Kind Of Kind

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francois_icon.gif margaret_icon.gif

Scene Title Kind Of Kind
Synopsis Francois meets the other half.
Date August 26, 2010

Upper West SideSt. Luke's Hospital

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.


There was a time older than Francois Allegre when the comparison to surgeon and butcher was closer. St. Luke's hospital is no slaughterhouse, even when flesh is continually at risk of reverting to meat. It's clean, for one thing, fighting against the inherent messiness of injury and disease both with white walls and smooth floors like the distant view of a quiet ocean, about the same colour of steely blue.

Lab coats white like gull wings and gurneys that glide like yachts, electronic and paper systems working in unison to make logic out of chaos. People made small by their ailments curl on uncomfortable seats, and there's a young lady in leopard print skirt with four inch heeled boot raised on an opposite chair, bright red blood streaking down her shin. It's New York, and so there is glass between the desks and the waiting room of the clinic.

He's been doing more shifts lately. Give Francois a job and he reverts to workaholism, which might not be shocking for anyone who knows him, or can imagine that maybe, right now, it could be what he prefers. He's also planning to drive to Massachusetts and could stand to compensate for the necessary time off. Clinic work does not slot in as comfortably for him as surgery, and he's not sure whether this is due to the fact that he has always been more surgeon than medical doctor, or because he has to feel himself work more when it comes to diagnosing and interaction.

Emerging from an exam room to walk slowly at the elbow of an elderly woman, he is more at home talking to her than she might guess, sent away politely before he's veering for the desks. It's late, and the blackness through the windows makes the lights within seem piercing to him, makes pale skin seem even furtherly bleached out if it wasn't for his white coat as an adequate rival for brightness. Identification hangs from its clip, his real name laminated next to fake title.

There is a small woman waiting for the doctor in the living room. She is wearing a high ponytail, jogging pants with purple racing stripes down the outside of either leg and a light jacket. An excuse— if not an incredibly good one, to carry concealed knives around one's teeny tiny mouse-shaped torso. There is no blood in her hair, nothing yellow in her skin or the whites of her eyes, no waver in her regard, or even a traitorous wobble in the set of her running shoes. She's perfectly healthy. Not the patient. The nurses could have told you the moment she walked in, the resignation that had settled over her face, impatience already corkscrewing in the dorsal axis of her posture.

The, 'Fuck my life, now I have to wait God-knows-how-long just to— blank' look, where blank could be any number of things from handling insurance details to forcing conversation with a doddering elderly, to something actually pleasant but seemingly separated from the present moment by a coming lifetime of dog-eared magazines probably carrying wart virii, crying babies, and creeps in SARS masks. Ghost is not the most graceful Teo that you've ever met, excepting when he's out to kill somebody, and equipped with his native body.

The nurses aren't right. They aren't altogether wrong about her, though, either.

"Hello." She intercepts Frenchman and the doddering elderly person he's with rather suddenly. One moment, there's a square of clean linoleum; the next, barely a flicker of walking shadow, and there's a girl, tidy and tiny as a harlequin doll despite the weaselly quality to her sharp jaw, serrated smile. "Dr. Allegre, can I borrow you? I'm so sorry," for the psuedo-sentient fossil, there. "It's urgent. Spurling sent me. You know." She quirks a tiny thumb up at the ceiling. "From up top. Bereavement program."

The look he gives her at first is not irritated, even distracted — politely and practicedly earnest. Reaction happens somewhere beneath that mask, some dimming behind green irises, a crease forming at his brow. It's gone by the time he's talking to his patient beneath her knitted cap, a hand out, shaped like a spade, to indicate the nurses' station and send her on her way— "have a good evening; they'll take care of you." So goes the assumption of a medical facility. Maybe someone will even hail her a cab in the dark New York.

There are a lot of people in the Ferry network, and beyond that, more people that Spurling knows. "I have a few minutes," Francois spares, and there is a distinct amount of comfortably generic American in his voice, with which he'd addressed the old lady, and now the young one. It can't be counted as fake, not exactly — just an emphasis on the taint it already took over the past few decades, takes a little concentration. Fits him in a little better for all that people hesitate over how to say his last name, usually.

Hesitation, a brief glance towards the other medical professionals in the generous space, before Francois backs up a step with a creak of black, sensible shoes, and then turns to move back into the exam room he'd just cleared, leading the way. Grey slacks, expensive in their fit and make, and a pale blue shirt, opened at the collar, that's vaguely reminiscent of both the sky and scrubs.

