Participants:
| Scene Title | Dogs And Bones |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Members of Team Charlie come together to discuss their Vanguard problem that's followed them home. |
| Date | March 19, 2010 |
The Verb: Cat's Penthouse
Arriving by any of four elevators, visitors will find they open into three foot corridors facing wide double doors made from sturdy southern pine which swing outward and have the strongest locks available. The stairs lead to single doors, also outward opening, at the end of three foot corridors. Entry requires both a key and a keycard; other security measures are a video camera and voice communication terminal at all doors. The 4th Street side has floor to ceiling windows interrupted only by the access points. Cream colored curtains are normally kept closed.
This level has enough space for sixteen apartments. There is an office space with reception area, conference room, and executive office; a room for archery practice and other forms of physical exercise; a very well appointed kitchen and dining area; a music zone with an array of instruments, electronics, and amplifiers; an entertainment area with an HD set covering an entire stretch of wall from floor to ceiling; a locked room where security footage for the building is recorded and can be monitored; a laundry room; a staircase for roof access; central air and heating; the main bedroom and a few smaller guest rooms; plush deep wine carpet everywhere except the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms; and track lighting everywhere overhead. The light levels can be lowered or raised in the entire place, or selectively by segments. The overall decor suggests the occupant is a woman.
Mercifully, it didn't snow today. Ice in the air, though, sharpening as it got later, and by the time a fractured assortment of Team Charlie are gathered together in Catherine Chesterfield's luxury bachelor pad, the sky has depleted from it's exciting sunset colours into duller navy and grey, just visible through the slices of view afforded to them through closed cream curtains. Enough food— good food— for something of a light meal for the hungry and otherwise something to pick at for the less so, and in here, central heating makes it so that maybe they can pretend that winter isn't leaning its coldness against half a month into spring.
They'd migrated from the dining area into a setting slightly more comfortable, with couches and armchairs and a wide screen TV set to blank blackness, and light traffic outside can underscore conversation instead, and does. Francois has a hand around a glass of red, and doesn't feel as discontent as he probably should. If there is a smoother segue into what has to be discussed tonight, he doesn't know it.
"The last I heard from our Vanguard friends was on the 13th," he's telling the group. "They sent a token of someone they killed to me, I think to make sure I knew it was them. It was sent to Old Lucy's, but we already know that location is compromised. If any one else has any stories, perhaps we can go from there."
She's drinking stout, her features stony and eyes showing some restrained quantity of darker emotions. "I've not heard anything of their activities since a source told me Skoll was at Eileen's apartment while Eileen was out, and I sent a raid his way. Sadly," Cat relates with her jaw setting, "despite that they knew this was Vanguard they were after they neglected to seal off all exit paths before acting, and undertook no measures to verify how many people were inside. They encountered Feng Daiyu as well as Skoll and were defeated."
Her pint glass goes up, a small quantity is taken in, and after using a small napkin to quietly and calmly ensure no trace of the creamy foam remains after, adds "I asked Agent Sawyer if she had anything more earlier today. She doesn't. At the time of the raid, however, my source said Dreyfus was somewhere in the Bronx. They could have a base of ops there."
Instant Felix, just add vodka. He's in one of those severe suits that does precisely nothing to flatter a figure already gaunt from this winter's exertions. And since getting back from the pole, Fel's cultivated a goatee, and gotten himself a new pair of glasses, with black plastic frames. He's just listening, though, having knocked back one shot of vodka with the air of a man dosing himself with some kind of medication, and then reverted to water.
In the meantime, Sicily has a glass of flat, clear white and a few crumbs from the pastry (or three) that he had just downed in what seemed like a single vacuum-burst of intake power.
Some things, he'll never grow out of. Teodoro is seated on the floor, as he's so often wont to do, his legs— layered up in two pairs of pants— are pretzeled into an Indian-style sit and back rested up against the smooth white of the wall, the hood of his sweater bunched up behind his neck in something that looks passably ergonomically comfortable to normal human beings. If his ankle is still the source of any aggravation, it's minor enough that it doesn't show on his face in the slightest.
"John Logan's been in contact with Kozlow, 'least a couple of times.
"Liz has asked Cardinal to look in on him, watching that mousehole, so there's some chance we might get more intel from whatever they've been saying to each other, too, or Richard's been able to follow him." He flicks an imaginary patina of crumbing powder off his fingers. "Finding their bases would be great. Do we know who else they have working with them?"
