[editor's note: this story has been corrected for spelling and grammar]

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*No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man behind blue eyes...*

  I despise counselors. Always have, really. Ezri Dax might actually become a likeable person in my eyes if she didn't always spout that Federation pseudo-psychology that I have come to loathe. As much as she likes to think she's helping, this is one mind too dark and too far gone for her youthful optimism to reach. She is childlike, almost, in her need to understand what is quite beyond her grasp.

 *No one knows what it's like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies...*

  'Why tell the truth when a lie is easier?' An old proverb. Ah, but lies are only easy in the beginning. After so many years, simple mistruths become complex webs of trickery and deceit. I've almost begun to think it would be easier to simply be honest now. I have always been an outsider here, blamed in general for the 'evils of the Cardassian Occupation,' and the now-extinct Obsidian Order, a thing which they really know nothing about. What could it hurt to give then a few real reasons to hate me?

*No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings like I do. And I blame you.*

  Tain himself could have devised a more perfect punishment. Exile, in and of itself, should have been torture enough: to dwell among bickering Bajorans, who never cast me a civil glance, and humans, who seem to almost instinctively mistrust me. Fated to spend the rest of my days on this floating hunk of Cardassian metal which has become a silent testament to all that I have lost. And it is always so cold here. Oh, yes, that would have been enough to ensure that I spent my remaining years in dejected misery. But you were the salt in my open wound, Doctor, and wouldn't it sting your professional pride to know it?

*No one bites back as hard on their anger; none of my pain and woe can show through.*

  Sometimes I'm not certain whether I should rail at you for your blindness, or mourn for yet another thing I've been denied here. I knew you were naive the moment I saw you, but I assure you, Doctor, I had no idea the extent of that condition. Years of battle and 'frontier medicine' have jaded your childish innocence, yet you still cannot see your way clear to realizing how much I really care for you. There is an old Terran saying which comes to mind: "We only see what we want to see." Perhaps, Doctor, my love is merely something which you do not wish to behold.

*But my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be...*

 Some little-acknowledged, obviously masochistic part of me still continues, after all this time, to believe that, despite everything you've learned about, after all I've told you and not told you, you might still wish to be more than just my friend. Your recent caustic behaviours has done a great deal to disabuse me of that notion, and yet...to fall back on another quaint human expression, "Hope springs eternal."

*No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, to be the sad man, behind blue eyes...*

  An acquaintance told me once, a very long time ago, that I had very expressive eyes. It was obviously meant as a compliment, but it horrified me. What good is an intelligence officer who is so easily read? I schooled my features carefully, practiced controlling my expressions at all times; from then on, every expression and every gesture was merely a calculated effort to get what I wanted. But, for all my trying, I could never completely control my eyes. They have always had the power to  betray me; fortunately, my gaze is such that no one ever meets it for long, or looks to deeply. You could say that nothing but an endless stream of lies has flowed from my lips since the day I met you, and perhaps you would be right, but have you ever really looked into my eyes, Doctor? They alone have always told you the truth.

*End*

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