This has been a year and more in getting it to a point where I have a scene with an end point. Because fucking brain weasels. But I have it! 😀 (And I am about to start another rewatch of DS9, so it’ll be a bit before I get to where I need to, but still.)

@norcumi @theotherguysride @peachesandscream56 @nyxserpent @booksaresacredspew @aniseandspearmint @queenkit @the-vagabond-tabby

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Untitled

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | more to come?

Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
AU: NOS
Word Count: 1933 (6071)
Characters: Me, Elim Garak, Julian Bashir, Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys

Breakfast, questions, and the start of answers.

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I wake up in the same place I fell asleep, which shouldn’t be a surprise. I’d almost hoped I’d wake back home, with this all having been something between a dream and a nightmare. For a moment, until I rolled over to look where I’d put my backpack the night before, there was a fear – pointless, silly – that while I was here, what I’d had with me when I arrived was not.

It’s still there, everything is still in it, my bear is still in my arms. My tunic is draped over the chair where I’d put my backpack, and the trousers with it. I needed to ask someone about how to get new clothes, so I could have at least two sets. And where to wash my clothes. They had to have laundry facilities somewhere, didn’t they?

For now, hopefully airing it out would be enough.

I’d only just gotten dressed and ventured out into the main room, bear under my arm, to see what sort of breakfast I could get from the replicator when a chime sounded, loud and slightly discordant, as if it were meant for different ears. It took a moment to realize it was the door chime.

The door controls work well enough without having to speak, although I’m not sure I’m so glad to be this close to the person on the other side without more warning than the door chime. Garak is the same height as my brother, but substantially broader, and a good deal more intimidating in person than on the screen.

He smiles almost immediately, taking a half-step backward. “I hope I didn’t wake you, and I am quite sorry for doing so if I did.”

I shook my head, taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment. Words. I need to use words. “I was already awake. Getting breakfast.” I keep my attention on his face for the moment, hyperaware of relative position and my own vulnerability. “Never used a replicator before.”

“If you’re in need of assistance, I’m more than willing to offer mine.” Garak isn’t quite looking straight at me, head tilted just slightly in a manner that I recognize, that puts me ever so slightly at ease. Probably shouldn’t. It is Garak, after all.

I chew on my lip a moment before nodding, stepping back and aside to let him in. Not taking my attention off him, though. Even if he does react in ways that make me think I should be safe, my brain will not stop screaming at me about danger. And I don’t have any anti-anxiety meds with me; they’d all been back at the RV before this happened.

“Just want some bacon and water.” I shift my grip on my bear, hugging him as I watch Garak over my bear’s head. I know it makes me look younger, makes me look more vulnerable, but right now, the comfort is more important.

Garak doesn’t fully turn his back on me, either, moving around to the replicator in a way that allows him to face me when he stops. “It will need a little more information than that, if it’s to provide you with a satisfactory meal.”

“Room temperature water. Crispy, hot bacon in strips. No more than four strips.” I circle around to the small table, so Garak doesn’t have to face away from the replicator. Listening as he tells the replicator what to make – the bacon and water for me, something I don’t recognize the name of for himself.

“So.” Garak sets the plates down, settling across from me with a brief smile. “I understand you have some information you want to share with me regarding a war that hasn’t even begun.”

“Not just you.” I pick at the bacon with one hand, though it’s just a little too hot to eat yet. It smells like bacon, if an unremarkable sort. “Kira and Sisko and Julian, too.”

Garak tilts his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little with what I thought was amusement. “I wasn’t aware you and the good doctor were so well acquainted.”

I hug my bear closer, reaching for my water to take a sip. I can feel my cheeks heating, and I want to curl up and hide. I have to work to think of Julian as Bashir, if I’m not writing from the point of view of someone who would think of him so. “Not.”

“If you aren’t, than I find it curious why you would use his given name, rather than his family name.” Garak takes a bite of his food, watching me intently.

Picking up a piece of the bacon, I nibble at it rather than answering, keeping my attention ostensibly on the plate. Aware of the slow movements of Garak eating his bite, taking up the napkin the replicator had given him with his food to wipe his lips.

“The show. Julian, Jadzia, Ziyal, Jake, Keiko. Sisko, Kira, O’Brien, Wynn, Eddington, Sloane, you. Never learned anything but family names for some people. Opaka, Damar, Bariel.” I pause, setting the rest of the slice of bacon down. “Dukat.”

Garak reaches for his own drink. “I am afraid he is quite the annoyance at the moment.”

“Dangerous, foolish, desperate.” I grimace, shaking my head. “Not annoying. Annoying are ignorable. Ignore Dukat, and he does horrible things.”

