S4, E1 | Heartbreak Helion

Season 4 Premiere

\ Saturday, September 1st, 2007 /
\ 7:08 am est. - 4:08 am pst. /

Dressed in black with her legs crossed at the ankles, Taylor stares through the window of her town car's backseat, allowing it to take her past the lesser-travelled parts of New York state. Resting on either thigh, the back of her hands leave her open palms exposed through uncurled fingers as she watches humble hills and rolling fields pass by beneath a sun that- just one hour ago- hadn’t even fully risen.

With her straight locks of blonde hair falling over her shoulders, the longtime host of the nine o’clock news gently rests the back of her head against the leather upholstery of her seat. For a few seconds, the ride remains quiet aside from the dull sound of the car’s wheels rolling against the ground, offering not a remark, nor an obstruction of any sort to guide her attention away from the glass that she looks through. Instead, she’s left on her own to stare out into New York’s sleepy side.

Before long, a hand guides itself through the air and into the embrace of the woman’s own, prompting the sight-seeing anchor to snap away from her appreciation of the scene and direct her attention toward the man sat beside her. With an apologetic expression similar to the one he’d carried in the days prior, Grant locks eyes with his girlfriend without uttering a word at first, instead choosing to allow his delicate gaze to perform the speaking on his behalf.

With more lively eyes than she’d carried toward the passing views, Taylor looks toward her boyfriend as she locks the fingers of her non-dominant hand with those of his preferred one. Feeling the acceptance of his hand within his girlfriend’s own, Grant’s face lights with a smile that soon proves to be contagious, carrying over to his significant other’s face before the man’s own falls with the rest of his head.

Seeing this change, Taylor chooses to let it go unmentioned for the time being, not wanting to address it before her boyfriend can have the chance to do so of his own volition. Pondering the thought that litters his head, the newer of the two anchors to nine o’clock contemplates asking what sits on his mind, clearly troubled by the idea of uttering it off the place it resides near the front of his tongue.

“I’m not entirely sure how to ask this. So, before I do, just know that I’m not insinuating anything. Alright?” Grant queries, looking toward his girlfriend, who nods with ease and much more puzzlement carried in her face than concern. Fearing that he’ll come off as insensitive, the man parts his lips and keeps them removed from each other without saying anything for a few seconds, still fighting with himself internally to voice what he carries within.

“Are you actually grieving? Or, are you still trying to figure out how to process all of this?” he finally wonders aloud, watching his girlfriend take the faintest breaking of their eye contact before offering context. “I don’t mean to sound like an ass, it’s just that I know you and her hadn’t been that close within the last couple of years. There’d been a little bit of distance between you two” Grant explains, “I don’t know if this has affected you because it’s her or because of how sudden it was.”

“You don’t sound like an ass. At least, not to me” Taylor quickly replies, shaking her head with a faint smile in the corner of her mouth, looking back at him for a moment before redirecting her sights toward the back of the driver’s seat. Parting her lips now without speaking for a couple of seconds, the woman’s mind rummages through her head in search of a worthwhile answer, unsure if there is one that best describes the odd state that she feels herself being embraced by.

“I think it’s a little bit of both” she finally confesses, using the free hand not held within her boyfriend’s grasp to swipe a lock of hair behind her ear, “the way I figured out what happened definitely wasn’t how most people would’ve gotten the news. So, racing all across town to confirm that my friend from college really was dead had a couple of weird connotations.”

Resting the side of his head against the leather upholstery, Grant looks into his girlfriend’s eyes as they remain distant, moving from one element of the car to another whilst she voices her thoughts aloud. “She was my roommate. We knew each other’s sleep schedules, we had our own little rituals and inside jokes. We were friends, and we grew apart because that’s what happens” Taylor proceeds, “and now she’s no longer here. It stings, but not as much as it would’ve if we kept in contact.”

Though able to end her explanation there, the anchor chooses not to do so, searching through her thoughts for something further to offer. “If I’m being honest, I feel more selfish than I do anything else” Taylor opens up, deepening the corner of her mouth as her smile shifts into a frown. “Everything happened suddenly, and I think that changed the way I looked at all of this happening” she continues, “as close as we were, I can’t say in good faith that I’m going to miss her.”

“I wouldn’t call that selfish” Grant reassures with a near-whisper, only for his rebuttal to be reacted to with an assertive shake of the head. “That’s not what I feel selfish about. It’s definitely not something I would say around people I didn’t know, but it’s not the selfish part” Taylor corrects, taking her eyes back to those of her lover’s own, “there’s not really much to miss. All of our history is in the past anyway. Once this deal closed, I doubt I would’ve ever seen her again to begin with.”

