I Don't Know What It Is About You

Participants:

abby_icon.gif peter7_icon.gif

Scene Title I Don't Know What It Is About You
Synopsis After a spin out in the ambulance that lands them in a snowbank and stuck till help arrives, Peter and Abby cover a variety of topics that you can only discuss while stuck in ambulance in quickly dropping temperatures.
Date April 6, 2010

Outisde Calvary Cemetary, Brooklyn


Red lights flash silently across dark pavement slicked with ice and dappled with road salt. The snow stopped falling almost an hour ago, but that doesn't lift the impression of a snowglobe from the city of New York. The strobing lights of the ambulance play crisp and carnation against the white of the snow drifts, fresh crushed ice pack crumbled out into the street in little clumps. One tire spins slowly, slicked wet from the melted snow on the road and smeared with a mixture of road salt and sand.

There's no other cars on the street at this hour past curfew, no glow of street lights or traffic signals, no lights on in houses and no lights for blocks in any direction. There is just the flashing red flicker of those lights mounted on the roof of the ambulance, and the utter stillness and silence of Brooklyn's lightless streets; the way red flashes wetly off of pavement like blood.

Head first into a twelve foot tall snowbank, the ambulance is motionless save for the spin of that one front tire that's off the ground from the way the nose of the vehicle is lifted up into the embankment. A drip of water falls from the undercarriage, dirty and brown, and then the passenger side door clicks open.

A black boot touches down on the pavement, followed by a weary groan. Equilibrium is wobbly, and as another boot joins the first, steps are staggered and uneven. Bracing himself against the side of the van, glove brushing across the dividing line of white and red. The other gloved hand is pressed to the passenger's face, leather-clad fingers spread to allow one brown eye to view the swerving tracks on the street where tires weaved side to side through patches of snow that had not been melted away.

Breathing out a gout of steam from his mouth, Peter Petrelli lowers the gloved hand from his face and slowly turns, briefly half-lit in startling carnation red by the flash of the lights atop the ambulance. "Abby!" Peter disorientatedly calls out, only now realizing he shambled out of the ambulance without checking on her; the bruise at his right temple has blossomed purple and red.

"Nothing broken!" She calls out a bit breathless, staring at the windshield and it's vista of snow. Nothing but snow. "I'm okay, I think. Pretty sure. I'm talking! So that's something" Seatbelt did it's job and kept her snug where she was and just a crack of her head against her window that shows a smear of red over a crack in the glass to match his. She'd thrown the steering wheel side to side in desperate effort to get out of the spin they'd been in and when they'd stopped it has been into that bank of snow. Could have been worse. "I'm okay"

Could have been a lamp post or building and they could have had someone in the back. Her bad mood has obliterated into the state of panic and reaction that their vehicular pace shuttled her into. "You okay Peter?" God, her temple hurts and there's something dripping onto the bridge of her nose and her breath comes out quick in the air as she studies the solid sheet of snow across the windshield.

Staggering back to the van, Peter pushes the passenger side door open and leans across the seat, looking up at Abby and breathing in shallow before exhaling a nervously shuddering breath. He reaches not for his partner but for the radio receiver on the center console, depressing the button. "This is emergency medical response vehicle 37, we've spun off the road on…" Peter looks around, brows furrowed, "ah, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Chester, right across from the Greenwood Cemetery." There's a dry, ragged swallow as Peter finishes the alert and releases the receiver, listening to the static crackle over the radio.

«Affirmative 37 we'll get someone out there right away. You okay?»

Peter nods his head, as if the person on the other end can see him and clicks the button down again, brown eyes up at Abby as he answers. "Yeah I— I think we're okay. We're okay." He's not even entirely sure of that yet, his mind's still reeling from the sudden collision and the shock of the impact of his head against the passenger's side window where it's cracked to make that assessment perfectly; they're fine enough.

«Copy. Hang tight.»

