Participants:
| Scene Title | Strangers in a Strange Land |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Izzy and Shaw have a little ways to go before settling in. |
| Date | January 19, 2012 |
Elisabeth and Ygraine's Flat
Well, Elisabeth and Ygraine have managed to find a small by-the-week furnished rental flat that will work for the nonce. Tamara gave them money, but it's not going to last forever — it's enough to get them started, though. She let Magnes, Elaine, Kaylee, Isabelle, and anyone else who wanted to know and be able to get hold of her/them where they were going to be. She doesn't want to push her company on any of the people who've found themselves in a whole new world if they don't want it. If they do want to contact her, the door is always open.
With Ygraine out fondling the local produce (after all, fresh food was at a serious premium where they just arrived from), Elisabeth has chosen to remain in the flat. It's … well, it's got furniture. Aftera fashion. And she's tending to find that she's still very tired. Relief, injury — and perhaps grief — have a way of making you willing to catch up on your sleep. Or at least forcing your body to sleep when its reserves are being taxed.
The banging on the door brings her bolt upright from the couch, blue eyes wide as she stares at it. And then the second round of banging brings her to her feet. If it were Pinehearst Gestapo, they wouldn't knock. So….
The door is opened to the visitors, curiosity clear in Liz's expression and then a grin as she lets them in. She's wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a long-sleeved black shirt, her sock-feet silent on the floor.
“Don't worry, see? No scavs, no hunters. Very different place.” Can be heard on the other side of the door before it's opened to reveal Isa Parker and Morris Morrison AKA Isabelle and Shaw. The two had already been on something of an adventure the first couple days. Getting use to this new world.. would take some getting use too. The pyro smiles softly in the direction of Liz as she opens the door. “Hey there you oven, where's the bun?” Eyebrows waggle as she walks in. Dressed in a pair of loose black pants and a sleeveless dark red top, her shoes are comfortable and not boots for the moment. She looks.. different.
As she looks around the place, takes in the flat. It's still a wonder to her, they really made it. “This.. is insane.” Isa says finally. “I can't believe we made it.”
She thinks of Brenda and the black and gold flask is taken out of her pocket and she takes a swig while looking out the window. The flask gifted to her by Tamara has been a source of comfort when Shaw or Magnes weren't able to make her keep her mind elsewhere. “It's overwhelming, all the shit we can do now.”
Only a couple paces behind Isa Parker, Shaw leans into view at the doorway to peer into the living space that makes up Elisabeth’s and Ygraine’s chosen habitat (for now). Clad in an oversized drugstore-souvenir hoodie and the same jeans he’s worn through time and space, the man more skulks into the common area than he does simply walk in. It’s a little more obvious that he’s still got a few habits to break… but this is New York, so one more nut to crack won’t matter. Maybe.
A small smile skews its way onto his face at the sight of Elisabeth, one more familiar face in a world too full of unfamiliar. “Are we laying low here?” he asks with a turn of dark, uncertain eyes to Isabelle. “The guard might be looking for us still.” The way he says it almost sounds like he refers to an army. Or just a security guard.
But back to Elisabeth, Shaw asks, head tilted curiously at her, “How are you feeling? You look like you need more sleep… or food? You want a waffle bar?” At the self-prompt, he digs a hand into the pouch of the hoodie, producing one said Pinehearst Foods logo protein bar, offering it over.
"Gonna be still baking for a while to come," Elisabeth retorts to Isabelle. The blonde closes the door behind them and joins them in the small living room area, a faint smile quirking her lips though there's a hint of sadness still present. She seems glad to see them, though. It feels strange not to have so many people close after living in such close quarters for a couple of months.
"Do I want to know why you've got a guard chasing you?" she asks drily of the two. There's no judgment attached, though — merely curiosity. Shoving a hand through her short hair, Elisabeth moves toward the couch and curls up in one corner of it to chat them. "C'mon in, pull up a chair." There are several worn but functional pieces of furniture to sit on.
"Uhm…. how am I feeling?" she echoes thoughtfully. "Well… I'm probably not quite as overwhelmed as all of you. I've done the time-travel schtick before and it was my second run through a black hole," she comments wryly. Her blue eyes soften when he offers the protein bar, and she says softly, "Thank you. I'm okay, I promise." Because where they just came from, that's a huge offer. "Just … I think the stress finally hit, you know? It's mostly just tired. That, and they've got me on megadoses of vitamins."
She looks between the two of them. "How are things going with you guys? Did you decide to stay with Elaine and Magnes?" Liz knows the offer was made by Magnes.
“We might still be learning how to act in a civilized world again,” is Isa’s tease to Shaw with a tongue out to emphasize. Adventures already..
