Title:   In Time's China Shop
Author:  Kathryn Ramage 
Series:  DS9
Codes:   S&B 
Rating:  PG
Summary: What if Sisko and Bashir had not been recovered at 
the end of "Past Tense"? 
Setting: 2026, about 2 years after the events of "Past Tense."
Copyright: October 2000

Special Thanks: To Invicta and Shezan, for their beta-reading
and helpful feedback on this story.

The title and idea for this story were suggested by an item 
in the Nitpicker's Guild Newsletter.

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek, DS9, and all the 
characters even if they never really knew what to do with 
them.  This story was written purely for entertainment 
purposes.

~|1|~

As a result of the September 2024 Bell Riots in San Fran-
cisco's Sanctuary District A, all the sanctuaries were 
officially shut down and work programs implemented to give 
the former inmates a chance to earn their own living again.  
When one of these projects, a renovation of the old Districts 
into affordable housing, began to hire workers, Benjamin Sisko 
took a job among the construction crews.  He and Bashir had 
decided that the best course of action was to remain in San 
Francisco; their only hope of ever being found lay in the 
probability that the crew aboard the Defiant would continue 
to search the city, no matter what the time period.

He had preserved the proper flow of history after the death
of the real Gabriel Bell by assuming the man's identity and 
ensuring that the hostages in the processing center were not 
killed.  After the Riots had ended and the hostages were 
saved, 'Gabriel Bell' was presumed dead.  Sisko had walked 
out of the building with Bashir to await their rescue.  They 
were still waiting.

He'd been working on the construction site for eighteen months
now.  He used his own name on a faked identity card, but  
continued to pose as an ex-baseball player; it was a subject he 
knew enough to lie about convincingly.  Working with his hands 
was not only something he enjoyed, but the job of restoring and 
rewiring these old buildings also gave him access to electronic 
components and tools he needed to construct a series of subspace 
homing beacons.  And, since he'd been promoted to foreman, he 
could work without supervision.

On that morning, he was up on a ladder in the stairwell of 
the Italianate-style townhouse his crew was currently working 
on--ostensibly to examine the wiring for the new ceiling light 
fixture, but also taking the opportunity to place the latest  
beacon in the crawlspace.  He was wedging the small device 
into a gap between two support beams when he heard footsteps 
coming up the stairs below him.

"Ah- Ben?"

After all these months, Sisko still heard the hesitation, the
unspoken 'Sir.'  Bashir was not comfortable calling him by his 
first name.  He was Julian's commanding officer, in spite of 
the fact that the military organization they belonged to would 
not exist for more than 100 years.

On the other hand, Bashir had almost become a son to him, as a 
substitute for Jake, and a confidante, in Dax's place.  People 
often took them for a couple.  An understandable, if mistaken 
assumption--this was San Francisco, after all, and they had 
become inseparable.  They were really all each other had in 
this world where they didn't belong.  They kept to themselves 
for the most part, to minimize their interaction with the 21st 
century.  Neither wanted to disturb the timeline and alter 
that future they hoped to return to.

He looked down at Bashir, who stood near the foot of the ladder.
"What is it, Julian?"

"Lunch?" 

"Is it noon already?"  Sisko tapped a few pieces of wood into 
the crevasses on either side of the beacon to conceal its hiding 
place, then climbed down.

His work crew, busy on the floors above and below, didn't give 
Bashir a second glance; they were used to seeing him around 
the site.  Sisko knew that endless speculation went on behind 
his back about the young man who showed up to have lunch with 
him every day, but he was long past being embarrassed by it. 
Let them think what they wanted; he looked forward to spending 
his breaks with the one person he could speak to unguardedly.

As they exited the building, Bashir asked him, "How many is 
that?" 

