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Zanthi Fever. It makes perfect sense.
Dr. Bashir had described the day’s events in broad terms, laughing off the effects over lunch, and waiting for Garak’s smile in turn. Garak gives it to him, of course.
“I’ll be completely honest with you, Garak, I truly think I prefer good old flu season!” Dr. Bashir jokes.
He wishes, not for the first time, that he could reach inside the heads of himself and any other and tear out memories to destroy them. Garak's smile widens.
He recalls the festival crowd – better business than usual, especially in the sale of scarves and accessories. Lwaxana Troi – a wonderful but rare customer had come to pick up a gown she had ordered last she was on the station, and told him to keep for her until she came back. For the first time in a long while, Garak had actually felt a thread of optimism winding its insidious way through the bleakness of everyday station life.
There was the headache, of course, a pulsing pain behind his left eye. But he'd been having headaches (less and less often) since the implant's removal last year, and he, in his foolishness, had thought little of it.
And he recalls Dr. Bashir, Julian, walking into the shop, dazed, but focused on something – then turning to Garak, as if just noticing him, and saying, "Oh, hello Garak, have you seen Major Kira?"
The most disturbing thing of all is that he had truly felt no different than any other day, and his actions had seemed perfectly reasonable and natural at the time.
"Major Kira? My dear, whatever do you need her for?"
"Oh, well, I, er-"
He remembers having advanced on Julian, very likely seeming as though he wanted to devour him right there and then, like a rabid regnar. "You look tired," he had purred, in retrospect horrified, at the time thinking of nothing but golden eyes and smooth alien skin. "You should rest a while, Doctor."
"Well, I do have a headache…"
"Yes-ss…" The hiss had escaped him unintentionally, and he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had indeed begun to flare his neck ridges. He is infinitely grateful, not for the first time, how little the Federation knows of Cardassians.
And Julian had looked so strange and flushed, rubbing weakly at his temple as he'd stared at Garak. So different from his usual animated self across the crumb-covered Replimat table. Then he'd frowned, as if trying to remember something and repeated, "…You haven't seen Major Kira, have you?"
"Certainly not, dear Doctor."
"Oh, well, then, sorry to bother you!" the young doctor had said, given him a smile, a clap on the arm, and then promptly left the shop.
"…-Garak?"
"Hm?" Garak is startled out of his recollections by a touch on the arm.
Dr. Bashir looks worriedly at him. "Are you alright? You seem preoccupied."
"Forgive me, Doctor, the mind wanders. You were saying?"
"I was saying that I wondered whether Cardassians were immune to Zanthi fever," Dr. Bashir continues blithely. "You seemed rather normal, even after spending time with her."
Of course the boy hadn't noticed. Garak is relieved, of course.
"Immune? How I wish!" Garak smiles again, meeting Dr. Bashir's eyes guilelessly. "No, no. I found myself in quite a predicament." He lowers his voice. "I was extremely loath to let Madam Troi leave me even after she had retrieved her dress."
Dr. Bashir squints, then smiles back at him. "I do believe you're lying to me, Garak," he says conversationally.
"Ah, you can draw your own conclusions." Garak playfully pretends to be wounded.