Participants:
| Scene Title | Blue Caterpillar and the Ruby Slippers |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Des discovers radio may be the safer way to communicate with Eve. But it's at least 20% less fun. |
| Date | March 22, 2018 |
Raytech NYCSZ Branch Office: Employee Housing
Des happens to be fortunate enough to be standing in the lobby when the parcel arrives with her name on it, allowing her to skip over having it routed through to Richard first. And there are advantages to being in good with the woman at the front desk. It means when she says “Don’t tell Mister Ray,” he’s not likely to hear about it.
It’s well into the evening before Des gets around to actually opening the package - which she puts under the influence of her ability, just in case it happens to be an explosive device of some sort.
It isn’t, fortunately. Just a two-way radio with a handwritten note that indicates the channel the device should be tuned to, and a winky face. It doesn’t take a psychometer to know who sent this gift Doctor Desjardins’ way. Seated on her couch in her pyjamas with a can of Pepsi and a bowl of popcorn on the side table and the radio in one hand, she dials it to the correct channel and puts out a test call.
«E—»
The first attempt is instantly aborted. She can’t use their real names over an unsecured frequency. Even if the name she’s using isn’t her own.
«Blue, this is… Ruby. Are you out there?» The note also says she should be sure to say over when her call is finished. So, she depresses the button again and says: «Over.»
There is a yelp and a jump as the radio goes off next to Eve’s head. She had apparently had been sleeping in her car. Light gray eyes wild as she surges upright with a gasp. She's parked not too far from Raytech. Since her arrival from Maine, she's been running around. Meetings to prep for and warnings to give.
Usually she would come roaring in guns blazing ready to protect her charges but today, she's observing. Not wanting to freak out the whole company from her dream. Eve was trying to be more chalk. As Chicken would say.
The idea has struck her that she needed to stay in contact with Des in a covert manner. One that wouldn't be suspected. One that made her feel… mysterious.
«This is Blue. You sound pretty Ruby! Over.»
There's delight in her tone as she makes contact with her friend.
«How are you holding up? Over. I have cookie. Over.» She finds it necessary to alert Des to the cookies. «They never tell you how boring stakeouts can be Ruby. Oh, over!»
«I’m holding up fine, all things considered. And I have popcorn.» Des flops over on her couch, resting her head against the pillow at one arm and reaching up over her head to grab her bowl of popcorn, which now rests on her flat stomach while she stares up at the ceiling, the transmitter still in her hand.
«I learned some crazy things. And I feel like I need to go find the White King. But I am suuuper grounded. Over.» There’s a huff of frustration that cuts off mid-way on Eve’s end as Des’ thumb lifts off the button on her set.
At the sound of the white king Eve blinks and finds herself nodding along with Des’ statement. «POPCORN IS IT THE SWEET KIND? OVER.» Eve looks overjoyed and that inspires her to grab a Snickers hiding underneath her car seat, she takes the half eaten candybar and takes a big bite. Mouthful as, «A Quest? I think we have one. SORRY MOM AND DAD, over.» The seer drums on the wheel of the car and thinks before going, «I have things to share as well. We can talk in person but. Over.»
The dark haired woman looks left and right at the sidewalk and street surrounding her. She finishes the last of her Snickers: «Someone is coming for all of you there, I don’t know who. They wore leather, they were.. Not seen by my eyes. I’m not sure when but that’s why I’m parked outside. Over.»
«I won’t let anything happen to you Ruby, over.»
«You’re parked outside?» There’s an urge to go to her window and look out, but Des’ window faces out of the back of the building, not toward the front entrance. «And it’s the savory kind. I melted my own butter for it.» Which is only partially relevant right now. Eve had something far more important to say there, and it needs to be elaborated on more than what kind of popcorn Des happens to be eating.
«When you say someone’s coming for all of us, what do you mean? Over.» Sitting up again, the popcorn is set aside and Des grabs the radio to move to her bedroom so she can start getting dressed. Or at least put lounge pants on and a sweatshirt, because they’re warmer. She has a feeling she’ll be going out to sit in Eve’s car before the evening is out.
The woman grins that devilish grin and spreads her hands out. «Des.. I wanna honk so much right now. OVER» There’s a snicker and she forgets to release the transmitter button for a few seconds before going, “Oh!” And letting it go and still snickering. There’s that question about her dream though and it makes her brow furrow. There is someone, someones after Des and Raytech.
