Conversations Overseas 4

"Are you holding up alright?"

A long pause. "I'm fine."

"Mal..."

"I'm. Fine."

"And that's completely and utterly believable, love of my life."

"Do you want the full bloody story?"

Pause. "No. Mike's sister-"

"Right. How's his family?"

"Doing about as well as you'd expect."

Another, longer pause. Then:

"Ci?"

"Yes?"

"If anything happens to me-"

"It's not going to, o husband mine. You promised that."

"You know as well as I do that's not going to stop it." Another pause.  He runs his hand through his hair. "If anything happens to me, just...make sure she knows I loved her. Even if I wasn't there all the time."

He almost hates himself for sounding so sentimental, but he can't not say it. He wants his baby girl to know, if the worst comes to the worst, that he didn't abandon her. Wants Cionne to know that too, but she knows it already. Pelita, all of a few years old and still confused as to why her father apparently lives in the computer for most of the time, doesn't.

"I promise."

"And don't-" The next bit stings, but he says it anyway. "If there's someone, after I go, I'm not going to stop you going with them. You deserve to be happy, o joy of my heart."

Cionne looks away for a moment, biting her lip. When she looks back, he thinks he can almost see tears in her eyes (or is that just the webcam fucking up again?) "You're not getting your stupid self killed out there, Mal. And that's an order."

"Sir yes sir. No dying," he replies, snapping off a salute that has them both dissolving into half-stifled laughter which is hovering just on the edge of tears. He bites it back (no sense letting the others in the room see him getting all emotional, after all) and, watching, sees her do the same. But that doesn't change the fact it was there.

"I love you," she says, quietly, after a moment. "So don't get yourself blown up."

"I love you too, Ci. And I'll try very very hard not to."