Duty
A Deep Space 9 Fanfic
There was very little light in the cell. There was warmth, though, and for that they were both grateful. Each set of footsteps brought the tension in the room up a notch, and it did not go down even when each set faded away. It couldn't stay like this, something was going to break...
"You'll be executed at sunset." The words wer so simple, so detached. It was infuriating. "I'm very sorry, but this is necessary."
"Necessary?" Bashir shot back. "Our deaths are necessary?"
"The Central Command must be reinserted. As Garak is opposed to this, and so well listened to, for our plan to succeed he must be out of the way." The ex-Gul replied simply. "As for you, well...I'm afraid it's simply a case of bad timing, Doctor. A pity. We really do apprectiate all the hard work you've put in to the relief effort."
"I didn't do it for your military coop. I did it for your citizens who are still suffering, still dying out there. And all you care about right now is politics? You disgust me."
"A pity. Well, we'll come for you when it's your time." The door slammed shut, echoing in the small room. The footsteps faded away, and silence descended for a time.
Garak finally brok it. "Doctor, I do apologize."
"Don't talk like that, Garak. We aren't through yet. There's still a chance. There's always a chance."
"Despite all you've seen, all you've done...you're still an optimist."
"And you always were a pessimist."
"I emphatically disagree, my young friend. If I were still a pessimist I would have taken the neccessary precautions to avoid this sort of occurance." Garak pointed out.
"Touche." Bashir sighed. And, once again, silence reigned.
The room was getting darker. The sun was moving down; sunset was coming. It was Garak who broke the silence again.
"There's something I wish to tell you, Doctor." The statement was quiet, almost a whisper, and filled with meaning. With intent.
Bashir swallowed against a lump rising in his throat. "Please, don't." He said simply.
"How can you ask me that when you don't know what I'm going to say?"
"Because I do. And I'm not read to give up yet, so I don't want any death-bed confessions."
"...you know..." Garak wasn't sure if he was surprised or not. He'd trained Bashir himself. Took him by the hand - so to speak - and trained him from a wide-eyed, naive, unattentive young boy to a cool-headed, calculating, suspicious man who rarely missed anything. The sequence of natural events had, of course, helped, and the revealing of those by-now infamous enhancements to his friends and peers. But still, the fact remained he'd played a large part in Bashir's development. And yet...he'd never seen any indication until now that he knew. But his tone was unmistakable.
"Of course...you trained me yourself, Garak. How could I miss something like that?"
"Then by not replying you were answering...very well."
The resignation in his tone only hurt worse. "Oh, come on, Garak, don't..." He began, agitated, then trailed off. When he spoke again, his voice was weary. "You think you have all the answers, but you don't."
Garak looked at him, frowning. "If you have something to say, Doctor, do say it."
There was a long pause. Finally he spoke. "I was engaged once. Back on earth - before Deep Space Nine. Her name was Pelise Duval. She was a ballerina. And a fantastic one at that - so graceful...beautiful...and brilliant. I loved her." He sighed heavily, his voice filled with sorrow. "We loved eachother, but I was a StarFleet Officer. I wanted someplace far away from everything. Frontier medicine. Deep Space Nine. But Pelise was a ballerina. The Prima Ballerina of the Paris Ballet. Earth was her home, she was dedicated to it. To her work, just as I was dedicated to mine."
"And in the end you were both too dedicated to your careers to sacrifice them. Even for eachother." Garak finished.
Bashir nodded. "It broke both our hearts. It hurt in a way that's hard even to remember. And I promised myself that I wasn't going to go through that again. That when I fell in love next it would be with someone who could share my dreams. Be with me...stay with me...but I failed."
Garak looked at him, understanding immediately. "You fell in love on Deep Space Nine. In love with someone as dedicated to duty as you."
Bashire closed his eyes. "And who was as dedicated to their homeworld as Pelise was to Earth. When the time came to choose we wouldn't choose eachother. We couldn't. If..." He paused, his lips forming to say 'he'. "...they stayed with me, they'd be miserable. And I couldn't live on their homeworld. They told me that themselves once."
Garak closed his eyes. "So you chose to hide your feelings. To discourage this person. Knowing that they felt the same, and not caring what you were denying yourself and them?"
"I knew how it would end. How it would hurt. I wanted to spare us that." Bashir opened his eyes just as Garak opened his. For a long moment they could only gaze at eachother in perfect understanding.
"You failed again."
"I know."
"Perhaps the happiness you could have shared would have made it worth it."
"Maybe. It's too late now to know."
The door opened then. "It's time." A guard told them. The sun was setting.
The rescue was a blur. The Infirmary on the Defiant was even less memorable. They had no real injuries, afterall. But when Ezri kissed Bashir, garak admitted to himself he was jealous. He was comforted by the disconcerted glance Bashir passed his way. They hadn't said anything outright, but the veiled admittance may as well have been a full blown confession, or a passionate night in eachother's arms. Everything had changed.
Ezri and him would never last now. Still, he had a feeling Jake would be there to comfort her. But who could he find comfort in? It's not that he believed you had to be with your signifigant other every moment of every day. But a only a few days a year was pushing it. In the end Garak and him were too dedicated to duty to throw away their work for eachother. Nothing could change how they felt, but they would never be together.
"I think I've figured out the real meaning of tragedy." Bashir told him before he boarded the shuttle back to Cardassia.
Garak looked at him, then nodded. "We both have, dear Doctor...we'll see eachother again."
"...In this universe, who knows?" Bashir replied.
Fini
Salmon 2005
