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Scene Title | Living Dead People |
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Synopsis | There are living dead people in Elisabeth's living room. Also a few living not-seen-in-some-time people. They have a lot of catching up to do. The first part, of course, is to quiz their hosts on how they died. |
Date | April 8, 2019 |
Dorchester Towers: Elisabeth's Apartment
It's the morning of April 8th when the travelers from Moab are finally shuttled to Dorchester Towers. It was dark when they flew in, so the most drastic changes to NYC passed unremarked — except for the huge banks of lights that are Pinehearst Tower, a landmark impossible to miss from any angle. Oh, yes. There is definitely something different here.
The building of Dorchester Towers, however, looks much as it did ten years ago, having been kept in good repair. The interior is neat and clean and not much different; Tamara doesn't make any attempt to play tour guide, but leads them into the lobby and to an elevator and down a hallway. Whereupon she knocks on a familiar door. The seer herself is decidedly fatigued, for all that she also slept through much of the flight.
When the knock on the door comes, the parties inside shouldn't be too much surprised. Liz glances at Abby and grins, "Well, looks like Tam was right about the time at least." Dressed in a chocolate brown suit pants and a peach V-necked blouse, the past 10 years have been good to Elisabeth Harrison — she's perhaps a couple of pounds heavier and rounder than she was back then, but remaining in law enforcement makes it easy to stay in shape. As she opens the door, the smile on her face is no longer easy and natural — as she catches sight of those in the hall behind Tamara, her face literally goes chalk white. It takes several moments for her to gather enough wits about her to step back and let Tamara lead her charges through into Liz's living room.
It's not much different than the old one, though different colors here. Slate blue walls, tan leather sofa and chairs, beige carpets, nice brass floor lamps. Abstract paintings on the walls. A few pictures on the fireplace mantel. She won't shut the door until the group shuffles in.
"Did she say what she meant by 'Ghosts'?" Abby rises from the couch, Styrofoam cup in hand. Deckard is getting the children up and ready this morning after the call from Liz telling her that she needed to get over to her place early. She's not far behind Elisabeth, though very little has changed visually about the blonde, other than she's in nurse's scrubs with dalmatians all over it and plain black scrub pants. Someone had the night shift. She smiles for Tamara, about to open her own mouth in greeting before the group behind her prompts a hand to fly up to her mouth. "Dear sweet Lord in heaven…"
Trask is toward the back, he still carries Elle in his arms, Isa and Alex are also being brought in still unconscious. His sniper rifle is strapped to his back and he is in all black commando outfit with vest beneath. A black ski mask over his face, he has been a man of few words so far just tagging along.
Thanks to what hours of rest, Trask's gentleness, and minor healing-work had been able to provide, Elle is looking marginally better than she had. The trails of blood running off her scalp have been mopped up, and the surface-deep bruises and contusions are gone as well, soothing her skin into its normal paleness. Though still out cold, her level of unconsciousness doesn't seem quite so deep either; she looks like she's only asleep instead of quasi-dead.
In that state of restless rest, her brow seems to have knit itself in a mild, childish look, lips faintly pressed together. There was little, however, that Sarah could have done for her concussion - its source, that patch of angry red covering the top of her forehead - or the electrokinetic's badly dislocated shoulder, though she had done her best to at least set the wrenched, elongated bones and muscles the right way. She dangles in Trask's arms, a limp and easily-hefted bundle, being so slight.
Jessica looks rather relieved when she sees Abby and Elisabeth. Honestly, there's not two people in the world she would RATHER see. She actually smiles. Not much of one, but at least a little one. Abby and Elisabeth look a little off, but so little that she barely notices. She comments "Well, it looks like that was a wasted errand." Liz sending her to find Abby. The walking dead woman (from the perspective of the two temporal natives) looks over. "Someone have something I can wear other than a prison jumpsuit?"
Helena recognizes Dorchester Towers, in theory — but those doses they were given in jail were actually 48 hour, not 24 hour, and her ability still hasn't come back yet. Questions went unanswered, and she didn't pay much attention to the skyline as they came in — just let herself be shuttled into the van. When she walks in, she starts to smile as she recognizes Abby and Elisabeth — until she realizes they look different. They look… older. She looks back and forth between the two women and says in a small voice, "What…"
Fortunately for Django, none of his wounds were especially grievous, at least on their own; it mostly the culmination of them that was bogging him down, and exhaustion settled over him like a heavy blanket. So by the time they arrive in New York, having been healed and given time to sleep during the flight, he's feeling quite a bit better. Not quite peak condition yet, but he'll get there.
His appearance is another story entirely, the facilities available on the plane being nowhere near enough to get him properly cleaned. Donning clean clothes doesn't mask the film of dirt that still coats his face and arms, and traces of dried blood still linger at the edges of his face and in his touseled hair. He's silent the whole way, expression solemn, hands stuffed in his pockets and the pistol a comfortable weight tucked under the back of his belt. It's great to be home again, out of that hell hole, but he's still a little shellshocked from the attack, and something… Well, something doesn't quite feel right. Maybe he's just uncomfortable being around all these unfamiliar faces. Yeah, that must be it.
