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| Scene Title | Sympathetic Incinerations |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | When Peter discovers that Abby is taking care of a found baby, an argument on what to do with the child turns heated. |
| Date | July 28, 2010 |
Late morning, no work, Huruma's responsibility is elsewhere, leaving the little orphan Kasha in the Rivage place with Abigail's blessing and a promise to take care of the wee little one for the day and night. Will give her a chance to start hunting through the Ferry for someone who might be willing to take her somewhere in the network, even if it's another city. Try to avoid placing the child in the social work system.
Which meant that all night, every few hours, the small snuffles then wail would start, the baby hungry, the baby uncomfortable, needing a change, the infant far more fussier than infants should be. A package of pamper tucked behind the couch in reach, formula can's on the counter and bottles tucked away, carseat by the door and the portable playpen in the spare bedroom.
Huruma gone, disappeared, baby settled on the couch with Abigail as the two recline - Abgiail on her back, Kasha on her stomach curled up atop the medic - and the price is right playing quietly on the television. Drew carey taking bids as to the potential price of the bahama's vacation while a toothy brunette shows off the poster surrounded by palm tree's with her hand. Rhett's grumpy self parked at her feet, starting to lick the sole of her feet and the lotus flower there. "Two thousand, eight hundred and….. one dollars" Her own personal bid.
That Peter didn't come home at all last night isn't a surprise by now, but it has become part of an unhealthy routine. When his keys finally clatter in the door, it's more of a formality than anything, ever since he'd taken Richard Cardinal's ability as his own. The apartment door opens slowly, and a dragged down Peter Petrelli tiredly steps in from the hall, hair a disheveled mess, beard looking just a little thicker than the last time Abby saw him, and dark circles around his eyes.
His clothing however looks impeccable, and as he comes in to the apartment there's not a wrinkle in his plum-colored button-down shirt tucked into dark slacks. The rolled up sleeves have been offering only modest relief from the heat, but the thankfully air-conditioned apartment has Peter sighing with relief on stepping inside and lazily throwing his keys onto the small table by the door.
"Baby," is the hissed word from Peter when he stares vacantly at Abby on her back and a child perched atop her like some sort of bald-headed puppy. Peter twists to look back at the door, then snaps his attention over to Abby again with a crease of his brows. "A— Abby?"
That's about all the words he has. Hopefully this isn't a hallucination.
"Why does everyone say it like that. Like it's a poisonous snake" Abigail pressing her chin to her chest, looking to judge how coherent the child is. Awake, sucking on a soother and looking around. "She's not mine, but I'm playing babysitter at night and trying to help find her a home in the network." She lays a hand protectively over the back of the child, fingers played as if she needs to shield it from the venom in his single word.
"Huruma found her. Mother overdosed in an alley somewhere and so… she decided she couldn't let the baby stay there and die too. you and I both know, what that took for that woman to actually do that. Peter, meet Kasha"
Blue eye's skip from the equally blue eye'd infant towards her roommate. "You're gonna take off to your place aren't you"
"Not… right away," Peter awkwardly offers as he creeps into the apartment further, treading up to where Abby's laying in slow progresss. As he moves, Peter's expression softens and his brows rise into a worried look, regarding the child and then the television when his focus is drawn by a loud dinging on the game show Abby's watching. "Huruma found… him?" It's just a guess, Kasha is avery difficult gender to pin down as far as names go. "Okay have— the mother died, OD'd. Someone must have found her already, police or… something. Which means she probably got identified."
Glancing back to Abby, Peter's brows furrow slightly. "If this kid isn't Evolved he isn't the Ferry's business, or anyone but child protective services, really. I don't think you should be getting yourself involved in this, Abby. You can't just… take care of a child. I mean— you know just as well as I do that the baby could be sick, hell— addicted to something, given the circumstances."
Lifting up a hand to rub across his mouth, Peter's head shakes slowly. "You should bring the baby to a hospital, is what you should do. Then they can try and track down any family the child might have. Grandparents, a father… you can't just…" Dark brows crease together and Peter's lips curl into a frown. "You can't just hide a baby like this. If you give it to the Ferry it… you can't."
