Participants:
| Scene Title | Morning After Dark |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Is still dark, and Caliban tells his wife to run. |
| Date | November 9, 2010 |
Solstice Condominiums - Caliban Aartment
The morning after dark is a pretty good term to call the ninth of November. After Ruperts trigger has had it's way with the populace of New York City. After the riots have been quelled and everyone is taking stock of what once was that is now no more. Martial law declared in response to the situation is not a surprise really to most. It was inevitable the moment that the vision had occurred and people battened down the hatches.
The key in the door an hour after the call to warn him that she was coming home, heralds the end of Abby's taxi drive and admits the blue eye'd ferry woman who spent the 8th delivering a baby and waiting out the riots in the Redbird building and watching over Noah Bennet once again. Only this time she knew the local language and she wasn't stuck in a basement.
"Robert?"
It's called out before the door is even closing, having kept an eye over her shoulder the whole time. In truth it wouldn't be that hard to find her, what with the GPS still around her ankle and functioning as best she knows. Maybe Cardinal's jammer had done something, who knows. But the door closes behind her and she re-locks it all. "I'm home" Oh so sweet shirt, jeans, sneakers and hair limp and down around her shoulders, she's a tired sight for sure.
He emerges from one of the darkened hallways dressed in the same clothes she last saw him in: black slacks and a white button-down dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Soot stains the now rumpled material. Flakes of ash pepper his scruffy blond hair, blending in with the gray. He looks like hell, and that's probably no surprise.
Neither, very likely, is the pistol he's holding in his hand. Although the public doesn't know it yet, Kain Zarek is dead, and with John Logan missing, it's not much of a stretch for the Linderman Group's publicist to assume that he's next. He does not, however, point the weapon at Abigail when he comes into view. Tucks it into the back of his pants instead and roughly demands, "Where the hell have you been?"
"Redbird" He does look like hell and immediatly, the worry that someone might come up behind her and ratta-tat-tat she's like the other council memembers converts into worry for Caliban as she drops her bag of EMT equiptment to move forward. Navigate the long hall till she's right against him and her arms have firmly anchored around her husband. "Delilah went into labor on the road. She had a boy.and I couldn't go with them to the hospital because it was in Jersey, it's a state line, they would have arrested me." It's muffled words at first, face buried in his chest before she's ignoring those flecks of ash so that she can kiss him, make sure that he knows that yes, it's his wife, not some illusion.
"I went to the bar for supplies and was going to find one of the triage centers being set up, help there but Richard stopped by and told me to go to redbird instead. So I went there. I tried to send messages. Martial law, curfew hit so I stayed. Noah's hurt, bad. They needed someone to keep watch over him. I'm sorry, I couldn't come home"
Caliban's arms encircle Abigail's waist, and she should make no mistake: he's still angry. Furious. But this translates to a hand at the back of her head and fingers tangled in her hair and his mouth on hers. You can punish someone with a kiss. He's doing exactly that.
He relents after a moment or two, resisting the urge to pull away from her with her lips still snagged in his teeth, and instead rests his chin on the top of her skull as she speaks. "You trust him? Cardinal?"
"Ever since he would visit me in Logan's basement to make me hold on and let me know that people were coming. I trust him almost as much as I trust you or Teodoro or .." Or a bunch of others in her life that he knows. Handslap by lips is preferable to handslap by hand ands ettles into the familiar position, his height making it easy to tuck her head under his chin.
"The council was executed. I don't know who all survived, the message was garbled. Susan betrayed the council. She called a meeting and they were executed. Noah and others must have made it out somehow, I don't know what to do Robert. Has anyone come here with a badge looking for me?"
"No," is Caliban's terse response, followed by a long stretch of uncomfortable silence that crawls under both their skins. He's heard rumours, and although he knows the word executed isn't thrown around lightly, even in times like these, hearing confirmation from Anigail's lips has his spine transforming into steel. Those gunned down in the shadows of St. Joseph's church weren't the only ones, and suddenly Caliban believes the stories people on the news have been telling about soldiers firing into crowds of unarmed civilians on the Red Hook waterfront and elsewhere.
