#Kira/Jadzia is a close third

[ninewheels]

Fun fact:

I checked AO3 to see what the most popular DS9 ships were, because I make very responsible decisions about how to use my limited time on Earth, and yeah obviously Bashir/Garak was way out in front, but also Bashir/Garak has more fics than every other pairing I checked combined. And literally ten times as many as the second place ship, which was Odo/Quark. (6,607 and 625, respectively)

[comic-sans-chan]

Fic I'll never write where Dukat decides the biennial Cardassian Festival of Whatever the Fuck (it is never actually specified) should be hosted on Deep Space Nine as a way of bridging the gap between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples. Sisko and Kira are both Ehhhh about it, but Dukat is obnoxiously persistent until finally the Bajoran government and Federation higher ups are like “K”, on the condition that no Cardassian military (or Order) personnel be allowed. All security for the event will be handled by Odo and Starfleet. Dukat is suspiciously cool with this, which puts everyone on alert, but soon Cardassian vendors and decorators start showing up and they turn out to be pretty chill people, so they let it happen.

While the preparations for the festival are underway, another operation has started. A motherfucker from Garak's past is doing typical motherfucker things on the station. One of these things is scouting Garak's quarters, learning the layout, tracking Garak's routine. It becomes clear very quickly that the rapidly increasing number of Cardassians on DS9 is putting Garak on edge, though, because he seems to be fiddling more with his security protocols, so the motherfucker realizes they need to make their move and they need to make it fast.

They succeed. Sort of. With the circumstances as they are, they had to get a little... creative, but it should do the trick.

By early next morning, every PADD, screen, and computer system on the station is streaming seventy-two different poems on a constant loop. Love poems. Ardent, anguished, often utterly indecent love poems, all with the central theme of being about one Doctor Julian Bashir.

Quark is one of the first to notice the problem, being the type of asshole who opens early despite this only increasing his bottom line by a fraction of a fraction. At first, he's furious that his systems have been tampered with, but after reading a few lines of what his normal menu and advertisements have been replaced with, he's laughing, and by the end of the third poem, he's on the floor.

"Odo!" he shouts, banging on the bastard's door twenty minutes later. "Odo, open up! We've got a problem!"

Odo slinks under the door and slips up between it and Quark's pounding fist with a glare. "Quark! I'm not on duty for another hour. What could possibly be so urgent?"

Quark's sharp little rat teeth are splitting his face clean in half as he holds up the PADD. "Take a look."

Odo scrolls through a couple poems, then squints and scrolls through several more. "Erotic love poetry? I didn't peg you for the type."

"To like erotica? Hoo, I thought you paid better attention than that, Constable."

Odo returns the PADD with a dry expression. "To read."

"Oh, you're hilarious." He taps Odo's chest with the PADD. "The whole station is filled with this stuff. My bar, the Replimat, the Celestial Cafe, the promenade. Someone's either desperate to make a statement, or we've been sabatoged."

Dramatic sci-fi music swells and we get a close-up of Odo’s eerily hairless face and nasal cavity.

The next few hours are dedicated to trying and failing to seize back the servers and briefing the bridge staff on the situation.

"Are we sure these are all about Doctor Bashir?" Sisko's voice booms across Ops. He's on his second cup of coffee and a pile of useless PADDs lay beside him.

Julian has remained stoic throughout the discussion and he remains so now, avoiding eye contact with anyone who's smiling a little too wide. Like Jadzia. "Oh, definitely," she says. "He's mentioned by name in three of them, and several others make a point of highlighting the subject's 'golden sand dune skin', 'aristocratic' features, and 'voice that never stops singing.' Sounds like Julian to me."

A few snickers break out, but Sisko is taking the matter seriously. Thank fuck, Julian thinks. It actually looks like it's giving him a headache, which would make two of them if Julian was capable of having headaches. The captain's rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And the source..."

"There's a clear data trail back to Garak's quarters. Whoever did this, they wanted us to know where it came from," Kira reports. A muscle jumps in Julian's cheek.

"I tracked Garak down for his statement on the issue," Odo says, gruff, "and he told me he had nothing to do with the virus. In fact, he denied ever having laid eyes on the poems in his life. He's claiming he's been framed." He rolls his eyes.

"Okay," Jadzia says, "we all agree he's lying, right?"

"But which part..."

"Oh, they're Garak's. I've read enough Lloja of Prim to be familiar with traditional Kardasi meter and syntax, and that isn't even going into all the parallels drawn between our doctor and Prime. Sand, heat, rainforests. Bit of Romulan imagery in there, too, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of flowers and vines. Wasn't Garak a gardener?"

"I see no reason why anyone would want to embarass themselves like this," O'Brien cuts in before Jadzia can make it worse. "Even if he is trying to distract us or something, this seems counterproductive in the long term. Everyone’s watching him now, not just us. The rumor mill is running rampant. Not exactly a spy’s MO."

"He did blow up his shop once."

"Because someone was trying to kill him," Julian pipes up for the first time, looking concerned. "Do you think this might be another cry for help?"

"Oh, it's a cry for something," Jadzia quips, and Julian shuts the fuck up.

"Dax," Sisko snaps, like the good benevolent Wormhole Alien Jesus he is, and Dax shuts the fuck up, too. Sisko gives them all the stink eye. "Constable, you're nearly as familiar with Garak as the doctor is," he says, and holds a hand up before any jokes can be made. "What do you think?"

"I don't think he's behind this, sir. None of the pieces add up, and he seemed genuinely agitated when I spoke to him, in his way. At present, I believe he is as much a victim here as the rest of us."

Sisko sighs. "All right. Do we have any idea who is behind this?"

The room is silent for a time, before Odo reluctantly answers for everyone, "Not yet, sir."

"Find out," Sisko demands, "and Chief, get these damn poems off of my reports. Dismissed."

Julian is out of the room before anyone else has stood up.

The rest of the day is spent ducking in and out of his office, only treating those who ask for him by name and keeping all conversations strictly professional. Any mentions of poetry, the festival, Cardassians, or Garak are firmly sidelined, and on a couple occasions, rewarded with a none-too-gentle hypo. He skips lunch altogether and extends his shift by two hours to avoid the dinner rush.

By the time he's leaving the Infirmary, it's late. Unfortunately for him, not late enough that the halls aren't still speckled with observers to his personal soap opera. With the Festival of Frank’s Hot Dogs less than a week away, DS9 is becoming increasingly crowded with tourists, mostly Cardassian, but a surprising amount Bajoran, too–apparently this festival was a rare bright point during the Occupation, when their oppressors were not only lenient with them for once, but generous with food and drink and freedoms. It doesn't hurt that the only Cardassians on board are civilian rather than military, so the atmosphere is rather more colorful, courteous and conversational rather than cold, dark and aggressive. It would make Julian smile if he wasn't so busy being gawked at.

"I don't see it," one Cardassian man grumbles and Julian's accursed augmented ears pick up. "He's even smoother than a Bajoran."

"Oh, yeah," his companion replies, "just think of how easily he'd slide around."

"Tanett!"

"Oh, hush, Grandpa. You're just xenophobic. He's cute."

"Well, you be careful who hears you say that. That Garak fellow is in the Order, you know. Ears everywhere. You don't want to know what things a man like that is capable of."

"Wasn't he exiled? Hardly intimidating now. Apparently all he's capable of anymore is whimpering over an alien like a pakrela."

Julian covers his ears and walks faster.

But that just brings him within range of a cluster of Bajorans. "Oh, there's the doctor now," one is saying, up on the balcony. 

"The one the Cardassian tailor wrote about?"

"That poor fool. He thought they were friends, but here this whole time it was perverse. I can only imagine how much that hurts."

"Happened to my friend once. He thought a glinn was being kind because he was having a crisis of conscience and wanted to help him escape. No, he just wanted to–"

He could go to his quarters, but a flash of memory - Garak's bright eyes at the end of his bed, his figure encased in shadow - sends him in the opposite direction. Before long, he finds himself on an oft-unused Observation deck, since it offers no view of the wormhole or either Bajor or Cardassia's suns. It's blessedly empty, as usual, and Julian settles on a bench and stares into the dark nothingness of space for a long time.

At some point, he finds that his hand has retrieved the PADD from his medical bag, and the screen is lit up automatically with the first poem.

He reads well into the night.

—

The next morning finds Garak with a tall glass of rokassa juice and two eggs, staring intensely into a mysteriously operational PADD at the far end of Quark's bar. Quark pops out of his backroom like a jack-in-the-box.

"Ha! Well, if it isn't the man of the hour himself, gracing my fine establishment so soon after nearly destroying it. Do you know I've had to have menus printed, like we're in the dark ages? Do you have any idea how extensive my menu is? I ought to sue you for damages." He catches a glimpse of the PADD's screen and its decidedly unpoetic contents. "Hey, you fixed it? How?"

"It was just a simple virus. Viruses can be purged," Garak says without looking up. He barely seems aware of Quark's existence.

When no other words are forthcoming, Quark huffs. "Well, can you purge it from the rest of the station, then?"

"I gave the program to the Chief last night."

"And he didn't immediately come here to fix my bar? I'll have to file a complaint.”

Garak offers no reply. Just continues to stare into his PADD.

There are other customers he could be seeing to, but Quark can't pass up this golden opportunity. He's known Garak a long time and known of him even longer, and now that he has the guy's guts all neatly lined up on several dozen isolinear rods, he's never felt closer to the man. He makes a point of knowing things about his customers, but before yesterday, the most he knew about Garak was that he was an assassin, a tailor, a mean, weepy drunk, and friends with Bashir, Odo, and a smattering of other shopkeepers. That was it. But now...

He leans over the counter, closer to Garak's unblinking face. "You know," he says, with a smile rising slow on his cheeks, "if it's humans you like, I have a couple holosuite programs that might be just what you need."

Garak's gaze ascends as if on a motor, smooth and mechanical.

Good. He’s considering the bait. Now he just has to get him to bite. "All completely customizable. Skin, eyes, hair. You like long legs, they've got long legs. Scrawny, they're scrawny. Whatever you want. Although if you're really hung up on the one face, that can also be arranged. For the right price." When Garak just looks at him, Quark switches tactics. "Or maybe it's the uniform that does it for you? I've got 'em, but I'd suggest something out of my lingerie databases. I've still got some little Cardassian numbers filed away that I think even a man with your discerning tastes could appreciate. Just imagine, Doctor Bashir in a–"

He doesn't see the hand coming until it's already crushing his windpipe. Quark claws at it for several long, desperate moments while Garak continues to look.

Leeta scuttling over and yanking him away is what ultimately puts a stop to it, and it's while Quark is gasping in dramatic bursts of air that Leeta says in a rush, "Garak, please! Whatever he said, he didn't mean it!"

"Oh, I meant it," Quark coughs out with a high, strangled laugh, "he just didn't like it."

"Whatever conclusions you've drawn in the last twenty-six hours, allow me to dispel them," Garak says primly, as if he hadn't almost committed murder in broad daylight. "I am not a xenophile and I do not have feelings for Doctor Bashir. There are no less than two-hundred Cardassians currently aboard the station, and I assure you, none of them like me. Those poems were obviously planted."

Oh, but Quark is a little pissed now, unwise as that is. "Please, Garak," he says, "who has time to write that many poems about Julian just to mess with you? Two or three, maybe, but over seventy? If you're going to lie, at least don't insult our intelligence."

Garak's eyes flash and Quark ducks behind Leeta, repentant. Leeta sighs. "Garak, what's so bad about loving Julian?" she asks softly. "I thought the poems were really touching. It’s sweet how much you care for him."

But he's already staring into his PADD again. "I'm sorry, Miss Leeta, but I am a bit busy. Perhaps we can discuss my hypothetical feelings for your paramour another time."

"Julian and I have never been serious," she tries to assure him, but he's engrossed again, or at least pretending to be. Her and Quark share a look and leave him to it. Lesson learned.

"Let the bastard be pent up and miserable, then," Quark grumbles from the other end of the bar as he pours Table 3's drinks. A prickle on his neck has him looking up and there Garak's eyes are again, piercing, and Quark rushes off to deliver the drinks.

The three young Cardassians there are much more friendly. One has their nose stuck in one of the useless poetry PADDs while the other two smile at Quark while he sets out their orders.

"Three Raktajinos, extra bitter," Quark says, and is thanked. Polite. One even praises the drink's exoticness. Klingon coffee, exotic. Heh. "Your food will be out in a few."

Before he can finish turning, though, a hand is touching his arm. "What is the title of this anthology you include at every table?" the young man asks.

"Oh, that's not..." He sighs. "It's new. I can't remember."

"Find out for us, please," he says. "Works like these can be hard to come by on Prime and we make it our business to collect them. Whoever this author is, they're very unique."

"If these aren't banned on Prime already, they will be soon," his friend comments with a giggle.

"No doubt."

"'In my desolation, I am as weeds: Cut my roots and Let the waters take me, To drown and bloom anew, in You,'" the one with her nose in the PADD reads aloud, and shivers. "They'd burn the whole Central Archive down just for this one. It's so explicit."

"Let me see that," the boy demands, as the other one is already surging over to read over the girl's shoulder. Watching them fight over the PADD has Quark thinking back to the isolinear rods in his safe, and he hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder.

Garak isn't looking.

—

Glinn Halon Duvur. Former underling of Gul Dukat. Out of uniform, vacationing on Deep Space Nine with his wife and nine children. Spends his days gambling while his kids play unsupervised in the holosuites and his wife visits old friends. 

Beloved uncle sent to trial by the Obsidian Order in 2356 and executed that same day for crimes of attempted sabotage against Cardassia.

Garak watches the man wander down the promenade sans his proud lineage, jingling a fat little bag of gold-pressed latinum and yet-unconverted leks. He wanders out of range, so Garak switches to the next camera and there that unfortunate face is again. He drums his fingers on the desk. It won't be long now.

An alert rings in his ear and he almost initiates the shockfield on impulse, but the flash of smooth, brown skin on a monitor stays his hand. The knocking comes, and that haunting voice calls out, "Garak! Are you there?"

Garak rests his head next to the surveillance screens.

Predictably, the doctor tries to input his override, but the door remains shut. There's a long pause.

"Garak..." Julian sounds irate. Garak hums. "Did you deprogram my override code? Nevermind how illegal that is, that's dangerous! What if you're injured? Or fall ill?"

He says this just after attempting to abuse his station privileges for personal reasons. Infuriating hypocrite.

"Oh, my barging in at random, odd hours is no less than you deserve, Garak," Julian says as if in response to Garak's thoughts. "You set that precedent in our relationship yourself."

Terrible man.

"Fine. I'll give you some more time, since you want it so badly, but I'll be back and when I am, that override had better work. If it doesn’t, I promise there will be hell to pay, my friend."

Beautiful man.

"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."

Goodbye, Doctor.

Glinn Duvur dies two hours later of alcohol poisoning while his wife is in bed with Gul Rilimn's wife.

—

“I just can’t believe it,” Kira is bitching. Jadzia smiles and sips her drink, looking out over the Replimat balcony at all the happy brunchgoers. “A Cardassian writing poetry about something that isn’t conquest or the wonders of dictatorial rule or, at best, the pride of the traditional family nobly bowing and scraping. I’ve never seen it.”

“It would certainly seem to run counter to Cardassian values.”

“And about Julian!” she shrieks in her inside voice, slapping her hands down on the table. “Garak the spy, writing love poetry about Julian. Going on and on about his–his...”

“Ass?” Jadzia offers.

“Eyes. His eyes! Ohhh, I knew he wanted to have sex with him, everyone knew that, but to write about his eyes like... like that? It’s practically Bajoran.”

“That’s true.”

Kira stops long enough in her tirade to eye her, and presses her lips into a thin line. “How are you so calm about this?”

Jadzia takes another sip. “I’m just fascinated,” she says. “I’ll admit, I’ve been looking at this more through Tobin’s eyes than my own. Have I ever told you that he met Lloja of Prim during his exile?” 

