vigilant for adverse events. Adverse events like augmented strength run amok. Like finding out their son had both the force in his arm and the lack of self-control required to break a window with a tennis ball. They'd both been afraid, one hiding it in tears and the other in wrath, that the incident was the first symptom of some pernicious pathology instead of what it had proved to be: a simple, silly accident of the sort active and imaginative children often had when they were isolated and bored.

"I'm waiting for an answer, Mister," said Boothby, but there was a little less of an edge to his voice. His eyes were travelling over Julian's frozen frame, and when they came to rest on his face they were no longer blazing with indignation. Despite the stern scowl still crinkled around them, they were soft with sympathy. "I'm not going to shoot you, boy. Just explain yourself."

"I…" Julian began again, but he knew he was on the verge of another fit of stammering, so he closed his dry mouth, rolled his tongue fruitlessly around it, and then pressed his lips tightly together before choosing a different word. "The blossoms," he said, and the jag was broken. "I wanted to bring some to Paris. My… the woman I love is dancing at the Opéra National tonight, and I thought…"

"You thought you'd take her some of my cherry blossoms, because roses are boring," Boothby said sourly. It was such a perfect encapsulation of Julian's own thought process that he felt his cheeks burning. Hearing it aloud, and perhaps especially in that tone of voice, he saw how foolish and frivolous an idea it was.

"Yes, sir," he whispered, staring down at the toes of his meticulously-polished boots where they had sunk into the softness of the grass. He couldn't meet the groundskeeper's eyes, and he still hadn't figured out how to get his hand out of the tree. He just stood as he was, pilloried by his own embarrassment.

"You are aware, aren't you, boy, that they have cherry blossoms in Paris?" Boothby said sarcastically.

Julian managed a fractional nod. "Yes, sir," he breathed again.

"I can't hear you," said Boothby, in the same barking cadence drill instructors loved to use.

It had the desired effect. "Yes, sir!" Julian repeated, forcefully and far more audibly.

"So then what's so special about these?" the groundskeeper demanded.

Julian knew it was silly to answer, but he didn't want to dissemble. He tried his best to be a truthful person and an honourable cadet. He wanted to be worthy of the uniform he wore, and the only way he could even hope to outweigh the single, glaring lie that had brought him here was by telling the truth in everything else.

"They're special to me, sir," he said. "I look forward to them every year. I've been enjoying them all week. Longer. They smell…" He knew it was absurd to contend that these cherry blossoms somehow smelled sweeter than any others. Every variety contained the same bouquet of aromatic hydrocarbons responsible for the distinctive scent, and scientifically there shouldn't be much difference. But somehow there was. "They smell like springtime at the Academy, sir," Julian confessed awkwardly. "And since she doesn't really visit me here, I thought it would be a way to bring… to bring…"

"To bring her a piece of your daily life," said Boothby, sounding pensive. His voice hardened again in disapproval. "So you thought you'd just rip off a whole branch, and go gallivanting off to Europe with no one the wiser?"

That had to be a rhetorical question, and Boothby was a civilian, not an officer: Julian did have the option not to respond, and he took it. He was too acutely humiliated by his foolishness to manage a dignified reply, anyway.

"Hmph!" Boothby grunted sharply. "That's what I though. You cadets, you're all the same. Think the grounds just sprout like this after the first good February rainfall. You don't see the work that goes into it, so you don't appreciate it. Do you have any idea how old that tree is? How long it's stood right there on this campus, shading the heads of cadets who've grown up to be some of the most famous officers in Starfleet history? A hundred and twenty-two years, Cadet! James T. Kirk himself probably sat under that tree!"

Julian looked up in surprise, suddenly too fascinated to be embarrassed. His fingers finally released their hold on the branch, and his errant right hand found its way back down to his side. "A hundred and twenty-two years? Really?" he asked.

Boothby nodded stoutly. "Yes!" he said. "It's one of the ones that was transplanted from Kyoto in memory of another famous Starfleet officer who passed away that winter. Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato — that name mean anything to you?"

Julian shook his head, still entranced.

The groundskeeper scoffed. "No, and why would it?" he asked, nodding at Julian's shoulders. "Psychology? Nursing? Pharmacy?"

"Medicine," said Julian reflexively. His head tilted a little higher as he added, unnecessary for his audience but essential for his sense of self-worth; "I'm going to be a doctor in just a few weeks."

"Well," said Boothby, unimpressed but not dismissive; "if you were an anthropology or linguistics major, you'd know her. That little doohickey in your combadge that makes it so easy to talk to your Andorian friend? She pioneered that device. Among other things."

Julian's eyebrows shot up. "You know I've got an Andorian friend?" he asked. He couldn't help it.

"Course I do," Boothby grunted. "I know everything that goes on on this campus. He interrupted you just the other day when you were studying on the knoll up there."

He pointed, and Julian followed his arm to see, with no astonishment whatsoever, the tree he'd been lounging under on Thursday afternoon before Erit came looking for his lab coat. "Is that one a hundred and twenty-two years old, too?" he asked, fascinated.

"Older," said Boothby. "That one's a transplant from the garden in Golden Gate Park. Most of the ones around it are hybrids, quite a lot younger…" His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Are you trying to distract me, boy?"

"No, sir," Julian said hurriedly. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind until the man suggested it. "It's j-just… interesting."

"Hmph." Boothby nodded once, curtly, and his scowl deepened. "You can't just rip a branch off a tree!" he scolded, returning to his message. "It tears the cambium, shreds the bark, leaves a nasty open wound to attract fungi or parasites. You wouldn't hack a mole off a patient's face with a butter knife and walk away, now would you?"

Julian hung his head. Ordinarily, he could stand up to a dressing-down as well as the next cadet. This was different. Perhaps it was because the elderly civilian reminded him a little too much of his father. Perhaps it was because the turmoil he'd been fighting these last few days had worn down his will to stand up for himself. Perhaps it was because he knew the criticism was well-deserved: he had been thoughtless, and he had been about to rip a branch off the tree. Whatever the reason, he found himself bowing under Boothby's stern castigation.

"No, sir," he mumbled.

"No!" Boothby barked. "What would you do?"

Julian looked up in surprise — again. "Sir?" he said. Was he really being asked to rattle off a clinical procedure? By the gardener? Boothby raised his bushy brows, waiting for his answer. "Well, I'd…" Julian gathered his professional mindset, what he thought of as his Doctor Voice, and answered with crisp confidence; "I would first apply a nerve blocking agent, of course; either pharmacological or non-invasive, as circumstances dictated. Then visualize the blemish with my tricorder, isolating the margins of the mole. With a high-frequency laser scalpel set to a radiance appropriate for the patient's skin according to species, I would excise the mass using a contoured elliptical approach. Further tricorder imaging would confirm the removal of all affected dermal and epidermal cells, with resection as necessary. Then close the wound with a dermal regenerator on a moderate cycle, clean the area, and remove the neural blocker. Finally, I'd give the patient a mirror, so they could see the change."

In the classroom or the Infirmary, that recitation would have earned him words of approval from his professor or his preceptor, and concurring nods from his classmates. He probably would have won himself some bonus marks for including consideration of the patient's feelings about a facial mole — a natural thing to do in practice, but easy to forget in a procedural recitation. Boothby only tilted his head back slightly, looking thoughtful. "Awful lot of steps for something you could hack off with a butter knife," he muttered slyly.

"Well, yes, but in order to do it properly—" Julian began. Then he understood, and he deflated measurably. "Oh. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't think. It won't happen again."

"Didn't happen this time, now did it?" Boothby said, still irascible but oddly mollified. "Stopped you just in time. Now. Do you want to see how to do it properly, or not?"

"How to…" Julian didn't quite understand.

"How to cut a stem of cherry blossoms for your fancy French girlfriend!" said Boothby. His eyes narrowed. "Not very sharp for a doctor-in-waiting, are you? Here, let me show you. Which branch were you after?"

He stumped down off the path, flipping open one of the pockets of his overalls as he did so. He drew out a small pair of garden shears, blades curved like talons and gleaming with freshly-whetted keenness. He flipped them with a deft toss, and offered them, handles-first, to Julian. "Go on. Take 'em," he growled. "I don't hold with lasers, myself. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways."

Julian took the shears, spying the hook that was holding them closed and sliding it out of the way with his thumb. A strong spring expanded, forcing blades and handles apart. He looked from the tool to the tree, not at all certain he had the nerve for this.

"Which branch?" Boothby asked again. With his free hand, Julian pointed. He felt like a fool, but the groundskeeper seemed to be taking the matter extremely seriously. He squinted at the bough, and the offshoot Julian had indicated. "Not a bad choice," he allowed gruffly. "Young growth, but not too new. Isn't load-bearing. And you didn't get greedy. Just right for slipping into a bud vase, am I right?"

Julian nodded. Palis had just such a vase, made of Bolian crystal, that she liked to set on her dressing table where the morning sun could cast prismatic rainbows through it onto the wall and ceiling.

"Well, what you want is a nice, clean cut about a quarter-inch north of the bud," said Boothby. "That's six millimetres, to you Starfleet types."

Us Starfleet types and the rest of the Federation, Julian thought dryly. Dozens of species on hundreds of worlds, all content to use a standardized decimal system for clarity and convenience. He wasn't quite tactless enough to say it aloud. Until coming to America, he had never imagined there were humans out there who still used the archaic Imperial system. The United States had been one of the last countries on Earth to move on to metric, and in some areas people clung to inches and feet as a sort of regional badge of honour. Every culture had its foibles, and this was one.

Besides, he could make a cut at six millimetres with preternatural precision. He shifted his grip on the shears and moved them into place.

"Not straight across the branch," Boothby said, putting on a show of mild annoyance that didn't quite hide the fact that he was enjoying his captive audience. "Angle it. That's right. About forty-five degrees. Then you want to make one quick, clean cut all the way through. Get ahold of it, boy!" he said sharply, before Julian could cut. "You want it to hit the ground and knock loose all the petals?"

"No," Julian said with a little chuckle of amusement. He curled his left hand around the stem. "I don't want that."

"There. Good enough," said Boothby. His reluctant praise was amusing: the blades were placed at exactly six millimetres and angled precisely forty-five degrees. The lasers he so scorned could not have been more accurate. If he hadn't been feeling just a bit impudent as his confidence returned, Julian would have balked at that degree of precision. "Now cut."

Julian clenched his hand, drawing together the handles of the shears. There was a clean, satisfying crunch, and the slender branch came loose in his fingers. He drew it down out of the canopy gently, careful to let the blossom-bearing twigs disentangle themselves slowly from their neighbours. He shook loose a few stray petals with one gentle twitch of the wrist, and looked up at Boothby, a little abashed, when he realized he'd been smiling in quiet delight.

"Right. Give me the shears," said the groundskeeper. Julian handed them over, and Boothby produced a damp cloth from his back pocket. He wiped down the blades, and the faint smell of chlorine rose to mingle with the scent of the flowers. Boothby sheathed the tool, and from another pocket produced a vial with a tiny brush embedded in its lid. The golden fluid within had the consistency of olive oil. "Let me hold that for a minute, and you're going to paint this on the cut," he said, taking the branch and giving Julian the vial.

"What is it?" he asked, unscrewing the cap.

"My own recipe," said Boothby. "Can't be telling you doctors about it, or the next thing you know you'll be mass-producing it and taking all the credit. Paint it on, just a drop or two. It'll help seal the cut, and keep the germs away."

Julian smiled at the colloquial expression, and did as he was told. He capped the bottle again, and offered it to the groundskeeper. In return, he was given his blossoms.

"Tell her to cut off another quarter-inch before she puts them in water," Boothby instructed, shuffling back up the slope and onto the path. "They'll last longer. And don't you go spreading the word that my cherry trees are fair game for every lovelorn young fool on campus. I'm making an exception for you, Cadet. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Julian said warmly. "I'm very grateful. But… why?"

"Why, what?" snorted Boothby.

"Why make an exception for me?" asked Julian awkwardly.

Boothby shrugged. "Because you were interested in the history of the tree?" he said. "Because I've just had an old friend remind me that you kids don't learn all your important lessons in the classroom? Maybe because you look like you could stand to have something go your way today. Go on, get out of here: off to Paris and that lady of yours. She must be something special."

"She is," said Julian softly, almost dreamily. He turned the branch of cherry blossoms in his hand, drinking in the fragrance. Then he looked up at Boothby. "Thank you."

"Hmph!" the groundskeeper said again, and he went loping off down the path. Not until he was gone did it occur to Julian to wonder just how beleaguered he looked, if even Boothby had seen it.

(fade)

French Language Glossary:

de rigueur: according to the current fashion, often with the connotation of "overdone" or "trite".

Chapter Text

Note: This chapter owes much to a certain lady of great grace and generosity, who is the kind of person who puts up with a friendly acquaintance's exceedingly clumsy ballet-themed interrogation on a weeknight. Thank you, my dear!

Chapter IV: Le Palais Garnier

The transporter technician's parting words ("Don't let Boothby catch you filching cherry blossoms!") followed Julian into the matter stream, across the North American continent, and over the Atlantic Ocean. It was still ringing in his tympanic membranes as he materialized in the terminal on the Rue Boudreau. It was a civilian hub, not a Starfleet one, and so the operator behind the controls was wearing an asymmetrical frock with matching leggings, and an assortment of bright, dangling jewellery.

"Welcome to Paris!" the operator said as Julian stepped briskly down from the transporter pad.

"Thanks," he said warmly. "Can you send back confirmation of my arrival?"

"Absolutely," said the tech. Actually, the word was absolument, but Julian's combadge was still active, and his Universal Translator was set for English. He went over to the panel and craned his neck to watch as the operator sent the confirmation, and the officer back in San Francisco acknowledged receipt. That was the moment when Julian's leave officially began, and he gave his communicator a quick double-tap. It chirped and then went dormant, translator and all.

"Merci bien," Julian said to the smiling technician. "Bon soir."

"Bon soir, Cadet!" came the reply, as Julian strode for the door. There were half a dozen transporter rooms built around a central atrium furnished as a pleasant place to await arrivals or to while away the time until a schedule departure. There were circular benches and low, upholstered chairs, and a dining area with replicators and tables. Like most modern structures in Paris, it was constructed with the city's architectural heritage in mind, and the roof was styled to look like a classical wrought-iron dome — even though the ornate girders were made of tritanium and the windows were near-indestructible transparent aluminum.

Usually Julian enjoyed looking up at the swirl of vaulted ribs, especially at this time of day when the sky was painted in glorious streaks of orange and gold. Today, however, the sight of the panes only reminded him of the broken window the summer he was nine. His father had insisted the Council maintenance team replace it with transparent aluminum instead of the more authentic glass. His father had never balked at replacing the authentic with the "superior". Julian shoved that thought away with almost violent resolve, and strode for the exit that opened on the street.

He had left San Francisco at 0945 hours, and he had arrived in Paris in the splendid hour before sunset. It was a recipe for circadian disorientation, but over the last couple of years Julian had learned to adapt. Shorter trips were easier than week-long ones, which required some genuine adjustment to the local time zone; he could carry on as if the night's dalliance was a drowsy afternoon, and Palis preferred to lie in whenever possible, anyway. Julian was used to keeping irregular hours, since as a senior medical student he also put in hours as a resident in the Academy Infirmary. The two of them would lie in until at least noon, local time, and then enjoy a leisurely breakfast and a quiet afternoon during what Julian's body was acclimatized to think was early morning. When he got back to campus in twenty-four hours time, he'd take a long nap to prepare for his duty shift on Sunday night, and that would be that.

It was a perfect arrangement, much gentler on Julian's circadian rhythms than many of their visits were. He'd been planning this trip for weeks, and he'd done a series of shift trades in order to secure the Sunday night slot. The last time he'd attended a Saturday performance in Paris, he'd been working at 0800 the next morning — with the result that he got practically no sleep at all in a thirty-six-hour period. With his academic courseload and his residency commitments, it had taken him a week and a half to dig himself out of that sleep debt, and he'd only done so at the cost of a racquetball practice. That hadn't been ideal at all, right before the sector championship, but his team had managed fine without him. Nawrell had taken point, as a matter of fact, and it was one of the reasons Julian liked her for team captain next year.

The Parisian streets were busy at this time of the evening, restaurants and cafés warming to their nightly traffic. People of every size, shape, species, and gender strolled the cobbled roads, and the music of many languages danced in Julian's ears as he walked briskly away from the low-hanging sun. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to deactivate his combadge until he reached the Palais. In order to deactivate it, he had to file for special permission, which included giving the Medical Academy a list of the places he could be reached via alternative means. He was signed out at the Palais Garnier from 1900 to 2100 hours, then at Palis's favourite restaurant on the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin for two hours after that, and finally at her flat in the Fifth Arrondissement. If he had to be summoned back to the Academy — which could happen, in case of an emergency or an unexpected change in the Infirmary schedule — the dispatching officer would contact him according to the schedule he'd given.

It would have been easier, of course, if Julian simply signed out for the duration of the performance when courtesy absolutely demanded it, and then turned his combadge on the rest of the time. But he didn't like to do that. Cadets were still issued the previous generation of communicator, which didn't have an independent function for disabling the Universal Translator incorporated into the device. When Julian was in Paris, he preferred the flexibility of switching between languages as he pleased, without technology interfering in what he heard or how he was perceived. He and Palis were both fluent in French and English, and they switched between them organically in a sort of linguistic love-language unique to the two of them. The Universal Translator could never quite adapt to that.

Besides, there was something liberating about being off the Starfleet communications grid for twenty-four hours, even if Julian knew they could still reach him whenever they wanted. It was liberating, and made his brief leave feel more like a proper holiday. So he walked on, picking up a sentence of French or Spanish or English or Arabic here and there, and letting the other languages simply flow around him in a pleasant abstraction of sound. He always loved it when he could catch a phrase in Vulcan or Andorian, but tonight that didn't seem to be on the menu.

He rounded a gentle corner where once the broad streets had teemed with automobiles. Now, they were open spaces strewn with vendors' carts and public benches, traversed by people on foot or on skimmers, parents with toddlers in antigrav strollers, and the occasional antique bicycle. It was hard to imagine this beautiful, pedestrian-rich city choked with the exhaust of millions of internal combustion engines, but Julian had seen the footage of Old Paris and knew it once had been. He picked up his pace a little as the Palais Garnier came into view.

It was an enormous stone façade, an elegant assemblage of columns and carven ornamentation, topped by a green dome of oxidized copper. Statuary adorned the corners and the cupola, and the whole thing radiated a sense of nineteenth century decadence, history, and art.

As he had expected, there were flower carts in abundance, overflowing with roses, carnations, and other long-stemmed classics. Not a cherry blossom among them, Julian noted with satisfaction as he twisted his own little bough in his fingers and drank in its familiar fragrance. It was getting near to curtain time, and most of the ballet-goers were already inside. Julian mounted the steps and passed through the ornate doors. Past the first foyer, ushers in traditional livery stood with PADDs, greeting the ticketholders and directing them to the appropriate stairways and balconies. Julian planted his thumb in turn, and was given a set of instructions he did not really need — in English, not French, which was a small disappointment. He'd been hoping to acclimate his ear.

He didn't go to the main hall at once, but took a sharp left in the vestibule and made his way to the side door that led, through a series of passages and corridors, to the backstage area. There were a couple of attendants near the door, gatekeepers and intermediaries. Julian recognized one of them, and went to her at once.

"Salut, Madame Jehanne," he said warmly. "Comment ça va, ce soir?"

"Ça va bien, Monsieur Bashir," the silver-haired lady said warmly. No matter how many times both he and Palis had invited her to call him by his first name, she insisted on the traditional formality. She beamed at the flowers. "Pour Mademoiselle Delon?" she asked.

"Certainement," Julian agreed, offering them up. "Avec mon amour, s'il vous plaît."

"Oui, bien sûr!" she said, patting his hand as she took the flowers. She sniffed them extravagantly and winked. "C'est la saison!"

Julian couldn't help but laugh lightly at this, thinking of Erit saying exactly the same thing in a very different tone of voice on Thursday night. It was a pleasant thought to depart on, so he thanked Madame Jehanne warmly and let her go. The flowers wouldn't reach Palis before she was mustered backstage, but they'd be waiting in her dressing room when she finished. Satisfied, Julian went to find his seat.

(fade)

Palis was always considerate enough not to put Julian in the box with her parents. It wasn't as if he disliked them, and he didn't precisely fear them, but parents weren't Julian's strongest point and he enjoyed the performances far more when he didn't have to put on one of his own. Docteur Delon, especially, was a daunting personality — and the fact that he'd offered Julian a job that he had yet to accept outright meant there was unspoken pressure behind every one of their interactions. In the surgical suite during his internship at Delon's facility, Julian had always known what was expected of him and he'd delivered it with swift, efficient professionalism. In the drawing room or the opera box, it was a different story. Half the time, Julian would find himself fumbling for a response to a courteous question, and he was far too prone to stammer in front of the indomitable physician. Without Palis to smooth out the wrinkles in the conversation, things could get awkward very quickly.

So although the seats in the dress circle weren't quite as prestigious as those in the boxes, Julian was very glad to find his place among them. Palis had confided in him on the first occasion they'd tried this that they were actually a superior vantage point for most performances, as they provided a more symmetrical view than the boxes. Julian deferred to her professional expertise in that area, and he'd never been disappointed. The Palais Garnier was a splendid venue, and in an era of precise-magnification opera glasses, Julian doubted there was really a bad seat in the house. Tonight, he found himself seated between an elderly couple who seemed very much in love, fingers interlaced over their shared armrest, and a line of five prepubescent girls — three humans of various hues, a Vulcan, and a Tellarite — chaperoned by a harried-looking human woman at the far end of the row. The children were all positively alight with eagerness, decked out in their prettiest clothes; even the Vulcan girl's eyes were wide and shining as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose to the first stately bars of the overture.

"Don't bounce, Analise," the woman hissed at the girl nearest Julian. "It's distracting for your seatmate. Don't be rude."

The girl looked apologetically up at Julian, and he leaned in with a smile. "It's all right," he whispered. "Excited?"

She nodded enthusiastically. She had an electronic programme in her hand, and she brandished it. "I love the ballet! I'm going to be une danseuse when I grow up. I'm taking lessons."

"Splendid!" Julian nodded. "Do you know the pieces they'll be dancing tonight?"

"Most of them," the girl whispered back.

"Well, ma copine will be dancing the part of Aurora in the Rose Adagio," Julian said. He knew he was boasting, just a little, but he couldn't resist. He was extravagantly proud of Palis, and even though this was only an exhibition instead of the full ballet, Aurora was an extraordinary role. The piece in question was notoriously challenging, too, and Palis had been positively jubilant when she'd been chosen to dance it.

The girl consulted her programme, and her eyes grew wide. "Palis Delon is votre copine?" she asked breathlessly. "But she's magnifique!"

She lost some of her circumspect hush with that exclamation, and the woman cleared her throat pointedly from the far end of the row. The other girls, however, were all listening avidly. Analise had the good grace to shrug abashedly, but her eyes were dancing.

"She is," Julian agreed in his very best conspiratorial whisper. "But we'd better settle down: I don't want to get into trouble with your chaperone."

Analise wrinkled her nose. "She'd not my chaperone, she my mamman." She grinned again. "It's my birthday."

"Well, then, happy birthday," said Julian. He nodded at the stage, which was draped in a fairyland of silks and shadows and coloured lights. The overture was beginning to segue into the opening number. "Here we go."

Analise settled contentedly into her seat, but in the last few moments before the first dancers appeared, she stole a couple more awed looks at Julian, who could claim such lofty acquaintanceship with one of her heroes. For his part, Julian settled back and let the music fill his ears and his heart, determined to lose himself in the magic of the performance. He'd left his worries and his insecurities and his shame and his dread in San Francisco. Now he was here, in the Palais Garnier, and all he had to think about was the music. And Paris. And Palis.

(fade)

The performance was breathtaking, but far too short. Julian could have gladly sat through four glorious hours or more, watching the artistry of motion and colour. Lithe, skillful bodies swayed, pirouetted, executed gravity-defying leaps and crisp, precise catches. It was an exhibition of skill, athleticism and imagination, and the extraordinary abilities of the human — for almost everyone in the company was human — body. Even understanding the kinetics and physiology behind every movement, Julian was awestruck; and never more so than when Palis took the stage in the penultimate piece.

Fairy. Angel. Goddess. The metaphors out of Earth folklore all fell short of the mark. She was something greater than any of them, a nebula of splendour, a perfect prosopopoeia of grace. She flitted across the stage in the wake of her grand entrance, the tips of her pointe shoes seeming scarcely to touch it. Slender arms sculpted the forms of the dance, pale and exquisite against the shifting rainbow of the backdrop. When she tilted into her series of arabesques penchée, moving from suitor to suitor, her form was exquisite. She exuded youth and exuberance as she gathered her roses and handed them off to the danseuse playing the queen — the only supporting player on a stage that would have been awash with courtiers, playmates, and guests in the full ballet. Then came the most challenging part of the piece. Julian held his breath as Palis rose into her attitude derrière and allowed each suitor in turn to walk her through a stately rotation. She balanced in her pose with the cryogenic grace of a figure in a music box, executing a swift, perfect crowning port de bras between each hand-off. It was dizzying, and exquisite, and when she relaxed for a nanosecond before transitioning into her closing pirouette with her shining, theatrical smile, it was all Julian could do to refrain from springing to his feet to applaud prematurely.

The opportunity for the standing ovation came a few brief minutes later. The closing number was the gathering of delegates from Joséphine Louvois's 23rd Century masterwork, La Naissance de la Fédération. It was a perfect showcase for the entire corps de ballet, with its interlacing, parade-like march of the various diplomatic representatives. The pinnacle of the piece was the presentation of the ambassadors — the soloists from all the previous pieces, each of whom executed a long, soaring grand jeté, alternating stage right and stage left. La Naissance took some liberties with history: many of the worlds represented had not in fact been present at the first series of talks. Trill, for instance, became a signatory a decade later, and Betazed still later than that. But Julian couldn't deny it made for a spectacular display: the dancers in the colours of their respective planets, their costumes reflecting some stylized element of traditional garments.

Palis had been critical of the company's decision to end with the scene from La Naissance. She said it was better when performed by interplanetary companies, where the ambassadors could be cast from dancers of the appropriate species. L'Opéra National was still very homogenous. A little like Nova Squadron in that respect, actually… but that thought was fleeting, and the Academy was quickly forgotten as Palis came back on stage. She was half a heartbeat behind the male danseur portraying Vulcan, with his leotard of russet red and his geometric robes, which were actually four vertical panels without any side seams, so as not to impede his leap. Palis, of course, was Earth; the stiff, cream-coloured Aurora tutu replaced with shimmering petals of green and blue; her sleek, contained hair bedecked with a riotous fascinator. It had to have been a costume change executed at warp speed, but not a ribbon was out of place and she was in perfect control of her body as she skipped into the preparatory leaps that gave her the height and momentum required for the jeté. Her landing was crisp and artful, and she took her place in the final movement of the dance with willowy ease. The orchestra rose to its final crescendo — and then it was over.

