I Ran - String Theory: Aftermath

I Ran

Log Archive » Logs for January 2009 » I Ran

Participants:

Scene Title	I Ran
Synopsis	Cat makes it back from Jersey City and fills Kinson in. About more than one thing.
Date	January 28, 2009

Village Renaissance Building, Fourth Floor Safehouse Unit 401

The streets outside are full of snow, with more coming steadily down from the sky. It obscured visibility and helped her when she really needed help to stay free. She's been on the move since she took off at a run from the three warehouse complex in Jersey City, being able to use that same motorboat they used in getting there to return by. Her empty guitar case was still there, it let Cat stash her weapons for unseen carrying on the way back home.

She is sore and stiff in several spots, cold, tired, and numb. Elation could be felt, but developments conspired against that. By the time she enters the Village Renaissance building, her ski mask is tucked away, her face is visible, and she looks like nothing had been going on. Into the elevator she goes, and rides it upward.

But she doesn't go to the penthouse; she exits on the fourth floor. The safehouse floor. Her keycard comes out, and she lets herself into unit 401.

Kinson has kept himself holed away in here. He's new and unproven, and this isn't the time for stupid displays of machismo. There will come a time for that, but it isn't now. For now, until he's needed he's taken sanctuary in 401. He's got everything he needs and won't come out until things are clear. Helluva time to join up, that's for sure. For now, he's busy sitting at a table and writing. Every once and a while he pauses, reads to himself, might scratch something out and continue. That is, until the door opens and he looks up. The person who enters makes him beam from ear to ear. "I'm so glad to see you," he says, rising and going to meet you.

She stands inside the doorway, quietly closing it behind her, and doesn't speak. It clicks shut as she sets down her guitar case with the weapons hidden inside, then sheds her coat. Underneath it is her body armor, which in turn is over a thick sweatshirt. Gloves come off her hands next, she just lets everything drop. The expression to Cat's face is far from what one might expect after a successful mission.

And still she doesn't speak. Eye contact is made as he approaches, and she just tilts her head to one side. Two steps are taken, she moves to meet him. Hands go to settle at his shoulders, and her lips part to bestow a kiss that isn't in any way chaste.

Kinson melts into the kiss and returns it with equal fire. He could tell from the expression that the term 'success' didn't necessarily mean that everything turned out as she hoped, or wished it could. The fact that she even came back at all fills him with light, but the truth is he's still very protected from what /really/ goes on out there and he knows it. The best he can do, for now, is offer support. But his kiss..goddamn..it's as if he's trying to tell her with his lips in a way other than speaking just how much she was longed for and missed and worried about.

She melts into it, showing emotions on a knife's edge in her conduct of it, the clear existence of something very much on her mind. It continues until the need for breath causes Cat to pull back, then she reaches for one of his hands and clasps it. Eye contact resumes, with it her intent to lay some things out in the open is communicated. "I have to tell you some things, and I need you to listen, Kinson. After I'm done, you may not want to be anywhere near me. If that's so, I won't blame you. But it has to be said."

She lets go of his hand and moves to settle into a chair, perhaps waiting for him to also sit.

Kinson follows you over to sit. "You can say them, but be prepared for me to listen, and then want to hold you afterwards." is his only reply.

"We got to the warehouse area in Jersey City with no trouble," Cat begins. "But from there, things went to hell. There were police cars all around with lights flashing. One of the warehouses had collapsed, and a cop staggered away. He was wounded. There were firefights in the other two between cops and Vanguard people. We went into one, found the target wasn't there, so we moved to the next while dodging rounds from what sounded like a tank gun. Where it fired from, I couldn't tell. Too much snow. One of the rounds went right through a Brian, just missed my head, and demolished a chunk of wall."

"We found the virus and mortar in the third building, but there was the firefight in that one too. We didn't go in, there was too much shooting around where we needed to be. So Al used telekinesis to yank the virus canister and the box it was in to him. Just then the building blew up. Al, Brian, and I were thrown across the street."

Kinson opens his eyes wide, "Oh my god are they okay?" he asks, concerned. He holds your hands in his, looking into your face.

