(2025-06-30) It's Work That Keeps You Going (Fallon Gala Side Story)

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Siamus takes rising journalistic star Janice Mattingly aside to talk about how one avoids talking about trauma by talking about work instead.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Apex Investigations

The party's host finishes what appears to be a great deal of sly flirtation with a woman who is a solid two decades his senior and dressed in unflattering yellow silk. He sketches a sardonic, smiling bow to her in courteous farewell and then moves purposefully — surely he has just spotted Important Person over there! — out of range. He stops by the drinks table — drinks, drinks are the Important Person that he saw — and drains the socially-acceptable measure of whiskey a footman offers him, then scans the room again. His gaze lights on the red-headed woman in white. He sets his glass down and makes his way through the crowd toward her.

The Herding Dog gaze intercepts Siamus, then changes to something more polite as it becomes apparent he is approaching.

Siamus stops before Janice; intent black gaze meets Herding Dog Stare. Rather than bow, he offers a hand out. "Miss Mattingly," he says low-voiced. "I'm honored ye could be here tonight. Thank ye for accepting."

"So someone knows what I look like," she says, shaking his hand firmly. Soldier grip. "That's a surprise. The number of people who could put my name to a face is not what it used to be." Dry as the Southern Barrens. Most of the Southern Barrens, not that one part. Some girl in a darkened hallway somewhere is probably approaching that part.

"I did make enquiries," Siamus returns, equally dryly. He has a connection or two in the military. "I wanted to be sure if ye made it that I wouldn't miss ye. I hope you're not offended I didn't make it general notice, but I had a feeling ye might prefer I didn't."

"Yes, you have my gratitude for that," Janice says. "May I say, Admiral Fallon, that I spent a good hour the next day trying to imagine you waving my article around at the House of Nobles. Given that at the time I didn't know what you looked like and still don't know what the House floor looks like, it was an exercise in pure imagination, but it sure did give me a lovely feeling of importance. Soaked in it like a milk bath."

"It's an important article," Siamus tells her. The words are serious but there's a glint of humor in his gaze. "I'm sure Ference or Tennerow could give ye a clearer picture of the scene; I was distracted at the time. I'll introduce ye to either of them, if ye like. I do expect the article's been more influential than ye realize. It was a powerful piece."

"I wouldn't mind a word with Ference," Janice says, annoying her author. "I'm not familiar with Tennerow. What's his story?"

Siamus turns slightly to scan the room, and indicates Devon with a nod in his general direction. "The gentleman in the suit, wi' the dark hair and the glass in hand. Lord Devon Tennerow, of Redridge. Family's in mining money. Sits on the House with myself and Ference. He was wounded at Hyjal and had to step down from the military, but he's still a military man through and through, and his brother serves now." Speaking of military men… Siamus scans the room again. "D'ye know Lord Kieran Lysander?"

"I do not," Janice says. "This is my first time moving in these circles. The air is thin up here." Something in the inflection of first time implies heavily, not the last.

Siamus makes another survey of the room. "Ference is in conversation. Let me introduce ye to Tennerow and then we can see if Lysander's about." He offers Janice his arm reflexively.

Janice stares at his arm for a plump two and a half seconds before she takes it awkwardly, more wounded soldier than damsel.

Devon looks over as he notices Siamus and Janice approaching, adjusting the collar on his blue and cream suit. He smiles and says, "Admiral Fallon, I've word from Leric — he came through safely."

Siamus's smile is immediate and warm. "Ah, tides be praised. Tides a'mighty." He offers Devon his other hand — the arm that doesn't have an intense, awkward young lady hanging on it — for a vigorous congratulatory handshake that is the dignified male version of jumping around hugging each other.

Devon returns the gentlemanly handshake-hug with enthusiasm, and turns to Janice, waiting with good cheer for the introduction coming soon.

"Janice Mattingly," Janice says to the gembleman being "hugged". "The journalistic gadfly formerly known as Matt Janus."