«There was a dream, in Maine. I was seeing my wolf friend ahhh listen.. I saw.. A group of people they I couldn’t see who they were. Marching down the hall, causing havoc in their wake. Killed that pretty girl at the desk, the Bearded One was there, off he went. You pleaded Ruby.. they did not listen. Watch the windows… o-over.» The seer takes a deep breath and sighs as she lays her head back on the seat.
Digging in her coat pocket for her metallic case with a joint inside, she lights it and takes a deep puff, blowing the smoke out the window. She maybe expects someone. «I am worried. Over.»
Not much of what Eve says puts Desdemona’s mind at ease. Tugging on her pants and pulling a sweatshirt over her head, she listens to the seeress explaining what she saw in her vision. Sera, Barney… Pleading. No, none of that sounds good at all.
«I’m on my way. Over and out.»
Stashing the radio in the back of her closet, Des then grabs her keys, slips her feet into a pair of simple flats, and heads out the door. She doesn’t even put her glasses on, just pulls the hood of her sweatshirt up. C’est la vie is printed across the front in black cursive script over heather grey.
Four minutes later, she’s looking both ways, then jogging across the street to where Eve’s car is parked. She moves around to the passenger door.
“Let me in!”
There's a shriek as Des says those words, Eve knew she was coming but still. Eyes wide she cackles at her friend. “Come in Dorothy!” Sliding over to push the door open, she looks excited to see the woman, there is a buzz around her. All that energy, she places the radio on the dashboard not bothering to turn it off, she pulls the woman in for a tight hug.
“You're still alive,” She comments softly and grins again as she lets the woman go and takes another pull of the joint, holding the smoke in her chest she passed the joint to Des and blows the smoke out of her nose.
“You're grounded! No fair,” she groans at the prospect of that hurting their adventures. “BAD mom and dad,” Eve almost confuses herself by going further into a rant on parenting and disciplining your child and how does banning the thing make the thing not happen? Hm.
“Ooh Des. It has been.. nuts.”
“Sorry!” Des pulls the door open once Eve pops the latch and climbs into the passenger seat. “Yeah, I’m still alive.” The door is quietly pulled shut behind her again. Then she wraps her arms around Eve to return the hug, just as tightly. She can’t explain the kinship she feels with this woman. A few years ago, she’d be wondering just what the heck was going on with her. But now? Now she’ll take her friends wherever she can find them.
“I know. Things are… Nothing makes sense anymore.” Des has to wonder if that’s how Eve feels most of the time, honestly. “I had another vision. Another glimpse of another version of me. She’s— I’m trying to cross over from there to here.” Even though she knows she and her other selves are distinct from one another, this connection she feels makes it all feel like it’s something she’s done. Something she is trying to do. “It won’t be good if the attempt succeeds. I know what I’m like… and it’s not good.”
The hood of her sweatshirt is pulled back, the hem tugged at anxiously. It exposes the scar across her throat. “I think I know why the others don’t connect to me the way I connect to them, but… it’s still confusing. I hate not having answers. I really hate it.” Des frowns and rests one hand against her throat, her thumb rubbing over the ragged flesh there. “Tell me what you’ve seen.”
The revelation of another vision of another Odessa makes Eve reach out to grab her new friend’s hand, squeezing. Their relationship is not an odd one for Eve, prone to jumping down the rabbit hole with near strangers, there is something about Odessa or Des as she knows her. She feels for her, she can see her reality crashing down around her. She knows the feeling and Eve feels terrible that she cannot do much more to help the woman but be there. “A more bloodthirsty Dorothy. Perhaps we are friends there too,” maybe that would given the other Odessa pause. “Do .. How do they know of us?”
Aren't they separated.. by laws and rules that predate man’s existence?
She is quick to the thought of her lost friend. Her other Otter. With the same eyes, washed down the river that wasn't his own. Eve closes her eyes as she continues holding onto to Des’s hand. Maybe he's there? Maybe.. “Maybe.. we can try. To map when she arrives,” the seer shakes her head. “I'm an echo could see sideways. I'm not sure if they would even allow it. The whispers push me forward. The whispers push me hard. Barreling toward the rabbit hole, tripping tripping. Which way is up? Are we upside down?” The seer looks fearful as she clutches Des’ hand.
