Participants:
| Scene Title | 48 Hours |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Peyton of September 2010 returns from 1915 to February 2010 for an unexpected two days with a friend she thought she'd never see again. |
| Date | February 16, 2010 |
Wendy's Apartment
The smell of acrylic paint fills the air when Peyton Whitney surges into view, appearing like a spliced edit in an old film reel. Mud slides down the legs of her pants, drops off of her jacket, squeaks wetly under her boots. Her face is reddened, hair matted down with yellow-brown mud caked all over her clothing and spattered up her face, eyes are reddened and puffy, she's been crying.
The surroundings aren't immediately recognizable, pink neon light filtering in through the Venitian blinds of the windows, hardwood floors marred with paint just as much as they are now with mud. Canvas tarps are laid out on portions of the floor, and it's only when Peyton's eyes take in the sight of easels and canvas that it all starts to make a sudden, confusing sense.
There's a name on her lips, one hushed and warmly exhaled. In the kitchen, a glass clinks and clatters together, and stepping out from the kitchen doorway, there's a dark-haired woman who's all arms and legs, all elbows and knees, in a pair of flannel pajamas and a frumpy but thick sweater to keep out the winter cold. Steam rises up from the pair of tea mugs she has in her hand, one brow raised and full lips quirked into a smile.
"What?" Wendy Hunter offers with a bright smile.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
The shell-shocked (literally) clairvoyant stumbles back until knees bump into the side of an armchair, and Peyton ends up unceremoniously plopping down sideways, legs up and over the arm so her muddy boots dangle off the ground. "What… when am I?" she manages, staring at Wendy with wide dark eyes that immediately beginning to fill with tears at the unexpected sight of her late best friend.
"He … he said I could go home, but…" But this is not her home, nor is it the right time, if Wendy is here, alive. Somehow, Peyton has the presence of mind not to tell Wendy she can't be here — it is, after all, her apartment, so why shouldn't she be here? And if she's not in the present but the recent past, she isn't about to tell Wendy that she's going to be murdered — and soon.
Peyton brings a hand to the side of her head, where the blood has caked her hair. "Or am I dreaming?"
"Not dreaming. God no. I have stuff for you" There's two cups in the hand of the evo detector and she's not even flinching at the mess that Peyton is and will be making of her furniture. Someone warned her that peyton was coming. Or Wendy's got a piece of ass in the bedroom. "Uhhhh day after valentines day. I totally spent yesterday in the hospital beside Logan. That fucking nightmare thing, whatever it is? It landed him in the hospital. I was home to get some rest, here, this is for you"
Wendy nearly vibrates over, offering the hot tea. "Fuck, you go trampling through a battlefield? Hiro said that you'd be a mess, but I didn't think he'd mean literal" She shakes her head. 'I think you might have some shit here, if not, I got stuff you can wear while I have your shit sent out to be cleaned" She's oblivious to her impending death within the month.
Wendy leans in a bit, waggling the cup. "When are you from"
Pulling herself up, and swinging her legs around into a proper sitting position, Peyton manages to take the tea without spilling it — the fact Wendy has a cup of hot tea in her hands as well keeps Peyton from throwing her arms around her friend. She stares at her, trying to fill up on the girl's big eyes and lanky limbs and dark hair and angles that she's missed so much for the past several months. Her eyes fill with tears again, and she drops them, looking into her tea.
"Yeah, a battlefield. 1915. Did he … what did he tell you? I'm afraid to talk about stuff since I don't know what you're supposed to know or … God, it's so confusing," she whimpers. "You know Hiro? did you know him before this?"
'I've known him like, ten minutes? Maybe a bit more? I wake up and there's this asian guy in my fucking bedroom. Fuckign Creepy, made me wonder how long he'd been standing there right." Wendy just drops into a crossed leg. She's not off the Refrain yet. The conscious decision to cut herself off is soon, real soon. "I'm ready to get a fuckign gun and he's suddenly talking about being a time traveler, that's his ability. And it is, you know me right?" One arm is flung out as if she was touching someone.
