Work Text:
It began, oddly enough, with Cordelia.
Sometime after Miles and Ivan's sixth birthdays, Simon and Aral carved a week out of their schedule and retired to Vorkosigan Surleau with Cordelia, Alys, and all three boys. The new cease-fire with Count Piotr was still fragile, of course, but Bothari dogged Miles's every step and the old General was distracted besides with remedying what he claimed was Gregor's shameful lack of education in wilderness survival.
So, Simon felt, cautiously, that he might be able to relax for the first time in years. His principals were all ensconced in a remote, heavily fortified building in the middle of the deeply loyal Vorkosigan's District, with the full complement of Armsmen and a double deployment of ImpSec units to stand guard. Political threats were kept at bay temporarily by Aral's retreat from the capitol. All Simon needed now was a brisk blizzard to keep everyone safely indoors.
Simon settled back in his chair by the fireplace and frowned at his tablet. It was late autumn, turning to winter, and chill enough outside to warrant a fire in the grate, but according to the latest ImpMil meteorological reports from Tanery Base there was no snow predicted.
Cordelia, seated across from him, caught his eye and smiled wryly.
Gathered around the table behind them, the boys and the old General were enthusiastically planning a riding expedition for the next morning while Aral looked on. Simon privately hoped he himself wouldn't be 'invited' along, although it was likely he would be as an extra pair of eyes to look after Miles.
Oh, I wish they wouldn't go out with those awful beasts, Simon heard Cordelia say quietly.
Simon opened his mouth to respond, then stopped, played back his chip recording, and realized that she hadn't actually spoken the words aloud.
Simon tilted his head at her, confused. He ran the recording back a few more times, to the same result. Although he was certain he'd heard the words aloud in Cordelia's voice with its distinct accent, his chip had no memory of them. It was as if they'd appeared directly in his mind without being filtered through his ears at all.
“Sorry, did you say something?” he asked Cordelia.
She was giving him an odd look.
“No, I didn't... Simon, is everything okay?”
Shit. “Yes, milady. I'm fine.”
Simon prided himself on being an excellent liar – he could fool even Aral sometimes, not that he made a habit of it. But Cordelia always saw through him.
“Hm,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
Mercifully, she didn't push it any further that evening, but Simon could see her plotting her attack. He had only a little time to figure this out before Cordelia intervened.
…
The next voice he heard was Aral's.
The old General wanted them awake and ready to leave at an hour that was early even by Simon's standards, so he was eating a breakfast roll standing up as he received an abbreviated form of his usual morning briefing from his staff. To general relief, it appeared that the Residence, Vorkosigan House, and Simon's HQ all remained whole and undamaged, and no fires literal or metaphorical had caught overnight.
Simon's concentration was broken by a thought decidedly not his own, Don't want to get up, it's warm.
He recognized Aral's burr, the deep backcountry Russian that his liegelord lapsed into when he was exceptionally tired or drunk, especially here in the District. With Aral's thoughts came faint sensations: Aral's reluctance to disentangle from his warm and sleepy wife, Cordelia's soft hair brushing through his fingers.
Burning with shame, Simon fruitlessly played back every moment of the morning, from when he'd left his own bed forty minutes ago to the present moment, scouring it for any record of the thoughts that he knew couldn't be his. Simon refused, he absolutely refused to believe that this was the long-overdue chip madness taking him. The couldn't afford that, not now when he'd only just got ImpSec functioning at something like a galactic standard. Aral couldn't afford it. Gregor couldn't.
Aral's voice in his mind grumbled and swore in four languages as he got ready and roused the boys, giving vent to Simon's feelings somewhat.
Simon busied himself with organizing the ImpSec detail that was to be riding with them. He tested himself subtly against his men, asking questions and listening intently. But he didn't hear any of their voices in his mind, and his chip recorded all the interactions correctly.
It made no sense for this to be a chip malfunction, either, Simon thought to himself, hashing it out over and over in his mind as they mounted up and set off up the trail. His chip dealt entirely in images and sound, never carrying physical sensations. Even when his fellow experimentees had gone mad one by one, in those dark early days that Simon kept walled off as much as possible in his memory, the others had become dangerously unstable by constantly seeing or hearing things that weren’t there, never feeling them. If he was experiencing a chip malfunction, there should be no way for him to experience anything like the full-body shock of cold he felt when Cordelia threw off the covers and climbed out of bed around midmorning.
Simon paid the price for his relative inattention, as Miles, grown bored of riding safely in the middle of the pack, spurred his horse to greater speeds and pulled ahead. He rounded a blind turn just after his grandfather. Simon, hard on his heels as he tailed Miles, heard a sharp clatter and a shout of “Careful, boy!” from the Count.
Heart in his throat, Simon made the turn, checking his horse’s speed as he did so. His mount narrowly missed a patch of ice that had clearly caught Miles by surprise: Miles was still astride his horse but they were both perched precariously on the cliff’s edge, the horse scrambling for footing. Count Piotr flung out an arm when Simon made to lunge forward, and threw a pointed glance at Miles’s horse.
“Steady, boy,” he was saying to Miles. “Don’t spook the beast, now. Lean your weight forward.”
The Count made a tongue-clicking noise and continued, “that’s it, Marla, girlie, just a bit farther,” and Simon realized that he was talking to the horse. The Count’s hand stretched towards the mare as if he could drag her onto solid ground by will alone.
