Chapter Text
The choppers came at dawn, which meant they'd been flying through the night. That wasn’t a good sign.
Julian was already moving before Radar's announcement finished echoing across the camp. He'd learned to interpret the urgency in the young man's voice: this wasn't the usual steady stream of casualties. This was bad.
Pre-op area filled within minutes, spilling outside. Stretchers everywhere, nurses calling out vital signs, orderlies moving briskly. Julian caught sight of Margaret directing traffic, calm and authoritative even as the numbers kept climbing.
"Bashir!" Potter's voice cut through the noise. " Table three. Chest trauma, possible cardiac involvement!"
Julian moved quickly. He could hear voices from inside the operating theater: Hawkeye calling for instruments, BJ's steady commentary, the rhythmic hiss of manual respirators.
He pushed through the doors into chaos with disturbing ease.
"What've we got?" Julian asked, moving to the empty table where a soldier—couldn't be more than nineteen—was being transferred from a stretcher.
"Shrapnel to the abdomen and chest," Lieutenant Able reported. She'd started smiling at him during rounds after the incident with Kellye. "Possible pneumothorax, definitely internal bleeding."
Julian assessed quickly, hands already moving. The chest wound was serious but manageable—he could see the lung collapse, the telltale signs of air in the pleural space. Standard treatment for the era would be chest tube, drainage, careful monitoring.
But the abdominal injuries were worse. Much worse.
He opened carefully, working through layers of tissue and muscle. Blood welled up immediately. Too much blood. A nick to the hepatic artery. Small, but catastrophic.
Back home it would be simple. Laser cauterization, tissue regeneration, maybe some surgical sealant. The patient would be in and out of surgery within the hour and fully recovered in a week.
But here, with these tools…
The standard procedure would be clamping and ligation. Tie off the bleeder, hope the collateral circulation was sufficient, and pray that the resulting ischemia didn't cause more damage than the original injury. It worked, mostly. But the recovery was brutal, and the risk of complications was significant. The patient might make it to Tokyo. He might not.
Julian's hands paused over the exposed artery. He could do what they expected. Follow the protocols of the era, perform the surgery the way any competent doctor would.
Or—
"Suture," he said. "The finest you have. And I need irrigation, constant irrigation."
"Doctor?" Able's voice held a question.
"I'm going to repair it," Julian said, his hands already moving. "Direct arterial anastomosis. Small enough that I can approximate the edges without compromising the lumen."
He felt rather than saw Hawkeye pause at the next table. BJ glanced over. Even Charles, working across the room, turned slightly.
"That's ambitious," Hawkeye said carefully. "Julian, if you can't get a clean repair—"
"I can." Julian was already working, starting to suture sutures with the microscopic precision his enhancements afforded him. Each one perfect, positioned to minimize trauma while maintaining vessel patency. He could see the arterial wall, imagined he could feel how much tension each suture could bear.
It was delicate work. The kind of surgery that wouldn't become standard practice for another couple decades at least, and even then only by specialists with far better equipment than they had here. But Julian could do it. His coordination was working overtime, compensating for the inadequate tools and lighting to place each stitch exactly where it needed to be. The arterial walls came together seamlessly, the repair so clean that when he tie doff, the blood flow resumed. Minimal leakage.
"I'll be damned," Potter said softly. "That's beautiful work, son."
"Irrigation," Julian said, not looking up. "I need to make sure there are no other bleeders before I close."
The rest of the surgery was almost anticlimactic. He checked every vessel, closed in layers, left nothing to chance. By the time he sutured the final layer of skin, the patient's vitals had stabilized completely. Color returning to his face, breathing easier, all the signs of a body that wasn't fighting for survival anymore.
Julian stepped back from the table, suddenly aware of the silence around him.
Margaret was staring at him with something like awe. Able looked stunned. Even Charles had moved closer, observing Julian's work with uncharacteristic interest.
"That," Charles said slowly, "was remarkable. Where did you learn that technique?"
"Medical school," Julian said vaguely, already stripping off his gloves. The lie came easily now. "My training program was... cutting-edge."
Hawkeye appeared over his shoulder having finished with his own patient. He looked at Julian's table, at the neatly closed incision, at the stable vitals.
"So. Something fancy with a hepatic artery repair," he said.
"Just a direct anastomosis. Ligation seemed too risky."
"Risky." Potter's eyebrows rose. "Son, that's not a common procedure. Not even slightly common. You just performed surgery that most vascular specialists would hesitate to attempt."
"I had a good teacher," Julian offered, thinking of Dr. T’seth Vo and her exacting standards during his vascular rotation. She'd made him practice on holographic simulations for months before letting him near actual patients.
