Chapter Text
Before
He was wearing his familiar black jacket again; he didn’t want to be in any way significant among the others. But still, he was.
‘I don’t know how to wash the blood off, dad.’ He proceeded to the kitchen, dropping himself to the chair, not able to see anything in front of him. ‘The collar’s gone all pink, I must’ve ruined it, I’m sorry!’
He heard how another chair was moved and then felt Lisa’s warm hands around him. Slowly, very slowly he blinked and finally managed to see her face.
‘Mum told to hug you when she’s gone,’ Lisa continued, ‘As strong as I can.’
‘What…’ he felt he was suddenly out of breath, ‘…what else did Mum tell?’
‘She made me promise I cook for you when I grow up.’
‘You don’t even know what cooking is,’ Robbie said clearly passing down the corridor.
‘She told that Dad will show me how to do it!’
He remembered this talk of the past evening and it was the only thing that kept him conscious while he was driving to Equilibrium through the gone-mad city: everything made of glass broken, people wandering or running around, resistance members armed with all kinds of guns pacing in sure steps. For a moment he even thought he saw a body lying on the concrete.
Jurgen was waiting for him inside along with the others, and his presence felt almost as blessing.
‘Your broadcast was successful, people’ve gone calmer. They believe you, John,’ Preston wasn’t looking at him; he didn’t want to look at anybody. ‘But we have a trouble.’
‘Yes, I know, I still walk the streets,’ he didn’t let people who accompanied him to the inner halls insert a word. ‘All members of the emergency council to the office, immediately. The report on the Tetragrammaton members supporting or opposing us – first thing on my desk. Jurgen,’ Preston finally turned to face him, leading him a few steps away from the others, ‘I will also need Professor Witham. Hysteria’s gone too far, we’ll need a sedative. Once it’s ready, let your people and the police walk around the city and instruct citizens to take it. Perhaps… we don’t have time to reason everybody, I think we may need to let it to the water supply.’
Jurgen eyed him heavily for a moment.
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, our trouble. Professor Witham threw himself out of the window this morning, He couldn’t take it anymore.’
Neither could Preston.
He didn’t even know how exactly after this hell of a day – in fact, two past days were hell, so why this one should be any difference? – he parked by an abandoned house in the third zone of the city; and how he entered that flat on the first floor and how he ended up on the stairs leading to the basement – once to the offenders’ secret place, and now to his.
After
Step by step, he rose on the tribune. The plass in front of his was full of people, mostly offenders; but they didn't sit in rows - they stood in groups, an irregular pattern of faces and figures in front of him. They talked, but when he took his place, the plass fell into silence. He felt strangely calm, similar and very different from what he felt with the guns.
'They feel lost', Ianto's voice said in his head. 'They don't know what to do with what they feel. They need... some meaning. Someone...'
He looked straight in front of him, knowing that the cameras are rolling, taking this gaze and sending it all over the Libria, where the screens, those which survived the riot, now blinked into life. He took a deep breath.
'People of Libria!' he said, and there was a rush of air over the plass, as if everyone suddenly breathed out. People on the plass were looking at him, waiting, tense; emotions boiling inside, ready to take the form he gives them.
Anger. Rage. Hate. Passion. Joy. Triumf.
He knew that people all over the Libria now turn their heads to the screens, like a heliotrop to the sun. They were used to them, some never lived in a world without them, like himself; the screens told them what is their world. Now, they looked at their electronic suns, seeing his face.
'Smile', Jack said in his head, and chuckled softly. 'Oh, this smile can win any heart'.
He smiled, at the memory, and at the people of Libria, with the warmth the memory brought, with the joy of what he have done to let these people, his people feel.
'People of Libria!' he said, still smiling. 'I bring you joy.'