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                               Today's Weather:

The wind whips silently thru the streets and concrete canyons, smacking
flesh like a blast from an open freezer. The scuff of dirty snow drifts
under the wind's whip, blocking the visibility of drivers and pedestrians
alike. The sky above is clear and blue, but the hunched and scurrying
pedestrians don't stop to admire and everyone else is inside where it's
warm.

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Above the Shop -- Pilot Street

        Once bare walls have been artfully painted pale, new-apartment
cream, and there are paintings hung, here and there, landscapes in bucolic
colours of rich green and gold, pastoral scenes of faraway places, dreams,
wonderlands, while wooden floors retain a sweet, deep gloss and dark
polish. Curtains carefully shield this studio apartment from the eyes of
the outside world, but allow as much winter's sunlight as possible, their
sage color gently blending with the simple furniture, a sofa, two chairs,
an ottoman and matching tables, lamps and the like. The bedroom area is
kept from prying eyes by a discreet dressing screen done in a lacquered
wood; it sections off a good span of the apartment, giving the place a bit
more depth. In there lies a double bed and dresser, a mirror and bedside
table, the space small, but put to good use. There is also a kitchenette
and full bath, and the place is neat and clean, well-lit and functional,
seeming perhaps spartan, if not for the paintings on the walls, if not for
the occasional piece of knick-knack; somehow, it looks lived-in, cared
for.


The first thing that's different is that the door to what was Sera's
apartment is closed. Not only closed, but locked. There are other, more
subtle changes - in look, in smell, in atmosphere. It's just past four in
the afternoon and getting dark already, and Lindsey is sitting on the
couch, tapping at his laptop. Stupid one-handed typing.

Closed and locked. Huh. Normally Kitty stops partway up the stairs to
knock, out of sight of the apartment itself even if the door's open -
privacy's an issue - but this time she slows and stops further down than
usual. Her tapping on the wall is deliberate, louder and slow. "Sera?" she
calls. "Gracie? Anybody home?" Maybe they're out taking care of Ray, or
something. Could be.

He was wondering how long it'd be before this happened. Not instantly
recognizing the voice, Lindsey closes the laptop before getting to his
feet and padding over to the door. He's in T-shirt and jogging pants,
today, the prosthetic clearly visible in all its glory. The lawyer opens
the door on the chain and blinks through the gap. "Kitty?" Huh.

Nobody ever tells anybody when they move around here. Kitty's down the
stairs a bit, scarf and fuzzy hat and gloves and leather jacket half-open
over a yellow sweater, and just a bit of melted slush tracked in - most of
it knocked off her shoes at the door. Winter. Joy. She's looking a good
bit worse than the cold would account for, though, pale and strained with
dark circles under her eyes ... which doesn't prevent her from giving a
puzzled look up at the door. "... /You're/ not Sera." See where genius
gets you?

It's true, though, he isn't. "She moved." Lindsey closes the door briefly,
then opens it again, stepping back to give Kitty room. He doesn't look
fantastic himself, unshaven and ragged around the edges. "Y'okay?"

Moved. Great. "Fine." Kitty gives Lindsey a closer look, craning her neck
from down the stairs, then pulls the hat off her head and shoves it in a
pocket before working her way up the stairs. Hung over, taking
over-the-counter migraine meds kinda a little faster than you're usually
supposed to, and worn out to the point that she needs to stop and lean
against the wall once she's gotten /up/ the stairs, but fine. "You?" She
hesitates, glancing up at him. Not /that/ worn out. "I saw the news."

Well, if she's going to lie about how she is, he can too. "Fine." Lindsey
heads back for the couch again, pausing before he sits down to pull his
lighter out of his pocket. He stretches forward to get a pack of
cigarettes from the table. Bad habit, but hey. He can quit any time. "I
knew two days ago. Buffy told me."

There's this Buffy person again. Everyone seems to know her. And hey,
Kitty really /is/ fine - compared to getting blown to bits or becoming one
with the street, both of which seemed more likely at various points last
night. She just nods back to Lindsey - because really. Not even 'I'm
sorry' is going to make sense when the woman in question cut off the
/hand/ of the person you're talking to. She takes off gloves and puts them
in her other pocket, instead, checks to make sure she's not tracking water
across his floor, then perches herself on the arm of the couch lightly.
Awkward. Very. "Glad somebody thought to - to make sure you didn't get it
from the papers." She watches his hands on the lighter. "D'you need
anything?"

"She told me in the course of an argument and then told me I had no right
to mourn for her." Lindsey is over that, though. No really. No really! He
lights a cigarette, with the minimum of fumbling, the prosthetic used as
support while his thumb flicks the wheel. Do I need anything. "No. Don't
tell anyone I'm living here, okay?"

