Fic: Beneath (Chaos Theory 1/14)
Title: Beneath (Chaos Theory 1/14)
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Beta:
gidget_zb and
dreamingwriter - they 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: Begins during ‘Fallout,’ continues through; includes dialogue from the episode - AU as of "Fallout"
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Notes: I'd highly recommend anyone reading this quickly pop over and read the notes, which can be found here , ;)
Teaser: Beneath everything, there’s always a foundation.
Manhattan, New York - Seven Months Ago
Her old friend (he wasn’t even a friend, but it sounded better than acquaintance) still liked his Scotch on the rocks.
She sat and waited as patiently as she could, watching him slowly enjoy his drink, watching his self-control crumble bit by bit every heartbeat. She’d seen a lot in her life and knew, even if she had never gotten a straight answer, that he had seen even more. He wasn’t aging well, not as well as she was, but then she had friends in high places who were able to help with that.
They were all old, she had come to realize slowly, but they were still who they were.
“You lower your head any deeper into that Scotch and you’re going to drown yourself.”
“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” he chuckled and although he nodded as if the thought wasn’t a bad one, he finished off the last of his drink and dropped the glass back with a snort. “You’re Gwen this week, right?”
“Actually, this week it’s Kath.”
“That doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
He gave her a look then, a sharp but seemingly innocent glance that she knew was anything but. He knew things, she had realized early on, had long weeks when he would know everything and have every answer and other weeks, the bad weeks- “I get the feeling that you know why I called you tonight?”
He didn’t say anything, and Kath smiled, offered him her own untouched Scotch on the rocks.
“Of course I know,” he murmured a long moment later, and took the silent gift.
“You know a lot of things.”
The hand gripping the glass trembled just the barest bit as he started nursing this drink, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around the tumbler, and she noticed it the same way she picked up on the slightest flicker of one eyelid as he shook his head and shrugged. “I just pay attention,” he explained, and it wasn’t even a good attempt at a lie. “I can’t help you,” he said flatly, and she smiled as well as she could, a jerk of movement as her lips twisted.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’m not involved in this.”
“You are if I can give you something you want.”
He shuddered and drained that glass as well, dropping it rather roughly to the table top and jerking his chin, a silent demand for more. The drinks were on her tonight, as usual during these little meetings, and she obeyed the order, not speaking until he had another drink in front of him. “I can do it, I can give you what you want,” she whispered, and watched the tiny reaction he gave- the jerk of his head and the flicker of desperation in his eyes.
“You can’t change the future, Kath.”
“You’ve done it.”
“No, I…” and he shook his head, making a face. “I’ve changed what I was supposed to change, but that’s all…”
“So you admit it?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time and she held herself back by sheer force of will, bit the inside of her cheek and counted to ten over and over again. “I think you figured out what I can do a long time ago,” he finally whispered, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. “You’ve never been a stupid girl, and I’ve never seen you as one, right, Kath?”
“I like to think we’ve always understood each other,” she admitted, and he smiled and nodded and went back to his booze. “We have, so…” He fell quiet again, and it took everything she had to keep breathing, knowing this was important, how he reacted now, what he might do. Kath wasn’t gifted at manipulating people, not on the whole, but he wanted to believe her, wanted to put this on her shoulders.
It was the only thing she had, right now.
“I’ve tried to change the future before and it never works-”
“You can’t know that-”
“All I’ve ever done is made things worse.”
She stared at him for a moment, unnerved at the tone, at the way he stared right through her and at something only he could see. He had his secrets, she knew, same as they all did, so she kept her mouth shut and her smile light, encouraging. And his eyes finally focused on her again, sharpened and deepened and she knew she had him.
“Tell me where she is,” the blonde woman murmured and the strength in her voice made him hesitate, lick his lips and swallow shakily. “Tell me where she is,” she whispered more firmly, a hint of an order in her tone, and curled fingers around his wrist, holding him tight, “and I can give you what you really want.”
“I don’t know where she is, not completely…”
“Tell me,” and she smiled again, making it reach her eyes. “Just give me some idea, and I can go from there.”
Odessa, Texas - Present
Mr. Bennet remembered, all too clearly, the night he first held Claire, first promised her that he would love her until the world ended. It was a promise more important to him than his wedding vows, and more sincere than even his love for Lyle, however harsh that might sound if ever put out into words. To love her and to protect her, even if it might one day mean he had to hurt her to keep her safe.
