Participants:
| Scene Title | Prison, Guilt, And Tyler Case |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Catching up with Peter and Gillian. |
| Date | May 14, 2009 |
On the outside, this sprawling multi-level complex has not seen use in many years, its walls covered in greenery and stone exterior and glass windows showing evidence of disrepair. Surrounded by a chain link fence, a drive leads from the street to a large dock, and around the back one can expect to find more sprawling greenery that eventually leads to a concrete drop off into the Atlantic Ocean.
Passing through the chainlink fence and into the dispensary will reveal that the aged and crumbling outside is a facade. The loading dock is kept clear for the most part of everything save vehicles and supplies, though a section has been quartered off and transformed into an open workshop. The dispensary itself has been transformed into something akin to a makeshift dormitory, complete with common areas, a sizable kitchen and eating area, with various rooms converted into bedrooms for the residence. One room has even been set up as a makeshift clinic, amply stocked with supplies.
The back lawn and garden of the dispensary is surprisingly well tended, green and lush during the right months. Vegetables have been planted in accordance to season closer to the building, though someone has indulgently planted a plots of flowers - notably sunflowers - here and there. Further out, the ground drops a little and makes it to a concrete edge from which opens out into deeper water of the Atlantic.
Sunlight filters down in warm, golden rays through dusty windows. Long shafts of yellow illumination paint a spotty picture of light and dark on the floor, casting long shadows from an easel that stands in the middle of the vacant ground floor room. Plastic covers much of the furniture in here, a testament to the half-finished renovation project that was never completed in Phoenix's name here before the facility fell into disuse.
A frustrated growl erupts from a man dressed in dark clothes, a paint-stained canvas ripped off of a wooden easel and hurled to the side, the frame cracking as the canvas goes slack, smearing paint on the hardwood floor. Another fling of his arm, and a paintbrush flies towards the wall, leaving a bright red streak on the white sheetrock. "God damnit!"
Peter kicks the toppled easel aside, bringing his hands up to rake fingers thorugh his hair, tugging at messy, dark locks as he paces back and forth through the ground-floor room. Littering the floor at his feet, broken and battered paintings of stick figures and mis-shapen blobs of color are scattered everywhere. Toppled cans of house paint pool uselessly in tacky puddled below his boots, colors blending and blurring together in places where his treads have blended them.
From the outside, the shout is muffled by the closed windows. On their approach to the Distillery, both Gillian Childs and Catherine Chesterfield can hear the crash and the frustrated sounds. They can see the front doors wide open, the glass on one door shattered, laying strewn about the doorway. Empty paint cans litter the overgrown yard out front, and the stink of paint fumes comes wafting in from the mostly closed-up building on their approach.
The search for Peter Petrelli has brought them both here, both to Staten Island amidst a warm spring morning. But what they're going to find here, in the abandoned halls of Phoenix's ambitions, is something else entirely.
She's come armed, as she tends to do for excursions to Staten Island. One never knows who or what might be encountered out here, after all. Cat guides the boat up to the pier behind the Old Dispensary Conrad purchased partly with her money and partly with funds Wireless liberated from the Vanguard. Maybe there was some from other sources too. A rope is cast onto the wood for securing the craft, she jumps out to do just that then comes back for things left inside. Like the two pistols and one M16 hidden in a guitar case. Her backpack also. That contains a few things which might be found interesting soon, should she choose to share them.
"It sounds like he's definitely home, Gillian," she remarks at the sounds coming from the onetime HQ. Haven't been here since January. Fortunately it isn't compromised." She begins to move toward the open doors.
"I've never been here," Gillian admits quietly as she looks up at the building. Armed only with a carrier bag over her shoulder, she came to Staten Island much the same as she always did before— when all she did was glow. Now… well… The first time she lays eyes directly on it, the doors are open, there's a crash and a rant from inside. But yeah— sounds like he's 'home' after all. This causes her to speed up her steps to carry her further inside, to see the sight of a pool of paint, stick figures, blobs of colors… and an unhappy man in the middle of all of that. Not the first time she'd walked in on a man trying to paint, but the first time it's led to a rage due to…
The last time she'd 'seen' him, he'd been unconscious and she'd been metal, really not able to see as one would tradition call it. Reddened lips press together before she steps closer enough to rasp out a concerned, "Peter?"
