Wounds, Book 1 by Ilsa J. Bick Page B

started asking questions. Thing is, I felt sorry for you when I heard about that. Thought, God, just leave the poor guy alone. Not his fault his parents broke the law. But then Commander Selden came after me , and now? I don’t feel sorry for you anymore.”
    Then everything came boiling out, stuff she’d stoppered up a good long time: about how she had lost a month of her life staring at the four walls of a dingy little room on Starbase 314 where she got to twiddle her thumbs while they poked and prodded and questioned and sampled her stem to stern. Came up with a big fat zero, too, because—gee, look at that—she was a pretty sharp cookie, and she hadn’t had a single base pair on any DNA strand tweaked anywhere, thanks. And, oh, by the way, while she was sitting around most emphatically not doing her job? A whole bunch of people, including the Lexington ’s Captain Eberling, got killed, and for what? Because Commander Selden was a righteous pain in the ass. Because Selden made hunting down people like Bashir something of a mission, and no worries if people died because Lense wasn’t there to put on the save. Gosh, what’s a few dozen Starfleet so long as Selden got rid of Bashir and anyone else who—
    “All right, all right.” Bashir held up both hands, palms out. “Enough. I get the picture. I don’t suppose it matters that I didn’t know about any of this; that it happened in the context of a greater paranoia about the shape-shifters; and that I’m not responsible for Selden or that paranoia. But I hear you, Elizabeth, I—”
    “Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “‘Elizabeth.’ Like we’re friends. We’re not friends. You don’t even know me, Bashir.”
    “My God.” He looked as if she’d slapped him in the face. “So now I’m your enemy ? Elizabeth, that’s irrational, that’s—”
    “What, crazy ?” Oh, that just burned her. Gold, Bashir, people, her whole life …everyone treating her like someone who needed care , so much understanding . Poor Elizabeth; she’s so fragile . Like she was some crazy woman ready to crack an airlock without a helmet. “I came by my degree honestly. I came by my brain honestly.”
    “God, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. First Trill, now this; I can’t fathom this run of bad…” Sighing, Bashir pinched the bridge of his nose between his right thumb and index finger as if he were very weary. Like she was just one more thing in a series of spectacularly bad things heaped on at once. “Look, I was six bloody years old. Everything that happened when I was a child was utterly out of my control, and, enhanced or not, I still have to work hard. And I fail, I make mistakes, I bollix things up more than you can imagine, and a good deal more often than just in medicine. We both must. We have to because we’re only human. I’m just a person, Elizabeth. Whether I’m theoretically better, what’s the difference? What counts is what we do with what we’ve got.”
    “Yeah, right. Except we’re going for the same prize. I’d like to see a level playing field myself. Gee, what’s it like to succeed all the time? Must be kind of nice.”
    “Oh, completely. But, you know, people are so very uncooperative; they’re so fallible . They insist on dying before you can do a damned thing, or their feelings for you change and then—” He broke off and stared at his fingers knotted in his lap. When he looked up, his eyes were bright. “Would you like me to withdraw? Oh, wait, no, I can’t now, of course, can I? What was I thinking? Because then you’ll blame me for making it all too easy. I’m really in one of those no-win scenarios, aren’t I? I do nothing, you hate me. I do something, same result. Or you blame me, and that comes out to the same thing. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that there’s absolutely no guarantee that things on the Lexington would have worked out differently even if you’d been there. Maybe you’d