Fool me once, shame on you...

[ma_capitaine]

Who:  Kathryn Janeway, Gul Dukat, Elim Garak
Where: Inside Dukat's Room, Hallways and Lift
When:  Late Afternoon, following the events of this post
What:  In trying to fix the mess the hotel has caused, Janeway bites off more than she can chew again, Dukat evens the score, and Garak settles some accounts.

Comments

[shadowed_scales]

Dukat had not been idle while she slept off the heavy stun from the doctor's phaser, and oh, how he had relished the irony of that, a Federation weapon used to down a Starfleet officer. It seemed fitting. It completed the grudge circle in a way that his (mostly) ordered Cardassian mind found most agreeable

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway suppressed a breath of exasperation. She did not want to talk about Kowalski. Has he followed her orders, things would not have progressed as far as they had. Now Julian was hobbling about the hotel with a concussion and she had stupidly walked into a mad man's room.

"Did you take the medical kit?" Janeway asked, deciding to get to the point and not waste time running circles around the elephant in the room with them. "Having seen Bashir, I thought it would be a courtesy to bring you a kit. And your weapon, as I promised." She didn't need to add any quip about the fact Dukat had already acquired a new phaser.

[shadowed_scales]

"We Cardassians are made of a little sterner stuff. You shouldn't have worried about me." She really shouldn't have, he reflected, almost laughing aloud again. "I notice it only functions on the stun setting." He packed enough implication in his tone of voice to imply he had tried a higher setting, perhaps on her while she lay helpless. "Whose handiwork was that, I wonder?" he drawled.

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway quirked a brow, though the Cardassian obviously couldn't see it. She remained calm, mostly because there had been a whole hell of a lot worse than a mentally unstable Cardassian.

"Precaution. Even my own has been disabled to it's lowest setting." Janeway admitted. There really was no point in lying about it. But she wasn't going to give him the reason why. Should the hotel decide it fit to bless her with a hallucination, the last thing she wanted to end up doing was killing a bystander thinking they were a Borg drone.

"I'm certain you are fully capable of fixing it. If not, I'm sure Bashir will do it for you once his head has stopped spinning."

[shadowed_scales]

He leaned back, crossing ankle over knee, and silently shifted his phaser over and over in his hand. The Federation issue was tucked away out of sight, not that she'd be seeing much from where she was lying. "Now why would you do that?" he asked conversationally. "We know so little about this place. What if a real threat were to emerge, undeterred by stun?"

He snorted soft contempt at the mention of Bashir. "He can't even hit a stationary target at point blank range. I think I'll be keeping him away from my phaser, thank you."

[ma_capitaine]

"What if the threat happens to be one of us? Our firepower alone makes us the biggest threat in this prison." Janeway stated. "Or have you forgotten your own hallucination in the garage? Your phaser had to have been on maximum to incinerate through car engines."

She took a deep breath, trying to squash the anger in her voice. "I'm surprised you let Mr. Winchester live after such a display of power. He must have certainly tried to defend himself."

Janeway puffed out a breath and after a long pause said, "Thank you for not killing Julian. And for fixing his arm."

[shadowed_scales]

"That we know of. I won't presume to know everything about this place there is to know, or those who have brought us here." He ignored the obvious bait about his time in the garage. He had no intention of divulging any information about his own psychological state, what he may have seen, felt, or heard.

"So what is he calling himself these days?" he asked. "A tailor? A gardener? No, wait, I know. An Obsidian Order operative. Son of Enabran Tain. One of the most feared and loathed men on Cardassia in our time." He paused to let that sink in. "No? Well, he never was much of one for truth. I can only imagine the things he must have said of me."

His voice sharpened slightly. "Bashir made a better messenger alive than dead. Why was he skulking around my room?" He had read the PADD. He wanted to see whether she'd lie to him, and if so, if she was any good at it.

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway remained calm in body, but was certain her surprise showed on her face...which fortunately wasn't in view of the Cardassian. He knew about Garak, but anyone reading the network would know. She couldn't very well lie about not knowing him since some of his conversations had happened in some of her own discussions.

But the bit about the Obsidian Order was news to her. Janeway's brow knitted together in thought.

