Participants:
| Scene Title | Fealty |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Ivanov visits old Lucy to ask Abby a question. IOU's are also called in. |
| Date | March 20, 2009 |
Old Lucy's has a vibrant and lively feel to it, from the dark wooden floors to the shady crimson walls lit up by neon lights and many times, the flashing of cameras from the oft-crowded floor. The mirror behind the bar reflects prices of various drinks, bottles lined up, as well as the entire saloon as seen from the bartenders; bolted-down stools line the other side, and there are loose tables and chairs placed all around, though many times they find themselves pushed back for more space within the center of the saloon. A few speakers are placed at strategic places and around a raised stage to the far corner from the bar. Above the counter, an obviously well-used bar is hung; it is this that the girls working will use should there be dancing, which is one reason many patrons choose to come aside from the drinks. Across the bar and near the back, there is a door that leads to the owner's office and just inside a stairwell that leads a apartment on the floor above the bar.
Old Lucy's is rocking. Oh yeah. No ladies up on the bar yet and it's not five feet deep at the bar. But the after work crowds are starting to taper off and in an hour or two the people there for the evening will be making their way in. The various bartenders of Isabelle's employ are out, one circling, two more behind the bar. Abby's off to one end, chopping lime wedges, lemon wedges, acclimatizing herself to the atmosphere of her work once again. She's off soon, but the long sleeved shirt shows a hint of chest, gold cross ever present, and bar apron slung low round her hips. Every now and then, a loud thunk of a cup near her or someone yelling make the young woman jump. She's had to heal her fingers three times already.
Oh, the joys of PTSD. Fel's in his suit, but without his tie, top button undone….as if to make it apparent from the get go that he's not there on duty. He slithers his way through the crowd and finds a place where he can prop his elbow on the bar, waiting for Abby to notice him.
Felix gets a notice, only because she looks up whenver someone enters near the bar. That and Brenda gives her a jab with her elbow. "There's your friend. all yours" "I got it Brenda. Don't worry" The paring knife is put down, hands wiped on her apron. "Gimlet?" The circles under her eyes lessened a fraction than from when he last saw her form his hospital bed. "Your friend got me home safe. Dont' think he much likes me"
"Yes, thank you," Fel says, with a reflexive smile. "Lee, huh? Don't mind him, or take it personally. He's a grumpy bastard, but he's one of the best people I know. Wasn't rude to you, was he?
"Quiet. Don't think he liked me asking for his ID. I don't remember getting home, but Brian said he brought me to the door and just left" Slowly through the motions, gathering the stuff and mixing it for Felix's drink. "I can't heal you again, for a bit. Try not to get hurt for the next week and a half please. I need time to get my body back, so I don't cannibalize myself. You and Liz, I shouldn't have, but I did"
Fel looks contrite. "I'm sorry," he says, simply. "You came out of Staten….were you okay?" Well, no, she wasn't. It's a stupid question, at least at first glance. "I mean, who cares for you when you need healing. That sounds like Lee. Lee is….frankly, in the abstract, he's a bigot. Hates the Evolved."
"You sent a guy who hates evolved, to pick me up?" Who heals the healer? No one. She heals herself, or tries to. "No. I'm not. But some day I will be and being able to actually try and get back into my life is a sight better than.. Staten Island. Someone gave me the name of a therapist, I have pills, so I don't.. start jumping at every noise, and ones to help me sleep and they're making sure someones with me all the time" They is probably a good guess as to who. "So if he's your friend and a bigot… how come he tolerates you?"
"He hates the idea. I don't know why mutants chap his ass, other than being especially troublesome as criminals. He puts up with me because I was his friend and his partner before he knew I was Evolved. It's good you have someone to watch over you," Fel draws an idle circle on the bar top, using the condensation dripping from his drink. "I am told the DA refused to prosecute your case. You know," he says, artlessly, eying her over the rim of the glass as he speaks, "Kidnapping can always be considered a federal case, even if you didn't cross state lines. Though I'm sure some of the others in that little cockfighting pit were taken across a state line to get here."
