[ Saga is an FBI agent, but she's not undercover. She doesn't do espionage. She does investigation. But she's also a woman of color who's dealt with a lot of small town cops and even some less than professional FBI personnel and that means she knows how to be measured.
She sips her cocoa.]
I see.
[ Not cold. Not a lit fuse just waiting to get to the explosives. She's just listening and watching for the moment. ]
[He smiles sadly for a moment, a little flicker, recognizing the particular strain of self-control, if not at all where it comes from, in her case.]
I'm not sure where useful context ends and meaningless excuses begin, but I'll answer anything you'd like.
[He looks away for the first time, back into the fire, frowning softly as he considers where to start. Then meets her eyes again.]
Edwin's been staying with me. When I told him I'd taken Arthur off my door's auto-access list, he...almost melted, in relief. But then we got focused on other things and I hadn't thought about it. I'd come to talk to him partly because I wanted to commiserate, the two of us worried on the edges, bitching at each other and holding it together. And we were doing that, after I called him a moldy pickle for not listening to Edwin, because I knew about that. So it caught me by surprised, when Arthur told me.
I didn't hit him because I was angry. I was angry, viciously angry. Stunned angry. But I'm built to have the instincts of an assassin. I can stay cold and still and wait and plan and hold a grudge until the work is done, no matter how angry I am.
But I didn't want to be an assassin with him. I wanted to be someone who felt viciously betrayed by a friend, whose child had been hurt by his friend. I didn't even want to hurt him, not the kind of hurt that sticks with you. I could have done that with words, and...it would have been awful. I could have said things that would have twisted him up for years, and I didn't want to. But I wanted to lash out, just once, so that the resentment didn't sit inside me forever, and without that grudge, maybe I could be friends with him again.
And if he felt like someone punished him, maybe he'd hate himself a little less. It was hearing that Edwin hadn't told me what it was that made him scared of Arthur now, because he didn't want to hurt our friendship, that's why he confessed to me. That sort of knife-twisting kindness-to-guilt.
So instead of anything else I could have done, I slapped him. Open-palmed, like the lilies do in the dramas when some cad broke their heart.
I wanted it to be a kind of rebuke that didn't actually matter at all, but I fucked up, because of course it does. I treated him like...my friend, that I was having a fight with, and I didn't even think about how he's also an inmate now, who's been fucked with by authority here before, and almost certainly more elsewhere. Which he hasn't told me anything about, but I have eyes.
He said he's forgiven me, and I believe him. But I did hurt him, in tangled ways I've rather forcibly decommissioned myself out of the chance to help with, so I'm bringing it to you. And if you decide there's any particular kind of punishment or accountability you'd like to lay on me, for his sake and - the sake of telling him he deserves for people to be held accountable, I'll abide by it.
[ Saga is the kind of person who loves a full file, who spends the time to read every letter inscribed on a victim's heart by the killer. Everything is context, even when it's excuses, and she doesn't even move while he talks, let alone makes a peep.
When he's done, she has one viciously uncharitable thought that doesn't show against the liquid dark of her eyes.]
Do you know what Edwin did to John?
[ She has thoughts but they're not coming out until she's gotten every drop of information she can from him. ]
[It's not comfortable, of course, just leaving it - there. But it's most certainly not about his comfort.
He tries to weigh up what is and isn't his to tell, what would be easier for him to tell so neither of them has to recount it again - he leans back with his eyes closed, brow slightly furrowed, someone with a very good memory trying to pull things back word for word as much as he can, to sift through.]
Edwin...approached John already angry. Aggressively. He damaged John's door. John loves someone who...is terrified of Edwin, and blames him for things that he didn't do, that Edwin...fears is still him. Edwin felt...among other things, threatened, and confronted John about it, badly.
Both of them misunderstood each other in ways that hurt badly, that felt like rejection. John said...'I reached out to him. He flinched away. I let him go.'
I think that's the part that hurt the most - the overture being refused.
