[Lost - Sun, Penny] The Penthouse
Title: The Penthouse
Author: buongiornodaisy
Fandom: Lost
Characters: Sun, Penelope Widmore
Pairing: N/A
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,888
Summary: Sun is looking to buy property in London and Penelope Widmore's looking to sell it. Direct sequel to " Sympathy for the Devil".
Author's Notes: Much love to calluna for looking this over. ♥
Disclaimer: Still not Darlton.
She had convinced her father that Seoul was the problem. Too full of memories. She needed a change. Didn't they have an office in London, their European branch? She just so happened to speak English. Wouldn't it make sense to for Mr. Paik to send his daughter, the company's former managing director, to the London office for oversight? It was a winning situation for them both.
He relented with trepidation. She suspected he still feared her ability to tip the corporate scales in her favor. Did he envision that European office sailing into the Atlantic Ocean with Sun-Hwa at the helm? Whatever he feared was of no concern to her. He had given her the green light, and so she would go. Job acquired; now to find a home. That was not her responsibility. She would appraise the living quarters scouted on her behalf through the pictures sent to her via e-mail, giving her yea or nay until the options were whittled down to one. She eagerly anticipated the end of this process. She was ready to move.
Until then, she had to tie up what affairs in Seoul she had left. Three years of mourning by way of corporate takeover had left her with little friends to say goodbye to. Indeed, when she had run off to “Guam” six months prior she had left behind only two people she missed. One was going with her to London; the other resented her, having grown attached to Ji-Yeon during Sun's absence. Sun wasn't blind to this. She planned to explain everything to her mother someday. She was the only person Sun knew who had a slight chance of believing the story, but right now she had to endure her mother's resentment or risk coming off as insane.
Sun never thought she'd be grateful for packing. In the past it had been nothing but a nuisance, but in the face of business arrangements and family drama it was salvation placed in several cardboard boxes. Wealthy though she was, she refused to hand the task of packing entirely to another entity. She had to keep herself busy, keep herself moving, lest she collapse from the weight of everything. It had been different on the boat. She had someone to suffer with, someone who, in his own way, understood everything she was going through -- but even he was too busy to give her the time of day on the clock if it had nothing to do with finding real estate in London. In fact, he had split the mission between himself and a man named Saint-Just. She wasn't sure why, but her e-mail inbox was cluttered with the results of their mission.
She was presently checking said cluttered inbox on the tops of two boxes, she sitting on top of one, her laptop sitting on top of another. Just one e-mail today, from Saint-Just: a penthouse.
Sun's response was “yea.”
---
Penelope's hand lingered on an old photograph of herself: a smiling girl with the sea stretching out in the background. Her mother had taken this picture, and her father, as always substituting material possession for physical presence, had taken it with him to remind him of the daughter he was never close to. She would find many such mementos like this, encased in elegant framing, placed where her father could have seen them easily. When this penthouse was emptied to make room for the new tenant, many mementos such as this would find their way in storage, under the most loving care, until Penny could bring herself to look at them and decide which of them to sell. She found it difficult enough being in his old penthouse, where she was toeing the line between wanting to cry and wanting to destroy everything.
“--my employer was very impressed with the living area in particular.”
She looked up from the picture, to the profile of Mr. Saint-Just.
Noncommittally, Penelope replied, “Oh, yes, it is very-impressive.”
“The entire penthouse is impressive,” Mr. Saint-Just said. “Of course, my employer will have to make a few adjustments, but on the whole, yes - very impressive.”
“Of course.” She looked away for a moment. When she returned her gaze towards Mr. Saint-Just, she saw that he was smiling, sympathetically. She bristled. More unwarranted pity? She wasn't even sure if she was sad her father was dead.
“Shouldn't take long to move all of this out,” she replied, more curt than expected. “Then your employer is welcome to move in. I'll give you the keys when everything's gone.”
Mr. Saint-Just nodded, moving closer to her with his hand extended. “Well, Mrs. Hume. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”
She looked him in the eye, nodded, and shook his hand.
Honestly, she was just glad to start the process of removing her father's possessions from her name.
---
Sun had in her hand the key to her flat, where she would find all the boxes that had been shipped out of her old Seoul home. She would find all that when she was through dulling her nerves with alcohol. Across the table sat Ji-Yeon, picking away at the meal she had ordered. Sun envied her. Children's nerves could be dulled by something simple like chocolate milk. When all else failed, adults went for the substance that could damage their self-control and their health. Sun had no plans to get drunk, but she wanted to at least feel relaxed before she could bring herself to cross the threshold of her new life. Flying for hours with a child who had reasonable fears of flying was nerve wracking. How long would it take for Sun to recover from that?
