Remember Me And Smile

Participants:

lynette4_icon.gif veronica4_icon.gif

Scene Title Remember Me And Smile
Synopsis A pair of old friends know they don't have long until they have to say goodbye.
Date November 9, 2011

A Motel Room


It's morning, but just. The gray light of dawn starts to filter into the motel room through the sliding door that opens out onto a tiny balcony, overlooking the parking lot. They'd agreed to sleep in shifts, with Veronica taking the last of them. She's not in the room, but the clear glass reveals her to be sitting, wrapped in a blanket, outside.

She's watching the parking lot, a gun held in her lap beneath the blanket's folds, should trouble arrive. Her face has a little more color to it than it had last night, which is a good sign — it means she hasn't lost more blood at least, from the wound at her side. She still seems too pale, even without her usually dark hair to contrast her pale skin; last night she'd bleached her hair to a honey blond with a $15 kit from the drugstore. It's not the best of disguises, but it's what she can manage on the run.

Being unable to sleep for too terribly long, Lynette is the first to wake inside the room. She has a moment of confusion, because this is not where she usually wakes up. But a blink or two brings the previous day back to her. With those memories, any hope of rolling over and going back to sleep is lost. She slips out of bed, bringing her blanket with her. When she sees Veronica through the glass, she steps out, closing the door softly behind her.

"Do you suppose this place has decent coffee?" she asks, coming to lean against the railing. "We're probably not that lucky." She looks over to Veronica, trying to give her a smile, but gives up after a failed attempt. "How was the nightwatch?"

The door sliding open has Vee glancing over her shoulder and up, and it's a tired smile of sorts she offers Lynette. "Hey. Probably not. There's a dougnut shopacross the way, though. That's probably our best bet." Her voice is soft, hushed more than it needs to be — they don't seem to have neighbors on either side, and there are only a few cars in the parking lot at all. "It's quiet. Just me and my terrible thoughts." There's a little smirk that's more of a grimace at that. "You get any sleep?"

Glancing out toward the street, she debates for a moment before shaking her head. "Maybe we can send Brian out when he wakes up." It's too far for a freshly woken up Lynette, apparently. A hand rubs at her face and, as if on queue, she yawns just about in time with Vee's question. "Some," comes with a bit of wryness. "I doubt any of us will be able to sleep soundly for a while." Too many terrible thoughts all around. "What are you two going to do from here? I hate to say that you've probably been fired, but…" She smiles crookedly as she looks back over.

What is she going to do from here? After a weak huff of a laugh, Veronica leans her head back on the back of the chair and shakes her head. "Hide, I guess. Maybe try to do some good along the way." She pats the chair next to her, to indicate Lynette should sit down.

"What about you? You live in the same place as the other Brian?" It's such a strange question to ask. And it's unclear if she's being careful with her wording deliberately, by habit, or if she doesn't actually know where the other Brian is, about the location on Pollepel Island. "Can you get there okay? He'll help if you need, give you an escort."

"I know that routine," Lynette says, to her future plans. She comes over to sit, letting out a sigh as she does. "It's going to get more difficult. Hiding. Doing some good." She nods to the question, though. "I do. Cramped, but pretty good for hiding."

She glances back toward the room, then back to Veronica. "Don't worry. Slipping back and forth is pretty old hat." She shifts to prop her feet up on the railing, resettling her blanket over her legs. "And in any case, if I took too long, I'm sure they'd send someone to find me."

Veronica leans her head to the side to look at Lynette, smiling and shaking her head just a little, at the strange surrealism of finding her friend here, on the end of this difficult chapter of her life. "That must be nice. The only people who get sent to find me I don't think I want to see," she says, lips curving with the self-deprecating remark. She tips her head back to indicate the motel room behind them. "He's probably the only person who would've missed me in this world, if I didn't make it out."

She's quiet for a moment, her eyes sliding back to the parking lot. "Do you know…her? The other one's wife? She's okay? We don't really talk about it. I know she exists, but I don't ask and he doesn't say, but… I care, you know? I want her to be okay."

"It comes with a lot of strings. I really enjoyed when I only had a toe in this organization. Now I have to be responsible." Lynette makes a face — not unlike when she was a reckless young teen — to demonstrate her displeasure. If melodramatically.

