itinere | Network + Action

Entry tags:

Network + Action | Open

Network:

It's come to my attention that not everyone is aware of the police station in Itinere. We're just off the main square, a couple of blocks down to the North. It's a big brick building brought over my home in Haven, Maine. I'm Audrey Parker and I'm the head of the station here. We offer all the traditional services of a police station as well as a service to walk you to your car, to your home or to whatever destination you desire if you feel you need more protection then you're capable of on your own. During emergency, such as the creatures that attacked us last month, we will meet you where ever you are and escort you to a safe place. If you feel the safest place in town is the police station, we're happy to provide sanctuary as well.

We're also always hiring. Currently, I'm the only regular police officer at the station. I've got an intern and a friend from home that helps out when necessary. If you've got any questions, you can contact me here through video, voice or text, whatever makes you most comfortable.

Action:

After her announcement to the network, Audrey will hang around the police station for several hours. Eventually, she ventures outside to grab a cup of coffee and something to eat. She's dressed in a pair of bermuda length shorts and a tee shirt, not looking particularly police like, but she's got her gun holstered at her side and her badge clipped to the pocket of her shorts. Catch her anywhere between the cafe and the station. She'll be happy to speak with any of the residents. She's been mourning Nathan's loss and adjusting to life here without him. Because of that, she hasn't gotten to know as many of the residents here as she should have. She knows some of the long time people and she's spoken to many people, but she hasn't gotten to really know much of anyone. In short, Audrey needs friends. Come say hi.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Audrey is lost in her paperwork. She's got books spread across her desk and her PDA up, scrolling through network archives as she makes notes. She doesn't look up until she hears boots clicking, managing not to startle at the unexpected visit.

She smiles when she sees that it's Rick. "Rick, of course, I remember you. Please, call me Audrey." She puts her notes aside, pushing everything away. "Can I get you some coffee or a soda?"

He's glad not to startle her since that hadn't been his intent. Thanks to his training from before and some guidance from Daryl and Michonne, he's learned to move around unheard and unseen if and when he needs or wants to. This isn't one of those times. He thinks Audrey is alright, maybe even trustworthy - time will tell. But Rick is usually fairly accurate in reading who he can trust and who he can't. Audrey had been helpful to him at the bonfire. Now he's here. She's the first person, outside of his son, that he's collecting, whether he or she realizes it or not.

His lips pull into a small smile when she smiles at him. The smile doesn't quite reach his icy blue eyes, but that's ordinary for him. His eyes are almost always stuck between assessing and haunted.

"Audrey, then. Just Rick for me." He says with a nod. That nod turns into a shake of his head. He isn't sure he wants to get hooked on coffee again just yet, not like he once was. He isn't entirely sure that all of this won't be taken away. "Nah, thanks. I just wanted to talk to you about workin' here, with you. If that offer's still on the table."

Audrey isn't quite as untrusting as Rick, she hasn't had reason to be, but she is careful about trusting people. From what she does know of him, she likes him. She thinks he could be worth trusting and worth befriending.

She can't help but notice how the smile doesn't reach his eyes. Really, Rick's eyes are arresting; they're the first thing she imagines most people notice about him when they look beyond the beard.

She's a little surprised at his comment simply because he doesn't beat around the bush about it, but she likes that. She's just not used to it. "Of course, the offer is still on the table. I can't promise to keep you busy all the time, but you can make your own hours for the most part." She takes something out of the top desk drawer then stands up and comes around the desk. "Welcome to the Itinere Police. We don't have official uniforms so you can wear what you want but I do have a badge." She holds it out to Rick. It's a sheriff's star, but it says Itinere Police on it.

In Rick's mind there isn't time to beat around the bush. It's going to take some time for him to realize that he can slow down, that he can breathe, that he can step outside of what he thinks needs to be done and do things that have no real purpose, things that are unneeded, things that are on any spectrum of want, from very to only a little. It's something to hope for and look forward to... eventually.

When she opens the drawer, the only sign that Rick is momentarily wary is a shift of his weight from one foot to another. His gaze follows her hand and he's glad to see he had no reason to be concerned. He takes a deep breath before taking the badge from her. There are a lot of mixed feelings about it, but that is both expected and can't be helped given his history.

