Paused scene with Alicia

Elijah:

Elijah didn't so much have a heart to heart with Jenn as he had a come to Jesus meeting. It felt like an intervention, it felt like his intervention, and while Jenn was off to pick up a job with a client, Elijah was there in the house going through his medicine cabinet.



He had a script for damned near anything. Half of it he didn't need, but it was fun. The other half he didn't need but it wasn't fun. He secretly wondered if Jenn counted how many he had or had not taken. She was a well meaning sort but... well. He was learning something about being well-meaning.
Elijah propped the toilet seat lid open and, on a whim, decided that maybe he could try calling Alicia one more time.
Ring ring
He readied himself for the inevitable straight-to-voicemail.




Alicia:

For a day or so the calls all went straight to voicemail because Alicia had turned off her phone and ignored it. No reason to have it on when no one was going to call her but Elijah had no way of knowing what her phone was doing if he couldn't see the phone. The next few days the calls rang their way to her inbox. Yesterday it rang twice before she swiped her finger across the screen and ignored him.

She might have been siding with Jenn. She might have still been pissed off from last week.


When he calls today it rings four times before connecting. Alicia blows out a lungful of smoke before she answers.

"Hey," she says. She doesn't sound as if she's been crying. So there's that.

Elijah:

What the Hell was he doing?


That was the question on his mind while he went through, went through the appropriate dosages for the day and dropped them in the toilet with a quiet ploink against the water. He waited, almost ready to hang up and call it for the day before-

Hey.

"Ohfuck-" he cursed, clearly surprised, like he wasn't the one who had been calling her in the first place, "hi."

Suddenly, he's reminded that he needs to say something instead of standing awkwardly in his bathroom throwing away prescriptions he's supposed to be taking. Elijah shifts his weight from one side to the other.

"How are you?" because he legitimately wanted to know.

Alicia:
"... did you just butt-dial me?"

Like that's a reasonable explanation for how he could be calling her and sound shocked when she actually picked up.

Elijah:


"Oh, uh, no? I just kind of expected you to not answer so I was trying to figure out what I was going to say in voicemail. You've already got Pablo Neruda and some drunken Jack White so it's kinda hard to top."






Alicia


That makes her laugh a sad laugh. Like she'd already wrapped her head around never talking to him again and he's making it real hard to stick to the plan.






"Is there any other kind of Jack White?"






Elijah:


"Drunken on key Jack White," he replies, "which I am not capable of, so you've got that warbly Loretta Lynn track on you voicemail if you ever get bored and want to hear music get butchered."






A beat.






"I was gonna go grab waffles or something, wanna come with?"






Alicia


A spell of silence as she considers. Of course she wants to come with. She wants a lot of things and she's still young enough that she hasn't yet taught her heart it doesn't need everything it wants.






"Yeah," she says when she's reached her decision. "Meet me at the diner in an hour?"






It's a short conversation. What they have to say to each other is best said not over the phone anyway. After they've confirmed what they're doing Alicia pauses and then hangs up.






---






Time passes. She's thrown herself through the shower and tied up her drying hair in a topknot and reapplied her makeup. When Elijah arrives at the diner she's inside with a cup of coffee and an ashtray in front of her already. No one cares if people smoke inside in this diner. It's a dark world they're living in.






When she sees him Alicia sets her cigarette down in the ashtray and gets to her feet. She's wearing sandals and madras shorts and a pink halter top. She looks sad but that's nothing new. As soon as he's within range Alicia throws her arms around his ribs and hugs him like she'd thought she'd lost him. Cheek pressed hard against his heart and a portent of tears when she inhales.






"I'm sorry," she says.






Elijah


When he sees her, he is relieved. He is at a point where he can breathe in the smell of whatever body spray she's using now and the scent of cigarette smoke that came along with. He was fond of that smell, or maybe he was just fond of Alicia. We digress. His attire was its usual- jeans, a pullover shirt with a couple of buttons down the front. A vest, because he needed somewhere to put his pocket watch. A couple bracelets because why the fuck not?






She hugged him like she thought she'd lost him; he hugged her like he thought he may still lose her. Something close and protective and aching because- well, because. Reason was obvious enough.






She says she's sorry and the only reply he has is to keep holding on. To close his eyes and relish the feeling of contact against his body and a familiar closeness he hadn't had, might not have again if things go poorly. His heart is beating had and fast and it's a full body lie because he feels like he should be calm but his heart is racing and his mind is reeling.






"I'm sorry, too," he replied after a good, long while.






Alicia


His body is more honest with her than hers is with him. Mutual self-disclosure heightens the sense of intimacy romantic partners feel for each other and Alicia has disclosed plenty to Elijah but she knows so much about Elijah that she can't help but worry for him. One doesn't make and maintain many healthy friendships while under the guardianship of a madman. She doesn't know what to do with him sometimes.






All things end eventually and the embrace is no exception. After a time Alicia rubs the much taller youth's back and steps away from him and sits herself back down. She has to relight her cigarette so she does.






Seems he's going to have to be the first one to speak now.






