It was evening before Garak found Bashir. The human had somehow made his way to the Cardassian memorial garden where they'd first met when the relief team arrived. He was huddled against the left wing-pillar of one of the oldest sculptures in the garden, sitting on the ground, head bowed over his knees. In the fading dusk, the doctor was barely visible, tucked under the soaring wing of the fanciful representation of the ancient mythic creature. Garak felt a world of weight lift from his shoulders at seeing Bashir was alive and apparently uninjured.

"Julian?" He touched the younger man's shoulder.

Bashir looked up. "How many dead?" he asked clearly.

"At the clinic?" His gaze slid sideways. "I'm afraid I don't know."

A long empty moment, the silence broken only by the chittering of some small animal nearby.

"Eight hundred million known dead when the Dominion surrendered," Bashir whispered, staring into the twilight. "Over a billion dead when you first wrote to me. Nearly one point two billion believed dead as of today. One Cardassian out of every six on this planet. And this afternoon, I added another to the tally with my own hands. Deliberately. Using the strength I had sworn I would never use against an innocent person--"

"Mondrig was not innocent," his friend stated strongly.

"How did you know who--?"

"Rekel told me. Confidentially. I assure you, from what I know of Mondrig, if you had not killed him, he would have killed you, and as many others as possible, in his own pursuit of ambition."

"If I hadn't followed him, it wouldn't have happened." He dropped his forehead to his knees again, his tone full of self-contempt. "I left my patients to hunt him down. I followed him in anger. I attacked him in rage. I killed him in mindless fury. No, not mindless -- I wanted to hurt him, as though causing him pain ... watching him bleed ... would ease the pain in me. I forgot everything I was, all that I'm sworn to, and I used the strength grafted into me as a weapon to kill. Face to face. Hand to hand. I breathed in his last breath...."

Garak let him talk.

"I came to Deep Space Nine so naive," Bashir said with loathing. "I was so eager for adventure. I wanted to be a hero. I was ... ambitious. Self-satisfied and smug. And torn, at the same time. Eager to prove how much I could do, and at the same time afraid to show what I could do, for fear that people would find out what and who I really was."

He looked up again. Weariness filled his features. "Now I'm exhausted. The thought of another adventure, another battle, another emergency, another loss, fills me with dread. I'm not sure I could take it. What the hell am I doing here? All that I was, all that I am, it isn't enough."

"It was more than we could ask of any one man," Garak replied with gentle firmness.

"One man." Bashir laughed without humor, with an edge that worried Garak.

"Do you know," the human continued flatly, "when I was a teenager, and I found out what my parents had done to me, about my genetic manipulation and enhancements, I had nightmares for months about being a Frankenstein's monster -- a creature from an old Earth novel, a being created from the rotting pieces of the dead, given unnatural life and turned into a monster. I dreamed of being pursued by mobs ... of dying at the hands of those who realized what I was and who hated and feared me for it. And I thought I deserved it. I was a monster and I deserved it...."

"No! My dear doctor, you did not!" The change of topic was disturbing.

"How can you know what I deserve?" he asked hopelessly.

"Perhaps I can't. But I have listened to you. Now I ask you to listen to me," Garak said firmly.

"When I was exiled from Cardassia, I had twin desires -- to gain revenge on the ones I felt had caused my exile, and to earn my way home again, whatever it took. Those twin fires burned in me for years. But they gradually damped down as I lost hope of ever accomplishing either goal. My hopes died. Surrounded by those who despised me, I came to rely upon false euphoria, not caring if I lived or died so long as I didn't have to feel the cold and the contempt.

"Doctor ... Julian, you wanted me to live when I didn't care. Remember? You risked your life to find a cure -- and more than your life, walking into the predator's den of Enabrin Tain. Challenging a man whose mere word would have been the torment of millions. For me! When I had already given up. I cannot let your spirit die as mine so nearly did.

