Chapter Text
There was a strange kind of dissociation that Julian experienced sometimes, when he was injured or ill. There was the part of him that was experiencing the symptoms and then the part of him that was cataloging them, describing them, analyzing them, as he would for any other patient.
Human male, 35, presents with symptoms of severe clinical depression. Patient has been experiencing acute insomnia, headaches, lack of appetite and sex drive, and a lack of interest in social activities for several months. Patient also reports symptoms of PTSD, such as nightmares, and admits to self-medicating with alcohol. Patient indicates that he has been experiencing thoughts of suicidal ideation a minimum of 8-10 times per day.
Inpatient care is recommended, until the proper balance of medication is achieved, brain chemistry stabilizes, and thoughts of suicide subside.
He didn’t actually tell anyone, of course. Even if he had wanted to, who would he tell? Kira had enough on her plate without him adding to it. Dax was long gone. Jake had finally left the station for his writer’s fellowship on Earth. He should have told Girani, but he knew how that would end. He couldn’t subject himself to inpatient psychiatric care in his own infirmary. The idea was unbearable. So he said nothing.
And what was worse was that no one seemed to notice. Only Quark seemed to care that he never visited the holosuites and no longer drank at the bar, where his level of consumption would have been too conspicuous. Miles wasn’t there to drag him out for darts. Garak wasn’t there to chide him for not having read the novel they agreed on for the week. He had access to all the hypos and medications he needed to keep functioning, and it wasn’t like there were a lot of station emergencies these days. He drifted through life, one day to the next, and all anyone seemed to see was what they wanted to.
And it was never going to change. At least not unless and until Bajor took over the station completely and kicked Starfleet out, and then… well, Julian didn’t know what would happen to him then. He didn’t care much, either. It was impossible to imagine a future that wasn’t worse than the present.
Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe his shuttle would have an accident on his way to whatever far-flung outpost they’d decided to shuffle him off to, and it would all be over.
The first time he’d had a thought like that, it was alarming. But on its heels came a sense of relief. There was a way out. He’d thought of Garak, dying from the degenerating implant, learning that Quark wasn’t coming with a replacement. Maybe it’s for the best.
For the first time in Julian’s life, he understood that feeling. How arrogant he’d been. No wonder Garak had hated him. Julian hated the person he’d been then, almost more than he hated the person he’d become.
He replicated the pills late one night, alone in the infirmary, using one of Jabara’s codes. He didn’t know why he chose pills, rather than a hypo; it seemed fitting, somehow. He carried them around in his pocket, and at certain moments — not even bad ones, just whenever he felt like it — he put his hand in his pocket and rolled the bottle between his fingers.
It was a normal evening. His head had been throbbing all day. The infirmary was slow, and he’d spent much of his shift struggling to answer Garak’s most recent letter. He didn’t know what to say to him — if station news (not that there was much) would be welcome, or whether he should talk about what he’d been reading (truthfully: nothing). He certainly couldn’t tell him anything about how he was actually doing. Garak was living in a shed and rebuilding his war-ravaged planet. He would not want to hear about Julian’s struggles to get out of his perfectly comfortable bed in the morning. If anyone had the right to be depressed, it was Garak.
At the end of his shift, Kira came by to talk him into dinner at Quark’s. He went along because she seemed very determined, and it was easier than resisting, which might invite questions.
She’d spent her day arguing with Starfleet about something — Julian couldn’t have said what, much to his shame — and wanted to vent. He made listening noises and pushed his food around on his plate. He ordered a second drink, then a third. He knew better than to order more than that here.
“Thanks for listening,” she told him as they went to leave. “I didn’t even ask how your day was.”
“It was fine,” he said, with a smile that felt as fake as any hologram’s. See me, he thought desperately, hoping that just this once, someone would notice that he was drowning. Please, just see me.
“Well, I’m glad one of us had a good day,” she sighed. “Have a good night, Julian.” She gave his arm a fond squeeze and headed off back to Ops. He was left standing on the promenade, in front of Garak’s old shop.
Garak would have seen him, Julian was sure. Garak had always seen him. On the Defiant, during the war, Garak had seen how badly Julian was handling things when no one else seemed to. His methods for dealing with it had been unorthodox but effective.
But Garak was gone. He was gone, and he had a life and a purpose that didn’t include Julian. Julian would not be so selfish as to wish that he were here again, even if Garak were the only person to whom he could imagine confessing everything. Garak would have understood.
