Participants:
| Scene Title | Trusting Each Other |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Very few people do. Abigail sees Susan about what she overheard. |
| Date | July 2, 2010 |
Dilapidated floorboards fill the Garden with a symphony of creaking. For the first time in many weeks, the safehouse is filled to capacity, but only because it's acting as a temporary way station for the Dominguez family, a clan of twelve including two Moab escapees, their wives, parents and children. By this time tomorrow, the upstairs rooms will be vacant again, and the caravan will be well on its way to New Brunswick, where it will rendezvous in Saint John with Canadian operatives assigned to the family's case.
The night before is always the busiest even past sundown with volunteers reviewing the family's paperwork and helping the younger children put their suitcases together while the adults review the story they'll be using to cross the border into Quebec. One of the operatives tasked with scrutinizing the forged passports at the table adjacent to the kitchen is a tall, willowy woman with red hair pinned back at the nape of her neck and a pair of stylish reading glasses she sometimes wears on a silver chain around her ivory throat.
As usual, Susan Ball isn't alone. She's brought some of her entourage to the Garden with her to assist upstairs, but apart from the spread of paperwork illuminated by lamplight, the table is otherwise empty and the chairs open.
Clunk goes a teapot, filled with enough water and tea for 3-4 people, three cups with their handles clutched in Abigail's fingers, she's arrived at the garden not long ago. This was where Susan would be she was told, the woman had some paperwork to go over. So under the guise of delivering some of the supplies that she had acquired and some food for the house to feed it's plentiful population at the moment, the pink haired medic eases down the cups. Cream and sugar come next, some spoons as well.
The super secret ingredient had been added already, two doses of the various pills emptied and crushed up into a fine powder and dumped into the tea pot. She didn't dare put more, she'd never been told what a double dose would do to her, much less anyone else.
"Hey Susan, you have a few minutes to talk? I've been wanting to ask you a few things since Eileen talked me the other day." Jeans, layered tank top and t-shirts, she's offering a timid smile to the glorified secretary. "Tea?"
Outside the Garden, the puttering growl of a dirtbike's approach typically means the week's food run is arriving. There's nothing unusual about the arrival of Colette Nichols to the Garden. The noise of her beat up old dirtbike outside silences with a rattling clunk and the creak of her kickstand being lowered. Gravel crunches underfoot on her approach to the cottage.
The thundering bump of footsteps coming down the stairs from the second floor is the young man who should be attendant doorman and is currently a little lax on his job. Jonas Regan, ruffling his hair dry with a towel, comes barreling down to the foyer, letting the towel slouch around his shoulders as he arrives at the front door. Cracking it open, he checks the young girl on the other side, eyes shifting fromb lue to red and then up to purple before opening the door up. "What happened to you?" Jonas asks with a bit of shock as Colette comes walking in slowly and creakingly.
There's plenty of good reason for her slowness and careful pace, and as Colette comes in front the front yard, she looks like a boiled lobster. Her bare shoulders glow a fire-engine red in contrast against the olive drab of a tanktop, the tops of her ears bright red and peeling and cheeks a flushed crimson to match the bridge of her nose. "I can bend light, but— not— ultra-violet stuff." There's a fond grimace, and the girl who thought photokinesis was an appropriate sunblock has found herself largely mistaken.
Carefully carrying a heavy pair of canvas grocery bags in each hand, Colette arches one brow to Jonas. "It cool if I put these in the kitchen?"
Susan removes the reading glasses from the bridge of her nose, tiredly rubs at her eye with one knuckle, and lets them dangle, a solitary fingerprint visible on one of the lenses when the light hits them just right. She offers the other woman a smile that would probably look more sincere if there weren't bags under her eyes and exhaustion settling into the worn creases around the corners of her mouth. She isn't that much older than Abigail, a few years shy of thirty, but it's not uncommon for the Ferry's work to add decades onto the age of its operatives.
