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brighteyedjillIt's Friday, and we all know what that means! Now that I've unlocked it, all you over-13-year-olds can read it.
Title: In the Forests of the Night – Chapter Eight (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: R this chapter (for violence, kids)
Word Count: 6100
Warnings: Violence, angst, adult situations, slash.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 1. No Season 2 characters this chapter.
Summary: Gabriel builds a tentative alliance with an old nemesis, Bennet chases a killer, and Nathan reaches out.
Author’s note:redandglenda beta’d. Remaining mistakes are mine.
And if you’re just joining us:
Love’s the Burning Boy
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five
Intermission -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven
The water was hot, almost scalding, but Sylar kept his hands under the flow anyway. It didn’t matter as long as he could get the blood off.
This kill had been easy—the girl hadn’t put up much of a fight—but it was a different power that was gnawing at him now. A priest in Boston had given him unwanted glimpses into the minds and memories of others, and that ability was now compounding the problems he’d been having for weeks.
Drawings of Mohinder, scrawled on papers ripped from a sketch pad, littered the floor of the bathroom. Sylar kicked at them, sending several flying. His eyes lit on one drawing, fluttering to a landing next to the base of the sink: a close-up of Mohinder’s face, eyes wide in terror, a thin line of blood dripping down his forehead.
Sylar growled, snatching up the drawing and crumpling it. The fear in those eyes was too like the fear of the girl he’d just killed. It was too close this time; the priest’s power had put him in her fear. It wasn’t merely reading thoughts, not like the cop in New York, the one that had escaped him. No, he’d felt her terror, seen the event from her eyes, experienced the fear he’d inspired. Once, that might have made him proud. Now, with the drawings of Mohinder staring up at him, it only made him feel sick. It was hard not to imagine the same panic behind Mohinder’s eyes, terror and despair in brown eyes that should hold warmth and intelligence.
Damn Isaac Mendez. A new ability wasn’t meant to be a weakness. It was meant to make him stronger, make him the pinnacle of his kind. Instead, it made him fear for the future. What he’d done to this girl tonight he was going to do to Mohinder Suresh, and for what? He was not insane, he was special. He was doing all this for good reason, and killing Mohinder was not part of that plan.
Again the sharp pain of the girl’s memory assaulted him, her unreasoning panic when she realized what Sylar was going to do. Would Mohinder scream like that? Would he be so afraid? Or would he go quietly? Mohinder’s frightened eyes stared up at him from a dozen sketches in silent answer.
“Leave me alone!” he told the Mohinder drawings, and thrust his hands back under the scalding water.
Gabriel sat up in bed. He’d been having that nightmare again, the same bad memories resurfacing, worrying at him, but this time something had woken him up. His heightened hearing was coming back, he knew, because he could hear everyone in the house breathing, mostly the deep and even breath of sleep. Even two days later, they were all still exhausted from the ordeal of making it to this safe haven. Somewhere in the house, though, someone else must be having bad dreams. Gabriel got out of bed, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold floor. He’d just go find out who was making noise, that was all. Then he’d come back to bed.
He knew after only a few steps beyond his own door that it was Peter. Even in sleepy murmurs Gabriel could identify his voice. He stood outside the door of Peter’s bedroom, listening. He was muttering something too garbled for even Gabriel to make out. And he was getting louder. Gabriel pushed open the door. Peter was shivering on the bed, sweat glistening on his face in the moonlight from the window. Gabriel watched him for a moment, hovering indecisively between going in and fleeing back to his room.
Now Peter was almost shouting. In a few more minutes, he’d wake up everyone in the house. “Peter,” Gabriel called tentatively from the doorway. This was a bad idea. Peter continued to toss and turn. “Wake up,” he said, a little louder. Peter clutched at the sheets, nearly tearing them apart in the throes of whatever nightmare he was having. The room gave a little shudder, like a mini earthquake. Peter had better not TK the house down. “Wake up,” Gabriel said, taking a few steps closer to the bed. Still, Peter didn’t hear him. Gabriel closed the rest of the distance to the bed. “Peter, wake up!” He gingerly put a hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder.
Peter gave a sharp yell, and Gabriel found himself being thrown against the wall. Unable to catch himself with his powers still not working correctly, he slammed into the unforgiving wall and slid down to the floor, hard. Now Peter was sitting up in bed, finally awake, and staring at him. Gabriel returned the stare sheepishly.
“I shouldn’t have surprised you,” he said softly. “Sorry. I just thought you might want to wake up.”
Peter threw the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed, clad in sweatpants that had come from somewhere in the house’s supply of mothballed clothes. “It was just a nightmare,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you?”
Putting his hand to the back of his head, Gabriel felt the wet stickiness of blood. He winced. “It serves me right for coming in here. I just didn’t want everyone else to wake up.”
Peter saw the blood on Gabriel’s hand, and in a moment he was kneeling beside him, examining the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to throw you that hard,” he said. “I guess I don’t have much control over that one.”
“You should be able to…” Gabriel began, but stumbled to a halt. It seemed strange to discuss his abilities, especially with Peter. He’d taught himself to use all of his powers as he acquired them, but he’d never had the opportunity or the desire to discuss theory with anyone, even if they would have understood. But here was Peter, who could do everything Gabriel could and more. Before, when he’d talked Peter through creating an electromagnetic pulse, it had been almost therapeutic. Teaching Peter helped Gabriel look at him a different way: not as a nemesis, anymore, but as a friend. It wasn’t likely that Peter shared that sentiment, however, so Gabriel held his peace and concentrated on pressing his hand to the back of his head to slow the bleeding.
Peter was still staring at him. “Able to what?”
“Lots of things,” Gabriel said slowly. He lowered his hand from his head and regarded Peter thoughtfully. “The telekinesis is really versatile.”
“Like how?”
“Never mind,” Gabriel muttered. It was time to leave Peter to his own devices, before their roughhousing woke anyone else. He pushed himself up, unsteadily.
Peter grabbed onto Gabriel’s arm, maybe to steady him, maybe to prevent him from leaving. “Tell me how,” Peter demanded.
“Cutting, for instance,” Gabriel found himself saying. He should not be telling Peter this; it was dangerous to remind him of a time when they’d been enemies. Still, Gabriel continued. “Picture a knife. It helps to use your hands to focus it. Point a finger or something. Then picture cutting with the knife.”
Peter raised a finger, a frown of concentration on his face, and made a slashing motion through the air. Suddenly, Gabriel gasped in pain as a gash drew itself in his arm. He clapped a hand over the bleeding cut while Peter gave a startled grunt. “Yeah, like that,” Gabriel said through clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” Peter said, and Gabriel was surprised to hear that he meant it.
“It’s okay,” said Gabriel, although it wasn’t, really. He applied pressure to the new cut on his arm, but he could still feel blood dripping sluggishly down his neck from where Peter had cracked his skull against the wall. If this kept up, Peter would be the death of him.
“How did you figure out how to use them all?” Peter asked. He sounded almost wistful.
“It’s part of what I do, my original power,” Gabriel explained. “Knowing how things work.”
“So shouldn’t I be able to use that one too?”
Sylar furrowed his brow in thought. “Should. I don’t know, Peter. The way you access your powers, it’s so different, centered in your emotions. I practice the abilities I have, hone them.” The contemplation on Peter’s face encouraged him to continue. “I can tell you what I know. It might be useful… If there’s any power we share that you’d like to have more control over.”
“Ted’s power?”
Sylar wondered if Peter was reading his mind. “Why not? You know you can use that one to heat up a frozen burrito?”
That drew a weak smile from Peter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Gabriel pulled away gently. “I’d better get back to sleep,” he said. “Like I said, I’d be happy to give you whatever help I can.” He took a few steps toward the door, stopped, and turned back. “Only if you think it will help you.” Another step, then pause. “Just let me know.” Then he fled.