Julian put his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the bottle of pills. He kept them safe in his palm as he walked back toward the habitat ring.
***
The freighter didn’t have much in the way of passenger accommodations. Garak spent most of the trip between Cardassia and DS9 sitting on the floor between two large crates, staring at the subspace message he’d received from Colonel Kira less than a day earlier.
I’m sorry for asking this of you, but I need you to come to DS9. Julian tried to kill himself.
Nothing about it made sense. Garak knew Julian had struggled during the war, but despite that, he had always proven quite resilient. Garak knew more than a little of despair, but he could not imagine his dear, optimistic doctor ever sinking to the depths that he himself had during the affair with the wire.
It was fortunate that a relief freighter had been dropping off supplies on Cardassia when the message had arrived. In just a few hours, Garak was on his way back to a place he’d never thought he’d see again. It was a testament, truly, to how much affection he held for Julian.
The captain had allowed Garak to send a message ahead to the station, letting Kira know he was coming. Then he’d settled in for a long and uncomfortable journey.
The station was as it ever was, at least from space. It had been less than a year, after all. The airlocks had the same strangely metallic smell from the recycled air. Garak ducked through the last ring and found himself face to face with Kira.
“Colonel,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
“Oh Prophets’ tears, Garak, am I glad to see you,” she said with a lot more conviction than Garak was expecting. “I didn’t know if the message would reach you, or if you’d come if it did. I should have known…” She shook her head. “I’m just so glad you’re here.”
“Well, it was a stroke of luck that there was a freighter leaving that very day. I might have had to wait weeks otherwise.” And what an unendurable situation that would have been. He might have ended up stealing an old military shuttle. He tried not to take offense at her doubts about whether he would come; she’d known how he felt about Cardassia, after all. But Garak suspected she also knew how he felt about Julian.
“Come on, I’m sure you want to see him,” she said, leading him down the corridor. “He’s still in the infirmary. He did a fair amount of damage to his liver and his stomach lining.”
“I see. Was it… I’m sorry, Colonel, I don’t mean to be indelicate. Was it alcohol?”
“No, though from what Girani said, there are signs he’s been drinking a lot more than anyone knew. It was triptacederine — 2000 milligrams in pill form, which is the only reason he’s still alive. If he’d taken a hypo, he’d be dead.” Kira shook her head, her mouth in a grim line. “I’d had dinner with him earlier in the evening, and I spent the whole time just — just whining about some issue I was having with Starfleet. He listened for at least an hour, never interrupted. I realized later that he barely ate anything. I didn’t even notice that anything was wrong!”
“I’m sure he intended for you not to notice,” Garak said. “How was he discovered?”
“It was sheer luck. I had a question about the next day’s duty roster in the infirmary. I couldn’t raise him over comms, so I swung by his quarters on my way home. He didn’t answer but the computer said he was inside and — I don’t know, something felt off to me. So I used my override and found him unconscious, the pill bottle still in his hand.”
“That must have been quite a shock.”
“It was awful.” Kira drew a deep breath. “And now I’m wondering — we’re all wondering — how the hell we missed this for so long. Because clearly he’s been suffering and none of us saw it.”
“Who’s us, in this case?” Garak asked as they merged onto the promenade. He ignored the startled glances he received.
“Girani. Me. Jabara.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s everyone who’s left from the old days. Well, and Quark, but speaking to him about this hasn’t been high on my list of priorities.” They paused just outside the infirmary, and Kira pinched her nose ridges in a decidedly human gesture.
“Dax isn’t here?”
“What?” Kira blinked. “Oh — no. She’s been gone for six months? Maybe closer to seven. She’s on Trill. I should probably send her a subspace message, but I doubt Julian would talk to her as a counselor, given their history. I’m not sure there’s much she could do.”
And yet she had thought there was something Garak could do. Garak suddenly wondered what exactly that was. He had gotten on the first (and only) ship to DS9 without much thought about what he might do once he was here.
With Kira Nerys, there was generally only one way to get information, and it was to ask. “Colonel, why did you send for me? Why not the Chief?”
“Well, Earth is a two-week trip, for one thing,” she said, blunt as ever. “But to be honest, I wasn’t thinking very clearly. It just — it seemed like the right thing to do. You were his first friend on the station, and you were always one of his closest. I thought you might understand him in a way I can’t.”
