Getting *One* Thing Right
She'd spent most of the night and the past day sequestered and lost in thought, dealing with her demons. She'd spent so much time crying that her eyes and throat felt raw and she felt even more exhausted than usual. A glance in the mirror told her that she looked like hell and Tian paused for a moment to do what she could with a few judicious touches of make-up to repair at least some of the damage, though even her doctor-face couldn't hide the shadows in her dark eyes.
She walked down the corridor to Val's room and knocked on the door. When he opened it, she looked up at him from her petite height and said evenly, "We need to talk."
"Yep," Val stated simply. He motioned for her to enter. "Come on in. Unless you'd rather take this to neutral ground." Neutral ground framed the discussion almost in war terms, but Val didn't think that was too far off. And it wasn't even that he was at war with Tian. No, it was more that the ideals of where he wanted to be were at war with the reality of where he was. And Tian was the front-facing representation of those ideals.
This job left him feeling unbalanced in ways that being a floor manager never had. He needed to find his center again and he was never going to do that if the tension between him and Tian was constantly on high.
"Here is fine," Tian said quietly, stepping inside. She waited until he closed the door behind her, clasping her hands behind her back as she looked at him. "Would you have pulled the trigger?" she asked baldly.
"In this case, no. At least with the idea of killing him in cold blood. But if you're asking if I'm willing to kill outside combat? I don't know," he admitted. "I would like to think I wouldn't. But I'm never going to be able to know until the moment is in front of me."
Tian had to respect his honesty and she blew out a slow breath. "It's one thing to be willing to use lethal force to protect yourself or someone else, Val.... it's something altogether different to pull a weapon on an unarmed man. When the guns come out, the person holding it has already made the decision to pull the trigger. It is no longer a threat, it is a life-or-death situation." She shifted her weight on her feet, her posture still a semi-formal stance.
"You asked me if I had problems with cheating the people we were dealing with... I told you I did. You made your decision and gave the order, and I followed it. Up to this point, this ship has had a looser command structure than I'm used to, but it still has a command structure that I was willing to follow because in my judgement of you, you're a good man doing the best you can in bad circumstances." She paused and admitted, "I don't trust my own assessment of the situation any more. And although you've said you want me to stay aboard..... Val, I left the navy for exactly that kind of action."
"Does it help to know that I'm not one hundred percent certain of my own actions?" Because he wasn't.
"Was it the wrong action? Maybe." Val threw up his hands in uncertainty. "But I'm not sure what my other choices were in that moment. Maybe if I had done something better or smarter, I wouldn't have been there. But that wasn't the moment I was in. I saw the crew getting threatened to get pulled in and maybe turned over to the feds. And I'm not sure that wouldn't be a death sentence for you, Tian."
He plopped down in his chair, slightly dejected. "Gorram hell if I know. I used to be certain and now I'm not. But the one thing I know is that you and this crew are my responsibility. When given a choice, I'm going to choose the one that I think keeps my people alive and not in jail." Val had screwed up so many of his responsibilities. Maybe he really was doomed to become his father.
Val looked up at Tian and motioned for her to take a seat across from her.
Biting her lip, Tian lowered herself into the seat. "We had this argument when I still couldn't even begin to articulate my problems, Val.... I don't know if it was right or wrong. I only know that ... if you want me to stay here, I'm going to need to reconcile what just happened." She rested her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped between them.
"Look.... I realize that my life has been pretty gorram sheltered up to this point. What happened at Vandenburg...." She hesitated and then admitted, "It shattered my worldview. And I'm having a hard time finding my way back." Her tone was bitter. "And Lt. Christian is definitely not helping matters, quite frankly."
"I'm sorry for forcing the argument on you. Sorry that I forced you into doing something you were uncomfortable with. And sorry that your life has been broken that way. I understand what that feels like." Maybe in a different direction or dimension than what happened to Tian, but there were parallels. It was one of the reasons he liked the doctor so much. They shared similar mannerisms but they also had experienced the same destruction of their previous, stable lives. But the difference in Val's case, he figured, was that Val already had experienced some of the seedier parts of what life could be like. And Tian hadn't.