At the door to the apartment, he hangs to the back of the group, keeping his head down. It seems, from the reactions of the women inside the dwelling, that they're not exactly the most welcome of guests. Figures. This hasn't quite turned out to be the daring and glorious escape he had envisioned.
The last spectre to round the corner and file into the apartment doesn't precisely qualify as a 'ghost' for the one vaguely familiar face in the crowd — Lucrezia Bennati simply dropped off the face of the planet somewhere between 2011 and 2012, leaving most everyone to assume that she'd merely found herself a cabana boy and ran off to enjoy her retirement on a tropical island somewhere, completely cut off from the rest of the civilized world.
However, judging by the state of her expression and the ill-fitting cut of the clothes she's wearing, that's probably not really the case. The years have not been unkind, at least; she looks fantastic for a woman purported to be in her mid-50's.
Her dark eyes wander nearly everywhere once everyone else has found their way into the room and she's quick to pick out was might be a comfortably dim corner to linger in with a muted but still predatory presence. Which one of these poor bastards is she going to devour whole first?
After she closes the door, gesturing the people carrying unconscious people toward a spare bedroom with a stunned expression, Elisabeth moves into the living room and stares at the group. Some of them, she has no idea who they are, but some…. she shares a look with Abby, her expression somehow lost for a long moment. "I, uhm…. holy shit, Tamara," she finally rasps, watching the seer ramble off toward Elisabeth's master bedroom to crash for a while.
"There's, uhm, coffee… some muffins. Help yourselves, please… Oh my God, where did you COME from?" Liz finally bursts out. It's all she can do to keep a welling of tears firmly squelched behind her shock. "This is like… a bad joke."
The hand not bearing the styrofoam cup with its sickly green contents halfway up the straw is planted firmly on Elisabeth's shoulder. "Tamara… there's living dead people in the room." Wide wide blue eyes take in everyone, from head to toe, familiar, masked and unfamiliar. "Helena… Jessica, Al.. Lu..Lucrezia." A bunch of others she doesn't know. "Tamara, they.. how… They're alive?!" Wait, hurt people too. Future Abby is no different from past Abby. Injured people first. The masked man bearing Elle's given a quick glance before she's putting the cup down somewhere level so she can lay a hand on Elle's forehead. No prayers, not even singing, just a lift of the other woman's eyes. "Get her to the couch, not the bedroom, I'll have her up quick, if you would sir?" She can't tell it's Trask behind the mask. "Anyone else hurt?" Besides the obviously unconcious people.
Trask hasn't had a lot of time to notate Liz or Abby's changes in appearance, being more concerned with security, and Elle so far, he notated who they were by glance and voice. He lowers Elle down on the couch as directed while saying, nonchalantly in his worse Russian Accent. "What do you mean where did we come from? You were keeping the home fires burning while we were off to get them out. You hit your head or something, Liz?"
Tamara pauses outside Liz's room, leaning against the doorpost, twisting around to look towards the rest. "I don't know," she answers Liz and Abby. "They weren't — and then they were," she replies wearily. "There was nothing before." And she takes herself off to sleep for a while.
Jessica looks to the others. "I think we're mostly intact." She answers Abby. "God only knows how long before they show up looking for us, though. I don't know how clear we are. Disappearing soon might be a good plan."
"Abby, be careful with her. She wakes up, she might get dangerous. Not that it'll stop you," Helena's hands go up in surrender, "I know." She stares at Elisabeth a moment. "Phoenix was raiding Moab. It was starting to go really bad, but then things…shifted. And there we were. I figure we teleported, Hiro Nakamura was there and it all went wonky." Of all people, she walks over to Django, gives him a gentle shoulder nudge, but still looks to Elisabeth. "It went wrong, somehow. You and Abby, you look…" she almost hesitates to say it, "old. Older. I mean, it's only been a few months, and you both look like you've aged years." The last is said oh-so-carefully.
Coffee and… muffins? Did she say muffins? Django's head comes up, eyes lit, interest grabbed by the offer of real food. He smiles faintly down to Helena at the gentle nudge, placing a palm to her back for a moment, but as soon as he can get past the rest of the group without shoving rudely past anyone, he makes a beeline for the indicated food. Helping himself to both a mug of coffee and a muffin with a healthy slathering of butter, then finding an out of the way place to have a seat, somewhere in the vicinity of Lucrezia. Since everyone else here seems to know each other, he'll kindly stay out of the thick of things until someone decides to start asking him questions.
Almost reverently, he takes a bite of buttered pastry, eyes drifting shut and obvious pleasure on his face. Dear god, he never thought he'd have real food again after all these weeks of nothing but prison gruel. It's an exercise in willpower to not scarf down the whole thing and go for another one, but he intends to make this one last, to savor it. All of his woes are momentarily forgotten in such a simple enjoyment.