"Do you have any idea what you have done for me? What you have done for Cardassia? This mission is here because of you. There is a cure for the Dominion plague because of you. There is hope for the Cardassian people because of you. You have bled out your strength, all that you are, for us. When you have given my planet a future, how can I let it be at the cost of your spirit? You have given us back life -- you owe it to Cardassia to go on!"

Garak took the human's face in his hands, forcing him to look up and meet the intensity of his gaze and his words. "Do you remember what you told me then, Julian? When I was resigned to death so far from home? When I tried to make even you turn away from me in contempt and let me die? You forgave me, for whatever it was I had done. Even when you thought it might be the deliberate massacre of hundreds of innocents or the treacherous betrayal of one true friend. You could forgive me, of all people. You have so much compassion for others. Be equally kind to yourself."

Julian stared up at him, tears running down his cheeks.

"Julian Bashir, I forgive you. For whatever you did or didn't do. For whatever you think you should or should not have done. For whatever you fear you may do or not do. For being human. If any man has earned the right of forgiveness for the actions of one moment, it is you."

His shoulders heaving, Julian fell forward, sobbing.

Garak held him as the twilight faded and the stars began to shimmer above them, until Julian slept.

Julian returned to the relief camp as the sun rose over Cardassia City. He studied the half-burned judicial center with sadness. The brightening light added no warmth to the desolate scene; a smokey gray pall hung over it all. Still, though pained by the sight, Julian no longer felt as though it was his fault it had happened, or that he could have stopped it if he'd worked harder.

"Julian!"

"Hi, Jake." Looking past the young man, he saw a number of people already working on cleaning up the area, salvaging what they could from the shell of the clinic. They all looked exhausted, Cardassians and Federation personnel both. "Everybody worked through the night, didn't they."

"Pretty much, yeah. Are you okay?"

"I'll ... be fine." He looked at the building again. "How bad?"

"We think, over forty people...." Jake swallowed. His face slowly crumpled and he tried unsuccessfully to blink back tears. "Vak...."

Julian reached for him, finally having comfort to give. Jake bawled on his shoulder.

He spotted Lt. Storie approaching. Even her ponytail seemed to be drooping in the early light. Her uniform was smudged, and her left sleeve was torn and a little charred. Her left arm and wrist were bandaged. Her expression was grim and her dark brown eyes were bottomless pits, focused on him.

"It'll be all right, Jake, we'll get through this," he murmured. "I ... I have to talk to Storie now."

The younger man rubbed his face dry with the back of his hands, and nodded. "I'll ... get back to work, see you later...."

Bashir waited for Storie, steeling himself.

Before she could say anything, he began. "Lieutenant, I have a confession--"

"Mondrig?" She set her shoulders. "We know. You killed him."

He couldn't stop the shudder at the stark words. "Yes, I--"

She interrupted. "We know. We all know what happened here, what he did. How you went after him, trying to stop him. There's a witness, she told us the rest of the story. How he attacked you in that alley, said he was going to kill you. It was self-defense."

"It.... What? No, that's--"

"Cardassian security concurs. The witness is clear. It was you or him. There was no choice. And the woman's convinced he would have killed her too. Self-defense. Defense of others. The matter's closed."

"Closed?" he repeated, stunned.

"Closed," Storie said with absolute finality. "You can go back to work. You're needed. We've got a lot of injured people."

She'd turned away when he asked, "Blake?"

"Dead."

Bashir's Medical Log:

We finally seem to have the epidemic in retreat.

But what a cost. The known death toll from this illness alone is over one hundred sixty-three thousand, planet-wide.

By the time we've located and identified all the victims across this world, it may be double that.

Added to the losses from the plague, we suffered thirty-seven fatalities in the bombing of the clinic, both patients and staff. Another sixteen are seriously injured, but expected to survive.

Korbath Mondrig, the man who planted the bomb, is dead as well.

For all that they have been through in the events of the past few days, the staff here has performed so far above the call of duty that it is impossible to describe in words. Every single one of them deserves the highest commendation.

