IC CONTACT

[ukan]

Leave a message, knock on his door, etc.

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[yedinyy]

"Do you think you'll ever do it, Lark?"

It's a surprisingly intimate question coming from her, but the way she says it it sounds light.

"Graduate?"

[ukan]

Lark could make his answer equally light. But he's had to think about this a lot lately.

"Between you and me," because he always lies about this to Alec, to Steve. "The Admiral seems to hate what I am. He wants me to go back to a set of ideals that I left behind years ago. He wants me to share the same morals and values the wardens have. And I simply don't. I can't. If I tried, I'd end up dead at home anyway. So...no. I'll be here until he sends me home again."

[yedinyy]

"And wardens would tell you you won't go home, but you will," she nods, getting more exasperated by the second.

[ukan]

"I'm trying to catalogue the different answers they give and compare them to the wardens who've graduated at least one inmate."

But that's a topic he has other people investigating.

"Do you want me to just wait outside for toy?" A leap of faith he would never offer most people. Certainly no one else on board now.

[yedinyy]

She could help him with that-- she's been asking those questions, but she won't give the answer unless he asks.

The offer makes her smile, and she reaches to squeeze his lower arm in thanks. "Thank you. Yes, that would help."

Because it's all hidden, too, and the fewer people know the better. "Ten minutes, tops."

[ukan]

He smiles at her, and he leans against the all opposite her door, pretending to fiddle with his communicator. Really he's just listening.

Well he gave her some faith, that doesn't mean he's not still curious. And since no one on board knows how strong his hearing actually is, he enjoys taking advantage of it.

[yedinyy]

There's the creaking of a floorboard, a soft grunt when she unearths the files she hasn't updated recently, the less urgent ones. Rustling, then the sound of the floorboard being returned to its position.

The next few minutes are scratching of a pen on paper, the decoding process. All in all, she's out in five minutes, and then she invites him in. It's all hidden away again.

"We can sit here, but I don't have much to drink."

[ukan]

"That's fine. I had plenty in the library," he promises, and he picks a seat based on watching her to see which one she consciously or subconsciously prefers him to be in.

"Is this a place you knew at home?"

[yedinyy]

She does that herself, quite consciously, by sitting down on the bed .

"It's my bedroom," she tells him, as she gets settled, leaving him the comfortable chair by the bed.

[ukan]

"It's nice," he says, and means it. His eyes linger on the decor and he smiles at the rug hung behind her bed. "My friend had one of those in his living room. His parents' living room."

But his gaze turns back to her, serious but eager. "Who did you pull up for me?"

[yedinyy]

"I wad probably born around the same time," she laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "Even if we're the same age now."

She hands him the file, with Eggsy's name over the top. It has his usual whereabouts, when he's in which location and what for; what he can do, how strong he is, in what; and details about his past that she's scrounged up.

[ukan]

Lark reviews it fast, committing as much to memory as he can. "He's my friend's warden so I see him sometimes. He's one of those strange people who can't shake off their optimism and can't commit to cynicism."

It makes Eggsy hard to predict, but interesting. Lark would be more involved if not for Alec.

"What do you make of him?"

[yedinyy]

"He's seen a lot, but he's still more or less a boy," she shrugs. It's why she's chosen his file: he isn't harmless, but he has such good intentions. She doesn't bear any ill will towards him.

And he's clearly grown up lacking things, he's clearly experienced something awful, but compared to what Elizabeth has seen not a lot gets her to flinch.

"He's a good kid. Very optimistic, but honest. He acknowledges that they mess up."

[ukan]

Lark nods because that's more or less his take on it, too. What really has his attention is the file itself. How thorough it is.

This is not something a travel agent mother of two would have a knack for. But then, someone as clean as Elizabeth seems wouldn't be here anyway, he's always known that.

"He doesn't have much influence with the other wardens, though."

[yedinyy]

She knows that, and it's a bit of her own self that she's letting show-- just like fighting Alfie in the ring, just like the post she'd made with Nina. These aren't things a travel agent and mother of two should be doing, but then again that doesn't define anyone.

"He doesn't. But there's very few wardens that really know how to influence the rest of them. They're all insular."

[ukan]

"Having even one on our side would be good. But I believe there are more who can be flipped." Ricki's term, which Lark has borrowed shamelessly. "How many do you know well?"

[yedinyy]

She shrugs lightly, runs her thumb along her lower lip.

"'Well'? I don't know. Not a lot. Ricki Tarr-- he's changed less by graduation than I think other wardens believe."

[ukan]

"He sees graduation differently than anyone else I've talked to." Lark agrees. He likes Ricki rather a lot but that means he also doesn't trust Ricki outside of specific, agreed-upon boundaries.

[yedinyy]

"He also doesn't belong with that group as much," she adds, curling a strand of hair around her finger. She doesn't trust Ricki either, their politics differing so drastically and all, but she likes parts of him. He's clever and sharp and unapologetic, which is a quality she can respect even in an enemy.

"When I had problems with my last warden, he helped. He reacted in a way that I didn't expect any warden to."

[ukan]

"Really? What did Ricki do?" Elizabeth seems expert at getting along. If she had a problem with a warden, Lark is eager to have some clue as to what it was.

[yedinyy]

"He made me feel like my anger was justified, like I could actually be as angry as I was. They all talk about these rules, and how hard it is for them, that they don't get a guide book--"

She scoffs and shakes her head.

"It's no excuse for what Beyond did. And Ricki actually gave me a way to not stand idly by."

[ukan]

"The 'rules' they complain about would mean more to me if they actually existed, but they don't. The wardens create them. They base them on their experiences from home and then act like they're bound by them." It's funny to Lark.

"Beyond?" That's a name he hasn't thought about in a while. "I'm not even sure I want to know, but what did he do?"

[yedinyy]

She looks at him for a second-- he's very, very good at acting casual when he really wants to know something, she thinks. That's alright. So is she, and in this case she doesn't care about letting him know.

"He broke into my cabin to read my file, after he'd given it to me and told me he didn't need to read it in order to be a good warden to me. He told me to trust him to respect my boundaries, and then crossed them in the worst possible way."

And she nearly shot him over it.

[ukan]

"It's nice to know he didn't really change at all from inmate to graduate. He'd let people beat him half to death before, and then he abused his power. Nice." He hates that it happened. He's also glad that it did. One more piece of evidence for him and the other inmates to hold onto.

"What did you end up doing?"

[yedinyy]

It makes her roll her eyes a little-- typical. They'd started out a little fond, interested in each other at least, but it hardly ended that way.

"I almost shot him on the spot," she admits, breezily. "But before I could do anything else I went into a coma, and he left."