Waiting for a bus in the rain

[andaway]

WHO: Clark Kent & Annie Leonhart
WHERE: Nonah, at a random mom and pop's dinner
WHEN: Friday after Clark's post
WHAT: Annie's becoming Clark's go to person for information. He has no complains.
WARNINGS: None, will add if needed

Clark’s on time for their meeting. Or rather, Clark’s actually early, but that’s usual on him.

Especially when he’s going to get what looks like pretty decisive information about Holiday, and something mostly registered people have seen. He’s honestly not sure why Annie is sharing so much with him. He doesn’t mind, obviously- if anything he’s going to get as much information from it as he can, for as long as it lasts. Lois isn’t the only one in the family that gets ‘hunches’ and follows her instincts, and Clark’s getting the feeling that even if he gets nothing out of following the Captain Holiday thread, he’s at least going to get some information about the government out of it.

So he’s sitting as he waits, sipping on his coffee (black, with so much sugar it probably makes people wonder why he’s drinking ‘coffee’ at all it) as he waits for his newest source of information to show up.

Comments

[andaway]

“No, thank you.” He smiles at her she sits down. “You’ve been incredibly helpful since I got tossed here.”

He isn’t sure what he’s going to get out of this entire ordeal, and he still can’t quite figure out what her agenda is. At the end of the day she’s offering him information, which is the most valuable thing in Clark’s eyes... but she’s doing it freely, without coercing, and going as far as to seek him out on her own in some cases. It’s obvious she wants him to reach some conclusions, to help him get the right picture.

But if he’s honest that sounds a bit too much like manipulating him into getting the kind of information she wants him to get so he publishes the right things for his comfort. She’s young, but she’s definitely smart enough to pull it off… and yet, he doesn’t think that’s what she wants. Which still leaves him in complete darkness about what she wants from him. Maybe when he sees the video he’ll get a better idea. Some people (Annie, Kanaya…) obviously think there’s something else he should be focusing on but can’t really know why until he gets more information. Which is why he’s here to begin with.

“How would you like to do this? I’m not sure if this place is too public for what you want to show me.”

[lyingheart]

There were people to have those concerns about publications over, but Annie, for better and worse, wasn't among them. Not now, and unlikely in the future. Even the things she hopes he finds to focus on in the future probably aren't the same as those Kanaya finds important... but she knows her priorities are all a little bit off.

She simply slides her communicator his way, a phone with a partially melted exterior (it makes the camera nonfunctional, but the screen is mostly legible. The post she has open there is meant to lend insight into the things Holiday did for imPorts, but it isn't with a goal of dictating what Clark walks away with from this exchange. She trusts people to make their own decisions, come to their own conclusions. Very few of them can say they know one is wrong or right inherently.

"One of the most difficult classes for me here has been English. Whatever grammar we use where I'm from... it doesn't quite match up. The vocabulary is strange, too." Which would seem off topic, but it's all to circle around to a point in conversation. "Having someone else read this over helps me out, too." If she were worried about anyone listening in, it seems to tie in more to something with English class... maybe. Winter break didn't mean an end to winter assignments.

[andaway]

Clark doesn’t even get his own phone out.

Journalist once perfected the art of writing without being noticed so people didn’t feel so observed. Even when everything they said was meant to be shared, sometimes people became too careful or simply used different wording when the reality that what they said was going to be on record settled in. Nowadays reporters like Clark perfect the art of being able to record things discretely. Not that he thinks she wouldn’t let him record it but it’s become kind of a habit. And a couple of seconds into the post it becomes quite clear that he will definitely want to check it again, probably many times over.

He wasn’t sure what he expected Holiday to talk about, but it definitely wasn’t this.

“I’d think it’s a difficult class if you haven’t actually taken it before. “ He replies absentmindedly. She is going to great lengths to keep it private, probably because parts of what he’s seeing weren’t supposed to get to non-registered eyes, so he might as well do his best to play along. He had, of course, gone back in the network to try to get some information from the man and from the porter. But that was pretty useless when some of it was unavailable, and he wasn’t willing to register just to get access to it.

(Yet.)

But it does make asking certain questions a bit difficult.

“Is there any part in particular you’re having problems with?”

