Painkillers, No Sugar

Participants:

abby5_icon.gif anya_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title Painkillers, No Sugar
Synopsis Anya brings Abby and Elisabeth breakfast. Also, painkillers. But she isn't interested in their gratitude, they can't answer her questions, and in the end the two prisoners are left to entertain themselves. Again.
Date December 18, 2009

A Cell in Svyato Monastery


The cot is small, and Abby's ankle is in fragile enough shape that Elisabeth was very concerned about sharing the space. But body heat won out on that particular argument, chilly as it is in the cell, and the two women snugged up together beneath blanket and extra jacket for covering. By the time noise outside the cell door alerts Elisabeth to the presence of people, she's awake and sitting at the bottom of the cot, letting Abby stretch out and rest more. She's concerned about Abby's state, to be quite honest. She's sleeping too much. But there's little Liz can do about it right now. Her blue eyes are on the door when it opens to admit the person bearing the tray.

Abigail's sleeping because frankly, in the amount of time that she's spent as a captive, she's found that sleeping passes time. Admittedly it's frequent sleeping she's doing instead of long periods of it. Inevitably she moves and that sends a sharper wave of pain up her leg as opposed to the constant strong ache. Their overnight experiment to see to setting Abby's ankle was a gigantic mess that ended up doing nothing that they could see but mean that Liz's undershirt was sacrificed to the ankle gods and wrapped like a bandage around the Ethan ravaged extremity. But the body heat was welcomed along with the second blanket that was tossed to them to cover Liz. Means a blanket half beneath like a sleeping bag and then a second on top.

So there's the door opening again and Abby's own blue eyes open a little, lid mostly lowered, and she focuses on the door and who might be coming in with breakfast. Because this is round about breakfast time.

The contents of the tray are the same as ever, at least when viewed in profile and from below level; two bowls, two cups, probably with oatmeal and water. Not particularly interesting as food goes… but it is warm. The woman who carries it in, closing the door behind her, wears black BDUs and a face that seems only to be becoming more familiar. Anya Orlova pauses a moment to regard the two women in their bed before continuing across the room without a word to set the tray down on the windowsill.

Elisabeth's sky-blue eyes follow the woman warily, and she attempts in very very rough Russian — Felix has been teaching her for much of the time they've been here and immersion is the best way to learn, though it's still limited primarily to the basics — "Spaciba, Orlova." She gestures to Abby's ankle, not having a word for what the woman did. But hey, a 'thank you' can't be amiss, can it, when it appears that the woman at least attempted to help.

Abby remains silent for the most part, knowing the woman doesn't speak English, or that she's let on at all, and she herself doesn't speak Russian. The younger of the women also doesn't move from her spot in the small room. Up against the wall on her side, as she was before when Anya visited before she was gifted with a new roommate. Oatmeal, yum. Abigail actually enjoys oatmeal. "Thank you" offered in her own quiet southern words.

The Russian woman looks over her shoulder at Elisabeth, corners of her mouth stretching back in a grim smile. She turns away a moment later, gazing out the window towards the distant skyline. "Nyet," Anya disagrees bluntly, countering their expressions of gratitude. Still for a moment, the woman shakes her head, then holds up her hand where they might see the two pills pressed against its palm. Anya sets them on the tray, a pair of quiet clicks heralding their placement, before turning about and striding back towards the door.

Elisabeth's expression is … puzzled. She's not sure what the woman disagrees with exactly — it doesn't sound like she's saying 'forget it, it was nothing.' She watches Anya walk toward the door, and searches for the correct words to ask what's going to happen. But she can't find them, and she sighs quietly. She'll wait until Anya's back out of the room, though, before moving off the bed. It's not as if attempting to jump the woman is a great plan.

Oh thank you lord on high. Abigail's eyeing those two pills warily, waiting for the woman to play some trick, take em away haha it was a joke. Yet, there she goes, heading for the door and not waiting for the woman to leave and with a sound of great relief, Abigail's rearranging herself, scooting back and maneuvering carefully with her foot so she can sit up and make for the glasses of water and the two little pills. Please be painkillers, please oh please as her hand closes around them, lifting them to peer this way, that way in case there just might be some little skull and crossbow symbol on them. One is put to the side - save for later in case this might be all she's getting - and the second is swallowed down on a small tide of water.

