Participants:
Scene Title | Ladies' Night |
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Synopsis | Sasha squeezes his way past Abby's keepers to steal a cup of tea and some smoked herring from Eileen's apartment the night before the Linderman gala. |
Date | February 21, 2010 |
Fort Greene: Eileen's Apartment
Original hardwood floors and a pair of French doors painted black are the most prominent features of the living space, which has been sparsely furnished with loveseat, cozy chaise, built-in bookshelves and various pieces of smaller furniture to make it feel like more of a home, including a dining table for two and claw-foot chairs. The walls, like the radiator, have been painted white to contrast with the rich colour of the floors and the cabinetry in the modest kitchen, just large enough to fit one person comfortably.
The French doors separate the bedroom from the rest of the apartment. Like the living room and kitchen, it has been decorated with simplicity in mind. The bed itself is a queen-sized platform that takes up most of the space and is covered in a white goose feather comforter for warmth in the winter. A steamer trunk filled with clothes sits at the foot of the bed in lieu of a dresser — there just isn't enough room for anything else except for an antique vanity, its mirror badly water-stained and in dire need of repair or replacement.
It's a little too late for tea, at least by the standards Eileen grew up with, but she doesn't feel like cooking, and ordering out would involve braving subzero temperatures to pick up their food at the Vietnamese restaurant down the street. Instead, she's taking a pot of loose tea off the stove and carrying it across to the dining room table where a half-eaten platter of homemade finger sandwiches sits in the shadow cast by her lilacs. Egg salad and cress, smoked ham, tomatoes with a healthy dose of salt and pepper — there are even a few slathered in fish paste and accompanied by an open jar of pickled herring with a fork stuck in it. The eggs that didn't go into the sandwich salad filling have been peeled and plated as well, sliced cleanly in half to expose the yolks. Unlike the tomatoes, there's no salt or pepper on them.
Teacups made from white porcelain go together with a bowl of sugar and a small carton of whole milk fresh from the fridge, its lip folded to prevent drippage, and three individual spoons left to balance on the rims of the appropriate saucers. This is a lot less work when Eileen is doing it for just one person. She sets the teapot down on knit hot pad, its spout billowing steam, and moves across to the window to draw the curtains, obscuring the view of the snow-choked street below and the fat rivulets of ice rain snaking down the pane.
Her tiny apartment in Brooklyn is as safe a place for the women to be as any. If one good thing has come of this Agent Epstein situation, it's that nothing is likely to happen to anyone staying at #505 unless it's been sanctioned by the government.
But then stranger things have happened when it comes to the trio in the apartment. One would think that Abby's place is safe too for all the security measures, re-enforced doors and windows, alarms and security camera's that Alec installed. But then there's the abundance of testosterone in Abigail's apartment and combined with the teleports to and from Louisiana when she decided to stay later and catch Elias back, she needs to just be some place else than above the bar, where she's not tightly strung.
One of the egg and watercress sadnwhiches are picked up, commonplace to her and the church socials. Eileen probably didn't know that she adores the things. "I started my job on Friday. You'll never guess who my partner is" She cuts off the crust, to be eaten later as she tends to do with sandwhiches and always has since she was a girl and in private. "Peter" They know who Peter is. "Late for his first day too, He's the paramedic to my EMT. It's .. a little strange to be driving while he's beside me." The dress bag with her Teo chosen gown for the next days affair has been tucked away along with the shoes and the jewelry. Maybe in a few days she'll actually look at the charges rung up on her business credit card and see how much this social event with Caliban is setting her back to go dutch.
It's been rare for Gillian to be out and about these days, so the invite caught her by surprise, but had been quickly accepted. There's very little she's brought to contribute, other than a small supply of unopened schnapps. Can't go wrong with schnapps. Or that's what she seems to think as she opens up her bag and pulls out the paper wrapped bottles, setting them side by side. The totally fruity and sugary kind. Strawberry, tropical, peach, and butterscotch. They're small enough bottles that they won't go completely to waste, while still being more than enough for them to drink.
She's in the middle of setting the last bottle down, the butterscotch, when she hears mention of Abby's partner. It clinks up hard against the strawberry, and nearly knocks the whole row over before she catches it. Eileen may feel a slight surge of energy, but Abby avoids the healgasm that could have happened if she still possessed that ability. Her hand shifts a bit, and she doesn't look directly at either of them as she says, "Sorry I didn't actually bring food." Not on topic.
The pigeons perched on the windowsill outside feel it, too. Their rumpled feathers fluff out, shedding old flakes of snow, and if Abby is listening carefully she might detect a discontented harmony of cooing from somewhere on the other side of the glass. Apart from a moment's hesitation, Eileen does not outwardly react except to take a seat at the table closest to the window and pour herself some tea, trusting the strainer to catch and filter out the leaves.
