Chapter Text
Julia’s stomach had been bothering her ever since last night, and she was pretty sure she knew what to blame. “This is what you get for eating at Quark’s three nights in a row.” Nurse Jabara tutted, the Bajoran looking fairly smug. “Same as last week. I’m telling you, there’s something up with the replicators in the bar!”
"I’m sure I’m fine, Jabara." Julia whined childishly, playfully, but still shifting uncomfortably, her throat feeling raw from bile. "It’s just a little nausea. Nothing I haven’t worked through before."
"Still." The nurse smiled, smoothing down the front of her purple-and-orange uniform, before picking up the scanner. "Lets see what kind of new food poisoning Quark has given you this week. Isn’t frontier medicine so much fun?"
"You’re a monster." Julia grumbled, shooting Jabara a look, before they smiled at each other, enjoying the lack of patients this morning and the openness to tease one another.
The starfleet doctor stood still as the Bajoran nurse gave her torso a long, slow sweep with the scanner, distracted by the growl of her stomach and the bleariness of a night with indigestion. Distracted enough that she didn’t catch Jabara’s eyes widening as the scanner chirruped and whistled.
"Oh." The nurse whispered, hushed.
"Hm?" Julia snapped out of her daze. "What is it?" She cringed preemptively. "Don’t tell me I’ve caught something. If I have Bajoran stomach flu again-"
"No, no." Nurse Jabara chuckled, nervously, a humorless smile on her face. "You’re…well, the good news is, you’re perfectly healthy." She turned the scanner to Julia and handed it over, Julia taking it with her brow furrowed in curiosity. "You’re just…"
Outside the infirmary, the few passer-bys during these morning hours were startled by the doctor’s sharp, piercing cry.
”WHAT?! HOW?!”
~
In his tailor’s shop, well out of earshot, Garak paused from the repair work he was doing on starfleet technician’s uniform. At least people seemed to have learned that while a replicated uniform was fast to replace, it was well worth it to have them repaired manually. It kept him in business.
Still…he paused, suddenly feeling very deeply unnerved, and unable to quite tell why.
Reflexively, he stood and after a moment to ensure that no-one was watching, stepped into one of the changing rooms and removed a wall panel, making certain that the small bag he kept packed in case an emergency forced him to flee the station was there. Just in case.
By the time he was back out at the front of the store the computer informed him he had a written message from his dear Doctor Bashir, and he went to read whatever she had written with trepidation. An ominous feeling passing over him? A message-written instead of spoken to imply secrecy? Ill tidings all around.
The message wasn’t very comforting either.
EMERGENCY MEET ME IN INFIRMARY AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!!!!!!
She couldn’t have possibly needed that many exclamation points, could she?
~
When he arrived, the nurse- Jabara, was that her name, gave him a bit of an odd look, but made herself scarce as he poked his head into the back room, finding Julia laying on the exam table, hands folded on her stomach, looking up at the ceiling with the stunned expression of somebody who was trying to suppress panic. Her eyes flicked to him, and she sighed, deeply, frowning.
"Garak, you’re very good at not panicking, right? I mean, obviously you are, I shot you in the neck and you were barely even stunned, but still."
That…that did not make him feel any more confident about what news his young lover could possibly have for him. “I rarely panic.” He reassured her, stepping in.
"Good. Because I might panic a little. I’m trying to stay in the ‘shock’ area of reactions right now." She smiled at him, uncertainly, looking outright distressed behind the grin.
He wondered, briefly, through a variety of horrible revelations. I’m dying, Garak. He steeled himself, just in case. “What’s wrong, my dear?”
"Nothing! I’m perfectly healthy, tip-top shape!" She sat up, nervously folding and re-folding her hands, fidgeting. "I’m also pregnant."
Garak nodded, and smiled, calmly.
"…You’re screaming internally, aren’t you?" She asked after a silent moment.
He nodded and smiled, calmly.
After another uncomfortable silent moment, Jabara peered at him. “…I think he’s fainted standing up.”
"Oh, no-" Julia sighed, getting off the exam table. Jabara, feeling particularly bold, snapped her fingers in front of Garak’s face, failing to garner a response.
"Eyes are open, nobody’s home."
"I’ll get him to a chair." Julia muttered, gently taking his arm and guiding him, wary of his awkward steps, to a chair. He patted her arm as he sat, shakily, finally focusing on her and looking absolutely disoriented.
"I’m really sorry about this." She said, weakly. "I had a standard Federation implant, but…with my immune system, we think my uterine lining might have rejected it somehow…"
”Aaaaa.” He let out a faint squeak of air. Jabara excused herself again.
Julia swallowed hard and tried to put herself in a clinical mind. She’d managed to do so before- she had to be a doctor. It wouldn’t be the first time she delivered the awkward news of an unplanned fertilization to someone, this just happened to be…her own. Hm. And now Garak was holding her arm tight, taking breaths a little too fast, and she worried if this room was too small for him suddenly.
"Please don’t panic." She asked, weakly. "If you panic, I will panic, and then we’ll both look absolutely ridiculous."
”Baby.” Garak wheezed. “There’s a baby.”