Edwin, fully panicking and - self-sabotaging, I think. Just trying to prove that he wasn't crazy for feeling threatened, asked John who he would choose, if he had to. Because, I believe he feels, or at least felt then that...that other person's reactions to him may be so intractable that John might have to choose, eventually. Or that Edwin might have to choose to bow out, unless he's willing to hurt this person by his proximity. And John heard it as demanding he choose. John said 'I won't be made to choose by anyone', and Edwin heard, 'you're the one who pushed too hard, so I choose him.'
John said he told Edwin he could 'fuck off if he's going to spit on everything I've done and everything we've built together over this.'
Edwin thought he had already been rejected, and disappeared. John took that as confirmation that he was rejected. They both spent the next -
[Jedao waves a hand. Time. Some time. Fuck, he's exhausted.]
- convinced the other hated them, that they'd never get to speak to their brother again, and to the point of being outright catatonic about it. And they both took it as confirmation of deep-seated fears about how they will doom and destroy every good thing in their lives.
You know. The sort of things you feel when you're running around a couple years old having an intensely traumatic life where you're weirdly shaped like a grown-up and mostly it's fine, but also you've never had this big or this bad a fight before and you can't imagine how it'll ever be fixed, so it's the end of the world and it's your fault.
[It's secretly funny, because, him too! Haha. Secret jokes.]
That's the situation as I understand it, having talked extensively with both of them, barring a few details I think really aren't mine to share.
[ There's a lot of context there, especially given everything that Edwin had said and the things he hadn't said. It's more information than she was expecting but she can parse very quickly; it had what she needed, what she'd expected.
There's just one more piece. ]
And your thoughts on why Arthur did what he did, in context to Edwin?
I said I was sorry. It was the way he - didn't flinch.
I didn't think I'd be sorry, ever, but I was, so I said it. I said I hoped we could both forgive each other soon.
[And that had been part of it too, in the deep-down lightning-fast tangle of reasons that suddenly connected into one decision like the current jumping the gap in an arc welder, where a Shuos must always have at least half a dozen reasons for doing things, half a dozen different angles - if they'd both done something intolerable, then Jedao couldn't stand on his grudge. Couldn't say it had been unforgivable.]
He said he'd forgiven me already, and...I took a minute, to let that matter to me. I'm worried it's for, for at least some of the wrong reasons. But I said I forgave him too. It felt, it was true at the time. I think I'll still be angry at him, sometimes, that I'll - dig it up. But...it won't be the kind of anger I can't stop holding on to.
I said I wanted to be friends again, when things were settled, and he said we'd be okay. Then he went to - be alone, for a bit.
[ She nods, and she's surprised how much the last set of information adds to everything else. She takes a long sip, swallows, and lets the warmth filter down before she speaks. ]
Last one, I promise: [ she keeps her eyes on Jedao's ] why didn't you ask someone else to deal with Arthur, given the obvious conflict of interests?
[ She holds up a hand. ]
I know we haven't met. Didn't have to be me. But I'm wondering.
[He stares at her, utterly bewildered, and then his whole face cracks in one sharp, awful laugh. He strangles it as quickly as it escaped, and hunches forward for a moment, face hidden in his hands. He takes one deep, shaky breath.]
I didn't think we had an obvious conflict of interest.
[He's growling, but it's the growl of an animal in pain.]
I thought we were on the same fucking side. The same -
[He chokes, and oh fuck, he's not going to fucking cry. He's dead silent for a moment, then sits back up, face blank, his hands in his lap.]
I thought we were the two people holding it together in the same family. Going through the same worries.
[He says quietly, calm and level. Meeting her eyes again, but his are duller than before, shadowed instead of clear.]
I'd seen both of them in more pain than I'd ever seen. And I'd listened to both of them. And I'd known from the moment I realized they were fighting at all that neither of them hated each other. That even if Edwin had fucked up more and thought more wrong things, that both of them weren't hearing each other right, and the way to protect them from pain was to help them understand each other, not - protect one from the other.
