Wynston finished up with his work on the console, grabbed something to eat, and then went to the spare quarters Vette helpfully indicated. Bare: a bunk with a thin mattress, a faint smell of cleaning chemicals. He sat for a while. He thought. He couldn't start with convincing Ruth of his own intentions until he had helped her through what had clearly been the raw ordeal of the day. But she wouldn't let him talk about the ordeal until she trusted his own intentions. If he tried to start on the day's events it would turn into work again. If he tried to start on himself…well, there was nowhere to start. No way to win.

Ruth, in spite of her efforts to meditate, kept coming back to the way Wynston had reached out to her, quiet, steady. Pained but not angry. The one good thing in that damned chamber. It seemed he was ready all over again to help her, whatever his reasons, and the thought that the requirements of her path might have cut off the last real chance – how cold he had been after she had finished the Entity's Dark Side ritual! – was far from the relief that her suspicions said it should be.

Wynston moved fast in an effort to stay ahead of his own doubts. He darted out into the hallway and around the corner, where he very nearly ran facefirst into Ruth.

Her hand bumped into his and she shied back, intensely aware that he had frozen in place. "Oh," she said, her voice too loud in her own ears. Frozen, cold, not safe, pointless, she shouldn't have come. "I was just…looking for you. I just wanted to say that, once the Baras matter is resolved, we should talk about future arrangements. With Intelligence, like you mentioned, because I do owe you." The job. The job was safe to talk about.

"I just wanted to say that I want this to go differently," blurted Wynston. Ruth looked startled. But she wasn't stopping him, so he raced to get it over with. "This isn't about work and it isn't even just about wanting you and as soon as I figure out what it is about I'll tell you. I want it to go differently."

She did, too. It was just strange to hear it this way from him of all people. With an effort of will she held her head high and maintained eye contact. "How would we make that happen?" she asked quietly.

We. She hadn't even hesitated in saying it. He pushed a hand across his hair, fiddling with the part. "Is there someplace private we can talk? That doesn't have a bed?" A new statement coming from him, but that easy natural thing would be a bad sidetrack. A useless script, albeit a tempting one. Being out of an actual bedroom context would force half a second's thought before falling into anything and he needed that.

That was a new statement coming from him. She wasn't sure what it meant, but it was Wynston asking, so she didn't hesitate to answer. "We can go to the bridge."

He followed her there. They sat on chairs a couple of meters apart, turned to face each other. Wynston leaned forward a little, resting his forearms on his knees and clasping his hands tightly to keep them from shaking. She looked pale and anxious and…intent. At least she was paying attention.

She watched him just sitting there. Being alone with him made her feel terrible all over again. "I'm sorry," she blurted, bringing a hand to her throat, where she had Force shoved him away days before.

"It's all right," he said reflexively.

"No. It's not." Everything about the tension in him now confirmed that. "You've only been looking out for me. It was a poor way to repay you."

Continuing to dismiss it was the practical low-maintenance thing to do, the thing that made people comfortable, that let him keep operating. "Please don't do it again," he said instead.

"I won't." Unless I have to, her mind added, but that was a reflexive echo she didn't feel like listening to right now. She didn't think she would have to do it again. She didn't want to.

Wynston silently ran through a number of increasingly nonsensical possible starting points in his head. Ruth was watching him. Finally he muttered "Sod it" and cleared his throat. "I don't know where to start," he said. "Just stop me if I've convinced you I've gone completely insane because I don't want to waste your time. I've asked you for something quite selfish on my part twice before. At times and places where you had the power to do me serious harm. Do you remember?"

Of course she did. "You said coming to me just recently was something you needed."

She'd been paying attention. He was a little surprised, given how understandably preoccupied she had been with her own problems. "That's right, and that's one."

Odd way to look at it, she thought. "It wasn't all that selfish, Wynston. I got something out of it, too."

"I'm glad. It meant a great deal to me. All of it, your listening especially." Not the work. And not just the sex. Listening, like she always did. Well, he was about to find out just how much needy rambling she could tolerate. "Do you remember the other time?"

