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Who: Miles, Gregor, and Bel
When: 12/1
Where: the Vor cabin
What: Miles panics over the arrival of one of his mercenary captains on the ship; Gregor decides to make everything simpler.
Warnings: miles being a dumbass idk

God. This is a nightmare situation. Worse than London had been, in some ways -- having Lieutenant Vorkosigan and Admiral Naismith trapped in the same city was bad enough, but on this ship? Damn it, and he wasn't even going to do Naismith here. He was pretty clear with himself on that one. Can't afford to mix and match, here, have to keep them straight, even if he's been increasingly tempted to reach for Naismith here. Worse still is that slipping back into Naismith, even if just for Bel, just for a moment, feels so damned good.

Miles tries to brush that thought away as he careens straight toward the cabin he shares with Ivan and Gregor, his mind still racing. He'd fed Bel some horseshit about a cover story that was a little too close to the truth for anyone's comfort, but it was a hasty fiction -- nearly as hasty as Admiral Naismith had been, to start with. Ha.

"Gregor," he starts as soon as he's inside, locating his foster brother and Emperor, and shutting the door as soon as he does. Just Gregor. Oh, thank god. Miles paces inside on nervous feet, his voice already wound into a manic chatter. "We need to talk. There's -- a problem."

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"Exactly, Gregor, Bel's far too smart to -- " Miles's sentence dies off abruptly as Gregor neatly ends the conversation on his own terms, mouth hanging open. Is Gregor really about to leave him high and dry? Miles pivots, following Gregor's trajectory toward the door with a hand raised. "What? Gregor -- "

"I'll see you later, Miles," Gregor says, and keys the door shut gently in Miles' face.

Then he marches the short distance down the corridor and raises a hand to knock gently on the door he knows is now to Captain Thorne's cabin, and waits patiently.

The captain is in, pacing back and forth while flicking through the MID's unfamiliar functions in search of a map, keyed up from lack of sleep, mind in turmoil. It would be midday on the Ariel now -- or maybe not, after the extraordinary story Miles had told. Doubles who weren't clones, parallel universes, time travel for God's sake.... did their crew even know they were gone? But the situation was what it was. The only way through was to deal with it.

Bel had chosen an upper bunk, both warmer and more defensible, just in case; the kit of Moira uniforms was arranged there, but Bel hadn't changed out of the more familiar Dendarii colors. The room was sparse, the furniture of unfinished wood (an unimaginable luxury on Beta Colony, but roughly built and little-maintained here). One of the beds had been used; apparently Bel had a roommate, though they weren't here at the moment. Perhaps that was them at the door--?

....it wasn't.

The face was older, of course, but there was no mistaking it. Bel stepped back automatically to invite the man in, startled recognition showing clearly.

"Well. This ship is just full of unexpected surprises." Miles had laid down the rules: cover stories all round, and fortunately there was a simple one for this. "Greg, isn't it? I haven't seen you since that memorable trip to Vervain."

[[I'm laughing so hard right now POOR MILES XD;;;]]

"It certainly is," Gregor says, and actually smiles as he steps into the room, his dark eyes warming as he takes Bel in. "An exceedingly memorable trip it was indeed, due in no small part to your kind hospitality. It's good to see you again, Captain Thorne."

Gregor pauses once the door slides shut, checking again discreetly that they're alone before he turns a thoughtful gaze on Bel again.

"I came to see you to talk about a certain mutual friend of ours, who seems to have, hm. Distressed himself excessively over a matter that I believe may be simply resolved. Please tell me--exactly how much do you know about Miles?"

"And you as well. Here, sit." Bel returned the smile in kind. Perhaps there were some individuals out there who wouldn't go weak at the knees in the presence of such gently measured grace; Bel was not one of them, but had plenty of practice carrying on despite. And Greg... was a unique category of his own. "You'd had a rough time with the Rangers; it was my pleasure to bring some little ease to the remainder. I've often wondered since how you've been getting on."

The difference was palpable, yes. Seven years had fulfilled the promise inherent in the lean, serious youth who'd asked so many careful questions about the Dendarii. He'd been sweet; now he was... extraordinary.

The room had no chairs; Bel waved at the book-ended couch in the back of the room, seating themself easily at a polite distance from Greg. Their "mutual friend," of course, would be Miles, and Bel's brow furrowed in concern. Greg's presence in the equation had immediately suggested a dozen possible scenarios along the lines of the Hegen Hub invasion, when both men, among other perils, had come within inches of being spaced in their clothes -- and that was the least of the complex horror-show Admiral Naismith (and Greg, just as deftly) had averted at the last moment. But they'd all done this before, though back then Bel had had the advantage of being in control of their own ship. They'd sync up their cover stories and get on with the next step. ("Are you willing to put it all on the line for me?" Always....)

