Blocks

Participants:

isa_icon.gif kaylee_icon.gif

Scene Title Blocks
Synopsis Isabelle turns to Kaylee to help her with her memories.
Date February 4, 2019

Raytech


The knock to Kaylee's office door at Raytech is tense, another moment and a familiar face with dark hair and a ragged facial scar that glows can be seen peeking her head in.

Isa's mind announced her before her knock surely. The whirl of emotions and memories nagging at her from the back of her mind not always on the surface but just enough. "Kaylee?" She calls out, stepping into the office proper.

Dressed in a pair of black jeans and a loose fitting dark green tank top, half tucked. Her boots are laced and jeans tucked into them just before the crease from lots of wear. It's only been a week or so since she and Shahid's "arrival" into the Safe Zone. Upon arrival Isabelle had made a decision, she needed to go back on what she thought she wanted. She needed it erased.

“… And your certain that I’m not going to be fried?” Says the very woman she is looking for. Seated behind a beautiful antique desk a phone tucked against her shoulder as she holds paperwork in her hands. “Well… the equipment is older, Dr. Walkens.” She dressed for business: hair up and makeup perfect to compliment the sharp suit she is wearing.

The sound of her name, pulls her focus to the woman at the door. This was Kaylee alright, if a bit older and lacking the dark scar that trailed down one side of her face. Currently, there is a flicker of recognition… and then surprise. This woman was familiar, but almost immediately, Kaylee knows it’s not her memories she’s pulling from.

“Doctor… I’ll call you back,” her voice soft and full of awe. There is a distinct beep as she hangs up on the still talking man. There is a blink and then another. “Ah.. come in.” The chairs situated before her desk are motioned too.

Closing the door behind her Isabelle walks slowly towards the desk eyes never leaving the telepath's face. Holy shit, it's her. As if she hadn't run into alternates across dimensions but still seeing someone you were rather close with in another world is still difficult. "It's nice to meet you…" The pyro brings a wave of warmth with her as she settles into a seat.

"You look the fucking same, just missing the scar but…" Grinning and rubbing the back of her head. "It's you. I… we were close in my home world. The virus wasteland. Well," pausing a beat, "We weren't close at first and I wanted to burn all your hair off but we got there, eventually." Isabelle looks sheepish and rolls her eyes, "Roomies even." What a time that was.

"I'm Isabelle. I grew up with Richard." She's always been blunt and she's never wasted much time in general getting to the meat of things. "And you're… his adopted sister?" Looking around the office, the company was impressive with how new it was as well. The name Ray always made her want to wrinkle her nose. "If we knew that back in my world… things would be so very different."

“Izzy…” Kaylee says in an awed tone, fingers touching the side of her own face where the scare was on the other version of her. Blue eyes moving to the door, as if expecting Shaw to come in too, and then back to the other woman. “She knew he was adopted, she just didn’t want him drug down with her, cause of who her father was.” The phone is placed to the side as she studies the other woman.

After a moment, Kaylee’s eyes close for a moment and she gives a little shake of her head. “Forgive me,” eyes open again and a smile touches her lips, “I spend a lot of months being caught up in the visions from other timelines… It’s still weird having memories to go with the faces.”

Taking a deep breath to collect herself, Kaylee asks curiously, “However, I get the impression this is more than a social call. How can I help you?”

There's a smile there for her Kaylee protecting Richard, it was… something she could relate to with the woman. And then Kaylee is popping the question to that request of Isa's the reason why she's here.

The brunette leans back in her seat, "I was raised in the foster system alongside Richard, for the time that we were able to share the same group homes." Then would come the fosters, nobody really stuck. Especially not with her ability. "But before that I was experimented on by the Company as a child… my mother," Isabelle stops and averts her gaze, there's a scream coming from Izzy's mind. Escaping her mental confines and projecting outwards to Kaylee as well as the sound of fire.

"She was pregnant with me and she traveled from another dimension and had me." It was a mouthful but Isabelle tries to keep it straight and simple, "A telepath, Charles Deveaux. He blocked those memories along with some trauma…" the pyrokinetic chews on the inside of her lip. "I'd like you to try to block them, place a wall around them maybe.

While this Kaylee has seen a lot through the eyes of another, this was all new information for her, brows furrow as she listens. Leaning forward in her chair, which creak quietly, the telepath is intent on the story. When the tale is done, there is a look of sympathy and curiosity. The sounds that manage to wiggle through her mental shields continue long after.

