Heal The Body, Heal The Soul

Participants:

abby_icon.gif helena_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Heal The Body, Heal The Soul
Synopsis In which Abby heals Helena's body, unexpectedly the womans soul, teo sits and tries to keep from imploding and Abigail starts to prepare herself for what might the ultimate test of her faith.
Date January 7, 2009

Cathedral of St. John the Divine

The largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine remains partially unfinished to this day, despite its construction having begun in 1892 - true to form for buildings of its type. Nonetheless, it is a grand and imposing sight; possessing the characteristic grand arches, pointed spires, and beautiful stained glass windows, including a large and striking Rose window. Where the walls aren't covered with old and meticulously preserved tapestries, they are often ornamented.

Guided tours are offered six days out of the week. Services are open to all. Since the bomb, the main nave is open at all but the latest hours, though the smaller subject-specific chapels close in the evening. The cathedral is also a site for major workshops, speakers, and musical events - most especially the free New Year's Eve concert, which has been held without fail each year since the bomb.

St. John's has long been a center for public outreach and civic service events, but since the bomb, those have become an even greater part of its daily affairs. Services include a men's shelter, a twice-weekly soup kitchen, walk-in counseling, and other programs besides. These are open to everyone - non-Evolved, unregistered Evolved, registered Evolved… the philosophy is that they're all children of God, and that's what matters.


Abby's seated at the front, sans sling, jacket off, hat off. When Sylar left and once she's recovered enough to get her ass off the freezing stone steps, she'd gone inside where there was light, and it was church, and called Teo. Something important she'd said, didn't want to say it over the phone. And she'd sat and waited, praying, thinking, praying some more. The evening air outside kept away from the warm air inside.

So the problem came when Helena got told how long her recovery time would be, and how it would inconvenience her ability to walk, and the general care she'd have to take involving pain medication. And she said, more or less, 'fuck that', and somehow managed to get her stitches taken out, but that meant she had to plant her ass in the wheelchair and Teo got to play butler or candy striper or whatever you'd call a guy who pushes a girl around in a literal sense would be. The world's an interesting place from sternum height, the cathedral even more impressive.

It was built to make a man feel small. Which Teo would, if his overactive guilt complex didn't do that all the time anyway. He managed parking the car and unfolding the wheelchair without incident, helped Helena out if she would accept it, failed to insinuate himself if she didn't. There's a soft word of reassurance here, a pointed finger and recognition of a Ferryman walking out after a long evening's work in the soup kitchen, and then he's pushing her in from the cold.

"Abigail?" His voice precedes the meltwater-wet squeak of wheels. Helena and Teo's faces are both ruddy from the temperature outside, perched atop their jacket collars. "You all right, bella?"

The blonde head turns from the front, twisting in the pew at Teo's voice. They're devoid of others for the moment in the sanctuary, and the healer rises at the sight of Helena. "Sorry. I would have come but I can't.. compromise where you all are. I can't promise either, that he's not watching" Though the front of the cathedral is well lit for the evening. She's tired, it's been a physically and mentally exhausting evening and it doesn't look like it's going to end soon and likely what she says isn't going to go over well either. "Heavens Helena. Making him work for his job?" Trying to summon a smile for the other blonde.

Helena gives Abigail a weary smile. "Something like that. I hate to bother you, but the recovery time for this is something I just can't afford. But I come bearing gifts." In her lap is a fourpack of Red Bull. She would have insisted on a pit stop.

Yes. Teo nods his head. Work for his job. He wouldn't do so willingly, of course, there had to have been some carrot or stick involved. The wry humor that's trying his mouth doesn't succeed entirely; his eyes are searching Abby's face as they had searched Helena's as she limped around the soft drink aisle, critical, worried, managing somehow not to stare. He halts the wheelchair once they've drawn even of Abby's pew.

"Some people have pink undertones to their skin. Most of the Asians I know have yellow. You're looking a little gray, signorina," he notes, softly.