“He did not.”

“He did, and Lloja flirted with him outrageously. It was embarrassing, looking back. Of course, nothing ever came of it, because Tobin was always hopelessly blind to those sorts of things even without the language barrier, but his children liked to joke that many of Lloja’s poems were about him.”

Kira’s jaw is hanging. “Were they?”

Jadzia grins and shrugs. Kira laughs.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Perhaps,” Jadzia allows, “but I do wonder... Being able to call nervous, asexual Tobin the lover of Lloja of Prim would have been quite the notch in my belt. Think of the stories I could have told! And now here Julian is with the opportunity. I know it’s not the same, I mean, it’s Garak. But, you have to admit, to write about him like that...”

“He must really love him,” Kira finishes for her, stumped. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I didn’t see it, either,” Jadzia confesses. “I was still wrestling with the idea that they were actually friends. I thought their association was strictly professional and all the books and flirting were just a front.” She cradles her head in her hands suddenly and sighs. “Ugh, but those poems. The poems are so good! Kira...”

“I know,” she moans. “They’re heart-wrenching. Which one are you on now?”

“Thirty-nine. I came back home, but I came back gone.”

“Ouch.”

“I know.”

A shout from below interrupts them and they both shoot out of their seats. Below, a Cardassian man has just had a beam fall on top of him. Jadzia and Kira bound down the stairs to him, Jadzia already slapping a hand on her comm badge. 

“Dax to Infirmary, a man has just been crushed, possibly impaled. Send a medical team to Replimat and be ready for emergency beam out.”

“Acknowledged, we’re on our way,” Girani says, but already Kira is looking up at Jadzia helplessly, the man’s wrist laying limp between her hands.

“He’s gone.”

“Shit!” Jadzia hunches over, hands on her knees. “That’s the third one today. Are Cardassians always this accident prone? No wonder you won the war.”

“No,” Kira says. “They’re not. You don’t think...”

“I don’t know,” Jadzia says grimly, and looks around at the crowd that’s formed. All Cardassian, all terrified. “But we need to find out.”

—

A Cardassian is sitting at the bar. This isn’t an unusual sight now, with the Festival of 90s Funk and Beyond coming up, but seeing one so young and looking so hunted is odd. Quark approaches him casually.

“What’ll you have?”

The Cardassian’s eyes dart. “Uh...” He leans over suddenly, cups both hands over his mouth, and whispers, “E. G. Special.”

Christ, these kids are going to kill him. “Coming right up,” he says in a normal person voice, and reaches under the bar for a glass. A little drink-mixing magic later, a beautiful fizzy blue drink is sitting between them, with an isolinear rod tucked neatly in the straw.

The Cardassian takes the drink between both hands excitedly, and Quark snaps his fingers in front of him. “Oh! Right,” the kid stutters, and all but launches the latinum at Quark’s face. “Thank you!” And off he goes, out of the bar with the glass still tight in his grasp.

“Idiot,” Quark mutters to himself, crouching carefully down to pick the latinum up off the floor without dirtying his expensive pants. “You’re supposed to take the straw, not the entire glass. That’s it, I’m switching to plastic. These little rebel brats don’t deserve my ni—Oh, hello, Constable! I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

Odo looks as unimpressed as ever. “That’s a funny question since last I checked, I don’t drink.”

“Ah, right, because you’re a liquid. How could I forget. You know, one of these days, I ought to serve you up with a little umbrella, see how people like it. I’d bet you taste bitter.” Odo harrumphs, and Quark makes himself busy with wiping down the counter. “Well, out with it then. What nefarious scheme am I up to now? I love to hear your little stories.”

Four isolinear rods drop onto the counter, right where Quark was just cleaning. “Hey now,” he says, throwing a performative glare at the changeling. “Careful. If you shatter glass in my bar, you’re cleaning it up.”

“I just had the most interesting conversation with the Tokal family,” Odo says, steamrolling right over him. “It seems their four darling children had somehow come into some questionable reading material. They tried searching for it in the Central Archives and yet, despite it being clearly Cardassian in origin, they could not find it. And I don’t need to tell you that when a piece of Cardassian reading material isn’t in the Central Archives...”

Quark, from his plastered position on the floor, stares up into Odo’s face directly horizontal to his and smiles. “What?”

“It’s illegal,” Odo sneers, stretching his body even further over the bar and nearly sending Quark starfishing. 

“Okay! Odo! I get it! But what does that have to do with me?”

“Quark!”

“Okay, okay! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I’ll stop! I’ll stop, okay?”

“I know you’re going to stop, because I am going to confiscate every copy of Garak’s poetry that you have absconded with and destroy them.”

Quark gasps. “Book burning? In this day and age?”

“Garak did not give his permission for you to sell his work! He didn’t even want anyone to see it in the first place! Those poems were stolen. Now, I expect a list of every person you sold a copy to and a full and complete refund to be issued by tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”

Quark glowers. “You’ve made yourself something, all right.”

“Quark...”

“Okay! All right. Consider it done.”

-

Turora Lumok. Obsidian Order operative and old colleague. Usually in deep cover in the Organian sectre, but has abandoned post to explore the space station. Barren, unattached. Cold. A model agent, if you ignore her unfortunate habit of going rogue and eliminating civilians on a whim. 

Recruited into the Order by Enabran Tain’s former right hand, Euluk Bucun, who was assassinated by Elim Garak in 2341 under orders from Enabran Tain for suspicions of treason. Turora Lumok disciplined shortly afterward by Elim Garak for complaining that she had wanted to be the one to kill that bitch.

Garak watches as the woman pretends to touch up her makeup while scouting for cameras. “Oh, Lumok, you always were woefully obvious. Have you been expecting me? I wonder why.”

Satisfied with the positions of the cameras, she puts away her mirror and strolls out of sight.

Garak shakes his head. “Fool. You forget how long I’ve lived on this wretched station. I don’t need to see you every second to know where you are.”

But then, the smell of antiseptic. Starfleet issue soap. Herbal shampoo, unique, robust. Gels. Oils. Sweat. 

He’s near.

Forcing calmness with a deep, measured breath, he takes off his eyepiece and slips it into his sleeve. He pays for the food he barely ate. He stands. He turns.

And is promptly thrust into the dark, deep woods of Julian Bashir’s eyes. “There you are, Garak! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the doctor says as if it’s just a regular day on Deep Space Nine. His hot, mammalian body caging him tightly in place against the table betrays the ruse. “Who was it you were talking to?”

Garak tries to step around him. Julian steps with him. “Oh, only ever myself. Forgive me, but you’ve caught me just on my way out. I have a strict appointment at 2.”

There’s Julian’s hand now. On his shoulder. Garak is calm. This is normal. “Well, why don’t I walk you there then.”

“My dear Doctor, I couldn’t rob you of your meal. Clearly you’ve just walked in.”

“Actually, I’ve found I’m craving something a bit different now.”

Garak makes to step around Julian again, and still Julian’s steps match his. It’s like they’re dancing. He doesn’t let this deter him. He’s not sure he’s capable of letting anything deter him now, with his heart trying to pound out of his throat. He keeps stepping doggedly forward, and Julian keeps mirroring, still with that damned hand burning through his tunic. “Well, you only have so much time before you must return to the infirmary, I know. Do not allow me to delay you in securing a table at a different locale.”

“Oh, but you’ve already delayed me so long. What’s a few more minutes?” A peek of teeth, a hint of warning. “Though I will admit... I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”

“Then don’t.” Finally, Garak manages to elbow past this madness and shoot out of the restaurant. The station is so crowded these days, it’s short work to get lost in it. In a sea of ridges and black hair, Garak slips his eyepiece back on and lets the wave take him. 

“Garak!”

Oh, for the Union’s sake—

He does not run. He does not stumble. He walks normally and not desperately, keeping his eye on both the path to the turbolift and Lumok. She’s down the corridor now, pretending to check her makeup again like an imbecile. Just a few paces more. Almost there...

“Garak, you’re the best dressed one here! You are not difficult to spot, you ridiculous dandy! Oh, no offense, Ma’am. Lovely scarf. Excuse me.”

There.

In the reflection of the mirror, Garak makes eye contact with the rogue and taps in the correct sequence on the device sewed into the seam of his pants just as the turbolift doors close behind him.

Like that, Turora Lumok is beamed into space and dies instantly, without a soul to mourn her, and Elim Garak walks back to his quarters with a hand over his mouth and a warmth on his shoulder, without a soul to mourn him, either.

—-

The Festival of Fierce and Fantastic Frogs is two days away and already it is being protested.

Outside Quark’s Bar is a growing army of dissident children with voice amplifiers and holoprojectors shouting to the stars that if they don’t get their porn back, they’ll tear it all down. Signs are projected in the air with essays cycling through them that look to be several pages each, a small holographic fire barely reaching ankle-height is lighting up the length of the promenade, and – perhaps most disturbingly – a comically inaccurate approximation of Odo is rotating at the center of the group, fitted in the typical regalia of the Cardassian military and holding a Klingon bat’leth. It is certainly... something.

“They’re Cardassians,” Quark is saying as he pours out some root beers. “They’ve probably never seen a protest in their lives, they don’t know what they’re doing. The Union puts an end to things like this pretty fast on the surface.”

“Heh,” Jadzia says, “what happens on DS9, stays on DS9.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Kira asks.

“It’s something Julian likes to say. Basically, they figure they can get away with speaking their minds here.”

Kira drums her fingers on the bar, staring into the flailing protestors thoughtfully. 

Right then, Odo arrives back on the scene. It looks like he’s trying to get through, respectfully, but the protestors are not making it easy. Jadzia and Kira come to his rescue just as about fifteen Cardassians start forming a blockade around him.

“I walked around as you do, investigating the endless stars,” one young woman is yelling at him while he stands there with big helpless baby eyes, “and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind!” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Odo says consolingly.

“Clearly!”

“Okay, okay, let him through!” Kira wiggles her way between the crowd and Odo, snatching him by the arm like a fish with a hook. “He’s not your enemy here, he was just upholding your laws!”

“The Cardassian government has no jurisdiction on a Bajoran station!”

“He made his choices!”

“Beautiful Julian would be ashamed of you! Repent! Repent!”

Kira and Jadzia manage to reel him most of the way through the protesters and he shapeshifts the rest of the journey. The protestors try to follow, but Quark bustles over to stop them. “No, no demonstrations inside! Remember who your allies are,” he says, and they all cow back. “Thank you.”

Odo ripples his form a couple times to make sure everything’s back in the right place and harrumphs. “Allies, Quark?”

“Yes, allies. It’s terrible what you’ve done to them. You can’t police art, Odo–-this is culture we're talking about here, the very bedrock of society.”

“And I’m sure this virtuous attitude of yours has nothing to do with the incredible profit you made and lost at the expense of our mutual friend.”

“Oh, I did him a favor.” Quark uncaps another bottle of Kanar and gestures back to the entrance, with its swarm of frothing Cardassian children. “Look, he’s got fans!”

“How has Garak been handling all this?” Kira asks Odo, sharing a look with Jadzia. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he gave us that antivirus program.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Didn’t you have breakfast with him yesterday?”

“Hmmm, that would have been routine. Except he didn’t show. When I made it back to my office, I found a message from him apologizing, telling me he’s so busy with orders he’s lost all track of time.”

“How has he been getting commissions?” Jadzia asks. “His shop’s been closed all week.”

Odo rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the reality is he’s simply avoiding the issue. Dr. Bashir has informed me he’s been treating him like ‘the black plague’ as well.” 

“Julian’s one to talk. He practically pole-vaulted over a vedek the other day to get away from me.” 

“Speak of the devil,” Quark says, looking towards the door, and everyone turns just as the commotion starts–or, more accurately, the commotion abruptly stops. 

The protestors have all gone quiet, in apparent awe as they part around Julian like the red sea around Moses. He’s smiling stupidly as he stands in the center of them, nodding at something a Cardassian man is exclaiming. It’s an incredibly awkward scene, and Quark starts choking at some of the things his ears are picking up. “They’ve deified him,” he tells them, and Jadzia bursts into giggles at the idea, but Quark isn’t joking. “Really. He might as well be one of the prophets to them. You read the poems. You know.”

Ugh. Kira wrinkles her nose in disgust. The worst kind of blasphemy–horny blasphemy. “What is he even doing here?” she asks. 

“Getting his head inflated,” Jadzia says dryly, because now that Quark has mentioned it, it’s pretty clear from the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face that that’s exactly what’s happening. 

“Poor Garak.” Quark says it absentmindedly, but the comment gets several eyes turned on him. He’s shaking his head as he watches the scene unfold. “First, he falls for a human… humiliating… but then that love becomes public knowledge and several young beautiful Cardassians decide that he’s onto something, and now that human is going to get more action in a week than he’s seen his entire life. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of more than a few star-crossed romances, but this might just be the saddest.”

“Julian wouldn’t have an orgy the same week the whole station found out Garak’s in love with him,” Jadzia says, insulted on his behalf.

Quark hefts a tray up onto his shoulder. “He just did,” he says as he leaves to go do his job, and Jadzia whips her head around to see Julian escorting two attractive Cardassians away from the protest. Her jaw drops.

“Bastard,” Kira spits, surprising everyone, herself most of all. Those poems must’ve affected her more than she realized.

Odo clears his throat unnecessarily. “I’m no expert on the behavior of solids, but it seems to me that neither party is handling this situation well.”

“I’ll tell you how the pakrela should be handling this,” an older Cardassian sitting at the far end of the bar cuts in, with a twitch to him that makes it clear he’s more than a few deep. “He should be settling his assets, because he doesn’t have long now. Whatever his human is doing is the least of his worries. Ha. Hehe. Being a traitor wasn’t enough for him. No, now he’s gone and corrupted the next generation with his degeneracy. Exile was too soft a punishment. Uh-huh.”

Kira opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Odo touches her shoulder. “You speak as if you know him,” he notes mildly, because of course, the exact reason for Garak’s exile isn’t public record. It’s barely even private record. The Order doesn’t work that way–or didn’t, as it stands. It is interesting that this man is acting like he has classified information despite being a civilian. 

But then, sometimes day drinkers just like to spout speculation as fact.

The man looks into his glass and laughs at his reflection. “Who doesn’t know Garak these days? But that’s temporary. He’ll be forgotten soon enough, just like the Order.” He finishes his drink and gets up. He insincerely mutters some friendly Cardassian farewell and starts to walk past them, but Kira can��t let it go.

“Excuse me, but what’s your name, sir? You’ve been so informative.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and elbows past the protesters.

—

“Solt Mebol, left behind a widow and child six years ago when he was tragically killed in a transporter accident. In reality, he accepted an undercover mission which required him to fake his death and have his bond dissolved. A significant sacrifice. Certainly not one many Cardassians could have made.”

The Cardassian stares at Garak sitting on his couch. Turning, he tries to exit his temporary quarters, but the door won’t open.

Garak tuts. “Oh, you know better than that, Mebol.” He taps his disruptor with his forefinger, resting harmlessly against his knee. “The festival isn’t for another couple days, yet here you are. Catching up with old friends before the festivities, I assume? Only I haven’t found you in anyone’s company but your own. You must be lonely. Please, let me alleviate your loneliness for a while.”

The Cardassian sighs at the closed door. “Solt, is it?”

“I can tell you the names of your wife and child as well, if you’d like, and the city they live in. Do you know your wife never rebonded? Unusual behavior for a Romulan. Quite dangerous, as I understand it.”

Solt steps carefully into the small living space and sits in the chair opposite Garak, with the coffee table between them. “As one of the last living members of the Order, I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go?”

Garak smiles pleasantly. “I would be delighted.”

“Would you? I had a deal with Central Command and they’ve been good to me so far. You, however, have been known to…” He eyes the disruptor casually turned in his direction.