The applause was bountiful and enthusiastic, and Julian was one of the first in the audience on his feet. The little girls next to him hastened to follow his lead, Analise taking the opportunity to bounce to her heart's content. As the dancers swept their low bows in sequence, and then acknowledged the orchestra and the theatre's technicians and the choreographer, Julian clapped tirelessly and watched Palis's flushed, triumphant face. She looked positively radiant, and he was very much in love. In that moment, he wouldn't have traded places — or genes — with anyone in the Quadrant.

Then the lights dimmed and the curtain fell, and a moment later the house lights rose. Julian sat down again, while most of the other patrons thronged for the exits. He was in no hurry: he wasn't going anywhere without his beloved copine. Palis would be hugging her fellow performers, giddy with the conclusion of a successful performance. She'd have encouraging words for the junior members of the company, and congratulations to offer her peers. Then she'd let the costumiers retrieve the airy blue-and-green frock, and change her pointe shoes for a pair of supple leather ones so she could go through her cool-down regimen. After that, she'd return to her dressing room to shower and change into street clothes before coming out to meet him. There was no sense jostling around the doors, when he could sit where he was quite comfortably and wait until the way was clear.

When it was, Julian rose and meandered out. The theatre staff were already moving through the seats, collecting the programme PADDs that had been abandoned in here instead of turned in at the doors, and looking for any lost property. Julian knew a few of them by name, and called out quick greetings as he passed them. Then he stepped out into the ornate dignity of the foyer, still grinning contentedly. He'd known when Palis suggested he attend the recital that it would be a welcome diversion from his academic pursuits. He hadn't expected it to be quite this reinvigorating — and he hadn't even spoken to Palis yet!

As he rounded the last arch of the corridor that snaked up the side of the theatre space, his eyes picked out the familiar faces he'd known to expect. That was another reason to linger in the dress circle: it cut down on the time he had to make small talk with Palis's parents. They were waiting for their daughter, too, of course: standing at the foot of the grand staircase were Docteur and Monsieur Delon.

Julian approached with a smooth gait and earnest resolve. He wasn't about to show his nerves, especially when his heart was soaring. He held out a hand to the physician first, as they knew one another better. "Docteur Delon," he said warmly, as they shook firmly — a little too firmly, truth be told: the medical director and esteemed surgeon liked to assert dominance with his grip. As soon as he had his hand back, Julian offered it to Palis's other father. "Monsieur Delon. Bon soir."

"Bon soir," Maxime Delon said courteously. His grip was gentler than his husband's, but his palm was firm with muscle and his fingertips were calloused. He was a cellist with Spira Mirabilis, and it was he who had nurtured his daughter's artistic pursuits. Docteur Delon, on the other hand, had given Palis his sculpted jaw, his classically Gallic colouring, and his appreciation for excellence. "Did you enjoy the performance?"

"Very much," said Julian, perfectly truthful. Monsieur Delon always transitioned to English quite quickly when they spoke, and Julian couldn't tell if that was a judgement on his own French accent, or if the musician simply preferred the more widespread tongue. "Palis was in top form tonight."

"Yes, she was," agreed Monsieur Delon. "I was just saying, wasn't I, Raphael, that she is sure to win the premier role next season."

Docteur Delon nodded, more an acknowledgement than an agreement. "Auditions are bound to be more competitive than usual next year," he said. For Julian's benefit he added, a little condescendingly; "It is the septuacentennial of le Ballet de l'Opéra."

"Yes, I know," said Julian, trying not to sound supercilious but unable to let the man impugn his awareness of the landmarks of Palis's life. "I understand it's going to be a spectacular season."

"Assuredly," said Docteur Delon. While Julian could sometimes look at the other gentleman and see him as Maxime, he never thought of the surgeon by anything other than his full professional title. They had first met in the operating room, Julian a raw young resident assigned by his preceptor to shadow the facility's director during his surgeries one day. He hadn't been meant to assist, only to observe, but an unexpected complication during the replacement of a cybernetic lung had necessitated the use of every available pair of hands. Julian had stepped in calmly and efficiently, following orders with perfect precision. After that, Docteur Delon had seen to it that the young cadet assisted on all of his procedures. Three weeks later, Julian had rated an invitation to dinner in the Delon family home.

"If she does win a starring role, particularly in one of the flagship ballets, it will be a crowning moment in Palis's career," Docteur Delon was saying. He put just a little too much emphasis on the word flagship, so that Julian could not possibly miss his meaning. And just in case he had regardless, the man added; "But of course, to do so, she will have to be on Earth. Have you given any further thought to my invitation?"

He was talking about the post at his complex. Julian had earnestly hoped the question might not arise on this visit. He and Palis had discussed it during his last leave in Paris, but they hadn't come to any sort of decision. He needed to explore their options more thoroughly with her before he gave any sort of commitment — or refusal — to her father.

"I've given it a great deal of thought," he said. "I hope Palis has as well; then we can discuss it."

Docteur Delon's eyes narrowed. They were the same honeyed hazel as Palis's, but they did not share her warmth. He knew he was being put off, and he didn't much care for it.

Monsieur Delon stepped in. "How are your studies?" he asked. "You must be getting close to your final exams."

Julian nodded, glad of the diversion. "They start in five weeks' time," he said. "First the Medical Academy finals, then the licensing exams. I've been studying every available minute."

"Good," said Docteur Delon, coolly approving. "You're on track to graduate at the top of your class, are you not? If you do, you'll be able to have your pick of posts — in Starfleet, or outside it."

Julian's own father was driven by the need for success. He hadn't found it in his own life, so he had thrust all those hopes on his son. But for Docteur Delon, success wasn't merely a hope: it was an expectation. That expectation had propelled Palis to excel in her chosen field, and it was clear that Julian's relationship with her had brought his own prospects firmly under Docteur Delon's purview. Happily, there were no deficits there.

"Yes, I'm aiming for valedictorian," he said, aware he was boasting but not really caring to pull back. It felt good to boast of his accomplishments, and to forget for a while what he owed them to. "It's never a guarantee, of course: one of my classmates has been neck-and-neck with me. But I'm doing my best, and I think my latest research paper will stand me in good stead."

"Will it, now? What's your hypothesis?" Docteur Delon asked.

They talked about cellular exobiology and its applications to pancreas dysfunction in Tellarites for a while, which was fascinating for the two medical men but dreadfully dull for Maxime Delon. He wandered off down the foyer to talk to Madame Jehanne. Like most of the Palais Garnier attendants, she was as much a curator as she was a caretaker: it was a building of tremendous historical heritage, and the people who worked here were well-versed in the anecdotes of centuries. If Julian hadn't been so caught up in the eager dissemination of his findings, he might have gone to join Monseiur Delon. But the allure of an interested audience was simply too great: his classmates were all too busy with their own papers to care much for his, and he couldn't very well take it to the professors who were going to be grading it. Docteur Delon listened intently, asking a couple of piercing questions that were going to open up new lines of inquiry. Julian was just about to share his theory about islet cell propagation in a biphasic gel medium when he was interrupted by a dryly amused, musical voice.

"Papa!" Palis scolded. "Julian n'est pas ici pour que tu l'interroges! Il n'est plus ton stagiaire."

Both men turned to look at her. She was standing gracefully contrapposto, clad in an asymmetrical violet dress with tights and low-heeled shoes of the identical hue. Her luxuriant chestnut hair was freed of its high, glossy bun, and it fell in waves about her shoulders. One hand was on her higher hip, and the other cradled the sprig of San Francisco cherry blossom.

Julian went to her, his hand seeking her waist as he leaned in to kiss her upturned cheek. "Palis," he said, the warmth of his affection infusing his voice.

She wrinkled her nose playfully. "Mon trésor," she murmured. Switching seamlessly to English, she asked; "Did you enjoy the exhibition?"

"Very much," said Julian. He was speaking only for the two of them, his voice low and perhaps a little too suggestive. The sterner of her fathers was standing right there, after all, watching them. "You were magnificent."

"I thought so," she said charmingly, slipping past him to approach Docteur Delon. "And you, Papa? Did you enjoy yourself?"

"I enjoyed your performance, chérie," he said, cupping her shoulder and taking a peck of his own. "I didn't think much of your partner in blue."

Palis rolled her eyes playfully. "That's Dieter, Papa, and you know the only reason you don't like him is that he's German. He danced very well tonight," she chided.

"You wobbled when he had your hand," Docteur Delon argued.

Julian saw the flicker of affronted hurt in Palis's eyes, and knew he had to speak up. "I didn't see even the slightest wobble," he supplied, trying to sound uplifting instead of argumentative. Docteur Delon wasn't used to having his authority — or his opinions — challenged. But in this case, Julian was quite confident the older man was mistaken. If there had been a wobble, his own far keener eyes would have caught it. He might lament his parents' choices, and the burden they had thrust upon him, but he couldn't deny that he enjoyed reaping the fruits. Enhanced visual acuity was one of them. To Palis, he added; "You were exquisite. Like a porcelain statuette!"

She smiled radiantly at his praise. "That's the idea," she said, then immediately turned from him as her other parent came up from behind and caressed her elbow. "Mon papounet," she said warmly, using the term of endearment she reserved for Monsieur Delon. Papa belonged to the doctor.

"Ma Danseuse Étoile," sighed Monsieur Delon contentedly, as he embraced her from one side, carefully avoiding the branch of cherry blossoms. "And what are these?" he asked, inhaling their scent. "Heavenly."

"Julian brought them for me," said Palis. "All the way from San Francisco. Isn't that lovely?"

Palis spoke English with a cultured British accent, as most polyglottal French people did, but she invoked a distinctive French flavour when she spoke Julian's name. There was a softness to the lead consonant that was lost in English, and she spoke it with a swift little uptake on the final syllable. She did not pronounce it like the French equivalent, Julien, because the terminal consonant was silent, and therefore lost upon the ears. It came out Joo-li-eh. Instead, she pronounced it like the feminine version, Julienne: Joo-li-enn. Julian found it unspeakably charming. The name he had taken for himself, when he'd realized he had no right to the one he'd been born with, never sounded so beautiful or so right as it did when it trilled from Palis Delon's lips.

"Spoils from the City by the Bay," said Docteur Delon with dry appreciation. He looked around. The foyer was almost deserted. "I have reservations for four at La Tour d'Argent," he announced. "I hope you two will do us the honour of supping together?"

The joyful warmth suffusing Julian's chest took a sudden chilly draught. It wasn't that he minded dining with the Delons, not really. Stuffy as such meals could be, they weren't actually unpleasant. But they also weren't what he'd been envisioning this evening. And while his duty uniform might be sufficient for a recital at the Palais Garnier, it definitely wasn't adequate for La Tour d'Argent. Even his dress uniform really wasn't quite up to snuff. It was the sort of restaurant where he probably wouldn't feel comfortable in a Starfleet dress uniform that had fewer than four pips on the collar, or in civilian clothes made of anything short of Tholian silk.

Which was, now Julian troubled to take note, exactly what Docteur Delon was wearing. A whole suit of the stuff, which was rarer than Terellian diamonds. He felt his confidence waver.

He'd had Palis's back on the question of the wobble, and she had his now. "Oh, Papa," she sighed regretfully. "You know I can't eat all that heavy food right after a performance. Besides, Julian has made reservations for the two of us at Café Saartik. You and Papounet go and enjoy yourselves, and the four of us can do La Tour d'Argent next time."

Docteur Delon looked like he wanted to argue, but Palis was smiling one of her most winning smiles. She'd nestled against Julian, too, so that he'd put a reflexive palm around her far shoulder. Standing like that, they were the very picture of a couple united in purpose and desirous of their privacy.

"Besides," Palis said, with just the tiniest little pout of lips still faintly stained by her stage makeup; "Julian and I have things to talk about. We haven't seen one another in four weeks, you know."

Docteur Delon did know: four weeks ago had been the dinner at the house on the West Bank, when he'd made the job offer. He understood the implication, and he caved.

"Whatever makes you happy, chérie," he said. He looked at his husband. "We ought to be going, if you'd still prefer to walk."

Monsieur Delon wrinkled his nose. Palis had learned that habit from him, but Julian, ever biased, liked it better on her. "I'm not going to argue with you about transporters again," he said. "They're for emergencies only. We're walking."

Docteur Delon shrugged and shot a long-suffering look at the two young people. Then he took his husband's arm and they walked off, arguing good-naturedly like the old married couple they were.

Palis watched them go, waiting until they'd passed under the arch that led to the grand front doors. Then she tilted her head back against the hollow of Julian's shoulder, eyes wide as she tried to look up at his face. "Thank goodness," she said. "Dinner at La Tour D'Argent? Can you imagine?"

"Not really," Julian huffed, not quite chuckling in relief.

She pivoted, letting his palm trace across her back to rest on the opposite hip, and cupped the back of his neck so that she could draw him down to kiss her in earnest. They lingered over it, lips savouring the sweetness of reunion, and then she pulled back a little.

"It was kind of you to say such nice things in front of Papa," she said matter-of-factly. "It really wasn't my best performance."

Julian frowned. He hadn't been trying to be kind: he had meant every word. "You mean you did wobble?" he asked. "I didn't see it…"

"No, not the attitude derrière," she said. "That was our best yet: all the boys did splendidly, and I've never been steadier. It was the Bournonville."

His brows furrowed. Sometimes he got just as lost in the jargon of her profession as she did in his. More lost, truth be told, because at least she'd grown up in a doctor's house. He hadn't known a thing about ballet before dating a ballerina. "The what?" he asked.

"The grand jeté," Palis said. "In the finale. It was in the style of Bournonville. I was supposed to come down sharper on the landing. I don't think I had enough height. But I was flustered from the quick change, and really, still inside Aurora's head. It's a difficult part, actually: all the ambassadors are. Because you're playing a symbol, a personification of a whole world in one sense. But in the other sense, you're playing, well, an ambassador. A sort of stuffy old bureaucrat… but not really the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat's vision and foresight. Am I making much sense?"

"You could be," Julian said honestly; "but from my perspective, you might as well be speaking Klingon. Why don't you take me through La Naissance over dinner?" Then he remembered that despite signing himself out on the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, he hadn't actually been proactive in one important respect. He said apologetically; "I didn't really make reservations at Café Saartik."

"Neither did I," said Palis; "but that's where we're going." She took his arm just as insistently as Docteur Delon had taken Maxime's, and steered him towards the doors.

"Will they have a table?" Julian asked. "On a Saturday night?"

"Probably not," Palis said blithely. "But they'll squeeze us in somehow. Madame Saartik loves me."

Julian chuckled. "She loves you?"

Palis shrugged one slender, muscular shoulder and nuzzled her nose into the cherry blossoms she cradled in her free arm. "Oh, she wouldn't put it that way, but she loves me, all right. A girl always knows."

And so they left the Palais Garnier.

(fade)

French Translation Glossary:

"Merci bien. Bon soir.": "Thank you. Good evening." A little less formal than "merci beaucoup". "Bon soir" can be either a greeting or a farewell.
"Bon soir, Cadet": as above. The word "cadet" was adopted into English from French.
Fifth Arrondissement: one of the municipal districts of Paris, also called the Latin Quarter. The Sorbonne University is located within it.
"Salut, Madame Jehanne. Comment ça va, ce soir?": "Hi, Madame Jehanne. How are you this evening?"
"Ça va bien, Monsieur Bashir. Pour Mademoiselle Delon?": "I'm well, Monsieur Bashir. For Mademoiselle Delon?"
"Certainement. Avec mon amour, s'il vous plaît.": "Certainly. With my love, if you please." Unlike in English, "if you please" is standard, not stuffy, in French.
"Oui, bien sûr! C'est la saison!": "Yes, of course! It's the season!" Meaning the season for cherry blossoms.
une danseuse:  a (female) dancer.
"Magnifique": "magnificent".
"Mamman": "mother". Diminutive, less formal than "ma mère".
La Naissance de la Fédération: The Birth of the Federation. A landmark 23rd Century ballet, presenting a stylized version of the events covered in ENT Ep. 4.22, "These Are the Voyages…".
danseur:  a (male) dancer
"Papa! Julian n'est pas ici pour que tu l'interroges! Il n'est plus ton stagiaire.": "Papa, Julian isn't here for you to interrogate. He's not your intern anymore."
"Mon trésor.": "My treasure." A popular term of endearment.
"cherie": dear. A popular term of endearment.
"Mon papounet."/Papounet: "My daddy."/Daddy. A diminutive name for one's father.
La Tour d'Argent: a famous and historic restaurant in Paris. No longer expensive in the currency-free economy of the United Federation of Planets, but very exclusive.
Café Saartik: described in greater detail in the next chapter.

Ballet Terminology Glossary:

arabesques penchée: a position in which the ballerina is en pointe (on tiptoe) on one leg, with the other raised almost 180 degrees while she tips forward. Essentially, a vertical version of "the splits". The Rose Adagio from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty calls for four of these in series, hence arabesques instead of arabesque.
attitude derrière: a position in which the ballerina is en pointe on one leg, with the other raised at a 90 degree angle, knee bent so that her calf is crooked behind her.
port de bras: any position of the arms. In this case, the ballerina performs the "fifth position", with both arms raised above her head in a "crowning" configuration.
grand jéte: the classic ballet "leap", in which the dancer soars through the air with legs extended, one before and one behind.
Danseuse Étoile: literally, "Star Dancer", the French equivalent of the rank of prima ballerina.
Bournonville: in the style of August Bournonville (1805-1879), a landmark ballet master and choreographer. A Bournonville-style grand jéte is particularly high-altitude.

Chapter Text

Chapter V: The Haven of the Heart

Café Saartik was nestled in a corner shopfront not far from the Palais Garnier. The owner and chef de cuisine was a Vulcan lady of indeterminate middle years, and she was indeed very fond of Palis — if "fond" was the right word. She would probably have said she was "accustomed" to Palis, and would feel her absence if the danseuse ever ceased to patronize her establishment. The wait staff liked and knew Palis, too, and although the café was indeed crowded, she and Julian were ushered to a table immediately, tucked away in a quiet corner of the dining room where they could enjoy a little serenity while they ate.

Madame Saartik's spécialité de la maison was Vulcan cuisine prepared and presented in the classic French fashion. The entire menu was vegetarian, produced with a combination of fresh ingredients, traditional techniques, and proprietary replicator patterns. The café also had the best Tarkalean tea that Julian had ever tasted, and he ordered a cup as Palis perused the wine list.

They talked about La Naissance de la Fédération while they waited for their plomeek soup, and then Palis asked after Julian's studies. He told her about his research projects, eagerly but in less detail than he had offered Docteur Delon, and then enthused for a while about his residency work at the Academy Infirmary. He couldn't disseminate any confidential information, of course, but there were always a few nonspecific anecdotes to share, and Palis seemed to enjoy them.

"I heard about the cadet killed in the flight accident," she said presently, just as their main course arrived. She had the redspice soufflé with braised peppers, and Julian had chosen the more traditional pok tar. "Such a tragedy. He was only twenty-one?"

Julian nodded. "I didn't know him," he said; "but there was a memorial for him on Wednesday evening, and there was some talk about cancelling the commencement proceedings. Admiral Brand decided to go ahead, though, in consultation with the victim's family. Life — and duty — must go on."

Palis nodded solemnly. She reached across the table to curl her hand over Julian's, and she gazed into his eyes. "I'm glad you're not a pilot," she said earnestly.

He laughed a little, thinly. Sometimes he felt uneasy with the idea of asking such a wonderful young woman to tie her life and her hopes to a Starfleet officer. It wouldn't be very long before he'd be out there in the Galaxy, prepared to defend the Federation with his life if need be. Even if they found a way around the choice between her dreams and his, he still might be wounded in action someday — even killed. The Federation wasn't at war with anyone at the moment; the Cardassian conflict was resolved, and the Tzenkethi war was almost forgotten. Tensions ebbed and flowed along the Romulan Neutral Zone, but for the most part the two great powers had managed to keep skirmishes to a minimum. The Tholian entente looked stable, and the Klingons were staunch if sometimes disgruntled allies. But Julian has learned enough in officers' training to know that the balance of peace and power in the Alpha Quadrant was a fragile thing. There was no telling what the future might hold.

"Palis," he said finally, very quietly. "If you've made up your mind about the kind of life you want, it's all right for you to tell me."

"Made up my mind?" Palis looked perplexed. Then she pursed her lips, withdrew her hand, and rolled her eyes. "C'est Papa! Il t'a dit quelque chose, n'a-t-il pas? L'homme têtu!"

Julian opened his mouth to protest, but he really couldn't do so honestly. He sighed. "All he said was that if you got a lead role in one of the flagship productions next season, it would be good for your career. To do that, you'd have to stay on Earth."

Palis seemed to wilt. She picked up her fork and stabbed the perfect, frothy dome of her soufflé, watching it collapse. She didn't make any move to actually taste it, however, and she curled her fist around the utensil. "Julian…" she murmured. Then she shook her head vehemently. "C'est impossible."

"Non!" Julian argued. He couldn't let her think that. "Ce n'est pas impossible! Nous avons beaucoup de possibilités. Il faut trouver un équilibre, c'est tout."

She raised an eyebrow in a lofty arc that would have done their hostess proud. "C'est tout?" Palis said skeptically. "I want to dance, Julian. I want to be the best at what I do, and L'Opéra can offer me that. You want to be the best at what you do, too. But not on Earth."

"It isn't…" Julian began. Then he reconsidered his phrasing. "Until last month, I didn't even consider if I could pursue a career on Earth. For as long as I can remember—" He stopped, because that wasn't quite true. Once upon a time, his ambitions had not reached so far. "Since I was a boy, Palis, I've dreamed of being a Starfleet officer. When I decided I wanted to take up medicine, it seemed like the most natural way to do that. I never thought of setting up practice as a civilian. Not until your father—"

"Until my father offered you the job," Palis said heavily. She shifted her fork into a less threatening position, and took a few peppers. Julian, who had missed breakfast and was now overdue for lunch, was glad of the excuse to help himself to his own plate. Plomeek soup was delicious, but the small taster portion provided as an aperitif was hardly filling. "Julian… I didn't know ahead of time that he was planning to do that. You've got to believe me."

He did believe her. At least, he wanted to. But although perhaps she hadn't known her father would make the offer, he knew she'd been hoping he would. She'd hinted at the idea more than once when the three of them were together, and that meant she'd probably been a lot less subtle with the suggestion when she and Docteur Delon were alone. Julian couldn't begin to imagine where Maxime stood in all of this, but he doted on his daughter: he probably wanted to encourage her to stay on Earth just as much as his husband did.

There were eddies within the unified river of the Delon family that made Julian uneasy. He wasn't at all sure the layers of unspoken implications and subtle emotional pressure were healthy. But then again, he wasn't the one to pass judgement on what constituted a healthy family dynamic. He doubted he'd know a healthy family if he saw one: he had absolutely no experience in that regard.

"I know you wouldn't ask for something like that, Palis," he said, trying to reassure her. "And I know you wouldn't have kept it a secret if you'd known. I just… it's a complicated decision. I've dedicated the last eight years of my life to earning my commission and my medical degree, and I'm so close to the finish line. It's… it's hard to imagine going in a different direction when I haven't even really started on the one I planned for."

She nodded effortfully. "I also… you should know that I'm not married to the idea of headlining for the anniversary season," she said. "I want to, of course I want to, but I'd be willing… I'd let that idea go, if I had to. But I can't give up dancing."

It was on the tip of Julian's tongue to tell her that she wouldn't have to, whatever happened. If he took a remote posting, as he'd always privately dreamed of doing, and she came with him on a research vessel or a deep space exploration mission, or to one of the outposts on the edge of the Federation, she could still dance. Starships had holodecks. Some of them even had studio space. And they were full of families, with children very much like Analise and her friends, who would probably love to take ballet lessons.

Only it wasn't the same, and he knew it. He'd seen Palis on stage, flushed with the exhilaration of her performance and blushing with gratification at the adulation of her audience. She wasn't ready to take up teaching; that was something for fifteen or even twenty years down the line. Even then, she wouldn't be interested in tutoring dabbling beginners. She would want to teach at a proper ballet school, training young dancers who aspired to become what she was now: a Danseuse Étoile, one of the best in the world. He couldn't ask her to give that up, to bargain her profession down to a hobby. She wouldn't be content with holographic audiences, any more than he could be content with holographic patients.

"I wouldn't have to take a remote assignment," he tried. He yearned for adventure; it was one of the things that had brought him to Starfleet Academy. But for the sake of the woman he loved and their life together, he might be able to learn to let that yearning lie dormant, at least for a time. "I'm top of the class. When I make valedictorian, I'll have my pick of any job in the fleet. Maybe, if I was stationed somewhere like Starbase 12, and you were here on Earth…"

Palis grimaced. Even with her face crimped like that, she was indescribably lovely. "A subspace relationship," she said. "You know those don't even work in holonovels, don't you?"

Julian looked down at his plate. "I'm trying, Palis," he said softly.

She sighed. "Je le sais. Je sais," she murmured. Then she looked at him with impassioned eyes. "What I don't understand is why you can't take a posting on Earth. Or at least in the solar system. There are dozens of Starfleet installations. Don't they have sickbays? Don't they need doctors? Spacedock, New Berlin — even Jupiter station wouldn't be so bad! It's only three hours away at impulse."

Julian wished he could offer her something encouraging in that respect, but it wasn't realistic. "Postings on Earth very rarely open up," he said. "When they do, there's almost always a senior officer waiting to be rotated home. They aren't the kind of assignments they offer to new graduates."

"Not even the valedictorian?" Palis asked bitterly.

From her tone, Julian knew she was well aware of the answer. He gave it to her anyway. "Not even the valedictorian."

Seconds slipped by as Palis stared at her soufflé as if she would very much like to stab it again. Her slender shoulders, shapely with hard muscle, sagged perceptibly. Then suddenly they squared off, and she raised her head, obdurately cheerful.

"Let's not talk about it anymore," she said. "You still have two months of school, and then your postgraduate residency assignment. We can see how we make out when you're on Ligobis X: give the subspace relationship a try. You won't need to make a decision for a while yet. We won't need to make a decision. Now, can I tell you about the Christmas production?"

Julian could not help but smile. Her determination to move on so that the looming life choices didn't spoil their brief time together was admirable, and the glint of excitement in her eyes was genuine. He nodded. "Please do," he said earnestly.

