#.i started this one when i had baaaarely finished s5 for the first time so.

[dreamerdrop]

Could you tell us more about the WIP called Zebras?

Zebras is an episode related little what if based on If Wishes Were Horses, wherein Julian falls asleep reading medical notes about Bajoran war orphans and finds himself dreaming about his own childhood, and thus wakes up to a small imaginary version of himself pre-augmentation.

I need to rewrite the bulk of it, but here’s a snippet from the ending without any further context.

Julian doesn't really want to be around people, but he does want to drink until he blacks out, so he finds himself sitting in a corner at Quarks, tossing back synthehol like his life depends on it, when Jadzia approaches him, looking uncomfortable.

“You know... What I meant was, does this mean you have a secret yearning to be a father,” Jadzia says softly, almost whispering so that nobody else will hear. “I was… trying to joke about you maybe having a pregnancy fetish or something, and… maybe that was why you liked the idea that I already had a worm in my belly…?” she sits across from him, her smile is very contrite.

Julian grimaces. Of course, that had been what she was trying to joke about... Leave it to Jadzia to phrase it in the most awkward way possible, and for Julian to interpret it as incorrectly as imaginable.

They really did make quite a pair.

“So… who was he?” she asks, and Julian had so very much been dreading when that question would finally come up. His throat feels dry.

“He was… a friend. I knew him a long time ago…” he finds himself staring into the middle distance, several memories playing through his mind.

“What happened?”

Julian breathes slowly, trying not to get lost in the flood of thoughts and emotions that he feels like he might as well be drowning in.

“He died. He was... He was sick. His parents, they… it was difficult for them. Looking after him, because he was… they… they wanted to help him, to fix him, to make him…” Julian chokes on the words, crying. His face heats with shame.

“He was stupid. He was stupid, and annoying, and nobody liked him, and his parents…” he doesn't mean the words at all. He’s not sure where they’re coming from, but he can’t seem to stop them. Jadzia is looking at him in almost horror.

“They took him away to fix him, but… he didn't come back. I think... I think his parents were happier without him,” he says quietly. Jadzia shakes her head, opening her mouth to protest.

“They were. They had another child. I heard… I heard them telling their new child how much better he was. How much smarter, and easier to handle he was. They… I… They didn’t miss him at all…”

Jadzia isn’t stupid. Julian knows she can tell there’s more to this than he’s willing to admit. Julian knows he’s giving away too much. He knows he’ll regret this one day. Right now, the image of watching Jules die all over again is fresh in his mind.

“Sometimes, I think… I might be the only one who misses him at all.”

Jadzia reaches a hand out and squeezes his shoulder. She lifts her own glass and clinks it against Julian’s.

“We can miss him together, at least for tonight,” she says.

The burn of synthehol doesn’t warm him as much as the genuine kindness in Jadzia’s eyes, nor does it sting as much as the still-present pity.

He supposes that one day, she’ll look at him normally again, but just for tonight… he’s grateful that someone else can feel sorry for Jules. He’s glad he won’t be the only one to miss him anymore.

END.

I’m not quite sure what to do with the rest of it in the lead up to that yet though, since I’ve been puzzling over the character voices for a while for this… I think I’ve got Julian being too much of a jerk and being sort of too… idk, softboy-ish? Rather than like… himself. And I think it makes zero sense for me not to have Sisko and Miles more involved as well, since y’know, they’re both parents and here is Julian with a tiny kid.

Anyway, it’s been a WIP since maybe November last year and I come back to it occasionally and hopefully one day I will finish it. Hopefully. Maybe. We’ll see!