It's Just Us

Participants:

vf_lynette_icon.gif vf_ruiz_icon.gif

Scene Title It's Just Us
Synopsis After a "failed?" experiment, Lynette and Mateo retreat to their room and try to find comfort in just being them.
Date December 23, 2011

Lynette and Ruiz's Room — The Hub


After an experimentation that was… Actually, Lynette isn't sure if that was a success or not. Not from her perspective. Which is why her hands have been shaking ever since. And why she's brought Mateo to their room. It's as far as she's agreed to go for the moment. Away from the disposal room, still not around people.

Even though she's obviously upset, she's supported Ruiz on the walk here. And inside the room, she only lets go of him to shove the door closed behind them.

One of the first things he dies once she let go of him to close the door was stumble over to the desk, open up the auto-injectors of negation drug and stab himself in the side of the neck where the scar tissue has formed. Mateo didn't really explain how it had been a roar since the experiment, how her touch didn't even quiet it this time. But she might gather that with how quick he went for the negation drug. Not for fear of infection. Because of the noise.

It would take time to kick in, but it was like it knew. Cause for the moment it seemed even louder. His hate rate seemed fast, his breathing, but he also had paused every time he moved too much, as if he felt light headed. "I don't think we found out what we wanted to," he finally says, putting the auto-injector down.

And he thinks she found out too much, too.

Once the door closes, Lynette comes over to the desk, too. And picks up her own injector, too. Which is odd, since she typically avoids it and hasn't even been pretending to take it since Magnes and Liz arrived. But today she's doing it. No one even has to try to convince her. And once it's done, she drops the injector, letting it clatter onto the desk before she turns away to lean back against it.

Her arms fold, her shoulders climbing up around her ears. "I hope that wasn't what he was trying to find out," she says. It would be a joke, but she's not even bothering to try it. She unfolds enough to reach over to touch his face. Even if it's not helping this time, she still tries to comfort him in the touch. "Sort of unsettling, really."

"I think they were trying to get radio signals from their world," Ruiz responds, rubbing the injection spot before he plops down hard against the matress. He sounds exhausted, which is appropriate. Exhausted and hoarse, almost as if he'd been yelling— when he hadn't. He's amazed he can still hear over all this. "There's never been a voice before, just…" Just the sound el umbral makes when it opens, as he'd told her in the past.

"Maybe there's always been a voice under all of it," he muses, trying to figure out something, even if he knows there's no way to figure it out really. "Are you okay?" he asks, looking toward the autoinjector that she just used. He knows why he did it, but not why she did.

Lynette lingers at the desk, watching him move to the bed. "We still don't know where it goes. Maybe… there's something on the other side." Someone. Someones. When he tries to work it out, she pushes her hand through her hair. It's a difficult thing to know, all things considered. Maybe in another world. "Maybe the voice isn't under it, but through it."

When he asks if she's okay, she doesn't answer right away. She pushes off the desk, coming over to the matress, too. Only once she's down, pulling off her boots, does she seem to form a reply. "They knew our names."

Through it. "Maybe." It started to quiet a little, as he closed his eyes, letting his mind drift into it. It would still take a few minutes to kick in completely, but it had started. The negation had been the first time he understood that the sounds had been directly connected to his ability— They wouldn't have gone away if they hadn't been. Ruiz doesn't hear a voice, though, and opens his eyes again. "The kid says he's been hearing voices, but he's been negated at night…" Maybe those voices hadn't been quite the same. Maybe what he heard wasn't because of his ability, but because of what he thought happened with becoming a black hole. Or whatever.

"I don't know where it came from, or how it knew our names…" Or why it said the things it said. What choice does he need to make? Who is she supposed to kill?

"Whatever happened to Magnes, it's messed with his head. People aren't meant to see what he saw." There's a book on the shelf that's appropriate, but Lynette isn't bringing up the connection this time. "Who knows, maybe he's been… opened up to whatever's on the other side. They clearly want to talk to us, he's a possible vector for that." Today's fun was obviously more to the point, though.

Her hands rub her arms, like she might be cold. But she pulls her legs to her chest and drops her head to her knees. Arms wrapped around. "It called me a murderer. They did." Since both voices seemed to share a theme for her.

She is not okay. Even if she tries to sound calm about it. For his sake.

"You're not," Ruiz responds, reaching to pull her closer even as the sounds in his head start to settle. He knows that simple word isn't going to fix anything, nor will holding onto her while his chest aches. Two voices. Neither good, as far as he could tell. Especially with what they said to her. He knows that she would kill if she had to, would kill if it were needed— anyone on the scavaging teams would need to be willing to.

"You're not a murderer." And he'll never believe she is. Or could be.