Everything he's said is things that she thought too. Child services, scour the news to see if a body had been found. Nothing yet but give it a week. When a smell picked up on someones nose or something. "I don't know whether she's evolved or not. It's not like I have a test to see if she is Peter, and you don't have Wendy's ability anymore, nor do we have access to any"
Up and down the baby's back she smooths her hand. "I think maybe she was, maybe not now but she's pretty fussier than I remember babies being. I was going to have Francois try and take a look at her and if he said to take her in, I was going to do that. By the way, since when did you become the know all of Ferry business. It's not like what you are doing with messiah is any more legal. last I knew, there was a list of people slated to be killed Peter"
She's keeping her voice fairly level, sedate, glad she's not an empath lest she bleed it off on the kid her disgruntlement of Peter telling her what to do with regards to her own clandestine organization. "I was thinking of passing her over to the lighthouse in truth Peter. They're a legitimate orphanage, protected by the Linderman Group. Huruma asked for my help, and I'm giving it. As best that I can"
"I'm not discussing Messiah in your apartment," is Peter's defensive answer to her line of questioning before he crouches down, looking at the baby with furrowed brows. "There's a Pharmatech brand of home test kits out now, works like an insulin test. Just a finger prick and then blue or red, I hear they're pretty accurate. It won't let us know what she's got, but it will give you an idea about whether or not yu can even send her to the Lighthouse."
Looking askance to the baby, then back to Abby, Peter frowns. "Francois says a lot of things, but it doesn't make any of them right. If this baby's kept in Ferry custody what chances are there of having a normal life? Growing up and going to school? What safety is there in putting a baby who can't make a choice for itself in the line of danger that everyone associated with the Ferry lives in?"
Reaching out to lightly touch his fingertips to Kasha's back, Peter offers a faint smile, then looks over to Abby again. "The Lighthouse only accepts Evolved children, due to its size. So if Kasha tests negative…" there's a slow shake of Peter's head, his hand moving away from her back. "I think you should just take her to a hospital and hand her over to protective services. It's a good thing for Huruma to have done, probably saved her life, but that doesn't mean she's Huruma's any more than it means she's yours."
"No, you're not, and I apologize, that was rude of me," She murmurs, glancing to the retreating hand and the actual contact he made with the quiet infant. "She's not mine Peter, I'm not disillusioned into such a state. Nor is she Huruma's to own and dictate what to do with her. But Huruma came to me for help and right now, can you honestly say that with the storm that just passed by, that shunting her into an overburdened social welfare system is best?"
Rhett is disrupted slightly by Abigail shifting her legs so that she can start to sit up, swing feet onto the ground and carefully put Kasha on her shoulder instead of her chest. "Francois is a doctor and has medical knowledge. That is why, unless you'd care to give your medical opinion as to her current state of being. I wasn't going to be going to him asking his opinion on what to do with an orphaned child. Maybe Peter, this is a conversation better suited to Huruma, instead of sitting here and berating me for being a christian woman and helping out when someone needs my help. Because right now, you're making me feel like an irresponsible piece of shit"
Grimacing slightly, Peter rests his hands on his knees and rises up slowly to stand again, looking away from Abby and into the kitchen. He's quiet for a time, reaching up to scratch at his beard, staring vacantly off into space. "She might already have a name," Peter says in a hushed tone of voice, looking down to Abby again. "I mean, fingerprints… something. I don't know I'm just… after what happened to Gillian and Brian as children, I get— knowing that my family was a part of something like that I…"
Dismissively waving a hand into the air, Peter turns and starts walking with clunking footfalls into the kitchen. "Nevermind, I'm sorry. I've…" he stops from making an excuse, rubbing one hand at the back of his neck slowly. "You should do what you think's right."
"You are not the smartest man on the face of this planet Peter Petrelli. If you were, then there would still be a midtown to this island and we wouldn't probably be in the state where I have to hide my ability, or we wouldn't be here discussing whether this child is evolved"
Apology it seems, is not accepted as she rises from the couch, snatching baby blanket with her and heading for the carseat.
"What if she does have a name, but her mother didn't go to a hospital Peter. Ever have that cross your mind? Do you know how many druggies have their baby and don't go, because the child will be taken away? They don't let homeless women who are addicts keep a baby. Lord, sometimes I just wonder about you" Her ire is up, she stops in her tracks as the baby starts to fuss and then launch into crying causing the cotten candy medic turn suddenly and head into the kitchen. "You need to take her, right now"
Peter would, really.
He would.
Except that shadows don't have arms to hold babies with, and Peter's is making a slithering departure towards the apartment door. It happened so quick it looked like he exploded into darkness, just broke apart into any dozen motes of shadow that plastered themselves against the kitchen wall and then slide across the painted surface to the floor like spilled ink, and now makes its way to the front door in preparation of leaving.
There's two things Peter Petrelli will not stand around and take, and one of them is someone bringing up Midtown in a tone. Maybe Abby needed Peter to take the baby because she's about to burst into flames, maybe she just wanted him to stop her from crying. Neither of them seems to be stopping him from heading to the door.
Abby crossed a line.
It's strongly suspected that it's the former as opposed to the latter, and the conversion of flesh to shadow cuts off that avenue of help. Which leaves her with no choice but to calm herself, deposit the infant in the carseat and back off, out of range. Back off and breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Her hands slide to either side of her head, fingers digging into her curls as she crouches down, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit."
