Falling Away With You

Participants:

kaydence_icon.gif matt_icon.gif

Scene Title Falling Away With You
Synopsis So, I'll love whatever you become. Forget the reckless things we've done. I think our lives have just begun.
Date January 5, 2009

Dorchester Towers: Matt's Apartment

Of all of the spacious apartments of Dorchester Towers which more than likely still cost an arm and a leg each month in rent, apartment number 404 is likely to be the least furnished of them all. The high-ceilinged space still sports the drab white paint it had when its current resident first moved in. Whereas the Towers are home to various members of New York's high-end white collar bread-winners, this one appears to be lived in by college student.

The kitchen table is cluttered with newspapers and the occasional pizza box or empty beer bottle, and the same decor theme is repeated on the coffee table that separates a second-hand couch from a television that is somewhere between top of the line and rabbit-ears worthy. The same style is echoed throughout the sparsely furnished rooms, including a bedroom which holds only a cardboard box nightstand, a lamp, and a mattress on the floor.


Catching Matt Parkman at home is like trying to catch a unicorn in the garden - it's so rare an occasion that it is quite possible to conclude it is impossible. Tonight, however, someone might be lucky in the task. After a long day of sifting through reports and statements that have turned up no feasible leads or applicable information on top of reviewing and coordinating the security detail planned for Inauguration Day, Matt Parkman has finally made it home.

There was something left in him that managed to remove his coat and suitjacket at least, but the shoulder-holster (still holding a pistol) is still buckled around his torso, visible where he has…

Well, the best word to describe it would be landed.

Admist week-old newspapers and pizza boxes and beer bottles that could possibly be a great deal older, Matt Parkman snores up a storm.

A key fits into the lock and Kaydence Lee lets herself into the apartment quietly. She smiles when she actually catches the man at home. She had been bringing his paper and mail up to the apartment while he was out of town. What are friends for, after all? "Wake up, sleeping beauty," she murmurs, nudging the man gently.

As unattractive as Matt may have already been, the snort that preludes his awaking is like the cherry on the whole thing. He starts sharply, tensing and almost reaching for his gun before recognition sets in. It's Kaydence. It's only Kay.

Matt collapses once more onto the couch, rolling over in a perfect execution of the "Five More Minutes" grunt-and-turn. If napping were an Olympic Sport, Matt Parkman would have a new occupation. It doesn't last long though, and Matt soon gives up and rights himself, even if it is with some effort. "Sorry I didn't call," he manages to mumble out, sniffing before he runs a hand through his hair, which is just long enough to stick out at odd angles. A cutting is in order, and soon.

With a portion of the couch now vacant, Kay takes a seat and reaches out to take the HomeSec agent's hand. "It's okay. I knew you had to be all right. I would just… know if you weren't." She doesn't smile. She knows when something's wrong. "You're okay, though?" It's obvious to her that he is physically, but there' more to it than that.

Matt gives Kaydence's hand a squeeze, bringing his other around to rub the top of hers. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he reassures her even as he sinks back into the couch, letting his eyes close again. "I'm just tired." Opening them again, he squints at the detective. "You get briefed on the stuff we sent your precinct yet?"

"Not yet. I've got a new partner. He's a workaholic, so we've been out pounding the pavement." Kay reaches up with her free hand to rest against his face. "I missed you. Get me up to speed?"

Matt takes the gesture as an invitation to roll his head off the couch and onto Kay's shoulder, breathing her in for comfort. It's rare he has a moment to mentally unload, as it were. "If I do, you've got to keep a lot of it quiet," he warns. "Some of it needs context, but I don't think we're allowed any sort of legally protected confidentiality. Unless you want to go back to school and be my shrink."

"I don't think I could handle being your shrink. You'd end up reading me more than the other way around." Kay smirks and rests her cheek against the top of Matt's head. "Tell me what you're comfortable with. If you'd rather keep it to yourself, I understand."

The truth will set one free, and Matt is at his heart an honest man. "There was an attempt on Rickham's life," he says with a strained sort of sigh, giving Kaydence's hand another squeeze. "By a new group - one we didn't know about before. Not really, anyway. Sylar's with them, and he nearly killed Rickham." And me, Matt adds in his thoughts, biting back the urge to actually verbalize the addendum. It's not worth troubling Kaydence about. "We had to lay low for awhile, but new intel says this same group is going to unleash all hell, and we have no way of knowing when. It's like we're fighting against a ticking clock without knowing what time it is."

Kay lets out a shaky breath she didn't realise she was holding. "Oh, my God. I… I had heard rumours, but I didn't put any stock in them. Oh, God. I'm so glad you're all right." She releases her hold on his hand only so she can hug Matt. "Harder to take people like us out, though, right?" She smiles, attempting to reassure herself.

Matt's hands come around Kay to close her in an embrace in an attempt to reassure them both. He sighs, murmuring an "I missed you," into her shoulder before settling into a moment of silence. It feels good to just connect with someone on a basic level - to be hugged and cared about.

"We'll all be okay," he says as he rubs at Kay's back with one hand. "I'll make sure."

"I know, I know." Kay pulls away so she can smile and drop a soft kiss on his forehead. "I tried to get you a Christmas present, but I wasn't sure what style you'd want… So, I'll take you to the store, and you can pick it out."

