(no subject)

[gabriel_tam]

The Tam quarters on Londinium are just that -- quarters. They're fine and spacious, assuredly, but they're an apartment, they're not the estate, and they're certainly not a home.

This doesn't mean that they're not outfitted with the best in cryptography and call protection, of course. Andronicus Crowley would insist on it, even if Gabriel and Regan Tam did not. Multiple dedicated source boxes, multiple screens, mulitiple hubs, all protected to the standard that Crowley and Gabriel use themselves in their offices.

The Tam quarters are spacious, and they're not home, but the light in the rooms is close to that of the Tam estate: all soft yellow, near-ambient, illuminating every corner with only the barest and least threatening shadows. That's enough to make the Tam quarters livable.

Even now, days after the initial news, the blue light projected from every screen in every room is enough to tell anybody who might be watching, even assuming that they could with all of this protection:

Something is not right.

Gabriel stares at the screen in front of him, at the words that say in English and Chinese Transmission Ended, and he can't stop himself from focusing on the second word --

(this is the end)

-- before he forcibly snaps himself out of it, and stands.

No. There is a way. There has to be a way.

Comments

[gabriel_tam]

"Wŏ de mā," Gabriel breathes. "Why should he care?"

An upstanding servant of the Alliance, he hears again, Rosse's silken voice echoing through his mind. If I decide that Simon and River Tam should disappear and be found floating in the Capital City harbour, I can do that.

His hands clench into fists at his side, but he doesn't even notice it.

[aj_crawley]

"Because he's the devil," Crowley chokes out. "Because he's Nicholas Rosse. If this is some kind of - of conspiracy against you, nobody has more allies in the old establishment than Nick Rosse. If this is about the Academy - maybe he did have a hand in it, and, and I - didn't know. If - I mean, Lucifer likes to fuck with power-plays, he likes to be cruel - he could just be doing it because he's bored."

He glances up at them; his sunglasses have slipped down his nose a little, but it might not be a good idea to look at his eyes.

"I don't know."

[regan_tam]

Regan's arms are wrapped around her stomach. Her hands are clenched fists, fingernails digging into her palms and the crumpled linen of her tunic. She doesn't notice.

"So they're stuck."

Her voice is too flat, too strained; she's breathing just a little too hard.

"My children are stuck there, because, because he feels like playing games with promises."

She's not trembling. She's not trembling because -- because she's not, she won't, because if her fists clench tight enough maybe she can hold herself together. They have a job to do -- even if they can't do it, even if there's the, the rutting devil stopping whatever Crowley wanted to do, her children are back in the trouble their parents' blind negligence put them in, and there's a job to do and she can't fall apart.

[gabriel_tam]

"No, they're not," Gabriel snaps-- a touch sharply, but even as he regrets it he recognizes that it may be what's necessary to pull them all together.

"He's the devil. Fine. I don't care. If he sticks by these rules of his," he adds, his tone dripping with scorn, "then it doesn't matter."

"He backed Carson according to the 'rules,' and they lost. That means he--they-- aren't infallible. This is much more important, and we're not going to give up."

[aj_crawley]

"Could I - "

Crowley's voice is thick; it sounds as though he's speaking through gritted teeth, and that it might be to stop them from chattering.

He nods towards the nearest console, set into the wall. Five minutes ago, he'd been set to use it without even a thought to the contrary, but now, after -

" - please?"

[gabriel_tam]

"Dāngrán." His answer to Crowley comes tightly, but without hesitation.

It's not the demon he's furious at, and they've worked too long together for him to start doubting things -- especially right now.

Gabriel forces his fists to unclench and goes to Regan, gently taking hold of her arms.

"We'll get them back. We will."

[aj_crawley]

With a grateful nod, Crowley lurches to his feet and - narrowly avoiding a spectacular trip over the legs of the coffee-table - heads straight to the hub that Regan, not ten minutes previously, had been using to argue with another faceless Alliance bureaucrat.

(His hands are shaking badly enough that he enters the wrong sequence twice.)



Crowley, unsurprisingly, isn't given to praying. But whilst it's not an invocation to the God of Abraham and Isaac, there is more than a little of a plea about it, to anyone else who might be listening: please be back. Please, please, let him be back.

The soft, dulcet chimes continue. Nobody answers.

[regan_tam]

Regan looks up at her husband. Breathes in, and out, and her jaw firms.

"I know."

Is she trying to convince him or herself? Does it matter, at this point?

"We will."

Her arms slide down -- each movement feels far too deliberate, as if her fingers should crack as they loosen, and in a distant clinical part of her brain she thinks this is shock, for all of us it is -- and she rests her hands on Gabriel's waist.

She tries a smile. It's bitter, and crooked, but it's a good effort. "We'll get them back, and they'll be just fine."

If she tries hard -- and, oh, she's trying -- she can almost believe herself.

We WILL.

[gabriel_tam]

He meets her glance and nods.

"Yes."

He refuses to accept any other possibility, refuses it with all the determination that's carried him through these last months.

Strangely enough, or maybe not -- shock does strange things to the mind, Gabriel notes idly, allowing unusual connections to be made -- he finds himself thinking about the past months, and Rosse's connection to Carson.

"Regan." Slowly. "Why would he care?"

It's the same question he asked before, but this time with more depth.

"What makes this so important to him?"

[aj_crawley]

It hasn't been too terribly long, all things considered. But the place Crowley's waving, he could find his way around it with his eyes closed. He knows the console is only on the other side of the wall from the bed, has learnt from experience that the chiming is more than enough to wake one up - and fast.

It hasn't been too terribly long. But nobody's going to answer.




Crowley presses white fingertips to his mouth for a moment, and then touches the screen lightly.