How many beacons had he assembled and planted in the walls of 
renovated buildings?  "I've lost count.  Ten, maybe, twelve."  
When his crew finished working on this townhouse and went on 
to their next assignment, he hoped to have another beacon ready 
to place in that house too. Making these homing devices was a 
painstaking and time-consuming task with the technology at hand
--he and Bashir had spent many frustrating hours devising a 
reliable, long-term power source out of contemporary electro-
chemical resources--but it was worth the effort.  Covered by 
plaster and paint, the beacons would lie safely concealed for 
as long as the buildings stood--perhaps longer.  

The part of the District that Sisko's crew was working 
on was in an older section of the city--once fashionable 
residences, later sectioned into flats, that had been built 
on a sloping hillside with a distant view of the bay.  After 
stopping by the temporary structure that served as the fore-
man's office to pick up the lunch-box Sisko kept in a small 
refrigerator, they walked down the slope to a tiny terrace 
park, which had been restored by another work crew.  It was 
a spot they often visited; from here, they could see the 
Golden Gate Bridge and the place where Starfleet Academy 
would be built one day.

Julian sat down on one of the freshly scrubbed and painted 
wrought-iron tables and waited until Ben had divided up the 
sandwiches, before he resumed the conversation.  "Do you 
think it does any good?"

"With every device planted, we increase our chances that some 
of them will still be sending their signals three centuries 
from now.  We can only hope that the Defiant will pick them 
up and use those signals to figure out exactly when and where 
we are."

"If the Defiant is there to detect them."

That it might not be there was something that Sisko did not
want to contemplate.  "What else can we do?" he asked as he 
sat down at another table nearby.  "We don't have many choices: 
Either we try to contact the Defiant, or we get used to spending 
the rest of our lives here."  

The doctor did not usually talk this way.  When they had first 
arrived in the 21st century, Bashir had been appalled by the 
primitive conditions; Sisko would have said that the young man 
was more determined to return home than _he_ was.  

Their first months here had been the worst: living in an 
underheated and overcrowded shelter until an apartment in 
one of the earliest renovation projects had become available; 
working at infrequent, odd jobs to support themselves; wearing 
the same clothes for days with little opportunity to do laundry 
or to bathe.  For 24th-century humans, accustomed to all of 
life's necessities--and most of its comforts--being provided 
without a thought, this was practically the Dark Ages.  Only 
the hope of rescue had kept them going through that difficult 
time.  

"Julian, you haven't given up?"

"No," Bashir answered thoughtfully after swallowing a bite of 
curried chicken and reaching for the container of grapes that
Sisko had set down beside him.  "But I'm beginning to believe 
it won't be so bad." 

"You used to hate it here."

"I know, but I am getting used to it.  The dirt. The bugs." He 
gave a little shudder at the memory of his first encounter with 
cockroaches.  "The lack of resources.  The limits of modern 
medicine--syringes and stitches and Band-Aids."  Bashir had a 
job as a medic in the Red Cross emergency facility set up on 
the ground floor of the former processing center.  In spite of 
his frequent complaints, he was happier and felt more useful 
working there than he would have been in one of the renovation 
crews.  "No replicators--but you're happier with a kitchen, 
aren't you?"

Sisko couldn't disagree; he enjoyed cooking, and he could at
least ensure that they ate well within their budget while they
were here.  "After all the condensed soup and powdered eggs 
they fed us at the shelter, it'll be a good long while before 
I even _look_ at synthetic food again." 

Julian chuckled. "Sometimes," he went on after another bite of 
sandwich, "it's that other life that seems unreal.  Like some-
thing I once dreamed.  When I try to remember the people we 
knew--Chief O'Brien, Kira, Odo, Garak--their faces aren't clear 
in my mind anymore."  

Their faces had become indistinct for Ben as well, but Jake's 
was still very clear.  Perhaps that was why he continued to 
fight so hard for his old life; he couldn't give up as long 
as he knew he had something important to return to.

"I think a lot about Dax too."

"So do I."  

