It Has A Story...

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abby4_icon.gif peter_icon.gif

Scene Title It Has A Story…
Synopsis When Peter Petrelli discovers the Wolf Cane is in Abigail Beauchamp's care, he realizes that there is a very important story to tell her about it…
Date June 17, 2010

Le Rivage


When one works the night shift, that means that light blocking curtains are drawn closed to fend off the sun and fight valiantly against the circadian rhythm that might otherwise rear it's head. Keep the residents unaware of the life that teems outside the walls. Sometimes though, daylight and daytime win out, dreams are not so dreamy and interrupt or a phone rings at an inopportune time.

Nearly noon, both of them should be sleeping but a bad dream, followed by a cold shower, means Abigails awake. The television is off, at some point the tea kettle whistled before she could get to it and shut it off out of respect for her partner who sleeps in another room. Despite 'leading' messiah, she hasn't kicked him out. She's not sympathetic to the cause, but she's not a total bitch.

Laid out across the livingroom floor is the case that should have held her shotgun but has played home to Kazimir's cane. Pushed to the side, sitting on the edge of a drop cloth, there's sandpaper, little metal can's of black varnish, rags, you name it. Everything one needs to refinish something. Kazimir's cane lays in the midst of all this, some scratches on it that while she could have had the restorations fix, it would have cost too much money and her father convinced her that she could do it all on her own.

Settled with her tea in a bottle to protect it from the inevitable flying particles of wood and paint, Abigail sits cross legged in tank top and yoga pants, one hand gripping the cane proper and the other closing around the head as she pulls the hidden weapon as she works to separate the two. Wouldn't do to scratch the silver.

The noisy clunk in the kitchen is the sound of an empty coffee put being put back in place, followed by a distant groan and the slap of bare feet on a hardwood floor. No more than a few seconds later there's a clunk-clonk of two cabinets opening and closing, followed by the weary sound of Peter Petrelli's voice echoing from the kitchen. "Abby," is a seemingly urgent call, "who's turn was it to go to the store?" The dread sound in Peter's voice is indicative of one of the most harrowing things to discover upon waking, that there's no coffee left to be had.

The noise of his bare feet carry Peter blearily across the kitchen and to stand in the doorway of the living room, facing the doorjam where he rests his forehead against a raised arm braced against the wood frame. "Is it Thursday?" he asks with a quiet, loathing tone of voice, "tell— tell me it's not Thursday."

It's Thursday, Peter. Which means it was his turn to go shopping.

"It's Thursday"

Sympathetic sounding, she looks over to Peter, wincing at his misfortune even as there's a snick of the blade being sprung free from captivity. "You're still tired Peter, you've had maybe three hours sleep. I'll go get my keys and go down the street and pick up some beans" Other roomies might rail and rant that the other didn't do what they were supposed to, or make sure that the coffee got filled - Because, lets be truthful, for these two, the coffee is necessary.

"Might be some cheapie beans in the freezer you can grind, or if you really need some right now, I can go around the block and get some starbucks" Upside to living in the financial district. There's a starbucks everywhere.

"Nah it— " Peter scrubs his forehead against his arm tiredly, "it's alright I'll go and get something…" either across the street or down the street depends on how he feels by the time he gets down to the sidewalk. When Peter tiredly groans and leans his head away from his arm, brown eyes track first to the television, all-too-quietly showing a news boardcast showing an aerial view of New York City, followed by a scruffily bearded talking head chattering about — more than likely — the Flash.

"Do you know where I put my— " shoes is the word Peter is looking for, but when he looks down at Abby the word is lost behind a hiss of, "n— no!" Followed by Peter crouching down and snatching the cane up from Abigail's makeshift home refinishing setup. There's a sharp inhale of breath, a backpedal of bare feet and Peter grips the cane like a mother would protectively cradle a baby.

Brown eyes look down at the silver wolf's head snarling angrily at Peter, and his free hand moves up, turning the head around and running his thumb over a notched scar that runs diagonal across the wolf's brow, perfectly sized for his thumbnail.

