Alright, it's a new chapter! Dana's side of Tarot, this time. She's about 2 months at this point.
Un-beta'ed, as always.
- o – o -
Chapter Four: Tarot
Dana scowled at the phone in her hands, wishing she could immolate the man on the other end by thought alone. She'd scheduled an interview two months ago, for Chrissakes! The call today had given her a time for the interview, and not much else. Dana was fairly sure that she was supposed to go to the public defender's office, and hoped that was the case. (Stranger things had happened before—once, she'd gone for a job interview as a secretary in a law firm, only to learn that she was supposed to have met the interviewer at a park instead. The expletives she'd used had been entirely fair.)
She flopped back on her bed with a sigh, and wondered if she should call Vince. He'd been…busy, with something. He hadn't told her what (although she suspected he'd told Trip), and whatever it was, was eating into the time she had to spend with him or even talk. Dana curled up on her side, wishing that Vince had never accepted the interview at ARK. He'd gotten better job offers from other sources in the months leading up to ARK's take-over—he'd even gotten an offer to teach at West Point. But, Vince being Vince, he'd had to stay. Now, her husband was presumed dead by everyone in the city that he loved, and everyone was raking her and her son over the coals.
Dana groaned and pulled her pillow over her face as the phone began ringing again. It was probably her mother, ordering her to return to upstate New York again. (In the past month, she'd gotten at least twelve calls to that effect. Somehow, beyond all reason or logic, Elena Thompson had learned that her baby girl was pregnant and without a husband. The phone hadn't stopped ringing for a week.)
She checked the caller id and almost began crying in relief. It wasn't her mother, calling to harangue her again. Although…why was Vince calling her? As far as she knew, Vince had been forbidden to call her, just in case someone noticed something. All calls had to come from her end…
"Hello?" Dana asked warily, sitting up. She pulled one of her pillows over and curled up around it.
-Dana Faraday?- It was a man's voice, but not her husband's. It…sounded kind of like the Romanian she'd spoken with three months ago, when she'd learned that Vince was still alive. Oh hell. What had gone wrong?
"Uh…yes…" Dana replied cautiously, chewing on her thumbnail. What had happened to Vince?
-Oh good. Your husband was—
There was a resounding crash on the other end of the line. Dana pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. What the hell was going on over there? She sighed as she heard some muffled Urdu swearing—the Romani had probably tried to tell her something about Vince. It was probably something that would, no doubt, embarrass her husband to no end. Ye gods. She flopped back onto the mattress, holding the phone in one hand and using the other to hold the pillow against her chest.
After a few seconds, Vince came on the line. He sounded embarrassed as he spoke, and a bit out-of-breath. –Hey Dana- he said in a falsely cheerful tone. –How's everything going, sweetheart? Is the baby okay?-
Dana frowned. "Vince," she said calmly, "what did you do?" There was a nervous cough from her husband. Dana raised an eyebrow.
"Vince, tell me, or I'm going to drive down to Trolley Park to beat a confession out of you."
-Uh…Ikindagotpoisonedafewdaysago…butI'mbetternow!- Vince said in a jumbled rush. –So, how're the kids?-
Dana raised an eyebrow. "The three of us are fine. Wait… Did you say you got poisoned? Vince, what the hell are you doing with poison?" she screeched into the phone. She could almost see Vince recoiling from his phone with a fearful expression on his face.
-It was an accident - Vince mumbled under his breath. –I'm better now. I saved Portman.- Dana raised an eyebrow.
"Vince," she asked cautiously, "would this have anything to do with Trip's new friend?" There was a resonating silence from the other end of the line. She sighed. "Vince, you're going to be explaining things to both of us tomorrow night. Or else."
With that, she cut the call. Now, she had to get ready for her interview…
- o – o -
Dana paced around the main hallway of the public defender's office, doing her best not to look nervous or anxious about anything. She'd fought to get this interview for two months—asking for one had been no problem, of course. Getting it had been another matter entirely; no one, it seemed, wanted a Faraday near them, even if they had no options left. She placed one hand on her stomach and glowered at the floor.
Not everything was going wrong this month, though. (The lawyer supposed she should have been grateful that at least one person in this god-forsaken city—two, if she counted Terrence—believed her about Vince's innocence.) Judge Preston had a surprising effect on the DA, and everyone around her. Two weeks ago, just as Dana was wondering if she'd have to call her parents and beg for help, Preston had called and told her that her accounts—not her husband's or their joint account, though—were being unfrozen. As much as Dana hated to admit it, she'd needed that windfall almost as badly she needed this job.
