Participants:
| Scene Title | From Where They Were |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | In the days following the aftermath of the dog attack at the Lighthouse, Colette and Doyle catch up with one another. |
| Date | March 31, 2010 |
Yesterday there was snow. Tonight there's supposed to be snow. Tomorrow? Forecast calls for snow.
Given that the children's joy in the snow has been muted by the loss of Denisa from their midst, it isn't as fun for them as it might once have been. There've been more people around there than ever, between Linderman's folk and those like Eric Doyle that are there, and things are exciting because of that - though the reason for it puts a damper on things. Perhaps soon the frost will melt away and find the happiness of spring, but it seems impossible now.
As the afternoon whiles along, Doyle's sitting on the edge of one of the couches, currently carefully winding up the strings of one of his marionettes after having put on a little show for some of the younger children - those kids are scattered near his feet now, surrounding a Chutes and Ladders game they're playing, little smiles and teasing words nattering through the room. Even the puppeteer's smiling a little, for once.
"God," comes a hiss from the hallway as the basement door creaks open and heavy footsteps bring that familiar waifish brunette up from the cellar, "it always creeps me out going down there." Colette' voice isn't directed towards the other people in the room, but the wiry blonde man following at her heels carrying a cardboard box in both arms. He gives Colette a somewhat lopsided smile and a shrug of his shoulders.
"Thanks for helping me organize things down there," Brian offers in a hushed tone of voice, leaning his hip against the door to close it. "Look I promised I'd bring this stuff up to Eileen, so…" Brian glances towards the living room, spotting Doyle and the others, an ahdn lifting in a subtle wave as he shifts carrying that box.
"Aren't there like, thirty of you or something?" Colette asks over her shoulder to Brian, nose scrunched up. His answer is just a demure smile and a shifting of that box's weight as he moves around from the hall, through the edge of the living room and towards the front door without actually answering anything. Where have the rest of his clones been lately?
"Alright guys," Brian calls out to the kids playing the game. "I've gotta go run some errands! Don't give anyone a hard time while I'm gone, okay? Or I'll make Eric march you up to your rooms." There's a crooked smile at that, and a nod from Brian to Doyle before he reaches out to open the front door, box braced against one hip.
"And Colette," Brian flicks a look towards the teen, "Nobody goes outside, okay?" There's a seriousness in his tone of voice as he quietly implores that to her, and the young girl just nods her head once, sharply, before Brian slips outside and out of sight. Once he's left, Colette exhales a sigh and reaches up to rake her fingers thorugh her bangs, offering a crooked smile to Doyle as she slowly makes her way over to where he's playing with the kids.
"We wo~on't!" A sing-song of reassurance rises from the children in a chorus, one of them looking at Doyle at the threat and giggling before the dice tumble over the board. "Hey, you nudged that!" "Nuh-uh."
Kids will be kids.
The marionette's carefully placed in the duffle bag where it's kept, and Eric glances up, heavy-lidded eyes raising to watch Colette as she walks over, the faintest and uncertain of smiles touching his lips. He's been tip-toeing around her since showing up, using the kids as an excuse most of the time. It makes it easier not to talk about certain things.
"Brian's bringing all his Rambo stuff over to Raith and Eileen." Most of the kids here are just too young to even know who Rambo is, and it makes the allusion easier to deliver as Colette approaches the sofa, coming to sit down on the arm, hands folded in her lap. Watching the kids play, her eyes too take on that half-lidded quality, green leveled out to watch the dice bounce across the board with soft clattering sounds. She tips her head forward, tucks her chin in and manages a faint smile before looking over at Eric.
At first she's just quiet, a little awkwardly so, but it's quick to pass as she jumps into an unusual non-sequitur. "Have you ever rented an apartment before?" It's quite possibly the last thing Colette would ever be expected to ask of anyone, which in a way only feeds her oft likely to blindside in a conversation reputation.
