fic: deception, part one (Chaos Theory 3/14)
Title: Deception (Chaos Theory 3/14)
Rating: R (language, disturbing imagery)
Beta:
gidget_zband
dreamingwriter- they both make me look good, seriously, and any mistakes here are completely mine!
Pairing: Peter/Claire (building up the connection), and a few minor others
Characters: Dude, seriously, think clowns in a clown car, okay?
Timeline: Follows " Beneath" and " Surprise," includes dialogue from some episodes - AU as of "Fallout"
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Notes: I named Mr. Petrelli Michael many months ago, and I'm not changing it, heh. Also, I'd highly recommend anyone reading this quickly pop over and read the notes, which can be found here, ;)
Teaser: Sometimes deception’s just a different version of the truth.
There had been so many attempts over the years.
And each attempt, every single one, had ended in failure.
The knot would come undone around his neck as soon as he began to feel pressure, and he would tumble to the ground, bruised but alive; if he stepped in front of a speeding car, it would inevitably be stopped (sometimes at the cost of an innocent life) just before hitting him; when he tried to jump off a building at the age of fifty, sure it would work, he’d only fallen ten feet before landing on a balcony below him- impossible to land where he had from where he had jumped but there it was, a brutal fact; when he’d pulled out a pistol, the whole damn gun had locked up, giving him a bit of noise but no salvation.
This one, he knew, wouldn’t end in failure.
For the entire week before Michael Petrelli finally succeeded, he dreamed of dying.
And that alone assured him that it was time.
It was achingly easy to keep his plans from Angela- it had been years since he’d attempted it, and she was fading so badly now, slept so much and was so quiet and he knew it was his fault, that she was rotting away because he was. Peter was more difficult to hide it from, so he spent most of that week sticking his youngest with Angela, and they had always connected so deeply even when Angela had tried not to let them.
Nathan, though…
Michael had been the one to finally tell Nathan the truth, or at least as much as his firstborn was able to absorb, and ended up proving Nathan’s longtime suspicions in regards to his father’s frequent disappearances when he had been younger, long weeks spent away, always returning with even more medication. It wasn’t fair, he knew, to put it all on Nathan’s shoulders but his son was so much stronger than he was.
Long before he’d had his children, Michael had decided he wanted none, and if he allowed himself, he knew it was one of the first things he had seen in his sleep, heat tearing apart New York, erasing millions of lives in a single heartbeat. It hadn’t been the first though, because he had dreamed for so long, seen so many things flickering behind his eyes before Linderman had entered his life, bringing him back from what was supposed to be his death.
Another attempt he’d been close only for it to be snatched away, leaving the young man with blood on his hands.
Long before he’d finally brokenly understood what he saw, he’d seen.
Years of seeing the same vision, though, and he had never been able to figure out which son it was he saw, had only ever been able to catch a hint of dark hair before the red exploded and blinded him and how useful was that, a vision that gave him the information that the son that would do it would have dark hair? He had dark hair, Angie had dark hair, both of their sons had dark hair…
Useless information, just like everything Michael had ever seen.
Peter had always been such a perfect image of what Angie could have been like if life had never decimated her, if she had never decided that he was worth it despite everything it cost her- and just for that, he had loved Peter, just because of what he saw in his son. But it was Nathan that he loved more than must have been healthy, Nathan he was desperate to save, Nathan he had come home to each time an attempt failed. He saw who he could have been in his firstborn, the son he’d named after his own father.
Nathan, he realized two weeks before his death, was the one who would fly.
It had been the only truly beautiful image he’d ever seen in his near seventy years, the only one to leave his heart lighter than heavier after it was over, but he’d never understood it. It had come back every so often, the only noise the wind around him and the world far below. Even the angry red that edged his visions had faded, leaving the world muted, soft, unable to hurt him as he left it behind.
Nathan was the man who would fly, if given a chance.
Nathan was the one he would have sacrificed Peter for- hated himself for it, but he would have done it.
So it was probably fitting that Nathan would be the son he would be forced to sacrifice to save .07% of the world.
Odessa, Texas
No good could come from keeping Gabriel Gray alive.
At best, he was insane; at worst, a psychopath- a man like him wouldn’t stop until he was stopped.
Mr. Bennet had always possessed an extremely impressive aim with his .45, had learned how to use his broad-shouldered frame early on in life. He knew that if he made a beeline for the little cell, there was no one in the facility right now that could stop him in time- slip into the cell, close the door behind him and put a bullet straight through the bastard’s skull.
Gray had become adept at his stolen telekinesis, his ability to mend his worst injuries after falling five stories was proof of that, but a bullet to the head would do it, Mr. Bennet knew.
It would all be over, Claire would be safe, and all it would take was a single bullet.
Mr. Bennet didn’t do it; instead, gritted his teeth and held himself back with every ounce of will he had.
It wasn’t fear of being punished that kept him from going into the cell, not even his vague fear of Thompson- his employers knew how vicious he could be, knew how far he would go, and while he knew his punishment would be horrible, he knew he’d walk away from it intact because they liked him, liked how talented he was at doing their dirty work for them.
Claire, though…
They would look more closely at his family, and he knew with horrifying certainty what would follow- Lyle and Sandra would be watched closely but they’d stop looking quickly enough, seeing how normal his wife and son were. They wouldn’t stop looking at Claire, though, would realize she was never sick, and would look even more intently then.
The formula Mr. Bennet found himself confronted with was chilling and left his heart tight in his chest.
If he was a good boy, he would be able to keep Claire safe, and if not…
They would figure it out, and they would take Claire.
So he gritted his teeth and held himself back with every ounce of will he had.
Even so… “But-”
“He’s to be held, not terminated.”
Bennet went still for a long minute, his fingers tight around the phone, before finally giving up for the time being, nodding even though he knew his supervisor couldn’t see it. “I understand,” he stated carefully, and almost heard the slight smirk that twisted the older man’s face. “As for Parkman…”
“We’re handling that just fine- just keep everything calm, and the storm will pass right through, same as always…”
“I understand.”
“That’s why I put up with you,” Thompson laughed, and Bennet only barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the smug tone. The older man was good, he had learned quickly, but he was also disgustingly arrogant at times, spending more time smirking at his underlings than actually doing the work that was assigned to him by his own superiors.
Men like Thompson were as troublesome as the killer Bennet found himself worrying over more each day.
Thompson just didn’t leave any evidence, usually vanished and left others to deal with the aftermath- and more often than not, Bennet was his favorite to dump his mess on.
Luckily for Bennet, he was a bit smarter than Thompson.
Manhattan, New York
Two weeks spent in a hospital watching her younger child suffer in quiet torment (and he was suffering, she was sure of that, knew it the way she knew quite a few things when it came to her family) and Angela Petrelli found she was rapidly losing control over her emotions.
Never a good thing for anyone involved, she had found.
Simone Deveaux popping up with a bunch of flowers and patting her head like she was a dog only added to her strain.
Once, Angela had vague hopes she’d be gifted, carry on her father’s passive but impressive talent, but there was nothing, no sign of anything other than a socialite who tried to make herself special by keeping herself busy with charity cases. She’d be a good match with Peter on a social level, but not on any other level- and so Angela had no use for her, not anymore.
“He’s burning up,” the younger woman sighed- rather needlessly, in Angela’s opinion.
“Persistent idiopathic fever,” Angela snapped, irritated- the girl had none of her father’s strength, was useless in every way that really mattered. “Means they have no idea what's wrong. Fly in the best doctors in the world, just to have them tell me they don't know what they're doing in four different languages.”
Angela knew what was wrong with him, and it made it worse for her.
Charles could have helped right now, could have found Peter and brought him back to her, pulled her son out of the visions and given him back-he’d done it enough with her husband during Michael’s worst ordeals, but Charles was dead and the only other person she knew could have found Peter was-
No, he was why this was happening in the first place, now, wasn’t he?
Angela found herself under attack from several different sides, all of whom knew her weaknesses.
What was next, Kaito riding in from the East to get back at her for costing him his favorite toy two decades ago?
“His heart- they don't know how much more he can take.”
Nathan, of course.
“Twenty-six years old, he's gonna die of a heart attack?” and why was Charles’ daughter peering at her like that, staring at her like she was something to be pitied?
Angela hated pity, despised it-nothing felt quite as horrible as pity, she had found.
“He's not gonna die, Ma.”
More pity, this time from Nathan, and it was too much to handle on top of just being in a hospital.
Angela Petrelli had enough unhappy hospital memories to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
“Well, he will unless I do something.”
“Why don't you just let the doctors do what they do?” her firstborn called after her but she ignored him, overwhelmed for a moment with panic, disjointed with emotion. Her power had always been equal parts curse and gift, making life as easy to handle as it made it hard- it allowed her to gaze into the dark of someone’s heart and see everything tucked away in those shadows, every weakness and flaw, allowed her to use each as she saw fit.
Always powerful, time had given her talent a razor-sharp proficiency.
But adept in her power or not, Angela knew that it was a sickening truth that a true manipulator was affected.
Every heart she had slipped into, every emotion she had affected- every one, she bore the marks of, ugly scars on her own heart that never healed, places inside of her that she had been forced to grind away just so they didn’t destroy her.
The worst had been Michael, and she knew it had been a mistake to let herself care about him the way she had, to leave herself vulnerable to him the way she had- but she’d loved him, as horrifically clichéd as the entire concept was, and that love had kept her going even when his weary heart left her struggling for any kind of stimulation she could seek out for herself.
It had been stupid to stay with him until the end… and yet she had.
Simple fact was, she had loved Michael that much.
Now Angela was herself again in a way she hadn’t been since Michael had shattered so completely two decades before, her husband’s shadows fading until she could drag in air and remember exactly who she was. She’d never forgotten who she was but there’d been moments when she’d seemed to dim, overwhelmed with everything that Michael gave her.
Good moments or bad, Michael had always overwhelmed her.
