Yes, Ni is getting a lot of fiction recently. I had a load of stuff to tie up and/or set going, plus Z was naughty and gave me ideas.
This one wraps up the the death of Annette's father (which was only done to set up the Barrington Club plot) and finally brings to an end all the plot I have planned currently. Got to get it done now, since I suspect plenty is winging its way over from other people.
Anyhoo... not my best work, but here you go...
Family Ties
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008, 15:20. Meadow Hill Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio.
Annette sat in the little row of chairs facing the coffin, dressed in her neat, black suit, watching the proceedings in something of a daze. Beside her, Linda was a little worried. Her girlfriend, who was sometimes hard to shut up, was acting like a zombie. She expected it, of course, when your father died you should be shocked, but right up until now Annette had been pretty calm about it.
While shocked, Annette was having some difficulty ascribing it to mourning her lost father. After all, she had 'lost' him when she was thirteen, and her mother six months after that. No, what had her sitting there and shocked silence was that her father was being buried in a Catholic ceremony, in an expensive little cemetery, and Alicia had said that money was tight. Well, she guessed there was insurance... But, Dad had always been a pretty good Protestant. Alicia had told her that, no, Dad had been Catholic since they'd known him. Born again, she'd said. Devout.
Right now Jennifer Barrington, his second wife, was up there on the podium at the foot of the coffin, giving her best performance. Annette was rapidly coming to realise that she hated Jennifer. At first, she had taken the sobbing, and the need for comfort and closure, at face value. Jennifer seemed to want to get on with her step-daughter, learn who her dead husband's child was and come to terms. It had not taken a huge length of time, however, to realise that what Jennifer really needed was a bigger audience and anyone would do. She had even greeted Linda like a long lost child.
Then there was the way her green eyes had lit up when she had heard about the Unity Wing. Alicia had been genuinely keen at the idea that her step-sister was a hero. Jennifer... well, Ni claimed she saw dollar signs ding up in Jennifer's pupils. For whatever reason, Annette had neglected to mention the money her position as Keeper gave her access to. She worked in a shop, the Wing was a favour that any senior student of the New Vigilants might be granted under the circumstances. Nothing to see here, please move along.
"...a loving husband and devoted father..." Jennifer was saying. Annette focussed very hard on her breathing and tried not to giggle.
Step-mumsie is enjoying this far too much, Ni commented. Annette mentally shrugged.
You must be finally having an effect on me, y'now? Oh? How?
I've decided to pity her rather than gutting her. Annette bit her lip and Linda looked at her, concerned, leaning over slightly to whisper.
"You okay, Annie?" Annette nodded, smiling at her lover. "Is this a load of total baloney, or what?" Lin whispered as a follow up.
Annette tilted her head to whisper back. "You have no idea..."
Up on the podium, Jennifer was wrapping up her little speech, and was looking down at the blonde and brunette couple from Paragon City with a faint look of annoyance on her face. "Â…and I will always miss you, my darling Charles," she said. "Farewell." She paused for a fraction of a second and the priest began to rise from his seat behind her. Her eyes were still on Annette and Linda. "Perhaps Charlie's daughter would like to say a few words..." There was a little barb there. Just that little edge that you got when the teacher spotted you whispering to a classmate. Annette looked up at Jennifer and blinked. Jennifer smiled a tiny, self-satisfied smile and opened her mouth.
"Yes," Annette said, climbing to her feet. "I'll say a few words." Jennifer looked like she was going to try and back-track, but Annette was already striding toward the podium. Jennifer backed off, looking not a little shocked. Annette stepped up to the little microphone and looked around the assembled people. There were friends, several of Jennifer's relatives, a few people who had apparently worked at the company her father was a salesman for. On the other side, the Barrington side, there was now one woman, a very attractive woman who could have single handedly beaten every last one of the others, but just one woman. And she wasn't even a member of the family. She smiled at Linda, and then at Alicia, who seemed almost as mortified by this whole thing as Annette was.
"We are here today to bury Charles Barrington, my father," she began. "Only thing is, he died to me six years ago when he walked out of my life because he could not stand my mother any more. At the time, he was a Protestant, I have no clue where all this rigmarole has come from, but I can't see the Pope really being keen on a man who divorced his wife and left his two children to run off and find himself." She shook her head. "And then he dies and I discover he found himself as a Catholic with a clone of my Mom. But I figured it out. Dad was a salesman all his life. He sold our life to us, got bored, and then he found another life to sell to some other group of people. My Dad was a con artist. Pretty good one, too." She looked around at the assembled crowd again, most of whom were now wearing the kind of expression reserved for seeing a stripper jump out of a cake at a four year-old's birthday party.
