(no subject)

[gabriel_tam]

The room is fairly nice, all things considered. There are several chairs, a porta-cot set up discreetly against one wall for visitors that for one reason or another are reluctant to leave, and it's clear that whoever designed this particular private room in the first place intended to make it seem as warm and welcoming as possible.

Of course, given that it's a hospital, there's really only so much that can be done.

Currently, the hospital bed is tilted upwards at an angle, with the evident intention of making the patient comfortable. It seems to be working, at least a little, because Gabriel Tam is asleep.

Comments

[simon_doctor]

Simon does glance around for Galadan. He's not there.

He steps back and closes the door to the room, carefully.

(Any hospital staff passing by, or coming in about their duties, don't need to hear this.)

[gabriel_tam]

"...I'm not sure I understand," he says carefully.

[simon_doctor]

Simon's tone is very nearly as careful. "Yuna has ... certain resources available to her that our medical science doesn't. I had intended to take full advantage of thosat possibility when we first brought you in, but --"

His speech slows, and his enunciation grows a trifle more precise: "Galadan thought it would lead to trouble later if, if you were seen to be injured and then shortly thereafter seen with no traces of the injury."

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"I've had to do the same thing myself," she adds. "I've come into the bar injured, and if I returned healed without time passing, my Guardians would notice."

She touches her staff, not yet picking it up. "I'm a healer," she says. "In my world we call it white magic, tofortify and heal the body and spirit, and ward them from evil influence."

[gabriel_tam]

"I... think I remember hearing him say something of the sort," he says slowly. "In any case, Galadan was right. It's not the sort of thing that could be easily explained."

There's something shuttered about his glance, though, as he looks at Yuna.

"Although it's certainly gracious of you to offer, perhaps you might better save your efforts for those who are more deserving of it."

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Oh, but you mustn't be so humble!" she protests. "You're a leader of your people, a public servant and a symbol of their hopes and good order. You are more deserving, because your life is spent in service, and because when people see that you are safe and well, it makes them feel safe and well."

"I understand," she adds quickly, "that your world doesn't have magic, and it would be hard to explain. But you deserve it, at least."

[gabriel_tam]

"That's not... actually what I meant."

In service. Something in Gabriel's expression twists, as if from sudden pain.

"I'd not be here if you weren't a good man," Prior Fell had told him. "What matters now is what you do next."

He'd taken those words -- the words of an angel, he knows now -- to heart, and done what he could to live by them.

Until the day when a different, avenging angel had showed up (been sent?) to kill him, he had thought --

--well, that doesn't matter now, does it?

"It doesn't matter," Gabriel says aloud.

[simon_doctor]

He assumed the more deserving was a gracious social lie, the kind both his parents do so much better than he's ever been able to.

Something in his face, now, and in his words --

"Dad, it's up to you," he says, trying not to sound overly concerned. Overly alarmed.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

Yuna frowns, wondering if the conversation is taxing him too much or if something is worsening, and her fingers begin to close around the staff, preparing to employ the Sensor magic again--but she halts at the sound of Simon's voice.

She doesn't know these people very well, she realizes. But something seems to be hanging in the air, here.

[gabriel_tam]

"Not entirely."

Gabriel meets his son's eyes. "Can we honestly afford the sort of scrutiny that would be directed at us, if I were to get up and walk out of here without any sign of injury?"

As an aside to Yuna,

"That is what you're proposing? I've understood you correctly?"

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"You've been scarred," she says, without any trace of her earlier lightness. She picks up the staff, and again views him through the lattice work of the head. It would be simply odd, if the magic didn't throw shifting blue and red shadows on her face; as it is, it's slightly eerie.

"Looking again--I think it's in your lungs. I can't be sure. Your vitality will never be what it was, and you'll always be vulnerable, now, to certain kinds of harm that weren't as dangerous before. I can't change that."

"But yes, I can heal most of it, as if it had had time to heal naturally, but much more quickly." She frowns again. "I didn't mean to press you, and I apologize if I spoke out of turn. I do understand why."

"But you do deserve it, even if you can't have it." Most people's first impression of Yuna is a docile and pleasant child. But there's a stubborn streak a mile wide in any summoner.

[simon_doctor]

He wants to repeat those last words; wants to make sure they're believed.

(you're worth it)

"It's up to you," he repeats instead, very low.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Wait," she says.




