"You mean...we're not fairies?" Miles O'Brien looked sadly down at his wolf skin cloak and fiddled with his shoulder broach.

"Doesn't seem that way." Julian Bashir replied from where he sat slumped besides him. They perched on a rather spiny clump of purple heather, besides the faint outline of an ill-used dirt track. "I don't think we're of the Fair Folk at all."

Julian picked at the dried mud on his leggings, as the scattered memories that filled his mind at last began to settle into a form of order. "I am a healer of some sort, that much was right."

"And I still work with metal, only it's to do with metal things called machines."

"You're an engineer." Julian supplied.

"And we're with Starfleet." Miles continued.

"On a Space Station called Deep Space Nine."

"We were in a holo suite, playing a game set in Celtic times." Miles indicated their dress with a disgusted wave. The linen and leather costumes they had worn were all but ruined; they hadn't been made to last real wear and tear.

The thongs binding their shoes had been the first to go, they had been replaced by raw bindings of dried gut and sinew. Everything was caked liberally in mud, now, and Julian had used his surgeon's skills so often to repair the rents in their pants from the sharp thorns of the heather that they looked like they'd been heavily embroidered.

Julian had also thought to use grease to dress their hair, to counteract the ferocious biting insects that seemed determined to live there. Instead, the wee beasties had feasted unrelentingly on their bodies. A thin crust of colored mud, mixed with a violet mineral to produce a stain, was dabbed in whirls and circles upon their faces. They looked just as fearsome as any Celt on the warpath, and smelled even worse.

Celts at least had access to water for washing. Whatever this planet was, it's uncontaminated water sources were rare and far between. The people here relied on the plants for their drinking water, their root fibres filtered out the contaminants Hence water was scarce and they never bathed in it.

"How the bloody hell did we end up here?" Miles growled, but Julian didn't answer, he was too busy looking down the dirt track and worrying.

At the other end of the track was a village. The people there were humanoids, and now that he had his memories again, he recognised them as probable descendants of a seeded planet. An illegal practice, it had been strictly outlawed for centuries now. Long enough for these people to have adapted and stared a culture of their own. Abandoned by their ancestors, they had declined in knowledge, then fought their way back to an apparent Bronze Age.

Barbarians they might be, but even so, they had taken the two memory scrambled Starfleet personnel into their homes, fed and sheltered them. The people had crawled back from their decline only by embracing a keen sense of charity and obligation to each other, and they extended this to the two strangers in their midst's.

From legends of their past they concluded the two were beings known as Fair Folk. Glorious creatures part myth, part memories of ancient ancestors who came from the stars. The Fairies were said to dwell in a land separated from now by a thin veil, and from time to time Others would come through. Others such as these strangers.

They had assured the two bewildered men that they must be under some powerful geas, or the curse of an evil rival to their house, to have lost their memories so. It had made perfect sense at the time.

"It was only a harp." Julian bit his lower lip, then looked beseechingly at his friend. "They won't get angry about a simple musical instrument, do you think?"

"A harp 'and' hygiene recommendations and general medical procedures. First Contact Bureau are going to crucify us."

"Nobody can really be upset at a bit of hygiene, though?" Julian's eyes were wide and worried, making him look far to young to be a practicing medical officer.

"Actually, it's more likely to be the bit of iron mongery and alloy blends I taught them that'll get us in trouble." Miles admitted softly, scowling up at the sky. It looked like rain. It always bloody looked like rain, but they never got any.

"It's not our fault our memories left us, but our skills remained. Is it? We didn't start any of this, I'm almost positive. We're just innocent pawns in some kind of strange anomaly. Aren't we?" Doctor Bashir's voice was rising just a little, indication he was headed for an all out self-ego bash. O'Brien tried to head it off.

"Yes Julian, you're quite right, they won't blame us for a thing." Miles said it sarcastically, but Julian perked up straight away, taking him at face value. Which was Julian's problem right there, Miles thought, but he sighed and patted the young doctor reassuringly on the shoulder any way. He could be so ingenuous sometimes, but he was always charming with it, and Miles wouldn't want him any other way.

The villagers had certainly never seen anything like him before, either. In their subsistence living, a tender soul like that of Julian Bashir's was a rare and remarkable thing. Oddly, they had honoured him for it; while Miles had worried it would go the other way.

