Participants:
| Scene Title | Loose Ends |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Colette comes to Brennan with what she learned in the security footage from St.John's. |
| Date | December 26, 2009 |
Saturdays are never busy at the Suresh Center, and on this particular Saturday after Christmas, the Suresh Center looks as though it weren't even open for business. Only the presence of a handful of cars in the snowy parking lot outside give any indication that the premises haven't been evacuated for the remainder of the holidays.
It's the cold of that very snowy lot that comes rushing in through the front doors when a visitor arrives, garnering the attention of the two volunteer staff situated at the front desk. Wrapped in her thick black pea-coat, the lower part of her face tucked behidn the brick red fabric of a scarf, Colette Nichols looks thankful to be out of the weather.
Through the enormous glass windows at the front of the foyer, lightly falling snow drifts heavily in the afternoon air. Making her way to the front desk, Colette starts unbuttoning the front of her jacket, tugging down the scarf away from her mouth. "Hey ah," she glances back and forth between the two people at the desk, "do you know if Doctor Brennan's working here today?" It's a shot in the dark, given that she doesn't have his home address, this is the next best thing.
One of the clerks leans forward against the desk, her hands folded together and brows furrowed. "Brennan?" A look is offered to her co-worker, "No he's… not working today," she notes with a crook of her lips into a smirk that Colette can't quite figure out the meaning behind. "But if you're looking for the Doctor, you're in luck."
"As if some people would call that luck" With a genial smile on his face and his own black coat around his broad shouldered frame, Brennan looks like he was getting ready to go. Likely he was but at the sight of Colette there. "Nichol's-Demksey. Colette. Tell me you're not hurt on boxing day and in need of patching up." leather gloves in hand are thumped against his other hand as he turns around, waving her further in. regardless of why she's here, he's not going to chatter in front of the doors and gossipy secretary's. "Come on up to my office"
The familiar voice has Colette turning around, eyes wide and a smile hesitantly creeping up on her lips. "Doc!" She quirks a look back to the desk-workers, slapping her hand on the counter and making a click of her tongue before skipping away from the front desk and towards Brennan, unwinding the scarf from her neck. "Nah m'fine, I think I managed to avoid gettin' frostbite out there." She quirks her head in the direction of the front doors teasingly, her bangs swishing over one eye with the motion.
"Yeah sure, s'cool, I had something I wanted to talk to you about anyway, if you got time." The bouncy teenager walks past Brennan, hands folding behind her head as she turns around, walking backwards to keep an eye on Brennan as she makes way towards the elvators. "S'pretty cool that I caught you here, 'cause I wasn't sure how t'get in touch with you otherwise." She bumps up into the elevator doors, then just reaches down and presses the call button.
A ding and a rush of the doors opening preceeds Colette walking backwards into the elevator, one hand held out and finger curling in a this way beckoning motion. One floor up and she's lazy enough to take the elevator.
"How much espresso have you had Colette" A brow raised sky high at the backwards walking and the crooking of fingers into elevators. "Michelle and her mother with the girls are taking in the after Christmas sales. I came in to review some things and make some calls." His booted steps are heard as he enters into the elevator with the young girl, the second floor pressed. There will be no objections to taking the elevator.
The button to close the door is pressed quickly after, habitual in nature, to speed up the process. "So, no frostbite or injuries, Did you have a good christmas? Get everything you wanted for it?"
Cracking a smile inside the elevator as the doors slide shut, Colette lets her back thump up against the far side of the elevator, arms folding across her chest. "More of a coffee person myself, my friend Andy kinda' makes coffee that'll put hair on your teeth." Both of Colette's brows rise up at that comment, and she shifts around where she stands, looking down at the floor as the elevator starts to rise.
"Christmas was good, spent the morning with my family, then went to Summer Meadows in the evening. Kaylee me an' her friend— " just enough of a pause to remember his alias, "Jason, did some volunteer work. Jason dressed up like Santa, handed out gifts to the kids there. It was really worth all the effort we put into it."
When the elevator comes to a stop at the second floor, doors opening, Colette casts an askance look to Brennan, chewing on her lower lip pensively. "I ah— actually that's what I wanted to talk toy ou about, actually. Jason." Colette's brows furrow green eyes alight to the doctor.
Jason. I takes him a moment to even remember someone named Jason. Yes, there's a co-worker, but nope, Colette's not likely ever met him and why would she be approaching him about- Oh.
There's suddenly a very unhappy look on his face. "That nice. That he volunteered to be santa" Volunteered. Well, he has the paunch for it. "Very important that the kids believe in Santa. We all need to make sure the kids believe in something. I hope he's doing well" And he really does mean it. Leather gloves are slid into the jacket pockets, soon followed by his own hands. "What colette, could you possibly need to speak with me about, regarding Jason and quite possibly, quite likely, Kaylee" THe bells ding and woosh open which leads Harve to being the first off the elevator, taking up big strides.
