Fic: The Night Before
Title: The Night Before
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Summary: Barring a miracle, or a lot of convenient deaths, this was going to be Julian's last night on Deep Space Nine, and damned if he wasn't going to do what he wanted, finally.
Characters: Bashir, O'Brien, Garak/Bashir sort of implied, mention of others
Rating: PG
Length: ~2700
Betas: lady_drace and drakcir
Spoilers: 5.16 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", references to various preceding episodes
Author's Notes: Missing scene for "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". Incorporates a great deal of personal canon that only exists in my head. Possible first part of a series.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Packing was quickly turning out to be a far easier job than Julian had anticipated. For someone who'd visibly collected many trinkets and souvenirs over the years, there were remarkably few possessions he had felt he couldn't leave behind if circumstance dictated it.
They were spread out on the bed now; there was a small, old-fashioned sketchpad with actual paper leaves that had been a parting gift from Felix, a reminder that Julian was allowed to follow his dreams as well, even if only for an hour or two each night. A Starfleet Medical-issue t-shirt, fabric well-worn and the colours long since faded from their former glory. One of the PADDs stacked neatly next to the shirt contained the paper on biomolecular replication that had almost netted him the Carrington Award, the only published paper of Julian's that he'd ever felt proud of, even if it had garnered him more attention than he'd known at the time how to deal with. On the other PADDs were notes on Jem'Hadar and Founder genetics that he'd compiled over the years - he wasn't willing to let go of that research just yet - and on the various Gamma Quadrant diseases he was still working towards understanding and developing cures for. His understanding of them was still far from complete, but it was still more than he'd officially disclosed to Starfleet.
This meagre collection of worldly goods left a disturbingly large space in the duffel bag Julian had decided to take with him, even after including a couple of spare changes of clothes and underwear. Is this the impact of a genetically enhanced man? he wondered idly, even as he zipped the duffel closed. The only thing missing from the bag was Kukalaka, and he didn't have the heart to go around the habitat ring and ask his ex-girlfriend to return his teddy bear before he left the station for good. He'd had enough embarrassment and humiliation for one day, thank you very much.
Just then, the door to his quarters chimed and only Julian's reflexes stopped him from startling at the noise. Instantly his mind supplied the most likely candidates to 'knock' on his door this late at night, and he didn't feel up to talking with any of them. That didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to potentially offend anyone by chasing them away now. Not bothering to move from beside his bed, he called out, "Come in."
He smelled, rather than saw Miles O'Brien come into his quarters. Despite an almost obsessive sense of cleanliness, no doubt due to the nature of his job, Miles had always had a very faint lingering smell of coolant, or burnt relays about him, and this time was no different; there was definitely an undercurrent of... urine. Probably the voles again. When Julian glanced up he saw the chief was still wearing his on-duty uniform, which sported a near-invisible damp patch just below his right shoulder; the source of the smell.
"Hi, Julian." Everything about Miles' body language and tone screamed awkwardness, and Julian adapted his own posture to compensate, slumping his shoulders slightly and softening his overall stance. The less Miles felt threatened at the moment, the better.
"Chief." The smile was deliberately visibly forced. "What brings you to my abode at this time of night?"
Before answering, Miles flicked a brief glance at the duffel bag still on the bed behind Julian. "It's really happening, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically, and then compounded it with: "You're leaving."
This time the smile was self-deprecating. "I can hardly stay," Julian said. "I'm told Starfleet doesn't look too kindly on its chief medical officers being genetically enhanced."
"I - yeah." Miles rubbed the back of his neck. "You could have told me, you know, I -"
"No," Julian interrupted gently, "I couldn't." He hesitated involuntarily. "There were times I wanted to, though."
"Really?"
Julian nodded. "Not many times, but there were a few occasions. It's not that I couldn't trust you - that's actually one of the few things I've always known about you - but I couldn't trust you with this." He hoped Miles understood the distinction.
