Chapter Text
it started with a dedication:
“lost in admiration – happy birthday – i’m forever yours – blossom”
faded red inside a tiny book of butterflies
i smiled, surprised at how when flickered through, the wings flew by,
spelled out my name
* * *
Julian Bashir sat and stared at his console.
He remembered.
This morning he’d woken with a smile for the first time in... mmm, about two weeks now. He’d been due for it, really; after all, it was his birthday. Thirty-five and counting, which was fine, because being upset about being in one’s thirties was nonsense, really. He was completely over that. It was all in how one looked at it: birthdays just meant one was maturing, getting wiser. Yeah, that’s it. And if you keep telling yourself that, perhaps one day you’ll stop minding the wrinkles.
He’d stretched and showered, deodorized and depilated, humming to himself. He’d replicated a raktajino and french toast – why not indulge? He could use some indulgence, quite frankly, and it was his birthday, after all! He’d settled himself at his console to flip through his morning messages, and had munched breakfast and sipped coffee as he clicked past report after report, yes, updated crew roster, fine, vaccinations due, all right...
And there it had been, last on the list, blinking at him:
From: E. Garak – Sent: Stardate 53660.3 – Subject: Felicitations!
Now here he was, blinking back.
I can’t believe he remembered.
Garak always had remembered, of course, and had made a point of irritating Julian about it for at least a week prior to the happy event each year – but that was when they’d been on the station together, seeing each other almost every day. Now Garak was on Cardassia, light-years away, and this was a bit surprising.
Hasn’t he got anything better to do than to send me a birthday card? The man was rebuilding his homeworld, for God’s sake. Every now and then he’d send Julian a letter, friendly and short, containing just enough detail to be rather worrying, not enough to actually do anything about. Julian had kept his replies in the same vein: yes, life is good. Yes, the infirmary crew are still terrible gossips. Yes, Ezri sends her regards, from wherever she’ll be, stop it, Julian. And also, worked between the lines, yes, I miss you. That last detail, he felt, was best kept implied. Garak wasn’t stupid; he’d catch it.
I don’t even know when his birthday is! He suddenly felt rather guilty. Oh, well; he could perhaps make a joke of it, send a “very-belated” card or something, it didn’t matter. Meanwhile, he was curious as to what the message actually said. He tapped at the console, and the text scrolled on to the screen.
My dear Doctor Bashir,
Congratulations on the occasion of your thirty-fifth birthday! I do hope you are celebrating! Please don’t allow your obsessive Human cultural preoccupation with youth to spoil this special time.
Thank you, Garak.
I remember my thirty-fifth birthday well. I was on assignment. The details aren’t important, but suffice it to say it was a rather busy day. There really wasn’t time in the hustle and bustle to treat myself to anything particularly nice, and while this may seem like a minor thing to you, I felt the lack quite keenly. The thought of you potentially suffering the same fate – especially if you choose to ignore the day completely, as I fear you may – was simply intolerable to me, and so I’ve sent you something that I hope you will enjoy.
Oh, dear, more Cardassian literature. He hadn’t read any Cardassian literature in... hmm, had to be almost a year now?
Really? A year? Where had the time gone?
The book attached is one I have read several times. I am afraid it’s become something of an indulgence. I hesitated, at first, to recommend it to you. It is a rather more personal work than the others we’ve discussed, and I feared you might find it too sentimental. And then I thought to myself, well, if there is one thing Doctor Bashir seems to hold dear, it is sentimentality.
Ass. He pulled a bit of a face at the console. Letters gave Garak an unfair advantage. At least when he and Garak had conversed face-to-face, he’d had the chance to snip back.
I hope you will find time to read it soon, Doctor. The thought of you enjoying it as I have gives me comfort in these trying times. Our work proceeds apace, and Cardassia begins to shine again; still, there is much to do. One of us, at least, should have time to read. It isn’t me. I devoutly hope it is you.
Again, Doctor, I wish you a happy birthday, and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Your health,
Elim Garak
Ah...
He blinked and smiled, absurdly pleased. He remembered. And it's really him. Garak sounded more like himself in this letter than he had in any of the missives Julian had received in the last year. Teasing and chatty, very slightly overwrought; yes, that was the Garak Julian had gotten to know. He’d looked for him in the previous letters and seen very little sign, and he’d worried...
Well, it seemed things were looking up, especially if Cardassia could even begin to be described as “shining”; the world he’d seen from the ship had been so badly damaged that he’d quietly wondered to himself whether he wouldn’t be assisting in a rescue/relocation mission soon. Cardassians, though; couldn’t put much past them, could you? They’d survive, they’d rebuild. They were too damned stiff-necked to do anything else. Thank God they seem to want to play nice now. Who knows where it could lead? He felt an odd sense of displaced pride, and found himself smiling once again. This is a nice way to start the morning.
And now he had something else to look forward to. Curious, he tapped at the message, downloading its attachment to a padd so that he could take it with him. He did have to get to the infirmary soon, but surely there was time to just have a quick peek at the book.
The title page bloomed before him, unfurling prettily on the padd’s little screen. Oh, God – a horrible moment when the title was in untranslated Cardassian – and then the letters shifted, moved, became little winged insects that rearranged themselves into the more familiar shapes of Fed Standard: The Movement of Wings. Very funny, Garak. And also rather cute; his smile was threatening to become a permanent fixture.
Ah, and there was an inscription attached! He tapped the screen, and the little box slid to the centre, expanded – oh, it was hand-written! Urgh, in Cardassian. Um, all right...
Well, there certainly wasn’t time to go and look it up. He would cheat. That was all right. Garak wasn’t here; he wouldn’t know.
He raised his voice. “Computer, please translate selection and annotate.”
A chirp of acknowledgement, a flurry of letters appearing on the screen, running along the cross-connections of the Cardassian phrases—
Julian – When I remember the beauty of your mind, I am lost in admiration. Happy birthday, my dear. I am forever yours. – Elim
He blinked. That couldn’t be right.
“Computer, please re-translate; this is inaccurate.”
Another chirp, and then that slightly censorious whir that signalled the computer’s cool disapproval. “Current translation is valid.”
No, that wasn’t possible. But what could it... God, he wasn’t a communications officer, this wasn’t his field – “Computer, is it possible that the verbal intonation of this message could differ from the written translation?”
Again the little whir. “Negative.”
What?
He sank his head into his hands and stared through his fingers.
Could it be... was he just completely misreading this? Was this yet another Cardassian custom he’d not known about? Did Cardassians often write to their friends this way? Perhaps that was it, yes, must be, ha, he seized upon the notion. They did love language, they were often a bit effusive; this was just another game.
But... Forever yours?
A phrase. Just a phrase, yes, that was Garak: delighting in language, playing with words, and dramatic to a fault. Laughing at me again, as always. He just wasn’t quite catching the laughter in the tone because this was written instead of spoken, that was all. And that was more than enough strangeness for one morning; he had to get going if he was to make it to the infirmary in time for his shift, and so he pushed back from his console, slipped on his shoes, headed for the door—
And hesitated, stopped, turned, grabbed the padd.
Perhaps I can just get started on it at lunch...