Archive of Our Own ^beta

McCabe cites their sources. It's part of the reason they were such a good Junior agent, and much of the reason they get along with the crew. An automatic "Captain Tripathi said—" or a "regarding our conversation yesterday, I have a theory." That leaves no room for uncertainty. Park knows because he engraved the same habit into himself, and then spent a few years dulling it's edges; he carries enough authority already, no need to kneecap his words.

Park is the least bit surprised when RJ pulls out the chair opposite him on the dining room table, picks up the coffee Park made them, and begins, "That day you spoke to me—"

There's nothing unusual about the ritual of morning coffee, a continuation from when they worked for the IGR. That is, spending the time between their arrival at work and the sunrise choking down bitter, black sludge in the mess hall and letting the New Jupiter Dew dry off their boots. The time crunch catching up to The Iris took was too much time for one person to handle, which is why Park requested a junior agent in the first place, and then accepted the several others that came to help as the case climbed in priority. Still, they didn't have the time to go home, or to spend with their families, so they took what non-productive companionship they could. It was over bad coffee.

Tripathi buys a decent roast, and after an espresso machine—the good, old, manual kind—was extracted from the depth of the Iris II's flotsam pile, the coffee had improved; Will keep improving, as Park learns that machine.

This morning McCabe hums, pleased, and studies the mug as if the improvement could be found outside the cup. Park notes that as good. He ground the roast finer today and tossed yesterday's leftovers from the grinder for a fresh batch. The change was not unnoticed. 

"About that day you spoke to me," McCabe says, tipping their cup and watching the foam swirl on the coffee's black surface, "I mean, you were right of course, but—" 

They trail off, whether out of uncertainty or the knowledge that playing out such a hesitancy will soften whatever blow McCabe plans to deal. Park is fairly sure they're genuine, but with any good agent, former or otherwise, it's best to stay sharp. 

"Don't you regret leaving sometimes, just a little bit?" McCabe breathes, tucking their chin as their face reddens. A confession of shame rather than love. "Don't you worry about them?"

That's the hardest part, for Park. Most of the horror stories floating around the office describe agents at the dinner table with their families, toasting a parent's remarriage or meeting the child's new partner, the night before they leave for work and don't come back. The families don't get a notification, they aren't told if their sibling or spouse or cousin has gone undercover without previous notice, or dead in the field, or if the IGR has decided attending the same pool party as a rebel-to-be in the summer of their senior year counts as treason. The latter is what makes the stories echo, weaves the fear into the starched shirts and straight spines of all those who show up to survive rather than succumbing to the propaganda of the cause . Those families can't ever be sure if they'll be safe, or if the IGR will make another decision. One that isn't in their favor.

What Park and McCabe got instead was not a mercy. Now it isn't just the IGR who knows what he's done, but everyone with a VPN and enough determination. Loyalists and rebels alike will be reaching out to Shelly, each and every one is a danger to her. 

Worse, McCabe's brother shares barracks with the lot of them, if he hasn't been fired or taken away already.

Park sips his coffee slowly. It's more bitter than he remembered. A finer grind tomorrow, maybe. Fine enough to snort, which he'll need with the amount of pure caffeine it takes him to feel sane when he lays awake at night, staring through the ceiling and examining that very same worry.

It makes him huff a small laugh through his nose, the bit about the snorting ground coffee. The mental image of the powdery mustache it'd give is tickling.

McCabe shoots him a worried look at what undoubtedly reads as a morbid chuckle.

"I don't know, McCabe," Park says, exasperated. And when McCabe waits with that patient look on their face — almost infuriatingly close to the mask Goodman would wear, but acceptable because it's sincere — Park sighs and corrects himself. 

"Yes," he says, like the words are caught in his throat, which they are, like two broad-shouldered people trying to walk through a doorway at the same time, traffic building up behind them. "I do worry, yes."

"A lot?'

Park nods, flattening his lips and focusing on the pressure to keep himself grounded as he often does.

"Me too." McCabe says.

They drink their coffee.

