|
Having organised for her fellow students at Temple Medicine to march demanding justice for the victims of police brutality, Annie is taking time out to look in a couple specific victims. Which is why she's dressed up in a set of scrubs, opening the door to Aaron and Mei's hospital room.
Mei is, obviously, in Mei's room, shackled to the bed, mostly bored out of her mind at this point. There are drugs, and there's painthere should be pain, but there isn't, and other than those two things there's whatever conversation she hand Aaron can scrounge up when both of them are awake at the same time. Mostly sleeping seems to be the order of the day. She seems to be dozed off again right now, giving her body time to do its thing with making her feel better.
Now that Aaron's feeling literally no pain, they've cut back his dosage of opiods. Meaning he's able to correctly pronounce expedited today. And is really rather embarrassed about his conduct the other night. But so it goes. He's still in the dang head and neck immobilizer, keeping his spine uniformly aligned and pressure off the fracture in his skull. He has no gadgets to take up his time, but he was successful in convincing the hospital chaplain to sneak him a copy of the Tanakh to read. He'd dozed off with it open on his bare (if hairy and hooked up to monitors) chest. He snores. Little piggy snorty snores, too.
Annie takes a moment to scan over each of their charts before lifting the Tanakh off Aaron's chest, moving it to a tray next to the bed. Once that's done, she taps the Rabbi ever so gently on his shoulder, seeing if he'll awaken from that.
The amount of drugs he's on presently rates as "pleasant" rather than "coma inducing". So while it takes him a moment or two, his eyes do eventually flutter open. Both of them are so black they're purple, and one of them is filled with blood yet. He looks a mess, with a stitch on his lip and another on his cheek. Probably more behind his head, too, judging from the bandage wrapped around it. He stares up at Anneliese, clearly not comprehending what he's seeing for the first moment or two, then choosing to believe the information his eyes are taking in. "Anneliese. Hello, my friend." He can't really turn his head, just forces his eyes to the left to try and see what Mei is up to. "She asleep again?"
Mei wasn't hurt as badly as Aaron was, but she's pretty banged up. No neck immobilizer, just one eye swollen shut and stitches across her cheek where skin broke when she got hit in the face with a bean bag round. It had broken bone, but Life magic healed that before she got loaded into the ambulance and driven away.
Her eyes flutter open when she hears voices,and it takes her a moment to focus on Annie with the various drugs in her system and sleep still clinging to her. "I'm awake," she says softly. "No thanks to the drugs."
"Hello, Aaron. Mei. I have good news and other, somewhat unrelated, good news for you. Which would you like first?" Annie's manner is professional but warm. "Do either of you feel up to drinking tea? I made it myself." The significance of which is probably lost on them.
Does someone smell... cigar smoke? And... horrible cologne? Who would be enough of an asshole to smoke in a fucking hospital? The answer: Makoto Motherfucking Mori.
While Anneliese probably realizes that the powerfully cloying scent is just Memento's considerable Spring Mantle, everyone else is welcome to think the lawyer about to enter the room is a fucking dick.
There's a knock - and before anyone has time to answer, the door opens, and a 5'4" woman in her mid-thirties with short, raven hair enters the room. She's wearing dark sunglasses, carrying a briefcase, and dressed in a dark green suit with a gold tie and pocket square.
"I would love some tea, thank you." Aaron has been surviving on ice chips and ginger ale. The monotony is getting to him. His eyes flit about, trying to find where the tea might be coming from. Tea. Tea is good. "Good morning, Mei. Or afternoon. Evening. Night? I'm losing track, honestly." With the arrival of the suit, Aaron suggests to Anneliese, "Might want to hold both." He then calls to Makoto, "Forgive me if I don't get up. Can we help you?"
The significance is definitely lost on Mei, but she does like tea, and pretty much nothing hospitals serve is usually good, so it has a significance all its own. "I would love some tea," she says with a soft laugh, and she lifts her left hand to beckon for Annie to provide. "Also, my mother came by earlier," she adds. "So anything unrelated is appealing to me right now, no matter what it's unrelated to. Let's start there?" She stops with Makoto's entrance. "Or maybe later?" is added, to Annie.
"She is part of the good news, actually. Ms. Mori here is a very talented lawyer." Annie pours both Aaron and Mei a cup of the tea, offering each assistance to actually drink it.
"You are forgiven entirely," a look of sympathetic pain crosses her hawkish festures as she surveys Aaron's wounds - and then her eyes move to Mei. "Please, don't stop whatever you were doing on my account. I just wanted to swing to see how the pair of you were doing with my own eyes." She crosses the room to a position where it isn't going to be painful for either injured party to accept her offer of a handshake. "Makoto Mori, as Anneliese mentioned." Beat. "I spoke to your boyfriend, Lux, on the phone briefly about acting as your legal council."
