Participants:
| Scene Title | Addendum |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Roles are reversed and Abigail's the one to ask for an extension on her life |
| Date | January 7, 2009 |
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine remains partially unfinished to this day, despite its construction having begun in 1892 - true to form for buildings of its type. Nonetheless, it is a grand and imposing sight; possessing the characteristic grand arches, pointed spires, and beautiful stained glass windows, including a large and striking Rose window. Where the walls aren't covered with old and meticulously preserved tapestries, they are often ornamented.
Guided tours are offered six days out of the week. Services are open to all. Since the bomb, the main nave is open at all but the latest hours, though the smaller subject-specific chapels close in the evening. The cathedral is also a site for major workshops, speakers, and musical events - most especially the free New Year's Eve concert, which has been held without fail each year since the bomb.
St. John's has long been a center for public outreach and civic service events, but since the bomb, those have become an even greater part of its daily affairs. Services include a men's shelter, a twice-weekly soup kitchen, walk-in counseling, and other programs besides. These are open to everyone - non-Evolved, unregistered Evolved, registered Evolved… the philosophy is that they're all children of God, and that's what matters.
Church is a busy place tonight! She's on the steps again, two cans of redbull beside her feet where she sits. The blue jacket zipped up, gloves on, toque on, nearly in the very same place that the man left her in. Save that she's a little more tired, and a little more pale that has nothing to do with fixing people up. One hand toys with the cross at her neck while she hums some nameless tune under her breath.
Hard not not think this is a trap of some kind, but eventually, a young man approaches Abigail, not one she's ever seen before. He can't be more than her age, with colouring similar to hers - gold-blonde hair rustles a little in the breeze, pale skin blemished with freckles, face angular and seemingly permanently sullen, as teenagers often are. He's tall but lanky, wearing clothing just a little too big for him, and he keeps his coat wrapped tightly around him from the cold as he approaches Abigail.
A glance over, a nod and then back down to her feet. hunker in, conserve heat. Her eyes closed and conserving energy as well. So much to do now. She's expecting him to come back as he was, not as some teenager. "Seems the light is swiftly fading, brighter scenes they do now show. I am standing by the river, Angels wait to take me home. Kiss me mother kiss your darlin`. See the pain upon my brow. While I`ll soon be with the angels. Fate has doomed my future now" The hear tin her chest thuds away slow, chugging along as someone would, not knowing who was near by.
"Fatalistic," Sylar says, in the thinner voice of the teenager, as he comes to stand in front of Abby several steps down. By now, it's night time, and streetlamps bounce artificial light off pale cheekbones, pale hair. His head tilts to the side, bird-like. "I wasn't sure if this was a trap or not," he explains, without any other kind of explanation. Like as to his identity. He's sure it will all come clear soon enough. "Why else would you possibly want to talk to me, Abigail?"
Abigail lifts her head, blinking at the teenager. Right, changes faces. "And a martyr, self righteous, judgemental, stupid, breave, naieve. Fatalistic. I'll add that on" She shifts her body, stretching a bit, get blood flowing. "What am I supposed to call you, when your a blonde teenager?" She's not getting to it, right now, and oddly enough, her hearts not skipping merrily to some fast song.
"I meant the prayer," Sylar says, with a shake of his head. "But I guess you are too." He pauses, and glances over his shoulder as if that would help any, then up towards the doorway. Silence as he waits. No one approaches. Slowly, he transforms, unwilling to shut his eyes as he normally does. Blonde hair becomes so dark it's almost black, defined eyebrows thickening, green-blue eyes switching to brown. Scrawny shoulders become broader, he fills his clothes a little better and in a matter of a few moments, he's himself again.
"You look better that way. Normal" There's a twitch of the woman. Tired and caffine. "They left. He's around here somewhere. He pops out, looks at me, and then disappears. He's keeping his word" Up Abigail stands, purse over shoulder, keys out, redbull's plucked up. "Come on. I need to be heading to work. You can walk to the scooter. No trap. I'm not that kind of person so don't worry" there's a gesture to the parking lot. "Somethings come up. And .. I need to ask you a favor, funny as that sounds" She looks over to him.