Protecting her, whether it be from teenage boys who looked down her blouse or psychopaths who wanted her power, had been the constant in his life from the second he’d first lifted her out of that plastic bassinet and held her close. He still had the shirt he’d worn that day, tucked into the back of his closet, and it still had the large drool stain from where she’d first dozed off with her head on his shoulder, tiny noises soothing him better than anything he’d ever experienced before in his life.
She’d been so tiny then, so small he had been able to wrap his palms around her middle and feel his fingers touch, and he glanced at her again as he drove, fingers just a little bit too tight around the steering wheel as he struggled to work out what he needed to do to solve all of this. She was still small, or at least on the smaller side, and she was indestructible but-
But Claire could still be hurt in ways that would hollow her out until there was nothing left of her, could still be used in ways that would destroy her long before that impossibly durable body wore out.
Mr. Bennet looked at her more carefully, took her in with that now-familiar shudder in his heart at the blood that had dried into her hair and across her face. She was staring out her window, wide-eyed and calm-faced, and he remembered that smile she’d had on her face the first weekend he watched her without any help at all from Sandra. She’d settled in his lap and peered up at him and grinned like the cat that ate the canary, like she’d won the lottery.
He turned his attention back to the road, uneasily aware of how… brittle he felt at the moment.
It was by accident that he looked up just as another car’s headlights flashed across her face in a way that made him jerk the smallest bit in recognition, knowing that look of worried attention even though he had only seen it a few times. He had seen Claire make that face before, when she was extremely focused on something, but it made him freeze up now, if only for a fragile heartbeat.
Claire had never been covered in dried blood when she’d made it before.
It took just a second before the light was off Claire’s face and she was in shadow again, but it had done its damage, shaken him enough that he struggled not to glance at her again, remembering eyes that glittered like green glass and a tiny smile that was anything but. Claire had the basic looks, but the resemblance wasn’t entirely impressive, not really, something he had always been quietly grateful for. She had the same coloring, blonde hair and green eyes and the same look of focus when she was truly determined, but it had always been the differences that Mr. Bennet had forced himself to see.
The last glance he gave her before he pulled into the drive, all he saw was Claire, no sign of her mother to be found.
Blood or not, Claire was his child and she hadn’t wanted Claire.
She hadn’t wanted Claire- but he had.
Peter was aware of the fact that, even though everything hurt, he seemed to be okay.
He had died (he wasn’t sure, had no proof, but it felt like he had died) but he was okay.
Even so, he felt a swift jerk of relief when he lifted his head from the bed and spotted his big brother, looking gracefully disheveled in a way that only Nathan Petrelli could pull off. “Nathan. What are you-what are you doing here?”
“You get in trouble; I drop everything and fix it. Isn't that how things work?”
His brother cared, so Peter savored it for a moment, focused on it even as he felt the annoyance flicker inside him, remembering a destroyed painting and that girl, that cheerleader, the one he wouldn’t have been able to save if it wasn’t for Simone. “Get you out of here soon,” Nathan sighed, his eyes steady with that familiar mix of protectiveness and exhaustion and Peter exhaled softly against it, quietly, lowering his eyes to study his hands in his lap.
Holding anything against Nathan hurt.
Even so, even knowing that- “What, no lecture?”
It was petty, and he felt bad about it, but he couldn’t help it.
But the little twinge of guilt got worse when his brother immediately came to him, moved forward to hug him tightly for a heartbeat. “I'm just glad you're alive, man,” and Peter knew he was one of the only people in the world to know that tired quality in his brother’s voice. When he raised his head, his brother was pulling away, peering down at him carefully, dark eyes heavy.
Everything hurt, especially his head, so he greedily took the distraction that Nathan offered, even if it was paltry.
“Why did you destroy that painting? Why did you try and keep me from coming here?”
Yes, petty- but his head hurt.
“The painting showed you dead, Peter. And when I got the phone call, I nearly believed it for a minute.” The guilty twinge in his heart deepened in intensity as he picked up on the faint strain in his brother’s voice, and he frowned, knowing he was losing his anger and trying to hold onto it childishly.
“Yeah, I thought I'd be the hero.”
“Yeah, heh... How'd that work out for you?”
“Save the cheerleader, save the world,” and Peter desperately wished for aspirin to help ease the quiet, vicious throbbing within his skull. It wouldn’t completely help, he was sure, but it would probably help take the edge off, keep the little spots of light from exploding behind his eyes when he moved too fast.
