2007-07-08: New Bourne Baby

Starring:

Jack_icon.gif Jason_icon.gif Cass_icon.gif

Summary: Cass & Jack's Adoption Adventure

Date It Happened: July 8, 2007

New Bourne Baby


Subway

The New York City Subway. Not exactly the best place to be if you don't know who you are. That's the case for young Jason Rider. He's been riding the subway for the entire day, not exactly sure where he's headed or why he's headed there. He's seated in the last car, which is fairly empty considering the time of day. His backpack is still attached to his back and his skateboard is underneath his sneakers, upside down. Can't have it rolling all around or anything, now can he?

He sighs, leaning back against the seat and fiddles with the wallet in his hand. In his other hand, he's holding a pill bottle, that also bears the Jason Rider name. He turns his head to look out of the window, wondering what stop they're coming up to or leaving or whatever.

The whole ride is really starting to blur together…

When the train stops and the doors slide open, Jack steps in looking a bit on the disgruntled side. Julia is having her NOS tanks recharges, so he's stuck with public transit for the day. He's on his way to his new job, but he has yet to change into the tastefully understated suit that's become his uniform. It's slung over his shoulder in a garment bag; for now he's sporting thoroughly worn and loved jeans, battered black boots, and a snug-fit gray t-shirt. He glances left and right, then sighs and takes a seat on a mostly empty bench next to a kid with a backpack and a skateboard.

Man. The subway always smells like pee and vomit. Jack hates it. At least nobody's touching him, though.

The subway is an odd place. It's regularly filled with homeless, crazy people, businessmen and sometimes bookstore owners. The best way to get from Brooklyn into Manhattan, still, Cass is actually sitting across from Jason on this particular subway ride and reading the advertisements that string along the top of the car. It's not exactly high educational content, but so far she's learned 10 new ways to keep her electricity bill low and save energy thanks to those helpful folks at Con Edison. When the doors close and open again it takes her a moment before she recognizes Jack sitting down almost in front of her. Slipping off her headphones, and leans forward so that she can teasingly say, "Hey mister, got any spare change?"

Jason blinks. Immediately breaking out of his mindless watching of the subway walls. In that next moment, he's reaching to put his wallet in his lap and his hand is going for his side pocket. "Let me see if I d—" As he's about to dig for change, he looks to the side and sees Jack. Eyes move back to Cass and he figures that she was probably asking him. Not Jason. He's a nobody. People have been passing him over all day long and not even given him a second look. "… Sorry." is uttered as he raises his hand to excuse himself from what's probably going to be a conversation between two people that know who they are.

Jack is so lost in thought that he doesn't notice Cass until she speaks to him. "Whut? OH. Cassie." He blushes very faintly and briefly. "Good to see you. An' no, I only—" When he and Jason neatly interrupt each other, he glances at the man beside him and grins lopsidedly. "Don't be sorry, boy-o. She's just takin' the piss." Old-fashioned to the core, he immediately thrusts out his free hand for shaking. "The moniker's Jack. This here's Cass." He indicates the bookstore owner with a toss of his head.

There's no shame in not noticing Cass. She didn't notice Jack till he crossed right in front of her viewpoint. There's talking over and apologies and Cass laughs in a friendly sort of way. "No no, thanks for trying, but I'm not in need of any panhandling. Not yet at least. I just take money from friends if they let me." She's about to leave it at that, but Jack is much more friendly with the stranger. Annoyed of talking over the noise of the subway, she pulls herself up and aims to take a seat next to Jack so they can talk without yelling. However, the train jerks to the right and she goes sprawling forward, landing almost on top of both Jason and Jack with a yip of surprise. "Ow. Oh. Uh. I'm so sorry." Pause. "Er. Nice to meet you?"

Jason's not really sure about the shaking hands thing, but he manages to give Jack a firm enough handshake. Kid probably doesn't know his own strength, for that matter. "I'm uh…" He actually has forgotten already, but when Cass ends up sprawling towards him and Jack, he finds his reflexes kicking in and he's reaching out to make sure the woman doesn't hurt herself. "… you okay?" He's forgotten all about the whole introducing himself thing, since he's busy with the keeping Cass from being thrown around the whole train.

