Starring:
Summary: At her wit's end, Trina places another call to the only person she can think of that Jack might be talking to.
Date It Happened: November 10, 2007
Tattletale
Over the Phone
Why is it that, sometimes, it's the thing that you believe you should not be doing the most is precisely the thing that you find yourself doing and hating yourself for? Hard to say. That is, however, the situation that Trina is currently finding herself in. She's left the apartment — Jack wasn't in it, anyway — and found herself a bar. Bars are good. They give people alcohol.
Once she has the bartender's attention, she orders herself a beer. She watches patiently as its poured, and then thanks him with a ten — just enough to say 'don't bother me for a while.' Extracting her cellphone out of the pocket of her well-worn black leather coat, she flips it over in her palm a few times before finally thumbing a number into it and hitting 'send', eyes drifting upwards as she lifts up the thing and listens to the other end start to ring.
At some point in the morning, Elena's managed to not just get herself out of bed, but make herself a simple breakfast of Captain Crunch Cereal and orange juice. She, decided, needed the sugar. It has been a marked improvement in the last two days when she couldn't even get out of bed. Perhaps it was sheer stubborness that drove her to try and maintain a more normal schedule, but the fact of the matter is she didn't feel any better, but has resorted to making herself believe that she felt better.
Unfortunately mind over body could only go so far.
Downing another round of Tylenol, Elena casts her bleary, dark gaze on the jPhone ringing. She picks it up. "Trina?" she murmurs. "What's up? How are you?"
"Hey, Laney." Trina can't help but to feel a little guilty, as she breezes right past the polite inquiry into her own condition. Poor kid. She still sounds like death warmed over. Of course she is. Because there is nothing that is allowed to be easy. Over the bustle of the lunch hour, the brunette hunches over her beer and phone. After a sip, she continues. "You… you don't sound much better. Still got that flu bug?"
"Unfortunately, but I managed to actually get out of bed today," Elena says, ever the optimist. She refrains from gnoshing on her cereal for now. "I actually am seeing the sun for the first time in a few. Life's getting better already." Her hand lifts up to rub her eyes, and she absently toys with the spoon that's sunk into her bowl. "What's shakin' with you? Everything alright? Did you manage to talk to Jack?"
"He came home. So he ain't dead, at least." Trina's voice has not even a hint of the relief or happiness that it should bring. Fortunately, the other girl already may have half an inkling as to why that may be, so she doesn't have to even try to pretend. "I was… just callin' to see if you needed anything." LIE. Liar, liar, liar. "I know it's gotta be awful to be sick for so long, and I'm gettin' worried about you. Y'been to a doctor yet?"
"Well, that's…something at least," Elena says slowly. She knows it isn't necessarily a good thing - while Jack and Trina have seen each other recently now, the fact that Jack was killing himself over his newest problem must be putting some heavy strain. Though when Trina pushes the topic to her, she couldn't help but smile a bit. She knows that can't be it, but she humors the older woman. She was practically her "aunt" after all. "I'm okay. Peter sent me a bunch of dark chocolate the other day, apparently they have a natural cough suppressant. Papa's still trying to look for a specialist to try and help me out, and Nate helped me out with a problem the other day. I'm as well taken care of as I could hope."
Well, Elena seems well taken care of. "Good. That's… good." And now Trina is painfully out of things to say. She sips her beer again to try to mask the awkward silence. And then there's a deep breath. And then she starts patting around her pockets to find her cigarettes and lighter. "I…" Trina's face screws up for a second as her voice cracks, as though she were about to cry, but instead she finds her soft pack of bargain cigarettes. YES. Oh, nicotine, always there to save the day. "Just a sec," she mumbles around her cancer stick, swiftly followed by the click of her lighter. Once she takes in a deep, beautiful cloud of smoke, she then exhales it with a passionate slowness. In that poisonous chemical breath, she finds strength. When she speaks, she has regained most of her smooth mezzo timber. "Elena, he can't keep goin' like this."
"I know," Elena says. "But I can't….I don't know what to tell him unless he tells me what happened to him and he's not doing that. I don't know if it's because he's ashamed, or if he's doing this to protect me, or…" She cuts off suddenly, coughing into her fist and rather harshly at that, before she continues. "I just….I don't know, Trina. I don't doubt that he sees me as family, he doesn't really have a lot in this side of the world, you know? But at the same time I also know how my particularl family works and it's always 'protect the baby.' Which is…sort of what I am as far as he's concerned. So I…I wish I could tell you more but I can't help fix him if I don't know what's in him."
"I… I could try to find out again." Then Trina's voice drops into a whisper, one that she can only pray that the girl on the other side of the phone can hear over the bar's ambient rumble. She hunches over the phone for a moment to help that cause. "He kidnapped a doctor, Laney. I don't know what to do." Then she straightens and draws another, shakier drag from her cigarette.