Miles hands were shaking and he gave Simon a desperate look. It only lasted a split second, though, as Miles realized that Simon was in no better position to help him than Count Piotr, both of them too far away to reach him without having to move quickly towards an already terrified horse and possibly cause her to lose her unstable footing.
Seconds passed in heartrendingly long beats (though the chip recorded them precisely the same way it recorded every second) as Miles’s horse gradually gained ground against the crumbling cliff edge and got her hooves firmly planted on dry rock. Count Piotr slid off his horse as soon as the mare’s front hooves were solid, grabbing her halter and hauling her back from the edge. Simon was at Miles’s side immediately.
For a moment, he and Count Piotr looked at each other, both of them breathing hard. Simon saw his own terror and relief reflected in the old General’s face, and felt a reluctant sense of kinship. He would never like the man, not after what Count Piotr had put Aral through, but there was no denying that Count Piotr had just saved Miles’s life when he, Simon, could not.
Miles dismounted straight into Simon’s arms, his eyes still wide with fear. Simon gathered him close.
“Don’t worry, you’re safe now, it’s fine,” he soothed automatically, patting Miles’s back as Miles started to shake in delayed reaction. “Don’t ever, ever, do that again, you hear?” Simon added, unable to stop himself.
There was a clatter as Aral, still mounted, rode around the corner at speed. He navigated around the patch of ice like he’d known it was there, and ran straight to Miles. Sergeant Bothari followed him, more warily, his horse skittish. Simon handed Miles to his father with some relief, as his own adrenaline rush was fading and he felt unaccountably exhausted in the comedown.
“What…” asked Aral, looking between Simon and the Count.
“It was an accident, sir,” Simon said tiredly. “Miles took the corner too fast and slipped on the ice. The Count helped him get his horse back onto solid ground.”
Count Piotr nodded confirmation, watching Aral almost anxiously. Aral let out a breath, squeezing Miles tight for a moment before letting him stand up. Sergeant Bothari glowered, but then that was his default expression.
“All right.” Aral nodded, coming to a decision within himself. “Miles, how often have we told you not to be reckless?”
Miles looked down, the picture of contrite repentance. Simon was sure it wouldn’t last.
“I won’t do it again, sir, Uncle Simon already told me,” Miles said.
“Oh, the lectures aren’t done yet,” threatened Simon. He and Aral traded amused and exasperated looks.
“Shall we continue the ride, then, since no one is hurt?” said Count Piotr briskly.
Simon opened his mouth to say no, absolutely not, he was taking them all back to the house and he was going to wrap Miles up in fluffy blankets until the boy couldn’t cause himself any more harm, but Aral overruled him with a look.
They started off again in a new arrangement, with Miles’s horse tethered to Ivan’s and both boys kept safely in the middle of the group. Gregor, at eleven, was already a competent enough rider that he was allowed the freedom to roam a bit more, and he seemed to enjoy it. Simon pushed all his worries from the morning away and focused completely on his bodyguard duties for the rest of the ride, which meant of course that nothing else happened.
Simon let out a breath, releasing some of his pent-up tension, when they arrived back at the Vorkosigan Surleau stables and he was finally allowed to shepherd everyone indoors.
“Simon,” Aral said, drawing him aside before they went upstairs to change into clean clothes. “We need to talk, I think.”
Simon’s confusion, and the flimsy logical constructions he’d built to convince himself the chip wasn’t driving him mad at last, all came back to him at once. He sighed.
“Yes. And Cordelia.” Little though he wanted to, it would be best to get through both conversations at once.
Aral nodded. “After the children go to bed,” he said, glancing around. His hand was still on Simon’s arm.
“Yes, sir.”
…
Cordelia, predictably, was not pleased to hear about Miles’s latest brush with death, recounted to her by the boys over dinner. They were all careful to downplay it, but Cordelia took one look at Aral and knew. She turned her reproachful gaze on Simon, who barely suppressed a wince. Still, as Miles had escaped unharmed, without even a broken bone for a change, she seemed disinclined to hold on to her resentment. It helped that Count Piotr was being unusually self-effacing.
The boys, though still boisterous from their adventure, nonetheless faded quickly as evening drew on. Alys hardly had to try to convince Ivan to go to bed, and once Ivan admitted he was sleepy Miles felt he could do so as well. Gregor let himself be shuffled off with the young ones, as was his habit.
Someday soon, Simon thought, they’d have to start insisting that Gregor take on more responsibilities as was due his age. But Cordelia was determined to defend her foster son’s childhood as long as she could, and in that no one could gainsay her except Aral, who had yet to try.
The adults retired early as well. Sometimes on these long evenings, they were prone to linger over drinks and take the rare opportunity to talk about things other than the work that so consumed them. Alys was a sharp bridge player, Simon had learned, more than a match for him even with the advantage his chip gave him in counting cards. Cordelia and Aral, neither of them much interested in bridge, could be convinced to sit for a few rounds, flirting scandalously with each other while Simon and Alys dueled.
But tonight Aral got up before anyone could suggest a game of cards, pulling Cordelia with him. Aral gave Simon a significant glance, not that Simon needed it. He got up, too.
Alys, seeing this, shot Cordelia a questioning look.
Cordelia signed ‘Later’ at her, arranging her face into a reassuring look.
Alys subsided and Simon escaped, though not to any relief.
“I hope you’ll explain what this is about, dears,” said Cordelia as they climbed the stairs. “I can hardly put Alys off forever.”
“Has to be just us, for now,” said Aral. “Sorry.”
Simon grimaced.
