Participants:
| Scene Title | Always With the Inappropriate Laughter |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Abby and Liz have a little girl talk. |
| Date | Oct 11, 2009 |
Abby's Apartment
After her run-in with Detective Lazarro this morning, Elisabeth did what she needed to at the precinct, put in another few hours on the Municipal Building site, and then slipped out for a real lunch. She hasn't been eating much lately… and maybe Abby'll kick her in the butt when she gets there, but it's she to whom Liz goes looking for companionship and comfort. The knock on Abby's door won't be unexpected — Liz called ahead to ask if it was okay to stop in. When Abby opens the door, Liz looks… not as haggard as Abby might expect, but weary. She offers a little smile. "Is it entirely lame if I turn up on your doorstep begging food and girl-talk?"
It's sunday. Sunday mornings mean church, except today she's in shorts, bare feet, tank top with tattoo's visible and hair in a braid. The urge to visit Raquelle and have him dye her hair pink has been great. See if Deckard will like it then or whether he was just attempting to be nice or what have you.
"You would not be the first and I suspect not the last to do just that. Come on in, I have apple crisp here, and a bunch of other stuff. We can comisserate"
Sunday mornings mean church for most people, but Liz hasn't gone in years….. well, not entirely true, actually. Though she doesn't mention that in recent weeks she's actually been turning up for Mass. Elisabeth chuckles softly and says, "It's that evident, huh?" She closes the door behind her and slides into a chair. She starts to shove a hand through her dusty hair and then stops, not wanting to get the gray stuff all over Abby's house. "How're things going with you, lady?"
"They have been trudging" Abigail's eyeing the grey and points to the bathroom. "Towels in the linen closet in the bathroom, there's some jogging pants and a sweater that i'll get for you, we'll wash your clothes and you can leave the place smelling fresh." Shooing motions made with her hand towards there. "You can feel human before we start.. gossiping or whatever it is"
"Oh bless you," Elisabeth replies gratefully. She heads into the bathroom, stripping off quickly and using Abby's shower, leaving her khakis and T-shirt and even her green hoodie for Abby to run through the wash. The gray stuff seems to get everywhere even through the jumpsuit, so though she hasn't been wearing these particular clothes out onto the site, they're still dusted. When she steps back out wearing Abby's cast-off clothes less than ten minutes later, her hair wrapped in a towel, Liz looks like she feels a bit better. "Trudging didn't sound good. What's been going on?" she asks as she rejoins the now-redhead.
Clothes are almost halfway through their was cycle, tossed in with some of hers that needed tending to as well and Leo's. No use wasting a full cycle of water. So when Liz comes back out, there's still warm crisp at the table and hot coffee with cream, sugar, everything one needs to enjoy a mid morning dessert.
"Just stuff. Stuff that I don't know if it's worth fighting over, whether I want to fight over it and stuff that makes me feel bad for… even having done, but it's done. What about you?"
There's a faint snicker and a knowing look from Elisabeth. "Now that sounds pretty familiar." The blonde slides back into the chair, wiggling her bare toes into the carpet while she helps herself to the coffee. "Things are… weird. I let Hokuto and her silly cards get to me a little… I think I freaked Richard out. Of course it doesn't help that she freaked him out first. And I'm all kinds of screwed in the head anyway. So….. I think we're fighting? I dunno…. I don't think I've ever had a fight with a lover before. I don't know how to act," she says in an aggrieved tone. "Usually if it ever gets to the point where we're disagreeing, we just walk away."
"Hokuto's cards are just cards Liz. They're just pieces of printed cardstock and the whim of a very good woman who interpits them to fit you, or a situation or a question." She swivels around a chair to sit down on it and pick up her ice cream scoop so that she can sink it into the ice cream that's had just enough time to soften. "She did such a horrid reading for me, and I don't particularly believe in them. You can't tell the future through cards. They're cute and they're a pastime, a hobby and all that. Don't get caught up in what she showed you. Everything she's given to me, has certainly not happened. Richard got upset at you getting upset over the cards?" A scoop is dumped on her own ice cream, and there's an offer to give Liz a scoop.