Curious to the earlier remark his significant other had made, Grant opts to keep his lips pressed together, allowing the woman seated beside him to continue on her own accord. “What’s selfish is why I’m going to this funeral. It’s why any of us are even going to this funeral” Taylor explains, watching as the slight furrowing of confusion takes shape in her boyfriend’s eyebrows, “well, your reason isn’t selfish. But the others?”

Briefly glancing away, Grant lets his girlfriend continue to speak with more clarity on where she’s going with the remark. “Sam and Robin are going to look better in Ross’ eyes, and Russo would’ve done the same thing if he weren’t banned from it” Taylor explains, deepening her frown out of self-disappointment as she speaks to her own selfishness, “and I’m going because it might be the last chance I truly get to convince Ross to- at the very least- not sell to Russo.”

“I still wouldn’t call that selfishness” Grant quickly retorts, only for his girlfriend’s question of “well, what would you call something as heartless and inconsiderate as that?” to meet him just as quickly. Reacting to the inquiry by gently strengthening the warm squeeze he holds his lover’s hand with as his smile deepens, the less-tenured of the two anchors takes his free hand to the side of her face, grazing her chin with the tips of his fingers.

“At its worst, I’d call it self-preservation” Grant explains softly, his reassuring words calming the sickening pit in Taylor’s stomach that had formed out of disgust with her own intentions. “Listen, let’s just pretend that Burt Russo isn’t an awful person. Let’s pretend like he’s never had an allegation against him, he’s never conducted himself improperly, and he’s always been an upstanding citizen, alright? Let’s choose to live in that fantasy world for a second...” he proceeds.

“...Even with an entirely-clean slate, he’s still the owner of a company with morals more bankrupt than ours that houses a culture no parent would want their children to enter when they grow up” he finishes, gently laying his palm onto his better half’s cheek. “You’re not using Kaye’s death as a way to get what you want” Grant carries on, pausing for a second whilst putting on a simple gesture of comedy, “well, technically you are...”

Voicing the correction in a way that leaves his girlfriend both laughing and wincing, Grant bypasses the humoured remark in favour of finishing his original point. “But you’re also looking out for every child that could ever work at LMC, and all of the men and women that already do by trying to protect them from having to work in a place like the one Russo runs” he concludes, watching the weight of his comments settle into his lover’s conscience, warming her heart in a way that shows through her expression.

Leaning into her boyfriend to press her lips upon his, Taylor joins the man in an embrace that reassures her of the intent she sets upon carrying out, supported by the man’s insistence that he’s entirely behind her in the call that’s been made. Freed of the weight of the eight-year veteran of the nine o’clock news’ mind, the town car carries down the winds and turns that come with the backroads of rural New York in favour of the occupants’ final hopes at assuring change.

= Tonight at 9 is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series belong to Zachary Serra and his entity of Pacer1 from the start of Season 1 onward =

\ Saturday, September 1st, 2007 /
\ 11:12 am est. - 8:12 am pst. /

“Do you come to these kinds of events exclusively for the alcohol?” Robin questions, joining her colleague at a white cloth-covered table with a plethora of self-service options lined atop. “What’s the purpose of going to a funeral if I’m not allowed to drink?” Vickers queries, pouring himself a charitable glass of an unlabeled bottle of brown liquor before garnishing it with a lemon for the simple reason that the fruit slice was there.

“I would make a snide comment, but I’m quite certain that you asked that question with all sincerity” Robin rejoinders, earning a brief chuckle from the man as he lifts the rim to his lips. “Of course I do!” the spry-chicken of an elderly man assures, “when my mother and father died- both times- I wasn’t even sober when I walked up to the grave!”

“Yeah, that’s different. Your ability to put away alcohol is borderline superhuman and I’d assume it’s been that way since college. You were mourning and drunks only really do that in one way” Robin concludes. “Grade school, but to your point... yes” Vickers corrects, earning a slight widening of his employer’s eyes as he confirms her assumptions, “to my credit, however, I didn’t mourn my father like I did my mother. My father is the man that taught me to drink, I felt I owed it to him to be drunk.”

“Yeah, all alcoholics have an excuse, don’t they?” Robin questions back, turning her back to the table just as her subordinate does whilst inspecting the field of people that walk around chatting with each other. “Well yes, but most of them just rightfully blame their marriages” Vickers chirps back, making room in the conversation for the man that approaches.

