Participants:
| Scene Title | A Change of Plans |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | After talking to Keira, Graeme's plans for the day change. Significantly. |
| Date | February 22, 2011 |
Phone call.
Graeme pauses on the street outside the bank. Because that's what he does when he suddenly finds himself with a lot of cash. It's not exactly something that he wants to be carrying around the streets of New York City, after all. That's too much risk, too much worry. As if he wasn't worried enough. His good mood is occasionally eclipsed by worry about his half-sister, a frown setting lines into his face that are rarely visible as he pulls on his jacket, with a quick check that everything's still in his pockets.
Worry is a funny thing, though. Instead of moving on, calling a taxi, so that he can go swing by the apartment like he was going to, he just leans back against the outside wall of the bank. Hands shoved in his pocket, staring at the sky, shopping bag from the mall earlier hitched up to his shoulder, out of mind. And he worries.
Last night, Keira awoke, in her car, parked at a gas station and feeling like death warmed over. She managed to drive home and, despite her phone telling her that she's missed some calls and has a text message, promptly crawled into bed. And she slept as if she might never get to sleep again, curled up with the enormous Great Dane who is her nearly constant companion.
She's finally woken up, finally gotten some coffee and breakfast (despite the late hour), and now is finally checking her phone. Missed calls from Graeme, and a text message. One brow raises. These all happened…during the time that she was in captivity. She's not dumb, and she's suddenly quite sure that she was lied to.
Which causes her to stare at her breakfast with a frown, rather than eating it. Suddenly she's not so hungry.
Pressing send, Keira holds the phone between her ear and shoulder while she scrapes some of her hash browns onto a separate plate, offering these to Odin (who is quite happy to indulge).
The phone's buzzing, and it's drawn out of his pocket. There are only a few people who ever call him, and out of those … a glance at the caller ID, and Graeme's hit answer, pushing the earphones of his headset into his ear at the same time as he's greeting her. "Keira?" His tone is gentle, concerned. "Are you … are you alright? Where are you? What the fucking hell happened?" The questions are followed by a pause, and Graeme squints as he looks up. And then he sighs, waits for her to answer.
"I—" What the hell is she supposed to say? Oh yeah, brother, I got kidnapped by someone because I work for Humanis First! I just gave up the names of the entire government of New York City as the leaders of Humanis First because they threatened to kill you! "I got taken by some people who weren't quite happy with some work that I've done." she frowns.
"Are you okay?" She sounds concerned.
"I'm fine." Graeme nearly snaps back, not quite. There's another pause, and when he speaks, his tone is less aggressive, back to the gentle concern of before.
"You got taken by someone in fucking armorsuits, you know. Rather narrows down the choices. I'm fine. I spent yesterday working at the edge of the dome, then went bowling with my roommate and ran into the guy that …" Graeme pauses again, realising he hasn't particularly mentioned his sexuality to his half-sister yet, "and kissed him, and went home, and went out this morning to the bank."
His fingers tap out a note on his phone, one of the benefits of the headset, noting the time of day and how Keira put it. "Do you know who it was? What weren't they happy with? What happened? Keira … are you alright?" The initial question that she didn't particularly answer is repeated.
Wait…kissed him?
Wow. So not only is her brother Evo, but also gay. Keira…doesn't really know what to think about that revelation, so she does the next best thing: she throws it over her shoulder to think about later. When she's not just been kidnapped. When she's not sure if Graeme's memories are real or not. Why would they implant that she had been taken? Surely, they would have preferred that she didn't tell him anything.
They lied to her. It makes her feel sick. "I don't know who it was…I saw the visor, then I woke up tied to a chair with a hood over my head." She closes her eyes, poking at her eggs with her fork. "They weren't happy with some…associations that I've made. Are you okay, though? They…they said that they had taken you."
"I'm fine," Graeme says. "No one took me, Keira." He bites his lip. "I spent the day working at the edge of where the dome was, clearing rubble, getting people out of the collapsed buildings. It's somewhere I can be useful." He pauses. "And then I was with my roommate. I'm pretty sure there's no time in my day yesterday that they could have taken me."
He sighs, taps out a few more things on the screen of his phone, to tell Liz, when he's done with this phone call. "I … I got a picture of it happening. I've got a friend of mine looking into what happened."
Keira promptly frowns at her bacon. They lied to her. She told them everything over a lie. And now she's supposed to keep tabs on the people she betrayed. Betrayal over a lie. That's what gets her the most. She wishes she knew who it was. "Look, Graeme…I'm not a good person. You should know that. I've…I've made some mistakes in recent months that I'm not proud of. Mistakes that I regret."
She closes her eyes. "If you could send me that picture, I'd appreciate it. I have some things I need to take care of…but tell me anything that you find out, okay? I'll— I'll give you a better explanation when I know more about it myself, okay?"
"Yeah. I'll send it to you in a bit." After he talks to Liz about it, really, but that's not what he's going to say aloud. "The photo's crap quality, but." He pauses, thinking. "I … the guy who took you, he moved through the seat. Like shadow." Graeme pauses, sighs heavily, and he's pushing his skateboard back and forth, like he always does when he's got nothing else to do.
"I … I'll try, yeah." He's quiet a moment longer. "The thing about mistakes, Keira, the thing is that we get a chance to make things better. Do things better. That's the part that matters."
Like…shadow. And her kidnappers knew about Walsh. She's only told one person about Walsh. And that one person who she told about Walsh also happens to have an ability to move like shadows.
That…puts things into perspective.
"Funny…I have an ex boyfriend who could move like shadows. His name was Richard Cardinal." She says this lightly into the phone, with the hint of a dangerous edge beneath her tone. She purses her lips once, and then promptly shoves an entire piece of bacon into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a very long moment. "I might have to have a talk with him."
His pep talk prompts a slight frown. "Some mistakes you don't get a second chance from." She pauses. "Look…I'll keep in touch. Let me know if you find anything out, okay? And…I'll let you know if I find anything."
This changes Graeme's plans for the rest of the day, really. "Be careful." He hangs up, hangs up before he can say anything else, or more, before she can say anything. With a bit of a frown on his face, he's set off down the street, towards an area that is a loading zone, to hail a taxi. After he researches one Richard Cardinal.