Hooking the receiver back up, Peter offers a dark-eyed look up to Abby, then just nods his head again and rests against the passenger seat, trying to catch his breath. "I thought we were gonna tip over for a second there," he says in huffing laughter, "I could feel us tipping."

"We are tipped Peter. Up and slightly to the…" Slightly to the what? "Side" She's not going to pick left or right, she's just going to close her eyes for a few moments, try and get her racing heart under control and the lambswool from out between her skull and brain. Let adrenaline gets it's last push through her system so she can get properly thinking again.

"They're going to fire me." She's sure of it. Lost control of a vehicle and smash it into a snowbank and god knows what might be in it. "Hope you like the vegan" Dripping is steady down the bridge of her nose, to the side, and making for her lips. She lifts a hand to touch her forehead, pulling her hand away to see the blood there, a strange red in the weak yellow light. "Lord, Peter, I need, I need gauze, something, my heads cracked open and I'm, I'm bleeding everywhere." No, not really, just a nice cut that can do without stitches and just some steri-strips or butterfly bandages.

Sluggishly, her long fingers reach for her belt to press down and undo it. "Please tell me there's nothing broken? I really don't want your momma coming after me after Doctor Stevens just patched you up. Kaylee's be so mad at me, heavens, Melissa's be making me twist in agony"

"Yeah, yeah I got it…" Peter quietly admits, reaching up to grab the handle and pull himself up and into the passenger's side of the ambulance. He leans forward once inside, pulling his emergency bag out from beneath the seat, easier than trying to climb into the back of the vehicle right now with it tilted up. Unzipping the top, Peter lets his eyes flick back over to Abby. "They're not going to fire you…" Peter admits in a hushed voice, "just… ust relax, I've got you."

Reaching inside of the bag, Peter pulls out one of those sealed sanitary wipes, cracking a smile as he shifts in the seat, peeling the wrapped away from the wipe as the alcohol smell fills the air. "You've got a little split, you'll be alright, c'mere." Stretching to settle a hand on Abby's shoulder, Peter leans up and just a little out of his seat and makes a motion for Abby to lean over towards him.

Better to stay in the ambulance anyways, where it's warm and more comfortable than sitting in the snow. The scent of the alcohol wipe springs up, stinging nostrils and invoking memories of medical things likely for the both of them even as she turn towards Peter, settling her feet to either side of the corner of her seat. The vehicle can still run and they'll have to get out and see if the tail pipe got covered if they want to turn it back on.

"Oh sweet heavenly Jesus that .." Stings. Forehead wrinkles and she squeezes her eyes shut even as she sucks in a breath when he settles it over the cut. "This is just.. this is just a bad day. It can end, anytime now Peter, really. I'm so very tired of it. It's the perfect end to it really. I mean, it just can't get any worse can it?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with that mark on your cheek does it?" Peter quietly asks, his hand having moved from Abby's shoulder to rest against the side of her neck just under her jaw while he carefully daubs away the blood from her cut and tries to clean it as gently as possible. "Did Flint hit you?" There's a raise of Peter's brows, tone halfway joking, "You just say the word and my mom can have him disappear you know, swept right under the Company rug. All you have to do is ask."

Half joking.

Moving the sanitary wipe away, Peter crumples it up and drops it down into an open McDonald's bag between the seats holding burger wrappers from dinner. Fishing a bandage out of his bag, he peels that wrapper away, reaching up to gently touch his gloved fingers to Abby's forehead, applying the tiny butterfly stitches to her brow.

"Flint hit me back in November Peter. It's why we stopped. He hit me the night we brought Francois back from Louisiana. This was someone else. I picked a fight and got what I deserved again" Much like Darren earlier, the fights gone out of her right now, the crashing ambulance the climax to it all.