And I thought Arthur knew that too. Because didn't he love them both? Didn't he talk to them both? Even if he didn't listen to Edwin very well, I didn't think it was because he hadn't tried. I thought he'd just been kind of an ass about it. I half went to reassure him that whatever it was, Edwin was already working himself up to working it out, that he didn't hate Arthur either.
[Jedao looks away, mouth tight. His fingers drum, once in a rill, along the side of his cup, like an audio track for his mind clicking back over his own assumptions and actions, like the shuttle of a loom repeating a pass over the load-bearing warp threads.]
I didn't want anyone to deal with him, or punish him. I wanted to talk to my friend, when we were both having a terrible day supporting people we both loved. And then - then he told me that.
[He hadn't felt betrayed only for Edwin's sake. Ninety, ninety-five percent. Mostly about Edwin. But he'd thought he and Arthur were in it together, caring about and worrying about both of them, because Arthur said so. Said he cared about Edwin too. And Jedao had felt the ship's gravity go wrong all around him, when that wasn't it, at all.]
[ She watches as he cracks, as he almost cries, as he pulls himself together. She wonders what he heard in her question, how he thinks she thinks of him right now. She can admit that she can be a little clinical in a case like this.
That's not who she is at the heart, though. Which is why she'll wait for a moment before gesturing towards the bathroom. ]
If you need to take a minute, take a minute. Or we can come back to this tomorrow. I don't-
[ She sees something. And she does need to tell him. But she doesn't think it needs to be right now. Not at the expense of... this. More pain won't make this whole thing better. Punishment won't make it better either, in her books.
She has something she intends to ask him to do from all this, but it's not something she wants to frame that way.]
[That doesn't matter, he wants to spit, but he knows it's the wrong answer. Out loud, he says -]
A minute.
[He drinks his water. He stares into the fire. Immolation is his inheritance but he's so rarely seen real fire. It's not very popular on spaceships, strangely. He remembers the bonfire, over a year ago, on James's beach -
- no, that's too charged too, even if it's in a good way. He just looks at the fire. The light and the movement. The soft strange sounds it makes, the different shades of it. The hidden flickers of blue, even violet down in the coals. He lets it fill him up, squeeze out everything else. He breathes.
Exactly sixty seconds later -]
To answer your question, no, I didn't. I know I gave half a dozen convoluted reasons, before. That makes it sound like I really thought it over. But it wasn't like that. It was an almost instant decision. I'm a Shuos, or as close to one as makes no difference. Which is - spies and counterspies and analysts and all that.
[Assassins, too.]
It's second nature to always have at least five different reasons for doing anything. Always a strategy, always an angle. But I was also made to be General. Split-second decisions, with all the gears of strategy behind them. I can look back at myself and ask, why the fuck did I do that, and I realize that sounds terribly like rationalizing after the fact, but I promise I also do it with things that work shockingly well. All the point of which is to say, I had those reasons, down in my weird emotional guts, but I didn't think about them, and certainly not enough to think they could be wrong.
The most I thought about, in the moment, was...also not about punishing him. I just needed -
Thank you. Though I'll be honest: I never thought you were telling me anything but the truth.
[ She folds her hands in her lap and considers how she wants to talk about this. How to frame it, and how to make sure she doesn't use the gift he gave her to trample over his feelings just to manage a hat trick with this whole mess. Finally, she looks up. ]
I'd like to lay things out for you, as I understand them. And I want you to tell me if you think my conclusions have any merit.
[ She meets his eyes, if he'll meet hers. ]
I don't think "punishment" or even "accountability" really has any place here. I think the important thing is to do the right thing by the people we both care about. And I don't know how much he's mentioned me, but I do care about Edwin. And obviously about Arthur.
[ Slightly wry. ]
I'm hopeful this won't be the worst first impression.
[He does meet her eyes; he even raises an eyebrow.]
It's not even a first impression. I know from your handling of Collins that you're forthright, inventive, dedicated to the safety and well-being of passengers, willing to make hard calls -
[The lack of the self-defense loophole - somewhat brutal, but pragmatic and fairly-reasoned under the circumstances.]