“Oh?” Garak looks only mildly curious, which either means he isn’t terribly interested, or he’s very interested and is hoping that by downplaying his curiosity, he’ll get me to tell him more.

I just stare at him a moment before looking back down at my bacon, picking up the piece I’d started eating, and nibbling at it again. I’m never very hungry this soon after I wake up, and the few pieces of bacon I have will be enough for now. If I can eat them all, with the worries about everything starting to circle again. How much to tell, how much to keep secret. How much I’ve already revealed with the list of names, though that at least probably isn’t much.

The silence draws out, waiting patiently for either of us to break it – Garak waiting for an answer to his question, while I just bask in the quiet that doesn’t require any filling. And the brain weasels running in circles over things I cannot do anything about yet.

It’s the computer that breaks the silence, requesting connection for Julian Bashir.

I flinched at the sudden sound, and carefully set down the last piece of bacon half-eaten. “Yes.”

“Leri? Are you awake?”

“And almost done breakfast.” Whatever the current meal time is, I have only just gotten up, so mine is breakfast. Thank you.

“Would you mind a visitor?”

“I already have one.” I glance at Garak a moment, who is doing his best to look harmless and innocent. I’m not sure it suits him, though he does a very good impression. “Garak wasn’t polite enough to ask first.”

“You could always have not answered the door.” He smiles genially, and I bury my face in my bear a moment, letting rude words run through my head.

“Visitor. Yes. Bring Sisko and Kira?” I ask after I look up again, glaring at Garak for a long moment. “Only have to answer questions once that way.”

“Of course.” I can all but hear Julian’s smile, the amusement, and wonder how much of it is of the long-suffering sort, knowing Garak for several years already as he has. “Bashir out.”

I pick up my bacon again, nibbling at it slowly to forestall any question Garak might ask now. Or at least to give me an excuse not to answer right away.

I’ve finished breakfast, and returned the empty plate and glass to the replicator for recycling when the door chime sounds again. It still sounds off, and too loud, and I can’t help flinching even as I go to the door. Keeping turned enough to see Garak, who is sitting at the table still, his hands visibly resting on it.

I smile, brief and hopefully cheerful, when I see my expected guests, waving them in, and taking a moment to figure out how to lock the door behind them. I don’t want anyone else to show up and sneak in. This is already enough people to have to talk to.

Turning around, I look at them, Garak standing now as the rest of them are. He’s still smiling, careful and neutral, and Julian is too, trying to be encouraging, I think. Sisko and Kira are both more stoic, though I think Kira is maybe a little puzzled.

“I hope you slept well.” Julian’s smile widens just a little, and I nod. “Did you get enough to eat?”

“Enough of breakfast.” I try to smile again, but I think it’s more a grimace. “Let me go get my laptop.”

I hope there’s enough charge in it to show more than a couple episodes, because I don’t know how to transfer the information off otherwise. And doing that would probably involve telling more people, and I don’t know if I can manage that. Not right now.

I move around the edge of the room to get to the doorway to the other room. Doorway, not a proper door, and I don’t really turn my back on it, either, as I fetch my laptop out of my backpack, juggling it and my bear. Maybe, eventually, I will be able to do that, but not yet, not when I don’t really know anyone, and don’t know the place.

“Doctor Bashir tells me that you have information about a war coming.” Sisko is watching me as I come back out into the main room, glancing briefly at my laptop. His voice is even and steady enough to sound gentle, though I’m not sure if that’s because he’s trying to be gentle or because I need to hear it that way.

“Dominion War.” I set the laptop on the table, dragging the chair I’d used earlier around so I’m facing them while I get it turned on and put the episodes in order. “Soon, I think. Months, maybe, at most.”

I don’t think I’d be able to tell even if I had mapped out the time between episodes and within episodes on a timeline. There’s just too many variables, and it feels like my thoughts are starting to run in circles again, and there’s not enough time and too much information and just.

“Morgyn. Breathe.” Julian is crouching next to me, his voice grounding me in the here-and-now, but not reaching out to touch, same as he had last night. “What’s wrong?”

“Too many things, not enough time.” I rub my fingertips over the edge of my laptop, following it from the dip in the middle of the front to the hinge and back again, over and over. Letting the familiar motion and sensation soothe.

“We don’t have to know everything. Just what you can show us.” Julian smiles, meeting my gaze for only a brief moment before he glances away, up at my laptop. “How does it start?”

“Mines at the wormhole entrance to keep the Jem’Hadar in the Gamma Quadrant, and Dukat promising to take back everything the Cardassians once ruled. Including Bajor and DS9.”

I have the episode on my laptop, and it’s the first one in the player’s queue. It takes only a couple clicks on the trackpad to start it, and I scoot back from the table to let them all watch without being behind me.