When Tavisha Met Gillian

Participants:

gillian_icon.gif tavisha_icon.gif

Scene Title When Tavisha Met Gillian
Synopsis After some maneuvering, two "strangers" finally get to meet up.
Date February 23, 2009

Great Kills Library - Staten Island


A hazy sunset paints the sky through a mask of clouds, letting red and pink and orange light settle on the otherwise dull, aging walls of the coastal library, breathing life anew onto peeling paint and graffiti. Otherwise, it's desolate, with broken windows, a broken front door, trash on the ground amongst overgrown garden and lawn. Overdue demolition notices are still stuck to some surfaces, tattered and dirty from the elements by now. The smell of rain and water damage is heavy in the air, both outside the building, and in. But there's a graveyard majesty to it, the library dying in an almost graceful way, accepting its fate to rain, neglect, looters. And visitors.

Inside, it's dark, and nothing stirs. Except, a flurry of wings as a seabird with feathers of white, grey and brown, swoops in through an open window, flies over near empty shelves, and comes to land on the desk that hasn't been manned in almost a year and a half. There, the bird settles, and sets about preening his wings, uncaring of the strange environment in which he's found himself.

The bird is not the only visitor tonight.

Walking around on Staten Island near the hours of sunset isn't safe in this day and age. Not with the text warnings that came through on her phone. Especially not for a young woman. Wrapped in a warm coat and scarf in an attempt to fend off the cold, how she managed to get so deep onto Staten Island from the safety of her apartment in Chinatown likely means she's a few hundred dollars poorer than she'd been before, but in this case… Gillian considers the price worth it.

On foot now, she approaches the graveyard of a library, her boots heavy on the pavement. The coat she wears is too big for her, giving an illusion of a shorter man, rather than a young woman in the darkening streets. A bag hangs at her side, a carrier bag, and a cap holds down her hair and covers her ears with flaps.

"Fuck," she curses as she gets the door open. Looters made the job easier for her, but she still snagged her gloves on a piece of broken glass. A glove that she pulls off as she steps further inside. Not bleeding, at least. The fabric caught most of it. Before noticing the bird, she trips over a book.

Kneeling down, she picks it up, looking it over in the dark. Water damaged to the point where she's not sure she could even identify the text, she can't help but shake her head. It is this point she spots the bird. Birds have caused a mixed reaction in the past, but this one… "This place looks how I feel," she rasps out to it, before dropping the book down against the floor.

Beady eyes of the seabird evaluate Gillian as soon as she enters, and then lets out a low sounding squark at her rasping utterance, as if, perhaps, agreeing with her. When the book lands with a dusty thud onto ruined floor, the seabird takes flight, launching himself off the desk in a fan of feathers, flapping until he rises up, up towards the gaping mouth of a window and disappearing out towards darkening sky.

"I'm sorry to hear that," comes a voice - male, distinctive, familiar - from somewhere higher up. There's the creak of wood, heavy footsteps slowly making his way down a spiralling staircase that's long remained sturdy. Clad in black, an even more familiar touch, though unknowingly so, Tavisha ducks his head a little as if to catch sight of her sooner. In this location, Teo's advice as to shapeshifting proved needless, and he's kept his own face, cleanshaven for today - perhaps deliberately, self-consciously so, hair even combed.

A book in his hand, damaged by rain water, is held loosely and ignored as he comes to step down onto the level floor, looking her over with the wrong kind of recognition. She matches dreams, and a brief identity/gender crisis, but nothing else. But it's certainly enough. "Gillian?"

How does someone prepare for this moment? They don't.

Gillian hasn't seen him except once since the year changed. Even the voice takes her by surprise. Eyes are looking up at him as he ducks into sight, dark lips standing out on light skin, parted and revealing white teeth. For a moment, everything might sound a little louder in his mind. It isn't a surge. He's too far away for that. But it takes her a second to clamp it back down again. Teo warned her to keep it knotted. But she didn't know how she'd respond when she saw him finally. The strap of the carrier back is lifted over her head, leaving it there on the floor as she stands up and faces him.