******************
Alicia laid a photograph on the table for Bennet to examine. “That’s Hiro Nakamura,” she said tightly, and began tapping her pen on the table. Bennet wanted to wince at the sound, but he contained himself, instead leaning over the table to examine the photo. Though blurry, the shot showed Hiro just outside some sort of office building.
“Yes, I can see that,” Bennet said.
Alicia laid down another photo. “And that right there is Robert Bishop.” In this photo Hiro was shaking hands with an older man. Bob. “You know who he is?” Alicia asked.
“Yes, I know.” Bennet’s jaw clenched so tightly he was in danger of breaking a tooth. “How did you get those pictures?”
“Satellite surveillance. By the time we got there, they were gone.” She leaned back in her chair, regarding Bennet with what seemed to be polite interest. Her pen-tapping continued at the same steady pace. “Hiro Nakamura is public enemy number one, and the Department of Homeland Security—Security—doesn’t have a fast enough response time to catch him.”
“Perhaps if you’d shared these pictures with me a little sooner, I might have been able to help,” Bennet said. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Letting Alicia see his frustration would gain him nothing, and might in fact be dangerous. “My people have been working around the clock,” he continued smoothly. “There are a lot of leads to sort through.
“If Hiro is talking to this man,” she stabbed her finger at the picture of Bob, “Then he must be planning something new. And if we still had Molly Walker, we would know where.”
“We know who has Molly Walker,” Bennet said. And if Alicia hadn’t let Sylar get away, they could ask him where Candice was keeping her. But as much as Bennet wanted to, this was hardly the time to remind Alicia of her slip-up.
“Do you?” Alicia asked, although it was patently unnecessary. Even if Bennet hadn’t been furnishing Alicia with daily reports, he was certain that members of his staff reported his every move to her. “Then why don’t we have her back?”
“We will,” Bennet said. “Soon.” Without waiting for a dismissal, he left. Bennet was faintly surprised that he was able to make it out of Alicia’s office considering the red haze obscuring his vision, but he made it all the way out of the Homeland Security building without screaming at anyone. As soon as he cleared the last security checkpoint, he pulled out his cell phone and hit the third speed-dial number.
The Haitian didn’t say anything when he picked up. “Meet me at the facility,” Bennet said. “We need to talk to Hawkins again.”
Bennet’s driver had learned to read his boss’s moods, and wisely avoided eye contact and small talk all the way to the detention facility in Alexandria. Bennet should have been planning how he was going to get through to Hawkins, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Alicia Madden. He couldn’t afford to antagonize her anymore, not with the way things were going in the Department. She still knew about Claire, after all, and that would be the first card she’d play if she thought Bennet was getting out of line. “Faster,” Bennet snapped to the driver. The driver pushed down the gas pedal without argument.
The Haitian met Bennet at the front desk of the detention facility and led him to an interrogation room. Inside, D.L. Hawkins was seated at the table with his hands cuffed in front of him. Bennet hoped D.L. was in a chatty mood; he did not have time to beat around the bush today.
“You know a young woman named Candice Wilmer?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and the Haitian.
“What, no small talk?” D.L. asked, leaning back in his chair. “You leave me alone in my cell for three weeks, you think I’ll get bored enough to talk to you?”
“Do you know who Candice is or not?” Bennet shouted. D.L. looked from Bennet to the Haitian and back again. He seemed surprised that Bennet had lost his cool, but Noah was beyond caring.
“I know about her, yeah,” D.L. said cautiously.
“Let me fill you in,” Bennet said. “While your buddy Hiro was off assassinating the President, Candice borrowed his face to kidnap your son and another young woman I think you know. Molly Walker.”
D.L. blinked in confusion: not the reaction Bennet was expecting. “You’re saying the President’s dead?”
“Your buddies did their planning well. Killed the President and the Vice President. Last week. Which makes our friend Nathan Petrelli the new leader of the free world.”
“Borrowed Hiro’s face?” D.L. said slowly. “So you mean Micah and Molly got broken out at the same time as the President was getting assassinated?”
“That’s right.”
D.L. began to laugh. “Hiro didn’t kill the President.”
Bennet very much wanted to hit D.L., but he didn’t think it would accomplish what he wanted right now. Maybe later. “There’s no need to defend him. I thought you might be more worried about who took your son.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” D.L. said, reining in his laughter. “Hiro took my son. We’ve been planning to get him out for months.”
“I don’t believe you,” Bennet said, but his confidence was pricked by a tiny shred of doubt. “You’ve been planning to assassinate the President for months.”
“Let me guess what happened when they took Micah,” D.L. said, leaning forward on the table. “There was a power surge that took out surveillance at the detention facility. Small groups of ‘terrorists’ took out guards with homemade gas bombs. They escaped in vans and SUVs. Sound familiar?”
More than familiar. That was exactly how Micah and Molly had been rescued. “You helped plan the raid?” Bennet asked.
“Yes. With Hiro.”
“So it was really Hiro who attacked that facility,” Bennet said, as if the words were being pulled out of him.
“Yeah it was,” said D.L. “Which means your girl Candice is the one assassinating world leaders.”
“I thought—.” Bennet stopped himself quickly. It was bad enough that he’d been wrong; there was no need to expound on his failings in front of D.L.
“But you know, I did hear about a plan to kill the President,” D.L. said, rubbing his chin in mock-deliberation.
“From who?” Bennet ground out.
D.L. shook his head.
Bennet leaned forward on the table, keeping his voice quiet and controlled. “You’re a family man. You care about your son. You spent years trying to find him, trying to get him back. I respect that. I understand the importance of family. So when you don’t want to tell me what you know, I start to think it might have something to do with your wife.”
“What if it did?”
“Think about this, Mister Hawkins: an evolved human terrorist just assassinated the President of the United States. What do you suppose public opinion on evolved humans is right about now? What do you think is happening to slaves? Or to any undocumented specials we catch?”
“I get it. That’s not my fault.”
“Of course not. But if we catch the people responsible for this, it’s going to make life a lot easier for everyone else. Right now, that,” Bennet pointed at the tattoo on D.L.’s wrist, “Is like wearing a big target. I can’t even imagine what would happen if a fugitive with abilities got caught. Someone like Micah.”
D.L. narrowed his eyes, and now he looked genuinely affronted. “What do you want?”
“Tell me what you know about Niki’s plan.”
“It’s not Niki,” D.L. muttered.
“What?”
“It’s Jessica.”
“Uh huh,” said Bennet. “An alternate personality.”
“That’s right,” D.L. said. He sounded half-annoyed, half-impressed. “Jessica’s bad news, but that’s all I can tell you.”
“Listen,” Bennet said patiently. “I need to know everything she told you. I’d rather you tell us yourself. But if you want to be stubborn.” He nodded at the Haitian, who obligingly fixed D.L. with an unfriendly glare. “My friend can take the memory from you.”
D.L.’s eyes widened a little, and Bennet thought he’d probably heard stories about what the Haitian could do. That was useful. It meant Bennet had less convincing to do.
“And as long as he’s taking memories, he might remove a few others. You wouldn’t want to lose the past year, would you?” Bennet asked. The Haitian took a step toward the table, and D.L.’s eyes darted to him before coming back to Bennet. “Or other memories. The day your son was born, maybe? The last time you saw him?”
“I would have helped you,” D.L. spat out. “I don’t want Jessica to succeed any more than you do.”
“All right then.” Bennet sat at the table across from D.L. and waved the Haitian away. “We’ll all be reasonable. Tell us about the plan.”
“If I tell you what I know,” D.L. said sullenly. “I want something in return.”
“What’s that?” Bennet asked. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. They’d made it to the bargaining stage. From here it should be easy to get everything they needed.
“Let me come with you when this goes down,” D.L. said.
Bennet almost laughed. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” D.L. asked. “I’m no threat to you—my abilities are gone. At the very least, you might be able to use me for bait.”
“How’s that?”
“If Jessica thinks I’m going to mess up her plan, she won’t hesitate to kill me,” D.L. said. Then, under his breath, “I think she might be looking forward to it.”