"Well, then!" Palis said briskly, finally taking a forkful of her soufflé and tasting it before she went on. "They've decided on Don Quixote, which the company hasn't done in ten years. I'm probably not the right type to dance Dulcinea, but I've got my eye on Kitri, and…"

(fade)

They didn't order dessert. By the time their plates were empty, the hour was getting late for Palis, and both of them were at the point where they wanted to do more than talk. Madame Saartik herself came out to ask how they had enjoyed their meal, gathering up the dishes as the young couple praised the food and thanked her. Then Julian got up and rounded the table so he could draw out Palis's chair for her. It was an old Continental custom that not everyone appreciated, but after a vigorous performance on stage, Palis was tired and didn't really need to expend any more energy than necessary. She smiled up at Julian as he pulled back the chair, and his decision to do so was vindicated a moment later when she stood up — and promptly stumbled.

He reached swiftly and deftly to catch her, even as she grabbed for his arm. Her face contorted in surprise and sudden pain, and she already had her right foot off the ground and tucked behind her left calf. She was practiced in this sort of thing.

"What is it?" Julian asked, instantly appraising. He didn't have time to feel his dismay before his clinician's instincts took hold. "Here, sit down—"

"No," Palis said resolutely. She tightened her grip on his forearm and straightened up, letting her toes skim the floor but still keeping all of her weight on her left leg. "I thought there might be something… I told you my landing was off on that jeté."

"Why didn't you say something?" Julian asked. "The troupe doctor could have taken a look, or we could have gone straight to your flat."

She shook her head and looked fondly up at him. "I didn't want to go straight to the flat," she said. "I wanted to have dinner with you. As for the troupe doctor, she's very good, Julian, but I'd rather you take care of it. Let's go. The transporter hub is just around the corner. Papounet says it's for emergencies only, but we don't need to tell him."

It seemed like an emergency to Julian, but that was only because he was feeling protective. He needed to step back from that, and respect her judgment. Dancers were no strangers to such injuries, and ballerinas who danced en pointe had a higher tolerance than most. Clearly, Palis had been taken more by surprise than by debilitating pain: as they left the café she was walking almost normally, favouring her right side only a little and leaning on Julian more out of affection than a need for support. Still, he kept watchful eyes on her face and her gait as they walked, and he insisted on standing beside the steps to anchor her as she mounted the transporter platform.

They materialized in the corridor just outside her third floor flat in the Fifth Arrondissementmoments later. Julian helped Palis into the living room and settled her on the divan by the window. He relieved her of the branch of cherry blossoms, and went to the bedroom. On the dressing table stood the vase of Bolian crystal, already full of water in anticipation of the evening's token. Smiling a little at Palis's foresight and pleased that she had probably been expecting a rose instead, Julian slipped the branch into it before stepping into the bathroom to fetch the medkit.

Palis's medkit was not of the basic first aid variety that most civilians kept in their homes, with a dermal regenerator and a handful of other easy-to-use essentials. She had a full field kit of the kind physicians took on housecalls. It was very much like the one Julian had been issued at the start of third year, the final upgrade to the full Starfleet field kit he could expect to carry for the rest of his career. Strictly speaking, some of the instruments in Palis's case weren't supposed to be in civilian hands. But a man in Docteur Delon's position had easy access to such equipment, and he'd made sure his daughter's home was fully supplied. The only thing missing from Palis's kit were the vials of prescription medications.

Julian came back to find Palis had already removed her shoes and tights, and propped her heel up on a tasselled stool with an embroidered cushion. Her whole flat was furnished with antiques in the classical French style. Even the desk that housed her computer console was made of teak, and the replicator in the kitchen was set in an Empire-style cabinet. Julian knelt down on the lush Turkish rug, and opened the medkit.

"Now, then," he said, putting on his Doctor Voice just for her. Palis smiled at the change in tone, appreciative of the shift. She didn't often get to see him in his professional capacity, and she professed to love it. "Let's see what we have here."

He did a visual exam first. Palis's feet were narrow and slender, with high, perfectly formed arches. They were not the most elegant-looking part of her body, hard with calluses and stippled with bruises as they were. The first time Palis had asked Julian to check them, after having broken a toe in rehearsal when they were first dating, he had offered to remove the calluses for her. They covered the ball and heel and sides, and the knuckles and tips of her toes. Removing them was a simple procedure, one he'd recently learned in his podiatry unit. He'd thought it would improve her comfort: it certainly didn't look very pleasant to walk around with those mounds of keratinous tissue to contend with. A couple of passes with a dermabrasion tool and a little detail work with the dermal regenerator, he'd told her cheerfully, and he could have her feet as soft as her hands in no time.

Palis had almost thrown the medkit out the window. In retrospect, Julian was a tiny bit astonished that she hadn't threatened to do the same with him. After her initial reaction, springing to the defence of her coarsened feet, she had calmed down enough to explain. A ballet dancer's calluses were like a suit of armour, built up over the years to protect the hard-working appendages from chafing, damage, and the pitiless toeshoes that enabled much of the gravity-defying magic of the art. Palis's represented the cumulative adaptation of nineteen years of discipline and skill. Suddenly bereft of them, she would not have endured even a few minutes en pointe. What Julian had offered, albeit with the best of intentions, was an opportunity to set her back months in her work, and to claw herself back through pain and frustration. Dismayed and a trifle embarrassed by his ignorance, Julian had apologized and meekly done only what she had asked of him: checked the ligaments and tendons for damage, fixed the fracture, and healed the bruises. And ever since then, he had seen Palis's feet in an entirely new light.

They were the great tool of her art, as essential to her work as Julian's surgeon's hands were to his. Skilled and strong, they represented the years of dedication she had put into gaining mastery of her craft. The calluses and built-up nails — all the battered signs of wear that made them, perhaps, less aesthetically pleasing than those of many young humans — were a testament to the sacrifice and determination it had taken to get Palis where she was today. When Julian looked at them, he saw her tenacity and her brilliance. Nothing could be more beautiful.

Examining them now, he saw no gross anatomical deformity: whatever the problem was, it was probably not severe. That made Julian feel a little better about the fact Palis had kept it to herself instead of seeking treatment immediately. He unclipped the probe from the top of the medical tricorder, and began to scan, starting at the talocrural joint and working down. Tendons and ligaments were all intact, the well-defined musculature sound and strong. Once again, Julian was awed by the inner mechanics of Palis's feet. From a kinesiological perspective, they were exquisite: perfectly adapted for the demands placed upon them. There were dancers who had trained just as faithfully who would never be capable of the accomplishments Palis was, because they hadn't been born with such well-suited infrastructure. Palis had won the genetic lottery.

That thought caught him unawares with a sickening wrench of guilt. Palis had won it — and she thought Julian had, too. She didn't realize that he had cheated.

"Alors?" Palis asked, peering down at him in mild concern. There was a subtle but unmistakable crease of worry between her dainty brows. "How bad is it?"

Julian forced himself to shake off the ghosts, unwilling to plunge back into the freezing depths he'd been so happy to escape this morning. With his affable, professional voice, he said; "You've got a compression fracture of your fourth tarsal. It's not serious."

"Ah, zut!" Palis snorted, rolling her eyes. She tilted her chin at him. "Be a dear, and fix it, would you? How tiresome."

"As you wish, Mademoiselle," Julian said playfully, doing a quick sweep of her toes with the tricorder before laying it aside for the osteogenic stimulator. He gently repositioned her ankle, and set to work. The fracture wasn't misaligned, so he had no need of the transdermal tractor.

Palis laughed airily. "That tickles," she said.

Julian grinned at her. "It does not," he said. "You shouldn't even be able to feel it. Just a little warmth, that's all."

She pursed her lips into a brief little pout. "You're no fun," she said.

"I can tickle you later, if you like," Julian said, in an intensely suggestive tone. Palis shifted her hips flirtatiously on the divan, somehow managing to do so without moving her injured appendage at all. Her thighs shifted, but her knee absorbed all of the motion so that her lower leg remained still. It was a complex display of sublime muscular control, and Julian was suitably impressed.

"Peut-être," Palis murmured with a slow, intoxicating smile. Then she fell silent, watching thoughtfully as Julian finished his work.

"How's that?" he asked when the time came to switch off the instrument.

Palis wriggled her long, limber toes, then slipped her foot off of the stool to test it against the floor. "Much better," she said, rising fluidly from the couch. She stepped around Julian and out into the centre of the room where there was a stretch of polished oak flooring. Her bare soles seemed to caress the smooth surface for a moment before she rose elegantly onto her toes, swaying into a slow turn that rose into a pirouette on the ball of the lately-injured foot. The skirts of her frock swirled around her as she dipped into a coy little révérance. Julian, sitting back on his heels and smiling, applauded.

"Very nice," he said. "Not many of my patients give me quite such artful proof of recovery."

Palis laughed, skipping across the floor towards him. She slid down onto the stool and kissed the tip of his nose, twining one arm around his neck while the other toyed with his hair. "Tu es un docteur merveilleux," she murmured, and her lips plucked at his.

"Et tu," Julian said, pausing mid-sentence as they kissed again; "es une danseuse exquise!" She was stroking the fine hairs at the nape of his neck now, and he slipped an arm about her slender waist. Palis shifted her knees so she could nestle closer to him, now almost in his lap. He bowed his head as she pressed his parietal plate with her fingertips, and let her kiss his eyelids ever so delicately. His whole body was warming with pleasure and desire, but he did still need to give her the aftercare he'd provide any other patient. "You should rest for twenty-four hours, and try to go gently when you're back in rehearsal."

Palis pulled back from him a little, disappointed. "Rest?" she echoed reproachfully.

Julian grinned. "Just the foot," he said.

"Oh, well, then," she murmured seductively, nuzzling nearer still. "We don't need the foot."

He laughed, rising nimbly and drawing Palis with him. Arms still entwined, mouths making unhurried passes at one another, they took a meandering, side-stepping journey to the short hallway that opened on Palis's spacious bedroom. Once they were over the threshold, Palis drew back, planting two tender fingers on Julian's lips when he didn't disengage swiftly enough for her liking. She slipped from his arms, trailing one hand behind to caress his hip for as long as she could.

"I'll be right back, mon trésor," she said, as she moved towards the door that led to her ensuite. "Reste là!"

"D'accord," Julian acknowledged absentmindedly, admiring the sway of her hips and the curve of her lithe back as she walked away. When she shut the door, he was released briefly from her delightful spell so that he could focus on his own preparations.

He closed the bedroom door, hearing the all-but-inaudible click of circuitry as the lights in the rest of the flat switched off at that signal. Julian sat down on the spindle-backed chair by the door, reaching down to remove his meticulously polished boots. He stripped off his socks, draping one over the back of each boot so they could air, then slid the whole arrangement neatly under the chair. He rose again to remove the rest of his clothing, stepping out of his jumpsuit and folding it neatly. He laid it, combadge up, atop his tidily-arranged undergarments, and padded naked to the bed.

Palis wasn't nearly as diligent as he was about bringing order to her sleeping area in the mornings. In fact, she rarely bothered to so much as straighten the covers, much less actually make the bed. Today, however, she had exerted the effort for his sake. Julian folded back the comforter over the wrought iron rail of the bed, so it rested on the long, antique chest beside it. The sheets were crisp and fresh, and he slipped beneath the top one, plumping the pillows on his side so that he could lean back comfortably. He could smell the San Francisco cherry blossoms, and the warm scents of the Parisian night wafting through the open window.

When the bathroom door opened, Julian's eyes moved hungrily to Palis. She had traded the fashionable clothes for her lavender satin dressing gown, and she stood with one hand caressing the doorframe high above her head. The other held one side of the robe so that it parted to reveal her sculpted, muscular leg. Sometimes, Julian was stricken with awe that such a petite woman could harbour such strength in her limbs. This was one of those moments.

"M'apprécies-tu?" Palis asked in a low and sultry voice tinged with playful innocence.

"Oui…" Julian breathed. Now the awe had shifted to fragile wonder. How was this his life, with this beautiful, brilliant, intelligent woman who loved him and trusted him and wanted to spend her life with him? What had he ever done, in his troubled quarter-century of fragmented existence, to deserve such happiness? "Tu es parfaite, Palis. Parfaite…"

She came to him, letting the garment slither from her shoulders as she approached. Julian lifted the edge of the sheet to welcome her, Palis's supple nakedness slipping in towards his own. He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her to him, and their lips met again in the prelude to bliss.

(fade)

French Translation Glossary

chef de cuisine: the head chef of a restaurant or café
spécialité de la maison: specialty of the house.
"C'est Papa! Il t'a dit quelque chose, n'a-t-il pas? L'homme têtu!":"It's Papa! He said something to you, didn't he? The stubborn man!"
"C'est impossible.": "It's impossible."
"Non! Ce n'est pas impossible! Nous avons beaucoup de possibilités. Il faut trouver un équilibre, c'est tout.": No! It's not impossible! We have plenty of possibilities. It's necessary to find a balance, that's all."
"C'est tout?": "That's all?"
"Je le sais. Je sais.": "I know it. I know."
"Alors?": "Well?"
"Ah, zut!": a mild French expletive, roughly equivalent to the English, "Oh, darn!".
"Peut-être.": "Perhaps."
"Tu es un docteur merveilleux.": "You are a marvellous doctor."
"Et tu… es une danseuse exquise!": "And you… are an exquisite dancer!"
"Reste là!": "Stay there!"
"D'accord.": "Okay."
"M'apprécies-tu?": "Do you care for me?", a classic French flirtation.
"Oui… Tu es parfaite, Palis. Parfaite…": "Yes… You are perfect, Palis. Perfect."

Medical Terminology Glossary:

talocrural joint: the ankle joint, where tibia, fibula, and talus meet.
aftercare: instructions given to a patient when a medical procedure is complete, to be carried out at home.

Chapter Text

Chapter VI: What Palis Said

Entangled together beneath the sheet, Julian and Palis lay in the sweet satiation of love. The difference in their height, so dramatic when they stood side-by-side, was erased in bed, and her shoulder lay on his while he stroked the fallen coils of her hair. She, somewhat drowsier at the end of a long and active day, nuzzled her velvet cheek against his close-shaven one as she stretched her neck with feline grace, then turned her head just far enough to kiss the side of his nose. Julian smiled.

"Now who's tickling whom?" he asked, his voice a quiet rumble in his chest. He wasn't sleepy: in San Francisco it had just gone 1400 hours. But it was pleasant to lie still after their impassioned exertions. They were a couple of athletes, young, vivacious, and flexible. All of that was reflected in a technique honed over a year and a half of enthusiastic experimentation. The healthy scent of fresh perspiration mingled with the perfume of the night and the faint whiff of cherry blossoms.

"Ne sois pas impertinent," murmured Palis. "Tu es mon trésor, et je te chatouillerai si je veux."

"Ah, je suis impertinent, tu crois?" Julian asked, reaching across his lean stomach to tweak her flank just below her floating ribs, where he knew she was most ticklish. Palis squealed with delight, writhed away from his hand and then rocked back in towards him, rolling on top of him and pressing her lips to his. He drank her in, not merely her body and her sweet breath, but her affection. His hand slipped from her tresses to the small of her back, and he closed his eyes, perfectly at peace.

"Ready to go again?" Palis asked, her voice dropping an alluring octave like one of the stars of ancient cinema whose work she so enjoyed. Simone Signoret, Danielle Darrieux, Brigitte Bardot: alliterative icons of four centuries past, immortalized in shades of grey.

Julian laughed, enticed by the notion but also well aware of the physiology at play. "Oh, you're merciless!" he teased. He lifted his head off of the pillow to kiss her, briefly and playfully. "In a little while, all right? Let me catch my breath."

"Ça marche," said Palis amiably, rolling off again. She settled beside him, hip and thigh pressed close to his, and nudged herself up against the headboard so she was semi-reclined on top of Julian's right arm. She lifted the sheet, shaking out the wrinkles, and let it settle smoothly over both of them, folding it just below her small, perfect breasts. "Mind if we take a peek at the news? I haven't had a moment all day."

The warm delight of their closeness dispersed in a sudden chill of dread, like the plunge toward absolute zero when you jettisoned water into space. Julian felt everything that had been open and joyous within him suddenly scatter into a thousand fragile spheres of ice, waiting to shatter at the slightest touch. He knew what would be on the Federation News Service feed, and he didn't want to see it. He didn't want to learn what had transpired in the last fifteen or sixteen hours. He didn't want to know.

"Palis, no…" he began, but he spoke too slowly and not loud enough to make himself heard, his tongue made clumsy by his dismay. She had already wafted a hand at the viewscreen mounted in the wall at the foot of the bed.

"Computer," Palis commanded; "FNS. Today's top stories."

She nestled in against Julian as the screen sprang to life, and the room was suffused with a gentle purplish glow. Palis had the bedroom screen set to default to the video feed, instead of the written headlines Julian preferred, and she often liked to watch late at night. He had told her — repeatedly — that it wasn't advisable; that it was poor sleep hygiene, training her brain to think of the bed as a place to be alert. Docteur Delon had probably told her the same thing when she was a teen. She only laughed in the face of centuries of science and said it helped her to relax. Julian, not wanting to be a nag, always let it go at that.

Tonight, though, he had far more to fear than a little benign stimulation of the optic nerves. The now familiar image of the mullioned house in Ghent appeared, with the headline printed below it: Police Intervene in Eugenics Protest.

"Tensions in Belgium reached a breaking point today," the newscaster said with brisk dispassion; "when protestors speaking out against the placement of twenty-three genetically enhanced humans from the Genome Colony on Moab IV attempted to prevent one of the newcomers from leaving her lodgings."

The deliberately pleasant voice went on, narrating the scene as it unfolded, but Julian could not make sense of the words. The image itself was all-consuming. The protestors, much as they had over the last few days, stood on the pavement with their placards and their chanting. Their numbers had more than doubled since Thursday night, and there was an impassioned energy to the crowd that had not been there before. At the edge of the frame, a couple of people wearing a variation of the recognizable uniform common to most local police departments stood in the shade of the building next door. They had a portable table, laid with water and hermetically sealed snacks. That was the standard function of the police when civilians were demonstrating in public places: they made sure no one got dehydrated, called for medical assistance if anyone fainted, and generally just ensured no one was endangered. Protests on Earth rarely lasted more than a few hours, which made this one an aberration. They were uncommon, and almost never involved more than slogans, speeches, and the occasional theatrics. Impeding peaceable assemblies, even when they got a little obnoxious, was unthinkable.

Yet the words were right there at the bottom of the screen: Police Intervene in Eugenics Protest. Julian's dread deepened, because that could only mean the situation had turned violent.

The tag at the top corner of the screen read 1130 Hours, and as it ticked over to 1131, the door to the house opened. A woman stepped out: the same woman with the dark hair whom Julian had seen peering out of an upper window on the footage he'd viewed Thursday night. She was neatly dressed in strangely unfashionable clothes, and she wore a look of grim determination as she strode out onto the steps and pulled the old oaken door closed behind her. Head held high, she started down the half-dozen stairs that led to the cobbled street.

For a moment, the protestors didn't seem to know what to do. They'd been shouting at a shut-up house for days, with no outlet for their energy but the open air of the canal-front. They froze, stunned faces upturned towards the woman. Several of the signs and placards drooped, and the din of their voices — muffled to a low, background hum beneath the newsreader's commentary — dropped off to nothing. For a moment, it even looked like they were stepping back to part the crowd, clearing a path. That was certainly the courteous thing to do when you were thronged outside someone's home.

"…is when the protestors decided," the disembodied voice of the FNS reporter intoned; "to take matters into their own hands."

Her audio stopped, and that of the on-site holorecording swelled to full volume, providing one brief instant of ambient stillness: the murmur of the canal waters, the twitter of a nearby bird, the cumulative hum of dozens of startled lungs. The woman descended the last two stairs with brisk determination. As her lead foot hit the cobblestones, the hush was eviscerated by a single, hateful voice, harsh and vituperative and — to Julian's sensitive ears at least — absolutely damning.

"Augment filth!" a man roared. Suddenly a dozen voices were clamouring with like abuse. The Moab colonist's head whipped from side to side, startled by the sudden shift in the tide, her eyes now wide and frightened.

And then they fell upon her.

Julian had never seen anything like it. They didn't move like people, but like a mass of seething disgust. They swarmed and eddied, swallowing her from view in scant seconds, all the while shouting and howling and spitting. Carefully lettered signs were thrown carelessly in the gutter, the niceties of peaceful protest utterly forgotten as a flock of concerned and like-minded citizens degenerated into a mindless mob with one intention alone: to subdue the Other in their midst.

The police were at a loss. The two officers by the table stood dumbstruck, and three more came rushing into the frame from the other side of the street, palms outstretched helplessly. Then one of them started calling for order and the others took up the refrain, but they were barely audible over the din of vitriol and hate. One tried to nudge his way in towards the centre of the fray, but was pushed back. His colleague, smaller and nimbler, slipped through between a pair of enraged men. She disrupted the perimeter of the mob, and the person operating the holocam was jostled. A blur of disordered motion filled the screen: limbs and pavement and a flash of sky. When the camera righted itself, it had to sweep around back to the mob. By the time it had, the police officers had succeeded in breaking up the outermost couple of rings. They were ushering people to the sides, most of them using only their hands and their voices. One had to draw her phaser when a large man tried to lunge at her — Julian recognized the civilian model that only offered a moderate stun setting — but the mere sight of it was enough to bring the protestor to his senses.

Other officers were still trying to pull the people at the core of the crowd off the fallen woman, shouting to be heard over the barrage of profanity and hateful recriminations. From the new angle, with the layers of attackers slowly being peeled away as uniformed reinforcements materialized in the street, Julian could see the Moab colonist, huddled on the pavement beneath the rapidly shifting shoes, the target of falling fists and swinging feet. He watched, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to believe what he was witnessing.

"Mon Dieu!" Palis gasped, a fleeting little gulp of startled air. "Ce n'est pas possible!"

For a moment, Julian thought she was as horrified as he by the assault. Her head whipped towards him in an instant's glance of dismay, and then fixed her eyes right back on the screen, where two more officers had drawn their phasers. One fired harmlessly into the gutter, the sound of crackling energy startling several of the woman's attackers. Three more withdrew, palms upraised. The weapons were not lethal, but the show of authority was understood and — at least in some cases — respected.

"They can't just draw weapons in a crowd like that!" said Palis, finding her voice as her indignation mounted. She sat up a little straighter in bed, digging in a heel for leverage. Her warm, supple back lifted off of Julian's arm, and he was finally able to draw it across his ribs, hugging himself tightly as he tried to stave off the storm of hideous emotions swirling within him. He wanted to look away, but he could not. And he couldn't understand what Palis was saying, either. They hadn't drawn weapons: they were beating that poor woman with fists and feet like spectres out of Earth's troubled past.

"Julian!" she was clutching his arm now. On the screen, another deputation of six officers had materialized, and they were now placing some of the more obdurate attackers in wrist restraints. "They can't do that, can they? The police can't just fire on civilians!"

He could not believe she was fixating on that. Julian understood the natural reaction to such an unusual sight, but those civilian phasers were fundamentally harmless, a tool of temporary incapacitation that left the target to wake up gradually without so much as an aftershock headache. The blunt trauma battering the woman from Moab IV, on the other hand, was not only dangerous but potentially lethal. Someone had to intervene, or these half-crazed zealots would kill her!

Nor had the police even fired on anyone but the cobblestones: still more reinforcements had beamed in, and they were prevailing by sheer weight of numbers. One contingent was gathering together the protestors who were once again capable of reason. Others were keeping the more belligerent at bay. And a few were still trying to pull the last couple of assailants away from the woman on the pavement.

The image changed, and it was clear some time had passed. The people who had needed handcuffs were nowhere to be seen, and the municipal police officers stood with arms outstretched, fingertip-to-fingertip as they formed a ring to herd back the crowd. The holocam operator had managed to get inside the circle, and they had a remarkably good view of the emergency medical technicians rolling the badly-beaten woman onto a stretcher for emergency transport. She was breathing, but beyond that it was impossible for Julian to gauge her injuries. Her nose did not look broken, but it had clearly sustained trauma: the lower third of her face was obscured with blood that had poured from the nostrils. Her garments were torn, her hair disarrayed, and she appeared only marginally conscious. She tried to lift a trembling arm to shield her head, disoriented and defensive, but one of the responders caught hold of her hand and held it soothingly, murmuring something the recording had not picked up.

As the sled rose and they called for transport, the commentator resumed speaking. Through the tidal roar of his pulse in his ears, Julian forced himself to listen.

"The genetically engineered colonist was removed to an undisclosed medical facility. According to local authorities, she sustained no serious injuries in the incident, and no formal charges have been laid. A spokesperson for the anti-Augment protestors—"

"Palis…" Julian croaked, trying to make himself heard. Knowing there was no way he could make himself understood. Wishing, with all his heart, that he had the last five minutes to do over again. That he'd rallied more rapidly into the second wind of passion, or suggested they watch one of her old films instead, or something… anything at all, really, if it could have spared them both what they'd just seen.

"Computer, discontinue broadcast," Palis said, her voice clipped. She sank back against Julian, shaking her head. "Well, that's all right, then," she huffed.

Julian's throat felt tight. He wanted to hold her close, but his arm would not obey him. His whole body felt numb. The viewscreen was black, but he could not tear his eyes from it. It was as if he could still see the look of terror on the woman's face in the instant before the crowd devoured her. "Do you believe it?" he asked feebly. He wasn't sure he trusted the claim that she'd suffered no major injuries. They had been kicking her, for God's sake!

Palis twisted to look at him, mildly perplexed. "That they haven't filed charges just because it got out of hand? Of course! You can't hide something like that: court proceedings are a matter of public record."

"You…" Julian began, but it was as if someone had tangled cotton wool about the cogwheels of his brain. He knew he wasn't putting the pieces together here, but he was too shell-shocked from what he'd just seen to understand why. "The woman…"

"The Augment?" Palis snorted, nestling comfortably against him and rolling her eyes to the airy ceiling. "What did she expect, going out in the street like that? She should know she's not wanted."

He had not flinched. Julian told himself desperately that he had not flinched at that loathsome word. She certainly hadn't reacted if he had. But he felt like he was falling, falling from some terrible height down into an endless pit of perdition. Don't say it. Palis, Palis, please don't say it, he pleaded silently, half-hoping that she would hear and understand. So often, they seemed to finish one another's thoughts. Perhaps she'd finish his now, and comprehend.

At the same time, he knew it would be disastrous if she did.

"This whole business!" Palis scoffed, flapping one delicate hand at the screen. "Who do they think they are, these colonists? They think they can just turn up after two hundred years of doing whatever they want, regardless of nature, regardless of the laws, regardless of common decency, and be welcomed back to Earth like long-lost children? They're genetically enhanced! Programmed, right in their DNA, to be something other than human! And they think they can come back here? Live in a lovely old house? Take places at prestigious universities? C'est absurde!"

