Involutions

[taricalmcacil]

A few weeks ago, jonnycarnahan posted a request looking for anyone who might want to join her in writing a Bashir fic. I gladly replied, hoping it would help with my writers block. Did it help? Apparently, if you consider the rather large plot hole we've dug ourselves into. It seems to be getting larger at an exponential rate. Anywho, the name of the story is Involutions, the first in what will hopefully be a series. A series in which the O'Briens fall madly in love with our lovely Julian Bashir. Why? Because it should've happened, that's why. The context was all over in the show. Like, BAM! IN YOUR FACE! in the show. Seriously, if you don't believe me, check http://www.livejournal.com/community/ship_manifesto/30635.html by butterfly
Of course, anyone from Bashir/O'Brien has probably already read that and agrees wholeheartedly.

So, without further ado:

Title: Involutions
Authors: taricalmcacil and jonnycarnahan
Rating: FRT
Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Pairings: None, this story
Summary: On a trip to the Gamma Quadrant, Julian and Keiko's runabout crash lands in the middle of nowhere, and due to Julian's injuries, Keiko discovers some things about the dear doctor that she never would have imagined.

She awoke to the smell of smoke and melted metal, and an odd feeling of relief about her despite it. Her back was damp and lumpy some things were poking her in odd places. She shifted, her arm hitting something hard and well muscled...most definitely not pudgy enough to be Miles. Keiko's eyes flew open, memory of the accident flooding back. Julian lay next to her, pale and unconscious in the sunlight filtering through the smoke.

She gasped and fought the urge to panic. Julian looked lifeless and she wasn't sure his chest was moving. Reaching for him, Keiko gasped again. Every muscle screamed in protest.

"Doctor?"

She gingerly touched the side of his face as she moved her body to better reach him. 'What do I do?', she thought. She had to make sure he was breathing. She felt for his pulse and was relieved. His pulse was there, but it wasn't strong like Miles'.

"Julian, you're the doctor! Wake up and tell me what to do!"

Wiping blood from her cheek, she winced as she waited for a response. That was going to hurt later in the day.

Reaching out, she spread her hand across the doctor’s chest, needing to feel it rise and fall to reassure herself that he was still breathing and his heart wasn't fighting a losing battle. She sighed in relief at the same time that she heard a soft whimper escape the man's lips.

"Dr. Bashir? Please wake up," she pleaded with the man. She didn't know what to do for him. She could figure out what plants would be safe to eat, possibly if they had any herbal properties, but she wasn't a medic. Maybe if she could find the med kit and its tricorder, she could at least tell what doctor Bashir's injuries were...

Glancing at the Runabout, she could see that it was no longer on fire, the remains simply smoldering in the morning air. She rose unsteadily to her feet, hoping Bashir would be alright for the few minutes it would take to find the med kit. Casting him one worried look over her shoulder, she made her way inside the destroyed vessel.

Keiko stumbled over a twisted piece of metal and cried out as she went down on one knee. She had to avoid injuring herself further or she wouldn't be able to tend to Bashir's injuries. Her heart hammering in her chest as she rose to her feet, she found the compartment where the med kit should have been. Her eyes searched frantically until she spotted it crushed under the communications console. Looking around frantically, she finally spotted a useful piece of metal, and wedged it into the space under the console.

“Come on, Keiko, put your back into it!” she muttered to herself, using the piece of metal to pry the med kit lose. As it finally popped free, her face fell in disappointment. The kit was melted shut on one side, looking very much the victim of an explosion. Additionally, the opposite was bulged out, the spot where the tricorder sat inside crushed nearly flat. Keiko could guess the pieces and circuits of the tricorder caused the bulge in the side of the case. She dropped it to the floor.

"No. This can't be the only med kit!" But she knew the runabouts only carried one med kit. Her hands were shaking now as she realized she didn't know where they were and if medical facilities were even remotely accessible.

