Breaking Bread

Participants:

delia_icon.gif nick_icon.gif

Scene Title Breaking Bread
Synopsis Delia shares a meal with one of the island's more aloof residents.
Date November 13, 2010

Pollepel Island


Dinner has already been served and there are a few rations left over. The number, however, is more than those that are set aside to go to the Infirmary, meaning not everyone has been served their daily bread, so to speak. The kitchen crew sets those aside and begins to clean the serving bowls and put away supplies.

Nick's lean figure enters the kitchen, the scent of fish accompanying him. He walks gingerly, and lifts the bundle of ten fish he's caught to the cook on duty. He's a city boy, but one of the training courses he was flung into back in France for Interpol was a crash course on survival — basic Boy Scout stuff, but handy here. He'd rigged a fishing pole and managed to make good on his vow to himself to earn his bread and board before he can flee.

Her curly hair is swept up into a messy bun, her clothing a mishmash of scavenged pieces that have been donated from various people, none of it matching. She looks frumpy at best, the larger layers hanging loose off her frame, the outermost a long sweater that reaches down to her midcalf.

She has her arms crossed over her chest and her head hung down and were it not for the smell of the fish, she might not have noticed Nick entering the kitchen at all. She's got a couple of trays balanced on on top of the other and is walking slowly toward the door when he arrives.

The 'priest' is quick to receive a weary smile from the young woman, the dark circles under her eyes are enough to show that she hasn't been sleeping. Whether it's at all or just not enough is the question. "Hey… you… look different since I saw you last."

"You too," he says lightly — a polite way of saying she looks like crap, which is pretty much the same for him. The cook at the sink smiles and takes the fish from him, murmuring that she'll clean them and use them for some sort of stew or soup or something soon.

Nick nods and moves away, glancing at the trays. "Lemme help, Red," he tells her, moving to take the top of the two precarious trays. "Infirmary? I heard you're one of our docs." He's still in the ridiculous costume from the day before — plaid flannel PJ bottoms, thermal shirt, skater shoes. He did somehow manage to procure a black tuque to pull over his bare head.

"Not docs… just the other nurse. Missus Young is sort of in charge, then there's me… and.. this really nice guy that can replicate is helping too." Delia breathes, as she smiles up at the hat wearing man. She lifts the stack of trays for him to take one of them and makes her way toward the hallway. "I'm glad you're… here."

"I mean.. not glad you're here but… glad you're okay." She flushes just a little, like she's been prone to doing since he first met her. "I guess… it would be stupid of me to ask if you still had your bible?" The way the nurse's voice cracks when she asks, it doesn't seem that she's making any sort of joke at his expense. Coupled with the expression of hope on her face, well…

Nick's eyes drop and he studies the ground as they walk, and he gives a shake of his head. "Thanks. I'm glad you're all right, too," he says, a smile curving his lips just slightly for a moment, before it fades. "No. I was just … just looking up something in the bible. I'm not religious. It'd maybe be easier if I was, you know, but…" he shrugs his shoulder — just the left, though the injury to his right is completely mended, finally, after so many weeks, thanks to Francois: all of his injuries earned before falling into 1941 are healed; all he has now are those emotional scars that Francois' power can't touch and those suffered on the 8th.

"I'm sure someone has one, though, if you ask around," he suggests, darting a sidelong glance at her.

Delia's eyelids slide down to shutter her vision most of the way and she shakes her head. "I haven't found one so far. Not many people were able to take more than what they consider essential." Herself included, she came with only the clothing on her back, as torn and bloodied as it was. "Some people, even less than that."

Nick's glance is met and held for only as long as it takes for him to look away, then she tilts her own back toward the stone floor. Her feet padding near silently as the two of them amble toward the final hallway that leads toward the infirmary. "It sort of looks like you're in the same boat as too many of us. Did… Do you want me to see if I can find something else for you to wear? Something besides pajama pants?" The redhead chances a small smile at him before adding, "Even if they're comfortable… I bet there's someone with an extra pair of sweats or something. The guy I was talkina about before, the replicator? He's bringing me some clothes, I could ask for some for you too. If you want."