There is no click to her feet as she follows, even though she isn't really trying anything, and isn't about to. She lifts one hand to wave at the receptionist who'd taken her initial query, a smile fitted on her face like it was tailored, a knock-off, but a convincing one, quality plastic in lieu of leather and a tight weave that's nearly smooth as silk. She shuts the door behind herself if Francois doesn't.

And then she is up on the exam room's recliner lift chair very suddenly, like that transdimensional slither of a cat. The sterilized paper crinklse under her purple-framed posterior. Her back is militarily straight, even when propped up on furniture built for ergonomic comfort. She swings her running shoes together, heel to heel. It is kind of girlish, this fidget, but it's also kind of boyish, too; it's just hard to see the sunburned boy smoking and watching the sea from under hooded eyelids on the jetty as long as he's wearing this shape.

Which is a good note to start on, if there ever was one. "Pardon my appearance," she says, "but there's a good reason for it. My name's Teo. I'm from the future. General consensus had it that I'm responsible for the vast majority of your boyfriend's vices." Boyfriend. She doesn't put 'former' in there. Her contralto is so even you could measure the tick of a metronome off of it.

"You wanted to see me." Something about her tone, the disclaimer before it, the style of introduction, is tentative the way that a confident man does it when he isn't unaccustomed to. Unspoken goes the notion that she has no idea why.

The sturdy metal legs of the wheeled stool rattles some when it's directed into position with probably unnecessary briskness, Francois hooking an ankle above one of the squeaking wheels and watching this task instead of the girl. He sits, then, at a minor disadvantage in height terms, but only very minor — Ghost's chosen shape is small. Something brief and folorn make his eyes rounder before he ticks his gaze down to linoleum, followed by a horseish head toss of composure get. There's a sliver along his jaw, just on the underside, that he missed while shaving this morning, a faint dark grain on white.

"More accurate," he says, that forced American already beginning to subside to allow for the dilute of accent to come back through, "would be that Eileen thought you should. And that is why you are here. Of course I wanted to see you." There is stilted awkwardness in his voice, reserve for talking to the girl in front of him like Teo is in there somewhere, but he's trying, deliberate.

Sure, getting into ridiculous quarrels about the details of who wanted what why and whatevers behind the ghost's presence does seem to require a certain assumed familiarity, as far as Ghost is concerned. She gives Francois a long squint, and a laugh threatens her narrow face. She keeps it down to a relatively appropriate hmmm, a smile twitching her features as she looks down at her lap, inhales the scent of antiseptic and hypoallergenic anti-odorant. "I didn't realize," she answers. "Sorry. I noticed he wasn't staying with you, and figured I should fuck off until I had something better to say than 'hey, I'm the half with the accidental vagina.'

"You look like you're doing all right." She fastens her hands on the edge of her recliner, leans forward, peering at him. The patch he missed shaving is subject to the palpable weight of her speculation, and her eyebrow twitches, up then down then up again, recapturing its original altitude instead of betraying judgment. "I have some experience with missing people, so I think I'm qualified to say. Have you decided not to grieve just yet, or what's going on, exactly?"

There is a certain amount of baffling to this whole situation that, for a few moments, all Francois responds with is turning his hands up, knuckles on his knees and palms shown to the sky, and stares across at the girl on the angled chair. The concept of being able to schedule your grief, the implications behind this query and the status of his boyfriend, the easiness of this assessment from a few glancing seconds and maybe just— the whole surreal quality of Teo's words coming out of an unfamiliar face, and Teo's words sound unfamiliar anyway.

But he was resolved to not be the neurotic one about this, after his meeting with Eileen. "I do not know if he is missing or dead," he finally says, opting for plain language, opting to keep his voice very even. "But oui, I grieve. But it is a difficult thing to mourn someone you still imagine rescuing.

"Whether as he was or through either of you." This last comment allows for a rueful, near apologetic twitch of a bitter smile, even as he feels immediate regret for confiding that much.

Ghost's facial expression fails utterly to reseolve into something more specific. She watches the Frenchman strike that pose, and her eyes go slightly squinty, but that's all. She thinks he looked a little like a bodhisattva. Long, scimitar-wide eyes, slitted, all marble-white and hands raised up in precise symmetry. She had left religion behind long enough ago that dimly sacriligeous analogies come with an almost merry kind of ease. A lot of things do.

