Participants:
Scene Title | Only For Him |
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Synopsis | Kaylee allows her a moment to remember her husband. |
Date | September 01, 2020 |
Petrelli Mansion
Kaylee hated getting in so late at night. In the large foyer, the sound of her keys hitting the ceramic bowl was like a crack of thunder in the dark quiet home. A part of her wanted to check on her girls as she always did, but as she cast a glance toward the doorway to their wing of the house, Kaylee hesitates. They were not really little anymore.
Swallowing hard, Kaylee instead turns towards her suite of rooms to get out of those god awful clothes and something more fitting for her. There was a flutter of anticipation that carried her through her nightly routine and continued until she stepped into the next room, large and ringed in mirrors. Her leotard clad form, reflected many times over in an endless cycle if she looked hard enough.
Twisting her long locks into a messy bun on the back of her head, Kaylee lets out a slow relaxing breath and presses a button on the player. It felt more like home here then the rest of the house. With so many rooms in the vast Petrelli home, she had this one converted to a dance studio for herself. A place to escape from the problems of the day. It was how she unwound from a particularly bad day of dealing with investors and visiting hospitals that benefit from what her foundation did.
As a soothing symphony of music starts to play, she closes her eyes and pictures herself back on the stage of Giselle. The orchestra swells and Kaylee lets muscle memory take over, going through each graceful step. Lost in the melody and the natural feeling of her body flowing along the river of sound.
Giselle always reminded her of Nathan, what she always played when she wanted to think about him. When she danced, she could almost picture his face in the crowd, watching her like the performance was just for him. In a way, every night he attended, when they started dating, she imagined she danced only for him.
Even tonight, she was dancing only for him. The memory of his face held firmly in her mind's eye and the sound of his voice…
”Lee”
It was as if only through the graceful flow of trained movement, could she bring him back to her.
Nathan Petrelli had been old enough to be her father, but Kaylee had never noticed. Never cared when her father pointed that out to her. Age had never been a thing for her, it was only a number. What mattered to her was the man he was under that handsome exterior and her husband had been a good man.
She’d been privileged to see a side of him that other’s hadn’t, when he let his guard down and showed her the man beneath the politician.
”Bold of you to think that you could just waltz in here and ask me to dinner, Mr. Petrelli.” Kaylee comments with an edge of amusement, looking at Nathan's reflection in the mirror with a delicate arched brow. “You’re not a Senator yet.”
Still he knows by the teasing, flirtatious tone that she’ll probably say yes. It gave him the courage to push. “You said it yourself ’yet.’” He glances at his bodyguards, flashing them that winning politician’s smile. “Besides, Miss Ray, it’s one dinner,” he insists when he turns back to her. Nathan Petrelli sounded so sure of himself. She found it weirdly charming. “What harm could it do?”
Kaylee had said yes. Then again many times after that, not regretting each one. Not even when he bent down on one knee and asked her to marry him. He’d never become a Senator, but he never saw it as a bad thing.
”Afterall, It led me to you.”
There in that small studio, it was the only time she really allowed herself to think about him. The world had no room for her to sulk, so she bottled it away. Until it got to be too much. Then she’d retreat to her studio to unpacking those emotions and wrapping them around her like a warm, familiar blanket.
The burn of tears behind her eyes, echoes the burn from stretching and working muscles that had lost some of their elasticity over the years. While the ache of her toes always helped keep her grounded. A reminder of reality and the pain and heartaches they endured in the past, as she danced her grief into submission.
Even after they got the news about her health and her inability to keep up the long hours associated with working on Giselle, he still married her.
”Hey… hey, look at me,” Nathan insistently, dipping down and angling his head to catch the attention of Kaylee’s tearful gaze, the phone still clutched in both hands. “This changes nothing, Lee,” he offers gently, brushing a palm over damp cheeks. That only made the tears fall faster, why was he so understanding? She was broken.
God, how she loved him.
Despite all the tragic moments, it had been the best year of her life. Looking back now it felt like they had spent a lifetime together. She wasn’t sure it would have been enough, even if they had that time. Was it ever?
When they found Brynn, it had pulled her out of a deep depression. They hadn’t planned on adopting, but Kaylee wasn’t sure she could have her own… Nathan wasn’t willing to risk her health. So when she saw that little girl, Kaylee wanted her in their family. Creative and bright, but special needs. Kaylee didn’t care, she forced Nathan to learn ASL with her, just so that little girl could be theirs.
Kaylee finally had the family she wanted so badly and they still held hope that one day they could try for one of their own.
