June 2007, Three Weeks

[ellectrical]

After three weeks, everything had finally come into place. It had rained until late into the previous night, but the sky was clear by morning, and Elle had packed her bag (a large black purse) with what she'd borrowed from X, her map, her gun, even another plastic bag of Girl Scout cookies, before locking the door to her room and heading out to the street.

She gets an early start, making her way to the alley a couple hours before she thinks he'll show up. After double-checking that the employees of the club have really cleared out, Elle checks her surroundings, then moves to the double doors, and sets her purse down on the wet pavement.

About ten minutes later, with the aid of a torsion wrench and bump key, the padlock on the door has slid open. She leaves it hanging on the chain, puts her tools back into her purse, and moves away.

There's a space on the other side of the alley - it gives her cover in the form of the hair salon's dumpster and is kept dry by a short, striped awning that juts out from the wall, over the dumpster and the door on the other side. Elle positions herself, and waits.

Patience is not one of her virtues.

But sometimes, when she wants something bad enough, it doesn't really matter.

Comments

[ellectrical]

Elle looks away, but the tension in her stance remains.

"Didn't you hear what he said."

[walksthebounds]

"I've got ears," Jamie says, with a small shrug. "Missing some context, I expect."

Claude spoke in half-sentences - broken-off prepositions, ending in nouns that Elle knows how to fill in, presumably. Jamie doesn't.

"I heard - he said you were hiding, and they took you away. Of course it didn't sound pleasant. But was it news?"

[ellectrical]

"Yes," she murmurs.

She looks back to Jamie. "Seems like something I'd remember, right?"

[walksthebounds]

". . . I don't know if I'd be the one to ask," Jamie says, after a moment.

He's starting to forget more things about his life than he remembers. It's not something he's too sorry about.

"You think - what, you've got amnesia? You've been blocking out things that happened when you were younger?"

[ellectrical]

She shakes her head.

"I didn't do anything." Her voice is flat, and brittle - it sounds less like an explanation, and more like a confession.

[walksthebounds]

"Someone made you forget?" Jamie guesses, after a moment.

It's like playing twenty questions.

[ellectrical]

"Yep."

Her voice is a little harder when she continues, "So I'd kind of like to know what they took."

[walksthebounds]

Well. Jamie will admit there's something of a difference in comfort level between the things you forget on your own because your brain decides they aren't worth the bother, and things someone else makes you forget.

"D'you know why they did it?"

[ellectrical]

"Kind of hard when I don't know what it was."

It's sharp, and immediately, her eyes fall back to the table.

Her tone is calmer when she asks, "Do you remember those - files I found?"

[walksthebounds]

"I remember you finding them," Jamie says honestly. "I couldn't tell you anything of what was in them."

[ellectrical]

"I told you they said something was wrong with me."

She's hacking it down, a lot, but she doesn't really care that much. "And I'd get worse, and then something happened and I'd get better, and I didn't know why."

Beat.

"I lied about that."

[walksthebounds]

". . . thanks for the heads-up now."

Jamie takes a gulp of his drink before asking, "So . . . you did know what was wrong with you, is that what you're saying?"

[ellectrical]

"I knew what made me better," she answers, without pause.

"I was going to - find who made me forget."

[walksthebounds]

"And do what?"

Can you get your memories back that way? Maybe it works like that, in Elle's world.

Or maybe she just wants revenge. Which is fair, he supposes.

[ellectrical]

It didn't work like that. She'd known that.

Elle still answers, "I want it back."

[walksthebounds]

"Can the fellow do that? Just drop it back into your head like a missing film reel?"

He sounds genuinely curious.

[ellectrical]

"No," she admits.

"But he could've told me about it."

She folds her arms. "I didn't even know for sure if it happened."

Since, obviously, she couldn't remember.

[walksthebounds]

"And now you know."

And are you happier? he wants to ask, but he doesn't. He puts his bread and cheese together, instead, and takes a large bite.

[ellectrical]

Elle actually laughs - it's nearly a shriek, and she even covers her mouth, and glances around to see if it attracted any attention.

Once she's satisfied that anyone else's interest has been lost, "You think that was it?"

[walksthebounds]

Jamie gives a small shrug, a little stung.

"How should I know? If you got something useful to you out of it, I'm glad. If you're planning to go around and drag up everybody who ever saw you when you were little and pound information out of them too until you've got a full picture, I suppose that's fine too. I don't know how much you'll need before you think you've heard enough."

[ellectrical]

It certainly does tone her down. A lot. She slumps down in her chair, her eyes falling to the floor.

(And it's very easy to think it's wrong, that she's doing it all wrong - that she can't even help but -)



Without looking up, "Do you remember your Dad?"

[walksthebounds]

". . . yeah. He wasn't like yours, though. I mean - sorry," says Jamie, awkwardly.

Seeing Elle slump like that is making him feel a bit guilty.

"What I mean is, he was an ordinary fellow, you know? I don't - all that I remember, from when I was ordinary, awfully well. More than I'd like sometimes. Lots of the things that came after I've forgotten. I'm not all that sorry for it, either. Lots of things aren't worth remembering. That's how I see it.

"But I can see how it's hard to know what's worth it when you don't even know what it is."

[ellectrical]

She doesn't look up from the floor.

"He's part of it."

There's one quick glance up, enough for her to say, "Kind of all of it."

Elle pulls her arms a little tighter, and gives a very small shrug. "I don't know who he was."

[walksthebounds]

Jamie hesitates for more than a moment before asking, "What about your mum?"

He doesn't think he's ever heard Elle talk about her mother.

[ellectrical]

"She died."

And that's about all that's mattered for the last eighteen years.

"Right after I - started."