[ 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.
I just got lucky, scooping him up first. He's such a good kid.
Right after he came on board, we had a flood that changed people's ages. I was...I was turned into someone very young, who'd been hurt very badly. He'd only had about six weeks of anyone ever being kind to him, but he wrapped me up and gave it all back tenfold. He was so - ready, so hungry to learn it.
[He doesn't pry about the project - she's been deliberately vague, so it would be rude. He tells her the story, briefly but vividly, sipping occasionally until his water is gone.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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What do you mean? You're his warden. Who else would I confess to?
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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?
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[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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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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I just got lucky, scooping him up first. He's such a good kid.
Right after he came on board, we had a flood that changed people's ages. I was...I was turned into someone very young, who'd been hurt very badly. He'd only had about six weeks of anyone ever being kind to him, but he wrapped me up and gave it all back tenfold. He was so - ready, so hungry to learn it.
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[ Her own face is pretty soft as she thinks of him. ]
Smart too. He cares a lot about doing the right thing.
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To be fair, I don't think most people even know we know one another.
We sort of... stumbled into working together on something.
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