Participants:
| Scene Title | Mourning Comes in Many Forms |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | For some, it's anger. For others, they cope by feeding everyone around them. |
| Date | November 18, 2014 |
Magnes and Elaine's Home
The news is still blaring about the terrorist attack yesterday at Pinehearst. Elisabeth, despite her paranoia, took Adell to Aurora's preschool with Aura to let them have playtime with the other two-year-olds because to a kid, routine is soothing and they're both too young to understand what's going on. But right now, she's … anything but soothed. She arrived at Magnes and Elaine's house with a drawn expression after drop-off, with a couple of bags of fresh ingredients, to sit with Elaine. Right now, she's grateful that Elaine is finally laying down. It's been a hellacious 24 hours, and the information that Magnes was basically in the smack-dab middle of that explosion has hit everyone hard.
Keeping the television on very low volume, Liz is doing… very much what she has always done when shit hits the fan. She's cooking. Her nana's spaghetti sauce simmers on the stove, along with a crockpot of what might be chili. She's kneading a ball of bread dough when Isabelle gets back from wherever Izzy goes. "Coffee's on the counter," she tells the pyrokinetic quietly. There's a brief glance at her phone every few minutes, as if she's hoping someone will text and tell her good news. But the investigation is barely under way — there basically is no news right now.
The smell of Isa wafts in before she does. She's drunk. As a skunk. Or she was earlier and is finally at that kind of drunk where everything is numb. Her vision hadn't blurred completely, she wasn't drunk enough to forget today. Not by a long shot.
Brown hair a mess and tousled over, hazel eyes dark and dimmed no light inside. She had taken to a place sometimes in Harlem with Shaw. When she wasn't home here she was there and after quietly slipping out from their tiny shoebox of an apartment to come here. She almost expects Magnes to be there making a fucking pizza.
Red rimmed eyes slide over Liz as she sits on the counter stool before sighing and walking around to grab coffee before she sits back down on the stool, hands cradling the mug. Eyes downcast, she's not sure.. what to do. Grieve?
Fuck that.
“Do you believe what's on the news?”
"Which part?" Elisabeth asks, her tone even. "That it was hit by terrorists? Yes." She'd been standing with the aforementioned terrorist in a bunker in Arizona when the blast occurred. "That Magnes was in there? It's…. Pretty goddamned likely, Izzy." That hurts to say aloud. "They were determined to destroy the machine that Magnes was working on. It makes sense that he'd have been at ground zero in there." Her hands pause on the bread dough, though, and she looks at the other woman. "It's not out of the realm of possibility that he survived… but if he did, we have huge problems," she admits.
Liz’s opinion matters, as much as anyone's matters because everyone in her life knows this simple fact. Isabelle will do what she will. Liz’s words are a comfort but a jarring one. The possibility that he's alive, means, “Then he's locked up. If he did.” Survive that is, she can't seem to make herself say it.
A finger goes to push the mug around back and forth on the counter space. She's not happy about this scenario. Of course nobody is. Adell.. Elaine. Shaking her head Isa lifts her gaze to Elisabeth. Lips tremble but she's done crying for now. There's no time in her opinion. Opinions. None of their opinions are bringing Magnes back.
Her shoulders tense and it looks like Izzy is doing all she can not to explode right there. “What. Do we do.”
Elisabeth leans her hands on the edges of the counter and says quietly, "Honestly? I don't have a fucking clue." She sighs heavily. "I'm going to ask Cassandra to see if she can verify whether Magnes died in the blast. She works in the building, so she may be able to at least take a look. If…." Trailing off, she hesitates, trying to decide how to articulate what she believes to have happened. "Isabelle… The question isn't if he survived the blast," she finally tells the other woman quietly. "He didn't. The question is … whether Arthur Petrelli used a power on him to bring him back. And we have no way to know if he did or not."
It means that essentially they don't even have a certainty that what they're seeking exists, much less which of some number of secret holding facilities Arthur might have dropped him into if he did heal Magnes up. Blue eyes watch the pyrokinetic warily, and the grief in her own is real. There are a great many implications to Magnes's death, not the least of which is … that Elisabeth herself is basically now alone in this universe and adrift without the only person who has been through the same things she has — the only constant since they were hurtled out into time and space.
"I need you to hold it together. For Elaine and Adell, for me, for the others … Izzy, I don't know what the hell the next steps are, but I do know that Petrelli is now actively searching out all of our people. We can't do anything right this minute to draw his attention. And like you, I'm … struggling with this. I don't want to believe it. So I'm having a hard time really planning out the next steps."
