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"So? What did you think of it?" Dr. Bashir asked, his voice warm with enthusiasm. Between them on the table lay a PADD, which Garak had left there before he went to get his food. At the top of the screen, in a large font, it said Good Omens.
"Well," Garak said, and then he paused, looking at Julian.
"Well what?"
"Well, it was certainly different from the other literature that you've been giving me to read."
"Yes, well," Julian said, "I told you when I gave it to you that this was an example of popular fiction, rather than something that would be considered high art. Still, I rather liked it myself — and, as they say, all work and no play."
He looked at Garak, expecting him to continue. By long tradition, the person who was new to the book spoke first, giving his general, unfiltered impression and analysis.
"...Yes?" Garak said, sounding impatient.
"I'm sorry?" Julian responded, genuinely confused.
"All work and no play what, Doctor?"
"Oh! Ah... Well, the saying is, 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', actually. And before you start, no, I have no idea who Jack is."
Garak shook his head. "I'm afraid your Human sayings are destined to leave me mystified forever, Doctor." He raised a hand, palm forward, as if to preemptively stop Julian's rush of comments and explanations. "But let's get back to this fascinating novel."
Julian honestly couldn't tell whether Garak was being sarcastic. He'd improved, but he often still had difficulty with it, despite their years of lunchtime conversation.
"I must admit, Doctor, I am quite curious about something."
"What's that, Garak?"
"Why you chose this piece of so-called 'popular fiction' in particular. Why go all the way back to the 20th century? I understand that these two authors were quite popular back then, but why not sample a more contemporary work, if the goal is to gain an understanding of common taste?"
"Oh come, Garak. Surely that much is obvious. Good Omens is a novel about two men — or, well, man-shaped beings anyways — who are both stationed in a place far away from their own homes, who both have secrets that set them apart from the population around them, and who enjoy lunch together on a regular basis." He smiled.
"I see."
For a second, Garak's eyes seemed to contain an extra sparkle, and Julian couldn't prevent himself from smiling wider in return. With Garak, meaning was hidden in the tiniest of clues. He'd been training himself for years to catch those microexpressions, and finally he was sometimes able to read small pieces of his friend's genuine emotions.
He didn't fool himself, of course, that he'd ever seen anything that Garak didn't want to show.
"So you believe that these two — this Aziraphale and Crowley — are analogous to you and me, then," Garak said.
Julian bobbed his head in agreement, while shoving a spoonful of his stew into his mouth. He'd learned long ago, after an embarrassing choking incident, to choose soft foods — soups and stews and casseroles — for these literary lunches. He simply wasn't willing to let chewing get in the way of his conversation.
"Certainly. You would be Crowley, of course. After all, between the two of us, you're the one who is a reptile."
Garak smirked. "Not exactly the same kind as your Earth reptiles, of course, but I'll grant the point. If one of us is to be serpentine, it's surely me."
"I must say," he continued, "Crowley was by far my favorite character in the entire book. His thoughts on the nature of good and evil, the clever insightfulness that he brought to bear upon his duties, the subtle ways that he influenced his counterpart over the course of the book... Why, I almost found him likable. Which, I'll admit, is rare for Human literature." He steepled his hands together, grey blunt fingertip pressed against grey blunt fingertip.
Julian glanced at the tiny, intricately-joined scales that covered the backs of Garak's fingers between each joint. He'd always been fascinated by those scales. They were just so small, practically invisible unless you were very close, and he suspected that they would feel quite smooth and soft...
He caught himself looking, and quickly turned back down at his bowl.
"And you, of course," Garak continued, "are quite like the angel Aziraphale, in some ways."
"Oh, and how's that?" Julian inquired. He could guess at some of what was coming, but he was surprisingly eager to hear it nonetheless.
"Well, there's your horrible fashion sense, for one." Julian couldn't prevent himself from rolling his eyes. "Remind me never to purchase any fabric in this pattern the book calls 'tartan'. I had to look it up — just out of professional curiosity, you know — and it's exactly the sort of thing that you would latch onto, with exceedingly regrettable results."
Julian wanted to protest. His fashion sense was just fine, thank you very much! But he refrained, because Garak's smile had just changed into a grin, and that grin had exposed a faint wrinkle on Garak's face.
Julian knew that wrinkle. This was one that he had figured out.
This particular wrinkle ran from the top left corner of Garak's mouth up into the seam of his cheek, and when it appeared, it meant that he was about to say something that Garak himself found quite amusing. "And of course, like Aziraphale, you do give a strong first impression of being English, intelligent, and... what was that charming quote? 'Gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide', I believe?"
"Oh, for goodness' sake," Julian said. He couldn't think of a response other than that.
"Yes, exactly," Garak responded. "You are the good one, between the two of us, after all. The one who goes around professionally helping people all day."
