Disclaimer: Terra Nova does not belong to me.
Dr. Yibbets was increasingly engrossed in some project of her own that had her making trips out of the settlement and returning with measurements and numbers that she was all too willing to foist off on to Maddy to organize whenever she thought that Lucas was not paying attention.
Maddy could have told her that it was wasted effort on her part - there were not actual times when Lucas was not paying attention. He knew everything that happened in that lab (especially when it concerned her), and he seemed smugly amused that the older woman thought she was slipping things through without his notice. He had even winked at her once when Dr. Yibbets's back was turned. It was just another one of the ways that he was always keeping her off balance. She did not like it - the implication that the two of them were on terms where it was alright for them to have private exchanges at the expense of those around them. They were not on equal footing. Maddy was just as much a prisoner here as she had ever been. The accommodations might have been an upgrade, the view might have been better, and there might have been a cursory gain in that she was not spending her time behind locked doors, but she still was not here by choice. She was still expected to work on what they placed in front of her regardless of whether or not it was what she wanted to be doing. Her family was still somewhere where she was not, and all of the civility and what Maddy was sometimes almost certain was sincere interest in her well-being on the part of the man that was hovering over her shoulder more often than not while she tried to get through the work was not going to change that.
Lucas Taylor made her skin crawl in a way that she struggled to define. It was not that she felt as if she was personally unsafe in his presence - rather, she thought the fact that she had a solid conviction that she was likely the safest person in the room whenever he was present was what was making her so nervous. It was the why of that, she thought, that might be giving her what a story remembered from long ago had termed the heebie jeebies. She was under some sort of protection in Lucas's presence because he seemed to view her as some sort of a combination of new toy, useful tool, and potential pet all wrapped into one package.
He hovered and muttered additional calculations over her shoulder while she worked through data sorting and equations. He barked questions and paced while she reworked damaged circuitry. He made snide comments and hissed threats at the other people who had the misfortune to find themselves in the lab. Then, in such a smooth transition that you could never tell when it was coming, he would politely inquire if she needed anything else in the way of personal supplies or even decorations for her room. He would fuss at her about her eating habits and show up with samples of new foods for her to try. He was insistent about medical checkups, told off and banished one of the members of his ever present security detail for sneezing in her general direction, and produced a cardigan sweater within minutes of the first time he noticed her rubbing at her arms while she was working.
He talked to her like he expected her to follow along with what he was saying no matter how technical the conversation got (which she could, for the most part, but it was still odd after the talking at and around her that she had dealt with during the course of her confinement). He seemed pleased when she could add to what he was saying, patiently and tolerantly explained on the couple of occasions that she could not, and took to patting her on the top of the head when she answered a question he presented for her input.
She would rather he not touch her. She would really rather that no one touch her. She was not used to being touched these days, and the semi affectionate motions that he made just underscored the mockery of family and friendship in the absence thereof that she was living. Of course, no one actually asked her what she really wanted. Lucas might be concerned with her general well- being. He might even have enough of a vested interest in her usefulness to be willing to care about making her moderately comfortable. That did not make them whatever it was that he seemed to want her to think that they were.
She was fairly sure that discomfort in his presence was a more normal than not state of being for more than just her. She did not see many people up close (and actually interacted with even less), but those that she saw in Lucas's presence never seemed to be anything other than anxious. The security detail always looked professional and detached, but she caught the side eye glances that they sent the man's way and the shared looks that they thought were going unnoticed behind his back. She saw the way that the only other person who spent any significant amount of time in the lab (she had heard Lucas call him Malcolm, but they had never been introduced) watched him in a similar manner as she thought one might keep an eye on a ticking time bomb. Although, nervous might just be that particular scientist's natural state of being.
She was wary of Malcolm being anywhere near her at first; she was wary of everyone at first (and, frankly, she was wary of everyone even after they were more familiar figures to her). He looked at her oddly sometimes, but it did not give her the same feeling of tension as when Lucas took time out of his schedule to stand around and study her. Malcolm looked at her in unguarded moments as if he was trying to find something that he had lost. She did not much like it, but it did not make her feel anything other than defensive. Malcolm had been filed in her head as not a threat and not a potential asset (he might know more than she did about the situation in and set up of the settlement, but he was every bit as much out of the pertinent information loop as she was).
There was a girl that Maddy thought was likely a few years older than she was that made short appearances from time to time. Lucas had gone to the trouble of introducing her. She was Skye, and she looked a mixture of determined and bordering on the edge of a nervous breakdown each time that a member of the security detail escorted her to meet Lucas for dinner or to go for a walk or whatever it was for which he had requested her presence that time. Lucas genuinely liked her, but it did not seem to make her any less anxious about having to spend time with him.
Dr. Yibbets, well, Dr. Yibbets avoided being in the same place at the same time as him as much as possible. She was succeeding more and more in that endeavor with every day that went by, but Maddy was suffering from no delusion that that was for any reason other than the fact that Lucas was letting her.
There were other people making decisions (and she was certain unseen ones calling shots on the bigger picture still), but Lucas Taylor was a center point in everything that was happening. Maddy just had to figure out whether that would help or hinder her whenever she finally figured out what it was she needed to do next.