"John Logan has been in more than contact with Kozlow" Abigail answers. "He warned Robert Caliban, that he might be a target and Koslow and Dreyfus and his friends are responsible for the death of Hokuto" Abigail supplies. She's parked in a chair, one with her leg up. "He's.. warned me that we need to be careful, that we made some pretty nasty enemies" The blonde former healer hasn't spoken a word on she came to be sporting a bum knee and a bracelet of bruises.
"Odessa also confessed the other night that she was sent by Dreyfus to gain information on the resident above the bar, namely Teo and myself. So far, she swears that she hasn't reported back to him and I'm letting her stay up there till we figure out what to do" SHe'd helped herself to water and some advil when she'd came and then more water. "They haven't made another run at my parents and they're back in Louisiana working on rebuilding the house. Koslow hasn't left any more love notes or showed up anywhere i'm visiting"
Rich red wine swills and ripples around in the fat glass the Frenchman holds as he takes a generous sip, mid-listening to the collection of information offered— locations, last sightings, and confessions. This final point has him darting a look to Teo, then down into his glass as he tik-tiks a thumbnail against the clear curving side in thought. "I had talked to Eileen Ruskin a little earlier. I asked if she had been approached by Dreyfus or Kozlow, and she said she had, and that she would not betray us.
"It makes me think it would be easier to find them if we stopped trying to anticipate who they will target and instead focus on who they will recruit. Teo was going to ask the others, but perhaps we might have a way in with— Odessa?" He's used to calling her Joie, and having stubbornly maintained his own name throughout the years, even Americanised, isn't completely on the ball with the issues of naming and identity.
It might be actual maturity. It might be sheer cynical weariness, or trust in God to watch out for Abby since he's done so thus far. But Felix doesn't even hint at a sneer at Abby's trusting nature, let alone scold or harangue her. It's all been said before, and he apparently can't muster the energy to get into it again. "Why Ichihara?" he asks, softly, looking to Abby as he takes off his glasses and polishes the lenses with his tie. "How was she tied in - to one of us?"
Surprise does show on Cat's face as Abby speaks. What comes next is an uncommon thing for her. She seems to lack words, struggling to contain herself for some extended seconds. Her eyes look as if she might seek to attack and destroy someone or something, fingers turned white-knuckled from the grip they suddenly take on her pint glass.
"Odessa Knutson, Company agent who showed the Vanguard where to find the Shanti virus and helped steal it, then helped make it into something even worse, not to mention being Ethan's accomplice when Dani and I were abducted, has surfaced again? She stayed here, in this building, some months ago. Lived across the hall from one of our associates, who I assigned the task of keeping tabs on the woman. She vanished while I was overseas." She seems livid, just managing to keep under control.
"And now she lives with you, Abby, while plotting to help kill us, and no. one. tells. me. she's. around?" Francois, she realizes, may well snicker and say this is a dose of karma. Or think it. "I recommend we cook up disinformation she can feed them and set a trap with it. Or, better yet, have her watched by someone who can do so remotely and find out where they meet. Strike it at a time of our choosing."
When he slants a look over at the lawyeress, one might guess from the look on Teo's face that he was inches from trying something unnecessarily droll or sarcastic. He refrains because he is a good person. "There's still time for you to make your pitch. Can't say as much for any ideas the rest of us would've had about your ambush the other week, signorina.
"But I like to think we trust each other to have given these operations our best shot every time. We also have precedent for help from a sympathetic double-crosser." Teo lifts the plate off the floor, tips it back to even when crumbs begin to slide audibly along the surface of the stiffened paper. He starts to lope toward the trash can, eye on the prize, but there's a distinct quality of listening to his silence then.
Ichihara? Really?
"Because we didn't know she was working for them Cat and not everything that goes on in my home and my life needs to be permanently etched into your memory" Abby speaks a little more sharply than she means to. "She was just one of the turned Vanguard who needed a place to stay. So I put her in the back room and when nothing happened" Hiro happened. "I let her come upstairs. She was injured and hurt and going through withdrawal She was just Odessa. She's done no worse than Gabriel or Eileen or the others and I have taken care of, tended and given succor to both. That she confessed, I am grateful for and she will remain in my home and with me until the powers that be, see fit to dictate she should be otherwise. I'm letting you know now, like I let Teodoro know last night, that she's there and that I thought maybe we might be able to feed mis-information to them through her"
Abigail is antsy, and pulls away from the table, getting up and needing to move around. "Hokuto was.. She was a friend. She helped with nightmares after Staten Island and I would stay at the bookstore and her place after classes when the curfew was down to half past nine because she was near the school. She was a friend" Abigail supplies for Felix. "She was a good friend"
Francois could snicker about karma, either outside or in. Doesn't. That wouldn't be polite. He makes a point to not catch Cat's eye at her emphatic words and their angry punctuation, and casts a halved and sympathetic smile to Abby, both for her explaining herself as well as the loss of a friend, a hand up to itch restlessly at his bitten ear before catching himself and returning his hands to his wine glass. "We can't afford not to use Joie now that she has come forward," he agrees. "I do not think any of us believe their efforts will stop at Abby's friend, even if it does not begin with us at all."