Dax had beamed down with them when they'd been lost in time two 
years ago, but she had not been with them when they'd awakened 
to be dragged off to the Sanctuary, and they had not seen her 
since.  They posted personal messages on the Net regularly--
*Jadzia, we miss you.  Get in touch if you can.*--but never 
received a response.  Was she making her way in the 21st century, 
just as they were, or had she returned to their own time long 
ago?  For all they knew, she had arrived successfully in 24th-
century San Francisco. 

"We'll see them all again, someday."  Ben gave Julian a flashing 
smile. "After all, we can't stay here more than another 27 years.  
The Atomic Horror begins in 2053-"  

"Mr. Sisko?"  One of the workmen had come over the hill and 
was headed down toward them.  "Mr. Sisko, I don't want to 
interrupt your break, but it's kind of an emergency," he 
called out as he approached.  "It's Jim Bretton.  He's says
he's not feeling well, and he looks pretty bad.  Your- ah- 
friend's a doctor, isn't he?"

"I'm not licensed to practice medicine in this country," 
Julian answered after gulping down the last of his sandwich, 
"but I can take a look at him."  He hopped off the table. 
"Where's my patient?"

Bretton was sitting on the front stoop of the townhouse with 
his head in his hands.  Most of the others had dispersed for
lunch, but a few were hovering sympathetically.

Bashir crouched in front of the sick man and asked, "What
seems to be the trouble?" in a bright, professional voice.
He had picked up the basics of diagnosis without a tricorder
and, after hearing his patient describe his symptoms, took 
his pulse with the aid of a wristwatch, looked at his eyes, 
felt just beneath his jaw, asked a few more questions, and 
announced in the same, bright voice, "Come on--let's get 
you over to the med station."

But Sisko, who had followed the doctor back to the building,
heard the undertone of concern beneath the brightness.

As Bretton rose from the stoop, he stumbled and would have 
fallen if Bashir had not been there to catch his arm.  The 
doctor tried to brace up the sick man, but Bretton was much 
larger and heavier than he was and it was a struggle to keep 
him on his feet.  

Bashir turned to Sisko, "Help me with him." 

~|!|~

"It the flu," Dr. Gianelli, the physician on duty at the med 
station, announced after she had completed a more thorough 
examination. "It seems to be a particularly virulent strain, 
but with the proper medication and a little time off to 
recuperate, he'll be okay.  All of the workers on site should 
be inoculated immediately." 

"I'll send my crew right over," Sisko told her.

"I want this man to stay here and rest for awhile, and we'll 
send him home when he feels up to it."

Bretton lay on a padded cot; his eyes were shut and his face
looked moist and clammy.  There was a slight rasp in his 
breathing.  Bashir had begun to prepare the inoculations 
per the doctor's orders; he still looked very worried as he 
summoned Sisko over to receive the first shot.  While rolling 
up his sleeve to expose his arm for the injection, Bashir 
leaned close and murmured, "Ben, we have to talk. This isn't 
influenza."

Dr. Gianelli hadn't heard the words, but she glanced at them 
curiously.  They went outside.

"I wasn't certain when I first checked Bretton over," Bashir
began, "but now that I've seen the results of his tests, I'm 
quite sure: it's Masenfeld's virus."

"Masenfeld's virus?" Sisko repeated.  "Is it dangerous?"

"It can be, for the elderly, or persons with cardiopulmonary 
diseases, or if the patient's immune system has already been
weakened by poor nutrition or other factors."  Factors, he 
implied, that formerly homeless persons might be prey to.
"Untreated, it can lead to pneumonia, or even death."

"There's no cure in this time period?"

"It won't even be identified as a distinct respiratory virus
until the early 22nd century.  The symptoms are quite similar 
to those produced by the flu, but it won't respond to the same 
treatment.  In this era, they'll use amantadine or rimantadine, 
and those simply won't do.  A neuraminidase inhibitor might be 
effective as a preventative measure, but it won't help anyone
who's already infected.  This disease is highly communicable.  
If it spreads..."