And to her great exhaustion, Peter was just as overwhelming, just as completely conscious as Michael had always been before Maury had beaten him down. The reasonable part of Angela knew that it had started long before the little prick had turned against them, that Michael had been slipping away even before they’d met, but she still knew who she blamed for that final loss of her husband.
Goddammit, she wished Charles was there… Peter would have listened to Charles, same way Michael always had.
She gave a momentary thought to Michael’s sister but then shook her head, making a face.
There was nothing she could do anyway, with her flashy but relatively useless little talent.
“You couldn’t have waited a few more weeks to die?” she snapped irritably at poor, dead Charles as she moved fast, needing to be as far away from her sons as she could be. “You held out until Michael went, you couldn’t have held out a little longer?” She probably looked like an idiot, striding down the hall and talking to herself but she didn’t care, just glared down at her phone as she dug it out, flipping it open and scrolling through numbers that had false names attached, private numbers that only she knew and had never shared with anyone.
Angela and the rest of her associates had gotten used to the power they had found at hand, power they had decided to pass on to their offspring-only some of them had succeeded, Kaito being the luckiest at turning his power into actual honest-to-god wealth. But his daughter refused to use her gift, and his son, from what Angela had seen, was a four-eyed twerp with no talent that any of them had been able to find. At least Kimiko had potential, not like the geeky child Angela had met once, and he had never even looked away from his Nintendo long enough to give her a respectful glance.
Irritating in the worst way possible that Kaito could complain about how disrespectful their children were, but not even have a firm hand with his own little brat.
Linderman, who had also flourished financially, had no children to pass it all on to.
Well, that’s wasn’t completely true-
Angela grimaced at herself, shook her head unhappily, scrolling through the fake names over and over again, going through information she already knew by heart, secrets that she carried. There was Frank, but she dismissed that thought before it even formed completely, not just because he would be useless but because he’d cause even more trouble; not Walter (even though he had family with potential) since he had connections to people that would be all too interested in someone like Peter, ties that could manipulate her without leaving any ability to do the same to him-there was a reason Michael had given him the cold shoulder so many years before; certainly not Edward, crack-pot that he was- he was getting worse, especially with Kaito indulging his insanity, and she wanted nothing to do with either of them, traitors that they were; she gave a momentary thought to Harry but then dismissed him as well, uneasy- he wasn’t stable, and she couldn’t control him even if he could have been useful.
Bob?
No, not Bob… he was just as big a whack-job, and his power was just as useless as the others for what she needed.
Frustrated, arriving to the same conclusion that she had for the last two weeks, she cursed Charles again, and then cursed Michael on principle- why the hell did his power have to be so damn devastating?
And why did the rest of them have to be so goddamned useless?
Las Vegas, Nevada
DL knew for a fact that he wasn’t as good at raising Micah as Niki was-he was a good father, but he wasn’t Niki.
Still, it stung, the way Micah kept glancing at him like he was crazy.
Leaving Micah to pick curiously at his pathetic attempt at a PB&J sandwich, he tugged open the fridge and pulled out the peanut butter, hesitating for a moment, unsure.
If he put it out now that he had already chilled it, would it spoil?
He read the label but found it useless, rolling his eyes as he dropped it back into the fridge-he’d figure it out later.
Worn down with worry for his wife and his son, he drifted out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom, passing by the scattered images of their separate families, a horribly unbalanced collection. His own family was fragile but still good, a small handful of people he kept cautious connections with, people he still loved.
Niki’s photo collection, he found, was achingly small-most of them were old snapshots of her and Jessica, the rare pictures when the girls had been truly happy in their childhood, when Hal had been at his busiest. There were no pictures of Hal or Hal’s sister; no images of any of the grandparents.
The only image of Niki’s mother was kept in the bedroom, and a single copy later shrunk down to fit into her wallet.
He’d been quietly relieved to find it in good condition when they’d gotten home, tucked into an unbroken frame and carefully place on the bedside drawer again. He didn’t know much about the woman, honestly didn’t think about her that much either, but he was crushingly grateful that Niki hadn’t lost the picture.
Niki didn’t deserve to lose anything else in her life.
He threw a glance at it absently as he slipped into the bedroom now, hesitating at the emptiness of the room, the hollow quality to it; the house didn’t feel right when Niki was gone and the bedroom, especially, was off. “You’ll be home soon,” he sighed raggedly to the shadow of Niki that haunted their home, quickly peeling off his shirt from last night and yanking out a button-up from the closet, checking his reflection in the large mirror.
Even the mirrors had been replaced, each and every one.
He had to keep trying to make a good impression on Micah’s teacher, the one who hated him for no reason he could understand (and seemed to hate him even more now that he was a convict that had been proven innocent) and had hated Niki just because she was a blonde and had happened to be attractive.
Far more attractive than the sneering school teacher, so DL suspected it was pure jealousy.
Snatching a tie, he started work on that, remembering with a grimace why he hated the damn thing so much.
He was trying to remember how to tighten it the right way when the doorbell went off, a noise that made his heart leap in his throat and caused him to nearly strangle himself as he fought the stupid thing off and bolted for the front door. “Micah,” he started as he caught sight of his son opening the door, and moved even faster when Micah stepped back, mulish expression on his young features as somebody waved a wrapped object in his face. “Micah-”
“Mr. Linderman sent it,” the young woman chirped, shoving the gift into Micah’s hands and pushing her way neatly past the boy, slamming and locking the door lightly behind her as if she lived there. Catching sight of the glowering DL, she grinned broadly, wriggling her fingers in a cheery greeting. “Hey, there, Hawkins- how’s the world treating you?”
“I think it’s a book,” Micah decided, now ignoring Linderman’s assistant as he felt the package, fingering it with Niki’s determined look on his face, a look painfully rare to DL. But he finally looked up at his father, hesitating even as he clutched the gift more tightly. “Can I open it?”
“Yeah, go ahead…” DL had the suspicion that Niki would have already tossed the young woman out on her ass.
The feeling only made him feel like a worse provider, and he swallowed, slipping quickly in-between his son and the woman as Micah peeled the paper off, revealing a heavy hard-covered book that the boy held with excited hands. “This is really expensive,” he said slowly, giving the woman a wary but pleased look, a mix of guilt and glee on his face. “I saw it a couple of days ago, and it was really expensive.”
“Aw, kid, don’t worry about it… Mr. Linderman thinks a boy like you deserves the best,” she laughed, reaching out and patting his head like he was a dog, grinning like a cat herself.
DL only barely saw it, having caught his son’s words and feeling suddenly nauseous at them.
A couple days ago…
DL remembered it, when his son must have seen the book and taken notice of it. He’d headed to the mall for a job interview (one that had proven to be useless as all the rest) and let the boy wander into a bookstore for a few seconds while he tried to think up a way to explain that he hadn’t gotten that job either.
It wasn’t just a gift to Micah, it was a blatant warning.
The rush of emotion (fear and panic and something that burned sharp in him like outright hate) swept away everything else as he moved forward to drop a hand on his son’s shoulder and drag him back, urging him off to the side, a red haze tinting the world crimson. “My son’s off-limits-”
“You know how much Mr. Linderman adores children,” the woman sighed, lips twitching into an amused little smile. “Besides, the boy needs a little extra love right now, with his mommy in the slammer.”
Irritated, heart raw from the loss of his wife, he couldn’t hold his temper in check, snapping, “What do you want?”
“I work for Mr. Linderman-”
“Yeah,” he cut her off, grimacing, “yeah, I remember you from a few days ago.”
“Good to know I’m memorable-”
“What do you want?” he demanded, stepping in front of her when she went to fiddle with the photos hanging on the wall. She was even more annoying now than she had been when she had come to pick up the money, smirking at him as he adjusted the frame she had played with, checking that it was balanced the right way. “Don’t touch the pictures.”
“Who’s that?” she asked curiously but he shook his head, noticing the way Micah watched them both curiously.
“Go get ready for school,” he exhaled, wincing when Micah gave him a long ‘you’re insane- I don’t want to miss this’ look. “Go,” he said more firmly, and sighed in relief when his son finally obeyed, shoulders wilting as he cast the young woman a last wary look before heading off for his room. “Stay away from my son and stop touching everything in my house.”
“Mr. Linderman bought you this house-”
“I own it.”
“Because Mr. Linderman gave it to you, the way a good boss does for his good workers,” she smirked even more and he gave up, realizing that it was like arguing with a brick wall.
“What do you want?”
“Mr. Linderman would like to see you.”
It occurred to DL that he had never known that Linderman would hire someone so blunt.
“Mr. Linderman needs a favor, DL,” she said shortly, untying her coat and peeling it off, dropping it over a chair as she settled neatly onto the couch, tucking her skirt under her. “An associate of our boss had his beady little eyes on that money, DL; your quest to get it back to Mr. Linderman as quickly as you could made it possible for Mr. Linderman to weed this little twerp out.”
Confused, silent, he stood there and stared at her, frowning in misunderstanding.
“He’s very grateful,” she explained flatly. “He knows you’re a man of your word, DL. He knew that before, of course, and he even kept an eye on you in prison, made sure you didn’t have to play little wife to anyone-”
“He sent me to prison-”
“Semantics,” she retorted, crossing her legs and flashing him that little smirk again. There was a long moment of silence as she flicked a finger across the hem of her skirt, lips curving downwards in a frown. “I bet you’re worried about Niki,” she said softly, and he went still, heart twisting viciously in his chest. “I mean, as long as Mr. Linderman is worried about his current problem, he can’t focus on keeping your wife safe, you know?”
So this was why Linderman hired this girl-she could stop his heart with one badly worded but substantial threat.
It was completely understandable that little Molly Walker had horrific nightmares.
Her family had been taken from her and she’d been left to huddle for hours in a little room as she felt mean eyes look for her but not find her. She had all kinds of nightmares since Matt (he had eyes, too, big ones that stared at her but didn’t scare her and his had been closed until she’d seen him and then they’d popped open and looked right at her but it hadn’t been scary, not at all) had found her, but she’d been able to sleep anyway because the eyes were never able to settle on her, never able to really find her because she was good at hiding.
