Participants:
| Scene Title | Four Days |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sometimes four days is all it takes. |
| Date | November 4, 2020 |
A former industrial storage warehouse turned vivaciously green restaurant and bar, Brenda’s Bar & Griddle stands out from other eateries in purpose, design and cuisine. In an area normally known for central Asian foods, the restaurant instead caters to a wide range of tastes with its ever-changing offerings depending on the whimsy of its primary ingredients buyer, Namiko Wesley-Khan. Two things remain constant in the cuisine, however: Waffles at any hour, plenty of coffee and teas, and the house’s signature distilled WNK Moonshine.
Boasting a large square footage main space, Brenda’s has a large dining area giving customers ample seating in a green-conscious environment. Chairs and tables made from recycled and repurposed elements mixed with clean natural linens provide a warm atmosphere surrounded by luscious foliage, carefully curated but still naturally beautiful. The electricity provided by solar panels and The back of the main space is home to a full bar and comfortable, semi-private seating areas tucked away and around corners for small groups.
And when the sun sets, Brenda’s turns into an extensive arena for events of variable sizes. Situated along the docks with a view of the water, the boats in the bay, and a glimpse of Brighton Beach and Yamagato Park in the distance, the establishment easily becomes a hotspot hangout for hosting parties and private groups.
Tonight’s meet-up was chosen by Chess, and as she sits by the window looking out at the water, it reminds her a little of where she was a year ago — across the country, looking out at a different bay, one that opened to an entirely different ocean.
How much changes in a year, she thinks, sipping from the water glass the server brought to her. She hasn’t ordered a “real” drink while waiting for her date to arrive. That word seems foreign to her — like it belongs to other people but not to her. But she does have one — and has had a few now in the few short days since Halloween.
It feels almost hopeful — a feeling she’s not well acquainted with these days at all. And one that also feels a lot like betrayal.
She really needs a drink — something to numb the conflicting emotions battling within. She turns away from the window, looking for the waiter, but instead her eyes immediately fall on Castle. She ignores the skip in her heartbeat and the way her breath catches in her throat just at the sight of him.
The ‘dates’ haven’t been as many as Basil would have probably had liked, because they all had to work around schedules. With the election coming up, and the Xpress situation still coming to a close, there was still some busy work to do, but luckily there had been no major explosions in the space time continuum in the last day or two. But that didn’t mean “Agent Castle” hadn’t needed to show up to work and put in his hours. And deal with the fact that at least some of the fellow agents knew exactly who they had taken home with them after the Gala.
Yeah, he’d finally gotten that dossier. He probably should have recognized her from the Detroit footage— and part of them had as she had been so quick to bring up— he had been— distracted. As he was immediately upon seeing her again, sipping at the water.
Moving around the chairs, he drops down in the seat across from her, wearing a fuzzy red and black striped sweater and looks around at the bar and griddle. “Trying to one up me with traditional waffles after the Dutch Pancakes?” he asks as he sits down.
“Obviously. What else is there to base a friendship on other than competition and one upmanship?” Chess says, eyes sparkling a little with merriment at the sight of him. The smirk accompanying the quip shifts into something softer and sweeter, and she reaches for his hand, across the table.
“Hi,” is said in a voice that’s also a little softer and sweeter. Also a little shyer, as it always seems to take her a few minutes for her confidence to warm up after any time away from him.
“I like your sweater. It’s like if Freddie Krueger and a Care Bear had a baby,” she teases. She’s still in work clothes, a black blazer over a white t-shirt with black-and-white windowpane-print trousers, much more sedate than her Ziggy Stardust outfit.
She glances to the menus already on the table. “I haven’t been here before but hear it’s good. I mean, you can’t go wrong with waffles.”
“Somehow that seems about accurate,” Castle jokes quietly, looking down at himself as if to remember exactly what he even put on— maybe he did have to remember. He sometimes seemed to drift off into another world sometimes, even in the few days that she had known him. Sometimes that drift took a moment to come out of as well, before he was really him again. “I beg to differ, you can actually go wrong with waffles. But probably not here. I know of the people that run the place. I trust their batter.”
