((ooc: This takes place in the Guards' Barracks, some time after Raina stopped in; didn't want to tie up that location with a closed thread in case anyone wants to post about their camp jobs there. )

Rupert had dropped a pot of coffee on the floor. There had been a crish-shatter of glass, a low hiss as the hot liquid spread across the floor, and a string of elaborate swear words. He was guessing that last was going to temporarily boost up his image with the guards. At least, they'd looked impressed with his thorough vocabulary when they'd run in to find whether all that racket had a mutie behind it, and an excuse to have a bit of fun. No such luck. The most fun they'd be having was dragging over the nearest freak to help clean this mess up.

He hadn't suddenly gotten clumsy, and the pot hadn't slipped out of his hands: Rupert had dropped a pot of coffee. On the floor. It was the deadest pot of coffee he'd ever seen. He'd been standing there, pouring himself a new cup, and thinking. About Raina. Raina, who he happened to know was working close to the guards' barracks just now ((ooc: Hope that's okay!)). He'd thought how easy it would be to get her over here if he just, say...

Dropped a coffee pot.

It was the latest in a series of very poorly planned actions, on his part.

Now the coffee pot was dead, and the guards had left to drag some mutie back here to clean up after him, like he was a deranged toddler or something. Which wasn't too far off base, actually. Rupert sat in his chair backwards, staring at his lovely mess. He'd been doing so good avoiding her. Not thinking about her. Not worrying about her. And then she'd actually been in here, standing dully in place while a guard did her job of cleaning for her, like she didn't even have the desire to move of her own will. What would be the point of seeing her again? He couldn't help anything. He couldn't even tell her about the Resistance, or the planned raid. And now a coffee pot was dead. He rubbed at his temples, and began to fervently hope that those guards dragged in any mutant but Raina. Somehow, he knew he wouldn't be so lucky. The Fates were cruel to habitual idiots.

ooc: im gonna give us a minute or so of alone time, but feel free to make guards come back in whenever.

ic:

A nearby guard swore at Rupert under his breath as he dragged a female mutant by the arm into the room. "Men, hit the showers. Kelly will stay stationed here - as if he ever leaves anyway- the next guard change is in half an hour so be quick about it." he pulled Raina by her arm to the spill on the floor. When he released her paper white skin was marred with finger bruises. It coudlnt be told if he'd really pulled that hard or if she was just that fragile now.

This was the last place Raina wanted to be. She stood motionless in the room keeping her eyes low. "Well? Get cleaning freak!" said the guard tossing a dirty looking rag at her that fell at her feet already sopping up some of the brown liquid. "Send her back to laundry detail when you're finished with her Rupie Old Pal" groaned the guard sarcastically drudging off to ensure the other men were being fast enough. He stopped once and looked greedily at Raina who was now bent down spiderlike rubbing the rag into the hot liquid not noticing how hot it was making her shaking hands. "I dont think she's got anything left in her anyway." he said suggestively before closing the door.

Raina didn't look up but her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she was sure he could hear it. Her hands trembled as they moved and her legs were bothering her again. Her hair was a little longer now- no longer the shaved head it once was but more of a boyish quality to it. She didnt peek out through it shyly though- like she once would have.

She was staring down at her now red shaking hands wondering what would happen next

((ooc: Coolies, Raina. I think alone time would be quite fun [read: awkward ].))

Well, his genius plan was a roaring success: here was Raina, cleaning up the brown blood of the murdered coffee pot. Great. Now what?

He didn't respond in the least to the guard's usual quips at his expense. It was unclear if he'd even heard them. That was hardly unusual: Rupert was surviving his own private corner of the camps on a day-to-day basis by heartily ignoring the pleasantries that went on around him. There wasn't anything he could do. He had to keep up appearances. He couldn't compromise his position at the camps; the Resistance needed him on the inside. Or so he kept repeating to himself, like a litany against self-revulsion. On days when he was feeling particularly self-deluded, he even believed it. There were fewer days like that, of late. The Resistance had been planning to raid the camps since before they knew about him. If he dropped off the face of the planet, they'd still keep planning.