A second later he got his answer - the briefest flash of a smile before a different form of puzzlement took over. "You always knew you could trust me?" Miles asked.
"Yes." When Miles continued to look puzzled, Julian decided to finally take pity on his friend. "You're just like an open book," he began, choosing his words as carefully as he knew how, "and from the moment I first saw you I knew you were an honest, dependable, fiercely loyal man who, yes, loved his wife - even if you were a tad too defensive on that last point," he added, helpless to tack on his reaction to Miles' staunch and repeated assertions back in the very first few months that no, he wasn't interested in doing anything non-work related because he loved his wife, damn it.
At that, Miles frowned, although it wasn't from anything other than the continued confusion. "All that, just from looking?"
He was sceptical, and Julian couldn't blame him. "The week before I enlisted in Starfleet, I made the mistake of reading all the literature on body language and micro-expressions available at the time," he explained. "Everything from Cal Lightman to T'Mela and Belpath Perrin. Ever since then, I've been able to read pretty much everybody I've met within seconds of meeting them. I thought it would help, but..." Well, that would be almost everybody... Not that Miles needed to know that, even now.
"More of a curse than a blessing?" Miles guessed, amusement colouring his features now.
"Something like that," Julian smiled. "I'm rarely surprised anymore, which can make things... awkward, to say the least. On the other hand it's much easier to avoid detection if I can ascertain people's motives before they've even opened their mouth."
At that, Miles couldn't help but smile, but there was still something bothering him. "An open book?" he repeated.
Julian just looked at him. "There are worse things to be," he replied. "And all those things about you I just described make you a good man, maybe one of the best men I've ever had the good fortune to meet, much less call my best friend. And - it's why I'm going to miss you."
"Bloody hell, Julian! You've got to leave the station. Okay, but that doesn't mean you're dying!"
Julian chuckled. This was why he loved this man. "It is a sort of dying," he said. "I always knew I couldn't play the court jester forever."
"The court..." Miles tapered off, then stepped closer to Julian, indignance radiating off him in waves. "We never thought you were that."
"Yes, I think you did," Julian retorted. "And for the most part, you were meant to."
"You were a kid," Miles shot back, determined now. "A wet-behind-the-ears kid who had no idea what he was getting himself into out here, arrogant beyond belief and no sense of personal boundaries, but -" He stopped himself, suddenly inscrutable. "God, you played us."
Honesty was by far the best policy here. "I had to."
"Yeah, I can see that." Miles' gaze swept over Julian in a once-over that left him feeling slightly uncomfortable for the first time since he'd been interrupted earlier. "I can though," he continued. "I can see it now, see you, I think."
"What do you see?" Julian asked softly.
Miles considered this. "A kid out of his depth, but still completely sure of himself. You're even standing differently than you would normally. And the way you're talking... you've never denied the enhancements to yourself, have you?"
"No." Julian shook his head once. He’d never seen the point in pretending to be something other than himself when nobody else was watching, and he’d long since accepted his boundaries had been different to everyone else around him. "Though when I found out, a lot of things started making sense."
"Like what?" Miles was uncertain now, not sure whether he was allowed to ask this kind of question.
"I can remember everything," Julian said, after a moment's pause. "Photographic memory, total recall, call it what you like. Everything I've seen, heard, said, read, felt, thought - it's all right here -" he tapped his temple lightly, "- at a moment's notice."
"Everything?" Miles asked.
"Everything," Julian confirmed.
"Wow."
"Something like that."
"Yeah..." Again Miles tapered off, and again he glanced at the duffel bag on the bed behind Julian. "You're not going back with your parents, are you?"
"No," Julian said, not bothering to hide his surprise at the question.
Miles regarded him for a moment. "Do they know?"
"...No. I... haven't got around to telling them yet."
"Where are you going to go?" Miles asked, curious now.
