Warning: This story is rated PG-13 for m/m relationships and adult situations. If you are too young to be reading this, or if you are easily offended, please BACK OUT NOW!!

Disclaimer: Paramount/Viacom own the characters. The author is just borrowing them for a while, but promises to put them back where she found them...

Like it? Hate it? Please send any comments, suggestions, lavish praise, etc., to the author. Flames will only make me angry - do you really want an angry Cardassian on your doorstep tomorrow morning?

***

Time is

Time was

Time is past...

***

I have bad dreams sometimes, dreams in which his proud face returns to haunt me. I stir, believing him still alive, wanting to reach out and touch his familiar, muscled body. But when I awake he is dead, and someone else has taken his place. I cry out in anguish, my hands over my face, fighting for control. And then the mood passes, and I am left in peace - until the next time the
dream comes...

***

"Wake up, Julian, wake up! I can't go on like this. I have to go back!" I shake my companion and he turns over, grumbling, his black hair tumbled across the pillow.

"What's that?" he says sleepily, then sees my face. Concern roughens his voice. "Elim? Are you ill? Did you have another bad dream?"

"I wish it was just a dream... Don't you understand, Julian, all this is wrong. The war, Cardassia bled dry by an alliance she never wanted, so many people dead."

He frowns, and sighs deeply. "It's him again, isn't it? Dukat. You still miss him."

"Yes, I do," I admit quietly, letting him see the pain in my eyes. "But it's not just him. So many others are gone - innocent civilians, friends, Dax, Ziyal..."

He seems not to have heard me. "Well, it's understandable for you to miss him," he says, not unkindly. "After all, you were lovers for half your lives. But he's been dead for almost two years now. Life has to move on, Elim. You have to move on. And we have each other now. That wouldn't have been possible if you were still bound to him." A petulant expression swoops briefly over his lovely face and is gone. "Besides, even if you wanted to bring him back, you couldn't."

"That's where you're wrong," I say, controlling my voice with difficulty. "I've been happy with you, of course I have, but it's not right. It wasn't meant to happen. That's why I have to go back."

"Back where?" he asks in confusion. "Deep Space Nine? You'd hardly be welcome there."

"No, not a place - a time. Don't you see, my dear, we've all been pulled into the wrong time line. It's the only possible explanation for so much misery, and so much death."

"And you think you can make a difference?" He smiles lightly, humouring me. The sneer is unmistakable.

"Julian, I know I can. All this began when Dukat signed that damned treaty with the Dominion. Nothing has gone right since then. If I can go back, persuade him not to sign... He loved me, he might listen to me. I'm the only one left alive who had that sort of influence over him."

"But, Garak, you were light years away when he signed the treaty. He was all alone in the Gamma Quadrant on that Bird of Prey he was so proud of."

"The only reason I wasn't with him was because I refused to go."

"What?" he gasps, one hand straying to his lips.

"Dukat asked me to go with him just before he left the station, but I put my duty first. I thought I could serve Cardassia better by remaining where I was... The worst decision I ever made! That's what I can change, if anything. I can make sure I'm on his Bird of Prey in time to stay his hand."

"I don't know..." He is wavering, torn between fear of losing me and desire to see me happy. I press home the advantage.

"If I'm right, the war will never have happened. Think how many millions of lives will have been saved."

My lover clambers off the bed, begins to pace around the room, his slender body bathed in the soft red light of a Cardassian dawn. I can tell by the frown on his face that he's weakening, swayed by my arguments in spite of himself.

"How would you do it?" he asks presently. "Have you thought about that?"

"I want to go to Bajor. I want to use the Orb of Time, if they'll let me."

"Bajor? Are you mad? You're hardly their favourite person, you know. They still haven't forgiven you for what happened during the Occupation. I don't think they'll help you."

"They might. If I can persuade them that it would benefit their world, too. They can hardly have enjoyed watching the Vorta rape their planet... I can only try, Julian. Please say yes - it means so much to me."

***

I stand in the temple's inner sanctum, strangely reverent in spite of my lack of belief. These are not gods, I tell myself. Just aliens, no more different from us than any other race - Klingons, Humans, Breen... Yet still my knees tremble and my mouth is dry. I am surrounded by Bajorans, priests and guards, all poised to defend their precious artefacts if I have lied. The Kai steps forward from amongst them, his face a mask of shining serenity.

"Very well, Legate Garak. I will grant you access to the Orb," he says. "But you should know that if you attempt to damage it in any way, I will order my guards to kill you, leader of Cardassia or not."

"I understand," I say shortly, disliking the need to beg.

He moves towards the Orb's container, gesturing to me to follow. I walk behind him, my armoured uniform suddenly tight across my chest. What if I was wrong? The history of the quadrant could lie in my hands. I know that I cannot turn back now.

The Kai opens the tabernacle doors and I am transfixed as a beam of greenish light stabs my eyes. My feet leave the floor, I seem to be floating, meaningless, timeless, in the utmost void of space. I am not breathing. It is frightening, yet at the same time strangely comforting - alone in the silence, motionless, yet moving more quickly than the fastest star.

Suddenly, disconcertingly, I land in a small room - a shop, and see a Cardassian standing behind the counter. He stares unseeingly at a blank display screen. Is he working, or is he wrestling with the most difficult decision he has ever made? It is me. He raises his head, and his eyes widen as he catches sight of me - an older, sadder version of himself. Don't worry, I want to tell him. I won't hurt you. But my lips freeze and I cannot speak.

"Why are you here?" he questions me. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

Go with him, I scream silently. Don't stay here. Go with him when he asks you.

Did he hear me? Did he understand? I cannot tell, but now the room is dissolving again, the walls turning to water over glass, the floor to mist. So little time... I can only hope he heard.

***

When I come to I am lying on the floor of the temple. Strange, I have no recollection of falling. Familiar, concerned faces hover above me, peering down, and hushed voices whisper. "Is he all right?" "What happened?"

"Did I succeed?" I ask impatiently. It seems the most important question, though I cannot think why.

Kai Winn's smoothly insincere face bends over me. "Succeed at what, child?" she says, puzzled.

"I don't know. I thought... Perhaps it was a dream - but it seemed so real. There was something I needed to do..."

Winn speaks again. "You should rest, child. Encounters with the Prophets can often be disturbing. You have been blessed indeed today."

I hear a derisive snort behind me, and feel strong arms around my shoulders, supporting me. I turn to see. It is Dukat, and my head rests in his lap.

"Oh, Sakh'alin," I whisper. "Don't ever leave me again."

Confusion and amusement fight for supremacy in his eyes. "I won't," he promises, tightening his embrace. "How are you feeling? Do you remember what happened?"

I shake my head, still dazed by the hallucination.

"We're here to celebrate Ziyal's wedding," he reminds me gently. "You collapsed when they took the Orb out, but it's nothing to worry about. Probably just exhaustion, or this damned cold wind... Don't try to move, now. Dr Bashir is on his way."

***

I have bad dreams sometimes, dreams that bring me awake in the night with a pounding heart and a sheen of sweat. I dream that everything is different - that Cardassia is weak and subject to another race, that the quadrant is gripped by terrifying war, that millions are dead, that Dukat is dead.

He seems to know when I have the dreams, and is always awake to comfort me. "Don't worry, Elim," he says with a smile. "I'm not going anywhere. I have an empire to run."

The End

*Editor's note: I included this story because I like to think that Bashir loves Garak enough that he would sacrifice their relationship to make Garak happy...