"Hey there, sis," Roman greeted, only to frown when Kayla all but jumped out of her skin, wondering what had her so distracted she hadn't even heard him approach the bench.
"Oh, God fucking damn it all, Roman!" Kate hissed, slumping further back into the brick garden wall she'd been leaning against, undetected, for the past five minutes.
"It was just getting to the good part," she whined, then took a swig from the flask she'd stashed in her oversized purse. She'd been good, saving it until after the service was over and she'd sent Roman to mingle with other mourners and bring the car around. He knew her enough to know she'd need some space and graciously agreed to give it to her without asking questions, even saying he'd stop off to pay a visit to his folks to give her some time to herself.
When she was by herself at Victor's graveside and moved to angry tears at the pitiful array of flowers left to pick from to put on the casket, after liquoring up, she strolled over to the church garden in search of a bouquet that was more suitable for the force of a man she'd loved, hated and felt everything in between for in her not too distant past.
Once reaching the garden, tipsily contemplating between roses or peonies, hearing a familiar voice and a familiar sniffle, she frowned. Stepping closer to the brick wall, she made sure to stay hidden behind it.
"She just kept saying it was my secret to tell, whenever and in whatever way I wanted to. Right now, though, I really wish that I could just leave it here with you. Not that you'd let me get away with it if I tried."
Curious but considerate enough – even one-third of a flask deep– not to want to intrude on a private moment, Kate settled back against the brick wall and listened in, not feeling bad for eavesdropping under the justification that if she knew the situation, maybe she could offer Kayla some support. Something she was more inclined to do in a semi-drunken state, even though she'd managed successfully once before when she'd unfortunately been stone-cold sober.
Mar 2023
"I still can't believe that during our half hour of freedom, she decides to stay put in that thing." Kate scoffed, nodding to Marlena lying in her open pod with her eyes shut, in an eerily calm and trance-like meditative state.
Rolling her eyes, she turned back to the tall locked cabinet she was trying to jimmy open.
"You know, if you hadn't given her an exam I'd swear she checked out on us. Or built up some kind of tolerance to whatever drug Megan's using to un-knock us out."
Not getting a response, she frowned, glancing over her shoulder to see Kayla sitting on the floor with her knees hugged to her chest in front of the locked lab door.
"The floor? Really?" she snorted.
"If you're gonna plant yourself in front of the door, at least stand guard and keep watch. You look like a scared puppy convinced their human's never coming home."
When Kayla ignored her and bowed her head, Kate's attention returned to the cabinet and to using her fake nail that had fallen off as a makeshift lock pick.
"Alright, fine. Marlena can corpse-pose in her pod. You can pray. And I can be the one who finds some sort of clue in here as to where the hell we're stashed, so we can finally get out of this damn torture chamber," Kate snapped, hitting at the cabinet after the fake nail broke in half.
Examining her hand, wondering if there was another nail that the glue was wearing off on, it took her a second to hear the blonde's soft sob and too-small-sounding voice.
"We're never getting out of here," Kayla whimpered.
"Well, yeah. Not with that attitude."
"By the time everyone figures out we're not dead or where to even look for Rolf and Megan they'll both have killed us already."
"Oh for Christ's sake, they're not trained assassins," Kate scoffed. "It's still two against three and once we get the jump on Megan, it shouldn't be that difficult to convince Rolf to help us. The gremlin's got a thing for both you and Marlena, and if sweet talk and flattery from some of his favorite colleagues doesn't work, I'll tear his braid out," she said as Kayla sniffled.
"Our plan won't have a shot in hell though if the woman who's planted herself by the door doesn't put her fight face on."
"Why? I…it didn't work before," Kayla reminded as Kate swallowed hard, then shrugged.
"Well, that was just a dress rehearsal. Just because they won the first round doesn't mean-"
"They shot us up with God knows what kind of drug before we could try and stop them. Then they just sealed us back up in those damn-"
Hearing Kayla's voice break and trail off, walking past the row of pods the blonde was staring at and quaking with fear over, Kate knelt down to her level.
