#plain simple garak

My favourite idea is that Garak is so scared of bringing Julian to Cardassia. Terrified. Surely she will eat him alive. The sun will fry his doctor and are ration bars even designed with humans in mind?? And oh, his people! Julian's part of one of the most dominant species in the Federation. He's probably never experienced Xenophobia in his life. If Cardassia hates him, how can Garak expect him to love it enough to stay, stay with him enough to start a life, a family-?

And then. I haven't decided how yet. Maybe someone at the hospital realizes Julian takes patient-doctor confidentiality UBER seriously. Cardassian doctors won't gossip about their patients, certainly not, but if someone with enough authority asks? Of course they'll share information. It's the state. Not Julian. He will go to war over your privacy. Some political adversery of Garak's is emergency-treated for PTSD by Julian and goes into the next debate fully expecting Garak to know every detail of that weakness, to exploit it. And he just. Had no idea. This man, a heavily rumoured, ah, intelligence expert, lives with this doctor. And he obviously has no clue about this thing.

News spreads. Julian starts getting the hardest-hit cases, the most vulnerable people. Cardassians that would never have sought treatment because they feel exposed, and an exposed Cardassian backs up into a corner and bites your fingers off. No matter what internal injuries are festering at their minds. But Julian has experience with luring Garak out of corners.

Gently, reliably, this man coaxes and heals until he becomes someone Cardassians trust with their deepest, darkest wounds. An old Gul shows up. As soon as he's shown into Bashir's office he bursts into sobs, full-blown panic attack. Cardassians never have panic attacks, certainly not in front of others, and certainly not Guls. But this man travelled four hours on foot because he heard this stranger listens and doesn't tell and understands, he accepts. Doesn't he know he did terrible things? But he soothes with Cardassian words on a foreign tongue and doesn't try to touch him until he asks to be held.

Soldiers whose minds can't tell if they're in space battle or on a reconstruction site. An old woman comes in and silently bares her flank. There's an old knife wound that was never treated and is gnarly on her skin, pulling it apart. This is not the first torture wound someone has silently asked to be healed, for the very first time, by Julian. A surgeon he doesn't know opens his door. He can't operate. His hands shake and all he smells is burnt flesh. Cardassia needs him so much and he just can't. Julian lets him watch his operations. See wins, watch people wake up again. Then there's the children. They say he doesn't even ask where your parents are. He just lets you sit with him. If you sob and tell him you're scared, so scared, does he even know what an orphan is worth on Cardassia, he'll hold you tightly like he wants to physically prove to you how valuable you are. He will say, clear and sure, that Cardassia would be lost without you. So foreign. If you tell him the memories are too much, he'll give you a sleeping pill that's not like the stuff you get on the street. It won't get you addicted.

He's odd, and a stranger. He has no scales but moves like that doesn't matter. He faints a lot in the sun. Garak knows Julian overworks himself and forgets how much more water he needs. He lives in constant terror that he won't be there the next time it happens, can't drag his doctor to the nearest house and pour water over his neck. And then it does happen. Garak measuredly leaves a very important meeting before breaking out into a sprint because his secretary informed him someone found Julian unconscious at midday. Garak finds him sitting in the shade. An old woman is frowning over him and insistently pouring small sips of saltwater down his throat. How does she know the right ratio? A young man is eagerly checking his pulse, pressing a little too hard from what Garak can tell, and has to listen to Julian's smiling intructions on what a normal human pulse rate is. A teen is standing at the side, not looking at Julian. Her gaze instantly snaps to Garak approaching. Like a vigil, she doesn't move from Julian's side and tracks Garak's movements until she determines who he is. Then he's levelled with a badly hidden reproachful glare, reprimanding him for leaving their doctor in peril for even a minute.

Garak takes Julian home with less words of anger than usual after these episodes. Most of it comes from fear, they both know. But he has realized that Cardassia apparently won't kill his doctor. And if she tries, her inhabitants will forcefully remind her that this Federation doctor with kind eyes and callused hands stands under the protection of a very, very loyal people.