Bennet stole a glance at the Haitian, and received a thoughtful nod. “Start talking first,” Bennet said, “And I’ll think about it.”
**********************
Nathan toyed with the phone on his desk. He knew it was a secure line; he could call the Kremlin, if he wanted to. Instead, he’d had one of his many assistants—not Claire, whom he was avoiding— show him how to call out. He picked up the phone, set it down, and picked it up again. While he toyed with the receiver, he stole a look at the sealed letter lying in the middle of the blotter, and ran his fingers over the name on the envelope. Nathan dialed the phone.
It rang twice before it was picked up. “Speak,” said a familiar voice.
“Hello Hiro.”
There was a momentary pause. “Who is this?”
“Nathan Petrelli.”
“You’re a crazy man,” Hiro said.
“Probably so,” said Nathan. “I need to talk to you.”
“How did you get this number?”
“I got Mohinder’s cell phone records. This was the unaccounted for number,” Nathan said. “We need to talk in person.”
“I think that is not a good idea,” Hiro said slowly.
“Come to my office. I’m alone.” Nathan hung up the phone and waited.
He didn’t bother to fill the time with busywork, although there were piles of it on the desk: papers to sign, orders to issue. The past two weeks had left him feeling more than tired; he felt wrecked. That was saying a lot coming from a man who’d survived ringside seats to a nuclear explosion. Nathan was a confident man, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom that had been growing recently. Homeland Security’s new crackdown had resulted in lots of arrests, but they hadn’t netted Sylar or Suresh… or Peter. If something didn’t give soon, the President would be expected to do something drastic.
Between blinks, Hiro appeared in front of the desk. He was dressed for the outdoors in a woolen hat, scarf, and a long coat, but he had his sword slung over his back.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You’re hiding out in Siberia, now?”
“This is ridiculous,” Hiro said. He pulled off his hat, leaving his hair sticking up haphazardly. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”
Nathan just raised an eyebrow. “If you wanted to kill me, you’d kill me. But I don’t think you’re going to.”
“Of course I am not going to,” Hiro snapped. “You’re not worried that someone might see me here?”
“That’s why I didn’t bring you in through the front door,” Nathan said patiently. “But I think we should talk.”
“Nathan,” Hiro began earnestly. “If you think I—.”
“I know you didn’t murder the President,” Nathan said.
Hiro stopped in mid-speech. “Oh. You do?”
“I’ve seen the tape.”
“And?” Hiro asked.
“I don’t know much, but I’ve seen you handle that sword, and you handle it better than that,” Nathan said.
Hiro managed a modest smile. “Why would I want to kill the President anyway?”
“I can think of lots of reasons,” Nathan said bitterly. He could probably name the top ten reasons he deserved to die without pausing for breath.
Hiro frowned in confusion. “If you know I didn’t do it, why did you call me?”
Nathan stood and came around his desk to stand by Hiro. “I want to know who did it.”
“You don’t know?”
“No,” Nathan said, his irritation growing.
“I don’t know,” Hiro said, spreading his arms helplessly.
“Hiro, work with me here,” Nathan said, throwing his arm around Hiro’s shoulder. “Do you have any enemies?”
“Maybe?” Hiro shrugged.
“Anyone who would want to ruin your reputation?” Nathan pressed.
“Hm…” Hiro’s face, scrunched up in concentration, was almost funny.
“Come on, Hiro,” Nathan said. “I know you. There’s got to be someone in your past that you really pissed off.”
“There’s Niki,” Hiro said thoughtfully.
“Niki Sanders?”
“Yes. We used to work together, but there was a disagreement,” Hiro said.
“A disagreement?” That couldn’t be good.
“We had different ideas of what it meant to be a hero,” said Hiro.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Nathan. “Niki couldn’t have done this on her own. So who else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said. “I don’t have many enemies.”
Nathan sighed. Not as much information as he’d hoped for, but at least it was something. “What about the whole someone-having-your-face thing?” he asked. “Any ideas about that?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said again.
“This is important, Hiro. If there’s a man out there who can look like anyone…” Nathan considered the danger of not knowing if an imposter was pretending to be Ginsberg, or Heidi. “That would be bad. Do you think Sylar could have acquired another power?”
“It wasn’t Sylar,” Hiro said quickly.
Nathan raised an eyebrow, and then decided he was better off not knowing any more about the subject. “You have no leads at all?”
Hiro shook his head sadly. “No.”
“Damn.”
There was a sudden burst of muffled laughter from the outside office, and Hiro whirled around, pulling his sword half out of its sheath before he realized no one was coming in. “It’s okay, Hiro,” Nathan said. “No one disturbs the President without warning. Well, almost no one.”
“I should go. It’s very dangerous for me to be here.” Hiro slipped his sword back into its sheath.
“One more thing,” Nathan said quickly. Hiro looked at him expectantly, and Nathan swallowed his pride. He might not get another chance. “Peter’s with you, isn’t he?”
“Why would he be?” Hiro said innocently.
“I’m not stupid, Hiro. I know you helped me find him.”
Hiro blushed furiously. “What if I did know where he was?”
Before he could lose his nerve, Nathan grabbed the sealed envelope from his desk. “I have a letter for him.”
“I’m not a currier service,” Hiro grumbled.
“Please just give this to him,” Nathan said. He took a step toward Hiro, and realized he was clutching the letter too tight, crumpling it. “I need him to have it.”
Hiro nodded once, shortly.
Nathan handed him the letter. “Thank you,” he said. Then Hiro was gone.
Nathan let out a shaky breath. If he thought too much about what he’d just done, he’d probably start to regret it, so he quickly flipped the switch on his phone to let his assistants know he was ready to for business again.
“Mister President,” Claire’s voice came through the intercom almost immediately. “Your speech writer is here. He has some things he’d like you to go over before you address the nation tomorrow.”
**************
Peter flew through the forest, lower than he should, probably, but he was dodging trees with a fair amount of success. The snow, fresh just this morning, revealed no tracks, and Peter was starting to think he might be looking in the wrong place. Then, ahead through the foliage, he spotted his quarry. Gabriel was running, vaulting fallen trees and hurtling through the thick underbrush with supernatural speed. Peter didn’t want to set the trees on fire, so he decided to go hand to hand. He alighted in front of Gabriel, slamming into the ground so hard that dead leaves and powdery snow swirled and eddied in the rush of his landing.
Gabriel pulled up quickly, swore, and threw a blast of icy cold at Peter. Peter met it with fire, feeling the ice melt and evaporate in the air in front of him. He smiled to himself, pleasantly pleased that he’d pulled off that defense. On Saturday he’d spent two hours as an icicle after Gabriel caught him with a full blast of ice.
Taking advantage of Peter’s momentary distraction, Gabriel made a quick slashing motion, and Peter reeled back as cuts opened on his chest, deep slashes as if from the claws of a monster. He wasted a moment watching his skin knit back together, and when he looked back up, Gabriel was running again. Peter flew after him.
These hound-and-hare sessions had become the highlight of Peter’s day. It wasn’t like Claude’s tough love. Gabriel saw into the heart of a thing, or a person, and knew how to fix what was wrong. So far, he’d been able to find ways to demonstrate or explain concepts that Peter had never mastered on his own.
Scanning the ground below him for clues to where Gabriel had gone, Peter felt the bullet bite into his thigh before he heard the shot. Grunting in pain, he wheeled and took cover behind a tree. Normally, Gabriel hated guns, but he’d begun using them at Alai’s insistence. “You think Homeland Security won’t shoot at you?” Alai had said to Peter. “You need to learn how to dodge bullets or deal with them.” To Gabriel, he’d said, “And you need to learn to be a better shot if that Haitian fellow turns up again.”
Peter focused his telekinesis, so much more fine-tuned these days, to extract the bullet, and then closed his eyes to listen.
I can hear you breathing, Peter. Gabriel’s thought was concentrated, compact, and meant for Peter to overhear. Peter smiled in anticipation. He’d been practicing one trick Gabriel didn’t know about. “Take your best shot,” he yelled, and broke from behind the tree, locking his eyes on Gabriel’s location.
