Fandom Into the fire (1x1 MzHyde/Gallifrog)

[_gallifrog_]

John didn't mind that Kay had figured out that he was in one of his insomniac phases, nor did he find it particularly surprising, he was pretty sure it was obvious to everybody in the apartment. Chas of course knew the signs, as did Elliott, they'd both lived with John long enough to recognise the signs. Cliff was a doctor, and excelled at reading them and finding out what exactly was plaguing them, be it an illness or a thought. Cal would have found out from Cliff. Jay and Rinaa both were sort of insomniacs themselves, both pushing themselves for long hours without rest, so could probably see the signs in somebody else. And it wasn't like he made any effort to hide it, either heading out to the balcony for a smoke or grabbing a set of keys to do some nocturnal exploring of the military base town. "Well it's not like it's any big secret or anything" he shrugged nonchalantly "pretty sure it's obvious to everybody else. And it's not like I'm ashamed of it or anything"

John couldn't resist being nosy and taking a look at what Kay was typing into her phone. At first the jumble of words, numbers and abbreviations made no sense to him, but a second look and things began to fall into place. It was a log of how the pregnancy was progressing. What pattern it was showing, John couldn't tell, but what he could see was that it was updated almost daily, so clearly something Kay was taking seriously. Given how little they knew (or more worryingly, how little Cliff was able to find out, it seemed that it was very rare for bird humanoid species to have accelerated pregnancies, or even pregnancies at all with most going the more traditional egg laying route) it was probably a good idea, and he could only guess it had the added bonus of being some way comforting to Kay. He made no comment on it, instead pulling out his own phone and heading to the sort of group chat they'd made in the group. It had turned into a dumping ground for promising links, articles and files to help with Elliott's case. Cliff was passing on things from Alex and Chris, Jay had uploaded a whole pile of things including a summary of what Dakkon had told them, along with bits she'd memories from the spook's files. Rinaa had taken it upon herself to put some order on things having hacked it to give herself admin status, and was in the process of organising the files into logical groups and categories, as well as separating the general chat from the 'how to save Elliott' chat. John had been slowly working his way through everything, figuring if he's going to be an insomniac, he might as well do something somewhat useful.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay didn't think his insomnia was anything to be ashamed of. Just like she has never been ashamed of her sleep walking that can be triggered from either an important message in her dreams or stress. Or so she concluded were the triggers at any rate. She also was sure that if she noticed he wasn't really sleeping much at night, then the others no doubt had noticed as well. She was also fully aware that John was snooping over her shoulder at what she was logging into her phone, and for once she really didn't mind him doing so. Usually people looking over at what she was doing on her phone could irritate her, but in this instance it wasn't a bother at all.

She knew neither of them or Cliff had any other solid aid or information to know for certain what was to be expected, so if she could bring herself any kind of control or comfort by doing this, even if it proved utterly pointless, she was damn well going to keep doing it. Out the corner of her eye, she was aware of John grabbing for his own phone to do whatever it was he wanted to do on it. She didn't spend too much time on her notes before she saved them and closed the notepad function. By this point a yawn escaped her lips, making her cover her mouth with her forearm before putting her phone down. "I'm gonna get some sleep, night John" she told him, before leaning over placing a quick but soft kiss to his cheek. She then laid down properly, not minding that John was staying up in the slightest, laying partially on her side whilst facing John for her own sense of security before closing her eyes.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John had never been ashamed of his insomnia, he saw no point in being like that, other people could judge if they liked, but he wasn't going to let other's opinions stop him getting on with his life. And in the grand scale of things, it wasn't the most intrusive of his problems by a long shot, that award would go to either his nightmares or his intense, all-consuming depressive moods. Safe to say he'd take insomnia over either of them any day. "Night then." John replied when Kay eventually started to succumb to the pull of sleep, turning back to his phone and the information on it. Jay's summary of the little of the spook's file she'd been allowed to see was pretty fascinating. Despite there being no gender pronouns used, he couldn't help but feel it was a male (though maybe that was just his own internal biases based of the fact that spies were generally portrayed as mainly being male in most forms of media back on Earth). It was slow work as nothing was in English and the Attili was highly technical language that he simply didn't have the vocabulary to understand. And then there was the stuff in other languages, which he could only understand by copying and pasting large passages of text into the equivalent of Google Translate (which seemed to give the same kind of stilted often dodgy translations the Earth one had).

