Participants:
Scene Title | If He Had More Time |
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Synopsis | Peter comes to check on Kaylee after being brought back from the brink by a healer; he has no such gifts to offer her. |
Date | April 5, 2010 |
When you are stuck in one place the world seems to slow down, crawl at a snails pace making you feel like your never going to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when in truth is speeds along without you, leaving you behind. This is about how Kaylee has been feeling for the past couple of weeks, couped up in the mansion with only a sick young girl to keep her busy.
It's one of those few moments where Kaylee is on her own, Molly asleep in her room, giving the young woman time to her thoughts. She sits in reading nook of her own temporary room, eyes out at the thick sheeting of windblown snow. Tired of wearing sweats and her PJ's, she put on jeans today and a comfortable maroon sweater. Her head rests against the wall of the nook as she watches, a hand runs along her left leg, feeling that tingling of it, like it fell asleep. It never quite fully went dead like she's heard had happened to some, but the sharp tingling could almost be worse.
There is a sadness to her, maybe it's the fact she's been here so long, out of contact of everyone she cares about. Lonely in someways.
The breath catches in her throat and a cough hits her, the arm moving to curl around her stomach, face pained as her poor abused lungs try to get rid of the gunk in them. It leaves her breath rattling, but there is some comfort in the fact there isn't any blood. Maybe she is on the road to recovery finally.
The bedroom door here creaks, noisily, and it's that pronouncement of entry that has Kaylee's weary mind becoming aware of the fact that she's no longer alone in the room. Creeping in through the door, the darkly dressed figure of Peter Petrelli has been a rare sight around the manor since the attack. With Kaylee sick and isolated from the other residents of the house, Peter hasn't simply been allowed to be by her side, and allt hings considered it's been somewhat easier that way.
"Hey…" Peter quietly offers on entrance to the room, black sweater slimming his silhouette as he closes the door behind himself, "you awake?" The paper mask covering Peter's face hides the nervous smile he's wearing, breaking mother's orders like this.
Under one arm, the boquet of white roses seems a bit superfluous when all the sick young woman probably wants is the company of another person, but their bleached color and strong fragrence — unfortunately not strong enough for Kaylee's congested nose to pick up — isn't entirely an unwelcome addition to Peter's rule-breaking arrival.
The sound of the door has the young telepath's head turning, sleeve of her sweater, pressed to her lips still, brows furrowing in confusion as who was invading her space. Though as soon as she sees who it is, eyes widen slightly, brows shooting up in surprise. The arm drops and she starts to turns as if she's jump off the sill and throw her arms around him, but even as her shoulders twitch she stops herself. The leg wouldn't help, but the fact he isn't sick also keeps her rooted in place, fingers curling around the edge of the cushion, tightly.
Her blue eyes drop to the roses and her lips curl into a small smile, eyes suddenly shiny with tears. "Hey Peter." His name spoken softly, it's been rough, especially her last memories were him being bundled off into a ambulance looking horrible and her being forced back to her room.
"Your gonna ended up with your mom grounding you by visiting me like this." She tries to teases, even though the tears threaten to spill down her cheeks, her voice rough from the coughing and those damn emotions.
"She's let worse slip," is the dismissive comment Peter gives to the notion of grounding, a smile playing at the corners of his lips as he strides across the room towards where Kaylee is, but not quite enough to clear the distance. "Doctor Stevens… fixed me right up. The doctors at Mount Sinai say the virus is completely gone from my system, and I've been given an inoculation against the 510, but I'm supposed to stay away from the infected for a couple more days until its run its course. Then…" Peter offers a smile, "then there won't be a damned thing that can keep me from you."
Almost like a peace offering, Peter holds up the boquet of flowers to divide the distance between them more, and she can't see how sadly he's smiling behind that mask, though it still does show in his eyes. "How're you feeling? I— I talked to the doctor, he says you've been showing some improvement? I— I was pretty worried for a while there. I put in a few calls to St.Luke's to see if I could get Doctor Stevens for you but apparently he's not in work right now."
"I feel terrible… and better all at once. My mouth doesn't taste like blood anymore" There is a small rough chuckle as she reaches out and takes the flowers in hands that only tremble slightly, her cheeks actually flush slightly as she pulls them close, eyeing them thoughtfully. "I — don't think I've ever gotten flowers from a guy before." An arm lifts so that she can wipe at the tears, before they can fall down her cheeks.
"They…" She takes a deep breath, teeth catching her lip as she starts to speak. When she does manage to speak, their thick with those unshed tears, "They told me how close it was… that you were almost lost." She sniffles a bit and looks down at the roses, arms cradling them. "Wish I could smell them." Sh says softly, a finger brushing at the white petals, but then she gives a sad laugh, as the tears finally slide down her cheeks.
"God… look at me. When did I become a emotional wreak?" She wipes at her face furiously. "I am so relieved… glad… so many words I could put there, that you are already. When you — when you went flying like that… I never was so scared in my life." The hand in her lap, curls into a fists as her words sharpen slightly. "Then I couldn't hear you in my mind… I thought you were dead. So I tried to go after him, to get him off Melissa, but when I swung the poker at him, he turned to smoke and left."
