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Luke's, Monday

Eliot was a little bit late opening the diner today, as he spent a good chunk of the morning running up and down stairs all over the island just because he could. No wonder he'd decided that he was going to die young. Getting old -- after all the abuse his body had taken over the years -- sucked ass.

(Admittedly he didn't hate the parts of the weekend that hadn't involved aching joints and a non-functioning leg. But he also wasn't looking too closely at those, because panic was undignified.)

He put up with the kitchen staff trying to hand him anything even remotely long and skinny enough to be a fake cane for just long enough to establish the specials, then went back out into the dining room to make a few phone calls. Sure, it'd all been supposedly twenty years in the future, but it was never a bad idea to make sure the Bratva didn't currently have a contract out on you.

Today's specials
Any of the greasy, salty, fat-laden, or otherwise
crappy food you learned you won't be allowed to eat
in twenty years after your metabolism gives out

Luke's was open.

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Perhaps you're hoping for a bacon cheeseburger.

That's been deep-fried.

He was having a nice, thick, juicy steak for lunch, personally.

There was a persistent knock coming from inside the supply closet in the office.

Hanna had gotten herself out of the loosened zipties after she woke up herself again. And she could have busted out of one supply closet, but... the weekend had been very strange and upsetting and she really wasn't sure what any of the people at the diner would do if she just disappeared. Hunt her down? Turn her in to the police?

Knock. Knock. Knock knock knock knock knock?

Be too distracted to really worry too much?

Eliot frowned when he noticed the knocking and moved cautiously into the office -- then cursed and hurried over to unlock the door.

"Sorry 'bout that, kid," he said a little sheepishly. "You alright?"

Yeah, he wasn't going to blame a teenager for the actions of her imaginary future self.

Yes. No. Maybe? Hanna shrugged at the man she knew as Mr. Spencer, not quite meeting his eyes. She found her voice to say, "Are you?"

"I ain't the one who spent the night in the closet," Eliot said. And he was well used to knowing he could kill people, which Hanna might not be.

"I'm fine." Hanna cleared her throat and finally looked him in the face. "I am very sorry." Her German accent was getting stronger again. "I would--"

The thing was, she would do that. Did do that? She hugged herself and looked away. "I am glad I did not kill you."

That much was easy, anyway.

"I'm glad you didn't, too," Eliot said. "Though, really, I wasn't really that mad about that part of it." That part had been almost nostalgic. "The part where you kidnapped my --" He couldn't quite say 'husband'. Sorry, Hardison. "That part pissed me off."

Hanna blushed hard, and clasped her hands together, before looking up. "He is my teacher, for the apocalypse class. And he remembered me." And explanation, not an excuse. "Will remember.. Gott. I do not know. I." She made herself stand straight. "I will not go to class. So he does not have to see me again."

Oh hell. "No," Eliot said. "You ditch outta his class, Hardison's gonna figure he ain't a good enough teacher, not that you're tryin' to spare him the sight of you." Also, it was just a stupid plan. The island was not that large. "Look. This place likes to mess with people's heads. Way I figure, the shit you get up to on weekends like this one? Doesn't count." Like him shooting Cecil last year didn't count on his mental 'days since I last shot someone' calendar. "Near as I can tell, most folks around here agree with me."

Except Cecil. That kid could hold a grudge.

Hanna's shoulders slumped, and she shook her head. Not in disagreement exactly, just misery. "I never wanted to--" Kill anyone. Again. "But I will. In the future. Won't I?" She rubbed her face, and said, "When I get older, I will be a killer. I am a killer." Present tense, and nothing to do with this weekend. "I know how. I could do all those things. Today. If I wanted to."

Eliot sighed. Why did these kids all have to be so young? "C'mon. I'm gonna make you a chocolate shake, and then we're gonna sit down and have this talk proper."

Because Eliot knew exactly what she was talking about, and he didn't want her leaving until she knew that she could know she was a killer and still be okay.

Hanna trailed after him, still upset, but now more confused than anything. She sat at the counter, shoulders hunched, and tried to remember what mistake she had made (would make?) that had her becoming a killer again.

"I am never going to Russia." Ever. If she could help it. But maybe she couldn't?

"That's too bad," Eliot said. "St. Petersburg is gorgeous." He got her milkshake ready and set it in front of her. "How many folks have you killed?"

Hanna jerked a little at that, then settled and took a drink of the shake. To the surface of the glass, she said quietly, "Six."

Three guards. The decoy. The man who had fought her in between the warehouses. Marissa Wiegler.

Eliot nodded. "That ain't an easy thing to deal with. I'm sorry you have to." He leaned his elbows on the counter. "How much you remember about the intel you had on me, this weekend?"

Hanna frowned, concentrating. "You were-- a mercenary?" It was starting to fade, most of it. The details were already gone. But the over-arching goal was still fairly clear. "They were afraid of you. You..." She paused, because what she remembered didn't make sense. "You broke some of them, their gangs. But you hurt people, too." All too contradictory.

"Yeah," Eliot said. "I ain't always been a great person. I got prices on my head now that I pretty well deserve. I am a killer." He made sure to look her in the eye. "But that ain't the be-and-end-all of who I am. And it ain't somethin' I do anymore, if I don't absolutely have to. Do you get what I'm sayin'?"

Hanna nodded slowly, starting - a very little bit - to relax. "I had to," she whispered. "Before. But..." She spread her hands on the counter, frowning. "I thought I had to, this weekend, as well."

It was so, so difficult to know where to draw that line.

