[001] [Intro] Just another tequiiiiila sunriiiise...

[the_flyingman]

There was pain. It was throbbing, all consuming, and just unpleasantBut he'd have to open his eyes eventually. Nathan knew that much. Whether or not he wanted to wasn't a question, he had to get up. Claire was... Claire was somewhere. She was somewhere, doing something, and it wasn't very safe for her to be alone. It didn't matter how well she'd

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[reapwhatwesow]

Where's Peter? How did we get here? No accusing questions, no questions of why, how she could have possibly thought handing Sylar's life over to him was a workable much less moral plan. There was no anger in his expression, nothing that she expected she would imagine if she was truly going to inflict something like this on herself. It was...disturbingly like the dreams she'd had of Alice. Confusing yet benign, and certainly not something she would expect to see of someone who was dead. But there was a major difference between Alice and Nathan. She hadn't seen her sister's body. She had buried her son's.

Stepping out into the hallway, Angela ignored the questions, her gaze focused on his face, a mask of confusion creased into her features as she stepped towards him, reaching out with a tentative hand to touch his cheek. Solid, firm, nothing dream like about it at all. Not even a dreamscape designed by a Parkman could feel so real.

Her other hand moved, coming up to clutch his arm, before Angela wasn't able to fend off the choke of emotions any longer, her features scrunching up to try and avoid actually crying as she shook her head, "I don't know, Nathan. I don't know," She said, answering his questions as honestly as she could.

She didn't know. She didn't know anything right now.

[the_flyingman]

The migraine threatened to surge forward and double when his mother's hand came to rest upon his cheek. But when Nathan saw this wasn't going to be another one of those times where she shared another Petrelli secret, or confessed to him she'd been in on another scheme, or anything of the sort, it subsided.

No, she appeared to be dangerously close to crying. Nathan stared at his mother in disbelief while she seemed to check if he was actually there, and by the time she was holding onto his arm, he felt an annoying surge of guilt for being suspicious of her in the first place.

He didn't have the energy for this. "Ma, it's alright. We'll figure it out." And even if they couldn't, lying to themselves was better than her breaking down into tears, wasn't it?

[reapwhatwesow]

There wasn't anything that Angela could say. This situation was excessively surreal, but he was solid. He was here. And the immense guilt that she already felt was piled even higher on her shoulders as her grip on his arm tightened and then faltered, tears not longer obeying her urges to keep them concealed. Blinking her eyes frantically to try and clear the tears from blurring her sight, Angela eventually gave up, stepping forward and pulling her eldest into a tight embrace.

"Too much.... Too much unknown, not enough information to go on," Angela muttered, her voice choked with tears and muffled against Nathan's chest as she shook her head. "You can't be real. But you are. It doesn't make any sense."

But right now, that was only a secondary thought.

[the_flyingman]

Nathan blinked. He blinked again. Slowly, he moved his arms around his mother, sheer confusion and a slight spike to that headache battling with that inbred need that most sons carried to do anything to make their mothers stop crying. "Ma." He hugged her, trying to get her attention. "I'm real. I'm right here."

Pulling back far enough so they could look each other in the eye, he forced himself to get serious. "Look at me. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere. We'll get through this, alright? Just calm down." Had he missed something, was that what it was? How else could she think he wasn't real? "Is this a dream thing?" Maybe that was it. That would at least make sense.

[reapwhatwesow]

It seemed real. It seemed so perfectly real, and that was the only thing that was running through Angela's mind as she felt the pressure of her eldest's arms around her, heard his voice echo in her ears, telling her that he was real. She half wanted to believe it, but there was part of her soul, the part that had blackened and bittered over the years, wanted to be skeptical and protect herself from the pain that ultimately came with hope.

But as she was pulled backwards, her gaze locking with his, it was that much harder to think of this all as unreal. He was just too solid, not rimmed in the foggy haze or atmospheric dread that came with her nightmares.

"Was," Angela whispered, raising a hand to gently touch his cheek again.. "It was.... But it doesn't matter anymore."

Because even if this was real, what could she do to change things from here? Wherever here was.

[the_flyingman]

"Clearly it does." Nathan argued, and not flinching away from the hand but having a hard time keeping his patience. She wasn't going to tell him anything. Not anything he wanted to know, anyway. For whatever reason.

"Ma, talk to me." He offered the plea as calmly as he could, even though he was sure it wasn't going to make any difference. "At least tell me what's going on with everyone else." Peter, Claire, any of them. He needed to know if someone was making headway.