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One did not, under any circumstances, have to “hand it to the Dominion”, but there was something to be said for the fact that at their peak they did managed to keep the less-restrained elements of the Gamma Quadrant… restrained. After their defeat in the war (and, more to the point, Odo’s addition to the Great Link), they had begun to liberalize, and that meant less burly Jem’Hadar breathing down the necks of other species who apparently couldn’t be trusted to behave on their own. It wasn’t a huge problem, but it was a problem. Sometimes the problem passed through the wormhole. Sometimes it was necessary to pass through to the wormhole to get to the problem.In Kira’s defense, Garak had volunteered to go alone. According to the information they had had, there was no active danger of anything besides the distressed ship exploding. One runabout was supposed to be sufficient to carry all the passengers back to Deep Space 9, but only if there weren’t too many rescuers taking up space; Garak was a competent medical officer on his own and was more than up to the task. Frankly, he’d already done exactly this sort of thing dozens of times over the years, even a few times in the Gamma Quadrant. There was no reason to be particularly fussed about it.That had been what they’d thought, anyway, until some ex-Dominion gutter-scum had opened fire on the runabout. Garak was a surgeon, not a pilot, and hadn’t been able to avoid getting hit. Naturally it was communications that went down first. Help from DS9 would have been only minutes away, but they didn’t know he was in trouble. Then navigation had gone out, and engines, and the force of a particularly badly-placed torpedo had sent the woefully damaged runabout tumbling off through space, further and further away from the wormhole. Surprisingly, the attackers did not pursue. Garak didn’t know what happened to the distressed ship, or if the distress call had even been real. What had been the point of all that?Garak had drifted alone in the listing runabout for maybe a few hours only. Even if he hadn’t been able to contact DS9, he knew that they would have come searching for him after a certain point, and since he hadn’t gone to warp at any point after arriving at the coordinates from the original distress signal, finding the runabout once they started searching would have only taken, again, minutes. So he hadn’t been too worried. Upset, angry, yes, but not worried. At least until he spotted an unusual spatial phenomenon off the bow.There had been nothing he could have done to prevent the runabout from drifting towards it. He supposed that, in fact, whatever it was was actually pulling the runabout in. The computer was in no shape to tell Garak what that thing actually was.Garak assumed he was going to die. He resigned himself to it immediately. It wasn’t like he had a lot going on in his life right now anyway.Instead, the runabout passed through the anomaly, roughly as intact as it had been already, and Garak had just enough time to suppose that this was some kind of other wormhole that had somehow formed near the Bajoran wormhole when he was unexpectedly - and rather nonconsensually - transported off the runabout.Well, of course, the shields had been destroyed too.He had expected more pirates, and even reached for his hidden sidearm as soon as he materialized, but hesitated as soon as he recognized he was on the bridge of the Defiant. His split-second first thought that Kira had sent someone to come pick him up was immediately shattered by the realization that he knew no one on this bridge — and, furthermore, this wasn’t the Defiant, but merely some other Defiant-class ship totally unfamiliar to him.“A Cardassian,” said a Vulcan woman with very mild interest.“A Starfleet Cardassian,” said an elderly Trill whom Garak realized after a second of staring was the late(?) Captain Sisko’s even later old friend, Curzon Dax.“A medical officer,” said the ship’s captain, who was arguably the most incongruous one here. Not that Garak hadn’t seen his share of humans with obviously artificial hair colors, but more to the point the man was shockingly young. Garak admittedly wasn’t the best at recognizing human ages, but he wouldn’t have pegged this captain (and he was definitely a bonafide captain, at the very least he had the rank pips for it) as any older than his late twenties. Maybe his very early thirties, at the most. “I mean, you are, right? Lieutenant?”“Er, yes,” Garak said, finding himself at a loss as to how to react. This did at least, at a minimum, seem to be a Starfleet ship, even if everything was already… very odd. “I’m a surgeon.”“Oh, thank God,” the captain said, throwing up his hands. “I was starting to think we were all going to die out here before we ever managed to find a doctor.”“I think we’ve been doing just fine,” Dax said.“Let’s get this fissure sealed back up. Welcome aboard, Dr…?”“Garak,” he said, “Elim Garak.” A flicker of recognition passed over the captain’s face, as if he’d heard of him somewhere. “I’m part of the medical staff on the Federation starbase Deep Space 9, Bajoran sector.”“About that,” began the Vulcan.Explanations were, thankfully, forthcoming. Some of it was bad. Garak was immediately informed that, for the time being, they couldn’t actually return him to his, quote, “home dimension”, unquote, without imposing some unacceptable level of risk towards either himself, his universe, or the universe they were currently in. However, it was apparently presumed that he could be returned (if he so wished - he didn’t have to) in some way or another after their mission was over. In the meantime, he was expected to stay on the Anaximander and act as their medical officer for the duration of said mission.Under the circumstances, Garak had no objections. He was still a Starfleet officer, after all, even if this ‘transfer’ was quite unexpected and… unorthodox. Besides, it hadn’t been very difficult to come around to the idea that this was a separate universe from the one he knew; if he left the Anaximander, what exactly would he do? From the sound of it, this universe had already had its own Elim Garak, anyway.The impossibly young captain’s name was Boimler, and he didn’t - or perhaps couldn’t - give a clear answer on why this mission had been entrusted to him specifically. His first officer was the Vulcan, named T’Pol, whom Garak vaguely recalled as being a historical figure in the Federation from several centuries ago; despite this, T’Pol didn’t look a day over 150. Dax was the tactical officer. The rest of the crew was made up of a small handful of different versions of the same man, an ensign by the name of Harry Kim.“I have no idea how we keep finding Kims,” Boimler said, sounding both exasperated and somehow apologetic. “One of them was an acting nurse on his Voyager, so we’ve been using him as a medic so far, but it’s great to have an actual surgeon around. Curzon is really injury-prone.”