matters of trust
Characters: Wren and Charlie Setting: Charlie's room, late
It was late. Wren felt like she had never had a day this long in her life. She was still hurting, though had been patched up well enough. She had bandaids on her arm where Kasper's nails had dug in, and she'd iced down her face. It hadn't swollen as badly as she would have thought, but it was still darkly bruised up, and the bruising covered her cheek and swept up towards her eye. And the worst of it was walking away from Leandro. It was a hollow ache in her gut that she did her best to ignore. She'd slept some physical and emotional exhaustion hitting, then gotten up, feeling absolutely no better than she had earlier.
It was a belated thing where she recalled they'd been given gifts. So the cafeteria was nearly cleaned out when she got there, getting her own packages. Opening the first, she sat and stared at the magic 8-ball Chester had given her years ago. She could tell it was the same one, the white paint marking the '8' on it was scuffed in the same place. She shook it, and looked at the answer.
Signs point to no.
She hugged the ball to her stomach, and left, putting her clothes back in her room before she went to go get a hammer. Then she went to Chester's door. Charlie. His name was Charlie. Sitting down outside of it, she didn't know what to do. What step to take from there. So in the end, she just stayed there, sitting quietly as she shook the ball, and turned it over to read the answer, over and over.
After the debacle of the morning, Charlie had mostly stuck to his room. He didn't want to see more evidence of the stupidity that some people seemed to have going. The way they reacted to all of this. How naive some people were, the way they couldn't see where all of this was going to end.
Eventually, though, he knew he needed to go to the kitchen, get something to eat. he couldn't lock himself away in his room forevermore. And it would do nobody any good in any place. He needed to take an active role in this community if it wasn't all going to go to hell. if they weren't all just going to end up as thoughtless drones and stand a chance of retaining their humanity.
He didn't expect to practically fall over the one girl who had been specifically on his mind for most of the last couple of days when he opened his door. Taking a step back so he didn't actually step on her, he was about to say something when he took in her appearance and then that changed everything. Crouching down, he put a hand on her shoulder and turned her towards him, looking her over. "God, little bird - what the hell happened to you?" he asked her, his genuine concern sounding in his tone.
"Some woman was going to throw things at Ryan and Caroline." Wren said, voice quiet. "I got in her way. She didn't like that very much." she explained, boiling it down to it's most basic level. "I was going to send you a message, but I didn't know what to say." she added. Then she held up the 8-ball. "They gave me this today. I'm not sure which one of us should have it."
"And you stopped her, of course," Charlie said, with a sigh. Of course she did. Nevermind that if she hadn't put the pair into the damn stocks in the first place, they wouldn't have been in a position that someone could have thrown something at them. But Charlie was not going to respond to her with any kind of insinuation that she deserved the bruises that she now had. Because she didn't. He did not in any way agree with her actions, but she didn't deserve violence as a result. Nobody did.
He looked down as she held the ball up, and frowned a little. "That's... Is that the same one I gave to you?" he asked her, confused at that. Surely it couldn't be.
Wren nodded. "I remember the scuff in the paint." she told him. She held it out for him. "I keep asking it questions, but it doesn't really give me any answers. And I always liked it best when we did that together." she admitted. "You can have it." She looked back down again. "I came to change your number. The one on your door isn't a good one, I was going to change it before I left. I'm asking to be moved away from this part. I thought the place for me might be the farm area."
Charlie took the ball off her and shook it. "There's a farm here?" he asked - her as well as the ball, though he held the ball so she wouldn't be able to see the answer. "Assuredly so," he 'read' (though really it answered something entirely different - she didn't need to know that). "Hmm - well - now that this seems to be playing ball - no pun intended - maybe you could show me the farm, because I haven't seen it yet," he suggested, offering her the ball back.
"You don't want it?" she asked. "And I still have to fix your number." she added, pushing herself to her feet. Wren still felt unsteady. Physically, she was hurt but would be fine, but her world didn't feel right. It felt like it was tilted, like it wasn't where it was meant to be. She was glad that talking to him at the moment wasn't difficult, she wasn't struggling for things to say. But that was always how it had been between the two of them. He'd always been the most easy person to talk to in her whole world.
"I got it for you. It was never meant to be mine in the first place," Charlie told her, falling into a way of speaking that he knew he only used around her - and the other like her he'd meet since. But it had all started with her. It had always reminded him of her. "And my number will be fine for now. Who knows - maybe I'll move out to the farm as well," he suggested. He kept his tone light, but there was a question there - one of whether she would actually want him around. When she hadn't replied to him, he'd thought that that was it. That she was going to entirely cut him off. Now - now it seemed like he still might have a chance here, but he wasn't going to push it.