"I didn't ask you to," she points out to Gillian, tone soft as she sets the teapot back down on the hot pad and measures one lump of sugar into her cup from the bowl. "He'll be at the gala tomorrow," she adds, and it sounds almost like an afterthought. Peter. "I'm sorry you have to put up with him."
"Met him only once and somehow, He said that I made a strong first impression. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not. he said a few things that I just wanted to smack him for. Don't think he realized how.. rude they were. I'm gonna give it a little bit, and if it doesn't work I'm gonna ask to be assigned with someone else." There's a wrinkle of her nose and a healthy nibble of the sandwhich. The bread crusts are already being ripped up, offerings to the fluffed up avian beasties on the windowsill because she feels sorry for them out in that weather.
"Who are you both going with?" Curiosity killed the cat, and there's fancy dresses in this place. "He didn't say he was going to this thing. Lord, I almost thought I wouldn't, Eileen, do you think, tomorrow, you could help me cover up the wings? Brenda lent me a tube of some sort of tattoo concealer. Says it'll do the trick."
"Fuck," Gillian says, as she ends up knocking her hand against the butterscotch again and this time the peach actually falls down hard. Luckily the glass is more than thick enough it doesn't break and spill everywhere, but it seems to be a sensetive topic for the moment. "I didn't know he'd be going to the gala," she mutters almost angeredly.
The surge of energy keeps up for a few moments, before she backs away from the counter and moves to plop into a seat heavily. A few breaths and it'll stop, but until then, the birds may seem unusually loud…
"Peter can be kind of an assface even without the scar," she side comments, before simply adding, "I'm going by myself. I got an anonymous invite from some guy in a suit from someone he's working with. Along with a bunch of money. Figure it's some kind of ulterior motive…" Peter wouldn't send her an invite and cash, surely… "But… I already bought the fucking dress, so even if Peter's going to be there, I'm going."
Eileen's spoon tinkles in the bottom of her cup as she gives it a good stir to fully dissolve the sugar before taking up the milk carton in her free hand and squeezing the paper spout open between her fingers. It comes out in a slow trickle that lightens the amber-coloured liquid in her cup and gradually turns it pale and opaque.
The guest list Logan procured for her is the sort of thing they could spend hours poring over in search of clues as to the identity of Gillian's mystery gentleman. And they might — just as soon as they have some food in their stomachs and the pigeons aren't buffeting their wings against the window in a misconstrued attempt to get her attention.
Stop it, she commands them forcefully enough that it sends the flock exploding into the air with a collective cry of alarm. It's something she's going to regret in the next few minutes.
"Leonardo Maxwell," she says with a nod to Abby. "He donated some medical supplies to the Ferry last year, and I didn't feel it was fair to say no. I may have also needed the ticket."
Damnit Eileeen, there goes the reason for tearing up the crusts and there's a disappointed look on Abigail's face. And the clanking of the bottle and near breakage makes it evident that getting off the topic of Peter is a necessary move. "Robert Caliban, Mr. Linderman's PR rep. He's british. I promised while I was in Russia that I'd go. Don't think he's really miss me if I had stayed in lafayette to help my Dah, but I promised. Just hoping that I don't look like utter southern trash and I don't know how to dance so that's not happening. I suppose I'll just stand beside him at this thing and smile, try to look pretty and hope he doesn't foist me off on someone else. Southern manners only get you so far"
She offers a smile to the other two before tending to her own tea, drawing socked feet up and tucking them under legs. "So, we should probably go get our nails done tomorrow huh, maybe hair. My treat"
"Better than looking like inner city trash," Gillian says quietly, shrugging her shoulders a bit. At least southern trash would have a exoticness to it. "Linderman's PR rep? That's pretty high up there. You never have a boring life…" And now she has the assface as her partner. "Guess I'm the only one going by myself— means I can sit at the Casino or bar and hopefully avoid people who don't want to see me."
The last has the bitterness to it. Not people she doesn't want to see, but who don't want to see her.
A glance is cast toward her nails, examining them a bit. "I could use one. I have dress and shoes, but don't have much money left for the rest of it. I was hoping to get my tattoos fixed before then too, but… my dress should cover most of them. Or obscure them at least."
Eileen is about to say something to the effect of "You just used the word foist, you'll be fine," when a sharp knock at the front door interrupts her train of thought and stamps down on the words before they have the opportunity to leave her mouth. Speculative, she places the carton of milk down, curls both hands around her teacup and raises it to her lips without drinking, teeth resting against the porcelain rim.
Even though Epstein has never knocked, that's probably who it is. Apart from Jensen, her parole officer and the occasional Ferry-related emergency, she doesn't often receive visitors. Abby and Gillian are recent exceptions to the rule. "You're both going to be beautiful shining stars," she says quietly, and though her voice is mild, it's also very heavy with sincerity. "Gillian, could you take a look and see who that is?"
"Somedays I wish I didn't lead and interesting life and I was back home in Louisiana with my healing and just … married to a good christian boy and popping out babies and oblivious to the world as a whole." But if wishes were horses, and she doesn't want that. Not now, not anymore. She got a taste of the world and the adrenaline that comes with it. She couldn't ever go back to that, go back to a quiet one room apartment like Eileen has.
