Troubled Waters

[got_burned]

He's finally gotten the Charger's engine to click over again when he gets the call. The number's familiar. What he hears, not so much. There's so much static on the line to begin with, he'd be forgiven for thinking it's a crank, or a warning

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[teethkicknheels]

Fiona's across the street, digging in her trunk for the the package of zip-cuffs she knows she put in there a few days ago, when out of the corner of her eye, she sees a black blur slams into the ground, metal shrieking in protest. She bangs her head into the trunk lid from the startle, swears floridly, and draws her pistol, dropping to take cover around the Jetta's bumper as shattered glass sprays across the pavement. She peers around the car, leading with the gun, and then nearly drops it as her mind tries to make sense of what's in front of her.

For a second, she's convinced she's hallucinating again. Because it is plainly not possible that that is Michael's Charger, with Michael sitting in it, bloody and stunned, in front of Finley Towers in Michigan. "No," she whispers, but you can't protest reality, and a second later she's already up and running across the street.

Time to be angry later. Time to wonder how in the goddamn hell he's here later. Fiona's vision tunnels as she reaches the driver's side door and yanks on the handle

[got_burned]

There's an unintelligible groan of suffering from him, before he scrabbles to unlock and push the door open, almost knocking her over in the process. He leans out-- almost falls out, really, but he just manages to keep his seat in the car.

And then he relunctantly and involuntarily graces the pavement with the contents of his stomach.

[teethkicknheels]

Fiona tries to sidestep, but ends up with some on her shoes anyway. There's a twinge of annoyance- she'd just bought those things- but it's far from the first time this has happened to either one of them. When he looks to be mostly done, she bends over and slips her hands under his arms, helping him up and mostly back into the Charger's seat. She grips his face, making him look at her as she checks his eyes. "What are you doing here?" she murmurs. "How did you know?"

[got_burned]

There's nothing more undignified or irritating than throwing up. When you're busy tossing your cookies on someone's shoes, you're not in control, you're vulnerable. And it burns.

"Fiona. We have got to stop meeting like this," he croaks finally, his blue eyes strained as they meet hers.

[teethkicknheels]

And that's the Michael she remembers. Fi laughs, feeling the rock dissolve at least momentarily. Familiar territory. She wants to dive at him and give him a bone-cracking hug. She wants to kiss him. She also wants to shake him violently. None of them are a good idea, given what just happened and the fact that he probably has a concussion.

"Pretty sure this is the only way we know how," she replies, and then she does the first thing she wanted to do anyway.

[got_burned]

"Nngh--"

Oh, God, that hurts right now. Never mind that it's because he's really not that much of a touchy-feely kind of guy; it's got more to do with the fact that he's just taken a steering wheel to the chin, and classic muscle cars don't have airbags.

Then again, most vehicles aren't equipped to deal with being dropped from twenty feet.

[teethkicknheels]

Fiona pulls away at the pained noise Michael's making. "Whoops," she says, shifting back to her feet so she's not halfway leaning on him anymore. She shakes her head, looking him up and down and taking in the car's condition. "What the hell happened?" It was all a blur, and she hadn't really been looking...

She yanks off her jacket, pressing a sleeve to his bleeding chin, and her other hand creeps up to his face again.

[got_burned]

He tilts his head up at her. Nothing about the last several minutes is making any sense. Logically: It could be a bridge collapse. The interstate system's been falling apart at the seams. Totally plausible.

His throat is on fire thanks to the bile that scorched it, and he narrows his eyes at her, though they're unfocused for a moment.

"Funny, Fi. I was kind of hoping you could tell me." He rubs briefly at his temple, then screws his eyes shut. Probably a good thing he'd taken his sunglasses off and shoved them in the glove compartment when the rain starte-- they'd be history by now otherwise. He opens them again and turns his head to instinctively look around, trying to assess his situation. Looking for anything or anyone suspect. Odd. Out of place.

...That would seem to cover just about everything.

[teethkicknheels]

Fi just stares at him for a minute, watching him trying to puzzle out the situation. Oh, this will be fun.

"You're in Dearborn, Michigan," she says finally. "That-" she points to the hotel they're in front of- "is Finley Towers." She sighs and shoves a hand through her hair, looking away. "That's where I've been for the last several weeks." Before he can say anything, she keeps going. "Michael, you have to understand- I didn't come here. On my own." She shakes her head, frustrated. "One minute I was getting out of the shower, wiping the mirror, and then I was just here. Well, on my ass, in the elevator," she amends. "But, whatever. This place doesn't let you leave, Michael." Fiona's hands ball into fists on the doorframe. "That's why I never got in touch you. You weren't supposed to come, goddammit!" She punches the door, knowing she isn't explaining this very well, and probably sounds like a lunatic.