It had something to do with the harp, he was sure of it. Julian had seen the instrument lying round, and asked if he could play. Then he had made a few adjustments, and the plunk, plink noise he had first made had been replaced with the kind of liquid music that makes you think of angel choirs or running water. The villagers were entranced.

Of course, the fact that he had insisted on helping the headman's wife give birth, thus saving mother and child, hadn't hurt either. The headman was of the kind of temperament that doesn't take the loss of a loved one well, and the villagers had not been looking forward to the angry man taking his grief out on them.

The people had stood a little in awe of them then, though their initial appearance had begun their work for them. Never had the people seen two such men, dressed in such magnificent array. Woven cloth was a rarity, and the evenness of the weave of their tunics was marvelled over.

The quality of their leather goods had been a sensation, the suppleness of it, and the near odorless-ness of it as well. (Their tannery work was crude and smelly in comparison. It did last longer than their rotted leather laces had, though.) The bits of metal work, even the bone buttons had drawn exclamations of wonder and delight. And it wasn't hard to see what they thought of the two men's persons, either.

The people had certainly spent enough time just gawking at them. They stared at skin as smooth and blemishless as a child's, limbs strong and untwisted from hard toil, well fed muscles not gnarled with lack of proper nutrition, hair that when brushed (and not coated in grease) shone in the sunlight.

And despite the appearance of vigorous youth, both men claimed to be as aged as the doddering elder who sat by the fire, lost in memories of winters past.

They must be the Fair Folk, whose heads brushed the sky, and whose hands brought wealth and healing. From their lips came the wisdom of their hearts, such as the fortunate in life recognised as worthy of note. These words they had been canny enough to gather, and songs had been made in their honour. They would talk of the two tall beings, and their gifts of knowledge, for many seasons to come.

"They're gonna kill us." Miles sighed, covering his eyes with his hands. The memory of trying to teach the blacksmith about a warpcoil lit his cheeks with a pained flush.

"I wonder why our memories have come back now." Julian murmured aloud, scratching at a bite on his ankle. "And why did we lose the ones we did in the first place. I mean, why just take our personal background, and leave our medicinal/botanical/metallurgical/engineering ones in tact? Were we put here to teach those skills to the villagers on purpose? Or was there some other reason?"

"I wonder what their stories about us will be like, after a few tellings." O'Brien snapped a piece of heather off and rolled it in his fingers. The people had been in awe of him, Miles O'Brien; Julian had told them he'd held the heart of stars in his hands. But they loved Bashir, and all over a silly harp.

"Well, two strangers came, taught them a little medicine, a little iron work and then went off to save the village from a monster, promptly disap...I say." Julian turned huge eyes upon his companion. "You don't think that monster they were talking about was, well, Garak - do you?"

The monster was reported to be as scaly as a dragon, only it walked in man's form. It had been seen down by the boggy briar, had killed six sheep, and injured a pony.

"That'll be him." Miles agreed.

"He'll be terribly cold, Cardassians need a far warmer climate or they go torpid. I hope he managed to keep those sheepskins for warmth."

"I managed quite well, but thank you for your concern, doctor." Garak's mild voice came from behind them. Venturing up from the concealing heather, he moved to crouch a little ways in front of them. He didn't venture any closer, for which they were grateful, the stench of his garments was quite unbearable.

"How'd you make the stitches?" Miles asked, eyeing the feted sheepskin cloak warily.

"A bone needle and sinew thread. All un-tanned, unfortunately, but it was this or freeze." The Cardassian shrugged his shoulders. "Not my finest work."

"It pongs." Miles announced, wrinkling up his nose.

"It's fine." The doctor said firmly, before standing up and going over to inspect his Cardassian friend more closely. "You're shivering, Garak. Here, take the cloak off, and put this on. Miles, give him yours, too." Julian took off his mock wolfs skin and held it out, trying not to shiver himself as the cold air sliced through his linen tunic.

"What for? He's got half a dozen sheep to keep him warm, this is all I've got."

"Don't be such a pain, Miles. His clothes are terribly unhygienic; in fact, I'm amazed he hasn't caught something nasty already. Besides, I have a feeling we won't be here long."

"Really, doctor? What makes you think that?" Garak removed the rotting skins that he had spent so much time putting together, and happily donned the ones still holding the doctor's warmth. Julian then helped him fit O'Briens on over top of that and blessed heat, free of the stench of animal corpses, descended upon him.