“Sun?”
She jumped in her seat. Drops of wine sprayed red onto the tablecloth. Looking up to the person who had addressed her - “Penny?”
Penny, who, standing by Sun and Ji's table, was smiling broadly, shocked though she was. Without another word, Sun rose to her feet, wrapping Penny in a hug. “Oh my God! I can't believe...” Penny pulled back, getting a good look at Sun. “Are you all right?”
Sun nodded. “Yes.” She knew the question was loaded, that it inquired more about the past than the present. She sidestepped the matter entirely. “I'm actually moving here.”
“Are you really?” Penny chuckled. “Well, London was good enough for me while I was here, but it can't beat the high seas.” Peering over Sun's shoulder - “Oh, is that your daughter?”
Sun turned around to look at Ji, who was staring blankly at the both of them. “Yes,” Sun replied, “but she doesn't speak English.”
Penny waved. Ji stared.
“Would you like to sit?” Sun asked Penny.
Penny looked uncertain for a moment. Then: “Sure. Why not?”
Several moments later, the two were catching up over a glass of wine while Ji, having overcome her flight trauma, was distracting herself with a coloring book. “I just sold my father's old penthouse,” Penny said, her fingers tapping against the stem of the glass. The statement was a natural progression from their having brought up the “recently” deceased Charles Widmore. Sun's expression had darkened when the subject was first breached, and Penny had not taken offense. “The funny thing is,” Penny continued, “I don't know who's the new tennant.”
Sun raised her eyebrows.
“I thought if I hung around I'd find out who it was, but I couldn't.” She took a sip of her wine. “And like hell I'm going to look into Mr. Saint-Just's affairs.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Saint-Just. He was the representative of the new tenant.” Penny tilted her head. “Why? Do you know him?”
“What did he look like?”
“Around my age. Brown hair. American. Not a man you'd notice walking down the street, to be honest.” Still, Penny looked at Sun keenly. She obviously hadn't disguised the fact that the name was familiar. “So where's your place at?”
Sun gave the address. The suspicion in Penny's eyes faded.
“Well, next time Des, Charlie and I are in London, we'll be sure to pay you a visit.” The smile she gave was warm. Sun returned it, nodding, still uneasy. Surely Saint-Just represented more than just one person? Looking towards the table, she shook her head, grabbed the stem of the wine glass and finished her drink. She needed to go home.
---
Everything had been placed as instructed. Ji-Yeon's possessions and furniture were unpacked and reassembled, making her room suitable enough for her to stay in without complaint. Sun's room consisted only of boxes and a reassembled bed. The rest of the flat remained in boxes save for the brand-new living room furniture, still wrapped in plastic. When everything would be taken out and arranged to her tastes, Sun didn't know, nor did she care to plan. She needed to rest. She needed to work. She needed to figure out why someone had left an elevator key and an address sitting on the island in her kitchen. She didn't recognize the handwriting but she could guess whose it was, and the hypothesis convinced her further of the rightness of sleep. Give her a night, a few hours of day, and then she could grapple with the questions plaguing her mind.
The next afternoon saw her in a lobby that was too wide, too full of marble and too noisy. It made her feel as if the act of wearing heels was a call for the media and all other interested parties to descend upon and hound her with questions. That wasn't going to happen given that the lobby was bereft of anyone save her, Ji-Yeon and a concierge who didn't recognize her. In fact, she seemed more interested in Sun's elevator key. “Ah, yes, that's the key to Widmore's old flat,” she had said the moment Sun had shown her the key. "You must know the new tenant, Mr. Robespierre.”
Sun stared blankly. The name Robespierre rang no bells, but had evidently brought her to the brink of learning who had purchased the penthouse from Penny, through no effort of her own. She considered several possibilities, all of them likely given the evidence on hand. She decided to press further: “I beg your pardon?”
“Mr. Robespierre,” the concierge replied. “Dunno why you're asking. If he left you the key he must know you.”
“The name is not familiar. Have you seen him?”
“Robespierre? No. Can't say I have.” She chuckled. “Perhaps he's a secret admirer.”
Sun's grin was strained. “This is a little extreme for a secret admirer,” she said (in the back of her mind, wondering if she should have bought a gun), “but thank you.” The concierge nodded, and Sun turned, walking hand-in-hand with Ji-Yeon towards the elevator. Once inside, she entered the key next to the button for the penthouse and kept her mind clear as the elevator rose, a task that became impossible when the elevator doors opened to reveal the penthouse's new tenant, Mr. Robespierre.
Mr. Robespierre, also known as Benjamin Linus.