Here he was, diligently keeping up appearances; but that didn't mean there was nothing he could do. He sighed, and got out of his chair.

“Watch out for the glass shards. Keep the towel between your hands and the floor.” He walked across the room, and grabbed a stray rag for himself. Then he joined her, kneeling down on the opposite side of the brown puddle. “S***!” He recoiled; “That's hot.” He looked around the room for something that would help. He kept looking even after he was sure there wasn't anything: he looked anywhere but at the dispirited woman in front of him. He wouldn't think of her as Raina; if he didn't think of her as Raina, then she was just another inmate, and she could wait like any other inmate for the Resistance to launch their breakout. If she wasn't anyone special, then he didn't need to get her out of this place as soon as possible, even if it meant jeopardizing the escape of everyone else in this hell hole.

Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that there was no cure for the hot coffee except time. The thought of telling her to hold off on cleaning until it cooled down occurred to him, and was pushed aside just as quickly. Was it cowardly to let a woman scald her hands, because giving her something to do meant you didn't have to stand around the room with her in awkward silence?

Probably.

He went back to helping her sop up the brown liquid. Because that's just the kind of guy he was.

Raina shuddered when Rupert approached, her whole body was shaking. It occured to her that he was recoiling and as if instinct she reached her hands out and then let them hang in the air as he pulled away to mend his hands. She looked at her own. Why didnt they hurt again? She looked up at him. She watched him move. He wasn't Rupert the guard, the mutant hater, the traitor... he was her Rupert.

He came back down beside her and started to clean up the coffee. Her eyes darted around the room. There were no cameras in this part. Of course she coudln't be sure that there wasnt any other device but she was shaking so bad she knew she coudln't move again if she didnt know the answer to the question that was burning in her mind.

Raina could have asked a million questions in that moment but she chose to ask one that would require only a simple nod or head shake. She knew she could survive and move on if she only knew the answer- even if it was a bad answer then she could finally let go of Rupert.

The low sound of the buzzing caller and the odor of burning flesh gave away that she was about to speak long before she'd even taken her breath. And then in a voice so subtle, so quiet, it could float away on the wind Raina spoke.

She kept her eyes on the floor, she kept scrubbing the liquid... even if Rupert was a traitor to her she wouldnt have him marked as one to the humans. His fate would be awful. "D-did you k-know I w-was a M-u... Mu... Mutant?" her voice was barely above a whisper and anyone watching would question her sanity knowing the pain she was in "D-did you use m-me to g-get t-to the s-s-school?"

That was it. That was all she needed to know. He could nod or shake his head. She lifted her eyes to him for the first time as if she were looking at a guard for her next order. It was fleeting, he'd have only a moment to respond.

Her throat ached, she tasted salt in her mouth, her ears rang and her chest thumped. She quivered like a wounded animal and for a moment everything stood still.

She wouldnt cry. She kept telling herself she would not cry, but her eyes were betraying her


ooc: a lilllll mellow dramatic... hehe. I just figured it's been a while, a lot's happened... they're due for a little mellowdrama

It took him too long to place where the low buzz and that smell were coming from. His first thought was the microwave. He even glanced back towards the boxy white appliance on the counter in confusion, before he pieced together two things: they were alone, and those collars worked off of electricity, too. His head snapped back towards Raina. In retrospect, he would have liked for his first thought to be for her safety. In actuality, it was for his own hide. They were alone together, for the first time since he'd shot her at the Mansion. For the first time since he'd killed their child by locking her in this place. Was a little bit of an electric shock that much of a price for getting her revenge?

The sound of his own heartbeat in his ears nearly drowned out her first few words. His face went from alarm to shock to anger. "D-did you k-know I w-was a M-u... Mu... Mutant?" She was in pain. Obvious, blatant pain. She was in pain so she could ask that? "D-did you use m-me to g-get t-to the s-s-school?" Oh, and it just kept getting better, didn't it?