She looked at his door number, it truly bothering her. "I don't want you to sleep here with it like that." she told him, picking up the hammer. "It won't take long, I had to change mine. They put me in the room of The Devil." she explained, out of habit. "I don't want you facing what the Hermit might bring." She took an experimental step towards his door, to see if he was going to allow her to fix it. "Why would you move to the farm?" she asked. "You weren't...it..." she tripped over what she was trying to say, mostly because she didn't want to say it. In the end, however, she knew she needed to. "Everything was a lie." She couldn't look at him when she said it, couldn't catch his eye even if she wanted to. After all, she'd looked into those eyes so many times, and never once saw what was right in front of her.
She hadn't even known his name.
He didn't move out of her way, but it had nothing to do with his door. If she really wanted to fix his damn door, if that would actually make her feel better, than she could paint it bright pink with sparkling unicorns on it for all he cared. He didn't move because she'd brought up The Subject. "Not all of it was a lie, little bird. The important things - the really important things - they were all true," he told her.
"I didn't even know your name." Wren said, that, barely above a whisper. "I didn't know who you were. You...I thought the people there were your family, and they weren't, I know nothing about you. It was...pretend, for some reason. And I don't understand it, I don't understand what happened, or why I got abandoned, but it happened and I live with that now. I was very worried about you, you know. I didn't know what happened to you."
She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to ground herself. Even she could recognize that all of her statements did not connect properly. When she opened them again, she looked at him. "If there were 'important' things that were true, tell me one thing. One thing that was really true."
"I was your friend," Charlie said, without having to think for even a moment about that. "And you were my friend. My best friend. The person I wanted to spend all my time with, but couldn't. The person that whenever I went away, I always thought of things to bring back for - little presents or stories or both. Things you would like. Because you always had so much wonder in your heart that shouldn't have been restricted to that one place and if they wouldn't let you spread your wings on your own, then I was going to do it for you. Regardless of what I was called, or who I was with - what we had, that was real. That was what was important."
Wren really wanted to believe him. He'd always had a way of talking to her that made her feel special, and not in the 'prophet' kind of way. He made her feel like she was special without being there to guide him, which he never asked for. She also wanted to not cry, but emotionally, she was having a rough time. Yesterday, today, finding out her space had been violated, getting beaten up earlier, it was all kind of a lot for her to process. Her eyes welled, and she looked down and away, biting at the inside of her lip in the hopes it made the lump in her throat die. Was what he said true? It felt true. But one sticking point reared up in her mind.
She swallowed hard, and didn't look at him still, letting her hair fall in a curtain to obscure the bruises on her face at the very least. "If you--" she started, but she had to give herself another second to fight back the tears before she continued. "If I was your best friend, and you cared about me like that, why... You were gone. I went to prison, and I was scared, and I was alone, and I didn't know what happened to you, and it's been three years, Chester. The only reason we're talking right now is because you got convicted of...whatever you got convicted for. You didn't seek me out, you didn't try to contact me. Even if I can overlook your lying to me..."
"When everything happened, I was held by the police until my parents came to collect me. they took me out of state and the next few months... It would be safe to say that they didn't let me out of their sight. the only place that I could really be alone was my own room. I thought about you all the time, but there was no way I could get to you. And by the time I could, the trial was over and what could I do? I had no connections to you. I didn't know the system well enough to even start trying to track you down. I didn't know where you'd been sent. I found out about your conviction through the press, but that was it. There was nothing else. You were just... gone," he explained. It was the truth - Charlie was not one to lie without reason.
"Why were you even there? Who were the people you were with?" Wren asked. "And can I please fix your door?" she asked, wanting him to move out of the way so she could do something active with her hands. She swiped her arm quickly under her eyes to get the tears out of them, wanting to be stronger than she was behaving, but really, she just felt like she didn't have everything together. That she was falling apart all over again.
He moved then. "If you wanna fix my door, then fix my door. And I'll tell you everything - but it's a long story. Maybe we could go find somewhere quiet? Did you want to come inside? Or - we could get a coffee and find somewhere if you'd prefer?" he suggested, overly aware of the fact that she had never had a problem being alone with him in the past, but not wanting to assume anything right now.
Wren breathed a sigh of relief when he said she could fix his door, and she set about doing that. It gave her a moment she needed to consider what he asked then, and in the end, she decided if he had a long story to tell her, then she'd listen. "I don't really think I can face people right now." she told him honestly, getting his number nine free, and she turned it on it's side, to re-nail it in that way.