The stars are always quiet outside. Most people are more surprised by their expectation that stars would make noise rather than the silence itself. The stars all just hang there, limp and uncaring, tempting in their vastness—

The urge to run away grips him sometimes. It always did. It always will. Those thoughts are not his own, though they occur in Park's own head. It is a complex thing, and it is a simple thing, but above all it is some nameless undiagnosed mess. He'd changed his name before on brief undercover ops. His specialty is research but sometimes those things intersect. It always took him a while after returning to stop pinching himself and wondering about how all the perks and failings of his everyday life fit against the person in Agent Jin Seong Park's file. The answer is it doesn't fit, it never did and never would. The person in Park's file was a doctored facsimile of a human. Anyone smart uses their first paycheck to bribe an HR agent, someone still green and sick on power, to edit their file favorably. Park did. Everyone did. It was normal. It still didn't save him, and it sure as hell won't save Shelly.

"What was she like?" McCabe asks. When Park blinks, they continue, filling in the silence until he recollects himself, "Shelly, I mean. My brother was… he was real silly when we were younger. Not so much now, but I used to get mad at him all the time for laughing at me, but it was my fault for being so...I should've learned to laugh at myself too— should learn. I'll—I'll work on that."

"She was...pretty." Park says. 'Pretty' not as-in less-than-beautiful but in that reverent way you whisper the word when you're so struck with the sight of someone that it's the only phrase that fits between your teeth and thick tongue. 

A tear breaks the surface of Park's coffee. 

Park takes a long drink, looking around the room and trying to force back memories of Shelly laughing, and holding his hand, and dragging him to the gazebo to sit and look at the sun setting. He remembers taking her to that park. How quiet she got, staring out the window, until a single bubble of a laugh cut through the tense silence. 

"It's you!" Shelly had said, barely more than a whisper, "The park, it's you!"

And he had buried his face in his hands and groaned while Shelly stuffed his car full to the brim of giggles. Then she caught him eyeing her from between his fingers and at him blinked owlishly. 

He used to think of that moment during the harder days at the office, it would make him feel better. It doesn't do that anymore.

McCabe is looking at him strangely, gripping the table with white fingertips, mouth slack. 

Park brings his hand to his face and only then realizes the tears are his own. 

He feels annoyed, if anything. His nose stuffs up and it's harder to keep his breath a steady, calm rhythm, but he does it. His chest hurts, a pressure on his heart. That also annoys him. Park toys with the idea of getting a Tylenol. He's not sure if that'll help. 

McCabe stands, rushes to the cabinet and grabs him a torn off square of paper towel. Park accepts it numbly. He stares at it, not wanting to dab at his face like the foppish spouses of diplomats he used to work with on investigating assassination attempts. 

Another droplet barely misses his mug. Park slides it out of the way.

They had a protocol for crying at the office. It wasn't official, but everyone knew it. Everyone cracked eventually, especially the new recruits. The more wizened agents would learn to pack it away until they got home, but even they slipped sometimes. Taking cases that feel like being walked to the slaughter would make anybody crack. Everybody did it. It was normal.

McCabe follows the protocol now: A familiar officer should allow the person means to clean themselves up; then the officer should get them something to drink — McCabe clenches and unclenches their hands, not sure if the coffee counts; the officer should then sit with the person and wait for them to explain their emotions. Under the circumstances there are no familiar officers, the affected person should be left alone in the room or ignored. 

Park always hated that last part, leaving someone in the break room. He'd had to do it a few times. It left those agents the most vulnerable. The part about explaining your emotions was an uncomfortable precaution, a chance to wave it off as home-stress or grief. Without it, the IGR could claim any cause for the tears, incompetence in the face of their measly workload or empathizing with criminals. Those agents were the most likely ones to get disappeared. Fired, taken, sent undercover,  nobody could ever know. Park just had to leave them behind, with no support and not enough time to memorize their face and see if they showed up again tomorrow.

But Park had never cried in public, he'd spent the years of his career feeling vaguely awkward in the place of grief, and waking up the next morning to find his cheeks were wet. Sometimes he'd grip his shoulders and sob and silently beg his body for the chemical catharsis that is supposed to come with tears. He never got it. Just exhausted himself, fell asleep, and woke up feeling heavy, distant and numb, getting out of bed only to satisfy his need for caffeine. 

But now it's like the tiny glass vial holding all of him up — something that shouldn't have been there in the first place — has shattered. His hands are shaking, his vision is blurry, he has all the signs and symptoms of sadness and yet he feels none of it. 

The most familiar emotion he finds in himself is fear. It comes with the tell-tale thuds of Krejjh's footsteps and the soft chatter they keep up with Brian as they migrate to the kitchen for breakfast.

McCabe thinks fast. "Quiet down, Park!" They say, waving their hands in a way that vaguely means 'work with me here', "Breakfast was supposed to be a surprise. They'll hear you."