"You can borrow my tatto cover up stuff. It supposedly, will cover it all and you can't see it and it doens't look like someone slathered thick paint on you." But then again, Abby's sporting her mexican tan, and Gillians a great deal paler. "There's a sephora somewhere, we'll pick some up tomorrow in your shade. And we'll get nails done and Gillian, we'll dance together and look like epileptic tattoo'd fools, deal?"
The knock to the door quietens the blonde though and she looks between Eileen and the door with raised brows and a wary expression. She didn't bring her shotgun.
"I'll take you up on that. Nothing like a faux lesbian dance to make the night go faster," Gillian says, as she already begins to get up from her seat. She'd not started to sip on the tea yet, so there's nothing she needs to put down as she picks her way the door. "And I can dance. Not awesomely, but I've been to enough dance clubs that I'm not a slacker with it, at least. I'll lead. Just avoid stepping on my feet with your heels if you can." There's a smile on her face as she looks out.
There's a short pause, but nothing dramatic, before she adds, "You expecting someone?" to Eileen, as she unlocks and opens the door, just enough to say, "Can I help you?"
The layout of the apartment is such that the door's angle blocks the view of the table and the two women seated at it. Unfortunately, this means that Abby and Eileen can't see who's standing on the other side, either. Dressed in a button down shirt and dark denim jeans worn under a heavy winter coat spun from cheap-looking wool is a tall, lean man with a scruffy brown beard and oilier hair plastered to his temples and forehead by rain. Blue eyes meet Gillian's hazel ones with the kind of false kindness she's seen so many times before in people with positions of authority. His posture is formal but relaxed, which probably says something about his constitution — it's freezing outside, and he's soaking wet.
"You may," he says. "This is Fort Greene? Sixteen-hundred Dover Street?"
She can't see on the other side, but you can be sure that the tea cup is put down and Abigail's hands are placed on the table as paranoia kicks in at the male voice.
Yeah, the creep alarm is starting to go off in her head. Gillian frowns a bit, eyebrows raising somewhat. "I assume you could have found that out by the signs. But congratulations. You're in the right building. But I don't think you're at the right door." Surely if Eileen knew this guy, she would have recognized his voice or something. No package, nothing that tells her he belongs here— and there's something worrysome about him that makes her eager for him to go.
Which might be why she starts to close the door a bit move, hand gripping the edge.
The stranger's foot inserts itself into the gap between door and frame to prevent Gillian from closing it completely. He's maneuvering his shoulder inside the next moment, one hand closing around the door just above the young woman's as the other braces against the wall to give him more leverage. "But I am certain that I am," he insists. Then; "You are Eileen's friend? Roommate?"
As it happens, Eileen has recognized the voice, though the situation either isn't very serious or the tight expression she's wearing on her face is deceptively calm. She seeks Abby's attention with her eyes and then her fingers, hand resting on the blonde's shoulder as she directs a very pointed look toward the French doors leading into the bedroom.
Abby will recognize it, too. Their guest is Aleksandr Kozlow.
There is a great desire to take the tea pot with it's boiling hot water, pull Gillian away and hurl it into the face of the man on the other side of the door.
Only, that wouldn't bode well, not at all and beneath Eileen's hand, Abigail's suddenly started shaking. The visual instructions are very clear and the blonde eases out of her chair very quietly and in past the french doors out of view. Down to the floor she slide, back against a wall and face turned towards the french doors so she can keep listening even as she's fishing her cellphone out of her pocket to start dialing whomever is supposed to be keeping an eye on Abby when she's in NY.
"Just a friend, not a roommate," Gillian says, still frowning at the door that's now jammed open with a foot. "But yeah, apparently you do got the right place." A glance is cast toward the other two in the room, a blink when she notices that one of the two snuck off while she wasn't looking, before she says, "Looks like you got more company, Eileen," she says, letting her grip loosen on the door, but not pulling it open all the way. "You want to talk to him?" She doesn't make a very good door guard, but she isn't going to be the one inviting. It's not her house. And this is supposed to be a girl's night, too.
Abby's fingers press down on the buttons one at a time, stringing together a ten-digit number that ends in a six. She's one push away from putting the call through, and as her thumb hovers over the 'SEND' button, Eileen is closing the French doors behind her. The Briton turns to face Gillian, smoothes her hands over the front of the cashmere cardigan she wears over her shirt and steps into Sasha's line of sight.
Just as Abby wasn't about to throw a pot of scalding water in his face, she's not about to turn him away. "I always have time for Sasha," she says, bare feet whispering across the floorboards on her way back to the dining table. "We were just sitting down for some tea."
Between the sound of Eileen's footsteps, Gillian's breathing and the patter of rain against the windows, he might not hear the ringing on the other end of the line if Abby follows through, but he almost certainly will hear her when she starts talking no matter how fiercely she hisses. The apartment is just too small.