Tightness squeezes the back of Peter's throat and his somewhat wild eyes stare back to Abby, surprised, before he relaxes his grip around the cane and looks apologetically down to his feet. "Oh— oh God I'm sorry I— " his attention focuses back on the cane, brows furrowed together. "I— don't know what came over me."

"A really bad trip that in other people would be indicative of an acid tab or LSD… but with you, probably the Kami you had in you… can I have that back please?" Sure, she ended up one foot back than where she had been sitting. Call it self preservation and the knowledge that it's a sword that she had been pulling out and worry that she'd get cut when Peter had his mid-morning panic attack.

"And no, it's not yours, not it's not for you, it's for someone else and yes, that's what you think it is"

"N— no." It's at least an apologetic defiance that has Peter protectively curling his fingers around the haft of the cane, brows furrowed and dark eyes looking it up and down before flicking over to Abby as he creeps back towards her. "I— I mean yes, yes you can have it back I just…" Peter breathes out an exasperated and confused noise, then shakes his head and comes over to crouch down beside where Abby was sitting before she scooted away.

"You shouldn't… I mean— " Peter brushes a hand demonstratively over the surface, "it's got character." Or it's something harder for Peter to explain as he lays the cane down in front of her, his eyes flicking down to it then back up to the blonde. "Where… where did you find this I— I thought it… when the bridge collapsed…" Peter looks haunted, and is talking about things he wasn't even physically present for.

"Who is it for?" sounds a little accusing, but it's obvious Peter's trying not to sound like a possessive lunatic.
"It's scratched, and I'm not about to put a big chunk of money into repairing it like the Antique restorer wanted. So my Dad told me what I could do to fix the varnish. Strip it, sand it, restain it"

Abby's pale and slender fingers close around the item carefully as if expecting Peter to snatch it back.

"I was actually thinking of giving it to Eileen. I don't know when her birthday is, but I do know that he was something like a father figure to her and it was his" The groove on the head is examined, fingertips tip toeing over it then flipping the cane to one side to display the grooves and scratches that had happened to it.

"Best I can tell? Teo's had it. How he got it, I don't know. But Teo had it, then he lent it Doctor Sheridan and she handed it over to me with instructions to return it to him, or toss it in the river, dispense with it as I see fit"

The object, the favored item of the man she killed weighs fairly heavy in her hands and she looks across to Peter. "I couldn't bring myself to throw it in the Hudson."

Brows furrowed and head nodding slowly, Peter looks towards the television but seems to be staring through it. "February sixteenth," he murmurs, then looks back to Abby, "her birthday." Glancing over to the cane, his expression softens and chin tips down into a nod. "I think she'd— " he almost sounds choked up, "I think she would very much like to have it, but I don't think you need to refinish it. The scuffs, the scars, it's like a worn-in sofa, every little cigarette burn and popped stitch tells a story."

Standing slowly, Peter brushes a hand down his face and covers his mouth with one hand before working his shoulders and neck, trying to ease some strain out of his muscles. "He never left her anything in writing, no… books or journals, nothing quite like that. The closest thing she has is that cane, for all the terrible things that were done with it, those scuffs and scrapes are a part of Eileen's history as much as they are— Kazimir's."

Brown eyes lift from the cane to Abby. "You take them away, you're taking away part of what makes it unique, it's identity." Glancing down to the cane briefly, Peter arches a brow and then looks back up to Abby. "Do you know what's inside of it?"

"There's a sword inside of it Peter, or have you forgotten what I was doing when you grabbed it from me?"

She'd never thought of the marks and such like that. She'd wanted to make it look new and shiny again, make it something beautiful for her. The marks would have marr'd that. She's still unsure of whether she should think of them as he says. "I'm pretty sure Peter, that what makes it unique is what's inside it, because that restorer knew what it was, and anyone who has come in contact with that man knows… a thing or two"

It's put back down again, laying between the two of them so that she can do the same as he does, rub at her face and rotate her shoulders. Relaxation hasn't been forthcoming for her. "February's too far away"

"O— Oh yes right you…" Peter's eyes flick from the cane to Abby and back again, head shaking slowly. "Eileen like old things, things with… stories. Dog eared books, broken in boots, tarnished jewelry. I think I'm— " Peter looks down to the floor, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck slowly and offers a hesitant smile. "I think she'll appreciate it, just the way it is, and… February's not too far away, it just came. You're late is all, which means there's no time like the present."

