Participants:
| Scene Title | Hit-or-Miss |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Abby needs to talk to a man about a whole lot of foreshadowing, bounds of trust with new associates and, worse, old ones. |
| Date | July 15, 2010 |
St. Luke's Hospital is known for its high-quality care and its contributions to medical research. Its staff place an emphasis on compassion for and sensitivity to the needs of their patients and the communities they serve. In addition to nearby Columbia University, the hospital collaborates with several community groups, churches, and programs at local high schools. The associated Roosevelt Hospital offers a special wing of rooms and suites with more amenities than the standard hospital environment; they wouldn't seem out of place in a top-rated hotel. That said, a hospital is a hospital — every corridor and room still smells faintly of antiseptic.
Thank god some places have A/C, like the hospital. On her lunch break from working in the bay, scutt work and grunt work that she's escaped sheerly because she was actually working in a rig with an experience paramedic. End of this month, she can apply for the courses that will get her on her way to being a paramedic too. Till then… and until Peter stops being a damned asshole when not asking her to do stuff for him, she's re-stocking rigs, checking over paperwork, running errands for the office and otherwise being a good employee. She even went back to blonde after noise was made. SOmeone higher up didn't like it, and shit rolls downhill.
On the roof of the hospital, laying down in the shade of the various vents, sandwhich, fruit, cold drink, Abigail flicks through the phone she'd had to purchase that goes with that thing that's hidden under her uniform. She's going over the changes in her temperature, looking for spikes, first day working without taking a negation pill. She doesn't like what she see's its evident enough on her face. Stress of everything keeping her at a low grade fever if not moderate at times. Her thumb slides across the screen, forcing it to traverse along the graph, trying to pin point the times where it's highest and think about what she was doing/working.
She's oblivious to the fact that anyone else might be up here for a break or just up here.
Someone is up here with her, naturally, wearing a gray suit in open defiance to the weather and its effort to do its worst. Noah does not even appear to be perspiring behind his horn-rimmed glasses, which may be either a secret ability of Evolved nature or something terrifyingly mortal but far from mundane involving arduous conditioning under impossible circumstances. "Abigail," he offers the back of her head, by way of salutation. "You look like you're feeling unwell."
He is probably gauging her mood by something other than the complexion of her face at this immediate moment, considering he's dropping his shadow across the corner of the wall. He sets his shoulder against it, but somehow even the casual informality looks weirdly choreographed with him, premeditated, no incident of careless ease. "Mineral water?" The sealed bottle dangles down above her arm, his fingers loose around its tiny round cap.
Claire would have the answer, to the perspiration or lack thereof. His greeting to the back of her blonde head has the young woman covering the iphone from view and looking waaaaay up to see the upside down visage of someone she'd left a message for to meet. She'd expected a message back, not… him, magically appearing out of nowhere as if god said 'here Abigail, careful what you wish for'.
The iPhone is quickly shut down, whatever app she was running, disappears from sight, replaced by a picture of a brown fluffy ball of fur sniffing at a budgie perched on someone's finger.
"Mister Bennet" The bottle of water is eye'd before it's taken from him,s lender fingers closing around the base of the water, relieving him of his burden. "This is a surprise. A little tired. Babies you know, keep you up all night" He would know, he had claire as an infant. "You don't happen to have any tricks to making a crying baby stop do you?"
"Swaddling, feeding," Noah says. "It isn't usually until later in their lives that children want their freedom or dieting." He smiles, no teeth, a thing that occupies the same bizarre symmetry as his horn-rimmed glasses, suit, the tie right down the middle, but it seems to reach his eyes, this one. Of course he's raised a baby before, even if he'd hardly take all the credit for it. "Singing can help, but I'm afraid Sandra would know a lot more about that than I would. I don't have a very good voice for it, even though I have perfect pitch.
"Most people who have perfect pitch aren't very interested in music, probably because of it. It's one of those strange things." A shrug lifts diplomatically through the breadth of his shoulders. "A baby as well. You and Eileen are extremely industrious young women. Sometimes I'm concerned you're overdoing it."
"Foundling. Driving all my friends away, probably for the better right now. Singing helps, just wondered if there was some trick" Abigail doesn't have perfect pitch but it doesn't surprise her that Noah does. What about him isn't perfect. Can shoot a gun, ninja up to a hospital roof without breaking a sweat and sing. Sandra hit the trifecta. Possibly.
