When Simon Blackquill entered the detention center one drizzly Saturday afternoon in late February, he was surprised to hear from the officer in charge that his sister already had two visitors.

As the guard was not about to deny a prominent prosecutor and former inmate his visitation, he made it past the front desk easily enough, in spite of the fact that prisoners were generally only allowed to see one registered party at a time.

However, his steps faltered when his eyes fell on the two people seated in the visitors' chairs in front of the bulletproof glass window, their faces turned in the other direction, yet oh-so-easily recognizable.

Aura looked up at him, and a small smirk began to show on her features. "Why, hello there, Simon. Look who came by!"

The tall, broad-backed man with the flaming red hair was quick to turn around and stare at him as if he were beholding a ghost, his diminutive wife in the traditional kimono following his example in a slower and more dignified manner.

"Simon, my boy…"

The male visitor's sonorous voice trailed off as he obviously did not know how to continue. In his stead, the woman spoke up, her voice quiet and barren of emotional inflection, uttering a single word.

"Chōnan."

Simon swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Haha-ue."

The silence after the hesitant greeting was so thick one could have cut it with a knife, until Aura's sarcastic tone shattered it.

"What a wonderful place to have a family reunion after all these years, eh, little brother?"


The meeting with his sister ended in fairly short order, mostly because it was dominated by long stretches of no one speaking a word. It had been too long since the Blackquill family had splintered apart, the cracks already in place even before the UR-1 case, although this incident had been the bulkhead which had thoroughly crushed the proverbial camel into a pulp.

Simon had gleaned from what little had been said that Marcus Blackquill was once again stationed at the Mildenhall RAF base in the UK, one of the few remaining active joint operations with the US Air Force in that country, where the youngest member of the family had spent a substantial part of his formative years. Apparently, their father had risen fairly high up in the ranks at this point, as he had muttered something about his refueling engineers being more difficult to keep in line than a herd of cats. Due to residing outside of the country, their parents had not gotten wind of the UR-1 retrial and his sister's subsequent incarceration until the respective news articles had been pointed out to them by acquaintances recently, and had decided to fly to California shortly thereafter.

While his father had at least attempted to make conversation, Masako Haneo-Blackquill had remained quiet after her initial greeting. Being descended from a very traditional Japanese family, she did not consider extraneous verbiage to be of much value. The unlikely couple had met while her future husband had been stationed at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, and although vastly different in demeanor, their marriage was still going strong in spite of being just shy of its fortieth year.

However, as yet another silence began to fill the room with its uncomfortable density, she muttered softly, head vaguely tilted in Simon's direction although she was not meeting his eyes, "O-hisashiburi nanode, hanashi-nasai."

His eyebrows drew together in a hint of irritation. "Nani o itte hoshiin dai?"

He know he was being rude in his response to her request for him to talk, using a much more colloquial level of Japanese than she had, and her slightly hurt expression let him know that he had hit his mark. Not that they would have been able to continue their conversation, as now both his father and Aura were glaring at them.

"Mom, English, please," his sister groaned. Having been much more inclined towards numbers and constructing elaborate machines with her Erector Set from a young age, she had never been one for languages, and as their mother had been working through much of her childhood, their parents' first attempt at raising a child bilingually had failed rather miserably, particularly since their father had never acquired Japanese, himself. Simon, meanwhile, had benefited from Masako leaving her civilian secretarial post on the base after he had been born, and was a fluent speaker.

"Of course." Their mother's English was still softly accented in spite of having spent most of her adult life on various bases in Europe and the US alongside her husband.

After taking one look at his wife's expression, Marcus Blackquill ventured into the halting conversation once more. Turning towards Aura, he asked, unusually quietly considering his usually boisterous nature, "Sweetheart, would you mind if we came back to see you tomorrow? I'm sure you realize that we have a number of things to talk about with your brother…"

Aura heaved a theatrical sigh, rolling her eyes. "It's not like I can stop you. Don't bring him along when you come back, though, he's always such dreary company."

Their father smiled for a moment. "That's my girl, still one hell of a mouth on her. You'd have made a fine Air Force engineer. Too bad you were always more interested in space than in tanker aircraft."

Then, he turned towards Simon, his expression firm. "Son, a word with you, over a cup of coffee."

"I have other matters to attend to." His tone was half-confrontational, half-defensive.

Simon was about to rise and excuse himself when his mother spoke up once more, still at a low volume, but with a hint of steel in her voice. "Simon Tetsuya Blackquill, you are not excused."

His answer came all but automatically as he stilled in his movements. "Yes, haha-ue."

Marcus shot her a grateful look before he turned back towards his son. "Please, Simon. We won't keep you for long."

The please coming from his old man of all people, in conjunction with the use of his given name, startled Simon into inclining his head in agreement.

"Very well."

[End of chapter]


Glossary of the Japanese:

Chōnan. - Oldest son (sometimes also with the connotation of "only son")

Haha-ue. - "Mother," family-internal appellation, somewhat old-fashioned and very respectful.

O-hisashiburi nanode, hanashi-nasai. - Since it has been a long time, (please) talk. ["Mom" register plus a sprinkle of politeness markers]

Nani o itte hoshiin dai? - What do you want me to say? [As said above, very plain speech - you don't use "dai" as interrogative in the polite registers; furthermore, the ending particle is also considered a tad outdated these days by many native speakers AFAIK, but no more archaic than, say, "dono" ;)]