(no subject)

[regan_tam]

Gabriel was going to work late, he said; no need to wait up.

Regan's in bed, therefore, but not asleep yet. The light's on, and she's leaning back against a backrest made of pillows piled against the headboard. Her current novel -- a comedy of manners by Mahfouz Wong, which she's finding well-written but short on sensible plot devices -- lies on the counterpane beside her.

She's studying a sheaf of papers, instead. Drafts of Gabriel's speech to announce his candidacy.

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[gabriel_tam]

Some time after this, the door to the bedroom opens.

Gabriel's expression is very carefully blank as he walks in. He sets his own binder of papers on the chest of drawers that stands near the door as he walks by it, heading into the bathroom that adjoins their suite.

He doesn't speak -- in fact, he almost seems not to be aware of Regan at all.

The door shuts behind him. Water can be heard running in the sink.

[regan_tam]

Regan glances at him as he enters, about to say something like 'How did it go?'

One look at his face, and both pleasantries and speech notes are utterly forgotten.

She watches in frozen silence, waiting for him to say something, to notice her, and knowing already that -- whatever the hell happened -- he's not likely to.

The bathroom door closes with a quiet click.

Regan sets aside her notes, moving with slow unconscious deliberation, as if each motion matters. The coverlet carefully folded back; slippers stepped into. There's a loose robe hanging by her side of the bed, always; she shrugs it on as she moves towards the bathroom. Belts it.

Her slippers are a sussuration against thick carpet.

She sets her hand on the knob. Hesitates only a moment, and then opens it.

She's deeply, deeply worried; she's calm, over it, because that is always her first reaction to crisis.

[gabriel_tam]

He's standing with his back to the door, and doesn't turn as she enters. Both hands are braced on the countertop, one on each side of of the gleaming marble sink, gripping tightly.

Gabriel's knuckles are white.

His head is down, so that he doesn't have to look in the mirror; his breathing is harsh and slightly ragged.

[regan_tam]

A moment of silence, one shoulder against the doorframe. Arms unconsciously wrapped around her stomach.

Watching.

It's been... a long time since she's seen him so.

(Gabriel's voice, low and and thick and ruthlessly, desperately controlled: Simon's gone.)

A long time.

Regan bites the inside of her lip, fingers unconsciously tightening on her upper arms.

Then she steps forward -- one step, two. Each one as if through thick mud -- and sets a hand very lightly on his back.

[gabriel_tam]

He doesn't react, not at first -- but slowly, some of the tension that she can feel under her hand fades.

"I didn't want to disturb you."

It's low, and roughly said, as though he's having trouble speaking.

[regan_tam]

Soft, "I was at a dead-end anyway."

Half-truth. A frustrating paragraph, but the phrasing would have come eventually.

There are priorities.

[gabriel_tam]

He nods, but still doesn't look at her. Silence draws out again, broken by the splashing water-- and eventually by an agonized whisper.

It's barely a breath, although each word is painfully clear.

"Regan?"

Every man has a breaking point, and Gabriel Tam has been battling both self-doubt and the bitter knowledge of past mistakes for a long, long time.

"Am I doing the right thing?"

[regan_tam]

Regan's eyes close of their own accord, and she breathes out through her nose in silent pain.

This is the voice of her worst doubts, in the insomniac silence after midnight. It shouldn't be Gabriel's voice.

Silence, for a moment.

Then, low, "Things have to change, Gabriel. This -- what the government did, what it's doing -- it can't be allowed to go on. No more."

[gabriel_tam]

"Tiānna..."

He turns to her then, putting both arms around her and holding tight-- a drowning man seeking support or salvation.

[regan_tam]

Thirty years of marriage. They know each other without thought, by now; they fit to each other.

Regan's arms go around him, immediate and automatic. She rests the side of her head against his, and one hand settles gently on his hair, fingers cupping the back of his head.

[gabriel_tam]

It's been a long time since he's truly felt that he could share any of his deepest concerns with another.

It was always Regan, before everything else had happened-- before they'd become so careful with each other as well as with the world outside the estate's walls.

Before she'd turned him in.

None of it matters now, at this particular moment. Gabriel feels his age, every wearying year --oddly, a line from an ancient poem flickers through his mind.

An old man in a dry month.

He holds her in his arms, breathing in the subtle scent of her hair.

[regan_tam]

Minutes pass.

Her fingers thread through his hair, and they breath. Slow and deep. Water splashes; she should turn it off, she thinks, but she's not willing to move yet.

Very softly, "We've spent too long sitting back. Both of us. I--"

"And all we did was lose by it."

She watches the cream-and-umber swirl of the floor tiles, unseeing.

"If this isn't right, what is?"

[gabriel_tam]

He pulls back at this, taking gentle hold of her upper arms as he does. Gabriel looks down at her and says,

"No, Regan. I won't have you blaming yourself for-- for what we lost. It's not your fault."

Something in his face twists, but he forces himself to continue with deliberate steadiness,

"It's mine."

[regan_tam]

Regan is shaking her head immediately, hands falling to his waist.

"No, Gabriel--"

[gabriel_tam]

"It is," he says, still with that careful, painfully steady tone. He can't afford to lose control now.

"Come sit down, Regan. There's something I think I need to tell you."

[regan_tam]

Doubt is clear on her face, and unspoken protest.

