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brighteyedjillTitle: In the Forests of the Night – Chapter Six (of Ten)
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-13 this chapter
Word Count: 5500
Warnings: Violence, angst, adult situations, slash.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 1. Another Season 2 character makes an appearance today. No plot spoilers for Season 2, so if you know who Elle is, you’re good to go.
Summary: Nathan deals with his errant daughter, Nora receives a shocking visitor, Peter learns about guns and Dr. Seuss, and Mohinder deals with the consequences of his decision.
Author’s note: The lovelyredandglenda did beta duty as usual. Remaining mistakes are mine, all mine.
And if you’re just joining us:
Love’s the Burning Boy
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter 5.5
Nathan was getting a headache. His Chief of Staff, Alan Ginsberg was having a shouting match with George Bailer, the Press Secretary. Nathan was sitting—not cowering, he told himself, just sitting—behind his desk in the Oval Office, counting to ten.
“It’s none of the press’s business what Homeland Security does with detainees!” Ginsberg shouted.
“They want to see someone punished for what happened,” Bailer shot back. His face was turning an unusual shade of purple. “Is that so wrong?”
“If it interferes with the normal operation of Homeland Securities duties, then yes.”
“Well if Homeland Security was doing its job in the first place—.”
Nathan cleared his throat loudly, and Bailer paused, turning in tandem with Ginsberg to look at him.
“Does this discussion really involve me?” Nathan asked.
Bailer must have caught the icy edge on his voice, because he shut his mouth in mid-rant. “Sorry, Mister President. We just need to make some sort of a policy decision before tonight’s press conference.”
“And why isn’t Secretary Madden here to give me her side of this issue?” Nathan asked.
“She’s out of town,” Ginsberg said grudgingly. “An important business trip. And besides, Mister President, this isn’t really about Homeland Security. It’s about your image. Your approval rating—.”
“I know it’s bad, Alan, you don’t have to remind me.” He turned his glare onto George Bailer. “Let me see if I understand your point. You’re saying that if we don’t show some progress on finding President Devlin’s assassin, people are going to start taking matters into their own hands?”
“Yes, Mister President,” Bailer said stiffly.
Nathan turned to Ginsberg. “And you’re saying that we can’t make an example of any current detainees because that would make us look incompetent?”
“Yes, Mister President.”
“Therefore…?” The two men looked at each other, but neither was willing to offer a solution. An idea flickered into existence, and Nathan wondered briefly if this plan, like so many others of late, had sprung from his inescapable pre-occupation with a certain missing brother. Nathan shoved that concern to the side for the moment, quickly examining the idea for flaws before giving an imperious nod. “All right. Alan, get this back to Secretary Madden. I want arrests. Every terrorist cell they’ve been watching, every suspected person with an ability, everyone on any list that hasn’t been brought in yet for any reason, bring them all in. Do it big, do it fast, and make sure the press sees it. Can you manage that?”
“Yes Mister President,” both men said together. Neither of them made any objection, which must mean that it was a reasonable enough plan, but an excited voice in Nathan’s head wished that one fugitive in particular would be picked up. Nathan wouldn’t mind pulling whatever strings it took to get Peter back from Homeland Security; that would be better than not knowing where he was. Ginsberg and Bailer were watching him expectantly, and Nathan forced himself to shut off further thoughts of Peter. “Is there anything else?” he asked impatiently.
Bailer went for the door, but Ginsberg hesitated. “I wanted to brief you on a few new developments before you meet with your speech writer.”
“I’m meeting with my speech writer?”
“There was a change in the schedule. I meant to tell you—,” Ginsberg began.
“It can wait, Alan,” Nathan said wearily. “This new operation is our top priority. Get someone else to tell me what the meeting is about, and you go deal with this.” If Nathan was lucky, maybe he could get a few moments alone.
As Ginsberg left, Nathan heard him in the outer office. “Claire, get the President up-to-date on the schedule, please.”
Claire. Wonderful. Nathan had been both dreading and anticipating this moment. Claire gave a polite, “My pleasure, sir,” to the departing Ginsberg, while Nathan settled himself in front of his desk, steeling himself for a fight. He wasn’t scared of Claire, he told himself. It didn’t matter that she had a whole arsenal of emotional weapons to use against him. It didn’t matter that she had the moral high ground. Being in the wrong had never bothered Nathan before. It shouldn’t bother him now that it was Peter he’d been wrong about. It shouldn’t, but it did.
Claire brought a clipboard with her into the Oval Office, but the minute the door was closed, she tossed it aside, along with her mask of professional cheeriness. “Hi Dad,” she said.
“Claire, what are you even doing here?” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but he was finding it difficult to maintain his detached arrogance under Claire’s icy gaze.
“I work here,” she said.
“I noticed that. Why?”
“Why?” She plopped down on one of the office’s couches, showing all the confidence—the irritating confidence—that Nathan remembered. “Well, for starters, it will look excellent on my resume.”
“Cute,” Nathan growled. “Does your father know you’re here?”
Claire narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know. Does he?”
“Bennet.” Nathan would not lose his temper. He was the adult—hell, he was the president. “Does Bennet know you’re here?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes, but yes, my dad knows where I work.” Claire seemed almost amused. “He comes down from his office on Tuesdays so we can have lunch together.”
“So you’re spying on me.” It wasn’t really a question.
“Not everything’s about you, Mister President,” she said, and Nathan was disturbed to see a piece of himself in her faux-innocent smile. “I’m just an administrative assistant.”
“Who happens to work in the President’s office.”
“I know how to keep a secret. I don’t pass on what I hear,” she said, eyes narrow with sincerity. “But that doesn’t stop me from being curious.”
“Nothing ever does,” Nathan muttered.
“Where’s Peter?” she asked suddenly.
Nathan found himself relaxing a fraction. This was the landmine they’d been dancing around, and Claire had touched it first. That gave him the upper hand. “Why do you care?”
“He’s my favorite blood relation.”
“Right.” Of course he was. Everybody loved Peter. “I don’t know where he is.”
“I saw you sell him out on national television, you know,” she said. Her posture on the couch still seemed casual, but there was hurt in her voice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan told her. Let Claire wallow in that guilt, if she wanted. Nathan would simply refuse to let her drag him in.
“Don’t I? Three years later and it still pisses me off.”
Nathan couldn’t help a harsh response. “I think you should stay away from things you don’t understand, Claire,” he said. Peter’s arrest was a wound that didn’t need any salt, especially today.
“I don’t understand?” Claire’s voice was dangerously calm. It almost made Nathan proud. In a flash, Claire was off the couch and coming toward him. Nathan held his ground while she grabbed his arm. She’d already undone the buttons on his cuff and pushed up his jacket sleeve before he realized what she was doing.
“Claire,” he said warningly.
She held out her right arm next to his, her skin seeming paler next to Nathan’s tan wrist. “Is something missing?” Claire asked. “A lot of people I used to know seem to have a certain mark that you and I don’t have.”
“Are you complaining?” Nathan asked. He jerked his sleeve back down and turned his attention to buttoning the cuff of his shirt. He didn’t want to think of the mark Peter bore, the ink stark and ugly on a wrist that delicate. “If you want a tattoo so badly, I’m sure Noah will—.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this,” Claire interrupted him. “I may not have a mark on me, but I’m a slave. My whole life is one big, self-serving lie. I could be arrested anytime.”