He looks terrible. By the time Cat and Gillian get through the doorway and into the main room, Peter's crouched down on the floor with his head held in his hands, surrounded by the defaced and half-finished paintings, fingers curled into the dark locks of his hair and brows lowered into a furious expression of frustration. The sound of Gillian's voice, though, calling out his name draws those dark eyes of his up to the sound of footsteps he had missed.
A dry swallow comes before words, hands shakily moving away from hair. "G— Gillian?" Then, with even more surprise, and perhaps a modest level of shame, Peter's eyes settle on the other brunette, "Cat."
It's been a long time since Peter has seen Cat face to face, a long time since she has seen the sunken-in quality of his eyes, the dark circles of a man who does not sleep. But here, now, all of that seems to be weighing far more heavy on him than it ever did in the past. He looks exhausted, he looks malnourished, so much thinner than he was when last she saw him.
Prison, guilt, and Tyler Case have done a number on him.
Not far behind Gillian, Cat takes in the sight of the failed paintings and all the paint, then the man himself is quickly compared against earlier images of him. "My God," Cat breathes out, "you'll be coming with us. It's the steak and potato diet for you, Peter." The man she labeled Rock is now more like a thin and flimsy sheet of paper. She doesn't seem likely to brook arguments either on that score. "But it is good to see you at long last," she offers in a quieter sincere tone.
"How the fuck is it you actually look worse than when I left you? And you were practically pummeled to a broken mess," Gillian asks him, a rather grouchy expression crossing her face before she shifts to reach into the carrier bag hanging at her side. What's pulled out would be a candy bar of some kind, which actually would be labelled as an energy bar, walking straight up to him and shoving it against his chest. Guilt and everything else has twisted him apart. But at least she's been carrying energy bars around since she started having seemingly random and annoying bursts of speed which left her with a very hungry tummy.
"I can tell you're trying to paint, but I'm guessing from the crashing and— well— everything laying around— that you couldn't get much more than stick figures?" She'd always wondered how that worked. But she's yet to have caught Gabriel trying to paint since the whole thing went down. Would he get splatters of paint and stick figures too? Possibly.
"You're not able to do your… 'stuff' anymore either, huh?"
Peter actually wobbles some off balance when the energy bar is pushed against his chest. His expression is something between that of a kicked puppy and a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, eventually reaching up to curl his fingers around the wrapper, crinkling it as it slips out of Gillian's hands and into his. Peter says nothing at first, just looks down to the paintings, head bowed, and then slowly moves to stand, wobbling once he's at his full height from a lack of balance.
"I can't do anything," he mutters bitterly, fingers idly rolling over the smooth wrapper of the energy bar. "I— " he looks up to Cat, brows furrowing for a moment in that look he would always make when he was snooping around in her mind. Unfortunately for Peter, this time he isn't going to be able to figure out what she wants with a thought. "It's been a long week…"
Turning his back on the two women, Peter tugs the wrapper open finally, rolling it back to reveal some of the dark bar inside. "Have either of you heard from Helena yet?" It's practically the first thing out of his lips, and his hungry attention paid to the energy bar consumes whatever follow-up he might have been planning. The burbling growl of his stomach fills that space instead.
"Helena's on a trip into the flow of time," Cat informs him. "It's been suggested to us she'll return soon enough. I'm eager for that to happen. Anyway, her not being here provides an opportunity for you to eat, get your health back, and not look like this when she's back." Her eyes travel back and forth between Gillian, then she slings the backpack off her shoulders and reaches into it, coming out with two copies of a file in folders. One is held out to each of them. "You'll find this man very familiar, I'm told. It seems he's been an annoyingly busy beaver."