John didn't sleep that night, maybe he nodded off a few times, but that was only for brief periods of maybe a minute long, so that didn't really count. Some part of his mind noted the fact that Kay was sleeping facing him meant he was providing some sense of security by being there, but that realisation didn't make it to his conscious brain. The others in the apartment fell asleep easily on their respective beds (or couches). Rinaa bundled herself into the blankets, drawing as much fabric around herself as possible. At first her sleep was easy and deep, the few dreams that did flit around were just memories of times at school (no doubt brought on by the earlier conversations). But as the night progressed and the clock passed midnight, then one in the morning, things took a darker tone and she began murmuring in her sleep, shaking her head as she spoke in anguished tones "no..... please no..... don't be dead.... don't"

 

[MzHyde]

Kay slept fine during the majority of the night. She had the odd dream of her teenage life in school after the long childhood talk from earlier in the night, and the only giveaway to John that would tell him she was having dreams would have been the flickers of her eyes despite being asleep. It was a common tick to have, and one she had been told before that she would do depending on the dream she was having. She never turned over to her other side or back, like she normally would, instead staying rather calm and still during the night. Not even Fee made any kind of appearance during the night or wrapped their shared wings around her like a few nights ago.

By the morning, Kay felt like she had a well rested sleep and did actually wake up relatively early for a change naturally. She found she couldn't recall any of the dreams she had which was rare for her but not completely unusual. She was aware she did dream during the night but she just couldn't remember what actually occurred in said dreams, and for once she wasn't at all worried about it. Fia had also stirred awake early but refused to properly wake up so she grumbled her disapproval of being awake and buried herself under the duvet and into the pillow, with just a few strands of her hair being over the top to show she was indeed still on the couch. It was then she realised she was still on the couch and wondered how her pillow and duvet even got there as she didn't recall retrieving it herself. She then pulled the duvet back down and glanced around seeing who was in the living room, and with no sight of Rinaa in the room, she guessed Rinaa had the spare room and must have brought her stuff out for her.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John rarely looked up from his phone for the first couple of hours, it was only when the low battery started beeping at him that he moved, fumbling around in the dark for his charger, not wanting to turn on the light for risk of waking Kay. As had become customary he popped out for a walk (and a I'm uncultured) in the dark of night. He was a night person by nature, drawn always towards the darkness. The military town never truly slept, there was always something going on during the night shift. When he entered the living room, he was amused to find that, that Jay was still asleep on the chair. In fact the assassin spent the whole night sleeping in that uncomfortable position. When she did wake she stretched her arms upwards above her head, hissing at the burst of pain that went through her shoulder muscles as she did so. The others who were awake- Elliott, Chas, Cal and John all stifled laughter at the sight. Rolling her eyes Jay made her way over to the table.

"I'm far more impressed than I should be, didn't think that you'd spent the ENTIRE night on that chair." Cliff remarked, walking out of the kitchen carrying a glass of smoothie-like liquid. "And as a doctor, you don't approve, but know it's more important that I actually slept." The assassin smirked back, almost challenging Cliff to deny the truth in her words, alternating between which shoulder she was rubbing in an attempt to loosen up the stiffened muscles. "Something like that, yeah" the doctor agreed before sliding the glass across to Jay. "This should help though, it's one of my family's homemade remedy thingys. Some are bullshit, but this one does wonders for achy body parts after sleeping in uncomfortable positions. Obviously designed for fisherman on long hauls." Jay eyed the glass warily, brought it under her nose and sniffed it, before tipping her head back and gulping it down.

Rinaa meanwhile had a horrendous night of sleep, the nightmares only worsening as the night progressed to the point where she was thrashing so badly that she kicked the blankets across the room. She woke up with a jolt, drenched in sweat, a scream of terror on her lips, but not making it past them. it took a few moments for her breathing to calm down and for her brain to kick in and remind herself of where she was, as she sat there shaking she dragged her shaking hands through her hair repeatedly, tugging hard at the strands, hoping the twinges of pain would pull her out of it. Hands still shaking she picked up the duvet and forced herself to make the bed with military neatness, the task taking about four times longer than it normally would. The teenager made her way to the kitchen, dead set on finding something filled with caffeine or sugar to help jolt her out of it, not giving any thought to how much of a walking mess she looked.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay did eventually encourage herself to get out of bed, seeing that John was already up. She knew it was the insomnia phase that made this to be the case, yet it didn't stop the sigh from escaping her. It was in her mind, incredibly selfish of her to think such a thing, but she did miss waking up to find John next to her and she couldn't wait for the insomnia phase to pass again. Shoving her leggings and hoodie on that she wore the day before, she walked out to the main room just before Rinaa made an appearance, seeing that Jay had woken from the same position she fell asleep in.