- thorough, and professional. I assume you're principled as well, because Arthur wouldn't respect you if you weren't, and I don't believe the Admiral be so foolish as to give Arthur a permanent warden he couldn't respect.
I didn't know you were close with Edwin as well, but I'm glad to hear it.
...and I would suggest, sometimes accountability is a necessary part of doing right by people. But I believe I agree with - which is the method, and which is the objective.
I'd agree with you. But I think in this case, this is a matter of personal accountability: to someone you said you love and someone you called a friend. [ There's nothing in her voice or body language to suggest that she's calling those out specifically in doubt; she's just explaining her reasoning.] He might be an inmate, but I don't believe I have a place when it comes to that. At least not in this discussion.
[ Now for the hard part. ]
The way I see it, from what you, Arthur, and Edwin have said to me, is that both you and Arthur fell prey to the same mistake: you both were unaware of just how much the harm done to someone you love, by someone you love, could make you willing, unconscious or no, to harm someone else you love.
You can call it protection, or 'protectiveness', but I think rationally, honestly, while there are emotional concerns to be dealt with in all corners, Edwin needs as much protection from Arthur as Arthur needs from you. [ Which is to say, none at all. ] Both you and Arthur were trying to cope. And you both were trying to cope by being competent at a thing you feel confident in, instead of being emotionally honest with someone like you should be with family.
[ She doesn't point, because that's rude, but her gaze settles on him a little more distinctly. ]
Objections are 'what you did is unacceptable'. They're words. You 'needed' some sort of retribution. Just like Arthur. You can talk about what you are and what you do and how you work all you like. How it could have been worse this way or that way. Fact is, you both did something stupid and harmful to someone you care about when they thought they could talk to you safely even though they'd fucked up.
[ She folds her arms. ]
And I'd like you to tell him that so that he doesn't decide that his own judgment can never be trusted again instead of realizing this whole thing is a mess and no one was on their best game.
[He listens, steadily. He doesn't grit his teeth, doesn't go stiff and defensive. There's no sign, on the outside, that he's just a little less present as she goes on.
He hears her out, as much as she wants to say, despite her insisting at the top that it isn't about Arthur being an inmate at all, like Jedao came to her because he just missed his psych team so much.
It doesn't matter. He's not here to litigate or exonerate anything. She's made her request. It's just that she's also made a few rather forced parallels, and he actually doesn't want to tell Arthur something he doesn't believe.]
...well, you're making some messy unsupported assumptions about what coping and emotional honesty look like for someone you don't know, but the main conclusion is sound.
Everything from 'fact is' onward, I agree with completely. Will that suffice?
[ She certainly isn't going to pretend she's perfect, or that her reads are on the money 100% of the time. She's got some advantages on her side, but that doesn't make her perfect. The Koskela brothers are proof of that. ]
You offered a lot, [ it's a subtle sort of 'thank you' ] but you can't offer experience and knowing you for longer than five minutes; I explained it so you could see how I got to where I was going. Call it a 'field decision'.
[ That's what it is, after all. She certainly hadn't gotten a file folder and a few days to investigate. ]
If you ever want to talk to me again after this, maybe I'll know more then.
But that's what's relevant right now. More than sufficient. Thank you.
Give it a few weeks. Then we'll all have new problems.
Any preferences on the timeline? And, mm.
Arthur did start by asking if I'd come to break his nose, and it wasn't all sarcasm. So I'm not sure how safe he actually felt. Any thoughts you have on how to avoid making him feel unsafe again would be welcome.
[It isn't, really. It's just less raw than he's been with her until now. He went out of his way to affirm that he did want to talk to her again, not too far in the future - but cordial for a Shuos is cold for Earth, and he set the bar in a weird place.]
[ It's not something she's bothered by, nor does she see it as a stop sign to any further getting to know him; just a pause for now. In truth, 'cold' wasn't bad, really. Better than 'hot', anyway.
He walked in and told her he hit her inmate. It was going to be a little strained no matter what.]
Thank you for telling me. I do realize that's not something you had to do.
