Participants:
| Scene Title | The Night Before Normandy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Coffee, friendship, camaraderie the night before the world ends. |
| Date | January 27, 2009 |
It's like the night before Normandy, really. But Fel's in his usual booth, working his way patiently through the menu. Apparently nervousness doesn't kill his appetite, but any stretch of the imagination.
The phone call came and Liz was perfectly willing to meet Felix. Though it ought to make for entertaining conversation, given all that's coming down in the next 24 hours. When she enters the Nite Owl, she pulls off a fleece headband meant to keep her ears warm and pulls her gloves off, scanning the clientele and heading for Felix's booth. Sliding in, she gestures to the waitress for coffee, and then smiles at him. "Hey, you," she offers quietly.
Felix's smile is oddly wistful. "Hey," he says, simply, looking up from his rather frenetic perusal of the menu. "How are you? YOu seem good," It's about as polite and chatty as he ever gets, really.
While coffee is poured, Elisabeth slides out of her jacket, and once the waitress is gone, she snaps up a silence bubble immediately around the table. "Guess I'm about as good as it gets right now. Wound tighter than I've ever been in my life, really. You?" She heard, you see, that he was at that meeting where her name got bandied around like nobody's business. She's still miffed enough that if survives, she might rip Edward Ray a new ass. But it's done now.
"The same," he admits, with no sign of shame. "Really. I feel like this is a last meal, you know? Not to be grim. Call it Russian fatalism," And his posture is wire-taut, despite his attempts at appearing casual and relaxed.
"Mmmm," Elisabeth replies mildly. "So…. you gonna tell me what's going on in that head of yours, or you wanna make small talk and skirt around it?" she asks mildly.
Felix frankly smirks at her. "You assume something's going on. Not always true. I'm….I don't know what I feel," he confesses. "I'll be so glad when this is done, in all honesty. For good or ill. IT's just so weird to realize that you're part of that thin red line standing between everyone and what's more or less Armageddon."
Elisabeth chuckles at him softly. "I don't assume. I'm just getting to know *you* that well." Tilting her head, Liz nods a bit, her hands going around the coffee in front of her to doctor it liberally. "Believe me, the idea that I'm standing on that front line scares the ever living shit out of me," she confesses. "Christ, Felix… I've never done infiltration work or SWAT work or anything of the sort. I'm scared to death I'm gonna blow this and people are gonna die." She bites her lip. "So … I'm in the same camp you are. Hoping it ends well, and soon."
He dumps that unholy amount of sugar into his own coffee. Not so much worried about the calories, now. "I have," he says, simply. "Kicked down a few doors in my time. Nothing like this. And so am I, really. The stakes are almost unimaginable. Just….trust yourself, I guess. IT's amazing how adrenaline carries you."
Elisabeth hehs quietly. "The stakes aren't ALMOST unimaginable. They're completely unimaginable." She shakes her head, her expression a bit bemused. "You think you're weirded out by my role? You should be me," she tells him as she looks up at him. "What about you? They got you on a team?"
Felix pulls a face, before he rearranges it into a rather sickly smile. "Yeah. We go down to Queens, deal with the base and another dose of the virus. I can't believe that, either. I'm a FEd, here I am working hand in hand with a group that's been branded as terrorists."
Her eyes on him are thoughtful, and Liz is quiet. The sickly cast to his smile worries her. "You gonna be okay?" she asks softly.
"I have to be. I…fuck if I know what I'm gonna do after," Fel says, wryly, dropping his gaze to the patterned formica. "I just…..what about you?"
Elisabeth considers and says softly, "After…. you'll go back to work, and you'll pretend that you know nothing. Assuming it all goes well. If it doesn't go well… I guess it'll be a moot point anyway, won't it?" She sounds almost pragmatic about it. "What about me?"
"Same for you, huh?" he says, reaching for her hand across the table. It's an odd gesture - he's never been one to court human touch.
Although she's surprised by the move, Liz slides her hand into his and smiles a bit. "Well… almost the same for me. If my captain continues to look the other way about what I know and how." She shrugs a bit. "I think I've been pretty well outed to him, not in so many words. But we'll see what he does." She squeezes his hand. "I went back to the force to help… It's what I always wanted to do. Guess I'm still doing it, just… not quite the way I thought I would be, eh?"
Felix laughs at that, though it's still a rueful sound. "Yeah. Tell me about it," he says, squeezing her hand. "It's like….welcome to your life in Marvel comics. Mutants versus ordinary humans. I was always a DC man, myself."
Elisabeth snickers a soft giggle at the man in front of her. "You know… I suppose you're not far wrong. I told someone the other day I was sort of like a superhero, though… geez, in the comics, they make it look so darn easy."
"There's no way in hell you're ever getting me in spandex," Felix says. "Hell, I mostly didn't even read superhero comics. I liked fantasy and horror. I've got a lot of old Hellblazers stored away somewhere in FLorida, I think. But you're right."
Elisabeth just facepalms with her free hand. "No, spandex is definitely out," she tells him laughingly. The sheer horror of wearing spandex just… yeah. With a sigh, she looks at him and says, "It'll be okay, Felix. We'll come out of it." She squeezes his hand once more. "Just… have a little faith, kick a lotta ass, and we'll have champagne the day after tomorrow."
 January 27th: Discerning Tastes |
 January 27th: Discreetly |