Participants:
| Scene Title | Going Outside To Play |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A situation is dealt with. |
| Date | September 28, 2009 |
Sea View Hospital basement
It's late. Late in more ways than one. Monday is soon to become Tuesday, and here they still are with Douglas in his cell. Cat rests on a chair, dressed more casually than she was earlier that day when she conducted her seminars at the Suresh Center. An important thing, that; not letting there be any disruption due to HF actions. When she returned a few hours earlier, books and things for Helena's benefit were brought. Food included. But Douglas? He can starve and burn in hell as far as she's concerned.
Seated in a chair, keeping watch, Cat has the pistol taken from the captive and the sniper rifle in hand. The latter item is being studied and compared in her mind against literature on that variety she dug up earlier.
It's taken her this long to work up the courage to actually come here. And several anti-anxiety pills. Elisabeth almost wishes the intel hadn't come through — taking the bastard into custody was a given before she knew who they were holding. Now she's in the odd and unbelievable position of being handed her personal Boogeyman.
The monster in her closet is real, and he's sitting just beyond the door that she now stands in front of. She doesn't even know if he's conscious… what Cat might have done with him after she learned who he was… or what she herself is going to do once she steps through that door. Blue eyes dilated so they look nearly black stare at that door, she merely…. stands there. She doesn't look at the man at her shoulder. She can't look away from the door, can't pretend her heart isn't pounding like a sledgehammer in her chest, can't pretend she's not on the cusp of walking away.
There's a strange kind of roaring in her ears that muffles everything he says to her and drowns out the sounds of the abandoned old hospital… it almost sounds as if she's underwater. She vaguely realizes it's the sound of her own blood in her ears as she reaches out to open the door with a hand that trembles just enough. It shouldn't be this hard to walk in there, but it is. And she does it anyway, still with no idea what she's going to do when she lays eyes on this man.
Helena is seated in a chair outside of Douglas' little cell. She's been quiet and a little disengaged, but mindful of any funny business. She seems distressed about the entire operation, and will likely be happiest when Douglas is out of Phoenix's hands.
Just at her shoulder, Cardinal serves as Elisabeth's shadow this evening— but a shadow of flesh and substance rather than the subtle darkness of his ability. The fingers of one hand slide up the small of her back with a reassuring press, and he leans in close beside her ear, murmuring ever so softly, "You're doing fine, Liz. Just keep it easy, keep relaxed…" A firm squeeze, fingertips digging in lightly to remind her that he's there, as he follows her into the outer holding area.
"They should be here any minute now," Cat remarks as she continues her examination of the confiscated weapon. A glance is shot Doug's way and she sets down the sniper piece to take up the pistol instead. "I said he'd be unconscious," she adds. Keys are taken and she walks over to the cell door, starting to open it. Her features are grim, a poker face which conceals her emotions at this moment.
The door's locked. Duh…. Elisabeth clears her throat and calls through it (without shouting — voice enhancement is your friend), "Bulldog." And then she waits there for Cat to come allow them entry to the space where they're keeping Doug. There's a glance now at the man at her side, but she still doesn't say anything. She told him as they got out of the car that she didn't know what to do. But that tidal wave of emotion? She can feel the undertow sucking at her as it creeps closer and closer to the forefront.
"Hey, Cat," Cardinal greets with a slight tip of his chin up towards the pair, no smile for them today; it's too serious an occasion for that. "Helena. No incidents or anything, I hope? Guy's practically Jason Vorhees from what everyone's telling me.." His hand remains on Liz's hip, arm curled about her protectively and possessively, in a sort of 'nobody move too close to her or I'll bite' fashion.
"Jason Voorhees," Cat remarks with a dry chuckle as the key turns and she swings the cell door open, "not quite. More like the Terminator. I feel like my name should be Sarah, he just doesn't have Arnold's face and I lacked a metal press to finish him off." She pauses, brandishing the pistol, and tilts her head. "Makes me wonder if I should find a guy who looks like Michael Biehn, get knocked up, and tour Mexico in a jeep with a large dog."
The sniper rifle is sitting on the edge of the chair she was in, and Cat limps a bit as she moves.
There's a blink from Elisabeth at the joking… "I thought he wasn't Evo," she says finally with a frown. In spite of her feelings, she finally steps forward, away from the protective arm. Everything still sort of sounds muffled by the pounding in her ears, but then again… maybe it's just that she's listening too hard. She meets Cat's eyes and then moves into the cell's doorway to look at the man whose voice populates all her darkest dreams.
