Participants:
| Scene Title | Shot To The Heart |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes and Abby talk in the hospital after he's been shot. And then it gets a lot more painful than bullets. |
| Date | March 13, 2019 |
Magnes and Abby have been sort of re-living the greatest hits of their past lives. Today is no different. He shows up at the hospital and explains to someone that he's been shot, and they immediately get him to a room to start dealing with the bleeding and such.
There isn't a lot of blood, due to how his ability tends to hold his blood in to keep him from bleeding out. But it makes his blood flow very irregular, an extra challenge for the doctors and nurses.
But soon he's sewn up, wrapped, and is left to lay in bed for a while when they determine that nothing vital was hit.
He's in his pants and boots, his coat and shirt laid off to the side. Abby hears that he's there fairly quickly, considering that she works there.
Aside from his bandaged wounds, when she does finally enter the room, she'll see that his body has far more scars than any time she's seen him in the past. He's a bit more lean from so much fighting and being on edge over the years, but the scars are really the most striking part. Claw marks, bites, bullet wounds, stab wounds, slash marks, a few burns. He's been through it all.
'They're going to want to keep you in. You realize that right?" She's at the door to the room he's been left in while they decide what to do. She comes bearing a tray at least, those plastic domes that insulate, little insulated cups too bearing fruits or pudding, jello or other things. "Whomever shot you though, seems to have aimed pretty good." There's no judgement in her voice, just her standing at the door with a look. The I'm too tired to go down this road again look.
"I'm not doing superhero stuff." Magnes is quick to explain, moving his arm that isn't bandaged. There's one bandage on his chest, and one on his shoulder. "This was… a weird personal thing. Someone who doesn't really know how else to express her feelings, so she expressed them by shooting me. I probably should have stayed away from her, but I saw her, she's who has my daughter. I had to talk to her, you know?"
"Wait, your daughter is kidnapped?" Abby looks confused. "I thought she was… home.. with you?"
"No, my daughter is the entire reason I came back, because she's here. I know who has her. The circumstances are complicated, she's not in danger, but… I'm anxious and I need to see my daughter." Magnes sighs, closing his eyes as he begins to explain. "Kazimir kidnapped my daughter. He's not a problem anymore, as far as I know, but the people who have her, they've been taking care of her as their child. So the situation is complicated and they're not being particularly talkative about when I'm getting her back."
He motions to his bandages. "And as you can see here, we have communication issues."
"Well… less communication issues so much as perhaps language barrier. They speak with a gun, you speak with your mouth." Abby points out, coming in proper and hooking a stool with her foot and dragging it over so she can lay the tray down for him. "you're cleared to eat. I don't know a healer to fix you proper. So you're healing the old fashioned way."
"It's frustrating, I just want to see her. But… I get it, that I have to be patient, that taking her away suddenly will hurt her too." Magnes stares at the tray, then nods to her in thanks. "I just want to live a normal life now. I'm covered in a million scars, I've seen enough. I don't want to be some kind of hero anymore."
"You realize Normal is the secret level on some video game, and that the odds of us ever finding it are… one in a million?" She asks, settling down and pulling out a bottle of water from one of her tunic pockets and twists the top open. "You might not get a choice in the matter Magnes. Sometimes we don't get any choice on whether we want to be a hero or not."
"I'm sure… I don't think I ever have much of a choice." Magnes stares at her for a long moment, then moves his arm out, holding a hand out for her. "You wanna make a pact?"
Abby's raising a blonde brow. "A pact?"
"Could we, like…" Magnes seems like he's trying to search for the right words. "When we're alone, try to live like people who don't occasionally have the entire world depending on them?"
"That's how you should be living already Magnes. You don't need a pact. I don't need a pact to do that. I have a house that i'm slowly renovating. I have a daughter, she goes to school. We go shopping for food, we read, we watch TV. We already do live like that. Knowing that tomorrow, someone from the government might knock on my door and say they need the living fire for something." She shakes her head. "That's a pact you need to make with yourself Magnes."
