Utopia

Simon's eyes widened, quickly taking the phone and holding it up to his ear. "...Heidi? Is it you, is... is this all the truth?"

Mary was jumping up and down, excited at the prospect of the woman being out of jail. I wonder if she was busted out. That would be so cool!

Heidi stared at the phone, quite amazed when Simon's voice came out of it. It was a stupid notion, it wasn't like she'd forgotten how phones worked. She just hadn't really been expecting it. "Yeah...it's me," she responded, her voice a great deal weaker. "I think I'm telling the truth, I mean, unless the guards are putting LSD in my food... I wouldn't put it past 'em..." She laughed weakly, shaking her head.

So Heidi's out now, eh? Zackary thought to himself, having no visible expression on his face at the moment. That was either good news or bad news. He wasn't so sure about it. But it didn't really matter to him. So he just stayed silent. shifting his weight for a second.

Simon let out a small surprised laugh. "I'm so glad..."

"I wanna talk on the phone." Mary pouted, walking up to Simon and jumping so she could yell into the reciever. "HI!*Jump* AUNT! *Jump*HEIDI!"

Simon felt his eardrums rattle at the seven year olds screaming but it didn't dampen the look of joy on his face.

"You live with Percy, don'tcha? I'll head over there as soon as I can. Unless I get lost. Give me a couple hours. I never was good at getting around this place," Heidi explained, starting to ramble, reaching for her pocket to start flipping her knife again. This made her remember she had no idea of her beloved knife's whereabouts. "Simon, you don't happen to have my pocket knife, do you?"

Upon hearing Mary shouting into the phone, she smiled. Despite never being able to see her, Mary hadn't forgotten her. She rubbed her eyes, feeling about ready to cry out of happiness or vomit out of sheer anxiety. "Tell Red I say hi back..."

"Yeah, I just need to meet up with Elena and then we'll head straight hme to meet you." Simon replied. When the woman asked about her knife the black haired man fiddled with the compartment he stored it in.

"And yeah, I have it with me right now."

Simon looked down to Mary. "Heidi says hi back."

"Woo-hoo!" Mary cheered, jumping up in a victory pose.

Heidi sighed in relief. "Good. Thought the cops got rid of it for a little bit there. Family heirloom, y'know. That'd be bad if I lost it," she laughed anxiously, scratching the back of her head. "And what, you're meeting up with Elena? Did you two finally hook up and no one's told me about it?" she asked, holding back laughter and trying to keep her voice as serious as possible. She didn't do so well, though, and kept snickering as she waited for Simon's reply.

Simon exhaled some air out of his nose, glad he hadn't lost the knife or anything, he wouldn't be able to take the guilt of doing that to Heidi.

That relief soon changed into embarrasment. "Wh-why does e-evvvery one say that?!"

"C'mon kiddo, you're twenty, the hormones must've kicked in by now," Heidi laughed, rubbing her eyes. Shit. She was crying like a little baby. How the hell had prison made her soft? This was ridiculous.

"..." Simon's face turned bright vermillion. "...I'm gonna hang up-"

The boy didn't finish when he though he heard soemthing on Heidi's end.

"Are you crying?" He whispered.

"No I'm not. Why would you...why would you ever think that! Now go meet up with your girl friend, and I'll see you in a bit," Heidi responded quickly, doing a awful job of covering up her tears and lying.

Percy smiled as he watched both Simon and Mary. They must be so happy to learn that Heidi finally got out of jail. "After our visit to the park, we'll meet up with you at the house, so we can have a roper meeting with Heidi, ok Simon?" Percy asked the young man.

"Okay, love you, Heidi." Simon let out. He wanted to say it, to show Heidi that everything was okay, that everything was going to get better for them.

He hung up, handing Percival his phone back and nodding with a grin on his face before briskly walking to go meet up with Elena.

Heidi stared at the phone, before quickly shoving it back towards Russell. "Here. Sorry," she said briefly, before drying off her face on the inside of her jacket. This was just embarrassing. When was the last time she had cried, anyway? Like, never.

Percival smiled, before turning to Mary. "Come on, let's get going, the park awaits us." He said to the girl with a smile.

Mary nodded, taking hold of Percival's hand and skipping along side him.

---

Simon made it to the mall, looking around for Elena. He got out his phone and text I'm here. Where are you?

Elena glanced down at her phone, blushing again. Was everyone really trying to hook them up?

ill meet you by the fountain

With that dealt with, she attempted to swallow her blush, before walking briskly off towards the fountain. Hopefully she could get it under control by the time she saw him.

Percival smiled, before nodding to Zackary. He began leading the girl toward the park. He really liked this neighborhood, cause of how nice and peaceful it was. You would have never guessed that things had been some much worse only twelve years ago.