She stumbled back outside, trying to remember how she got there in the first place. She clearly recalled Bashir barreling past her to the helm, yelling at her to sit down and brace herself over the blaring emergency klaxon. The runabout had given an odd lurch - she was thrown to the floor before she ever made it to her seat.

She knelt next to the doctor, once again placing her hand on his chest. He was still breathing, something for which she was eternally grateful. Sitting back, she really looked around at their surroundings for the first time.

The clearing Bashir had managed to crash them in was fairly muddy. Keiko reasoned that it had probably rained recently, if the vibrant green of the surrounding foliage was anything to go by. There were a few rock outcrops in and around the clearing as well, some type of limestone if the coloration was anything to go by. She rose to her feet and walked the forest edge, getting a closer look at the local plant life and one of the outcrops. She was pleased to see that water had pooled in gaps between the limestone rocks.

Keiko tore a strip of cloth from the hem of her shirt, glad that she had chosen to wear a long tunic. Tearing that strip in half, she dipped one piece into the water to clean the cut on her face. When she was sure there was no blood left, she dipped the second piece in the small pool and returned to Bashir, draping the sodden material across his forehead. He gave a low moan at the touch of the wet cloth, attempting to shift his head away from the cold.

“Doctor, can you hear me?” Keiko asked, kneeling close to his line of sight. “Please wake up.”


He was first aware of the cold, touching his forehead, and then the trickle of something running down the side of his face. He moaned, trying to move away from the feel, but it persisted, growing heavier against his skin. A soft voice echoed in his ears, and he laid still, trying to place it in his memories. He was also slowly becoming aware of pain, stabbing all across his body – in his head, chest leg, and wrist. He just couldn’t remember why, or even reason why. Shouldn’t his staff be healing him if he were injured?

Julian returned his thoughts to the voice, still not quite sure who was speaking. Not one of his nurses certainly.

“Please answer me Julian. I don’t know what to do!”

And he should know? Maybe, if the voice was referring to whatever was wrong with him. He was a doctor, after all. He cracked his eyes open, wincing and immediately shutting them at the influx of light. A shadow fell over his face, and he once again inched them open to find Keiko O’Brien’s concerned face peering down at him. He blinked in confusion at her.

“Keiko…what happ’d? Where are-“

“Shh…” she hushed him, touching a finger to his lips. “Something went wrong with the runabout, you had to crash land it, remember?”

“No.” Julian couldn’t even think of a reason to explain why he’d be on a runabout with Keiko in the first place. He tried to lift his head to look around, but stopped and returned his head to the ground when pain shot through his chest and head. He failed to stop a moan escaping his lips.

“Where does it hurt?” Keiko asked.

“Head…chest…wrist and leg,” Julian listed. “There should be… med kit…”

“I tried that. The tricorder was smashed beyond use and the hyposprays are all melted.” She informed him.

“Are my pupils even?” He wondered.

“What?”

“Let me look at the light…see if my pupils contract evenly…”

Keiko nodded and shifted aside so there were no shadows falling on his face. Julian winced at the light, but managed to keep his eyes open, despite the immediate headache it caused. After a few seconds he motioned Keiko back with his good wrist, sighing with relief as her shadow covered his face once more.

“Well?” he asked.

Keiko shook her head. “They aren’t even. What does that mean?”

“Concussion. At least a moderate one since I can’t remember anything from the runabout. I think I’ve got cracked ribs, and my leg and wrist feel broken. “Just giving her that information had exhausted him. He did his best to fight the need to sleep. “You…okay?”

Keiko nodded. “A few cuts and bruises…nothing major.”

“Doctor-“

“It’s Julian.”

Keiko sighed. “Julian…you look exhausted.”

Julian shook his head in denial, despite the truth in her words. “Can’t sleep.”

“Why not?” came Keiko’s question.

“Might not wake up.”

“Oh.” She looked lost. Julian couldn’t blame her. “Doc-Julian. I don’t know what to do.”

His eyes were drifting shut. She shook him by the shoulder. “Stay with me, Bashir!”

Julian’s eyes snapped back open. “Sorry…” he whispered. “Please don’t yell.”