“I… don’t even know what to say…Saying something like ‘sorry that it happened to you’ doesn’t even seem to cover it.” Kaylee leans back heavily, as it seemed like Charles is always popping up in her life. “You said put them back… what happened to the blocks in the first place?” The fact Izzy was there, it gave her an idea of what happened.

"It's a lot to take in I know." She doesn't say try living it and she surely tries to not think it too hard. Isabelle shifts uncomfortably, the pyrokinetic hates this. Hate that it even happened hate that she can't just say she was born in such and such town in the middle of nowhere to a loving but poor family.

"The you I knew from back home knocked them down for me. Charles said they couldn't be put back but…" Isabelle does have a ghost of a smile at the thought, "I'm into the practice of defying men." Settling with her back straight and legs in front of her. "I understand if you don't want to take on the task." It's a hot smelly pile of shit she's dumping on her desk right now.

"I've been having, bouts of wrath." Anyone who has at least heard of Isabelle knows of her temper but this was different, it was deeper. "Losing control." Another grimace at the understatement, Isabelle had hurt people almost done worse, at least recently that is. "And with my ability… losing control isn't a option. Not unless people don't mind a world in flames."

As her suspicion is confirmed, Kaylee’s head nods slowly. Seems that no matter the world, she still manages to do things like that for people. “Well…” She blows out a breath. “I can help.” But as soon as she says it a hands comes up in an attempt to stall any reactions. “However, it’s not permanent,” she explains a touch regretfully.

“The man who blocked your memories was a very powerful man and I have yet to understand how he got them to stick.” Kaylee pushes herself up to stand and moves around the edge of the desk, heels softly clicking against the hard flooring. “But, I can block it enough to allow you to process it… slowly. To get help, in fact, Benchmark is a great place for that run by Lynette and her husband Mateo.” Coming alongside the chair she gives Izzy a small smile, knowing that the firestarter knows them.

“I wish it could be more, then that,” Kaylee adds softly. “But sometimes, time is all you need.”

To process it… slowly…

Isabelle can only hope for the best and she nods at Kaylee. "Anything you can do… can help." The darker haired woman sighs into her hands and bows her head.

Her shoulders shake gently but she nods and then looks up towards Kaylee with watery eyes. "I love them. They sacrificed so much to get us all here." Isa would feel indebted to them forever. And she didn't mind that one bit. "Yea… maybe them. Therapy has never been my go to." The burned walls of the various therapists she was sent too over the years were proof. "I think you're powerful as shit. If anyone can do something about what Charles did.. it's you."

Isa looks up to Kaylee, "Thank you again." She says. She can't stop saying it.

Moving to sit in the other seat on that side of the desk, Kaylee gives Izzy a soft smile and reaches to take one of her hands in both of hers. An attempt at comfort. “I don’t like seeing people in distress over memories like that… horrible, nightmare inducing ones. I know what it is like.” Even if she can’t stop them for herself, it is clear she takes comfort from doing it from others. “And I do know that your Kaylee would never forgive me for not trying. She loved you all and were her family… I’m sure she will always see you that way. You and…” Kaylee looks down searching for a name, “Shaw?”.

Reaching up to touch the woman’s temple, Kaylee says softly, “I’ll do my best… You want it all blocked?” Already, her eyes are unfocusing as she looks to find the memories with trauma attached to them. “Think of the ones you want me to block.”


Isa's Mind


Fire.

Brilliant orange flames burn the hallway that Kaylee finds herself in. An unbearable heat that almost chokes her. Carpet once a faded beige now blackened and burned through exposing dark wood. The roar of the flames is almost deafening. Isabelle stands next to Kaylee a horrified expression on her face. This was her parent's apartment.

A thick white smoke clouds the entrance to the living room where the flames burn the brightest. Isa takes a step back as a voice booms around them, the pressure of its tone bearing down on the women.

Release…

The voice that Isabelle hears all the time. Her own voice.

The smoke before them lightens a shade revealing dark figures ahead. One crouched another off to the side. Hazel eyes brim with tears as the death screams of her mother fill the air.

Something was coming towards them. Both women could feel it.