"He's not." Helena speaks up tiredly. "Just a lunatic with the determination to avoid pain. Hey, Cardinal." she adds, not wanting to seem rude. "You going in with her? I'd hate to have to do what I did to him again in an enclosed space. But he strikes me as dangerous no matter how we're holding him."
Cardinal's hand slips free from where it rests on Liz's hip, falling to his side as he lets her move towards the doorway; fingertips rattling a brief drum on his hip, he admits, "Like Helena says— there's crazy people who take a lot of damage all the time. Hell, could be on PCP for all we know, a guy on that might be able to go head to head with Jessica for a few rounds…" A glance to Helena, then to Liz, "…I probably should."
Unconscious he is not. Douglas is very much awake. He was handcuffed to be seated in a chair, but on waking up he has moved around a bit. Now Douglas is out of the chair, has managed to get his feet over his wrists and now leans against the wall, the chair that he's linked to rests in his lap. The chain grinds back and forth on the leg of the chair as he hums lightly.
But when Elisabeth moves into vision, everything stops dead. His head snaps up as if out of a trance. There is a trail of dried blood coming from an open head wound, and his hand is most definitely broken. Other than that and the gunshot wounds he's in great health! Standing up rapidly, the chair dangles from his wrists as he stares at the door. Looking like something between awe and… adoration.
"Just a pure psycho," Cat agrees as she steps through the door, very much ready to club him unconscious again. She shows no fear of the man, what's taken as precautions are simply that. "I shot him over and over again, he just kept coming. Oddly enough, though, when thunder happened he curled up like a baby."
Her eyes watch him get to his feet and react to Elisabeth's presence. "Things may have become less boring now," she murmurs. Her plan shifts from clubbing him unconscious to shooting him. Getting that close isn't something Cat intends to do. She takes aim at one of his ankles, intending to make it impossible for Douglas to stand whether he ignores pain or not.
She locks eyes with him….. and time stops.
For a second that seems like eternity, Elisabeth cannot breathe as looks into the face of this man. This… animal… who spent hours and days touching her, taunting her, terrorizing her… He should be… bigger. Taller. But he's just a man. Or at least… he's a monster in a man's body.
There's a low thrum of something that's not a sound. More a feeling. The sense of pressure, bass too far below the threshold of human hearing to actually be heard… only felt. Like the waves off a subwoofer at a concert. It doesn't do anything; it merely exists.
And then time resumes its normal flow and Elisabeth can, barely, suck in a breath.
"I think it would be a good idea…" Helena's voice trails off, as she studies the goings on in the cell. She's tense, in case Douglas tries something. It's hard to be ready when you don't know what you're needing to be ready for, but Helena tries.
As the bad dog stirs upon his cot and sits up, Cardinal reaches under his jacket to wrap his fingers around the grip of his own pistol; a small but heavy, ugly Russian-made thing that he must have picked up from Fedor at some point. The hammer's drawn back, though the weapon remains aimed low by his side, just there in case it's needed.
As that subaudible thrum vibrates to his skin, he slants a worried look to Elisabeth, murmuring softly and carefully, "Liz…"
A terribly ugly noise is made as metal screeches against metal. Douglas takes slow staggering steps towards the doorframe, the chair scraping against the ground as he does so. Wrists held low and fastened together his movement is lumbering. Once he makes it halfway across the room the man stops. Guns and threats of guns are ignored, all of his focus is on one person.
His eyes practically dance as they lock with hers though he makes no facial expression. Staring at her for a long moment, his hands encumbered by the chair lift slowly and stretch out each way. If the man could spread out his arms in indication for a hug, it is what he would be doing right now.
"You're being a very bad boy," Cat says in a mildly chiding voice, her features showing boredom. One hand lifts to her mouth as if to yawn at his antics. The other squeezes that trigger and sends a single silenced round toward the targeted ankle. "Now sit down and be good."
It's rising again, that repressed desire to mete out for him that which she told Eileen she'd not seek to give Ethan Holden.
Her whole body is shaking, and Liz has to fight the urge to lock her knees to keep from falling - it would only happen faster. "You," she says quietly, very evenly, to Doug, "are an epic failure. As a human being. And as a man." It's takin everything she has in her to stay calm — or to give the appearance of calm. "You think you're something. But I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. And you should be very very glad right now that I'm not a pyrokinetic, or I would stand here and watch you roast inside your own skin." Her tone is deceptively calm, that sense of low-level vibration still emanating from her.
