brighteyedjill (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
brighteyedjill) wrote2007-12-16 04:29 pm
brighteyedjill) wrote2007-12-16 04:29 pm
Entry tags:
In the Forests of the Night - Epilogue
Title: In the Forests of the Night – Epilogue
Author name:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
brighteyed_jill
Characters: Ensemble, Peter/Nathan. Other slashiness if you squint.
Rating: PG
Summary: All was well.
Epilogue
Gabriel Gray leaned against his shovel. There were many faster ways to clear snow off the driveway, but he wanted to work up a sweat and burn off some of his depression. He’d been alone at the cabin for twenty six days. The place had seemed small with all of Hiro’s team there. Now, alone with memories of his friends and uncertainties about the future, the place seemed enormous.
His ultra-sensitive hearing caught the sound of a vehicle coming up the road. It was probably still a mile or so off, so Gabriel took his time putting the shovel away in the woodshed. Then he took up a spot on the porch with a clear view of the driveway, shimmered into invisibility, and waited as a green SUV made its way slowly up the mountain drive.
The first thing Gabriel noticed when the driver got out was the man’s garish scarf. He didn’t have to wait for the man to turn around; he knew it was Mohinder. Gabriel was tempted to stay invisible, to claim that he’d been out for a walk. He allowed himself that moment of cowardice, and then he let go of his invisibility. “Mohinder,” he called.
Mohinder turned, looking for the source of the voice. When he saw Gabriel his face lit up. He waved before trooping over the half-shoveled walk to join Gabriel on the porch. By the time they were face to face, his smile had dimmed to more modest proportions.
“Hello,” said Gabriel.
“I had a break from my duties,” Mohinder said brightly. Gabriel said nothing. “They can manufacture Cure antidote without my help now. My job’s really turned into helping people whose abilities are reemerging.” He laughed. “Matt has started calling me Professor Xavier.” Mohinder shoved his gloved hands in the pocket of his coat, shifting uncomfortably. “Like the X-men.” Still Gabriel said nothing. “Micah refers to his family by a different name, though. Fantastic something. I never really read comics.” He kicked at a clod of snow. “We’ve been very busy, but I thought I deserved a little vacation. Actually, Molly threatened to tattle to Nathan if I didn’t give myself a break.” He finally stopped, waiting.
“And you came here,” Gabriel observed.
“Yes. I thought it would be nice to see you.”
“Come inside, then.” Gabriel led the way, pushing open the front door and kicking the snow off his boots. Mohinder followed him to the kitchen. Gabriel put on the kettle to make tea. He saw Mohinder’s eye dart to the container of chai on the counter, and he winced inwardly. He shouldn’t have left it out; now Mohinder would know he’d been thinking about him.
Mohinder slid into a chair at the kitchen table, and Gabriel stood by the stove, waiting for the tea to boil. “How long are you going to stay out here?” Mohinder asked.
“Peter’s friend said I could stay as long as I want.” That was the longest sentence he’d spoken in weeks. His voice felt rusty.
“Alone?” Mohinder asked dubiously.
Gabriel shrugged.
“Come back to New York.”
At least Gabriel had been prepared for this. Peter had been dropping hints all week during his visits, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Mohinder would be the one to finally ask. “No.”
“There’s so much you could do to help. When someone gets their powers restored, they often need to find out how to use them. You were so good with Peter—.”
“I said no.”
“Why not?” To his credit, Mohinder didn’t seem overly surprised by Gabriel’s answer. Gabriel felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment: maybe Mohinder didn’t really care if he came back or not. The kettle whistled, and Gabriel let the silence stretch as he strained the tea into two mugs. He thought briefly of asking Mohinder whether he wanted milk and honey with his, but decided that would be too manipulative. He added the milk and honey the way he knew Mohinder wanted, set the mug down on the table, and returned to his spot by the stove.
“Molly asked about you, you know,” Mohinder said, taking a sip of his chai.
“Molly?” he asked skeptically.
“Yes. She was just starting to like you. Her words.” Mohinder sipped his tea, set the cup down. “We all miss you.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not? What are you doing out here that’s so damn important?”
“I can’t hurt anyone out here.”
Now it was Mohinder’s turn to glare.
“Back at the White House… I could have ruined everything. First I almost went nuclear. Then, with Alicia… I was Sylar again. That’s still in me. Don’t pretend you don’t see it.”
