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(no subject)

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.

are you okay?

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?

i'm at home.

Her new home, the house in Flyside he just got done helping her move into, in the days leading up to the riots.

come over when you can.

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.

i want to see you. i miss you.

And that, at least, requires no further explanation.

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It's not just his shoulder she curls into, but his entire side, her arm sliding across his body. "I'm glad you were able to help people out," she says, not at all surprised he did it. "I probably would've been stuck for a while if I hadn't gone down to the tunnels, if Tom..."

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..."

"Christ. I'm so sorry, I didn't know." He didn't know she knew Tom, didn't know the man himself. There's nothing much else he knows to say, but he rubs a hand across her back in steadying circles. There's nothing that will make this better, and it's worse for knowing for certain the type of world in which they live, as well as that she's lost a friend.

"I didn't know he was the vigilante."

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."

"Unfortunately, it seems like here, they had every right," Raylan points out, low and angry. "That's the problem. It was disgusting and I don't know what we can do about it yet, but it's clear they have friends in the highest places if they can do something that openly."

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.

"It's sick," she says, and she's crying but there's a decided edge to her words. "I can't believe no one did anything to stop it. Not even the gods. How can the Militia just do that?" She sighs. "Especially to innocent people, people who had nothing to do with their grudge against one man. A good man."

Pause.

"...We're sitting on his sword, by the way."

Slightly longer pause.

"...I may be in trouble someday, actually."

Raylan makes a face, then shakes his head. "You know, you're certainly not doing anything to avoid. You got it out without anyone seeing you?"

Despite himself, he does sound impressed.

"I stole someone's cape and then I stuck the sword down the back of my boot. I waited a few days to call you just in case I wasn't as smooth as I thought. But... that's not all."

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."

"If you hadn't noticed, the whole city's unsafe. And, not to minimize the crazy amount of trouble you could be in anyway, but I think I've managed to be my own target, you know. I work at Thames, I ignored orders to be at Mog Hill when the Arena riots were happening, I've had..." He chuckles.

"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.

She lets out the breath she'd been holding--kind of a big one. She didn't think he'd bail on her, but given her life, she was braced for it happening all the same.

"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."

It gets an involuntary wince as she puts pressure on his wound. "Easy," he says, lightly, "there's a bit of a patch job over there."

"...What?" She draws back again, alarmed. "What do you mean--what happened?"

"Easy," he says again, more to her demeanor this time. "It's nothing serious, I just... might have got shot at. A little."

Rachel takes a moment to pull herself back together--she'd probably be handling this better if she wasn't already so keyed up--and she puts a gentle hand on his right shoulder.

"I could swear this is how we met. I think I even asked you, back then, how one gets 'shot just a little'."

He laughs, shifting a little. "Okay, well, this is just a graze, so I think it actually counts as not a big deal." As opposed to being gut-shot, as he had been when he turned up in Baedal.

"Turns out shouting and waving a hat like mine draws gunfire in the middle of a riot. Who knew?"

"Well, that's just absolutely rude," Rachel replies, rallying some of her usual good humor, "especially since you were trying to help. God. I'm glad you're okay."

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?"

"We did, beforehand. Also, he just seems like a guy who generally has plans." And now he is aware of Raylan, so he probably incorporated him somehow. It's not a judgment, just an observation.

"That's not an unfair assessment," Rachel says thoughtfully. "I want to talk to him, soon, about his future plans. I know he's in a better position, sometimes, to help people when we can't; after this I think this city needs all the help it can get."

"Certainly doesn't seem to be helping itself much," he observes, settling back against the couch. "I've got to wonder about the reputation our cohort's getting. You'd think every group of kidnapees would be restless, at least at first."

Rachel settles back with him, thoughtful. "That's a good point. They act like this is all somehow terrible and unexpected. But I think they'd have to know people would protest being dragged here."

She's quiet a moment, mulling things over. "I wonder what happened with the other cohorts. Were they restless? Did they have stuff like this happen to them?"

"Don't know. I suspect if they did, evidence isn't going to be easy to find. Maybe that's something your boss could look into, if he's interested." It would certainly be past a security clearance Raylan doesn't have, he thinks.

"I'll ask him. Maybe there are records he can get to or something, I don't know."

And then, after a moment: "...This is a crazy idea, but I wonder if anyone from the other cohorts still has their pamphlets? The ones we all got when we showed up in that room. I'm interested--do they all say the same thing? Like, ours said some crap about our ambitions and all. I wonder if they've always said that. Or if different cohorts had different qualities praised."

"It's not crazy," he says, after a moment. "I'd be interested too. Question is, how to go about finding out without drawing too much attention. Seems like something that would draw 'why do you want to know' fire pretty quick."

He isn't shooting the idea down. He's thoughtful, trying to figure out the best way to go about it.

She chews the inside of her lip a moment, considering this.

"...Let me start at the office. We probably have people from different cohorts; there are definitely people much older than me and Jack floating around the place. I'll say I'm just curious. And I don't guess people who work for Jack are the kind of people who are gonna call the Militia for some small thing like that."

"Probably," Raylan says, "but be careful all the same. I'll keep my ear to the ground at Thames, too, see if anything turns up. We all sort of accept the targets on our backs, after all." Which is a bit grim, fro all he says it lightly.

"Well, seeing as I've just about painted one on my own back, what with sticking a dead vigilante's sword under my couch cushions and hiding a stolen CiD out in the garden, I guess it's good to know I'm in excellent company."

She sighs, holding on just a little tighter. "I know 'don't get killed' is on the list and all, but... be careful, all the same."