Participants:
| Scene Title | Pope Abby The First |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Knowing what's coming, Abigail calls Cat to be her legal representative and pow wow's in the hospital. |
| Date | September 16, 2010 |
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.
Abigail looks itchy, downright itchy, and from what who knows since she was brought in for electrical shock and not hives. Sitting up in the ever uniform hospital bed in the open backed gown, picking at some of the food and waiting for her co-workers to please smuggle up something better. When one in the Ferry is in legal trouble, the person to call is Cat and thus, her call had been to such a person. With a looming interrogation by Homeland, and fines on top of who knows what else, she turned to the other Ferry councilwoman. She's resisted scratching, opting to rub instead, other drugs wearing off, reaching for the calamine lotion and start to dab at her arms while she watches a movie on a little dvd player. Total upside to working out of the hospital, beloved co-workers.
Eyes settle on the iPhone's screen to determine time of day, then the sound of heels on floor are made as she steps into the hospital room and closes the door behind her. "Abby," Cat greets in calm voice as eyes settle on the one in bed and she approaches the foot of it. Curiosity is in play, it drives her to pick up Abby's chart and read it.
Late morning, just after eleven. Chart reads electrical shock, burns to back and chest, and the addition of a reaction to some medication that was given and a slight temperature. An interesting combination but would explain why she was still there and not waiting at a Homesec office for Cat. "Catherine," relieved to see her, that's for sure, as she pauses in her ministrations. "Welcome to Casa Del Abby. I have water with ice, you're just in time for the limp lunch and no, I'm not going to show you my back, it looks horrible I've been told. How is my brand new Lawyer?"
"Well enough," Cat replies, as she puts the chart back after reading and hands over one of the bags she brought with her. It's got the logo of Piccoli's Delicatessen. "First act of rescue," she proclaims quietly, "is from hospital food, at least temporarily." A drink of some non-alcoholic variety in a cup is also provided. "That," she tilts her head toward the chart, "tells enough about your injuries to imagine them unseen."
A feeling of unstated relief exists. Abby isn't a piece of bedridden charcoal being constantly debrided for severe whole body burns.
Abby isn't Lola. Thank god. "You are a saint, Cat. A bonafide saint for this. For all of this. Robert doesn't think that I'll disappear, he believes that I'm too unique a case, for them to abscond with me and make me disappear. Have an ability, lose an ability and then test positive again." The door is closed and highly unlikely there's anyone eavesdropping on the other side. "Sit and share with me?" A gesture to the Piccoli's. "Unless you brought some for yourself too."
Beatified by Pope Abby the First, Saint Cat settles into a chair near the bed and demonstrates having her own meal to consume, complete with cola. One hand smooths down the skirt behind her, legs cross at the ankles. "I appreciate the canonization," she offers, before addressing the conclusion reached by Robert Caliban. "It's likely he's correct, and for that matter if they intended to disappear you, odds are we wouldn't be having this meeting. They'd have already done it."
After pulling a sandwich out of her bag, she continues. "We also know the Institute doesn't like witnesses when they grab someone. I'm tempted to ask what happened, I can piece together some things already. News reports said it was an unknown electrical source, that sounds like an electrokinetic, and you were knocked out or you wouldn't be here."
"Elle Bishop." And everyone knows what she can do. "Everyone in the diner just got afraid. I was helping Natasha and refilling folks coffees and when I stopped at her table, Natasha just started getting afraid and bolted. It all happened so fast, I started to get afraid that Elle knew what I could do, that she was there to follow me out and take me in. I dropped the pot and ran and… then I suppose she nailed me, and I remember waking up in the hospital and being told I got electrocuted."
Cat starts doling out her own food and with the calamine closed up, throughly dotted in pink, Abby's starting to set her own stuff out. "They tested me, it's standard, on any blood orders, and… Homeland will be wanting to talk to me regarding how I have a registration card and results that are blue and yet a hospital blood test that is red."
"Better to throw the coffee on Elle or someone like her, then run," Cat suggests gently, "the liquid should short her out." Quiet is held after offering the advice on how to battle an electroblonde, during which her brows furrow while indulging in some speculation.
"You think this happened because you were once the target of Tyler Case, and lost your ability. It suppressed the SLC, left you in fact without it for the time since then, but it's come back now. Or is coming back, you might not even have manifested yet, and when you do it might be different than what you had in some way. It's happened before. Peter's mojo is different, after all. You don't know if you can heal people or not."
"That's playing dumb?" Abigail inquires of Cat. "If they dig deep enough they might find out that the test at the police station was not my blood, or that the test previous here, when I did manifest and they brought me in, was not my blood either, Cat. What then?"
