Participants:
| Scene Title | Not Deal With It |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Jessica needs to reach Niki and takes steps. Helena later sets a policy regarding what she's being told. |
| Date | April 8, 2019 |
Dorchester Towers, Elisabeth's apartment
When she comes back into the apartment, Elisabeth is looking…. a bit rough. Red-eyed, swollen features. She clearly spent some time crying. But she looks… somehow at peace. She closes the door behind her, and glances into the living room on the way to the kitchen, double-taking at the sight of Cat. "Oh Jesus Christ… of course you get here while I'm up on the roof," she says mildly. "Hey, Jess…. the skirt work okay?" she asks.
She's not far from the door herself, having intended to depart after saying she'd be in contact about what she and Jessica were discussing. The phone book, Elisabeth may notice, is still open to a yellow page somewhere in the Ts. Cat changes her intention with the shorter blonde's return, and instead moves to sit. "It's been a morning of discovery," she deadpans.
The taller blonde is in the proffered skirt, and she looks back. "It did, yes. It's good to see you again." Because while there may not be a ton of love lost between Jessica and Liz, she's still the most familiar except Abby. Still, it's a far cry from the integrated person she was in both of the other two's memories, much more recently.
There's a long pause as Elisabeth studies Jessica quietly. "Is Niki okay?" she asks softly. Because she hasn't seen Niki since they arrived. And she's pretty sure things are … not going well. She looks at Cat and says quietly, "Norton's upstairs." A morning of discovery indeed. No wonder she looks a little worn out.
That's not a question for Cat to answer, although it was discussed. She moves over to the coffee she brought and takes a cup of it in hand, then glances at the front page of the day's New York Times in silence to let the others speak for a bit. But the mention of Norton makes her stop. She'd initially perhaps attributed the red eyes and swollen features to the situation in general. But Norton… How many dead people are walking around now not dead at all?
Jessica looks back, seriously. "No. Niki's not okay. She's catatonic. Moab had a telepath on staff. A psychic torturer." She straightens a bit more, and it would take someone who knows her to recognize the significance of the next bit. "He…did things." Things bad enough that Jessica is talking around it, rather than being clear. While Niki might be catatonic, Jessica didn't get off unscathed.
Elisabeth nods slightly. "Fuck," she says succinctly. "All right… we'll need to find someone who can help her out. Maybe I can find out who you trusted to integrate you and get them in here to help." Because Elisabeth and Niki were friends up until Niki's death last year. "Cat… are the safehouse apartments still intact? We might want to consider putting some of the more trusted travelers there."
"The fourth floor is just like it was," Cat replies, "except for being a safehouse. Now I call it a guest floor. There's plenty of room." She glances over at the phone book when Elisabeth speaks of treatment, again leaving what's discussed to them. She won't give away what they talked about so recently. At least not yet. "How many people came on this trip from the past?"
Jessica looks dubious. "You or Abby would be the two people I'd most trust to get her out." Of course, in the Bright Future, it was during her incarceration at Moab, prior to her release, that she got treated and reintegrated. Perhaps a sign of divergence. "Integrated, huh?" she says, a little curiously, a little skeptically.
Liz nods to Jessica. "I'm willing to try to coax her out, if you want. Give me… a few minutes to pull myself together, okay?" She smiles just a little. "Seeing you again is… something of a shock. I wouldn't want to convey that to her." She looks at Cat. "Eight, it appears." She looks at Jess. "Unless you left more somewhere else?"
"Eight," Cat repeats. She leaves it at that, opting to ask about names and such another time. What's going through her head is questions of safety and security for them, if they were to remain here they'd need new faces and identities to live under, at least some of them. Others like Helena might choose to be themselves and explain how they got time traveled. Such things, however, are their decisions to make.
Jessica replies "Whoever we came in with. I didn't count." She seems a little hesitant at Liz' proposal, but nods. "All right." Because ultimately, Jessica can always be counted on to do what she perceives as in Niki's best interest.
A shower works wonders for the aftermath of catharthis.
Helena was able to scrub herself clean, literally and to a degree metaphorically, and change into fresh clothes before being forced to face the day. But face the day she does at last, emerging from the hallway in clean close and bare feet, her freshly washed hair pulled back in a neat braid. Her eyes are still glassy, but she appears calm. "Good morning." she murmurs quietly to the collected ladies. "I'm guessing people have been sorted into living spaces for now?"