When his brother seemed to pick up on it, moved forward and eased down beside him, a comfortable weight against his side, Peter sighed again, letting out a long breath. His brother was annoying but he was there, he had come to get him and take him home, and-
What had he been so annoyed about anyway?
“You're meant to do a lot of things, Peter. Saving the world isn't one of them. You gotta learn to recognize when life is bigger than you are. You're not a fighter. But that's okay. The world needs nurses too.”
The tone of the last words made Peter grimace despite his best attempts not to, remembering a gift of shoes, the barest sting the gift had caused in the deepest part of his heart.
“When I'm around you, I can do what you can do. Isaac, Hiro Nakamura, this girl Claire. See, I think that we're all the same somehow and this bomb that Isaac painted, I think we're supposed to stop it. But I just… I don't think I can do it.”
“That's because you can't.”
Tired, in pain, Peter turned away, feeling Nathan tighten a palm reassuringly around his shoulder, an older brother trying to enforce an unhappy truth.
When his brother finally spoke however, it was quiet and calm and wrong in ways that Nathan’s had never been- and it wasn’t Nathan, something he realized as the fingers in his shoulder twisted in painfully. “How can you stop what's coming?”
Frightened as he had been when he was five and had lost sight of Nathan in the mall, heart exploding in his chest, he snapped his head around, took in dark eyes that were wrong and an oddly strong face and that stupid baseball cap that Peter remembered from just a few hours before. “When you don't know anything about power?”
-and Peter jerked out of his nightmare, bolting up and flinging himself back, eyes snapping up to find someone standing outside his cell. It took another moment, another heartbeat to calm down, but he finally did, jerking in several breaths as he took in long blonde hair and a slight worried frown as she peered at him through the glass. Unnerved, childishly grateful not to be alone, he awkwardly tugged the bloody shirt on his frame and watched as she let herself in, never looking away from him. “You’re Peter Petrelli?”
Um- “Yes,” and he wasn’t quite sure what else to say to the comment, heart still thundering in his chest.
“Good, just the boy I was looking for.” She looked pleased at that, nodding to herself as she held out a hand, waiting. It felt odd, the way she was smiling at him, but after the last week or two he’d had, an odd smile wasn’t too much to worry about. And his head still hurt, made his eyes ache as it only got worse. “I’m Tracy,” she added, as he cautiously shook her hand, found the grip firm but not painful. Unnerved, shaken, he clung to her hand an extra moment or two, struggling to erase the nightmare. “You can call me Trace, if you’d like.”
“Do you…”
“I’m a friend of your mother’s, happened to be in town so she asked me to swing by and check on you.”
Well, that explained why she looked familiar; his mother had dozens of “friends,” peers in her social circle that she found useful when she needed something. Those same people, he had learned early in life, found her equally useful when they needed something. It seemed to work well enough for her, so he had finally stopped fretting about it, however difficult it had been. “Just a friend?”
“I’m a friend of the lawyer variety, Peter.”
“Oh” and he was once again not sure what else to say, not with the pressure in his skull that kept building.
She looked, he decided, a bit like someone’s young grandmother, not as old as his mother but probably closer than someone would guess, long hair blonde and swept back from her face, bright eyes a smoky green. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting yourself into trouble before your brother could get here,” she continued, easing herself down to sit beside him and, to his quiet amusement, kick off her flats. “I hate those things,” she explained, rolling one over with her toes. “I used to wear stilettos when I was a girl, but I can’t pull it off anymore. Flats are the best I can do, and even these kick my ass.”
“They’re not healthy,” he mumbled half-heartedly as he reached up to press a palm against his face, trying to ease the pressure filling the entire area there. “There are all kinds of studies on it…” What was that noise, that rattling? It sounded like someone was shaking something, and he thought of locker doors flying at him, forcing him to grit his teeth and try to breathe, finding it entirely too hard just to do that.
“Peter?”
Fingers curled into his wrist, and he looked up again, found her staring at him hard, eyes glittering at him like glass in the sunlight, like the buildings in New York when he’d fallen to the street below. “Are you okay?” and before he could answer, she pressed the back of one hand against his forehead, pinched look on her face. “Have you eaten anything?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Right,” she said, and he swallowed, closing his eyes at the thought of food, at what it did to his stomach. He’d felt out of it before, but then he’d fallen five stories and if he was right, then he had died, so, why wouldn’t he feel off? This was different, though, a sudden knot in his middle that left him dizzy, gripping the cot under him out of fear of toppling off. “Have you actually slept any since they brought you in, Peter?”