Siamus, who was preparing to introduce, pauses as his introducee introduces herself. What an enterprising lady. He nods and releases Devon's hand, because there is no Humor Value here. "The author of the piece in the Herald. Ye recall."

"One and the same?" Devon, an avid reader of the War section of the newspaper, says as he looks at her in amazement. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Mattingly. You're a credit to the Alliance."

"Yes, it was very clever of me to not get shot, and then be unable to keep my mouth shut. These are two of my profoundest talents. It seems I've stumbled into a career where they're the primary prerequisites. Born under a lucky star." Her darkly lined eyes are ever so lightly dusted with War Trauma, likely easily recognizable by Devon.

"I think ye'll find that not getting shot and being unable to keep one's mouth shut are both fine qualifications for politics, as well," Siamus observes. "But ye have a talent, Miss Mattingly. Shame to waste it there."

"Waste it?" Janice raises a brow inquisitively. The lightly traumatized herding dog seems to have possibly caught a whiff of Opportunity on the wind?

Devon's expression softens unexpectedly at her sharp words, and he nods at Siamus. "It comes down to chance so often, who returns at the end of the day, who's whole and not. There's courage in facing that uncertainty, time and again."

"And wisdom in deciding not to waste one's good fortune, or so I've been telling myself every hour on the hour the last few days," Janice says.

"There is," Devon says. "I told myself something similar, after my injury." He touches his shoulder lightly. "I was still alive, and there was still work to be done. Even if the work was different."

Siamus has genuinely sobered, though not maybe from the alcohol. But the Mood. "Aye," he agrees. "It's the work still to do that ye must keep on."

"If I may say, I am definitely in the market for some different work. Very different. Maybe scooping ice cream instead of massacres. Everyone loves strawberry ice cream."

Siamus considers her seriously. "I may have something for ye, come to think of it. Plenty of opportunities, I expect, but I may have one or two. We can discuss them, if ye like? Let me see whether I can't introduce ye to anyone else first, and then we can have a word."

"You're a veritable blue signal flare on a quiet stretch of ocean, Admiral Fallon," Janice says, in quite a blasé tone for someone who just swam through hot bloody salt water toward such a thing a few days ago.

Avrenne sweeps through the ballroom like she owns it, which in this case is simply a truth, rather than only an energy the regal woman ordinarily employs. There are several openings of opportunity among those who are the movers and shakers of Azeroth’s social and political spheres, some of whom are now precisely in the right place to be moved and shaken themselves. Subtly, of course, as is the Duchess Esprit’s way.

She doesn't look like she's tracking her husband's movement through the ballroom, and a casual observer might simply note that they are independently pursuing their own interests rather than moving as a single unit. Some people may draw conclusions about it.

"Again, a pleasure to meet you, Miss Mattingly," Devon says, offering her a bow. "And if there are any opportunities with which I might assist, I hope you will ask."

"I wouldn't mind talking with you sometime about what it's like to try to build a Life After War," Janice says. You can hear the capitals. "If not for an article, maybe for practical advice." Her gaze flicks briefly to Avrenne, then back to Siamus. 60-65% chance of Conclusions.

"I would be happy to share my experiences," Devon says seriously. "It is… something people usually don't write about, but it does take time and effort."

"I feel very sure of that," Janice says. "I'll find your details, send a card, all that."

Devon nods, and reaches out a hand to shake hers. "I'll make certain my details are sent to you."

Janice's eyes skim over Devon's own details, a head to toe sweep that is impossible to tell if professional or prurient in its curiosity, before letting go his hand.

If Admiral Fallon is aware of his wife's circuit of the ballroom, there is no indication; he does not glance in her direction or evince awareness of her presence. He nods respectfully to Devon and then ushers Janice away. "Let me borrow ye out to the terrace a few moments for some talk," he tells her. "And then we'll try to pin Lysander and Ference when we come back. Will that do?"