“Where’s the girl?” Robin questions aloud, drawing focus to the lack of Taylor’s presence beside her approaching boyfriend. “You know where she is. None of us are here exclusively to mourn” Grant replies, his comments both pleasing Robin and earning a nod out of Vickers, whose eyes remain glued to the others invited to the event and scattered throughout.

“How’s she going to play this? She realises this might be our last chance at making any sort of headway, right?” Robin wonders aloud, a truth that isn’t lost on any of the funeral’s guests. “I don’t know how she’ll approach it, but she’s certainly aware of how little room for failure any of us have now” Grant explains, helping himself to an unmarked bottle of clear liquor that he pours into a tall glass already set out with a couple of ice cubes, “she’s not setting out on this with the intention of failing.”

“She won’t fail. She may not be able to close the deal, but she’s not going to put us in any more jeopardy than we’re already in” Vickers responds, lifting the glass to wet his lips with another sip.

|

\ Saturday, September 1st, 2007 /
\ 11:19 am est. - 8:19 am pst. /

Dressed in a modest black skirt and blouse, Taylor traipses into the nearby chapel where she knows the subject of her interest to be, finding him seated in the pew near the front of the church. Passing the faintest of glances over his shoulder at the sound of heels tapping against the marble floor, Ross returns to his sulking that he’d intended to keep private, though is left without a choice in the matter as he’s advanced upon.

“People are outside wondering where you are. You’ve got some of them concerned that you’re alone with how ill you are” Taylor explains, receiving too little of a reaction from the man for her to notice. “You found me easily enough. If they can’t, that’s not my problem” Ross responds in a glum tone, clearly continuing to grieve for a loss much closer to him than it is to the deceased’s one-time roommate.

Without uttering a word, the blonde lock-wearing lady takes a seat to the man’s left side, resting her back against the wooden support with dignity and class, staring forward with her hands folded atop each other on her lap. In silence, the cancer-ridden billionaire stares forward at the stage his newly-deceased wife’s casket once resided upon, offering not one word for at least a full minute.

Ready to entertain the silence for as long as the man beside her is, Taylor continues to stare forward without speaking, letting the hush in the air continue to fall upon them like the cool breezes near the end of summer that signal the change of the seasons. Breathing slightly, and heavier than the primetime anchor, Ross listens to each breath leave through his nose before enough time spent hearing them has passed that he wishes to break the silence.

“Who told you about her?” Ross questions aloud, prompting his guest’s head to drop toward her coupled hands as he raises his inquiry, “I’ve been trying to figure that out in between my grief, but I just can’t piece together how you would’ve known what happened and where to look for her.” Gently rubbing the back of her left hand’s pinky finger with the tip of her thumb, Taylor stares at the floor for a few seconds before lifting her eyes toward the front of the church.

“A local newscast was covering her crash. I didn’t notice that it was hers until a few minutes before the end of our show that night” Taylor confesses, turning to look at the side of the wealthy man’s face as she follows through, “I met with her to catch up the night Burt hosted Robin, Sam, and Grant on his yacht.”

“How did you know it was hers?” Ross questions aloud, still staring forward with little interest as of yet in turning to face her, “it could’ve been just any other random car crash.”

“I saw the scratched-out sticker of the kid on her rear window. I’d noticed it when I was leaving the diner that night” Taylor answers without hesitation, waiting through another brief pause before following her point with a question of her own, “was it a miscarriage?”

Hanging his head once more, Ross spends a few seconds sulky before replying with the calmest shake of his head in refusal. Letting out a deep exhale through his nose, the fatigued man continues to fight his exhaustion in the name of continuing to be of present-mind for his departed wife’s services. “They call it ‘sudden infant death syndrome’ from what I’ve been told” the man explains, greatly shifting the assumption that the news anchor had come to.

Feeling the burden of guilt and sympathy, Taylor passes a half-hearted, “I’m sorry” to the man beside her as she faces the front of the church once more. “We both were” Ross replies without much of a pause, resting his right arm against the pew’s side whilst his left sits across his lap, a slight forward-lean carried in his posture as his processing of the loss continues to unfold in real time.

“I understand how people perceive our age gap. But we both greatly cared for each other. Neither of us was using the other- we just didn’t have the traditional relationship. I can accept that” Ross carries on, shaking his head before fighting off the urge to enter a coughing fit. “He passed about three months after he was born. We were both devastated” he concludes, looking further toward the ground than he had up to that moment, “she loved that boy.”

