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The sound of the door chime startled him, and something dropped to the floor as he realised that his mind had drifted off again. It was now 12:38, which meant that he'd been out of it for some twenty-seven minutes - not the longest stretch by any means, but long enough. He looked down at the duster that had landed on his foot; apparently, he'd been cleaning? A glance around the quarters confirmed it: everything looked just that little bit neater, the books on the shelf were in a different order, and the sofa no longer bore the evidence that he had been sleeping on that instead of the bed.
Julian shivered. He had meant to tidy up, rearrange some things - but the purpose had been to make the quarters feel decidedly his again, and this... this didn't.
The door chimed again, and he hurried to shout 'Enter', knowing how easy it had been to concern his friends these past few days.
For some reason, it had not crossed his mind that it might be Garak to come through the door, armed with his usual pleasant smile. Maybe Julian had got too used to all the worried looks his other friends had been shooting him, but he wasn't sure whether to be relieved or apprehensive about the Cardassian's appearance. Everyone else had been understanding, at least, about the weird ways his trauma had been making itself known since he had got back – even if he had been embarrassed to have them see him like that, surely reinforcing how inferior the real Julian Bashir was to the pretend one. But Garak, well... who knew how he'd react?
"I see you weren't expecting me, Doctor," Garak said.
"Not exactly," responded Julian. "What are you doing here in—"
He hesitated, voice stuttering to a halt over the word "my quarters". It still didn't feel right. "What are you doing here?" he finished weakly instead.
"Well, I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about our scheduled discussion," said Garak. "Although, of course, if you have other things to do…"
"No," broke in Julian, some part of him reaching out keenly for this time with Garak, no matter his anxieties. "No, I'm not doing anything. Please stay, Garak."
The Cardassian raised his eyebrows. "Stay, Doctor? But the replimat—"
Julian shook his head, looking away. "Unless it makes you uncomfortable..." he said, remembering too late that having conversation with Garak also meant eating lunch with Garak, and realising that he might trip over that very first hurdle. "I'm not, um— Food still isn't..."
He cringed at his own incoherence; he wasn't exactly making a convincing impression of a good lunch companion.
"I'm still adjusting to eating regular meals, and so the replicator here has been programmed to better accommodate my current needs."
And now he was sounding like a medical robot. Great job, Julian.
"I understand," said Garak. "Your recovery will be swift, I hope? But for now, there's little I would enjoy more than to accept your invitation. Where should I sit?"
"Oh, anywhere," replied Julian, gesturing at the sofas, grateful now for his unconscious burst of housekeeping. "Would you like something to drink?" he asked, just as much to put off answering Garak's first question as out of habitual politeness.
Garak replied that some rokassa juice would suit him well, thank you very much, and so Julian busied himself at the replicator, taking as much time as was believable over the task. He was rather out-of-practise at figuring out Elim Garak.
The trouble wasn't that Garak never meant what he said; most people didn't. But from most people, Julian would have assumed a question about his health was a simple pleasantry, and would have told them what they wanted to hear: yes, he was recovering well, and hoped to be totally back on his feet soon. With Garak, you had to listen out for what he didn't say, to know his meaning.
Your recovery will be swift, I hope? It was barely even a question. And that meant Garak could be asking it simply because it was the normal thing to do (and maybe Julian really shouldn’t be obsessing so much over it). On the other hand, however, he could be showing great concern towards Julian, but because this was Garak, masking that he felt anything at all behind the banality. Or maybe he was even trying to indicate that he had just as little patience for sharing discussion without having lunch as he did for having lunch without any discussion, and he was only staying because he felt obliged to. Julian had noticed how Garak had said that there was “little” more he would enjoy, implying that there were other things he’d rather be doing...
Damn it all. Usually, Julian enjoyed running all the possibilities through his mind, relishing in the challenge of trying to give Garak the answer he wanted, but right now it already felt like there was too much in his brain, and Garak had barely even entered the room! Julian was certain that his mind had been quicker than this a month ago, that there hadn’t been this constant fog which he now had to wade through to get to the end of any thought, that his anxiety had been neither this loud, nor this overwhelming.
The glass was in his hands, and he was handing it over to Garak; his feet had carried him back to the sofas without waiting for him to direct them. Julian sat down, mildly disturbed. The dissociation was nothing new, it had been following him since solitary – hence his earlier acceptance of the newly-clean room, rather than outright panic – but usually it had confined itself to times when he had been alone. He hoped this was just a blip, and not a development that was going to stay.
“How have you been?” he asked. His fingers had started to tap against his leg, and he pulled his hands sharply together, clasping them tightly. Maybe he ought to have made himself a drink, too, just to give his hands something to hold.