If that fucking hotel has something to do with this-- But who's she kidding? Of course it does.

[got_burned]

He sits in silence, attempting to digest this for a minute. Then he decides it's not worth trying to make any sense of when it doesn't make sense and his head is about to start throbbing, and he pushes the car door open further before he hauls himself out of the abused vehicle so he can get a better look at what's going on around him.

A brief observation of his immediate, local surroundings tells him enough: his windshield is shattered-- in fact, just about all the Charger's windows have been rendered into little more than glittering, diamondlike fragments across the upholstered leather seats thanks to the impact. The street beyond is distinctly non-Floridian, though the sky is still overcast.

And then his brain ticks over what she's said yet again, and fixates on the last two sentences. He fixes her with a look, and this time his frown, his gaze, is a little more focused, and profoundly more intense.

"You called me, Fi." It's not a question. It's a statement.

Has she been dosed with something? Has he?

[teethkicknheels]

"No, I didn't." Fiona's voice rings with just as much conviction as his- she's been running down a bail jumper since yesterday, and she hasn't called anyone besides the bondsman. Besides which, she'd firmly kept her promise to not call him. She straightens, her own mind running through possibilties, and begins digging phones out of her hip bag- a couple small disposables in case of emergencies, and the iPhone she's been using. None of them even have his number programmed, just in case she accidentally pressed the speed dial. It's not like she'll forget his number, anyway. She silently offers them to him.

"I was going to call," she says tightly. "But if you came tearing up here for some reason, there was a chance it wouldn't let you leave either. I couldn't take that risk. So I never did." Her voice trembles just the slightest bit. "When did you get the call?"

[got_burned]

Fiona's a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them-- not when it matters. Not to him. Not right now.

But he still takes the phones from her, checking swiftly the numbers against that which he'd memorised after her frantic, static-laden call earlier. His naturally wary instinct to keep his eyes on his surroundings remains in full force, despite the lingering queasiness that continues roiling in the pit of his stomach, and the blood that's staining his t-shirt and starting to clot on his chin.

None of the numbers match.

"About an hour ago," he replies. It's clear he won't get any reliable information if her own information is ... questionable at the moment. He looks back at the car and wishes immediately that he hadn't. Several weeks? Is her time sense off? Could be. Even a lack of hydration will cause hallucinations.

He cannot, absolutely cannot, be suddenly somewhere he wasn't. It's just not possible.

[teethkicknheels]

"Those are the only phones I've been carrying with me," Fiona says. "I have a couple more, but they're in my room." She watches him, reading the disbelief and confusion on his face. "I know what you're thinking. I know. It's insane. I thought that too." She glances over her shoulder at the tall building, and just seeing it starts the rage simmering again. "There's something about that place, Michael. It isn't right."

Her hand slips subconsciously to her left bicep and massages the little scar there as she looks back at him. "An hour ago. How did it pull you through..." Fi frowns. She's only aware of people coming through in the elevator.

[got_burned]

When things look like they're going from bad to worse, the only recourse you have is to go back to what you know for certain, and discard everything that's supposition, hearsay or just plain incomprehensible. As a covert operative, you don't get a second chance if you make a bad call.

Right now, the only thing he knows for sure is that his car is trashed, he feels like death warmed over, and Fiona, despite the unexplained call, appears to be fine, if ... acting strangely.

They could've sampled her voice, possibly. But the question then remains: Who are They?

Michael's expressions are subtle and hard to read at the best of times. Fiona is one of the few people who can manage it with any degree of success.

"I need a place to put this car," he says, in that way of his that tells her he's not dealing with this craziness right now unless it's immediately life-threatening, and it doesn't appear to be. He's not going to stand here and argue her case with her in the street when he doesn't even know what's happening.

[teethkicknheels]

Fiona gets it. And isn't exactly surprised by his reaction. She huffs and jerks her finger at the hotel. "Worthless place doesn't have covered parking, but there's a parking garage just down the road. I'll help you push it. Just a second..." She darts across the street and slams the little Jetta's trunk shut, then heads back to the rear of the Charger and points out the garage. She eyes the battered car warily.

[got_burned]

When in doubt, stick to the practicalities: What you -can- do. What needs to be done. Priorities: food, shelter. A safe place to keep a few pounds of explosives and enough weapons and ammunition to keep a small Nigerian militia the hell away from you.

As if to add insult to final injury, the rear bumper chooses that moment to fall off, the chromed metal missing Fiona's feet by the barest of inches.

Michael's head turns sharply at the sound, ever on his guard.