Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elim Garak/Cardassia
Characters: Elim Garak
Additional Tags: Rebuilding, in many ways, change doesn’t always have to mean a complete reworking after all, and shouldn’t one play to one’s strengths?, also hints of garak getting up to enjoyable off-screen dickens, which really he needs more of
Series: Part 2 of i can no longer keep my blinds drawn
Summary:
Elim Garak fits well into his work team. A strong back and a clever mind can combine to get a lot of work done. Of course, strength isn’t his only skill…
A vignette about Garak being Garak, back on Cardassia and feeling good.
Read on AO3 or below:
at first so strange to feel so friendly
to say ‘good morning’ and really mean it
to feel these changes happening in me
and not to notice till i feel it
* * *
“Salmakt,” says Haq, his eyes curious, and stands from the planning table to greet him. His coveralls are rumpled as always.
“Salmakt,” he replies. “I’m sorry for leaving you short a man for so many days.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Haq’s shoulders say amusement/reproval. “I’d been waiting for a chance to get some real work done. Finally, I didn’t have Garak around to steal all my glory.”
He tilts mild irritation at Haq, whose amusement deepens.
“No, truly. How many people, these days, can claim to have lifted a light-beam all by themselves?” Huq flexes his not-unimpressive arms.
“Don’t listen to him,” calls Nuril, laughing, from where she sits at the head of the table. “He’ll fill you full of lies.”
Haq frowns at her, and she mock-glares at him over her eyeshield.
“Well, perhaps it wasn’t all by myself,” says Haq as he gestures for Garak to sit.
“I seem to recall Veren and AThi having something to do with it,” says Nuril, nodding her welcome. “Not to mention the lifter.”
That’s new. “We have a lifter?”
“Had a lifter,” says Nuril, running a hand through her crest as she eyes her dutypadd. “We’re working the Xel circle now. Can’t do much there without a lifter.”
Missing a few days is like missing a lifetime. “What happened to the Nine Hexes? We still had three streets to go.”
“Good enough, apparently.” Nuril’s body angles: mild disapproval/hands-washed.
All right. Well, there’s certainly a great deal to do in the Xel circle, but… “Had a lifter?”
“Mmm. Re-requisitioned. Glory to Cardassia!” Her little bow is ironic.
He rubs his chin. “Now who would take a lifter from a hard-working reclamation crew?”
“Who do you think?” asks Haq. “All things for the good of the forward-looking government.” He winks and nods. He thinks he’s being very subtle. It’s almost charming.
Garak smiles. “So someone is using it to clear their private estate.”
“Don’t look at me, but word has it that it’s Chairman Xevoc.” Nuril’s voice is low. Secret, says her hand.
“Really? Xevoc?”
“Currents in the wind.” Nuril taps her nose ridge, eye ridge. “That’s all I know.”
“And when will we be getting another lifter?”
“When one is free. Everybody needs a lifter.” Haq shrugs. “Could be a day, could be a week…”
Nuril’s a bit more forthright. “Could be when the pet project is properly completed.”
“Dear me, Nuril. How forthright to speak so.”
“Nobody’s listening, are they?” Her gesture is eloquent: fallen trees, busy passers-by, silent screens.
“Someone is always listening. But…” Hmm. “Are you certain it’s Xevoc?”
“So the wind says. What does it matter? We don’t have a lifter. We’re going to have a hell of a time today. How anyone expects us to clear even a street, let alone the whole circle, without assistance—”
“The sea moves the sand one grain at a time,” says Haq, voice solemn and body smiling, and Nuril shoots him a look, angles her elbow: irritation.
“Very profound. Come on. We’ve got to plan out what we can do without a lifter.”
“At least wait for Veren and AThi…”
Garak lets the argument wash over him, ignores it. He’s thinking… mmm. Yes. Very well, then. He pushes his chair back, stands.
“Could you spare me for an hour or two?”
Nuril frowns at him. “You’ve been gone three days.”
“I have.” Apology, says his body, the tilt of his spine. “You were very kind to allow it. But I think perhaps I could achieve more elsewhere this morning.”
Nuril’s brow ridges lift. “I wasn’t aware you were making the decisions on crew placement.”
He waits patiently. Finally she sighs, displeased. “As you wish. Go do whatever suits you. Not as if I can do much with you right now anyway.” She dismisses him with a frown, a wave, and Haq blinks at him for a second before he’s pulled back into Nuril’s orbit: “Now, look here,” she says, pointing to her padd, and Garak takes the opportunity to slip away.
It’s not far to a commlink. That’s a good thing, because walking in these coveralls is pure punishment. They bind, they pull where they shouldn’t, and the legs are too long… really, he’ll have to do some quick tailoring one of these days. He’d half-thought he might get something done in his few days off…
Ah, well, I was busy. His hand wanders to the printout in his pocket, and he smiles.
Half a block, turn at the corner… there is the commlink, and it doesn’t look too badly damaged. He palms the green square, watches it blink FAILED, sighs and taps a direct code into the grid. That is still working. A small mercy.
In the cracked screen, the head of a busy aide appears. He’s got a stylus jammed behind one aural ridge. “Yes?” he says, not looking at the screen.
