Participants:
Scene Title | Two Wolves |
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Synopsis | Berlin and Rory discuss a decision she's made. |
Date | March 28, 2019 |
Rory's Trailer
Since Berlin returned from her last mission, she's been a little off. She seems to drift more often, even in the middle of doing something. More than once, Rory has found her staring at cold water when she was attempting to clean dishes. It's hard to hide it in the small space they share in the Safe Zone, but then, she hasn't tried to hide it from him.
Today is different. Today she seems hyper focused, getting through all the paperwork she left undone while she sits at the table. Most of it is physical paper— for Avi's sake— but she has her phone out to reference her notes.
Obviously, she wants to get this all done.
With her hyper focus on the paperwork before her, the young woman might have missed someone approaching behind her, but Rory wasn't exactly trying to hide it. His movements are often deliberate, even if he does attempt to be unobtrusive. The hand that rests on her shoulder would give him away instantly, though.
Even after he learned what she could do, he hadn't hesitated to touch her. He doesn't try to look at the paperwork other than to glance at it, respecting her privacy, but he does say, "I'm back."
As if that wasn't obvious by his presence. "Did you want to take a break? I'm sure you could use a lunch."
Berlin turns when he touches her shoulder, her smile warm and gentle when she sees him. "I probably need a break," she says, which is different than wanting one, but since it's him, it's easier to set work aside.
She lets her pen drop in favor of taking his hands and leaning in to greet him with a kiss. "I'm trying to finish up all my work. I think I need to go away for a while." This time, she doesn't offer him the chance for an out like she has in the past, because she doesn't want him to leave. But also because she knows he's going to stay. "I made a mistake on the mission. I shot someone. It's getting a few too many."
After returning the kiss, Rory listens as she explains, finally getting at least part of an answer to a question he didn't directly ask. But he'd been wondering about it since she got back. What had happened that had made her act so distant?
And now he knew. Someone had gotten shot, and with what had happened before, with her ability…
"We can leave town again. I've got enough saved up we wouldn't have to rely on your friend in the Barrens this time." At least he could purchase enough supplies they could camp out for a few months up in the mountains.
Neither of them were exactly high-demand in their lifestyle.
His words bring out a soft, sad smile on Berlin's face and she reaches over to rest her hands on either side of his face. "You're so sweet," she says, her thumbs running along his skin, "You have been amazing from day one. Through all this, everything I've done." Her hands drop to his shoulders so she can regard him more frankly. "I'm turning myself in. I don't think I could live with myself if I kept running away."
She pushes her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears. "I don't know how it'll turn out. But I have to do it. I don't want to hurt people anymore. I don't know how to stop myself, but I hope someone does. Maybe they'll find me some help."
As she explains, Rory's shoulders tense under her hands as he watches her quietly for a time. He visibly considers what he's about to say, jaw tensing for a moment. "I have a hard time trusting governments," he admits, looking away for a moment.
Both governments and people, even if this one has been much better than the one he'd come from. By now she knew most of his story, even if it had been told very vaguely.
"Are you sure they'll try to help you?" He knew she worked with the government, with Wolfhound. He knew she tracked down criminals who did the things he couldn't help but imagine were happening every day in the country he was born in.
"No," Berlin answers truthfully, rather than trying to sugarcoat anything, "but I think with a good lawyer on my side, I have a chance at a decent plea deal and some sort of therapy or something. But I don't know for sure what will happen. They might lock me up for a long time. I can't say I don't deserve it, though." Which is why she's doing it at all. It's the right thing to do. She believes it is, anyway. "I can't keep hunting people down for the bad things they do while I do my own bad things.
"And I don't want to hurt you one day because I can't control it."
If she was alone, she might not feel as much conviction to do this the right way. Maybe she would just run away and find an out of the way place to put herself. But she can't risk him.
At least she didn't sugar coat things— that seems to go over well, as Rory just nods slowly and moves away from her a little. Not really because he wants to, from the way his hand lingers until he falls onto the bench-seat across from her.
He needed to sit.
"I understand." With a glance at his hand, he nods to himself. "I was worried when I first realized some of what I could do." It wasn't to the same level and he knew it, but there were times, moments, when he thought that if he made one wrong push on the ground under him that he could hurt someone.
Berlin turns as he moves, following until he settles so she can face him. His words get a warmer smile. They all can relate, really, anyone with an ability. And that he tries to understand what she's going through is a light in the darkness. She knows it would be easy to dismiss her. Or write her off. But he never has.