Apparently being worn down doesn't do a thing to take the edge off Kitty's
temper: there's a snap of anger in her eyes as she straightens. "Okay,"
she mutters, "/that/ deserves a kick in the head." Except that from what
she hears, this Buffy chick could probably beat up three of her at one
time without breaking a sweat. Sigh, grr. Deep breath, because getting up
to stalk and pace and rant is too much energy to burn all at once, here.
Right. Urge to kill... fading. "Okay. No problem. Officially, I have no
idea where you are."

A glance to Kitty, and Lindsey exhales smoke. "It's all right. I deserved
it." He said some rather nasty things to Buffy, too, and Marley wasn't
even what they were arguing about, and anyway, his head hurts. "You look
tired." He's sleepy enough himself that his accent slurs that word badly.
Tahred.

Ah, the sharing of pain. "Long and stressful night," Kitty replies. "But
it seemed to work out okay. So no complaints." He looks disturbingly cute
when unshaven and sleepy and - she is /not/ thinking that. She hesitates a
moment longer, then pushes her hand through her hair - tugging off the hat
made it go all over the place; it needs retaming. "No more bombings for a
while, with any luck." Nothing more like what happened to AI. While he was
there. Look, I brought you a present.

That earns Kitty a rather longer glance. Lindsey smiles. "That was you?"
Or a group including you? "Good. Thank you. I've had enough concussions
for one lifetime."

Probably explains the drugs involved, too. Ahem. Kitty doesn't actually
say yes or no, but she ducks her head and gives him a little grin back.
"One lifetime? I thought more like six. Just wish it could've happened
sooner. But it's probably more important that they'll /stay/ down." Her
eyes linger for a moment not quite focusing on his, studying his temple
and forehead as if she thought she could see through flesh and bone and
check on the status of his brain.

She's gazing. Not that he hasn't caught her doing that before, but this is
different. Lindsey raises his eyebrows. "I'm okay right now. Adrienne had
some healer mess with my brain. Repaired a lot."

"Good to hear it." Kitty hesitates. "I've been - trying to work on some
stuff, but - it's slow. I don't have access to the basic research
anymore." And didn't actually want it when she /did/ have it. Let's not
even mention the equipment problem. "Hope some of the other people you've
got looking into it are doing better."

A one-shoulder shrug, and Lindsey leans back on the couch, looking up at
Kitty. "Not really. This is the best I could get. Less bleeding, same
concussion damage. What's your idea?"

"Concussion damage," Kitty repeats. "Cripes." She twists around where
she's perched, leaning against the back of the couch. The normal
sitting-upright thing has been abandoned for the duration. "Back where I'm
from -" Quick pause to swallow, and words abruptly stumbling, halting.
"The government designed power-inhibitors to use on meta prisoners. I've
been trying to work back from what I can remember, see if I can come up
with something along those lines. It'd, you could take it off if you
really needed to use it, but it'd keep you from anything random. In
theory. In practice, I don't know if I can even get the design right - it
was never something I much wanted to think about - and if I do, I don't
know if your power even works the same way, so even if it /was/ right it
might not work for you. But I figured - doesn't cost anything to try,
right?"

She's almost babbling. Lindsey half-smiles, but it fades when he thinks
about *why* she might be so uncomfortable. He considers, watching Kitty.
"I guess that might be a good idea. My only other options right now are to
get Liam to seal it off." Permanently. Brr. "Or to try a chemical
solution. I don't wanna wind up on tranqs."

Kitty gives a quick, startled blink at Liam's name, there. Does everyone
know him now? And can he /do/ that? A moment's pause, an attempt at
recovery. "Yeah. I can't really see you doing the whole 'nurse, where's my
Thorazine' thing."

Not remarking further on the Liam thing, because that was probably a
misstep with somebody else's privacy, Lindsey takes another drag on his
cigarette and exhales smoke through his nose. "I gotta quit these again."
Pause. "Your idea sounds like the best one so far. Can you do it?"

Half-smile, and Kitty tells him, "Sounds like I ought to get you Nicotrol
for Christmas." The patch: turning hell into merely maddening cravings.
Sometimes. One time in four, anyway. And now it's her turn for the
half-smile to fade. "Wish I knew. The /math/ I know I can do, and the
design - that's /what/ I do, when I'm not being distracted by getting in
trouble. It's production that'd be the problem. The only way I've got
right now of getting at the right equipment - well, anyone who'd agree to
let me at it probably wouldn't want to stop at making /one/." And she's
very much not going to be helpful with that. "And there's still the
problem of making sure it'd work for /you/ - this kind of thing definitely
qualifies as weird biology. But I can try."

"Pete said something about mutancy. Which was not comforting at the time."
Lindsey rubs one eye with his thumb, frowning around it. "I don't know
anyone I'd trust with that technology." He knows quite a few people he
could contact about it whom he *wouldn't* trust, though.