"You can't stay here."
"I don't know where to go" There's a few places that might be untouched, but she isn't sure. "She gave up the safehouses Robert. I don't what ones if any are safe" They hadn't been here. Yet at least. Her fingers tighten around him, holding tight to his shoulderblades, a glance around his arms to the dog that stands there with his tail wagging. "I'll have to take the anklet off. They can find me anywhere. I can.. I can leave the country, I can call up Elias and ask him to take me somewhere. He can take me to Ramsgate or…" She can't go south, can't go home.
"I can't use my other ID. I used it in Canada, the institute was up there. They'd know that one" It would flag. "I have cash, in my safe, in our closet. I can go to the bar and grab some of the petty cash from there" It would be seized. Just like they'd done with Izzy's funds when she'd disappeared to Moab.
But this wouldn't be the first time she needed to up and disappear. Just that there was a lot more things that she was tied to. "What about you?"
"I'm not Ferry," Caliban mutters against her hair, and with the exception of Zarek, none of his people have been shot. What he says next causes him no small amount of pain and stung pride, which is probably why he's physically separating himself from her in the moments that follow.
"Go back to Redbird. Cardinal's nice and cozy with the government. If you think he can be trusted, then the safest place for you is right under their nose."
"No, you're not, and neither is he and if you can't protect me then not even being there will protect me. I can't live in the redbird basement forever Robert" She'll have to go somewhere. She can't stay here, bring who knows what on Roberts face. Or she could. Sit. Wait for whomever would come.
When he steps back, she tries to hold on long as she can', just a little. But eventually there's space between them and she's sinking her hands into her pockets, warmth building just a little in herself. "I can go to the police station, I can turn myself in. In front of everyone, in front of police. PP1, I can go to the ones that I know. They'll make sure I don't just.. just.. disappear"
There's a glance to the door with the taped paper across it, black sharpie scrawled across it declaring the room off-limits to the other man. "It's my fault Robert. I didn't go to more people. I knew she was doing something, I knew she'd tried to kill one of the council members, maybe even blinded her. That she was up to something, but the people I went to told me it was fine, she wasn't doing something like that" Leave it to them. And she had. "It wasn't fine and now they're…" And now the network is back to who knows what. Abigail's foot lashes out, kicking at the door to the unfinished wine room, venting anger into something physical instead of letting it build up into internal heat.
'I don't want to run." And yet… and yet. She walks away from the door, going around Caliban so she can head to the bedroom. Pack.
"Times change, Abigail," says Caliban. "So do people. You don't know why she did what she did. That she didn't do it before now probably says something, though I couldn't tell you what. If she was on the council, she's had ample opportunity to turn over your safehouses and kill the others, either quietly or not."
He passes the door with the piece of paper to it. He's seen it so many times that it doesn't earn a glance — his attention is solely on Abigail in the bedroom, and as he moves to occupy its frame, he studies the shape of her slender back. "Maybe she was pushed."
She's digging out a hiking pack from some box that was still there, things that she didn't know where to put or hadn't gotten around to putting away. Thinking about the upcoming weather, disappearing into the maze that is the closet in this place that's near as large as the bedroom itself and coming back out with another box, warmer clothes that weren't unpacked yet either. Gear from Russia.
"That doesn't excuse executing people. Being pushed doesn't excuse anything. She made the choice to do it. The same as I made the choice to take up a gun on Staten Island when the hospital was being raided, and to shoot at soldiers. Like I made the choice to be on the bridge almost two years ago and kill Kazimir. I made the choice to join the Ferry and to take up the nomination to the council."