Gabriel stepped out from behind his own tree, taking aim at Peter as he moved. Concentrating fiercely, Peter put his hand out and pulled. Then the gun was in his hand, heavy and warm from being fired. Peter didn’t know where the ability to call objects had come from, only that he’d been able to use it since his stay at the Westchester estate, since Mohinder’s injections had first restored his abilities. It was the first power he’d noticed coming back, and it was one of the last he’d managed to find a use for.
Now empty-handed, Gabriel stared at Peter for a moment in fascination. “Where did you—?” he began, but stopped when Peter tossed the gun aside in favor of a different weapon. Peter easily lifted a fallen log from the ground, held it like a baseball bat, and charged.
Caught off guard, Gabriel stumbled back a step, and Peter caught him in the chest, sending him flying back a dozen paces. He landed with a painful crunch, and Peter froze. He knew Gabriel wasn’t indestructible, but so far he’d walked away from everything Peter had thrown at him during these sessions. If he’d really hurt Gabriel this time… “Gabe?” Peter took a tentative step forward, but stopped when he saw Gabriel stir.
“Okay, now I’m mad,” Gabriel called, spitting out a mouthful of dirty snow. He got to one knee and raised his hands, and then sticks, dead leaves, rocks, every kind of loose debris from the forest floor was flying, creating a funnel cloud around him. “Come on, Peter!” he shouted, the teasing note in his voice making Peter smile. “Come and get me.”
Peter puzzled for a moment over how to proceed. Maybe if he created a wall of fire, he could smoke Gabriel out.
“Peter! Gabriel!” A sing-songy voice echoed through the trees. “Where are you?” It was Hiro.
“Over here!” Peter called, waving a hand. Gabriel dropped his telekinetic funnel cloud and stood up, brushing snow off his jacket.
“You guys done playing around?” Hiro, bundled up so that only his nose and eyes peeked out, was approaching through the trees. “Molly and Matt are making lunch,” he told Peter. “I think it is lasagna. At least that’s what they said. It looks a little like a hamster exploded. Where is Gabriel?”
“He’s right there,” Peter said, pointing. Gabriel was standing in plain sight, not twenty feet away.
“Sorry,” said Gabriel, and he waved to Hiro.
Hiro smiled. “It’s funny to see you do that.”
Peter furrowed his brow in confusion. “Do what?”
“The invisible thing,” said Hiro with a vague wave of his hand to illustrate.
“You can be invisible?” Peter asked quietly, looking at Gabriel. Suddenly the winter wind cut right through his jacket.
Gabriel nodded. “Sure.” Then he looked thoughtful. “Hey, didn’t you—?”
But Peter had started toward him, moving lightning fast as Gabriel had before when he was running, and he had his hand around Gabriel’s throat before he could speak the rest of the sentence. “Where did you get it?” he asked.
Behind him, Hiro spoke with alarm. “Okay, stop being invisible. What’s going on?”
“Who did you kill for that power?” Peter asked. He was holding Gabriel now with one hand, just off the floor of the forest, employing Niki’s strength, and he shook Gabriel by the throat as he spoke.
“Peter?” Hiro called. “What are you doing?”
Gabriel, clawing at Peter’s hand around his neck, couldn’t answer, but Peter could hear his panicked thoughts racing in circles: Oh God, I didn’t know, I forgot you had it first. I’m sorry. You knew him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Disgusted, he threw Gabriel to the ground and pounced on him, one knee pressing into his belly, and his hand again around Gabriel's throat. “What did you do?” he growled.
Instead of hearing thoughts as words, he saw the memories from the inside, flashing in quick sequence, fast as the speed of thought, burning themselves into his brain. He saw them as if they were his own, as if he were experiencing the moment inside Sylar’s twisted memories:
He was holding his hand in front of him, pinning a young woman to the wall with an invisible force, his finger pointed at her head, smiling with anticipatory delight. Then came the sound of a gun safety, and he was turning, seeing an empty room, but stopping the bullet in mid-air as it approached. He let the girl fall and turned to where the sound had come from. He brought his hand up, and with it came shards of shattered glass from the floor of the wrecked room. The little flock of shards hovered for a moment, and then struck. There was a cry of pain, and a bearded man materialized, staring down in disbelief at a pointed glass shard sticking out of his belly. In three quick steps, he was to the man, pinning him to the wall, raising a finger to slice open his head.
He was sitting on the steps of an alter in a dark church looking up at the crucifix. A few feet away lay the body of a priest, the top of his head torn open, his eyes staring up in blank terror, his blood soaking into the plush red carpet. There was a terrible crash as the doors at the end of the church flew open and police swarmed in, but they didn’t see him, so he didn’t need to move. Invisibility was a wonderful trick.
He was painting. The brush flew in his hand as he slapped paint onto the canvas almost savagely. He kept his eyes closed; he didn’t want to see what he was painting, because he knew it would be the same as it always was. He dropped the brush and made a slashing gesture at the canvas, slicing it in half.
He was washing blood off, scrubbing his hands until they bled, scrubbing accompanied by frantic sobbing. The water was hot, and the metallic smell of blood was everywhere. He could taste it in his mouth. He kept scrubbing.
He was standing in a graveyard, watching Hiro and Ando stare at him suspiciously. He took a slow step forward and placed a hand on his mother’s gravestone.
He was crouched in a small wooden room filled with dusty sunlight, staring at his slave tattoo and breathing in the sweet smell of hay.
He was grabbing for Mohinder’s hand, grabbing blindly in the dark, calling for Mohinder.
He was watching Peter have a nightmare, calling “wake up” again and again.
He was running through the forest, heart pounding in his chest.
He couldn’t breathe.
Peter pulled his hand away from Gabriel’s throat, sitting back onto the snow, clutching at his head.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
Gabriel, coughing, clutching his throat, only shook his head in answer.
Hiro ran toward them, now that they were visible. “What happened?” he asked anxiously.
“Ask him.” Peter jerked his chin angrily toward Gabriel.
“Gabriel, are you okay?” Hiro asked.
“I’m fine,” Gabriel said, recovering his breath at last. “I’m sorry, Peter.”
“I saw…” Peter didn’t have words for what that was. “I saw it happen. I saw you kill Claude.”
“Memories,” Gabriel said softly. “It’s another power I acquired before… I’m sorry for what I did.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. Seeing Claude’s disbelief and horror as Sylar closed in on him, Peter tried to hold on to his anger, but Gabriel’s grief, his guilt and his contrition were fresher in Peter’s mind, the deep emotions of the memory burning, simmering like live coals. “You are sorry, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I am,” said Gabriel.
“Did I hurt you?” Peter muttered. He held out a hand to help Gabriel up.
“It’s okay.” Gabriel took Peter’s hand, lurching to his feet unsteadily. “I understand,” he said, avoiding Peter’s eyes.
Hiro had wisely been holding back during this exchange. Now he came forward to take Gabriel gently by the arm. “Let’s get back to the house, okay? Come on.” He produced a folded envelope from the pocket of his coat and handed it to Peter. “This is for you,” he said. “I will take Gabriel back.”
Peter watched them until they were out of sight through the trees, and tried to clear his mind of what he’d just seen. He couldn’t. Sylar’s memories were burned into him, at least for now. He tried not to see Claude’s face, the pain and fear of it, tried not to hear Gabriel's panicked sobs as he tried to scrub blood from his hands.
Instead, he looked at the envelope Hiro had given him. He turned it over in his hand. No address, no postmark, just “Peter” penned in neat, precise strokes across the front. Peter’s heart began to speed up as he recognized the writing.
He ripped open the envelope and pulled out only a small square of paper with more of the same hand. It was from Nathan.
The note read, “Come see me. Please. I need you.”
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
Title: In the Forests of the Night – Chapter Eight (of Ten)
Author name:
brighteyed_jillCharacters: Ensemble, Peter/Nathan. Other slashiness if you squint.