"Clearly." Potter looked at him for a long moment, and Julian felt his stomach tighten. He'd been too fancy, too skilled. Had drawn exactly the kind of attention he'd been trying to avoid. But what was he supposed to do—let the patient die to avoid suspicion?
But then Potter smiled. "Damn fine work, son. That boy's going to make it home because of you."
We’ll need to watch him carefully," Julian said, stripping off his gloves. "Monitor cardiac function every thirty minutes for the first six hours. Any irregularities, any signs of tamponade, you call me immediately."
"Yes, Doctor," Nurse Baker said.
The OR gradually emptied as patients were transferred to post-op. Julian scrubbed out alongside Hawkeye, who was uncharacteristically quiet.
"That was really something," Hawkeye said finally. "I mean it, Julian. I've been doing this for years now, and I've never seen anyone attempt that kind of repair, let alone pull it off so cleanly."
Julian shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. "It just seemed like the better option."
"Better option." Hawkeye laughed, but there was no mockery in it. "You're something else, you know that? Come on. Potter keeps the good stuff hidden, and I think this calls for a celebration."
#
The officer's club was more crowded than usual—several new faces that Julian didn't recognize mixed in with the regular staff. Visiting brass, maybe, or support personnel from another unit.
Word of the successful surgery rate that day had spread, and the mood was almost celebratory, a brief respite from the usual exhaustion.
Julian claimed a seat, accepting the glass Hawkeye pressed into his hand. Charles was already holding forth about sport hunting, and BJ was grinning at something Margaret had said.
"So there I was," Hawkeye announced to the table at large, his voice carrying in his storytelling mode, "closing up a relatively straightforward shrapnel wound, when I hear Charles—Charles, mind you, who wouldn't compliment his own mother—say 'that's remarkable work.' So naturally I had to look." Hawkeye gestured dramatically. "And there's Julian, calmly performing a repair that I've only read about in journals."
"It wasn't that impressive," Julian protested. "Any competent surgeon could have—"
"Any competent surgeon would have tied it off and hoped for the best," BJ interrupted. "What you did was steps beyond competent. It was damn near magical."
"Here here," Hawkeye said, raising his glass. "To Julian and his magical hands."
"To Julian!" the table chorused.
Julian felt heat creep up his neck. The attention was too much, too visible. He needed to redirect, to downplay—
A flash of light made him flinch.
Julian's head snapped up to find a man with a camera lowering it from his face, a press badge visible on his jacket. "Sorry about that, Doc. Couldn't resist. That's going to be a great shot—you surrounded by your colleagues, everyone toasting your success."
"I—what—" Julian's voice came out strangled. A photograph. A photograph that would be in records, in archives. "You can't—"
"Can and did." The man grinned, extending his hand. "Corporal Marty Walters, Stars and Stripes. I've been touring the unit today, getting some human interest stories. When Colonel Potter mentioned what you did in surgery, that technique that probably saved that kid's life, I knew I had to get a picture."
Julian's mind raced. This was bad. This was very bad. Photographs were evidence, documentation—
"It really wasn't that great," Julian tried. "Just a standard repair—"
"Standard?" Hawkeye leaned back in his chair, grinning up at the journalist. "Julian, you're terrible at taking credit. What you did today was extraordinary. That boy's going home with a fully functional liver because you had the skill and guts to attempt something most surgeons wouldn't even consider."
"Hawkeye, please—" Julian's voice came out strangled.
"He’s right," the journalist said, making notes. "Colonel Potter said this kind of direct arterial repair isn't common practice. Said you might be ahead of your time."
Ahead of his time. If only he knew.
"I just did what needed to be done," Julian said, trying to keep his voice level even as panic clawed at his chest. "Any doctor would have—"
"Would have packed the wound and shipped him to Japan," Charles interrupted. Julian had forgotten he was there. "What you did was several orders of magnitude more sophisticated. The technique, the precision—it was masterful work, Bashir."
Great. Even Charles was working against him now.
"Exactly!" The journalist was writing faster now. "This is perfect. 'MASH Doctor's Innovative Technique Saves Young Soldier.' Front page material, Doc. You're going to be famous."
Famous. Famous meant visible. Meant attention. Meant people looking at him, increasing the risk of changing something, of—
"I really don't think—" Julian started.
“Can you tell me where you trained? Our readers will want to know."
"San Francisco," Julian said, because he had to say something. "But I really don't think this warrants—"
"San Francisco? Excellent. And you're with the UN medical corps?" The journalist was still writing, creating a permanent record.
