Subject: New: I Wonder (DS9 G/Z, G/B) 1/1 Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 22:16:44 -0400 From: "R.J. Faas" Organization: We Are All Kosh To: ascem@earthlink.net This was prompted by the thread about Garak and Ziyal. I've written it as a log entry of Julian's just after DS9 is retaken by the Federation and Ziyal is killed. Sorry, no sex in it... maybe next time. Feedbakc is welcome. Discalimers: Paramount owns them all, but I claim these musings about them. Permission to archive in the ASCEM archive granted. Others, please ask first. Personal Log, Julian Bashir. I haven't had a chance to talk to Garak since we retook the station, but when I saw him sitting there, holding Ziyal's hand as she died, I couldn't keep back the pangs of jealousy. I just had to leave the room. Is it possible that there was more to their relationship than I had thought? Garak and I have had the off again on again sort of relationship for years now. Nothing really emotional. I don't think I'd ever trust Garak enough to put my heart in front of him like that. There are still too many questions, too many secrets. And yet , things have seemed so much different since we were in that Dominion prison camp together, since Taine died. I think that was the hardest secret for Garak to keep and now that I know... maybe, just maybe, I could trust him. He really hasn't played any of the old head games with me since then. I don't know, it all just seems too complicated at times to keep up with everything that he's saying, much less what he's thinking. But in the infirmary, with her, his face was so open. I think it was the first time I'd seen that honesty, that depth of emotion radiating from him. No matter how many times we've been together, no matter how intense the scene we've done, regardless of who was on top or what we were doing, I've never seen anything so obvious and unhidden on his face. When he reached over her that last time she regained consciousness, watching the tenderness as he kissed her. I never thought he was capable of that kind of love, feeling something so deep. Maybe that's why I've never seen it, because I was never looking for it, never even thinking it could exist within him. Of course, he won't admit to it now. Hell, I don't even have the nerve to think of asking him. He was raised in the Obsidian Order, confronting him about his open display of love would be worse than telling a Vulcan they were emotional. I couldn't do it. I care too much about it. It almost hurts to admit it to myself, but I care about him. I may even love him. I must, otherwise this wouldn't be bothering me like it is. And just what is it that's bothering me. That Garak had feelings for Ziyal? I'd known about that. They'd started to get involved with each other while I was in that prison camp. I guess I just never thought it could be like this. It isn't even that he got involved with someone. I mean I certainly haven't been avoiding other people just because of the fact that I have lunch with him or because he pushes me to my limits and then some when we have sex. It just never occurred to me that he'd have a relationship with someone else. No that's not all of it. I have to be honest and if I can't be honest here in my own log, where can I be? The thing that is so surprising isn't just the way he showed, really showed his emotions to her. It isn't even that he had those emotions. The thing that I can't seem to wrap my mind around is that it was her, Ziyal, a woman. Am I that backward that I can't imagine Garak with a woman? I mean he does fit all the old stereotypes, but hasn't humanity gotten beyond that? I never had seen him with a woman before. Come to think of it, I'd never seen him with anyone before... and I don't think anyone ever saw the two of us together. So, why is this so hard to believe? Maybe it isn't and I'm just grasping at straws, trying to come up with some way to explain the fact that for those few moments in the infirmary I saw a side of Garak that no one could possibly imagine existed. Maybe, I am jealous. No, I know I'm jealous. I'm the one that he had such incredible sex with. We did things that you can't just shrug off. When you go that far into trusting another person, when you let them have that much control, there is just this profound sense of intimacy. I'd never felt that before. I'd never felt half the things he'd done to me before. Maybe for him, for other Cardassians or even other humans into bdsm, this isn't the deep almost spiritual bond I thought it was. I don't want to believe that last sentence. I want to believe that we had something special and unique and something that meant something more than just what we'd done with our bodies. I don't want to believe that those things nights meant nothing and that he could feel and express something even more powerful without having those experiences. And I know he never had them with Ziyal. I know she never had anything like that with anyone. I could tell that from any medical exam I'd ever done of her. Maybe there bond wasn't sex, but it was love. A deep love, one that from the outside looked like it had some pretty powerful romantic moments. Somehow, I think I'd rather have had that with him than any of the incredible erotic encounters we did have. End Log. -- R.J. Faas - ICQ # 13335949 **** Visit my Art and Spiritual Quote of the Day Page @ http://shell.acmenet.net/~niquinum ---- Or my Mac Hardware site @ http://machardw