Participants:
| Scene Title | Abby's Choice |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Matt Parkman presents two options to Abigail Beauchamp regarding her ability, but ultimately she is the only one who can choose between them. |
| Date | May 17, 2010 |
Homesec at the door, awaiting orders from on high, St. Lukes is a busy hospital as it doubles as a place for shelter from the cold that lurks outside windows and plummeting each day just a little more. The sounds of feet, wheels, nurses talking in quiet tones, newspapers rustling, dripping of painkillers, antibiotics and other medicinal chemicals through tubing that eventually meets up with the younger blonde's arm. Half touched tray of food on the rolling side table, a few gossip rags that a nurse scrounged up for her and a few basic necessities for when she's up and heading for the bathroom.
Just waiting now, is what Abigail is doing, lots of praying. Praying that St. Lukes doesn't turn into what's left of her bar and that she can control whatever it was she turned into. The waiting done in a chair by the window, tanned legs sticking out from beneath hospital gown and a blanket, blue slipper covering one foot and toes, the other back in a brand spanking new air cast.
"You really know how to worry someone…" is the greeting from the doorway of Abby's room, and somewhere in that thoughtful silence, she'd missed the quiet sound of Matthew Parkman quietly opening the door. Looking a little under the weather and clearly stretched thin, Matt ambles on in thorugh the door with a thinness to his face that is uncharacteristic of his normal teddy-bear girth; maybe he literally is stretched too thin.
"You know," he adds with the remainder of a good natured smile, "you really need to make up your mind whether you want to be one of us or not." There's a lop-sided smile there, and Matt starts tugging off his gloves, the thick thermal texture of his arctic survival clothing making swishing noises as he walks to the bed, staring over it to where Abby sits in the chair, using it to give them a little distance.
"How you holding up?" is the first thing that doesn't have a tongue-in-cheek affect to it. "You're— you know— not looking so hot." Nevermind, it was a set up for a bad joke. At least he's trying to lighten things up.
"With lots of drugs, hospital food and wondering whether my insurance covers destruction by manifestation, truth be told. That and how I'm going to tell Richard that nope, it's not healing, we'll have to find him another healer." Leaning her head against the side of the chair's high back, she watches the thinning Homesec agent, with his greying hair with her own brand of concern in her eyes. "As for hot, well, she have seen me saturday. Smoking even"
She doesn't even crack a smile, just points with a lifted forefinger to another chair in the room, taking up the ottomon with her one foot. "So, the good news, is that one of the bodies in the bar, is Dreyfus. He didn't make it out alive. He's no longer going to be someone you guys need to watch out for. I don't know where Kozlow is though" A lift of thin shoulders through the blue patterned gown. "Good evening Mister Parkman"
Too tired to laugh, Matt makes his way over to the chair, but just leans against it with one elbow propped up on the back. "If I sit I don't think I'll get back up again," he offers in explanation, eyes moving from Abby's air cast upward to meet her eyes, watching her carefully. "Are you sure you don't know where Kozlow is? I know you had some… questionable arrangements made with him, Abby, and so help me if I find out you were actually hiding that man…"
Matt lifts a hand up and rubs it at his forehead tiredly. "Look, he's a terrible person. He's a murdering torturer and rapist. If you know where he is, please, for the sake of anyone else who might become his victim you should tell me."
"Questionable arrangement" Parkman was going to be mad at her. She could add his name to the list. Teo, possibly Liz, others in the group if they had told them. "I handed him over to John Logan. They were trying to find out from him where Dreyfus was and failing. He was sick with Evo flu, hurting himself and likely going to kill himself. I called John Logan, handed him over then phoned you. I figured you might be able to track him from there and that Logan could use his ability to get information from him where the others couldn't." Guilt is written across her face, she's never been one to lie to Parkman.
"Where he is from there, I don't know. Probably in the employ of the Linderman Group by now. You know how they are, putting leashes on murderers and thieves and making them productive members of society." She didn't know he had helped in the basement, too busy imploding. "I wanted them to hand him over to you when I found out they had him. Really, I did. Just…" A delicate hand reaches up to rub at her forehead. "What's right, isn't always fair" Echoing a sentiment shared between them before. "I swear on a stack of bibles that I don't know where he is now"
"Some people are looking into the Logan angle, but the weather's screwing everything up." Rubbing a hand over his face, Matt seems to be struggling with the weight of his job and the responsibilities it entails. "Abby, how… how did you get your ability back? From what I know Tyler Case is dead, I saw his body myself." Which confirms that the government has no idea that there were two Cases. "I know Case was involved with your ability disappearance the first time, but— but he's gone now, and then… then this?" Matt makes a motion to Abby, brows furrowed.