There's a grin. "I know they're just cards… all they did was make me think. And wonder. And worry." Elisabeth shrugs a little. "I'm not exactly sure what he's upset about…. except that one of the things it made me think and wonder and worry about were the plans he's been laying. I was …. worrying about them before but didn't say anything." She sighs and Elisabeth silently holds up her plate for a scoop of ice cream, because what's apple crisp without it?? "I guess when she read his cards, I figured prominently in them…. as someone who could fuck up his plans," she says quietly as she takes the plate and its load back. "So … maybe he sees my questioning now as … that coming true?" She looks up at Abby with a grimace, admitting aloud her bigger fear. "Or maybe it's just a good excuse to push me away because he doesn't like the relationship anymore and he thinks I'm too fragile to say so to me." She rolls her eyes. "And maybe I'm just completely paranoid these days and looking for the other shoe to drop all the time. ALthough I really don't think it's paranoia if someone's really out to get you."
"I think you're being paranoid. He's got a lot of weight on his shoulders. People who count on him, the machinations of a man who's dead and tasked him to carry out his plans." Not that Abigail knows half of those plans. But she knows some of them. A scoop is dropped before she takes the lid and puts it back on and rises to put the ice cream back in the freezer. "Maybe he was having a bad day, and I know you've been having a busy last few days filled with stress as well"
She plods across the wooden floor, feet making slapping sounds. "Maybe you both need to just forget about the cards"
"Yeah…. it's not going to get better anytime soon," Elisabeth sighs heavily. "An IA detective approached me this morning. I'm supposed show up in his office 'at my convenience.' The commissioner of police has some…. concerns about 'what I've been up to'." There's a grimace. She looks down at her apple crisp and toys with it with her fork. "Not sure what I'm going to say yet." She looks back up at Abby and forces a small smile. "Tell me what's going on with you and the scruffy healer who saved my ass," she invites. "It's gotta be simpler than my life right now."
"Not simple" Abigail's spoon descends to pick at her apple crisp, waiting for the ice cream to melt across the heated surface. "I uhh, I asked him to heal felix, he said no. Which I was fine with, I understood. I came across someone else who could help Felix and.. I asked them to help and, well that didn't go how it was supposed to. It helped Felix but not enough. Sent him into like convulsions. I wasn't taking into account that like half of him is made up of the flesh that my tongue is made up with and I panicked and I called Flint and … " And well, Felix is alive isn't he.
"Flint showed up last night, gave me a mouthful. He did it for me, healed Felix because I asked him to, gave me hell for a bunch of things. Wouldn't stay the night. Wanted to know why I took no for an answer the first time around" She swirls the spoon through the ice cream. "Hokuto told Cat and Helena about Francois's journal, scared them by being scared that so many people are wnating it. Then apaprently, todl them that FLint I were married, so Cat showed up with a wedding present and inqueries about the journal of the inhabitant of m- the gift before it was in me"
Elisabeth ….. blinks. Several times. And there is dead silence as she stares at Abby with blue eyes clouded by confusion. And then she starts to laugh. It starts as a soft snort of a giggle, quickly stifled. But she can't keep it in, and she starts to giggle harder, and ultimately she has to set her fork down and clap a hand over her mouth to keep the huge guffaws of laughter from escaping. "So…" She starts to say, and then breaks up into hyseterical giggles once more. "So what you're saying is that no…" She laughs harder again, tears trickling down her face. "No, it's not any simpler than my life." Because you know… if you don't laugh, what the hell are you going to do with that?
Abby's head rears back, watching Liz laugh out loud, have her lark at the situation. She's not laughing. She frankly, short of the carnival the other night, hasn't done much laughing lately.
Waving a hand at Abby, Elisabeth apologizes as she catches her breath. "I'm sorry," she says breathlessly. "I'm not laughing at the particulars, just…. " She sighs a bit. "Here I'd been thinking that at least your issues with Deckard had to be a little simpler than the rest of the stuff going on around us, and… they're not." She shakes her head helplessly, adding sincerely, "It was bad form to laugh, but I couldn't help it. The sheer insanity of life just sort of hit me. I'm sorry."
"Nothing in my life is ever simple Liz, surely you've realized that by now yes? But, you cna go ahead and laugh, at least I know that you're getting some joy out of something" There's a crook of a smile in the red heads face. "He tried to complement me last night at least. Said he liked it red. Liked it blonde too. Think maybe i'm going to change it to blue and see what he thinks then" ABigail reaches out with her free hand to settle it on Liz's hand. "Just, keep your head up and no matter what comes, you'll endure it and survive"
"Sometimes it's…. no, that's going to sound wrong too," Elisabeth says with a rueful grimace, squeezing her companion's hand tightly. "I was going to say that it's nice to have something honestly in common, but that's not really what I mean — I guess what I mean is that …. I'm glad to have you for a friend. Do you think if someone had told us a year ago where we'd be we would have believed them? I don't think I would have… it would have sounded too absurd for words." She shakes her head, absently rubbing at the side of her forehead, picking up her fork to toy with the slowly melting ice cream over her apple crisp. "I'm not even sure I should ask how Hokuto leapt to the married thing," she says with a small grin — it was that bit that really set off the laughter. "I think he'll notice that you changed it to blue and he'll say 'that's cute too honey' or something similar. Cuz… he's a guy. And as far as I can tell, they're all just bizarre."