Nick shrugs his shoulder. "I can probably find something too. We ain't supposed to leave for any reason before the 19th, right? It's the only reason I'm staying around. I'm not Evolved and I'm … whatever sort of shape of hell that city's it, I'm pretty sure I've been through worse." His voice sounds tired and resigned.

"But once I go, I'll get you a bible and get it back to you, okay? I got a speedboat, if it's still there, over on Staten. I can do some errands for y'all. Maybe get a truck and drive down past where we are, and come in from the other direction, so it's safer." He's thinking aloud as he walks.

He glances down at his pajama pants, and smirks a bit. "At least they're manly, right? Plaid ain't bad. They coulda been like… fluffy bunnies and hearts or something on 'em."

"Y-you're leaving?" A rapid series of blinks follows the stammered question. It didn't actually occur to Delia that anyone would be leaving the secure facility, even though before she came, she was planning on doing the same. "I'll uhm… I'll be sorry to see you go. You're probably one of the only people I know here that… I feel comfortable around." Somewhat. She still stutters when she has to talk to him, but they've had a few laughs.

In regards to the pajama pants, she just smiles and shrugs her shoulders. "I dunno, I sort of like fluffy bunnies. I have a pair with fat sheep on them… had… they're probably gone now. My uhm… my apartment was one of the ones in the raid that Miss Eileen was talking about."

That anyone would miss him gets a brow raised from Nick, and he smirks and shakes his head. "It's not for a few days. I won't leave 'til I know it won't put you folks in jeopardy, yeah? It's okay, Red."

He looks down the hall where some voices can be heard, a little child crying, and he shakes his head. "I can't stay here for a long time. I'd be more use to you if I can run supplies and stuff." His words are punctuated by a long growl of his stomach, brought about by the scent of the food emanating from the trays and he looks away, obviously embarrassed.

"More supplies would probably be the best thing ever… I don't know how many people have enough money to buy even a loaf of bread. I don't have enough to buy pocket lint." Delia's crooked smile and the huff of a laugh stop as soon as she hears that stomach growl.

Giving Nick a very stern look, the nurse purses her lips and turns back toward the dining hall. "Come on, you're going back and you're going to eat that tray while I eat this one. Missus Young can wait for a few minutes, I know she'll understand." Her normally gentle and timid voice takes on a rather commanding tone when she's looking after the well being of another and after a few steps, she pauses and waits for the 'priest'. "Come on."

"No. I can do without," Nick says, shaking his head and continuing in the direction of the infirmary. "There's sick and hurt people who need this first." His voice is stubborn in his own way. "Besides, it'll get cold. Easier to reheat one bowl for me than six or whatever for them, yeah?"

He pauses to look back at her, a little amused at the commanding tone she takes. "So I thought you were bookshop girl, but you're a nurse?" He takes another step in the direction of the infirmary, trying to reel her in with conversation.

"They've already been fed, these are for Missus Young and me. If it makes you feel any better, I'll give my tray to her and you can have mine. I'll grab an apple or something." Delia's blue eyes sweep over Nick's significantly smaller frame and back up to his eyes as she stares into them. "I can afford to lose a few pounds, you can't." It's something of a small kindness and something she can afford to gift him right now.

Following him into the infirmary with the tray, she nods and gives him a sheepish grin. "I worked at the bookstore sort of… well my mentor used to own it. She pointed me there, I thought it was to avoid registration but I think it was to make me feel more comfortable with what I am."

Seeing Megan busy with an injured Ferryman, Nick gives her a nod and moves to set down the tray of food on a small table, then shakes his head at Delia. "And I can as easily walk down and get another tray, Red," he says stubbornly. "I'll survive. I always do. I promise I won't go to bed without my supper, Mum."

Er. Mom. A muscle in his jaw twitches, and he points to her tray.

"You. Eat." He leans against the wall for a minute, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Mentor? That blond lady? She's one classy dame."

The slip of the tongue is completely missed by the redhead as she sits with her tray and looks up at him. "How about we share then? I won't accept no for an answer." The stern look she gives him is enough to remind someone of a mother, that's for sure.