“You won’t be arrested, Claire,” Nathan snapped. “You’ve got Bennet looking out for you.”
“That’s not the point. If it weren’t for what you did, we wouldn’t have to hide.”
“This is my fault?” Nathan asked, relaxing into the comfort of indignation. It was easier now that they were talking in broad terms, in theories. Right now, Nathan needed some distance from the bleeding pain of his mistakes with Peter.
“You did this,” Claire said. “You made everyone afraid of us.”
“It was going to happen anyway.” Nathan retreated behind his desk. Facing Claire from behind the barrier of his office helped him recapture his confidence. “I made sure it happened on my terms.”
“On your terms? What good has that done?” Claire leaned menacingly across the desk. “Who have you saved with your terms, Dad? Not me, not Peter. Yourself, maybe?”
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for…” For Peter, he wanted to say. “For my family.”
Claire seemed to have heard what he didn’t say. “Where is Peter?” she asked softly.
Nathan sat, turning his desk chair away so he didn’t have to look at Claire. “I have no idea.” That was the truth at least.
“You’ve seen him?” She seemed to have let out all her anger, and latched on to the one thing they had in common: caring about Peter.
“What if I had?” Nathan asked. He meant it to sound disinterested, but he knew it fell short.
“You were talking about him with that woman the other day. I know you were.” She came around to Nathan’s side of the desk and stood behind him. “You know something.”
“I know lots of things, Claire.” Too many things. Even as he said it, he tried not to recall what he’d been realizing since he found Peter: things were not okay. Peter was hurt, Peter was broken. Now Peter was gone again, and it was his fault for letting it happen.
“Is he alive, at least?” She was so genuinely concerned. His breath caught in his throat as he was suddenly, intensely reminded of the awful feeling of not knowing whether Peter was alive or dead. Claire didn’t deserve that.
“He was a few days ago,” Nathan muttered.
Claire’s face lit up, and she closed the distance between them to grab his hand. “You have seen him?”
Nathan found himself nodding. “Yeah.”
“When? How? Where is he now?” Claire asked excitedly.
Seeing her so excited was like a punch in the gut. The relief he’d felt at the slave auction, when he’d finally held Peter in his arms after looking for so long turned to ashes when Mandy broke the news that Peter was gone. Stupid, stupid to lose him again, to drive him away. “I don’t know,” Nathan said thickly.
To her credit, Claire seemed to take more from his words than he’d actually said, and backed off. “Can you at least tell me when you hear from him?”
“Sure,” Nathan said immediately.
“Do you promise?”
“No.”
“At least you’re being honest about that.” Her frown suddenly deepened. “They’ll wonder why we’ve been in here so long.” She snatched up the clipboard from the couch and squinted at it. “You’ve got your speech writer in three minutes,” she said. Before she opened the door, she fixed Nathan with another stern glare. “I’m not done with you,” she said. Then she was gone, and Nathan couldn’t help a small smile. Maybe his daughter had a little more Petrelli in her than he’d thought.
****************
At first, Peter wondered if he’d accidentally teleported into the past. Or perhaps into an alternate reality. He recognized Ando first, and he was trying to come up with the name of the other guy, the telepathic cop, when he caught sight of Hiro Nakamura. Hiro had almost cried when he saw Peter, and then pounced on him with an enthusiastic hug.
At that point, everyone else relaxed, including the intense Middle Eastern man who’d had a gun trained on him. It seemed that Hiro’s endorsement was all the others needed to accept Peter.
“It’s destiny,” was the first thing Hiro said to him. “I’ve been waiting for a sign.” Peter was about to ask what exactly that meant, but just then Ando clapped him on the back and gave him a profoundly grateful look, so Peter didn’t dig any deeper.
Since last night, almost every member of the group had talked to Peter, wanting to know who he was, where he’d come from, how he found them. Peter danced around the facts as best he could; he wasn’t ready to advertise the fact that he was the President’s renegade brother. The cop—he’d finally remembered the name Matt Parkman—had watched him for a long time with a look of fierce concentration that made Peter nervous. Finally, Ando had shooed everyone away so Peter could get some sleep.
This morning everyone seemed too busy to bother Peter. Hiro had been issuing orders left and right, and now the apartment bore more than a passing resemblance to a beehive, with pairs and small groups of people working at their own tasks all over the studio.
It felt good to be needed again, to be a part of something bigger. Peter felt more human than he had in a long time, except, perhaps, for when he’d been with Nathan. He couldn’t regret leaving the estate, but those moments when he was with Nathan, when Nathan was with him, in his arms, inside him, on him, he’d felt human then, too. He might feel useful here as he never had with Nathan, but he wasn’t complete, either. It was dangerous to dig too far into thoughts about Nathan, so Peter went in search of some way he could help.
Alai, the man who’d been pointing a gun at him yesterday, had taken Peter under his wing, and was teaching him to mount laser sights on the small arsenal of guns Hiro’s team had assembled. “Like this, see?” Alai said, meticulously lining up a sight with the barrel of a rifle. There was a box of handguns next to the couch, and a pile of rifles on the coffee table. Peter knew nothing about guns, but Alai seemed to know exactly what he was doing.
As Peter admired the graceful way Alai handled the rifle, his attention was drawn to the man’s wrist. Instead of the slave tattoo Peter was expecting, Alai’s wrist bore a black tattoo of a different variety: a snake wrapped around a tree, holding an apple in its mouth.
“That’s nice.” Peter jerked his chin to indicate Alai’s tattoo.
“This?” Alai set the rifle aside for a moment to display his wrist for Peter. “Thanks. We had a girl who was with us for a few months. Great ink artist. She offered to do this so I wouldn’t have to stare at it all the time, having a mark on me that meant I was a slave. Incorporated what was already there into the design.” Alai traced part of the design with his finger, and Peter could see where the godsend symbol fit in.
“What’s it mean?” Peter asked.
“It’s the tree of knowledge,” Alai explained. “Once you have eaten the fruit of the tree, you can never unlearn what you’ve learned.” Peter raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Our powers, Peter. I can’t forget what it was like to have my abilities. They’re a part of me, and being cut off from them… Sometimes it’s unbearable.”
Peter knew exactly what he meant. That was another part of Peter that had fallen back into place since he’d left the estate, but it still wasn’t enough to complete him. “What’s your… You know. What could you do?” Peter asked.
“I could see things far away, if I know what I was looking for. Used to work on my car keys,” Alai explained. “I’d picture them, and then I could see them, and sometimes figure out where they were.”
“Neat,” said Peter. It was certainly a more practical use of an ability than anything he could do with, for instance, radioactivity.
“Yeah,” said Alai. “Neat.” Peter didn’t miss the bitterness in his voice. “I could see locations, too. Say I wanted to know what’s going on at a place I’ve seen before—the bakery around the corner, for instance. I concentrate on it, and I could see what was happening there.” Alai’s smile was rueful. “Useful when I was in the Army. Avoided a few insurgent ambushes that way, until people started to wonder how I knew what I knew.”
“Sorry,” Peter said. He bit his lip right afterwards, knowing how inane it was.
Alai just shrugged. “It’s in the past. Nothing to be done about it now.”
“Hiro was telling me that Mohinder Suresh has been working with you guys,” Peter said carefully. “I thought this antidote of Mohinder’s meant that we could all use our powers again.”
