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The One in Which Shepard Breaks Bashir's Nose [Closed]
Shepard never gets sick. Or at least, she never admits to it. As first Human Spectre, she had a lot to live up to; as Commander of the Normandy, she had a lot of responsibilities. The only time she had a free moment to hit the ship's medical bay was when she was bleeding enough that medigels weren't doing anything to improve her physical condition.
And Shepard liked to keep those moments few and far between.
Those few times she was sick -- really sick -- she'd inject herself with immunity boosters and get back to work. And if they didn't work, well, she'd just tough it out. Even if the immunity boosters didn't work whatever was in her system out immediately, they definitely hastened her recovery.
Unfortunately, there's no immunity boosters onboard the Prosperina. Or anything like it. Not as far as Shepard could find, anyway. Which meant that she was going to have to treat whatever had afflicted her body the old-fashioned way.
"Do you still have dreams of Deep Space 9?" Shepard asks, taking a long swig of her orange juice. There's a strange sense of fatigue drawn in the lines of Shepard's face this morning as she and Bashir enjoy their breakfast together. It's difficult to know if Shepard's sudden weariness and this morning's topic of choice are linked or not.
And Shepard liked to keep those moments few and far between.
Those few times she was sick -- really sick -- she'd inject herself with immunity boosters and get back to work. And if they didn't work, well, she'd just tough it out. Even if the immunity boosters didn't work whatever was in her system out immediately, they definitely hastened her recovery.
Unfortunately, there's no immunity boosters onboard the Prosperina. Or anything like it. Not as far as Shepard could find, anyway. Which meant that she was going to have to treat whatever had afflicted her body the old-fashioned way.
"Do you still have dreams of Deep Space 9?" Shepard asks, taking a long swig of her orange juice. There's a strange sense of fatigue drawn in the lines of Shepard's face this morning as she and Bashir enjoy their breakfast together. It's difficult to know if Shepard's sudden weariness and this morning's topic of choice are linked or not.
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There is nothing good about being locked away in a cage, no matter how big or small.
Shepard, on the other hand, doesn't look like she's feeling at her best. While it's not approved of back home, Julian can generally make a fair diagnosis without the use of scanning equipment just by standing in the presence of a person. So he is doing now, as he notes Shepard's sluggishness, her slightly wet respiration. Congestion, but not enough to stuff up her nose, or make her cough. She looks weary.
It could be a flu or cold; it could be innocuous. He pursues the conversation about dreams with most of his senses focused on gauging whether Shepard just had a sleepless night, or is feeling genuinely unwell.
"Of course; I miss them," he says lightly, though he really does miss Miles especially. "And so I suppose...dream about them. But what about you?"
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"I don't," she says. "Sometimes I wish I did, though. It'd be nice to see them again, even if it was just in my head."
She offers Bashir a wry smile, then turns her attention back to the food on her plate. Her nose twitches and she wipes it with the back of her hand and continues poking at her cheese-and-bacon omelette.
"Any big plans for today?" she asks, her tone ironic. There’s not really anything that they could do aboard the Prosperina that they hadn’t already done countless times before. Different TV shows to watch, sure. But that was about as exciting as it really got onboard the station.
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He doesn't miss her wiping her nose, and his left eyebrow arcs, his lips pursed in a thoughtful frown.
"Yes, actually." Julian says, setting his glass down and eyeing her archly. "I'm going to come with you to your morning training. See what I'm missing. I'm sure you can put me through my paces?"
This is her chance to admit she's not feeling well without full Doctor Mode turned on her. If she fails to do so, he will not be held responsible for the subsequent motherhenning he has to do.
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And well, perhaps his tone is very chiding and a little disappointed, but it’s all for her own good.
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She scrapes her leftovers into the trash and dumps off her place and glass. She glances over her shoulder at Bashir -- to see if he really plans to come along -- and makes her way towards the Training Room.
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They enter the sparring room, and she only grunts in response.
