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| Scene Title | You Don't Owe Me Anything |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Detective Shelby pays Abigail a visit at Old Lucy's. |
| Date | March 20, 2009 |
Old Lucy's has a vibrant and lively feel to it, from the dark wooden floors to the shady crimson walls lit up by neon lights and many times, the flashing of cameras from the oft-crowded floor. The mirror behind the bar reflects prices of various drinks, bottles lined up, as well as the entire saloon as seen from the bartenders; bolted-down stools line the other side, and there are loose tables and chairs placed all around, though many times they find themselves pushed back for more space within the center of the saloon. A few speakers are placed at strategic places and around a raised stage to the far corner from the bar. Above the counter, an obviously well-used bar is hung; it is this that the girls working will use should there be dancing, which is one reason many patrons choose to come aside from the drinks. Across the bar and near the back, there is a door that leads to the owner's office and just inside a stairwell that leads a apartment on the floor above the bar.
Bar's not picking up speed yet. It's still too early for that, though the afterwork crow may perchance be coming in soon. Abby's been keeping herself occupied with stocking the coolers behind the bar, amoung other things. Keep herself busy and all will be fine. Redhead Brenda's lurking around,s erving people, getting her flirt on with some hottie named Paul, who's a firefighter. Only, really, he's not. He's just a firefighter for brenda right now. Can we say one night stand? But there's the thin blonde, lugging bottles from the side door that leads outside to the alley and into the basement where all the alcohol is kept. Sweater on, snug jeans, boots, her hair down so as ot not draw attention to her current state of weight and health.
Of course, for those who are aware of that state, it's still too obvious. Detective Shelby, off duty, enters, probably earlier than he should, but what can you do, right? It's been an awful week, and he needs a good stiff drink. He may not be recognized at first, as he's dressed in a trenchcoat and fedora, with large, black plastic sunglasses, but it should be obvious to her who he is soon enough, since part of his tie-less suit is still visible underneath it all as he settles himself down on a barstool. "Single malt Scotch, please," he requests.
Brenda makes a move to actually see to Coren and his alcoholic needs. But it's Abby, with a clunk of her cargo down behidn the bar who speaks up. "I'll get it Flirt, go back to your fireman" She wipes her hands on her apron before hunting down the requisite bottle of liquid. Into a tumbler it goes, a couple fingers, before it's slid across the bartop. The bottle put to the side, in case the policeman wants mroe, but the blonde, she stays put. The workers here are used to it, Abby getting visitors, but that doesn't stop Brenda from keeping an eye on things. "Detective Shelby"
"Abigail," Coren replies. "And please, call me Coren while I'm off duty," he says before taking a drink of his Scotch. He removes his sunglasses and looks up from the bar at Abby, "How are you holding up?" Yes, she's probably tired of people caring and watching over her as though she's a fragile piece of China, but it cannot be helped. Some people just care. Some more than they should.
"I'd give myself … a C today, if I had to grade it. My nights are still a fail" Back behind the counter she dips, grab a glass that has some seven up in it so she can finish her own drink. "Did you come for any particular reason, or just to check up on me and make sure they didn't send me off to the looney bin?"
Coren almost quirks a grin at the last comment, but shakes his head. "It will take time. It will always suck, but at some point it will start sucking less. I've seen … more than I should … more than anyone should have to see. And I am one of the lucky ones." He downs the whole glass and then leans against the counter, gesturing for Abby to come closer. Once she does, he whispers, "The DA is going to have a search and seizure warrant issued for all of James Muldoon's Manhattan offices. If we find anything, anything at all, we'll arrest him." He leans back and points to his glass. "I suppose there are many reasons I'm here."
If her heart could stop… right now.. it would. It really would. As it is, she's pretty sure it just skipped a few and then hit the 'gallop' setting. "Why. They wouldn't… touch my ca…" The blonde looks down before she motions for him to take his drink and towards the side door, out into the alley.
Coren refills his drink from the bottle and then follows her, glass in hand, to the side door and out into the alleyway. "I'm guessing the DA felt bad for being a spineless wimp. That or he broke from the pressure of so many of us wanting to off him that he finally decided to do something. It's not much, but it's one of them."
Abby's arms wrap around her, pulling the sweater tight so taht she doesn't loose too much body heat. "But they won't.. touch the man who actually hurt me. Just someone that was actually there, for the kidnapping, who didn't actually do the crime on Manhattan" She shoudl be happy, really she should. Someone's getting arrested. Possibly, maybe. "What does this mean, for me?"
"Not much. There is the small catch: We have to find something unrelated to your case to charge him with," Coren says with such a grim look. "So the District Attorney is still a spineless wimp." He looks down into his Scotch. "I'm just hoping that, if and when we find something on him and go to arrest him, that he resists." He takes a drink.