Colette's arrival earns the teen little more than a glance and a squint before Susan's attention is drifting back to Abigail and the cups billowing steam on the table. "Thanks," she says. "I could probably use the caffeine."
A hand with a wedding band glittering on its slim ring finger closes the passport in front of her, its contents either satisfactory or as close as they're going to come without sending them back for adjustments, and there isn't the time for that. "Your timing could be better," she adds, "but I've been wanting to talk to you, too. Hana mentioned you might've overheard me talking to Damon and Clark the other week?"
"These days, everyone can" Two of the cups are filled with careful and graceful lifting and tilting of the sturdy teapot that betray's her southern heritage - as if her voice doesn't - and steam rises from it. Jonas and his thumping earns a wince at the beating that stairs take, listening as he moves to the door and berating someone. 'Well, we have a visito-" It's Colette. Two people who will never really truly get along. Not for lack of trying. "Jonas, there should be some aloe in the boxes I brought, get it for her will you and make sure she slathers it all over herself right now. It's got lidocain in it. It's the uhh, clear bottles with the green liquid." Summer means sun burns. No matter how many times you apply sun screen.
"Hana told you we overheard?" She pushes the cup towards the red head, taking her own and adding sugar to it liberally. Not a point to denying it, she and Delilah were the only two present that day. "No might have. We did. I have to say that… I don't like what I heard"
Abby's voice and the sight of the pink-haired EMT in the kitchen earns a hesitant smile from Colette as she shifts her attention from Jonas to her. At the instructions for the Aloe though, Jonas cracks a smile and offers an askance look over to Colette, fiery red brows lifting up and lips creeping into a smile as he opens his mouth to ask—
"No," Colette flatly interjects before he can even ask with a twitch of one brow, "I can put it on myself fine." And Jonas slouches in defeat.
When Jonas departs to find the bags Abby had brought in with her, Colette's heading into the kitchen, carrying those canvas grocery bags over to the counter by the old refrigerator, setting them down with a clunk of cans and jars from both. Dark brows crease as she tilts her head askance, looking from Susan to Abby, mismatched eyes trying to sort out a lacking context to what she's hearing.
There's a lot of tension in the Ferry right now though, so it could be anything.
The tension within the Ferry is likely to lessen any time soon, with more and more people showing up at the Garden. Hardly any time at all after Colette arrives, a second engine is heard outside, this one plainly larger, gruffer and more powerful than a dirt bike. A large car or a light truck that could clearly use some badly needed maintenance, choking and gagging as it shuts down roughly. And not long after that, the backdoor leading into the kitchen opens and who should step in but Jensen Raith. "Morning folks," he says not-terribly-jovially. He must not be having a good day, or a good week, or a good something or other.
It might be somewhat telling of something being up when, rather than shutting the door behind him, he continues to hold it open while moving aside, as if someone were about to enter behind him. Not a surprise, really: When does Raith ever show up to safe houses alone?
Stepping into the cottage, Eileen is not an unfamiliar presence, if a reasonably wan looking one, these days. She moves with the caution of injury, but her eyes are clear and bright, and her fever seems to have ebbed since when Abigail saw her last, if not completely disappeared. The loose shirt she wears seems to swamp her torso, but light and thin to compensate for the mildness of the evening, a better fitted denim jacket pulled on over and a backpack loosely slung over a shoulder.
One that contains mens clothing that wouldn't fit her even if she wanted it to. But no one needs to know this!
"I don't think you know what you heard," Susan counters Abigail gently, curling her fingers around the nearest cup of tea and lifting it to her lips. Their red stain leaves a smudge on the porcelain rim, which she's looking over when the back door clatters open and Raith's familiar figure fills its frame, and although her eyes begin to narrow, they don't get much further than a fraction of an inch.
Suddenly, Eileen Ruskin is there too and Susan is placing the flat of her hand against the hollow of her throat, the universal gesture for either this tea is too hot or oh my god there's a dead woman standing in the doorway, but what they say about context is true. Abigail didn't bring Kaylee — she has no idea what Susan may or may not be thinking.
