Participants:
| Scene Title | Time and Tide |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | For all the ones who hurt the most. |
| Date | February 6, 2020 |
Novelle Vue, Bay Ridge
The tour has been given and company has made their way home for the evening. It’s just the captain of the Novelle Vue and his newest crewmate on deck long after sunset, sharing a bottle of red wine in companionable silence. The woman with ginger curls stares out at the water, reflective as the gently rolling surface that makes the light from the pier glitter.
She turns to him after she’s filling her third glass. “This is a terrible mess you’re in because of me,” she tells him. Whether or not it’s her fault that he was brought in is irrelevant. It’s Odessa who’s representative of this little fiasco. Surely without her (or at least without her inability to get along with Mohinder Suresh), he would have a far less eventful weekend ahead of him.
Silas leans against the railing, staring out at the water with a glass of wine in one hand. It's rare he drinks wine these days, but… there's something to be said for it, on occasion. On the right occasion, at least — a nice night, good wine, and, of course, good company.
He lets out a quiet snicker under his breath at that. Knife fighting at noon, wine at seven. What a life his has become… and how glad he is to have it. What a wonderful world.
Speaking of good company, though… Des's comment draws a questioning look her way. He frowns, trying to figure out what she means. "Hm? What makes you say that?"
“Well, you’ve had me kind of… dropped into your lap. I imagine things would be much quieter for you if…” Odessa shakes her head and offers a faint smile in lieu of the completion to that thought.
That she continues to look apologetic may not be terribly unexpected. What she’s apologetic about may. “I need to ask you a favor. And it’s… kind of a big ask.”
Silas raises an eyebrow at that, wondering exactly what sort of favor this might be… but he only mulls it over for a moment. "Hit me," he says, taking another drink of wine.
“I need an escort out of town.” Before he can possibly start to argue that point, Odessa lifts her hand from where it was curled around the railing and splays the last three fingers on the opposite, holding her wine with thumb and fore. “I’m going to come back. I just need to get past the checkpoint so I can safely meet with Richard.”
Safely for him more so than for her own benefit.
Silas's first impulse is to say sure, that's no problem! Except… Des is most definitely not dumb, and he doesn't think she's one to make a mountain out of a molehill, either. So he quashes that first impulse and gives it some thought.
"So long as there's not a lot of cameras or computerized gizmos — face recognition, cybernetic laser voodoo, stuff like that — that shouldn't be a problem," Silas says slowly. "I can prevent anyone from recognizing you, no problem, so long as we're not in line for too long." He looks over at Odessa and gives a rueful smile. "I've got a trick, but it's only good for so long."
His gaze turns back to the sea for a moment, watching the ocean roll. "Any particular destination?" Another pause. "If it's very far, we're gonna need a vehicle."
“I was thinking of suggesting we meet in Manhattan.” The exclusion zone. “I know where there’s a gap in the wall. I just have to be able to get that far without being spotted.” Odessa frowns thoughtfully. “That used to be the easy part. Now, not so much. If he wants to meet outside of town, that’s where it’ll get tricky.”
As to the vehicle, she tips her head to one side, shrugging her shoulders slowly. “I mean, I was just planning to have you drop me off somewhere and I’d just go hotwire a car.” Not as easy to grab someone’s keys from them anymore. At least she picked up that particular skill in the war. And it’s much easier to do where the vehicles are older. Not the sleek and secure things that Yamagato’s been putting out lately.
Silas tilts his head at that, an acknowledgement of a point well made. True, on site procurement isn't going to be a problem outside the Safe Zone. "Probably easier to do outside the Safe Zone, too. Good old fashioned ignition systems; don't have to worry about microchips or fingerprint recognition or any of that stuff just to start a car," Silas snorts.
It only occurs to him a little after the fact to be surprised that Des knows how to hotwire a car. "Gotta say, though. I'm impressed. You've got a pretty broad skillset," he says, grinning.
“I’m a survivor.” Odessa offers a little toast to that with a lift of her glass in his direction, then taking a long sip. “Ideally having a car arranged already would be best, but… I can improvise.”
Her brow furrows, looking a little more serious and a little less playful about her impressive resume now. “You’re sure you’re okay doing this? If we get caught, you could get in a lot of trouble. Although, if anyone has plausible deniability for knowing exactly who I am…”
Silas raises his glass as she raises hers. "To being a survivor," he says, and there's a certain solemnity behind the good humor in his voice as he makes that toast.