She takes a moment, finally pulling from the spliff and blowing the smoke out the window. The windows were rolled up at some point. The smoke slowly fills the room, not harsh yet. “I saw a group of people. Whizzing in and out of the building, they have big guns and they fire them away. You're on the floor,” smoke hanging around her raised hand, “No light there, no light for Kaylee who they seemed to know. But still they weren't friends.” Eve begins to rock back and forth as the memory of the dream assaults her.
“Hello, Mr. Harrison. Let's talk. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. He's gone! Hahah he's gone! They’re all gone! We’re all gone..” Eve seems upset and she bangs a hand on the dashboard with a shout. “Rotten lizards, Edwin, Edwin, EDWIN. He's the one, the one we have to find.”
There seems to be a list of things they needed to find. Even with Odessa’s ability was there enough time?
“I don’t know. They shouldn’t know about us, but… I think it’s the Looking Glass. They were testing it, and something happened. I think they realize it works. That we’re here.” She can’t — won’t — say how she knows the Looking Glass was being tested, but given her connection to the device in Eve’s paintings, she expects not to be questioned on this front. Not by the seer, anyway.
When Eve speaks, it sounds like a jumbled mess, and yet it all makes some kind of sense. Des nods. “Time moves forward. That’s how it’s supposed to work. You’re being pushed forward, because that’s how it’s meant to be. But time… Time is broken. I can feel it. It pulls at me in all directions. It’s never done this before. The only way it won’t let me go is back.” Her eyes fix on Eve’s, the corner of her mouth ticking upward for the barest second. “Until the Refrain, that is.”
When she starts to pound on the dash, that startles Des out of her own reverie. “Eve. Eve!” She reaches over and takes Eve’s hand in her own, squeezing tightly. “It’s okay. So they… They came for Mister Harrison? And one of the men who killed us was Edwin? Are… Are you sure it wasn’t…” A deep breath is inhaled, blown out as a heavy sigh. “Edward?” He is known to her as the man who kills her, after all.
“That fogged glasses kook knows better than to come around me.” In any timeline she hopes. It's said with a hmph as if she hadn't just had a manic episode. Hair is plastered on her lips and Eve gives Des a look as she mentions the Refrain. The woman digs in the pocket in the in the side of the door. “I got four Refrain syringes and four tabs of acid,” the seer might be looking to show.
Rummaging in the pocket, “Yes, Liz’s Dad was kidnapped, bag over his head I imagine.” It's just how these things go in Eve’s mind. “Edwin is a not good person. He wants to hurt you all.”
“I think you need better windows,” as an afterthought to the other woman. “Aha!” Pulling out a glowing syringe of Refrain. “The trip was extremely… timely. We can slip in between the cracks, something is breaking the walls down.”
Des chuckles quietly at Eve’s less than flattering description of Edward Ray, but the rest of it brings more solemnity. “Wow. LSD? Well… That’s probably not a bad idea, actually. The boss might be more apt to let me take some of that for experimentation…” She shrugs and turns in the passenger seat. Her shoes are kicked off before she pulls her feet up to sit cross-legged with her back to the door.
“You know what I can do. My ability. Time is broken. Horribly. And… I think I’m the reason. I think I’m the reason there are cracks to slip through.” Even to her own ears, it sounds a little like she’s full of herself, but there’s evidence. In her mind, at least. “Nobody listens to me like you do.”
“He should take some himself. So tight, so wound. When Richard could slither like a shadow he was more free. He is chained to his flesh, I think he misses it. I think he needs it.” Eve bites her lips as she takes a puff of her joint and looks pensive, “I killed someone he cared for,” she admits it without much shame, it’s a fact. “My lines blur. Is this real or a dream? I lost control, I found out later he wasn’t always the nicest science fairy but.. Richard has lost many friends. Losing another hurt his heart.” But losing her sanity hurt her just as much. “I can never fix that broken thread, it’s burnt to ash. But I can.. Can watch for him. As I have before.” There’s a brief pause.
“I prank him so he won’t forget my name. EVEEEEEE, we both lost Liz. We both lost this woman who..” Eve lays her head against the window, smoke trailing up her arms and towards the ceiling of the car. “Oh Des,” the seer takes her hand and squeezes it. “You’ve got a broken surface right in front of you. But you can put it back together.” After she finds her other Otter. She’s afraid to sound stupid, though she trusts Des. The older woman nods her head, “I learned from friends to take what your friends say seriously. We need each other.”