Taking a seat on one of the many pieces of furniture, Izzy trails her hand along the arm of the chair as she regards Liz with a curious look. “You're lucky we landed somewhere with advanced tech and medicine, you’ll get the best for the kid.”
As to how she is… “This word is nice, Brenda is still dead.” She sighs a little and looks away and out the window. “I'm.. gonna stay with Mags and Elaine yea. Keep an eye on him.” As she always has. Izzy ruffles the back of her hair and hazel eyes take in the apartment again. “It's hard to believe we’ve made it.
“Okay,” Shaw handles the rejection with a light shrug and slips the protein bar back into the hoodie pouch. Spying a spot to sit, he does so, dragging the seat over to where Isa is within arm’s reach. Belatedly he supplies in answer to Liz’s earlier question about the guard, “He seemed mad we crashed a couch. Room. Broke into a room… but check in means different. Check out too.” Well, he’s always been a little off. Thanks to Isa, he’s not been arrested yet.
The mention of Brenda hushes the man, dark eyes flicking a look towards Isa, then to Liz, then to somewhere else in the room. “She would have liked it,” murmurs Shaw, gaze downcast. “They all would.” Those dead, but not forgotten, are likely to haunt the survivors for a while yet. But when there’s mention of Magnes and Elaine, and Izzy staying with them, a flash of a grimace crosses Shaw’s face. “I’m… going to stick around Ruiz,” he replies to the question. “He needed to make sure his heart wasn’t unfixable. I think they patched it up kind of, but it’s still a wreck.” They all know why.
“I have to make sure he’s okay.” The words come out of Shaw fervently, a nervous urgency to it. Another glance goes back to Isa, his brows lift at her. “Our phones can keep us in touch.” Izzy’s likely explained now that utilities work in this universe.
Elisabeth smiles slightly at the story about the checking in and checking out. Huh. Never dull with these two around. She nods slightly to Shaw's intent. "Yeah… I want to keep an ear on him too. We all owe him pretty much everything." She looks toward Isabelle, sadness etched in her expression. "We do have phones. And I … I really want all of you to stay in touch." The phones situation, definitely. "I picked up a disposable cell yesterday, so yes — texting, calling, whatever." She knows it's been a long time since the Virus world had phones and things, though his phrasing brings a look of curiosity to her face.
"If you need anything… if you want help with … you know. Dealing with all of this… please don't hesitate? I couldn't bear to lose any more of you."
“We will be trying to behave but he's.. eager.” Well so is she but Liz knows this and it's evident in the dark grin she wears on her face. At keeping in touch she looks touched visibly, “We have you and Magnes thank, if you never showed up we wouldn't have had the chance to get here.”
Isa looks thoughtful as she reaches out to rub Shaw’s arm. “I need you to know that I will never forget that. That we will never forget that.” She speaks for the both of them but with the purest of intentions.
“I also need..” and she releases Shaw’s hand to lean back in her chair and cross her legs, foot bouncing occasionally with restless energy. “To know what you know about this place if anything. I know we have Wikipedia but.. you guys know about this time traveling stuff. This other world shit and beyond.”
Running her hands through her hair to tie her hair back into a ponytail that sits high on her head she tilts her head. “Level with me girl.” If she had her own moonshine (she does in her pocket flask) she would pour them both a drink.
Head tilted at the touch on his arm, Shaw stills as Isa does the talking. His head bobs in agreement, that they to effect owe Magnes and Liz their lives. The latter comment about the need for information shifts his eyes between the women. Briefly he sucks on a tooth, fingers finding and fiddling with the protein bar wrapper and other goodies tucked into his hoodie pouch. The wrapper crinkles a little noisily. “H-How do you, how do you know,” he pipes up, “this isn’t yours?” This world, this timeline, this everything. “What if… if we messed everything up?” Shaw wets his lips, teeth worrying the bottom. “I don’t want to mess it up. It’s nice here.”
Elisabeth pulls in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Well… I know for several reasons. One of which… is that I've been exposed to time travel several times before now. And back then it was without really understanding that it's not so much time travel as dimensional travel. I understand a whole lot better now as I look back at what I know. The world I come from… other people I know have traveled to this particular future before — they jumped from 2009 to this world in the year 2019 — literally time travel as well as dimension travel, so they haven't even landed here yet." Her blue eyes flicker to Isabelle and she shrugs at them both. "Time travel really gives people a headache. When they eventually came home, they told us a lot of things… and one of the things was that Pinehearst was basically doing shit that was wrong. And so we set out to take down Pinehearst."