“Yes, I imagine I must be something of a mystery these days to my people. I have been… squirrely, is what I suppose a human would say, and I must as well now that I’ve been painted with their brush. Oh, it is an incredible sin, I know. That I should enjoy the company of an attractive alien while in exile.”

Solt snorts. “You expect me to believe those poems were the natural result of a fling?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything you do not wish to. I only say that it’s convenient that I should be seen as even more traitorous just as a swarm of Cardassians should enter the station.”

“What’s convenient is that you’re still alive. You have friends in high places willing to go to bat for you, in spite of everything you’ve done. It’s a disgrace. You are a selfish disloyal anarchist and no one is holding you accountable, because you just happened to be good at your job once and everyone likes the idea of having you as a potential weapon should the need for one arise. Until then, they’re content to keep you in a cabinet collecting dust and sentiment. You can wave that disruptor all you want, but we both know you make a poor operative now. You’re in love.” 

Garak is still smiling, but Solt can see the signs of a grimace. Dusty, indeed. Too passionate. Too human. “I’m hardly so foolish. You know better than I the dangers of such things in our line of work. You’re little better than a puppet now that you’ve had a whiff of the truth, Mebol.”

“You’re right.” Solt attempts to raise one eye ridge, despite it being unfit for such maneuvers, and leans forward towards that disruptor. “Pull my strings, then, and let’s test that grip Bashir has on yours.”

—

Kira crashes into Garak’s quarters and kickflips past all his booby traps like Indiana Jones’ hotter cousin.

“What the fuck, Richard?” is basically what she says, only it’s in character, so it’s more like, “What the fuck, Garak!”

Garak spins around in his maniacal villain chair with a look of surprise. “How did you get in here, Major?” Miles bustles his way in after her with his impractically enormous toolkit, and Garak lets out an, “Ah,” then, sedately, “I suppose Dr. Bashir filed a complaint about my tampering with the door codes. Of course, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. You see, it–”

“This isn’t about door codes, Garak,” Kira yells. “What I want to know is why our best suspect for the sudden influx of murders on the station was just found drowned in his own toilet!”

“Oh my,” Garak says. “What an unfortunate end.”

“Don’t play dumb. Not now. We know what you’re capable of, but we’re good people and we didn’t want to accuse a victim until we had exhausted the rest of our line-up. Only, interestingly enough, they’re all dead, so now…” she marches over with the fury of the Prophets on her heels and stands imposingly over him, her teeth clenched, “here we are.”

“That is interesting.” He runs a hand down a roll of fabric in his lap, smoothing it. “I suppose you must have some of that ironclad evidence that the Federation so treasures.”

Kira glares at him.

Garak feigns looking around. “Oh, but I can’t help but notice the good Constable isn’t here with you. What could that mean? Surely not that you broke into my quarters without due cause or a hint of warning–at your own word, not even to fix my glitching door. For all you knew, I could have been in here writing one of my vaunted Bashir epics.”

Kira’s hands are in fists now. “The evidence we have would be more than enough to have your face plastered on every viewscreen in Cardassia and you know it.”

“The Federation and Bajoran legal processes do seem a tad inefficient in moments like these, don’t they?”

“Okay,” Miles cuts in, because he has Turbo PTSD and is not in the mood for a flare up. “I think I'll just wait in the hallway, then. Holler if you need me. Good luck, Major.”

Kira and Garak spend a few moments watching him waddle out of the room and then go back to staring each other down. 

“Look, you ass,” Kira starts, “we couldn’t link every victim to the Cardassian government or some third-party organization, but we were able to link enough of them to recognize that these aren’t just random nobodies having ‘accidents.’ Someone was able to break into your computer and embarrass you and you don’t like that so you’re pitching a fit. I can’t have Odo arrest you – yet – but I can tell you to cut it out. This vigilantism isn’t helping–”

That gets a reaction. “Vigilantism!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Self-defense.”

“They attacked you?”

“Possibly.”

“Goddamn you, Garak! Just… don’t do this anymore, okay?”

Garak looks at her with innocent astonishment, like he’s still bewildered by her totally plausible accusations. “Well. You have my word, I suppose,” he says, bemused.

—

Gul Skrain Dukat. Blessed with a wife, seven children, two sets of living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, minus one father. Habitually cheats with lower ranked military officials, slaves, and barely legal adults, unbenownst to his family. Father was interrogated by Elim Garak and executed by the Union over live broadcast in the year 2350 for the crime of being a piece of shit. 

Elim Garak was shortly thereafter levied with an amateurish execution attempt by Gul Dukat. It failed.

The second attempt will succeed, but at a great cost.

The Festival of Filthy Fucking Foot Fetishists has officially begun, but Garak is struggling to feel any enthusiasm. He is surrounded by his people. The station has been dimmed by 15% to better suit Cardassian eyes and misting stations have been set up in limited locations. Extinct and invented flowers crafted by Cardassian and Bajoran artisans decorate the banisters and doorways. A wash of blue, green, and sparkling gold lights up every direction. There is the smell of freshly prepared Cardassian sweets on the air, a gentle warmth suffuses the atmosphere, and children are laughing on the promenade. It’s the first time the station has felt not just tolerable, but nearly pleasant, in years. 

But then, Garak has never felt particularly welcome among his people. As a child, he was an orphan generously cared for by service workers and sponsored by a government official, and as an adult, he was a member of the Order, which granted him more fear and loathing than it did admiration and respect. Companionship, in its truest form, was a rare thing to come by and not something he was encouraged to come by at all.

Perhaps that is why Dr. Bashir blindsided him. 

In any case, Garak is delicately balanced on the line between proper misery and numbness. He gave up imbibing around the same time that he gave up the implant—or rather, the implant gave up on him—but he’s on his third cup now, wandering through the festivities with no particular direction in mind. The exact spot of this last operation isn’t important, only the timing.

He finishes his drink while a group play a spirited game of cold moba in front of him. It shouldn't be long now.

All the nearby screens suddenly flicker from the event schedule to Dukat’s sharp grin and Garak hums. There we are. He knew the bitch wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face.

“Welcome everyone to the biennial Festival of–” a baby wails, “generously hosted here on Deep Space Nine by Bajor and the Federation, and of course organized by our own prodigous Detapa Council. Ah, that wormhole… quite the view, isn’t it?”

Garak looks around for another food stall that serves alcohol. 

There aren’t any stalls in his immediate vicinity, but there is a young Cardassian couple marching towards him while making dogged eye contact. 

Oh no. 

Garak starts to make a break for it. Not too fast, it won’t do to cause a stir, but there are a number of very good reasons for him to stay far away from any Cardassians who might recognize him right now. Especially if the source of that recognition is those damn poems he was too stupid and sentimental to destroy.

Before he can make it more than a few steps, however, he looks up to see another few Cardassians working their way towards him, also making eye contact.

No, no, no.

He makes to move towards the stairs then, only for his eyes to land squarely on him. 

Him, wearing the silky green outfit he lovingly crafted for him a few months ago. Him, shining in the festival lights, casting him in an even more arresting shade of gold than usual. Him, looking determined and coming straight towards him.

Oh, fuck no.

“Garak,” Julian calls out, likely reading the panic on his face and stance and soul.

“Today, I am not a Gul, though,” Dukat is saying. “I am but a humble representative of the Cardassian Union in its totality, and as such, I would like to thank Colonel Kira Nerys and Captain Benjamin Sisko for their hand in this week’s festivities. They have been nothing if not accommodating these last few weeks while our coordinators ran rampant through their halls.”

He should have accounted for the possibility of this. Thinking of Julian had become excruciating as of late, but that was no excuse. Whatever interaction Julian had been hoping to have with him couldn’t be allowed, not now, and not only for the sake of Garak’s traitorous, disgusting feelings. Even if it would give the sweet man closure, it would not be worth his life. 

“Now, it may be a bit unorthodox, but I thought it would be only fitting if the first Reenactment was carried out by our benevolent hosts, and the Lakarian City Acting Troupe were all too happy to take them under their wing.”

More eyes are turning towards the screen now, the laughing and playing and sloshing of cups quieting down. Julian is nearly with him, his approach halted only by the gathering crowd, and Garak can only pretend to be interested in Dukat’s speech while he racks his brain desperately for a solution. Any solution. Anything.

“I trust that the history of Cardassia is in capable hands.”

The screen flickers again and changes to a shot of one of Quark’s holodecks, where a lone Bajoran man stands in a beam of red light.

A hand grabs Garak roughly by the arm, and he nearly cries with relief when he sees that it’s Lumok.

Well, Lumok with the face and attire of a Bajoran, but that ever-present spark of unchecked malice in her eye is quite unmistakable to someone who worked with her for over a decade. 

“Surprised, you ugly old regnar?” she asks under the actor’s impassioned opening monologue.

He sucks in a breath as the sharp edge of something presses into his back. “Impossible. They found your body caught on one of the station’s spires.”

“A simple bait and switch,” she purrs, pressing the weapon closer, slicing through his tunic. A pity. This was one of his nicer ones. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”

He manufactures a smile. “A knife, then? A favorite of yours, I recall, but terribly messy for such a public venue. Not to mention if your aim is even an inch off, I’ll be in and out of the infirmary within the day, as if nothing at all had happened.”

“Don’t lecture me,” she growls. “You can’t do that anymore. You’re not anyone to anyone. Your master is dead, and what did you do the second you were off leash for the first time in your life? You went and choked yourself on the first Starfleet sotl you could find. You’re pathetic.”

It took incredible effort to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his skull. “Oh, just stab me already.”

“I’m not going to stab you. I’ve done a bit of outsourcing, in fact.” She slid the knife from his lower back to his side and looped her arm through his, pinning him in place with a wide smile. “All I had to do was suggest to my new friend that you were infiltrating the Federation. That you were poisoning them against Bajor from the inside, uniting Cardassia and Starfleet in a secret alliance under the guise of wooing the CMO. No, no, you won’t be killed by one of your peers. Your death will be at the hands of a perfect stranger. A pointless death for a pointless man.” She leans in and whispers into his aural ridge, “It always was so easy to make people hate you.”

The next few seconds are a flurry of chaos. One second he’s watching as Human, Bajoran and Cardassian actors alike are all holding hands and reciting ancient poetry and the next he’s on the floor with a searing weight bearing down on him from calf to shoulder. There are screams and footfalls coming from all directions and Odo’s voice is immediately discernible shouting over the commotion. His back is on fire, he can’t breathe, and there’s a slash in his side, but he doesn’t miss the thump of Lumok’s body a few feet away, dead before she hits the ground.

“Garak? Garak?” the weight on him is speaking frantically, pawing at his head and shoulders. The weight shifts and the hands flip him onto his back. Those same hands pat him down, blazing a path down his chest and his stomach and his sides, stopping at the superficial gash near his rib, and Garak knows who this is before he even opens his eyes.

“Garak,” Julian sighs with relief. Garak was meant to be dead by phaser blast right now, but instead Julian Bashir is smiling down at him like he’s important, kneeling beside him, his hands on him, branding him with their incredible heat. It shouldn’t be possible. No one could be that fast. 

“Doctor,” he manages on a wheeze. One of his ribs might be broken, actually.

“Dukat,” Sisko growls from the monitor in billowing robes and a long flowing wig, surrounded by flowers.

—

“Explain,” Sisko commands.

Having decided that showing weakness right now can only help his case, Garak is sitting hunched to the side, holding his reeling head in one hand. It’s through a hiss that he replies, “A woman named Turora Lumok was responsible for sabotaging the station with those poems forged with my data signature. The Bajoran woman who was just assassinated–she was no Bajoran, but rather one of the last remaining members of the Obsidian Order. She was hired by Dukat to kill me during the festival under the guise of a hate crime. No doubt because of her indomitable reputation, I’m sure. A number of Cardassian casualties these past several days were at her hands.”

Sisko walks to the viewport to stare out into the stars for a moment, processing this. “All his talk of friendship between Bajor and Cardassia…” he trails off, the ghost of a sneer on his lips as he turns back around. “His goal was just the opposite. He wanted to destroy any hope of cooperation.”

“And get me out of the way in the process,” Garak grumbles. 

Sisko hums and wanders over to Garak’s side, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me who assassinated Ms. Lumok?”

Garak stares at the floor through his fingers, his eyes glazed.

“Or who your informant is on Dukat’s involvement?”

“Captain,” Garak mutters, not looking up, “I have sat here concussed after an attempt on my life and shared with you everything that I know, and here you have not even told me who the tailor of your magnificent robe is.” He tugs half-heartedly at a strip of embroidery on the fabric. “I must admit, I am feeling a touch betrayed you didn’t come to me.”

Sisko flicks his eyes up to Julian, who has been standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. “Very well, Mr. Garak. I release you into Dr. Bashir’s care for now, but I expect to continue this conversation soon.” He massages his forehead. “Once I figure out what to do about this damned festival.”

Julian comes over to help Garak out of his chair, but Garak snaps upright and to the door before he can touch him. Sisko takes the opportunity to lean into Julian’s face and whisper, “Get more information out of him.” The doctor nods.

Julian isn’t angry when he steps out of Sisko’s office and sees that Garak is walking in the exact opposite direction of the infirmary, but he is disappointed. 

“Mr. Garak,” he says urgently once he’s caught up to the idiot.

Mr. Garak interrupts him in the same tone, “Now, now, my dear doctor, we both know I have a dermal regenerator in my quarters, so we need not extend–”

“And I think we both know this is about much more than a few bumps and bruises. I’m afraid the time for beating around the bush passed quite a while ago.”

“You’re right, Doctor,” Garak says, coming to an abrupt stop and rounding on him with wild eyes. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.” Julian’s eyebrows raise, and Garak nods severely. “Oh, yes, let us not ‘beat around the bush.’ We should talk about how you threw yourself directly into the line of a lethal phaser blast on the one in a millionth chance that you might save my life. The cost of such an action being almost certainly your own life, and yet, here you stand, and here I stand. Will wonders never cease.” Julian opens his mouth, but Garak raises a finger. “Nevermind that I was in the middle of an altercation with a very dangerous, very volatile woman who would not have hesitated for a second to dispose of you. She had a nasty habit of that. Now I knew that you were naive, Doctor, Doctor! I knew that! What I did not know – what I never could have guessed after all these years – was that you are an idiot.” 

Julian stares back into Garak’s hissing face, unimpressed. Garak feels a wave of deja-vu and does not like it. It has no place here. And yet, Julian takes in a breath and smiles, raising his shoulders. “All right, Garak. If it’s really so important to you, we can talk about your suicide attempt.”

“What?” Garak bites out.

“You were going to let yourself get shot, yes?”

“I was n–” Garak starts to lie, disgusted, but is stopped by Julian stepping entirely too close. He stumbles back a step, then another when Julian attempts to crowd him again, and the familiarity of the routine has him shutting his eyes, rueful. They’re dancing again. It’s humiliating, the things this man makes him do, how effortlessly he can gain the upperhand. Most of the time without even having to lift a finger.

“You figured out Dukat’s plan and arranged for Lumok to die if she succeeded, but you expected her to. You didn’t expect to be saved,” the doctor tells his blank, unresponsive face. His eyes are still closed, his hands tense at his sides, but he knows Julian’s stepped closer again by the heat of his livid breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Very well. I didn’t figure it out. I was informed.”

“So, the captain was right.” He sounds bored, but Garak seizes his chance. His eyes open in a sudden burst of animation.

“Yes, I had an informant. I believe the major was familiar with him, a fellow by the name of Damoc who was recently presumed dead? Though I knew him far better as Mebol. We first met on Romulus, you see. In the event of my death, he had strict instructions to reveal Dukat’s plot in my stead and protect my remaining assets. In return, he was to receive some valuable coordinates, which by now he will have long accessed. I suppose he’s already booked passage off of the station, if he hasn’t already gone.” 

“Quick to abandon you,” Julian says, completely off-script. Garak’s carefully measured breathing stutters.

