Crew, during Gabriel's announcement broadcast.

[badinlatin]

Mal is on the bridge. Captainly duties and all requiring it, of course. If by captainly duties you mean flipping on the boob tube Cortex and seeing what the somnambulant public was receiving today.

The plain-looking newscaster Serenity is picking up from god only knows which moon they're passing is relaying some drivel or other before Mal tunes in on the words political candidacy and press conference recorded live today.

Mal sure as ruttin' hell hopes they're not asleep at their chairs at the moment, because finally - finally - there is something on worth watching.

"Doc? Anybody?" Mal calls down the main corridor leading from the bridge. "Gabriel's about to start talkin' front of a lot o' folk, and he looks business."

Comments

[simon_doctor]

Simon and Kaylee are the first to arrive, coming from the nearby kitchen.

Simon's eyes are wide, and fixed on the screen. On the face of his father.

[gonna_live]

That's the suit he was wearing, earlier. At Eddie's.

Kaylee watches, face intent and guarded --

Until the reporter asks the question about Simon, and then her eyes go wide, and her head goes forward a little, as though to better hear Gabriel Tam even though nobody has reached to turn up the volume and the volume is adequate to begin with.

And then Gabriel Tam says, " -- then justice must be done -- no matter who it affects."

A few days ago, he'd asked her, Surely you don't honestly think they'll leave you alone forever?



Kaylee flinches, and turns, and leaves the bridge. Silently. Moving past Mal and Simon, eyes down.

[simon_doctor]

He's been hanging on every word, in a complicated tangle of apprehension, wonder, wariness, and an unexpectedly powerful current of pride.

The question about him hits like a bullet: a moment of numbness, a moment to realize dispassionately yes, there it is, you knew that was coming, and then a slow spreading pain.

(See? That's what it feels like.)

His eyes flick to River, who doesn't return his glance, and then back to the screen to watch his father's answer, and his mother's followup statement --

And then Kaylee twists away and heads for the door, eyes down.

Simon hesitates only a bare instant before turning to follow her out.

[river_meimei]

River's there, at some point. She's easy to miss, even in the cramped space of the bridge: tucked in a corner, curled against the wall, a small huddle of a girl.

There's a mug of tea in her hands, though she doesn't lift it to drink. It was sitting in the kitchen, still hot and unclaimed. Her hands are cold; she's just come from sitting with her weary and heartsore father in the winter at the end of the universe.

Her head moves, tiny restless motions; her eyes stay fixed to the screen. Her face is hard to read.

[righthandwoman.livejournal.com]

A few minutes after Simon and Kaylee get there, Zoe slips in quietly and as unobtrusively as her belly allows. Wash is right behind her, one hand lightly on her shoulder.

Zoe's focused on the Cortex screen intently; her expression, for the most part, stays neutral, but her body language gives things away. The hand that goes to her stomach when Gabriel Tam talks about saftey, the way she stiffens when he mentions the war--Wash moves his own hand from her shoulder to cover hers--the way her eyes flick towards Simon when the reporter asks about him.

She squeezes Wash's hand--the gesture's reassuring, even if the look on her face isn't--and glances toward Mal.

[badinlatin]

Mal has been equally silent, listening to every word said and unsaid by the man in front of so many cameras.

Crowley's turn to speak, and Mal's nails dig into his palm.

"Thou shalt not be a bystander."

I was a volunteer in the War, but I wasn't.

Looking back to Zoe, he holds his gaze to hers. She understands more of this than the crew. She would probably have an easier time of guessing what's going through Mal's head at the moment
If I start fighting a war, I guarantee you'll see somethin' new
than the rest of the crew.

Mal breaks his glance to Zoe. Or rather, lets it drift down to her stomach. He's thinking.

[flybywash]

He wasn't sure, when Simon told him, if Gabriel would really go through with it. If it wasn't just more posturing and careful words, empty for all their politeness.

Gabriel Tam talked. He never quite managed to strike Wash as the type to shut up and do.

And yet here it is, and here they are, and at least he's trying to make right, he'd said to Simon two months ago -- but, you know, at the same time, as the questions roll on, Wash decides that he can think of one or two things he'd be pretty damn content to remain a bystander in.

Especially considering how amazingly well things always seem to go when people look up and notice that little Firefly skirting the edge of the galaxy.

His hand tightens around Zoe's in kind.

[swinging-cod.livejournal.com]

Jayne shuffles in eventually, almost unwilling.

He don't particularly want to watch this. Political maneuverings don't really mean much, way out in the black. Nothing really changes in the day to day no matter who's in Parliament.

But this is Simon and River's bà. Someone who could make or break they way they live.

Someone who could make things a hell of a lot stickier for the lot of them, in years to come, no matter how ever-loving he might seem inclined to be right this second.

So, he hangs back, and thanks the Man Jesus that his eyesight and hearing's all right, so's he don't have to peer over the Doc's shoulder like some gorram bystander after a particularly gruesome barfight.

Because this is one, or the start of one, really. One long, drawn-out, messy, barstool-flinging, tooth-losing, political fistfight. And who comes out on top, and who gets left in the dust, and who gets hurt by just being in the way, remains to be seen.

Jayne's always been pretty good at winning. But getting out of the way ain't exactly his forte.

So, he listens. And watches. And says nothing.