Julian could not stop her. He would not have dared, even if he'd had mastery over his tongue. His chest twitched and heaved unexpectedly, and he realized he was still breathing after all, though he thought he had forgotten how. Palis, her head still resting on his shoulder, was warming to her theme.

"That's the reason those people are barred from decent society," she said. "Because they think they're entitled to live among normal, natural humans, just as if they're like us. Because they think they're entitled to things they haven't earned. That fellowship at Oxford one of them's been offered: how many promising young astrophysics students have worked their whole lives, studied and competed and struggled and strived, to win that position, only to have it snatched away from them by someone who's never even had to try?"

But we do try. I do. We work. Genetic enhancements don't mean you don't have to work! a part of Julian's brain protested. He thought of his years of study, his efforts always to stay at the top of his class, the pressure of every exam, the labour poured into every project from third grade geology presentations to the paper he was currently writing on pancreatic atresia in Tellarites. He thought of the strain of the gruelling Starfleet entrance tests, of the series of endless qualifying rounds he had worked through to win his place at the Medical Academy, of the hours he put into studying every night. Yes, somethings came easier because of the enhancements — easier by far than they would have ever come to Jules, that was certain — but he did work. He feared failure, just like anyone else. He knew he was capable of failure. And if he failed, it was not just his career or his reputation at stake, but his intrinsic worth: only by succeeding, by doing his utmost to help others with his unnatural gifts, could he possibly hope to redeem the crime of his own existence.

Had his accomplishments been handed to him? Had his place at Starfleet Academy? His current position? The prestigious internships, the residency postings that had been his for the asking… surely they hadn't been handed to him, not like Palis meant. They were the fruits of dedication and ceaseless labour. Weren't they?

"They don't belong here," Palis said vehemently. "They should go back to that border world where they belong! Genetic engineering is vile, and the thought of its products, here on Earth…" She shuddered against him and reached to draw his arms around her. They felt like they were made of wood, and Julian had no choice but to let them go. Palis hugged them to her like a bony shawl, her pert breasts warm against his forearms. "I don't know what they think they are, coming here like they have some kind of right to be on this planet! Honestly, what do they expect? We're just supposed to tolerate creatures like that? It's vile. It's foul. Genetic enhancement is obscene! You're a doctor, Julian, or nearly. You know how foul it is, talking of changing people's nature like that!"

He did know. He knew better than she could possibly imagine. But he could not reconcile the truth that eugenics was repugnant with the conclusion Palis and the protestors and the FNS staff all seemed to take for granted: that the Moab IV colonists themselves were repugnant as well. They hadn't chosen this: their society had ordained it for them, just as Julian's parents had ordained it for him. He couldn't bring himself to believe it was true that these colonists were just as loathsome as the process that had created them. Didn't want to believe it. Not only because discrediting the fundamental personhood of twenty-three sentient beings was horrifying, but because of what it might say about him. He couldn't face that.

But wasn't that one of the arguments against genetic enhancement? That it produced people who were incapable of thinking of anyone but themselves? Devoid of compassion, devoid of morality, serving no higher philosophy but that of personal advancement at any cost?

"And settling them here! In Europe! Not three hundred kilometres away!" cried Palis, kicking the mattress with one heel to express her outrage. She was still caressing his arms, the tenderness in her hands a shocking counterpoint to the disgust in her voice — as if she did not realize she was levying both at the same person, at the young man pinned naked beneath her. She made a noise of utmost revulsion, and spurred on in French. "Ça me dégoûte!  she exclaimed. "Pourquoi est-ce que l'Office planétaire du Logement permet cela? Ils sont une abomination, des Augments!"

"Palis…" Julian said again. Her name fell like ash from his lips. His heart felt constricted as if by an iron fist. His insides were writhing. He was trapped. Cornered. There was no escape from this, and yet… and yet he had to escape, now, immediately, before he betrayed himself. "Palis, would you… could you…"

She whirled on him, launching off of his body, flinging aside his arms, and turning as she sprang onto her knees, back suddenly to the computer interface that had been the catalyst for all of this, face suddenly to the head of the bed. She grabbed hold of the sheet as she went, gathering it indignantly round her, not caring how that left Julian exposed. And why should she care? They had never been shy in their nudity before, not in the privacy of the flat. Yet now he felt vulnerable as he never had before in her presence, denuded before the ferocity of Palis's absolute conviction.

"They'll never actually allow it, will they?" she demanded. "Starfleet? These colleges? Surely they won't abide by these… these agreements. These arrangements that never should have been made in the first place? It's all a mistake, isn't it? I know the Federation likes to be tolerant and welcoming — but tolerance has a limit!"

It certainly seemed to. Her tolerance, anyway. Julian stared at her, stricken dumb by this woman he loved, whom he had trusted, whom he thought had loved and trusted him — when all this time, unbeknownst to her, he was what so repulsed her. He was the product of genetic enhancement, no different from the colonists she was so adamant had no right to walk the surface of the planet that was their ancestral home.

No. He was different. The Moab colonists, at least, had never hidden the truth. They had never lied. They had never let others — teachers, classmates, senior officers, friends, lovers — believe them to be what they were not.

Out of the pandemonium of bleak, tangled emotions, one rose to claim primacy. Shame, vast and monstrous, as monstrous as the legacy of eugenics that stretched back four hundred years to a subterranean laboratory and a glass pipette, rose like a behemoth to choke Julian where he sat, half-reclined, against the bedstead of a woman who despised what he was and all he represented. A woman who was looking at him right now with her sweet face open and trusting, anxious for reassurance in the face of what she saw as the first step onto the slippery slope that led to… what? To the rise of the next Khan Noonien Singh.

God help him, but Julian could not even remember her question.

"I don't know," he managed, his mouth as dry as the desert that had hidden the Chrysalis Project.

Palis sighed and flung herself back around again, mercifully onto her pillows instead of Julian's shoulder. "No, I suppose not," she sighed. "You're only a cadet: how could you know what Starfleet intends? Much less the other schools. I suppose we just have to hope that sanity prevails! Qu'est-ce qu'on peut y faire?"

"Huh…" Julian managed feebly, the vaguest sound of assent. She hadn't noticed anything amiss in any of his responses, but he knew that could not last. He had to get out of this bed. Out of this room. Had to escape before the shock wore off and he gave away something of his inner turmoil. Had to rally his wits and think, think… think, damn you, THINK!

He couldn't think. Not yet. He had to run. No, not run. He had to get up calmly and leave the room, that was all. As if nothing was amiss. As if his whole world had not just shattered around him, like those countless tiny globes of ice…

"I should…" he began, and found once the first words were out his mouth did remember how to work, after all. "I should go and take a shower, Palis," he said, stunned by the calmness in his voice. It shouldn't sound so serene, not after what had just happened, what was still happening within him. Yet whatever psychological training or battle-readiness drill or competency counselling had instilled this instinct for coolness under fire, Julian was wretchedly grateful for it. "I'll be right back. D'accord?"

"Mmm, d'accord," Palis agreed idly. She had one arm curled up behind her head now, and she was examining the nails of the other hand. "Hurry back, mon trésor. You know how I miss you when you're gone."

Julian dug the heel of his hand into the mattress and pushed himself upright, praying his legs would hold him when his feet hit the floor.

(fade)

French Translation Glossary:

"Ne sois pas impertinent. Tu es mon trésor, et je te chatouillerai si je veux.": "Don't be impertinent. You are my treasure, and I'll tickle you if I want."
"Ah, je suis impertinent, tu crois?": "Ah, I'm impertinent, you think?"
"Ça marche.": "All right."A very casual French affirmative, similar to "Sure, fine with me."
"Mon Dieu! Ce n'est pas possible!": "My God! It's not possible!"
"C'est absurde!": "It's absurd!"
"Ça me dégoûte! Pourquoi est-ce que l'Office planétaire du Logement permet cela? Ils sont une abomination, des Augments!": "It's disgusting! Why would the Planetary Housing Authority allow it? They are abominations, Augments!"
"Qu'est-ce qu'on peut y faire?": "What can we do?" 

Chapter Text

Chapter VII: Waking Nightmare

He wanted to cover himself, but his uniform was folded neatly on the armchair by the door and he couldn't take the sheet from Palis. Julian clambered out of bed and hastened, naked, into the shelter of the bathroom. He closed the door with deliberate control, trying to make the movement seem nonchalant. She called something out as the latch clicked, fond amusement in her voice. Julian locked the door and sagged against it, eyes closed against a fresh, hot wave of misery.

His knees were weak and he wanted to slide down onto the cool marble floor. He couldn't. She'd be listening for the water, and if it didn't start up soon, she'd get suspicious. He had to avoid her suspicions at all costs. It wasn't just her hatred he feared. He knew her opinions were not hers alone: they came from Docteur Delon. He was the director of one of the most prestigious medical facilities on the planet. He was a man of power and influence. He was exactly the sort of person capable of razing Julian's life to smoking ruins in a matter of minutes.

He pushed off the door and staggered to the tub. It was an antique, clawfooted affair, but the plumbing and the accoutrements were state-of-the-art and luxurious. His hand shook as he switched on the moisture containment field that eliminated the need for a shower curtain. Julian almost couldn't operate the controls to dial in the pressure, flow rate, and temperature. Hard, heavy, hot. He stepped through the containment field, which was selective for free fluid, and plunged himself into the spray.

At first he could only stand there, numb with horror, hugging his ribs as the water pelted his back and his bowed shoulders and soaked his hair. It was a nightmare. It had to be a nightmare. He had dozed off in Palis's arms in the aftermath of their tender coupling, and all the rest of it was just a bad dream. Only it wasn't, and he knew it. His mind — his unnatural mind — was capable of generating highly realistic nocturnal imaginings, but nothing like this. The mingled scent of their youthful sweat, the perfume from the branch of cherry blossoms on the nightstand, the earthy fragrance of the Siene in the spring night outside. The feel of Palis's hand upon his arm, so smooth, so warm, moving with perfect consistency, without any of the jumps or stutters or continuity glitches of a dream. The crisp clarity of the newscaster's voice, the soft susurrations of Palis's breath. The taste of copper and bile in his mouth. It was no dream.

Suddenly, spastically, Julian bent to snatch the soap over the enamelled lap bar that bridged the tub. Quickly and frantically, he began to scrub. He needed to get the smell of her off him. He needed to rub away the feel of her hands. He needed to cleanse himself of the horrible, crawling shame that had crept over him as soon as she began to speak.

I don't know what they think they are, coming here like they have some kind of right to be on this planet! Honestly, what do they expect? We're just supposed to tolerate creatures like that? It's vile. It's foul. Genetic enhancement is obscene!

Julian turned in the stream of steaming water, screwing his eyes closed as it pummelled his face and ran down his chest and his arms. He worked the soap into the soft hair of his axillae. He chafed the bar up and down his limbs, from shoulder to wrist. Across his pectoral muscles and his flat abdomen and the crest of his pelvis. He washed the parts of him that had touched her most intimately, back in that half-forgotten eternity ago when he had believed she loved him unconditionally, desired him, trusted him.

She still believed all of those things. She didn't know. She must never know.

Desperately, almost wrathfully, Julian scrubbed his legs, bowing dizzyingly forward to do so. He didn't usually bother to soap up below the knees. It wasn't really necessary in the ordinary way of things. Tonight, though, he needed to get as clean as possible. He felt vile, disgusting, coated in invisible layers of unknowable filth. He straightened again, scrubbing at his arms, his chest, his flank, his groin. He had washed all these areas the first time, but they felt dirtier now than when he had fled Palis's bed. He didn't reach for the shampoo: he simply buried the bar of soap in his tousled hair, now settling into soft, soaked curls against his skull. He raised a lather viciously, not caring how the tangled tresses tugged at his scalp. That petty little pain was tangible, identifiable, welcome. It was infinitely preferable to the nebulous agony enveloping his soul. His hands trembled and he dropped the soap. He felt it buffet one bare foot before settling into a lazy clockwise spiral over the drain.

Julian buried both hands in his hair and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. Rosewater-scented soap ran down his neck and his back and his shoulders. It stung in his eyes, and they began to water. He turned his face back up into the spray, too occupied with the need to get the feel of clotted grime from his hair to even try to wipe his eyes. The prickling spray of the shower washed away the soap, but the trickle of lachrymal fluid did not cease. It intensified instead, and he could feel the oily slickness as twin rivulets cut down his cheeks to mingle with the water. His chest hitched and heaved, and a soundless sob broke from his lips. He was crying.

Ça me dégoûte! Pourquoi est-ce que l'Office planétaire du Logement permet cela? Ils sont une abomination, des Augments!

He wished he could have explained to her what that word really meant, the weight of history behind it — the weight of guilt. The Moab IV colonists weren't to blame for the atrocities of the Eugenics Wars: they, just like every human now alive in the Federation, had been conceived and gestated and born centuries after the fall of Khan Noonien Singh and his bloodthirsty peers. They hadn't asked to have their DNA manipulated before they were born, any more than little Jules Bashir had asked for what had been done to him. It wasn't fair to tar them with the tainted brush of centuries. It wasn't fair to label them with that irredeemable name. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't…

Julian didn't know if he really believed that. He knew he'd never be able to convince Palis it was true. She, her father, the protestors, the newscasters and the legal and historical experts and the politicians and the Admirals calling out for the banishment of these colonists; they would never be convinced. They didn't want to hear it. And anyhow, Julian knew he would never dare to say it.

But they were embryos. I was just a little boy. We didn't have a choice, none of us. We didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. Don't you understand? I'd give it all back in a moment, every gift, every accomplishment, all of it, just for a chance to be truly human again!

But would he? Would he, really? He loathed what he was, but not who he was. He liked being the quickest, the brightest, the most promising. He liked the affirmation he'd been given by teachers, by coaches, now by professors and preceptors and wildly gifted surgeons who saw something of themselves in his potential. He loved solving an intricate problem — not just in diagnostics, but in rhetoric or philosophy or linguistics or mathematics. And nothing, nothing in all the Galaxy, gave him more joy and satisfaction than laying his skilled hands upon a patient and restoring them to health. He loved medicine. He lived for it. And he'd never have been able to take it up, if not for the illegal genetic resequencing that had made him… this.

He was complicit in his parents' crime. He was guilty of the same outrage against morality and decency and goodness. He was as bad as they were. He was worse, because he was reaping the benefits of their transgression in a way they never could. Julian reached for the control panel on the wall, his left hand suddenly bone-dry as it passed through the containment field. With a shaking finger, he dialed up the temperature of the water another five degrees.

The change was immediate and breath-stealing. From stimulatingly hot, the water grew suddenly scalding. Julian leaned into the spray, redoubling his efforts to scour away the vileness and the shame from his arms and his ribs. The soap was rinsed away, and without the surfactant his palms dragged and the skin beneath them pinched and stung. He was rubbing himself raw under the tenderizing tattoo of the shower, but the humiliation and the sense of dirtiness remained.

Of course they did. He couldn't rub it off. He wasn't slicked with slime or covered in gore or smeared with excrement: the filth was inside of him, coded into his very chromosomes. It wouldn't wash away. He could never be free of it. It wasn't on him, it was in him. It was him.

A sound reached his sensitive ears even over the percussion of the water and the roaring of blood in his ears. A rapid rapping of knuckles on aged oak. Palis, knocking on the door.

"Mon trésor?" she called, and Julian's intestines wrenched at the term of endearment. Only a few hours ago, hearing her say that had filled him with such a sense of belonging and peace. Now it was a glaring indictment of his crimes, a reminder of all the lies he had told her.

No, just the one lie. One little lie of omission, that's all, made years ago when you were just a scared kid. You didn't tell her anything that wasn't true. You just let her assume.

The rest of his mind didn't believe that. The part of him that strove to be a good man, that aspired to become an upright Starfleet officer and an ethical physician, rejected this excuse.

A lie of omission is still a lie, Cadet, he told himself savagely.

"Yes?" he croaked. He cleared his throat and forced a lighter tone into his voice as he raised it to be heard over the shower. "Yes, Palis?"

He couldn't bring himself to reciprocate with words of affection. He had no right to address her with such intimacy. He didn't even know if he wanted to, not just now, but ever again.

"Dépêches-toi," she sang playfully. He could imagine her pivoting on one slender, exquisite, calloused foot, draped in her lilac dressing-gown, soft hair tumbling down her back. The image made him shudder. "I'm waiting!"

"I'll be out soon," he promised, far too brightly. His voice broke on the last syllable, unable to maintain the ruse. He braced himself, waiting for the inevitable question.

Instead, Palis trilled happily; "D'accord!" He heard her move off.

He had overstayed the believable length of time to linger in the shower, but Julian didn't dare to turn it off yet. He needed a plan. He needed to get out of here, to get back to San Francisco, to put as much of the planet between himself and Palis Delon as he possibly could. He could make up an excuse, say he'd been recalled to Starfleet Medical for some reason. Maybe there was an emergency in the Academy Infirmary, and they needed the most capable residents on hand. Maybe one of his classmates had failed to turn up for a shift. That was plausible, wasn't it? He was a medical student, after all. His time was not his own.

But how had he learned of this while in the shower? His combadge wasn't just in the next room, affixed to the breast of his uniform. He'd deactivated it on arriving in Paris, first to avoid interrupting the performance and then so that the Universal Translator wouldn't undercut the bilingual loveplay they had always enjoyed. If anyone wanted to get ahold of him, they'd do it through Palis's domestic comlink, and of course she'd know that no one had done that. If she wasn't in the bedroom, all Julian would have to do was get to the chair and turn his combadge back on; he could pretend he'd just done so to check in, and that they'd recalled him when he did. But if she hadn't left the room…

Even if she had, the plan was no good. Summoned back to campus because of a medical emergency or a scheduling hiccup was believable, but it was too easily verifiable. If Palis was curious and dropped a mention of his excuse to her father, or if Docteur Delon himself got curious, all it would take was one quick glance at the duty roster for the Academy Infirmary to destroy Julian's alibi. The duty rosters of all Starfleet Medical facilities in Sector 001 were accessible to civilian medical centres to facilitate continuity of care across the innumerable time zones involved. If Julian hoped to extricate himself, he was going to have to find some other pretext.

Running to the aid of a friend wouldn't be believable. Palis knew he wasn't close enough to any of his classmates, even Erit, to be the first call in an emergency. She'd ask questions he couldn't answer, and Julian didn't have any friends who would lie for him to corroborate the story. He had a sense that this was exactly the sort of thing most people could turn to family for: a no-questions-asked alibi to extract oneself from an uncomfortable situation. It was something mothers did, wasn't it? Didn't they say things like, "If you ever need an excuse to get out of something, just say that I needed you instead"?

But his mother had never said any such thing, and Julian hadn't seen his parents since Eid al-Fitr of the previous academic year. Neither of his parents were particularly spiritual and they certainly didn't observe Ramadan, but his mother's family had marked the festival as a cultural holiday for generations and it meant a lot to her when Julian made the time to come back to England to celebrate. He'd made the allowance, hoping for peace. For his pains, he had found himself beset with guilt from the passive-aggressive remarks about how he never bothered to visit and how he used all of his transporter credits visiting his French girlfriend instead of his parents. He'd been peppered with ceaseless questions about his plans after his postgraduate practicum— which had then been a year and a half away from starting, much less concluding. And finally, he and his father had wound up having one of their loud, hateful, horrible fights.

Julian had fled into the streets in the dead of night, and wandered the alleyways of Guildford in a dreary November rain. That night, too, he'd foolishly let himself be separated from his combadge, so he'd been unable to contact Starfleet for transport. Instead, he had shivered away the miserable hours until dawn, when the local transporter hub had opened for business. Then he'd finally been able to return, soaked to the bone and borderline hypothermic, to the Academy campus and the emotional stability of his own damned life. He hadn't gone back for the holiday this year, and he had no intention of visiting for any other reason. Bad enough he'd have to see his parents at the graduation ceremony in a couple months' time. He wasn't about to ask them for a favour, not even to extricate him from this horrifying situation.

There was another knock at the door. This time, Palis's voice was tinged with concern. "Julian?" she asked. No love-language this time. His stomach did a slow, sickening roll. "Is everything all right?"

"Just fine!" he called, thrusting his hand through the containment field and deactivating both it and the shower spray with one hurried slap of his fingertips. "Sorry… I was daydreaming!"

"À propos de moi, j'espère!" she said with a seductive little laugh.

"Who else?" Julian responded hoarsely, forgetting his French and the fact that, really, all that was called for in response was a chuckle of his own. He didn't feel like laughing. He wasn't sure he ever would again.

He had no plausible excuse to leave Paris early. He had to stay. That meant towelling off, going out into the bedroom, and getting back into bed with a woman who believed his kind were an abomination and an affront against nature. A woman who had said, not half an hour ago, that creations like him had no right to be on Earth.

Julian had no choice. He stepped out of the tub, dripping on the bath mat, and reached for one of the huge, fluffy lavender towels. He dried himself hurriedly. The air was warm and humid, but he was trembling.

On any other night he would have tipped the towel into the cleaning processor and simply gone out to join Palis as he was, clean, soap-scented, and casually naked. Tonight, he didn't have the confidence. He felt exposed and vulnerable, as if the old-fashioned oak door was all that hid his secrets, not just his body. He wished he'd thought to bring his clothes into the bathroom with him — but of course, that would have been suspicious. He wished he'd brought a pair of pyjamas to Paris, but he only did that in winter.

He looked at the towel, now heavy with damp. He wrapped it around his waist anyway, folding one corner snugly over the top edge. It was all the armour he was going to get. He drew in a deep, shaky breath, willed his muscles to cease their cowardly quaking, and opened the bathroom door.

Palis was back in bed, draped artfully over the pillows with an elbow on the headboard and the other arm lying sinuously down her side. Her knees were nestled together, and her slender, strong feet were pointed, further elongating them. It was a classical pose straight out of a painting. Julian couldn't for the life of him remember the name of the painter, but they had seen it together in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin last summer.

She smiled at him lovingly, and broke her pose to pat his pillow. "Come to bed," she coaxed.

Julian couldn't see any way around it. He did as she asked, rounding the foot of the bed to approach from his customary side. Palis followed him with her eyes, fond and contented and completely oblivious to the ways in which he repulsed her. At last, Julian couldn't delay any longer: he steeled his resolve and removed the towel, folding it hurriedly over the chair near the window. He climbed into bed as quickly as he could, pulling the sheet up from where it lay bunched near the footboard. It covered them both to the waist, hiding Palis's shapely, muscular legs and his own lean ones.

She was semi-supine, so he didn't lie down, either. He sat propped against his pillows, trying desperately to look relaxed and at ease. Palis took his right wrist and raised his arm so that she could slip underneath it, compelling him to embrace her. Julian tried to make his limb mould naturally around her, even though her touch electrified him with dismay. As there had been no choice but to get into bed, so there was no choice but to let her snuggle up to him, and she was doing so with the easy comfort of long acquaintance.

An hour and a half ago, that same familiarity had filled his heart with peace and a certainty of safety. Now he felt hunted, cornered, and bitterly ashamed of himself. Julian closed his eyes and forced a slow, deep breath. He felt Palis's breasts flatten against him as she curled around to reach for his hair. Her fingers twisted a couple of damp curls, and she laughed softly.

"You know, if you step through the containment field instead of lowering it while you're in the tub, you'll come out perfectly dry," she cooed.

"I forgot," Julian said. That was perfectly true, anyway. The last thing on his mind had been getting out of the shower dry. Still, he wasn't comfortable leaving the explanation there. He seldom forgot anything at all, and she'd know that. She might wonder why he'd been so distracted. "Nothing but sonic showers at the Academy," he added.

She nodded. "Oh, the weary life of a cadet!" she teased, moving her hand to her shoulder for leverage as she pulled herself up to kiss him briefly, full on the lips, before settling down again. Julian's long legs meant their height difference wasn't as pronounced when they sat hip-to-hip like this, but they still had to adjust to get their lips to meet. He wasn't capable of adjusting right now: she'd had to do all the work. Julian anxiously scanned her face, wondering if she had noticed; if she was suspicious. She didn't seem to be. She didn't seem to mind at all.

"You know," she said, with a playful little pout; "if you take a post on a starship, you could go months without seeing a real bathtub."

"Some starships have bathtubs," Julian said. He was surprised at the words, and at how casually they fell from his lips. His survival instincts were stronger than he'd feared, apparently. He had been certain he wouldn't be able to carry off this charade, but his mind seemed to be compensating without him. "Only the old ones don't. They're standard in most senior officers' quarters now, even on the small ships. On the Galaxy Class, all the regular crew decks have them."

She looked up at him with sudden, avid interest. "Do you think you could be posted to a Galaxy Class ship?" she asked.

Julian's chest ached. For months, he'd been waiting for her to show any sign of softening towards the idea of him pursuing his Starfleet career. After her excitement at Docteur Delon's job offer, he'd been afraid that hope was dead. Only a few hours ago, this level of eager engagement would have filled him with jubilation. It would have been a sign that there was room for negotiation and compromise. Now… now, he didn't know what he felt, but it was dreadful.

Palis shifted to look at him more squarely. "If you took an assignment on a Galaxy Class starship, I could come with you," she said. "They're ships full of families. They go on diplomatic missions. It would mean leaving the company, but I could arrange an exhibition tour on the worlds we visited, appear as a guest danseuse with prestigious off-world troupes. I could start une école de ballet onboard ship!"

He couldn't bear to listen to this. They were his dreams, too, or had been until tonight. But how could he even think about the future now?

"There aren't any Galaxy Class posts available now," Julian said hollowly. "In half a year… who knows?"

"Hmm," Palis allowed, nodding thoughtfully. "Well, keep your ear open. You'll have the first choice of assignment, won't you?"

"If I'm valedictorian, yes," Julian managed.

She made a contented sound, and settled back into the crook of his arm. She smoothed the edge of the sheet and drew it up to cover their navels, smoothing it over their laps.

"That would change everything," she reflected. "If you weren't posted to the middle of nowhere, or to some research vessel warping off into deep space for years at a time. I wouldn't mind joining you on a Galaxy Class ship."

Julian made a vague noise of assent. His throat was dry, and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. He wished he'd thought to take a drink of water while he was in the bathroom. He wished he dared to get up and fetch one now, but that would mean crossing the room again, naked, and coming back again, and getting into bed with Palis again… and he didn't think he had the fortitude to do any of that. If he got out of bed now, he'd lose his courage, and he would run, and all would be lost. Maybe not right away, but eventually, inevitably, she would begin to ask questions and to put the pieces together. She was ferociously intelligent. If she paused to think about it, she'd realize how silent he had been during her tirade at the viewscreen, and that he had fled her company immediately afterwards.