“Okay - well, I don’t particularly want to be telling the world my business either, so I’m fine with that,” he told her, watching her do... Whatever it was to his door that would make her feel better.
She made quick work of it, setting the numbers on their sides. She didn't flip them upside down like she had on her door, because then nine would become six, and she didn't want to confuse people. After that, she looked back at him. "Thank you." she said honestly. It did make her feel better. So that was at least one spike of anxiety that she could now set to rest. Then she glanced around, not sure what to do next. "...I don't really feel safe in my room anymore." she admitted. So going there was probably not going to help her relax.
Charlie stepped to the side and pushed his door open, holding it wide. “Did you want to come in?” he suggested to her.
She looked into his room, then decided there really wasn't that much of a choice. And even if he'd lied to her, he'd never made her feel unsafe. So, she picked up the magic 8-ball again, hugged that and her hammer to her stomach, and she stepped inside. It felt wrong to feel so awkward around him but she was aware her natural reactions to him and reality were clashing.
He waited until she was inside, then closed the door behind them, moving past her into the room, so he wasn’t between her and the door. He didn’t want her to feel threatened and there was a tug in his chest as he considered the possibility that maybe she would do. “Where do you want to sit?” he asked her.
She opted for the little loveseat, walking over and sitting down, curling her legs beneath her as she leaned against the armrest. Wren realized she still had the hammer and magic 8-ball, and she set the hammer on the floor. The 8-ball she kept. Saying nothing, she just watched him, waiting for him to begin, giving him room to start wherever and whenever he wanted.
Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together. “When I was eighteen,” he began. “Not long after I left home, for college, my baby brother went missing.” He rolled his eyes. “‘Baby’ - he was a year younger than me, but that’s how I’ll always think of him. Anyway, my parents were beside themselves and I came hope to help try and find him. Which we did. He’d taken up with a group. A commune. A cult And... If you ask Jake now he’ll be the first to admit that it wasn’t a good place for him, but at the time... He wouldn’t come home. After a while of that, I went to get him. And I stayed for a bit - to try and talk him out.
“That’s where I met the people you came to know as Jack and Mabel. Then, they were Fred and Josephine. I never did get to know who they really were. I was there for my brother. They were there because they’d seen too many places that had taken too many lives and they were trying to do something about it. After I left with Jake - once he’d decided that he wanted to go home - I got back into contact with them. What I’d seen with Jake. What I’d seen at that place. It wasn’t right - people being told that it was all the answer. Giving up everything. Taken away from their families and the world and then, if they decided that they wanted out... Not being able to leave. I wanted to help more people than Jake.”
Just like she had the first time he used the word 'cult' when they'd been in the kitchen, Wren flinched a little, though she didn't interrupt him. When he was talking about her brother, her first reaction was to look very concerned. Someone being missing wasn't good, of course. But she still had no desire to actually cut into what he was saying, listening attentively. As he continued, she looked more and more distressed--but she still didn't break in, she let him continue.
“So, I contacted Jack and Mabel - and joined them as their son. They moved from place to place. Helping people where they could. Staying as long as they needed to - often years. Which is how I ended up at the Order of the Loom.” Charlie knew he was withholding some of the truth, but she didn’t need to know that his original goal had been to end her way of life entirely. At least, not put that bluntly. She would take it so much better this way. “That’s how I became Chester. And why my real parents were looking for me. They didn’t know. They wouldn’t have understood. I’d just left home - adult and everything, but... Still, they reported me missing. And when I turned up. Yeah.”
Wren wasn't dumb enough to think that she wasn't getting a heavily edited version of the story. "Your brother went missing, and you put your parents through that again?" she asked lightly. "And...and what was wrong with our commune that you wanted to 'help' people out of it? What were you doing there? And if you were just trying to help people, why were you friends with me? I didn't need...help..." she trailed off, looking away. In the back of her mind, she was hearing people in suits telling her how she'd been abused. How her life had been a mess, and she was a victim.
"There were things I needed to do, and I was an adult. Jake had still been in high school. I had hoped they would understand." They hadn't. Charlie gave her a look before continuing. "What was wrong? Brian killed everyone. The place was trafficking drugs. And you... Wren, they pretty much kept you as a prisoner. You were married off at fifteen to a guy who had already got two wives! That's... None of that is right!" he exclaimed, passionately as he let out something he'd wanted to say to her for years.
Wren looked down, brushing her thumb back and forth over one of the scars on her forearm. “I’ve been told I was ‘abused’. But it’s hard for me to really connect with that.” she admitted. Her voice was quiet. Almost inaudible. “You didn’t answer why you were my friend. What part was I meant to have? Or did I not have one?” she asked, wanting to understand.