Too many opportunities to strike directly at them. It could have been anthrax in the envelope instead of some fast acting offshoot of poison oak. "If she is unwilling and would prefer to hide rather than defy them, then we have other options of speaking to the Vanguard remnants for the same favour also."
"I knew Hokuto Ichihara," Cat states in quiet exhalation. "She was well versed in matters relating to nightmares." She remains intensely familiar with grief and loss, it takes something away from her being incensed over the revelations of Odessa's presence and activities. "I wish to speak with Doctor Knutson, but for her not to have any idea I'm coming beforehand. I will not seek to harm her, any more than I've tried to kill Ethan or made him kill me in the attempt. Her guilt is less than his, in personal matters." Her eyes close, the voice settling into a contemplative silence as her pint is watched.
"The raid I called for left little time for calling people together. It was necessary to strike while the opportunity existed, it was fortunate they were still present when the DHS team arrived. Sadly, the source who located Skoll at Eileen's apartment isn't available right now. She has 510 flu. On that note, however, one of our associates was assaulted by Skoll and bit him during the fight. She's since come down with 510. Hopefully she infected him, and he'll die from it."
Or maybe he got hit by a bus, and it'll save them all the trouble. Fel's face is hieratic in its lack of expression, narrow eyes squinted into lazy slits. "Unfortunate," he opines, quietly. "I met her once. Didn't know her well." Odessa, eh. Another Vanguard let loose to keep causing chaos in the world.
Paper plate slides into trash can, and Teo is left clapping his hands clean as he turns back to the room. France is looking at him with expectation. That means one of two things, and he picks the right one before anything embarrassing happens. "The 'new' Vanguard, so to speak— the Remnant. Holden," he nods at Catherine, then, grave acknowledgment for yet another unkind revenant from her suffering past, "Ruskin, Raith." A beat's hesitation. Pros and cons weighed with mathematical acuity in the space of an action potential thunderstriking through his brain.
"Grey. I'm pretty sure I can ask them for a few favors, and they have a vested interest in keeping a number of us alive."
By which Sicily probably means 'we are friends,' but even when he wasn't half mass-murderer, Teo had an odd way of skirting that particular declaration. "It's probable they could get in contact with Dreyfus, and Allegre thinks they could infiltrate with Odessa. We know Feng was ex-Vanguard, too. That's where the Limey shitbag is getting his talent."
"She'll help" Abigail intones quietly as she heads to refill her water. "I give my word that she'll help" The rest though, she's leaving up to the others, since they're the planners and she's.. well, she's something.
"Alright." Francois doesn't have papers to shuffle with an air of important moving onness, but he does have wine to sip, which he does, until the last dregs of it form droplets at the very bottom of his glass. He leans to set it down, brow crinkled in thought. "Then there are discussions to be arranged." He's not going to give Cat permission to talk to Odessa — that's up to— well. No one is offering to stop her, so presumably, it's up to Cat.
His laces uneven fingers together. "I think it would be worth seeing the former properties of the Vanguard, when they were active in this city. There could be information worth something, or they could believe that there is information worth something. If anyone would like to come with me, consider this an invitation. It will be either very boring or possibly dangerous." Rueful smile goes here, leaning back into his seat, legs crossed at the knee and ankle rolling with the kind of restlessness that suggests he'd like to be there now. "If there is a specific lead for the Bronx also, then it would be worth watching."
"It was said only that Dreyfus was in the general area of the Bronx," Cat reports. "I've still got the list of places where the Vanguard operated in this city. One is a crater where Conrad Wozniak laid down his life to prevent viral release. Another is the group of warehouses in Jersey City I went to with Al and some Brians. Eagle Electric, also the Invierno which occupies the sea floor. That…" Cat's eyes flash as if she just had some sort of inspiration.
