Cabot & Assoc., Thursday, 6/30

[bitten_notshy]

Jack couldn't find his focus today. He fluttered from this to that -- now doing some research for Ms. Cabot, now playing pointless online games, now composing emails to friends from university to explain where he'd scampered off to for the summer.

Eventually he gave up, sighed, and began to devote his afternoon to a sustained program of drinking coffee and staring out the window. Some days just weren't made for work.

[OOC: Open law office.]

Comments

[chosehumanity]

By the time afternoon rolled around, Mitchell had scraped himself up from the floor after yesterday's phone call to Kate. There was someone else he had to tell... at least about Annie.

Punching in the number took time. A lot of it.

But eventually, Jack's phone came to ring.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack glanced at the caller ID before answering. He was half pleased to see Mitchell was calling -- at least he wasn't dead (well, deader than usual) -- and half irritated by the fact he'd gone missing for a month right after the mess of the last time they'd spoken. The two reactions warred briefly in his head before he managed a fairly neutral tone.

"Hello," he said, the slightest bit frostier than normal. "Still in Bristol?"

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah," Mitchell said. That staring at the wall thing was starting to become a bit of a trend. "Yeah, I'm still in Bristol."

So much for his getting-to-the-point skills improving over yesterday's.

[bitten_notshy]

No, they hadn't so much, had they? Jack glanced out the window again, waiting to see if Mitchell had more to say.

It seemed like he didn't, so:

"What, are you calling because you need someone to pack up your things and ship them over?"

[chosehumanity]

"No," Mitchell said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "No, I'll... be back by Saturday. But that's... not why I phoned."

He looked up, but there was no George in the room to save him this time.

[bitten_notshy]

"Oh." Jack was somewhat mollified by this; his tone shifted from irritated to curious. "Well, then why are you calling?"

[chosehumanity]

"It's Annie."

It sounded harsh to his ears. He winced.

"She's-- it's. They--"

[bitten_notshy]

The fact Mitchell couldn't finish the sentence gave Jack a fairly good idea that this wasn't happy news, and dread balled up in his stomach almost before he managed to answer.

"Annie?" he repeated. "What happened to her?"

[chosehumanity]

The silence that followed was brief but tense. "She's gone," Mitchell said, when he finally broke it. "They exorcised her. I wasn't in time to stop it."

[bitten_notshy]

Ah, that ball of dread was there for a reason. Jack had a blank, shocked moment before he could speak.

"What?" he said, in the end. "Who exorcised her? Why?"

He didn't believe Annie could do anyone any harm, and this -- it made no sense. Exorcism was for evil spirits, wasn't it? Why would someone do it to a spirit that was so far from evil?

If he'd been thinking enough to articulate that question, he would have called himself naive.

[chosehumanity]

"Lucy. Her-- she was part of this thing, and... she was working with this priest, he wanted to hurt me..."

Mitchell trailed off. "Look," he said, sounding a little desperate, "Can we leave this until Saturday?"

[bitten_notshy]

"No!" That was sharper than Jack meant for it to be.

He closed his eyes, willed himself to just think for a second. To be a friend, not a detective.

"I don't mean that," he said. "But it is a lot to take in. Lucy was working to hurt you and Annie got caught up? Christ."

Another second passed and Jack remembered someone was gone, and there was something one generally said about that.

"I'm sorry about Annie."

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah," Mitchell said, shutting his eyes. "Yeah, I am, too. I just-- can't. Right now. We'll talk. Saturday."

[bitten_notshy]

"Saturday." Jack repeated, still speaking slowly from the shock of it all. "All right. Take care of yourself until then."