"….he what?!" Elena almost drops her spoon, sputtering. "What do you MEAN he— " She takes a deep breath, and lowers her voice, looking around the Petrelli kitchen nervously. She lowers her voice in a hissing whisper. "What do you mean? Do you know who? If….oh god." She rubs her face. "Oh god. Of all the….Jack," she groans. She bites back a few curses that shouldn't leave Catholic mouths. "This is bad. This is so bad. Do you know where he is now?"
As Elena rambles, there is only one thing that comes to Trina's mind. Elena didn't already know. Jack didn't tell her. Panic rises. "You can't tell him I told you," Trina pleads, suddenly getting up from her bar stool and leaving the beer half-finished. She's gotta get out of here. She needs fresh air. She needs it now. Pushing herself out the front door, she greets the cold air with a tiny shiver and scrunching up of her shoulders.
This is Elena, about to bang her head into the counter in frustration. She falls silent when Trina tells her not to tell Jack she told. She rubs her face, and looks up at the ceiling. God give her strength. Serenity now. Jack you crazy bastard what have you done?! "I won't tell him," she says grimly. "But I have it in mind to try and find him and catch him in the act with this…this…so you don't know who he kidnapped?" She rubs her forehead and groans. "Oh god. This is so bad. What was he thinking?!"
"I don't know. He won't let me see the guy. I drove him there, but he made me sit in the car." Trina turns down a small alley and sits herself on the dirty ground with little concern for the filth. Her voice gains a little volume in her new environment, safe from prying eyes and ears. "Laney, he is bad off. I tried to talk him into goin' to a hospital, but he… he don't wanna go."
She stops rubbing her face and just…keeps it there. Elena exhales a breath, closing her eyes for a moment. Finally, she opens them and takes a drink of her orange juice. "Alright…at least you know where he is…they are." In case something happens. "I'm sure…whoever Jack has, that he won't hurt him. It'd be kind of counterproductive. And I have faith he just won't…you know." Do the doctor in after the job's done. "I don't know why he doesn't want to go to a hospital either. He never liked those places, for as long as I knew him. The incident at Mount Sinai didn't help." It sounds bad, but at least Jack is seeing somebody. "Trina I wish I knew what to tell you but…" But she doesn't really know anything about Jack's condition. And it aggravates her.
"I'm sorry. You don't need this, with bein' sick." Trina takes a deep breath, and then a deep pull from her cigarette. She lets her head fall back against the brick wall behind her, looking wearily towards the cold, lightly clouded sky. "I shouldn't have… Jes' don't worry. I got this." Somehow. She just doesn't know how yet.
"No, no, Trina, I'm glad you call me to let me know how he is," Elena protests. "Really, he talks to you more than he does me about what's going on with him, so…I appreciate it. I just…I wish I knew more. He's so adamant about doing this himself and you know how stubborn he is - he's just going to keep doing what he's doing unless someone forces him to accept some help."
"But you're sick," Trina insists, looking back down to her knees and picking at a thread that has started to loose itself there. "You need to focus on gettin' well. But if he does say somethin' to you… Or if something happens…" You'd tell me, right? "It's not easy to keep track of him."
"I need an excuse to get out of the house anyway…" comes the quiet mutter, though at what Trina says, Elena blinks. "I mean….um." There is a pause. "I know I'm sick but this is Jack. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn Jack." The emphasis on the words are grated out in a hoarse, gravelly tone. She rubs her face again. "I'll tell you, Trina, don't worry. I just…I can't believe he did what he did."
Well, that makes two of them. Trina's hand squeezes the phone a little tighter, and she takes another long pull from her cigarette. Then that spent thing is rubbed out on the ground. "He's doin' a lot of stuff that ain't like him," Trina mutters darkly, forehead deeply furrowing.
"Trina you know he wouldn't be this desperate unless he…unless his situation is really bad. Which is why I'm so worried," Elena tells Trina after downing another mouthful of orange juice. "Which is also why the damned crazy bastard isn't telling neither of us anything."
"I know." That's not a particularly comforting thought, either. Trina heaves a sigh. Kicking her leg out, rests an elbow on it and then rests the side of her face in that hand, dark hair obscuring her features from anyone who might pass by the mouth of the alley she's in. "I guess all we can do for now is wait. …I'd better go. I'll call if I hear anything else." Without even waiting for a reply, the motorhead hits 'end' on her phone. There's just one more sigh heaved, and then she pulls herself back to her feet. After a quick brush-off, she then pushes her hands into her pockets and herself back onto the street. Time to get home.