Elijah
He had never held a super secret information gathering meeting before, but he figured it went about like any other meeting. He'd had an intervention before, but this wasn't an intervention so he figured having an open bar was appropriate. He had to figure out what the appropriate seriousness-to-booze availability ratio was for this occasion. He concluded it was a mix-your-own-damn-drinks affair and left it at that. Getting Jenn out of the apartment had been a relatively easy task. It actually didn't involve anything weird or anything particularly embarrassing, it just involved telling Jenn he needed the apartment for stuff during certain hours for a meeting. And that it was totally secret. But it didn't involve anything illegal so don't panic, okay? Okay. Awesome. Thanks.
Grace was given directions on how to get to the apartment, and a briefing. the briefing was, well, brief. ("Dude, just remember to be easy on her, okay? She's kind of messed up about all of this so she might shut down if you're not careful") And followed by another briefing that involved questions like 'what all do you guys need' and 'what do you mean you might want something to drink other than beer?' (because he was a young man who consumed most of his calories in liquid form).
And with that, with a message to Alicia about Grace wanting to talk to her about being of assistance
The building is old.
That's the first thing that one can say about the building. It was old. It was old and it came up while the city was growing. It was eaten when the city came up and urban sprawl decided to erect more impressive structures around it. The building had its own charm. brick, clear enough windows. Some interesting glass work, and no discernible modern conveniences. Elijah's apartment is situated above a florist's shop that had since seen better days. His landlord wasn't a particularly attentive sort, but he gave a discount so, for that, Elijah was grateful. These types of places only do business during two times of year- when people having weddings or having funerals. Denver hadn't seen nearly enough dead people to warrant a lot of foot traffic, but the shop was doing okay enough.
Getting to the front door wasn't difficult, and the door had most assuredly seen better days, just like the carpet in the hallway had. Once upon a time, someone had loved this place. Whatever happened, someone fell out of love with Floral and Hardy real damned quick once somewhere newer came along.
The silhouette of the place paid it more credence than it deserved. There were the telltale signs of someone who had just finished moving in. Flattened out boxes. Art leaning against the walls instead of hanging on it. He has a cheap IKEA coffee table and no television. The place seemed to have a fair bit going for it, though. The ceilings were high and somewhere nestled in the back under an extraneous balcony-like structure there was a tiny kitchen with a breakfast nook shoved under the stairs. In the back there was an actual, legitimate room and a bathroom. The floors were wood, and there was the indication that, once upon a time, there had been another room-like structure in the open living room-like area, but the exposed beam seemed to hint that it met an unfortunate end.
In the kitchen, there were a set of French doors leading to a balcony…
With a view of a wall.
Alicia
Alicia appreciates that the balcony faces the wall of the building next door rather than jutting out over a twenty-foot drop with a great view of how few solid objects are between her and the ground. It means she can sit outside and chain smoke while she waits for Grace to arrive and only feel the low hum of anxiety coming from an impending discussion about her kidnapped father and not from being high up off the ground and terrified.
That isn't to say she isn't terrified. She was tense and quiet when she arrived at Elijah's and felt like a live wire when he hugged her. Now she's outside not drinking yet. That's the kind of anxiety she's brought to the table. She doesn't want to put anything in her stomach. Her fight or flight response never really leaves her.
When Grace arrives Alicia is still outside on the balcony sitting in one of the chairs with her legs bare of shoes and curled up beneath her. She's wearing a dark green sun dress with a knee-length hem and her long black hair is unrestrained and the only jewelry she wears is a neon green plastic watch that doesn't work anymore. It lets her Work but it hasn't functioned since her Awakening. Her fingernails are black but for the ring fingers whose nails are white. She doesn't look inside until she can hear Elijah or his guest at the balcony doors.
It's a nice day today. Bright sun and a bit of a breeze. Nice days make Alicia feel like crying.
Grace
When Grace arrives, perhaps the others can feel it. She has joined the ranks of mages with uncomfortable essences, and maybe the sensation of a knife slashing won't exactly calm Alicia down. But this is what you get when you put Grace on the task, Elijah. She is not a thing of calmness.
"I am indeed friends with Lena. We've been through a lot together," Grace says, and what that lot might entail, she doesn't elaborate. After all, we're going to go easy on the traumatized right?
There come three sharp knocks on the door soon after her resonant nature hits, but it's not a request for entry -- more like a warning. She's expected, after all, so why wait to be let in? The door opens with or without Elijah's assistance, and Grace steps through, rocking her rather colorless getup of jeans, sneakers, a black t-shirt (that has a screen-printed mountain on it, set in a triangle) and a grey turtleneck jacket. Across her shoulder sits the ubiquitous laptop bag, bundling her precious cargo.
She looks around the room as one rather more interested in its dimensions than its contents. Things are assessed, but not for their appearances. She doesn't care about the building being old, or its charm (or lack thereof) or the boxes or the pretty things leaning up against the walls. She just seems to be appraising the walls themselves, as if she's not quite sure they can contain all that they need to on this day.