She stays put patiently while he tends to her forehead. The upside to getting hurt in an ambulance is that you can both look after the other instead of needing to wait for someone else or being without the necessary supplies. "I went off to Russia and when I came back, I went to Mexico to chase him. To finish things and get on with my life. We were married in the future, did you know that?" Quite possibly she hit her head too hard? To any other person it might seem it, but Peter of all people, would understand. "But that futures gone. I can't heal, and he's…"

Now tears start to fall, having welled up during the conversation, mixing with streaks of blood to give pink and she reaches up to work between Peter's paramedicing to wipe at them. 'God, it's all just like some real bad story Peter, and I want to shake him, shake myself and I'll wake up right? But I don't and it almost makes my nightmares seem sane"

There's a tightness in Peter's chest when Abby mentions the future — that future — and his eyes wander away from her and down to the floor. When he leans away, it's not out of some emotional recoiling but to pull out pre-cut gauze bandage from his bag, peeling it out of the wrapper with shaky hands. Biting down on his lips and nodding his head a few times, absently, Peter's hands nervously bring up the bandage, lifting a hand to lightly touch at Abby's cheek again to turn her head towards him so he can see best as he can by the interior light of the ambulance cab.

"Some people aren't meant to be together…" Peter murmurs in a hushed tone of voice, laying the bandage down on the split, then spreading his fingers out to seal the adhesive tape attached to it to her skin. "There," Peter says a bit more confidently, "all better." At least physically, the other injuries are deeper than he can tend to. But Peter doesn't lean away from Abby, instead his hand moves down from her cheek to rest gloved palm against the side of her neck, head dipping down and brown eyes up, trying to make eye contact.

"Don't beat yourself up over him, Abby. Don't— don't beat yourself up over the choices someone else makes. You can't help everyone, can't… make people be who they aren't?" There's a weak smile, his hand gently squeezing where it rests, reassuringly. "Robert seems like a good guy, the one you were at the gala with? He's a friend of the family, you know. Helped take care of my mother when she wasin a coma after what my father did to her. He's a good guy, trustworthy. You're a whole lot better off with him, and you know that."

"Roberts a bad guy too. Killed people. But I've killed someone before so. Guess in a way it makes me a bad person to. Just a little" She didn't know however, that Caliban took care of the Petrelli Patriarch when she was down. Blue meets brown, crinkled corners and wet lids. "Can't help who the heart loves Peter. I don't love him now, but I always will. Do you understand?"

She reaches up to smooth her fingers over the bandaged forehead with a satisfied sigh, not feeling anything other than sharp pain when she presses. Of course it's patched up proper. He's a paramedic. But it's his turn next, gentle fingers tapping over his bruise to test for unevenness beneath the skin. Not that he's acting like he's got a fractured skull either and satisfied, she doesn't drag out her penlight. She'll let him off easy.

"Robert lives in a different world though Peter. A world of money and cloth table coverings, of more than one fork and pretty dresses and suits that cost more than four months salary. Where you know what's in a wine by a smell and bottles cost more than what I make in a week. I don't know if I fit in that world. I'm just me. My world consists of riding in an ambulance and fixing people's hurts and trying to get through the day without a Russian shooting me between the eyes or breaking down"

"I understand…" Peter distractedly comments to Abby's train of thought, "about loving someone, like you said. I— " His hand moves from her neck, rests at her shoulder and gives a squeeze, "I understand." It's a regretful tone that has possessed his voice there, heavy with some emotional content that he'd rather obviously not spill out into Abigail's own problems. That notion has him moving away from her, zipping up his emergency bag and finally catching sight of the bruise at the side of his head in the rear view mirror. Peter lives a gloved hand up, touching at the already purple mark, then notices the crack in the passenger side window, nodding his head slowly and exhaling a sigh when the pieces fit together.

"Did you ever think…" Peter offers to Abby, looking back at her as he tucks his emergency bag back under the seat, "that maybe what you see in Robert, he sees in you?" One dark brow lifts up, but it reminds him with pain of his brow's injury, so the expression is a brief one. "Maybe he's tired of the caviar lifestyle and wants to settle down? He's a rich man, has a nice job, but he's got to be in his late 40s. He's getting near that age where he could retire early and settle somewhere, live comfortably. Maybe you're that comfort?"

