Rachel Conway (
gotbottle) wrote in
multiversallogs2012-10-29 07:46 pm
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Entry tags:
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Who: Raylan Givens and Rachel Conway
What: Regrouping.
Where: Rachel's house, Flyside.
When: backdated to a few days after the riots.
Notes: n/a
Warnings: none so far, will update as needed.
It takes her a few days to reach out to people. It's not that she doesn't care.
It's that she cares so desperately, so deeply. Feels so much responsibility for everyone she cares about, too much to let them be dragged into whatever mess she's created.
But she can't be sure, at first, what that mess might be. She lets that small handful of days pass, lets time come and go and unfold and bring what it will. And it brings... nothing. Apparently.
No imminent danger, at least. Rachel still can't quite believe she walked out of the Arena with a fallen vigilante's sword down her boot and a purloined Militia agent's CiD slipped down her shirt, but she's apparently pulled it off. No one's come to kick in her door, no one's come to drag her away.
So now she can reach out. Now she can make sure the people most dear to her are all right without putting them in harm's way.
She starts at the top of the list.
She still can't bring herself to send even Raylan a voice or video message, started out paranoid after her curbside interrogation, got even more so after her thefts at the Arena. What if someone sees her face and remembers her? What if someone hears her voice and reads between the lines?
Her new home, the house in Flyside he just got done helping her move into, in the days leading up to the riots.
He works to help keep order in the city and to help those that need it and have no other resources. God only knows how busy he is right now, in the wake of everything that's happened.
And that, at least, requires no further explanation.
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When he stops by, he makes sure he's cleaned up first. The damage to his shoulder was superficial; it still hurts a little, but it's patched up and hasn't impaired the use of his arm. You can't even see the bandages under his shirt. But he looks tired, a bit ashen. He's seen a lot of awful things in his life, both before and since Baedal, but that was something else again.
And beneath it all, the rage he keeps in check is all the more acute. But that does no one good now, so he pushed it away as he knocks at her door.
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She pushes the door closed, makes sure it's locked securely. (The paranoia hasn't entirely subsided.) And she takes one of his hands, her eyes searching his face.
"Are you okay?"
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But she's not.
"...I don't know," she finally settles on. "I don't know anymore."
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"You don't look hurt though, so at least you got out okay?"
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"How did you know I was there...?" She's caught somewhere between he knows me too well too soon, this is concerning and I'm enough of a troublemaker that he just assumed.
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"Besides, I figured you for the type that couldn't sit idly at home with all that going on." Clearly, he wasn't that type either.
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She drops onto the couch, tugging Raylan's arm in a sit-right-here-with-me sort of way. "You didn't get stuck in there, did you? I know some people had trouble getting out for a while. I wound up getting out through the tunnels down below, like at the Arena level."
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And there's that silence again, broken after a moment when she inhales, audibly. "The guy they wanted all along. The vigilante. He told me to get down in the tunnels. He was..." She starts stumbling over the words a little. "He was my friend. They had no right to do what they did..."
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Some things make some more sense now, in hindsight. Pocketing card keys. Stealth. Curiosity. So much coordination for a guy who seemed like a harmless nerd.
And seeing "going out the window" as a viable means of solving a problem.
"We hung out at clubs mostly, when we were at the same parties. Last time I saw him, we broke into a hotel room at the Babylon just to see what it was like."
...Okay, maybe she is a troublemaker.
"I didn't know it was him until he got down there. I went to see what they were doing, I wanted to be a witness. I didn't know they were going to kill my friend." She sniffles. "Whatever else he did, he was a good man, and they had no right to kill him or anyone else."
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The fact that it had come to a head was less shocking to him than that no one had put any media spin at all, as far as he's aware. Just silence in the riot's wake.
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Pause.
"...We're sitting on his sword, by the way."
Slightly longer pause.
"...I may be in trouble someday, actually."
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Despite himself, he does sound impressed.
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She sits up, carefully disentangling herself, pulling away slightly. And she looks him square in the eye. "I took something else that doesn't belong to me. A CiD. That belonged to a Militia agent. Like, I don't even know yet what I'd do with either of these things but I have no plans to give them back. So, um."
Rachel falters a moment, her face a fleeting mix of emotions, before she pulls herself back together, summoning a half-hearted lift of her chin, almost courageous. "Look. I know you have your job to worry about. Both of them, where you do a lot of good for a lot of people. And then there's your own personal safety, too. If what happened showed us anything it's that the Militia clearly does not give a goddamned thought for anything besides what they want, and they'll do anything to get their way."
She sighs. "I don't know what I'm gonna do yet. But I feel like I need to do something. Meanwhile I'm sitting on some things they probably want really bad, and I'm just digging the hole deeper. If you need to get out, if you need to just not be near me or whatever I'm gonna do, I'd-- well, I'd--"
--miss you.
"I'd understand."
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"Well, my point is that we're too alike and we might as well enjoy each others' company in the meantime. Besides, I think your boss has plans for me."
All of which is to say, he's not going to let her push him away for his own safety.
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"Thank you," she says, mouth twisting a little bit because she's trying not to start crying all over again. And then she puts her arms around his shoulders, to hug him. "I promise I'll be careful. And tell you if I think there's about to be direct trouble out of something I did."
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"I could swear this is how we met. I think I even asked you, back then, how one gets 'shot just a little'."
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"Turns out shouting and waving a hat like mine draws gunfire in the middle of a riot. Who knew?"
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She resumes her previous curling-up, along his left side. "You were saying you think Jack has plans for you? You guys managed to meet?"
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