West Wing, South Hall 2-B

[mustbethesuit]

[From here.]It might be quicker to check the stuff at the end of the hall first and work his way back. That way he wouldn't have to back track in order to get into the main hall. Yeah. Yeah - the morgue was marked on his map, but there were a few rooms around it that weren't labeled at all. Morbid as the thought was, it would be practical to keep

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[autophoenix]

Claire stared helplessly, pathetically, at the sky as the desolated remains of the building continued to crumble through the air around her. The ash felt warm still on her cheeks, the only reminder that her uncle had ever been. She didn't flinch away from them, even as they burned into her face and made her choke and cry -- worse than before. The thought alone that this was where it all ended, that this was all that remained of him, of her hero, made her nothing more than a useless wreck.

Maybe that was why, at first, she couldn't hear the groaning noise over her own sobs and self-pity. But as she tried to wipe away the black stained lines that her tears had dragged the ash into as they rolled down her face, she was sure it was really there. It wasn't her imagination, someone was down there. They had to be. Claire began to scramble, trying to gather herself up and stop looking like the pathetic mess she'd allowed herself to become. Her limbs were still creaking, skin still burning with the healing sensation even as she began to try and tug rubble away, forcing her way back downwards in the direction of the noise.

Smaller pieces of debris were moved more easily -- she wasn't by any means a weak girl, not after all the strength training required for the tumbling moves she'd learned for cheerleading, and it was helping her dead lift the rocks. No, not rocks. Chunks of building. Or what used to be a building, anyway. It didn't take long, though, before she reached a piece too big to lift. Somehow, it seemed like it was the last piece in the way between her and the noise. It sounded so much like someone who needed help, she started to try and press her palms against the stone, forcing it upwards. It budged a little, but not enough.

It was definitely, she could tell from peeking around the sides, the only stone covering where the sound was coming from. Any sound had to be good sound at this point, right? Maybe her blood could heal them if they were hurt. Maybe it wasn't all lost. God, it hurt to let herself have that hope, but she couldn't let herself believe she was really this alone. She couldn't. The aching emptiness was too much too bear. So, she pressed with her shoulder against the rock, trying to push it out of the way and ignoring the pain that came with it. At first. Finally she screamed and gave into the pain of the way the stone dislocated her shoulder and slouched to the ground, crying.

She remained there for several minutes, defeated. This close, and she was useless. As useless as ever. She could save herself, but she'd never be able to save anyone else. When it came down to it, she'd never be able to be the hero. She'd be the victim, the survivor, the most screwed up of them all, but she'd never be able to help someone who needed her. The overbearing weight of guilt sank down around her shoulders, preventing her from pulling herself up even if she'd tried. Slowly, though, as the groaning noises wore away at her psyche, she began to fumble her way back up, using the stone for support and pressing her palms to it as she rose back to her feet. She couldn't let it beat her.

"Hang in there. Just hang in there, please. I promise I'm coming, okay?" Was it even a person she was speaking to? Was she imagining it entirely? Was she really that horrified by the prospect of being alone that she'd hallucinate someone? The truth was, she was. And she was beginning to accept this, but regardless of her paranoia that it was just some hallucination, she needed to know. Needed to be sure. Slowly, with more determination, screaming still at the pain that was sent in shockwaves up through her shoulder and into her chest and ribs, she began to push at it again.

[product_of_fear]

The voices continued to build and press at Peter, familiar ones sometimes rising out of the constant murmuring, the whispers of disappointment - they'd trusted him, he'd been their friend, why did he have to end it this way? Why couldn't he control himself? - to make themselves heard.

"It's not your fault, Peter," someone suddenly spoke from somewhere behind his left shoulder. "It was all too much for you to handle, I've told you that from the beginning. You shouldn't have gotten yourself caught up in it. Wasn't the life you had enough for you? Enough for anyone?"

It was hard to tell if the speaker expected much of an answer, or if Peter could even be heard by them or if, as had happened already, turning around would only reveal there to be nothing behind him, no one there to speak to at all beyond the echoes in his own head.

