Master Of The Unexplained

Participants:

delia_icon.gif ryans2_icon.gif

Scene Title Master Of The Unexplained
Synopsis Ryans goes to make sure his youngest daughter, Delia, is okay.
Date July 24, 2010

St.Luke's Hospital


It's a somewhat busy day at St. Luke's Hospital, the number of heat stroke victims is about average for the time of year. It is enough to keep the staff on their toes. Delia finds herself shuffled between case to case to help out. The Company's assistant-director knows she's working and had decided to leave Darryl in the hands of Agents Lashirah and Richards so that he could go check on her. After talking to the lady behind the desk, he steps behind one of the curtains and waits.

So it's no surprised when the desk clerk calls out, "Hey, Ryans. Got another for ya" and holds out a chart for a 'Richard Blaine' and points the red headed woman to a curtained bed.

When she pulls the curtain opens, a tall figure is standing there with his back to her, in his black suit sports coat and blue jeans. Just from the back alone she can tell it's her father, even as he turns, fedora held in both hands. He looks exhausted, of course, after yesterday he hasn't really slept well.

Delia starts as she sees her father. Blue eyes wide and shaking her head in confusion, she looks down at the chart and then to the man on the bed. Her father. To say that she's been avoiding him since her near death experience is an understatement. Feigning the same anger that Lu's been carrying around, the younger of his daughters has been more than adequately carrying her own burdens alone.

"Dad," she announces as she metaphorically takes off the student hat and putting on her captain obvious one. "What're you doing here? Is Lu in trouble again?" Not only has Delia been avoiding her father, she's been avoiding her sister too. Something Ben may or may not be aware of.

"Hello, Delia." A small smile breaks the masks of neutrality when he sees his fiery haired child. He stands there, unmoving with his fedora gripped in both hands. "I apologizes for the deception, but I figured if I had them tell you, your father wished to speak to you… well…" One side of his mouth pulls up a bit higher."I decided not to take a chance.

"Your sister is perfectly fine last I saw her." Seems like Delia isn't the only one avoiding daddy. "I came here to see you, make sure your still okay." Brows tilts up a little as he studies her. "I was worried."

Averting her eyes, Delia gives Ryans a quick nod in answer to his question. She remains strangely silent though, something she's not usually known for but as of the past few months has become quite the norm between the two of them. She raises her hand to self-consciously rub at the back of her neck. "I'm uhm… I'm fine now." Now. Ben isn't the only one that looks a little haggard, an obvious indication that Delia isn't fine.

"It's nothing major, just some tests… maybe I failed my finals… I don't know." Failure is also something that isn't the norm for the young woman, she doesn't accept it and now she's being rather flippant about it. "You? You look tired."

"I'm… better." Ryans murmurs softly, blue eye scrutinizing the young woman. "Busy…" He trails of for a moment and then sighs heavily, brows furrowing at her news about her finals. "Look. I know I've been avoiding you as much as you have been avoiding me.

"I know there are a lot of questions about…" Releasing the hat with one hand he makes a motion of his hand as he tries to thing of a good word. "Incident." Taking a step to the side, he turns to settle on the edge of the bed, paper crinkling under him. "I can't give you all the answers, but I can try to give you most of them."

"Incident…" Delia's mind races as she tries to figure out which incident Ryans might be talking about. There's so many of them, a tremendous amount over the course of the past few months, the course of her lifetime. "I don't even know where to start, to be completely honest. I mean… you work for H-Ho-HomeSec…" A word that's been scaring her a little more every passing day. Subconsciously, she takes a step backward.

"There's just a lot happening right now, Dad." She starts again, shrugging her shoulders. Her scrubs have a worn look to them, soft and no longer crisp, much like the young woman herself. "I mean, I.. I almost died, would've died… Probably even should've died but … I wouldn't even have known."

It pains him to hear her talk of his job in such a way. It's one thing to hear it from the people he hunts down to protect the city, but to hear that tone from your own daughter. It really makes an old man's heart hurt, especially when she takes a step back away from him.

He stats to say something, to assure her, but… something else she says catches his attention. "What do you mean almost died?" Brows furrow as his attention is riveted on his youngest. She couldn't be talking about the kidnapping.