Those first moments in a memory were always disorienting, it always feels real and so Kaylee finds herself coughing at the lack of oxygen and eyes burning with the smoke that fills the room. Hand covering her mouth she looks around the room, notices the horror on Izzy’s features. This was a memory that Charles blocked and it was no wonder. She didn’t need to see all of it to know what she’d find beyond the smoke.

She takes a deep breath then and the smoke doesn’t fill her lungs. Kaylee waves a hand and the whole thing stops moving forward. Smoke still suspended around them. But the screams have stopped, the smell is gone.

Isabelle finds herself gently turned to look at Kaylee, hands finding hers and a small understanding smile on her lips. “Breath, Izzy,” the telepath offers gently. “And think of the safest place you have ever been… that made you happy.” The world around them starts to distort as she follows the mental thread she knows is there.

When the world stops Isabelle blinks and looks over slowly at Kaylee with widen hazel eyes, "You say you're not as powerful as that Charles guy?" A quirk of her eyebrow but she does in fact breathe allowing herself to calm down. This wasn't real, none of it was. It was just the past. Nothing could harm her here.

The world around them bends and distorts as Kaylee pulls on that thread of Isabelle's that leads to her safe space but before the scene before them can completely rip away. Isabelle's subconscious snaps back at them both in the form of a shape walking fast from the frozen smoke. A deep, bright blue color shines as a little girl walks out almost running, brunette hair plastered on her forehead, tears running down her face but her eyes, hey eyes spell murder. Hands curled like claws and back hunched over. She's bathed in bright blue flames and as the little girl lifts her head the blue flames are reflected in hazel eyes.

It's Isabelle as a child. Just when she manifested and she's angry.

"Release!!!! The girl screams as she charges after them both and then focuses on Isabelle herself taking a running leap while reaching for the pyrokinetic, malice and pain in her expression.

Just before the little girl can make contact with Isabelle's body the whole world tips and the sounds of those screams of rage vanishes. Isabelle's face is covered with her hands but as she slowly drops them she realizes with a start where she is.

The cozy studio apartment she shared with Shahid for almost a decade in the dimension where Pinehearst ruled. "Fuck…" she whispers looking over to Kaylee. Taking a step backwards to marvel, "This is where Shahid and I lived… you were our roommate for a time." But this was the place she had felt the most safe, the most happy. It might say something that also during that time Isabelle had been lying to Shaw and off being a terrorist.

Hazel eyes look over the place settling on freshly bottled up Lemon Death. She would have to get this Kaylee to try it.

There is a touch of worry that wiggles through the telepath when the angry girl framed in blue flame appears, but it only serves to strengthens her determination. It wouldn’t be the first time she worked quickly. There was a church still tucked in the mind of her husband. Once they are locked away, Kaylee’s ability strengthens the memory of the apartment. Letting go of Issy’s hands, she brushes her fingers along the walls as she does, thickening the walls of the memory. There is a distant familiarity to it.

In that moment, it’s obvious that her scarred Kaylee was far from the skills of the one standing in the room with her.

“This place will serve as you safe space… it’s a trick I learned when protecting my husband from a vicious dreamwalker,” Don’t let Hokuto hear her say that. “And torture while in the Company’s hands.” Kaylee turns away from the firestarter and goes to the door, which smolders and bends. “When the memories start to break through the door, think of this place and you should feel calmer.” The door in question was obvious with chains that drape across it, not unlike what Charles did with the memory before. Fingers run along the chain testing the strength. “I don’t know how long it will hold.”

Watching Kaylee at work is impressive and the pyrokinetic can only nod to her words cataloguing what the list of things she should be doing, think of this place. Of the waffles. Of the moonshine nights with friends crammed in. Isabelle thinks of all of these things as the chained door smolders and shakes from the veracity of those memories. Of her.

The effect is almost instantaneous the dulling of her rage, her guilt. Isabelle grips at her shirt and peers down at her chest, the sharp pain she feels often gone. A bandage wrapped tight around her heart and mind. There's gratitude in her expression and she walks over to grip Kaylee's hands. "Thank you… I'll figure the rest outta … get some help." Isa wonders if she really will do that.

As to the question of how long it will hold…

Isabelle turns her back from the door and source of heat, facing Kaylee. Ignoring the whisper coming from underneath the door, they stop the blocks further cementing in her mind. "For as long as they can." And that would just have to do.


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