And then all bets are off: Julian knows a sick person when he sees one, and he's fully cognizant of the fact that Shepard is not hitting him as hard as she normally would. He is also painfully aware of the fact that she has taken offense at his concern, as she boxes him into a corner and nearly knocks him out, then commands him to push back, critiquing his form and correcting his posture before decking him repeatedly.
They're both sweating-- Shepard because she's clearly ill, and Julian because they're working very hard-- when her padded fist connects with his shoulder again, sending him spinning face-first into the wall with a wet 'smack!'
He peels himself from it with an angry groan, pulls off and throws down the practice gloves they were wearing to keep from hurting each other seriously, and traces the slightly swollen column of his nose with a dour grimace, hissing in pain.
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But he didn't.
And so she began to tear into him; she tried to push him harder. She barked out commands as she evaded or withstood his punches. And eventually, she had him cornered.
"You're going to have to hit me harder if you're going to get yourself out of that corner." Her fists are up now, prepared to take whatever hits Bashir plans to send at her. But he doesn't make his move.
And when she sends a gloved fist barreling towards his shoulder, it's with more force than she intended. As soon as her hand makes impact with him, she knows it was too much.
Bashir's face hits the wall with a crack and immediately she regrets it all.
Within seconds, Shepard tears off her gloves and throws them to the ground. "Bashir," she says, taking a step towards him. Her brows furrowed with concern. "Are you okay?"
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When she steps towards him, he lifts a hand to ward her off, stepping around her and towards the door. Though his nose doesn't visibly show any damage, he's bleeding from it very slightly, and his right eye is darkening as if bruised. He wipes gingerly at the blood. "Is it such a crime to admit it if you need help?" He sighs, his tone dropping back to a sort of resigned calm from that brief anger.
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If Shepard is listening to him preach, she doesn't seem terribly affected by his words. She pulls out her communicator and starts tapping on the screen. "I'm contacting Dr. Baltar," she says.
Which is really saying something considering how much she's made her mistrust of the man known.
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Now he is starting to sound faintly congested. His voice is also very faint and soft, as it's a little hard to speak while he's out of breath and his nasal passages are aching with every resonation of his vocal cords. "I thought you said you didn't trust him," he decides to say, after a few moments of tense silence otherwise broken only by ragged gasping. He's not as fit as she is, even sick; she definitely winded him.
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"I know that without medigel, I'm not going to be able to take care of you." She finishes tapping out the message, then snaps the communicator shut. "Keep your head up and your nose elevated," she orders. "I’m going to get you some ice while we wait for Baltar to respond."
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"You're absolutely right." He says, even more quietly, tone a little flat. Julian is trying to conceal his irritation. "Ice would just about do it."
He has nothing to say about whether she can take care of herself or not, but his pointed refusal to acknowledge the claim suggests he disagrees.
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She returns about a minute later with a handkerchief filled with ice; it's tied at the top to prevent the ice from slipping out.
"Here." Shepard crouches down to his height and offers it to him.
There's a moment of silence and then:
"I'm sorry," she says, her tone softer now. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
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It does help, though the ache of his nose is starting to throb with his pulse, now that the bleeding is scabbing over. He licks his lips, and shifts his position, so that he is sitting instead of crouching, one knee drawn up.
Though he has caught his breath by now, he notices that she is still sweating a little. Fighting the impulse to do something about it, he gives her a wry look. "Did anyone ever tell you, Commander, that you fight mean?"
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"When you're military, you have to know how to fight mean." Her answer's serious, even though her tone isn't. "You can't always count on the enemy to show compassion, even if you do."
She looks over at Bashir, her head still resting against the wall; it's cool against her face. "You're not the enemy, though."
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In a low tone, quite candidly, he admits, "I've always had problems with that part." With a low laugh, Julian shuts his good eye, brow furrowed against those less happy memories. "'The enemy' doesn't mean much of anything to me. If someone needs helping, I want to help."
Pointedly, he does not directly address the fact that that is what got them into this situation. "You'd think being abducted and imprisoned by ‘the enemy’ would beat that out of someone. Or at least being suspected of treason afterward might." He sighs. Between the broken nose and his own frustration with the topic, his voice isn't quite steady. He pretends it is. "I know Miles worries about it, from time to time. We've argued about it before."