"Aye aye, sir," Janice says, warm but dry.

Siamus smiles down at her, and then navigates Miss Mattingly out of the ballroom and down the hall.

Wordlessly, he squires her along the narrow hall to the rear foyer. He nods courteously to Miss Curran and the various guests browsing there but does not pause; he leads Janice across to the glass and wrought iron door at the back of the room, and a footman in white gloves opens it with such soundless efficiency that they need not even slow their course outside.

The terrace is a broad flagstone-paved space, with stone lanterns set at intervals along the edge; for the gala occasion, it has been illuminated further by strings of hanging paper lanterns. The darkened gardens beyond are alive with a choir of crickets and frog-song among the flowers and greenery faded by the night.

"I'd ask ye how you're… adjusting," Siamus observes, "but it seems like the sort of polite question a person who expects ye can adjust to things like that will ask. But how are ye bearing up?"

"Like cow number ninety-nine, who saw the end of cow number ninety-eight right before the slaughterhouse decided to close for the day," she says frankly. Her eyes, indeed, look momentarily cowlike. Maybe it's the heavy black mascara.

Siamus laughs softly. It's not a pleasant sound. "For the day, aye. Have ye been resting since ye arrived?"

"I have made valiant attempts," she says. "It will come when it comes. I hope the eye makeup draws attention away from the results." Now that she has drawn attention back to it with words… it doesn't. It did for a bit, though.

Siamus searches her face. He nods ambiguously. "It comes when it comes," he says. "I'm told that drink is the wrong way to search it out, in case ye were thinking it." He pauses, tips his head back, listens for a moment to the night beneath the distant sounds of the gala. "The sea helps." There's another silence in which his expression does a little thing like… puzzlement? Embarrassment? He turns his attention on Janice again.

"Ye want work away from combat. Have ye preference as to what kind? Obviously you're a tremendous talent as a writer."

"I'll write anything," she says. "Also half serious about the ice cream thing. I'm listening now, Major," she adds with bitter (and unknowingly prophetic) irony.

"I'm afraid I haven't made a go of ice cream, insofar as my businesses run," Siamus says. "Largely, ye understand, in shipping. Not just the military. Shipbuilding, cargo… none of it strikes me a likely field for a woman of your gifts. Cargo manifests are dry reading no matter who writes 'em." He studies her face. "I can offer ye an administrative position in my offices, political or military. I think ye're as sharp a lady as I've met. But I don't know that that's in your interest either. How d'ye feel about…" He pauses. "… Investigations?"

He holds up a hand. "And, by the way, if I run past something that I've ruled out in error, ye may feel free to tell me, 'In fact, Admiral, I've a great fondness for cargo manifests.'"

"In fact, Admiral," Janice says, "I have a great fondness for cargo manifests. But at the word investigations I believe something slightly more electric than fondness ran up my spine."

"Ah," says Siamus, and gives her a gleaming smile. "Well, that would be the one, then. I've financed a private investigations office in the city that's just getting started, a pair of sharp young ladies. I expect the three of ye would make quite a pack." He arches a brow. "Is that of interest?"

"Light yes," says Janice. "I am like a pit dog when it comes to chasing down information, and I would love to chase down some information that isn't about hundreds of dead people."

Siamus nods. "And shall I assume from the fact of your encounters with Captain Reeve that the Gilnean curse does not discomfit ye?"

"Not at all," she says. "I've been working on a story to try to show the variety among worgen, help people see the whole picture instead of hearsay and fearmongering."

Siamus lifts that brow again and nods approval. "I'm very glad to hear it. It's been a project of mine and Her Grace's since the Gilneans rejoined the Alliance, to see them welcomed and integrated. I ask in this instance because of the two young ladies already engaged with the agency, one is a cursed Gilnean herself, and the other is married to one."

