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Just as quickly as she'd sat down, it seemed she was getting up again. That was fine, though. Teddy had offered, and it hadn't been the empty kind. Leaving the unfamiliar seat, she followed the stranger into the kitchen. They were simple instructions, and so she turned in the direction given. She even laughed lightly at the idea that they were clean; that was a given, right?
Her fingers of one hand hooked around two handles as the other pressed to the counter, and she twisted her hand to set them down a moment later. Carefully, she leaned against the counter with her hip, watching the way this woman worked around the familiar space.
"How do you like it?" She asked then. It seemed like the right question, even if she wasn't the one making it.
A small smile crept across Emmett's features at the sound of a laugh. It was enough to pull her attention away from her task at hand and glance towards the form reaching into her cupboards. When she turned, the mechanic quickly snapped her head forward.
With a few scoops of beans into the filter, Emmett placed the basket into the coffee maker, pressing a button to get it started. By no means was it a fancy contraption, but at least the coffee itself was good quality. She turned around to lean against the counter, palms pressing to the cool surface. "Huh?" It took her a few moments too long to register the context of what she was asking. Coffee. Of course.
"Oh, just black. What about you? I've got cream and sugar if you'd like."
Somehow Teddy seemed to perplex her for a short moment. Or perhaps she just wasn't heard. Parted lips went to offer the question again, but she was stopped, and so she closed her mouth quickly. She thought nothing more of the slip; after all, this woman's life was in ruins downstairs. She probably had a lot on her mind.
"No need. Black, too." She said, raising her hand slightly as if to physically refuse the latter offer.
"You have insurance, right? Not just for your tools and equipment; I know some of those jerseys downstairs are worth protecting." But it was such an easy thing to forget in the grand scheme of a business.
Black. Emmett nodded, fingers tapping against the counter, contrasting the loud drips pouring down from the coffee maker into the pot. When the lawyer lifted her hands, she looked down towards them, catching sight of a small blotch of grease that got on her palm. She was already reaching for a towel when the next question filtered into her mind. It was smart, and probably much smarter than Emmett herself.
Her hands wrung the towel, giving it a little twist as realization came to her features. "I have insurance for the building and stuff." What those details included was beyond the mechanic's knowledge. Her lips twisted to one side, eyebrows lowering. "It should cover them, right? I mean I have a Gretzky signed one and that is not cheap." She hadn't even had the time to really check the conditions of them yet - the police had gotten there so quickly, and she had been so worked up it proved her to be unproductive.
Pursed lips and slightly narrowed eyes offered a look of pure pain at the notion of a particular signed jersey being in the potential fray. It was difficult to determine whether or not items deemed personal would be covered, and Teddy had to think for a moment as to how best explain that to her. She could already sense the potential heartbreak in her near future if anything was missing.
"When you get the paperwork, you can bring it by the office. I'll look over it for you." She explained. It was the easiest way to go about it before she mentioned anything. "On the plus side - or downside, I suppose, depending on how you take it - it does just seem like a hate crime. If their intention was to drive you out of business, they wouldn't gain much my stealing your property. It's too risky, like leaving a thread that ties back to the culprit."
Though she assumed people wouldn't be so stupid, she couldn't help the way she stared at this woman with a sense of knowing. "Unless they were men, in which case, it's anyone's guess." Teddy added, an amused smile erupting onto her features.
There was comfort in knowing that someone would handle the paper side of thing; the blonde nodded as she continued to twist the fabric in her hands. She tried to imagine the garage, having been distracted by the damage and state it was in she couldn't recall if every jersey that had once been on the walls were somewhere on the floor instead. She checked her tools with the police, but it never occurred to her that something of personal value could be missing. Maybe there was a bright side to being the victim of a hate crime versus an old fashion robbery, if there really could be a right side.
For the first time since she had come home, a laugh escaped Emmett's lips. A small crack of humor could put the mechanic at a little bit of ease. She extended the towel out towards Teddy. "Just one of the many reasons I don't like 'em." Really, she could make a list about why she preferred the same sex as herself. "You have grease on your hand."
That was the first laugh Teddy had heard from her mouth since she got here. There was nothing remotely funny about the situation, but she'd always believed it was important not to get so stuck in that negativity. A big part of moving on was finding a way to be comfortable again. If she helped in some small part, that could only be a good thing.
And Teddy had never been the kind to hide how she felt about the opposite sex. It wasn't just a matter of her preferences, such things were just facts.
"Oh," She offered, completely unaware of the little bit of the mechanic that had literally rubbed off on her. Without a second thought, she reached for the towel extended to her, massaging the fibres into her skin to at least try and remove the dark spot. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had grease on her.
"Thank you. It doesn't exactly go with the overall look, here."
