Before and After

From RPGnet
Jump to: navigation, search

(Thanks go to Andy, aka Der Crackmeister, for playing with me.--Maer)

Before…


Joshua stopped in front of the door to Rina's room, taking a moment to collecting his thoughts. When he agreed to borrow Melvin Jackson's identity, he knew that he needed to warn the crew about the process; what it meant for his role on the ship the next few days. He didn't really expect anyone to truly understand until after the surgery, but they deserved the opportunity to try.


Rina was last on his list for many reasons. Her ability to constantly throw him off guard. The likelihood of a justified paranoid response. But mostly his own fear that he wouldn't be able to make her truly grasp the transformation he was about to go through. Melvin Jackson could destroy the fragile relationship developing between him and Rina. He didn't want to lose it, even if most of the feelings between the two of them came from his side.


He took a deep breath. Here goes, he thought as knocked hard on the door twice. "Rina, it's Joshua. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?"


 ***

Saturday, 26 Oct 2520
Kuiper II Class, Summer’s Gift
En Route to Highgate
23:30hrs, ship’s time


        It was late and I’d just turned in when I heard Joshua knock on my door. I hauled out of bed and grabbed my robe, shrugging it on before tripping the lock from the bunk console.

        “It’s open,” I said, raking my hands through my hair and standing at my desk.


 ***

He opened the door, stepped inside, quietly closing it behind him. He saw Rina in her robe, standing at her desk. Not a single inappropriate thought? Definitely nervous.


Sitting down on the bunk, he turned towards the desk and Rina. "I won't take long. I know it's late. You're the last one I need to talk to. After that, I should probably get some sleep. Big day tomorrow." There was an understatement, he thought.


 ***

        “Take the time you need.” I perched a hip against my desk. I was tired, yes, but I wanted to hear what the man had to say.


 ***

He shook his head. "I'm not sure there's enough time in the 'Verse." He unconsciously rubbed the right side of his face with his palm. "Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I will be isolating myself from the crew as much as possible once the surgery happens tomorrow. I didn't want you to take it the wrong way. The less everyone sees of me, the better for everyone."


He lowered his head and rubbed the back of it, looking away from Rina. Maybe it was better not to even try to explain. Just let her see tomorrow. "I'm going to make you uncomfortable and I won't know what to do with you. So there you have it."


 ***

        "It's okay, Joshua. I was thinking along the same lines, actually. If you have to impersonate someone well enough that people he saw every day wouldn't realize he'd been swapped, you're going to need some time alone to prepare. I'm surprised you could do it in a week. That mine sounds like a fairly big operation. That's a lot of people to fool."

        I thought back to the one time I'd had to do something similar. I'd had only two days to prep myself and I went somewhere my assumed identity hadn't been. It was nothing near the complexity Joshua was attempting, and I knew it.


 ***

"It's a big task, but..." She got it but she didn't get it. But it was silly to expect she would.


"It's more than impersonation, although I can do that. I'm going to pack myself away one day at a time. After I lose this face tomorrow, it will probably be more clear."


Joshua stood up and took a step toward the door, taking a deep breath as he did. "I'm probably overreacting anyway, since this will be the first time doing this with someone other than my handlers. Anyway, it's late and I've said what I needed to say."


 ***

        “Joshua, wait.” I could see I’d have to be more explicit.


 ***

He stepped forward one more step and put his hand on the door. "If you really need me to, I will. But it's fine. I'm fine. As long as you understand that I won't want to see you because I won't be Joshua. Or at least I won't be me for long. I don't have many boxes to put away. Just got here, after all."


 ***

        Yes. More explicit.

        "Do you remember what I'd said about Mike offering me a chance at payback during the war?" I crossed my arms and looked at him. "I had to assume the identity of an innocent woman because I needed access to something sensitive. And when I took her place, I had to take it all the way. I don't know if Mike pulled the trigger or if one of his men did it, but she had to die. They used her body to cover my tracks and when the job was over, I walked away with another fake identity and it was like she'd disappeared into thin air. During the job, I had to .... hide myself so deeply that what I'd normally do as easily as breathing, I couldn't, because for her it would have been impossible. But it cut both ways. I had to be outgoing and make friends, because she would have. I had to get taken to bed by those friends, because she would have. I had to publicly support the Feds in the war, because she would have. Everything she'd written about herself in her journal, I had to be. I had to squeeze my brain into a tinier box, dream tinier dreams, dare tinier tasks...because she couldn't have done more."