Was that a pun? They’re better? Their batter? Why yes, it kind of was, based on the smirk that he’s giving as he looks across the table. But it sounds like he actually did know of someone who made terrible waffles once. Or someone who had a very questionable batter.
Touching the menu, he hesitates for a moment, “Should we eat first or did you want the— good news and bad news out of the way first?”
Chess lifts a brow at the pun, but the opposite corner of her mouth tics upward despite herself. “Well, if you trust them, I’ll trust you,” she says, then considers the question he asks her.
“Split the difference? Good news, then eat, then the bad news?” she suggests. Her tone is light, but worry creeps into her face that wasn’t there before, pulling her brows and mouth downward. She huffs out a short, breathy laugh, and shakes her head. “Or maybe it’s better the other way around? I never get good news, I don’t know what’s better.”
A server comes to take their order, interrupting the quandary for the time being. Chess orders a hot toddy and a bacon waffle, then watches Castle answer the server’s questions, unaware she’s being spoken to again when the speaker asks for her menu back.
The waitress gives Castle an odd look when he orders a vegan waffle with blueberries, but then sausage and bacon on the side, but he just flashes her a smile showing he knows exactly what he just did and she takes the order and the menus and leaves them to consider their quandary. Good news and bad news.
“We’ll start with the good news, then. I set it up so you can see Eve tomorrow, or any day afterward really, whenever you’re available. And you can go see her as often as you feel like, too. Within visiting hours at least, but you shouldn’t have any problems if you decide to visit her every day for brunch or something.”
It sounds like he doubts she will be visiting every day, but he still set things up so she would be allowed to if she wanted to. That’s the good news.
At this point, the idiosyncrasies don’t earn him odd looks but amused ones from Chess, and she offers a smile to the server that is far more fond and amused by Castle than annoyed. Besides, he may have his reasons. Egg and dairy allergies maybe.
She doubts it.
“Thank you.” Chess reaches to take his hand and squeeze it. The bad news can wait.
But the phrase ‘any day afterward’ sticks somewhere, and a moment later her brows pull together as she does some mental math.
“But they held me less than a week,” she says quietly — that conversation is one they haven’t had yet, but she knows Castle works as some sort of government agent, he knows her name, and he isn’t stupid.
“Does she need bail? Has she had a bail hearing? They can’t just dark hole her — even if she can have visitors.” Chess’ voice hitches up in volume. “She made mistakes but it wasn’t her fault — you don’t charge the person who gets attacked.”
There’s a moment when Castle is still smiling, before it hits him that— maybe he shouldn’t have given any of the news at this point. In fact, there’s a moment when he glances down toward the table, and the light catches his eyes differently for a moment and there’s a soft murmur under their breath that doesn’t quite sound like his usual voice, “Should have waited.”
With a blink, he looks back up and raises a hand, as if trying to forestall something, even as his fingers curl under a little. “I know it wasn’t her fault. And we have the eye witness reports, but it’s been months and she didn’t turn herself in right away. And this wasn’t the first time that she had been… a victim. They’re just wanting to get facts straight and figure things out. Make sure there’s nothing still knocking around inside there.”
It all came off a little too matter of factly for the moment, and that charming smile he tries to throw in at the end probably doesn’t disarm much as he adds, “And she’s not being dark holed. She’s being held at Rikers. It’s all official-like.”
As he talks, Chess sinks back into her seat, her hand slipping out of his and slowly away to drop into her lap. “Turn herself in for what, being possessed? She didn’t do anything,” she protests, a little loudly, drawing the attention of the table near theirs. “Rikers is…”
She shakes her head, her face crumpling as she looks out to the water, away from him. She presses her lips together to keep from sobbing or yelling or swearing — or all three. “I need some air,” she whispers, avoiding his eyes as she slides out of the booth and hurries for the door. Her cell phone remains on the table, so maybe she’ll be back.
