TITLE: You Can Be Me When I'm Gone.
AUTHOR: Emptyfox
PAIRING: G/B
SETTING: From 'Tears of the Prophets' onwards.
RATING: R
WARNINGS: Angst, swearing, some mild sexual content, and some inferred
nastiness (of the sex'n'violence variety).
SPOILERS: None (apart from the obvious DBIP one).
FEEDBACK: Yes, please, it would be very much appreciated.
SUMMARY:  An AU story. My contribution to the third wave of the GBFF; an
answer to WolfGirl's challenge: "When Jadzia died, the Dax symbiont was in 
extreme distress and the only suitable host available was Garak."
DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek universe belongs to Paramount, I lay no claim to
it and am making no profit from it.
NOTES:
The title is taken from a poem that appears in 'The Kindly Ones,' written by
Neil Gaiman.

I wish to apologise in advance for the truly appalling science in this, and
the fact that I just skip over a lot of it too. It was a necessary contrivance, with out
which I couldn't have answered the challenge I chose (besides, if I was that good a
scientist, I'd be too busy curing cancer, or fixing the hole in the ozone layer, to write).

The translation of Worf's mourning chant comes from the Deep Space Nine
Companion.

I've used the term 'implant' instead of 'wire' because I don't think the
term wire was ever actually used in that episode.

Regarding 'reassociation': I'm pretty much ignoring the episode 'Rejoined'
because I think it contradicts everything else we've seen regarding joined Trills in
other DS9/TNG episodes, such as Dax's continuing friendship with Sisko, and her
taking on of Curzon's Klingon blood-oaths etc. My take on it is that newly joined
Trills are expected to let go of the previous host's life, for the sake of their own
emotional well-being, but they're not expected to cut them off completely, straight away,
and they're not going to get into serious trouble if they can't to begin with.

I've taken a few liberties with the character of Joran ('Equilibrium'), but
since this is an AU anyway, I think I can get away with it.

~ ~ ~

Jadzia was dead. Bashir could hear Worf's mourning chant, even from the next
ward were he was treating the Dax symbiont. He translated the Klingon words
involuntarily.

Only Qo'noS endures.
All we can hope for is a glorious death.
Only Qo'noS endures.
In death there is victory and honour.

Empty, meaningless words; he returned to monitoring the symbiont.

~

Sisko walked into the infirmary. He had spent the past hour in his office
talking to the Kai and to members of the Provisional Government. On his way 
to the infirmary he had been stopped by at least a dozen Bajorans, all wanting 
guidance and reassurance from their Emissary.

After questioning a Starfleet nurse he found Dr. Bashir in one of the small
side wards, watching over the Dax symbiont. He looked tired, with deep-set eyes 
and two days' worth of stubble.

"I'm too late," Sisko said, it wasn't a question.

"Yes, by at least half an hour. I'm sorry," Bashir said, not looking up from
the monitor screen. He added, half to himself: "I think she only held out as
long as she did because she wanted the chance to say goodbye to him."

Sisko nodded slowly.

"How are things going out there?" Bashir asked, inclining his head in the
general direction of the promenade as he studied Dax's readout.

"Not good. They fear the Prophets have abandoned them." He rubbed between
his eyes and sighed, "But that's not what I'm here to talk about. What's the
status of the symbiont?"

"Deteriorating much more rapidly than I first thought," replied Bashir,
"It's too fragile to put into stasis, and the starship on its way from Trill 
won't get here in time either."

"So we'll lose the symbiont as well," said Sisko.

"Not necessarily," said Bashir, "there are instances where a Trill symbiont
has been kept alive by being transferred between human hosts, the first,
non-permanent, stages of joining occurred, and the symbiont was removed before it 
could cause any permanent damage."

"You want to try that?"

"No." Bashir shook his head emphatically, unnecessarily, another sign of his
exhaustion. "The symbiont is too badly damaged to survive more than one
transfer. What we need is a long term host."

"But there are no other Trill on the station."

"No, nor on any Starfleet or Federation starship anywhere close enough to
get here in time. I've been looking at the possibility of using a different humanoid
species as a host and I think I've come up with a good candidate, but there may be 
problems --"

"Please, just get to the point Doctor," Sisko cut in.

"Yes, sorry . . . Cardassian."

Sisko let out a humourless bark of laughter, "Cardassian!" he shook his head
despairingly.

"It should work. Cardassian neurobiology is alien enough so that joining
won't even be attempted by the symbiont. At the same time, physiologically, a
Cardassian host would provide a stable environment for the symbiont to heal in. 
A symbiont that has joined before is incapable of surviving outside of a host for 
long; a Cardassian host would effectively provide a kind of biological stasis, the 
symbiont should go into a form of hibernation, where it won't suffer or cause any 
damage. Once it's healed it can be transferred to a Trill host."

"Wouldn't something like that provoke a huge immune response?"

"The Cardassian immune system is very different from most humanoid species,
it's really quite fascinating . . . " His voice trailed off as he saw Sisko's
expression. "It should work."

"_Should_ work," said Sisko, raising an eyebrow.

"Well I haven't had time to run any simulations," said Bashir, beginning to
get nervous under Sisko's intense scrutiny, "but I am sure that, with careful
monitoring and treatment, it will work."

"We still don't have a complete medical database from the Cardassian
computers, how can you be sure?"

"I have Garak's medical file."

Sisko frowned, "you honestly think Garak would agree to this?"

"I'd have to talk to him."

"Damn," said Sisko, "put it in me, it's got to be a better bet than Garak."

Bashir shook his head again. "In a human host it would try to form a bond,
we're too similar to Trills. It would end up spending its remaining resources on 
that, rather than on healing, and the rejection process would just do it, and you, 
damage."

"Couldn't you do something to control it?"

"It's an incredibly complex organism, and Dax can't take much more
interference."

Sisko took a deep breath, held it for several heartbeats while he thought,
then released it in a sigh. He tapped his com-badge. "Sisko to Garak."

It was the station's computer that responded. "Mr. Garak's quarters are
currently under privacy lock-out."

"Override!" barked Sisko; he was unused to dealing with civilian
communication channels.

"Override ineffective," replied the computer.

"Damn!" said Sisko. He tapped his com-badge again, "Sisko to Odo."

"Odo here."

"Find _Mister_ Garak and bring him to the infirmary. Immediately. Shoot him
in the foot if you have to, just get him here."

"Understood," Odo's voice came over Sisko's com-badge.

"Captain, was that really necessary?" asked Bashir.

"You tell me Doctor," said Sisko darkly, "How much longer do we have?"

"Two hours, maybe three."

"This won't work," said Sisko, "he won't agree to it, and there's no
possible way to force him."

"Captain, I never even implied that we should try to coerce him in any way
--"

"I know," said Sisko kindly, giving his arm a quick, reassuring squeeze. He
had become too wrapped up in the idea of losing Dax again to notice quite how
distressed Bashir himself had become.

While they waited Bashir returned to minding the symbiont and Sisko paced.
He was sure it wouldn't work. Garak, despite his recent collaboration, was still
very much an unknown quantity, and Sisko _knew_ he would never agree to anything so
invasive and risky. He just hoped Bashir could talk him round. He knew the two of
them were close, if Garak could be said to be close to anyone, but had no idea if that
would be enough. He had already lost Jadzia, he didn't want to lose Dax as well.

~

The first thing Garak did upon returning to his quarters was run himself a
bath. He was exhausted, living on the Defiant had been a strain, the rooms were too
small and bright and cold, and without Bashir or Odo on board he had had no one to
talk to.

There was also the emotional strain of the mission itself, which was
something he was trying to hide from himself as much as possible. Cardassians were 
very good at the art of self-delusion.

He made the water as hot as he could bear, so that the room filled up with
steam. He climbed in and slowly began to relax.

The station had been in a state of disarray when the Defiant had returned,
but he wasn't going to let any of it bother him. The Prophets, while real, where
not his gods; and while he had liked and respected Lieutenant Dax, he hadn't been 
able to call her a friend.

He planned to ride it all out in his quarters, until he was needed again,
hopefully not for a while, because he really needed to rest. He sank low in the 
water and shut his eyes.

~

Garak woke up suddenly. He couldn't tell how long he had been asleep;
heating panels in the bath stopped the water from cooling.

There was someone in his quarters.

Garak realised he had forgotten to lock the bathroom door, a lapse in
concentration that might now cost him his life. The bathroom door opened before 
he had a chance to do more than pull his legs up to his chest, giving him self a 
little dignity at least, and at best the chance to spring.