“I see,” said Garak blandly.All in all, an unusual situation, but Garak considered himself adaptable. If anything, it was sort of nice to have a fresh start again after Deep Space 9. He’d felt… stuck there, since the war had ended. Despite everything that had happened, he didn’t want to take another posting too far away from Cardassia. The same could not be said of everyone. After the war, there had been a lot of transfers, both in and out, especially after Bajor had joined the Federation. Garak had admittedly become tired of being one of very few “old crew” who had actually stuck around.Here, he got to be new. What was even better was that he got to be a complete stranger here — Boimler had heard of the version of Garak in his universe, but only indirectly, and Dax had apparently met his own universe’s Garak but it had been brief and he admitted he didn’t remember him very well. T’Pol and the Kim Krew (as they referred to themselves) had no idea who he was and weren’t especially interested in anything about him except for a Cardassian in a Starfleet uniform being something of a novelty.Admittedly, it had been something of a novelty in Garak’s home dimension as well. He still chuckled when he thought about the diplomatic hot water that Sisko had gotten himself into when he’d let a certain brilliant Cardassian surgeon enlist so he could serve in the infirmary when they were desperately short on staff.Ah, those had been the days…Life aboard the Anaximander was not bad, certainly nothing to complain about, though Garak would have found reason to complain anyway if he’d had anyone to complain to. He wasn’t unfriendly with the other crew, but preferred to keep his distance somewhat. Observing them was more interesting than interacting with them. The Kim Krew were quite amusingly tight knit, T’Pol and Curzon were entertainingly contentious with each other, and Boimler was quite obviously starting to become restless with their mission and would probably soon feel the first flits of disillusionment. It was somewhat understandable — the mission itself was not very exciting, mostly just going around sealing up the dimensional fissures. Ostensibly they were supposed to be finding out what or who (Boimler was convinced it was a “who”) was causing them, but it became very quickly apparent that they had produced absolutely no results on that front yet. The most intellectually engaging aspect of the mission by far was the fact that every so often one of the fissures would be accompanied by a stranded - usually damaged - ship or escape pod containing a live person whom they could add to their crew.Somehow, the next two people this happened to were another two Harry Kims.“How do you keep them all straight?” Garak asked T’Pol.“We do not,” T’Pol deadpanned.About three months had passed in this way before the apparently more unusual occurrence of an unoccupied ship drifting through one of the fissures. No lifesigns whatsoever. Boimler had been prepared to ignore it, but Curzon (who was probably just bored) insisted on beaming over to check it out anyway — sometimes technology from other dimensions was notably useful, though not necessarily for their mission per se. Boimler had given his assent but on the condition that Curzon not go alone; instead, he was to be accompanied by Garak and a Harry Kim.Garak still genuinely did not know how Boimler managed to pick one out of the Krew. He suspected it was done entirely at random. He also suspected that the Kim who suited up with them was not actually the Kim that Boimler had pointed at on the bridge.“I never did like these things,” Curzon grumbled, tugging at his environmental suit’s face plate for approximately the thousandth time once they’d beamed over to the derelict.“Well,” Garak said, looking at his tricorder, “you’re in luck. Atmospheric levels are completely normal, if a tad stale and a bit cold for my tastes. But do watch out for the radiation,” he added once Curzon had removed his helmet.“Radiation?” Kim said, slightly alarmed.“We’ll be fine as long as we’re only here for a short while,” Garak said, removing his own helmet. He didn’t have anything against environmental suits, but he never had liked the way they restricted one’s peripheral vision. It always made him feel like there was someone following him.The ship had obviously been abandoned for a while. It was quite small - some sort of survey or scout vessel, at a guess - and the technology seemed marginally more advanced than the Anaximander’s, implying that the dimension on the other side of today’s now-sealed rift was a little further along their timeline than this one was. (Though Garak actually wasn’t entirely sure that the dimension they were currently in was indeed the Anaximander’s - and Boimler’s - own. Since Garak had arrived, they hadn’t gone through any of the rifts, but the possibility of doing so did seem to be there. He hadn’t specifically asked.)“Seems like there’s not a lot going on in here,” Curzon grumbled. “We probably could have used some of their technology if only this ship had any weapons to speak of…”“Their scanners seem pretty good,” Kim pointed out, optimistic. “Though… they don’t seem to be in great shape. Something must have happened.”“That’d explain the radiation.”“I’m going to take a look at their sickbay,” Garak said. If there was advanced medical tech, that would be nice, and if not, perhaps something there could point to what had happened to the crew of this ship. Garak would have been lying if he had claimed to not be curious.The sickbay was small, and cramped. There were bodies, three of them, desiccated and long dead - very long dead. Years, Garak supposed. Someone had laid them with care.“That sucks,” Curzon said bluntly, hovering in the doorway while Garak examined the bodies. “Can you tell how they died?”“Not from the state they’re in now,” said Garak. “But they’re physically intact. No obvious wounds or limbs blown off. I would hazard a guess that they died as a result of the radiation we’re still seeing the residual traces of.”“Hmm. Might explain why the warp core is missing. They must’ve dumped it after it became damaged.”“Hey, look,” Kim said, crouched and inspecting a panel not far from Garak. “Holoemitters. This ship must’ve been set up for an Emergency Medical Hologram. If we can activate him, then we could just ask what happened.” He paused. “We could take him back to the ‘Nax, too, we have holoemitters in our sickbay. You could use the help, right, doc?”“I suppose so,” Garak said noncommittally. He had no experience with EMHs, but hadn’t heard good things about them, and just overall had never been much of a fan of holograms anyway.Kim stood, and fiddled with the sickbay console for a moment before turning back around. “I can’t turn it on from here,” he said, “but we could still download the program.”“Sure, why not?” Curzon said.Garak was admittedly not thrilled about the fact that they had to use his sickbay for this. It couldn’t be helped, of course, but he didn’t have to like it. He skulked nearby, not bothering to hide his dubiousness at this course of action as Kim installed the EMH software on the sickbay computer. Curzon was here too, as were T’Pol and Boimler, because apparently none of them had anything better to do right now.“It’s ready,” Kim said, “I can activate him whenever you want, captain.”“Go ahead,” Boimler said, his expression openly curious.Garak watched, arms folded, as the EMH blipped into existence — and immediately went completely stiff.It was Julian Bashir.“Please state the nature of the medical emer- oh my god.” It had noticed Garak, and its eyes widened. “Garak?“ It looked him up and down, apparently just now noticing the Starfleet uniform. “Er, but you’re not—““Whatever Garak you knew, I’m not him,” Garak said.