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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.

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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She relents after he kisses her, sighing. "Yeah, I know. I know I need to think things through, and be careful. And I know I'm damned lucky I got away with as much as I did. I've just, like..."

Rachel shifts so she can curl back into his side. "I've never been so scared of being here. Not scared for my life and everyone else's, not like this."

"I think it's easy, when you first arrive, to see the place as an inconvenience." What with the pamphlet, and finding a place to live, and finding a job to make rent. Especially for people with a bent for problem solving, it's a series of problems.

But Baedal is worse than not getting home, and it's easy to push that thought away. By design, Raylan suspects, but also by human nature.

(He's often tried not to think that, if time passes the same way at home, Winona would have had the baby by now. God only knows what she thinks happened to him.)

He's quiet, thoughtful as Rachel resettles against him. He wants something to do about it as much as she does. Like it or not, for him this is about more than getting himself out now.

"Yeah. It's like--" She pauses, her hand lifting, a finger tracing a triangle in the air as she fumbles for the idea. "The hierarchy of needs, right? You have to see to your basic needs first: food, shelter, being able to survive. You can't worry about anything else until you see to that. So I think the way this place just snatches you and dumps you here with only the clothes on your back is on purpose. It keeps you from worrying too much, right away, about what's really going on."

And then by the time you start worrying about the bigger picture, you now neatly have everything to lose--your job, your friends, your place in the city. She doesn't think that's by accident, either. Even the fact that you're placed in a cohort has to be part of some bigger design; it gives a person a sense of community from the start, and probably some sense of security that they're not alone.

There's something else, too, something she's been loathe to give voice to, but she's been here nearly a year and a half now, and poked around enough to get a general idea.

"There's also the hope that you can go home. At first. Everyone thinks this is a temporary thing and they'll get out once it's solved. It keeps you from getting invested until you have something to lose."

"You think anyone does?" Go home, he means. He knows people leave, but it's not the same thing at all, and it's been a thought he's been picking at like a scab he can't quite leave alone even if he knows he should.

Sometimes he wonders where Tim's dog went, too.

"...I don't know," she confesses. "Like, I want to believe they do? I think we all hope they do. Not just because we don't want bad things to happen to people... but because we think, if he went home, someday I can too."

She lets her hand fall and come to rest on his chest. "But we don't know. Maybe they do. Maybe they wind up somewhere else. Or maybe... something bad happens to them. I hope not. But we have no way to know, not really."

"I guess not." If they ever found out, it would probably either be by accident - or because one of them went. Neither were very cheering prospects.

"But it's what's on everyone's mind, especially at first. That and fundamental needs - it's a fine one-two distraction punch."

"Yeah. The Militia have to know they've lost some of that with what they pulled."

She sighs. There's another possibility, one almost too terrible to consider...

"...Or they just don't care."

Raylan nods. "Something's changed. Either they don't care, or they're desperate about something else they car about more." The populace would settle eventually, but not soon, and all eyes are on the militia for now.

"I hadn't thought about it like that." That it wasn't just a vulgar display of power from a group that clearly knew it had the city under its thumb, that it was the desperate act of a desperate camp.

...That didn't really make things any better.

"What the hell could be so important to make them go that far?"

"Wish I knew." He intends to find out, if he can. But it's not clear yet. "It's something you boss could keep an eat out for. I'm not in high enough circles to get much of a whiff."

"I'll ask him." She thinks for a moment. "...I could also try scrolling back through that CiD I have. See if there are any messages or any information that might point us somewhere."

"Maybe. Though probably safer if you wait a bit." Safer for her... though maybe less useful. Still.

She nods, her cheek rubbing against his shoulder. "I agree. I'm thinking I should also not turn the damn thing on anywhere near here, just in case. Take it somewhere where I can ditch it, fast, if it looks like they're onto me, and get out of there."

"The beach, maybe," he says, thoughtful, then deadpans: "You can conveniently drop it while surfing."

Rachel laughs at that, shifting as her posture softens a little, comforted. "And now I see the wisdom of consulting an officer of the law when I need to break it. Thank you."

Raylan laughs too, shaking his head. "Well, I'm just saying, no sense in borrowing more trouble when you've already got a long term lease on this much."

"Once more, I'll acquiesce to your wisdom on the matter."

She's quiet a moment, before saying, "...I should give you a key to this place, speaking of leases."

--That connection made sense in her own head, somehow.

"Yeah?" A pause, then, "I expected you to be madder at me for getting shot at."

"What?" She draws back, searching his face, confused. "Why would I be mad at you because somebody else shot at you? They had no right, and you didn't go asking for it.

--Shit, even if you did go courting trouble," she adds, because she's not entirely unfamiliar with that state of being, especially not lately, "I don't know. You'd have to being doing something impressively and pointlessly dumb for me to be mad over it."

He laughs, then. "I've just had a long line of women in my life angry at me for getting shot, I'm kind of used to it." Which probably doesn't say anything good about how many times he's been shot or nearly shot, frankly.

"I had noticed you seem to make a habit of it," she says, but her smile's not unkind. "But I imagine it at least comes with the territory, in your line of work. I could sit here and get mad about things that are out of my control, but that's no way to live and really no way to carry on being with somebody."

Especially not in a place like this, where it feels like so many things are out of their control.

That's a rather remarkable theory, in Raylan's experience. Then again, his marriage had fallen apart (twice?) and maybe there was a reason for that.

"Well, I'll take your optimistic attitude with gratitude and do my best not to get shot anyway."

She shrugs, laughing a little. "I'm sure, given time, we're going to find all kinds of ways to drive each other up the wall, for a minute, a day, permanently. I'd rather save the being upset for things that actually have some bearing, instead of losing it at every thing that comes along. There's enough out there to make a person miserable, I don't need to look for more. Now, that being said--"

And here she pauses to underscore the upcoming request with a kiss. "I would appreciate your best efforts where not being shot is concerned. I'm sure that'd be easier on both of us."

He chuckles, shifting to kiss her again. "Look, I'm not so fond of being shot either, you know. I'd think that'd kind of be a given." Apparently not.

"I didn't think you did," she says, curling back into his side now that this is all settled. "I understand it's a risk but I didn't think you were out there actively inviting it. Let's hope it doesn't happen again."

She sighs, softly. "But if there's trouble, come here. I mean, you can come when there's not, too. But." That's what the key's for. It's more than just wanting and enjoying his company; she'd feel a lot more secure knowing he had one more place to go if anything happened.

Which, at the rate the two of them were going... it's not a certainty, but the probability's pretty high.

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