But she swallows it -- he's wrong, and in the depths of her heart she knows it; it was her fault as much as his, letting their children slip away from them -- and lets herself be led.

[gabriel_tam]

He guides her to a seat on the bed and pulls a chair over, sitting before her and taking her hands in his.

"Do you remember what Wash said, that evening?"

He knows she'll remember which one.

[regan_tam]

Regan's brow furrows.

The last time -- they sat in the reception room, and he asked if she remembered the letters, and took her hands in his. It's something you need to hear, he said; they experimented on our daughter, he said.

I know precisely what I'm talking about, he said, and precisely just how accurate it is.

There is an icy knot deep in her stomach.

"Of course," she says, low, and does not let her teeth grit in the flash of remembered fury.

[gabriel_tam]

"He had part of it right."

In the few times Gabriel could bring himself to imagine this moment, he could never quite see past it. It's with a sick, queasy feeling of falling that he forces himself to say,

"I knew. Some of it, at least."

[regan_tam]

Regan doesn't say a word.

Can't say a word. Because-- because she's not letting herself speculate, she's not letting herself read between lines, because if she misjudges this--

And is that better or worse than judging corectly?

--Because she can't let herself think too closely about this yet.

Because it's her children, and her husband, and--

She's frozen. Waiting.

Listening, against her will.

[gabriel_tam]

"I swear I didn't know just how bad it was. I didn't know what they were really doing to her then, Regan, I swear to you I didn't know."

Low and urgently said, and bitter with deep self-loathing. Gabriel Tam will never forgive himself for this failure.

Read the letters. Went looking too deep. Then they scared you.

"After the first letters came, I tried to find out what was going on." A harsh, barking laugh, one that verges on madness.
even if you leave this room you can never leave this room
"I found out, all right."

His grip tightens on her fingers, silently begging her not to pull away from him. He's unaware of it.

"They said-- they said they were helping her to maximize her potential. That it was a treatment, that she'd be more than anyone could ever dream. An unparalleled opportunity, the chance of a lifetime."

River's voice echoes again in memory, soft and flat and unaccusing: Told you I wasn't finished. Want to be careful, Mr. Tam.

"They demanded more time-- and when I hesitated, they threatened to destroy Simon."

[regan_tam]

"Gabriel..."

Even she doesn't know what she means to say.

Her voice shakes.

Her face is white; it makes her dark eyes look huge. She feels cold.

A stone, she thinks dizzily -- this is surreal, unreal, and she can't quite snap herself back into reality -- I will be a stone and I will be solid and it will be all right--

Except of course it won't.

Every time she thinks that hope is worth it, every time she thinks she's learned the worst; every time, she's wrong.

She should be saying something more, she knows, saying something to take that horrible gutwrenching look off her husband's face, but she can't find words.

[gabriel_tam]

Here I am, an old man in a dry month.

"Oh God, Regan--" The harshest grief is dry grief, without room for tears; rasping in his voice, each word scraping from his throat as though being forced into too-still air.

"It's my fault. It's all my fault. I should have known. Somehow I should have-- I should have done something. Instead I-- I let myself believe them-- I believed their lies, all of it--"

My house is a decayed house.

"I tried to protect our family, and I destroyed it. We lost them, they lost so much, we lost everything that could have been, and it's all my fault."

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

He bows his head, unable to look at her any longer.

[regan_tam]

"No--"

Her paralysis is broken, and her husband's bowed head blurs before her. She pulls at his hands, trying to draw him towards her, only half-conscious of the gesture; her fingers are cold, and so are the tears beading on her lashes.

"No."

Oh God, she thinks, and it's been years since she thought about whether she believed in God but tonight she's less certain than ever. Oh God, why is it never enough?

"It's not -- xin gan, no, you weren't --" She can hear her voice shaking, hear the catch when she breathes, and she can't care. "They took it, we sent her off to that yuānsŏu school and thought we were helping her, I brought home the paperwork to show her, I told Simon she was fine, everything was fine--" She inhales, and it shudders, and she spits, "You're not to blame for their damned lies."

And she thought she hated them before.

[gabriel_tam]

He slips from the chair to kneel before her, dropping his head to her lap as his arms go around her waist with desperate strength.

After the day when Regan had informed him that -- you're going to explain it, she'd said, I've reported it for you-- after that day, he'd not dared allow himself to believe that this moment would ever come.

He should have, he thinks now. Two children, and thirty years. He should have known.

"I love you, Regan. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

[regan_tam]

"ài rén..."

One hand on his head; one hand on his back.

"Shhh."

Her body is bowed over his. A tear lands on the fine weave of his cotton shirt, and a second, turning the cream fabric to a darker beige.

"We'll -- get through this."

[gabriel_tam]

He nods without speaking, and they stay that way for some time, finding what solace they can in each other's presence.

Eventually, however, Gabriel stirs, and looks up at Regan-- then reaches up, brushing a tear from her cheek.

[regan_tam]

Regan manages a lopsided half-smile, and brushes a tear from his.

Time will pass, as time does. They will go to bed, later, and hold each other in the still silent night. Regan will ask, finally and softly, what brought this on, and Gabriel will tell her, and they will comfort each other in deep wounds shared. And that is never quite solace enough; but it's a start, and a healing, and a rebuilding.

And, much later than that, dawn will come, and a new day.