"A tailor." Janeway replied. "And Bashir wanted to see you. Of everyone from the 23rd century, neither of us knew what year you had come from. He wanted to see if you knew who he was. He had no intention of skulking. The Hotel did a fine job of doing that."

[shadowed_scales]

Dukat laughed, not entirely pleasantly. "He never changes. It's remarkable! A tailor. Do you know I'm the one who made him that? It's true. They sent him to me on Terok Nor, told me to find a use for him, so I did. I set him up in that shop, serving the state mending his betters' trousers. Best use we ever found for him, before or since."

After a couple more turns of the phaser, he holstered it. It was a satisfying feeling, having it back on his thigh where it belonged. "Why would that matter, when I was from? And those clothes. He looked more like a refugee than a Starfleet officer. Disgraceful."

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway actually found herself give up a small chuckle. "Did it happen to escape your notice I also came here dressed as a civilian? For someone who wants us to think the Federation is a long ways away, you are doing a poor job of reminding yourself that."

She would have shook her head if she could move it. "And we already know what year you are from." Janeway said.

[shadowed_scales]

"You don't look like someone who just crawled out of a box," he scoffed. "Although I think blue might be more flattering." His voice went smoother.

"That returns us to the question. Why does it matter?"

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Janeway's eyes narrowed. "Our captors didn't see fit to leave me with many options." She replied.

She considered her next words carefully, wondering just how this part of the conversation was going to go. Janeway didn't see much in the way of a more tactful course of action. She swallowed and said, "You tried to kill a man because you thought he looked like Captain Sisko." Janeway paused. "According to what records I can remember, you blame him for the death of your daughter. He was also your enemy once you became leader of the Pah-wraiths, sine he was the Emissary."

[shadowed_scales]

"That's not really much of an answer, Admiral," he said, shifting to more comfort in his chair. His clothing made a sound over the soft cushion, a hissing rasp. "To be precise, I tried to kill Captain Sisko, not someone who looked like him. Given the opportunity, I'd do it again, and it has nothing to do with the pagh wraiths. If a Cardassian were responsible for the death of Chakotay, I think you might do the same." She wanted to try to rattle him with what she knew? He was happy to return the favor.

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway blood ran cold. Somewhere in the back of her mind, something screamed that there was no way on earth Dukat should know anything about Chakotay. Until only the other day, the admiral had never met Dukat and he was long gone and assumed dead by the time Voyager had returned to the Alpha Quadrant.

Another part of her took those words and manifested itself into cold collected fury. If there was any race in the whole galaxy that would put Chakotay in an early grave, it was Cardassians. From Seska and her manipulative ways to Crell Moset and his experiments.

When it was clear then that Chakotay had been taken by Moset to complete his experiments on his people, Janeway knew without a doubt that there was no way he could die and she not feel it through every fiber of her being. It was the only thing that kept her calm and level headed through the ordeal of hunting down Moset and stopping him.

She had never been more relieved in her life to find him alive.

Janeway's jaw tightened at the memory, her fist clenching. She didn't say

[shadowed_scales]

"So merely the thought of it has you clenching your fists," he said with naked contempt. "My daughter is dead. If you don't have children, you can't possibly grasp what that does to you, and no file in the universe could explain it."

He stood and allowed her to hear him moving around the room behind her. Opening the med-kit, he dug out the dermal regenerator and headed into the bathroom. He flipped on the light and let it shine directly into her face, knowing it would dazzle her eyes for a few moments after the dimness. "So I hallucinated Sisko, Bashir a Jem'Hadar...if he's to be believed. What do you think our captors will visit on you?" he asked casually, beginning to work on the bite.

[ma_capitaine]

Janeway grimaced, turning her face into the covers as the light blinded her. The room had grown steadily darker as their conversation had dragged on. She unconsciously pulled a hand to her face and felt the restraints bite into her wrist.

Once they had adjusted, Janeway peaked out again, now seeing the room a bit better with some light, and could just see the Cardassian from her vantage point.

While she had on only one occasion been blessed with children...a situation that not a soul on Voyager would ever speak about, she felt an endearment to the people under her command that was akin to a mother and child. Dukat lost one daughter. She had lost several and as many sons too. Voyager's crew was a family and everyone on board had meant the world to her in those seven years