"That's an angle we can work, I think. In Russia, Grigori claimed his desire was to find and sell Munin to the highest bidder. What if we convince them, through Odessa, we retrieved something of great value from the ship and hid it someplace, a place we can turn into a trap?"
"Lure them in with bait," That has Fel rousing from his grudging silence, pale eyes widening, even as that broad mouth widens in a grin. It's that distinctly predatory experssion. He may've learned to bite back his bitchy retorts, but it's a sure bet his real temper hasn't sweetened an iota.
Unwilling to cut through the middle of the conference to get back to his seat on the floor, Teo sets himself on the table's edge instead, scooting a tray of pastries out of the way with a backward nudge of his fingers. "I don't think that another nuke would be good bait for Dreyfus. He didn't give a fuck about the Vanguard agenda, or about us until Liz put a bullet in his kid to save me."
Little bummer, yeah.
"Kozlow— he has the reputation for a mercenary, but I doubt setting up a mousetrap with a very tall stack of bills is going to do it. Only bait I could think of using is— less a lure," he says, and the 'good' corner of his mouth twists slightly, humorlessly upward, makes a sordid effort at symmetry iwth the scarred leer that takes up the other side of his face. "But if or when we have a location, mocking up an illusion or shapeshift of his dead kid could really drive Dreyfus out of his gourd.
"I don't know if the Company has someone to hire or Gabriel would be able to help us out, but it could be something. I know at least one Company guy who could check into it from his side." Maybe later, Teo will get to give himself a hard squint in the bathroom mirror why that even came to mind. Probably, later, he will point out to himself that Cat and Felix started it. "Odessa probably has a better idea of new locations, but those or any of the old ones— I'll come with."
Teo hazards a glance at Abigail, then. Checks the white in her cheeks and tries to gauge that against whether or not he should say something if she decides to roll into the Eagle Electric's warehouse packing heat with the rest of them. Not that he would, naturally. It's never him that tells her not to go.
"Odessa can tell you where, but she can't show you where. I can't let her go with you all to the old places. She's been dinged up enough lately and I can't have her dead" The tone of her voice isn't one that says you might be able to cajole her with a little begging either. Don't worry Teo, she's not volunteering to go running in with a gun. And it'd be limping in dear. Limping in.
"You can use someone who looks like me, through illusion, to get Kozlow. If Yvette's working with them then… that's a lure for her too. She visited me when I was in the monastary. She knows who I am and what I did and did her own little… brand of interrogation while Elisabeth was sleeping. So someone with my illusion would work"
"Non. No one is going to the old places but those in this room who wish to," Francois clarifies, with a shake of his head. "We don't need her there, as we would only be looking for things they might desire — contacts, or resources. I agree with Teo — I don't think we can apply Grigori's agenda to Dreyfus, only Dreyfus' agenda. One that is not entirely the same as Vanguard." Getting to his feet, Francois picks his wine glass up — refill time. He adds, past his shoulder, as he goes; "I would like that list, Catherine, s'il vous plait."
She rises, stout in hand, and walks to the doorway. Pausing there, Cat turns partway back and speaks speculatively. "If Odessa truly means to help, she can make this all easy and deliver them herself. I know she knows how to do it at firsthand," the hostess remarks, "I've been on the receiving end. Get them all in the same place, freeze them in time, and administer a sedative. Then we can have DHS cart them off without lifting a finger. I'll be right back." She steps out of the doorway and departs. Probably to print something out.
"All I can say is…..if we go to trap them, I'm in. Personally, not even necessarily professionally." Because Fel has a such a long leash, where the Bureau's concerned.
Exploiting Odessa's ability like that sounds—
—like a great idea, Teo thinks. Junkie, desperate for affection, manipulable as she is. On most cosmic scales, it probably does stand to reason that she owes them. Despite the state of her last time he and the temporal manipulator had had a conversation, Teodoro has little real doubt that she'd be eager to try, to prove herself. To Abigail more than most.
"We can ask her to do that," he agrees, nodding at Cat as she clicks briskly out of the door. He looks at Abby the next moment. The smoother corner of his mouth goes up again. Oh, good: no GI Beauchamp. Had her fun with Logan, it would seem, and now it's his turn. Maybe Ayers'. "Think she'd be amenable?"