Something is… not right. Then again, given the company she's in, Lucrezia oughtn't expect either the sane or the mundane and so to strike and accord and entertain her gut instinct to flee might be a little premature at this particular juncture. Her typically augmented urges — fight or flight — aren't nearly so acute without hundreds of unseen denizens of the dark supplementing her desires with their own. But, still… something is not right and she has a hard time choking down the impulse to excuse herself immediately for far more affluent and comfortable climbs.
"Where is he?" the Italian woman inquires quietly with a profound lack of detail. Where is who, honey? Come on. This one ought to be obvious to at least two of the conscious people in the room.
She probably should have expected it… some part of her had to know that only one person would be ridiculous enough to wear a ski mask through Manhattan in April. But some part of her blocked out the knowledge until the voice hits her like a ton of bricks. Elisabeth's knees go weak and she rapidly lowers herself to sit on the edge of a chair. Niki… or Jessica? She said something about a wasted errand…. what errand? And Helena and Alex and … oh God, Norton … And then Helena starts talking. And Elisabeth's face, if it's humanly possible, goes even paler. "No one's going to be looking for you," she says firmly, and very quietly. "Today," she adds, looking between all of them, "is April 8, 2019. The Moab raid was … ten years ago. And we failed. But … in the aftermath, a whole new world was born."
She looks uncertain. "And Jesus H. Christ, doesn't this violate some temporal prime directive or something? I don't even know how much to tell you people. Where's Nakamura now? He's gotta get you guys back home." Back home to … die again in 2011? Oh … God. What a mess. "Uhm… Ni… Jessica, you're welcome to raid my closet." The slacks won't fit, but she's got some long skirts that should suit the slightly taller woman. "I think…. maybe this is going to take a while. Why don't all of you get comfortable, have some food, some coffee, and we'll… see what we can do about …. figuring out how much to say?" She looks toward Abby, cuz… hello!? Walking dead people shouldn't know how they died, should they?? But they also can't just be cut loose on the world, they won't even know how to function.
Lucrezia is going to get an answer at least while Abby's turning the healing on to Elle. Get rid of the concussion and the damage that goes with it. Inflamed muscles, brain, fix the arm, doing it all. "Teo's, last I knew, with Hana out in the Middle East. That's where my last package went." The blonde looks over her shoulder to everyone. "It's like Elisabeth said, it's two thousand, nineteen only…" Her eyes circle round the group. "You all at one point or another have passed away. Through various .. means. We can tell you more, I swear we will but right now, you all look like a thousand miles of bad road, and I need to make sure you all are okay. We can call Cat, everyone who's still around, but.. I really think as well that you all need to stay away from the window and indoors, lest you cause a panic." There's a glance to Liz, a sort of 'go call Cat, hell — call everyone'. Meanwhile, Elle's getting back into pretty good shape, enough so that the healer pulls her hands off her to pull up on eyelids again and peer into the electrokinetic's eyes. "Nobody go fainting on me right now, you hear?" She's still southern.
Trask looks up at Liz, "Oh nine not ninetee…" He suddenly gets quiet as he gets his first real look at the woman, and so many things got running through his head. "Oh god….Liz…I…." He loses the Russian accent. "I …. said I'd make it back…I just didn't expect it to take this long."
Elisabeth nods to Abby's silent directive. Murmuring to Norton as she passes him, "Take that silly thing off, you've got to be smothering," she touches one hand on his shoulder, just a brief moment of contact and swiftly broken, then she heads down the hall to her bedroom, carefully closing one of the doors in the hall as she passes it. Serious phone calls must be made immediately. Cat. Hana. Teo. Arranging for places for people to stay until we can figure out what to do for them. Things like that. Practical things.
As Elle's injuries lift themselves free from the memory of her body, like bad dreams ghosting away, her breathing begins to deepen— becoming more restless as the agent nears wakefulness. When she does come awake it happens in all in a rush, and the first obvious movement is the hand that gropes outwards, suddenly, as she tries to lift herself to her elbows from the couch. There is no more injured air about her. She's back at full health, and her narrowed blue eyes are full of wildness, confusion, and no small amount of hostility.
Having a man with a sniper rifle and a black ski mask be the first thing you see hovering over you doesn't help, either.
"Where am I?" Her fingertips clench by reflex, gathering a blue, protective gleam of electricity all about themselves. Last thing she knows she'd been thousands of miles away, in a world of concrete and darkness… fighting. Sylar had slammed the pair of them across the floor— they'd hit the wall; she first, in an explosion of unconsciousness—
And now she's randomly here. Wherever here is. Perhaps she can't be blamed for aggressiveness, seeing as what happened the last time she had woken up healed in a strange place…
Oh, surprise. Elle's awake, and she's all sparky. Her question earns her a chuffed, bitter laugh from Helena as she sits down hard. "Abby?" she calls out. "If it's twenty-nineteen, then where is everyone? Teo and Conrad and Cat…and," she swallows, "Do you know what happened to Peter?" She reaches for one of the muffins, her capacity to believe in impossible things somehow waning for lack of nourishment.