"What can I do to help?"
"I wish I knew," Tian said with a sigh, running both her hands through her short, dark hair in an attitude of distraction. "Here's the thing: I want a definite thought process on this laid out. *ARE* we going to continue to be a smuggling vessel? I.... can live with that if we're smuggling things people actually need, Val. But I can't live with being a crew whose reputation is that they'll cheat or steal from their own clients. I get that the rules of the Core no longer apply to my life... the life I knew is gone. But I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror. And the only way I can do that is if I know up front where our lines in the sand are."
"Every time I think I know where my line is, Tian, it gets redrawn." He had chosen to be the captain of this ship and even when he wanted to scream at the Verse for expecting him to have all the answers, it was his job to at least pretend that he had some. Val felt like he had been failing at that part recently."Do I *want* to be a smuggling vessel? Not particularly. I don't know that I have objections to smuggling, itself. It's just a profession. But from a practical standpoint, Delilah is way too recognizable a profile." Val ran his hand through his hair as he thought it through. "But honestly, I'm not sure it matters what I want or don't want. I think if we want to survive and keep moving, we're going to have to smuggle, or at least be open to the idea. A lot of legitimate options have been closed to us." And a lot of them weren't open to us to begin with.
"I will do what it takes to protect this crew...to protect my people. That's *my* line in the sand, it seems."
She could respect his line. "There are going to be times I don't agree with you," Tian said quietly. "What are we going to do with them? As you saw -- even with my own misgivings, I will still follow orders. But if you give one that I can't follow, I need to know how you expect it dealt with. I have no issue with force -- even lethal force -- if it comes to a life and death situation. But I cannot and will not condone or participate in excessive force." She paused.
"There's enough blood already on my hands in the past couple of months, and even saving Nuri isn't enough to wipe that slate clean in my mind. If we are out here killing people, I'll be the first person to turn us in, Val." There was regret in her tone, but it was firm on that point.
Val's eyes glanced over to Black Rose, resting on his desk. The black metal of his father's revolver seemed to absorb the meager light in Val's cabin. "I wanted the gun as an intimidation tactic. Even if I had shot him, it would have been in the foot, something designed to slow the man down. Excessive force causes more trouble than it solves problems." Val thought himself as a pragmatic sort of man. He wanted to do what would get the ship where it needed to go with the least amount of effort and pain for the crew. If that meant pulling a gun on an insurance agent that was using indentured servitude as a bargaining chip, then so be it.
"If you disagree with me, make sure to pull me aside and let me know why. I'm not perfect and I'm not against rescinding a command if I prove to be wrong. I will promise you that I will not let this crew use lethal force unless it is required to save our lives. In return, I need you to come to grips with the other things we might have to end up doing to keep from ending up in an Alliance prison. I know it won't be easy for you." Change never was, he thought.
Tian nodded slightly, her gaze shifting from his face. There was a kind of sorrow to her expression that said it was going to be extremely difficult for her. "I'm working on it," she told him quietly. "Don't expect me to be happy about what we have to do. But I understand it." When her dark eyes came back to him, she added, "It's not as if I have any other choice. Turning myself in isn't going to make anything better -- you're already on their radar and they'll just make an example of all of us now." And that was her responsibility -- the fact that she'd taken passage on this ship with those weapons, even unknowingly, in tow had doomed the Delilah. She would have to live with at least that part of it, Rachel had been right about that, too.
The unfairness of the situation wasn't exactly something she spent much time dwelling on, but there was some amount of anger at it in the rigid line of her jaw as she stated softly, "I didn't do anything wrong, gorram it. But that's not going to help me or you or this ship either. So... now I guess I'm in for a pound." She sighed.