His hands tuck into his coat, Sylar simply studying her for a moment. The last time she'd made him promise something, it had come out of left field. Knocked him off-balance. He doesn't try to to guess as he steps off the stone-stairs and moves for the parking lot, not really following her and not leading either. "What kind of a favour?" he asks, voice far lower than that of the reedy teenage boy's.
"I'm needed, for something. I don't know what. I need the… amnesty that we have to be extended, 2 more weeks at least" Abigail looks over to him. 'What will it cost me?" Her steps are slow, she's taking her time and her Scooters out near the middle, alone and waiting for it's owner. "And it was a song, not a prayer. My mother used to sing it when I was little. I'm a fire and brimstone baptist as they call it" Walking through a parking lot. With a serial killer. At night. God.
Sylar foot falls are light against the pavement as he walks with the holy girl intent on deals with the devil. His head tilts a little at her words. "Two more weeks," he repeats, as if testing this request. He chuckles at her ask for what it should cost her. "There's nothing I need from you aside from your gift," he says. "Whether you give it to me or I take it in the end. Tell me why you want two more weeks." Everyone wants to live a little longer, but it's such a specific request.
"There is. You want the answer to why I need two weeks" Abby points out, one hand turning palm up towards him as to emphasis that point, her breath curling out into the air and dissipating fast.
Sylar snorts lightly. "I think you try to be a good woman, Abigail," he says. "God-fearing, altruistic, and all of those things people call you because they need reasons to justify why they aren't that way. But I think you're capable of lying when your life is in someone else's hands. Give me a better reason."
"I'm a crap lier. My mother didn't raise me to lie. They don't need to be like me. They're like how their supposed to be. Your how your supposed to be, and i'm.. i'm how i'm supposed to be. I hate swearing, men should always open doors for a woman and things happen for a reason. Claude smashed a brick upside your head, Officer Baxter through his flash.. thing, whatever. Heavens I hated that. Actually, I hated being shot. Not the whole getting shot, it's the whole hospital bill. Hospitals are not cheap." And she's going off on a tanget and realizes it. "Sorry. Tired. The point is, you said I was fatalistic, and I am. God has plans for me. He places me where does when he does for reasons. For better, or for worse. In two weeks, maybe, I have to be somewhere, and do what I do. I don't know exactly how, or why, or whether… i'll live. But I know, that I need to be there, and I need to be alive, or something bad will happen" She looks over at him again. "Bad that even you I don't think, could stop, or the blonde who doesn't like me who can stop time" She looks to 'lazarus' waiting in the parking lot.
Sylar listens. And he doesn't have to believe her, but he listens. There's a little bit of silence that falls between them. interrupted only by their slow footsteps towards the parking lot. "Two weeks," he repeats. In the same way he needed healing and couldn't wait the handful more days left until her deal with Wu-Long broke and he no longer had to honour the Chinaman he might well call friend, if he were feeling audacious, or generous depending. "You do put the fatal in fatalistic, you know," he mutters. He speaks in a clear tone as he continues with, "You can have that long, if you think it's going to make a difference. Then I'm going to have your ability. Do you believe I could do good with it?"
"I think it will. And if it doesn't, then I tried and I either live to have my fated rendevous with you and one of most beautiful things in the world, or I die trying. I'll let you know if it needs to be three weeks, but they think it will be two" She tucks a redbull under her arm, and pops the tab on a second. "think you'll do with it what God plans for you to do with it, whether you believe in him, or not. You'll walk into dens, but whether for the same reason I do, as I will have done… Who knows. Only you and Him will. It's not for me to judge. The others will, and that's fine, that's them. There's only three judges in our lives. There's the law. There's God. And then there's ourselves. No more, no less. Besides" She looks over again, blue eyes weary under the parking lot lights.
