Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 07:03:25 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson inheildi@earthlink.net Title: Faith, Part II: Forgiveness Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: REP 4/9 Rating: [PG] Codes: Summary: Doctor Bashir, after having been marooned for over six months, Chapter 8, cont. Sisko leaned back in his seat and tried to appear relaxed. Under the table, though, he gripped the arms of his chair. This was it. He'd avoided--and he hated that he'd done it--Bashir for a week now, but Kira, Dax, and Girani all agreed that Bashir was competent to resume his duties as Chief Medical Officer. That assessment also meshed with Troi's, since she had let him serve in Sickbay on the *Enterprise* and even on a rather harrowing away mission. And nothing in any of those assessments gave Sisko any indication that Bashir was anything like he'd seen him on the *Enterprise.* That personality, it seemed, was reserved for him, though a bit of it had apparently shown with Garak. Sisko couldn't help thinking about what Bashir would be like now. Had the time on the *Enterprise* helped? Had the week he'd spent here on the station calmed his anger and sense of betrayal? Would being in a group matter? Sisko wasn't ready to meet Bashir one on one yet. The doors opened and the first of the senior staff arrived. Worf. Not surprising. He nodded his greeting and then took his chair. O'Brien was not long behind. He looked tired but also anxious. "Julian's back today?" he asked. Sisko just nodded. That was enough. No comment to the positive or negative. Just a nod. "One would hardly know that he was back on the station," Worf commented. "He is keeping to himself a bit," O'Brien acknowledged, "but that's not really surprising. He's been through a lot." "Perhaps too much," Worf grumbled. That upset the engineer. "What's that supposed to mean?" he challenged. Sisko would like to know as well, but he played it neutral. Worf looked uncomfortable. But he didn't back down. "He is a healer, not a warrior--" Sisko cut him off at that. "If you're implying that makes him weak, you're wrong." The door had opened again. "Wrong about what?" Ezri asked before sitting down next to Worf. "It is not important," the Klingon muttered. Worf could be diplomatic when he needed to be. Kira and Odo arrived next and took her seat. "You played well, Colonel," Worf offered. Kira smiled. "I played too hard. I had to stop by the Infirmary this morning to get the kinks worked out." Sisko almost thought everyone had stopped breathing, the room grew so quiet. They all wanted to know the same thing. How had Bashir seemed to her? But they didn't get a chance to ask. The door opened one last time and deposited the young--not so young anymore--doctor. He stood still in the doorway for a moment, as if startled by the silence. But he shook that off and moved to the table. His greeting was simple. "Good morning." The others smiled their hellos and offered their hands to welcome him back. Sisko just watched. The subtleties of Bashir's greeting were not lost on him. Bashir had meant it for everyone, but had directed it to Colonel Kira. Not to Sisko. Bashir had yet to look at Sisko directly. So it was still there. Bashir took a seat next to Ezri, probably the one person he'd seen most since his return. "It's good to see you again, Doctor," Sisko offered, trying hard to keep any doubt or wariness from his voice. "You'll be getting a new patient today." "Thank you, sir," Bashir replied, still not meeting Sisko's gaze. His voice was clipped and formal, but subtly so. No one else seemed to notice. "I assume you are speaking of Lieutenant Mtingwa." Sisko was surprised, though he thought maybe he shouldn't be. Bashir was on the ball, as always. He'd read the report and gotten himself up to speed before stepping back into his old post. The old Bashir would have done the same thing. Had, in fact, when he'd first arrived on the station and again after their trip to Adigeon Prime. "Yes, as the rest of you may be aware, the lieutenant escaped from the middle of a Dominion experiment. She's been under treatment and constant observation for the last week or so. She's not a changeling, and she's not a clone. We checked for that, too, even hypnotized her to be sure. She did sustain some injuries, some of them severe and unusual. Starfleet Medical wants you on it, Doctor." "Has she told us more about the experiment?" Worf asked, after a sideways glance at Bashir. "Not so much," Sisko replied. "She's told us all she knows. You have all read the report?" He waited for everyone to nod in turn. "She was able to give a better description of the base, the barracks she was held in before the experiment, but there wasn't much more she could say about the experiment itself. We have the ship, so describing it is unnecessary. That only leaves the experiment." "And whatever it is they are trying to do," O'Brien spoke up, "is taking a lot of dilithium. It could be a phase shift, but why that much dilithium? And why the damage?" "Good questions, Chief," Sisko acknowledged, though he didn't have any answers. "We don't know yet, but the Dominion apparently isn't done. Another shipment was hit yesterday, just outside the Milot system." He punched up a diagram on the