Clink goes the cup on the table. Susan's features manage to maintain a mostly neutral expression, mouth smoothed over by a napkin the redhead uses to wipe some excess tea from her top lip. "For what it's worth," she tells Abigail, "Hana didn't like it either, but she understands. I know how things must have sounded."
And here comes the two others who know. Well, know what abigail told them. Raith more so than faux-leen whom Abigail is of the firm belief is her friend the avian telepathist and Jensen. Someone whom, Abigail trusts only because Eileen trusts him. "I know what I did hear susan, which was probably the tail end and half of a conversation. But conversations like that, in places far less or far more clandestine, have wrought and brought to light things benign sometimes, or at othertimes, things that really don't bode well for others."
Abigail brings her own tea cup to her lips looking over to the pair who come in, a glance to to Colette in her lobster skinned splendor. "So enlighten me Susan, and give me a really good reason that I shouldn't at the next meeting, bring this up in front of the whole of the Ferry. Colette, Lord, girl, come over here and I'll rub it in, there's places on you that is red that you are never gonna be able to bend and touch unless that was your gift from the lord"
God, God God, Lord, Lord, Lord, Jesus, Jesus, God, God, God. That is how Colette's impresonation of Abby probably goes when the paramedic isn't around, hands on her hips, elbows flapping like chicken wings and southern drawl over-accented. Maybe a few Praise's tossed in for good measure. However, here, all Colette can do is offer a crooked smile and a furrow of her brows as she pulls a tall metal tin out of one of the canvas bags. Popping the lid off, she takes out a long stick of chocolate wrapped in a cocoa-flavower wafer from inside, tucking it between her lips like a cigar before closing the lid again.
Wordlessly, Colette makes her way back towards the table in the kitchen, eyeing Susan and then Abby, then Jonas when the redhead finally comes back with the bottle of aloe. Handed off to Colette, Jonas finds himself preoccupied with a young woman he thinks he has a lot better chances with, and hillariously — to probably just Raith — Jonas sidles up towards Eileen, all lanky limbs and smiles.
"Uh— miss Ruskin, hey…" At least Jonas is keeping his voice down for the conversation happening. "Hey you um, that's— a nice jacket. You need anything? Um, while you're here? Coffee, tea?" Red brows arch upwards on a pale forehead as Jonas leans towards Eileen, smiling awkwardly.
Pulling out a chair with a scuttling noise, Colette interjects herself into Susan and Abby's conversation by way of sharing the same table space, wordlessly holding out the bottle of aloe to Abby with a thankful, if wordless, smile.
The nervous kid, Raith will allow Eileen to deal with. After all, kid's not talking to him. The conversation between Abigail and Susan, however, he has more of a stake in. Probably at least. "I don't mean to interrupt this apparently friendly game of 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' you've got going here," he says as he steps over to the table, "But I hear we're moving people out tonight. You need a hand with any of that? We've finished what we intended to today, or at least I did, I don't speak for anyone else. Or-" A brief, flip-floppy gesture with his hand- "Is everything already the shape of Peter's head?" What.
There is a glimmer of unrecognition in Eileen's eyes as Jonas comes up to her, a glance shot towards Raith who has occupied himself with :v :V :v at the people crowding the table. Abigail gets a brief once over, Susan a more avid stare, but Jonas is here and offering here things like— "Tea," she responds, if only to get the young man to back up a little, her hands clutching the hems of her jacket, posture straight and demeanor reserved. "And you can call me Eileen."
An eyebrow goes up at Raith's later statement, but she doesn't feel moved to tag on her own sentiment to the end of it, only looking back towards Susan with the direct stare of an unassuming housecat who doesn't know quite how offputting it is.
"If we're going to serve on the council together, and I hope that we will, it's important that we're able to work together and— trust one another's judgment." Susan is choosing her words very carefully, mindful to enunciate, and although this manner of speaking can sometimes come off as condescending, the only child in the room is the one making eyes at Eileen, and she isn't addressing him. Quiet deference warms her tone all the way through, and Abigail can rest easy knowing that her ability has nothing to do with it.