She looked across to see Fia refusing to stay awake on the couch, burying herself under the duvet which made her smirk to herself. "morning" she said to everyone, just as Rinaa came out looking worse for wear and seeing that clearly she didn't have as good a sleep as the rest of them. She walked over to Fia and pulled the duvet off of her, making Fia grumble her disapproval at the action, stretching her arms up to try and grab the duvet off of Kay. "muuuuuuum stoooop!" she complained in a very childish manner. Kay just chuckled at the behaviour Fia was showing, and refused to let Fia have the duvet properly back over her. "sorry kiddo, but you can't hog the couch all day" she told her. "you're a cruel woman" Fia moaned, pouting as she made herself sit up straight and stretch her arms and legs. "yeah yeah... Sure I am" Kay replied sarcastically.

 

[_gallifrog_]

The others were aware that Fia was actually awake, and occasionally peering bleary-eyed through the cocoon of the duvet to see what was going on at the table. Nobody had the heart to disturb her, there was something adorable about seeing her like this, it took years off her and made her look more innocent than she actually was (innocence was something they all knew Fia would have had to lose at a far younger age given the world she'd grown up in). A round of light laughter went through the group when Kay came along and yanked the duvet away from Fia, it was such a stereotypical mother gesture, but that didn't make it any less amusing. Fia's reaction was perfect, the right balance between whiny and embarrassed. Even Rinaa managed to crack a half smile at the sight as she made her way to the kitchen.

"She does have a point, we're gonna need that couch soon enough and you'd complain even more if we all went and sat on you while you were 'asleep'." John made airquotes around the word 'asleep' to make it clear that they'd all known earlier that Fia was awake. "And besides, you fell asleep on the couch, therefore you have to obey the Laws of The Couch." Chas groaned at that- Laws of The Couch was something he and John had come up with when they were much younger, during the period that they were so poor they ended up sharing the same shitty apartment (even shittier than John's current one and far, far smaller). There was only one bed, so they took turns to sleep on the couch, prompting a set of rules to be made about what was deemed 'fair use' and what was just hogging it.

Cliff's attention by this point was firmly fixated on Rinaa, saying the other teenager had had a bad night's sleep was an understatement, she looked like a severely hung-over addict on the edge of withdrawal. "I'll say it straight, you like you're gonna drop dead on us." She told the teenager as she got up from the kitchen table. "If I'm being honest, I feel worse than I look right now" she sighed "I think it's just gonna be one of those days where I lie on the balcony and try and think about anything but how shit I feel. Hopefully it'll pass in a couple of hours."

 

[MzHyde]

Kay had to admit, Fia did look adorable bundled up in the duvet the way she was but she also knew she couldn't take up the entire couch when everyone was fully awake. Her actions also weren't even second guessed by herself or thought to be necessarily 'motherly' so to speak, she just did it thinking it was a little wind up whilst making a point. So when John agreed with her, Kay couldn't stop the smug smile from appearing on her lips which Fia knew all too well as 'see even your dad agrees', despite Kay not knowing that at all. Fia groaned and rolled her eyes when John spoke up, siding with Kay. "yeah yeah...and I wasn't trying to pretend to be asleep as such and I know all about the laws of the couch" Fia moaned back at him, putting on a sarcastic and dumbed down drawled accent on the last four words of her reply. Like Chas, Fia had heard the story of 'the laws of The Couch' before when she had been accused of hogging the couch back in her timeline and did actually get sat on to make a point.

Fia then stood up and pulled the duvet away from Kay, where she proceeded to wrap it right around her a cacoon before grabbing her pillow. "I'm gonna put this lot back in the spare room" Fia told them, to show that she was willing to tidy up after herself as well. She wasn't brought up to be a complete disaster or messy person. Tightly hugging the pillow to her chest, and barely visable in the duvet, she shuffled her way to the spare room she usually sleeps in. To Kay it was quite the stereotypical teenage sight, yet it still amused her enough to make her chuckle lightly as she watched the duvet drag behind Fia like a weird kind of train of a dress. "that child is something else I swear" she remarked before properly joining the rest of them near the kitchen to get some breakfast. She overheard what was being said between Rinaa and Cliff, but didn't chime in on the conversation, knowing it wasn't her place to.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John couldn't help but smirk when Fia said she knew all about the 'Laws of the Couch', her tone telling him that he'd brought them up so many times in the future that she was slightly sick of him talking about them or using them as a justification to shove her the couch so John could hog it instead. Chas managed to suppress his second groan, for a man who abhorred rules and revelled in the breaking, bending and manipulating of them, John enjoyed enforcing this set way too much. Maybe it was something to do with the absurdity of the name (which had come from a drunken ramble of Cheryl's when she heard the two bickering). "Well if you weren't faking sleeping, then you must be trying to fuse and become one with that duvet" he snarked back, his smirk only growing when Fia wrapped herself in the duvet again as if it was some kind of cloak. Back in 'her' room Fia would find that the only differences from how she'd left the room yesterday was Rinaa's laptop and phone on the bedside table and that the bed had been made with almost military precision, all traces of her 'cousin's' nightmare-induced thrashing was gone- the under-sheets had been straightened and the blankets Rinaa had used were neatly folded and placed in the centre of the bed.