"Um— " Colette's movement is arrested at first, just like her words, a faltered half-step and then she's hustling to keep up with Brennan. "Um, I— made a promise to them, back when I found out what happened, that— that I'd try to figure out what went on at the church!" Finally back at Brennan's side, Colette still needs to double-time a little to keep up to the doctor's long-legged pace. "So, me an' Kaylee went down to the church and a friend helped us get a look at— " she steps out of the way of a Suresh Center worker coming down the hall, her voice quieting a touch at that. "We got a look at the security camera footage, so— I just— I thought you might want to know what we found out."
Dark brows going up, Colette looks at Brennan a bit hesitantly now, lips pursed to the side and an expression of uncertainty lacing tight her features. "I just— I made a promise, and I just— I wanted to actually keep it."
"Well obviously Colette, they weren't seen walking off with the vaccine" Brennan'd already gone through this with the cops. Random people walking off with them. Not Kaylee and Jason. Though they made off not long after in the same direction. "Like I told Megan and Alistair. Long as none of that is pulled ever again, I'm fine, and I'll help out. A doctor is needed and I have the time and my wife has the time." His office looms, a small affair made so, so that there's more room for others and more necessary rooms.
He digs his keys out of his pockets, flipping through them till he finds the one that he needs and unlocks the door.
Waiting for Brennan to open the office door, Colette is quiet where she waits behind him in the hall. Once the door is open and the doctor steps in, Colette follows him, trying to explain; quietly at first, then to a more normal conversational tone once they're behind closed doors. "I think we might've seen something in the videos, like… something that might help figure out who started the riot." Carefully soft with her words, Colette glances around the office, up to a framed certificate on one wall, then to a window where the falling snow can be seen, then back to Brennan again.
"M'gonna tell my dad about what I saw. He's not working the case, but he'll be able to tell people at the Precinct what we saw. I just— I wanted you to know that I'm not stopping, or… or letting this go. I know it's— " she hesitates there, looking down at her feet. "I know it's not a good topic, I just— I think we figured out who might've started everything. Kaylee an' I— we saw some stuff on the video that makes it look like a guy… an evolved guy who can do stuff with metal might've started everything."
His keys made a symphony or rattles, tings and clinks as they are settled on his desk while Colette unloads what she and Kaylee had found out. "Now why would someone who's evolved, start that riot. It was benefiting those who were evolved." Then again, look what had happened to those who were evolved and gotten the H1N1 vaccine. Two of them had died. "Astounding that you both managed to find something that the cops hadn't, when they have trained professionals to go over the tapes" Okay, that came off a little more sarcastic than he meant it to.
"I don't have high opinions of that day Colette. It's one of those days that I wish had never happened. I hope, for the sake of justice, that whatever you pass on to your dad, that it helps them catch the person who did this and prosecute him for the death of that teenager who's only reason for being there was to get some much needed medicine"
Tensing a bit at the sarcasm, Colette looks for a moment as if she's going to snipe back, but restraint unimabinably manages to win the upper hand in that mental battle. "I dunno, maybe they saw it maybe— I dunno. But I might be able to figure out who it is, figure out who did it regardless/." Colette's expression is an attempt at something stern and insistant, but comes off a little more like a very defiant puppy. "If the police can't find them, then I will. I— I don't know why someone'd do something like that, why does //anyone do stupid— terrible things? S'not just something normal people are capable of."
Scratching the side of her cheek, Colette furrows her brows and stares down at her feet. "I just… I know you've got problems with Kaylee and Jason, but I just— I wanted to try and clear the air with them. Kaylee's helping me figure out anything we can, an' we found out about this guy who can figure out stuff by touching stuff. So I think I'm gonna' take him down to the church, see if he can figure anything out."
When Colette looks back up, there's a hesitant smile on her lips. "I don't have a whole lotta' money, so there's only so much I can do for people for the holidays. I— I guess promising t'figure this out, it's— kind've like an overdue Christmas present." She manages a smile, a bit more emotional than the last one.
"You were one of the only doctors who ever treated me like a person when I was in the hospital. I— It's not like you were there a lot, but— but you made it easier to deal with what happened to me." What happened to her. She was blind in one eye, the detail slipped Brennan's mind right up until she brought it up.
"I just… wanted to do this for you too. To help— " Colette scratches the back of her head and hunches her shoulders, "I— I dunno, pay you back for keeping me from giving up back then."
"I don't need to be paid back for being a human being colette." He doesn't settle behind his desk, opting instead to come around and park his ass on the front, hands planted on the front edge of the desk so he can look at her proper, look at her in the eyes."I have issues, with them. They had something to do with it. Somewhere, I believe that. But the acts of two people don't sully the acts of the whole in my eyes. Noble intentions regardless" He can't prove it, evidence says otherwise and maybe if he knew about their respective abilities, he would feel even more validated.
