Tear Jerker / Doctor Ghemor, I Presume?

• Julian Bashir's headspace is not a positive space. Every inch of his narration is dripping with anxiety and self-loathing, to the point he instantly assumes people will loathe him on sight just after meeting him.
• Legate Tekeny Ghemor's entire situation. He's an old man currently living alone, reduced to wait for the unlikely return of his son. When the Obsidian Order brings him a young man they claim to be said son, said young man is mentally a mess and unsure about his own species. Ghemor still takes a gamble and decides to love him anyways... but receiving the definite confirmation that Julian Bashir isn't Cesnil Ghemor visibly pains him.
  • Tekeny blaming himself for his son's disappearance. See, he wanted for his son to be free to choose his own path, instead of being railroaded as Ghemor himself has been, but it left Cesnil feeling aimless and desperate for guidance, ultimately joining the Obsidian Order as he thought they could give him direction. Tekeny's wife died blaming her husband for the whole mess, and the Legate still can't forgive himself.
• Julian's sudden realisation that Ghemor isn't playing a role, that he genuinely wants his son back and thinks he has been reunited with his child. It makes the situation so much more tangled and painful than if the Legate was merely another agent in the plan to gaslight the doctor.
• Every time Kaleen Dakal is mentioned. Tekeny almost breaks down when he announces to his amnesiac son that she's dead, while Julian feels guilty for not managing to remember her.
• The brief mention of the Rugal situation fallout — the boy is blatantly unhappy on Cardassia Prime, having been raised to consider his own species as animals, and his birth father is struggling to help him to acclimate.
• All his life, Julian feared to be discovered as a fraud because of his genetic enhancements. And then Entek throws the whole thing to his face, telling him that he never even went to Adigeon Prime. All of his fears, the disgust, the shame and the broken relationships he's been forced to have because of his Augmentation... it was never even real.
  • And Entek isn't doing it to be cruel. He just need the good doctor conflicted and not thinking straight and at the edge of a breakdown to arouse Tekeny's protective instincts, and so this is just... practical. That's cold.
• Even unable to distinguish the lies from the reality, Julian still refuses to betray Deep Space Nine, to Tekeny's utter anguish who begs his maybe-son to not throw his life away for nothing. And yet that's the point — two thousands people aren't nothing for Julian.
• On the verge of accepting that yes, he is Cesnil Ghemor, the doctor can feel nothing but anger towards the boy who bore the name — a boy who had everything, whose future was limitless and who threw this away to become Julian.
  He didn’t know if he’d ever forgive Cesnil for that.
• The Bajoran staff's reaction to Julian in full Cardassian make-up is openly hostile and fearful, and they blatantly hope to the doctor's face that he's really human. Not only it's rather hurtful to see Julian's own friends and acquaintances reject his possible identity, the doctor bitterly muses this is the reaction he always expected to have directed at him for being an augment.
  • Their later refusal to understand why Julian still keeps Tekeny Ghemor in his life. Seeing Miles O'Brien, probably the doctor's best friend, subtly yet firmly holding on his racial prejudices is just painful, especially since for all he know, Julian is Cardassian himself.
• Julian's hesitation about clarifying his identity, as he stands to lose something precious no matter what — Julian Bashir has worked his whole life to be respected as a doctor, but Cesnil Ghemor has a father who loves him.
• Julian's planning for his life? Becoming a Starfleet officer, being discovered, serving prison then being locked up in an institution. He briefly freaks over the possibility of a life after Starfleet.
• Garak briefly frowning when observing Julian interact with Tekeny — the father-son relationship Enabran Tain refused to have with him until his last day.
• With Richard and Amsha Bashir's arrival on Deep Space Nine, Julian is forced to acknowledge that no, he doesn't and never had a claim to Tekeny's love.
• Ghemor being diagnosed with Yarim Fel syndrome, right as the illness is about to go terminal. Julian is horrified by the possibility of losing him barely two years after finally getting a parent genuinely caring about him.
• Garak and Ghemor's utter confusion regarding Julian's human parents, as they slowly understand their husband and adopted son isn't loved by his own family. They do love him so deeply, so why the people who raised him can't?
• The reason why Julian believes he's a monster: if he's not, then the racism he's forced to endure is totally unfair, and being unable to correct that would break him.
• Richard and Amsha verbally belittling Julian and refusing to accept responsability, even after Garak and Tekeny's intervention.