Alai shook his head. “It’s worked for some of us, not for others.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Peter offered.
“Sure.”
Alai clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so Peter didn’t press. Instead, he picked up a rifle from the pile and started to copy what Alai had been doing. “So, this tattoo,” Peter said. “Now there’s no way for anyone to know if you were a slave?”
“I’m not sure,” Alai said thoughtfully. “They could test the ink, maybe. There’s probably records somewhere, although they’re real funny about not releasing slaves’ names. They don’t want anything to link people with their old lives. Maybe there’s records in some office somewhere, but I don’t know.”
“So, without the mark,” Peter mused, “There’s no way to know if a person is a slave.”
Alai shrugged. “I guess not.”
Peter thought of Lonzo and Celia, and was reminded of Celia’s comment about privilege keeping her free. He valiantly tried not to picture Nathan. The thought of Nathan as a slave was sickening, so he turned his attention to his own wrist instead, tracing the familiar curve of the symbol with a finger. Such a small thing to determine the course of a person’s future. “Sneetches,” Peter said suddenly.
Alai looked over his shoulder, and then back at Peter, confusion written on his face. “What are you talking about?”
A germ of an idea was forming in Peter’s mind. “Ever read Doctor Seuss?”
“Never.”
“There’s a story about Sneetches,” Peter said. “Some had stars on their bellies, and they thought they were better.”
Alai stared at him as if he were an alien.
“They start putting stars on and taking stars off, and by the end of the book, no one’s sure who started out as which, so they just all get along together,” Peter explained.
Alai was still staring.
“Never mind,” Peter muttered, setting aside another finished gun. “Just this story my brother read me when I was a kid.”
“Yeah,” Alai said. “Must have missed that part of my childhood.” He set down the rifle he’d been working on, and a slow smile spread over his face. “You’re a pretty faster learner.”
Peter saw that the entire arsenal of guns had now been fitted with laser sights, and there were just as many guns on his side of the table as on Alai’s. “I guess so,” he said. “How they worked, it just sort of made sense.”
“Funny. I have a friend like that,” Alai said thoughtfully. Before Peter could ask who he meant, Alai picked up the pile of rifles. “Shall we get these boxed up?”
********************
Nora tucked her hair behind her ears nervously as she headed to the front parlor. It was never good to be called to a meeting with Mandy. She hoped she wasn’t about to be sold. It wouldn’t surprise her, really, with all the trouble she’d been, spending a week in the hospital. The Petrellis were generally tolerant masters, but no one liked the expense of a sick slave.
At the door, Nora hesitated when she saw that Mandy was already there, along with a stranger. Mandy waved her inside, irritated. “This woman is from the hospital,” Mandy said, indicating a smiling blond woman perched on one of the room’s many couches. “She has some follow-up questions for you. Don’t take too long—the housekeeper said you’ve still got a lot of work to do.” With that, Mandy was gone, leaving Nora alone with the stranger.
“Hello Nora. It’s nice to meet you.” The woman stood and offered her hand, which Nora shook gingerly.
“You’re from the hospital?” Nora asked. No one at the hospital had bothered to shake her hand in the entire week she’d been there.
“No, but I thought it would be a good way to get a chance to talk to you. It’s amazing what a fake ID badge will get you.” The woman’s smile was brilliant, and a little confusing. “Have a seat.”
“What did you say your name was?” Nora asked.
“I didn’t. It’s Elle,” said the woman. “Listen, I know you must have a lot of questions right now, but I want you to know that I’m here to make things better.” She pulled Nora down next to her on the sofa and leaned in conspiratorially. “I help slaves like you.”
Nora shot a glance at the parlor door, but it was shut tight. It was just her and Elle. “What do you mean, like me?” she whispered.
“Slaves who are having problems with their abilities, Nora. Is that what’s happening to you?”
Nora shook her head slowly.
Elle cocked her head to the side, wide-eyed and concerned. “I have a friend at the slave hospital, and he was telling me that you had some really unusual symptoms.”
She sounded so friendly, but Nora didn’t want to say more than she absolutely had to. Elle might seem nice, but that didn’t mean she really wanted to help. This could easily be a test Mandy had set up to catch her in a lie. “Maybe,” Nora said finally.
“I heard Doctor Suresh himself was working on your case.”
“It was no big secret,” Nora muttered. “He has a lab here.”
Elle leaned forward fractionally. “Really? So you know him?”
“Not personally, no,” she said quickly. “He just…” She trailed off, uncertain. Doctor Suresh hadn’t explicitly told her not to discuss his treatment, but it didn’t seem right to talk about it with a stranger.
“I understand if you can’t tell me,” Elle said quickly. “I’m just interested in his research, is all. I have some friends who are in the same field. So, about your symptoms. Are you feeling better?”
“Mostly. I still have… episodes, sometimes.”
Elle cocked her head to the side again, contemplating Nora like a kitten puzzling over a hopping bug. “Do you want to know what I think?” she asked.
“What?”
“I have a theory that what’s happening to you is very, very special. I think that somehow, you’ve gotten your abilities back.” She took Nora’s hand gently, and turned her arm over to expose the tattoo on her wrist. “The Cure they gave you to take away your abilities isn’t working on you anymore, is it?”
Nora’s heart was hammering in her chest so hard she feared Elle could hear it. “I don’t know.”
“If that’s what’s happening, it could be so important to a lot of people,” Elle said, turning on her brilliant smile again. “What do you think would happen if slaves could get their abilities back?”
Nora thought of Jordan, and how happy he’d been to show her his power, back in that hospital room. She thought of him presenting her with a single rose, thought of the softness of rose petals against her skin. “I don’t know,” she said again.
“I told you that we help people like you, Nora. We can make sure you’re safe, and that you won’t hurt yourself, or anyone else,” Elle said. “If you want, we can try to find out what made you regain your abilities. We can even make it stop. What do you think?”
“I don’t know… This is my home.” Nora had been at the Petrelli estate since she first became a slave four years ago. Everyone she knew and everything she cared about was here, but if Mandy decided to sell her, all that would be gone. Nora felt a knot form in her stomach.
“I know you might be frightened right now, but I promise that I understand what you’re going through,” Elle said.
“That’s very kind,” Nora said politely, but Elle’s insistent smile was starting to make her nervous. This woman couldn’t possible understand what it was like to have these frightening abilities, abilities that could hurt her. If Cure wasn’t suppressing her abilities anymore, she might be stuck with them forever.
“These friends of mine, the ones I was telling you about, study the same sort of the things that Doctor Suresh does, but they don’t work for the government,” Elle continued. “They’re not out to hurt people like you… and people like me.” Elle reached a hand over the metal coffee table, and Nora jumped off the couch as blue sparks flowed from Elle’s hand into the table and back.
“That’s impossible.” Nora stared, feeling panic bubble up from deep inside her. “You’re not—?”
“A slave? No. There are some of us who were more fortunate that you, Nora. I understand what it’s like to have an ability. I can help you get control of yours, because if you don’t learn, you might find one day that it’s out of control.”
“No,” Nora whispered. It was too much. She didn’t want to have abilities, and she didn’t want this woman to take her away. The knot in her stomach suddenly became a painful cramp, and Nora felt her breath catch in her throat.
“Are you okay?” Elle laid a hand on Nora’s arm, and Nora felt a painful jolt as a little blue spark jumped between them. “Oops. Sorry!”