Elijah


There's a way that this could be easy. He could just figure out what Alicia wanted to hear and lie his ass off. If he could fool some doctors, then surely Elijah could fool Alicia, right?






Right?






He didn't want to lie to her, though. It would have defeated the purpose of attempting honest communication, and he had to experience this. Whatever "this" might have been. Elijah sat himself down and ran a hand through his hair. He pinned a salt shaker with his gaze because he needed somewhere to look that wasn't her. He needed somewhere to center his thoughts and if it was't through touch perhaps it would be through sight.






"I thought that looking for your dad would help you find... I don't know... closure? I was a dick about bringing it up, and I wasn't thinking. I... uh... kind of do that... a lot," he admits, "and I don't always think about the things I do and how they impact others."






Alicia


Given that she doesn't have the world's greatest track record insofar as maintaining dry eyes during distressing conversations no one would blame Elijah for entering this conversation with a degree of wariness. But as they sit back and wait for their server to notice them and Elijah talks and Alicia listens no clouds drift over her eyes. She doesn't look as if she's going to start crying.






"I know," she says. Around them the cafe bustles and other people have other conversations and the din is a cocoon around them. "Look... it's not looking for him that I don't want to do. It's..." Sigh. She stamps out her cigarette and leans forward like they're conspiring together. "Every day I wake up not knowing if he's alive or dead, Elijah. Okay? I keep going over it in my head and... wondering if there was ever a point where I could have done something different and it would have mattered. And it's--" Her voice strains for a moment but recovers. "--<i>really</i> shitty. Lena and Kalen know what happened, and Lena said they would help me, but then all those people wound up in the hospital, and I don't..."






She leans back. Brushes a frizz of hair back off her brow and glances out the window. When she looks back:






"I don't know these people, and even if I did, I don't know them well enough to be like 'Oh hey can you help me find my dad? He's kind of in this maximum security--'"






Oh hello here's their waitress. Alicia has no interest in eating anything but she knows she has to so her body can continue to function so she orders a chocolate milkshake. After the waitress has written down their order and left them Alicia sighs again and shakes her head like to dismiss the entire thing as a pipe dream.






"It just sucks, and I've already lost him. I don't want to lose you too. That's why I got mad."






Elijah


To an outside perspective, they were just two people who were probably making up from a fight, or engaging in standard operating procedure for a break up. They had the kind of body language that warded off potential onlookers lest they see more than they would like. He listens, leans in when he needs to lean in and finally looks back at her eyes and the clarity there.






He leaned back with her. Posture comfortable, attention fixed. He wanted to keep a hold of the moment, keep a grip on what it was she was saying and why she was saying it. he has context, now. He has context because he has a world full of people who explained how dangerous this is. People who he trusted and their judgment was sound.






The waitress startles him off-center.


He orders waffles, because waffles are delicious and he said he wanted waffles.






"I'd be pretty pissed off too," he said.






here is a pause, and a little quieter, "do you want me to drop this? I... when I talked to people, they were either scared out of their mind or incredulous at best. Jenn came home and gave me one of the biggest ass-chewings I've had in months because..." he doesn't finish that thought, "I want you to be okay, and I don't know how to help you and I hate it."






Alicia


Hearing other people are scared or incredulous just makes Alicia laugh a sad laugh. <i>They're</i> scared out of their minds. That's beautiful.






"Not running off and getting yourself killed would be pretty helpful." That's not what he wants to hear. Alicia sighs and takes a slug of her cooling coffee. "It's just... if it were Kalen, or someone they actually give a shit about, I bet you they'd go after him. But nobody gives a shit about my dad except for me and like..."






A brief blankness in her eyes as she tries to remember something she isn't sure if she remembers or how she would remember it. That blankness ushers in a frown and she shakes away whatever it was.






Elijah


Not running off and getting yourself killed would be pretty helpful.


"A lot of people are very attached to that idea."






That wasn't a you need to stop. But it wasn't exactly a you should totally do this, either. So, in short, some part of Elijah roars in quiet triumph that he can, in fact, still look because Alicia didn't tell him no. It wasn't a no and she didn't tell him to rethink his plans so... he's been given permission, right?






No, but we digress.






"Like those people you mentioned in the journal," he brings up. The people who were just letters.






Alicia


Still frowning. He has never seen her grow queasy or lightheaded while they've been abusing their bodies with drugs and alcohol so this expression of hers doesn't have an analogous mapping in his brain. If she doesn't look as if she's about to be sick she still looks distracted and ill at ease. Maybe it's the caffeine. Alicia isn't much of a coffee drinker.






When she speaks her eyes are aimed at the ashtray like she needs a focal point to keep her rooted in the present.






"Yeah," she says. "I don't know what happened to..." She takes a deep breath and looks back at his face. "Yeah. Me and Morgan are the only two people, probably. And I don't know where she is to ask her what to do, so..."






She takes another swallow of coffee just to give herself something to do with her hands.






Elijah


No, this is a new expression for which Elijah has no context. They had abused enough substances in a short time that it will be a miracle if they aren't dead before thirty, (or maybe that was just Elijah. He didn't seem to mind either way)






"What do you think happened to her? Maybe we could look for her instead, that seems like it might be the safer option."






