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He isn’t really doing anything when he hears a knock at the door.
Nothing useful that is. Staring at the ceiling, willing himself not to think about Sana yet feeling too guilty to think of anything else doesn’t actually do anyone any good.
That’s what he tries to remind himself, anyways.
“Come in,” he answers, silently praying for it to be anyone but—
“Hey,” RJ starts, cracking the door open.
It’s not that he doesn’t want to talk to them; it’s more that he doesn’t particularly feel like talking to anyone right now, and of all the others on the crew, they’re the least likely to be coming to him with a quick logistical question.
“What’s wrong?” he sits up to face them as they enter the room.
“Oh, um. Nothing, immediately. I just… wanted to talk.”
Great.
“About what?” he asks, very aware of the many things they could— and maybe should— talk about; trying to pretend that he isn’t.
“So… only ten days out from Cresswin.”
“I don’t have… any idea how this plan is going to go, if that’s what you’re asking,” he answers, trying not to let them see how little he wants to talk about Cresswin.
“It’s not,” they clarify, giving him an almost-sideways look.
“Then what–?”
“Earlier you asked me if I was okay. Now I’m asking you.”
“Oh.” He hates that he hadn’t really fully considered that telling McCabe he’s dating Sana meant them knowing.
They know that his girlfriend is missing, likely imprisoned, presumably being tortured every second they haven’t found her, if not already—
Well, that’s as far as he can think.
And because they know that, they know that he definitely isn’t okay.
“I’m… fine,” he answers, not even bothering to try to sound convincing.
“Don’t lie to me,” they say, and he can tell by the look on their face that it’s come out harsher than they intended it to. “You don’t have to talk about it, but your… girlfriend… is in prison. You’re not fine.”
“We don’t actually know that,” he argues, on instinct. “She could just be…”
He realizes halfway through that there isn’t really an ending to that sentence that doesn’t sound ridiculous.
“Park…”
Aside from their awkward fumbling over his name earlier, he’s only heard them call him by his given name once. Before he’d made the ill-advised move to run off to Fortinbras alone to meet with a stranger.
They’d tried to talk him out of it; he’d been annoyed then. Hell, he tried not to show it, but he was mad at them then. Mad that they’d realized his motives so quickly and managed to pry it out of him. That they thought they had any right to keep him from making his own mistakes.
He isn’t sure if his anger was what fractured something here, or if it was just the distance. All he knows is that the McCabe from all those months ago was his friend; they made him watch Dwarnian soap operas and scolded him for making puns, they called him on his shit and called him by his given name. This McCabe can barely use his surname rather than his former title.
This McCabe can’t meet his eyes, even as they’re asking— telling him not to lie to them.
They can’t really talk to each other without being reminded of the past. That used to be a good thing, he thinks, when they both needed the reminder of home. But neither of them really needs it anymore; they’ve carved out new lives, new connections here, and he’s not sure either of them knows where the other fits into everything.
He wants to be their friend. He considers them friends, he does. But it requires some rearranging.
It’s an adjustment.
“I’m… dealing with it,” he tells them truthfully. “I know… I know that she’s strong, but I also know what the Regime does to people it wants to make an example of.”
“Yeah… I um. I imagine it’s… hard. I mean… even I don’t like thinking about… and I don’t even really know. Not like you do.”
“I hope you never do,” he says without hesitation. He remembers very clearly the day that the Major General took him to Zone Z. He remembers thinking she had come for McCabe. He tries to imagine them in a place like that, and he feels sick to his stomach.
“I… yeah. Me too.”
He thinks of Sana again, and suddenly he’s even sicker.
“I should have tried harder. To defend you,” they say quietly, more to themself than to him.
“No,” he counters definitively. “You did the right thing. If you… if you’d tried harder, we’d have both ended up in Zone Z. You wouldn’t have convinced them of anything but your allegiance to a traitor.”
“I guess you’re right.”
The thing about him and McCabe, back on the Iris 2, is that they weren’t really friends by choice. He was the only person they trusted, and they were really, for a while, the only person on board who knew anything about him but his name.
Jin Seon hadn’t been thinking about them when he defected. He hadn’t been thinking anything, really. He’d been in pain, and scared, and angry and he saw his opportunity. And when he got out, he only had so much time to make the plan work and to make sure he got as many people out alive as he could.
He wasn’t able to save everyone— he let team 2 walk right into that damn trap. But he’s trying to be okay with that— he has to be. He got himself out. The Rumor crew got out. McCabe got out. These are the facts he repeats to himself when he remembers barely outrunning the explosion, when he remembers the sounds of people he’s worked with for years dying behind him.
He got out. The crew got out. McCabe got out.
He hadn’t anticipated there being any world wherein McCabe went with him. He had honestly liked them in the time they worked together. They worked a lot of late nights, poring over the case files, drinking shitty coffee, and telling stories they wouldn’t dare tell anyone else in this building to pass the time— to keep themselves sane. The stories weren’t intimate, not by traditional means, but by the IGR’s standards. They told him about their brother, their home planet, their family’s farm. He talked about Shelley. They were a type of vulnerable in those moments that it wasn’t a good idea to be around their other colleagues.
He told war stories too, occasionally. For every story he told, there were a dozen he didn’t and probably never will, but they seemed perfectly eager to hear about days spent playing cards in bunkers, maneuvers that landed ships unscathed in shootouts, and everything in between.
That eagerness is what kept him from considering that they’d ever desert. As much as he liked them, admired their skills, even had somewhat of a protective streak towards them, they really cared about this work. They believed in it. They lit up like a firework when he told war stories and they waxed goddamn poetic about the one true human republic.
But then they left— they left because they were scared, and alone, and had no other option but getting shot, but they still left. And even when they annoyed him, they were still McCabe. They were still his partner.
“I’m sorry about your loom,” he offers. He is sorry, but mostly he’s trying to break up the silence. Everyone had to sacrifice personal effects; it was necessary, they all knew that. They offered up the loom right away and while no one was happy about it, no one had tried to stop them.
“It’s… fine,” they lie. He doesn’t call them on it. “It’ll be an adjustment but… whatever it takes. It’ll all be worth it when we get Captain Tripathi back.”
“It will,” he agrees. As much comfort as they’ve all had to sacrifice already, he really isn’t sure there’s a limit to what he might consider worth it.
The regime took his eye and he went scorched earth. He betrayed everyone he knew, he left Shelley in the dust, and he let people die. He doesn’t know what they’ve done to Sana— what they’re doing to Sana— and he’s afraid to find out. He’s afraid of what he’d be willing to sacrifice not just to save her, but to avenge whatever suffering she’s endured.
It’s a comfort, in a way, that he really does feel bad about McCabe’s loom.
He considers telling them this.
He decides against it.
“I um. I’ve been hanging out with Brian and Krejjh most of the day,” they tell him. “But … well, Krejjh is flying and Brian is sleeping in the cockpit, so… would you want to watch some Sh’th Hremreh with me?”
He almost says no. It’d be a distraction, and it’s hard to let himself get distracted lately without thinking about how little it does to help Sana.
Not that sitting around feeling sorry for himself does much either.
“That… would be nice,” he admits. “I think you’re a little further than me. I haven’t finished season three yet, if you’re okay going back?”
“Oh definitely,” they grin. “I love season three.”
He’ll take the distraction now, even if he’ll feel guilty about it later.