"You could have asked for directions," Russell suggested mildly, having not reacted during the whole conversation. His eyes were alert, so it was obvious he was still taking in everything that was going on around him, but he offered no opposition to her taking the phone. He was looking at his phone now, getting the address of Percival's house. He looked up at her again, a faint but visible amused curve in his mouth at the sign of her crying.

"Fair warning, if you think I'm going to let you loose with a knife and no handcuffs in my house, you're trippin'," the detective warned her. Usually his voice was clear, with faint hints of an American accent, but some of his word choices made his accent seem much more pronounced, vaguely identifiable as New York in origin.

"I know where Percy's house is," Heidi said defensively, her voice slightly muffled by the jacket. How stupid did he take her for? It was one thing to memorize addresses, it was another to actually get from point A to point B. "Once I get 't somewhere familiar, I can get there myself."

She straightened up, smoothing out her jacket and rolling her eyes at Russell. "I'm not stupid," she responded. "It was just my dad's pocket knife, so it's a bit important t' me. Wanted to make sure the police didn't throw it away when they canned me." She scowled at the smirk on his face, before flipping him the bird. Russell definitely reminded her of Tom in certain ways, but even she was capable of hitting Tom every now and again.

"What qualifies as a familiar location to you? You been in thejoint for three years, right?" Russell asked, his question serious with a slight mocking undertone to it. He wasn't even sure of they were still living in the same place as they had been when Heidi had been there. "Percival likely makes a killin', they could well have moved out into a different place."

Clue didn't answer for a while. Perhaps she was mulling over what he'd said in her mind, but her eyes were trained on something distant, and her gaze looked a bit like she was staring beyond empty space at something more...full. The girl had always been a spacey one, though it was hard to pinpoint where she went and spaced when she did. After a while she blinked, and her golden-red-brown-whatchamacallit colored eyes slid back to Luke.

"What does it feel like? When you use your Flow?"

She tilted her head, sort of like a puppy does; a habit she'd developed when she was curious about something. She'd always imagined that it was a gut feeling, or something that required extreme focus, or, or-

A sudden blush skittered across her cheeks. Clue diverted her eyes back to the ground, squeezing one of her hands in her other.

"Sorry...I was just curious..."
She looked briefly up again, smiling sheepishly.

"If I ask you anymore, you could probably take your answers and write a small book".

Heidi sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. "You. Are. Infuriating," she stated calmly. She'd managed to get stuck around another thinker, goddammit. A thinker of all things. All she'd had to do for the past three years was think, and now this guy wanted her to do it some more? "I can find his house on my own," she muttered stubbornly, folding her arms across her chest. Even in adulthood, Heidi was not above pouting.

"I always thought of myself as a pretty reasonable guy," Russell replied innocuously, his straight face never wavering as he talked. He had found the address, albeit not without difficulty because of the classification of Flow Response Unit members' personal information. "Lucky for you, maybe lucky for me, and perhaps thanks to my Flow, I've got a sharp memory. I reckon I know the area well enough to get us near. I'm sure your fantastic memory will guide us the rest of the way."

----

Luke laughed openly at her reaction, his amusement spilling out into rich sound. She was extremely shy, but in a different way than Kira had been. Where Kira was too timid to speak up most of the time, Clue seemed to say whatever she thought but regret it an instant later. He couldn't help but wonder how old she was, because she seemed so child-like. It was refreshing to see someone retain that kind of temperament after the Storm, especially after all the hardened hearts he had seen.

"It's alright, you don't have to worry about it. Maybe a book on Flow would be interesting, actually. I know one of the adults had one, Thadius, which he lent to a contestant called Delmer back in the day. I wonder if he still has it..." Luke trailed off, ice-blue eyes squinting again as he thought. "...be an interesting read, anyway."

"As for my Flow, it's quite simple actually. It's like moving closer to a flame, the more I use it. If I use it a little, it's nice, warm, and comforting, but if I use it too much, it snaps back on me and burns me. Once it burned me so badly that it was seven years before I was able to heal myself. I was all burnt and disfigured and crippled. You have no idea how much of a change it was from that to what I am now, no matter how good or bad a shape I'm in."

"Damn straight," Heidi muttered, rubbing the top of her head. Next thing she knew, he'd be making fucking short jokes about her. It was like he was made up of all the little annoying bits of Tom, combined in the most agitating way possible.

Another thought struck her, only deepening the frown that had settled on her face. "I suppose they're not gonna let me back into the hospital," she stated, shooting a questioning glance over at Russell. She doubted Tom got many visitors. How long would people keep coming to see a man in a coma?