"I haven't really thought about it." It was almost true. Julian had been too busy closing up his medical practice on Deep Space Nine and making alternative arrangements for his priority patients to spare much thought for his immediate future post-station. "Felix is on retreat somewhere in the Alcacas system at the moment. I might drop by and stay with him for a while."
Despite Miles' reaction to the mention of the retreat - and Felix - he chose not to enquire about it. Instead he asked: "Are you going to write?"
Now there was a question Julian truly hadn't considered. It wasn't something he'd wanted to consider. For all that he considered some of the personnel on Deep Space Nine to be actual friends, he hadn't allowed himself to wonder at their reactions to his genetic status - that it was different, or that he'd kept it hidden from them for so long - and whether they'd continue to reciprocate his friendship once that status had become common knowledge.
"Are you going to reply?" he asked in turn, attempting a deflection. He found he couldn't keep the sliver of hope out of his voice. Then again he wasn't sure he'd tried to keep it out.
"Of course!" Miles' expression now could safely be described as you're-an-idiot-but-I'm-putting-up-with-you-anyway. "As long as you write."
Julian smiled. "Then I shall write."
"And I'll reply," Miles grinned back.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, just smiling, and all too briefly Julian couldn't quash the feeling that everything was okay, that he was going to wake up in the morning and the whole Zimmerman thing was going to be nothing more than a nightmare induced by that Klingon dessert he'd been persuaded to try by Dax.
But then something else flitted across Miles' so very expressive face, and despite himself Julian's smile grew. "If there's something you want to ask me, just - ask," he said.
Miles started, then regained himself quickly. "It's nothing... personal, I was just wondering," he said quickly. "Since we've been debating how different you really are."
"Okay..." Julian braced himself.
"If your parents hadn't had the genetic enhancements done, when you were a child," Miles began slowly, almost hesitantly, "would you have still been able to save Keiko and Yoshi?"
Oh, wow. That wasn't what Julian had been expecting at all, and even as he marvelled at his friend's capacity to keep surprising him like this, he was formulating a response. "Miles, when I was six years old I could barely draw a complete circle. I don't... know what that would have meant for me as a normal adult. Maybe I'd have made it through medical school regardless. I just don't know."
In all his thirty-two years, Julian had never felt so vulnerable as he did then, confessing indirectly to his best friend that his wife and second child really shouldn't have survived that accident. And he thought Miles could see that too, because without warning Julian found himself engulfed in the tightest hug he'd ever received, and after a few long seconds Julian returned the hug, holding his friend close.
"You're a good man," Miles said, his voice heavily muffled and distorted by Julian's shoulder. "Best man I've ever met. Don't forget that."
"I won't," Julian eventually whispered, but he knew it had been heard because the hug tightened even more.
"Good, 'cause I'm not saying it again."
Now there was the Miles Julian was used to, and the sheer emotion that he felt made him laugh, shaking into Miles' embrace until, after what felt like an eternity but he knew was only about twenty-four and a half seconds, they loosened their arms and stood back from each other.
"So." And just like that, Miles was all business again.
Julian took refuge in that. "So," he repeated.
"You came to Deep Space Nine to make a difference, right?" Miles asked, once again rhetorically. "Doesn't matter what you were pretending."
"No, it doesn't," Julian agreed, "and yes, I did."
"So... go out there, and make a difference," Miles told him, barely holding back enough contrasting emotions that Julian knew not to prod in that particular direction. "Show Starfleet what they're missing by cutting you loose."
"Will do, Chief," Julian smiled. "And you look after that family of yours - and stay away from the rapids!" They both grinned at that. "Oh, I'm deadly serious, Mister O'Brien. I doubt my Starfleet-approved replacement is going to be as gracious towards your destructive relationship with that virtual body of water as I've been."
"I should be so lucky." Miles paused. "I should go. I - Keiko's expecting me."
And so she would be. "I'll still be here in the morning," Julian reassured him. "I'll stick around for one last greasy breakfast at Quark's... then be on my way."
"I'll join you," Miles decided. "And everyone else. They'll all want to say goodbye."