Sometimes she might not think so.
"I have a message for you, someone with a request that I promised I would pass on. What you do with it is up to you Mister Bennet. I can carry a message back, or you can find them yourself" Abigail shifts onto her side, pushing up from the ground so that she can be eye to eye instead of eye to ankle.
Well, okay, Eye to shoulder.
'Agent Benjamin Ryans sends his regards, to an old friend."
There's a little huff of breath, almost a laugh, albeit a thinking one. Noah looks at her for a long moment, his gaze as weightily tangible as rain fastening to stone. "You've become the courier for quite a few of my old friends sending their regards," he observes, after a moment. "And this is the second one in some months, plus Meredith's abduction," he's going to call it what it is, friendship or no, "and Catherine opening dialogue once. It seems like our associates in the Company are taking their situation very seriously.
"What do you think of Agent Ryans? And while we're on that topic," he glances up, through the steepening shadows cast down by the squint of the falling sun, "the other agents you've met before? I know there were a few involved in Operation Apollo, and Niki Sanders' alter-ego was once."
'He says the Company is falling, and a post-cog saw that there's some plants within the the current ranks, plotting it's downfall" How she comes by half the stuff she does is likely a mystery to some, not so much a mystery to others. "Switzerland, seems to be a crossroads and a lot of people of late seem to think, a good place to exchange letters of neutrality"
The bottle of waters seal is cracked, carefully unscrewing the lid so she can sniff, then take a sip. Colder than her now warm juice beside the remains of her sandwich. "Agent Ryans. His daughter worked for me, he.. can be a dog with a bone, a little how I imagine you were when you worked for the company. He didn't like that I knew what working for Primatech meant, in relation to having a military background. He doesn't question me when I say get out of dodge. Ryans" The shorter blonde shrugs her shoulders, squinting up at Noah.
"I trust him, for as long as I need to trust him. He's still a company agent. As for the others. Sawyer's never done me wrong, Agent Ayers… I think he can be trusted, he owes the Ferry, and even if he didn't, hokuto trusted him" And Abigail loved Hokuto and trusted her. "Only company agents I ran with in Apollo were those who provided us shelter and they were beyond gracious and that was why I brought the message back. Niki…" Niki had been company? "Niki I trust, Jessica, I treat like a dangerous animal but she's saved me on occasion" And hurt her. "But my track record for trusting people Mister Bennet, is about fifty fifty"
As odds go, fifty-fifty isn't bad for the world they live in. Noah nods thoughtfully, considering that considerable catalogue of information behind a poker-face that would probably bankrupt Vegas in a week if he ever got around to changing careers. I trust him, for as long as I need to trust him. He's still a Company agent.
It's odd, how many people in Noah's acquaintance would practically say the same to him.
"Yep, I know how it is," he agrees. "The fact that they don't answer to public opinion and government authority means that there's a lot of room for individual variation. And creative measures. Who do you figure the enemy is?" He takes his hands out of his pockets, smoothes down the front of his coat. "The one holding this noose that they want the Ferry to believe is closing in. Don't worry, you don't have to base this information off military tactical training or anything," he puts out a reassuring hand. "Just curious what you think."
Who?
Could be any number. President? Vice President?
"I couldn't tell you Mister Bennet Frankly. I don't even know why they want to bring them down. I know someone to look into. FOllow any trail that leads from an Agent Desmond Harper. He has ties to the institute, and they're the folks with the white NBC suits and the strange coffins. I met him once, when he tried to take someone the company declared conscription for. He didn't come off as a guy you wanna sit and have milk and cookies with"
There's a glance to Bennet, digging her hands into her navy pant pockets. "Not that you come off as one either. I mean, this is my first time meeting you, up close and personal. That and I know your daughter and all and here I go babbling, lord on high you make me nervous. Bet you could kill me with just yer pinkie finger"
She bunches her hands into fists then releases them, breathing in then out. "If the company falls, the company falls, I don't think there will be many tears cried. But I've seen company agents nearly pee themselves in the pants when they saw Desmond harper and his buddies. The post cog saw Mister Harper as well, talking about two agents. Lupinetti and Dawson. I can drop off the paper with the scribbling on it. I can also give you Agent Ryans number, if you want to contact him. He didn't tell me exactly what he wants, just that he wants to talk with someone he once helped recruit"
"If you could tell him message received, that'd be great," Noah answers. "If he asks how I took it, well. You look tired, but you have a good memory for words and sentiments, so I trust you to make him wonder. It's nice to meet you too, Miss Beauchamp." The former Agent's smile goes slightly serrated around the edges, despite that there are no actual, physical fangs corroding the shape of Noah's perfectly human teeth. "But sure, I'll take his number. Just text it to me? Unless Hana chokes it off in the air, I'd like to have the option open.