Django sits back, enjoying his second muffin, having lost the struggle of will with himself, and only about half paying attention to the explanations given. The revelation of the date shows surprise plain on his face, but a moment of silent contemplation quells it. Honestly, he didn't have much in the prese— er, the past, so being in the future shouldn't be much different. Sure, there's gonna be some adjusting to do, new things to learn, but the bottom of the barrel is the bottom of the barrel, no matter how high-tech the barrel may be.
However, when Abby mentions their passings, he chokes on a bite of muffin, wracking him with a coughing fit that goes on until he can manage to swallow some of his coffee to clear his throat. "We're dead?!" he blurts, putting pastry and mug on the coffee table in front of him. "You mean, I… I don't even make it to thirty-five?" Not that he was really looking forward to being thirty-five years old, but it's the principle of the thing!
Elle's abrupt awakening, however, has him rising cautiously from his seat, palms up. "Whoa, easy there. Remember me? From the cafeteria?" Skirting slowly around her, he moves into Trask's vicinity and places a hand on the man's shoulder. "It's cool. We're safe, aight?" Other than most of them apparently being deceased. Oi. "Have a muffin and chill."
Dead. Well then. That… explains a whole hell of a lot, actually; the strange company, the unusual greeting, the tasteless art. Welcome to purgatory, Lucrezia Bennati! Your sins are being weighed as we speak; it might take us a while so if you wouldn't mind awfully just remaining here in the lobby…
The thump when Lucrezia lolls her head back against the wall is audible as is the sigh that she summarily exhales before sucking her lower lip in between her teeth and closing her eyes in some unremarkable attempt to bide her time before being pitched into the Pit quietly. She knew this day would come eventually.
Abby's palm are up in a non-threatening gesutre at the sparking of Electrcity. "Calm down. Please. We're all friendly here. I'm Abigail. I just fixed you right up, but you need to let your body adjust since I did it quick." Woe be to the blonde who doesn't know that this is a Company agent. "I don't know about you Sir. I've not seen you before. Cat's around, keeping up the good fight for evolved rights and protect the non evolved legally on the same issues. Teo's with Hana, they're out.. crimefighting." If you want to call it that. "Conrad…" The blonde eases back from elle, standing up straight again. "Conrad destroyed the powerplant. He never made it." Holy crap.. dead people. Really dead people. "Cat's the better one to fill you in on more details as I just got off shift. You know her and that wonderful mind of hers." There's a glance to Lucrezia again. "Benjamin lives." But just as quickly as her blue eyes settled on the actress they're back on the gathered fold. "Ask your questions. I'll try my best to answer." Noooot saying their famous. Nope, not yet.
Trask turns from where he was looking at Elisabeth to Elle as she sparks alive. His voice pitches low, and intense, "Look, sweetheart, I didn't just pull you out of the middle of that cluster, first aid a broken arm and concussion and carry you all the way back here against my commander's orders just to blow a nice pretty 9mm hole in your head right after I finally got you healed up. Now I have been shot at, blown up, tranquilized, nullified, apparently killed, and am 10 years late in getting back home. So over all this has been a rather bad day. Why don't you just put the fireworks down, take a deep breadth and relax… honey." His hand is on his side arm but he has not pulled it. He also hasn't removed the mask yet no matter what Liz said; then again, he hasn't had much chance to.
All the names, Cat and Conrad and Teo and Hana and Benjamin; they mean absolutely nothing to Elle, doing little but bewilder her further as they fly over her head. "Why would you— Where am I?" she demands one more time. Someone please do a little more explaining? Especially since she had been unconscious for most of what had already been explained. She completely ignores Abigail's suggestion that she allow her body to adjust, eyes moving swiftly and rigidly from first Trask as she gives his little speech to her (her response is to tighten her lips into a feisty line, considering him haughtily for a moment, but doing little else), to Helena's face, and then to Django's offer of refreshments.
Why is she in a room full of escaped… Did they forget who she is? What's going on?
The electricity evens out at a neutral level, neither dimming nor growing, staying relatively still in its tiny, confined radius. Nevertheless, Elle is "gripping" it closely to her as tensely as though it were a lifeline.
Conrad is dead. Helena's appetite dies. And he apparently died ten years ago, died as Helena was being carted away to be locked up and mindraped for nearly three months. A part of her brain is starting to scream, she pushes it back, compartmentalizes while closing her eyes. The muffin gets carefully placed to the side. "Company Girl will probably kill us all in our sleep," she mutters, and without opening her eyes asks Abby in a bleak voice, "How did we die? When did it happen?" Her eyes are growing wet, she can feel it, but nothing starts to fall, yet.