There was still a part of Julian that wanted to doubt that very much, but he let himself be swayed. "We'll have to reserve one of the large tables at the back, then."
Miles nodded, a sudden sadness in his features offset by the smile he was struggling to maintain.
"There's one last thing I want to do before turning in for the night," Julian told him. Again, it was almost the truth. He hadn't decided until that very moment what he was going to do, but it was close enough. "I can walk with you back to your quarters, if you'd like."
"Yeah," Miles said. "Yeah, I'd like that."
This late at "night" the corridors were quiet and devoid of activity, and it wasn't long before they reached the door to Miles' home.
"I'll see you in the morning," Julian said quickly, as a means of deflecting any more awkwardness.
"Yeah," Miles nodded, seemingly in the same mood. "'Night."
He stepped inside, and Julian waited for the door to close behind him before turning on his heel and making his way down a different corridor than the one he'd just come down with Miles. He was abstractly aware that he was maintaining a different pace than he usually employed, and although he hadn't really considered it before, he now knew that he was indeed holding himself differently now there was no longer a pretence to maintain, or one that was worth maintaining.
He quickly reached his destination, for the first time in almost five years not caring if anyone saw him, or wondered where he was going. Because, barring a miracle, or a lot of convenient deaths, this was going to be Julian's last night on Deep Space Nine, and damned if he wasn't going to do what he wanted, finally.
Smiling slightly at the nerves and trepidation now openly flooding his system - which was a rare occurrence, and something that thrilled Julian far more than he'd ever admit to anyone - he thumbed the door chime in front of him.
It was a long two minutes and forty-nine seconds before the door opened, revealing a rumpled and sleep-dishevelled Garak, his expression as inscrutable as Julian had ever been able to establish, although this time he thought perhaps there were the tiniest hints of curiosity and bemusement on his tailor's face.
Forestalling any comments, Julian smiled - openly, without deception, for the first time since they'd met.
"Can I come in?"
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Summary: Barring a miracle, or a lot of convenient deaths, this was going to be Julian's last night on Deep Space Nine, and damned if he wasn't going to do what he wanted, finally.
Characters: Bashir, O'Brien, Garak/Bashir sort of implied, mention of others
Rating: PG
Length: ~2700
Betas: lady_drace and drakcir
Spoilers: 5.16 "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", references to various preceding episodes
Author's Notes: Missing scene for "Doctor Bashir, I Presume". Incorporates a great deal of personal canon that only exists in my head. Possible first part of a series.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Packing was quickly turning out to be a far easier job than Julian had anticipated. For someone who'd visibly collected many trinkets and souvenirs over the years, there were remarkably few possessions he had felt he couldn't leave behind if circumstance dictated it.
They were spread out on the bed now; there was a small, old-fashioned sketchpad with actual paper leaves that had been a parting gift from Felix, a reminder that Julian was allowed to follow his dreams as well, even if only for an hour or two each night. A Starfleet Medical-issue t-shirt, fabric well-worn and the colours long since faded from their former glory. One of the PADDs stacked neatly next to the shirt contained the paper on biomolecular replication that had almost netted him the Carrington Award, the only published paper of Julian's that he'd ever felt proud of, even if it had garnered him more attention than he'd known at the time how to deal with. On the other PADDs were notes on Jem'Hadar and Founder genetics that he'd compiled over the years - he wasn't willing to let go of that research just yet - and on the various Gamma Quadrant diseases he was still working towards understanding and developing cures for. His understanding of them was still far from complete, but it was still more than he'd officially disclosed to Starfleet.
This meagre collection of worldly goods left a disturbingly large space in the duffel bag Julian had decided to take with him, even after including a couple of spare changes of clothes and underwear. Is this the impact of a genetically enhanced man? he wondered idly, even as he zipped the duffel closed. The only thing missing from the bag was Kukalaka, and he didn't have the heart to go around the habitat ring and ask his ex-girlfriend to return his teddy bear before he left the station for good. He'd had enough embarrassment and humiliation for one day, thank you very much.