"I don't know, I wasn't there and I didn't ask Hokuto when I spent the night because she had better things to do." She'll see about the blue thing. Maybe, maybe not. She needs to let her hair have a rest though. Maybe get Xiulan to do it. "I don't think he's happy with me right now regardless, I don't know. I'm just going to wait. Figure things out from there" Abigail pokes, and finally starts to eat her apple crisp.
There's a brief nod, and Elisabeth looks thoughtful. "Well, you know….. " She spoons up a bite of the dessert and nibbles on it. MMmm! Apple crisp and cool melty ice cream. Yum! "Being in love with someone is far far more complicated than just having sex with them. I'm angry a lot… at what happened to me, and … at Richard." She nibbles her lip. "I don't really know why," the memories of whatever might cause that are probably tied up in the piece of her actual brain that got left all over a warehouse somewhere. "I keep waiting for him to do something to hurt me, and it's… kind of a convenient target for all this anger." She grimaces. "The counselor is going to have a field day with that, I'm sure… and the fact that I damn near walloped the man across the road or something with a sonic thingie. Turned and shoved it the other way, but…" She hesitates and says, "I think I picked the fight."
"Then find something else to put your anger into Liz, instead of picking a fight with Richard. FLint.. came here last night spoiling for a fight I think. I'm not sure, he didn't deny it. And anger" She was angry too. "Anger is something that you're going to have to deal with each time something involving what happened to you comes up Liz. Even now, i'm still very angry. I just, i'm too busy to give in to it too often. I channel it into learning what Xiu's teaching me when she's teaching me to defend myself"
There's a tilt of her head and Elisabeth says quietly, "I'm glad." That Xiu is teaching Abby and that Abby has found a way past it. She nibbles on the apple crisp and then says quietly, "He's dead. The guy… " There's a bit of a shrug. "It doesn't exactly make me feel better. I wish it did." She sighs heavily and mulls as she savors several bites of apple and ice cream, and then smirks faintly. "Christ, Abby… I've spent a lot of time this month burying what happened. Afraid of hurting you when you stay with me, afraid of hurting someone else with all of this rage. Channeling it into work. It's the one thing that I'm good at. I have found people out there that we never would have gotten to in time, and that's… a good feeling." She licks her fork. "It's the first thing that's made me feel .. alive. Aside from sex," she grins faintly. "Since I got home again."
"Liz, come on, burying it isn't good and you know it. and you've only yourself to blame if something comes of burying it. If it's one thing i've taken from Dr. yee is that I can't just hide what was done to me. I have to accept it, acknowledge it and learn to use what happened to me, to better my life. Use it as a focus, as a goal. Face what was done, and learn to be able to give it the middle finger and tell it, the situation, the circumstances, that it doens't control me, only I control myself"
Elisabeth grins at Abby. "Yes mother," she teases, then demands lightly, "When'd you get so smart? I thought I was dealing with it. It's the whole taking too much time part that's eating at me." She wrinkles her nose. "Anyway… see, I knew coming to see you would help. If nothing else, you always kick me in the ass when I need it."
"Vice versa. And sex complicates things, it adds something else to the equation to worry about" She's launching into the apple crisp now, teasing at the side before devouring. "I enjoy it, but I could live without it if it made things simpler between us"
There's a faint snort of laughter. "See, now for me it's just the opposite. Sex is easy… it's actually loving someone that gives me the heebie-jeebies and makes me act like an insane person," she admits candidly as she eats. Her appetite is at least present today. "I wish I could help you with Deckard, Abs," she says softly. "Hell, I barely even know the guy. I know… that I owe him my life. And I get the impression that he's… having a real hard time with that gift of yours."
"He is" Abigail murmurs into her spoonful of ice cream. "He is Liz. But maybe that's gonna change real soon" She can hope. She can pray and she can try and have faith that it will. "Lets eat and then, if you're up to it and your clothes are dry, you can help me go get a new jacket for winter and something for Leo. He needs something to cheer him up."