For all that Peter gave the cane back, there is this unusual look of longing in his eyes when he stares at it, fading though it is. Whatever emotions were sparked on seeing that battered old thing laying there across her lap, he doesn't seem to understand them. "If you're giving it to Eileen, and you're… sure you want to, it's fine the way it is."

"Then I'll just have to slap a bow on it and call it a day then huh?" The corner of her mouth curls up and with a little push of her hands, it's nudged towards Peter. "But I can keep it for a day or two Peter, let you play with it for old times sake since you keep looking at it like a baby looks at it's binky with adoring eyes"

Which means that all this other stuff will have to be put away until it can be used for something else. "Or we can go get coffee and you can tell me the story about the cane so that I know what exactly I'm giving to Eileen"

Furrowing his brows, Peter offers a smile and shakes his head slowly, offering a dismissive wave to the cane. "No… no it— the sooner it's out of the house the better I'll feel." Considering the offer though, Peter's brows knit together again and his head tilts to the side, looking Abby up and down for a moment before offering her a lopsided smile and a nod of his head. "You know, it might help to get some of this stuff out of my head, and seeing that old thing again… it's sort've brought all those echoes to the front of my mind. Yeah it… if you want to hear it, I'm more than willing to tell it."

Looking down to his bare feet, Peter's smile grows a little and he lifts a hand to scrub at the back of his head. "Lemmie go get some real clothes on, and we'll walk down and get a coffee, and I'll tell you about a very, very cold night in Russia…"

'As if I don't know a few cold night in Russia stories" The former blonde murmurs, gathering the artifact in question and securing it in the gun case. "Go, we'll get you some coffee, get me some coffee, do our grocery shopping and hey, maybe by then we'll both be good for another few hours sleep before life catches up on us"

Truth be told, they'll likely take turns napping in the back between calls later that night. She lets him disappear, not needing much to change herself except slip on some flip flops and pull her hair back before gathering the other things and getting them out of the way of a certain brown ball of fur.

"We should, at some point, go fetch my cat and Teo's bird from your mothers now that the weather is better. Before Teo thinks I abandoned pila to the mother of the irresponsible heretical Peter Petrelli and that I don't live Pila anymore"

Thankfully by the time Peter's come out of his room the eyeroll he made at the comment about Teo's opinion has been obscured by distance. "We can do that tomorrow, I suppose I should visit anyway, there's no telling what my mother's been waiting to throw at me until I come by the house. She has this…" Peter motions towards Abby, "this way of just having something that bothers her, and letting it stay all bottled up until I come by, and then gets furious at me for not being around for her to discuss it with. It's like she doesn't know what a phone is."

Comfortable loafers scuff over the floor as Peter walks towards the front door, squinting at the drawn blinds as if trying to divine how bright out it might be by the light intruding around the edges. That the sun doesn't seem blinding is positive, though he still retrieves his sunglasses from the table by the door and throws them on, looking like some movie star who doesn't want o be seen in public with his scruffy beard and dark glasses.

Nodding towards the door, Peter holds it open for Abby until she's out in the hall, then follows her out into the hall and locks the door with jingling keys behind them. "I'm still sorry about what happened, I mean…" Peter motions to the apartment. "There's a lot of sentimentality attached to the cane, good and bad. I… actually really don't know how old it is, I know when Kazimir got it, but I'm pretty sure it was an antique."

'Not all of us who were the residents of parasitic benevolent or not so benevolent abilities got to actually converse with them or be aware of them while they were hitch hiking. So I can't begin nor presume to know what it's like, but an apology has already done been issued Peter and if you offer another one, then I will have to take said can and beat you upside the head with it and give it another mark and add to it's history. Are we understood?"

