Home But Not Whole - Eleanor
She was back in the elevator. It always started there. Despite the months she'd stayed away, disconnected herself from the San Francisco branch and concentrated on other things the dreams remained. Like usual, there was a dinging as the floors passed before the elevator slowed and the doors started to open. On some nights they'd open back to a cold alleyway in Russia, sometimes to a hospital with a ghostly woman that spoke in a heavy French accent, some nights she was back on the 11th floor of the old ACME Building, standing just down the hall from a familiar office, watching as a woman slipped out of the door and walked away. It wasn't always the same woman - the image changed from time to time. One night it would be a blonde with short curls and a possessive smirk and others it would be a woman with long dark locks and a long stride. Some nights she'd be in the cabin of a boat with a steak dinner on the table under a bouquet of purple irises in a glass vase. More recently however they kept opening to that desert. The one with the white sands. The one where she could always see a black inky substance start to boil out of the sand and start to give chase. The one where she felt afraid and somehow it felt like something was satasfied with that.
Blue eyes opened to glance outside of the airplane window as the voice of the captain came over the speakers of the plane. They were arriving in San Francisco. Eleanor Mayhem gave a stretch with care, consciousness coming back properly, eyes glancing over the quickly viewable sight of the bay area as the plane made its descent. She could feel a smile come to her lips as the tower came into view. The new ACME tower. Before her leaving she'd hated it but now - now there was something about it that seemed friendly. There was, of course, a reason why but the idea was forced from her mind before it could finish forming. Despite trying to press thoughts from her mind a hand ran over her eyebrow to a line where the hair had stopped growing, the scar of a former gash cutting into it, her smile souring.
"Inspector Mayhem?" a voice called from the aisle. Eyes rose from the window and to the stewardess who called her by name. "I've been asked to inform you that your ride will be waiting for you when you arrive - if you'd wait for the rest of the passengers to disembark we'd be glad to assist you onto the runway."
Eleanor smiled, motioning to a cane that sat just in front of her, leaned against the seat one row ahead. "I can make it down without assistance, thank you. Please thank the Captain for his concern."The stewardess nodded and walked away, Eleanor watching her for a moment before pulling a mirror from her pocket and looking herself over, pulling out a small makeup kit as she did so. The dark circles under her eyes were quickly covered, a practiced hand painting them over. The rest of her face was almost healed but a bit of foundation seemed to make any scars disappear. Finishing with some mascara and lipstick she sighed.
"It'd be great if you were just as easily hidden." she replied, giving her cane a light kick.