John nodded in agreement with Kay's statement that Fia was 'something else'. "There's no denying that, if all else future us has managed to provide some entertainment for this lot" he gestured with his fork in the direction of the others around the table "so that's a win in somebody's books and gotta count for something." "Having Fia around, and you lot around has certainly livened things up for us." Cal agreed. Their lives hadn't been that uneventful before Elliott came back, but hosting this whole new extended family in their flat was proving to be quite the roller coaster of shocks and surprises- mythical races, surprise pregnancies, time travellers, espionage, assassins wanting to rip each other's throats out... the list went on and on.

Cliff's querying about Rinaa's current state of health (shit, but the teenager was fairly sure she'd live through it) was cut short by the arrival of a flurry of messages, both to her and Cal's phone. Jay's 'work phone' lit up about thirty seconds later with an incoming message from Dakkon, or maybe one of his subordinates the exact specifics didn't matter. The mood changed in a flash from light-hearted joking to one of intense seriousness. Wordlessly all three compared messages, each of theirs saying the same thing. "Bad news?" Elliott asked. "That depends on your point of view." Cal replied, passing her phone to her brother. "They've set a date." Jay explained, seeing the question written over everybody else's faces.

 

[MzHyde]

As Fia quite literally shuffled her way back to 'her' room, she rolled her eyes at John's last statement, "And that would be a bad thing... how?!" she retorted, managing to get to the room before she could any kind of possible snarky reply from her father or Kay's comment. Walking into the spare room she noticed how meticulous the bed was left, seeing that it could have only been Rinaa in the room. She shuffled over to the bed and put the pillow she was all but hugging to her chest on the bed before carefully taking the blankets and pillow that Rinaa used and laying on the floor next to the end of the bed so she could put her own duvet on the bed, setting the bed neatly, so not to disrupt Rinaa's military level of neat bed making. "there.. Perfect" she muttered to herself looking at her handiwork, before making her way back to the others.

As John replied to Kay's comment about Fia, Kay grabbed herself some food and a fork before sitting down on the spare place there was and nodding in agreement at his reply, and Cal's. "too true. Who'da thought we'd create such a bloody comedian" she smirked as she started eating and seeing Fia make a reentry into the main room and kitchen as most of the group's phones went off with the same alert. The smirk very rapidly vanishing from her face and looking just as curious and questionably as the others were. "when's the date?" Fia asked as she sat down and stole a bite off John's plate as pay back for the rules of the couch remark earlier. She did give herself her own breakfast but that wasn't going to stop her from stealing off her dad's plate, which wasn't completely unheard of in her timeline or Rinaa's.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John was too distracted by the change in atmosphere to notice Fia blatantly nicking his food. He didn't dare to speak as first Cal and Cliff and then Jay compared their phones, all three women coming to an unspoken agreement on what to do next. When Jay said that a date had been decided it was as if his heart stopped for a moment. There was no need for anybody to ask for clarification, there was only one date it could possibly be. Elliott's shoulders had stiffened upon reading the message, the significance of what he was about to do hitting him full and hard. Some of that tension vanished when Jay took his free hand and interlaced their fingers under the table.

"Early morning, four days from now." Elliott replied. There was a moment silence as they let that sink in, during which Rinaa made her way back into the kitchen, leaning on the back of Jay's chair for support. "Is that enough time?" Chas asked hesitantly. "It will have to be." Cliff replied determinedly at the same time as Jay said. "Yes I think it is. Tight, there's no doubt about that, but enough, especially when you take into account that there is an actual legal team on our side who've been doing a whole tonne of scheming, and are genuinely invested in this, not in it for the money or the fame. Not to mention all of our own research that we've been doing and people like the Sanches brothers." Jay was the only one to call Alex and Chris that, Elliott declaring that made them sound like dodgy Mexican cartel members only further encouraging her to keep doing so. "Plus while travelling to the dead drop I did some asking around, called in some favours and got advice from various old contacts and allies in the law business who I'd trust on a strategy and got a pretty promising selection of feedback. Sure we'll be flat-out with planning and meeting with all these people the next few days, and I want to snoop around the court buildings too, but four days is enough, any longer and we'll start overthinking, any less and we'll rush it and risk ballsing it up."

 

[MzHyde]

Both Fia and Kay could see how tense Elliott got from reading the message on Jay's phone, and when Fia asked the question she was unsure if she really wanted to know the answer. She didn't know how soon she was expecting it to be, but she was worried all because of seeing how tense it made Elliott. Hearing that it was four days from now and in the early morning, Fia and Kay both simply nodded at the words, neither able to compile any words to speak on the news, so was glad when Chas did manage to ask something. They both listened to what Jay had to say, and the explanation of what she found out on her travels to the dead drop, finding it all easily understandable.

