Paint Me Hope

Participants:

broome_icon.gif eve3_icon.gif

Scene Title Paint Me Hope
Synopsis Eve Mas' fate at the hands of the Institute is revealed…
Date August 4, 2010

Commonwealth Institute


Artificial sunlight spills down through spatted blinds, creating spots of brightness on a white tile floor. Outside the windows, the simulated sounds of crashing surf and gulls gives the impression of a beachfront villa, and only on truly inspecting those partly blinded windows is the illusion of this place truly shattered.

Crisp white walls and warm earth-toned furniture decorates a spacious living room, a sofa and two armchairs forming a half circle around a wall-mounted plasma television. The sliding glass door that leads out onto the suggestion of a porch gives way to a distortion of rippling light, changing from a sliding glass door to a sliding metal security door with an illuminated keypad beside it. A click and a hiss retracts the door into the wall, followed by the whirring of an electric motor approaching the entrance.

Slouched into his wheelchair, controling the movements with subtle motions of weathered hands on a joystick, Doctor Simon Broome rolls into the residence in slow fashion. As the door slides shut into the wall behind him, an illusory haze ripples across the door again, concealing it as an ordinary part of the faux beach-house.

Two rooms over, color stands out in vibrant accord against the white and earth tones of the residence. Tall canvases sit on easels tilted at an angle, each one of them depicting different visions of the same disastrous wasteland. A skyline of New York City, lightless at night, no electricity, no cars, no planes in the sky, just a dark and dusty city's skeleton lit intermittantly by bonfires. Some of the paintings show laundry strung up between telephone poles, grass growing up between fissures in the pavement well outside of the ruins of Midtown.

One painting in particular, shows the United States at night from space, whorls of clouds and a sun cresting the western edge of the earth and not a light on in sight anywhere, a dark world, a silent world. The artist responsible for these paintings stands in front of an unfinished canvas, paintbrush working on a new piece detailing a starry night's sky streaked with what looks like a comet.

The whirring noise of Simon's wheelchair coming through the archway from the livingroom into the studio is an evident and unsolicited greeting, but the grandfatherly voice of the weathered old wheelchair-bound man is gentle when he finally speaks one of his own. "Good morning, Eve…" and when Simon Broome's eyes drift over the the canvas, there's a worried furrow of his brows, "I see you've been painting again."

"The future never stops. Means, I can't really stop painting." The woman says as her head is tilted to the side and she finishes the rest of the basic outline of the painting she's currently working on. Eyes flicker as she comes out of the light trance she goes into when painting her dreams.

Barefoot, the dark haired woman turns and gives Broome a soft, haunting smile. Her light grey eyes study the older man briefly then she pads over to the sink and washes the paint off her soft, delicate hands. She looks.. healthy and sane. Two words nobody would ever, ever associate with the seer. After drying her hands she runs a hand through her long dark mane of hair she looks over to Broome. "Would you care for something to drink?" her long dark blue cotton dress tickles the tops of her feet as she leans against the counter. Eyes towards the painting and then towards the older man.

"Nobody can heal you?" Eve Mas asks with a dip towards the wheelchair.

Two questions, one more difficult to answer than the other, though both have the same answer. "No, thank you." Wheeling his chair in to get a better look at the paintings, Simon's gray brows furrow nervously as he looks from one to the next. "I see my physical handicap as an obstacle to be overcome, not something that I deserve to have an easy way out from. Adversity breeds strength, and I feel that my life has made me a very strong man."

Turning his attention from the paintings, Simon's expression softens some and his head slants to the side in an assessing manner. "I'm sorry it's been almost a week since we last talked, I've been busy handling a… problem with one of our sister offices. I wanted to check up on you, see how your therapy was coming, how you were feeling…" there's the faintest hint of a smile there. "I know this isn't exactly where you want to be, but you know as well as I do how important it is. This is what he would want."

"This is why you're doing what you are doing. You have the strength to help." Eve says softly and then she's coming to sit down in a chair near Broome staring ahead at the paintings.

"Therapy is going great.. the meds are really helping and.." the seer looks away and places her hands together in her lap. "Miss my friends.. friend.. friends? Gillian and Peter.. Claire.. Niki.." she sighs and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. Those eyes returning to Broome's figure. "I.. I don't dream every night but lately.. there's been these dreams that make me want to forgo sleep just so I can finish them all. Paint them."

Her lips curl into a loose smile, "I'm sure their worried and.. I just want them to know I'm okay. Maybe a visit? Just a little one, to say hello? Why don't we let them know what we're doing?" she asks the questions like a little girl would ask her father. "It's not enough, watching them lives their lives through my dreams.. I want to hug them.. touch them.. warn them of things they don't even know is coming their way. All the pain.." she begins to rock back and forth but she tightens her fists and then shakes her head as she takes control over herself. Using what the therapy has taught her about controlling her behavior.

There's a faint and apologetic smile that crosses Broome's weathered face as he wheels his chair over to Eve, offering out the one hand he can use to her in comforting gesture. "I can't risk revealing the true purpose of the Institute yet, Eve. Not even the government knows what I told you, not even my closest 'allies' in the organization know the truth of why the Institute was founded, because the government is part of the problem." A brief look is afforded to the paintings, and Broome's lips downturn into a frown.

