John Murphy was starting to feel a little like Rapunzel locked away in his tower. Granted, he had never liked people very much, or maybe they'd just never liked him very much but even being around people who hated him was starting to sound better than the isolation of this place. The first week had been great. He had plenty of food, comfort, quiet when he wanted it, music when he was tired of the silence. The second week had started to seem lonely but he kept telling himself it wasn't so bad. There was no one here to hate his guts, or accuse him of crimes he didn't commit, or treat him like shit in general. By week three he was ready to admit that this solitary place was driving him mad.
He didn't need to go outside for much of anything. Everything he needed was inside. But he went outside anyway, just for a change of scene. He had explored much of the surrounding area every day for weeks before he started to notice the missing items. Every day after he went out, he would come back to find that things were missing, At first it was just little things. A packet of food was gone, a water glass out of place, a drawer not closed tightly like he remembered. Sometimes he would see a fleeting shadow, as if someone had been in the room and had run out the moment he returned. He started to think he was going crazy. So he started leaving things out on purpose and keeping an inventory of all the food. If someone really was stealing from him he wanted to know it and if he really were going crazy he wanted to know that too.
It was only two days after confirming that he was indeed totally sane that he finally came in contact with the thief. Most days he would leave the tower and stay away for a good two hours. On this day he walked for only ten minutes before going straight back, hoping to catch the intruder in the act.
She was in the kitchen rummaging through the cupboards. He watched her silently, unseen in the doorway. She was a petite young woman with red hair and freckles. He had seen her before among their people from the dropship but he didn't know her name. Her red curls were pulled back into two pony tails and she was dancing to the music he had left playing while she searched for an item or two to put in the sack she carried. Apparently she was being careful not to take too many things as she spent more time dancing than actually stealing.
"Hey!" Murphy called out making the girl nearly jump out of her skin. She looked ready to run but there was no where to go as he blocked the only doorway.
For a moment the two just stared at one another.
"If you needed something to eat why didn't you just ask." He finally said.
She dropped her bag on the floor in shock.
He walked over to her and opened a cabinet door behind her, taking down a packet of food, and leaning into her space to do it."These ones are better than the others."
The girl's hand shook as she took the packet from him. "Thank you." She said in a near whisper.
"There were a lot of us on the dropship. I don't remember your name." He said, stepping out of her space but still blocking her exit.
"Gerry. Gerry Winters." She told him, her blue gray eyes were wide with worry.
"Right. I remember a Winters who was locked up for killing some boy. His parents wanted to float you…" Murphy mused out loud.
"That boy was twenty three years old and he tried to rape me, but somehow his parents managed to keep that part of the story quiet." She snapped at him, then her stance softened. "I never meant to kill him."
"So what are you doing here and not at the camp with everyone else?" He asked her after a short awkward silence.
"What are you doing?" Was her reply.
"If you've been following me, then you already know what I'm doing. But what you're doing still isn't very clear. You could have just joined Jaha's little party if you wanted to come with us. He would have loved that. Why didn't you?"
Gerry swallowed and looked down at her feet. "I killed someone else. I couldn't stay with them."
Somehow this information made him want to laugh. She was a tiny petite little person. How could she have killed anyone? And how could she have ended up in this place with him? Two murderers just hanging out together. This was nuts.
"It was a girl this time. She thought I stole her boyfriend because he was flirting with me. She tried to beat the crap out of me and I fought back. Except I got carried away...I had this stick for a club...and she was on the ground not moving...and I just couldn't stop...couldn't stop hitting her...I shouldn't be anywhere near people… I shouldn't be here…" She tried to push past him.
"Wait." Murphy caught her arm. "What are you going to do? Just go sleep out in the woods alone?"
She nodded, fear in her eyes.
"It's not safe out there. I'm pretty sure I've seen bear tracks, maybe wolves too. You can stay here." He offered.
She hesitated. "You aren't worried I might kill you?"
He shrugged. "Only if you're worried I might kill you."
At that she laughed. They shared a meal and a few drinks before falling asleep on the sofa that night. Gerry was curled up at one end and John sat at the other end with his feet resting on an ottoman. During the night a wolf howled somewhere in the distance.
The next day, Gerry walked with Murphy on his outdoor wanderings. She had spent more time outdoors at this place and she showed him some of the things she had found. There were herbs and edible plants as well as some animal snares that she had set.
Maybe he had simply grown desperate after so long spent alone but Murphy found that he liked her company. She was warm and funny and she didn't look at him the way other people had for so long. She didn't look at him like a murderer. And that wasn't because she didn't know what he had done either. She knew. They even talked about it in passing and she didn't look at him with that disappointed disgusted look. She was the only person in years who didn't.
They found a rabbit in one of her snares and took it back with them for dinner that night. The preserved food they had been eating was packed full of vitamins but it somehow wasn't as good as real meat and vegetables.
After dinner she joined him on the sofa curled up at one end while he stretched out with his feet on the ottoman as before. There was a bed he could have gone to. Or he could have offered the bed to her, or even asked her to join him. Except he didn't want leave her just yet and he didn't want her to take an offer like that the wrong way and maybe think about killing him. Not that she thought about killing people often. He didn't think about killing people very often so he imagined that she didn't either. Still, it would be best not to push his luck.
They settled onto the sofa and opened another bottle of wine. Soon they drank themselves to sleep. Murphy woke several hours later to find that Gerry was cuddled up close to him on the couch, her head on his chest. He hadn't been this close to a girl in a long time. It had always been so easy for Bellamy to get girls. Back when they were still friends, some of Bellamy's popularity had spilled over enough that he got the attention of a few girls. That had been a long time ago. He wondered what had brought Gerry to his side like this. He put an arm around her and soon went back to sleep.
They awoke in the morning still embraced. Murphy opened his eyes to find Gerry looking up at him with an expression he couldn't interpret. Before he knew what was happening she was kissing him. He pulled her onto his lap so that she straddled him and her hands were quickly unbuttoning his shirt, removing her own shirt. Lips locked together, tongue in her mouth, they lost all sense of time and space. He had never made love quite like this before.