Better than he was. I need to...tell him some things John told me, that were leading to Edwin's worst misinterpretations. I think he'll be ready to talk to him again soon.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
She sips her cocoa.]
I see.
[ Not cold. Not a lit fuse just waiting to get to the explosives. She's just listening and watching for the moment. ]
Can you provide a little more context?
no subject
I'm not sure where useful context ends and meaningless excuses begin, but I'll answer anything you'd like.
[He looks away for the first time, back into the fire, frowning softly as he considers where to start. Then meets her eyes again.]
Edwin's been staying with me. When I told him I'd taken Arthur off my door's auto-access list, he...almost melted, in relief. But then we got focused on other things and I hadn't thought about it. I'd come to talk to him partly because I wanted to commiserate, the two of us worried on the edges, bitching at each other and holding it together. And we were doing that, after I called him a moldy pickle for not listening to Edwin, because I knew about that. So it caught me by surprised, when Arthur told me.
I didn't hit him because I was angry. I was angry, viciously angry. Stunned angry. But I'm built to have the instincts of an assassin. I can stay cold and still and wait and plan and hold a grudge until the work is done, no matter how angry I am.
But I didn't want to be an assassin with him. I wanted to be someone who felt viciously betrayed by a friend, whose child had been hurt by his friend. I didn't even want to hurt him, not the kind of hurt that sticks with you. I could have done that with words, and...it would have been awful. I could have said things that would have twisted him up for years, and I didn't want to. But I wanted to lash out, just once, so that the resentment didn't sit inside me forever, and without that grudge, maybe I could be friends with him again.
And if he felt like someone punished him, maybe he'd hate himself a little less. It was hearing that Edwin hadn't told me what it was that made him scared of Arthur now, because he didn't want to hurt our friendship, that's why he confessed to me. That sort of knife-twisting kindness-to-guilt.
So instead of anything else I could have done, I slapped him. Open-palmed, like the lilies do in the dramas when some cad broke their heart.
I wanted it to be a kind of rebuke that didn't actually matter at all, but I fucked up, because of course it does. I treated him like...my friend, that I was having a fight with, and I didn't even think about how he's also an inmate now, who's been fucked with by authority here before, and almost certainly more elsewhere. Which he hasn't told me anything about, but I have eyes.
He said he's forgiven me, and I believe him. But I did hurt him, in tangled ways I've rather forcibly decommissioned myself out of the chance to help with, so I'm bringing it to you. And if you decide there's any particular kind of punishment or accountability you'd like to lay on me, for his sake and - the sake of telling him he deserves for people to be held accountable, I'll abide by it.
no subject
When he's done, she has one viciously uncharitable thought that doesn't show against the liquid dark of her eyes.]
Do you know what Edwin did to John?
[ She has thoughts but they're not coming out until she's gotten every drop of information she can from him. ]
I don't. So I could use the information.
no subject
He tries to weigh up what is and isn't his to tell, what would be easier for him to tell so neither of them has to recount it again - he leans back with his eyes closed, brow slightly furrowed, someone with a very good memory trying to pull things back word for word as much as he can, to sift through.]
Edwin...approached John already angry. Aggressively. He damaged John's door. John loves someone who...is terrified of Edwin, and blames him for things that he didn't do, that Edwin...fears is still him. Edwin felt...among other things, threatened, and confronted John about it, badly.
Both of them misunderstood each other in ways that hurt badly, that felt like rejection. John said...'I reached out to him. He flinched away. I let him go.'
I think that's the part that hurt the most - the overture being refused.
Edwin, fully panicking and - self-sabotaging, I think. Just trying to prove that he wasn't crazy for feeling threatened, asked John who he would choose, if he had to. Because, I believe he feels, or at least felt then that...that other person's reactions to him may be so intractable that John might have to choose, eventually. Or that Edwin might have to choose to bow out, unless he's willing to hurt this person by his proximity. And John heard it as demanding he choose. John said 'I won't be made to choose by anyone', and Edwin heard, 'you're the one who pushed too hard, so I choose him.'
