Kira Nerys walked into the Infirmary to inquire on the autopsies of two crewmen killed while on guard duty in the habitat ring. She was expecting to see Doctor Zeyner Antis in the medical office in Julian Bashir's absence. The Defiant was scheduled to depart in about ten minutes, but Bashir was in his office downloading data into a padd. "I was looking for Doctor Zeyner," Kira said. "What are you still doing here?" "Just gathering a few notes for this mission," Julian replied, still focusing his attention on the technical specifications on a set of stasis units designed to preserve perishable items being delivered to Cardassia. He took a quick glance at the colonel seeing a look of discomfort on her face. Perhaps that was because of seeing Mandel Morrison, the ranking officer among the hostages on Cardassia Prime, during the mission briefing. "Anyone who didn't any better would think Commander Morrison was Bariel surgically altered to look human." Nerys held in a giggle. The late-vedek's death still haunted her five years later, but she interpreted it as a jab at how uncharacteristically quickly she fell for the mirror universe's Bariel Antos two years earlier. "What?" she said dismissively. "That's crazy." "Whatever you say," Bashir replied with a grin. "You don't seem too comfortable working with Doctor Markalis," Kira remarked of the chief medical officer of the late USS Lambda Paz. "She looks a lot like someone you were a little too quick to fall for." Julian's smile became a frown. He was reminded of Sarina Douglas, a genetically-enhanced woman who was in a semi-cataleptic state until an experimental surgery freed her from herself. Like Kira with the Mirror Bariel, Bashir was probably too quick to fall in love with Sarina. "I honestly don't see the resemblance," he said with a hushed voice as he turned his attention back to the file download. "But hearing her name makes you uneasy. It's written all over your face right now." "If you must know, we first met when I spent a semester of med school in Paris. I asked her out on a few occasions. She turned me down each time, and even said a few hurtful things." "You? That's hard to imagine." Kira gave a playful smirk, recalling that Julian was that guy who never knew when to shut up when he first came aboard the Deep Space 9. She was also taking in stride a reminder that she once got the mistaken impression that Julian was putting the moves on her. "That was when? Ten years ago?" "Oh, I'm definitely over that," Bashir jovially replied. "Looking back, I don't what I saw in Aurellan then. She's a little too eccentric for my tastes."