"Jurisdiction. They neglect to realize that I was kidnapped in Chinatown, not Staten island" Her gets her eyes proper though, as she looks up at him. "Ivanov, homeland and the FBI won't touch that case with a ten foot pole and you know it. I'm nothing. i'm nobody. Just a poor unfortunate soul and they'll keep my case open just in case" She came to that realization when Liz and Coren spoke. Abby looks odnw at the lemon on the counter and sighs softly. "They'd change their minds, if they'd been there"
She gets a faint smirk. "No. Your case is the perfect lead in to a larger human trafficking case. You underestimate the longing of the local Federal SAC to make the NYPD look like a bunch of chumps, and that would be the perfect way. The trafficking is taking place on Staten. We may not get this guy just for what charges you bring against him….but we could put him away for good. You'll merely be our prime witness," He might be spinning castles in the air, but he seems serious.
"Ivanov…" There's a shake of her head. "I don't.." Abby swallows hard. "I don't want my face everywhere. I don't WANT to relive what was done to me, anymore than I already do. They won't touch it, I can't do anything about it. What you can do, for me, is get my name off the registry. That's how they found me. I want off it, I want to be invisible. I want .. I want my peace of mind back" She's angry, those words coated in it, and she finishes slicing the lemon, chucking the wedges into a Rubbermaid bowl with the rest, awaiting their inclusion in drinks. "I want things, that I can't have and I'm not going to get them back ever again. And I can't ask someone to make me forget other things, in case some day, they do bring them in and decide that I'm good enough and they need what I can remember"
Fel pauses, eyes her. "Abby. This is a chance to put this human stain away, make sure he doesn't to sit out there like some Bond villain in his super secret volcano base and laugh at us while he figures out how to pick up the pieces. You're a healer, right? You fix other people. Remember the old saw about how an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? I can make the government hide your info from the general public, but you don't get erased from the database, no matter what they tell you. And this guy who took you - is he dead? Incapacitated? Because what's going to keep him from taking you again?" His tone is gentle, bu there's that ferocity in his eyes.
How do you explain to the fed, that Abby's never seen a bond movie in her life. Double Oh Seven has never flashed that smile at her and used a gadget in front of her on a screen. "I'm a … I'm a healer who can't even FIX herself Ivanov. I want to take a shovel and hit him over the head, all three of them. I want to stick my hand in their middles and just rip out their insides. I want to take John Logan's tongue and slice it off and throw him in a fucking shipping container and let him be in pain for THREE days before someone comes and regrows his tongue" It's hissed out, tears welling in the blondes eyes. "I want HIM to scream himself awake every night, but I can't do that. Because their on that stupid island. And hiding my information is going to do nothing. It was a COP Felix. It was some officer somewhere, who got my name off that list. How do you protect me from that? How can you protect me from what I go through every night" the other bartenders are looking over, Brenda edging close in case she needs to interrupt. "When I want to curl up in bed and not come out from under the covers, but I have to, because no one else cares what I went through and will give me a break" Abigail unties her apron, tossing it into one of the dirty glasses containers. "I'm going home Brenda. Tell Brian that Ivanov gave me a ride home"
A cop. Wait. A cop did what? "A cop took your information and gave it to Logan?" Fel's voice has acquired that monotone flatness, like the recorded voice that tells you the time. "I care, Abby. And I don't believe that no one else does. IF a cop is responsible for this, then I do need your help, because that man has to be dealt with. That's one thing the Feds DO. We're the ones who watch the watchmen. I can't undo what was done. I can do my best to make sure it never happens to anyone else again, but I need -your- help. If these assholes go free, unidentified, it'll just go on."