Can't hear it if the volume is turned down, way down. But she hesitates, shaking hand over the number before she depresses it. Not like they have to hear her. The same trick that she used before when in Russia. Just have it on and let them hear the rest of the conversation that's happening in the apartment. She lays the phone down, where whomever answers can hear it, trace it, be smart hopefully even as she closes her eyes tight and tries to control her breathing lest that be a give away that there's a third person in the apartment beside the extra plate and cup of tea on the table. Toes dig into the floor and she waits.
Sasha.
There's a flicker around her eyes, a mild widening of them, and Gillian feels the knot beginning to unravel in worry again. This time, she may be allowing it to happen, stretching out some energy out toward Eileen, just in case. How many guys have that name? She may not have been handed the grainy cellphone picture, but she heard the warnings, and the name.
As she backs up, letting her hand drop, she offhandedly says, "This was supposed to be a ladies' night." Sasha is kind of a girl name, though… but she's moving back a bit. As much as she can in the small apartment.
Sasha takes advantage of the space vacated by Gillian, letting himself into the apartment and then reaching back to close the door behind him. In what is probably a good sign, he does not turn the lock or fasten the chain. Light brown brows arch up at her words, his head taking on a faint tilt that's more curious than it is predatory. "Ladies' night?" he asks with an inquisitive glance at Eileen, who has reclaimed her seat at the table and is helping herself to one half of a hardboiled egg.
"English is not my first language," he adds to Gillian apologetically, offering her his hand. "Some of the vernacular is still unfamiliar to me."
The volume is so low that Abby doesn't know when — or even if — her watcher picks up. Her phone's display continues counting off the seconds. Ten seconds have elapsed.
Eleven.
Twelve—
"You know, when two or more women get together, without any men, and gossip til all hours," Gillian says, making her way to the counter to find one of those schnapps bottles and carry it over to her teacup. After talk of Peter and now surprise foreign guest who is probably ex-Vanguard and probably the guy that some members of the Ferry are holding up big fat red signs saying 'OH NO' about, she needs a drink. Her teacup gets some additional tropical flavoring, which will no doubt ruin whatever tea happened to be in it. "I'll probably get drunk in a bit and talk about sex." And despite the awkwardness, it would somehow be less awkward than this moment.
Although she has no way of knowing it, that is probably one of the worst things Gillian could have said. Sasha lowers his hand, blue eyes roving across her back as she adds the liquor to her tea, and meanders over to the table. That it's set for three does not escape his notice. His gaze abandons the brunette's shape and flickers toward the bedroom doors, though it does not linger there for much longer than the time it takes him to steal a glance at his own reflection in the glass.
Fingers rake through sopping hair as he pulls out a chair, wooden legs scraping shrilly across the floor, and eases himself into it. "I routinely drink myself into a stupor and discuss the last time I experienced la petite mort," he observes, cheerfully sly, "often with anyone who will listen. How does this make you different?"
Would someone come banging on the door? Break down Eileens door? Would they think that she just sat on her phone and speed dialed them? Abigail cowers, her hands coming up to cover her mouth as if a secondary measure against making any sound. If he found her in here, what would he do?
"I don't tend to talk about it with the opposite sex. They usually get the wrong idea," Gillian says, not really aware about the certain bad things she may have said, but noticing the empty spot that he's now filling up. No, they'd not been expecting him, and it's just growing more and more awkward. Eileen choosing to be silent adds to that. "Shitty weather we're having, huh?" When all else fails, talk about the weather.
Rainwater leaves glistening tracks on Sasha's skin where it drips and gathers in the coarse hairs of his beard. He reaches up to scrub the back of his hand under his nose before he picks up the teapot, lets out a sound of contentment at the heat it emanates, and utilizes the spare cup to pour himself a hot drink. Unlike Eileen, he doesn't take his tea with milk or sugar, and no sooner does he set the pot back down than he picks up the cup in one of his large, rough hands and drinks greedily from it.
There is no telling what he might do if he found Abigail here, or if he knocked on the door already knowing that she was. "Sasha," the Briton says, taking Gillian's clumsy attempt at a segue as her cue to finally make with the introductions, "be kind to Gillian. She's a good friend of mine." Then; "Gillian, this is Aleksandr Kozlow. My mentor."
"Very true," Sasha is quick to cut in, his bristly mouth moving around the rim of his cup. "I taught my little mysh everything she knows about medicine. I am also very hurt that I did not get a kiss hello."
"So is Sasha a nickname?" Gillian asks, taking a generous drink from her teacup, with extra flavoring from the alcohol. Abby's no where in sight, the name seems to catch on her memory. Elisabeth's outspoken with her big signs of doom, and here they are, sitting in the room with the doom guy. "Eileen helped me when I got hurt at least once…" There could be an attempt to sound like she's trying to thank him for what he did, but her hands around the teacup look very interesting. "So what's a mysh?"
