Participants:
Also featuring: Cameron Alexander Trask Harrison
| Scene Title | Fathers and Sons |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Norton Trask meets his offspring. |
| Date | April 22, 2019 |
Elisabeth's Apartment
It took her a couple of more days to deal with it, but with things still up in the air, Elisabeth was finally forced to take the situation of Trask's presence in 2019 into control. She took Cameron to the park yesterday, and they talked a lot about his father. And about Evolved powers that are common and those that aren't - like time travel. They spoke in hypotheticals for a LONG time, but eventually, the child himself brought up the topic most at hand. 'If you could go anywhere in time, where would you go?' he asked.
Elisabeth's answer was thoughtful. 'There are a lot of historical mysteries I would love to know the answer to. But going back in time might change things. I'd have to be careful. What about you?'
His answer was prompt, 'Back to the time of dinosaurs, just to see what they looked like. Or… maybe to meet my dad.'
And they talked about that for a long time. Until past dark. They talked about it all the way home and into the apartment, and when he finally seemed to wind down, Elisabeth asked the question that she felt most important.
'So what if you could meet him, but the condition was that you would only be able to visit for a little while. That at the end of the visit, you'd have to come home again?'
The child seemed to think about that for a long time, and finally he replied thoughtfully, 'I think I would still want to do it. Cuz… there's lots of things you don't know. And some things a guy just has to ask his dad.'
And it was at that point, after dinner, that Elisabeth finally broke the news that a time travel accident had occured and that it had brought some people forward in time. She didn't mention Niki's arrival, because his godmother's death was still just too raw for the boy — it only happened the year before. She merely explained that his father and some other people who were part of Columbia 14 — because that's a historical moment that all kids learned about in school — had been caught up in the accident. So … although we had to keep it really quiet, Cam could meet his birth father if he wanted to.
Once offered the chance, though, the child balked. He wanted time to think about it. And Elisabeth told him that was absolutely fine. It took two more days for Cameron to consider and decide for himself whether it was something he wanted to do… and Liz suspects he may have had words with both Cat and Felix about whether or not they thought he should. But ultimately, the boy decided that meeting Norton Trask was something he ought to do, so long as he didn't have to call him Dad.
And so today, Elisabeth lets Norton into the apartment, having told him that his son would like to meet him and get to know him. To form a friendship. The small blonde child sits in the living room, his hands absently picking out piano tunes on his legs, no keyboard in sight.
Trask is nervous to say the least. He agnoized for hours on what to wear, and finally went for dressing comfortable in his favorite t-shirt that he had under the ninja stealth gear he arrived in, and a pair of comfortable jeans. He looks at Liz like he is still considering bolting out the door before Camern sees him, but swallows and steps forward into the boys eye sight, not saying anything just yet.
Cameron's wearing his usual somewhat scruffy stuff, though it's clear that he's made an effort to make himself tidy — his blond unruly hair is wet and he keeps smoothing it into order between finger movements. When Elisabeth brings Norton back into the living room, she squeezes his arm encouragingly and she smiles at her son as she sits next to him. There are sodas on the table for everyone — maybe she's just as nervous as the two males in the room. "So… Cam, this is Norton. Norton, this is Cameron." She waits to see what the child's gonna do next.
His eyes, his mother's shade of blue, study the man who created him and died without ever knowing it. And Cam tilts his head. "You look just like your picture," he finally says. "My mom says I look like you."
Trask smiles a little, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" He croches down a little next to Cameron looking him over. "I hear your pretty smart, and like music. I guess you got both of those from your mom."
Now there's a good start. Cameron bounces up and down excitedly. "Can I play for you? Mom says sometimes I'm too loud for words," and then he stage-whispers like only small children can, "she puts me on MUTE when I practice. Or at least… she lowers the volume. But I know she likes it, cuz she hums along sometimes."
Elisabeth laughs softly.
Trask smiles, "I would love to hear you play. I've been wanting to ever since I heard about your talent. Your right…she raves about how good you are. She is very proud of your music."
The child bounds off the couch, his reticence forgotten. He races to the piano and plops on the bench, his fingers warming up on the keys quickly. Liz doesn't mute him, but she does encase herself and Norton in a bubble that lowers the volume of the incoming sound waves while muting the outgoing ones so that she and Norton can also talk freely while Cameron plays. The boy is, in fact, a prodigy. He is a concert pianist-level player. He chooses Clair de Lune and begins the piece.
