Starring:
Summary: Monica calls Elena to talk to her about a few people she knows. Elena gives Monica hints about the craziness that's been occurring all through the year.
Date It Happened: October 24th, 2007
Gossip Girls
Over the Phone
Reclining in an upside-down fashion on her bed in her apartment, Monica whips out her cellphone and dials Elena. She's been up to her ears in homework, and it's time for a brain break, secretly reveling in doing something so utterly normal as talking to a girlfriend on the phone.
Somewhere else in New York, Elena is finishing up on the last bit of homework she has when her phone rings. Groaning, she rolls over on the bed in the guest bedroom she's in of the mansion, picking up the phone and cradling it against her shoulder and ear. "Joe's Pizza," comes the hoarse-sounding voice. Thanks to a few voicemails left prior to tonight in Monica's phone about a weird Evolveds-only "flu," her friend knows she's sick…but that won't stop her from being a smartass.
"Ha ha." is Monica's reply. "Girl, your humor has not improved despite whatever Special Delivery Flu Bug you got." Monica sounds relieved to hear Elena's voice, though. "Are you getting any better?"
"No…" Elena says, turning her head away so she could bury her face to cough into her pillow. She returns to the receiver soon after. "I guess having some sort of mutant disease takes longer to kill. I'm hoping it'll go away on its own but that doesn't seem likely. I've got a couple of doctors helping me out though. How about you, what's shaking? Latisha's about ready to kick me off the team, I haven't been in practice for so long."
"Latisha ain't gonna kick you off the team. You can bring a doctor's note." Monica says firmly. "Naw, I'm alright. We all miss you. Listen, you work in Cain's PR department, right? Did you hear anything about a press event to introduce me around that involved a midnight foray into a wax museum while playing laser tag?"
"………..what?" Elena sounds a little baffled. "I've been keeping tabs on the corporation mail through the jPhone he gave me but I haven't heard of that. It does sound like something Jaden would say though. And it does sound like one of his parties. So if it turns out to be legit, don't be surprised." She groans. "And I miss you too. You, Ian, Miki, Gene, Eric….I'm going a little stircrazy with this being sick thing. But I'd rather be lonely and shenanigan-less booohooooo than infect you all with what I have."
"I miss you too. Your boss asked me on a date. On the provision that I wear a leotard. Is he some kind of perv? I mean above and beyond the normal." Monica shifts on her bed, eyeing a biology textbook. She shoves it away.
"He's more of a player than a perv, really, but he's got a good heart. Jaden's a more decent person than other people give him credit for." Elena drops on her pillow and stretches out, curling up against one of Peter's and taking comfort in the slight smell of him that still lingers. "And if he genuinely cares about you, he's actually pretty gentlemanly. He just likes looking at really hot girls wearing really hot gear."
Monica lets out a laugh. "One ass kicking at laser tag does not 'cares about me make'." She muses. "I actually kinda been wondering about one of our boys, but you know, he hasn't called me in an age, so I'm not going to worry about it."
"Yeah? Which one? Ian?" Elena pegs a guess. She closes her eyes. "If it's Ian, he's in California visiting family. I told him about the virus too….and Nadia." Which Monica's already heard about, since her BFF was also a Dance Corps team member. "He misses the weather, and I think he was just homesick. He should be back in New York now though….when I talked to him, which was just this week, he said he was going to be back in the city after a couple of days."
"Oh." says Monica casually. "Okay, cool. Well. I'm gonna go on this date with Jaden, and keep in mind he's a player. I'm sure he'll still show me a good time. Any advice?"
"Listen past the crazy pop culture references, you might like him more than you think," Elena says after a pause. "Sometimes he has really profound things to say, you just need to get past the Nerf guns and the action movie quotes and in jokes. Also? Be your wonderful, fun-loving self. To go out with Jaden Cain is to indulge in your inner child. So if you cut loose, and cut loose with him, you're bound to have fun. He's really awesome to just have fun with, you know? Forget about the rest of the world for a while." There's another bout of silence. "……….wait a minute." She sits up slowly. "…..Monica….do you have a crush on Ian?!" Slow on the uptake. Give her a break, she's sick!
Monica lets out a yelp. "I don't know! Especially not with a guy like Jaden all wanting to whisk me off to god knows where. But I reckon I don't have any commitments in any direction, so I can see how things go." Then, "Ian does have an awful cute little cleft in his chin, though."