And then they’d gotten worse and he’d looked at her and he’d seen her and that had been two weeks ago.
These weren’t real nightmares, and she knew it the way she knew everybody she met.
Molly couldn’t hide anymore (mean eyes always watched her) so she tried to keep herself safe where she was, the little room her father had first taught her how to make when she used to sit on his lap. It looked like her room, the one she hadn’t seen since the morning her mother screamed and she’d woken up and she’d hid because he was looking for her and he was so loud, like a bunch of bees in her head.
It had all her stuffed bears on the bed and the dollhouse her grandpa had brought her last Christmas-
But she’d pushed her bookshelf in front of her window and then shoved her dresser in front of the door because he always tried to look in through the window and he was starting to push against the door and he’d never been able to do that before, not once and what did that mean, that he was knocking and demanding that she let him in?
Her father had always said he could never come in if they didn’t open the door for him.
But he got louder every time she fell asleep, pounding against the door and yelling for her to open the door and let him in because he just wanted to see her. That was a lie, though, and her father had made sure she understood that, that the nightmare man with the scary eyes lied to get in, so you couldn’t let him in, not ever because once he got in, you could never get him out.
Like little roaches, her father had laughed as he tweaked her nose, and once they got in, you couldn’t get rid of them.
Never look at him and never look for him, he had said over and over again, and held her face and kissed her cheek, holding her tight against him as he put her to bed every night. He had done it since before she could remember, told her the rules every time he tucked her in, every single night-never look at him, never look for him, never let him in no matter what he said or how nice he sounded.
Ignore him, and he’d go away because he couldn’t stay there forever because he was tired.
“Molly, let me in.”
“Go away!” she shouted, and brushed her doll’s hair more furiously, trying not to look at the doorknob now jiggling furiously and she hoped the door would stay locked because she didn’t know if the dresser could keep him out.
“I just want to see you, sweetheart, that’s all…”
He sounded like that sometimes, nice and sweet and like her grandpa but it was a lie and she knew it because he was mean and his eyes were mean and when he had looked at her two weeks ago when she fell asleep in the second before she’d woken up screaming, he had looked at her like he wanted to eat her, like she was Little Red Riding Hood and he was the Big Bad Wolf-
“The better to see you with,” he snarled through the door (he sounded like a wolf) and she almost dropped her doll as she jerked her eyes to stare at the door, scooted farther up her bed. He did that all the time, talked to her and said things he shouldn’t know about because they were things only in her head and she didn’t know what that meant either because he had never been able to do that before.
Daddy had said it was a good thing, but to be careful because it made the Nightmare Man mad because even if he knew they were there, he couldn’t do anything because he couldn’t get in.
“Molly, let me in,” and he sounded like mommy suddenly and this time she did drop the doll, eyes growing wide as she shook her head. It wasn’t mommy, she knew, it wasn’t but it sounded just like her, the way her mommy sounded when she needed to come in and grab something but Molly had locked the door by accident the way she sometimes did. “Moll, baby, let me in, I just have to grab something.”
“Go away!”
“Molly, honey-” and he sounded like daddy and this time she screamed, grabbed her doll and flung it hard at the door, hearing utter silence when the plastic hit the wall and shattered like the vase she had dropped a week before her parents had died.
But he didn’t say anything because he had left the door and she swallowed, almost relaxed before she heard fingers drumming furiously at her window, a muffled sound through the bookcase.
“Molly,” the Nightmare Man whispered, tapping out a little song against the glass. “Molly, let me in…”
She rolled over, eyes burning, and pulled her pillow over her head but it didn’t help because even though he couldn’t come in, even though he couldn’t see her, his voice came in and made her feel like he was opening her up and stuffing those fuzzy packing thingies into her whole body until she couldn’t move.
“Molly… Moll, let me in…” and he sounded like mommy again.
Grief won out where fear couldn’t, and the little girl started to cry.
Women’s Correctional Facility, Nevada
Since she had watched Jessica’s lovely eyes go dark, all Niki had ever wanted was her sister back.
Jessica had been strong and brave, everything she’d never been able to be when she had been a little girl. Jessica had been so accomplished so young, could have been so much- had played the piano like she had been born to do it, had been first in their class, had been so smart they had wanted her to skip a grade but she’d said no, insisted that she had to stay with Niki. Jessica had taken every blow and every smack, had stood her ground every time and gritted her teeth and done it all for Niki because she had loved her that much.
Jessica had been her hero, had been what had kept her going when she had been little, had promised her constantly that things would be fine, that they would be fine. We’ll grow up, Jessica had always promised her fervently, we’ll grow up and out lives will be perfect and we’ll be together, forever, and we’ll never have to worry about dad ever again.
Jessica had been strangled like some animal, and Niki still didn’t know what was worse- that her sister had been killed at all, or that her sister had been killed in such a way, as if she was nothing, no one. In the weeks after her death, Niki had waited for the pain to ease, but it had only gotten worse, some kind of aching hollow where Jessica had once been, as if someone had reached into her and stolen a piece of her heart. Weeks had become years and years had become two decades and even now, thirty years old and fragmented, Niki was still waiting for Jessica to come back.
That she had some twisted version of Jessica back, something that called herself Jessica but wasn’t really …
Lonely, Niki found herself wishing for her sister, aching for her even as she hated herself for it.
This wasn’t Jessica, couldn’t be, and it made it all the worse, being teased with the name, with the face when she looked in the mirror, remembering the games they’d played when they’d been young, standing shoulder to shoulder and then giggling hysterically at the image they had made in their mother’s free-standing mirror in the corner.
Even Niki’s best memories were becoming twisted, causing a sharp pain deep inside.
Needless to say, Niki wasn’t handling solitary confinement very well.
Jessica talked to her in the dark, constantly, mercilessly- sometimes telling her how weak she was with an angry and heated voice, and other times promising that she’d take care of her, protect her, be there no matter what. It was her own voice but it wasn’t at the same time, sounded just like Jessica’s would have if she wasn’t a little corpse buried six feet under, and that hurt the worst, that at times she almost wondered if…
“You’re not my sister.”
“Stop whining,” the other voice snapped irritably, seeming to come from the shadows beyond where Niki laid, half-aware and exhausted, limbs aching. “I’m trying to think, and all you can do is bitch and moan… I swear to fucking god, Niki, you’re like some bad actress out of a Lifetime movie!”
“Don’t talk to me like that-”
“I’m older than you… I can talk to you however the fuck I want.”
Groaning, Niki closed her eyes against the voice, exhaling slowly against the soft floor where she lay, had lain since she woke up with bloody hands and sore muscles. She thought that had been three days ago but she was no longer sure- they let her go to the bathroom, fed her, and then always doped her up again, leaving Niki feeling like the only thing that was real was the voice in her head, the shape in the shadows that almost looked like...
“I just wish you wouldn’t… talk to me like that,” she replied a long moment later, and heard nothing for a long time, just quiet breathing that almost sounded like her own. When the silence kept going, for longer than it had since Niki had woken up in a straightjacket, she swallowed, tasted a faint panic at the back of her throat. “Jessica?”
“Just shut up and let me think, okay, Niki?”
It sounded like her sister, the way Jessica always used to sound when their father had gone quiet, the days when he’d open a second bottle of booze and start staring at them as if they were the reason his life was shit. It had the same quality, frustrated and angry but still gentle, still soft with her and Niki sighed helplessly, pressing her head into the floor and hating herself for it, for the weakness of wishing this fucked-up thing in her head really was Jessica.
“Niki?” the voice prodded again, more firmly, and she nodded dully, weakly, sighing again.
“What?”
“Don’t call me ‘fucked-up,’ Niki.”
Odessa, Texas
Claire hadn’t realized how nice it had been to meet up with Zach every day at school.
It was as awkward as she had known it would be, all eyes following her around from the second she got out of the car and headed onto school property, wearing her cheerleading uniform like battle armor, not caring how stupid it probably made her look. Crowds parted before her and people stared at her unabashedly- it was worse than how she had known it would be, the way they watched her as if she was a train wreck they couldn’t look away from.
It was far worse than being ignored; even Zach stared at her like she was a weirdo when she tried to speak to him.
Understandably, Claire avoided the memorial for as long as she could, glanced vaguely in its direction and then went the other direction, unwilling to attract any more attention. It had been placed in the middle of the amphitheater, an ever-growing field of flowers and cards, candles that burned dimly in the sunlight and teddy bears that held big pink hearts in soft little paws.
Claire wondered if it would have been her memorial, if Jackie hadn’t told her to run, if Peter hadn’t come…
Jackie, who was now dead… Peter, who was now in some coma…
But Claire was never one to be held back even by herself and her gift was burning a hole in her bag, so she finally gave in, slowly made her way to the memorial between classes. Her slowness worked, and by the time it was in sight the break had ended and most of the students were back in class, leaving her to finally reach it in peace and privacy, pale sunlight cooking the back of her neck as she eased towards it, nostrils twitching at how strong the scent was.
She wondered, absently, how many things had been left by people who had even known Jackie.
And then she wondered if that mattered, whether anyone had known her or not.
Bitchy nasty Jackie who hadn’t really been all that bad at the end was still dead, wasn’t she?
“You’re losing your mind, Claire,” she sighed as she hesitated a few steps away, twisting the strap of her bag between trembling fingers. “You’re going crazy, Claire…” She fell silent, bit her lip and swallowed, finally shook her head in defeat. “That’s because you are crazy, Claire- and this is all just an awful dream and you’re going to wake up and get a horrible paper cut that will cause you agony for three weeks.”
The silence didn’t answer, so she gave up, crouched down and opened her bag, drawing out her gift, an old teddy bear that had always been one of her favorites. He was worn-out, so well-loved that there were bare patches where she had held him when she’d been young; he was even missing an eyeball, a heavy stitch where she had repaired him clumsily at the age of six acting as the only sign there had once been an eye to begin with.
