"I would've let you graduate me in a week," she agrees, looking up at him from over her cigarette, the cherry just lighting her eyes up a little bit more.
She inhales, hands him the lighter, and slowly exhales. Like this she looks like a woman out of a movie, something noir, something mysterious. She knows it, too, but it isn't a hard effect for her to cultivate.
"What do you think is wrong with me, then? An experienced man like you?"
Of course, the phrase makes her blood simmer in her veins. Not that he's saying it because he knows who she is, what she is, but the condescension is just so typical.
"Well, feel free to keep that belief," she invites him, as she crosses her legs and picks her glass back up. It's not more improbable than the cover she's invented here, anyway.
She looks at him for a while, and normally she doesn't respond to these
kinds of challenges-- but there's something about being cooped up here that
just makes her vibrate, want to spill over, every little indignity growing
until she wants to scream.
She doesn't. She puts her glass down, taps some ash off the end of her
cigarette and considers him.
"I regret not reconciling with my partner more than I regret not saying
goodbye to my children, before I came here."
He asks, inviting her into the story, easily. He's a parent, he knows something must have been rather intently wrong for her to feel that way- but he's a parent, so he's also not particularly judgemental or horrified. Sometimes things don't feel the way society tells you they ought to, and he's stopped getting bent out of shape over it, over the years.
She nods and crosses her legs, not quite looking at him but not avoiding
him either.
"We did. We were still talking, but he didn't know that I wanted to bury
the hatchet, so to say."
A truth she isn't telling him: the fact that they spoke when the
communicators were glitching, and he'd told her she lived, and that
she'd asked for him to come back.
But that isn't reconciliation. Not the way she needs it.
"For me, it was a matter of forgetting about him."
He admits, resting his chin on his hand, and admitting;
"For me, I had to take the year to look inside myself and find what aspects of my life I truly felt uncomfortable with. The places where once upon a time, I'd made a moral compromise, picked the lesser of two evils, maybe, and it had never quite recovered. It was a process of breaking and re-setting badly healed bones."
"It did it for me. But it wasn't peace- just. It was peace, and resolution to change. I had to take certain steps towards doing better. Knowing what I wanted to be, and becoming it."
But it was obviously a powerful journey. It shows, in a kind of serene light in his expression.
"It's very easy to get caught up in all the cold war dogma."
"Your graduation was that tied to the War?" Like it's a surprise. She's curious about it, more so than about his steps towards redemption. She knows that isn't what would work for her, because she's very happy with what she is.
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"So my luck, I landed an inmate immune to charm."
But it's probably good for him, honestly.
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He has to point out, as he lights his own cigarette.
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"What do you think is wrong with me, then? An experienced man like you?"
Of course, the phrase makes her blood simmer in her veins. Not that he's saying it because he knows who she is, what she is, but the condescension is just so typical.
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He wonders, eyebrows lifting up playfully. He can make a few other guesses. All of them fun, really.
"Rob a lawfirm then run off to a small outskirt motel."
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"Why an ex-husband? Make it my much richer, much older husband, and it was for the inheritance money."
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He agrees, with a sensible nod.
"It's a effective, point a to point b plan, that's all I'm saying."
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Eyebrows lifting, ever so slightly.
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She looks at him for a while, and normally she doesn't respond to these kinds of challenges-- but there's something about being cooped up here that just makes her vibrate, want to spill over, every little indignity growing until she wants to scream.
She doesn't. She puts her glass down, taps some ash off the end of her cigarette and considers him.
"I regret not reconciling with my partner more than I regret not saying goodbye to my children, before I came here."
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He asks, inviting her into the story, easily. He's a parent, he knows something must have been rather intently wrong for her to feel that way- but he's a parent, so he's also not particularly judgemental or horrified. Sometimes things don't feel the way society tells you they ought to, and he's stopped getting bent out of shape over it, over the years.
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She nods and crosses her legs, not quite looking at him but not avoiding him either.
"We did. We were still talking, but he didn't know that I wanted to bury the hatchet, so to say."
A truth she isn't telling him: the fact that they spoke when the communicators were glitching, and he'd told her she lived, and that she'd asked for him to come back.
But that isn't reconciliation. Not the way she needs it.
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He agrees, quietly.
"I was the same. All the wardens kept trying to tell me I could go anywhere in the universe, be anything-"
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"I just want to be home," she agrees, and now she takes a good, long drink.
"But I don't know if I ever can. It's some motivation, but it's not enough to know what the Admiral wants."
What with her habit of killing her old, rich husbands, you know.
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He admits, resting his chin on his hand, and admitting;
"For me, I had to take the year to look inside myself and find what aspects of my life I truly felt uncomfortable with. The places where once upon a time, I'd made a moral compromise, picked the lesser of two evils, maybe, and it had never quite recovered. It was a process of breaking and re-setting badly healed bones."
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"And that's what did it? Having peace with your own wrong decisions, and forgetting about what the Admiral wants?"
She doubts that's it. Because there's very, very little that Elizabeth regrets like that.
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But it was obviously a powerful journey. It shows, in a kind of serene light in his expression.
"It's very easy to get caught up in all the cold war dogma."
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He admits, face going a little warm.
"It was to the skills I worked on- that charisma, for the war."
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God, the conversations she has sometimes, she can hardly believe herself.