Liz looks between the women and says quietly, "So now…. we need to decide a few things, and soon. One of those is… what the hell we tell you. Obviously, none of you are going to be able to function without a basic history lesson. I know Abby told you some, but… if you're here for any length of time, you're going to need to know some things, and we're going to need to either get you identities or … reinstate your old ones." She glances at Cat and grimaces. "Some of you are… relatively iconic people, you realize?" She looks toward Helena as she says that, offering the petite little blonde a smile and a hug, which she didn't give earlier.
Her eyes settle on the shortest of the three blondes as she emerges, her expression shifting. Cat's clearly affected by it again. "It's so good to see you, Stormy," she offers. Her mouth opens as if to speak and explain her seeming hostility earlier, but she catches herself. Speaking of the time she was accused of being Sylar outside these apartments would only remind her of Peter, and there's been enough mention of him already, she can tell.
"We turned you into a modern day Joan Of Arc," she explains instead. "After you got out late in 2010, the media loved you and we used that to push the agenda further."
Jessica looks over at Helena's arrival, and then back to Liz. "We still going to try this?" She's uncertain of it with strangers. Not one to want to appear vulnerable.
Helena accepts the hug from Elisabeth gently, if a little reserved. "Joan of Arc burned at the stake as a heretic." Helena says a bit ruefully. She offers Cat a quiet look, a silent forgiveness. She'd have done the same. "I don't want to be other than who I am, but I'm also not the person who you knew. Which suggests that we need to go back. What's happened for you hasn't happened for us yet. I don't particularly want to die, but in order for things to turn out as they have, we'll need to figure out the paradox. But you have to understand…just yesterday, for us, was the raid in Moab."
"Yeah… well… sort of apropos," Elisabeth says quietly, leaving off the 'being as you and thirteen others were bombed to death because of your status.' "I don't know that you're even in your own timeline — that's going to require someone FAR smarter than me to figure out. If this is not an alternate timeline, then… yeah. There are a number of reasons you have to go back," she says quietly. "Assuming we can even FIND a way to get you back. Re-creating the circumstances that brought you here might be impossible. I'm not saying give up, but … it's something to put in the back of your heads, you know?" She turns her blue eyes to Jessica and says quietly, "Yes. Would you like to do this back in the bedroom instead or… heck, even outside? I don't even know if I can get through to her, but I'll try."
Settling onto the couch, Cat keeps attention on Helena. "It does fit. She rose and became a heroine against English occupation, got captured by the British and murdered, then her legend got bigger still and she was sainted. You've not been canonized, but you are legendary. I remember every speech you gave, I've got all the video and audio footage available. Part of what we did I suggested. I worked the behind the scenes angles and lobbied while you took the public face, Helena."
"I get it, completely. Yesterday was the raid for you. Just like I remember everything since we failed to get you out like it was yesterday, or fresher."
Jessica looks to Elisabeth. "Room might be better. Most private. I doubt anyone else here wants to be bombarded by my issues." Her voice is quiet.
Helena looks at Jessica. "I know it might not mean much to you, but thank you. For helping me, on the inside. I appreciate you defending me, Jessica. I know you didn't have to." She adds, for good measure, "Good luck trying to unlock Niki." To the others, somewhat apologetically, "I'm very hungry. Is there any food left?" To Cat and Elisabeth's claims of apropos, she smiles faintly and admits, "Yeah, sounds like me, I suppose. I don't know how to handle this - I don't want to get locked up again, even if the government is much more benevolent now, they still might get some funny ideas. I don't know who can help us. Maybe this Pinehearst people keep mentioning? They seem to be at the center of all things Evolved." She's not sure if she's prepared to watch footage of her future - past - self.
Elisabeth nods slightly and looks at Cat, and then Helena. With a small smile, she offers, "Make yourself at home. Please. Anything you find in the kitchen, whatever you'd like to eat or drink. There's coffee, a slew of muffins and some bagels… no idea what else. My son eats me out of house and home regularly. Get comfortable. I'm printing out some of the more useful pivotal articles and such on the laptop's printer, Cat — if you want to grab those for people as they pop out." Cat will know that the printer's in the spare room-slash-office-slash-guest room, though Liz's laptop's sitting on the dining room table. She gestures Jessica to go ahead back down the hall ahead of her to the empty master bedroom.1
Jessica nods. "I'll go in and get ready. You come in when you're ready, Liz." And with that, off she goes.
Jessica is regarded briefly and calmly as she heads into another room for the attempt to draw out Niki. She didn't speak of their agreement, but Cat will still see about that telepath. Her eyes soon drift back to Helena, and there's hesitation. Pinehearst. Much as she tries to avoid discussing things that would expand a wound, the name keeps coming up. Petrelli. Except this time it's not the remaining son. It's the father.