They separated at the top of the stairs, Simon stopping in his own room briefly so as to not make it look like he was going to bed with the Vorkosigans. After a few moments, when the Armsman on duty had turned back to face the stairs, Simon snuck down the hall to Aral and Cordelia’s room, feeling ridiculous. He wished they could have had this conversation anywhere else, but there was nowhere both private and discreet enough from which they could also reasonably exclude Alys and the Count.
Aral and Cordelia were waiting for him, Aral halfway through changing into pajamas and Cordelia with her hair unpinned.
“So,” said Cordelia once Simon had silently closed the door behind him. “Not that I don’t appreciate a little cloak and dagger, but what is really going on?”
Aral sighed and sat down on the bed next to her. “I don’t…” He waved vaguely at Simon to pull up a chair. “I don’t know, entirely, but something happened on the ride this morning. Something more than just with Miles. I saw… I don’t know.”
Simon sat down, his knees suddenly going weak. “You knew the ice was there,” he said, suddenly sure.
Aral had been at the end of their column on the trail, too far back to hear the Count’s shout of alarm, which was all that had warned Simon. This changed everything. Simon put his head in his hands, overcome with the implications.
“Yeah… yes,” Aral confirmed. “It was as if I heard your voice in my head,” he said, and Simon jerked up to stare at him. “Your fear, when Miles was falling, I could feel that too.”
“That’s why you were there so fast,” Simon realized.
“Yes.”
“Then… it really has been your voices I’ve been hearing,” said Simon slowly. “I’m not going mad, after all. It’s not the chip.”
He felt like the weight of the sky itself had been lifted from his shoulders. Aral’s face twisted and he reached for Simon’s hands.
“Oh, Simon, is that what you’ve been imagining?” Aral gripped him tightly, his touch grounding. “No, I think this is something else entirely.”
Cordelia’s eyes flicked between them intently.
“Let me just clarify: you’re both hearing – or in some other way sensing – each other’s thoughts?”
She sounded incredulous; Simon couldn’t blame her.
“Yours, too, milady,” he said. “Not… quite as often, I don’t think? It’s a little hard to tell. The chip doesn’t record it.”
Cordelia frowned in concentration.
“Were you the one wishing for a snowstorm the other night?” she asked.
Simon nodded.
“I thought that was unlike me, I don’t do well with cold…” Cordelia shook her head. “But this is unbelievable,” she said, turning to Aral as if to demand an explanation from him.
Aral looked pensive.
“I wonder… Simon, have you heard any of the old stories about the third Countess Vorkeres? Supposedly she, her husband, and their lover could communicate easily across great distances, something they used to tactical advantage when Emperor Vlad was cementing his claim. Though no one knows how they did it.”
Simon nodded, unsurprised.
“There are other stories, folktales, like that. People who could speak without words. I never gave them much credence.” Until now. Simon was certain both of them heard his unvoiced thought.
Cordelia was shaking her head in complete bemusement.
“Random – magical – inexplicable telepathy doesn’t just happen anywhere else,” she hissed.
“Something in the water,” Aral agreed, patting her on the arm.
Cordelia rounded on Simon.
“And you’re just, okay with this?” she said. “You aren’t suspicious at all?”
She made a valid point.
“No, milady,” he said. “This terrifies me, even if it is not the chip breaking down at last. And I will look into any and all records we might have on it.”
Simon sighed internally as he added the note to his never-ending mental to-do list, and wondered if that research was work he could safely foist onto a subordinate.
He met Cordelia’s worried gaze. “I am not, however as afraid as I could be,” Simon continued. “Because… well, because it’s the two of you. We have to work closely together in any case; I trust we can work this out as well.”
Aral squeezed his hands, warmth emanating from him.
“Just so,” he said. “This will not be our undoing.”
Cordelia reached out and gripped both their arms for reassurance.
“I still don’t understand,” she said, “But if neither of you think it a significant danger or a sign we’ve all been, I don’t know, poisoned with hallucinogens” – Simon spun through that idea in his head at top speed but it didn’t hold up against the evidence – “then I can accept it. Until we find a better explanation, anyway.”
Aral kissed her hair. “You are an incredible treasure, dear Captain,” he said.
She smiled back, affection radiating from her.
“Okay,” Cordelia said briskly after a moment. “I want to know more about how this works; let’s run some tests.”
She shook Simon gently on the shoulder. Still trying to figure out if there was any way someone could have conceivably poisoned himself, Aral, and Cordelia without affecting anyone else in the household, he was slow to look up.
“Doing all right?” Cordelia asked him gently.
“Yes, milady,” he said. “Just thinking.”
“Well, I think we should all compare observations, and we’ll go from there.”
Cordelia took over, and for the next hour or so they ran all the tests she could devise to explore the limits of the new phenomenon that had befallen them. Simon had never been more strongly reminded that Cordelia’s professional training was that of a scientist, as she systematically pursued hypotheses and looked for independently verifiable results.
With some effort, Simon and Aral could hear each other’s thoughts quite clearly, in enough detail to reproduce numbers and exact sentences, so long as they made an effort to ‘project’. It grew easier as they practiced, and when they were in physical contact. The same was true of Simon and Cordelia, although it came less naturally to them. Simon would have readily put this down to the fact that he didn’t spend nearly as much of his routine working days in her company, but judging by Cordelia’s thoughtful frown she deemed it significant, so he dutifully made a note on the chip.
Aral and Cordelia could hear each other, too, though not nearly as clearly. They theorized endlessly about why this was, but Simon didn’t think any particular explanation made more sense than any other.
