9:00am, Monday morning
There's a knock on Darien's apartment door, and he musters enough energy to call out, "It's open!"
At first nothing happens, and then the door opens enough for Hobbes to pop his head through. "You decent?"
"No, but I'm dressed," he replies dryly from the depths of the couch.
"He must be feeling better," Monroe's voice drifts through the door. "He's starting to sound like you again."
Hobbes grimaces, and swings the door open fully to reveal two Agency men guarding either side of the door. "Feeling up to some visitors?"
Darien glances at the bed, but MacKenna doesn't stir. Despite Claire's protests, he'd insisted that she would rest much easier someplace other than the lab. Anywhere but the lab. And he was right.
But Claire and The Official had made some stipulations: guards at the apartment 24/7, and regular checks by Claire at six-hour intervals.
Just in case.
"Especially in regards to that concussion of hers," Claire had said. "You're going to have to keep a close eye on her for the next twenty-four hours; and you will call me if you notice any change in her behavior."
"Yeah, but keep it down," he replies in an undertone. "She's still sleeping." He gingerly heaves himself up to more of a sitting position as Hobbes, Monroe, Claire, Eberts and The Official ease into the small flat.
Monroe limps over to the chair next to the couch and carefully lowers herself into it with a small sigh as she takes her weight off of her still-aching leg. Her right hand is still stiff from having her gun shot out of it Friday afternoon, and the edges of one of those extra large Band-Aids peeks out from the cap sleeve of her red t-shirt.
She nods at MacKenna's slumbering back. "How's she doing?" she murmurs.
Darien shrugs slightly as Claire gives him the umpteenth-over. "Still sleeping a lot, but getting stronger. She even walked to the bathroom this morning."
Claire grips his shoulder firmly enough to make him wince. "I thought I told you two to wait until I got here this afternoon to try that."
He shoots the doctor a pained puppy-dog look, and her grip eases minutely. "She won't use that bedside potty thing. Can you blame her?"
"Yes, especially when she's not supposed to be walking yet," is the stern rebuke. "Neither of you are strong enough yet to keep from getting hurt if she falls."
"Claire..."
"Don't you 'Claire' me," she snaps.
"Claire, would you keep your voice down," he chastises her softly as he raises a finger to his lips. He winces again as his chest screams in pain from the slight movement, and the doctor gently rests her hand over his in acknowledgement.
"Sorry," she apologizes in a subdued voice. "You two must take it easy, Darien, or it'll take even longer for you to get better. Not counting your other injuries, with three broken ribs and four cracked, you're not exactly in any shape to be helping out another invalid."
"I know, I know," he concedes. He looks up at his Boss. "What's the latest on... you know."
The Official moves closer to the rear of the couch so He can keep His voice down. Eberts shadows Him as he pulls a paper from the manila file tucked under his arm.
"Current reconnaissance shows that The Director and what's left of his men has returned to Virginia," the assistant begins. "They have apparently ceased all efforts to find Miss MacKenna, and the most recent report states that he has been quite busy destroying all the documentation for what appears to be various projects." He pauses a moment to smile in private triumph before wiping his face clean of emotion and continuing with his report. "As for Mr. Stark and Monsieur de Fehrn, their last known position was near de Fehrn's ranch in Mexico."
"Aw, we must've worn them out," Monroe pouts. "I guess we play too rough for them."
"Either that, or their membership in the country club called Chrysalis got revoked," Hobbes teases.
"So now what?" Darien breaks in. His voice is heavy with conflicting emotions, and his eyes are dark with distress.
"What?" Hobbes queries.
In wordless answer, Darien simply nods his head towards his bed and the slumbering woman in it.
"To put it another way, he's asking how you can make it work for me to stay," MacKenna's voice faintly drifts over to them.
All eyes turn to her as she rolls over to face them. She's dressed in Darien's barfly t-shirt, an unbuttoned dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of button-fly boxer shorts. Her eyes are bloodshot and her coloring still pale, but it's obvious that her convalescing in Darien's apartment is agreeing with her.
She shifts her weight and slowly props herself up on one elbow as Darien's face brightens at seeing her awake. She looks at each of the assembled before grinning faintly. "Well, hail hail, the gang's all here. Again."
Hobbes and Monroe smile at the memory of MacKenna saying the exact same thing what seemed like months ago in Claire's lab. Eberts frowns for a moment before his face clears in understanding as he places the memory that her comment rouses.
The Official smiles the tiniest bit.
Darien notices. "Well, if you can make the Boss smile, you must be in," he comments drolly as he glances at Him from the corner of his eye. BossMan wipes all emotion from His face as He shoots a quelling glare at His lanky agent. Darien just smiles and looks back to MacKenna.
Claire has moved to her side and is helping her to sit up by propping the bed pillows behind her back. That finished, the doctor then briefly checks a small bandage on her shoulder blade. She then perches on the edge of the mattress at the bottom of the bed while her patient gets her breath back.
"Mister... Eberts?" MacKenna asks, inquiring how he wishes to be addressed. He nods his approval with her choice, and she continues. "Did those account numbers pan out?"
