2009-12-19: When Parents Argue

Starring:

Charlotte_V4icon.pngMatt_V4icon.png

Date: December 19, 2009

Summary:

After escaping the Mall o' Doom, Charlotte locks horns with Matt over his and Micah's actions.


"When Parents Argue"

Deveaux Building, New York City

The mall fades.

Matt and Charlotte have moved from the men's bathroom to the luxary of Matt's own little throwaway apartment, right in the heart of New York. Not exactly where Charlotte would like to be, but she doesn't want to take the kids home presents covered in dust and blood splatter from Santa Claus. She seems a bit winded, a bit shakey by it all, and she's covered in dust and dirt and bits of glass and plaster from the fall. Her first order of business seems to be dusting off the bags of presents.

Not exactly where Matt expected to be, either - but once he sees what Charlotte's doing with the bags, he works out quickly enough why she stopped here first. "So what did the paper say?" he asks, heading over to the sink to wash off the blood that got on his hands when he checked for a pulse.

What paper? Oh, that one. "It was some nursery rhyme…" Her southern accent seems to be slipping a bit more into her today, when she's upset it tends to do that. The bags are set down and each present removed, except for one, whcih she seems to be making a point to try and hide while she cleans it. "Umm….let me think. But while I do that, you ain' got to go around picking hte pockets of a dead man, Matthew Parkman!" She's scolding him!

It's okay, Charlotte, he's not snooping at the presents. Or at your thoughts about the presents. He's got something more important on the brain himself. "It could've been evidence! It was evidence! What nursery rhyme?" A momentary silence falls as the water is shut off once again. "All I know about the person who did this is that they're female - I'm pretty sure - and whatever twisted taunt they left with the body."

"It was….not mother goose, it was a Christams one. Oh!" She finally claps, remembering. "Gingerbread man, that was it! Run run run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, so on and so forth. It was a peice from that one. Do you think it's…Emily Caufield again? This is something she would do…isn't it?" Charlotte swallows a little, hugging herself nervously. Needless to say, she's frightened of Emily.

Matt shakes his head. "No, I would've recognized her if it was her. She would've stuck around and been amused." Should he tell her that he spotted Emily wandering around town? No, she's got enough to worry about already, and she already knows to get away quickly if they meet again. "This person was already leaving - I could barely hear them, but they were… cold, almost like a classic psychopath. Gingerbread man… maybe something in her stopped developing when she was a child."

"It was more like….you can't catch me. It's why I thought of Emily. Soemone giving the government a big 'eff you' or something after an escape…" Charlotte sinks down into a chair, hugging herself. She pauses a moment to pull a sliver of glass from her hair. "What about the body itself? What…what was wrong with it? Why was it all cut up?"

Matt starts to help pull the glass away, but without gloves of his own, he pauses to wrap a paper towel around his hand instead. "I don't know, I didn't have that long to look at him… That's another thing, last time Emily did anything like this, she just made a guy start shooting. This is a different kind of twisted, taking one body and really mutilating it like that."

"Be Careful," Charlotte warns, lowering her hands and letting matt work over her hair. She's not cut up or anything, just very dirty now. "She must be…terribly angry, to have done all that damage to that poor man. We don't even know his name…and to do all that to him…she had to have hated him. That's the only explination for it…" But that's Charlotte's world, where there is good in everyone.

Matt shakes his head. "She wasn't. At all. Not even fading anger… Whatever's going on in her head is not normal, not anything like normal. It can't be." He steps away again, satisfied that the rest can be taken care of by a good long bout in the shower. "Anyway, I'll keep an eye out for her, in case. I'm just glad I'm not the only one." Because anyone catching crazies like this is a long shot, even with an ability in the toolbelt.

Charlotte stands, reaching out for Matt's hand to squeeze it. "Please don't go looking for her or anything. You have Molly to think of, and the boys too, and I'm sure…if anything happened to you, it would be terrible for everyone. The police have this under control, I'm sure."

"I am the police." Well, he is! "I get what you mean— the ones still on active duty will be working on this. But if I happen to run across her? She's going down." After returning the squeeze, Matt stalks off toward the window, staring out through the blinds. "I've called some people but no one's been answering. I need to go back out soon, try to catch them in person."