"Hey, Elijah," she says, and finds the balcony with its wall and a chain smoking Alicia. Grace hooks a thumb in Alicia's direction, as if to ask Elijah if that's the Alicia, and then makes to introduce herself with a little wave.
"Hi. I'm Grace."
Elijah
Was that her? Elijah nodded and headed on over that way. He wasn't sure what to do. Wasn't sure where to start or what was going to happen. The room felt like a disaster, albeit one that was sharp and precise. The air on the balcony was charged and if they had been in public they would have no doubt garnered attention.
They may still garner attention, "Grace, you want anything to drink? You guys want to come inside, I can febreeze the fuck out of the living room if you want to smoke inside." Which was the best he could offer. It was weird. It was awkward, he knew it was awkward and there were few things he could really do about that save for being present.
They may still garner attention, "Grace, you want anything to drink? You guys want to come inside, I can febreeze the fuck out of the living room if you want to smoke inside." Which was the best he could offer. It was weird. It was awkward, he knew it was awkward and there were few things he could really do about that save for being present.
Elijah could be present today, he could try.
Alicia
With Grace's waving introduction the other apprentice twists in her seat to better see the newcomer. Her eyes are brown and lined with black pencil. Her youth makes her gaze seem wider than it may actually be but it isn't just her youth. It's the skittish air about her even when she's sitting still. Her resonance isn't strong enough to call attention to itself but she and Elijah have the same haphazard approach to magick. Their Awakenings were not so different.
"Hi," Alicia says.
Elijah's question and suggestion have her taking one last drag off of her cigarette and pitching the filter over the side of the railing. She doesn't stay to watch it drop. No one stands on the ground below and they cannot hear it connect. She stretches out her legs and stands and walks back into the house.
The girl is short. No higher than five-foot-one in her bare feet and though she has the body of a maturing woman she will grow no taller unless she learns to rewrite her own pattern. After all that's happened it's unlikely she will take that path in life but one never can tell.
When she speaks she still has a young woman's voice. She hasn't smoked long or heavy enough to trample her vocal cords. She stands by the counter and crosses her arms over her midsection and watches the other two with no small amount of uncertainty.
"Are you the Grace that's friends with Lena?" she asks.
Grace
"Nah, I'm fine," she says to Elijah in response to the drink suggestion. She's not here to get tipsy and say something she might regret.
She takes a seat in the living room when it seems that Alicia will be joining them inside. She picks a chair instead of a place at the couch -- a single seat for someone who does not like sharing space.
"Are you the Alicia who's friends with Elijah?" she asks, wry smile on her face because of course this much is obvious. "I know what Elijah wants me to do, but I wanted to ask what you might need help with. And I'm a little tired of using Elijah as a middleman between us. Thought it would be nice to actually meet the person I've heard so much about."
Alicia
Even without speaking the expression on Alicia's face is understanding. She has no idea that Elijah has told Grace to go easy on her or referred to her as traumatized but the girl has her arms crossed over her chest and is having this conversation from the demarcation between the kitchen and the living room. She looks sad even if she doesn't look tired. Grief is a strange territory to spend one's summer in.
The joke gets a ghost of a smile and the ghost amplifies the sadness and she nods a scant nod to hear that Grace is tired of Elijah being the conduit for a conversation that could have just as easily happened between the two of them.
"Yeah," she says. A flick of a glance to Elijah. "I'm sorry about that. I, um... I told Lena and Kalen what happened when I first got to Denver in May, and Lena said if she could help, she would, but then... you know." A bunch of people wound up in a coma. Grace was one of them. She knows. "I'm... I don't want anyone to get hurt, or caught, and I'm pretty sure my dad wouldn't either. I told Lena, you know, that we were hiding for a while, and then they caught him, and that's the last time I saw him, and I just want to know what happened to him. If he's alive or not. If he's alive..."
She hasn't ever said anything like this to Elijah but he's spoken to her enough that he can see the pain the thought of her father being in Technocratic custody does to her. Her eyes mist up and her throat starts to close and she has to stop and drop her gaze. Sniff and swallow and pull her shit together.
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. He told me to run so I ran and now I'm here and it sucks." She looks back up. "I told Elijah I wanted to just... not forget, you know, but just move on, but if he's alive, it's... I can't. I guess... yeah. I want to know what they're doing to him. And if he's dead I... I just want to know. And I need help with that."
Elijah
Elijah opened the fridge and took a beer out. Something cheap and something cold. He knew he would say something stupid or he would do something that he would regret later. Or, more accurately, he would not say something and regret having kept his mouth shut. Elijah didn't handle regret well.
The young man perched by the fridge, taking a drink when he initially got the drink and then he headed off to perch himself on the arm of the couch; the mages in the room found themselves in various states of seated or standing. All in a triangle and easy to see; it was problematic.
It was problematic for a number of reasons because Alicia was talking and he knew, he fucking knew how she would react and it still made his stomach turn and it made that beer a whole Hell of a lot more interesting and he took a good, long drink. Elijah out the can down, reaching over to put it halfway out of reach. The can made a half hollow thunk as it hit the plywood.