It was all Claire could be sure of, that this was her very favorite bear and that she loved it more than any other.
So she gave it to Jackie, who never should have died in the first place.
Focused as she was on putting the little guy in the right place, setting him carefully behind a candle and between two bouquets, it took her a long moment to realize someone was hovering over her, a shadow leaving her in darkness. Flustered, ashamed and not sure why, she jerked up straight and spun, found not a student but a weary-looking blonde woman in huge dark glasses.
Not a teacher- and Claire blinked once and then twice, suddenly unsure.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“I scared you,” the woman sighed, lips twisting into a bitter kind of unhappy smile, shifting the massive bouquet to one side and reaching to push her glasses up off her face, allowing them to rest on her crown. She had pretty eyes, despite the fact that they were puffy and blood-shot, and Claire smiled thinly, shrugging and taking a stumbling step to the side. “Sorry,” she repeated a long moment later and then fiddled with her flowers, poking them with one long finger as if they didn’t look right.
“It’s okay…” Claire mumbled even as something forced her to move closer, step cautiously nearer the collection of flowers and pictures, once again twisting the strap of her bag between her hands so hard it hurt. She watched, silently, as the flowers were finally laid down-and then fiddled with again, more compulsively. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t see why you would, sweetie.”
The woman had clearly been worn-out, face too pale in the thin sunlight and pretty green eyes looking hollow, and it struck a chord in Claire, made the hair on the back of her neck lift in a wave of awareness she didn’t understand. In her jeans and blouse, light coat hanging open on her frame, she looked like any middle-aged woman on the street, blonde hair pulled back from her face but there was something...
“Were you… family?”
Maybe that was why she looked familiar, Claire thought, eyes falling for a moment to the scattered pictures of the dead girl, taking her in before raising her gaze again, finding the blonde woman staring at her oddly.
“You could say that,” the older woman finally sighed, shaking her head and awkwardly stuffing her hands into her pockets, still shifting the bouquet with one foot, as if she couldn’t stop messing with it. “We… could have been, in a different world.”
“Were you… her grandmother?”
“I look that old?”
The slight smile Claire found herself gifted with, while brittle, was still sincere and Claire’s lips twitched in response, guilt broken for a moment with embarrassment. “No, just…”
“I wasn’t her grandmother,” the blonde woman finally stated slowly, eyes on the memorial and face flat, only the tremble of her mouth matching the emotion in her voice. “We were family, but no, not her grandmother…”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I…” The blonde woman’s voice broke and she pressed fingers against her face, licking her lips as Claire watched her, frozen with emotion she couldn’t define. “I waited too long,” she said a long moment later as she smiled thinly, voice so quiet that Claire had to move closer to hear her clearly. “I should have just… done it…”
“Done what?”
Claire was vaguely aware of the fact that she was staring at the woman too hard, and that her hands ached where they gripped the strap of her bag. She probably looked like some idiot, gaping down at a woman she had never met before, but- “Done what?” she repeated when the blonde woman only stared at her silently, brilliant green eyes too bright.
“Found her.”
Claire Bennet had always considered herself a realist, at least most of the time-she had her dreams and she had her fantasies but overall, she knew, she was a realist. And while she liked the idea of something like destiny existing, she knew better than to believe it; knew that, in the end, life was just life.
In short, Claire Bennet didn’t believe in things like Fate, not the way she believed in things like coincidence.
But her heart was beating fast now, so hard it hurt her chest, and she took several more slow steps closer to the blonde woman, taking her in more carefully, taking in a nose that looked familiar and eyes that she knew. She was taller than Claire and her hair was darker, but-
“Found who?” she repeated, unable to recognize her own voice.
“Jackie.”
“Why were you looking for Jackie?”
“That’s really not any of your business, sweetie.”
“I just want to know.”
She probably sounded angry, voice too high-pitched, but the woman looked at her more carefully, stared at her for a long heartbeat of tense stillness, face blank and eyes hollow and Claire was moving forward a bit more, short frightened steps as she tried to remind herself how crazy the idea all by itself was.
But she could die and come back, walk away fine and… and, oh, god… “Please, I just want to know-”
“I think she was my daughter.”
The first few times, it was the same dream, over and again, like some kind of warped tape.
The same abandoned street, just as still and silent each time-Mohinder rising out of his cab, pleasant recognition shifting into a sudden twist of horror; the officer from the Texas jail, the one that read his mind, looking like nothing so much as a beat-cop struggling to get people away from Peter; the family, husband and wife and son, being herded away by the mind-reading cop; Simone, and then Isaac; people he knew and people he didn’t know; voices that said his name and told him things he couldn’t understand, fading when he tried to focus on them…
Claire running toward him in her cheerleading uniform, only to turn away at the last moment…
Nathan, coming out to meet him, and his hands…
Each time it was the same thing, the same people in the same places, playing the same roles.
Then things started changing.
At first, the changes were so subtle he didn’t even see them, people switching places or moving differently, grouping differently, moving in ways that he didn’t understand. Then the voices came, ones he knew and some he didn’t, so clear they could have come from someone speaking straight into his ear.
Each time, something was different around him even as the street stayed the same.
There was no Mohinder this time, just an empty cab and a stillness there that left Peter feeling chilled, turning away from it and continuing the same path as always, searching for everyone he knew but didn’t, trying to count them down as he saw them. There were more differences this time, though, glaring ones that left him rattled, uneasy.
Peter took it all in, frozen and struggling to absorb it all even as his mind resisted.
The beat-cop was gone this time but there was the fragile-looking family getting out of the car and staring back at him, and he realized that although the mother was with them, she wasn’t. Instead she was screaming at something he couldn’t see, something behind him, long blonde hair tangled around her face, blood spattering her expensive white coat (there had never been blood before) and becoming downright hysterical as he stared back at her, confused and overwhelmed.
There was too much here, too much that had never been here before.
Unnerved, he turned away from that as well, searching and finally sighing in relief when he made out the figure running towards him, determined look he knew but had never seen on her face as she met his eyes through the stillness, form brilliant with color in a way nothing else was. She seemed to be having a hard time, as if the distance between them kept stretching, but she kept going and he clung to that as someone whispered his name, spoke to him in a way that felt like someone sweeping their fingers carelessly through his insides, destroying him.
He knew the words and he knew the voice, but he didn’t at the same time.
Movement caught his eyes and he reacted despite his best attempts not to, looked away from the cheerleader in time to see Agent Hanson from Texas, in the same business suit and careful poker face, striding forward to try to drag the blonde mother away, and it was all silent, shades of gray flicking with red that made his bones ache. The blood against the white coat was too bright, too red, and it cut at him, made him step back, overcome.
None of this had happened before, not like this… and there was a new person…
Someone shouted his name and he jerked, jolted, swinging his head around because the voice had sounded so familiar, but there was nothing in the direction, nothing but stillness and shadows, stretching farther than his eye could discern. He thought he could see shapes somewhere far back, but he couldn’t be sure and suddenly didn’t want to see them, closed his eyes against the shapes in the distance.
Claire was still running, and behind her he made out another shape, looking worn-down and exhausted but moving as fast as he could, and Peter knew him even if he couldn’t put a name to the face, to the strong features and horn-rimmed glasses. His steady gaze was glued to Claire as he moved between cars, silently calling out to someone, and Peter couldn’t look away from him for a moment, could only stare and take him in.
Another new person… someone he knew but didn’t…
Just like Hanson, who was still struggling with the blonde mother, still trying to pull her away.
Everything was different, shifted, and Simone was gone, had been there but wasn’t when he glanced back for her, searching but only finding Isaac Mendez watching the scene in confusion, shaking his head as if it were all wrong. That frightened him more than anything else, and he stepped back the way he’d come, tried to turn away but couldn’t, could only stand there and watch Claire run for him, clearly exhausted but still fighting to get to him.
Nathan was supposed to be there…
Nathan was supposed to come out right now, walk out of the building and leave his campaign behind and come help Peter, but there was nothing. Just a dark and empty building filled with shadows and shapes deep inside, and when Peter tried to look closer the voices got louder, angry whispering filling his head like bees, driving him back towards the street in an effort to make it stop.
No Nathan, and three people missing, and Hanson still fighting the blonde mother…
The man with the horn-rimmed glasses… the man now meeting his eyes across the distance, not letting Peter look away, becoming desperate as he tried to speak but couldn’t seem make his voice carry. It was important but the buzzing got louder, shouts ringing through his skull, voices calling his name and Peter finally looked away, breathed a sigh of relief when the pain in his chest went away and he could breathe again, short gasps that filled his lungs.
Nathan… he needed Nathan… he needed Nathan’s help…
But Nathan didn’t come, not as Peter watched chaos spread around him, vaguely familiar people clashing together in ways they never had before; not as a tiny girl with long brown hair slipped between empty cars to stare at something behind him, tears sliding unchecked down her cheeks; not as Isaac began to shake his head more furiously, gesturing desperately at Peter, shouting words that had no sound; not as Hiro Nakamura appeared alone in the distance, staring at the scene with utter confusion; not as Claire finally reached him, shaking with exhaustion, eyes too wide and mouth trembling, trying to tell him something as tears overflowed and she shook her head in helpless frustration…
He finally followed her line of sight and looked down at his hands, saw his bones through his skin, dark shadows he could see through the violent red now overtaking him. He looked up at her but she just shook her head and began to back away, eyes not on him but something behind him.
Whatever it was she saw, it seemed to horrify her- because she stumbled back suddenly, fell but kept moving, twisted and started crawling, stumbling to her feet and fleeing, running as if there were nightmares rushing at her. His hands were beginning to blind him but he kept watching her as he felt heat blister around him, tracked her running, her red-laced uniform growing dark as if she was being swallowed whole by some shadow that seemed to come from nowhere-
Red finally faded into black, and he went back to sleep.