Abigail looks over at him, hair falling straight down, some of it obscuring her face. "She made the choice. She made the choice to kill the woman who found out what she could do, and she made the choice to turn over those houses and the council. She doesn't get my sympathy. She would have killed me and not blinked an eye and the worst that I ever did to her was put negation drugs in her tea to make sure she didn't use her ability on me".
"I'm not defending her," says Caliban. "I'm asking you to look at the situation objectively. The Ferry network was how many people strong? Two hundred? Maybe three? You don't honestly think she's the only one who harbours resentment for its leadership." And that isn't a question. "What happened?"
"I don't know what happened Robert. I wasn't there. I was elbow deep in Delilah's uterus bringing walter in the world in the back of my SUV near the Jersey Tunnel. I just know that she called a meeting, I never got the message until later and right on it's heels was another about how she'd come with military and they'd just shot everyone" She tears her gaze away, somewhere in the hall her phone is bleating out a gentle warning in her other bag as she folds the clothes that she's going to take with her as small as possible and stuffing them into the pack. "They executed them at triage centers, they executed them period. And they took others. They've taken them before, stuffed them in coffins and took them, but they never executed them. Used real bullets instead of rubber ones" Her movements are sharp, vicious and quick. She's not meaning to snap at him, it's just the situation that brings it about.
WATCH> Bella has connected.
The ring of the phone draws Caliban to the bag the same way a baby deer calling for its mother might attract a hungry tiger. "Here's what you're going to do," he says, gathering the bag. It doesn't take him long to locate the phone, and when he does, his first act is to snap out the battery, then place both in his side pocket. "You're going to find your Richard, and you're going to tell him exactly what you told me if you haven't already. Then you're going to ask him to find a way to put you in touch with your friends.
"The ones who are still alive." Because Cardinal could have anything up his sleeve as far as Caliban is concerned, and that includes spiritual mediums. "You're going to take off that anklet and you're going to run as far as you can as fast as you can, and when you think you're safe you're going to run twice as far and twice as fast. Then and only then are you going to stop."
'And do what Robert? Change my hair color and become a waitress? How many women can turn into a big ol ball of fire? Have wings on their back that can't be removed unless I can get to Xiu and get her to do it. Where will I run? To another state? Another country? Hide and wait until someone comes to their senses and realizes that we are living in Nineteen forty something and the gestapo just went around and killed people because they were people?"
She didn't quite cover the germans and the nazi party in homeschool. But she's heard Cat preach it enough. "Forget you and forget that i'm married and what about you Robert? What are you going to do? They're going to come, they're going to want to know where I am, if I came home, they're going to see that I came home. You're evolved" The bag is abandoned, her footsteps carrying her back to him so she can take his hands. "Are you even registered as evolved? What if they take you Robert? Are you going to run too?" Tears are starting to trip off her bottom lids, not hindered by eyelashes, minute beads of sweat at her hairline. "I don't want to loose you Robert, not when I have you"
"Yes," he fairly snarls, exasperated and hating that he's exasperated, but hating more what seeing her cry does to him. "Dye your hair. Wear clothes that cover your tattoos. Use your connections to stock up on negation drugs. It's not as difficult as you're making it out to be. For Christ's sake, woman."
Caliban allows her to take his hands, and squeezes her fingers in his so hard that it hurts. "As soon as it's safe again, I'll come for you, but not a moment earlier. Tell the people at Redbird to point me in the right direction and I will be there."
Just as he got Logan to help her get off them. Abigail stifles the whimper from the grip, holding her hands still in his, knowing that it's probably hurting him as much too. She rests her forehead against his chest, bound to leave a damp spot when she will eventually lift her head, looking at the rumpled shirt through blurry eyes.
"What color. You choose the color. Or I just might go back to pink"
"Brown," says Caliban. "It's common." And pink is not. "Drab colours, both hair and clothes. And keep your head down. Don't speak unless you're spoken to in front of strangers, and keep your responses short. If you use more words than you have fingers on your right hand, you've said too much."