Her eyebrows go up, prelude to the declarative, sidestepping the weight of the words 'through either of you' hanging heavy in the air. "I'm working on that, actually," she says, finally peeling her hands off the recliner with a sticky-paper sound of separation. "Getting him back. I figure he's going to be held at the same facility where my real body is. This one is on loan from a kind and extremely misguided Institute operative, whose cooperation I'm probably going to need to get more information." She folds her hands together on her lap, and shrugs inside her jacket.

"Would it be cool if I stayed with you, a little bit? I need workspace. And," her smile fades too soon to have been token cold artificiality, even if it lacks precise warmth, too, "you should be there."

The answer is yes before Francois might realise it — seems to be the case, because he's failing at summoning it. Mostly, he's caught up on the words that come before it, scrutiny in his expression as his hands come to fold back together, his fingers all even, all accounted for. Air rushes through nasal passages in a close mouthed sigh, a minor shake of his head too subtle to dislodge a single dark strand of hair. He is usually this understated, and clawing doubt and worry remain contained inside his chest.

"Forgive me," he starts, hesitantly, the way one might if forgiveness might actually be called for (he probably doesn't think so, but it's polite), "but I don't understand what you'd care, to get him back. I can understand that you would want your own body, oui, and maybe incentive for us to help you— I know many don't like you." Another almost-smile, shown in the eyes, guarded.

"Do you have evidence?" is the next question, simple and almost sweetly spoken. It masks a fair storm of overstated emotion, blistering hope.

Ghost's facial expression fails utterly to reseolve into something more specific. She watches the Frenchman strike that pose, and her eyes go slightly squinty, but that's all. She thinks he looked a little like a bodhisattva. Long, scimitar-wide eyes, slitted, all marble-white and hands raised up in precise symmetry. She had left religion behind long enough ago that dimly sacriligeous analogies come with an almost merry kind of ease. A lot of things do.

Her eyebrows go up, prelude to the declarative, sidestepping the weight of the words 'through either of you' hanging heavy in the air. "I'm working on that, actually," she says, finally peeling her hands off the recliner with a sticky-paper sound of separation. "Getting him back. I figure he's going to be held at the same facility where my real body is. This one is on loan from a kind and extremely misguided Institute operative, whose cooperation I'm probably going to need to get more information." She folds her hands together on her lap, and shrugs inside her jacket.

"Would it be cool if I stayed with you, a little bit? I need workspace. And," her smile fades too soon to have been token cold artificiality, even if it lacks precise warmth, too, "you should be there."

The answer is yes before Francois might realise it — seems to be the case, because he's failing at summoning it. Mostly, he's caught up on the words that come before it, scrutiny in his expression as his hands come to fold back together, his finger all even, all accounted for. Air rushes through nasal passages in a close mouthed sigh, a minor shake of his head too subtle to dislodge a single dark strand of hair. He is usually this understated, and clawing doubt and worry remain contained inside his chest.

"Forgive me," he starts, hesitantly, the way one might if forgiveness might actually be called for (he probably doesn't think so, but it's polite), "but I don't understand what you'd care, to get him back. I can understand that you would want your own body, oui, and maybe incentive for us to help you— I know many don't like you." Another almost-smile, shown in the eyes, guarded.

"Do you have evidence?" is the next question, simple and almost sweetly spoken. It masks a fair storm of overstated emotion, blistering hope.

Francois has hung out with enough sociopaths to parse that smile. No teeth, lips sealed, wide, steady steady eye-contact. Real people avoid your eye out of guilt, but the hollower ones trend toward precisely the opposite. 'I know many don't like you.' Well, at least the hybrid had picked one who is talented at honesty.

Her eyes flick away, to the chart of the digestive tract pinned up under the fluorescent light, there. "No," she answers, after a moment. "I have better than that. I have their rationale." Her nose wrinkles slightly, a short, brusque sniff, decidedly unladylike. She stops checking out the esaphogus' cross-section of bunching muscle, and steadies her regard on the sheet-white gentleman in the white coat who is pretending she needs evidence for his cooperation. "They were after me. For what I remember from the timeline I come from. Your boy indicated I'd be able to answer their questions with better recall than he could, if they brought me back.

"But I'm not there. My body is effectively unoccupied, and psychometry isn't going to get all that much out of it, if they're even willing to try wading through all that sensory bullshit and extraneous emotional baggage. He's all they have." She reaches back to fiddle at the smooth thread of her ponytail, fingernails ridging into the elastic of the tie, seating it closer to the middle of her head. "Copied into a separate body. They're not going to kill him. Fuzzy recollections are better than nothing, considering all the work they've put into this."