“We need more evidence,” Simon sighed after about an hour.
Cordelia hummed in rueful agreement. She and Aral were sprawled out on the bed, mostly unclothed on the theory that more skin-to-skin contact would help. Simon, his eyes carefully averted, suspected that they just wanted the excuse to cuddle.
“I should get to bed,” he said, standing up.
Neither of them argued, though Aral got up to walk him to the door. Cordelia blew him a kiss, for which Simon returned her a formal bow, still trying not to look anywhere except her face.
Aral clasped his arms in the doorway.
“Thank you, Simon,” he said.
For what? Simon thought, but knew better than to say aloud. He realized too late that Aral had heard anyway, as Aral’s expression became softly exasperated.
“Just… thank you.” Aral repeated, leaning in and kissing him on the forehead.
Simon squeezed his arms and escaped.
He knew he was in for an uncomfortable night; they had, at Cordelia’s insistence, discussed the fact that as far as they knew there wasn’t a foolproof way to block sufficiently strong thoughts and emotions from each other, which would have implications for Aral and Cordelia’s privacy as a couple. While they had both assured him that they didn’t blame him or even particularly mind the intrusion–“After all, you monitor us already,” Aral had quipped–Simon still hated being put in this position. For more than one reason.
Simon climbed into bed stiffly, feeling the waves of affection coming from Aral, which had changed in intensity since he’d left their room. From Cordelia, there was an answering wave of complicated but strong emotion–love and lust all tangled together. Both were overwhelming. Simon tamped down hard on his own longing and tried to sleep.
…
Over the next few days, Simon and Aral and Cordelia learned to adjust to their new reality.
Now that he knew that it was real and not just a figment of his imagination, Simon found himself reaching for Aral and Cordelia in his mind more and more often. It was so easy to do, and the light brushes of acknowledgement and reassurance they began habitually trading amongst each other were addictive to Simon, tired and overworked as he was.
Despite Cordelia’s earlier warning, he was totally unprepared when Alys ambushed him on the second day.
“Captain Illyan,” Alys said, approaching him as he stood supervising the boys and Elena playing on the beach. It was far too cold to swim, but Gregor had waded in ankle deep anyway and was currently trying to convince Ivan to follow him.
Deep in thought, Simon jumped at Alys’s voice, but converted the movement into pulling out a chair for her to sit on the patio.
“My lady,” he said.
Alys, warmly wrapped in a wool cloak and fur muffler, allowed him to help her to her seat and smiled as he took the other chair across from her.
“I thought I would check in on Ivan…” Alys studied the children’s antics, her lips parted slightly in concern, but after a moment she decided not to get involved and turned back to Simon. “I have been meaning to check in with you as well, Captain,” she said. “Is there anything going on that I should know about?”
Ah. Simon tried not to panic. “All is well, my lady,” he said, schooling his features to perfect blandness.
Alys studied him, only partially satisfied. “This is supposed to be a vacation for you, too,” she said finally. “You shouldn’t let Aral work you too hard.”
“It’s not that,” Simon said quickly.
“So it is something?” Alys asked, quirking her eyebrows at him.
Simon bit back a curse. He took a breath, forcing himself to meet Alys’s eyes steadily.
“My lady, I promise you it is only a personal matter. Not something that will affect my work or the Imperium,” he said, knowing as he did so that it was at least partially a lie.
Alys sat back. “Well, in that case I won’t pry any further,” she said. “But, Captain, do try to remember that you don’t work alone. We’ll always be here to help if we can.”
“I can’t forget,” Simon said with an ironic smile.
That was the wrong response–Alys flinched fractionally, though she concealed it well. Simon cursed himself again. He must have been far more tired and distracted than he’d thought, to hurt her so carelessly.
“But I thank you,” he added, softly. Alys’s expression thawed somewhat.
Fortunately for Simon, a spurt of yelling and splashing from the lake caused he and Alys both to whip their heads around.
“Ivan!” called Alys, rushing down the beach.
Simon outpaced her, pulling Ivan and Miles out of the lake, where they had both contrived to fall in and get completely soaked.
“Can’t we stay in?” pled Miles, even as he was gasping from the cold shock.
Simon shook his head in disbelief.
“No, you’ll get hypothermia and die,” he said shortly, handing them off to Alys and a Vorbarra Armsman and going back to rescue Gregor, who had gone into deeper water to save his young cousins but was now himself struggling to keep his feet through the cold-induced lethargy.
Simon hauled him out too and shed his jacket, draping it over Gregor’s shoulders. Alys already had Miles swaddled in her cloak, Simon saw in relief, and she was holding Ivan to her and vigorously rubbing his arms to encourage circulation. Elena, who had sensibly stayed on dry land, watched with scared eyes.
“To the house,” Simon ordered, his squad having by now descended on the scene in force. “Someone call ahead and get them ready,”
“Already done, sir,” said the Armsman, who had his arm around Gregor as they started running.
“Good,” gasped Simon, shivers wracking his body as the wind cut through his wet clothes.
It was all chaos when they reached the house, but Count Piotr’s extremely competent housekeeper had blankets and hot chocolate waiting in front of a blazing fire, and soon the boys were divested of their wet clothes and ensconced in warm cocoons, defrosting.
A maid handed Simon a change of clothes and Captain Garnier, head of the ImpSec detail, very firmly directed Simon to an empty side room before he could stop to check on Alys or the children. Simon reluctantly admitted that Garnier was right to worry when he found that he was shivering so much he couldn’t undo the fastenings of his uniform.