Nora stumbled a few steps back, tripping on the edge of the rug and catching herself on the arm of the sofa. The panic was screaming at her to run, but she couldn’t move. Nora gasped for air, and when she looked up, she saw Elle clutching at her throat in confusion, trying to breathe. Her lungs seemed to be working, but she couldn’t get enough air, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
“What are you doing?” Elle whispered. She reached for Nora, but her eyes were wide with shock, and she crumpled to the floor after a few steps.
Nora shook her head in horror. Her ability hadn’t done this before, hadn’t hurt anyone else. She had to get away. Nora pushed herself away from the couch and stumbled to the door. As soon as she was out of the room, her breath came easier, and she started to run. She ran through the staff hallway all the way to the kitchen, where she found Jordan elbows deep in a sink of soapy-water.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw her tear-stained face.
“There’s a woman,” Nora gasped. “She knows. About our abilities. In the front parlor. I think I killed her.”
“Slow down,” Jordan said, hurriedly drying his hands. “What happened?”
“Nora?”
Nora turned to see Elle standing in the kitchen doorway, and backed into Jordan, who grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“That was a bit of excitement.” Elle rubbed a hand over her throat. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Nora nodded. To her surprise, Elle was smiling, a dazzling grin that gave Nora a bad feeling. Elle closed the kitchen door and leaned against it. “That was amazing,” Elle said sincerely. “I think we need to talk.”
********************
Gabriel opened his eyes to the harsh light of his Plexiglas cell. His head was throbbing. “Mohinder?” he called anxiously.
“What?”
The answer came from close by, and Gabriel realized he had heard it, heard Mohinder. Full of irritation though it might be, at that moment Mohinder’s voice was the sweetest thing Gabriel had ever heard.
Gabriel tried to sit up, but was too weak to do more than turn over, able at last to see Mohinder where he sat on the edge of the bed. “What did you do?” he asked.
“Be quiet,” Mohinder said. He was making notations on his clipboard.
Gabriel’s head might feel like it was going to explode, but he could see and hear, and he wasn’t dead, which was more than he had expected. “I feel better,” he told Mohinder.
“Be quiet.” It was almost a growl.
“What did you—?”
Suddenly, Mohinder’s hand was over his mouth, and he was leaning down close to Gabriel’s ear. “If they know you’re feeling better, they’re going to start wondering why,” Mohinder whispered. “So act sick or I will make you sick.” Mohinder pulled his hand away and calmly returned to his note taking.
Gabriel shut his mouth and watched Mohinder work. After another silent minute of comparing the notes on his clipboard with the markings on Gabriel’s IV, his eyes snapped to a point in the lab beyond Gabriel’s vision. He leapt up, closed the cell door, and came back to Gabriel’s side.
“We only have a few minutes until the security guard comes back,” Mohinder said. “So I need to fill you in on the plan. I’m getting you out of here.”
A thousand questions ran through Gabriel’s head, but the one he asked was, “Why?”
“They’ll want to know how I fixed you, and they can’t find out about the antidote,” Mohinder said irritably. “It’s in you now.”
“That’s how you fixed me?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure it would work, since your deterioration was so far advanced…” Mohinder trailed off, looking out into the lab.
“You saved me.”
Mohinder shrugged, as if brushing off a fly.
“I owe you my life.”
Mohinder turned back to Gabriel then, and his eyes were haunted. “I don’t want your life,” Mohinder snarled. Gabriel shrank back from him, and Mohinder shook his head as if to clear it. “Just… We need to get you out of here.”
If Mohinder didn’t want to talk about saving him, they could stick to the practicalities. The scientist in Mohinder always took comfort in the details, Gabriel knew. “What are you planning?” he asked meekly.
“You need to be able to walk by tonight. That’s when there are the fewest guards. I have an escape route planned.” Mohinder went to stand by the door of the cell, seemingly watching for the guard to come back.
“And then where?”
“You don’t need to know,” Mohinder snapped.
Gabriel was silent for a moment, but when Mohinder reached for the door handle, he asked, “Why are you helping me escape?”
Mohinder paused, hand on the door, and he didn’t look back at Gabriel. “I’m still not sure I made the right choice,” he said softly.
That shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Gabriel had hoped Mohinder believed his life was worth saving, but if he did, Mohinder obviously wasn’t ready to admit it. “And helping me escape will make it right?” Gabriel asked. Mohinder’s shoulders tensed, and Gabriel suddenly wished for Matt Parkman’s power so he would have a clue as to what was going on in Mohinder’s head.
When Mohinder spoke, it was almost too low for Gabriel to hear. “If I keep an eye on you, I’ll know I didn’t save you just to let you kill again.”
Gabriel reviewed their previous conversation in his head, but he was still confused. “What do you mean keep an eye on me?”
“I’m coming with you,” Mohinder said.
Gabriel tried to sit up and failed, but managed to pull himself into a roughly upright position against the wall. He’d met Alicia Madden, and if that was who Mohinder was about to double-cross, he couldn’t let him do it. “Mohinder, it’s too dangerous.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Mohinder punched in the code to open the cell door.
“I don’t want you risking your life to get me out,” Gabriel said quickly. “You’ve risked enough. You can leave me here and run. Get yourself away from here. My powers will be back in a few days, right? I can get out then.”
“I don’t think so.” Mohinder’s voice had a sharp edge to it, and Gabriel couldn’t tell if it was from fear or anger.
“Mohinder—.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Mohinder shouted, and Gabriel could see he was dangerous, like this. He saw, before, how much it hurt Mohinder to feel sorry for him. He could only imagine how Mohinder felt now that he’d taken action to save a murderer. “I let you live, so I’m responsible,” he said. Gabriel could read the message behind Mohinder’s eyes, screaming at him, begging him: Prove to me that you’re worth saving. Prove me right.
“All right,” Gabriel said gently. “I’ll be ready by tonight.”
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
Author name:
brighteyed_jillCharacters: Ensemble, Peter/Nathan. Other slashiness if you squint.
Rating: PG-13 this chapter
Word Count: 5500
Warnings: Violence, angst, adult situations, slash.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 1. Another Season 2 character makes an appearance today. No plot spoilers for Season 2, so if you know who Elle is, you’re good to go.
Summary: Nathan deals with his errant daughter, Nora receives a shocking visitor, Peter learns about guns and Dr. Seuss, and Mohinder deals with the consequences of his decision.
Author’s note: The lovely
redandglenda did beta duty as usual. Remaining mistakes are mine, all mine. And if you’re just joining us:
Love’s the Burning Boy
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five -- Chapter 5.5
Nathan was getting a headache. His Chief of Staff, Alan Ginsberg was having a shouting match with George Bailer, the Press Secretary. Nathan was sitting—not cowering, he told himself, just sitting—behind his desk in the Oval Office, counting to ten.
“It’s none of the press’s business what Homeland Security does with detainees!” Ginsberg shouted.
“They want to see someone punished for what happened,” Bailer shot back. His face was turning an unusual shade of purple. “Is that so wrong?”
“If it interferes with the normal operation of Homeland Securities duties, then yes.”
“Well if Homeland Security was doing its job in the first place—.”
Nathan cleared his throat loudly, and Bailer paused, turning in tandem with Ginsberg to look at him.
