tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; Sunday, October 13th, afternoon
Rating; PG for now.
Characters; Peter Petrelli

ellectric
Summary; Peter goes to meet with Elle. Who knows what the hell is going to happen.
Log; Peter was sure that everyone he knew would tell him that this was a bad idea. Which is mostly why he hadn't told anyone that he was going to meet Elle. They didn't understand though, he doubted anyone knew her as well as Peter did. She had never been the most stable of people, but he could tell that deep down she wanted to do good, to help people.

And she seemed really lost, right now. Maybe a bit different form the Elle he knew. That was probably explainable by her not being with the Company anymore. He could imagine how hard that would be, since it had been her whole life. If Peter could help her see that she didn't need the Company to do good, then maybe he could keep her from doing something terrible.

Which was why he was meeting her now at the carousel, to try and talk things through and just... help her.

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For her part, Elle wasn't sure what she was doing either and for her own reasons, felt that this meeting could in fact be a very bad idea. One point that immediately came to mind was that if Angela Petrelli was here, as reported, Elle doubted the woman would stray too far from watching distance over Peter. The other direction her mind went in was that of Noah Bennet, both the first person and last person she wanted to have anything to do with right now. When Sylar had killed her father, the first person she thought of was him, not in short because despite general Company decisions, Noah was still a man who for all intensive purposes seemed to know what to do, quite nearly all of the time. He too would be keeping tabs on their own resident superman. She didn't doubt it for a second.

And then there was Claire Bennet, but that was a whole other story.

Never mind the fact that in the time that Peter had willingly stayed in the Company's hold, she had grown fond of him and never mind that when Adam coerced him into treachery she didn't think twice before shooting to kill.

Never mind any of that.

She tried not to, anyway, as she walked into sight of the carousel, arms around herself as if cold, though she wasn't. Fact was, Elle didn't know what to do anymore, what to think, what to say, who to trust, where to go, nothing. It was fitting enough that when it came to the simple task of standing in place, she didn't quite know what to do about that either.

"Peter Petrelli. Didn't think I'd see you again."

To say her smile didn't meet her eyes was true enough, but an ignorant viewer could chalk it up to nerves as soon as they would make it out to being because of misdirected frustration or anger. She kept her tone carefully neutral, which for Elle, most of the time, meant neutrally flirtatious, but she had never had a problem with it before.

The hair on the back of Peter's neck stood up on seeing Elle. He didn't think that it had anything to do with her ability, either. He was ready to teleport away any moment now if it looked like Elle was going to attack him. Peter thought he could probably take her in a fight, but he didn't want to fight Elle. Peter wanted to help her.

"Really?" he asked, tilting his head a bit to the side, giving her a questioning glance. "Because I was sure I'd see you again. I was going to come back for you. Or try to."

It was the truth, too. He wasn't just going to leave her there with those people, to be used and manipulated by them. Because in her own way she had been nice to him and had been there for him. She just... needed help.

"Were you really." Her response was less than enthusiastic, the sort of tone that one used with someone they didn't quite believe, or truth unearthed, were afraid to believe. Arms still crossed, she closed the distance between them smoothly, tilting her head as she looked up at him, not really searching for anything, not honesty, and not lies, just looking.

"Why did you agree to meet with me?" she asked after a long and distant silence, bringing her hand up to frame his face, drawing her thumb down the side of his jaw. "You can't possibly trust me." It wasn't a question that time and she withdrew her hand, letting it fall to her side like it didn't even belong to her, had no use.

"I was," he said, his voice adamant about it. He hated when people doubted him about things like that and made it sound like all he had were good intentions.

When she stepped close and touched him he didn't even flinch, although that was probably due more to familiarity than it was because he wasn't afraid of her. And somehow he knew that Elle wouldn't hurt him. At least not right now. She was certainly capable of hurting him if she wanted to, but right now he didn't think she wanted to.

"I don't trust you about everything," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean I don't trust you at all."

"And so you're meeting with me because..." she trailed off, putting a finger to her lower lip before she finished, "You think you can help me, hm?" Arching a brow, she spread her hands wide in front of her and shrugged, pulling an expression that could fall under something of a 'puppy dog' look at him.

"Thing is, Peter, I don't know if you can...and I don't know if I want your help." In many parts, it was self defense, the basic 'burn you before you burn me' idea. He had, for however many days, been her lifeline for normal in a world where normal was a joke and abnormal was a nightmare. Even in her cockiest moments, some part of Elle Bishop's mind recognized the Company for what it was--and in turn, her father for what he was, and what he did.

She remembered enough faces that were brought into the Company with her help and died there to know: in many places, this couldn't possibly be right.