“Surely Captain Sisko would like to have a word with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Doctor…” Garak says, lost. “There isn’t time to was–”

Suddenly there are two hands slamming into his chest like they’re iron forks and he’s a slab of meat, rocketing him back into the nearest wall with a loud thud. Garak gasps at the strength of it, astounded, but all his attention is quickly monopolized by Julian’s snarling words.

“Stop trying to distract me, Garak! Stop racing away before I can even properly get into the room, stop begging off lunch, stop ignoring my comms, and stop acting like your bloody life is over just because it was found out that you have feelings for me!” 

“I–I don’t–”

“Lke hell you don’t! Thirty-seven.”

Garak blinks several times. “What?”

“Thirty-seven. That’s how many direct references to our literary discussions are in your poems. All chronologically concordant with the dates of those discussions, and six of which from that classic Earth album I recommended to you a year ago that you swore up and down sounded like a pack of voles had been crammed into a bucket and shaken around. I knew you were having me on. You love Mitski, and you love me.”

Garak’s face shutters. 

Finally, Julian takes a step back. His hands remain on his chest, pinning him in place, but he allows him some oxygen. Exactly twenty seconds pass like this, before the doctor becomes impatient and huffs, “You can’t possibly have nothing to say.”

“What would you have me say, Doctor?”

“I would like you to admit it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve heard it from friends and coworkers and strangers and every tourist on this damn station, it feels like, but I haven’t heard it from you.”

Garak is silent for a long time. Finally, he quietly asks, “You would further humiliate me this way? Knowing what you do? My dear friend…” He, carefully, with only the gentlest of pressure, puts a hand over one of Julian’s. “Please. You’ve read everything I could possibly have to say. What more could there be?”

Julian’s hands are unforgiving, but his eyes soften at the simple lowering of the curtain. It’s not the direct confession he was looking for, the I love you completely, traitorously, ruinously that his poems professed and a deep, broken part of Julian desperately wants to hear, but it is, it is. For Garak, this is as explicit as it gets, and Julian can feel his heart trying to catch in his throat.

“Garak,” he starts to say.

Garak isn’t scowling anymore. His eyes are shining as he looks away and sucks in an aggrieved breath. “Oh, please, let us skip this excruciating precursor. I have no intention of remaining on this station.”

Julian goes unnervingly still. “Excuse me?”

“I will need time to pack up my shop and settle my lease, but then I promise, you will never suffer the consequences of my unfortunate… condition again.” When Julian only stares at him with mounting alarm in his lovely eyes, Garak grimaces. “You must know I had no intention of pursuing you.” At least, not after the implant had been shut off and he’d realized what horrors he’d stumbled into with the doctor while under its influence, and by then, it was already too late. He was too weak to stop speaking to him, but he was not a complete monster. “I wouldn’t have. My writing was never about nurturing the emotions, only managing them.” A bit of a lie, but only a bit. He does love to languish and he never could resist a good innuendo. Their friendship had been infinitely precious to him, though, and he couldn’t bear the slow death it would undergo now that everyone knew the truth.

The worsening rumors that would spread. The suffering of Julian’s reputation, career, and love life with the Cardassian spy’s drastic affections hanging over everyone’s heads. The danger it would place them both in, the damage it had already done. The way Julian would know every time Garak flirted now, it was never idle. It had never been and could never be. 

It would be a torture hitherto unthinkable. Better to sever the limb before it could rot.

Still, Julian is silent. The pressure on his chest is more a suggestion than a command now.

“Doctor, I…” he swallows back anymore hideous truths. “I apologize. Your rage is understandable, but I swear to you, I have every intention of righting this wrong.”

“Oh,” Julian says then, softly, as if he isn’t speaking to Garak at all,  “you don’t know.”

“Doctor?”

He makes a bizarre human gesture, skimming the heel of his hand off his forehead. “My God! Of course. I thought it was pride, or shame, or paranoia. Anything and everything but this, but of course you would be this ridiculous. Well. That’s an easy enough problem to solve.”

“Doctor–?!”

The hands on his chest are gone. Instead, they’re seizing him by the head and pulling him up to connect his mouth to Julian’s.

Oh.

If Julian’s touch was a brand before, this is lava running down his throat, into his stomach and down, down, down to eat through the twenty inch thick duranium floor. Slow, thorough, and final in its devastation. A transformation that cannot be persuaded. He grapples with it, hands scrambling stupidly over and across his doctor’s shoulders. Whether it’s to pull him closer or push him away, he doesn’t know. He’s too busy being brutally altered to give it much thought.

His hands settle for burying themselves in his hair at some point. When doesn’t matter. Time holds no power here. It happens, and then he knows how soft Julian Bashir’s hair feels, and there is no going back.

The loss of control becomes alarming enough that he finally manages to pry himself away, gulping in desperate, anxious breaths of frigid station air. It works. The fire and the madness that followed it calms down and he manages the strength to push Julian back, but the wet smack of their lips disconnecting will echo in his dreams for the foreseeable future, as will the dizzy grin on Julian’s face inches from his own. There’s a hand on his ass keeping him from tumbling through the hole in the floor and a couple unlucky passersby gawking at the gruesome scene and Garak is a different creature entirely, incandescent and strange, forged anew in the curious fires of mutual attachment. 

He feels insane.

“Doctor, you cannot truly be this naive.” 

Julian looks anything but naive right then. He can’t focus on that, though. He needs to focus on the fact he was nearly assassinated; the fact that the kindest man alive nearly died with him out of some misguided terran idea that all lives are of equal value and importance.

And yet, Julian is leaning in to kiss him again, so Garak puts a hand on his chest and says, “You know what I am.”

Julian’s expression turns complicated and it’s clear he understands. Garak’s roiling emotions can’t settle on being relieved or horrified. How to go on after this? After knowing intimately what he almost had, with the smoke of it still thick in his eyes and his throat and his heart?

A gentle hand on his jaw brings him back to the moment, where Julian’s eyes are serious. “I know,” he murmurs.

Garak sucks in a wet breath.

“The question is,” Julian continues, even quieter, “do you know what I am?”

His head is spinning. “Doctor?”

Julian just smiles sadly, and it's clear that there are some long conversations in their future. But for now… “About that dermal regenerator in your quarters,” Julian begins, and Garak is relieved to find out that whatever stupid, lovely thing he’s become can still appreciate an innuendo.

—

Not long after, in the middle of telling Sisko all about Mebol over Julian’s comm badge while its owner watches expectantly in a state of teasing half-dress, he’s horrified to find that whatever thing he’s become is also rather eager to please.

—

A couple days later, the two of them are picking from a generous cut of flaming taspar in the Replimat.

Or, Garak is picking, anyway. Julian is stuffing his face. Ordinarily, this would mildly scandalize him, but the fact it’s taspar, one of the most traditional delicacies of his homeworld, being shoveled enthusiastically into that pretty face makes it so he can feel only hope.

Rather than giving into that inadvisable feeling, he takes a dainty sip of his tea and tries to look nonsuspect. Cardassians from all sides and angles are staring.

“About Miss Leeta…” Garak begins.

Julian wipes his face with the side of his hand. Disgusting, but oddly compelling. “What about her?” 

“When will you be breaking the news to her?”

“Oh.” Julian smiles, bemused. “She knows.”

A tightness in his chest dispels slightly. “Does she?” he says faintly.

“She’s the one who first brought it up. We performed the Rite of Separation days ago. She said it was great timing, what with the festival and all. We didn’t even have to leave the station.”

“So you were together then.”

“Well, in a sense. We weren’t in love, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Garak takes another sip, lowering his eyes. “I wasn’t worried. Only concerned for the young lady’s feelings.”

Julian’s face is incandescent. A Cardassian to his far left is openly gaping. “Of course, of course.” He leans suddenly over the table then, moving a hand forward to rest on his knee. “So, should I take this line of questioning as an indicator that you’re open to a relationship with me?”

Garak shifts a little in his seat, moving his knee further under the table and its shadows, but otherwise doesn’t pull away. “It would be unwise,” he says quietly, without actually saying no.

The hand squeezes. “It isn’t as if people won’t assume anyway.”

“Rumors can be dispelled. Redirected. Altered.” He reaches forward to take a small saucière and pours a bright red sauce over a couple groatcakes. “There would be no coming back from a confirmation.”

Julian’s hand falls away. “Would it be so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Garak says, splitting a cake up into three neat sections. “Would it, Doctor?”

A Bajoran couple walks past their table then, and while one purposely avoids eye contact and seems to be giving them a wide berth, the other throws a meaningful glare Julian’s way. This is the fourth judgemental or pitying look he’s received since they came in for brunch. Julian calmly returns the look, refusing to be the first to look away, until finally the man averts his eyes and Julian looks back to Garak with a stern smile. Garak inclines his head.

“Be careful, Doctor,” Garak goes on. “Rumors can ruin lives. End careers.” He scoops up a bite of his cake, dripping with red sauce, and lifts it to his mouth. “Kill,” he finishes, and eats.

At that, Julian leans back in his seat with his arms crossed tight. Garak gives him his time. It’s a relief to have finally made a dent in Julian’s lovesick, idealistic conviction–and Garak can admit, after the last few days, that it is lovesickness. Julian’s decided he loves him back and there will be no stopping him from pursuing this, but there may yet be some tempering. A small, equally stubborn, sentimental part of Garak despairs at the whole horrid affair, but the behemoth of his good sense squashes this part down with little difficulty. 

It’s this moment that a smattering of young Cardassians, accompanied by one Jadzia Dax, arrive at their table. Immediately, Garak recognizes them as the ones that nearly intercepted his meeting with Lumok and his stomach drops. Julian, on the other hand, brightens back up.

“Well, hello there,” he says warmly.

Jadzia responds first, with each elbow leaned on a Cardassian’s shoulder and a knowing sparkle in her blue eyes, “Hello to you.” The Cardassians all echo with similar greetings, some shy, others giddy.

One young woman standing at the front, with her hair in three elaborately plaited braids and little makeup, is looking at Garak with particular interest. “You’re the one who wrote the poems about Julian.”

Garak looks at the girl coolly. “Do you mean Dr. Bashir?”

She goes blue. “Oh, um. Yes. I do.” She tucks an imaginary lock of hair into her perfectly coiffed hair and lowers her head respectfully. “My apologies, Doctor.”

“Hey now,” the doctor scolds with good humor, “none of that. We’re all friends here.” 

The girl throws another searching glance Garak’s way. “Friends?”

That’s enough of that. “This is certainly quite the surprise,” Garak says genially, plastering on his most pleasant smile. “Is there something you needed? As Deep Space Nine’s resident Cardassian tailor and reputed troubadour, I’m always happy to be of service.” Julian sends him a sharp look, which he ignores. 

Jadzia is looking as foxy as she ever does, with a grin nearly to her spotted ears. “Julian asked me to bring them here,” she says too happily, and Garak has to sit back in his seat to process that. Julian scratches his neck with a guilty smile, obliviously alluring. It cannot be overstated that there are, still, eyes on them from all directions and angles.

“Garak, sir,” the Cardassian woman-child begins again, earnest, “let me start over. My name is Inia Milam. I am the President of the Ivory State Liberation Library. We collect–”

“Madam,” Garak interrupts her quietly, stunned. “This is hardly the time and place.” He blinks, still shocked stupid by her brazenness, and leans towards her, peering into her distressingly young features with beseeching desperation. “And I am hardly the audience.”

Milam doesn’t appear to process his warning at all, though. She just continues to look inquisitive. She has that gleam in her eyes that is common in Cardassian women, calculating and intelligent, but there’s something else there. Something indefinable that he’s seen hundreds of times over an interrogation table, but without the fear to staunch it. Without the hopelessness. It makes his stomach flip. “On the contrary, you are exactly the sort of person we look for.” She bows her head. “Dr. Bashir promised that if we assisted him a few days prior, he would introduce us so that I could formally welcome your book of poems into our shelves. I apologize if this comes as a surprise. I wish only to thank you for your excellent contribution, E. G., and tell you that we hope to welcome many more pieces from you in the future. I’ll be in touch. Dr. Bashir.” She nods to him, returns his gentle smile, and walks confidently away. The rest of the group mirror her, voicing similar words of polite farewell and appreciation, and leave.

Garak forces himself not to track their departure and instead picks up his fork again, as if nothing world-shattering has occurred at all. The cake is tasteless in his mouth.

Julian is concealing nothing of his thoughts, however. He’s staring openly at Garak, as if he’s a bomb and he’s trying to figure out which color wire to cut.

Ultimately, it’s Jadzia that breaks the tension. “Well,” she says, “that is some harem you’ve got there, Julian.”

“Jadzia,” Julian barks. She laughs.

“I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” Uncharacteristically, her impish smile turns regretful. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do have to bring your friend in for questioning,” she says, and that explains that. “I’m sorry, boys. I stalled Ben as long as I could.”

Garak polishes off the last of his meal and takes one last gulp of his tea to wash it down. With that done, he stands with a placid, conciliatory smile.

Julian puts a hand on his shoulder before he can take a step. “I’ll come see you after my shift.” Those lovely, dark, deep eyes search his, pinning him like a moth above his fireplace. “Okay?”

Garak inhales. “Without end,” he murmurs, waits for Julian’s eyes to light in understanding, and then aloud says, “I am at your disposal, Doctor. Good day.” With that and a firm, friendly pat on Julian’s hand, he limps away.

Jadzia rather pointedly watches him limp to the exit for a few long seconds before throwing Julian a rakish grin. “Well, well,” she says largely. Julian pretends not to notice, and Jadzia pivots on her heel after Garak.

“Before we lock you up and throw away the key, could you sign my datarod,” Julian hears Jadzia asking, and he shakes his head, unsuccessfully trying to rub away his smile.

Without end Do I think of you and so Come to me at night. For on the path of dreams at least, There's no one to disapprove! Ono no Komachi

[writergeekrhw]

DS9 has always been my favourite Trek - I remember being a 15 year old and sneaking downstairs to turn on the TV and wait desperately for 'Rejoined' to air, because I heard that it would have Jadzia kissing a woman and I had never, ever seen women loving women on tv before. At least, not anything that was taken seriously and not as some awful punchline. It meant a lot to baby-dyke me, back then. More than I can ever express.

Now I've got kids (12 and 16) and based on how much they loved Strange New Worlds, I'm trying to get them equally hooked on DS9. We started with the pilot ('baseball metaphors are so boring,' declared 12 yr old), then Past Tense for the year relevance, which went over better. Trials and Tribble-ations was a big hit.

Last night I put on the season 4 premiere, and that went well. Kid 16 is still only vaguely interested, and mostly likes Kira's snark. Kid 12 has decided that Worf and Garak are his favourite characters, with 'the sarcastic melty guy' running a close third. He also declared that DS9 'is like the Star Wars prequels, but better. Like, it's got talky politics in it, but the writing is actually good.'

Given all that, do you have any suggestions for good on-boarding episodes for newer viewers? We'll definitely do as much of the Dominion War arc as I can get them to sit through, but I'd love to prime them with a couple of good stand-alone episodes first to get more familiar with the characters. It's been a long time since I've watched the series straight through, though, and a lot of details about specific episodes have blurred in my mind. I'd love any suggestions!

Hmm, I'd try "Duet," "In the Hands of the Prophets," "Necessary Evil," "Rules of Acquisition," and "Blood Oath," then hit the with "The Jem'hadar." If that doesn't do it, DS9 might not be for them (at least not yet).

[therapardalis]

By now, Julian knew her very well. Miles would tell him 'well, the offer's open', Kira would give him a worried look, but leave him be. Garak would tap a steeple of scaly grey fingers, then set about investigating who and what might have been troubling the doctor's mind.

Thera was a Big Gun - second only to Jadzia (third, if you counted Sisko, but he was still a little high on the chain). Semi-notorious herself for closing off and locking doors, this might have been just another normal invite ... if not for her arriving at his doorstep instead of over the comm. If not for the casual lean in the doorway that said he could refuse, but she would want to know why.

Really why, not a platitude. She saw through those because she used them, too.