Even as the words trail off, her eyes stay on the roses, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, afraid that looking at him will set off the tears again.
"Hey— hey, easy." It's nervously that Peter takes a step forward towards Kaylee, and though his hand reaches out for her shoulder there's no contact, just a curling of his fingers against his palm before that hand comes to rest at his side. Looking away, his brows furrow and the paramedic's expression becomes more inscrutable thanks to the distant look of his eyes and the paper mask hiding his mouth and nose. "I'm okay now, that's all that matters. Agent Hanson's on the case, I— know her from back in the day. She's a good person, really into her work, she'll find out who did it."
Brows creased and head turned away, Peter breathes in slowly, crinkling the frontof his mask before a sigh is slipped out. "I'm… I'm sorry everything happened the way it did. I'm sorry you've been sick I— I'm sorry I can't find a healer to take care of you." More importantly, he's sorry he can't take care of Kaylee. "When all this is done, I promise, me and you're going to go out and have the nicest dinner, and then we're going to spend the whole damned night together, and no one's going to interrupt— "
Beep
The cell phone clipped to peter's belt makes a single chime to alert him that he's received a text message at the most inopportune time. Covering his face with one hand, the sigh that follows is much more frustrated than the last one, almost comically so.
"I know.. your right." Kaylee says softly, nodding slightly, looking up finally. "Your alive, that is what matters." Licking her lips she take a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to calm her emotions. Now that she's seen him with her own eyes, a huge fist in her chest has loosened and she seems a bit more relaxed.
The interrupting beep actually gets a laugh out of Kaylee, but it cracks and she ends up coughing, a sweater covered wrist pressing to her mouth quickly. It takes a few moments for the cough to calm, until finally she takes a final deep breath. "Starting to think our relationship is full of interruptions." She glances up at him with an affectionate smile.
"Better answer it." Kaylee nods to him, looking somewhat amused. "And Peter…" Her words are gentle as she, settles back on the seat the roses cradled in her arms like something precious. "…you've done more for me then you know. All that you just mentioned? That's nothing, compared. I'll get better, promise. Humans have been enduring worse for centuries without healers."
Something Kaylee says causes Peter to shrink back the way a wild animal might from fire, even if it is a subtle gesture of nervousness or perhaps guilt. His smile behind the paper mask goes unseen as he reaches down for the cell phone clipped at his belt, sliding it out of the holster and flipping it open to look at the missed alerts. A sigh is strained out through Peter's teeth followed by a patient look of dark brown eyes up and over to Kaylee.
"It's Abby…" Peter offers in hushed explanation, "we got called in to work." Closing the phone with a snap, Peter brings a hand up to scrub over his mouth while the other is occupied with clipping the phone back into place at his hip. The look Peter offers Kaylee is both apologetic and regretful, brows lifted and creased where once a scar would have divided and hardened such an innocent expression.
"I'm— I'm sorry, I thought I'd have a little longer, the weather just— " Peter glances out towards the window, then back to Kaylee wordlessly, distant and tentative in posture, like he's unsure of what to do with himself.
"Go." Kaylee says softly, a small smile on her lips, though there seems to be a longing there, to reach out and hug him, some sort of contact. "There are people that are gonna need saving." Instead there is the soft crinkling of the plastic around the roses as her arms tighten around them a bit more. His nervous behavior isn't missed, but she doesn't comment on it, though it makes her wish she could hear what he's thinking again. Made things easier at times.
"I'm just glad I got to see you and the roses are beautiful. Molly will probably squeal about them and ask a million questions." There is affection there when she mentioned the sick teen. Her head turns to glance outside, her hair, sliding over her shoulder, brows dropping slightly as she watches the wind gusts past driving the snow. "I plan to take you up on that dinner and all." There words are lightly hearted, though there is a worried look pointed outside.
Her head turns back slowly and she gives him a soft smile. "Just be careful out there, handsome."
"As careful as I can be…" Peter replies after a prolonged moment of silence spent just watching Kaylee. Peter nods his head slowly, looking to the flowers, then back to Kaylee in that silence. Peter's smile, or perhaps lack thereof, is hidden behind that paper mask. "You should get back into bed… get some rest and just— " Peter's eyes wander to the floor, head shaking slowly before those dark eyes level back at Kaylee. "Just get some rest." It's hard advice to give, knowing how helpless he felt himself when trapped in that very situation not too long ago, sick and unable to help anyone or do anything.
He doesn't have any better words, anything more earnest to offer than his own nervousness as he back to the door, wrenching the knob open and lingering there on the threshold with eyes leveled sqarely on Kaylee. There's no farewell either, Peter's gotten out of the habit of giving them, and when he backs away to slide out through that door into the hall, the click of the door shutting is the only goodbye he can give.
Saying goodbye was never his strong suit.