"Quesh," she said immediately, and saw his red eyes dimming in confirmation before he said a word.

"Yes," he said, carefully suppressing specifics of the recollection. "Quesh."

Ruth remembered that he had bid her stand watch while he did something with some kind of chemicals in an out-of-the-way lab. He had asked her not to ask questions. She had done it, of course, because she had been trusting like that. And he, looking wearier than she had ever seen him, had finished his errand, thanked her, and walked away. "You never told me what was going on there."

"No. I never did. I'm not at liberty…" He cut the usual line short. "That's not true. I don't want to talk about it, darling. Maybe someday, but not yet." One tremendous humiliating and potentially painful rough edge at a time. "Suffice to say that your being there was what convinced me you were more than just a happy accident. You helped me, with no hesitation, at no benefit to yourself, at a time when…I didn't think that could happen. Now I'm asking you, a third time, for something very selfish, that would make a very great difference to me." He took a deep breath. "I want you to believe that what I'm about to tell you, however nonsensical, is as real as I know how to make it."

Ah. A lot of people wanted that. "Belief is hard to come by nowadays," she said.

Wynston hated that her smile didn't touch her eyes. Eyes like those were too pretty for pain. "I know. I can back off. I'll do the job if you can use me and shut up about the rest."

"No," she said hurriedly. He was on to something. She didn't know what yet, but she wanted to know, wanted to know why he was afraid. "Talk."

"Very well. I want you to understand this. It's very important that you do." He passed his hand over his hair again. "You said I've been manipulating you, trying to control you. It's the nature of our world for things to work like that, but it's different with you, and has been for a long time. Listen. Yes, I've thought about how to affect you. I've done it in what I hope are benign ways in the past. I've thought through how to make you smile. I know, as I observe with most people, what authorities to invoke over you, what guilt to invoke behind you, what dreams to invoke before you, to nudge you toward doing what I want. I know a dozen ways to hurt you before I've started moving and several more after. I know how to make you laugh, how to turn you on. I know what to apply to get any result I desire, except…you."

She stared. That whole oration was consistent with every comforting calculated move he'd made since he had come on board, but she couldn't see why he was telling her now.

Wynston blinked hard and took another deep breath. This, well past the point of no return, was where he realized for sure that he had no way of redeeming it, not to her. It was just a practical way of seeing things, but it couldn't possibly do her any good to know about it. "I forget where I was going with this. But…I know all these things and they're tools. They're things I've used on people to get results. It doesn't mean I'm insincere every time but I am always at some level aware. If that alone damns me in your eyes, there's nothing I can do. No matter how I feel about you, the ways I have to say it can all look like that. Because they can all be that. Maybe that makes them multipurpose. Maybe to you it just makes them inadequate."

Ruth thought about it. The whole description reminded her of other things, other applications. "That makes sense," she said slowly.

That was the last thing Wynston had expected to hear. "It does?"

"When you say it that way. My father taught me you have to know how to use anything and everything as a weapon. A tool, like you said. That's survival. What's worthwhile is knowing that things have two natures, and while you should never forget the weapon one you should never stop looking for the constructive one." She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them there. "It's just strange to make it so personal. I never thought I'd be applying it to things like 'making someone laugh.'"

Her expression said she didn't like it. She wasn't mad, but it wasn't comfortable for her. "Anywhere there's cause and effect there are tools to alter it," he said gently. "Exercising those tools isn't inherently bad."

That was an agent talking. "That's a very cynical thing to say."

"I know, darling. But it's all I have to offer." He caught himself. "May I still call you darling?"

She liked it better than most things people called her these days. In fact there were few things she would rather hear more. "I like it when you say it."

"I'm glad." Her. Stars. Sometimes the raw simplicity of the way she accepted him was…probably not going to last, he reminded himself. This wasn't what she wanted. Even if he tried being what she wanted he wouldn't have the expertise to make the experience right. Better to retreat. "So you know now. It doesn't have to change anything. I've always been on your side; I can still be your dashing secret agent. I'll make it as enjoyable as you want, you know I'd be happy to–"

"Don't be an idiot," she said. The old way wouldn't work anymore. It couldn't, not after the last few weeks. She wanted the charade but she knew she couldn't really keep it.