"Yeah." Quiet, poking over a spring roll before picking it up off the plate, "I know what you mean." He'd seen her psych file, after all, "But sometimes those roads don't go anywhere."

@therapardalis said: Spotify - 59 (S9 ;)) for Julian

- spotify wrapped || accepting -

. It'd been two weeks since anyone had seen Julian outside of the infirmary, always too busy or not enough energy or some other excuse to hide away from others. Thus far, he'd turned away Garak, Miles, and Kira for drinks, but when Thera asked, he finally gave in and agreed, if only they could choose the replimat instead of Quark's. This time of the evening, it was quieter than the bar.

He scratched the back of his head as he thought of what to say over their small spread of drinks and snacks. " You know, sometimes I'm caught up in my head. I'm trying to make the best of the lows and the highs."

Waterfall (Michael Schulte x R3HAB)

[joshuaalbert]

listen I know the kira and dax arthurian legend holosuite dates are little more than a haha funny hats running joke and if you examine it any more than that you’re taking it too seriously but it really is such a throwaway representation of how infuriatingly earth- and english language canon-centric star trek tends to be. none of the characters involved in this are from earth. this is a trill showing a bajoran this fun program in a holosuite run by a ferengi. I don’t doubt that dax could have run across arthurian legends at some point over hundreds of years and maybe jadzia likes them but are you telling me that there are no trill Romantic Legends that she could introduce kira to, thereby bonding more by showing her (and us) this piece of her own culture? a centuries-old story from bajor that maybe kira didn’t even know about because that kind of thing stopped being passed down as much during the occupation but dax does from a previous host? a story from a third entirely unrelated culture that’s not earth that has some kind of personal connection? I mean, shit, even something from earth that’s not so deeply western?

and it would be a different kind of bad if they’d thought about it and went mm I think that kind of detail makes them a little Too close send in the het love interests but like. it does not feel like they thought about it hard enough for that it’s just a brief recurring gag about funny ooc outfits that unconsciously reinforces the idea of english canon as the default.

[the-last-dillpickle]

DS9 trivia from IMDB - Part 2

- After production ended, and the sets were dismantled, the Defiant bridge set was declared "fold and hold" and placed in storage. It was re-dressed and used as the bridge of an alien cargo ship and a Klingon battlecruiser on Star Trek: Voyager (1995) and the bridge of the ECS Fortunate on Star Trek: Enterprise

- When the Nielsen ratings started to go down during the broadcasting of the third season, the studio pressed for radical ideas for the fourth season to increase the show's popularity again. Some of their suggestions included blowing up planet Bajor, or taking the action away from the station. They finally decided that the show needed a popular character from an earlier Star Trek series. Initially, the producers weren't too pleased, because they had set up a subplot within the Dominion War storyline where the Federation would be facing off against the Klingons, and were already having difficulties making it work. However, the studio decision turned out to be a blessing in disguise when someone suggested to introduce The Next Generation's Worf (Michael Dorn) to the cast as an intermediate between the Federation and the Klingons, which conveniently solved most of the script problems.    

- The name "Deep Space Nine" originated from an early working title, and pre-dated the decision to set the series on a space station. Producers intended on coming up with a new title after the show was fully developed, but stayed with the name, feeling it had an intriguing quality to it.    

- Malcolm McDowell, who had been in Star Trek: Generations (1994), once said he'd like to appear on this show, but only if his nephew, Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir), would direct the episode. Such a chance was offered in season five, episode eighteen, "Business as Usual", but never materialized due to scheduling conflicts.    

- When Nana Visitor became pregnant, her condition was explained away in the show by having Kira become an emergency surrogate for Keiko O'Brien's baby. Astonishingly, Visitor was only absent for one episode (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Let He Who Is without Sin... (1996)) due to the birth of her son. She actually cut her maternity leave short, out of fear that a prolonged absence would cause the writers to significantly reduce her role in the rest of the series.  

- Marc Alaimo was nicknamed "The Neck" on-set for his naturally long neck, which inspired the look of the Cardassian neck ridges.    

- Despite being credited as a regular, Cirroc Lofton appeared in only eighty-five of the show's one hundred seventy-three episodes. Morn (Mark Allen Shepherd), the most frequent recurring character, appeared in ninety-two episodes. Curiously, Sheppard isn't credited with this total on DS9's cast listing.    

- Jadzia Dax was originally supposed to have a forehead appliance as the Trill were first shown in Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Host (1991), but after a test, most people thought that Terry Farrell's face was much too beautiful to be partially covered by or with prostheses. Instead, she got to have spots on the side. They were drawn on personally by Michael Westmore each day, a process which initially took over an hour, but over time, this eventually was reduced to close to forty minutes. Westmore actually "signed" his work by adding two spots in the shape of an M and a W. From then on, all Trills were shown to be like this, rather than the version shown on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).        

- Amongst the actors to read for the role of Captain Sisko were Carl Weathers and Eriq La Salle. James Earl Jones and Tony Todd were offered the role but declined. Todd (who appeared as Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)) made two appearances on this show; first as an elderly Jake Sisko in season four, episode three, "The Visitor", then as Kurn in season four, episode fifteen, "Sons of Mogh". He appeared in Star Trek: Voyager (1995) season four, episode sixteen, "Prey".    

- Alexander Siddig originally auditioned to play the part of Sisko. Rick Berman thought that Siddig was too young for the part, and felt him to be a better fit to play Bashir instead.    

[ocpdzim]

Actually, DS9 is pretty much the only show I have watched where I have had opinions on ships besides “I hate them” or “They seem good for each other so I GUESS it’s fine but I’d rather look at something else.” These are as follows:

Most of the canon endgame ships, including Jadzia and Worf because I think getting married and remaining married until one of you dies counts as endgame, are actually pretty cute and I did not hate watching them (this is high praise for a ship coming from me). My favorite of them from a character standpoint is Ben and Kasidy, which tbh is also the only one I wasn’t immediately irritated by when it first started. The others I was annoyed with at first but eventually came around to, and ultimately they are mostly pretty well written too.

The only major canon ship I REALLY DON’T like at all is Ezri and Julian. I feel like they will commit so many medical ethics violations because due to lack of other providers they are literally each other’s doctor and therapist and both have a HISTORY of committing medical ethics violations when treating people they are close with (Ezri just generally, Julian specifically with romantic interests). Also it was so forced and rushed. Maybe it could’ve been fine if they’d had like an entire extra season to flesh it out but I would honestly have preferred if they just didn’t do it at all. Also I feel like poor Ezri should’ve gotten like a year to just exist and figure out her issues before being shoved into any relationships AND before returning to work as a therapist because holy shit she fucked up administering therapy so bad so many times.

The one non-canon ship I most think should have been canon if the writers had dared to because it would’ve actually worked really well is the O’Brien polycule. Miles and Keiko clearly care about each other a lot yet have kind of an unstable relationship as it is, but every time they bring a third person into it, it seems to help significantly. They should stay married but Miles should also date Julian and Keiko should also date Kira who is also dating Odo. I think this would eliminate like 90% of drama in these characters’ relationships and generally improve station morale.

Julian and Garak was fun when I was watching the show and discussing it with friends, I guess I would’ve liked to see it in the show if it was handled well because they have an interesting dynamic and it would’ve presumably put an end to the parade of really insufferable “Julian has a crush... on DAX and/or a GIRL WE NEVER SAW BEFORE” events, but at this point I have seen way too many out of character incorrect quotes posts about it clogging the tag and so now I’m kind of tired of it. I get the appeal but let’s post about something else sometimes. Alternatively, let’s make posts about the ship that incorporate the characters’ actual personalities even a little bit. Either is fine.

Quark and Odo should NOT date because Odo would not treat Quark right and Quark would not treat anyone right. Quark wants a relationship so bad but I think he is just way too much of an asshole to everyone he cares about and should be banned from romance forever, sorry Quark. However, and this is crucial, the ship is such an incredible comedy setup that I am still generally happy to see posts about it anyway. “Quark and Odo try dating but they are really bad at it and have a nasty breakup” would also have been a viable episode plot and a fantastic addition to the “Quark fucks up an attempt at romance really bad” episode collection.

Sisko and Dukat is a terrible ship if it’s requited, because Sisko not only deserves better than that but also has too much of a moral backbone to ever even consider dating a person who sucks as bad as Dukat does. HOWEVER, it is funny when people write Dukat as having just an absolutely doomed and miserable one-sided crush on Sisko, who just straight up hates him and has no positive feelings towards him at all. And honestly? Considering what we know about Cardassian flirting and what we know about the horrendous way Dukat treats women he canonically has massive unrequited crushes on, you could make a good argument that "Dukat has a massive unrequited crush on Sisko and is handling it so badly and that’s at least partially why he did this” is a valid read of several of his actions in the show.

I have no real interest in a ship between Jake and Ziyal for its own sake; it’s been boring in every way I’ve seen it presented even though one could in theory do interesting things with it. HOWEVER since the writers were so determined to introduce weird fucking horrible to watch romance subplots for these characters (all of which were thankfully brief, but like, still awful), I think it would’ve improved the show if they were in a relationship simply by virtue of the fact that they were around the same age.

[autisticburnham]

Fics I have either started and need to finish or that I just plain need to start:

My Troi/Ro missing scenes that I published the first two chapters of and never finished the third

Tom and Harry's first date. If you want it to just be fluffy stop reading here. This one is actually finished but

Sequel to the above. The whole ship dies and we realize the first fic was from the perspective of alternate universe!Harry that saves Naomi Wildman as she's born. Now he has to cope with the fact that he'll never quite belong and that he'll never see anyone he loves again, and now he's got his boyfriend trying to comfort him about it but the boyfriend only knows him as just friends

Julian spiraling after Inquisition and thinking about how his two biggest traumatic experiences were wielded against him

Ezri going through Jadzia's stuff and finding the earrings Lenara gave her and getting Emotions about it

B7 fic where Harry gets kidnapped by aliens and B'elanna and Seven have to go undercover on the planet to save him. Featuring lots of bickering, them getting imprisoned, and them being forced to address the root of their issues with each other to escape and rescue Harry. Very loosely inspired by Barbie: A Fairy Secret

A full length version of that post I made where we see each member of the Niners go to a baseball game with Benjamin. Also featuring Imaginary!Buck Bokai bc while I didn't like the episode as a whole, those were interesting aliens and I'm disappointed we never got to see them again

Rom comes out as nonbinary, almost everyone is supportive and good with it, but Quark keeps making mistakes. We get a parallel where Nog threatens to burn down the bar if Quark stands in the way of his parent's happiness

Short and fluffy Seven/Raffi where Seven muses about how much she loves her while lying next to a sleeping Raffi. Quotes Sappho

Julian talks to various crew members after he gets outed as genetically engineered. May include a conversation with Miles about why it's okay for him specifically to call him Jules, but that may also be it's own fic

Quasi-quodo fic where Quark had feelings for Odo and was working on getting over his internalized stuff so that he could actually talk to Odo about it, but then Odo was too busy fucking for 3 days and nearly got Quark's brother killed and now Quark has to deal with that. Featuring Quark forming a genuine friendship with Nerys bc they're the only people who were really close to Odo and fully understand how fucked up this is to deal with emotionally. Featuring Leeta punching Odo and telling him to stay away from her family

Rejoined... 2! Since ds9 has the distinction of both being next to a stable wormhole and being the last place in the Alpha Quadrant Voyager was seen, when Starfleet commissions the Trill Science Ministry to look into ways to use a stable wormhole to bring Voyager home, Lenara and her team relocate permanently to ds9. We have a parallel where Kira and Ezri have the same conversation Benjamin and Jadzia had warning about Lenara coming. May or may not end with them getting together, but definitely at least featurs Ezri realizing she's a lesbian

Aos!Kirk/Spock/Uhura get together. Takes place after Beyond while Spock and Uhura are still broken up; they talk about why they broke up, speak frankly about their feelings, and decide together to ask Jim into the relationship

Honestly? Might steal @8daysuntiltheapocalypseiguess 's Dean Winchester writes Star Trek fanfiction and do Tom Paris writes Supernatural fanfiction to figure out his gender. Would NOT be the same format, I do not know how Elle does that, they're a god amongst men

[firstofficer-williamyiker]

Ok, ok, ok, ok. I am way too focus on this but I really really wanted to list out every Star Trek ship (from TNG, DS9, and VOY cause those are the ones I have seen most of) I could think of and give my opinion on it. Why? Because I don’t wanna do my math test. Lets go down the spiral of hyperfixation and little impulse control. (FYI, this became a long ass post, so read through if you want or don’t lol)

Let’s start from the beginning. 

The Next Generation: (aka gays that all share one smart brain cell) 

Picard x Crusher: Honestly, I like their chemistry, and if it became canon I would be alright with that. No real strong feelings on this ship.

Picard x Q: The epitome of enemies to lovers slow burn in 300k words. The sexual tension is too much to handle, I absolutely adore these two. They probably fucked once and Picard regrets it immeasurably. 

Picard x Riker: Nah, not for me. But you do you dudes.

Riker x Troi: Again, I quite like these two together. Two Bi Icons getting together, I’m here for it. 

Riker x Worf: Eh, Worf isn’t really a fav of mine so that makes me bias against this ship. It cool tho.

Riker x Crusher: *war flashbacks to when Crusher had sex with a Trill worm that was inside currently inside Riker’s body* Haha, fuck no. 

Troi x Crusher: Two queens getting together and tearing down the patriarchy, I stan.

Troi x Tasha: I tend to block out season one of TNG from my mind, but honestly, I like the vibe.

Data x Geordi: My OTP for this show. It should have happened. Rick Berman is a coward. They are just so sweet and they understand each other like no one else. A few of their scenes in this show made me cry. I ship

Data x Tasha: Nah, I don’t vibe. Would have been better as mlm and wlw solidarity. 

Worf x Troi: They had a few cute scenes together in the later seasons, I don’t hate neither super enjoy.

Deep Space Nine: (aka no straights in space)

Sisko x Kasidy: I liked them better in the early seasons. I think the writers low-key forgot about Kasidy until she was convenient plot device. 

Kira x Odo: I preferred it in the first few seasons where Odo had a little crush on Kira and it was kinda adorable. But after their relationship had become canon in the later seasons I was kinda disappointed.

Kira x Jadzia: I am here for this ship, two powerful women ready to take on the world together but also have their own insecurities that come up as the situation arises. Immaculate, I want it.

Dukat x Kira: Fuck no, they are enemies. Idk why the DS9 writers thought it would be a great idea to pair THESE two together. But thank god for Nana Visitor for being such a queen. 

Odo x Quark: Again, another amazing enemies to lovers ship. I love seeing those two on screen together, their chemistry is just *chef’s kiss*.

Miles x Keiko: Miles is like, the token heterosexual on this show. He loves his wife, his kids, and his job.

Bashir x Garak: Fuck yeah, OTP of this show for me gang. It was so heavily implied and it would have been so cool to see, especially in the 90s. But oh well, at least we got the actors writing and performing fanfiction for us.

Bashir x Jadzia: Yeah no, I wouldn’t ship them romantically. And the writers definetly did not favors to Bashir when they make his crush on her a bit creepy in the early seasons. But would be a BROTP for me.

Bashir x Ezri: Hnng, I don’t like. It just feels like Bashir is trying to date the Jadzia he never had and I don’t like it.

Jadzia x Worf: It’s fine, I guess. I don’t really see the chemistry.

Ezri x Jake: I mean, it’s better than Ezri x Bashir, but like, Dax has known Jake over 3 lifetimes and watched him grow up soooo, nah.

Jake x Ziyal: I am a fan. I think these two would have been really cool together especially since they are both artistic people with Jake’s writing and Ziyal’s painting. They could have done some really cool stuff together. Plus, it would make some interesting family reunion moments between Dukat and Sisko hehe.

Jake x Nog: Again, I am a fan. Tol and smol dynamics are what I am here for.

