Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.

--George Weinberg

After making her statement about wanting to explain, An had fallen silent. Initially, Jack had waited, but the silence dragged on. And on. And on. As she sipped her brandy. Finally he decided he'd waited long enough.

"I was a little surprised when you accepted a long-term contract on the Welshman. I half-expected you to take the money and run," he commented idly, mostly to make conversation, to try to get her words flowing again.

"I nearly did. I intended to. But there wasn't anything for me back on Omega either, so…"

"Life on the Bonny Welshman is so bad that it was a toss-up between serving on her and going back to Omega?"

"What? No. The ship is—he's wonderful. The crew is the best I've ever served with. And even when I shared a room with Liza, the crews' quarters were cosy and roomy. Compared to any other ship I've been on. That day when we all got in the brawl on Omega? And tossed in the brig? And you bailed us out? That may have been the best day in my life." She thought back to the day her son had been born and amended her answer. "One of the best ones, anyway."

"So, you find me a decent person to work for, you like the ship, you like the crew. Is it the work, then? I know it's hardly what you trained for—not a huge call for a communications officer most of the time, although when we need you we REALLY need you. Are you bored?"

She stared at him, the absurdity of her situation suddenly striking her. Here she was, on a tiny salvage ship in uncharted space, on the run from the GBHE, a million miles from ANYWHERE, and the captain was asking about her JOB SATISFACTION? She choked back a giggle.

"Bored?" she finally managed to utter. "No, sir, I'm not bored."

"So what was it that made you reluctant to accept my offer?"

An took a sip of the fiery brandy and looked away from the captain, looked everywhere else, finally settling on staring at the floor.

"I didn't want to serve with you. Work for you. Be on your ship. I've tried very hard to hate you, sir."

Harkness sat back, pole axed. Certainly over the centuries there had been plenty of people to whom he had done some injury, who had reason to wish him ill, but for the life of him (and in Jack's case, that was a lot) he couldn't remember having ever done harm to An Cho.

"To hate me?"

"Yes, sir. But it's been very hard. On this ship you have truly behaved as a man of honour. You've been fair. More than fair. You've treated me well. It's hard to hate someone who treats you well. Especially in a world where so few people do."

Jack still stared at her, utterly perplexed.

"But you were still determined to hate me."

"I've tried very hard."

"Because I've done something to harm you in some way?" he prodded. She remained quiet, staring at the floor.

"Ms. Cho!"

That lifted her head, even if it didn't loosen her tongue.

"Would you PLEASE at least do me the courtesy of letting me know what the hell it is that I did to make you want to hate me so very much?" Jack demanded gently.

For one brief moment, a rapidly rising wave of fury, fury on that anniversary of the biggest mistake of her life overwhelmed An's natural reticence.

"You bought a human being!"

That stopped Jack cold. He stopped, blinking at her in confusion.

"I-- What?"

"Mr. Anders! You bought him!"

"I did no such thing!"

"I heard…" and then she paused, because the Captain was looking at her with such a perplexed look on his face that she could almost believe that he didn't know what she was talking about. In a calmer voice, she continued, "I heard you bought his contract from the Red House."

Jack's expression cleared with comprehension.

"And all this time, the issue you've had with me is because you thought I BOUGHT Kam?"

"Didn't you?"

"No."

"But…"

"I DID pay off his contract, but not to OWN him. I told you before: he's my partner, my friend, my lover. Not my property. Not anyone's property. Kam was hired to pilot the ship by Mr. Smeed, just like the rest of the crew. He was already here, already a member of my crew when I paid off the contract to free him from legal entanglements, and he's paying me back. That's separate from my relationship with him. Ms. Cho, I HATE the Red Houses. I would NEVER do business with one, other than to get someone out of their clutches."

She sat suddenly, stunned by the possibilities running through her head, by the lost time, the lost opportunities.

"Ms. Cho?" The Captain looked into her face, a concerned expression on his.

"You hate the Red Houses? You LOANED Kam money to get free from them?"

"Well, I would have given him the money—I was well on the way to being in love with him by then--but he refused to take it unless I let him pay me back."

"You didn't buy him?"

"The Red Houses might see it differently, but no, I didn't."

"And if you knew of someone else in a similar situation?"

"I'd do anything I could do to help."

His expression was becoming increasingly perplexed.

"Ten months," she said to herself, in amazement and despair. "I've wasted ten months!"

"Ms. Cho?"

She looked up at him, a pleading expression transforming her face.

"Captain, I need your help. Please tell me that you'll help me get back my son!"

"Your son?"

"I—we were –we had nothing. Not even enough to eat. He was so tiny, a little boy. I had to do something. He was starving! They said that they'd put him to work sweeping up, serving drinks. Nothing else. He wasn't old enough. I used the money to get my Proper Certification. But it didn't all go the way I expected. It took longer. And when I went to get him, they told me I was too late! They'd already sold his contract! I don't know who bought him or where he went. I used all the money I'd saved to buy his contract to search for him. I lost my Proper Certification because I broke a contract to follow a lead, a lead that went nowhere. I wouldn't sign on for long-term assignments. When Pete suggested signing on with the Welshman, I had given up. I was at the end of my rope. I took the job because it was that or ending it all. Captain, please—help me find my son!"

With a mental "clunk" the answers to a million questions about An Cho slotted into place in Jack Harkness' brain. All of the inconsistencies suddenly made sense. He thought about Alice, about Jason, about Seren, about how he would have felt if one of them had disappeared and he couldn't find him or her, about how desperate he would have been to even consider passing one of them into someone else's care. Not that he ever could have, even if Ianto would have let him (not a chance in the world!), but he did have a sense of how bleak life would have had to have looked to even consider it.

"Tell me everything you know about him, where he is, what we might use to track him. We'll see what we can do."

Two hours later, Harkness had transferred all of Cho's detailed information, every lead she'd followed, every blind alley she'd trudged down, every name, every address of her near decade long search from her remarkable memory onto paper. Actual paper.

"Don't worry—no one will ever see any of this without your permission," he told her as he filed it away under lock and eye. An looked away from him, unable to meet his eye as she asked her last question.

"Captain, you're going to tell Kam, aren't you?"

"An, you very well know I don't keep secrets from him."

How was it that the answer she most dreaded was also the only answer that could reassure her that she'd made the right choice in confiding in Harkness?

"He's going to despise me!"

To be fair, Jack hadn't quite figured out how he was going to present Ms. Cho's predicament to his partner in a way he'd accept in a positive light.

"He—Obviously, this is a topic that Kam might have some trouble being objective about. But he knows you. And I've never met a more kind and generous soul. His reaction, well, he might surprise both of us."

~FIN~