"That's what I was told when they first got their hands on me Felix. That because I was such a martyr and registered" She disappears into the back of the bar, grabbing her jacket and her purse before coming out. "what do you expect me to do? go up there on the stand and tell them what happened to me? Felix, they'll say that I told someone what I could do and it filtered down to someone, or that they saw me do it, and that's how they knew" Abby wipes at her eyes, waiting for him to be done with his drink. "Then they'll trot out that I'm no better than them and why wasn't I arrested when I confessed to killing Kazimir Volken"
It's like being hit in the face, twice. "You killed Kazimir," His tone is flat again. "And yes, that is exactly what you can do. Do you really think that if he's free, this guy is not going to come get you again? And if this cop did that to you, he'll do it again. And you weren't arrested because presumably you killed in self-defense…besides, no one really gives a damn who killed Volken, we're just ecstatic to have him dead. Self defense is a far cry from being a corrupt cop," Says a man who knows a good bit of both. "Did they say what cop? " He pays for his drink, leaves a tip, before falling into step with her. "Abby, if you can kill something as monstrous as that for the sake of yourself and others, then fingering a corrupt police officer will be a walk in the park."
"Felix, I don't know who the corrupt cop is. Do you not understand?!" Out the door they go, the bouncer just watching them leave. "Did you not read the case? It must be ten inches thick with everything I gave. I don't even know Muldoons first name, or the guy who actually cut off my tongue. I knew the people in the containers by their abilities not their names. I can't even tell them that I KNOW who got me out of there, because they'll go and arrest them, but they will NOT arrest the man who .. ability raped me night after night. If you put him in front of me, I wouldn't know him from tom, dick or harry" A panic attack is starting, making her stop, lean against a wall and lower her head towards her knees. "I don't know how I can help you"
Oh, hell. "Shhh, shhh, it's going to be okay," he says, going down on one knee, and taking her hands. Chafing them to warm them, as if she were a victim of physical shock. "We are going to get this guy. Both of these guys, I swear it," Like a knight vowing to avenge a wrong done a princess, though the Brooklyn accent that's creeping in doesn't exactly help the impression of chivalry. Where is Teo on his white horse when you need him? "Just relax." And then he looks up at her, pale eyes lit with that odd, wolfish light. "Abby, if we can't get him legally, I'll make sure they're taken care of some other way. But it's going to be dealt with. Now, though, be calm. I'm sorry to have pressed you."
Teo's getting chewed out by his boyfriend, or he's doing phoenix business. Abby's hand tightens in his though, the other fumbles for the mouth of her purse and the life raft inside it that comes in a compressed tablet. The blonde nods her head blindly, sucking in air at a speed reserved usuallyf or those who are crossing the finish line of a marathon or even a 400 meter relay.
The knees of his suit are soaked with meltwater and snow. He doesn't relinquish his grip on her hands until he's sure she's calm again, though, raising one hand to brush the hair out of her face.
It'll come, soon enough. Till then she just holds onto his hand, dripping tears onto his knees to add to the freshwater that will stain them. But when it does come, she pulls her face away from him, letting blonde hair slide back to where it wants to be, and slender hand taken from out of his grasp. A hoarse "thank you" offered up to the FBI officer.
Fel heaves himself up, rather awkwardly, and offers her his hand. "C'mon, I'll take you home," he says, quietly.
Abby nods again, slips her hand into his, looking miserable. "I want to meet him, I want to meet him before he dies. So i can see him afraid. I'm not given to wrath, or vengence, but I want, I want, I want to hurt him Ivanov"
See, there had to be something she wanted, or needed, that might someday be in his power to get. And there it is. "You will," he says, simply. "I promise."
"Does that make me like him? To want that? To want him to sit in Moab, instead of Helena, and know that he can't touch someone and make them writhe in delight?" Her free hand reaches up to wipe at her cheeks. "If you think you can do something Ivanov, do it. I'm calling in my IOU's. All the times i've saved your life"
Fealty indeed. Oath for oath. "I told you. I'll make sure both of these bastards are dealt with. I'l use whatever means I have at my disposal," Fel's voice is calm, as he brushes her tears away with a callused thumb. "No, angel, it just makes you human, not a plaster saint." Felix,so not a good influence.
"I beat up people for calling me an angel" She warns him. Empty threat. "Just take me home. please" She's far from an angel, or a saint. 'I'm jsut human Felix. Doing the best I can with what I'm given. Same as you"
That earns her a tolerant chuckle, and then he opens the car door for her. Old fashioned manners, who'd've thought?
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