Just then, the door to his quarters chimed and only Julian's reflexes stopped him from startling at the noise. Instantly his mind supplied the most likely candidates to 'knock' on his door this late at night, and he didn't feel up to talking with any of them. That didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to potentially offend anyone by chasing them away now. Not bothering to move from beside his bed, he called out, "Come in."
He smelled, rather than saw Miles O'Brien come into his quarters. Despite an almost obsessive sense of cleanliness, no doubt due to the nature of his job, Miles had always had a very faint lingering smell of coolant, or burnt relays about him, and this time was no different; there was definitely an undercurrent of... urine. Probably the voles again. When Julian glanced up he saw the chief was still wearing his on-duty uniform, which sported a near-invisible damp patch just below his right shoulder; the source of the smell.
"Hi, Julian." Everything about Miles' body language and tone screamed awkwardness, and Julian adapted his own posture to compensate, slumping his shoulders slightly and softening his overall stance. The less Miles felt threatened at the moment, the better.
"Chief." The smile was deliberately visibly forced. "What brings you to my abode at this time of night?"
Before answering, Miles flicked a brief glance at the duffel bag still on the bed behind Julian. "It's really happening, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically, and then compounded it with: "You're leaving."
This time the smile was self-deprecating. "I can hardly stay," Julian said. "I'm told Starfleet doesn't look too kindly on its chief medical officers being genetically enhanced."
"I - yeah." Miles rubbed the back of his neck. "You could have told me, you know, I -"
"No," Julian interrupted gently, "I couldn't." He hesitated involuntarily. "There were times I wanted to, though."
"Really?"
Julian nodded. "Not many times, but there were a few occasions. It's not that I couldn't trust you - that's actually one of the few things I've always known about you - but I couldn't trust you with this." He hoped Miles understood the distinction.
A second later he got his answer - the briefest flash of a smile before a different form of puzzlement took over. "You always knew you could trust me?" Miles asked.
"Yes." When Miles continued to look puzzled, Julian decided to finally take pity on his friend. "You're just like an open book," he began, choosing his words as carefully as he knew how, "and from the moment I first saw you I knew you were an honest, dependable, fiercely loyal man who, yes, loved his wife - even if you were a tad too defensive on that last point," he added, helpless to tack on his reaction to Miles' staunch and repeated assertions back in the very first few months that no, he wasn't interested in doing anything non-work related because he loved his wife, damn it.
At that, Miles frowned, although it wasn't from anything other than the continued confusion. "All that, just from looking?"
He was sceptical, and Julian couldn't blame him. "The week before I enlisted in Starfleet, I made the mistake of reading all the literature on body language and micro-expressions available at the time," he explained. "Everything from Cal Lightman to T'Mela and Belpath Perrin. Ever since then, I've been able to read pretty much everybody I've met within seconds of meeting them. I thought it would help, but..." Well, that would be almost everybody... Not that Miles needed to know that, even now.
"More of a curse than a blessing?" Miles guessed, amusement colouring his features now.
"Something like that," Julian smiled. "I'm rarely surprised anymore, which can make things... awkward, to say the least. On the other hand it's much easier to avoid detection if I can ascertain people's motives before they've even opened their mouth."
At that, Miles couldn't help but smile, but there was still something bothering him. "An open book?" he repeated.
Julian just looked at him. "There are worse things to be," he replied. "And all those things about you I just described make you a good man, maybe one of the best men I've ever had the good fortune to meet, much less call my best friend. And - it's why I'm going to miss you."
"Bloody hell, Julian! You've got to leave the station. Okay, but that doesn't mean you're dying!"
Julian chuckled. This was why he loved this man. "It is a sort of dying," he said. "I always knew I couldn't play the court jester forever."
"The court..." Miles tapered off, then stepped closer to Julian, indignance radiating off him in waves. "We never thought you were that."