Garak x Ziyal: No

Voyager: (aka gays lost in space)

Janeway x Chakotay: The of the few straight ships I would die for. I am quite disappointed that nothing ever formed between the two because it would have been really cute and oh my god the tension the writers made between the two. I feel baited for this ship, AND IT’S A STRAIGHT SHIP! I’m sorry I have feelings about this. 

Janeway x Seven: Not a top ship of mine but I definitely see the chemistry here and I support it. 

Janeway x Paris: I only bring this up because in like season 1 or 2 they have axolotl children together because the writers were probably high as a kite when they came up with this idea for an episode. But a hard pass. 

Janeway x Coffee: I’m pretty sure this is already canon and I stan. 

Chakotay x Seven: I haven’t completely finished Voyager yet but I heard that this is the endgame for the two and WTF. I don’t see or understand it and it makes me upset, like really upset.

Chakotay x B’elanna: I’m just glad this wasn’t canon. I more just bring it up because I remembered B’elanna had a crush on Chakotay in the early seasons before Tom. And like, I get it because if Chakotay was my commanding officer I’d probably crush too girl. 

B’elanna x Paris: It’s a canon ship that I honestly kinda like. There are some moments where I’m like “oh no” and other where I’m like “YES”. But overall, I enjoy it. I just feel like there is something missing.

Paris x Kim: Fuck yea, I love these two together. Two bros turned lovers I am fucking here for it my dudes. But again, I feel like there is something else missing here.

B’elanna x Paris x Kim: Oh hell yea, I found what was missing. This is my personal OTP of Voyager. In my head I think Kim and B’elanna are just really close friends who do engineering things together. While Paris is in the corner, loving them both, but also setting the Delta Flyer on fire for the third time this week. I haven’t really looked into the Voyager tag (because spoilers) so idk if this is a popular ship. But I think they all have some really fun chemistry and I enjoy it. 

Paris x Delta Flyer: This just came to my head 20 seconds ago as I wrote the last one but I’m pretty sure this one is already canon. 

Kim x Seven: Nah

Seven x The Doctor: Hmm, do I dislike it as much as I do Seven x Chakotay? No, I do not. But do I like it that much? No, no I do not. I ship them as friends.

Tuvok x Nelix: No, not really. Opposites attract is not really my cup of tea all the time.

Nelix x Kes: Oh damn, I almost forgot about Kes. I know this is canon but where did this come from. The writers NEVER EXPLAIN IT! And then they never explain why the later broke up. I just... I just don’t understand. 

I doubt I have covered every ship, these were just the ones that came to me while writing this. Also, these are just my personal opinions please don’t come for my knees.

[croc-odette]

i love ds9 and here are some episode premises that i wish had happened

DND EPISODE: already talked about this but a dungeons and dragons holosuite episode. jake is the overly prepared DM obviously, nog, ziyal, and alexander are players. nog’s player is clearly his idea of sisko, a lawful good paladin; ziyal plays as a cardassian rogue (played by dukat, but clearly based in personality on kira); alexander plays a mage who is kind-of worf kind-of jadzia and keeps switching between them through the game). there’s an NPC version that’s clearly also based on sisko at one point, but from jake’s point of view knowing him as his dad to compare how differently jake and nog, a cadet, see him.

as the game progresses, it becomes clear that the Big Bad is based on a combo of dukat/winn (corrupt government/religious figure). ziyal struggles with the classic DND question of ‘just because i would do this, does that mean my character would?’ except she’s realizing that her dad wouldn’t do any of the selfless things she wants her character to do. alexander keeps trying to solve shit through weird cantrips or puzzle solving instead of fighting and jake is like ‘it’s not deep it’s just a cave bat please roll initiative’. bashir and garak show up as like, the old couple from the princess bride and everyone has to be like ‘jake they’re not dating in real life this rpf shit is kind of inappropriate’ and he’s like ‘wait what? i thought they were dating’. miles is an NPC and dies. nog thinks jake’s-sisko-npc is too silly and disrespectful and jake is like ‘he’s MY dad’ and they have to take a break to argue about it and jake is like ‘your dad is cool too’. nog’s character changes to lawful good paladin rom. actually this whole game is ‘arguing about dads’ time now that i think about it, which jake is not really equipped to jump in on since he has a normal cool dad who he basically just thinks is embarrassing because he’s the ~messiah~ or some goofy bullshit. ends with them calling it a day after the final boss battle and then jake and nog privately talking about whether or not they can trust ziyal if she has to choose between ds9 and dukat, which was an ulterior motive of the game. ziyal is clearly clearly rattled by what the game made her realize and goes to see kira, who she doesn’t tell about the game but who still gives her a hug, and ziyal realizes that kira’s her hero (and like, her mom). alexander tells worf and dax about the game and dax thinks it sounds fun as hell and asks alexander if they can come next time, and worf is like ‘....... only if i can be a blood mage’. nog and jake go home and tell their dads they love them. 

shit i blacked out

PRANK WAR EPISODE: escalating series of pranks starting with jadzia putting hair dye in bashir’s shampoo and ending with the space station accidentally going into a meltdown self destruct scenario. garak is torn between helping jadzia and quark, who are clearly the better pranksters, or helping julian and odo, who suck at pranks but are his lunch friends. everyone has to tell garak that he’s way too intense about ‘pranks’ which are actually just really dangerous booby traps he puts in people’s quarters. sisko ends the episode by grounding everyone; no holosuites for a month!! yes even dax

GREAT RACE EPISODE: there’s some kind of macguffin resource on a planet (a klingon escape pod with a survivor with crucial intelligence information?), but they can’t teleport directly to it. a vorta and jem h’dar team and a ds9 team beam down on opposite sides of its location and are both racing to get there first, having to macgyver together vehicles and tools on the way. lots of excellent outdoor on-location settings and comparison of the jem h’dar/vorta dynamic and the ds9 federation dynamic. ends with the jem h’dar almost winning but turning on the vorta at the last few yards, and sisko’s team beams out as the jem h’dar chant victory. no i refuse to think this is same plot as ‘the ship’ or whatever

KASIDY EPISODE: set earlier in kasidy/sisko’s relationship, kasidy agrees to go with jadzia as a third-party observer to negotiations with a nearby bajoran colony over a trade agreement with the federation. jadzia and kasidy bond over gossiping about sisko on the way, but once they get there kasidy disagrees with the starfleet’s contract during negotiations which causes tensions, and recommends that the bajorans reject it. she and jadzia get into an argument about starfleet and its ideals, and why kasidy chose to be an independent captain rather than a starfleet captain, and how that doesn’t make her lesser than starfleet captains. jadzia realizes that kasidy is right and petitions superiors for a new contract, which kasidy approves of. they go home tenser then when they left, but when sisko asks jadzia what she thinks of kasidy, she very seriously says that she has incredible compassion, intelligence, and integrity, and that she doesn’t need or want jadzia’s approval. but has it anyway

MUSICAL EPISODE: someone already outlined a great musical ep where lwaxana comes in with a betazoid cold and it makes everyone burst into song in another text post and like 100% cosigned

SHAKESPEARE EP: holosuite shenanigans; every character is suddenly stuck as someone from a different shakespeare play. garak is an enthusiastically combative beatrice, kira is cordelia, worf is hamlet, jadzia is a very amused katerina, julian is puck, miles is duncan (”i get MURDERED?”), odo is benvolio and kind of bummed he’s not romeo, etc. i actually don’t know any shakespeare play that well but i think it could be neat. julian is the only fucking person on ds9 who actually knows any of it well enough to figure out what’s going on, except for sisko who doesn’t really care for shakespeare but generally knows about the plays (maybe a good opportunity to talk about the racism in most ‘classic Earth’ pop culture that star trek tends to uphold without criticism). i don’t know shit about the 40 plays that shakespeare wrote about british kings but i could see sisko ending up in that kind of intense role and refusing to play into it, as do the rest of the characters who refuse to fulfill their respective roles and instead find another way to end the program.

KLINGON OPERA EPISODE: goodddddddd can we see some klingon opera, mac. i’ve been dying to see some klingon opera. premise is they believe that someone is assassinating ambassadors and so they tag along with a andorian ambassador who loves opera to see if they can figure out who the assassin is, however the andorian plays it down as over-worrying and that they should use it as an excuse to enjoy themselves. worf and jadzia go and have a lovey dovey time, sisko and kasidy go and have a lovey dovey time watching worf and jadzia get super into the opera together. julian is asked to go in case there’s poison used or first aid needed, and miles is like ‘the last time i went undercover i came home with trauma and someone’s cat so no thanks i hate klingon opera’ and after some increasingly overt passive aggressive implications that julian should take HIM, julian asks garak to go with him. bonus points if for some reason they are wearing the stupid tuxedos from doctor bashir i presume. a lot of loud arguing about the opera which almost gets them kicked out. at the end of the first act, one of the actors DOES try to kill the andorian but jadzia jumps in front of the phaser beam (cue worf being very concerned and annoyed that she could have gotten killed, jadzia being very smug and pleased with herself, her head in his lap, in a pose mirroring an earlier couple in the opera). julian feels like he would have noticed if he hadn’t been distracted by garak, and when it turns out the andorian ambassador has sensitive info about cardassia’s civilian government, julian accuses garak of intentionally trying to distract him to make sure the andorian actually died, which turns into a huge argument (ideally in a very opulent klingon opera house bathroom). during the argument, julian realizes that garak was trying to hint to him that something about the assassination attempt was off; he pieces together aloud that the andorian and the actor must have been in league together, to fake the andorian’s assassination so they could not be tried for profiteering by illegally selling weapons to the cardassian central control during bajoran occupation, which they are currently under investigation for. the other ambassador assasinations were planned by the andorian to cover their tracks. the andorian is arrested, as is the actor. at the ballroom afterparty, sisko and kasidy, in a good mood that everything worked out, agree to join in on traditional klingon dancing. worf and jadzia take a peaceful walk through the gardens and worf recites some really lovely klingon poetry about how sometimes it’s NOT a good day to die if someone loves you, that none of us fucking understand without looking it up. julian and garak talk on the balcony, and julian posits that garak is loyal to cardassia, but which part of it? garak answers, very close and meaningfully looking at julian, ‘like most things... it’s complicated.’

i was about to say ‘fake wedding episode’ but literally LITERALLY that was the shotgun wedding lwaxana/odo ep. i love star trek

KEIKO BOTANIST EPISODE: kira accompanies keiko to bajor to help find a medicinal plant that was thought to be wiped out during the occupation but might still exist in a remote mountain region based on local reports. a nice episode where we learn more about bajor and see how bajorans are coping and healing. over a campfire, kira thanks keiko for accepting her into their family. keiko tells kira that she was really intimidated by her when they first met, and then realized she’s one of the most loving people she knows. just a nice episode, maybe some mild nature survival conflict, but ends on a hopeful note of them finding the plant. miles beams down with the kids to have a picnic with keiko and kira, and kira’s happy to see children playing carelessly on bajor again.

JAKE AND ZIYAL EPISODE: everyone thinks jake and ziyal are dating because they’ve been hanging out. julian’s an idiot and mentions to sisko ‘must be hard, huh’ and sisko’s like ‘WHAT must be hard’ and julian’s like oh my god were we not supposed to talk to him about this. jake and ziyal aren’t dating but as soon as sisko tries to talk to jake about it jake is like ‘i’m not but actually maybe i SHOULD ask her out’ and sisko is like fuck. okay no that’s fine. this is more of a B-plot but basically give jake and ziyal age-appropriate love interests they’re both RIGHT there

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

DS9 Questions

(asked myself these questions because I like looking at things I love in different ways)

Favourite character/s: Julian Bashir, Kira Nerys, Elim Garak.

Favourite outfit/s: Season 1 Kira's whole look wins hands-down. Second place is Quark's fancy jackets. Third place is whenever Bashir shows a bit of collarbone. Queer icon outfits only.

Favourite relationship (of any kind): We are Garashir shippers first and foremost^^ but Nog and Jake, Jake and Benjamin, Julian and Miles, Julian and Jadzia (mid-seasons), Miles/Keiko/Kira, Benjamin/Kasidy, Odo/Quark, Ezri/Leeta, Rom/Marxism, Garak and Kira (last season), everyone/therapy-with-Vic, The DS9 Polycule ... probably forgot something there...

Favourite episode/s: This is going to be answered by such obvious episodes. I felt like I wrote down a loooot so I cut them to 1 per season (cos I love death): Duet. The Wire. The Die Is Cast. Hippocratic Oath.  In The Cards. Far Beyond the Stars. Take Me Out To The Holosuite.

Character/s you liked more by the end: Miles. I cried when he was packing up to leave ds9 and picked up the little figure he thought Julian had lost.

Character/s you liked less by the end: Gul Dukat. I've written a bit about this, but I feel like he was overused.

Character/s who deserved better: uh. The women? There was a bit of “killing-women-for-male-arcs” goin on – Jennifer, Ziyal, Jadzia... also the whole thing with Kira's mum was no.

Character/s  whose development surprised you: Several! Often in the little ways I suddenly noticed how much they'd grown. Benjamin falling in love with the station and Bajor. Miles becoming softer with himself and others. Kira working through her PTSD and becoming a leader. Garak opening up. On the opposite end: Julian becoming sharper, sadder, more closed off.

Something you think would've been cool to see: Considering that Sisko's arc started with the Borg, I kinda would've loved to have had a hypothetical season 8 where in some way they're threaded in. So the season would rein it in from the big Dominion war storylines and look at very intimate stories of recovery trauma and for Sisko that would include the Borg in some way. (For Garak rebuilding Cardassia. For Kira moving on from Odo and running the station. For Julian trying to hunt down Section 31. For Ezri I'd love something with her family and also something with Jadzia/her past lives and something with being gay and owning that for herself... I mean, they're all gay lbr. For Miles living an ordinary life for the first time and how he deals with that, etc).

Something you wish had been developed further: Julian! Trying! To! Cure! The! Jem'Hadar!!!!! Seriously they give us a couple of episodes that added this tragic depth and then by the end they were mainly a silent, replaceable army after all? Don't buy it. Similarly the one episode in which a Weyoun breaks from the Dominion. And we never see that again!!! Also obviously the lost potential of exploring queer identities on the show after hints and teases for several characters.

Something that made you smile: Take me out to the holosuite all the way throug!

Something that made you cry: Finishing the show. I had things I didn't agree with and things I wanted to see, but in the end it was just the realisation that I would really miss seeing these characters and stories.

A headcanon for something that happens post-show: Ha, I'm writing a dozen fanfics about things I headcanon for post-show. One I'm currently finishing up deals with Cardassian/Bajoran relations, Garak and Kira being post-revolution friends, and Kira getting a potential girlfriend at last!

[kjaneway115]

Star Trek Voyager: Night

Episode 5.1 “Night”

Stardate 52081.2

Harry and Tom are playing a Captain Proton program on the holodeck.  The Doc enters, frustrated that Tom has gone three minutes into his holodeck time. There’s a power surge to the hologrid.  Chakotay is on the bridge alone.  There are no star systems within 2500 lightyears.  They’ve been crossing the expanse for two months, and they have another two years to go.  Seven tells Chakotay and asks if she should inform the captain.  “No,” he says, “I’ll tell her.”

Chakotay says it’s been 53 days since they entered the desolate region.  They are creating energy reserves.  Chakotay calls the senior staff in for a briefing. B’Elanna says there’s nothing new to report.  Everyone is going stir crazy. Neelix suggests adding a third holodeck and rotating crew assignments.  Neelix, Tom and the others ask about the captain.  “Rumor has it she never leaves her quarters,” Tom says.  Chakotay defends her, “She can run the ship from wherever the hell she wants.”

Tom and B’Elanna are at each others’ throats.  Neelix gets angry at them and tells them they are supposed to be setting an example for the rest of the crew, then Neelix starts to have an anxiety attack.

Seven suggests to Tuvok that he try Borg regeneration instead of meditation because it’s more efficient.  They detect theta radiation.

