Participants:
| Scene Title | History Shows Us Nothing Is Forever |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Even the horrible stuff. |
| Date | May 15, 2011 |
Walking Harmony Home
She didn't wish to stick around by the time the meeting was over. She in fact was one of the first people to leave. Harmony convinced herself that she wasn't really running away from an uncomfortable situation, that she just had a ways to go, and she is a pregnant woman in the city, so it takes her a bit longer to get home, and lord knows her condition just screams victim. She found herself okay with this little lie as she begrudgingly made her way out of the complex, her thoughts on things she heard tonight and how they weigh on her heart. She has to pause at the exit in order to remember which way she is supposed to go.
It's near the exit that Elisabeth is waiting. Perhaps for Harmony herself, or perhaps she was just going to speak to everyone as they left. But in this case, she pushes off the wall and shoves her hands into her pockets, falling into step with the heavily pregnant woman. "I should have come and talked to you personally before allowing you to hear it in the group. That was wrong of me," she says quietly. "And I'm sorry. You deserved better than that. You deserve the entire story." Her tone is soft. "I didn't… give it to them. But you deserve it."
In her search for direction, Harmony find Liz standing just at the walls of the very place she exists. Her heart gets heavier as she replays the meeting in her mind all over again at the sight of the blond woman, her shoulders sinking just a little bit. She still can't believe it, but the it is just something she'll have to cope with. Curls bounce as her head shakes from one side to the other, "It's okay. I don't think it would have really gone any differently. My reservations about…" she purses her lips, not really willing to say it again, "My reservations are probably a bit different than people might think. It.. isn't really about me at all. I just— I lost my parents when I was 18, but I had 18 good years with them. It's not fair that these children won't have a single moment with their father. It's just not right." She intakes a deep breath, and lets it all out in a sigh, "But.. I guess I do need something to tell them. About what happened.."
"And that's not a definite either, Harm," Elisabeth says softly. "I had to do a little bit of spin for most of them… I don't want…." She trails off, her jaw clenching. "One of the people who came back in time is my son." She looks at Harmony, nudging her into motion. Needing the movement to be able to say it. "Richard's son. But … it would be more appropriate to say Zeke's son. Because Richard… chose not to make the choices that led to Ezekiel."
Somewhere down inside of her, there is a part of her that wants to believe that Richard will show up all of a sudden while she is in labor. So very last minute of him that it's typical. She wants it to be his signature on the birth certificate as well as hers. Anything that shows her offspring 'Hey, dad's right here.' But the fear that it is a lost cause overshadows that hope. She can live with not knowing she'll never see both of her parents ever again. But not her children..
As her feet start to carry her on the path, Harmony rests her hands at her hips, walking a bit belly first as it has become comfortable to do. Back problems already for sure, "What? You mean.. like from the future? Your kid came back from the future? But.. why? I mean.. that is really cool and all, but why would he go through all that trouble?"
Elisabeth bites her lip. "Because it's bad," she admits softly, her hands still shoved deep in her pockets. Her blue eyes turn to the street ahead of them. "In the timeline that Zeke comes from, Harmony…. " The confession is difficult. She can't spare Harmony this.
"My name had been on a list of people that Edward Ray, the probability manipulator that we were working with, gave him. And in that timeline, Zeke… Richard… believed that what needed to be done needed to be done. And so he ordered me killed during the riots last November." There's a deep sigh. "The years afterward, he was… tormented by the choice, if people who know Zeke are to be believed. He built the Commonwealth Institute — or perhaps he merely worked for it, I'm not clear on that one truth be told — and eventually a man named Stevens came to work for them. His power is … to reverse someone's personal timeline. It's… what they did to Aric when they took him. It's what Ezekiel did to me. But the consequences of the ability being used are… horrible. And in that timeline, I died a horrific death. We've already seen in the dreams that I fled Zeke while I was pregnant, and I kept the child from him because of what he'd become. My son… refuses to let his father hurt me." She looks at Harmony and forces a small smile. "Guess I did something right… because he came back with the group of travelers to … try to keep it from happening."
"No.." Harmony sounds like she doesn't believe it one bit. The part about him having her killed. "That's— That's gotta be bullshit. Richard would never.. I don't care how bad things might have been, he would not do that." Shaking her head, Harmony frowns very deeply, "That's not Richard, Liz. It can't be. Zeke? He doesn't even go by that name, does he?" The gears are turning in her head, trying to make sense of everything she is told. She looks a little horrified at hearing what happened with Aric. She had talked with Richard about the situation when they discovered he was captured.