“I see a man with amazing abilities who is wasting them because he’s afraid.”
Gabriel went white with anger. “Out here, I’m not hurting anyone!”
“You’re not helping anyone, either!”
Gabriel flinched. Mohinder got up from his chair and cornered him by the stove. “You are capable of amazing things, Gabriel Gray. Please come back with me.”
Gabriel stared down into his tea. “I can’t say no to you,” he muttered.
When he looked up, Mohinder was smiling. “I know.”
********
Hiro juggled the awkward package under his arm as he tried to get his keys out. The skinny package started to slip, and Hiro dropped the keys to catch it. Custom framing was expensive, after all, and it wouldn’t do to break the glass. He was just contemplating freezing time when Ando flung the door open. “What exactly are you doing?” Ando asked suspiciously.
“I’m decorating the apartment,” Hiro said. It felt good to be able to speak Japanese again. With all the press conferences he’d been doing in English over the past few weeks, he’d almost forgotten what his native language sounded like.
“Decorating?” Ando repeated skeptically.
“Now that the place is officially ours, we need to put something on the walls.” Hiro explained, sliding past Ando into the apartment and eyeing the big blank walls mournfully.
Ando pointed to the large package Hiro was clutching. “Please don’t tell me you are covering the walls in Star Trek posters.”
“No.” He leaned the package against the wall, ripping off the brown paper wrapping to reveal a framed painting.
“Oh,” Ando said. “That painting.”
They both stood and admired it for a moment. The painting showed the steps of the Capitol building at dusk, and in the far distance, the slightly blackened and damaged White House. On the steps were the assembled Heroes, but the right hand corner of the painting only revealed the top of someone's dark hair and a fist raised in victory, clad in a dark sleeve. It could have be Hiro, or Gabriel, or someone else: it was hard to say. Others, further in the background, could have been obscured by the fire damage to the painting itself.
The President, Nathan, was accepting a piece of paper from several other men in suits, but their faces were obscured. Who they were wasn’t important anyway: clearly the focus of the painting was the paper. The words were mostly meaningless scribbles, the way writing often appears in comic panels. At the bottom of the paper was a blank line, and in Nathan's hand was a pen. On the stairs around him were Peter, Matt, Claire, the Haitian, and many others. Evidence of their powers was clear upon most of them: Claire's bloodstained shirt showed flawless skin underneath, Peter's hand burned with white energy, illuminating the scene, Matt and the Haitian had a knowing look in their eyes that transcended the normal. Micah and Molly held hands with fierce determination, and others were scattered amongst the onlookers. Men with suits and earpieces stood around the perimeter. The crowd was sprinkled with cops and military types, but not one cop was reaching for his gun, or even really reacting to the "terrorists" in their midst.
All in all it seemed to be a happy post-victory celebration; the overall mood of the piece was light, despite the dark tones. The people, the Heroes, even the police were smiling, and many hands were raised in a cheer. Tattooed wrists were prominently displayed, but the tattoos had a smudged quality, as if fading around the edges. Faint suggestions of other faces in curls of smoke drifted across the sky, suggesting people in other places were pleased with what was happening.
“And from that, we managed to save the world,” Ando said in wonder. “I can’t say what happened was what I was expecting when I first saw this.”
“Me neither.”
“That piece of paper,” Ando said, pointing to it in the painting. “You think it’s supposed to be your pardon, or the New Freedoms Act?”
Hiro grinned. “I’m just one man. A Presidential pardon isn’t so important. But a new law that will abolish slavery—that’s a worthy subject for one of Mister Isaac’s paintings. Of course, now that it’s happened, it all seems perfectly clear.”
“Does it? You could have predicted that that,” Ando pointed to a fading tattoo on a painted character’s hand, “Meant that Peter Petrelli would be able to take away everyone’s slave tattoos?”
“Maybe not. The important thing is that it worked,” Hiro said with a grin.
“Alai tried to explain to me why Peter did it, but he used Doctor Seuss as a metaphor. It was over my head.” Ando shrugged.
“Everyone can look at their fellow humans without fear,” Hiro said. “No one is marked as dangerous.”
“You still have your tattoo,” Ando pointed out.
Hiro looked down at the helix on his wrist. That symbol had meant many different things in his life, and now its meaning was changing again. “I was in a different time when Peter pulled his trick,” he said. “Mine’s the only one he missed.”