Garak saw that it was Odo, and couldn't help sighing out loud with relief.

"I assume there is a _very_ good reason for this intrusion," said Garak
angrily, covering for his previous show of fear. He stood up and Odo turned away,
embarrassed.

Garak rolled his eyes at Odo's prudery; he stepped out of the bath and
wrapped a towel around himself, "Well?"

"Captain Sisko wants to see you."

Garak pushed past Odo out of the bathroom then walked into his bedroom,
where he began to pick out a set of clothes. "I'm not in Starfleet, I don't have to
come whenever he calls."

"True, but I do think it's important. He said I could shoot you in the foot
if you refused."

"Well in that case I'd better go, hadn't I?" said Garak, coming out of his
room fully dressed and drying his hair. He folded his towel neatly over a chair and
gestured for Odo to precede him out into the corridor.

~

Garak and Odo walked into the infirmary and Bashir jumped up to meet them.
He grabbed Garak's arm, "I need to talk to you, right now."

"But Captain Sisko wanted --" Garak began.

"No no, that was me, I need to speak to you, _now_." Bashir looked exhausted
but determined, not a combination to be taken lightly.

Sisko walked out of the room, gesturing for Odo to follow.

Garak watched them go, "What is it Doctor?" he asked.

"It's about Dax."

"Odo said she was dead."

"Not Jadzia, the symbiont, Dax, it's still alive, but it wont last for much
longer without a host."

Garak wondered what any of it had to do with him, then he realised. "You
can't be serious," he said.

"I know it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to you,"

"Oh no, I'm sure it's far too complicated for me to understand."

Bashir grimaced, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you, it's just that we
don't have a lot of time left."

"There is no way," said Garak, "that I am going to join with any damn
parasite."

"You won't, that's the point," said Bashir.

"You are going to have to explain to me exactly how you worked that out
before I even consider agreeing to anything."

"Ok, ok. As I'm sure you're already aware, Cardassian neurobiology . . ."

~

Sisko paced up and down in the short corridor outside of the ward while
inside, hopefully, Bashir was negotiating successfully with Garak.

"Do you still need me here, Captain?" asked Odo.

"No, thank you."

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is going on here? Ordering me to
shoot someone in the foot, even Mr. Garak, is a little out of the ordinary."

"Dr. Bashir thinks he has a way of saving the Dax symbiont," said Sisko.

"And _Garak_ can help with that?"

"Yes, maybe, hopefully."

"Captain, would you like me to find someone, you seem rather distressed."

Sisko couldn't help smiling, despite the current situation, at Odo's
cautious attempts at empathy.

"I'm ok," he said. "It's just that when Curzon died, there was some comfort
in the fact that the symbiont would be passed on to the next host, and when I heard
Jadzia had been fatally wounded, there was again that small comfort. But now it looks
like the symbiont will die, and I'll lose both of them, again."

"I'm sorry," said Odo, awkwardly. "I'd better get back to the promenade,
everyone is pretty subdued at the moment, but it wouldn't take much to spark a 
riot. It would be a good idea if you went out there too, you could help boost moral."

Sisko watched him walk away, then returned to his pacing.

~

Garak paced. "It sounds like it might work, but . . ."

Bashir waited for him to finish his sentence, he didn't want Garak to feel
pressured in any way. He was sure Garak's main fear was of joining; the idea of 
anotherconsciousness having access to his thoughts would be more than a man like
him could bear. But Bashir was sure that that wouldn't happen, all he had to do was
explain it well enough to allow Garak to see that.

"I know a lot of it is counter-intuitive," said Bashir when Garak remained
silent, "but it _will_ work, you'd be merely incubating the symbiont until a Trill host
is found for it."

"Using the same terminology you would use to describe a pregnancy isn't,
perhaps, the best way to sell this to me," said Garak.

"Garak, you know I'm not trying to _sell_ you anything!"

"I know," said Garak, placatingly. "I'm still not entirely convinced
though," he added.

"If there was even the slightest indication that your health was at risk I
would remove the symbiont and let it die. This would be a last ditch attempt to save Dax,
nobody is expecting you to risk yourself in any way, your welfare is always going to
be my first priority here."

Garak nodded slowly, then said, after a few more minutes thought: "Alright.
I'll do it."

"Thank you," said Bashir, "really, thank you; this means a lot to me, to all
of us."

~

Sisko was still in the corridor when Bashir came out, "he agreed," said
Bashir, looking like it was his own life that had just been saved.

"That's good," said Sisko, "that's really good. Call me when you've finished
the procedure, I'll want to know that they are both all right."

Sisko realised there was no further need for his presence in the infirmary.
He had only been staying there because it was easier than facing what was going on
outside.

~

Six hours later Garak woke up on a bio-bed in one of the infirmary's side
wards.

"How do you feel?" asked Bashir.

"Fine," Garak replied, after a few moments consideration.

"Good. With all the meds you're on you shouldn't feel a thing."

Bashir was right; he couldn't feel anything, like the implant the first time
it had been switched on, a warm dark ocean he could happily drown in.

"You look like you could do with some rest. Call if you need anything."

Garak was too tired to reply, he fell asleep before Bashir had left the
room.

~

Bashir had wanted to attend Jadzia's funeral, but he couldn't risk leaving
Garak. Instead he listened via his com-badge while Garak slept.

He was glad when Sisko came to see him before he left.

"How's Garak?" asked Sisko.

"Both he and Dax are doing fine so far," replied Bashir. "I'm going to keep
him under observation for a few more days at least."

"Good," said Sisko, "I'm glad everything worked out, for everyone's sake."

~

Three days after receiving the symbiont Garak was ready to leave the
infirmary, and it only took a little while for him to convince Bashir to let 
him go. He had things to do, there were codes to be cracked, and the general 
pretence of normality to maintain, and, despite the extra attention he was 
receiving from Bashir, he just wanted to get out of the infirmary.

Even though the medical team who had performed the transfer were obliged to
respect his patient confidentiality, Garak expected that everyone would be aware of
his situation by now. Sisko would have told his senior staff, and Odo could have
worked it out for himself before then, so it wouldn't have taken long for the
information to permeate the entire station.

He felt physically vulnerable. There was a permanent tenderness in his side,
like a stitch waiting to happen, that painkillers could only dull; a stronger dose
would render him intellectually useless.

Then there was the fact that the symbiont was compressing his stomach to
make room for itself in his abdominal cavity. He had to eat lots of small, calorie
rich meals to make up for it, as well as protein supplements because the symbiont 
was tapping his blood for its own nutritional needs, but he still always felt 
hungry. Bashir had tried to cheer him up by telling him about twentieth century 
humans who had their stomachs stapled to similar dimensions in order to lose weight, 
then about liposuction and silicon implants and other such medical horrors, which 
had been amusing enough, but hadn't stopped him feeling hungry.

He could also feel the symbiont squirming around inside of him sometimes,
and had even seen it moving on occasion; it wasn't painful, just disquieting. That,
along with the fact that he was eating for the symbiont as well now, made the 
pregnancy analogy he had used before seem entirely accurate now. It was, perhaps, more
embarrassing than anything else.

The localised immunosuppression seemed to be working, but he would need
daily checks in the infirmary, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Otherwise he
felt fine, and he had managed to win even more esteem from the people on the station,
who before only just managed to trust him. If he hadn't been indispensable while
he was helping to crack codes and decipher Cardassian military technology, now,
carrying the Dax symbiont, he was priceless.

He would be carrying the symbiont for a while yet; hearing that Bashir's
unorthodox procedure was a preliminary success, the starship from Trill had decided it
was safer to turn back rather than risk entering Bajoran space. The Trill doctor, and
the new host, would be arriving in about two weeks, when there would be a Starfleet
escort available. Garak could cope quite easily for two weeks.

Once he was back in his quarters, after replicating himself something to
eat, Garak got to work on the latest round of code breaking.

He was fully engrossed in his work when he was distracted by a thought. The
algorithms he was studying reminded him of a higher mathematics course he
had taken, and he had started thinking about that, at the same time knowing he
had never actually been to that university, or even that planet.

It didn't take him more than a fraction of a second to realise that it
wasn't his memory, and that it therefore must belong to the symbiont, which meant --

Garak fell from his chair, unconscious before he even hit the floor.