"For me, you didn't have a part," he told her, deciding she didn't need to know the whole story there. It would only confuse matters. "You were my friend. But... I was also concerned about you. I know you thought nothing was wrong, that your life was normal. That's part of what makes it abuse. Because they kept from you anything that would allow you to know better. It's called 'grooming'. Make you complicit in your own abuse."
She really, really hated the sound of that. 'complicit in your own abuse' rang in her head, and echoed there, making her stomach twist. Queasy. That was how she felt as his words sank in. She opened her mouth a few times to say something, but no words followed. In the end, she covered her face with her hands, bruises twinging faintly under light pressure, and she attempted to fight back the feeling of being overwhelmed. It wasn't easy, after the day she'd had, and she wasn't especially successful.
Charlie saw the change in her and moved immediately to crouch in front of her, reaching out, though he didn't actually touch her. "This is not your fault," he told her, firmly. "None of this is your fault. You were a little girl when this all started - a child. You didn't - you couldn't - know any better. That things weren't meant to work like that."
Wren looked at him, but still felt sick. It was clear in her expression, Wren not having the emotional fortitude to really hide anything then. "Am I broken?" she asked. Maybe he wasn't qualified to answer that question. But she didn't know. And she sure as hell felt broken today. Nothing seemed right. Everything felt upside down, or like she was living someone else's life.
"No - no little bird, you're not broken. You've never been broken. You just... Your world has been different to most people's," he told her, trying to put things carefully. He had always chosen his words carefully with her, and with most people in actual fact.
Shaking her head, she looked away. "I don't think it's just having a 'different' life. I don't know. Earlier...I talked to Leandro, and he..." Her expression pinched in emotional pain for a moment before she continued. "I think he thinks I'm some sort of monster. And I keep going back and forth. That he isn't able to accept any points of view that aren't his own, or there's something seriously the matter with me. And I just...I don't know. I don't have a purpose anymore, and it was probably all stupid in the first place, and made up." She looked back at him. "You know I can't process that? I think about it, and I just...there's this wall."
Charlie frowned at that, jumping on one particular point. "And why does he think you're a monster?" he asked, sharply, anger at Leandro and what the hell made him think such a thing flaring up inside him.
"I killed hope. Or...faith..." Wren said, expression flickering again. And she did what she used to do with him when she could sense his back was up about something. She reached out, for his hand. She caught what she was doing mid-move, however, and let her hand fall into her lap. "He has a lot of anger. And he really hates...the establishment as a whole. I tried to explain that I didn't do what I did because I was following orders, I did what I did because I didn't want things to get violent. I saw people dividing up, and Ryan said he was going to go down there before people dragged him out, and...it doesn't really matter. My actions were very offensive to him."
"You didn't... And even if you did, that doesn't make you a monster," Charlie said, still with a bite to his tone. "He had no right to call you that - even if he was angry. You're not a monster - you couldn't be a monster if you tried. But - people were dividing up because I asked them to," he explained, feeling that he should probably address that. "Everyone was milling around, not knowing what to do, so I told them to make a decision - whether they were okay with going ahead with the punishment, or not. It was meant to give us a starting point to decide what we were going to do. I was trying to bring some control to it all, to stop things getting out of hand." And she had cut right through the middle of all of that - something which he really didn't agree with, but he had learnt a long time ago that hitting Wren head on with that kind of thing rarely worked out well.
"He didn't call me that. It was implied." Wren said. Then she frowned, sure the word 'monster' had actually been used, but it wasn't a direct statement, and she didn't want to leave Chester with that impression. "I just know how fast things can turn." she said. "And I don't think it matters that you asked--people were very clearly on different sides of the issue, all you did was make it clearer. Which is good, because I don't--" she broke off for a moment, sighing. "I don't disagree. I took no joy in putting Ryan in the stocks, but it was his choice. He volunteered. And people should respect that too, not just stand around making calls for him when it's him who's on the line in the first place. Do I agree with the stocks? No. I think they're barbaric. Why do you think I stuck around to make sure nothing bad happened to them? Why I got in that woman's way when I saw that was her intent? If I didn't care, I wouldn't have stayed. If I didn't find flaw in it all, I would have just trusted that it would be fine, but I knew it wasn't going to be." She looked at her hands, turning her arm over to look at the scars there. Then she turned over the other one, showing those scars too. "Things can change so fast." she whispered. "You...you blink, and the next thing you know, you're bleeding out everywhere, and I didn't want to give everyone an excuse to run with it. Especially when Ryan was just going to take it and be done with it." She was quiet for a long moment. "You and Leandro should talk. You would get along well, I think." she told him honestly.
