Survival Of The Fittest

He finished packing away the blanket he'd taken from the bed he'd woken up in, slung the bag over his shoulder and stood with his weapon in hand.

Colm looked down at Quinn as she said she was fine in the way that people who were obviously not fine insisted.

It seemed that for all of her carefully laid out plans, her calculations, her point-by-point argument for the correctness of her actions she was... still just a girl.

Confident, sure. Persuasive, yet to be seen. With some sort of charm, certainly. But she was scared and overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened and what she had done.

And in that moment, Colm felt something that he was very wary of giving in to, though he did want to. He stared at her a moment.

"You don't need to --"

He cocked his head back and looked her up and down.

Though it may come to cost him his life or the lives of others, though it may come back to bite him, he gave in just a little.

Colm placed his weapon on the ground. He reached around to the back of her neck and tucked in the tag of her coat, which had been sticking out. Colm picked a twig off her shoulder, then tugged harshly at the fabric near her waist so that the creases and wrinkles smoothed out.

"There. Now I won't be embarrassed to be seen with you," he said with more softness in his tone.

"I know that I don't need to," he said and picked up the axe thing.

"If you're ready, then."

((Colm Forsyth continued in Buckingham Green))

Quinn locked up as Colm seemed to suddenly reach toward her, not sure what to expect from him. Perhaps it would be some misguided attempt at comforting her, or perhaps he’d had enough of accepting her plans. Quinn gripped her bag tightly, ready to act, to do something drastic if necessary, only for him to get to work adjusting her jacket, which had grown rumpled and disordered through the night.

She stared at him then, baffled. Then, when he spoke, Betty surprised herself. She started to laugh, perhaps more than was really warranted by the remark.

“I… thank you.” She finally responded, slowly nodding. She had been right to think Colm was a good sort of person, the kind that could possibly help people out here, but there was an emotional intelligence in him that she’d underestimated.

Perhaps there wouldn’t be any harm in meeting back up with him after collecting her prize.

“Yeah. Ready.”

((Betty Quinn continues elsewhere…))