A knock sounded, then Aral opened the door without waiting for a response. He took one look at Simon, sighed in exasperated fondness, and crossed the room. Aral had plenty of practice in divesting men of their Service uniforms, as Simon had reason to know, but there was nothing sexual in his touch now as he rapidly undid the buttons and helped Simon balance while he kicked off his trousers.
“How did they manage to fall in the lake, in this weather?” Aral asked conversationally.
“I think it was Miles’s idea–he baited Ivan into a water fight,” said Simon, rapidly reviewing the incident on his chip. “But I should have been watching them more carefully.”
Aral frowned. Once, Simon might have taken it as a rebuke, but now he could feel Aral’s mind and understood the sentiment behind the expression. Aral wasn’t angry at all, just worried, about the boys, yes, but also about Simon.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Aral said. “They have to be allowed to play sometime. Or so Cordelia says.”
They traded wry smiles.
“God, you’re cold as ice,” Aral said, pressing his hands to Simon’s chest. “We should get you in front of that fire.”
Before he could stop himself, Simon leaned forward a little. Aral, needing no further encouragement, gathered him in a close embrace. He was blessedly warm, and Simon relaxed with a sigh.
Aral held him for a while, rubbing his hands over Simon’s back.
“It seems I must once again thank you for saving the lives of my children,” he said into Simon’s neck.
“I live to serve,” Simon responded automatically.
Aral shook him a little, then pulled back.
“Come on, you look like you could use some of that hot chocolate.”
Cordelia turned to look immediately as they entered the living room, the concern on her face melting into relief when she saw Simon in dry clothes and no longer shivering so violently. Simon sat cross-legged in front of the fire and accepted a mug of hot chocolate from one of his ImpSec men. He soaked up warmth from the fire, letting his leftover stress dissipate somewhat as the boys started excitedly chattering about what had happened. Simon held off on the safety lecture. He could tell through their new connection that Cordelia was planning to handle it with Alys for backup, and together they were more than enough firepower.
No need to overdo it, he thought, ceding the job to her, and heard Aral stifle a snort behind him.
The household gradually calmed down around them. Aral went back to work but stayed in the living room, reading reports on a handviewer. Once he felt recovered enough, Simon shed his blankets and got up to patrol the house and check in with his on-duty men, more to soothe his own anxieties than for any real need. Circuit completed, he returned to the living room and sat on the couch next to Aral, both of them settling into a companiable silence.
Simon listened with half an ear as the Count entertained Miles, Elena, Ivan, and Gregor with stories of the worst weather he’d experienced camping out in the Dendarii Mountains during the war, while Cordelia and Alys talked quietly.
Looking around at them all, Simon felt at peace for the first time in a very long while.
Aral and Cordelia both glanced up to give him knowing looks at the same moment, affection clear in their faces. Simon swallowed and looked down, not sure he was ready to face the emotions he could feel from them and from himself.
…
When they returned to Vorbarr Sultana the next day, Simon found himself far too busy to consider emotions of any sort, somewhat to his relief. By the time he’d caught up on the work that had accumulated during his absence from HQ and jumped back into high gear to tackle the new crises landing on his desk, Simon and the others had settled back into their regular routine, which didn’t leave a lot of time for introspection.
His new ability to communicate in thoughts and emotions with Aral and Cordelia did not fade away. If anything, it grew stronger as they used it more and more.
Simon and Aral already worked so closely together that it didn’t merit any comment when they suddenly displayed an ability to read each other’s thoughts – everyone merely assumed they had held a private meeting on the topic at some point.
Aral and Cordelia were likewise the same; Simon had before envied their ability to divine each other’s intent from the smallest of gestures, and this was just an extension of that.
It was his new connection to Cordelia that Simon was hard-pressed to explain.
“It has come to my attention,” said Alys to him over tea in her office, “that certain members of the court have compelling evidence that you and Lady Vorkosigan are having an affair.”
“What!” spluttered Simon, nearly choking on his tea. “They can’t have, it isn’t true.”
Alys gave him a you-are-impossibly-naïve look. “Normally such obviously false gossip wouldn’t merit my bringing it to your attention, but in this case the main sources appear to be Lady Camille Vorvayne and Emila Vorlaikal.”
Two women with whom Cordelia had been working closely on a healthcare initiative for the last few months, and who had therefore recently spent a lot of time in Cordelia's company.
“Ah,” said Simon. “Well.”
“You see the problem,” Alys said. “Now, I would ordinarily counsel that you do nothing and let it blow over, but the circumstances are lending a lot of credence to their claim.”
Simon kept his features carefully blank.
Alys turned her teacup in her hands, hesitating. “I must ask, is there anything either of you have done that might contribute to such a story? I know Cordelia can… forget propriety, sometimes.”
Meaning that Cordelia trampled all over Barrayarran social customs, often without intending to, simply by being her natural Betan self.
Simon sighed deeply. “No,” he said.
Alys waited, politely not pushing it but giving him the space to confess regardless.
Truthfully, Simon could understand why this particular gossip was circulating now. Try as he might to be careful, he and Cordelia fell all too easily into the habit of only half-vocalizing their conversations, filling in the rest with direct thought and impressions. To someone without context, he could see how it might look like they were keeping a secret.
“What would you advise me to do?” he asked Alys, dodging her question.
She tapped her teacup on its saucer a few times, thoughtfully. “Wait for a bigger scandal to steal away everyone's attention, I suppose. Try to limit your contact with Lady Vorkosigan.”