But a few minutes turn into more. Outside, the sky has turned from gray to black, and it’s impossible to separate sky from water in the distance. She leans against the dock’s rail, face in her hands.
“Chess, wait— ” is heard as she stands and walks away, but Castle doesn’t get very far in trying to follow her. The phone left behind might be a relief, but as time passes that small relief turns into something heavier. With the waffles untouched, and extra payment left behind on the table, the Agent steps outside into the dark sky with the missing phone in hand, casting a slow glance around until—
The approach is somehow both quiet and loud, the way the soft boots hit the dock echoing against the dark sky a little until the cellphone is held in front of her. “This is for her own good,” Castle’s eyes are darker, perhaps due to the darkening skies above, but so is the expression and the voice— the soft playful tones he usually had were gone, same as the Irish accent. “She’ll be treated fairly and kept safe.”
When Chess turns toward him, he can see she’s been crying, but the look in her eyes is a mix of things — grief, anger, something else. She reaches for her phone, shoving it in her pocket before wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Fairly — none of this is fair, Bazz. She didn’t ask to be possessed or to die,” the word is broken by a sob, and she looks away again, “and this is probably why she didn’t turn herself in, knowing she’d be thrown in a prison. It’s nicer than it used to be, but Rikers is still full of criminals who chose to murder and war criminals and worse.”
She looks toward him — not at him; her eyes avoid his. “You don’t know Eve. She can’t be kept caged like that. It isn’t right, and it’s not fair.”
As he hears Bazz, Castle blinks once and his face immediately softens into something much more emotional and open, and— very sad. If she were looking up at him, she would see the hesitation in the way he opens his mouth, as if there was so much he wanted to say, but then his mouth closes, and there’s another moment that passes and that softness fades again. “She didn’t ask to be possessed, but she was. And that wasn’t even the first time. It had happened before. Both times people died.”
There’s very little tension in the Agent’s voice, but there’s actually tears in his eyes and there’s tension in the way they’re holding their hands, flexing fingers as if trying to grasp something that’s not even there.
“We need to know it won’t happen a third time.”
His words draw that short, breathy laugh from her, but it too splinters into a sob that she covers her mouth to stifle. “If Uluru wants to possess her again, Rikers' cages won’t matter. What’s concrete and steel to something that can do what it’s done?”
Chess’ gaze remains on something to the left and far away. Her brows twitch, and another few tears escape the corner of her eyes. She takes a deep breath, forces a fake smile, and says, “And just when I think it can’t take any more from me. Whatever.” The bravado in her voice is 100 percent bullshit. “Enjoy your vegan waffle.”
Briefly, her eyes find his before her expression crumples again and she turns away, this time toward the street. She ducks her head, her hands finding their way into pockets as she walks away, her heels loud on the deck, and speeding up their staccato steps as the distance between them grows.
Castle blinks a tear from his eyes as Chess walks away, but he doesn’t follow after this time, even as they clench and unclench their hands quietly for a moment as if fighting with themself. “You should have let me handle it,” he murmurs under his breath, quietly, before responding in a different tone. “She’ll come around.” That voice was more sure sounding than the expression on his face, as he turned to go back into Brenda’s, to sit back in the chair he’d abandoned moments before. He’d left cash in case he didn’t return, but the waffles and drinks remained, even if they had cooled.
With tears still on his cheeks, he raises a hand and flags the same waitress over, “Can I get a whiskey?”
There’s a sympathetic look, from the waitress, as she had seen the tail end of the fight and had ascertained what must have happened. “How long were you two together?” she inquires.
There seems a moment when Basil seems to think about it. “Four…… days.”
The waitress looks at him. She had been sure he had been about to say a time much longer than days. Without waiting for the drink, he starts in on the bacon waffle first and the poor waitress is left to wonder just how strange this person might be.
“Four wonderful days.”