The fact Jay said it would be a tight but it is do-able and would still be enough time for her to go snooping around the court buildings, Kay and Fia both felt they could trust her judgment on it. "then four days from now it is. Guess we'll have to really make sure none of slack in doing what we can to help. We got this, that much I know." Kay commented, finally finding her voice again to speak. She didn't know if her delay in finding her voice was down to the bond sharing the fact that John felt like his breath was taken from him for a moment or not, but she had to have hope that they could win this for Elliott and things would go their way. "Jay and mum are right, if it's any sooner the bigger window for fucking it up appears, any longer and we'll drive ourselves crazy thinking on it. We've succeeded this far in gaining information without any mistakes or being caught, so we gotta think four days is enough and we can do this" Fia added.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John's first reaction upon hearing that they had four days was relief (seeing how sombre the others had become and the pause that felt agonisingly long to him, he'd thought they were going to say 'in three hours' or some other ridiculously short amount of time). This was quickly followed by feelings of panic and stress, was four days enough for the massive amount of preparation they had to do? Did they even have enough preparation and information? Dakkon had only given them solid information yesterday and they hadn't exactly done much with it in the meantime. John desperately wanted to ask if it was enough time, but it was as if his throat had closed up so he was immensely relieved when Chas asked instead.

Jay's reaction when she saw the message had been extraordinarily similar to John's, the relief at finally having a date, followed by a panic of questions and new worries, but she was nothing if not a professional and could shoe her personal feelings aside for a while. The others listened as she explained her reasons for saying it was enough time. After Fia and Kay said their pieces Cal slowly nodded, her confidence returning. She didn't want to give herself false hope, but the other three women had genuine points- genuine causes to believe that yes, they could do this, they could get justice for her kid brother and bring about some long needed change. "I agree on all counts. We've got all the information, the skills and the network of people that we need between us, it's just a matter of stopping freaking out and actually getting down to doing it. There's no reason why we can't do this right and get justice." John by now had regained control over his voice and felt it was time to speak up. "It's not like we can change the date or change the fact it's happenin' so we damn well better get on with it and do the bloody best job of it we can. Even if some of us can't speak or read anything in the various languages there's still other stuff ta be done and we really all just have ta pull together and get on with it. The longer we sit here pondering how much we can do in four days, the less of the four days we actually have to do shit in."

 

[MzHyde]

If there was one thing that was constant, it was that Kay always would find the hope in something dire or important. It had been a relatively new thing for her, as before she even met John and the others she was far from being the type to find hope. Hell, she made no effort to hide she felt pretty hopeless at several times when she was trying to survive on her own. Yet now she found reasons to find the hope and those reasons were these amazing people she had found and her daughter, even if there were odd moments (like on the ship to Attil) when she felt utterly lost and needed reminding she wasn't alone herself.

When John finally found his own voice and spoke up, she nodded in agreement, just like Fia did at Cal's words. Kay found herself placing her hand comfortingly on John's shoulder. "John's right, we need to stop dilly dallying and make the most of these four days that we can" she added. Fia had to smile ever so slightly, the tiniest of smiles that just about was viable on the corner of her lips at Kay's words, finding she hadn't heard her mother use the term 'dilly dally' in such a long time. As soon as the smile appeared, it disappeared with a sigh. "then let's get to it" she remarked, finally starting to eat her own food as she spoke.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John's last line was what brought a smile back to Elliott's face, as it was such a John way of phrasing it, compared to Kay's choice of 'dilly-dallying' which he always associated with period novels as opposed to something a thirty-something year old from the the twenty first century would say. "There's no time like now to start"
he agreed. "So what is actually the first order of business? I think I saw something about a meeting on that message." "You saw right, the two of us have the first meeting with our legal team in" she glanced at her watch, which had been a gift from Cliff"a little under an hour and a half, so I say we get our asses to the city and find out what kind of game plan they have." "As the wife and sister-in-law I'm coming too. I have a pile of questions from Alex that he wants answering, on side note, I'm gonna text him, see if he can fly out on such notice to help out." "If you need strings pulled to get him here, I can pull 'em" Jay offered, before her tone turned harder, making it clear that nobody could change her mind on what she was about to say "and I'm coming to this legal meeting today too. Mainly because, like Cliff I have questions as well as a right to be there and partly to familiarise myself with the building and how the Attili system is set up."

