Where: Finnegan's Apartment
When: July 25, 2012; early morning
What: Amelia surprises Finn with their next mission in the wee small hours.
It's easy to have late nights as a bartender. In fact, it's difficult not to, especially in a town like Vegas. It also isn't hard to have a girl waiting for you when you get home, but tonight the girl that sits on Finn's couch helping herself to his beer is just is sometimes-partner, Amelia. Her hair's been dyed black, and it's pulled back into a ponytail, which usually means there's work to do.
Her gun sitting in a holster under her arm helps, too.
"And what if I had a date with me?" laments Finnegan as he closes the door. He looks tired as he slumps to the couch to fall beside Amelia, though not too tired that he didn't pick up on her presence immediately. He reaches for the bottle to take a swig and swings his legs up to rest on the ottoman in front of him.
Clearly not too much in a hurry to ask about the job at hand, he rests his head on the back of the couch and passes back the bottle. "I just put in an eight-hour shift. I know it's only a cover gig, but do the suits understand I need to sleep sometimes?" Someone is in a whiny mood, and the only action between the sheets he wants at the moment is some R.E.M. apparently.
"She would have gone home disappointed, I think," Amelia says with a crooked smile. "And you would have been crabbier at me." She doesn't begrudge him having a seat and a drink, even with whatever job is looming over them. "They understand, sure, but I don't think they much care. I've got some Red Bull in the car, if that makes you feel better? And you can probably sleep when we get where we're going."
That might be a lie.
A hand runs over his brow as is to scrub away the weariness. "Very, very disappointed," he says. "Right. Let me change so I don't smell like cheap beer and you can brief me." He pauses, a slight smirk tipping his mouth upward. "No pun intended."
Finn rises and makes his way to the bedroom. "Am I going for the men in black look or street casual today?" he asks as he pulls the shirt off and over his head, revealing tattoos. "And sleep when we get there? Should I pack something?"
Amelia, perhaps inappropriately, but shamelessly gets up to follow him to the next room. "I'd rather debrief you, anyway," she says with a lopsided grin. Dropping onto the edge of the bed, she pulls out a stack of photos to drop next to her. "Men in black. Don't worry about packing, they provided us with gear for the mission. We just need to get there and not stand out."
As he starts to pull his shirt off, she just kicks back to watch, lopsided smile widening into a grin. "How much do you know about the ongoing missions? I mean, that other agents are on." Of course, she probably knows more than she should, being a telepath.
Raising a brow, he tosses his shirt at her playfully. It does smell like cheap beer, the kind college kids drink by the pitcher at his bar, and thankfully not the kind she's got in the bottle she's pilfered from his fridge. "Honestly? Not a lot. I've basically been glorified Neighborhood Watch of late and doing just the odd bag and tag now and then."
If he's at all bothered by his audience, he doesn't show it as he kicks off shoes and then wriggles out of jeans. Gray boxer briefs keep him modest enough as he moves to the closet to find the black suit that makes up the Men in Black look. He's a quick dresser, and within a few minutes has transformed from frat boy to junior partner in appearance. What a difference a day few minutes make.
Catching the shirt, Amelia makes a face, but playfully so. "What do they do to you in that bar of yours," she says as she tosses the shirt off to the side. "And you could do all that with a little more flare next time, huh?" She beckons him over, spreading the pictures out. They seem to be a standard UFO style set up, although since it's daytime, the only really clear one is a heat reading.
"Minawa's kid, Nobara, he's being sent on a mission. One that we're not a part of, not really. But there's a problem." She taps the pictures, pointing to one where the flash of light in the sky is just barely visible. "A few hours ago, some people spotted a low-flying object of some kind. Conspiracy theorists are going with aliens, of course. And more realistic conspiracy theorists are wondering what the hell Nellis is testing over the Vegas suburbs. However. It's neither. The mayor's kid as some sort of flight ability, and that is the signature of his particular manifestation. And he's gone… interfering in Minawa's mission. And we're to go retrieve him before he ruins everything. In the nineteen fifties."
"You want flare, you gotta show me the money," Finn drawls out, moving to sit beside her and look at the photographs as he puts on his socks and shoes. He nods with understanding until she mentions the 1950s.
"The fifties?" he repeats, tipping his head quizzically. "How's the mayor's kid in the past? And how are … look, I've seen all those time travel movies. Butterfly Effect. Back to the Future. That one with Wolverine and Sabertooth in it. Things get all screwed up even if you don't mean them to, and I'm not all studied up on how not to stomp on butterflies with my big fat feet."
"Believe it or not, Hollywood doesn't actually know what it's talking about all the time. Look, whatever happens back there has already happened, right? We just have to go back because we're there when it happens in our future. The Company figures, we're going to end up there one way or another, so we might as well go on our terms." Amelia grins, which might mean she's bullshitting, but she does it pretty well, anyway. "Besides, you'll have me, right? I'll make sure we don't come back into a future of robot driven slavery or anything like that. Promise."
Finn rubs his brow again. "Temporal manipulation is not my forte. Just the thought of paradoxes and all that shit makes my head hurt." He finishes tying his shoes and stands, glancing at the mirrored closet door to take in his appearance. Not bad, though he does have the faint marks of a healing bruise on one side of his jaw.
"Right. Ready to shake, rattle and roll, I guess," he says with a shrug.
"Well, don't think about it. Think about driving around a Chevy Bel Air. Convertible. Red." Amelia smiles and stands up to come have a look over him. She seems to be in some internal debate about it, given the amount of time she devotes to it. But in the end, she reaches over to straighten his jacket unnecessarily before she gives him a nod. "You'll do, I guess."