Peter thought of his nightmare, remembrance of it making his hands shake slightly, and managed to nod, regretting it when it only made the room spin more viciously. “Sit up,” she snapped, voice sounding like thunder suddenly, standing and coming in front of him, “sit up and put your head between your knees, breathe a bit, don’t try to talk.” It sounded like good advice, the nurse in him insisted, so he obeyed, tightening his fingers around the cot, trying to do what she said.
He felt her palm on his head, but he ignored it, struggled to get his muscles to loosen up to allow him to breathe more easily. It took another few minutes, minutes he spent tight and tense and shaking, but he was finally able to fill his lungs, deciding as he gulped it in that air was the most wonderful thing to ever exist in the world. “I’m okay,” he mumbled, and felt her settle beside him again. He didn’t raise his head, though, not wanting another dizzy spell like that.
“I heard that you fell five stories, Peter.”
“I got lucky,” he muttered, and stared down at the floor, edgy.
“Is that all?”
It was an odd tone, felt heavy almost, and he glanced up slowly, found her staring at him with a flat gaze and a cool expression. “That’s all,” he exhaled, and she smiled, arching one eyebrow and quirking her lips into something that looked a bit like a smug smile, something that left him uneasy and restless, wanting to move but not daring to. “I suppose Claire Bennet got lucky, too, Peter?”
“Yes,” and he shut his mouth, deciding that he wouldn’t say anything else, not to that look on her face.
For a long horrible moment, she just stared at him, as if trying to frighten him into speaking. And then, abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, the quirk of her lips finally curved into a full grin, bearing white teeth. The grin made her eyes glitter as she stood and slid her feet into her shoes, stretching slightly. “I’ll call your mother, tell her you’re fine and assure her that they aren’t starving you into some kind of false confession.”
“Thanks…” He wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he went quiet again, watched silently as she slipped out of the cell and gave a little wave before she turned and strode away, melting away into the controlled chaos of the station. It left him alone again, but he didn’t care this time, not with his head throbbing and his skin feeling chilled. He lay back down and pulled the pillow over his head to block out the light, intent on staying calm until Nathan got there.
And wondering whether he’d actually managed to save the cheerleader-
No, Claire, her name was Claire.
The blonde woman had left Angela Petrelli a message on her cell phone two hours before, just as she came into the jail. It was as she was leaning against a wall and considering the surprising little twist that Peter had caused that her phone beeped at her with a surprisingly intimidating tone. No doubt in her mind who it was, she flipped it open and checked the number, grinning at being right.
Like always, there were few formalities, which the blonde woman was grateful for- she had always hated the formalities around her more than anything else. “You have nothing to do with this,” Angela blurted out instantly, and the familiar chilly strength in the voice would have cut anyone else, any sane person, off at the knees.
But the blonde woman wasn’t anyone else, and her sanity was at times a subject of discussion among her peers.
“Your son seems to be fine, although I think he’s a bit overloaded at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?” Angela sounded confused enough, but the anger was there beneath it, a quiet frustration of being forced to deal with something she didn’t want to deal with.
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Angela, not when I know you best.” The amusement was gone from her voice now, left it sharp and dry and chilly, and while most people wouldn’t have picked up on it, Angela had never been “most people,” not by far. And yet, out of everyone the blonde woman had dealt with in her life, Angela had always been the most difficult to grasp, understand.
“I thought you said you liked Paris.”
“I do, but I have work to do here.”
“Stalking my son?”
“I was just checking on him, that was all. Friends take care of their friends’ children, right, Angela?”
“He’s no business of yours-”
“Did you know that he fell five stories, walked away fine?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
It was almost a good tone, almost a good lie but the blonde woman knew better. “I guess now we know what Claire can do, don’t we?” And there was a pause, filled with something that the blonde woman didn’t miss in the slightest, couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. “But then,” she started slowly, “I have no doubt you already knew what Claire could do, right, Angela?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about-”
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him until you come to pick him up,” and the blonde woman snapped the phone shut without another thought, shutting it off and tucking it away as she flexed her feet in her flats. She had a good place where she was, able to keep an eye on everything going on in the police station, and she glanced again towards the cells, toward the little box where Peter Petrelli was tossing and turning in his bloody shirt.
Despite herself, she remembered Angela’s youngest the few times she had gone to New York.