"But don't you see?" Julian leaned forward in his seat, his thoughts diverted onto another topic. "That's exactly the point of the book. That the side of good isn't strictly good, and the side of evil isn't strictly evil. That good and evil are mixed together, everywhere you look, and sometimes things can look good or evil, depending on where you're standing at the time." He realized that he was practically bent over the table, and forced himself to lean back in his chair. "That both Aziraphale and Crowley are more complicated than they initially seem. That they've become more complicated, over time, through experience of course, but also in some part because of their friendship with one another."
"Hmm," Garak said, and then he returned to his original topic. "Of course, two of those impressions are misleading when it comes to the angel, and I find it interesting that the same two are wrong for you, as well. Anyone who has seen you in the presence of any young, attractive female will quickly realize that you're not gay. And neither are you English, in any meaningful sense."
"Well," Julian said. "Erm... yes. That's true. The issue is rather complicated, really."
He carefully didn't specify which issue. He hoped Garak would assume that he was referring solely to the second one, the question of Julian's 'nationality'.
Garak tapped his finger against the table, once. It seemed like a reflex, but Julian had no doubt that it meant something.
"Of course, some aspects don't fit exactly," Julian continued. He felt, for some reason, quite eager to leave that last exchange behind. "For example, Aziraphale is the bookish one of that duo, whereas I'm ashamed to say that you love literature for its own sake more than I do."
"My dear Doctor," Garak said, "I must say I'm disappointed! All of this time, I thought you've been enjoying our literary explorations. You certainly seemed enthusiastic. Have you been lying to me, all along?" He said it with enough exaggeration that Julian knew not to take it seriously.
"Of course I enjoy them, Garak," he said. "I enjoy them very much, or I wouldn't have kept doing it for six years. But for me, it's more about the pleasures of conversation. Of hashing something out with... with somebody who always brings up interesting facets that I hadn't considered. And of course, there are the fascinating cultural differences that come to light."
It's all for you, he thought. He tried to say it without saying, as Garak might.
I like it because it lets me know you, in a way that you would never otherwise allow.
"But I must admit," he concluded aloud, "that without these conversations, I wouldn't be reading even half as much fiction as I do. I suppose you've been a good influence on me, Garak." He smiled casually at the Cardassian, who smiled casually back.
Julian wondered, not for the first time, if Garak's casual attitude was as much of a lie as his own was. These conversations had always set his heart to racing and put his mind on edge; it was what he loved about them. The tension, the challenge...
"So, am I to take it that the Federation would be the forces of Heaven, and Cardassia the forces of Hell, in this little analogy that you're drawing?"
"Well, that's one of the aspects that doesn't quite fit into my analogy, I'm afraid. In fact, I must admit that the book's main plot arc is a little bit sketchy overall. My biggest criticism is that they simply try to cram too much in. There are too many characters, too many zany side plots that come to nothing in the end. It's mostly the interactions between Crowley and Aziraphale that interested me, personally."
"Well, I'll grant that there are some vast inefficiencies in the management of Hell that would never be permitted to continue, if Hell was run by Cardassians. But overall, I'm afraid that I must disagree," Garak said. "I believe that the novel's analogy can be extended beyond our personal interactions, to the larger forces that are currently in play. In fact, that is what I personally found most interesting about the work."
"Really?" Julian was genuinely surprised, and intrigued. "Please, tell me how."
"Consider it: the basic plot is that the two sides decide to go to war over a neutral territory, without regard for the destruction and chaos wrecked upon said battleground by their fighting. Correct?"
"I suppose so, yes."
"Let us say that the battlefield, in this case, is Deep Space 9. The Cardassians make the first move, by introducing a sleeper agent into the neutral territory, under deep cover. Which is quite a canny tactic, by the way; I must say that I approve."
"Unfortunately, due to an unwise reliance on inept local sympathizers, this agent does not arrive at the correct position, and thus misses out on certain aspects of his training. Nonetheless, he is still present, earning the trust of the locals, and learning everything that there is to know about his new home."
"I suppose that's actually a strategy used in Cardassian warfare, isn't it," Bashir said, pensively.
"I really wouldn't know," Garak said smoothly. "At any rate, events progress, and after many years it comes time for this sleeper agent to be activated. And once activated, he's powerful — so powerful that he represents a real threat to the very existence of the Federation."
"I'm afraid I must wave my hands a bit here; perhaps he is going to use Deep Space 9 to do something with the wormhole, something that will vastly strengthen Cardassia's hand. The details don't really matter. What matters is that he will shortly acquire the power to lead the Cardassian Union to a decisive victory, one that will catapult them to power as sole rulers of the entire Alpha Quadrant."
Julian couldn't help but notice that Garak said 'them' instead of 'us', when referring to the Cardassian Union. That was new, and somewhat shocking. Perhaps the Cardassia-Dominion Alliance had finally shaken off some of Garak's stubborn — Julian would say 'blind', if he was being harsher — patriotism?