“If you ask him, I bet he would remove it for you.”
Hiro shook his head. “No. It’s not hurting me anymore. It only means what it used to: godsend. I don’t mind that.”
Ando smiled. “Plus, tattoos are badass.”
**********
It never ceased to amaze Peter that he was able to walk right in to the White House. He could have just teleported, of course, but that tended to upset the Secret Service agents, who were all new enough to be both a little in awe of Peter and a little defensive of their methods, so he came to visit Nathan the normal way.
The guard at the gate waved him through, and by the time he made it to the West Wing, news of his arrival had reached Claire.
“Peter!” She jumped out from behind her desk to wrap her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back.
“Hey Claire. How are you?”
“Oh, you know.” She straightened out her outfit and sat back down at her desk. “A little bored, a little jealous. Mostly busy.”
Peter inclined his head toward the Oval Office. “Is he working you too hard?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hardly. He’s too busy to give me much thought, I think.”
“Well, if it gets too terrible, you can come work for me,” Peter said with a grin.
Claire stuck her tongue out at him. “Special Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security? Please,” she said. “Dad was complaining today that you have the easy job. You just get to strike heroic poses and rescue kittens from trees and set a good example, and he has to do all the paperwork.”
Peter chuckled. “Tell Noah he’s welcome to take over my kitten-rescuing duties anytime.”
A light flashed on Claire’s desk. “There we go. He must be done with Ginsberg. Go on in.”
“Thanks Claire.”
Peter walked into the Oval Office and eased the door shut behind him. Nathan was leaning over his desk, pen scribbling furiously. “Hey,” he said without looking up.
“Hey.”
“I’m just finishing up this memo. Can you hold on a sec?”
“Yeah.” Peter was used to being brushed aside in favor of Nathan’s work; it had happened to him all his life, but this wasn’t like that. They were partners now, working together to make this save-the-world business actually last, and for the first time in his life, Peter felt like Nathan’s equal.
“There.” Nathan dropped his pen and grabbed the suit jacket off the back of his chair, shrugging into it as he walked around the desk. “I hope you’re hungry. I have no idea what the cook’s making. Heidi planned the menu.”
“I’m sure it’ll be good.”
Nathan pressed a quick kiss to Peter’s lips, a kiss that could have been brotherly. “You okay?” he asked. Peter nodded. “The boys are excited to see you.”
“Yeah.”
Nathan took Peter’s shoulders in his hands. “Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“Peter.” Nathan gave him a gentle shake.
“Huh?”
I’m not a mind reader, and I can hear you worrying. He ducked his head so Peter had to meet his eyes.
“Sorry. It’s just…”
“Just…?” Nathan prompted. Tell me.
Peter shook his head. “When I see you with those guys. Heidi and the boys.”
“Jealous?”
“No!” No, that wasn’t quite it. He couldn’t be jealous of them. They were family. “Just…”
Nathan let him flounder for a moment before Peter heard in his mind: I think I know what you’re getting at. Out loud Nathan said, “Monty had a dream.”
Peter tensed. “A bad dream?”
“No,” Nathan said quickly. “Well, he was mad, but I promised to take him and Simon to Disney World in June and he got over it.”
Peter frowned in confusion. “Mad about what?”
“Apparently I’m going on a two week camping trip.”
“Okay,” Peter said slowly, trying to connect camping trips to the conversation they’d been having, and coming up blank.
“With his Uncle Peter,” Nathan continued.
“Yeah?”
Alone. Together.
“Oh.” Peter felt the release of tension he didn’t even know he’d been carrying. The promise of having time alone with Nathan made him as excited as a child.
Nathan pulled Peter into a hug. There will always be room for you in my life, Peter.
“I know.” Suddenly Peter was feeling a little better. “You couldn’t keep me out if you tried.”
I know. “You ready?”
Peter stole a quick kiss before pulling away and brushing his hair out of his face. “Ready,” said Peter. He opened the door for Nathan, and they left the Oval Office side by side.
End.
Author’s Note: If you’ve read this far, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I don’t get paid (and I don’t get internet residuals—I need to talk to my union!), so comments make me all warm and fuzzy. Concrit welcome. Thank you to those of you who’ve been commenting all along. Your encouragement helped make this happen on schedule.