He’d always followed her around like a puppy despite his brother’s instructions to stop it, sucking his thumb as he kept shoving that damn raggedy stuffed bear of his into her arms. She had always hated children but he had been particularly irritating, like a gnat that refused to be killed. He’d been out of diapers then, but not for long and that must have been at least twenty years ago.
And here he was, all grown up and apparently just as irritating.
This, at least, Mr. Bennet could control.
Claire seemed to be okay, seemed to be recovering well enough, which he was grateful for.
A life lived with fear, even if she was indestructible, was no life at all, especially not for someone like Claire.
Besides, he was frightened enough for her for the both of them.
“You understand what I said?”
“I got it the fiftieth time,” she sighed, and she sounded so much like the aggrieved sixteen-year old she was that he was forced to smirk slightly, squeezing a shoulder as he guided them between the cars and up the steps into the police station.
He had always been good at lying but Claire, it seemed, had none of her mother’s natural talent at twisting the truth.
The previous hours spent at home had been amusing despite his attempts to take them seriously, watching his daughter flush slightly as she tried to repeat the lies he had come up with, most of them just warped versions of the truth. The way her lips had quirked as he stared at her hard, the nervous way her fingers fluttered across the dinner table- he shouldn’t have found them so entertaining, not when they would make it harder to protect her, but they had amused him.
He remembered all the days she had sneaked cookies out of the cookie jar, the way she tried to lie but couldn’t.
Claire wasn’t gifted at this, something he was privately grateful for, but she’d be able to pull it off.
“Just follow what we planned, and everything will be fine.”
“I know,” she said again, and gave him the ‘why are you treating me like an idiot when I’m smarter than you?’ look.
Mr. Bennet was well-acquainted with that look.
He dropped a hand on her back when he saw her suddenly tense, saw her swallow and hesitate at the sight of the officer coming at her, and felt her relax the smallest bit in response, felt the worst of the tension ease. Twisting fast in front of her, he bent to press a quick kiss against her forehead and add a last encouraging whisper of “Just remember what I told you.” before pulling away and allowing the female officer to grab up Claire’s hand in a quick shake.
“We’re very glad to see you,” Audrey Hanson smiled, and almost sounded sincere as she proceeded to lead them through the halls of the station.
There were worse people to be involved in the case, Mr. Bennet had decided, and besides, he had someone at his back that could handle the telepath.
When they finally reached the correct room, the blonde officer inclined her head and stepped back, allowing Claire to step into the room first, smiling slightly, reassuringly. “Just a few questions,” she stated, and glanced at him sideways, a quick look that promptly sized him up and dismissed as something she didn’t need to worry about. “You’ll be able to take your daughter home soon,” she added, and he nodded pleasantly.
Mr. Bennet had handled bigger messes than this in his life.
Holding his next breath for an extra moment, steadying himself, he finally stepped into the room and then arched his neck, intending to watch Audrey Hanson follow after.
All he actually saw, however, was the other blonde.
He took her in completely in the single second he had before Audrey Hanson closed the door behind them, took in every aspect of the blonde woman that stood and stared at him with a broad smile. Took in long blonde hair and glittering eyes and a smile that wasn’t a smile, and he took in the way she stared at him, an unnerving look that left him floundering, scrambling for a foundation that was suddenly washed away.
It only lasted for a second before the door closed and she was gone, but it had done its damage.
In a space of a single second, sixteen years wrenched awkwardly, shifted and twisted, and his heart followed, a shudder in his chest that knocked the breath from his body before he regained his control.
“Daddy…?”
And he dropped his gaze to find his daughter gazing up at him from behind the table, green eyes worried and lips quirked into a frown. It was just Claire, just her, and he pushed the other woman away, shoved her back and focused on Claire instead, his Claire-
But his hands still shook as he took his seat and watched his daughter lie.
A few hours after that guy who looked like that guy on Alias had seemingly read his mind, Peter started hacking up his other lung.
It wasn’t enjoyable.
The guard, finally unnerved, had brought him a bag of cough drops- while they didn’t completely erase the problem, they certainly helped, allowing him to lay back and try to get some sleep.
Keyword being “try” he found.
Every time he closed his eyes, things flickered in his head, splashes of color and echoes of voices, something that tasted like Scotch flooding his mouth, a cacophony of sensations that made any kind of rest impossible. He finally did what he had done before, pulled his pillow over his head and focused on breathing, something that had never been this painful before.