The last of the puppets are put away, and Eric zips the bag up; twisting to carefully set it down beside the couch. He's not worried about it getting damaged at all, the kids are very careful around it, knowing how important they are to the big man. It's an awkward silence, but as she skips to such a completely random subject, the puppeteer looks back to her with a startled look. Then he quirks a hint of a smile, "No. I used to own my own place, but… never an apartment."
He did invade a few apartments and live there for awhile, but he didn't handle the paperwork.
There's a huff of breath and a nod from Colette as she lets her feet swing back and forth in the air, leaning to one side as she offers Doyle an askance look. "M'looking at getting my own place," she explains quietly, "I mean— not alone. M'gonna see if Kaylee's interested, 'cause there's no way I could really afford to live in this city on my own." Especially considering that she doesn't even have a job. "Thinking about… probably either Queens or Brooklyn, I've been lookin' at places all week. I— I figure it's time i get out on my own, you know?" It's not just subtle conversation between the two, this here is an implicit invitation to try and bridge the gap that had been wedged between the two. To start over from where they were before.
"You know…" Colette begins, glancing down to the game board, "I actually don't know a whole lot about you. Never— never did really. I mean, I know you but… you never talk about why you're here with the Ferry." The young girls dark brows lift up, and she slides slowly off of the arm of the couch and down onto one of the cushions to sit beside Doyle. Again, implications in her words; do you want to?
"Kaylee, huh? I haven't heard from her in awhile… how's she doing?" There's a bit of self-pity there, the puppeteer's armour scraped raw to the loneliness beneath as he looks to her for a moment, then looks out across the living room, admitting quietly, "You'll probably like it better… your own place, I mean. Everybody wants some independence. Freedom. You know." Eric brings a hand up, rubbing to the side of his face.
Then she asks that question, and he falls silent, face hidden by those fingers before they slowly trail down his cheeks. "Jericho tried to kill me," he says simply, quietly, "Caro 'ported us to McRae's place to get me some help. I sort of just ended up here. Better than going back to Monroe. S'not what you meant, though, right?" A humorless half-smile, looking back sidelong to her.
Jericho what? is displayed rather clearly across Colette's face with both brows lifted and green eyes wide. She parts her lips to speak, huffs out a breath and just scrubs her palm over the back of her neck. "No that— that's not, like, rr— really what I meant no." There's an awkward laugh there, and Colette's head slowly shakes as she cracks an awkward, crooked smile to the puppetmaster. "I mean like, you seem like a pretty nice guy, why aren't you like… you know, just doing a normal thing with your life?"
While she's sitting there talking, and when Colette's hand moves away from the back of her neck, Doyle notices something where her hand has brushed away the ragged fringe of the back of her neckline. A mark, two dark hatches — // — familiar radio isotope tracking markers subdermally implanted in her.
"I know everyone's got a different reason for doing stuff…" Colette's green eyes go distant, and she looks down to her lap, smiling a bit awkwardly. "If— if you don't wanna talk about it, it's okay." There's a sheepish smile there, eyes leveled back up towards Doyle with an earnest and nervous expression.
"I just— I kind've…" Colette huffs out a sigh and slouches back against the sofa, crossing her arms over her chest. "I was kinda' hoping… to, I dunno…" her dark brows crease together frustratedly. "Get— to know you better."
"No… you really don't," Eric replies with a weak chuckle that shakes his shoulders, one hand raising up to cover his lower face, fingers curling in against his jowls, squishing the fleshy curves of his face for a silent moment before he glances over. That mark's caught, and he looks at it for the moment it's visible. Despite his words, he keeps talking.
A tilt of his head leans to one side, and he raises up his fingers to brush over the dark hatch-marks on his own neck. "You know what these are? You have them too."
Green eyes stare awkwardly at the marks on Doyle's neck. Her expression grows a bit distant, and she sits up straight, slowly, in her seat, hands still folded in her lap and shoulders now hunching forward. Self-consciously, she reaches up and rubs at the marks on her neck. "I— I never used to know what they were…" Colette admits in a quiet tone of voice, "I saw them when I got out of the hospital after the bomb," her eyes cast aside, lidding partway.