"Can you imagine how poorly something like that would reflect on all of us?" she asks. "You don't have to agree with me. All I want is for you to have a little faith."
Because if anyone knows anything about faith, it's Abigail Beauchamp. If Susan's reluctance to go any deeper into the subject doesn't have something to do with Colette's presence at the table, then Raith and Eileen are almost certainly responsible. She directs the former's attention to the passports and paperwork on the table. "Forgery's not my area of expertise," she admits somewhat ruefully. "I've done what I can, but the work deserves a second opinion, and your eyes are better than mine."
And speaking of eyes, Susan lifts hers to Eileen's face. "You're looking much better."
"It's been brought to my attention that I have been nominated. The rest of the Ferry will need to agree. I leave it in their hands but have already told Eileen my thoughts on the subject." Raith's interjecting, inquiring about how things are going for the smuggling. "Here's to hoping that it goes far better than it did in Manitoba. Is there fall backs and safeguards in place in case something like that happens again?" No going back just yet to the topic of what was heard and what was not, just yet. Flip, goes the top of the bottle, that interesting sound that happens when you squirt liquids from a bottle into your palm and it's put down on the table so that the medic can maneuver t-shirt cloth and straps around and start to carefully apply the clear greenish lotion.
"I can look over the drivers licenses and the likes, if you have them. I got taught what to look for in the bar, we're pretty good at spotting fakes, even sometimes the good ones"
The big mature person that she is, Colette giggles like a toddler when the bottle of aloe makes a farting sound. It's okay, Raith probably wanted to as well, deep down inside. There's a hiss of breath when the cool aloe hits bright red sunburnt skin, eyes wrenching shut and teeth clenching as Colette's posture stiffens. Her brows furrow together, eyes open in time to see Jonas flashing Eileen a broad smile as he walks backwards away from the brunette.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say— um— Eileen!" Somewhere in the back of Jonas' mind, he finds her request to be addressed by her first name a win. Hasty to appease Eileen's requests, Jonas just goes for the already steaming tea kettle on the stove, rooting thorugh the cabinets for a mug. "You do the whole milk and sugar thing in your tea right?" Jonas offers a crimson-eyed look over his shoulder to Eileen. "'Cause you're British, right? Yeah— I totally know how that is."
Nobody here seems to be aware of the tense interrogation going down right in plain sight.
That's quite possibly the best thing about all of this.
It will probably be obvious in the minds of both Susan and Abigail, and maybe even Colette should she care to listen, exactly what the correlation between Jonas's statement about milk and sugar and Raith's head suddenly drooping towards the table top. But only for a moment, and then he jerks himself upright again and snatches up one of the passports for a closer look. Truth be told, forgery's not his strong suit either, but he's seen enough fakes and real deals to know when something is going to pass or not. If he's involved in an interrogation of any sort, he certainly isn't acting like it. "This one's pretty good," he says, before dropping it back on the table and picking up another. Just a small sample size should tell if the whole batch will pass or not.
She— he— can't help it. Pale eyes roll in Eileen's elegantly symmetrical skull when Jonas turns away from her again, mouth pulling in the beginnings of a scowl before it smooths out again, and she tries to roll a degree of tension from narrow shoulders and the fold of arms across her chest. "Thank you," she tells Susan. "I feel much better." Tell your friends. Next, it's Colette that gets some scrutiny — almost fond, which is probably an expression that is as alien on this mask of features as it is the features they mask. It's banished a second later with a glance floorwards.
Ghosting up to where Raith is by the table, her hands spidering over the back of a chair, fingers hooked and resembling a bit like a perched bird. Her hair could use a better brush through and for the second time in a row, she's foregone touches of makeup.
She isn't about to get off that easily.