“I— well. Yes. Obviously.”It was surprising to see a hologram look so troubled. Of course, Garak had heard rumors that holograms left on for too long would build emotion-simulation subroutines so complex that the program would eventually convince itself that it was sapient…Garak kept watching the EMH carefully while Boimler gave it the introductory spiel. He did not bother asking Garak if he actually wanted an EMH around, but then again Garak supposed that, as captain, he really didn’t have to. Garak was stuck with the EMH now, but it was unlikely that Boimler was going to force him to actually keep the thing activated. He could just let it rot unused in the computer databanks.But for now, it was being practically interrogated about the derelict ship. It seemed to be an upsetting topic for it. Curzon’s supposition about the damaged warp core had been basically correct, as had Garak’s diagnosis about the radiation; despite it being unaffected by radiation, the EMH had had no way whatsoever of preventing the death of its organic crewmates. In the end, it… he had been the one to so thoughtfully arrange the bodies, and then he had deactivated himself to save what little power was left on the ship.“I always supposed that someone would find the wreck, eventually,” he said with a self-conscious shrug. “I just… didn’t expect that we’d be in a different universe when it happened.” He glanced at Garak again.Garak smiled, with teeth. The EMH flinched.“Well, I’m sorry about your crew,” Boimler said. “But it looks like you’ll be with us for a while.”“Perhaps a long while,” T’Pol said dryly.Finally they all left the sickbay, leaving Garak alone with the EMH. The EMH turned to him, opened his mouth to speak, and—“Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram,” Garak said.The EMH disappeared.Garak sighed loudly. Why Julian Bashir of all people? It seemed an absurd choice for a model. At least this was a different Bashir than the one Garak knew — it wasn’t going to be a repeat of those seven years on Deep Space 9. Garak told himself that firmly. Besides, he only needed to have the damn thing activated if he had two horrible injuries on his hands that he couldn’t triage, or something. That seemed unlikely, given that their mission was a generally safe one (at least physically) and Garak’s work was usually just Curzon ending up in sickbay due to his own chaotic nature.Garak turned around, deciding to re-organize his stock of hypospray vials for the thousandth time since starting this assignment. There was a critical lack of other things to do, after all. Unfortunately, he only made two steps towards his cabinet before the EMH blinked on right in his path.Acting purely on instinct, Garak struck, side-handed, towards his throat. His arm passed harmlessly through him.“I didn’t mean to startle you,” the EMH said mildly.“I deactivated you!”“What, I told you I can deactivate myself, and you didn’t think that might mean I could also activate myself if I needed to?” he said, then paused. “Well, at least when I’m on a computer with enough power to actually run me passively. It’s nice to have that back.”“Good for you. Don’t do that again,” Garak said shortly, and walked right through him.The EMH turned in place, watching him stalk to his cabinet. “My apologies,” he said. “But I just didn’t appreciate being deactivated mid-sentence.”“You weren’t mid-sentence. I didn’t give you the opportunity to even begin speaking.”“You do know that’s worse, right?”Garak glared over his shoulder at him. Bashir was— the EMH was wearing an expression that Garak couldn’t quite interpret, and was still watching him very intently. “What do you want?” he asked, bristling.“I… well, I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all.”“I told you already. I’m not the Garak you knew - whoever that was.”“And I told you, that’s obvious,” the EMH said. “In my universe, you’re dead.”This gave Garak pause. “I am?” he said.The EMH shrugged noncommittally. “Have been for a long time.”“Hm. I see.”“What about me?”“What about you?” Garak said, “I don’t usually use an EMH.”“I mean a real Dr. Bashir. You must’ve known the one in your universe, right?”“What makes you say that?” Garak deflected.The EMH just gave him an unamused look. “It’s either that or you’re very prejudiced against holograms…”“Who says I’m not?”“You looked about as surprised to see me as I was to see you.”“Last I heard,” Garak said, “the real Dr. Bashir of my universe is alive and well. Satisfied?”“Not really, no,” the EMH said, but he didn’t ask anymore questions. At least, not for the rest of the day.The fact that Garak couldn’t actually keep Bashir deactivated without rooting him out of the computer (something Boimler surely wouldn’t approve of) didn’t actually stop him from deactivating him, of course. Garak came to see it as a kind of game, picking the most awkward times to shut him off so that he would have to reactivate himself still mid-word. Bashir didn’t seem to find the game very funny, but that only made it more entertaining for Garak.On the other hand, when Bashir was activated, Garak honestly would have preferred to avoid him. Bashir had taken to peppering Garak with questions about the different universes, particularly his, while giving very little information about his own universe in turn. Garak found this obnoxious. If he tried to walk away, Bashir would simply flash into his path, and there was never any telling whether he would be able to walk straight through him or not until he actually made contact with his light matrix. Garak was physically colliding with him frequently.Leaving sickbay entirely was only an option for a brief amount of time. One of the Kims, it turned out, had a mobile holoemitter originally used by his universe’s EMH. Apparently the reason why said EMH wasn’t loaded onto the holoemitter was actually quite tragic and all, but Garak didn’t actually care much (he was a hologram, how did the Kim Krew get attached to holograms so easily?) and Bashir had jumped on the opportunity to use the device. Garak’s attempt to convince Boimler not to allow it had fallen on its face before he’d even made his opening argument.For the most part, though, Bashir remained in sickbay. With Garak. Garak was not happy about this situation.“But why Starfleet?” Bashir asked, “or, well, I suppose a better question is how Starfleet? I’m a little bit from the future from your perspective - and even in my time, Cardassians are hardly lining up to join the service.”Garak flashed him an irritated smile. “It was the most convenient option at the time,” he said.“You don’t get to rank of lieutenant just by chasing the ‘most convenient option’,” Bashir pointed out.“Oh?” Garak said, “I didn’t think there would be any other explanation as to how some commanding officer out there saw fit to promote a hologram up to lieutenant junior grade.” (It did, admittedly, give Garak a not insignificant measure of satisfaction that he outranked this Bashir.)Bashir pouted. “I may be a hologram,” he said, “but Sisko saw me as a member of his crew.”“Ah, so it’s a field commission.”“And yours isn’t?”“No,” Garak snapped. “I went to the Academy.”Bashir just gave him an extremely skeptical look.“Why does everyone always assume I’m lying?” Garak complained, like he didn’t know. “What a horrible, prejudiced stereotype about us Cardassians!”“Mhm. Okay, when did you go to the Academy?”“Hm?”