"No"
Abigail limps back, sticking to the doorway with her glass of water. "No. It doesn't. Because she could get hurt and I can't have that. I can't have her get hurt any more than she is or the powers that be are going to be livid with me and.. I can't have that" Elbow of the arm holding the glass of water is wedged on top of her other which is wrapped across her midriff. "Find another time manioulator"
The neck of the wine bottle bumps with a clink, glass to glass, as Francois refills. He doesn't look up at Abby, even as she makes her refusal, taking his time to make sure his drink is good and full for the inevitably chilly ride home once all this is done.
"That was not Teo's question," he says, once he's made sure to not spill anything on newish blue jeans and the button down he's worn for the evening. He lifts his gaze to regard the woman, briefly analytical. "And to obtain the answer, I think she must be asked directly." Setting down the wine bottle, he takes up a lean against the table within elbow brushing distance of Teo. "No one here is Joie's handler.
"Perhaps Catherine can offer her suggestion when she goes to talk to her, or Teo can." Those in favour, anyway. "Once we have more information and know what others are willing to do and not do, we can make plans and dates. I will let you all know when I wish to go out to see the old locations — and get in touch with Elisabeth as well."
The look Fel slants at Abby is patient, even a little bit fond. But he doesn't reply, merely crosses his arms over his chest. Francois said what needs saying, after all.
Finally, Teo goes clopping back to his abandoned part of the wall. Stoops to snag his wineglass off the floor, careful not to let the level of its clear, off-gold fluid lurch higher than its rim. He is also careful not to stare at Abby, which is roughly about as normal as usual. While not wholly incapable of disagreement with the now-EMT, always-healer, and the eternal subject of his protection-for-as-long-as-she-will-have-him, he has always rather preferred to leave that to other people.
It's very discreet. So is the fact that he's drinking wine instead of beer for the higher alcohol content, this once. After all, it isn't hard liquor. He wouldn't want to be completely transparent, about hiding his recent, increasing symptomology of stark raving madness. "Sounds good, Francois."
"I'm her handler" Abigail looks at francois, seriousness on her face. "Someone else besides Dreyfus has put her in my home. I swear upon Conrad's bible. She can show you where to go, but I need her to not be put in a position that her odds of getting to calvary are not any greater than if she was walking down a street" There's a flicker of her gaze to Felix. "You can still talk to her" She won't stop anyone from talking to her.
"Fine, you are her handler." Francois doesn't sound like he believes it — he just believes Abby believes it, and gestures towards her with a swing of his wine glass. He doesn't have Felix's long suffering weariness of getting into verbal slapfights with Abigail, nor Teo's RELENTLESS COWARDICE over the same thing. "But it is her choice, regardless. You do not have to put her in any position at all."
She missed the debate over whether or not Odessa will be approached with her idea or not. Cat returns with printed material and hands it to Francois, then settles into a seat where she proceeds to enjoy that pint.
"Setting Abby to guard Odessa is like setting a baby chicken to guard a rattlesnake," Felix finally breaks in with, sounding disgusted. Not at Abby particularly. "Who charged you with that?" he asks the former healer. "And he's right. You're not her mother. If she wants to make restitution for what she's done by helping us catch the people who are killing our families….."
Teo's relentless cowardice has his nose plugged into his wineglass and his eyes pretending to direct an unblinking stare of tactically sharp impartiality, judicious logic, deep and pertinent introspection… or at least a whole lot of rakishly grim handsomeness. Dumdeedoo. Only, then, there's a fragmentary instant where something not far from where Felix is seated and saturnine draws his eye, a hard blink. He sets down the wineglass at his side.
Whunk is the noise of his forehead hitting the wall. No need to be alarmed! This happens occasionally is all. "Clearing my sinuses," Teodoro explains, to no one in particular, clearing his throat and blinking the disfocus out of wintry, white-blue eyes.
He finds his voice after swallowing a sudden-dry lungful of air. Clearing his throat. "Truth is, Odessa might not be the best woman for the job, anyway. Emotionally, she's been through the wringer lately, and there've been a dozen times she could or maybe even should have used her ability to even the playing field, and she didn't. We should—" his gaze shades toward Francois, peels away again. "We should just take that into consideration."
"Thank you for your faith Ivanov" Abigail snaps out. "It's no one you know, and no one anyone needs to know other than to trust me for once when I say something and not just dismiss it placate me. I'm not her mother no, but I have instructions and I intend to follow them as best I can, and her timestopping the people who are killing our friends, isn't a way to keep her alive and well, which is how I'm supposed to keep her."