His heart sank. "I don't know how to be what you're looking for," he said softly. "The way I've been with you lately, just saying things, answering you as you come to me, it's probable I'll do something wrong. That's bad for business. You may get hurt. I may get hurt." He paused, examined his hands. "More than I care to think about." Then he looked back up at her. "If I stay tonight, if I try, I'm asking you to not make me regret it. It'll be in your power to do so."

Ah. Right. Humble begging was a technique. It was a good one. He'd never used it on her before, but he was clearly adapting to new times. Ruth swatted the thought down. If this was the story he wanted to tell, she would listen. For him she would listen. "Very well," she said with a small smile. "Permission to not be sure what you're doing, granted."

He blinked. "I didn't phrase it–"

The corners of her lips curled upward. Phrasing was adjustable. "Permission to have no idea at all what you're doing, granted."

The woman was actually teasing him. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Stop that! It isn't that simple!"

She felt a little jolt of guilt for setting him on the defensive. "You're not done letting down your guard, Wynston," she said gently. "I don't know enough about this to know what button to press. But I want you to be with me–" an understatement too vast for words– "and I won't punish you for it." She tilted her head. "So what do I use to make you stop worrying?"

The question slightly alarmed Wynston. She wasn't supposed to embrace the alternative worldview quite that enthusiastically. "That isn't something I traditionally let other people do."

Of course not. In most matters he probably never worried in the first place. "There must be something. If you know all these ways of doing things to me you've got to know what to do about you."

He shifted. "Hm. Get me out of the room with the crazy woman in it?" he muttered. He was joking. Mostly.

Her heart skipped a beat. He was joking. Right? "Not going to happen," she ordered. Just in case.

He looked at her, and stood up and extended a hand again.

She was free to take it this time. He was still waiting for her and so she came to him, and in the second they touched it felt like for once nothing at all stood between them.

"I'm sorry to be doing this to you now," Wynston said soberly. "You have enough to worry about."

No. Whatever this was, she cared too much to push it aside. Besides, it was something that didn't drain her like the battle did. "Compared with everything else, it's…it's sort of a nice change of pace."

"Watching a glorified con man's psychological meltdown is your idea of a 'nice' change of pace?" She really was crazy.

"That's what this is?" she asked him, feeling a little smile coming up. Maybe this degree of control qualified by his lights. "A meltdown?"

He thought that one was self-evident. "I really don't have any other word for it."

She looked him over. "You look fine to me."

He grinned a tiny bit. "Well, it's a very handsome meltdown. That can't be helped."

She smiled and hugged him. He hugged her back, tightly, while she pressed one hand to his chest and the other to his back. "Hm," she told his neck. "Not to be crude, but your heartbeat's been more relaxed than this during intercourse." By a dramatic margin.

"Not to be crude, but I knew what I was doing during intercourse." The sound of her answering laugh was comfortably cheerful. Which, under the circumstances, almost reduced him to tears on the spot.

Ruth held him close for a few moments, enjoying the closeness of him, then backed away. "It's getting late," she said. She kept her hand loosely in his and drew him down toward the door to her own quarters. She paused outside and gave him a questioning look.

No. No, no, that would still be a mistake. "I don't…it would confuse things again, Ruth."

Maybe it would. She didn't think so, but she could understand worrying. "We don't have to do anything. But I like having you there."

As did he. Always. Even when it was a terrible idea. "You're sure?"

She opened the door and led him in.

Wynston didn't look at Ruth, much, while she changed. He stripped off his own shirt and boots, then climbed into bed and wrapped his arms around her. Anything more would be a sidetrack, again, short-term sweetness that might very quickly turn into ruinous instability.

She settled snugly against him. His lean wiry body was always far more comfortable than it looked. It was something about the way he moved with her. "You do want me," she murmured.