"Can we tone down the hostility a little, please?" Django asks with very little patience in his voice, a palm raised to each Elle and Trask as if to separate them. "I've had a rough fuckin' day, you two getting into it ain't gonna do anyone any favors." Then he addresses Elle directly again, perching on the edge of the couch that she occupies. "New York City," he explains, much more calmly. "And, from what I'm told, ten years in the future. Fuck if I know how we got here, but ain't much to be done about it. We found you in the dirt when we came to, with your head busted and your arm fucked up, so we brought you with us and got you all patched up."
Taking a deep breath, he reaches for his coffee, and hands Elle a muffin insistently. "So you're kinda stuck with us for the time being, sweetheart. Wouldn't recommend starting any trouble."
The majority of people, a handful really, are in Liz's livingroom. The owner is on the phone trying to get ahold of Cat, Teo, Hana, everyone who was phoenix and still lives. Isabelle and Alexander were taken to the bedrooms and not yet seen by the healer. "Company agent?" A glance to Elle. "She won't last long. They've locked up every single one they could get their hands on and executed some others." Congratulations, Elle! Abigail takes a seat, perched on the arm of one of the couches. "Conrad brought the power plant down on top of himself. It was the only way. His last words were 'groovy'." That prompts a smile. "He's got a park named after him. Where the plant used to be. Phoenix.. The truth came out Hel, about the bridge, what we all did. Government changed hands, evidence came to light, you were all pardoned, released, medals. People were dressing up like you for Halloween."
Up Abby moves, grabs the forgotten styrofoam cup. "You were speaking in front of Columbia. It was a speech, Sergei was there, Al was there, some others were there. Humanis First, they claimed responsibility but.. " She wanted to know how they died. "Not everyone here was there. Some others, just stuff happened. But there was a bomb, and I wasn't there, I couldn't save anyone and even if I had.." Back downs he goes on the arm of the couch. "They renamed the bridge after you guys. The Phoenix-Narrows Bridge." There's Abigail! Always looking for some silver lining.
Trask reaches out a puts a hand on Elle's arm, not in an offensive way, more of a supportive one. "Look…I don't know who you are. What I know is there was a huge fire fight at Moab Penetentiary….there was an attack going on. Apparently there were some people down there, including a man who can teleport, and stop Time. Something happened during the fight, and about half a dozen of us ended up on an airstrip in the desert. Most of them were inmates and people who were trying to free them. Supposedly we are 10 years in the future. I didn't feel safe leaving you there to die, so I dragged you along against orders. Right now most of the people have little love for the Company, so I would mind your manners, as long as you stay calm and don't try anything no one is touching you without going through me." He gives everyone a long look as he says that. He is still kneeling next to where Elle lies on the couch a sniper rifle on his back in all black commando and a black ski mask. The others are scattered around the living room talking when Alex comes to.
Ten years in the future. That bit of news, which is already old for everyone else, silences Elle to the point where she docilely accepts the muffin pressed into her hand. As if offering it in exchange, she allows her electricity to swallow itself up in a stunned closing of her hand. When Trask lays his hand on her arm, her eyes snap up to his face again, lips still pressed together. But there's something different about her expression now.
"Why would you do that?" she wonders when he's done, now electricity-less fingers picking, slowly, at the bottom of her cushion. There is kind of a snort from her. "Why would any of you, do that? I could've killed you right now or something. Hurt you. I still might." It remains a possibility, though she's looking less and less as though she's going to. She flicks her gaze towards Abby again, and Django, and back to Trask. The part about the Company's fate disturbs her profoundly, though she has a more immediate question first. "Where's the time— the teleporter? Can't he just send us back?"
Al's in the back room. He's been unconscious for…hours? A day? And the world when he left it….not so pretty a place, with Verse having more or less shattered him, again. There's a muffled cry of pain from the room where the telekinetic lies. Quite lucky that his powers are still firmly suppressed.
Helena smiles faintly at Conrad's alleged final words and manages to suck up her tears. The rest of the news is listened to with growing disbelief, in the sense that it's more than she could ever hope for. Except the bit about Halloween, because ewww. There's a lot to process. "She's your snake now, Sergei." Helena tells Trask seriously. "Because last time I saw her, she tried to kill Peter and Hiro, and almost Gillian and me as well — " she looks back. "Abby?" She seems almost afraid to ask. "Hiro Nakamura told me he'd save Peter. Did he?" I'll be right behind you, he'd said.
Elle's question baffles Django, his eyebrows knitting. "Why would we- What the hell kinda question is that?" he demands, incredulous. "Like you wanted us to fuckin' leave you out there? You could have died or something." Geez, the nerve of some people. Try to do someone a favor… The Russky shakes his head and sips from his coffee, eyes roaming about the room, until his brain manages to catch up with Helena's words.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You tried to k- She tried to k- Jesus Christ, this is like a bad murder mystery!" Coffee deposited once more on the table, he throws his hands in the air in exasperation and quickly stands, pacing away from the couch. Hands are shoved into the pockets of his jeans, teeth worry at his lip, then he turns back to the group and runs a hand through his hair. "Any other surprises you people would like to spring on me? Because it seems like I'm the only poor bastard what ain't got a piece of the god damned puzzle. Shit just keeps gettin' weirder, and I'm startin' to fall behind."