"Who?" Charlotte asks, moving to sit again. "Who could be so important that you need to go out and see? it's dangerous, and it's going to keep being dangerous for awhile…" Charlotte seems to favor the laying low sort of plan.

Matt turns back, leaning back against the window. Which does unpleasant things to the blinds, but they're cheap and easily replaced. "I need to find Peter Petrelli— people seem to agree that he's a key player." He hasn't seen much of the man in recent years… and now he not only has telepathy, but healing as well? The only man he knows with more than one ability is Sylar, and Peter wouldn't go there. Maybe someone else healed him? "I'll check with his family in case he's gotten out on his own, but if not, then I need to check with Cass. What about Micah— he's been in touch with people, has he heard anything?"

Charlotte frowns a little. "Micah's fine. You could ask him yourself, he's at home. He just had his birthday. And really, I disaprove of your approval of him being so involved. He's a little boy. You wouldn't want Molly as involved as Micah is, even if she made the choice to. And it's important because…if anything happens to me I need someone to…to make sure they're going to be okay. Maybe get them to another friend of mine, in New York." Hint. Hint.

"I will, and of course I'd be worried for her," Matt replies, stepping forward and spreading his arms apart. "But if Micah hadn't done what he did? Then a lot of innocent people would still be locked up. Including my son, who is a little boy." And a couple of not-so-innocent people, but hey, no one's perfect. "So yeah, protect him… but don't stop him. He's doing what he needs to, just like we are."

"He's fourteen, and he watches people getting mauled and beaten and captured all the time. He follows them through his ability, and it keeps him drained of energy. He's suseptable to all sorts of illnesses, and he's just a child." Charlotte sighs, setting her head in her hands. "I really do need to talk to Lee….if anything happesn to me, they need somewhere safe to go."

Matt sighs and nods— he can sympathize with the physical drain, at least, as there's still a nagging pain near the back of his neck. "Well, then give him a limit, I guess. If you try to stop him, he'll just go behind your back— you know how stubborn kids are when something's important to them." Frowning at the other topic she brings up, he rummages through a drawer, testing pens until he finds one that works. "What's Lee's number? I'll try calling him, too, so he knows me if something does happen."

Charlotte rattles off the number. "Don't…tell him you have an ability unless you have to. He's not exactly happy about…those. But that's not really the point, he's a very good man. The best, and he has ties with a school for childrne with abilities. As for Micah, he has a limit, but he's lied ot me a lot lately. I'm trying to give him a good Christmas - did you get the invitations?"

Matt writes it down, and holds it up afterward so Charlotte can double-check it. And there's still no guarantee he'll get it right later, but at least it's something. "So he's been shanghaied to work for Professor Xavier? That can't possibly end well." He's not a comic book fan, but there were those movies that Molly dragged him to. "And yes, I did— I'll be there, don't worry." About Micah lying to get in more computer time, he doesn't say anything; that doesn't sound like something that has any easy answers.

"Good." Charlotte smiles happily. "I'm glad. Micah and Cam need this party so badly, we're planning it someplace secret, and…I just want it to be perfect. Hopefully you can meet Lee there. Now, what do you think - should I make a ham or a turkey? And shoudl we do a secret santa thing, perhaps? I'm not really sure, the invitations have already gone out so it'd be hard to plan. Maybe just the dinner, something like that?"

Ham? Matt tilts his head, and not in that way either. "You should at least include turkey." Celebrating Christmas in the first place is a bit of a concession. "And yeah, I'd keep it simple… we're not in a position to do a lot of back-and-forth calls like usual. It sucks, but what are we gonna do?"

Charlotte nods in understanding. "You don't like ham? I was really leaning toward some ham, pinapple ham, with cloves. Mmmm, so delicious. But then maybe someone might be a vegetarian that I don't know about? Oh, I know one of the kids is muslim, maybe a turkey too might be good. That'll be a lot of cooking - Micah wanted to snag Molly to make cookies, I'm sure those three wouldn't mind helping iwth the rest of it either." She seems very invested in this whole Christmas thing.

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