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Third Thing which never happened to G&B, and vid recs
Note to self: must finally order works of Carl Sandburg since his poetry is now forever G'Kar related, thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sabine101.
andrastewhite and sockkpuppett have been creating beautiful vids, X-Men and AtS respectively. Hurry over to their respective ljs and download them. Luminosity's Wesley portrait, concentrating on how the mindwipe (and later the returning memories and his relationship with Illyria) affected him is absolutely heartbreaking. Andraste manages to do justice to the entire X ensemble, and it makes me even more longing for her first B5 vid.
(At one point, I'll have to post something about ensemble stories and the very varied fannish reaction to same. It's been fascinating to observe Andraste,barkley and other ljers watch B5 in recent months. Barkley mostsly went for the John/Delenn, Andraste for the Londo/G'Kar; swmbo sees it Garibaldi-centric, and I remember reading an entry of vonnielake, years ago, after she had just watched Endgame and was crushed because to her, the chief attraction had been Marcus.)
Now, on to the other space station. Today's AU takes its turn from canon near the end of Sacrifice of Angels.
The whole thing started when Ziyal returned from Dukat's funeral. Bashir, concerned about the girl ever since they had found her with her dead father in her arms, waited at the docking bay. In his opinion, she shouldn't have been allowed to leave the station so quickly afterwards on a journey that took several days and was bound to be upsetting.
But Kai Winn and Shakaar had both refused permission for Dukat to be buried on Bajor, and Bashir suspected Kira hadn't fought them too hard on that matter. In return, Ziyal had refused to even consider letting her father's body be sent to Cardassia. In the end had decided he should be buried next to her mother on the planet where he and Kira and found Ziyal.
That Garak had gone with Ziyal had been somewhat surprising, given well-known enmity between him and Dukat, but then Garak and Ziyal had become friends, and besides, the only other person joining Ziyal on that trip had been Major Kira, hardly a friend of the Gul's, either. In fact, between the three of them, Garak was the only one who actually knew how Cardassians buried their dead. Yes, it did make sense, and yet Bashir would have felt better if the traumatized young girl hadn't been allowed out of the sight of a physician or a counsellor for so long.
When the runabout had docked, Kira was the first to emerge, looking distinctly unhappy, with tightly pressed lips. Then came Ziyal and Garak, and Bashir froze.
They were holding hands.
Of course, it was nothing new that Ziyal had developed something on a crush on Garak. But that had not been mutual. Bashir had always assumed Garak was letting Ziyal down gently, and in a way that ensured he still had some friendly company. Encouraging her with these kind of gestures was hardly kind, though presumably Garak meant well.
A few days later, Kira informed everyone at Ops grimly, with an expression that made it clear she didn't want to talk about it, that Garak and Ziyal were now engaged.
"That's crazy," Bashir told O'Brien when they were restaging the Alamo.
"You bet it is," O'Brien returned. "Who in their right mind would want to marry that Cardassian bastard?"
O'Brien still hadn't forgotten the Empok Nor incident, no matter how often Bashir told him Garak had not been in his right mind on that occasion. Given O'Brien's past with Cardassians, such a reaction was all too understandable.
"Someone ought to talk with the girl," O'Brien continued, looking for another tin soldier, and frowning in his endearing pater familias way. "I can't understand why Kira is letting this happen."
An awkward pause told them that neither of them was exactly good at estimating what went on with Kira these days. In a way, Bashir felt guilty. The war had been hard on all of them, but Kira had been the one actually living with the Cardassians these last months. She had been the one who had to pretend working with Dukat instead of fighting the open war the others could allow themselves. And she had been the one for whom Ziyal had turned against her father, leading to his death at the hands of an enraged Damar who had meant to shoot the Gul's daughter.
Perhaps that was why Kira was letting it happen. Because she felt she owed Ziyal something. Which was understandable, but still not right.
"Well, you could…" Bashir began, and O'Brien immediately interrupted him, holding up a scolding finger.
"Absolutely not, Julian. I hardly know her that well. You're the one who had lunch with her and Garak on a regular basis."
"Coward," Bashir muttered, but resigned himself to his fate.
***
When Ziyal had first come to the station, you could see the awkward teenager struggling with the emerging women. There was nothing child-like left in her now as she politely accepted the raktijino Bashir had ordered for her. Shadows lingered around her eyes, but he could not detect any bloodshot vessels anymore; if she had been crying recently, it didn't show.
"Look," he said into the silence that had followed his explanation on why he had wanted to talk to her, "it's not that I don't think well of Garak, but…"
"Of course you do," Ziyal said in her low, pleasant voice. "But you don't think very highly of me, it seems."