There's a smile, crooked as it is, on Peter's lips when he considers that notion. "Maybe you're his hope of finding someone he cares about and someone who wants a quieter life. I'd talk to him about it, you know? He's an adult, he should be able to talk about what he wants in the future, especially if he has feelings for you, Abby."

"We're both far too busy to sit down and talk right now."Was that what he wanted? He loves his money though. "He worries about me. He's.. done things before for me." There's a soft huff. "He went to Russia because I called and said that Muldoon was there. Can't hurt to try though. See if.. something can be carved out for us in the world"

She notices his withdrawal, settling her arms around herself after grabbing at the half toppled orange juice from the McDonalds bag. The crack in the window noticed too. "You'll let me know if you start seeing double. They're going to worry about your head" Everyone will worry. "If you had a choice peter, if Cardinal gave you the choice out there after Kazimir left you. Would you have taken the formula?"

"The… Formula?" Questions of his head injury are less pressing than Abigail talking in sybillic prose. There's a lift of his dark eyes up to her, one brow lifting puzzled as he assesses his partner curiously. "I ah… I don't know, probably?" There's a slow shake of Peter's head, teeth toying at his lower lip and eyes down in his lap. "I didn't— know you'd heard about that." Admittedly there's some anxiety on his part at the topic, but it's quick enough to pass; easier to discuss this than matters of the heart.

"It wasn't really my choice when it happened." Peter explains, leaning back int he passenger's seat and wrapping his arms around himself; he can already feel the bitter chill from outside permeating through the closed cab now. "We'd met this man, Wagner. He was a power thief, sort've… like a halfway point between my old ability and my father's. We'd found a way to kill him, Kazimir and I," he talks about it so casually, "but we both thought we were going to die doing it. Kazimir was going to take control of him and kill him. Cardinal was supposed to shoot me, but everything was breaking apart…"

Peter jumps around in the story as much as his memory of the moment does, "I think Eileen had to in the end. Shoot her father. Shoot me." There's a soft, emotional tone there. "I remember laying on the floor of the drill site near the rig, staring up at the helicopter through the hole in the ceiling. Claire was holding my hand, I was pretty sure I was going to die there…"

Peter slants a look towards Abby, smiling sadly. "The next thing I knew, I was regenerating. I'd been injected, and I was taking Claire's power. Someone knew what was going to happen, I don't know if it was Eve, or… that blonde girl. Any of the precognitives I've met. Someone saved me, helped Cardinal line up all the dots. I just don't know who."

Looking up from his lap to Abby, Peter's brows furrow. "Would I do it again? Of course, it's what was supposed to happen I guess. I would've died otherwise, never would've…" Peter doesn't fill in that last blank, just smiles and shakes his head. "My ability's not what I remember… but the Formula, it came from ten years in the future. There's no telling what else it does… how it was made."

"But if you wouldn't have died. If you had been right here, in this ambulance, sitting beside me but you were powerless… Would you take it?" They could go into the back of the ambulance, grab the blankets and bundle up. Who knew how long till someone else managed to make it out here. They had both been moving non stop all evening so far.

That's the harder question to answer, and it shows in Peter's lack of consideration on the matter prior to now. "Probably… I was born with the ability I had for a reason, and I think it was to help people. I used to think having a power made me special, different from other people, that the rules didn't apply to me. I was young, and i was dumb." There's a rueful smile on Peter's lips when he admits that, head dipping down into a nod again. "I wouldn't trade what I have now for anything, so…" there's a ghost of a smile playing at Peter's lips. "So yeah, I'd take it."

"I lost Wendy's ability…" Peter weakly admits with a dry swallow and a slow nod of his head. "When I was sick, when my ability stopped working. It just— it was gone when I got better." Gloved fingers curl against his palms, "It was like having her die again…" Wendy Hunter's death seems to have hit Peter harder than most people might have expected. When you wear your heart on your sleeve the way Peter does, it's not hard to have that happen.

