ellectrical | (no subject)

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At first, she'd said she needed the night. She was tired, she'd been running across the country to get a ferry, (she really hates ferries), it had been early in the morning in her world when she left and she'd spent the night before hiding in a train station in Fukuoka until she could get that ferry out of the country. Whatever was in the folders her father had so carefully hidden away, she could deal with it after getting at least one night to rest.

It wasn't the worst idea Elle's ever had, anyway.

She had meant to do it when X was around. There was no real reason why she changed her mind other than that, after getting maybe three real hours of sleep, she had woken on X's couch to find the apartment empty except for Steve, Farrah, and the ever present fish. She'd thought about waiting, but then, well – then she didn't.

Now, a few hours later, the apartment doesn't look that different from how it did earlier, at least when it comes to being empty. Steve is curled up on the kitchen counter, fur still on end and tail flapping every so often in a perturbed sort of way, as though he had recently been the victim of some affront. Farrah, on the other hand, is contentedly snoozing on the couch, lying flat across a couple of what appear to be MRI scans, though this hardly looks comfortable.

The floor in front of the couch is what stands out. A few manila file folders are set in a neat stack to the side, some with multicolored tabs and paperclips attached. There are some various travel documents set on top of them, including different forms of fake ID, blonde hair glinting on the photo of a New Mexico driver's license.

The neatness of it contrasts with what's been strewn openly across the floor: polaroids and other photographs with the brown tint of age, sheets of paper, some of which have been marked in red, multicolored construction paper. Things that in other households might be fixed to the refrigerator with magnets. All of the photos, in some form, show a small girl, two at the youngest and seven at the oldest, with thin blonde hair that falls to her shoulders. One also features a woman who looks markedly similar to Elle, though her nose is slightly larger, and her eyes are hazel; others show a man with round glasses and thinning brown hair. But most are only of the girl, with a coloring book or a beach ball or a cake with candles. Sometimes just wearing a dress of some sort, or doing nothing other than staring or smiling.

(One involving a red tricycle being ridden through a fluorescent-lit hallway, not unlike the ones X would have seen at the Hartsdale Facility, is crumpled, though still open, on the floor.)

The papers range from spelling tests and handwritten notes to even one report card. Some have the large, blocky penmanship of a child who's just learning to write something besides her own name. The construction paper features rudimentary drawings of houses, animals, stick-figure-like people. She was partial to birds and horses, smiles so wide they make the figures look goofy, and –

One piece of bright pink construction paper has been torn into four shreds, the edges burnt. Bits of hooves, bunchy clouds that hold up an inaccurately rendered yet earnest rainbow,and a horse's head with a horn, the yellow marker used for it bleeding so much into the pink paper that its color appears closer to red, are clearly visible on the scraps that litter X's apartment.

You were a normal girl.

Elle got what she wanted.

At the moment, she's nowhere to be seen. But the door to the bathroom is closed.

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Elle shakes her head, very slightly. But it's not in answer to X's question.

"I don't know what's missing."

Not entirely, anyway. Nothing in the folders had told her anything about what happened in the Company. The neatly stacked manila folders contain mostly medical files from the day she was born to a couple months after her sixth birthday, which look as if they had been lifted directly from hospitals and a pediatrician's office. One includes the birth certificate she's sure should be in a government archive somewhere, not a safe deposit box in Japan. The MRI scans may be helpful, but she'll need someone else to discern anything from them, and still, all they'll show her is a result, not the events that led to it. If files documenting what happened to her exist, they're likely in Odessa, which Elle knows is out of the question.

"It's just like - now I can see the stump where it used to be."

And after that, she's quiet for a long moment, glancing back to the floor floor, before she shifts in place to lean her right side against the couch, facing X.

"So yeah."

Her voice is a little louder now, and she's - it's not quite a smile. But there's the kind of soft, even a little self-conscience exuberance of someone acting on a dare. Who knows that it may be wrong, or dangerous, but wants to do it, anyway. It fades a little when she speaks again, calming into a reassured certainty.

"I want my fucking arm back."

X's expression is all focused intensity.

It's a fairly natural look for her, anyway.

"You will get it. I will help."

As much as Elle wants, anyway.

She knows best where X will be useful.

In lieu of a thank you this time, Elle curls her fingers slightly into X's palm, and presses down a little over the back of her hand.

(And she does really smile.)

And it's a short while before she does anything else, but eventually, Elle shifts again, and leans forward. With her free hand, she taps and knocks over the pile of photos she had so recently collected, and uses her fingers to slip through them. When the photo of the woman with hazel eyes emerges, she stops, and pulls it out.

Leaning back again, Elle holds out the photo to X. Her voice is a little nervous again when she tells her, "That's my mom."

(The woman has one arm around the gray-eyed girl, and they're doing nothing more remarkable than smiling up at the camera.)

Edited 2010-06-10 03:46 (UTC)

X tightens her own grip, but only a little bit.

She takes the photo with her free hand, so very carefully, and studies the image.

Then she looks up.

"She looks happy. In the photograph."

