Katherine
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I've been afraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you.
Posts: 79
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Post by Katherine on Mar 11, 2007 1:42:34 GMT
Katherine was watching Poppy without staring, a tactic developed over years as a police officer and previously over years as an older sister and as she actually turned her eyes on the young girl she smiled, "It was," she added to her mother's statement, "thank you." Their tones matching for sincerity and creepily -though perhaps only for the Rivera men- similar in general. Kath' sometimes thought she and her mother only fought so much because thy were so similar, but it was just a theory, and an unimportant one right now...
She would have asked how Poppy was doing herself, but she was well aware that it was probably better not to bring up last night's events to vividly, she looked at her father, "You should be sitting down," she reminded him and Hank started, looking disgruntled after a moment s his daughter gave him a hard look, "you think you could get Poppy a chair too?"
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Mar 11, 2007 17:39:52 GMT
“You too, Ma’,” Marcus prompted, following his sister’s example, and even gesturing lazily at the chair that was alongside his bed. Margaret looked to it as if it were something extremely strange, but before she could protest, the youngest Rivera lifted his brows, cutting off anything she might say with what he knew to be a tried-and-tested pre-emptive strike. His mother paused, and then sighed, as if taking a seat was such a chore, and she looked over at her husband with what Marcus expected was an amused but weary expression. He allowed himself a smile while she wasn’t looking, glancing to Poppy.
He too, despite being completely unaware of his sister’s thought process, wanted to ask the young woman if she was all right after everything that had happened the previous night, but he would wait until they were all seated at least. Marcus wasn’t sure why it was going to wait, but it just felt a little disjointed to ask it now, even though he was aware of how utterly ridiculous such a reason was.
Of course, he blamed the concussion.
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Mar 11, 2007 19:13:20 GMT
The exchange between Marcus and his mother – Including the silent part of it – had been amusing to behold. She couldn’t imagine her parents willingly accepting a daughter having such a dangerous job as being in the police force, much less both children. It had been hard enough for them to come to terms with and grudgingly accept Iris’s photography career, the fear that she might be sent to do war photography – or ask to do that – or something equally as dangerous present in their minds. It had always been ironic to Poppy that out of the two, she had been the one hurt badly during her ‘work’.
Poppy took the offered chair from Hank, thanking him softly and with a small nod. She settled herself down next to Marcus’s bed, still fiddling nervously with the handle of the carrier bag before carefully pulling out the two bags of grapes and offering them both to him, not sure which he would prefer.
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Mar 12, 2007 4:12:42 GMT
The irony behind the Rivera siblings’ line of work was that it had been no way inspired by either parent. Their father was a retired postal worker, and their mother was a florist, of all things. They had both been enthusiastic about sport of one kind or another in school, but they had found themselves in the force, and not only that, in the same department. They both knew, however, that there had been no accident there. Marcus had willingly followed Katherine not only into the force itself, but into Homicide.
“Thanks.” He smiled at the offer, and then accepted the bag of red. Margaret Rivera took them from him to put on the nightstand beside the head of his bed, out of the way but not necessarily out of reach.
“So,” he began when everyone had seated themselves, his eyes turning to Poppy, “how did it go last night? You all right?” He may have been a patient, currently, but he was still a cop, and he liked to follow through on what he believed were his cases… well, his and Wiles’, technically… and Katherine’s, he supposed. But he still wanted to hear that she wasn’t too badly shaken, and that she hadn’t had too trying a night at the station answering a barrage of questions and sitting through who knew how many sessions of inquiry or sketching.
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Mar 17, 2007 19:30:56 GMT
“I’m fine, I didn’t really see much so um, they were done with me relatively quickly,” Poppy explained softly, absently fiddling with the plastic bag, the white grapes now safely returned inside. She would pass them over to Katherine in a moment or two, but right now Marcus was speaking to her… and smiling. If it was possible, Poppy would have sworn that she could feel her IQ points dropping every time he did that. He had a ridiculously nice smile, she decided.
By relatively quickly, Poppy had meant in comparison with her sister, who had seemed to spent the whole night with one person after another and she had refused to leave her sister behind in the police station. The waiting room needed lightening up.
“I’m more worried about Iris… I can tell she’s hurting inside, and there is nothing I can do to help…” Poppy trailed off, biting at her lip slightly before shaking her head in clear frustration. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be troubling you with this, but it’s just… I’m her sister and I can’t help her. All I could do is get some books on the subject. That isn’t what she needs.”
