Heidi Petrelli (walks_again) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-06-07 18:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | gabriel gray, heidi petrelli |
who| Heidi Petrelli, Gabriel Gray and [OPEN]
what| Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! the Powers That Be. Least of all Heidi.
where| Begining in New York, New York, and concluding in Los Angeles.
when| Friday; Late afternoon/Early evening.
rating| TBA.
status| In progress.
In Heidi's defense, the e-mail wasn't cryptic at all. Typically, when a universe or Higher Power delivers written notices to it's peons or/and playthings, the contents contain at least a hint of the lofty and ambiguous. They are also tend to be at least a little bit on fire.
It arrived just as she had started for the door, determined to be more than early to pick Simon and Monty up from school lest the latter have the opportunity to accuse the media men camping out infront of the gates to question his feelings on his parents' divorce of being a 'butthead'. Again. She didn't see the screensaver with fish floating and bubbling by in perfect, pixelated contentment when the serene scene was replaced by a pop-up alert, but she heard the buzz it made come from the speakers. A quick consultation with her wristwatch informed her she had time to see what it was without being late to be early. It said, in six full, friendly sentences that there had been a lead on the missing persons cases she had filed for Nathan, and re-filed for Peter. She was welcome to stop by the precinct headquarters(the number and address of which was given at the bottom of the screen, just as innocent as the rest, and Heidi was the sort of person who would have noticed something amiss even without involving anything as blatant as 42 Meaning of Life, Universe and Everything Rd or 1-800-DESTINY.)
She registered the information with cautious hope; there had been several leads, dead ends all, and after the first few she had promised herself she could be excited when one of them actually went somewhere, but not before. It was, she had learned, the best way to remain optimistic without running heart-first desperation. Of course, her all her practicality and sensibility, there was a quickness to the way she penned the information in her datebook and in her step as she ducked under her umbrella and headed for the car.
Driving had not been a pleasurable experience for Heidi since the accident that had left her crippled. Every street and gear shift was checked three times, the angle of her mirrors adjusted twice that, and every speed limit and stop sign was strictly obeyed. Still, for all her (justified) paranoia, she got where she needed to go. She was there ten minutes before the boys emerged. With their umbrellas pulled down to the top of their heads, they looked like a pair of water-resistant aliens in uniforms. It was probably meant more as a display of exaggerated obidience for the last time it had rained and they had puddled-jumped all the way to the door, waterlogging the interior and receiving a lecture as a result than a method of avoiding the stray reporter positioned at the gate. Nevertheless, it was a effective.
"Did you find anything out about Dad today?" Monty asked, five seconds into the car and already shucking his soggy shoes and socks. He must have been having trouble with his laces, because he asked it every day, and he usually didn't wait that long.
"Maybe," Heidi replied, turning the windshield wipers back on and quadruple-checking the rearveiw mirror before she pulled away from the curb and into the (thankfully) slow-moving school traffic. "Someone at the precinct I went to last week thinks they may have found something." She'd attempted to sheild them from the footage of Nathan's 'assasination', but it had played everywhere, and been talked of by everyone. Since then, she'd done her best to be as straightfoward with her children as possible. The promise to do so kept them from trying to sneak into the car or bursting into tears whenever she went out on a related errand.
"Can we come?" Simon provided the follow-up question. Two pairs of eager eyes and loafer watched her expectantly in the rear-veiw mirror. "I know you two want to be more involved, and you want to help find your father, but a police station isn't somewhere I want you boys to be stuck if something happens." Reluctant to take her eyes off the road, but aware they were needed for proper motherly delivery, she glanced up into the mirror and into them. In the spanse of that glance, everything changed.
Her ears didn't have time to register the absence of the rain, and her brain, boggled and annoyed by the impossibility of it's new surroundings, refused to acknowledge that it was suddenly somewhere else until the car ahead of her, which had been a Volvo and was now a Volkswagen, stopped suddenly. Heidi's foot slammed on the brakes, throwing her mind back into reality and her body into the steering wheel.
Throwing the car into park to look over the backseat, she discovered the boys were safe, if shaken and confused (and gaping out the window, in Monty's case.), and the street behind her empty. Fearing it might not stay that way long, she put it back into drive, and pulled over to the curb.
"Keep the doors locked, and stay in the car." Heidi instructed in a tone that would not, and could not, be argued with, and climbed out. Her chest ached from the impact of the wheel, so it wasn't a dream or hallucination, which wasn't anywhere as reassuring as she would have liked it to be.