Work To Be Done

Who: Adam and Rebekah
When: midmorning
Where: the farm

She'd started walking some time shortly after the sun had come up, bundled into her big coat and an old pair of rubber boots she'd found in the closet. They were too big for her and clomped over the pavement, but she hardly noticed. It wasn't even necessarily that cold, but the more Rebekah could cover up, the better she felt. She'd done a circuit of the town, eyes crawling over everything. It seemed that once she'd ventured out into the seemingly sprawling space they'd been given, her house felt too claustrophobic. She eventually followed Park Road North until the landscape began to change. Just two houses on either side and then ... open land. Farther down there looked to be a barn, and Rebekah headed in that direction. She'd seen something about a farm, but didn't realize there'd be animals too.

Adam was still trying to put together a notice to post up on his journal, asking for people to help out with the harvest. He'd been staring at it for days, not happy with it. He'd deleted what he'd written several times to start again. He just wasn't good with words, not written words anyhow. He had to get something up soon though. But not right now, he decided, standing and walking away from the computer, headed outside. Fresh air would clear his mind. Work would focus it. He headed out across the farmyard, empty bag on his shoulder as he headed for the fields. He'd hand pick some of the corn - he might not get very far, but it would be something to do and keeping busy was important.

Movement from one of the houses caught in the corner of her eye and Rebekah stopped walking. For some reason she hadn't expected any people out here, either. The farm back home was always nearly deserted, but her for her and her father, and for a second, the man walking looked much shorter and rounder. Before he really came into focus. Her feet picked up again even before real recognition solidified. His name had been in the directory, but 'Adam' was so common and she hadn't been able to remember his last ... but that was definitely him. She just followed, not calling out yet.

He wasn't looking round, focused on where he was going and what he was doing - single-minded as he almost always was, intent on his purpose in life, keeping things simple and uncomplicated. There was no complication in life - you just took it as it came.

She wasn't in any huge rush to get his attention. Though her legs were much weaker than they had been back when she traversed such uneven ground regularly, she was slowly catching up, eyes on the man's back. She felt utterly invisible for a moment, as though she were just an observer, disembodied and without real consciousness. Like a movie camera, just taking things in. It didn't really bother her. It was kind of nice, in fact. Still, when she got close enough that he'd probably hear her, she spoke. For practicality's sake, circumstances had made for jumpy people. "Adam."

He turned, as he heard his name spoken, stopping as he saw Rebekah, though he didn't close the distance. "Hi - I didn't know you were in town," he told her, as usual both glad to see her and slightly on guard. He never knew what their meetings would bring. Was she here to see him? Or did she just happen to be passing?

She stopped walking as he did, so the space between them stayed where it was. She hadn't expected any gleeful sort of reunion, though he was the closest thing to a friend she'd made in that place and she'd thought she disappeared rather abruptly. The calmness of it settled her a bit more, even. It was familiar. "Yes, well. Their strong recommendations were effective. Are you well?"

"I am - no worse for wear. Settling in," he told her, inclining his head a little to the positive. "May I ask..." He paused for a minute. He always ended up erring on the side of formal with her. "Where did you go?"

Bekah shifted from one foot to the other. "Just a room, I don't know where. No doors, no windows, just ... a bed and books, mostly. As a punishment. The exercise, I couldn't do it for long enough," she halfway explained. Which didn't go into at all what a combined heaven and hell that had been, but it wasn't something she needed to talk about much anyway. She paused for a second. "Glad to see you are in one piece." It wasn't exactly warm, and she didn't look all that thrilled, but she rarely did about anything, and it was the closest she would come to saying she was glad to see him, period.

The exercise test had been nothing to Adam, who'd worked all his life at manual labour. True, he'd found it pointless and rather dull, but he'd done it - trials were there to be born, after all and one did not question 'why', that was not the way. The diets, he'd found harder. Some days what they allowed him to eat was contradictory to his beliefs and he'd gone hungry. But, again, it was a trial, a punishment to be born for whatever reason, so he'd taken his hunger and been thankful for it. "It's good that you're safe," he told her. "I thought you had been removed - I haven't seen anyone else in town who was removed before the end of the experiment. I know there are others around though," he added.

She nodded slightly. She knew they were there too. Outside of Ben being her neighbor, she'd seen them on the journal system. Even those who they were told were dead, which she wasn't quite sure how to feel about. Not that it truly mattered one way or another. Very little did. Her blue eyes ticked over him a bit belatedly, and then over his shoulder to where he was going. "You work the land here?" she asked, seeing that she was probably interrupting just that. Which reminded her in a jumbled nostalgic way of the -- sometimes heated -- talks they'd had while working in the vegetable garden before it was destroyed.

