This story is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents
are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. 
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.  
  
STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE is a Registered Trademark of
Paramount Pictures.  Copyright (c) 1996 by Paramount Pictures. All
Rights Reserved. No infringement was meant.
  
"Life Without You" Copyright (c) 1996 BGM (Sophie Masse) 16/07/96  

Note 1)  Thanks to Karen, who suggested I should release all my
depressive feelings into writing.  And you know something Karen?  It
helped.  Many thanks.

Note 2)  Another thing: no one has seen Nursery Rhyme yet I believe
(except Karen and Jenny) but it will be published in Karen's zine (if I can
only ever get up the inspiration to revise it)  As this story will seem
confusing in some parts if you *haven't* read NR, let me say: 1. Garak
and Bashir are married and 2. They had a biological child (hey, with Star
Trek, you can do anything) which was taken away from them barely a
week after she was born.  That's all you need to know.    
  
So.  Off to the story.

~~~

The words were harsh, despite the eloquence injected in them.

"But never forget; regardless of where I am or what I am doing, I will always
love you. 

My beloved, my heart.  My love."

Julian felt the moisture at his eyes, and tried rather unsuccessfully to stop the
overflowing of tears that threatened to embarrass him in public.  He put the
padd down on the table, his hands shaking, his lips trembling.  

Across from him, an empty chair stared at him, mocking him.  //Bastard,// he
thought.  //I should have known better than to trust you.  Dammit, I trusted you
with my heart and you betrayed even that.// 

The tears finally did come, and yet the thought of an onslaught of concerned
questions and unwanted company was better accepted when he considered his
other options.  //I can't go back to those quarters.  Never.  Everything will
remind me of you.  Your scent is there.  You.  My bed, my clothes, even this
damn uniform.  Everything's been touched by you, and though I'd scrub and
clean and disinfect for weeks, nothing will remove your presence from my life. 
So it seems you've made a pretty mess haven't you?  Damn you.//

"Julian, what's wrong?"  

He blinked away his ghosts and looked up into Kira's concerned face.  She was
standing by the 

//his// 

chair in front of him, a hand brushing across its back while the other was
resting on her widely curving stomach.  

He hastily wiped away the evidence of his sorrow and tried a shaky smile. 
"Nothing.  Was reading some ... poetry," he improvised, not fooling Kira for a
second.

Her eyes fell to the table where the padd lay, alone.  She reached for it, and
before Julian could grasp it from her hands, she had already read half of its
content.  

When she reached the bottom line, the painful finality of the sender's signature
ending the letter, her eyes were sloped in misery.  "Oh Julian," she whispered,
the padd already forgotten as she stared dejectedly at the young doctor.  "May
I?" she asked compassionately, waving at the chair.  He bit his lip, then nodded
quickly before he changed his mind.

"When?" she tossed her head at him.

"This morning," Julian replied quietly, his fingers absently tracing the padd's
frame.  His voice was husky, his eyes cast to the table in a solemn attempt to
hide the tears.  "I woke up, and this was sitting on his pillow," he placed his
palm over the padd.  She glanced down, noting the slight trembling in the long
slender fingers.  

"He never even called you?  Talked to you?  Did you have any idea this was
going to happen?"  She was vainly trying to keep anger from hardening her
voice, but the utter despair radiating from the young man was enough to boil her
blood.

"No," he replied, his eyes still on the table.  "I thought everything was fine.  I
was happy.  I thought he was too."

"He was," she snapped.  "You're the best thing that could have happened to him
and I'm furious he let it get awa--"

"Please," he whispered, his long lashes lowering in pain.  "I'm not searching to
lay blame.  I ... I don't want to hate him."  He swallowed, sniffling deeply to
regain some composure.  When he looked up, his dark eyes seemed overcast
with sheer despondency.  "I just want to know why," he added, and his pleading
voice reached out to Kira's heart in a way she never knew could affect her so.  

Wanting so desperately to erase the despair from the young doctor's heart, she
reached out and covered his hand over the padd, squeezing tenderly.  

He gave her a hollow smile, and ducked his head.

~~~
  
Garak watched the passing stars, crying softly in the privacy of his new
quarters.  No tears fell from his eyes however, as producing tears was an ability
yet unknown to Cardassian physiology.  

He pressed his forehead to the thick cold glass and sighed.  //I have betrayed
him.  Betrayed him, betrayed his love, and my own selfish soul.  Why Elim? 
Why throw away everything that mattered for this?//

The answer to his question rang his door and swiftly entered without consent. 
"Salmakt Garak."  Both Cardassians locked gaze, and his visitor's // saviour,
tormentor, sadist // smiled.  "So.  How is it to live in a grander, more
appropriate living space?"  He laughed, his eyes crinkling in delight.