"Yes. Well, technically I would refer to it as an embryo at this stage." He looked at her like she was insane, and she babbled nervously. "I think. Maybe? I don’t know anything about Cardassian neonatal development much less anything about hybridization development ahaha-" Her laugh slid into a deep "Hhhhhghhh" of a groan, and she lowered her head into her hands, trying to keep it together.
He guided her to the seat next to him. “Just…just sit down for a minute, dear.” Quietly. They both took several long breaths, trying to calm themselves. “It will be fine. You can always have an abortion if we don’t want a child.” He was struggling a bit, to calm down. Garak wondered if there was a time in his life when he could’ve heard this news and not batted an eye. His control was slipping, in age and softness.
She kept her face in her hands. “I know. I know, I just need to think about this a little.” She took a deep breath in and held it, before leaning against him. He pressed back, comforting. “…Compared to the usual sort of trouble we seem to get into, this seems like it should be relatively minor.” Julia chuckled, nervously. “Usually people are dying, not forming.”
Even he smirked a little at that, but only for a moment. “This impacts a life for a lot longer.”
There was another silence.
"…I don’t think it’s even technically legal for me to be pregnant." She whispered.
"Because of your augmentation?"
"Yes. Well, I mean…it’s…a very strange grey area. There’s lots of options, I mean, it’s not illegal, and hell, name a group of humans that aren’t descended from some group of genetically augmented people after it became fashionable in the 21st century, but it’s…" She gestured vaguely, uncertain how to explain the complicated legal status she’d studied far too many times. Inwardly, she briefly fantasized about strangling her father.
"…It’s not likely."
"Mmhm." She sighed. "…What do Cardassians think about genetic augmentation?"
"It became unallowable after several lower class families managed to gain power by pooling their resources into having their children altered. Apart from it’s aid in attempting to upset the balance of power, all Cardassians are more or less for it." He nodded. "Anything to give your progeny an edge in life."
"…Well, I suppose that’s not so bad. Though the public opinion against mixed-species heritage…I guess you win some, you lose some." At least humans were fairly accepting of mixed-species kids.
"Yes, there is that." He rolled his eyes and huffed, under his breath. "Idiocy.”
"Yeah." She laughed softly, nervously, and he patted her back, the air thick with discomfort between them. "…Nurse Jabara swore secrecy, so I assume she’ll be able to make it at least a week before it becomes gossip."
"What are you going to do?" He asked, suddenly.
"I don’t know yet." She answered, quietly. "Think about this. A lot. There’s not even any research I could find on the viability of Human-Cardassian hybridization." They both frowned, shifting in their seats.
"So it may very well not work out either way."
"Yeah." She cleared her throat. "Or it could work out fine. I mean, Human are considered pretty comparative to Bajorans, reproductive-system wise, I’ve seen that firsthand with the O’Briens. And I’ve seen a handful of Cardassian-Bajoran hybrids."
"They’re…not uncommon." Garak tread delicately there. Poor kids were more often than not a reminder of the occupation.
"But who knows what the actual statistics are." She huffed. "I never even thought I’d have kids. Well, I did, ages ago, but I never actually thought it through."
"Never really considered the possibility?"
"Well, back then I was dating another human and thinking about living on Earth, so I figured that….we’d discuss it then, when we got to that point. But in the end I couldn’t resist the call of the frontier, so I wound up out here instead! Much happier for it, mind you, I’d have died of boredom working in Paris."
"Ah, yes, the wild frontier." His voice was thick with sarcasm, and it felt like a semblance of normality returned between them. "Tell me, doctor, did your initial estimate include the Jem’Hadar?"
"No…but it also didn’t factor in tailors.” She jabbed him with her elbow, and he winced, watching as she stood. “…Or this. I hope this doesn’t mean we’re not having dinner tomorrow.”
"We are." He recalled the plans, made not even two days ago. Seemed like it’d be foolish to cancel a dinner date now, of all times. "I think we could both use some time to ponder, though."
"We really do." She swallowed, hard. "I really am sorry to spring this on you."
"I imagine you had little warning yourself." He stood, and with a sweep of his thumb he gently stroked hair away from her face, letting his hand rest there along her warm jaw.
"Well, I had Nurse Jabara scan me because I assume I’d gotten sick from eating at Quark’s again…so it was a little surprising, yes." He chortled at that. "I don’t think we can blame this one on Quark, though."
"…Hopefully!” He teased, giving her a firm stare.
"Oh, ew! No! Don’t give me that look." She cringed, and looked genuinely relieved for the taunting.
"I’m merely saying." He stated, primly. She rolled her eyes and gave his shoulder a push.
"Get out of here- I have patients who’ll be coming soon."
He gave her a brief kiss before leaving the infirmary to go back to his shop, and both of them spent the rest of the day trying to ignore the lingering desire to freeze and panic that rested in their chests. And come night, they fitfully tried to sleep on it.
Garak awoke from a strikingly brief nightmare about Tain, closing a closet door on him.
Julia had a nightmare about the eugenics wars and reptiles that made absolutely no sense in the morning light, but had been entirely terrifying in the senseless logic of the dream.