Participants:
| Scene Title | All Dressed Up With No Place To Go |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Claire and Helena meet up at a shop to discuss the state of Peter(s). |
| Date | December 5, 2008 |
A Boutique Somewhere
The meeting place is a familiar one. On rare occaisions, members of PARIAH - back in Cam's day - could actually indulge in having some facets of normal life. One of those, for one blonde and one former blonde, happens to be a series of clothing shops in the Village, where they would buy clothes, or more often, Claire would buy clothes, and Helena would borrow them. At the moment Hel's dressed down, jeans and a sweatshirt, hoodie thrown back as she contemplates a holiday dress. Not like she'll get to wear one this year.
"I can see some things never change," muses Claire behind her friend. Her black hoodie with a silvery tribal sort of screen print is zipped up tight, the large hood thrown over her head enough to hide her features a little from those who don't know her. Wanted terrorists are like that. She brushes her fingers over the fabric of the dress Helena's got her eye on. Beneath the draping of obscuring cotton, only Claire's grin is visible. "Blues and greens were always sort of my thing." Though not seen, Helena can almost feel the former cheerleader's gaze slide sidelong to regard the Phoenix leader. "Do you buy things you assume I'd buy for myself so you can feel like you're still borrowing from me?"
Helena rolls her eyes, unable to keep a grin from lighting her face. "I don't buy things at all these days. What's the point of being all dressed up with no place to go?" Still her gaze wanders to a few dresses, and taking a few moments, she snags a few, lacing the hangers into her fingers crooked over her shoulder. "C'mon." she says, tilting her head toward the dressing room. Helena's not so superficial as to just have Claire show for a bit of BFF time, and the changing room will give them a bit more privacy.
Claire snags a dress for herself - a conservative thing in grey - and hurries off after Helena. "That makes two of us." She snags a large dressing room - woe to anyone in a wheel chair that may wish to use it - and leans against the wall after locking the door behind herself and her friend. "The vote of confidence was appreciated. I wasn't too worried that you people," meaning Phoenix, "would really think I would do something like that." Meaning the high school and its unfortunate exploding not-accident.
Helena nods. "The new video's interesting." she says in a tone that suggests she's using mild wording. She looks for one of the available changing rooms, opting for a free corner set one - they're usually bigger, and have seating. Once Claire is ushered inside, she closes the door. "If I didn't know our good buddy Gabe and what he can do, I might have believed it. Are your people going to make any kind of statement about it?" It's not why she's here, but she's worried about those she left in PARIAH who she's known from the beginning. Differences of opinion don't mean you don't still care.
"You're pretty proud of yourself, aren't you?" Claire pulls back her hood and while she still looks amused, somehow, she also looks faintly annoyed. "It must be nice to be you. To always know you're the smartest person in the room. To always think you know better. Must be nice to have everything all figured out. Takes the mystery out of life, huh?" She doesn't really give Helena a chance to respond, however, already moving on to the next topic. "I don't think Karl feels like getting into a public pissing match with Sylar. It's not his style."
Helena blinks. To her, that came from left field. "God," she says, trying not to let her voice pitch into a whinge, "If there's one thing I'm not, it's proud. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing half the time, and I'm scared to death." Now it's her turn to look annoyed. "I'm worried about you." she says. "They keep saying you're all doing these horrible things, and no one's bothering to deny it. So excuse me if I give a shit about not wanting to see it get pinned on you guys."
"I'm no angel, Hel'." Claire tips her head down, peering from beneath the furrow of her brows. "I don't need to stand up and proclaim my innocence. Even if I'm not guilty of the crimes pinned to me, I'm certainly not innocent." She lowers her voice further, a hush, "I've killed people. Intentionally. I've got blood on my hands. What's a bit more?"
Helena sinks into one of the bench seats, staring at her hands. She's silent for a long time, not knowing what to say. Numbly she murmurs, "I need to talk to you about Peter. Did you know there are two of him? This is all going to sound crazy, but it's true. He's going to kill someone, maybe kill himself. I need your help."
"Two of him," Claire repeats flatly. "Did you get hit by your own hail stones or something? How can there be two of him?" She narrows her eyes, almost suspicious. Peter's no angel, either. He's worse than she is and they know it. But she understands it. Him. How could what Helena's saying possibly make any sense?
"One of my people can make replicas of himself." Helena begins, ignoring the insult. "Peter encountered him before Brian got all involved. End result, he split into two. Only something didn't go right. Brian's duplicates are exact replicas who are all him. No differences in personality. The two Peters are…well. There's yours, and there's a second one that works for the Company."
Claire makes a mental note on how Helena didn't say one Peter was hers. Either a mistake or… "All right. So there's two of him," she accepts with a tony suggesting she's only willing to run with this as a theory. "What do you want me to do?"
Helena sets her jaw. "The Brians have to re-combine if they stay away from each other too long, or they get really sick. The Peters are both experiencing the same problem. Have you seen all the pills he's taking?" She shakes her head. "PARIAH Peter is hates Company Peter and he wants to kill him. He killed one of the Brians as an experiment to see if the others survived, and when they did, he took it to mean he can kill the other. But the experiment was flawed from the start, there's only two of him and they're not exact. We can't let them kill each other, and we need to figure out a way to get them to recombine. I thought after Sylar attacked me maybe I could make them both see reason, but…" Helena shakes her head, mouth tightning, along with frustrated fists in her lap.
"I'll talk to him." Claire looks concerned, finally. She pulls her hood back up to hide her expression, though the fidgeting of her fingers suggest she's bothered by what she's just been told.
Helena shakes her head. "Talking won't do anything. The Peter with you guys has lied, he's killed in cold blood, he - he pushed his way into my mind to get information without asking. He will stop at nothing to kill the other Peter. Who's number one on his list, and Sylar's number two. He's been torturing people to get Sylar's attention. We have to figure out a way to fix this, because if we leave it to the Peters, it's going to end badly." She lifts her face to the other girl's. "Please help me figure out how to fix this?"
"What's he gonna do, Helena?" Claire spreads her arms out as if presenting an open target as well as her question, "Kill me? I can't do anything if I don't talk to him to figure out what I can do. I'll do my best to fix this. I promise."
"Don't let him convince you that killing the other Peter is the answer, okay?" Helena says, resigned to Claire's intentions. "His 'experiment'," Hel's expression is momentarily disgusted, "was flawed. Be careful. He can't kill you, but he can hurt you." Her gaze travels to the dresses they collected.
Claire nods slowly. "I'll be okay, Hel'. We both will be." She eyes the dress she picked out for herself before reaching for the lock with the intention of leaving the dressing room without actually trying anything on.
"Yeah." Helena's voice is quiet, diminished somehow. She too rises and grabs the dresses she'd selected. "Let me know how it goes. Or if we need to do some figuring out." She waits for Claire to undo the lock and adds, "Tell West I said hi, if you can without getting crap for it."
"I will. He asked me to do the same." Before Claire goes, she pulls Helena into a tight hug and plants a kiss at her temple. "Be careful." She then readjusts her hood and hurries out of the shop.
 December 5th: Doo Wa Ditty |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 December 5th: Choices and Chances |