11/22 - Ryan
11/22/2008
Logfile from Emma.
=NYC= White Queen's Suite - Third Floor - Hellfire Clubhouse
With his child still safely housed in Pennsylvania with grandparents, Ryan finds the time on Saturday afternoons yawning empty before him. After laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning and bill paying, it's still only 1:00. He settles down by the computer and fires it up, but then pauses, thinking better of it. He frowns, pulling his phone out of his pocket and scrolls down the list, the frown growing deeper as he settles on Emma's name and pauses. He squares his shoulders, hits dial, and draws his desk calendar towards him.
Unlike the prior time he attempted this, it only takes two intermediaries before the phone on the corner of Emma's desk rings. For him, there is a silent moment while he is announced, and then a ring. Emma tucks the phone between cheek and shoulder, and greets him with a slightly wondering air that tries to convey curiosity, accusation, hurt, and disinterest all at once. It might be more effective in person, unless Ryan is prone to feeling guilty anyway. "Ryan. Hello. This is... unexpected." She sucks her lower lip in and bites it, waiting for his reply.
Ryan is honestly surprised at getting through at all; a blank, "What, really?" going out just as second intermediary transfers him and Emma's phone begins to ring. He hesitates, then, as Emma answers. "Well, I'm -- I don't know that I was really expecting to get through. Last time I called, your staff -- well. You know. I'm sorry if you didn't want to hear from me again."
Emma casts her thoughts back to the last encounter, and further back to the last encounter Adel and Bahir assured her /he/ would remember. She shifts in her chair and pulls her legs up, wrapping an arm around them. "What on earth would have given you /that/ idea?" she asks carefully.
Ryan's own memory is a little fuzzy on these points, and he frowns at his calendar, pulling a pen out of a nearby jar of them and absently drawing over the numbers of the days back in October. "I'm sure there would be lots of reasons, Emma," he says at last. "We're not exactly -- well. When I last called, your staff rather gave me the impression you wouldn't be interested in hearing from me." He pauses, and then asks, "When did you last see me?"
"When you-- Oh." Emma purses her lips and is quiet for a moment. "We had dinner. I picked you up at work, and we had dinner." The lie is plain and simple, glossed over with a facade of carefully crafted accusation. "Weeks ago."
Ryan lets out a slightly frustrated sigh, dropping his chin into his hand and looking again at the span of blank days before him on the calendar. "I remember that. I was wondering if I'd seen you again after that and done something to -- this sounds bizarre, I know, but I don't remember anything between about October 16th and the 25th. I didn't call you or anything during that time?"
"Anything at all?" Emma asks, sounding surprised. "I don't know if you called me. I could ask my staff. I... fell ill shortly afterwards." And before too.
"Nothing," Ryan says, his eyebrows drawing downward with frusration and irritation. "Apparently somebody called in to tell my work I was sick, myself -- somebody who's voice my boss didn't recognize -- and then it's as though I didn't /exist/ for 10 days. I didn't phone my son, didn't check my e-mail, check in with work. Nothing." He glares a little at the calendar. "If you could ask your staff, I'd appreciate it. I haven't found /anybody/ yet who knows where I was." At least, nobody willing to admit it!
"Of course." Emma falls silent for a long moment, as if waiting him out. She folds first, though, and probes carefully, "Is that the only reason you called?" She can't help it. Her stomach flutters and she tenses like a recovered addict presented with the hope of getting a fix, even while being repelled by it.
Ryan takes a while to answer, looking down at the calendar and then up at the blank wall before him. "Yes," he finally answers, slowly. "Just -- tying up loose ends. I am sorry that whatever happened in that time kept me from calling you, and then you were ill -- but honestly, Emma, we were never -- it couldn't have gone on for long, anyway. We just live in different worlds."
Emma is quiet for a long, thought gathering moment. "Of course, Ryan. I will contact you if anyone reports any activity from you during that time frame. If not, I wish you the best." Faint scuffing noises drift over the line as she moves around.
"Thank you," Ryan says, the words tinged with gratitude and regret. There's then a moment of silence from him in turn, as he pushes the calendar back to the back of the desk and slides the pen back into the jar of pens. "Emma, I -- " He cuts that off, and revises. "Thank you. Maybe I'll run into you again at Bahir's lab someday."
Too bad they're not in person. Emma could find out JUST WHAT HE WAS GOING TO SAY. And trigger his mutation, revealing hers, and destroying all the effort that went into preventing that. "I don't wish to offend, but I rather hope not," she says brusquely, leaning forward in the chair with a jerking motion, and moving her finger to the off button. "Good bye, Ryan."
"Oh," Ryan says, a three parts guilt to one part irritation at her reply. "Well. Bye." And then he hits the off button on his end, with a dark frown and a quiet sigh.
Usually it isn't the /guy/ who forgets an encounter with Emma.