Deep-Space-Nine-Fans

"You seem to be handling this very well," Jadzia Dax whispered, a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "Believe me," Julian Bashir said, his smile strained as everyone else left, murmuring quiet condolences, "I'm not." "I didn't think so," Dax replied. Bashir had been up for the Carrington Award, a top medical honor. He had glumly predicted he wouldn't win, and the human had been proven right. A few minutes later, Dax and Bashir were left alone in the wardroom. Bashir sighed deeply. "You don't have to stay, Jadzia, I'll be all right." "No, I want to," she said firmly. "Besides, I brought this." She held out a bottle full of dark-blue

It was staggering. Unreal. Something from a dream. The sudden change from outcast tailor to Obsidian Order agent. One instant Garak was destroying his own shop and the next he was aboard a Romulan warbird, shaking hands with Enabran Tain. He was back. This was what he'd been made for. How had he even lived as a tailor? How had he survived the monotony? And then it was over. One simple request from Tain. Shouldn't have required a second thought. But suddenly he didn't fit anymore. Perhaps the Federation was having more of an influence on him than he'd thought.

It took years for Doctor Bashir to realize he would never figure it out. After hours of conversation you should have learned something about a person. But it didn't happen that way. Garak dropped careful hints, but they were always scooped back up before Bashir could make sense them. A wiser, worldlier person might have accepted it sooner, but not Bashir. He kept believing that someday Garak would give him the hint he needed. Garak realized this would be the way of things, from the first day he met Bashir. He very nearly laughed, but that would've spoiled the game.