        I scrubbed my face and felt the hard injections under my fingertips where my cheekbones and chin had been built up. I snatched my hands away and tucked them in my armpits, to keep from fidgeting.

        "I didn't spend a lot of time looking in the mirror then, Joshua, because I couldn't afford to. The only time I could be my true self was lying in my bunk at night when everyone else in the dorm was asleep, and I could finally breathe. I lived a lie. For fifteen months. I couldn't have done it if I'd had Mike working next to me. Or my friends. Or my family. It would have dragged my true self to the surface and my cover would have been blown. And I would have been shot as the spy I was.

        "So if you feel I won't understand why you're shutting yourself up in your quarters for the rest of the trip, you're mistaken. I do understand. I understand that while you're Jackson, you can't be Joshua and therefore there can't be Rina-and-Joshua. I saw that coming a mile away. I also realized that there's a chance that you won't be able to put aside Jackson's identity. That it's a risk you took on when you agreed to do this. I understand that, too. But if it's possible to carry something forward with you while you're Jackson, then know this: we have your back, Joshua, and we'll be waiting for you when you come in from the cold."

        I pushed off the desk and wrapped my arms around him, and hugged him long and hard.

        "Thank you for telling me. I know why you felt you had to, and I appreciate it. Just remember this is goodbye for now, but not goodbye forever."


 ***

He hugged Rina back for a while, not wanting to let go of what was likely to be some of his last real physical contact for some time. Finally, he let go and simply said, "Thank you." He opened the door and walked out quickly, pausing only for a second to close the door.


If he stayed...


If he said any more...


He wasn't sure he'd be able to make himself walk out. Borrowing had never felt so lonely before.


 ***

...and After.


 ***

A loud crash comes from the direction of the galley, the sound of a plate smashing into a hundred small pieces, followed by the clattering of a pot. The brief moment of silence that comes next is promptly followed by a loud grumble and someone mumbling in a low voice.


 ***

Monday, 28 Oct 2520


        I knew it was Joshua--Jackson, I corrected myself--in the galley and I dithered with my notes on the couch. Had it been Joshua still, I would have gone in to investigate, maybe lent a hand. It was Jackson, however, and I admit I had little patience for the man's clumsy attempts at being suave and sophisticated. That sort of thing had irritated and bored me as a schoolgirl, and it irritated and bored me now.

        However, that didn't release me from simple human decency to another fellow being. With a sinking feeling of resignation, I put my notes down and got myself to the galley and poked my head inside.

        "You okay in there?"


 ***

The galley looked like a food powered hand grenade had been rolled into the center of the room. A broken plate lay scattered on the floor with an overturned pot lying next to it, pasta cascading out of it. Red sauce was bubbling over the lip of a skillet on the burner and splattering the surface. Spice bottles haphazardly sat scattered to the right side of the stove, away from their normal storage spot, and loose rosemary and thyme were spread all over the counter to the left.


Jackson looked up from where he had gotten down on the floor to pick up the pieces of the plate that were scattered across the floor. "The dish sl...sl...slipped from my hand. It must have had something on it when I picked it up. You really ought to buy better plates." He was hunched slightly as he said it, his hand running over the back of his head.


 ***

        Better plates? Looks to me we need a better man. And I bit my tongue on the words before I could say them. My dislike for the mannerisms shouldn't be visited on the owner. I could see that Jackson was sincerely trying to fill Joshua's shoes--and that's how I had to look at it to preserve the masquerade--and tempered my response.

        "Why don't you take care of the spices while I get the plate? These edges are sharp and I wouldn't want you to cut yourself."

        Seeing the plate was beyond gluing back together, I fetched the broom and dustpan and started sweeping up.


 ***

"I was just about to clean that up." He made a half hearted effort to clean up the loose spice, getting as much on the floor as he got on his hand to throw away. "Those second class cabins are so small, I...I..thought I would just get out and help cook. How hard could it be, really?"