“Have I reached the assistant of Chairman Xevoc?”
“Of course you have. You dialled this number.” The aide looks up for a moment now, irritated. “Can I help you?”
“I was hoping to speak to the Chairman.”
“Not today. He’s in meetings.”
“Of course he is,” says Garak, smiling. “Perhaps you could pass along a message?”
“I’ll take it down,” says the aide, slipping the stylus out of his well-styled crest.
Garak shakes his head. “I’d actually prefer a visual recording.”
The aide sighs. “If you must. Transferring—”
A bleep, a hum, and letters dance on the little screen. Garak waits. Soon enough the screen flashes RECORDING, and he greets it with a composed smile.
“My dear Xevoc. Good morning to you! How are you? I haven’t seen you in years. I was worried you’d been hurt in all the recent commotion. How nice to find that instead you are as civic-minded as you always have been. People like you are what keeps the government strong.” He pauses, smiles self-deprecatingly. “Myself, I am currently employed on Citizen’s Committee 42. Lifting debris, mostly. It’s so strange, isn’t it, to find ourselves changing with this new Kardasia? But I feel it is important that I serve the people, as I always have.” A blink. Just one. “I know you share my commitment to the cause of furthering Kardasia’s growth, and I know that you support the efforts of our reclamation teams completely. I know this because I know you’re a man who wants to help Kardasia. Who wouldn’t want to be thought of as any kind of… self-server.” He lets this last drip from his lips distastefully, then smiles brightly. “If there’s anything you could do to support our efforts—anything at all—I know that I, personally, would be very grateful.” One more blink. “I hope that my opinion still carries some weight with you. My thanks. Remember: Citizen’s Committee 42, deployed at Xel circle.”
He tilts his head into completion, and the screen blips, flickers. For a moment he wonders if the message will go through… yes, there’s the aide, already frowning at his padd again. “Thank you,” he says, and the aide waves a hand.
“For Kardasia.”
“Indeed, but…”
Annoyed eyes flicker to him. “Yes?”
“Could you please flag that for him to see immediately?”
“Everyone says that,” says the aide.
“I feel it is very important.”
“Everyone says that too.”
There’s no sense arguing with the desert. “Very well. Perhaps, though, you could add my name to the message flag?”
“You should have left your name in the message,” the aide says, rolling his eyes, shoulder bending into fatigue/put-upon, but he taps a button and does as Garak asks, G A R A K, yes, with an atvik, that’s perfect, thank you, and may your day be well spent—
The aide hangs up on him. He takes a moment to smile at the dead commlink. Now, it’s currently… mmm, perhaps 7:45, and that should leave him an hour or two…
He takes tea in a little shop nearby, hardly worthy of the name: it’s just tables and chairs in a dusty room, and the selection of refreshments is mediocre at best. These little fly-by-night places are becoming quite common as the reclamation proceeds. Where there are thirsty workers, there are people to sell them tea. He sips the brew and nibbles at a stale ikri bun. So much sugar… but one does deserve a treat now and then. He sits, legs crossed, very little on his mind, smiling to himself.
The letter is very present in his pocket. He could read it again… mmm…. or he could save it for later. This pleasant debate serves him well for about ten minutes. Finally he decides to leave it, although he does allow himself to touch the printout, to feel its plastic crackle under his fingertips.
Refreshed, he decides to walk the two samlanuj to Xel circle. It’s not far, not really, and certainly after an ikri bun he could use the exercise. Besides, the view promises to be interesting…
About a samlanuj into his walk, he hears a grumbling sound, rattling the buildings around him. Passersby ignore it; it’s familiar these days, just another lifter trundling off to wherever’s being reclaimed today. To him, though, it’s really quite delightful.
It growls by him, rotating blue light shining, and he smiles and follows it. Isn’t that fascinating: it’s going the same way he is.
When he arrives at Xel circle, only a minute or so behind, the lifter crewperson has already departed with a smile and a wave. He passes her, nodding; she looks at him blankly and nods back.
Nuril and Haq are standing in a cleared spot amidst the rubble, eyeshields in place, coveralls already dirty. They look up at his approach.
“Good morning once again,” he says in his friendliest tones. Amusingly, he means it. This has been a lovely morning.
“Oh, Garak!” Nuril blinks at him in elaborate surprise. “Decided to join us after all, did you?”
He nods, smiling. “If you’ll have me.”
She puffs air. “It’s just as well. We might get more done today than I’d thought. Look: we’ve got a lifter.”
“Do we really?” His eyes widen. “How did you manage that?”
“Don’t ask me,” she says, turning to shoot the lifter a distrustful look. “It just turned up. 'Compliments of Chairman Xevoc,’ apparently.”
“How very civic-minded of him!” says Garak, his voice a study in surprised delight.
“I know!” says Haq, just as pleased.
“Huh,” says Nuril, who isn’t stupid, and who watches him through narrowed eyes.
“Well,” says Garak, clapping his hands together, “shall we get to work?”
Nuril looks him up and down, and nods slowly. “All right. Veren and AThi are already clearing those stores over there. You’re strong; you go join them.”
“I live to serve,” says Garak, bowing, smiling, and feeling for the first time in a long while very, very good.
cucumber-s