Janice's own brow rises at that. "Well, that's two more stories to add to the file," she observes. "Would love to meet them even if I don't quite fit in at the agency. All in all it sounds like a good thing to look into, and I'm grateful for your support. When should I stop by the office?"

"I'll contact Mrs. Hazan to make the arrangement, and my assistant Miss Curran can meet with ye there as well to go over any legal or financial particulars pertaining to the agency. D'ye have a preferred means of contact?"

"I'll be staying with my dad for a while," Janice says. "Just because, well, I've been living in Kalimdor. I didn't need a place back east. You can contact me through him."

Siamus nods. "I'll do that, then. Ye'll hear in the next day or so, I expect." He hesitates. "Is there anything else I can do for ye, Miss Mattingly?"

Something strange flickers through her eyes for a moment, something that speaks of great weariness, loneliness, some unspeakableneed, but it's gone so quickly he might have imagined it.

"I think you've done more for me already, Admiral, than I could repay if I devoted the rest of my life to it. I have something to look forward to, and sometimes that's all it takes to keep your feet moving, hm?"

He studies her in silence for a moment and then nods again. "Aye. Ye keep on forward. But if there is anything…."

The garden door opens again and there is a light, slippered tread on the flagstones, and then an airy young woman's voice says, "Stars above, Shay, honestly?"

"Nothing untoward going on here," Janice replies. "It's all very toward."

The dark-haired, amber-eyed young woman in the blue and gold gown laughs gaily. "Toward. Is it? Shay, I'm frankly astonished at you."

Siamus arches a sardonic brow and says mildly, "Miss Mattingly, may I present my sister, Master Sergeant Sintha Fallon of the 7th Legion? I assure ye she doesn't bite."

Sintha, who had breezed over to link arms amiably with her brother, blinks at Janice. "Mattingly?" she asks, and forgets to use italics. "Janice Mattingly?" Ope, no, there they are.

"That's right, Master Sergeant," Janice says, eyes skimming over the somewhat Master Sergeantly dress. "Thank you for your service. You're not in Theramore, so I'm guessing… Firelands?"

"I'm not in Theramore because I'm a Fallon, darling," says Sintha, but the blithe line has a rote, tossed-off quality; her gaze is fixed on Janice in a much sharper, more assessing way than anything implied by her manner or tone. "And also because, yes. The Molten Front. But honestly, darling, your article was riveting, you've had the whole city agog. I believe Shay was fairly tiresome about it in the House of Nobles."

"Being tiresome in the House of Nobles is my patriotic duty," Siamus tells Sintha.

"Thank you for reading," Janice says simply. She meets Sintha's gaze steadily, assessing her right back. "I expected a reaction, of course. I pulled a pin out of a grenade and gave it a throw. You know something's going to happen when you do that. But I did not expect your brother to catch the grenade and lob it onto the House floor. That was quite a thrill." She does not sound thrilled, nor sarcastic. A bit weary, if anything. "Tiresome or not, I'm grateful. And it seems he's not finished helping me out, either. Trying to help me find some work. Your brother, it seems, is a generous man. Glad he's occupying that seat."

"What a delightful metaphor," Sintha says. "You do have a way with words, Miss Mattingly. Catching live grenades is exactly Shay's style, honestly. I suppose if you're to become a project of his, we'll see you about?"

A well-groomed auburn brow rises a half inch. Janice turns her chocolate-caramel gaze toward Siamus.

"Am I a project?" she asks him. "Should I provide an instruction manual?" She smiles with one corner of her mouth and turns her gaze back to Sintha. "I doubt I'll be underfoot, if that worries you. But when I find myself in pieces I'm not too proud to let an honest person do a bit of assembly if they feel inclined. And if there's no hidden cost."

She flicks her gaze between them, intent and curious. "Something about your brother makes me think he's the type to state costs up front."

"Shay is nothing if not an honest man. It is frequently his worst trait." Sintha gives that catlike smile and pats her brother's arm before releasing him.

