Participants:
| Scene Title | A Good Confession Time… |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | … is when Abby discovers something kept from her. |
| Date | December 13, 2010 |
The Village Renaissance Building lobby, East 4th Street in Greenwich Village, and ending in Cat's penthouse.
It's a fairly cold day, but the skies overhead are clear. No snow on the ground, ice is absent, but it's clearly a December sort of day. And a Monday morning at that, the thirteenth of December, 2010. The news broke about the actions of Phoenix and what really happened on January 28, 2009 two months and change before. Then there were the pardons from President Mitchell and the ceremony at the White House where medals were bestowed on the Monday after Thanksgiving (November 29th).
Newspaper coverage is still intense, it remains very much a whirlwind. There are reporters and cameras everywhere outside the Village Renaissance Building for some reason today, and this is an unexpected development. The security staff is busy doing what they do, their tasks of vigilance made more difficult by the throngs outside. Residents are affected to some degree too, given the need to make their way through the crush in coming and going.
One of those residents is Abigail. Not a member of Phoenix, but she was one of those honored with medals. She just never showed up to get hers on TV with everyone else. She got hers in a nondescript room from some high ranking official and she went on her merry way. Heck, the thing isn't even out on display in her place. It's tucked away in a safety deposit box. EMT uniform, blonde hair up in a bun, she's got work to do but instead she's still inside with the glass doors that separate her from the rest of the world and the newspaper people beyond. She doesn't want this, she really doesn't want this. Please tell her that they're not here to shove those things in her face and ask what it was like to save the world. It's almost enough to make the blonde go back and ask for an escort out a back door. "Good Lord love a duck."
She had hoped this would be uneventful, that her connection to the building would remain obscure and unknown for some time longer until she could let the news break in a way less troublesome to the residents, but this is not to be. Cat had remained in DC on business, speaking with members in the House of Representatives and Senate, for some time and now she's returning home, only to find word has leaked. The car which brought her from the airport can't get through to drop her off at the entrance, so assistance was necessary.
Police cars pull up, uniformed officers get out and beging to establish a perimeter which lets people in and out through the mass of reporters, cameras, and people just wanting to get a good look. Maybe even an autograph. It's only now Cat can exit the car and make her way to the doors. She looks displeased on entering the lobby and making her way over to the security desk to ask a question.
"How did they find out I was coming here?"
The tone to her voice, the way they react to her, it's as if she's their boss.
"Cat?" Abigail asks, somewhat lost in the sea of uniforms and security for the place. She had never seen the woman here in any capacity but visiting her. The blonde woman goes up on her toes to catch a glimpse of the musician/lawyer at the front desk, making her way there slowly but surely.
"We don't know, Doctor Chesterfield," the man in charge tells her nervously. "I don't think there was a leak anywhere among the staff, but one never knows. We're working to find out if it came from the inside." The man swallows nervously, summoning up the courage to tell her what she may not want to hear. "It was only a matter of time, really, after the news broke, then the pardons and the medals. This secret was on borrowed time."
She just sighs, nodding to the man in reply. "This is true," Cat has to agree, "but I'd still hoped to handle it all better. Let things be prepared…" Perhaps she would say more, but a voice approaching draws her attention to its source. Eyes settle on the paramedic, and she wonders how much of that she heard.
"Abby…"
Abby's heard everything. The look on the woman's face is a big clue. How some people always managed to get in without needing to be buzzed up. The upper floors being off limits to people and inaccessible. Even the roof. The really low cost of the rent that never seemed to increase, even when it should have and the timely repair of stuff. How fast she'd been able to even rent the place on such short notice not to mention the security. "You own it." It makes sense. Even some long ago quip from Elisabeth about Cat's place, with the club beneath it or was it behind it? Regardless. She doesn't know whether to be mad or not. "They're blocking my way to work, Cat. I need to go have breakfast before the rig comes." It's not a whiny complaint; it's a 'you're the boss, you get to deal with it' statement.