Right. There's the other shoe. Can't be related to her case. There comes that tightness in her chest again as she looks upwards towards the sky so she can will the tears to stay in her eyes, and not fall. "Of course" because she's worthless, her case is worthless, because they don't care to actually go do their job and protect the innocent. She presses her lips together and then inwards. "They'll never touch it Detective Shelby. want to know why? It's not because it's Staten Island. It's because they'd get me up on the stand and they'd ask me questions that you don't even want to know the answers to and any attempts to make me look like an innocent young woman who registered because of civic duty and got snatched turns into something else. That's why they won't touch it. It's not just Staten Island" She pushes herself away from the wall, turning to her right and the doors that lead down into storage.
There's always another shoe. Coren lets out a sigh. "I don't pretend to know all the facts, though I do admit to being skeptical about the reasons the District Attorney's office provided as to why they are unwilling to press criminal charges against your kidnappers." He takes a sip of his drink and follows after Abby. "I suppose another reason I came here is for understanding. To figure out what all the options are, and to decide whether to take action." He holds out his drink towards her, "Take the edge off."
"I can't. The drugs" Not allowed to drink. Not that she drinks. She just works in a bar. "I killed a man. They have me on tape, confessing to it." Down the steps she goes, he had come in while she was in the middle of a task. Searching for the Killians. "I was present at the Verrazano-Narrows bridge. I killed a man who was going to kill the world. A parasitic evolved who was.. allergic to my gift" that's putting it mildly. "I'm a known helper of those who are doing less than legal things. Phoenix, Vanguard, PARIAH, homeless, Flint Deckard, Sylar. I heal and don't ask questions. Good, bad, I don't care. God gave me this gift and I can't turn anyone away. It's not proper" but now she will, now she does. "And look where it got me" There's the brown bottles she's looking for. "That, Detective Shelby is likely why you DA won't touch me and my case with a ten foot pole, part of the excuse why"
Coren follows Abby, drink in tow, which he sips every now and again as he listens to her. He seems somewhat impressed by her statements, both her honesty and her outlook. "Whether or not a person is a criminal is no reason to turn an injured person away from a hospital, nor should it be a reason to turn an injured person away from a healer. You did what's right, and you should be proud of that, despite how things have turned out. You're better than the people who did this to you, and you shouldn't let them win by allowing what they did to you turn you away from what you want or need to do." He looks up towards the ceiling, "The District Attorney can go fuck himself, quite frankly." He drains his glass after the comment. "You stopped a man who was going to end the world. You should be given a medal."
"What you see, what the rest of the world sees Detective Shelby are two different things. And it hasn't stopped me. I spent two days in your 'office' and let you cut into my leg. I'm not trying to let them win. If I was trying to let them win, I would have agreed when he asked me to join him in the warehouse. I would have gone and.. and be sleeping in my bed the day away and not trying to find some stupid little piece of my life to hang onto" Clunk goes another case near the door. "That roommate Detective Shelby? He wasn't at the bridge, but he was somewhere else. He was working to stop that man too. They took him, and shoved him in some hole. He was a cop. Now he's a taxi driver and a bouncer trying to make ends meet because he did his civic duty and registered. And he got his job taken away from him. If I deserve a medal, then the rest of them do too."
Back for another case she goes "But not me. Not for killing a man. Killing a ghost. That's where I was going that night they took me. I was going home, because I couldn't take it. I'm a good Christian woman and.. I took a man's life. Doesn't matter how evil he was, I took it. I was going home to my mother and my father, to church and my family and try to.. make some sense out of that. But god had other plans" Clunk goes another case, a few tears hitting the tops of the bottles. "All that time there, I just prayed they'd find me. All thsoe people who I came out int he middle of the night, that I left work for, to heal, to make whole, I kept praying that they could find me and get me out of there. And they did. They came. I couldn't tell you who, because they all wore masks, but they came, they came and they saved me, and .. now, now what I want, isn't to go home. I want Logan to be in that same hole my friend is. I want him to not be able to hurt another person. But he's on Staten Island and they're too chicken shit to do it, but they're not too chicken shit to stomp around a bridge with a man who can turn people numb, and grab the very people who make sure that 95 percent of the fucking world is still alive. Who made sure that I have the anti-virus to something nasty, swimming in my veins so that if they failed, I'd have a second chance to kill him. But I won't.. I won't get a chance to bring him down" She's ranting at the end, tears falling as she sorts through the alcohol, not making sense and breathing faster.
"Abigail," Coren says, quite at a loss of words. He reaches out to touch Abigail's shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. Human contact, they say, is a good thing. He's never been particularly good at this. It's one of the things he never liked about working with the FBI. Some of the horrors people live through…. What is there to say, really? No words can take all that pain away. He would know, since he tried so hard in 2001 to help a person deal with their pain. It was necessary to help with a case, but he just couldn't. In the end… well, things just didn't work out as anyone had planned. "Take a deep breath, Abigail."