"I'm glad to hear it," Susan continues. "After that last meeting, there were some rumours going around that you'd come down with the H5N10, but that's something you'd have told us, isn't it?" Tracing the edge of her thumbnail along the rim of her mug, she leans back in her seat. Either an accusation or a rhetorical question, she doesn't give Eileen much of an opportunity to answer before she's languidly drinking again, then pausing to murmur against the porcelain as another thought seems to suddenly occur to her.
"Where were you last Saturday? I left you a message after your meeting with Catherine and Carmichael, but apparently you've been too busy to return my calls."
Abigail's question about the network's preparedness is set aside, if only for a moment.
"Eileen's been busy period." Abigail points out. fingers ever so gentle as possible in the administration of the aloe, a murmured apology to Colette at the pain that it invokes regardless. "She's working hard to ensure that the new system is put into place Susan, you know that. We all know that. Stress can take a toll on someone. If she came down with it, she wouldn't be the first in the system to do so, and the vaccines that we do have are barely enough to stretch. She's getting better is the point of it, and I'm glad. While Raith is here and so is Eileen, how about you enlighten us as to the other part of the conversation that Delilah and I didn't hear so we know to what context we should take what we did hear" Not a question for clarification, but a demand couched nicely. "Since we're supposed to trust each other, especally if we're to sit on the council together"
"I left you a message too, actually…" Colette chimes in after a moment, but much less accusatory than Susan's tone of voice, more worried for Eileen's health. Though at the moment, at least, she seems considerably better, not even walking with a cane now. "I um, I've gotten two members of the network doing some info gathering on the visions we all had. I— I think, like, there's a lot of stuff we could be using to figure things out, if they're really visions of the future. Tamara seems t'think so, uh, I— think."
A look is offered askance to Raith, brows furrowed as she watches him scrutinize the documents, then back up to Eileen. "I dunno how long it's going to take, but they're going around questioning everyone in the network about what they saw and collecting it in video and written testimonies. So, like… I dunno…"
Hunching her shoulders forward at the cool touch of aloe-laden hands and also Abigail's snippy tone she's taking to Susan. Colette grows silent, feeling it probably best to rather than get in between pinky and red as they battle it out verbally.
A clinking spoon stirring around in the teacup comes with a broad smile from Jonas, setting down the small carafe of milk before picking up the saucer and cup and bringing it over to Eileen. "Here you go, um, Eileen. There anything else I can do for y— "
"Jonas," Okay, so Colette can't stay quiet for too long. "Go unpack the food?" is said with a very duh tone that teenage girls have precise mastery of. Jonas shrinks back after handing over the saucer and cup, grimacing as he turns to look at the grocery bags, then slinks across the room to do what needs be done.
Poor kid. But what can Raith do? "Hey now, we're all friends here, don't forget," he says, even though he knows as well as anybody that, no, in fact, they are not all friends here. But despite that, and despite the fact that Susan Ball likely knows what Jensen Raith's opinion of her is, he nevertheless has something to share with her. "A-plus job on these passports. They might not pass an expert inspection, can't say for sure, but unless they get picked up for breaking the law, these ought to serve them just fine." Anything beyond that, he leaves for Eileen. After all, he already knows why she wasn't returning any calls last Saturday, and there's no need for him to defend her from anyone.
Taking the tea with the tolerance of someone who doesn't, Eileen only sets the saucer and cup down upon the table before choosily splashing a helping of milk into the bitterly steeped liquid, condensation of steam gathering on her palm as she clasps the cup with fingertips around the rim. "I'm here now, Susan," she points out, sending a glance at the woman through her lashes. "As Abby says, you're right. I have." Been too busy. Sorry is implied, if insincerely, with a minor shrug of her shoulders before she brings the tea up to sip from.
Looking towards Colette, now, allowing Abby freedom to corner Susan as she desires, she lifts an eyebrow at the younger woman. "I can review what you've collected whenever you want. The council, when it's formed, will want to know anything related to the network." Or something? She manages not to slide a glance towards Raith.
