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The Autumn sun was setting in its dust-red glow over Cardassia, and Kelas Parmak sat on the balcony outside his room in the Castellan’s residence with a pot of red leaf tea and a pleasant selection of newly published medical papers on his PADD. He had completed his day’s work and was looking forward to a relaxing evening of reading. Perhaps he would discuss some of the more interesting papers with Doctor Bashir in the morning.
Serving as the private physician to the Castellan of the Cardassian Union was, all things considered, more akin to a comfortable retirement. There had been ample work, of course, when Julian had still been in need of daily medical attention after his return from Section 31, but now that he was well into his recovery, Kelas rarely found himself called on. Castellan Garak was, by and large, a healthy man, and he was responsible for no one else. For that, the pay was excellent, and it left him with ample time for a selection of other work, from volunteering at various hospitals and clinics around Kardassi’or to teaching and lecturing and, of course, regular quiet afternoons of reading and correspondence.
He was halfway through an excellent paper on the long-term effects of medically induced stasis when the screen of his PADD switched to an alert, white letters on a bright red background.
EMERGENCY ALERT - JULIAN BASHIR - MASTER BEDROOM
His comm chimed with the same message and Kelas grabbed it from the table, then went to fetch his medical kit and headed for the door. The emergency bracelet had been Garak’s idea and his insistence, when Julian had begun recovering and thus moving around the estate—a simple device that would display his medical history and additional needs to any medical tricorder that scanned him, with a one button alarm connected directly to Kelas. He had not needed to use it in a while, but he was still experiencing episodes of dysautonomia, especially after any exhaustion, and he had been out and about the day before. They all knew to better be safe than sorry with Julian.
Kelas half-expected to find Julian on the floor when he opened the door to the master bedroom. He had fallen more than once when he was getting used to the motor bands that he used on good days, and occasionally while transferring into the hoverchair. Surgery had repaired some of the damage done to his spine, but he would never regain full use of his legs.
Having an idea of what one would find was a great advantage when responding to any emergency call, yet the tableau that greeted Kelas when the door slid open made him freeze despite all his experience.
Julian was on the floor. He was kneeling, in the middle of the room. Doing his best to brace the shaking body of Elim Garak, Castellan of the Cardassian Union, who, for some gul-forsaken reason, was in the middle of a tonic-clonic seizure.
“Coming up to four minutes,” Julian informed him when Kelas rushed to Garak’s side. “He had a headache this morning, but was trying to hide it. I called you as soon as he collapsed.”Kelas nodded tersely in response. He had retrieved the tricorder from his medical bag and was running it across Garak’s body.
“His sats are dropping, he is not getting enough air.”
Putting the tricorder aside, Kelas loaded up a hypospray. “One unit of convulisine, a second if he does not respond in five minutes.” Julian nodded his agreement over the soft hiss of the hypospray against Garak’s neck. He was sweating, keeping someone much heavier on their side during a seizure was hard work even for someone who could brace themselves through their legs.
One of the most horrible features of seizures was that for the most part, there was nothing to do but wait. It was generally advised to let a seizure run its course, intervening only if there was a secondary cause. And even with the medication given, it would take time to work. Seconds stretched into hours as the two doctors watched, tense and nervous, until Garak finally fell still. Kelas picked the tricorder up again.
“Oxygen saturation is improving. I am not seeing any sign of a brain bleed. I will get some help to get him to the infirmary”—another thing Garak had insisted on establishing in his residence after Julian had arrived, broken in mind and body. It now mostly served as a threat Kelas could deploy at a Castellan refusing to rest, but it did still possess a state-of-the-art biobed and the associated monitoring equipment—“if you keep an eye on him, Doctor Bashir?”
“Of course.” Julian’s fingertips already rested against Garak’s pulse point. He was still keeping Garak supported on his side, with more ease now he was no longer actively convulsing. As Kelas left the room, he could hear him whisper reassurances to his beloved.
*
“You’re in the infirmary,” Julian softly told Garak when he opened his eyes several hours later. “You had a seizure.” There was a soft moan in response.
“I know. We have given you something for the headache already. Would you like a drink?” At Garak’s weak nod, Julian took the cup from the bedside table and put the straw between his lips. “There. Don’t try to move too much yet, my love, we don’t know what caused it so we don’t want to risk another.”
“I have taken a blood sample and am running every test I can think of,” Kelas added. Garak blinked, slowly in response, and then breathed a sigh. He was sore, all over, his head pounding despite the medication, and there was an awful taste in the back of his throat. But, a quick inspection with careful hands showed, he was still wearing the same clothes. Thank Oralius for small mercies.
“At least I didn’t soil myself this time.” The words were out before he had really thought about them, and regret was immediate. Both doctors turned to look at him and Garak’s face rapidly acquired the expression of someone who knew they had messed up.
“This time?”
Julian’s voice sounded incredulous, and Garak squeezed his eyes closed.
“Are you saying this has happened before?!”
He considered lying, then. Like he had been lying in the morning when Julian had asked him whether he was feeling alright after a little stumble in the refresher. Like he had been lying for weeks. But it was the sign of a good operative to know when the game was up, and he knew that with him stuck in a biobed, tests already running, it was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
“Only once.”
There was stunned silence for a second, and Garak forced himself to open his eyes. Julian looked at him with eyes burning with rage.
“And you didn’t tell me?” It was rare to hear Julian raise his voice, and Garak could only just keep himself from flinching backwards. He had known that this would happen if his secret came out before his time was up. He had just hoped that would not come to pass. But hope, as he well knew, was foolish.
