6852/Black Sky: Apologies

Black Sky: Apologies
Date of Scene:	11 March 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Elektra gets the opportunity to apologize to Darcy Lewis, and tells her the whole sordid tale. All is forgiven.
Cast of Characters:	Elektra, Darcy Lewis
Tinyplot:	Black Sky

---

Elektra has posed:
Elektra had come into so many more of her memories over the past weeks. There were amends she couldn't make, but many that she could. One, in particular, she'd been putting off. Not because she'd done such serious harm in the sense of her Hand activities, but in the sense of breaking a heart and leaving a friend devastated.

No matter how you told the story, there were still things about it that left hurt behind.

Still, as her life began to come back together, and she was finding her new place in things, and as her estate had been settled, it was time. Elektra made plans to find one Darcy Lewis and make apologies.

Which is what brought her to Josie's this evening.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Since she learned of her friend's death and received her inheritance, Darcy had used work as a way to keep from dwelling. And yet, every now and then Darcy finds herself thinking of her, and it leads Darcy to Josie's, to the table they spent time together, and into a bottle of cheap ass beer.

Darcy, now with more money than she'd ever had in her life, hasn't touched it; not even once. She stares at the table, mind ruminating over the same old points in her mind and getting about as far with it as she ever does. That is to say: nowhere, fast.

Elektra has posed:
And there she is. As expected. One Darcy Lewis, frequenting Josie's bar - not because she had so much in the past, but because it was a place where she and Elektra had spent time together. And that was what Elektra had been counting upon.

She'd not been wrong.

A few whispered words at the bar will have drinks arrive shortly, and over the evening as the pair sit - however long that may be - and Elektra makes her way to Darcy's table, standing there with all the poise she ever had, looking both entirely out of place here, even as she somehow, oddly, fit in, and asks, "Is this seat taken? I'd like to join you if you don't mind."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Darcy noted someone drawing near, someone not the waitress. She saw the new drinks. It made her cringe. Someone hitting on her.

"Fuck off. I'm not in the-"

Words cut off the moment Darcy turns to look up at the person, at Elektra. Green eyes go wide, lips part as jaw slackens. Disbelief covers her face for three horrible seconds, three eternities of silence. And then, Darcy moves.

"Nope." With that word comes Darcy grabbing her purse, pushing up, and turning away for the door.

Elektra has posed:
That? Was unexpected. Very few things surprised Elektra.

This had.

"Please," she says softly, reaching out to touch Darcy's arm. "A moment of your time, and then, if you still wish to go, I'll leave. I won't trouble you again."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"dont!" Darcy starts, spinning again to get that touch off her elbow. It was a shock, the electric feel of someone real and not the alcohol and emotion induced day dream that Darcy's found herself all too good at conjuring for herself. She wheels to face Elektra, the friend she thought was dead. her hand comes up to cover where she'd been touched, as it the cool feel of Elektra's fingers had burned her.

Perhaps, in a way, they had. Burned at the memories. Burned with the loss. Burned with seeing her again, seemingly so alive and well, when Darcy was still trying to find the way to mourn and move on. Hot tears try to fill Darcy's eyes, but she stubbornly blinks them away.

"... ...." Silence. She can't think of the words.

Elektra has posed:
Elektra's hand falls away with a simple elegant motion. "I know. I know, and I'm so sorry. You've been the single hardest person for me to return to since this all happened. Of everyone, I hurt you the most. You understood the least. I'd wanted to explain, but I do understand if you can't listen."

It was odd for the woman to be so.. humble. So open. And yet, there she was, standing before Darcy, laying herself open before the woman and waiting for the beginnings of this thing to be accepted or rejected as Darcy would. Knowing that there was only so much she could do or ask of her friend should the SHIELD agent choose not to listen.

Knowing she owed Darcy that respect above all else.

Darcy Lewis has posed:
So rare that Darcy just stares at it, mind reeling. For nearly a minute Darcy stands there. When finally she moves, the movement is tight and tense. She grabs her beer, the one she bought herself, and moves to a booth away from the jukebox, away from the door, away from people. She'll listen, it says. She may not be happy about it, but she'll listen.

Elektra has posed:
Elektra allows that reaction. It is fair, after all. The drinks that were ordered are considered, but left where they are. Others can be brought if the conversation continues. Or not, if Darcy only allows the barest of apologies.

She follows the other to the booth, and takes a seat across from Darcy, letting the other woman get her bearings before speaking.

When she does speak, her words are still soft, and without her usual lift of amusement, or dry disdain. "I couldn't tell you. I couldn't tell anyone. Everyone had to believe I was who I was. I was trying to stop a war. There are things about me that you do not know. I'm willing to tell you, now, but I understand if you don't wish to hear."

