Participants:
| Scene Title | For the Sake of the Flowers |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Megan arranges to meet with Scott to apologize for her recent attitude. |
| Date | February 13, 2010 |
It's one of those iconic winter days, the kind that show up in commercials around the holidays. Everything is covered in a fresh owdery white throughout Central Park, walkway lamps are dusted with snow, lights glowing dimly to offer just a bit of added illumination on an otherwise cloudy day. The pathways through the park haven't been shoveled clean yet, so there's still a little crunch of fresh snow underfoot.
Nearby to the water, Belvedere Castle looks like something out of a children's storybook, crenelated battlements and its tower all covered with a fine white frost. The thick, heavy flakes that fall from the sky seem to hang in the air at times, weightless and ephemeral, like a snow globe starting to settle.
Distantly, the sound of children in the park having a snowball fight creates a serene tinkling of laughter. Out on one of the many park benches, seats have been brushed clear of snow by visitors come to enjoy the wintry weather. One among which, is a man that often doesn't take the time to sit and smell the roses. Bundled up in a dark suede jacket with fur trim, Scott Harkness looks to be the only real discontent person out here today. Mouth tucked behind his blue scarf, gloved hands holding a styrofoam cup of coffee between them, he stares off towards the snowy trees now far away, thinking of somewhere else.
He's cleared off the pace on the bench next to him, not because he's openly inviting any stranger to come by and sit. More conversely, he's expecting a particular someone to come and talk. Normally, this would be done in the confines of the hangar, his bear cave as some have called it. But not for this particular person.
He kind've kicked her out.
It's not the first time they've done this dance. Though it's the first time Megan's made her apologies in this particular fashion. Wrapped in a heavy black coat and a cream-colored fleece headback that holds back her copper hair, the nurse's boots crunch through the fluffy white beauty of the snow. She carries a parcel with her that is incongruous in the winter landscape, and perhaps more so given the intended recipient of her parcel. As she approaches, blue eyes warily study the craggy face of the man on the bench and she takes the seat that he's so politely cleaned off for her. There's a hesitance as she offers the … what is that? Flowers? … in her hands.
"Michelle tells me that each of them has a meaning — that they're a good way to eat crow," she offers with a rueful twist to her lips. The purple hyacinths and yellow-and-orange snapdragons mix cheerfully with white irises and gladioli. "Which, in spite of the fact that I was not entirely in the wrong about the what of the situation, is the right thing to do given the way I brought it to you." Megan glances up at him. "I'm sorry — I was livid, and you were right about why. There are no good choices. Only the lesser of evils."
This is probably the first time, in their colorful histories of argument that's Scott has been the embarrassed one at the end. Staring wide-eyed at the boquet of flowers like they're some sort've concealment for a shotgun pointed at his head, his mouth gapes behind the cover of his scarf. Abject silence could easily be read as stoicism, were it not for the flustered clearing of his throat. "You— " he doesn't even really know where to go with those words, just furrows his brows at stares at Megan for a solid minute.
"I ah, why— don't you sit down." It's not spoken as a question more so as an order, and Scott slides aside and motions down to the open spot of bench next to him. "Got you a coffee," he admits, looking a bit sheepish in comparison to the boquet of flowers. "It's— you know, warm enough." He offers out the styrofoam cup as if in exchange for the boquet, even though it seems like he hardly even knows how to hold the bloody thing.
Now she's the one who gets to laugh, and Megan does. "Well…. flabbergasted is as good a reaction as laughing. Which is what I told her you'd do," the redhead admits. "But Michelle's French; there was nothing for it but to be railroaded." She chuckles as she sets the blossoms down on the bench next to him before reaching for the coffee, so as to keep him from having to take the flowers. "I like your peace offering better."
"I'm glad you understand why I had to do what I had to do. Also glad you didn't misunderstand why I tossed you out on the curb." Scott's voice is quiet, gloved hands folding as he rests them in his lap and leans back against the bench. "You know, I could take some sweaty jungle halfway 'round the world, I know what to expect/ there, under a canopy of trees or wading through waist deep water in a river, you know?" He angles a look over to Megan, then goes back to staring across the park. "This business, here in the city, what we //do for people? It's not what I was trained to do, there's no manual for it. Every day I'm making new istakes, breaking new ground, we're writingt he manual for this exercise as we go…"
Exhaling a sigh as a cloud of steam through the front of his scarf, Scott leans forward, resting his arms across his knees, hands still folded. "I've got to try and keep a semblance of order. These people, most of them are old enough to be a son or a daughter to me, to you," there he goes calling them both old again. "The world's a funny place, you know? Kids running around, taking orders from us, giving out orders. We've gotta' lead by example, Meg, we've gotta' be what they aspire to be."
His head turns, giving Megan an assessing look. "When you come in, shouting your head off, making it seem like the end of the world is following at your heels it sets an example for those kids. Shows them that they can fly off the handle whenever they want… I had to show them that anyone would get bounced for it. Ain't a decision I want to make, but you know what comes with the territory we're in."
Megan listens quietly, her eyes out on the not-pristine park while she sips from the cup of coffee. The faint smile that plays at the corners of her lips expresses itself in a quirk of one side of her mouth. "You were right to take me to task." She's not above admitting her mistakes. "I sure as hell hope you paid as close to attention to the rest of what I said as to the way I said it, though. We've got one hell of a large problem on our hands when they get those people free." Her tone is neutral, soft. Her eyes don't come around to meet his gaze yet.