"Gabriel," she says, voice tighter than it had been before, as if she needs to force out the word.

Talk. Use words. He doesn't know what's going on.

For a few moments she commands herself to do all that. For a few moments she struggles to find the words to say. There's even hints of vowels coming out of her mouth. Vowels, consenants, hints of a sentance, murmurs that cut off and never quite form into coherence.

And then she gives up on it.

Heavy steps carry her closer to him. The earflap-hat falls off to reveal dark hair, bangs that cover her forehead, nearly hanging in her eyes. The fact she has to look up helps keep that from happening. Look and reach. Her hands come up. One gloved, one not. The glove has also been dropped to the floor. Grasping at his coat, she pulls him down. The last time she did this, he nearly killed her. The knot may hold, but she's going to try to do it again. Even if the kiss doesn't last too long.

There's something expected about this, something natural, as if both Gillian and Tavisha were giving away to the path of least resistance, as water does, as natural elements do. Save for she has all the reasons in the world to do it, and he does not, as far as Tavisha is concerned. Her steps are not answered with his approach, standing tall and still as she moves forward with determination, her hands gripping his coat— he said she'd be strong— and pulling him down so that they can take advantage of each other's weaker situations in a kiss.

He allows it to happen, and he responds to his, hands drifting up to grip her arms in fervor he's not sure he feels, or can feel, and to make up for this, he ends it just as quickly. Brown eyes study her's of a lighter shade, the redness of her mouth, the sense of de ja vu not quite like true memory, something more instinctive, born of dreams made up from this. From touch.

"He…" Tavisha starts, loses momentum, tries again. "He said you'd call me that." It's not the only thing out of place. He smells different to the man Gillian knew. There's cigarette smoke in the fabric of his coat, and salt from the river brand of pirate lifestyle he's chosen, and the trace of alcohol tasted in the kiss they shared. The slightly softer way he looks at her, kind of lost and distant.

With the kiss broken, as short as it is, Gillian's hands stop gripping his coat quite as heavily, and she settles back on her heels. Eyes remain upward, her dark hair sliding away from her forehead on both sides. "You actually— you've been drinking." It seems to take her by surprise. The alcohol smell, the cigarette smell… all of it strikes her as far more familiar than he ever had. The hand without a glove reaches up to touch his face, lightly running over the clean shaven cheeks, the shape of his jaw. The longer she stands there with him, the less she needs to think about the knot. The shock is wearing away.

"I thought you died," she whispers in tight tones. "Maybe part of you did…" That's even softer, even more rasped, as her fingers fall away from a face that looks so similar, yet with small details that make it so different. The hand tightens on his coat, as if she's unwilling to let him get too far away.

"I'm sorry," she says, voice cracking a little. "I know you don't remember anything." Teo had said he remembered her somewhat. Somehow. A small piece remaining behind. "I just… after everything that's happened…" She trails off.

They probably shouldn't have kissed. Tavisha knows that. But like he was told, there is no precedent for this, there's no right way, wrong way, there's only blundering around in the dark for the right direction. So maybe shouldn't isn't the operative word. He settles a hand over the bony one clasping onto his jacket, anchoring him as if he might just fall away from her all over again.

Maybe part of you did. Gillian hasn't been privy to the brooding and reflection he's lost himself in for the past month or perhaps he would have asked, which part? The name Gabriel, the name Sylar, maybe he's just several different people and this new guy Tavisha is equal to all of them, as far as he's concerned. And this last part, everything that's happened, the look of apologetic incomprehension is accompanied by silence, hand settled on hers and head tilted down so he can study her face, so much detail available to him now, memorising it properly.