Rick looks back up to her and nods. "Thanks. No real call for the uniform anyway." He's almost relieved that there isn't one. The uniform is a weighty thing to him now. So is the badge, but less so than a whole uniform. He pockets the badge for now in his jeans pocket. "Is it just you and me or...?"

There's nothing wrong with being wary and taking your time to get accustomed to a place like this. It's a whole other world in more ways than one. Audrey certainly took her time adjusting, and even now she's not entirely sure she's adjusted. Audrey only hopes that eventually he'll settle in so that he can enjoy the things and opportunities that this place can provide.

She notices that shift in weight, but doesn't realize that it's a wariness. Rick is good at hiding that in general. She's got a gun in the drawer, but no reason to have it out right now. Really, the badge is simply so that people have something to recognize, some sort of verification that they're the 'good guys'.

"That's sort of what I thought," Audrey agrees. She does have a uniform, but she doesn't often wear it. "Just you and I for the moment. If things get serious I've got a friend from home, Duke, that'll help us out but this isn't really his sort of thing. I'm hoping to expand the police force a little. We've got an office intern here, Blue, but other then that...we're pretty sparse," she admits with a bit of a grimace.

"I know there's a force of people with powers that help headed by a guy named Matt Murdock. I've spoken to him a little and he'll work with us in times of crisis."

On one hand, Rick is glad to have fewer people that he has to learn to work with and maybe even trust if they're put in a tight spot. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine said tight spot if there's only two of them. He's been in worse odds, of course. But it's been a long, hard road for him to learn that he can lead, but he can't do every damn thing on his own, by himself. He should only be an army of one if there's no other option.

"I'll meet Duke eventually." He says. But he wonders what there is for an office intern to do here. Rick's never been the paperwork sort so if that's what she's doing, more power to her. "And I figure between the two of us and a few others if things get bad, we'll be alright. Just gotta stick together."

Only this feels like starting over in the vein of sticking together, which is tougher for Rick than he would ever let on. "My son isn't bad in a tough situation either... if we ever need reinforcements." But that isn't a favor he would call in unless it was absolutely necessary. Carl is still his son. Rick is still his dad. That protectiveness is inherent and never going away.

Audrey has never been in a situation where she had to be a one woman army, but she's had to make hard decisions for everyone's own good. It's not fun and she's glad to have someone help with the burden of leadership.

"I'm sure you will. He's a good guy." He's her best friend and she's so glad that he's here. He doesn't like coming to the police station often though and she's not entirely sure why. Honestly, there isn't a lot for Blue to do, but she wants something to occupy her time and Audrey is glad to teach her a little about investigative police work and let her do paperwork and such. "That's all I'm really hoping for. I'm glad to have someone else to work with though."

Starting over is hard. Audrey understands that. She nods at Rick's offer. "Hopefully, it won't come to that." She doesn't want to put his son in that situation either. She smiles a little. "I met him earlier this week. He came in to talk about the broadcast I'd made and have a soda. He's a nice kid."

It both surprises him and not to know that Carl had come into the police station after he'd mentioned that he might try to work here so he could be in a position to make decisions around here, after Rick had mentioned Audrey Parker to him. His son wasn't just in here to talk about the broadcast and have a coke. He was in here to scope the place and Ms. Parker, out. Like father like son.

The knowledge makes Rick smirk and dip his head with a nod. "He is a nice kid. He's a good kid. In spite of everything." And really, that's all he could ever ask for - that his kid maintains some kind of morality while still knowing when to be cautious. Lori would be proud.

"He's been through more than any kid should ever have to go through. Somehow he's kept a good head on his shoulders." He adds. "You didn't mind him comin' in?" Because he expects that with his working here now, Carl will probably be making the occasional appearance. And he guesses he's really asking if she's okay with kids being in the mix of things. When they get Judith here, his daughter will probably occasionally be here with Carl.

Carl had been polite enough, but he'd definitely been checking the place out. Audrey had given him plenty of time to do that. She had nothing to hide here and the secrets about herself are a lot harder to figure out.

"I think that's all parents can really ask for, isn't it?" Audrey is well aware that Carl and Rick had been in a less than ideal world. She and Rick had talked a little about it. "i'm not an expert, but if that's the only thing parents wanted for their kids, the world would be a better place."