"Yes, I think you did," Julian retorted. "And for the most part, you were meant to."
"You were a kid," Miles shot back, determined now. "A wet-behind-the-ears kid who had no idea what he was getting himself into out here, arrogant beyond belief and no sense of personal boundaries, but -" He stopped himself, suddenly inscrutable. "God, you played us."
Honesty was by far the best policy here. "I had to."
"Yeah, I can see that." Miles' gaze swept over Julian in a once-over that left him feeling slightly uncomfortable for the first time since he'd been interrupted earlier. "I can though," he continued. "I can see it now, see you, I think."
"What do you see?" Julian asked softly.
Miles considered this. "A kid out of his depth, but still completely sure of himself. You're even standing differently than you would normally. And the way you're talking... you've never denied the enhancements to yourself, have you?"
"No." Julian shook his head once. He’d never seen the point in pretending to be something other than himself when nobody else was watching, and he’d long since accepted his boundaries had been different to everyone else around him. "Though when I found out, a lot of things started making sense."
"Like what?" Miles was uncertain now, not sure whether he was allowed to ask this kind of question.
"I can remember everything," Julian said, after a moment's pause. "Photographic memory, total recall, call it what you like. Everything I've seen, heard, said, read, felt, thought - it's all right here -" he tapped his temple lightly, "- at a moment's notice."
"Everything?" Miles asked.
"Everything," Julian confirmed.
"Wow."
"Something like that."
"Yeah..." Again Miles tapered off, and again he glanced at the duffel bag on the bed behind Julian. "You're not going back with your parents, are you?"
"No," Julian said, not bothering to hide his surprise at the question.
Miles regarded him for a moment. "Do they know?"
"...No. I... haven't got around to telling them yet."
"Where are you going to go?" Miles asked, curious now.
"I haven't really thought about it." It was almost true. Julian had been too busy closing up his medical practice on Deep Space Nine and making alternative arrangements for his priority patients to spare much thought for his immediate future post-station. "Felix is on retreat somewhere in the Alcacas system at the moment. I might drop by and stay with him for a while."
Despite Miles' reaction to the mention of the retreat - and Felix - he chose not to enquire about it. Instead he asked: "Are you going to write?"
Now there was a question Julian truly hadn't considered. It wasn't something he'd wanted to consider. For all that he considered some of the personnel on Deep Space Nine to be actual friends, he hadn't allowed himself to wonder at their reactions to his genetic status - that it was different, or that he'd kept it hidden from them for so long - and whether they'd continue to reciprocate his friendship once that status had become common knowledge.
"Are you going to reply?" he asked in turn, attempting a deflection. He found he couldn't keep the sliver of hope out of his voice. Then again he wasn't sure he'd tried to keep it out.
"Of course!" Miles' expression now could safely be described as you're-an-idiot-but-I'm-putting-up-with-you-anyway. "As long as you write."
Julian smiled. "Then I shall write."
"And I'll reply," Miles grinned back.
They stayed like that for a few seconds, just smiling, and all too briefly Julian couldn't quash the feeling that everything was okay, that he was going to wake up in the morning and the whole Zimmerman thing was going to be nothing more than a nightmare induced by that Klingon dessert he'd been persuaded to try by Dax.
But then something else flitted across Miles' so very expressive face, and despite himself Julian's smile grew. "If there's something you want to ask me, just - ask," he said.
Miles started, then regained himself quickly. "It's nothing... personal, I was just wondering," he said quickly. "Since we've been debating how different you really are."
"Okay..." Julian braced himself.
"If your parents hadn't had the genetic enhancements done, when you were a child," Miles began slowly, almost hesitantly, "would you have still been able to save Keiko and Yoshi?"
Oh, wow. That wasn't what Julian had been expecting at all, and even as he marvelled at his friend's capacity to keep surprising him like this, he was formulating a response. "Miles, when I was six years old I could barely draw a complete circle. I don't... know what that would have meant for me as a normal adult. Maybe I'd have made it through medical school regardless. I just don't know."
