Participants:
Scene Title | Separation Anxiety |
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Synopsis | Cat and Delilah manage to forge an agreement with Liette Fournier. |
Date | May 8, 2010 |
A safehouse called The Morgue.
More than one floor exists here.
There's a phrase worked into the English vernacular that goes, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." That turn of a phrase seems like the itinerary of how many vehicle changes are made on the way from Manhattan to Staten Island. From truck to ferry to snow mobile, if someone had told Catherine Chesterfield and Delilah Trafford that they had to hitch up to a snow dog sled it might not have seemed strange any more. Given that much of Staten Island looks like a white-washed desert that has swallowed the ruins of some ancient culture like in those Mummy movies, the different modes of transportation are as much needed as they are inconvenient.
But the place they're headed to, settled on the south coast of Staten Island requires both indirect approach and discretion, as all Ferrymen Safehouses do. The Morgue as it is so affectionately called, is a strictly low-population secure safehouse not intended for more than one "guest" at a time, meaning non-Ferry personnel staying resident.
But this safe house happens to have one very specific, very dangerous resident in its second floor. One that is so dangerous, so unpredictable, that at the very moment two Ferry operatives are ascending the stairs to where she is kept, she is currently in the process of cradling a mug of hot cocoa to her chest, staring down at a several months old copy of Pause Magazine, and enjoying the crackling warmth of a lit fireplace while swathed in quilts and comforters on a worn-in but comfortable old sofa.
Appearances can be deceiving.
Coming up the stairs, Cat pushes back the hood of her parka so her face can be seen more clearly. Gloves are still on. She is armed, in a concealed way, ready to use one of her silenced pistols as a club to make the girl unconscious should the need arise. "They stopped negating her," the panmnesiac informs Delilah dryly, "so she'll remember everything. I expect she'll be hostile, and demand to be taken back to her mad scientist fake father, but I'm unswayed. Don't let tantrums get to you, just yawn and ask if she's done yet."
As she places one hand on the door and readies to open it, Cat further opines "I think she now knows Lorraine Fournier is her mother, but doesn't know Jensen Raith is her father. Don't give that part away, but… if she speaks of her Pop, don't acknowledge it. He's just Doctor Jean Luis."
"I know how teenagers work, Cat. And I'm not here to be mean to her or anything, I'm here to talk. If she doesn't want to keep talking to me, that's that." Delilah's reply to all of this advice and information is short and sweet, the redhead having already come this far for this purpose. She's got on a couple layers in addition to what she actually needs, and so effectively has to waddle a little down the halls and up stairs and so on. They stand there at the door, with Cat ready to open it; Dee wouldn't be surprised if Liette could hear them talking in hushed voices, so she already is working the angle of being on the girl's side even if they can't be overheard.
The noise of the door opening has Liette's small frame turning on the sofa, having had her back to the door makes it a requirement to see who'se coming in. "Mm— " she almost asks the obvious, but on seeing who'se actually coming in, her expression dims just a little. Shifting around so she can lean over the back of the sofa to look at her new guests, there's a marked point of scrutiny from Liette, one brow raised and her lips pursed to the side. She leans her arms on the back of the couch, resting her mug of cocoa there between both hands. Outside, the wind blows furiously against the side of the house, and the warmth radiated from space heaters and the fireplace in here is a stark contrast from that.
"Hello, Cat…" Liette offers in a very quiet tone of voice, blue eyes offering an unfamiliar look to Delilah. Her brows go up, slowly, and Liette slouches down to hide behind the back of the couch a little, watching Delilah curiously, almost like a wary animal might. In contrast to her mannerisms, she looks decidedly well taken care of, and her usual messy tangle of blonde hair looks… brushed.
As she steps through the door, Cat nods in reply to Delilah, not debating her on any point. Instead she briefly muses on a tangent. "Those penguins seem to like Greenwich Village. Saw then when I left. Shame I didn't have any fish to toss out." But then she's back to business, showing Liette a non-hostile expression as she's greeted, with eyes resting calmly on the non-adult teen. "Liette," she answers. "Good to see you again."
She'll let Delilah enter after her, then close the door behind them, if possible, before making introductions. "Liette, this is my friend Dee. Dee, Liette Fournier."
Liette never seemed so bad to Delilah. Given, Dee has found her a little weak in the department of acting on her own- but that is neither here nor there. "Hi! Dunno if you remember me, I was at the Den. I looked sicker then, so maybe you know my stunt double better." That makes zero sense at all, though the redhead does not appear to have noticed. "Haven't seen you much since, I guess."