"I uncovered a threat to our network and had it eliminated." Susan's voice has taken on a harder edge, and if it weren't for the chemicals in her drink, Abigail might have reason for concern. As open as she is about her ability with those who ask, no one in the Ferry has ever heard her use it on someone, but it also isn't difficult to imagine her hissing commands in the tone she's using now. "Hana agreed with the call. If you want all the gory details so you can ask for God's forgiveness on my behalf, please, feel free to ask Damon and Clark when they get back from their supply run. But, darling, a word of advice—
"Don't try slipping anything into their drinks. Damon isn't nearly as forgiving as I am." She sets the mug down again and rises to stand, chair legs squeaking across hardwood. "You should set up a bulletin board," she suggests to Colette as she pulls on the jacket that had been draped over the back of her seat. "Down at Grand Central Terminal with Milburns' permission. Ask people to write what they saw and pin it up for other people to read, coordinate, collaborate. Make it accessible to everyone and you'll have an easier time."
Jensen doesn't get even a curt thank you. He knows what she thinks of him, too. As she slides the jacket's zipper along its metal teeth, her other hand dips into her pocket and she darts an irritated glance in the Englishwoman who is not really an Englishwoman's direction. "Lend me a cigarette? I left mine in my other coat."
Abigail is not a spy. Not a super secret spy, and never will be. She's a bad spy.
If it wasn't for the horrified look on her face that susan just told her that she had someone killed to protect the network, outright, followed soon by a bitchy comment back gory details, Abby's lips thin and press together. "Like I want to go near them after the look they gave me Susan, no thank you, and I don't need to inquire of God's forgiveness on your behalf. It doesn't work that way"
No comment about what might be in the tea, but she's sure lookign a mite built guilty as she lifts the cup and deliberately chugs the rest of her milked down tea as if to prove a point. That she's not afraid of what might be in it, then returns to dosing up the red bits of crispy Colette carcass.
Wait what?
Colette looks up and over to Susan, half processing the pretty good idea she had, and half staring in blank confusion at the suggestion of having something in her drink. Colette looks back at Abby, brows screwed up and eyes wide, but after a moment tries passing it off as something else. The teen grimaces, feeling those cold hands on her shoulder again massaging the aloe in to sore skin.
"There's some cigarettes in the groceries," Colette explains with a motion towards the bags, "Jonas, toss Susan a pack? Else won't miss it." Looking up from the groceries, Jonas gives a wide-eyed stare at Colette for a moment, then reaches down and pulls out a pack of all-natural American Spirit brand cigarettes, offering them up with a wave of the pack towards Susan, hesitating on just pitching them over until she's ready to catch.
Raith rolls his eyes and heaves a light sigh. This time, his reaction comes after Susan's announcement that there was something in her tea. the ex-spy very briefly fixes Abby with a look that says, 'Now, you know you aren't supposed to do that.' "Anything else before we start moving our charges out?" he asks, "Passports look good, and I assume the licenses do too. Way out clear, enough logistical support, that kind of stuff?" Although Susan is apparently about to light up, Raith elects not to. Because he doesn't smoke with his not!buddies. Or something? Even if certain things about him have become more predictable as of late, the mystery is still nowhere close to being solved. Only when Jensen Raith is involved does 2 + 2 = CHICKEN.
Thunk, goes the tea cup heavily from Eileen's hand down onto the table, mouth gone tight and eyes narrow even as she watches Abby down the rest of her's. Unconvinced! It might take several moments to understand what was in it, but an inevitable revelation is due soon. Pulling out her cigarette pack from a pocket, she thumbs it open and drags one of the cylinders out with her teeth — but doesn't offer it, as Colette seems to have done so. Still, it's for show, when she goes ahead and lights up.
"I'm going to talk to the Dominguez's," she murmurs around her cigarette, lit end bobbing and weaving with each syllable. "Make sure they're ready to go. I'll see you out by the car." This presumably to Raith, and Eileen turns a shoulder and moves deeper into the cottage without much more than a glance backwards in Susan and Abby's directions.