Annoying, but certainly bearable. “Then I will do so,” he said, gravely.
Alys looked at him over the brim of her teacup.
“I can undertake to explain the situation to her,” she said.
Simon waved away this kindness. “No need, milady. I'll do it; I need to brief Aral as well in any case.”
Alys gave a nod, slightly reluctantly. They wrapped up their business quickly, and Simon, eager to be gone, didn't linger as he might have.
…
Simon arrived just as the Vorkosigans’ breakfast service was ending. He knew he was generally a specter of doom when he came so early, before his scheduled security briefing with the Regent, but Aral and Cordelia welcomed him warmly regardless.
“It’s not an emergency,” he said in response to Aral’s sharp look. “But there is a matter that I need to discuss with both of you.” And it’s… delicate.
Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
“Kiddo, why don’t you take Miles and go visit Drou until it’s time for your lessons, okay?” she said to Gregor, who was watching Simon anxiously.
Gregor slid off his chair and helped Miles climb down from his own seat. His energy released like a coiled spring, Miles ran up to Simon and hugged Simon’s legs, then sprinted around the table to tackle his father before Simon had a chance to react.
Gregor watched Miles go with a resigned look on his face. Aral disentangled himself from Miles’s attack eventually, setting him back on his feet and talking over Miles’s endless questions.
“Give your mother a kiss, then, and go with Gregor. Yes, I will be back for lunch. Yes, I’ve heard all about the fossil experiment, we’ll discuss it then.”
Aral gave Miles a little push in the back, but Miles dodged him and ran the long way around the table to Cordelia, whose face crinkled with suppressed laughter. She bent down and kissed Miles on the forehead, then handed him off to the patiently waiting Gregor.
Gregor hauled him towards the door, Miles’s arm in a strong—but careful—grip.
“Uncle Simon!” Miles called, twisting to look over his shoulder. “Will you come back and see us later?”
Simon kept the dismay he felt off his face, summoning up a smile for the boys. Gregor had turned as well, and was watching him carefully.
“Perhaps, Miles,” he said. “It may not be possible today. I will try.”
Even at six years old, Miles knew a polite dismissal when he heard it, and his face fell. Gregor pulled him out of the door at last, muttering “C’mon” as he did so.
Half the Armsmen in the room left with Gregor, leaving the space much emptier and quieter. Aral looked at Simon’s face and made a quick hand gesture that sent the remaining guards out of the room.
“So, Simon,” said Cordelia, her elbows on the table and her chin in her hand. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Simon straightened back into the formal parade rest out of which he had unconsciously relaxed as he’d watched Miles’s antics. He would much rather structure this necessarily embarrassing discussion as a report, not a conversation. Reports weren’t personal.
Cordelia, able to read his intent perfectly clearly even without telepathy, countered by projecting her mental image of him when he stood at attention like this—that of a clockwork soldier, a windup toy designed only to exchange strings of military jargon, salute blindly, and march in circles.
Deeply affronted, Simon sank into an empty chair and glared at her, momentarily speechless with rage and shock.
“That was a low blow, my Captain,” murmured Aral.
Cordelia shook her head vigorously, as if to clear it.
“That’s not really how I see you,” she said to Simon. “You must know it’s not. I just… whatever you’re here for, it clearly is personal. I doubt it will do us much good to pretend otherwise.”
“Some of us like to have our coping mechanisms,” observed Aral, lightly. His eyes were intent on both of them.
“Aral,” she said, “look at him, he’s scared. Has been since he walked in here. He shouldn’t be standing there behind an impenetrable wall, scared. Not with us.”
I shouldn’t be? thought Simon. The Vorkosigans controlled every aspect of his life and held his heart in their hands. He loved them, but fear was also a rational response. Simon had feared Ezar rather more than he’d loved him, in the end.
Cordelia winced.
“I’m sorry,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand with tenderness. “I hurt you, and I regret it. I know how hard you work to maintain your humanity; it was unfair of me to exploit that.”
Simon looked down at their clasped hands. It did feel good to hold on to someone, touch grounding him against the swirl of emotion and chip-memories as it always did. However…
“I’m here because Lady Alys has told me the prevailing society gossip is that we’re having an affair,” he blurted.
Cordelia’s mouth opened in shock; she snatched her hand back reflexively. Simon glanced at Aral, trying not to betray any anxiety. Aral’s eyebrows had disappeared into his hair and he was chewing his knuckles.
“How?” demanded Cordelia, flustered.
Aral, still biting his knuckles, presented an image of the two of them from seconds ago: hands entwined and gazing into each other’s eyes. It was amazingly romantic, and Simon blushed.
“Obviously we’re not,” he started, but Aral gave him a sarcastic look. Of course Aral knew they weren’t, just as Simon knew in far too much detail at exactly what time each of them climaxed during sex. The bond did not leave room for much privacy on that front.
Simon explained about Cordelia’s co-workers on the healthcare initiative, and she swore impressively.
“Of all the catty, mean-spirited—I expected better of Camille, at least.”
“Don’t judge them too harshly,” Simon found himself saying. “Gossip is their bread and butter, in the Vor women’s social circles. They trade in information almost as fiercely as I do.”
He heard Alys’s cadences in his own voice, somewhat to his surprise. All the time he spent with her, overseeing the public side of Gregor’s household in Cordelia’s place, must be rubbing off on him. Well, there are worse people to emulate.