"If you want me to help you, you're going to have to be honest with me. Because if you aren't, I just… I don't know what I'll be able to do for you, to protect you." There's a furrow of Matt's brows as he slouches his weight against that chair more. "The blood work is positive, you have the SLC again. I need to know how."
"Sure you don't want to sit?"
That's warning enough from the blonde. "I was injected with a red liquid that comes from ten year in a future that doesn't exist anymore. Grant people abilities, safely, who don't have the SLC gene. Far as I know, it was the last vial that made it back and I was asked to take in the hopes that what I had before would have left an imprint on my DNA and give me healing. Desperate attempt for a desperate man. Trying to save a dying man"
There's another rise and fall of her shoulders and Abby shifts in her seat. "From the state of my bar, it's plain to see that Healing was not what the lord had in plan for me and I don't know what he's going to do now. Don't know what I'm going to do now. You and I both know that there are people with white suits and big guns that are collecting people with abilities. They came to my bar. I really don't want to end up going with them Matthew."
Matt's eyes go wide when Abby describes what she did, what is coursing through her veins, what empowered her. His breath hitches in his throat, and Matt doesn't sit, but instead leans forward and furrows his brows, a very obvious and intent expression of searching. There's an answer he's looking for, found as whispers and echoes inside of Abby's mind, skimming just the surface to see if what she's said is true or not. He has to be absolutely sure.
"No one— " Matt abortively states, looking to the door to Abby's room when he cuts himself off, then looks back to the blonde as he starts to clear the distance between the other chair and her. "Abby you have to listen to me very carefully," he states with a serious, imperitive tone. "Abby you cannot tell anyone else what you just told me, do you understand? Not Sarisa, not anyone. Those people you talked about, the Institute, if they found out what happened to you— Abby there'd be nothing I could do. They'd come for you and there would be nothing I could do to protect you."
For the first time since he saw Allen Rickham dying in front of him, Matt Parkman sounds afraid. "You have to trust me, Abby, you can't tell anyone. Not the Company, not anyone. If the Institute finds out that you— you had anything to do with the Formula…"
"Then what am I supposed to say? Another miracle? They did so many blood tests on me when I lost healing Matthew that there's no way it can be written off as faulty testing. I have to register, they found me in the ruins of my bar Matthew. I turned into fire and burned Dreyfus to ashes. Teo knows, Francois knows, the person who injected me, Liz and Richard know. They know where it came from. People don't spontaneously loose an ability, then gain it back."
Agitation chases around the edges and it's enough to make Abigail reach up and touch her forehead, try and calm down. Thank god Francois hadn't gone to Sarisa. "Everyone has to register. That's the new law. I have to register even if I wasn't evolved anymore. Not like this test they just did can be written off as faulty either"
She's talking sense and Matt is the one panicking, the lack of sleep has been getting to him, evidently. "The bloodwork from the hospital has only gone through my offices, I— " Matt furrows his brows, looking askance before settling his eyes back on Abby. "I can try and slide it under the rug. False positives happen, faulty test kits. There've been plenty of fires in the city since the cold snap, people with improper heating. I can cover this up for you, doctor up a blood sample to keep on record without the SLC. I told you…" Matt creases his lips into a frown, "I told you that I'd repay you for saving Allen when you did, and I meant it. But this is big, Abby, this could cost me my job."
Looking to the door, Matt comes over to Abby's chair, rests a hand down on the back of it and leans in to look at her, his voice quiet. "Which means if I go through with this, you're going to owe me. I don't know what, but something. But I don't want you to go to them, and I would rather take this risk than not. Do you think they'd let you work at your job, with the power you have?"
