shakespearevillain:

For @pollyna who had the lovely idea of Garak babysitting Molly, which I then corrupted into something a bit more spy vs. spy.

—

“You promise me you won’t invite me to dinner,” Garak said as he stood in the entrance to his shop, “yet you expect me to look after your child for you? Forgive me, but I think you’ve skipped some rather important steps.”

“Believe me, you were the last person on my list,” Chief O’Brien said. “But Keiko is still at her algae conference, Julian is workin’ the late shift, Jake went with Kira to Bajor, and now one of the dockin’ rings has gone offline.”

“And Constable Odo?” Garak asked.

“Workin’. Look, I just need you to look after her for an hour. Can you do that?”

“I suppose,” Garak said, looking down at the five-year-old girl who was eyeing him suspiciously.

“No. No supposin’,” Miles said, poking towards the Cardassian with a stern finger.  “Can you do it?”

“Chief O’Brien!” Commander Sisko’s voice boomed out over Miles’ comm badge. Miles tapped the badge and muttered, “Be there in a moment.”

“It looks to me,” Garak said with a sickly sweet smile, “as if you don’t have much choice in the matter, Chief.”

Miles smiled bitterly at him before kneeling down to talk to Molly. “Molly, darlin’,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I’ll be back in a second, alright? You be good for Mr. Garak. If anythin’ happens, you call Constable Odo.”

Molly nodded, still too afraid to speak.

“Really, Chief, I don’t think Constable Odo will be at all necessary,” Garak said, sidling between father and child and ushering Molly into his shop. “Ms. Molly and I will have a perfectly wonderful time.”

—

Fifty-eight minutes. Miles managed to fix the problem in fifty-eight minutes, giving him just enough time to sprint over to Garak’s shop before the hour was up.

“Molly,” Miles panted as he braced himself against his knees. “Are… you… alright? Are you… hurt?”

“Daddy! Look at my new doll!” Molly exclaimed from where she was sitting by the counter. She held up a rag doll clearly made out of the off-cuts of various garments.

“Are you well, Chief?” Garak asked, a twinkle in his icy blue eyes. He leaned against the counter, a concerned look on his face. “You look a bit winded.”

“Mr. Garak let me pick out all the colors and her dress!” Molly said as she hopped off her stool and presented her new toy to her father. “She has black hair like me and her dress has yellow in it.” Miles gingerly took the doll from his daughter and looked it over. It was a fairly simple rag doll with hair made of black yarn, multiple beige colors stitched together to form a body (with one lavender streak that he guessed Molly had insisted on), and a dress made out of a red and yellow striped fabric with little lace details around the neck and sleeves. Some markers had been applied to the head in what could be generously described as a face.

“Suppose you had that just lyin’ around?” Miles asked, gesturing at Garak with the doll.

“He made it!” Molly said. “And I did the face. Mr. Garak’s good at making things.”

“Just part of being a tailor, my dear,” Garak said with a slight bow of his head.

Miles narrowed his eyes at him.

“Can I have my doll back?” Molly asked.

“Hmm? Yeah. Of course, sweetheart,” he said, handing her the doll. He crouched down so that he was at eye-level with his daughter. “Why don’t you start headin’ over to our flat. I’ll replicate us some ice cream as soon as I’m done talkin’ to Mr. Garak.”

“Ok!” Molly replied cheerfully before skipping out of the shop.

“Delightful child,” Garak commented as she left. “I regret having not made the acquaintance of Mrs. O’Brien. She must be a charming lady.” 

“Did you put somethin’ inside that doll?” Miles growled as soon as Molly was out of hearing.

“Chief, I’m surprised at you! What would I hide inside a child’s doll?”

“Data rods, poisons, some sort of nano-communication device.”

“All wonderful ideas, but, I assure you, the thought did not occur to me.” He finished rolling up a skein of lace and deposited it in a drawer. “If, however, you want to be absolutely certain, I suppose you could always… tear apart the stitching.” He leaned forward on the counter. “I would simply recommend that Molly not be around to witness the destruction of her doll.”

“You’re insane.”

“So I’ve been told. Good evening, Chief O’Brien.”

—

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

“Check it again.”

“I have checked it!” Julian exclaimed. “Again and again and again. Rom ran it through a check for data rods and other mechanics, I’ve done every test I know for poisons, and your theory about it containing some sort of drug has proven to be completely false.” Julian slid the doll across their table at Quark’s. “Face it, Miles. Garak isn’t doing anything nefarious. He made a doll for Molly. That’s it.”

“That can’t be it. He’s up to somethin’.”

“Well,” Julian said. “If you want to be absolutely certain…”

“Don’t you start,” Miles growled.

