Participants:
| Scene Title | Before You Say Anything |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Magnes comes to tell Abby what he learned and tries to be a better friend. |
| Date | March 30, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building - Abby and Alexander's Apartment
An average middle class apartment, it's populated with decidedly not middle class furniture. A solitary red suede couch occupies the immediate living room, with a battered coffee table and side tables as it's companion. A decent sized TV sits on a cupboard with a stereo, DVD player. The kitchen sports a relic from the 70's, with matching chairs that still seem to be in decent condition. The two bedrooms off the hall are distinguishable from the other, one bearing a gold cross nailed above the door, the other not.
In the corner of the living room is an ornate cage on a bird stand, a blue budgie within it's depths. In another corner is a massive cat tree house, and often occupied by a black cat with a red suede collar. It looks barely lived in, like the owners are not yet investing their effort quite yet to move in.
It's still a bit early in the afternoon, and while he was going to visit Abby the night before, he was a total wreck, not to mention exhausted, so Magnes simply went home and passed out. Now he's at Abby's door, not wanting to freak her out by showing up at the window or something, and simply knocks. "Panucci's Cinnamon Rolls." he announces in his work-voice, which is a lot like his normal voice, but louder.
There's a list of people who are allowed into the building up to Abby's place. Magnes it seems, is one of them. Pannuci's cinnamon Buns? That draws Abby away from the couch and the history books laid out there that she was studying, towards the door. Pyjama pants, ratty t-shirt that proudly proclaims 'Renwed Hope summer camp 04' in a faded yellow on grey t-shirt. pink flannel bathrobe open with it's ties dangling at the sides, she's dressed for staying in this morning since she's got no class, a pencil tucked behind her ear and a bottle of white out in her hand as she peeks through the spyhole. Magnes. No need for a nightchain or anything on, Abby just unlocks it all, opening the door a crack. She's almost back to her weight, thank you Sonny.
"Hey, Abby. Before you say anything, I just need to say—" Magnes seems serious, yet a bit more at ease than the last time they spoke, his eyes going to the bathrobe a few times even though she's got plenty of clothing on, then he bashfully averts his eyes to the door frame. "I learned a lot on my trip, I saw history, I saw what could have been you, what could have been me, though not literally, just, in Hiro's life. I saw Ando die, I'd never seen anyone die like that, and Sylar did it. Then I we sat outside of the diner, the one where Sylar kills Hiro's girlfriend in the comic, but it was very real, and I saw him sitting there, not able to do anything. Aside from any lessons I learned about myself, the most important thing I learned is that it could be worse, you could be worse than hurt, you could be gone completely. I'm not going to be your bodyguard, but I'm still going to be there when you need me. I'm not going to stop feeling the way I do about you any time soon, but I don't expect you to be anything but my friend right now. And, I really like your rolls." He holds out the empty container, smiling. "You can talk now."
Holy crap, that's the most she's ever heard him talk in one breath, she's pretty sure. There's no blush at being seen in what she's wearing, even when he turns his face away. She's wearing a bathrobe. She doesn't own a sexy piece of anything in the PJ section or less. The door's opened further so that Magnes can come in once he's given her permission to speak. She's still in a little bit of shock, but not so much that she doesn't give a look behind him to make sure there's no company agents lurking about before it's closed behind him and locked.
Magnes rolls into the apartment, then sits the container on the coffee table and takes a seat on the couch. He bends down, unstrapping his skates, then removes the wheels from the sneaker part, since he's pretty sure Abby doesn't want someone rolling around her apartment. "I was at Kirby Plaza, back in 2006, last night. I saw what happened seconds before the explosion."
"He'd said he was going to talk with you, had already talked.. with you" So Hiro brought Magnes through time with him. Thank you Magnes for taking off your skates, theres a gesture for his shoes to be taken off as well, as evidenced by the line up of shoes behind the door along the wall. 'Are you going to stop walking around and telling people that your hunting criminals and going to deal justice?"
Magnes nods at her question, undoing his sneakers, then realizes he's wearing Spider-Man socks and drops to his knees on the floor, trying to hide them behind his body. He's blushing, and staring at his sneakers, trying to think of a safe way out of this situation. "Um, what if I told you I had medical socks that looked suspiciously like nerd socks but it's a complete coincidence?"