Indeed, Garak would guess that Kira knew very little of what it was like to want one’s life to simply stop. “I see. Well, I will do my best to meet expectations, though I have very little experience with being on this side of things.”
“I don’t think that matters, Garak. Julian doesn’t need you to be his therapist — if I know the Federation, he’ll have plenty of those.” Her tone was wry, and Garak gave an acknowledging huff. “He needs you to be his friend.”
“That, I believe I can do.”
“Good.” Kira turned and went through the doors of the infirmary. Garak followed.
They were immediately greeted by Doctor Girani. Garak didn’t know her well; Julian had always handled Garak’s medical care personally. She didn't appear surprised to see him. “Colonel,” she said, “Mr. Garak.”
“How’s he doing?” Kira asked.
“Sleeping a lot and very quiet when he is awake. He passed the cognition test with flying colors, but otherwise, I don’t think he’s said more than five words in the past twenty-six hours. I don’t know if he’s awake right now,” she added to Garak, “but you are welcome to go in.”
Garak glanced at Kira, a silent invitation, but she shook her head. “I tried yesterday. He wouldn’t talk to me. I think you’ll do better without me there.”
The room Girani showed him to was small, just a single biobed and some monitoring equipment. It was dim aside from a light in the corner, where Jabara sat, reading something on a PADD. Her eyes widened a little when she glanced up and saw Garak. She quickly got up and left, nodding at him in acknowledgment.
Julian was asleep –– or pretending to be –– in the biobed. Garak had said good-bye to him less than a year ago, but he looked as though he had aged a decade in that time. There was gray in the scruff on his jaw and at his temples, and there were new lines at his mouth and between his brows. His skin had a dull, lifeless quality to it that bespoke exhaustion and a persistent lack of self-care –– though some of that may have been the hideous purple and orange patient gown, which certainly did him no favors. His cheekbones had sharpened, and Garak guessed that if he could see beneath the gown, Julian’s ribs would be far too visible.
How in the world had Julian’s friends and colleagues missed this? Had they really been so oblivious? Or had it simply happened so slowly and steadily that none of the changes had been obvious? He liked very much to think that he would not have missed changes this glaring if he had been here, but he had, truthfully, never quite forgiven himself for not recognizing the Changeling.
“It’s annoying, isn’t it,” he said, “when you’ve finally decided to give up and someone comes along and stubbornly insists that you keep living.”
Julian’s eyes blinked open. “Garak?” he whispered.
“Hello, my dear doctor.” Garak closed the door, then stepped closer to the bed.
“Are you...” Julian blinked rapidly. “Are you really here? Am I hallucinating?”
“I don’t believe so, no.” Garak took Julian’s hand in his and squeezed it. He gave a little gasp and gripped back with surprising strength, given how weak he appeared.
“How... why... what are you doing here?”
This time, it was Garak’s turn to blink in astonishment. “My dear, what do you think? Kira sent me a message about what happened. Fortunately, there was a freighter dropping off supplies and returning to DS9 that very afternoon.”
Julian turned his face away. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You shouldn’t have left Cardassia. Not for this. I’m not worth it.”
It was stated so matter-of-factly, with such exhaustion and resignation, that Garak almost didn’t know what to say. Julian was already turning away from him, rolling onto his side and pulling his hand out of Garak’s, and there were alarm bells blaring in the back of Garak’s head. If Julian pulled away now, Garak would lose him for good. They might all lose him for good.
“You are the only thing that is worth it,” Garak said, matching Julian’s matter-of-fact tone with his own. “I would not have left Cardassia for anyone else. When I received the Colonel’s message, there simply was no question about whether I would come.”
He’d tightened his grip on Julian’s hand, preventing him from pulling away entirely. Julian was forced to roll onto his back again, but he closed his eyes, presumably to avoid looking Garak in the eye. “Maybe that was true once,” he muttered. “But I haven’t been a good friend. I can’t even answer your letters.”
“You could take ten years to write to me, and I would still be overjoyed to hear from you,” Garak replied. “My dear, I’m not asking or expecting anything, only that you allow me to be here with you.”
“Oh,” Julian said, opening his eyes to look up at him. Garak didn’t know if he’d ever heard so much packed into a single syllable: wonder and fear and exhaustion and painful, agonizing hope. “Garak...” He swallowed. “I’m so tired. I feel like I haven’t slept in years.”