If he had been completely himself, he would have realized how badly he actually felt, would have realized just how bad a shape he was in. He had always been good at that, telling when somebody wasn’t as healthy as they should be, and it was something that had always amused and irritated his mother, his constant insistence at playing the mother hen of the family-
“He looks like he’s asleep, Claire-”
Peter sat up so fast that he nearly gave all three of the people standing at the foot of his cot a stroke, watching the tall man with the glasses grab the cheerleader and pull her back protectively, such a sudden movement that Peter froze with the quiet instinct of a small prey animal, holding up his hands cautiously, startled and not sure why. “I’m awake,” he managed quickly, hoarsely, and saw, even with the big man standing between them, the way the blonde perked up at the words.
A second later, her head popped into view, a small but brilliant smile greeting him.
Breathing, alive- because he had saved her- “You're okay.”
“Thanks to you,” she smiled but all he could do was grin stupidly back, jaw beginning to ache slightly.
“Mr. Petrelli, I'm Claire's father.”
“Hi,” he managed as he very carefully took the big man’s offered hand, found it heavily calloused but okay.
“You saved my little girl. I owe you my life.”
“I was just in the right place.”
Which, of course, wasn’t a lie, exactly…
“Maybe one day I'll be in the right place and can return the favor.”
Claire’s father had a slightly unnerving stare, Peter decided, a slight hardness beneath his eyes that Peter couldn’t completely wrap his mind around. There was something about his glasses, a small part of his brain insisted desperately, something to do with Nathan, but the harder he tried to figure it out, the more his brain hurt.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, fine…” and he nodded even though it made his brain slosh around in his skull in a horrible way.
“Hey, Dad, can you wait outside?”
Peter, hazy-minded and dizzy, was grateful for the request, closed his eyes and eased down onto his cot again. He just needed to get balanced, he decided, and pressed palms against his face, aware of both father and daughter staring at him worriedly. Finally, he heard her father agree, heard his footsteps fade and the door open and close, heard the lock engage.
“Are you okay?”
He forced his head up, found her staring at him with green eyes that glittered with a nervous kind of worry.
“Fine,” he whispered slowly, and then hesitated at her disbelieving look, at the mocking arch of one eyebrow. “I’m just… tired, I think, and I’m probably getting a cold…”
“I don’t get colds,” she said softly, and he swallowed, remembering her hair hanging around her face, stringy and sticky with blood, knowing that most of the blood on her was her own. Remembered the night before, popping bones back into place after he woke up to find her staring down at him. It made something in his mind flutter excitedly, and he straightened abruptly, eyes widening.
“Do you heal? Is that it?”
And she smiled suddenly, a long little smile that was almost a grin but not quite as she slowly settled beside him, rubbing her palms on her legs and staring at him with a giddy kind of awe. “Yeah,” she finally sighed, and gave a little shake of her head, grin becoming grateful. “All this time, I thought it was just me and now there's you. Is that why you came for me? Is that why you… asked me if I was the one?”
“No, I just- I knew I had to save you.”
“Why?”
“To save the world,” he said cautiously, and was pathetically grateful when she didn’t laugh at him.
“What do I have to do with the world?”
“I don't know.” Off her wide-eyed slightly annoyed look, he quickly added, “Yet.” She gave him another look, not so disbelieving but confused, and he swallowed, unexpectedly panicked she would have him committed. “I do know that I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for you. I think I died.”
“I've died before. It's no big deal,” she assured him, a slightly brittle chuckle beneath her voice.
“I'm not like you, Claire. I-”
Her father tapped hard on the window, pointing at his watch as Claire gestured vaguely, hopefully.
It seemed to work, because he nodded and turned away, a big shadow hiding them from anyone who might want to peer into Peter’s cell. It left Claire staring at him expectantly, patiently, one eyebrow lifted.
“This, uh... this healing thing is kind of new for me.”
And he could see the gears in her head moving, saw the way her eyes flew wide open and she stared at him even harder, stunned. “You didn't know that you were gonna heal when you dove off the building?”
“No,” and he wasn’t sure why he felt like child about to be sent to time-out. “That's kinda stupid, huh?”
But she smiled again, that same smile that was almost a grin but not completely, and shook her head at him as if he was being an idiot. “No,” she finally sighed, “no, it’s not.”
And her father knocked on the glass again, hard.
