Work Text:
Betty’s sitting on the couch, shoes kicked off, feet up. She stares at the tracker affixed to her ankle, which binds her to her new 800 square foot prison. A half-remembered quote pops into her head, something about how it takes twenty years to build a reputation, but only five minutes to destroy it. Had it even taken that long for her?
Traitor.
Nobody said the words to her face, but she’d seen it in their eyes. Especially Carlos’. His warm brown eyes, which she’d enjoyed every time he turned them her way. They weren’t warm for her anymore.
Betty still remembered her first day on the job at the station. Everyone had been welcoming enough, sure, but she wasn’t a cop. She was just a tech geek - hired help. That meant she was always just a bit on the outside of that thin blue line. She’d encountered it before in her line of work, so she was prepared for it.
What she hadn’t been prepared for was Carlos. Cute, warm, smiling Carlos. He had gone above and beyond to make her feel like part of the team. He shook her hand, in front of everyone. Her second week, he’d bought her a coffee mug. A spectacularly ugly coffee mug: avocado green with patterned orange and yellow flowers on it, straight out of the 70’s. But Carlos had insisted that everyone needed an ugly office mug. She’d loved the mug, and used it every day for years - until the janitor accidentally broke it one night, while he was vacuuming around her desk.
She misses that mug. But when she thinks of it now, she can only picture it as a constellation of shards of green ceramic, scattered across the carpet. Betty had always considered the mug a symbol of her friendship with Carlos.
How prophetic.
Betty’s thinking of that mug when there’s a knock on her door. She ignores it. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone. But the knocker doesn’t give up, and eventually she hears her name being called through the door. The voice is muffled, but clear enough to determine its owner - it’s Carlos.
Betty sighs up at the ceiling. Of course. He’s one of the few that would know where she is at any given moment. House arrest and all that. “Coming,” she calls, and slowly makes her way to the door.
Her body feels tired, and heavy. There’s still so much to process. Couldn’t Carlos at least given it the night before coming at her again? She waits at the door, her hand on the knob, steeling herself for another round of guilt olympics.
“What?” she asks him as soon as she opens the door. She doesn’t open it very wide; she doesn’t want there to be any hint of an invitation. She may be a traitor and under house arrest, but this is still her home, and she has the right to be undisturbed, at the very least.
Carlos doesn’t beat around the bush. “Why?” he asks. Betty doesn’t think she’s ever heard so much pain packed into one little word before. She closes her eyes. She never wanted to hurt Carlos.
“Do you want a treatise on Liber8?” Betty opens her eyes again. She forces herself to stare Carlos in the eyes and not look away. “Maybe I could put together a slideshow.”
“Damn it, Betty,” he says, but he doesn’t sound angry. Just disappointed. “I just don’t know how anyone could side with them. The things they do… I don’t get it.”
There’s a noise down the hall, and they both look. It’s one of Betty’s neighbors, coming home with an arm full of groceries. He stares at Betty and Carlos, completely unashamed, as he unlocks his own front door as slowly as possible.
Betty sighs and steps back from the door. “If you want to talk, come in. We might as well not give my neighbor something to gawk at.”
She turns her back on Carlos, and after a second, she hears the click of the door. It’s so silent for a moment that she thinks maybe he just closed her door and left. But when she turns around he’s still there.
Carlos looks around her apartment, taking stock, eyes flitting from object to object, wall to wall.
“I don’t have any Liber8 stuff on display, Carlos,” Betty says. “I’m not a fanatic.”
“No, I didn’t - I just mean, everything looks the same as the last time I was here. Your birthday party, remember?”
A ghost of a smile passes over Betty’s lips. She wonders if Carlos will ever come to one of her birthday parties again. “Yeah, I remember. I remember the cake. German chocolate.” Betty also remembers having almost-too-much to drink, because that night, she’d wanted to kiss Carlos, and nearly had. But she hadn't, fortunately, because she’d only had almost-too-much to drink. “That was only a few months ago. I don’t redecorate that often.”
“I’m just wondering if there were clues. How could I have missed it?”
Betty winces. This is just the sort of confrontation she’d hoped to avoid. She sits on the couch in order to avoid looking at him.
“I’m not an idiot,” Carlos says. “I know some of the things that Liber8 says make sense. Corporations with the rights of people? I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Betty looks at the window. The sun has long since gone down, and the glass is dark. She can see Carlos’ reflection, of him standing behind her, still not very far from the door, as if ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. The window makes a poor mirror, and his reflection is muddled, but she easily calls up his face in her mind. She prefers the memory of him - the Carlos that smiles at her, and doesn’t feel betrayed by her - to the one scowling at her back.
“You must like it a little more than I do. Since I’m with Liber8, and you’re not.” If Betty had a lawyer, they would probably not be happy with the honesty she was giving Carlos. But what was the point of avoiding self-incrimination? She was already pretty thoroughly incriminated by outside sources.
She just doesn’t want there to be secrets with Carlos anymore.
He sits down, on the other end of the couch. Maintaining his distance.
“Liber8 is a terrorist group. They hurt people. They kill people.”
Betty looks at him. He’s searching her face for something. For what? Proof of her own murderous capabilities, maybe? Is that what he really wants to know?
“I never killed anybody, Carlos,” she says. “I know you think everything about me has been a lie, but it hasn’t, I promise. You know I could never do anything like that.”
He shakes his head. “I know.”