Rinaa waited until the four had decided what they were going to do before speaking up. "I could make a start of individually translating the most vital documents to proper English, but, full disclosure here, I have a highly advanced translation software for alien languages on one of these drives and with a bit of basic instruction any of these guys" she gestured at Chas, John, Fia and Kay (in that order) "could get it up and running, while it'll take a good few HOURS, maybe even into tomorrow to complete, it's far faster than hand translating each and every piece. And at some point I can attempt to give a crash course in the basics of the Attili political and legal system, a good understanding of them is pretty vital for everybody here. Chas is the most orderly of those left here today in my opinion and I'm pretty sure he'd be the best for the admin stuff of making and maintaining a better system of organising all our files and data. And if anybody's bored, there's always trawling through social media and other site for more murals."

 

[MzHyde]

Kay didn't always use such old sayings and terms to describe objects or actions, but this was one that she did use every now and then. She always blamed her growing up reading old classic literature to broaden her reading knowledge and mind, and was something she would never apologise for doing as she didn't see why she should or would. The mention from Elliott about a meeting was interesting to Kay and so she listened with great interest at Cal's reply before hearing that Cliff and Jay insisted on going with them. When Rinaa spoke up with her suggestions, both Kay and Fia listened at them and nodded, feeling more than happy to help in those ways.

"I can do the translation software, I'm pretty tech savvy, just give me those instructions and I'm on it" Fia commented, knowing she had spent more time than she'd cared to admit on her own laptop for one reason or another, that with basic instructions she would be able to work through the translation software no problem. "I could do some trawling through social media for more murals and stuff no problem. Anything to be of use" Kay spoke up, knowing there were more than enough laptops in the apartment to use, as well as the phones. She was also feeling rather proud of everyone just wanting to get on with everything, not that she could imagine anyone slacking or they wouldn't have come all this way to help Elliott. It just now felt like they were finally moving forward and were seeing the end, no matter how it would end. The fact was there was an end in sight and they could now really work as a team to reach it.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Part of Jay was expecting to be challenged on the 'I have a right to be there' part of her spiel, her relationship with Elliott was really just beginning (unlike Cal and Cliff who were legally married, they'd only had one conversation about their mutual feelings which took place when they were on the island). Nobody even batted an eyelid at it, having taken it as a given that where Elliott was going, Jay would damn well be going too. Hearing there had already been some kind of meeting between the legal team and the person they were representing had already been arranged was a good sign in John's book. If these people weren't serious, they wouldn't have bothered. "Meeting this legal team is a good idea, you can size 'em up and if anybody's a pretentious arsehole, my advice is to fire 'em before they fuck it up." "Eloquently spoken, as ever John." Elliott smirked with a slight eye roll before his tone became softer "but the sentiment is appreciated and understood."

"I'll do translating or social media trawling, I don't mind really." John said after Rinaa finished outlining what she, and they who lacked the language skills could do. It was a clear sign of how serious things were that she was putting aside her own biases and not just offering up this software (which was either high classified, stolen or both in John's opinion), but being willing to explain it. "You're right in thinking I'd be onboard for organising everything. I know you've started putting some kind of shape to it kiddo, mind giving me a run down of your system when you get a moment?" "Don't mind doing so in the slightest Chas, it's pretty intuitive anyway, separating people from legal documents and grouping by language, I marked a whole load with where they should be transferred to, so that'll help. As for you three, that'd be a great help, seriously" there was a genuine sincerity in her tone as she said that. "Having two people on translation would make the most sense, just given the sheer volume of files to get through, the sooner it's in English, the sooner it can be read through and understood. Also" she smiled, her tone lightening "I take dibs on Cliff's wheelie office chair to work from."

 

[MzHyde]

Kay didn't see any point in challenging Jay's want or need to be where Elliott would be. She knew how important it was to Jay to help Elliott and how much Jay cared for him, even if she tried to hide it most of it. She also put herself in Jay's shoes and knew if the roles were reversed and it was helping John out to save his life then she would do everything she could and would not back down on the decision. Fia also didn't see the point in challe going Jay as she grew up having Jay and Elliott being an official item and so it meant they were always a working team, where one went, so did the other 99.999% of the time. She also knew she had no right really to challenge Jay, especially as they were all older than her.

Hearing John say his opinion in such a typical John manner, Fia had to smirk when Elliott replied in the way he did. She also didn't mind having John help in the translating of files side of things, knowing he'd mlbe of more use there with her, than with Kay. She knew what a perfectionist Kay could sometimes be and when it came to trawling through things, she was very thorough and would prefer to do that sort of job on her own. As everyone spoke, both women nodded their agreements. "I don't mind having another person helping me out, and you can have the wheelie chair, I work better cross legged on a couch or similar anyway." Fia said, amused by Rinaa calling shotgun on the wheelie chair. "okay, fine by me. Just give me a computer and I'll get trawling through online" Kay added, just feeling ready to get started rather wasting more time.

