You See Us As You Want To See Us

Participants:

felix_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title You See Us As You Want To See Us
Synopsis Felix and Liz share some time.
Date February 6, 2009

The Nite Owl


Given the week we've all had in law enforcement? Hell yeah, any offer of food is going to be taken, and quickly! Elisabeth is happy to meet Felix for dinner — it gives her a place to be other than her house and something to do other than work, with the added bonus of a friend. So as she slides into a booth and puts her jacket on the seat next to her, she glances around the Nite Owl. The place has been overrun with cops lately…. good for the diner's business, but not so great sometimes for other things. Phoenix used to hang here.

And still is. Inadvertantly. Fel'd demur if accused of being a member, but the proof is in the pudding, and he's shed blood at their behest, both his own and others. He's weary and gaunt as he slips into the booth across from her - in a dark gray overcoat and matching hat, which he takes off and hangs at the side of the booth on the little hooks provided there. "Hey," he says, with a wan and lopsided smile.

Elisabeth offers her own version of his exhausted smile. Though she is doing better now than she has done most of the week, it's still at least 18-hour shifts with the riots and the insanity. So yeah… no one's getting much sleep. And the shadows beneath her eyes give away that even when she should be, she's not. Maybe it's all the killing people that she did. "Hey," she greets him quietly, immediately snapping up the bubble around them so that all the external noise goes away. There's a sense that she's relieved when everything around them seems to go mute — like it's too much stimulation. "You look like hell, my friend."

"It's ungallant of me, but I have to say the same of you," he says, quietly, eyeing her with that rather raptorish tilt of the head that usually bodes the full onset of Fel's formidable curiosity. "How're things? Me, I'm on suspension for the moment, until they finish deciding about the shooting I …about what happened at the riot. I hear it'll go in my favor, but it's not something I'm happy about having on my record."

Elisabeth grimaces and nods slightly. "It was a clean shoot, Felix," she reassures him. "I already gave my report, and I can't see how they're going to hold anything against anyone out there. But they have to make it look good, too." She shakes her head. "I'm sorry you're stuck with the IA investigation, though. That sucks rocks." She smiles a bit. "I liked having you at my back."

She shuts up as the waitress comes over, by now used to the fact that Liz basically keeps the silence bubble up all the time. She brings them both coffee without even asking, and says, "Wave when you're ready to order."

Fel's expression softens at that. "Thank you. I'm sort of ….they never have known what to do with me. I'm one of the first openly evolved government agents, and they daren't kick me off for anything insubstantial lest the lawyers be up in their faces. It's the other thing, you know, that they're leery of. But my SAC is behind me, we won, no virus was released, so I may skate on that, too."

Elisabeth picks up the coffee and liberally doses it with sugar and cream. "Your SAC knows about the virus thing?" she asks curiously. "I had to tell my captain, and he's covering my ass at the moment. But…" She grimaces. "I'm not entirely sure that'll hold up if they ever figure out I was out there killing people at Sea View," she admits.

"Exactly. I, on the other hand, may get a medal. I was the only one with a badge at my scene, it'd make it look as if the goverment had a more direct hand in keeping all that shit under control," Fel says, wryly, as he dumps sugar into his coffee like he intends to make a paste out of it. "She's spinning it for all it's worth. Like a damn DJ,"

Elisabeth hehs softly. "Damn…. nice, Felix." She grins at him, sipping from the doctored brew. "How is it that you fall in a bucket of shit and come up smelling like roses so often? Is it an Evo trait? Or something you can teach me? Cuz man…. I coordinated and helped disarm nearly 50 BOMBS the week before all this shit came down, and it barely buys me leniency from my captain."

Felix grins at that, a fierce, feral expression. "You're not careerist enough. Imagine how bad it'd make my SAC look, if one of her agents went completely off the chain and jumped into the pockets of armed terrorists? Hanssen ain't in it. So she has to cover my ass and hers. I owe her my firstborn child, should I ever have one. I may yet be hung out to dry later, but there's nothing I can do, now," he says, with admirable insouciance, leaning back and spreading his hands.

Shaking her head, Liz just says in an admiring tone, "I wanna be you when I grow up, Felix."

"No, you don't," he corrects, more wearily, as he peels open the little creamer packets with fumbling fingers. "Not really. I….it makes me angry. My mom fought and clawed to get me the hell out of Soviet Russia because they did just obscene shit to the Evolved. Still do. Putin's even more of a bastard, and he's ex-KGB. My mom used to -know- him, back when. And here's the US, shining city on the hill, charging hard down that same path."

