annie nikolaev ☆ mary, queen of scots. (ofscots) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-07-06 07:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, * jamie, * kit, c: annie nikolaev, c: elias salazar |
WHO: Annie Nikolaev & Eli Salazar
WHEN: Friday, July 6, 2018; Late Morning
WHERE: Outside of Java Chip Cafe
SUMMARY: Eli stops a stranger for directions and he and Annie come to realize they have a very surprising connection
WARNINGS: Allusion to infidelity, surprise siblings
Over the course of the past couple of days, Eli had swung back and forth between whether or not he should just climb back on a plane and go back to Boston or if he needed to jump into his rental car and just go to Dunhaven. His trip had been partially for business; he had visited their facility in Baltimore, not for the first time, and had actually done some work when his hotel room had felt downright claustrophobic. Nevermind that it was actually a very nice sized room thanks to his assistant spending more than what probably needed to be spent when she booked the room, but Eli had trouble sleeping on a good day. The possibility of meeting his father -- his actual father who had given him half of his DNA -- seemed like a good enough excuse to experience a bit of insomnia. But the business part of his trip was over and now all Eli had left was the personal part. His partner hadn't questioned when he'd let them know that he'd needed some personal time off, perhaps more because they were relieved that he was actually taking that time. It was rare for Eli to take even an evening off and sometimes the strain of it showed, especially in the past year. After checking out of his hotel in Baltimore, Eli had nowhere to go but south. The ride was quick thanks to his mind being very occupied and he wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. The town of Dunhaven looked just as quaint driving through it as it had in the pictures that had come up when he searched online months ago. Having lived in a large city his entire life, it was quite the contrast and, in that first moment, he kind of liked it. The only hotel in town was easy to find and the room he was given there was much smaller than the one in Baltimore, but somehow felt roomier to him. He had hardly any reception in his room, but the wifi was free and there was a continental breakfast to look forward to and that was all he needed that first night. The next day, Eli ate his free bagel and then changed his outfit at least four times after showering. He wasn't sure what the dress code was for meeting the man that might be your father, especially since he didn't know if he was even going to meet him at all. Still, he'd gone for something between casual and professional -- he wasn't trying too hard, but he wasn't a slob. Yes, he thought to himself, rubbing his jawline as he looked in the mirror. That should work. Sunglasses on, then he was off. … except, he thought, it wouldn't hurt to get a coffee. James Scott, if he was even in Dunhaven at all, could wait for a late morning coffee, right? Convincing himself that he wasn't stalling, Eli walked across the street from the hotel to a coffee shop (there was clearly no Starbucks around, but he wasn't going to complain about caffeine in any form) and proceeded to stall as he people watched. He could only do that for so long before he might be accused of loitering, so he took one more coffee to go and then stepped out into the sunny Virginia day, sunglasses once more on his nose. And then, the second he was on the sidewalk, he realized he had no idea where to go. His phone still wasn't getting any reception, something he would have to look into when he wasn't standing in the middle of a sidewalk, which left him one real option if he actually wanted to see this mission through today. Hesitating just a moment, Eli summoned up every ounce of social skill he had (an amount which varied depending on the day and how much he'd had to drink) and put a hand out toward the next person that walked by, a dark haired woman that looked to be about his age. "Hi, hello. Sorry, I don't mean to bother you, but I just arrived here yesterday and my phone is being absolutely useless and I was wondering if maybe you could give me some directions?" Annie had been trying desperately to distract herself from Mary’s woes--and her own woes, if she were honest with herself. She’d been feeling increasingly disdainful toward the presence of the dreams and the way the memories wouldn’t fade like they were somehow Annie’s memories now, too. Without school to keep her busy, she’d spent the night before working on lesson plans and watching fireworks with Alex and had left the house early to run by the farmer’s market for dinner she was making that evening. After she was done with that, she’d realized she’d left the house without having eaten anything for breakfast, so she decided to reroute toward her favorite coffee shop. Normally, she was very good at watching her surroundings. She was the kind of girl who noticed people and went out of her way to talk to them. It was the byproduct of growing up a preacher’s daughter which required her to make community outreach one of her highest priorities. Now the trait was far less attributed to being something her father expected and something she enjoyed doing all on her own. That morning, however, her thoughts kept her distracted, not fully present where she walked. The outstretched hand startled her and, looking up, Annie had a blink a few times to process the face that belonged to it. It was no surprise, at least, that he was new to the area. She’d have recognized him otherwise. Her look of deep concentration broke into a welcoming smile, though, and it took little effort despite everything that was on her mind. “No bother, at all,” she replied as she ran through what he’d said again. “Where are you heading? I know Dunhaven pretty well, so I can probably help.” Relief hit Eli immediately at the smile from the woman, a smile of his own coming to his face in response to it. Interrupting people on the street wasn't something he made a habit of in Boston, largely because he assumed most people would just give him a strange look or ignore him altogether. It was nice to see a small town live up to the stereotype of people being friendly -- or, at the very least, that he'd found the one person in this town that was. "Dunhaven Baptist Church?