She's getting to that, in time. Cat intends to tell the whole story. "I still had the thermite grenade when I started to recover from being dazed, and saw the virus container there in the street where it was knocked out of Al's hands when we got thrown. I started toward it, to set the charge off and destroy the thing, but I felt numb in my legs. Couldn't stand up, I had to crawl, drag myself, over to the container."

She stares at the wall, giving every indication she's playing it all out in her mind while speaking. "The closer I got to it, the further away from where I was, though, my legs got stronger, the effect wore off. I didn't have any injury down there, I couldn't find a tranquilizer dart either. It was just… strange. I set the thermite off, it ignited, and then there was Homeland Satan on the ground. Al and Brian were still down, in the area I'd been when I felt the numbness in my legs, so…

"I ran. Just picked up and ran."

Kinson gives a brief intake of air when you say that. That's so not like the Cat he's come to know. Which means something /MAJOR/ had to happen out there. "You know, Cat.." he says quietly, soothingly, "that might not've been you. That might've been an ability making you move like that. Especially the part with your legs."

"It was me," Cat replies quietly. "The virus box was on fire with the thermite, that danger was gone. Al and Brian were down. They were in the area where I felt the numbness in my legs, was unable to walk. I knew if I went back to try and help them, I'd be unable to, and the only thing I'd achieve would be getting taken in too. Homeland Satan was on the ground. They came in helicopters, it must've been the New Jersey cops entering the warehouse after spotting one of the Vanguard people who drew them."

Kinson nods quietly, "So they were both taken, then?" he asks, his voice calm and comforting. There is no judgement in it, nor his eyes.

"Yes. I left them behind to be taken. I don't like it. I didn't see any other choice, helping them only gets me caught. This is what it's like, the hard choices to make, the cold choices. It was like that with Dani too. We were both caught by the Vanguard, I was traded for one of theirs we had, but they kept Dani, and when we wouldn't hand over a technopath, she was slain. We let it happen, we couldn't do what they wanted for any reason. I loved her, it haunts me that I just accepted it, but there it is. We wouldn't have time to mount a rescue and a trade was out of the question."

Cat turns her eyes from the wall then, to meet his and explore them. "So I'm the kind of woman who can make those cold decisions, to abandon and betray a lover to die alone like she did. Who did make that decision. I have to tell you that, from the top. If that means you don't want to be around me, I understand. The things we face, what we at times have to do, are more important than any one person, no matter how close to me."

Kinson listens to what you have to say and nods. "We'll get 'em back. We'll figure out a way to do it, but yes I understand. you had to do what you had to do given the choices open to you at the time." he nods a little more. "I get that, Cat, that you had to do that. And when the time for a cold decision happens, I will look for you above all others to make it unblinkingly." he leans in and kisses you again, on the lips ever so gently, "I know this and I accept it, and you, for all that you are. I also know that not all decisions are cold ones, so remember that too."

"I'll have my mysteries, as I said, but that's not one of them. If we follow this path, you'll see things about me I don't let anyone else know, the woman behind the cold pragmatism who feels and sometimes struggles with everything she remembers so vividly." There are no promises of a solid relationship spoken there, Cat concedes only the chance of one, and she's done using words. As his lips approach to be gentle, hers move to meet them, but her intent isn't gentle. It's filled with a need to feel, to have contact, to leave worries and all of that behind for a time.

Kinson returns the kiss with equal measure and heat, his hands resting on the tops of your thighs. When the kiss is broken, he smiles, "The same goes for me. You'll be kept secret from nothing. Everything I hide from everyone else, everything else, I'll reveal to you. Not because we're together, or even are entertaining the chance of forever..but because I think you're special enough to share it with. I hold no illusions - there are promises of nothing here..but there is a chance, and there is hope of something beautiful also, and for that - and you - I'll take every chance there is."

When the kiss breaks, she doesn't speak. Cat stands and starts moving to a bedroom. With her back to him, she pulls items of clothing over her head and drops them. By the time she reaches her destination, her bare back is the view she provides.