"I appreciate the interest," Julian said, trying to keep his voice level, "but I'd really rather not—"
"Modesty," Hawkeye said, warm and tipsy. "I love it. But Julian, you deserve recognition. What you did today matters."
"Hawkeye." Julian's voice came out sharper than he intended. He felt cornered, trapped. The journalist was still writing, still planning his damn article. The photograph was already taken, already going to be developed and printed and distributed. "Why are you doing this? Why do you keep—"
He stopped, aware of their audience. The journalist was watching with interest, probably already composing his next paragraph. Margaret and Potter were listening. Even Radar had paused in clearing glasses to hear what Julian would say next.
"Could we talk?" Julian said to Hawkeye, his voice tight. "Outside?"
Hawkeye's expression shifted, reading something in Julian's face. "Sure. Corporal, if you'll excuse us for a moment—"
Julian led him outside the hall, jaw tight. As soon as they were alone, he turned on Hawkeye. "Why did you tell him all that? Why did you keep talking me up when I was trying to—"
"To do what? Pretend you didn't do something incredible?" Hawkeye was smiling, which somehow made Julian angrier.
"It wasn't incredible, it was just—"
"Stop." Hawkeye held up a hand. "Julian, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to actually think about your answer. Why does it bother you so much to be recognized?"
"That's not—I'm not—" Julian struggled to find words that would explain without revealing. "I just don't think it's worth making a big deal over."
"Bull." But Hawkeye said it mildly, without heat. "You're not just being modest. You're actively trying to avoid attention. Which I've noticed, by the way. You're brilliant in surgery, you read literature like an orator, and you deflect every compliment like it's a live grenade." He tilted his head, studying Julian. "So what is it? Bad breakup with a previous hospital? Trying to avoid an ex? Running from something?"
"I just don't like being in the spotlight," Julian insisted.
"Yeah, I got that. But here's the thing." Hawkeye's voice softened. "Do you know what Stars and Stripes usually publishes? Battle reports. Casualty numbers. Stories about bravery in combat—which usually means stories about young men dying heroically for questionable objectives. That's what war gets you. Death and destruction and the glorification of both."
Julian fell quiet, listening.
"But today," Hawkeye continued, "today you gave that journalist something different. A story about saving a life. About a doctor using skill and innovation to make sure some kid gets to go home to his family instead of being shipped home in a box." His eyes were intense, serious in a way Julian rarely saw from him. "There's so much death here, Julian. So much waste. If one front page—just one—can be about life instead of death, about healing instead of destruction, doesn't that matter?"
Julian felt something in his chest loosen. "You really believe that."
"I have to." Hawkeye's smile was sad.
They stood in silence for a moment, the sounds of the camp filtering around them. Someone laughed in the distance. A generator hummed. Normal sounds of people trying to live despite the war.
"I'm sorry," Julian said finally. "For snapping at you. You were just... you were trying to do something good."
"And you were trying to avoid attention, which—fair enough. We've all got our reasons." Hawkeye squeezed his shoulder briefly. "But Julian? What you did today? That kid's going to have kids of his own someday. Grandkids, maybe. A whole life ahead of him because you had the guts to try something different. That's worth celebrating."
Julian thought about that soldier—nineteen, maybe twenty. Thought about the life he'd just preserved, the future that would unfold from this single moment. Thought about how one surgical decision could ripple forward through time.
And he thought about how he'd been so focused on protecting himself and his timeline that he'd forgotten the most important thing: in this moment he was a doctor. And doctors saved lives. That was the job. That was the mission.
"Thank you," Julian said quietly. "For the reminder."
"Anytime." Hawkeye's grin returned, bright and irrepressible. "Now come on. That journalist probably has more questions, and I'm not done talking you up yet. Someone's got to make sure the article properly captures your heroism."
"My heroism."
"Absolutely. By the time I'm done, you're going to sound like a cross between Florence Nightingale and Zeus."
Julian laughed despite himself. "I won’t shake you, will I?"
"Never. I’m a dog with a bone.” Hawkeye slung an arm around Julian's shoulders, steering him back toward the officer's club. "Besides, someone's got to balance out your excessive modesty. Think of me as your publicity manager."
"I don't need a publicity manager."
"Everyone needs a publicity manager. How else will people know how wonderful you are?"
They stepped back into the warm light of the officer's club, where the journalist was waiting with his notebook and his camera and his plans to put Julian’s face in the historical record
Julian took a breath, squared his shoulders, and tried to remember that sometimes the best way to hide in history was to be exactly what people expected: a competent doctor who got lucky.