Garak ripped himself from his sorrow and pasted his signature grin.  "Quite a
relief actually.  Life in those quarters on Terek Nor was beginning to suffocate
me."

Gul Madred nodded understandingly, walking quietly toward where he sat.  "You
understand why we had to visit you though," he said in all seriousness, pausing
directly in front of the ex-tailor. 

"Of course," Garak said expansively.  He smiled.  "In actuality, I still haven't
discovered who would have started such a vicious rumour.  Surely the State
knows I would never commune in that way with a human.  Not authentically.  I
hope the State recognises I did this for Cardassia's sake.  He was an officer,
close to information I thought you might need one day.  I thought that fool
Lemek explained it to you."

Madred tilted his head with agreement, though his eyes still shined brightly
with doubt.  "We suspected as much.  But we have to verify such portentous
rumours.  Specially after the convincing show you put up in court."

Garak nodded with great understanding.  // Bastard.  If only you knew what this
cost me. //

"And since we were on our way to visit you," Madred continued, pacing
languidly toward the Cardassian's side to get a better view of space,  "We
thought it was time to revise your dossier."

"How thoughtful," Garak supplied ingratiatingly.

"Personally, I think six years of expatriation is enough for all the petty
consequences your crime did to the State.  And when Tain died ..."

"My name was cleared," Garak murmured, lost again in thoughts of love and
tenderness.  Despite the cold architecture surrounding him, despite Madred's
cold steely eyes studying his every move, Julian's lovely face danced in his
churning mind.         
    
"And beyond this," he went on, drawing the Cardassian's attention, "many of us
still hold great respect for you.  It would be a shame to see the Order rebuild
itself without a proper foundation."

"In other words," Garak said, his smile lighting his face.  "You need prized
interrogators."

"Precisely," Madred grinned, his hissing accent wafting through Garak's harsh
quarters like a night blanket.  He turned to leave, though stopped just before
triggering the doors.  He turned and frowned.  "Unless of course ... unless there
is a reason unknown to us you would still like to remain on Terek Nor ..."    

A thousand stories, varying excuses and colourful lies flooded the tailor's mind. 
Though all he said was, "No.  No reason.  I have nothing there I would want to
return to."

"Good," Madred nodded, cold, lips tight with sadistic intentions.  "It would
have been most ... unfortunate had you one.  Salmakt Garak.  May you sleep
well."

"Salmakt Madred," he answered, his eyes hard as he stared after the older man.
// And may a wompat eat its way to your brain until you die of sheer agony, // he
thought unkindly before he allowed his mind to escape to the stars.

~~~

"Call him dammit," Kira growled, pacing heavily.  "That's what he should do."

Sitting placidly on the plush sofa in her quarters, Dax shook her head.  "It's not
so easy to do as it is to say," she reminded.  "If Garak thinks he acted out in
everyone's best interest, we shouldn't try to undo wha--"

"Best interest?" Kira exclaimed, pausing.  She pointed at the door, scowling
darkly.  "He broke that man's heart, Jadzia!  For no reason!  He just left, like that. 
His husband!"

"Nerys, come here," Dax murmured soothingly, tapping the empty space next to
her.  After a moment, Kira was lowering herself into place.  Dax circled an arm
around her and smiled.  "They need to resolve this by themselves.  It won't help
them if we nose around their business."

Kira shook her head, leaning against Dax's shoulder as she stared off at the
porthole in front of them.  "It's just ... I've been thinking a lot about them lately. 
With this baby coming soon, I'd thought to spend some time with them, get to
know what it was really like to hold and love a baby.  Eventually I might want
some of my own one day.  And after what happened with Krisselia ..."

"You thought you could provide a little comfort?"  Dax supplied.

"Yes.  My whole perspective was changed when Garak and Julian brought her
into the world.  I never realised until then that Garak really cared for him.  I
mean, ten years in the resistance and you're bound to suffer a little prejudice
against all Cardassiankind.  But Garak is different, and he proved it in that
courtroom.  So what I want to know is, why would he do this?"

Dax leaned her chin over Kira's mop of red hair, sighing away the short
wayward strands tickling her face.  "Maybe it was too painful for him to stay. 
Or maybe he just couldn't cope with Julian anymore.  Anything is possible
Nerys."

"I suppose," she muttered, nuzzling into the Trill's shoulder.  Her stomach
jumped, and she sniffed happily.  "There it goes again."

Dax giggled, looking down as she pressed a hand over the rounded tummy.  It
kicked again, and Dax chuckled.  "I'd say it'll be one hell of a gymnast if it ever
chooses to be one."

"I ... I think so t ... I  ..." she shook her head, closed her eyes, and went into her
usual bout of sneezing.         

Dax laughed, watching her friend desperately trying to end the assault. 