"Answer me this, first. When did you get your full memories back; assuming you lost them, that is." Julian asked as he helped the tailor sit down next to Miles and instructed the other man to settle in to the Cardassians side. He did the same on his other side; thus huddled together warmth of a sort was provided for all.

"My memories returned a short time ago, which was a blessing, as you shall see. I had been about to embark on a raid of the village." Actually, he had been intent on attacking Julian and Miles here in the heather, and had been carefully stalking them upwind. "I needed some, er, supplies."

Something to mate with, and something to eat, actually, and he'd thought Julian might fit the bill on the first account. And something extra to wear, which was where O'Brien had come in. He could see the thick-skinned Irishman as a jacket quite clearly.

"Our memories just came back too, and that's why I think we're about to be rescued." Julian said. Garak had heard the discussion earlier, and as his memories had surfaced, concluded that whatever had effected the humans had done the same to him. However his more advanced Cardassian intellect had been damaged by the crude assault, and he had been rendered back to the most rudiment of memories, his minds capabilities reverting to brute urges, needs and lusts. Julian continued voicing his theory and the Cardassian schooled his features into polite interest.

"Whatever was done to us has been reversed, and that speaks of rescue mission to me. At the very least, it can't hurt to rest here awhile, so you can get warm. And if we stay close together like this, it'll be easier for them to get a lock on us with a transporter beam." Julian sighed heavily. He hoped he was right and they were about to get rescued. Things looked grim if they weren't.

"Well, if they are going to beam us up, I wish they'd hurry." Miles grumbled, seemingly reading his mind. "I'm cold, I'm filthy, there are things living in my clothes, and my teeth ache from eating that bread with rocks in. I really miss my underwear and my wife. I'm jolly well fed up, and I want to go home!"

"You poor dear." Garak sneered. "Keiko will be so pleased to hear you rate her company next to underwear. I'll be sure to tell her."

"Garak..." Julian warned, but Miles didn't seem to be listening to either of them, he was intent on his rant.

"I want a hot bath, my daughter to cuddle, a bottle of Scotch Whisky and a game of darts, in that order. And I don't want to see either of you two again for a long, long time."

"Miles..." this time Julian sounded hurt, and Garak, who was slowly insinuating his arm around the doctor's waist, felt him stiffen anxiously. "I haven't been that bad, have I?"

"You've been awful. You do realise that that lot back there think I'm your bonds man, or some such."

"I never told them that!"

"They assumed it. You act like a gift from the gods, and they just went right along with you in believing it."

"That's not fair." Julian murmured, but he shrank in upon himself as he said it. It was probably true, he thought. He did act important, sometimes. He'd gotten the habit off his Father.

"And why'd you have to go and attack the bloody pony for." Miles directed his venom at the tailor, pinning the Cardassian with hard eyes. "They depend on that runty animal for transport, and harvesting. You're lucky Julian was able to patch it up. Just tell me you had a reason for it."

"I was hungry. Very hungry." Garak eyed O'Brien thinking that he was still hungry and that if help didn't arrive soon, maybe he could go back to his original plan. Eat O'Brien, claim Julian as a mate. It held a certain appeal.

"Nock it off you two." Julian broke in to their staring match. Honestly, they were like little children. "The pony was just fine. All she needed was a few tiny stitches. Now, can we please try and remain civil to each other, we're about to get rescued, I can feel it."

"I can feel it." O'Brien mimicked, but low enough that the other human didn't hear. Garak gave him a hard look, but decided to comply with the doctor's wishes, and find a more agreeable topic of conversation.

"I heard you mention that the villagers refer to you both as fairies. I thought that particular mythical being had wings and antenna." He began. Miles obviously wasn't ready to make peace just yet, however, and shot him a dirty look.

"For your information, they did not have antenna or wings. Not the original ones, anyway. They were just magical people. They were very clever, very beautiful, but very arrogant as well."

"Why are you both looking at me?" Julian complained.

"No reason." Miles said quickly. "Um, Fair Folk were also said to be very cruel, they used to steal babies and bring them up like pets, then release them into the woods to be hunted by the royal families."

"That's horrible." Said Julian, wrinkling his forehead in an unhappy frown.