Matt sits bug-eyed for a moment, then frowns. "…You don't have to get me anything, Kaydence." After all, he didn't get her anything, and if it weren't for assistants with heads on their shoulders, Molly would have likely been overlooked as well. In an attempt to recover, Matt holds Kaydence closer, nuzzling into her hair. "You didn't have to get me anything," he repeats, honored and shamed together.

"Of course I didn't. That's why it's a gift. If I'd had to, it would have been an obligation," she muses into the side of his face, holding him close. "It's really a gift for the both of us. Trust me on this one. You're just overdue."

Pulling away, Matt regards Kaydence with a squint that doesn't lack its share of humor. He sighs as if imposed upon, then goes about undoing his holster to lay it on the coffee table amidst the mess. "Now you've got me curious. What am I picking out?"

Kaydence Lee quirks a brow. "A bedframe. We're adults now, Matt. It's time to take our mattress up off the floor." She's teasing him, but he's a big boy. He can handle it.

Matt's frown doesn't depart from his face, but in fact deepens, accentuating the whispers of lines that have begun to form at the corners of his eyes. Squinting does that. In a moment, however, the man who was fast asleep only just a few minutes ago is on his feet, grabbing and lifting his female visitor up into his arms.

"But why?" he pleads, his voice, though still marked with tiredness, bubbling with playful humor. He steps around the couch, to head across and through the spacious but sparse apartment to the very topic of the conversation. "When it's so easy to just fall into?"

And, true to form, on the word fall, Matt deposits Kaydence onto the mattress, a lazy grin on his face. It's only a beat more before he throws himself after her, sinking into the welcoming furniture with a much more contented sigh.

Kay gasps when Matt lifts her off her feet and again when she's dropped and bounces once on the mattress. "Why, Matt Parkman! You scoundrel." She smiles up at him as he joins him, but there's a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes that clouds her thoughts. "I… We can just cuddle, right?"

"No, I thought you'd enjoy me falling asleep on top of you and making an ass out of myself." Matt chuckles at himself even as he lifts an arm to curl around her. "If you don't want to stay, I get it. You've got Cole and all." And it's only Matt's work and the dangers it adds to those prevalent everywhere that make him not have a more permanent, if younger, female presence in the apartment.

"It's not that," Kay says quietly. "I'm just… not sure I'm ready to move on that way yet. I've… I was drunk the last time." And he was the devil. Damn you, Zarek. "Cole's… back with my parents. Christmas wasn't easy for me." Unsurprisingly. She rolls over so her back is to him and she can face the wall. "I almost ate my gun." There's no point in hiding it from him. The man's a telepath. It'd come out anyway.

There are a few phrases in the English language that are guaranteed to sober, de-funk, or wake up a member of the male sex almost immediately upon their utterance. Matt's had one of them said to him before. Another is said to him tonight.

Matt lies there in shock for a moment, then wraps his arms around Kaydence once again, as if he meant to press her into himself. In his haste, however, the loose fabric of his sky blue tie ends up draped over her shoulder. "What would that have solved, huh?" he asks before brushing his lips against her shoulder. Hesitantly, he lets that certain part of his consciousness open up in order to read Kaydence's thoughts. "Cole needs you," he reminds her. "…I need you."

The quiet sniffle betrays Kay's emotion. "I know. I know. I was so… I miss him. I know that there's more to life than just what I've lost, but it's…" She curls up a bit tighter, cuddling back against Matt. "I'm sorry. I'm doing my best, I swear. I've just… It's a battle."

It would be so easy to give her a dream that would ease her pain. One of Spence and the way things were. One that glowed with that warm shimmer that all good memories carry. But it wouldn't help. It might even make things worse, losing him all over again in a way. Matt pushes the idea from his mind with a frown before he goes back to actively holding Kaydence, pressing his face against the hollow of her neck. "I can't think of any woman stronger for it," Matt murmurs before he covers his words with a kiss.

"Why do I feel so weak?" Kay murmurs softly. "Spencer shouldn't have been the defining force in my life. I know I'm my own person. I'm not simply a wife and a mother. So why do I feel like nothing without him?" She turns her face into the pillow, crying quietly.

Matt's role quickly becomes that of the more subdued comforter, but after a few moments he can't bear silence anymore. "Do you know why he loved you? Did he ever tell you?" And dammit, if Spencer was half the man Matt ever thought him to be, he should have.

"Yes," Kay admits. "He loved me because I was strong. But he saved me. I was strong because of him." She wipes at her eyes and arranges her limbs so she can clutch at the arm Matt has slung across her body. "I'm sorry."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Matt says with a shake of his head. "All you can do is be the woman he fell for, like you've always been." There's strength of a different sort in that - the familiar.

Kaydence rolls onto her back. "The woman you fell for?" She furrows her brows, but manages to quirk a smile. It's important to learn to laugh at yourself. It's all about how to cope.

Taken slightly aback, Matt smirks. "Hey," he teases, leaning in closer to Kaydence's face. "You fell first. I saw you."


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January 5th: Chinese and Boys
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January 5th: A Meeting in the Dark
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