"You've got a firm handshake, kiddo. That's good. Says a lot about a—OOF!" Thumped in the gut by a knee or possibly an elbow, Jack lets out a chuckle and finds an appropriate place to stick his hands and help boost Cass right-side up again. He twists to drape his bagged suit across the back of the seat so it won't be too badly mussed, then scoots a bit so she'll have room to sit. "Cass is charmingly left-footed and all thumbed," he explains in a friendly, teasing fashion.

Carefully set aright by Jason and Jack, Cass is already smiling an abashed smile. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm fine. You know. Trains. And moving. They throw you off guard." And make you sprawl into friends and strangers alike. "I wish that was the first time that's happened. I got a marriage proposal because of the same situation. Man did /not/ take no for an answer. I had to appropriate another guy I didn't know to pretend like he was actually my husband to make him go away." Quickly sitting down before the same thing can happen again should the train try to knock her off her feet, she gives Jack a light punch on the shoulder. "I am /not/. Other than the charming part. I'll definitely take charming."

"It's alright." Jason says, making with the scootching to give Cass some room also. He's not exactly one to be stingy with the seating arrangement of Public Transportation. He ends up shifting around to get his backpack out from behind him, which causes his wallet to fall off his lap and to the floor, to which he's oblivious since he's currently trying to situate his backpack. "Nice to meet you. Both. I'm…" Frowning, he starts patting his lap for the lack of wallet. "… ummm…" This is so not a good first impression.

Jack winks at Cass in an exaggeratedly secretive fashion. "Not clumsy. Gotcha." "'ey kiddo, you dropped this." He stoops to scoop up the wallet and tosses it into the younger man's lap. The look of confusion is matched with a slightly concerned one from the Irishman. "You okay? You look a little spooked. You don't gotta tell us your name if you don't wanna. I was just bein' friendly." He's far from offended. On the contrary. He knows how many crazies wander around NYC. Better safe than sorry.

Glad to be sitting again and not in danger of sprawling out on some other stranger, Cass gives a relieved sigh. The time of handshakes is over, but she kind of landed in the poor kid's lap, so that'll just be her own form of a handshake. "Nice to meet you." She doesn't trail off because, well, he's either having problems remembering his name or he's trying to give them a fake one. Or, he just doesn't want to give them his name. All are reasonable.

"No, it's not that. I just… don't remember…" Jason trails off a bit, before grabbing at the wallet and holding it up. "Heh. Thanks." Flipping it open, he fumbles with it and comes out with the driver's license. "Jason. Jason Rider." he repeats, as if trying to commit it to memory, as well as introduce himself. He hesitates for another moment, trying to memorize it and starts to put the wallet away. "Apparently, that's me." He offers a small shrug and tries to wave off any lingering thoughts of him being one of those NYC crazies.

"Apparently?" The look of concern on Jack's face deepens to a heavy frown. He glances over at Cass curiously, then back at Jason. He reaches up to rub one hand along his jaw. "Uh. If you don't know who you are, do you at least know where you're goin'?" His voice lowers to a gently inquisitive rumble.

That's certainly not the answer that Cass was expecting to hear. A puzzled expression crosses her face as she listens. It's the subway and she's used to people telling all sorts of sob stories for money. However, this guy isn't asking for money. He just looks confused. And he looks very sincere about it. "Nice to meet you Jason," she says softly. When Jack asks his question, she falls silent again, waiting for him to answer.

This guy has money. Well, at least a hundred bucks. In case anybody saw that in the wallet while he was trying to get his license out. Not that he should be behind the wheel of a car… EVER. He sighs and gets himself into a better story telling position, which is being leaned back against the seat. "Eh. I figured I'd just ride the subway until I ran out of free interchanges." Jason quips, trying to make light of his plightful situation. "Was kind of hoping something down here would jog my memory or something."

The puzzled expression turns into one of concern. Studying Jason, she didn't actually touch the wallet so she doesn't know that he has money. Nor does she actually seem to care about that. "Anything jogging yet?" she asks, trying to figure out this kid's age. "Your wallet didn't have a driver's license in it? That might tell you where you live. We can walk you there if you need." The poor girl can't help but have a bleeding heart.

