thecapitol | (no subject)

Who| Kurt Wallander and OPEN
What| Penny has made Wallander's life hell after her latest tirade, so he's gently trying to pick up the pieces. Anyone want to talk to a peacekeeper?
Where| At his office in Peacekeeper Headquarters or around the Tribute tower
When| After Penny's network post
Warnings/Notes| None yet!

Kurt didn't sleep that night. He had too much work to do - vetting every sadistic young peacekeeper that might have an inclination towards torture. It was not a job that he relished, and a small rebellious part of him wished he could sign up someone who had absolutely no imagination and would be horrible at it, just to give some salve to his conscience. In the end, however, he had four dossiers of very accomplished young men (and one woman) who he knew would be all too good at their job and keep Penny off his back for at least a few weeks. It made him sick to his stomach to think about, and more than once he found himself daydreaming that she actually managed to force him into the job, and he was forced to torture some poor soul and then that person's face would turn into his daughter's--

He threw up. Once. In the bathroom. Where he knew no one would catch him.

And then he sent the dossiers to Penny, knowing just what he was endorsing, and knowing that he had to.

The rest of the day he spent doing some paperwork in his office, before heading to the tribute tower. Many of them were angry. He knew that. He'd watched Penny kill that mouse just as they had, watched her relishing in the pointless cruelty. If he had any ability to, he would see her fired - she made his job insanely difficult. How was he supposed to keep the tributes from rebelling when she simply fueled the flames? But the fact was, he had no power over her. And he had no means of voicing descent, not without putting his daughter in the firing line instead. So he kept his grumblings and misgivings to himself, and went to see if he could calm some of the tributes down.

He wandered around the common room, mostly, making himself available - careful to show his badge pinned prominently to his belt, though he didn't wear the uniform that the regular peacekeepers did. Just the same rumpled suit that he had the day before.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Eva doesn't make any move to be alarmed by the sudden banging or the pain. She doesn't move to alleviate his discomfort, either.

She does, however, eventually sit, resting her hands atop her knees. The finger on one hand roll slightly to an invisible, inaudible rhythm.

"I have a Tribute who's planning on petitioning out, and I would hate to imagine that his technological talents have gone to waste." She reaches into her purse. "And in exchange, I'm seeking a favor from you."

"Ah." Wallander has a very particular way of saying the word 'Ah', with a complexity of meaning that very few people can manage to push into a single syllable. At once, it is a sound of understanding, of disappointment and yet relief, of expectation of worse to follow. It is the sound of a lifetime of working around beurocracy, of having to do things he doesn't consider his job just to manage to do the things that are.

It's a weary sound, and his face falls as he makes it.

"A favour," He repeats slowly. For Topher, of course. He doesn't voice what he thinks. He doesn't owe her. Topher might. Penny might. But none of them care about what Wallander really considers his job.

However. You don't just say no to a woman of Eva's stature. Mentor or no, criminal or no, the woman had pull. It was at least worth hearing her out.

Even if he did it with a depressingly befuddled look. "Go on."

She pulls the rolls of blueprint paper out of her large purse and lays them on the desk. "Your superior should enjoy these. Unless, of course, her ego's so fragile that it can't bear the weight of a gift."

Technology not beyond the Capitol's capabilities, but beyond its current inventions. Novelty. Topher's value to people who won't be forever entertained by his death.

She presses her lips together and takes a deep breath. She opens her mouth to speak, then pauses mid-squeak before her voice takes on an actual syllable. It's choked by emotion.

"My son. You understand, don't you?"

He reaches out for the blueprints, rolling them open and looking at them as if pretending he had any clue what they meant. He didn't, but he had to at least pretend to be competent about technology. Even if even checking his email made him want to toss his computer out the window. He rolled them back up, frowning as she made her request.

"Eva..." He trailed off. Of course he understood. It had been all over the news, years ago, and he hadn't understood then. Linda had been born that year, he hadn't understood how she could have let her son become what he had.

But now Linda was twenty and Kurt understood all too very well.

"... I understand. But you must know, I was still working the beat in the districts, I really don't know what to tell you--"

"I've spent the last twenty-two years...I've spent the last twenty years only seeking closure, Mr. Wallander." She lowers her eyes and takes a breath again, then brushes a lock of wavy hair behind her ear. "I still believed he may be alive the first two years. I only want to know if you can see if there's a file."

Her baby boy, the one whose hair she washed, who she taught the alphabet to, who she sat up with when he was sick, who she taught to make the meals her mother made.

Nothing but a computer file with a D.O.B. and a little red X in the corner of the window.

He lets out a long breath, but doesn't lower his eyes from her face. He doesn't reply instantly, but eventually he slowly nods.

"I haven't seen it. I can't... I can't guarantee that there's anything there, or that they'll have any details, or that I'll have clearance to see it. I can't guarantee anything, Eva, and I won't lie to you about that. But I can look. I do... I do understand, and I know why you- why you need it. I'll do what I can, but I must ask that you don't raise your hopes too high. I doubt they have much precise information on him at all. Those kinds of records..." He trailed off, biting his tongue.

Careful, Kurt.

"I've never been good with archives," He finishes lamely, instead. Of course he wouldn't be, when the archives carefully didn't exist.

"All I'm asking for is the effort." She raises her eyes, meeting his. Hers are dark and tired and yet full of life, steely, almost. "If I thought you could actually do anything, I would have come to you a long time ago."

She reaches over to where his hand is on the desk, leaning forward, and places her hand over his knuckles. It's so much smaller here in this office than in Penny's. People can reach each other.

His hand twitches, reflexively, under hers - the twitch of a dog expecting a hit rather than a caress - but he doesn't pull his hand back. His fingers are short, stumpy, and his skin is a little too warm as a general rule - hers feels soft and cool.

"Well, that much, I think, I can promise," he says, smiling lopsidedly, the expression slightly pathetic and more than a little sad.

He finally pulled his hand back, carefully, slowly, as if really not sure he was allowed anywhere near that level of intimacy.

"For what it's worth, I... I'm sorry. It's a terrible loss, to lose a child, no matter the circumstances."

Once upon a time, her hands were calloused. She was a farm girl in the fields, splinters of wheat so deep in her palms that she thought they were a part of her, paint from her scythe worn into her hands to give her a perpetually bloodless look below the wrist. Fingernails short.

They're long, now, and painted a gentle pink that doesn't suit her skin tone or her nature.

"Thank you." She means it. That doesn't mean that she feels even a pang of guilt for playing upon that common ground. A decade ago she might have, but her walls are made of scar tissue. "I should take you out for dinner, to return the favor. No matter what the result is."

He laughs, a little nervously, as if he doesn't believe her.

"Dinner. With me." But then he meets her eyes and realises that she was serious - and for a brief second a flutter of panic fluttered across his chest. Had he missed something? Dinner, or... Dinner? Had her hand been- had that been a signal, that he'd simply misunderstood, or--

God, but he was terrible with women.

"Yes," He said immediately, a little too fast, with a nod. He didn't trust the woman as far as he could throw her, she intimidated him, she scared him, but-- "Yes, of course. I would, ah, like that."

"Thank you." She takes her hand away, closing her fist as if to preserve the heat of his knuckles in her palm. It's not because she cares about keeping any part of him with her, but it casts a nice illusion, and Eva's been doing this too long to have her acting look anything but natural. "I might- I imagine I might need the company, given the subject matter, and I'd prefer to be around another parent."

And with that, she zips up her bag and heads for the door. "Give Hsiang Jiao my salutations, alright? I don't want her coming for my head next."

She closes the door behind her and vanishes.