“I know the feeling.” Garak dared to stroke a hand through his hair. Julian sighed, head lolling into his hand and tension leaking out of his body, and so Garak did it again. He’d always wondered what Julian’s hair would feel like through his fingers. This was not how he would have chosen to find out that it was soft — and at the moment, a bit greasy. “You’ve let your hair grow,” he murmured.
“Not as much as yours,” Julian said, reaching up to touch the end of Garak’s plait.
“The military style has fallen out of favor for some reason,” Garak said wryly. “Long hair is what passes for fashionable on Cardassia these days.”
At the mention of Cardassia, Julian seemed to withdraw again. “I’m sorry. If Kira had asked, I’d have told her not to tell you.”
“I’m sure you would have,” Garak said, hitching one hip up so he could sit on the edge of the bed. Julian shifted his legs to make room, but there was only so far for him to go, and so Garak’s hip ended up pressed against Julian’s thigh through the layers of blankets and clothing. That was by design; it hadn’t escaped him that Julian was reacting as though no one had touched him in months. “And for that very reason, I’m glad she didn’t ask you.”
“But you must have responsibilities.”
“I do, but I’m hardly irreplaceable. We are through the worst of it, and now we are starting the long, slow process of rebuilding. It will all still be there when I get back.” This was, admittedly, a partial lie. Garak did have responsibilities, and he was concerned about being gone for too long. The rebuilding process would be slow, but it would also be contentious, and Garak worried about what might happen in his absence. Ghemor and Lang, his primary allies, were decent politicians, but far too trusting. But it wouldn’t do to say any of that to Julian now.
“And when will that be? How long are you staying?”
“As long as I need to. Colonel Kira seems to think my presence might benefit your recovery. I’ll admit I find the idea baffling myself, and of course if you feel otherwise —”
“No,” Julian said quickly. “No, that’s not it. It’s just, I don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“I assure you, I am here of my own free will,” Garak said. “I have missed you, Doctor.”
“Julian, please,” Julian said wearily. “I’m not fit to heal myself right now, much less anyone else. And I missed you, too, Garak. So much.” His voice cracked, his face crumpled, and the tears, which Garak had sensed beneath the surface this whole time, were suddenly leaking steadily down Julian’s face. He mumbled embarrassed apologies, but Garak simply wiped them away with his thumbs, and then, in a moment of either great bravery or stupidity, he leaned down and pressed their foreheads together.
He had only on the rarest of occasions done this with another person as an adult. It was not the same with a human, of course, who didn’t have a chufa with its bundle of delicate nerve endings. But it succeeded in wiping out the rest of the world for the moment, so that all of Garak’s senses were filled with Julian.
“Oh,” Julian breathed, much differently this time.
“A long time ago, I wanted to lie down and let it all end, and you didn’t let me,” Garak whispered. “At the time, I didn’t feel a lot of gratitude towards you for it.”
“I know. I was so arrogant.”
“Hush. That was then. Now, I’m grateful every day that you saved my life. Somehow, day by day, the future unfolded in ways I could never have expected. And I’d have missed all of it if I had died when I wanted to.”
Julian’s eyes fell shut, and for a long moment, they simply breathed together. But the brief moment of peace was over far too soon. Julian pulled away, and Garak sat up.
“I can’t imagine any kind of future for myself, Garak,” Julian said, refusing to look at him. “I’ve been blackballed by Starfleet. No transfers, no promotions. There are fewer and fewer Starfleet personnel here all the time. Someday, it’ll just be me. It’s exile by any other name.”
“I see,” Garak said softly. “Does Colonel Kira know?”
Julian shook his head. “Though… I guess it’s fine if she knows. I don’t really know why I didn’t tell her.”
“I understand the impulse to keep your weaknesses hidden, even from your friends. But I think, in this case, your instincts may have been working against you.” Julian said nothing. Garak stroked his hand through Julian’s hair again, scratching lightly at his scalp with his nails. Julian sighed softly, his eyelids growing heavy. “You should rest, my dear. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?” Julian mumbled, leaning into Garak’s hand.
“I promise.” Another stroke of Garak’s hand through Julian’s hair, then another, and another. By the fifth, he was asleep. Garak adjusted the blankets so that they covered him up to his chin, and then stepped out of the room.