 

[_gallifrog_]

"You can have it, so long as I get the arm chair." John replied, faintly amused by how high up on her list of priorities getting her hands on the chair was. "I'll use the kitchen table, it'll be far more comfortable I think." "Good that's sorted, and if somebody WAS gonna challenge me on it, I WOULD fight them for it." Rinaa replied with a smirk, her earlier feeling of emotional and physical shittiness being driven away by her desire to do some actual work and get real results. She preferred to work from a wheelie chair as it meant she could whizz from one work station to another without going through the constant interruption of getting up and sitting down again. She had one in her room in her student flat and used it to speed back and forth between her bookshelves, schoolbag and study desk.

"You can use our laptops, and I think there's an older model that still works somewhere around here." "Yeah there is, I know where it is." Cal vanished for a minute, heading to Fia's room which was their box room for storing (the many) things they hadn't got around to throwing out yet, picking up Rinaa's laptop on the way. Kay would end up with the spare one, as it was the only of the laptops lacking sufficient computing power to run the translation software, Fia got Cliff's laptop and John got Cal's. After some deliberation, Chas was given permission to use Rinaa's laptop, while the teenager used Jay's 'franken-computer', which was far, far more powerful than it looked. The four said their goodbyes, promising to call with news afterwards then left in a rush to make their train. John had been worried that he wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of Rinaa's explanation of how to use the translating software, but that wasn't the case at all- the kid was a fairly decent teacher, he conceded at the end of it.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay would use one of the couches beside Fia, knowing that she wouldn't be comfortable anywhere else for being on a computer for a long amount of time. If she wasn't pregnant she would have placed the laptop on the coffee table and leaned over it from the couch, but that just wasn't an option this time round. With the seating arrangements decided, so Rinaa got the wheelie chair, she just faintly smirked at Rinaa's comment about fighting people for it. It felt like an over exaggeration for such a thing, but she want going to argue with Rinaa on it. She let Cal get up and grab the laptops in question, as Kay headed to the couch and sat herself down.

Fia took Cliff's laptop when given to her, and sat next to Kay on the couch, pulling her legs up and crossing them, placing the laptop down on her lap. Kay sat normally, crossing her ankles/feet and with a little bit of concentration managed to find her way round the laptop's set up easily enough to get online. Fia listened carefully to Rinaa's instructions as did John, making sure she sat in a way that meant she could see what Rinaa was explaining whilst not making Rinaa move too juch between herself and John. When it was first opened she thought she'd never get the hang of it, but as it got broken down to relatively simple terms, she got it easily enough and started work on getting files and reports translated with ease. Kay found herself opening a few tabs of sites she thought would be of use, and one by one she started to trawl through them and screenshotting anything important she found.

 

[_gallifrog_]

Explaining her organisation system to Chas took longer than explaining how to use the translation software as the cabbie already had a number of changes he wanted to make to the system, as well as wanting to set up something that could link together the translated to English version of the files with their non-English counterparts. After an intense discussion they came to an agreement and Chas started work. In order for John to sit down he had to move a pile of items and rediscovered the files they'd been sent anonymously in the pile, the files they were pretty dang sure had come from Zan and that Dakkon had confirmed were not only accurate, but also not readily available to just anybody (evidently the man had made use of his high-level clearance to access them). "What're we gonna do with this lot? Do we have digital copies or...?"

"No, I don't think we do." Rinaa frowned, before wheeling herself over, hand outstretched. "Pass them over, I'll photograph them and then upload them to the main data base thing, Chas you up for organising the six million and one photos I'll send on?" Rinaa asked a teasing edge to her tone. "Yeah, I'm fine with that, send it all on, might take a while, but I'll get around to it." "On it" after that the room fell quiet, the concentration so intense it was practically visible in the air. Even though the operating language of all the laptops was in Attili (except for Rinaa's own one), there wasn't a massive difference in how they were set up in all other regards and they were far easier to use than John had expected. Rinaa opted to listen to music while she worked and once she'd finished photographing all the files and forwarding them to Chas it wasn't long before her head was bopping in time to the music and her feet (clad in dinosaur socks) were tapping softly against the supports of the chair.

 

[MzHyde]

Kay glanced over when John spoke about the paper hardcopies of files that he had to move to be able to sit down before looking back down at the laptop. Unlike Rinaa, neither Kay or Fia opted to play music whilst they worked, even though Fia would have done so normally. Fia wanted to make sure she didn't mess anything up and do everything correctly, so not having music blasting through her ears was the better choice this once. It wasn't long before both of them were completely immersed in what they were doing and Kay was particularly swept up in the websites she was looking through.