I am putting in several individuals for special commendations, including Doctor Ndali Ptacek of Andoria, Lieutenant Aya Kato of Earth, Nurse Rachell Eske of Deneva, Lieutenant M'at of Vulcan, Ensign Vak of Bolias, and Commander Theodore Blake of Cheiron IV.

Musing to himself, Julian wandered through the Cardassian memorial garden, planning what he was going to tell Garak, and how.

He paused at the entrance to Garak's shelter, raising his knuckles to rap on the doorframe.

"Come in, doctor," he heard before he knocked.

It no longer surprised him that the Cardassian knew he was there.

Julian entered quietly, and took a seat. The old gardening shed turned home hadn't changed much since he'd last been here -- there were a few more tools stacked up in the corner, and a line of stone images on a shelf, obviously being cleaned or repaired before being placed in the garden.

"Welcome, Julian," Garak said, watching him closely with those gleaming, deceptive eyes. "As you can see, we've been making more progress in the garden. As you have been doing with your clinic."

Julian couldn't help sighing. "Progress, finally. But that's not why I'm here." A beat. "I've received orders. I'll be rotating out tomorrow, returning to Deep Space Nine. The Hopkins and the S'len have arrived; they're taking over our end of the mission. The Nightingale is going home."

If Bashir had expected shock, he'd have been disappointed. The Cardassian knew.

"The rumor has been traveling the city," Garak replied, nodding. "You will be missed. For many reasons."

"I'll miss you too," he acknowledged. "I don't suppose I'll see you for ... quite some time...."

"Not likely. We each have things we must do," Garak noted introspectively. "I know that you must go back to your life on the station. As for me.... My world.... There is so much to rebuild. Even with the Reunion Project and the Directorate working together, for now, a positive impact of Mondrig's actions. But at least I can be here to do something for my people and my home." His voice ended fervently.

"I hope you'll find time to write me."

"I will," Garak assured him simply. "And I will look forward to letters from you, my dear doctor."

"Of course." The doctor looked at his hands and considered how to continue. "I wanted ... to thank you. For the other night."

Garak's eyebrow ridges lifted, but he didn't pretend not to understand. "It was nothing more than the plain and simple truth."

"Oh, don't tell me that, I won't know what to believe!" the human responded quickly with a bit of a smile. "But in any event, I appreciate it. You helped me ... see, when I desperately needed it. I know I still have things to work through about ... what happened here and what I did." A pause. "I'm not sure I could have handled these last few days without ... what you said. Thank you."

"I believe ... you're welcome, Julian, is the appropriate response."

The unexpected warmth in the Cardassian's voice was comforting, somehow. It made it easier for him to continue.

"There's something else I wanted to tell you."

"And what might that be?"

"I think I'm figuring out what was in that tomb," Julian said, watching Garak closely.

"Oh?"

"Considering the time frame, and other details, I think it had something to do with the Bajorans -- perhaps with that Bajoran ship your archaeologists claimed to have found, just after Captain Sisko proved the Bajorans could have flown here, nearly a millennium ago. Was that it? Was the Bajoran story in those books?"

The Cardassian responded with a slow half nod and a sideways glance. "Well, well, my dear doctor, you have become quite astute at puzzles."

"I've been practicing -- and I've had a very demanding teacher."

Garak chuckled. "So tell me what else you have deduced of this puzzle."

"First, tell me about the Bajorans. Tell me what was in those books."

"I am afraid, my dear doctor, that there is nothing much to tell beyond what you yourself have just stated. There were no surviving Bajorans or their offspring here, as of six hundred years ago or so," Garak informed him. "They died out."

"That was in the books?"

"Yes," he replied with a perfectly unchanged expression.

"Well, then I think there's something the authors of those books didn't realize."

"And what is that?"

"I think there was more than one Bajoran ship that landed here, over the centuries. I suspect there were several landings, probably in several locations -- and that there is still Bajoran blood in the family lines of a good many Cardassians today."