“I didn’t want to worry you, dearest.”
Julian was still staring at him, shaking his head with incredulity. “You… you had a fucking seizure and you didn’t say a fucking word?”
“My dear…”
An imperiously raised hand interrupted him. There were not many men with the power to silence Elim Garak. It was one of the many things he loved about his Julian.
“Fine, maybe you didn’t want to worry me, but why didn’t you tell him?” Julian gestured at Kelas, who crossed his arms. Garak could see his friend was no less angry, and the carefully controlled softness of his tone stung almost as much as Julian’s rage.
“That is indeed something I would like to hear an explanation for.”
He took a deep breath. The tests would bring results soon enough. But perhaps…
“I have work to do.”
Of course that was not enough. If anything, the expression on Julian’s face darkened even more, and even Doctor Parmak now looked close to losing his temper. “Every seizure is a medical emergency. Why do you employ me as a personal physician if you then neglect to see me when something is wrong?”
He did not receive a response, because there was none Garak was willing to give. That, and his entire attention had been taken up by the expression of utter fury on his beloved’s face.
“I can’t fucking believe you. Do you want to sacrifice yourself for Cardassia so badly?”
“Julian…” He could not explain. Not yet. There would be results and then… then. But he had to make this better, he was running out of time.
“No, Elim.” Julian moved the hover chair away from the bed, and turned. “You are going to rest, and you are going to let Doctor Parmak do any test he wishes, and then you are going to take any medication he prescribes. And then, we can talk.”
*
“Encephalitis.”
Julian stared at the PADD that Kelas had handed him, shaking fingers scrolling through the information at speed. “He has encephalitis.”
“A viral variant,” Kelas confirmed. “I have started a regimen of antivirals, alongside fluids, anticonvulsants and some pain relief.”
“And how is he?” Julian had not been back to the infirmary after their argument. It was not that he did not want to be at Garak’s side, but he was just so very angry with him. He had taken the time instead to fit the motor bands around his legs, enabling him to move around with just a cane for aid. He was too agitated to sit still.
“A little groggy, but stable. No further seizure activity so far. I want to keep him in the infirmary under monitoring at least overnight, but he should be quite recovered in a few days.”
Julian nodded, handing the PADD back. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“Of course.” Kelas took a deep breath. “And, when you are ready… he is asking for you. I think he wants to explain.”
It was an explanation Julian was rather keen to hear. He must have been miserable for weeks. Why had he not said anything? Yes, Garak worried about him, too much as far as he was concerned, but normally he would have at least spoken to Kelas. Something, somewhere, was off. He still did not exactly rush back to the infirmary, making himself a cup of tarkelean tea first, and drinking it slowly. He was still angry, and Garak could stew for a bit.
When he did finally step into the infirmary, his anger had mostly dissipated and been replaced by concern. Kelas was in his office next door, unwilling to stray too far from his patient, but for now, they had privacy.
“You wanted to see me?”
Garak looked pale and strangely uncertain, and Julian pushed down a pang of worry.
“My dearest. Doctor Parmak informed me I have encephalitis.”
“An inflammation of the brain, yes. Easily treatable, but far from harmless.” No, it turned out he was still angry. Angry and scared. “God knows what would have happened had you not seized right in front of me. You could have died, Garak. I could have woken up one morning and just found you… gone!”
“I expected that would be the case, yes,” Garak responded. His voice was quiet. Julian blinked, taken aback entirely. “What?!”
“I admit I have been feeling, how do you put it? Under the weather for a while. Headaches, some nausea, some dizziness. I had resolved to consult Doctor Parmak, but then I had the seizure and… I thought I knew what was wrong with me.”
“Because you are famously a doctor,” Julian retorted acerbically and Garak raised his hands.
“I know. It was stupid. But… I thought it was Yarim Fel Syndrome.”
Julian felt as if he had been punched. He found the chair Kelas had thankfully put by the bed with one hand and sat down, heavily. “You thought you were dying.”
“I did,” Garak admitted. “And I knew that if that was the case, Doctor Parmak and you would make me… rest. I did not want that. I wanted to spend my last weeks working, for the good of Cardassia, not lying in bed, watching you borrow grief from tomorrow. I thought that…” Garak’s voice was wobbling dangerously and he took a deep breath to steady himself. Julian could not help but reach out to take his hand, squeezing it. “I thought that if you did not know, you would… be spared that.”
“And so you risked dying from something completely treatable, because you did not want me to worry about you dying from something else. You idiot lizard.”
Usually, Garak would have bristled at being called either an idiot or a lizard, but clearly he had accepted that he deserved both titles, this time. “I am sorry, my dear. I am so very sorry.”
“You better.” But Julian could already feel himself forgiving him. Garak had thought he was dying, and he had been all alone with everything that came with it. He hadn’t noticed. Of course, it was hard to notice anything Garak did not want to show, but he had hoped to know him well enough by now. “Promise me you’ll never do something like that again?”
“Julian…”
“Promise me. You don’t have to come to me, but you must go to Kelas if you are not feeling well. Because I refuse to lose you like this, do you hear me?” He squeezed his hand again, more firmly this time.
“Alright.” Garak took a deep breath, then blinked, slowly. “I am tired, my dear. Will you… will you stay for a bit?”
In response, Julian pressed a kiss onto his knuckles. “Of course I will stay, my love. Of course I will stay.”