Grace
"I don't know if I can answer all your questions," Grace says, all pretense at joking gone from her demeanor. "But I will try. That's all I can promise, and it honestly isn't much. But the more you can give me to go off of, the better."
She has been telling Elijah since this began to not get his hopes up. The best that they could possibly hope for is that Alicia's father is dead. That would mean she could get on with her life and not sit there wondering what is being done to him. There are things worse than dying. A pit opens up in Grace's stomach, thinking about what happens when she does find out about this young woman's father. She's going to tell the truth. She can't not.
Grace's role in life seems to be the delivery of information, good or bad. In this case, there is likely no way she can find out anything good.
"Do you need anything else? I mean besides finding out about your dad. You said you just ran, right? Did you have a place in Denver you were running to?"
Alicia
The more the better. Alicia nods but it does nothing to banish the threat of tears. This is upsetting. Anyone would be upset. Even if she and her father had a dysfunctional relationship it's the rare child who can claim not to care about her parents. The claim is like as not a lie.
But Elijah for knowing Alicia as well as he does does not know much about her father. She doesn't want him to be dead but she doesn't want a lot of other things either. She misses him. She hates herself sometimes for running.
"No," she says in a quaver. "We were at a motel in... Littleton I think? When they found us the last time?" She can cry and talk at the same time. It's a strength of hers. She's crying now. Swiping away the tears like that will stop them. It doesn't. "He'd put a bunch of stuff in a bag and told me to grab it and run if they found us, like a while ago, and the first time they found us I didn't run? That was... that was when I Awakened, he told me to run but I didn't want to leave him... I think I... I killed one of them, they might have left us alone if I hadn't..."
She coughs as she tries to swallow tears.
"I'm sorry..."
Elijah
That beer hadn't stood a chance, really. The minute he opened it, it was halfway gone when Alicia started talking and he'd picked it back up again to have something to do with his hands that wasn't smoking and he wasn't fiddling with something so he had to be drinking. Drinking and listening. He doesn't know a lot about Alicia's father, but he knows about the aftermath of his abduction.
He puts the can back down, hollow, and swung his legs over to climb over the back of the couch from his perch on its arm. It was an unnecessary obstacle. There are things he didn't know, things he was just finding out and things that were being solidified in his mind.
Elijah couldn't imagine what it was like to think he'd killed someone. He didn't know what it was like to think that whatever horrible things may be happening to someone right now might have been his fault.
He'd basically shotgunned his beer, and with contents forgotten he wrapped his arms around Alicia. He bent down far enough to plant a kiss on the top of her head, his posture protective. Needlessly so, because everyone in the room knew there was nothing that Elijah could do save for what he was doing right now. "Hey.... hey you don't need to be sorry," he replied quietly. "This? All of this? Isn't your fault."
Grace
It's good Elijah is here. Grace would never be the one to reach out and give someone a hug who needed it. He gives Alicia human comforts, Grace can only provide reason. And experience. She's been there, done that. She closes her eyes then, and lets her head fall to the back of the chair, thinking of Bastion -- of arguing with a Goddess and winning, if one could call what happened a win.
"They were a team of assholes sent to capture or kill and they probably didn't care one way or the other too much. They started this. They are responsible for this. From what you say, sounds like they were after him with a laser focus, and I doubt very seriously that you could have done anything to make things worse for him. So stop that," Grace says, and if her voice is a bit hard, it's because part of that speech is directed inward. Remember who to blame. It's important.
She sighs, and rubs her eyes, and then finds her way back to the real world again, to Elijah protecting Alicia in his arms, to her crying. "Do you need a place to stay? I have a couple of options available. One's a bit more communal than the other, if you don't mind sharing a place. If you do mind, you could stay at my apartment. It's small, but I don't have any roommates or anything. I'm barely even there much anymore, so I'd be fine with it."
Alicia
If they were alone Elijah's arms and his words might have brought harder tears the way a roaming raincloud will empty itself in a downpour but they are not alone and perhaps she lives her life as if she is never truly alone for fear of the eyes of the people who took her father gazing upon her but Grace is here.
Alicia's arms curl up against Elijah's chest rather than sliding around his waist but she does not push him away. Her fingers clutch the fabric of his t-shirt and she weeps silent against him but she does still weep. He can feel the hot damp of her tears soaking through the cotton and hear the erratic hitching of her breaths.
Maybe she would have argued with him. Purged herself of her guilt before she let it go. She starts to speak but it's muffled by the embrace and then Grace speaks. The people who took her father were a team of assholes sent to capture or kill. She snuffles and turns her head to try and see Grace through Elijah's arm. Swipes at the tears on her face again and allows the words to bring on a calm that does not promise to last.
Her voice is hard. Alicia cannot read minds. She doesn't know what has brought on the hardness but it startles the tears out of her and has the girl holder herself taller in Elijah's arms. Defiant though she has no reason to be defiant. Defensive because she has to be defensive. She's already told Kalen Holliday to go fuck himself once.
Do you need a place to stay?
That's all she gets out. Alicia's answer is immediate and it cuts off the rest of Grace's proposal.