"Indeed?" Garak's expression changed. "And how do you deduce that?"

"Because the cure for the Dominion plague lay in those few who lived. Which is no surprise -- survivors of disease often develop antibodies against a virus they've survived. But in this case, the question was, what enabled the survivors to recover, in the first place?"

"I await your answer with bated breath, of course."

Bashir looked gratified at earning that small acknowledgment of curiosity. "It lay in their genes. Very specifically, in one particular little gene that gave them an added edge of resistance. One little gene that, when I reviewed and compared the records, seemed out of place, compared to the standard Cardassian DNA. It was an uncommon gene, to be sure, which made it all the more peculiar to me, because it seemed so familiar. And then I figured it out.

"The gene that let Parmak and the others survive the plague, came from Bajor."

Garak stared at him with an intensity he'd never experienced before. They watched each other for several tense, silent moments.

Garak finally broke it. "From Bajor?"

"Yes. Through a genetic drift I could trace back hundreds of years, almost a millennium."

"That old..."

Bashir nodded. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Bajor and resistance seem to go together in a great many ways," the Cardassian noted. "You haven't yet released the information about the gene?"

"No, I didn't put that particular ... theory in my report. I merely identified the gene and its rarity on Cardassia, and the good fortune that it gave enough Cardassians enough resistance to the plague to enable us to discover and manufacture a cure for the rest."

"Are you going to make its significance known?"

Julian shook his head. "I'll leave it to you to decide what impact this information might have on your delicate Cardassian fulcrum, and if you choose to reveal it. After all, you'll know better than I whether your people are able to deal with the knowledge that some of them have Bajoran blood -- and how those few would be treated, if it were known."

Bashir stood up again, watching Garak closely. The Cardassian continued to stare at the spot where he'd been sitting. He was silent, however.

Mentally shrugging, Bashir announced, "Good night, then," and walked out.

He was still in hearing range when throaty peals of laughter sounded from the small shelter, echoing through the memorial garden. The doctor hesitated, almost turning around. Then he decided that if Garak wanted to tell him anything, he knew where to find him.

Alone again, Garak started laughing and couldn't stop.

He slid a glance toward his personal security vault, where he'd secreted the volumes he'd whisked away from the Hebitian tomb. That pitiable handful of part-Bajoran Cardassians had left their desperate story written in the margins of those books, clinging to the hope that someday, someone might find their writings and reveal the truth -- the truth that over six hundred years before, the leader of their people had tried to wipe out all traces of Bajoran blood among the Cardassians.

Either he'd never considered there might be other ships and survivors from that distant world, or he hadn't found all the "heirs of the flyers" scattered among the Cardassian population over the centuries.

Dumerik, he thought, you failed. You failed.

And perhaps because of it, Cardassia lives.

It was sunset by the time Bashir got back to the relief camp. He found Emily Hart watching the sky colors change in the fading light. He paused beside her to watch the incoming dusk.

"The Nightingale is shipping out tomorrow."

"I heard. But I'm transferring to the Hopkins," she replied impersonally.

"So you'll be staying here?"

She kept staring into the distance. "I'm done on the Nightingale. The judicial board may have granted amnesty and expunged the record in exchange for staying with this mission, but Westfall will never trust me again. My career is finished there."

"I was hoping ... you had some other reason, even the smallest...."

Her gaze raked over him contemptuously.

He bit his upper lip. "O'Brien once told me that people either love me, or they hate me. I've never had any illusions about which camp you fall into. But I have to say, I'm glad you'll be here a little while yet. There's still a lot to do. You're needed."

He was walking away when he heard her say, in reluctant tones, "Bashir.... You did a good job here. And you did what you said you would, for Cheiron IV. I ... have to respect you for that."

"Thank you."

"But I trust you'll understand that I never want to see you again."

A beat. "Understood." Bashir kept walking.

Epilogue