Charlie dropped his eyes as she moved her limbs and it was then that he saw the scars. He heard the words about how quickly things could change, and bleeding out. "Wren... What happened to you?" he asked, with some caution.
"I don't really know." Wren answered honestly, voice oddly dull. "It wasn't long after I was convicted. I'm told someone wanted to make a name for themselves? But I don't really know what that means. I was just attacked. Some woman with a sharp tool. One second I was standing there, and the next I was down, and getting stabbed at." She shifted, then after a hesitation, she tugged her shirt up, twisting a little so he could see the scars along her right ribcage. While Wren wasn't self conscious about the scars, really, that didn't mean she liked them. She didn't often look. "Things seem different here, but I don't think they really are. I think it's an illusion." she said, looking off at a middle distance as she let him look at the scars there. "I think things could turn, just like that." she snapped her fingers. "And there's no guards here to help us. No one to stop anything like that from happening. People get violent, so fast. And I learned, in prison? It can be for no reason at all."
Charlie stared at the scars. "I am sorry," he said, his voice almost too quiet to be heard. "I - God, Wren. I am so sorry." This - this was his fault. All of this, it was his fault. If he hadn't left her there, if he hadn't run. If he'd just gone back and taken her with him and they'd left together. None of this would have happened. But no, it would have done. Because he would have gone to the police anyway. He couldn't have just left everyone else there to die, and he couldn't have gotten them out any other way. If he had gone back for her, either he would be dead now, or even if he had gotten them away, he would have taken her with him and they would have arrested her then. But still, in this moment, it all felt like his fault. Another time when he hadn't been able to save her.
Frowning, Wren dropped her shirt and looked at him again. "Che...Charlie, I'm okay." she told him, feeling the need to reassure him when he sounded like that. She watched him, and didn't like how he looked there. Like he was a little sick, or...something. She wasn't sure. "I'm okay." she repeated. "I lived. I learned."
He looked up when she said his name. "Chester - you can call me Chester. please - it doesn't sound right the other way," he told her. It felt like a reminder of all the things he hadn't done. "You should never have had to learn those things. And not in that way." They were the wrong lessons, especially for someone like her. And, after this afternoon, it seemed she was still learning them.
She did feel slightly better for getting permission to call him Chester, and she felt guilty about it at the same time. She didn't comment on it, though, figuring she could work it out later. Now wasn't really the time. "A lot of things shouldn't happen, but they do. Everyone shouldn't have died, but they did. I'm here, it's now, don't waste time feeling sorry for me." she said, not really liking the idea that he was pitying her, or...whatever it was he was doing. It felt too much like some of the people who had been dealing with her case. One of the people who'd been working with her lawyer, she'd always looked at her with clear, bright pity in her eyes. And from time to time she'd see it in the guards, even some of the other prisoners.
"I'm not feeling sorry for you - I'm feeling guilty," he told her, though he knew it wasn't quite as simple as all of that. She didn't want him to feel sorry for her though, so, he'd give her something else he could be doing. "I should have gotten you out of there sooner."
Watching him, Wren sighed a little, and leaned forward slightly, looking him in the eyes. "What would you have said?" she asked. She really didn't think there was much he could have said to her that would have 'got her out of there'. She'd drank her own glass of wine as well, knowing full well it could have been just as poisoned as everyone else's.
"That you would have agreed to?" he asked her. "There wasn't anything. All I would have had would have been 'run away with me' - and you wouldn't have done that. Not then." The people he had worked for after her, the times he had entered cults to get one single person out - that had been different. He had targeted people, worked them, said whatever he had needed, made them believe whatever they had to, so they would walk out of there with him. With her, it had been different. With her, he had thought she would come with him when the entire thing collapsed. He hadn't seen a need to make her want to leave of her own accord.
"Well, if you were trying for a bigger goal, with your friends, then you wouldn't have either." she pointed out. "You were working together, you couldn't have just up and left with me one day." She sat back again, eyes still on him. "I won't make it out there." she told him. "I know that. I wouldn't have made it then either. So...I don't like that you lied to me, and I don't know when I'm going to stop feeling abandoned...but you're forgiven." she told him. "So you can stop feeling guilty." She didn't have it in her to hold onto the anger. Like she couldn't be mad at Leandro, either, even if she was torn up about that situation too. Leandro dealt with his anger in a way she viewed as destructive. Wren, she let things go. Things happened, and you could dislike the situation, you could be mad about circumstance, or past actions, even, but it didn't help the here and now. And right now she was looking at the first person who'd ever made her feel like a real person, and not just a tool for other people to use. She couldn't hold onto anger towards him.