"I know, I just… have been trying to feel like I'm home, to feel like this isn't all some kind of dream." Magnes locks eyes with her, like, really staring. "I keep looking at you and thinking, I'm here, everything is over, I can relax. But it's still so hard to believe. I don't know how to explain the feeling."
"I think maybe you need some Xanax Magnes." Abby replies, a little concerned. "And like I said before. Someone to talk to, professionally, to get thing off your chest. I mean, it's been some years for me, but for you.. it seems like it's not been that long and you got some issues that you might need to deal with. And like maybe a better way to break through the language barrier you have with this person because if they have your kid, and she talks with a gun?" Abby uncrosses her leg. "Police will be here at some point anyway. Gunshots get reported."
"It's fine, I'm prepared to talk to the police. And I plan to start therapy soon." Magnes is quiet for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Then he suddenly asks, "Can we just hang out, eat, and watch TV some time? Just… something where I can just be in the moment."
"If you want that Magnes sure. I get it. You want a spot of normal in your life. I wanted that all the time a long time ago." She looks at him.
"I miss it though. I miss…" Abby looks to the tray of food, frowning. "I miss it. All of it. I'd watch the television in Canada, looking for any hint, any news of what was happening, familiar faces. I miss… the danger. But I don't get danger. I get at most, gravity manipulators shot up, coming through."
"Are you saying that you're bored?" Magnes asks, turning to face her again. "Well… there's nothing that says doing something exciting has to be for the fate of the world."
"Together, if I'm not being dumb like I was tonight, there's no reason we can't handle going to the rough parts of the city, or the state. Going to where crazy stuff happens, hang out in dangerous dive bars or something." Then, thinking, he suddenly says, "I heard that the fight club is still a thing."
Abigail looks at Magnes and just shakes her head. "You aren't going anywhere. They're, like I said, keeping you overnight. Magnes, you got shot in the chest and the shoulder. They can't let you walk out. they need to make sure you won't expire." As for bored, she presses her lips together and looks away. "Yes. No. Not bored just…" There's a lift of her shoulders. "You get used to living one way of life and even though you now live another you crave running into the burning building to see who you can save. The next emergency, the next… earth ending apocalypse." She murmurs.
"I don't mean tonight. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to get shot in the chest?" Magnes laughs, then groans, because laughing hurts right now. "I can't promise that it'll be as exciting as an earth ending apocalypse, but when I'm not in horrible pain, you could let me teach you how to fight better. I'm sure you already know how to fight, but, you can't deny that it might be exciting to learn new things, to spar, to get even tougher than you are. Sparring is pretty exciting when you do it like the Nakamuras."
"Yes Magnes. I do. I know how it feels to be shot in the leg and the chest, and to have my tongue cut out. I know how a lot of stuff feels." She nearly snaps at him. There's a look to him at the promise to teach her how to fight. "And I know how to fight, how to spar and I know how to shoot a pistol, a rifle and a shit gun and wield a bible Magnes. What the hell do you think I have been doing for ten year? Sitting in a room raising a kid?" Abigail stands. "it's been -ten- years Magnes. Ten years. While you were jumping through universes, the rest of us were growing up the rest of the way, getting on with our lives and dealing with our own dramatics and world ending scenario's. I watched them hang my husband. I learned to fight and defend myself so I wasn't spending every waking minute with Kasha."
"I'm not trying to upset you, I just want to help you. You're my friend and I just want to know what you need and how or even if I can give you that. It's been a long time, and yeah, that means I don't know everything about who you are right now, or even back then really, the same with you not knowing everything about who I am now. But that means getting to know each other again." Magnes doesn't sound angry so much as a bit down, but he does frown when he finally asks, "What do you mean? About your husband, I mean. Just…"
He starts trying to sit up, which only causes him to groan in pain again and lay right back down. But his stare comes with another offer of his hand. "I just want you to talk to me. I want to understand you."
"Robert Caliban. James Muldoon. The man I married, who was sentenced in the Albany trials for his part in the island and everything." Abigail regards him, still shaking her head. "I married the man who made you fight in the rings Magnes."