And she knows there isn't much choice, given that fact. Things are how they are. "Pinehearst is run by Arthur Petrelli. A good bit of what's happened came from him. He cleaned up the crater, turned it into Unity Park. The Company is gone. They were exposed to the public, and so were we."
"About that." Helena says, blinking. She pads over to the kitchen, and as instructed, begins to root through it for food. She comes up with a bagel and looks for a means to taste it. "Last I knew, Peter's father was dead, and his mother Angela was alive. Not that they got along at all."
"When we started to pull it together and attack the Moab problem," Cat begins, "we soon learned the man who captured you was called Jonathan Carmichael. He had the Evolved ability to make people immobile. Limbs would simply not work. It's how he grabbed you, Alexander, and the Brian who was with me at Jersey City. Wireless arranged for a dose of the ability suppressant and injected him with it. Later that day Elisabeth, Kinson, Hiro, and I paid him a visit. Kinson told him to answer all our questions truthfully, and I had quite a few." She displays a touch of smirk in relating that.
Helena listens as her bagel finishes toasting, and then she slathers it with cream cheese. She then hunts for orange juice, pouring some into a glass, which she then brings out into the living room. "I know you guys did the best you could." she says. "But how does it tie into Arthur Petrelli?" She bites into the bagel, closes her eyes briefly in bliss. Like it's the best thing she's ever tasted. In near three months time, it actually is.
The smirk spreads into a grin as she continues. "His answers led to more questions. The answer to who he took orders from was Roger Goodman, and the answer to who Roger answered to was Arthur Petrelli. They were manipulating things behind the scenes. It was them who got the captured Brian turned into a Company agent while you and Alex went to Moab. He told us about that too, we thought until then you were somewhere unknown while the guys were in Utah."
"An informant gave up info on the Company in July '09, and a few months later Roger Goodman was interviewed on CNBC and really gave up the ghost."
This is all fascinating, but doesn't really answer Helena's question. "So Arthur Petrelli was what, in hiding?" Helena asks. "Why would he hide from his wife and children? And this Goodman guy, what did he do?"
"Goodman," Cat explains, "was a longtime Company agent using the cover of being the public relations director at a place called Biomere. Soon after the Company was outed, Arthur Petrelli came forward. He claimed he had to fake his own death to avoid getting killed by his wife and Daniel Linderman, who had conspired to have the city partly nuked. Linderman and Angela were executed. Nathan Petrelli was impeached, convicted and stripped of the presidency and is now," she pauses, "serving several life terms at Moab."
Helena's brow goes up at that. "Uh." is her first thought, then, "Wow." And then, softly, "Poor Peter." As soon as the words are out of her mouth she flinches a little at her own self-inflicted wound, but then regards Cat solemnly. "Tell me about him, please."
"It's still not very much known that Peter lost it fighting Sylar and caused the destruction," Cat tells her in a quieter voice. "Spin doctors put it out there that Sylar was framed, and Theodore Sprague was manipulated into being the bomb. Peter started working with his father, they spent years improving things and making the world more hospitable for us. He was pardoned in January 2011 by President Mitchell."
Stepping back out of the room without Jessica, Elisabeth glances through to the other women and then joins them quietly. "We're sure telling them all of this is a good plan?" she asks Cat softly. Looking at Helena, she adds, "Not that I tihnk we're going to be keeping much secret, depending on whether you all get back immediately… but still."
Helena looks to Elisabeth. "They are probably going to demand answers and find them on their own if they have to, so you may as well not bother trying to hide anything for the sake of the timestream. Unless you know where Hiro Nakamura is, the only other time traveller that I know of is Peter, and do you really think it's a good idea for me to see him?" A thought occurs to her. "What about Doctor Edward Ray? Is he around? He might be able to calculate the most likely means for us to go back." Thoughtful. "But in the meantime, if anyone thinks I'm going to stay some kind of voluntary prisoner, I'm sorry, but no. Cat - do you still have your Village property? I'm sorry, I forget the name, but last for me, you'd just bought it."
"I trust Helena with everything," Cat calmly states. "As to others, it's hard to tell. There are eight people, so far I've seen Helena and Jessica, Trask was mentioned. Who are the other five? I don't know how much I'll tell Jessica, given her having been a Company agent and other things. Not to mention her declining to share about how she got here. But I did agree to see about finding her a trustworthy psychologist telepath to help Niki." That would be why Elisabeth's yellow pages are open.
"And yes," a grinning Cat adds for Helena's benefit, "I do. I live in the penthouse, the fourth floor is a guest floor."