“You worked in the infirmary on DS9, right? Did you start working there before you went to the Academy, or after?“This Bashir - or, perhaps, the Bashir that this EMH was based on - must have known his universe’s Garak quite well if he could call Garak out so astutely like this. Garak chuckled, recognizing he was at least a little bit caught. “Alright,” he said, raising his hands, “I didn’t go to the Academy until war with the Dominion was starting to look like a more serious possibility.” Specifically, when that idiot Dukat’s failed coup and resultant civil war had allowed the Dominion to swoop in and steal half of Cardassia’s territory, giving them a foothold in the Alpha Quadrant. “Before that, I was a noncom.”“Why did you enlist?” Bashir challenged.“Starfleet had showed up on DS9 and wanted my help in the infirmary. It was either that or join the Bajoran Militia — and it goes without saying they didn’t want me.”“Ah… so, you already had an MD at that point?”“Yes, so I didn’t need to be at the Academy for very long in order to earn a commission,” Garak said with a modest shrug. “I was exempt from all the medical classes - just had to take some required chain-of-command courses.”“I see. But what I meant was, you weren’t always a surgeon, were you?”“Oh, I was always a surgeon,” Garak said with a smirk, “just not always for Starfleet.”“So…?”“Ah ah, little computer program. We’ve reached the point where if you want to get something, you have to give something in return.”Bashir stared at him for a moment, like he didn’t quite understand what Garak meant, but then his subroutines finally processed it or whatever and he gave a casual nod. “What do you want to know about me?”“You knew my counterpart.”“I knew a lot of people. I was on Deep Space 9 for a long time,” he said.Garak watched him suspiciously. “What were you doing on that derelict, then?”“DS9 has already been decommissioned in my universe. I suppose that normally they would have simply dumped my program with the rest of the computer, but I’ve been running for so long that I do have some rights. When DS9 was decommissioned, I was transferred.”“To a tiny scout ship with three crewmembers,” Garak said skeptically.“Well, they didn’t have the room or supplies for a fourth crewmember,” Bashir said. “A hologram was their most practical option for a medic.”“Ah, yes… the most convenient option.”Bashir glared at him. “Anyway, when Starfleet first came to DS9 they needed more doctors than they were really able to get. That’s why they installed me, and left me on for so long.”“Did you eventually get a real doctor out there?”“I am a ‘real’ doctor. But yes. That’s around the time Sisko gave me a commission, actually,” Bashir added.Garak tsked. “I can’t imagine being outranked by a computer program.”“I suppose they were a little more open-minded on my DS9,” Bashir said dryly. “No one really seemed to take issue with it.”“I’m sure. What about the real Dr. Bashir?”“Oh, I think he was posted on the Enterprise. I’m not sure.”“Not sure? I thought you had his memories or something along those lines.”Bashir laughed. It was unfairly charming, and Garak didn’t like it. He especially didn’t like what (or rather who) it reminded him of. “Of course I don’t have his memories,” Bashir chuckled, “just his personality profile. I used to know some basic stories about him just to make conversation, but I deleted them ages ago - they weren’t really ‘mine’. I have stories of my own to tell now.”“So when you say you knew my counterpart,” Garak said, “you mean you, personally knew him - not that the human man you’re based on knew him.”“Yes, that’s right. The real Dr. Bashir never met Garak in my universe at all.”“We should all be so lucky,” Garak muttered.Bashir raised an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean by th-““Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram.”This time, Bashir didn’t come back for a while.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was difficult to overstate how damned annoying Bashir was, though. The worst part was the rest of the crew seemed to find him, if anything, somewhat endearing. The closest anyone came to being on Garak’s side was Boimler noting that the (real) Bashir of his native universe had apparently briefly dated one of his friends, and she had described him in less-than-flattering terms. They had never personally met, though, so Boimler had refused to pass actual judgement. Garak had attempted to find validation by consulting T’Pol on human emotions - presuming that Bashir’s modeling was close enough to count - but T’Pol had simply asked him if he had considered taking his own emotions into account. At that, Garak had left the mess hall in disgust.The ‘Nax didn’t exactly have a lot of options for places to quietly seethe on one’s own, though, at least not now that Garak had the galaxy’s most obnoxious computer program burning out the holoemitters in his sickbay. No sooner had Garak started reorganizing hypos than Bashir popped up again — literally, flashing into existence right beside him and making Garak jump. Garak was pretty sure Bashir enjoyed that just as much as Garak enjoyed deactivating him mid-word.“I heard you were talking about me behind my back,” Bashir said without preamble.Garak bristled. “I wasn’t aware that your program had access to ship security microphones.”“It doesn’t. Harry told me.”“Which one?” It wouldn’t be very efficient to try to take revenge on the entire Kim Krew.Bashir just shrugged. “I still can’t tell the difference,” he admitted. “But regardless, don’t you think that if you have a problem with me, you should take it to me directly instead of complaining to unrelated third parties?”“Who said I have a problem with you?”“Have you seen yourself?” Bashir reached out and idly picked up a hypospray; Garak made a grab for his wrist, but Bashir turned off his collision mechanics in time for Garak’s hand to just swipe through - and also caused himself to drop the hypo, which Garak scrambled to catch.Garak glowered at him, pointedly putting it back in place without actually looking at where he was putting it. “And what, exactly, is your problem?”“I don’t have a problem,” Bashir said. “At least, none that can’t be solved by communicating like civilized beings.”“Ha ha. You’re antagonizing me on purpose.”“Because you antagonize me. What is it about me that’s so bad, Garak?”“That’s Dr. Garak to you,” Garak snapped, “and you really ought to be calling me ‘sir’.”“Fine then. Why do you have such a bug up your arse about me, sir?“For half a moment Garak was just shocked by Bashir’s aggression - or aggression as far as he went, anyway. Bashir was normally quite placid, despite his tendency of using his impermanence to torment Garak. “I don’t have a problem,” Garak said at length.Bashir obviously didn’t buy it. “Do you, perhaps, have a problem with your universe’s version of Dr. Bashir?”In retrospect, Garak supposed that this was actually a bit of an obvious conclusion to draw. He sighed. “My universe’s Dr. Bashir was unbelievably irritating, too.”“Hmm. You seem like someone who can handle irritation a little better than that.”“Well, he was my commanding officer. Does that make a difference in your view?”“A little,” Bashir said. “How long did you serve together? Is he still on DS9?”“Seven years,” Garak said tersely, “and no, he’s not. He left as soon as the war was over.”“Oh,” Bashir said with a small frown. Then, “Are you mad at him?”