005 - Three Plum

[deadly_ned]

[Locked to Thomas MacLaine]


We should probably...I don't know, talk at some point.

Um. My name is Ned. I'm your.

Warden.


Could I please come over.

Comments

[deadly_ned]

He is a good dog.

[And he knows to keep away from people who don't want to touch him. Hesitantly, the Piemaker reaches forward and picks up the file from the table]

I, um.

I guess we should talk about this now.

...Before we start, I just want to know. Is there anything...off-limits, or not up for discussion..? Sometimes things are too painful to, uh. To talk about right away and I didn't want to force you into something you weren't ready for.

[meanstwin]

[That Ned would even ask surprises him, but that type of shock he's learned to tamp down; it isn't the same visceral fear as blood or dogs. Even answering is talking about it, though, so he shakes his head limply, hands twisting in his lap.]

[deadly_ned]

...Okay.

Okay, let's...talk.

Not to get all...judgy judge psychiatrist on you but I'm sort of curious and forgive me if this is asking too much too fast but..

Why do you think you're here?

[meanstwin]

[Thomas has put a lot of thought into this, but the truth is too much for someone he barely knows.] I tried to kill someone. And I knew someone else was, too, and... I should have known it wouldn't stop.

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker understood the need for secrets. He too had secrets he'd kept for twenty years; secrets he wouldn't feel comfortable sharing with strangers either. He won't yet force Thomas to reveal his own]

Premeditated murder would be a big, um. Reason.

I'm more curious why you wanted to kill that someone.

[meanstwin]

Ever since I met her... she'd been in the way. [Again, he tries to keep it superficial. She'd shown up at the most inconvenient time that day, the worst officer to try to break out Agent York from where Thomas was keeping him, but that wasn't everything. Even when she'd come to town as a high school kid and he was a couple years ahead of her, she'd gotten his attention, and the more she turned him down, the more he could only talk about her, even to Thomas or Carol. The two of them had been good enough until then.]

[deadly_ned]

Who'd been in the way?

[The Piemaker knew exactly who, from reading the file. But he hadn't heard Thomas say her name yet]

[meanstwin]

Her name was Emily. I worked with her. It didn't have to be her, not that day...

... but I think it would have ended like that with us somehow.

[deadly_ned]

Did you hate her?

[meanstwin]

Do you already know the answer?

[deadly_ned]

I think it's rude to assume I know the emotions of other people based on an incomplete short story someone wrote about their life without their permission or input.

[meanstwin]

I didn't know how much you knew. [Didn't want to know, really, or to ask, because asking meant talking.] I-i'm sorry.

[deadly_ned]

To be honest, I don't know how much I know either. I know...facts. I don't know emotions, or...reasoning, or how you feel, or how to help. People don't - shouldn't - come with instruction manuals on how to put them back together.

Please don't be sorry. Not to me.

[meanstwin]

You're the one here.

But you can't know unless I tell you. So you can't do what you're here for.

So yes.

[deadly_ned]

What I'm here for is you. Everything else is just...background.

[meanstwin]

...all right. [When someone says something like that, he never knows whether he should believe them.]

I did.

[deadly_ned]

...And now?

[meanstwin]

I don't know. I think so. I want to.

[deadly_ned]

She's not in the way now. Your, um. I would say your death is more of an immediate hinderance.

[meanstwin]

If I went back.

I don't want to.

[deadly_ned]

What would you want to do instead?

[meanstwin]

Do you remember when I told you I had an offer for a different future, that I wanted to give my sister?

If I could have taken that, I would have.

[deadly_ned]

The trouble with the future is that we don't know if it's better or worse than the one we didn't choose until after we've chosen.

[meanstwin]

[Talking about this is as far as he can go, at least now. Ned has some idea of what happened, he knows that much already, so he doesn't have to explain everything.]

I already knew it would have been better. But I couldn't. I'd already gone too far. Even if the man I'd kidnapped told me I could go free if I let him go... enough had happened I needed to finish what I started. Even if I was going to die for keeping him locked up.

[Back home, Thomas might have been blamed for everything, might be the Raincoat Killer according to the papers, and while he doesn't know if that's all right with him, in a way, it's fitting. He's strange enough people would believe it about him.]

[deadly_ned]

It's...you don't need to make excuses. It's all right. We're going to...work this out, and we'll fix it. Just not all at once and not...today and we'll...hash out a plan once we've had a chance to get to know each other a little better.

I'm your warden. That...that means that I advocate on your behalf. So we don't have to look into what would have or should have happened yet.