"It's okay," Tavisha offers, after a moment. They aren't empty words. It is okay, in the midst of all that isn't. The corner of his mouth attempts to share a smile with her, even if his gaze drops away again, out of unease perhaps. "Thanks for— coming. You didn't… you could have just kept going with me."

If he asked her opinion on should or shouldn't, he'd probably have a very different answer. Despite the apology, Gillian doesn't seem to have regretted the gesture. She doesn't try to re-enact it just yet, though, keeping her grip loose and her feet firmly on the floor. For now.

"You don't remember anything…" she muses softly. It doesn't sound like she's disappointed. Her heartbeat is steady, if a little fast. "I've been going on without you for… quite long enough." There's a hint in her voice. She knows he doesn't know this, that he doesn't understand all that they've been through. The simplist things he won't remember, and the horrible things he's forgotten. And everything else has been wiped away too.

"You used to say that you didn't know who you were when you were around me. So this isn't as different for me as might be for you." He didn't know who he was. She didn't know who he was. Except for certain things. Things that… Her hand continues to hold onto his coat, his hand over it.

"What have you been doing here? Since— since however far back you can remember?"

He used to say that? To Tavisha's ears, that sounds pathetically romantic, not realising exactly how literal the meaning is, even more ignorant than Gillian was at the time. "I think I'm relearning," he offers, sor tof a bittersweet thing to say. Relearning, adjusting, amending. Becoming someone— hopefully— different. Someone better. But maybe not the someone she wants, or even likes, or—

A brief sigh as he tries to halt that train of thought, the same that had been grinding along the same tracks ever since their minimalist exchange of text messages. The question is enough to ground him, meeting her gaze again. "The first day I remember is late January the 31st," he informs her, lightly. "I was injured, a man found me in the river. After— the bridge."

Where he, apparently, helped stop Armageddon. That gets glossed over. "He brought me back onto the island, had a doctor fix me, and after that…" An eyebrow lifts, a fleetingly amused smile. "I kind of stumbled around for a while, making mistakes. Making friends. Kind of. Money, too. Trying to figure out what to do next."

"The last time I saw you, the bridge was collapsing," Gillian says in the same softened tones, voice drawn out, almost to the point of breaking. "I fell in too. I'm not even sure how I managed to get to shore… I guess maybe your coat caught on something. Helped pull me ashore. It was ripped in a bunch of places." His coat. He made friends. He makes money. And he doesn't know what to do… Friends.

She hopes they're better than his last friends. Not that she knows much about them other than some of them helped him trick her, got her sister kidnapped and murdered. And helped start the end of the world.

"You have a place to stay?" she suddenly asks, voice losing some of the emotion that had drawn it out. The volume has even increased.

This last question is put on hold for a short moment, because— she was there? On the bridge? Tavisha's hand over her's tightens a little bit, just a fraction, why does that seem like it should be important. His memory reaches back into what it does remember, which isn't much for perfect recall, but—

You would have been wiser to stay with the other one - at least then you wouldn't be a slave to uncertainty, pale imitation of what you once were.

Perhaps, Eileen.

Tavisha loosens Gillian's hand from his coat, but doesn't release it, gives a rasping, quiet chuckle at the question. "A few places," he answers. What he's wearing is actually quite expensive, well-made, suits him nicely. He doesn't look much like a drifter, but then, these things could be gifts. "There's a place out on Swinburne Island I sometimes go, and the man who found me— " ever to be called Man Who Found Me rather than identified, it seems— "set me up with a room for when I need it. I'm just kind of around." He shakes his head as if to dismiss all of this as unimportant. "But I have so much to ask you, though, I don't even— know where I should start. I guess… is Gabriel my name? My real one."

While her hand leaves his coat, Gillian turns it around to grasp his hand back instead, keeping him from getting too far away. So many questions… many of which she's not sure she could answer if she tried. The spiral staircase that has survived the neglect and abuse gets a small glance and she nods to it, "Let's sit down. I'll answer your questions," she says, moving to step up onto one of the stairs so she can turn and sit. He's taller, so she aims to sit higher so they're at near the same eye-level.