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Katherine
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I've been afraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you.
Posts: 79
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Post by Katherine on Mar 18, 2007 17:55:36 GMT
The frown was a default for the female detective, but she fought to relax it as Poppy spoke, even though she wasn't looking at the girl. She and Marcus probably understood better than anyone how it felt to be in a frustrating position. Marcus most of all, being the younger sibling, and it was for that reason that Kath' didn't speak. Her father was watching her from his chair and he smiled quietly, patting her hand in that signature comforting motion.
If she had been in Iris' shoes, though she obviously couldn't say for sure since she didn't know the older sister at all, she would probably be worrying more about Poppy than herself. Who knew? That could have been part of the problem. In any case the older Rivera took an interest in her blanket and ridding it of creases.
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Mar 20, 2007 21:55:03 GMT
Marcus nodded, keeping the motion to a minimum. The doctor hadn’t told him to be careful about it, but he had been in and around hospitals enough to know that that much was a given. It wasn’t exactly rocket science, after all.
“I know what you mean,” he said to Poppy, glancing briefly to his left, past his mother to Katherine, who seemed intent on the blanket that covered her. He met his father’s eyes briefly, seeing the comforting, parental smile there, and then looked back to the young woman at the other side of him, wondering if there was anything he could say that would really help. He did, after all, know where Poppy was coming from; he was a younger sibling, just like her. He could remember more than one time when he had wanted to help his older sister, and felt useless just because he wasn’t sure how to do that.
“I think…” he began, steadily, “she probably just needs to know that you’re okay. I’m sure she’ll be all right.” Marcus wished he had better advice for her, but Poppy and her sister had been through one hell of an experience; he was a cop, and therefore, used to it. The sisters weren’t, or at least he assumed so. He didn’t want to just give Poppy the advice he might give another cop, and so, he was somewhat at a loss, and regretful for it.
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Mar 21, 2007 0:14:56 GMT
The fact that Marcus was a sibling and had Katherine was one of the reasons – if not the main reason – why Poppy felt able to talk to him about this at all – he did understand her problem and wasn’t just saying he did as a default response. The lesser reason, the one she was trying her best to ignore in the fear she would blush if she allowed herself to think it was she wanted any excuse to talk to Marcus.
“We weren’t always close… Iris and I had very different ideas on how the world worked. I don’t know her as well as I would like…” she trailed off and coughed sheepishly, looking this way and that as though half hoping something would suddenly appear in the room to distract the attention away from her.
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Mar 24, 2007 22:30:08 GMT
Marcus wasn’t sure he could imagine ever being an ‘estranged’ sibling. Perhaps it was because the Riveras were such a traditionally close family in most senses of the word, but he’d always felt a connection to his sister that, perhaps, might have been more easily explicable in a twin. He couldn’t imagine being distant from Katherine because, really, he had never been anything of the sort. They were more than brother and sister; they had always been friends, more intensely as they had gotten older and the bickering, sibling rivalry had diminished somewhat.
“But I bet you know her better than anyone,” he said to Poppy, not entirely sure where the comment had come from or what he hoped to achieve by saying it. “She seems tough. It was just a rough night; I’m sure she’ll be okay.”
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Apr 2, 2007 16:41:49 GMT
She rarely thought about the reasons behind the fact she and Iris had not been the typical close siblings growing up, mainly because the answer wasn't one she particularly liked and even nowadays she tended to shy away from unpleasant thoughts or truths. As ugly and as ungrateful as it seemed, Poppy knew that while part of it was her fault, the reasons behind it were their parents as well meaning as they had been.
Rich and loving both their daughters, Marcus's had tried to shield them from the real world, something Poppy's natural personality and truth had accepted, while Iris's had not. She was grateful all the same to them and the upbringing they had afforded her, just as she was graceful now to Marcus for trying to cheer her up. It was just the sort of thing he seemed to do, trying to make other people feel better while he was lying in a hospital bed. “I just wish there was something I could do for her, something... real.” Poppy shrugged, still looking uncomfortable as she fished around for another conversation topic. “Are you feeling okay?”