He beams with excitement as he flips through the pages of his pocket notebook. "As a mater of fact, yes. All three were located exactly where you said, and the necessary steps have been carried out in order to acquire them."
"You did..." she infers with a hint of worry in her eyes.
"Yes, all necessary precautions and measures have been taken," The Official reassures her. He nods at His assistant, who echoes his Boss' action.
"Never fear, Miss MacKenna," he begins.
"Underdog is here," Hobbes murmurs to himself.
"Ooo, where is she?" Darien glances around in mock excitement.
"In my pants, where else?" is the glib reply.
"No one will be able to trace the transfers to their final location," Eberts finishes, pointedly ignoring Hobbes and Darien's comments.
Darien suddenly frowns in puzzlement. "Um, am I missing something here?"
"You don't remember?" MacKenna asks. She tilts her head to one side.
"Remember what?"
"It was your idea," she replies with a frown of her own.
"What was my idea?" he snaps. Her head rears back at the vehemence in his voice, and Claire places a calming hand on her knee as she shakes her head.
"Darien has very little memory of what happened at the motel," the doctor explains. "Give him some time; it will all come back within the next few days."
MacKenna nods as Monroe explains. "While you two were working over The Director, you apparently came up with the idea that since you two were 'pushing' him into destroying everything connected with... that experiment," she gestures at MacKenna, "Then all the money they had allotted for it would have a much better home... with us." She grins in appreciation of his deviousness, and Darien blinks at the implied compliment.
She continues. "So Amy had him disclose the account numbers, of which she gave to Eberts soon after she woke up."
Hobbes perks up a little. "And just how much money have we 'inherited' from this little excursion?" he inquires innocently.
"Enough to keep us in the black for quite a number of fiscal quarters," Eberts smirks as only he can do.
"Which means..." Darien asks pointedly.
"Which means that we are more than capable of procuring and fully training another operative for our Agency," The Official replies with a sanguine look at MacKenna. He seems ready to burst with self-satisfaction.
"And get her acclimated to what changes there've been over the past eight years," Hobbes interjects. In an aside to the boss, he asks, "Would there possibly be anything in the budget for a tiny… a miniscule adjustment to my salary as well?"
"Don't push your luck, Bobby," The Official grumbles, causing the seasoned agent to grimace. Oh well, it was worth a shot…
"I certainly could use some, experienced, assistance in the lab," Claire pipes in with her two cents.
"I appreciate the offer," is the soft response. "Would I be able to get back to you on that?"
"What?" Claire asks. "Hm?" The Official grunts. "What do you mean?" Hobbes blurts out.
Monroe watches MacKenna with understanding. "I think she'd like to find her family first," she replies gently.
The auburn-haired woman smiles gratitude at her as she fishes a piece of paper from her purse. "I found out where he is," she states as she carefully hoists herself out of the chair and limps over to the bed. She hands the paper to MacKenna, who hesitates a moment before taking it with a shaking hand.
"Thank you."
Darien's face falls as he realizes that they're talking about MacKenna's brother. "So, what're you gonna say to him?"
Her eyes fill with sorrow, making her look ancient. "Nothing." She blinks away tears threatening to develop. "I just wanna see for myself that he's all right." She looks down and reads the address information on the paper. "Hm. He's living at Gramma's old place." Unbidden, a tear falls from her cheek to the slightly shaking paper, which brings her out of her reverie. She self-consciously dashes the rest of the tears from her face, and tucks the paper in the breast pocket of the dress shirt. She looks up again at the others, and notices their varying expressions of uncertainty.
"After all these years of thinking me dead, it won't do Derek any good knowing it was all a lie. And even though Barnes' destroying everything linked to the Project, there's still the possibility of someone figuring out what's happened with me. My brother's safer living as he is. I'm just glad he's alive... and okay. But Agent Hobbes... Bobby," she corrects herself with a little grin for the stocky man. "Is right: I need time to get used to how things have changed... out here," she waves at the window. "And I want to see with my own eyes that my brother's okay." She swallows hard as she locks eyes with Darien. The past few days they've spent recuperating in his apartment have been full of conversation: essentially the sharing of their respective life stories. They've found that they have a lot more in common than they thought, with one thing being that the both of them are magnets for getting themselves into trouble.
"'Lord, they know not what they do,'" Darien quotes in an allusion to his Boss and co-workers' invitation to MacKenna joining The Agency. She grins, and the others in the room develop varying expressions of confusion at the private joke between the two experimentals.
Darien's closing thought:
"At some point in our lives, we all feel alienated from the world... alone... like there's no one out there who could ever understand what we're going through. And no matter what the circumstances, at some point we wake up and realize that we truly aren't as alone as we thought... that there's at least one person out there who can relate to how we feel. While I've met a few people over the past couple'a years who've been... altered, like I have, I never really felt like they'd known what it was like to be in my shoes. But with Amy... I feel like there's someone who truly understands. No matter what happens from now on; whether she decides to join us at The Agency or not; I have at least one friend now I can completely relate to.
Finally... I'm no longer... alone."
Fin