Waking up is hard to do

[got_burned]

[Note: This is seriously backdated.]

It's dark. Dark and enveloping, in the same way that water is wet and drowning. It's no comfort, no help, because there's something profoundly wrong with it being dark

Comments

FINALLY getting around to Maddy intro, holy crap.

[maddyhbic]

Madeline Westen, for a lack of a better word, had been feeling frazzled lately.

Well... more frazzled than usual. Michael had up and left again, leaving Sam in that usual job of looking out for her. And as usual, she let Sam know she hadn't forgotten about the sun room and occasionally forced him into going to partner stretching with her, much to his annoyance.

She was by herself today though. She figured forcing Sam into doing Aqua Aerobics with her might be pushing it. She dried off her hair with a bright purple towel from the house as she finished dressing herself in the locker room after class. She checked the clock on the wall. Sam wasn't picking her up for another ten minutes.

Maddy sighed and leaned against the mirror on the wall. She began to fish through her bag for her pack of cigarettes when the lights began to flicker on and off.

And she feels a sudden pull behind her.

[maddyhbic]

Madeline sighs and yanks the unlit cigarette from her mouth. "Okay fine. The sooner we're out of here, the better."

[got_burned]

Again that forced smile comes forth.

"Oh, trust me ... I'd like nothing more," he says, as he holds the door open for her.

[maid_of_kandar]

Sheila's spent the past twenty minutes in a panic. It took her quite a long time to get ahold of Ash, and once she did she couldn't do anything but demand he come home immediately.

Seeing the Charger fall from the sky and knowing someone had emerged from it. she decides to offer her aid in any possible way. She takes the stairs to the lobby at full speed, and by the time she reaches it she's gasping for air.

Fourteenth century maidens were not meant to run down thirteen flights of stairs in seconds flat.

The sight of Michael's injury and Madeline's befuddlement and the very fact that a car. fell. from. the. sky. has her all twisted around, She has to force herself to remain calm, keep her hands down and her gaze even.

"...Fiona?" she mumbles in worry. She had been out there. Where had she gone?

She's shaking like a leaf...

[got_burned]

As if things weren't bizarre enough. But when you're a spy, you're trained to expect things to get turned on their head at a moment's notice, and try to accommodate it. Michael draws to a stop in the lobby, giving the new arrival a curious, and perhaps slightly suspicious, look.

[maid_of_kandar]

Sheila deliberately squares her shoulders and gives Michael an unwavering look in return. She doesn't want a repeat of the time she met Samantha and spent every second delegating authority back to Ash; if she's in charge while he's is gone, then it's her job to make sure that he's well - for the time being.

"Sir? Are ye hurt?" She knows he must be - she sees the trace of blood on his chin and can't believe that this seems to be his sole injury.

She winces reflexively at the 'ye'. She knows from the way he's looking at her that he'll be apt to catch her mistake. To the woman, she asks, "and ye, madame. Shall I call for an emergency vehicle?" Her tone is firm but still slightly urgent.

[got_burned]

Information is everything. When you're in a situation you're not sure of, your best tack is to be nice. It's the whole 'attracting more flies with honey' adage - if you get immediately suspicious and angry at someone, they're that much less likely to volunteer anything useful.

Michael breaks into a self-effacing smile, and raises a hand in a dismissive gesture at his chin. "Oh, this? No, I just had a little disagreement with a steering wheel--" He pauses, as if struck by another thought, then continues, "Hey, are you in charge here? I could really use a phone right now and my insurance company... woof, I really gotta be on the ball with them or they'll jack up my rates twenty per cent every second I wait to call in this fender bender."

And please, Ma, for the love of God, don't contradict me...

[maddyhbic]

Madeline opens her mouth for a second before quickly closing it and faking her best smile. "And don't worry about me dear. I wasn't in the car at the time. I was just checking on my son."

[maid_of_kandar]

Sheila raises a brow. Michael's a much better liar than Ash ever had been, but she knows what she played witness to. She can be painfully direct when she needs to be.

"Aye, and thy car disagreed rather violently with the pavement." She comes closer to the two of them slowly, as if they were both dangerous serpents. "The phones work, but only within the bounds of Dearborn. The mail hath not been tried yet, though..one of our tennants has placed a note in the post for her son." At that point, it's Michael's face - the set of his jaw - that triggers a memory in Sheila. The pictures on Fiona's phone! Very evenly, she adds, "'Tis not my mannor, but Ashley's, though I care for the place while he art at work." She's not bothering covering up the 13th century-ness. "I am not thy enemy. I am a friend of Fiona's."

[got_burned]

Clearly she knows more about what's going on than he does.

"Ahh, you know, I have no idea if this company's even got a field office here, and-- Fiona?" He lifts a hand and pushes it through his close-cropped hair, and brings forth that charming smile again. "You know, she gets around and meets so many people and never tells me anything about any of them? Can you believe that?"

[maid_of_kandar]

Well. There is only so much that Fiona's revealed to Sheila about her past. "Aye. Field office." Fiona never said what Michael did for a living, but she's fairly certain it's an occupation that would match Fi's bounty hunting and IRA work. She heads to the check in desk and pulls a red courtesy phone from the countertop. "This is our...Ashley calls it a 'land line'...ye may try it."

Let him figure out that the phones have limits himself, even the ones wired to the building.

She turns toward Madeline. "Perhaps we might sit and converse while he tries?" She moves automatically toward the island sitting dead center in the lobby and settles down. "I do wish ye would allow me to aid thy injury," she sighs toward Michael in the end. She hates to see suffering of any sort.

[maddyhbic]

Madeline looks at Sheila. She needs a smoke more than anything else, but she still puts on her best smile for her. "Sure. After the afternoon I've been having?"

She just shakes her head at Sheila when she offers to help Michael. "It's probably best to not try."

[maid_of_kandar]

"La?" Sheila tilts her head. "My nursing skills are not so poor. And I do sympathize with thy plight - my journey to this place was not expected. I cannot truly say now that it was not wanted." More secratively, when Madeline sits down, she adds, "I truly am one of Fiona's friends. She has shown me photographs...I know who ye are."

It's always been easier for her to open up to women. Perhaps it's risidual hurt from her father, the scars Evil Ash left on her.

[got_burned]

He thanks the young woman and keeps that smile firmly in place, waiting until the ladies are more or less out of earshot before he turns away and picks up the phone. But it's not to dial.

A good spy never ever uses landline unless it's a payphone. Chances are someone's listening in no matter where you are. The invention of the disposable cellphone was arguably the greatest moment in spy-to-spy relations. You pay for it in cash, you use it for a couple days, you drop it in a large body of water and nobody's any the wiser. Land lines are old fashioned but still useful, but they're way easier targets for interference.

With speed and practised ease, he takes the thing practically apart to satisfy his own inbred paranoia before he decides to take the chance and punches in Sam's number.

[maddyhbic]

"I don't doubt your nursing skills," Maddy says, taking a seat across from Sheila. "My son is just a bit...difficult...sometimes."

An uneasy smile grows on her face at Sheila's confession. "Really? Well, I hope they're good things..."

[maid_of_kandar]

"Oh la, yes - wonderful things. Fiona holds ye both in the highest esteem." She frowns up at the ceiling, wondering where her friend has gone. "Michael in particular." Then she adds, softly. "Difficult?" Sheila tries to hide her lack of surprise in this, not wanting to get Fiona in trouble. "La, the world seems to be filled to the sky with men most difficult." She speaks from personal experience.