Ok! So this AU won’t actually leave me alone, so here’s another sketchdump from the past week. I’m really onboard the Garak/Janeway train now, and I don’t think I’m getting off anytime soon. Good times.
Another ramble warning; strap yourselves in children: So I’d figure, after being discovered, Garak’s not making friends easily (to put it mildly). Starfleet crew aren’t fond of him, and he might end up strung up from the warp core if he’s left with the Maquis for too long. But the one person on board who doesn’t care for all the gossip is one little Ocampa far from home. Kes would just naturally gravitate towards Garak, and end up enlisting his help with the hydroponics bay. He spent a year as a gardener on Romulus, so he’s probably a dab hand with anything green. Anyway, somehow they convince the Captain to expand hydroponics into an arboretum. Crew morale needs a look in - a nice bit of green to relieve the eye. Endless bulkheads of sterile grey, and 70,000 lightyears from home? I’ll need a tree and a blue sky, thanks. They just go from planet to planet, finding edible foods or sentient plants-in-need and take it all back to the arboretum. Someone (probs Harry) suggests installing holo-emitters on the ceiling, just to simulate a real sky, with changing weather patterns and in synch with the time of day (or night).
Unfortunately, I think I’ve killed off Neelix for all this. I’m awful, i know. However, Kes would definitely look up to Garak as a father figure. All those long hours in the hydroponics-bay-turned-arboretum are filled with questions about Garak’s life, and life in general in the Alpha Quadrant. Though Garak never tells her anything direct about himself, she’s fascinated with every morsel of information about the AQ that she can get out of him. And thus, she’d probably make other crew members uncomfortable when she spits something out about the torture methods of the tal-shiar, or the bound-to-fall empire of the Klingons.
Garak and Janeway, I want some rich, hinted-to history between the two of them that drives the rest of the crew up the walls bulkheads. Because Chakotay’s gone into the records of Janeway’s time on the front lines on the Cardi-Federation war, and there’s nothing. Other than a medal of commendation and a promotion to lieutenant, there’s nada. So how come she knows this particular Cardassian so well? Kathryn’s not at liberty to say, and Garak won’t spill anything because he wants to witness the carnage of forcing Janeway to admit what happened 20 years ago.
I’m actually seriously considering writing a fic for this now, if time permits of course. Again, much like in DS9, Garak would be a total wildcard on Voyager. And it’d be a riot.