"The first time we met was… you came to my apartment. You lived down the hall. You wanted some sugar for your coffee." She has to laugh a little, since she knows that had likely not been what he was after at all. "I don't know what was going on in your head, or what you planned for me then. But you introduced yourself as Gabriel."

The hand that tries to keep a hold on his doesn't let go, even if it shifts placement to be more comfortable. She keeps grasping. "I ended up coming to you with special problems, things I didn't feel I could tell anyone. And when I needed to leave my apartment— when I thought that my freedom was in danger… we left together. You moved us from our apartment building in Queens to an apartment in the Bronx. I got a job. You helped me… and… Have you painted the future yet?"

Settling on the dusty wood and concrete of the spiralling staircase, Tavisha lets his back rest against the railing so he can face her from where she's settled a step higher, and listens with all the attention of an eager student. On occasion, his gaze drifts from her's, but that's only because he's listening, his hand loosely tangled with her's, a lifeless if still warm, still present touch.

"The future?" is as good an answer as any, Tavisha looking back at her before giving a small and needless shake of his head. "No, I haven't done that yet. I might on accident now that I know about it," he adds with an almost shy twist of a smile, but it fades quickly, too much to think about derailing him into more unknown territory. Not really meaning to interrupt her story, he feels moved to add, "What do you mean— planned for you?"

"Yeah, the future…" Gillian says softly, letting her eyes drift down to where their hands are joined. There's a squeeze from her, even if there's nothing else from him. What he'd planned for her… "You were… involved with some people. You didn't know me. But I think you knew what they were after and you didn't tell me. But I also think you… kept them from me. I'm not sure. I never got to ask you when everything unravelled…" All the lies. She takes in a slow breath. This sounds terrible, even to her, but…

"One day I came home and you'd painted the future. Two men with the same face, fighting in a broken street. You wanted to stop him, but… there were two of him. Both powerful. As strong as you were… I didn't want you to fight him alone. So I offered to lend you my ability. To make you stronger. Strong enough to take them both on. You taught me how to use my ability."

There's a small pause. "This man— one man in two bodies… the reason he was so dangerous is because he's the one who destroyed our city, destroyed New York. Peter Petrelli."

A shiver of tension maybe can be detected through their joined hands, perhaps just from this vantage point. Something makes sense, something a little terrifying, and Tavisha severely wishes he had thought of it before this point in time, huffing out a breath of disbelief—

The shadow's mouth pulls into a sneer, but anger is clear in its eyes, burning resentment. "Killing must come so easy when you blow the city away when you don't even mean to," it says, a rough edge in its tone, sneer turning into a scowl, a flash of teeth in the dark. "That's what the name Peter Petrelli means. He's the one that ripped New York to pieces, not me, and all because he couldn't control that gift of his."

The shared memory— of himself— Tavisha looks back at Gillian. "I knew that. The name Peter Petrelli." His other hand gesture a little, at himself, shaking his head again a fraction. "I don't remember anything, but I have these… I don't know what they are. They're like voices. I think it's how I dreamed of you, and— they're like memories but they're not mine, if that makes sense. I don't know where they come from but— I remember me talking about that. About how Peter Petrelli destroyed the city, instead of me. I thought— I'm sorry, I don't know what I thought, I didn't interpret it right at first."

He's rambling, fingers shifting a little nervously in Gillian's clasp. He looks about ready to apologise again, for not making sense, but resists the urge, just lowers his gaze and waits for her to continue.

Something about his demenor seems to take make her expression soften quite a bit. "It's so strange, seeing you like this," Gillian admits, eyes scanning over his face, the other hand not grasping his reaching up to touch his cheek gently. "I've seen you like this before. But it was… few and far between. You came home late one night and you said you got a new ability. One that didn't work like you thought it was supposed to." There's a hesitation as she looks at her hand touching his. Maybe she shouldn't tell him. But it's one time she's seen him so… open.