"Never met one. It's like.. it's like time just stood still you know right? So anyways. He says that he needed to drop you off for a couple days, that he had something for you I was to give you. You'd been through a really shit time and that you could use, you know, a little TLC from your bestest friend. Of course, the strings being that… there might be a little danger but not to worry and that Odds are, once your gone, I'm pretty much not going to remember that you visited. SO I figure you're like, from a couple years in the future or something, gawd, you aged really welll pey"
Brows knitting under her wet bans, Peyton stares at Wendy, trying not to cry at the mere sight of her friend, her friend so willing to deal with the possibility of danger to help her, without even knowing what danger Peyton had been in or might bring her way. She sets the tea down and moves toward Wendy to hug her, but stopping short when she realizes she is still wet and muddy with half of the French countryside weighing down her gray peacoat and jeans.
"Thank you," she breathes in gratitude to Wendy, though she wonders if Hiro endangered Wendy because she is already slated to die and soon. She pushes the nagging thought away. "I would love a shower and clean clothes. I can't remember what it's like to be warm and dry."
"Well, Peyton, my friend, let me be your fairy godmother, and lets get you all sorted, cause the sooner you remember dry and shit, and warm, right, I can change out of my own clothes and the housekeeper is totally going to bitch me out for the mud but she can go fuck herself" Wendy grins wickedly. "Besides, i'll just tack on some extra for the work. Now get your ass back to the bathrooms pey, for christ sake, before you muddy up the rest of my place!" Wendy points to the hallway, down towards the bathroom. So pristine and unmarred by soot and ash, or any blood.
An uncertain smile finally turns Peyton's mouth upward, Wendy's effervescence breaking through the fog and fear a little — but only for a moment. She isn't sure why Hiro brought her here, except perhaps to make up for the problems Rhys' misinformation had caused her. She nods, moving toward the hallway before pausing to look over her shoulder. Part of her is afraid to let Wendy out of her sight. Knowing she has found her just to lose her again makes her swallow back the lump in her throat and blink back the tears.
"I… you said Hiro left something for me?" she asks.
"Yeah, some little paper crane. I was totally a nosey nelly and read it. Go get clean or I won't give it to you." Her tea put down, Wendy makes shooing motions before physically walking over and placing her hands on her friends back and duckwalking her towards the bathroom, regardless of the mud. "Get thee to the shower mudwoman! Does this look like a fucking spa pey?"
Once she's in the bathroom, Peyton stares at her muddy, bloody visage in the mirror with shock, before reaching to turn on the shower, letting it warm up while she peels the layers of clothing off her body. The ruined Loboutin boots, the saturated jeans, the coat, the shirt beneath. She's soaked through to the skin from knee to waist on account of falling in so many puddles.
Once she is in the shower, she lets the hot water pound down on her — it hurts, the pressure of the water on her split temple, and the shampoo stings to the point it brings tears to her eyes. If it weren't for her limited time with Wendy, she would stay there for an hour, if the hot water lasted, but instead she only spends fifteen minutes — it takes that long to shampoo the mud and blood out of her hair.
When Peyton emerges she wraps a towel turban-style around her hair and dries herself off, before wrapping herself in a robe left on the hook. The pile of muddy clothes is left behind for now — she'll just have to throw them all away — and she pads out into the hall in search of Wendy once more. "Crane?"
In the kitchen making breakfast. Wendy the artist in clay, painting and food. With what warning she had about her friend and her needs, Wendy had been getting busy. "The counter peeeeyyyyyy" And there it is, parked atop a bottle of paint, pristine white and waiting to be unfolded with a message contained within.
