Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

Participants:

gillian3_icon.gif kazimir5_icon.gif

Also Featuring:

the_haitian_icon.gif

Scene Title Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop
Synopsis Gillian confronts Kazimir on his way to find Magnes, and her temper boils over when she is told the truth.
Date January 4, 2010

USS George Washington


They've only been on the aircraft carrier for a little over a day, and Gillian may be having second thoughts about deciding to stay on til the end. Then again, she often has second thoughts about her decisions, something that a certain fortune teller tried to warn her off of. She'd thought it had worked. But the longer she stands looking at her reflection in a shiny piece of metal on the wall, the more she realizes she didn't make nearly as much progress as she'd hoped.

The hallway for the most part is empty right now. But there's always the chance of someone running through. A ladder, what acts as stairs, and the rooms they'd been assigned are close enough that she can go back to them should she choose. Cat'd asked her if she'd want to get rid of the brand that marks her cheek. The way she traces her finger over the scarred flesh show signs of consideration. Tattoos had always been seen as a record, a memory. But this might be a memory she doesn't want to keep.

It's perhaps coincidence that she's thinking that, as rounding the corner of a T-junction in the hall a tall and lanky man with chocolate-brown skin in a suit of matching hue comes rounding the corner. The Haitian, or Rene as he's called around the carrier, strides down the corridor, offering a hesitant smile and a nod of his head to Gillian, and as she passes the tall man, her eyes catch a glint of light from the necklace he wears, one shaped like a familiar symbol made from polished metal.

The Haitian says nothing as he passes by, perhaps because he has nothign to say to Gillian, perhaps because he knows who is behind him. While Gillian is distracted by Rene's pass, she fails to see exactly when Kazimir Volken comes to stand at the mouht of the hall. His gloved hands are folded behind his back, fluorescent lights overhead bleaching away the color from his face, making deep the look of the scar that crosses it. Somehow, those blue eyes are still just are crisp; just as cold.

That guy only looks vaguely familiar. Enough that Gillian lets her hand drop away from her face and follows him with her eyes. It could have been the information in the Catabase that causes her to recognize him, or a certain brief moment when they needed someone to negate the negator. It's hard to tell exactly. Maybe he just doesn't look like one of the soldiers! When her eyes go back, she sees the gloved man, with the scar, the crisp eyes— and she takes in a slow breath of surprise. "I hate it when you sneak up on me," she mutters in a raspy voice.

A self-conscious hand goes up to her cheek, covering it for a moment, before pushing hair out of her face instead. The knot in the back of her head is still there, always there, tied a bit tighter with his proximity. Even if there's more than enough room between them to likely be safe, she double checks it half just to prove that it's there. He didn't think she could control herself. If any of that was even true. "Cat was looking for you."

"Cat can wait," Kazimir states rather matter-of-factly, "I'm actually looking for Magnes." He what? "I haven't gotten a chance to commend him on a job well done for his work in Argentina yet, and I suppose the same goes for you." Blue eyes narrow as he considers Gillian, taking a step closer towards her, gaze drifting up and down but then lingering at the brand mark. "You did a hell of a job out there when we actually needed you most, if you hadn't thought about getting the tank up into the air, we'd have been buried by the avalanche."

Praise, it seems, does indeed come in equal measure with harshness from Kazimir. "You did a good job, but you're still letting your emotions get in the way too much." Praise and criticism, at least. "Do you know where Varlane is? I heard about what happened to Claire Bennet, and I imagine he needs somewhere to redirect the frustration of his."

"I don't know where Magnes is," Gillian says, looking away as she gets praise and criticism all at once. It narrows her eyes, tightens her jaw, pulls her lips up away from her teeth as if she wants to snarl at him. Yes, showing more of that emotion. It was her idea that might have saved them, at least in part… "Did you ever thing having emotions might be a good thing?" she finally asks, voice snapping in anger as she looks back up at him.

"I wanted to go after the tank cause I wanted to make that… I wanted him to feel what I felt." It'd been the third time she felt completely helpless against a man. The third time when she couldn't do anything to defend herself. The third time that nothing could have possibly helped her. But she hadn't really wanted him to die. "I also wanted to live. I wanted…" Him. "I wanted everyone to live. If I would have just been resigned on the mission, Magnes could have carried the important people out and left the rest to die."

Kazimir takes a step forward, moving as if to clear the distance between himself and Gillian, to bridge that gap that's been separating them for so long now. But then he takes a sharp and efficient step to the side, moving around her and past her by a few steps into the hall. "Emotions can be good things," he admits in a quiet tone of voice, hesitating when he's a few feet away from her, regarding Gillian's back over his shoulder, "but not when they control you, then things get out of hand, and people get hurt. You did good against the tank, though, but don't think that it makes up for the other times you've let your heart get in the way of your head." Says the man who once was an empath.

"For what it's worth, I think you're still useful to keep around." His voice is quieter as he says that, looking away and keeping his back to Gillian. "You can go home if you want to, but I still have a use for you yet."

"If I hadn't let my emotions dictate my actions, you wouldn't be here," Gillian says, still turned away from him. There's a tightening in her throat that's familiar when she talks to him these days, and it's not the anger that sometimes filters through. It was one of the things that her and Stef talked about. It was one of the only things Stef really seemed to regret. "She never should have carried him up to that roof. But she didn't want to leave him behind. She was so mad when it seemed that he lied to us… And she wanted to protect him." Talking in third person would be odd, if she wasn't talking about someone whose memories she doesn't even have.