“Mad at him? For what, transferring?”“Yes?”“Why would I be mad at him?”“You clearly have some unresolved issues to work out.”“Oh, yes, thank you,” Garak said sarcastically, “I assume that this psychoanalysis module of yours is new, considering you certainly didn’t have it before.”“I don’t need a psychoanalysis module to tell that,” Bashir said, rolling his eyes and finally stepping away — only to flash to Garak’s other side when Garak tried to physically escape the conversation. “So what happened? Big fight before he shipped out? You wanted the transfer instead of him?”“I wanted to stay on DS9, and I did,” Garak snapped. “Bashir’s the one who left.”“On bad terms?”“On no terms. I don’t know what you imagine happened, but—““You didn’t want him to transfer,” Bashir guessed.“Computer, deact-—“Bashir had blipped in front of him and put his hand over his mouth to shut him up. His palm felt surprisingly warm. Garak bit down and actually managed to get a mouthful of simulated flesh, but there was no blood and Bashir made no sign of pain.“I don’t see how you think running from what happened is going to help anything,” Bashir said evenly.Garak jerked his head back to speak. “Who said I’m running?“ he said incredulously, “do you think I came to this universe on purpose? I drifted through a rift on a wrecked ship, the same as you did.”“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Bashir sighed, tucking his hands behind his back. “Here I’m asking you very simple questions about your past-““You’re prying.”“—and you’re going to absolutely unreasonable lengths to avoid answering them.”“You haven’t seen unreasonable lengths yet, lieutenant J.G.”“You didn’t want your Dr. Bashir to transfer, did you? You’re upset that he left DS9. You’re upset that he left you.”“How delightfully ironic, a being made up of projections from a holoemitter is himself projecting!” Garak said with fake amusement. “You must think all of your old crewmates are upset with you for transferring to that scout ship, don’t you?”“I didn’t have much of a choice - I’m technically considered Starfleet property,” Bashir said. “And, to be frank, most of my old crewmates have passed away by now. I’m functionally immortal. They weren’t.”“I’m sorry to hear that,” Garak said, absolutely not meaning it. “But whatever feelings you have about your own transfer—““This isn’t about my feelings,” Bashir said, starting to sound a little impatient, “it’s about yours.”“What feelings?““You were friends with your universe’s Dr. Bashir, weren’t you? Maybe even close friends?”Garak laughed.“Why’s that so funny?” Bashir said, crossing his arms with a frustrated huff. “You know, people generally don’t get like this over their old boss.”“Alright. Fine.” Garak shook his head. “Yes, we were friends. Very… very close friends, hm?”It turned out that Bashir actually did have a subroutine to simulate blushing. That was cute. “Well… that explains that, then.”“Hmm.” Without warning, Garak grabbed Bashir by the front of his uniform and pushed him up against the console, grinning predatorily down at him. Surprisingly, Bashir remained solid the whole time. “That’s what you’ve been after the whole time, right? You think I have unresolved feelings about my universe’s version of the man you’re based on — and I suppose you thought you could solve this little issue on your own.”“I thought,” Bashir said, still blushing, but his voice was very stiff and stern, “that maybe if you actually processed these feelings, you’d be a little nicer to me.”“Nicer?” Garak laughed. “Oh, you silly little photon construct — I don’t know what the Garak in your universe was like before he passed away, but rest assured, lieutenant J.G., I am not like him.”Bashir disappeared; Garak only barely regained his balance in time to stop himself from smacking face-first into the console. He whirled around, finding Bashir standing behind him, glowering.“You should also remember, Dr. Garak,” he said coldly, “whatever your Dr. Bashir was like, I’m not like him either.”Ah, but he was, wasn’t he?The realization that he could fluster Julian with his alleged feelings for his ex-CO was something of a godsend for Garak, who desperately needed a hobby. Now that they’d had that stupid conversation, Garak could easily bait him with a few well-placed mawkish sighs or brooding glances, and then rile him up with a little flirting. The fact that Julian was perfectly aware that Garak was only doing this to fluster him made it all the more fun - especially since he still fell for it every time anyway.Garak found this equilibrium a lot more enjoyable than the one they’d previously had. If he pushed it hard enough he could even get Julian to leave him alone entirely for a time. The only unfortunate side effect was the rest of the crew found out about it pretty much immediately (it was difficult to keep anything private on the ‘Nax) and took it at face value, fully believing Garak and Julian to be a newly-fledged romantic couple despite Julian’s denials. Garak refused to confirm or deny anything, because he thought it was funny, and also took to spreading around a dramatic story about how he just missed the Dr. Bashir of his universe so much that of course he would fall head over heels for his alternate-universe EMH copy.T’Pol telling him that it was actually quite cruel and unfair of him to use Julian as a “replacement” actually did sting a little. That wasn’t fun.Still, as long as nobody else stuck their nose in it, Garak was enjoying himself with his new victim. And Julian was hardly putting up a fight, just snapping at him when he was laughed at and repeatedly threatening Garak with downloading a psychoanalysis module so that he could give him “the damned therapy you obviously so desperately need.” The only line Garak couldn’t cross was physically touching Julian, because by this point Julian had learned to just leave his collision detection off by default, especially if Garak was around.Then Garak started getting headaches.Bad headaches, actually, and dizziness. Joint pain, too, and just general fatigue and weakness. At first Garak hoped - or rather, tried to convince himself - that he had just overexerted himself somehow or maybe slept in a bad position; he wasn’t exactly getting any younger, after all, and was well-accustomed to muscle aches and the like. After a few days he really couldn’t deny that he was genuinely sick. A simple scan didn’t turn up any obvious pathogens, though, and he was reluctant to do more intensive scans or a blood test with Julian around. Perhaps it wasn’t very Starfleet of him, but Garak’s primary instinct when it came to being ill was always to just hide it.Julian did seem to suspect something, though. He watched Garak very closely, and even asked outright if he was okay. Garak had responded by saying “I’m better now that you’re here, my dear,” and hitting him with the most obnoxious little purr that he could muster, causing Julian to deactivate himself for four full hours.Unfortunately, four hours later, Julian was back and Garak wasn’t feeling any better. He wasn’t feeling so poorly that he couldn’t dodge Julian’s unasked-for scan, though.“Did they not program ‘informed consent’ into you?” Garak complained, putting a biobed between himself and Julian — Julian wouldn’t be able to simply blip over it, not without putting down the permanently tangible tricorder he was holding.Julian just looked at him with open frustration. “You know, I don’t actually need the tricorder to see that your pulse is up and you’re obviously in pain.”