What's Done Is Done

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delia_icon.gif nick_icon.gif

Scene Title What's Done is Done
Synopsis Nick manages to piece together just why his memory got so spotty after his bout with the flu.
Date September 24, 2011

South Street Seaport, Manhattan


Some days, it seems almost normal.

The city. Their relationship. Their continued existence.

The couple sits at the outdoor tables at South Street Seaport. The sky is almost the same color as the water, a dirty, dingy gray, the Brooklyn Bridge a darker, dirtier shade where it looms in the background. Nick seems to be looking at the view, though Delia will see the lack of focus in his eyes and know his focus is not on his immediate surroundings.

His mind is on either the past or the future, most likely — both as dirty and depressing as the city.

Pigeons peck at crumbs on the ground below, but an intrepid little sparrow flies in amongst them, snatching a fat crumb from a larger bird before taking flight. It draws Nick’s attention back to the present; he glances down at the birds and then back to his plate of mostly untouched food, and finally to Delia.

“I think I figured out why I forgot. When I was sick,” he says, suddenly. It’s a non sequitur — the last topic before his mind drifted was sweet potato fries, good or bad, with Nick weighing in on the nay side.

She’s almost his exact opposite in every way. Things he doesn’t like are things she does, thought she seems to like the things he does as well— Delia does like sweet potato fries also scones with cream and jam. Another large crumb is tossed by her hand, while he’s been silent, she’s been keeping herself occupied. This one goes in the direction of the underdog whose meal was stolen from under its beak. While normally she would watch to see if it wins this prize, she opts to lift her eyes to meet his for a brief moment, her brow ducking into a puzzled frown for a split second in a silent bid to continue.

“Why?” The statement out loud makes her expression almost moot but the combination makes a visual representation of her need to know.

Tugging her sweater a little closer around her body, she wraps her arms around her lean frame. The redhead doesn’t like talking about when Nick was sick, it wasn’t a very good time for either of them. Shivering from the bit of wind more than any chill she feels from the temperature, Delia leans in a little closer, keeping her head down.

He doesn’t like talking much in general about his feelings or his past, but he knows he must if he is going to do right by Delia. If he is going to become a better person.

Reaching for his coffee, he takes a long drink — it’s no longer scalding hot, and serves as a good stalling device. “Since I was sick, I have all these images in my head I couldn’t make sense of. Some from dreams, but some I think from real life.”

Scowling at the memory horrific images of his dreams that hadn’t been lost, Nick looks back to her. The flu seems a distant memory in itself; he’s put on enough weight and he’s gotten enough color back that he no longer seems the ghost he almost was.

“Flashes, I mean. Like quick snapshots but without much context. I think,” he finally gets to the point, “Kaylee was there.”

He fiddles with the lip of his coffee cup lid, his thumbnail splitting a groove in the flimsy plastic. “She’s a telepath, yeah?”

“Yeah..” Delia confirms, her voice a little quiet and sullen. Not because she’s divulging the other woman’s ability, Kaylee makes no secret of it, but the fact she was there when Delia was not. “A pretty strong one from what I can tell— I mean, they’re all pretty strong compared to me but…”

Picking up her fork, she runs the tines through a bit of sauce, the result is a simple drawing of swirls on the side of her plate. “What sorts of images do you have? Maybe you just put her there after seeing her or something? You’ve seen her before, right? Back home?” Her voice is hushed, as though she’s afraid someone will hear, or maybe someone is listening. Spearing a vegetable, she loops it through more sauce and dots around the swirly pattern.

Nick shakes his head. “Why would I do that? I mean… yeah, I’ve seen her, but I don’t think about her one way or another enough to hallucinate her being there.”

He frowns, remembering the dreams and hallucinations he did have — what does that say about them?

His food is not touched other than two bites of the sandwich which only serve to make it look more abandoned. “It just doesn’t make sense. The only things from my life I’d forgotten were about… you know.” He swallows and his hand twitches, a shake of the ash from a phantom cigarette.

“Why would I only forget that? I mean, aside from prob’ly wanting to — there’s a lot of times in my life I’d like to forget that I haven’t done. Trust me on that.”

Like most of his childhood. Like Logan. Like Poland. Like Christmas Eve.

Delia’s silent for a while, head lowered to stare at the food in front of them both. Her salad, his sandwich, both left as mostly scrap for birds. “How many of those other times did you torture yourself for?”