"Yes - they asked me what I would care to do with my time here. This is what I chose. It seemed the obvious choice, nothing else - I never wanted to do anything else with my life," he admitted to her. Hard work, a simple life, taking what was given to him and asking no more.

Rebekah was silent for a stretch of heartbeats, considering. Besides typing fairly quickly, what else did she know how to do? She couldn't very well earn her keep sculpting. Her gaze ticked back in the direction of the barn. "Do you have help?" she asked quietly, still looking off.

"Yes - there are others. Farm hands, and a man who oversees," Adam told her. Though there weren't enough of them to handle the harvest without difficulty. "We could do with more help though - the harvest is here and between that and the day to day running of the farm... I was going to ask for volunteers, people to help out for a few days." Since the apparent owner of the farm seemed unconcerned that his harvest could potentially rot in the fields. Adam didn't understand that, and so, in his usual way, he'd just taken over responsibility for the harvest.

It was good to hear that he wasn't swinging it all himself, because she knew he would. Not many people lended their hands to the garden back at the mansion, and though this was a much bigger scale ... "Then I will tell them this is what I want to do," Rebekah said decisively, glancing at him before she started to walk again. It was in the direction of the barn. She may as well start right off, and she may as well start with the animals.

Adam followed her. "Pardon?" he asked, staring a little. He hadn't expected her to do that. She'd always seemed such a frail little thing, though stubbornly determined in his experience. But still - it hadn't even occurred to him to ask for her help with the harvest, though she'd helped him with the garden back at the house.

"I will tell them this is what I want to do," she repeated herself, louder, hands coming out of her pockets and thin shoulders squaring in the oversized coat. There, she had something to occupy her, as her art was floundering so badly. It was good, and even though she probably wasn't in the shape for it again just yet, she'd get there. Maybe it would stimulate her appetite again. "You doubt me?" she asked, looking over at him seriously.

"No," he told her. "Not doubt - just surprise," Adam told her, the truth as always. "You obviously hadn't considered this before now," he pointed out, though that was largely assumption.

"I wasn't aware this was here in this fashion before now," she said, pulling open the barn door with authority and walking inside. The familiar scent of farm animals hit her as her eyes started to adjust to the lowered light and she moved away from the entrance to make room for him. "I grew up on a farm, Adam, it's not so surprising."

She didn't look like someone who had grown up on a farm though. He had to remember that. He shouldn't underestimate people. "Your help would be welcome," he told her, changing the subject very slightly as he followed her inside.

It had been a lot of years between then and now, but still the barn she'd never been in felt familiar. Rebekah scanned the stalls holding the few animals that had been bedded down there. A few pigs, a couple of horses, some chickens, and at least one cow. The coming winter was going to be hard on them. She tromped in the other direction, heading for the storage rooms for feed, without saying anything else to him.

He didn't follow her, assuming that he must have upset her or something. He really didn't understand Rebekah at times - he'd known her for months, yet she was still a mystery to him. At times, he thought they were friends. At times she simply scared him. And then there were times such as this where she puzzled him. But, if she wished to work here then she would and he should let her get on to that.

It didn't take Rebekah long to find the large container that had the oats feed in it for the horses. She scooped two buckets out and re-emerged loaded down with them. She looked at him and the bag he had slung over his shoulder still. "Feed them with me and I'll help you with whatever I interrupted you doing," she suggested. Back home -- or what had been home for her formative years -- the pigs ate before anybody else did, breakfast for the livestock came before any other work.

Adam nodded, not needing the bargain - but it only made sense to work together. He let the bag slip to the floor and stepped forward to help her with the feeding. "As I understand it, people who work permanently on the farm are offered rooms up here - I don't know whether that's a compulsory arrangement or not," he told her.

She hung the buckets where each horse could get to their own, feeling a small heart-flutter at just that much physical activity and ignoring it. If she exhausted herself, maybe she would eat. She needed to. "I will see what they say," she said to Adam, glancing over at him once or twice. "Would you want me up here?" It wasn't a forceful question, but there was already some defensiveness in it. She was aware that theirs wasn't the most comfortable of companionships all the time, to put it mildly.

"It's not my choice," Adam pointed out, moving to help her out. "It may be more convenient for you, or, possibly, they may require it. I know I was told that we weren't allowed to change lodgings without permission." Adam had never really bothered with that anyway. All he needed was a room in which to sleep, he asked for and wanted nothing more.