Rating: R this chapter (for violence, kids)
Word Count: 6100
Warnings: Violence, angst, adult situations, slash.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 1. No Season 2 characters this chapter.
Summary: Gabriel builds a tentative alliance with an old nemesis, Bennet chases a killer, and Nathan reaches out.
Author’s note:
redandglenda beta’d. Remaining mistakes are mine. And if you’re just joining us:
Love’s the Burning Boy
Chapter One -- Chapter Two -- Chapter Three -- Chapter Four -- Chapter Five
Intermission -- Chapter Six -- Chapter Seven
The water was hot, almost scalding, but Sylar kept his hands under the flow anyway. It didn’t matter as long as he could get the blood off.
This kill had been easy—the girl hadn’t put up much of a fight—but it was a different power that was gnawing at him now. A priest in Boston had given him unwanted glimpses into the minds and memories of others, and that ability was now compounding the problems he’d been having for weeks.
Drawings of Mohinder, scrawled on papers ripped from a sketch pad, littered the floor of the bathroom. Sylar kicked at them, sending several flying. His eyes lit on one drawing, fluttering to a landing next to the base of the sink: a close-up of Mohinder’s face, eyes wide in terror, a thin line of blood dripping down his forehead.
Sylar growled, snatching up the drawing and crumpling it. The fear in those eyes was too like the fear of the girl he’d just killed. It was too close this time; the priest’s power had put him in her fear. It wasn’t merely reading thoughts, not like the cop in New York, the one that had escaped him. No, he’d felt her terror, seen the event from her eyes, experienced the fear he’d inspired. Once, that might have made him proud. Now, with the drawings of Mohinder staring up at him, it only made him feel sick. It was hard not to imagine the same panic behind Mohinder’s eyes, terror and despair in brown eyes that should hold warmth and intelligence.
Damn Isaac Mendez. A new ability wasn’t meant to be a weakness. It was meant to make him stronger, make him the pinnacle of his kind. Instead, it made him fear for the future. What he’d done to this girl tonight he was going to do to Mohinder Suresh, and for what? He was not insane, he was special. He was doing all this for good reason, and killing Mohinder was not part of that plan.
Again the sharp pain of the girl’s memory assaulted him, her unreasoning panic when she realized what Sylar was going to do. Would Mohinder scream like that? Would he be so afraid? Or would he go quietly? Mohinder’s frightened eyes stared up at him from a dozen sketches in silent answer.
“Leave me alone!” he told the Mohinder drawings, and thrust his hands back under the scalding water.
Gabriel sat up in bed. He’d been having that nightmare again, the same bad memories resurfacing, worrying at him, but this time something had woken him up. His heightened hearing was coming back, he knew, because he could hear everyone in the house breathing, mostly the deep and even breath of sleep. Even two days later, they were all still exhausted from the ordeal of making it to this safe haven. Somewhere in the house, though, someone else must be having bad dreams. Gabriel got out of bed, wincing as his bare feet hit the cold floor. He’d just go find out who was making noise, that was all. Then he’d come back to bed.
He knew after only a few steps beyond his own door that it was Peter. Even in sleepy murmurs Gabriel could identify his voice. He stood outside the door of Peter’s bedroom, listening. He was muttering something too garbled for even Gabriel to make out. And he was getting louder. Gabriel pushed open the door. Peter was shivering on the bed, sweat glistening on his face in the moonlight from the window. Gabriel watched him for a moment, hovering indecisively between going in and fleeing back to his room.
Now Peter was almost shouting. In a few more minutes, he’d wake up everyone in the house. “Peter,” Gabriel called tentatively from the doorway. This was a bad idea. Peter continued to toss and turn. “Wake up,” he said, a little louder. Peter clutched at the sheets, nearly tearing them apart in the throes of whatever nightmare he was having. The room gave a little shudder, like a mini earthquake. Peter had better not TK the house down. “Wake up,” Gabriel said, taking a few steps closer to the bed. Still, Peter didn’t hear him. Gabriel closed the rest of the distance to the bed. “Peter, wake up!” He gingerly put a hand on the sleeping man’s shoulder.
Peter gave a sharp yell, and Gabriel found himself being thrown against the wall. Unable to catch himself with his powers still not working correctly, he slammed into the unforgiving wall and slid down to the floor, hard. Now Peter was sitting up in bed, finally awake, and staring at him. Gabriel returned the stare sheepishly.
“I shouldn’t have surprised you,” he said softly. “Sorry. I just thought you might want to wake up.”
Peter threw the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed, clad in sweatpants that had come from somewhere in the house’s supply of mothballed clothes. “It was just a nightmare,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with you?”
Putting his hand to the back of his head, Gabriel felt the wet stickiness of blood. He winced. “It serves me right for coming in here. I just didn’t want everyone else to wake up.”
Peter saw the blood on Gabriel’s hand, and in a moment he was kneeling beside him, examining the back of his head. “I didn’t mean to throw you that hard,” he said. “I guess I don’t have much control over that one.”
“You should be able to…” Gabriel began, but stumbled to a halt. It seemed strange to discuss his abilities, especially with Peter. He’d taught himself to use all of his powers as he acquired them, but he’d never had the opportunity or the desire to discuss theory with anyone, even if they would have understood. But here was Peter, who could do everything Gabriel could and more. Before, when he’d talked Peter through creating an electromagnetic pulse, it had been almost therapeutic. Teaching Peter helped Gabriel look at him a different way: not as a nemesis, anymore, but as a friend. It wasn’t likely that Peter shared that sentiment, however, so Gabriel held his peace and concentrated on pressing his hand to the back of his head to slow the bleeding.
Peter was still staring at him. “Able to what?”
“Lots of things,” Gabriel said slowly. He lowered his hand from his head and regarded Peter thoughtfully. “The telekinesis is really versatile.”
“Like how?”
“Never mind,” Gabriel muttered. It was time to leave Peter to his own devices, before their roughhousing woke anyone else. He pushed himself up, unsteadily.
Peter grabbed onto Gabriel’s arm, maybe to steady him, maybe to prevent him from leaving. “Tell me how,” Peter demanded.
“Cutting, for instance,” Gabriel found himself saying. He should not be telling Peter this; it was dangerous to remind him of a time when they’d been enemies. Still, Gabriel continued. “Picture a knife. It helps to use your hands to focus it. Point a finger or something. Then picture cutting with the knife.”
Peter raised a finger, a frown of concentration on his face, and made a slashing motion through the air. Suddenly, Gabriel gasped in pain as a gash drew itself in his arm. He clapped a hand over the bleeding cut while Peter gave a startled grunt. “Yeah, like that,” Gabriel said through clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” Peter said, and Gabriel was surprised to hear that he meant it.
“It’s okay,” said Gabriel, although it wasn’t, really. He applied pressure to the new cut on his arm, but he could still feel blood dripping sluggishly down his neck from where Peter had cracked his skull against the wall. If this kept up, Peter would be the death of him.
“How did you figure out how to use them all?” Peter asked. He sounded almost wistful.
“It’s part of what I do, my original power,” Gabriel explained. “Knowing how things work.”
“So shouldn’t I be able to use that one too?”
Sylar furrowed his brow in thought. “Should. I don’t know, Peter. The way you access your powers, it’s so different, centered in your emotions. I practice the abilities I have, hone them.” The contemplation on Peter’s face encouraged him to continue. “I can tell you what I know. It might be useful… If there’s any power we share that you’d like to have more control over.”
“Ted’s power?”
Sylar wondered if Peter was reading his mind. “Why not? You know you can use that one to heat up a frozen burrito?”
That drew a weak smile from Peter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Gabriel pulled away gently. “I’d better get back to sleep,” he said. “Like I said, I’d be happy to give you whatever help I can.” He took a few steps toward the door, stopped, and turned back. “Only if you think it will help you.” Another step, then pause. “Just let me know.” Then he fled.