Sisko sighed, "Then it will spread.  There's nothing we can 
do about it."

"But that's just it," Julian responded in a low tone. "_I_ 
can do something."

~|2|~

"This disease can be treated with ribavirin. It's a common
enough inhalant, currently prescribed for children with
respiratory ailments, but not usually given to adults," 
Bashir went on urgently.  "If we don't have it right here 
at the med station, it can be obtained from any pharmacy.  
It won't occur to Dr. Gianelli to prescribe it for Bretton 
if she thinks she's dealing with flu, but perhaps I can 
convince her-"  

"Julian, no."

Bashir stopped, and the corner of his mouth turned down.  
"Yes, I know," he said sullenly, "No saving lives." 

"No alterations to the timeline!"

They had repeated it to each other often enough, but they 
had not had to face a critical situation before this.  Sisko 
had always known that, once they encountered one, it would 
be a test of their wills.  And a medical emergency would be
the hardest test for Julian to face.

"It's the same thing!" the doctor hissed back.  "Oh, I can 
splint their broken bones and put on bandages, but when it's 
a matter of life and death, I have to stand by and do nothing!"

"One life today can mean millions in the future."

"I took the Temporal Mechanics courses at the Academy too,"
Julian retorted.  "I've heard all the arguments:  What if 
the man I save turns out to be another Hitler or the next 
Colonel Greene?  What if he murders _my_ great-great-grand-
father and marries my great-great-grandmother?  Do you really
think that's likely in this case?  It's easy to make abstract
choices and play around with extreme hypothetical cases, but 
it's different when you're living it."

Sisko, trying not to aggravate Bashir's already volatile 
emotional state, took a deep breath and let it out before 
he replied as evenly as he could, "That's exactly why Star-
fleet has laid out these Temporal Displacement policies 
for us to follow.  They're just as important as the Prime 
Directive--if not more so.

"I know how you feel, Julian.  It's _not_ easy to hold your-
self back when you see someone suffering--our natural instinct 
is to intervene, protect the weak, help the sick and wounded.  
But that act of kindness might change the course of history 
in ways we can't possibly foresee.  Maybe it won't be as 
drastic as another Colonel Greene, but it may be something, 
some little thing, that significantly alters the world as we 
know it."  

Bashir had been pacing fretfully in the street, but now he 
slowed and turned to his commander.  "During the Riots," he 
said, "if the course of history demanded that, instead of 
saving those hostages' lives, we had to let them die, could 
you really have done it? Just stood aside?" 

"Yes," Sisko answered immediately.  "It would have torn me 
up inside, but I would have done it.  We can't take any 
chances with the future."

The doctor sat down on the med station's stoop. "I know that's 
true," he admitted, "but don't you see--we change the future 
all the time, simply by being here?  Other people would have 
had our jobs.  They would live in our apartment, spend the 
money we earn, eat the food we eat.  They would interact with 
the people we interact with, but differently.  And what about 
Daniel Webb?  If it hadn't been for us..." he stopped there, 
knowing he had gone too far.

Webb's death was a sensitive point with Sisko.  Webb had 
been _his_ friend; he hadn't known the real Gabriel Bell, 
and probably wouldn't have been in involved in the hostage 
situation at all.  Would he have survived the Riots if the 
original timeline had been preserved?   And what would happen 
to Webb's family?  Sisko had only seen them once after the 
Riots--the still-stunned mother, her angry and resentful 
son, leaving San Francisco to try and put their lives back 
together after suffering this enormous loss.  Who could 
imagine how those lives had been altered?  These unanswer-
able questions were a constant source of torment.

"I don't honestly know if I could stand aside." Bashir sighed.  
"I'm not suggesting we use our knowledge of the future to 
deliberately manipulate it for our own ends, but we _are_ 
altering it right now in a thousand little ways.  Everything 
we do makes a difference.  The only way we could've prevented 
that would have been to commit suicide the instant we arrived.  
We didn't.  As long as we are here, we can only go on living 
like the men we are."