~

Bashir sat at one of the desks in the infirmary's lab, reading one of the
many medical texts that had been sent to him from Trill. He had thought of 
himself as something of an expert in the field, given all his work with Dax, 
including two conventional transfers, but his current reading was giving him the 
distinct impression that he was little more than an amateur. The Trill had been 
far too secretive in the past about their biology, leaving it to non-Trill doctors 
like himself to muddle through as best they could. He was amazed that Dax, or any 
other Trill for that matter, host or symbiont, had survived for any period of time away 
from their home world.

He glanced up at the chronometer on the wall, Garak was late for his daily
check-up, and Cardassians were rarely anything other than punctual.

"Bashir to Garak," he said, tapping his com-badge.

There was no reply, not even an automated message. Bashir, worried now,
picked up his med-kit and set off for the habitat ring.

Outside Garak's quarters Bashir tried using the intercom once before using
his medical over-ride to get in.

He found Garak on the floor, one eye-ridge split where he had hit a corner
of his desk on the way down, his body still twitching.

~

He woke up from the most complex, exhausting, _real_ dream of his life to
find himself in a body he didn't quite recognise as his own. But recognition
returned to him rapidly, and when Garak opened his eyes the sight of his grey, scaly
hands didn't surprise him.

The second thing he saw was Dr. Bashir, standing at the foot of the bio-bed,
reading a pad. The usual set of memories and feelings that came to the front of his
consciousness whenever he saw Bashir, or was reminded of him in some other
way, was accompanied by a second set of memories and feelings, which were new to
him, even though they contained some things that he could recognise.

Garak explored those new memories, one leading to another and another and
another, until he was lost in them, in times and places that were totally new,
containing nothing he recognised, and no reference points to help him find his way back
to himself.

Garak woke up again, this time with Bashir leaning over him, holding a
discharged hypo-spray in one hand.

"I thought I'd lost you again for a minute there, how are you feeling?"

Garak struggled to hold onto himself. He had a highly ordered mind,
_Cardassians_ had highly ordered minds. His was disciplined enough to withstand a 
Vulcan mind-meld, even after the damage done by the implant, he could withstand 
this as well. He had, without even being aware of it, been fighting to keep himself 
separate and complete ever since he had received the symbiont. He made one final,
conscious, effort and pushed those other personalities away from himself, condensed and
compartmentalised and contained them, and became wholly himself again.

"I'm starving, actually," said Garak, cheerfully, honestly.

Bashir just looked at him for a moment, then he looked at the monitors at
the head of the bio-bed, then picked up his medical tricorder and took a reading from
that before saying: "You do seem to be ok. I mean your readings are still abnormal, but
nothing that seems to be doing you any harm at the moment. Did you want anything in
particular?"

"It had better be one of those nutrient mixes, it doesn't matter what
flavour, they're all disgusting."

"Even the chocolate?"

"Far too sweet."

"I'm sorry I haven't had time to try programming any Cardassian-friendly
flavours. I've been doing a lot of reading, the Symbiosis Commission sent me a 
lot of data."

Bashir came back from the replicator with a mug, which he handed to Garak.

"So," said Garak, after gulping the mug's contents in an attempt to not
taste it, "are you going to explain what's happened to me, after you said you said 
that I wouldn't be able to join with the symbiont?"

"So you are joined then? The readings were very confused."

"Not exactly, the memories are all there, but I've cut them off from my
consciousness."

Bashir raised one sceptical eyebrow, "just like that?"

"Mental self-control, remember?" said Garak, tapping himself on the temple
and immediately regretting it, "We're trained to have ordered, disciplined minds
from the age of four, it was easy enough to compartmentalise them."

"I wouldn't be quite so confident just yet," said Bashir, using that mildly
patronising tone of voice all doctors used on anyone who presumed to think they 
knew more about medicine than the doctor did. "Your body's still going through a lot
of changes. The symbiont is practically pumping out isoboramine -- that's the
neurotransmitter that mediates synaptic functions between host and symbiont."

"I know," said Garak, surprising himself a little.

"Um, yes. Just the fact that the symbiont managed to form a neural link at
all is amazing."

"Never underestimate the will to survive my dear Doctor. We are dealing with
a sentient and highly intelligent life form here"

"You don't seem to be taking this very seriously," said Bashir, frowning and
crossing his arms.

"And you don't seem particularly raked with guilt, considering you were
_sure_ that the symbiont would just sit happily in my abdominal cavity, healing away."

Bashir looked down, obviously embarrassed, "You're right, I'm sorry. I still
haven't been able to work out exactly what happened, especially as most of it seems
to have occurred overnight in your quarters while you weren't being monitored."

Bashir looked up at him through his thick eyelashes, and Garak thought
_don't think you can get out of this by being adorable and helpless-looking_, 
but he didn't say any thing out loud, he wasn't angry enough.

"What are my dopamine levels like?" Garak asked.

"Highly elevated," said Bashir, handing him the medical tricorder, "along
with many other changes."

"I thought I felt too happy."

Bashir sighed, "I really am sorry Garak."

Garak waved dismissively, then said: "So what do we do now?"

"I want you to stay here for the moment, just in case anything new happens.
I've been in contact with the Symbiosis Commission again; to be honest I don't think
they're all that interested."

"Dax is hardly their favourite symbiont."

"No, I suppose not," said Bashir, "but it's probably more to do with the
fact that the symbiont isn't available for transfer to a Trill host anymore. It will
probably never be able to join with another host after you, it's changed too much."

"Does this mean it has a copy of my memories?"

"Probably, its neural structure has changed significantly, it's very
different now compared to when it was joined with Jadzia. The Symbiosis Commission 
sent me the medical records for all of Dax's previous hosts, you can trace the
symbiont's neurological changes from host to host."

"I'm glad I'll be the last one," said Garak, "the thought of someone else
having access to my memories, even if I'm dead, is unacceptable."

"To be honest that doesn't surprise me," said Bashir.

~

Bashir, after getting him some more food from the replicator, left Garak and
returned to his office.

He felt far guiltier than he had let on to Garak; he had expected Garak to
be furious with him. He couldn't work out how it had happened, it should have worked,
he had been sure it would work; he couldn't believe he had managed to get things so
wrong.

He had already started trying to work out what had actually happened, but it
wasn't just Garak he would have to explain it to, he was also in the middle of
writing a report for Kira. He didn't expect her to be angry in the same way that 
Sisko would have been if he were still on the station; the dual nature of a joined 
Trill wasn't as real to her as it was to Sisko, as far as she was concerned her 
friend was dead and that was it.

Then there would be Worf's reaction to deal with. He sighed, as if Jadzia's
death hadn't been bad enough for all of them.

He decided to contact Kira straight away; she would probably want to make
sure that all of Jadzia's security codes had been deactivated.

~

Kira, having finished reading Bashir's report, threw the pad down onto the
table and sat back, crossing her arms.

"This is a real mess," she said, "How long before Garak can be back at
work."

"Is that all you care about?" asked Bashir.

"That's all it's my job to care about. Things are difficult enough with
Sisko gone and the wormhole shut and Bajor in turmoil. We need Garak's expertise, now.
You're the doctor, it's your job to get him out of the infirmary."

"Well I'll do my best, obviously."

"Yes, you do that," said Kira, dismissively, picking up another pad.

"Hold on, I still need to talk to you about this."

"Go on," said Kira, without looking up from the pad.

"What should we tell Worf?"

"We? Surely this is your field not mine?"

"Yes, but do you want him to know? I can't decide this on my own."

Kira sighed, put the pad down and sat back in her chair. "He won't take it
well, I'm sure of that."

She thought for a while, fiddling with the clock that Sisko had left behind
on his desk.

"You're sure he's going to survive?"

"Yes, he's beyond the stage where the symbiont might have killed him."

"Since Garak is still, strictly speaking, a civilian, why don't we say that
this falls under patient confidentiality, and that it's up to him who he tells, and
when."

"That's not very fair on Garak, leaving it all to him."

Kira shrugged. "He can just tell Quark, then let him tell everyone else for
him. Now if you don't mind, I have a huge amount of work to do."

~

After a week Bashir had had to let Garak leave the infirmary. There were no
more changes occurring, either to him or the symbiont; he was, officially,
joined. Dax was now a permanent part of him, leaching off his blood supply and 
hacked into his spinal column, he had changed so much as well that it couldn't be 
removed now even if he had wanted it to be; his dependency on Dax made the effects 
of the implant look like nothing more than a food craving.

