Participants:
| Scene Title | Just One Question |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Although she expects him to lie about it anyway. |
| Date | May 1, 2009 |
Alec's Apartment
She's been putting off this confrontation, but she's had word that both Cat and Teo have spoken to Alec. So now it's time for Elisabeth to speak to him. She doesn't call ahead, she merely shows up and bangs on his door in very police-banging fashion.
There is the sound of many locks being undone. Cause Alec lives in The City and he's not a retard. The door opens and he's on the phone, "No no those are fine, it's just-" he eyes Liz for a moment then nods, jerking his head in a motion that invites her in as he heads back into the kitchen, "Whatever. Sid, I'm gonna have to call you back. A friend just dropped by and there's a small chance that she may beat me to a pulp. No, you can't watch. I'll see you tomorrow man, you can count the bruises then. Yup. Later." he hangs up and calls out from the fridge, "Want a drink?"
Hmmm…. clearly Alec's other friends know he's a dickhead too. Elisabeth follows him in and closes the door behind her, her body language giving off 'don't touch' vibes. "No," she replies. "I want to ask you one question, and the answer will determine whether I turn your brains to mush," she says calmly. There's a glint in her blue eyes that says she's pretty serious. "Did you fuck me as part of your plan to spy on me?"
Alec comes out of the kitchen with a beer in hand and he's nodding as if he expected this question, "Nope." he says as he then heads into the living room, "Lock the door please." he flops down in the couch, the living room has been converted into something of a studio currently, a few scattered easles with blue prints on them, all of the bridge. Copious notations abound.
"Fine," Elisabeth replies. It's not like she didn't expect him to say that — even if he was lying to her. But call her stupid…. she needed to hear him deny it out loud. She pivots to walk back toward the front door. "You can lock it behind me," she tells him quietly.
Alec speaks up from his spot on the couch, "You know, I really did expect to not like you at all." he says, the slosh of beer can be heard as he takes a hit from the bottle, "When you sat at the table at the deli and fed me your lines? I really didn't expect to like you at all."
Elisabeth stops at the door and turns to look at him. "When I sat down to talk to you at the deli, all I wanted was a feel for what kind of person you were. Whether you were an asshole or someone who could be trusted with the security of scared people. I wasn't planning on talking to you in person more than that one time," she admits candidly. "Should have followed through on that plan," she adds.
Alec chuckles wryly, "Odd. Had you followed through with that plan you would have denied your people a good resource." he stands and tilts his head to the side, "Oh. Uh… Can I see your badge real quick?"
Her blue eyes steady on him, Elisabeth replies, "No.. you can't. And you can't have the tracer that you had in it either. I flushed it down the toilet when I found it." She doesn't sound apologetic in the slightest. "And if I'd followed through on that plan, my people would be no WORSE off than we ever were, and I'd personally be a shit-ton better off." She pauses, and then can't bite it back any longer. "The worst part of it is that I bought it — hook, line, and sinker. I bought into the fact that you actually wanted to be my friend. You were the one person it actually helped to be around when I thought Trask was dead. And it was all a lie." Elisabeth forces a smile. "Nice job, though. I learned a few things from it all."
Alec nods his head, "Thought you might, still, was a good hiding spot considering I had less then forty five seconds to spirit it away." he smiles as if proud of that little accomplishment, which he should be. It was a good life, and a better replacement. He shakes the expression away, "Wasn't all a lie." he admits, "Like I said, I didn't expect to like you."
There's a negative shake of her head, an instinctive rejection of his words. "Whatever," Elisabeth replies. "Since you've gotten what you wanted out of your little blackmail, you will now go and remove all your shit from my apartment. I'm going to have a sweep team come in first thing in the morning, and if I find a single piece of electronics that doesn't belong to me personally, I'm going to come up here and put a bullet in your stupid face," she tells him. "How much time do you need?"
Alec shakes his head, "Outside of the tracker? I put nothing in your apartment. To easy to find and I knew you had a techie working for you when I tried to clone your cell and it didn't work. Good work that by the way." he shakes his head, "So… nothing for me to take out. And my face isn't stupid. It's ruggedly handsome."