"You're walking a knife edge if they decide to audit the systems and compare previous tests versus a fresh sample of your DNA taken under controlled conditions, to make sure it's really yours. If they do, it could get very dicey, but are you really responsible for misfiling samples and other errors in handling things? It would be circumstantial evidence, it's suspicious, but plausible arguments can be made. They don't have proof you re-manifested either." A drink is taken from her cup.
Moments later she's speaking in a completely matter-of-fact voice again. "This positive test is a complete surprise, you didn't think it would ever come back. Since you haven't manifested yet, there's every reason to believe you'll be a healer again when you do. And you must not have re-manifested, since you won't be able to heal anyone if they ask you to prove the ability."
"And if I burst up into flames some day…" Abigail murmurs. "You're the lawyer, I'm not, so I'm going to have to trust you." She hasn't re-manifested healing. There's no proof of any other ability, and if she can't heal when asked… Abigail licks her lips, arranging her food to how she likes it. She didn't want to give up everything. "Is it better, less severe a punishment, Cat, if I just confess to having manifested something and being afraid to have registered properly? The truth but not the whole truth? I do better if it's a partial truth than not the truth. I can tell them that I don't know how or why I can suddenly… control my body temperature" It's plausible, in her mind. "Tyler Case switched abilities, who's to know that I haven't finally manifested from what he could have switched me with…?
Nodding, Cat admits "It does need to be something you can pull off convincingly. I thought saying you expect to heal again when you do re-manifest would be a workable story, you had it before so expecting to have it again is believable, but if you don't feel comfortable with that tale it won't work. At the same time, if you confess to having known you had mojo again and didn't register, you're admitting to a crime and there'll be consequences for that. If you haven't manifested, there's no crime they can prove."
Quiet settles in again, as eyes watch Abby, and she seems to be thinking again. Brainstorming.
Moments later her eyes widen and her mouth opens, she gushes out "Abby. You lost what you had to Tyler Case, and didn't expect to ever get it back, but now you tested positive again! Wow. Maybe he switched you, and it's just starting to kick in. But…" The voice trails off, she makes an expression of being confused, "it doesn't make sense, you've not suddenly suprise healed anyone… Could it be linked to what you said about body temperature going up and down when you're under stress or needing a burst of energy during those long ambulance shifts? Like… you can make your metabolism work faster when you need to, you just haven't thought of it as an ability, because people do things like that all the time, with adrenaline. Maybe you can learn to control it, make your body processes speed up and slow down at will, with practice?"
She hopes, hopes, Abby gets she's brainstorming while also coaching on how to carry off the story.
"There's people on the registry with abilities that are far worse than turning into a pillar of fire. I can work myself up so that my temperature goes up, Cat, I can do that, I can demonstrate it. Hit a low fever. I can try and wonder if this might have anything to do with having lost my ability to Tyler Case." Abigail sits, listening to Cat play act, trying to get an idea of how to be. She's decidedly not Cat, and she's not the kind of person who can pull off a blatant lie. it's in her voice and in her face and her body. "Plain old body temperature control, Cat, I should stick to that, yes. Don't know if I would call it metabolic control, not like I eat more than normal." She used to eat a lot more.
"It's your story," Cat agrees, "all you really need is to tell it convincingly and for it to make sense." Her sandwich is lifted and bitten into, silence ongoing as she chews slowly and quietly. Not a trace of food escaping her mouth, no sound made. Afterward she dabs briefly at her lips with a napkin kept in her lap, then takes a drink from the cup.
Which she'll do her best, do her best and hope that it leaves her with a fine, a slap on the hand, and not in a cell somewhere, or worse, some white coffin. "If only I could make you do all the talking for me" Abigail laughs softly, picking at her sandwich. "The watch is working. Not in the way that it's supposed to. I need to get Jonas and bring the watch to the person who needs to program it. Once that's done, the Ferry will have a functioning compass, digital." Delving into topics not registration. She'll have a day or so to think it through, get her act together. Blame Tyler Case still seems to be the one.
"I'll go wherever you need with you in all this, Abby," Cat states, "and be your voice as much as possible." From there her mind also turns to other topics. "Who's doing the programming? Once we have a working model, we can work on figuring out how to block the fields, defeat the devices."
Musing more, with the sandwich poised to suffer another bite, she comments "It also explains some things about how augmentation works, the electromagnetic fields, I think."
"I don't know who's doing it. Just that it took more than one person but it's whole, and they didn't have the necessary frequency for it. They're a bit busy right now, but I'll get it as soon as possible. If this works, they might be able to make more or to make something to counter it. If we're lucky. But at the moment, It's a matter of waiting"
Her reply is a simple nod, Cat choosing not to speak of her own efforts, and partaking of more food to accompany that choice. When the mouth is empty again, Pepsi is raised to wash things down, and she goes on eating.