There’s a chuckle and Eve closes her eyes, “I use to run the alleys of this city as a teenager, a wee one causing mischief and fun. Moved to prowling the underbelly with my friends blowing up buildings to hosting karaoke on Tuesday nights and time traveling with a fabulous new friend. Life is strange Des.” Says the strange woman, after her moment of incoherence it would seem there is lucidity blooming to the forefront.
“I don’t know what’s real anymore either.” While she knows her blurred lines aren’t nearly to the same degree, Des feels some empathy for Eve all the same. “Richard and Kaylee told me you killed Doc Carpenter.” There’s a little sadness to her tone, but also some measure of understanding. “I know they hold it against you.” That she can understand, too. “I killed Doctor Stevens. I… It was an accident, but I still did it.” On her part, consciously, it was an accident. Her ability, however, took his life on purpose.
“We did terrible things at the Institute. Terrible things to people who never deserved it. But we didn’t all do it by choice. I… There’s only so many of us left now.” The scientists. Most were apprehended and imprisoned or executed. The ones she worked with directly, anyway. San Francisco had more warning before the hammer came down. “I hope I can find Doctor Luis someday. If… If you see him in one of your visions, I’d like to know. I think he knows something about my past. I want to know what it is.”
Des sighs softly and squeezes Eve’s hand. “Life is… incredibly strange. I’m trying to make up for the things I’ve done. I don’t know if it can ever be enough, though… But if I can figure out how to set this right, if we can figure out how to fix the cracks… Maybe that will be enough.” Enough for her to accept the fate she believes she deserves, at any rate.
“I care for Richard a lot.” It’s nothing she hasn’t admitted to his face, but it still feels like some kind of secret. She feels the burning in her cheeks that comes with shyness and embarrassment. “I’ll look out for him as long as I can.”
“I don't often look back on the regrets and blood that stain these fingertips.” The woman raises a pale hand to examine in the light. “Accidents, happen.” Is her reply to Des’ confession about Darren. “Our sins from twenty eleven must be hopped over, we are in this together. She, is coming.” Eve feels that, the golden eyes of that woman haunt her still.
Her eyes are still closed as she takes more of the joint and passes it to Des, “Free your mind with me.” Eve is a spokesperson for the herb.
“I will.. keep an eye out for the science fairy Luis. He was the most sad in my dream, all that time ago. Popped his own rocker, I never got to tell him don't.” It would seem that Eve didn't have to though. There is comfort shared between the women and Eve nods, wisps of hair plastered on her forehead. The smoke filling the car more, contact high is at least a given at this point. “Maybe it's your bright idea, the shiny bulb. I think you can do it Des. I think we can.” Her tone is firm and she twitches slightly at the memory of her dream. “That will be enough.” A silence as Des admits to ‘caring’ for Richard, a lot.
A wide smile is thrown the doctor’s direction. “Love can bloom from the shittest of places, in the darkest of moments. Sometimes love is friendlike but sometimes.. that love knocks you so hard in the face..” she trails off, thinking of her Ghost. A faint smile stays on her lips.
“I have someone I care for too.” Her expression fond, the sadness all but vanishing at the thought of her lover and friend. “He moves as swift as a cat, sometimes I think I lose myself when he's around.” Or his counterpart but the connection between Ghost and Eve was something. “He's Ghost,” She chuckles to herself, he's anything but a ghost though.
The joint is accepted without hesitation. This is not her first time medicating in this fashion by any stretch. Though the first time in a while. The first hit is held in her lungs until it prickles. The exhale is accompanied by a cough, but it doesn’t dissuade her from taking a second deep puff right on its heels.
“He’ll never care for me the way I care for him.” That may not be true, but it’s what Des feels. Her smile is sad. Thinking of the people she’s loved never does bring solace. “They never do. All except one, and…” To quell the urge to cry, Des brings the joint back to her lips and inhales deeply. She holds the smoke in her chest as she passes back to Eve.
Wiping a tear away with her thumb, her breath comes out as a smoky sigh. The dam holds. No further tears come. “I’m good at giving my heart to all the wrong people. Sometimes for the right reasons, though.” So she won’t judge herself too harshly on that front. It should never be considered wrong to love, should it?