Garak had, slowly and carefully, begun exploring the new personalities that
had infiltrated his mind. He could still contain them, but it took constant
vigilance; Dax wanted to be a more active part of him, wanted to really, properly 
join with him, absorb him into its collective. It was a tempting offer at times.

He pictured the memories of the previous hosts as an ocean sitting inside
the back of his skull that was stormy and turbulent on the surface. Garak dived 
into it, going from memory to memory, using that chain of consciousness as a safety 
line back to himself. Under the surface he found things were different, calmer, inviting, 
like a magical underwater kingdom from some saccharine human animation. It was full of
happy childhoods and fulfilled ambitions and successful lives, and it was all
real. He was drawn to it and repulsed by it all in equal measure, and he couldn't work
out how much of those reactions were really him and how much was leakage from the
compartment he was trying to keep it all contained in.

While he tried to carry on as normal, or as close as things ever got to
normal on DS9, his inner life was consumed by metaphors. He had no other way to 
explain to himself what was happening, the Cardassian language, or any other 
language he spoke, wasn't adequate to explain what was occurring.

And then there was Joran. He could contain the others, but he couldn't
contain Joran. Joran migrated from behind his brain to take up residence in his left
temple. Joran was a migraine just about to brake, Joran was his anti-conscience, 
Joran was a brain tumour.

He didn't know exactly when or how it happened. Perhaps Joran was so much
like an aspect of his own personality that he had managed to slip through
undetected, or perhaps it was that he had never been fully integrated into 
Jadzia Dax's personality; but whatever it was, he was there and Garak couldn't get 
rid of him.

Joran talked to him, told him things he didn't want to hear, or things he
wouldn't even admit to himself that he wanted to hear. Garak had done plenty of things in
his life that could be described as cruel; he had enjoyed his work, and had always
taken pride in what he did for the greater good of Cardassia, but it had always been his
job first, it had always been justifiable. But Joran was, to put it bluntly, a psychopath;
and he really did like Garak.

He had first noticed Joran's presence during one of his daily check-ups at
the infirmary. Bashir had been standing close to him, but instead of looking at
him he had been looking at one of the bio-bed's panels, giving Garak a surreptitious
opportunity to just look at him.

Having a highly disciplined mind meant not indulging in fantasies, sexual or
otherwise, at every given opportunity. But it was so tempting, and so
harmless, to simply imagine leaning over and kissing the back of his neck, what little
there was of it left exposed by that dreadful uniform.

Then suddenly he was seeing himself pushing Bashir over the bio-bed, tearing
off his clothes, biting his shoulder hard enough to tear a chunk out of the muscle.
Joran was there, watching with amusement. This it what you really want, he told him,
you can't hide from yourself, and you can't hide from me, what you really are.

Then things had been back to normal, too small a blip to even register on
Bashir's equipment.

Garak had quickly managed to regain control enough to stop the
hallucinations, but he couldn't remove Joran completely, he was always there, ready 
to offer his unsolicited opinion.

Garak may have pictured Joran as separate from the others, but in reality he
was still a part of Dax's personality, and he wasn't capable of cutting Dax off
completely. He wasn't sure that he would, even if he could. Having all those lives to
explore was something he would dearly miss, so perhaps Joran was a small enough price to
pay.

~

Garak was on his way to his shop when Worf intercepted him in the corridor.

"Well you don't look very happy," said Garak, trying to side step him.

"I've heard," said Worf, "that you are carrying the Dax symbiont."

"You and the rest of the station," said Garak, "Why do you think I told
Quark in the first place, other than to save myself the bother of explaining it over and
over again?"

Worf growled quietly and Garak backed away slowly.

"This dishonours Jadzia's memory."

"Without me she would have been lost forever. This wasn't meant to happen, I
was only supposed to hold on to Dax until a suitable Trill host came along. I'm
not exactly ecstatic about it all either."

"Don't mock me."

"_Or you'll what?_ Hit me? Go on, right in the stomach, then you can mash
Dax to a pulp too."

Worf seemed to deflate a little, but he kept on glowering at Garak.

"Would you be making this much fuss if Dax had been transferred into a Trill
host?"

"No, that would have been different."

"So I'm not good enough?"

"No you're not, you're not worthy of Jadzia's memories."

"Oh, I see what this is about. Don't worry Worfy baby, I'm not looking, do
you really think I want to see you naked?"

Worf punched the wall, denting the panel. "Get out of my sight," he growled.

Garak was only too happy to oblige.

~

"So what's it like?" Bashir asked, during one of Garak's check-ups.

"It's fine," replied Garak.

"Just fine?"

"Just fine."

"I mean, what is it actually _like_? How do you experience their memories?"

"It's like accessing a complex computer database, all the information is
linked, but not in any logical, rational order. No, that's not correct, it has an
internal logic, but just lacks order -- to a Cardassian. Maybe a maze would be a 
better analogy? It's not like normal memory, where every single thought or feeling 
or memory is backed up by the weight of all the other thoughts and feelings and 
memories associated with it. Once I have experienced a particular memory it becomes, 
in isolation, part of my own consciousness, I have all these snap shots of Dax's 
previous lives, but they're not really linked to anything."

"It sounds confusing."

"Oh, not really, just endlessly fascinating. It's the biggest puzzle
imaginable: sorting out all those lives, while keeping hold of your self."

Bashir looked at one of the monitors. "This is amazing," he said, "the
symbiont is beginning to express Cardassian antigens on its surface. A symbiont 
normally undergoes a similar change when it joins a new host, but Trill and
Cardassian cell biology is so different, I can't see how it's managing to do it. 
If it carries on like this, and there are no adverse affects, we'll be able to stop the
immunosuppressant treatments soon."

"Good," said Garak.

"The neural changes are slowing down too, in both you and Dax, and in your
case they are occurring in only a small part of your central nervous system."

Garak just nodded, he knew things were beginning to stabilise, to settle, he
was as much in control as he was ever going to be, unfortunately that still meant
having to endure Joran's presence. At the moment he was making the usual suggestive
comments he came out with whenever Bashir was around. Garak concentrated his
efforts into shutting him up.

Bashir, oblivious to all this said: "I really think you're going to be ok! I
was terrified I'd done the pair of you serious harm."

~

Now that Garak was off all the medication and it was therefore safe for him
to consume alcohol again, at least as safe as it ever was for a Cardassian, he
had taken the opportunity to invite Bashir to join him for a drink that evening.

They sat together at one of the tables in Quark's, in one of the dark nooks
that provided some insulation from the ambient noise levels, and the chance to
conduct a proper conversation.

This was the first time, since the beginning of Garak's impromptu joining,
that they had had a chance to simply enjoy each other's company.

Garak believed that Bashir was coping well after the death of Jadzia; and
with what could have turned out to be the biggest disaster of his medical career,
which he was still lucky to have after his genetically enhanced origins had been
revealed.

He also had the distinct impression that Bashir saw him as the closest he
could get to having Jadzia alive again, and he wasn't above taking advantage of that,
just a little.

"I have something to show you," said Garak, after their second round of
drinks.

"What?"

Garak took a small disk from his pocket and placed it on the table in front
of Bashir. He pressed a button at its centre and a multicoloured sphere appeared above
it.

Bashir laughed, "I haven't seen that thing for ages," he said, waving his
hand through the sphere of the Altonian brainteaser, which crackled and fizzed as its
holographic field was disturbed.

"Dax has been trying to master it for almost four and a half centuries. Now
I want you to try it, properly this time."

"In the middle of Quark's?" asked Bashir, with an almost suppressed smile.

"Yes, in the middle of Quark's."

"And after two drinks?"

Garak nodded, smiling, and nudged the disk a little closer to Bashir.

"Ok, ok," said Bashir. He tapped the edge of the disk, identifying himself
as the player. The sphere immediately changed, turning from multicoloured to
turquoise to unadulterated blue.

"I knew you must have been faking," said Garak, switching off the sphere and
putting the disk back in his pocket.

"_You_ knew?"

"I mean Dax knew, I mean Jadzia guessed, after she found out."

"She never said anything to me," said Bashir.

"She didn't want to embarrass you,"

"Something you're not worried about?" Bashir asked, as he reached for the
bottle to pour himself another drink.

Garak just smiled and offered his glass for a refill. "There are lots of
things she never said to you."

"Really?"

Bashir's voice was full of hope and longing, all the humour of their earlier
conversation gone. Garak realised he had miscalculated, badly. Jadzia's
memories weren't something he could just produce to brighten up dull moments or lulls
in the conversation. He hadn't realised until now quite how much Bashir had been
hurt by the loss of her.