"I had a brain tumor, Dad, I didn't know." Letting loose a long sigh, Delia turns and sits on the edge fo the bed, letting all of that weight just fall. She still can't completely bring herself to believe that she had a long conversation with the man in a coma, but the facts just seemed to fall into place too easily with what had happened in her dream. "One of them, he took it from me.. told me to let go."

Inadvertently, she'd caused that man's death. Though it was by his own choice that he did it, the thought still weighs on her heart that he could have lived a little longer had it not been for her. "I didn't tell you because … I just don't know how to deal with it."

He sits there and doesn't say anything for a long moment, brows creased in either concern or confusion. "A healer?" His brows lift a little, before falling again.

What do you say to that?

Looking at the red haired woman next to him, he still sees the little girl with a cloud of hair. Finally, he reaches out to gently put an arm around shoulders and pull her into a one armed hug. "I'm sorry." He rumbles softly. "You shouldn't have to be dealing with that stuff alone." He sighs through his nose, sending a glance to Delia. "I know I haven't been around much, but…" He trails off uncertain of what to say to her about it. He has an important job. One he can't exactly share.

Delia's still looking at the floor and when Ben puts his arm around her, every muscle in her body tenses for a split second. He's her father, absent though he is, but he's also one of the people she doesn't know if she can trust. "H- Uhm… I don't think he was a healer as much as he took things. He took away his daughter's cancer too, that's what he would have died from if I hadn't been around."

Slowly, Delia turns her head to give her father a very weak smile. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I just … There's a bunch of stuff going on right now. You're too busy to deal with any of it and Lu's sort of a mess." It's her inadvertent way of telling him that he's not going to be let in on what's really going on.

"Took it on himself then." Ryans says with a soft sigh, his hand runs along her arm in a comforting gesture.

He looks away from her at the figures moving past the curtain in the shape of vague shadows. "You are definitely my child." The words coming out bland. "I would hope…" His head tilts down, gaze dropping to the floor. "I would hope that you will come to me for help when you need it." Heading finally turning to look to her again.

No matter how busy he is… he'll always take care of his girls if their in trouble. Hell, he made a deal with the devil to rescue them and jumped off a dam for another man's daughter.

"I know… you've seen things around me you can't explain." Ryans sighs softly. "Another reason I came here today is to warn you." Giving her another squeeze, he lets his arm drop from her. "Should anyone come to you… or to the house and say they are Home Sec agents… or… from the Institute. Do not go anywhere with them, or open the door until you call me to check. Especially, anyone identifying themselves as Harper or Eldridge."

A pair of reddish brown eyebrows shoot up on her lightly freckled face and her lips turn up at one corner to give him a wry smile. "Can't explain? Dad, you're like— joking, right?" Arguments with Lu over the past few months have errupted in speculation about what their father really did all of their lives. Paper salesman was not on the top of the list.

"You're the master of the unexplained," she goes on, her smile fading from her face. "And don't worry, I won't be going anywhere with any Home Sec agents anytime soon." Taking a relaxed breath when his arm falls away, Delia finally gets up from the bed and moves across toward the window. She leans against the wall, facing her father and looks at him expectantly, as though waiting for answers.

"Fine…" Heaving a heavy sigh, he folds his hand in his lap after settling himself. "No I was not a paper sales man. It was a cover for real work, basically doing what I am now." Ryans won't go into the details at all, but he'll give her that much. "The people in those photos many of them did the same thing. After the bomb I retired from it, cause you girls needed me there.

"That is why I as able to get on with Home sec so quickly." The Company agent doesn't explain he took back the same job.

"So, Home Sec's been around for a pretty long time, then? You… So Huruma?" Not a customer. Delia's mind is whirring with possibilities about what their relationship really was. "Did you hunt her down too?"

It's a pretty big bit of news, even if it's something she and Lu had pretty much figured out. "Are you a part of Humanity First too?" A little revelation that she's yet to openly admit to her father, she's been to a few of their functions. Given her current status among the living, it's something she's not exactly proud of, even if she is still feeling a bit queezy about the majority of them>

"You've seen what Huruma's capable. So… " He makes a motions to his daughter. "What do you think?