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that maybe, just maybe, approaching a man at a place of worship to tell him that Eli thought he was his father wasn't the greatest of ideas. Given that his mother had written a letter to tell him that he even had a son in the first place, he had a feeling that there was a reason his mother had left Dunhaven mid-pregnancy. And while Eli hadn't let himself dwell too deeply on it, he'd thought about it a bit and suspected that his coming to be might not have been God and church friendly. Scrunching up his face for just a second, he quickly added, "Or, I don't know -- I'm looking for James Scott. Do you know if he still lives here?" Annie sighed. So much for taking her mind off of things that were bothering her. “You’re definitely not from around here if you’re asking me that,” she replied, though not unkindly. She smiled as though they’d shared a moderately funny joke between them and tilted her head to the side to study him. She wondered if he might be a new minister at the church--since joining the congregation at the Catholic church in DC, she hadn’t kept up with the changes in her father’s church. But then the man had asked if James Scott still lived here, which implied that he’d known him before but didn’t now. Maybe he’d gone to church here at some point and just didn’t recognize Annie from when she’d been a kid. “I can give you directions to both the church, and his house, depending on which you’re looking for,” she offered, not dwelling too long on why the guy was here now. “I’d offer his phone number but it probably won’t do you much good if your phone’s not working and he doesn’t answer when I call, so there’s that. He spends most afternoons at the church working, but he’ll be home around four.” Every sentence the woman spoke intrigued Eli more and more. He wasn't sure who she was and what her relationship to James Scott happened to be, but it was clear that she knew him. Everyone might know everyone else in a small town, but he doubted that they were privy to their private phone numbers and work schedules. "Ah." Eli considered for a moment, glancing down the street past the woman as though somewhere down there was the answer as to what would be the best way to go about any of this. He'd have thought that the months and even long car ride down would have been enough time to come up with some sort of plan, but apparently not. "I don't really want to bother him at work," he decided a bit thoughtfully, looking back to her. "So if you don't mind giving directions to his house, I'd appreciate it." So it wasn’t church-related, Annie thought. “I don’t mind at all,” she replied, pulling her purse around to search for a notebook in which she could write out directions for him. But then she paused and looked up at him. She probably should be more concerned by someone randomly looking for directions to her parents’ house. She might be at odds with her father, but she didn’t want to see him murdered by a serial killer because she hadn’t asked enough questions. That, and she actually did care about not inconveniencing her mom who was still one of her favorite people. Bunching her lips to the side, Annie mulled it over for a moment and then added, “Why are you looking for him? I’d feel pretty awful if I gave directions to someone and it ended badly.” She punctuated the thought with a small laugh because she wasn’t entirely serious, mostly because the man didn’t look like the bad sort to her. “It would make Christmases and family dinners even more awkward.” It was a fair question. Eli knew how strange all of this probably seemed and she had every right to question just why he was asking after the man and wanted to go to his home. He was sure that he could have just gone back to the hotel, connected to the internet, and found the address online -- and wondered at that moment if he should return his degrees, given that it hadn't occurred to him to do exactly that until after he'd voluntarily made himself look suspicious on the sidewalk. But just as he was going to spin an excuse, her words made him pause. Eli reached up, slipping his sunglasses off and actually really looking at the woman standing in front of him. Christmases and family dinners spoke of more of a passing familiarity. Knowing directions to his home and being able to give him James Scott's phone number did the same. Though he was trying not to get ahead of himself, he felt his pulse quicken at the possibilities of just who he was standing in front of. Eli wanted desperately to question her on that, but he stopped himself. Her question first. "I think he knew my mother," Eli said simply, treading carefully, but honestly. He folded up his sunglasses, slipping one of the stems into his collar as he continued, "She, ah -- she died about a year back and I've been digging into her past. She lived here for a bit a long while back and I saw his name in some of her things." Almost immediately, Annie’s suspicions gave way to sympathy. She still had both of her parents but, thanks to Mary, understood just how much a loss of that magnitude could hurt. Instinctively, she reached out a hand and touched the man’s arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said, voice sincere. “What is her name?” Eli wasn't expecting the response, nor the sincerity behind it, but he found himself appreciating it. He had gone through the ups and downs of people apologizing for his loss, sometimes hating the words and sometimes clinging to them. At that moment, despite that he was in the middle of an unfamiliar town and didn't even know this woman's name, he fell toward the latter. Though he had come far since his mother had passed, the grief would still hit him out of nowhere. "Thanks," he replied, giving her a small smile. "Vanessa Perkins, but it was Salazar when she'd have been here." He paused, then held out one of his hands only a little bit awkwardly. "I'm Eli. Eli Salazar." “Ah, sorry. I was hoping I might recognize the name, but I don’t,” Annie apologized. She knew most of her parents’ family friends but didn’t recall any Salazars in Dunhaven. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how her father knew Eli’s mother, but the voice wasn’t loud enough for her to press forward with her line of questioning. Her hand fell away from his arm as she took his hand to shake it. “It’s nice to meet you, Eli. I’m Annie Nikolaev. Formerly Annie of the Scott variety. James Scott is my father, I mean.” The brief relief that Eli felt when Annie first gave her name was dashed away almost immediately when she clarified as to just what her maiden name had been, then clarified even further as to how she knew so much about James Scott. He knew that all he had to go off of at that moment was a letter that his mother never even sent telling this man that she'd left town pregnant and that he had a son. He knew that there was a chance she had been mistaken, but in the entire time Eli's mother had been alive, he hadn't known her to be mistaken about anything. Eli knew that alarm must have shown on his face and he did his best to school his features and smile, putting on the face that he normally reserved for cameras, both rolling and flashing. He didn't know how successful he actually was, especially when the thought clearly formed in his mind that he might be shaking the hand of his sister. "Ah," he started after a moment, managing a smile. "I guess I managed to meet the right person on the first try, then. It's nice to meet you, too." The worry returned as Eli’s face fell. She could tell he’d put a good effort into composing himself, but Annie was becoming very practiced at schooling her features just a moment too late and caught on to the way her name had affected him. Maybe she shouldn’t be giving out her parents’ address. What if he was just upset that he’d met such a nice person and now he was going to have to ruin any chance at friendship because now he had to go and kill her parents? She pressed her lips together, choosing her words carefully. “I’d really love to be able to help you out,” Annie said, letting her hand fall back to her side, hoisting her bag back up on her shoulder as she shifted the weight of the fresh vegetables she’d stored inside it. “But, to be honest, I have a vested interest in making sure I don’t intentionally give out my parents’ address to, well,” she trailed off, wondering if it would be bad form to end the sentence with serial killers or professional robbers or hit men. “I could try to call or text and see if he’d be able to meet you here in town, though.” Eli swallowed his disappointment at the possibility of this being easy, but he couldn't blame her. "No, it's -- yeah. I get it. I wouldn't give my step-dad's address out to some stranger I just met on the street either." Then again, he wouldn't have put it past Grant to give his own address out to literally anyone that asked, if it meant that it might inconvenience Eli in some way. "If you could just let him know I'm staying in room 104 at the hotel and to try calling me there when he has time, that would be more than I could ask for." Slipping his sunglasses into his hands again in preparation to go literally anywhere but here and dwell on the embarrassment of the situation for hours, Eli's gaze dropped to his hands. What was he even doing here? If this woman really was James Scott's daughter, then that meant he had a family. Eli's arrival would only disrupt that family. Was his curiosity and desire to find his father really worth the possibility of messing up someone else's life. His gaze rose to meet Annie's, a curious look on his face. "I know this is a personal question and it's... really out there, but I'm guessing you probably think I'm strange as it is so I might as well confirm it. How old are you?" Annie felt bad then, even though she knew that it had been the right thing to do not to disclose the address so readily, not when the longer she talked to the guy, the more questions she had about who he was and what he needed from her father. “No, of course,” she said, eager to assure the guy that she wasn’t really just shrugging him off. “I can definitely relay the message.” She might even go in person to deliver the message, just because she wanted to make sure her father actually did pick up the phone and call. Eli looked so disappointed that some instinctual part of her wanted to do something to change that. She didn’t think the guy was strange, per se. She didn’t know him well enough to pass judgment and she had plenty of her own awkward moments to not hold those of others against, them. Still, it seemed like such a strange question given that nothing else about their conversation had led to this one. “I just turned 27 almost two weeks ago,” she said, finding no harm in answering the question. Her curiosity was piqued now, though, so she pressed on with, “But why?” 27. Eli had turned 26 at the end of May and it didn't take a genius to put that math together. In fact, if James Scott really was his father, it made the reason behind his mother's quick escape from the small Virginia town all that more clear and confirmed his own vague suspicions. It was hard to imagine his mother, who he'd only ever known to be faithful to his step-father, to take part in an affair, but there was plenty he didn't know about his mother's life before