"Okay," she replies with a slow nod. "Yes, I do." Cat moves a few steps closer. "When you get back from work, come to the top and we can talk then, if you want." She lingers, looking at Abby just a few moments longer, before turning toward the doors and studying the assemblage outside. "It'll be okay, getting out of here. Police have made a hole, they can get you where you need to be while I deal with the crowd."
She knows there's only one way to disperse all or even most of them.
Cat must give them what they want.
There's profound relief in knowing that they're here for Cat and not her. She'd tried hard to keep her name out of papers and everything. She didn't want to be recognized for killing the man, not when she's worked hard to forget that her own ability can kill. Instead of just heal. That in and of itself might make people afraid of her at work. "I get off at 7." No more, no less, the healer turns then on her heel, head down and taking a few cops with her to get out of the building and away a bit, relieved that none have decided to follow her. But she stops at the end of the block, retraces her steps just enough to the edge of the crowd so she can stick around and listen. Means the difference between eating in the restaurant, or eating her food in the rig, but she wants to know now.
Stepping out as Abby is escorted away and shielded from attention on her, Cat stands just outside the doors and fixes a smile onto her face. "Good morning," she starts. "Now, I know you all have jobs to do, and we're lately big news, but could you back away from the entrances a bit more? Please? Thank you." She waits for them to do as she asks, indicating she isn't likely to say another word until they do.
A few minutes later, when there's more breathing space with residents able to come and go unharried, her voice resumes. "Much better. Now you can take all the photos and ask whatever questions you want. Maybe I'll answer, maybe I won't." A grin is flashed. "Take it or leave it, folks."
As much as she does truly regret the hassles to the residents here, Cat does have plans and she did always want to live something of a rock star life. "I'm not going to talk much about political things or about the group's operations, or the goals of the future, I'm a behind the scenes person. You've all got Helena Dean for that. She's the speaker. So…"
Her voice trails off as she searches among the crowd hoping to find a reporter from Rolling Stone to give preference. If there's anyone present from Pause magazine, that person gets absolutely nothing.
Pause Magazine isn't present at this impropmtu speech giving by Cat. They get their interviews other ways. But Abby's there, watching from the edges before she turns away, backpack hefted with her lunch for the day and everything she'll need to do her job and heal. She's got a lot to think about; it's a doozy that, thanks to the press, got dumped on her lap. Down the block the blonde goes, the opposite of Cat in some way. Not a reporter trailing her, much to her liking, off to do what she loves.
Time passes.
Day has turned to evening, the sun is low in the western sky with its setting heralded by the spreading dark hues and streetlights coming on. Most of the press and spectators have departed by now, although some remain to snap whatever photos might be captured. Cat is inside and six floors up quietly enjoying a glass of wine as she reads over documents sent to her from various places and mulling over the contents of essays to be published in Dani's name. Instructions have been left with the security desk to let Abby come up if she asks when she gets back in from work.
The front desk phones up to give Cat warning that the resident in question has come back and is asking for the way up to wherever Cat is living. IT's a half hour later though, before the blonde actually is outside Cat's door, knocking on it. She's not about to come visit wearing dirty clothes from work that have specks of dried blood on it. Was a shower and fresh clothes first. But damp hair back in a braid, the blonde cool sher heels, waiting for her friend and tada! building owner to open the door.
The double doors across from the elevator she takes are open when she steps out, Cat waiting there for her. A slight smile is flashed on sight of the healer, and a one word greeting is spoken. "Surprise." Hands gesture to invite Abby inside, then she'll move to close the doors. "Thanks for coming up."
Riight. Big surprise. It'd left her in a bad mood all day. Poor partner who'd had to bear the brunt of it and a silent broody EMT in the passenger seat between patients. "Well you're my landlord and my friend. I can't refuse on either count." Inside Abby goes, a look here and there to see how it differs from the rest of the place. "So who else knew? Or was I the only one to not know that I was living off the goood graces of Catherine Chesterfield all these years?" She's not wasting time, it's rude to waste time. "And when were you planning on telling me?" "Or were you never going to tell me?"
She follows behind, letting Abby look about her home as she will. "There were others in Phoenix who knew," Cat replies calmly. "I intended to tell you fairly soon, this wasn't the way I planned for my connection to this place to become public. Media attention doesn't always go according to desires, however. For that, I'm sorry." But she isn't at all sorry there was a secret in the first place.