She waited till he had finished protesting, and then continued:
"No, you don't. You think I don't know what I'm doing, because my father died, but that's another subject none of you want to talk about. It was so much easier for you when you could just hate him and blame him for the entire war, wasn't it?"
"Now Ziyal, that's not fair."
"No," she said, anger creeping into her even tone, "and I'm tired of being fair to everyone. I tried to be, I tried so hard, and it still wasn't enough. He's dead. But that's not why I'm marrying Garak. I've known Garak for nearly two years now, Doctor, just as long as Commander Dax has known Commander Worf, but you don't protest against their wedding plans, do you?"
Bashir swallowed his immediate reply, which would have led them into a tangent that had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
"I think," he said carefully, "you could know Garak for a lifetime without ever figuring him out. I certainly haven't been able to."
"Well, you're not marrying him," Ziyal returned, and then bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was uncalled for."
The apology was a needle stabbing at a spot he hadn't noticed was sore. He wouldn't have given the original remark another thought, and why did she assume otherwise? What did she want to imply?
"Oh, it's nothing," he said, more to say anything at all than because he meant it. Obviously, he was wasting his time here. Really, why had he thought she'd listen to him if she didn't listen to Kira, whom she loved?
Love. That was it. That would be his final argument.
"Did he ever tell you he loved you?" Bashir asked, felt embarrassed at sounding absurdly young in front of this young girl, and resented her just the slightest bit for it.
"He never broke a promise to me," said Ziyal, which was no answer at all.
***
"My dear Doctor," Garak said, putting the sizing scanner he used on a shimmering green fabric down, "you amaze me. Commander Dax and Commander Worf are getting married, and it is only a matter of time before our valiant Captain and the lovely Kasidy Yates tie the knot. Rom and your charming former ladyfriend are newlyweds. The Chief inspires us all with his unbreakable devotion to his wife. After all this advertisement for the blessed state of matrimony it is my intention to join it that you object to? How disappointing. I'd hate to conclude all that Federation benevolence does not stop you from being jealaous."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. That Garak would actually say this to him.
"I'm not…" Bashir began heatedly.
"…and you don't have to be," Garak interrupted him, amusement dancing in his eyes and around the corners of his mouth. "I don't think Quark will marry again any time soon, so you won't be the only bachelor left on the station."
For a moment, Bashir felt like he was standing near the edge of a rock, surrounded by a strange, glittering sea. Visiting on the Founder's homeworld had been like this, when he had accompanied Odo to the later's judgement. There was no safe and fixed point anywhere on the horizon, and he wasn't at all sure whether he could swim in such an ocean.
Then he decided to accept the fixed point of yesteryear, and replied, with as easy an air as he could muster:
"Ah, but you don't know about Jadzia's plans to secretly elope with me on the night before the wedding."
"You'll never become a passable spy," Garak said disapprovingly. "Secrets are meant to remain unspoken."
Now that they were on safe bantering ground again, Bashir suddenly thought he couldn't let it rest like that.
"But you used to tell me secrets all the time," he said. "Never mind if they were true or not, you were quite communicative about them. So tell me, Garak - what can you possibly have in common with a young distraught girl like Ziyal?"
Garak took the green, shimmering cloth up and let it glide between his fingers. He had quite remarkable hands, strong and supple, similar to O'Brien's, not thin and breakable like Bashir's own.
"Aside from being exiles, you mean? Aside from bastards of fathers with the unfortunate tendency to confuse their greatness with the greatness of the state? Aside from being cursed to love those parents, to watch them self-destruct and then to watch them die? Why, I can't think of a thing, unless you count a shared sense of aesthetics. Ziyal is quite the gifted artist, do you know that?" he asked, and then added, all notes of irony, teasing or bitterness gone from his voice: "And I find the sensation of being needed quite pleasant. I can't think of another person who needs me the way she does. Can you, Doctor?"
There they were back on the precipe again. Bashir's throat felt dry, and he swallowed. It had been hot on the Founder's planet as well. And he hadn't even known back then that Garak was prepared kill him, along with Sisko, Odo and an entire race of beings who might or might not be the greatest danger the Federation had ever faced.
When Worf, full of indignation, had reported the entire event once the landing party beamed back to the Defiant, Bashir had been shocked but not truly surprised. Because that was the thing about Garak: he had his priorities, and a person could never, ever be that priority, or hope to change his ethics, no matter what he might claim. You could build a friendship on that, but you couldn't possibly build more, and it seemed Ziyal had to be the unlucky person who would find this out the hard way.
