No Place

Participants:

joseph_icon.gif kaylee2_icon.gif

Scene Title No Place
Synopsis The future is no place for families, for future seers or telepaths — something discussed when Joseph, after long last, tells Kaylee the truth about Hannah Kirby.
Date April 23, 2011

Grand Central Terminal


Partners getting home later than intended can mean a myriad of things — the common three being a late day at the office, got caught up at the bar, or they're having an affair. A combination, even. In Joseph's case, it's none. He has no office, he's on a 'quit drinking' dry run, and affairs take more energy and desperation than the good pastor has to spare. The jacket he takes off is dry of rainwater, but his skin is cool — it would take more stupidity than he has, also, to go for an above ground stroll during the dark hours, but the tunnels can beckon, and Alicia appreciated the gesture enough. She is now a sack of bones, fat and fur, curled on the throw rug to protect her old joints from the cold and hard ground.

Avoiding the other figure in bed with more proximity paid than when he steps over slumbering canine, Joseph pauses at the sight of a thing. Quietly, the notebook from beside the bed is picked and quietly thumbed through. Stealing is a sin; no one said nothin' about borrowing.

He withdraws from the room around then, mostly so that he won't wake the telepath and invite questions. The door is made of metal, however, and closes louder than it opens.

A ninja Joseph is not. The shutting of the door certainly wakes the telepath.

Bringing Kaylee Thatcher out of her sleep suddenly and leaving her very alert. With their life style one needs to be a light sleeper. Her head turns first to the still empty side of the bed and then the door, brows dropping into a furrow, confused as to what woke her. At least til her telepathy catches someone moving away from the door. Add a glance to the floor finds Alicia and she knows who was just there.

Joseph?

Quiet concern echo's through his head, while Kaylee is quick to throw the covers off and grab for a pair of jeans. When not wearing fancy silky things, she wears a soft t-shirt to bed. So she doesn't have to waste time with that. She's getting those pants buttoned as she opens the door, making sure not to trip over Missy on her way. The dog's head lifting as her human half hops over her while pulling up the zipper.

“Joseph?” Is softly repeated verbally, just in case he didn’t hear it the first time, with just as much concern when the door opens. Kaylee doesn't bother with shoes and doesn't even give sleep tangled hair a thought.

He's already half-turned back for the door by the time Kaylee is busting through it, her telepathic query doing something to stall him. The notebook is gripped two-handedly, a little guiltily, and there is bewildered distraction to be seen in his expression as he looks her over, bare feet to wild hair. "Kaylee," is answered back, allowing for a fleeting if forced smile, stepping around to face her properly. She looks like someone who got startled away and rushed out of bed.

Which would be because she is. "Everythin's okay," he says — not honest, if one were to expand that meaning, but in terms of its common use, he isn't lying. He doesn't try to hide the notebook he's holding, but he does downplay its presence, left to hang at his side while the other hand gestures for the door. "You should go back to sleep, I was tryin' not t'wake you— "

“I— ,” Kaylee starts a touch uncertain. Why did she hurry out of bed? The notebook is noticed and he'll know she's has by the downward flick of her eyes before giving him a curious look, maybe over the fact he looks so guilty about it. Her mouth opens to say something and then stops herself, only to actually says it anyhow, “Somehow…” It hitches there as if she seems like she is going to decide not to say it after all. Still — “Somehow, I get the impression that maybe I should be asking anyhow.”

Leaning her shoulder against the frame, eyes narrow slightly – almost suspiciously – maybe trying to decided what's going on in that head of his. She could. Look and see what's up, but – “Is everything okay?” There is a briefest flutter of worry and curiosity. Okay. For Kaylee maybe more curiosity, then the other.

Even tho he’s been down that road before, Kaylee feels the need to remind him, “This relationship is a two way street, love. If something is bothering you, I’m here to listen just as much as you are for me.” Even if the words are gentle and reassuring, there is something mildly defensive about it. Perhaps she’s worried he still sees the young girl only a few years out of her teens rather then the woman rounding on thirty.

It might not be her. Sometimes, marriages are built on no-access ways.

The notepad bends a little between his hands, if not quite enough to warp it. "Don't you think if I wanted to talk about it, I'd've woke you on purpose?" is defensiveness in kind — quietly put, as if in respect of the hour, but with enough of a bite to it that Joseph sighs in the wake of it, chin tucking in and observing his hands rather than her for the moment. "Sorry. I didn't have any dreams, or nothin' like that, I was just— I wanted to take a look, I guess.

"Do some figuring out on my own." There's no more urging her back inside, or trying to walk away — Joseph does flip her notes open, however, unseeingly letting the pages flutter by in a blue of lined page and penned in print.