She was nestling nearer to him now, twisting onto one hip. "Mmm," Palis murmured, pressing the length of her lithe body against him and kissing first his breastbone, then the hollow of his throat, then the side of his jaw. His earlobe was next, as she whispered; "Mon trésor, encore une fois…"

Julian felt a sudden, clenching nausea. She wanted to make love again.

In Federation schools, the ideas of bodily autonomy and consent were introduced to the very youngest pupils in terms they could understand. They were given strategies to implement to empower and protect themselves, and to lay the foundation of a healthy understanding of sex as they grew up. In the first grade, Julian's classmates had been taught the proper words to describe their bodies, and the difference between physical contact that was was appropriate or inappropriate, welcome or unwanted.

Little Jules Bashir, who couldn't even tell a dog from a cat, hadn't been able to make sense of most of these lessons. But Ms. Ravani, who came in once a week to teach the wellness classes, had started turning up on Thursday afternoons in addition to Wednesday mornings. While the others had their computer time, learning to use the library database and the games and the keyboard consoles, she had taken Jules to sit in the story corner. Painstakingly, over the course of most of the winter, she had managed to teach him one simple but essential thing.

If anyone ever tries to touch you in a way you don't like, Jules, she had said, over and over again with kindness and infinite patience, you need to say, "Stop. I don't want that." Then you go and find another grown-up to help you. Can you say it with me? "Stop. I don't want that."

He had learned how to say it. It had been one of the longest phrases he could reliably repeat in those days, and he'd only mastered it because of her dedication to repeating it almost endlessly. But he hadn't really understood. He certainly didn't understand on Adigeon Prime, when he had repeated it just as endlessly to the doctors who kept performing procedure after procedure on him as he lay terrified and alone in his hospital bed, wondering miserably whether his parents would ever come back for him. After a few days of their platitudes as they dismissed his words and kept on with their work, he had given up, broken-hearted and bewildered that Ms. Ravani had misled him.

After the enhancements, when suddenly he seemed to understand everything, Julian had been able to comprehend the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touch, and how sometimes it was necessary for a doctor to do something — hold your arm, for example, or put a halo full of flashing lights over your skull and tritanium goggles over your eyes to blind you while they worked so they did not blind you forever. That had helped a little with the feeling of betrayal he'd felt in the muddled, foggy days before the neural pathway acceleration had taken hold, when Ms. Ravani's magic words hadn't worked to stop them from touching him. As a child, he'd found comfort in the understanding that doctors did that to help you when you were sick. It was different than the other kind of violation, or so he had believed when he was seven.

As the years went by and he'd advanced through the curricula from elementary to secondary school, Julian had learned the specifics of sexual consent. The fundamental foundation of "Stop. I don't want that." had evolved to encompass what did and did not constitute consent. Pupils were taught that, for all partners, nothing less than a "yes" qualified as consent; that reluctance was not an invitation to persuasion or coercion; that consent could not be given by a person who was inebriated or pressured or frightened. He remembered how most of the young men in his eighth grade class had chuckled at the idea of being reluctant with a date when the concept had been revisited that year. They'd all been bundles of hormones and imagination in those days, with roving eyes always on the lookout for the people they found attractive. Julian — then still going by Jules, because he'd known no reason he shouldn't — hadn't laughed. He'd thought he had understood. Just because a girl, or another boy, or a person who didn't identify with a gender dimorphism or whose species didn't have one, was attractive and willing, didn't necessarily mean a young man would want to reciprocate. It was essential to understand that you always had the right to say no.

They'd been taught all sorts of strategies to decline comfortably; different phrases to choose if you wanted to close off the possibility completely, or to let your partner know that you'd be interested in revisiting it on some other occasion. They'd been taught that they owed no one an explanation, but could explain if they wanted to. And of course, they'd been taught all the appropriate ways to respond to these refusals, demurrals and postponements.

But as Palis snuggled closer to him now, her small, perfect breast pressing against his ribs, her mouth questing for his, her hand slipping beneath the sheet and following his flank down to the crest of his pelvis in search of an intimacy he could not endure, Julian couldn't remember even one of those phrases. He was frozen in horror and dread, knowing he couldn't allow this, couldn't endure it, had to prevent it. And the only words that came to mind were the ones Ms. Ravani had so painstakingly taught a little boy who couldn't even count to ten.

"Stop," he said hoarsely, his own hand diving swiftly under the airy cotton drape to catch hold of hers before it could stroke the organ that would respond, no matter what his brain wanted, because he was twenty-six and healthy and as susceptible to sensory stimuli as any young man. "I don't want that."

Palis froze instantly, her sinuous body stiffening against him as she pulled back from his lips to regard him quizzically. Hastily, terrified that he had overstepped and that she would take offence, demand explanations, start to suspect, Julian adjusted his hold on her hand, twining his fingers with hers in what he hoped would be read as a loving gesture instead of a desperate defensive manoeuvre as he drew both their arms out from under the sheet. He did not dare to breathe as she tilted her head to the left, raised her eyebrows, and smiled a little ruefully.

"Well, all right," she said with a little shrug. "We don't need to." She smiled then, and wriggled closer to him as she kissed the corner of his mouth and then moved up to his ear, brushing her lips against the lobe as she whispered; "I knew I should have suggested it before you got into the shower. Mon trésor, si fastidieux."

Julian felt such a wave of relief that he almost seemed to melt against the pillows. He closed his eyes as she nuzzled her cheek against his, kissing the ball of his jaw. "Peut-être nous pouvons se câliner, non?" she asked.

The truth was that Julian didn't want to cuddle, either, but he didn't dare to refuse her. Declining sex was uncharacteristic enough. He didn't think he'd ever begged off before, and neither had she. They'd always been perfectly attuned to one another's desires, always eager for passion at the same times and in the same ways. He'd thought that was one of the things that made them soulmates. He'd hoped…

Palis was travelling down his throat again, leaving a trail of kisses. She slid her thigh across his, her skin warm and velvety. She slipped her hand from his, but didn't return it to his pelvis: she was respecting the line he'd drawn so clumsily and uncharacteristically. She reached up to stroke his face instead, and then twined her fingers in his hair again.

Julian was left with one arm pinned beneath her body and the other out in the open air with no purpose. He didn't want to touch her, or to reciprocate her affections in any way. She wouldn't want him to reciprocate, not if she knew the truth. If she knew the truth of who — of what — lay in bed beside her, she would recoil from him, doubtless spitting more of the venom she'd lavished on the Moab colonists. She might call for the municipal police to remove the Augment. She'd assuredly summon her father…

He had no choice. He had to make a show of affection — if not to match hers, at least to echo it. Julian put his hand on her waist, careful to keep the sheet between his palm and her smooth, firm flesh. He couldn't do anything about the fact that one whole side of his body was engulfed by hers, but at least he could offer her this one little buffer.

Palis had reached his collarbone now, and she kissed it twice before resting her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. Her hand caressed his jaw briefly, and then she moved it to his left flank. She hugged him tightly for a few seconds that seemed to stretch on like a three-hour oral exam. Only no examiner had ever inspired in Julian the kind of frozen dismay he felt now. She rubbed the side of her face against him, tumbling hair tickling his arm. She kissed his right pectoral. Her hand migrated up to rest over the left, palm caressing the sensitive skin of his chest with the same loving tenderness she'd always displayed.

Julian couldn't look down at her, as he would have done on any other night. It was the natural thing to do: to savour a glimpse of the beautiful woman curled around him. But he couldn't bear it. If he didn't look at her, maybe he could convince himself that none of this was real. Not her words of hatred and scorn; not her misplaced tenderness now; not the smouldering ruins of his dreams of a life with the woman he loved. The woman he had loved?

The woman he'd believed he was allowed to love.

"C'est parfait," Palis murmured. She sounded drowsy now, and her dainty fingers played over his skin. Their tips brushed his nipple, and Julian felt his body stirring in response.

Julian screwed his eyes closed, trying to will away the impulse to respond to her touch. He could manipulate his own blood pressure. He could alter his heart-rate with a thought. He'd never tried to upregulate his hypothalamus, wary to prove even to himself just how much of a deviation he was, but Julian suspected he was capable of that, as well. If he could do those things, he could master this urge, too. Vasoconstriction. He needed to induce vasoconstriction in his peripheral vessels, to prevent himself from becoming engorged with blood. Failing that, maybe he could prevent contracture of the tunica albuginea so that the deep dorsal vein kept draining.

No medical student wanted to think about urology while in bed with their lover, but Julian thought about it now. He envisioned the anatomy of the organs in question; the muscles, the vasculature, the complex system of glands and vessels, the processes that produced the hormones that fuelled the human sex drive, and the gametes that ensured the continuation of the species. It calmed him. It anchored him firmly in a part of his mind where there was no doubt, no misery, no shame.

Palis was still murmuring soft words of affection. "C'est mieux," she sighed happily. "Tu es sage, Julian. Je suis trop fatigué pour faire des galipettes."

He found that particular colloquialism absolutely charming, and when she said it, it had never failed to make him smile. It failed tonight. His body was back under his control again, but Julian couldn't make the rest of it relax as he had his erectile tissues. He lay rigid under Palis as she settled drowsily against him. Her cheek rested on his chest, the warm gusts of her breath burning against him. Her index finger stroked his areola once more before lying still. Her breath deepened and grew quiet as she drifted off to sleep.

There was no hope of sleep for Julian. He felt bitterly tired, not merely physically weary but utterly wrung out with the strain of the last few days and the nightmare he was living now, but the release of slumber was unimaginable. Wide-eyed and wakeful, he waited out the Parisian night.

(fade)

French Translation Glossary:

"Dépêches-toi.": "Hurry up."
"À propos de moi, j'espère!": "About me, I hope!"
"une école de ballet": "a ballet school"
"Mon trésor, encore une fois…": "My treasure, one more time…"
"Mon trésor, si fastidieux.": "My treasure, so fastidious."
"Peut-être nous pouvons se câliner, non?": "Perhaps we can cuddle, no?"
"C'est parfait.": "It's perfect."
"C'est mieux. Tu es sage, Julian. Je suis trop fatigué pour faire des galipettes.": "It's better. You are wise, Julian. I am too tired to do somersaults."

Chapter Text

Chapter VIII: Fleeing Paris

Julian was still wakeful when the sun rose. Only twelve hours ago he'd been standing in his quarters at the Academy, debating what to wear to the ballet. It felt like far longer, and he was much more exhausted than he should have been considering how long he'd been awake. But he was also filled with crawling agitation, and could not even conceive of sleeping. He called for the chronometer display on the viewscreen instead, speaking only just loudly enough for the computer to register his voice. He feared it might be too loud, that it might wake Palis. Roused unexpectedly from slumber, she'd probably be inclined to renew the romantic advances he'd managed to dodge earlier. Julian didn't know if he'd dare to refuse a second time, and he desperately needed to avoid testing the question.

He watched the minutes crawl on as the daylight clarified and grew bright, filtering through the airy linen drapes. The cheerful morning sounds of Paris drifted up on the breeze, a slow crescendo of contented voices and briskly strolling feet. A group of children passed somewhere below: Julian could hear their laughter and their high, happy voices. All through the city — indeed, all over Europe — people were getting up and going about their daily routines, and heading out into the sunshine, while he lay trapped here, pinned naked beneath the slumbering body of a woman repulsed by his very nature.

Finally, the chronometer rolled over to 0900 hours, and Julian finally felt he could justify getting out of bed. Even if he disturbed her, it wouldn't be suspicious that he wanted to start moving for the day. He'd be able to play it off well, or he thought he would. If he had managed in the night, when all this was raw and stupefying, he could manage now. The hurt was no less horrible, the dread no less real, but he was calmer, more in control of his mind and his body than he had been in the first aftershock.

That was what he thought, at least, as he disentangled Palis's slender arms from his body and eased out from under her, packing his pillow in against her so she was not left suddenly bereft of support as he went. He slipped one bare foot off the mattress and onto the floor, and twisted his hips to do the same with the other. But when he tried to stand, he found his knees wouldn't hold him, at least not at first. He snatched at the headboard to brace himself, and the whole bed shuddered.

Julian held his breath, frozen with dread as Palis stirred. She rolled from her left hip onto her front, cuddling his pillow close, and she murmured something in French. Julian couldn't quite make out the words, but his brain thought the translation ought to be don't trust that cow. It made no sense, and that was reassuring: Palis was dreaming.

Still unsteady, but determined to get away from the bed and into his clothing before she awoke, Julian fled to the chair by the door. It took him two tries to gather all the pieces of his uniform into his arms, but even just clutching the familiar fabrics to his chest was soothing. He hugged them tighter so that he could feel his communicator pressing against his sternum, a cool and tangible proof that he was not really trapped here, at least not indefinitely. He retreated to the bathroom, closed and locked the door, and let himself slide down onto the floor.

He let the garments spill over his lap, and scrubbed his face in his hands before raking his fingers up into his hair. The neatly cropped curls felt coarse and brittle, and he remembered that he'd used soap instead of shampoo to wash them last night. He stared at the tub with its ornate feet and its elaborate control pad, and wondered if another bath might scrub away just a little of the persistent shame. But in his heart he knew better, and so he settled for getting dressed instead.

It felt good to put his uniform back on. Every garment restored a little piece of his identity. They were tangible reminders of his accomplishments, of the one thing in his life he had chosen and pursued and earned for himself. Since he was seventeen, Julian had believed that joining Starfleet and practicing medicine was the most worthwhile path he could possibly choose: the one that offered him not only scope for a fulfilling and meaningful life, but a chance at redemption. If he worked diligently enough, tried hard enough, helped and healed and saved enough people, maybe someday he could make restitution for the life that had been destroyed so that he could exist. Little Jules Bashir, who had only wanted to be loved — erased so cavalierly to give life to a new creation, a construction, an unnatural being that lived and breathed and thought and felt but could never be quite right.

Freak. Monster. Abomination. Augment.

Julian yanked his jumpsuit up over his hips and thrust his arms into the sleeves so wrathfully that one of the seams gave an ominous creak. It wasn't just the lies that separated him from the Moab IV colonists. Accelerated critical neural pathway formation and its attendant procedures did something embryonic resequencing did not: replaced a self-aware child with someone else. Something else. Julian did not believe in karma, or divine retribution, or any of the like concepts that were part of Earth's spiritual and religious legacy. And yet he knew that for his own sanity, for his own shaky self-worth, and for the sake of his soul if there was such a thing, he had to make amends.

He looked at himself in Palis's ornate mirror. His hair was tousled, the first shadow of stubble was showing on his jaw, and his eyes were glassy and far too bright. But what he saw most clearly was his combadge, which was canted crookedly over his heart so that the point was aimed at his armpit. He straightened it carefully, then tugged his cuff down over the ball of his hand so he could buff the gold and silver surface to a smooth shine. Two quick taps reactivated it, turning on the Universal Translator again and — far more importantly — reconnecting Julian to the Starfleet communications network and his core identity.

It had been almost nine years ago that he'd set his eyes on this goal: on the Academy, Starfleet, medical school, all of it. He had been sure then that it was the right path for him, possessed of a level of certainty he doubted many teenagers felt when contemplating their limitless futures. He had known, even then, that his own had been limitless only by virtue of the lie, of what his father so often called our little secret. Disclosure or discovery would have threshed his options for career and education to chaff, leaving him with only a handful of choices that even at seventeen he'd known were unsuited to his temperament and his talents. Unable to accept that fate — perhaps too cowardly, perhaps too arrogant — Julian had decided that the lie and the secret had to continue. He would never forget the moment he had signed the affidavit at the end of his Academy application, declaring he had made no knowing errors or omissions. It had been the first time he had actively endorsed his parents' lie, the first time he had not just covered up their crime with his frightened silence, but with a willful statement to the contrary.

He had never looked back from that, and he promised himself he wasn't looking back now. What was done was done. He couldn't change any of it. All he could do was look forward, press on, and do all he was able to retroactively earn what he had taken. The only place he knew how to do that was in Starfleet.

And looking at himself now, as he reached unseeing for the comb he kept in Palis's top lefthand drawer, staring all the while into his own troubled brown eyes, even that wasn't enough. He wouldn't be satisfied or fulfilled on some luxurious Galaxy Class starship meandering through the heart of the Federation, or at some prestigious research facility with the sort of grants that graduates at the top of their class could have almost for the asking. He needed to be out there, in the vastness of space, on the far borders of the Federation. Somewhere his skills were most needed. Somewhere he could learn just what he was made of. And somewhere, he thought with a deep, spastic shudder, far away from Earth with its angry mobs of anti-eugenic protestors.

Julian felt a little shiver of despair as he realized how true all this was. How am I going to tell Palis?

The comb stopped its methodical raking. He stared at himself, dumbfounded both by the realization that took him now and by the fact he hadn't actually considered this sooner. He had still been thinking as if he and Palis were going to be married, to spend the rest of their lives together, and now… that was absolutely out of the question. He couldn't marry a woman so viscerally disgusted by genetic engineering that she believed a woman deserved to be attacked and beaten by a mob simply because of her genes and the fact she'd had the audacity to return to her ancestral homeworld despite them. Last night, Julian had thought how unfair it was for him to touch Palis when he knew, even if she did not, how revolted she would be if she knew the truth. But it was just as unfair to expect himself to live a lie like that forever.

He couldn't go forward, continuing to court her, to make love to her, to plan a future together, knowing what he did about her now. They had seemed so perfectly matched in every respect, so perfectly in accord on questions like the interspecies diversity in ballet companies stagingLa Naissance de la Fédération, or matters of interstellar politics, or matters of medical ethics. Clearly, they both abhorred eugenics, too. But this was the impassable obstacle: Palis could not separate the engineer from the engineered, the creator from the creation, the perpetrator from the victim. She was equally repulsed by the Moab IV colonists as she was by the philosophy of the colony's founders, and that meant she'd be just as repulsed by Julian as by the actions of his parents and the Adigeon doctors.

He didn't always love himself, couldn't always find his worth beneath the morass of deception and ill-gotten privilege. But Julian did know this: no one, not even him, deserved to live a life married to a person who despised what they were at their very core. No one deserved to keep up a façade like that out terror that their spouse, the one person in the Galaxy who was supposed to love them for who they were, would one day learn the truth and despise them instantly. Last night, some part of him had known he didn't deserve to be coerced into sex just to protect his secret. That part of him had been able to speak up in Jules's voice, using Jules's simple words, when Julian's mighty intellect was floundering. And that small, buried part of him was right. He might not be worthy of many of the good things in his life, but no one — no one — deserved that.

He looked at the bathroom door, beyond which he could hear the faint sighs of Palis's deep, slumbering breaths. Their relationship was over. It had ended last night, shortly after she'd switched on the news feed. She didn't know it yet, and he couldn't tell her yet, but it was over.

Julian finished with the comb and put it neatly away. He washed his hands and his face, and debated whether to shave before deciding it could wait until he was back in San Francisco. He wouldn't be here long: as soon as Palis was awake, he'd explain that he had to get home to work on his research paper, and he'd kiss her and bid her a fond farewell just as he always did, and he'd hurry out the door.

He was going to have to play along for a little longer. At least a few weeks. He couldn't let her suspect he was planning to break off their understanding — thankfully, mercifully not yet an actual engagement — until the memory of last night faded a little from her mind. If he ended things now, she would wonder why. She'd think back with that keen analytical mind that would probably ensure her a vibrant career in choreography for decades after she could no longer execute the leaps and pirouettes, and she'd remember how he had gone silent during the broadcast. How afterwards, for the first time in their relationship, he'd declined to make love to her. She'd put two and two together, and she might not come up with four right away — but she'd start looking for it. Julian wasn't so naïve as to believe that his parents' efforts to cover their tracks would stand up to a full-blown investigation by Starfleet's Judge Advocate General. If Palis started hunting, the truth would come out. Then it would be his doorstep beset with protestors. His right to existence debated in the media. His presence on Earth decried as a travesty.

He couldn't allow that. He had to keep up the pretext of a loving relationship. Julian thought he could do it. A little light conversation over breakfast today, their usual subspace chats when they could coordinate a time they were both free to make the call — and he suspected they'd find it much harder to coordinate from now on, what with his final weeks of medical school requiring so much of his time and attention. That was plausible, wasn't it? Of course it was. And then, when a few weeks had passed and he could no longer delay another visit to Paris… that would be the time for the tough conversation. For him to explain that he couldn't take the job with her father, that he was going to pursue his Starfleet career, and that upon further reflection it really wasn't fair to ask either of them to compromise their dreams for the other, was it?

It sounded good. It sounded achievable, and plausible, and quite above suspicion. The only disagreements they'd ever had — that both of them were aware of, anyway — had revolved around the question of their futures, and their ostensibly incompatible career goals. If that proved the sticking place, ultimately insurmountable, Palis might be hurt but she would not be surprised. Julian had seen that crossroads coming since Docteur Delon had offered him the job at his facility. Palis would have seen it too. Until now, they'd both been hoping they could find some way past it, but if they could not? If Julian made sure they could not? He could think of no more self-evident and completely unincriminating reason not to get married.

He had found his courage, so it seemed. He opened the door and moved out into the bedroom in stocking feet. Palis was still lying where he'd left her, the sheet lying in artful twists over her lithe, unclothed body, her hair tumbling around her, her beautiful face serene in slumber. Julian retrieved his boots from under the chair and slipped out of the room, drawing the door almost closed behind him, and he went out to the dining area. He pulled out a chair, sat, and leaned forward to put on his footwear.

He was tempted just to scrawl a note on a PADD apologizing for his need to get back to campus, and to sneak out now before Palis woke up. He couldn't bring himself to do it. That was a crass enough move to pull on someone you'd met for a one-night stand. If he tried it with Palis, he'd hurt her horribly — and rightly so. It was the sort of behaviour that painted sex as something cheap, transient, and tawdry, instead of the beautiful exchange of trust and passion and affection it was meant to be, even when it was casual. And as little as Julian liked to remember, they had made love last night and it had been beautiful. That thought made his chest ache. It had been beautiful, and he knew that no matter what had come after, he'd always remember that, and the countless times before, and wonder… how had he let something so exquisite slip through his fingers? And would he ever find anything like it again?

He couldn't think about that, now. He'd never be able to carry off the act over breakfast if he did. So he went to the computer terminal in the living room and logged on to the Academy database. A couple of levels of routine encryption got him into his student files, and he opened the outline of the atresia project. The questions and critiques Docteur Delon had supplied last night were filed away in his brain for easy access, and he started implementing some of the changes.

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn't hear the soft footfalls or the comfortable, measured breathing, until two small hands closed on his shoulders. Julian jumped, startled, and whirled around to find Palis smiling down at him, her eyes laughing.

"Easy, my treasure!" she chided, pursing her lips playfully. He heard the pet name in English now, though she said it in French. Belatedly Julian hoped she wouldn't pick up on the fact he'd turned on his combadge. She might think nothing of it, or she might wonder… "Did I frighten you?"

She had frightened him, and not just in this moment. She terrified him now. Julian felt nauseous at the thought, but he forced a rueful smile. "I'm sorry," he said. "I thought I'd better get some work done. I'm on duty in the Infirmary tonight, and I won't have much time for homework."

"Ah, of course, homework," said Palis, gently mocking. She had pulled on one of her diaphanous summer dresses, really a bit too lightweight for the season, and she was apparently not wearing much under it. Her nipples stood out against the sprigged fabric, and Julian felt the stirring of passions he'd believed irrevocably lost last night. He knew he'd never be able to act on them, not if he wanted to retain even a shadow of his self-respect, but the impulse was there. "Do you have any idea how pleased I am to be done with school?"

Julian chuckled, and the sound was almost natural. "I know that feeling," he said. "I'm counting down the weeks."

"Mmm. So am I," said Palis, and she bent to kiss his cheekbone. In his ear, she murmured; "Come, let's have breakfast. You know I always work up an appetite when you come to stay."

The suggestive note in her voice told Julian she was hoping for a reprise of the previous night's activities when they were finished eating, but there was nothing to be served by announcing his need to depart right at this moment. That might seem too much like evasion. Instead, he followed her into the dining area and took charge of the replicator, ordering a selection of pastries while she went to the refrigerated cabinet to fetch a selection of fresh fruit and half a wheel of Dutch cheese.

It was easier than Julian expected, sitting over the traditional French morning fare and making inconsequential conversation. Palis was in the mood to dissect last night's performance, and did so with great enthusiasm while dipping her croissant into her coffee and brandishing the cheese knife like a conductor's baton. Julian had his perennial favourite instead: sweetened Tarkalean tea. Palis never thought much of that choice at breakfast, and sometimes Julian did like to indulge her regional sensibilities by taking his own cup of strong, dark brew. But he would be materializing in San Francisco in the middle of the night, with the need to get some proper sleep before his duty shift. He couldn't be imbibing stimulants right now.

Finally, when the replicated pastries were only crumbs, and the orange peels and apricot pits were piled on a saucer, Palis sat back and ran her bare foot up Julian's calf, caressing it through the cloth of his uniform. "Would you like to head back to bed?" she asked. "It's not even noon yet."

Julian had been expecting such an invitation, and he was prepared. He smiled regretfully and rose to his feet, gathering their plates. "I can't," he said. "It's half past two in San Francisco, and I'm working tonight."

Palis made a little sound of disappointment, then got up to put away the fresh foods. "We never have enough time together," she sighed. "And soon you'll be gone for six months!"

This was as good a time as any to plant the idea organically. "I know," Julian said softly, as the dishes melted away into the replicator's matter reserves. "I'm not sure when I'll have time to come back, either: the workload is starting to wear me down."

Palis whipped around to look at him, dismayed. "But you were supposed to come back the Sunday after next!"

Julian's stomach clenched. He'd forgotten that. How had he forgotten that? "I… I think I'd better not," he said carefully. "We have surgical skills exams the following week, last chance before the finals to get pointers from the professors, and…"

Palis strode towards him, silencing him with the force of her movement. He thought she might seize him by the throat of his uniform and demand to know what he was keeping from her. Instead, she twined her arms around his neck and rose up on her toes to kiss him tenderly. One hand toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck. "Poor Julian," she said fondly. "You really are anxious, aren't you? About the final exams?"

"Yes," he said gratefully, not only glad she wasn't questioning his motives but earnestly relieved to be able to admit that. It wasn't something it was acceptable to talk about among the medical students, especially not for those at the front of the pack. "I'm… I think about it constantly. Everything that's at stake, and the price of failure."