screen. "They didn't get much though. It was a decoy. The real shipment went through Kiaral. Mtingwa said the other pilots would disappear about one every four days. They could be getting desperate for dilithium soon. The Alliance will be trying to make sure they don't get it. The *Defiant* has been assigned to investigate the whole thing. We need to find that base or find the other ships they've been sending out. Chief, you get to take a look at the ship Mtingwa brought back. Dax, see if you can't help her remember anything else that might be helpful." Bashir had been quiet since he was addressed at the start of the meeting. Sisko hadn't expected more from him. "They're trying to spy on us," he said. "They have changelings for that," Worf told him. "The changelings are sick," Bashir reminded him. "They've used clones," O'Brien offered. "They used *a* clone," Bashir pointed out, "and he failed. We don't know that they've tried again. But that's not the point. Such a spy is still an individual. While that's beneficial, it's also limited. One still needs surveillance. That's what they're after. Concealed surveillance." "It would seem that way," Sisko said. "Why not just use cloaks?" Dax asked. "We've got them," Kira replied. "And we can detect them if we know what to look for. They're wanting something unique. Something we wouldn't know how to counter." Odo grunted. "If they're out of phase we wouldn't know if they were sitting right outside our perimeter." "Yes, we would," O'Brien countered. "Now that we know what to look for. It only depends on how out of phase they go. And if they go too far, it wouldn't do them any good anyway." As each person spoke, the other's heads would turn to look at the speaker. Except for Bashir. And Sisko, since he was watching Bashir. Bashir was staring out the window. "It's too simple," he said quietly. Sisko wasn't sure if he was trying to contribute to the meeting or just commenting to himself. O'Brien asked the question for all of them. "What do you mean?" Bashir blinked once and turned toward O'Brien, snapping out of whatever state he'd been in just a moment before. "Phase has been done," he said. "It's not that hard. Given, it's rarely been done with a whole ship, even one so small, but it's been done enough. It wouldn't cause that kind of damage. Why would so many prisoners disappear? The ship shifted back of its own volition. It was programmed to do that. They wanted it to come back. They wanted them all to come back. It wouldn't take forty-plus pilots to get it right." Sisko liked this Bashir so much better than the one on the *Enterprise*. This must be the Bashir the others were seeing on a consistent basis. "So they're after something more complicated," he summarized. "Can you imagine what?" "I'll have to give it some thought," he replied. "Do that," Sisko ordered. "And that goes for everyone. This investigation is our top priority. The *Enterprise* has been assigned to assist us. They are following up some of the dilithium shipment attacks, trying to trace warp signatures and such. Commander Worf, you'll want to keep in contact with Commander Riker; Chief, with LaForge. That's it. Let's get to work." He stood and watched them leave. Bashir still hadn't looked at him. The ship was amazing. Amazing that it had allowed Mtingwa to survive at all. O'Brien thought it looked like it had been pieced together from scrap to begin with. Half the burn marks on the outer hull appeared to be from Dominion and Cardassian weapons fire. The others were made from the inside out. The main hull had been compromised in at least three places. The wings were threatening to split entirely from the rest of the hull. The dilithium containment compartment had been enlarged to the detriment of most of the life support system and one of the ship's engines. The chamber was now filled with large chunks of blackened crystals and a lot of ash. Ash. Dilithium didn't usually turn into ash as it got used up. Not one spot on the inside of the chamber was not blackened by soot and warped by heat. Just as the report had described, the ship had been gutted of most of the necessary equipment. Only a rudimentary communications system remained, no voice audio and no video. Environmentals consisted only of a small heating unit and several vents around the cockpit. There was no helm. The ship had been controlled entirely by remote. Life support was provided only by Mtingwa's environmental suit and she had been running low on oxygen when the *Potemkin* found her. The one thing of note that remained was a warp symmetry generator tied into the engines. O'Brien thought about what Bashir had said about the Dominion wanting a new way to spy. Phase would work, if it wasn't so easily detectable. One could literally be holding position right next to the station observing all the comings and goings of ships. But that was hardly a help if you couldn't hear the comm traffic. That was something. Comm traffic. Why a comm system at all if they were controlling the ship by remote? They obviously didn't think they needed to speak to Mtingwa since they didn't provide voice communications capabilities. The difference in phase would distort any subspace comm signals coming from the other side. They needed something that could detect and relay