Participants:
| Scene Title | All Along The Watchtower |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Lynette interrupts Ryans' turn on sentry duty to discuss official and non-official business. |
| Date | November 16, 2010 |
Looking for someone on this island is never a private business. By the time Lynette finds where Ryans is playing lookout tonight, it seems like half the refugees know she was looking for him. But she doesn't really seem to mind that, exactly. At least, not at the moment.
She clears her throat a little, just to let him know she's there, even though he probably heard her coming. Stealth is not her forte. "Ah, so there you are. I was beginning to wonder if you were off in hiding."
Half sitting on a large rock, one foot propped on it and a rifle resting against his other leg, Benjamin Ryans turns just enough to catch a glimpse of the dark figure behind him. "No…" he starts gruffly, turning back to moonlit mainland beyond, watching the barely noticeable pinprick lights of cars travel along the highway. His brown duster is a gray in the faint light filtering through fall thinned trees.
He has no light with him, preferring the dark. "Just been busy working with Raith to figure out who will be doing what." Ben sends another glance over his shoulder. "What can I do for you, Councilwoman?" There is a hint of humor there, not in a disrespectful way either.
Lynette comes over to sit up on his rock, too, a little more fully than he is. She's dressed far more simply than usual, just jeans and a sweatshirt that's a little too big. But for once, she doesn't mind that, either. "Well, let me know if I can help. I know the zapping isn't exactly inconspicuous, but if there's anything I can do…"
She looks over at him in the darkness, that familiar, crooked smile appearing on his face for that question. "Officially? I wanted to ask you what you could tell me about Lazzaro. Barb and I are supposed to chat with him a little and I hate to go to a meeting unprepared."
"Lazzaro?" He glances at her with a mildly surprised look. "I don't know an aweful lot about him." Ryans admits softly, looking out over the river again, hands folding around the muzzle of the rifle. "When I was working for the Company, I worked cases that had me dealing with Lazzaro." His tone is bland as he recounts, "Always butted heads with him.
"He always managed to be places and some smart ass thing to say. He once even put out a report stating all of us could use more training." There is a snort at that, "Bullshit."
Ben glances at her then, face unreadable. "Last I saw of him, he was working for the Department of Evolved Affairs. While I owe him for rescuing my little girl, I can't help but wonder what motives we are not seeing." Brows furrow a little and he adds with a sigh, "So says the Ex-Company Assistant-Director." He knows how it sounds, but — "I still don't trust him, til he talks to me."
There's a chuckle for that report. She just can't help. "A little rivalry, I see," Lynette says, her smile amused. "Well, if we figure out he has any ill intentions, I'll let you know. For now, I just want to know what happened. What he's doing here." She spreads her hands a little. "I'm trying to catch up to what the council knew already.
"If you don't trust him, good. Someone will have a sharp eye out. But do me a favor while we're here? Keep the peace a little? Unless something happens… I just want to keep little disagreements and such from blowing up while we're in these close quarters. Under strain. You know?"
Eyes narrow at Lynette, but it's hard to know what his reaction is, but finally there is a slow sigh from the older man. "Fine." It's grunted out, unhappily. Ben watches a tiny twinkle cross in the darkness on it's way along the highway. "I don't usually do that, but… he is government and we just went on the run from them." He points out.
"When I dealt with him, it seemed like DoEA was in bed with the Insitute… I don't know if that still holds true, but you can understand my caution." A glance goes her way, studying her for a moment. "I figured the next time I saw him, I'd see what was up." It's reluctant, but the truth. "I owe him that much."
"Caution is fine. Welcome, even. It's fights I don't want. But by all means, keep an eye out. It lets me be friendly and open. A little good cop, bad cop. That's how it always works on those charming little TV shows, isn't it?" Lynette smiles at him there, amused, but understanding of his unhappiness.
"We'll figure out what's going on and then you can kick him off the battlements," she says, a hand waving back toward their castle-slash-fort. "But. That aside… how are holding up? I know it's not much of a change from the situation at Gun Hill, but…"
"I'm doing fine." Ryans says softly, brushing off the rest of it and moving on, "Delia is avoiding me, Lucille is around here somewhere wanting to follow to follow in daddy's footsteps." He trails off and sighs lightly, his shoulders slumping. "They seem to change every time I get comfortable with who they are."
Head turning towards Lynette, she can see the small smirk in the moonlight, "And this place is much more different then Gun Hill.." Ryans leans down, fingers searching the thick layer of leaves for a stone. "I knew the people there, here there are a lot of strangers and I'm having to find my comfort zone all over again."
The rock rolls around in Ben's fingers, before he cocks his arm back and with a flick of his arm sends the rock sailing into the water. "How about you?"
"They're still figuring out who they are, too. In all that's been going on lately, is it any wonder they've been changing?" Lynette seems to be trying to be comforting; the tilt of her head, the softness in her half smile. "Oh me? Fine. Trying to keep busy. It's really easier to deal with it all if I don't slow down too much. Trying to keep up a jovial enough mood for the sake of… well, all the others. That sort of thing."
Her gaze follows the rock out over the water, and she seems to stare that way for far longer than it should be interesting. "It's important, isn't it? Doing what has to be done…" She flicks her gaze over to him, her head tilting again, "I mean, you're a leader yourself." She seems to be trying to get at something. Something a little deeper than keeping up appearances for the refugees.
"It is." Ryans admits with a slow nod of his head, giving her a sideways glance. Blue eyes washed out in the darkness, study her thoughtfully. "And doing the right thing." He points out after a moment. "Never an easy job either, but each leader is different.
"Some stand back, others get in there and do." Shifting a little, Ryans adjusts his seat a bit, so that he turns a little towards her. "There will come a time when sacrifices will be made and you'll question yourself always what you could have done differently." The night of the Company's fall will always haunt the old man.
"Oh, I'm far too pushy to stand back," Lynette says, chin lifting a little as she looks over at him with a crooked smile. "If you want something done right, do it yourself; I do believe that's the school of thought I come from." Just a little playful self-depreciation, is all.
"New York is really… very different. Everything seems so much… heavier. Darker. I worry… about doing the wrong thing. It was so much more… blase before." Before New York or before things like… the Institute and hiding from the government, she doesn't specify.
He goes silent for a moment, considering her words, it's a different view from his own. "I've only ever really known this city," Ben's words rumble gently in the moonlit dark. His hand reaches over to touch her leg gently. "One thing I can tell you… the worry will always be there, but you can't let it rule your decisions."
The old man gives her a matter of fact look, "There will always be mistakes, but worrying if they will happen, will keep you from making the right decision.
"When I worry about a situation, if I'm really worried about what I am sending my people into…" A smiles touches Ryans' lips "… then I do the task myself." Which explains his constantly putting himself into harms way. "One day, it will be something I don't walk away from, but… it's the risk I take."
Lynette looks over at him, her smile amused. "So damn noble." But she doesn't resent that about him. No, it's quite the opposite, actually. "You know, someday it will be something you don't walk away from. And then who will I come bother with my neuroses, hmm?" Her hand goes to her hip, but her expression is still playful all the same.
"You know, it's odd for me to say, considering how… badly the Company was painted and how very not thrilled I was to have you all at first… but damnit if you don't make me wish I was a better person, Benjamin Ryans." She slides off the rock there, but not to leave, just to stride forward as if getting a better view of the water. The good news is that she seems to be walking better on her leg, though!
The answer to her compliment is a deep chuckle from the former agent, somehow finding it funny. "It took time fore me to see the world like this, so I have a hard time seeing how I could be a good roll model for anyone." Benjamin doesn't move to follow her, hanging back where he is, but he does watch her and the way she moves.
"I guess a part of me feels like I have to prove twice over that while, I was Company… I saw myself as doing the right thing." Ryans will never really apologies for being Company, but he at least admit to it being wrong. "That I am not that monster that they were painted. You've met those of my team that made it out alive, good people. Though I will be the first to admit that there were bad ones as well."
"There will always be good and bad, wherever you look. I suppose I've found it's better to judge individually," Lynette notes, looking back over her shoulder at him with a hint of a smile, errant piece of hair flitting across her face in the breeze. Thin fingers reach up to try to tame it back behind her ear, but it doesn't seem to want to stay there. She, for one, is not asking for apologies.
Turning back to look at the water, her arms fold across her torso, mostly for warmth, but perhaps also because her mood seems a little down tonight. "Someone told me I was brave for facing down one of those FRONTLINE fellows. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was really just scared. And angry." And she seems to droop a little more there, for whatever reason.
Pushing himself straight, boot scraping on the rough surface of the rock, Ryans slowly steps closer, ignoring the way the leaves crunch underfoot. "It was brave." His voice suddenly near her ear, gentle and reassuring.
"Anyone who is not scared, when faced with such adversity is a fool." He doesn't move any closer, doesn't move to where he can see her face, eyes watch her back. "The bravest things, often times are also the stupidest things," his tone lightening just a little.
"Take going into space." Ryans head lifts, tilting back to view the black sky with it's millions of stars, the faint band that makes up the milky way galaxy. "Some would consider it brave and heroic. It was the stupidest thing we could do and we were scared up there. None of us knew were were coming back."
"Take going into space," Lynette repeats with a chuckle, "God, my life is weird now." A hand rubs over her face, though, and she turns to look at him. "I'll agree, space was both brave and stupid, but brave more so, I think. But the eighth? That… guy. I wasn't brave, Ben. I lost it," she says, fingers tapping her temple for emphasis.
"At first, it was just simple. I wasn't going to let the kids get caught. Or Kaylee, because… hell, she was wounded and everything… And I knew electricity messed with their suits. It was just supposed to be zap and run." She has to look away then, her gaze falling to the ground between them. "But he was telekinetic I think. His gun started floating and shooting just everywhere. At the kids… And I lost it. And I've done bad things before, and I suspect I'll do them again, but that… that didn't feel like me making the choice to do something bad for a good reason or anything like that. I just lost it, and he was dead and I just… don't really know what to do with that."
"You learn to live with it."
It sounds cold, but it really isn't, just a simple fact. It's all any of them could do at this point and Ryans has had thirty years to learn how to go to that dark place where he feels nothing for his victims.
Fingers brush along her shoulder and slide lightly down her arm, "You did the right thing. No matter how you went about it, what you did was the right thing." She can feel, Ben's comforting presence at her back now as he speaks. "It saved all those lives."
Lynette lifts her head there, turning her head a bit as if to look at him out of the corner of her eye. She was not expecting that response, perhaps. But when he comes up behind her, at that comforting touch, she leans back against him, her eyes closing for just a moment's indulgence.
"You know… I like that I never can predict what's about to come out of your mouth," she notes, not quite up to her usual wry humor, but hints of it there.
"If I was overly predictable, I don't think I would have lasted as long as I have in this game." Not that it is really any more of game, he knows that. His head leans against hers gently, one arm looping around her shoulders, when he feels her weight lean on him.
"It won't be the last time you have to do something unthinkable, but…" His nose bumps against the side of her head as he nudges her gently, to make sure he has her attention. 'You're going to do a fine job as a councilwoman." Benjamin offers in reassurance.
"Hm. Probably not," Lynette agrees quietly. But only quietly because that arm around her has her heart beating a little faster. "I'm certain there's some saying about battle plans and improving, after all," she says, her hand gesturing in the air before coming to rest on his arm.
But her attention, that he does have. Most certainly. And that nudge seems to push a sigh out of her that she doesn't even notice before she turns her head a bit to look up at him. "Thank you. I'll be trying my best to do right by these people, anyway… It's nice to have support, though."
"Don't worry, young lady." Ryans purposely bringing up the fact he's older then her. Older and wiser - sorta. "If I don't like something, I'll let you know." He sounds like he is on the edge of chuckling as he murmurs those words against her hair.
If he didn't have a rifle in his other hand, he might of completely wrapped her in his arms, but Ben has to be content as he is. "I'm always here to give you an ear to listen too, when you need someone to talk to." That arm tightens briefly, almost protective.
Those first words seem to make Lynette a little nervous. Her laugh is just a little weaker than usual, but she still gives him a smile all the same. "Let me know. I'd just love to see our first fight. And no, me yelling at you about shoving me into withdrawal does not count," she adds with a lift of her finger. She's a good sport about it now, of course. And he turned out to be so right about it, anyway. How bad would it have been to be going through it now, here?
"Oh, I'm going to make you regret those words, Ben. I love to talk," she says, but there's a hint of slyness in her tone, just a little, before she leans in for a sample of the other thing she likes to do with lips. It's just a brief kiss, but warm and even affectionate before she starts to pull away. "But I'll let you get back to work," she adds, her smile crooked as ever before she saunters herself back toward the castle.