His current situation didn't lessen the pain for Bashir, or any of them, it
was just that he and Bashir had been friends before, and Bashir was trying to keep that
friendship going in spite of, not because of, how much he could remind him of Jadzia.

"I'm sorry," said Garak, "I shouldn't have said anything. It was unfair of
me."

"No," said Bashir, "I want to know, you can't just say that to me then leave
me in the dark. Whatever it is I'd rather know."

"Are you sure about that?" said Garak. "Because once you learn something
it's almost impossible to unlearn it."

"I'm sure," said Bashir.

"It would have been you."

"What would have been me?"

"If Worf hadn't come along, it would have been you."

Bashir sat back in his chair and covered his mouth with his hand, after a
while he said: "You were right, you shouldn't have said anything. I was 
expecting the exact opposite, that she could never have had any feelings 
for me stronger than friendship, or even that she didn't really like me and 
was just stringing me along for the fun of it."

"I'm sorry," said Garak, "I had honestly thought that hearing it would make
you happy."

Joran did not agree. Joran thought that Garak was deliberately trying to
hurt Bashir, that Garak was spiteful and jealous. It was what Joran would have 
done, in Garak's place. Maybe Garak wasn't quite as much in control of things as 
he liked to think he was.

"Excuse me," said Bashir, standing up, "but I think I'd better call it a
night."

Garak just nodded and watched Bashir walk away. After waiting long enough so
that there was no chance of them running into each other, Garak left Quark's. He
bought a bottle of Kanaar on his way out; they were going cheap since Quark had
stocked up for the Cardassian-Dominion occupation.

Garak intended to get so drunk that he passed out rather than fell asleep,
it had worked when the implant was malfunctioning, it would work now. He didn't
want to dream tonight, didn't want to see any more of Jadzia's memories, but most of
all he didn't want to hear any more from Joran.

~

Bashir waited until he was safely back in his quarters before letting go.
Garak's words had brought back to him just how much he missed Jadzia. Garak, the 
work he generated, had been a good distraction on a day-to-day basis; and the
evening had been going so well.

It had been less than two months since Jadzia died, but sometimes it felt
like years. Hearing Garak's words had made it feel like yesterday. There had been no
time to mourn when it had happened, and he had missed her funeral, and then he had
been using Garak, perhaps, to pretend she hadn't gone.

He still felt terrible about getting Garak into the situation he was in in
the first place. Maybe Garak was well within his rights to use it against him.

~

Sisko's return to DS9, with the Orb of the Emissary, and the subsequent
reopening of the wormhole, served as a temporary distraction for everyone.

He came to see Bashir in the infirmary after a few days; it was the first
chance he had had to speak to him alone.

"I hear interesting things have been happening with Dax and Garak."

"Yes," said Bashir, "that's one way of putting it, interesting like in the
Chinese curse."

"Do you have any idea yet exactly what happened?"

"The best I've been able to come up with is that the energy from the
Pah-wraith had some kind of effect on the symbiont."

"That's a little vague, for you."

"I know; I'm still trying to work it out. The fact that Dax was interfered
with before, by the Symbiosis Commission, and the neurological damage Garak has suffered
in the past, might also have had something to do with it."

"But he's not properly joined?"

"No not exactly, he has access to Dax's memories, but remains outside of
them."

"Interesting, those two put together could be very useful to us."

Bashir didn't say anything. He wasn't happy about the way the other officers
seemed only to be concerned for Garak's welfare because they wanted to use his
talents, not because they cared about him as a person.

~

They were trying again. It had been long enough for the hurt and awkwardness
of that previous evening to wear away. Bashir had suggested a meal to talk over
instead of alcohol, and they had picked a quieter spot in Quark's on the upper 
level of the promenade.

"I've decided," said Bashir, talking slowly so as to give himself a chance
to change his mind and stop half way through if he wanted to, "that I want to know,
about Jadzia, everything."

"Everything?" echoed Garak with a sigh.

"What's wrong?" asked Bashir, frowning.

"Nothing, it's just that everything is too much to convey in words. I can
give you fragments, give you the gist of it, but everything? I don't think it's
possible."

"Oh," said Bashir, feeling relieved and disappointed at the same time.

"I don't think it would be a good idea. It was a mistake to tell you what I
did, I'm not going to upset you that much again."

"I wasn't that upset," Bashir lied.

"You walked away from me. You've never done that before, even after you'd
taken the implant out, and I threw you across the room and told you I hated you,
you stayed."

"It's not the same thing."

Garak, looking sceptical, remained silent.

"Please, just tell me something."

Garak sighed again.

~

Garak shuffled through Jadzia's memories, the ones he had accessed already.
Most of them involved Bashir, in one capacity or another. He needed to give him
something, something that wouldn't hurt him again, that would allow him to let 
go, even if it meant making something up.

"Jadzia cared about you very much. She loved you, but not in the way you
obviously wanted, although under a different set of circumstances things might 
have turned out that way. Really my dear, she wouldn't want you to be like 
this, Trills, joined Trills especially, know that you can't live in the past."

Garak watched as Bashir slumped back in his chair. He fiddled with his fork,
keeping his eyes on his plate to avoid making eye contact.

"She always wanted you to be happy."

"What about you?" Bashir asked suddenly, sitting forward and fixing Garak
with a stare that was almost aggressive. "Do you want me to be happy?"

"Of course, what an odd question."

"Are you happy?"

It was Garak's turn to avoid eye contact.

"What would make you happy, and don't give me any answers involving
Cardassia, I mean here and now, what would make you happy?"

The way Bashir was looking at him, Garak imagined he would wait all night
for an answer if necessary. He considered actually telling the truth, telling
Bashir how he felt about him. He balanced what he could lose, with what 
he stood to gain.

"You," said Garak, "you could make me happy."

They both sat in stunned silence for a moment, taking in what had been said.
It was Bashir who broke the silence first:

"A truly honest answer at last!" he said with an unsteady smile, "so this is
what it takes to get the truth out of you."

Garak laughed, feeling a little shaky himself.

"It's not like I'm not attracted to you, or that I object to the idea in
principle," said Bashir, talking very precisely and watching Garak closely as 
spoke, "but with everything I've seen, it's always struck me as being far too 
dangerous to get into a sexual relationship with any Cardassian."

Garak felt his heart sink. He considered evading the subject by saying that
he had never mentioned sex; but he realised that that meant Bashir had brought the
subject up, which meant Bashir must have been thinking about it.

"Cardassian males can be hit-and-run, but it would be different in a proper
relationship."

"Different, maybe, but would it necessarily be better? I've seen how
aggressive it gets. Remember those Cardassian engineers who were here a few years 
ago? One of them thought O'Brien was trying to mate with her because they argued 
all the time."

"And we don't argue? The initial stages of Cardassian courtship, the
arguing, the aggression, are merely to size-up a potential mate. Someone who 
always backs down isn't going to make a strong partner, isn't going to help 
safeguard your genes into the next generation. Admittedly, to an outsider 
it can look the same as sizing-up a potential enemy, but it is different. A 
Cardassian doesn't gain another's submission by beating them into it, but by being 
someone worthy of being submitted to. It's an important distinction."

"It must just be too subtle a distinction for me to perceive."

"Your experience is only of the Cardassian military, which evolved from
specific cast of a specific culture on Cardassia; their attitudes are not those 
of the rest of Cardassian society. We have clearly demarcated erogenous zones all 
over our bodies; not all our sexualities are so . . . how shall I put it? . . .
_phallocentric_."

"That may well be true, but I can only go on what I have experience of."

"Military training is brutal, desensitising. The men just drafted in for a
few years' service consider themselves lucky to get out afterwards with their bodies
and souls intact. Those from military families, in for life, grow up in that
environment. It teaches you to reject any form of weakness, until even accepting 
someone as your equal feels like an admission of weakness. Military families tend to 
marry their daughters off young, into other military families; but some officers still
preferred a Bajoran, who's unequal physically and socially, to their wives, who might
still have a will of their own."

"So you'd prefer someone with a will of their own?"

"Oh yes."

"Really?"

"I'm telling you the truth. I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"What you were, before, in the Obsidian Order, what you still are now,
should I be afraid?"

"You know what I've been; spy, torturer, assassin, but I'd never
deliberately hurt you."

"You tried to blow up the Founder's home world while I was still on it."

"That was hardly personal."

Bashir laughed and shook his head. "There's not really anything I can say to
that is there?"

