Jaime wasn't exactly an expert in all this clandestine stuff, but he'd read enough of what had been left for him to know that giving away too much of anything, including trust, on this ship, might end up disastrous. So, he'd spoken with Howard briefly on the omnicomms and now he waited in the park, leaning against a tree. He wasn't quite sure what he was hoping for with this meeting. Maybe just to help with moving things along.

He shrugged and rolled his shoulders, glancing around for the approach of his contact. It was quiet now and he was a little worried about being watched. Though that might be Khaji's paranoia rubbing off on him.

"C'mon, where are you. . .?"

It was possible to get to Kang's quarters from the store room, but he preferred to use a separate entrance on the other side of the building for guests, rare as they were. The door was unlocked for Sakura, and he sat at a simple wooden table in what served as his common room, waiting. The only other furniture was a bookshelf, nearly full, with a few simple wooden figurines and framed photos decorating it; the windows had plain grey curtains over them, drawn shut. The doors to both bedrooms were open, one showing a human-sized bed and the other a much larger one.

River had been told to wait, to be sneaky and sly, to follow the carefully laid out plan that the Master had come up with. He wanted her to turn the Doctors against each other and then strike in the midst of all that lovely chaos. Unfortunately, the Master hadn't taken into account just how impulsive River Song could be. Sure she was psychotic and wholely the weapon that Madame Kovarian and the Silence had programmed, shaped, and raised her to be, but she was also impulsive. She wanted to finish off the Doctor now, not five months from now.

That's why she'd devised a plan of her own. By sending out a message on the psychic paper.

Meet me at the tower, I want to tell you everything.

xoxox

Short. Simple. Impossible for the Doctor to resist. Of course, he might wonder why she wanted to meet up at the very place she had been kidnapped and held against her will by the Master.

Now she waits for him to show up. Silly Doctor, so trusting of River Song. He really shouldn't trust her. Hadn't she told him as much? There was a gun in her hand and two bullets with his name on them. One shot to kill. Another shot to prevent him from reaching his next regeneration.

What on earth had she seen in him in the first place?

Sakura sat in one of the chairs at the table in the Atori Teahouse, holding her own mug of tea between her hands and leeching the warmth out of it. She really didn't need to, not with how generally warm and humid the atmosphere was, but it held some sort of simple comfort that the rest of the environment lacked.

The place was looking tidy, tidier than it ever did with Phillip and Ren both in residence. (Not for a lack of Ren trying.)

A pot of tea stood in the middle, next to a journal and hardcover book. The book was an older volume on medicine from out of some Earth-like culture around the turn of a century, far from relevant or up to date with most all medical issues. She had a certain wicked fondness for it nonetheless, if she never got a chance to tell the one who'd given it to her why it was amusing.

She probably never would, now. Yet those weren't the thoughts she wanted to linger in, so they were brushed aside, sitting with her worries about teammates she hadn't seen for so long, for her sleeping shishou, and all the rest that she couldn't directly help. Sakura blew on the surface of her tea, focusing her mind back to what she wanted to communicate to Setsuna and his comrade. Lockon? Yes, Lockon.

She was expecting them any time now.

The Teahouse. Sakura had "officially" moved out a while back, and had maintained that outward appearance. Her personal belongings, such as most were aware, sat in a room in the crew quarters proper. What she kept here these days were necessities and strategic supplies, along with the journal she didn't want people reading casually. If they could slog through the code, it said more about what she did and thought about this place than she was comfortable having people know.

Not that it mattered. She frowned, staring off at no particular point of the house, feeling Sta'c as a suffocating presence all around her. The sensation hadn't been this bad for weeks, but in the wake of Marco's repodding, and the events happening right before it (the events leading into it), it'd been coming back strongly in waves.

She wanted to tear something down to work the frustration out. Instead she systematically familiarized herself with the aresonal available to the crew. Anything as distraction. Anything in addition to the rest of what she did.

Showing the rest of the crew what she and Barbara had seen felt like progress, if she didn't know exactly to where. It made her think, and thinking had both upsides and downsides. Right now she was exploring an avenue that might be both. Talking to Jake, who admittedly, she mostly knew through Marco and a handful of casual direct conversations of their own, was a step outside her ordinary.

Sakura breathed in deeply, eyes closing for a brief moment. The door was unlocked, the room lit by the soft artificial light of whatever time of day the city was generating. Her eyes opened. She expected he'd be here any time now.

The two women had waited until a good number of people had gathered in the sensorium next to where the Tapestry was kept. Sakura glanced toward Howard, wanting a visual reassurance that he was there with a recording device. He was someone she could count on for the paranoid sensibilities that she sometimes put aside in favor of other practicalities. With everyone gathered, they turned toward each other, and the sensorium came alive.
( Such a sight as we have seen... )... leaving everyone standing in the sensorium's blank interface as the mental replay shut down.

[ ooc: Feel free to make your own threads and discuss as your characters are want to do! You are absolutely not required to respond to either Barbara or Sakura's question threads. That is optional! ]

The man sat at one of the mess hall tables, eating with one hand and tapping on the omnicomm on the table with the other. He wasn't just tall, he was big, broad across the shoulders and built like a tank underneath the plant suit. The pale skin of his neck and face was laced with scarring. He was entirely focused on what he was reading, brow furrowed slightly.

There were only a few people on the ship that might have recognized the Master Chief without his armor.

He had been asleep for a long time, that much was clear.

It was making things difficult.