Kira and Girani were waiting for him, along with Jabara. She immediately slipped back into Julian’s room, presumably to resume her vigil. “Well?” Kira demanded.
“He’s resting,” Garak said quietly, conscious that the door to Julian’s hospital room was open. “But I did persuade him to say a few more than five words. Did you know that he’s been blackballed from Starfleet?”
Kira’s eyes widened. “What? No! Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I can’t begin to guess –– well, I can, but I’m not sure it would be productive. He looks absolutely dreadful, by the way.”
“Almost dying will do that to a person,” Kira replied.
“That,” Garak pointed at Julian’s room, “didn’t happen overnight.”
“I agree, Mr. Garak,” Girani interjected, before Kira could respond. “We missed many signs that seem obvious in hindsight. I feel especially responsible as Julian’s personal physician and someone who works closely with him daily. The caliber of his work remained high, and it is not unusual for people to go through a period of adjustment after something like a war. He had us all convinced that he was doing better than he was. But you’re right, we should have seen it.”
Garak drew a deep breath. “I suppose it is, as humans say, water under the bridge. We all know that Doctor Bashir is capable of subterfuge when he wants to be. I suppose I was simply taken aback by how ill he is. And I have no idea whether I did him any good.”
“If it helps, I believe you did him a lot of good,” Girani said. “His vital signs stabilized while you were in there with him. He experienced a drop in blood pressure and heart rate, and a rise in several helpful hormones. He reacted to you physiologically, I hope you don’t mind me saying, as patients do to close family members. I feel much better about the situation, knowing that you are here.”
“Well, that’s... gratifying.” Garak avoided looking at Kira, having no desire to find out what her take on that was. “Tell me, Doctor, what is the plan? You can’t keep him in that room forever.”
“Of course not. I’ve been coordinating with Starfleet Medical about his care. They would like him to be admitted to an inpatient facility within the Federation.”
This time, Garak did turn to Kira. “I have to say, I don’t like that idea at all.”
“I don’t, either,” Kira said, “and I like it even less now that I know he’s been blackballed. But we don’t have the facilities to help him here on the station.”
“Bajor does,” Garak pointed out.
Girani frowned. “I don’t think Starfleet would like that. I will continue to think about this. The doctor I’ve been working with, Doctor Crusher, seems very competent. She knows Julian personally and appears to have his best interests at heart.”
“I’ve heard Julian talk about Doctor Crusher,” Garak said. “He thinks very highly of her.”
“In any case, Julian is certainly well enough to be involved in any decisions about his care,” Girani said. “In a day or two, we can discuss his options. I hope you’re planning to stay at least that long, Mr. Garak?”
“I’ll stay as long as I’m needed.”
“Good,” Girani said, with palpable relief. “I’m glad to hear it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to attend to.”
“Thank you, Semna,” Kira said, and Girani left. She turned to look at Garak. “I think we need to talk.”
“I agree. But I did promise Julian that I would be here when he woke.”
“We can use his office. I don’t want to risk anyone overhearing us.”
Julian’s small office hadn’t changed very much. It contained a bank of computers, two chairs, and a small replicator. Without asking him what he wanted, Kira replicated them tea and chocolate biscuits for them both. Garak might have objected, had the idea of choosing among the plethora of options offered even by a replicator with a limited menu not been so overwhelming. It had been nearly a year since he had eaten anything that wasn’t a ration bar and drunk anything that wasn’t decontaminated water.
“Thank you,” Garak said, as they sat down in the two chairs. “It’s... strange to be among all this abundance again.”
“I can imagine. I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked how things are on Cardassia.”
“Improving, little by little. The supplies from Bajor have been invaluable. Thank you for your part in arranging that.”
She shrugged off his thanks, as he had known she would. “I need to tell you some things, Garak. Julian, at the end of the war... did things that I think he never thought himself capable of. And I’m pretty sure that’s why he’s blackballed from Starfleet, and it might have a lot to do with... everything else.”
“I see. What things?” Garak asked, taking his first sip of red leaf tea. The replicated version never had all the nuances and layers of fresh, but it was far more than was currently available on Cardassia. He let it roll over his tongue slowly before swallowing.
Kira took a deep breath. “Do you know of an organization that calls itself Section 31?”
Garak grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. How do they factor into this?”