Susan catches the package of cigarettes when they're tossed to her, and like Eileen, selects one from the tightly packed rows, but rather than stick it in the corner of her mouth and light up, she opts to wait until she's outside to go fishing for a lighter. "Tell Else I'll pay her back."
She watches Eileen go, an unreadable expression on her handsome face, both thin red brows arched as she purses her lips, adjusts the collar and sleeves of her jacket, and turns to make for the back door. "They'll need some help loading up the truck around four," she says on her way out. "Have a good night."
So it's quiet, awkwardly so, by the time the front screen door of the Garden comes slapping closed and the only sound in the kitchen is the chirp of crickets in the back field. Reaching up to scrub at the back of one ear after Abby slides the aloe over it. Everything is awkward, tense, quiet and somewhat frustrating. There's a look afforded to the tea kettle, up to Jonas who'se just sort've staring at the grocery bag and pretending he's not involved.
Then, finally, Colette comes up with a super-mature way to break the silence.
"What the fuck was all that about?"
Super-mature.
Susan rises, speaks her last bit, and then exits. And even in the wake of Colette's question, Raith has nothing to say when the chance arises, not immediately. He once more fixes Abby with a look, this one much more serious than the last one. "Really, Abby?" he asks, "Really? I hope you're happy. You just ended up on Santa Christ's naughty list."
"You will not say that" Santa Christ. "Jensen Raith. Santa claus and I don't care what you think about me with regards to what I just did. You're opinion of me has no meaning the day I found out you took money to kill me and I know exactly now, who likely killed Tanya." There's a glance to the tea, wrinkle of her nose. "It was negation drugs in the tea, that's all. Eileen will be fine and she can come yell at me later. It's not like got a full dose, I only put two doses in the tea, it wears off around 24 hours, give or take a fe-" well she's going to shut up. lest people in the room start to inquire why she of all people has the drugs on hand.
Abigail closes the top of the bottle with a snap and pushes it towards Colette. "Have someone put it on again when you start feeling your skin. Rub in normal lotion too, or you're going to peel like a banana. I can't stay, I have to get back to the baby." She pushes herself away from the table, taking the teapot and Eileen's cup with her, pouring both down the sink before returning for Susan's and her own. "People killing people. Too much of it happening these days with the Ferry and I don't like it" She grabs a towel, all the more to dry her hands and do something with her hands.
Here's a list of fucked up things Colette just heard: Raith's a hired killer, Abby has negation drugs on hand, she used them to drug Susan, and apparently Abby has a baby.
Abby was talking ot Colette, she probably had some important instructions too, but Colette didn't really hear them. She's just staring, gaping at Abby's figure where she's drying her hands, then over to Raith with brows creasing together and mouth still open.
Jonas, to his credit, walked out of the room about halfway through that tirade. There's some things he is far more comfortable not knowing.
Colette looks at Raith, and Raith looks right back at her. And then, without warning, he raises his hand up and jabs a finger into her nose, even if he includes no 'beep!' sound effect. "Omae wa mo shindeiru." Hired killer indeed.
A roll of her eyes, long perfected on Teodoro, Alexander, Cardinal and Peter in the ambulance, Abigail snatches up her purse, keys, and stalks towards the door. She's got am SUV out there, parked nearby and who knows how it will fare in this part of town. It's shiney, new, likely by now, missing at least one hubcap.
Cross-eyed, staring at Raith, Colette looks a bit surprised by the finger pressed to her nose. There's a tense swallow and a crooked smile, one dark brow twitching slightly as she bubbles up with honest, but nervous laughter. There's an assessing look at Raith, teeth toy with Colette's lower lip and somehow— well— maybe she can believe that Raith would do something like that, but part of her just can't possible imagine him that way, especially after seeing him with Liette.
Colette may not be the best judge of character in the world, or, possibly, she's a great judge of character.
The people she's judging just haven't realized how good they are yet.