"Yeah…" Elisabeth sounds bitter. "And now they've got those fuckin' tests rolling out and they're going to stomp all over doctor-patient privilege to force everyone to take them. There are gonna be lawsuits for decades." She shakes her head. "Never thought I'd see it come to this, Felix." She props her chin on her hand. "It's a strange, strange world."

He's sucking down the coffee like he's some sort of odd vampire that survives on the blood of the bean. "I know. The ACLU must be grinding their axes and girding their loins as we speak. I'm sure I'll have to take one, even though I'm openly registered," he says, before nodding at the waitress.

Elisabeth doesn't bother to drop the bubble, since the waitress knows to just step to the table. She puts in an order for a club sandwich and a bowl of the soup of the day (broccoli and cheese today, yum!), and waits for Felix to put his in. When the woman steps away again, Liz asks quietly, "Are you sorry? That you might have tanked your career, I mean? Not about helping, just…. about the results."

His eyes widen, as he eyes Elisabeth over the rim of his glasses. "Of course. But it's literally the fate of the fucking race, isn't it? I mean, who else am I supposed to protect and serve if not 95 percent of humanity?" Fel grins despite himself, ordering the roast beef sandwich and the corn chowder. "Hell, I may end up a rent a cop in a mall in Butte. But I know what we did. That can't be taken from me."

Elisabeth grins a little at him. "Yeah…. run off, save a buncha bridges from crippling the city, save 95 percent of the human race from a virus… and what thanks do we get? Hounded, arrested, some of us tossed in prison with no due process…" And some dead. Liz shrugs. "What we did was worth the cost. But I have to admit, the repercussions worry me. It's like they don't care — if we'd done nothing, the results would have been catastrophic, and they don't even seem to care."

"No, they don't. Because it terrifies them that they, who were supposed to be the defenders, all-aware, all knowing, were staring for so long into the mouth of the furnace without feeling the heat," Felix says, quietly. "It's going to get worse before it gets better. I'm just praying it won't be another Shoah."

"From your lips to God's ear, Felix," Elisabeth replies feelingly. In truth, it's what all Evolved are afraid of… that they'll be rounded up and sent to camps, or worse, just because of an accident of birth. She struggles and says, "And on that scary note, I'm going to change the subject. Because I want to know how you're doing outside of work. Not that any of us HAVE much outside of work right now, but still!"

Fel gives her a long, sardonic look from under his brows. "Okay," he says, picking up a fork and toying with it lazily, flipping it end over end. "In that there is not much 'outside of work'. You know me. I go to the dojo, go to the salle, when I can. All pretty quiet on that front. YOu?"

Elisabeth shrugs slightly. "I don't have anything outside of work right now. I've been pulling 18-hour shifts pretty regularly, and what time I do have 'off,' I've been … pursuing other projects." She smiles a bit. "There's plenty to do, and sleep is overrated." Ie., she's avoiding it like the plague.

"You have nightmares, too, huh?" Fel surmises, and lays the fork gently down beside his plate. "I can imagine. I hope this inquiry is over soon, so I can get back in the saddle. A vacation is one thing, but time off galls when you know you have business to take care of."

Blowing out a breath, Elisabeth forces a smile for him. "Yeah… definitely. The thing at Sea View went off well, but… I've only ever discharged my weapon and hit someone twice, Felix. Both single-shot, the-perp-survived kinds of shots. We went in there like a commando team and killed everything in sight." She sips her cup of coffee, her shaking hands belying her calm tone. "Never seen that before, and glad of it. Wish I hadn't seen it this time."

Fel looks miserable. "I had to kill four guys at mine. And then that bastard at the riot. I already had two on my sheet, from back when. It looks bad," he says, splaying his hands over the tabletop as if to steady shaking fingers. And then he reaches across the table to her, again.

Elisabeth slips her hand into his and says softly, "What a life, huh? Become a cop to save people and wind up …. doing this." She looks around at the diner and murmurs, "And most of them will never know that we killed people for them. That people they'll never even know the names of, who won't ever be important to them, died saving them all from the virus. It sucks being a hero," she says as she squeezes his hand tightly. Somehow, Felix has become the person she talks to. "In a bizarre way, I'm reminded of The Breakfast Club."

And he can't help but laugh at that. Perhaps more than the crack deserves. And then he goes back to finishing his dinner. "I know, huh? No medal, no names carved in stone. But we know."

Elisabeth grins a little and silently eats a little bit of her own dinner, enjoying the fact that he's just so damn easy to be around. Someone who gets it, and stands in her shoes too….

"You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal….."


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February 6th: A Dime A Dozen
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February 6th: Rats Saw God
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