comm traffic from the Alliance back to the Dominion base through wherever it was they were trying to go with this ship. So wherever it was, however it was done, had to support the reception and transmission of subspace communications and render them undetectable to their target. O'Brien pushed himself out from underneath the ship and yelped as his arm got caught on a sharp edge of torn hull. He sat up and wrapped his fingers around his forearm. He felt blood, but he also felt something hard, which stung his fingers. He hated to look, but he had to. He removed his hand and tilted his arm up. A shard of metal from the ship, approximately one and half centimeters long, was protruding from just above his elbow. He hissed as he gingerly pulled it free with his thumb and forefinger. He was about to throw it down on the deck when the thought occurred to him. Now that it wasn't attached to the ship, he could have the science lab run it through any number of tests a lot easier. Maybe wherever it had gone had left something behind as a clue. He clamped the remaining fingers around the bleeding wound and headed for the Infirmary. Bashir had left the meeting as soon as it broke up. He had excused himself from the others by telling them he had to prepare for Mtingwa's arrival. It wasn't exactly a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. A few minutes of hellos and small talk wouldn't have delayed anything as Mtingwa wasn't scheduled to arrive for another hour. He couldn't talk just then though, without the business of the meeting to focus on. All that was left was Sisko. And Sisko was too much just then. He brushed past Jabara and kept himself to his office for a quarter of an hour with no disruptions. It helped. His pulse slowed and his thoughts settled on the task at hand: his incoming patient. He pulled up her records and allowed himself to put Sisko out of his mind. He'd had no idea her injuries were as severe as they were. It was amazing that she'd survived at all. She'd been burned over seventy percent of her body, mostly on her limbs and back, but also partially on her face. Her lungs were damaged from heated air and fumes. "Doctor?" Jabara called, sticking her head inside the door. Bashir looked up from Mtingwa's records. "Yes?" "You have a patient." It was too early for Mtingwa. Bashir quickly shut down the file and moved into the main room. "Hi, Julian," Miles O'Brien said. He was sitting on a biobed, holding his left arm in his right hand. "At least I wasn't kayaking," he offered with a grin. Bashir let out his breath. If O'Brien could joke, it wasn't too serious. "It's the wrong arm for that," Bashir replied, smiling with relief. Then he was serious. He lifted O'Brien's hand away and found a rather deep gash. "How did it happen?" "Crawling around in that ship." O'Brien cringed a bit as Bashir cleaned out the wound. "Piece of metal speared me. Broke off right in my arm." He held out the piece in his other hand. "Figure we can really run it through the scanners now." Bashir looked at it then picked up some forceps and took the shard from him. "No reason we can't start right now," he said. Jabara held out a small petrie dish and Bashir dropped the piece into it. "Start with a scan for contaminants," he whispered to her, hoping that nothing dangerous had infiltrated the wound. Bashir turned back to his patient. It had only taken a few seconds to give Jabara the shard, but the cut was bleeding again. He picked up the dermal regenerator and began to wave it over the torn flesh, even as he set the biobed's scanners to check for contaminants in O'Brien's blood stream. "You know, Julian," O'Brien began, hesitating before he spoke again. "I haven't seen much of you since you got back. I won't ask if you're okay. I know how annoying that gets. But we're worried about you." Bashir felt the walls inch upward inside him and resented it. This was the Infirmary, his Infirmary, his safe place. "Who's we?" he asked, wishing he hadn't. It sounded defensive, or paranoid. Or both. "Keiko and me," O'Brien answered. "And the kids. Molly misses you." *And Yoshi?* Bashir thought. Yoshi probably didn't even remember him. "There's no need," Bashir told him. "I'm okay. It took some time for you to adjust, I remember." O'Brien nodded. "It did. But you were there when I needed you. I'll be there, too." That last bit was spoken so quietly. Bashir knew how hard it was for Miles to say that. "I'll remember that," Bashir told him. He finished healing the cut and administered an antibiotic, just to be safe. "There," he said. "All done." Miles flexed his arm back and forth. "Good as new," he claimed. "I even think I could beat you at darts. Been awhile since we played." Bashir put on a smile for him. "Ah, but you've had six months to practice. I'd be at a disadvantage." Miles shook his head. "Not with those genes of yours. Besides, there wasn't anyone to play with." Bashir was sure that last part wasn't true, but it was nice to hear just the same. "How about tonight?" Miles asked, getting up from the biobed. "After shift. Just a round or two. I won't keep you. It'll be fun. Maybe help you lose some of your tension." Bashir doubted very much that playing darts with Chief O'Brien in Quark's with a bar full of people would help him lose any tension