“I am better, certainly, than the last time we talked,” Garak replied. “And you?”
Following Garak’s lead, Julian gave an equally non-committal reply. “I’ve been worse,” he shrugged.
“You’re still experiencing… difficulties, though?”
“Is it so obvious?” Julian chuckled, wincing and praying that it really was just the obvious that Garak had spotted.
“Well for one thing,” Garak started, “—and do forgive me for pointing this out, I feel a little rude… but I do not believe that this is Rokassa juice.”
“I—”
For a few seconds, Julian felt as though his brain had come to a complete halt. He sat there, staring at Garak stupidly, before leaning across the coffee table to reach out for Garak’s glass. Now he was thinking about it, he realised that Rokassa juice usually came in a mug.
And this, unmistakably, was tea. Tarkalean, not Cardassian.
“Heh, must have been on autopilot,” he said, trying to laugh it off. “I’m terribly sorry, Garak – let me get you another—”
“Allow me, my dear,” interrupted Garak, smoothly rising from the sofa and leaving Julian to wonder how on Earth he’d failed to notice the mix-up himself. He supposed that he really must be more behind on sleep than he’d thought.
The fact that Garak had seemed to return almost instantly added to that theory. Julian hadn’t even heard the beep of the replicator, and startled when Garak suddenly appeared by the sofas once more, mug in hand.
“Don’t worry, I’m just tired,” he said, in answer to Garak’s quizzical look. “I haven’t been sleeping much lately.”
He hadn’t meant for that to slip out, and hoped that his earlier supposition was true: that Garak was just being polite, and wasn’t really checking up on him. Julian didn’t need yet another friend inquiring about his nightmares.
He had no such luck, of course. Garak almost seemed to pounce on this opening.
“It is my understanding that humans recover best only when they are getting sufficient rest,” he said. “Indeed, I seem to remember several occasions upon which you, my dear, lamented your patients’ inability to follow the simple instruction of “Get some sleep”.”
Julian groaned, leaning back into the sofa, twisting the glass of rapidly-cooling tea in his hands. “It’s not that simple.”
“Do you expect it to be?”
The question brought Julian up short, grating in its sharp lack of sympathy.
“I—Not really, I suppose? Not after what we went through.”
The ‘we’ slipped out without thought, an unwitting lie despite its truth. But it was easier, somehow, to claim the shared ghastliness of the final few days. ‘I’ sounded dreadfully lonely.
An unfamiliar expression stole across Garak’s face, and Julian wished he could tell what the Cardassian was thinking. Whatever it was, it seemed that Garak had lost control of the conversation too, the both of them reaching out for something to say, and returning with nothing – nothing they could admit to, anyway.
“Did you read any books while I was away?” he asked, before he had to contend with any awkward silence.
“None that were worth discussing,” Garak replied dismissively, leaving Julian wracking his brains for what he’d recommended that was so objectionable – before the unpleasant realisation swept over him that anything Garak had read, he would have discussed with the changeling. His stomach curdled, and he took a quick mouthful of his tea to try and swallow down the bile rising in the back of his throat.
“Can I—Do you—?" He was just saying words now, hoping that he’d stumble upon a suitable question and coming up laughably blank.
His stomach came to the rescue, interrupting his stilted thoughts with a growl. A rather loud growl, in fact, which had him wondering if he’d actually eaten breakfast that morning.
“I should eat,” he said, standing up and trying for a smile. “Thank you, Garak – this has been… nice—”
A frown drifted across Garak's face. “Are you we not sharing lunch, Doctor?”, he asked, his eyes flicking to the clock. Julian followed his gaze, and was startled to realise less than ten minutes had passed since Garak had entered. Oh.
But eating was difficult enough without the shadow of the changeling’s lunches looming fresh in Julian’s mind. “I can’t,” he replied. “I’m sorry, Garak, it’s just, I can’t—.” He broke off.
I can’t eat with you.
Why would Garak even want to stay for longer anyway? Surely he could see that there was no scintillating conversation to be found in these quarters today?
Unless Julian had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even realised what Garak had really come looking for.
“Garak…” he started hesitantly. “About Tain—”
“I’ll leave you to your lunch, Doctor,” Garak interrupted, speaking over Julian as though he hadn’t said a word. “I hope you have a pleasant meal.”
The Cardassian stood up, first putting his mug away in the replicator, and then crossing the room to the door. For once, Julian could see straight through him, the way that Garak was trying to disguise the fact that he was all but bolting from the room.
“At least I know I’m not okay!” he found himself shouting over the sound of the door’s opening swish.
Garak turned to look at him. “Is that a fact?” he asked – and then he was gone.
Julian sat down, aching in a way he could not name. His stomach hurt, and the quarters were not his, and he was once more alone.