Niki Pops In

Participants:

elisabeth_icon.gif niki_icon.gif

Scene Title Niki Pops In
Synopsis Niki heard Liz was in the hospital, but she's already been released, tracks her down at her apartment.
Date December 22, 2008

Elisabeth's Apartment (and walking to Nite Owl)


After Niki called, Elisabeth actually had to decide whether she's going to pretend to still be wounded. But well…. she's not. She lets Niki in. "Hey! Glad to hear from you. How's the job hunt going?" she asks as she closes the door behind the other blonde.

Niki comes in. "Actually, hired! But what about you, I heard you were in the hospital!" She's looking Elisabeth up and down for obvious signs of injury.

Elisabeth shrugs and smiles easily. "Just a scratch. I'm okay. Good news on the job front! Where will you be working?"

Niki chuckles and waves it off lightly. "Just a bar. Waitressing and trying to learn bartending. It isn't much as far as the ladder of jobs go, but the tips have been okay, and my coworkers are nice enough so far." Seeing no obvious injury, she relaxes somewhat.

Elisabeth has no signs of injury at all. "Hey, it's a start. It pays the bills. Whatever you want to do, it all starts here, right?"

Niki nods. "Something like that, yeah." she says. "Look, I got some tips in…let me take you to breakfast? It's the least I can do to thank you for everything you did for me."

Looking surprised, Elisabeth says, "You don't have to do that!" She grins. "Although… hell, if you really want to, who'm I to say no to a decent breakfast if you want to wade through the snow? Hospital food sucked." She moves toward the closet to grab her coat. "Where to, newly employed lady?"

Niki grins. "Whereever you'd like." Then a brief pause, and a smile "And hopefully your tastes aren't too expensive." It's said more as a joke than seriously.

Elisabeth snickers. "Actually, I kinda like the diner. The Nite Owl? Their food's pretty darn good and cheap too."

The tall blonde heads doorwards, to open it for Elisabeth. "Nite Owl sounds just fine to me. Definitely in the price range. So what happened, anyway. You slip and fall or something?" Logical guess to her, given winter.

Elisabeth chuckles, yanking her jacket on. "Nah… got banged up in the line of duty, that's all. Working the other night with the riot during the president-elect's visit." She shrugs as she makes sure she has keys and phone, locking the door behind them. "It's a hazard of going back to the force, you know?"

Niki's eyes widen. "Wow. I didn't know you were involved in all that. God, if I had, I would have called you sooner." Now she's looking over Liz again like she expects bullet holes to spontaneously show up.

Elisabeth chuckles. "Don't look at me like that, it was nothing," she tells the other woman as they walk. "Seriously. I'm fine."

There's a laugh as she bundles up tighter against the cold. "Hey, don't blame me. I don't exactly have a lot of friends who participate in riots on a regular basis. For all I know, you're starring in your own personal version of an action movie."

Elisabeth snickers. "Yeah…. something like that, that's for sure. At least it feels like it some days." She's been shot twice in the space of two weeks, and there's drama all around her — yeah, that description fits.

Niki tucks back a stray lock of hair as she walks on at Liz's side. "So what happened? Or is it all need-to-know top-secret stuff that you can't talk about?"

Elisabeth shrugs. "You probably saw most of it in the news. I'm told it was a gas main or something that caused a small explosion, but whatever it was, the crowd rioted. It got really messy." She smiles slightly. "Honestly, it was actually all pretty tame."

Niki laughs. "You know, I think "riot" and "pretty tame" kind of CAN'T be used in the same sentence together. If it's a riot, by definition…it's not tame."

Elisabeth pffts. "In New York? C'mon…. I mean, yeah, it was a mess, but it wasn't a riot in the classical sense. It was a bunch of people running away." She smirks. "We just had to keep the president-elect from being stampeded."

Niki smiles over to the shorter woman. "So, you gonna come by and visit me some night at work?" she offers. "Promise I'll keep you topped off, employee discount and all."

Elisabeth ooohs! "Now there's an offer I can't refuse. And considering I just got dumped… well, sorta, anyway… seems to me like a good place to hang." She grins at Niki. "Just don't pour me some silly frou-frou drink."

That causes a blink. "Oh, man. I'm so sorry! What happened?!" Not quite up there on the level of "I was in a riot", but it still seems to be pretty distressing to Niki.