Even if luck had nothing to do with it.
#
The revelries continued throught the evening until the crowds slowly petered out in ones and twos back to their tents. Only the sparce chair remained occupied, two of which were filled by Hawkeye and Julian. Their quiet was accompanied by the clink of glasses, the low murmur of conversation. Normal sounds of people trying to forget, for a few hours, where they were.
"You know," Hawkeye said, his voice losing some of its performative edge, " I don't actually know much about you. And before you deflect with another perfectly vague answer about the UN, I mean the real stuff. Who Julian Bashir actually is, not just what he does in an OR."
Julian glanced at him, surprised. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because you're interesting." Hawkeye said it simply, like it was obvious. "You're brilliant and talented and clearly running from something, and you quote obscure literature at Charles and perform miracle surgeries like it's nothing. I'd like to know the story behind all that."
"I'm not that interesting."
"Now I know you're lying." Hawkeye grinned. "Come on. Tell me something real about Julian Bashir."
Julian opened his mouth to deflect, to change the subject. But something about the moment—the darkness, the lingering warmth from Hawkeye's words about saving lives, the good feeling of being actually appreciated—made him want to answer honestly.
Or as honestly as he could.
"People don’t always tend to like me.”
He surprised himself with that statement. Ah well, time to see where his mouth would take him. “I can come across as being a bit abrasive. Intense about what I love. Not the best recipe for popularity."
"Ah, the curse of being brilliant and insufferable." Hawkeye's grin was warm, teasing. "I'm familiar with it. Though in my case, it's more about being devastatingly handsome and unable to hide it."
"Is that what you’re calling that look?"
"Absolutely. It's a burden I bear with grace and humility." Hawkeye shifted closer, his voice dropping slightly. "So this intensity of yours, is it always about medicine? Or do you apply that same focus to other areas of life?"
There was something in his tone that made Julian's pulse quicken slightly. "I've been told I can be... somewhat single-minded when something interests me."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." Hawkeye was watching him with those sharp eyes. Julian could understand how the nurses described that look: the kind that makes you feel you’re the only one in the world. "What interests you, Julian Bashir? Besides saving lives?"
"I like games. Darts, mostly. Strategy games, though I’m terrible at misdirection." Julian smiled. "I had a friend who used to destroy me at… chess on a regular basis.” He adjusted. Didn’t think it was worth explaining kotra. “He'd make these moves that seemed completely out of nowhere until suddenly you realized he'd been setting up the real strategy five moves back."
"Sounds frustrating."
"It was. It was also..." Julian paused, feeling his throat tighten slightly. "It was one of my favorite parts of the day. Just sitting across from him, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Never quite succeeding."
“All right, all right,” Hawkeye was grinning, encouraging Julian on. “Keep going!”
"When I was a kid," Julian continued slowly, "I had this stuffed bear. Kukalaka. I used to pretend to be a doctor, perform surgeries on him with whatever I could find. Safety pins for sutures, that sort of thing."
"That's adorable." Hawkeye's face lit up. "Please tell me you still have this bear."
"I do, actually. He's—he's back home." Julian smiled despite himself. "He looks... well, loved might be the charitable term. Mangled might be more accurate. But I think I always wanted to be a doctor, even back then."
"Most kids that age are breaking things, and you were trying to fix them." Hawkeye leaned forward. Julian smiled, wistful.
“He stayed with me through…a lot of stuff.”
“There’s a story there, I can tell.”
"I got…sick when I was seven. Needed surgery." Julian's approached the topic with caution, each word chosen carefully. This was the dangerous part: the edge between truth and necessary lies. "Something genetic. The kind of thing that shouldn't have been fixable but was. And afterwards, I felt…different.”
It was true, in its way. He had been seven. He had been changed. The specifics were different—enhancement rather than surgery, improvement rather than repair—but the emotional truth was the same. The feeling of being remade.
"Different how?" Hawkeye aske, quieter.
Julian paused. To hell with it.
“Like I was a different person. Like the me before died to give me life. And that I had to prove I deserved that life." Julian's throat tightened. "I spent every moment from then trying to justify my existence. Every achievement, every accomplishment—they were payments on a debt I could never fully repay." A debt to Jules.
"That's a hell of a way to live."
"Yeah." Julian laughed, but it came out stilted. "And the worst part is, I know it's impossible. I know I'm never going to feel like I've done enough, been enough. But I can't stop trying. Can't stop pushing myself to be better, smarter, more useful." He paused. "More tolerable."
"Tolerable?"