"No," she says. Firm in response to the hardness in Grace's voice. She doesn't try to extricate herself but she isn't holding onto him anymore either. Sniff. "I'm staying someplace. I just want to know what happened to my dad. If you can tell me that I'll... I'll find his friend. Doctor Morgan, did Elijah...?" She doesn't know what Grace and Elijah have discussed already. She abandons that sentence for no discernible reason. Fog in her memory the others can't see. "I'm... they were close, if I go to her and tell her what happened she'll help me."
Elijah
It wasn't getting easier. He'd seen her cry before, she'd said she didn't much care for being side tracked by crying once, and he thought it would get easier But it idn't. It didn't become more okay to him, but it did become something he could expect to see; he didn't know at some point, she would stop being sad and start being angry. He should have- Elijah understood the concept of grief. Understood that it could be profound and gripping, but did not have the personal experience to understand exactly where she was coming from.
How could he?
He hated that this reminded him of the things about her that he adored, that her hair was soft and her frame was warm and something stabbed him in the chest when he felt his tee shirt grow warm and damp and there wasn't anything he could <i>do</i> about this beyond what he was already trying. And Elijah was trying, desperately. This was trying. She straightened and eventually he did let go, take a step back to retrieve another drink- a bottle of water this time- and keep his position close to her.
"I told her a little about what happened like it was from the journal. I think she knows about the whole potential altering of the time stream thing."
Because that was totally a thing.
Grace
What she said didn't have the desired effect, that much is certain. Alicia is putting herself together harder, meeting sharpness with sharpness. It's a fragile state of being. Prone to breaking. Great job, Grace. Could you suck at talking to people any more?
"I'm sorry. It's just, you know," Grace says, trying to keep the harsh out of her voice. She scratches her face and her gaze takes to wandering. "When I think about all the shit They've done, it makes me mad. I'm not upset with you. They've taken someone close to me too, I think. I just know that I can't blame myself for anything that's thoroughly on their plate, because down that path lies madness. We have to remember to be angry with the right people. You understand?"
Well, maybe someday Alicia might understand. Might not be right now, but that's no comfort to the present, is it?
Grace watches Elijah react in his little-boy-in-love way, how he can't stand to see Alicia cry. Well, best get used to that.
"Yeah, I've heard about Doctor Morgan. From Kansas. Parents have a horse ranch. No idea where to look for this Doctor Morgan though."
Alicia
Alicia has no idea what kind of person she wants to be when her brain has finished developing and she has a sense of who she is and how she's going to respond to the challenges the world presents to her. All she knows is that all of life and all the world is a challenge and she isn't being graded except by the reality she has found herself capable of altering and if she survives to be old enough to legally drink she will be as shocked as anyone else would be.
She doesn't know just how much it pains Elijah to see her cry. That's on the list of things they don't talk about. But the apology and the scratching draws Alicia back to Grace and the girl sniffs one last time as the storm passes and then she turns to listen to her.
<i>You understand?</i>
She holds still a moment before nodding. Alright. Yes. Don't blame herself for what They did. She understands.
To the matter of looking for this Doctor Morgan:
"Neither do I. If I knew where she was now, I'd have gone there first." She spares Elijah a glance like she's trying to apologize with her eyes before she throws him under the bus: "I... thought you guys had ways of finding people that we don't." We being the apprentices. The ones just starting out. "I'm sorry." She steps away from the counter and moves into the kitchenette with the ease of one who's been here before. She knows where the beer lives. "Thanks, anyway."
Grace
"I do have ways of finding people. But just a name and a location as vague as Kansas may not be enough. The trouble is I don't know much about who I'm looking for. If you had something more, like the town she usually lived in, the other names she goes by, or..."
Grace pauses, looks at the ceiling. The last time she went looking for someone like that, she ended up almost succumbing to a mental attack. Using magic to find someone can be so dangerous.
"Or if you had something that belonged to her, I might be able to trace it back to the source."
Alicia
Alicia is rummaging through the refrigerator as Grace goes on. Claps the door shut when she's found what she's looking for. And she does come back to the conversation but it's with the counter between them now. She leans on it without opening her beer and hands another unopened beer to Elijah and just looks at Grace as the older woman keeps talking.
There was a time she didn't trust any of the other Awakened because she couldn't tell the difference between Us and Them. Sometimes she still can't tell the difference between Us and Them.
A spell of silence writes itself in the air as Alicia chews on her lower lip. Thinking before she speaks. Her eyes are still rimmed in red from the tears she shed but her breaths don't hitch anymore. She's as calm as she's going to get.
"I've known her since I was little," she says. "I couldn't pronounce her first name so I've always just called her Morgan. It's... Alethea. I think. She and my dad... they tried to keep a lot of things from me, when I was growing up, so my mom told me they worked together, they were both scientists. I know you guys belong to traditions or whatever but I don't know what theirs was. My dad's name is Khaled Abandonato. They, um... we all lived in D.C., before this started. I haven't seen Doctor Morgan since I was like, sixteen?" Frowning as she tries to remember. Dubiousness in her voice. Elijah knows her memory is fallible. Her life was rewritten while she was still living it. She's leaving out information that may be irrelevant to finding Dr. Morgan and Elijah can hear it even in the space where it ought to be. Leaving school and her mother's recalibration and the life of moving from place to place. "They had this... huge fight, and Morgan told him to leave if he was so worried about..."