Jack bobs an agreeable nod. Though he is gruff and blustery, he's not without compassion. The thought of being lost and alone without any proper memory in a place as big as New York is terrifying for him, to say the least. He spends a moment hoping that if he were even in such a crappy position, someone will do for him what he and Cass are about to do for Jason. "Yeh. Student ID? Library card? Anything like that? Maybe if we could find somewhere that's familiar, stuff might come back to you."

"Well. I've got a license." Jason ends up pulling the wallet back out and flipping it open to yank the license out. He twists it round in his fingers so that the two helpful people can see that it's from Montana. Nowhere, Montana. Not literally, but close enough. "Unless you guys are -really- generous and going to send me on an all expense paid trip to Montana? I think I'm officially a New York resident now." He tries to keep a grin on his face about all of this, since, well, there's not really anything he can do about it.

Studying the license, Cass frowns. Montana. "That's a long way from New York." Strange place to end up without any memory. Montana to a train going uptown. There might be a country song about that somewhere. "You don't have anywhere to stay?" She looks worried about that. "Or, well, any place that you can remember?" Who knows, maybe he recently moved to the city and /does/ have a place to stay but he doesn't know where that is. "Geez, now that's a strange welcome to New York."

"Montana?" Jack leans back in his seat and lets out a low whistle. "Goody gumdrops." His sarcasm is heavily sympathetic. He glances at Cass, the worry in his eyes mirroring her own. "I don't think I can just leave this kid stranded," he admits. "No place to go? No recollection o' who he is or where he's been?" He leaves the implications unspoken. Bad Things. "What do you think, lady-o?"

Jason blinks, half coming out of his own daydreamy state to realize what's going on. Or what may be going through the heads of these two people he just met on the train. "Hey, um… listen. It's okay. I've been here all day. I wouldn't want you guys to go out of your way just to help me." He holds his hands up to try and keep them from feeling anything for him. "I could be some kind of crazed serial killer that hunts people down and eats their brains or something, y'know?" He stifles a laugh for some odd reason. "As far as I know, this subway car's gonna' be my new home."

Gumdrops have nothing to do with this. Or at least, they're not going to help. Good or not. Not answering Jack immediately, Cass looks at Jason, thinking the same thing. Some people prey on innocents and naive people just trying to help. And they even preface it by pretending to be good people. "Well, are you? Going to try to eat our brains, that is. I just want to get an idea of where I stand on the food chain with you before I make any decisions." But, the idea of this poor guy with no memory living on a subway breaks her heart.

Same for Jackie Boy. He crosses his arms over his chest and peers at Jason curiously. "I am unconvinced that this cuddle lil' manboy is a brain-eater. He certainly don't look like a brain-eater to me." He lets out a short, warm laugh and glances over at Cass again. C'monnnnn, Mom. Can we keep him?

"I can honestly say that regardless of what I might've been once, I have no plans on eating any brains." Jason keeps his hands up to make sure they know he's being as honest as he possibly can. "I just wouldn't want you two to get caught up in something that I don't even know I'm in." Jason seems to be more worried about the people helping himself than his own situation. "I mean, if I'm from Montana and I'm in New York… I've got to be up to /something/, right?"

"Well, maybe you were going to school and just finished. I knew tons of friends who kept their out of state licenses in college." Cass can come up for explanations for just about anything. It's not the pleading look that Jack gives or even the explanation that Jason offers that finally caves any reservations that she has, it's just the idea of this poor kid riding around on subways not knowing who he is. "There's a lot of places we can start. We'll go to the police and ask for missing persons reports. Maybe the hospitals, if this is something caused by head trauma." She's brushed up on her soaps lately. "If you're up to something, well, you don't know what it is any more. Believe me. The two of us can handle our fair amount of somethings. The least we can do is give you a couch to crash on for a couple of nights so you can get your bearings." The book store owner's version of 'Welcome to New York'. "We can help you. Or at least we can try."

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