Rating: R (language, disturbing imagery)
Beta:
gidget_zband
dreamingwriter- they both make me look good, seriously, and any mistakes here are completely mine!
Pairing: Peter/Claire (building up the connection), and a few minor others
Characters: Dude, seriously, think clowns in a clown car, okay?
Timeline: Follows " Beneath" and " Surprise," includes dialogue from some episodes - AU as of "Fallout"
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Notes: I named Mr. Petrelli Michael many months ago, and I'm not changing it, heh. Also, I'd highly recommend anyone reading this quickly pop over and read the notes, which can be found here, ;)
Teaser: Sometimes deception’s just a different version of the truth.
There had been so many attempts over the years.
And each attempt, every single one, had ended in failure.
The knot would come undone around his neck as soon as he began to feel pressure, and he would tumble to the ground, bruised but alive; if he stepped in front of a speeding car, it would inevitably be stopped (sometimes at the cost of an innocent life) just before hitting him; when he tried to jump off a building at the age of fifty, sure it would work, he’d only fallen ten feet before landing on a balcony below him- impossible to land where he had from where he had jumped but there it was, a brutal fact; when he’d pulled out a pistol, the whole damn gun had locked up, giving him a bit of noise but no salvation.
This one, he knew, wouldn’t end in failure.
For the entire week before Michael Petrelli finally succeeded, he dreamed of dying.
And that alone assured him that it was time.
It was achingly easy to keep his plans from Angela- it had been years since he’d attempted it, and she was fading so badly now, slept so much and was so quiet and he knew it was his fault, that she was rotting away because he was. Peter was more difficult to hide it from, so he spent most of that week sticking his youngest with Angela, and they had always connected so deeply even when Angela had tried not to let them.
Nathan, though…
Michael had been the one to finally tell Nathan the truth, or at least as much as his firstborn was able to absorb, and ended up proving Nathan’s longtime suspicions in regards to his father’s frequent disappearances when he had been younger, long weeks spent away, always returning with even more medication. It wasn’t fair, he knew, to put it all on Nathan’s shoulders but his son was so much stronger than he was.
Long before he’d had his children, Michael had decided he wanted none, and if he allowed himself, he knew it was one of the first things he had seen in his sleep, heat tearing apart New York, erasing millions of lives in a single heartbeat. It hadn’t been the first though, because he had dreamed for so long, seen so many things flickering behind his eyes before Linderman had entered his life, bringing him back from what was supposed to be his death.
Another attempt he’d been close only for it to be snatched away, leaving the young man with blood on his hands.
Long before he’d finally brokenly understood what he saw, he’d seen.
Years of seeing the same vision, though, and he had never been able to figure out which son it was he saw, had only ever been able to catch a hint of dark hair before the red exploded and blinded him and how useful was that, a vision that gave him the information that the son that would do it would have dark hair? He had dark hair, Angie had dark hair, both of their sons had dark hair…
Useless information, just like everything Michael had ever seen.
Peter had always been such a perfect image of what Angie could have been like if life had never decimated her, if she had never decided that he was worth it despite everything it cost her- and just for that, he had loved Peter, just because of what he saw in his son. But it was Nathan that he loved more than must have been healthy, Nathan he was desperate to save, Nathan he had come home to each time an attempt failed. He saw who he could have been in his firstborn, the son he’d named after his own father.
Nathan, he realized two weeks before his death, was the one who would fly.
It had been the only truly beautiful image he’d ever seen in his near seventy years, the only one to leave his heart lighter than heavier after it was over, but he’d never understood it. It had come back every so often, the only noise the wind around him and the world far below. Even the angry red that edged his visions had faded, leaving the world muted, soft, unable to hurt him as he left it behind.
Nathan was the man who would fly, if given a chance.
Nathan was the one he would have sacrificed Peter for- hated himself for it, but he would have done it.
So it was probably fitting that Nathan would be the son he would be forced to sacrifice to save .07% of the world.
Odessa, Texas
No good could come from keeping Gabriel Gray alive.
At best, he was insane; at worst, a psychopath- a man like him wouldn’t stop until he was stopped.
Mr. Bennet had always possessed an extremely impressive aim with his .45, had learned how to use his broad-shouldered frame early on in life. He knew that if he made a beeline for the little cell, there was no one in the facility right now that could stop him in time- slip into the cell, close the door behind him and put a bullet straight through the bastard’s skull.
Gray had become adept at his stolen telekinesis, his ability to mend his worst injuries after falling five stories was proof of that, but a bullet to the head would do it, Mr. Bennet knew.
It would all be over, Claire would be safe, and all it would take was a single bullet.
Mr. Bennet didn’t do it; instead, gritted his teeth and held himself back with every ounce of will he had.
It wasn’t fear of being punished that kept him from going into the cell, not even his vague fear of Thompson- his employers knew how vicious he could be, knew how far he would go, and while he knew his punishment would be horrible, he knew he’d walk away from it intact because they liked him, liked how talented he was at doing their dirty work for them.
Claire, though…
They would look more closely at his family, and he knew with horrifying certainty what would follow- Lyle and Sandra would be watched closely but they’d stop looking quickly enough, seeing how normal his wife and son were. They wouldn’t stop looking at Claire, though, would realize she was never sick, and would look even more intently then.
The formula Mr. Bennet found himself confronted with was chilling and left his heart tight in his chest.
If he was a good boy, he would be able to keep Claire safe, and if not…
They would figure it out, and they would take Claire.
So he gritted his teeth and held himself back with every ounce of will he had.
Even so… “But-”
“He’s to be held, not terminated.”
Bennet went still for a long minute, his fingers tight around the phone, before finally giving up for the time being, nodding even though he knew his supervisor couldn’t see it. “I understand,” he stated carefully, and almost heard the slight smirk that twisted the older man’s face. “As for Parkman…”
“We’re handling that just fine- just keep everything calm, and the storm will pass right through, same as always…”
“I understand.”
“That’s why I put up with you,” Thompson laughed, and Bennet only barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the smug tone. The older man was good, he had learned quickly, but he was also disgustingly arrogant at times, spending more time smirking at his underlings than actually doing the work that was assigned to him by his own superiors.
Men like Thompson were as troublesome as the killer Bennet found himself worrying over more each day.
Thompson just didn’t leave any evidence, usually vanished and left others to deal with the aftermath- and more often than not, Bennet was his favorite to dump his mess on.
Luckily for Bennet, he was a bit smarter than Thompson.
Manhattan, New York
Two weeks spent in a hospital watching her younger child suffer in quiet torment (and he was suffering, she was sure of that, knew it the way she knew quite a few things when it came to her family) and Angela Petrelli found she was rapidly losing control over her emotions.
Never a good thing for anyone involved, she had found.
Simone Deveaux popping up with a bunch of flowers and patting her head like she was a dog only added to her strain.
Once, Angela had vague hopes she’d be gifted, carry on her father’s passive but impressive talent, but there was nothing, no sign of anything other than a socialite who tried to make herself special by keeping herself busy with charity cases. She’d be a good match with Peter on a social level, but not on any other level- and so Angela had no use for her, not anymore.
“He’s burning up,” the younger woman sighed- rather needlessly, in Angela’s opinion.
“Persistent idiopathic fever,” Angela snapped, irritated- the girl had none of her father’s strength, was useless in every way that really mattered. “Means they have no idea what's wrong. Fly in the best doctors in the world, just to have them tell me they don't know what they're doing in four different languages.”
Angela knew what was wrong with him, and it made it worse for her.
Charles could have helped right now, could have found Peter and brought him back to her, pulled her son out of the visions and given him back-he’d done it enough with her husband during Michael’s worst ordeals, but Charles was dead and the only other person she knew could have found Peter was-
No, he was why this was happening in the first place, now, wasn’t he?
Angela found herself under attack from several different sides, all of whom knew her weaknesses.
What was next, Kaito riding in from the East to get back at her for costing him his favorite toy two decades ago?
“His heart- they don't know how much more he can take.”
Nathan, of course.
“Twenty-six years old, he's gonna die of a heart attack?” and why was Charles’ daughter peering at her like that, staring at her like she was something to be pitied?
Angela hated pity, despised it-nothing felt quite as horrible as pity, she had found.
“He's not gonna die, Ma.”
More pity, this time from Nathan, and it was too much to handle on top of just being in a hospital.
Angela Petrelli had enough unhappy hospital memories to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
“Well, he will unless I do something.”
“Why don't you just let the doctors do what they do?” her firstborn called after her but she ignored him, overwhelmed for a moment with panic, disjointed with emotion. Her power had always been equal parts curse and gift, making life as easy to handle as it made it hard- it allowed her to gaze into the dark of someone’s heart and see everything tucked away in those shadows, every weakness and flaw, allowed her to use each as she saw fit.
Always powerful, time had given her talent a razor-sharp proficiency.
But adept in her power or not, Angela knew that it was a sickening truth that a true manipulator was affected.
Every heart she had slipped into, every emotion she had affected- every one, she bore the marks of, ugly scars on her own heart that never healed, places inside of her that she had been forced to grind away just so they didn’t destroy her.
The worst had been Michael, and she knew it had been a mistake to let herself care about him the way she had, to leave herself vulnerable to him the way she had- but she’d loved him, as horrifically clichéd as the entire concept was, and that love had kept her going even when his weary heart left her struggling for any kind of stimulation she could seek out for herself.
It had been stupid to stay with him until the end… and yet she had.
Simple fact was, she had loved Michael that much.
Now Angela was herself again in a way she hadn’t been since Michael had shattered so completely two decades before, her husband’s shadows fading until she could drag in air and remember exactly who she was. She’d never forgotten who she was but there’d been moments when she’d seemed to dim, overwhelmed with everything that Michael gave her.
Good moments or bad, Michael had always overwhelmed her.