“Does this discussion really involve me?” Nathan asked.
Bailer must have caught the icy edge on his voice, because he shut his mouth in mid-rant. “Sorry, Mister President. We just need to make some sort of a policy decision before tonight’s press conference.”
“And why isn’t Secretary Madden here to give me her side of this issue?” Nathan asked.
“She’s out of town,” Ginsberg said grudgingly. “An important business trip. And besides, Mister President, this isn’t really about Homeland Security. It’s about your image. Your approval rating—.”
“I know it’s bad, Alan, you don’t have to remind me.” He turned his glare onto George Bailer. “Let me see if I understand your point. You’re saying that if we don’t show some progress on finding President Devlin’s assassin, people are going to start taking matters into their own hands?”
“Yes, Mister President,” Bailer said stiffly.
Nathan turned to Ginsberg. “And you’re saying that we can’t make an example of any current detainees because that would make us look incompetent?”
“Yes, Mister President.”
“Therefore…?” The two men looked at each other, but neither was willing to offer a solution. An idea flickered into existence, and Nathan wondered briefly if this plan, like so many others of late, had sprung from his inescapable pre-occupation with a certain missing brother. Nathan shoved that concern to the side for the moment, quickly examining the idea for flaws before giving an imperious nod. “All right. Alan, get this back to Secretary Madden. I want arrests. Every terrorist cell they’ve been watching, every suspected person with an ability, everyone on any list that hasn’t been brought in yet for any reason, bring them all in. Do it big, do it fast, and make sure the press sees it. Can you manage that?”
“Yes Mister President,” both men said together. Neither of them made any objection, which must mean that it was a reasonable enough plan, but an excited voice in Nathan’s head wished that one fugitive in particular would be picked up. Nathan wouldn’t mind pulling whatever strings it took to get Peter back from Homeland Security; that would be better than not knowing where he was. Ginsberg and Bailer were watching him expectantly, and Nathan forced himself to shut off further thoughts of Peter. “Is there anything else?” he asked impatiently.
Bailer went for the door, but Ginsberg hesitated. “I wanted to brief you on a few new developments before you meet with your speech writer.”
“I’m meeting with my speech writer?”
“There was a change in the schedule. I meant to tell you—,” Ginsberg began.
“It can wait, Alan,” Nathan said wearily. “This new operation is our top priority. Get someone else to tell me what the meeting is about, and you go deal with this.” If Nathan was lucky, maybe he could get a few moments alone.
As Ginsberg left, Nathan heard him in the outer office. “Claire, get the President up-to-date on the schedule, please.”
Claire. Wonderful. Nathan had been both dreading and anticipating this moment. Claire gave a polite, “My pleasure, sir,” to the departing Ginsberg, while Nathan settled himself in front of his desk, steeling himself for a fight. He wasn’t scared of Claire, he told himself. It didn’t matter that she had a whole arsenal of emotional weapons to use against him. It didn’t matter that she had the moral high ground. Being in the wrong had never bothered Nathan before. It shouldn’t bother him now that it was Peter he’d been wrong about. It shouldn’t, but it did.
Claire brought a clipboard with her into the Oval Office, but the minute the door was closed, she tossed it aside, along with her mask of professional cheeriness. “Hi Dad,” she said.
“Claire, what are you even doing here?” It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but he was finding it difficult to maintain his detached arrogance under Claire’s icy gaze.
“I work here,” she said.
“I noticed that. Why?”
“Why?” She plopped down on one of the office’s couches, showing all the confidence—the irritating confidence—that Nathan remembered. “Well, for starters, it will look excellent on my resume.”
“Cute,” Nathan growled. “Does your father know you’re here?”
Claire narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know. Does he?”
“Bennet.” Nathan would not lose his temper. He was the adult—hell, he was the president. “Does Bennet know you’re here?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes, but yes, my dad knows where I work.” Claire seemed almost amused. “He comes down from his office on Tuesdays so we can have lunch together.”
“So you’re spying on me.” It wasn’t really a question.
“Not everything’s about you, Mister President,” she said, and Nathan was disturbed to see a piece of himself in her faux-innocent smile. “I’m just an administrative assistant.”
“Who happens to work in the President’s office.”
“I know how to keep a secret. I don’t pass on what I hear,” she said, eyes narrow with sincerity. “But that doesn’t stop me from being curious.”
“Nothing ever does,” Nathan muttered.
“Where’s Peter?” she asked suddenly.
Nathan found himself relaxing a fraction. This was the landmine they’d been dancing around, and Claire had touched it first. That gave him the upper hand. “Why do you care?”
“He’s my favorite blood relation.”
“Right.” Of course he was. Everybody loved Peter. “I don’t know where he is.”
“I saw you sell him out on national television, you know,” she said. Her posture on the couch still seemed casual, but there was hurt in her voice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan told her. Let Claire wallow in that guilt, if she wanted. Nathan would simply refuse to let her drag him in.
“Don’t I? Three years later and it still pisses me off.”
Nathan couldn’t help a harsh response. “I think you should stay away from things you don’t understand, Claire,” he said. Peter’s arrest was a wound that didn’t need any salt, especially today.
“I don’t understand?” Claire’s voice was dangerously calm. It almost made Nathan proud. In a flash, Claire was off the couch and coming toward him. Nathan held his ground while she grabbed his arm. She’d already undone the buttons on his cuff and pushed up his jacket sleeve before he realized what she was doing.
“Claire,” he said warningly.
She held out her right arm next to his, her skin seeming paler next to Nathan’s tan wrist. “Is something missing?” Claire asked. “A lot of people I used to know seem to have a certain mark that you and I don’t have.”
“Are you complaining?” Nathan asked. He jerked his sleeve back down and turned his attention to buttoning the cuff of his shirt. He didn’t want to think of the mark Peter bore, the ink stark and ugly on a wrist that delicate. “If you want a tattoo so badly, I’m sure Noah will—.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this,” Claire interrupted him. “I may not have a mark on me, but I’m a slave. My whole life is one big, self-serving lie. I could be arrested anytime.”
“You won’t be arrested, Claire,” Nathan snapped. “You’ve got Bennet looking out for you.”
“That’s not the point. If it weren’t for what you did, we wouldn’t have to hide.”
“This is my fault?” Nathan asked, relaxing into the comfort of indignation. It was easier now that they were talking in broad terms, in theories. Right now, Nathan needed some distance from the bleeding pain of his mistakes with Peter.
“You did this,” Claire said. “You made everyone afraid of us.”
“It was going to happen anyway.” Nathan retreated behind his desk. Facing Claire from behind the barrier of his office helped him recapture his confidence. “I made sure it happened on my terms.”
“On your terms? What good has that done?” Claire leaned menacingly across the desk. “Who have you saved with your terms, Dad? Not me, not Peter. Yourself, maybe?”
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for…” For Peter, he wanted to say. “For my family.”
Claire seemed to have heard what he didn’t say. “Where is Peter?” she asked softly.
Nathan sat, turning his desk chair away so he didn’t have to look at Claire. “I have no idea.” That was the truth at least.
“You’ve seen him?” She seemed to have let out all her anger, and latched on to the one thing they had in common: caring about Peter.
“What if I had?” Nathan asked. He meant it to sound disinterested, but he knew it fell short.
“You were talking about him with that woman the other day. I know you were.” She came around to Nathan’s side of the desk and stood behind him. “You know something.”