"You couldn't be told," she explains. "At the time there might've been people looking for me, and we were planning the raid on Moab." This causes her features to shift, there's a trace of anger and regret over it not working showing in her face and eyes. "So you weren't told so you could honestly say you didn't know if you were asked, but would have a safe place to live."
She heads for the kitchen, asking "Are you hungry or thirsty, Abby?"
"Neither. I had swamp sludge before coming up." She doesn't have a leg to stand on with being upset that she didn't know. Well she might, the whole rent thing, and how low it was. The rest, it had been for Phoenix safety and was probaby something she would have asked. That she always did ask since she wasn't good at keeping secrets.
"Raise my rent. To what it should be, not what it's been kept at since I moved in here." Abby sticks pretty much by the door right now, with her shoes on and her bruised ego. It doesn't get bruised much, but right now, it's a little black and blue. "Thank you for helping to give me a safe place after Staten Island, but I want my rent up to where it should be, what everyone else is paying."
Somewhere along the way, she's crossed her arms. "You paid for my schooling and that's hard enough to swallow."
"It's not that much higher," Cat replies. "But if you want, it'll go up. Or it could drop to nothing. I'm not in the habit of charging friends for things, and it's no longer necessary for you, Abby." She stops to lean against the wall and converse with the healer. "I had the fourth floor of the place as a safehouse connected to the Ferrymen. If it had been possible while protecting you against things you didn't want to know, I'd have offered you a place there."
"I'm not so worried about the money. I have it, and choose to do worthwhile things. But the choice is yours, and your wishes will be honored."
"You drop it to nothing, by God I will move out Catherine Chesterfield! Do you hear me? I have my pride. I may have unknowingly needed that help once you all pulled me out of hell, but I don't now. Bump it up. Have them revise the lease and I'll pay the new price this next month. You may not be worried about money, but you've always had money. I didn't come from money and what little I have is because I've worked to save it and because Izzy for some reason left me that bar."
There's a pause. "Not that you haven't worked for some of yours too." Because the woman had. "There anything else that I need to know that you've been taking care of? I knew about the bar already. Because right now would be a good confession time so I'm not finding anything else out along the way."
"As said, the choice is yours," Cat assures. Having pride is something she understands very well, the keeping of appearances and facades. Her mind flashes back to that day at the cathedral and how she'd been, how she's not spoken of it with anyone other than Abby and even then only once.
"Security's good here because I made it be that way, all the cameras and the desk, me having control over it through a variety of fronts. I've got feeds on all of them coming here so I can check out what goes on in the public areas if needed or wanted. I also have a handle on who lives here, knowing things about them, because…" Her eyes close for a moment, she trails off.
"…because we were kidnapped out of our own apartment, I even let them in because there was trouble in the hallway. Fell for all of it, and I've had to wonder ever since if Ethan lived in the building. So when I found this place and pulled strings to get control of it, one of the goals was to know just who was around. To not have anything like that ever happen again."
She knew about that. That they were kidnapped from their apartment. She can understand the want to control everything afterwards and be safe. The blonde closes her eyes, dropping her head into waiting hands, rubbing at her eyes. 'For what it's worth, and so I don't sound ungrateful for all the… help you've given without my knowing and cause my momma raised me better, thank you. For that safe place to live and security. For school and the bar, everything. For understanding."
"I've got plans," Cat shares quietly, moving to look out the windows over Greenwich Village. "This neighborhood used to be bohemian, art and music was everywhere. It can be again. I'll be working to promote that, among other projects. The club downstairs is good for attracting new musicians and giving them a place to play, the apartments are all affordable, calculated for making just enough to keep the bottom line even. That's why the building has its name."
"It's a relief, and a burden at the same time, all the attention. A relief in no longer having to hide, the burden being attention is just that, one can't choose to turn fame on and off like a switch for convenience. But I'll survive." She flashes a broad and brief smile at the healer.
But then it's back to earnestness. "You're welcome, Abby."
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