Participants:
| Scene Title | I Took The Road Less Traveled |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | … and it's made all the difference. |
| Date | May 22, 2011 |
Skinny Brickfront, Endgame Safehouse
The safehouse is mostly deserted. Elisabeth has the watch and she generally spends her shift on the rooftop, pacing from one end to the other occasionally so she can see everything. She's armed, but it's holstered. With her hair loose about her shoulders and back, she's wearing a fleece jacket over her blouse and a pair of jeans up here. It's not even 60 degrees, cool and actually quite lovely. She can do something up here alone that she almost never indulges in anymore — certainly none of the group has seen her do it. Surrounded in a silence field, she is singing. Though until he gets close enough he cannot know what.
Trask moves quietly, he is careful on his little self instilled pacing of patrol around the safehouse. He sees the form on the roof and pauses a few moments, till he can make out who it is for sure. Then he smiles to himself and approaches cautiously, so as not to startle her to much.
She isn't aware of his approach until suddenly her own voice, unenhanced and unmuted to the surroundings, rings out across the rooftop. "On the wings of the night as the daytime is stirring, where the speechless unite in a silent accord — " Elisabeth stops abruptly, the notes cut off mid word as she turns to see Norton Trask standing there. "Norton," she says with a small smile. Her blue eyes trail across him, the ten feet separating them such a small space. But there's something in her expression, something… perhaps questioning. "Are you all right?" she asks.
Trask smiles softly, and looks at his watch, "Well The end of the world was scheduled for almost 4 days ago now, and I am still here, so I guess I'm as well as I can ask for?"
Elisabeth smiles just a little bit. "Yeah," she says softly. "I… wondered if you'd be back here that day." And he wasn't, not that she knows. Of course, he doesn't know what happened to her that day either. "Do you…. " She bites her lip. "Do you have a picture of him?" she asks hesitantly. It's the first time she's ever asked to see Cameron. She asked him when he came back not to tell her.
Trask nods, "I do…one picture…and a little of his music." He answers softly, he doesn't move to pull the picture out though, his eyes on hers, "I figured I should stay away…in case something happened I didn't want you caught in any cross fire."
Her arms cross over her waist in almost a hugging motion. Elisabeth's eyes don't drop from his, though. "There was no cross-fire. Nothing happened," she says quietly. "The Columbia 14 happened last year instead… they were humans killed in an Evo altercation."
Trask says, "I know, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have died some other way when my time was up. I then spent the next day or so drunk. And well. Now I am back together.""
Elisabeth nods slightly. If anyone understands an anniversary of a supposed death it would be she. "Yeah…. the anniversary of the day they blew my brains out, I pretty much freaked too." She purses her lips. "I'm glad that you're all right."
Trask keeps his distance, not moving so far, he nods, "I am not sure I freaked out as much as just expected something to happen, in some ways I was dissapointed I was still alive, in others it made my heart soar.
She walks toward him and asks softly, "May I see him?" Elisabeth's tone has a reluctance to it, as if she's not certain he'll share it.
Trask slides a hand into his breast pocket, he withdrawls a single folded piece of paper, it seems a little worse for wear, not only the burns of the time travel tunnel to the present, but also 2 years in the jungle have had it's effect, but the picture itself is still clear. He offers it to her, but does not show her the face, if she wants to see it she will have to take it and turn it over.
Elisabeth reaches out to take it from him, her hand steady as she does it. When her fingers brush his, though, they're cold. She moves carefully, turning the image over without looking at first. Her blue eyes don't leave his for a long moment and then they flicker downward to study the face of the little boy in the picture. Her other hand comes up to brush the image, stroking along the soft jaw of the child. She says nothing as she memorizes Cameron's features. "I'm sorry," she whispers, more to the picture than to Norton himself. There is a crushing sense of regret that she can't quite hide as she moves to hand the picture back, her eyes averted.
Trask places his hand over hers, closing it there, "I've had him for a long time, if you wish you can hold on to it for little while." He tries to smile, and then just shakes his head and steps forward wrapping his arms around you tenderly.
Her hand closes around the picture for a long moment and she lets Norton hold her, slipping her arms around his waist to hug him tightly. "I won't ever have the chance to meet him," Elisabeth says softly. "I won't… carry him under my heart, or give birth to him. Nurse him. Hug him, spank him, praise him. He belongs to a timeline that we destroyed, Norton. Deliberately." She pauses and says softly, "And maybe wrongly." Her doubts have been so strong this week. "I have…. a son. Walking the streets right now. Who is … just as amazing as I think Cameron would have been. And he too may never be born. How are we supposed to live with knowing that we have destroyed our children?" she asks him softly. "You made this choice….. you knew that coming back here might, and now has, negated Cameron's very existence."