"There was another time too… we had planned… after you fought Peter… to leave the city. To go away. To leave everything behind and just be… together. You were going to leave with me." It's stressed, that, because it's an important clarification. She genuinely believes he would have left with her. That they would have left together.

"Things didn't happen that way." And it sounds very much like she wishes they had. Like she thinks things would've been better if it were just the two of them. "Even before we said we'd leave together… I'd found out who you were. Sylar. The things that you'd done. I won't sugar coat it. You hurt people. You killed them. For their abilities, for your own freedom. Peter Petrelli might have destroyed New York, but to some people… you destroyed their world. On a smaller level."

Even as she says these things, she holds onto his hand, the one that touched his face dropping to grasp at the other side.

That first part is met with a little wariness, although Tavisha doesn't shift away from the touch to his face, perhaps trying to see if there's approval in her face. If this is okay, or close enough. If it will do. What she has to explain says that it might just be, especially when she speaks of them running away together, another thing that sounds romantic when it stands alone, outside of all the complicated, ugly context.

And speaking of ugly context, she'd known. There's no judgment really in Tavisha's gaze, a little bit of surprise that makes his eyes narrow beneath a serious brow as he looks up at her from her height ventage of half an inch, head resting back against the metal bars of the stair railing. His hand rests loose between her's both, slightly curled. "I did terrible things," he agrees, perhaps to show that he's aware of this truth, eyes unfocusing a little only to sharp, meet her eyes. "Teo said that I have an ability that makes me want to do that. Is that true?" Because that might explain why she finds him tolerable.

Maybe it will help him catch up too.

That makes things very, very complicated. Gillian can't help but look down at their hands while she ponders the most accurate way to answer the question. It requires a lot of background, and confessions she hadn't gotten to yet.

"My ability… it makes people stronger. People like you. People like us. I increase abilities. Until I found a way to control it, it just happened. Whenever anyone who could use an ability was around me. There was this kid in the library where I worked… he— I guess people could walk through him or something… but he was close to me and everything started to sink into the fucking floor. It was like he made the entire floor not… solid. And there were others too… with my help you could tear down an entire building with your power to move things."

As she talks about it, she makes sure the knot is carefully tied, whether he'd want to tug on it or not. Teo had asked her to control it, so she'll do her best.

"One of the last times I saw you… I kissed you, and I lost control of it." She pulls her hand away and pushes her bangs aside until he can see the healed scar on her forehead. The indent, the coloration, the scar will never heal more than that, most likely, but it's healed far more than an attack a few months ago should have been. "You almost killed me. But you stopped. I cut off the energy you were getting from me, and you stopped and left…" There's a pause, a hesitation. "I told you that I loved you." It might have had something to do with him controlling himself, she doesn't know. She had not mentioned that to Teo.

"After that… I saw you one more time before the bridge. You told me that my ability made something… happen. You described it as an addiction."

The disruption of scar tissue through pale skin catches Tavisha's attention as she unveils it, eyes going a little cold at the idea that he had tried to kill her and yet here she is, holding his hand, coming to rescue him, in a sense. She had told him that she loved him. "I haven't felt it," he says, now looking down from the scar, to her eyes. "An addiction, I mean. Not to kill, or for power." As for her's, he doesn't try to reach out to it, even if he did know her, her ability kept safe despite their proximity.

There's a question here, one he's not sure he should ask. As if it were none of his business, even when it is. Entirely. So Tavisha braces himself and keeps his face neutral, asking, "Did I love you?"

There's a small nod in response to his first part. Gillian may not understand all of what is going on with him, but it's likely she's glad he isn't trying to outright kill people… maybe he can live a normal life. Even with what she's been told. Even if this island isn't exactly the place he could live it. And… there's a lot of people who won't forget what he's done, even if he has.