But the voice certain sounded real.

It definitely sounded real, the sound of groaning and sobbing coming from underneath the huge chunk of rock Claire uselessly struggled to move. The voice of someone trapped under there, afraid, likely injured and in pain, and still unable to speak or make any noise beyond the occasional croaking sound as they tried to clear the dust and ash from their throat. But there was someone there and they were very possibly the last person alive for miles.

They coughed again as, against all the odds, the rock shifted from Claire's efforts. Not much of a shift, but it had definitely happened. She'd made something of a difference, though there was still some way to go before she could get it off whoever was trapped below it.

Assuming she could move it that far before they too died.

[human_sponge]

The number and volume of the voices only increased, and now Peter felt like he was in a void surrounded by only what he was hearing. He wanted to clasp his hands up to his ears, but he wasn't sure how much of him was still there, physically, at that point. It almost felt like he was in a dream, but he knew that that was only wishful thinking. This was some strange post-death experience, like nothing he'd have imagined. In fact, it was almost like when he'd seen Charles, that one time, after passing out. But this was more definite than that, he was almost sure.

And now it was expanding to people from beyond the institute: Simon and Isacc, Hiro and Ando, Claire's father, and so forth. Most of the time he could only hear a portion of whatever they were saying, but he got enough from what he did hear and from their tones to know that the main sentiment was simply disappointment, mixed with anger and fear. And all of it was justified.

But what he hadn't been ready for was to hear the one voice he should have expected all along. The second that Nathan's voice cut through the cloud of everyone else, it was as if Peter's feet suddenly found the ground, and he felt solid again. Which was a bad thing, in a way, because he didn't want to face it. And yet he could tell that his brother's voice was coming from behind him, and it was impossible not to turn around to meet it.

Part of him had expected Nathan's voice to be disembodied, like the others, and the other part had known that that wouldn't be the case. Still, taking in his brother's features after having been without him for the past while (not longer than a week, probably, but that was long in his book) was a shock he'd had no way of bracing for.

There were so many excuses he could have given, and so many ways that he could have argued back. It was practically second nature for him and Nathan by now, to argue over even the smallest things. And nothing about this current topic counted as trivial -- yet Peter knew that there was nothing he could say to excuse himself.

"I don't know anymore," he admitted with a shake of his head as he looked down at hands that had been glowing not so long ago. "When I first got those powers, I thought they were going to solve all my problems. Why did it all have to go so wrong?" But he knew he'd been looking for an easy fix, and he'd gotten anything but. As much as he wanted to believe that he would go back to his old life if it meant that it would bring all of those people back, he knew that it wasn't that easy. It didn't work that way, not even if you were a time traveler. And not when you were already dead.

No, he'd messed up, pure and simple, and the scolding he was getting was probably of his own imagination. And yet he couldn't help feeling guilty, anyway. He'd left Nathan behind, brainwashed and alone. If the blast hadn't reached far enough to kill him, too, anyway.

[autophoenix]

Unfortunately, in Claire's hysteric state, the harder she struggled against the rock barrier, the less it seemed to move. She'd throw herself at it, pound her fists against it, determinedly press her shoulder against it despite the sharp, crippling pain it repeatedly caused. In fact, her body was shot to hell once again just from the sheer earnest desperation with which she was throwing herself at this large, impeding piece of rubble.

Each useless shove was more discouraging than the last, but Claire wasn't allowing herself to give up hope. After more time than she cared to attempt to measure of useless shoving, she slammed her palms against the stone, simultaneously relishing in and wincing at the dull, aching burn that radiated through her palms.

"I don't want to be alone," she muttered, and then she repeated in a more desperate, tear-filled scream as she shook with the fear that she finally found herself admitting to. "I don't want to be alone!" The relief of the admission alone was enough, but the shouting had earned her some more stamina somehow. Reinvigorated her and made her more determined to beat the impossibility of the rock before her.