The waffle iron is working heavy duty and there's fresh fruit being cut up, ready to be applied to waffles for her friend. "Seriously, do you know what it's like to touch that Hiro guy? Little chubby asian, I feel like… like.." Wendy waves her spatula around. "Like not deja vu but like, time just stopped. I dunno, hard to explain, that is totally going down in my books. I think I have some OJ and champagne, we can totally have Mimosa's. For the next two days, you Peypey are being treated like a fucking queen"
"I… I think I kinda know what that's like," Peyton murmurs, remembering the moment that Hiro and Rhys appeared and the world stopped, the sudden silence almost deafening with its absence of the sound of rain or gunfire, the way the water paused mid stream in the puddles and fall of raindrops.
She reaches for the crane, unfolding it before slipping onto one of the bar stools at the counter to read it. It's not a long message, but its contents make her breath catch in her throat.
You have two days. Don't squander them. Winslow knows where to find you. Please trust me. - Hiro.
Trust him? It's not him she doesn't trust but herself. She hadn't done what they asked — she hadn't kept Thomas Zarek safe, and it was all almost ruined because of her. And now, there are "ripples," now Winslow is involved, and she has to do something else that she isn't sure she'll be capable of.
Her eyes close and she shakes her head. "I can't even begin to understand all of this, Wendy. I'm sorry he brought you into it, though I'm glad to be here, if I need to crash anywhere for a couple of days. Be sure I don't … run into myself or anything. I can't remember if I saw you around this time or not but if I call or if I come over — don't mention me to me."
That is the most ridiculous thing she's ever said. "God. Do you have something for my head? Tylenol?"
"alllllready done, I called you and told you that my family was in town and that probably best if you didn't show up because I would be busy doing Work shit. Like you know, the work shit. You won't be coming around, you're not that interested in subjecting yourself ot my family" The spatula is put down so she can rummage around and dig out a myriad of drugs leading from the over the counters to the more stronger like vicodin and percocet.
'Don't be sorry he brought you here. You must like, really need me if he dropped you here instead of your shadow friend or like…" or… "Aaron" Angsty Aaron. "So seriously, when are you from and if you say from ten years, I am totally going to throw this waffle at you and ask you who did your fucking plastic surgery that you look so fuckign fierce"
"If it's February — shadow friend wouldn't be able to help much," Peyton murmurs, frowning as she remembers the darkness, both literal and metaphorical, of last winter, the winter that seemed never to end. They had thought things couldn't be any worse, but November now looms ahead of her, darker yet, if warmer.
She shakes her head and looks at the various bottles — if she has two days, taking a Percocet shouldn't hurt, but she's afraid to lose any of her already fuzzy brain capability to the medicine. She knows she's likely suffering from a mild concussion that she just hasn't had the time to think about until now.
Uncapping the Advil she shakes out four, popping them in her mouth and swallowing them dry. "I'm not that far from now. Just a few months," she answers honestly, thinking perhaps it will limit the number of questions Wendy will ask about herself. The less she has to lie, the better. "Not much has changed," which is a lie, everything has changed, at least for Wendy Hunter. "Just crazy time travel villains to foil."
"God. Lemme guess, you fell into this all thanks to your friends" You know, the ones that Wendy never much cared for too much because she thought they were using Peyton. Only Wendy never really knew it wasn't those people that Peyton hung around. "Soooo, since he's totally gonna likely just zip, wipe it all away, what happend Pey?"
She's not interested in the future. More the past and how her friend came to be muddy and in her livingroom. A waffle is ready, hot and golden brown and with great carefulness, she's slipping the spatula into a channel and popping it out so that she can lay it on a plate and bring it over to Peyton. The plate slid to sit in front of her friend, thin brows crinkle and she takes in the now clean appearance of the woman in front of her. "Fuck pey" She admonishes softly, reaching out to get a look at the cut. Her turn to worry and fuss. "You been through the ringer. I might have stuff for your head, if not, there's a doctor like a floor down that I can have him come up and stitch your head"
Only once the food is in front of her does Peyton realize how long it's been since she's eaten, and her stomach growls out in anticipation. "Thanks," she says softly, then shakes her head. "No… I don't think I should see anyone else, besides you, while I'm here. I'll be okay. And no, I don't think it has anything to do with my friends. I mean, some of them are getting pulled into it too, but it's not like they talked me into it," Peyton murmurs.