It is --

X thinks it is probably good to see that.

"I think you're supposed to."

But it's not really a disagreement. Nothing Elle remembers of her mother includes her being anything other than happy.

Elle watches X with the photograph for a moment, and then asks, as carefully as before -

"Is it okay if I - keep this stuff here?"

Neither her room in the bar, nor her own suitcase, feel anywhere near as secure. Or safe.

"It is okay," X says, almost immediately.

She flicks a glance toward her bedroom.

"I will make space in the filing cabinet."

This is followed by a slight hesitation, then X hands the photo back to Elle.

Her other hand comes up to her throat, opening up the ever-present locket.

"This is my mother. And my aunt and cousin."

If Elle wants to look.

She takes the photo back, and replaces it in the pile on the floor.

When she moves back, she glances toward the locket, and then gives a small nod.

It's a Yes. If X wants to open it.

X does want to open it. So Elle can see.

X's mother wears glasses, perched delicately on the end of her nose. She has black hair and green eyes, and is wearing an expensive-looking sweater, though the lighting is terrible. It is, after all, a passport photo.

Still.

The other picture is of a woman that looks like Sarah Kinney, and a smaller, punky-looking girl with pixie-cut blond hair and too much make-up. She is not more than sixteen.

Elle leans slightly into X, in order to see the photos more clearly. She can't quite help the feeling she gets at the sight of X's mother, like a bitter taste in her mouth, and so doesn't say anything until she looks to her aunt and cousin, instead.

And then, she's giggling. It's only a moment, before she covers her mouth, seeming to realize it may not be - well, right.

Her voice is even close to sheepish when she says, by way of explanation, "Her hair is funny."

She's probably talking about the blonde.

X leans back, tilting her chin a little in order to keep it out of Elle's field of vision -- as best she can, anyway. And only as it relates to the photos.

"She dyed it," X explains.

"Her clothes were more strange. You cannot see them very well here."

Beat.

"There was a lot of leather."

Yeah, Elle's giggling again.

(And as uncertain as she'd been, all in all, this probably isn't a bad thing.)

"She's still -"

She thinks of gesturing, but then decides she doesn't really want to move to do so.

"- out there?"

(It's somewhere between asking if X still sees her, and asking if she's not dead.)

"Yes," X says. "But I do not know where."

Beat.

"It was better. When I first escaped."

She flicks a sideways glance at Elle.

"I think it still is. For them."

Elle doesn't shift away.

Quietly, "If you think so."

It's not quite as intense, but it's meant as the same sort of reassurance X had given her earlier.

And X knows best where she will be useful.

"It is okay," X says quietly.

Because it has to be. And some things she has gotten used to.

"I do not know if you would have liked her. Megan."

Megan would probably have thought Elle was cool.

"I would've liked her if you liked her."

Somehow, the fact that X can tell when she's lying doesn't stop her from saying it, anyway.

(Meanwhile, Farrah's tail flaps into Elle's hair again.)

Edited 2010-06-11 03:11 (UTC)

X reaches over, just a little, and scratches Steve under the chin.

He'd been inching his way nearer as they talked, and is now practically on top of them.

"I know," X says.

Sometimes there is nothing else to say.

Elle still doesn't move, even though she's not looking at the locket anymore. Maybe she'll get to it at some point.

"I needed a new ID anyway," she says a little dully, after another stretch of silence. Her eyes blink in the direction of the passports and licenses stacked on the manila folders.

After another moment, she admits, "I - someone from the Company tried to stop me. There."

X's eyes narrow.

"They will not try again? To stop you. Or to find you."

It seems important.

X worries. Even if she does not have to.

"I got away."

It's all Elle can really offer.

"With your - watch thing."

"Good."

X sounds a little fierce about that. Shockingly.

"It is good that the watch was useful."

Beat.

"You will still have to be careful? Of them."

"Yeah," she answers, as nodding would be difficult in this position.

"I didn't go to the airport."

It's meant to explain her being careful. No one who knew anything about her would think she'd go out of her way to get on a boat instead. Her dislike of airplanes was far outmatched by her hatred of sea travel.

X just nods.

Once.

"They will not expect that."

Which is to say she agrees with Elle's plan.

Not that it is necessary. But.

She lets it stand for another short while.

Then, she finally shifts, and leans forward again. But it's not for long - she returns with the crumpled photograph, held at a corner between her thumb and index finger.

"I shouldn't have done that either." Her tone hits somewhere between flat and tired.

"I have done other things," X offers, only a little hesitantly.

"Like that."

Beat.

"I think it is okay. If -- "

She hesitates again.

"If you are not hurt."

"Okay."

Elle doesn't try to flatten out the photograph. The girl's face is squished up into one of the crumpled sides - only a small hand clutching at a handlebar and the shine of painted red metal is really visible.

"I don't remember that."

She tosses the photo back in the direction of the stack. "Some of the other stuff -"

Now, especially, that she's seen it. She can remember her mother reading off her grades for the first time - it wasn't something she'd thought about much before.

"But - not that."