Work Text:
Fox knew something was wrong the moment she stepped into his office.
Riyo was good at looking composed. Better than most senators, really. She could walk into a room full of people twice her age, all of them waiting for the first sign that she would crack under the pressure and give them nothing. Chin held high, shoulders back, and a voice strong and calm enough to cut through all the noise. Fox had seen it more than once, usually from the edges of a room where he was meant to be invisible. The Guard was for all intents and purposes practically decorative unless they were needed.
She was composed, sure, but it was the wrong kind. Her clasp of her cloak at her throat was slightly off-center. Her hair was neat enough, but there were a few strands loose, as if she’d rubbed her temples a few too many times. She had caf in one hand, because of course she did, because apparently even a crisis came with Senator Chuchi’s determination to maintain routine.
Fox set down his stylus.
“Senator.”
She gave him a look, and under any other circumstances it might have been funny.
“Riyo,” she corrected, because she had been fighting him on that for weeks now, usually with caf as leverage.
It almost brought a smile to his face. “Senator,” He repeated, pointedly.
She stepped farther inside his office, not bothering to wait for the invitation to do so, and the door slid closed behind her.
“I brought you caf,” she said.
He looked at the cup in her hand, then back at her face. “At this hour.”
“You’re awake.”
“I’m surprised you are.”
“Yes. Well I…,” she said, and looked away too quickly, trailing off.
Fox leaned back in his chair, studying her for a moment longer than was polite. She hated being studied. He knew that by now. She could handle scrutiny, in public, in front of cameras and other Senators who liked the sound of their own voices, but this was different. And the more he looked the more he realized something was not alright.
He stood. “What happened?”
Her eyes came back to him, sharp, almost annoyed before she composed herself. “Nothing happened.”
Fox glanced pointedly at the caf, which she hurriedly pushed into his hand.
She followed his gaze and sighed. “I thought you’d be happy if I brought something.”
“It’s nearly midnight and you walk into my office with caf. “Happy” isn’t quite what I’d go for.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
There was something in the way she said it that stripped the levity out of the conversation. Whatever this was, she had not come here because she wanted to banter with him until some miserable hour of the morning. She had come because she had nowhere else to go, or no one else she trusted enough to go to.
He came around the desk, careful not to crowd her. “Riyo.”
Her eyes snapped up to his face at the surprise of him saying her name. It wasn’t the first time, or at least he didn’t think so, but it was rare enough. Her eyes searched his for a moment before glancing away. “It’s probably cold.”
That reaction was so odd and off kilter, he was beginning suspect she was in shock.
“What happened?” he pressed.
For a moment, he thought she might still refuse to give him a straight answer. He could practically see the conflict playing out in her head in real time.
Her lips pressed into a line. “I received a message,” she said.
“What kind of message?” Fox asked.
She folded her arms, then seemed to realize what she was doing and dropped them again. “A threat.”
His grip tightened around the caf cup before he made himself ease it. “Specific?”
“Yes.”
Fox set the caf down on the edge of his desk with more control than he felt. “Show me.”
“Fox.”
“Show me.”
“It may not be anything.”
“It is already something. You’re here aren't you?.”
She looked tired then, completely drained, the last of whatever had carried her leaving her. For a second she looked worn down past the point of pretending otherwise.
Then she reached into her cloak and pulled out her datapad.
Fox took it from her after she brought the message up.
The message was short and to the point. That made it worse. Long threats were often indulgent, all rage and drama, someone trying to feel powerful behind a screen. Short ones had intent. Short ones meant someone had thought about what would frighten her most and chosen not to waste words or time and the attached image just solidified it.
Something cold moved through him.
“Who else has seen this?” he asked.
“No one.”
“Your aides?”
“No.”
“Security?”
She looked at him.
Fox stared back, raising a brow.
“No,” she said, more firmly. “I came here first.”
He handed the datapad back only long enough to step away and grab a datapad. “Take a seat.”
“I don’t need to sit.”
“I would insist if I thought it'd help.”
“Fox...”
“Senator.”
Her eyes narrowed, and for one absurd second there they were again, back on familiar ground.
Then she sat, not without a bit of a huff though. He was not going to smile.
Fox took his own seat and brought up the documentation that he needed.
“Start from the beginning,” he said.
Riyo exhaled, slow and frustrated. “There isn’t much of a beginning. I got the message, that’s all.”
“Time received. Delivery method. Where you were when you saw it. Anyone around you. Anything unusual before or after.”
She watched him for a second, the irritation fading into something else. Resignation.
She read off all the information she had from the message, how she realized it was forwarded from an anonymous comm code, routed twice before it landed in her private account. He still copied all the data and he’d attach what he was able to pull up from the message to the report. She had been alone when she opened it. She had been working late.
Fox didn’t react outwardly at how the image bothered him. Whoever had sent it knew what they were doing.
“Anyone recently with reason to escalate?”
“That’s a long list.”
“Shorten it.”
She let out a breath that might have been a tired laugh on a better day. “Policy disagreements. Constituant complaints. Ratings. Pick one.”