The question, though, that takes a moment of her time. A serious expression keeping her eyes down. "We were on that bridge together… Everyone else I was with was there to save the whole fucking world." Everyone else. Teo wasn't on the bridge, but he could've been included in it.

"I was there to save you."

A deal made to keep him alive. A condition laid forth of his safety for her help. Would she have worked with them without something in it for her? It's hard to tell how things would be different if something was moved around.

"We only got to spend… less than a minute together. You went back to help someone. But not before you…"

It was a wonder she could hear him over the roar of fire, the after-burn of lightning. Such a whisper shouldn't have made it through, even with his proximity, not with all the sound around them. The bridge had already lost stability. Everything was ready to come crashing down around him. And still she could hear it…

"You told me you loved me. And then you told me to go."

She hadn't. She couldn't. She waited on the bridge for him. And that was when she fell in. It was also how she escaped capture by HomeSec.

There's silence apart from the distant whine of wind flooding through upstairs broken windows and holes in the walls, the sound of the ocean not very, very far away, and even more sound than that to Tavisha's ears. Guilt, now, can likely be detected, gaze lowered completely and half-focused on their joined hands.

"I wasn't sure if… this was a good idea," Tavisha finally states. "If maybe it would be better for either of us if we didn't— this. Because I don't remember you." Searches her gaze, now, for understanding or maybe for recognition of this thought process. Maybe she gets it, maybe she doesn't - after all, she kissed him. "I don't remember loving you. And everyone I've met…"

Head tilts a little, a resentful glance away, not an entirely fair gesture. "They all think it's for the best that everything stays forgotten. That I try again, be different to who I was. I get it. But every part of me thinks it's wrong."

There's also heartbeats, quiet breaths. Those are what she's most privy to, with her own normal hearing. As he looks down at their hands, Gillian watches his face, and she's still watching when he searched for her gaze. It's politness, silence from her while he explains his view on it. The only indictations she gives are minute. A increased heartrate for a second, a shaky breath that she takes in.

He doesn't remember loving her.

She knew. But there's a hint she may be about to say something. Darkened lips part, but the words never make it out when he glances away and speaks more. There's a slow inhale.

"Then it is wrong, Gabriel," she rasps out, voice tightened as she reaches up to touch his face, turning his glance back in her direction. "If you think it's wrong, then it is. You— you should be the one to decide what's right for you." Freedom. Personal or otherwise.

The hand reaches up to run through his hair, before ending up on the back of his neck, fingers tickling the shorter hairs there. "I don't want you to be the man you were before you met me, but I don't think you wanted to be that anymore either. Not with… with the things that you said." He didn't know who he was around her, but he still would've ran away with her. He could save the world, but he didn't know if he should.

"You said you dreamed about me. Something inside you still remembers. What do you dream when you dream about me?"

Tavisha's eyes slide close when her fingers comb through his hair, that touch of affection unexpected and welcome, opening his eyes again to regard her almost solemnly. If he had wanted to change, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it'd be okay again. He doesn't question this, desiring for now to believe it, although the question of right or wrong will inevitably resurface. Claude's smiling logic, you know I'm right, is a plague.

He can answer this question, at least. "I dream… it's hard to describe," he disclaims. "And sometimes it changes but some things stay the same. I saw what you looked like, mostly." Dark hair. Pale skin. And—

"The tattoos." He tilts his head, brings his hand up to push aside her hair, and lo— he touches his fingertips against the tiny treble clef marked into her skin, behind her ear, and can't help but flash a pleased smile. "Maybe you can tell me about mine, although— I think I get it anyway. And I remember the yin and yang symbol, the dr— " Ahem. For a moment, boyish guilt crosses his features. Dragon, what dragon. Moving on. "…and the clock, on your arm."