"The hunter woman? The one who died?" Abby frankly didn't know what ability he was usurping all this time. "I'm sorry Peter. I didn't know you knew her" The queen of no PDA's, or infrequent ones, Abigail reaches over to settle a hand on his arm. "It's not your fault you lost her gift" Whatever it was. "Maybe it was meant to only be with you that long"

"Maybe…" Peter admits quietly, then looks down to the hand on his arm, settling a gloved one on top of it. "I don't have anything right now, actually. It's making me feel like I'm going to work naked without having some sort of ability to back up." Peter offers a look up to Abby, then gently rises up from his seat and moves between them, headed into the back of the ambulance with clunking bootfalls. "Is Odessa still living with you?" Peter asks over his shoulder, before hissing noisily.

"God everything went tumbling back here, it's a mess." There's a shake of his head, and as Peter crouches down he picks up one of the zippered cases with the thermal blankets. Pulling one of them out, Peter squints, then looks up and out at the darkened city through the rear windows of the ambulance. "God… it looks like a ghost town out there."

"She's living above the bar. Teo made us move. I'm living in Le Rivage over in the financial district. My bed in a mattress on the floor and I hate the place. I want to be home. But he keeps telling me that some guy will come in with a bomb in the bar and blow us all up so.. Odessa decided to stay. You were right though"

Abigail carefully shakes herself out of her seat, easing into the back with him too. Boxes here and there, sterilized packages still sealed but tumbled that was locked closed. The stretcher stayed in place at least and she eases down to sit on it and take the first blanket from him. "She confessed, that she was sent there by the Russians. But she's talked with Teo and Francois and I guess they have a plan. Something. I stay out of it and leave it up to them and to the government. And live in an empty apartment with Al"

There's a disconcerted sound in the back of Peter's throat, and Abby's story has his eyes peeled away from Brooklyn's lightless streets. "I'm staying with my mother, for a while at least, till the weather blows over." Unzipping another red canvas blanket container, finding it empty as he hisses out a sigh and rolls his eyes, it figures.

"I've… got an apartment on Manhattan, furnished, hot water and heat, probably still has electricity right now. Only one bedroom, but the couch folds out." There's a smile spread on Peter's lips as he settles down the empty blanket case, recalling when he had left the blanket that belonged in it with a car crash victim and never got it replaced. He ambles up and over to the stretcher, settling down next to Abby, arms crossed over his chest and gloved hands tucked at his sides.

"If you want I can give you the keys, you shouldn't be staying in some big, empty apartment in this weather. You and Alexander are more than welcome to stay there for as long as you need."

"Peter, I sleep in the place, that's all I do. If I'm not there, I'm working in the bar or I'm in the ambulance with you or the Vegan" The blanket is spread out, wrap over the back of both of them. One is not going to freeze, and if they get to the point they need heat, well then they'll both just get out, clear snow from the tail pipe and they'll be good.

"I'm taking the formula peter. Someone has some. They offered it to me. They need a healer and they're getting desperate and.. they hope that the formula will give it back to me" She looks over, which isn't hard since he's an inch away, and then back down where she wraps the blanket close around her side. "Don't tell anyone, not your mom or.. anyone. In case it doesn't work. Like you said, it's the Formula. But someone once asked me if I'd do anything to save a dying man and I told them yes" She purses her lips, staring down. "I'm still saying yes. I just though, since you'd had it.. "

"Abby…" It's a confused utterance of her name, brows furrowed and brown eyes leveled on bluer ones in the brief moments in which he can steal a glance from her. "Richard asked you, didn't he?" There's an accusatory tone there to his voice, one hand moving to rest on her knee. "Abby, he came to me too, he's— " trying to dissuade her brand of heroism would be like trying to pull the ambulance out of the snow with smiles and snappy whistling. "How're you going to explain that to the government? I mean— you're not registered right now, are you?"