John said he told Edwin he could 'fuck off if he's going to spit on everything I've done and everything we've built together over this.'
Edwin thought he had already been rejected, and disappeared. John took that as confirmation that he was rejected. They both spent the next -
[Jedao waves a hand. Time. Some time. Fuck, he's exhausted.]
- convinced the other hated them, that they'd never get to speak to their brother again, and to the point of being outright catatonic about it. And they both took it as confirmation of deep-seated fears about how they will doom and destroy every good thing in their lives.
You know. The sort of things you feel when you're running around a couple years old having an intensely traumatic life where you're weirdly shaped like a grown-up and mostly it's fine, but also you've never had this big or this bad a fight before and you can't imagine how it'll ever be fixed, so it's the end of the world and it's your fault.
[It's secretly funny, because, him too! Haha. Secret jokes.]
That's the situation as I understand it, having talked extensively with both of them, barring a few details I think really aren't mine to share.
no subject
There's just one more piece. ]
And your thoughts on why Arthur did what he did, in context to Edwin?
no subject
I'm aware we're both protective assholes.
At the time...
[He stops himself. No, that's definitely excuses.]
Nevermind.
no subject
[ She keeps her eyes on him, and she'll take a sip of her drink now. Give herself a moment. ]
Then this: did you say anything after you hit him?
no subject
I didn't think I'd be sorry, ever, but I was, so I said it. I said I hoped we could both forgive each other soon.
[And that had been part of it too, in the deep-down lightning-fast tangle of reasons that suddenly connected into one decision like the current jumping the gap in an arc welder, where a Shuos must always have at least half a dozen reasons for doing things, half a dozen different angles - if they'd both done something intolerable, then Jedao couldn't stand on his grudge. Couldn't say it had been unforgivable.]
He said he'd forgiven me already, and...I took a minute, to let that matter to me. I'm worried it's for, for at least some of the wrong reasons. But I said I forgave him too. It felt, it was true at the time. I think I'll still be angry at him, sometimes, that I'll - dig it up. But...it won't be the kind of anger I can't stop holding on to.
I said I wanted to be friends again, when things were settled, and he said we'd be okay. Then he went to - be alone, for a bit.
no subject
Last one, I promise: [ she keeps her eyes on Jedao's ] why didn't you ask someone else to deal with Arthur, given the obvious conflict of interests?
[ She holds up a hand. ]
I know we haven't met. Didn't have to be me. But I'm wondering.
no subject
What do you mean? You're his warden. Who else would I confess to?
no subject
Not now. I meant before. You said you went to go talk to him.
Then: did you consider that your emotional response could result in something different than what you intended?
no subject
[He stares at her, utterly bewildered, and then his whole face cracks in one sharp, awful laugh. He strangles it as quickly as it escaped, and hunches forward for a moment, face hidden in his hands. He takes one deep, shaky breath.]
I didn't think we had an obvious conflict of interest.
[He's growling, but it's the growl of an animal in pain.]
I thought we were on the same fucking side. The same -
[He chokes, and oh fuck, he's not going to fucking cry. He's dead silent for a moment, then sits back up, face blank, his hands in his lap.]
I thought we were the two people holding it together in the same family. Going through the same worries.
[He says quietly, calm and level. Meeting her eyes again, but his are duller than before, shadowed instead of clear.]
I'd seen both of them in more pain than I'd ever seen. And I'd listened to both of them. And I'd known from the moment I realized they were fighting at all that neither of them hated each other. That even if Edwin had fucked up more and thought more wrong things, that both of them weren't hearing each other right, and the way to protect them from pain was to help them understand each other, not - protect one from the other.
And I thought Arthur knew that too. Because didn't he love them both? Didn't he talk to them both? Even if he didn't listen to Edwin very well, I didn't think it was because he hadn't tried. I thought he'd just been kind of an ass about it. I half went to reassure him that whatever it was, Edwin was already working himself up to working it out, that he didn't hate Arthur either.
