Marley

There was no way he would stop or keep her from talking. So he sat back and munched on his jerky while listening to her side of the story. He had gotten a far more succint version of Ermano , but the way Marley was telling her side. As she came to her conclusion, he had forgotten some of the story and had to go on what was still in his head. Some of what she had said was not true, but he would not insist on her being mistaken, that was a bullshit attitude anyway. She was passionate and was telling her piece, he , was there to listen. " No you can tell Zack to piss off , he needs to hear it. " Jimmy argued, with a smile. " Well , sounds like you made your life a lot more boring and with a target on your back for no reason than it was a thursday and you felt like it." he scratched his beard.

Smiling at his replies, Marley wasn't going to argue on those, he was right, or for the most part at least. Plus arguing with Jimmy was so much less fun than arguing with Zac and telling him to piss off. "Her son's man cave? Really?" She mocked. "Yeah sure, I'll help you and hide behind your back each time a council member passes by." Easy enough. "Don't you want to be a part of the council? So you can advocate my chaotic self without having to babysit me?"

Emmit was still kind of learning his lay of the land. For the most part, he knew where everything was but he still occasionally got himself turned around. Like right now. He was supposed to be dropping off something at the kitchens and even though that was literally the first place Fleet took him when he got here, for the life of him, he couldn't quite remember how to get there. He just remembered it was in the community center but even then, it felt like a ginormous place. So as he walked in he noticed a woman asleep at the tables and gently approached. Either she was actually asleep or she was just relaxing. "Umm, excuse me," he asked gently, only to instantly feel guilty as she poked her head up and he realized she had been sleeping. Whoops.

Marley shared an 'oh really' look at the dude when this one assured her he didn't mean to wake her up. "Riiight..." She didn't believe him, like not at all. She looked at him, toward the kitchens, and then back at him. "Left." She answered before standing up. "But I was fixing the door, so follow me, let's see if I'm still decent at my job." Marley joked, leading their way there.

~~*~~

The chairs... Marley gave a sleepy look at those, it was a nice idea indeed, a bit late but still nice. Hesitating to lay down there or go home, Marley chuckled at the question. "Oh no, I'm no raider." Going out was sadly still a touchy subject. "I'm the one who fixed the washer right there this morning or night or whatever." She explained before sharing a big yawn behind her hand. "Speaking of that, what time is it?"

Hands slipping into his back pockets, Ermano narrowed his eyes to the blonde when she approached. He wasn't sure what Marley would want to talk about after the tongue lashing she had received - the full cage match smackdown. However, when the small wooden box was thrown his way, Ermano quickly caught it. His expression changed. He'd completely forgotten their conversation about a little gift for his beloved.

A gift was always a nice way to be forgiven, Marley was pretty sure of that fact. "Yup." She replied with a quick smile. "I mean, depends if 5am is still considered part of the night." Sleeping was for the weak. "But anyway, do you like it?"

David had noticed that Marley had practically fallen asleep inside of the laundromat. David couldn't blame her - white noise was often the best way to lull someone to sleep. He would have let her sleep - if she wasn't looking like she was about fall off of her seat onto the floor. He carefully nudged her awake and waited for her to get her bearings before giving her a wave. "I said morning, sunshine. You're about a few seconds from falling off of your chair into a pile of dirty clothes."

The laundromat, right, she came to fix it in the middle of the night, again, it was a long story. "Yeah?" Now that he mentioned it, her neck and back were so sore because of her sleeping position. "Was I snoring?" She finally asked, it was a tricky question and she knew it but testing David seemed like a nice first thing to do this morning.

"You should've have, yes. " Colin concluded. "However, you cannot backpaddle now, so good luck facing the Council and if they kick you out, I'm sure you will survive and be okay on your own, though I think it would be a loss for Redwood. " he added.

Marley pouted at this idea of facing the council, already annoyed by it. "Of course I'll, I'm weirdly good at surviving, but that's nice to hear. Feel free to take my booze or chocolate, they're hidden in the east wall of the bedroom." She shared with a brief smile, watching him stand up. "Byyye Colin." She simply added and resumed her pep talk, aka her mini nap.

