7. dancing with their hands holding onto each other

“Do you ever regret it?” Julian asks.

It’s late in the evening at the end of a very long day, at the end of a very long week. At the end of a very long thirty years–closer to forty, really. But thirty since he was paged down to the emergency department to examine a Human-Cardassian neonate, and brought her home at the end of his shift until a suitable foster family could be found… and Elim simply never let her out of his sight.

(Whether or not the eight abandoned infants before her get mentioned in the story depends on Elim’s mercurial moods. But if they do, Sibel smiles and says that they were waiting for her.

Yes, moya dok'Sibella, we were waiting for you.)

He spent eighteen months working on her wedding dress, and cried silently this morning as he sewed her into it. Sibel and Julian had shared a glance, but only one. Tears weren’t on short order.

“Regret what?” Garak asks, lacing their hands together and bringing them around to rest on Julian’s lower back.

“That we never had a proper wedding.”

At this point, Julian is very well-versed in proper Cardassian weddings. He’s attended many in his time on the planet, of course, but after running the gamut that is the societal expectations and financial obligations attached to marrying off one of your good Cardassian daughters… and he wonders.

Humming, Garak pulls him even closer, swaying to the music. The band Sibel chose is made up of friends from university. They’re… fine.

“My dear, as far as I’m concerned, we had a proper wedding.”

Julian squints at him, allowing himself to be led. “You married me in my boss’ office because we had to roll the dice on if Section 31 would abduct a Cardassian citizen so flagrantly off of Cardassian soil.”

“The height of romance,” he says, smiling archly. After a moment, he smooths his thumb down the back of Julian’s hand. “Do you?”

He’s wondered, over the years, if he’d rather they’d the opportunity to do something with their friends (not that Elim would ever, except under duress, admit that Kira and the O'Briens and Ezri were his friends) on Deep Space Nine. But what did they miss out on, really, besides Federation paperwork?

“I care substantially less about tradition than you do,” he replies, because it’s true enough. Shaking his head, he casts his eyes about the room for their other two daughters. Dressed in their bridal attendant finery, Lunara and Alyona are conspiring over glasses of liquor they’ll regret come the morning. Julian wonders who has drawn their ire or meddlesome affection. “No, I never wanted a proper wedding. I would have done it, if you had cared.”

“I didn’t have the family to pull one off,” Garak says, and that is that.

Bastards, orphans, and bastard orphans didn’t have wedding ceremonies on the Cardassia of his youth.

“But Sibel does,” Julian remarks, too lightly.

He lets himself look around the ballroom again. It’s a strange family, it’s true, with far-flung aunts and uncles and cousins of many different alien races. And Julian’s certain that if thirty, thirty-five, forty years ago someone told Garak that he’d be dancing with that scrawny Federaji doctor at their eldest daughter’s wedding, he’d have laughed and stuck them with a pin.

Garak huffs a laugh. “Yes, well… we did well in that regard.”