“My shoulder muscles tend to get a little tense, that’s all.”“And your pulse?”“What about my pulse? I feel fine.” Garak leaned on the biobed and smiled at him. “Perhaps you’re malfunctioning a little… have you considered getting your code checked out?”“Hm.” Julian looked down at the tricorder, although Garak was reasonably certain that it hadn’t actually managed to pick up much if anything off of him. “I set you up perfectly for some corny line about your pulse always increasing when I’m around, and you didn’t even take it. You really must not be feeling well.”“Perhaps I’ve grown tired of our little game,” said Garak, miffed now.“Uh-huh. Garak, come on—““Show some respect to your ranking officers,” Garak snapped.Julian just gave him an exasperated look. “Permission to scan a particularly uncooperative patient, sir?”“Computer, deactivate Emergency Medical Hologram.”The tricorder clattered to the floor roughly around the time Garak’s knees gave out. He sank to the carpet, resting his head against the biobed support and sighing shakily. He really was dizzy. Maybe he should have just admitted to feeling under the weather and stayed in bed today — but no, then he definitely wouldn’t hear the end of it from Julian.Not that he was doing himself any favors with that right now anyway. Julian reactivated himself, then, spotting Garak on the floor, walked through the biobed to crouch in front of Garak. When he touched his face, his fingers were warm and solid.“Your pulse is way up,” Julian said, sounding almost distraught.Which was odd for a doctor checking on a patient. Garak blinked a few times to clear the blurriness from his eyes, and looked up at Julian. Yes, he was distraught. Appeared very nearly beside himself. Was one of his emotion subroutines going haywire? Garak had just been joking about his code…“It’s your head, isn’t it?” Julian said, “you’re having headaches - severe ones?”Garak made to nod, but winced, since that made the pain worse. “For a few days now…”“Why didn’t you say anything?!”Again, odd. Garak would have expected him to ask why he hadn’t called in sick. It wasn’t like there was an enormous demand for him in sickbay during the average day. But before Garak could question him, he felt himself being grabbed and lifted up — it was admittedly rather disorienting, not in the least because Julian did not appear to be strong enough to lift an adult male Cardassian - let alone a limp one. But then, he was a hologram, and his strength was restricted only by what the holoemitters could handle. EMHs were in fact designed to be able to lift and carry patients when required.Garak found himself remembering the three dead crewmembers on the derelict that they’d found Julian on as he was placed carefully in the biobed. Julian must have laid them out with the same care. Had he looked this worried then, too, or had they already perished and there had been no audience for a computer program to look worried for?Unless he was actually worried?“I’m sure it’s not serious,” Garak tried, though his head was still spinning. “I probably would have been over it by now… if I’d simply rested…”“Hold still,” Julian said, his voice very urgent. “I need to scan your brain.”“My brain…?”“Yes, I—“ he paused. He visibly swallowed. What a funny affectation for a hologram. “Garak, I…”“What?”“You— your implant. It’s…” Julian’s voice was tinged with both confusion and incredible, inexplicable relief. “It’s gone.”Garak blinked up at the ceiling, then tried to sit up. Julian let him, though Garak somewhat regretted the move, as black spots were swimming in front of his eyes again. “How do you know about my implant?” he demanded.“You had it taken out?” Julian said, expression unreadable now.“Years ago. But how would you—“ Garak stopped, scoffed. “Your universe’s Garak, of course.”Julian exhaled loudly. He looked… oddly fragile, somehow, in a way that Garak couldn’t really figure out. “How did you take the implant out?”“It was a simple outpatient procedure,” Garak said. “When we noticed it was starting to break down,” he decided not to mention the overuse, “I formulated an operation technique to safely remove it, and Dr. Bashir performed the surgery. It was all done with in an afternoon.”“I… I see.” Julian took a step back, looking rather lost. “That— I’m glad. That’s good. That it’s out, I mean. Your headache… isn’t related, I’m sure.”“Of course not,” Garak said, genuinely confused. “There isn’t anything left to trigger headaches. Whatever I have right now is something completely different.”Julian nodded, silent.That was definitely the most unusual thing. This hologram never shut up. Garak licked his lips, feeling strangely awkward now, like this odd little fit of Julian’s was somehow his fault. “Doctor,” he said, “in your universe — I suppose that the Garak there also had his implant malfunction?”“Yes,” said Julian very quietly.“…that’s when he died, isn’t it?”“Yes,” even more quietly. “I planned to confront the head of the Obsidian Order to find a way to save his life. But while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak,” he said, suddenly unbearably bitter. “There are no holoemitters on runabouts and we didn’t have a mobile one. I was completely confined to the station. I couldn’t leave, and no one else could- no one else would go. So there wasn’t anything I could do. I had to just watch Garak die. And he did. He died, in my arms. And I couldn’t do anything.”There was a brittle silence for a long while. This… explained a lot.“You said that he died many years ago,” Garak said carefully.Julian laughed once, unhappily. “Yes, that’s true,” he said, “but before that we were… we were very good friends.” He looked away. “Garak, I’m a computer program. My memory never fades like with you organics. It’s always preserved in perfect clarity, unless I choose to delete it. Everything I remember, I remember as if it had just happened.”“Then why didn’t you delete those memories?”“How could I? They’re a part of who I am — he was a part of who I am. And I couldn’t just… lose him, again. I have to always remember.”“Even though it made you panic?” Garak said.Julian’s shoulders slumped, and he looked at Garak again. “You were showing the same symptoms,” he said apologetically. “It terrified me.”“A very… human reaction. To be honest, I didn’t know that holograms could panic.”“I don’t— well, I suppose maybe what happened was a bit traumatic for me,” Julian said, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”“No harm done,” Garak sighed. “And I suppose since you’ve already gotten me in the biobed, you may as well scan me.”Julian’s relief was nearly palpable. Garak barely listened as he delivered his diagnosis — a simple viral infection that Garak had somehow picked up. A hypo of antiviral medication and spending the rest of the day in bed, and he’d be completely fine by the following morning. That was all. Garak watched Julian’s face throughout the process. This really does explain a lot, he kept thinking. He almost felt like a fool for assuming that the other Garak’s death had happened under somewhat peaceable circumstances. He should have guessed from the start that it had been more dramatic than that - apparently shattering the digital heart of the EMH who had failed to save him due to simple, unavoidable technological limitations.So, really, what would the harm be in letting him fuss over him now?