Wary animal or not, Dee's aura gives of a decidedly bright yellow vibe; despite the frozen wasteland, her mood suggests that her world is full of daffodils and freshly mown grass. She immediately wanders closer inside, peeking down at the magazine the blonde girl is reading. "Oh- did you see the article on page seventy-five-ish? It was pretty good."
"Deelighted," Liette says with only a little bit of her usual enthusiasm. She looks tired, looks depressed, but going from being a prisoner of the Institute to a prisoner of the Ferrymen hasn't been all that drastic of a lifestyle change for her, except the Ferrymen don't have the same resources and comfortable living conditions she's accustomed to. Slouching down onto the sofa properly and taking her mug with her, Liette peers over the top of the couch, looking from Delilah to Cat silently.
Lifting the mug up, she sips slowly at the cocoa, leaving a little melted mashmallow mustache on her upper lip trimmed with chocolate. Wide, expressive blue eyes stare up at Delilah, and the blonde offers a crooked smile at her demeanor. "I kinda' do, I mean, you were sick an' stuff and Doctor Brennan wanted me to be careful 'round you so I wasn't um, you know, I was pretty quiet." Shifting to accomodate space on the sofa for Delila to join her, Liette glances down to the magazine, then smiles a bit sheepishly.
"He seems like a nice guy, yeah…" Liette opines about the article on Marcus Donovan, "did he win his election, um, for… mayor?" She seems a bit uncertain to the point of what office he was running for, squinting back down at the magazine. It's strange, given the ability that she has, that she'd have difficulty clinging on to something she just read.
"He didn't," Cat replies of Marcus Donovan, "nor did Mother. Jennifer Chesterfield. The winner was Sylvia Lockheart, and Mother was assassinated the night of the election." She speaks somberly, letting a touch of depression enter her own voice for a moment. "Maybe you met her before, she used to work at Pinehearst. If you did, well, I don't know what to say. It wasn't a nice place, and I don't completely know what she did there." Silence is permitted to linger across a few seconds.
"I found out last summer I'd been experimented on too, when I was small. And that when they ended the experiments, and disposed of what they created, Arthur Petrelli had my parents murdered. Mason and Jennifer Chesterfield took me and pretended I was theirs."
When Dee sits down gently beside Liette on the sofa, her eyes are drawn back over to Cat as she starts to answer. For a moment, she looks somewhat apologetic in a glance to Liette. Cat is always serious. Always. But what she says always has a place, eh?
For the immediacy, Delilah lets Cat have her piece, watching the other teenager out of the side of her vision, hands folded in her lap.
Dark brows furrow together and Liette just stares at Cat like she has six heads. The blonde leans a bit towards Delilah, brows lifting and blue eyes flicking back and forth between the two. Uncomfortably, she makes a rough noise in the back of her throat and notes, "I— I didn't know Doctor Chesterfield, I don't recognize the name." Tugging at her lower lip with her teeth, Liette offers an askance look towards Delilah, then back to Cat somewhat nervously at the topics that've been raised.
"Did… did you want something?" is phrased in the way that someone who'se only ever talked to when someone needs something from her would. Liette's tension is obvious, and she regards Cat with a mixture of uncertainty and awkwardness.
"I want a lot of things," Cat replies in quiet tones, "but wanting doesn't mean they will, or even should, always come. It's like a really good singer from Britain once said: you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need. And we do certainly need something. Is there any way you can calm your sister Julie, any kind of link between you which she can be reached through, to get the weather to ease off, Liette?" Her eyes remain on the blonde teen.
"I know you don't like me, and don't trust me. I don't really blame you, at all. Maybe someday you'll understand and accept we aren't just interested in what we need from you. That we want you to enjoy all the things the world has to offer. Some things I've told you, other I would tell you, aren't what you'll want to hear or believe."
In conclusion, Cat states "But yes, we do need things from you. I've not lied to you before, and I won't now."
"I don't understand you," is what Liette clarifies, squinting awkwardly at Cat, "you don't… um, talk like a normal person? I dunno, Pop's always talking about robots and machines and stuff, maybe you're a robot?" There's a lopsided smile offered in something joking quality, because it's easier than actually addressing the proper question Cat asked of her. Liette looks away, over to Delilah and then down into the steaming froth of her cocoa, a sigh causing her shoulders to hunch forward as she deflates a little.
"Pop's got sis on the Amp, so she's stronger'n me right now. Normally we can pull our abilities back and forth, trade 'em and stuff." Blue eyes stare down into the cocoa, vacantly, "but I can feel how strong she is, an' I'm not… she doesn't want to give anything to me right now, she's sort've shut off. It's hard to explain if you don't have the same link we do, we can't talk over it, but I can kinda' feel her emotions?"