“Any similar threats before?”
That made her pause longer.
“No, nothing like this. There have been threats, but they were dealt with and found to be unsubstantiated," she said. “This though..."
Fox looked up then, finally, holding her gaze. “This is a different level.”
“It is. The image is rather, well, vivid.” She sighed heavily. “I don’t want this—”
“It’s already a thing.” He said cutting her off, anticipating her words.
“I don’t want it to become a big issue,” she corrected, frustration creeping in. “I don’t need guards at my door and following me around the Senate. I don’t need—”
“You need to be safe.”
“I am safe.”
“You received a targeted threat routed to your private account, that is unlisted,” he said evenly. “You're not as safe as you think you are.”
She leaned back slightly, the fight going out of her in increments. “I knew I shouldn’t have come.”
“And you came anyway.”
That stilled her.
Fox finished the line he was writing, then set the stylus down, folding his hands together as he looked at her.
“We’re filing an official report,” he said.
“Fox—”
“We’re filing it,” he repeated. “It gets logged, it gets routed to CSF and anywhere else it needs to get routed, and it gets eyes on it from people who know how to handle it.”
“And then what?” she pressed. “It sits in a system somewhere, and every time I walk into a room someone decides I’m a liability that needs managing?”
“It gets tagged priority and then we track it,” he said. “We find where it came from and decide from there how that gets dealt with.”
“And if it’s nothing?”
“Then it’s documented nothing that has consequences for the person that sent it.”
She held his gaze
“This isn’t about making it bigger than it is. It’s already big. This is a direct threat to you, threatening your life.” He lifted a hand as she opened her mouth to protest. “They stylized a doll to look like you and then took its head off and posed it like that. That isn’t a prank or some joke.”
She flinched, going pale, as if the words finally settled how serious it was.
“Fine,” she said. “We file it.”
Fox nodded once and picked up the stylus again.
As he finished the report he could see her sitting back in the chair, her focus gone, like there was nothing left to hold onto. Her eyes, usually so bright and clear, blinked slow and glassy.
“Riyo.”
She hummed softly in response, not quite looking at him.
“I think you're in shock. Do you need a medic?" he asked.
“No. I think I’m fine,” she murmured, though it didn’t sound like she was.
Fox stood, moving around the desk again. “When did you last sleep?”
She frowned, thinking. “Yesterday. I’m tired though.” She looked up at him then, and for a second he saw it clearly. The strain. The way she was holding herself together by habit more than anything else.
“Come on,” he said.
She blinked. “Where?”
“Up,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the office. “You’re going to lie down for a few minutes and then I’ll arrange someone to take you home.”
For a moment, he thought she might argue again. On principle, if nothing else. But the moment stretched, and whatever protest she had lined up seemed to falter under the weight of how tired she actually was.
She toed off her shoes, then sat on the edge of the bunk, clearly intending to just… rest for a minute.
By the time she swung her legs up and lay back, her eyes were already closing.
Fox stood there for a moment longer than he meant to.
She was out. Whatever had been holding her up before had given out the moment she stopped moving.
He’d seen that before, knew that well, running oneself so far down, past the point of reason.
He didn’t like seeing it on her. It wasn’t even the threat. They would handle that and until it was handled, she’d have a security detail with her at all times and people watching her back. No, this was something more than all that.
It was a disruption to her routine, sure, but it was a disruption to their routine. The little meetings here and there that had started so casually, listening to her detail her day over caf or food that she’d brought.
Meeting her up on the roof on long days, or the bits of conversation in the halls that had become so normal.
He liked those moments. He liked talking to her, listening to her. He liked–
There was a line, a hard line that he needed to keep and every single day, he got dangerously close to crossing it.
Fox exhaled slowly.
She was curled on her side, one arm tucked under her head, the other resting loose in front of her. A few strands of hair fell across her face. Her lashes fluttered and she looked content, comfortable there in his bunk.
That…was a problem.
She shouldn’t be here, not in his office, sleeping on the bunk he needed to be using and soon. He had an early shift, he’d been on his feet for 18 hours. He needed at least a few hours of sleep.
And she was sleeping so peacefully he didn’t have the heart to wake her.
He let out another breath, quieter this time, and ran a hand back through his hair.
She trusted him. She had trusted him more than anyone. She had come to him.
Kriff.
He was in trouble. He was already in too deep.
He turned away again, more deliberately this time, and crossed back to the small locker near the wall. It took him a second to find what he was looking for, pushing aside spare armor and his uniform and pulled out a blanket.
It was threadbare and scratchy wool but it was clean and unused. He shook it out and carried it back to the bunk.
Fox hesitated at the edge of the bunk for half a second, then stepped in closer and draped the blanket over her, adjusting it around her. The room was warm, she’d hardly need it.
Her breathing stayed even.
He let his hand linger for a fraction of a second at the edge of the blanket, then pulled it back, stepping away before he could think about it too much.
This was a problem. He knew it.
He also knew it wasn’t going to change anything.
Not tonight. And at least tonight she was in the safest place she could be.