There's a nervous squeeze of his hand on her knee, head canting to the side as he considers her at this close distance. "What if it works different, what if— you don't get what you had before? I mean, you— your ability was never healing, that was what was living inside of you. There's no telling what you could get, I— I don't…"

"Then I take what god gives me and thank him for it and learn to live with it Peter. I can only pray that it's going to be healing. If it's not" She looks down at his hand, tongue pushing at her teeth in her mouth, testing to see if the ones in the back had loosened, paranoia from Russia and Ethan. "I'm not registered anymore. I sorta.. wish they has that new registration system up so I could do it right now. I don't know how I'll explain that, hey I had a gift, then I didn't, now I did. I don't think they believe me that some guy came along and ripped it, but the blood doesn't lie"

She's staying mum on who's asking her to take the formula, neither supplying his name nor even agreeing that it's him. "If something goes wrong, can I count on you to help me? I mean, if I turn out like some vegetable or.. or… nearly dead…"

The sigh that comes out is a nervous one, and Peter's head shakes slowly following it. "Abby, you can count on me. I know we— really didn't know each other very well before work started, but you're a friend. I try not to let my friends down, at least— as best as I can." There's another squeeze at her knee, and Peter's head shakes slowly, arm lifting up to wrap around Abby's shoulder and his other joining it beneath the blankets as he pulls her towards him in a hug.

"False negatives happen all the time with registration, same with false positives. If you want to register, I'm sure my mother can help you get registered and not have too many questions asked." There's a hint of a smile there, one gloved hand coming up to rest against the back of the blonde's head. Peter pauses, lifts his chin up and just breathes heavily into the air, visibly at that, with a huff og steam, confirming what he thought he saw when he was talking.

"I'll do whatever I can to help you, okay?" There's a crook of a smile at the corner of peter's mouth, wry, as he adds, "just promise me you'll let me do any driving involved."

Zing.

Temperatures like this suck and her head is starting to hurt. Likely this is the end of the road for them today. "There will always be questions asked and.. yeah, I could use some friends. They're either dead, dead, dead going to be dead, or .. I'm just on shaky ground with them. I got you, Mel… Manges a couple others like Francois and Teodoro. Lord, I could do with just.. you know, nothing happening. Two weeks in India in the hot part of it" She can see her breath too. She wrinkles her nose at that.

"There's an emergency shovel in here, we can dig out the tailpipe peter and turn on the engine. Activity will keep us warm, and we can take turns. It's not that far in" She thinks. "Because, if we don't, it's going to be hypothermia and I'd really like to avoid another hospital bill since I know that it's gonna be tight with the bar if the cold doesn't let up"

She squirrels out from his hold to yank open one of the large cupboards, bringing out the collapsible shovel. "Get some good stuff for our heads, and lets just… focus on staying warm huh? Leave the formula, healing, powers talk for another day where we can really get at it and just let loose"

She didn't smack Peter about the driving comment, he was all braced for it and everything and it shows from his mildly tense posture. The grimace that follows, admittedly, is a bit more sad. "Yeah, I ah…" Peter's brows furrow, lips creep up into an awkward smile and she's shrugging off the blanket, breathing in a deep breath to exhale as a sharp sigh. "Alright, normal life stuff." Peter admits with a crack of a smile trying to dismiss his worry, reaching out to take the collapsible shovel from Abby.

"I don't know what it is about you," Peter admits with a laugh and the shake of his head, "but you're the only person who can get me talking about all that craziness that's happened in our lives, and not make me feel like you're trying to pressure me into something." There's a shake of the shovel as it unfolds and snaps out to full size.

"I'm glad I got partnered with you."

'That's cause I'm not trying Peter. Cause I know soon enough, it's just going to suck you back in like it does me" The Blonde confesses. "What the lord wants, he will find a way. Now get out there and shovel me some heat before I set you up on a blond date with Mel and see how fast you get in hot water with Kaylee" Would she really do that? Maybe the snowbank is a good end to a crummy day.

"I am too Peter. Must be fate" Must be fate.


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