"Because they're not The government, or the Company. And because i'm here and" Guardian of the underdog, always trying to find the seed of good in everyone. Al's call out garners the blondes attention, a long long lost voice that Abby is sure that someone else who is likely flying home will long for. "Peter Petrelli. Oh, he is very much alive. He's .." Oh shit. wait. "He's married. To Gillian. They're big society names now. With Pinehearst. They're calling them the Royal Family of New York" Abby's up once again, never still, making for the bedroom. "I'll be back in a moment. I'll go heal Al" Cause it sounds like he's in need of a little bit of it. "It's, it's been ten years. Guys.. Moab didn't succeed. Phoenix failed to get you guys out.. Hiro Nakamura had something to do with this?" Crazy time manipulator. no cinnamon buns for you in the future. "I'll be back, right quick" and off downt he hall the blonde hightails it with her dalmation scrubs and all.
Jessica returns, showered, cleaned, and in non-prison clothes. With gun in the waistband of the skirt, under the blouse. "Us being here rather means they did get us out. Living proof and all. Though, being here with no one looking for us has advantages."
Trask sighs softly and nods at Helena's words he looks at Elle, "From best I can determine Hiro was the teleporter in question, and he wasn't on the strip with us, which means something happened….I don't know what but with Sylar and Hiro and Peter and Gillian down there…lets just say that is a powder keg of powers that I really WISH I was present for and not handling up top. So as far as we can tell there is no way back, but then we just got here so…lets say we are still working on it.
Left a dangerous enemy to die? …It's what Elle would have done. It's what many sensible people, when it comes to that, would have done. But an odder look yet creeps into the agent's eyes, and it isn't in response to Django's reaction that she had tried to kill a bunch of people. In fact, that part is watched with a bit of amusement.
With the same look, she watches Abby depart into the next room. She sits up more fully on the couch, pertly dropping her shoulders back and rearranging herself into a more comfortable position. The faces around her are observed with mild, lightly piercing eyes. To have caught a proverbial snake by the tail, indeed. "Sooo, we're stuck here," she echoes matter-of-factly. "How wonderful. Yeah, nice thing for all of you. Nobody else around to try ~rounding you up.~" None of her coworkers, or counterparts in Homesec, or anyone.
Al's still in his prison scrubs, presumably. Weirdly enough, he's got a glove clutched in one hand - like something you'd see on a SWAT officer. He's half-sitting up, looking sick, dizzy, and bewildered, and his pallor has that greenish tinge to it. His other hand is to his head, like he's trying to fend off the mother of all headaches. Too out of it to speak clearly, he just gives Abby a wild-eyed and pleading look. Oh, god, where is this?
"Excuse me?" Helena stares at Abby incredulous. "Was that supposed to be a joke? Gillian's in love with Sylar. She's been in love with Sylar as long as I've known her she's - " Ten years. I'll be right behind you. She rises abruptly, turns toward the bedroom door to see Al. Wordlessly she walks over to him, and just presses her face to his chest.
Django simply stares at Elle in consternation while she talks, and then at Helena during the exchange with Abby, brows furrowed, one hand still tangled in his hair. He's only got so much room in that head of his, and it's filling up fast. He paces across the room a couple of times, looking like he's about to say something more than once before deciding against it, and perches on the couch next to Elle again.
Ten years ago. All deceased. Phoenix failed.
"Hey, uh…" He looks around at the other people gathered around the coffee table, slowly standing again. "Anyone got a cigarette I can bum? It's been weeks, and I could really use it."
"Shhhhh" Soothing sounds for al as Abby pauses at the doorway before she steps into Liz's spare bedroom, taking in Al. For the most part he looks fine, but she's seen that look. "They're not. Gabriel is married to Eileen, she works with me, Gabriel works for the law enforcement. Peter is married to Gillian" Thin fingers gently slide across Al's forehead, instantaneous healing, fixing whatever is wrong, soothing Al's headache and anything else. Good thing it wasn't a hard night on the floor. "Welcome .. home Jesse Alexander Knight. I'll let Helena and the others fill you in. needless to say, it bring my heard great job and i'll be saying a thousand prayers that your alive and well. Teo is going to pee himself when he see's you"
And hey, there's Helena. Reflexively, Al puts his arms around her, even as Abby strokes his forehead. Abby is talking crazy talk. That's okay, she's entitled. "Abby," he says, in a dry rasp. "Glad to see you, you look like shit. You should take a vacation," He strokes Helena's hair, cuddling her close. "I take it we're out of Moab? If not, Verse, this is a nice dream, I'd like to stay in here for a while."
Jessica looks around. "So what's the deal here? Do we have to worry about time paradox? No running into our older self or anything?" She's already running some numbers in her head. Plans. Opportunities.