Not truly knowing how to respond to the conversation being had, Taylor sits in silence and waits for the man to continue speaking, hoping that he’d switch the topic toward something easier for her to interact with. “Now I’m left with nothing. I never wanted children with Robin- at least, not until she couldn’t have them anymore” Ross explains, visibly distraught at the isolation he’s now left to endure, “now I’ve lost everyone. No son to inherit my business and no wife to leave with a comfortable life.”

Wearing a strong frown, Taylor doesn’t hold the kind of reaction that she would’ve expected herself to take on at such a remark, her empathies having fallen aside in favour of bitterness. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?” she questions calmly, still looking at the ground as Ross slowly guides his attention toward her, not offering a reply to the question he knows has yet to be fully spoken aloud.

“I don’t really know what you want me to say. I don’t know what you want me to feel about what you’re telling me” Taylor doubles down, matching the reaction of Ross by turning her own focus toward him just as he does her. “After Barry, the person I most-associate with the worst moment in my life is you” the woman explains, still refusing to let her voice lift past anything considered reasonable for the environment they hold this interaction within.

“You can say you were just doing what you had to in order to keep the company from losing a shit load of money, but I’ll always just boil it down to you being the man who tried to defend my rapist” Taylor doubles down, a conclusion that prompts Ross to nod his head with equal acceptance. “I’m sorry that Kaye died. I remember our time in college fondly and I’m sorry she had to go through that with you” the anchor concludes, “but the sympathy I have for her cannot be replicated for you.”

“I don’t expect it to be. In fact, it shouldn’t be” Ross corrects, assuring the woman that her comments are neither out of line or unwarranted. “I do want you to know, however, why it was something I stooped low enough to do” the man explains, watching the woman’s hesitant eyes take shape, almost as if she were ready to disbelieve anything he could say.

“When you’re in the position that I was in with LMC at that time- for as long as I was in it- there is a depressing lack of morality that comes with it” he confesses, shaking his head with the memories that he still carries after all of this time away. “Every person is a number. It’s a salary you want to cut down on, it’s a job that you can’t argue is necessary, it’s a figure that may damage your bottom line. Every person is anything but a person” Ross continues.

Her reservations kept intact, Taylor chooses to keep her composure firmly within her grasp, not wishing to stray out of line as she silently waits for the man to continue speaking. “When you treat your job like that for long enough, you stop seeing things the way that others see them. You get detached from people being people” the billionaire explains, “and when what happened with you and Barry happened, the only method I’d been conditioned to view it in was how it affected the company.”

“That’s not a good enough excuse” Taylor wastes little time in calmly adding in, watching the shake of the head that Ross returns to her with intrigue. “Of course it’s not. It shouldn’t be, but it should give you a better idea of why it was so easy for me to look at it like I was fulfilling my obligation to the shareholders” the ousted executive explains, “you weren’t Taylor English of Tonight at 9 fame at that point, you were just a pretty, young, blonde girl hired to be a paid intern.”

“Is that supposed to change anything?” the woman inquires, again watching the shake of Ross’ head respond to her. “No, but it should put this into a better perspective. The company had a few thousand employees at the time, and I- as the acting CEO and chairman- couldn’t justify risking their jobs and the company’s bottom line because a girl was assaulted” he carries on,  “it’s shameful that such can even be true, but it’s even more shameful for me to admit that it was an easy stance to take.”

Looking back toward the front of the church at the conclusion of the man’s comment, Taylor lets the side settle with herself as the air grows quiet again, the lack of either voice leaving an absence of sound in the air. Though distant, the chatter of the crowd across the parking lot from the tiny chapel at the centre of the graveyard sounds somewhat noticeable from the front-most pew with the uneasy hush that comes over the lone pair of mourners within the building.

“I understand why you view me in the way that you do. I understand why everyone else does as well” Ross clarifies, re-earning the attention of Taylor’s tense face with his speech. “I just hope that- as long as you keep holding this grudge against me- you’ll see that it wasn’t a decision I made out of pure malice” the man explains, “it’s easy to look at people with my wealth and think they’re just snakes. Plenty of them are, in fact. But a lot of us are because that’s what our jobs demand of us.”

“Why tell me any of this?” Taylor quickly wonders aloud, again speaking with the composure that she’s carried through the interaction’s duration, “you’re dying, your wife is dead, and this is probably the last time we’ll ever see each other. So why, after all of this time, is it important to you to make any of this clear to me?”