Kathy showed up around lunch with a ridiculous amount of frozen meat in bags. "Umm...I don't suppose I could convince you to take this off my hands, could I?" she asked, not dropping it all on the floor and running over for another hug. "I don't think I'll be needing it all, exactly."

Hi.

Eliot laughed softly. "Guess not." Which was some of the best news he could think of for today, so. "Hey, Cookie, come out here and help Kathy put this meat back in the freezer!"

Much better than him thinking about, say, where she'd woken up with this morning. Or with whom!

Kathy gratefully handed off several of the bags to the cook and followed him into the freezer, putting the meat away in meticulous order as per the instructions. Apparently 'a place for everything and everything had better be in its place unless there's a damn tentacle monster in here' was the general rule for the freezer? Kathy wasn't asking.

Especially not about the tentacle monster.

"How are you today," she asked, once everything was put away correctly. "I heard that some stuff went down yesterday...?"

Which didn't count today, or something, but still it would be good to know that Mr. Hardison was all right.

"Yeeeah." Eliot shrugged. "One of your fellow students also didn't have a great 'future' laid on 'em. She was blackmailed into takin' a contract on me. We took care of it."

For Eliot, at least, that sort of thing was old hat even now, much less in another 20 years.

Radio hadn't been so careful about Hanna's identity as Eliot was being and Kathy privately resolved to check in on her sometime soon. She knew what it was like to spend a weekend trying to kill somebody you knew.

"Sounds like there were a lot of really weird futures out there," she said, hopping onto a stool to figure out what she should eat for lunch. "Sorry for throwing twenty years of awful on you guys Saturday night," she added, a little awkwardly. "It was all just really intense."

"Yeah." Eliot couldn't actually remember the details of that talk that well -- which was odd, since the other details of the weekend were no fuzzier than normal. It'd been something about . . . zombies? And awful. The sick empathetic stomach he remembered perfectly clearly. "Yeah, that was a really weird one you got. I'd recommend tryin' to avoid it."

"Wasn't all bad," Kathy mumbled, ducking her head a little bit and fighting off a smile.

She totally meant being mayor of LA. Totally.

"You had to get drunk to tell us about it," Eliot pointed out.

"No, that part..." Kathy scrubbed her face. "That part was all bad. I'm kind of forgetting most of it now, it's kind of blurring together but I remember enough." She shuddered and accepted the green tea smoothie the busboy passed over to her. Aww, he remembered! "Have you ever been to LA? I can't picture it empty."

Dead. She couldn't picture it dead.

"That's actually where we were headquartered, first year Hardison and Parker and Nate and Sophie and I were all a team." Eliot shook his head. "Can't picture it that way, either."

"Do you think it's real?" she asked. "Or is it more like the kids, who change year to year by, like, whim?"

"Hell, I don't know," Eliot said. "I always figured I'd be dead before I got anywhere near sixty."

"I don't think Parker and Mr. Hardison are going to be willing to let that happen," Kathy said dubiously.

"Yeah." Eliot looked faintly perplexed for a moment. "I'm beginnin' to figure that out." He shook his head. "Still, ain't like my kind of work comes with a long life expectancy."

"What, you mean cooking and owning a diner and being a teacher?" Kathy asked, her eyebrow raised.

Yes, she knew that wasn't what he meant, she just wasn't sure why it couldn't be.

Pretty much the same reason why Kathy's would pretty much always be "crime-fighter". "Hey," he said. "Kitchens are dangerous places."

...An uprising of zombies closing off any other future career options?

Okay, okay, point.

"I dunno, you seem to know your way around it okay," Kathy said. "Which reminds me. Do you think we could add knife-fighting lessons to those self-defense classes we talked about. I was already thinking about asking you before, but after this weekend..." Kathy had even more of a reason to drive herself.

"We can absolutely do that," Eliot agreed. "So long as it won't make you blush so hard you pass out."

Which, predictably, made her blush. "You're terrible," she informed Eliot, taking a long sip of her smoothie. "I'm sure I'll be able to keep myself under control, though."

"That's good," Eliot said, some of the teasing bleeding out of his tone. "Control is the most important part of usin' a knife, no matter what you're usin' it for."

"I've only ever used a knife to cut veggies and stuff for meals," Kathy said. "I'm taking the Dean's class on knife-fighting this semester, but that's only once a week for seven weeks. I'm not going to learn much in that time. Not enough to make it count."

"Hopefully just enough to help keep ya from getting hurt when someone pulls one on you," Eliot said. "Tell ya what: I'm tryin' out the whole 'office hours' thing this session. Stop by there sometime ~~handwavily or not~~ and we'll work out a schedule more to your likin'. Maybe do an early morning thing, before classes?"

Neither Hardison nor Parker really made many claims on his time, early in the morning. Nightmares excepted.

Well, Hardison preferred late nights and loathed mornings, so he had no intentions of bothering Eliot in the mornings. Unless it was for breakfast.

"I'm up then," Kathy said, surprising no one. "I usually go out for a run in the mornings, I could easily swing around the school or wherever then."

"I run most mornin's, too. That'll be a good warm up for workin' on knife technique. We can meet up at my office."

"Sounds good," Kathy said, giving him a salute. "You'll have to, uhh, bring the knives, sorry."

Edited 2015-05-19 03:38 (UTC)

"Believe it or not that ain't gonna be a problem."

"I shall try to mask my surprise but it'll hard," Kathy drawled. "I've never been so taken aback."

I have a serious case of the "I don't wanna!"s this morning.

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Luke's, Monday

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OOC