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Apr 2, 2007 19:43:24 GMT
Marcus smiled a little crookedly. “Yeah, I’m okay.” True, he would feel better when he and Katherine were allowed to leave the hospital and get back out to the real world — not that he viewed the inside of a hospital as anything but real, but there was something too clean and even foreboding about being inside a hospital that he tried to avoid — but from what the doctor had said, it wouldn’t be for some hours, at least. He supposed he just had to be patient, but sometimes, for Riveras, that was easier said than done. The inevitable time off work was going to be bad enough…
Glancing to his mother, and past her, his father and sister, he sighed quietly to himself, thinking over everything that had happened once again, doing his best to keep the details as fresh in his mind as he could. It was something of a habit for him now, and likely cops in general, he supposed; details helped them follow evidence and clues and leads, and he had worked hard to reach a point where he could call upon them after committing them to memory. Hopefully the concussion hadn’t rattled his recollections of things too much.
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Apr 4, 2007 19:59:47 GMT
The long fought against brush finally appeared at the smile from Marcus, Poppy no longer able to control her emotions as well as she would have liked. It was wrong she knew to even be thinking such things when the Detective was ill in hospital along with his sister. It was even worse to be thinking like that when his parents were in the same room and when they should be focusing on the much more serious matter of the vanishing Welsh man.
And yet...
And yet Poppy was still a young woman who while normally not insensitive to the needs of others, she was aware enough to realise that the man in front of her was rather good looking and apparently concerned about her, something which was intensely flattering even as the more cynical part of her pointed out that had they not met via a crime, he never would have looked twice at someone like her. Perhaps not, she knew, but harmless thoughts were harmless.
Poppy glanced over to Katherine, knowing that the question was repeated in her eyes as the blush began to fade away. It would do her good to focus on the other woman and not Marcus. At least until she got her thoughts under control again, and the student did honestly want to know if the female police officer was okay too.
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Marcus
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I don't need to fight to prove I'm right; I don't need to be forgiven.
Posts: 97
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Post by Marcus on Apr 7, 2007 22:22:55 GMT
Perhaps it was the dim lighting, or the concussion he was conveniently going to use as an excuse for anything he did wrong while he could get away with such a thing, but Marcus didn’t notice Poppy’s blush. If he had seen it, he likely would have thought she were merely reacting to his words, more than anything else, so it was something of a moot point at any rate.
Noticing her focus had shifted to Katherine, he let his head relax back against the pillows again. Whatever pain medication he was currently on was, in his eyes, something of a godsend; it was a comfortable kind of numbness, nothing too extreme and yet enough to take away the discomfort he knew he should have been feeling, and for that, he was grateful. He remembered how much the first round of damage to his ribs had hurt him. Marcus was far from enthusiastic about dealing with it again in any intensity, so avoiding it was quite simply a good thing in his book.
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Katherine
Human
LAPD Detective: Homicide
I've been afraid of changing, 'cause I built my life around you.
Posts: 79
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Post by Katherine on Apr 16, 2007 20:37:03 GMT
Kath waved a hand, a standard gesture of hers as she said; "Same here, the doctors here did a great job, we're both looking at getting out of here pretty soon." She said with a lopsided and genuine smile. Perhaps being a cop, as well as being a female cop she was tuned into the littlest of signals and the blush in Poppy's cheeks made her smile inwardly too.
Marcus, being such a doofus was most likely oblivious to what his sister was quickly suspecting was a crush developing. In a non-bizarre way she could see how easy it was for such a thing to form; he was a cop which sometimes came with a tiny hint of hero worship, plus he had those big blue eyes that always seemed to get him out of trouble as a kid, annoyingly enough. She was sure there were other factors. Katherine was overall, amused about it though not in any way that could be conceived as vindictively. She wasn't about to announce it, Poppy was a sweet girl from what she could tell and Kath', as much as she had a reputation for being a all buster, didn't have a heart of stone.
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Poppy
Human
Student/Librarian
I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier
Posts: 119
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Post by Poppy on Apr 24, 2007 12:58:10 GMT
Poppy’s smile widened at Katherine’s words, her blush and embarrassment temporarily forgotten. She had honestly been worried about the two, beyond her feelings for Marcus and to know that they were going to be fine made her feel better – and stopped her feeling quite so guilty about her odd little thoughts on his smile and eyes and really any part of him. It was quite humiliating really if she allowed herself to think about it, how a smile and a kind word could reduce her mentally to a teenager.
Like many, she felt herself far older and wiser than teenagers, even if it had only been a few years since she had been one herself.
“That’s great news,” she replied softly. “I’m sure Iris will be glad to know too.”
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