Her tone is a little grim. "We didn't know at the time that Pinehearst's existence was actually keeping major anti-Evo factions from rising up. In my world, we're basically at the brink of some serious Evo/anti-Evo violence." Elisabeth shrugs a little. "I told you my world was better than the one you were in, not that it was perfect. I … don't think it's possible for a world to be perfect. Although this one…"
She trails off for a long moment and admits, "I have to say, if I had no other ties to another world, guys? This would be one of the places I'd be willing to stay. There's shit going on behind the scenes, but when it comes to politics and power, there always is. For the average Joe Evo in the streets? This world is looking pretty damn amazing."
Hazel eyes go towards Shaw as he asks the question that she hadn't even thought of. Liz's answer makes her brow furrow. “There were travelers before.. to this place but years ahead of now. Does what we do change th— Nope not going there.” The pyro shakes her head as she bounces her feet. Isa has had a hard enough time as it is wrapping her head around dimension hopping.
The description of Liz's home makes her grimace. War? She figures that all worlds can't be perfect but her words are true and Izzy nods her head. “We should probably stay where it's good for us,” looking over at Shaw. But Magnes.. Biting the corner of her lip she steers her gaze back towards Liz. “So you've killed him before and know how to,” there's a pause and Izzy looks out the window for a moment. It is really peaceful here.
“If it's necessary. I'm not sure how they will react to you two trying to get home.”
“It is amazing,” Shaw comments, the crinkling pausing for a moment. “But, not perfect, no. Because we don’t have… everybody we wanted.” He trails, dark eyes sliding to Izzy. The missing people, those left behind, are still a fresh, raw hole. The man slips a hand out of his hoodie, but it’s to itch at a point in front of his ear. He mutters a soft “wrong, wrong” up until he looks up abruptly and with renewed focus, asks with a tilt of his head. “Killed who? Is there a Mr. Pinehearst?”
And then he looks agitated. There’s already talk about more time travel or dimension travel, of ‘getting home’. Shaw shoots up to his feet, a sharp “No!” barking from the man. As if realizing the volume of his initial tone, he pulls back and looks away, head shaking vehemently. “No, no. Ruiz is not good, he’s hurt, hurting,” utters the man, hands rubbing suddenly sweaty palms on his hoodie covered hips. He paces in front of his chair, dried hands lifting, fingers interlocking behind his neck. “We can’t go back.”
Elisabeth gives Isabelle a sharp look. She didn't say anything about killing anyone — though they did. She starts to say something and then Shaw jumps up. "Shaw," she says gently, "no one is going back there. Not ever. And no one has to go anywhere. Neither I nor Magnes are going to risk Ruiz like that — he's already done enough. I promise you, I have zero intention of allowing him to kill himself just for us to get to our home. Magnes and I will figure out another way. And if we can't…" She swallows hard. "Then we'll just have to figure out how to make our peace with that."
She shoots Isabelle a faint frown. "As to freakin' killing people, I didn't say that!" Even though they did! She's still not just going to drop that out there. "Stop freakin' him out. I do worry about making sure certain people never get their hands on us, Izzy. But that just becomes a matter of being careful. This is a chance to have a whole new life, if you want it. You can be anything here, no one knows where you come from or what choices you might have made before. Make of the opportunity what you will, okay?"
Shaw’s outburst makes for Izzy’s face to twist into an expression of discomfort. She forgets how sensitive bae can be sometimes. “No no no, baby.” Placing a hand on his cheek to have him stare at her. “Not us, them.” She flicks her gaze over to Liz. “She and Magnes have a whole world that's intact. We can stay here. We can go feed the ducks later even.” She's trying to get him to calm down as he gets up to pace. Isa gives Liz and apologetic look and holds onto Shaw’s hand firmly, “Hey hey, we’re not going back. Ever. I promise. Would this face lie to you?”
To the denial of killing, Izzy holds up her hands with mock guilt. “What! You said stopped, I just assumed!” The quirk of her eyebrow and grin that plays across her lips is a familiar one to Elisabeth. Isabelle Ashford the adrenaline junkie. Peace is nice but can get boring. Her eyes roll, “I'm not looking to bust up this world’s pretty face. I'd like to travel it some.” Something she didn't do.. back home ever. “Don't think I've been out of the state..” her memory is fuzzy on that and her brow furrows.
“How will you spend your fresh start? Have you thought of a name for the baby?” Giving Shaw's panicky self a pointed look, a code to Liz. Change of subject is nice.
His hand caught up in Isabelle’s, Shaw stops pacing but hunches his shoulders. Breath shallow and quick, he nods to the statements from both women. “Okay,” he says belatedly to the suggestion about going to feed the ducks. It was something they’d watched others do, and then tried. He might have been a little confused by the onrush of waterfowl in his direction, but that turned into something funny. It was a pleasant moment. One of hopefully many like it in this world.