She frowns again harder now but it's the frown of someone trying to remember something in the midst of a blackout. Doubt coloring her already dark gaze. She's staring down at the counter.
"... saving his own neck." She blinks and looks back up at Grace. "We were in Wyoming then. I... Dad and I were at her parents' ranch in Kansas in January, this year, but I don't remember how we got there? That's why Elijah thinks he went back in time and did something, is I can remember being in the kitchen with him and Morgan and talking about two of their friends who were supposed to show up, but then I blinked, and Morgan wasn't there, and my dad was outside, and he was all fucked up and he didn't know who I was talking about, later, when I asked where everyone was."
Sigh.
"I gave Elijah a ring that I've had forever. I don't remember where it comes from. It might've been hers or it might've been his or I might've just found it. You know? I don't... if it'll help, you can have it. The only other thing I have is this journal my dad kept, I don't know if that would help or not."
Elijah
Elijah could already tell that today was not one that he was going to spend sober, if the empty beer can on his coffee table was any indication of how the rest of the day was going to go.
Though, there was mention of the ring that Alicia gave Elijah, and he took the opportunity to retrieve it. The young man opened up a drawer in the kitchen with two baskets, one in particular holding a wallet, a pocket watch, and on the watch's chain there was a ring. The rest of the contents of the drawer were largely unimportant. A basket with car keys. Some perfume. It was organized, so one could rest assured that this was likely Jenn's idea since everything could be found in such a relatively easy fashion.
"Wouldn't they be, like, Ether People or something?" because he tries to find some politically correct term for Sons of Ether since Doctor Morgan was very clearly a lady-person and calling her a son of anything seemed weird. "I mean, other people are interested in science and stuff, but that sounds pretty textbook to me." If by textbook he means what Kalen explained to him.
He walked across the room, pocketwatch and ring in hand. His beer was abandoned for now, and he held the ring out for Grace to inspect.
"Maybe someone knows someone who knows Doctor Morgan? I mean, the community can't be that big. Someone has to know where she is," he said.
Grace
"Ether people? Sons of Ether? Yeah, I could ask Patience. She might know something, or at least know the names," Grace says, and takes the ring from Elijah.
"Unfortunately, if you don't know whose ring this is, I won't be able to trace it. It's dangerous to do that with magic, you know? It leads you to them, but leads them to you too. It goes both ways. And the last thing I want is to trace this back to somewhere where they'll use that connection to invade my mind. Did that one too many times. And with Them on the other end?" She visibly shudders. "No thanks."
She twists the ring this way and that, looking for anything special. It's probably just a ring, but still.
"It could have been an alteration in time. It could also have been your memories being altered. I know someone who might be able to tell for certain if your past was rewritten. I could give you her number if you'd like. She's nice. Loves meeting new people, new mages."
There's something about Alicia's story, isn't there? They were all at the ranch, waiting for others to arrive. Apparently, when those others did, something happened. Something that drew the attention of the Techs. Or maybe those others were Techs?
"You said you have his journal? Have you read it?"
Alicia
To the casual observer the ring is nothing more than a simple silver band. It's wider than is typical for a band worn on a woman's and if it was ornate or engraved at the beginning of its life time has worn away its decoration. Even without opening up their senses the more perceptive of the reality deviants in the room can feel the hum of its owner's resonance. It is a powerful resonance and it does not lend itself to easy translation into a naturally occurring phenomenon. Few things on earth spin and bubble before exploding. This was a focus for someone or what's left of a charm or maybe it's just meant to serve as a reminder of the person who gave it to her.
Alicia's eyes stay on Grace's face as she explains it won't do any good and she tries to keep the disappointment off of her face. She's already apologized for asking too much of the people who have aligned themselves with her father. Apologizing for unrealistic expectations and accepting that they were unrealistic to begin with are two different things.
She suspects she knows the person to whom Grace is referring but she keeps that to herself. Chews her lip to keep from interrupting again and gives a noncommittal nod.
She said she has his journal. She frowns and the frown crinkles her nose and the expression is a minor echo of disgust.
"No," she says. <i>Ew</i> unspoken. "I mean I skimmed the first few pages because I didn't know what it was but when I figured it out I closed it. I don't wanna read my dad's journal, that's..." Like time-traveling mad scientists have the same sordid personal stories that teenage girls have. She shakes her head sharp and goes on: "Anyway, what I did read didn't make much sense. I... could show it to you, but I don't want you to leave with it. If that's okay. It's... I don't have much. Of his." A thought. She starts as if the thought physically struck her and then she goes for the giant handbag she'd left slumped on the floor by the counter. Leaves the beer behind and rummages as she talks. "I have a couple of pictures. They're old, but he... kind of looks the same now as he did when I was nine. If that would help."