But…
That hope and happiness only lasted a year. One short and wonderful year. It only took one person to destroy it all..
”I have to go, Lee,” Nathen’s voice was matter of fact as he carefully unhooks her clutching fingers from her arm. “He’s my brother and whether I like it or not, I have to try and save him from himself.”
Kaylee’s stomach twisted into knots. “I don’t like this, Nate,” she whispers tensely with worry. “Please… just let the police handle it.”
Peter.
Nathan’s mentally unstable little brother. When Kaylee had met him, he hadn’t been that way. He had been charming and funny, clearly looked up to his big brother. They easily bonded over being the youngest siblings. But then something broke in the younger Petrelli and he was never the same.
Resting a hand against her cheek, he gives her that understanding smile ”Hey, it's okay I’ll be home before you know it. Promise.” Leaning in, he kisses her on the forehead, before resting his against it.
”I love you.”
There were so many fights between the brothers over Peter’s mental health. When her brother-in-law fell into those fits, Nathan always felt it was his problem to solve. There was a good heart at the center of the man she married. Begging his brother to see reason to get help.
”Listen to yourself, Pete. Don’t you see? This isn’t you.”
”No. You don’t understand. You’re not seeing…”
There were many nights she spent consoling her husband after a horrible fight, feeling just as helpless as him. Wanting to take away the pain, as Nathan sat hunched over on the edge of the bed torturing himself. Wondering what he could do differently. What could he have said to calm his brother down, to help him?
”I just… I don’t know what to do anymore, Lee,” Nathan rubs the heels of his hands against tired eyes. Kaylee could hear the strain in his voice, the emotions etched in the lines of his forehead.
Kaylee quietly sat on the edge of the bed with him and gently took his hand. With his head bowed, he couldn’t see the tears perched on her lashes. Wishing she didn’t feel so helpless. “You’re doing all you can do,” her voice soft. “Now it’s up to the doctors, we just have to be ready for whatever they decide.”
But that final morning… That horrible, heartbreaking morning. Kaylee never wanted to remember it, but she could never escape it. No matter how hard she danced or tried to get lost in the melody… she remembered.
”Mrs. Petrelli… I’m Officer Chavez. May I come in?”
The memory slams into her with enough emotional force to take her breath away. It causes her to stumble mid-turn and her ankle suddenly folding, sending her tumbling to the ground. The polished floor against the skin of her hip leaves a nice friction burn to go with the bruise that’s already starting to form. She doesn’t really notice it or anything really just laying there in an emotionally broken heap.
Because she had heard them arguing the night before, but was too afraid to interrupt. Fingers curling into the pillow, she tried to ignore it and willed herself back to sleep. Only to be startled fully awake by the door slamming in their wake.
”W-what happened?! Is it Peter? Where’s Nate?”
Her husband’s voice was slowly starting to blur with time, but the officer’s voice was still crisp and clear as the day she said them. Filled with false empathy, almost rehearsed.
The words were burned into her very soul.
”I’m sorry… there was an accident and your husband…”
”No…!”
Kaylee couldn’t pull herself away from the memory of her world falling apart, feeling helpless to stop it. Fingers instinctively curl, desperate to hold on to whatshe can, pressing manicured nails into the tender flesh of her palms. Not that it ever worked, you can’t change the past or bring back what was lost. Time travel and reality bending was the stuff of Hollywood.
”He’s gone, ma’am.”
By time the officer had left the media was already rolling up on the Petrelli home. Each hoping to catch a glimpse of the devastated widow and the potential payday that would come with it.
Rolling to her hands and knees, Kaylee gasps through a grief-tightened throat. Eyes close tightly against the echoed images around her. She didn’t want to see what grief was reducing her to, so she curled into herself and pressed her forehead against the cool studio floor.
”NO!” Kaylee shrieked at the poor officer, face slick with tears.
They never found who leaked news about the death, before she even knew, but her anguished face was everywhere the next morning.
Kaylee gasped out a heart wrenching sob as pain lances through that empty place in her heart, that part of her having followed him into the grave. With a barely contained keening sound, she covers her face and gives in to the tears. It was torture, feeling love and not having him there. She yearned to hear the beat of his heart under her ear or the feeling of warmth within the circle of his arms.
Why did you leave me?
Words shrieked into the dark lonely void of her mind, over and over, while teeth bite at her lip to keep them from becoming reality.
” He promised me!”
Nathan promised Kaylee forever when he placed the ring on her finger, but the world ripped him away from her and left her wanting.
Why did you have to die?