"Yeah. They were a bit cruel. You couldn't afford to annoy the fairies. Cut a branch from a tree without asking their forgiveness, and all sorts of bad things would happen to you. The milk cow would stop giving milk, the nearest streams run dry, members of your family die of some terrible disease. And they used to steal away mortal lovers too. They had to get your permission first, but a kiss was considered consent, and then off you'd go. There's heaps of tales about folk going into Fairy land to rescue their lovers, and never being seen again."

"What a charming tale." Garak noted sarcastically.

"Oh, they had reasons for the tales. Don't leave your baby unattended, don't go kissing handsome strangers, that sort of thing. Quite fascinating, really."

Garak nodded. He almost had his arm all the way round Julians waist now, all he needed was the proper distraction and he could achieve his goal.

"What is this wooden box you have strapped to your side, doctor?" He asked. "It seems an awkward burden to be carrying around."

"Teachers pet." hissed Miles, but Julian ignored him and un-strapped the box excitedly to show Garak.

"It's a harp." He said, smiling proudly. "I managed to make some modifications to it, would you like a listen?"

"Oh, go ahead. Do your thing." Miles encouraged graciously. Julian actually blushed with pleasure, before beginning to tune the fragile stringed instrument. Garak took the crude wooden carry case and moved it out the way, Miles whispering in his ear, "He's actually quite good." as he did so.

The Cardassain would never understand humans. O'Brien had just been insulting the doctor, and now he was full of praise. Which Julian seemed to be swallowing, for some reason. /Maybe I'll eat O'Brien anyway, even if help does come/ thought the annoyed tailor.

"Ah hum." Julian cleared his throat, sitting up a little away from Garak's side, so he had room to strum properly. With a dramatic pose, he struck the first liquid cords, just as the beam of the transport hit them, sucking them away through space and time.

<O><O><O>

"Gentlemen, nice to have you aboard Deep Space Nine again, it hasn't been quite the same without you." Sisko smiled benevolently at the two Starfleet personnel, and one civilian, before him. They nodded greetings back.

The three were rested from their ordeal, all nicely cleaned and fed. No long-term effects in health having appeared since their arrival, they were deemed fit for duty. But first, they had to have this meeting.

All three sat in the debriefing room with Captain Sisko, anxious for explanations as to what had happened to them. They started visibly when the doors opened, and two gentlemen from the Department of Temporal Investigations - the time patrol squad - entered in.

"Here we go." Groaned Miles softly, but the time cops were smiling, they seemed almost to be in a jolly mood.

"We'd like to thank you, for clearing up something we've had in our book for rather a long time." began Dulmur, gesturing between his partner Lucsly and himself.  

"Was that a pun?" asked O'Brien, but the time patrol officer ignored him.

"For awhile now, we've been wondering when a certain Predestination Paradox would occur." Lucsly took up the explanation, "Now we know, and it has already happened. You were all three carried back in time, and through space, by a young Q, who mistook your holo deck fantasy as a live zoo exhibit. Being adverse to creatures being held against their will, the young Q placed you in the nearest natural environment it could find, namely Eltros Six. The Q entity had to put you back about a hundred years to do it, but that is hardly a problem for a Q."

He moved around to stand before the amazed returned travellers, smiling happily at them. "We have been puzzled by the tales of the Eltros people, of beings they called the Fair Folk, who brought healing and metal work to their people from the stars."

"Well, it wasn't..." "We didn't mean to..."

Dulmur held up his hand. "No need for excuses, we fully understand. Normally we hate these kinds of situations, where the time traveller goes back to fulfil a roll they are destined to perform. But we knew this one was coming."

"Yes indeed." Smiled his companion, "Your faces rang a note after that unfortunate Tribble affair, so we kept an eye on you. And then we saw this, and knew you were the ones."

A book was brought out, and the brittle pages opened to a particular page. "The Eltros are not quite ready to join the Federation just yet, but they are advanced enough for us to have some contact with them. They allowed us to borrow this from their great library. You'll agree the resemblance is quite remarkable."

The three men looked down at a pencil line drawing of two tall figures, one with straight hair, one with curly. The taller of the two held a harp, and was striking a cord, causing what was meant to represent a wave of music to strike out and consume the figure of what was obviously a cowering Cardassian.

"I've been slandered." Said Garak grimly, looking at the crouching form.

"Would you like to hear the legend? It's quite interesting, actually." Miles nodded, noticing that the curly haired figure in the picture had one hand on the Harper's shoulder, as if lending him energy for the fight. Terrific, just call him O'Brien, friendly Bashir power pack.