She backed off some, stumbling without the rubble to help support her over the cracks and uneven debris, then took a running start at it, throwing everything she had into one final, determined push, desperate to get this piece of rock out of the way and save whoever had been unfortunate enough to survive the devastation her uncle had caused.

[product_of_fear]

"It's not easy, Peter," Nathan said, reaching out to place an affectionate, surprisingly solid hand on his younger brother's shoulder and give him a gentle squeeze. "If you'd only listened to me to begin with, maybe we could have avoided all this. Now..."

His hand fell away again, and he seemed to be almost fading slowly, like the echo of a dream as the morning came. It was equally difficult to make out his words as he spoke, and only snatches of them were able to be heard correctly.

"...should have known what would happen...couldn't stop..."

Then Nathan was gone entirely. But strangely, there was a door floating just behind where he had been, ever so slightly open so that a little bit of light seeped around the edges of it. And with there being nothing else other than Peter himself in the barren landscape, he didn't really have a lot of other options.

Surprisingly, Claire's final attempt at shoving the chunk of debris managed to move it again, though it was possibly the result of how much previous effort she'd put into loosening it. It didn't move too much, but enough back that its own weight tilted it at an angle giving her just enough space that she might be able to wiggle through into the area below.

Which she might want to do, as while it had seemed like there was someone trapped underneath the piece of masonry itself while she'd been struggling with it, it was clear now that she had more space that that hadn't really been the case at all.

There was a small trapdoor hidden underneath the debris. It was badly damaged and flimsy, but if someone had been in there at the time of the explosion, they may have even managed to survive with minimal injury.

Of course, with how silent the area was now - only her own breathing and the softer sounds of ash settling on the rubble - her determination to not be left along might have been too late...

[human_sponge]

At the hand, Peter startled, but not enough to pull away. He knew that this might be the last time that he would hear his brother's voice or feel his grip, even if it was all in his head, something created from his memory as a final goodbye. He knew he should be glad that he got that much, even if Nathan was working guilt into his words, even now.

Still, he couldn't fight against them, and he only bowed his head as he took in Nathan's words. "I had no idea it would come to this. If I had, I would have never..." This was the last thing that he'd wanted. He thought that his powers would help to save everyone, so that he could make a difference, and yet all he'd managed to do was kill everyone who had been trying so hard to get out of this place, Claire included.

As he glanced up again, Nathan was already fading away. It was too fast. "Wait--" His hand shot out, but it only moved through Nathan as if he was a ghost. Before he could say another word, or even think of a way to keep Nathan there, he was already gone. And he was alone again.

Except then something else appeared in his place. Some sort of doorway, a path to... what? To death? Peter couldn't think of any other reason for it being there, and it wasn't as if there was anywhere else to go. Quietly, he took in a breath, and then drew forward to step through the doorway. This was the end. It had to be.

[autophoenix]

As clichéd as the realization seemed, the silence was deafening.

Claire sank down to her knees and stared into the space beneath the rubble, palms pressed flat against the huge, hulking rock that had been a barrier between her and that space. It was too quiet. As badly as she wanted to take the heaved gasps of relief and try to calm herself down from the hysteric state, that didn't feel like it was going to happen. Her blood pressure was already spiking with fear again that she'd failed to save whoever it was that had been hiding down there.

Suffocation, maybe. Or worse. They could have been injured, burned badly enough that they were still alive but barely -- alive enough that Claire might have healed them with her blood. But, all of the uncertainty of what it was and the fear that she might be too late made her hesitate awkwardly. Even while the opposite reaction seemed more logical, to hurry and hope it would keep her from being too late, the silence made her certain enough she'd just blown it and a little wallowing wasn't going to change that.

"No," she whispered helplessly. "No, please," she started to clamber down, slinking her tiny body in the gap she'd formed and pulling on the trap door. One tug, two -- on the third, it jerked open and she quickly ducked through in hopes that the crawl space it hid would reveal a very alive person, as unlikely as that seemed.

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