Was this worth risking his job? "I'm going to have to quit. At least until I could learn to control it. But no, I don't think they would. If ability's trigger from something simple as adrenaline, then I can't keep being a paramedic until I learn to control it. Not even with peter as my partner. Heavens, I can't even got hot and heavy with my boyfriend because I might burn him to a crisp. I don't know what to do Matthew and I don't know if I want you to risk your job. A favor, I could do that, would do that in a heartbeat for you, I trust you. But I don't know if I think this is worth your job"
She wasn't kidding when she told Francois it was a big barrel of worms, this whole thing. "I wish it had been healing, wouldn't be such a big deal but it's not. She pulls her good foot up, wrapping arms around that knee, resting her chin on it and looking uuuuuup at him. "If you were me? How can I hide this Matthew? I combusted. What if I do it in public? I'll hurt people and not intend to. It's not like the healing where, I say a prayer and…"
"You control it, you… you learn to control it however you can. Go to someone you trust that knows about abilities, I— I don't even know, Abby, but someone. Someone that you trust not to turn you in, or tell the wrong person something." Breathing in deeply, Matt looks to the room's door, then back to Abby. "If you blow in public, it's pretty much over either way. If you can't control what you do— Abby you've seen what happens to people who can't control their power, they go away."
The grave tone in Matt's voice is unplesant, but it's the truth. "I can offer to hide you, right now, but if you screw up— if you screw up you're going to have to go to ground. You know what I mean." There's an implication there, implicit, the Ferrymen.
Does she have someone to teach her to control it? Peter was a possibility. Gabriel. Would Gabriel teach her? Or would there really be a sunset meeting. Teo couldn't teach her, Francois.. She saw the look on his face before everything has gone to heat vision. "I can't screw up. I love the Ferrymen dearly, but.. I have the bar, what's left of it and I have my job. I love my job. It's my connection to.. healing people and to what I had. Where would you hide me? I need.. I don't.."
She rubs a palm over her face. "Do you trust me Matthew? It's your job on the line if… I can't do this. This is your life and your daughters and detective Damaris's" More than just herself is on the line if they go through with this. "This is not a matter of you making good on what you owe me. If you didn't owe me… would you still do this? Offer this?"
"Probably…" is all the answer Matt can give, his expression stony silence in the face of Kaydence's invocation and the mention of their girls. How much of a father has he even been lately, having left Molly in the care of the Petrellis? Matt leans up from the chair, looks away from Abby and takes a step away from her, a hand up to pinch fingers at the bridge of his nose. "It doesn't matter, I need an answer." There's a sharp look over Matt's shoulder to Abby before he turns around.
"Go underground, or let me help you." It's a difficult, almost impossible decision to have to make. "But I need you to make the decision before I leave this room, because you're either going to disappear once you walk out of this hospital, or you're going to have to keep a very large secret. Whether I trust you or not, whatever variables there are… none of that matters." Matt's brows crease together, nervously. "I need you to make a choice."
"I'll take your help"
She doesn't want to become a person who gets taken away by the institute. The look on the company agents faces when they'd seen the white van, and Darren's confusion. "I'll take your help. I'll find someone to help me control it." Impossible decision it may be, she's sure that with the help of her friends, she can do this. She'll figure out how to do it. "I'll owe you, more than you've ever owed me and I'll die trying to keep it from being learned what you've done Matthew"
There's tension in Matt's face when he takes his gloves back, tugs them on over his hands, "For both our sakes, Abby, I hope it never comes to that." Swallowing down a lump in his throat, Matt turns from the chairs and makes way around her bed and towards the door of the hospital room. He slows, though, turning to look up at her with furrowed brows and a guilty conscience. "If any of the nurses say anything strange, just… play along with it. I've got to go convince some people that their tests were faulty."
Matt takes in the blonde in thoughtful silence after that, then looks away, expression vacant and lost in thought before he turns his back to her, and makes his way out of the room and into the hall, leaving Abigail alone with the gravity of her choice.
He's got to go convince some people that the- oh. He's not the only one with a guilty conscience now. She looks away when he does with a soft nod, going back to resting her chin on her knee, reaching over to press the button for more painkillers. If only there was a button for negation drugs that could be delivered just like that, as if it was insulin.
"Thank you Matthew" Simple words with immense meaning behind them. In a few more days regardless, she'd be out of here. Who with, was up in the air and till then, she needed to stay calm. Going to ground, was not going to be an option and she until the rest of her medical leave to get it under control.
That wasn't very much time.