"They're spider man socks Magnes. I have ones with rainbow stripes. So you came to tell me, about what you learned from Hiro and your excursion?"Back to her books she goes, the couch, history book brought into her lap. A tall glass with some swamp sludge in it as well which she takes a mouthful and gives a few chews before swallowing.
Magnes takes his shoes and the wheels over to the others, then walks back over to sit on the couch. He stays a good foot or so away from her though. "I learned that it's not all about me, it's about the people around me too, it's especially about them. And I don't want to become Ando, and make anyone suffer the way Hiro suffers. He told me a lot of other things too, how things are connected, the bigger picture, destiny…"
"It's always more than just us. Everything connected" Abby answers. "Your not Ando" whomever Ando is. "So" She looks over at Magnes. "More sensible Magnes? No running around in white knight mode, trying to protect everyone from everything?" Her voice is soft, gentle, same goes for her eyes. "Besides Hiro, have you talked to anyone, about what happened to you?"
"At the cage?" Magnes asks, looking down at himself with a deep sigh. "I've told people about it, but I've never really talked about it, I've never told anyone everything, or what I was thinking entirely, feeling." He rubs his hands over his abdomen, wincing slightly. "There aren't any wounds anymore, but I can still feel them, all over my body. It's like, they're there, but not there, I've never told anyone that."
"I can give you the name of the woman I see. A friend who's a doctor, pointed me at her. She's helping. It's hard, but she's helping. Probably have post traumatic stress just.. differently" Abigail looks down to where he holds his hand, a flicker of a frown. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, at the tattoo parlor. Things are just.. hard right now"
"I'm sorry I got crazy at the tattoo parlor, the thought of someone hurting you, just…" Magnes frowns, looking up at the coffee table. "Well, you know how it is. But, Hiro really helped, I'm past that, now I'm just gonna be here for you like I always have." He turns his head to look at her face, then his eyes look at her hair. "Holy Mary-Jane Watson!"
"She has red hair?" No more white knight syndrome. Thank the good lord. "I needed change, I need to… hide, from everything. Or so Dr. Yee says. But that change, is good so long as it's not something drastic" You know, like a tattoo. She had yet to tell the psychologist about the tattoo. More green sludge consumed. "Now you see why we don't like… telling what others can do. How if you let slip that Xiulan does what she does, it could be disastrous for her"
"Yeah, she's a red head. This is pretty crazy, like, my heart is pounding here. I like you as a blonde too, of course, but it's like seeing you from a different perspective." Magnes explains, eyes still fixed on her hair. His fingers are eagerly tapping his thighs, apparently quite impressed with the change. "And yeah, I understand, I plan to try and stay more secretive. You'd think I'd have learned this lesson from comics, but that's the one place I decided to actually /not/ take a lesson from. Man, you have no idea how surreal it was, sitting outside the diner with Hiro, knowing that girl he cared about was getting killed at that moment. It really felt like you in there, I understand how dangerous Sylar is now, even if I do still believe he's redeemable."
Maybe Hiro did get through to him. "No more believing your a comic book super hero? That the world operates on that same … mode of thinking? That real life is different from that" Abby slides her book to the side, easing off the couch. 'I have more cinnamon buns. You need to do something with your hands, and I'm hungry"
"Yeah, no more of that. He was telling me that some of my ideas might be wrong too, like Nathan Petrelli might not be the evil person I assume he is. He says that everything usually comes back to Linderman." Magnes continues explaining, then licks his lips at the thought of cinnamon buns. He pauses for a moment, and suddenly stands up with an excited expression. "Hey, why don't I make you a pizza? Or pasta or something. Pizza's not all I can make you know."
"I am fresh out of dough Magnes, but I have some pasta and stuff to go with it" Abigail regards him, carefully. "Magnes, I killed someone. I had good reason. That time, that I asked you to look after my place, and the animals. How does that fit into your view of me. Of people?"