"It means mouse," Eileen says, watching Sasha carefully discard his cup on its saucer with a gentle pinging sound and move on to the open jar of pickled herring. His fork skewers one of the topmost fillets, wedges the prongs under its flap of shimmering silver skin — when he lifts it out, he catches errant drops of the vinegar solution sloughing off the meat to avoid getting any of it on the table.
"You can call me Sasha if you would like," he tells Gillian, "or Aleksandr. Dr. Kozlow is too formal, I feel." He steers the dripping chunk of herring into his mouth, takes up one of the table's cloth napkins in his hands and uses it to wipe the juice off his fingers. "Did you know that Ethan Holden is a difficult man to find?" he asks no one in particular, and while it's impolite to chew with his mouth open, no one is perfect. His manners are impeccable, but only to a point. "Jensen Raith, not so much. You should come work with us, Eileen. It will be just like old times."
Maybe it's a desire to not be in the open, so easily found, or fear. One or the other has the blonde moving, creeping quietly as said mysh towards Eileen's bed, dragging her phone with her and trying to squeeze herself under it while making as little sound as possible, lest something happen to the other two. Oblivious to the third cup dilemma that had already risen.
Clink.
A familiar sound tonight already. Gillian bangs her tea cup against something at the mention of Ethan. A different kind of tension than with the previous mentions of Peter. Eileen's well aware of her dislike for that older man. Jensen Raith she also recognizes, but there's less negative tension there. In fact what little she knew of the man, she'd rather liked his company. A hand reaches up to brush hair out of her face, as she finishes off the mostly schnapps'ed tea, and then refills it with less tea, and all schnapps.
Eileen is likewise silent. She levels her gaze with Sasha across the table, saying nothing, and almost a full minute goes by in which he fishes out another piece of herring and noisily works it between his teeth while she and Gillian sit mute. He's gauging their reactions as if watching for nervous peeks toward the bedroom that never come, or maybe something else. Whatever that something is, it doesn't happen, and eventually he leans back in his seat, wood creaking, and puts his boots up on the table with his hands folded across his lower stomach.
"Now this is not any fun at all."
Of course it's not. There's no screaming, no waving of hands, boiling water into faces. Just an awkward tea party in the kitchen/livingroom of a former team mate and bad manners. Abigail gets as far back and far middle as she can under the bed, clutching the phone and checking to see if it's still connected or not. From there, from there it's waiting, and praying. For all that she was yelling at the woods and at him, and that she wants to find a knife and sink it into his heart for the hurt he did her momma, she cowers under the bed instead, like the Abigail everyone knows. .
"Of course it's not. You're a guy who interupted a girl's night. We do these to get away from guys," Gillian says, somewhat truthful, but at the same time she does cast a nervous eye toward a door. But it's the front door rather than the bedroom door. Like she's very tempted to flee. "And— you're totally messing up the table and eating all our food. Not to mention fucking dripping everywhere…"
The young evolved battery's raspy voice gives away the nervousness she's feeling, but he's not exactly done much to put her at ease. "I get he's a mentor, but you didn't have to let him in if he's going to be all…" Hand gestures at his feet up on the table, towards the food and his mouth. Rude is the word.
Sasha's shoulders lift up into a helpless shrug. He spins the fork slowly between his fingers the same way he might play with a knife, handling the instrument with the practiced ease of a professional who is comfortable with the way its balance shifts from moment to moment. There's not a lot Gillian has said that he can argue with — he looks like someone dredged him up from the bottom of the Hudson, and he did stop by without announcing his intentions first.
"Da," he agrees. "I am shameless. Apologies, Ms. Childs. If I had known Eileen was entertaining company, I would have waited until she was alone to profess concern for her safety. She should not be seeing Mr. Raith. Someone has hired him to kill Abigail Beauchamp, and I fear that her relationship with Fenrir may make her the next on his list."
"What…" Gillian starts, the shock making her very glad she'd stopped drinking before he started to speak, or she'd be choking on pineapple flavored alcohol. But eyes suddenly flash questionably toward Eileen, as if to ask a question she doesn't quite speak outloud. "I thought you said you were working with Raith earlier…"
Raith was hired to kill her? Abigail clamps her hands over her mouth to keep from making any noise, and the muffle anything that might escape and she clamps her eyes shut as well, curling into a ball under the bed as much as possible. Oh lord please, let him be lying out his ass.
Sasha shows Gillian a wolfish smile full of teeth made sharp by the lamplight. "No," he says, "I said that he was not as difficult a man to find as Holden. You inferred we have a working relationship, which — incidentally — is true. Vithar only does not know it yet." He swings his feet off the table, boots coming down on the floorboards with a loud thump, and rises from the chair to circle around behind Eileen. Both his hands come down on her narrow shoulders and give them a squeeze tight enough to make her flinch.