It stings. Shows in her eyes before she looks away to focus down the hall, to study the floor. Arms fold across her chest, eyes falling to the cement flooring for a long moment. “That's fine,” she says quietly, finally glancing up again, though her eyes don't exactly reach his, a forced smile on her lips. “Not like I'm keeping it from anyone. It's there for anyone to look at.”

The smile fades some. “I'll have more for that soon.” Kaylee glances at the book in his hands, brows lowering into a look of confusion, but not for what she's saying. “I have people out there talking to others, keeping ears to the ground. Quinn's left a message and I am hoping Delia will check in some point.” Through dreams of course.

Nodding, absently, but Joseph is more caught up on assessing the situation as present. His walk is stalled and Kaylee's rolled out of bed, and there's something impolite about asking if she wants to dress up and trudge with him through the wet tunnels. But there's also something about rooms with all four walls in a box and a low ceiling that doesn't allow him to think very straight — not since the prison, and the house, and the warehouse turned complex. The immediate corridor— as much as it can be a corridor, down here— is not dark at least — the orange light above the door spills some illumination onto the open pages.

She looks a little like him. If Joseph happened to be a leggy blonde woman, but more to the point, when he'd rushed out of the room to catch up to the departing, dark figure some greater distance down the corridor than he stands now.

The thought is like a guitar twang of uncertainty, and at this stalemate, Joseph simply takes to leaning a shoulder against concrete wall, an exhale rushing through nostrils as he edges a thumb along the pages. "There a lot of these dreams now?" he asks, at a murmur. "Like Delilah's boy, and such?"

“About fifteen in that notebook so far…” Which to her is a lot, considering the subject. “One of the newest being one from Delia about a grave of a daughter she's suppose to have in the next year. Real heart breaker.” Hand pressed to chest as if just the thought of it hurts the heart a little. “Less then a year old and dies of the evo flu. I — just can’t even imagine.” It hasn’t happened, but still just the thought that it might have.

There is a moment of of obvious silence, before Kaylee swallows and continues. “Quinn's message said she had more for me.” The telepath doesn't sound overly thrilled about it, considering so few of the dreams in the notebook are good. Mostly bleak and dark. “Delia said she was going to find Flint, since he was in one of mine. As well as look into the ones I can't get too.”

She steps into the hall, leaving the door, but moving closer so that they can continue in softer tones. “Funny you should mention Delilah's son. Most of the have kids in them… it's.. kinda how I place when some of them are. At least by the kids I know of. Like your daughter and Walter.”

"And Eli."

The name is out of place in this context — but then again, Kaylee is the one that noted down the mindscape of memory from Hannah Kirby's head within the book of dreaming, not him. It's the page Joseph has landed on and remains stuck on, reading both description and notes with a passive kind of interest, but there's a little bit of wonder being able to filter in as he shakes his head. "She said he's got your colours, but we'd picked out names for him before he was born. Good with dogs, too. Animals generally. She'd brought along a picture to show us, but it's lost for now."

A pause as more words are taken in, breathed in in an inhale that swells his chest, lifts his shoulders. "If we're gonna make the world, we gotta make one where the weight of it ain't on their shoulders," he says, closing the book and handing it back to Kaylee. His expression is reasonably neutral, his voice understated, but it comes from a place of awe. "It's her — Hannah Kirby. She's my Hannah."

“She’s —?” Mostly Kaylee looks confused, eyes falling to his mouth to watch it form the words that she has a hard time believing are going from it. Then she can only stare for a moment until they finally click into place in connection to what she saw. “I'm an idiot.” The words are whispered, eyes closing for a moment. “I didn't see it.” She takes the book in a bewildered state. “I… should have known when I saw him. He had a dog – black dog, named Alicia.” She wants to ask what names they picked, but stops herself.

She ends up looking dazed, but a smile of wonder plays on her lips as she looks at Joseph. Their son. There is a single long blink before she seems to snap out of it and looks down at the book gripped in her hands and flips it open, not unlike he did. “If we want a world like you are describing… I don't think our current government is the way to achieve it.

“Roughly what I'm seeing of this future is… all government. Having to have a license to be pregnant. From what I can guess to weed us out through breeding. These ghettos popping up where they keep them negated. Kids being snatched up by the government from their parents, even if they are legal.” Kaylee flips to one dream in particular. “People like you and I — telepaths and precogs – in this future have no place, even if we play by the governments rules. We're rounded up and disposed of.”

“Hell of a world to bring a child into, even if I do want to be a mother and have a family.” It's something she's obviously thought about often by the sad look.

He is with her, listening and attentive, until that last part — there's no very obvious change in his demeanor, no positive nor negative reaction, but his dark-eyed gaze does skate away and he rests up against the wall, back to it and arms folded against the slight chill in the air. Thought is cast up for the ceiling, and it occurs to him what didn't occur to him — to ask his daughter whether or not he ever grows back into his power. "She said she came back to look out for us," Joseph says, quietly, uncertain. "It'll be fourteen years or so passed before you have a child, and apparently it ain't so far after I die that you have 'im.