Re-usabel grocery bags stuffed into a messenger bag that's slung over shoulder, tattoo's evident above necklines and her own sunglasses perched on her nose, she's ready to go out. "Walk or drive and I have stuff tomorrow, I'm busy. Maybe you can fetch them? I need to get scarlett and Rhett adjusted to each other. I mean, look how well they got along in the movie right?"

Peter doesn't get it. It's not that he hasn't seen Gone With the Wind, it's that he doesn't remember it.

"That doesn't stop him from nervously laughing though.

"So— " he interjects immediately after, "we can walk. More time to tell the story, I suppose." Twirling his keyring around an extended finger, Peter walks down the hall towards the lobby, keys sapping against his other fingers before flipping around the other way, creating a steady click-click-click rattling that matches the pace he's walking at.

"I guess I should start before the cane actually comes into play. It was… January, 2007, when the Vanguard's work started moving into high-gear after…" Peter's brows furrow, "after Midtown." He never really made the connection before that what he did was thew catalyst that brought Kazimir to America.

"The um… It was in Moscow, absolutely miserable winter. We'd— Kazimir had been chasing an Evolved east for over a month, an illusionist he'd heard lived in a tiny little city you're familiar with." Peter casts and askance look to Abby as they round the corner into the lobby, past the elevators and towards the glow of sunlight out the front doors.

"Two Vanguard members, Ellinks Duloknova and Hans Kazakova had encountered him in Ryazan, followed stories about the metalsmith. When they failed to capture him, Kazimir decided to handle everything himself. It was the first time the lion's share of the European Vanguard was together, probably the last time too. Hans, Ellinka, Feng, Ethan, Eileen, Yvette…"

Walking past the front desk, Peter comes to push his shoulder up against the front doors and holds them open to the noise of the street, motioning for Abby to go out ahead of him. "All those people, just to track down one guy."

"Intimately familiar with in ways that I wish I wasn't, go on" Following beside him and ignoring the mail room. She'll bother with getting mail later.

She scoots ahead of him, ducking her head automatically as she tightens her grip on her bag strap. Look left, right, glance around and satisfied that nothing seems off, there's a gesture to the right. Starbucks first then groceries. She'll pit stop later to go pick up some fresh beans to grind.

"I've met him Peter, he does need more than one person to track him down and when you do get him, well, you never quite know. He managed to kidnap me, pretending to be muldoon" a shudder overtakes her, but the feeling isn't strong enough to get a hold of her and exude warmth indicative of impending napalming. Yvette though, that gets a twitch.

Nodding once on his way down the front steps, Peter offers Abby a crooked smile, "Right I— I forgot where they assigned you…" Somewhat sheepishly, Peter ducks his head down and takes a few long strides to catch up to Abby, following her lead and heading down the sidewalk through the busy noon-day foot traffic.

"They almost caught him in the city, but Feng screwed everything up, took a shot too early and blew the snipers perch cover. The Vanguard wound up having to follow him through the city using Yvette's ability to track his lifesigns, rooted him into a forest where he thought he'd be safe… so Kazimir ordered Ethan to burn the forest down. I don't think you've ever seen naplm melting a forest in the middle of January, but it's a hauntingly beautiful sight."

Sidestepping a noisy pedestrian on a cell phone, Peter glances askance at the man as he walks by, then looks back to Abby. "When all was said and done and Grigori was cornered, Kazimir spared him because of his resiliant and resourceful he was, turned him into an arms manufacturer for the organization. It was through Grigori that Ethan found what you have up in your apartment…"

Peter comes up to the corner of the curb, pressing the call button on the traffic lights, watching yellow cabs and other cars for the lunch rush cruising down the street and over the broken and cracked pavement. "It was a gift, from Ethan to Kazimir, a symbol of appreciation. From the day he got it, Kazimir kept it with him wherever he went, and eventually it came to be the symbol of the Vanguard in a way, the wolf's head."