"Instead, I'm going to take the news footage of you killing civilians and pretending to be a cop, and I'm going to put it in front of a jury. And I'm going to stand on the other side of the window when they fucking fry you." She smiles very sweetly at him, though it never touches her blue eyes. Her voice is a sibilant, viciously sweet invitation. "Unless, of course, you'd like to actually come over and touch me again. Because I'd really like it if you slid your hands across my body one more time…. " So she can vibrate his brain into grey pudding.
Just behind her and to one side, Cardinal's brows lift upwards in bemusement. The idea of Douglas actually ending up in proper custody and going to jail seems rather unlikely to him at the moment, but it seems to be helping her to say it, so he doesn't bring up little logical points like that just yet. He just remains silent and watchful beside her, there if she needs him. Or if the mad dog makes a move.
One ankle flies out from under him, sending him toppling onto the chair that dangles between his legs. He doesn't look pained when his leg flies back, only confused that he's lying on top of the painful chair. Slowly pushing himself backward, he goes to try and stand. His ankle fails him and he topples once again back onto the chair, subsquently bringing him closer to the door and Elisabeth. He once again pushes himself up, this time all his weight going on the one leg.
Hobbling over the scraping of the chair continues to whine as Douglas hop hop hops over to the support of the wall. His head collapses against it. His eyes search Elisabeth slowly, a small smile creeping up. And then he hobbles forward, crashing to his knees, the chair flung over to his side, Douglas kneels at the woman's feet. His head slowly going downward.
She watches Douglas after the round is fired into his ankle, making no more sound than a metallic click thanks to the silencer, and listens as Elisabeth speaks with him. Challenging him to approach her. Cat remains impassive for most of it, raising only one brunette brow when he keeps coming and prostrates himself at Elisabeth's feet. "As I said," she remarks dryly, "psycho." But, she realizes, he might be up to some hostile intent still, so she raises the pistol again. It's aimed at the top of his head, but she doesn't squeeze the trigger. There's opportunity to stay her from that course.
When he comes toward her, the blonde cop can't help it. She backs up several steps. She invited him closer, he took her up on it, and she is forced into retreat, panic spiking her blood pressure through the roof. She flinches, her face averting to the left and downward, her eyes squeezed tightly shut and her hands coming up as if she expects a blow. And when Cat speaks and he hasn't put his hands on her, Elisabeth dares to look once more. There is no color whatsoever left in her face, and she looks between Helena, Cat, and Cardinal. She can't do it. She cannot kill the man in cold blood. If he'd attacked her, she could have — WOULD have. But she cannot, not like this. And that knowledge is written across her face.
"We have a problem." Helena says quietly. "We don't know how deep or how high up Humanis First infiltration goes in the legal system. Turning him over may just as likely result in him walking free. And he knows who we are."
The approach of the psychotic is observed with a sharp look in Cardinal's eyes, though the shades he's wearing disguise the anger that's bubbling up beneath the surface. The pad of his thumb slides over the side of his pistol, and he says in calm, even tones, "I'm sure we can work it out, Helena. Don't worry about that, I doubt it'll be any sort of problem."
A low chuckle emits from Douglas' throat the man clambers a foot forward, after Elisabeth. But the movement is slow, methodical. Raising his head, the blood smeared face contorts into good humor. "Don't want to come play." He laughs viciously. Mocking her, shaking his head. Finally he stops, grinning from ear to ear. "I win."
And with that the chair is hurled up with both hands, and his head moves instantly, mouth opening. Swinging the chair wildly at Elisabeth and Cardinal, his mouth in the same movement goes to fasten and bite around the barrel of the gun. Not trying to disarm Cat, just placing himself in perfect position for what's about to happen next.
She didn't quite buy the prostration Douglas dropped into, he being the sort in her very clear memory to never stop coming. Again, no one has suggested Cat stay her hand and sure enough when he grips the chair to fling it it's another attack. In her mind, this erases any question of it being cold blood. Her finger moves on the trigger, squeezing it to fire a second silenced round. The situation is fluid now. Her aim was at his head, but by him having moved it may strike elsewhere. Or he may even get his mouth on the barrel before the bullet emerges.
One thing is clear. Cat fires.
The hurled chair sends Elisabeth whirling backward, putting her in Cardinal's line of fire as one arm flies upward to protect her head. She throws her body into his, trying to put them both out of the way of the chair with her momentum. 'I win.' The words echo through her head like the report of a gunshot and rage tears through her, making her see red.