~~~

The whiskey was a heated blessing.  Real whiskey, an old bottle so thoughtfully
offered by his friend Miles O'Brien.  

Slumped over his desk, Julian glanced at the empty glass and carefully reached
for the bottle.  Trembling, he brought the nozzle more or less in range of the
glass, and poured until some spilled to the immaculate table.  A drop flowed
over to his padd, and he cursed his carelessness as he wiped it off.

Gulping down the shot, he swallowed and closed his eyes, drowning in the
alcohol induced dizziness.  His throat was hot, his nose filtering scalding air
which stung as it touched his nostrils, already sensitised by the numerous
tissues he'd blown into. 

Trying to bring his vision into focus, he looked down at his padd and read the
first words with some difficulty.

"Dear Julian,
  
It is late as I write this, huddled next to your sleeping form in our bed.  I must
confess to have strayed greatly from composing this.  At times when you stirred
and muttered contentedly against me.  Or when I chanced a glance at you, and
felt as though my heart would dislodge itself from my chest.  You are a
beautiful one Julian Bashir.  And not only that, but you move me like no other. 
We have gone through many things.  Love, pain, marriage, children ... but I
cannot go on putting you at risk everyday because my existence here is a danger
to Cardassia.  I love you.  I would say it a thousand times if I knew it would be
enough to pay you tribute, but it is not.  No words are enough.  No sounds, no
looks, no emotions to be properly labelled as what I feel for you.  It is deeper
than either of us, stronger than the Universe itself.  And like the Universe, mine
will last forever, expanding, retracting, dying and living anew.  I must go for
now, to leave you because we both know this cannot go on.  I see you and I see
what you gave up for me.  And until now, I hadn't realised how much it would
trouble me to know you value me more than our own child.  This is not to
offend you or anger you.  It simply saddens me that I cannot repay you for this
gift you have given me.  
  
I do not deserve your love and attention, Julian Subatoi Bashir.  Perhaps one
day I will, and it is for this I leave.  To work, to redeem myself.  To become one
of your worth.        
  
Stay well and be well with your friends.  They will help you see that I am right. 
That you do not merit this torture my presence offers you.
  
But never forget; regardless of where I am or what I am doing, I will always
love you. 

My beloved, my heart.  My love.

Elim"

Julian stared at the signature.  Not print, Garak's *real* signature.  And in it he
felt the pain, and the sorrow his husband had felt when ending the letter.

"Why Elim?" he asked his silent quarters, resting his head against the letter and
wetting it far more than the drop of whiskey had.   

~~~
  
Silently, Garak went through the records, erasing the signature trails he left
behind.  He navigated the computer furtively, expertly, searching and recording.

Plots.  Schemes.  Invasion plans.  Even an appalling communique between the
Dominion and the Detapa Council.  Quickly he copied the files, leaving no
trace, biting his lip in a show of rare anxiousness. 

// I'll come back Julian, //  he kept chanting to himself.  // By the Great Gul
himself, if it takes my blood and my death, I will show you my love sweet
Julian.  The only one you deserve. //

Slipping the documents into his pockets, he tried to remember the codes with
which he'd use to connect with Starfleet CenCom.  Convincing them of these
revealing records would take some fast talking, but Garak was determined.  

"Garak," a voice said, and the ex-tailor was out of the system in a flash. 

He looked over his shoulder and smiled broadly.  "Yes, Madred?"

"You have a message transferred here from Cardassia.  The origin of the sender
seems to be, in all evidence, Terek Nor.  I recorded the message in your
computer."

Madred watched him for a moment more, wary, then turned his heel to leave.

He exhaled with relief and turned back to his work.  Dialling up his account, he
accessed his message and read silently.

"I love you, Elim.  And there'll always be a home waiting for you here.  I am still
your husband, and will be even if you stop being mine.  We're bonded, Garak. 
My love.  Don't stay away too long; it will simply kill me.

Julian"

Garak stared at the words, slumped over his console.  Finally he ducked his
head, wincing in pain.  He sniffed, his fingers reaching up to touch a single
revolutionary tear rolling down his cheek.   

THE END