"I'll be fine. Helena and you brought me what's going to pink me right up. Wheels her over. So I can take care of her" Abby motions to the front pew, so that Teo can sit and Helena can be wheeled opposite them and face to face with the southern blonde as she sinks back into her pew. "Sylar was here"

Helena looks surprised at that, shifting in her chair so as to present her wounded hip to Abby, though naturally she doesn't mess with her clothes. Getting a pair of sweatpants on was such fun. "He didn't hurt you." Helena observes. "What did he want? For you to heal him?"

Course adjusted and wheeling done, Teo does as requested. Snagging the Red Bulls off the weather witch's lap, he slings a long leg around the wheelchair's frame and clumps about until he fits himself onto the seat beside Abigail, leaving Helena squirming around before her. Which is a good move, really. Possibly, if he'd heard that bit of news while standing up, he would have fallen down. Instead, he's left to stare, his face going high color contrast, bloodless white and temperamental red. He mutters something Italian. By default, a curse.

Abby nods, even as she's working to ease Helena's pant leg up, and move the womans leg to drape it carefully over her lap. Easier for her to put her warm hands on the woman's leg. "Which is why I called. He could have waited the week. I assume Teo told you that Wu-Long showed up at the bar and said Eileen needed help. I demanded protection from sylar and anyone else who'd make a run at me for the rest of the week. They accepted and Sylar's accepted" Odd that.

"He showed up here, waiting for me. Somethings up. More so than a bunch of men and a strange blonde hovering over Eileen and asking one another if they're gonna take out the man who did what they did" Abby's spilling beans, but quietly, just in case wu-lon is managing to get close. It's nothing he would likely kill her for, but, it needs to be relayed. "he couldn't wait two more days to be healed Helena" She's carefullymoves one hand up the woman's leg under the cleecy fabric, in some un offending movements. "When I asked him if he just wanted healing or did he need healing, he answered that it couldn't wait till the end of the week" There, she can feel the puff of inflamed flesh, but not touching the wound directly. What a funny sight this makes.

Helena blinks as Abby puts her hand up her pants. She flashes an alarmed look at Teo and manages, "You know I'm not that kind of girl, right?" to the other blonde, but her expression goes solemn as she listens to the details. "I've heard some things." she says, but given that she also knows one of them has been tailing Abby of late, she doesn't get specific. Instead she notes, "It's not that I don't appreciate what Ben did for me, I hope he doesn't take it that way because I came to you." She's a little nervous about talking too much shop in here, especially in light of a Sylar encounter, though she does note sourly, "Your interaction with him was less painful then mine. Remember when I sprained my wrist? Or more accurately, Sylar sprained my wrist?"

Teo's eyes are restless. They flicker across the pews, the insides of stained windows, his color gradually gradiating back to even as he listens, in odd contrast to the gloved fist that tightens on his knee. It doesn't take a genius' intellect to realize that something's going on with Sylar, probably pertinent to the rest of Ethan's cell, and thus related in some way, shape or form to the chaos that Edward was trying to make sense of on his chalkboards.

He looks at Hel from Abby's peripheral, his features bleak with anger. "I swear, if he touches you—" It's the most absurd threat, he knows. He can't bring himself to say nothing at all, but he stops before saying something utterly ridiculous.

"No, I don't remember Helena. I don't get brought in unless it's something like this and no, Ben won't be upset. I'm sure. He'd understand" She smiles though at the whole 'i'm not that kinda girl' Well neither is abby. "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, The bed be blest that I lie on. Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head; One to watch, and one to pray, And two to bear my soul away." Relief starts to come in the form of Abby's gift for Helena, radiating towards the wound from her hand. That done, it's started she looks to the two. "No. he didn't touch me, I touched him. I made a deal, like I did with Wu-long. What the deal is, you both don't need to know the details, but if I don't show up one day in the future, know that it was painless and that It was peaceful and I went how I wanted to go. But.." Abby shakes her head. "Somethings happening, and in the next two days. Something important, or else he would have waited"

Helena takes a breath, relief flooding her face as the pain eases away, and she can feel the skin tingling where Abby has worked her magic. Or God's magic, depending on her point of view. "Thank you, Abby." she says softly, and looking around slyly, murmurs, "I better stick to the wheelchair, else my getting up and starting to walk may cause an unintentional scene."