"Well, yes. You do that to me." No use denying that one. Furthermore if he was going to go transparent it was no use stopping now; he had a feeling she liked it. "I want you pretty much regardless of the circumstances, up to and including, I suspect, my being physically on fire. That's just you."

She smiled. "So here's your flattery. And the other thing, offering to stay away, that was you establishing trust by foregoing the obvious exchange."

It seemed sad coming from her, but she delivered it so lightly. "That is certainly one way to look at it," he said.

She wondered. "Is it how you see it?"

"I see a lot of things, darling, though I don't put equal credence in all views. I see that this could be building trust. It could just be saving us some exertion at the end of a trying day. It could be some kind of test where I'm secretly trying to determine how much you want me and being disappointed that you haven't jumped me already." He smiled crookedly. "It could be that it really is enough that you're here, because you are everything I want, at a time when I'm desperate for it, and while that raises a great many questions I cannot find a single angle from which it makes sense to leave your side right now."

She blinked rapidly for a few seconds while attempting to get her brain back out of puddle form. "What I want to hear, very nicely crafted to make me putty in your hands," she said, faux sternly.

"Crafted from the truth." Choosing the wording didn't automatically corrupt the idea. He needed her to believe that. He had been choosing wording all his life. "Is the result mutually beneficial?"

When he said these things? "Mm. Yes."

"Then is it wrong?"

The convenient words, the advantageous result…it did make her suspicious. It sounded too nice. Then again, she wasn't sure what the real thing would sound like, if not this. She was quiet for quite some time. "No," she whispered at last.

They fell silent. Wynston consciously relaxed as much as he could. She didn't believe him yet. Not entirely. The knowledge was a small stabbing pain with every breath. But it was a pain that might yet be removed without major damage. Maybe.

Ruth didn't believe him yet. Not entirely. This was still just another thing she wanted to hear. Because being informed of the many and various half-truths a man like Wynston employed had somehow been deemed something she wanted to hear? It had felt right, oddly. Hmph. So it was something she hadn't known she wanted to hear. It felt like progress – at least he was playing on some of her new understanding instead of the old material – but it couldn't be as simple, as terribly direct as he made it sound. It couldn't be that simple, but he made it tempting.

This entire exercise was both terrifying and stupid, but he couldn't stop himself. No. Not true. He was choosing it. Not even because it felt good, because right now it didn't, except in the way she felt in his arms. He was choosing this because…because it was the only way to get her to let him in? And that was important in its own right. But there were too many unknowns and too few of them were protecting him. This was a mistake. He was dying to know what would come of it.

Wynston's heart rate wasn't slowing any. Ruth wondered why. She didn't think he was afraid of much. Was this whole session preparation for another dramatically reluctant betrayal, one that he genuinely felt bad about? Or was there some other risk going on? Was this latest batch of words, tools for a man like him, something she could do real damage with? Every possibility but one made her want to pull him closer and assure him that, absolutely, he was safe and wanted with her. But she couldn't just make the one possibility go away. Instead she held still and drifted toward sleep.

He told himself that her hesitation stemmed from her own situation, not anything about him. And he wished she could know that, absolutely, she was safe and wanted with him. But there was nothing more he could do to make her believe it. Instead he held still and drifted toward sleep.

While this started as 'I'm trying to justify myself in relation to something that isn't the job and I don't really know how and augh,' it ends up handing Ruth an important contextual anchor. She got her hard introduction to manipulation and the use and abuse of trust. She can't go back to ignoring that perspective now. She can only try to make sense of it.

Wynston is a guy who thinks those terms are totally normal. And goes about his life anyway, because really, what else are you going to do? You see the structures and machines of the world, you learn what makes them work, you recognize that you're part of that system too. And you go ahead and live.

Conveniently, this minimizes actual direct talk of feelings for the time being. Some sense of...reality? perspective?...has to be agreed upon before assertions of feelings start sounding credible again anyway. Maybe by then one of them will know what to say.