Participants:
| Scene Title | Head Case |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Kaylee Thatcher manages to save Tyler Case's life. On accident. So to speak. |
| Date | November 8, 2017 |
After the events of the day, Kaylee Thatcher was exhausted. Bone deep, but with everything, she knew that sleep would be difficult. Luckily, even after they had been rescued there were things to do. She had to make a proper fuss over Kain’s shoulder, hug and reassure Shaw she was okay, check on Mateo and his family; and, made sure that Liz and Aurora were okay. Especially, hug her niece. All while avoiding Peter…
Finally, Kaylee needed time to herself. To allow herself to come to grips with what had just happened and try to decompress…. Somehow. It’s hard to do when it feels like she’s back in that hell hole of a world she called home for most of her life.
Sitting down roughly behind a broken wall in the large complex, the telepath takes a shaky breath, having managed to find a spot as far away as she safely could. Finding a space where only a few minds tickled at the edge of her perception. Pulling her knees up and wrapping tired arms around them, Kaylee’s vision starts to blur as the events replay unbidden in her mind. This time, she doesn’t stop them. Let’s them fall in a steady drip on the fabric of her jeans. Moving a hand to cover her eyes, almost as if ashamed them.
A person can only act strong for so long, before they need to let those feelings happen. Kaylee hated feelings, they made a person look weak. Something she tried not to do around people like Kain and Ling, so that they see the value of what she was and not that she was simply a girl. The same came from allowing attachment to someone, it just ends up leaving the person in pain… she saw a lot of that in the minds of others. She felt it around every Peter that has waltzed into her life since… fears it every time the travellers end up in these situations. Which might be why she keeps them all at arm's length, maybe. At least, she thinks she does. Showing them just enough to keep them from leaving her behind… to keep herself from withering away. Unfortunately, it left her feeling a deep sense of loneliness.
Emotions sucked…
Scrubbing at watery eyes with the heel of her hand, Kaylee tries to get her emotions under control. Especially, before someone found her like that. Blinking to try and clear her vision, she catches the sight of something out of the corner of her eye. Someone was there! With a start, she turned to find Tyler Case. Arms fly from around her legs and she scrambles back from the ghost, sending up a small flurry of dust. There is a moment she stares… before she utters softly, “Shit… you’re real.” She had kind of hoped that it was a side effect of whatever they shot her up with.
“Of course I'm real.” Tyler says as though nothing is amiss, arms out to the side and baffled. “I mean I'd probably rather not be given how rough our landing was in whatever uh, place you all dragged me to. But I can't be that mad, right?” Tyler stares at Kaylee, as if it should be clear why he's in such a good mood.
It isn't.
Expression falling, Tyler waves his arms around wildly. “One, no more red lightning!” He wiggles his fingers delightedly. “B, I've got regeneration or something!” Tyler pokes a finger at where he was shot, where there's no bullet hole. “I mean just look at that! I'm like invincible or something!”
Oh Tyler.
There is no way that Kaylee could look more confused at the man’s jovial nature about his state of being. Brows twitch up a little as he goes over why he is in such a great mood. For the briefest moment, it is tempting to let him keep thinking like that, but that wasn’t fair. He deserved to know the truth. “Tyler…” she starts and then stops, a sigh escaping her. How does she explain something that even she doesn’t understand.
Motioning to the ground next to her, the telepath offers blandly, “You — uh. You might want to sit down for this.” Scooting over to give him space to sit, not that he really needs it. She brushes at the drying dampness on her cheeks and gives a little sniffle, before adding, “Not sure you’re gonna like this.”
“What, did some jerk take my old power? Good riddance! It's only ever caused me trouble. Uh, what I can remember of it anyway.” Tyler tucks his hands into his pockets and scuffs his feet, pacing across Kaylee’s field of vision.
“Hey weird question,” Tyler interjects like an easily distracted dog. “Did I have a brother? Or something? Edward said something about a sibling or something, but he didn't really say a lot more. I mean,” Tyler starts bobbing his head in repeated nods, “I mean he mostly just mumbled to himself a lot and said stuff like ah, yes and it's all so clear and stuff so…” For a moment, Tyler just stares off into space, then looks back sharply to Kaylee. “He was like, weird, right? He seemed weird to me.”
Leaning back against the wall, as he paces, Kaylee finds it fascinating that he doesn’t notice. Glances to the side while listening to him go on, a decent size rock is spotted, she sneakily picks it up while he isn’t looking. There is a rather innocent expression when he does look her way, again, edging on curious really.
Not anymore than you. Kaylee catched herself thinking.
“My dad was weird, yes,” the telepath admits readily. “He was also manipulative and sneaky… but loved me and my siblings. Put what I do know, if he said you had a sibling. You probably do…. Did?” She glances out from where they are, “Who knows if they even exist here or are alive.” Blue eyes shift to look up at him again.
“And no,” Kaylee comments with a sigh, “some jerk didn’t take your power.” Leaning forward, Kaylee tosses the rock up once and catches it before throwing it at him, “Catch!”