At the question that follows, she lifts an eyebrow over at Veronica. "She's sweet. And she cares about him. She's not as… scarred as the rest of us, I suppose is a way to put it. She's okay." She smirks a little there and looks out at the parking lot.

"Sweet," Veronica repeats with a shake of her head. "So my opposite." One thing no one has accused her of being is sweet. "Thanks. Our road's been tough. He started out my partner in the Company, if you can believe it. We'd split because of what I was trying to do. When he came back to me — I guess when you swapped powers?" her brows lift, since that was so recently explained better to her, "I…" she shakes her head, and her dark eyes grow wet, thinking to where she was at that time. Infiltrating the Institute. Almost killed by Goodman. Alone in all the ways that count.

She doesn't say more. "What about you? Married? Kids? God, it's been so long since I've seen you." Not counting a run-in in an art gallery, of course.

Lynette laughs at that and nods her head. "Maybe. I'm sure you have your good points, too," she says, teasingly. But her expression sobers some as she listens to their history. And when Vee starts to trail off, Lynette reaches over to put a hand on her arm. "You have each other now. You sacrificed all you ever need to for the cause. Now you can see about finding something a little better, yeah?"

When the questions are turned her way, she shakes her head, too. "God no. No. No family to speak of. Not like that. My dad's still got his ranch, but I told him to seriously consider getting out of here. We'll see if he listens to me. But… I've got the network." So, perhaps, also alone in all the ways that count. Her smile leans toward bittersweet, at least. "It really has been forever."

Veronica's opposite hand comes up to cover Lynette's, squeezing it. Whatever emotion was taking her over, she's shaken off. "He's about the only good thing that's happened to me, you know? Everything I based my life on was a string of lies. I'm still not sure where the lies end and the truth starts. Brian's the one thing I can trust — even when we fight…" she smiles slightly, shaking her head a little ruefully, "and we fight a lot, I know he's good."

At the mention of Lynette's father, her smile grows wistful, fond, of the man who was her father's best friend. "Was your dad Evolved?" she asks, curiously — she never knew Lynette's mom, was told at a young age not to ask about Lynette's mom. "Or maybe your mother?" The odds are one of them were. The odds are, she realizes now, that one of hers were. "My mom's… in a valium and vodka haze most of the time. I don't think she can get out, honestly. I can't get her, though. They'll be looking there, I'm sure."

"I'm sorry, that must be awful," Lynette says, her expression falling. "You get to make it what you want, now. And you did good, Ronnie." To the question about her father, she nods. "Telekinetic. Who knows about my mom. Not me, certainly. Sometimes we write, you know. Yearly newsletter. Not lately, though. Obviously." This is not the sort of life you tell your estranged mother about. "That can be a deep hole, yes," she says, as far as Veronica's mother. It's a hole she knows pretty well herself.

"Maybe," says Veronica, about making the life they want. They're now fugitives, but pointing that out to Lynette, also a fugitive, seems pointless. "Wow. That's something," she says, with a shake of her head about Lynette's dad. That her father was killed by a telekinetic, one she came to know fairly well, she lets that slide as well. There's a lot of things not being said in the conversation.

She reaches up to touch Lynette's blond hair and smiles. "I always wanted to be blond like you. Just took fifteen years to get the courage." It's a feeble joke, an attempt to fill in those gaps. "I'll get the coffee. Let him sleep," Vee says, standing up, but then suddenly bending to give Lynette a quick, impulsive hug. There's a slight wince as her gash in her side protests, and she straightens again. "It's nice to find someone else on my side, at the end of all this. Even if it's temporary."

"Yeah, he didn't tell me until he found out about mine. Good at secrets, us Rowans." Lynette smirks, it's possibly not a trait she finds as endearing as she once did. But she laughs lightly when Vee touches her hair. "Well, it suits you. Who knows, maybe next time we run into each other, I'll have gone brunette." Hers is also a feeble joke, since next time is a shakey concept as it is. So when the hug comes, she returns it, doing her best not to make her wound any worse off. She might have to sniffle a little when she leans back in her chair. "Always, Veronica."

"If you need me, tell the other him — it'll get to me," Vee says, her own eyes a bit shiny with tears. "I'll go get us some caffeine and sugar and we can decide what the next destination is for all of us." Sadly, it's to go in different directions, and she knows this, but if she can hold on to the illusion of keeping one more friend by her side a little bit longer, she will. She slips back into the room, leaving Lynette with the brightening sky.


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