"It's good that your determined to get down to the bottom of this, but at some point, you have to wonder, if whomever started that riot with the use of his abilities, had no compunction whatsoever in knowing that riots lead to people getting killed-" He pauses, shaking his head at the thought. "That they'd have no problem doing the same to you if you find them"
Swallowing a bit anxiously, Colette nods her head at those last words and nods her head once. "I'm prepared for that," she says with some measure of honest certainty. "I've been prepared for something like that for a long time, but… I've had a lot of friends, a lot of good people who've helped me learn how to take care of myself. I know it might not be the safest thing, but it's the right thing, and… and I know that's what matters most."
Trying to slide away from something so serious, Colette cracks a smile and takes a step towards where Brennan sits on his desk. "Besides," she cracks a smile, "most people don't have a guardian angel watchin' out for them like I do." It may seem figurative, even if Colette's particular watcher is a bit more material than most figurative ones.
"Guardian angel" Sure as hell isn't him. Brennan twists in his seat, reaching for a business card in it's holder so that he can pluck it up and grab a pen from a obnoxiously decorated hand painted mug that proclaimed worlds best dad that holds a few others. His number - address even to his home in Brooklyn - is written down for her in legible script even before it's passed over. "I hope they do as good a job as they've been doing. Not many people recover their sight from what you went through. Which is to say that he's never seen anyone do that. Short of the miracle that is the scarcely seen evolved healer.
"Not that I'm sure you couldn't get this information through Grace Matheson if you asked, but here you go. Wr're having a party for New years, you're welcome to come if you want. Bring a friend"
Party? One of Colette's brows quirk up as she takes the piece of paper, Green eyes drifting from the information back up to the doctor. "I think I know someone I'd like you to meet," she admits with a cheerful smile, "I only just found out she can dance too, so maybe she'll be up for a party." There's a winkle of Colette's nose, the paper folded and tucked inside the breast pocket of her coat. "Thanks for… listening to me, Doc. You know I— I really do plan on figurin' this all out. M'not gonna' let what happened— "
"Oh, hey there's — " Suddenly she's fishing around in her jacket again, wriggling fingers into a pocket to remove a photograph that she turns around between her fingers and offers out towards the doctor. "Have you seen this guy before?" There's a brown haired man around Brennan's age in the photograph, smiling goofily, thick brown eyebrows furrowed in a why am I being photographed sort of way. "His nae's Joseph Sumpter, he— he went missing a few weeks ago. I don't know if the police're going to find him and— those— those terrorist guys kidnapped him a few months ago, burned down hs church too. He just up an' disappeared without telling anyone anything, left his dog too."
She takes a step closer. "Just— I was hoping you might've seen him around. He was— is— a pastor, and— I just… I'm just trying to figure out what happened to him."
Hey now. "Think I've seen him around here. He.." Thick brows furrow downwards as he takes the picture from her, turning it this way, that way. "Think he attends a meeting here, that's about it." Went missing though. "you thought about putting this down at the ladies at the front desk and they can put it up. See if anyone's seen him around here lately?"
"You— saw him here?" Colette's brows go up, "Meeting?" Green eyes flick towards the door, then back over to Brennan. "I— I think I'll do that, actually. If he's been around here, yeah— yeah I'll see if they can help me. Maybe I can figure out what he was attending here and see if the meeting organizer knows anything." Smiling to Brennan, Colette turns the photo around, looking at Joseph's picture with a shake of her head, then tucks it back inside of her jacket.
"Thanks…" Colette manages to say with a crooked smile, "for— you know, pretty much everything." The quality of the girl's expression becomes a bit more wry at the admission of thanks. "I— I don't wanna bug you any more, I just… I thought I'd let you know what I found out. If I learn anything else, I'll totally let you know, if— if you want."
"If you like" If it will make her feel better about the situation, about her friends. Obviously Kaylee and Jason are her friends. "You need a ride somewhere, I got my car out front. Supposed to meet the ladyfolks for coffee and lunch. You are more than welcome to join us. I could use fortification against Michelle's mother. I can stare down guerilla's in the jungles of south america, but damned if I can stare down that french woman" He picks up his keys, pushing away from the desk to smooth down jacket and run a hand through the short cropped hair.
"I can play backup for a little while," Colette notes with a crooked smile, one eye squinted shut as her hair falls into it, "sure." She turns to stand out of the way so Brennan can walk ahead of her, already beginning to wind up her scarf around her neck again. Green eyes regard the doctor with a playful smile, moving to follow his procession out the door as she starts buttoning up the front of her coat, a bounce still in her step as she walks, mission for the day accomplished and she's getting lunch out of the deal.
"So, what's for lunch?"