[Jedao looks away, mouth tight. His fingers drum, once in a rill, along the side of his cup, like an audio track for his mind clicking back over his own assumptions and actions, like the shuttle of a loom repeating a pass over the load-bearing warp threads.]
I didn't want anyone to deal with him, or punish him. I wanted to talk to my friend, when we were both having a terrible day supporting people we both loved. And then - then he told me that.
[He hadn't felt betrayed only for Edwin's sake. Ninety, ninety-five percent. Mostly about Edwin. But he'd thought he and Arthur were in it together, caring about and worrying about both of them, because Arthur said so. Said he cared about Edwin too. And Jedao had felt the ship's gravity go wrong all around him, when that wasn't it, at all.]
no subject
That's not who she is at the heart, though. Which is why she'll wait for a moment before gesturing towards the bathroom. ]
If you need to take a minute, take a minute. Or we can come back to this tomorrow. I don't-
[ She sees something. And she does need to tell him. But she doesn't think it needs to be right now. Not at the expense of... this. More pain won't make this whole thing better. Punishment won't make it better either, in her books.
She has something she intends to ask him to do from all this, but it's not something she wants to frame that way.]
You're hurting.
no subject
A minute.
[He drinks his water. He stares into the fire. Immolation is his inheritance but he's so rarely seen real fire. It's not very popular on spaceships, strangely. He remembers the bonfire, over a year ago, on James's beach -
- no, that's too charged too, even if it's in a good way. He just looks at the fire. The light and the movement. The soft strange sounds it makes, the different shades of it. The hidden flickers of blue, even violet down in the coals. He lets it fill him up, squeeze out everything else. He breathes.
Exactly sixty seconds later -]
To answer your question, no, I didn't. I know I gave half a dozen convoluted reasons, before. That makes it sound like I really thought it over. But it wasn't like that. It was an almost instant decision. I'm a Shuos, or as close to one as makes no difference. Which is - spies and counterspies and analysts and all that.
[Assassins, too.]
It's second nature to always have at least five different reasons for doing anything. Always a strategy, always an angle. But I was also made to be General. Split-second decisions, with all the gears of strategy behind them. I can look back at myself and ask, why the fuck did I do that, and I realize that sounds terribly like rationalizing after the fact, but I promise I also do it with things that work shockingly well. All the point of which is to say, I had those reasons, down in my weird emotional guts, but I didn't think about them, and certainly not enough to think they could be wrong.
The most I thought about, in the moment, was...also not about punishing him. I just needed -
[No. Don't squirm.]
I wanted to object. More strenuously than anything I could possibly say or do while being - thoughtful, and responsible. And less strenuously than hurting him just as horribly as I could. And in between those two objective parameters, that stupid cliché from the dramas is what my stupid intuition lobbed up at me.
That's the truth. If you have more questions, I can continue. If you want me to come back later, I can do that too.
no subject
Thank you. Though I'll be honest: I never thought you were telling me anything but the truth.
[ She folds her hands in her lap and considers how she wants to talk about this. How to frame it, and how to make sure she doesn't use the gift he gave her to trample over his feelings just to manage a hat trick with this whole mess. Finally, she looks up. ]
I'd like to lay things out for you, as I understand them. And I want you to tell me if you think my conclusions have any merit.
[ She meets his eyes, if he'll meet hers. ]
I don't think "punishment" or even "accountability" really has any place here. I think the important thing is to do the right thing by the people we both care about. And I don't know how much he's mentioned me, but I do care about Edwin. And obviously about Arthur.
[ Slightly wry. ]
I'm hopeful this won't be the worst first impression.
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It's not even a first impression. I know from your handling of Collins that you're forthright, inventive, dedicated to the safety and well-being of passengers, willing to make hard calls -
[The lack of the self-defense loophole - somewhat brutal, but pragmatic and fairly-reasoned under the circumstances.]
- thorough, and professional. I assume you're principled as well, because Arthur wouldn't respect you if you weren't, and I don't believe the Admiral be so foolish as to give Arthur a permanent warden he couldn't respect.