Anya pauses as Abby scrambles across the room, turning back to look at the young woman. Her expression is inscrutable, revealing nothing of her thoughts; nothing of what passes behind those green eyes while Abby downs the pill. Her gaze flickers to Elisabeth; when she speaks, the words are still in Russian, the only language Anya Orlova has spoken. "«Why is she here?»" Her tone is flat, harsh; her choice of words simple enough that a tourist's unfamiliarity with the language might even be enough for understanding — though answering is a complete other story.

It takes Elisabeth a few moments to puzzle through exactly what was asked. And her expression goes bleak as she manages to formulate the only answer she actually has — a helpless shrug with a faint shake of her head. As she meets Anya's eyes, though, it should be clear that it's not an 'I don't understand' shrug, it's a very clear 'I wish I knew' kind of look. Because in truth, Elisabeth has wondered why the hell Tamara would send Abby here any number of times.

Patch people up. That's what everyone's told her. She has, after everyone was shot. Changed bandages, took out stitches that needed taking out. Not that Abigail understands what Anya's asked Liz. She sits on the floor though a mere foot or two away, leg stretched out, the other bent so that she can rest an arm and in turn her chin and look between the two.

Reading the sentiment in Elisabeth's expression, Anya shakes her head slowly, the gesture clearly disapproving. She asks no other questions of the prisoners, but opens the cell door and steps out into the hall, leaving them alone to their breakfast in the small monk's cell.

It's not as if Elisabeth got a say in who came out here. She'd make the comment, but it'd be pointless. Once Anya leaves them alone, Elisabeth slips off the bed herself to take a bowl of oatmeal. "At least it's warm," she comments mildly. "No chance it's got some nice brown sugar in it, hmm?" She sets her jacket on the floor to sit on top of it — the floor's too damn cold to just sit on. "How often are they bringing painkillers for you?" she asks the brunette as she spoons up a mouthful of hot cereal.

"Ethan put brown sugar on it before. Before it was in my hair and on the floor" There's flecks of dried something in her hair. "This is the first time" It hasn't kicked in yet, and she didn't take both so it might only dumb the pain down if at all. "They've left me alone. Only food" She reaches out for her own bowl to dig a spoon into. It's nice and soft and she spoons it into the right side of her mouth. "So far… none of it's poisoned." But alas, no ankle turned to stone for a few hours. Sadface.

There's a glance at Abby when she says Ethan put brown sugar on it. The man is bizarre. "How bad's your jaw feeling?" she asks softly as she too eats the warm mush. The bruising Abby's face really disturbs her — someone seriously got off on fucking Abby over royally. She encloses them safely inside the silence bubble, and she asks quietly, "What were they actually asking you?" It could be important, but Elisabeth didn't want to try to find out when she first got here. Abby's wellbeing was the more important thing.

"Hurts" plain and simple. "Didn't ask me anything Liz. Ethan didn't ask me anything. he just came in and then started to-" There's a shrug, a small lift of her shoulders. "He tried to pretend that he's really not with the Vanguard." After a few more spoonfulls of oatmeal, going through her bowl fast as she can eat it. "He wrote a note and he left me a pencil. Said he was sorry for beating me up, not to joke at him anymore and to write what I wanted to tell you all on the back of the note."

There's a glance to the door before her gaze meanders back to her bowl and scraping at the oatmeal there. "I don't believe him. He had a knife to my throat after beating me and kicking me." Abby doesn't hold many grudges. There's a few people and the way she's talking about Ethan is the way she talks about Logan, or muldoon. People who have hurt her beyond 'oops, an accident'. "No one else has visited that I know of." Which isn't saying much when your the reluctant guest of an illusionist.

She goes very still at Abby's recitation of events. What the younger woman doesn't say is almost as telling as what Abby does, to Elisabeth's mind. That son of a bitch. If Felix doesn't kill him, Liz will. Absolutely, she will kill him where he stands if she ever has a clean shot at him. Fury burns through her, and she has to struggle mightily to keep it from leaking out in that inaudible thrum that has seemed to accompany her rages since her return from the realms of mostly dead. That might be a costly, even deadly, mistake to make in here right now — letting her power out at all. "I'm told that Zhukovsky seemed to think we knew a lot more about where Munin was located than he did — it was apparently the only reason he didn't attempt to kill us far sooner. Maybe Teo and Francois are having better luck figuring out what they want." Well, 'luck' is not exactly the word for it, but …. their plan wasn't exactly well thought out.