"As for Humanis First… no." His head shakes a little, fingers tug at a wrinkle in the dark blue fabric of his jeans. "I investigate evolved crime, but I have nothing against them." That is the truth really. "Humanis First is… violent and brings back memories of the KKK." His brows lift slightly. "Some of my closest friends have had abilities. The ones I have a problem with are the ones that go out of their way to hurt and harm people."

"I suppose…" Delia concedes about both the issue of Huruma and the issue of Humanis First. Looking a little sheepish, she wrinkles her nose and scratches the back of her neck again. "Dad, do you think it's possible for someone to have more than one thing they can do? Like that old man, he was in a coma but when I woke up, I could have sworn I talked to him." She pauses for a moment and takes a small breath inward. "I didn't tell anyone here that I fell asleep or that I talked to him. He never woke up, not once since they found him."

The old man is unmoving for the moment, thoughtful. Finally, he offers up the best answer he can. "It is not common, but not unheard of. In my time, I have know not even a handful of people with the ability to use more then one ability." Ryans is completely honest about it, but it also doesn't give her much hope.

Fingers of one hand scratch along his jaw slowly, it pauses in the action and he looks to her, it's hard to read his expression. "Is that the first time you've talked to someone when you slept?"

Shrugging, Delia takes a breath and stares at her father for a long moment before finally answering. "Well, it's the first one that wasn't normal. I mean, I dream and talk to people, everyone does." Psychology being such a young science, Delia hasn't actually explored the matter more than a passing thought.

"By not normal, I mean, he died," she adds as almost an afterthought or explanation of the abnormal. "And that the stuff he talked about was real… but it hasn't really happened since." Most probably because the young woman isn't in the habit of sleeping anywhere near other people, let alone falling asleep holding their hands.

"Hmm." The agent is studying his daughter curiously, it's tickling in the back of his mind, but thee old man doesn't want to acknowledge it. His whole body is still and tensed. If what he's thinking is true, it puts her in more danger then before. It puts her on the radar for the institute.

The agent is scared for his daughter.

"Have you considered going for testing?" Ryans hates asking the question, but the deadline is coming up. "It needs to be done soon anyhow. All of us have to do it." He doesn't sound happy about it at all, brows furrowing even as he says it. He glances at the curtain and moves to stand, "They will probably require it soon to stay employed."

"I haven't.. not yet. I've been busy." Delia hesitates in answering, years ago she would have been at the front of the line and proudly emerging flagging her human status. Now, it's like a cancer test, do you want to go and find out if you have the disease or stay blissfully unaware and certain that you're the healthiest person alive.

"It wouldn't make a difference if I took it anyway, I'm not one of them." There's still the scornful attitude, whether her angel Huruma is one of them or not, it was one of them that killed her mother. "Sorry, I know you just said some of them were your closest friends… I just."

A hand comes up to forestall her apology, giving her a small smile, but it doesn't even reach his eyes. "Maybe so, Delia. But… believe me when I say…" He turns to pick up his fedora off the bed, his words soft and even. "…do not avoid it." He can't explain the reason why or tell her how she almost didn't have a father, cause he was protecting someone who hid it.

All the Institute needs is a reason to take her from him. "But…" He looks at the curtain and sighs heavily. "But you are a grown woman, your decision is yours." His head tilts forward and the old fedora is settled into place. "No matter what your decision, you can come to me for help. Don't let my job fool you, Lia. I am still your father and you are still my baby girl."

Delia looks down at the floor and just nods helplessly. "It shouldn't be a tough decision, should it. I mean it's something we all have to do… I just wish Lu wasn't such a pig head then she could go with me." She hasn't talked to her sister in weeks, for a family that was once so closely knit it's hard on the redhead.

"Will you go with me, Dad?" The question is posed about the same way as when she was little and asked for him to check for monsters under the bed. In fact, the same expression is on her face as well. A lot older, much more world weary, but still carrying that same fearful countenance.

A much more genuine smile touches his lips at her question. "Of course." The words spoken gently, a hand moves to rest on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "You have my phone number, when your ready. I am a phone call away.

"In the meantime, remember what I said." Ryans adds, hand sliding off her shoulder to grip the edges of his jacket and gives it a tug. "You learned first hand how dangerous my job is, but it's an important one. I don't want you to end up in the middle of it again."


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