“I know lots of things, Claire.” Too many things. Even as he said it, he tried not to recall what he’d been realizing since he found Peter: things were not okay. Peter was hurt, Peter was broken. Now Peter was gone again, and it was his fault for letting it happen.
“Is he alive, at least?” She was so genuinely concerned. His breath caught in his throat as he was suddenly, intensely reminded of the awful feeling of not knowing whether Peter was alive or dead. Claire didn’t deserve that.
“He was a few days ago,” Nathan muttered.
Claire’s face lit up, and she closed the distance between them to grab his hand. “You have seen him?”
Nathan found himself nodding. “Yeah.”
“When? How? Where is he now?” Claire asked excitedly.
Seeing her so excited was like a punch in the gut. The relief he’d felt at the slave auction, when he’d finally held Peter in his arms after looking for so long turned to ashes when Mandy broke the news that Peter was gone. Stupid, stupid to lose him again, to drive him away. “I don’t know,” Nathan said thickly.
To her credit, Claire seemed to take more from his words than he’d actually said, and backed off. “Can you at least tell me when you hear from him?”
“Sure,” Nathan said immediately.
“Do you promise?”
“No.”
“At least you’re being honest about that.” Her frown suddenly deepened. “They’ll wonder why we’ve been in here so long.” She snatched up the clipboard from the couch and squinted at it. “You’ve got your speech writer in three minutes,” she said. Before she opened the door, she fixed Nathan with another stern glare. “I’m not done with you,” she said. Then she was gone, and Nathan couldn’t help a small smile. Maybe his daughter had a little more Petrelli in her than he’d thought.
****************
At first, Peter wondered if he’d accidentally teleported into the past. Or perhaps into an alternate reality. He recognized Ando first, and he was trying to come up with the name of the other guy, the telepathic cop, when he caught sight of Hiro Nakamura. Hiro had almost cried when he saw Peter, and then pounced on him with an enthusiastic hug.
At that point, everyone else relaxed, including the intense Middle Eastern man who’d had a gun trained on him. It seemed that Hiro’s endorsement was all the others needed to accept Peter.
“It’s destiny,” was the first thing Hiro said to him. “I’ve been waiting for a sign.” Peter was about to ask what exactly that meant, but just then Ando clapped him on the back and gave him a profoundly grateful look, so Peter didn’t dig any deeper.
Since last night, almost every member of the group had talked to Peter, wanting to know who he was, where he’d come from, how he found them. Peter danced around the facts as best he could; he wasn’t ready to advertise the fact that he was the President’s renegade brother. The cop—he’d finally remembered the name Matt Parkman—had watched him for a long time with a look of fierce concentration that made Peter nervous. Finally, Ando had shooed everyone away so Peter could get some sleep.
This morning everyone seemed too busy to bother Peter. Hiro had been issuing orders left and right, and now the apartment bore more than a passing resemblance to a beehive, with pairs and small groups of people working at their own tasks all over the studio.
It felt good to be needed again, to be a part of something bigger. Peter felt more human than he had in a long time, except, perhaps, for when he’d been with Nathan. He couldn’t regret leaving the estate, but those moments when he was with Nathan, when Nathan was with him, in his arms, inside him, on him, he’d felt human then, too. He might feel useful here as he never had with Nathan, but he wasn’t complete, either. It was dangerous to dig too far into thoughts about Nathan, so Peter went in search of some way he could help.
Alai, the man who’d been pointing a gun at him yesterday, had taken Peter under his wing, and was teaching him to mount laser sights on the small arsenal of guns Hiro’s team had assembled. “Like this, see?” Alai said, meticulously lining up a sight with the barrel of a rifle. There was a box of handguns next to the couch, and a pile of rifles on the coffee table. Peter knew nothing about guns, but Alai seemed to know exactly what he was doing.
As Peter admired the graceful way Alai handled the rifle, his attention was drawn to the man’s wrist. Instead of the slave tattoo Peter was expecting, Alai’s wrist bore a black tattoo of a different variety: a snake wrapped around a tree, holding an apple in its mouth.
“That’s nice.” Peter jerked his chin to indicate Alai’s tattoo.
“This?” Alai set the rifle aside for a moment to display his wrist for Peter. “Thanks. We had a girl who was with us for a few months. Great ink artist. She offered to do this so I wouldn’t have to stare at it all the time, having a mark on me that meant I was a slave. Incorporated what was already there into the design.” Alai traced part of the design with his finger, and Peter could see where the godsend symbol fit in.
“What’s it mean?” Peter asked.
“It’s the tree of knowledge,” Alai explained. “Once you have eaten the fruit of the tree, you can never unlearn what you’ve learned.” Peter raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “Our powers, Peter. I can’t forget what it was like to have my abilities. They’re a part of me, and being cut off from them… Sometimes it’s unbearable.”
Peter knew exactly what he meant. That was another part of Peter that had fallen back into place since he’d left the estate, but it still wasn’t enough to complete him. “What’s your… You know. What could you do?” Peter asked.
“I could see things far away, if I know what I was looking for. Used to work on my car keys,” Alai explained. “I’d picture them, and then I could see them, and sometimes figure out where they were.”
“Neat,” said Peter. It was certainly a more practical use of an ability than anything he could do with, for instance, radioactivity.
“Yeah,” said Alai. “Neat.” Peter didn’t miss the bitterness in his voice. “I could see locations, too. Say I wanted to know what’s going on at a place I’ve seen before—the bakery around the corner, for instance. I concentrate on it, and I could see what was happening there.” Alai’s smile was rueful. “Useful when I was in the Army. Avoided a few insurgent ambushes that way, until people started to wonder how I knew what I knew.”
“Sorry,” Peter said. He bit his lip right afterwards, knowing how inane it was.
Alai just shrugged. “It’s in the past. Nothing to be done about it now.”
“Hiro was telling me that Mohinder Suresh has been working with you guys,” Peter said carefully. “I thought this antidote of Mohinder’s meant that we could all use our powers again.”
Alai shook his head. “It’s worked for some of us, not for others.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Peter offered.
“Sure.”
Alai clearly didn’t want to talk about it, so Peter didn’t press. Instead, he picked up a rifle from the pile and started to copy what Alai had been doing. “So, this tattoo,” Peter said. “Now there’s no way for anyone to know if you were a slave?”
“I’m not sure,” Alai said thoughtfully. “They could test the ink, maybe. There’s probably records somewhere, although they’re real funny about not releasing slaves’ names. They don’t want anything to link people with their old lives. Maybe there’s records in some office somewhere, but I don’t know.”
“So, without the mark,” Peter mused, “There’s no way to know if a person is a slave.”
Alai shrugged. “I guess not.”
Peter thought of Lonzo and Celia, and was reminded of Celia’s comment about privilege keeping her free. He valiantly tried not to picture Nathan. The thought of Nathan as a slave was sickening, so he turned his attention to his own wrist instead, tracing the familiar curve of the symbol with a finger. Such a small thing to determine the course of a person’s future. “Sneetches,” Peter said suddenly.
Alai looked over his shoulder, and then back at Peter, confusion written on his face. “What are you talking about?”
A germ of an idea was forming in Peter’s mind. “Ever read Doctor Seuss?”
“Never.”
“There’s a story about Sneetches,” Peter said. “Some had stars on their bellies, and they thought they were better.”