For the short span of time that she’s known him, he’s only ever obsessed about the one thing he seems to have forgotten. She stretches her arm across the small table and places her hand on his forearm, the one wielding the imaginary cigarette. Her forefinger trails up the seam of his sleeve and stops somewhere close to his elbow. Then she looks up into his eyes.

“What do you remember?”

Nick looks down at her hand on his arm, and answers her question with a short shake of his head. He won’t give details. It’s hard enough that anyone knows.

“Enough. Most of it, I think.” If she means of his forgotten memories.

Regarding Kaylee, he shrugs. “I was bad off. It was the worst of it, I think, when she was there.” Delia may be jealous of Kaylee having been able to be near him, but Nick knows that — aside from the safety issues of keeping the Dispensary unknown — he wouldn’t have wanted Delia to see him so near death.

“I think Eileen was there. That she brought her in to see me, maybe. I don’t know.” His hand pushes through his hair, no longer too long, and cut properly for the first time since Delia’s known him. “God, I hope I didn’t … I hope I didn’t say anything to upset Lee when I was sick,” he mutters, closing his eyes at the thought of it. “It’s bad enough she had to help take care of me. I should have gone to the hospital….Fucking stupid git.”

“Yeah, well…” She can’t argue the last bit, at all. “It’s done.” For the most part.

“I just meant what do you remember— Like what stuff didn’t you forget. If it’s everything else then maybe Eileen brought her so…” Delia falls silent and pulls her hand away, pressing it against her other as she folds them both into her lap. Tucking them between her knees, she shrugs her shoulder and looks out toward the bridge. “You needed a reason to live, a reason to fight for it. Maybe she was doing what she could.”

Whether he said something to upset the woman while he was sick seems rather moot to the redhead at the moment. He seemed to upset her enough the day they were all in the theatre. So did she for that matter. “I don’t think she wanted you to die.”

His brow knits and he looks up, looking somehow both ancient and like a hurt little boy at the same time. There’s a flicker of something in his eyes, before it fades and he leans back again in his seat.

“Okay,” he says, nodding once at her words, before smiling that non-happy smile of his. “I’d thank her but I don’t think it’d go over too well. But it means something — if that was it.”

He swallows, before reaching to find one of her hands, wrapping fingers around hers. “Don’t tell her I know. It might be easier for her if she thinks I don’t, I guess.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about me telling her much,” her voice still quiet, Delia lifts her eyes to study his face. Her lips twitch into a slight, wry smile before she drops her gaze and squeezes his fingers. “We don’t really see each other, I don’t have a way to contact her that’s safe except… you know.. and I’ve been trying to stop invading.”

It might have been better for Nick if she’d had her revelation before she’d nested in his mind.

“Are you going to just let it go?” There’s a hopeful quality in the redhead’s tone, almost as if she’s wishing that she’s following his train of thought. “I mean, I’d offer to help you find her but…” Then Delia swallows and looks away, lowering her head again before she clenches her jaw. “She’s a telepath… if she doesn’t want me there, she can keep me locked up.”

Nick’s lips curve in mild amusement. Just let it go. He shrugs. “I’m not going to pursue anything, unless maybe I see Kaylee just to ask what happened. I’m not going to go seek her out, if that’s what you mean. I know where to find her, prob’ly, if I wanted to, though. You don’t have to risk going t’look for her.”

He tips his head at her words. “Locked up? I don’t think she’d do anything like that to you, would she? I mean… we’re all… you know. ‘Friends.’” And by Friends, he means Ferry.

“Some people don’t like the invasion of privacy,” Delia states simply, giving Nick something of a guilty look before glancing back to the water. “And I’m not exactly the safest person to have swimming around in her head right now.”

Lifting her free hand back up to the table, she lifts her fork up and lets it hover over the lettuce for a moment. A crouton is stabbed with a crunch and then she flicks it out at a pigeon to watch it race for the morsel. It’s not much compared to what’s left on her plate but it’s more than what’s on the ground at the moment.

He tips a smile in her direction for her guilty look, and shakes his head. Bygones. “I just don’ want everyone knowing my past,” he says quietly, looking down. “But what’s done is done. If it was for … good intentions, who’m I to judge.”

A glance to the pigeon is followed by one to her plate and his. “Quit feeding the birds and eat your food,” he growls, playfully, and lest he be called a hypocrite, picks up his own sandwich to take a bite.


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