“Julian saved Odo’s life and ended the war. But he didn’t invent the cure. He stole it out of the mind of a Section 31 agent named Sloan using a Romulan mind probe. Sloan had already tried twice to recruit Julian into the organization. He was dying, and Julian withheld care to use the probe and find the cure.”
Garak stared at her. “Julian did that?”
“He did. I suppose you’re impressed.”
“I am, though certainly not with Section 31. Julian should not have even made it through their screening process for recruitment. But I am impressed by Julian –– I didn’t think he had that sort of ruthless streak in him.”
“I don’t think he did, either.”
Garak paused. “Ah.” Of course. The existence of Section 31 would have shaken Julian’s belief in the ideals of the Federation to their core, and his demonstrated willingness to violate his own oath as a physician and cause harm to someone under his care would have shaken his belief in himself just as severely. Taken together... well, some form of existential crisis seemed inevitable. Couple that with what appeared to be deep loneliness and a lack of any sense of purpose or direction, and it suddenly made a lot more sense that they had ended up here.
“I thought you might find the context helpful,” Kira said. “And I wasn’t sure how much Julian would tell you. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“No. I don’t imagine that he does. I assume that this is what got him blackballed by Starfleet.”
“I assume so, too. Though I guess there’s probably some other official reason. His augmentations, maybe.” Kira sighed. “I really don’t want to let Starfleet get their hands on him right now. I’m worried he’ll disappear into an institution and we’ll never see him again. And with the state he’s in, he probably wouldn’t even put up a fight.”
“In this we are in complete agreement,” Garak said. Kira nodded, but said nothing. He looked down at the biscuits, which he had barely touched, and forced himself to take a bite. Sweet, a little bitter, crunchy... they were nothing at all, but after nearly a year of ration bars, Garak had to stop himself from shoving the whole thing in his mouth.
“There’s one other thing I want to discuss. It’s probably more personal than either of us would prefer.”
Garak swallowed. “Go on.”
Kira sighed. “Look, I’m going to be blunt about this. You know that it would be a spectacularly bad idea to start any kind of romantic or sexual relationship with Julian right now, don't you?”
Garak nearly choked on his biscuit. He had to stop and take a sip of tea before he could respond. “Colonel, I have no idea where you got that idea. Julian and I were only ever close friends.”
“Close friends who were, as Jadzia often said, pretty damn weird about each other.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the general consensus was that if you weren’t sleeping together –– and plenty of people on this station thought you were –– then you definitely wanted to be. I’m not judging,” Kira added hastily. “I would have, once. But Odo and I weren’t any less complicated.” A shadow of sadness passed over her face, there and gone almost before Garak registered it. “But with what Girani said about how he reacted to you, and with Julian being –– well, being Julian, I thought I should probably say something.”
Garak frowned at her severely. “Colonel. Were you watching us in Julian’s hospital room? I was under the impression we were entitled to a modicum of privacy.”
She frowned back. “I wasn’t watching. Why, Garak? What would I have seen?”
“Nothing untoward,” Garak said, which, predictably, did not seem to reassure her. He grimaced. “I suppose you know the Cardassian practice of pressing our chufas together.”
“Vaguely. I’ve never seen it, but I remember Ziyal mentioning it once. It’s intimate, isn’t it?”
“It is, though it’s not, in and of itself, sexual. It’s affectionate. And it’s reserved only for close family and lovers. Not even close friends, generally speaking.”
“Right,” Kira said. “And you... did this with Julian?”
“I did. I was trying to get through to him. It was a bit... intense, perhaps, but of course, he doesn’t have a chufa, so he didn’t experience it quite the same way we do.”
“Well, at least you didn’t kiss him,” Kira sighed. “Just be careful, all right? Try to avoid doing anything that might make this situation worse than it is.”
“I will do my best,” Garak said dryly. “Your faith in me is overwhelming.”
“Oh believe me,” Kira said, “if I didn’t have faith in you, we’d be having a very different conversation.” She drained the last of her tea. “I need to check in with Ops. Comm me if you need me?”
“Of course.”
Left alone in the office, Garak finished his tea and ate the second biscuit. After a moment’s hesitation, he replicated two more and slipped them into his pocket for later.
Julian was still asleep when he returned. Jabara ceded him her spot, and he pulled the chair over to Julian’s biobed. He settled in, PADD in hand, to do some necessary reading about trauma, depression, and recovery in humans.