"He is very sloppy," he says as he leans down and presses a kiss to the top of the Briton's dark head, his lips moving against her curls. "What was her name? Tanya Gibson, I think. I would not have made such a foolish mistake. Ms. Beauchamp is fortunate that our employer has asked me to focus on others instead."
Blue eyes settle on Gillian's face. "Will you give Elisabeth Harrison and Teodoro Laudani a message for me?"
Now, Gillian can't help but glance around the room again, briefly to the front door, as if really wanting to make a run for it, and then to the bedroom door. The hazel gaze never stays anywhere long, and stops on Eileen, before she looks back at 'Sasha'. Her creep meter should have been heeded. "I'm not very good at sending messages to people. I tend to get busy." It's true, but perhaps now isn't the time to be defiant. He's casually talking about people being accidentally killed, hired to murder other women, and finally— he knew her last name. Which she's sure wasn't mentioned. A bite on her lower lip keeps her from saying anything else.
Sasha draws himself upright, releases his grip on Eileen's shoulder and walks past Gillian on his way toward the door, leaving wet footprints that glisten on the floorboards and reflect the lights overhead and what still bleeds through the windows and flimsy gauze curtains. He's confident enough to show both the women his back when he arrives at his destination, hooks his fingers around the handle and pulls it open with a downward motion of his wrist.
At some point he abandoned his fork on the table, tongs licked clean. They glitter, too. "Tell them that the fires at Washington Irving are still burning," he says without looking back at either of the women over his shoulder. "Do svidaniya, girls. Please enjoy your ladies' night."
Confusion crosses Gillian's face, making it rather obvious she's not sure what that means, "I can try to deliver that message— assuming I remember something as fucking cryptic as that." The defiant ring to her voice has gotten her in trouble more than once, but with him on his way out, she's hoping it won't be this time that it does. While he moves, she fills up her teacup again.
With him by the door, she looks over at Eileen again, to add a softer whisper of, "It can't get much worse."
Eileen returns Gillian's look from beneath her lashes as if her eyes could convey a warning not to tempt fate. She waits until Sasha has pulled the door shut behind him and the sound of his retreating footsteps can be heard echoing down the fifth floor hallway, then lets out the breath she'd been holding, allowing her body to visible deflate in a subtle display of relief.
Up on her feet, she drags her fingers through her hair where the Russian's lips came into contact with it, and crosses to the door so she can lock it, bolt, chain and all.
With the man gone, Gillian sets down her teacup and sinks backwards into her chair. "That was fucking disturbing. I kinda hoped the whole… Vanguard shit would be done by now. Except for the ones who…" She trails off, eyes sliding shut. From the way she reaches for her teacup again, it seems she's decided she's too sober for this. "Raith— do you think what he said about Raith was true? I know he's fucking capable, I saw that in Argentina, but…" She glances toward the bedroom. "That really is the guy everyone's freaking out about?"
Under the bed, is where the baptist blonde is content to stay till someone tells her otherwise, even when footsteps receed and she can't hear them anymore. When Gillian starts talking about and the door's chains and bolts are all done up, underneath the bed in the dark and illusion of safety that it provides, Abigail's remaining, clutching the phone to her ear and listening in the vain hopes that there was someone on the other line through this all and heard it.
Eileen's face has become an inscrutable mask of chiseled stone by the time she turns around and rests her back against the door, slim arms folded across her chest, still but for the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Standing this way isn't going to stop Sasha from gaining entry to the apartment. What it does do is provide her with the illusion of control, much like the illusion of safety given to Abby by the dark, cramped confines under Eileen's bed.
The timer on the blonde's phone has stopped, indicating that there was indeed someone on the other end of the line even if they aren't anymore. 07:14. It feels much longer.
"Skoll?" Eileen asks Gillian. "Yes, that's him." No word on whether or not she believes Raith to be Tanya Gibson's murderer.
Feels like hours and through the wash of saline, Abigail closes the phone and starts to crawl out from beneath the petite womans bed, phone clutched in hand and her other wiping at her face in an effort to hide that she's been scared, frightened and crying beneath the other womans bed. A few thumps, connections of head to the frame and the box spring, she's out and sinking down to sit on the bed, try and compose herself. Would cops come barging down Eileens door? What about the ones Matt supposedly set on her? Were they downstairs?
The dangerous parts of the conversation are allowed to stay to the wayside for the moment. Gillian rather liked Raith… but there's a lot she doesn't know about this situation. As she stands up, she adds a passing, "Bastard ate almost all the food." Leaving her teacup behind, she walks to the closed doors and pushes them open, tying off the knot in the back of her head as she hears the crying. "Hey, Abby— he's gone."
Eileen pushes away from the front door, but rather than follow Gillian into the bedroom where Abigail is smearing at her face and engaged in a struggle to control the rhythm of her breathing, she opts to clear the table of Sasha's teacup, saucer and fork. Porcelain rattles, clinks together, and from the bedroom the sound of a faucet running in the kitchen can be heard over the drumming rain.
