Crashing Down

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sf_asami2_icon.gif sf_kaylee2_icon.gif

Scene Title Crashing Down
Synopsis Kaylee helps Asami when she returns to the Petrelli manor struggling with the severity of her actions and the consequences they have on those around her. The question of what to do next weighs on both their minds.
Date February 1, 2021

Petrelli Manor


It's well past dark by the time there's a sudden clamor of noise in the house that can't be accounted for, one that comes from the studio next to Kaylee's bedroom. A skid of feet on the wooden floor sounds before there's a tumble of someone falling.

Head reeling, Asami takes a moment on the ground there, one hand braced against the floor without properly pushing herself up. Her breathing is uneven, hair mussed from the wind, fingers cold from the near-spring chill outside. The windows are still as shut as they were before she flew through them, leveraging use of Brynn's ability to get back inside silently … even if her landing was something else entirely.

Her face had been on the news again this evening, featuring a clash with police in Midtown that evolved into a high-speed chase across the New Jersey border. Asami had snuck out before, sometimes even under the light of day, but never had it turned into this. Perhaps it had only been a matter of time, though.

She's back now, sprawled and bone-tired to the point she's still not gotten up from the floor.

Almost immediately, Kaylee is standing in the doorway to her personal bedroom, in a pink tank top and pink plaid pants, looking down at the other woman with a shotgun — that she probably doesn’t even know how to properly use — in her hands. Once she sees who it is, she quickly drops it to her side and presses a hand to her chest.

“You scared the shit out of me!” Kaylee scolds her, looking worried. “You’re lucky Valerie didn’t take over.” In fact, Kaylee was working hard not to look at the mirrors at the moment.

Wide-eyed with shock and concern for Asami, Kaylee rests the shotgun against the door jam and moves to offer a hand up. “Where have you been? And what happened?” Because she can tell that something happened.

"Sorry," comes from Asami with a non-insignificant amount of regret. "Sorry." She looks up to take the hand offered to her. When she does so, she reveals the sorry state of the red hoodie she's wearing under her coat.

There's bullet holes all over the lower half of it.

"I'm sorry."

Asami stumbles to her feet, not exactly meeting Kaylee's eyes. She holds on tightly to her friend's arm. "I fucked up, Kaylee. One good intention after the next— and I just—"

With a cringe, her eyes shut hard to stave off tears and any further degradation of her voice. She takes in a breath and holds it. The lower half of her hoodie is not just peppered in holes, it's bloodstained, but Asami appears to be in perfect health. Exhausted, but not actively bleeding, no signs of present hurt.

“Oh my god,” Kaylee half whispers at the sight of Asami’s hoodie. Fingers pluck at the hoodie, only to come away with a smear of blood on her finger tips, “Oh my god… Are you okay?” she asks even more worried and concerned than she was before. But even more importantly… “You weren’t followed?” Last thing they needed was to lose their one safe spot, however long that lasted.

Her hand slides down to grasp the other woman’s hand to pull her towards the open door of the bedroom. “Either way, we need to get you out of those,” she says seriously. Looking back at Asami and sizing her up, Kaylee gives a firm nod, “I should have some clothes that will fit you, if a bit on the loose.”

Asami shakes her head. "No— no, I shouldn't have been followed. I flew the whole way back. Didn't stop. And I've— I've been all over today." She lets herself follow after rather than fighting the tug along, shoulders sunk.

"I'm fine. I'm— I found others today, Kaylee. I don't think I can be anything but fine now." The faint laugh she has is a broken thing, her expression crumpling in as her brow furrows. "I don't know what to do. I don't know fully whatever it was I did. It just… one thing lead to another…"

She looks up to the light of Kaylee's room, the line of her mouth trembling. "God, I don't even—" Asami falls quiet after that, one hand lifting to cover over her mouth.

Kaylee stops and looks back at Asami with a concerned furrow of her brows, but then the look gentles. “Yeah, you’re not fine,” she observes quietly. Despite the blood and everything, she moves to just hug her friend. She’ll hold onto Asami as long as she needs it.

“Not going to lie, Asami, we’re all worried around you and those impulses.” Kaylee hated to see her like that, but she was also glad to know that Asami was bothered by her own actions. It meant she was still herself in that head of hers.