Thank God for Hana and her encrypted cell phones. Elisabeth shakes her head. "No, it's actually not," she informs him. "Now that I know what lurks beneath, it's actually sort of grotesque." She shakes her head, not sure now what she even came here for. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to know." She's doing her level best to keep the hurt away and only allow him to see the anger.
Alec nods his head, "Says the terrorist cop." he points out, "Look," he stands back up and turns to face her fully, "you're pissed, which I get, and you're hurt, which I also get, but I'm not lying. You really are fun to be around. No one else will see revival film festivals or listen to jazz music with me." he sets the beer aside, "I was taught when I was young that the best lies, the very best lies, are ninety percent truth. The few times I may have lied to you were drops in an ocean made of things that are real. I just hope the time comes when you realize that is sooner rather then later. Life has been spectacularly boring without you to hang out with."
Now that's just not playing fair. Elisabeth looks at him and says angrily, "I'm not a terrorist. Phoenix is not a terrorist organization. If you learned anything worth knowing about them, you'd already know that." And presumably he does. "I have busted my ass for the last six months trying to keep people from dying, and succeeding spectacularly in some cases, while failing just as spectacularly in others. Notable among the things I've done have been stopping a virus that would have killed 90 percent of the world's population, which by the way dropped several of my friends into the black hole of Evo prisons to disappear forever because no one in law enforcement at the local or federal level wanted to listen when we told them about the Vanguard's activities, and rescuing my kidnapped friends from cells out on Staten Island where they were being slowly killed in a gladiatorial underground Evo fight ring."
There's a pause and she says, "Yeah, I'm pissed. And I'm hurt. And it's not likely to stop anytime soon — because instead of just coming to me and saying 'Shit, Liz… this started off as protecting myself cuz you're a cop and I'm a thief and well… I was scared of you so I started watching you, and you're out there doing stuff I agree with and I have contacts that could be helpful, let me help!', you fucking well blackmailed me. Threatening my friends, threatening my job, threatening basically to get me thrown in the fucking Evo black hole. So do I want to hang out with you? FUCK NO. I don't trust you as far as I can spit you."
Alec tilts his head to the side, "Actually, if you remember, I offered to lose the intel and vanish." he points out. "I didn't threaten to out anyone… unless someone thought it was a good idea to make me disappear under charges." he eyes her for a long moment, "I'm sorry you've had a rough go of it recently, really I am, but you don't trust people where I come from. Ever. Call it a cop out, call it bullshit, frankly I don't care. I liked you, but I couldn't risk trusting you." he sets the beer aside on the counter.
"And if someone comes at you and starts reeling off names of people you know, telling you 'I know what you do out there, you have two choices', are you going to believe that the second option — lose the intel and just walk away — is actually one that they'll use?" Elisabeth demands. "Because you know what? In my experience, people who have intel use it. You came at me and threatened everything in my life. People who actually intend to lose their intel don't come at their targets the way you came at me. The way you came at me was blackmail, pure and simple. So now I'm stuck in a position where I've exposed everyone and everything I ever cared about to you… and I just have to trust that you're not going to up and decide someday that you don't agree with what we're doing, or that you're just pissed off at me for something, so that you drop a dime on me. And I have to hope that when you do it, it's only me that gets disappeared or dead," Elisabeth replies bitterly, a sudden welling of tears spoiling the fact that she really is pissed.
"Just…. drop it, Alec. Frankly, I don't think you actually give a shit that you hurt me, and that's just fine. You're not the first asshole that I've gotten fucked and fucked over by, you won't be the last, I'm sure. My taste in men pretty much sucks," she says, pivoting on her heel to leave the apartment, pausing only to look back at him with a hard gaze. "But understand this: If you hurt my friends? I'll fucking bury you. You do what you want to fuck me over, but you leave them out of it."
Alec just eyes her as she rants, the expression on his face infuriatingly understanding and calm. Bastard. "Perhaps. But I'm the first that'll make it up to you. I really /am/ good at the things I do. You'll see." he even sounds genuine, but then, he kinda always did. He locks the door behind her and sighs, "Definatly gonna need another beer."