And to her great exhaustion, Peter was just as overwhelming, just as completely conscious as Michael had always been before Maury had beaten him down. The reasonable part of Angela knew that it had started long before the little prick had turned against them, that Michael had been slipping away even before they’d met, but she still knew who she blamed for that final loss of her husband.
Goddammit, she wished Charles was there… Peter would have listened to Charles, same way Michael always had.
She gave a momentary thought to Michael’s sister but then shook her head, making a face.
There was nothing she could do anyway, with her flashy but relatively useless little talent.
“You couldn’t have waited a few more weeks to die?” she snapped irritably at poor, dead Charles as she moved fast, needing to be as far away from her sons as she could be. “You held out until Michael went, you couldn’t have held out a little longer?” She probably looked like an idiot, striding down the hall and talking to herself but she didn’t care, just glared down at her phone as she dug it out, flipping it open and scrolling through numbers that had false names attached, private numbers that only she knew and had never shared with anyone.
Angela and the rest of her associates had gotten used to the power they had found at hand, power they had decided to pass on to their offspring-only some of them had succeeded, Kaito being the luckiest at turning his power into actual honest-to-god wealth. But his daughter refused to use her gift, and his son, from what Angela had seen, was a four-eyed twerp with no talent that any of them had been able to find. At least Kimiko had potential, not like the geeky child Angela had met once, and he had never even looked away from his Nintendo long enough to give her a respectful glance.
Irritating in the worst way possible that Kaito could complain about how disrespectful their children were, but not even have a firm hand with his own little brat.
Linderman, who had also flourished financially, had no children to pass it all on to.
Well, that’s wasn’t completely true-
Angela grimaced at herself, shook her head unhappily, scrolling through the fake names over and over again, going through information she already knew by heart, secrets that she carried. There was Frank, but she dismissed that thought before it even formed completely, not just because he would be useless but because he’d cause even more trouble; not Walter (even though he had family with potential) since he had connections to people that would be all too interested in someone like Peter, ties that could manipulate her without leaving any ability to do the same to him-there was a reason Michael had given him the cold shoulder so many years before; certainly not Edward, crack-pot that he was- he was getting worse, especially with Kaito indulging his insanity, and she wanted nothing to do with either of them, traitors that they were; she gave a momentary thought to Harry but then dismissed him as well, uneasy- he wasn’t stable, and she couldn’t control him even if he could have been useful.
Bob?
No, not Bob… he was just as big a whack-job, and his power was just as useless as the others for what she needed.
Frustrated, arriving to the same conclusion that she had for the last two weeks, she cursed Charles again, and then cursed Michael on principle- why the hell did his power have to be so damn devastating?
And why did the rest of them have to be so goddamned useless?
Las Vegas, Nevada
DL knew for a fact that he wasn’t as good at raising Micah as Niki was-he was a good father, but he wasn’t Niki.
Still, it stung, the way Micah kept glancing at him like he was crazy.
Leaving Micah to pick curiously at his pathetic attempt at a PB&J sandwich, he tugged open the fridge and pulled out the peanut butter, hesitating for a moment, unsure.
If he put it out now that he had already chilled it, would it spoil?
He read the label but found it useless, rolling his eyes as he dropped it back into the fridge-he’d figure it out later.
Worn down with worry for his wife and his son, he drifted out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom, passing by the scattered images of their separate families, a horribly unbalanced collection. His own family was fragile but still good, a small handful of people he kept cautious connections with, people he still loved.
Niki’s photo collection, he found, was achingly small-most of them were old snapshots of her and Jessica, the rare pictures when the girls had been truly happy in their childhood, when Hal had been at his busiest. There were no pictures of Hal or Hal’s sister; no images of any of the grandparents.
The only image of Niki’s mother was kept in the bedroom, and a single copy later shrunk down to fit into her wallet.
He’d been quietly relieved to find it in good condition when they’d gotten home, tucked into an unbroken frame and carefully place on the bedside drawer again. He didn’t know much about the woman, honestly didn’t think about her that much either, but he was crushingly grateful that Niki hadn’t lost the picture.
Niki didn’t deserve to lose anything else in her life.
He threw a glance at it absently as he slipped into the bedroom now, hesitating at the emptiness of the room, the hollow quality to it; the house didn’t feel right when Niki was gone and the bedroom, especially, was off. “You’ll be home soon,” he sighed raggedly to the shadow of Niki that haunted their home, quickly peeling off his shirt from last night and yanking out a button-up from the closet, checking his reflection in the large mirror.
Even the mirrors had been replaced, each and every one.
He had to keep trying to make a good impression on Micah’s teacher, the one who hated him for no reason he could understand (and seemed to hate him even more now that he was a convict that had been proven innocent) and had hated Niki just because she was a blonde and had happened to be attractive.
Far more attractive than the sneering school teacher, so DL suspected it was pure jealousy.
Snatching a tie, he started work on that, remembering with a grimace why he hated the damn thing so much.
He was trying to remember how to tighten it the right way when the doorbell went off, a noise that made his heart leap in his throat and caused him to nearly strangle himself as he fought the stupid thing off and bolted for the front door. “Micah,” he started as he caught sight of his son opening the door, and moved even faster when Micah stepped back, mulish expression on his young features as somebody waved a wrapped object in his face. “Micah-”
“Mr. Linderman sent it,” the young woman chirped, shoving the gift into Micah’s hands and pushing her way neatly past the boy, slamming and locking the door lightly behind her as if she lived there. Catching sight of the glowering DL, she grinned broadly, wriggling her fingers in a cheery greeting. “Hey, there, Hawkins- how’s the world treating you?”
“I think it’s a book,” Micah decided, now ignoring Linderman’s assistant as he felt the package, fingering it with Niki’s determined look on his face, a look painfully rare to DL. But he finally looked up at his father, hesitating even as he clutched the gift more tightly. “Can I open it?”
“Yeah, go ahead…” DL had the suspicion that Niki would have already tossed the young woman out on her ass.
The feeling only made him feel like a worse provider, and he swallowed, slipping quickly in-between his son and the woman as Micah peeled the paper off, revealing a heavy hard-covered book that the boy held with excited hands. “This is really expensive,” he said slowly, giving the woman a wary but pleased look, a mix of guilt and glee on his face. “I saw it a couple of days ago, and it was really expensive.”
“Aw, kid, don’t worry about it… Mr. Linderman thinks a boy like you deserves the best,” she laughed, reaching out and patting his head like he was a dog, grinning like a cat herself.
DL only barely saw it, having caught his son’s words and feeling suddenly nauseous at them.
A couple days ago…
DL remembered it, when his son must have seen the book and taken notice of it. He’d headed to the mall for a job interview (one that had proven to be useless as all the rest) and let the boy wander into a bookstore for a few seconds while he tried to think up a way to explain that he hadn’t gotten that job either.
It wasn’t just a gift to Micah, it was a blatant warning.
The rush of emotion (fear and panic and something that burned sharp in him like outright hate) swept away everything else as he moved forward to drop a hand on his son’s shoulder and drag him back, urging him off to the side, a red haze tinting the world crimson. “My son’s off-limits-”
“You know how much Mr. Linderman adores children,” the woman sighed, lips twitching into an amused little smile. “Besides, the boy needs a little extra love right now, with his mommy in the slammer.”
Irritated, heart raw from the loss of his wife, he couldn’t hold his temper in check, snapping, “What do you want?”
“I work for Mr. Linderman-”
“Yeah,” he cut her off, grimacing, “yeah, I remember you from a few days ago.”
“Good to know I’m memorable-”
“What do you want?” he demanded, stepping in front of her when she went to fiddle with the photos hanging on the wall. She was even more annoying now than she had been when she had come to pick up the money, smirking at him as he adjusted the frame she had played with, checking that it was balanced the right way. “Don’t touch the pictures.”
“Who’s that?” she asked curiously but he shook his head, noticing the way Micah watched them both curiously.
“Go get ready for school,” he exhaled, wincing when Micah gave him a long ‘you’re insane- I don’t want to miss this’ look. “Go,” he said more firmly, and sighed in relief when his son finally obeyed, shoulders wilting as he cast the young woman a last wary look before heading off for his room. “Stay away from my son and stop touching everything in my house.”
“Mr. Linderman bought you this house-”
“I own it.”
“Because Mr. Linderman gave it to you, the way a good boss does for his good workers,” she smirked even more and he gave up, realizing that it was like arguing with a brick wall.
“What do you want?”
“Mr. Linderman would like to see you.”
It occurred to DL that he had never known that Linderman would hire someone so blunt.
“Mr. Linderman needs a favor, DL,” she said shortly, untying her coat and peeling it off, dropping it over a chair as she settled neatly onto the couch, tucking her skirt under her. “An associate of our boss had his beady little eyes on that money, DL; your quest to get it back to Mr. Linderman as quickly as you could made it possible for Mr. Linderman to weed this little twerp out.”
Confused, silent, he stood there and stared at her, frowning in misunderstanding.
“He’s very grateful,” she explained flatly. “He knows you’re a man of your word, DL. He knew that before, of course, and he even kept an eye on you in prison, made sure you didn’t have to play little wife to anyone-”
“He sent me to prison-”
“Semantics,” she retorted, crossing her legs and flashing him that little smirk again. There was a long moment of silence as she flicked a finger across the hem of her skirt, lips curving downwards in a frown. “I bet you’re worried about Niki,” she said softly, and he went still, heart twisting viciously in his chest. “I mean, as long as Mr. Linderman is worried about his current problem, he can’t focus on keeping your wife safe, you know?”
So this was why Linderman hired this girl-she could stop his heart with one badly worded but substantial threat.
It was completely understandable that little Molly Walker had horrific nightmares.
Her family had been taken from her and she’d been left to huddle for hours in a little room as she felt mean eyes look for her but not find her. She had all kinds of nightmares since Matt (he had eyes, too, big ones that stared at her but didn’t scare her and his had been closed until she’d seen him and then they’d popped open and looked right at her but it hadn’t been scary, not at all) had found her, but she’d been able to sleep anyway because the eyes were never able to settle on her, never able to really find her because she was good at hiding.