"My um… I was pretty bad off after the explosion. The last thing I remembered was going to sleep in the apartment I lived in with my sister, the night before the bomb and then…" teeth worry at her lower lip, "I woke up in a hospital in April. I— I'd been… I was pretty close to ground zero. I guess I'd gotten battered around by the shockwave, I guess I almost died. I had radiation sickness and…"
Shaking her head slowly, Colette swallows once and just closes her eyes. "A few months ago I got healed by Daniel Linderman, my sister's boss. He— I dunno what happened, but when he healed me, I got all… all these memories of things back?" There's a look offered askance at Eric. "This friend of mine, somebody I thought— I thought he was just someone I randomly met turned out to be this like, government agent guy. Him and this really tall and thin and creepy black guy showed up at the apartment that night, he— did something to me that made me forget."
Rolling her tongue over her lips, Colette shakes her head. "I know they had me in this like, this room. All those memories they took from me, made me forget the first time I manifested my ability. Made me forget a lot of things, like… how I survived the bomb." Colette looks down at her lap, awkwardly. "I think they were trying to protect me."
"I don't know if he has the name. The black guy. They just call him… 'the Haitian'," Eric says in his best spooky voice, hands spreading apart slightly as if to make the words appear in the air, a hint of the showman stirring to the surface, "He'll make your memories disappear… can stop your powers, too…"
Those hands drop, and he leans back on the couch with a sigh, hands sliding up to fold there. "It's called the Company," he murmurs, "It's not… the government, really. Just a bunch of… arrogant sons of bitches that think they have the right to do whatever they damn well please."
Nodding her head slowly, Colette just makes a quiet sound in the back of her throat, looking down to the kids and their board game, then back up to Doyle. "Yeah… My friend Trent, I— think he tried to warn me about them once. He sent me out here to stay at the Lighthouse, to get away from them. I— I never knew at the time that he worked for them." Teeth toying with her lower lip, Colette looks back down to her hands. "That doctor, the one you rescued me from?" Colette's green eyes lift up to Doyle. "She was from the Company… or— or that's what people tell me."
Shifting awkwardly in her seat, Colette has inadvetrantly brought the topic of the conversation to the frame of time where they'd both rubbed each other the wrong way. "Eric I… I'm really sorry about… about what I said after you guys saved me." Her voice wavers, just a little. "I— I was really upset, and I didn't mean to— to say what I did."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know." The admission regarding Bella's involvement with the Company is a quiet one from Doyle's lips, almost tired in its tone, "I wasn't— going to leave you to go through what I did, kiddo." A weak, wan smile's offered over, "You didn't deserve it."
"No. No, no…" He grimaces, as if pained, one hand lifting up palm forward, "…don't. I… I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't mean to — want to — hurt you, Colette…"
"You didn't." It hurts Colette to admit that, to say that she was the one out of line. When she looks over to Doyle, it's with a weak and weary smile, teeth drawing against her lower lip, smile somewhat restrained by it. "Doctor Sheridan hurt me, not you. I just— I was so angry that— that I couldn't do anything to protect myself, I was so pissed at her and me and just— at everything, that I lashed out at everyone who was just trying to help."
Slouching forward, Colette rests her elbows on her knees, hands still laced together. "It's funny, if I hadn't gotten hit by that car I probably wouldn't have ever realized that. I was… I was really going to a bad place, for a while there. If Felix hadn't practically chased me out into traffic I— I don't know what would've happened."
"I did," Eric insists fiercely, glaring at her as if angry that she'd dare blame herself, "I… it's just… really easy to use my ability. Maybe a little too easy, sometimes." His gaze drops down to his hands, and he frowns at them, then chuckles mirthlessly, "Kinda funny. The puppet master's the puppet of his own ability, sometimes…"
He trails off, then blinks up, "Wait, what? You got hit by a car?"