"Kayla, c'mon. It's alr-"
"All I could do was look up," Kayla choked out. "I couldn't move, I... I was paralyzed, I-"
"Hey, hey. C'mon. Look at me now, alright? Look at me," Kate coached, snapping her fingers. "You're not trapped now, you understand? You're not paralyzed, neither am I, and we're gonna use the time we have to figure our way out of-"
"There is no way out!" Kayla cried. "T… they're just gonna test their drugs and experiment on us until they're through with us! We…. we're n..n..not-"
"Alright, enough now. That's enough," Kate said firmly, taking hold of Kayla's face and making her look at her.
"Look, if you start hyperventilating, I'll have to wake Marlena up to check on you. Are you going to make me do that?"
When Kayla shook her head, relieved the threat of another doctor doting on her seemed to have snapped her back to breathing normally, Kate shifted from kneeling to sitting across from her on the cold lab floor.
"Good. Let the physician try and heal herself here," she said as Kayla looked up tearfully and guiltily, rubbing at the needle mark on the side of her neck.
"The physician who doesn't even know what we're being drugged with."
"Well, you know that's by design," Kate shrugged. "They know if they didn't knock the brilliant doctors out first you'd see the side effects of whatever they're testing out, form some theory. Find a way to break Rolf's drugs down into their chemical properties or something like that."
"Or find a way to just break down. Like I'm not already halfway there," Kayla sighed as Kate rolled her eyes.
"Okay, that's it. C'mon."
Standing up, she dragged Kayla to her feet, past the pods, and over to the tall cabinet she'd been struggling with.
"You keep going on about breakdowns. Break this down."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Hit the thing! Break the lock. Pry the doors open. Get mad at this cabinet and see what's inside it."
"Why?"
"Because it's driving me insane not being able to open it, and you need something to do in the next twelve minutes besides be all sad and weepy on the floor. Now go on!"
Stepping closer, Kayla studied the cabinet, reaching up and tracing her finger around the outside edge of it, then over the lock.
"Okay so that's the opposite of being mad at it. What are you even-"
"Making sure it's not rigged," Kayla snapped. "We didn't get stuffed in those pods and brought back to life just to get blown up by a damn cupboard."
"Paranoid much?" Kate scoffed, not wanting to admit that possibility hadn't occurred to her when she started trying to pick the lock.
"Everything about this room is a trap, Kate. I'm not taking any chances."
"Someone's been married to Steve Johnson too long," she scoffed, folding her arms. "Was smart, though, for you to check. I mean, credit where credit's due."
Hearing another sniffle, but then seeing Kayla's hand form a fist hearing Steve's name, Kate smiled proudly when the blonde slammed her arm into the cabinet, letting out a combination cry/scream as she did so before punching and hitting at the doors and the lock indiscriminately, swearing like a sailor the entire time. Only to get startled when the combination worked and the lock gave, making the right door spring open.
"Wow!" Kayla laughed, stepping back as Kate smirked.
"Happy now?"
"I am, actually," she chirped, opening the cabinet the rest of the way before she and Kate started hastily rummaging through it.
"How much time have we-"
"Ten minutes. Should we wake Marl-"
"No," Kayla said. "Besides, it takes more than just shaking her shoulder to wake her after she puts herself under."
"Puts herself-"
"Yeah. Under hypnosis. She told me it helps her relax and think more clearly. I think it helps her feel closer to John, too."
"How?"
"You can't tell me in her non-drug induced slumber that she's not dreaming about him," Kayla said simply before she spotted a strongbox at the back of the cabinet.
"Hey, this could be something," she said, grabbing it and setting it on a nearby countertop.
"A locked box in the back of a locked cabinet. I'd say that's a pretty safe bet."
Setting the strongbox on the table, Kayla tried to pry it open, only to realize the lock was new and wouldn't break just by force and sheer force of will alone.
"Get me whatever tool you were using before on the cabinet lock."
"Okay, hang on. Just give me a second."
When she saw Kate trying to pry off her thumbnail, Kayla's eyes went wide.
"You're not seriously-"
"They're fake! And what else do you suggest we use?"
"Something long and thin, metallic. That's ideally not glued to your thumb!"
After rummaging through the cabinet some more and finding a paper clip, once straightening it out, Kate went to hand it to Kayla, then thought better of it.