"No," Bashir replied, turning away, "I can't think of anyone. Anyone at all."
sabine101.andrastewhite and sockkpuppett have been creating beautiful vids, X-Men and AtS respectively. Hurry over to their respective ljs and download them. Luminosity's Wesley portrait, concentrating on how the mindwipe (and later the returning memories and his relationship with Illyria) affected him is absolutely heartbreaking. Andraste manages to do justice to the entire X ensemble, and it makes me even more longing for her first B5 vid. (At one point, I'll have to post something about ensemble stories and the very varied fannish reaction to same. It's been fascinating to observe Andraste,
barkley and other ljers watch B5 in recent months. Barkley mostsly went for the John/Delenn, Andraste for the Londo/G'Kar; swmbo sees it Garibaldi-centric, and I remember reading an entry of vonnielake, years ago, after she had just watched Endgame and was crushed because to her, the chief attraction had been Marcus.)Now, on to the other space station. Today's AU takes its turn from canon near the end of Sacrifice of Angels.
The whole thing started when Ziyal returned from Dukat's funeral. Bashir, concerned about the girl ever since they had found her with her dead father in her arms, waited at the docking bay. In his opinion, she shouldn't have been allowed to leave the station so quickly afterwards on a journey that took several days and was bound to be upsetting.
But Kai Winn and Shakaar had both refused permission for Dukat to be buried on Bajor, and Bashir suspected Kira hadn't fought them too hard on that matter. In return, Ziyal had refused to even consider letting her father's body be sent to Cardassia. In the end had decided he should be buried next to her mother on the planet where he and Kira and found Ziyal.
That Garak had gone with Ziyal had been somewhat surprising, given well-known enmity between him and Dukat, but then Garak and Ziyal had become friends, and besides, the only other person joining Ziyal on that trip had been Major Kira, hardly a friend of the Gul's, either. In fact, between the three of them, Garak was the only one who actually knew how Cardassians buried their dead. Yes, it did make sense, and yet Bashir would have felt better if the traumatized young girl hadn't been allowed out of the sight of a physician or a counsellor for so long.
When the runabout had docked, Kira was the first to emerge, looking distinctly unhappy, with tightly pressed lips. Then came Ziyal and Garak, and Bashir froze.
They were holding hands.
Of course, it was nothing new that Ziyal had developed something on a crush on Garak. But that had not been mutual. Bashir had always assumed Garak was letting Ziyal down gently, and in a way that ensured he still had some friendly company. Encouraging her with these kind of gestures was hardly kind, though presumably Garak meant well.
A few days later, Kira informed everyone at Ops grimly, with an expression that made it clear she didn't want to talk about it, that Garak and Ziyal were now engaged.
"That's crazy," Bashir told O'Brien when they were restaging the Alamo.
"You bet it is," O'Brien returned. "Who in their right mind would want to marry that Cardassian bastard?"
O'Brien still hadn't forgotten the Empok Nor incident, no matter how often Bashir told him Garak had not been in his right mind on that occasion. Given O'Brien's past with Cardassians, such a reaction was all too understandable.
"Someone ought to talk with the girl," O'Brien continued, looking for another tin soldier, and frowning in his endearing pater familias way. "I can't understand why Kira is letting this happen."
An awkward pause told them that neither of them was exactly good at estimating what went on with Kira these days. In a way, Bashir felt guilty. The war had been hard on all of them, but Kira had been the one actually living with the Cardassians these last months. She had been the one who had to pretend working with Dukat instead of fighting the open war the others could allow themselves. And she had been the one for whom Ziyal had turned against her father, leading to his death at the hands of an enraged Damar who had meant to shoot the Gul's daughter.
Perhaps that was why Kira was letting it happen. Because she felt she owed Ziyal something. Which was understandable, but still not right.
"Well, you could…" Bashir began, and O'Brien immediately interrupted him, holding up a scolding finger.
"Absolutely not, Julian. I hardly know her that well. You're the one who had lunch with her and Garak on a regular basis."
"Coward," Bashir muttered, but resigned himself to his fate.
***
When Ziyal had first come to the station, you could see the awkward teenager struggling with the emerging women. There was nothing child-like left in her now as she politely accepted the raktijino Bashir had ordered for her. Shadows lingered around her eyes, but he could not detect any bloodshot vessels anymore; if she had been crying recently, it didn't show.
"Look," he said into the silence that had followed his explanation on why he had wanted to talk to her, "it's not that I don't think well of Garak, but…"
"Of course you do," Ziyal said in her low, pleasant voice. "But you don't think very highly of me, it seems."