Oh lord. She'd stomped around the basement, nearly yelling at the man. The touch makes her freeze, the next case in her hands held tight. Take a deep breath. That's so hard. Right this moment. "I can't" Lord, every time she turns around she's back in that state. Can't breath, so angry, upset. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm yelling at you and I shouldn't and I can't help it and it hurts, and I want.. I want him dead, and god, i'm so sorry"
Coren's hand runs down her arm to the case, trying to get her to just let go of it for now. "Shhh," he says, "It's all right. Be angry, be upset. It's the only way you can express what you're feeling. Believe me, it's not a good thing to let these things stay locked up inside. They do really ugly things when they are. You have to let it out." He doesn't say it, but he too wants John Logan dead.
It almost gets thrown. Quite a few bottles have met untimely death down here before. But this case is spared, the blonde lets it go, gently, not dropping it to the ground with a harsh swallow, a nod. 'I know. I'm trying. I'm trying not to. I'm seeing someone for it. I just started" Her palm pressed to her eyes again, heels of them digging in. try to get that lasso around her emotions, reign them down. "Lord, I'm so sorry"
"Don't be sorry," Coren says, setting his glass down on the case Abby just put down. "Don't be sorry for feeling. Just remember to breathe every once and a while, OK?"
There's bleary nodding, a not so lady like sniff that clears her nose of god knows what's clogging it up from crying. "Just.. just get him. Don't let him get away with anything you can pin on him. Please. Make sure they know he's evolved, please"
"James Muldoon is evolved?" Coren asks, his eyes aglow with energy they have not shown until this point. That would make his day. Arrest the son of a bitch and test him, and nail him, on top of whatever he's guilty of, of not registering.
"I told you that. First, first time you talked to me. He touched my cheek, and it tingled. Not.. not like.. something cold getting warm, it.. tingled. He's evolved. Almost everyone with them was evolved" god she needs to be upstairs, digging for her pills. Instead she moves away from Coren to sit on an upended crate.
Coren has to think a moment, "That's right, too. It should be there in my notes and the transcript. At any rate, we'll be sure to use one of our glorious evolved test kits on him if we can arrest him." There's something unusual to the way he says 'glorious.' "Heck, it's how I found out I was evolved, a little over a month ago. Those wonderful test kits." He grabs his glass. "I need a refill. Shall we?" Good news doesn't appear to last long with this man. Then again, he has a lot on his mind, and some things are reminding him of something he'd rather not think about.
"She'll kill you. Brenda. Redhead at the bar. She'll think you made me cry" She doesn't want to move though, wants to just stay there. But common sense wins, and in the end, Coren's a customer and he wants a drink. "What can you do" it comes out on the tail end of a swallow.
"I'll make sure to put my badge down on the bar first, then," Coren says with a slight grin, although he doesn't move to go back to the bar proper just yet. He'll give Abby a bit more time to recompose herself. "They call it superhuman endurance. My days are typically twenty hours long and I'm perfectly conscious and attentive at the end of them. I can keep running for miles, can do over a hundred pushups in one sitting. Heck, I did four hundred repetitions of a hundred and fifty pounds just yesterday afternoon. But you know what? It's overrated. I have far too much time on my hands."
"That's me on my 13th Redbull and 20th cup of coffee" If she's kidding, or serious, it's hard to tell as she scrubs at her eyes with her sleeves. "Well. No one will kidnap you for that"
"All that caffeine's not good for you," Coren says idly. "Well, a person tried once. Some idiot thought it would be funny to abduct an FBI agent…. I think he's still rotting in prison. I hope for at least that with Logan et al. Best case scenario, they end up in pine boxes."
"I could handle it. Before. The caffeine. It helped me heal" She was also healing very single day. up from the crate she comes mtioning for him to take the box with his drink on it and she grabs the killians. Brenda can close the doors for her. "I should have been an FBI agent instead of trying to be an EMT"
Coren grabs the box with his drink on it and carries it behind Abby. "Trust me, you don't want to work for the FBI. It's not all that fun. I was with them for eleven years, and sometimes I wish I never had been."
"was a joke" not that anyone could tell. But then, abby was never that good at telling jokes before that. Up the stpes, taking her time, trudging with the alcohol into the bar. Not old enough to drink it, but she's old enough to serve it. "I'll pray they nail hsi ass to the wall"
Coren, on the other hand, has an easier time hauling the box he's carrying, but then he rarely tires from physical labour. He'll set the box down wherever he's told. "Oh, I intend to see that's the least of his problems."
Good. Something she can tell her psychologist. Maybe something good can come of it all after all. "A drink for the road, for you. It's on me. All of it. I owe it to you" Around the bar she goes, motioning for him to deposit it there as she swipes his glass. Brenda's giving him dirty looks at seeing the red eyes, but ABby had called him detective. "I have to get back to work. Get as many hours in as I can"
And Coren sets the box down where Abby motioned. Then he takes his seat with his cleaned, refilled glass. "One for the road," he says, and he raises the glass and downs it in one long gulp. Then he sets something on the counter underneath his glass. "And you don't owe me anything, Abigail. You never will." He pops his sunglasses back on and walks towards the door, leaving a hundred dollar bill beneath his glass.
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