Elisabeth shoves her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets while they walk through the snow, and considers. "Well….. he's my best friend. Been my best friend for a couple of years. We talk about … everything. He's listened about my job woes, my hopes, my fears, my boyfriends." She pauses. And then she says, "And he said something a while back, and I teased him with the response 'what, are you asking me out? Like on a date-date?' And he looked kinda shocked and said if I wanted to. And we sort of … just wound up dating. And he said he loved me…. but I don't really know what I feel at all. And so … he let me go." She smiles a bit. "I guess it's not really being dumped. He's still my best friend, but… it's kinda weird now, you know?"

Niki nods. "That's always hard. I'd be a mess." A pause, and then a slightly forced smile. "I kinda was a mess. You should've seen me the first couple days in the hospital. They could have floated the entire tissue industry on me, I think."

Elisabeth looks puzzled. "You mean… when you woke up?" She grimaces. "It's not quite the same. You suffered far more than being dumped!"

Niki looks back to Elisabeth. "It's still losing someone you care about. I mean, sure, the magnitude is different. But it still hurts all the same." She shrugs once.

Elisabeth smiles a little. "It hurts," she says quietly. "It hurts to know that I've hurt *him.* That he loves me and what I feel for him is so damn tied up in our friendship, I'm not sure it'll ever be what he wants… But I guess we'll see. We're still friends. We still could wind up being more," she admits. "But right now? There's so much drama in my life, I just don't have room for one more drama — I nearly got killed at the high school, I Registered, I went back to the force, and I found out my best friend loves me. It's been a crazy month, you know."

Niki nods. "Tell me about it." That wry smile again. "I think even with riots, I have you beat for crazy months. God, I feel like I'm going to turn into a popsicle out here! NOT a fan of New York weather."

Elisabeth grimaces and looks around at the snow on the ground. "This *SUCKS*," she agrees. "This is not the norm." Shaking her head, she asks, "Speaking of things that empty tissue boxes…. how're you holding up?"

A deep breath, and a long trail of winter breath. "Better, I suppose?" She looks back to Liz, seriously. "I mean…I'm getting by, day to day? I wake up, I go through my life…and as long as I don't think about it, it seems like everything's all right. And then I do, and it just feels like my heart implodes in my chest. And I'm not sure if it bothers me more that it tears me up or that it isn't tearing me up all the time. Sometimes I think I just—" She stops, abruptly, and shakes her head. Deep breath. "Day by day."

Elisabeth nods slightly. "yeah…. it was that way for me when my mom died." She walks with Niki. "Day by day, one step at a time. You get a little ahead of it. It always hurts, but it's not always incapacitating."

Niki nods. "Reminds me a lot of the whole AA thing. Which I'm probably not helping by working in a bar, but hey. If I've got control, it doesn't matter. And it's a good outlook for keeping an eye on the world."

Elisabeth glances at Niki. "You did AA?" She's in no way judgmental about it. "Working in a bar's probably not the greatest thing to do… but you know that already."

Niki nods in reply. "I did. And yeah, it's probably not. But as long as I'm serving it, not drinking it. Plus…it was a paycheck. You'd be shocked how many people won't even look at your resume when you list a two year period of unemployment just prior." She makes a face.

Elisabeth makes the same face. "I'm sorry," she says with a grimace. "… Niki, if it starts getting harder… talk to me, okay?" She glances at Niki. "Really. I won't judge you."

Niki nods. "I will, Liz." She promises. "Hey, I figure it can't really get worse than where I was starting off from a couple weeks ago. From here everything is up. I'm sleeping better now, too. That was kicking my ass for a little bit, but it's cleared up."

Elisabeth smiles a little bit. "Glad to hear it," she says mildly. "I wondered if it was just that you were… afraid to sleep. Not sleeping well cuz you were afraid you would wake up and have lost time again. I hear it's not unusual for coma patients." She shrugs a bit. "I'm glad it's clearing up, though." As they near the Nite Owl, she starts to chuckle. Back to the beginning, sort of. "They have the best hash browns around. I'm looking forward to this," she tells Niki.


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December 22nd: Sewing Sylar's Survivor
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December 22nd: A New Friend
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