Leave Message

In a decent-sized study on Persephone, in the quiet confines of Southdown Abbey, a Cortex hub stops beeping.

"Aziraphael - tiānshǐ. It's me. If you're - asleep right now, or just not answering, I'll fucking kill you for giving me a heart-attack. I need to - " a deep breath. "It's about River and Simon..."

[regan_tam]

Regan blinks at her husband, nonplussed.

And then, slowly, her brow furrows, as she follows Gabriel's train of thought.

It's a good question. It's a very good question.

With half her attention she's listening to Crowley. It's a private message, but she can hardly keep from hearing, and right now she's automatically gathering every scrap of useless data she can see or hear.

[gabriel_tam]

"Rosse wanted to make a point," Gabriel says, even more slowly than before. "And was willing to show himself for what he is to stop Andronicus."

Desperately, he shoves the horror of that thought aside. There's no time for it, no time for anything but finding the answer and then finding their children.

"If he-- lăotiān, bù." His breath hisses in sharply. "Regan, he said it himself. If he wanted them hurt, he could do that. It's not him-- it's not just him," Gabriel amends. "Rosse supported Carson; that's where his influence lay."

"It's the Council."

[aj_crawley]

" - behind it. Or - whoever he backed. I don't know. But he said..."

Crowley trails off for a moment; back to the room, it's not possible to discern his facial expression.

"He said," he resumes, voice only a little unsteady, "that he knows - everywhere I go. My - the people I know. It, he, it wouldn't be me he'd come after, angel. We're going to - "




"We're going to keep at this using normal channels, it's the only thing we can do. But I just, I need you - to be careful, alright? I need you to keep an eye out. And an eye on, on everyone, just see that they're okay..."

[regan_tam]

The dawning, sick horror in Regan's face matches Gabriel's.

"And they--"

Her hands tighten on his waist.

"Tiānna, Gabriel, the ship." She glances sharply at the datapad on the table, the one that has the schematics of the ship that took Simon and River. "High-ranked, Andronicus said, top-level security. Council-level security."

Regan's pale, spots of high color in her cheeks, and even she's not sure if it's terror or fury.

[gabriel_tam]

"It makes sense," he says tightly.

"We've already seen what they're capable of-- the entire system has seen it."

Thirty million on Miranda; thirty thousand Reavers; thirty worlds that had watched in horror of their own.

"I was a fool to think --"

That I was the only one at risk now, he doesn't say. That the Council wouldn't use everyone and everything that they could reach in order to keep control. Gabriel bites off his words instead and takes a deep breath.

"Now we know. Council or not, they're not going to be able to keep this secret. We'll find them. Once we do, there's going to be a way to get them back, Regan. There's going to be."

[aj_crawley]

" - scare them or anything, 'specially Donovan and Mekhi, they've just had their fourth, but. Yeah. Sstay safe. I - " He pauses, conscious, even now, of the fact that he is not the only one hearing this. "I won't be having with anything else."


He leans his forehead against the wall above the console.


"Come visit me soon, yeah?"




As the message ends with a quiet beep, Crowley straightens his sunglasses and turns around, leaning back against the wall.

"So."

[gabriel_tam]

"So."

He turns to face Crowley, sliding an arm around Regan's waist as he does and drawing her closer to him -- for both their sakes. She's tense and quiet at his side, but Gabriel knows from years of experience that Regan's agile mind is racing, searching for an answer.

He's praying she can find one somewhere -- one that he can't himself see.

"Working within these rules, then: what else can we do?"

[aj_crawley]

He seems calmer now, but smaller - drained down to awkward angles and pale skin. He rubs at a spot (always the same spot) just over his right eyebrow, and closes his eyes, thinking.

"I don't know yet. We've got everyone blocking us, and at every damn turn. We can't... we've got nothing."

He lets out a long, low breath.

"We need to contact Mal again anyway, let him know we're stuck for the moment, until we can find a way. He might have something that can help."

[gabriel_tam]

"'What matters now is what you do next,'" he mutters, almost to himself, then says more clearly, "It's a setback, but we'll get past it. There's a way, we just have to find it."

He refuses to admit any other possibility. Never, never again will Gabriel Tam give up on anything concerning his children.

He glances from Regan to Crowley and then draws himself up, starting toward the Cortex screen.

"I'll tell him."

[badinlatin]

Wash picked up the habit soon after xi zihuan de to simultaneously chime both Mal's bunk and Inara's shuttle for calls directed to the captain or the Companion.

Inara checks the commscreen behind the curtain when the beep is heard, noting the address and pulling Mal toward the screen, afterward leaving the shuttle to give Mal some privacy during the call.

Cough, then click Accept.

"Ni hao."

[gabriel_tam]

"Captain Reynolds. Nĭ hăo."

Gabriel looks somehow much older than he did the last time Mal saw him. There are new lines in his face, carved by worry; and although he's still standing straight, there's indication of some invisible weight on his shoulders.

It's not the look of a defeated man, simply because he will not let it be.

"We've run into some difficulties, I'm afraid."

[badinlatin]

Mal sits up far straighter, pushing some of his hair away from his face.

"What sort of difficulties?"

Did things get worse? How could things get worse?

[regan_tam]

The set look on Regan's face is reminiscent of both her children, though she doesn't realize it. In a few decades, River's grimness may look something like this.

She's visible only at the edge of the screen, and that only because it's set on wide-view. But she's listening, very closely indeed.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley's visible on the other side - more so, as he steps closer. A shared glance with the other two is all that's needed; some things should be left unsaid.

"Someone was on this before we were. No records. No information. Nobody will give us anything."

[badinlatin]

"Except for a certain crew member of a certain ship at a fuel station who's a mite too addicted to smokin' for his own good," Mal interjects.

"I've got proof."