Julian grimaced at him. “What? I was just going to suggest you take the doll back to Garak,” he said, gesturing towards Garak’s shop. “He could open it up for you and resew it.” He took a sip of his beer. “But I think you’re being a bit paranoid.”

“Julian,” Miles said as he picked up the doll, “it’s statements like that that remind me you don’t have any kids.”      

—

“Hmm… Let’s see. Yes, Vitarian wool perhaps wasn’t the wisest choice for batting, but it’s what I had on hand.” He looked up at a stunned Chief O’Brien then down at the dismantled doll. “Are you satisfied?”

“Give me that!” Miles said, yanking a hunk of wool off the table. He poked at it with his finger and held it up to the light. “There’s nothin’ in here,” he said.

“Very astute of you,” Garak commented. “Now, if you don’t mind, it will take a few minutes to reassemble this.”

“Nothin’ in there,” Miles repeated, letting the wool fall onto the counter.

Garak made a bemused face and began portioning off some thread. “Chief O’Brien,” he said as he expertly threaded his needle, “I know I’m not your favorite person on the station –”

“There’s an understatement.”

“ – but I don’t put deadly or dangerous things in children’s toys.” He began backstitching the doll’s side together. “Even Cardassians have their limits.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Miles crossed his arms over his chest. “No hard feelin’s?” he asked.

“On the contrary,” Garak said as he stuffed the wool back into the doll and maneuvered it through its body, “this has given me new hope for the station.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s been so strange, having everyone trust me,” Garak said as he stitched the final touches onto the doll. He held it out to Miles. “It’s good to know there’s at least one cynical soul left.”

Miles nodded and carefully took the doll. “Glad to be of help,” he said. He gave Garak a suspicious once over before turning to leave the shop.

“Oh, Chief?” Garak said. 

“What is it, Garak?” he growled.

“Since I did happen to use Vitarian wool, I’m afraid Molly’s doll is hand-wash only.” He smiled as he watched the gears turn in O’Brien’s head and his shoulders slump. “I hope that’s not too much of an inconvenience.”  

inkblotdemon:

Julian, utterly drunk off his ass, slurring: He’s just so- his eyes? and have you… His neck is so big, you know, so large, large big stupid- stupid neckboy. he keeps putting his hands on my shoulders, Miles and and he calls me his ‘dear’ for some reason, I mean, he’s toootally trying to- to pump me for information, because he’s a spy, Miles, a big dumb lizard-face spy man, he’s eeeevil and he’s not even that pretty and I’ve just got to stay village-ant, I mean vigilant, and gotta, gotta keep having lunches with him, to, to, to gather intel, Miles, gotta keep my eyes on him, all the time, keep staring at him, I should really go over to his stupid shop right now and push him up against the wall and, and pump him, pump him for information, see how he likes it, big stupid sexy gecko man-

Miles, gripping his beer and staring blankly off into the distance with the wii theme music playing in the back of his brain: Yeah totally

bulletstapes:

My personal headcanon why Miles O’Brien—an enlisted crewman, not a commissioned officer—was assigned as the de facto chief engineer of DS9 is that, while idealists like Picard sure believed all the stuff about the importance of Sisko’s mission and preparing Bajor for Federation membership, the decisionmakers at Starfleet Command either assumed Sisko’s efforts would be in vain, or that his assignment and that of his crew to DS9 would be temporary—the cleanup crew, so to speak.

So, whom do they send? A commander (no captain!) who spent the last three years as a backbencher at Utopia Planitia Yards, a doctor graduate so fresh out of the academy, the ink on his MD diploma hasn’t dried yet; and an excess CPO from the flagship because he’s the only engineer anyone is willing to spare. Conveniently, Bajor’s provisional government will provide the XO, and the goo cop is unwilling to leave so they’ll keep him around.

Fully expecting to replace 90% of the crew once the rubble has been cleared out and the station is repaired sufficiently to provide the level of comfort a more senior CO would expect, Starfleet deploys Sisko. And what do you know, on his first day on the job, he is anointed King Messiah, makes first contact with a nearly omnipotent alien culture, and discovers the a unique space-time anomaly with unprecedented astrogeopolitical implications.

The hell with it! They can’t exactly dispatch the man now, can they? No good upsetting the locals by transferring Space Jesus back to Mars. So much for the temporary crew! So they try to save face, congratulate him on his successes, and offer to send a better crew his way. A lieutenant commander for an XO, an engineer with the reputation of a Leah Brahms or the experience of a Geordi LaForge. It’s a new frontier after all!

But Sisko politely tells them where they can shove it, and that is how I imagine Deep Space 9 came to enjoy the many talents of one lowly enlisted Chief Petty Officer, the one and only Miles O’Brien, for a chief engineer.