Chakotay tells Janeway about the theta radiation.  He tries to convince her to join him for a few rounds of Velocity.  “What if I told you I’m not leaving until you join me?” he asks.  He tells her she’s packed a bad time to isolate herself from the crew.  She says she’d give anything for a little distraction.  “No time to stop and think about how we got stranded in the Delta Quadrant.”  He tells her the story of how they were stranded, “we decided to stay.”  No, she disagrees, “I decided to stay.”  “Kathryn…”  Chakotay tells her their mission has been a success.  She says she made an error in judgment.  “It was shortsighted and it was selfish, and now all of us are paying for my mistake.”  She says to tell the crew that the captain sends her regards.  

Harry occupies himself playing his clarinet.  Tom shows Seven the Captain Proton program, but she doesn’t understand how to play along.

The ship suddenly drops out of warp, a blackout.  Seven and Tom are in the holodeck.  Harry and Tuvok are on the bridge.  Chakotay finds Neelix having another anxiety attack.  There are intruders aboard the ship.  Janeway reappears, the crisis having gotten her out of her quarters.  They bring the warp core back on line.  Janeway and Chakotay work seamlessly together.  The alien vessels are chased away by another alien vessel, a Maalon freighter.

The Maalon captain beams aboard to talk to Janeway and Chakotay.  He suggests that Voyager turns around; there are more of the intruders ahead. Janeway says they can’t go back.  The Maalon captain says there’s a spatial vortex a few light years away that leads to the other side of the expanse.  He asks for the remaining intruder aboard their ship.  Janeway asks what’s going on, but he won’t tell her.  He says that she can either cooperate or stay behind. Janeway says they need to hear the other side of the story.  They go to talk to the intruder who is in sickbay.  The doctor reveals that the alien is dying of theta radiation.  The alien tells Janeway that the Maalon are poisoning their space. Janeway stays with the alien and sends Chakotay to the bridge.  “Finally something to put in my log book,” she says.

Chakotay goes to Tuvok for advice (“a first” Tuvok quips).  Chakotay says he’s always respected Tuvok’s judgment and right now he could use some Vulcan clarity.  Tuvok notes “guilt has been her constant companion”.  Chakotay asks if he’s seem him like this before.  Tuvok tells a story about her in her first year as a commander aboard the USS Billings where an away team she ordered was injured and she returned to finish the work alone.  She wanted the crew to know that their suffering had not been in vain and he tells Chakotay she could have been killed.  Chakotay knows they have to be prepared for her to do something like that again.  Tuvok lets Chakotay know he has his support.  

The alien tells Janeway that they need Voyager’s help to close the vortex so that the Maalon can’t get into their space anymore.  Janeway confronts the Maalon and offers to help them purify their waste if they show Voyager through the vortex.  The Maalon captain tells B’Elanna and Chakotay that their technology is great, but that it would put him out of a job.  B’Elanna gets angry, but Chakotay tries to be diplomatic.  J&C go through the options.  Chakotay says they can go through the vortex on their own and then approach Maalon authorities. Janeway says they could collapse the vortex, but they have to do it from this side.  That would add two years onto their journey; Janeway says she can’t make the same mistake twice.  Janeway tells Chakotay, “There’s no one I trust more than you,” and “you’re a fine first officer.”  She asks if he’s ready to captain the ship and tells him to assemble the crew.

Janeway enters the bridge for the first time in two months.  The whole senior staff is there.  She gives them orders to proceed to the vortex and tells them she’ll take a shuttle.  B’Elanna shuts down the conversation right away, and everyone refuses to cooperate.  She looks at Chakotay for a long time.  Tuvok tells Janeway, “As you can see, you’re not the only one who’s had time to evaluate the past.”  Janeway tells them they could all be hanged for mutiny. Chakotay has an idea.  Janeway’s spirits are boosted.  “You told them.  They knew coming in,” Janeway says, sitting down in her chair.  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t be a fine first officer if I hadn’t,” he replies.  Just in the nick of time, the other aliens come in and help Voyager distract the Maalon.  They manage to ride the shockwave through the vortex and collapse it.  They are not quite out of the void.  Then they see other stars and planets and are finally out of the void. It is beautiful.  “Harry, what do you see out there?” Janeway asks, holding back the emotion in her voice.  Kathryn tries not to cry and says, “Full speed ahead.” Janeway never deals with the fallout of this episode.

Original Airdate: October 14, 1998

Production Number: 195

Episode Tags: J/C, Journey Home, Character Backstory

Notable First Appearances: Captain Proton

Meanwhile, back in the Alpha Quadrant...

Starfleet has decided to stop fighting a defensive war.  Admiral Ross asks Sisko to plan the invasion of Cardassia.  Sisko finds a weak spot in Cardassia’s defenses.  Meanwhile, Weyoun argues with Damar about leaving a weak spot in their defenses.  Damar reveals that they have new automated weapons platforms.  Dukat reappears unexpectedly.  Dukat reveals that he believes Sisko caused Ziyal’s death, not Damar, and that he wants to take revenge on Sisko. Dukat says he now exists in a state of complete clarity that he wishes to share with the universe.  Dukat says he wants an artifact that will make it possible for Dominion reinforcements to come through the wormhole and destroy the Federation.  Sisko tries to convince the Romulans to join in the invasion, but they fight with Martok.  The Cardassian defensive grid is not activated yet, and this prompts the Romulans to join the invasion.  Sisko has a vision from the Prophets, and they tell him not to go to Cardassia.  Ross gets mad at Sisko when he tells him, and says he has to choose between being the Emissary and a Starfleet captain.  Sisko chooses Starfleet.  Dukat arrives with an artifact.  He chants an invocation and releases the Pah’wraith which then inhabits his body. Sisko leaves Dax in charge of the station.  Dax and Worf are trying to have a child.  Worf goes on the Defiant, leaving Dax behind.  The battle isn’t going well for the allies.  Dax goes to the Bajoran shrine to pray for a child when Dukat appears.  He attacks Dax and then puts the Pah’wraith into the orb.  At the same moment, Sisko realizes something is wrong.  The crew of the Defiant manages to disable the generator for the Cardassian weapons platforms, and the allies land ground troops in Cardassian space.  Dukat reveals that the wormhole is gone and that the Bajorans are cut off from the Prophets completely.  Weyoun is angry, but Dukat tells him it’s not a problem.  Sisko arrives back on DS9, and the Bajorans tell him he has to ask the Prophets to return because all the orbs are dark.  Jadzia dies although Bashir is able to save the Dax symbiant.  Sisko stands over Jadzia’s coffin and tells her he has failed as the Emissary and as a captain.  He tells her he has to get away and figure out how to make things right again.  Sisko takes a leave of absence, leaving Kira in charge of the station.  Sisko goes home to New Orleans.

[sadfransisko]

[ID: Three paintings of characters on DS9. The first is portraits of Kira, Jadzia, and Julian. Kira is leaning forward with her arms resting on a surface and an inquisitive look on her face. Jadzia is looking forward with a big, upturned smile on her face. Next to her are the words "What a wonderful worm!" Julian is resting his arms on a surface with one hand propping up his smiling face, and his cheek is squished a bit as a result. Next to him is the caption "For a twink he's very sure of himself." The second painting is from a scene in the episode Our Man Bashir where Garak gets real close to Julian to ask him to let Garak join his holosuite program adventure. Julian looks annoyed and Garak looks very pleased with himself. The third painting is Jake and Nog. Jake is leaning down slightly to listen to Nog as Nog says to him discreetly "Strange things are afoot at the Promenade." End description]

station on fire trash can

[make-me-imagine]

Congrats on 3k! Could I please get a ship for Star Trek Voyager and DS9? I'm demi; prefer males but I'd be okay with a female ship as well. I'm told I'm kind and caring, easy to talk to and a good listener, sarcastic and funny. I'm reserved and hide my feelings often. I love to write, paint, and have recently started sketching. I love all animals (I'm vegetarian) and want to own a farm with lots of happy animals some day. I also want to be a kindergarten teacher and an author when I'm older :)

For others: Ships are now closed

Hope you like it! :)

Voyager:

I would ship you with Chakotay. He would fall for your kind and caring personality as well as your love of animals. You two would talk about all your future plans once you finally got back to Earth. He would encourage you to express your feelings and thoughts, even if it was only to him.

How you met: On the ship of course. You ended up helping him with something and you kind of took him off guard, he wasn’t expecting to be so affected by you so quickly. You seemed to see him around quite often after that, it was almost weird.

First Date: Chakotay took you on a nice holodeck date at a cute farm, you pet all the animals and then had a cute little picnic. Unfortunately you had to cut if off short due to your shift starting it, but it made you smiled throughout the rest of the day.

First Kiss: After your third date he walked you back to your room and gave you a gentle kiss goodnight, promising to “take you out” again.

Who gets jealous easier/what they do: There isn’t really anyone to get jealous about on the ship. Everyone knew you two were together, but if an alien flirted with you Chakotay would get more protective than jealous.

Who is your best-fiend: Tom. You had known each other for quite a while and became almost like siblings. You were always there for each other if something happened between you and Chakotay or him and B’elanna. 

Second ship is under the cut

I really ship you with Jadzia. She would love your idea of a life on a farm with animals and would often daydream of it with you. You are one of the few people she is truly comfortable with as well as one of the only people she truly 100% trusts with anything. Your senses of humor mesh well and you two in generally just make a great pair.

Where you met: On DS9, she bumped into you at random and you two got talking and bonded very quickly. She introduced you to everyone else after that and you became a part of the group.

First Date: When the two of you had leave at the same time, Jadzia took the opportunity to make plans for the two of you during the weekend. Swimming, walking, shopping, picnics, etc. It ended up being the longest date you’ve gone on, but it was also the best.

First Kiss: Jadzia isn’t really one to hide feelings, so when you were about to head back to DS9 from leave she kissed you, expressing how much fun she had and how much she really likes you.

Who gets jealous easier/what they do: Neither. You just find it funny and often joke about the people that flirt with you. The best times are when you two are together and two people come up and start flirting with the two of you, completely unaware that you are a couple. Sometimes you make a game out of it: whose gonna figure out your a couple first?

Who is your best-friend: Kira Nerys. You two are very close, and the three of you together are a great trio. She loves you and Jadzia as a couple and always wishes you two the happiness you deserve.

[weerd1]

Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.24: Missions Reviewed, “Prodigal Daughter,” “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” and “Field of Fire.”

In “Prodigal Daughter,” Chief O’Brien has gone off to find the widow of the man Bilby he befriended in the Orion Syndicate the year before (I personally wonder if it is to return their cat) and gone missing.  He happens to have disappeared on a world where Ezri’s family, the Tigans, own a mining business. Ezri has not been home in some time, but goes to see what she can do for Miles.  

Getting there, she finds her younger brother emotionally troubled, her older brother trying to please mom running the business, and her mother fawning over and protecting the younger brother while sharply critical of the older. Through the uncomfortable family dynamics, Ezri’s mother does find O’Brien is in local custody, picked up having been in a fight with two Naausicans of the Orion Syndicate. He found Bilby’s wife, and she is dead.  

She also worked for the Tigan family. Ezri and O’Brien start digging and find out her older brother made a deal with the syndicate when the mine his some hard times a while earlier. In exchange they wanted the company to “hire” Mrs. Bilby and pay her regardless of the work she did.  Ezri confronts him on this, but it is her younger brother who comes forward to say that Bilby was going to extort them for more, so he handled it and killed her. After he’s arrested, Ezri’s mother ask Ezri to tell her that it’s not her fault. Ezri cannot and walks out.

Not that this is necessarily a bad episode, but the return to episodic tv is a little jarring with so many episodes in a row that tied to either the ongoing war story or story of the Bajoran Prophets and Pah-Wraiths. I need to remind myself that those contiguous arcs were NOT the norm then, and having them at all made DS9 ahead of its time. It was still an episodic landscape though, and each episode I watched last night being stand alone well, stands out. It also seems in a rewatch that the staff was trying very hard to get “caught up” on Ezri’s character development. They don’t pull a “Voyager” where every episode after Seven of Nine is introduced is about her, but all three tonight feature her prominently. Though, there are still ties here to earlier storylines, again engaging on O’Brien’s time undercover in the Orion Syndicate. Seems pretty coincidental though that in a big galaxy, Bilby’s widow happens to go to the family of the new counselor on DS9.

In “The Emperor’s New Cloak,” Quark continues to pursue Ezri when Rom tells him the Nagus is missing. They decide to look for him, when Ezri comes to Quark’s quarters but he realizes this isn’t “his” Ezri, but rather the one from the mirror universe. She has Zek, and will return him in exchange for a cloaking device since they don’t have them in the MU. Quark and Rom steal one, and Ezri takes them over where the Human Alliance lead by Smiley O’Brien immediately steals it (after killing Ezri’s co-conspirator a non-hologram Vic Fontaine). 

Turns out Ezri is in league with The Intendant (Mirror Kira) who is trying to get the cloak for The Regent (Mirror Worf). Brunt appears and breaks Quark, Rom, and Ezri out of prison and they again steal the cloak and make a break for it. Getting to the Regent’s ship, they find that the Intendant never planned to trade Zek back. Ezri and Brunt help them all escape, though Brunt is killed in the process by the Intendant. When the Defiant under Smiley shows up, they help disable the Klingon flagship. The Terrans capture Worf and the cloaking device and send the Ferengi on their way.

I have long hated this episode, finding it pretty ridiculous. We saw the MU has cloaking tech already, but making it cloak allows for a gag scene of Quark and Rom walking around carrying an invisible box. Ezri being literally in bed with the Intendant feels very exploitative (the polar opposite of how well done the same-sex relationship was with Dax in “Rejoined). Reading up on this one though, it seems producer Ira Steven Behr wanted to point out the inherent ridiculous nature of a “mirror universe.” He does manage that well, particularly with Rom’s running commentary on how “alternate” this alternate universe is, making it something akin to Bizarro World in Superman comics.  I will just say that I am glad “Discovery” doesn’t take this track when they get into the MU.

“Field of Fire” opens with the crew celebrating with the extremely talented new Defiant helmsman, whom Ezri walks back to his quarters after too much partying. 

The next morning though, he is found dead, shot with a projectile weapon at close range, but no power burns, and no sign of anyone entering his quarters after Ezri left. At the scene she is struck by how happy he had been, even finding a picture of him smiling and laughing with fellow officers. Soon after, another crewmember is found killed the same way and O’Brien figures out the method of murder. A sniper rifle with a mini transporter and trans-dimensional scope that allows the person to stand anywhere on the station and fire a round into anyone without being in the same room. Ezri, seeing a happy wedding picture of the new victim decides to act. She calls forward the memories of her host Joran, the murderer, to solicit his advice on finding the killer. He seems pretty bent on driving her over the edge too, but his insight is helpful. A third victim appears and Ezri notices this one too has a smiling photograph. If the killer can see into anyone’s quarters, they must be triggered by the emotions in the pictures. She begins sorting through the records of Vulcans. Narrowing to 28 suspects, she is on her way to her quarters when a Vulcan gets on the turbolift, and the Joran echo is convinced it’s the killer. He has Ezri use their model of the rifle to spy on this Chu’lak in his quarters where he is looking at Ezri’s personnel file. 

 As she watches, he takes out a transporter sniper rifle and starts looking for her. Joran is telling her to shoot him, to kill him, and when Chu’lak sights in on her, she does fire, hitting him in the shoulder and causing him to miss her. She and “Joran” go to the Vulcan’s quarters where Joran urges her to use his rifle and finish the Vulcan off.  Ezri does not, finding that the Vulcan just lost the crew of the ship he served on and has decided no one can ever be happy again. With Chu’lak stopped, she goes to reintegrate Joran, knowing that he will always be part of her, perhaps more so than Curzon and Jadzia; now he will not be buried.