"Oh my god! You do! You totally have a crush on Ian!" Elena exclaims, bursting out laughing. Monica was going to kill her for this, but she can't help it. She should've seen the signs. The signs had been there for a couple of months, and typical her, she didn't touch on it until the other person made it obvious. "I should've known something was up when you kept telling him to go as Zorro for Halloween! And how you kept poking him." And now she can't let go of it. She's all sorts of grinning wickedly over the phone. Hey. She's 19. It's what teenagers do. "I can't…I just…" She bursts out laughing again. "You liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike him. You want to kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiss him." How badly is she going to pay for this? She doesn't know, but it's SO WORTH IT.
Monica laughs. "Girl, SHUT UP! I told you, I don't know. Jaden ain't a bad sort either. He's…kinda funny. I am in serious can't-make-up-my-mind mode, but that's a girl's perogative, you know? So don't say anything."
She hasn't laughed this much in a while. Elena rolls on her stomach on the bed, burying her face in Peter's pillow to keep her from crying laughing. Even though she is already. She lifts her head up after a moment so she could talk without sounding muffled. "Jaden doesn't look bad in a suit either," she tells her. "But yeah, I won't say anything to Ian. I'll just wink-wink-nudge you whenever he's around. So you're going lazer tag, huh? Or did that happen already and there's something else planned?
"Naw, he already brought me to laser tag. See, I got this call, for a PR event for Cain Foundation, wanting to recognize the scholarship recipient yadda yadda," Monica's eyeroll can almost be heard, "And it was Jaden wanting to play laser tag in the middle of a wax museum. I whupped his butt good and proper after watching the right movies."
"Cheater," Elena tells Monica with a laugh. "Can't blame you though. If I had the sort of power you had, I'd be doing the same thing. Watch Face/Off or Equilibrium or something." There's a pause. "Speaking of Jaden Cain….you know he's got a Halloween benefit for Nathan Petrelli kicking off in the 31st to drum up some last-minute support. I don't know if I'll be well enough to go but since you were gonna disown me if I didn't get you and the guys an invite…"
"It's gonna suck without you." Monica promises. "But yeah, I'd love to go. And so would the others. I wonder if one of 'em will invite me to be on his arm." Her tone sounds musing and evil.
"Why, are you thinking about asking one of them or playing coy and waiting to see who'd ask first?" Elena asks, flopping back down in another, different position. Cooped up in a house with limited options in going out, being able to sit still is an uphill battle that she's failing miserably.
"The latter." Monica says. "And who knows, neither one might ask me. I'm pretty sure Ian ain't got a clue and Jaden's probably busy as a bee. A really crazy bee. Like in that movie. D'you think he'd sue the world for its honey?"
"Jaden's really not the suing type," Elena says. "He just makes his PR people make the media stuff go away and he does his own thing." She rubs the back of her neck. "And who knows, maybe one will bite. Or hell, just go with a group. It'll probably be more fun that way, plus….no commitments in who you dance with. Might meet someone else who's cute. I'm just saying if you have options, you should exercise them." She's not one to talk really, but then again Peter had been entirely accidental.
"You know, that probably is the best idea." Monica concedes. Planning one's social life is like planning a seige. "Still don't mean I won't like to see which one asks me, if either do. Don't suppose your Petrelli boy got a cute brother?"
"Just one, and he's married," Elena tells Monica with a grin. "Married for years. Nate's a lot older than Peter even though they don't act like it. They're pretty close….as much as I rag on him, Nate doesn't look his age, and neither does his wife. I think he'll be at that party though since the benefit's for him and his senatorial campaign."
Monica lets out a laugh. "Well, I don't mean older, so I guess I just gotta see what happens. I shouldn't be dealing with men anyway, I got too much work to do."
"And I'm not exactly qualified to dispense advice," Elena says easily with a laugh. "I've dated exactly two guys in my life, and had a whopping total of one relationship that just started. I still don't know how this entire thing works so I'm just winging it. If it works for me maybe it could work for you. Just…go about your business and see where it takes you."
"I will. But still, it's good to talk about it with you. It's so damn normal it makes me happy." Monica can't help smiling.
