1:45 am
So beat he'd almost passed out standing up in the shower, Tyler found himself, inexplicably, not quite ready to sleep. He sat in the chair by the window that was open just enough to let the breeze off the beach cool the room and fill it with the smell of the sea. The window was left open at all times, even if just a crack, more for the second reason than the first. He didn't care much for it himself, but knew Angie still had that need to connect to something from the life she had before the world went to hell. She'd barely mentioned it when he first came back, but he'd known as soon as he arrived that the location of this compound would provide a little comfort for her that nothing and nobody else could.
How much do you really know about Angie Harper?
He'd given Gooder the short sharp answer, not bothering to tell him it wasn't the right question. What Donovan wanted to know was what he'd learned about her. What he knew was a different thing altogether.
What you learn about people is what they've done. What you know is who they are. Knowledge doesn't come from questions and answers. It comes from watching and listening and being with a person and -- props to Gooder -- relying on it exclusively is tantamount to suicide in the wrong circumstances. For reasons Tyler would never be able to explain, as far as Angie Harper was concerned knowing came easier than learning. Okay, by-the-book it would have been a lot smarter to learn more about her before they got this far in with the Resistance, and... whatever. Knowledge had happened instead, and it made him more certain of her than learning could have done.
But the question within the question Gooder had asked, by-the-book, "can we trust her"… Tyler was too good at what he'd been doing for so long (I know how this works) to consider offering his knowledge of Angie Harper as any kind of proof. So they'd have their meeting and present their pictures and their questions in the morning, and he had not even -- what was it those pansy-ass lawyers called it? a "scintilla of doubt"? -- he wouldn't have even a "scintilla of doubt" that Donovan, Parrish, and Maxwell, and whoever else would be sitting in judgment, would learn in the end what Tyler already knew: it was no more likely Angie Harper would sell out her new found comrades than she'd peel off her skin (I know her skin) and turn lizard.
How much do you really know about Angie Harper…
He turned his attention to the bed where, as usual, only the very top of her head was visible.
Well I know that she burrows into bed like a groundhog.
He shivered as the breeze through the window raised goosebumps on his skin, but restrained himself from closing it.
I know that she's convinced she'll suffocate if the damn window isn't open.
He knew other things, too.
I know that she wants what's between us and wishes she didn't…
I know that she can't stop trying to make sense of everything that will never make sense…
I know that she knows me even better than my wife did and it scares the hell out of me (and she knows that too)…
I know that she's stronger than she thinks and weaker than she wants to be and hates being proud of how well she's learning to survive…
I know that coming back here from nights with that lizard is harder for her than going because she thinks she's coming back dirty... and that she'll never believe she's not…
I know that when she's hanging by a thread and says 'leave me alone' the 'don't' is silent…
I know that she needs promises that nobody can keep in this fucked up New World...
I know that she deserves more, and that I deserve less, and that if she weren't around I'd never know a moment's quiet
Going too deep triggered Tyler's inner defenses.
"And I know I'm deranged from sleep deprivation," he muttered aloud to himself, as if a stranger had tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out where his mind had been wandering. He noticed a stirring of the top of the head burrowed into the bedclothes.
"Mmmf, Tyler," Angie's muffled voice struggled toward clarity as she poked her head out and regarded him with confusion. There was just enough light from the quarter moon to reveal him slouched in the chair by the window, wearing nothing but a towel and a thoughtful expression, with no other clothing in evidence. "Poker game with Elias?"
He'd almost forgotten about his "casual" attire. "Nope. Ran into Ruthie."
Angie yawned, made a face. "I thought she was just undressing you with her eyes."
He laughed quietly and dropped the towel on his way to sit on the edge of the bed. "I managed to escape with my virtue intact," he assured Angie with a wry grin.
"Virtue?" she flopped back in bed, her laugh overcome by another yawn, "Who knew the bitch had a WayBack machine."
"Cute… shove over," he growled as he slid into bed, "I'm freezing my nuts off."
Angie frowned up at him, eyes open and expression serious. "It's really okay if you close the window…"
Her earnestness drew a smile from him and he rose on an elbow to lean over her, traced a fingertip along her forehead and down her cheek, and back up again. "Leave it open, Angel. That's just me bitching after a long day." He felt the soft skin furrow under his finger.
"Got all your stuff today, everybody back in one piece?"
"Yeah. And then some." He could tell she was reading him; somewhere along the way he'd lost the ability to fake her out.