Rupert wasn't concerned with cameras as he answered. The only ones in the guards' barracks were those facing the entrances, but he would have answered her out loud even if there'd been one strapped to her forehead. It wasn't the sort of answer that let itself get held in. “No, I didn't use you to get to your damn school,” he spoke back vehemently. “And no, I didn't know you were a mutant. I didn't know you were a liar, either.” He knew what he was saying, and he knew he shouldn't be saying it: his first words to Raina in weeks should not be these. But he couldn't stop them: “Did you use me to try and learn what the police had on all your mutie friends? Is that all it was to you? Pump the the zealot cop for information, then go back to your little Mansion and laugh it up with the other freaks?”

Until that was out, it didn't even hit him that she was looking at him. She was looking at him. It felt like his lungs, his heart, his mind shut down as he looked back. She had the most beautiful eyes. Gray.

Was gray even a human color for eyes? He couldn't remember. It seemed terribly important, in that moment. Blue and green and brown were: red and gold and silver weren't. Where was gray on that spectrum?

Raina sat in silence looking at him with sad eyes. Her mother had once told her that her eyes were gray because she had too much water in her soul. She felt that to be true now as her eyes spilled over- Rupert's words cutting her like a knife.

But she sat, red throbbing hands folded in her lap, in a polite almost respectful manner. Like a china doll. That's what she looked like, in a sad macabre way.

As soon as he said no her whole body let go of the release. He really didn't know, he really didn't plan it all. She knew he wasn't lying... she just knew. But she hadn't lied either just left out parts of the truth.

She had planned to tell Rupert the truth from the start... but to be fair from the start she wasn't expecting to fall in love.

She could have argued back right now- even with the pain in her throat she could have argued back. But she didn't... instead her qwivering hands reached for her tiny stomach and held on. Then she doubled over on the floor like an asian student bowing to their sensei. Her forhead touched the floor and it felt cool and almost refreshing. Her hair spilled around her ears and she closed her eyes still hunched over holding her stomach her legs neatly folded beneath her.

She was just so relieved that afterall she was the one who'd made the mistake. And instead of arguing, instead of fighting back, instead of begging for forgiveness one phrase escaped Raina's lips as the buzzing from her collar started to give it away.

"I love you." she said it like it was a prized piece of evidence to be examined but also in a way that was like an admission to him and herself. She didn't say loved. She wasnt saying it as an excuse for past actions and that was clear. Raina was very much saying this in the present.

As her back heaved as she breathed sportaically nearly hysterical with her face against the ground her words rang in the air as clear as when she'd first said them to him.

ooc: Im not sure if that picture was painted exactly as I wanted, but I'm kinda going with the hysterical sense of relief for the mood and if you've ever cried so much you've just laid on the floor to let things sink in- that's how Raina is right now.

Rupert, quite frankly, did not know what to do. His track record for behaving himself when he didn’t know what to do wasn’t exactly Olympic, so he closed his eyes, and counted to ten. Took a very deep breath; released it. Opened his eyes again. Raina was still on the floor, curled over upon herself in some emotion he couldn’t even begin to understand. He still didn’t know what to do. Those words were still in the air. They had sounded so stupid that he couldn’t believe he wasn’t the one to say them. “I love you.” No past tense, no conditions, no but-you-stuck-me-in-here: just “I love you.”

“Well this is just a touching scene, isn’t it?” He half-laughed, right up until he realized he was talking out loud. “Sorry, I just—I—” he began to stammer. It was about then that he remembered that even if the cameras were down the hall, it didn’t change what he had to do here.