“I’m half tempted to drop this seat and a tab and see what happens.” But Des isn’t sure Eve’s prepared to handle another episode like the last one. That didn’t go quite so well for either of them, honestly. The last thing Des wants is to put Eve in that kind of danger a second time.
“Puff it like a champ Dorothy, wooo.” There’s a snort in the back of her throat and her eyes circle in a zany way. But then her friend is near tears and her expression is one of sadness to compliment the mood of the smoky, hot boxed car. She takes the offered joint and puff on it, this time coughing herself. It’s getting smoky but that’s what the seer wants. The clouds that she ascends to as they talk are in her mind but that doesn’t make them any less fluffy and light and Eve imagines she’s laying in the clouds, of the clouds. Peering across at Des with light comforting smile.
“Goddesses are hard to love.” The seer comments as she puffs more thoughtfully and blows the smoke from her nose. “You are a conduit of time, tick tock tick tock. You’re late you’re late! But no you are not.” Eve looks Des stare in the face, “When it is time. It’s gonna knock you in the face. Can’t be ignored, it will come. I’m not sure if with him, but there is someone.” For everyone and Eve firmly believes that to be true, the smoke curls around her face, long lashes leaving lines in the air right before her as she blinks, eyes getting red. She loves this feeling, she settles back into the chair more comfortably and passes the joint over. “Maybe Ray will have a change of heart, maybe there’s more to you two’s story.” A guess, not a firm prediction.
“Giving you heart at all is a feat to be proud of. A lover and a fighter, a knowledgeable lady. A TIME LORD. You are a catch and a half and that’s over a ten.” Eve grins over at the woman.
“Why not?” Eve shrugs and looks at Des, ready for the dare. Always ready for a dare. Des’ concern would be noted and valued as Eve doesn’t have that much concern for her wellbeing typically, willfully throwing herself into strange circumstances where the outcomes is unknown. The only way Eve knows how to give her ability and the future the finger besides negation is to allow herself to be as impulsive as possible. The unpredictability of her nature was one of the things she banked on getting her through the day, through life. It was boring at times now knowing when that cup would drop from the counter, knowing when that bird would stop flapping its wings.
Though those misgivings she has of her ability and her own quirkiness are not dwelled upon, they never are. The echoes and the whispers that slowly move through her mind are quick to quell any disent, they roar louder as she tries to grow saner.
But being sane was the most boring thing of all and so Eve shrugs again, inner thoughts on the matter concluded. “I think.. The more we open our minds. The more answers we will receive.” The need to know, to satisfy her ever curious nature was strong. Answering questions was fun. Leaving things unanswered was also fun. Eve’s brow furrows, “No no, they are both fun but answers are more.” she says aloud trying to convince herself.
“Need to know.” A snort as she peers at Des with a sly grin. The drugs are right where they need to be, on Eve’s person.
Odessa might agree about the boring nature of insanity. Or might have agreed once. Her ability makes her believe she’s sane, but she’s been without it enough and negated enough to know that it plays hell with her fragile mind. But she can agree that answers are more fun, but that the questions are nearly as. She flashes a smile, regaining her composure more and more as Eve encourages her. While she may not believe she’ll ever find love, because she isn’t sure she deserves it, the fact that someone thinks she can is still nice.
“We need a telepath if we’re going to do this again. Someone who can monitor. Pull us out if… If something goes too far. I don’t want you to lose your head again. That was…” Des rakes her fingers through her dark hair. “Fuck. I’m so glad you’re okay. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d—” She sighs heavily, and chuckles softly, wondering just when she became a person who cares about others and stopped thinking of them as merely tools to achieve her ends.
She shakes her head. “You’re right, though. I do need to know. I’ve always needed knowledge. Always more. Especially when it comes to my limits. When it comes to my… self.”
That smile is shared with Odessa, kindred spirits. At this point Eve believes she could form a sisterhood of Evolved women driven mad by their abilities. It's comforting to know she's not the only one. Eve’s internal struggle with her ability and psyche had long since passed. Years after she fully embraced her crazy.
Nodding her head along, “Yes! Miss Mind might.. well last time she was in my head she got pecked to death by birds.” There's a grimace, “If only Eileen had listened.” She sighs as she rubs the back of her head. She had been through this with Gabriel recently, the pain of that loss. She's completely unaware of the hellish epic that was Odessa and Eileen’s relationship.
