Eighty-Five Kinds

Participants:

elisabeth_icon.gif odessa_icon.gif

Scene Title Eighty-Five Kinds
Synopsis After a rough re-entry, Elisabeth connects with Odessa.
Date January 13, 2019

Secure Facility, Kansas City, MO


One of the therapists has Aurora in the room for an evaluation, and Elisabeth can't help the fact that she's sitting in the lounge area outside that door with her knee bouncing. It's taking everything she has not to eavesdrop — and for the first time, maybe she's having a glimpse of what's going to happen when Aura's a teenager. She's going to have to allow the child privacy, after all.

It gives her time to check on others, though. Evie is weighing heavily on her mind, and since she has the time available, she goes looking for Odessa's room. Directed there by one of the guards, she knocks lightly just in case they're both getting some rest.

The door opens after a moment to reveal a rather tired looking Odessa. It should come as no surprise, given that she's experienced tremendous loss. Loss of her mother, her brother and sister-in-law, her friend, her ability, and soon, her freedom. Her eyes are red and puffy and ringed with dark circles. In many ways, she looks like the Odessa that Elisabeth came to know. Grief-stricken and barely clinging to hope.

But she manages a smile for a long-lost friend at her door. "How's Morgan?" she asks, probably for the last time, before stepping into the room and opening the door wider, gesturing for Elisabeth to step inside.

The laugh that pops out of her surprises Liz and she steps inside the edge of the door, simply wrapping her arms around Odessa. "Jesus fucking Christ, lady," she whispers, hugging the other woman with an almost-desperate strength.

It's not one she's going to let go of for a long few moments, either. When she does step back finally, there are tears in her blue eyes. "It is so good to see you." Even with the sorrows weighing on both of them, Elisabeth tries to hold on to the good things too.

"You too." Odessa returns the embrace with a strength she didn't realize she still had in her. She lets it linger, grateful for the positive interaction. Though she gets plenty from the little girl asleep in her bed. When they part, Odessa sends a look in Evie's direction. Her heart breaks over and over again for that little girl. More so for the fact that she won't be able to stay with her and care for her once they can leave this place.

"Welcome home."

Blue eyes slip to where Evie's sleeping, and Elisabeth automatically encases the child in a field so that she and Dessa can talk without disturbing her. "Thank you… I wish it hadn't been quite …" She blows out a breath. "Shit, I don't even know how to describe that. I just wish it hadn't been that. I wish… a lot of things," she trails off, watching Evie breathe deeply.

With a heavy sigh, she turns her gaze back to Odessa, seeing the same grief and hurt in her expression that Liz feels. "I'm so damn sorry. People keep telling me to stop saying it, that's it's not my fault." Her lips twist. "I keep wondering… if they knew. Before all of us stepped through. If they knew they weren't coming through when he handed me Evie to take with me. But to get here and lose them here too, I just…" She drags her hands down her face.

"Talk to me? Tell me … what happened when you got home? Just anything. The day I picked up the phone to the question 'to whom am I speaking?' was probably one of the worst days of the year." Which is saying something, considering.

"I know," Odessa assures, a hand on Elisabeth's shoulder. "You'd change it if you could. So would I." But the end result… Another look is spared to Evie. Her precious niece made it through. "It is what it is." Not all of it is bad even if very little of it is good.

Blonde hair is swept away from her face as Odessa gestures for her friend to have a seat in one of the two chairs set on either side of a small table in her room. There's crayons and a coloring book laying there, a picture half-filled in before it was abandoned.

"I spent, what? A year in her life?" There's a tightness in her chest as she decides how to recount what happened. How to reconcile what happened. "She spent only two weeks in mine. I returned to a drop in the bucket of my life gone." Odessa shrugs. "I went to Richard and told him I'd found you. That you were alive, and that you had a daughter." She settles into the chair opposite Elisabeth with a wry smile. "He did all the heavy lifting. He worried my ability would destabilize his attempts to reach you. He was probably right."

Walking to the table and sinking down in the chair, Elisabeth is careful with the coloring things, making sure they don't fall as she pushes them toward the center of the table so she can rest her elbows on it. "Yeah, about a year." There's a flash of rueful humor. "She was a little disgruntled to find out that her two-week vacation here was a year there and no one noticed." She looks away as it hits her again, the people they lost at the last moment. "She bought us time to get the portal stabilized. She was there… and then she wasn't. She asked us to make sure her mother…" For a long moment she has to close her eyes before pulling in and letting out a slow breath. "In the end… she's the only reason we survived Kazimir in Arthur's body. And she's probably the only reason we made it here."

When she turns back, she's mostly clear-eyed. For now. "We did find out that you made it. Eve in the last world was able to tell us that much. It was a relief to know for sure. I kept hoping maybe you'd… pop back in sometime," she admits softly.

"We… had an overlay at Christmas. It's the closest I came to coming back to you. I was in the ruins watching the Deveaux Building when she… We just bridged the gap between us, somehow." Odessa shrugs, helpless to try and explain the phenomenon properly. "In that moment, she needed my knowledge of the Ark and it was like I was there to guide her. We were… like the same person." Which maybe sounds a little ridiculous since they are the same person. Yet, they were vastly different in their experiences.

"I'm glad she was able to help." Odessa Woods is another reason for Price to mourn. She swallows roughly, pushing down a fresh wave of tears that threatens. She's cried enough for one day. "I went back into hiding. I've mostly been on Staten Island since I got back." Her eyes fall to the table and Evie's coloring. "Once we're out of quarantine, I'll be headed to Liberty Island. Then, I'll stand trial." It's clear she's not optimistic about the outcome.