“No. Guess what?” He said simply, getting to his feet, and leaving his coffee stained rag on the glass strewn floor. “I’m not sorry.” I’m not sorry about meeting you. I’m not sorry I’m working with the Resistance, and I’m not sorry that what I’m going to do here is going to get men and women—real men and women, not mutants—hurt when the breakout finally comes. “I’m not sorry about any of this.” Honestly, I’m not even sure I’m sorry I shot you. I would still think that all of this was right if I hadn’t.

“If those words mean anything, then tell them to me again when we meet on the outside.” They would meet on the outside. The Resistance was going to come, and Raina was going to be alive when they got here. He didn’t know how he’d keep her safe until then: he just would.

For now, he had to get out of this room, before he said those three words back to her. Before he said even more than that; even more than he already had. She couldn’t know about his role here. Rupert started walking down the hall, without another glance at the woman on the floor. He couldn’t tell her. Because, honestly, he didn’t trust her. Lies by purposeful omission were still lies, and she was still a liar. He was still so mad at her, and he wasn’t sure how far he could trust her. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things.

It was something they’d have to work out, when they met. On the outside.

((ooc: If you want to grab his pants leg or call him back or throw a coffee mug at his head, feel free. I’m enjoying this thread immensely. I just couldn’t see Rup reacting to those three words in any other way. What with him taking news so well, and all. ))

ooc: wow so I made a post a few hours ago and it never went through, I'll try this again... Im going all Eternal Sunshine on your ass Rupert Also, when he said tell me again did he mean "i love you" or "i'm sorry" ? Anyway I'm keeping this thread going a litttttle longer.

ic:

He walked past her and as he did Raina's brain started to register everything that was happening and everything that was said. She just couldn't believe it. She just really thought there was something- anything- she couldn't explain it but she knew that she and Rupert clicked so strongly when they first met she coudln't let him go.

She reached out feebly and caught his pant leg before he was out of reach. She quickly let go of her grip and straitened herself up. "Wait." Without waiting for an invitation she pulled on him so that she could stand herself up and once she was eye level she let go. She knew the guards would be back soon and she didn't have much time. She stood tall and though she looked weak and frail and so unlike Raina without those long red locks, her eyes were piercing and still gray searching his. Her brows were furrowed slightly and she had him backed to the wall now he'd have no choice but to face her eyes.

"Make up a goodbye at least." she stared at him and the collar was letting out a loudr buzz than before now sindging her skin. "so we can pretend we had one before all this happened."

She wasn't moving. Not until he responded.


ooc: have you ever seen eternal sunshine? it's a great scene where the main character realizes he's in the first memory he ever had of his girlfriend and that after he watches this memory she'll be erased from his mind forever. In reality he left without saying goodbye, but in his subconcious he decides to turn around and say goodbye.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzgzvMbFDFI

((ooc: He meant the "I love you". )

What was the proper way to deal with woman dragging at your clothes? Rupert hadn’t ever thought about that question. As a result of his clear lack of foresight, he was currently backed into a wall, pressing as far away from the frail looking woman in front of him as he could.

He swallowed convulsively. It was so strange: even without her long red hair, even with the new weakness given to her by seven weeks in the camps, even with a gray sack instead of her fantastic fashion sense, she was still the Raina he’d fallen for. Except for one small thing: she was scary as all Hell. He didn’t like that collar, but he understood its purpose. He understood it all too well. As it began to buzz again in herald of her voice, he couldn’t help but think she could have used something even stronger. If they wanted to stop her from speaking, the electric accessory wasn’t cutting it.

“A goodbye?” He repeated in a croak. “I...” Love you. “Take care. Raina.” He tried to slide past her, to the door. The last thing he needed was a guard coming in and seeing a battered prisoner getting the better of him.

Raina's eyes searched his and the little bit of hope in them faded. She took a step back and stood there ghost-like. "Good bye Rupert." She stood tall and tried to regain part of her dignity by watching him go but she felt her eyes drop to the floor in an effort to keep from crying. She would not cry. She'd given him too much already. It was bad enough that she felt like he'd always have a part of her soul after what had happened back in his apartment... she woudln't give him any more tears.