at all. But darts with O'Brien was part of that old life he wanted back. He had to try. "Alright," he agreed. "For a little while." O'Brien's shoulders dropped and he blew out his breath in a smile. "Great! Now, how about that piece from the ship?" "This way," Bashir said, happy to be getting back to business. But he hadn't missed the relief in the Chief's actions. "Let's see what it tells us." Kira cleared the Klingon battle cruiser for docking. It had been out for nearly four months now and was in need of supplies and repair. The *Defiant* hadn't been out to battle in a couple of weeks, but, still, the war went on. So did other things. Like Julian. Section 31 just wouldn't leave him alone, war or no war. And now it had changed him. While he had seemed himself, though admittedly less cheery, in the Infirmary, he had seemed a bit off in the staff meeting. He had practically run off after it was over, and Kira had noticed how he never once looked at Captain Sisko. As she thought about it, Kira realized Bashir had not come to Ops once since his return. She wondered if he'd seen the captain at all since the airlock. Captain Sisko, for his part, had looked very tense this last week, despite the lack of action on Deep Space Nine. Of course, he'd been tense since before the war began, and he took the war very much to heart. But this was unusual for him. There was no small talk, no dinners in his quarters, no after-hours at all, really. He was almost being as reclusive as Julian. Something was going on between the two of them, and the only thing she could think of was Section 31. She remembered the shocked and devastated look on Bashir's face when Sisko had told him to say yes to them when they returned. He'd obeyed the order, on two occasions now. The first had gotten him tortured, and the second had left him marooned. It was possible that Bashir was holding Sisko responsible for that. But why would Sisko allow himself to feel guilty? Yes, he'd given the order. Even Kira had not agreed with that one. But it was Section 31 who had harmed the doctor. Still, she knew trauma was not a rational thing. Bashir could be angry at the captain because the captain was there to be angry at while Section 31 was not. Bashir could be explained. Sisko wasn't so easy. Another ship requested docking clearance. The *Theresa*. The medical ship that was carrying Lt. Mtingwa. Doctor Bashir stood over his new patient. Despite her time under medical care, she was still in very serious condition. The damage to her lungs was severe and her condition had actually deteriorated. It had been a delicate transfer from the *Theresa* to the Infirmary, but now she was resting with as much comfort as Bashir could give her. Her eyes fluttered for a moment and then opened. She looked around the room a bit and then looked at him. "Hello," he said, touching her arm lightly. "I'm Doctor Bashir. You're on Deep Space Nine now." "You're the genius doctor . . . who came back . . . from the dead?" she asked in a hoarse and halting whisper. "Doctor Morton told me . . . about you." Bashir forced a smile for her. "I wasn't dead," he corrected. "I was marooned. And I'm not exactly a genius." The smile faded. "I was genetically enhanced as a child. Does that bother you?" "Not if it means you can maybe help me." She shifted position and winced for a moment. "You're one of the escapees?" Bashir nodded. "So are you now, but I'm surprised you even knew about that." "All the prisoners knew," she told him. "Gave us hope." She grinned. "And it drove the Vorta crazy." Bashir chuckled, finding pleasure in her last statement. "Tarnished their record, did we?" "Two Klingons, a Romulan, a human, and a Cardassian, working together," She spoke with pride and awe. "It's kind of a microcosm of the Alliance--except for the Cardassians." Bashir nodded. "It's a shame all the allies here didn't hit on it sooner." Still, he knew why the Romulans had finally joined forces. It was nothing like what had happened in the camp. "You triumphed," she went on. "Working together. That makes me think we can win this war." Her voice had gotten stronger as she spoke, but she was still having trouble breathing. He knew how severe her injuries were. He knew she had little chance, genius doctor or not, of surviving. She'd been watching him while he thought, and when he hadn't replied, she spoke again. "Do you think you can help me?" He'd never been one to give false hope to his patients. That much hadn't changed. "I'm going to try," he told her. "But your injuries are--" "I know," she said, interrupting. "Doctor Morton told me. My lungs are breaking down, my internal organs compromised." "Maybe if you could describe more for me what happened to you," he suggested. "I read your report, but I want to know what you saw, what you felt. Did you hear anything? Smell anything?" She nodded. "The first time," she began, "it wasn't so bad. There was a flash of light. The ship shook. Then it stopped. Everything seemed normal except the stars were a different color and I could see through the base, like it wasn't really there. " "But the ship was fine?" Bashir asked. "Just then. No heat?" She nodded again. "Except they'd set it to self-destruct. I could hear the countdown. Thirty seconds. I thought I was going to die then. But