"The nuclear weapon. It's why he took me because I knew what Munin was, the Munin that he wants. But I don't know much about it. Just what Richard and Cat have told me" She doesn't know what was further discovered after her pilfering. The bowls is scraped clean and would have almost been licked clean if she didn't think it would cause more pain. Her bowl is returned to the tray to be fetched whenever, the water finished and the Brunette sits quietly beside Liz on the floor.

Eating only about half of the oatmeal in her bowl, Elisabeth offers the rest to Abby with a querying look. "You look like you could use it," she says quietly. "I need you to keep up your strength, Abby. We're getting out of here." She doesn't know how, but by God… they're going to make it happen. Somehow.

"You need it as much as me Liz. It's not like more oatmeal is gonna make everything hurt less." The food is refused. She's not a kid - okay maybe to the rest of them, she's more of a kid - and she's already eaten her share. "Eat it. You never know when they're gonna stop choosing to feed us."

Elisabeth smiles just a little and says quietly, "Yeah, but I know that I had a full dinner before we came up here, and I know you have a sore mouth so the oatmeal's probably easier to eat than stew." She holds the bowl out one more time, but if Abby refuses it again, Elisabeth goes ahead and eats it. No point in letting it go to waste, after all. That's just stupid. She grimaces. "I wish I could make it hurt less," she says quietly. Glancing around the cell, she says softly, "Teo hasn't made contact yet. I hope he's okay."

Maybe a few more bites. The meat in the stew's been a bit harder to eat what with no knife to make the bites smaller. But instead of taking the bowl, Abigail picks up her spoon to scoop up some. "We'll share. Really, they're a lot better here than at Staten Island. Really wish we had an honest to God toilet but… the food is better. And there's a view" THere's the old Abigail, peeking out from around the bruised and hurt edges. Silver lining in everything. "Least I'm not being dragged out to heal everyone and hey, you're not having the holy spirit beat out of you or uhm, what was that song?" SHe lets the spoonful sit in her mouth after she stops talking then swallows.

Elisabeth smiles faintly at the optimism. It's good to see Abby at least try. She shudders visibly, however, at the comment about the song. "God… Mack the Knife. Bobby Darrin." She grimaces, now with the lyrics of that song in her head again. Suck. "I didn't much like that song to start with. Now it's the soundtrack of the worst day of my life," she comments darkly.

"We'll have to sing a different song then" The former healer muses. "Something Teo or the others might recognize, if they can hear it. Would beat listening to the walls" At least, they could sing it till someone came to shut them up. "Pick a song. I don't know any Italian ones. Could…" She's thoughtful. "Could sing Jingle Bells"

Elisabeth glances at Abby and raises both her eyebrows. "You want to sing Mack the Knife or something else to …. let them know we're here?" She looks puzzled. "Abby…. Soon as Teo's in the clear, he'll slip out of his body and come looking for us. He's probably just waiting to make sure the guards aren't close." She smiles a little. "Although Cat keeps telling me I should play the song as loud as I can and take it back or something."

Well, she hadn't thought about that. "I still vote to sing. Mack the knife. If we make it silly as possible and like.. plan.. I dunno, hand motions, we can take it back" It's something to pass the time. "There's not much else we can do, unless you produce a bucket of water and help me was my hair. Or we can sleep" More.

It's something the therapist recommended too: Exposure to get past certain triggers. God help her…. pulling the song's lyrics out of her memory makes Elisabeth a little bit pale. But she looks at Abby, who has managed in spite of the things she's suffered to keep a faith in other people that just doesn't quit, and she smiles a little. "All right. Let's do it," she says quietly. She looks out the window, and blows out a shaky breath then begins softly at first, to teach Abby the words. It doesn't matter too much here in this cell where it's just the two of them that her voice wobbles as she begins the song lyrics, that the tune shakes so badly that Liz isn't even sure she can get it right, or that tears trickle slowly down her cheek as they work on it. Liz struggles with it, but she'll teach Abby the whole song until the two of them can belt it out at top volume… and maybe, just maybe somewhere down the line, even giggle a bit through it.


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