He got up to head back into the med station.

"Julian!" Sisko boomed.  "_Don't_."

The doctor stood for a moment with his back turned to Sisko 
before he asked, "You'd do whatever it took to stop me if I 
told you I was going to do it, wouldn't you?  You'd even kill 
me, if it was necessary to preserve the timeline."

"I would hate for it to come to that, Julian."

Bashir's shoulders slumped.  "I have to see that everyone gets 
their flu inoculations.  Will you please send all the work crews 
here to have their shots before the end of this shift?"  And he 
went inside.

~|!|~

Usually, they met at the end of the day and went back to their 
apartment together, but Bashir did not come to the work site 
that evening.  After the last of his crew had gone, Sisko went 
to the med station.  Dr. Gianelli was just locking the front 
door.

"Mr. Sisko?" She smiled at the sight of him.  "I wanted to 
thank you for your help today.  If we're lucky, we've caught 
this flu before it put too many people out of commission."

"I'm glad to hear it, Doctor.  What did you use, a-" he pulled 
the words Bashir had used out of his memory, "neuraminidase 
inhibitor?"

Dr. Gianelli was surprised at his use of the term. "As a matter 
of fact, yes."

"At Julian's suggestion?"

"It's the standard inoculant."  Her look of confusion cleared.  
"That's right--you're Julian's partner, aren't you?"

Sisko did not bother to correct her.  "Is he here?  It's 
important that I speak to him."

She shook her head.  "He left hours ago.  When Mr. Bretton 
went home, Julian went with him, and he never came back."

"Thank you," Sisko rumbled.

He walked home alone through the twilight streets, waited 
awhile, then fixed and ate his dinner.  When Bashir had still 
not come in by midnight, he went to bed.  

He knew. 

At last, the front door of the apartment opened, and Sisko 
heard soft, careful footsteps in the hallway; he got up and 
opened the door to his bedroom.  The door to Julian's room 
was directly across the hall, also open.  Bashir was sitting 
on the bed in the darkened room, pulling off his shoes.  

When Sisko's shadow, cast by the hallway light, fell on the 
floor, he looked up and said, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"I was awake.  You did it, didn't you?" 

"Dr. Gianelli asked me to escort Jim Bretton home," Bashir 
answered.  "His condition was growing worse--I could see it.  
He wasn't responding to the medication he'd been given, and 
it was getting harder for him to breathe."

"Julian-"

"I put him to bed," Bashir pressed on, "and then I went back 
out.  I walked for hours, all over the city.  I couldn't 
think what to do.  I'm a doctor. How can I let someone suffer
when it's in my power to make them better?"   His eyes were 
wide and his expression apprehensive; he was intimidated by 
Sisko--still subordinate to his senior officer, still surrogate 
son to his father-figure--but he was unapologetic.  The one 
thing Bashir would never back down on was a medical principle; 
the life of his patient overrode all other concerns, even the 
fate of a whole world.  A galaxy.  "So I stopped by a pharmacy 
and bought a ribavirin inhaler.  I didn't even need a pre-
scription.  Then I went back to Bretton and told him to use 
it every 2 hours to help his breathing.  He should be fine."  
He dropped his gaze.  "I know you're angry, Ben. Kill me for 
it, but it was what I had to do."

"It wouldn't do any good now," Sisko answered grimly.  "What-
ever you've done, it's done.  I only hope we don't wind up 
paying too much for it."

~|3|~

Their relationship was strained in the days that followed.
Bashir avoided him and, when they had to interact, they were
barely on speaking terms.  Even Sisko's crew noticed that the 
young man didn't come by for lunch anymore.

Bretton returned to work two weeks later, and the disease
did not spread.  Sisko didn't know whether to be relieved 
or terrified: Was this the way it was meant to happen?  
Had the inoculations against flu been effective or, in an 
alternate timeline, had Masenfeld's virus ravaged the city?  