And then they’d gotten worse and he’d looked at her and he’d seen her and that had been two weeks ago.
These weren’t real nightmares, and she knew it the way she knew everybody she met.
Molly couldn’t hide anymore (mean eyes always watched her) so she tried to keep herself safe where she was, the little room her father had first taught her how to make when she used to sit on his lap. It looked like her room, the one she hadn’t seen since the morning her mother screamed and she’d woken up and she’d hid because he was looking for her and he was so loud, like a bunch of bees in her head.
It had all her stuffed bears on the bed and the dollhouse her grandpa had brought her last Christmas-
But she’d pushed her bookshelf in front of her window and then shoved her dresser in front of the door because he always tried to look in through the window and he was starting to push against the door and he’d never been able to do that before, not once and what did that mean, that he was knocking and demanding that she let him in?
Her father had always said he could never come in if they didn’t open the door for him.
But he got louder every time she fell asleep, pounding against the door and yelling for her to open the door and let him in because he just wanted to see her. That was a lie, though, and her father had made sure she understood that, that the nightmare man with the scary eyes lied to get in, so you couldn’t let him in, not ever because once he got in, you could never get him out.
Like little roaches, her father had laughed as he tweaked her nose, and once they got in, you couldn’t get rid of them.
Never look at him and never look for him, he had said over and over again, and held her face and kissed her cheek, holding her tight against him as he put her to bed every night. He had done it since before she could remember, told her the rules every time he tucked her in, every single night-never look at him, never look for him, never let him in no matter what he said or how nice he sounded.
Ignore him, and he’d go away because he couldn’t stay there forever because he was tired.
“Molly, let me in.”
“Go away!” she shouted, and brushed her doll’s hair more furiously, trying not to look at the doorknob now jiggling furiously and she hoped the door would stay locked because she didn’t know if the dresser could keep him out.
“I just want to see you, sweetheart, that’s all…”
He sounded like that sometimes, nice and sweet and like her grandpa but it was a lie and she knew it because he was mean and his eyes were mean and when he had looked at her two weeks ago when she fell asleep in the second before she’d woken up screaming, he had looked at her like he wanted to eat her, like she was Little Red Riding Hood and he was the Big Bad Wolf-
“The better to see you with,” he snarled through the door (he sounded like a wolf) and she almost dropped her doll as she jerked her eyes to stare at the door, scooted farther up her bed. He did that all the time, talked to her and said things he shouldn’t know about because they were things only in her head and she didn’t know what that meant either because he had never been able to do that before.
Daddy had said it was a good thing, but to be careful because it made the Nightmare Man mad because even if he knew they were there, he couldn’t do anything because he couldn’t get in.
“Molly, let me in,” and he sounded like mommy suddenly and this time she did drop the doll, eyes growing wide as she shook her head. It wasn’t mommy, she knew, it wasn’t but it sounded just like her, the way her mommy sounded when she needed to come in and grab something but Molly had locked the door by accident the way she sometimes did. “Moll, baby, let me in, I just have to grab something.”
“Go away!”
“Molly, honey-” and he sounded like daddy and this time she screamed, grabbed her doll and flung it hard at the door, hearing utter silence when the plastic hit the wall and shattered like the vase she had dropped a week before her parents had died.
But he didn’t say anything because he had left the door and she swallowed, almost relaxed before she heard fingers drumming furiously at her window, a muffled sound through the bookcase.
“Molly,” the Nightmare Man whispered, tapping out a little song against the glass. “Molly, let me in…”
She rolled over, eyes burning, and pulled her pillow over her head but it didn’t help because even though he couldn’t come in, even though he couldn’t see her, his voice came in and made her feel like he was opening her up and stuffing those fuzzy packing thingies into her whole body until she couldn’t move.
“Molly… Moll, let me in…” and he sounded like mommy again.
Grief won out where fear couldn’t, and the little girl started to cry.
Women’s Correctional Facility, Nevada
Since she had watched Jessica’s lovely eyes go dark, all Niki had ever wanted was her sister back.
Jessica had been strong and brave, everything she’d never been able to be when she had been a little girl. Jessica had been so accomplished so young, could have been so much- had played the piano like she had been born to do it, had been first in their class, had been so smart they had wanted her to skip a grade but she’d said no, insisted that she had to stay with Niki. Jessica had taken every blow and every smack, had stood her ground every time and gritted her teeth and done it all for Niki because she had loved her that much.
Jessica had been her hero, had been what had kept her going when she had been little, had promised her constantly that things would be fine, that they would be fine. We’ll grow up, Jessica had always promised her fervently, we’ll grow up and out lives will be perfect and we’ll be together, forever, and we’ll never have to worry about dad ever again.
Jessica had been strangled like some animal, and Niki still didn’t know what was worse- that her sister had been killed at all, or that her sister had been killed in such a way, as if she was nothing, no one. In the weeks after her death, Niki had waited for the pain to ease, but it had only gotten worse, some kind of aching hollow where Jessica had once been, as if someone had reached into her and stolen a piece of her heart. Weeks had become years and years had become two decades and even now, thirty years old and fragmented, Niki was still waiting for Jessica to come back.
That she had some twisted version of Jessica back, something that called herself Jessica but wasn’t really …
Lonely, Niki found herself wishing for her sister, aching for her even as she hated herself for it.
This wasn’t Jessica, couldn’t be, and it made it all the worse, being teased with the name, with the face when she looked in the mirror, remembering the games they’d played when they’d been young, standing shoulder to shoulder and then giggling hysterically at the image they had made in their mother’s free-standing mirror in the corner.
Even Niki’s best memories were becoming twisted, causing a sharp pain deep inside.
Needless to say, Niki wasn’t handling solitary confinement very well.
Jessica talked to her in the dark, constantly, mercilessly- sometimes telling her how weak she was with an angry and heated voice, and other times promising that she’d take care of her, protect her, be there no matter what. It was her own voice but it wasn’t at the same time, sounded just like Jessica’s would have if she wasn’t a little corpse buried six feet under, and that hurt the worst, that at times she almost wondered if…
“You’re not my sister.”
“Stop whining,” the other voice snapped irritably, seeming to come from the shadows beyond where Niki laid, half-aware and exhausted, limbs aching. “I’m trying to think, and all you can do is bitch and moan… I swear to fucking god, Niki, you’re like some bad actress out of a Lifetime movie!”
“Don’t talk to me like that-”
“I’m older than you… I can talk to you however the fuck I want.”
Groaning, Niki closed her eyes against the voice, exhaling slowly against the soft floor where she lay, had lain since she woke up with bloody hands and sore muscles. She thought that had been three days ago but she was no longer sure- they let her go to the bathroom, fed her, and then always doped her up again, leaving Niki feeling like the only thing that was real was the voice in her head, the shape in the shadows that almost looked like...
“I just wish you wouldn’t… talk to me like that,” she replied a long moment later, and heard nothing for a long time, just quiet breathing that almost sounded like her own. When the silence kept going, for longer than it had since Niki had woken up in a straightjacket, she swallowed, tasted a faint panic at the back of her throat. “Jessica?”
“Just shut up and let me think, okay, Niki?”
It sounded like her sister, the way Jessica always used to sound when their father had gone quiet, the days when he’d open a second bottle of booze and start staring at them as if they were the reason his life was shit. It had the same quality, frustrated and angry but still gentle, still soft with her and Niki sighed helplessly, pressing her head into the floor and hating herself for it, for the weakness of wishing this fucked-up thing in her head really was Jessica.
“Niki?” the voice prodded again, more firmly, and she nodded dully, weakly, sighing again.
“What?”
“Don’t call me ‘fucked-up,’ Niki.”
Odessa, Texas
Claire hadn’t realized how nice it had been to meet up with Zach every day at school.
It was as awkward as she had known it would be, all eyes following her around from the second she got out of the car and headed onto school property, wearing her cheerleading uniform like battle armor, not caring how stupid it probably made her look. Crowds parted before her and people stared at her unabashedly- it was worse than how she had known it would be, the way they watched her as if she was a train wreck they couldn’t look away from.
It was far worse than being ignored; even Zach stared at her like she was a weirdo when she tried to speak to him.
Understandably, Claire avoided the memorial for as long as she could, glanced vaguely in its direction and then went the other direction, unwilling to attract any more attention. It had been placed in the middle of the amphitheater, an ever-growing field of flowers and cards, candles that burned dimly in the sunlight and teddy bears that held big pink hearts in soft little paws.
Claire wondered if it would have been her memorial, if Jackie hadn’t told her to run, if Peter hadn’t come…
Jackie, who was now dead… Peter, who was now in some coma…
But Claire was never one to be held back even by herself and her gift was burning a hole in her bag, so she finally gave in, slowly made her way to the memorial between classes. Her slowness worked, and by the time it was in sight the break had ended and most of the students were back in class, leaving her to finally reach it in peace and privacy, pale sunlight cooking the back of her neck as she eased towards it, nostrils twitching at how strong the scent was.
She wondered, absently, how many things had been left by people who had even known Jackie.
And then she wondered if that mattered, whether anyone had known her or not.
Bitchy nasty Jackie who hadn’t really been all that bad at the end was still dead, wasn’t she?
“You’re losing your mind, Claire,” she sighed as she hesitated a few steps away, twisting the strap of her bag between trembling fingers. “You’re going crazy, Claire…” She fell silent, bit her lip and swallowed, finally shook her head in defeat. “That’s because you are crazy, Claire- and this is all just an awful dream and you’re going to wake up and get a horrible paper cut that will cause you agony for three weeks.”
The silence didn’t answer, so she gave up, crouched down and opened her bag, drawing out her gift, an old teddy bear that had always been one of her favorites. He was worn-out, so well-loved that there were bare patches where she had held him when she’d been young; he was even missing an eyeball, a heavy stitch where she had repaired him clumsily at the age of six acting as the only sign there had once been an eye to begin with.