"We all know that turned out."

He got shot in the back. Fell off the roof. Got healed by Gabriel, and infected with the power that healed him. It turned out she didn't protect him at all. The person she tried to become stronger for. "I thought I'd forgiven myself. But I guess just seeing you took that away." At least the one who'd actually carried him up there didn't have to see him again. Maybe her forgiving herself actually stuck.

Reaching up, she wipes her eyes, still keeping her back to him. "I don't even know which of you I'm talking to. Or if it even matters. Cause if you're lying, you're intentionally hurting me, and if you're not… well, you're hurting me anyway. So the fuck do you want me to do?"

"Peter Petrelli is dead," Kazimir states quietly, somberly, "he's gone and there is no bringing him back. If you have to be emotional about something, greive and move on." Kazimir turns, now, offering Gillian a view of his profile before his head angles towards her, posture still rigid and straight. He considers her for a moment, or at the very least considers her question, and that plain look of blankness on his face is made somewhat more haunting by the way the overhead fluorescent bulbs give his features a cadaverous quality, sharp cheekbones and deep set eyes, contrasting angles at his jaw of light at dark, and that defined scar.

"All I need you to do," Kazimir admits in a quiet voice, "is let this idea that Peter is still in here go." His brows crease and head shakes slowly, voice soft when he says that. "It's just me now, and you'll only have to put up with that for as long as this mission persists. That, and when we get to our final destination… do exactly as I say." He seems to be rather emphatic about that.

Gone. Just like her sister. The parents she never knew. It'd be easier if his face had disappeared along with him, but if wishes were horses… "You have to do me a favor. If you want me to do exactly as you say… you who are responsible for my sister's death, for what happened to Gabriel and whether you meant to do it or not— for this as much as I am…" Gillian's voice tightens as he turns around, takinga few steps after him rather than keeping her back to him. There's renewed anger in her eyes, even while she's crying.

"I can't move on until I get an answer," she says. Just like she couldn't get closure on her sister until she knew why, she can't get closure on this until she does either. "Until I know whether or not any of it was real. Or if it was all a lie. If it was real, then maybe I can cry and move on. If it wasn't, I can hate him and do the same thing. But since you would never fucking let me talk to you I've spent the last few months not knowing. And you're the only one who can fucking tell me."

Blue eyes tense, tightness at their corners creasing where lines of age have accosted Peter's face. His throat tightens, blue irises bright against the darkened hollow of his perceived sockets from the shadows cast by his brow. He watches her, motionlessly, silently, as if unsure how to react around her, or perhaps crafting an answer he thinks she wants to hear — or needs to hear. "I'm sorry," he offers as his answer, lips downturning into a frown as his shoulder turns to offer his back to her as well part and parcel with the response.

"His memories are largely gone from here, scraps clinging to a wall that has been stripped of paint. I don't know how he felt, if he himself ever even knew the answer to that question." There's no goodbye, just the sound of his shoes against the floor in firm footfalls. "I'm sorry, Gillian, but he's gone. All of him."

The next few moments would almost be comical, if they weren't so sad. There's a mild stomp of a foot, and Gillian bends down, and when she comes back up she's throwing her shoe at the retreating back. It's the only thing she has to throw. At least her ability stays reigned in, but it's looser than it probably should be. She doesn't even care if it misses and bounces off the walls. It's the fact that she did it that matters. It allows her to vent some of her anger, physically.

"You can't even grant me one fucking favor. A yes or no answer is all it would have fucking taken. You didn't even have to tell the truth because I can't not believe you." Even as she rages, she seems to lose some of it, barely avoiding kicking a wall that would probably just hurt her now bare foot. Kazimir knew how Gabriel felt about her. He knew how she felt about him. He had to have. Just like she doesn't think he could have been a silent observer in what Peter felt. When Peter saved her.

Even if he's gone, that should have been there. And if he isn't gone…

She suddenly moves forward, to get her shoe back. "Even if it wasn't real to him, it was real to me." The way she says it almost sounds like a realization of her own. Maybe it didn't matter if it was real to him.

Especially if he's gone.

She grabs her shoe as if he tried to steal it— nevermind that she'd thrown it at him. "But I'll consider whatever it is you tell me to do when we get to wherever we're going."

Eyes focused on Gillian and not the shoe that bounced off a wall twice and landed in front of him, Kazimir remains shoulders squared and back straight. He turns at her tantrum, brows furrowed and blue eyes settled on her. The looks is one of disappointent, but also something more difficult to ascertain. He looks down to the shoe when she takes it, at the end of her fit, and looks up without saying anything. His expression says it all.

"I respected you enough not to lie," he admits in a quiet tone of voice, "I'll remember your preference." Then, down to the floor where the shoe was, his gaze trails in wordless quiet. Kazimir then turns, pauses, and looks back at Gillian. "Consider when I need action and we'll all be dead — everyone. That's your choice to make."

Exhaling a sigh, he finally reaches that door at the end of the hall, wrenching it open, and steps through without a further word for her, save for the loud and metallic clang of the door coming shut.

"I never wanted a lie, I wanted an answer," Gillian says loudly, in a pained voice, but it's unlikely he'll hear it with the closing of the door. She doesn't even get her shoe back on as she touches the door he's closed, pressing her forehead against it. She got the answer. It just didn't come from him. Wiping at her face, she steps away, but doesn't make it very far, just a few steps. Leaning against the hard wall, she sits down, and curls up.

Still holding her shoe.

Now there's something else she needs an answer to, but no one else can answer it for her…


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