Liette glances up towards Cat, nervously. "Don't you have other atmokinetics though? Why— why do you need me to have it?" There's a touch of anxiety there, sheepish in the way her brows furrow and her head tilts down, like someone who knows they're guilty for something but refuses to acknowledge it.
"I've been told that before," Cat admits. "I'm not a robot, I just force myself to be calm most of the time. It's been a rough year and a half for me. People close to me, people I loved, got killed. And you know what my memory is like, you've got it too now. If I don't keep myself in check, I'd just lose it, and might never be able to get it back." She can only hope Liette understands what that means.
"Sorry you don't understand me," she adds. "I think you're smart enough to get me, though." Then, drawing a slow breath, she goes on. "Yeah, we've got atmokinetics. They weren't able to get through to your sister and affect the weather. We hope you can, use that ability to feel her emotions, let her feel you're safe, so she'll ease off. It's like the south pole out there, and only getting worse. People are freezing, starving. Dying."
"Twins have always done that. The whole subconscious connection." Delilah speaks up, finally, sounding very sure of herself. She has leant a little closer to Liette, as if they share a correct opinion on this. "Ours aren't that good either. I suppose nobody is right now, if you aren't." She sighs, moving her shoulders in a small shrug, which sinks when Cat speaks. The gesture as it is, shows that Cat is right. The older teenager shifts in her seat, looking suddenly a bit green around the edges and speaking softly. "Maybe you need some kind of amp too? Bring you to her level? I can tell that she's torn up if its gotten this bad ou- mmmmfff-"
Delilah doesn't finish in a timely manner, instead holding in a horfing sound, hand over mouth. She bolts up off of the couch to find the nearest trash bin. Pukeytime.
"I understand you fine, I just don't… understand you?" Liette's brows scrunch up, nose wrinkles and her blue eyes flick to Delilah helplessly, then settle back on Cat. "What— what do you mean get through to my sister? What do you mean safe? I'm not safe, I'm— being held against my will be complete strangers, they— they wouldn't let me leave with my— with Nurse Fournier," she still has a hard time saying it, "how'm I supposed to tell anyone I'm safe if I'm not?"
Liette's brows furrow, blue eyes staring with a renewed frustration at Cat. "I'm not doing anything for you people, you— you let me see Doctor Brennan, then we'll talk. I— I want to leave and you're not letting me. You people keep telling me how evil my Pop is but I never wanted to leave him, he let me do what I wanted to. I was happy with him and you people just— "
Oh, there goes Delilah to the bathroom with the horking. Liette's eyes go wide, her shoulders slouch and she clutches her cocoa to her chest. Turning to look over to Cat, she seems to have already forgotten that she was furious a moment ago. "Is— is she okay?"
"She's pregnant," Cat shares. "Sometimes early in pregnancy a woman will often feel nauseous and not be able to hold food down." Her eyes track Delilah briefly, then return to Liette. "Maybe I'm wrong about Doctor Luis," Cat concedes. "It's possible. He might be a prisoner of the Institute, forced to do evil things. You said they have people in tanks there. You didn't deny they're experimented on. Can you tell me, honestly, those people were willingly put there? You know, when we found your Nurse Fournier, she was in a tank. Being taken away to be experimented on. We rescued her." She pauses briefly, to let that sink in.
"Doctor Brennan's a good man. But he doesn't understand a lot of things, won't let himself believe. I tried once. I asked him to do something regarding the flu virus, and he asked me why. So I told him, and all he did was ask what I wanted, which I'd already said." A glance goes to the bathroom again, where Delilah went. Cat moves to follow and perhaps hold the redhead's hair, letting Liette maybe think things over.
Though putting back up what little lunch she could get is a mess in its own right, Delilah is at least able to get it done with before Cat has to hold her hair or anything- but surely she can get Delilah a chunk of toilet paper to wipe her mouth with. "Sorry, Cat." The redhead mutters from her stoop beside the porcelain seat, nudging herself to her feet. "I'm okay, just bits of lunch." This is announced for both Cat and Liette, while Delilah wipes her mouth and rinses with a handful of water from the sink.
Looking down at her cocoa, Liette leans to the side and then forward, setting her mug down on the floor. Suddenly she's not so thirsty anymore. Her blue eyes track Cat's movements towards the bathroom, then just move to stare down at the blanket wrapped around her legs. She's silent for a long time, just wringing her hands in her lap, shoulders hunched forward and brows furrowed. When she looks up again, Liette's's blue eyes settle on the pair in the doorway, and she's sliding her legs off of the sofa as she rises up to her feet and starts walking towards the bathroom uncertainly.
"I can't communicate with her," Liette offers in a hushed tone of voice, then swallows nervously and looks down to Delilah, then back up to Cat. "I can't… really tell what she's feeling all the time, just— like— blips?" Her nose wrinkles and she steps back slowly, away from the doorway to the bathroom. "I can't send messages to her or anything, and… and there's no way you could get Amp. I mean— I could've done it myself, if I knew sooner. But— but my chemical manipulation ability is gone. It— I don't have it anymore…"
She sounds sad, like a child who lost a favorite toy. "I would've been able to replicate it, but… now I can't. So… so without the amplification drugs, m'just normal." Liette's brows furrow, blue eyes alight and her teeth worry about her lower lip again as she looks at Delilah. "Is she going to be alright? Is— is she sick?" Didn't she just ask that?
Delilah is handed an amount of said paper to use. "Nothing to be sorry for, Dee," she assures. Then it's back to conversation with Liette. "Chemical manipulation," Cat muses, "like being able to influence chemicals in another person's body? Or make them from outside sources?" It seems she might have an idea. "If you had an ability, and lost it, could you pick it up again? And… what's in the amp drug?" Cat opts not to re-explain morning sickness, she'll let Delilah field that one.
Delilah waves her hands, trying to flush her mess and get out of the bathroom. "I'm fine, fine. Nausea, happens. I didn't mean whatever you meant- I meant- well- Gillian, to get to the gristle. Or find another chemical person." She looks over to Cat, not having any idea there was actually a drug around. "If it were me, I'd just let you go back, Liette-" This might not be what Cat wants to hear, but it's getting said. "I don't want this to go on any longer. I can't live like this, and I know that neither can you or your sister. But for whatever reasons, you can't just waltz over. So we just need to find a better way to make everyone happy again." Telling it like it is!
"You think if you met a person who amplifies others, you might be able to get through?"
"Um, not… not like any of those. Like um, if I was exposed to a chemical composition I could replicate it or constituent parts independantly inside my body. Anything I'd been exposed to I could create in my system, sedatives, pain killers, stuff like that." Liette's blue eyes flick from Delilah to Cat, one brow lifted. "What's it made out of?" There's a slightly puzzled look on Liette's face, her brows furrowed and lips parted as if she's going to ask before Delilah chimes in with something easier to answer.
"Oh um, yeah a— a power augmentor would be super awesome. I've never met one though, and supposedly they're really rare too, like… I think there's only one in the whole registry of the Evolved." There's a wrinkle of Liette's nose, and she offers an askance look to Delilah.
"I might, um," Liette lifts a hand, making a dabbing motion at her chin as suggestion to the redhead, "might be able to do it. We'd… be on more even footing? It depends on how the person who augments uses their ability, if they can augment themselves than I could copy their power and we could augment each other until it gets all crazy. That'd definitely work… uh, I— I think?"
Then again, that's also what sent Moab into fractured time and space.
Oh, yes, it'll work. Cat's eyes go distant as she gets a flash of waking up shot at the junction of CO/KS/NE after the Moab operation. She takes a moment to force it down and shake it off. "It's an idea to consider," she allows neutrally. "You don't know what Amp is made of?" Curious, this. The Institute having a power-boosting drug. She won't mention Gillian again, hoping Liette doesn't trigger on the name from the Registry, which would be that same Gillian.
Oops. Delilah wipes at her face again with renewed vigor. "We should find out what we can do, Cat. It's within our bounds, if she wants to help us help Lee here." The redhead sidles back out of the bathroom again. "If we can just get your sister to feel something, she may come around about what she's doing. Maybe she isn't meaning to, just that she can't quit." Surely a little girl wouldn't be this bitter?
"It's chemical and organic compounds, I still would've needed the organic stuff I couldn't create on my own. I dunno what it was though, it was clear." Liette wrinkles her nose slightly, "I never asked what it was." Her blue eyes move from Cat down to Delilah, then away to the floor as she turns her back on Cat and her redheaded and somewhat pukey companion. The blonde takes a few scuffing steps away from the bathroom door, arms wrapped around herself and slippers sliding on the hardwood. "I'll help you stop the weather…" Liette offers quietly, in resignation.
When she starts walking again, it's back over to the sofa. It doesn't take her long to circle around in front of it, giving Cat and Delilah both the space to consider what she's offered on her own. Coming to settle down on the couch, it's clear Liette has something all of her own to think about.
Emerging from the bathroom ahead of Delilah, Cat moves halfway to the sofa, leaving Liette room to mull whatever it is over. "Thank you, Liette," she simply offers. For the moment, there won't be any more words. She's herself considering the implications of the Institute having that drug and what other problems people on it could cause, along with the chances of Liette being able to have success in drawing Julie down.