Without waiting for his answer, she begins dividing everything on the tray into two equal portions. If Nick does manage to scavenge more food later, she'll probably charge him a redhead tax or something and skim a little off the top. Her half of the stew is spooned into a plastic cup and the bowl is slid nearer to him. The bit of crusty bread is also torn in half with him securing the larger portion. "Lydia? No… she's not my mentor… My mentor died. At least her body did. I guess she's sort of a ghost now."

Nick stiffens at the word ghost. It's too similar to what Eileen told him, and he narrows eyes at her warily. "Your mentor isn't a bird, is it?" he asks quietly, picking up the bread and dipping it into the stew. He'll go get his ration and bring it to the infirmary later, leaving it there in its entirety. The meal in front of him, after all, is more than he's eaten for the past several weeks — in Treblinka, he had much the same, a crust of bread, a bowl of soup — only this soup is more than just gruel.

"Not unless by bird you're speaking in slang for a woman. She was the owner of the bookstore before Lydia. Hokuto Ichihara." Enough people know the Japanese woman's name that Delia doesn't feel uncomfortable talking about her anymore. She gives Nick a rather jovial grin before digging into her own portion of soup, leaving her crust of bread for later.

There's a small pause as Delia studies Nick with a small squint. "Where have you been?" Not all my life, nothing of the sort. "I mean… I haven't seen you around in a little while and we used to run into each other a bit more often than not. You know?" She might be addressing his sudden weight loss.

"Yeah, I seem to run into people a lot," Nick says with a shake of his head, looking away, studying something intently that turns out to be a bare wall. He shrugs, and looks back, glancing down at his hands, and tipping his head as he notices that his never-quite-healed scabs on his knuckles from Logan's sword and then the bar fight are completely gone.

"You prob'ly wouldn't believe me if I told you, Red," he says. "And it's nothing I really wanna talk about." There have been whispers about the young man wearing a Nazi coat and having no shoes when he'd been pulled onto one of the Ferry's evacuating boats; with his pale eyes and shaved head, whispers of Neo Nazi have been tossed around, yet he's been polite to everyone, if withdrawn and aloof.

"I dunno… I'd believe plenty of things…" Like this one time, in Vietnam, Delia met Mister Linderman himself. She doesn't voice it though, like so many other things she keeps quiet about. "I saw a guy explode out of another guy's pants. That's something you need to see to believe. I mean… This guy was wearing pants… and then all of a sudden there was another guy coming out of the same pants. While he was in them."

Whatever those whispers were, Delia hadn't been listening or paying attention. Too mired in her own work, she didn't have the time to gossip. "I think there's a lot of things that I've seen that could fit into a pretty good collection of funniest home videos." Most of them were things she did to herself.

Nick looks amused and shakes his head, picking up his spoon to shovel some stew in his mouth. "Nothin' here woulda been on Funniest Home Videos. More like… Schindler's List sorta thing, I'm sorry to say. Let's just say I was a prisoner for a bit, and this meal? Halfsies as it is? Is like a fuckin' buffet."

He swallows and tears off another chunk of bread, then glances down. "So, thank you, I guess, is what I mean."

The example given for Nick's experiences earn a sympathetic look from Delia, who stops eating and holds her cup down at her lap. "I— I'm sorry," the meek apology for his trials and tribulations seems a paltry offering.

Looking behind her, she spies Megan eating alone at her own tray and studying one of the medical books brought along by Lucille. She's busy for the moment and there isn't anyone calling for immediate help, so Delia gathers up the tray and straightens the rest out. Her half of the bread is laid down by the rest of Nick's and a timid, "I'm not going to eat it anyway… you take it" is given.

Black brows knit together and forehead rumples as Nick looks up in surprise. Compassion. Mercy.

He doesn't deserve either.

Suddenly he's on his feet, wincing slightly at the pressure on cut soles, and he picks up the tray to bring back to the kitchen. Her bread is picked up and placed firmly back near Delia.

"No."

And with that he's on his way out the door.


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