"I wanted to apologize for the pain I caused you, though."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"Just, start at the begining," Darcy says flatly, beer in her hand but as of yet undrunk. It sits, half empty, like the space between them, heavy and flat.

Elektra has posed:
"The beginning," Elektra says quietly. "That is a lot."

But she'd already decided that if that were the price, she'd pay it, so she begins.

"When I was a little girl, well, my father died. It's public record. Murdered. I don't remember much about it, but I was an angry young thing then. The only thing I could remember in my life that was constant, had been taken from me."

She gives an almost apologetic shrug, and now does gesture for the drinks to be brought over. She might not rightly need them, but the ritual of the thing - the gesture, the ability to hold the solidity of the glass within her hands - that she wished for. Shortly they are brought by the waitress who lifts a brow at being made to cater from one table to the next, but says nothing. Implicit in the look, however, is that the tip better be worth it.

"I was taken in and trained in martial arts. It seemed I had a skill for them. My life became a focus on that and that alone. I was driven. Not only for myself, but I was guided along that path. Encouraged even."

Elektra has posed:
Elektra's fingers play along the edge of the tumbler of scotch that's been delivered in front of her. Darcy has beer, but Elektra odered scotch for herself, the amber liquid shimmering in its glass as she cups it.

"I had many teachers, but the most influential was a man named Stick. I don't know if he has another name. I never asked. He never said. What he told me, what he impressed upon me, was that I was Chosen." She smiles and looks down at her drink. "It all seems so far away now. So odd. At the time I don't know if I believed it, or if it was just another way for me to direct my anger."

"He didn't want my anger, though. Slowly, he redirected that. Showed me other ways."

Here Elektra turns her attention back on Darcy.

Elektra has posed:
"I wasn't quite twelve when I killed my first man. I was proud of myself. And also frightened. I wouldn't admit that, though. Not ever. But I was. I didn't know until then that I could. Or that I would. I knew it was him, or me, and I didn't wish to die."

Her lips curl over a smallness of smile that speaks of pain she'd never admit.

"That was the thing. I would live, or I would die. There was no other way out of what was being done to me. With me. And slowly, I learned to become what the Chaste wished. Though they would learn to regret that."

She lifts her glass to her lips and sips, letting the amber liquid linger on her tongue before swallowing.

"I was led to believe Stick had arranged my father's death in order to take me under his wing and train me. I left and became something else. Something else entirely. I"m not ashamed of it, but since we're being frank, you should know that my adult life has been spent as an assassin. A very highly priced assassin."

She lets that sink in before carrying on.

Elektra has posed:
"Eventually, though, all truths come out, and it had never been him."

There's a small, bitter laugh comes with that.

"Enter the Hand. Mortal enemy of the Chaste. A war so long in the making the beginnings of it are lost in the fog of an imaginary place. And yet, they live and die for the thing. As it happens, they both believed I was the answer to that war. The being that would end it."

She shrugs like this is something that happens to everyone in their life.

"Somewhere in there I met Matthew and tried another way. Only it didn't work. He knew what I was, and it was unacceptable to him. Stick wanted me to recruit him, and I wouldn't. So in the end we parted ways, and I began the hunt of the Hand in earnest."

"I killed two of their Fingers, and was about to remove a third when they offered me a deal. Become the Fist that ruled them. End this. Foolishly, I believed it was a way. My life needn't be spent as a one woman war, and perhaps I could mitigate the worst of what they were."

"The rest you know much of. What you don't know is that I realized I'd been played. That I'd been left right where they wished me. A pawn. Only I was trapped. There was no way to leave. Until I realized if I was dead, neither side could have me. They would both lose. They would both have to fight their war without their weapon."

"It was a brilliant plant." Elektra cups her glass again. "Until it wasn't."

Elektra has posed:
"I died on Kairos, Darcy. That much is true. I allowed myself to die. I remember every moment of it. It was.. I was lonely. And afraid. In the end, I did not wish to die. But I wished even more for the war to end. To free the people I cared about, not only from my mistkae, but from the rest of this foolishness."

"Only they didn't care how I died. They just needed me dead. I became what I had tried so hard not to become. I became Black Sky. The Warrior Prophecy spoke of. Death incarnate. A Perfect Weapon."

Again she lifts her glass, only she does not sip; it reaches her lips, where she thinks better of it, and puts it back down again. "Matthew saved me. It's funny. Stick told me emotion would be my death. I suppose if you consider my hopes of saving you all did lead to that, but it also was the saving grace that brought me back from the precipice of being the end to all I held dear. To all I had died to save. In the end, remembering those small slivers of his love saved me."

She gives, for her, a weak smile.