Keiko winced. She had forgotten concussions tended to make loud noises painful. “What should I do?”

“Activate…the emergency transponder.” It hadn’t taken him this much effort to find the right words since he was a child. Since before…

“Doctor?” he was drifting again.

“Um…food. If the replicator’s down, there should be emergency rations and blankets.”

“But how do I keep you awake?” she asked, concerned about him falling into a coma.

Julian sighed. He was just so tired… “You don’t,” he finally told her. “Wake me up every hour or so. Make sure…know my name…”

Keiko looked down at him in worry as he drifted back into sleep. The sooner the Defiant came looking for them, the better.


It wasn't difficult for Keiko to find the emergency supplies that Julian had mentioned. She removed them from the runabout and piled them in the shade near one of the limestone outcrops. There were enough emergency rations to last them a week. That was good, they were due back in about two and a half days, so hopefully these would last them until the Defiant found them. The more difficult part would be dealing with the transponder. It was turning on, but no signal was being emitted. She would have to speak with the doctor about it. She only hoped he had learned more about these sorts of things from Miles than she had.

Keeping an eye on her chrono, Keiko had twenty minutes before she needed to wake Julian, so she rummaged through the runabout for anything else she might be able to salvage. There wasn't much, except a couple of fleece blankets, and a working palm beacon, and fortunately, the packets of emergency rations had been located as far from the explosions as possible. Unable to wait any longer to check on Julian, Keiko knelt next to him and touched his face. There was no response and Keiko's heart lurched in her chest. She smoothed the damp cloth across his forehead once again. "Julian? Wake up." It's been almost an hour and you need to wake up."

His eye twitched in response and his lips moved in silence.

"What was that?"

"Don' feel good..."

"I know. You just need to wake up for a few minutes." Keiko coaxed, trying to bring him around.

"No schoo’?" came the doctor’s question. Keiko frowned at it, guessing that Julian thought she was his mother, trying to wake him up for school.

"No Julian. No school."

"...'kay..."

"Open your eyes, okay?"

Julian gave a huffy little sigh, but did as he was told. He frowned at the sight of her. "You're not mom."

Keiko became more concerned than ever. He should have recognized her, but instead he seemed to be getting worse. He looked so confused, so young, and so helpless.

"No, hon, I'm not your mother. I'm Keiko ... Keiko O'Brien, Miles's wife. You know Miles, your best friend?" She moved a stray curl from the doctor's forehead and caressed his cheek. "Tell me where you think you are, Julian. Do you remember what happened to us?" She was trying to keep him talking as she tried not to let his poor condition overwhelm her.

He just wanted her to leave him alone so he could go back to sleep, but she insisted on bothering him. He sighed, whimpered, and attempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but the movement caused him to cry out and then moan in pain. "We ... we crashed and I'm hurt?"

"Julian?"

"Keiko?" he blinked. She looked close to tears. "Was...hallucinating?"

She nodded fearfully. She was not cut out for this sort of thing.

"It's alright, Kei, nothing unexpected."

"No it's not! You thought I was your mother." This information brought a brief smile to Julian’s lips before he grimaced in pain. He did his best to ignore it. "What did I say?"

"I got the impression you didn't want to go to school."

Julian frowned at this. "Really?"

Keiko only nodded in response, and was concerned to see that this information, not the fact that he had been hallucinating, seemed to trouble him more. "Julian, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing." he muttered. The look Keiko gave him made him wince. "At least, nothing of importance."

"Are you sure?" she asked, somehow managing to make the simple question sound like a threat. He managed a tiny nod in return.

"Trust me on this one, Kei."

Keiko frowned, but after a few moments hesitation nodded her agreement. There were other matters that were just as important.

"Julian, the transmitter isn't transmitting. And I think you’re catching cold, lying in the mud."

Julian frowned and managed to turn his head enough to look at the ground. "Hmm, that's not good." He sighed. "Well, I guess we'll have to move."

