I Never Forget

Participants:

cat_icon.gif peter_icon.gif

Scene Title I Never Forget
Synopsis Peter finds Cat watching the Deveaux Building, and they discuss things.
Date September 4, 2008

Deveaux Building — Outside


The rooftop meeting has broken up, and Cat is still in place watching the Deveaux building. People coming out of the place will be remembered, she can't not remember seeing them, but they don't draw her interest. None of them are the Russian man in scarf, and none of them have been previously seen with or around the younger Petrelli brother.

She's about to give up and move along, perhaps deciding the meeting spoken of was a decoy, the location a code of some sort, or it happened before she got there. There's a whole string of possibilities.

"Cat?" Peter wasn't there a moment ago, she would've remembered seeing him there by the battered newspaper vending machine. But there he is, in the same outfit as he was the night before, "What're you doing out here?" Peter slid his hands into his coat pockets, taking a few steps across the sidewalk towards the familiar musician. "It's not really safe out here, you know. Radiation and all that…" His eyes glance off towards the center of Midtown, then back again.

The woman turns quickly when the voice is heard and the movement is seen in the corner of her eye. "Rock," she replies. "It's not so safe for you, or whomever you were supposed to be meeting in that building, either, yet here you are." There's an inquisitiveness to her features as she looks him over and makes eye contact.

He nods, absently, it wasn't worth arguing that point over. "So it was you…" He pauses in his approach, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose with his forefingers and thumb, "What were you doing, all the way out here?" It was the same question Cat could've asked Peter, "I don't know of many music venues out this far." Inwardly, he was regretting his carelessness with information the night before.

"Watching and waiting for people to arrive for that meeting you talked about with the Russian fellow," Cat replies calmly. "And hoping to learn more about that one. He's… intriguing. It was me, what, exactly?" The woman's head tilts slightly as she follows up. "Are you coming or going, and was he there?" She isn't saying, but something about that encounter clearly had an impact upon her.

Peter furrows his brow, continuing his approach when he's sure Cat's more curious than anything, "Coming from, and no, he wasn't. Everyone else you saw come out was though…" He hesitates, looking Cat up and down for a moment. "One of the men there spotted you on the street watching things, it's why I came down, to see who you are." Part of Peter clearly wanted to be tough and interrogative, but the other half of him simply couldn't bring that part of himself to bear on Cat. "Why do you want to know about him, of all people. I hear he's kind've a pervert…" Peter cracks a smile, echoing something he'd heard Claire and Helena speaking of on their way out.

"I don't think he was so much a pervert," Cat replies. "Although he did nearly bump into me, and could've been trying to cop a cheap feel if I hadn't sidestepped." A pause is taken as she considers her next words carefully, coming up with a explanation for her interest which tells the truth, but also conceals. "I felt weird when he got close, and that feeling ended when he was gone. It was strange."

Peter looks visible surprised, "You… did?" There was marked hesitation as he took the lst few steps to close the distance between himself and Cat, speaking quietly now. "What did it feel like? Tell me what happened, there might actually be something to that…" The dark-haired man rolled one shoulder, looking up and down the mostly empty street, his gaze lingering on a burned-out shell of a car for a moment before focusing back on Cat.

She watches his face, calculating in silence for the moment. He didn't seem to think she's crazy for what she said, and the stated possibility there's something to it indicates he may have had a similar experience. But, there remains the possibility he could be with Homeland and stick her on the Registry. It's cautious ground to traverse. These are her thoughts, which he might pick up on, without her having to say anything.

The woman soon opts to be cryptic with her reply. "I forgot."

There was just a deadpan expression of confusion on Peter's face, "…What do you mean you forgot — Did he… did he do something to your memory?" He was following the wrong threads in that regard, but it was all Peter had to go on. "Look, did he do something to you? If he did, I'll make him undo it, whether he wants to or not." The scarred Petrelli's brow lowers, a frustrated look on his fce as he thinks back to Sergei's convenient absence from the meeting.

"If he did something to me, it didn't last beyond him moving out of proximity," Cat replies. "I just didn't feel right." Out on that limb a little further goes she. "What sorts of things do you think he could be capable of? I suddenly couldn't call up details that are normally there for me, and don't remember as well as I should things happening when he was close."

Peter managed a somewhat awkward smile, shaking his head, "You are evolved, aren't you?" His eyes narrowed slightly, not in a manner of attitude but more in scrutiny. "He's — I don't know the technical term for it — like a fire-extinguisher for gifted people's powers. You get too close to him, they all shut off. I knew someone like him, years ago, but he was more powerful than Sergei." Peter cracks a smile, looking at Cat more intently now. "So your memory, it's your power?" There was some hesitation there, but slow and gradual understanding as things from the last couple of days began to make sense. "Like, seeing things, that you experienced before? Being able to re-live moments in time inside your head, feel them as if they were happening?" As he spoke, Peter's tone of voice became less guarded and more curious, matching Cat's mannerisms in that regard.

"I never forget," she replies simply, neither confirming nor denying being any such creature as an Evolved person. "I never forget anything. But when he was close, I couldn't call things up, and I don't completely remember things that happened when he passed by. Like that woman, the teenager in the thirtysomething body. I thought she pulled something out, but I can't be sure I saw that happen. When he was gone, things from before that point came back. So I came here, to the place you and he talked about, hoping to see him and get some answers." Cat isn't smiling. "So he's a Negator. Suresh's book has an entry on that. And you met another one before him. Intriguing."