When the traffic signals change and the walk sign comes on, Peter starts crossing the street, looking over to Abby's pulled back pink hair with a smirk, then shakes his head slowly. "The reason that the cane is so important to him, is because of something that I… I don't even know if Eileen knows for sure, maybe she does I— I don't know. It's about Ethan."

"So Kazimir is why Grigori went from making religious idols and artifacts to weapons" She vaguely remembers being told the story of burning out Grigori, the elimination of a forrest just to catch one man. "We were trying to figure out why he did that. Now we know, down the road, but now we know. Shame too, because he apparently made some of the best idols"

She waits beside him, an inch or so shorter than him, not that either of them would be considered short by any means and when the light turns, her flip flops slap against the pavement, lost amid the hustle and bustle a city come back to life, even is the life isn't that great. Down here though, it's not so evident unless you look hard.

"Ethan's call sign was a wolf, Fenrir same as Alexzander's was Skoll, Eileen was Munin, grigori was…" She can't quite rememeber. "Don't you dare not tell me now Peter, spill it"

"Regin," Peter adds for Abby's benefit, "Grigori's call-sign was Regin. A blacksmith from Norse Mythology, Kazimir… well, you know how he had a flare for the theatrics." Across the street, the Starbucks is coming up at the corner of the next block, but Peter seems more focused on the story and Abby's interest in it. "There was another Fenrir, before Ethan… and I guess that's important to where this story is going…" Ducking his head down, brows furrowed and eyes searching, Peter searches the cobwebbed memories of a man that shared his mind and flooded him with images and conversations from the past before their final journey to Antarctica together.

"Carlisle Dreyfus…" is not a name Peter says without some weight, "was Fenrir, before Ethan, before he retired from the Vanguard. After… after leaving Francois for dead, Carlisle returned to Europe to tell Kazimir that he was done. Outside of a cathedral in Stavanger, Norway, he insisted that Francois' blood would be the last on his hands, because he had his son to take care of…"

Stopping outside of the Starbucks, Peter turns to Abby, arms folded across his chest and head dipped down. "They discussed a plan that Dreyfus had been overseeing, selective breeding. Kazimir had always been fascinated by prophets, oracles… people who could see into the future. He'd set about to breeding one of his own during the second world war, picking the proper families in concentration camps, selective breeding procedures. He had Dreyfus watching on the children of those unions. It's… complicated, but the Holden family has a strong propensity towards mental Evolved abilities. Despite Ethan who seems to be an abberration in a largely Evolved family tree."

Reaching up to lift his sunglasses off of his eyes, Peter squints at the daylight, so sensitive to it with Cardinal's power. Fingers rub over his eyes and the sunglasses come back down, the wince clinging to his face. "They weren't the family he'd been breeding, but they were who he wanted to mix lines with. Dreyfus arranged for it, paid a woman who can trace her lineage back to Kazimir's experiments to sleep with Ethan…"

Brows furrow and Peter looks askance at the door to the Starbucks, suddenly not feeling much up for coffee any longer. "That was Eileen's mother."

"He didn't leave him for dead. Eileen, myself and Hiro, we traveled back in time to the woods. Francois, he gave me the ability after Dreyfus had attacked him. I was five years old. We knew the time and where, so we showed up, got him away just as they came crashing through the brush. Was why the police and the paramedics, no one in the town found anything but blood. Dah says they thought I had been suffering from heat stroke or imagining things"

Dreyfus had failed because three angels had jumped back in time once more to intervene and save his life. Abby fills in the wee bits that he doesn't know. She listens though, with growing horror to what He's telling her, hand tightening and tightening on the messenger bag strap till there's bone white knuckles and she too has lost the desire for coffee. The man who beat the crap out of her in the monastary was Eileen's father? Would explain the fondness that he showed for her, closeness. But then again, they had all seemed close.

There's a tug of his hand, away from the starbucks so that they can keep talking. "So he's.. her father. She doens't know this?'