Her eyes trailed down the length of the lawyer to her hands, watching as stubborn grease slowly worked itself off of her skin. She was right - it didn't suit her to be around such a mess. Emmett looked to her own hands. She just had to have changed the oil in her mum's car before leaving this morning, didn't she?
"So why are you here?" Emmett turned towards the sink, twisting on the faucets to scrub her own hands - something she probably should have done before she made them coffee. "I mean, not here in my place, but you're from England or something, right?" The accent was a dead giveaway. "What brings you to Oregon?"
Hands clean, Emmett grabbed the coffee pot, taking steps towards the lawyer and the mugs she had secured.
Teddy supposed there was no harm in explaining what brought her to America. It wasn't as if it was secretive information; few people actually bothered to ask her why she moved in the first place.
She took a single step back to make way for the coffee she'd prepared. "Well, if I'm being honest, it was this." She explained, the corner of her mouth tugging into the threat of a frown. "This being your predicament. St. Bethany - the school I went to - has solid legal protection. Here... It's not as stable. I mean, look how long it took this country to... Abolish slavery or... Enforce marriage equality."
Bright eyes flitted away instinctively, glancing at the way she moved instead; "Discrimination laws still aren't where they should be. America seemed like the logical choice to build a firm and specialise in anti-meta cases."
Emmett wasn't sure the answer she was expecting, but the one she was given was so genuine that it brought a small smile to her lips as she poured coffee into the mugs. She never expected to meet a lawyer that cared so much about human rights. Especially to find one that was helping her.
"Its weird that we're so behind on this shit." Emmett mumbled, unaware of the set of eyes on her as she started to fill the second.
She set the coffee pot aside, holding a mug out towards the lawyer. "You're passionate. Glad I'm on your side."
It was so easy to get bogged down in the negativity of the country they were both living in. From a foreign perspective, Teddy very much carried an outside view. She'd still been living there for under a month, and all things considered, Stagfort was a seemingly understanding town to live in. This was the exception.
Passion? She supposed it wasn't the wrong way to think about it. She had sort of gone off the rails with the question posed. "Well, I don't often make house calls." Teddy added, grinning to herself as she brought the mug to her lips; "You should count yourself lucky."
With one mug handed off, Emmett reached for the second. Both her hands wrapped around the warm ceramic as she brought it close to her nose; the aroma of freshly brewed coffee was just as good as the taste, but it hadn't taken her long before she took a sip of her herself. With the mug still against her mouth, she raised her eyebrows. Lucky? There was a hint of a grin that she kept hidden, only bringing her coffee down when she had her facial muscles under more control.
"Oh, I do." Emmett declared, leaning back against the counter. "Does that mean I shouldn't expect this as normal treatment?"
The smile Teddy wore over her own comments must have been obvious the second she drew the cup down. Bright eyes glanced to the practically matching one offered by someone who was still a stranger, relatively speaking. It was nice, though, to take a short break from work. Everyone she knew in town was attached to the firm, and this point of difference, however small it was, was something of a relief.
"That depends on how successful we are at getting you compensated for your damages." Teddy pointed out. A lot could happen between then and now; there was no quick fix. She might never want to see the lawyer again if she failed.
"Do you have a pen? And something to write on." She said then, eyebrows quirking up once at the question as she set the mug in her hands down on the countertop.
When a Lexus and dark shades pulled up to the garage, Emmett had expected someone completely collected and cold to be handling her business. As the lawyer smiled, the mechanic realized just how wrong she had been. Certainly collected, Teddy had a warmth in those bright eyes that Emmett couldn't help but to appreciate.
Her palms were flat against the mug, continuing to fiddle as she rocked her beverage slightly in her hands. Another laugh erupted from her throat at the idea of success and failure, though she wasn't sure why she found it funny. For all she knew this very professional looking woman could be a terrible lawyer - she really didn't know her, but she was told she was the person to turn to, so Emmett had to trust that.
"Sure, yeah." The blonde set her mug down and pulled open a drawer filled with odds and ends. A pad of paper was easy to find, but it took a few attempts to source a working pen. The first two she reached for, Emmett scribbled on the pad to find they ran out of ink; the third attempt, blue ink ran easily against the paper. She turned, offering her both. "Here," she said, wondering what it was needed for.
Bright eyes peered over her shoulder from her position to watch the way she rifled through her belongings. Broken pens seemed to clog the drawer, but eventually she hit the mark. She reached for the working pen, tilting down to press the ballpoint to the paper.
"This," She started with a pointed pause. She drew out the series of numbers with expert handwriting, as if that even made a difference. To her, it absolutely did; "Is my phone number."
Setting the pen down, she pressed her fingers to the paper and slid it off the counter. Shifting within the small space of the kitchen, she turned to the fridge, plucking the first free magnet she could see and pressing it down against the paper and the cool metal. "You call me if anything else happens, please." She said then, turning back to catch her eyes. Probably.