That's what he is for her. A light in the dark. A reason to smile.
"I'll get a handle on it. I should have a long time ago. But now— " she pauses, looking across at him, "Now I have a lot to fight for."
With her words, the tops of Rory's ears start to turn reddish, which gives away that he's touched by the implications of her words. Even if he doesn't know what will happen here. He can hope. The worst that will happen is they will drug her and hold her in some kind of facility, or at least that's the worst thing he can think of.
After a moment, he reaches across the table to take her hand again. "A guy I met while I was waiting to get asylum used to tell us all storied. One he would tell was how all of us, everyone, had a battle going on inside them. A fight between two wolves.""
How she explained her ability had reminded him of it, though he hadn't brought it up til now. "One wolf is all the good things, joy, peace, empathy, kindness— the other all the bad, resentment, pain, anger, greed. And that every day they would fight."
Berlin wraps her hand around his, head tilting as she listens to him retelling the story. She glances down to the table between them once it becomes obvious why this particular story is relevant to her. But her hand doesn't leave his, because she is still listening. She just knows those wolves too well, and the slump in her shoulders gives away how she thinks that fight tends to play out.
Her gaze is sadder when she looks back to him and she has to push hair from her face. "Which one wins?" she asks, although by her tone she already knows the answer, she just hopes to be wrong.
From the hint of a smile that touches the corner of his mouth, Rory had hoped she would ask that very question. "The one that you feed."
It's said simply, and he keeps his hand on hers, reaching up to touch her wrist lightly. "If you think this might help you feed the good one, then I support it."
The man who visited the refugees had been telling the story so they had something to think about, to make themselves useful for the society they wanted to join. And he knew that was what she wanted, too, in a way, with her desire not to hurt others.
After a second, his other hand moves up to grab the smooth white and gray flecked stone bracelet he always wears, pulling it off as if it suddenly became putty. It shapes back into the bracelet and he holds it out toward her.
His answer makes Berlin blink, but a thoughtful expression follows. It definitely puts words to what she's trying to do, something she has been struggling with. But she's taken out of her internal monologue when he takes off his bracelet. And hands it toward her. She takes it, slipping it on while tears start to pool up in her eyes.
There's something different in her glance when she looks back up at him. She gets up from her spot to circle around the table. When she reaches him, her hands slide around the back of his neck and she leans in to kiss him. She presses against him, just part of a silent question she's asking. Her fingers tremble against his skin because, although she knows what she wants, she's not sure what his answer will be.
The changing of position might surprise him, but Rory's arm goes around her as she presses against him, leaning in to answer the kiss with one of his own. His other hand touches her hair, sliding across her scalp and her neck.
"I'll be here," he says quietly against her mouth, making an assumption as to her question. "Whatever happens."
Berlin smiles at his words and kisses him once more before she leans back just enough to look at him. "Thank you," she says, her smile warm but also a touch amused. Because he's precious, and precious to her. Her hands slide around to the front of his shirt and grips onto the fabric.
"Come to bed with me, Rory," she says, making the question more explicit, but with enough light-heartedness to counter her nervousness.
That causes him to pull back a little just so he can look her in the eye for a moment. Rory's eyes are always blue, hers are sometimes, but he's not checking for that right now. Instead he's making sure she means it.
But if the worst happens, this could be their last chance for a while, and he would have been obviously lying if he said he'd never thought about it listening to her sleeping so close half the time. Even when they had a door between them. Especially when they didn't.
"As long as you promise to protect me from your friend Lucille," he teases with a hint of a laugh, as he pulls her closer.
At his look, Berlin nods. Because she is sure. Maybe she didn't know until this moment, but now she does. She slides in closer at his pull, laughing with him. "Normally I would say this isn't the best time to be thinking about another woman, but I'll make an exception. Luce can be a little scary." It's her own tease, and it comes with a broad smile. "But I promise I will."
She would protect him from anything she could. Best friends included.
At her response Rory blinks, and stumbles into an explanation that's really not necessary, "I only meant— she seemed…" He had been thinking of her cause she's the only member of her family that he'd met, and she seemed…. protective. And without a filter in some cases.
But as she's practically sitting on him, explanations got lost in his mind. And very quickly it became difficult to think of anything or anyone else.
And would be for quite a long time.