"My treasure…" murmured Palis, kissing him again and stroking his hair. It felt so good to be comforted, and at the same time Julian felt himself shrivelling with dismay and dread. She'd never be so considerate if she knew the truth. In fact, she'd probably be calling for his expulsion from the Medical Academy if she so much as suspected, with all of Docteur Delon's professional clout behind her…

"You know you'll do well," she was saying. "You've worked so hard. And if you don't get valedictorian — so what? Papa will be disappointed, of course, but surely it won't make a difference to us…"

Julian closed numb hands about her wrists and drew her hands down from his neck. He looked at her, still not quite able to comprehend how everything had gone so catastrophically wrong in the span of just a few hours. He didn't know how he was able to bear the eye contact, or how his voice remained so level and so benignly regretful as he said; "I need to be going right away, I'm afraid. I can't come back in two weeks, but maybe in five? Just before exams start?"

Five weeks would be long enough, wouldn't it, for the details of last night to fade from her mind? He was going to remember them all his life, but for her they hadn't been traumatic, or even unusual. A successful performance, joyful lovemaking, a sample of the daily news followed by a cathartic little rant, and then falling asleep in one another's arms: that's what it had been for Palis. Not the hellscape out of adolescent nightmares Julian had endured.

"Sure, okay," Palis said. Or rather, she didn't: it was just the Universal Translator trying to capture the essence of Oui, d'accord. "Five weeks. I'll have to check my rehearsal schedule to see what's happening, but I'll let you know my windows of opportunity, all right?"

"Fine," Julian said. His lips were numb now, too, but at least he could see his means of escape now. "I'm sorry to leave so early."

Palis slipped her arm through his and walked him to the front door. "I understand," she said, patting his hand possessively. "Papa was always just the same. A doctor's work is never done, even a trainee doctor's."

"Right…" Julian said breathlessly.

She kissed him on the threshold, and he could not refuse her. He tried to make his own response natural and believable, but it wasn't easy when he couldn't feel his lips, and his head was spinning, and his hands felt like they'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen. But at last, he was able to scurry down to the end of the corridor, looking back once to wave as Palis blew him a kiss before shutting the door. A moment later, he heard her singing contentedly as she wandered deeper into her flat.

(fade)

His desire to get the hell out of Paris notwithstanding, Julian didn't make for the nearest transport hub. He struck out for the one twelve blocks over instead, trying to stride off some of his writhing wretchedness before he had to talk to another person. It seemed to help, at least a little. He was able to give the operator the necessary instructions, and he climbed onto the otherwise empty pad. A moment later the beam grabbed him, and he felt the pleasant tingle that melted to a nanosecond of prismatic nothingness before materializing in the familiar, beige utility of the Academy transporter room.

"Welcome back, Cadet…?" the officer behind the controls said, raising an eyebrow in query.

"Bashir," said Julian. "Medical Academy Cadet First Class Julian Bashir, back from leave in Paris."

"Ah, yep, here you are," said the operator, consulting the computer. "Just come sign back in, and you're free to go. What's with all the late night beam-backs, today? Aren't you tired?"

"A bit," said Julian flatly. "In Paris, it's almost midday."

"Ah, makes sense." The officer stepped aside and let Julian sign himself back in. "Have a good one!"

"Thanks," Julian said, though nothing seemed less likely right at present.

He stepped out onto the still and silent grounds, breathing in the familiar scents of sea air and cherry blossoms. The latter should have soured his stomach, mingled as it was with the memory of lying sleepless beside Palis, but somehow it didn't. The smell, more than anything, reassured him that he was finally safe, a continent and a spreading ocean away from the woman who had, all unwitting, shattered his heart and his sense of safety.

It was almost three in the morning, but Julian wasn't alone. Across the quad, just past the old oak tree, stood a cadet wearing the undifferentiated crimson of the Academy proper. He was younger than Julian, surely not more than twenty, with a boy's narrow shoulders and slender jaw. His hair was chestnut, parted to the right in a way that emphasized rather than distracting from his youth. Two bars glinted on his collar, catching Julian's enhanced eye: a sophomore.

He was looking up at the sky, staring at the strewn brilliance of those stars bright enough to be seen in the heart of San Francisco. His otherwise handsome face was twisted as if in anguish. Julian knew that look: he had spent most of the last two days fighting to keep it off his own face. The intensity with which the young man stared at the stars drew Julian's own eyes upward. Cassiopeia spread her arms across the heavens. He could see Polaris, and the brighter, unwavering glow of the Starfleet drydocks: several brilliant pinions in tight formation. The Domum Pacifica orbital habitat was the greenish light above the western horizon. Various other glints and glimmers represented satellites and small starships.

But there was one, brighter than anything but the spacedock and the habitat, that seemed to lie directly in the young man's line of sight. It wasn't a permanent fixture in the sky: Julian knew this starscape too well to have any doubt about that. Whatever it was, it was large and it was low: well in the thermosphere. It was stationary, in perfect geosynchronous orbit.

It had to be the Enterprise. Julian stared up at it, fascinated, momentarily forgetting his misery and his ugly predicament as he let himself be carried away on the nacelles of a childhood dream. He didn't want a posting like that, cushy and prestigious and — now he thought of it — conspicuous. But there was something about the flagship of the fleet that transcended the question of whether it would be desirable to serve on it. The Enterprise was a symbol of all that was admirable about Starfleet: it was a symbol of adventure, exploration, diplomacy, integrity, freedom.

It was a symbol of everything that Julian Bashir wanted in his life, and of all that he wanted to be.

A fragile, tremulous sound reached his sensitive ears and tugged his attention down from the heavens to the grassy parkland below. The little cadet was no longer staring up at the stars. He had choked off a noise very like a whimper. Now his head hung as if in shame, and his hands were balled into fists at his side. As Julian watched, he lifted one to his mouth, biting it and screwing his eyes tightly closed as if against the urge to scream. He fought through it, and his arm dropped to his side again. After a moment he opened his eyes, set them towards the building that housed the quarters for the cadets in officers' training, and trudged off as if he bore the weight of the Quadrant on his shoulders.

Julian watched him go, wondering whether he ought to call out to the boy. He looked like he needed someone to talk to. But would he want that from a stranger? A stranger with his own woes on his mind, at that. In the end, Julian decided it was better to stay silent. When the younger man disappeared into the shadows on the far side of the knoll, Julian turned towards his own dormitory and dragged his weary bones bedward.

(fade)

He had intended to go through his usual nightly routine, and it did start out that way. He shed his uniform into the reprocessor, laying his combadge on the little table next to the bed. He climbed into the sonic shower, and let it blast away the residual scents of Paris and Palis. He shaved, cleaned his teeth, brushed his hair. He put on his pyjamas, relieved he didn't have to face the room beyond naked, as he had in her flat. He started across the room towards his bed…

And found himself, instead, taking a sharp turn and making for the closet. The door swished open and before he even knew what he wanted, Julian was on his knees, groping into the back as he had done on Thursday night. This time, though, he drew the lockbox towards him, already tilting it to provide easy access to the mechanism. He keyed in the initial combination deftly and then performed the series of mental calculations required to decrypt the lock. Finally, the latch released and he lifted the lid to dip his hand inside. He felt the familiar, matted roughness of well-worn imitation fur, and the soft body yielded under his grasp. He drew the well-worn toy to him, sitting back on his heels as he wrapped both arms around the bear and hugged Kukalaka to his aching chest.

Julian struggled to his feet, misery washing over him in waves. He could hear her voice and all the awful things she had said. He could feel the pain of the loss of a relationship he had not yet technically ended, and the dread of the day when he would have to do so. His heart ached for what might have been, and for what never could, and it ached for the little cadet out on the grounds, and whatever secret demons he was carrying to bed across campus. It was all too much to cope with, too much for one person to bear.

He reached his bed at last, and crawled beneath the covers, holding Kukalaka tighter still. He choked out the command that dimmed the lights and plunged him into darkness, and he lay there, hot tears trickling from tightly closed eyes. He hugged his bear, the one remnant of the little boy he once had been before strangers on an alien world had taken him, changed him, violated the very essence of his being, and made him this. Kukalaka had been the one constant in his life, with him when he was small and bewildered and innocent; with him at the hospital on Adigeon Prime when even his mother had walked away; with him through the growing pains and the wild, wonderful days of discovery and the loneliness that came from being still too different, now too clever, to fit in with his peers. With him at fifteen, when his world had imploded, and he had been left with no one to trust, now he could no longer trust his parents. And with him now, as he tried to find the courage to go out again this evening and face the world that would label him a monster, and would strip him of everything that mattered, if it ever learned the truth that lurked in his genes.

Julian drew up his knees and tucked his arms, curling his whole body around Kukalaka's familiar, reassuring softness. Desperate and exhausted, he held his bear and waited, in vain, for the pain to go away.

(fade)

Chapter Text

Note: For those who need to be wary of such content, this chapter contains depictions and discussion of self-harm.

Chapter IX: The Night Shift

Julian did not remember falling asleep, but once he was under he slumbered uninterrupted until the computer announced, in its calm feminine voice, "The time is 1800 hours."

He groaned softly and began to uncurl his rounded back and huddled limbs. Julian ached from lying too long in one position: he did not seem to have moved at all during the night. Kukalaka was still in his arms, his sweet, familiar face somewhat squashed from being clutched so tight. Julian rolled onto his back, tented his knees, and braced the bear against his thighs like an easel. Gently, lovingly, he worked the stuffing back into its proper shape. Kukalaka's sculpted nose, the velvet long since rubbed away, and his tiny quirked mouth of red felt, gave his snout an expression of almost ironical affability that Julian loved. His black eyes glittered in the warm light of late afternoon, shining through a window over which Julian had in his distress forgotten to close the blind.

"The time is 1802 hours," the computer intoned insistently. Julian had forgotten to acknowledge the alarm.

"I'm up, I'm up," he grumbled. It didn't matter what you said, but you had to say something or the infernal machine would keep offering reminders at a preset interval until the end of time. When he'd shared quarters with Erit, Julian had learned that the Andorian was an accomplished sleeptalker: he could say enough to disable the computer's snooze function without ever getting nearer to consciousness than Stage 2 sleep. It was an impressive trick, but it had made him late for more than a few labs and lectures over the years.

Julian really did have to get up. He had an hour until he was due in the Infirmary for his duty shift, and he would have to get something to eat beforehand. His stomach was pinched and grumbling, and he had a headache of the kind he ascribed to going too long without food: the pastries and fruit in Paris had been almost eighteen hours ago, and it had hardly been a hearty meal. Still, he dreaded facing the mess hall with its gossiping crowds. They'd almost certainly be talking about Saturday's attack upon the Moab colonist — assuming there hadn't been any more sensational developments in Ghent since. If there had been, Julian was too cowardly to look. He rolled out of bed and refused even to look at his workstation as he padded to the closet to put Kukalaka away.

He laid his bear gently in the lockbox, which he'd lined with a square of fluffy flannel in a fit of sentimentality some years before. He knew he was too old to be making up a cosy bed for an inanimate object — but then again, he was also too old to be clinging to a security toy in the dead of night. Julian didn't care. Palis's tirade had cut him off from the one reliable source of human consolation in his life, and he had to find comfort somewhere.

A small, sad smile touched his lips as he adjusted Kukalaka's plump little arms and then planted the tip of his finger on the bear's nose. "You don't care that I'm unnatural, do you, old chum?" he asked. And Kukalaka, as he always did, gazed up in his cordial way that seemed to say no one in the Galaxy could be more worthy of love than his owner.

It was just an emotional projection, informed by the countless children's stories about anthropomorphic toys, but it made Julian feel less hopeless, less bitterly alone, than he had felt coming back from Paris. He closed the box carefully and reset the elaborate locking algorithm. Then he got to his feet and fished out a clean uniform.

(fade)

It was peak activity time in the mess hall on the ground floor of the Medical Academy dormitory tower. Julian could hear the buzz of animated conversation as soon as he stepped off of the turbolift, and he saw at once that almost every table was full of students leaning in to gossip in eager, fascinated tones. A shiver ran up his spine: it had to be a new development, then, and he couldn't bear to speculate what it might be. He wasn't sure how the situation could possibly get worse for the genetically enhanced colonists in Belgium, but he did not doubt that was the case. There was no sense of outrage in the room, as there would have been if something had happeend to favour the colonists: only an air of fascination and shock and morbid curiosity.

Julian forced himself to close his ears to the voices, blurring them all into one droning buzz, as he joined the line for the replicators. Ravenous though he was, he also felt vaguely nauseous and food no longer seemed appealing. When his turn came at one of the units, he ordered one of his reliable stand-byes for those occasions he needed a substantial meal that would keep him satiated for a prolonged period of time: a chicken thigh with ginger curry glaze on a bed of plump-grained Norpin rice and shaved radish. A tall glass of water, sorely needed after such a long, deep sleep, rounded out the meal, and Julian took his tray away from the replicators, scanning the room in vain for an unoccupied table.

"Bashir! Over here!" Erit's voice drifted over the drone of a dozen conversations. He waved from the far side of the room, where he was seated at a table with one vacant chair. Simultaneously grateful to be able to sit with someone who enjoyed his company, and disheartened by the knowledge that now talk would be completely unavoidable, Julian made his way across and set down his tray.

"Where have you been all day? I've been looking for you," Erit said as Julian slid into the empty place. The other two chairs were also occupied by familiar faces: Cadet Nawrell, whom Julian hadn't known was friendly with Erit, and Cadet T'Priel, who was near the top of their graduating class. Nawrell smiled warmly, and the Vulcan offered a courteous nod.

"Sleeping," Julian said honestly. "I'm on duty in the Infirmary tonight."

"Excellent," said T'Priel coolly. "Then I can expect the files to be in good order tomorrow. On my last shift, I was scheduled after Cadet Lucier. His record-keeping is… substandard."

The arc of her brow imbued that ordinarily only mildly disapproving word with a weight of blistering criticism. Julian couldn't help but feel a little smug satisfaction at that. After their encounter the other day, Julian was not exactly feeling charitable towards Bruce Lucier. He sawed off a piece of chicken and raised it to his mouth eagerly, suddenly famished again.

The welcome flavour of the meat turned to ash, however, when Erit turned to him and said; "Then you haven't heard!"

Julian forced himself to swallow, rather than allowing himself to choke on his dread. "Heard what?" he said, his heart sinking. Those poor people: what had befallen them while he'd been trying to sleep away his heartache?

Erit looked at Nawrell, who nodded hurriedly. T'Priel was watching her fork as it quested through her salad for choice morsels, but she, too, was clearly anticipating Julian's response to whatever the news might be. Erit leaned on one elbow, and his voice was equal measures eagerness and solemnity as he said, "The Nova Squadron inquiry has reached a verdict. The squad captain's been expelled."

It took Julian a moment to make sense of the words. Nova Squadron? The flight accident. The dead cadet. But Erit's words didn't make sense. Starfleet Academy wasn't in the business of scapegoating survivors. "What?" said Julian, completely baffled.

"I know!" Erit breathed in an astounded whisper. He continued a little more audibly, but still with the frantic pace of an underground newsrunner in wartime. "One of the pilots confessed: Nova Squadron wasn't following their flight plan. They were trying to execute a Kolvoord Starburst, and one cadet lost his nerve and collided with the next ship, which collided with the next one, and so on. And all four of them lied, and tried to cover it up!"

Julian was speechless. What Erit was saying was incredible enough: the idea of Starfleet cadets lying to conceal a comrade's cause of death was nothing short of horrifying. But he also couldn't quite get his head around the fact that this must be what everyone was discussing tonight. It was far more sensational, far more rumour-worthy, than the goings-on a third of the planet away. The Moab IV colonists could not possibly compete for the attention of the Academy populace when a scandal of this magnitude had broken in the heart of campus. Now that he troubled to listen, he could hear the eddies of opinion and speculation all around him.

"…heard Admiral Brand was furious. She thought she had no choice but to let them off with a reprimand, but then…"

"…absolutely disgraceful! Who do they think they are, lying to the administration like that? If you ask me…"

"…course they didn't expel Crusher, not with his connections! He's Captain Picard's protégé, you know. Helmsman of the flagship with a field commission…"

"…Albert's poor father! Can you imagine?"

"…thought he walked on water. But I never liked him. Ever got a good look at Nova Squadron? Four out of five were human — only one variety of human, at that! Locarno hand-picked them all…"

Erit snapped his fingers under Julian's nose. "Bashir?" he said, and not for the first time.

Julian blinked at him. "Sorry…" he muttered, trying to rally his wits. "They tried to execute a what?"

"A Kolvoord Starburst," Nawrell said breathlessly. She set down her utensils and held up her hands, two fingers extended on the left and three on the right. She brought them in towards each other, interlacing them as she spoke. "Five ships in a ring. They cross within ten metres of each other and fly off in a new direction, igniting their plasma trails as they go. It's spectacular but very dangerous!"

"It has been banned at Starfleet Academy for almost a century," said T'Priel with icy disapproval. "And for good reason. The last time it was attempted, during preparations for the celebration of the successful ratification of the Khitomer Accords, the result was also a catastrophic collision. On that occasion, all five cadets were killed, instead of one. The surviving members of Nova Squadron are fortunate."

"I'll say they are," said Erit. "Crusher and the two women, anyway. They all could have been expelled. Not really sure why they weren't."

T'Priel cocked her head and lifted her eyebrow almost to her hairline. "I meant they are fortunate to be alive, Mister Erit," she said. "Nicholas Locarno may have lost his place at the Academy, but he still has his life. Something Cadet Albert can never regain."

Erit's antenna twitched in irritation, but he managed to keep most of it off his face and out of his voice. "Yes, of course," he said. "Still, I can't even imagine getting expelled just on the verge of commencement like that, can you? All those wasted years…"

Julian didn't want to think of that. He particularly did not want to imagine being called up before an inquiry panel of his own, as he might have been if he had failed to carry off the ruse of affection with Palis last night. If his own secret ever came out, expulsion would only be the beginning.

He drove that thought from his mind and tried to focus on his meal, while the others carried on with the disjointed and probably not entirely accurate details of the Nova Squadron investigation. Listening to them, and to the whirlwind of like conversations all around him, Julian was sure of one thing: no one but he even remembered the existence of the Moab IV colonists today.

(fade)

Sunday nights in the Academy Infirmary were almost always quiet. That was unfortunate, because if there was ever a night when Julian needed a crowd of rowdy drunks or an epidemic of Cartalian Fever, this was it. Instead, he treated one first-year cadet for menstrual pain, diagnosed a teaching assistant with allergic rhinitis, and administered the third infusion in Professor T'Vrok's immunotherapy series. Doctor Shirakawa was in her office, filing reports: available if her resident had need of her, but content to let him run the Infirmary until then. She never hovered over him as she did some of his classmates. She never had need.

Julian updated the patient charts, downloaded the latest supplement for the Interplanetary Pharmacopeia into the database, and reorganized the drawers of the instrument carts. He checked on the one inpatient in the clinic: an unfortunate casualty of yesterday's Parrises Squares intramurals, under observation after the repair of a crushed lumbar vertebrae. The cadet in question didn't even need fresh ice chips, much less medical attention: Nurse Petrakis had the matter well in hand. Julian inventoried the linens. He sterilized the bedpans. He defragmented the active memory on the replicator.

By then it was only 0100 hours, and he had nothing left to do but think.

It had been almost a day now since he'd parted from Palis, and the wound was still fresh: raw and open and as painful as any plasma burn. He sat behind the intake desk, staring with unseeing eyes at the resting computer display, and trying to will the anguish away. She hadn't meant to hurt him. She had only meant to share her views with the man she loved, whom she had naturally assumed would agree with every word. She trusted him. She thought she loved him.

She had eviscerated him.

Julian could feel the warmth of her breath on his throat, a hot wind out of some unthinkable hell instead of the usual tropical caress. His flank and his nipple and his jaw burned with the shameful memory of her fondling fingers. Where her cheek had rested in the hollow of the opposite shoulder, he felt bruised and brutalized. On his lips, he could taste the sour memory of their parting kiss.

Julian buried his head in his hands, scrubbing at his eyes as if he could scour away the image of her upturned face, dainty and heart-shaped and milky pale. As if he could obliterate her adoring expression as she nuzzled nearer to him and murmured sweet words that could never outweigh the hatred she'd spilled at the viewscreen.

He felt a sudden wave of nausea that drew him up to attention in the chair. He gripped the armrest, bracing himself as he fought it. Julian swallowed hard against a sickly-sweet flood of saliva, and then crumpled forward over the desk, driving his fingers deep into his scalp and clawing fistfuls of hair as though he could rip these memories from his mind by the roots.

Just then, the perimeter alert chime sounded, and Julian straightened, hurriedly smoothing his hair and tugging his uniform in an attempt to look respectable. He forced his face firmly into its calm, professional lines. You're almost a doctor, damn it. Act like one! he admonished himself.

The door to the infirmary slid open, and a young woman came in. She was clad in a long, dusky green nightgown, her bare feet hastily shoved into a pair of standard-issue uniform boots. Her hair was blond and very long, spilling haphazardly out of its elaborately braided coiffure. She was clutching her left hand, wrapped in a towel liberally streaked with bright red blood. Her face was very pale, her lips were white, and her eyes were enormous with shock and pain.

Immediately, Julian rose to his feet and went to her, hands outstretched at the ready. She was swaying, and she looked likely to faint. She faltered as he drew too near, and he froze, watching her.

"It's all right," he said, calm and reassuring. "I'm here to help you. I see you've hurt your hand."

Her lower lip trembled. Now he noticed the ridges on her nose: she was Bajoran. There were only a handful of Bajoran cadets at the Academy: it wasn't a Federation world. "Are you the doctor?" she asked.

"I'm a resident," he said. "Cadet Bashir. Come on, let's get you to a bed."

He closed the distance between them cautiously, ready to stop if she showed the least sign of skittishness. Instead she took a lurching step towards him, and he took her elbow, reaching behind with his other hand to support the other one. He led her towards the nearest triage bed, but she balked, pressing against him. Beneath the flimsy cotton garment, her skin was very cold.

"Don't you… is there anywhere more private?" she whispered. Her voice cracked and she added, almost sobbing; "Please?"

"Of course," Julian said gently. He made a course correction and guided her into Procedure Room Delta. As he helped her over the threshold, he called back over his shoulder; "Nurse? Can you mind the desk? I'm with a patient."

An affirmative acknowledgement came from the surgical suite in the back, and Julian could hear Nurse Petrakis approaching. He cleared the doorway and instructed the computer to close the door. Helping the wounded young woman up onto the biobed, he asked; "Is that better?"

She nodded unsteadily. She was staring down at her wrapped hand. A wet blossom of blood was soaking through the towel, darker and fresher than the other streaks. "It's so silly," she said, in a giddy way that told him she was fighting off panic. "I was working with the hyperspanner, fine-tuning a torpedo guidance circuit, and my hand slipped…"

She had been fine-tuning a torpedo guidance circuit in her nightgown? That seemed improbable. Julian pulled the instrument tray closer to the bed with one hand, while the other opened a fresh chart on the computer console above the bed. "What's your name and rank?" he asked.

"Cadet Sito," she said, drawing in an unsteady breath and clearly trying to compose herself. "Sito Jaxa. Sito… Sito is…"

"Your surname," Julian supplied reflexively, when he saw her groping to explain. Her eyes flicked to him, momentarily astonished out of their anxious blankness into an expression of mild surprise. He smiled at her, his best confident, physician's smile. He hadn't smiled on his own account in over twenty-four hours, but for a patient, it was easy. "You're Bajoran," he said, expounding upon his understanding. "Bajorans honour their heritage by putting family names before the individual ones. It's a beautiful way to show respect for your forebearers."

She gave a tiny, tremulous nod, and then hung her head. "I don't think my forebearers would be honoured to have me use their name tonight."

Julian's lips parted in sudden understanding, and his fingers paused momentarily as he typed in her name. Sito Jaxa. She was one of the Nova Squadron pilots. He'd heard her name at least a dozen times at supper, not once in a favourable light.

He wasn't about to say that to his patient. "What's your service number?" he asked.

"TS-590-247," she recited, with the rote crispness of long habit. Julian verified he had the right file, and nodded.

"It doesn't look like you have any allergies or medical conditions," he said, taking in the totality of her history in a glance. A sprained ankle last spring, a case of Levodian influenza during the campus outbreak two years ago, treatment for assorted contusions and minor injuries associated with training exercises. In her first year, she had been on a regimen of nutrient supplements that had been first titrated, then tapered, but there was no pharmacotherapy on record since, not even contraception. "No current medications. Is that all up to date?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"All right, then, Cadet," he said bracingly, opening the medical tricorder and unclipping the scanning wand. "I'm going to take a look. No, just keep holding pressure there," he instructed as she started to move her good hand away from the makeshift dressing. "I'd like to get a little more information before we move anything."

The scanner began to hum, its sound both familiar and reassuring. The whole situation was reassuring. He had a patient to focus on, someone outside of himself to care for; another person's needs to tend, when he couldn't cope with his own. And he had reassured her, calmed her, and got her safely onto the biobed. He was doing good work. Worthy work.

Work that might one day justify your existence…

She had a deep laceration of the webbing between finger and thumb, slicing well into the adductor pollicis and nicking the index branch of the radial artery. Julian kept his face pleasant and calm, even though alarms were sounding in his diagnostic mind. A hyperspanner had done this? Only if she'd been holding it to her hand deliberately.

"You've got a nasty cut," he said conversationally; "but nothing I can't put right. It's good you came promptly."

She was staring into her lap, transfixed by the bloodstains on the towel. "I tried to stop the bleeding," she said, almost dreamily. "It just wouldn't stop."

He glanced up from the tricorder screen. Her face had gone from pale to ashen, and there were beads of perspiration trickling into the first nasal cleft. "Time to lie down," he said briskly, laying aside the tricorder and bracing her shoulders with his left hand while the right closed over her grasping fingers, stabilizing the injured limb beneath. "Easy, now. Just lie back slowly. I've got you."

She let him guide her into a supine position, swinging her legs up of her own accord. She hitched her hips into a more comfortable alignment, and he adjusted the firm foam pillow to support her head.

"May I take out this comb?" he asked, seeing one of her delicate hair accoutrements was oriented at an awkward angle, probably stabbing her scalp.

She nodded wordlessly. She had abandoned her hold on her wounded hand: her right arm was outstretched as she tried to tug down her nightgown further down her legs. Sliding onto the bed had rucked up the hem almost to her knees. The movement to adjust it was anxious, almost defensive. Julian noted this with concern, trying to recall Bajoran standards of modesty. Then he thought he understood. According to her file, she had been born on Bajor itself. If she had also grown up there, a beautiful adolescent girl on a planet overrun with Cardassian soldiers…

"Would you prefer a female doctor?" he asked gently. "My supervisor, Doctor Shirakawa, is just in the other room."

To his surprise, fear instead of relief lanced through Cadet Sito's eyes. "She's a senior officer?" she asked.

Julian nodded. "She holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander."

The young woman screwed her eyes tightly shut and gave another taut little nod. She had expected as much. "I'd rather you take care of it," she said. "If… if you don't mind."

He forced a little chuckle. "Of course I don't mind," he said. He took a pair of gloves from the tray and snapped them on deftly. "Now… may I call you Jaxa, or do you prefer Cadet Sito?"

Her eyes flicked to his face again, puzzled. "Jaxa… Jaxa's fine," she said. Then, fragilely; "Don't you know what happened?"

Julian deliberately misunderstood her. "You said a hyperspanner slipped," he said. He picked up the autosuture without even glancing at the tray, and started to unwrap the towel. "Don't worry: I'll have you fighting fit in a few minutes."

"I meant the inquiry," she said softly. "Admiral Brand's verdict. I thought… I thought it would be all over campus by now."

"It probably is," Julian allowed, knowing it would do no good to lie to her. "Word travels fast around here."

Word travels fast around here. What an understatement. Gossip passed from mouth to mouth faster than a Priority 1 subspace transmission. Sensational or scandalous tidings travelled faster still. The Nova Squadron verdict had come down in mid-afternoon. By now, it would be halfway to Sacramento — and that was just accounting for the overland route. It terrified Julian, sometimes, how quickly such news travelled. If anyone ever worked out his own secret, it would be common knowledge throughout the Academy before he had any hope of damage control.

"Don't you… doesn't it disgust you? What we did?" his patient asked.

Julian lifted his gaze from the last layer of gore-stained terrycloth, and met her eyes steadily. They were misted with unshed tears and poisoned with self-loathing. He would have told his patient what she needed to hear regardless, but in this case it happened to be the truth.

"No," he said soothingly. "It doesn't disgust me. I don't know any of the details: only the rumours. It's not for me to judge."

She closed her eyes hurriedly, and her whole chest hitched with the effort of drawing in a breath. Julian turned his attention back to the hand. The blood was seeping through the towel, wetting the fingertips of his gloves. He removed the last fold, baring the ugly wound. He frowned, then reached for the hypospray loaded with the neural blocking agent. He knew he had the right one, but he tipped it anyway, reading the label on the vial. He always double-checked. It was standard procedure, but it was also common sense.

"I'm going to freeze your arm," he said, reaching across to apply the device to her far shoulder. "It'll feel cold, and very heavy, but there's no reason for you to be in pain while I work."

"Maybe I should feel it," she mumbled, casting her head away from him. Misery radiated off her like a forty-three degree fever. "It's my fault."

He had a feeling she wasn't talking about the laceration. "You're not going to feel it," he said resolutely. "Not in my Infirmary."

She made a muffled sound that might have been a nervous half-laugh. "I thought you said you're a resident," she said thinly.

"I am. It's my last semester." He depressed the hypo against her arm, pressuring-in the medication through sleeve and skin and muscle to the nerve. "Nine weeks from now, I'll be a real doctor."

He uttered that eager little boast in a joking tone, hoping to amuse her further. Surely amusement was preferable to whatever darkness swirled in her heart tonight. He couldn't imagine being in her position, culpable in the death of a classmate because of a reckless accident. He had lost patients — by the end of their program, any properly trained medical student had. But that was different: he had done everything he could for each one of them, not cast away their lives on what amounted to a dare.

That was perilously close to casting judgement. Julian closed his mind firmly to the thought and focused on the young woman before him: frightened, vulnerable, and in far more pain than could be attributed to her physical hurts.

"Then it's not really your Infirmary, is it?" she asked, surprising him pleasantly with the note of teasing in her voice. She even dared a fragile ghost of a smile.

"No," Julian allowed appreciatively. "I suppose it's not. But I'm still in charge of your care, and I won't leave a patient in pain while I work. Do you feel that?" He pinched the fleshy part of her forearm, four centimetres below the crease of her elbow.

"No…" She sounded surprised, and she lifted her head from the pillow to look.

"It's still there, I promise," Julian said. He flattened her hand gently and explored the edges of the wound. He frowned. No cauterization, no signs of scorching. A hyperspanner hadn't done this. This was the work of a knife.

"What did you say happened to your hand?" he asked, leaning in closer and blotting away some of the blood to clear the field.

"I was reprogramming a field core modulator…" she began, then stopped, trying to remember the previous lie. She had lost a lot of blood: at least three hundred millilitres on the towel alone, and who knew how much before she had wrapped it. She was probably lightheaded and faint, struggling to think clearly.

Julian adjusted the autosuture, and sealed the hole in the artery. The smaller blood vessels could wait while he got a better look at the damage. "You don't need to give me a story," he said, gently reassuring. "I can see it was done with a knife. A very sharp one. If it was an accident, that's fine. I just need to know whether you did it yourself, or if someone else did it to you."

"Did it to me?" Cadet Sito sounded incredulous. Her head snapped up, and a fog of dizziness filled her eyes. She laid it back down gingerly and sighed as she stared up at the instruments above the bed. "No, it was just an accident. I was cooking…"

She said it uncertainly. She hadn't been cooking. Julian could only imagine one reason she might lie: to protect her assailant. "I can call Security and have them investigate," he warned, trying to make it sound like a negotiation, not a threat. He had her best interests at heart, and he hoped she understood that. "If someone attacked you because of what happened with Nova Squadron…"

"No one attacked me!" she cried, anguished and alarmed. Suddenly, he believed her "No one… they've said some awful things. Cadet Ferny spat on me. But nobody's actually hurt me."

Her eyes were tightly closed again, and Julian looked slowly up from his work, horrified. Someone had spat on her? At Starfleet Academy?

Then again, he remembered the footage from the waterfront in Ghent. Flying fists and boots, snarled obscenities. Earth was supposed to be a paradise, a lush and peaceful utopia. But it was a utopia populated by mortals, and some of them were capable of tremendous cruelty.

"Cadet, that's assault," he murmured. "You should report that."

She shook her head frantically. "Reporting it would only make it worse." Her voice was rigid with the effort of holding back tears. When she spoke again, it was in a broken whisper. "I didn't want to do it. The Kolvoord Starburst. Cadet Albert wasn't the only one with doubts. But Cadet Locarno said…"

Her voice trailed off and she pressed her lips together so that they vanished in a thin, white line. Julian wanted to console her, but he didn't know what to say. He had noticed that she was referring to her squad-mates formally, by rank and surname, and he wondered what to make of that.

"You don't owe my any explanations," he said soothingly. He kept his eyes on his work, repairing the fissure in the muscle and meticulously aligning the severed nerves as he went. "Just try to relax. I'll be finished soon."

"No, you don't understand," she said mournfully. "I… Doctor, have you ever done anything because you were afraid to speak up for yourself?"

Julian's hand went very still. He stilled it, because he feared that otherwise it might have faltered. He could feel the warm, smooth palm against his breastbone, delicate fingers toying with his skin. He felt his skin crawl with shame and dread as she kissed his earlobe and whispered to him. Mmm. Mon trésor, encore une fois…

No! he commanded himself sharply. That wasn't the sort of thing he could afford to think about while he was in the presence of a patient, let alone actually treating someone! It was unprofessional and unacceptable and reprehensible.

Julian forced a slow, steady breath, and focused on engaging his patient. Clearly she needed to talk; she was anguished and surely traumatized. Fixing his mind on the strategies he had learned in his psychiatry rotation, he offered her the reassurance that she was not alone in this very universal experience.

"Yes, I suppose I have," he said, relieved at the measured calm of his voice. "It's difficult to speak up for yourself sometimes."

"I wanted to be the best," she sighed. She was blinking very rapidly as she stared up at the ceiling. "It was the only way to get out: I had to be the best. The cleverest, the quickest, the bravest. I tried to be the strongest, but I'm too small." She tucked her chin to look down at her body with a sad little twitch of the lips. "Luckily, the Academy doesn't focus on physical strength."

"A good thing, too," Julian agreed. "Or all they'd have in their recruiting pool would be Vulcans and Gorn." And freaks like you, an inner voice taunted.

She managed a tiny giggle. "And Klingons?" she added. "There's a Klingon serving on the Enterprise. Lieutenant Worf, Chief of Security." The little light of amusement doused itself. "I was the best," she whispered. "I got out. The Captain of the Cairo only sponsors one non-citizen to the Academy each year. He picked me."

"You should be very proud," Julian said. He returned the autosuture to the tray and picked up the dermal regenerator. He started with the deepest layer of skin tissue, knitting it slowly and smoothly back together. "The Academy entrance exams are gruelling, even for people who grew up in the Federation school system."

"Like you?" asked Jaxa, surprising him with the question.

He glanced up at her. "Me?"

"Did you grow up in the Federation school system?"

She seemed to be vacillating between a desire to talk about the things weighing so heavily on her heart, and to make inconsequential conversation. He could adapt to either: speak to your patient as your patient speaks to you.

"I did," he agreed. "Mostly on Earth, but I spent some time on the Moon. And almost a year on Invernia II."

"I don't know that world," she said thoughtfully.

"No reason you should," said Julian. "It's an unaffiliated planet near the Romulan Neutral Zone. It's very pretty. Vast rainforests."

"Bajor's pretty, too," she murmured, and her voice broke. "The parts of it that are still like they used to be. But the rest… the strip mining, the labour camps, the garrisons, ruined cities, poisoned farmland…"

She was perilously near tears, and trying to fight them off. Julian groped for a distraction. "Jaxa? Can you close your eyes and touch your right index finger to your nose for me?" he asked, moving his arm so that she could free hers.

"My nose?" she echoed unsteadily, surprised and still grappling for control.

"Yes, please," Julian said. "Just touch your finger to your nose, three times in a row."

She obeyed him. The movement caused her other hand to shift a little, but he was ready for that, and the dermal regenerator followed her seamlessly. "Like this?" she asked. Her voice was more level now. She was engaged instead of distressed.

"Very good," he said. "Now tug your ear lobes, one at a time?"

She complied. Out of the corner of his eye, Julian noticed that only the right one was pierced. He was more interested in the set of her mouth, which had relaxed a little out of its anguished tautness.

"Now see if you can pull out one of your hairpins without opening your eyes," he said.

She reached up and felt around in her soft, golden waves of hair. She found one of the little combs and drew it out, opening one eye to peer almost impishly at him. "Doctor, are you trying to see if I'm drunk?" she asked.

Julian grinned sheepishly, although he had been doing nothing of the sort. It had primarily been a distraction tactic, with the added benefit of reassuring him she was not too far impaired by loss of blood. "You're not," he allowed.

"No," she said. Then she sighed, letting her arm fall back onto the biobed. She looked very weary. "Cadet Locarno — former Cadet Locarno — is probably drunk by now. I wish…" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "I know what he did was wrong, but he believed in me. When he picked me for Nova Squadron, I was so proud and happy. I thought, this is it. You've done it. You're the best. I was so grateful. I was the only non-human he picked, you know."

Julian did know. The homogenous majority of this year's Nova Squadron had attracted criticism from the Tellarite Resource Centre and several of the informal clubs for off-world cadets. But according to tradition, the squadron captain had the firm authority to appoint whomever he chose, so all that anyone could really do was hope his successor would rectify the situation. The assumption, until today, was that one of the two Cadets Second Class on the current squad would replace him: either Jean Hajar or Sito Jaxa. Julian supposed that wasn't the case anymore.

"I couldn't say no to him," Jaxa sighed. "I couldn't. He was so excited, and Cadet Crusher thought it was a brilliant idea — he was helmsman on the Enterprise, did you know that? Acting Ensign at fifteen… he's been out there. He's done the things we're all trying to learn to do."

The awe in her voice was plain. She had admired her teammates enormously. Julian adjusted the settings on the instrument in his hand, and started work on her transitional dermis. "I understand he's an unusual case," he said.

She nodded. "And I'm just a Bajoran. Some people say I don't belong here." A shudder rippled through her body. "I suppose that's what everyone is saying now."

Julian hoped that wasn't true. He was afraid it might be. Not because of her species, of course, but because of the accident and the subsequent cover-up. "It sounds to me like you belong here," he said. It was something he longed to hear himself, but he couldn't even dare to voice his doubt. "You've had to overcome a lot to earn your place. One mistake doesn't change that."

"It almost did," she whispered, pressing her lips together so forcefully that they went white. "They wanted to expel all of us, but Cadet Locarno took responsibility. I heard… I heard he told them it was his fault because he was squadron captain. He said he was the one who convinced us to try the Starburst. And he said he was the one who told us to lie."

"Wasn't he?" asked Julian.

"No!" she cried, raising her head to emphasize the word. She sagged back against the pillow. "Yes. I mean, yes and no. The manoeuvre was his idea. But… but he didn't have to tell anyone to lie." A shudder ripped through her, and Julian had to lift his thumb from the control pad of the dermal regenerator, interrupting the beam so it didn't go awry. "I did everything I had to in order to get here," she said. "I was prepared to to anything I had to in order to stay. Even lie about what happened to Josh."

It was the first time she'd used any of her comrades' given names. A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye as she sucked in a spasmodic breath. "I was willing to lie in order to stay in Starfleet," she said. "Starfleet. It's an institution built on truth and integrity, and I was prepared to betray that just so I could stay."

Julian's mouth was very dry. He readjusted his hold on her hand, and reactivated the instrument, fixing his eyes and his mind on his work. It was better than thinking too hard about what she was saying.

"Cadet Crusher, Wesley, he told the truth. Nobody had to force his hand. We would have gotten away with a reprimand, but that would have been wrong." She closed her eyes again, clearly fighting the urge to weep. "They've voided our academic credits: we each have to repeat this last year. B-but we can stay. I can stay."

Julian adjusted the frequency of the beam and started his final pass, the one that would mend her epidermis and seal the wound without a trace.

"That seems like a harsh penalty," he said softly. He couldn't even imagine it. Kept back while the rest of the class advanced? Forced to repeat classes when you'd already learned everything a professor had to teach? And the humiliation of it…

"I know I should be grateful," Jaxa said. "I am grateful. But…"

"But it's going to be hard," he murmured.

"Yes!" It was almost a cry, taut and pained. "I could bear it, if people weren't so… disgusted by me. I tried to get supper in the South Lawn Mess, and they all just…"

She shuddered again. This time he was prepared, and followed the movement without interrupting the work of the dermal regenerator. "Is that where they spat on you?" Julian asked. He felt hot, horrible rage on her behalf. Whatever mistakes she had made, whatever her failings, nobody deserved that kind of abasement.

She nodded. "Cadet Ferny, he was Josh's friend ever since they were little boys. They grew up together in Canada. I can't blame him: I got his friend killed."

"It sounds to me like it was a decision the whole squadron made," Julian corrected gently. She might not be able to take comfort in that now, but maybe it would help her later. "You said Cadets Locarno and Crusher were pushing for the manoeuvre, even though they knew it was dangerous. Knew it was banned."

"Cadet Hajar, too," said Jaxa. "And I didn't say a word. Josh was the only one brave enough to object. I knew it was too dangerous, I knew it was foolish, but I didn't say a word. Maybe if I had, if it'd been two against three, maybe…"

"You can't dwell on the maybes," said Julian. "You'll make yourself sick. There! Good as new."

He released her hand, and she lifted it in front of her face, looking in quiet amazement at the flawless, new-healed flesh where a few minutes ago there had been a gaping wound.

"You can't even tell I cut it," she said in quiet awe. "Back home, it would've taken weeks to heal, if it didn't get infected and cost me my whole hand."

Julian's brows furrowed at this. He knew the situation on Bajor was bleak, and that the Cardassians' brutal rule made it difficult to obtain the necessities of life. But the idea that a simple laceration, even such a deep and ugly one, could result in amputation was horrifying. Where were the doctors? Where were the aid workers who were supposed to go to ravaged worlds?

Kept out by the Cardassians, of course. He really did take for granted the freedom and peace he'd been born into. He didn't think it was wrong to feel that way: peace and freedom were things everyone should be able to take for granted. But clearly for Sito Jaxa that wasn't the case.

He reached into the instrument tray and found one of the packets that contained a damp, sterile cloth. He broke the seal and took it out. Julian could have simply used the sonic sterilizer, but he thought there was value in the more tactile approach. She needed reassurance. Touch, even purposeful touch, was reassuring.

"Here, let me clean you up a little," he offered, reaching for her wrist again. She gave him her hand and watched as he wiped it gently clean, exerting steady pressure as he worked. He paid careful attention to the webs between her fingers and the creases on her palm. As the streaks of drying blood were transferred to the pale blue cloth, she shivered.

"Why are you being so kind?" she asked. He took her other hand, and started cleaning it as well.

"You're my patient," Julian said, mildly surprised by the question. The answer seemed so self-evident.

"That means you have to treat me," Jaxa argued. "It doesn't mean you have to be good to me. Comfort me. Wash me." She nodded at the cloth.

He offered a small half-smile and shrugged, self-effacing. "It's only a courtesy," he said.

She shook her head. "It's not. No one else… even Wes and Jean won't look at me or talk to me. Why is that? I understand everyone hates us, but why do we have to hate each other?"

"Do you hate them?" Julian asked. He tossed the cloth into the laundry bin and heard the biohazard shield hiss closed behind it. He got up from his stool and went to the dispensary cupboard.

"Of course not," Jaxa whispered. "We were all in it together. It was… it was real. Like really being in Starfleet. Even though we were lying, hiding, we were a team."

"Then why would you suppose they hate you, when you don't hate them?" Julian asked. He opened the drawer of blood product supplements and found a vial of ferritin protein suspension. She hadn't lost enough blood to need a transfusion, but she'd recover from her ordeal faster with a ready supply of new iron.

"I don't know…" Jaxa murmured. She sounded genuinely astonished at this realization. "But why won't they talk to me?"

Julian sighed softly. He thought he understood all too well. "They're feeling all the same things you are," he said. "They're frightened, humiliated, ashamed of themselves and what they did. Talking about it, or even spending time together, is going to bring all those feelings to the forefront. Maybe they're not ready yet. Give them time."

She looked at him, brows furrowed so that the first two creases of her nasal ridges seemed deeper than before. "Is that a human thing?" she asked. "Avoiding the people who know what you're going through?"

Julian thought of the Moab IV colonists, just a transporter trip away in Belgium. He'd been in Paris only twenty-four hours ago, and that was just a hopper ride away. He hadn't dared to make the trip. He hadn't even considered it, even though they might be the only people on the planet who knew what he had gone through. Was going through. Would go through, if the truth about him became known as the truth about them had.

"Sometimes," he said. He held up the hypospray so she could see it. "This is ferritin. It'll help your body recover from the blood loss."

"Thank you," Jaxa said, her voice very small.

He applied the device to her shoulder, pressuring the supplement into her deltoid muscle so that it could be distributed into her bloodstream gradually. Although the hypo was painless, he rubbed the sight gently with the side of his thumb. It would encourage increased circulation to the area. And the prior physical contact had calmed her noticeably. Perhaps this would be a comfort, too.

"I think you should lie there for a few more minutes and rest," he said. "You mentioned you tried to get supper — does that mean you didn't? I can bring you something to eat."

She shook her head. "Food would probably choke me right now, anyway," she said. "I'll try again at breakfast."

In her place, Julian wasn't certain he'd have the courage to try again. She'd have to face all the same people in the morning, or the same sort of people, anyway. By then, there wouldn't be a person on campus who didn't know the whole sordid tale.

"At least let me get you something sweet to drink," he tried. "After a loss of blood, it helps to get your serum sugars up again." She still looked reluctant, so Julian fixed her with a firm eye. "Doctor's orders."

"All right," she acquiesced with a little sigh.

He grinned. "Good. What's your pleasure?"

"Anything," she said. "Really. I'm not fussy."

He didn't imagine she was, having grown up on a world of famine and poverty. "I'm going to the replicator anyway," he said, putting a lilt in his voice to show he was in good humour. "You might as well tell me what you'd like best to drink."

From her expression, he could see she had to acknowledge the sense in this. "Papaya juice," she said. "Just papaya, not one of those cocktails with other equatorial fruits."

He was a little surprised by this. "Papaya juice?" he echoed. It was an unusual choice, and very specific.

She nodded. "It tastes almost like kava fruit," she says. "Looks like it, too. Two different fruits on two different worlds, sectors apart, one grows on a tree, one grows on a vine… how can they be so alike?"

"I don't know," Julian admitted. "Sounds like a question for a botanist."

Jaxa laughed, a small and tremulous sound as if she didn't feel she had a right to it. "Do you know any botanists? I'd love an answer."

"I don't," said Julian. "If I ever meet one, I'll be sure to ask. Lie back and relax. I'll be right back."

Out in the main chamber of the Infirmary, Nurse Petrakis was behind the desk. He looked up and grinned as Julian passed. "Everything in hand, Bashir?" he asked.

"Simple laceration," Julian said, moving to the replicator. "Just replenishing fluids now. The patient will be ready for discharge soon."

"You're the only resident I know who likes to prescribe sugary drinks," said the nurse, shaking his head and going back to his reading. "We're running an infirmary, not a café."

"Papaya juice, chilled," Julian said. The pillar of sparkling light appeared, and a tall glass of pulpy coral-coloured fluid appeared. To Nurse Petrakis, he said; "Treat the person, not the symptoms. First year medical school."

"Right," said Petrakis. "You've just got a pathological sweet tooth, and you're recruiting."

He was right about the sweet tooth, at least. Julian shrugged amiably and went back to the procedure room. Jaxa lay where he had left her, hands now folded over her diaphragm as she stared up at the ceiling.

"One papaya juice, as requested," Julian said. He held it out to her, and then used his left hand to help her sit up. She shifted on the biobed, pushing with her heels until she found a comfortable position, and then sitting with her legs curled slightly to the right as she took the glass and drank. Her eyes fluttered closed in a moment of rapturous pleasure.

"It's perfect," she said. A faint flush touched her cheeks as she explained; "Starfleet replicators don't seem to make any Bajoran food. It's not that I mind Federation food — I'm happy to eat it, I promise. It's just that sometimes…"

"Sometimes you'd like a little taste of home," Julian agreed, nodding. "I understand completely. My first year at the Academy, I couldn't find a replicator that made a decent syllabub."

"What's a syllabub?" asked Jaxa, genuinely curious.

"It's a sort of a dessert, made with cream and wine," said Julian. "It's an old English treat… there was a place in the city I grew up in that used to make it with real ingredients."

To say he grew up in Guildford was probably an exaggeration, but Julian had spent more years of his childhood there than anywhere else he could remember. And some of them had been the best years, too: between the ages of eleven and fifteen. His parents still lived there, which was probably why he didn't just call it home.

"Cream and wine?" Jaxa asked, wrinkling her nose.

Julian shrugged. "That's the English for you," he said. "In any case, I'm sure if you put in a requisition, Food Services would look into finding some patterns for Bajoran dishes. They're very accommodating."

"Maybe I'll do that," she said. But the studious way she looked down her nose into her glass, tucking her head to take another sip, told him she wouldn't. Maybe if he'd suggested the same thing two weeks ago she would have considered it. Now, she clearly didn't want to ask for any special consideration, or draw any attention to herself, not even from Food Services.

Julian took the opportunity while she was occupied with the juice to do one last quick appraisal of her condition. The colour was coming back to her cheeks and her lips. There were faint rings of fatigue under her eyes, probably the result of sleepless nights while the inquiry spun out its grim course. Her hand was completely restored to its natural state, and the other one, holding the glass, wasn't shaking. He made a quick sweep of the rest of her body, finishing at the incongruous sight of bare calves rising from highly polished uniform boots. Satisfied that all was well, he started to look away, when his eyes of their own accord moved back to her lap.

"There's blood on your nightgown," he said, his thought springing to his lips without consideration.

Jaxa looked down. There was indeed a stain on her lap, right in the valley between her thighs. It was about a third of the way down the length of her femur, shaped like a key from a Japanese maple. Her hand shot down to cover it, instinctively defensive.

"I must have dripped on my lap," she said, a little too quickly. "There was blood everywhere, Doctor: I'm going to have a lot of mopping up to do when I get back to my dormitory."

The stain was hidden from sight, but Julian had seen it clearly and his unnaturally flawless eidetic memory recalled every detail. There was feathering around the edges of the stain where blood had wicked into the fibres. It hadn't dripped onto the garment from above: it had soaked through from the inside.

"It's not from your hand, Jaxa," Julian said gently, coming up beside the biobed.

"Yes," she said. The hand holding the half-empty glass was trembling now. Ripples coursed across the surface of the papaya juice. "Yes, of course it is."

He caught her roving gaze and held it. "No," he said softly. "It isn't. You're still bleeding, aren't you? Your leg is bleeding."

"I don't…" she started. She tried again. "It's not… I mean…" She shook her head fractionally. "It's nothing," she chirped, her voice tiny and fragile. "It doesn't hurt."

Julian tilted his head, fixing her with a gentle, reproving expression. He saw her falter under his look, ashamed to be caught in a fib. There was fear in her eyes, too, but he could see she was wavering.

"Jaxa," he coaxed; "let me help you. Let me take a look."

She moved as if to comply, but found her right hand still full of the glass. She looked at it helplessly, almost frantically, and Julian gently took it away, setting it on the instrument tray without taking his eyes from her.

With a little tremor of dread, Jaxa reached down with both hands and gathered up the hem of her nightgown. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she drew it up to reveal her smooth knees, and then the first few centimetres of the slender white columns of her thighs. Julian watched with a clinician's eyes, ready to respond calmly and professionally to whatever he might see, as befit the physician he aspired to be.

What he saw when she finally rucked the garment up around her hips still smote him with dismay and empathy, though he hoped the former did not show on his face. Perpendicular to the plane of her left femur were three cuts, deep into the subcutaneous tissue on the inside of the thigh. Two of them were perfectly parallel to one another, and the third had started off that way before veering off in a haphazard tail. The wounds were already clotting, though both legs were streaked with blood.

Julian's lips parted soundlessly as he understood. He raised his eyes to his patient's face to find hers very bright, watching him warily. As their gazes met, she cast hers away, down into her lap. She closed her hands around twisted fistfuls of nightgown.

"Well, Doctor?" she said, very softly but with remarkable steadiness. "I suppose this is the end for me, isn't it?"

(fade)

Chapter Text

Note: For those who need to be wary of such content, this chapter contains depictions and discussion of self-harm.

My health problems are ongoing, and I am behind on my review replies. Please know I cherish all of your wonderful feedback, and it buoys my spirits. I'll reply as soon as I'm able! Thank you all!

Chapter X: Wounded Spirits

Julian reached calmly for the dermal regenerator. With a gloved fingertip, he traced the path of the curved wound, scant millimetres above her rent skin. "This is what happened to your hand?" he asked.

She nodded numbly. "The knife slipped," she said, very quietly. "It's never happened before. I was always so careful. But tonight… my hands were shaking, and I used too much force. I'm out of practice."

Now Julian could see the scars: dozens of them, perfect parallel lines striping both thighs. The medial aspect was clearly her site of choice, but there were scars on the lateral side of each leg as well. "These are all old scars," he said. "Years old."

"Yes." Jaxa's voice was fragile. "I haven't done it in ages, not since I left the camp. It… it used to take the pain away, at least for a little while."

"I see," said Julian softly. "And tonight?"

She made a strangled little sound in the back of her throat. "Tonight, after everything that's happened, I just… I needed some way to centre myself, some way to feel… something else. Anything else." She closed her eyes and sucked in a sobbing breath. "I'm not suicidal, Doctor. I promise."

Julian could not catch her gaze while her eyes were screwed shut like that, but he looked at her anguished face anyhow. Sincerity and genuine compassion were in his voice as he said; "I never for a moment thought you might be, Jaxa. Self-harm doesn't necessarily mean self-destruction. Quite the opposite, in many cases. For a lot of people, it's a mechanism for survival: proof they don't want to die, but want to go on living regardless of how painful it might be."

Her eyes shot open, wide with astonishment. "Yes!" she breathed. "Yes, that's just… how did you know that?"

Julian ventured a small half-smile. "I'm a doctor," he said. "Well, nearly. You're not the first patient I've treated who's used this coping strategy."

That was true, but he had never seen a patient who showed signs of such prolonged, sustained practice of the method. He supposed that was because within the Federation it was easy to obtain the means to heal such wounds without lasting scars. A couple of passes with a dermal regenerator could erase all evidence of ritualized cutting, and physicians were not the gatekeepers of that tool: every well-appointed first aid kit on the planet had one.

He'd never seen anyone cut themselves this deeply, either: her resolve was astonishing. And heartbreaking.

"The first thing we need to do is stop the bleeding, Jaxa," he said gently. "Bend your knee for me, please."

She did as she was asked, Julian slipping his hand behind her leg to draw it up into the necessary position. He stance next to the biobed so that he had a clean angle of approach. As he activated the instrument and set to work on the first of the perfectly straight wounds, she shivered.

"I thought I'd left this behind," she said. "I didn't… I knew I shouldn't… they— they'll put me on psychiatric leave, won't they?"

Julian couldn't deny it. In most situations, it was exactly what he would recommend himself. "That's standard procedure when a cadet inflicts intentional harm on themselves," he explained. "There are resources for counselling and support, and they want to make sure you're fit for duty before putting any further pressure on you."

"They'll never clear me," she said with bleak certainty. "They won't let me come back."

He couldn't help a small sound of disbelief. That was a common fear, and it often prevented people from seeking timely aid in their mental health struggles. Centuries of chipping away at ancient stigma had won great advances and protections for those who most needed them, but personal attitudes were more intransigent, and the dread of judgment still lingered. If that was true even for patients who grew up in the Federation, how much more real must such a prospect seem for Jaxa?

"Of course they will," he said reassuringly. "Starfleet doesn't operate that way: emotional distress and trauma is just as valid as a physical illness or injury. You need support and care, not judgement. That's why these programs are in place. When you're well enough to get back to your studies, of course they'll clear you."

Jaxa shook her head. She couldn't meet his eyes, and her hand was twisting the hem of her nightgown. "Maybe that's true for other people," she said. "But not for me. Not for us. Not for Nova Squadron."

It had been on the tip of Julian's tongue to protest that if she felt she was in danger of discrimination because of her species, she could fight that with an arsenal of laws and regulations that had been meticulously designed to prevent such barbarism. But her last words drew him up short.

"I don't…" he began. Then, horrified; "Did they tell you that?"

"Tell me…" She looked bewildered for a moment, and then shuddered. "They didn't have to tell me. It's true. They'll be watching us all — Jean and Wesley and me — for any sign we're unfit for duty. After what we did… if… if they see any reason to suspect we're emotionally unstable, they won't give us the benefit of the doubt. Would you?"

Julian's mouth was dry. It was easier to focus on her leg than on her words, and he busied himself in repairing several more of the pearlescent scars as he tried not to entwine her fears with his own. They struck a little too near the mark. Questions of his own emotional stability would be brought to the forefront if his own secret ever came out. The debate wouldn't be whether he was sane enough for Starfleet, which was barred to his kind regardless of mental fitness to serve, but whether he was sane enough to walk free at all. In the first year after he had learned the truth, as he'd grappled with the destruction of everything he'd believed about himself, the newfound inability to trust either parent, and the terror of discovery, Julian had subsisted in a constant state of anxiety. He had feared his psychological turmoil was proof that he was unsound, that the alterations to his brain had brought with them the side-effects that conventional wisdom still held were the inevitable consequences of genetic enhancements to human intellect. He had very nearly condemned himself: he knew that society as a whole would not stop at very nearly.

Sito Jaxa's fear was not unfounded. Julian didn't want to believe that Admiral Brand and the rest of the Academy administration would cast away any cadet because they struggled with self-harm and despair. But he could not promise his patient they would not. The conspiracy of lies spun around the crash and the death of Cadet Albert did raise serious questions about the integrity and stability of the conspirators. If Jaxa's cutting also came to light now, especially in such close proximity to the verdict, questions would be asked, and the decision might not come down in her favour. All the more so if there had been any reluctance to keep her and the other two at the Academy in the first place. They wanted to expel all of us, she had said. There might be those who would welcome a second chance, whatever the excuse.

"You need treatment," Julian said quietly. "Counselling. Someone to monitor you as you work on the emotional landscape that led you to hurt yourself tonight. I can't… I can't pretend this never happened, or that I'm not aware you're struggling. Doctors in the Federation take an oath, Jaxa. I haven't sworn it yet, but I try my best to live by it all the same. Primum non nocere. First, do no harm. If I don't take steps to secure you the treatment you need, I'll be harming you."

She nodded stiltedly, taking in a shaky breath through her nostrils. Her eyes were screwed tightly closed. "I know. You have to report it. I understand."

Julian glanced towards the terminal where her chart was still on display. Her straightforward and spotless medical record, differing from those of most of her classmates only because of the malnutrition regimen she'd been put through in her first term. A malnutrition regimen she had needed because she'd grown up on a planet devastated by a brutal occupation by one of the most xenophobic powers in the Quadrant. When faced with the prospect of expulsion, the stakes for Sito Jaxa had been far higher than the stakes for the human members of Nova Squadron. She hadn't feared the humiliation of heading home to her parents in disgrace, or the awkwardness of trying to carve out some alternative career path within the fertile expanse of the United Federation of Planets. She had feared being driven back to that: to starvation and slavery and constant terror.

That wasn't rational, perhaps. Even without Federation citizenship, she could claim asylum that would almost certainly be granted. But when were a person's darkest terrors rational? Julian knew his own were not. He dreaded discovery, so much so that he had climbed back into bed with a woman who despised the very core of his being, rather than give her the slightest grounds to question his nature. Rationally, he had kept the secret for over a decade, and his parents for almost twice as long. He had made it through psychological testing and physical assessments without ever once raising the eyebrow of an examiner. Statistically, if he had kept the secret this long, he could keep it forever. And yet the dread remained.

Jaxa might know she would never be deported back to a conquered world in the stranglehold of Cardassia. That didn't make the fear of such a fate any less real, or any less motivating, or any less likely to torment her every waking moment.

"I didn't say I have to report it," he murmured, the words out before he could weigh the merits of the choice. Before he could even pause to contemplate the possible repercussions for his own Academy standing, and his own Starfleet career, if what he was contemplating somehow came to light. "I said I have to secure you treatment."

She looked at him at last, her eyes glistening with tears she'd proved too strong to shed. "I don't understand," she said, her voice husky and uncertain. "If you refer me for treatment, you'll have to tell the counsellor why…"

"Not if I'm the one to counsel you," said Julian. "I could… I'm not a fully qualified counsellor, but I do have mental health training. I excelled on my psychiatric rotation, and I have access to all the same resources and materials Starfleet's counsellors do. Your case… it seems very straightforward to me. When you were young, you coped with an untenable situation using a desperate but common strategy. Tonight, faced with a new stressor, you reverted to old patterns. Does that sound about right?"

She nodded. "That's it exactly," she said. "I knew I shouldn't have picked up the knife, but… but it seemed like the only way to take control."

Julian nodded gently. It was a textbook situation. He was in the last weeks of his training: all that separated him from the independent practice of medicine were a few exams and some paperwork. In his upcoming postgraduate residency, he would be practicing as an independent physician at the orbital hospital at Ligobis X. He was more than confident in his ability to give her a proper assessment and some immediate strategies. If anything arose that was beyond his scope… well, even a few days' distance from Admiral Brand's verdict would allow tempers to cool and the emotional fallout to settle. If he had to refer Jaxa on to someone more experienced — someone fully licensed, his rational mind reminded him sourly — then at least he would have bought her a little time for those weighing her fate to calm down.

"You might feel more comfortable talking to someone who focuses on mental health care," he said, carefully offering her a way to decline. "Or someone who's working under a proper licence, instead of a residency permit. Or someone who might have a more personal understanding of the barriers you've had to overcome. If any of that is true, I'm more than happy to—"

"No!" She almost yelped the word, then took a deep breath to compose herself as she reached to pluck at his sleeve. Julian shifted his arm, offering his hand instead, and she took it. She squeezed emphatically. "I'd rather talk to you. Even if… even if you have to report me, I'd rather you took on my counselling than anyone else. I… I trust you, Doctor. And you… you've been kind."

Her voice faded almost to a whisper on those last words, and for a moment she looked dreadfully lost. Julian understood. Since the verdict had come down this afternoon, she hadn't experienced much kindness. From the sound of things, there hadn't been a whole lot to go around from her teammates in recent days, either. And he sensed that perhaps her loneliness ran far deeper than the last tempestuous week.

"All right," he said quietly, tightening his own hold on her hand just a little bit. "Now, if we're going to keep this out of your medical file, we'll need to arrange for a place to meet. If you turn up here every week, the other students and the medical staff will—"

Her eyes were wide, and she stared at him in confusion. "Keep it out of my medical file? I thought… I assumed… don't you have to keep a record, even if you don't refer me?"

She was right. He was required to keep records of all treatments and assessments. Failure to do so amounted to dereliction of duty, and was a serious transgression for any medical officer. For a cadet in training, it could be construed as evidence of a grave deficit in judgement. If he was caught giving under-the-table medical care to another cadet, Julian would be subject to reprimand and disciplinary action. The consequences to his own career…

He shut his mind to that spiral of doubt. The consequences to his own career would be less severe than expulsion, or the denial of a return from psychiatric leave request that could be dragged out for months or even years to amount to the same result. He might feel his position was precarious, contingent upon keeping his grim secret, but as long as that truth remained in the shadows, he was very secure. He was well-regarded by the Medical Academy faculty. He was in good standing with boards and professional organizations that governed the practice of medicine within the Federation. Even his classmates who didn't like him had to respect his work. He was an upstanding example of everything Starfleet loved to uphold. If he was caught, he'd likely receive little more than a slap on the wrist. At worst, someone might question his own emotional state, and he'd be remanded for counselling himself. He was risking an untarnished graduation, maybe his place as valedictorian, but he was certainly not risking his Starfleet commission.

"I am supposed to keep a record," he admitted. "But I'm willing to forego that in your case. I'll need to update your chart tonight, of course. I can detail the treatment you received for your hand, and I'll report it as a cooking accident — a little more believable than your hyperspanner story," he added with a lopsided little grin.

Jaxa flushed — a promising sign, given the blood loss — and let out a tiny laugh. "I knew it wasn't a very good lie," she said. "It was all I could think of in the heat of the moment."

Julian nodded appreciatively. "Yes, well, a cooking accident's more plausible, believe me. Much more in keeping with the data from the scans. But I don't need to record the other wounds, or the repairs to the old scars. We'll call it… an oversight in the documentation. You and I can meet socially, once a week for the next nine weeks. If at any point either of us feel you need care I can't provide, we can deal with that decision when it arises. But I think…"

"You think you can help me," Jaxa said softly, almost reverently. "And Admiral Brand won't have to know."

"Yes," Julian said firmly. In that moment, he saw that he truly did believe it. "I believe I can help you. And if I can, no one will ever have to know."

Jaxa made a sound that was midway between a sigh and a laugh. Suddenly she was sitting up on the biobed, and she flung both arms around Julian, pulling him into an unexpected embrace. For a moment he was rigid with surprise, and then he relaxed. He braced one palm against the angled head of the bed, and rested the other gently between her shoulder-blades, withdrawing as soon as she started to pull back.

"Thank you, Doctor," she said, brushing the back of her thumb across each eyelid as she settled back on the bed. "I don't know what I've done to deserve it, but the Prophets put me in your path tonight."

Julian wasn't sure what she meant by that, but he found himself smiling again. "I'm not really a doctor yet, you know," he said. "Perhaps you ought to call me Julian?"

Jaxa's own smile was warm and radiant. "All right," she said. "Julian."

"Good," he lauded, retrieving the dermal regenerator. "Now, I just need to finish up with the scars."

She rearranged her nightgown and repositioned her legs. Then she looked down at her lap, thoughtful, and pointed to one of the marks. "Can you leave that one?" she asked. "I want to keep it, as a reminder. Of where I've come from, of how far I've gone. Of my mistakes."

She was courageous enough not only to face her mistakes, but to want a memento of them. Julian regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, this young woman who had overcome unimaginable hurdles to be here, who had fought so hard to pursue a dream that must have seemed impossible in the dust and deprivation of her homeworld. Whatever had swayed Admiral Brand and the board of inquiry to keep Sito Jaxa in the service, the decision was the right one. She was Starfleet material, no question.

"Whatever you want," he told her. "You're the patient: you're the one in control."

He set to work again, restoring the damaged tissue with a skilled hand. And Jaxa watched with wonder.

(fade)

Jaxa was not eager to leave the Infirmary, so Julian brought her a blanket and she dozed on the biobed while he updated her files with the details of the palmar laceration and laid away all of the equipment in its proper place. He went out into the main room to check in with Nurse Petrakis, and then knocked at Doctor Shirakawa's door to inquire if she needed anything from him. She didn't, and Julian made his way back out to the front just in time to assist a cadet who had turned up nauseous and more than a little inebriated. That was his last patient of the shift: no one else turned up in need of aid, and by the time T'Priel arrived to relieve him, the Infirmary was in pristine good order.

Julian briefed her on the cadet now hooked up to a rehydration IV, and then went to look in on Jaxa. The obelisk of brighter light that spilled over the biobed as the door opened seemed either to awaken her, or to coax her out of a near-doze: she squinted into the glare, and then smiled when she recognized him.

"I suppose someone else needs the bed, Doct— Julian?" she asked, catching herself on the title he hadn't quite earned yet.

He shook his head. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like. But my shift is over, and I need to get some sleep before my first class. I'll be heading out, and I wondered if I could walk you back to your quarters."

She sat up, brushing the blanket off her legs. "Oh, that's really not necessary…" she began, demurring.

Julian wasn't at all certain of that. He had not forgotten what she'd said of the way she had been treated in the mess hall last night. Someone had spat on her, and cruel words stuck more insidiously than saliva. He didn't think his presence would prove an earnest deterrent to anyone who might wish to volley similar abuse, but at least if they tried it, Jaxa would have someone to speak up on her behalf.

"Maybe not," he allowed nonetheless, conscious of her dignity and her right to feel safe on campus — something he refused to take from her by voicing his doubts. "But it's no trouble, and perhaps we could grab something to eat. Night shifts throw off my appetite, but I could just about manage tea and scones."

Her smile grew warmer, and she slipped down off the bed, uniform boots hitting the carpet with a syncopated thump. "That sounds nice," Jaxa said.

Dawn was breaking behind the gossamer mist as they stepped out onto the dew-kissed grounds. The air was warmer than Julian had expected, and he was glad: he was in full uniform, of course, but Jaxa was still wearing her nightclothes. He let her set the pace, and they strode briskly up the tidy path. It was studded in places with tiny white circles, thin as the skin of the eyelid and delicately diaphanous in the grass: the first fallen petals from the cherry trees. Overnight, it seemed, cherry blossom season had turned. San Francisco had begun the swift, sweet climb to summer.

Jaxa led the way to the doors of the Solkar Building, and it put an ache in Julian's chest to see how she peered anxiously around the vestibule before crossing the threshold.

"If you'd rather," he said, both reluctant to speak and unable to be silent; "I could go and order breakfast, and bring it up to your room."

"That won't be necessary," Jaxa assured him; "though it's a very kind offer. This time of the morning…" She peeked around the arch that led to the dining area, and then nodded with satisfaction. "Deserted," she said, and beckoned him in.

She could not know, of course, that an empty mess hall was just as much of a relief to Julian as it likely was to her. He knew that the days of dissecting the news from Belgium were probably at an end: unless something incredibly sensational happened to the Moab IV colonists, the scandal close to home would hold the general interest at least until Commencement and the end of term for the officers' training streams. After that, most of the residents of this building and the three nearby would leave campus: headed back to visit family, or off on vacation, or taking up remote training assignments. Then he'd only need to worry about the gossip among the medical and nursing students.

Jaxa was probably looking forward to the quieter weeks of the summer hiatus, too. Julian realized belatedly that he had simply assumed she'd be staying on campus, and that he'd be able to meet with her every week until he left for his residency. She had not corrected him, but it seemed prudent to clarify.

"Are you staying in San Francisco over the summer?" he asked, as her tray materialized in the replicator. She had ordered poached eggs and toast, and — he was touched to note — a dish of sliced papaya.

Jaxa nodded, suddenly grim. "I was supposed to take my Level 4 pilot certification at Proxima Centauri, but my flight privileges have been suspended."

"I'm sorry," Julian said, inadequately. He hadn't meant to remind her of her punishment. But he was also very impressed. If she'd been planning to take her Level 4, she already had her Level 3, which put her on par with the requirements for a primary helmsman. Level 1 was standard for all officer candidates by the end of third year, but Level 3 was extraordinary enough.

She sighed, looking down at her tray with stern resolve. "It's all right," she said with a visible but determined effort. "There's always next summer." Then she turned and strode for the nearest table.

"Hot buttered scones with blackcurrant jam," Julian said to a replicator he was not looking at. His eyes tracked Jaxa instead. She stabbed one of her eggs so the yolk burst, spilling brightly across the plate. "Tarkalean tea, extra sweet. Hot."

His breakfast — or dinner, rather, coming as it did at the end of his shift — materialized, and he took the tray. He wondered whether she would still welcome his company, and then decided that if he was going to be her caregiver, he had to start now. He laid his tray across from hers, and slid into the chair. The scents of his meal made his stomach come eagerly alive, and he realized that he had forgotten to eat mid-shift, as he customarily did.

"It's all right to be angry," he said quietly, splitting one of his scones and biting into the flaky warmth.

"No, it isn't," Jaxa muttered, glaring down at her food. She didn't seem to want to eat, but there was a soft slurp in the back of her throat as she swallowed excess saliva: she had missed her dinner at least, and Julian didn't imagine she'd eaten much before the final hearing. "I should be grateful."

"It's possible to be grateful and angry at the same time," he said. "Grateful you've been—" He didn't want to say allowed: it made it sound like the verdict was an act of charity, instead of what was beginning to look to him like barest justice, at least where this particular cadet was concerned. "Grateful you've retained your place at the Academy," he amended. That was better, and it reiterated her right to be here, despite her mistakes. "And angry that you have to face such grave consequences."

She looked up at him in astonishment. "How can you talk like that? It's as if you believe I've got a right to stay. After what I… what we did… a lot of people are going to say I don't belong here."

That struck a little too near Julian's own dread, again. He curled a hand around his glass mug, feeling the radiating warmth of the tea sink deep into his bones. It anchored him, and helped him to focus on his patient. He knew what she needed to hear: he would have loved to hear the same thing himself, if it hadn't been impossible.

"That's probably true," he said; "but it doesn't matter what they say. Or what they think. As long as you know you belong here, that's the only important thing."

Jaxa's eyes blazed like the flash of a vessel leaping to warp. "I do belong here," she said fiercely. "I've worked and I've sacrificed, and I've earned it!"

Julian wanted to smile, but restrained himself. This was a cause for celebration, but it was also a gravely important realization for her to come to. "Good," he said firmly, instead, meeting her fiery gaze. "You're going to have to hold onto that, no matter what other people say. It's why you chose Starfleet in the first place, isn't it? Not because it was your only option, but because it was the best one: best for your talents, best for your interests, best for your heart."

"And my soul," she agreed, her expression softening. She smiled down at the burst egg as if looking at an old friend. "I prayed about it, the night before I left to take my entrance exams. I couldn't ask Ranjen Yassim: she'd been taken in a sweep the month before. But I prayed. I asked the Prophets if this was the right path for me. They didn't answer, not with words. But I knew in my heart…"

Julian nodded. In his reading about Bajor, he had come across mentions of the ancient faith practiced on that world. Such matters were foreign to him: his parents weren't religious, and he'd been raised in a society where most people didn't practice any particular faith. He had, however, been taught to respect such beliefs, and he knew the deep meaning they could have for the devout. Yet his understanding of Jaxa's words ran considerably deeper than that: he'd had his own long night of contemplation, just before his entrance exams. He'd had to weigh the same question: was Starfleet the right path for him? Was it worth the work, the effort and dedication that lay ahead, and was it worth the deception that lay behind? The deception he would have to uphold all the rest of his life, if he intended to follow his dream.

And he'd known, even as he grappled with the choice, that he would have to uphold that deception regardless, if he intended to follow any dream at all. Starfleet, medicine: these had simply been the brightest and the best of those forbidden options. It hadn't been a choice between Starfleet and something second-best. It had been a choice between lying about his enhancements, or doing nothing at all with his talents. Under Federation law, genetically enhanced humans were barred from almost all post-secondary education. Even their right to high school education was a matter for debate. As for the career paths they were permitted to follow… restrictive was too gentle a word.

That was why he'd followed the Moab IV colonists with such interest, finding new hope every time another placement was announced for them. If they were allowed to hold fellowships at major universities, to pursue internships at museums and libraries, to work with Starfleet (if not precisely to join Starfleet) as consultants, that would mean there was room to reconsider the age-old laws. That there was a chance, however slim, that one day people like him wouldn't have to hide in the shadows. That was why he knew he was going to continue to follow the story, as painful as it was to subject himself to it. Because as long as those placements were upheld, there was hope, whatever the savage outcry in the streets of Ghent.

"Are you all right?" Jaxa asked, her soft voice bringing Julian back to the present. His hand was frozen, teacup halfway to his lips. He blinked at it, brought it the rest of the way, and sipped as he nodded.

"Fine. I'm sorry. It's been quite the weekend," he murmured.

She laughed quietly, a little ruefully, and took another forkful of egg. She'd made considerable headway into her breakfast while he was lost in thought. "That's one way to put it," she said. She swallowed, and stifled a yawn into her curled fist. "I feel like I could sleep for a week!"

"That's not a bad idea," Julian said. "Sleep, I mean. I know it might not seem like it, but the worst is behind you now. You've faced the hardest part of all of this, and now you just need to push on towards your brilliant future."

"Dig myself out of the ore pit, you mean," she said, but she spoke the words wryly, without despair. She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do you suppose they'll inform my sponsor?"

"The officer who wrote your Academy endorsement?" Julian asked, sifting through his precise memories of the night to come up with the descriptor she'd used. "The captain of the Cairo?"

Jaxa nodded and tore a bite out of her toast. "He's going to be disgusted with me," she said.

"Do you know him well?" Julian asked.

She swallowed. "Not well, no," she admitted. "I met with him a few times. He has very high standards for the young people he endorses. And he took us all to dinner once, when the Cairo was in orbit." She snorted a little. "All of us. There were only five. One in each year of officer training, and one postgraduate fellow. As I said, Captain Jellico has very high standards."

"Then he ought to be proud of you for deciding to stick it out," Julian said, spreading jam on a new piece of scone. "It must have occurred to you it could be easier to walk away."

He was sounding her out, and she probably knew it, but Jaxa nodded nonetheless. "Easier, maybe," she said. "But not more worthwhile." She sighed then, fiddling with her spoon before shearing off a piece of papaya. "Can we talk about something else for a little while? I know you're meant to be treating me, but…"

She gestured helplessly. Julian understood. She had already been dwelling on all of this far too much in the last twelve hours. Even apart from the verdict, the lies and the strain of the coverup, her guilt at her comrade's death: all this had probably been consuming her since the crash.

"Yes, of course," he assured her. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Tell me about the Medical Academy," Jaxa said, a little too brightly, as she forced a smile. "I've only been in the building for my first aid training, and I'd love to know how the program compares. Did you go through officers' school already?"

"I did indeed," Julian said warmly. Sometimes patient care meant offering distractions, as much as treatment. He could oblige her while they finished their meal. "Premier Distinction in exobiology, micropathology, and xenotoxicology."

Jaxa whistled softly. "How did you find time to sleep?" she asked.

Julian shrugged. He still wasn't sure. Taking three simultaneous majors certainly wasn't recommended, and his academic advisor had tried several times to talk him out of it. But neither was it unheard-of: several of his present classmates, including Cadet T'Priel, had done the same, and there had been rumours while he was in the program of someone a year or two ahead of him who had been juggling four — the first since Cadet Data to attempt it and, according to the grapevine, neither an android nor a Vulcan. When he'd first heard that, Julian's competitive spirit had been piqued, and he had considered taking on yet another specialization. He'd decided against it in the end because it seemed too conspicuous. Excellence was one thing, unnatural excellence quite another. Over the years he'd perfected the art of succeeding extravagantly but never too spectacularly: never enough to arouse suspicion.

He'd become a bit careless with that over the last year or so, he realized. Frontrunner for valedictorian, captain of the sector champion racquetball team, one of the most trusted residents, maintaining a flourishing romantic relationship, all at the same time…

The last was at an end, now, anyway. It was just that no one knew it yet. The thought of Palis, fleeting though it was, took some of the pleasure from his next bite of scone. He had to wash it down with a swig from his cup, because his mouth had gone suddenly dry.

"It's really not all that different from officers' training. Medical school, I mean," he said. "We have more remote assignments, of course: at least two a year, though they're shorter than the second-year field studies placements. And…"

He went on, saying little of consequence, and she listened contentedly. The truth was that neither of them much wanted to think right now. It was a relief simply to coexist, and to pretend to forget.

(fade)

Medical and Exobiology Glossary

Palmar: involving the palm of the hand.

Exobiology: the study of life not indigenous to one's own planet.

Micropathology: the study of disease processes at the cellular level.

Xenotoxicology: the study of poisons and other toxins, including medications in overdose, not indigenous to one's own planet.