What effect could the life or death of one man have on the 
course of history?  If not Jim Bretton's life, then what 
about Daniel Webb's? And what about the addition of two 
extra lives into this era--his and Bashir's?

In spite of the coolness that had come between them, Sisko 
could not remain outraged.  He acknowledged that the doctor 
had a point: Everything they did had some effect.  They were 
stumbling through time like bulls in a china shop: They 
might not smash it all up, but they couldn't help leaving 
some damage behind them.  If Bashir's actions had not altered 
the future in some way, large or small, something else they 
had done here would.

When they completed the renovation of the Italianate town-
house, Sisko's work crew moved on to their next assignment, a 
small Queen Anne-style hotel in sad decay in the same street.  
They were just beginning their preliminary assessment of the 
building for structural soundness; Sisko was on the front 
stoop, directing his crew, when he saw two human-looking women 
in contemporary clothing, heading toward him.  They might be 
taken for inspectors from the Housing Authority; they were 
only noteworthy in that the smaller, red-haired woman had a 
large bandage plastered over her nose.  The taller woman had 
removed her spots.

Dax burst into a smile. "Benjamin!"  

Sisko leapt down the steps and rushed to meet them.  "I never 
thought I'd see you again, Old Man!" he said as Dax threw both 
arms around him for an enthusiastic hug. 

"We were beginning to worry about you too.  You don't know how 
much trouble it's been to find you--"

"Thank the Prophets we did," Kira interjected.

"But we can tell you all about that later," Dax concluded as 
she let him go.  "Where's Julian?  He's still with you, isn't 
he?"

"We've stayed together," Sisko answered.  "He's working just 
a couple of streets from here."

"Great! Let's get him, and then we can go home."

~|4|~

It felt strange to be back in his quarters again, back in his 
uniform.  Everything seemed a little _off_ somehow.  It would 
take some time to re-adjust to this life: As far as the crew 
on the Defiant was concerned, he and Bashir had been missing 
less than a day.  For them, it had been nearly two years.  

After he had changed out of his 21st-century clothes and 
contacted DS9 to speak to Jake and assure himself that his 
son was all right, Sisko called for a debriefing in the mess 
hall.  Kira, Odo, and Bashir were waiting when he arrived.

"The planet literally changed beneath us," Kira began her
report of their rescue.  "Your Earth's satellites and defense 
systems just disappeared, and we realized what must've happened.  
Dax will have to explain about the chroniton field, and why we 
weren't wiped out of existence too.  There were several possi-
bilities where- er- when you might've gone, but we didn't know 
which time period to start searching in.  We scanned the planet 
for any indication of where to begin, until we picked up the 
signal from a subspace beacon and traced it back to the date 
you placed it there."

Sisko smiled.  "I'm surprised to hear only one of my beacons
survived.  I must've planted a dozen of them."

"It was sheer luck that _one_ survived," Odo growled.  "That 
city you were in had been devastated in your last World War."

"We had to hurry and get you out of there before the war 
started," Kira added.

"You had plenty of time," said Bashir.  "The Atomic Horror
wasn't for another 30 years."

The major gave him an odd look as she continued, "It was
lucky too that Dax didn't go down to that conference with
you.  Even after we'd found you, I don't know how we 
would've managed to beam down to the right time and bring 
you back without her transporter expertise."

Sisko felt a chill run through him.  *Bretton's life*, he 
wondered, *Or Webb's?  Or was it one of the thousands of 
little things we did?*   

Bashir, beside him, had turned ashen. "Wh- What about Chief 
O'Brien?"

"Chief _Who_?" Dax asked as she came into the room.  She 
had also changed into her uniform--a uniform with mustard 
yellow shoulders and a chief of engineering's insignia on 
the collar.

~|end|~

Kathryn Ramage                        kramage@erols.com
~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~|!|~
"I _hate_ temporal mechanics!"    - O'Brien, "Visionary"