Mei has to both take the tea and return the handshake with her left hand, but there is a table to put things on, as their so often is in these rooms. It just doesn't have anything that might be considered dangerous. Especially after as badly as she fucked up some of the cops; they're not letting her having anything she could murder them with. "Are you the lawyer who likes fucking over cops, then?" she asks, because drugs have reduced some of her filters. "If so, I'm glad to meet you, Ms. Mori."
"My partner," Aaron corrects gently, "Lux uses they/them pronouns and is nonbinary." And he moves on from that correction without missing a beat. "Yeah, Lux mentioned they knew a lawyer that enjoyed fucking over cops. I think that's what they said, anyway. Or words to that effect." Aaron's eyes flit to Anneliese, as though taking some of his social cues from her reaction to all of this. "What's the other bit of good news?"
"Strangely enough, a lot of people are Very Upset by what happened yesterday. It looks like there might actually be consequences for the pigs this time." Annie smiles slightly. "A lot of my fellow students at Temple Med are going to be marching down Broad Street later, and there are similar efforts happening at U.Penn."
"My apologies, Rabbi Cohen. Partner, then." She nods, shifting her briefcase back into her left hand. Post-handshake. "I'm happy to hear that my reputation precedes me, but I wouldn't put it in those words, exactly." Her lips peel back into a dangerous grin, revealing a set brilliant - and oddly sharp - teeth. "... we can say, however, that I have a vested interest in keeping good people out of prisons - and in ensuring that those in positions of power are held accountable for their actions when they abuse their station."
Y'know. The polite conversational translation of fuck the police.
"You know," Mei comments almost out of the blue. "I really am glad you decided to take my advice, Rabbi Aaron." She turns her head and shoots a smile his direction. "I'm a little amused that the person you were talking about was someone I had actually met, too." There's an actual important conversation to have now, though. She turns her attention to that, and sips tea. "How much is this all going to cost us?" she asks Memento.
"Well. Yes. We finally got together and the next day I got my head split open on Action News 6." The Delaware Valley's Leading News Station. "So the fact that they're still here and still looking after me and even taking care of my dog for me would tend to indicate I made the right decision and that it can only get better from here." Famous last words. "In any case, Miss Mori. You can call me Aaron. Rabbi is my rabbi's name." That's a rabbi joke. "Mei asks a good question. Are you here on retainer or am I paying a buck sixty an hour to give you my best rabbi jokes?"
"Lux is a good person, yes." Annie is not actually able to answer the question about payment. She does give Memento a curious glance, though.
"We can discuss payments later, but I work on a sliding scale when it comes to both matters of community, and for cases that I believe strongly deserve my personal attention." Read: Be Gay, Use the Law as a Bludgeon. Memento reaches into the front pocket of her jacket for pen and a business card before scrawling her number on the back. "This is my personal number, by the way. Use it if you need it." She slips the card onto the table. "Do you mind if I take pictures of your injuries? For documentation purposes?"
"I don't mind," Mei agrees. She uses the button for adjusting her bed to sit herself up further, so that she can see the business card, and scans it before leaning her head back against her pillow. "I don't have much to pay with, since my own business isn't exactly known for being lucrative, and my own sliding scale mean I end up filling my plate with cases that aren't paying me so much. Hopefully your scale goes down pretty far, but I'm sure I can scrounge some resources up." She glances Aaron's way. "And it's better than my mom being my lawyer and holding this over my head the rest of my life."
"Could you please find me a kippah-- yarmulke before you do?" His head is decidedly bare. "I lost my rainbow one. I think the police left it behind, or it's in evidence. I don't know." Aaron reaches a hand out towards Anneliese as though imploring upon her to explain what he needs and why he needs it. He's probably sick and tired of trying to communicate his religious needs to nurses and doctors, nevermind well intentioned activist attorneys.
"We can find out what happened to it." Annie offers, moving to retrieve something from her satchel. "I know this is not a rainbow one, but it will do in the meantime." She places the interim kippah on Aaron's head gently.
"It does, but 'cases?'" Memento quirks an eyebrow, reaching into her front jacket pocket for a very fancy smartphone. "Are you a private investigator, then? I'm sure we could work out some sort of trade that benefits us both." Fortunately for Aaron, Makoto Mori does not need an explanation. She may not know why it's so important, but she doesn't really care, either. "I'll do my best to ensure that it's found, Mr. Cohen - and anybody who attempts to stop me from returning it to you will hear from my lawyers."