"What are you doing? We've got less than ten minutes before-"
"Show me how."
"What?"
"Show me how to pick the lock. You're the one who said this whole room is a trap. Makes sense all three of us should know a way to get out of it," Kate reasoned.
"Besides, SUH is a teaching hospital. Just pretend we're in the OR. You're training me on some surgical procedure, all in your element."
"If I was in my element we wouldn't be skipping 'see one' and moving right into 'do one'," Kayla muttered before walking Kate through the steps, only to have the strongbox open on the first try.
"Well, will you look at that!"
"I'm impressed," Kayla laughed. "Steve would be, too."
"What about your law abiding former SPD commissioner big brother. Think it'll impress him?" Kate asked as Kayla smirked.
"I think he'll just be happy having someone around with this skill who isn't a total butterfingers,"
"You're kidding, right?"
Looking at Kayla incredulously as she took a manilla envelope out of the strongbox, Kate folded her arms.
"You're actually telling me that Roman Brady can't pick a lock."
"Not as fast as Bo could. Why do you think I put him and Steve in charge of teaching me?" Kayla grinned.
Turned the envelope over, she gasped at the label stamped in the corner of it, then tried to unseal it without tearing it, catching Kate's attention.
"What is it? If it was sent here is there an address on it? Something to tell us where the hell we are? Or-"
"No, it's not that. It's not that."
Blinking back tears, Kayla gently shook two pairs of earrings, a watch, three bracelets, a diamond ring, and a thin gold chain out of the envelope.
"I can't believe it."
"I can," Kate sighed. "If we needed any more proof that Megan snagged us from the SUH morgue. All our personal effects in one big fat envelope."
Picking up her ring, earrings, and chunky bracelets, she looked over as Kayla giggled and moved to put her anchor necklace back on.
"You know, I wouldn't do that."
"What?" she asked. "Why not? I-"
"Is five minutes enough of a reason?" Kate asked. "Megan can't know we found this and I'm guessing once you put that back on you're not going to want to take it off."
"Yeah, you guessed right," Kayla said sadly.
"Fine, I won't wear it but if you think it's going back in that cabinet."
Bending down, she took off her slipper, carefully tucking the anchor and chain into the toe of it before putting it back on her foot. Seeing Kate follow her lead with her own jewelry, she smiled.
"You've got a bit more to work with there. I have Marlena's earrings and watch but, there's still room in my other slipper if you need-"
"I'm fine. These things were too comfortable for my feet anyway," Kate snorted, locking the empty envelope back in the strongbox before putting it back in the cabinet.
"Just wish that my wedding ring wasn't being reduced to a toe ring. I've barely had a chance to wear it and now…"
"Kate-"
"Don't, Kayla, alright? Just drop it. I'm fine," she snapped, slamming the cabinet shut before she crossed the room back to her pod.
"Pretty sure that's what I said before I started forgetting how to breathe," Kayla scoffed, stepping into Kate's path.
"C'mon, Kate. You helped me. Making me go ten rounds with that cabinet, put my fight face back on," she said as Kate swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes.
"Just please quit talking to me about fighting, alright? I am so fucking tired of fighting. I just-"
"I know," Kayla said softly.
"Just keep thinking of what you're fighting for, though. Roman, your kids. Your grand kids. You're gonna get back to them, and I'm gonna get back to my family, and once we do, the only thing we'll have to think about fighting is each other," she said as Kate smirked.
"You're saying we can go back to that once we're-"
"Mm hmm," Kayla grinned. "Occasional battle at a hospital board meeting. Trading insults at the pub. I think getting that normalcy back will be good for us."
"Oh, I know it'll be good for me. We start trading and figuring out who's got the best insults, I'll win, and the first round of martinis will be on you," Kate said simply as Kayla smirked up at her.
"Well, we'll just have to see about that."
–
Realizing her listening in wouldn't do her much good now, now that Roman was sitting with Kayla and effectively keeping her quiet, after picking her assortment of flowers, Kate was set to head back to the grave site before deciding in her still slightly buzzed state, to send her sister-in-law a text.
"I'm insulted you've been holding out on me so YOU win this round. Bench by Victor's grave site. Meet me in five. Drinks are on me."