AFTER THE TRIBUNAL, AU2

Please be sure to read AFTER THE TRIBUNAL before this installment, because this one will MAKE NO SENSE if you have not previously done so. This is not even a sequel, but rather, simply an alternate ending, which picks up WITHIN the final scene.

Once aboard their sleek, fast, Obsidian Order-issue craft, Garak told the prisoner, “You were wrong, you know. About us being merciless. We truly are sorry. I know that you and I have not often seen eye-to-eye, but I hold no real animosity toward you. And you were right before: I will almost certainly lose Julian’s friendship for this, and that’s not a loss that I take lightly.”

O’Brien looked back at him numbly. He was still shivering out of control. He realized, with a touch of gallows humor, that he would be shaking for the rest of his life.

Garak eyed him with genuine compassion. “Would you like something to calm you?”

O’Brien shook his head spasmodically.

“It would make it easier.”

“Thanks, no.”

Dukat joined them. “We’re on autopilot.” He turned to O’Brien. “How are you holding up?”

O’Brien stared at him in mild disbelief. It had struck him as the strangest question that he had ever heard.

Dukat insisted, “We do care. We bear you no particular malice.”

“I told him that,” Garak agreed.

Dukat went on, “In fact, if there’s anything that we can do to….”

“You mean, like a last request?” he managed to stammer.

They both nodded.

O’Brien studied them quite compellingly for a moment. But then he shook his head dismally. “You wouldn’t want to do that.”

The two Cardassians exchanged a glance. Dukat said carefully, “Well, if you don’t tell us what it is, you’ll never know that for sure, now will you?”

The human hesitated, and then, keeping his gaze in his lap, he whispered, “I left Keiko behind to spare her any more trauma. But I desperately need to be comforted. I…wish that you two would sit on either side of me, and hold me.”

The two smiled in palpable relief. “Is that all!” Garak assured him, “Of course we will do that.”

O’Brien blinked. “Thanks. But, what did you think that I was going to ask for from you?”

Dukat said calculatedly tactfully, “Something a great deal more…intimate, perhaps?”

“And that we would not have been prepared to do,” Garak said firmly, though nearly apologetically.

O’Brien looked revolted. “Neither would I!” Then, appearing suddenly fearful that he might have been offensively emphatic, he hastened, “I’m definitely not inclined that way, and I’m faithful to my wife, and even if I were so inclined, I doubt if I could…well…function, in this emotional state.”

“Certainly understandable,” Garak agreed.

“But then, why did you suspect that we would refuse you so innocuous a request?” wondered Dukat.

O’Brien squirmed. “Well, I…didn’t think that you’d even want to be…that…close to me.”

“Nonsense,” Dukat reassured him kindly. He and Garak moved to join the human on the bench, one to each side, and enfolded him smoothly.

Garak teased their pale subject gently, “It’s quite routine for Cardassians to be nonsexually physical with both males and females of a variety of species. In torture chambers.”

Both of his “comforters” felt O’Brien jolt at that.

“Sorry.” Garak was at least somewhat genuinely contrite, despite his amusement.

“Garak!” Dukat scolded mildly.

But surprisingly, O’Brien was unoffended. “That’s all right. I’ve had a thought or two of ‘gallows humor’ myself.” He told them, and they both delivered sympathetic sounds. Then, turning more serious, and in clear trepidation, the human asked, “How hard on me will they be??”

Hesitantly, and obviously trying to word it delicately, Garak said, “They are rather angry….”

O’Brien easily and fearfully finished the thought. “…That I got out of it the last time! Oh god, they’re not going to just quickly shoot me, are they???”

Garak’s wordlessly compassionate response was to hold him tighter.

The blond panicked. “Oh, Garak, help me! Don’t let them…!!!”

The human felt Garak sag somewhat miserably, even as Dukat said dryly, “This certainly puts you into an unusual spot, doesn’t it, Garak?”

Ruefully, the “tailor” responded to Dukat, “And you find that amusing.”

“Well, you must admit that it’s ironic in the extreme.”

O’Brien felt the other nod in reluctance. The human pleaded, “Can’t you two be my executioners???”

Garak said as diplomatically as he could, “Under our present circumstances, Dukat and I would not be likely to be assigned that task. Just as Gul Evek only delivered you the previous time, and was then discharged of his responsibility with you, Gul Dukat will be similarly dismissed from the case. And I, …while I was at one time one of the customary torture-executioners as part of my profession, that function, in my exile, no longer falls to me.”

It crossed O’Brien’s mind to be curious as to why Dukat chose that moment to briefly withdraw and turn away from Garak and him, but the human dismissed it as not relevant to his current dilemma. Besides, he was more than mildly disconcerted at the phrase “torture-executioners.” He stammered, “Well, I was…kind of hoping…that you would…kill me more quickly than that, in any case. You said that you two were merciful, …and he…said that you do care….”

Garak spoke frankly, “Yes, it is only natural that you would ask me to be merciful and quick, but if I did so, there would surely be repercussions against me afterward. I know that it’s hard for you to be too concerned about that right now, but I must be.”

Shifting squeamishly, O’Brien suggested, “Couldn’t you…mutilate me …after…???”

“They would be able to tell the difference.”

“I guess,” O’Brien admitted miserably. Desperately, he persisted, “Didn’t they make any possible provision for you two to kill me?? Under any circumstances???”

Dukat said slowly, “Well, if you proved to be a formidable foe, and fought us, and we responded with force that inadvertently dispatched you….”

O’Brien’s head rose, and he eyed each of them, one by one. “I may just have to fight you.”

Garak cautioned him, “Consider carefully what you’re saying. You would have to look like you’d been in quite a battle.”

O’Brien swallowed hard, and then said slowly, “Okay, it would have to look convincing, but wouldn’t that still be much less horrific than what they’d do???”

Dukat looked doubtful. “But there would still be questions. There are two of us. Our superiors would wonder why we couldn’t manage to control you short of killing you.”

Garak sadly agreed, “They would assume that, as highly trained as we both are, we should be able to subdue you easily.”

O’Brien nodded very reluctantly. “And they would probably be well aware that I am an engineer, not a fighter, not a soldier.” He suddenly straightened. “Wait a minute; that’s it! I’m an engineer! I sabotaged the ship while you two were asleep, and I threatened to blow it up, and you had to shoot me to stop me! You saved the ship and yourselves! You’re heroes!”

Dukat eyed him skeptically. “Why were we both sleeping at the same time? And why weren’t you tied up in any case?”

The human deflated instantly. But then he desperately tried again, “I got loose from my bonds while one of you slept! I conked the other one of you over the head…!”

Garak finished for him succinctly, “And Dukat and Garak were both summarily executed for extreme incompetence.”

O’Brien sat very still for a long moment, and then said morosely, “Please. I think that I desperately need to be held for a bit longer.”