Bond's Office [Wednesday]

[doubleohblonde]

So Bond might have been neglecting his office hours for a while, but with a midterm to plan for, he was making use of his pre-break time sat at his desk working on a plan.

For the record that wasn't a smirk on his face, and even if it was, it certainly wasn't an evil one.

[open!

That Rose visited is okay for broadcast, contents of her thread are NFB.]

Comments

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose had expected to be back at Fandom for Mr. Bond's class on Monday, but then everything had gone to hell, and she'd missed it again.

She didn't want to wait until after Spring Break to apologise for the absence so the middle of the day found Rose tapping on the door frame of Bond's office.

"Mr. Bond? Am I interrupting?" she asked quietly, looking more subdued than she usually did.

[doubleohblonde]

"Not at all," Bond said, smiling and gesturing to a seat. "I can guess why I have the honour of a visit."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose nodded a little wryly and came in, taking the seat he'd offered.

"Probably," she said, pulling her hair over her shoulder almost nervously. "I'm sorry I wasn't in class on Monday. I didn't know or I'd've called."

[doubleohblonde]

Bond straightened slightly. "But something happened."

The bandaged wrists kind of gave it away.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"We - my -" okay, there needed to be a noun there, but Rose took a moment to figure out what it should be "- mentor and I were called back to Montana last Tuesday for an exam I had to take, and the next two weeks kinda went to hell from there."

[doubleohblonde]

"And not the kind of hell carefully designed to be a valuable and rewarding learning experience," Bond said softly, opening a drawer and pulling out the Scotch and a pair of glasses.

Wordlessly, he offered a glass to Rose.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Okay, see, that was different and unexpected, and Rose froze for a moment, glancing up at Bond to see if that was a trap of some mean sort.

But it didn't seem to be, and she nodded, reaching for the glass.

"No," she agreed softly. "Not so much with the rewarding part. More with the completely full of fuck ups by me and - a lot of people."

[doubleohblonde]

Not a trick so much as a tried and true coping method for emotional distress. And possibly healthier than the repression.

Bond carefully filled Rose's glass, then his. "And where people get hurt?"

Not that he was intimately familiar with any situations like that. Nope.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Her eyes dropped almost instantly, giving away the answer before she even spoke.

"We got the -" she couldn't remember if she'd ever talked about the Moroi to him "-people we guard out," Rose said because as always, that was the important part. "My friend was killed."

[doubleohblonde]

Since Bond would have had a few choice words regarding the Moroi if he'd known about them, it was probably a got thing she hadn't told him.

In any case, there were more important things than that, right now. "I'm sorry. For your someone to be your friend, then they have to have been a good person."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

They come first, Mr. Bond.

Rose looked up at him with something akin to shock at his statement. She - she'd apologised to his mother at the funeral, and Jack had been sorry to hear about it, but - "Thanks," she said. "Mason was. He'd've been a great guardian."

[doubleohblonde]

First off the cliff, or against the wall, maybe.

"It's never easy to lose someone you're close too." Even when you usually began the repression immediately afterwards. "Especially under these kind of circumstances."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

See, but then Rose would have to fight Bond about it, and that never led to good things.

She nodded. It sounded right anyway. It wasn't like Rose had experience in this. "I knew it'd happen," she said, a little uncomfortable with admitting this. "We don't expect to live a long time. I just - didn't know it'd happen this soon." And that it'd be partially her fault.

[doubleohblonde]

It couldn't have been any more not good than anything M would have done, and he had few problem getting into fights with her over things like that. It was a sign of affection, almost.

Watch Bond's very carefully non reaction to that last statement. "Do you mind if I ask how it happened?" he asked, in a tone that indicated he understood if she did mind.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"I told him to get the Moroi out if we ran into trouble," Rose recited, almost completely emotionless. "We did, I went to try to distract them -" and expected to die doing it "- he decided to come back for me. He got killed."

[doubleohblonde]

"And you feel like it's your fault, regardless of your actual level of responsibility?" Not quite a question, but not a statement either.

Someone had a certain amount of familiarity with survivor's guilt.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose gave him a little smile, totally hearing through that almost-question. "I know. He made his own choices."