That would be funny. Teo offers the women a smile that doesn't quite reach his mouth. He doesn't like the sound of that: this deal that doesn't apparently necessarily preclude her untimely death; not that he would rely on the Midtown bomb man to hold up his end of that anyway, if he had so promised. This might be better. That thought occurs to him too often these days.

"Though I hate to lay more pounds of shit on your day, we're going to need a favor in the next few weeks. An important one. A big one," he clarifies. His voice is tight with something that might be bitterness or fear; hard to tell, when he's undercutting it with a slouch on their pew, sliding down so that his head rests on the edge of the wood and his legs are in a sprawl. "You'll need to be alive to do it."

"You know i'll do it" Without hesitation, and strength the voice. "I owe you both. More than anything I could repay. Just tell me where and tell me when, i'll be there" She doens't know what they need her to do, she assumes healing. Helena's leg is still being worked on, careful since she's already done a some within the last hour on another. She doesn't want to leave the woman with a scar. "Chair is probably a good idea lest they get the idea i'm like the lady of lourdes or something equally ridiculous" Not ridiculous, just that she'd have multiple people trailing her instead of one. But then, there, the ceasing of the healing and she pulls her hand from under the atmokinetic's leg. "Like new. I'll see about asking that he hold off, for a few weeks. Call it getting my affairs in order. I don't think he'll mind. I can always barter with my gift to get it" Barter. She won't call it selling her gift. Abby reaches for the red bull's tearing one from the quartet and popping the top to drink it.

Helena considers a moment. "I think I know what you'd be asked to do." she admits, "But I don't know that here is the place to discuss it. So some other time in the very, very near future. Thank you so much, Abby." She moves to shift back to a normal seated position, much of the normal color returning to her face from the evident lack of pain. She understands the whole Sylar thing better than she might seem to, but is quiet on that, letting it simmer in the back of her brain. "Tell him you're needed for the endgame if he approaches you before we have a chance to talk."

The Sicilian's lip is slightly curled, thinking. He stops looking around the cathedral. If the shadow-bodied ninja is anywhere around here and Teo hasn't seen him yet, he isn't going to find him now. He nods his head. "Yes. Please ask him for a few more weeks," he says, his voice crawling with discontent. He's going to have to talk to Eileen about extending that timeframe indefinitely, at some point.

He doesn't know when. "There are a few more faces you need to be watching out for the next few weeks," he adds, after a moment. "The three stronzo who fucked up the Edison Consolidated Power Plant the other week? HomeSec has footage out on them. Ask your bodyguard to look out for them, please."

Abby studies Helena, before she speaks up, loud enough for it to reverbrate around the sanctuary but not bring people running "I need some time alone Wu-long. With them. I'd appreciate it, if your near that you left. When they leave you can come back" But that doesn't stop abby from leaning forward, face near to Helena and to Teo and dropping her tone very quietly. "Tell me? I need to know what to tell isabelle if I have to cut out of work. Better I give her notice. I'll tell her I have to go home, heal my mother" She looks to Teo and nods. "I have him for two more days, I was going to absolve him, after tonight. I'm still going to. I have Jessica as well. That's where i've been staying. Jessica's offered to keep an eye out on me as well. She has a vested interest in keeping me alive. Something to do with niki not getting hurt and all that till she can find a cure. When he's done, i'll come look at the catabase."

Helena looks completely uncertain and highly doubtful that Abby's shadow will just disappear on her say-so. "All I have is my own speculation." she admits, but leans forward in her chair to whisper in Abby's ear.
Helena whispers "I know that Kazimir Volken's touch brings death. And yours brings life. I think you and I and Sergei are going to be the ones tasked to deal with him directly."