Maybe it's only the fact that Peter still has shirts in this building that keeps his shadow hesitating by the door. Maybe also that there's a lesson to give in this that has the shadow slithering first towards the carseat the crying infant has been placed into, and then in a dart into the bathroom. The sudden crash-rattle of something in there indicates that Peter's adopted a physical form again, and with far less grace than Richard Cardinal.
Throwing the bathroom door open and walking with a rattling bottle in his hand, Peter heedlessly approaches where Abby's crouched down on the hardwood floor, boots clunking with each step before he crouches down beside her and tests the warmth of her shoulder, unscrewing a bottle cap with two fingers. "Open your mouth," Peter insists, lifting his hand from her shoulder to shake out five different pills from the bottle. Two capsules, one red and white, one green and white. Two small blue tablets and one pinkish brown tablet. Negation pills.
"Now."
Warm, warmer, getting warmer, warm enough to make it click anyones mind why the little girl had started to vocalize her discomfort. Eyes screwed tight means she couldn't see him slither his way back from the door, hands covering her ears as she's working one of the only ways she knows how to ramp back down from ignition. Her hands pull away from her ears at his touch on her shoulder, startled, but hearing his order, glancing down to the pills that he's holding out in front of her. He knows, well enough, that she doesn't take them days off, conservation of supplies.
They're scooped up, head tossed back as she drops all five of the drugs into her mouth, swallowing repeatedly till they're making their way down her gullet. An equal amount of time later, she's heading for where he was, fleeing for the bathroom. Most folks have fire drills that include alternate ways out of the apartment and to outside. When Peter came, it was plans for what to do to keep her from going off or if she did go off.
The sound of the shower comes not two seconds after the door to the bathroom slams shut, in all likelihood, Abigail's already under the water, wincing at the discomfort that doing such causes at this point. The pills are not instantaneous. Not like what Hana gave her.
Still crouched, neck craned to follow Abby's path of movement across the apartment, Peter's rise is a slow and ponderous one as he follows her towards the bathroom door and the noise of the shower. There's a look towards the crying baby, but no real efforts made to calm it down as he pushes the door open, flicks the light on that Abby hadn't had the time to do, and looks down at her crouched down in the shower with the cold water spraying over her.
Peter doesn't look disapproving, but he does look almost parental in the way he crosses his arms and shifts his weight to one foot, as if to ask what have we learned from this? Silence though, gives way to Peter stepping forward, crouching down beside the tub and pushing the shower curtain back a little more, fingers brushing Abby's water-slicked hair back from her face.
"You're going to be fine…" isn't so much truth as it is trying to calm her down some. Peter's brows crease together, dark eyes check the shower head to make sure she didn't twist it the wrong way and the hot water just hasn't kicked on yet. Finding the dial turned to cold, Peter looks back to Abby, watching her in silence.
"I want you to do something for me," Peter asks in a hushed tone of voice, dark eyes alight to Abby.
Icy cold needles of water fall on his arm, fall over her in her shorts and tank top, shivering in the tub with her arms wrapped around her knee's, lower teeth grinding into her top, droplets of cold water gathered on the tips of dirty blonde eyelashes. "I'm learning" Nearly snapped out. "I'm learning okay. Gabriel's not returned my call. He doesn't want to help me. And that f…fine. Shit" It hurts. It hurts but it's doing the work, the cold water cooling her down and preventing what they both don't want to happen. "I don't got anyone else to turn to for help with this Peter, you're doing the best you can. I'm doing the best I can, so please don't ask me to do more than I can do"
Shaking his head slowly, Peter moves his arm out of the water, dapples sports of darker purple staining the sleeve of his shirt where the water splashed past his elbow where the sleeve is rolled to. "Nothing like that," Peter says a bit less warmly than he had before. "I want you to think… about how you would've felt, if you just did what you were about to do…" Peter motions to Abby, "and that baby out there died in the fire."
Slowly rising up to his feet, Peter's lips downturn into a frown, brows furrow together and at this angle he looks even more angry than he did before he stood. "Think about how terrible you'd feel, having taken that girl's life and never having had any control over it happening." Jaw tense, eyes wide, Peter's trembling arms shake for just a moment longer before he steps back against the wall, then sinks into a shadowy silhouette cast against it.
"Think about how you'd feel… every time someone brought up that you killed that girl because you couldn't control yourself," control yourself. The sibilant whisper of the shadow he's become hisses in the bathroom. "Then ask yourself… how you'd feel if you killed three-hundred thousand more people…" more people.
Point made, Peter's shadow slithers out of the bathroom across the floor without another word. He's not coming home tonight, maybe not tomorrow either.
He'll need time.