Hey, if he can make bad jokes, so can she.
Aaron might have just teared up a little as Annie drops the Kippah onto his head. There's some genuine relief evident in him now that he has it on. "Okay," he finally says after clearing his throat. "Let them see what they did. And who they did it to." Aaron conjures his 'concerned rabbi' face, but the look doesn't quite reach the eyes. Maybe because they're both purpled and blackened and one is filled with blood. He winds up just looking one part innocent and one part determined. "That would be convenient. I'm pretty sure your lawyers go to my rabbi's shul." And the joke has come full circle.
Annie assists the photo-taking as needed.
There's a soft chuckle from Memento as she snaps a picture of Mei's injuries - the flash only further serves to make an already unflattering image worse. You don't want to look good in your post-beating photograph, after all. Then she turns to Aaron, holding up her phone. "Do your best to look as through you've been beaten half-to-death, if you'd be so kind." There's another little chittering laugh, and she snaps the picture - turning the phone screen to show Aaron exactly how bad it is. "Very handsome, you see."
"Easy enough to do," Mei says when urged to look like she was beaten half-to-death. "Make sure you get good shots of where they hit us in the head with bean bag rounds. I'm pretty sure they shot both of us in the head, which is a little too much to be coincidence if they weren't aiming for it, right?"
"That's what did my eyes in. Might want to get a shot of the back of my head, too. Though it's all bandaged up. The police haven't been by, by the way, to ask me any questions. Or take any pictures of my injuries. You're the first one to do so, outside of x-rays." Aaron clears his throat again and inquires, "It was suggested that we request an exple--" Aaron, we've been over this. "Expedited hearing. For bail. I'm sick of being in this hospital bed. And I'm certainly sick of being handcuffed to it." He rattles his chains indicatively.
"X-rays? Those will help, at least, even if they are not so dramatic as normal photography." Annie says, moving to examine Aaron's chart again.
"If the police do come by - consent to no conversation, no pictures they might want to take, no questions about the case - use the magic word, and give me a call." Memento did her research, she knows this isn't either participant's first rodeo so she won't linger on the topic for too long. "... and I'll see what I can do on that front - hopefully I can bully the right people into at least allowing you to attend to your religious needs and commitments to your congregation."
"I know the drill," Mei agrees with Memento's suggestions. "All I'm going to say if someone walks in here and asks me for anything is 'you'll have to my lawyer. [and then she recites Makoto's phone number from memory]'. Questions? Conversations? Pictures? If they ask me if I want a burger and some fries? Talk to my lawyer." She pauses and then adds, "I do want a burger and some fries, though."
"I'm not very good at keeping my mouth shut, I'm going to be honest with you. I fall firmly on the side of 'the truth will set you free'. Though I fully comprehend that while the truth may be on my side, the system surely is not. So. I'll do my best. If you can get my cell phone, I'd be grateful. Or ask Lux to get me a replacement, maybe. My hunch is they're going to keep my iPhone as evidence because I'd been filming with it. Just to be jerks. I'm having a hard time doing my work with a land line and no e-mail."
"We can do that," Annie nods. "Probably Lux getting you a replacement, honestly."
"See that you do, Aaron. It's going to be hard enough to keep you out of prison as-is. The court does not often recognize self-defense as a right when cops are involved." Memento's phone disappears back into her pocket, and she gathers up her things. "I'll see what I can do about finding your yarmulke and a replacement for your phone," she turns to Mei. "... and having a burger delivered." Beat. "But If you'll both excuse me - and there are no more questions for me to answer - I need to go find where your Imam friend is being cared for. I want pictures of his injuries to log as evidence, and I imagine the police aren't going to care to do that themselves."
"No cheese," Mei points out, but with a smile. "Thank you, though. Something about laying around on drugs and healing makes me really want some greasy food, and the food in this place is the worst."
"Let Ibrahim know I'm praying for him. And that I'm sorry." Aaron doesn't explain what he's apologizing for, of course. Likely Ibrahim himself will know. Assuming he's conscious. Aaron hasn't much else to say on that count and so he settles back into the bedding again, as much as his head stabilizer will allow in any case. The 'no cheese' addendum makes the rabbi smile. He can't help it.
"If you want, I can help with that burger delivery. Make sure there is not anything we are not allowed on it." Annie offers. Since she likely knows the relevant rules better than Memento.
Memento's phone rings as she's turning to leave. "If you need anything you have my number; my partner is calling so my departure became much more urgent." She answers the phone with a delighted laugh, and the occupants of the room overhear he saying something about having "a pulled pork sandwich for lunch that was to die for."
|