She's fully expecting the police to come knocking at her door, though it's likely to be at least ten or fifteen minutes before someone is available to respond to Abby's call. Wherever the officers assigned to keep watch over the blonde are, it isn't downstairs — which might be why Sasha took the opportunity to visit when he did.
Where the hell is Epstein when she actually needs him?
Probably getting it on. Or eating, or sleeping. He does have a life. Aviators is a busy man when he's not harassing Eileen in ways that probably go beyond the boundaries of being a parole officer Parole agent, whichever you want to call him. "Okay" She offers to Gillian as she's coming in. Feet on the floor, hunched over, scrubbing the back of her hands across her eyes. "I don't.. I don't think that ladies night, is going to keep going" The sentence halfway interrupted by a hiccup. She's apparently not going to comment on what she heard. "Someone should be here any minute, I had the phone on"
"I'll just be glad he only wanted to deliver a voice message," Gillian says with a sigh, running a hand over her face, though she's not got the same reasons for crying or fretting. "Though it really bugs me he knows about me too…" For a while she thought she'd be safe, but such is not the case. "Do you need anything until they get here? I can get you a cup of schnapps. I mean it won't help a lot, but…"
"I could uhh, I could use a cup of tea, just a cup of tea, nothing in it. No alcohol" Matt was gonna have a conniption possibly, she's already imagining the telepath's face when he hears about this. 'We should be thankful, yes, that that was the only message and if they're smart, they've done their homework and found out everyones name Gillian. Sasha is not… incompetent"
She doesn't come out of the bedroom just yet, trying to process everything. Raith was hired to kill her, but the pressure was off of that becuase there were other more important thing. "LIke burning down my home" She thinks aloud.
"Tea it is," Gillian says, moving back out to the room to find a cup that the man didn't drink out of, and fill it so she can bring it back, while Eileen continues to clean up after the drowned Russian rat of a man. "I didn't think he was incompetent, I just didn't think I was really that publically close to any of the ones who were talking about him. I don't even know how to contact Teo outside of going through other people. But apparently…" She shrugs in her dry clothes and hands over the tea, along with the saucer. No fork this time.
"This guy's hurting people close to you, right?" she suddenly asks, expression growing even more worried then it already was.
"He. or those with him, killed Agent Ivanov's cousin, probably killed Cat's mom, shot Teodoro's mother but she lived, Francois had an old lover he visited before returning here, she was murdered and my parents home was burned down and my Momma's in the hospital with her arms burned. Liz and.. Ethan, I suppose are the last ones of Team Charlie. And apparently, there's…" A hit out on her? Tanya was supposed to be her?
The tea is taken in her hand, cup held with both hand to avoid spillage. "I'll tell Teodoro. We live together. Liz, I can give you the number of but she'll be at the party tomorrow" She looks over to Gillian, mouth downturned. "I'm sorry"
"I can contact Liz," Gillian says, waving a hand a bit, but she does nod at the Teo part, even if she looks rather perplexed the more she hears on it. Liz and Ethan are the last ones… A glance is cast in the direction she knows Eileen is. That's one person who could be used to get at Ethan. One of the only ones she knows of… Surely there's more…
"It's not your fault the guy's a big fucktard who needs to be arrested and deported— or possibly shot in the foot," she mutters, still serious and worried, though it doesn't seem she's really worried about herself. "There'd be little use in him hurting me. I'm not really super close to any of you… You don't think he'd try to come after you while you're working, do you?" Raith hired to kill her. Raith who fought so well side-by-side with them in Argentina.
Oooh, language. "he'd have to know which ambulance i'm riding in, where i'm riding, and … there's so many variables" Abby murmurs into the cup, taking a long swallow of the hot liquid, not caring that it might be a fraction too hot and she has to swallow quickly. "I guess, that.. one has to ask Raith that yes?" She inquires of Gillian and in turn out towards the kitchen where she's sure Eileen is listening.
The slosh of water hitting the bottom of the sink as she rinses out Sasha's cup does not deafen Eileen to the conversation happening in the bedroom. She squeaks the faucet off and leaves both cup and saucer to dry on a towel spread out across the counter. The fork, on the other hand, remains at the bottom of the basin. Another rag is procured from one of the kitchen drawers and used to soak the excess moisture from her hands as she finally comes to join Gillian and Abigail, her expression somber. "I'll speak with Jensen."
"Well if he can find all this stuff out… I'm sure he could find out what ambulance you're in," Gillian says, pulling back to pace out of the bedroom and back into the other room of the small apartment. Hands actually go into her pockets, giving her one of those permenant shrugs. The ambulance could be in danger, the targets seem to mostly be people close to them, but the people themselves. It could be a big lie that Raith was involved, but…
"Did you still want to get nails and hair done tomorrow?" Her voice is strained, more than giving away her emotional worry. What if this Kozlow guy wanted to kick Abby by making sure something happened to her brand new partner?