Moving to stand, she shoved her hands into the back pockets of her pants. "I could use your thoughts on whether resigning from the IRP is a good move or a bad one," she told him, moving restlessly in the confined space. "It's not as if any of the footage that we sent back has gotten us more supplies anyway... and I've been keeping them abreast of our movements. Which may be a bad thing." There was a long pause. "And I need to let you know that my son has a space-based posting... and I'd like your permission to see him whenever we're in the general vicinity. That said.... his posting is Spec Ops, Val. Gathering intel on insurgents." She grinned faintly. "So I'll understand if you want me to just make arrangements to be dropped off and picked back up after a visit. It could put the ship far closer to Feds than may be safe." But she's not going to NOT see her son, her pride in him obvious.
"It can't be any more dangerous than the things we've been doing. We'll find a way to make it work. Sort of like we'll find a way to go somewhere where Vikki can build her wells. I try...just not very successfully sometimes." The look on his face was rueful.
Val turned his attention back to the IRP. "I'm stubborn, Tian. We're going to do some ugly things going forward. I think its unavoidable. But that only makes me think we should keep trying to balance that with doing some good things." Do some ugly things to make Poco happy and Tian unhappy. Then do some good things to make Tian happy and Poco unhappy. Put your left foot in and shake it all about... Val's mother had sung that to him when he was little.
"Maybe we can find a way to set up a drop system so the IRP only finds out where we've been a while back, and not where we are right now."
Tian simply nodded. "Honestly, I don't even know if we still work for them. The contract was for 30 days, and basically we were to get our own funding from then on. Or if we wanted more supplies and funding from them, we had to show we'd accomplished things. I guess I better send a Wave and determine if we're even still under contract." She sighed, walking toward his door. "Let me know if you need anything." There wasn't anything more she really could say or do at this point. The situation was what it was, there was no changing it.
"Tian?" He waited for her to turn back around. "We're going to be okay. If there is anything I need, it's for you to believe that. After all, I need my first to believe in the cause."
Tian stopped in the doorway, her brain stuttering to a halt as she parsed the implication. "What?" she said, clearly rather stunned to wordless gaping for a moment.
Val stood up and walked over to the doctor. "I can't do this by myself. I need someone I can trust, that will keep me honest. Poco's right out, I don't understand how Rachel's thought processes work, and Vikki's too naive." Plus, he thought, probably not the best idea to make someone with a crush on him his second-in-command.
He put out his hand to shake, portraying confidence that she would accept. "No better way to make sure we keep heading in the right direction."
Tian stared at the proffered hand, shaking her head slightly. "Val..." She trailed off, meeting his eyes. His breakdown of the situation was irrefutable. But she didn't know what to say to this, either. Chain of command she was good with... she just hadn't ever been in position to be high in a ship's chain. She didn't know a gorram thing about running a ship. And she wasn't sure she was equipped to be this man's XO. Then again.... *HE* didn't know a gorram thing about running a ship either.
Slowly, her movements halting, she slid her hand into his. "This is Rachel's home... so when you're confident that you and she are on the same page, you need to offer it to her. This.... I don't know that I'm a good fit. But I'll serve at your pleasure until then."
He shook Tian's hand firmly. "You're as good a fit as I am," he said, unwittingly echoing Tian's own thoughts. "We're never going to be Alliance precision on this ship, even if that was I wanted. We'll find what works for us as a crew and right now, that's having you beside me as a firm voice and a guiding hand."
He then, with all the precision of a long time floor manager, maneuvered her through the doorway and said, "Now go get some sleep. You look like hell." The words were harsh but the tone was kind. Tian treated herself too harshly, Val thought, and part of taking care of his people was making sure his people took care of themselves.
Tian laughed quietly, finding herself in the hallway. "Speak for yourself, Captain," she retorted mildly. She sincerely doubted that he'd listen to her 'firm voice and guiding hand,' considering the way things had already been going. But... it was nice to know that not EVERYONE was out to get her. "Thank you," she said to him on a more somber note as she turned to go. For all her uncertainties and anxiety about the situation and her place in it, ... it was nice to be wanted. It was a feeling she hadn't really experienced much in the past few months since Vandenburg.
"You're welcome," he said softly to himself as he went back into his room. At least, he thought, he had managed to do ONE thing right lately.
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