Garak just smiled.

"Ok," said Bashir, being serious again, "I suppose I should have been more
specific. What I really need to know is . . . have you ever raped anyone. Everything
else you can justify to me one way or another, but not that."

There was a long pause before Garak answered. "I've has sex with people who
weren't in a position to freely give their consent, and I've used it as a
psychological weapon, to manipulate people, but I've never attacked anyone, never 
used sex to physically hurt someone."

Garak remembered one particular case, a teenaged boy with a terrorist older
sister, and on the fringes of the resistance movement himself. He had been similar
in build and colouring to Bashir, which was why he was the first to come to mind. He
wasn't suspected of knowing anything useful, and was being held more in an attempt
to draw out his sister. It had been so easy for Garak, posing as a sympathetic
guard, to win his trust, pretending to smuggle extra food to him, clean blankets, 
fabricated news from outside; even sitting with him and comforting him when he cried. 
After less than two weeks the boy had trusted him completely, had even fallen in 
love with him, in that helpless, compulsive way of adolescents across the galaxy. 
He had let Garak take him, and had been willing and eager; it had made it so much 
easier, and more satisfying, to break him in the interrogation chamber the next day. 
He could still remember the look of complete shock and betrayal on his face when he 
had realised who Garak really was. Joran, ever present as observer and critic, saw 
all this and gave his enthusiastic approval, and Garak knew there were many secrets 
he would always have to keep.

"Well," said Bashir, angrily, "two completely honest statements within half
an hour, what next, a plague of locusts?"

"The truth is seldom pretty, Doctor."

"I suppose it was all considered nothing more than a perk of the job?"

"Yes, nothing more than that."

"Shit."

"If it's any consolation there were others who behaved far worse than me."

"No, that's no consolation at all."

"I didn't really think it would be. What you perhaps don't quite appreciate
is that there was nothing wrong, within the Order, with anything we were doing, we
were working for the good of Cardassia, and whatever that took was not just
acceptable or necessary, it was good and righteous."

"Just following orders, huh?"

"I'm not the same person I was then, even before receiving Dax, I wasn't the
same. I hope you can accept that as honest, since you believe I've been honest
already."

"I don't know what to think anymore."

"Then trust your instincts."

They sat watching each other for a while, then Bashir leant forward, grabbed
Garak by the collar, pulled him forward and kissed him on the mouth.

Garak pulled back, shocked, and looked around nervously to see if there was
anyone reacting badly, but nobody seemed to be taking any notice.

Bashir laughed and stood up. "Come on then," he said, "before I start
thinking again."

Garak jumped up, knocking his chair over in his haste, which made Bashir
laugh again.

They left the promenade and walked along the habitat ring until they were
outside Bashir's quarters.

They kissed again, pressed up against one of the corridor supports, half
wedged underneath it. Bashir clawed at Garak's back as if searching for finger
holds in a rock face and Garak held him so tightly in return he almost lifted 
him off his feet.

But then Joran was there. Garak pulled back so suddenly Bashir almost fell
over.

"What, what is it?" Bashir asked frantically.

"I can't do this," said Garak, backing away.

"You bastard, you total fucking bastard."

"No, no, it's not like that, I'm not trying to --"

"Then why don't you tell me what the hell you are trying to do?" said
Bashir.

"It's Joran," said Garak.

"Joran?" repeated Bashir with confusion, "what has he got to do with this?"

"He's not quite as contained as the others, in fact he's very much
independent of them."

"So you haven't been honest with me at all."

"With all due respect, Doctor, you're not the one with a serial killer in
your head commenting on your every intimate action, this isn't wholly about you."

"Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"What could you have done, what can you do now?"

"We could go to Trill, let the Guardians help you the way they helped
Jadzia."

"Eventually, they would have let her die if you and Sisko hadn't intervened.
Do you think they're going to have any sympathy for me?"

"I'll make sure they help you, they have too much to lose if they upset me.
You're not a threat to their order, your survival doesn't challenge their status quo."

"I'd lose myself in the process."

Bashir gave a defeated sigh and leaned against the wall with his arms
crossed. "You have access to all the previous hosts' memories, you can look at 
those and see that they didn't consider themselves lost, they became part of 
something bigger than themselves."

"That's not something I ever agreed to, _remember_?"

"Yes, I remember, and there's no way for me to undo that mistake. Like it or
not, it's down to you now, you can move on, or live the rest of your life with Joran
looking over your shoulder."

"It's easy for you to hand out ultimatums like that, you don't have to live
with the consequences."

"Oh yes I do, and not only as your doctor. If things were running according
to my plans right now, we'd both be in my quarters, and we wouldn't be arguing."

Garak couldn't think of anything to say. Seeing this, Bashir said:

"Think about it and talk to me tomorrow. Goodnight."

He disappeared into his quarters without waiting for a reply from Garak.

~

The next day Garak was there in Bashir's office, waiting for him, before the
morning shift had even started.

"I've decided," he said. "I can't go on like this. Take me to Trill,
please."

By that afternoon they were on a runabout on their way to Trill.

~

Garak was checked into the Symbiosis Commission's hospital with relatively
little fuss, but it seemed that every doctor, intern, nurse and porter wanted the
chance to take a look at him, and if at all possible to poke him in the side and 
watch the symbiont squirm, which Garak only tolerated for a little while before he
started hissing at anyone who came near him.

Eventually, once everything had calmed down, he was given a set of white
robes to put on and taken down into the caves of Mak'ala, where he was met by one of
the Guardians.

"My name is Altwan," said the Guardian.

"Garak," said Garak.

The Guardian circled Garak several times, then placed his hand on the side
of his head. Garak had been told to expect this, so didn't try to pull away. He was
also prepared for it when Altwan slipped his other hand into Garak's robes to
place it over the symbiont, but he still had to grind his teeth to resist the urge 
to push him away.

He soon forgot about these physical intrusions when he became aware of the
beginnings of a telepathic probe. It took a major force of will on his part
to allow it in.

Altwan stepped away from him and said: "You have a closed mind, you are
afraid of losing your individuality to the symbiont."

"Well done," said Garak, "Now how about telling me something you didn't work
out from talking to Dr. Bashir."

Altwan sighed and resumed circling Garak. "If you ever want to find peace
within yourself you must allow yourself to be subsumed in the Dax entity. Otherwise
those forces inside you will eventually tear you apart."

"Easier said then done."

"You have to stop hiding, behind words, behind the former versions of
yourself."

Garak was beginning to get uncomfortable. "Can we just get on with it
please?"

"You know what to do; you've seen it done before," he gesture towards the
main pool.

Garak stepped down into the water. It was cold; he felt his ridges flatten
as his blood supply retreated inwards in an attempt to conserve his body heat.

He waded out into the deeper middle of the pool, until the water came up
past the bottom of his ribcage.

He experienced the strangest sensation in his side as the unjoined symbionts
approached him.

~

Bashir had done his best to protect Garak from the attentions of the Trill
doctors, but it was inevitable that his presence would generate a huge amount of
interest. Garak had wanted to go down into the caves alone, despite Bashir's 
offer to accompany him, so he was then left with nothing to do. No one could give 
him an estimate of how long Garak might be, so to kill time, and avoid having to 
repeat himself to any more Trill doctors, he decided to leave the hospital and 
wander around the city.

He used his communicator to check in on a regular basis, but there was never
any news. He had a room booked in a hotel near the hospital, and when there was
no news by late that evening he decided he might as well go to bed.

~

The next morning the first thing Bashir did was contact the hospital again.
He was told that Garak had left the caves earlier that morning, and that he wasn't
in the hospital, or anywhere in the Symbiosis Commission's buildings.

It wasn't too difficult to find him; a Cardassian couldn't go anywhere
unnoticed on Trill. They had been obliged to inform planetary and local security 
forces when they arrived, and Garak had been monitored as soon as he stepped outside 
the hospital.

The city was next to the sea, and Garak was located on one of its many
beaches. Policemen were surreptitiously keeping the public away, but seeing Bashir's
uniform they let him through with out any questions.

Bashir found him up past the high-tide line, among the sand dunes where
there was some shelter from the wind. There were the remains of a burnt out fire a
short distance away from where Garak sat.

He was wearing a long heavy coat that couldn't be his because it didn't do
up properly at the top around his wide neck.

"Hello," said Bashir, not knowing what else to say, especially as he
couldn't yet be sure exactly who he was talking to.

"Hey," said Garak.

Bashir sat down next to him, hugging his knees up to his chest against the
cool morning breeze. "So how did it go, if you don't mind my asking?"

"No, I don't mind," he replied, smiling slightly.

Bashir thought it wasn't Garak's smile, but he had seen it before. It was
Jadzia's, he was sure of it.

"I take it it all worked then?"

"Yep,"

"You seem a little under whelmed."

"It's been a long night," said Garak.

"So what's it like?"

"Very strange, I don't know my own body anymore, eight ninths of me still
thinks I'm a Trill; my spine flexes in new directions, and my hip-joints 
are all wrong -- I couldn't kick above knee level to save my life, and my 
centre of gravity's moved from here," he tapped his abdomen, "to here," 
he thumped himself on the breast-bone, "I could barely walk to begin with, 
I'd have lost those idiots hours ago otherwise."

"I was wondering about that," said Bashir.

Garak smiled again, and this time Bashir didn't recognise it at all. "I've
also got these cravings, from Tobin, for a cigarette, but they've been illegal 
for the past three hundred years, I don't know what to do with my hands."

"Why did you come here?"

"A bit of privacy, can you imagine trying to sit in a cafe or something? It
was bad enough in the hospital. And do you know what the sea's are like on
Cardassia?"

Bashir, taking it for a rhetorical question, took a few moments to reply:
"No, what are they like?"

"Dead, full of pollution, it's not safe to go on the beaches, let alone in
the water."

"You haven't tried swimming here have you?" asked Bashir, somewhat alarmed.

"No, no, it's far too cold, I'd seize up in minutes."

"So you've just been sitting here, watching the sea."

"Yes, and thinking, lots of thinking; it's all there, and all together,
totally integrated."

"So Joran isn't a problem anymore?"

"Joran is probably the least of my problems at the moment."

"What do you mean?" asked Bashir.

"I mean Garak, I mean Elim Garak, before he, before _I_ was joined."

"I don't understand."

"You know who I am, what I was. Now it's like I'm seeing it all clearly for
the first time. By Trill standards I was a terrible person, to a certain extent by
Cardassian standards too, and I've lost all the self-justifications I used to be able
to use."

"I'm happy to listen, but I'm not the best person to help you with this,"
said Bashir.

"I know, at the Symbiosis Commission they have integration counsellors and
group discussion therapies where all the newly joined Trill sit around and say how
weird it all is. Can you imagine me joining in? It would be ridiculous."

"No it wouldn't, you know it works, it worked eight times before."

"They're all idiots, Joran ran rings around them."

"It sounds to me like you don't want to try."

Garak huffed dismissively.

"Have you had anything to eat yet today?" asked Bashir, changing tracks,
"are you hungry?"

"No, I've eaten. There are lots of rock pools around here, Audrid grew up in
these suburbs, I know what's edible."

"For a Trill maybe, are you sure that was a good idea?"

"Please Julian, anything a Trill can eat isn't going to do me any harm. I
don't have to search for the memory of being told you can eat this, you can't 
eat that, this has to be boiled for five hours first, with these you need 
to be careful removing the stingers, I just know, it's so much easier."

"You just called me Julian, did you realise? You've never done that before."

"Course I have," said Garak, then he frowned, "no, I haven't, have I. Do you
mind?"

"No, of course I don't mind!"

"It doesn't remind you too much of Jadzia?"

"You do remind me of her, but it's alright."

Garak laughed then said: "There are hardly any similarities when it comes to
our appearance."

"No, blue-eyed humanoid is a bit vague. But it was never just about her
appearance."

"Oh no?"

"Everyone seems to think I'm so shallow."

"You were in a relationship with Leeta, remember?"

"That's not fair on Leeta, she had a brilliant personality too."

"Really, I never noticed, and this is Jadzia and me speaking here."

"Leeta managed to get through the Occupation with her self-respect and her
sense of humour intact, which is more than can be said for most."

"Humph," said Garak.

"Is that a hint of jealousy I hear?" asked Bashir, glad Garak seemed more
cheerful now, "was Jadzia ever jealous?"

"No, but I was jealous, you preferring that bimbo's company to mine."

"My God, that's honest!"

Garak tried to shrug, but ended up only being able to roll his shoulders in
an approximation of the gesture. "It would be pointless to start lying again
now about how I feel, especially as you know already."

"I didn't always know."

"Really? Jadzia had me pegged from the start."

Bashir laughed, and sat back against the sand dune, stretching out his legs.
The sun was higher in the sky and with his black uniform on he was warming up
rapidly.

"I've just thought of something," said Bashir, "What do we call you now?"

"Garak has always sufficed."

"Not Elim Dax?"

"No, not Elim Dax."

"Elim Dax-Garak, Elim Garak-Dax, Dax Garak, Garak Dax?"

"No no no and no, 'plain and simple' Garak will do. Can you imagine how
ridiculous it would be, trying to get everyone to call me Dax? Benjamin wouldn't be
happy, or Worf."

Garak shivered suddenly, as delicate as a cat.

"What is it?" asked Bashir, sitting up suddenly in alarm.

"I have all of Jadzia's memories, including her having sex with Worf," he
shivered again, "Now that's something I never wanted to see, him grinding away on top
of me. I managed to avoid it before, but it keeps coming back to haunt me now."

Bashir couldn't help laughing.

"Well I'm glad somebody's getting some enjoyment out of this."

"Sorry."

"I'll be able to keep it under control soon, I still have all that
Cardassian education to fall back on."

They sat for a while, neither speaking, both just watching the waves move up
and down the beach."

Bashir was the first to break the silence: "So what are we going to do about
us?"

"Us?" asked Garak.

"Don't you remember, the conversation we had the evening before we left for
Trill?"

"Yes, I remember. I can't help feeling that you were, and still are, using
me to try and hold on to Jadzia."

"That's not true."

"Oh no? You never showed any hint of interest in me, beyond the
intellectual, before I was carrying Dax."

"It was difficult to trust you in the beginning, but recently, since you've
been helping us against the Dominion, against your own people even, and when you 
agreed to take the symbiont, I realised that maybe I could trust you."

"Trust and attraction are not the same thing. I think you're still trying to
get a hold of Jadzia; you said so yourself, that it was never just about her 
appearance."

"You're not the only one who gets to change you know, and it's not like I've
done nothing over the past six years but chase after Jadzia. Why can't you just
trust me?"

Garak sighed. "Old habits die hard I suppose." He smiled, "maybe it's just a
little too good to be true."

"For goodness sake!" said Bashir, grabbing Garak's hand and squeezing it
hard. "We're going round in circles here, why don't we just admit that we want
each other, and that doing something about it will not bring about the end of the
universe, and that it might actually make both of us very happy, if we both 
just get over ourselves enough to let it happen."

Garak laughed, "I think you're right."

~

Bashir's hotel was a small, family run affair, infinitely preferable to the
automated hive of a place next to the spaceport where they had left the runabout. They
stopped to have lunch in the ground floor's small restaurant, more seafood, since it
was real, and the kind of luxury it was almost impossible to get hold of on DS9.

They received quite a few stares from their fellow diners; Garak was hard to
ignore, given the current state of affairs in the Federation. But they didn't let
that bother them.

Bashir was hungry, and ended up eating most of Garak's meal as well, since
Garak still couldn't eat much at any one time. Afterwards they went upstairs to
Bashir's room.

"We might have a bit of a problem," said Garak, sitting on the edge of the
bed and bouncing a little to test the mattress, "as I said before, I'm an
eight-ninths Trill personality inside a Cardassian body; I suddenly have all 
these strips of erogenous tissue all over my body and I'm not quite sure what 
to do with them."

"I'm sure we could work something out," said Bashir, smiling.

Garak smiled back at him. "Yes, and if not I've got eight life times worth
of tricks to try out on you, humans are practically the same as Trills in that 
respect. Dax has experienced each side of every pairing available," he paused, 
cocked his head to one side for a moment. "And not just pairs either! But that 
was over a century ago, things are a bit more conservative these days."

"Was that Emony?"

"No, Audrid, in her wilder days."

~

They started out full of enthusiasm, but both seemed to lose their nerve
once they had stripped each other down to their underwear.

They took it slower from there, finding out exactly how each other's bodies
worked and, in Garak's case, rediscovering how his own body worked. His ridges and
scales became the roads and contour lines of a map that Bashir drew for him with
his hands and mouth.