She stopped pacing and sat down on one of the benches. What was keeping Mr. Hall so long? There couldn't be that many candidates, could there? Dana looked up as he came out of his office again, nose buried in a file. Before she could draw attention to herself, he looked up.
"Dana…Faraday?" he asked, drawing little attention from anyone traversing the busy hallway. Dana stood up and smoothed her skirt self-consciously.
"Yes," she said, smiling widely. She held her hand out, and Hall shook it. "I'm Dana Faraday."
"Travis Hall," he replied, smiling. He sighed, and tucked his file under one arm. "I really hate to do this to you, but the job's been filled. I'm really sorry; thank you for coming in though."
Dana watched him walk away, and scowled darkly. Faradays are fighters… She straightened up and stalked after the lawyer, doing her best to erase the scowl from her face. "I know my name is a stigma!" she snapped, getting into step with Hall.
"That is not the case," Hall replied, sounding vaguely worried. It could have been because of the file he was perusing, though. Dana wasn't too sure.
"You need me!" Dana snapped. "Convictions are off the charts down here, ARK's flooding the streets with cops who make four hours of court overtime every time they make an arrest. You're on your backs." She scowled as Hall tried to keep walking away. Before she could stop herself, she continued on her tirade. "And, as for my name, let me enlighten you and your super-curious staff as to one nagging detail regarding my husband, Vince Faraday: he never had a trial. I am here, to provide the justice to others that he was denied! And if you've got a vertebrae in your spine, you'll give me this job!"
She realized that she was laying it on a bit thick, but she really needed this job. She was almost relieved when Hall stopped and looked at her.
"This interview is over." Hall stopped and turned around, taking his glasses off. "As for the vertebrae in my spine…it works both ways." Hall smiled. "Do you defend your clients with this much…energy?"
Dana smiled, lifting her chin proudly. "Yeah, I do. Faradays are fighters," she said.
"Find a desk."
With that, Hall left the lobby, perusing his file once again. Dana let out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She'd gotten the job, and it was because of her name and her stubbornness.
She placed one hand over her abdomen and smiled again as she headed back to Hall's secretary to let him know that she'd gotten the job, and ask for a desk somewhere. Her kids were going to know exactly what being a Faraday meant. Hopefully by this time next year, Vince would be able to teach both of them what it meant… Or else.
- o -
When Dana returned to the apartment, it was well after dark. Finding an open office had taken more time than she would have liked, and she'd had to ignore several…comments from people who believed the shit that ARK's puppet press was spouting. It'd been two months, for crying out loud! Couldn't they have dropped the issue already? But no, everyone had to throw their two cents in and couldn't leave well enough alone.
She felt dead tired, and knew that her nerves couldn't take much more than what they'd already gone through. She'd gotten the job, and she'd gotten an office (the secretary had taped a piece of paper with her name on it to the door, giving her an apologetic smile as he did so), and she was supposed to get a case or twelve tomorrow.
Dana sighed in relief as she shut the apartment door behind her. All she wanted to do now was take a long, hot bath, eat some ice cream, and then go to bed.
Judging by the open window, though, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Now, instead of having a relaxing bath, she had to go up to the roof and make sure that her son didn't get hypothermia or get into what was apparently a meth lab. (5D was a chemist for several local drug dealers. She'd gotten the apartment so cheap because no one wanted to live there, despite how safe the place actually was.) Dana sighed and crawled out to the fire escape. Luckily, she lived a story below the roof, and the climb wasn't too horrendous.
Trip was sitting in his usual spot underneath the apartment's water tower, reading an issue of The Cape by the light of a flashlight. Dana looked down at him with a smile. He was so like Vince some days… (She'd lost count of the times she'd had to physically drag Vince to bed during the first year of their marriage because he'd wanted to finish an issue of his comic.)
"Hey," she said, looking down at her son. Trip looked up and smiled at her, before scooting over so she could sit down.
"Hi mom," Trip replied, closing his comic book. "Dad called today."
Dana smiled and wrapped one arm around her son. "Why don't you tell me about that, huh?" she asked.
"Well, he told me about…"
- - o - -
Side note: Dana and Travis's conversation earlier in the chapter- the interview- is taken directly from episode two of The Cape, Tarot. Credit where credit is due.
So, what did you think? Was it good? Bad? Think I should have done something different? Drop a line and let me know!