When the topic shifts away from the initial traumatic recent events, the man slowly sinks back into his chair. A leg folds up, arms hooked around the knee, he listens quietly once more. The mention of their alternate identities has him rummaging again in a different pocket, eventually digging out a wallet to fiddle with the driver’s license that bears his. He glances at the picture on it, the face looking back seeming unfamiliar and yet. “Where do you want to go?” he asks Izzy. “I could drive us. Says I can.” He holds up the card as proof. With the question of the baby’s name, he’s then reminded of what he’d said on the bus earlier. The card dropped back into his wallet, he glances over at Liz, head tilted curiously at first.
“Sorry about earlier,” Shaw says, chewing on his lower lip. “Dirk really wanted a good future for everybody. Just his words were… not good ones.”
A single brow quirks upward when Shaw says that the license says he can drive. Because Liz has no idea if Shaw ever actually learned to drive. But she'll leave the idea that Isabelle will take her life in her hands to Izzy to deal with. And she smiles at Shaw, shrugging a little. "No, his words weren't the best. And honestly, back in the Hub, it was …. Probably not the the best idea anyone ever had. But he also wasn't wrong," she tells Shaw gently. "Without children, a population dies out. He might not have been going about it the best way, but he was thinking about everyone's future. And that's not a bad thing." She has a good bit of respect for Dirk — he protected his people and tried to do the best he could for them. There is much about what he did that is to be admired.
"I haven't had really time to even start thinking about what comes next," she admits to them both. "I only really just figured out that I was pregnant right before the raid." Elisabeth shrugs slightly. "Right now, … I can't even quite wrap my head around it. I mean… like I said before, we talked about having a kid, but Christ, Izzy. This was not exactly what either of us meant." She rolls her eyes.
"Anyway… seriously, you two. You can travel anywhere. Isabelle, you can pick anywhere in the world to travel to, where do you want to go?" she asks curiously.
The look of horror on Izzy’s face at the thought of Shaw driving them anywhere is quickly replaced with a smile, her eyes to Liz are strained. No. if she was a telepath, NO. Outwardly, “Ah babe, let’s go somewhere neither of us have to drive. I was thinking.. Thailand or some shit. I wanna see some monkeys.” Damn right, monkeys.
“Dirk.. was a special guy.” That's all she can say on that for sure. Another survivor lost.
“I think you need to lay back and kick your feet up, stress for the baby and all.” There's a smile, they’ve all earned it. But also, “I do know Liz,” her expression sad, “You've gotta get that kid back to their father. Both of you have to get there.” She's been trying not to think about Cardinal. The thought of looking him up here even.. it scares her more than the idea of finding Brenda. What will he be like? Were they friends here? “Thailand I guess is the answer. Always wanted to see the Netherlands. London.” that last one sounds like a hotspot for the woman.
They’ll all find out eventually if Shaw actually can drive or not. Though perhaps best not to experience it first hand. Especially not while one is pregnant. The concept of traveling, though, seems to be one that hasn’t crossed his mind much at all. Survivors in the Hub hadn’t exactly had that luxury for years. When asked, though, he wets his lips and considers aloud, “My parents said we came from Pakistan.” Whether or not he feels a connection there is weak at best, a curiosity to add to the pile of places to go. “But before that, I lived in Vancouver,” he adds with a bob of his head.
Then his head angles to a side as he peers at Elisabeth. “Do you really think the nice ladies are going to check in with us?” The things that come to his mind don’t sound like he’s worried as much as just processing. So much to go through. “And that we have other ‘us’es here?” Someone hasn’t read through his entire packet, that’s obvious. But then again, he and Izzy haven’t quite settled down yet either.
Elisabeth's smile at Shaw is gentle. She likes Isabelle's beau… he struck her in the Hub as quiet and a little strange. That hasn't changed. But he also clearly has a deep loyalty to Izzy and while she's never quite sure what he's thinking, he seems to have both courage and kindness. "Well… Kaylee and I are definitely keeping in touch. I don't really know about some of the others, Shaw — I think everyone has a lot to deal with. There are definitely other you's in this world — or at least … at some point there were. You know, unless car accidents and things. So… basically we just gotta be careful, that's all."
She pauses and then smiles. "Within reason. You know… don't get arrested and shit," she teases. Because that advice will get her anywhere with Isabelle at all. But it's bound to be an adventure, regardless. And Elisabeth has to admit she's looking forward to getting to know both Isabelle and Shaw a lot better.