Oh, there’s also a shiny new soundtrack to accompany the story, and it’s right here.
Author name:
brighteyed_jillCharacters: Ensemble, Peter/Nathan. Other slashiness if you squint.
Rating: PG
Summary: All was well.
Epilogue
Gabriel Gray leaned against his shovel. There were many faster ways to clear snow off the driveway, but he wanted to work up a sweat and burn off some of his depression. He’d been alone at the cabin for twenty six days. The place had seemed small with all of Hiro’s team there. Now, alone with memories of his friends and uncertainties about the future, the place seemed enormous.
His ultra-sensitive hearing caught the sound of a vehicle coming up the road. It was probably still a mile or so off, so Gabriel took his time putting the shovel away in the woodshed. Then he took up a spot on the porch with a clear view of the driveway, shimmered into invisibility, and waited as a green SUV made its way slowly up the mountain drive.
The first thing Gabriel noticed when the driver got out was the man’s garish scarf. He didn’t have to wait for the man to turn around; he knew it was Mohinder. Gabriel was tempted to stay invisible, to claim that he’d been out for a walk. He allowed himself that moment of cowardice, and then he let go of his invisibility. “Mohinder,” he called.
Mohinder turned, looking for the source of the voice. When he saw Gabriel his face lit up. He waved before trooping over the half-shoveled walk to join Gabriel on the porch. By the time they were face to face, his smile had dimmed to more modest proportions.
“Hello,” said Gabriel.
“I had a break from my duties,” Mohinder said brightly. Gabriel said nothing. “They can manufacture Cure antidote without my help now. My job’s really turned into helping people whose abilities are reemerging.” He laughed. “Matt has started calling me Professor Xavier.” Mohinder shoved his gloved hands in the pocket of his coat, shifting uncomfortably. “Like the X-men.” Still Gabriel said nothing. “Micah refers to his family by a different name, though. Fantastic something. I never really read comics.” He kicked at a clod of snow. “We’ve been very busy, but I thought I deserved a little vacation. Actually, Molly threatened to tattle to Nathan if I didn’t give myself a break.” He finally stopped, waiting.
“And you came here,” Gabriel observed.
“Yes. I thought it would be nice to see you.”
“Come inside, then.” Gabriel led the way, pushing open the front door and kicking the snow off his boots. Mohinder followed him to the kitchen. Gabriel put on the kettle to make tea. He saw Mohinder’s eye dart to the container of chai on the counter, and he winced inwardly. He shouldn’t have left it out; now Mohinder would know he’d been thinking about him.
Mohinder slid into a chair at the kitchen table, and Gabriel stood by the stove, waiting for the tea to boil. “How long are you going to stay out here?” Mohinder asked.
“Peter’s friend said I could stay as long as I want.” That was the longest sentence he’d spoken in weeks. His voice felt rusty.
“Alone?” Mohinder asked dubiously.
Gabriel shrugged.
“Come back to New York.”
At least Gabriel had been prepared for this. Peter had been dropping hints all week during his visits, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Mohinder would be the one to finally ask. “No.”
“There’s so much you could do to help. When someone gets their powers restored, they often need to find out how to use them. You were so good with Peter—.”
“I said no.”
“Why not?” To his credit, Mohinder didn’t seem overly surprised by Gabriel’s answer. Gabriel felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment: maybe Mohinder didn’t really care if he came back or not. The kettle whistled, and Gabriel let the silence stretch as he strained the tea into two mugs. He thought briefly of asking Mohinder whether he wanted milk and honey with his, but decided that would be too manipulative. He added the milk and honey the way he knew Mohinder wanted, set the mug down on the table, and returned to his spot by the stove.
“Molly asked about you, you know,” Mohinder said, taking a sip of his chai.
“Molly?” he asked skeptically.
“Yes. She was just starting to like you. Her words.” Mohinder sipped his tea, set the cup down. “We all miss you.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not? What are you doing out here that’s so damn important?”
“I can’t hurt anyone out here.”
Now it was Mohinder’s turn to glare.
“Back at the White House… I could have ruined everything. First I almost went nuclear. Then, with Alicia… I was Sylar again. That’s still in me. Don’t pretend you don’t see it.”
“I see a man with amazing abilities who is wasting them because he’s afraid.”
Gabriel went white with anger. “Out here, I’m not hurting anyone!”