******************
Alicia laid a photograph on the table for Bennet to examine. “That’s Hiro Nakamura,” she said tightly, and began tapping her pen on the table. Bennet wanted to wince at the sound, but he contained himself, instead leaning over the table to examine the photo. Though blurry, the shot showed Hiro just outside some sort of office building.
“Yes, I can see that,” Bennet said.
Alicia laid down another photo. “And that right there is Robert Bishop.” In this photo Hiro was shaking hands with an older man. Bob. “You know who he is?” Alicia asked.
“Yes, I know.” Bennet’s jaw clenched so tightly he was in danger of breaking a tooth. “How did you get those pictures?”
“Satellite surveillance. By the time we got there, they were gone.” She leaned back in her chair, regarding Bennet with what seemed to be polite interest. Her pen-tapping continued at the same steady pace. “Hiro Nakamura is public enemy number one, and the Department of Homeland Security—Security—doesn’t have a fast enough response time to catch him.”
“Perhaps if you’d shared these pictures with me a little sooner, I might have been able to help,” Bennet said. He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. Letting Alicia see his frustration would gain him nothing, and might in fact be dangerous. “My people have been working around the clock,” he continued smoothly. “There are a lot of leads to sort through.
“If Hiro is talking to this man,” she stabbed her finger at the picture of Bob, “Then he must be planning something new. And if we still had Molly Walker, we would know where.”
“We know who has Molly Walker,” Bennet said. And if Alicia hadn’t let Sylar get away, they could ask him where Candice was keeping her. But as much as Bennet wanted to, this was hardly the time to remind Alicia of her slip-up.
“Do you?” Alicia asked, although it was patently unnecessary. Even if Bennet hadn’t been furnishing Alicia with daily reports, he was certain that members of his staff reported his every move to her. “Then why don’t we have her back?”
“We will,” Bennet said. “Soon.” Without waiting for a dismissal, he left. Bennet was faintly surprised that he was able to make it out of Alicia’s office considering the red haze obscuring his vision, but he made it all the way out of the Homeland Security building without screaming at anyone. As soon as he cleared the last security checkpoint, he pulled out his cell phone and hit the third speed-dial number.
The Haitian didn’t say anything when he picked up. “Meet me at the facility,” Bennet said. “We need to talk to Hawkins again.”
Bennet’s driver had learned to read his boss’s moods, and wisely avoided eye contact and small talk all the way to the detention facility in Alexandria. Bennet should have been planning how he was going to get through to Hawkins, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Alicia Madden. He couldn’t afford to antagonize her anymore, not with the way things were going in the Department. She still knew about Claire, after all, and that would be the first card she’d play if she thought Bennet was getting out of line. “Faster,” Bennet snapped to the driver. The driver pushed down the gas pedal without argument.
The Haitian met Bennet at the front desk of the detention facility and led him to an interrogation room. Inside, D.L. Hawkins was seated at the table with his hands cuffed in front of him. Bennet hoped D.L. was in a chatty mood; he did not have time to beat around the bush today.
“You know a young woman named Candice Wilmer?” he asked as he closed the door behind him and the Haitian.
“What, no small talk?” D.L. asked, leaning back in his chair. “You leave me alone in my cell for three weeks, you think I’ll get bored enough to talk to you?”
“Do you know who Candice is or not?” Bennet shouted. D.L. looked from Bennet to the Haitian and back again. He seemed surprised that Bennet had lost his cool, but Noah was beyond caring.
“I know about her, yeah,” D.L. said cautiously.
“Let me fill you in,” Bennet said. “While your buddy Hiro was off assassinating the President, Candice borrowed his face to kidnap your son and another young woman I think you know. Molly Walker.”
D.L. blinked in confusion: not the reaction Bennet was expecting. “You’re saying the President’s dead?”
“Your buddies did their planning well. Killed the President and the Vice President. Last week. Which makes our friend Nathan Petrelli the new leader of the free world.”
“Borrowed Hiro’s face?” D.L. said slowly. “So you mean Micah and Molly got broken out at the same time as the President was getting assassinated?”
“That’s right.”
D.L. began to laugh. “Hiro didn’t kill the President.”
Bennet very much wanted to hit D.L., but he didn’t think it would accomplish what he wanted right now. Maybe later. “There’s no need to defend him. I thought you might be more worried about who took your son.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” D.L. said, reining in his laughter. “Hiro took my son. We’ve been planning to get him out for months.”
“I don’t believe you,” Bennet said, but his confidence was pricked by a tiny shred of doubt. “You’ve been planning to assassinate the President for months.”
“Let me guess what happened when they took Micah,” D.L. said, leaning forward on the table. “There was a power surge that took out surveillance at the detention facility. Small groups of ‘terrorists’ took out guards with homemade gas bombs. They escaped in vans and SUVs. Sound familiar?”
More than familiar. That was exactly how Micah and Molly had been rescued. “You helped plan the raid?” Bennet asked.
“Yes. With Hiro.”
“So it was really Hiro who attacked that facility,” Bennet said, as if the words were being pulled out of him.
“Yeah it was,” said D.L. “Which means your girl Candice is the one assassinating world leaders.”
“I thought—.” Bennet stopped himself quickly. It was bad enough that he’d been wrong; there was no need to expound on his failings in front of D.L.
“But you know, I did hear about a plan to kill the President,” D.L. said, rubbing his chin in mock-deliberation.
“From who?” Bennet ground out.
D.L. shook his head.
Bennet leaned forward on the table, keeping his voice quiet and controlled. “You’re a family man. You care about your son. You spent years trying to find him, trying to get him back. I respect that. I understand the importance of family. So when you don’t want to tell me what you know, I start to think it might have something to do with your wife.”
“What if it did?”
“Think about this, Mister Hawkins: an evolved human terrorist just assassinated the President of the United States. What do you suppose public opinion on evolved humans is right about now? What do you think is happening to slaves? Or to any undocumented specials we catch?”
“I get it. That’s not my fault.”
“Of course not. But if we catch the people responsible for this, it’s going to make life a lot easier for everyone else. Right now, that,” Bennet pointed at the tattoo on D.L.’s wrist, “Is like wearing a big target. I can’t even imagine what would happen if a fugitive with abilities got caught. Someone like Micah.”
D.L. narrowed his eyes, and now he looked genuinely affronted. “What do you want?”
“Tell me what you know about Niki’s plan.”
“It’s not Niki,” D.L. muttered.
“What?”
“It’s Jessica.”
“Uh huh,” said Bennet. “An alternate personality.”
“That’s right,” D.L. said. He sounded half-annoyed, half-impressed. “Jessica’s bad news, but that’s all I can tell you.”
“Listen,” Bennet said patiently. “I need to know everything she told you. I’d rather you tell us yourself. But if you want to be stubborn.” He nodded at the Haitian, who obligingly fixed D.L. with an unfriendly glare. “My friend can take the memory from you.”
D.L.’s eyes widened a little, and Bennet thought he’d probably heard stories about what the Haitian could do. That was useful. It meant Bennet had less convincing to do.
“And as long as he’s taking memories, he might remove a few others. You wouldn’t want to lose the past year, would you?” Bennet asked. The Haitian took a step toward the table, and D.L.’s eyes darted to him before coming back to Bennet. “Or other memories. The day your son was born, maybe? The last time you saw him?”
“I would have helped you,” D.L. spat out. “I don’t want Jessica to succeed any more than you do.”
“All right then.” Bennet sat at the table across from D.L. and waved the Haitian away. “We’ll all be reasonable. Tell us about the plan.”
“If I tell you what I know,” D.L. said sullenly. “I want something in return.”
“What’s that?” Bennet asked. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. They’d made it to the bargaining stage. From here it should be easy to get everything they needed.
“Let me come with you when this goes down,” D.L. said.
Bennet almost laughed. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” D.L. asked. “I’m no threat to you—my abilities are gone. At the very least, you might be able to use me for bait.”
“How’s that?”