"And that, my dearest Darcy, is the whole story. The truth that nobody else has. Because you are owed this much. And my apologies for hurting you with who I was, and what you did not understand. I hope that you can forgive me."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Darcy listens silently, a brow quirking as Elektra makes the waitress bring over the drinks they left at the other table. She had taken her beer mug with her, so the pitcher and shit were on the Ghost. Her green eyes flit back to Elektra, mirroring the waitress's 'tip better be worth it' look. Regardless if Elektra will make the waitress's trouble worth it, Darcy will. She has that Death Gift she doesn't do anythign with, the account haveing set it up so that interest dropped into her checking account monthly. it was enough to cover bills and so Darcy had those auto-drafted now. It was a weird thing, having money left over at the end of a month. Not one huge spending spree had been had so, dropping some mad money on a fellow low-income was something Darcy wasn't about to balk at.

Her beer came to her lips several times during the story, but not once did she interrupt, not once did she prompt for more, nor once did she question or make a move or sound that might suggest there was judgement being passed. Finally, when the story was done and that weak smle offered, Darcy sits back in the booth with something like a sigh.

It was a lot to process, this life's story.

"I wasn't hurt by who you were. I'm not hurt by who you are. Frankly, I don't really care what you do with your life. As long as you're happy, so I'm rather pissed off that you ran off to something that made you miserable and ended up killing you. It was a fucked up move but..." Darcy shrugs.

"I get that maybe you felt like it was your only way out so, that kind of trapped... I ain't pissed that you made the best of a crap hand," she says, downing the last of her beer.

"Can't forgive you, RAM," Darcy says. She sets her mug down, silent and somber, eyes slow to lift from what was her drink.

Darcy rolls her shoulders in a shrug again.

"Ain't nothing to forgive." Silence weighs down for a long time before she speaks, finger tips rotating the empty mug by the handle. "You want your money back?" Because it was given when she died so, now that she's alive Darcy really shouldn't keep it. Right?

Elektra has posed:
There are hints of confusion that flitter over Elektra's features as she listens to Darcy's response to her actions. "I don't understand," she begins. "You can't forgive..."

Then the rest of the sentence is drawn from the woman across the table from her and Elektra nods.

"I never meant to hurt you," Elektra says softly, her voice oddly emotional when she has never been the sort, that having been beaten out of her in so many ways so very long ago - a thing Elektra was finding herself becoming more familiar with. Being emotional. "When I started walking this path, I didn't know you. I was trying to be what I thought I had to. When it became clear that wasn't working, that I'd fail, I tried to solve everything in the only way I knew how."

She takes a turn at a shrug-like gesture, reaching for her own drink.

"The money is yours. It was the only apology I could offer. My way of thanking you for caring about me, not for my money, or who or what I was, but merely because I was Elektra to you. I wanted you to understand how much that meant. Just enough to be secure for the rest of your life, or to throw away in any manner you chose. I wish I could have done more."

Darcy Lewis has posed:
"Money don't mean a thing, E," Darcy notes, head on tilt. "I don't need cash as an apology. I don't need an apology. The explanation helps, but if you had never shown up again I... would have gotten on eventually," she says, voice wanting to waver on emotions for a moment. Darcy draws in a breath, drawing in something like composure.

"So.... now what?"

Elektra has posed:
Elektra considers that question, slender fingers curled about the tumbler of scotch she has in front of her. Index finger doing a slight tap along the glass before lifting it to her lips, and then setting it down again, a large swallow taken of the liquid within.

"I don't know. I've been asking myself that very question. There are still things I am struggling to remember, though every day it becomes easier." She offers a half smile with an inclination of head. "When I am with the people who meant something to me before my death, I find it easier to retrieve those memories. It doesn't answer what happens next, but it helps me recall where I was, and where I do not wish to return to."

Her gaze considers the other woman.

"What would you suggest?"

Darcy Lewis has posed:
Much as Elektra had, Darcy regards the woman across from her. Under the table, her leg bounces as she thinks. On the table, the beer mug is twisted this way, that way, the other way. Red lips purse in thought and for a long minute, Darcy says nothing. And then:

"Microwave popcorn, Netflix, oversized cotton jammies, phones on fuck-off... maybe some nail polish...."

When in doubt? Netflix and chill.

Elektra has posed:
There's a rich laugh from Elektra, Darcy's answer both terribly unexpected and wonderfully perfect.

"I think I'd like that. Though you'll have to forgive me if I say I'm going to need pointers. I'm not even sure what Netflix is." Her laugh continuing. She gets the gist of what it must be; the joke as much a part of the healing process as anything else.

"Wine with that popcorn? Or is this a cheap beer event?"