(Untitled)

[aj_crawley]

Crowley left his coat and scarf, but there's no snow outside. Even terraformed, Londinium is a central planet, close to the sun; its winters tend to be mild. So there's no snow outside. It's only dark, and cold, and Crowley's back, black-clad and ram-rod straight, is hard to spot at first, but for the noise of him crunching swiftly and stiffly over

Comments

[gonna_live]

He'll hear footsteps on the gravel -- shuffling a little, maybe. Moving slowly, but doggedly.

"Crowley." Kaylee's voice is soft, and without any kind of reproach.

[gonna_live]

Hoban gets a start out of her, as does Susan, but for different reasons.

It's hard to look at his face, into his eyes, covered by those glasses -- like looking into a void.

"And maybe he's special." Quiet. "That, too?"

[aj_crawley]

Silently, Crowley turns his face up to the sky.

"We were so damn long on that ship. All of us."

It's in all the history books. Even a child could tell you it, how a whole generation was born, lived, and died, knowing only walls and steel walkways.

[gonna_live]

Kaylee's head lifts. Her eyes aren't on the sky -- they're on his face.

She shifts, no longer sitting on her heels, instead sitting a step below.

"He was with you."

It's not a question.

[aj_crawley]

"Before, too. And after. And then, one day..."

His face clouds again. Not - what it was earlier. Now, brow furrowed, Crowley simply looks... confused. As though he has forgotten something, and can no longer, quite, remember what it was.

[gonna_live]

Crowley looks confused. Not -- not like she shouldn't be asking.

"One day...?" she prompts.

(It's cold out here: she's huddled close, hands balled into fists and pulled back into sleeves.)

[aj_crawley]

After a few moments, Crowley's expression clears - not in realisation, but the blanker look of confusion simply melting away. Like - like the thought's too slippery to hold onto for long.

"Well," he says. "You've heard how he tried to do for Gabriel."

"I should've - out of all of us, I should've seen it coming." He tries for a wry grin, and it comes out horrible; cracked, and empty. "'Spose I don't know my own bad influence."

[gonna_live]

The second part's important, sure -- really important -- but the first --

"He what?"

[aj_crawley]

" - What?"

[gonna_live]

"He tried to do for him, are you sayin' -- do what?"

[aj_crawley]

Crowley stares back, looking almost as dumbfounded as Kaylee.

"Nobody told you that was him?"

[gonna_live]

" -- tā shì suŏyŏu dìyù de biăozi de mā -- "

She's shaking her head.

And then --

And then she's just shaking. "Crowley, I -- I saw him. Out in the middle of nowhere, we -- we had a drink, and you're tellin' me -- "

[aj_crawley]

" - You saw him?"

That's snapped him out of it, and he's holding Kaylee by the elbows now, voice urgent, and maybe -

- maybe something else.

"Where? Was he alright? I mean - was he hurt? Was, did you see anyone following him? How long ago was this?"

[gonna_live]

"He was fine -- we was, was out, headed past Boros, maybe a week or so ago, and I stopped in for a drink in this little place on my way back and he was just... there." She's close to stammering. "And I didn't see nobody, but it was dark in there, and -- "

And he scared me, she doesn't say.

[aj_crawley]

The air goes out of Crowley in a great rush, and so does enough of the tightness in his posture that he almost seems to sag in place.

And, unbelievably, he's grinning.

He's still -

- and he looks it -

but the burst of relief is great enough and giddy enough, on top of everything else tonight, that suddenly he's leaning forward and probably squeezing the air out of Kaylee as well with the strength of his hug.

"That," he says, "is the best news I've had in weeks."

[gonna_live]

Kaylee coughs.