He leaned over and turned off the burner with the same hand that had the spices in it, causing them to flutter all over the stove, but he didn't even seem to notice. He kept his distance from Rina, but constantly kept his eyes on her with his head lowered down. "It's understandable with your ship that you might not have the best cooking equipment."


 ***

        Really biting my tongue hard, I pressed my lips together and kept my eyes on the task at my feet.


 ***

Jackson held his hands out in front of him, waving his palms towards her like a bad parliamentary candidate on the campaign trail. "When we get to Highgate," he said, his tone rising slightly higher than his normal dreary monotone, "I'll take you out to dinner to thank you for helping me out here. I can..can..dip into the mine funds. Nobody notices because I do a really good job of filing it."


And he laughed, the uneven, high pitched sound echoing through the galley.


 ***

        "We'll see," I said with a non-committal shrug. I got the last of the big pieces into the trash and got down on my knees to eyeball the deck, looking for any smaller slivers I might have missed. Finding none I set to work on the food next. I tried not to compare sharing the galley with Jackson with either Christian or Joshua, but it was hard for me not to miss the mess Jackson had made of things.

        Which, on a certain level, only testified to Joshua's proficiency at assuming an identity and living it. The hands that ineffectually swept at the spilled spices were the same hands that had deftly cooked and cleaned a week before, but the owner of the latter was no longer in residence. Or at least buried so deep as to make no difference.

        I was just grateful that Jackson's face wasn't enough like Joshua's to confuse one for the other. Hearing Jackson but seeing Joshua would have been too much for me. As it was, I tried to spend as little time with Jackson as possible, to avoid that internal dissonance of expectation, of wanting someone who wasn't there.

        In short, I missed Joshua. And it was something I couldn't let on where Jackson could pick up on it. Jackson would get the wrong idea and having to fend off the man's attentions where a week ago I would have welcomed them would have been the absolute last straw.

        Seriously, it's a good thing he doesn't have Joshua's face.

        I got the pasta onto the dust pan and stood up to dump it...and bumped right into him.

        Damn.


 ***

Jackson bolted backwards when she bumped into him, an instant reaction. "I didn't mean to, um, uh, get in your way." He backed up another step and whacked the back of his head into the fridge.


"Maybe...maybe....maybe I should just get out of your way." He pushed his glasses back up his nose with his right index finger as he tried to maneuver around Rina while keeping his head staring at the floor. "I do have important mine correspondence that I should finish before we arrive. It would be good if we could arrive a little faster, of course. Maybe your pilot could make an effort? And you could do whatever it is you do, which I'm sure is important."


And he continued making his way toward the exit.


 ***

        "Yeah, sure. Go ahead," I said to the walls, to the countertops, to anything but him. I didn't watch him go but dumped the pasta and started on the rest of the mess. I paused and took in the spills and splashes, of utensils littering the counters and the dirtied pots in the sink, at boxes and bags leaning crazily against the various bowls and canisters Jackson had taken down and failed to clean or stow.

        It was a far cry from Joshua's precision and creativity, or even Christian's looser style. The galley sat in chaos and no longer imbued with the spirit of either man, it was just a messy room that needed cleaning. Time I got to it, then. I took a deep breath and working methodically, I cleaned and scrubbed and put things back to rights. And mindful that the crew still needed feeding, I started throwing together a meal that I knew they'd eat.

        I didn't let myself dwell on who had taught me the recipe, but pulled the ingredients I needed and got to work.


 ***

Jackson paused at the doorway and looked at Rina starting to clean. For a minute, his face softened. "Sorry," he whispered, with echoes of Joshua's voice. "Too much packed away."


He then shook his head, as if throwing off something that didn't belong and headed back to his cabin to figure out a new way to contact the resistance once he got back to Highgate.


 ***


Since this season turned out to be RP heavy, it's only fair to include the link to everyone's efforts.

Go back to In Vino Patefacio | Go to A Hard Practicality
Go to Peripatetica - Rina's Journal entry and RP log
Go to Rina's Russian Glossary
Go to Rina's Crew Page
Go to EPISODES or TIMELINE