"'Comforting' isn't usually one of Pete's major concerns, yeah." Flicker
of another smile. Kitty leans her head against her own shoulder,
thoughtful. "I know about two people I'd /trust/ with it - neither of whom
would be helpful. Maybe I can rig the stupid thing to wreck the relevant
parts if anybody tries to tamper with it and figure out how it works." And
torch her working notes and bury the ashes. And possibly wipe the
information out of her own brain?

After a longish pause, Lindsey says in deceptively mild tones, "Are you
sure you should trust *me* with the technology?" If he does what he's
seriously thinking about doing, he won't be in a position to guarantee
moral responsibility for anything.

That gets a simple and calm answer. "No." Kitty shrugs slightly, looking
less at him than at the air between them. "But I can't exactly hang around
and wait for you to have a massive cerebral hemorrhage either, can I?"

What a completely fair yet upsetting answer. Lindsey nods, and looks away,
frowning at the smoke rising from his cigarette. "You *can*. You won't."

"Let's say that I'm willing to take the chance of somebody taking the
thing off of you, figuring out what it does, and using it for nasty
purposes." Kitty finally does straighten up, rubbing at her eyes. Now is
not the time for flashbacks. Now is also not the time to be looking at
him. "I mean, yeah, technically, you're right. I could. I'd just have to
give up, you know, most of the self-respect I've managed to get back over
the last six months, among other little things like, oh yeah, possibly
your being /not a vegetable/. Not ... something I'm real eager about. Even
if I still hate this stuff."

"Gosh," Lindsey murmurs, deliberately exaggerating his drawl, "I didn't
realise you cared." He looks at Kitty, because she's looking elsewhere. "I
ask you something?"

Okay, rubbing at eyes turns into hand over eyes while Kitty makes a face.
Lindsey's lucky they're both tired, or he might've been randomly assaulted
with a cushion. "Go right ahead."

"Is it Pete?" Lindsey leaves a moment's pause, before clarifying, "That I
remind you of?" He's not blind, and he's not delusional either. He knows
he's pretty but that doesn't seem like it'd be enough to attract some of
the glances Kitty casts his way.

In that moment's pause, she stiffens, absolutely silent - and at the
clarification, she actually relaxes a little. Stays quiet, though, and she
doesn't lift her head. "Yeah," Kitty says finally. "A little. Not this
one."

In any other city, that might seem like a strange remark. Lindsey nods,
slowly. "I figured." Pete found Kitty just when he lost Marley, that's the
juxtaposition in his mind. "Didn't mean to embarrass you. It's kinda nice,
from my end, y'know?"

Now there's a deeply disturbing association. Kitty glances over at him,
peeking through fingers for a moment, and manages a smile. "Let me know if
it gets on your nerves, huh? You're - you just talk a little bit like he
used to, sometimes."

"You mean not much?" Lindsey returns the smile, though there's a definite
cloud over him today. Understandably, perhaps. "Doesn't get on my nerves.
I appreciate all the attention I can get."

Yes. Very understandably. "Yeah, like that," she replies with a hint of
humor. The Pete she knew before /didn't/ talk as much. And drank a lot
more, and did a lot more brooding, and was a hell of a lot angrier - three
guesses why Lindsey prompts reminders. Kitty lets her eyebrows go up,
though. "And I thought you were supposed to be getting attention from a
redhead. Who's a whole lot prettier anyway. Things - okay between you
two?" Very tentative, that last. He said not to tell /anyone/ he was
there.

Well that neatly derailed the mild flirtation. Lindsey sighs and leans
forward to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray. "Yeah. Kinda." Pause.
"Deimos...things are kinda complicated." In that two-timing kind of way.

There was flirting? With her? Hello, blind spot. A brief pause at Deimos'
name, but no spark of sudden rant on Kitty's part - she eases herself down
off the arm of the couch onto the actual seat, instead. "They sound it."
Redhead plus Deimos plus human plus Lindsey equals tangled. "In the same
way that Asia is 'kinda big.' You're having a seriously rough time, huh."

After a moment, Lindsey says, "Not any worse than I've had before." What
with Marley and heroin and symbiote and domestic abuse and left-handedness
and explosions and Angel and nasty scientists and, well. Marley again,
when you get right down to it. He leans back and turns his head to look at
Kitty. "I'm just - I have no idea what to do. None. At all. About
anything."

From Kitty's point of view, some of those still count into the current
situation. But no need to detail his own history to him, particularly not,
oh, now. "Doesn't sound like you've had the time to just stop and /think/
about it. Or to get your breath back, for crying out loud."

"Y'know what Angel asked me the other day?" Lindsey doesn't pause, since
it's so obviously a rhetorical question. "He said, could I imagine being
happy with this life. And - I realised. I don't know what that'd be like.
I'm not trying to be dramatic. I just never have been happy with
everything in my life. Or looked to be. I never thought about it before."