When she says that, Magnes goes quiet. He stops staring at her and stares at the ceiling. On his face, it's like he's processing, thinking, trying to put something together, or, just… in any way make those sentences make any sense. There is clearly something hurt in his eyes, some part of him that still remains from back then struck pretty hard. "I don't really know how to respond."
"There really isn't. I didn't know it was him when I married him." Abigail still stands, moving to lean against the wall. "Magnes. I have reponsibilities now. Sometimes, what I want, what I desire, is not compatible with raising a daughter. To ensuring that what happened to her in the future that once was, doesn't happen now. Burning buildings, are not compatible with being a good mother. And I…" She furrows her brows. "You're a friend. A good friend from the past but…" Hands sink into the pockets of her scrubs. "I'm not looking to pick up some things, or at least not to the degree that i did back then. You have a lot of stuff, like I said, you need to work through. I don't want to become something you cling to because you knew me from before things went haywire for you"
"I don't really know what to be mad at, or about. I know that I'm ridiculously upset right now, I can't help but feel ridiculously upset. I hope you understand that. I'm not… it doesn't…" He stops to breathe, and collect himself. "This doesn't suddenly make me see you differently. It upsets me, a lot, but for one reason or another, unexpected things happen and they don't have to all make me happy."
He doesn't continue to go into himself, or really address the idea of clinging, he instead finally makes eye contact with her again and asks, "Did he make you happy?"
"Does it matter if he did or not?"
"To me it does." Magnes answers pretty sincerely. "I understand that it's none of my business, but… knowing if he made you happy would make a world of difference to me."
"I love him Magnes. There's no did. He's dead, and I still love him. Despite everything." It's spoken softly. 'And I don't need or welcome the psychiatric or Freudian revelations or intimations that that would bring around."
"I'm not here to psychoanalyze you. I just wanted to know how you felt, what you thought." Magnes' expression is softer, his tone a bit less hurt sounding. "Eileen was my friend. I met… multiple versions of her. Most of them did something horrible to me. But all of them showed me compassion in some capacity, all of them showed me who they were deep down inside, who they could be when given the chance."
"I'm not here to judge you, Abby." he states very firmly. "I'm not here to judge him either. What he did, what reason I had to hate him, it's in the past, it's not something to dwell on. If you fell in love with him, there was a reason for that. What place is it for me to say that you're wrong?"
"That is psychoanalytic Magnes." When he protests that he doesn't want to do exactly what he did. Abigail shakes her head and lifts her shoulder in a shrug, hands still in her pockets. "It's not. But you're trying to pick up threads that have long since frayed. Magnes, I'm looking to live my life. I'm not looking for… what you're looking for. I'm sorry. I have my own things to worry about, to deal with. If you need healing, i can give that. The odd afternoon getting coffee and pizza but… I'm not looking for a buddy. Please understand that. I'm not helpless, I'm not…" Abigail looks at him.
'I'm not the girl you knew."
"I don't think you're helpless." Magnes stares back at the ceiling, and she can feel the slight heaviness that comes with his mood dropping, something she should be long used to by now. "It's okay. I can accept that." he says in a not-particularly-convincing tone. It sounds more like defeat than acceptance. "Sorry."
There's a soft huff of laughter. "And yet you offered to teach me to fight and defend myself Magnes." Abigail points out even as there's a knock on the door. "That will be the police. I'll leave you to talk to them. I'm glad you made it here. I'm glad you survived. Take it easy, follow what the doctors tell you to do. Be glad you didn't get Sasha. He would have scowled at you." She straightens, pushing away from the wall. "I'll see you around. When I see you. Stay away from people who talk using guns."
Magnes looks over at her as she's leaving, but he doesn't say anything else. He instead stares back at the ceiling as he waits for the police.
He'll tell them about how he accidentally startled the wrong person and they shot him. They'll get a rather generic description that he claims to have trouble thinking of because it was so dark, and assure them that he'll get better.
Physically, at least.