The dragon. "Did you see the biohazard symbol too?" Gillian asks with a grin that seems to have come out of nowhere. That's somewhere even more embarassing than the dragon, in her opinion… but she doesn't seem to have been bothered by it. She even leans ever so slightly into his hand. "Don't worry— I think most men I meet have those kinds of dreams about me." Something about his demeanor may have humored her.

On the step higher, she shifts so she can lean over her knees and even closer to him. If it weren't for the heavy layers of clothes, he might be getting an interesting sight of said dragon. Alas, the coat and heavy sweater means no cleavage.

"Do you want to have that kind of dream now?" Her voice is husky, her eyebrows even twitch upward. She's smirking at him. While she might actually be seriously offering such a thing, she seems to be doing it to see what he'd say. The embarassing has caused a small switch in gears.

A self-conscious, slightly disbelieving smile draws at his mouth, and he almost shies away from her, not exactly blushing— because amnesia or not, there are some things Sylar is just incapable of— but getting close to it as an equally self-conscious chuckle. "I saw the biohazard symbol," he informs her, bringing up a hand to rub at the back of his neck, where his skin still tingles from where she'd played with his hair.

Funny, how joking around and making him somewhat uncomfortable, if not unhappily so, makes it easier to divert into serious territory. As to whether he wants to have that kind of dream now, it's easier not to answer. Better to pose a question. "Maybe I should ask you what you want from this," he says, smile fading again. "If… I can work to get my memory back, or if you want to stay away or— start again. Which I'm not sure is fair. I like you, if that's— something."

The teasing humor fades a little, though not quite as much as it could have. Gillian's hand is still on his neck, so she reaches to find his fingers as he rubs at his own hair. It could be a difficult question to answer, but it isn't. "The reason I asked if you had a place to stay earlier… is because I don't. Not here. Not on Staten Island. I don't think I want to try and con another boat ride out of someone in the middle of the night either…"

Somewhere to stay…

"I would like to stay with you." She shifts her hand to toy with hair on the back of his neck, also serving to motion him a little closer, as she leans forward herself. "I left enough food and water to last the cat a couple days— before I'll have to go back and get him. But there's nothing really keeping me in Manhattan."

Uncertainty and the effort of thought makes Tavisha's brow lower a little. He's meant to be making sure she's safe. That she doesn't get tangled into the things he's tangled in. He owes Teo that much, to not let it stain the Italian's conscience. But he nods, after a moment. Swinburne Island might be out, not until he can talk to Jack, but—

"There's a place we can stay. While you're here." He's moved enough at her urging, an elbow propping himself up against a higher stair. "But it's… not safe on this island, I'm not sure if you should try to stay here for very long. Some neighbourhoods are worse than others but Manhattan is probably safer for you. Only reason I can't go there is I— owe some people. My life. And they're going to help me with my memories."

Problem is, Gillian gets herself in enough trouble when left to her own devises. Just ask Peter Petrelli and whoever had the missfortune of watching his cell a while ago. "I don't care. It's not safe anywhere, Gabriel," she insists, more than aware of what could happen if she's stopped on one of those road blocks and they don't believe her fake ID. Her tattoos are too defining of a characteristic that she's not willing to get rid of.

"The government's already looking for me. And I'm sure if anyone on this island knew what I could do… they'd probably want me for some reason of their own, too," she says, not even doubting that certain people would use her for what she can do. She already knows they would. She just wants to choose who gets to use her, and make sure she's getting something out of it.

"I don't think staying here is any more dangerous than staying on Manhattan for me." There's a shift of her hand, and she's touching his face again.

Gaze lowers, along with eyelashes, twin guilty fans of black as he moves a hand up to touch her wrist - not discouraging the touch, and not encouraging it either. It's a touch of: wait. Looks at her again, and with apology in his voice, he says, "My name is Tavisha. It's what I was called, and it's all I know. It's all that sounds right to me these days."

