While Shepards Watch

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abby_icon.gif dantes_icon.gif

Scene Title While Shepherds Watch
Synopsis Dantes and Abby meet up in the cathedral while she waits for Teo
Date December 24, 2008

Cathedral Of St. John The Divine


Abby waits, patiently for Teo to be released from the basement by a one eyed whelp of Abby's dislike. She sits beside a box of stuff, one shoes, her jacket, a backpack, taking up a good chunk of the pew. Her hairs gone back ot blonde and cascades as it alwasy does in waves down her back, loose, waiting to be caught up ina bun for work or braid for sleep. She's not paying attention to the people who come and go, eyes only for the stained glass windows of the cathedral, the rose window.

This wasn't the church he attended when he was 'alive', as it were. so it should be safe enough. Dantes appears, soberly dressed in a dark suit and coat, as if it weren't a celebratory mass he's waiting for. He's a bit early, so he ducks into one of the smaller chapels, the one dedicated to the Virgin, to genuflect and light a candle, re-emerging after a little to look for a place in the pews. Abby doesn't go unnoticed, but he remembers himself before he betrays himself by greeting her.

There's people everywhere. Some lingering over the mass that passed over half an hour before, and some who prepare for the next one. There's space in front of the blonde, and beside her. One of the things in the box teeter as she shifts, the creak in the bench enough to send the item falling out and into the aisle of the main sanctuary. Take the blonde a few moments to realize that it's fallen out of the bac.

Ed scoops to pick it up, and hands it back to her, wordlessly. The dark eyes are opaque, and his expression neutral at best. Not precisely filled with Christmas cheer. If anything, Dantes looks grim.

'Thank you Sir" Abby's hand lifts to take the item from him. Tuck it back into the box someplace safe where it won't fall out. "Please, take a seat. Room enough for everyone" She gestures to the empty spot on the other side of the box, moving Teo's stuff to her other side to ensure there's room. "God bless" The grim look noted and tucked away.

"And you as well," he says, quietly, taking a seat, and bowing his head. Perhaps in prayer, perhaps out of mere weariness. He doesn't look homeless - he lacks that air of scruffiness and deprivation, but there's something there nonetheless.

Abby falls silent once he take a seat. Her hand resting on the box and taking her gaze back to the rose window. Silent for many minutes, inward contemplation of the acts she's going to do in a few days. SHe breaks it though, looking over to Dantes. 'Service starts again in twenty minutes"
Dantes slants one of those unreadable looks at her. "Yes," he says, politely. "The true midnight mass." The box gets a look, and her again. Were it anyone else, he'd be very worried about what was in it. But it's Abby, and she heals, rather than harms.

It's filled with things from the apartment. clothes, presumably some Christmas presents, necessities for Al and Teo. Defiantly none of it feminine. Christmas at the Library means the mountain goes to Mohammad, not Mohammad to the mountain. "No, that's at midnight. Theyare having two more services between then and now" It's late afternoon after all. She offers her hand to Dantes. "Abigail"

Dantes blinks, and looks a bit sheepish. "Oh, yes," he says, with a faintly confused air, like someone who's just come out of a long sleep. He take her hand in his own gloved one, and shakes it firmly. "Edward."

"Pleasure to meet you Edward. Come here often?" Because one can only stare so long at the rose window, and the other windows. Her hand closes around his in a firm grasp, shooken three times before she lets go.

"No," he says, quietly. "New to town, though I've visited before. Do you? Are you a parishioner here?"

"Baptist. Not Catholic, but, it was close and occasionally I come her. God won't strike me down for not going to another denominations church. But it's a good place. If you like big airy cathedrals. It serves it's purpose and the parishioners are nice" She diverts her gaze from Edward to the rest of the church. "god is here, and that's good enough"

Dantes notes, mildly, "God is everywhere, if he's anywhere. Humans just like huddling together and talking about and to Him, and they like having a nice building to do it in when they do."

"Maybe it's not so much that they want to talk about him or to him, one can do that anywhere, but they want to surround themselves with like minded people, or to have a focus? Something physical to connect themselves, to him" Abby counters with a soft smile.