“You’re not helping anyone, either!”
Gabriel flinched. Mohinder got up from his chair and cornered him by the stove. “You are capable of amazing things, Gabriel Gray. Please come back with me.”
Gabriel stared down into his tea. “I can’t say no to you,” he muttered.
When he looked up, Mohinder was smiling. “I know.”
********
Hiro juggled the awkward package under his arm as he tried to get his keys out. The skinny package started to slip, and Hiro dropped the keys to catch it. Custom framing was expensive, after all, and it wouldn’t do to break the glass. He was just contemplating freezing time when Ando flung the door open. “What exactly are you doing?” Ando asked suspiciously.
“I’m decorating the apartment,” Hiro said. It felt good to be able to speak Japanese again. With all the press conferences he’d been doing in English over the past few weeks, he’d almost forgotten what his native language sounded like.
“Decorating?” Ando repeated skeptically.
“Now that the place is officially ours, we need to put something on the walls.” Hiro explained, sliding past Ando into the apartment and eyeing the big blank walls mournfully.
Ando pointed to the large package Hiro was clutching. “Please don’t tell me you are covering the walls in Star Trek posters.”
“No.” He leaned the package against the wall, ripping off the brown paper wrapping to reveal a framed painting.
“Oh,” Ando said. “That painting.”
They both stood and admired it for a moment. The painting showed the steps of the Capitol building at dusk, and in the far distance, the slightly blackened and damaged White House. On the steps were the assembled Heroes, but the right hand corner of the painting only revealed the top of someone's dark hair and a fist raised in victory, clad in a dark sleeve. It could have be Hiro, or Gabriel, or someone else: it was hard to say. Others, further in the background, could have been obscured by the fire damage to the painting itself.
The President, Nathan, was accepting a piece of paper from several other men in suits, but their faces were obscured. Who they were wasn’t important anyway: clearly the focus of the painting was the paper. The words were mostly meaningless scribbles, the way writing often appears in comic panels. At the bottom of the paper was a blank line, and in Nathan's hand was a pen. On the stairs around him were Peter, Matt, Claire, the Haitian, and many others. Evidence of their powers was clear upon most of them: Claire's bloodstained shirt showed flawless skin underneath, Peter's hand burned with white energy, illuminating the scene, Matt and the Haitian had a knowing look in their eyes that transcended the normal. Micah and Molly held hands with fierce determination, and others were scattered amongst the onlookers. Men with suits and earpieces stood around the perimeter. The crowd was sprinkled with cops and military types, but not one cop was reaching for his gun, or even really reacting to the "terrorists" in their midst.
All in all it seemed to be a happy post-victory celebration; the overall mood of the piece was light, despite the dark tones. The people, the Heroes, even the police were smiling, and many hands were raised in a cheer. Tattooed wrists were prominently displayed, but the tattoos had a smudged quality, as if fading around the edges. Faint suggestions of other faces in curls of smoke drifted across the sky, suggesting people in other places were pleased with what was happening.
“And from that, we managed to save the world,” Ando said in wonder. “I can’t say what happened was what I was expecting when I first saw this.”
“Me neither.”
“That piece of paper,” Ando said, pointing to it in the painting. “You think it’s supposed to be your pardon, or the New Freedoms Act?”
Hiro grinned. “I’m just one man. A Presidential pardon isn’t so important. But a new law that will abolish slavery—that’s a worthy subject for one of Mister Isaac’s paintings. Of course, now that it’s happened, it all seems perfectly clear.”
“Does it? You could have predicted that that,” Ando pointed to a fading tattoo on a painted character’s hand, “Meant that Peter Petrelli would be able to take away everyone’s slave tattoos?”
“Maybe not. The important thing is that it worked,” Hiro said with a grin.
“Alai tried to explain to me why Peter did it, but he used Doctor Seuss as a metaphor. It was over my head.” Ando shrugged.
“Everyone can look at their fellow humans without fear,” Hiro said. “No one is marked as dangerous.”
“You still have your tattoo,” Ando pointed out.
Hiro looked down at the helix on his wrist. That symbol had meant many different things in his life, and now its meaning was changing again. “I was in a different time when Peter pulled his trick,” he said. “Mine’s the only one he missed.”
“If you ask him, I bet he would remove it for you.”