suddenly it all started again, just before the count was up, only worse. The flash of light was brighter and it lasted longer. It burned my eyes. The ship shook so hard I thought it was going to come apart. The nose looked liquid, like a bridge in an earthquake, you know? Not solid anymore. And it got hot. I was wearing an EV suit. It had to be burning in there for me to feel it. But I felt it. The air in the helmet became so hot it was like breathing lava. And it smelled funny." "Smelled funny how?" Bashir coaxed. Her suit should have fed her clean oxygen, which should have caught fire after a certain temperature and with any kind of spark. "Acrid, like something rotten, but metallic, too." Bashir could see her eyes were getting droopy. "You rest now," he told her, patting her lightly on the shoulder. Their time was shorter now. Now that Bashir was back to full, active duty. Ezri found herself saddened at that. She saw so little of him, as it was. And when she did, he was hiding from her. That was not the way she'd hoped things would be when she'd first heard he was alive. She'd missed him, far more than she'd realized. She'd hoped to see him across a table at Quark's, smiling, reminding her that there were still reasons to smile. Before he'd gone, he just always seemed to be around when she needed someone to cheer her up, or to just sit and understand. It was unrealistic, of course, and she knew it. Once she found out the circumstances of his disappearance, she knew she'd be his counselor once he was back on the station. Her training took precedence over her daydreams and hopes. He couldn't walk away from what had happened and just be there for her. She had to be there for him. She had tried to tell herself that she could still be his friend, that she was only his counselor while in session. But the staff meeting had reminded her that that wasn't true. He was her patient. Twenty-six hours a day, whether she saw him or not, whether he hid in his quarters or the Infirmary. He wasn't going to call her to have dinner. He wasn't going to talk to her like he did before. There was a distance between counselor and counseled that made friendship lose its hold. Ezri didn't want distance. She wanted to be closer. Julian, though, was not ready for such a thing, even if he was willing. And he was her patient. It wouldn't be right. She had to put her feelings aside in favor of his health. The door chimed. Her heart sped up. *My patient,* she told herself. She focused her thoughts on the morning's staff meeting and called for him to come in. "I'm sorry to drag you away from your work," she offered as he sat down. "It's what the doctor ordered," Julian quipped, though his expression carried more gravity than mirth. Ezri nodded, staying serious with him. "Would you have done things differently, if your roles had been reversed?" He looked up, not quite rolling his eyes. "Haven't we already been through this?" *Yes,* she thought, *and we had a very good talk last time.* So she wondered why he was leading her to it again. "What did you think when Miles ditched his counseling sessions after the Agrathi prison?" "I'm not ditching them," he told her, being defensive in his toned down way. "I'm here." "But you don't want to be," she said. "You don't want to be here. You don't want to need to be here." He looked away, and she knew that was as much agreement as she was going to get at that point. She softened her voice, "We all need help sometimes. Even you." He didn't turn back to face her, and she knew he was hiding again. A new tack was needed. "How was your first full day back on duty?" "Fine," he said, still not turning, "at first. Kira came by, and O'Brien. Minor problems. Then she came." That was the source of his gravity. She could tell the way his shoulders had dropped, the way he'd breathed out that last bit. "Mtingwa?" He turned back, but his eyes were on the floor. "She's dying. They expect me to pull some sort of miracle." Dying? Ezri hadn't expected that. Severe injuries, yes, but Captain Sisko had not said 'dying.' "Who expects that of you?" she asked, focusing on her patient, not on his. "Doctor Morton, the captain, Starfleet Medical, all of them," he replied, still looking at his feet. "Why else would they send her here? I kept Bareil alive. I found a vaccine for the Blight. I'm a mutant." Ezri hated when he called himself that. The others, Jack and Patrick, had called themselves that with pride. With Julian it was a character judgement. "You can only do your best. If she dies, it won't be because of you. What does she expect of you?" He sighed. "She just wants me to try." -- --Gabrielle I'd much rather be writing! http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/ The Edge of the Frontier http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/ This Side of the Nether Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Thu Jan 29 21:30:46 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n37.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.105]) by tanager (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aMomT3gM3NZFmQ0 for ; Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:26:50 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13050-1075429253-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.