"You do have at least one ability in there, Peter," Cat asserts. "You've been tested for the SLC. It's still there." She too looks different than he would remember. Leaner, more toned, perhaps angrier, a different quality to her eyes and the way she looks at the world. "It seems the trick is discovering what he left you with."
The files, should they open them, will provide information on one Tyler Case, younger version.
Stepping back away from him, Gillian doesn't have much to say on the matter about the intreped leader of Phoenix and her apparently jaunt through time. Not necessarily unique, but not a good thing either. Instead, she watches him eat as she takes the folder and opens it, grunting a little. "When did he get tested?" she has to ask as she glances over the file, not even needing to read it very closely to get an idea what's being said in it. There's a confused blink and a shake of her head. The whole thing is giving her a little bit of a headache. "That explains some of what's going on, but I still— I mean what I've been doing is pretty fucked up," she admits, closing the file.
"First I turned all metal like the one guy…" The guy who looked mysteriously like the President. "And I was stuck like that for days. It was really shitty, let me tell you. And since I ran into my brother I've been able to move really fucking fast— but only sometimes." It hasn't really dawned on her yet what that means, though… "Personally, I'd take nothing."
Holding the file in one hand, Peter's slow to open it. He finishes hte energy bar first, then discards the wrapper on the floor carelessly, pawing through the file folder afterwards, looking to the photograph of Tyler Case as a guttural grunt slips up in the back of his throat, followed by an awkward swallow of the rest of the energy bar that was in his mouth. "This is the guy," he grumbles, "this is the son of a bitch who— " Gillian's words finally click with him, then Cat's, and he looks back and forth between the two — what he understands from both of their sentences forming a dissonance in his thoughts.
"Wait— " Peter's brows lower, "Gillian if— " he looks down to the folder, "I don't have anything. Maybe he's just sppressing what I can do, like Trask?" Dark eyes lift up from the folder, then track over to Gillian. "But you— " he hesitates to speak further, a very nervous worry building in the empty pit of his stomach. This could be horrible.
Picking up the track of Peter's sentence, having gotten there herself about that same time, Cat quietly remarks "I originally thought you were switched with Allen Rickham, but no, you were switched with Peter and seem to have picked up Rickham's mojo by proximity. Then you picked up your brother's speed." Her brow furrows for a few moments. She's been in a boat from elsewhere and in proximity with Gillian for some time now.
There was a time she tested herself, years past when the ability was new, by looking up the value of Pi calculated to fifty places. It stuck on the one reading. Cat now uses this. She calls up that string of digits in her memory and speaks it aloud. "Can you repeat that?"
"That— that's impossible. I…" Gillian shakes her head, though she understands, processes and remembers everything they're saying and it does make sense. Even if she wants to shake her head and deny it. But then she looks at the nervous and worried Peter, hesitating at the look in his face, before she starts repeating the numbers in perfect sequence, voice rasped and weary. Once she finishes, on the end of the list of numbers she just quoted off, she adds a rather stressed, "It's just temporary. It's not going to— we'll find a way to fix it."
Turning away, she rubs her hands over her face, wondering what it will be like when this thing goes away as well. She hadn't mentioned the super speed incident to any of Phoenix yet, but she'd not actually been standing with them, either. Certain things she doesn't want to tell over messages.
"Christ." Peter exhales, holding a hand over his face as he breathes out that sighed word. "Gillian…" It's a curse he wouldn't wish on anyone, a malady of his own genetic code that Peter felt was a unique disability he and only he possessed. Now, as it seems, Gillian is pressed with the curse of the same ability he once failed to keep under control. "Gillian this— " his eyes divert to the documents, flipping through them but not having the presence of mind to glean anything off from them. "This is serious!"
His temper flares as he waves the folder around. "Do you have any idea how dangerous you are now? That— my ability isn't something that just comes and goes. You— you've probably been picking up abilities you don't even know you have just be being around someone!" It's like he's refocusing all of the hatred for his own ability on her.