It was all Claire could be sure of, that this was her very favorite bear and that she loved it more than any other.
So she gave it to Jackie, who never should have died in the first place.
Focused as she was on putting the little guy in the right place, setting him carefully behind a candle and between two bouquets, it took her a long moment to realize someone was hovering over her, a shadow leaving her in darkness. Flustered, ashamed and not sure why, she jerked up straight and spun, found not a student but a weary-looking blonde woman in huge dark glasses.
Not a teacher- and Claire blinked once and then twice, suddenly unsure.
“Sorry.”
“What?”
“I scared you,” the woman sighed, lips twisting into a bitter kind of unhappy smile, shifting the massive bouquet to one side and reaching to push her glasses up off her face, allowing them to rest on her crown. She had pretty eyes, despite the fact that they were puffy and blood-shot, and Claire smiled thinly, shrugging and taking a stumbling step to the side. “Sorry,” she repeated a long moment later and then fiddled with her flowers, poking them with one long finger as if they didn’t look right.
“It’s okay…” Claire mumbled even as something forced her to move closer, step cautiously nearer the collection of flowers and pictures, once again twisting the strap of her bag between her hands so hard it hurt. She watched, silently, as the flowers were finally laid down-and then fiddled with again, more compulsively. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t see why you would, sweetie.”
The woman had clearly been worn-out, face too pale in the thin sunlight and pretty green eyes looking hollow, and it struck a chord in Claire, made the hair on the back of her neck lift in a wave of awareness she didn’t understand. In her jeans and blouse, light coat hanging open on her frame, she looked like any middle-aged woman on the street, blonde hair pulled back from her face but there was something...
“Were you… family?”
Maybe that was why she looked familiar, Claire thought, eyes falling for a moment to the scattered pictures of the dead girl, taking her in before raising her gaze again, finding the blonde woman staring at her oddly.
“You could say that,” the older woman finally sighed, shaking her head and awkwardly stuffing her hands into her pockets, still shifting the bouquet with one foot, as if she couldn’t stop messing with it. “We… could have been, in a different world.”
“Were you… her grandmother?”
“I look that old?”
The slight smile Claire found herself gifted with, while brittle, was still sincere and Claire’s lips twitched in response, guilt broken for a moment with embarrassment. “No, just…”
“I wasn’t her grandmother,” the blonde woman finally stated slowly, eyes on the memorial and face flat, only the tremble of her mouth matching the emotion in her voice. “We were family, but no, not her grandmother…”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I…” The blonde woman’s voice broke and she pressed fingers against her face, licking her lips as Claire watched her, frozen with emotion she couldn’t define. “I waited too long,” she said a long moment later as she smiled thinly, voice so quiet that Claire had to move closer to hear her clearly. “I should have just… done it…”
“Done what?”
Claire was vaguely aware of the fact that she was staring at the woman too hard, and that her hands ached where they gripped the strap of her bag. She probably looked like some idiot, gaping down at a woman she had never met before, but- “Done what?” she repeated when the blonde woman only stared at her silently, brilliant green eyes too bright.
“Found her.”
Claire Bennet had always considered herself a realist, at least most of the time-she had her dreams and she had her fantasies but overall, she knew, she was a realist. And while she liked the idea of something like destiny existing, she knew better than to believe it; knew that, in the end, life was just life.
In short, Claire Bennet didn’t believe in things like Fate, not the way she believed in things like coincidence.
But her heart was beating fast now, so hard it hurt her chest, and she took several more slow steps closer to the blonde woman, taking her in more carefully, taking in a nose that looked familiar and eyes that she knew. She was taller than Claire and her hair was darker, but-
“Found who?” she repeated, unable to recognize her own voice.
“Jackie.”
“Why were you looking for Jackie?”
“That’s really not any of your business, sweetie.”
“I just want to know.”
She probably sounded angry, voice too high-pitched, but the woman looked at her more carefully, stared at her for a long heartbeat of tense stillness, face blank and eyes hollow and Claire was moving forward a bit more, short frightened steps as she tried to remind herself how crazy the idea all by itself was.
But she could die and come back, walk away fine and… and, oh, god… “Please, I just want to know-”
“I think she was my daughter.”
The first few times, it was the same dream, over and again, like some kind of warped tape.
The same abandoned street, just as still and silent each time-Mohinder rising out of his cab, pleasant recognition shifting into a sudden twist of horror; the officer from the Texas jail, the one that read his mind, looking like nothing so much as a beat-cop struggling to get people away from Peter; the family, husband and wife and son, being herded away by the mind-reading cop; Simone, and then Isaac; people he knew and people he didn’t know; voices that said his name and told him things he couldn’t understand, fading when he tried to focus on them…
Claire running toward him in her cheerleading uniform, only to turn away at the last moment…
Nathan, coming out to meet him, and his hands…
Each time it was the same thing, the same people in the same places, playing the same roles.
Then things started changing.
At first, the changes were so subtle he didn’t even see them, people switching places or moving differently, grouping differently, moving in ways that he didn’t understand. Then the voices came, ones he knew and some he didn’t, so clear they could have come from someone speaking straight into his ear.
Each time, something was different around him even as the street stayed the same.
There was no Mohinder this time, just an empty cab and a stillness there that left Peter feeling chilled, turning away from it and continuing the same path as always, searching for everyone he knew but didn’t, trying to count them down as he saw them. There were more differences this time, though, glaring ones that left him rattled, uneasy.
Peter took it all in, frozen and struggling to absorb it all even as his mind resisted.
The beat-cop was gone this time but there was the fragile-looking family getting out of the car and staring back at him, and he realized that although the mother was with them, she wasn’t. Instead she was screaming at something he couldn’t see, something behind him, long blonde hair tangled around her face, blood spattering her expensive white coat (there had never been blood before) and becoming downright hysterical as he stared back at her, confused and overwhelmed.
There was too much here, too much that had never been here before.
Unnerved, he turned away from that as well, searching and finally sighing in relief when he made out the figure running towards him, determined look he knew but had never seen on her face as she met his eyes through the stillness, form brilliant with color in a way nothing else was. She seemed to be having a hard time, as if the distance between them kept stretching, but she kept going and he clung to that as someone whispered his name, spoke to him in a way that felt like someone sweeping their fingers carelessly through his insides, destroying him.
He knew the words and he knew the voice, but he didn’t at the same time.
Movement caught his eyes and he reacted despite his best attempts not to, looked away from the cheerleader in time to see Agent Hanson from Texas, in the same business suit and careful poker face, striding forward to try to drag the blonde mother away, and it was all silent, shades of gray flicking with red that made his bones ache. The blood against the white coat was too bright, too red, and it cut at him, made him step back, overcome.
None of this had happened before, not like this… and there was a new person…
Someone shouted his name and he jerked, jolted, swinging his head around because the voice had sounded so familiar, but there was nothing in the direction, nothing but stillness and shadows, stretching farther than his eye could discern. He thought he could see shapes somewhere far back, but he couldn’t be sure and suddenly didn’t want to see them, closed his eyes against the shapes in the distance.
Claire was still running, and behind her he made out another shape, looking worn-down and exhausted but moving as fast as he could, and Peter knew him even if he couldn’t put a name to the face, to the strong features and horn-rimmed glasses. His steady gaze was glued to Claire as he moved between cars, silently calling out to someone, and Peter couldn’t look away from him for a moment, could only stare and take him in.
Another new person… someone he knew but didn’t…
Just like Hanson, who was still struggling with the blonde mother, still trying to pull her away.
Everything was different, shifted, and Simone was gone, had been there but wasn’t when he glanced back for her, searching but only finding Isaac Mendez watching the scene in confusion, shaking his head as if it were all wrong. That frightened him more than anything else, and he stepped back the way he’d come, tried to turn away but couldn’t, could only stand there and watch Claire run for him, clearly exhausted but still fighting to get to him.
Nathan was supposed to be there…
Nathan was supposed to come out right now, walk out of the building and leave his campaign behind and come help Peter, but there was nothing. Just a dark and empty building filled with shadows and shapes deep inside, and when Peter tried to look closer the voices got louder, angry whispering filling his head like bees, driving him back towards the street in an effort to make it stop.
No Nathan, and three people missing, and Hanson still fighting the blonde mother…
The man with the horn-rimmed glasses… the man now meeting his eyes across the distance, not letting Peter look away, becoming desperate as he tried to speak but couldn’t seem make his voice carry. It was important but the buzzing got louder, shouts ringing through his skull, voices calling his name and Peter finally looked away, breathed a sigh of relief when the pain in his chest went away and he could breathe again, short gasps that filled his lungs.
Nathan… he needed Nathan… he needed Nathan’s help…
But Nathan didn’t come, not as Peter watched chaos spread around him, vaguely familiar people clashing together in ways they never had before; not as a tiny girl with long brown hair slipped between empty cars to stare at something behind him, tears sliding unchecked down her cheeks; not as Isaac began to shake his head more furiously, gesturing desperately at Peter, shouting words that had no sound; not as Hiro Nakamura appeared alone in the distance, staring at the scene with utter confusion; not as Claire finally reached him, shaking with exhaustion, eyes too wide and mouth trembling, trying to tell him something as tears overflowed and she shook her head in helpless frustration…
He finally followed her line of sight and looked down at his hands, saw his bones through his skin, dark shadows he could see through the violent red now overtaking him. He looked up at her but she just shook her head and began to back away, eyes not on him but something behind him.
Whatever it was she saw, it seemed to horrify her- because she stumbled back suddenly, fell but kept moving, twisted and started crawling, stumbling to her feet and fleeing, running as if there were nightmares rushing at her. His hands were beginning to blind him but he kept watching her as he felt heat blister around him, tracked her running, her red-laced uniform growing dark as if she was being swallowed whole by some shadow that seemed to come from nowhere-
Red finally faded into black, and he went back to sleep.