“If Jessica thinks I’m going to mess up her plan, she won’t hesitate to kill me,” D.L. said. Then, under his breath, “I think she might be looking forward to it.”
Bennet stole a glance at the Haitian, and received a thoughtful nod. “Start talking first,” Bennet said, “And I’ll think about it.”
**********************
Nathan toyed with the phone on his desk. He knew it was a secure line; he could call the Kremlin, if he wanted to. Instead, he’d had one of his many assistants—not Claire, whom he was avoiding— show him how to call out. He picked up the phone, set it down, and picked it up again. While he toyed with the receiver, he stole a look at the sealed letter lying in the middle of the blotter, and ran his fingers over the name on the envelope. Nathan dialed the phone.
It rang twice before it was picked up. “Speak,” said a familiar voice.
“Hello Hiro.”
There was a momentary pause. “Who is this?”
“Nathan Petrelli.”
“You’re a crazy man,” Hiro said.
“Probably so,” said Nathan. “I need to talk to you.”
“How did you get this number?”
“I got Mohinder’s cell phone records. This was the unaccounted for number,” Nathan said. “We need to talk in person.”
“I think that is not a good idea,” Hiro said slowly.
“Come to my office. I’m alone.” Nathan hung up the phone and waited.
He didn’t bother to fill the time with busywork, although there were piles of it on the desk: papers to sign, orders to issue. The past two weeks had left him feeling more than tired; he felt wrecked. That was saying a lot coming from a man who’d survived ringside seats to a nuclear explosion. Nathan was a confident man, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of impending doom that had been growing recently. Homeland Security’s new crackdown had resulted in lots of arrests, but they hadn’t netted Sylar or Suresh… or Peter. If something didn’t give soon, the President would be expected to do something drastic.
Between blinks, Hiro appeared in front of the desk. He was dressed for the outdoors in a woolen hat, scarf, and a long coat, but he had his sword slung over his back.
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You’re hiding out in Siberia, now?”
“This is ridiculous,” Hiro said. He pulled off his hat, leaving his hair sticking up haphazardly. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”
Nathan just raised an eyebrow. “If you wanted to kill me, you’d kill me. But I don’t think you’re going to.”
“Of course I am not going to,” Hiro snapped. “You’re not worried that someone might see me here?”
“That’s why I didn’t bring you in through the front door,” Nathan said patiently. “But I think we should talk.”
“Nathan,” Hiro began earnestly. “If you think I—.”
“I know you didn’t murder the President,” Nathan said.
Hiro stopped in mid-speech. “Oh. You do?”
“I’ve seen the tape.”
“And?” Hiro asked.
“I don’t know much, but I’ve seen you handle that sword, and you handle it better than that,” Nathan said.
Hiro managed a modest smile. “Why would I want to kill the President anyway?”
“I can think of lots of reasons,” Nathan said bitterly. He could probably name the top ten reasons he deserved to die without pausing for breath.
Hiro frowned in confusion. “If you know I didn’t do it, why did you call me?”
Nathan stood and came around his desk to stand by Hiro. “I want to know who did it.”
“You don’t know?”
“No,” Nathan said, his irritation growing.
“I don’t know,” Hiro said, spreading his arms helplessly.
“Hiro, work with me here,” Nathan said, throwing his arm around Hiro’s shoulder. “Do you have any enemies?”
“Maybe?” Hiro shrugged.
“Anyone who would want to ruin your reputation?” Nathan pressed.
“Hm…” Hiro’s face, scrunched up in concentration, was almost funny.
“Come on, Hiro,” Nathan said. “I know you. There’s got to be someone in your past that you really pissed off.”
“There’s Niki,” Hiro said thoughtfully.
“Niki Sanders?”
“Yes. We used to work together, but there was a disagreement,” Hiro said.
“A disagreement?” That couldn’t be good.
“We had different ideas of what it meant to be a hero,” said Hiro.
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Nathan. “Niki couldn’t have done this on her own. So who else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said. “I don’t have many enemies.”
Nathan sighed. Not as much information as he’d hoped for, but at least it was something. “What about the whole someone-having-your-face thing?” he asked. “Any ideas about that?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said again.
“This is important, Hiro. If there’s a man out there who can look like anyone…” Nathan considered the danger of not knowing if an imposter was pretending to be Ginsberg, or Heidi. “That would be bad. Do you think Sylar could have acquired another power?”
“It wasn’t Sylar,” Hiro said quickly.
Nathan raised an eyebrow, and then decided he was better off not knowing any more about the subject. “You have no leads at all?”
Hiro shook his head sadly. “No.”
“Damn.”
There was a sudden burst of muffled laughter from the outside office, and Hiro whirled around, pulling his sword half out of its sheath before he realized no one was coming in. “It’s okay, Hiro,” Nathan said. “No one disturbs the President without warning. Well, almost no one.”
“I should go. It’s very dangerous for me to be here.” Hiro slipped his sword back into its sheath.
“One more thing,” Nathan said quickly. Hiro looked at him expectantly, and Nathan swallowed his pride. He might not get another chance. “Peter’s with you, isn’t he?”
“Why would he be?” Hiro said innocently.
“I’m not stupid, Hiro. I know you helped me find him.”
Hiro blushed furiously. “What if I did know where he was?”
Before he could lose his nerve, Nathan grabbed the sealed envelope from his desk. “I have a letter for him.”
“I’m not a currier service,” Hiro grumbled.
“Please just give this to him,” Nathan said. He took a step toward Hiro, and realized he was clutching the letter too tight, crumpling it. “I need him to have it.”
Hiro nodded once, shortly.
Nathan handed him the letter. “Thank you,” he said. Then Hiro was gone.
Nathan let out a shaky breath. If he thought too much about what he’d just done, he’d probably start to regret it, so he quickly flipped the switch on his phone to let his assistants know he was ready to for business again.
“Mister President,” Claire’s voice came through the intercom almost immediately. “Your speech writer is here. He has some things he’d like you to go over before you address the nation tomorrow.”
**************
Peter flew through the forest, lower than he should, probably, but he was dodging trees with a fair amount of success. The snow, fresh just this morning, revealed no tracks, and Peter was starting to think he might be looking in the wrong place. Then, ahead through the foliage, he spotted his quarry. Gabriel was running, vaulting fallen trees and hurtling through the thick underbrush with supernatural speed. Peter didn’t want to set the trees on fire, so he decided to go hand to hand. He alighted in front of Gabriel, slamming into the ground so hard that dead leaves and powdery snow swirled and eddied in the rush of his landing.
Gabriel pulled up quickly, swore, and threw a blast of icy cold at Peter. Peter met it with fire, feeling the ice melt and evaporate in the air in front of him. He smiled to himself, pleasantly pleased that he’d pulled off that defense. On Saturday he’d spent two hours as an icicle after Gabriel caught him with a full blast of ice.
Taking advantage of Peter’s momentary distraction, Gabriel made a quick slashing motion, and Peter reeled back as cuts opened on his chest, deep slashes as if from the claws of a monster. He wasted a moment watching his skin knit back together, and when he looked back up, Gabriel was running again. Peter flew after him.
These hound-and-hare sessions had become the highlight of Peter’s day. It wasn’t like Claude’s tough love. Gabriel saw into the heart of a thing, or a person, and knew how to fix what was wrong. So far, he’d been able to find ways to demonstrate or explain concepts that Peter had never mastered on his own.
Scanning the ground below him for clues to where Gabriel had gone, Peter felt the bullet bite into his thigh before he heard the shot. Grunting in pain, he wheeled and took cover behind a tree. Normally, Gabriel hated guns, but he’d begun using them at Alai’s insistence. “You think Homeland Security won’t shoot at you?” Alai had said to Peter. “You need to learn how to dodge bullets or deal with them.” To Gabriel, he’d said, “And you need to learn to be a better shot if that Haitian fellow turns up again.”
Peter focused his telekinesis, so much more fine-tuned these days, to extract the bullet, and then closed his eyes to listen.