Looking over at her, Harmony squints her eyes and sucks her teeth. "I'm not buying it. It just doesn't seem like it is right. What about everything else? You know? The stuff that is happening now that doesn't sound like it is happening there? What if it.. isn't going to happen like that? Just because it happened to them, doesn't mean it'll happen to us, right? That's the way time works isn't it? Time and space? He could come from some kind of alternate dimension. A future alternate dimension, but yeah." Harmony sets her jaw and breathes a sigh out through her nostrils, almost making them flare. "What if they just fucked up our stuff by butting in? MAYbe we might have gotten close to having happen what happened in their world, but something else happened instead. You're talking about us being wild cards and stuff in this. What if we're not wild cards, but we're exactly where we're supposed to be. And all of these travelers are the ones that are screwing things up?"
Elisabeth lets her vent her disbelief. Hell, Liz herself disbelieved at one point. "You're right. Our Richard would never," she tells Harmony readily. "He made a point back then of diverging because there was no way in hell he was putting a bullet in my head, Harm. It's why he's been so adamant about stopping the Cardinal we call Zeke just for ease of identity. For our personal timeline, that was a huge divergence. But the time travelers have been here…. for a long while. Months. Before all that. And our son… has a serious mad-on for Richard." She sighs. "That's who Richard fought with in the library when he went to ground. And one of the others in the group evacuated him. So… at best guess, the person with the teleport power will put him somewhere in time until we can calm things down and he can return. But that requires me to … get to spend some time with my son. And much like his father, he's somewhat elusive when he wishes to be," she admits with a rueful smile.
"No matter what happens, Richard will not abandon the twins, Harm. Not if he has any way to get back, okay?" Elisabeth looks at her, reaching out to wrap an arm around her shoulders bracingly. "And in the meantime… you've got me. And I'm gonna watch out for your kids like they're my own. I swear it."
Harmony chews at the inside of her jaw as she listens, looking rather skeptical still. Part of it she can actually believe. The part about Cardinal's son coming to try to kill him. The blonde girl rolls her eyes with a low groan, "That figures. Richard Cardinal can't come back to kill himself, so it passes down to the next generation to finish the job." she sighs, "I'm gonna teach my kids to SoS time-travelers when they get older. This is get old enough, and to stay away from it themselves. This is ridiculous." The whole time thing is starting to be a bigger bother than being pregnant as far as she is concerned.
Harmony softens however, looking up at her as her shoulders are braced, "Yeah.. You're right of course. I just haven't been dealing with pressure well lately. I was totally thinking of leaving the country. Thankfully, Curtis kinda talked me out of it. And hey, he might show up at the last moment, right?"
It actually makes Elisabeth laugh softly and drop her head to the top of Harmony's. "Yeah… well, you know…. when I asked Richard to have a baby with me last year, he commented that no kid of ours was ever going to time travel, cuz he was going to train them to just say no or something to Hiro Nakamura," she snickers. "Look where that got him." She smiles fondly and when she pulls back to meet Harmony's eyes she says quietly, "I never underestimate Richard fucking Cardinal, babe. The man has saved my ass more times than I can count, and he ate a fucking nuke and lived to tell about it." She shrugs a little. "Nothing is certain. But if I know one thing about him, it's that he does not give up. Not on the people he loves. Have faith."
"I know.." Harmony winces one corner of her face, "I know, I know.. I think I'm going through a hormone thing again. The book says it is about that time I think, but it isn't as bad as before really. And Curtis has been a big help too." she smiles a little more, "He was pretty upset that he missed my birthday, so he took me out to some fancy restaurant and we had.. a pretty long talk actually." the girl nods, "I think.. I would be able to go with your plan to use Richard as a martyr. It'll be rough, but I can manage."
Elisabeth chuckles softly. "Just remember the hormone thing if it ever happens to me and I start screaming," she advises with a roll of her eyes. "Seriously. It'd be bad." She moves to wrap her arm back around Harmony's shoulders and starts them walking again. "It's not going to be a cake walk for me either," she tells the other woman quietly. "But I'm out of tears, Harmony. I want him back so bad that I ache… but there's only so much wallowing that I can do before I have to haul myself back up again and get on with it. This… is the one shot we might have. Whether it works or not, after this…. it's just about surviving. Living as best we can and raising our kids. Any of them that come along. History shows us that nothing is forever."