Morgan, he commits to memory. Unaware if it is a first or last name, it does not matter because it is filed away for safe keeping.






Alicia


It might be safer to talk to the person who was her father's best friend than go directly after the ones who took him. Alicia gives Elijah a smile tinged with fondness more than sadness.






"Maybe," she says. "The last time I saw her was at her parents' place, in Kansas?" Oh no. "That ranch I told you about. Dad made it sound like she was still alive, but I don't think they talked again after that."






Elijah


"Well, y'know, the thing with being old is that, like, five or six years for them isn't a big deal anymore," says the young man who beloved the current measurement of time was kind of bullshittish.






"We could make a pit stop and see if she still remembers you. Make a road trip out of it, see whatever the fuck is in Kansas. They had to have stopped talking for a reason. You don't just stop talking to someone randomly if you're cool enough with each other to rock up at their parents' ranch."






He paused, as if something just dawned on him






"The ranch where all those people showed up and then they were gone like they had never been there?"






Alicia


"They were supposed to show up, but they didn't." As if she's an authority on what actually happened. She'd told him she had only hazy recollection of the evening in question and watching her now he can see she's struggling to put into words what she remembers. "And Morgan was there when we got there. One minute she and my dad were talking and the next he was outside and he was..."






Alicia frowns and rubs her temple. Briefly covers her eyes as she scrubs her face. Why are all the men in her life crazy. When the jolt of the recollection passes she reaches for her purse and rummages for her cigarettes.

"I don't want to just drive out to Kansas and hope she's there. She could live somewhere else or be dead. You know?" A snort and then she lights her cigarette. Tosses the lighter on the table with the pack and blows out a quick stream. "This would be way easier if there was a phone book for people like us."

Elijah
He watches her struggle through what was hazy at best. He took note of her appearance, the way her eyebrows knit together and the way she scrubbed at her face and pushed through the vagueness into something more concrete.

Maybe concrete.
Something less liquid, at least.

"I've got Grace and her insane computer skills, her Google fu is kind of like a phone book and I don't think she would mind looking someone up for me," he said, "it beats driving to Kansas since, you know, it has the added insult of being Kansas."

He picked up the package of cigarettes, raising a brow and bumming one if permitted. His thoughts wander back to her expression earlier, "do you remember what he was doing outside?"

Alicia
Of course she permits him a cigarette. It's in the center of the table and so is the lighter and she gives him a short upward nod to answer his eyebrow's question. Since she has a lit cigarette in her hand already Alicia is saved from chewing her nails or fidgeting with the table settings or whatever it is she would be doing throughout this conversation without it.

Does she remember what he was doing outside.

Alicia scoffs and rolls her eyes but it's not aimed at Elijah. She glances out the window and she thinks of the story she'd written down in the notebook they share. It hadn't made sense on paper and it doesn't make sense as she sits and thinks about it. Dialogue is where most of the world's great progresses have occurred. Not isolation.

When she looks back she taps the ash from the tip of her cigarette and leans back.

"I don't know how he got outside," she says. "But it was like, December, and he wasn't wearing a jacket, he just had on what he had on when he was talking to Morgan. So I don't... I don't know. I don't know what he was doing outside but I had to go outside and get him. I told you, he kept falling down when he would try to walk, like he said his eyes weren't... processing images at the rate they were supposed to, or something, he was just getting flashes every couple seconds and it was making him dizzy and I think he was hearing something I couldn't hear, too? It was like he was having a really bad trip. I don't know what he did. When I asked him if their other two friends were gonna show up, the ones him and Morgan were talking about right before that happened, he didn't know who I was talking about."

Long drag.

Elijah
Lighting a cigarette has become a practiced motion, something he's had to do and done half a dozen times to be productive instead of just sating his desire for nicotine and the latent desire to, perhaps, shorten his lifespan by a couple decades. Like rewriting reality wasn't going to do that, anyway. Elijah Poirot is hurdling himself towards the distinction of being one of those young and brilliant people who don't survive to twenty-seven. (If he wasn't so terrified of his avatar, being the Jimi Hendricks of the awakened community might not be so bad, right up until the death part.)

She doesn't know how he got outside, and it was his turn to remember from the notebook. Alicia said she kept trying to piece it out in her head but it was different seeing her actually trying to piece it out. Seeing the holes and the gaps and the places that clearly didn't make sense. The things that she could say with authority juxtaposed to the things she couldn't quite piece out. Z and K weren't there, but Morgan had been… right up until she wasn't there and neither was Alicia's dad.

He takes a drag and listens. His brows knit together for a second; it's strange to see Elijah focused on… well… anything. He could focus on Alicia, though.

"Something happened," he said, musing. It was a puzzle to piece together, "your journal entry said that it was, like, the effect of collective disbelief. Like, when the world has to correct itself. Something big happened- really big. For the world to do…"

Less musing now, and more concern. More… something. Something between concern and confusion because his young mind can't quite piece together what he could have possibly gone wrong… Or right. No, something seems to have gone the way it was supposed to, and he couldn't have possibly-

"Oh son of a bitch, Alicia."