"I— " Dark eyes flick towards Cat, "Do you know where Claude is? Helena she— she told me she'd been getting lessons from him." There's a bristling animosity in Peter's tone, "You need to get her someone who can teach her not to do exactly the same thing I did." His dark eyes move to Gillian now, "Before she gets an ability that's too dangerous."
"I can find Claude," Cat replies. She's remarkably calm in all of this, it's not hard to project that given all the things she's been exposed to. Peter downloading the imagery of Manhattan being nuked direct to her brain, Ethan the Sadist and his thumb-amputating murderous ways, Nazi nutjob bastards seeking to release viruses… The list goes on and on.
"But we also have something you didn't then, Peter, in part. No one in our circle has anything I'd really call dangerous. So I'd recommend, Gillian, sitting tight here or at my place, away from people. I'll get you books and movies, things to keep your mind occupied. Controlling people you come into contact with, knowing what they have first, removes that risk. You can also use that time mastering how to switch back and forth from metal to soft and controlling the speed."
"Stage two of the solution is finding Tyler Case. There are two of him, the one in that file you've probably noticed is ten years younger than the man you saw. He's in Company hands. I'd be willing to bet Allen Rickham looked ten years older too."
The anger directed at her might take her by surprise. Hands drop down away from her face, and she blinks rapidly a few times, even taking another couple steps away as she faces him. He's already talking to Cat by the time she recovers enough to say anything. "Don't yell at me," Gillian says loudly, not seeming to be following her own order on the matter. It's not really anger so much as frustration. "And don't make decisions for me, either! I didn't ask for this!" Who really would? She's well aware how dangerous it can be. She's seen what happened to him the times she was around him. "You think I wasn't dangerous before?"
There's a lot of forms of dangerous, but what she had before could cause people to lose control. It'd been just as dangerous, if not more. And still her own doing. Always her own doing. "I dealt with that," though she's conviently ignoring the fact she had Gabriel teach her to deal with that, "And I'll deal with this. I don't need a fucking babysitter."
There's that furious look on her face, as if she's daring them to even try to make her. The rest of what Cat said, she hears it, she'll remember it— maybe— but right now she's more than a little perturbed.
"That was Allen Rickham?" Peter practically blurts out, "He's— " there's a sloppy tone of confusion as he wipes one hand over his face and lays the folder down on the floor. "Oh god damnit." Gillian's outburst just doesn't settle well with Peter, seeming to draw up whatever frustrations he's been sitting on, amplifying them with the already present anger issues he seems to have an issue keeping under control.
"You were a danger to other evolved," he sputters out, "now— what happens if you get in proximity of someone who has a poison touch?" He waves one hand in the air, "What if you don't even know that you did? Then you go and touch someone, and they drop dead because you had no idea how to control your power! This— " he snorts, running his hands through his hair, brows scrunching into a furrowed glare. "This isn't anything like what you had! You're— you could kill everyone if you meet the wrong person, if you get upset and— "
Peter turns around, repeatedly running his fingers thorugh his hair. "Gillian you aren't even listening!" Peter seems overly upset, unusually so. Hands now balled into fists at his side, "You know what I did. You know all of the thousands of people I killed. How— How the hell would you live with yourself if you even hurt half that many people!?"
It was a recommendation, and an offer, simply enough. Cat lets her eyes travel back and forth between the two of them as they begin to debate and argue loudly over it, the tempers flaring. The solution to her was simple enough. Isolation and carefully chosen contacts, knowing what if any abilities are had by people Gillian meets with. Thought is given to restating that fact, but she knows well Gillian's stubbornness. Her defenses of Gabriel, the way she insisted on wearing a scar from Gabriel's near opening of her skull.
She'll mention that again later, maybe, and for now hope the simple logic takes hold on its own. Peter's comment about poison touch causes her head to tilt briefly. If she does get Gillian into her safe area, she'll have to take steps so there's no encounter with Delilah Trafford. A metallic speedster with toad toxins ranks among the most not wanted things in the world.
"Tyler Case is, as I said, a busy beaver," Cat remarks with a bit more loudness in her tone. "He is part of a group of people come back through time with Edward Ray. Others of this group are Allen Rickham, the technopath Robin Hood, Nathan Petrelli, a company Agent called April Bradley, and a man who makes electrical copies of himself called Niles Wight."
"I know exactly what you did. And you've seen what my ability could do too. What my ability almost made you do." Whether it's hers or not anymore, it's still her ability. Always will be as far as she's concerned, "But considering everything that your power can do— how dangerous it is— then why the fuck are you so upset that it was gone when we came in? Shouldn't you be fucking relieved?" Gillian yells, pointing at the paintings on the floor, the smeared and smattered paint. She's caught up in the moment right now, but that doesn't mean she won't recall the furrowed glare on his face, every fleck of color caught when the light hits his eyes…
And a moment later she blinks and looks over at Cat with a surprised expression. "Did you say Nathan Petrelli?"
Rewind. Go over it again in her head. Yeah. Nathan Petrelli was definitely said. Think back… She suddenly looks at Peter. He's probably already having his own form of shock at the mention of his brother, but she may be making it worse as she walks right up to him and asks, "Did you see what Gabriel and I did to a block of Staten Island? That I told you about in Antarctica?"
Peter wants to blow up, go on a tirade, and just shout until he can't shout anymore. He wants to let out all of this frustration and pent-up anger out on Gillian and Cat, but whatever desire to shout, scream and throw a tantrum he has been filled with drains away like air out of a popped tire when Cat speaks two relatively simple things, Nathan. Petrelli.
His eyes go wide, disbelief striking him in the chest liks a hammer. Peter stammers out something that might have been words, brows scrunching down into a look of abject confusion. "How— " so many how's, "How's— how do you know? They— time travelers?" His head spins, and Peter stumbles back over one of the broken canvases, looking down awkwardly before turning his focus back to Cat. "Time travelers… here, and— Where's Hiro?" Because, obviously, this is a problem best solved by a time-travelling samurai.
"How did I know?" Cat asks quietly to start her reply. "Maybe it was when Edward Ray came to visit me looking ten years older, and had the older Tyler Case with him. Or when Hiro's sisted told me Hiro now has the power to fly after encountering an older Nathan along with Tyler Case. He's in Tokyo now, and he has issues of his own to deal with, above and beyond the switch. Another clue may have been a painting which looks like a mirror image of Moab, and another which looks like the rubble of Moab with people silhouetted in it."
"So you see, hopefully, these switches seem part of a strategy on Edward's part. I have no clue what his real game is. He came to me asking for help with saving the Company from its imminent collapse." Her eyes roll. "Like I'd have any interest in doing that."
"Edward also has a hate-on for Pinehearst and Arthur Petrelli, which he wouldn't explain the reason or offer any supporting evidence for."
Well, he didn't answer her question, but the more this goes on, the less she thinks he has to. Gillian hears what she of the amazing memory has to say and suddenly starts cursing quietly under her breath. "Fuck. God damn son of a bitch. Made me look like a fucking idiot. How did the President of the Fucking United States from the Fucking Future even know who I am?"
All of this is muttered under her breath in her raspy tones as she moves away from them. "Let me get this straight— it was some kind of a plan to catch us all by surprise, hit us with fucking red lightning, and switch our abilities around like— this isn't some kind of fucking game. Who the fuck does that prick from the future think he is?" Oh yeah, she's angry, outright furious.
"Edward Ray… Edward…" Peter strains, looking foggy as he mulls over the name, "Where the hell have I heard that before?" Much as last time, recollection of events that transpired while in possession of Cat's memory are harder to grab at now that he's deprived of it. Looking confused, he tris to sort out the input from Gillian's outburst and Cat's information overload, and ends up looking a bit strained.
Taking a few pacing steps away from the two, he tries to sort out his thoughts in the jumble they're in. "Okay so— this guy— " he looks up, then back over his shoulder to Cat before turning around fully. "What the hell do they have against my dad?" Peter's brows squint, "I— I guess he finally talked to you?"
There's an uncertain, nervous look given to Cat. "I— we should go talk to him. He'll know what to do, my dad— yeah, let's just go talk to him. I'm sure he'll have an answer I— " Peter's expression blanks, "Oh my God, if Nathan's— he could— " it seems the implications are finally hitting him. "W— what the hell do they want?"
"The Nathan working with this group is no longer President in his time, Gillian," Cat opines. "One of a few things would likely be true. One, he's ten years older and thus his maximum two terms are up. Or Two, the Constitution of his time has been twisted worse than it already was and he stayed on past that maximum eight years. But… if that were so I find it improbable he'd come back from the future. A man who refused to leave the Oval Office wouldn't… leave the Oval Office." She pauses, looking from one to the other to see if they're following her logic.
"Three, he could've been deposed, which seems the most likely thing since the Company is soon to crash and he has links to some of its founders." She faces Peter then as the sharing keeps on coming. "I've spoken with my father and your father, Peter, after my unexpected visit from Edward. Of the three, Edward was the least enlightening. Our fathers, however, have told me a number of things. Father knew about Phoenix before I could tell him anything."
"So does your father. He also knew about the presence of the Travelers. It was basically a comparing of notes. What Edward wants, beyond saving the Company and wrecking Pinehearst to prevent a future he came from I don't know. If he had knowledge of some great catastrophe approaching, he'd have said so. There'd have been exhibits and a much better sharing of data. All he had to offer me was asking to protect the Company, demands to know my side, and threats."
Then she turns toward Gillian, remarking in a quietly dry tone "He thinks he's a man who can see ten or two hundred steps ahead of us and knows he can probably tie us in knots trying to figure him out."
Yeah, well, "He's the president now," Gillian mutters under her breath, defending her cursing self-consciously as she paces a few steps away, processing everything said even while she's thinking about other things, trying to figure out exactly how certain things could even be possible. Like how could a gut who was president have any idea who she was. Enough to stop and talk to her in the middle of a crushed block of Staten Island. The stuff with Arthur makes sense, though she wonders if he was able to talk to her from the way she mentions or if he needed proxy man…
"Screw the Company. And screw Doctor Ray-man, too," she mutters, still venting frustration for a group that didn't actually have anything to do with the situations she first started hating them for. But they had to do with a lot of other terrible things!
As she steps a little further away in the direction of the door, she pauses to look down at her hand, as if wondering just when it'll start to turn metal on her again. Or do something worse…
"Wait," Peter looks up to Gillian with wide eyes as he sees her go for the door. "I— damnit, Gillian, you can't just go running off. If— if everything is as bad as they're saying, if— " he looks down at his hands, brow tensed, then back up to her. "If everything's going on like this, we need to stick together. I— I can't do anything right now." There's that same piteous tone to his voice, for all he derides his ability, there's this unfailing desire to want it, even if it's on a subconscious level.
"If— if you have my power. If— If you can do what I do, then— then you're probably the only one who can stop these people." What was it that Goodman had said to Gillian before? That she was the only one? "I— you can do anything they can do. My— your power it— you have the potential to fix all of this. You just— " he tenses, looking back to Cat, then over to Gillian again. "Gillian, please. I— I've got nothing now." So much like Gabriel, so consumed by his power but in such a different way. "I need you." There's a moment's pause as he reconsiders how that sounds, "I— I need your help." That's better.
"Please. Just— you should go back to Cat's place, see if she can get in touch with Claude, or— or someone who can teach you. I— " he looks away, as if ashamed he isn't counting himself among those who could teach her. "I… should… probably just go back to Pinehearst and— and wait for my dad to come up with something."
Her eyes close for a moment, she comments under her breath. "There should be schools for things like this." But Cat reopens them moments later to address both. "Get in line on the front of screwing the Company. It no longer serves any useful purpose in existing, if it ever did. As to Edward, I can only wish we had someone aboard who can do what he does, see probability so many steps ahead. Without that, we can't hope to sort out the web of actions and outcomes he perceives. But I can bank on one thing: He's likely holed up somewhere in the city collecting data, analyzing it, and making string exhibits. If I could find that, it would be a gold mine." Then she grumbles. "If he didn't already calculate the probability of it being found and arrange the strings to show just what he wants us to find."
She doesn't seem about to try stopping Gillian from leaving. Her eyes flick to the door she approaches and back to the woman. It would be pointless. Draw a gun, she goes iron and/or speeds away. Maybe both. Try to tackle her, same thing. "There's room for you here if you prefer, Gillian, or with me at 14 East 4th Street in Greenwich Village. I really do think it's best to have you away from people unless we know exactly what you might pick up." Her advice will either be accepted, or not. Or just not now. Back to Peter.
"Arthur says he tested your blood. You're still positive for an Evolved ability, Peter. What ability would serve you best right now? Also… is there any idea what Gabriel has now?"
If she'd been considering taking off out the door to avoid being dragged back to one of the safehouses, the words that are said at her stop Gillian in her tracks. Halfway through she even turns back, lips parted as she continues to hear his words. Every detail of his voice, expression, tone, the words themselves imprint on a segment of her memory. Part of her knows she likely won't remember then that clearly when everything returns to the way it should be, but that doesn't stop her from marvelling at the little details she's picking up each second. For a moment it looks as if he's convinced her, despite everything else. And then he says the last part. That stubborn look has returned.
"I didn't ask for this Peter— and it's still your power. Not mine. And it'll go back to the way it's supposed to be cause we'll fix it— but I don't want some stranger to teach me about whatever this is. It's your ability. How the hell would anyone besides you really know what it's like? My brother taught me how to handle his speed, no one else did. If I could figure out how to only make it come and go when I want, it's done. I don't need anyone else to teach me." Just the fact that it comes and goes at random is the problem…
"Look, if you're going to Pinehearst… and stuffing me in someone else's place to wait for some guy named Claude… then that really isn't sticking together at all, is it?" As for what Gabriel has… that… any other situation and she might smile that someone besides her called him Gabriel. But right now, she grimaces, "I have to— you're not the only person who needs me, Peter…" Her help— she doesn't clarify that. "I promise I'll keep contact open, with you and Phoenix and… but I have to go back. I shouldn't have even come here without him…"
Arthur tested his blood. That explains what the trip down to the medical lab was for. Peter closes his eyes and gives a slow shake of his head, "I— " he already knows what the positive means, or he has fears as to what it does. But in reality, he doesn't understand anything about Gabriel Gray's power, what he can do, how he does it, only that it ends with death. Peter tenses up, looking down to the ground as Gillian makes her point.
"I— Maybe I could… try to teach— " Without him. That makes Peter hesitate, puts his mind back into the proper place and flushes away distracting thoughts. His shoulders go slack and eyes fall shut. The perfect time to just teleport away, but he can't do that any more. "Temporary could be years," he mutters, wrapping his arms around himself. "We— fine." Just like that, he buckles.
"I… I'll go back to Jersey, I— I'll see if my dad knows anything that can help." His eyes wander the floor, shoulders rolled forward. "I shouldn't be staying here anyway, they— the Government's probably still looking for me after what happened." Teeth draw over his lower lip, and Peter takes a few scuffing footsteps away from the pair.
"Go… take care of him. He's— probably a lot worse off than I am right now." He turns, partly to look in Cat's direction. "You have any better ideas?" At least in his sulking defeat, Peter seems to have some semblance of reason, listening to Cat as he always has.
"I recommend you get Gabriel, avoid people as much as possible in doing that, Gillian, and bring him back here." Cat's voice is quiet, serious. "There's a good bit more to tell you," she adds. "Things you and I should discuss in private." Her eyes travel to Peter then, the voice continuing in much the same tone.
"We should catch up too, Peter. If you want, I doubt DHS will find you. Since the end of January, when the bridge fell, the police won't even touch the place. We had to mount an armed operation to spring a healer and several others from a criminal gang, slavers, out here and the police aren't equipped to deal. Won't try. Staten Island's mostly cut off except for water travel, it'd probably take a division or two of Army or Guard to restore law here."
Oh that's just… "He won't come back here with me if you— damnit," Gillian says, suddenly frustrated by this series of events, almost as if she's wishing she never mentioned him at all. Mostly because she knows he won't be okay with any of this. Going anywhere that might have people who would take advantage of his current situation. Which as far as she knows still includes Cat. "Peter— you were just about to offer to teach me, and I said you were probably the only one who could, so stop…" What is it with these nearly all powerful men and losing their abilities all of a sudden that makes them wilt?
Well, Gabriel didn't exactly wilt, but he kind of pouted. And banged his head against things. And carries a gun around like it might actually do something. "Just stop." Being a baby, collapsing in on himself. Scuffling away. "You're a lot worse off than he is, but— if you could stay here then I could come back and you could help me too— and then maybe I can actually do these things you said I'm the only one who can."
While so much of her attention is on Cat, she does glance over. The instructions won't be followed, for many reasons, but she does have to add on, "We can talk alone later, but I don't see what we'd have to discuss in private, unless there's a trick to your power." Cause what else would they have to talk about, right?
It's like being talked down to by Angela, though with a slightly less withering stare. Peter blows out a loud sigh, rubbing a hand across his mouth as he shakes his head. Looking around the building, his eyes wander the plastic covered furniture, the mess of paints and the general abandoned quality it has. In some ways, it reminds him of the old tenement. Those, those were the days.
"Yeah I… I guess I could stay here for a little while longer. If my dad needs me for anything, I figure he'll just send Goodman here." Dark eyes wander the building, then find their way back to Cat. "You're staying in Grenwich now?" It's clear he either hadn't gleaned that from earlier conversations, or it slipped his mind. "Yeah I— yeah. I'll stay here, I guess it's a safe a place as any. Maybe… maybe I'll try and clean this place up a little. If there's members of Phoenix still in hiding, it doesn't make any sense not to use this place, espescially since the police won't come out here."
Casting his eyes back to Gillian, Peter gives her a reluctant nod. "Go— go do what you have to do. When you're ready I— I can't make any promises, but— we can at least try working with the ability you have." he doesn't seem entirely confident about it though. Finally, Peter looks back up to Cat. "We're going to need everyone working together, if things are seriously as bad as you're saying. See if you can round up the Phoenix members who're still around, tell them to come out here. We— have to start getting things back together, for— for when Helena come back from wherever— whenever she is."
"I'll look forward to hearing from and seeing you soon, Gillian," Cat tells her quietly. Oh, the things she has to share. That link of commonality between them so recently discovered, on two fronts. They aren't things she'll share in front of Gillian and others at the same time, though she did tell Teo. A deep and slow breath is drawn, then released. She looks for a seat and settles into it. "Take care," she offers in parting to the newly multi-powered one. She's a grown woman, and that's respected even though actions are not agreed with, over and above the practical situation of inability to stop her.
"I've been in touch with Teo and briefed him on what I know, he supplied what he has, and Wireless has been briefed as well," Cat states for Peter. "Others will be brought into the loop soon too. Arthur is interested in us, says he's been running interference for us, keeping the heat off." But she chooses not to elaborate just yet on things. It seems more important to get food, and a lot of it, into him first and foremost. Soon after Gillian departs, Cat's back on the boat to secure many sources of protein and carbs for the emaciated.