"So, the question is: do you really think that the Federation would shy away from flat-out destroying DS9, along with every person on it, if doing so meant the destruction and neutralization of its biggest threat? Total victory, at the cost of only one broken-down, barely functioning station and a couple hundred lives?"
"The Federation would do everything in its power not to harm innocent people," Julian asserted.
"Oh, of course it would, Doctor." Garak waved his hand in a magnanimous gesture. "This is the side of good we're talking about, after all. But war is war, and you know as well as I do that sometimes it comes down to the hard choice. Sometimes there's no transporter trick, no convenient cargo freighter or hidden Klingon ship, no wormhole alien to swoop in and save the day. Sometimes you have to choose between sacrificing the lives of many people, and sacrificing something even more precious than that. And isn't that exactly the choice that Heaven is making, in this novel?"
He paused. "I must say," he said, "one of the things I really appreciated in this book was that the good side, the side of Heaven, was far more cynical and ruthless than I expected from a Human work."
Julian was abruptly not in the mood for Garak's insinuations. "Well," he said, "I suppose you're right. In some ways it is analogous after all." He found that he was gripping his tea mug rather too tightly; his knuckles were white, but he couldn't make himself let go.
They did live in dangerous times, after all, and the destruction of Deep Space Nine was certainly a real possibility, if either side decided that it would help them win this war. Trust Garak to tease out such a connection from what Julian had considered a light and comedic piece of reading.
He took a breath, and forced himself to take another bite of stew. This time, he took a few seconds to chew.
As he swallowed, another question comes to him. He pointed his spoon at Garak and said, "The real question then is, would you and I actually behave as Aziraphale and Crowley did, in such a situation?"
"You mean, would I help you seek out this agent and try to dissuade him? Would I betray my people, my homeworld, in order to prevent the destruction of an alien place? A place where I have spent such a long and dreary exile?"
"In the book, they decide that they like Earth better," Julian observed, trying to remain objective. Trying to slow down his heart, which was unaccountably racing. "They decide to try and save it, because they both want to stay there."
"I'm not sure I agree with that interpretation," Garak said, and Julian lifted an eyebrow in surprise.
"Oh really? How so?"
"I think they choose to try and protect Earth, not because they love it, but because they've both come to realize that the places they came from could never quite live up to their own cherished ideals. They both begin to see the cracks in the foundation of their respective organizations."
"The forces of Heaven are hypocrites, holding others to strict standards that they themselves break. Their definition of 'good' is brittle and unrealistic, and it shatters upon impact as soon as it meets reality. Meanwhile, the forces of Hell are ultimately just a tool to be used. They think they are acting, when in fact they are merely being acted upon. They think highly of themselves, but are ultimately revealed to be ineffective and corrupt. Aziraphale and Crowley see this, and they both begin to doubt."
"It is that doubt that makes Aziraphale and Crowley unable to return home and become dutiful servants once more. It's not any particular love for Earth. Really, if they were in any other place in the universe, I believe that their decisions would be the same." There was an uncommon intensity in Garak's voice, a certain ragged edge that held Julian transfixed.
While speaking, Garak had raised his hands and flared his fingers apart dramatically. He gestured with multiple fingers at a time, sketching out complicated curves and spirals in the air as he made each point. It was unusually flamboyant and expressive, for Garak, and that above all else persuaded Julian that this was real. More real than anything Garak usually let him see.
"But I don't think that about the Federation," Bashir insisted. "They're not hypocrites."
As he said it, he tried not to think about Michael Eddington and the Maquis, and the Federation's obvious vendetta against them. He tried not to remember the way the Federation had treated its genetically engineered citizens, those unlucky ones who hadn't been blessed with Julian's abilities and allies. He tried not to think about Section 31, and what he'd seen of their unchecked power at the highest levels.
Garak smiled at him primly. "Of course, Doctor. And I am a patriot, who doesn't believe for an instant that Cardassia would ever allow itself to be unwisely manipulated by an external force."
"But the Dominion..." Julian fell silent. "Oh."
"Indeed."
After a few seconds of silence, Julian said, "Does that answer my question, then? Would you choose to go to after this hypothetical agent, and try to either convince him to change course, or take him down? Would you try to save Deep Space 9, even if it denied Cardassia a great and decisive victory?"
Garak didn't answer directly. He ran a finger along the curve of his cup, his eyelids lowered. Julian didn't know what to make of his silence.
Finally, Garak said, "You know, Doctor, this novel did make me realize something else."
"What's that, Garak?"
"You and I have never properly gotten drunk together. I believe that is a Human custom, is it not? To become intoxicated in the company of friends?"
Julian blinked at the sudden change in tone, but as Garak's words sank in, a slow grin slid across his face. "That's quite true," he agreed. "And I will admit: like Aziraphale, I do enjoy a good vintage of red wine."
