17. The Meeting

There's always been something of the showman about Boyd. He knows what words to use and how to use them. Raylan had spoken well, but there's an extra something when Boyd stands, a charge in the air, an expectancy.

Mainly, she thinks, because no-one sitting there can guess at what he's going to say before he starts - and she wonders if even he knows.

He likes an audience and he woos them with his show of honesty, filling the room with it.

The things is that even now, after all the years she's known him and the months they've been under the same roof, it's times like this when she still can't tell if he means what he says or if he just likes the performance of it. It can go either way, she decides. Maybe in the end it comes down to what he actually wants out of it and he must want something out of this and that woman.

The redhead is prettier than Ava had imagined. More imposing, statuesque. Definitely prettier. She wonders if Boyd thinks so and she doesn't care if he does.

The long layers of her dark auburn hair, Ava notes with petty satisfaction, haven't been cut quite as expertly as the rest of her appearance of expense would suggest.

When Boyd introduces them, before it all starts, Carol Johnson is polite and forcibly pleasant and noticeably patronising. There's a sly, amused smile when Boyd calls Ava his sister-in-law - former sister-in-law, he makes the immediate correction - and her palms itch to slap her. Her voice slows when she talks to Ava, as though she's talking to a child or a simpleton. She uses the same tone to Boyd and Ava realises, a sudden shock, that the woman thinks he's stupid. She probably thinks they're all dumb rednecks who can't spell 'cat' but Carol Johnson has spent time with Boyd, talked to him and she still can't see past what she's read in his file.

Not as smart as she thinks she is, Ava thinks with another spear of satisfaction, this one transcending into a sense of triumph. She sits back and enjoys the show, enjoys her own private knowledge of the thing that Carol Johnson, with all of her education and expensive clothes, doesn't know: that whatever she thinks she'll get out of Boyd, in the end he'll get far more out of her.

And she does enjoy it and the meeting goes well and then there's Mags Bennet.

After Bowman and Bo and all the things that have happened in the past year, and all the years before that, there isn't really anyone that Ava is afraid of anymore; but then there's Mags Bennet.

Mags is a strong woman, she's had to be, she's made her own way in life and normally Ava would find that admirable but the raw truth is that the woman is terrifying. She walks with the low roll of a street-brawler, shoulders shoved forward aggressively, and Ava shrinks, involuntary and instinctive, when Mags walks past her.

She concentrates, instead, on Boyd and the back of his head. A few rows ahead of her and partially obscured, but she can see the tufts of dark hair and the neat curve of one ear close against his head. The way he turns, suddenly, slightly, at something Mags has said, listening closer.

And she listens then, trying to hear what he has heard but the moment has passed, so she goes back to watching him, reading him.

There was a spark earlier, when he'd been talking. Light flaring behind his eyes, still burning when he had finished talking and taken his seat alongside everyone else. It isn't because of the speech he had made, it isn't - she knows - because of Carol Johnson and her long legs and insincere smile, it's something that started before that.

There isn't a moment to pinpoint, no one precise thing upon which to hang this change but she remembers the neat bundles of money on the kitchen table and her hand - no, her fingertips, because really touching him had been too frightening but not for the reasons anyone else would have thought - and the way he had looked then, and way he had looked at her then and maybe through the fug of caffeine and alcohol and lack of sleep she hadn't recognised what she had seen. Had not seen the sudden dance of fire behind his eyes.

It's vanity to think that she is the cause. But she had set herself the task of building him up again and she hadn't given much thought to what would happen after that. When he was whole again, when he wouldn't need her anymore-

She sucks in a breath, rigid against the sudden lancing pain.

The meeting has become white noise and she focuses on it again, catches the words of Mags' speech without really getting the meaning - she still isn't listening enough for that - and she notices that Carol Johnson's face is tight, ominous and she almost feels sorry for her. Almost.

When the sound that's like gunfire reverberates around the hall she freezes, like everyone else, and then, like everyone else, she moves, throwing herself forward and sheltering, instinctively, behind the chair in front of her. Everything else is a blur of panic and shouts and rushing bodies.

At the front of the hall Boyd stands, still, caught between going up to the stage where the redhead is crouching behind the podium with Raylan beside her and something that's keeping him where he is, his body twisted around, looking back into the hall. His eyes find her and she sees the set of his shoulders lower, relax, the wildfire of his gaze recede to something controllable.

She's okay. Everything is okay and she nods, one slight movement of her head, releasing him from the agony of indecision.

He joins Raylan, one either side of the woman who's made herself so small Ava can't see her anymore. They are almost side-by-side but the physical division is comical in its obviousness. They crouch, both with restless eyes wandering around the now near-empty hall but Boyd - vanity, vanity, all is vanity, but her chin lifts a little in response and she smiles - Boyd's gaze keeps coming back to her.