“In any case, I shall have to spend less time with you until this blows over,” Simon said to Cordelia. “I will send Major Abramov to check up on Gregor and the children.”
Simon hated to give up his near-daily visits to the living quarters of the Residence, where he stopped in to personally see to Gregor’s welfare, and usually stayed to entertain Gregor, Miles and Ivan for a short time. It had taken Simon a while to build up trust with Gregor, whose last security chief had torn the boy away from his mother and then died in front of him. But the children had many guardians, and feeding rumors of a destabilizing scandal was too dangerous to risk.
Cordelia agreed, reluctantly, but her dismay matched his.
“You will at least come in person to see the children sometimes?” she asked, as they all stood and made for the door. “Perhaps when Aral is also there, so there can be no question…”
“Yes, if I can.” Simon rearranged calendars in his head, trying to open up a lunch hour that would coincide with Aral’s inviolate noontime with Miles. “Yes,” he said again. He would make it work.
…
Simon was in the middle of a meeting with two of his department heads when a flare of pain, fear, and rage struck him out of the blue. Aral and Cordelia were in some sort of hellish confusion of fire and shrapnel, both screaming wordless war cries.
Simon was on his feet, cutting off the Komarran Affairs Head mid-sentence.
He snapped “Tomkovitz, report!” into his wristcom.
Tomkovitz was the Regent’s head of security. Please let me be mistaken… let it all be chip madness after all.
The man’s report came back delayed and garbled. “…explosion in transit, Regent alive, backup route Alpha…”
Oh, Aral was alive, all right, Simon knew that much. Alive and bloody furious.
Simon spoke a word into his comm that activated high alert. Leaning over his comconsole, he directed additional field units to the site and flashed through the few reports that had come in.
Bombs… two, perhaps more. Assailants unknown, casualties unknown, Aral and Cordelia apparently in a fighting retreat with their remaining guard, having escaped the destroyed groundcars.
Cold fear coiled up inside Simon, threatening to choke him. Not helpful. He beat it down, issuing orders with calm efficiency. The chip absorbed more new data as it flashed across the screen.
The heads of Galactic and Komarran Affairs were still in the room with him. Both men were now on their feet and hovering anxiously in a poor imitation of attention. Simon waved them around to his side of the desk and they all watched with bated breath as the rescue squad’s lightflier screamed in to land next to the fighting. Within minutes, ImpSec had ushered Aral and Cordelia up the ramp and the lightflier was back in the air, headed for Vorhartung Castle, which was the nearest secure location.
Both the Regent and Regent Consort had been involved in the fighting—Cordelia looked alarmingly bloodstained on camera, though due to their bond Simon was fairly sure it wasn’t her blood—and she carried a crowbar.
Time stretched and flexed oddly, the way it always did during crises. Simon paced though the corridors of ImpSec, flanked by guards, and took a lightflier trip of his own from the roof of Cockroach Central to Vorhartung Castle. Reports flashed in his peripheral vision and the chip absorbed them like moss parched for rain. Suspects had been arrested; interrogations begun. Simon made a note to keep himself far away from ImpSec’s cells until the rage pounding through his blood had cooled; he might need to wait longer than usual, as this time the anger wasn’t all his own. It wouldn’t do to lose valuable information through foolishness.
Codes and passwords were exchanged, and Simon stepped through the door into the maximum security room at Vorhartung. Aral and Cordelia were there in front of him, alive and safe, and the small part of him that had been screaming nonstop since the start of the attack finally went silent.
Aral strode across the room and engulphed him in a hug. Some of the blood soaking through the bandages on Aral’s back transferred itself to Simon’s sleeves.
Aral released him.
“Captain, report!” he snapped, as if the hug hadn’t happened.
“Sir.” Simon saluted. “We’ve made arrests; preliminary interrogations suggest an isolated domestic terrorist group, but of course ImpSec will follow up on all leads.”
“Gregor?” Aral asked at the same time that Cordelia said “Miles? The children?”
“The Emperor, Miles, and Ivan are locked down at the Residence with Alys. No concurrent attempts have been made on them as far as we can determine.”
“Thank God.” Cordelia clutched Aral’s arm in relief, and scrubbed a hand down her face.
Delicately, Simon touched his earpiece. The reports coming in were beginning to be urgent enough that he needed to deal with them in person. Little though he wanted to leave his lord and lady’s side, his place right now was elsewhere.
Aral caught the movement and waved a hand.
“Go on, you’ve tended to us enough.”
Simon turned to leave, but stopped halfway through the movement.
“Sir, you should sit down at least. Your bandages…”
Aral’s answering mental blast of I’m fucking fine was almost powerful enough to make him stagger. Simon knew he was poking the bear—Aral was already furious at Simon for failing to keep them safe, and keeping his temper on a short leash in order to behave professionally. The steam nearly came out of his ears.
Cordelia stepped between them, redoubling her grip on Aral’s arm. I’ve got this, she sent to Simon, and dragged her husband back to the cot as Simon left the room.
…
Simon worked without pause for the next twenty-six point seven hours, and more. An assassination attempt on the Lord Regent generated, among other things, ungodly amounts of paperwork.
He tried, while overseeing interrogation footage, receiving reports, ordering further arrests and investigations, and running meetings on their findings, to immerse himself in the work and not wallow in the telepathic bond. Aral and Cordelia were only a heartbeat away, if he wanted them, but they were also a distraction. To do his work well required a degree of cool objectivity.
Simon rationed himself, reaching out for a brief mental touch once every two hours and no more. Aral and Cordelia were varyingly amused and concerned by this, but they too were busy with the fallout of the attack and allowed him to block them out.