"I've never tried Earth wine, actually," Garak said. "Though, based on my past experience of Earth food, I expect it to be ghastly."
"For my part, I have never tried kanar," Julian admitted, "and I'm expecting quite the same. Perhaps we could brave it together, both at once."
"Perhaps we could," Garak agreed, and there was that extra twinkle in his ice blue eyes, once more. "Let us not delay; let us rise to meet this challege." It sounded like a quote, but Julian didn't recognize its provenance. "How does this evening sound?"
"Wonderful, actually," Julian said. "I've got no other plans." Without allowing himself to think too deeply, he continued, "How about 2100, in my quarters? And you can bring me something new to read, too."
Garak paused for a near-imperceptible moment, before replying. "That sounds delightful, Doctor. I'm afraid that Cardassia doesn't quite have an equivalent to your 'popular fiction', but perhaps I will look for a work that involves similar themes. Cross-cultural contrast is always instructive, as you know."
Julian nodded and rose to his feet, gulping down the last spoonful of his stew. One of his little quirks was that he always knew exactly what the time was; he knew right now that he had exactly five minutes left before he was due back on shift. Garak rose also, straightening his rather flattering dark blue tunic, and gave Julian a parting smile.
Impulsively, Julian said, "They didn't just side with Earth out of cynicism, you know."
"No?" Garak said, lifting his brow ridges. "Well, I suppose there were also cultural pleasures on offer, that would be lost if the Earth was destroyed. Music and food, and literature, and so forth."
"That too," Julian said. "But don't you see? They stayed because they had each other. They both had another person who really understood them, who really knew them. Who had become a true friend, after so many years together."
"They would both lose that, if they went back to strictly serving their own sides."
Garak's shoulders lifted, just a couple of millimeters; his eyes narrowed, his posture stiffened, and the scales of his ridges turned ever-so-slightly dark. None of this would be visible to any Human who hadn't been training himself for several years to see it.
After a few seconds, he said lightly, "Really, though, Doctor? That sort of deep connection, between an angel and a demon? I'll admit that it's present in the text, but I must say that I found that part fundamentally unrealistic." He picked his tray up off the table, and started to turn away.
"Elim," Julian said. The Cardassian turned back and stood, silently waiting. If he was startled by Julian's use of his first name, he didn't show it.
Julian tried to put every ounce of seriousness he possessed into his next statement. "I would choose this over Heaven. I would choose to stay and fight."
Garak was very still and silent for a moment. Even his breathing seemed to stall.
Suddenly his grey face flashed into a smile, without passing through any intervening expression. This time it was neither his sly, troublemaking grin, nor the bland, pleasant expression that had become his default mask. It was a real smile, brilliant and genuine, and it took over and transformed Garak's entire face. To Julian it was like the sun coming out from behind clouds.
It was almost as if Garak didn't choose this smile; as if he didn't have the time to sculpt and shape his expression, for once. As if happiness rose up suddenly, from somewhere deep.
Even the Replimat was made lovely, in the light of Elim Garak's smile.
"You know, I can just see it," Garak said, still smiling broadly. "You standing there, waving around some kind of flashy flaming sword, and me beside you, armed with the first improvised weapon that came to hand. Yes, that sounds about right."
Julian laughed, and felt quite sure that he was beaming like a fool. "Of the two of us, you would still be the more dangerous one," he said.
"You flatter me, Julian," Garak responded with a smirk. Julian didn't miss the returned use of his first name. "Though I'm afraid you will have to explain to me later what exactly a 'tire iron' is. I'm not familiar with that particular technology."
Garak made one of those weird, shallow bows that he sometimes said farewell with. "Tonight?"
"Tonight!"
They both turned to walk away, but Julian couldn't resist looking over his shoulder again, taking in the tailor's compact, solid frame. Maybe he was still dazzled from that smile; maybe that's why he did it. He opened his mouth, and called out once more. "Hey, Garak!"
Garak stopped and half-turned, looking back. "What now, Doctor?" he said, but his annoyance was all show.
"I'd just like to say," Julian quoted, "if we don't get out of this, that I'll have known, deep down inside, that there was a spark of goodness in you."
Garak gave him an unreadable look, and then he smirked. "And I," he replied, "will have known that, deep down inside, you were just enough of a bastard to be worth liking."
Julian dropped Garak a wink, feeling greatly daring, and then turned away from his old friend with a smile.
As he trotted back to the infirmary, he started singing under his breath. It was an old Earth love song, one that had a passing reference in the book. Julian had looked it up, and he found that the lyrics were now stuck in his mind.
That certain night, the night we met,
There was magic abroad in the air,
There were angels dining at the Ritz
And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
I may be right, I may be wrong,
But I'm perfectly willing to swear
That when you turn'd and smiled at me
A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.