When she turns away, it's with another grin. But she leads the way out toward the company car she's borrowed, complete with 'gear' in the back seat. In the form of suitcases.
He just arches a brow as she straightens his jacket, then follows her out to the car. Sliding into the passenger seat, Finn buckles himself in.
"So is this mayor's kid deliberately interfering or what? How the hell did he get back to the fifties? And who's bringing us, unless you got some time travel fu up your pretty li'l sleeve I don't know about?" he asks, leaning his head against the glass as he watches her.
Forgoing seatbelts herself, Amelia busies herself with getting them on the road. "I don't think deliberately. He's got a thing about getting into trouble. and given that there's a portal in time sitting there for anyone to use, well, it's not much of a surprise he's found his way in there, actually. He was at our last bit of fun, too. Remember? The sonic mall explosion incident on the eclipse?"
She doesn't even get on a freeway, which probably means their destination isn't too far away. "Anyway, there's this portal. The science guys keep saying things I don't get, but they assure me it's open on this side for a good amount of time."
"Right, I recall. Politico's kid with a penchant for trouble. Wonder what that's like," he says dryly. If she's ever read his dossier, she knows it's sarcasm. The rest of her words make him frown again.
"A portal that'll be open for a 'good amount of time.' That sounds very reassuring. What happens if it closes? I donno if I can live without ESPN. Or Taco Bell, for that matter. Or fuck, Big Gulps. And snowboarding. And miniskirts." He glances at her. "I mean on girls, not on me."
"I figure it's like being a preacher's kid. Can't help it, gotta find trouble and embarrass your family name." Amelia lifts an eyebrow as she glances over at him, looking him over just once before her eyes go back to the road.
"Oh, it's definitely going to close. But it'll reopen again. A few times. But hey, if we get stuck there, I'll wear mini skirts. I've got great legs." Nevermind that it's almost a whole decade before they're popular, she'll do it anyway. But in truth, she doesn't seem too worried about it all. "And we'll have to invent the Big Gulp."
She pulls into a quiet neighborhood that swiftly becomes a dilapidated one, and then an outright empty one. She drives past a street, but points it out to him before she moves to park the car somewhere less obvious.
His eyes slide away to watch the streets passing; the furrow in his brow suggests he's not quite at ease as she is. "You been back before? To the past?" he asks, glancing back at her as she pulls the car to a stop.
Apparently he realizes the worry might be showing, so he cracks a smile. "If I'd known I'd've studied up a bit on where we're going. Make a bit of cash with some bets or something like that. I guess if we get stuck we can invent Post Its and be millionaires or something."
Looking over his way, Amelia gives him a firm nod. "Oh yeah. It's a snap, don't sweat it. We'll be back in the now before you know it." She might have picked up on the worry, too. But whether it's for reassurance or if it's the truth, that's her story and she's sticking to it.
"We can still find something valuable and bury it in the desert for later. Oh! And we can go drinking with Sinatra or something. Anything's possible."
As she gets out of the car, she pulls out their pair of suitcases to hand him one. "We've got ID in here, too. They made me your wife, by the way. And we're vacationing from Georgia. You're a lawyer, I sit a home and wife, apparently. No kids, but there's a dog our lovely neighbor is watching while we're gone." She nods her head to usher him on as she starts to walk.
There's a slight twitch of something in reaction to her words, but he nods, reaching to take her suitcase, too, if she'll let him.
"We'll have to be sure to look authentic and all, sweet cheeks," he teases. "So all we're doing is retrieving this kid? How much back story does that need? Especially since my guess is he'll recognize us and need a little mental historical revisionism, right?"
She hesitates, but the excuse is enough for her to let him display a little of that southern gentleman. She even smiles after, as much as she might deny it later. "Alright, but only for authenticity."
Amelia turns them down the empty street, and lifts a hand to make a so-so gesture. "You never know, with time travel. The more prepared, the better. The re-opening dates are a bit scattered, so if we miss one, we'll have to sit tight until the next one. It's actually a lot like your Wolverine and Sabretooth time travel movie. Did some girlfriend force you to watch that, by the way, or do you have a soft spot for Meg Ryan movies?"
The house she leads him up to has its door hanging open, and dust showing fairly recent footprints. Things look blown about, papers on the floor, frames knocked over. Whoever lived here doesn't now, but they left their life behind when they went. And inside a sitting room, there's a crack in the wall that widens into a flickering hole just wide enough to crawl through. Seeing that, it's the first time Amelia looks anything but calm about this venture.
"Something like that," Finn murmurs, quiet and vague as always when it comes to things from his own past. "The girlfriend, I mean. Not the Meg Ryan movies." He pauses, before adding, "I did like Top Gun."
Of course he did.
The flickering hole slows his steps and he glances over at her, one brow lifting in query. "You want me to go first?" For as nervous as his questions make him seem, he looks calm enough.
"Mean girlfriend," Amelia says plainly before she looks over his way. "Well, Top Gun wasn't the typical Meg Ryan flick. I mean, she was even already married. I don't even think she had a career to have to choose love over or anything." She's babbling.
"Nah, I can go first. I don't know what I was expecting, but hole in the wall wasn't it." She steps toward it, a hand moving to rest against the opening's edge. "I'll scream if there's a monster on the other side." She only pauses a moment more before she climbs into the apparent time portal.
Finn chuckles at her babbling, then crouches down to watch her move into the hole before following — suitcases pushed in front of him so that they touch that flickering portal before he does. You know. Just in case.
Then it's just him and he takes a deep breath, glancing over his shoulder one more time as if he can take a view full of 2012 to go with him. Not that the messy paper-strewn room has much to say for it, as far as views go. "Here goes nothin'. Marty McFly, here I come." And he follows Amelia through.