'Stop feeling guilty' - it was always just that simple with her. He smiled a little at that, but didn't directly comment on it. It simply felt familiar, in a way that he had missed. He had missed her. He had been trying to replace her for so long. "How about we concentrate on making it in here, before there's any conversations about making it out there," he suggested to her. "Can we talk about what will happen if the people running this place declare other people guilty in the future?" he asked her. He wanted to know ahead of time what he was going to have to look for with her.
Sighing, Wren curled up where she was, shifting so she was more lying down on the loveseat. She kept her eyes on his, then she gave a half smile, and grabbed the magic 8-ball, giving it a shake. "Should we concentrate on there here and now, not the future?" she asked, turning it over. "...ask again later." she read. "Yes. We can talk about it. But you're going to tell me that you don't want me doing what I think is right again."
Charlie settled on the floor, side on to her, resting an arm on the cushions of the love seat. "We're going to talk about what you think is right and why you think it's right and we're going to look at angles and different ways of approaching things," he told her. "I promise not to tell you that you're 'wrong', but I reserve the right to express doubts about your handling of things. And you can do the same to me. Then... No surprises, right?"
"Okay." she said, accepting that. She was quiet as she gathered her thoughts. "I don't know what to do. I don't agree with what's been set up. I don't like the stocks, I don't like the administration just telling us people have done something wrong, but not what. I think it's all set up wrong. My biggest concern is people getting violent. A riot in here...people would be dead, so fast. The place is full of a ton of things that could kill someone. The kitchen has knives, the tool shed has tools and gas, and there are matches in the cafeteria." And we have at least one man who I know likes to burn things down. "I don't want things to get like that, for a big division to break everyone into factions. I also don't want to find out what they would have in store for us if we did start some big problem. We're just so...vulnerable. Which I also felt really keenly today, at several points. The first of which was finding out Ryan had been in my room, and I don't believe him when he says he was checking in concern for my safety. His sentence was long today, and it simply doesn't fit."
Charlie took all of that in, relieved once again - and more clearly this time since he wasn't having to deal with what had happened to her in the last three years at the same time - to find that she didn't support what had gone down today, that her motives stemmed from somewhere very different. "Let me ask you a question," he posed, rather than directly responding to any of her points. "If we get into the habit of punishing people however they say, whenever they say - do you think that we'll be safer?" He paused for a moment, then continued. "My concern is that, if we get into the habit of doing that, if that becomes acceptable, if we stop thinking for ourselves, then things will escalate in a totally different way, but your end point will be just the same. Things will get violent, but it will be the violence of the mob. Everyone against that one person who has been pinpointed as a wrongdoer without any proof. Someone who's just been labelled as 'wrong'. Because you're right - it doesn't fit. What Ryan was sentenced to, for what he confessed to. Those things don't match. And that is very worrying."
She listened, absently turning the 8-ball around in her hands as she did so. Part of her recognized that she was comfortable there. She'd always been comfortable around him. Old habits were already there, despite everything else. Wren was more relaxed than earlier, even if her bruises were aching, and she still felt sick over Leandro. Her focus came easier as he posed his question, and listened to his views. "How long were you in prison?" she asked. She didn't know, and if she'd been told, she didn't remember. But she had the distinct feeling that it wasn't long. It impacted how she answered, however, what she put into her answer.
He didn't expect the question and he jolted slightly, blinking. "Erm - I wasn't. I was sent straight here," he said, sounding a little confused.
She smiled a little at that, almost reached out to tap his nose, but in the end didn't. "You learn really fast, in prison, that if you buck the system? They make you." she told him, voice soft, eyes not wavering from his. "You're lucky to still believe that you're not really in prison. Or you don't have that experience, so you can hold onto that idealism. But I was there, for three years, and I followed the rules, but I saw what happened to people who didn't. And in there? It was just one person who got pulled up on not following the rules. They told us this morning that it was going to be everyone. So, it seems they are holding people responsible for their own actions...but they're also very clearly holding all of us to some other code of conduct. So, the real question, I feel, is what are you willing to do, if it means your deciding to buck the system gets everyone else in trouble, not just you?" She looked down a moment, then back up to his eyes. "That's what's really scaring me. Not just that I think things getting violent in here is inevitable, but that idea."
