A language barrier.

Julien "Rook" Nizan of the GIGN and currently serving for Rainbow, was sitting in the Rainbow headquarters facility canteen, drinking an Old Fashioned. Rook made it a habit to frequent the canteen, because at one time or another every member of Rainbow visited the bar, and Rook liked nothing more than to talk and get to know his fellow operatives.

Right now, however, the only other Rainbow operative in the bar was the Korean operative Chyul Kyung "Vigil" Hwa, sitting alone at a booth at the other end of the bar. The Korean operatives were new, and beyond a few niceties Rook hadn't gotten a chance to interact with either; normally he would take this time to introduce himself, but Vigil radiated an aura that said "I would like to not be disturbed", and Rook could respect that.

It seemed someone else couldn't, however. The door burst open and through it came the second Korean operator, Grace "Dokkaebi" Nam, worked up to ramming speed and pointed directly at Vigil. "What the hell were you thinking?!" she asked.

Rook swiveled his body in his seat away, to give them a semblance of privacy, and swiveled his ears toward their conversation, to make sure he didn't miss anything. He heard Vigil respond in Korean, and Dokkaebi shot back with, "A disciplinary complaint? If you have a problem, Chul Kyung, maybe talk to me about it before filling a complaint with Six herself! Or would stringing two words together be too much for you?" She spat something in Korean, which from the tone Rook took to be profane, and stormed out.

Rook downed the rest of his drink and said to the bartender, who had the decency to look embarrassed, "Put this on my tab, Charlie. Thanks."

Rook walked into the Rainbow offices. He had his own, being an operative in the blackest of black ops units had an untoward amount of paperwork, but he made his way to Thatcher's. While the woman code named Six ran the unit, Thatcher assumed a large part of the responsibility as well. He also hated it.

The secretary behind the desk outside of Rook's office looked up at him and smiled. "Julien, good to see you."

"Hi, Emma. Thatcher in?"

"Oh, yes." Something about the way she said that pinged Rook's radar.

"And how would you rate his mood?"

"Foul to toxic, Julien."

Rook clapped his hands. "Wonderful! I'm just going to step inside for a moment."

The British operator employed a unique filing system, In, Out, and Shake-It-All-About. The older man looked up over reading glasses, which he denied he needed, and pinned Rook with a look. "Julien. Can I help you?"

"That'd be lovely." Rook removed a few requisition files dated last spring from the chair and sat in it.

"You can see I'm a little busy," Thatcher said tartly.

"I can wait," Rook said.

Thatcher looked at him for several seconds. "Fook. You will too, hours if I let you. What can I help you with, Julien?"

"I'd like to talk to you about Vigil and Dokkaebi."

"Ha!" Thatcher replied. "You and about thirty other people. A disciplinary complaint made its way across my fookin' desk this morning." Rook reflected that a piece of paper would need a compass and a well-detailed map to navigate Thatcher's desk's landscape, but he declined from saying so. The SAS operator continued, "A fookin' disciplinary complaint. In Fookin' Rainbow. I thought, Jaysus, did somebody spit on Six's granny, but Vigil complained that Dokkaebi forgot to sign herself into the shooting range. Holy shit." Thatcher squinted at him. "But you already knew that?"

"I figured something like that," Rook admitted.

"So you thought you'd swoop in and help smooth things over," Thatcher said. "Like Mary Fookin' Poppins."

"I heard Caviera went and got a mani-pedi with Valkyrie last week," Rook mentioned.

"I didn't say you weren't good at it." Thatcher sighed. "Nobody signs into the gun range. I didn't even know they had a fookin' book. It's not the first time those two have gotten into a scrap."

"A rift in unit cohesion?" Rook asked. "My word."

Thatcher regarded him with a knowing eye. "Good job not grinning like a pumpkin. You like gossip more than my nan, Julien."

"I like gossip that gets resolved, Thatcher. You want me to take a look into what I can do to help smooth things over?"

"It wouldn't be a problem?"

"Non, not at all."

"It's just I can't get involved myself. If it was my fookin' outfit I'd march down and slap 'em around, yank their heads out of their asses. I like both of them, Julien. Vigil is maybe the most qualified, by the books and numbers man on the whole team. He reeks competence and stability." The older man looked around, as if looking for listeners. "I asked for Dokkaebi specifically, did you know? She was training with the SAS and she impressed me. Fookin' impressed me, of all people. Just because I hate all the fancy new tech doesn't mean I don't realize it's the future. They were stifling her. Major General Kuh is a badass and damn good at what he does, but he's like me without my wonderful sense of fookin' humor. I pulled in about twenty favors I've been sitting on for decades when she put herself on the list without the Major General's knowledge, and about fifteen of those were to keep Kuh from throwing her in prison. Now her countryman is writing her up for not signing into a book that I couldn't find with a blood hound and the oracle at fookin' Delphi."

"You think Major General Kuh asked Vigil to keep an eye on her?" Rook asked.

"Who the fook knows. Maybe. But I'll tell you something, I know potential."

Rook nodded sagely. "You've always struck me as open minded and caring."

"Too fookin' right, and wipe that grin off your face, you look like a pumpkin. If Kuh is looking for a reason to drum her out of the 707th, I'd find her a place in the SAS."