Francois has checked out of this conversation, apparently. He's not sure what to do with Felix's support, Teo's compromising, Abby's explanations on trust without— much of it in return, from his certainly subjective point of view. Which is not something he can't understand, let alone criticise. But he has papers in his hands, now, and after quietly thanking Catherine, he studies words and addresses and images instead of the conversation. On the subject, he's spoken enough.
Her tone is calm, solemnly so. "Perhaps," Cat suggests, "where faith lacks in this case is with Odessa. You don't trust in her ability to pull that plan off, despite simplicity. But I do acknowledge it may not be easy to get them all into one place at the same time for the purpose, and if they're taken separately it may cause others going deeper to ground and complicate things."
"I trust your intentions. But you're not a fighter. If whomever you're guarding her from comes for her, what are you going to do?" Fel's voice is mild, inquiring. He's not mocking her, he's genuinely curious.
How to say that she doesn't frankly know what she's protecting her from. That she's not a fighter though? Abigail just falls silent, teeth clenched and opting to not even reply to Felix or even to Cat. Cause her only answer which is her standard 'trust in god' will only do more harm than any good.
How many other clandestine conversations Abigail has with highly suspicious characters, Teo can only wonder. Like Logan then her knee weren't enough. His brow furrows slightly, but he doesn't speak. Indeed, there is precious little to say. He has no further points to raise, aside from the query the Russian pitched aloud, and the one underneath it. All right. Maybe he should ask the one underneath it. It's salient.
He exhales the taste of skinned grapes, roughs a palm across his bristly jaw. "Who, tesoro?"
"No one" Abigail replies. "No one special" In other words, she's not telling.
"This meeting was for sharing all information so that we know how best to act, mon amie," Francois says, dragging his gaze up off the sheets of paper in his hands. "I am not acting in the best interest of someone I don't know about," Catherine Chesterfield, says a quick glance, but he keeps his attention on Abby, "especially not at the risk of people we love. You forfeit trust this way, je regrette. If it was your actions and desires alone, it would be different. You are free to talk to her also." He finishes his wine in a quick sip that—
He has to shake his head to clear it in the aftermath. Whff. "I think that is everything on the agenda. Thank you all for coming out to talk."
Felix rubs his chin, rasping the bristles there. HE still can't get used to it - only Liz's entreaties've had him keeping it. He just shakes his head at Abby, ruefully, and then pushes himself away from the wall. Out to go get his coat.
"I've rooms to stay in, no one has to go out into the weather tonight," Cat offers with fingers curled around her pint. She seems content to consider matters adjourned for now, with M. Allegre's addressing of this group in gratitude. Food remains, there's drinks to be had, and that HD set occupying an entire wall of the entertainment room they're in.
Teo watches the Beauchamp girl for a few seconds. Not because he plans on pushing the point, but because he's considering doing so another time, or pondering what it means that she's keeping secrets from the lot of them. If he'd thought that the Frenchman's rebuke was worthy of a flinch, he kept his concealed behind wine-fuzzed pleasantry. "Might stay," he tells Catherine. He means 'We,' and they probably all know he means 'We,' but it's either that old detestable habit or lazy grammar. He knocks back the rest of his wine and adds, "Grazie, Cat."
"Then I guess I forfeit trust" Abigail limps to the table, putting her cup down quietly on the table and is soon making her way out so she can retrieve her coat and walk back to the bar. "She's available for talking with. I won't try and stop you all. I have to get back to the bar and rest my leg and work on paperwork." Send flowers to the Petrelli's. They weren't taking visitors at the hospital. No surprise there. "Thank you for the offer though Catherine. Have a good rest of the day. God bless" The blonde calls out not even thinking to give Teo a hug or even Francois one.
Hiro was going to owe her big. She'd never imagined what harboring and protecting Odessa would bring. There's a glance to Francois, blonde brows furrowing before she slips out and he's gone from view. He'd never know either the cost.
"Thank you, but I should go," says Felix, tone already distant. He's shrugging into his coat, without any particular eagerness, taking that absurd fur hat from where he's left it by the door. "Take care, Abby," he adds, specifically, as he buttons it up.
Francois manages a smile to Cat and nods. He might stay. The chilly outside is not inviting, but more importantly, leaving under the same thundercloud of Abigail is awkward enough that he can at least indulge in a cup of coffee to stave off the last of the wine in his system. If her counter to his flinch-worthy rebuke is, in turn, flinch-worthy, it's veiled in impassive ex-immortal patience and guardedness.
"A tout a l'heure, Felix, Abby. Take care."