Even once they were both fully conversant with each other, neither had the
confidence to suggest penetration; but they had found plenty of other paths to 
take, so they redid everything, several times, until they were both exhausted.

~

It was early evening and the breeze coming in through the open window was
beginning to make Garak feel cold. Bashir was dozing, and Garak was forced
to wake him up to get the covers out from under him.

Once he was comfortably covered he rested his head back down on Bashir's
chest. Bashir ran his fingers through Garak's hair, rubbing his scalp in small
circles.

"Did the doctors at the Symbiosis Commission say whether or not they wanted
to see you again?" asked Bashir

"No, but I didn't really give them a chance. I should go back, at the very
least to return that coat."

"Garak!"

"It was the middle of the night, I'd have frozen otherwise; it's the middle
of summer to these people, nobody was going to suffer too much without it."

"Still . . ."

"Don't be so prissy. Would you rather I caught pneumonia?"

"You wouldn't have caught pneumonia. I need to know whether or not you're
completely alright before we can go back to DS9."

"Well I'm in no rush, the food here is fantastic."

"Tell me something Garak, from which host did you get the trait of using
humour to distract from any attempt at a serious conversation?"

"That's just me, isn't it?" said Garak.

"You tell me, after all, if everything's ok you should be able to tell."

"Ok, I'm still a little lost, but things are already better than they were
this morning."

"There are exercises for newly joined Trills, to help them avoid becoming
overwhelmed by the symbiont's personality."

Garak sighed and sat up. "Go on."

Bashir sat up as well to face him. "You find your earliest significant
memory, then the next, and so on in chronological order until the moment before 
you were joined. You tell them to someone, or write them down, that way you 
get who you are properly set in your mind, so it doesn't get lost in with the rest."

"I'm considerably older than a Trill initiate; I've have more than a life
times worth of 'significant memories', most of which I am now happy to forget."

"I'm only trying to help."

"I know," said Garak, and leaned forward to kiss Bashir on the forehead.
"But I think this may be another case where you would be better off not knowing."

"You don't have to tell me, there are councillors at the Symbiosis
Commission."

"I can't think of anything more tedious than talking to a councillor,
besides, a Cardassian doesn't tell their secrets to a stranger."

"What about your childhood? Surely that wasn't too bad, Cardassians still
get to have a childhood, don't they?"

"Ordinarily, if they have a family, and aren't growing up in abject poverty,
yes."

"You had a family then, apart from Tain I mean?"

"Yes, of sorts, and we weren't poor either."

"Look, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

"No, I want to tell you something. Here it is, my first significant memory.
I'm three years old and it's the first time I ever saw a non-Cardassian. I have no
idea what he was, human or Bajoran, I didn't know what either of those words meant then,
although I'd heard them spoken before. It's only with hindsight that I can
call him male, I don't remember enough to say whether he had nose-ridges or not. I
was terrified; I screamed so much I almost suffocated. The thing that terrified
me so much was that he was pink, very pink, like raw meat. He was bloody too, had
probably just been beaten by the guards, and compared with what I was used to 
seeing, he had no facial features whatsoever. It made me think he was a Cardassian 
skinned alive. There are fairy tales from the region I grew up in, about witches, 
necromancers who possess people by skinning them, and use their skin to bind them, 
to make them obey their orders. It was Tain's first real test of me and I failed 
completely."

"Oh Garak," said Bashir, embracing him.

Garak wasn't upset, exactly, but he allowed himself to be held. If he felt
anything it was anger at what Tain had put his childhood self through. Before he had
never allowed it to bother him, he had seen it as a useful experience, one that
allowed him in adulthood to function effectively as an agent, but now things were
different.

"I didn't want you to feel sorry for me," said Garak, reluctantly pulling
back from the warmth of Bashir's arms.

"Surely some empathy's ok?"

"Yes, but I'm not upset."

"In that case, after hearing that, can I just say you had some nerve
complaining about 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf.'"

Neither of them could quite manage to laugh at that. They sat leaning into
each other, resting their foreheads together, Bashir caressing the back of 
Garak's neck.

It was eventually Bashir who spoke: "It's too late to get anything done
today, why don't we just get some sleep?"

~

The next morning they walked into the hospital together. Garak hung the coat
he had borrowed up on a peg as casually as if he did the same thing every morning.

They were seen quickly by a doctor, who gave Garak the all clear. They were
on their way out when they were met by an official from the Symbiosis Commission.

"Dr. Bashir, Mr. . . ."

"Garak, just Garak, I'm not changing it to Dax."

"Mr. Garak, we were wondering when you were planning on leaving Trill?"

"Right now," said Garak.

"Would you be willing to stay a little longer? Jadzia's family is here; they
never got the chance to say goodbye to her before she died. It's considered a useful
stage for a newly joined individual, especially if the previous host died suddenly, to
say goodbye to their old family. It makes it a lot easier to move on."

Garak looked over at Bashir, "What do you think?" he asked.

"It's not up to me to decide," said Bashir.

Garak frowned, he wasn't sure how he would cope with that, Jadzia had been
close to her family, especially before she was joined, and he felt it too now. 
If he actually saw them in the flesh he wasn't sure he would be able to leave them.

"I don't know," he said, beginning to feel distressed as much by the idea of
not seeing them as by the idea of actually seeing them.

"You don't have to decide straight away," said the official, "My name's
Councillor Soynma, you can contact me through the Symbiosis Commission's 
communication centre once you've decided, but please let me know either way, so 
I don't keep them here unnecessarily."

"All right," said Garak, then paused before adding, "who's here, exactly?"

"Jadzia's parents and sister, and her maternal grandmother."

"Thank you," said Garak, "I'll let you know as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Mr. Garak" said Soynma, before turning and heading back in the
direction she had come from.

"What am I going to do?" said Garak.

"If you don't want to see them I'm sure they'll understand," said Bashir.

"But I do want to see them, that's the problem," said Garak, "how can I let
them see me like _this_," he gestured towards himself contemptuously.

"It must have been explained to them what has happened."

"You don't understand, I really love them, or Jadzia did, so I feel like I
do now, and I'm going to have to see their reactions when they first see me, 
and their gut reaction is going to be horror. I don't think I can cope with that."

"I'm sorry Garak," said Bashir, "I didn't realise how much this would mean
to you. I'm sure we could work something out, with Soynma, so that they got to see
you first without you seeing them, perhaps. If you want to do it we can make it work."

"All right," said Garak.

~

Bashir sat with Soynma and watched Garak and Jadzia's family via the monitor
that allowed them to see into the encounter room. It had been in this observation
room that Jadzia's family had been given the chance to see Garak before they met him
in the flesh.

They had been shocked. They were rather conventional people, none of them
had been off-planet before and Bashir was the first alien they had ever met in
person. It seemed to Bashir that Jadzia must have been something of an outsider 
in her family, in wanting to be joined, and wanting to leave Trill and join 
Starfleet. He was also glad that Garak had not seen their reactions; he was 
wound up enough at the prospect of seeing them as it was.

He needn't have worried though, Jadzia's family, once over the initial
shock, had been warm and accepting. He had seen, over the monitor, them all embracing,
and Jadzia's sister had started crying, then her mother, then Garak himself,
which had been a shock for Bashir; he was glad he wasn't there in the room with them,
which might have caused Garak to mitigate his behaviour. They were sitting now,
talking, they had been talking for over an hour.

"Do you think it's going well?" Bashir asked Soynma. There wasn't any sound
to go with the image.

"It looks like it," she replied.

Bashir couldn't help wondering at the sudden change in Garak's behaviour.
After joining Joran hadn't stopped being a violent, dangerous individual, and
Verad Dax had never show any remorse for Jadzia's imminent demise after stealing 
the symbiont. As far as he was able to determine, joining caused more of an
augmentation of character than a complete shift; but maybe Garak was simply using 
this as an opportunity to change, to be who he couldn't have been before. It didn't
matter that much; he had trusted him enough to sleep with him, so he could trust him
now.

~

They didn't talk much on the way to the spaceport; it was too crowded and
noisy on the public transportation for them to have a decent conversation. Once they
had taken the runabout out of orbit and set the autopilot to take them back to DS9
they finally had a chance to talk.

"How do you feel?" asked Bashir.

"A little sad, I'm never going to see them again, but I know that's the
right thing to do, I can't hold on to them, it would drive all of us mad."

"You have to move forward."

"Exactly."

"Do you think we're going to be ok?"

"If we're not killed by the Dominion, or anyone else, then yes, I think we
will."

~end~