It takes effort to talk around the restriction in his throat, but Park manages a flat tone. "No one is awake yet. It's fine."

The footsteps stop, they whisper, and then begin receding down the hallway. Krejjh's giggle is cut off by what's likely a hand against their mouth. 

Park wipes his face with the napkin, but the tears don't stop coming so he rests his hands on the table, palms-up, and sits there. He's trying to figure out what to do, but his head is a frustrated, logicless fog. No matter how much he tries to compose himself, it doesn't budge. 

"You should, uh, go." McCabe says, "Everyone will be coming in soon."

"What about breakfast?" Park asks.

"I think I can handle some bacon and eggs." McCabe says. Then they soften. "I'll check the hallways are clear for you, and bring you food when I'm done. Come on."

Park follows, feeling like a child. Someone small and vulnerable and in need of protection. He hates the way his shoulders pull forward and his eyes seek the floor. Even Goodman could have torn him to shreds for that posture. 

But he follows McCabe to his room and sits while they judge if he's adequately comfortable. Apparently the single pillow and sheet falls short of their standard, because McCabe returns with a quilt and two more pillows, then leaves and comes back with his coffee and a glass of water. They leave again. 

Park smells the tell-tale scent of biscuits on the air. The dry kind they teach agents in the academy to make so they don't use up too many rations, inedible without copious amounts of jam. Park hears Brian and Krejjh walk by again, and their exaggerated noises of pleasant surprise when they arrive in the kitchen. 

Park chugs the water. Leaving his coffee to get cold, and the tears slow, just one or two flowing here and there. He lets himself feel empty.

McCabe comes with his food some unmeasured amount of time later. Park doesn't move, just watches as they put two plates and a fresh cup of coffee down on his desk.

"Do you want me to stay?" McCabe asks. 

Park can't find it in him to answer. He squeezes his eyes shut for a long moment, and draws enough energy to sit up in bed and reach for his plate, the one with more jam on the biscuits. McCabe takes theirs and sits cross-legged on the floor. Facing away from him. 

"Ella, play Sh'th Hremreh, New-Ju English fan dub."

The episode comes on. Park watches and eats without processing any of it. But it's the mindless kind of fun he doesn't need to engage with to enjoy. 

McCabe takes both their plates to the sink, leaving Park alone with the screen. It's a break-up scene of some sort, the inciting incident for the shows drawn-out central romance. The dwarnian curls up in their softly-lined pod, hugs a pillow, and cries. Park reaches for one of the pillows McCabe brought on instinct. They lay back, he lays back, and stares with uncertain, wide eyes as the dwarnian actor performs pain. Park's never been allowed to do that before, never feeling like he wasn't under someone's judging eyes, but he tries it now. If nothing else, it's comfortable.

McCabe comes back with a box of tissues and a drink for themself. They hand the tissues to Park, and sit.

"This is my favorite part." McCabe murmurs. 

The hero's mouth forms a line and they wipe their tears away with their ears. Then the dwarnian takes a deep breath and stands, moving to the window and ripping the curtains open. The music crescendos as they stand silhouetted in the meager light of their far-off sun. The frame fades to black.

McCabe fidgets. "Uh, Park? Do you want to, uh. To talk about it? About Shelly?"

Park swallows, and then sighs, and allows himself another moment to think.

"No," he decides, "no, I don't think it'll help. There's nothing I can do right now, I just need to—" he lifts a hand to gesture before letting it fall back to the bed.

McCabe nods. "Yeah, you didn't strike me as a talker.

"You should write about it, though. My therapist, the one I had in highschool, said that it was good for people who don't have anyone to talk to. It worked for me."

McCabe flashes a nervous smile, before turning away to queue the second episode. 

Park considers that.

From the most selfish possible perspective, from his perspective, the crew of the Iris II and the IGR are not so different. Sure, they represent opposing morals and ideals, but they would both prefer to know what's going on in his head, his thoughts and feelings, to protect their interests, prepared to leave him for dead if he didn't meet the standard. Though the distinction between perpetrator and victim matters to right and wrong, it doesn't matter much to Park. He doesn't want to talk. Doesn't want anyone to have that leverage over him.

"Alright," he says. "Thank you."

"But ah—" McCabe says, patting the floor nervously. "It's nice to know I'm not alone."

A long silence. 

"How many episodes do you have time for today?" Park asks, barely a whisper, because it's easier to say than me too . 

McCabe understands. They smile and hit play.