When he touches her, Lynette uncurls herself in favor of curling next to him instead. She's tense, the days events keeping her panicked and scared, and she clings onto him. She doesn't argue his point, but the fact that she seems to want to skip right by it might be telling. "I thought I lost you today," she says. "What are we doing? What— if we end up where they are, not some other world where things are better? What if… What if I lose you?"

Oh, Ruiz knows this feeling— he felt it so many times when she insisted on going out and scavaging. Every single time she left the relative safety of the Hub, he feared he would never see her again. All it would take was a single moment of recklessness. Of something going wrong. It was one of the reasons he tried to teach her how to use her ability within the Hub to benifit the Hub. It kept her inside more, kept her safer… But no where would be completely safe.

"If we stay here, we will die. Eventually. It's just a matter of when." They all knew it. Everything they did was surviving. Living one day at a time. Every week they lost people. They could be infected— they could starve— Vanguard could find and kill them all. "But if we go, we have a chance." A better chance than this.

"I won't let the kid do any more experiments. I don't think they're doing anything, anyway." Except making his chest hurt, making his nose bleed, "When we go, I don't think it will be because we know how it works." It happened the first time with no one knowing what they were doing— It will have to happen again.

"My love," Lynette says gently, "we'll die eventually either way." She was always quick to accept this fact, the only hitch in a lifelong belief being the fact that she found love along the way. Which is why she gives up her side of the argument with a heavy sigh. "I'm not saying we don't try. I just… it won't be a better world if you're not there with me."

Her hand slips down his arm, searching for his hand to hold onto. "Before you came to, I saw you there, not moving, bloody and everything and I just— Everything we've done became the last time we'd ever do it. Last kiss. Last smile. Last laugh. Last time I woke up next to you." Her eyes close for a moment, like she might have to push all that back again. "I think we should both be extra careful. If we're going to make it to this new world, we need to be."

Oh, he knows— Ruiz know that, no matter the world, one of them would die, then the other would eventually. It just feels a lot… sooner here. Like it's just waiting around the corner to jump out and stab them, or shoot them. Or— "I intend to have at least thirty more years with you if I have anything to say about it." Thirty, fourty, fifty… all the years.

"I wish you hadn't seen me like that, though," They'd had to clean up before they got back and he still didn't know how his eye had started to bleed. Nose had happened before, but one of his eyes… He wished he'd never let Magnes say they should have her. They could have brought in some batteries for his ability to drain instead…

"I'm fine. I just overused my ability, I'm sure." Though what that overuse did to him, he'd rather not think too much about. After all, his chest still ached a little. But at least his heartrate was down and he didn't feel like he would pass out every time he moved his head.

His plans for the future manage to bring a smile back around to Lynette's face. It's just a soft one, but a stark difference all the same. "Liz told me, you know, that she new the other me. From her time. I asked her how we were all going to handle that. Doubles. I had a thought about finding a quiet place, lots of room, grass to run through, sunshine over our heads. A house with more rooms than we need, but no one else packed in with us." Breathing room. "Those next thirty years are the whole reason I don't shut this whole mess down. You're gonna be handsome with grey hair." Her smile widens, as if having a silver fox waiting for her in the future was the main reason.

"I'm glad I did. I knew you two were pushing it, but I didn't realize how much," she says, tipping her head to look at his face. "I'm going to make sure you survive this. I know you feel rushed, so I'll be the common sense, okay? At least on this."

"Another you and possibly another me," Ruiz hadn't thought too much about that. "If it's a healthy world there's a whole planet. We could move anywhere we want. Mexico. Argentina…" Anywhere. Just the two of them. In a tiny little house where they would read together, listen to music, where they could just…. be.

"We should get some rest. I don't think anyone will bother us the rest of the day." Not after what happened, anyway. Lock the door, hide away, just be them.

And he's trying to see if she forgot about his promise to see Aislinn, too, by going right to the resting bit.

"They can go live their own lives doing whatever they're doing," Lynette says, taking for granted that they will be together there as well. "You can show me Argentina." She's been fighting off a spark of hope for a while now, because this is a long shot and she knows disappointment is more likely than success. But there's something about lying next to him, talking about the future as if it were something to plan for, that makes it hard to tamp down.

"You should get some rest," Lynette says, as if she didn't have a similar (although much lesser) bloody situation after the experiment. "I'll find Aislinn." Nice try, Ruiz. "Soon." Okay, so he gets to put it off some. But she's got this future in mind, and she plans on getting them both there.

…damn…

Ruiz doesn't say it, but she can see he's a little disappointed that he's going to need to. He probably should admit he never did like seeing doctors. Even if she's not really a doctor. "Maybe she'll know a tea I can try, or something," he murmurs instead of a complaint, laying back down and trying to toe his shoes off. He doesn't want to lean over cause, again, he's not sure he won't feel faint doing that. And hopefully he won't be required to strip when the former nurse actually arrives.

Cause he does not doubt his fiancee will find her, wherever she may be.


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