Work Text:
…
Khami takes to visiting Odo in the morning, followed by his own special briefing with Sisko, wherein he receives a snack and a lesson on some aspect of Federation history. Daska, little darling that she is, is already at the tender age of one obsessed with all aspects of her father’s shop.
Jate, the troublemaker, makes it her business to harass Quark.
“I demand that you do something about that— that—“
Jadzia has already succumbed to Jate’s pleading and lifted her up, settling her on her hip. “Quark, relax. Jate’s a sweetheart. Aren’t you, darling?”
Jate gives her a sunny smile, bright blue eyes wide and earnest, and exudes innocence with all the panache of her erstwhile father.
“Garak said he would kill me— KILL ME— if he found her in my bar!” Quark wails. “Can’t you keep a better eye on her? What kind of father are you?”
“One that doesn’t mean to work harder than I have to,” Julian says coolly, arms crossed and face unimpressed. “I wasn’t the one who offered her spice pudding to go home, the first time she snuck into the bar. You bribed her, Quark. And now you will have to continue bribing her.”
Jadzia coughs hard to disguise a laugh.
Quark is just aghast. “But— but—“
“Otherwise, Garak will kill you,” Julian adds sweetly.
…
The salvage mission to Empok Nor does not go well.
Garak doesn’t want to go in the first place. He wants to stay at home, with his husband and his children, but it’s an absolute fact that only a Cardassian will be able to disable the traps left behind on the station. So he goes, after Julian promises him they can work on egg number four when he returns.
And when Julian joins the rescue team to go get their people back from Empok Nor, it turns out that Garak has somehow been drugged to the ridges with a psychotropic agent that made him murder the two Cardassian soldiers who had destroyed the runabout the salvage team took out there— thus, as Garak explains in melodramatic near-delirium, denying him his fourth child.
“It’s okay,” Julian tries to soothe him. “We can still make another baby. We just have to—“
Garak tackles Julian to the floor, ripping his uniform down the front.
“Garak!” Julian shouts, and manages to roll them over. He holds Garak down bodily, trying to ignore Garak’s frantic hip thrusts. “Hey! You’re sick! You’re drugged! We have to take care of that, first!”
Miles peers into the little room Julian had claimed for examining Garak, sees Julian on top, and says, “Please tell me you have this under control.”
Garak, panting and writhing, stops long enough to growl at Miles.
“You know he’s not going to put a baby in you if you’re sick, Garak. Let the man treat you.”
“I don’t have to listen to a man who’s been married for years and only has two children!”
Julian gets a hand over Garak’s mouth. “It’s the drug talking, Chief; we all know you could have more children if you wanted.”
Miles makes the smart choice and retreats.
All that is to say, egg number four pops roughly a month later, and Baby Lussan emerges half a month after that.
…
Maybe it’s because of Sisko’s affection for the Garak-Bashir children, but Jake ends up becoming a large part of their lives. Khami starts learning to read and write in Standard with him as soon as he can hold a pen and, not to be outdone, Ziyal takes to tutoring him in Cardassian.
Jate refuses to learn. “Khami can read for me,” she tells Julian, all unconcerned.
“But what if Khami isn’t there to read for you?” Julian asks.
“Then you can do it.”
“And if I’m not there?”
“Father can do it.”
Julian sighs. “I expect we’ll go through everyone in the station if I keep asking, huh?”
Garak doesn’t seem bothered when Julian goes to him about it. “It will be easier to keep secrets from her if she doesn’t learn to read,” he says while combing Daska’s hair. All of the Garak-Bashir children have their father’s jet-black color, but Julian’s genetics took a surprising victory in that they all have wildly wavy locks.
“And just what secrets are we keeping?” Julian demands.
“I’m hardly going to say them where she might hear,” Garak scoffs, and Daska, meeting her dad’s eyes, points one solemn finger to the refresher. The door isn’t quite closed.
The very next morning Jate is tagging along to Khami’s Cardassian lesson, and cozying up to Jake as well.
…
It’s a dark day when Julian gets a comm from his mother.
“Were you ever going to tell me I have grandchildren?” Amsha asks him, betrayal written stark in every line of her body.
Julian, who has been awake for thirty-six hours because some still unknown but soon to be eradicated Cardassian virus has wrecked absolute havoc on his family, says baldly, “No.”
The shouting gets loud enough that Garak crawls out of the family bed, holding a wailing Lussan, and takes a seam ripper to the control panel, effectively cutting the comm short— not to mention making any further comms impossible.
“You should introduce us all one day,” Garak tells him as Julian herds him back to bed. “Before she forces the issue.”
Julian growls. “She’s not getting out here while there’s a war on.”
“How long do you expect it to last?”
Khami pops out from the blankets and announces, “Daddy, I am going to vomit,” thus ending the argument: Julian lunges for the large serving bowl they’ve repurposed as a barf bucket.
Hours later, combing through Garak’s hair with his hand, looking down at his drowsy, raspy husband and their finally-sleeping children, Julian murmurs, “I like who I am with you. With us.”
Not opening his eyes, Garak replies, “Your parents can’t change that.”
“They’ve changed me before.”
Now one over-bright eye opens and Garak graces him with a small, sly smile. “You didn’t have me, then.”
…