Trask says, "Yeah everything is peachy for us, our jobs, lives and families, ten years of our world is gone." he sighs softly and sits down heavily at the end of the couch Elle is on, "Look ok….If we died in 2011 that means we have to get back there right? Which means there is a way out of this place. Which means we need to stick together till we find it. Which means a truce on all sides.""
"I don't know if I died," Elle points out to Trask. If they really did just skip ten years. And a small part of her is, admittedly, still having trouble accepting that. The fact that they've been teleported off into blue yonder is as obvious as daylight, but the whole time shenanigan? Really? She sighs, leaning her forearm and upper body on the armrest right by which Django is perched. Jessica lingers in her vision just then, and her inhalation briefly slows a little, but she's received enough surprises tonight for this to be just one more minor one.
She does smile. There is no snakiness in it, as Helena might have observed; no cunning. It's just a small, plain, -apparently- old-fashioned smile. "I promise I won't hurt anybody while I'm here. As long as nothing happens to change things. I can't promise anything more than that." It's more honest than she usually is.
Helena pulls her head back from Alex. "Something - Nakamura shifted us, and we're in the future. Ten years. You and I died in a bombing, and Conrad's dead." She disentangles herself and walks over to Django. "You wanna go outside to smoke it? Can I come? I need to be outside."
"I feel awful good for a dead man," Al says, brow furrowing in confusion. He looks down at her, blue eyes oddly opaque. "But I agree. I need to get out of here. See something green and growing," he adds, looking up. He still looks shaky and pale, but considerably better, now that Abby's done her work.
"I probably could Alexander. I have two children who take delight in running myself and flint ragged and now a bedgraggled group of ghosts that Tamara has dropped in our laps" She pulls her hand back, the corner of her mouth turning down as Helena's ungraceful drop of a few things in Al's lap happens. "It's 2019. It'll be okay. I don't know why your all here, and but good lord knows and has plans, i'm sure. We'll get you guys all sorted out. I promise. I have two extra rooms at my place and a couch"
There's a glance out the door towards the hall and the livingroom beyond. " Come on, up to the roof. Safe place to smoke. I think you'll like the view" Abby heads out with the others. "Up to the roof, the lot of you. You all need to see something. It might.. make it all more bearable" There's a gesture to the door. "Staircase, up. I'll go check on Izzy, get her up too"
Footsteps can be heard descending the stairs and there is Isabelle, dressed in whatever clothes Tamara and the rest put on her. She still looks slightly tired and she yawns and scratches her head. "What.. a nap." She comments and ruffles her hair a bit. Grey eyes scan the nearby area.
When no one answers his question immediately, Django ostracizes himself from the group to go loiter by the kitchen window, hands once again stuffed in his pockets. He doesn't look around at Helena's approach, but nods at her question. "Yeah. Yeah…" Facing her, then, a couple of different emotions flicker over his features, too quickly to indentify. A movement from him as he starts to go to her side to put his arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture, then thinks better of it. Despite their time together, talking through that fence, and as fond of her as he's become of her, he still feels like a stranger on the outside, especially now.
Instead he just cants his towards the door, where Abby is directing them toward, and heads in that direction. "C'mon," is all he says as he crosses the distance in slow, hesitant steps, shoulders hunched.
Jessica frowns at the general lack of information. She moves to follow Abby. If Alex -feels- like an outsider, she -is- an outsider, more than the rest. Not to Liz or Abby, but her only ties to the timetravelers are Elle and Helena, and she stays nearer to them as they move.
Trask gets up and sighs softly, "What is on the roof that is so important?" He thinks for several heart beats and looks from abby to Helena before shakes his head and doing the unthinkable, removing the ski mask he also takes off the sniper rifle and side arm and puts both on the table, taking the clips out of each first and storing those in his pockets, because a man in commando body armor is one thing, a masked man in body armor with a sniper on a new york roof top is quite another. And now there are at least 6 more people who have seen Sergei's face.
With an apologetic look to Alexander over her shoulder, Helena takes a few quick steps to catch up to Django, and when she does, reaches for his hand. She'll wait for the others of course, to go by stair or elevator as is suggested.
Letting her legs down onto the ground after a moment, some semblance of hesitancy in her posture even though there is no delay physically, Elle bites her lip to fall into line behind the rest of the group. Not like she has a whole lot else to do. As this is the first time Isabelle and Alexander (healed Alexander, at least) will be seeing her again since Moab, she isn't sure what their reactions towards her will be, but nor is that what she's really thinking about at this moment.
Because it turns out Abby is right. Though she is a lot better, it was only a quick fix. She feels so tired. So many questions unanswered— and so much uncertainty. She has to seek Abby for a different reason, anyway, even if she couldn't care less what's to be seen on the roof.
Alexander pushes himself off the bed, and follows obediently. Hey, he's still in that swanky orange jumpsuit, but who is there to see him? He can just claim he's the maintenance guy.