But it had been what she was raised knowing, believing in, to whatever extent she was capable of believing in anything.

And now? Now she didn't even have that.

Part of her still felt petulant. Shouldn't she get something for getting Sylar back? Shouldn't they care?

Almost, she laughed at that. Right. Care.

Maybe not. If Angela had let her stay, Elle wouldn't have questioned, would have gone after every crazed, super powered freak left. Instead, she was left wandering again, without purpose, without even the tenuous string of attachment that was her father. Always nagging at her, telling her she was the best and then taking it all away...even in the wake of his death she found herself angry, and it was scary in its own way to have anger slip in where, for 'normal' people, sadness would probably reside.

"And what are you going to do now then?" Peter asked, his voice becoming a bit more stern but no less caring. "Go get a normal job? Maybe wait some tables or sell clothes at a retail store? You spent your whole life trying to help people and now you're just going to turn your back on that?"

The questions were ones that Peter knew all too well. They were ones he had asked himself over and over again, sitting in that cell while he contemplated getting rid of his powers. They were questions he still asked himself.

Once you're exposed to something like that, can you go back to a normal life?

"You've had direction all your life," he added. "And now you don't. But you can still do what you did before, just maybe a little differently."

She rolled her eyes at him.

"I thought I wanted to help people," she shook her head. "I thought..." she trailed off again.

Really, she had somehow managed the strange feat of thinking too much about her job and not thinking about it at all, jumping when they said jump, shooting when they said shoot. Within all of that, she had wondered, always coming back to a few, self-centered questions, not the least of which was: when will he see me?

Bob Bishop. Dad. The now late director. Replaced by Angela Petrelli no less.

That bitch.

Elle's lips curved down, half sneer, half frown. What did the Company expect, for her to just walk away? No, no.

But what then? What? Certainly not what Peter suggested however sarcastically.

"I don't know what I thought," she changed her mind on a dime. "And I don't know what I want."

"You helped me when I was unsure," Peter told her. And it was the truth. Maybe someone else could have done it better or in a different way but the truth was that Elle had believed in him and been there for him when he needed it.

"And I'm going to help you."

"I helped you, and look where we are now," she remarked dryly but her expression faltered. He seemed, as always, so genuine. Part of her wanted to hold onto him again, to find in him that part that had responded so kindly to her, and if not kindly then at least more openly than others had. Another part of her wanted to blast him where he stood, for running, for betraying what little trust she thought they had shared, for in many ways, ruining a lot of well laid plans all with the intentions of doing something good.

In the end she couldn't make up her mind, so naturally, she changed the subject.

"And if Adam shows up? What then?"

"I don't think us being in the City is your fault," Peter reassured her. In fact, he still wasn't convinced it wasn't his fault. He was the one with the ability to teleport and he still wasn't sure what all it could do. Even Hiro was only just discovering what he could do.

"It doesn't matter if Adam shows up," Peter said. "My brother is healed and the virus isn't here. That's why I went with Adam."

Brushing her hair behind her shoulder, Elle looked away and idly she had the thought that no one could really help her anymore. It wasn't self pity so much as it was a passing fact. What was there to help anyway? With a sigh she made a gesture with her hand, conversation taking place where vulnerability also festered.

"Pick a place to live yet?"

It was mundane. It was irrelevant in many ways. And it was one of the empty topics she could cling to because not for the first time while being here so far, she realized she didn't like being alone here, even less than in their home world. What that Sam guy had said stuck with her, resonated. It was almost a worse form of being isolated, and she had been here less than 48 hours.

Peter took the hint at the change of subject and veered away from that topic. There was no need to press things right now anyways since she wasn't trying to kill or capture him.

"I think so," he said, scratching the back of his head in thought. "I guess I was here once before and have my own apartment next to some people I know. But my mom is living there now, so..."

Peter gave a bit of a shrug. That should be an explanation in and of itself.

"Last night I crashed on the couch of a girl named Eden, a friend of Mohinder's."

At the mention of Angela, Elle's frown became more neutral, just a thinning of her lips as she crossed her arms again. Knowing previously that the woman was here did nothing for the way her name sparked an initially unbridled upset inside of her. Still, she needed every advantage possible. In her mind, Elle was alone, and she needed to be one step ahead of most people, if not everyone. She had never been very good at planning. Elle was impulsive and needy, not the best endowed with people skills, and always depending on second chances. It wasn't that it mattered all that much in a place like this but habit was hard to break and losing the only job and life she had known still sat unevenly with her.