"Eventually, they're going to have to send us a message that actually has a question and 'please' in it, won't they?" Noah shakes his head. Maybe he doesn't really think so. The enmity between the Company and the Ferry is old, if not as bitter as it could be. Unlike the Institute, the Ferry gradually adopted the policy of returning their abductees rather promptly, or at least blaming further imprisonment on Homeland Security, and made a great show of keeping their invasion of civil privacy confined to those with confidential access rather than the larger public.
Making believe that they were the lesser of the evils, anyway. Not that Noah thinks of it in those terms, of course. 'Evil.' "Do you know who the post-cognitive is?" he asks. He picks himself up off the wall, reaches into his pocket to flip through, into his inbox as Abigail sets about forwarding.
"You'd think, right, that at some point they say yes. I have the Linderman Group preparing for something, I think… something bad is coming down that alley and Roberts asked me to … get the ferry's help when it happens, for the folks who will get caught in the crossfire from whatever it is. He asked, back in february. Now the company, or well, there's Ayers and now Ryans, both asking for our help if they bring folks to us. Ryans already brought one. Ayers brought Daphne"
A scrap of paper is pulled from her pocket, a receipt for her meal and the pen always present on a shirt pocket is unclipped with ruthless effeciency. A phone number scribbled down from memory. "Hana can't keep destroy paper from afar, and if she can, well, then something's really wrong" It's held out to the former agent with a tight lipped smile.
"I can try and see if Peter will tell me who the post-cog is, whenever I see him next. He has me playing messenger too. Maybe Richard will know who it is. I'll do my best to dig it up. Do you have any other messages that need to be delivered or anything you need?"
Poor little Company. Billions of dollars and multi-million-dollar facilities, and none of it is going to save them from the flames. Mr. Bennet doesn't laugh but he smiles a little bit, again, wondering obscurely where little Elle got off to, and what Ayers makes of the mission now. He takes the paper, naturally! Doesn't suppose he minds Hana remaining vaguely, peripherally unaware that yet more bridges are forming, strand by strand, between the Company and the Ferry. It's going to be a Hell of a stand-down order that stops her from taking knives to the men later. He nods his thanks.
"Yes. Actually, if you could get in touch with Eileen and review all of this information with her in person, I would appreciate it. It might be best if you don't tell Ryans that I requested that of you, but she's important now.
"Have you seen her recently?" Noah up to mischief looks like Noah out to murder you looks like Noah playing Go Fish with tiny Claire looks like Noah at a Vegas table. "You can mention the message from Russia, if you like. That was my old friend Agent Spektor sending alert that other governmental entities was giving the Company trouble. I think it's important that she have other competent operatives to speak with." Also the fact that Eileen has been faintly elusive of late.
Just a little.
Noah, naturaly, associates eluding with avoidance, and it's enough to start a cycle of quiet predation. He blinks beatifically down at Abigail, folding paper in his fingers, tucking it into his coat.
It's the Noah Bennet look. Awww gosh I'm just a paper salesman ma'am, nothing more.
Abigail sadly is one of those who does fall for it to a degree. But she's got her own aww gosh look too. "About… two weeks ago? I met her down in the terminal. I was passing over some medicines that I got a hold of that she asked me to see about getting for the Ferry. She seems to be on the mend from whatever she got, was looking better at least, not like a good stiff wind would send her flat on her arse. But I can do that. Let her know what I've managed to be told and gleaned. Half of it I think that she already knows but it won't hurt"
She ends her sentance, brows creeping downward in the obvious motions of someone unsure of whether to say anything. Peter's warning that there's someone in the institute who's been creeping through and spying. Noah Bennet surely wouldn't be such.
"What do you think, about Susan?"
Eileen needs to start hanging out with people who aren't giant male cold-blooded murderers anyway. Noah thinks so. Hana spent far too many years with that sort, and look how she turned out? Eileen's improvement from illness nudges the ex-Company agent a little further into morbid curiosity, but it's the kind that he's decided he doesn't have to satisfy first-hand. The look on the flaxen-haired girl's face right this particular moment, however, begs a more immediate set of questions, and ones that Noah decides, after a moment, that bear asking.