Alai stared at him as if he were an alien.
“They start putting stars on and taking stars off, and by the end of the book, no one’s sure who started out as which, so they just all get along together,” Peter explained.
Alai was still staring.
“Never mind,” Peter muttered, setting aside another finished gun. “Just this story my brother read me when I was a kid.”
“Yeah,” Alai said. “Must have missed that part of my childhood.” He set down the rifle he’d been working on, and a slow smile spread over his face. “You’re a pretty faster learner.”
Peter saw that the entire arsenal of guns had now been fitted with laser sights, and there were just as many guns on his side of the table as on Alai’s. “I guess so,” he said. “How they worked, it just sort of made sense.”
“Funny. I have a friend like that,” Alai said thoughtfully. Before Peter could ask who he meant, Alai picked up the pile of rifles. “Shall we get these boxed up?”
********************
Nora tucked her hair behind her ears nervously as she headed to the front parlor. It was never good to be called to a meeting with Mandy. She hoped she wasn’t about to be sold. It wouldn’t surprise her, really, with all the trouble she’d been, spending a week in the hospital. The Petrellis were generally tolerant masters, but no one liked the expense of a sick slave.
At the door, Nora hesitated when she saw that Mandy was already there, along with a stranger. Mandy waved her inside, irritated. “This woman is from the hospital,” Mandy said, indicating a smiling blond woman perched on one of the room’s many couches. “She has some follow-up questions for you. Don’t take too long—the housekeeper said you’ve still got a lot of work to do.” With that, Mandy was gone, leaving Nora alone with the stranger.
“Hello Nora. It’s nice to meet you.” The woman stood and offered her hand, which Nora shook gingerly.
“You’re from the hospital?” Nora asked. No one at the hospital had bothered to shake her hand in the entire week she’d been there.
“No, but I thought it would be a good way to get a chance to talk to you. It’s amazing what a fake ID badge will get you.” The woman’s smile was brilliant, and a little confusing. “Have a seat.”
“What did you say your name was?” Nora asked.
“I didn’t. It’s Elle,” said the woman. “Listen, I know you must have a lot of questions right now, but I want you to know that I’m here to make things better.” She pulled Nora down next to her on the sofa and leaned in conspiratorially. “I help slaves like you.”
Nora shot a glance at the parlor door, but it was shut tight. It was just her and Elle. “What do you mean, like me?” she whispered.
“Slaves who are having problems with their abilities, Nora. Is that what’s happening to you?”
Nora shook her head slowly.
Elle cocked her head to the side, wide-eyed and concerned. “I have a friend at the slave hospital, and he was telling me that you had some really unusual symptoms.”
She sounded so friendly, but Nora didn’t want to say more than she absolutely had to. Elle might seem nice, but that didn’t mean she really wanted to help. This could easily be a test Mandy had set up to catch her in a lie. “Maybe,” Nora said finally.
“I heard Doctor Suresh himself was working on your case.”
“It was no big secret,” Nora muttered. “He has a lab here.”
Elle leaned forward fractionally. “Really? So you know him?”
“Not personally, no,” she said quickly. “He just…” She trailed off, uncertain. Doctor Suresh hadn’t explicitly told her not to discuss his treatment, but it didn’t seem right to talk about it with a stranger.
“I understand if you can’t tell me,” Elle said quickly. “I’m just interested in his research, is all. I have some friends who are in the same field. So, about your symptoms. Are you feeling better?”
“Mostly. I still have… episodes, sometimes.”
Elle cocked her head to the side again, contemplating Nora like a kitten puzzling over a hopping bug. “Do you want to know what I think?” she asked.
“What?”
“I have a theory that what’s happening to you is very, very special. I think that somehow, you’ve gotten your abilities back.” She took Nora’s hand gently, and turned her arm over to expose the tattoo on her wrist. “The Cure they gave you to take away your abilities isn’t working on you anymore, is it?”
Nora’s heart was hammering in her chest so hard she feared Elle could hear it. “I don’t know.”
“If that’s what’s happening, it could be so important to a lot of people,” Elle said, turning on her brilliant smile again. “What do you think would happen if slaves could get their abilities back?”
Nora thought of Jordan, and how happy he’d been to show her his power, back in that hospital room. She thought of him presenting her with a single rose, thought of the softness of rose petals against her skin. “I don’t know,” she said again.
“I told you that we help people like you, Nora. We can make sure you’re safe, and that you won’t hurt yourself, or anyone else,” Elle said. “If you want, we can try to find out what made you regain your abilities. We can even make it stop. What do you think?”
“I don’t know… This is my home.” Nora had been at the Petrelli estate since she first became a slave four years ago. Everyone she knew and everything she cared about was here, but if Mandy decided to sell her, all that would be gone. Nora felt a knot form in her stomach.
“I know you might be frightened right now, but I promise that I understand what you’re going through,” Elle said.
“That’s very kind,” Nora said politely, but Elle’s insistent smile was starting to make her nervous. This woman couldn’t possible understand what it was like to have these frightening abilities, abilities that could hurt her. If Cure wasn’t suppressing her abilities anymore, she might be stuck with them forever.
“These friends of mine, the ones I was telling you about, study the same sort of the things that Doctor Suresh does, but they don’t work for the government,” Elle continued. “They’re not out to hurt people like you… and people like me.” Elle reached a hand over the metal coffee table, and Nora jumped off the couch as blue sparks flowed from Elle’s hand into the table and back.
“That’s impossible.” Nora stared, feeling panic bubble up from deep inside her. “You’re not—?”
“A slave? No. There are some of us who were more fortunate that you, Nora. I understand what it’s like to have an ability. I can help you get control of yours, because if you don’t learn, you might find one day that it’s out of control.”
“No,” Nora whispered. It was too much. She didn’t want to have abilities, and she didn’t want this woman to take her away. The knot in her stomach suddenly became a painful cramp, and Nora felt her breath catch in her throat.
“Are you okay?” Elle laid a hand on Nora’s arm, and Nora felt a painful jolt as a little blue spark jumped between them. “Oops. Sorry!”
Nora stumbled a few steps back, tripping on the edge of the rug and catching herself on the arm of the sofa. The panic was screaming at her to run, but she couldn’t move. Nora gasped for air, and when she looked up, she saw Elle clutching at her throat in confusion, trying to breathe. Her lungs seemed to be working, but she couldn’t get enough air, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
“What are you doing?” Elle whispered. She reached for Nora, but her eyes were wide with shock, and she crumpled to the floor after a few steps.
Nora shook her head in horror. Her ability hadn’t done this before, hadn’t hurt anyone else. She had to get away. Nora pushed herself away from the couch and stumbled to the door. As soon as she was out of the room, her breath came easier, and she started to run. She ran through the staff hallway all the way to the kitchen, where she found Jordan elbows deep in a sink of soapy-water.
“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw her tear-stained face.
“There’s a woman,” Nora gasped. “She knows. About our abilities. In the front parlor. I think I killed her.”
“Slow down,” Jordan said, hurriedly drying his hands. “What happened?”
“Nora?”
Nora turned to see Elle standing in the kitchen doorway, and backed into Jordan, who grabbed her shoulders to steady her.