"Was there a purpose to your being out here, Ta?" Siamus asks mildly.

She blinks big eyes up at him. "Only to get a bit of air. It's awfully airy out here, don't you think? A terrible crush inside."

Siamus nods courteously. "Well then I shall leave you unfettered access to it. Enjoy, mouse." He turns to Janice to offer his arm. "May I escort ye back to the ballroom, Miss Mattingly?"

Janice studies Sintha for a moment, then looks back to Siamus. "I get the feeling my options are to either go back escorted or go back unescorted, and I wouldn't dream of being rude to a man who's been so generous. So… back to the crush, I suppose." She offers her arm. "But if there is another area that's a bit less crowded, but not already claimed by someone who — you know — lives here and has full rights to a bit of peace and quiet in it, I'd appreciate your escorting me there instead."

"I can offer a number," Siamus says, squiring Janice toward the door. "D'ye prefer books or games?"

Sintha watches them go, her gaze inscrutable, and then turns away to gaze out at the gardens.

"Oh, I'm frankly ravenous for both," Janice says, "but let's go with books, as I'm choosier about games and will happily read anything printed on paper. You know, you really are a most accommodating fellow — did anyone ever tell you that? Probably no one on the House of Nobles, I'm guessing." The left corner of her mouth pulls up a bit.

Siamus laughs as he leads Janice back inside past the silent footman holding the door. "I can't say that I'm famous for my accommodating nature in any profession: military, financial, or political. At a personal level, however, I aspire to be an utmost gentleman." (For a given definition of the word.)

He escorts Janice back across the rear foyer, past the auction items on display and the magnificent painting of the Lady Blanche above the fireplace mantel. This time, they cross to the far corridor rather than the one they'd taken from the ballroom, and at its end in the foyer, Siamus turns left and leads Janice into the library.

The library is a long, high-ceilinged room that ends in a wall of floor-to-ceiling casement windows overlooking the garden; the heavy blue draperies have been tied back to display the nighttime-muted colors of the flowers beyond, and the little sequin-gleams of fireflies and distant stars. The right side of the room is lined entirely in bookcases that host collectively perhaps three lifetimes’ worth of reading; on the left side of the room, the wall around a broad fireplace hosts a gallery of artwork: ships and naval battles, hand-drawn maps, a pair of antique tapestries of mermaids, and various coastal landscapes. Above the fireplace’s marble mantel hangs a framed, hand-drawn, antique map of Kul Tiras.

A group of couches and armchairs is arranged conversationally before the fireplace; farther into the room, more armchairs sit at companionable intervals along the gallery wall, and a number of reading tables occupy the space between the art and the books. The floor is muffled by layers of richly-patterned blue and gold and white carpets. Rather than candlelight, this room is filled with warm, modern electric light.

There are so many fascinating things in the room that could tell Janice so much about the house's occupants… but these details go utterly unnoticed by her when she sees the sheer quantity of books. Her carefully schooled blasé manner melts away completely for a moment. Siamus has probably only ever seen people look at him that way: pupils dilating, cheeks lightly flushing, pulse visibly racing above the collar of her white shirt. It is a look of pure, unadulterated lust, and it completely takes her over for at least four seconds before she gets it under control.

"Well," she says dryly once she can safely speak. "Quite the collection."

Siamus has been considering not the book collection (he's seen it) but Janice, and smiling that ironic smile. "I shall leave ye some privacy then," he says, "and return to the party. If ye have need of anything, there are servants about, or you're welcome to find me again if ye can bear the ballroom crush."

"Much appreciated," she says, already moving to run her fingertips over the spine-nubs of a particularly beautiful leatherbound history.

She slips it from the shelf without the slightest hint of hesitation or permission-seeking, and her eyelids briefly go to half-mast as she holds it closer to her nose. Then she remembers Siamus exists again, and turns to give him a solemn bow.

"I'll be quite contented here until someone kicks me out," she says. "Enjoy the party."