Jerking a thumb over her shoulder with a sheepish grin, she stood hastily, shaking her head and blushing furiously. “He wants to get home,” she sighed, and he nodded, watching as she tilted her head back towards her father, lips twitching. “I think he’s more scared than I am,” she laughed, and he nodded even more, jaw aching from his stupid grin, watching as she made her way towards the door being unlocked and opened for her.
“You're totally my hero,” she assured him with a last sincere grin, and then she was gone, leaving him alone in an empty cell with his bag of cough drops and his migraine- and no longer feeling quite as alone as he had a few hours before.
Rural Utah
Jessica Sanders was pissed.
While not a new phenomenon, the depths of it now was something she had never felt before.
Stupid little idiot Niki, leaving Micah defenseless; stupid Niki, leaving her helpless, leaving them both helpless.
Wherever she was (and Jessica didn’t know where she was, not really, not when she wasn’t walking and talking and breathing and eating), she felt the cool weight of handcuffs around her wrists, the feel of her fingers being pressed deep into ink and then flat onto something. She was being booked, arrested, for doing what she had to do, and it was Niki’s fault, fucking Niki, too stupid to understand how the world worked.
Jessica thought of all the things that could happen to Niki in jail, and seethed quietly, silently.
Jessica thought of all the things that could happen to Micah, and shuddered softly, viciously, almost painfully.
Jessica didn’t let herself think about his wounded arm, the devastated look on his young face as he stared up at her.
It was one of the few completely clear things that Jessica had, Micah’s baby weight in her arms after all that pain, fingers curling against her skin, breath soft and steady against the spot just above her right breast. It had been real and raw in its intensity, settling where she was, reaching her where she had restlessly waited for something, anything, to give her a reason to be. The moment was never gone, it never wavered, and it was there even when everything else faded into nothing, even when Niki was a shadow in the dark and she felt fingers digging into her neck.
Jessica hated those moments, and hated Niki for them, but even then, there was Micah, warm and soft and helpless.
Needing her, because God knew Niki was too fucking useless to take care of him herself.
And now here they were, stuck in a little box where people could poke her and prod her, and while she raged and tore at the place where she found herself caught and tangled, she was helpless. She had worn herself out, she realized now, keeping Niki in the background and this was the aftermath of it, too damn tired to really put up a fight now that Niki had finally grown herself a fucking spine.
Jessica Sanders did the only thing she could, the only thing available to her- she started working out an escape plan.
Niki could only keep her quiet for so long, even with that shiny new spine of hers.
Odessa, Texas
What had started as a semi-okay albeit roller coaster of a day was no longer anything resembling that.
It took three times to do it, her stupid hands were shaking that hard but she finally succeeded, folding herself up and counting the rings desperately before she heard the click and his voice, easing the worst of the panic filling her. Dad would take care of her, he’d come home and take care of her and protect her and tell her it would be fine and that she had no reason to feel this terrified in an empty house.
But the house wasn’t supposed to be empty, and Claire felt like there was supposed to be some kind of crappy scary music playing in the background- “Tell me you remember. Y-you remember what I told you? Last night. Don't you? You remember what we talked about?”
Claire realized how crazy she probably sounded, but couldn’t care too much.
“Of course I do. What's going on?”
He sounded like Dad, real Dad, the one who refused to let her out of the house when her jeans hung too low or her top didn’t cover her completely and not the heavy-voiced stranger who had told that he knew she could jump off an oil rig and walk away fine. Whatever else might be going on, she realized, he would always be Dad; he’d always make sure she looked “presentable,” whatever that meant. “You said that there were people who wanted to hurt me. I think they got to Zach and Lyle. They don't remember anything. It's like it never happened. I don't know what to do.”
“Where are you?”
“I'm at home. Where's Mom? Where's- where's Lyle?” The house was quiet around her, and while she once would have loved it for the privacy, now it left her alone with thoughts of Jackie Wilcox and whatever it was that had happened to Lyle and Zach.
“Just stay where you are. I'll be right there. I love you, Claire. You're gonna be okay.” It sounded like her Dad, just her Dad, and she exhaled, biting the inside of one cheek, wondering how long it would take for him to get there.
“Okay,” she finally mumbled, and forced herself to hang up, forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down and wait until Dad got home.