"Well it's not like we were always weird, you know?" Elena says, looking up at the ceiling. "We were normal once upon a time." She shrugs her shoulders. "I kind of miss the entire normal thing a little but looking back I wouldn't change a thing. Gift from God, you know?" She never really treated her abilities as a curse.
"Yeah." Monica agrees. "I gotta admit, mind my ability's really cool."
"It is. If I had it, life at Dance Corps would be so much easier," Elena says wistfully. She hesitates for a moment….there's a pause on the phone. As if she was about to tell Monica something. Finally, she lets it slide. "….anyway, what else has been up with you? Anything interesting?"
"Just school and work, and some little orphan kid Niki found staying at my place. I'm trying not to eye him stealing stuff. Like reverse profiling. What about you? Got anything up?" C'mon, spill.
"…orphan kid? Did you guys try calling social services?" Elena asks, lifting her brows a little bit. "It's really nice of your cousin to look after him though," she adds with a small smile. "…..wait, he steals stuff? Then again if he's been alone for so long maybe that developed out of necessity." Though at the last, she shrugs. "Going crazy here, a little bit. I actually miss going to school. I mean I do all the homework you guys send me, and all my professors think I have mono….but it's not the same." She pauses. "….you know, I ran into Miki the other day when I was headed to the local clinic. We almost got mugged. He pulled the White Knight act, and apparently that's not the only time he's done it either. Never knew Miki of all people could be so….I dunno. Macho."
"Our Miki?" Monica blinks in surprise. "Macho? I can't even imagine using that with his name in the same sentence. What exactly did he do?"
"Um…" Crap. How to describe this without giving Mikhail away. His powers were his to divulge. Elena chews on her bottom lip. "The guy had a gun and he just….disarmed him. Yanked his arm up so it wasn't pointing at anybody. And then Peter showed up and he ran off." Which was true. All of it. She just omitted the fact that Mikhail was some kind of puppeteer.
Monica lifts her brows, which Elena can't see, of course. "Elena, is Mik just fast like a freak, or is he one of us?"
"It's….you could ask him," Elena says, deferring to Mikhail. That way she doesn't have to tell Monica. "I've never seen him so pissed off though. It was like seeing a different side of him. He's always so quiet, so friendly….quirky too, yeah? But when he was dealing with the mugger, he was so…cold. Like another person. He's scary when he's pissed."
"I really can't imagine." Monica muses. "You know…it sounds like a bunch of us, we all…you know, in New Orleans, there are these women, they practice the old ways, you know? And they're always talking about fate and things. You think maybe it's fate? All of us together as friends?"
There is silence on the other end. Elena's heard this before, but from someone else. The scientist in her didn't believe in things like Fate. Coincidence. Even coming from someone she loved desperately, it was a difficult idea to swallow. But the fact that she was religious softened the typically hard, factual edge. "….I…" She pauses. "I think so," she says. "Hell I heard from someone who could see the future in cereal say that people like us will find each other here. Like we're meant to run across each other and find our own to…"
Oh god. Here it goes.
"….to…help save the world."
"…People can see the future in cereal?" Monica replies uncertainly.
"….the psychic I met does," Elena admits. The psychic who happens to be engaged to her father. But she's not saying that out loud. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"Okay." Monica gets that 'six impossible things before breakfast' tone. "So how exactly do we, a bunch of college kids, save the world? Are we like one of those groups in the comics my cousin is always reading? Do we need a rich benefactor? Because we could hit up Jaden. I bet he'd love a real life comic book."
"I don't know. That's just what the psychic told me. And it's not just college kids like you and me. But….the older ones too. The same people running into each other maybe knowing or not knowing the other is like them. I don't know. It's scary how we're all…connected. Connecting. But over the course of these last few months, we have been so….I mean when it happens, maybe we all have to pull a Captain Planet thing. If our powers combine… or something like that." She sighs. "Hard to do anything like that when you're sick though." She rubs her face, and stifles a yawn. "Anyway…I should take a bath before I head for bed. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
Monica just sounds amazed. "Yeah," she says. "You better. I gotta…absorb all of this. It's crazy, and it makes sense, which makes it even more crazy."
"…..I don't know if it makes sense," Elena grumbles. "But if God gave us…our things… it had to be for a reason, right?" She rubs her face. "Anyway, goodnight. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Sleep well, Elena. We'll figure it all out." And with that, Monica ends the call.