"It's said that two of the Fair Folk came down from the stars, to teach mortal kind the arts. They taught healing and metal work, cooking and weaving, and even gave the rules for how men and women were to regard each other in marriage."

Julian shot Miles a look, but the man just shrugged apologetically. He 'may' have mentioned his relationship with his wife, he couldn't be sure. He often got lonely without her.

"News came that a monster, the Gar-nok, was raiding the flocks, killing and eating the sheep on which the people depended."

"It was cold, and I was hungry." Garak sniffed un-apologetically.

"The Fair Lords went out to rid the villagers of the monster, and they found it feasting in the heather."

"Looks like they found your cloak then, after." said Miles.

"The shorter of the Lords, the magician Oblien, argued with the monster, and told it to leave."

"We had a minor disagreement, we didn't actually argue," O'Brien sulked, "did we Julian?" Diplomatically the doctor chose not to answer.

"When that didn't prove successful, the Bard Julaen brought out his harp, and using the magic for which the Folk are renowned, called the death strike down upon their heads!"

"Ah," Julian smiled, "it would have looked like we were vaporised. There must have been someone watching us, they saw the transporter beam us out and assumed we killed ourselves in order to save the village. It makes rather a good tale, don't you think?"

"You weren't the monster." Garak grumped.

"Or the sidekick." O'Brien agreed.

"Well, I jolly well liked it, and it could have been a lot worse. How did you find us again." He added turning back to the still amused looking Time Patrol officers.

"As I said, we kept an eye on you. As soon as we heard you'd disappeared, and under what circumstances, we scanned the area and found the Q. We, ah, persuaded it to return you, and to replace the memories it suppressed in order for you to 'reintegrate' back into what it thought was your natural environment. We think it all worked out rather well, too."

And that, thought Sisko, was why the Department of Temporal Investigations men were so happy. There was nothing paper pushers like them wanted more in life than a red tick in a square box. And a solved Predestination Paradox was definitely a tick.

<O><O><O>

"Daddy's a fairy!" squealed Molly, running up to give her father a big hug.

"That's right, Molly-me-love." Her father replied, swooping her into the air.

"I thought you were just a henchman." Julian snipped, leaning up against the entryways door frame.

"Julian, hush." Miles pulled a face at his giggling little girl. "Tell Uncle Joolian to behave, or he won't get invited to stay." He held her out towards his friend, and the giggling child wriggled in mid air.

"Uncle Joolian, behave!"

"That's right, gang up on me." He smiled at their antics, then stood a little straighter, a look of apology crossing his face.

"Actually, I can't stay, there are things I must do back at the infirmary. Um, I just wanted to say, thank you, for looking after me."

"What do you mean?" Miles pulled Molly in to a hug, and kissed her head before putting her down.

"You're a good friend, Miles O'Brien, and I don't know what I'd do without you." Julian smiled shyly, then slid out the door and into the station's night.

"Well, what do you think of that, Molly-me-love? A bit strange, even for him." He said the last bit softly, more to himself than to Molly, and he jumped when he felt an arm snake round his waist and hold him tight.

"I think Julian didn't like being primitive as much as he pretended, Miles." Keiko looked up at him with wise eyes. "And knowing you as I do, you picked up on it. And what better way to take Doctor Bashir's mind off his own discomfort, than to complain about your own." She kissed his cheek gently.

"Well, I may have put it on a bit, but having no running water wasn't a bed of roses, I can tell you!"

"Miles, come on, admit it. You've got a soft spot for Julian."

"Well, okay, maybe just a small one. Enough that if pretending I'm miserable makes him happy, I'd be willing to do it."

"That's my big strong man, never afraid to show his emotions." His wife smiled, hugging him fiercely.

"Don't go telling him, now! He's got a big enough head as it is."

"I won't, Miles." She moved around to put her arms about him. "And now, there's just one more thing for us to discuss."

"And what is that, my lady love?"

"These." From behind her back, she produced a pair of underwear. "What is the relationship you're having with this undergarment, Miles?" she demanded. The Chief gapped at her in bewilderment.

"Garak came by earlier, and he had something very interesting to say about them!" Her eyes twinkled devilishly, and Chief O'Brien knew he was going to have to pay for his loose tongue. Blast the tailor. He really was a monster!