"That's what I said," he agrees, eyes widening a little, in an expression that might be innocent, were the structure of his face less harsh.
'you did, I apologize. Sorry. It's been a long few days" Abby tears her gaze away from Dantes, back to the front of the church. "Waiting for a friend to come fethc his shoe and stop helping so I can go"

Dantes murmurs, "No need to apologize. It's a wearing season, despite the festivities." He settles down in the pew, for all the world as if he intended to take a nap. Perhaps he -is- homeless.

Back her attention goes, when he settles in. There are well dressed homeless men, it's Christmas, people give gifts. She's given fresh clean new clothes before to them as well. "No home?" It's asked softly, she's not trying to give a blow to his pride if he doesn't.

Dantes cracks an eye at her, in a rather feline gesture, like a cat settling by the hearth. "Not at the moment. I have a place to stay," he hastens to assure her. "Just no permanent home."

Abby nods her head. "No family?" Still quiet, still posed in a tone so as not to offend him.

"No, no family," His tone remains matter of fact about it. "You?"

"Far south. Couldn't afford to visit them. SO i'm here, celebrating with roommates" Abby answers. "Not quite the same, but they're just as good. I'll enjoy it none the less. Planning on cooking dinner for them" She smiles idly at that thought.

Dantes says, gently, "That sounds pleasant."

"Should be. I plan it to be. Even int eh darkest of times, one has to take pleasures in things where you can find them yes?" The smile never leaves her. "So if you have a place to stay, why are you hunkering down like your going to sleep?"

"Because honestly, I'm tempted," he says, cocking an amused look at her. "I don't snore, or drool. It should be okay."

'probably quieter than where your staying?" She delves into a backpack, a huge genderless sweater plucked from it and rolled up into some semblance of a log pillow. "Here. Use it for a pillow Edward. I'll watch over you, until my friend comes to fetch his stuff, then, maybe i'll hang around a bit more until you wake up?"

Dantes waves it off. "I'm fine, but you're very kind," There's no worry, because he has nothing to steal. A little cash, a few fake IDs. No gun, at the moment, because no badge of any kind.

"You sure? I won't steal anything. That's… that's just the worst thing you could do here" But he's waving her off so Abby nods. Time to fall silent, let him pray or whatever it is that he's come here for, even if it's just to fall asleep in the pew for some quiet sleep

"People have done worse in churches," he comments, sourly, not entirely able to help himself. You, too, can be a cynical ex-cop. Just ask me how.
"I know. Two weeks ago I was pinned beneath the pews up there. Two people with not nice intentions. I just.. Christmas eve, and doing something in a church is just wrong, much less doing anything else that's not adding the positive social pot of the populace, instead of the negative"

Dantes looks her over. It's not lascivious, but more….almost fierce, really. "You're okay now?"

The blonde nods, bobbing her head. "Officers arrived, they saved my friend, got me from under the pews. Nothing is sacred anymore. Why i'm sitting back here instead of up there" She looks over to Edward.

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," recites Ed, in a drowsy rasp, though he's sat up a little, eying Abby from under his lids.

'Well, aren't you mr. Gloom and Doom" Abby murmurs, though still she smiles. "Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?' She finishes for him.

Dantes smiles at her, with lazy approval. "Yeats," he says, stating the obvious. "True as ever," he adds, settling down in the pew again. Lazy, if not truly content.

"One shouldn't recite poems of the second coming, not on Christmas eve. It should be of the birth of Jesus, and hope, and good will. Bearing gifts for those you love and of a child in a manger on a cold night, warmed by the heat of the animals who surround him" Not that she's chiding Edward.

Dantes lets his lids veil his eyes for a moment. But if he's irritated with Abby, that's all the expression it gets. "True," he says, after a long moment's silence.

"sleep Edward. I'll watch over you. Get your rest hmm? My gift, to a stranger. No one will harm you here" Her voice is canted low, soothing, as she leans against the box of Christmas goods and clothing. "I'll wake you when I have to leave"

"Thank you," he says, quietly. Not entirely acceptance. But he does let his eyes close.


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December 24th: Like This
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