Participants:
| Scene Title | So Much Faith |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Helena has doubts. Teo has answers. |
| Date | May 8, 2019 |
Unity Park
By whatever medium Teo is arranging travel, Helena will at least take a moment to bid him pause, and ask him to take her somewhere safe and private. She even dares to suggest his place, if it's viable, and notes that she will text Cat to advise the woman of her location and assure her that she's safe. Otherwise, unless Teo prompts conversation, Helena is silent and visibly troubled during their efforts to go…wherever Teo decides they're going to go.
Teo doesn't have a place in New York City. Not anymore. He has his redhead stashed at a hotel room, so that isn't where they go. No, instead, he and his erstwhile co-leader wind up in Union Park, the quiet willow-swept corner of it where he goes, sometimes, when he's avoiding everybody who knows that he haunts the shoreline to be alone. Twelve yards off the beaten path, you can't even see the beaten path, though the light from the lamp winks through yellow stars in the canopy. There's a log to sit on, which Teo finds even though he can barely see anything.
"No one's around," he says, with amiable authority. He sits, knees skewed apart, rubs his fingers through the short bristle of his hair. He'd managed to wash his hands before getting out here, fortunately. There are no scummy half-moons scabbed into his fingernails. "We need to move people soon. Out of the safehouses they're staying at. I'll arrange it."
Helena nods. "Abby," she murmurs, shaking her head. "She's changed. I don't think we can trust Gabriel at all, no matter what Peter said, and clearly we can't trust Deckard or Abby, anymore. I need to confirm where Liz stands." She sits down next to Teo, head bowed. "Is what they're saying true? It was told to me like impending death of this timeline was coming regardless, so going back would only potentially make a difference for the better. But Gillian showed me that painting, and even Abby seems to think what we're going to do brings it about." She looks up at him, distressed. "Teo, is going back going to destroy all this? Am I killing everyone - am I gonna kill you?"
"I don't think so." It's hard to see Teo's face with the lack of light, but there's conviction in his voice and a distinct inwardness to his tone, like he's very far away, but not out there. "I honestly don't think so. Tamara— I know she didn't make a lot of sense when we saw her. But there was a reason I asked her if she thought we were coming to an end here. She doesn't— she's a precog unlike the others; probably, I think, the most powerful alive. Time isn't just a dimension for her. For her, the past doesn't fucking exist.
"If she's trying to help you, it isn't for the sake of 2009— it's for the sake of everybody in this world. Our future, as well as yours. She's murdered, spoken to Kazimir Volken, put herself into comas for the greater good before." There's a shift, subtle. Wood creaking underneath him, and then the tangible weight of his regard. "I don't know why the painters and the dreamers are getting black feedback, but that could mean anything. God knows, maybe your staying here is what would fuck us all."
"But what if I am?" she asks. "What if we go back and you're gone? It means we - I've destroyed millions of people, doesn't it?" She presses fingers to her temples, rubbing them. "Gillian said I was this time's Kazimir Volken. That I only wanted to go back to return to my Peter. I know she wasn't right, but…" But what if that's the truth? Helena's afraid to review her own soul and discover that it's true.
A long sigh sluices out through Teo's teeth. He stares off into the woods for a protracted moment, the side of his hand scuffing up and down the side of his neck. "Then we die. Though if you were Kazimir Volken, that would be your aim, not something you'd be wringing your hands and wigging out on a rotten tree log about," he points out, relevantly if somewhat irreverently, glancing sidelong at the girl from underneath a lifted eyebrow. "There's a lot more to you than Peter. As much of that is practical and selfish as it is noble and anybody who faults you for either is being exactly the same."
Helena takes this in, in silence for a while, a habit that is still very much a Helena thing. Finally she nods, and with a sigh, leans to the side, her head on Teo's bicep. "Colette came to see me." she says, seeming to switch topics. "Tamara sent her. She had new information."
"Good. Not that Tamara's stamp of approval is the end-all of everything," Teo says, reaching up to push her hair out of her face, one long finger levering in under a flaxen lock, then a second, careful to avoid allowing his nails to catch on her skin. "'S just— better to have people like her and Kaito Nakamura on your side, you know?" The line of his shoulder adjusts slightly, a creak of shifting muscle strings audible to her because her ear is pressed up on the fabric of his sleeve. "Anything that needs going over right now, or do you think you have all you need for time being?"
"This was pretty specific." Helena murmurs, glancing sidelong at him. "It's probably best gone over with as many folks present as possible." she confesses. "I just - you have so much faith, Teo. You don't know how scared I am that I don't deserve it."
There's a twitch of Teo's cheek at that, audible in a faint chuff of wind out of his lungs. "I used to do faith. I don't know if you heard— I'm not much of a Catholic anymore." Melancholy interlaces with a wry sort of cold in his voice. He stares off at the glitter of lamp through trees. "Now I have facts. And theories." He twists his mouth slightly, whuffs an inhale of cool vespertine air. "Like the fact that you're here— you came back, and the evolutionary prerogative that you should get out before some panicky asshole with an amateurish bullshit temporal theory kills you for it. Y' need to go home, Helena." His teeth click. He has grace enough to admit, afterward—
"Or I'm crazy. Category by myself, off the end of the statistical bell curve, different kind of faith. Maybe the wrong kind?" He grates his shoe along the forest floor. "It isn't hard for me at all to think there's a better place than this one. Only I don't expect God to make it happen."
Helena turns her head to smile at him, letting out a breath that was uneasily held and relievedly expelled. "I'll take your brand of crazy any day." she says to him, and leans in to kiss him on his cheek.
"Not for personal use, I hope," Teo says quizzically. He holds still for the kiss, mostly, except for that slight upward twitch of his cheeks before parting. "I'll do my best to help you get home and protect you all long enough for you to do it. I have no fucking idea how much that's worth," apart from glibely sending Peter Petrelli straight into the captivity that Kaito Nakamura had asked for, "but I'm pretty sure it's more than it used to be. Ten years have to've counted for something, eh?" He's being flippant now, a little. Winds a lean arm around her shoulders to impart a squeeze that could probably have bruised bones if he wasn't paying enough attention. Fortunately, he is.
"I was going to ask to stay with you." she admits, "But if you think it's better for me to go back to Cat's for the night, I understand. We should go wherever you're gonna see me go, though. It's late." Late, but not cold, for Helena keeps them both comfortable, as naturally as breathing.
Mmmmm. Teo nods, the shift of his collar a rustle in the dark. "You can stay with us. Al and me. If that doesn't freak you out. I'll look into other places later— for the others. Come on. Our boy's probably getting worried and shit." Possibly starving, horny, or geographically lost. Rough knuckles brush her arm, and the light from the path splits between long fingers, proffered. His hands are bare, of course, because it isn't cold here with her.
Helena blinks. "Why would you and Al freak me out? Though I'd appreciate it if I didn't have to try to sleep through any porn floor show sound effects." She slips her fingers into his. "And if that's what you're in the mood for," she leers, "I don't mind going back to Cat's for the sake of it." And as they walk, thoughtfully, "Cat's got empty apartments that would work…"