Elisabeth pulls away and looks up at him. "And now Joshua made his choice to come back… to try possibly to stop his own birth by keeping his father from making certain choices. I…. don't know if I'm supposed to be proud…" Which on some levels she is. It takes a damn strong man to make the choice that Norton and Joshua have made. "… or horrified. And I begin to wonder if … by changing Cameron's existance we have given up all right to any kind of happiness, Norton."
Trask says, "What might have been, what might be, is not what is. That time line does not cease to exist. I think it is still out there somewhere…running parrelll to us, we have missed the exit to reach it. But that doesn't make the fork in the road dissapear."
"I'd like to believe that," Elisabeth admits, listening to his heart beat in his chest for a long time. When she steps back, she looks at the image still in her hand, the little boy a heart-breaker with big blue eyes. She smiles a little. "He doesn't look like his brother much," she says softly. "He takes more after you." She reaches for his hand and presses the picture back into it. "Thank you. For letting me see him," she tells him as she finally looks up. "He would have been an incredible man." She has no doubt of that, for even being raised in the worst of conditions Joshua Harrison is what she'd consider an incredible man. So a son that she raised in a world not nearly so dark would obviously have to be one. "Perhaps someday…." She trails off, uncertain how to finish the half-formed thought. "Anyway. You, uhm…. you missed the meeting."
Trask says, "Meeting? What were we meeting about this week? We blowing something up? Shooting som bad guy? TPing city hall?""
Elisabeth laughs. "Uhm….. no. We're dealing with time-traveling children of the Ferry and a non-evo flu and outing the government as Humanis First patsies and making Cardinal a martyr." She shrugs. It's been a busy week.
Trask says, "Cardinals dead?" He blinks, "Sorry…I missed that part…" He pauses a moment…"Oh Liz…." He gives you another hug, tender and soft."
"Oh!" Elisabeth hugs him back tightly. "God, I sure as hell hope not," she murmurs. "If Joshua actually killed him, I'm going to have to smack the boy into the future or something." She buries her face in his shoulder and shudders slightly. The idea of burying Richard …. eats her alive in ways she still cannot really talk about. Pulling away once more, she assures him, "He was evacuated into the timestream somewhere. Don't know when he'll turn up. But in the meantime, I'm going to try to use the explosion at Redbird and Richard's records as …. the new Columbia 14, if you know what I mean. To try to turn the tide of public opinion."
Trask says, "Evacuated into the time stream? I watch a lot of scifi and I don't even know what that means." He brushes your hair, "Ok so what can I do to help?""
Elisabeth snickers. "One of the Ferry future children from 2040 has a power similar to Nakamura's. Joshua… " She pauses and admits, "Joshua tried to kill Richard. For things he didn't do in this time stream. Never ever considered doing. And the other kids evacuated him out of the line of fire. To where is … " She shrugs. "What you can do to help is that I'm about to put into motion a smaller-scale of actions to take. We're going to be … sort of picking up where Phoenix left off some time ago. Smaller good deeds, if you get my drift. Things that are changes to the time stream that might ripple outward and change other things. I don't quite have it all planned out as yet, but … I'm working on it. So if you have thoughts, toss them into the bucket," she tells him with a smile. "And in your copious spare time… keep tabs on Harmony. She's gettin' huge."
Trask nods, "Harmony…I can do that, I have been looking in on her when I can, Graeme to. He has some boy staying with him who he seems to trust. Even told him who I was." There is a little frowns there, "Said you said it was ok." He shakes his head, "I'll do what I can for her…does she know about Cardinal already?"
There's a nod. "I broke it to her… not as gently as I should have." Elisabeth grimaces. "And Graeme and Devon are both okay. Devon's… becoming one of ours," she murmurs with a sigh. She's not terribly thrilled about bringing the teen in, but he's already in so deep she's not sure it matters. "I need to have a sit-down with him, I guess, really."
Trask nods slowly, "As you wish." He grins softly, "I guess I should let you get back to your singing…"
Elisabeth blushes a bit and looks up at him with a soft smile. "I'm glad you're here," she tells him quietly. "More than I can say."