She picks up a fork and cuts a bite-sized square of waffle with it. "Apparently some bad people are trying to screw with the past. Hiro and this kid go and recruit people to stop them, I guess? It has nothing to do with Cardinal or anyone, though I guess he's supposed to go back, too." Her brows furrow with worry at that — she hadn't realized how dangerous her task would be. It makes her worry all the more for his.
"Yeah, he was pretty vague about shit. Need to know and I didn't need to know"
@Wendy's pouring batter into the iron again, setting about to making some more. "Sounds to me like it is involving a bunch of your friends. But hopefully, they're doing shit, or who knows what will change right? Like right now, I guess if I remembered that you were here, that might fuck up who knows what right? Fuck"
Wendy closes the lid to the iron with a thud, letting the batter cook, leaning over to rest elbows on the counter and regard her battered friend - pun not intended. "Time travel makes my head hurt. that must be a shitty ability"
"It makes my head hurt too," Peyton says softly. The rifle butt to her temple doesn't help matters. "It's not my friends who are doing it; it just happens to involve some of them, I guess. I would guess it involves other people, too. I mean, the only person I know who also has been asked to go back is Richard. It might be just us, I don't know. But it's being done to us, not because of us."
She takes another bite of waffle and fruit, chewing thoughtfully. "Let's not talk about it — I don't understand it and I probably totally screwed everything up. He said there were 'ripples,' which is why I guess I'm here and not… you know. Home."
"More to do. that's what I figured, from the crane. But, you're here, for two days, and I have the local takeout on speed dial, fresh netflix, and…. we don't have to leave the condo. Fuck, if it gets bad, we can just go hit up a hotel and get a penthouse and just … hide out there. You're bad guys wouldn't find us there at all!" So positive.
The waffle iron beeps out it's displeasure at still holding the waffles which just finished and she turns to deal with that.
"Don't be so sure," Peyton says, less sanguine in her outlook on the time villains. "They were able to find someone in the middle of World War I in France in a trench, Wendy. And Hiro could find you, knew to bring me to you. I don't know how it works, but … I guess if you have all the time in the world, it's easier to find what you need."
Peyton takes another few bites of waffle before pushing it away. "Movies and food and you are what I need though, so I'm glad he did find you. I could use a nap for a few hours first, I think, though. I'm exhausted." Peyton doesn't want to spend the time with Wendy sleeping, but she knows she'll be of no use to Hiro and to Winslow if she doesn't get her rest.
'Eat up, stuff your face, after that you and me can bed down in my room, I can turn on the television in there and it can be like a sleepover" Wendy grins, almost showing her back teeth, her full lips wide. "Tell you what, after you had some sleep, we can get fucking messy again and go paint a wall in one of the rooms. Whatever the hell we want." Not like it couldn't be painted over. "Deal?"
"Deal," Peyton agrees, stabbing some more fruit with her fork for another bite, before picking up her plate to bring to the sink. "Thanks. This means a lot, Wendy. Thanks for putting me up— I mean, I know you would no matter what, but it still… it's really nice of you." She sets the plate down and turns to hug Wendy tightly. "You're a great friend, you know." Something she hadn't said enough in the time they had together — maybe she can make up for some lost opportunities now.
"Nah, not the greatest. But I'm good enough. now eat up, i'll make some more for later because you look starved Pey" Wendy smiles, she's been smiling like this ever since her friend appeared. "I'll go turn down the bed and get things ready. The world can go fuck itself for the rest of the day"
Disentangling herself from Wendy's lanky body, Peyton laughs. "Said the kettle to the pot," she teases, Wendy's slender body much skinnier than her own. "I'll eat more later. Right now I just need to sleep — and hopefully not dream about anything related to mud, rain, rifles, or time travel." That is probably too much to ask — but the sleep will be deep and healing in Wendy's warm bed, the sound of the television a quiet audio reminder that she is in the modern world and, for the moment, safe.