Over the course of the conversation, Peter was listening intently to her explanation, a smile formin gon his lips, "So, it was you then." He nodded once, then relaxed more, "You've read Suresh's book too?" A faint, though somewhat bittersweet smile, "Not a name I've heard in a long time." His eyes dipped down to the concrete below him for a moment, then back up again, "Chandra's research had a title for people like me, too, I think Mohinder called it a 'Mosaic'." His head tilts to the side slightly, "The Negator I met, a long time ago, he was stronger. He affected people from further away… Not plesant." Peter started walking again, pacing in front of Cat before halting. "I picked up your gift, when we spent some time together at the bar. I couldn't figure out how it worked, or why. I was remembering things more clearly — still am. It's… overwhelming, at times."

"It's useful for surviving law school," Cat admits. "If I am indeed evolved, which I'll neither confirm nor deny. I've no interest in being on some bureaucratic fascist unconstitutional list. But… since we met your memory is better? Fascinating." A slow breath is taken in. "It can be," she agrees quietly. "Some experiences a person would want to have go fuzzy, or not be remembered at all. But from the time my memory got perfect, I haven't forgotten anything. Most of the time it's extremely cool." A smile breaks out.

"You and I have a bit in common then…" Peter purses his lips in thought, then looks around the street again, "Maybe I just need practice with your gift… That's sort've my talent, picking up things." Looking around the street again, Peter exhales and looks at Cat carefully, "Have you heard of a group called PARIAH?" Then, rethinking that, "Or, well, what's your opinion on them?" As he asks that question, Peter's expression becomes focused, and he directs his thoughts outwards, trying to discern from Cat's surfce thoughts any incongruity between what she's going to say, and what she thinks.

"Fortis et liber," she intones. "Graffiti's everywhere, I've seen a good bit of it since I came to the city not so long ago. And they frequently make the news. They might do better if their efforts were turned toward political action. While Jefferson remarked on needing to occasionally feed the tree of liberty with blood, they could at least be more discriminating." Cat's thinking basically that, but also that she's not so much the altruistic stick her neck out sort of person. Action needs some sort of stake for her in it, which she thinks exist to at least some degree given the Linderman Act's existence.

"You're absolutely right." Peter nods in agreement, a thoughtful smile crossing his face, "That's what the meeting, here, was about tonight. I offered to get involved, to take an active role in things. But that was on the conditions that they stop the bombings, and stop hurting people uninvolved in the affair." Shifting his weight slightly, Peter eyes Cat again, and begins to consider her thoughts. "Problem is, most of us only know how to shake the trees. We know how to take action, but most of us wouldn't know how to handle thing legitimately, and politically." Peter's gaze wanders, moving over to a piece of rubble across the street. "I'm trying to change them, change the way they do things. It's hard being one of the few voices of reason among them — I can hear others, but they're not speaking out yet." When his gaze focuses back on Cat, there's something more pointed in mind. "We could really use someone like you. A thinker, and one with a conscience, not just a brain." He looks away, managing a half-joking smile, "Plus, you'd have a captive audience for your music."

She chuckles dryly. "I'm not the save the world type, Rock. I won't claim to be. But my own ass is on the line in this too. It doesn't matter in the end if I admit to being Evolved. All it takes is for someone to decide I am, and my life goes to hell. There are things I could do, case by case. Write a legal opinion, maybe do some pro bono legal work here and there. Protest songs." A pause follows, and after that a mutter of displeasure. "Never wanted to be a lawyer, just wanted to play guitar and sing. Such is life."

"Everybody has a choice, maybe the music would be more worthwhile in the end." Peter reaches out, settling a hand on Cat's shoulder, "Don't worry too much about it, right now anyway. I think things are going to stay calm for now. It'll give you time to think, but…" Peter afforded the her a warms mile, squeezing her shoulder gently before lowering the hand. "If you change your mind, well, I'll be at your shows. Just pick me out of the crowd and we can talk." He looks away, out to the street again, then up into the now dark skies overhead. "I've got to get going, with the head start I gave them, they're probably halfway back by now." He grins, looking back down to Cat, "I've got to catch up…" He doesn't make an immediate move to depart though, lingering to hear what Cat has to say.

"I am who I am," Cat replies, not objecting to the hand at her shoulder. "I'll be involved, on my own terms. Ask for assistance and if it makes sense, I'll probably do it. Along with throwing out ideas. It's probably valuable to you if a target is picked and I happen to walk by it, for example." Silence settles in for a moment, before she adds "I knew who you were the night we met. Pictures of you from old newspapers during the political campaign, with your brother."

Peter looks away as Cat mentions his brother, a sigh slipping from him as he nodded, slowly. "Some brother I turned out to be…" His words are mumbled, and when he looks back up, much of that earlier smile is gone. "That was a long time ago, I have a hard time even remembering that was me." he reaches up, scratching th back of his neck as he nods. "I'll… Keep your offer in mind. Thanks, Cat, for keeping an open mind." Peter takes a step back, watching Cat as he does, "See you at your show." With that, there is a sudden gust of wind as Peter is launched into the air, gradually building speed before he blasts off in a blur, vanishing into the city skyline.

"See you, Rock," she offers to the air he's suddenly taken to flying through. "Damn. That'd be serious fun to do." Cat starts moving, her path set for the Upper West Side and the apartment at Dorchester Towers.


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September 4th, 2008: A Change In The Air

Previously in this storyline…
A Change in the Air


Next in this storyline…
A New Hope

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September 4th, 2008: Bitchitude
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