"I don't know how to express to you how very complex and ugly detox is, Scott. Unless you've sat through it and watched it up close and personal… there are not words. Most especially with Refrain at this point." She shakes her head a bit. And then smiles. "And if you call me old one more time, you geezer, I may be forced to kick you in the shin."
Grimacing, Scott manages the one laugh he's allowed to have every week— lest someone think he's going soft. With a shake of his head, his expression turns serious again, head bobbing down into a nod slowly. "You know I understand, and I would've understood if you said it calmly too. Right now we still don't know how many we're going to even have. Two— garunteed— the Nichols girl and Pastor Sumter. Outside of that, there's no indication of how many more people Sheridan's got locked up in there."
Gloved hands coming apart to gesture as he speaks, Scott seems to be taking a pragmatic look at things. "We're planning for eight at the moment, given how big the facility is and based off of missing persons reports from around the time Joseph went missing from the Suresh Center. So that, right there, is a managable number. Now I've got supplies waiting in Jersey to move in if we get double or triple that number. I'm hoping for the best and preparing for the worst."
Exhaling a sigh and leaning back on the bench, Scott stares down at his hands as they come back together. "I've got you, Doctor Brennan his wife Michelle, Eileen Ruskin and some volunteers from the Sweat Lodge waiting to help out. Rourke and Kjelstrom from over at the Brick House are donating medical supplies… and I'm trying to get in touch with an associate named Ricky down on Staten Island who's a big time medical supplier for us, seeing if he can get his hands on some Refrain. Since— you know— we might need it to stave off the withdrawl effects."
She won't apologize again. She's done it once, that's enough. Instead, Megan says quietly, "You're jeopardizing the Terminal for this. If they're tagged, it will be compromised. Not to mention you're assuming that anyone else they pick up from there is unRegistered. Sumter is a Registered Evo, others of the group — if there is a group — may be as well. And if they are, they have legal recourse. What she's done is not simply unethical, it's illegal. Human trials of any kind are under the closest kinds of scrutiny before being approved. What she's done carries a stiff set of criminal and civil penalties, and if we rescue these people and hide them without some verifiable way to document all that they've gone through so they can press charges and make it public…."
The redhead looks at him. "You accused me of not taking the security of our network seriously enough when in fact it's just the opposite. As cold as it sounds to say it, anyone who comes in who is Registered needs to be in the public eye as quickly as possible so they can say this woman's name in front of as many news cameras as possible. This is one of the breaks that we've needed in terms of holding the damn government accountable — if they stand behind this doctor, they're complicit. We can't nail them for her actions, but we can force it into the limelight and force them to take some other actions that will have far-reaching Constitutional consequences. And that's what our oath of service was all about, wasn't it, Scott? Against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
"The law's not going to do anything on this, Megan. Where do you think someone like Sheridan is getting her funding from? Where do you think half of her research is going to? Private industries?" Scott's voice sounds tense, and for the sake of the flowers he's trying not to shout. "I already talked to Alistair about the trackers, he's certain that the amount of distance underground that the Terminal is will foil the satellite tracking, based on information Wireless had given him before she went off the grid. It's the safest place for them to go, and its going to have to be worth the risk."
Running ihs hands over the top of his head, Scott exhales a sigh and leans forward, staring down at his feet. "This is a Company job, Megan. I talked to Bennet about it, wanted to see what he'd recommend. It's Bennet's opinion that Sheridan's going to be untouchable by the law, and even if we do manage to stick anything to her, she'll disappear to some third world country and just start up all over again. We can't rely on a corrupt system to help us here, otherwise we wouldn't be doing what the network already does."
There's a sigh as Megan looks back out over the park. "Yeah…. I know," she admits quietly. "But I had to put it out there as an option."
She is quiet for a long time, watching the kids play snowballs. "You ever wish you could…. go back? Not know some things?" Meg finally asks him quietly. "We believed enough to give them a blank check. To spend years essentially donating our time, our talents, our skills… our very lives… to protect a set of ideals that… not a damn one of them seems to believe in anymore." Her tone is bitter, and she says quietly, "I want it to be that simple — to be able to turn in someone who has done things that go against everything I have fought for my whole adult life. She's done things to people that…. as a nurse, as a soldier for this country, and as a human being just…. literally outrage me beyond the bounds of reason. The first tenet of the medical profession is 'First, do no harm.' I just…." She shakes her head.
With another heavy sigh, Megan says, "I hope to God Alistair's right. That the Terminal's deep enough. I don't want another Beach Street."
Scott's silence is less flabbergasted and more stoic now, his expression long and distant, eyes unfocused and hands still golded between his knees. He stares, blankly, out past the falling snow to a time when things were simpler, when he didn't know, when the world didn't know— they say ignorance is bliss, and in a way it truly was compared to the world they're living in now. With a dry swallow, Scott just nods his head and rests his hands on his knees, starting to stand up before looking to his side and regarding the flowers settled between he and Megan. There's a hesitant smile, brows furrowed and eyes lifting up to the redhead.
"You and me both, Meg…" He reaches down, crinkling the celophane as he picks up the boquet, then rises quietly to his feet and looks down to the snow underfoot, then out towards that space in time he'd been contemplating, hardly even able to remember what it looks like now, for all the ruins on the skyline in that direction that block the way.
"You'n me both…"