2007-08-27: Cold-Hearted Spook

Starring:

Felix_icon.gif Mariska_icon.gif

Guest Starring:

Benjamin_icon.gif

Summary: Sticking it in, twisting it 'round, and breaking it off. The inevitable fallout from the evening's prior events. And Benji! <3

Date It Happened: August 27th, 2007

Cold-Hearted Spook


Hartsdale, NY - Primatech - Cells

Congratulations, Mariska! Your child has no memory of you, and your child's father is a cold-hearted spook. You have won the jackpot when it comes to horrible family luck. Felix is a little confused that Mariska's put in his room. Her accommodations were a lot nicer, after all. He yields the bed to her, if she chooses.

She does not. Instead, Mariska opts to stand with her back against the door for a few moment before her knees decide to give and she sinks down to the cold, concrete ground. She looks… devastated. Heartsick. On the cusp of a very serious breakdown.

He is, as someone once described Jimmy McNulty of the Baltimore police, a gaping asshole. But even Iron Felix over there isn't entirely inhuman. He stares at her for a moment or two before just what she's going through sinks in. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry," he says, simply. But his tone is no longer reserved or cold, but genuinely contrite.

«…sorry?» Breathe. «You're… sorry?» Breathe! «You're sorry?!» BREATHE!! These are panic breaths. It's as if all the blood in her body has decided to defy gravity and now rushes to flood her face with blotchy pink patches. She buries her face in her hands and proceeds to WEEP with all of the vigor and gusto that the situation calls for (which is, understandably, a lot).

This is awful. This is really the capper on this whole bizarre situation. The concrete floor is cold, though, and that can't be good. So Fel tugs one of the blankets off the bed and takes it over to her to wrap it around her. «Yes,» he says, simply. «For all of this. You really think that girl is my daughter, don't you?»

Somehow, amidst all the wailing, Mariska manages to muster up the spare strength enough to shout, «SHE IS YOUR DAUGHTER, YOU PRICK!» She even tangles up her fist in the man's shirt and shoves him roughly against the wall… but, she doesn't let go. Indeed, she falls over towards him, temple seeking shoulder support, and tumbles halfway out from beneath the borrowed blanket. And so, here's Mariska, stuck at the contrary crossroads of 'Hold Me, Please' and 'Don't Touch Me, You Bastard'. It's, uh, complicated.

Well, she didn't punch him in the face. That's something. And then she's half-collapsing on him, and Fel can't do anything but put his arms around her, awkwardly, and let them both sink back to the floor. This close, there's the scent of her hair…..and scent is nearly always the key to memory. Certainly, in this case. «Oh, my god. Saint Petersburg,» he says, faintly.

For a few long and agonizing minutes, all Mariska seems capable of doing is making a big soggy mess of Felix's shoulder and generally whimpering like a dying puppy. It's sad, man. So pathetic. Once the initial bluster is out of her system, however, she quiets and calms considerably. Spent. «The stars of death stood over us,» she utters thinly. Lifting her head slowly she adds, «And Russia… guiltless… beloved…» What, seriously? She's quoting poetry now? Lame.

Poetry he knows, as does any Russian with any degree of education, considering. «Under bloody boots, and the wheels of Black Marias,» He replies, quietly. He's quite happy to hold her quietly. «I'm sorry,» He says, for the umpteenth time, still slumped against the concrete wall, though he's slipped the blanket around them. «Why…..why did you keep her?> His tone is wondering. «You didn't know me from Adam? Alternately, why did you never at least tell me? You knew my name, the city I lived in….»

«What else was I going to do with her? She's my daughter. I wasn't going to give her up…» Mariska queries incredulously, all the while eyeing Felix from the side. The unspoken understanding is that there was going to be a baby brought into the world regardless and any other alternative methods of 'dealing with the problem' were not even to be implied. «You left before I could bring back /coffee/ the next morning. What about that screams 'I'd love to be a daddy' to you?» Point.

Well, he's got scruples enough to blush at that. Literally - he slowly goes red with shame. There's no reply other than, «You have a point.»

You know, if someone was watching these two on television without the sound, they might actually come across kinda cozy. Of course, in Primatech security central, they've probably become the main attraction; captured from all four corners and broadcast in high def! «So…» she rolls the word over on her tongue before tangling up one of her hands with one of his. «You have a daughter. Her name is Aleksandra… and she's beautiful. She has your eyes.» Just in case Felix hadn't noticed from the countless times the little girl's picture had been waved in his face. When her eyes fall on the construction paper masterpiece that is Sasha's sketch of the Tin Man from 'The Wizard of Oz' she heaves a little sigh. «You know, I used to read that book to her before bed.» Mariska's sticking to her Soviet tongue for the sake of simplicity and a very misguided sense of secrecy.

He's gone pale at that - his throat works, but there's nothing to say. Not for a few minutes, anyway. «I'm sorry for her, and I'm sorry for you. I'm not much of a person, let alone a father,» Fel admits. He's already trying to disentangle himself from her. "You should lie down on the bed, rest," he urges, returning to English, pulling himself up.

Yeah. So much for the cozy. If Felix wants freedom, he comes by it with a relative ease, as Mariska isn't of a mind to try and hinder his escape. She does, however, look a little bit… pinched. Slowly she finds her feet again, still at least partially wrapped in the blanket they'd momentarily shared. «Are you apologizing for yesterday… or tomorrow?» Figuratively-speaking, not literally.