He savors the wine and the light on the sea for a moment; as she points out potential ramifications, though, he shrugs. "This has gotta be done, doesn't it? And I like to think that I'll be able to help your chances. No brainer."
"'Sides. Richard's a friend of mine, too." He pauses, looking more serious. "You were able to get ahold of him?"
“I’m going to call him in the morning,” Odessa says on the topic of Richard. “He’s liable to come get me if I call him tonight. I expect he’ll have a clearer head in the light of day.” Not that she wouldn’t be immensely gratified by it if Richard would drop everything to come for her. She smiles faintly at the notion for a brief moment before she dismisses it.
With those arrangements essentially settled on, agreed to, she wraps her fingers around the railing. The corner of her mouth ticks upward. “You must have questions about me. I want you to be able to trust me, so… Whatever you ask me, I’ll answer truthfully.”
AMA.
Silas raises an eyebrow. That is an offer of uncommon rarity… but it's true, he definitely does have questions. "Alright," he murmurs, nodding to Des as he takes a sip of his wine. He thinks on it for a moment. "You and Destiny. What exactly is the connection there?" he says, regarding her with a curious expression.
It has to start somewhere, so it starts there.
“I am to Destiny as Redd is to you,” Odessa offers succinctly. “We’re the same person, but… from vastly divergent paths. Until the Crossing, she and I had the same power of temporal manipulation.” There’s a sad smile at that admission that shows just how deeply it bothers her to not have that ability anymore. To have essentially had a part of herself severed.
She’s aware that alone isn’t enough explanation. Silas and Redd are identical men. Destiny looks like she’s Odessa’s little sister. “We were raised very differently. Destiny had her parents. She was raised in a loving home. My parents were killed at my birth.” There’s sadness in that, too, but it’s a wound that’s had more time to heal. Even if the recent loss of her mother was picking at the scab, the proverbial skin beneath is only faintly blemished. A new scar.
“This matters,” the woman goes on to clarify, “because our abilities were handled very differently when they manifested. Destiny was left to her own devices. She never learned to use her power the way I did.”
Odessa’s head cants to one side. “I…?” There’s an unkind smile as she takes another sip of her wine, leaving another fading berry pink lipstick stain on the glass with so many others. “I was honed like the edge of a surgical instrument. Time would pull her aside and graciously stop exerting its influence on her. But I made time bend to my will.”
A breathy chuckle escapes the lips of the former temporomancer as she reasons, “While Destiny is physically half her age, I am probably slightly older than my thirty-five years after all this time.” The amusement drains from her eyes in spite of the firmness of her smile. “Destiny Ruiz was raised in an environment where love mattered above all else. I was brought up to know I was only as good as the power I could represent.”
There’s a moment of pause as she decides how to wrap up her explanation of how she and her counterpart are the same, yet different.
“My role is to serve,” Odessa settles on. “And nobody ever gave two shits who I am beyond that.”
Yikes.
Just. Yikes.
Any story that starts off with putting yourself on Redd's side of a comparison is surely not going to be a happy one, and Odessa's story (unfortunately) lives up to his expectations.
"You and Destiny… the same thing, reflected in different mirrors…" he murmurs pensively, staring off into the night. And what a difference the mirror had made. He supposes it really is like him and Redd, then.
It's not until she makes her comment about appearing older than her years that Silas comes back to the here and now; he looks at her and snorts. "Not a day over thirty-six. At most," he says, with an incorrigible grin.
Her comment about that being her role draws a pensive frown to his lips, though. He could offer some bit of Encouraging Advice about actresses being able to change roles between shows… but he doesn't. For as witty as that little line had been, there's far too much pain behind it to trivialize it so… so instead, Silas merely studies her in silence for a moment, framed against the lights of the Safe Zone skyline and the sounding sea.
Then he turns, moving over to grab the bottle of wine where it sits, comfortably nestled amidst a pile of ropes. "Next question. It's an easy one, I promise," he grins. "More wine?"
The corners of Odessa’s eyes crinkle with mirth. No crows feet have formed there otherwise. Not a day over thirty-six indeed. Draining the last swallow of what’s in her glass, she holds it out for a refill with a broad grin. “Yes, please.”
With that good humor still, she informs him, “I like you.”