"Of course not," Audrey assures him. "I'll make sure the fridge stays full of soda and snacks." Audrey likes kids in general. She won't mind either one of them being up here and she might just fawn all over Judith.

"Sounds like an expert opinion to me." He says with a nod, glad to know that Audrey seems to understand. Their world, the state it's in, has warped so many people into poor excuses for human beings, both young and old. The fact that Carl has escaped that for the most part, the fact that his son still has morals and values and is a generally good person, he likes to think that means he's done something right regarding Carl. He hopes so anyway.

He thinks back to how he and Carl had confronted Lori's ghost a few weeks ago, how they'd inevitably had to kill her when she'd turned into one of those things. That had been rough. The wrapped healing scar on his arm feels like it pulses with the memory. "His mom would be proud."

He studies Audrey for a few moments. "You have people here from your world? Is your world safe?" He wants to know more about her.

Audrey smiles at that. "I don't have as much personal experience as most, but I feel like I've seen a lot of kids grow up. I've definitely seen a lot of less than stellar citizens, and Carl is a good kid." Rick has obviously done well with him, and not everyone can say that coming from the sort of world that Rick had. Hell, not everyone can say that in a world that's not apocalyptic.

"I'm sure she would," her voice softens a little as does her smile. She's gathered from her previous talk and from Rick's words right now that his mom isn't in the picture, probably for a tragic reason.

"I have one: Duke. He's my best friend. I live on a boat in the harbor with him." She takes a shallow breath, considering Rick's question. "My town is...different. We're often besieged by troubles: weird phenomena like weather being affected by a woman's emotions or a particular person's touch being deadly. My town is not very safe, but the world at large is as safe as any world, I guess. I'm working on a way to make my town more safe."

If Rick were someone who beamed in general, he'd be beaming with pride right now. Because yes, Carl is a good kid in spite of everything that he's been forced into. Rick is proud of Carl, so damn proud. As it is, his chin lifts a bit to convey that pride and he nods in agreement. No beaming, just agreement.

His wife is dead. There's probably no reason to voice those words aloud. He's hinted at it and Audrey is smart and perceptive from what he can tell. It's been a long while ago that she died, and while distance has made the day-to-day of it easier, Rick can still get lost in her memory, the memory of the life they'd once shared together, and the memory of her betrayals, if he lets himself. He doesn't let himself.

"I'm glad you're not alone." Not that Rick would let her be alone even if Duke wasn't here. He does have a habit of collecting people as his, after all, especially when they have no one else. "That sounds... almost as strange as the dead gettin' up and walking." He smirks, a hint of a grin on his lips probably for the first time around Audrey. "So it's magic, like... like this place?"

He ought ot be proud, just from what Audrey has seen. Sometimes she wonders if Sarah was that proud of James. She wonders if she ever got the chance. It's odd because Audrey knows so much about James, but she never really got to meet her son, not in this incarnation. She has a few memories of him from Sarah and from Lucy, but not nearly enough. She's envious of Rick (of most parents) but it's also nice that Carl has Rick around.

She understands that. She's got her own sort of grief over Nathan despite the fact that Nathan is very much alive, just not here. She tries not to think too much about him either. It's not the same, but they're both grieving in some way.

Audrey nods at that. "I am too. " She can't help but smile. "We had that once. Sort of. A woman with a trouble that raised the dead. For a few days they were themselves and then...they were...they became vicious, mindless. They went for those that they were closest to in life." She shrugs a little at Rick's question. "Something like that. The Troubles were curses, I guess."

"Gotta get 'em in the brain." He says helpfully, and in what he thinks is mutual understanding, after hearing her story about the dead becoming mindless in her world too. Of course he has no way of really understanding that the Troubles make it different without further explanation. He's just assuming. He's also assuming that she knew about the brain thing since she said it in past tense and she's still alive.

Rick thinks about the word curse. He's often thought that he and his people were cursed to never find peace. He gets the idea that Audrey' means the word in a much more literal sense rather than figurative. It's something else.

"You're talkin' a real curse, like in a movie or somethin'... like a gypsy curse come true. Magic." Maybe. He's trying very hard to understand, obviously.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Network + Action | Open

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject