My Star Trek One-Shots

Garak

The air hit her like a slap. Too thin, too metallic, too sterile. One moment she had been walking through the cracked concrete parking lot outside her office in 2025, and the next she was standing in the middle of a bustling promenade beneath a glittering dome.

A dozen species of every shape and color moved past her, and she did the only sensible thing—she froze.

"Excuse me," came a crisp voice from behind. A Bajoran woman in a red uniform fixed her with a wary stare. "Who are you, and how did you get here?"

The woman swallowed. Play it cool, play it cool. "Uh... I'm... visiting?"

Minutes later she was sitting across from Commander Sisko in his office, answering a barrage of questions.

"Your name."

"Erica," she said. (It wasn't. But it was now.)

"Where are you from?"

She hesitated. "Earth. Just... not the same year you're thinking of."

Sisko leaned back, skeptical but not dismissive. "You're telling me you're from... 2025?"

"Well, technically, yes. Though I didn't exactly book a trip here. Something went a little sideways with... physics, I guess."

Dax tilted her head, fascinated. Odo frowned. Kira crossed her arms.

Eventually, they released her under station watch. And that was how Erica found herself wandering the Promenade, trying not to gape at Klingons or Ferengi, when her eyes fell on a man in a neat suit, scales glinting faintly under the lights, a smile sharp enough to cut glass.

Garak.

Something hit her gut like lightning. The way he moved, the slyness in his eyes, even the careful tilt of his head—it was her. Or rather, him. The same crooked smile she'd seen in the mirror, the same instinct to hide behind charm.

She knew immediately. They were the same person. Different times, different faces, but the same.

And she couldn't resist.

"My, my," she said, sauntering up to him, "aren't you handsome."

Garak blinked, thrown for only a moment before recovering with practiced grace. "Why thank you, my dear. And you are...?"

"Someone who knows you better than you'd like," she purred, leaning just a little too close.

He tilted his head, studying her. "How... intriguing."

"Intriguing enough to buy me a drink?"

They sat in the Replimat, her elbow brushing his as she leaned in with all the confidence of someone who had nothing left to lose. Every time he tried to redirect the conversation, she countered with a quip or a smile so devastatingly familiar that even Garak was rattled.

"You're remarkably bold," he said at last.

"You like bold," she shot back.

A flicker of something—amusement? Annoyance? Recognition?—crossed his face. "You know, you remind me of... well, me."

She laughed. "Funny, I was thinking the same thing."

For the rest of the evening, she kept it up—relentlessly flirting, dropping hints she knew he would puzzle over for weeks. And Garak, for all his mastery of secrets, found himself unsettled by the uncanny familiarity of this strange woman who seemed to slip past every one of his defenses.

By the time she left his side, he was watching her with that calculating gaze of his, the one that meant he was hooked, if only by curiosity.

And Erica? She grinned to herself. If she was going to be stuck in the 24th century, she might as well have fun. Especially if it meant shamelessly flirting with her own reflection in the form of a Cardassian tailor.