Hesitantly, Kaylee suggests, “Maybe you need to track down Violette and ask her why it’s happening like that and how you get more control.” It’s a simple suggestion. She huffs out a sigh and admits, “Lord knows I’d like to ask her about some things.” Like what she knew about that night with Nathan and Peter.

The hug takes her so far off-guard Asami stands there stunned at first. Then her hand lowers from her mouth, and she reaches out to embrace Kaylee back fiercely, an audible knot in her throat as she fights back tears. To be treated as if she were still human rather than the monster she feared she was turning into keeps her back from that brink more than either of them know.

To not be alone might be what saves her.

"I've tried finding her again," Asami whispers, throat too tight for more to come easily. "We'd not talked in years before she reached out to me, and it's like she disappeared back into the woodworks after. I want to find her, I want her to give me a solid answer about just who it is that sent the government after me the way they did, a-and…"

So many other things.

"She's just not responding," Asami balks with a sigh.

There is a thoughtful frown, as Kaylee leads her to the closet, which is huge. Pushing Asami to sit on the small padded bench at the center, she starts looking through her clothes. “You might have to get clever with your messages,” she offers thoughtfully. Though even as she says it, she turns back with an apologetic smile, “Not that you haven’t, but she might be afraid of being discovered since you are… out there all over the media.”

Pulling out a plain dark blue buttoned shirt and a pair of jeans with fashionable tears in the knees, Kaylee moves to her drawers, “Maybe she needs to know this is a safe haven,” there is a pause, even in the search, before she breathes out, “For now.” It felt like only a matter of time before they had to go on the run, “…and that there are people that need answers only she knows, on top of what you need.” A white tank top is added to the pile along with some socks.

Turning back, Kaylee offers the lot to Asami. “The master here has a shower if you want it, there is an extra towel in there…. And… actually,” Kaylee turns back and snags a pair of gray sweats and another tank, this time purple. “To sleep in,” she explains with a smile.

Asami's brow crumples up with a faint, self-deprecating laugh on the edge of her breath. "All over, again. Great. It's a wonder she doesn't want to talk to me when you look at it in that light." She lets out a slightly more bitter laugh than the first time, shrugging her coat off while she sits on the bench. After that, off comes the hoodie over her head while Kaylee sifts through the clothes options. "Shit," she sighs to herself, looking at the blood staining the white undershirt she was wearing. Her head shakes back and forth, fingers probing through the holes, to skin smeared with blood but completely knit back together.

"I should shower," she realizes, the words sounding like an apology. "It's all mostly dry, but, the last thing I should do is stain anything new." Her hand goes to her jeans before she lifts her head again, looking up. "Kaylee…?" she starts to ask, her shoulders sinking when she's done. She hesitates, breathing in deeply before admitting, "I don't know what to do next. I don't know what to do from here. I know I need to take a few days and…" Her eyes close hard. "Let this all calm down some before I go anywhere, but I just…"

"How many more of us are there, even? And— will having more of us awoken keep us safer, or just make things worse in the long run? I've been searching, wondering if the cluster of us here was just some fluke, or if there's more of us out there in the city, and if today was any indication, we do exist in groups. Your family— a fistful of NYPD members…" Asami struggles with it even as she admits, "There's a greater web of relations that I just— I can't see the whole of yet, but I feel like there's… there's a pattern here."

Moving to sit on the bench, Kaylee sighs heavily through her nose and shakes her head slowly, “I wish I had an answer.” Daring to look at the dressing mirror across from her to the scowling doppelganger peering back at her. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing…”

Softly, Kaylee says, “What now? And a lot of What if’s.”

There is another sigh, but this time Kaylee sits a little taller and turns a brave face to her friend. “One step at a time,” she says decisively. “Like right now there are only three you need to worry about.”

Kaylee lifts a hand and counts them out, one finger at a time. “Step 1: You shower. Step 2: Food. And. Step 3: Rest.” A hand is held out to Asami while the blonde stands. “You need as much as you can while things are still fairly calm.” Cause once that other shoe drops, who knows when they will be able to rest.

Asami's troubles are put aside in favor of Kaylee's orders laid out, at least for now. "Yes, ma'am," she answers with the air of no argument. Half a smile makes its way onto her face before she takes the offered hand. "I just gotta remember what you said."

"One step at a time."


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