Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The wind is merciless today, freezing and biting at his skin where it isn’t covered by the thin fraying layers of his clothing. His face. His fingers. His left ankle. His neck. It hurts, or rather, it aches in a dull throbbing manner that isn’t entirely unfamiliar.

"Garak," Julian says.

His eyes are impossibly bright for a ghost. His voice is fitting, though: there is a heavy dose of torment mixed in it that makes Garak flinch. He looks away and pretends he cannot see or hear the dear doctor. It wouldn’t do to surrender to the tricks his mind plays on him.

"Garak," Julian repeats, coming closer. Sighs sorrowfully, and then, after a pause. "We need to get you out of here."

Garak doesn’t look, but it’s a close thing. He can’t remember why he shouldn’t, only that he decided not to.

He spares a thought to why would Julian’s ghost want him out of here. Why would Julian even be here. This isn’t a good place for him. It isn’t a good place for anyone, really, but definitely not for Julian’s ghost.

Or is it a hallucination?

Foolishness or insanity — which one…

"Garak, look at me," Julian insists, and he is stepping around Garak, forcing proximity, stubborn as ever.

"Why are you here?" Garak asks.

"Because you are stuck," Julian says. "Why are you here?"

Garak snorts inelegantly, startling himself.

"I don’t exactly have a choice, Doctor."

"You do," Julian insists nonsensically. "Garak, this isn’t real, you are…"

And then he is gone.

Garak freezes and feels the loss claw at him anew. He gets back to work: the graves aren’t going to dig themselves. He’s responsible for every single one, after all.

***

"That is hardly fair," Garak objects, despite part of him believing it is exactly that: fair.

"Don’t be so sour, I’m just teasing," Julian says, smiling.

Garak raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, hiding the unease behind a sticky mask.

"If you say so, Doctor. Excuse my surprise, I would hardly expect you to find loss of life funny."

"Perhaps you are rubbing off on me, Garak," Julian says.

Garak’s smile falls flat. This is all wrong. The lightness. The tension. The way Julian looks at him — with barely concealed disgust, expected and yet entirely unfamiliar. The way Garak himself has been on edge since… well, they are hardly in a peaceful situation, he supposes, but still. Something is bothering him, all the time, pokes at the edges of his awareness.

By the time he is walking towards his shop, the feeling is too strong to ignore.

He needs to find Julian. Not the… whoever it is he’s been having lunches with.

He walks for hours, getting lost in the suddenly unfamiliar passages of the station, circling back to the Promenade and constantly getting pulled away. Ziyal asks for help moving her canvases. Odo keeps following him, silently, shifting in and out of the walls. Chief O’Brien bumps into him, bodily, making him spill the frames he was holding.

"What are you doing here, Garak?" he asks, and Garak remembers. Julian. He won’t find him here.

"Just passing by, Chief," he replies politely and turns to Ziyal to lead her away, but she is no longer there. She must have wandered away, not noticing he’s fallen behind. He needs to find her too, before it is too late.

"Garak," Julian calls him.

He looks horrible: pale, and thin, all sharp angles and dust-covered skin. There is no coldness in his eyes, though. Garak takes him in with an uneasy feeling, and then Julian takes hold of his shoulders and squeezes them.

"You need to listen—"

"I’m sorry," Garak interrupts him. That gives him a confused look and a pause long enough to push it through. "I’m sorry for not realizing it wasn’t you," he says. "I should have noticed. Can you forgive me, Doctor?"

Except he did notice. What is he saying? He knew that wasn’t Julian, that’s why he is here, isn’t he? Garak frowns, trying to retrace his steps. It’s harder than it should be.

"This isn’t important right now," Julian deflects, and he is lying — Garak can see that, he could always see, couldn’t he? Or was he allowed to see? Julian’s hands are still heavy weights on Garak’s shoulders, and his eyes are too sharp somehow. It doesn’t fit. Garak steps back.

"You shouldn’t be here," he mutters to himself. "You weren’t here. I didn’t know that you weren’t here."

It makes way too much sense for how confusing everything else feels.

"So you keep saying. Why wouldn’t you ever just listen to me!" Julian laments, and Garak wants to object, but he is distracted by an unmistakeable sound of an explosion, and then he can only watch in horror as Julian floats away through a hole in the wall. Others, too. He holds onto a table bolted into a floor, but he cannot breath, and once he watches Ziyal and Julian both stop moving, he doesn’t want to, and…

***

He can’t breathe. It’s dark, and he is stuck, and he can hear his own frantic heartbeat hammering in his chest, and he can’t breathe. And then a pair of hands lands on him and tugs him forward, and he resists, frozen in place and terrified, until a voice filters through, and he knows that voice, trusts it immediately, lets himself be pulled through the darkness and into a dimly lit room.

"Breathe, Garak," Julian says, looking worried and excruciatingly sad. He puts Garak’s hand on his own chest and takes a deep breath, his ribcage expanding under Garak’s fingers and then retreating again in a steady rhythm. "Come on. You are okay now. Just take it slow. Breathe with me."

In and out, Garak forces himself to inhale and to push the air out as Julian guides him through it patiently. It is pathetic, needing guidance in such a simple activity. It would have been humiliating if Julian wasn’t filling up his whole world right now, not leaving space for anything else.

In and out.

Gradually he feels better. Then just — good. He expects Julian to push him to lie down and take a break before he needs to go back into the wall, and he gets a strong pang of déjà vu for a moment, until Julian pulls him in, and the feeling dissipates.

"What would our roommates say about you cuddling an old Cardassian spy?" Garak asks quietly. He doesn’t push away, though. He thinks he should, but he can’t bring himself to at the moment, stuck in it and unwilling to fight.   

"There aren’t any at the moment," Julian replies, sounding a bit surprised himself. His voice is gentle when he speaks again a minute later. "Garak, can you please try and not freak out after what I tell you?"

"I don’t ever 'freak out', as you put it, Doctor," Garak states, offended. Julian hums noncommittally and pulls back a bit without letting Garak out of his arms. He looks terribly serious. Alarms immediately start to blast in Garak’s mind. He tries to ignore them.

"This isn’t real," Julian says. "You are trapped in a dream."

Garak frowns. It sounds ridiculous. Surely, he can distinguish a dream from reality.

"Excuse me if I don’t immediately jump at the idea, Doctor. This feels perfectly real to me. You certainly do."

"I am," Julian confirms. "I am real. You are real. Not anything else."