Magnes eyes widen a bit, but he quickly calms before saying a word about his initial reaction, walking to the kitchen with her, but careful not to actually touch her. "I was willing to forgive Sylar, and he kills as a lifestyle choice. You're, you. I look at you and wanna be like you, hell, I've been wanting to go to church lately, but I don't know how to start. If you killed someone, one person, for a good reason, you, someone who genuinely believes in God and Hell, I'd be willing to believe it was a damned good reason. You're still my Abby, this doesn't change anything, I always knew you had secrets."
"I never had secrets, not till I come to New York and even then, just these last half a year. Only my gift. and i'm not your Abby Magnes. I'm Abby I belong to no one" Pasta, she pulls out a bunch of different kinds from under a cupboard, the kitchen the only place that's really fully unpacked. "There's vegetables in the crisper sauce in the cupboard" She's not elaborating on who she killed and why. Some people don't even consider it having killed since there was no body. Don't you need a body to kill? There's a pause though, as she's turning to tell him that she's going to back to her books, and there's that other container, empty, with a note on the top beside Magnes's empty cinnamon bun container.
"That's not what I mean." Magnes defends with a slight frown, forgetting how easy it is to walk into these awkward conversations with her. "I mean my Abby as in, the Abby that I know. Abby from another dimension wouldn't be my Abby, she's totally different. What I mean is, it's a figure of speech." He could have cut out most of that and just said the last part, but he feels compelled to explain himself. Then there's the container, and the note, and he points to it. "What's that?"
Oh. That my Abby. Okay, she understands that now. Tucking an errant curl of red, really more blonde than red but still red, she picks up the folded note on top of the container, slender fingers unfolding the crease and reading. "Mr. Nakamura. Thanking me for the Cinnamon Buns I gave him. Lordy, he ate through eight of them already?" The note is passed to Magnes if he wants to read it. "I need to study Magnes, your welcome to stay, till I have my appointment with Dr. Yee. Make pasta. I have work afterward"
"He really loved them on the trip." Magnes points out, taking the note in one hand to read it as he looks around. "You have any flour?" he asks, apparently having completely homemade pasta in mind. "If not, I can just use the stick pasta."
You say, "Uh, bottom cupboard. All purpose and there's cake flour" alas no Semolina or Duram flour for pasta making. "I'll go back to studying Magnes. Call out if you need to find anything else" He's not using the stuff she already has, that's interesting, to say the least. Back towards the couch, a small smile on her face that both Magnes and the time manipulator liked her cinnamon buns. Not like there wasn't about five more big containers ready to take to church tomorrow. "Your not living above Panucci's anymore""
"I'm not, I'm living with Elvis in Staten, the girl who says she's your sister. She has a really large house, so I'm helping her fix it up. She says she hates being in one place, so if she leaves, I'll probably move again." Magnes answers as he starts preparing things, grabbing measuring cups and a pot. He can do something with that flour. "Oh, there's something else I wanted to ask. I really wanna start going to church, but I don't know how to start. Can you help me out?"
"What religion do your parents believe in?" Elvis is living on Staten Island. Well, that's someone she won't be visiting anytime soon but she needed to see how she was at least. Back on the couch she curls, feet tucked under and the text book with highlighter once more on her lap as she starts to read, absorb the information. She had weeks of stuff to catch up on and be at the same with everyone else. School was an imposing force for her.
"My parents are pretty hardcore on the science stuff, they're probably agnostic or atheist." Magnes admits, with a hint of shame in his tone. He really doesn't want to say things like that to her. "But that's not how I wanna be, I wanna be a good person, believe in something, believe there's more than… this."
"Then magnes, my suggestion is that you visit a bunch of different churches and see which one fits how you view god" She'd bring him to Guiding light but she'd rather, in the end, have him choose one that he'll identify with. "There's St. Johns, to try out the Catholic views, there's …" There's a handful of church that she lists off of varying denominations, guiding light one of them.
"I'll check 'em out." Magnes agrees, starting to get very into his cooking, mixing, and seasoning things. He doesn't even use anything electrical, Mister Panucci taught him to cook in a very old school way. "I'll be quiet so you can study."
"Thank you Magnes" that's about the last he'll hear from her as she sets about into really studying. Not one to want to waste the moneys pent on tuition since it's out of someone elses pocket and not hers, even more doubly important. It's looking to be a quiet morning without talking shadow, pimps, kidnappings or anything else that the two have endured. Not even arguments.
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