A ragged gasp escapes the darker haired woman and Isa grips the counter tightly with eyes wide. Hyperventilation sucks. It takes a few moments for her to gain her composure and the pyrokinetic’s hair ignites into brilliant flames that crackle and pop, embers falling harmlessly to the floor.
The air in the kitchen area has increased and though this is exactly What Liz has just asked her not to do. It's cathartic as Isa bares her teeth to emit a muffled scream. There is nothing they can do right this second. This minute, maybe even this week. Tears streak down her face and she tries not to think about it, what? That's all she can think about. The heat makes the tears sizzle and evaporate. She could sit like this all day. Before the flames can reach the ceiling and cause an actual problem they snuff out, black smoke spiraling upwards. She's quiet here.
Her bone white grip loosens just a bit and finally Izzy looks over to Liz with a weak smile, it doesn't reach her eyes, “Okay..” it's all she can manage in reply to this. Her liquored filled mind stumbles over to the thought of someone Liz mentioned, “Cassie? She works for them.” Her snarl is open and clear. She doesn't trust Pinehearst. But if they can use the woman then so be it. “You trust her?” It's the first two questions she's actually asked.
Elisabeth gives her all the time she needs, just being there as much as she can be for Isabelle. "I do," Liz assures her. "Cassie has babysat Aura since she was born. She's not one of Arthur's people — she's mine. She helps Felix, as well, when she can. So yes, I trust her. She's the one who helped identify Liz Harrison's murderer as Samson Gray." The audiokinetic has a solid faith in Cassandra, as young as the other woman is. "She's good people, Izzy, I promise you."
She looks down and then back up. "Can I ask you something?" Which is rhetorical because she just did, obviously. But Liz is honestly uncertain of the answer. "If, even with all this…. If I did manage to find a way home… do you still want to go?" Because she can't blame Isabelle for wanting to stay near Magnes. "I'm not going to stop trying. It's not safe for Aurora and me here. It's not really safe for any of us, but… I'm not going to try to haul everyone somewhere else again."
Nodding at Liz’s words the idea that had been blooming in her head of kidnapping Cassandra to hold for leverage vanishes as quickly as it arrives. A helpful person on the inside, those had their uses. Isa would take all the help she could get.
There's a long pause as Liz poses her question as she considers. The clean homes, no disease, advanced technology.. the position of SLC-Expressives.. it's like a paradise. “This world comes at a cost.” It seemed they all did, at the least the two Izzy had been too by now.
“I'm not sure I wanna pay it.” People like Arthur and the idea of Pinehearst in itself. Isa thinks of Shaw and ruffles the back of her hair shakily, “Shaw though.. I'm not sure how that will go.” They would need to talk. “I think this place is a paradise, shit ton better than our home. But.. it's not safe.” Not for everyone, not if you didn't want to live under Arthur’s thumb.
Nodding slightly, Elisabeth tells her evenly, "Obviously I don't need an answer today. The earliest window to even attempt opening a portal is three years away, Isabelle." And she's not even sure the attempt can be made without Magnes. She finishes with the bread dough and gets it into pans and into the oven before speaking again.
"No world is perfect. I don't expect perfection. But there are definitely aspects of 'close enough' that I'm not sure I can live with. Totalitarian regimes where people are vanished for disagreeing with the shadow government come under that heading." She shrugs a little and turns to look at Isabelle. "That being said? I have two priorities in my life. Aurora. And staying alive long enough to keep you guys safe and try to get home. That's where we are right now, Iz."
Isa still has her own feelings about using just Magnes to leave, seems like a lot of pressure when they had portals at their disposal. She thinks about Ruiz for that moment, she’d have to tell him, well talk to him about Magnes because the news was everywhere.
Brown hair is flicked out of her hair and hazel eyes look to Liz, “I'm with you.” It's a simple agreement but it holds weight. The pyrokinetic smiles weakly, “We’re in this together.”
The weak smile made Elisabeth offer a sad quirk of her lips in return. "That doesn't have to remain the case — anytime you want out of this, Isabelle… there won't be hard feelings. I will always hope the best for you, no matter whether you come with me or not. Assuming I get anywhere with this." She looks around the house and just shakes her head a little, as if she can't even believe this is where they're standing. It's a battle every moment not to lose herself to the despair that she's feeling.
"I have to go pick up Aura," she says finally. "The timer is on this last loaf of bread… will you pull it out of the oven when it beeps?" Elisabeth gets the last of the dough into the bread pans on the counter and then moves to wash her hands. "I've got to go take care of some things, and I'm working the next couple of nights." She needs the distraction quite badly right now to keep from descending into a full-blown paranoid panic attack. Once she slides the pans in the oven, she finally looks back at Isabelle. "Just… call me if she needs anything, okay?"