he came into the picture. But it also cleared up why she had refused for so long to give Eli any information on who his father happened to be. As Annie pressed him for more information, Eli immediately regretted asking in the first place. He'd needed to know, but now he had no idea how to proceed. Was it his place to tell her? Should he leave it to her father? What if he didn't want anything to do with Eli and didn't tell her at all? Could Eli pass up the chance at this connection? Was it selfish of him if he couldn't? "I -- " His voice caught in his throat at the single word, his gaze dropping from hers. "I think James Scott and my mother were, um, close. At least, it sounds that way from the letter I found that she'd written to him. He wouldn't know about me or that I even existed so I just wanted to meet him, but..." Again, his voice caught, his words trailing off. None of that answered her question, he realized. Looking up, he blurted out, "I'm 26." That also probably didn't answer her question. Annie was a smart woman. She was forgetful at times, a bit goofy in an ultimately endearing sort of way, but she was also smart. It seemed like such a random happenstance that she should unintentionally run into this new-to-town stranger and that he would somehow be looking for her father from whom she’d been regretfully estranged for months. But it didn’t take a genius to process everything the man had said leading up to now, pair it with questions that had been quietly churning in her head, and solve for x. She sucked in a breath, the blood rushing to her cheeks as she glanced around them, perhaps looking for someone she knew to step out and start laughing at her for entertaining this joke for this long. No one was there, though, and no one seemed to really notice them, at all. She looked back at Eli, questions begging to be asked though Annie didn’t know the words to ask them. Had he actually known who she was? Was that why he’d stopped her, specifically, to ask for directions? Had he come to town on this crazy notion and decided to pursue it in the most indelicate way possible? No, she thought, he’d seemed genuinely surprised and distraught when she’d said her name. Finally, she settled on, “What letter?” She’d wanted to confirm what he meant by close but she didn’t need him to extrapolate. She thought she understood better than she wanted to. 26. Again, Eli found himself hesitating, though he had a sinking feeling that the damage had already been done. There was no clever lie he could come up with that would explain away his behavior and questions. She had his name, for god's sake, and it wouldn't be hard for her to find him if he tried to disappear back to Boston. Breathing out a soft sigh, he slipped his sunglasses back into his collar and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, which he was finding to not be at all conducive to the summer heat and this conversation, to find a folded piece of paper. He'd thought it smart to bring with him, should James Scott attempt to disregard his story or claims. He hadn't imagined he'd be showing it to someone like her. Carefully, he unfolded it, his mother's meticulous handwriting revealed with each opened fold. Though he didn't give it to Annie, he did look up at her. "She was telling him about me." A pause, his expression somewhere between pained and worried, but then he pushed forward. "That I was his son." Yesterday, Annie had thought her biggest problems revolved around a Scottish queen’s misfortunes and her and Alex’s semi-uncertain future. But here she was, firmly rooted to the sidewalk and fully present in this moment where everything else seemed so small in comparison to this particular bomb. Her free hand came up to cover her mouth and she found that she desperately needed to sit down. There was nowhere to sit, though--the coffee tables were occupied and she didn’t think this conversation needed to be continued in public, anyway. Slowly, she let herself start to process what was happening, and forced herself to take a deep breath. She let her hand fall away again and found Eli’s uncertain gaze. This was not what she’d expected when she’d woken up this morning but there was one thing she was sure about just then: they both needed answers. “Come on,” she said, making up her mind between one second and the next. She held out her hand to signal him to follow her. “I’ll take you to him. You probably didn’t plan on doing it like this but [...] I need to know now, too.” In that moment, Eli felt compelled to apologize. Had he realized that the man had a family, he wouldn't have come down to Virginia -- at least, that's what he told himself in that moment. The truth was, had he found out that the man had a family before this moment, he almost assuredly would have found himself in Dunhaven at some point. His whole point in being there was because he was looking for family. His mother's extended family was more or less a mystery to him, outside of visits to her siblings when he was a child, and Grant's family had never felt like his own. He had his younger half-siblings who he loved and was close to, but there had always been a mystery looming over half of his history. But, he bit back his apology. This wasn't his fault. Eli might have made the trip down to Dunhaven on his own accord, but the actions that had led to his existence was not something he had any control over. He couldn't apologize to her, not for that, at least. He could apologize for the ineloquence of the past several minutes and that he'd interrupted what might have been a perfectly peaceful day for her had they not just happened to meet on the street, but not for the actions of his mother and her father before he had been born. So, instead, he just nodded. "Thank you," he said, slipping the paper back into his pocket and then placing his sunglasses back on his face. As he moved to follow her, he added, "I appreciate it." |