In the meantime, Teo is sitting and staring on expressionlessly. If he's particularly unhappy at being left out of the loop on his co-leader's theories, he doesn't show it. Occasionally, even he lets things go as better left unknown; he's sure he's going to find out eventually, anyway.

The antithesis to Abigail Beauchamp. She'd met one, sorta already. But it was Kazimir. 'If that's god's plan, then it's that path I walk down. With my faith as a shield Helena" She pulls back though. "I met a Dr. Mohinder Suresh. I found out who he is. He's going ot.. help me refine gods gift. I can only hope that it's done.. before you need me" Her voice is still low and any fear she'd had for Sylar, is three times as much and seen on her face.

"Let me know, when you know. For sure. For now, you should go. I have.. to talk with wu-long. Arrange a meeting with sylar then, while i'll have my bodyguard" She pauses, reaching out to lay her hand on Helena's, hold it a moment, and then to Teo. "I made him promise me a quiet and painless death. I owe you both that much. Some day, he's going to come for me, and for my faith. But at least, I can dictate the terms. He promised me a sunset, and no pain. Remember that okay? But i'll see about… making sure i'll at least be there to do god's work for you guys" She puts on a brave face.

Because he is in a church, Teo can not stand up and kick things and scream fuck that noise up the rectum at the top of his lungs. His fist would be shaking if he didn't have it tight on his knee. Abby can probably feel the tremor there anyway. He isn't breathing right, his expression stiff as the poker face he'd forced everything under when he had met Sylar for the first time the other morning, his heartbeat racketing.

A moment, and his hand twists in her grip, palm curving up, fingers snaring the healer's slender palm, grip contracting with almost painful ferocity. "We'll see." He can't keep the defiance out of his face or his voice, but at least he doesn't look like an utter deficit of prudence. He stops squeezing after a moment, lets her go with an outgoing breath. He looks at the altar.

Now is not the time. Helena knows that. Arguing with Abby is akin to bouncing a rubber ball against some brickmade structure, you won't chip away at any of it without an appropriately timed wrecking ball. That will have to wait for another day. "I understand." she says neutrally. Her gaze turns apologetic. "I need to get back. Teo, if you'd like to stay, I can make it on my own once I'm outside. Just grab the chair on the way out, hey?"

"He should go. I have some thinking to do" probably some screaming at god and asking how the fuck he expects her to survive this all if it's his plan. "I'll be okay. I'm always okay" She gives them a wink. "God protects me. I'm not leaving here for there, not until it's my time,a nd till then i'll still be standing behind you guys with my hands at your back and making sure we leave the world a better place than when we came in huh?" Abby stands, leaning over to wrap her arms around the blonde. "Focus on them. Not on me. i'll be there"

A shake of his head at Hel, a nod of it at Abby, and Teo looks a little like he has a brain full of bees. Which feels accurate, to him. He stands, lopes around the healer's knees with a few word of salutation gone all gruff from the emotions stampeding through his armored head or somewhat less well-fortified heart. "Keep in touch, bella." He twists to a halt behind Helena's wheelchair and shifts the brake with his foot.

Helena is surprised at the unexpected gift of Abby's embrace - she is well aquainted with the healer's dislike of casual touching. But she returns the hug tightly, for Helena needs the warmth of the contact far more than she may admit. Her body is healed, but there are still wounds of the soul to tend to, and she leans back in the chair. Her fingers twine together in a triangle-like structure in her lap. "Forward, Smithers." she instructs Teo.

And Helena's released and the blonde healer sits back on the pew, grateful for the four pack, finishing off the last of the first one before popping a second one open, replace what's spent. She decides not to watch them go, instead, looking forward to the front of the sanctuary, the blaze of candles and the crucifix with Jesus laid out on it.


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January 7th: Give Me a Sunset
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January 7th: Footservants and Family
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