She waited till he had finished protesting, and then continued:
"No, you don't. You think I don't know what I'm doing, because my father died, but that's another subject none of you want to talk about. It was so much easier for you when you could just hate him and blame him for the entire war, wasn't it?"
"Now Ziyal, that's not fair."
"No," she said, anger creeping into her even tone, "and I'm tired of being fair to everyone. I tried to be, I tried so hard, and it still wasn't enough. He's dead. But that's not why I'm marrying Garak. I've known Garak for nearly two years now, Doctor, just as long as Commander Dax has known Commander Worf, but you don't protest against their wedding plans, do you?"
Bashir swallowed his immediate reply, which would have led them into a tangent that had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
"I think," he said carefully, "you could know Garak for a lifetime without ever figuring him out. I certainly haven't been able to."
"Well, you're not marrying him," Ziyal returned, and then bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was uncalled for."
The apology was a needle stabbing at a spot he hadn't noticed was sore. He wouldn't have given the original remark another thought, and why did she assume otherwise? What did she want to imply?
"Oh, it's nothing," he said, more to say anything at all than because he meant it. Obviously, he was wasting his time here. Really, why had he thought she'd listen to him if she didn't listen to Kira, whom she loved?
Love. That was it. That would be his final argument.
"Did he ever tell you he loved you?" Bashir asked, felt embarrassed at sounding absurdly young in front of this young girl, and resented her just the slightest bit for it.
"He never broke a promise to me," said Ziyal, which was no answer at all.
***
"My dear Doctor," Garak said, putting the sizing scanner he used on a shimmering green fabric down, "you amaze me. Commander Dax and Commander Worf are getting married, and it is only a matter of time before our valiant Captain and the lovely Kasidy Yates tie the knot. Rom and your charming former ladyfriend are newlyweds. The Chief inspires us all with his unbreakable devotion to his wife. After all this advertisement for the blessed state of matrimony it is my intention to join it that you object to? How disappointing. I'd hate to conclude all that Federation benevolence does not stop you from being jealaous."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. That Garak would actually say this to him.
"I'm not…" Bashir began heatedly.
"…and you don't have to be," Garak interrupted him, amusement dancing in his eyes and around the corners of his mouth. "I don't think Quark will marry again any time soon, so you won't be the only bachelor left on the station."
For a moment, Bashir felt like he was standing near the edge of a rock, surrounded by a strange, glittering sea. Visiting on the Founder's homeworld had been like this, when he had accompanied Odo to the later's judgement. There was no safe and fixed point anywhere on the horizon, and he wasn't at all sure whether he could swim in such an ocean.
Then he decided to accept the fixed point of yesteryear, and replied, with as easy an air as he could muster:
"Ah, but you don't know about Jadzia's plans to secretly elope with me on the night before the wedding."
"You'll never become a passable spy," Garak said disapprovingly. "Secrets are meant to remain unspoken."
Now that they were on safe bantering ground again, Bashir suddenly thought he couldn't let it rest like that.
"But you used to tell me secrets all the time," he said. "Never mind if they were true or not, you were quite communicative about them. So tell me, Garak - what can you possibly have in common with a young distraught girl like Ziyal?"
Garak took the green, shimmering cloth up and let it glide between his fingers. He had quite remarkable hands, strong and supple, similar to O'Brien's, not thin and breakable like Bashir's own.
"Aside from being exiles, you mean? Aside from bastards of fathers with the unfortunate tendency to confuse their greatness with the greatness of the state? Aside from being cursed to love those parents, to watch them self-destruct and then to watch them die? Why, I can't think of a thing, unless you count a shared sense of aesthetics. Ziyal is quite the gifted artist, do you know that?" he asked, and then added, all notes of irony, teasing or bitterness gone from his voice: "And I find the sensation of being needed quite pleasant. I can't think of another person who needs me the way she does. Can you, Doctor?"
There they were back on the precipe again. Bashir's throat felt dry, and he swallowed. It had been hot on the Founder's planet as well. And he hadn't even known back then that Garak was prepared kill him, along with Sisko, Odo and an entire race of beings who might or might not be the greatest danger the Federation had ever faced.
When Worf, full of indignation, had reported the entire event once the landing party beamed back to the Defiant, Bashir had been shocked but not truly surprised. Because that was the thing about Garak: he had his priorities, and a person could never, ever be that priority, or hope to change his ethics, no matter what he might claim. You could build a friendship on that, but you couldn't possibly build more, and it seemed Ziyal had to be the unlucky person who would find this out the hard way.
"No," Bashir replied, turning away, "I can't think of anyone. Anyone at all."
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