"How convenient," Garak chuckles. "And what would you have me do in this dream of yours?"

The alarms inside his mind are getting harder and harder to ignore, and then he remembers: he shouldn’t ignore them, he has been trained to not ignore them, and in the Obsidian Order it was often a difference between life and death.

"This isn’t my dream, unfortunately," Julian says. "We wouldn’t be here if it was." 

"Where would we be, then?" Garak indulges him.

"Somewhere safe." Julian smiles and reaches up to touch Garak’s face carefully — without any of the usual confidence of his, frankly rude, medical examinations. "Somewhere warm. Somewhere we can talk without always running out of time."

Garak stops breathing again, and it’s a heady, heavy feeling, the precipice of something, like an airlock before a shuttle that will take him far away.

"But right now I need you to wake up," Julian continues.

"I don’t want to wake up," Garak hears himself say. He can feel reality begin to unravel, the alarms in his mind suddenly going fully quiet. He holds on to Julian’s uniform, and the fabric feels stiff and crusty under his fingers. He knows why, even if he doesn’t want to think about it. Julian lets him, thumbs at the ridge under his left eye gently. It’s wrong. It feels right. He doesn’t know anymore.

"We can’t stay here," Julian says. "We don’t belong here anymore."

"You… shouldn’t be here," Garak says slowly, discovering the words as he says the previous one.

Julian nods.

"You just need to—"

He never gets to finish, because the next moment Jem’Hadar burst in and pull him away. Garak and Julian both fight, but it’s not enough, and…

***

"Garak, you need to listen to me."

Garak lies in the dark, and there is nothing there. There hasn’t been anything there for as long as he can remember, until he hears the familiar voice, and suddenly he can remember so much more.

"Doctor?" he asks. "Where are we?"

Julian is silent for a moment — long enough for Garak to feel the beginning of a panic rise in him — and then he’s back.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

Garak tries to remember, but it is hard. His thoughts are sluggish. It’s frustrating.

"I don’t," he says and feels around. The hard surface under him is smooth, like glass, and when he moves his hand towards Julian’s voice, it bumps into a wall. He checks the other side and finds the same thing.

"Take a deep breath," Julian says, the voice urgent enough to make Garak listen and do as he is told. "Good, now exhale slowly. You are alright."

For someone behind a wall, his voice is surprisingly crisp. The thought calms him down a bit, same as the slow breaths Julian has him take. There must be a connection between their… whatever it is Garak’s trapped in.

Julian’s hand finds his, squeezes his fingers.

"I’m here," he says. "Wherever this 'here' is… What have you gotten yourself into?"

It doesn’t sound as a proper question, but Garak answers anyway.

"My father is having a gala," he whispers. "He wanted me to stay quiet."

"Your father wanted you to stay quiet?" Julian repeats. Garak shushes him.

"Garak, where are we?" Julian asks quietly.

"Do you need an exact address for your records, Doctor?" Garak snaps and sits up. He doesn’t let go of Julian’s hand. Something is scratching at the back of his mind, making him sure he cannot let go.

"You need to focus, Garak," Julian says. "Can you do that for me?"

'I would do anything for you,’ Garak thinks and smiles in the dark. He nods and whispers, "Just because you are here, doesn’t mean you can patronize me."

It sounds weird. Something in it bothers him, but he can’t quite catch what it is, and the next moment it is gone.

"Your father has nothing to do with it," Julian says. "He died, remember?"

Grey walls, Tain’s grey face, shallow breath before there was none... he remembers.

"You shouldn’t be here," Garak says and tugs his hand away. Julian doesn’t let him.

"Neither should you. Garak, this isn’t real, you need to trust me on this."

"What are you talking about, Doctor?" Garak asks in a daze. His father is dead. And Julian is somehow in the attic of his old house, except that isn’t right — the house was destroyed during the war, so what is this place?

"You are dreaming," Julian says.

The surface under Garak is suddenly not there, and he is hanging in the air, held only by Julian’s grip on his hand. Julian groans and pulls, until Garak is stretched on the cold floor alongside him, breathing heavily and still squeezing his hand.

The next moment he hears it — the unmistakeable buzz of a Colgan disruptor, and then it’s too late, and Julian is sticky and shaky under his touch.

"Damn it," Julian breathes out, coughs, and it’s a horrible, horrible wet sound. 

"I’ll come back for you," he promises.

Garak can’t even process what Julian is saying, he tries and fails to stop the bleeding, and it’s happening way too fast.

"I’m sorry," he whispers. "Doctor… Julian, I’m sorry."

Julian grabs his wrist, squeezes hard enough to hurt, interrupting his ramblings.

"Garak," he rasps, "it’s alright. This is not real. I will be back, I’ll always come back. As long as it takes."

He coughs again, his grip growing weaker, and Garak holds him up, giving up on trying to stop the blood, trying to keep him alive by the sheer willpower.

"Try… to remember," Julian whispers in his ear. "Until… next time."

He slacks in Garak’s arms, and…

***

Garak startles awake and looks around with wild eyes. Just a dream. It was just a dream. A nasty, ridiculous nightmare — they follow him still, years after he last had any reason to live through one.

He takes a deep breath, grounding himself in the little details of their bedroom: the old wardrobe warped with water damage, the warm blankets layering the bed, the sentimental trinkets Julian insists on cluttering the space with. Garak doesn’t even remember where they are from, but every single one of them helps him push the feeling of Julian bleeding out in his arms further and further away until he is ready to take on the day.

The house is empty. Julian is away, running a month long training program to the starfleet medics in one of the newly reopened hospitals. He is coming back today, though. Garak huffs and shakes his head, frustrated with himself, once he realizes the nightmare borrowed him missing his husband and span it out of proportion. Maybe, the next time he should just come with, as Julian asked him to do many times.

He is just finishing his breakfast when there is a knock on the door.

"Did you lose your keys again, dear?" he scolds softly, as he opens the door, but he cannot maintain the fake frown for long, reaching out to kiss Julian welcome before he can reply.

"My keys?" Julian asks, dazed.

Garak chuckles and pulls him inside.

"Have you eaten?" he asks, and, when Julian doesn’t reply immediately, instead looking around with a rapt attention, sighs and points to a chair. "Sit. Won’t be long."

Julian sits down and fixes his eyes on him. It’s nice — to have him back. Garak smiles to himself as he fusses with breakfast.

"No replicator?" Julian asks, bewildered.

Garak throws him an offended look.