“You know, dying a second time and coming back to life is strange. It's like you're there and then.. you're not! And then you are. Whoa.” The cannabis hitting her harder now, “I mean like.. how trippy.” Eve chuckles and shakes her head as she registers more of Odessa’s words, “Aw Dorothy,” Eve uses her thumb to caress Des’ face. “I'm grateful someone was there that cared.” Because Adam Monroe sure didn't. The gold eye woman…
“Why do you think she cared to save me? To send us back? Knocking our heads off would be the far simpler solution. Meddling into her affairs without her knowledge. She must not be all knowing,” Eve’s brow furrows as she muses, “We were not expected. I was thinking she was godlike but maybe.. she's more like a mosaic.. like my friend Peter.” Another name that Eve wouldn't think Odessa is familiar with at all. Besides the headlines, “But older.. far older..”
The time has long since passed when Odessa would flinch at the sound of Eileen’s name, even if something does stir within her still. Regret, mostly. So, so much regret.
“I…” Des leans into Eve’s touch slightly. A gentle sigh escapes her lips. “She knew what we were. She didn’t expect us, but she understood the nature of what we were.” There’s a distant quality to her gaze as she focuses on their encounter with Kensei and the woman with gold eyes. “I think that’s why she saved us both. Kensei didn’t know who or what we were. We were just enemies to him. More adversaries on the field of battle.”
Who is the woman, though?
“I think I know her. I— I think she’s more than just a mosaic. But I think I knew her when I was very little. But I couldn’t tell you how.” Behind lidded blue eyes, Odessa sees broken bodies strewn across the floor. Gore, viscera, the smell of burning flesh and a whisper in her ear. “The thing you are most afraid of is real, I heard a voice say. I don’t know who it was. I don’t… think it was her.” She opens her eyes again. “The other voice I heard… Only you can hear me, child, it said to me. Let me in.”
There’s a horror in her expression, apprehensiveness gripping her. “I think that I have been a vessel for a terrible power. Something far greater than myself. And I think it’s why I spent my whole life locked away like a dangerous animal.” Odessa shakes her head slowly, fear giving way again to something more melancholic. “Maybe because we were both touched by her power, maybe that’s why we have this connection.” Which came first? Was their accidental trip to the past a predestination?
“Child..”
“I didn't hear her.. I heard me, sounded just like me. I think it was her through me.. she said I can see you, eye to eye.” Eve grows a little nervous like a child being faced with a cross mother. “Why are they talking to us? Whispering in our ears like charming snakes,” Eve’s eyes close again as she puffs more from the spliff.
“She knew what we were.. She gained access to you, like a hacker. Why couldn’t they understand? You were a child!” Eve looks desperate as she searches Odessa’s face. She knows what it’s like. “I was held in the looney bin, right as the bomb went off. I shrieked for them to listen, I just didn’t know what was going to happen. Where the boom was.”
“I tricked them into thinking I was a Plain Jane! Nothing to see here. You did too, gained your freedom. Rightfully so, caged animals grow ferocious.” Eve’s mouth thins into a line and she's tilting her head coughing a little from the smoke as she passes the joint to her friend.
“That might be how.. we kicked it off.. on accident? But being able to see her first might help us.. Adam.. he has answers.” Her grip tightens around her hand. “I've been looking for him forever, he left me a note in Australia. He's a cheeky bastard.”
Eve looks nervous, “If we’ve fucked up. Then we must fix it… did we start it? On accident?” The oracle has questions.
“I don’t know anymore. Every answer I find leads to more questions.” Des sighs and reaches out to take the joint from Eve again. She needs another hit. Or three. “Adam’s promised to kill me if he ever sees me again.”
Des tips her head to the left as she holds in a lungful of smoke, breathing it out through her nose like some kind of laconic dragon as she closes her eyes for a moment. “I told you,” her eyes open again and fix on Eve with a small smirk playing on her lips, “that I give my heart to all the wrong people. Adam was one of them.”
And for years, there was no conflict of feelings where it came to him. She hated him for lying to her. Using her. Hurting her. Either the years have softened the blows or this new mystery surrounding him is enough to make her set aside her anger. Odessa would bet on the latter, knowing the madness her ability drives her to.
“Can… Can I tell you a secret?”
“Oh he is so rude!”
Then the revelation of Adam and Odessa. Makes her eyes widen, “Girllllllll.” Eve waves her hand in front of her face. He's so evil but yes he's handsome. It would have been not funny if she had ever gotten together with him. “That,” She chuckles, “Is not a wise choice,” she playfully swats at the woman.
Her own relationship with Adam was a strange one, one that she had been chewing on since the events at the Ark. Why has he saved her? How did he know the woman with the gold eyes? “Do you think.. he remembers that day?”
A pause as she goes for the joint and takes a long puff, holding the smoke in her chest and letting out a soft sigh as she exhales a thick cloud of smoke. “Of course you can.” Her tone earnest.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if that day existed yet when I first remember meeting him. Time is… strange. Maybe he knew what I was all along and used that. Or maybe… Maybe he couldn’t remember that long ago. I don’t think I’d be able to.” Des shrinks away from the swat. The smoke drifting around them lazily means she’s able to laugh at the situation, serious as it is.
“I have never claimed to make great choices.” Which is one of the more true things Des has said. “He was handsome and he said all the right things to me. I was very young, and very sheltered. He treated me like a woman, not a monster. It’s… what I needed at the time.” That’s a shockingly honest confession, too.
After another puff on the jay, passing it back, Des shares her secret with her friend. “My name is Odessa Price. I met Adam because I was a doctor with the Company.” And she knows Eve knows what that means. “The reason you can’t tell anyone about me is because the government would very much like to talk to me. I’d rather just live my life in obscurity.”
“You are a woman. Strong and fierce, he had better treated you like one. Nasty naughty man he can be.” Eve shakes her head but nods, “Sometimes I'm just an echo, other times I feel like a lady. A real one.” They both are real women. The debate on how time works gets a dismissive wave of her hand, “It does what it wants. Unless confronted with you and Hiro.” Then time does what they want. To an extent.
Then there's a confession..
And Eve is blinking pale gray eyes and staring into Odessa’s blue ones. She doesn't look shocked because of Odessa admitting to her work with the Company. “I freed Adam.. years ago with my buddies in PARIAH. From Level 5, I wonder if you were there.. hiding in a room. We might have been on opposite sides!”
But that name. That name she has heard before and Eve is leaning forward to stare Odessa directly in the eyes. “There is a Doctor.. he's looking for you. He said Odessa Price. I dreamt of him. He was removing the skin of poor Barney! He had no sympathy.”
The looks that enters Eve’s eyes is a familiar one to her closest of friends but Odessa hasn't known her long enough to totally understand it though she might get a sense of.. Eve snapping into place. Determined. Her eyes squints as she gets more firmly behind the wheel of her Mustang and gets ready to turn the car on. “We gotta go find him, he's hurting people. He's gonna hurt you! But not if we get there first!” There's a snort and a crack of laughter as she revs the engine.
Eve’s words are a comfort that Odessa didn’t realize she wanted quite so badly. “You’re real, Eve,” she assures. “Just as real as I am.” And just about as sane, honestly.
With dreams like that, it’s no wonder Eve’s mental state is so fragile. Des has sympathy for her, concern etching in her face. Dreaming of something so awful, after the other dream she spoke of…
But then the engine revs up and Des’ eyes grow wide. “Wait. Wh- What? Who? Where are we going?” She is definitely not dressed for this, but it could be worse.
“There's a naughty science fairy that is on the loose! Maybe he will only stand down for a fellow fairy!” No, Eve did not miss the fact that Des is a doctor. A science fairy. It's a testament to her emotions towards the woman that she hasn't tried to strangle her. She's trying to be different. All science fairies can't be bad.. right? De-Odessa is proving that. Isn't she?
“He said your name! Odessa Price!” She repeats and bangs the steering wheel before throwing the car in gear and reversing rapidly before swinging the wheel so the vehicle turns in a half donut to point the opposite direction. “Don't worry Odessa,” Eve throws a grin over to science friend. “I drive way better high.” A crack of laughter and she rolls the windows down to allow ‘the box to be broken’.
Des turns to sit the right way in her seat and buckles her safety belt, eyes wide and cheeks puffed out with a heavy exhale.
Still puffing on the joint she hands it over to Odessa, who takes it without a second thought, Eve gets a hard look in her eyes. Both pale hands curled over and gripping the steering wheel right. “Hold on Dorothy, we’ve got another adventure to have.”
“Richard is going to kill me.”
VROOOOOOOOOM!