"Eden McCain," Elle didn't quite sneer but it was an almost sing-song quality there. For a system that worked on partners, Noah Bennet had always seemed to have free use of many Company members. Eden had been one of his major players before she went and got herself killed. What a mess. "Well that's interesting." Her tone suggested both that it was and it absolutely wasn't, which was true enough. On one hand, Elle couldn't care less, and on the other, she was attempting to file away as much information as possible.

"So, backtracking, you want to help me." She adjusted her posture as she spoke, the disbelief evident enough. "How?" and her voice rose just a little bit. In a way she was just trying to make this conversation go on. She didn't want to be alone. In another way, though, it was an honest question, bordering on a fear. Could anyone help her?

Some proud part of her rejected the idea before she got the answer, believing any help that could be offered would be useless. If someone could really help her, why hadn't they before? She was twenty-four years old. In all that time it was too shattering to come to the very real conclusion that the simple reason was the real one: no one had, because no one had wanted to.

"You know Eden?" he asked, a slightly confused look on his face. "She made me dinner. Homemade macaroni and cheese..."

Peter let his voice trail off, sensing another shift in subject from Elle. It seemed like there were a lot of things that she didn't want to talk about. Some part of Peter wanted to press her on the issue so that he could help her with it but now was probably not the time.

"By showing you that the Company's way is not the only way," he insisted, his brow furrowing just a bit. "Maybe you don't want to track down and hunt people anymore or maybe you do, I don't know. But you can do so much good. You're one of the few people I've met who can control their powers and there's people out there, people like me, that need help with that."

Peter held out his hand, palm up. To use other's powers all he had to do was think of how they made him feel. Elle, the way he felt about her was... complicated. She was dangerous and fun, just like her power. Electricity swirled in his hand and jumped from his fingertips.

"You can help me control this."

"So like, training," she said, almost to herself. This, oddly enough, appealed to her. For one, it gave her the supposed 'control', being the superior technician as far as the difference between causing a city-wide blackout and a room to go dark. "I could do that." She took another step toward him, hands behind her back, almost playful now as she smiled at him.

Briefly she wondered what Angela would have to say about it, and just as quickly, Elle dismissed it. If there was a plainer way to say she didn't care, it would be appropriate here.

"This, is just a matter of practice for me, but for you it's more than that. You've got all of those powers inside of you, running around, and just because you can call them out doesn't mean you have control." It was, if anything, regurgitation of what she had been told before, in a blithe sort of confidence by Bob, or sometimes, other people, because Company personnel were as prone to gossip as anyone. It was true too, as far as Elle had observed and read up on in the office when people weren't looking.

All her life she had been told 'it's to protect them' when she brought someone in. Now, she wasn't so sure, but what did she have to compare it to? Peter's off-the-wall, single-handed-saving maneuvers? Even Elle had an idea of how well this kind of approach was likely to go.

But if he would trust her again, if she could have something...anything to hold onto, to make her feel like she had a purpose, she had to take the opportunity. This was no sign of commitment from her of course, no promise in blood or pinkie swear. It was an agreement, temporary at best.

She didn't trust him, after all. He was friends with Claire Bennet...her uncle no less. His mother was Angela Petrelli. And as proven, Adam had been painfully quick to trick him to another side. No, she couldn't trust anyone, not from her world. Not the good doctor, and certainly not Noah Bennet, but that man in particular was a sore spot for her. What he had told her, about Bob, about how she became the way she was...she believed it. For all his ambiguous actions and allegiance--except that to his family which was obviously stalwart--he knew what he was talking about nine times out of ten. He had been there.

He had seen it.

What did Noah think of Peter, Elle wondered a bit dryly. A danger and asset in simple terms.

Oh well.

"I'll help you, and you'll help me," she said, flirtation her easiest fall back as she took his other hand in hers and sent a shock through him. "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours."

If she could win Peter over, entirely, she didn't have to go on this as blindly as she felt, but for now she tapped his nose with her index finger, another shock sent as she took a few sauntering steps away from him.

"I'll be in touch, Peter Petrelli," she gave him a smile that did nothing to calm the nerves in the pit of her stomach. It felt safer with him, but it was better to do this on her own, for now. Problem was, Elle had never been that brave, and even this was a strange, backward act of cowardice.

"See, you understand..." Peter said, but he didn't know what to say beyond that. It was a step in the right direction though, her agreeing to help him. She couldn't be any worse a mentor in control than Claude was, could she?

She shock she sent through his hand hardly registered anymore as he had gotten so used to them. It was sort of Elle's version of a peck on the cheek goodbye, however twisted that was.

"Elle, just keep in touch, okay?" he told her as she walked away.

[ooc: Peter wants to take her to the carnival sometime, since Elle once told him she's never ridden a roller coaster.]

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Log; Ongoing

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