There's a mild hint of frustration in the way she exhales. Gillian must not think much of names when it comes to him. "So I guess you're not wanting me to call you by the name I know you ask." It's the only one that sounds right to her. There's a selfish moment where her hand starts to fall away. "Gabriel's the name I've always called you. Except with people who refused to believe you were anything besides… what they thought you were." And even then she used Gabriel much more often than Sylar. "I can't promise to call you by that name. Even if it's the one that feels right to you."

In certain moments, she'll probably fall back to the name that she knows him as. But… "But… I can call you Tavisha most of the time…" It's a compromise, one she seems a little reluctant to make. "Might be better for you to use an alias for me too. While we're here. Just incase."

"Sure," Tavisha says, not exactly meekly, but not about to argue. If she's making that allowance. The rift it represents is intimidating, he's not sure he can be Gabriel, and all that means to her, but— he can shrug it off, or maybe he can grow accustomed to it. Whatever the future is meant to hold. "I guess we have some things in common. But I learned how to shapeshift," Teo's word, not his, and it falls awkwardly into the sentence, "so if I need to go to Manhattan, I can. But on this island… as dangerous as it is, no authorities touch it."

Tavisha turns his face from her, eyes searching up towards the windows and though he doesn't get up to move yet, he adds, "It's going to get dark and cold quick. We should maybe get going. It's not too far but it's still a hike. I don't have a car or anything."

"I still don't have a bike," Gillian says with a grunt, an admission that she's not too happy about her lack of a bike. Of course she's talking about a motorbike of some kind, but he doesn't know that. She shifts to stand up with Tavisha beside her, stepping down the stairs. This means she's no longer molesting his face with her hands, but she keeps another hand on his for a few moments longer. "Let's get going. I've spent enough time freezing my ass off the last few months. I don't intend to do it again if I can help it."

There's that smirk again, as she looks over at him. "And if you're going to see my new tattoo, we'll need to be somewhere a lot warmer than this. Perferably somewhere private." With a bed?

Stepping down off the stairs with her, Tavisha lets an unstoppable smile flash in the thickening dark, another rasping, awkward chuckle. "It's a house," he says, and perhaps in return for all the physical attention she's given him, he lets a hand settle on the small of her back for the moment as they move for the broken in library doors. "It's not very good, water's working but there's no power. I guess if we're going to be staying there, it can be cleaned up some more. But it's warm." Hesitation, a glance, a twist in his step to face her briefly and showing a smile before he turns to lead her back out of the building with, "And private."

Outside, the sky's turned a deeper shade of purple and blue, the clouds making it a grimmer, dark grey cast, and he glances back at her and then up towards the library they've exited. He offers a hand, as he asks, "Why a library?"

Before leaving, Gillian retrieves her carrier bag and discarded gloves, but she doesn't bother to pick up any of the books, just the belongings she brought with her. The gloves are even pylled back on, as they make their way outside. Better to keep warm with. She's a New Yorker, but no one really likes the cold, right? "Until my whole life went to hell in a handbasket… I worked at a library. Brooklyn Central, in fact— one of the biggest libraries left in the city."

There's a small pause, before she looks away from the building and up at him. "You used to repair watches— time pieces. Back before… your life went to hell in a handbasket."

"Oh." So she was a librarian. "That would make sense," Tavisha says, leading them both away from the desolate building, away from the smooth if empty road towards a dirt trail, further towards the coast. "I'd like to know more about you," he says as they go, seeking out her hand to take, own hands bare but he can feel the warmth of her's through the fabric of the glove. "And then maybe, you can tell me more about me."

The journey is downhill, darker by the minute, and isolated, Tavisha proving to be an attentive listener along the way. He'd complained about relearning everything to Claude, but the man's answer had only been: so learn. So he learns, for the time he spends without memory, about being Gabriel Gray. And really, it's not so bad. It just might take some getting used to. And considering the fleeting promises thinly veiled between jokes at his expense and red-mouthed smiles, he's going to certainly try.


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February 23rd: Remington
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February 23rd: Konga's Gonna Kill You
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