"Did a month away from home tax your memory that much? It’s not coming until the next year."

Julian smiles sheepishly. Garak sighs dramatically and goes back to the cooking. It’s simple food — nothing so elaborate as what they used to have back on Terok Nor — but he much prefers it to even the fanciest meals simply because of the circumstances and the location of their meals.

"Remind me," Julian says to his back, "how long have we lived here?"

"Twenty six years now," Garak says after a moment’s pause. "Are you testing me, dear?"

"Just thinking, you haven’t changed much," Julian notes carefully. Garak chuckles. "Yes, you are also looking quite dashing today, if a bit tired."

He turns to look at Julian. Frowns as he notices he isn’t just "a bit" tired. He looks absolutely exhausted. Still dashing, of course, but…

"You should take a break," he strongly suggests, bringing the plate to the table and sitting down across from Julian. "It won’t do for you to run yourself ragged. Besides, you are not getting younger, dear."

"Ouch," Julian chuckles. He pokes curiously at the stew Garak heated up for him, then takes a spoonful and frowns.

"Is something wrong?" Garak asks, taking the spoon away from him to have a taste. It tastes as expected. He gives the spoon back.

Julian looks at him in shock. He shakes his head after a moment though.

"It’s perfect, thank you. I’m just a bit tired."

"Why don’t you go lie down?" Garak asks then. "You can finish later."

Julian comes out of the shower and stops at the sight of Garak waiting for him on the bed with a book in hand. Garak puts the book down and beckons for him to come closer. Julian walks around the bed and sits down on his side.

"I took a day off," Garak explains. "Surely, having my husband come back to me is a good enough reason."

Julian looks at him thoughtfully for a long moment, and then relaxes and smiles. "Sure. We could both use a break. What would you like to do today?"

"Nothing in particular," Garak replies. He slides down on the pillows and opens his arms. "Right now though I think you should lie down and indulge me. I have missed you something terrible it seems."

Julian stretches alongside him, allows Garak to pull him closer and put his head on his shoulder. Garak feels a knot he didn’t know was there unravel inside of his mind.

"You missed me?" Julian asks quietly.

"Of course I did, my dear," Garak says and places a short kiss on Julian’s crown. "I’m embarrassed to say I even dreamed about it, of sorts."

"What kind of a dream?" Julian asks after a long moment where they just breathe together, and hold each other close.

"A rather unpleasant one, I’m afraid," Garak frowns. "But you did promise to come back to me, and here you are. I suppose, in the end it wasn’t entirely bad."

"I will, you know," Julian says. "I will come back to you. But Garak, doesn’t this feel… weird to you?"

"What do you mean?" Garak asks.

"You said we lived here for twenty six years. Yet none of us looks our age. There are no other people outside this house. Where are we? How did we get here? What is the job you are taking a break from?"

"You are not making any sense, my love," Garak says, getting worried. He shifts onto his side, so they are facing each other. "Are you quite alright?"

"I’m…" Julian trails off, some mix of emotions battling on his face.

Garak watches him closely, a sense of unease rising in him with every second that Julian keeps him waiting. Something is wrong. Something is terribly wrong, isn’t it? Something is wrong, and it’s going to tear Julian away from him just like in his nightmare, and Garak can almost feel again the hot sticky liquid on his fingers, and…

"Sorry," Julian says, "I must be more tired than I realized. I’m alright. Don’t worry about it."

Garak exhales the panic and chuckles at himself. Old habits die hard. They are perfectly safe here, and Julian is very much alive and in his arms, and if they both kept their youthful appearances, he certainly won’t be the one complaining.

"I love you," Garak whispers into Julian’s lips before kissing him.

Julian doesn’t say it back, but he does chase Garak’s lips for another kiss later, and he does hold him close as Garak falls asleep, the warmth and comfort making him feel sluggish and pleasantly tired.

***

Cardassian sun is blindingly bright. Garak stops in his trek to reach for his water bottle, and then remembers he has finished it hours ago. His throat is aching for relief, and his feet are weary — he’s been at it for hours, since before the sunrise. He has to keep going, though. It is important that he keeps going. The mission is a test, and if he fails… it is better not to think of what that would mean. It would certainly be better to die of his own hand than face the consequences.

The sunset is stunning, the sun — prophetically red and slow as it sinks beneath the horizon.

Garak turns to his target — a dissident professor, teaching his students utter nonsense. The traitor. The test. The man tied to a tree in a particularly painful manner — Garak made sure of that. The conditions are not ideal, and he has only the basic supplies on him, but he can be creative under pressure.

"Garak, stop," the man begs him, "listen to me, please."

Garak frowns: did he introduce himself? Or did they meet before? He looks at the target more carefully, then steps back in horror.

Julian Bashir sighs in relief, recognizing the recognition in Garak’s face.

"What are you doing here?" Garak asks, too shaken to hide the desperation in his voice. "You shouldn’t be here."

"I’m here for you," Julian says. "But we keep meeting under the worst circumstances."

He smiles — a pained little smile, meant to lighten the mood. Garak feels sick.

"I am so sorry, Doctor," he says, taking the syringe out of his bag. "I must do this."

"Garak, what’s in it?" Julian asks, immediately wary. He tugs at the ropes, but it’s no use, Garak has him exactly where he wants him. Or rather, exactly where he is supposed to want him, although everything inside of him screams to stop right now. But that isn’t how this goes, he knows that much.

"Why are you doing this?" Julian asks, as Garak steps closer. "This is just a dream, Garak. I’m not supposed to be here, remember? You can stop this."

Garak hesitates. He wants to stop. Julian is right — he isn’t the one he tied to this tree. Isn’t the one to be injected with the poison and kept in agony until the locations and the names spill out in exchange for the fast death.

"A dream?" he asks. "Explain."

"You’ve been attacked," Julian says. "Do you remember? You were on DS9 to meet vedek Tolena."

Garak tries to focus. The clarity is fleeing him, but Julian is looking at him with such stubborn hope, he cannot give up. Thinking hurts, though — lashes him with the cognitive dissonance until he can no longer tell what’s real.

He is seventeen, and on his first solo mission to retrieve information on the dissident movement.

He is on DS9, telling Julian about the restoration of the Cardassia City, and — oh — the war.

He stares at Julian in a new kind of horror.

"You are in a coma," Julian says. "You need to wake up, Garak. Please."

"How are you here?" Garak asks.