Again, our third Ezri episode, but an effective locked door mystery.  The method of murder is interesting, and Ezri dealing with Joran now calls to mind watching “Mindhunter” on Netflix.  The idea they find the killer when he happens to get on the elevator with them seems like a bit of a shortcut in the story, and I think more investigation and less coincidence should have led to the end.  Also, the motivation on the Vulcan seems a little suspect, but the writers wanted the surprise of it being a VULCAN SERIAL KILLER, which perhaps again ties to the deconstruction of the Vulcans so prevalent in “Enterprise” and first seen in “Take Me Out to the Holosuite.”  Maybe I am comparing it too closely to “Mindhunter” which exists explicitly to explore murderer motivations, and here, it’s more of a character piece for Ezri. In the novels, Erzi will go on to become a starship captain in the fleet, more focused in sure of herself.  I wonder if we can say that’s due to her “wolf” being more assertive, a callback to the original series “The Enemy Within” where Kirk without his predator instinct becomes an ineffective leader?

NEXT VOYAGE: Odo finds another one of the 100 Changelings sent out into the universe in “Chimera.”

[fiveexclamations]

Fic Title Doppelganger Author Me Fandom Star Trek DS9 Pairings Kira Nerys/Akellan Macet, background Kira Nerys/Odo, other background pairings. Rating M Warnings Violence, mild smut, minor character death (relaunch novels. Timeline Woven in and around the relaunch novels Notes Bit of cross posting as I re-read and edit Disclaimer Just for fun, not making any money. Chapter One - The devil you don't know "Colonel!" Kira Nerys closed her eyes for a moment, fighting down a wave of... what? It wasn't revulsion, or hatred, it was more like... confusion. Like a Bajoran Timpani band crashing about in her head with emotions for instruments. She squared her shoulders and turned. There it was, the face that went with that voice, uncannily like Gul Dukat, yet with disconcerting differences; looking at him felt like re-visiting a place you once knew well and finding new trees had grown and new houses had been built. It was horribly uncomfortable. She drew a deep breath. "What can I do for you Gul Macet?" Equally disconcerting as his appearance was his manner, a slight hesitancy whenever he was in her presence, that was so alien to a façade she associated with endless arrogance and a constant invasion of both her physical and mental personal space. "I apologise for accosting you," he said, his voice even, almost indifferent. "I have a message from Ambassador Lang; she wonders if you would join her for dinner this evening in her quarters, at 20:00 hours?" Kira raked a hand through her hair, trying to form a diplomatic reply. As far as it went she quite liked the Ambassador, admired her even, but everything was complicated by First Minister Shakaar and his blocking of peace talks with the Cardasians. However much Kira disapproved she needed to consider carefully any social engagement that might give her old lover an excuse to question her impartiality when she tackled him on the subject, but... A little ball of anger and anxiety started to roll in her belly when she thought about what Second Minister Asarem Wadeen had told her about Shakaar's manipulation of the peace talks; should she worry about the opinion of a man who was betraying Bajor's best interest to suit some convoluted plan of revenge? Especially when he'd left her to the wolves when she was attainted by the Vedek Assembly? Sadly, she realised that she had more faith in a Cardassian she'd met only a few times then she did in her own planet's leader and worse, her ex lover. With a start she realised she'd been staring silently over Macet's shoulder, probably with her emotions playing out across her face if his polite but faintly bemused expression was anything to go by. Again, she had that warped sense of seeing two people at once; Gul Dukat would be smirking at her distraction, stepping into her space, his breath on her cheek, his proximity crawling up and down her skin and in through her eyes and mouth to churn through her veins, making her so, so angry. Macet shifted his weight and coughed, snapping Kira back to herself again; she found her hands had balled into fists and felt a blush creep up her neck, under her uniform. If the Gul noticed he gave no sign and ridiculously that made her crosser still. However, her new role came with new responsibilities and new expectations, including that she would not punch diplomats even when she couldn't control her feelings around them. She forced her hands to relax and nodded stiffly, "Please tell the Ambassador I'd be delighted." He looked at her silently, for a long moment, then nodded courteously and turned away. She watched him go, crossing the bridge above the promenade, looking about him with interest. It was another difference between the cousins; Dukat had rarely looked at his surroundings, probably from sheer self-absorption. However much their surface was alike, somehow she was going to have to accept that under the skin, Skrain Dukat and Akellen Macet were very different men. Either that or the later was a very good actor. ... Kira had carefully considered what to wear for her dinner with Ambassador Lang. She wanted to show the woman the respect she deserved, which normally meant dress uniform, but at the same time she did not want this meal to be viewed as a diplomatic meeting; essentially, she wanted to send a clear message that this was a social visit. Accordingly she choose an outfit from her limited supply of formal off duty wear, a loose pair of trousers of a silky fabric and a fitted, crossover top in a rougher texture and a darker, woody purple shade that Jadzia had once said contrasted nicely with her hair. Rummaging in a cupboard, she found a bottle of aged spring wine that someone had given her at the last gratitude festival, to take as an offering, and taking a deep breath, set off for Ambassador Lang's quarters. The downside of her casual dress was that it caught the attention of everyone she passed; Colonel Kira out of uniform was a rare sight and people tended to double take and notice the bottle in her hand. Finally, when she reached the door of the Ambassador's quarters and pressed the chime, she was in clear view of two Bajoran security men, a Bajoran woman she recognised from one of the shops on the promenade and of course the Cardassian guard standing outside the door. Word would certainly get around. "Enter." Kira nodded out of politeness to the Cardassian guard, who ignored her, and stepped through the opening door. Only as the door shushed shut behind her did she realise that the voice had not been the musical cadence of Ambassador Lang, but the far more masculine and familiar tones of Gul Macet. She froze just inside the door; the Gul was sitting in the window, his impassive gaze upon her, apparently just disturbed from a little star gazing. Kira looked around searching for any sigh of Natima, but unless she was hiding in the bedroom, perhaps waiting to jump out and shout "surprise", she was not there. She shot a look of enquiry at Macet, pushing down the automatic adrenaline rush that came from being enclosed with a Cardassian in uniform, never mind one who looked like him, until she heard what he had to say. He stood up slowly, almost carefully, making no move to close the distance between them. "Ambassador Lang sends her apologies; she has just received several communications from our government and has had to go to our ship to decode them. She will join us as soon as she can and has asked me to entertain you in the meantime." He gestured to a table, set to one side, with places for three. On the sideboard a variety of dishes and drinks, mostly Cardassian and Bajoran were waiting. Kira's natural instinct was to turn on her heel and walk out, but she stopped herself; this was not Dukat. This man had never commanded an internment camp, or a mining station. This man had spent every year, of every military campaign he had been involved in, on his ship, obeying the commands of people like Dukat; he had killed Bajorans, ship against ship, soldier against soldier, but never preaching that subjugation was for their own good; hating him for his war record would be preposterously hypocritical. This man had joined Damar's rebellion; this man had worked for peace with Captain Picard. This man had spoken up against his own government, when that was a dangerous thing to do and somehow survived it. She knew all this because she'd read every scrap of information the Bajoran militia and the Federation had on him. It behoved her to treat him with some respect, and caution of course. She tilted the bottle in her hand to show him the label. "Where shall I put this?" ... The food was very good. Macet managed to be courteous without fussing; he didn't pull out her seat, or insist on fetching her food, but he did wait until she had served herself before filling his own plate, and when he realised that she hadn't sat down he politely indicated that she should choose her own seat. "Does Ambassador Lang have anything specific she wishes to talk to me about?" asked Kira, before taking a bite of Mapa bread spread with a delicate fish pate. Macet paused and seemed to consider the question, "I don't think so. I think she just wanted a change of company." Kira cocked her head on one side, "What about you, how do you find the company aboard the station?" "I find very little company at all, as I'm sure you have noticed. I try and stay out of sight, except for when it's strictly necessary." The Gul compressed his lips, "As we have discussed, my face hardly evokes pleasant memories for the inhabitants of this station." Kira nodded. "How do you feel about that?" she asked bluntly, wanting to see his reaction. Macet lowered his forkful of Veklava on to his plate. "I feel it is understandable. I feel it is kinder to stay out of the way when I am not needed but I feel no compunction in being visible when it is needed. For example, I am aware that I make you uncomfortable, but I feel no need to do anything about it. I am not Dukat." For the first time she heard irritation in his voice, well controlled, but still there. She raised her eyes from her plate and met his steady, cool blue ones, so unusual in a Cardassian. Ironically, his emotion reassured her more than his careful impassivity had. She felt herself flush, "I'm sorry," she said, with her sometimes devastating candour. "I wish I could separate your face from, from him." The Gul took a sip of red leaf tea, "I am open to suggestions Colonel." Kira thought for a moment, "Tell me about your family?" "My Father came from Lakat. He met my mother at the University of Culat, where he was studying military science and she was studying medicine. As the sixth of eight children and the third of three daughters, she had such a small dowry that she wasn't expected to marry. So, she used it to study for a career. My father," Macet smiled into his cup, "defied his own parents, who were determined that he would make a good match, and married her as soon as they had both graduated and three days before he was due to ship out on a three month mission." Macet raised unguarded eyes to look at Kira, she could see his pride in his parents shining from him. "I was born ten months later. My father left the military and became a professor of tactics at a provincial university, where farmer's sons went in the hope of becoming soldiers and escaping the plough. My mother became a surgeon at the local hospital. I have one sister." He paused and cocked his head on one side, as if inviting her to comment. "That's a small family for a Cardassian couple," obliged Kira. Macet nodded, seemingly satisfied. "Intentionally so, my parents disagreed with the Cardassian tradition of large families. They considered it incompatible with our planet's lack of resources, that it fostered an overly militaristic agenda." "Oh." Kira frowned and started pushing some Rigellian paka beans around her plate, thinking about what he was telling her. It was all consistent with what she had read in his file, but still interesting. "What about you, are you married? Any children?" Again, she asked a question she essentially knew the answer to. "Yes, I am married. We have no children." "I'm sorry," said Kira, honestly. Macet raised a brow ridge. "Sorry? Why?" She gave him a startled look, "I thought all Cardassians were desperate to have children?" He smiled grimly, "My wife does not want children. At first because she wanted to wait until my career was established and later... let us just say, we grew apart." "I'm sorr-," Kira broke off realising that she was repeating herself, "I see." "No need to be sorry Colonel," responded Macet cheerfully. "She is happy pursuing her artistic interests. I believe her current lover is a member of the Cardassian arts council, and considering what little art is left intact on Cardassia I should imagine he has a lot of time for her," he gave the Colonel a tight, dry little smile. "More time than I ever did. I, until the beginning of Damar's rebellion, had had a long term relationship with my ship's science officer." Kira tried to hide her surprise, "What happened?" "She didn't want to join the rebellion and left my ship." His expression became a little sad, "I have not been able to find her since. Though I have no interest in resuming our relationship I would like to know if she survived." Kira topped up her wine glass. "War hardly promotes a stable love life," her mind drifted to Odo and resolutely turned away. "No Colonel, it does not." He sipped his tea again. "May I ask you a question?" "Of course," she shrugged; he had probably read her file too. "Were you and my cousin ever in a romantic relationship?" She choked on her spring wine. "No!" she finally managed to splutter, after Macet had slapped her on the back, immediately withdrawing to a polite distance when it was obvious she wasn't in any danger. "Why would you... Who said we were..." her face twisted in distaste, "romantic?" she spat the word like a curse. He shrugged, "I met my cousin from time to time and on the last few occasions," he thought for a moment, "over the last four or five years I think, more in the early part of that period, he spoke of you. Though he never actually said you were intimate, it was clear that he was interested in that outcome and your discomfort around me... I wasn't sure whether that was causing it," he shrugged again. "He might have been interested, but..." Kira paused and took a deep breath through her nose. "He made, overtures, I suppose. I never seriously thought that he really expected me to give in to them. I always assumed it was to throw me off balance, to put me on the back foot." She huffed irritably, "Did you know that my mother was one of his women? I only found out a couple of years ago, and it wasn't like he had a chance before but..." she pulled a face as her stomach churned at the thought. Macet's expression mirrored hers, "No. However it does not surprise me. I doubt if it would be any comfort to you, but for a time my wife was also one of his women." Kira flumped back into her chair, her mouth hanging open, the situation was just so ridiculous; here she was having dinner with the image of Gul Dukat, discussing Gul Dukat's love life. She snorted and then, inappropriately, started to giggle. Her host raised his brow ridges but let her laugh without interruption, which emphasised just how unlike Dukat he was. Dukat's pride would have been lacerated; Macet seemed at most, faintly irritated. Finally, a soft chirrup made her jump and hiccup into silence. Macet stood up and crossed to the other side of the room, where a Cardassian pad lay on a table. He grunted in surprise, "A message from Natima, the communications are taking more time than she envisioned and she will be staying aboard our ship all night. She apologises for being such a poor host and hopes I am looking after you adequately. His eyes strayed to the table where both their plates were relatively untouched. "I'm not sure I can reassure her on that point." Kira looked up at him and held out her glass. "Give me some more wine and I'll see if I can do some justice to this meal." He gave her the suggestion of a smile, the first one she recalled seeing on his face. "Very well Colonel." "Call me Nerys, your cousin used to do it without my permission. Think how annoyed he'd be that I've invited you to." His mouth twitched, "And I am Akellan," he said gravely, topping up her glass. ... Akellan Macet turned out to be good and surprisingly easy company. By mutual, if unspoken agreement they moved away from personal topics and discussed some issues of command. This led Macet to tell an amusing story about reversing a Galor Class spaceship into a Napean space station, causing a serious diplomatic incident; Kira caped this by telling him about the time she accidentally dropped a delicate bomb into the sewage system of a small Cardassian Military base, causing every toilet in the building to explode simultaneously and catching the base Commander at a most inconvenient moment. Macet roared at that and she couldn't help laughing with him. He stopped laughing first, fixing his disconcerting, light eyes on her face. His intentness stilled and quieted her. Suddenly she was wary; there was a tension about him that she wasn't used to. "What?" He didn't answer her immediately, but sat turning a Moba fruit over and over in his hands, his eyes on her face, "Why did take so much responsibility for Ziyall?" Kira shook her head, not because she didn't understand the question, but because she didn't understand why he was asking it. "Because she was innocent. She didn't deserve to be scorned by Cardassians or Bajorans, because of the accident of her birth." "But it connected you to Dukat," he said reasonably. "That must have been very difficult when you hated him so much." Kira shook her head again, "You don't understand, I hated what he did. There were times when I could, would have killed him to stop it. He made me so angry, no-one has ever made me angrier. Not just because of what he did, but because of the tiny moments when you could see what he could be. He gave up everything for Ziyall, he put her first, he actually cared about her mother. However appalling the relationship was when it started, however he might have deluded himself when he said she loved him, I believe he loved her, as much as he was able. I think that when he said he wanted the best for the Bajoran people he actually believed it. She dragged in a deep breath, "He was deluded and arrogant and self absorbed. In those rare moments when he was at his best he thought he was at his worst, but he wasn't true evil, not until the end, not until after Ziyall died, I believe that, I really do." She realised that she was standing and that she'd been punctuating her words with jabbing fingers. Her hands dropped and she swayed a little, lost in confusion and for a fleeting second she wondered just how much wine she had drunk. She took an unsteady step around the table, choosing to enter Macet's space, something he had never done to her; he had always maintained a wary distance, always moving away rather than towards her, whenever he had the choice. "Why aren't you like him?" She asked, like a child asking why the sky isn't green. He didn't answer immediately, just stood up and looked down at her, his usually flat blue eyes tumultuous, "Because I am not him." He stepped backwards, putting distance between them again. "I must go Colonel; it's getting late. I'm sure the Ambassador will not mind if you show yourself out." Without a backward glance he turned and left. Kira watched him go, jaw hanging. She took a few, hasty steps as if to follow him, span back and kicked over her chair. She huffed out a breath and glared at her tipped seat. What the hell was going on? What had she been doing?