Hiro shook his head. “No. It’s not hurting me anymore. It only means what it used to: godsend. I don’t mind that.”
Ando smiled. “Plus, tattoos are badass.”
**********
It never ceased to amaze Peter that he was able to walk right in to the White House. He could have just teleported, of course, but that tended to upset the Secret Service agents, who were all new enough to be both a little in awe of Peter and a little defensive of their methods, so he came to visit Nathan the normal way.
The guard at the gate waved him through, and by the time he made it to the West Wing, news of his arrival had reached Claire.
“Peter!” She jumped out from behind her desk to wrap her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back.
“Hey Claire. How are you?”
“Oh, you know.” She straightened out her outfit and sat back down at her desk. “A little bored, a little jealous. Mostly busy.”
Peter inclined his head toward the Oval Office. “Is he working you too hard?”
She rolled her eyes. “Hardly. He’s too busy to give me much thought, I think.”
“Well, if it gets too terrible, you can come work for me,” Peter said with a grin.
Claire stuck her tongue out at him. “Special Liaison to the Department of Homeland Security? Please,” she said. “Dad was complaining today that you have the easy job. You just get to strike heroic poses and rescue kittens from trees and set a good example, and he has to do all the paperwork.”
Peter chuckled. “Tell Noah he’s welcome to take over my kitten-rescuing duties anytime.”
A light flashed on Claire’s desk. “There we go. He must be done with Ginsberg. Go on in.”
“Thanks Claire.”
Peter walked into the Oval Office and eased the door shut behind him. Nathan was leaning over his desk, pen scribbling furiously. “Hey,” he said without looking up.
“Hey.”
“I’m just finishing up this memo. Can you hold on a sec?”
“Yeah.” Peter was used to being brushed aside in favor of Nathan’s work; it had happened to him all his life, but this wasn’t like that. They were partners now, working together to make this save-the-world business actually last, and for the first time in his life, Peter felt like Nathan’s equal.
“There.” Nathan dropped his pen and grabbed the suit jacket off the back of his chair, shrugging into it as he walked around the desk. “I hope you’re hungry. I have no idea what the cook’s making. Heidi planned the menu.”
“I’m sure it’ll be good.”
Nathan pressed a quick kiss to Peter’s lips, a kiss that could have been brotherly. “You okay?” he asked. Peter nodded. “The boys are excited to see you.”
“Yeah.”
Nathan took Peter’s shoulders in his hands. “Don’t be nervous.”
“I’m not.”
“Peter.” Nathan gave him a gentle shake.
“Huh?”
I’m not a mind reader, and I can hear you worrying. He ducked his head so Peter had to meet his eyes.
“Sorry. It’s just…”
“Just…?” Nathan prompted. Tell me.
Peter shook his head. “When I see you with those guys. Heidi and the boys.”
“Jealous?”
“No!” No, that wasn’t quite it. He couldn’t be jealous of them. They were family. “Just…”
Nathan let him flounder for a moment before Peter heard in his mind: I think I know what you’re getting at. Out loud Nathan said, “Monty had a dream.”
Peter tensed. “A bad dream?”
“No,” Nathan said quickly. “Well, he was mad, but I promised to take him and Simon to Disney World in June and he got over it.”
Peter frowned in confusion. “Mad about what?”
“Apparently I’m going on a two week camping trip.”
“Okay,” Peter said slowly, trying to connect camping trips to the conversation they’d been having, and coming up blank.
“With his Uncle Peter,” Nathan continued.
“Yeah?”
Alone. Together.
“Oh.” Peter felt the release of tension he didn’t even know he’d been carrying. The promise of having time alone with Nathan made him as excited as a child.
Nathan pulled Peter into a hug. There will always be room for you in my life, Peter.
“I know.” Suddenly Peter was feeling a little better. “You couldn’t keep me out if you tried.”
I know. “You ready?”
Peter stole a quick kiss before pulling away and brushing his hair out of his face. “Ready,” said Peter. He opened the door for Nathan, and they left the Oval Office side by side.
End.
Author’s Note: If you’ve read this far, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. I don’t get paid (and I don’t get internet residuals—I need to talk to my union!), so comments make me all warm and fuzzy. Concrit welcome. Thank you to those of you who’ve been commenting all along. Your encouragement helped make this happen on schedule.
Oh, there’s also a shiny new soundtrack to accompany the story, and it’s right here.
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