"I think the point is to not sneak at all, but notify that you go out and have someone with you. " Colin argued. "As for people I suppose you refer to the raiders... they are truly their own bubble, but even they can do the same mistakes , even if they are careful about leaving and returning. " And there it was, what truly bothered her. The way they talked to her. Not that she was in the wrong, that part he came to the conclusion she accepted, even that she was caught, but the way they had manhandled her, wasn't sitting well with her. " I think short temper sometimes comes with certain characters who think they are right and have some authority. However, I do not think they meant you harm , they wanted you to submit... which you do, but not the way they probably used to. "

"Yeah, it is. They kinda guilty tripped me about that, again, okay, it was fair, it didn't work but that's another problem. Anyway, I should've ask a raider to come I know. But my fav one was on the bench, and well, I was a bit selfish for a minute, the need to be alone, 3 years of bad habits, everything, pretty sure you get it." For almost never speaking with this dude, she was sharing more about her life that with most of people, maybe it was because she was tired, maybe it was because Colin was good at listening. "You're probably right, I asked them to, you know, put down the knives, leave my personal space, or something, it's a bit blurry but yeah... Tomorrow I'll probably don't care anymore. It's just the nerves." She sighed. "Geez, I'm sorry man, I'm kinda oversharing, you can ask me to stop, I can share my salt to someone else in this cemetery, I usually speak to Mikaela."

"I'll let her know , she has a potential other client. " Jimmy replied . He made himself comfortable next to her, as if the story was one to be listened to like a podcast. "Why would I lecture you ? You've already got the lecture. You cannot keep punishing someone over and over for a fault they did. Go ahead, explain the details of how you ended up in that situation. "

Marley stared at him for a long second. "Thank you." She just commented before sharing anything. Finally some common sense. "Alright so... You know me, sometimes I craft some things, weapons, traps, this kind of stuff. This time I did some smoke bombs, different types of smoke bombs. You had the basic foggy one, and the lacrymo one, or like I call it, the letal not so letal one. Spoiler alert, they both worked so fucking well Jimmy. But anyway, I did them but I couldn't just try them here, at least not the lacrymo one. So I waited, because of the Daybreakers episode and everything. And I waited. And the pot of gold thingy started. Raiders went outside, I was like, okay, maybe we're good, they seems more chill, they encourage people to do gifts and probably ask raiders about some random stuff. Plus we eat meat again, meaning the hunters are also active, we're should be good. Enough time had passed. New spoiler alert, maybe I was wrong okay. Anyway, I go outside, I double my usual precautions because well, shitty dudes are maybe in the region. So many miles, so many miles Jimmy, seriously I lost my cardio with Redwood, I felt so old. But again, anyway, I tried my grenades, huge success it worked like I wanted. I'm outside so I'm like, okay let's use this time to find this fucking little pieces of engine hidden deep deep in the engine. So I put apart different stuff. Victory by the way, I finally have what we needed for the cultivator and the washer. Happy Marley walked back to Redwood, all the precautions yada yada, and too many miles but hey I'm like "maybe this time I'll sleep once home." No tracks, no one, no problems, I'm a ninja Jimmy, a ninja. I see the walls of Redwood after I don't know how many hours. And on my last fucking stealth check, I do a one. It was like a cartoon, one branch, just one, it was ridiculous how noisy this thing was. A fucking joke. So of course, of course one second later Zack and Ermano are in front of me, knives out and pissed as shit. And at this point Jimmy, I was just like "fuck, two bad cops". The conversation goes wrong so quickly. I'm like, alright, let's be honest, no reason to lie. So I use the word "bomb". Huge mistake! It was like saying it at the airport, in front of two military dudes. Of course they saw me like some kind of terrorist after that. Of course! So we speak, I try to explain, I'm calm, they're not. So again, they don't like it. They both keep their stupid knives in hand. Uuugh... After one eternity of salty conversation. I'm outside and they go speak with the council or whatever. I go to the cemetery, meet Colin, who by the way, was cute, he feeded me and listened to all the salt I had this day because of the two alpha men attitude. Ike comes, I go to the council, I answer like two or three questions. Again Zack is pissed. At this point the temptation was just so fucking big man, I had to annoy him as much as I could. Plus I was pretty sure they were going to banish me for good at this point, because you know council of four, two military men in it, both really mad with what I did. I was like "okay it's doomed." But hey, plostwist, it wasn't! I love Rene, pretty sure she saved my ass. So yeah, that's it, I can stay, I can't go outside, it's my final chance yada yada. Oh they also searched my place for I don't know what, probably more bombs since I'm a terrorist. And yeah, that's it, moral of the story, don't go outside alone, don't use the word bomb, don't say to Zack to piss off." She finished with a big big big sigh, out of spit.