Rook thought for a moment. "Okay, well I'll try to see if I can work my magic. Oh, I don't suppose I could borrow their psych profiles?"

"Absolutely not, those are private and top secret. Ask Emma on the way out and she'll print them for you, but you didn't get them from me. See you later, Julien."

A few minutes later Rook walked out of the offices, thinking. A passing figure, walking along the grounds, caught his eye and he trotted up to them. "Meghan, hey, can I talk to you for a second?"

Meghan "Valkyrie" Castellano stopped in her tracks as if she had hit a wall. She turned and cleared her throat, and Rook noticed her face was flushed. "Julien, look, I don't care what Mark says, I gave him the camera and he must have forgotten it in there! He's got to be just trying to-"

Rook cut her off with a wave of her hand. "I haven't talked to Mark about it, I trust you. Hey have you seen-" he paused. "Are you okay, your face is all red."

"I'm fine!"

"You sure?"

"Perfectly all right!"

Rook shrugged. "Okay. Have you seen Blackbeard? I need to talk with him."

Valkyrie seemed to settle down a bit, and said, "Yeah, I think he was headed to the canteen."

"Perfect, thanks." Rook turned to go, and a thought occurred. "Oh, hey, I don't have a video camera, could I borrow one of yours?"

The American operator blinked. "For what?"

"Just something I'm working on. Your cameras can record, right?"

"I didn't record anything!"

Rook winced at the volume. "I didn't say you did, Meg. I just need a camera to record something with."

"Oh," Valkyrie said. "Uh, yeah, I can just drop one off for you later."

"Thanks, you're a gem. How did the mani-pedi go with Taina the other day?"

Valkyrie grinned. "I'll give you three guesses what nail polish color she chose."

"I think I'll rule out hot pink and canary yellow and go straight to black."

"You got it. You should compliment her on it," Valkyrie said with a grin.

"Thank you, Meghan," Rook said.

"I'm just saying, Julien," the SEAL responded, all innocence.

"See you later, Meg."

Rook walked into the canteen and instantly spotted Craig "Blackbeard" Jenson, sitting at a table and drinking, somewhat predictably, some sort of stout. Blackbeard looked up when he entered, and waved him over with, presumably, a grin. It was hard to tell under the beard. "Julien! Hey come have a drink with me. Charlie, an Old Fashioned," he said to the bartender. "You know," Blackbeard said as Rook sat down. "I tried that facial shampoo you told me about, and it worked like a dream!"

"Thank my granddad," Rook said.

"I'll put him on my christmas card list. Did you need something, Julien? You looked like you were looking for me."

"I was. Can I talk to you about Vigil for a minute?" Rook asked. "You're partnered with him, right?"

It was common for an operator from one unit to be partnered with one from another, to trade tactics and skill sets and build team cohesion.

"Yeah, he's a friend too. Why do you ask?"

Briefly, Rook filled him on Dokkaebi and Vigil's current tense relation, and how he was trying to find a way to smooth things over. When he was done, Blackbeard nodded. "I know Vigil is a pretty quiet guy. As far as I know I'm his closest friend. If you want my opinion, I don't think he's bucking for her removal."

"You figure he's up to something else? Or Kuh didn't tell him to spy on her?"

"He told me the Major General did, but look...Vigil's quiet, right? And he's so stonefaced you'd think he came from Easter Island, but not being comfortable showing emotions isn't the same as not having them. The guy's emotional, and what's more, he's sentimental. He's also as protective a guy of a charge as I've ever seen. He escorted an ambassador fifty-eight miles through the Korean DMZ and the ambassador later said it was a lovely trip."

Rook was starting to get a picture, one he had suspected. "You think he's protecting her."

"That's what I figure. Like a big brother. He knows Kuh is bucking for her being thrown out, so he's trying his damnedest to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid. And then because he's a jackass, love him like a brother though, he won't tell her he's not actually trying to be a jackass, and she misunderstands his motives."

Rook nodded to himself for a moment. "Thanks, Craig."

"Would you want me to explain this all to him?" the American asked. "I can talk to him."

"Hmm. Hey, give me an hour, then ask him to come grab a drink, and I can try to smooth this out."

"What're you going to do?" Blackbeard asked.

"Reassure him."

Rook hurried into Thatcher's office, holding a small camera. Thatcher looked form it to Rook's face, and said, "Shooting a movie, Julien?"

"Non. I'm almost done fixing things between Dokkaebi and Vigil."

Thatcher looked at his watch. "Mate, you started about three hours ago."

Rook shrugged. "I like to work fast. Could you tell the camera what you were telling me about Dokkaebi earlier? About how you scouted her out and enjoy working with her."

"Why?" Thatcher asked, suspicion drawing the word out to be a second or two long. "Actually, never mind. Sure. Er, start me off, though?"

"She impressed you when she trained with the SAS," Rook prompted.

"Right. Like I said..."

Mere minutes later, Rook hurried into the canteen, where Blackbeard and Vigil were sharing a drink. Both looked up when Rook sat down, and without saying a word the GIGN operator played the video on his phone of Thatcher's opinion on Dokkaebi.

When it was over, Rook extended his hand. "Julien Nizan. It's really nice to meet you."

Vigil took his hand and shook it. "Chul Kyung Hwa. Good to meet you, too."