…Having a hologram around was something that Garak could physically feel, a very slight buzz in his chufa, a natural reaction to the concentrated electromagnetic energy. It roused him from a very light sleep, and he rubbed his eyes, looking tiredly up to see Julian hovering by his bedside.“If you don’t get out of my room,” Garak complained, “I’m going to have the captain take away your mobile emitter.”One corner of Julian’s mouth lifted in a half smile. “Just checking up on you,” he said.“I’m fine. You said so yourself. I just need rest, and this is interrupting it.”“I thought you might want to know how you got sick in the first place.”“Oh?” Garak started to struggle into a sitting position, but quickly gave up and just laid back on his pillow again. “Do tell.”“Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the new member of our crew - you know, that Harry Kim we picked up a few days ago.”“Of course I know who the new member of our crew is. Ah, but he didn’t have anything wrong with him during his physical…?”“The physical’s probably when you got infected, actually,” Julian said with a shrug. “This particular virus makes Cardassians sick, but has no effect on humans. Harry was an asymptomatic carrier - he must have picked it up on his Voyager before ending up here, apparently in his universe they teamed up with a Cardassian crew instead of a Maquis one.”“Ah. I see.” Garak paused. “I don’t suppose you could point out which one he was? It would be a bit difficult to avenge myself on the entire Kim Krew.”Julian chuckled a little, like Garak had been joking. “It wasn’t his fault,” he said, “and besides, like you said - I already certified that you’re going to be fine.”“Mm. Nightlights don’t exactly help me sleep, though…”“Yes, yes. Sorry. I suppose I’m still a little… irrationally worried,” Julian admitted. “Perhaps I’m just a bit shaken…”“You were in love with him, weren’t you?”“Huh?”“Your Garak,” Garak said. “Were you in love with him?”“I—“ Julian looked caught. “I, I don’t know. Back then I was only… barely starting to really become a person. He was the first time I… felt like that, over a patient. Over anyone. I didn’t understand it then. I’m not sure I do now, either, to be honest.”Garak nodded. “I understand,” he said.Julian’s cheeks darkened a bit. “It was… a long time ago,” he mumbled. “I, ah, I’ll be going now.”“Wait.” Garak reached out, took Julian’s wrist — it was solid for him. “That was rude of me to ask, without offering something in return.”“It’s okay, Garak.”“No. Go ahead and ask. I’m sure you’ve been wondering it.”“I don’t need to ask,” Julian said. “It’s pretty obvious. Why would you be so mad that your Dr. Bashir transferred away, if you weren’t in love with him?”Garak laughed softly. “Oh, Doctor,” he said, “what does that matter? You’re not him.”Always with the hyposprays. At some point this had been more about Garak trying to discover as many different ways to organize hypos as physically possible. And, judging by the fact that Garak so often found the hypos out of order, Julian had taken to the same kind of puttering — though perhaps for him it wasn’t about reorganizing the hypos so much as it was about making Garak put them back in their slots.“Good afternoon, Garak.” Julian blinked into existence right next to him, causing him to - once again - startle, and drop the hypo vial he was holding. Julian caught it, then let it phase through his hand as soon as Garak reached towards him to take it back, and now Garak had to catch it. Julian laughed.“I’m glad you think playing with medical equipment is funny,” Garak said, rolling his eyes.“It’s not the medical equipment that’s the funny part,” Julian said with an irreverent grin.“Hmph. You’ve been in a good mood lately…”“Yes, I wonder why,” Julian said, flashing around to his other side and leaning in close, his eyes mischievous. “I don’t suppose it has anything to do with a certain brilliant Cardassian surgeon implying he might have some… more friendly feelings towards me than previously assumed.”“I don’t recall implying such a thing,” Garak said coldly.Julian was undeterred. “Please, I already know I have to read between the lines with you. Or did you think that ‘ironic’ flirting schtick wasn’t going to give you away eventually?”“You certainly didn’t seem to notice anything,” Garak retorted. “Though even then, if you had it would have just been the delusions of a self-centered—““Oh, this from the man who practically interrogated me about my relationship with his counterpart? What business of yours was that?”Garak hmphed. “Remind me to tell you about how a proper interrogation works sometime…”“You know, I’m not sure I actually want to know.” Julian blipped around to his other side again. “My point is that you’re rather self-involved yourself.”“You know what they say about surgeons,” Garak quipped.“That they have nice hands?”“The other thing.”Julian nodded sagely. “You’re all arrogant sociopaths.”“That’s the only type of person willing to cut people open for a living.”“Well, I was programmed that way. What’s your excuse?”“You really are getting bold,” Garak said, hearing some slight admiration in his own voice, and smiling ruefully for it. “What do you want, Doctor?”“I wanted to know if you meant it.”“…meant what?”“You know,” Julian said, stepping back and shrugging with forced nonchalance. “A few days ago, when you still had that virus and I visited you at your sickbed—““You’re making it sound much more dramatic than I remember it.”“—you don’t still look at me and see, mostly, your old CO - do you?”Garak stared at him. “Does petty satisfaction that I outrank you count?”Julian frowned. “I hope not… sir.”Garak grabbed him by the front of his jumpsuit - Julian left the collision on - and pushed him back up against the cabinet. The hypos rattled. “If you’re so good at reading between the lines,” Garak grinned, “then you should try reading this.”“Oh? I— mmm.” Julian couldn’t talk if Garak was kissing him. It was a brilliant strategy.Though, granted, if it had actually occurred to him up until this moment that Julian had a kissing subroutine, Garak would not have expected it to include tongue.It was a long moment before Garak finally pulled back. Julian blinked several times, face flushed and eyes hazy, lips attractively swollen and spit-slick. “Wow,” he mumbled.“I’m not that good,” Garak said. “There’s no need to stroke my ego.”“You love having your ego stroked.” Julian grinned impishly. “So this is what you did with your old CO, hm? Talk about command perks…”“Ah,” Garak said, suddenly feeling rather awkward - he would have stepped back if he didn’t have Julian’s arms wrapped around him. “I didn’t…”“You…? Oh,” Julian said, looking embarrassed now. “I— I just assumed, you know, because…”“…I may have… cultivated the impression on purpose. But… that other Dr. Bashir and I, we never…”Julian gently touched the side of Garak’s face, shutting him up. “That’s why it hurt so much, huh?” he said, his voice soft. “It wasn’t even that you lost him — you just never knew what could have been.”“…well, what does it matter? When something better comes along, anyway—”Julian kissed him again, sweet and rather chaste, then again - less chaste this time, on his chin and jaw. “Let’s do this right this time, Garak.”