#obligatory fissure quest fic

[dftea]

Trust me - I'm a hologram

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Julian Bashir/Elim Garak Star Trek: Lower Decks - Hologram Julian Bashir/Alternate Universe Elim Garak

‘Thankfully, Julian’s enhanced brain was able to comprehend quantum realities with ease. He was having a harder time accepting that Bashir was married.’

In which a hologram saves the First Splinter timeline.

[read on ao3]

The first time Julian found himself face-to-face with Bashir in a holosuite, he thought it was one of Felix’s hilarious practical jokes.

The holographic Bashir was wearing a fake Starfleet medical uniform, with grey where the teal should be, and was smiling at him with an oddly nervous look in his eyes.

“Not Felix’s best work, honestly,” Julian said, staring down the imposter. “What, are you here to proposition me? Offer me a speech on my undying love for myself?”

Bashir made a face. “Nothing like that, old chum - I’m here to save your universe.”

# # #

Once he accepted Bashir’s explanation, such as it was, Julian found it pretty easy to accept Bashir’s place in his life. Sure, his friends thought he was vain and self-obsessed to have a portable holographic emitter with his own likeness, but he didn’t have many friends anyway.

But after Starfleet Medical, he would become a renowned doctor - famous enough to become the template for a medical hologram! - and important enough to his reality to need specifically protecting by his alternate holographic self.

Thankfully, Julian’s enhanced brain was able to comprehend quantum realities with ease. He was having a harder time accepting that Bashir was married.

“You’re married…as a hologram?”

Bashir shot him a look. “You know I can’t talk about that.”

“You’re wearing a wedding ring! And I checked your data files - the ring code was a later addition to the original source. I wasn’t married when you were designed, but you are married, so–”

“It doesn't always turn out the same in every universe,” Bashir said, with the sing-song quality that implied he had said this many times before.

How many universes had Bashir saved before this one? Was Julian the key in every single one? Well, he would just have to do his duty, that’s all. He owed it to the multiverse.

But first he would find out more about this marriage.

“What isn’t the same?” he asked, innocently.

Bashir looked exasperated. “Sometimes, we’re not there together, and sometimes he’s too…different. I’m not supposed to be telling you this!”

He. Well, that was a surprise. Julian had always pictured marrying a woman, fathering children - but perhaps that was his mother’s dream, not his. Besides, there were many ways to make a family. 

“Starfleet?”

Bashir squirmed. “Sometimes.”

“Human?”

No response. Not Human, then. Julian had always been a bit of a xenophile.

“A doctor?”

“Rarely. My husband is, but I don't know of any others. Look, there isn’t much to worry about in this stretch, so I’ll…leave you to it for now.”

Then he disappeared and didn’t return until the night before finals, murmuring into Julian’s half-sleeping ear that he needed to throw at least one question on the exam.

Neuroanatomy wasn’t his forte, anyway.

# # #

Julian would’ve chosen Starbase Deep Space Nine even without Bashir’s recommendation. It was frontier medicine, a chance to make a difference in the aftermath of a war, a proving ground before he secured his first five-year mission.

Then he met Elim Garak.

After flirting with the gorgeous Cardassian spy - and making an utter tit of himself in the process - he activated Bashir in his quarters.

“Is it him?” he asked.

Bashir rolled his eyes. “Are you going to ask that about every attractive alien man?”

Julian smiled triumphantly. “So you do find him attractive?”

Bashir snorted. “I’m based on you. What do you think?”

After that, Julian gave up asking. Mostly because he didn't really want to know for certain who he might marry in the future - why spoil the surprise?

Also because he had seen that soft look in Bashir’s eyes, beneath the bluster, and was afraid such softness simply wasn’t for him.

# # #

After Luther Sloan captured him, Julian carefully concealed Bashir’s emitter inside Kukalaka and never took it out again.

# # #

“Thirteen years!”

“My love, do forgive me - I couldn’t exactly destroy Kukalaka, could I?”

“It isn't as if you couldn't repair him!”

“I am just a plain and simple surgeon, not a tailor.”

“As you have said, many many times before, you are not just anything!”

Julian was dreaming. How else could he explain hearing Garak arguing with another Julian Bashir?

A memory stirred - another Bashir, in the wrong uniform - no, a later uniform, one Julian couldn’t possibly have known about until–

The memories hit him like a flood, choking him, drowning him, threatening to pull him under like a riptide.

“He’s sinking again!”

His own voice, but not him. Like a recording of an echo of another life.

“Let me try.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

Garak. Two Garaks, but that one was definitely his. If only he could open his eyes! If only he could see him again.

If only he hadn’t left Garak behind, to go with–

Another wave of despair, of raw anguished memory, but strong hands held onto his shoulders.

“Julian, my dear, I am right here.”

Julian opened his eyes, and he saw, as if for the first time, Elim Garak.

He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat, behind his eyes. He loved and hurt so deeply that it was like his chest was cracked open, forbidding him to breathe, to live.

Bashir was speaking. “Elim, we really should be going.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Garak said, while never taking his eyes away from Julian. “You will explain yourselves.”

“Oh, I don’t think we will,” said the other Garak, the one that Bashir called ‘Elim”.

It was so obvious that it hurt, and yet Julian tried to shut it out anyway. All the love and pain of it.

But he couldn’t deny it any longer. Not when she - when Sarina had died, and Garak had stayed.

“It’s all right,” Julian rasped, voice rough from disuse. “I know him, them. They’re here to save the timeline.”

Garak blinked at him. “Saving you will save the timeline?”

“The captain was fuzzy on the details,” Bashir said, brightly. “I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

“Don’t worry about it at all,” Elim put in. “We won’t let them pop the bubble.”

And then the room was quiet, with only Garak’s breathing and his, the tsunami of memory and feeling held back only by the grip Garak had on him.

“You know them,” Garak repeated, carefully neutral.

“He said it doesn't always turn out the same in every universe,” Julian blurted, then wondered why he’d said it. Still making a tit of himself, even after all these years.

“What doesn't?”

“His marriage. Their…their marriage. Sometimes it’s different. Sometimes…”

Sometimes it doesn’t work out at all.

But they were together in this universe, and Garak wasn't “too different”, was he? The resemblance had been uncanny, even just hearing his voice.

“They are married. The Cardassian Starfleet doctor and the hologram of you.” Garak sounded like he might be concussed.

Julian knew the feeling. “Wait…Starfleet?”

His head was spinning, and not just for suddenly finding himself awake to the world for the first time in too long.

“As much as I would like to speculate on how our counterparts came to be married and our solemn responsibility to save the universe,” Garak said,  “I would first like to say: welcome home, my dear. I missed you.”

“I’m not going to let you miss me again,” Julian said, fervently. “Let's get married.”

# # #

“After we restored the equilibrium of the timeline, the rest just…fell into place.”

Boimler regarded his two officers with narrowed eyes.

“You got Bashir and Garak to hook up, didn’t you?”

“It is the most efficient strategy,” Elim said, gravely.

“One might call it a cardinal event.” 

Boimler sighed and ticked another universe off the list.