Angie tapped the scar on his left temple. "So what's winding you up in there?"
"Nothing. Go back to sleep." He lay down on his side and draped an arm over her.
Liar, liar pants on fire… she decided to leave it alone. Maybe it was nothing, or not, but she was too sleepy to find out.
"Yeah," she sighed, "gotta have my wits about me for another goddamn Saturday morning meeting."
"You'll be fine."
I'll be fine?? Angie was about to call him on that when he surprised her by wrapping closely around her, like he did after the nightmares she hadn't had since before he left for Mexico. Like he did when things were crashing down on her. But that wasn't happening now… was it?
Angie pried her head from Tyler's shoulder and ran a couple of fingers down his bearded cheek, looking him hard in the eye. "Tyler, you're acting weird."
"Well as you observed before I went to Mexico, you're stuck with it. Now for christsake, go to sleep, will you?" Raised eyebrows, stern expression.
When she lay her head down again, silent, his deep breath and explosive exhale told her what she already knew… something was simmering inside.
"We've never come up against this kind of thing before."
Mike woke Julie to show her Martin's photos, which immediately changed the following morning's agenda.
"I guess we show them to her," Donovan reasoned, "and ask her what she knew about this guy. It could be nothing. She wouldn't be the first to have been in on only half of some guy's double life."
Julie was obviously upset by this new information. "But no matter what she tells us, we can't corroborate it. There's nobody left from her Boston days that we know of, except this David Peterson. So if she tells us she didn't know a thing, how are we going to know it's the truth?"
Mike had decided not to tell her he'd questioned Tyler about this mess. "Well she's been here a while. If she really was a collaborator, don't you think she'd have had the Visitors down on us by now?"
"Maybe. Unless she was looking for more about the wider Resistance."
Donovan shook his head, gestured around them. "From here? Come on... she knows by now we don't have those kind of connections."
"But Tyler does." Julie frowned. Tyler had only recently returned from helping set up a new network in Mexico. "Maybe this has less to do with us than him."
This stopped Mike in mid-debate. "You mean she might have hooked up with him knowing he was coming here?"
"Or maybe she was just hitching a ride west and lucked out."
"Pretty extreme luck, if you ask me. I dunno, Tyler was never one to be turned by a damsel in distress. He's never been fooled before, but I guess we can all burn out after awhile. What I don't get is if this is what it looks like, why she didn't just stick with Peterson instead of going to all this trouble to come here, chance being accepted, and all the rest."
The frown deepened. "Well if she's infiltrated us and is reporting to the Visitors instead of the other way around... it makes perfect sense." Julie's expression changed from disappointment to uncertainty. The kind of uncertainty she'd shown in the very beginning.
"Mike, what if we're right?"
He shrugged grimly. "Well we'll deal with it when it happens."
"No, I mean if we're right and Angie is a collaborator..." clearly Julie would rather not consider the possibility, "she can't keep on like she has. But we can't let her go, either. What do we do with her if we find out she's a spy?"
By now they'd all grown accustomed to the risks associated with the rebellion. Friends and comrades had been lost; placing their own lives at risk had become a given. But the other practical aspects of running a revolution... they'd always been strictly a hit-and-run outfit, and had never had to deal with prisoners. Collaborators had been discovered, but always after the fact. What would they do, what could they do, with a traitor who remained in their midst?
"Ordinarily I'd say Tyler would be the expert on that kind of thing."
Ignoring the last statement as best she could, Julie suggested wearily, "Let's get together with Robert tomorrow, nine o'clock. That should give us at least some time before the meeting to talk about this. Do you think we should tell Tyler and Chris not to come?"
"We have to treat this like we would anyone else, either way," Donovan said firmly. "You know how it would look if we told Tyler to stay away... even if we could keep him out." He knew that much was true, whether or not he'd told Tyler about the whole thing earlier.
"I guess you're right," Julie nodded. "Okay, I'll grab Robert tomorrow in time for nine." Instead of returning to her room Julie headed off in the direction of the kitchen. "I don't know about you, but I'm not going to get any sleep tonight. I'm making a pot of coffee, if you're interested." Her look said please, Mike, be interested, I can't do this alone.
"Count me in."
As they walked down the corridor Donovan draped an arm around Julie, and she gratefully grabbed onto his hand. She'd thought all of her ugly initiations into this goddamned New World were behind her. What a joke, she thought, but was too sick with trepidation to laugh.