"A very brave woman," he says. "Less comfortable with moral gray than she's going to have to learn to be, but she isn't an idiot, and her charisma makes her a little dangerous. The same way yours makes you." Noah quirks a slightly different smile at Abigail this time, wryly observant; nothing intrusive. "But the last time I heard, she wasn't starting trouble. Why the frown?"
"I am far from dangerous Mister Bennet. It's the people I know who are dangerous"
Oh wait, okay. Maybe now she is. "I was just… curious. Someone nominated me and I just.. wanted to know more about the others. If it succeeds, means I'll actually need to get to know others, get my sleeves up and be elbow deep in stuff that before, I skirted around. Whether I like it, or whether I don't"
Bennet likes her. Does what he said means he likes her? "Anyone heard from the Fitzgerald house? Last susan said, they had gone off on a run and hadn't been back"
Noah cocks his head curiously, studying the young woman from a slightly different angle, as if the trajectory of sunlight and cast of physical light might change the one he views her in on a more metaphorical level. "The Queens kids?" he asks, after a moment. Of course she means the Queens kids. "Susan sent word up the wire that they're on a job, something about moving people out-of-state, so I don't expect them back for another couple days. But you should be able to drop by in a few days, if you need extra hands for something.
"Or you can ask Hana to forward a message to Susan," he says, offhandedly, or at least— simply. "She has some strong opinions on a few things, including the kind of people the Ferry should consort with as I'm guessing you've heard. Or seen. FBI by day," he adds, as if that explains it. Well: Abigail does know Felix Ivanov, after all. "I'm sure she'll like you just fine. Showing you have an interest in the affairs of other major Ferry operatives would definitely improve your chances of making the vote."
He touches the corner of his horn-rimmed panes when he says that, peering at her with a faint sense of myopic nebbishness that is probably entirely contrived. Good-natured, though.
Oh if Noah only knew about the other day, the garden, the tea. Susan likely doesn't much care for Abby.
She's thinking, wheels turning, imaginary smoke pouring forth from her ears. "Yeah. She's the opposite of me. I'm the bleeding heart" She knows she is, accepts that she is and makes no apologies for such. It's just how she was raised.
Abigail drags a finger over her iphone as she pulls it out of her pocket, nose wrinkling at the time. "I'm outta lunch break. Back to work for me. I'll do those things you asked." Tap tap, check an app before shoving it back in her pocket so she can gather her things. "Thanks for the water Mister Bennet. It's appreciated" The bottle held up in a salute almost. "Give Mrs. Bennet my regards, if you would. Oh!"
Does Mel still have it? She rattles off a number to Noah. "Mel found Mister… Muggles? She hasn't been able to get word to claire or anyone. I don't quite know. I can pick up the dog and drop it off. Sandra must be going crazy"
It was either that or anti-anxiety meds, which Noah probably shouldn't have mentioned to her as a suggestion. Well. Their marriage has never been the easiest, most consistent thing anyway and some people don't always appreciate constructive pragmatism. "She's been having difficulties," he agrees instead, diplomatically. "I'll be sure to let her know. Mr. Muggles must be excited about coming home. If you can drop him off at the Hangar, the whole family would be very grateful. Next time, Melissa can ask Hana to forward it to 'Sandra.' She'll know, thank you."
As for the smoke pouring out of Abby's ears, or the doubt showing on her face, he doesn't make much ceremony out of noticing that, either. He may not always be tactless, but he is infinitely capable of subtlety. "I should let you get back to your rest before you're home again," he says, turning his head to survey the rooftop with a stirring of a shark's restlessness. Not enough to blood to breathe up here, maybe. "If you're still feeling weak in a few days, you should probably get some help for the child and see Dr. Allegre again."
See him again. As in Noah knew she'd brought him over once already. 'Not just the Baby Mister Bennet. Just family, friends. The like. But I think you already know that" If he knew that Francois had been over to see the baby. "I'll drop him off" Things gathered, stuff put into a bag and ready for the garbage, Abigail with her newly blonde hair turns away from him. "Check into what happened in central park Mister Bennet. Something tweaks wrong with me"
booted steps carrying her towards the door that will lead to a stairwell, to an elevator and eventually to the main floor and more hallways to get her back to work. "You take care now, Lord watch over you" Her parting, simple and very much her.,