An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
After life as a not not spy working for the CIA, Derek is living a quiet life out of the way of the world miles outside a tiny mountain town. It's the kind of 'almost a hermit' living that helps heal some of the psychological and emotional wounds that are big enough to still wake him up at night. Then a stranger moves in to the only other cabin on the lake, shattering his years of solitude.
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More irritating than the guy’s mere existence is how helpless he plays himself off as. It’s an inane, insane, kind of helplessness, always presented with wide smiles and a warm voice and a soft, self-deprecating laugh. Derek overhears him at the hardware store asking for help identifying lumber sizes (the stickers clearly say the dimensions). The same day he’s at the grocery store asking Selene, the elderly woman who runs a tiny yarn shop, where the coffee isle is and if they sell chicory (who the hell drinks chicory?). The next week at the local steak restaurant he overheard the guy refuse a menu and say, ‘Give me whatever you think is best on the menu’ (who does that?).