"I don't think so…" Peter offers with a raise of his brows in a rueful expression, more at the notion than the tug Abby is giving him, out from the shadow of the side of the building and back into daylight. He squints behind the lenses of his sunglasses, walking along at her pace. "He never told her, because… he'd grown to think of her as his own daughter, and I think that somewhere deep down inside he wanted them to be close, but— it didn't work out like he expected." There's a furrow of Peter's brows, head shaking slowly.

"Kazimir was afraid he'd lose her if he told her the truth, though I guess none of that really matters now. Kazimir did, I think, love her, and when she betrayed him I think that's what pushed him over the edge. I remember… I remember feeling so much hate. I don't think anyone really knew who he really was inside, how he became the way he was, but I think he saw something in Eileen that made him feel human again."

Peter looks to the side, towards the legs of people passing by, then over to Abby again, admiring the subtle bob of a pink poinytail at the back of her head. "This cane is from Ethan to Kazimir, it is the only real physical legacy of him she has left, but it was also something hand picked by her biological father. That's why it's so important, why it's so necessary that she have it. I don't think Ethan knows the truth either, but I wouldn't even know where he is. I haven't seen him since we got off the carrier and he got handed his pardon…"

"If I never see him again, I'll be glad. He broke my ankle in a few places, I lost a back tooth, a few other things in Russia thanks to him." Ethan is not high on her like list. Right there above Muldoon, but below Logan. "All in the name of making it look like he was co-operating with the Russians. I thought for sure he was going to slit my throat when he held a knife to it"

There's no pockets to dig her hands deep into, but shoulders turn inwards and the slightest push of heat off of her.

"She'll appreciate it. I think, if I were to toss it in the hudson, it would just be petty revenge or pointless … anger. It was the man who was evil, did evil things. Not the cane, though it's the symbol of something bad. Maybe… Eileen will use it as a symbol of something good for her and the others who are left"

"I think that's probably the most redeeming thing that could be done with it. Let Eileen and the others turn it into a symbol for something better… I think, after how he died, that's what Kazimir would've wanted too. I know he never wanted to tell them, but I think he was proud of Eileen and the others for stopping him when it came down to it, and I think the end that came for him… I think that wherever he is now, I think he might finally be at peace."

Stepping into the shadow cast by an awning out front of a jewelry store, ducking out of that bright light and the warm heat that he hopes is coming from the sun and not Abby. "I don't know if you want to, but I think when you deliver the cane… if you want to tell Eileen the truth, I think that might be an even better gift for her. But that's your choice, you're the one with the wolf-cane."

Heat doens't change with the move into the shade and Abigail's not noticing it. Dwelling on the events on the bridge, the demise of the old german, ethan and the Vanguard before they turned, when they turned and the Russians that they came across. She shudders again, nodding. "Maybe it's not my place to tell her, maybe it is." The cane it seems, does indeed have a rich symbolic history.

"Let me know what you decie…" Peter says quietly, "before you go to see her." Though he doesn't explain why as he lifts his hand up, moving his palm a few inches from Abby's shoulder and then rather pointedly brings the back of his hand close to her forehead. "You need an iced coffee," Peter wryly comments, his head jerking to the side back towards the Starbucks sign as he steps out from under the shade of the awning, stepping to the side and motioning once more for Abby to go ahead of him.

"Then maybe we can head down to Coney Island for a little while, you've got the rest of the afternoon and I'm not going to be able to get any sleep. A little time at the beach might do you— " he snorts out a laugh, "might do the both of us some good, right?"

Oh shit, she's warm. "Oh holy capital ess." She hadn't realized that was happening and work wasn't starting anytime yet so she hadn't scarfed down a pill. She had a few hours supposedly till it wore off. "Damned things aren't a full days coverage" He knows what she means, he's seen them and knows where she gets them from.

"You get them, I'm going to splash come cold water on myself in the bathroom Peter and.. yes. We can go to Cony Island and we can go to the beach. Relax. Or… Or I could call up Elias and beg him to take us to like.. Lake Como in Italy. We could have Gelato. We could totally have Gelato" There's a pregnant pause and with a smirk blossoming on her face.

"We could always go to Antartica…"


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