She found that some sites were a lot more difficult to navigate for one reason or another, whether it was because it was just a poorly laid site done by an amateur or because it was so down the dark Web, it required a bit of savvy navigating to get passed any walls without putting any bugs or viruses onto the laptop she was using. She did come across a few of the murals being either spoken about on forums or images of their locations which made her screenshot what she found, and passed them onto either Fia or John to add to the list of translating to be done or if it didn't need translating, it was sent to Chas' computer to just be filed.

 

[_gallifrog_]

John wasn't somebody who usually spent long hours in front of a computer or laptop, he was an old fashioned researcher, preferring musty books, scrolls and on a few cases stone tablets. Sure the internet was useful, there was a surprising amount of supposedly lost magical texts uploaded as pdf files, and museums were brilliant for putting up incredibly clear and legible photos of runes from ancient civilisations (which had been a massive help for him on more than one occasion), but at heart he was a traditional researcher, referring to work with paper files. For the first hour or so had to constantly push back feelings of restlessness or boredom as he attempted to immerse himself in the work properly. This wasn't about him, this was about Elliott, so he was going to put his personal biases aside and damn well do everything he could.

Eventually he got into the flow of it, coming to grips with the Attili characters on the keyboard. While the translation programme trawled through all the files, he had some spare time and decided to us it to go through the back archives of some local and regional Attili newspapers. The first thing he wanted to look at was how the media had covered Elliott's 'exile' and the farce that had taken place beforehand. To say he didn't like what he saw was an understatement- the media was lacking proper information (somebody high up in government must have decided to do damage control and locked down the facts). But that didn't stop the papers from taking any old shit and running with it. and had made up what could only be called an utter pile of shit instead. In the hopes of making his blood boil less, he changed tack and decided to look further into what Cal had been saying about her birth parents on the way back from Cliff's homeworld and found the same photos Elliott did of his parents taking part in athletic events. There was no denying where Elliott and Cal got their looks from, almost all their main facial features came from their father.

 

[MzHyde]

Fia was used to researching on both laptops and old books. She didn't particularly have a preference as such, but she did have to admit that there was something about looking through old books and scrolls and feeling the whole aura of its history under her fingertips. She always figured she got that love of old fashion research from her father, but she also knew when looking through a computer was useful and had its moments of proving more valuable than spending hours trying to find what was needed with her naked eye. So in this instance it took her far less time to stay focused than it did John.

As for Kay, she didn't mind either way, the only time she favoured books was when it came to studying art and artists of history. Anything else and she'd always turn to her computer. After a good couple of hours or more (she lost track of time after the first hour and a half) she felt her eyes getting dry and her fingers cramping up from the constant repetitive scrolling and tapping. So she leaned back into the couch and stretched her arms up and over her head with a sigh before lowering her arms again as she made herself blink a few times to moisten her eyes. Putting the laptop onto the coffee table for a moment, she felt she had to get a drink and stretch her legs, "either of you need a drink whilst I'm up?" she asked Fia and John as they were closest, knowing she'd ask the other two when closer to them. "please, just a cold drink will do me" Fia replied, making Kay nod.

 

[_gallifrog_]

During the hours he'd spent researching John had managed to rotated 90 degrees in the chair so that his legs were dangling over one of the armrests. It was a deceptively comfortable position he quite often adopted when reading back in his flat. It also allowed him to easily brace a book on his legs without having to hunch over like he would sitting at a table. At the sound of Kay's voice he looked up, blinking to refocus his eyes after so long staring at the one screen. A drink sounded like an excellent idea and not just to him, Chas' had had popped up from behind Rinaa's laptop, reminding John of a meerkat. The cabbie had, upon being told that he'd be using Rinaa's laptop, both honoured that she trusted him not to go snooping around on it and secretly delighted that he'd be using an English keyboard. "A drink sounds like an excellent idea, tea preferably please."

Seeing that Rinaa was showing no signs of having heard, Chas reached over and tapped her left shoulder to get her attention. She dutifully paused the track and pulled the Bluetooth headphones down around her neck, the ear coverings resting on top of the prominent central knobs of her collarbones. "We're stopping for drinks, you want anything" he asked at the same time as John started musing aloud as to whether it was too early to break out the alcohol. One drink wouldn't get him so drunk that he couldn't research/use the translation software coherently, his higher than normal alcohol tolerance meant he'd just get ever so slightly buzzed. "Pffft, I don't care whether society deems it acceptable or not, I'm having a beer" was Rinaa's response. "I wouldn't usually do this kind of work with booze in me" she explained as she got up to root in the very back of the fridge where Cal and Cliff kept a moderate amount of alcohol (neither being massive drinkers) "but now I have a stupidly high hyper-metabolism and I'm gonna die soon, why the fuck not?" She pulled out the glass bottle and made her way back to the living room. "Slight side note, have any of you ever seen that trick of opening a wine bottle with a sword?"