Elijah
Though that did have Elijah curious. He reclaimed his beer and took a drink, and he wondered what kind of stories someone would put in their journal if they were capable of rewriting time. It reminds him that he has some writing to do, some things to catch up to, and a number of things that did not bear mention in polite company. Elijah mused while he drank, knowing he should slow down but lacking the desire to do so. It was back down with the can, and back to the conversation.
"Patience is pretty solid, she said she'd do whatever she could," Elijah said. Which given how things were going, could mean any number of things, but we digress.
"… god damn, I am no good at this," he says to himself as he takes a drink, having realized he was going on a rescue mission for a guy that he didn't even know what he looked like and, up until fairly recently, didn't even know the name of.
Grace
"Did your father feel like this? The spinning... popping..."
"Patience is pretty solid, she said she'd do whatever she could," Elijah said. Which given how things were going, could mean any number of things, but we digress.
"… god damn, I am no good at this," he says to himself as he takes a drink, having realized he was going on a rescue mission for a guy that he didn't even know what he looked like and, up until fairly recently, didn't even know the name of.
Grace
"Did your father feel like this? The spinning... popping..."
Well, there would be an answer to that question, she muses. If he wrote fairly regularly in that notebook, it should feel somewhat like her father. The ring, she turns over in her hand, like the thing really wants to be twisting.
"I would like to see that journal if you don't mind. It might have some clues. And the pictures would be a huge help. I could potentially run a facial recognition scan with that." And leave a copy on Ginger as a kind of digital milk carton perhaps? Have you seen this man?
Elijah says he's no good at this, and the comment has Grace glancing up at him. She wants to ask what he isn't good at, but then she looks over to Alicia. Grace has gotten herself enthralled by the new information to process. The ring, the journal, the pictures, the story that Alicia tells. It's almost difficult to remember that there are people involved in this mystery.
"No good at finding people? That's what I'm supposed to be good at."
Supposed to be. Sometimes it doesn't work the way you want it to, though.
Alicia
The question has Alicia furrowing her brow. It's thought and confusion and uncertainty at once. She doesn't understand what Grace is asking. 'This' has no mapping for her. Her father spent the entirety of her life locked away in his laboratory working on something he wouldn't explain and she knew he unsettled people around him even if those people were of his ilk but she never understood why. Eyes on the ring and she can't figure out what it is Grace wants to know.
Alicia hasn't got much in the way of instinct when it comes to the supernatural. She doesn't get hunches or chills. She can very rarely detect another person's resonance or the lingering of their magick.
Her father's magick often felt like inevitability. Something happening because that is the way it always happened. She doesn't believe in cycles or wheels or fate yet but Alicia doesn't know what she believes. In the end she gives a small nod. That nod doesn't mean anything because she's not sure but her hands find the journal and then another small book and she pops up from her crouch again.
Elijah is no good at this.
Alicia is no good at this either.
She looks at him and her gaze is soft. It isn't a mystery why he's going through all this trouble for her.
"This wouldn't be happening at all if it weren't for you," Alicia says and there's gratitude in her voice even if all this time she's been angry and scared and sad. She says this and if he spares her a glance she gives him a quick tic of a smile. A brief interlude before she turns back to the books in her hands hair tumbling off her shoulder to curtain her face and she separates from the small pile a thick black leatherbound thing secured with a tired strap that wraps around the covers.
She holds it out to Grace only until the older woman starts towards the counter and then she leaves it to rest there. If Grace stands to retrieve it and takes it up in her hands the answer to her earlier ask comes: that ring belonged to Khaled Abandonato. The journal has that same feeling of recurring effervescence. An explosion bound to happen.
As Grace moves or doesn't move Alicia's attention is on her own journal. It's smaller and clothbound with a colorful floral design on the covers. She flips through it until she finds what she's looking for and then she eases an envelope out of where it was wedged into the spine. Flips through it. Flips through the photos. Elijah was near enough to glance at them a moment ago and as Grace reads through the journal if she reads through the journal Alicia looks to see if he's still near and angles herself so she can share the photos with him.
"This was from freshman year," she says of a group shot. She and three other girls stand in front of the Lincoln Monument. They're striking what looks from the photograph to be a loud pose. "I don't know why I still have this. I haven't talked to any of them since we left." Flip. Flip. A few more shots of high school kids doing high school things. Apparently Alicia played volleyball her freshman year. She might have been a cheerleader. A shot of a thin Eurasian woman with her brown hair cut to chin-length dressed in business casual attire. They're at a luncheon or some other barely-formal professional gathering that involves long tables and place settings and nonalcoholic beverages. She's smiling in the shot showing no teeth and has both arms around Alicia who is pulling a face for the photographer. "That's my mom. She's in Tanzania for the next two years."
Flip. If Grace reads through the journal from the beginning she'll find the date begins in 2004. Abandonato's handwriting is small and concise in places where he is transcribing formulas and veers into chickenscratch when he's describing an idea he's had and the only color of ink he uses is black. What looks like Arabic poetry rains down some of the margins. Sketches take up quadrants of pages and pen drawings live in some of the corners where he started doodling when he was supposed to be doing something else. Landscapes or other planets or devices he hadn't invented yet. If he journaled every day this is not the journal he kept to record his thoughts. This was his work journal. Even as she flips through she cannot find mention of his daily life but she can gather from the intensity of the thoughts he did record that the man had devoted his life to mapping out time and was plagued by visions of technology that would make advancing human exploration of The Beyond easier.