"So, what? We all just stop thinking, do whatever we're told and march heedlessly into whatever punishments they see fit to mete out?" Charlie asked her. He didn't buy that. "I don't trust them. I don't trust that when they say someone's done something wrong, that they have. I have no reason to trust them. What you're saying about holding people responsible for their own actions? I could go with that, if we could be assured that it was, in fact, their own actions that they're being held responsible for and not just some arbitrary sentence handed down for no reason. For all we know, these 'punishments' aren't actually connected to any wrong doing. They're just random. And next time, it could be me. Or you. I can't just in all conscience go along with what they're asking us to do. And I understand what you're saying about that bringing punishment down on all of us, but if we don't make some kind of a stand... This isn't teaching us to be responsible. It isn't teaching us right from wrong. It's teaching us to shut up and do as we're told. That's dangerous. For us in here, and for the rest of society, if you want to look at longer term. Because they'd be creating people who would just go out into the world and believe whatever they're told. And the only time that kind of thing is something that's wanted, is when whoever is doing the telling doesn't want whoever is listening to question too hard what they're being told. And I know they're listening right now and I don't care if they hear my opinions on this, because I think they're wrong. Either that, or they're corrupt. And I'll take whatever they want to hand out to me for saying that."
Wren sat up a little, looking upset. "Chester--Ryan did confess something to me. I think he's lying and that whatever it is that he really did was much worse, but you can't say that it's for 'no reason', or that for all we know it's random." she pointed out, a little hurt that he was absolutely ignoring the fact that Ryan did fess up to something. "Neither of them were crying 'I'm innocent'. Do you not think if they were, that that wouldn't have been the first things out of their mouths? Caroline said she was barricading herself in her room--and never claimed she was innocent." she posed. "I don't see why you're automatically assuming this is possibly some wind up when those put in the stocks never once said they weren't at fault. We don't know what exactly they did do? But they definitely did something, or they would have been very adamant that they were innocent. Why would you jump to 'it could be me', based on no evidence for your theory either?"
She shut her eyes and covered her face for a moment trying to get her bearings. Then she looked at him again. "I think it's very easy for you to take that stance when you have no concept of what prison was like, or what was done there. Where you didn't get to say what the rules were. And if I'm remembering correctly, at no point were we told that we got to here, either. I agree with your assessment that it's wrong, I agree that it isn't teaching us right from wrong, just not to want to be wrong, I agree that the whole thing is messed up. But I think you're someone who would have been thrown into solitary confinement until you learned your manners, in real prison. And no matter how much you railed against it, all that would have happened was you kept getting isolated, punished, until you stopped. There would be no give, Chester. They wouldn’t care how you felt, they’d just do their best to break you."
"Yes, and looking at the journals for yesterday, other people thought they were guilty of something and ended up confessing to things that the people watching weren't looking for. When it gets right down to it, generally everyone has a guilty conscience for something or other," Charlie pointed out. "Yes, Ryan confessed. And maybe he's lying and maybe he actually did something really bad and what's happened to him today is absolutely deserved. Or maybe he's not and they're punishing him for something in a way that seems well out of proportion to what he admitted to. The problem is that we don't know. We're just being asked to take this on faith. And I have no faith that someone in this kind of a position of power wouldn't abuse it. And everything you say about the way prison works, and that they try and break you - that does nothing to make me want to change my mind on that. It does not inspire me with trust and faith in the watchers. Because for all that this isn't set up like 'real prison', it still is." He paused and took a deep breath. "I just - we both know there's no answer here, right?" he checked, feeling like they were each as frustrated as the other with this situation. "I just feel like we have to work out what we're going to do next time this happens - because there will be a next time."
"I don't know that it's so wise to trust the people in here with us more than those faceless authorities. Don't forget, okay? This isn't out there, where you can trust that people might be okay. Maybe everyone's got a guilty conscience because we're guilty. Maybe you don't feel like you are. But I know for a fact there are people here that aren't innocent bystanders. Don't be so blinded by the idea that they," she made a vague gesture upwards, indicating the administration, "are the enemy when there could very well be more immediate ones next door."
Wren closed her eyes, and let herself breathe for a moment. She didn't even sound like herself, and she hated it. Which, she decided to express. "I hate feeling like this. Like...like I have to be careful. Like I have to keep my mind not so open. But today has me feeling like I have to. Like I've been naive. I tried to protect people and look what happened to me. Not that I wouldn't do it again, I would. Even knowing people did something wrong, and that one of them was apparently against me." Wren picked at a loose thread on her shirt. "I don't think sense exists anymore. I do know there's no answer. I hate feeling like there isn't one."
"Next time..." She was silent for a heartbeat, then looked back to him. "I stay out of it? Just...pack my things, go to the other block, and work on the farm, and don't bother anyone?" she suggested. "That feels like the right answer for me. Like I did what I thought was right, but the people most important to me believe I'm wrong for it, and I don't trust my own judgment anymore. Maybe I never should have."