"Hannah imagines things could be better, where you don't have to be alone. Sounds like— " He flicks a glance to her, dips it to the book in her hands as indication. "Sounds like things are that bad enough, I guess. You should see her— I mean, you've seen her, but see her now. Her mom's a dancer, and she kind've— reminds me of that. In a sense. The strength've it, I mean, knowin' yourself."

He stalls out there, pushing up a shrug in dismissal. "I never woulda guessed I'd have any time with her at all."

Book held close to her chest like it's a precious thing, Kaylee leans her shoulder against the wall not long after he leans on it. She watches him quietly and in turns listens to him. “I knew I liked something about her.” A compliment about how she turned out, even if he died when she was young still. A smile touches her lips, “I was hoping you would have a part in her life, now I know. A girl needs her father in her life,” unlike her own father, “even if for a short time and I have complete confidence when she does enter into your life, you'll be a wonderful father.”

Fingers moves to touch his arm, sliding to grip his arm affectionately, without crowding him. “At least you won't have to alone.” Brows lift a bit and she gives him a touch brighter smile, a bit of a tease when she says, “Course, I don't know how I get lucky enough to keep you.”

The grip on his arm tightens lightly, before her hand starts to slide away, the telepath's smile fading away slowly. “Anyhow, it says a lot for her character that she came back, considering…” she might not be able to go back at all. Not that Kaylee needs to say that. The sacrifice his daughter made. “I saw some of what she left… your son…” She can't help but look whistful for something that might not happen now. “The memory she had of him was so… happy and bright. Full of life.

“I can't —” Brows fall into a frown, eyes dropping to the book she holds. “I can't imagine raising him without you there.” It’s hard to think of even if she knows she survives it. “Do they have an idea of what to do?”

"I dunno," Joseph admits, glancing for where her hand had landed upon his arm and where he'd let it slip away again. It motivates him enough to shift and hug an arm around her waist, drawing her in to lean. "I didn't pry a lot — maybe next time. I just sort've wanted to see what all she had to say in her own words, but I figure— when I gave people visions've the future, it didn't come with an instruction manual on how to see it through to happening, or how to stop it. Sometimes they didn't even get it until it was right there in front of 'em, and instinct sets in."

He can't know that firsthand. Or maybe he does, that one time things had twisted around in precognitive feedback, and he'd rescued some stupid kid named Teodoro Laudani. "So if they don't have a plan, I can't fault 'em. Knowin' can be good enough, and they'll know a sight better than the symbols my ability used t'make.

"But we can hope they got one," he adds, with a slightly crooked smile.

“Living the future is a lot different then symbols,” Kaylee agrees softly. There is no resistance to the arm, savoring the comfort that comes from it especially when talking about some rather disturbing things. “I imagine it's not easy to know what needs doing, even if you know the outcome. Times always changing.”

There is a soft sigh as she rests her head against his shoulder, breath warm against his neck in the chill of the hallway. Eyes close as a spike of fear twists her stomach and fingers seek about the twin crosses she knows rest beneath his shirt. Brushing where they raise the fabric, tracing the lines. “I hope the future can be changed for the better. This one… it scares me. Though there are parts of it I wouldn't mind.” Family mainly. Hannah and Eli, but with their father there. “Still scares me. Seeing it in the dreams, knowing what could happen and feeling a bit helpless not knowing how to change it.”

"We're all blind," Joseph says, voice gentle above the crown of her head. "Blind as bats. Think've the future like a road. Only precognitives and those that traveled it know how it's supposed to go. We wander unseeing otherwise and who knows what we'll stumble into, and people wonder why folk have faith in God to guide them. But these dreams, and Hannah— it's a whole other sense opened up to us.

He squeezes a little, but doesn't touch on the subject again — if his words are a reassurance, she may take them as such as she may. No sense in spelling it out or trying to convince anyone. But for someone who could deal out the future like cards, and can no longer, it's a comfort to him, rather than a fear.

"Come on. Let's go to bed. I should head back to the island early morning."

Pulling away, Kaylee moves to take his hand to pull him along. Bare feet are silent as she backs up, towards the open door to their room. “Then I better enjoy the warmth while I got it. I'd come back with you, but I have some thing left here on the mainland. Maybe pop over to check on Emily, if I have the time.”

She doesn't mention the toddler around him much, worried what he might think. It does serve to remind the telepath of something related. “You should see Abby. If she's back on the island.” Kaylee gives him a knowing look, before it is shadowed in the dark room. “Hannah isn't the only child that's come back. Kasha did too, according to Abby.” Who knows how many others did as well.

Food for thought as they drift off to sleep.


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