"I know I'm annoying." The words came out in a rush, like a confession Julian had been holding back too long. "I talk too much, I'm too enthusiastic, I come across as arrogant even when I don't mean to. People tolerate me because I'm good at what I do, but they don't actually—" He stopped himself. "I just wish I knew how to be different. How to be the kind of person people actually want around, not just put up with."
Hawkeye was quiet for a long moment. When Julian finally worked up the courage to look at him, he was met with an unusually serious expression.
"Is that really how you see yourself?"
"It's how everyone else sees me." Julian shrugged. "I've made peace with it, mostly. As long as I'm useful, the rest doesn't matter as much."
"Julian—"
"It's fine." Julian forced a smile. "Really. I've had friends who saw past it. People who understood that I didn't mean to be... like this. That I couldn't always help it. One friend in particular—"
Julian stopped, his throat closing unexpectedly. He thought of Garak in their usual corner of the replimat, dissecting Julian's arguments. Bringing him chocolates for his birthday, surprising him with a beautiful shirt just because Starfleet’s standard-issue uniforms were apparently appalling on his frame.
"Sounds important to you," Hawkeye said gently.
"They are. Were. Are." Julian shook his head. "I miss—home. I didn't realize how much until just now, but… Julian wiped at his burning eyes roughly, determined not to cry. Not here, not now, not about temporal displacement and the terrible possibility that he might never see Garak again. "Sorry. I'm being ridiculous. It's the exhaustion talking."
"It's not ridiculous to miss someone."
Julian almost laughed. He was talking to a man who'd been dead for centuries by the time Julian was born, missing another man who wouldn't be born for centuries more. The absurdity of it all was almost too much.
But what struck him, what made his chest tight and his eyes burn, was how much truth he'd just told. The root of the stories might have been a lie, but they were emotionally true.
He thought of what Garak had told him once of his own stories: my dear, they’re all true—especially the lies. Julian had rolled his eyes at the time, dismissed it as more Cardassian double-talk. But now, standing here with tears threatening and truth wrapped in necessary deception, he understood.
The lies revealed more than facts ever could.
"This friend," Hawkeye said carefully, his voice gentle in a way Julian rarely heard from him. "Must not realize how lucky…she is. To have someone who cares about them that much."
The pause was deliberate. The pronoun hesitated. An offering of understanding wrapped in plausible deniability.
Julian looked at Hawkeye and saw no judgment, just genuine warmth and perhaps a hint of recognition.
Hawkeye's hand landed on Julian's shoulder, warm and steady, guiding him back to levity and cheer. "For what it's worth, I think they’d be lucky to have you back. And in the meantime, you're stuck with me. Which isn't the same, but it's not terrible either."
"It's not terrible at all," Julian said honestly.
“Good. Because I have plans to get you some of Potter’s good Scotch before Charles tries to slink back here and drink it all. And tomorrow maybe we can convince Potter to tell the story about the time he tried to ride a horse in the Missouri mud."
"Is it a good story?"
"It's terrible. But it's funny, and Potter does this thing where he acts it out with his hands. It's worth it." Hawkeye steered him back toward the officer's club. "Maybe tomorrow you can watch me absolutely devastate BJ at poker."
Julian laughed—actually laughed—and felt something in his chest loosen. He was still stranded in the wrong time, still carrying secrets that could rewrite history. But for this moment, he had someone who listened.
Who could make him laugh even while acknowledging the ache of missing home.
Hawkeye slipped over to the bar, rummaged behind it, pulled out a bottle of actual Scotch—Potter really had hidden the good stuff. He poured two glasses and returned, raised his in a quiet toast.
"To absent friends," Hawkeye said. "And to the hope that somewhere, they're missing us back."
"To absent friends," Julian echoed.
"And to you," Hawkeye added, his voice warm, "for being exactly as intense and enthusiastic as you are. It's working for you. Trust me."
The way Hawkeye said it—the slight emphasis, the warmth in his eyes—made Julian's face heat slightly. But it wasn't uncomfortable. It was... nice. Being seen. Being appreciated.
Being flirted with.
"You know," Julian said, taking a sip of the Scotch, " you seem suspiciously interested in my intensity."
"What can I say? I appreciate a man who commits to his work." Hawkeye's grin was absolutely wicked now. "Among other things."
"Other things?"
"Your surgical technique. Obviously." Hawkeye's expression was pure innocence. "What else would I mean?"
"Obviously," Julian agreed, smiling despite himself.
The Scotch was good. The company was better. And for a few hours, Julian let himself exist, telling truths wrapped in lies.
It was, he thought, something Garak would have appreciated.