In a fluid motion as instinctive as breathing after years on a firing range, even as she ducks with the man of shadows her free hand pulls her firearm from the inner pants holster she's wearing in her jeans — Will Harvard used to chuckle at it, but she's always loved that holster. And by the time the chair clatters past them, Liz herself is coming around to fire at Doug as well though late in the game when compared to Cat's already-prepped shot.
His teeth clamp onto the hard metal of the silencer as the shot rings out.
Can't make me go inside. Go outside. Play forever. No clothes. No turtlenecks. No suspenders. Play. Play outside.
When Cat's bullet exits out the back of the base of Douglas' skull it looks like he has a little smile on his face before his body crumples lifelessly to the ground. His eyes open, and something that looks like a smug smile turned on his lips.
Helena scrambles out of her chair, she has no real idea what she's going to do, and then, it doesn't matter. She stands, breathing hard like she's run a marathon, and stares at the body blinkingly like she doesn't know what to do at all now, and is completely confused.
"God damn it." A quiet whisper of breath from Cardinal after that report mingles with the hard, wet sound of flesh and cracking bone, his head shaking slowly from side to side as he steps back over beside Elisabeth— his gun now loose in his hand, finger off the trigger as he gazes down at the fallen man. "Fucking psychopath."
She sees Elisabeth's weapon brought to bear in her peripheral vision as the result of her final round takes shape, and Cat moves quickly to the side away from it so as to not be in the way. When the body drops and stares out at them, she's quiet in her observation. Whatever emotions she's feeling are veiled, but her facial expression does shift to one of displeasure. For all her reserved exterior, it's more blood on her hands.
It's another indelible unpleasant memory. They've been stacking up since she came to New York just over a year ago. That she hasn't descended into irreversible PTSD some could call a miracle, given the condition's tendency of causing inability to remember without reliving coupled with nearly every memory for the past seven years being that vivid.
The weapon is lowered, arms dropping to her sides, and she begins to turn away. "I said," she murmurs, "to sit down and be a good boy."
Elisabeth is holding her weapon, never having the chance to fire it before Cat took the back of Doug's head off. Her adrenaline levels are in the stratosphere somewhere…. her blood pressure must be in orbit. PTSD is her way of life at the moment… all due to the man on the floor. The touch of Cardinal's hand on her back shakes something loose in her, and she walks forward very very slowly to stand over the man's body.
The haze over her field of view has not yet receded, and although her pistol has no silencer on it, thanks to Con's training the shots she fires are utterly soundless as she empties all thirteen bullets in her clip into the body on the floor. He is not getting up again — there will be no fucking 'he's only MOSTLY dead' resurrections for him. "No," she whispers softly, her hand shaking visibly as her gun hand comes down, the pistol itself falling to the floor, "you fucking don't." But somewhere down deep, she's not so sure.
Helena is still staring at the body, gone a bit doe-eyed, which on her makes her look like an unnatural anime babe. Except for the horrified look on her face. She takes a slow breath, in and out, stays calm, and looks to the others. "I haven't the faintest idea what we need to do here." she says. "So if one of you does know, that would be really, really helpful."
"No," Cardinal says in quiet, firm tones as he steps along past Elisabeth, "No, he didn't. I can take care of it, Helena." Ignoring the body for the moment, he reaches out to rest a hand on her shoulder, murmuring quietly, "…Liz. You all right?"
She faces Helena and studies the expression on her face, her own showing signs of keeping it together by force of will. Nothing is said then between them. Moments later she retreats to the chair where the sniper rifle was left. It's picked up to be out of the way. As Cat sits and closes her eyes, she remarks somberly "There should be plenty of places on the island to burn it, then the bones can be dumped into deep water."
Another few beats of silence pass, before eyes reopen to settle on the detective as she too wonders the answer to Cardinal's question.
Elisabeth's voice is matter of fact as she turns away, that inaudible hum of sound still thrumming through the stones of the hospital giving away that she is light-years from all right. "Tell Cook to enjoy his snack… and make sure he eats the gun too." It's the coldest (and possibly the most disgusting) thing she has ever said in their entire acquaintance with her, and her blue eyes have an empty sort of thousand-yard stare going on as she slips from Cardinal's touch and walks toward the door. "Bleach the place down if you're worried about bloodstains."
The tears won't come until far, far later…. when she's curled up in a tight little ball on the floor of her shower stall with scalding water pouring over her as she tries to get warm, to stop shaking. To stop seeing his face… the adoration and awe and creepy prostration.