ADVERTISEMENT Title: A Whole New You by nostalgia Rated: PG-13, (Bashir/O'Brien slash) Disclaimer: Blah, blah, you know the drill --------- He thought he knew Dax, and then Dax changed, and she was shorter and younger and sleeping with the man he will never admit to loving. He thought he knew Sisko, thought he had the man worked out. But then he changed, went… wherever. He thought he knew Julian, and then everything was a lie. This is the one that hurts him most. And most disconcerting of all, he thought he knew Miles O'Brien. Now he isn't quite sure. Miles O'Brien loves his wife, and always has. Miles O'Brien would never turn away from her in his sleep, would never dream of his best friend the way that he does now. Miles O'Brien would have been happy on Earth, and he wouldn't feel like he was trapped by the gravity. For the real Miles, the one he doesn't quite feel like anymore, that first strange, uncharacteristic dalliance with his best friend is dealt with and consigned to memory. The real Miles got over it when he talked about it without ever quite mentioning it, when he carefully avoided discussing it with Julian. This is what happened to the real Miles: "You know, Keiko's going to be back soon." "Yes." "And it might be best if… if we didn't spend quite so much time together until then. I don't want to get… used to not having her around." "Absolutely." And that was the end of the matter, before he changed too and nothing seemed quite the way it should be anymore. He isn't quite sure when he changed, but when he went back to the station the world seemed slightly out of phase. And when he met Julian at the airlock and drew him into an embrace, it wasn't the same Miles who loves Keiko completely, without hesitation. He should probably have taken her with him, the bloody plants could have waited another week. And it wasn't quite regret that he felt when Julian told him that he'd spilt up with Ezri, and it wasn't straightforward sympathy that made him suggest a trip to Quark's for old time's sake. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and absinthe has much the same effect. And while the real Miles O'Brien left his friend at the door and headed to the guest quarters, this Miles, the impostor, stepped through the doorway and didn't think of Keiko even once. And because he wasn't the man he thought he was, he didn't flinch when Julian leaned towards him, didn't pull away when his best friend kissed him. And while the family man that he should be wouldn't have given the past a second thought (because he was asleep in the guest quarters, pillow drawn down beside him to take the place of Keiko) the new Miles, the traitor, remembered at that point that Dr Julian Bashir gives excellent blow-jobs. Proof, if he needed it, that the Miles O'Brien who went back to Deep Space Nine is not the man who left it in the first place. So it was the new Miles and Julian who ended up in bed, because the previous adulterous interlude had happened before he knew the secret. He knew this time what he hadn't then, that the body beneath his was a changed creation, remodelled and remade until it met the right specifications. The real Miles would have gone home after that (not that he would have woken up with Julian, head spinning and clothes crumpled on the floor) and kissed his wife and hugged his children. The real Miles would have felt nothing but guilt. Instead, they went back to Quark's and had another several drinks. Ezri turned up at one point, sat down as far from Julian as she could while remaining at the same table, asked Miles the usual reunion questions. He wanted to ask what had happened, but he was scared it would be nothing and he'd have to make them see the error of their ways. "Just passing through," he said, and wished he was close enough to feel the heat radiating off of Julian. Trills, he remembered, had cold skin, and wondered what that must have felt like, making love to someone so much cooler, someone who stole your body-heat without ever meaning to. The traitor was reminded of Keiko then, and tried to think of an excuse to stay a while longer. And he worried that he had a symbiont too, living inside him and changing the way he saw things. He wondered what the real Miles would have been doing at that moment. That night, because he wasn't quite himself anymore, and didn't have to hold himself accountable, he asked Julian what Ezri was like in bed. "Cold," was the answer, and he didn't ask again. He thought about Julian, all that warmth, and didn't want to think about anyone taking it away from him. He realised he had become possessive. But that was alright, because he wasn't really Miles O'Brien anymore. Eventually he asked if he could stay, on this station, in this bed. "Keiko," was the answer this time, and he had to stop for a moment to remember what the word meant. "But I don't love her. Not anymore." "Then the kids." And then it hit him that Julian hadn't really changed, and that he still wanted to heal everyone. And he knew that the split with Ezri wouldn't last, and it had been about nothing after all. Maybe this wasn't the first time, maybe these things happened. A temporary confusion, nothing more. When he left he wondered when he'd turn into the real Miles again, when he would stop hating Julian and start loving Keiko again. On the transport ship he got out pictures of the family and looked at them for hours, trying to make himself change back. He couldn't have changed that much, because he still loved the kids, and started counting down the minutes until he could see them again, but when looked at Keiko's picture he couldn't feel anything. He puts it down to mid-life crisis, and tries to feel happy, tries to love his wife. He hopes he isn't possessed, he hopes the change isn't permanent. He misses the real Miles O'Brien, and wants him to come back. Maybe he'll wake up in the morning and everything will be back to normal, he'll be himself again. He can dream, can't he?