Elisabeth watches him a moment and looks at Norton. "So… do I dare ask what you're doing to keep busy lately?" she asks diffidently. "I'm pretty much out of the 'let's find a way to get them home' loop right now, so I'm assuming Cat and her contacts have made no progress."
Trask shakes his head, "Nope I havn't heard anything… Mostly just been hanging at Abbies with Elle. I know that Sylar has been brought into the loop now but doesn't know anything about Time Travel."
Elisabeth nods a bit. "I told Gabe what was going on — I couldn't remember what power he had in his arsenal." She continues to watch their son, who is putting all of his considerable talent into impressing his father, and she smiles a bit. She moves to pull several picture albums out of the coffee table, setting them in front of him. "I thought you might like to see these," she says softly. The books are a chronicle of Cameron's life, from ultrasound pictures before his birth (including a 3-D one) all the way through his birth (Niki and Abby were apparently present during the birth, according to the pictures; lots of shots of people holding him — Teo, Cat, Abby, Felix, Leland, lots of others figure prominently) and baptism (Liz apparently went back to Catholic Church for that) to preschool days to current time.
Trask touches the pictures like they were made of glass, sparring a few moments to watch his son as well, and listens to the music, if Cameron looks over he will see only an approving smile, he hides any tears in a very manly way.
Cameron's easy to keep busy, honestly — he plays for probably 20 minutes or more, giving his parents plenty of time to sit and look at those pictures. Elisabeth says quietly, "I don't know what you'll go back to, Norton. I don't know that when you get back to your timeline, you'll have the life you had here or one totally different. But…. I wanted to give you whatever time I could with him. If for no other reason than that you both deserve it." She smiles at him, reaching out to touch his cheek lightly. "I still can't believe you're here. It is so strange."
Trask nods, "Like Alice in a looking Glass. I do not know where or what I am…just floating through a land of giant mushrooms hoping to find a catiplillar to talk to."
Elisabeth chuckles softly, resting her elbows on her knees listening to her son play Pachelbel. It's a particular favorite for both of them. "Are you avoiding me because you don't know what to say to me?" she asks him candidly, looking back at him.
Trask smiles and leans over and kisses her, softly, tenderly, not quite chately but not with any incredible passion, given thier son could look over at any time. "I am not wanting to avoid you."
She returns the kiss softly, but Elisabeth catches her breath on it…. it's not as if she hasn't had relationships since Cameron, but certainly they tapered off some — her time with her son was important to her as a working parent, so she actually did become a bit more choosy. And kissing Norton? It's just….. strange. When he pulls away, she looks into his face and there is a sudden surge of sadness that she has to try to force away. "I don't want you to avoid me either. I don't….. " She bites her lip. "Sending you back is going to be the the third-hardest thing I've ever done in my life. After watching all of you die and bringing your son home from the hospital to realize that little human being was solely dependent on me and no one else for his well-being."
Trask says, "I wish I hadn't left you alone…I am sorry…." He sighs softly and puts an arm around you, if you let him, "I never meant to do that.""
Elisabeth rests her head on his shoulder. "I know that," she replies quietly, watching their child with his hair messy and his attention his music, his magical hands bringing amazing sounds forth. "I never blamed you… not really." Oh she sure swore at him a lot. "There were nights when he'd cry all night, when he was sick or something, and I remember …." She grins a little. "I remember one night, I picked up the phone and called Felix, and he tells me that I told him "Get your fairy ass over here and walk the floor with this child or I swear to God I'm going to throw him out the window." He broke every traffic law to get here and let himself in, and me and Cam were sleeping on the couch. Finally."
Trask smiles, "It is a testament to your right to be a mother that you didn't just mute him when he cried and roll over to go to sleep…it would have been much easier.
Elisabeth laughs at him. "Yeah, well…. I'd tried that already. It was like I could hear him even when he was muted."
Trask caresses your cheek, tenderly, eyes on yours, he seems about to say something but then he looks over at Cam and just gets a look in his face that has a touch of sadness to it. "You did good…."
"Thank you," she tells him softly. And then Elisabeth grins, dropping the bubble. The music swells around them as Cameron reaches the end of his piece. "You're about to get swamped. I'll tell you what…. I wanted to give the two of you some guy time, so I'm going to leave you here to talk about whatever your manly man hearts desire and go pick up dinner. Takeout Thai good?" She kisses Norton's cheek and murmurs softly, "He's got all kinds of things he wants to know about you that I didn't have answers for."