[lyingheart]

It's also respect for the fact Holiday had felt it worth keeping to a select audience. Annie doesn't have the same divide on "Registered" or "Unsettled;" she can't afford to think too narrowly. It'd be too easy for her to get over-focused on one set of details if she did.

"Why none of the rules seem to make sense. People say one thing... like do this like that, because it's supposed to work that way. Then you learn there's all these exceptions, for no consistent reason. Or there's rules for parts of English no one thought to tell you about, because they forgot you wouldn't understand all the history behind the language."

Holiday felt everyone needed to know more. Trusting Registered was a peace offering - giving them something that people higher up hadn't wanted them to have. It's information, and nothing more complicated, but everything precious. What reasons to keep them in the dark over remnants of the more recent history of this world was there? Holiday had been part of the original group dealing with imPorts and the changing of policy in the United States away from the military state it'd been in the 1980's. Now he was gone, and Ananke had a gag order when it came to talking to imPorts at large.

Or something close to it, after the Hornets claimed themselves as real.

[andaway]

Clark smiles at her as he shrugs, and even though it’s not the happiest smile it’s still an honest one. The tension is clear in his shoulders, but he’s doing his best to look relaxed.

“It is always like that, I’m afraid. And this probably won’t make you feel any better about it but it doesn’t get any easier as you learn the language. There will always be rules that don’t make sense and you still have to follow, and exceptions to those rules that you have to find out and figure out as you go. It’s not a perfect language by any means.”

That’s one of the things the press had gotten wrong about him, and why it surprised everyone that he flew to New Krypton instead of staying in Earth (even though he was doing it for Earth’s sake). Clark trusts the government, but never blindly. He doesn’t take justice into his own hands but that isn’t because he thinks the system is perfect.

“But there will always be people willing to help out and make sure you understand. Even though a lot of the time you have to wonder what’s in it for them” He stares at her phone with a raised eyebrow. He never got to meet the man but he’s already decided he’s to be trusted. And yet he still doesn’t know why he went to the lengths he went for the imPorts. He knew it’d get him in trouble (“and y'all didn't hear it from me, either”), so why did he risk it when he had so much to lose?

[lyingheart]

"Some people feel compelled to help when they have the ability to do so. If it's because it's something they've done before or not, I can't always say, but it usually feels that way." In Holiday's case, with his relationship to events in the 1980's, him reaching out past the complications of the people he worked for made sense to Annie... and made her wonder furthermore why he'd been placed in charge in the first place.

If this wasn't all part of the short notice everyone had when the initial group had arrived en masse in January of that year.

[andaway]

Clark nods, covering his mouth with his hand as he thinks. Holiday did seem like that kind of person. Everyone he'd spoke to about him so far agreed that he was a no-nonsense kind of guy but also willing to jump at the chance to help the imPorts. That he really cared about them, and cared about doing his job right.

Which Clark's pretty sure was the main reason he was relieved from his job.

"I guess we should be glad there's people like that around. Is there anything else you wanted to show me?"

[lyingheart]

She shakes her head. "No. That was all." She doesn't have an agenda on what she wants him to think about any of this, just wanted him to see it when he hadn't. "The rest of what I need to get done over winter break I can handle on my own."

[andaway]

"As you wish." Annie is a valuable source of information, one that seems to come at him willingly when she has something she thinks he should know. But because she comes willingly he can't help but look for her angle even when there doesn't seem to be on. Superman is trustful to the point of being naive sometimes, and he'll be the first one to admit that. But Clark Kent is surprisingly distrustful when it comes to this kind of job- far too many years working with people who went to incredible lengths to protect a scoop, he guesses.

"I'll read it over, a couple times, and see what I get from it. You've always been really helpful, so I want to return the favor."

[lyingheart]

Her ultimate angle might very well be one day finding a means to stay. She's never talked about it with more than one person, and she's not even sure it's what she really wants, to give in to that cowardice over facing whatever will ultimately become of her back home.

Aiding in things like this moves that forward, one way or another.

"The assistance is appreciated. Let me know if anything needs to be changed. I'd hate to do poorly my second time through school," she says, something closer to humor interjected into her tone of voice.