"Does it matter?" Julian counters. "I’m here. I’m getting you out."

"You can’t," Garak says. "This isn’t a dream, Doctor. It’s so much worse."

He steps forward, towards a man who is no longer Julian Bashir, but an elderly Math teacher, terrified and begging for mercy. Garak presses the needle into his neck. Julian yells for him to stop. Garak really wishes he could.

***

"I know this one," Julian says, and Garak turns so sharply, his neck makes an unpleasant cracking sound. He hides the wince under a carefully constructed mask.

"Excuse me?"

"You let them go," Julian says. "All of them. You chose to let them go."

"Nonsense," Garak replies. "Terrorism against Cardassia is punishable by death."

Julian nods.

"I know," he says. "And yet you let them go."

"You have always been too sentimental for your own good, Doctor," Garak notes fondly.

"Is this not weird for you?" Julian asks. "Aren’t you going to tell me I’m not supposed to be here?"

"You—," Garak pauses and thinks. Something is wrong. He can almost see the walls swaying in the edges of his vision — that’s how wrong it feels.

What is he doing here, again?

"You are dreaming, Garak," Julian explains. "Almost exclusively nightmares, it seems. This is the day you make a choice that leads to your exile. You don’t have to relive it. If you just listen—"

"This is not what happened," Garak says slowly.

Julian nods and smiles.

"You weren’t here," Garak continues. "And I didn’t let them go."

He watches that smile fade, replaced by a grim understanding.

"What did you do?" Julian asks.

"What I was supposed to do," Garak replies. He looks out the window. The prisoners are waiting for transport, and a lot of them are so young. Young, and angry, and terrified… mostly, terrified. It’s such a familiar sight, it’s almost soothing.

He feels sick.

He feels darkly satisfied that he feels sick.

"You should go, Doctor," Garak says.

"I can’t do that. And if you kick me out again, I’ll come back. I’ll keep coming back for you."

"Why?"

Julian’s face is so sad when Garak looks at him, that he has to turn away again. He expects some stupid Federation platitude, or some sentimental oversharing — both typical for this ridiculous man Garak cannot seem to convince to give up on him.

"You’ll have to wake up to find out," Julian says instead, and there is steel in his voice where just moments before there was comfort. Garak’s heart makes an unpleasant cracking sound which makes no sense whatsoever.

"Come on, Garak," Julian continues, when it becomes clear Garak won’t say anything in return. "Can’t you trust me just this once?"

"Just this once?" Garak echoes, amused against himself. Julian doesn’t seem to notice. Doesn’t seem to realize Garak trusted him far too many times already.

"I know it’s hard for you," Julian says. "But you know me. You know I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important. And you can obviously tell something isn’t right."

"You shouldn’t be here," Garak agrees, feeling Julian’s presence grate on him more and more with each passing moment. As much as Garak wants him here, it is unsettling. Wrong.

"I shouldn’t be here," Julian confirms. "But I am here, because this isn’t real. You are dreaming, and you need to wake up."

"Why?" Garak asks, and that stops Julian’s little inspired speech. "If I’m dreaming, let me dream."

Garak looks out the window again. At the ruins of the houses he helped destroy. At the echoes of lives he failed to protect — gave up for the sake of doing the right thing. It’s eerily quiet. It feels wrong.

"You have to wake up because we need you on the other side," Julian says finally. "Because the man I know would refuse to die trapped in his own mind after everything he did to dig his way out."

Garak’s eyes shoot to Julian’s, and for a moment he’s so close to clarity he can feel the full weight of reality, and it is crushing.

"Wake up so you can find out why I won’t leave you trapped in your dreams."

"If what you say is true, I can make different choices here," Garak reasons. "Or pay for the ones I made."

"Come with me," Julian pleads. "Garak, please. Stop punishing yourself for a moment and think. You’ve built a life for yourself. You are helping Cardassia recover. You have things to live for. Would you really rather keep spinning this misery wheel?"

And now the walls truly are crumbling, and melting, and everything is shaky except for Julian’s eyes that are way too alive to be anything but real. Alive, and tired, and determined, and Garak is caught in that determination whether he wants to or not.

"What do I do?" he asks.

"You die here, knowing this is just a dream."

"And if I’m wrong?"

"You’ll have to trust me, Garak."

Julian is looking so hopeful, so desperate to be right to be hopeful, that Garak sighs and gives up.

"I’ve always trusted you far too easily," he notes, and takes a moment to appreciate how surprised Julian looks before closing his eyes and finding the poison pill hidden behind one of his teeth. It’s quick once he cracks it, his nervous system collapsing on itself in agonizing pain. He pushes the pain down, shoves it aside as he was trained to do, thinks through it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be merciful — the last gift of Cardassia to her loyal soldiers.

Is this the last punishment his subconsciousness lays onto the monster attempting to escape?

"You bloody moron!" Julian grumbles, holding him where he has collapsed to the floor. "I could have done it better. Spare you the pain."

"You are not," Garak manages to push out, "a murderer. Doctor."

Julian’s eyes are wild, and his hand on Garak’s face is burning hot, and Garak only notices then the frozen misery of the time before that.

"I’ll see you soon," Julian promises, and that is the last thing Garak remembers.

Chapter Text

"You had no right," is the first thing Garak tells him after he is properly out of the trap his mind has become.

Not the first thing he says after he wakes up, though — no. The first words — the first hours, in fact — are confusion layered over suspicion, layered over badly concealed ache. Garak is out of the nightmare, but the nightmare clings to him with all the might of an alligator refusing to unclench the jaws.

Julian is with him through it. He ushers everyone else out once he realizes how unsettled and out of control Garak feels, and he stays by his side, reminding him what is real and letting the man cling to him until the primal horror in Garak’s eyes is replaced by the sting of embarrassment and, soon after, anger.

And then Garak pushes him away, and sits straight, and spits it out with disdain.

"You had no right to break into my mind like that."

"Your body was shutting down, Garak." Julian knows that what he did was ethically gray at best, but the guilt only makes him dig his heels in harder, because it’s not like he had a choice… Garak can’t seriously believe that was a choice he’d be capable of making. "Forgive me if I implied the consent to save your life!"

"You know better than that, Doctor. You knew perfectly well I would’ve never agreed to the price," Garak says, cold and heavy. Betrayed.

Julian remembers all too well the things he has seen while trying to coax Garak to wake up: the memories, the fears, the self-destruction justified as a punishment for all the crimes Garak holds himself accountable for… the only dream that wasn’t a nightmare. Everything Garak spent years hiding from everyone, him included. He can only imagine how violated the man feels now, if he remembers even a fraction of that. Both by the fact Julian saw what he never intended to show, and by the way he held on to Julian minutes earlier.

"I’m sorry," Julian says, and this time he means it. "I wish it didn’t come to that. I never wanted to eavesdrop on your secrets… but I couldn’t just let you die. You know I couldn’t."

Garak looks at him — glares, really — for a long moment, and then his anger deflates. He looks away. Julian dares to step closer and sit down on a chair by the side of the bed.

"Nobody else would know what I saw in there," he says softly. "I promise, Garak."

He hesitates, because he still doesn’t know how to deal with all the things he now knows himself — didn’t have time nor a space of mind to process it at all — but pushes through it.

"If you want me to pretend I can’t remember, I can do that, too."

Garak sighs at that and gives him a skeptical side eye.

"Somehow I doubt you’d be terribly convincing, Doctor."

Julian huffs softly.

"You’d be surprised."

He spent a decade and a half lying to most of his world. A meticulously crafted set of little lies to cover up, and direct away from, the one big truth of his genetic enhancements. He could certainly keep someone else’s secrets better than his own. Especially where it involved Garak.

"If you do want to talk about it, though," Julian continues. "Some of it, or all of it. I’m here."

"I’d like to be alone now, if you don’t mind, Doctor," Garak says after a short tense pause, and he is already shifting to his side, his back to Julian, before Julian has a chance to reply. But given that chance, what could he have said, anyway? He cannot exactly force a conversation the way he grew used to over dozens of iterations of the same relentless nightmare. He cannot force a dream onto reality and climb onto the biobed right next to him, either. It still feels wrong to leave Garak alone like that after so many times of fighting to get close to him, but perhaps, this is exactly what both of them need right now.

"Of course," he agrees, standing up. "I will let you rest. I’ll check on you later."

"How long before I can leave?" Garak asks, and Julian smothers the first instinctual, "Do you have to?"

"I’d like you to stay here until we are sure you are out of the woods," he settles on instead, "but all going well, you should be able to leave in a couple of days."

Garak’s back doesn’t give him any indications on what Garak thinks about it. Julian looks at him one last time and walks out.

"How is he?" Ezri asks as soon as he is in the main area of the infirmary. He sighs and sits down next to her, collapsing forward until his head is hanging heavily just above his hands. The familiar gentle color of the floor looks too neutral, nondescript in an unsettling way.

"This bad?" she asks and places her hand comfortingly on the top of his back to rub soothingly at the aching muscles.

"He seems to be recovering fast," Julian says, "physically, at least. I’m not sure what kind of harm the experience caused psychologically. It was…"

He trails off, trying to find a way to share the horror he still feels without breaking Garak’s confidentiality. Finally, he settles on the most innocent phrasing. He is sure Ezri can extrapolate.

"Bad," he finishes. "It was really bad, Ezri."

She makes a soft soothing noise, and it makes him feel a little bit better, against everything. Garak woke up. After a week of trying and failing, and trying again, Julian finally managed to get through to him. It’s gotta be worth something. Even if he is left feeling betrayed by the only person he, apparently, trusted to help him through it. Julian pokes gently at that thought and immediately retreats. It’s too much — memories still too raw.

"Maybe…" He lifts up his head to look at her sideways. "Would you talk to him?"

"I will certainly try," Ezri promises easily. "When he is ready. How are you doing?"

"Spectacular," Julian chuckles, lowering his gaze again. His hands look weird. Fingers too long. Were they always this long? "I can finally catch a nap without worrying about doing irreparable damage to the most complicated mind I’ve encountered."

"You really should," she agrees. "But maybe you should get a scan first?"

"I’m fine," Julian shrugs her off. "Just tired."

"With all due respect," nurse Flow’ad appears in front of him out of nowhere, making him jerk straight. "You are not fine by any definition, Doctor Bashir, and your own protocol requires you to get evaluated. Now that your patient is out of the immediate danger…"

They point to the empty biobed a few meters away. Ezri giggles and pushes at him from the side, until he groans and gets up.

"Fine. But I’ll be the one reading the scans."

"As long as an independent physician does it too, of course," Flow’ad calmly notes, ushering him onto the bed. "We wouldn’t want a patient with a potential brain damage to do the diagnosis."

"I do not have a brain damage," Julian snaps, annoyed.

"I certainly hope so."

They sound perfectly serious, too — not just joking around with him, as usual, and Ezri to their side is also focused in that tight professional way that reminds him so much of Jadzia, it hurts. And — yes. He really should get this scan. He has been scanning himself every couple of days, just in case. Just to document any possible side effects of spending hours on end deep in someone else’s violently unstable dreamscapes. Not that he told anyone exactly how unstable they were — that is between him and Garak, and he very much doubts Garak would ever be in a sharing mood about that. But most importantly, none of the previous scans showed anything more than an intermittent acute B6 and Tryptophan deficiency which he has been correcting and keeping in check, some understandable neurotransmitters imbalance and a general stress on his nervous and immune systems, which, again. Totally under control. He just needs a proper sleep and a week of not dying a dozen horrible ways a day, maybe (and Garak really should use his rich imagination for less depressing purposes).

He has a quick look through the scan results before they are forwarded to Starfleet alongside his previous records for an independent confirmation that he didn’t earn himself an irreversible brain damage thanks to his "unapproved treatment." And then, finally, he is out of the diagnostic inferno and on the way to his quarters.

He is not a huge fan of leaving Garak unsupervised, as raw and unsettled as he still is, but Ezri promised to stay and to call if anything happens, and he really needs that sleep.

When he shows up in the infirmary the next day, Garak is asleep. Julian panics for a moment at the sight, but then he forces himself to look at the monitor and exhales the worry: just a normal healthy sleep. Judging by the readings, it is the same nearly dreamless state in which Julian himself has spent the last nine hours. He half suspects, half hopes that it will take a while before they begin to dream normally again.

Regardless, Garak needs the rest, and Julian leaves him to it and goes to his normal duties that he’s been neglecting since Garak fell ill (or rather, since Garak fell, literally, after getting a dose of a drug they still haven’t fully deciphered). Or at least he tries, feeling itchy and unsettled under the watchful eyes of his nurses after he firmly rejected Ezri’s attempt to send him away.

"You’ve been diving into someone else’s mind non-stop all week," she said. "Barely sleeping. Your brain chemistry is still all over the place. You need rest, not more work."

"I promise to stay away from heavy machinery," he half joked, half promised. "It’s not like I can sleep any more right now, and sitting alone in my quarters is hardly the rest you have in mind."

Ezri ended up leaving without invoking her power to force him off the roster. Julian ended up under an unofficial supervision, which is annoying and, frankly, unnecessary, but touching, so he lets it be.

He checks in every half an hour or so, and finally, he finds Garak awake and finishing getting dressed.

"Going somewhere?" Julian asks from the doorframe, folding his arms and putting on his best professional frown. It feels all kinds of warped, and he drops it after a few seconds. Garak continues to button down his shirt.

"I’d really rather you stayed for a while longer," Julian says carefully. "We need to get your neurotransmitter levels up to the baseline."

"I don’t have to be here for that though, do I?" Garak asks, not looking at him.

Julian sighs and looks down as well.

"No, I suppose not. I can write you a prescription."

It is painfully awkward. It has been a long time since it hasn’t been some kind of awkward between them, but it hasn’t been quite this bad in a while. Or maybe it just feels worse now after the forced intimacy of shared dreaming and Garak’s whispered confessions.

"How much do you remember?" Julian asks when Garak sits down on the biobed — pretending it is to straighten his sleeves, and not because he is likely dizzy from all the movement after a week of his body desperately resisting Julian’s attempts to keep him alive. Stubborn as ever.

"Enough," Garak replies. "Nurse Flow’ad told me how long I have been indisposed. I’m sure I do not remember everything, but I understand the general outline of the… experience."

Julian snorts. It’s terribly insensitive, and Garak immediately looks at him in reproach, but he can’t help himself. Experience, indeed.

"I believe I have been unfair to you when I first regained consciousness," Garak continues. "You have my gratitude, Doctor. I understand how unpleasant this must have been for you."

"Are we really going to do this, Garak?" Julian asks, tiredly. "After everything that you do remember, must you settle on the 'sorry for the inconvenience, thank you and goodbye' routine again?"

Garak looks haunted. Miserable. But oh so stubborn, Julian wants to smother him, but also to pin him down and force some comfort onto him, whether he allows it or not.

He does, of course, no such thing.

"What would you have us do instead?" Garak asks coldly. It is forced, but it still bites. "Would you like me to gaze into your eyes and proclaim you my hero? Perhaps fashion a medal of sorts?"

"I would like us to talk," Julian snaps.

"You promised you could pretend to forget whatever it is you saw inside my mind." Garak snaps back.

"Well, I changed my mind!"

Garak is glaring at him, and Julian is glaring back, and when the door behind his back hisses open, he barks out an angry, "Not now!" without checking to see who it was and is immediately horrified by his own outburst.

It must not be important, he reckons guiltily, because they do not come back. He isn’t sure he’s in the right state of mind to deal with any patients right now, anyway. In hindsight, Ezri was right. He probably shouldn’t be allowed around people right now. Everything is still too fresh. Too wobbly. He keeps expecting a disaster to strike and pull him out.

Keeps waiting for Garak to say he shouldn’t be here.

Garak isn’t saying that, though — isn’t even glaring at him anymore. Just sits there and looks tired and uncharacteristically subdued. Julian steps closer. And again. And again, until he can sit down next to him.

"I don’t want to forget," he admits quietly. "I’m sorry you didn’t get to decide whether to let me in, but I don’t want to just pretend it didn’t happen."

"Why are you even here, Doctor?" Garak asks. "After everything you’ve seen."

"I’m here because of everything I’ve seen," Julian replies, and he isn’t sure he understands it fully himself, but it rings true. All the horrible things Garak’s done, all the horrible things done to him, all the mistakes, and self-hatred, and hopelessness — is it terrible, that none of it was a big surprise? Is it healthy that none of it made him want to walk away? Probably, not. He probably should walk away, shouldn’t he? Except he never did, and now it’s too late, and Julian has no idea where he even stands anymore, morally — just that he isn’t going to give up on Garak.

"It’s not like I didn’t know you were deeply disturbed by the truly disturbing things you’ve done," he articulates into the naked trembling silence between them. "Or that you never forgave yourself for them. You are not quite as mysterious as you think you are."

That earns him an offended scoff, but it’s flat — a perfunctory reaction for the sake of… what, exactly? A ghost of a mask Garak once brandished in front of him?

"The one thing I did not know going in," Julian continues, "is what your safe space is."

"Ah!" Garak says after a long awkward pause. "My little misguided fantasy of domestic bliss."

Julian shakes his head, because while he is pleased Garak remembers that singular little oasis of peace amongst all the nightmarish deserts his mind sent them to, that isn’t what he is talking about. Not exactly. That is a whole other topic he isn’t ready to touch on yet.

"You trust me," he says, reckless and terrified even this is too soon, too fast, too much. For both of them. "At least on some deep level that you can’t control. Every time I reached out, you allowed me to be there for you, even as the world was falling apart. You trust me, Garak."

"Don’t get too smug now," Garak mutters, quiet and embarrassed. He isn’t denying it though. Julian breathes a little easier.

He can’t quite say out loud what he is implying. That he is Garak’s safe place. It feels too raw, too fragile to put out in the open, where it can be ruthlessly smashed into pieces by either of theirs all too eager defense mechanisms. Garak, denying he needs anyone, least of all the man he walked out on numerous times in the past. Julian, too dizzy with the cognitive dissonance between everything he came to accept since before the war ended and everything forced onto him over the last week, to truly believe it. The implication sits between them, though, vague and warm, and that’s enough for the moment.

"Can you trust me now, too?" Julian asks. Pleads, really, because he can’t exactly force Garak to do anything he doesn’t want to do. "Can you stay until we are both well enough to talk about it like grown ups?"

Chapter Text

Garak does not want to talk about 'it’, and he especially despises the implication hidden inside Julian’s 'like grown ups.’

"Don’t patronize me," he snaps, annoyed, and is immediately attacked by a sense of déjà vu followed by a moment of not being sure where and when he is. The temporal vertigo leaves him raw and unsettled. At least, he recovers fast this time. He’s been practicing recovering from, and adjusting to, these little landmines since he woke up today and found himself within the cold walls of the infirmary. It’s frustrating, but not insurmountable.

"I’m not patronizing you," Julian replies, clean and carefully measured, but he is obviously upset by Garak’s reaction. Has been upset since he walked in, really, and it keeps grating on Garak’s nerves, because he doesn’t know what to do with it — with this shared misery pointing all over the place. He doesn’t like that Julian is upset, he doesn’t like his freshly acquired tendency to doubt his own reality, and he doesn’t like the changed cadence of their conversation: the silences, the short inelegant sentences, the disconnect of it all.

Even his own thoughts feel foreign: too choppy, too muted, too close to the undercurrents he’s mastered staying away from in the years before.

It’s unsettling.

He can sense Julian is looking at him expectantly — waiting for an answer to his earlier plea, Garak guesses. Probably planning to keep looking at him like this, all soft, and upset, and stubborn — and then probably pester him with care and wide-eyed empathy, until he gets what he wants. It’s always been dangerously effective. It is sure to only get worse now that he finally discovered that Garak trusts him. Which, really, Garak is simultaneously proud of his own misdirection skills and bitterly annoyed they worked so well. It is beyond him how this ridiculous man manages to be so freakishly perceptive and so obtuse at the exact same time.

He wants to mock Julian for missing all the moments Garak put his trust in him.

He wants to move closer and calm himself by the physicality of holding the man he feels like he’s lost a hundred times over in the little eternity of the last week.

He also wants to transport a million light years away from here and never touch this topic again.

"Damn it, Garak," Julian sighs, shifting on the biobed. "Always a step forward and two steps back, isn’t it."

Garak chances a glance. Julian has curled up on himself now, bony elbows pushing into the meat of his legs, head resting on the knuckles of his locked fingers. He looks miserable. Exhausted. Sickly, even.

Garak’s attention sharpens. He takes Julian’s folded form in, circles back to their earlier conversation, and then to the previous day, and then — earlier still.

"Are you alright, Doctor?" Garak’s voice drops, as he realizes pretty much the moment the words leave his mouth, that, firstly, Julian is categorically not alright, and, secondly, it is most definitely his fault.

Garak spent a week drowning.

Julian spent that same week trying to fish him out, failing, and trying again, and possibly forgetting to breathe in the process, if Garak knows him at all.

"Why are you like this," he mutters, when Julian’s response is to smile and look up at him, inappropriately hopeful and warm, as if even this little shard of affection is enough to forget and forgive everything Garak pulled him through. It’s less of a question and more of a temporary surrender.

"Like what?" Julian, the habitual killer of rhetorical questions, demands to know. Garak doesn’t say anything in return, just glares at him in reproach.

"Will you stay, then?" Julian asks hopefully, when he’s tired of the silence.

And Garak cannot win against that pleading look, and the exhaustion on Julian’s face, and the knowledge that he isn’t the one in this room who deserves to be begged to stay.

"Alright," he grumbles. "If you must insist, Doctor, I suppose I can stay in this medical confinement of yours for a few more days."

"Thank you," Julian says, and Garak suspects he knows exactly what he’s doing — knows that it’s working, that Garak is defenseless against his ridiculous little 'thank you.'

He hums noncommittally, and then Julian is up and out of the room, leaving Garak to deal with the realization he has just voluntarily gave up his chance to escape from a situation he has absolutely no plans how to deal with.

The medical white of the infirmary looks and feels made up — like an echo from the past he’d rather not think about. It is harder to ignore when he is alone. Even when he isn’t, he has to check — to test the internal logic of his own timeline — to make sure it isn’t another dream. It stands to the test this time, but it’s still a relief when Julian returns a few minutes later.

Julian returns with food for the both of them, and, all of a sudden, Garak is ravenous.

"Slow down," Julian chuckles, watching him spoon the thick lumpy stew. "You haven’t had solid food in a week."

"At least I had an excuse," Garak shoots back habitually, but he does slow down.

He makes a show of checking Julian out and ignores the warm buzz in his chest when he notices Julian sitting up straighter under the attention. It would be so easy — so incredibly easy — to shift this conversation towards empty flirting, to chase the familiar shape of their banter instead of digging his heels into the path he’s standing on now.

"Why do you look like you haven’t been eating since before I decided to visit the station?"

It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit. Garak tries and fails to remember the days leading up to him getting locked away in his own mind — he’s been informed it’s been a week, but it feels like he lived through years of half remembered dreams. Did Julian already look this frail then? How much of it is the price for stepping into Garak’s nightmares and refusing to look away?

Julian brushes his concern off with a light-hearted, "I’ve been eating fine, Garak. I just burned a lot of energy, as well, to do this. You know how brains are, greedy bastards."

Garak raises an eyebrow and puts down the spoon just so he can stare at Julian until he turns away, flustered.

"Are you bragging about the might of your intellect, Doctor?"

"Am I not allowed to?" Julian asks, quietly, then turns to look at Garak again. "But no, not really. If anything, it’s the hardware interfacing that used up the most of the energy. It didn’t help that your brain and mine are running on different architectures."

Garak knows what Julian means, but he can’t help thinking this architecture comment isn’t just about the biological reality of their respective neural networks. They are running on different architectures of hope and morality, too, aren’t they?

"One would think it a good reason not to attempt any interfacing at all," Garak notes.

Morality aside, it’s chilling to think what toll the biological incompatibility could have taken on the one forcing himself into a space not designed to host him. Especially given that Garak has been trained to resist various forms of mental manipulation — it wouldn’t do for a potential heir of the Obsidian order to be easily manipulated by any outsider with psychic abilities, after all.

He remembers his mind defending himself against Julian — eliminating him like an immune system eliminates a virus — again and again. It’s a miracle, frankly, that Julian is sitting here, talking to him, drained but still himself.

"And one would be wrong," Julian says lightly, either oblivious to the danger, or just reckless enough to not care about it. It’d be infuriatingly on brand for him: he’s by no means stupid, but he is also an absolute idiot. "Anyway, what I’m saying is I’m fine, Garak. I’ll eat plenty, sleep plenty and be back to normal in a week or two, same as you."

Garak should be happy Julian isn’t pursuing any in depth conversations about what happened. They continue their lunch in peace, interspersed by scarce dialogue here and there, so unlike them, and so entirely safe. Julian asks about the developments on Cardassia that led Garak here. Garak grumbles about the hypocrisy of charity but admits he is grateful for Bajor’s offer of help. Garak asks about the life on DS9. Julian feeds him anecdotes about the daily life on the frontier he was once so enchanted with.

He should be happy, because the last thing he wants to talk about is how vividly he remembers Julian’s blood on his fingers, or the way he knew inside a dream what he should have known in reality, or how easy it was to call Julian his when Julian played along and let him have that moment of peace in a made up future with a made up relationship.

He isn’t happy.

It hangs over him, like an unfinished business, and Garak is normally fine with unfinished businesses — he has long since made peace with the fact that he didn’t get to choose what strands of his life he followed to their end — but he must be getting too old and sentimental, because today it is difficult to bear.

He mocked Julian so many times for his thirst for clarity, and yet, here he is, now, starving for it himself. Scared to touch on what still feels like an open wound, and yet itching to do so.

Julian is saying something, and Garak watches him talk, but his thoughts are elsewhere. His memories are wobbly, overlapping over each other and changing under his fingertips as he attempts to hold onto them, and he wonders: did he really apologize for that time he couldn’t see Julian wasn’t here?  Or is it his mind playing tricks on him, mixing up the shaky reality of the shared dreams with the mental rehearsals and…

“…Garak?”

“Hmm?”

He focuses on Julian who is looking at him expectantly for a few seconds before offering a tired smile and a “do you want anything else?”

It takes another couple of seconds to recalibrate and realize their plates are empty, and that must be what Julian is referring to, because his gaze falls down, guiding Garak’s. How infuriatingly kind.

“I am quite full, Doctor, thank you,” Garak manages.

“I think you could use more rest,” Julian notes, loading the tray with their dishes and putting it aside. “I’ll leave you to it, but comm me if you need anything.”

It sounds reasonable enough. He does need rest — Garak can feel it in the sluggishness of his thoughts and his body now that his attention is on it. He isn’t up to being a good company, and he doubts it will change anytime soon, and certainly not if he resists sleep because the mere thought of it makes this cold place even colder.

He is a reasonable man.

Except, when Julian actually makes a move for the exit, Garak hears himself utter an urgent “No!” before he can realise what he’s doing.

Julian stops in his tracks and turns around. His worried face drives Garak up the wall. He hates it. Passionately.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Garak rushes to cover it up. “I merely meant this place isn’t exactly conductive to a peaceful rest. May I at least trouble you for an extra blanket if you insist on keeping me here?”

Julian looks him over, thoughtful, and then seems to make a decision. Stands a little straighter, holds himself a little tenser. Steps closer instead of away, and Garak can feel himself relaxing.

“Would you like to stay elsewhere?” Julian asks. “Your old quarters have been long since reassigned, but you could stay with me. I’ll crank the thermostat higher, so you can rest in comfort.”

Garak still hates it — this impersonal kindness Julian disperses so generously, but right now he needs it, too, and although he hates that he needs it, the need is just a little bit stronger.

“And here I thought the whole point of today’s conversation was to convince me to stay here,” he grumbles, but he is already up, and when Julian smiles and jokes “Maybe, you just didn’t quite understand what ‘here’ meant, Garak,” he just scoffs in response.

It’s a relief to step outside the little room where he spent the last day, even if it’s only into a bigger room with equally oppressive interior design and grumpy nurses. All Bajoran, and not a single familiar face, Garak notes — not even the nurse from the day before.

Julian slows down and makes an apologetic face at one of them before explaining that he’ll be taking Garak out for a while.

They walk into a familiar face on their way out.

“Colonel, what a nice surprise,” Garak greets her, momentarily taken aback but not displeased.

“Likewise, Garak. It’s good to see you on your feet.”

She smiles and doesn’t enquire how he is, blessedly. He isn’t below admitting an interrogation from Kyra Nerys isn’t something he could handle right now.

Julian, it seems, isn’t about to be spared.

"I was actually hoping to talk to you, Julian."

“I will just help Garak settle in my quarters, and then I’ll be back,” Julian replies, as if it is entirely normal to take patients home — or to take Garak, specifically, anywhere. Garak half-heartedly glares at him for volunteering information nobody asked for. Julian pays him no mind. At least, colonel doesn’t seem particularly interested in their destination.

“No you won’t,” she says. “I have received a communication from Doctor Levy, and she strongly recommended you to take medical leave for the next few days, at least. I’ve already arranged for someone from Bajor to come help in the infirmary.”

Garak turns to Julian, who, for a few seconds, looks like he is about to dismiss the suggestion and fight the implied order. And then he sighs, and the fight drains from him. He chuckles humorlessly.

"Starfleet Medical is inconveniently efficient sometimes, isn’t it. It has barely been fifteen hours since I’ve sent the scans."

"Convenient or not, it’s done," colonel shrugs. "Go home, Julian. Sleep, read, do whatever you need, and I’ll expect you back when ready."

She turns to smile at Garak again, and it seems to be genuine. She has always been genuine. When she despised him, when she threatened him, when she begrudgingly grew to like him, and now, too, apparently.

"You too, Garak. Recover well, and make sure to let me know before leaving the station. Vedek Tolena asked me to ensure you she will find time in her schedule for that meeting of yours once you’ve recovered."

"That is very generous of her," Garak smiles back, politely. "Please, pass on my gratitude and assurances that I am eager to resume our negotiations."

Garak watches her walk away, and then he is walking too, following Julian through the busy hallways, every step — aching with familiarity.

"I expected you to fight more for your right to command the infirmary," Garak admits once they safely locked away from the curious eyes and ears by the walls of a turbolift. "May I ask what are these scans you referred to?"

Julian glances at him weirdly. It isn’t the first time this particular look settles on his face today, and Garak is once again left guessing about the meaning of it.

"I’ve been scanning myself every two days since I started your treatment, just in case there was some kind of brain damage brewing," Julian explains matter-of-factly, once again leaving Garak caught between awe and a wish to inflict brain damage on him right here. "Long story short, I am fine, but it will take a bit of time to reset my biochemistry to the normal parameters. For now it is probably for the best that I don’t treat any patients."

"Except for me, I suppose?"

"Why, Garak, are you afraid I won’t provide you with adequate medical care?" Julian teases.

"On the opposite, Doctor. I’d rather not share the details of my state with a new physician."

"There is nothing in my medical notes that would compromise your privacy," Julian states seriously. "If you really wanted to, you could have someone else monitor you. But I am perfectly capable, I assure you."

The doors open before Garak has a chance to respond, and Julian leads the way. It’s not the same level of the habitat ring as where he used to reside. Garak, therefore, has no idea where they are going. It is surprisingly easy to simply put his trust in Julian and follow.