"I'm sorry, Eve," the old man offers as he looks back to her, "but I can't trust your friends to understand, I can't even trust Cardinal to understand… not yet. He's not ready, but I think that time is coming soon. I'm just lucky that I was able to save you when I could, before something worse could happen to you. It's the least I could do…"

Running his tongue over his lips, Broome furrows his brows and shakes his head slowly, reaching out to take one of Eve's hands in his, squeezing it reassuringly. "When the dark times come, and you and I both know they will, the Institute will be here to save the world from itself. I need you to remember that, Eve, I need you to remember that no matter what things seem like and no matter how bad the dreams are…" Broome's smile grows just a little, "we can't prevent the future, but we can rebuild it."

It's something she's heard many times before but she can't help but want to ask again, it can't hurt. "Thank you for saving me.." she says with a light smile and then she's nodding her head. "I understand it all." Of anyone, Eve does understand what will happen. The light eyed seer tilts her head as she crosses her ankles. Her expression becoming one of worry. "At least send a message to them, telling Gillian and Peter I'm okay. Also.. warn Peter.. he has to be careful. All this.. stuff he's getting into.. could hurt him." she nods slowly. She's worried about her friends.

"Have.. have you..," she stands and begins to pace a bit. Her hands at her side, faintly shaking. It'll be time for her meds again soon. "Have you heard anything of the ice monster?" she asks with a serious look in her eyes. The artist looks to Broome and stops her pacing momentarily. "I want to see the kids." She sings to them, even teaches art. "A session tomorrow I think." Her speech and behavior becoming more and more erratic she walks over to the kitchen and takes the pills and gets some water to swallow them down.

"Sorry.. the dreams have been getting to me just a little bit since yesterday."

"After the painting you showed me, Eve, I put in a word to someone who works for me and he checked it out… we have— some problems with one of our facilities, but I can assure you that the monster won't be a threat to you. We'll do what's necessary to protect everyone and make certain your friends don't come to any more harm," and that there is a subtle tell, and may explain the passingly guilty look on Broome's face.

Lifting up one hand to brush fingers over his brows, Simon wheels past the paintings of the desolate landscapes, "I tried to help uncover the truth behind what caused the fires you showed in your first paintings when you got here, Eve, but unfortunately the experiment we performed seems to have caused more harm than good. I worry that my tampering with the timelines is going to cause even greater damage than simply letting that disastrous event come to pass…"

Wheeling around behind the canvases, Broome heads towards an area where some of Eve's other paintings are on display, then halts, turning his chair around so he can face her. "I'm sure the children would like to see you, they've been working hard over the last week during training. It'll do them some good to get their fingers dirty, make some art… Victoria's ability is coming along marvelously, she's still very young, but in twenty or thirty years…" there's a smile on Broome's lips, "she'll no doubt be as powerful a precognitive as you are."

"Okay." Is all she says to the warnings to her friends, she comes to walk over to where Broome is looking at her other paintings. "Do you think the tampering should stop then.. for the greater good? We need to tell Cardinal and the others.. before it's too late to stop anything at all.." she looks at the paintings and puts one hand on her hips.

"Ha.. Broome you flatter me." Eve doesn't think what she does is all that extraordinary, or that she could be that powerful, she just has bad dreams.. right? The woman sighs as she folds her arms across her chest. Thinking of her life before the Institute.. before trying to save the world.

"I tried to reach out to Cardinal, but it's too soon… you know how fragile time can be, one wrong move and everything cracks." Broome's brows furrow as he turns his chair with a whirring of the motor to pivot his chair to face the paintings on display, hanging from those white walls under the simulated light of a false sun. "Too many times, people have stepped in to interfere with history, only to do irreparable damage… but I can't help look out that window of time through you," he says in a hushed tone of voice, "I can't help but wonder how many times we can try to stave off the inevitable, how many times we can delay the end."

Breathing in deeply, Simon's eyes cross over paintings depicting the city of New York ablaze, dark silhouettes of men dance before the fires in hideous acts of violence against other men. Helicopters fill the skies shining spotlights down on dark skyscrapers.

Other paintings show close ups of wrists and handcuffs, a painting of Nathan Petrelli standing on a podium in the ruins of Midtown with a flag at his back surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, a phone held to his ear.

A painting of a black-haired woman, scantily clad and swinging from a pole in a neon-lit strip club surrounded by shadowed patrons.

A painting of Matthew Parkman standing behind a crouching row of SWAT officers with their weapons drawn, a handgun out and aimed at an elevator.

A painting of the ruins of Midtown at night, a single beam of light shining up from ground zero and the silhouettes of tall construction cranes rebuilding amidst the rubble.

A painting of a young asian man with short, dark hair and glasses, chubby-faced and nervous looking, anachronistically carrying a sword over his back, while a taller and thinner asian man stands behind him in a security guard uniform looking shocked.

"I don't know what it all means," Broome notes in a hushed tone of voice, looking to the side to Eve, one corner of his mouth unmoving from the lateral paralysis.

"But we'll find out."


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