«All of it,» he says, turning to face her. «She never should have been born.» Felix's tone is blunt. «You should never have had to suffer like this. Nor should she. And it is all my fault.»

Mariska purses her lips and shrugs her shoulders free of the blanket, discarding it on the bed with the slightest hint of…annoyance? …agitation? …anger? She holds up both hands, palms out and insists, «Spare me the martyr's lament, Felix. I'm intimately acquainted with just how unfair life is. I'm dealing with it. Whatever they've done to my daughter…» Wait. Strike that. «…our daughter, they can undo.» Or so she very vainly hopes. «You want to apologize? Fine. Show me. Whatever they want from us, give it to them.»

«That's the problem. I have nothing. I've cooperated with their attempts to test my powers. The man we met seems to want me to come to work for them. That may also be a moot point. They're not going to let me out of here alive, having seen what I've seen so far.» Let's hear it for Russian fatalism. An American woman would be beating him to death barehanded for the trouble he's caused. «The catch-22 is that the one thing I had that might have been of use to them, they destroyed. My job. Unless they can work some serious magic on the Special Agents in Charge here and get me reinstated. My clearance might be worth something, if I agreed to be their mole.»

His powers. Right. Let's focus on that for a moment before we move on to the whole spooky business. With her head tilted slightly askew, Mariska wonders aloud, «And… what is it that you can do?» Lucky for Felix, this Russian woman sharing his cell seems willing to at least hear him out (before she resorts to smothering him in his sleep).

Fel's brow furrows. "It's hard to explain," he notes, reverting to English. "A sort of passive telekinesis. Momentum manipulation."

And into this not so happy reunion strolls Benjamin. Only, not so much strolling, as being sent down to check on the couple. To break them up if needed.. but mainly to make sure they aren't killing each other. And to let them know reunion time's just about up.

"Show me," says Mariska, making a 'come get some' gesture by curling the fingers of her right hand. She's curious to see if he's just as neutered as she is in this place or if it's only her abilities that are on the fritz. Benjamin's arrival serves as an adequate distraction and her expression goes gray and grim.

Felix shakes his head to her, quietly, before giving Benjamin an expectant look. "You'll see later," he adds to her.

Benjamin clasps his hands behind his back as he steps up to the glass. His gaze averts just a little, feeling like he's intruding, until he remembers just who is in what place. He steps back away from the glass, and gestures that they have a little longer. He's not anxious to break things up, and there's no harm (yet) in leaving them together.

Mariska inadvertently ends up mimicking Benjamin's movements in reverse, inching away from the unbreakable glass wall and closer to Felix as if by instinct. «Looks like our time together is almost up,» she observes in a tone of voice that is both casual and wary. «Any last words?» Fatalistic irony intended.

«I'm sorry. I'll do what I can to get this cleared up, but I'm not really hopeful that they're going to let me out of here in something other than a bag. Possibly with their collar on my neck, if I'm lucky,» He says, glancing at Benjamin.

Benjamin tries to offer up a friendly smile, he's still capable of that. Pressing the intercom button, he speaks to the pair, "Sorry to interrupt.. I can give you two a little longer if you want."

Mariska's green-eyed gaze bounces from Benjamin to Felix and back again, all the while reserved and silent. She lets Felix make the call on this one. Maybe it's a test? (Is there anything in this place that isn't a test?)

"No, it's fine," Felix says, wearily. "Thank you, anyhow." He waves Benjamin on, to do whatever it is he's going to.

No test.. Benjamin's just too soft. He has toughened up, a little, but he has a long way to go. "Alright," he says into the intercom just before unlocking the door. "Miss Dmitryevna?," he says, waiting on her to come to the door. He is of course, prepared to come in there after her if he has to. He'd prefer not to though.

Fair enough. "Dmitryeva," Mariska replies, attempting to correct the man's pronunciation, though, technically? He's right. It's really her patronymic that she shifted into a surname in order to start a new life. See how well that worked? She takes a few steps closer to the door and bends down to pick up Sasha's sketch. She then takes one more step but pauses at the behest of a second thought. Wait, no. Turning on her heel she heads back over to Felix and hands him the sheet of pretty blue construction paper. «You keep this,» she says.

Felix refuses it. «No.» He says, «For you. Don't get your hopes up when it comes to my acting like a father.»

"Sorry," Benjamin says honestly enough. "I was lucky to make C's in Spanish, so Russian names are gonna be tricky. I'll try my best to say it right." He waits patiently at the door for the two to finish. Others might barge in and rip them apart, but that's not his way.

«Keep it.» She insists through lightly grit teeth, all but slamming it against the man's chest roughly before stepping away to be lead back to her much more comfortably-appointed holding pen. If he doesn't make the reactionary grab, it'll just flutter to the floor in her wake; either way, she's not coming back to reclaim it. «Why don't you try out acting like a human being first?» To Benjamin, she offers a pair of red-rimmed eyes and a weary sort of almost smile as she gestures to the sterile corridor, "After you."

Felix does snatch it in time to keep it from hitting the ground. It's her comment he winces at, even as he sets it gently on the desk in the room. No farewell. He merely watches her go.

Benjamin escorts Mariska from the room, giving her a concerned expression. He sees that she's been crying. Locking up the door behind them, he leads Mariska up to her room. "Anything I can get for you?"

Mariska gives Felix one long, last look before she disappears from view; maybe it's just to check and see if he bothered to hang on to the scribble. "Two years of lost time," she says to Benjamin, in all seriousness. "…and maybe a blanket."

Felix is just watching her go. That last glance gets a faint nod of farewell.

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