Her voice is different. It's lower, for one thing, and flat. "What did this to him?" She's still looking through the Sensor.

There's something here. Something subtle. Something--something like something she's seen before.

[gabriel_tam]

His reaction is very, very clear.

Gabriel tenses, every muscle tightening. Pain sears through him, and bitterly, he almost welcomes it.

There's a long, long silence, and then,

"An angel. Of vengeance."

His voice is hoarse, and the few words flat, and utterly bleak.

[simon_doctor]

"...what?"

Simon's voice is altogether too sharp.

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what that is," she murmurs. She's not putting the staff down; her eyes move, trying to read a map that shifts and changes with every heartbeat.

"But I believe you about the vengeance." Somewhere--probably inside her head--thunder rolls.

"I've seen burns like these before. Not exactly like them, but close enough. Fire that consumes utterly, and leaves taint and poison behind it, subtle and deep-rooted."

"Simon's seen it, too."

[simon_doctor]

His gaze flicks to her, puzzled for a moment, then darkening with understanding.

"At the Temple," he says. "After the battle."

[gabriel_tam]

"You heard me."

Just as flatly as before, but Gabriel's expression is darkening now.

"What battle?"

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"Simon came to my world, to help, as a doctor, after a monster attacked a large group of people," she says. She's amazed, on some level, to hear herself explaining Djose with such brisk clarity and calm.

"Many were burned away utterly, but others were left with a lingering poison in their flesh, a subtle taint that hide from the normal healing we use for such things."

"Your burns are--similar. Not the same, not from the same creature or even the same, kind, but--"

She shakes her head, a curt gesture that raises a brief clatter of the beads in her hair. "I would have to teach you a lot of magical theory to explain properly."

Her jaw is set and tense. "Please--what's an angel?"

[simon_doctor]

Simon opens his mouth to explain, and what comes out is a ragged puff of air that can't quite manage to be a laugh. One hand comes up to rub his forehead.

"I'm sorry. It -- it's complicated."

[gabriel_tam]

By the time Yuna finishes speaking, Gabriel's rubbing absently at his chest again.

He starts to answer, but cuts off his own words as the door opens-- or starts to. Simon's there, quickly, and slips out into the hallway to discuss matters with the nurse who's just tried to come in.

Gabriel waits until the door shuts before saying,

"An angel-- it's complicated, yes. I suppose -- think of them as beings of power. Servants of God."

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"--wait. I have heard of angels (http://community.livejournal.com/milliways_bar/15439341.html?thread=631977453)," she says slowly, striving to remember what Suzi Darley told her. "Someone told me about them, long ago."

I just know that they're the most comforting things in the bar, and they're all really, really sweet.

"But why would an angel do this to you? How could one? The poison--"

Her hands clench in her long sleeves. She doesn't know enough about this; she doesn't have the toolkit. But she's stubborn, and she can't walk away now. "That doesn't make any sense."

[gabriel_tam]

"Sense enough."

Wearily said. Gabriel's growing more tired by the moment.

"This one-- he's a creature of judgment. We've met before."

[night-hibiscus.livejournal.com]

"I don't understand. I don't understand a lot of this."

Yuna overinvests herself in people. She doesn't know this man very well at all. But she knows that he's a leader of his people--one chosen by them themselves, no less--and that he nearly spent the last of his life in front of her, and that when he came through that door he was surrounded by people who loved him, every one of whom was ready to protect him to their last breath, who would've given all they could to save him.

She doesn't know him, but she knows his son, and she saw his son fight to save him. And Yuna invests in people, when they set off the right triggers.

"There's judgment--" she says, and the light fixture flickers, "and there's judgment. Not all vengeance is holy."

"This taint--the taint of Sin--I saw it when brave men and women laid down their lives, in defiance of all the teachings, to protect their families and their world from senseless death and destruction. Maybe they chose the wrong time, the wrong weapons. But they didn't deserve to die, burned and poisoned and confused. They deserved to live."

Her voice drops to nearly a whisper: "You deserve to live. I know you do."

[gabriel_tam]

Not all vengeance is holy.

Gabriel closes his eyes, thinking of the Miranda broadwave.

We meant it for the best. To make people safer.

His voice is hoarse, and a little weaker, but still clear.

"I've tried-- I swear I never intended -- I don't know. I just don't know, any more."