Folding the Flag
“Mom!”
Her son’s voice resounding through the house from downstairs brought Tian’s head whipping around toward her bedroom door. “David?” she called in an alarmed tone.
She met him halfway down the flight of stairs, his position two steps lower bringing them almost eye to eye, and even as she reached him the young man put his hands on her shoulders. “Mom, what in the gorram world are you doing?” He searched her face with worried hazel eyes.
She’d hoped to tell him herself. Damn the base’s grapevine. Putting her hand on her son’s cheek she offered a smile. “Retiring,” she said simply. “Come downstairs, have some coffee.” With a gentle nudge for him to precede her down the stairs, Tian followed him and they made their way to the kitchen.
“WHY are you retiring? I thought you loved what you do,” David asked quietly. He was clearly struggling with the sudden shift in his parent.
“I do love what I do,” Tian said patiently. “But I can’t, in good conscience, keep doing it for the Alliance navy, David.” Not that they'd let me anyway, she thought bitterly. She knew a scapegoating when she saw one.
He settled into a stool at the counter and went still, watching her with wary eyes as she fixed their drinks. “What are you saying?” he queried in a tight voice. Oh, maaaan… are they right? Is she an Indy traitor? D avidcould feel the panic starting in his stomach.
“I’m saying the same thing I said to you when I got back,” Tian replied in her calm tone, settling onto the stool next to him. “What I saw out there was horrifying. What we did to a bunch of civilians during our retreat… was not acceptable. I can’t continue to wear the uniform right now. I am… unhappy… with the way things are being run, and the most important part of being a soldier is to believe absolutely that you are doing the right thing. That you are fighting for the right reasons. I don’t know if I believe that anymore.” God help her, she knew her words sounded like sedition, but she'd already set her course.
To say David was floored was perhaps an overstatement but not by much. His mother had been in the Alliance navy his whole life. His father had died in the uniform during the first U-War. And David himself had gone on to become a soldier as well. To hear his mother’s words made him afraid for her. Unreal! They broke her. Oh God… “Mom, this is crazy,” he said softly, reaching for her hand to squeeze it. “You know that, right? You were a captive for months. I know they treated you well, but you… you can’t tell me that just three months with a bunch of Independents has changed your entire viewpoint!”
“Of course not!” Tian objected, wishing that her son didn't believe that of her. But she had to protect him too.
“Then what?” he demanded, his eyes intent. “You have to see that what you’re doing is just… confirming it. They already think you’re compromised!”
No kidding, son. “No, David. But this has shaken my belief in the military’s actions, and I can’t continue to support those. Those people on the Border and the Rim… THEY are our people too! And with this plague still running rampant, frankly… I feel that I can do more good out there than I can here in the Core right now.”
“You’ve lost. Your. Mind!” David released her hand and dragged both of his hands through his dark hair, climbing off the stool to pace his mother’s living room. “How could you do this? How can you just turn your back on a 20-plus year career?! How can you disgrace us like this? How can you turn traitor, Mom? Do you know what this is going to do to me?”
Tian’s back teeth clenched tight and she couldn’t unlock her jaw to make a response in the sudden wave of fury that passed over her. If only you had a clue that I'm doing this as much to protect you as anything else.
“Do you even care?? How can you turn your back on everything you raised me to believe?” David demanded, turning to her with a look of combined fear and anger. “What the gorram hell did they do to you out there?”
It was that look of despair and confusion that hurt but Tian rolled her eyes. “Wow. I forgot how dramatic you can get, son,” she replied, forcing an amused smile to her lips. “I’m not turning my back on the Alliance, David. I’m not a traitor. I’ve been a soldier longer than you’ve been alive. Your father and I both believed in what the Alliance stands for. Questioning decisions that the leadership makes does not make me a traitor. Quite the contrary, in fact. I cannot and will not act against the Alliance, I have not changed sides or anything so crazy.”
She paused. “But I’m already up before review boards with the navy. It’s highly probable that they’re going to--at best--discharge me. By putting in my retirement papers now I am saving myself a bit of disgrace--at least on paper.” She hoped. The innuendo, she could live with, as long as it didn't touch David. “If I’m out by the time they get their heads out of their arses, the most they can do is put a censure in my record for not attempting to escape.” Maybe. Truth be told, Tian wasn’t entirely sure what they might decide to do to her, but she was hoping this move would mitigate the trouble facing her son.
David continued to pace and he shook his head. “You have a great advocate, fight this,” he insisted. "Prove your innocence!"
“Son,” Tian said gently, “I don’t want to fight them." She couldn't win and she knew it. The court of public opinion was already turning against her. "I want to get out of the navy and I want to go back out there and help those people. They didn’t deserve what happened to them."
“You’re going out on the Rim?!” David demanded, flabbergasted. He put his hands on his hips in impotent fury as he paced. Who are you and what the hell have you done with my mother?? “Tai-kong suo-yo duh shing-chiou sai-jin wuh duh pee-goo!”*
Both of Tian’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” she retorted, struggling to hide laughter.
Her son had the grace to look abashed. “Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?” he asked desperately. “I can’t … the idea of you out there on the Rim with no back-up, Mom, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.” David grimaced, coming to a stop in front of his mother. He had almost a full foot on her in height, but she always seemed so much taller with her take-charge personality.
“Nothing,” she confirmed. “I have to follow my conscience. Look, you’re acting like you’re the parent and I’m the kid about to go off into the Verse alone, David. Give me a little credit here, will you? This isn’t my first time around the block.”
He sighed. “I know.” When she gave him The Look, David rolled his eyes and insisted, “I know! It just makes me crazy to think of you out there without a combat unit at your back, that’s all.” He hated that he was starting to believe that they were right... that maybe his mother HAD turned out there. Even if she'd helped them, though... maybe it was because they'd tricked her. His brain was spinning millions of miles a minute trying to come up with scenarios that he could live with.
“Well, now you know how I feel even when you do have a combat unit at your back,” Tian retorted.
Reaching up to pull her son in and hug him tightly, her heart ached. He wasn’t her baby anymore. He was a grown man with his own strongly held beliefs. You’d be so gorram proud of him, Danny. One hand cradled the back of his head as she’d done when he was a child and when he gently pulled away, leaving a kiss on her cheek as he did so, she smiled up at him. “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I’ll Wave every chance I get. You just make sure to keep your head down. I don't want what's happening to me to make it worse for you. So if you don't hear from me for a while, don't panic, okay?"
He didn't like that at all. David searched her face, clearly still uncertain of her. What are you DOING? I'm so scared for you. I don't want to believe them. Please tell me something to make all of their accusations not true. "I love you, Mom."
Tian smiled at him, her dark eyes intent. "I love you more than my life, David." She bit her lip and then said quietly, "And you tell them whatever you need to, son. Make sure they know where your loyalties are."
His jaw clenched as she gave him permission to essentially turn her in for her seditious words of earlier. "I'll be fine, Mom. You just... watch your back out there. Please." He didn't know what else to say, so instead of saying anything he helped her pack, all the while wondering if his mother was losing her mind.
HOW TO SPEAK CHINESE[edit]
Shove all the planets in the Universe up my ass!, according to “Firefly’s 15 Best Uses of Chinese Profanity”
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