Trask nods, "I guess I can …face the music alone. Just..hurry home, in case I screw him up while you are gone."
Elisabeth snickers. "If Gabriel and Felix and Leland and TEO can't screw the kid up, Norton, I seriously doubt you're in any danger of doing it," she comments easily. And then she stands up and gives her son a kiss, heading out the door to go pick up dinner.
The blond child bounds off the piano bench, gets all his accolades and kisses from his mother, and then when she's gone, he scuffs his foot and looks shyly at Norton. "Are you really my father?" he asks.
Trask swallows and smiles and nods, "Yeah…I guess I am…though not much of one." He settles down on the couch. "I real father would prolly have met you before today…. been there for you…"
"My mom said you're dead," the seven-year-old replies matter-of-factly. Apparently Trask's guilt is not his problem. "Kinda hard to do fun stuff when you're dead. Did you know that when you're dead, you turn all hard and cold, like a statue? My friend Joey said so."
Trask pulls himself together a little, "You have prolly seen a statue or two of me….I ran into one or two myself…it's kinda strange to see a statue of yourself, to be walking after you died.
Cam tilts his head. "What's it like to be dead? Are there angels and harps and stuff? Father Taylor says there's angels and LOTS of music in heaven. I think I'd like to go there."
Trask shakes his head, "Don't be in such a hurry. I don't know what it is like to be dead…I kinda skipped that part…the whole time travel thing."
The boy purses his lips and pouts. He's cute when he does it. "Oh." Then he scuffs his feet again. "So, uhm…. you gonna stay and marry my mom?" Cam's no fool, his blue eyes have that sly look that kids (and this particular kid's mom too!) get when they're plotting something. "Uncle Felix said you were a hero, and he's too busy being all lovey-dovey with Uncle Leland to marry my mom, and my friends Joseph and Natalie have a live-in boyfriend with Aunt Abby, so I was thinking that if you didn't wanna get married, maybe you could just be the live-in boyfriend and my dad too. Aunt Niki told Mom she needed a man… I don't know why we need a man, Uncle Felix is a man, but Aunt Niki said we needed a real man. I don't know what that means, but I guess she would have liked you, cuz you're my dad, right? And dads get to live with moms and kids unless they're dead, and you're not dead anymore, right?"
Trask smiles and closes his eyes, "I would love to marry your mom…she…is a very special woman. But…There is a good chance I am not going to be here very long…that…I will have to go back to being dead. I wish it wasn't true."
He frowns, and he looks far more like Norton than the man might realize. Though there are hints of Liz in that expression too. "Oh." Well crap. "What kinda music do you like?" he demands, moving to bounce on the seat of the couch. "My mom says you were a cop. I'm gonna be a cop when I grow up too, just like you and Mom and Uncle Felix and Bax and Gabriel ….." Yeah… the kid might be around cops too much.
Trask says, "I was a cop..and before that I was a tank mechanic for the Army. Took care of my mother…your grandmother. So raised me on russian opera…and Vagner.""
There's a new respect to the seven-year-old's gaze. "You like opera? Really? There's some really cool music in operas, and Mom takes me sometimes, but she'd rather go to other kinds of musicals." Some things clearly haven't changed in a decade — but she does try to expose him to some things his father liked! "Last time we went, we took Lee cuz Uncle Felix was at Quantico. He snored," Cameron giggles.
Trask chuckles softly, "It is not for everyone." He hmmmms softly, "So….was have you ever thought of what you would do if I ever showed up like this?"
Now the boy looks puzzled and says, "Well….. mostly I just wanted to show you how I could play!" Cam grins. "Mom always said you'd enjoy it, so… that's cool. Hey, did you know we took a field trip to your statue once with my class, and I got to tell people you were my dad? It was totally cool."
Trask smiles and stands walking over to him, he musses the childs hair some.
It's a good half hour later that Elisabeth comes back — a half an hour in which Norton is inundated with all the minutiae and questions that a seven-year-old can think to ask ranging from "Do you like dinosaurs?" to "Do you love my mom?" to "How come you died?" to "Did you have parents?" He tells Norton all about his grandfather and the time he gets to spend with him, tells him lots of things Trask might not want to know about people he may not want to know it ABOUT. But that's the nature of kids. And when Liz gets back with dinner, they all sit down to a family supper for the first time in history.
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