"But your leg and your ribs-"

"Will survive. They won't be happy..." he bit back a cry of pain as he slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, “but they’ll survive.”


Keiko sighed as she laid next to the fire, looking up at the stars. It had been a horrendously long day, but it had left her feeling less hopeless and lost. After aiding Julian in moving to a drier, more sheltered spot, she had waited anxiously for him to reawaken after passing out from the pain. Fortunately, when he awoke, it was with a plan ready for her to repair the transponder, a product of his engineering extension courses and his lessons from Miles while on the run from the T’Lani and Kellerun.

She had mused over the doctor’s brilliance as she worked, his ability to compartmentalize the pain so he could continue to think coherently. She faithfully checked Julian’s cognitive function every hour. Sometimes he was awake, others he needed waking, but his hallucinations seemed a thing of the morning. Unfortunately, she had been right about Julian catching cold lying in the mud, his fever had made itself known in the early evening hours, around the time the transponder began transmitting their SOS.

Watching Julian now, Keiko couldn’t help but wonder how she had come to call him by his first name so easily, even in her head. Maybe it was his illness and injuries…he looked so very small and innocent under the emergency blankets. She had never cared much for the man, but now in his conscious moments Keiko was beginning to see why Miles enjoyed his presence so. In this light, Julian was no longer the arrogant, brash young doctor that had arrived on the station; instead, he appeared to have an air of delicateness and world wary wisdom that had never before been apparent. Keiko was nearly asleep when she first heard Julian’s fevered mumbles. Sighing, she rose and moved to the opposite side of the fire. She rested her hand on his shoulder, hoping to comfort him the way she would Molly, but the ailing doctor flinched away from her touch.

“Make…stop, mom…” came the soft voice. “Don’ want…smarter…want pain…stop.”

Keiko didn’t respond, looking on with a mixture of confusion and a rising feeling of horror. It was an odd thing for anyone to say, fevered hallucinations or not. While she could see why he wouldn’t want to be any smarter – as a genius, others had difficulty relating to him – but she couldn’t see why anyone would want to make him any smarter than he already was. Unless… Julian wasn’t the incredible prodigy everyone believed him to be.

The realization hit her harder than the runabout hitting the ground. Keiko sat down in shock, staring at Julian but not really seeing him. It would explain so much about him if he were, dare she say it, an augment. His apparent arrogance, his messiah complex… his resistance to disease and exhaustion…even the unusual strength Miles had reported Major Kira mentioning after their return from the alternate reality. She shivered, not knowing what to think, let alone do.

Keiko’s mind ran rampant with the tales of Khan and other augments, learned in history class as a child. The stories demanded that she fear Khan and anything like him, yet her heart fought against everything she had been taught while growing up; arguing that even if what she suspected was true, Julian couldn’t possibly be a monster like those in the past. Julian had never killed anyone, never threatened anyone. He was the best doctor she had ever seen, had nothing but compassion and passion for his patients. Keiko just couldn’t believe that the stories were true. Not in reference to this man.

She didn’t sleep that night. Instead, she laid awake, considering the young man beside her, listening carefully and quietly to his soft and pained mumbles in the dark.


Keiko rose with the sun. She began her day by restarting the fire and returning to the rocky outcrop to re-wet the cloth she had been using on Julian's brow. The times she had woken him in the night, he had been incoherent, and she suspected the fever was at fault. It had dropped slightly before sunrise though, and with it, Julian's ramblings had subsided.

Unfortunately, they hadn't subsided early enough to calm Keiko's worries, and had instead left her more concerned for the young man. She had heard anger in Julian's voice during the night, something completely unheard of in the corridors of Deep Space 9. Based on those words alone, as hate filled as they were, Keiko could guess that something bad had been done to the doctor.

She returned to Julian's side, laying the freshly dampened cloth on his forehead again. His eye twitched and he attempted to shift away. Keiko sighed and leaned over him, speaking softly.

"Julian. Time to wake up."

He groaned in response.

"Come on Julian. Just for a while."