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"Did that all happen because of the changelings?" she asks when he mentions abduction and imprisoning. It's a topic she wanted to broach since he mentioned it during their first encounter. But she wasn't comfortable asking then; they had barely known each other.
Now, though, they did. And Shepard considered Bashir a friend.
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Maybe it is. Maybe the universe could use some naivete. Or some hope. "It doesn't mean I don't want to try to help people anyway. It's part of who I am."
Her final question gets him to open his eye again, shifting the ice on his face and pressing it a little harder, staring at her thoughtfully, debating whether to answer or, perhaps, how much to say.
"Yes," he admits at last. "That's all related, yes."
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But the other part of her finds herself wishing that he didn't feel that way. Because she was sure that eventually, Bashir would be hurt because of it.
"What happened?" she asks softly.
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What makes him start to answer is the thought that she, at least, will not think he is complaining to her for failing to notice. Miles and Kira, even Jadzia didn't want to speak to him about it at first, or later, or ever. It made them angry, being forced to confront the fact that they had never once suspected in that month that the man they thought they were talking to had not been there. He doesn't like to remind them of that, he doesn't blame them for it. But talking about it always seems to imply that he does.
"I had been on my way to a conference about treating burns and scarring when it happened." Julian shrugs a little. "I woke up in a Dominion prison camp. They had all sorts there; Klingon, Breen, even a Cardassian by the name," his lips twitch, but not into a smile, "of Enabran Tain."
For a long moment, it seems he might not continue. He is remembering what it felt like, to wonder if he would ever see the station again. It's not different enough from being aboard the Proserpina. Not enough.
"Humans aren't considered especially impressive in melee, and certainly not a doctor, such as myself; but the Jem'Hadar would bring out the warriors-- the Klingons, especially-- and fight them in single combat. One on one; a gauntlet of genetically engineered beings who lived for nothing but slaughter, tearing apart these exhausted men and women. They’d call them out every day, again and again, until the Klingons broke apart. I couldn't watch that." He sighs, rolling his eye at his own impetuousness. "So, I...interfered. You can imagine not with great success. After that, I got to spend most of my time being interrogated, or locked away in solitary confinement. And I assure you, it didn’t stop them from torturing the Klingons. They made sure I could hear it."
A deeply wistful tone enters his voice, but he doesn't acknowledge it. "I was so grateful to be back in the Infirmary, after it was all over. You'd think it'd be sleeping in my own bed, or seeing my friends, but--I felt a little like I’d betrayed them. Those warriors who couldn’t defend themselves; who’d died, instead of getting a chance to escape.” His expression gets bitter here, and terribly lonely. "After that, all I wanted was to work until I forgot the whole thing."
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And when he begins to speak, she listens.
Even though their situations are entirely different, she can't help but tie his own experiences to her own. On some level, she understands well what he's going through because she felt that way once, too.
But unlike Bashir, Shepard was able to find closure.
When he finally stops speaking, a silence fills the small space between them. "What could you have done?" she asks, her eyes meeting his own. The question is not rhetorical; she's serious. "What could you have done to change things so they turned out differently? There's no way you could have known that you'd be abducted by changelings. And you sure as hell did everything you could to try and make things right once you were there."
She sets a hand on his leg. "What you did back there -- it's more than what most people would do, Bashir. There's no shame in that."
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"Yes. I suppose there isn't." Lowering the ice as it starts to get too cold and his eye nearly feels numb, he turns the icepack over, as if considering its weight, its effectiveness as both a tool of healing and a weapon. "It still-- bothers me. I hope it always does, as strange as that sounds. I know it's a luxury."
He smiles sadly. "But it's about the only luxury I really treasure. It's the only luxury I'd fight for."
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Then silence again. A silence that is remarkably short-lived as Shepard's communicator message chime plays. She fishes the device out of her pocket and flips it open. Within a few seconds, she's navigated to the messages screen.
And she smiles at what she finds.
"I'd forgotten I'd messaged him," she admits, passing the communicator over to Bashir.
"You going to pay the good doctor a visit?"
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