Narrowing her eyes just slightly, Elisabeth then grimaces. "Fuck." Leaning back in her chair, she says, "You're talking to someone who has missed the last seven years of history. What are the charges for you?" The list isn't endless but Liz is also aware that it's probably not short either. "Is it Institute stuff?" Interestingly, she's not assuming it's anything recent. "And for God's sake, tell me you have Richard and my father getting you a stellar attorney? He told me this morning that's he's richer than God."

That was a bit of news, that was. Elisabeth rolls her eyes slightly and grins at Dessa. "You left out a few things when you told me stuff in 2014."

That causes Odessa to smirk. "I'm not known for being entirely truthful, Liz." It fades as quickly as it came on, because the charges, as it turns out, are serious. "I picked the wrong side of the war to land on," she explains, vaguely. "I stuck with my partner when it broke out. I didn't know who else to trust." She lifts her gaze again. "I had an uncanny knack for picking the wrong friends." Had. Present company – presumably – excluded.

"The Institute, the Company… None of that helps my case. I'm in real trouble, Liz."

"He's not going to let you go to a trial without a good lawyer, Dessa," Elisabeth replies. Her faith in that is absolute. "I know Dad's just a business lawyer," no one's apparently told her about what her father was up to during and after the war, "but he knows really good criminal attorneys. I know…" She grimaces. "Look, I know you're no saint. Christ, I threatened to shoot you myself. But… there have to be some mitigating circumstances to all this." There's a hint of fear in her tone. "Richard's not going to let them just vanish you."

Considering the worlds she's been through, it's probably not surprising that she'd be hypersensitive to the prospect.

"This government isn't about vanishing, thankfully." For all that it means she'd have a publicized execution. "They're doing good things for people. I mean, some moron sanctioned this mess." That draws her smirk back out. It's all fucked, but Odessa holds on to the dark humor like a lifeline at times.

"I know Richard will see to it that I have a good lawyer." Odessa presses her lips together and smiles sadly. "My mother encouraged me to turn myself in. She told me to have faith in the system. That justice would prevail. Unfortunately, that's what worries me."

Tears fall from her eyes finally and Odessa holds very still while she processes the fresh wave of grief. "One of the last things she said to me," she shares in a soft, quivering voice, "was that she was proud of me." There's a ragged breath that precedes a choked sob. "I never had a family before. And now they're gone." Save for the children she can't keep. There's comfort in knowing they'll be with Lynette's family, but it still puts them beyond her reach.

Liz just leans over and puts both her arms around Odessa again. Why does everything have to be so fucking hard all the time? "You gave me hope when I didn't have a lot, Dessa. And these days, God knows I'm the last person who can cast any stones about making choices and the consequences of them." She grimaces. "I'm so sorry," she whispers in the other woman's hair. So sorry that coming home cost Odessa her mother. "You still have family," she whispers. Even though she knows it's not the same at all. Her own tears slip down her cheeks into Odessa's blonde hair.

She holds the other woman as long as Odessa allows, and then when she pulls back, Elisabeth cradles Dessa's face in her hands. "You didn't let me give up. I'm not letting you." Her tone is firm, if thick with tears.

When Elisabeth withdraws, Odessa reaches up to lay a hand over one of her friend's on her face. "I'm not giving up, I promise. I'm just… letting fate take its course. I'm so tired. Tired of fighting, running, hiding… What happens now, will happen." She squeezes Elisabeth's hand. "I no longer have the power to escape my fate anyway." She'd considered it briefly, when she thought she might still be able to muster the power to hold time at her whim. Thought about grabbing her niece and running.

But what kind of life would that have been for Evie?

No. In the end, even if she did still have her ability, Odessa would be right where she is now. By her remaining family's side, waiting to face the consequences of her past actions. "If they hang me, know that I don't regret doing what needed to be done to help you. You deserved to make it home."

The feeling of exhaustion is mirrored back at her, and Elisabeth leans forward to rest her forehead to Dessa's. "I know exactly what you mean." The past seven years have been essentially a running gun battle with an intermission. She sits back and blows out a slow breath. "They're not going to hang you. I know it looks bad for you, but seriously… as ridiculous as this may sound coming from me, of all people, don't give up on the system. It's far from perfect. But I have to hope people learned something from all the horrors here that they've told us about with the wars. If they didn't… I don't even fucking know what I'm doing here."

She rests her elbow on the table and props her head on her hand. "Tell me about New York?" she asks softly. She just wants Dessa's company, the way they used to have coffee. If she can't offer a way out of the present difficulties, she can be present. So that's what she does.

"Richard says the same thing." It's clear Odessa's afraid to believe it. It says a lot about what she thinks she probably deserves for her past crimes, no matter what the extenuating circumstances. In the end, it's not up to her what punishment fits the crime. Her fate is in the hands of the system that Elisabeth has put her faith in.

"New York is…" Odessa wipes the tears from her face with her thumbs and considers for a moment. "Kind of a shithole, actually. The infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. I spent a little bit of time in towns that were untouched by the war, that still function almost like it never happened, and it's heaps better than New York. I almost stayed in one of them." But it meant leaving the life she was trying to build for herself. "I never can seem to leave New York behind, though."

There's a wry twinkle in her eyes when Elisabeth retorts, "New Yorkers really are a breed apart, aren't we? Eighty-five kinds of fucked up is what we are, but … whaddyagonna do? It's home."


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