Which is probably good, given that he’s inferred that she is a fucking psychopath. “Anything else you’d like to know?”
Silas laughs as he fills Odessa's glass; it brightens his own mood to see her in high spirits.
"Oh, I could stay up asking questions all night, most likely," he says, topping off his own with a wry grin. "But I've never been a fan of Jeopardy or Twenty Questions, so I'll try not to badger you too much." He carefully returns the bottle to its nest, then steps back to the railing, his expression growing more serious. "I do have a couple more, though. You said that you two had the same power, up until… the Crossing." His own voice hitches a bit at that; it wouldn't be an understatement to say that the Crossing had been the most momentous event in his entire life. "Did something happen then? And… is that how you have her memories?"
The light in her eyes gutters momentarily, like a candle caught by a strong breeze, but she recovers quickly. It isn’t that he addressed the elephant in the room, she had expected and even welcomed the $64,000 Dollar Question regarding her ability. It was the mention of a different game show that caught her off-guard.
“Before the Crossing,” she begins, because it has to begin somewhere, “I had… dreams. Then visions. Because of my ability, the way it threaded through time, I suppose, I was connected to my other selves. I could see through their eyes. But for me, it was all out of order. I saw my death in Kain’s world well before I saw the moments that lead up to it.” How bittersweet it had been to stand in her other’s shoes and tell her brother she’d be back soon, years ago, and knowing now that she wouldn’t.
It’s all very convoluted, and the fact that she knew to mention Kain Zarek says a lot about exactly how much she knows about the other timelines and her other selves.
“Every other version of me is gone now, except for Destiny. At least… I hope she made it out okay. I helped my Mateo and Lynette to open the portal that brought you here. The magnitude of it… El Umbral stripped the power from my bones.” It had killed her. She knows this. But her mother had been there to rewrite history. To save her.
“I lost my connection to her after that. Maybe it took it from Destiny as well. I don’t see through time anymore. It no longer answers to me.” Odessa closes her eyes and focuses on something long since lost to her, like a phantom pain. “It whispered power to me, Silas. My whole life. Always whispering. Always. It had so much to whisper.”
The corner of her mouth curves up, sharp as a knife, a prelude to the reopening of eyes as tumultuous as the sea of the Empire State. “Now, it’s quiet. Not even a tinnitus ring after all the years of constant noise.”
A silence falls as Odessa finishes speaking, broken only by the waves and the wind. Then Silas raises his glass. "To those not here — may they sail on seas brighter still, and find greener shores. To that which was lost — may time and tide ease that pain, and bring bright tidings in its stead," he intones, with a solemnity, a gravity he rarely shows. The words are sincere, almost painfully so.
He drinks deep, then lowers his glass, looking out to the seas for a moment longer… then, at last, he turns back to Des. "I appreciate you offering that, Des," he says gently, a small smile on his lips. "I'll ask you no more questions tonight… but. Fair is fair," he says, looking serious. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me?"
The profound sincerity of sorrow for her loss clearly surprises her. Then again, after what she had said before about people not caring about her beyond what she could do for them, maybe that isn’t an unexpected reaction to him. Wordlessly, she lifts her glass and finds herself finally properly mourning the loss of her other selves. The ones who had perhaps suffered less misfortune than she had, but had lacked in the greatest fortune in her possession.
The good fortune of survival.
The deep draw from her glass allows her a moment to grieve while hiding her face for a time, however brief it is in the grand scheme of things. She’s a little bit drunk at this point, and that maybe shows in the quiet cluck of her tongue as she lowers the glass and the sharp inhale she indulges after practically drowning herself in claret.
Reaching up, she brushes the pads of her fingers over her lidded eyes, uncaring now for the way it smudges shadow, smears liner and mascara. She can allow herself the vulnerability, she decides. And open herself up just a little bit more. A beat of silence passes between them, the length of time required to take a steadying breath. “Just one.” Utterly guileless when her gaze meets his again, she asks after a moment of hesitation. “Would you — Hold me? Just for a little while?”
Silas's eyes widen in momentary surprise; that is not a question he'd been anticipating. But there's only one answer.
"Yes," he says quietly, opening his arms.
Setting her glass aside, Odessa passes through the distance between them and lets herself be wrapped in arms that are far warmer than the chill in the air. The side of her face rests against his chest. She closes her eyes.
For a brief time, she feels safe.