It was an Adam-answer, and she'd more or less expected it. She knew how to spot them, from having more conversations with him during her time in the house than anyone else. But she accepted it without anything further. It wasn't his choice, and if they asked her to move, she would. And that had nothing to do with how empty and hollow her own house felt. She didn't need company, that was ridiculous. It would just be more convenient, especially for morning chores. As the animals started to eat, her mind added in noise that could only be bones crunching, and she caught a glimpse of a red glow from one of the pig's eyes, but didn't react to it. Hell was with her, no matter where she would be. Only a matter of a few months now. Where she was wouldn't matter for long. Rebekah fell into working silently again, mind drifting away.

"Where are you living at the moment?" Adam asked her after a moment or two of silence. He moved from the feed bins to straightening up where someone had carelessly left tools out of their place, always on the go from one job to another without a second thought.

It took her a second to answer, as she had to remember what street she was on. It wasn't something she paid an overabundance of attention to. "On Main Street. House number seven," she told him, surveying their work. Everyone was eating happily. Occasionally she envied animals, though it was a sin. "Ben is my neighbor. From the house."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "You have a house to yourself?" he asked, curiously - he'd been assuming that people shared, but if that was a case and she was sharing with Ben, then 'neighbour' seemed a strange choice of phrase.

"Yes," she said, looking over at him. "It's too big, I don't like it." Even though she'd intended to use one bedroom as a studio, it was too much space for her. Too many places for demons to hide and torment. She turned to head back for the barn door, as their work seemed to be done here.

"A whole house for one person does seem excessive," Adam agreed, putting the last tool back in place and securing it before picking up his bag and following her out. "I was going out to pick corn," he explained. "There's more than we can cope with and mechanical harvesting seems to be lacking here. I've been trying to put together a request for help from other people in the town, but I'm not sure how to word it," he added.

Rebekah listened as they walked, falling a step behind to let him more or less lead the way, since she wasn't sure where he wanted to start. "I'd just say exactly what you just told me, and ask for volunteers. But I wouldn't expect an overabundance of them," she added, watching the ground in front of her boots.

"I don't expect many - that was why I was struggling over the wording. To try and attract as many people as possible, but, if people here are like people at the house... It pains me to speak ill of others," he admitted, so that he didn't have to speak ill of others. "I met a guy in town - Jeremy. I told him what I was intending to do and he simply wished me luck," Adam told her, sounding disappointed.

He didn't have to finish off that sentence anyway; she knew what people at the house had been like. Not that she'd been terribly useful herself a lot of the time. So Bekah just didn't comment. "I don't believe the idea of hard physical labor in possibly bad weather appeals to many," she said a bit sardonically. "But we will do what we can." Which was about as optimistic as she got.

"We do - that is all we can do," he agreed with her. "I can only assume that everyone will believe that this town will be supplied from outside. And maybe they'll be right - but still, letting food rot in the fields would be a sin."

Rebekah nodded her agreement, even though he wasn't really looking at her. If they starved through a winter, they would learn. It wouldn't end up mattering to her anyway, she'd be dead by the end of December. It gave one a certain kind of freedom. "What else is grown here besides corn?" she asked, glancing over.

"Vegetables, mostly - though a lot of those have been harvested already. It seems kinda touch and go - the organisation here is awful, it's like it was being worked, then whoever was working it went and a new batch of people were put in place. Maybe not, it's hard to tell, mostly I've just been getting on with things." Trying to work out the past didn't help the future, after all. It was just a waste of working time.

So they lacked grain. Rebekah was less experienced with the food part of farming, though she'd worked her mother's small vegetable garden, and then the one at the house. Pigs were more her specialty, which she found oddly fitting. It was comforting, and labor she didn't mind at all. She found herself actually looking forward to this a bit. "Let me know what you'd like me to do, and I'll do it," she said, making a gesture at the field they were approaching.

Adam reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife, handing it over. "You can either cut them off, or twist and pull - cutting may be easier for you," he advised. It was his only knife, but he was strong enough not to need it and he'd developed the knack of doing without as a teenager.

She took it and nodded. She was positive that she wouldn't be able to keep up with him, but that was okay. It wasn't a race. Rebekah held the knife as they kept walking, thumb sliding over the flat part of the blade absently.

Adam lapsed into silence as they reached the field and he immediately set to work, twist, pull, bag, twist, pull, bag. He found peace in this kind of work, the kind of peace that he never found elsewhere.

Rebekah started a little ways down from him, pulling and cutting. It was a bit awkward at first, but she fell into a rhythm easily enough and kept it up, moving down the row and bringing armfuls of corn back to add to his bag. It was just the tip of the iceberg, but the movement kept her warm and it was something fulfilling to do.