Colin listened, she seemed animated by what she was saying. "And why did you make the choice to go out alone and not with someone, thus avoiding this situation all together ? I understand you want to be independant, and sympathize that you meant well. However, you need to understand something. " he licked his lips, looking ahead towards the graves.

Marley pouted a bit listening to him, she had asked for no yelling, yet he was still lecturing her. "I know... that's why I didn't try any sneaking after the incident, I waited weeks. I thought it was enough... People where going out for this stupid pot of gold... It thought it meant that everyone had calm down, obviously I was wrong... So yeah, fine. My bad on this." She sighed. "And honestly? Just putting down the knives and not corner me would have been enough. Just this you know. Angry tone, angry words, barely listening, okay, why not, I get it. But the intimidating attitude, yeah no, it was fucked up."

"Well I am listening. " he offered. He could extend sympathy, that's all he was able to do in this moment, that and try to understand what she was going through. "Why did they come to a biased rhetoric ? What have you told them ? " he asked. He did not have the whole context for him to make the same or a different conclusion about her being dangerous.

Marley wanted to believe she was okay with everything that happened. She wanted to say that their attitude had no effects on her, that she didn't care about the knives they kept all along, that she wasn't worried about being cast out. But the truth was that she needed to externalize what happened. "Yeah?" She asked with a quick glance before looking back at her bread. "Why? I don't know, call it facial discrimination or something." She chuckled. "Casual manners don't look good for two angry and afraid military dudes." She stated and finished the egg. "Oh, and I told them what I did and everything. And I can tell you if you want but I'm tired and they already cast me out for... undefined time so... yeah, don't yell at me okay? okay." She paused briefly, looking at him to be sure before finally explaining herself. "I told them I left to try some potential weapons. Smoke bombs, this kind of stuff, that I was looking for some really specific engineering parts, the ones where you have to disassemble all the engine to get it. Also told them that I took a hell of precautions to not attract anything shitty to Redwood and...... yeah that's it." She finished. "Oh wait! I also told Zack to piss off, twice, because he was acting like the perfect dick. That was the fun part, he didn't like it."

Colin nodded. He understood the need to get away, because yes at times Redwood did feel like a prison. Too stationary. That is why he had picked a job outside of Redwood, but close enough to not make people worry. A job where he could be alone , and just tend to the dead by cleaning and mainting the graves. There were a million ways Marley could have found a position that allowed her outside , or just gone the normal route. He did not share this with Marley. She was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions, may they be good or bad. He thought of Alden, how he also should be in Marley's position for getting out, maybe the man had a reason. He did not know. "With a small community, you have to careful who you lie to and what the lie is about. Why do you say they believe only what they want ? " he asked, missing the sarcasm in her answer .

"I know, I know." Yet she barely cared, not trying to get people sympathy. She ate some bread before explaining herself on the other point. "They didn't really listen Colin, they easily jumped to the conclusion, this kind of things." She simply explained, not really complaining about it. "I guess they decided I was dangerous for this community as soon as they spotted me, so after this... it was just a biased rethoric play."