“You’re not guilty,” Charlie pointed out, not willing to let that one slide. “And I’m not really guilty of anything but misjudging a situation. But - you’re right. There are people in here who are guilty. And who can’t be trusted. Maybe I should just not trust anyone - except you,” he suggested. It had been put to him pretty much already that he shouldn’t trust people. That that was being reinforced by Wren, hammered that home. He said nothing about anything else there. He wasn’t even going to attempt to counter her suggestion that she should stay out of things. Not when he agreed with it. She would be better off far away from anything that could be harmful to her.
Wren definitely noticed that he didn't counter her suggestion of staying out of things, and it just made it worse. He didn't believe she had valid points of view either. That she could bring anything to the table. Though, one thing still did bother her. She didn't voice it, however. How not having different points of view was dangerous. Wasn't that the problem with 'cults' or whatnot? That idea of no opposition to one point of view, one way of doing things?
“We’ll both find our way here, little bird,” Charlie told her, when she didn’t say anything. “Somehow.” He paused, then quirked a tiny smile, tilting his head to the side as he looked at her. “Will you help me? You know more about this than I do. Will you help me find my way - like you did last time?” ‘Last time’ being when he’d first joined the commune, when he had first befriended her. She had been in the familiar place, he had been the new guy, and she had been the one to show him how everything worked. He wanted to remind her of that now. And he wanted a reason for them not to go their separate ways.
She wanted to smile. She really did. But it didn't happen. She looked at him, feeling truly despondent. "You don't trust me, or my judgment." she told him, and it wasn't a dig, it wasn't an accusation. It was a comment on what she saw to be the truth. "Why would you want my help with any of that either? Talk to Leandro. You should anyhow, I imagine you are both on the same page, and would have much to discuss."
“I trust you. Just because I don’t agree with how you handled this specific situation doesn’t mean I don’t trust you,” Charlie countered. “I trust that you did what you thought was right. And I understand why you did it. And I understand that you don’t think the situation that they set up was right. I trust you. Hell - if I do go and speak to Leandro about things, I’ll be doing it because you recommended that I do. Because I trust your judgement about people. Not because I’ve decided to trust him. I don’t know him. All I know about him was that he was there with you yesterday and his concern was all about you. Which, honestly, actually makes him good people in my book. But it always comes back to you.”
She considered that, wondering if the logic worked or not. She felt so twisted about everything that she sort of didn't trust anything that she thought. So, the real question was whether or not she trusted him. She wanted to. But Wren wondered if she did decide to, if she was just doing it because it was easier for her. To fall into a role with him that was familiar. He'd always had her back, she'd always felt like a different person around him. Or, possibly, like a real person, not just some idea made form. That conflicted feeling in her showed clearly in her eyes, and she looked away. "I feel like you're humoring me." she said quietly. "Like you just want me to feel better, so you're saying things that would make me feel like you still value my opinion or insight. But I don't know that it adds up with you wanting me to have no voice in anything else. Like you'd trust me with just having a voice for you, which you could listen to and would have no wider impact, and you can freely ignore, but not to even have a say in anything else." She reached up to rub lightly at the bruises on her face. "I've never wanted to disappear so much in my life as I do right now."
Charlie really didn’t like being called on things - though that didn’t show outwardly at all. To a certain extent, he was humouring her. He didn’t think that currently she had the life skills to deal with this and he would believe that until he was shown evidence to the contrary. But he wasn’t going to admit that to her. “What can I do to make you not feel that way?” he asked her.
Wren thought he could have countered what she'd just said, but he didn't. So, she took that as confirmation. She sat up properly, looking down at the floor. "I don't think there is anything." she told him, not getting into everything else going on in her mind. It was too much for her right then. She felt like there were no answers. There wasn't anything that was going to make her feel better. She'd gone out on a limb, and most definitely paid for it. Just, it hurt worse on the levels she hadn't even considered. The bruises weren't even factoring in right then. It was everything else that made her feel like she was drowning. "Get some rest. I'm sure you need it, and who knows what will be in store for everyone tomorrow."
Charlie sighed, but nodded. “Can I see you again tomorrow?” he asked her, not wanting to let her go that easily. It didn’t matter to him how small this place was, he wanted to know he had her permission to seek her out.
She bit back the response that rose in her mind, knowing it was wholly unlike her. She didn't like it one little bit. Wren was really unhappy with even the tone that accompanied what went through her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, gritting her teeth a moment, then mutely nodded. Standing up, she headed towards the door, the 8-ball left on the love seat where she'd been sitting. "Goodnight."