I didn't know you were close with Edwin as well, but I'm glad to hear it.
...and I would suggest, sometimes accountability is a necessary part of doing right by people. But I believe I agree with - which is the method, and which is the objective.
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I'd agree with you. But I think in this case, this is a matter of personal accountability: to someone you said you love and someone you called a friend. [ There's nothing in her voice or body language to suggest that she's calling those out specifically in doubt; she's just explaining her reasoning.] He might be an inmate, but I don't believe I have a place when it comes to that. At least not in this discussion.
[ Now for the hard part. ]
The way I see it, from what you, Arthur, and Edwin have said to me, is that both you and Arthur fell prey to the same mistake: you both were unaware of just how much the harm done to someone you love, by someone you love, could make you willing, unconscious or no, to harm someone else you love.
You can call it protection, or 'protectiveness', but I think rationally, honestly, while there are emotional concerns to be dealt with in all corners, Edwin needs as much protection from Arthur as Arthur needs from you. [ Which is to say, none at all. ] Both you and Arthur were trying to cope. And you both were trying to cope by being competent at a thing you feel confident in, instead of being emotionally honest with someone like you should be with family.
[ She doesn't point, because that's rude, but her gaze settles on him a little more distinctly. ]
Objections are 'what you did is unacceptable'. They're words. You 'needed' some sort of retribution. Just like Arthur. You can talk about what you are and what you do and how you work all you like. How it could have been worse this way or that way. Fact is, you both did something stupid and harmful to someone you care about when they thought they could talk to you safely even though they'd fucked up.
[ She folds her arms. ]
And I'd like you to tell him that so that he doesn't decide that his own judgment can never be trusted again instead of realizing this whole thing is a mess and no one was on their best game.
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He hears her out, as much as she wants to say, despite her insisting at the top that it isn't about Arthur being an inmate at all, like Jedao came to her because he just missed his psych team so much.
It doesn't matter. He's not here to litigate or exonerate anything. She's made her request. It's just that she's also made a few rather forced parallels, and he actually doesn't want to tell Arthur something he doesn't believe.]
...well, you're making some messy unsupported assumptions about what coping and emotional honesty look like for someone you don't know, but the main conclusion is sound.
Everything from 'fact is' onward, I agree with completely. Will that suffice?
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[ She certainly isn't going to pretend she's perfect, or that her reads are on the money 100% of the time. She's got some advantages on her side, but that doesn't make her perfect. The Koskela brothers are proof of that. ]
You offered a lot, [ it's a subtle sort of 'thank you' ] but you can't offer experience and knowing you for longer than five minutes; I explained it so you could see how I got to where I was going. Call it a 'field decision'.
[ That's what it is, after all. She certainly hadn't gotten a file folder and a few days to investigate. ]
If you ever want to talk to me again after this, maybe I'll know more then.
But that's what's relevant right now. More than sufficient. Thank you.
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Give it a few weeks. Then we'll all have new problems.
Any preferences on the timeline? And, mm.
Arthur did start by asking if I'd come to break his nose, and it wasn't all sarcasm. So I'm not sure how safe he actually felt. Any thoughts you have on how to avoid making him feel unsafe again would be welcome.
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Normally, I'd say 'communicators' but that might come off like you'd punch him if you were in person with him, which isn't a great vibe.
Maybe offer the decision up to him. Let him steer how, when, where.
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I'll keep that in mind.
Thank you for listening.
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He walked in and told her he hit her inmate. It was going to be a little strained no matter what.]
Thank you for telling me. I do realize that's not something you had to do.
[ A breath in. Then- ]
How's Edwin doing?
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Nobody would have made me. But yes I did.
[He did have to. Because.]
Better than he was. I need to...tell him some things John told me, that were leading to Edwin's worst misinterpretations. I think he'll be ready to talk to him again soon.
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I'm glad to hear that. I know he was upset about it.
[ He'll get the warmest smile she's given him since he mentioned hitting Arthur. ]
He's a really good kid. I'm sure you're a big part of that.
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