Finally, Simon’s people closed the last urgent lead on the case and even he couldn’t justify staying on duty any longer. Rather than collapsing into his bed in Cockroach Central, Simon found himself calling a car. It was late in the evening, but he was ushered into the Vorkosigans’ suite without question.
“I have my final report on the case for you,” he said to Aral, uncomfortably aware that he’d interrupted them in the process of going to bed.
Aral made an inpatient ‘go on’ gesture. Behind his back, Cordelia smiled encouragingly.
Simon swallowed and began his report. “One of our suspects eventually confessed under fast-penta to being part of a group sympathetic to Vordarian’s cause, who have been meeting quietly since the Pretender’s fall. Uncovering this group quickly led us to the others. Investigations show that they were toothless malcontents—we even had a file on the group but didn't consider them worth close monitoring—until very recently, when they received an influx of money from a still-unidentified source off planet.”
Aral swore bitterly.
“I’m thinking Cetagandans, but we can’t prove it yet,” Simon continued. “No known ties to the Komarr rebellion.”
The last serious attempt on the Regent had been Komarran in origin; Cordelia’s mouth twisted in wry appreciation of some obscure irony.
“So many enemies that they have to line up and take turns,” she murmured. “My grandmother always said that’s a sign that you’re doing something right, in a politician.”
Aral vented a short laugh.
“Mine, too,” he said. He and Cordelia stared at each other for a long moment.
Tension that Simon had been carrying for days unwound as Aral let go of his anger and relief burgeoned up; Simon swayed on his feet.
“I should go,” he said as Aral started towards him in alarm.
“Or you could stay,” blurted Cordelia. “Aral wants you to.”
She blushed. Aral’s cheeks had turned an interesting color of red as well.
Simon reached automatically for the walls he’d kept up in his mind all the last day and more, and found that somehow during the time he’d spent in this room they had deserted him completely. He couldn’t hold himself apart anymore, and his loneliness and longing bled heavily into the bond. Simon turned to leave, attempting a physical escape in lieu of a telepathic one.
“Simon.” Aral's voice was soft, but it rang in Simon's ears. “Stay. With us. You want to, we want you to, so why not?”
Simon stopped where he was, turned away from them. “It's not right, it's not proper...”
Cordelia sat up and started to object, but her voice was suddenly muffled as Aral slapped a hand over her mouth. Aral made a strange noise, half frustrated half in thought, and moved a step closer to Simon.
“You know that's not... really true, right?” he said, his tone oddly vulnerable.
Simon turned to face him again.
“The heart-loyal guardsman, officer's dalliances, Vor perversion, yes I do know,” he snapped. “Those don't... work, not anymore. I'm supposed to be Gregor's Chief of Security.”
That made Aral freeze in place, at least. Cordelia looked between them, her eyes wide.
Emotions boiled under the surface from all three of them, too complex and tangled for Simon to begin sorting them out, his own least of all.
Aral's breathing had gone harsh, and he reached out again.
“Simon,” he said, voice cracking.
Horrified, Simon saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. Staring transfixed, he understood with sudden clarity that this was a hurt Aral would never, ever, have chosen to show him. It was being torn out of Aral, borne on a tide of Cordelia's rising fury that Barrayar would deny Aral yet another joy for the sake of the Imperium.
But still...
“I can't,” Simon whispered, “You already have all that is mine to give, but this...” If I let go now I won't recover.
They'd both heard his thought, cutting through the turmoil. He could see it in their eyes.
Cordelia, her brief earlier anger fading, gave him a look of extreme compassion.
“It's okay, love,” she said. “You can fall. We'll catch you.”
Simon let out all his breath. He stepped into the circle of Aral’s arms.
“I can’t lose you,” he whispered, clutching Aral’s shirt with his hands. I was so scared. I always am.
“I know.” Aral said. “I’m here.”
And then Aral kissed him.
Simon melted into it with all the passion he’d been denying himself. Aral felt blissfully good, like a hot drink on a cold day. He felt like home.
They made their way to the bed in unseemly haste; the bond made some things easier, such as the always-awkward divesting themselves of clothes and the careful negotiation to not jostle Aral’s stitches, but it also intensified every sensation to such a degree that one or the other of them kept having to stop and simply breathe through it.
“This will get easier with practice,” Aral growled, coming up again for air. “I need to be able to set a decent pace.”
“All things come in time, love,” gasped Cordelia, sprawled next to them and giggling uncontrollably.
Simon simply laughed breathlessly, giddy on their sheer closeness. He guided Aral’s head back down.
Eventually they found a rhythm together and Simon lost himself in the movement, his chip temporarily overwhelmed with sensory input that it couldn’t record. Aral pinned him down, and Cordelia clutched their hair and cried out when they did.
Simon and Aral lay close together, afterwards. When Cordelia, having cleaned up and keyed down the lights, clambered back into bed, Simon tried to move over to make room for her, but Aral’s arm around him tightened prohibitively.
“Stay,” Aral rumbled, already half-asleep.
“We’ll have to make provisions for you to move out of that awful headquarters building,” said Cordelia. “There’s certainly enough spare rooms here.” She yawned. “Something to work on tomorrow.”
Simon thought about mustering a protest, but he was very warm and comfortable, and starting an argument seemed churlish. Quietly, he resigned himself to his fate, settled deeper into Aral’s side, and hid a tiny smile against Cordelia’s shoulder.