Somehow that's possible the most thankful deflection of the conversation she's had so far. For as much as she doesn't want to tru and argue the ability dependency with Doyle, conversation of the car that hit her is the perfect way to avoid that. Grimacing, however, Colette does have to duck her head a bit sheepishly as she so tongue-in-cheek replies, "Well, yeah." As if somehow everyone everywhere was supposed to know. "I ah— a friend of mine tried talking to me about what happened. I got pissy and— I turned invisible and took off. I just— I wasn't thinking and I walked out into an intersection, and I can only see like, my vision is really short range when I'm invisible, right? So this car plowed straight into me…"
She doesn't look too worse for wear for it at least. "It screwed up my right leg, bruised a bunch of my ribs from when I hit the windshield. The doctor I had said I probably would've died if I hadn't just curled up in a ball and turned my back to the car when I saw it coming. I was laid up in the hospital for a while… I just got out of my back brace and stopped having to use a cane to get around." There's some small pride in that.
"My dad thinks that getting hit by a car knocked some sense into me," Colette admits with a crooked smile. "I'm— willing to bet he was right. It— I was going in a really bad direction after what happened. I guess it took a good smack upside the head to realize what I was doing wrong."
There's open concern in Doyle's somewhat buggy eyes as he looks back at her, his high brow furrowed with deep lines, though he relaxes a little once he realizes that she's alright now. His gaze drops, a sigh whispering past his lips as he admits with a puff of breath, "Me too. After that night, I kinda… took off myself." A sheepish half-smile, looking back up, "Was just living in the alleys for awhile. Snow sucks. By the way."
When green eyes settle back on Doyle after that Comment, Colette narrows her eyes to Doyle and — perhaps in an effort to lighten the mood — literally stares lasers at him. Admittedly harmless little red beams of light that flicker from her eyes down to his shoulder as she squints, and then breaks out in a giggling snort. "That's about as dumb as getting hit by a car, yeah…" Colette's lips creep up into a smile and she shakes her head. "I'm glad you're here, with the kids. You know, like— I dunno if they'd be able to— " She glances back to them playing the game, then slowly shakes her head and opts not to bring up what happened.
"You've helped them," Is the better and more deferential answer that Colette offers. "I think you're the best thing to come here, to— you know the Lighthouse? Since Brian put it together, anyway."
"I only came back for them," Eric admits in quiet tones as she says that he's helped them, watching the kids playing their board game — although they've half abandoned it by now, and are playing some elaborate tickle-wrestle game as they roll around on the floor. Even the puppeteer smiles — and then he chuckles as those lasers play over his shoulder, one hand coming up to brush them away, the little dots dancing over his fingers. "I was… I called Melissa, and Gillian's emergency alert came in…"
He trails off, gaze roaming over towards the kids once more, as he says quietly, "Maybe I could've done something, ifIf I was here, you know? Instead of off sulking like somelike some big kid."
"Don't— Dont do that." Colette says quietly, staring down at her lap, only glancing up at Doyle after a moment of awkward silence. "Don't say stuff like that, don't— " Her eyes shut, brows furrow and when she looks back at Doyle it's with a more stern expression than she's ever leveled at the puppetmaster. "Don't you dare say something like that, because we all could've done something more, but— but there's nothing we can do about it now." Colette's eyes glass over, her throat tightens and her lips press together for fear of the lower wobbling.
"All we can do is make sure nothing like that ever happens again, you got me?" Trying the tough act just makes her come off like a very surly kitten, but it's something Colette at least has practice in. "No feeling sorry for yourself or— or you'll make me start feeling the same way."
As she tries that stern look on him, Eric looks up to her… and then he lets out a snort of breath, reaching out to try and ruffle her bangs with surprisingly agile fingers. "You're a kitten," he points out with a faint chuckle, "Don't try to be fierce, you'll just make me laugh."
Pressing her tongue inside of her cheek, Colette just narrows her eyes and huffs out a breath as her hair is mussed with. But them perhaps begrudgingly, Colette offers Eric a lopsided smile at that. "Good…" she reluctantly offers, sliding her feet down to the floor before wrinkling her nose and ducking her head out from under his hand and standing up. "Mission accomplished," she adds with that nose-wrinkled smile.
"Everybody's gotta laugh sometime, even you."