In all his thirty-two years, Julian had never felt so vulnerable as he did then, confessing indirectly to his best friend that his wife and second child really shouldn't have survived that accident. And he thought Miles could see that too, because without warning Julian found himself engulfed in the tightest hug he'd ever received, and after a few long seconds Julian returned the hug, holding his friend close.
"You're a good man," Miles said, his voice heavily muffled and distorted by Julian's shoulder. "Best man I've ever met. Don't forget that."
"I won't," Julian eventually whispered, but he knew it had been heard because the hug tightened even more.
"Good, 'cause I'm not saying it again."
Now there was the Miles Julian was used to, and the sheer emotion that he felt made him laugh, shaking into Miles' embrace until, after what felt like an eternity but he knew was only about twenty-four and a half seconds, they loosened their arms and stood back from each other.
"So." And just like that, Miles was all business again.
Julian took refuge in that. "So," he repeated.
"You came to Deep Space Nine to make a difference, right?" Miles asked, once again rhetorically. "Doesn't matter what you were pretending."
"No, it doesn't," Julian agreed, "and yes, I did."
"So... go out there, and make a difference," Miles told him, barely holding back enough contrasting emotions that Julian knew not to prod in that particular direction. "Show Starfleet what they're missing by cutting you loose."
"Will do, Chief," Julian smiled. "And you look after that family of yours - and stay away from the rapids!" They both grinned at that. "Oh, I'm deadly serious, Mister O'Brien. I doubt my Starfleet-approved replacement is going to be as gracious towards your destructive relationship with that virtual body of water as I've been."
"I should be so lucky." Miles paused. "I should go. I - Keiko's expecting me."
And so she would be. "I'll still be here in the morning," Julian reassured him. "I'll stick around for one last greasy breakfast at Quark's... then be on my way."
"I'll join you," Miles decided. "And everyone else. They'll all want to say goodbye."
There was still a part of Julian that wanted to doubt that very much, but he let himself be swayed. "We'll have to reserve one of the large tables at the back, then."
Miles nodded, a sudden sadness in his features offset by the smile he was struggling to maintain.
"There's one last thing I want to do before turning in for the night," Julian told him. Again, it was almost the truth. He hadn't decided until that very moment what he was going to do, but it was close enough. "I can walk with you back to your quarters, if you'd like."
"Yeah," Miles said. "Yeah, I'd like that."
This late at "night" the corridors were quiet and devoid of activity, and it wasn't long before they reached the door to Miles' home.
"I'll see you in the morning," Julian said quickly, as a means of deflecting any more awkwardness.
"Yeah," Miles nodded, seemingly in the same mood. "'Night."
He stepped inside, and Julian waited for the door to close behind him before turning on his heel and making his way down a different corridor than the one he'd just come down with Miles. He was abstractly aware that he was maintaining a different pace than he usually employed, and although he hadn't really considered it before, he now knew that he was indeed holding himself differently now there was no longer a pretence to maintain, or one that was worth maintaining.
He quickly reached his destination, for the first time in almost five years not caring if anyone saw him, or wondered where he was going. Because, barring a miracle, or a lot of convenient deaths, this was going to be Julian's last night on Deep Space Nine, and damned if he wasn't going to do what he wanted, finally.
Smiling slightly at the nerves and trepidation now openly flooding his system - which was a rare occurrence, and something that thrilled Julian far more than he'd ever admit to anyone - he thumbed the door chime in front of him.
It was a long two minutes and forty-nine seconds before the door opened, revealing a rumpled and sleep-dishevelled Garak, his expression as inscrutable as Julian had ever been able to establish, although this time he thought perhaps there were the tiniest hints of curiosity and bemusement on his tailor's face.
Forestalling any comments, Julian smiled - openly, without deception, for the first time since they'd met.
"Can I come in?"