And then Gregor, with a few simple words, closed the book entirely, and opened a new one in its place.

Bel groped for an answer, unexpectedly undone. This, now? With him...? A fleeting rush of conflicting emotion, momentarily reflected in their features, was the barest hint of the chaos behind them. How neatly, how calmly, the man had pulled the pin on that ten-year construct, the closest, most inviolate secret Bel had ever known....

They were at his mercy now, captain and Admiral both; but looking back, they always had been.

My, how you've grown.

"Not everything," Bel murmured at last. "That would be impossible, I think. But I've known his name--" absurd, how hard it was to get the words out, after so many years. "Since the Hegen Hub... Your Majesty."

Gregor's eyes widen slightly and a sharp bark of surprised laughter is jerked from his throat before he can catch it, fingers coming up to press over his mouth almost immediately. His voice is a little choked still when he speaks.

"Good God, Captain, please, that's entirely unnecessary." Gregor wrests control of himself and folds his hands loosely in his lap, his eyes still bright. "But yes, I rather thought you might have figured some of it out. I think knowing everything would send my--thankfully immediately absent--security people into colonic spasms, to say nothing of poor Simon, but Miles chooses his own people well and carefully and we rather did take into account that someone working as closely with him as you are would be able to do some complex arithmetic. At any rate, as ranking officer," to put it mildly, "and the person whose Imperial Ass Miles and Ivan--Ivan Vorpatril is here as well by the way, if you haven't bumped into him yet, and I believe you two have met previously--are doing most of their scrambling to cover, the responsibility of the decision to formally break security officially falls to me." He flips a hand up, palm out, in a releasing gesture. "Consider it broken."

He settles back on the couch a little and some of the humor drains from his face as he locks his full attention on Bel and lets his voice drop low.

"Please understand, Captain, that for all I find Miles' scrambling for a solution to a problem that is already fixed amusing, I feel the need to impress upon you that I do not do this lightly. We aren't here of our own free will, we don't know why, and we don't know what sort of danger in which we are all collectively entrenched. While I am not so self-centered as to believe that this is all an elaborate plot on my behalf, most of the people here know me as Greg Vorbarra, possible holder of a countship on a little world that nobody else here has even heard of, and nobody else special besides, and I would like very much to keep it that way. I believe the fewer variables in this equation, the safer we'll all be. That said," and he straightens a little now, chin tilting up to look at Bel with a more considering gaze, thoughtful if not quite abstracted, "we didn't get to know each other as well in the Hegen Hub as I may have liked, as we both had urgent duties to which we needed to attend, but I know that Miles trusts you with his life and the lives of the people under his command, and there are few higher commendations of your character that I could think of. Therefore We trust you, as well." Bel, Betan to the bone, might not intercept that Imperial We, but Gregor presses it there carefully anyway. "And also with Our confidences. I understand that you probably have a great many questions you would like answered, the answers of some of which might be better heard from Miles' own voice, but I will inform him that he may be as frank with you as his discretion permits him and will debrief you myself as well as I can in the meantime under the single condition that you please just call me Greg." Another smile works his way over his face, faint but warm. "Or Gregor, if you like. But go ahead, ask me anything."

Let's see what happens.

Bel's face dropped into their palms, a helpless snort escaping between the rigid hands. Unnecessary? Damn, damn... but it couldn't have been otherwise. Bad enough to have this brought to Miles, later, rendering all his efforts and plans for nothing -- memories hot with shame chased one another behind Bel's eyes, so many chances to have let Miles know instead of playing this interminable game.... Too late now.

"Thank you." It was a strangled whisper. Bel looked up, gaze pale and fixed. "I should tell you, it took some luck and a particular series of events for me to put it together. Aside from Miles's Inner Circle, I don't think anyone else in the fleet knows." Voice steadying into a bleak irony, Bel added, "But what with all this... there are already too many captains keeping secrets on this ship."

Bel did remember Ivan, and nodded at the name and the necessity of keeping Gregor's own secret. Ranking officer was putting it mildly. The whole convoluted Barrayaran system had always struck the democratic Betan as an elaborate delusion, however sharp the men (always men) holding it in trust. As Miles's own treasured delusion (or so Bel had parsed it all after the fact), it had been something else of his for his Dendarii to protect for him.

How easy, though, in Gregor's presence, to believe that this man could and did hold an Empire in thrall.

The Imperial plural did not go unnoticed. Gregor's trust, after this? The gift felt too great to hold. Bel blinked away a momentary blur, the world resolving, readjusting. "Milord Count Vorbarra, got it.... no, Greg is fine." A breathy laugh. "Sorry, this isn't... it's a habit, not even to think about it out loud." Much less wonder, when Admiral Naismith had spent all these years breezily deflecting every carefully veiled question.... Whole vistas of knowledge opening up, but behind Miles's back? No. Not even with Gregor calling the shots.