"Well, what can I say... We're here today to bury Charlie Barrington. He wasn't my father. My Dad died years ago. Alicia," she looked at the slightly younger girl, "you've got my number, call me if
you need anything. Linda, let's get out of here." She strode down from the podium, past the coffin and off toward a building she could see nearby. She needed a door, any door. Linda fell into step beside her, a slightly bemused, but also very pleased grin on her face.
"Way to go, babe!" Linda said when they were reasonably out of earshot.
"Thanks. I think it's time you really did meet my family, if that's okay with you?" She reached out and put her hand on the door of a small chapel in the middle of the cemetery.
"Um... sure... I'd love to," Linda replied, not quite sure what Annette really meant. The door opened onto a wood-panelled room which Linda immediately recognised as Annette stepped through. "You moved some furniture in, I see," she said. The fact that her girlfriend could open any door and step through it into a room in the Barrington Club was one of those crazy things that Linda lived with and accepted. In Paragon City, if you did not just accept some things, you went crazy. In this case, they had stepped through into Annette's private rooms at the Club.
"I still had some pieces in storage, and some of the older bits look way better here than in my room in the Tower. Anyway, don't get comfortable, we're just passing through." She closed the door behind her, waited a few seconds, eyes closed, and then opened the door again. Being able to get from any door to the Club was one thing, but Linda was still getting used to the idea that Annette could walk back through to any of a number of different doors. That was how they had got to Cleveland, now Annette's bedroom door was letting them out into what appeared to be the foyer of some form of institution. "Go on," Annette said, and followed Linda, closing the door behind them.
"I thought you had to... I dunno, rub your ring on the door to do that, or something," Linda said. She has never seen the building they were in before. It was not a typical hospital. The walls were reinforced, the security door leading from the foyer was heavy looking, like a safe almost, but the receptionist was behind a standard reception counter. On the other hand, the receptionist's right arm was robotic.
"I've been here a lot of times, Lin," Annette replied walking toward the reception desk. Realisation began to dawn on Linda.
"Well, hello Annette," Alberta said, looking up at her from a copy of Heroes Weekly News. "How's y're friend?"
"Alberta, this is Linda Lee," Annette said, "she's my... girlfriend."
Alberta frowned slightly looking Linda up and down. "Linda Lee? Liberty Girl? Each to their own tastes and that, but... You hooked yourself Liberty Girl? Way to go, girl! Just don't tell your brother."
"You think it'd make a difference?" Annette replied.
"Who's to say," Alberta shrugged, "and no, there's been no change." She reached under the desk and pressed a button. The laminated steel door slid open to allow them in.
"Why's the door so thick and the reception desk so flimsy?" Linda asked as they walked down a corridor to the lifts.
"The door is for keeping the patients, and their powers, in," Annette replied. "This place is here to care for people who gave everything to defend the city, and now can't control themselves. Nate isn't too bad, but some of the patients explode at random, or constantly emit damaging psionic energy, or can't keep their temperature below six thousand Kelvin..." She stopped outside a room with a hug, steel door, putting her hand on the handle. "Okay, he won't say anything, or move much. Might not even notice we're there if he's having a bad day. There's nothing much left of his mind at all, but he's the only family I've really got left." She put her other hand on Linda's and added, "except for the family I've made for myself. Ready?"
Linda took a deep breath and nodded. "As I'll ever be..."
Annette pushed the door open and walked in. Sitting in a chair made of box-section steel was the huge shape of Nathaniel Barrington. He was watching the TV when the entered, but looked around blankly at them as the door closed. "Hi, Nate!" Annette said, forcing her voice to sound happy. "This is my friend Linda. Liberty Girl. You'd like her, real patriotic heroine, just the way you think they should be."
"Hello, Nate," Linda said, waving. Nathaniel raised a hand slightly and smiled a little on seeing the blonde girl.
Annette raised an eyebrow. "I may have competition," she muttered. Then, louder, "Linda's with the Unity Vigil. The group I told you about. And the New Vigilants have made me a team leader. Can you believe that? Me with responsibility..."
Linda watched as Annette chattered away to her brother, a smile on her lips. Yeah, this was Annette's family now, the people in this room, maybe a few others. At least one of them was a blood relative.