Kitty spreads her hands, palms-up, resting the backs of them on her
thighs. She hasn't actually taken off her jacket, or the scarf, which
she's apparently ... entirely forgotten about, really. "What /does/ make
you happy?" Simple question. Usually complicated answer.

There's a long, long silence. Eventually, Lindsey says, "I don't know." He
looks mildly perturbed by this realization. "There are little things. But
I don't - I've never tried for happiness. Except with Marley." And we know
how that came out.

Yes, well. If you're trying to drive somewhere, and you not only don't
have a map but don't even know where that somewhere is, you wind up sooner
or later with the car stalled in a Very Bad Place. Kitty watches Lindsey
for a moment longer. "Sounds like you've got a /whole/ lot to be thinking
about." She lifts her head, glances around the room, then looks back to
him. "At least you've got a good place to be doing the thinking in."
Quiet. Simple. Calm.

"Yeah. Until Spider-Man mysteriously finds my address again and kills me
because Marley's dead." Lindsey doesn't seriously think that'll happen,
but it's a concern. Not like he hasn't lost two domiciles already to that
symbiote. He closes his eyes. "I dunno what to do. I think about going
back to the firm."

It's a good thing Lindsey's eyes are closed, because there's a flash of an
expression that can't be read as anything but 'ohfuck' before Kitty has
her face back under control. "Lindsey? One piece of advice? Don't ... make
any irrevocable decisions just because you aren't sure what else to do
right now." She's not going to tell him not to do it. She's just going to
hope like hell that he /does/ think.

Oh, he'll think. It's just that when you're so utterly lost within
yourself that security looks more important than morality, you don't
always make what others would consider the correct decision. Lindsey's
decisions are often smart, but they're seldom right. "I can't *do* this
any more, Kitty. Not like I can even take my guitar and go for it as a
singer."

"Not right now, you can't." And there's an odd steadiness in Kitty's voice
when she says that, not just optimism. "But the firm isn't the only other
option you've got. You're smart. You're pretty damn good at the stuff you
do. You've got choices. You can /make/ choices. And ... well. When you
jump out of the frying pan and into the fire... well, going back /into/
the frying pan isn't such a good idea, y'know?"

"I was so good at what I did there." And so horribly inept at everything
he's tried to do since. Lindsey sighs, and opens his eyes to look at
Kitty. "I won't decide while I'm tired. I know nobody wants me to do
this."

Kitty's still looking at him, hasn't looked away. "Comes down to what you
want to do, though." She shrugs a little. "And if you want to do something
you already know will make you miserable - well, it's still your decision,
right?" No, it's not sarcastic, and it's not cutting, and it's not even
resigned. She actually means it. Possibly she's lost her mind.

Nnnnf. "I don't *know* what I want to do. I only know what I *can* do. I
know what I'm good at. And I know what's happened to me since I tried to
stop." Lindsey shifts, turning his head away. "I ain--I'm not a good guy,
Kitty, and I can't pretend to be."

There's a light, very light, tap of fingertips on Lindsey's arm. T-shirt
means no sleeves. "Hey. You. What's that supposed to mean? What the heck
is a 'good guy' supposed to be, anyway?"

"Maybe the kind of guy who doesn't consider becoming an assassin for a
corrupt law firm as a viable alternative? Cuz that's what they'll have me
do." Lindsey doesn't look at Kitty, but sighs instead. "Don't listen to
me. I'm down."

"Just about anyone," Kitty replies, "will /consider/ just about anything,
if they have to." This time it's not a tap of fingertips against his arm,
but a brief slump of a Kitty before she straightens up again. "Piece of
advice? I hung around with an assassin for a couple of years once. It's
not worth it. The only thing to be said for it is the pay, and the
several-days-running drinking binges trying to get away from the memories
wipe most of that out." It's a joke. Sort of.

He *is* listening, though he doesn't give much sign of it. Lindsey reaches
across himself to pat Kitty's arm. "Thanks." Genuine gratitude. "I think
Sera's stayin with her boyfriend." Hint hint. I want to be alone to brood.

"I'll go find out." Hint taken. But Kitty leans up and over to kiss him
lightly on the cheek before she gets up and goes to let herself out. Down
the stairs is going to be much easier than up. "You take care, huh?" Good
luck. She'd say that last out loud, but she doesn't want to put any
accidental curses on him.

That was nice, and slightly unexpected - it's Lindsey's turn to redden
slightly this time, and he gives Kitty a genuine smile. "Yeah, you too.
Get some rest."

Kitty glances back at him, and deadpans, "I'm so hard to convince." Then
clasps her hands together and leans her head down on them right there in
the doorway for a moment, before flashing a grin and slipping out.