Greg, though, was finite and contained; Greg, outside of the Imperial context, could be somebody Bel could get to know. And Bel wanted to, oh yes. Ask me anything.... Was it hard on him, as much or more than Miles, being two men in one? Something still hurt somewhere down under the newness of it all, soul-deep and open to hollow sky, but there was no time to root it out, and Bel, warming to Greg's patient smile, didn't want to look anyway. Where to begin?

"Barring any 'urgent duties' while we're stuck here, or interruptions from my roommate--" A slightly exasperated glance at the door. "I don't know who that is yet, or when they'll walk in. Much as I wish otherwise, I think you'd better debrief me as to what we have to deal with here, before something else happens." Bel leaned forward invitingly, forearms resting on knees. "But when there's time, I would welcome a chance to get to know you better; the Greg you get to be when nobody's looking over your shoulder." Had there ever been a time for either of them when that wasn't the case?

[[things I didn't know would be things until I wrote them ;; Soundtrack for this tag: what is it like in his shoes....]]

"I figured as much, or I'd be more upset about it," Gregor says gently. "And your loyalty to Miles is unquestioned and unquestionable, which is another strong point in your favor. And clearly you know what a dearly kept secret this is, though if you do call me anything but my given name again I will be forced to revoke your question-asking privileges. But this--truly, I believe this is better than you telling him you figured it out. If you had, he would have had to report it to Simon, who would have been forced to question who else knew and how well Miles was keeping his cover... I, conveniently, need report to no one, and I think giving Miles this permission will ease his mind a great deal."

Gregor's eyes flicker bright in approval of Bel's first question--putting little tests into virtually everything he does is a vile habit he picked up from Miles' father, but Bel has clearly passed.

"So far, this ship has been unexceptionable in structure, if not always terrifically run--though I'm sure you'll have your own observations on that front, Captain, and I wouldn't want to bias you unnecessarily. There don't seem to be many clear dangers on the ship itself or from the captains--some of the other crew I'm not so sure about--but there have been incidents on a few of the planets we visited for supplies. I'm not certain us being kidnapped here was an act of aggression or a stupid mistake but the evidence I've found leans towards the latter, which means most of the perils are external, generally sudden, and uniformly impossible to prepare for. Welcome aboard." Gregor's mouth twitches in a faint smile.

"Honestly, I've had a bodyguard since before I was born. So has Miles, come to think it. You met him, while he was still alive." Odd realization, that. "At any rate, I have rarely had a time when nobody was looking over my shoulder and when I did, the results were... sub-optimal." It ended in him meeting Thorne, actually, but that was perhaps a story for a meeting on this ship other than their first. "Therefore, I hardly know who that person is. It's... only here that I'm sort of beginning to find out. But I would be very pleased to get to know someone who Miles holds in such high esteem, Captain, while we're not being kidnapped or shot at or nearly stranded or whatever else insane thing is going to happen this month."

Bel nodded, fingers lacing together, alert and intent now that the initial shock was past; only a slight flush over the cheekbones revealed any remaining disconcert. Greg it would be, then. Worth the mild chiding tone, to know exactly how far he would allow himself to be pushed. It was heartwarming, too, that Greg would reassure them so sincerely, though -- if Bel were honest -- there could never have been a way to tell Miles outright, for exactly that sort of reason. Any more than an oblique hint would have been pushing it; it would have had to come from Miles or not at all. Would it ease his mind, if only a little, or merely upset him? Bel's shoulders hunched against the unhelpful fear. No stopping it now. The only way out is through.

Tests were only to be expected -- even familiar, in a small, amusing way, given that Miles and Ky had (in their own ways) both studied that technique at the feet of the man who had no doubt passed it to Greg. "It's worth something if none of us were specific targets," Bel mused. You in particular, for a change. "Takes some of the edge off. All in all, I'd rather be here than back home with no idea you were all missing." If the ship was sound, that was another plus. From what it looked like, though, Bel didn't think they'd be falling over to praise the captain-committee any time soon. "Miles mentioned some trouble. Didn't sound good."

Miles's bodyguard could only have been one man -- Bel's lips parted in sudden understanding. So many things explained.... But Greg's words called up an unexpected fellow-feeling; strange, to seem to understand Barrayar's children so well. "Sometimes," Bel said thoughtfully, "one has to leave home, to find it again. Or forget yourself to remember who you are....."