"...Have to, Kei?"

Keiko smiled. It was the first time since yesterday he knew who she was. "Yes Julian."

He heaved a sigh, but opened his eyes.

"Morning?"

Keiko nodded. "Think you can eat something?"

Julian gave a small nod. Keiko helped him into a more inclined position, propping a rolled up blanket under his back. He frowned at the opened Starfleet emergency ration bar she handed him, but bit off a piece just the same. He hadn't eaten since before the runabout crash. They munched in silence, Keiko finishing her breakfast first. She busied herself around the campsite, returning to his side only when he set down the empty ration bar wrapper.

"So how's the pain?" she asked, taking a seat.

"S'not too bad."

"You don't have to lie, Julian. It's not like you've ever been in this much pain before."

Julian hesitated just long enough before answering for her to notice."Yeah...right." He seemed lost in thought.

"Julian...why didn't you want to go to school?"

"What?"

"As a kid. When you were hallucinating..."

"Oh..." his Adam’s apple bobbed from what looked like nerves. “I probably thought I was ill...understandable, considering."

"Right." Keiko frowned. She would have to do this the hard way.

"So it wouldn't have anything to do with you not being as smart as the other children?"

"What?"

Keiko couldn't decide whether the look on his face was horror or confusion.

"You were talking. Last night, in your sleep...said that you didn't want to be smarter, that you just wanted the pain to stop."

Julian was shaking his head, mouth open, completely silent. Keiko had the impression that he wasn't even aware that he was doing it. The look was definitely horror, and he was becoming paler by the second.

"You asked someone...I think your father maybe, what they did to you."

Julian hadn't felt the cold terror that was creeping through him in nearly fifteen years. He knew exactly what Keiko was referring to, knew that is his fevered state of mind he must have slipped, drastically. And she had figured it out.

"What did you do to me!? How could you do this to me?"

"We did it for your own good, Jules."

He remembered the fight so well. He remembered collapsing to the floor, sobbing that he was a monster, flinching away from his mother's touch as she tried to comfort him. The papers strewn about the room, the pages containing his horrible little secret lying in plain sight where he had thrown them minutes earlier. The uncontrollable shaking that had taken over when his parents left him to himself, his whispered response to his father's assertion that he was just as human as everyone else. The same response that Keiko was whispering now.

"You said...'I'm not human. Not anymore."

"No..." The word escaped his mouth, barely more than a whisper.

"You were talking about controlling your actions, being careful not to be perfect, not to graduate at the top of your class...Julian, are you an augment?"

With those five words, Julian's world came crashing to the ground. Keiko held his fate in her hands. Not just his career, but his entire life. He couldn't bring himself to look at her, so he was surprised when he felt her arms around him.

"Talk to me, Julian."

"I..." his voice was shaking; he sounded much like a frightened child. "I was a disappointment. Th-the other children...they were all l-learning to use the computers. I couldn't tell a tree from a house."

"So what happened?"

"They took me to Adigeon Prime for accelerated critical neural pathway formation."

"Oh, Julian." She squeezed him as gently as she could without hurting his ribs.

"I'm a monster." Julian said dejectedly.

"No you're not." Keiko told him. "You're the kindest person I've ever met."

"I killed one of my only friends." he whispered.

Keiko's embrace went slack for a moment. She wondered if he was hallucinating again.

"Wait, what?"

"I shot Odo." Julian admitted. Keiko shook her head; she had seen the shapeshifter the morning they left. "He was going to kill Smiley..."

Keiko relaxed. The other universe. "Julian, if it had been Kira in that position, she would have done the same thing. And Odo is her best friend."

Julian sighed. Keiko just didn't get it."Maybe..." he whispered to appease her. He could feel himself drifting, the fever pulling at him.

"Sleep, Julian." Keiko whispered in his ear. "We'll talk later."

The hand slowly stroking his hair was too much to resist, and his eyes fell shut. Keiko looked sadly down at him, never having imagined the tortured soul that lay beneath his open and 'naive' exterior.