It's subtle in the outline of her shoulders, tension. Bracing herself, to be punched in the nose.

Well, at least he guessed right. Francois did, about why they would be interested in Teodoro Laudani. Bizarrely enough, being right lacks reassurance, and he's taken to regarding the shut door, or rather, the gap between it and floor, the occasional shadow of feet. There's the sound of the clinic beyond, almost as loud as night time traffic. He shuts his eyes for a few seconds when she winds down with her last few words, but doesn't rest them there for long, not even a span of time that could count as a pause.

His posture gets better by the time he's looking back at her, and a mirthless smile breaks across his face when the sight of her filters in anew, compulsive. "Je s— sorry. It is ridiculous, you like this. If you need a place to stay, then you know I have room. And that I will help you, to gain him back. Especially if you have a plan, mademoiselle."

"Better ridiculous than whatever's keeping you away from little-me," the ghost carols back, lightly. Teodoro Laudani, circa 2019, the one that nobody likes, isn't particularly offended. Not because he's soulless, but because he doesn't particularly give a fuck, honestly. He'dve liked a better ride, but then, that's nothing new. A taller one. Something with a cock.

She shrugs. Forgiven.

Especially in light of the hospitality. "Thanks." She slides herself off the recliner, setting her rubber-soled running shoes to the rosetted linoleum on the floor, squeak-squeak. She is all over squeaky, and small, which is perfectly objectionable, she's inclined indeed to agree. "Can you lend me your keys now? I'd like to go and get cleaned up. Might have to move some furniture," and extremely illegal substances, "around. Do you know Huruma or Kaylee? Any other psychics, by any chance?" She works her fingers into her ponytail and frees the tie from it, snatching loose a few overstretched strands, loosing out the chestnut-colored mane.

There's a defensiveness to the breath drawn in, prepared to stream out words on the exhale, but Francois finds himself holding his tongue as the little girl gets to her feet, makes demands that worry him on some neurotic level, desperately trying to remember if there's any food at home as, not to be left behind, Francois stands too. "Only speedsters," he says, by way of denial, a hand up to fidget at the stiff collar of his shirt without immediately following her out, or producing a set of keys like tada.

"He doesn't love me. That is what keeps me away. But I would give him my home too," he argues, if gently, wanting to the record straightened out loud for all that he's not sure how much it matters to this one. This one scares him, but not enough, not nearly, "if he asked for it.

"My keys are in my locker. You can use the third floor." And then starts to follow, movements abruptly pragmatic and removed from pleading palms or sad study.

Following her, he can't see it when the ghost almost says something else, lips parted, shoulders going square with the deliberate indifference of someone-else's secret callusly dispensed. The words never make it to the air. Instead, she glances back, and the jingle of the cut-metal keys in his hand sounds like loose change to her, or some kind of bells. "Thanks.

"That would be great. I remember the third floor isn't rigged to blow the fuck up if anybody opens a door anymore." Trivialities, instead. The ghost spins them easy as lies, rolls out the syllables as predictably as a wino's fingers in a dirty dollar bill. The cadence of her voice is like Teo's, curiously and deliberately accentless as only an innate talent for languages and a decade of experience, and she does not use Italian words. Not tesoro, especially. When she opens the door, the world outside seems much too loud. Gurneys rattling, ladies' higheels, a visitor who deems it necessary to shout into the receiver of their cellphone.

She steps out of his way, to let him lead. She tucks her hands into her pockets, feels the knives laying parallel to her ribs. "I'll even stay out of your dreams, if you ask kind of nice."

It is intensely alien, this creature, while being familiar enough to hurt, and now it's living in his house like a monster in the attic, a monster squeezed into the shape of a weasely girl in trackpants with knives in them. "Stay out of my dreams," is an automatic request, not kind of nice at all, which could make it the opposite of what Francois is requesting depending how much of a dick either of them want to be.

He doesn't mean for white labcoat to flare dramatically when he leads the way out into the clinic — it's just sort of built that way, catching volume like a sail before it's gone again. The girl with the bleeding leg is still waiting, and by the time he's applying stitches to the laceration she got going the rough way down a flight of stairs and not look up her skirt, the one he's leading away will be halfway to the West Village.

Worse, maybe: she'll be making dinner, equipped with a new pepper grinder to replace the broken one. She remembers where everything is, except for the couple of disarrayed and derelict items that Francois forgot to put back in their proper place. A note explains that his share is in the refrigerator: tonight, again, he enjoys the dubious privilege of having the dining table all to himself.


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