So many of the fleet, Bel not least, had found meaning and equilibrium in letting the past lie, thrilling to the here and now as old memories faded untouched. It had worked less and less as new skies became too familiar and long years wrapped the Ariel around them like a skin or a shell. Leaving Moira's medbay, an unfamiliar chill had seemed to seep through the uniform, radiating from the bare patch where the lost captain's insignia should rest. To find praise and welcome here, from the heart of the world that Miles kept hidden at all costs.... The ghost of an unbidden smile touched Bel's lips. It was a good thing Miles wasn't here right now, though Greg seemed to share his capacity for sight.

(Would Gregor, like Miles, flinch away at a touch? This really, really wasn't the time to find out. Stranded, drafted, sitting in a dingy cabin almost knee-to-knee with an emperor in disguise... how long had it been since everything was new?)

"I'd much rather get properly acquainted." 'Right and proper'; wasn't that the old phrase Arde had picked up from the Barrayarans? A little too meaningful, perhaps, though the room somehow felt warm enough again. "The first thing to know is that I'm going to need you to call me Bel."

Edited 2015-12-09 01:20 (UTC)

Gregor watches Bel curl in a little in some unspoken apprehension that Gregor could only guess at, then unfurl again as their mind turned to the problem at hand. Gregor frowns, his voice going slightly chill.

"I will... permit Miles to elaborate further on this 'trouble' that happened," he says, biting the word out before he takes a steadying breath and relaxes deliberately again, tight hands opening slack.

"Yes, well," he says dryly after a moment. "The last time I really left home on a journey to find myself properly we ended up on duty preventing a Cetagandan invasion, so not, all in all, an experience I particularly want to repeat. It's just been strange. Stranger than my usual job, which can be saying something, depending on the week." Gregor watches Bel's face shift and soften into a curious half-smile, almost abstracted, before Bel focuses on him properly again. He notes this, but lets it pass without comment, a smile curving his own mouth.

"I can only hope for the leisure time to be able to do so," Gregor says, his voice warming. "Bel. Though--I'll be happy to use your given name, don't get me wrong, but I won't lie and say seeing a familiar friendly uniform isn't a huge comfort, military-styled as we are. The Dendarii mean a great deal to me. Not in the same way they do to you or Miles, but..."

Gregor remembers the sick, icy dread of a flex-tube between two ships, being marched through with Cavilo and the door opening on the glorious, shining grey-and-white forms arrayed around a plasma cannon like avenging angels sweeping down to carry him away. The utter steadiness in his stride as he walked towards the barrel of the weapon, the slight, cool pressure of it on his chest before the satisfying whooshing bang of the door sealing behind him, still looking up at them all. Alive. Safe. Even home of a sort, maybe, for a little savored while.

"They're important to me in my own right, I suppose, for all I never got to spend too much time in your midst."

Bad, then. Bel had gathered that much, but Miles had promised more detail later.

"I always wondered how you came to be there." The half-smile returned; Gregor's own smile was as distracting as those eloquent hands. Stop that; he can probably read you like a book. The Emperor of Barrayar, however astute or gently spoken or darkly appealing, was surely the one man on board most completely out of reach. Alas, self-awareness wasn't proof against the little inward shiver of delight at Gregor's warm words, although Bel could at least trust that it hadn't showed.

Barrayarans. Perhaps some day Bel would meet one ~~aside from the unfairly handsome Ivan~~ who wasn't perfect.

Glancing down at the grey-and-whites, Bel smoothed a wrinkle over one knee and murmured, "I'm finding it reassuringly grounding myself. It's... a wrench, to be cut off from them." From home. So much so that it had taken until just now to realize that Gregor had still been using the punctilious 'Captain' instead of a given name. The momentary flicker of memory across his features was a poignant reminder of how helpless they were here. No fleet, no ship, no safe harbor.... little to offer but company and experience.

At least that was something.

"In any case, such as we are here...." Not quite the Imperial We, but a spark of mischief glints in Bel's eyes anyway. Perhaps there's a reason the plural of Dendarii is itself. "It's our pleasure to spend some time in your midst for a change. In--" entirely serious for all the ironic glint remains, "whatever character you and our -- mutual friend -- choose to employ us."

"It is an extremely long," and embarrassing, and, if told in its entirety, deeply personal, "story. I should relay some of it to you ate a more opportune time."

The look on Bel's face is a little odd, but Gregor can't quite place why so he lets it slide by unremarked upon for now.

"I sympathize with the acute loss of... resources," he says instead, though his slightly shadowed eyes spell out his full meaning, I'm homesick too, before they lighten just a bit. "Not half because I can't actually employ anyone at all, here, for one thing. We are somewhat, ah, short on funds at the moment."

Good thing Miles isn't here to punch him in the kidney for that particular turn of phrase, but he sticks by it.

Edited 2016-01-07 20:54 (UTC)

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omg thank goodness for Gregor ;a;<3

THANK GOODNESS FOR BEL TBH

;a;<3

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