Most seem to be coming, and that's fine with Abby. Something to kill the time till they can figure out what to do with everyone, get them settled in. Likely at cat's place. Down the hall to the elevators, cram everyone in and press the button for the top floor. She's keeping mum on what it is that she wants them all to see, and only assurances that they need to see it. Back out the elevator when it dings, and towards a doorway that leads to the stairs that pour out onto the roof. She goes first, getting the bearing and then beckoning them over as she steps towards the edge of the roof and points.
It should be ruins, everyone remembers ruins. Skeletons of buildings that were decimated in the blast by the "midtown Man" whomever they believe it to be that did it. But there's no ruins here. Postapocalyptic wasteland has been replaced by a thriving park ecosystem, although this park has yet to be defaced by paved walkways and interpretive signs. It exists, unfenced and undivided, in the center of New York City, melding seamlessly with Central Park to the north. A miracle wrought by Evolved abilities, the visible beneficence of Arthur and Peter Petrelli, Unity National Park is a living memorial to all of those lost in the 2006 Manhattan Explosion and the terrorist acts which followed after it, culminating in the Columbia Bombing of 2011. In the crater at the park's center stands Unity Park's sole new artificial construct - a graceful stair-step sculpture of white marble which hearkens back to the red helix once present in Kirby Plaza. On its vertical faces are inscribed the names of the dead which this memorial honors.
"It's called Unity park" The southerner offers up. "Welcome to New York"
"I'll be.." Izzy begins and she shakes her head as she looks around. "When did this happen?" she asks Abby, this is something she never thought she would see.. ever.
Trask just…stares for several moments, his eyes looking out at the scare of death and destruction that has always reminded him of his mothers death and his failure to protect her. Instead of that still burning scar there is lush green foliage, life and beauty. A tear touches his eye and he clenches his jaw, taking a single step forward he reaches out for Elle's shoulder, needing a second of human contact, and knowing of everyone here she has noone. His eyes just take in everything and the true reality that they really are here and this is not a joke fully sinks into him. It's one thing to be told and take it in stride, it's another to see and beleive, and know in your heart of hearts that the world you knew is just…gone…that you vanished from it and noone even noticed, the world didn't stop…it kept on without you. It puts your life, you very being a little in perpective. It makes you realize just how unimportant you really are.
The touch on his hand causes Django to pause in his stride, turning to look down at Helena again. With a warm smile, touched by just a hint of sadness for her, he takes her hand in his and gives it a firm, assuring squeeze before continuing on to the elevator.
He goes in silence, out of the elevator, up the stairs, and onto the roof with the rest of them, making his way towards the edge of the roof as per Abby's directions. And there, gazing out on the emerald pasture of Unity Park, he gasps, a hand rising to his mouth. This time he does put his arm around Helena's shoulders, without hesitation, and pulls her close. "My god…" Somewhere on the momunent, unbeknownst to him, is his name as well as hers.
"It really is… the fuckin' future, ain't it?"
Al just freezes. This should be a moment of jubilation. Or justification. Or feeling something other than that Arctic numbness. At the moment, it's more like a rabbit punch. He doesn't look particularly touched, though he leans forward to put his hands on the wall that edges the roof, staring like mere force of will will make the illusion dissolve. It's a trick of the light. It's still Verse spinniing his fatal fantasies. "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more," he says, after a hard swallow.
Elle stands a little way separate from the group, arms staying folded across her chest. Her amazement equals that of the rest of them, though she doesn't choose to vocalize it. Whatever doubt had existed in her that this is really 2019, that they had really moved forward? It's gone. All gone.
Trask's touching of her shoulder is unexpected, but as she flicks her gaze backwards and upwards at the man in cool silent surprise, he might receive a similar surprise - her fingers do delicately close over the top of his, and after a moment, intertwine more strongly. Waves of blonde hair waft off her shoulders every now and then in the breeze, but her steely blue-eyed gaze, as it takes in everything before her, remains difficult to read.
Helena stares out at the horizon, her gaze at war between wonder and something more bleak. The fact that this change has happened on a level, fills her with hope, but it's hard not to feel like the world's been flattened. She lifts a hand, points to a tall, circular building, placed in the skyline that she hasn't seen before. "What's that?" she asks curiously. "It's so beautiful." she murmurs, though her tone is somewhat numb.
"We left Kansas a long time ago Toto." Isabelle says softly as she comes to stand next to Alexander. Her eyes travel over the.. jungle. It's like nothing she has ever seen. Wind blows the hair out of her face. She hasn't blinked since looking at the place that was once the Ruins. "They cleaned house while we were away, huh?" A hand goes to her pocket and she rocks back on her heels. Wow, this is a lot to take in.
"Pinehurst" Abby answers. "Arthur Petrelli, Peter's father. He owns it. Unity park, it's because of him. September 17th, 2011" Abby murmurs as she looks over to the group, subtle pride in her eyes and her arms folded across her chest. "It's a whole new world out there, all because of you guys. Because of Phoenix. Welcome home, a little later than you should be. I hope we rose high enough for you, and none of you were ever forgotten. More than you could imagine"
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