There's a grimace and Liz replies quietly, "No… I don't think it's a good idea to see Peter yet. Not unless we have to. Lord…. if he's the only person who can send you back…." She shoves a hand through her blonde hair. "God, this is… crazy. Insane. And I wasn't even remotely inferring that you should be held prisoner of any kind until it works out. Only that the lot of you lay low until we can work out… IDs for you, and whether you even want it known that you're here. You know? That could be… well, hell, call me paranoid, but seeing all of you has thrown me back into that mindset. It could be dangerous for all concerned." She looks at Cat. "I actually know some names of good ID forgers, if we want to go that route."
"Hiro Nakamura would be practically impossible to track down." Helena says. "The only two resources I can think of is this Pinehearst and Doctor Ray. So I think we should focus on making some kind of contact with the former happen and tracking down the latter." She looks over to Cat. "Would you mind putting me up? And maybe Django, too? He's kind of all alone in this, I'm the only familiar face he has. He was as good a friend as he could be to me when we were imprisoned." She takes another bite of cream cheese. "He's one of the other five. There's Elle Bishop, the Company girl who tried to electrocute Peter and Hiro - Sergei's decided she's his new pet house bunny, it would seem. There's Lucrezia - Teo's aunt, I think you guys said he's on his way?" she sounds hopeful. "There's Alex…who seems to have recovered from his amnesia, thank god. I'm assuming that's Abby's handiwork. And there's Isabelle. She and Jessica know each other."
"Hiro is where and when he wants to be," Cat replies in agreement with Helena. "I can maybe find Doctor Ray." She thinks for some moments on the questions of identities and security. To this she nods a few moments later, offering "We do still know Dr. Bianco and there are others like him in the phone book." But Cat pauses as a grin spreads out.
"Helena can safely use her own face with another identity. You see, I'm about to start working to get a biopic on the famous Helena Dean made, and I've found the perfect actress. She's evolved, her ability is shapeshifting or illusions, and she wears the face so she can look like Helena and have the feel of being her, for her art…"
Next she declares absent of reservations, "I've got room for you in the penthouse, Stormy. Django can have a fourth floor apartment."
"Elle Bishop…" This concerns Cat, visibly. "She may flip out when she learns the company is gone, and if she goes back she may know too much to be allowed to live anyway. Best to tell her as little as possible."
"Abby already ran her mouth in front of her about the state of all the remaining Company agents." Helena says a little wryly. "It's oddly comforting I suppose; some things never change. Thank you for the digs, Cat, I - " she pauses. "If we do that, then I will want to speak to Peter. I'm not going to make him think I'm some actress trying to be all Meisner at the expense of 'Helena Dean's'" she finger quotes, "Loved ones." Maybe it's because Liz was so emphatic about how she shouldn't see him, despite moments before Helena not wanting to herself. "I don't really want to lie, though."
Her eyes close. Of course Abby did. Elle Bishop may present a problem to be dealt with. Can't allow her to go back and tell anyone in the Company what's in the pipe. If that means a bullet in her head, that's what it means.
When they reopen, her eyes rest on Helena. Her expression shows some concern, the voice is quiet. "You were crying when I got here, it may have been because you're dead in our world, or it may have been because of what I'm about to say regarding Peter." It's an easy leap to connect him with tears on the weathermaker's part. "He got married. He's still married. But I do think he can be trusted with knowing it's really you."
Helena is not going to cry. Helena cried about a lot of things, and yes, Peter is one of them. "That's why I want you to go to him, Cat. Tell him what's happened. Tell him I'll submit to whatever test he wants to do to verify it's me. A blood sample, letting him root around my head, he can ask me a million questions. Let him decide if he'll see me. But that's the only way I'll go for what you're suggesting. Besides, if Pinehearst can help us, we need him anyway." She doesn't mention Gillian. That's still in her Not Able To Deal With It folder.
Nodding, Cat mulls over to tell her the rest, and opts to share. "I'll go to him," she softly assures. "Regarding you and Peter…" she has to spill, she realizes, because Peter might and she needs to be prepared. "He did love you, Helena, truly. You got engaged on the eighth of May, 2011. You called Gillian and I to meet you for lunch at Tavern On The Green on the ninth, and told us he proposed. He gave you a gorgeous ring. He proposed in midair near what used to be the Deveaux building. Arthur offered to give you away."
Helena seems…uncertain as to how to react to that news. It's true that she's done crying, probabbly for a long while, but once more she's confronted with news that is both exhilirating and heartbreaking to hear. "Wow," she breathes at last. "You know what, Cat, I - I'm a lot hungrier than I thought. Could we maybe go out or something? Or get something delivered? It's been a really long time since I've eaten something that didn't taste like gruel." Apparently the best way to deal with that news is to also Not Deal With It. For now.
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