Tyler reaches up and out, and the rock…
…falls through his hand to the ground.
Looking around, Tyler blinks and then looks at his hand like it betrayed him somehow. “Uh, look, Jedi mind tricks are cool and all but if you try and make me fetch a tennis ball that you didn't really throw I'm going to be upset, okay?”
It begs the question of if he'd chase a ball she did throw. Which… is neither here nor there.
The telepath can only stare at him dumbfounded. She starts to say something and stops herself. Kaylee ponders throwing another rock at him, but that is quickly discarded. It was like having a golden retriever in a man’s body. Adorable, but kinda dumb. Hands cover her face for a moment, as she tries to decide if she is either going to laugh or… or maybe cry.
“Tyler!” Kaylee sounds a little exasperated, when her hands drop again. “Let me be blunt here…You’re dead!” Hands go out in a flustered wave. “You got shot… You died. I tried….” The telepath’s rant trails off at a thought, hands fly back to cover her mouth. “Oh shit… When Kain yanked you away, I knew something felt off.”
“I'm not dead,” Tyler says with his hands on his hips, head cocked to the side, and eyes rolled back in his head. “If I were dead could I do this?” And Tyler hops up and down on the ground, then claps his hands and flails his arms from side to side. “See?”
There's this blunt Kaylee you can't be serious look on his face. Curiously. It's all Kaylee gets. Even though Tyler appears to be a free-floating consciousness in her mind, he is a part of her subconscious and unable to be disassociated from her own thoughts. It turns out her telepathy doesn't work on herself.
“It's sweet that you care,” Tyler admits with a clap of his hands together, approaching Kaylee. “But either the blonde is showing, or this is some really desperate attempt at getting alone time with me which, I mean I appreciate, you're totally my type!” Tyler grins obliviously. “But you didn't need to play literal mind games with me. I— ”
Tyler suddenly looks around, eyes wide, as if dawning to a sudden horrible realization. Except, he's smiling. “Oh my god is this the apocalypse?” His attention snaps back to Kaylee. “Am I the last man on Earth!?” He has a lot of women to call if that's the case.
Is this guy for real?
Kaylee watches him jump up and down, a twitch at her corner of her mouth as she can’t help but be amused by this. That amusement drops away at the blonde comment, expression turning flat as she glares at him through partially lidded eyes. “Yeah, well guess what buddy… you are not my type and yet, here we are.” Throwing her hands out.
Climbing to her feet, Kaylee sighs out, “Okay. You know what. Fine. You’re not dead.” At least, not fully… only physically. So technically, she’s not lying. Right? “And yeah… this is either the apocalypse or… the set of a new terminator movie…. And thank god you are not the last man on earth. The human race would be in trouble” The telepath seems a bit punchy. She gets that way when hungry.
Almost instantly she regrets what she says and murmurs an apologetic, “Sorry.” She cover her face with her hands as she tries to get herself under control. “I just didn't expect to end up somewhere a lot like where I came from.” She moves to where she can see the landscape beyond, leaning on a broken wall. “Big difference is here there are robots… huge scary, freakin’ robots.” Kaylee can’t help but give a humorless laugh at the irony of it. “What a fucked up place for a telepath to end up.”
“I'm pretty sure we came from the same place, I remember you. You rescued me from prison!” Tyler says with a fond smile, though that's the wrong Kaylee. “Really, though, this is kind of messed up.” Shuffling over to Kaylee, Tyler tucks his hands onto the pockets of his pants, looking around as if he were just casually holding a conversation with her.
“Thanks, by the by, for getting me out of Moab.” Still the wrong Kaylee. “I don't remember much before I got pushed down in there, but I've got a whole new lease on life now. I'm thinking I might go back to school,” Tyler looks around, brows furrowed. “There's…” He looks over at Kaylee. “Probably not schools in the apocalypse? Are there?”
Amusement can’t be helped around this guy, Kaylee looks over at him, studying this man, “No. No schools, I have a feeling.”
Turning her head and pulling her hair away from the ugly scar that trails down the left side of her face, she asks, “Did the Kaylee who saved you have this?” It’s distinctive, really. Fingers trail down it, conscious of the look of it. Though, she’s expecting it to still sail high over his head. “No, I was in your world, but I was there cause I ran from mine, which was a nightmare like this one. There everyone I ever knew or loved was destroyed by either Vanguard or a deadly virus.” Or her father. With a resigned sigh, she admits, “I should have just stayed in yours.” She was lured by the idea of family somewhere, someplace else. “Wonder if the me in this world lost everything, too.”
“You know… “ She suddenly says, “I bet there is another version of you in this hell hole of a place.” She angles a bit of a smile his way, brows lifting a bit, “Maybe, we’ll run into him and we can see if he remembers anything about before Moab.” Maybe this one never was in there.
There's a wide-eyed look of completely flat disregard for Kaylee’s primary questions. Of all the things Kaylee said that Tyler could respond to, he chooses: “Woah! Then there'd be two of me! Can you even imagine?”
Kaylee can.
And this plus just got a little worse.