I can hear you breathing, Peter. Gabriel’s thought was concentrated, compact, and meant for Peter to overhear. Peter smiled in anticipation. He’d been practicing one trick Gabriel didn’t know about. “Take your best shot,” he yelled, and broke from behind the tree, locking his eyes on Gabriel’s location.
Gabriel stepped out from behind his own tree, taking aim at Peter as he moved. Concentrating fiercely, Peter put his hand out and pulled. Then the gun was in his hand, heavy and warm from being fired. Peter didn’t know where the ability to call objects had come from, only that he’d been able to use it since his stay at the Westchester estate, since Mohinder’s injections had first restored his abilities. It was the first power he’d noticed coming back, and it was one of the last he’d managed to find a use for.
Now empty-handed, Gabriel stared at Peter for a moment in fascination. “Where did you—?” he began, but stopped when Peter tossed the gun aside in favor of a different weapon. Peter easily lifted a fallen log from the ground, held it like a baseball bat, and charged.
Caught off guard, Gabriel stumbled back a step, and Peter caught him in the chest, sending him flying back a dozen paces. He landed with a painful crunch, and Peter froze. He knew Gabriel wasn’t indestructible, but so far he’d walked away from everything Peter had thrown at him during these sessions. If he’d really hurt Gabriel this time… “Gabe?” Peter took a tentative step forward, but stopped when he saw Gabriel stir.
“Okay, now I’m mad,” Gabriel called, spitting out a mouthful of dirty snow. He got to one knee and raised his hands, and then sticks, dead leaves, rocks, every kind of loose debris from the forest floor was flying, creating a funnel cloud around him. “Come on, Peter!” he shouted, the teasing note in his voice making Peter smile. “Come and get me.”
Peter puzzled for a moment over how to proceed. Maybe if he created a wall of fire, he could smoke Gabriel out.
“Peter! Gabriel!” A sing-songy voice echoed through the trees. “Where are you?” It was Hiro.
“Over here!” Peter called, waving a hand. Gabriel dropped his telekinetic funnel cloud and stood up, brushing snow off his jacket.
“You guys done playing around?” Hiro, bundled up so that only his nose and eyes peeked out, was approaching through the trees. “Molly and Matt are making lunch,” he told Peter. “I think it is lasagna. At least that’s what they said. It looks a little like a hamster exploded. Where is Gabriel?”
“He’s right there,” Peter said, pointing. Gabriel was standing in plain sight, not twenty feet away.
“Sorry,” said Gabriel, and he waved to Hiro.
Hiro smiled. “It’s funny to see you do that.”
Peter furrowed his brow in confusion. “Do what?”
“The invisible thing,” said Hiro with a vague wave of his hand to illustrate.
“You can be invisible?” Peter asked quietly, looking at Gabriel. Suddenly the winter wind cut right through his jacket.
Gabriel nodded. “Sure.” Then he looked thoughtful. “Hey, didn’t you—?”
But Peter had started toward him, moving lightning fast as Gabriel had before when he was running, and he had his hand around Gabriel’s throat before he could speak the rest of the sentence. “Where did you get it?” he asked.
Behind him, Hiro spoke with alarm. “Okay, stop being invisible. What’s going on?”
“Who did you kill for that power?” Peter asked. He was holding Gabriel now with one hand, just off the floor of the forest, employing Niki’s strength, and he shook Gabriel by the throat as he spoke.
“Peter?” Hiro called. “What are you doing?”
Gabriel, clawing at Peter’s hand around his neck, couldn’t answer, but Peter could hear his panicked thoughts racing in circles: Oh God, I didn’t know, I forgot you had it first. I’m sorry. You knew him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Disgusted, he threw Gabriel to the ground and pounced on him, one knee pressing into his belly, and his hand again around Gabriel's throat. “What did you do?” he growled.
Instead of hearing thoughts as words, he saw the memories from the inside, flashing in quick sequence, fast as the speed of thought, burning themselves into his brain. He saw them as if they were his own, as if he were experiencing the moment inside Sylar’s twisted memories:
He was holding his hand in front of him, pinning a young woman to the wall with an invisible force, his finger pointed at her head, smiling with anticipatory delight. Then came the sound of a gun safety, and he was turning, seeing an empty room, but stopping the bullet in mid-air as it approached. He let the girl fall and turned to where the sound had come from. He brought his hand up, and with it came shards of shattered glass from the floor of the wrecked room. The little flock of shards hovered for a moment, and then struck. There was a cry of pain, and a bearded man materialized, staring down in disbelief at a pointed glass shard sticking out of his belly. In three quick steps, he was to the man, pinning him to the wall, raising a finger to slice open his head.
He was sitting on the steps of an alter in a dark church looking up at the crucifix. A few feet away lay the body of a priest, the top of his head torn open, his eyes staring up in blank terror, his blood soaking into the plush red carpet. There was a terrible crash as the doors at the end of the church flew open and police swarmed in, but they didn’t see him, so he didn’t need to move. Invisibility was a wonderful trick.
He was painting. The brush flew in his hand as he slapped paint onto the canvas almost savagely. He kept his eyes closed; he didn’t want to see what he was painting, because he knew it would be the same as it always was. He dropped the brush and made a slashing gesture at the canvas, slicing it in half.
He was washing blood off, scrubbing his hands until they bled, scrubbing accompanied by frantic sobbing. The water was hot, and the metallic smell of blood was everywhere. He could taste it in his mouth. He kept scrubbing.
He was standing in a graveyard, watching Hiro and Ando stare at him suspiciously. He took a slow step forward and placed a hand on his mother’s gravestone.
He was crouched in a small wooden room filled with dusty sunlight, staring at his slave tattoo and breathing in the sweet smell of hay.
He was grabbing for Mohinder’s hand, grabbing blindly in the dark, calling for Mohinder.
He was watching Peter have a nightmare, calling “wake up” again and again.
He was running through the forest, heart pounding in his chest.
He couldn’t breathe.
Peter pulled his hand away from Gabriel’s throat, sitting back onto the snow, clutching at his head.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
Gabriel, coughing, clutching his throat, only shook his head in answer.
Hiro ran toward them, now that they were visible. “What happened?” he asked anxiously.
“Ask him.” Peter jerked his chin angrily toward Gabriel.
“Gabriel, are you okay?” Hiro asked.
“I’m fine,” Gabriel said, recovering his breath at last. “I’m sorry, Peter.”
“I saw…” Peter didn’t have words for what that was. “I saw it happen. I saw you kill Claude.”
“Memories,” Gabriel said softly. “It’s another power I acquired before… I’m sorry for what I did.”
“Yeah,” said Peter. Seeing Claude’s disbelief and horror as Sylar closed in on him, Peter tried to hold on to his anger, but Gabriel’s grief, his guilt and his contrition were fresher in Peter’s mind, the deep emotions of the memory burning, simmering like live coals. “You are sorry, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I am,” said Gabriel.
“Did I hurt you?” Peter muttered. He held out a hand to help Gabriel up.
“It’s okay.” Gabriel took Peter’s hand, lurching to his feet unsteadily. “I understand,” he said, avoiding Peter’s eyes.
Hiro had wisely been holding back during this exchange. Now he came forward to take Gabriel gently by the arm. “Let’s get back to the house, okay? Come on.” He produced a folded envelope from the pocket of his coat and handed it to Peter. “This is for you,” he said. “I will take Gabriel back.”
Peter watched them until they were out of sight through the trees, and tried to clear his mind of what he’d just seen. He couldn’t. Sylar’s memories were burned into him, at least for now. He tried not to see Claude’s face, the pain and fear of it, tried not to hear Gabriel's panicked sobs as he tried to scrub blood from his hands.
Instead, he looked at the envelope Hiro had given him. He turned it over in his hand. No address, no postmark, just “Peter” penned in neat, precise strokes across the front. Peter’s heart began to speed up as he recognized the writing.
He ripped open the envelope and pulled out only a small square of paper with more of the same hand. It was from Nathan.
The note read, “Come see me. Please. I need you.”
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