Sometime around 2008 she reaches a page with an interjection. It isn't dated but the entry just before it was. The entry just before it does not take up the entire page and even if she's just skimming it's hard not to notice because of how large he writes this realization in comparison to everything else which took time and care. The interjection reads: I DON'T REMEMBER WRITING ANY OF THIS.
By then Alicia has pulled free a shot that is older than the rest of them. She's easy to recognize for her hair being long and her face being round and open and happy. She's no older than eight or nine wearing tights and a long dress her shoes discarded sitting on the lap of a man wearing a dark blue three-piece suit. Slumped against him like she's tired and doesn't intend to move for a while. The man is in animated discussion with someone off-camera one arm around his daughter that hand holding onto what appears to be a bottle of Budweiser and the other one wildly gesticulating. His hair is a thick mop of black curls and his skin could have been olive if his ancestry were purer. His eyes are dark and he has long lashes and a five o'clock shadow. Hard to discern the setting. It's someone's home. Even sitting the man doesn't appear to be capable of resting.
"That's my dad," she says. Her tone darkening. She lets Elijah look at that shot for longer if he wants to and then she finds another shot from another event harder to tell where it is in relation to the other shots because Alicia isn't in it. Her father is standing with another man both of them hands in their pockets and appear to have just turned realizing the photographer is there. It's a clearer shot of his face. Both men are wearing suits and Abandonato made an effort to comb his hair but it's still wild. The time stamp on the photograph is 2008-21-10. "I don't know who the guy with him here is."
Both photographs are separated from the pile and slid across the counter towards Grace and the journal.
Elijah
She smiles, and he does look. He looks at her as though there was some assurance that this was what she wanted; people knew why Elijah was doing all of this before he was willing to admit that aloud and sober. She smiles and he smiles back, brief though it may be.
Elijah's attention went to the photos and he adjusted his positioning so he was angled in with her to look at them. He knew her history well enough to know at which point things start to break down, at which point things stop looking normal and start looking… well. Who knew what they looked like, because there were words for such things as Alicia's teenage years. Inconsistent. Uncertain. Odd. It wasn't normal to get carted along with a mad scientist bent on running from forces that actually were looking for him. This was before that, this was the moment of normalcy that so many people (or perhaps just Elijah) craved on occasion.
"What's your mom's name?" he asks, casually, not sure if that would pertain to the search but, really, something he wanted to know. He looked over the pictures, and a grin crossed his face, "is that one of those extracurricular activity banquets where your coaches get up and tai about how wonderful the season was? Those always sounded like they would be fun." If by fun Elijah meant boring. Which he didn't- we've already established that Monsieur Poirot did not exactly do extracurricular activities unless those activities involved copious amounts of illicit substances.
The older pictures do give him pause, keep the smile on his face though it does fade with time. "He looks like he could go on for hours," Elijah says. He could imagine this man's disapproving father face, the one that all fathers have when their children are doing things that are questionable.
Grace
Grace takes the journal, and gives Alicia a distracted "Thanks". The ring and the book, they both spin and bubble and detonate. "The ring is your father's," she says, again somewhat distracted by the book she's been given. And if Alicia didn't know that already, perhaps she does not know the reason why...
Elijah's attention went to the photos and he adjusted his positioning so he was angled in with her to look at them. He knew her history well enough to know at which point things start to break down, at which point things stop looking normal and start looking… well. Who knew what they looked like, because there were words for such things as Alicia's teenage years. Inconsistent. Uncertain. Odd. It wasn't normal to get carted along with a mad scientist bent on running from forces that actually were looking for him. This was before that, this was the moment of normalcy that so many people (or perhaps just Elijah) craved on occasion.
"What's your mom's name?" he asks, casually, not sure if that would pertain to the search but, really, something he wanted to know. He looked over the pictures, and a grin crossed his face, "is that one of those extracurricular activity banquets where your coaches get up and tai about how wonderful the season was? Those always sounded like they would be fun." If by fun Elijah meant boring. Which he didn't- we've already established that Monsieur Poirot did not exactly do extracurricular activities unless those activities involved copious amounts of illicit substances.
The older pictures do give him pause, keep the smile on his face though it does fade with time. "He looks like he could go on for hours," Elijah says. He could imagine this man's disapproving father face, the one that all fathers have when their children are doing things that are questionable.
Grace
Grace takes the journal, and gives Alicia a distracted "Thanks". The ring and the book, they both spin and bubble and detonate. "The ring is your father's," she says, again somewhat distracted by the book she's been given. And if Alicia didn't know that already, perhaps she does not know the reason why...
"Mages, we resonate," Grace says, and cracks the journal to peer inside. "Like, when we're around, we make everything feel slightly off. And even when we're not around, we tend to... I don't know... bleed into the places and things we use the most? This journal and this ring feel the same to me. Must be how your father is. Always in motion, kind of? Just on this side of explosion?"
She thumbs through the pages, finding that Alicia had nothing to fear from reading her father's notes. No illicit affairs detailed herein. The obsession with time and the I DON'T REMEMBER WRITING ANY OF THIS are noted. "You should read this, Alicia. I'm serious. Some of it is Arabic, and I don't know what it means, but it's all his work notes -- projects he was working on. It's nothing embarrassing, I promise."
When the pictures come out, Grace reaches for her cell phone. "You mind if I record some of these? It would be useful."
If Alicia gives her the go ahead, Grace will take pictures of everything. Pictures of pictures, pictures of the pages in the man's journal, the ring... Everything she is allowed to.
Alicia
What's your mom's name?
"Carla."
Those always sounded like they would be fun.
Sad smile no words and then:
The ring is your father's.
The Virtual Adept is not looking at the Orphan so she cannot see the worry that comes across Alicia's face with the revelation. The frown and the downward flick of her eyes. For two months she's been wearing this ring on her thumb and she's had it for longer than that. Once already she's told Elijah she doesn't remember where it came from. It's her father's. She should remember him giving it to her.
After the interjection the journal's tone becomes more frantic. The handwriting unable to keep up with the thoughts. There will be time for Grace to read through it. Alicia will read through it later. It won't solve anything and it won't help her understand why what happened happened but maybe it will. Stranger things have come to pass in her life.
She doesn't mind enough to tell Grace not to take pictures of anything. Alicia bites her lower lip and nods a quick nod. Go ahead unspoken. Stood back with her thumbnail between her teeth while the other woman goes through cataloguing what little evidence was left behind as proof her father was once alive.
They both asked about his personality. Whether his resonance was a reflection. As she watches Grace snap shots of the other pictures and the journal and the ring she says:
"I don't think he sleeps. The only times I've ever seen him even lie down or anything was after he got messed up. It..." She remembers she has a beer and picks it up. Drinks it. "Just the thought of them getting him to hold still, you know, I..."
Her voice is starting to crack. She doesn't want to say it out loud but she's already said as much already. If he were dead it would be a mercy and her worst fear is that he's still alive somewhere. She clears her throat but it doesn't keep the salt water from her eyes.
"I really appreciate you guys helping."
Elijah
Her voice cracks, and it is empathy that takes him to a place that is uncomfortable at best. At best. What if he was still alive? What if what Elijah had worried about was there all along, and he was very much alive. There are worse things than a restless death. His hand finds Alicia's spine and he rubs her back gently, idly, as though he has to have contact with her at that very moment.
"Things will work out," he says. He doesn't promise anything, not for good or for bad. He says things will work out, because… Because.
Grace
"Things will work out," he says. He doesn't promise anything, not for good or for bad. He says things will work out, because… Because.
Grace
Things will work out, Elijah says. Well, yes. Things happen. The world keeps on spinning and all that. Things work out, in one way or another, and the lives of even the greatest willworkers are a blip in all of that 'working out'.
Grace only continues taking pictures and typing out Alicia's statements until there is nothing more left to record. She won't say that everything will be fine, or that she will find anything at all, because such words are all hollow promises. She just starts packing up.
"Whatever I find, I will let you know," she says -- to Alicia, and the sharpness of the look she gives the younger woman suggests that Elijah is not included in that 'you'. He may have started this whole thing, but the man is Alicia's father. Not to mention the fact that Grace is pretty sure that he's so far gone he'd attempt a rescue mission on his own if it came to that, and Kalen might never forgive her for getting his apprentice killed.
"Even if I don't find anything, I'll be in touch okay? There's resources available in Denver if you want them. Elijah knows of a couple of safe places to lie low if you need. There's people here you can learn from. We have to help each other out. Going it alone just isn't worth it."
Alicia
The emphasis on the pronoun in her promise isn't lost on the young woman. She is young and she is scared and she is fumbling in her attempts to understand the world around her after the loss she's suffered but Alicia isn't stupid. Self-centered sure but all young adults are self-centered. It's how they learn to survive in their parents' absence and her parents are more absent than some parents.
Some parents are even more absent than hers. Some were never there to begin with. Even if her mother is across the globe now and her father may never see the light of day again she does not have terrible memories of growing up.
So she doesn't flinch away from Grace's sharpness this time. Doesn't come back at it with impetuous firmness in her own tone. There's understanding underneath the damp in her eyes and she bites her lip again to nod her receipt. Going it alone isn't worth it.
"Yeah," she says. She sniffs. Wipes her thumb across her lower lids to banish the lingering threat of tears. Her eyes flick down to the stack of photographs. "I know."
Nothing else to say after that. Beer in the fridge and a beautiful day outside and Alicia is eager to change the subject. Do something to get her mind off of the fact that her father is missing and she can't bring him back. But Grace is under no obligation to stay and if she does not want to stay then Alicia thanks her one more time and helps Elijah walk her out.
This may not be the safest place for her but she's staying here tonight.