"That's impossible" voice damp and hitched, shuddering as she noisily sucks in air through her nose. Speaking less than five words that is. "I'll find my way to redbird. I'll wait a few days, I'll go get a room in the speakeasy. Wait it out and then get to them. Sell the bar. Sell it tomorrow, to Brenda, for a dollar, or whatever. I don't want them to take it. You can do it, you're my husband. Call my parents" And there come the tears on full again, tracking down the apple of her cheeks then dropping off.
"Call my Dah, He can tell my momma. Tell them I love them. That it'll be okay, that I'll be fine. That I'll see them some day again when I can" It has to be okay. For once, she can't find a silver lining. "Find Teodoro, tell him he needs to come get Pila. He wasn't Ferry, he's not at risk. He should take Pila to Walter. She's not mine. Take.. take Rhett and Scarlett and Ashley to…" She doesn't know where they should go. Should they stay here with him? 'Take Ashley to Brenda. She'll take care of him for me so you only gotta worry about the cat and the dog." She pulls her hands from his, rubbing them up and down his arms till she's turning away, heading back to the bag and wiping her sleeve across her eyes.
Caliban will call her parents and tell them they are loved by their daughter. He won't tell them that it will be okay, or that Abigail will be fine, or that she'll find them, because while he might be willing to lie about him coming for her — there are no gaurantees in life — he won't give false hope on her behalf. It's unnecessarily cruel, and she is not.
"I love you," he says, voice quiet, on the offchance they don't see each other again.
"I know" She looks over her shoulder, a couple pairs of socks stuffed in, giving up on folding neatly, just shoving any dark clothing in. "I know you do Robert. I won't forget it" The drawstring is drawn tight, the flap snapped into place and secured. She drags the box back into the closet and he can hear the beeps that accompany the small safe she moved in with. She comes out with cash, shoving that into a pocket, a small faraday bag with something in it shoved into another along with a couple pill bottles - negation drugs. Probably the last time he'll also see her for a while undressing, changing into clothes that she didn't walk into the apartment in. Yoga pants abandoned in favor of jeans, simple white cotton replacing the work shirt and a columbia sweater with a hoodie as she subscribes to the Teodoro Laudani school of layering. Wool socks, boots in lieu of sneakers.
She hesitates at the next, almost unwilling to do it. But it's something she's always worn and they'd know to look for it. Her hands dig behind her neck, working at the clasp of the chain around her neck, taking off the little gold cross. Next comes her rings, Switching her wedding ring to her right hand, sliding it on her finger. The pack is hauled up, slung about her shoulder.
Then she's in front of him proper, taking a palm pressing her engagement ring and cross into it, closing his hand up, covering it with her. "You know I love you too right?" Her other hand sliding along scruffy jaw, certain that she's put more grey hair there and likely to put more before the day or weeks are over. "To the moon and back Robert. Fifty times over, and I won't stop"
Caliban's hand balls into a trembling fist and he tucks in his chin, breathing in the scent of her hair with eyes half-lidded. Her phone is very heavy in his pocket.
He rubs his thumb over the back of her knuckles, memorizing its shape through touch, his other coming to rest at the nape of her neck where the necklace's clasp once rested, but only briefly. To the moon and back, she says. Fifty times.
It's about as much distance as he wants between her and New York City. "Get out of here," he mutters hoarsely, and it's one of the more difficult things he's ever done.
She will. But not before she steals a kiss. Soft lips closing in on his, chin roughing against the his almost beard, nose bumping against his, her hand curling in around his nape in a fierce grip so she can go up on her toes. No respite from these quarters or her mouth, a kiss that has to last however long it'll be before they see each other again, teeth scraping across his lower lip and bound to leave puffy lips when she breaks away, lingering longer than she should. A hint of tongue.
And then she's gone, running out the door of the master, down the hall, pausing long enough to grab protein bars, kiss Rhett on his furry brown head, collect her EMT bag and go. Just the trace of her body wash in the air and moisture on his lips to say that she was there.