"With healing, you can only do good. Even if it's just to yourself. It will be just one of many other gifts that you've collected. Telekinetics, I hate that and I don't hate many things. You can chage a face, turn invisible sort of, you can take away pain, I like that by the way, and… you can take anothers gifts. I'm sure there's many more that we don't know about. But you also have restraint. and self preservation. Or you would have pinned me to a wall or held me up in the air, regardless of wu-long and taken it already. You have respect, when you choose it. Your a bad man, yes, you've taken many things from people, but, maybe what you've taken will some day do something that has a purpose. Heavens i'm rambling again" She passes over the left over redbull.
"Take that. You'll need it. It consumes you. Always go slow, keep caffine on hand, or something for energy. If you need to go fast, or you know you'll be using it, guzzle a few beforehand. I don't think you'll use it as often as I do, but I might as well pass on the little tricks right now. Skin to skin, more skin, more for it to pass through. You don't need to pray out loud. You can pray in your mind. He hears it all the same" Beside lazarus they come and she looks down on it. "tell wu, I don't like him for killing my first scooter. Who seriously throws bodies out a multiple storied buidling, onto a street?"
"Someone with the window open," Sylar answers flippantly, taking the energy drink from her. He doesn't argue with any of what she says, just files it away for later reflection, glancing towards her vehicle and stepping back. Somehow, he knows this is not an ability he can just take, every when every instinct within him is begging him to do exactly as she describes. Three times lucky, moments when he had had every intention to do as he does. He has enough superstition and God-fearing himself to believe that maybe it just can't work this way. God knows why he replicated Eileen's ability, and not, say, that of Jenny Childs'. God knows why he hungers. "I know about abilities consuming you," he says. "Healing's become you, or maybe you were just always like this. Even if it didn't, I guess I hope it changes me, Abigail." It's a simple truth, the kind that is hardest to state in plain words, but he does so anyway. Perhaps it the way she talks to him like she knows she'll die. What does it matter, in the end? "Mine changed me first. I'll tell Wu-Long you said so. About the scooter."
"Was it?" highly unlikely. "I call him a demon. He is to me. The darkness thing" She finishes the rest of her redbull, the caffine circling her system and kicking her heart up a bit. She unlocks the storage area to take out her helmet, pop her purse and the can in, lock it up and slide her helmet on over the toque. "Lazarus. Origional Vespa. Was scrap, and a friend brought him back to life for me. Exchange for keeping her from dying on the side of the road from foolishness" She smiles, at the memory of that morning, and the hangover which prompted her to have the audacity to name it that. "I was always like this. Even before I became his conduit, before I started laying on hands. "I won't know if it changes you. Whether it will change you Sylar" She swing a foot through the opening, sits down on it, hands on the handlebars, feet planted in the snow.
"I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of dying, I don't want to die. But we all die. I can run from it, but it'll catch up" There's a waver in her voice, not to be attributed to tiredness, but something else. "I hope he doesn't kill me. I'll die screaming" She looks over to Sylar, fear in the blue eyes and it's certainly not the kind he saw before. "I don't want to die screaming. Don't let him kill me Sylar. Don't let him waste that gift. I think you know what I mean. I have to go now. People need booze poured into their mouth by the Nun" She reaches up, wiping at an eye. "I really do enjoy this job. Both of them. I think you will too
And that makes Sylar's back stiffen, but he doesn't ask. He can guess fine. "He won't be the one to kill you," Sylar says. Assures. Promises. Pledges. Take it as you will, or none of those at all, but he sounds confident. The only person who leads Abby to Death's door is he. He opens his mouth to say more, maybe to ask, then decides against it. Just tilts his head in a way that suggests 'go', and moves to turn and walk away.
"You can't stop fate Sylar. Only meet it head on. I have to be there. It's been seen I think. Beyond that. We can only pray" She turns on the scooter though, the small engine putt putting to life. "Sylar" Abigail calls out over the noise. "You are a child of the universe. no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Read it! I still don't like you, but thank you, for your trust" and with that, sure that somewhere, there's wheels turning in the man she leaves behind in the parking lot, Lazarus carries his burden off to do gods work and send many a person into an alcoholic stupor.
 January 7th: Footservants and Family |
 January 7th: Famous Monsters |