"I don't think it's up to me anymore what happens tomorrow. I would like to, but we'll have to see what… what the cops and homeland and… and whoever shows up says" Probably not sleep here more than likely. She could kick all the guys out and move this to her place instead. Breathing has taken a far less quicker pace and heartbeat no longer in turn to a flamenco dancer, concentrating on calming her breathing helping. She still splotchy faced and offers a nod to Eileen. Talk to her friend, the guy who's been hired to kill her.
Holy crap, kill her. Someone actually is paying money to kill her. The cup is thrust out to Eileen to take and she's trying to sink her head between her legs at the light headed feeling. "I can't quit work. I just started. Hey, I need to go on vacation because I got crazy vanguardians coming for me"
Legs clad in knit stockings fold, and Eileen takes a seat on the bed beside Abby, cup in one hand and her other arm wrapped around the blonde's shoulders. She pulls her into her, rests her chin on the top of her head and exhales a sigh through her nostrils, disturbing the finest strands of her cornsilk hair. "He knew you were in here," she murmurs, though her voice is loud enough for Gillian to hear it and probably meant for the other brunette as well. "If he wanted to, he would have shot all three of us before I could've gotten to my gun. He didn't."
She deposits the cup on the nightstand so her hand is free to soothingly rub Abby's back. This is something she used to do with Bai-Chan, and although it's a little more difficult with someone who's bigger than she is, it doesn't stop her from trying to lend that extra bit of comfort. "He's trying to scare you. That's all this is. That's all the note was."
"I wasn't saying you should miss work, I'm just… fuck," Gillian mutters, going to plop back into the chair she just left. There's not enough schnapps in the bottles she brought to deal with all this. Worried about what would happen to someone who wanted her out of his life? All just to scare her and get a reaction? "Trust me when I say leaving your job and running away places won't make you feel any better about yourself when it's done." She ran plenty of times herself, but from what she knows of Abby's own life, there's likely been plenty of running for her too.
"Like 'leen said, these fuckers are called 'terror'-ists for a reason." Though for her he's more a 'worry'ist.
"Well it's working. I'm scared. I'm more scared now than I was before. That was even with my home burnt down" She wants her mother to do that, rub her back, but that's not feasible and Eileen's a pretty good surrogate.
"Lets finish the night at my place. I'll kick the guys out, they can go to the verb. They can stay at Cats and we can.. we can drink and do nails and watch movies and there's bars and security that… that's hard to get through and we'll all have a bed to sleep in, not that you're place isn't nice Eileen, it's better than when I lived alone but I don't think that they're going to let me stay here now, after this."
"He's been here, he's been to Old Lucy's — it doesn't matter where we stay." If anything, Eileen suspects that Abby's keepers will make her remain at Fort Greene on lockdown until they can determine what the next step to take is. She plans on putting in a call to Epstein as well as soon as the officers arrive. Although she'd never admit it to anyone, least of all him, she'd also feel safer knowing that he's keeping watch.
Assuming he can be convinced to drop whatever he's doing. Eileen wrinkles her nose in distaste at the thought, a gesture that manifests as a tickle against Abby's scalp. "Someone can sit out here while we take turns sharing the bed," she says. "I wouldn't want to give Kozlow the opportunity to track or movements in case he's hanging around to see how we respond. You'll be all right."
Speaking of, there's that knock at the door.
"I'd been considering maybe skipping back over to the place I've been staying it I didn't get too drunk, but I won't now…" Gillian doesn't want to lead a bastard like that to Peyton's place. Instead, she goes from one 'have someone up all night' to another kind. She'd thought that the whole 'watching people while sleeping' was a thing of the past! No such luck… "I'm almost afraid to open that," she mutters, pushing herself to her feet, and looking through the spy hole in the door. This time she'll only open the door to the chain until she sees a fucking badge or something…
Assurance and re-assurance can only go so far and Abigail's starting to hit her limit of it. The knock of the door only brings a stiffening of the blonde's back and a glance up towards the french doors and the knocking beyond. Surely Kozlow wouldn't come back so soon. Wouldn't be dumb enough to come back period.
Sure enough, the badges the men standing on the other side of the door flash Gillian are authentic and shine faintly in what light the exterior hallway affords. There was a time when the Vanguard might have tried something as elaborate as impersonating Homeland Security agents, but this seems ridiculously circuitous for even Sasha.
Outside, car doors slam as another pair of officials in civilian clothes climb out onto the curb and hustle inside, one with his coat drawn up over his head to protect him from the downpour, another popping out an umbrella with fabric that ripples like a tarp sheet in the wind.
Eileen casts a glance over her shoulder at the window, but sees nothing except curtain and a slice of darkness beyond it. Lockdown is beginning to look more and more likely with every sound that rattles through the building, from the bang of footsteps in the stairwell to the tinny chatter coming out of the radio that one of the men pushing their way inside the apartment has clipped to his belt.
It's going to be a long night. On the bright side, Gillian may not have to stay up and keep watch after all.