Elim Garak

He has had so many emotions in his life. He has pretended to have so many more. It has been a long and complex life. But the one that is featuring now, the one he has never experienced before, is hope. It is a new arrival, coming far too late in one's life - he should have rejected it from the outset, quite frankly. An unaffordable weakness.

And yet, there it is. Like an unwanted guest at a dinner party who simply won't take the hint. He should be resentful of it, oh yes. And yet...

She had ushered it in the door, the calmest and most polite overthrowing of a mental regime in the history of Cardassia, surely. Perhaps, in times to come, there would be stories about it. Of how a foolish old charlatan had been...what? Changed? Redeemed? No, he dared not go that far. There was no redemption for people like him. But perhaps, one day, in a New Cardassia, there might be stories. If he was going to be remembered, he'd prefer it be surprising, in any event.

He shakes his head, pushing through the crowd of disembarking returnees to Deep Space Nine. Too many people, too much chaos, too much closeness... It's effecting him, feelings of claustrophobia rising. Disordering his thoughts.

He looks about, jutting around a particularly ebullient Klingon with a bit of a grimace. And keeps his eyes open.

And, for the first time in his life, hopes.