“That was a bit of excitement.” Elle rubbed a hand over her throat. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Nora nodded. To her surprise, Elle was smiling, a dazzling grin that gave Nora a bad feeling. Elle closed the kitchen door and leaned against it. “That was amazing,” Elle said sincerely. “I think we need to talk.”
********************
Gabriel opened his eyes to the harsh light of his Plexiglas cell. His head was throbbing. “Mohinder?” he called anxiously.
“What?”
The answer came from close by, and Gabriel realized he had heard it, heard Mohinder. Full of irritation though it might be, at that moment Mohinder’s voice was the sweetest thing Gabriel had ever heard.
Gabriel tried to sit up, but was too weak to do more than turn over, able at last to see Mohinder where he sat on the edge of the bed. “What did you do?” he asked.
“Be quiet,” Mohinder said. He was making notations on his clipboard.
Gabriel’s head might feel like it was going to explode, but he could see and hear, and he wasn’t dead, which was more than he had expected. “I feel better,” he told Mohinder.
“Be quiet.” It was almost a growl.
“What did you—?”
Suddenly, Mohinder’s hand was over his mouth, and he was leaning down close to Gabriel’s ear. “If they know you’re feeling better, they’re going to start wondering why,” Mohinder whispered. “So act sick or I will make you sick.” Mohinder pulled his hand away and calmly returned to his note taking.
Gabriel shut his mouth and watched Mohinder work. After another silent minute of comparing the notes on his clipboard with the markings on Gabriel’s IV, his eyes snapped to a point in the lab beyond Gabriel’s vision. He leapt up, closed the cell door, and came back to Gabriel’s side.
“We only have a few minutes until the security guard comes back,” Mohinder said. “So I need to fill you in on the plan. I’m getting you out of here.”
A thousand questions ran through Gabriel’s head, but the one he asked was, “Why?”
“They’ll want to know how I fixed you, and they can’t find out about the antidote,” Mohinder said irritably. “It’s in you now.”
“That’s how you fixed me?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes. I wasn’t sure it would work, since your deterioration was so far advanced…” Mohinder trailed off, looking out into the lab.
“You saved me.”
Mohinder shrugged, as if brushing off a fly.
“I owe you my life.”
Mohinder turned back to Gabriel then, and his eyes were haunted. “I don’t want your life,” Mohinder snarled. Gabriel shrank back from him, and Mohinder shook his head as if to clear it. “Just… We need to get you out of here.”
If Mohinder didn’t want to talk about saving him, they could stick to the practicalities. The scientist in Mohinder always took comfort in the details, Gabriel knew. “What are you planning?” he asked meekly.
“You need to be able to walk by tonight. That’s when there are the fewest guards. I have an escape route planned.” Mohinder went to stand by the door of the cell, seemingly watching for the guard to come back.
“And then where?”
“You don’t need to know,” Mohinder snapped.
Gabriel was silent for a moment, but when Mohinder reached for the door handle, he asked, “Why are you helping me escape?”
Mohinder paused, hand on the door, and he didn’t look back at Gabriel. “I’m still not sure I made the right choice,” he said softly.
That shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Gabriel had hoped Mohinder believed his life was worth saving, but if he did, Mohinder obviously wasn’t ready to admit it. “And helping me escape will make it right?” Gabriel asked. Mohinder’s shoulders tensed, and Gabriel suddenly wished for Matt Parkman’s power so he would have a clue as to what was going on in Mohinder’s head.
When Mohinder spoke, it was almost too low for Gabriel to hear. “If I keep an eye on you, I’ll know I didn’t save you just to let you kill again.”
Gabriel reviewed their previous conversation in his head, but he was still confused. “What do you mean keep an eye on me?”
“I’m coming with you,” Mohinder said.
Gabriel tried to sit up and failed, but managed to pull himself into a roughly upright position against the wall. He’d met Alicia Madden, and if that was who Mohinder was about to double-cross, he couldn’t let him do it. “Mohinder, it’s too dangerous.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Mohinder punched in the code to open the cell door.
“I don’t want you risking your life to get me out,” Gabriel said quickly. “You’ve risked enough. You can leave me here and run. Get yourself away from here. My powers will be back in a few days, right? I can get out then.”
“I don’t think so.” Mohinder’s voice had a sharp edge to it, and Gabriel couldn’t tell if it was from fear or anger.
“Mohinder—.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Mohinder shouted, and Gabriel could see he was dangerous, like this. He saw, before, how much it hurt Mohinder to feel sorry for him. He could only imagine how Mohinder felt now that he’d taken action to save a murderer. “I let you live, so I’m responsible,” he said. Gabriel could read the message behind Mohinder’s eyes, screaming at him, begging him: Prove to me that you’re worth saving. Prove me right.
“All right,” Gabriel said gently. “I’ll be ready by tonight.”
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*g*
Date: 2007-11-17 09:50 pm (UTC)I have no word to describe how glad I am to read it!!! That's just brilliant!
(And yeeeeees Sylar is alive *hug you!*)
Re: *g*
Date: 2007-11-17 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-17 10:26 pm (UTC)I cannot wait for your next update to this series! Good luck.
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Date: 2007-11-18 01:49 am (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the series. Next chapter should be up next weekend, probably Saturday or Sunday depending on how Thanksgiving pans out for me.
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Date: 2007-11-17 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 09:49 am (UTC)Sorry I didn't get the revised version back in time, I haven't been around a computer all day because of urgent care trips, etc. Belgh.
Excellent work darling!
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Date: 2007-11-18 06:38 pm (UTC)Urgent care?! I thought the fam was on its way out of the woods! Well, I hope things are less hectic today.
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Date: 2007-11-18 08:41 pm (UTC)I agree! Teamwork rocks! :)
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Date: 2007-11-19 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 03:08 pm (UTC)Wonderful chapter once again :)
I love how excited Hiro got at seeing Peter.
And SYLAR and MOHINDER<333.
Gah, I can't wait.
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Date: 2007-11-18 05:02 pm (UTC)loved it!
everything i thought was amazing has already been mentioned, but did i see a posibilit htat peter may have met monica? the guns and all....or am i reading a lot into it......
cant wait for the next chap
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Date: 2007-11-18 05:04 pm (UTC)chimp
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Date: 2007-11-18 06:46 pm (UTC)As to Peter's quick-ness with the guns... I love that my reviewers always pick up on little clues like that! While Monica does have a kick-ass power, we know for sure that Peter's been around someone else who has a knowledge of how things work, too...
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Date: 2007-11-18 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-18 06:50 pm (UTC)Keep those Sneetches in mind, because they may very well be important later. It's fun to throw in some Season Two characters now that we've got awesome people to play with, and Elle is just the Princess of Creepiness... Tune in next week to see if Mo and Gabe can make it out of Homeland Security!
As always, thanks for reviewing. Detailed comments are love <3!
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Date: 2007-11-18 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 02:12 am (UTC)I love the incorporation of the new season. :] And I LOOOOOOOVE, of course, the teeny bit of Mo/Sy interaction, and the promise of lots more Mo/Sy interaction to come. Can't wait for the next chapter!
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Date: 2007-11-19 02:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 10:17 pm (UTC)( And I mean that in all possible interpretations. ;] )
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Date: 2007-11-19 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-19 10:00 pm (UTC)Ah, this update made my day. I love that you used the Sneeches reference. I was in Forensics last year and some girl read that story. Good times....
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Date: 2007-11-19 10:19 pm (UTC)