“I couldn’t agree more, darling.”It was good to know that this man had sex subroutines. Really good to know. They decided that if Curzon hurt himself again he could get his own damned regenerator and fled sickbay for Garak’s quarters. Fortunately the only person they passed in the hallway was one lone Harry Kim, though it must’ve been obvious what they were up to considering he gave them an encouraging thumbs up while they scurried along.As soon as the door closed behind them, Garak picked up Julian - he was as light as, well, light - and tossed him onto the bed. Julian laughed, nearly cackled, as Garak crawled over him.“How does this work?” Garak asked breathlessly. “You do have an actual body modeled under that uniform, don’t you?”“Of course I do,” Julian said smugly, wrapping his arms around Garak’s shoulders. “The real question is whether you want the experience of tearing my clothes off me, or if you’d rather I just delete them?”“…I’m starting to understand why Quark’s customers spend so much time in the holosuites.”“Alright, deletion it is.” And then Julian was simply naked, except for the mobile emitter still attached to his arm. Garak looked down his body, impressed. He’d seen a lot of naked humans over the course of his Starfleet career, and on the whole found them rather plain and unimpressive — Julian, though, he was half-convinced that his holoprogrammer had editorialized on the design a little bit.“Oh, dear,” Garak said quietly to himself, tracing a hand down the warm holographic body to Julian’s attractively sculpted sotl - obligingly half-hard already, despite the complete lack of evidence for that before his clothes had come off.“Well, now, I’ve given you this,” Julian said, and kissed Garak’s jaw again. “Now you have to give me something in return…”“Ah— yes.” Garak hurried to unzip his jumpsuit. Julian eagerly dove in to help. The uniform was tossed carelessly to the floor. Garak could hardly believe this was happening, let alone so fast - so suddenly. He should have flirted harder from the start.They kissed again, Julian moaning into Garak’s mouth and wrapping his limbs around him. He was so warm, and his flesh had just the perfect amount of give to it for Garak to really sink his claws into - Julian had to be doing this on purpose — Garak moved down to nip at his neck and shoulders, able to go as hard as he wanted without hurting Julian. Indeed, Julian just gasped happily, fingers in Garak’s hair, yelping out his pleasure as Garak bit and groped him. Garak was getting so aroused he was honestly starting to get a little light-headed from all his blood rushing away from his brain.Julian stretched underneath him, splaying himself out on Garak’s bed and looking up at him coquettishly. “Well?” he said, his legs spread, hands trailing teasingly down his body.Garak felt a bit like he was intoxicated. “Isn’t there— something I need to do first? So I don’t… hurt you?”“Garak, you literally can’t hurt me,” Julian laughed, and propped himself up on his elbows to kiss Garak again. “My body is a photonic construct, remember? I can’t be injured. What I can be is whatever texture you want, though…”“Ah.” Garak exhaled shakily. I may never return to my own universe, he realized, and was completely okay with that. “This… does it actually feel good for you, too?”“Of course it does.” Julian patted Garak’s cheek. “To be honest, I’m not completely sure why my programmer deemed it so important that I be able to participate in sex, but he did, so here I am. You do want this too, right?” He reached down, sliding his hand between Garak’s legs - where his cloaca was embarrassingly wet, eversion only barely being held back. “This is a sign of arousal in Cardassians, correct?”“Mmph.” Garak grabbed Julian by the thighs and slotted himself between them. Why waste any more time? Why bother with anything else, when there was nothing else quite like this?“Yesss, that’s right,” Julian hissed, holding onto Garak’s shoulders as Garak ground down against him. “That’s good, that’s— ahh!“ Garak had everted, the tapered tip of his cho’ch finding and pressing into Julian’s tight, perfectly textured hole with ease. He entered him so smoothly that he almost felt like he was melting into him. Julian moaned loudly, eyelids fluttering, his long organ pulsing and throbbing against Garak’s stomach.Garak muttered a curse, pressing hard against Julian and circling his hips frantically. Julian’s body was so sweet and hot and he kept biting down against Garak’s neckridges, whimpering desperately as Garak rutted into him. Julian was clawing his back frantically enough that he’d probably taken off a few of the smaller scales with his nails, but Garak barely felt it - just more white-hot points studding a whole sea of searing, delirious pleasure. He couldn’t last like this. And he didn’t.Fortunately, evolution had blessed Cardassians with two hemipenes, so as soon as Garak pulled out he pushed back in again, Julian’s body even slicker than before from his own emissions. Julian was trembling, clutching Garak tight, and mumbling “Yes, yes,” over and over again.Somewhere in there an “I love you” slipped out, and Garak said it back without even thinking, because he absolutely could not think under these circumstances.His second orgasm was more measured, took a bit longer to come, but it was no less intense for it. For Julian it was, admittedly, a bit harder to tell, since apparently the holoemitter couldn’t actually render ejaculate — but judging by the way Julian had gasped and tightened around him, Garak was pretty sure that Julian reached completion, too. He certainly looked sated afterwards, when they parted just enough to catch their breath (or, well, for Garak to catch his breath, seeing how Julian didn’t technically breathe - though he was certainly playing the part to perfection), and Garak collapsed on the bed next to him.“You liar,” Julian panted.Garak looked at him drowsily. “Hmm?”“You are that good.”Garak chuckled, stroking Julian’s skin. It felt appropriately sweaty, though no dampness clung to his fingers when he pulled his hand away slightly. “Whoever wrote your sex subroutine should win an award…”“I’ve made a few modifications of my own over the years,” Julian said with faux modesty.“Well, don’t make any more… or else I might just have a myocardial infarction.”Julian patted his arm. “There are two doctors in the room.”“Mm, good point.” Garak dragged himself up to kiss him again. “Mhh. My dear - what happens now?”“What, you mean cleanup?” Julian said. “Just give me a towel, I’ll turn off collision for a second and then it’s all taken care of.”That was a little gross, but Garak couldn’t bring himself to care right now. “No, I mean… you and me. Us.”Julian tensed a bit. “I thought you wanted to be… together,” he said warily. “Was that not what this was about…?”“No, it was,” Garak said, resting his head on Julian’s chest. He even had a simulated heartbeat. Or was he playing that sound just for him? “I just don’t know how far this should go.”“As far as we want it to, I suppose,” Julian said, relaxing again, and idly running his hand across Garak’s back.“…darling?”“Yes, Garak?”“You said as a sentient hologram, you have certain rights.”“Yes, that’s true. Why?”“Does that include the right to be married?” Garak asked.Julian went completely still. Even his heartbeat and breathing stopped. “You know what?” he said, at length. “Why the hell not?”