“Why would I want to die leaving someone thinking that I went out of my way to protect their assailant?” Ross responds as hastily as his guest has raised her counter-inquiry, still weak in his delivery beneath the weight of the drugs he’s been pumped full of to fight the cancer that brings about the rest of his weakness. “There’s no one in this life that I’m more disgusted with than Arnold Barry for what he did to you” the man continues, “maybe it’s because of how impactful that turned out to be, but my disgust for him is still as strong as it’ll always be.”

With the faintest squint in her eye, Taylor continues to look the man in the eyes as he speaks, quietly reserving a statement of her own to make for the moment in which the man beside her finishes his point. “You’ve carried this hatred of me for this long, so I’d at least like to give you some fashion of closure in knowing why I took the side that I did” Ross explains, “and for what it’s worth, Sam Vickers earned his angel wings that day by having the balls to stand up for you that I just didn’t have.”

Though she’d otherwise be appreciative for the assuring comment that’s made toward her, Taylor’s reservations direct her toward breaking eye contact once more, concealing her thoughts behind a wall of silence that she erects up until the point in which she chooses to shatter it. With the air quiet and Ross’ attention brought back toward the front of the chapel, the declaration that sits within the top of her mind makes itself too strong to contain any further.

“Then don’t sell your shares to Burt Russo” the woman orders, looking toward the wealthy man just as he looks toward her, a scowl worn across her visage. “If the way that I perceive you is- even in your dying days- as important to you as you claim it is, then I’d imagine your legacy would be pretty important to you too” Taylor explains, watching the inquisitive face take shape upon the mourning gentleman seated beside her.

“You may think you have a few months left, but I think we both know what losing Kaye’s done to you. You may be physically able to fight for a few more months, but I’d be shocked if your heart didn’t give out within the next week” Taylor continues, opting to make the passage more akin to ripping a bandage off the wound. “You have no wife, no kids, and no family to pass your wealth down to. When you buy the farm, it’ll be the last thing a ‘Walker’ ever purchases with your money.”

Now following the suit that his guest had taken throughout their discourse’s duration, Ross takes his turn to keep his lips pressed together, not interrupting the woman he wishes to hear out. “If your legacy is as important to you as not leaving me without closure is, then what you should be doing is getting on the phone with your lawyer to make sure that anyone other than Burt Russo is the one that gets your shares” Taylor remarks, “because the last thing you need to be remembered for is making a deal with him.”

Stricken with a metaphorical gut-punch at the latter-most line, Ross’ eyes take toward the ground as the blonde anchor continues to speak. “Take the Rockefeller route if you really must. Start syphoning off your wealth to charities, build schools and low-income housing or something like that. Die and leave everyone remembering you for giving back to the world once you no longer had a use for the money” the woman suggests, “but don’t be the guy whose legacy is selling off LMC to that man.”

Still silent, Ross’ ability to respond seems to evade him, his mind going blank with a worthwhile response as he sits with the woman’s comments. Having said what she’d come to, Taylor nods to herself before leaving the pew, walking around the man and returning to the aisle that she’d travelled to originally take the seat in the first place. With one foot in front of the other, her heels tap along the ground and bounce a sound of tapping against the spacious, internal walls like a rubber ball.

Letting a long sigh free from within her core, the thought-depleted anchor marches for the doors before hearing her name being called out from where she’d stepped away. In a fragile tone of voice, Ross turns to look over the back of the pew and stares at the woman that also turns back, her person standing before the sun that shines through the chapel’s open doors, cascading her in a ray of light that the death-bound billionaire has very few opportunities left to see.

“I truly am sorry for taking his side that day” Ross confesses, not wanting that truth to be lost upon the woman in the wake of her departure. Watching her shadow stretch across the floor and toward the man she leaves behind, Taylor presses her lips together and takes in his apology for a moment before reiterating her stance. “Then don’t do the deal with Burt Russo” the woman replies, waiting a beat before turning around and following through with her exit.

Watching as the anchor steps into the sunlight and rejoins those she’d been accompanied by in the graveyard, entering the field that Ross will someday soon lie in himself. Remaining amongst the living for now, the billionaire turns back toward the front of the chapel without a soul around, neither a sympathy to pass on or a prayer to present. On his lonesome just as his final days shall be spent, the man takes in a deep breath and lets it free with his eyes pressed shut, bringing himself to a peace he’ll be forced to endure soon one way or another.

== Tonight at 9 ==