“Do I agree with all of Liber8’s tactics? No. I even find them a little scary, sometimes. But it’s nothing compared to how scary a future without them looks.”
“How does it look?” Carlos asks. He sounds… not quite curious, perhaps. But open.
“Bad,” she says. She slides closer to him on the couch, close enough to touch if either of them wanted to, but far enough away that Carlos doesn’t feel crowded. “Citizens stripped of all their rights. Corporations controlling everything. A police state where even the most basic freedoms are gone.”
He looks at her sharply.
“Police are meant to protect and serve. Right?” Betty asks.
Carlos nods. “Of course.”
“What do you think a world would look like where corporations manipulate people and politics like pieces on a chessboard, and the police answer only to them?” Betty swallows. She’s never really had to explain Liber8’s message to anyone before. Recruiting people for things has never been her strong point.
Not that she necessarily wants to recruit Carlos. She just wants him to understand. She’s always just wanted him to understand her.
“Not great,” he sighs. “I get the appeal. Really, I do. I guess I kind of have for a while. I just have to believe there’s another way.”
“Like what?” Betty asks. “Anyone who has money or power is on the other side.”
Carlos looks at her. She’s pleased that his eyes aren’t so cold to her this time. “I don’t know.”
“I never wanted to hurt you,” she says.
“I guess hurt is inevitable when you let people in.” His tone is one of resignation.
The admittance almost makes Betty happy - however perverted that is to hear. But the meager amount of happiness is dashed a moment later when she thinks that he will probably never forgive her.
She wants to cry; she can feel it building. But she doesn’t want to do it in front of Carlos. So she bites the inside of her cheek and looks away from him. After a hard swallow, she composes herself enough to talk again. “Any other questions? We might as well get it all out, right?”
“Would you have ever told me?”
Betty thinks before answering. Would she have told him? She thinks she would have. If anyone would understand, it would be him. “Yes,” she says truthfully.
He nods. “I don’t know why, but I believe you.”
She should let things lay there, but she has to know if things are irreparable between them. “Carlos,” she begins. She could kick herself for how small her voice sounds, but the words are hard to get out. She doesn’t want to know the answer to her question, but she needs to. “Do you hate me?”
“Hate you? God, no, Betty, I could never -” Carlos stops, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m super pissed at you. But I don’t hate you.”
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. They’re sitting on her couch now, a foot away from each other, in silence. The silence isn't exactly awkward, but it's not quite comfortable, either. There is a tension in the air. It reminds her of the tension she would feel with boyfriends after a fight. Tense, but with a sense of relief, too, because it’s over. There hadn’t been any raised voices between her and Carlos, but even so, their conversation had held more weight than any argument she’d ever had before.
“I should probably go,” Carlos finally says. “It’s been a long day.”
“Understatement,” Betty mutters. But she stands, ready to see him to her door. She only makes it a few steps before she turns around to face him. “Do you remember that mug you got me?”
Carlos looks puzzled for a second, then grins. “Yeah, wow. I had almost forgotten. I haven’t seen you use it in forever. Whatever happened to it?”
“It broke,” Betty says.
Their eyes meet, and Carlos looks sympathetic, the first time he he’s looked at her that way since this whole ordeal began. Betty watches as he clenches his jaw, obviously working something over in his mind.
She waits patiently.
“I know... you’re not just that one thing,” Carlos says finally.
Betty furrows her eyebrows in confusion. “What?”
He closes the gap between them and puts his hands on her shoulders. “No matter what anyone says, or what Dillon thinks, I know you’re not a terrorist.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re Betty Robertson. You’re good with computers. You like video games. You’re kind of a nerd.” Carlos smiles. “And you’re my friend.”
Betty returns his smile, feeling relieved. Maybe things will be okay.
Before she knows it, she’s kissing him.
She doesn’t mean to do it, really; not consciously. But it’s instinct - relief and affection and gratitude, all pouring out of her, and into the kiss between them. His mouth is hot against hers, his lips softer than she thought they would be. Betty pulls him to her, the stubble on his cheeks like sandpaper against her hands, and she loves it. He feels even more real against her than she ever thought he could.
Carlos doesn’t push her away, but she doesn’t take advantage of that. The kiss winds down, and she pulls back of her own accord. She lets him go.
He looks… confused.
“I think I need a detecting refresher course,” he says. “I am really not good at picking up clues.”
“Sorry,” Betty says, though if she’s being honest with herself, she’s not all that sorry. She might never get another moment alone with Carlos again. “It’s just, if I don’t prove my usefulness to Dillon, I might end up in a jail cell for the rest of my life. It kinda feels like I should live while I can.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Carlos says. He speaks with such conviction, such assurance, that Betty is nearly convinced.
“You can’t save everybody,” she says.
“I can try.” Carlos makes a move towards her front door, then stops again. “And don’t be sorry. We’ll fix this, and you’ll be free to go, and then you’ll have a long, happy life making this all up to me.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Next time I come by I’ll bring a movie or something. Maybe a comedy.”
“You’ll come back?”
“Yeah, well I don’t want you to go stir crazy while you’re under house arrest.”
He smiles at her, and she feels a hundred percent lighter. He leans in, and gives her a quick peck on the cheek. He finally makes it to the door. Once in the hallway, he faces her again.
“But remember, I’m still pissed,” he says. He tempers it with a quirk of his lips. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” Betty says. She watches his retreating form for a moment, then closes the door softly.
She leans her head against the door and exhales.
She’s not alone.