[doubleohblonde]

"And it's not easy when someone makes that kind of choice because of you." Not speaking from experience there at all, excuse him, he'll just be repressing a bit more now.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"It was the wrong choice," Rose said flatly.

[doubleohblonde]

"Maybe it was," he said, since he hadn't been there and didn't know for sure that it wasn't. "But he probably thought leaving a friend to die was a worse one."

However, he did know what staying behind as a distraction usually involved.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose looked down at her hands. "It shouldn't matter," she argued, not heatedly just as a matter of fact. "They're more important. It was his job to keep them safe and get 'em back to the Academy."

[doubleohblonde]

"Sometimes there's a difference between duty and what's right," Bond said calmly, this was a fact he acutely aware of. "And a concept of duty where a teenager's life 'shouldn't matter' isn't worth shit."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

She looked back up at him in surprise. Somewhere in the back of her head, she heard the voice of the Szelsky royal arguing that guardians should start to serve at 16, that the women should be forced to be guardians instead of making a choice.

"It's to protect the innocent," she said, still surprised at his line of thought. "My life matters, and hell if I want to die, but if that's the cost of protecting them, I'll pay it."

She wouldn't even think about it. Rose wasn't sure she could consciously think about it, and she stuffed that thought back into her head without examining it more closely.

[doubleohblonde]

Bond considered his glass thoughtfully. "I was seventeen when I joined the navy," he said. With that he'd shared more with her than many of his co-workers. "Swore to give my life for Queen and Country. So I'm not saying you're incapable of making that choice for yourself."

"I'm just not entirely sure that the kind of people who'd ask or expect it of someone your age can really be classed as innocent."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"Well- " Rose made a little bit of a face. "They're not like saints or anything. But they can't defend themselves, and they have a lot of weaknesses. It'd be wrong not to protect them."

"And technically I'm not promised until graduation," she pointed out. "I'll be eighteen by then, and, yeah, kinda the same. Swearing to give my life to the Queen and Moroi."

Other than the fact she'd been trained for it since she was five, totally the same. Really.

[doubleohblonde]

Oh, completely, and that whole 'technically' totally allayed Bond's misgivings.

Yup.

"Why can't they defend themselves?" It was a genuine question.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose shrugged. "It's forbidden. Their magic is connected to life and using it for violence is considered terrible. Some are trying to change that though." She unconsciously touched the bandages on her wrists, remembering how she hadn't even thought of using Christian's magic until they were nearly desperate. "They have too many weaknesses to fight hand to hand; those that are after them would overpower them pretty much instantly without guardians to fight."

[doubleohblonde]

And other people considered raising children up to be your own personal bodyguards to be terrible. Weren't differences of opinion fun?

"Who would even go after them in the first place?"

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Yes, but she was right, and he just didn't understand. Really.

"Strigoi," Rose said, biting the word off. "It's - they don't have them in this world. They're a type of vampire."

[doubleohblonde]

"I assume we're not talking about the kind that show up in paranormal romances."

Look, spies travelled a lot, and not even a first-class ticket could change the contents of an airport bookstore.

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose snorted. "Only the really fucking creepy kinds."

She wouldn't normally swear in front of a teacher, but...

"Totally different, totally evil, insanely strong and fast," she shrugged. "They lose their soul and connection to the world when they become Strigoi. Doesn't make for romantic reading."

[doubleohblonde]

Bond nodded. "And they're what killed your friend?"

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose nodded, more subdued. "Yeah."

[doubleohblonde]

"It was incredibly brave of you to stay behind," Bond said, because regardless of what he might think of the kind of person who would expect her too, that much was true. "And for your friend to come back for you."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"Thanks," Rose said uncomfortably. It was her job. "Um - thank you for talking with me."

[doubleohblonde]

"You're welcome to any time you want or need to." Since those were two entirely different things. "Rose, I'm glad you got out of there."

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"Me too," she said with a little smile at him. Standing up, she put the glass on his desk since she didn't need to clutch it anymore. "And I'll come talk to you again. Before graduation at least."

[doubleohblonde]

Bond smiled. "Make sure you see me after the break," he said. "I'll need you and Kyle to assist me with the mid-term."