Claire looked up by accident and finally saw him, a big guy with deep eyes staring down at her, and she moved in the next heartbeat, panic kicking in as she launched to her feet and made a frantic run for it. She thought, for a moment, that she had it, and then he caught her, a palm clamping hard across her mouth as she shrieked, another arm locking her back against his chest. She kicked out once, twice, and then only shrieked harder when it slammed the door shut, and, oh, God, she didn’t want to think about Brody right now, not right now-
She clawed at his hand, tried to dig her nails into his skin and tear but he was holding her like she was a rag doll, like she didn’t weight anything and it wasn’t fair, why couldn’t she get super-strength or something, something better than this?! And she kept thinking of Brody and that was the worst as she struggled, throat raw from the screams that nobody even heard-“I work for your father.”
And Claire felt something relax inside her even as she tried not to let it, thinking of Dad always catching her as she tried to go out, pulling her back and telling her to go change because she didn’t look “presentable” and it was so stupid, to think of that right now with some guy holding her helpless. “He sent me here to make you forget. Like he sent me to your friend- and your brother- and to your mother so many times…”
Dad, Dad, Daddy… “He'll be here soon, expecting that ... you won't remember anything. But it is very important that you do. Tell me, Claire. Can you keep... a secret?” The last was said softly, breath ruffling the hair at the back of her neck, but she went fully still, eyes wide, feeling herself loosen in his hold and suddenly realized he wasn’t holding her as tightly anymore.
Claire nodded weakly, felt his palm ease off her mouth- and listened because there was nothing else to do.
Peter had seen the blonde twice through the glass, seen her glance his way and smile pleasantly.
The cheerleader was okay, seemed fine, so he clung to that as he waited, deciding that the discomfort of a tiny jail cell was completely worth it because, well, he had saved the cheerleader. He ached all over, though, and he wondered if maybe he hadn’t healed as well as he thought he had, it hurt that much- his entire body, especially his skull, as if too much was trying to fit in at once.
The thought of popping several aspirin and falling into his own bed was, perhaps, the most glorious thing he’d ever imagined… nice cool sheets and a cold dark room, and complete quiet that would maybe help his head stop feeling like it was going to shatter into pieces… that’s what he needed, a lot of sleep, it would make everything better.
Peter took another breath and let it out slowly (even breathing was beginning to hurt) and looked up just in time to see the blonde woman coming back, looking tired but pleased. Sitting up a bit more, he jerked in surprise at the sight of his mother at her side, already meeting his eyes even with the distance between them.
His mother, unlike the blonde woman named Tracy, did not look at all pleased.
After a brief moment in which Peter gave serious consideration to hiding under the cot, a consideration he dismissed with the thought of sleeping in his own bed, he forced himself to his feet and leaned against the wall by the door, closing his eyes to catch his breath and calm down.
By the time he managed to open his eyes again, the door was being opened and his mother was talking to him, the blonde woman studying him with a small smile that he couldn’t decipher even if he wanted to. “Told you I’d take care of him,” she chuckled but his mother only made a short noise in her throat, holding his chin and turning his head to stare at him hard.
“Have you slept?”
“Um, a bit, but…” and he shook his head, although he wasn’t sure if he was shaking his head in an attempt not to think about the dream or as an actual answer to his mother’s sharp question.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she murmured unhappily, and he flashed a tiny smile, the best he could manage with his body beginning to tremble slightly. “You should have slept,” she snapped, and carefully led him out of the cell, jerking her head to stare hard at the blonde woman. “You should have made sure he got some sleep, he’d be feeling better by now.”
“I’ll sleep when I get home-”
“You’ll sleep as soon as you get out to the car, and on the plane, and then at home and you will not get out of bed until I tell you that you can.”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“He’s handling some business right now, so I came to get you,” and his mother had the tone of someone who was getting irritated with being asked questions. There was something else about it, about how she said it, that seemed off but he was so tired and his head hurt so much, so much worse than any of the headaches he could remember having ever before in his life.
“Okay,” he finally sighed as he mother led him through the police station. “Okay, I think you’re right…”
“Of course I’m right, I’m your mother,” and they finally left the jail, stepping out into the night. The sudden fresh air wrenched him a bit more awake, allowed him to take a breath that didn’t hurt his chest and he moved more steadily, only slowly becoming aware of the fact that the blonde woman was holding onto his other arm.
“I can’t believe Nathan isn’t here…”
“Your brother’s busy, just like your mother said,” Tracy smiled slightly, and reached out to brush his hair back with a maternal frown at the offending bangs. “You look horrible with that hair,” she added but he could only nod carefully, enjoying the air coming into his lungs. “After a good sleep and a few days rest, you’ll be right as rain.” She paused, quirked a lip into what seemed to be a sincere little grin. “Whatever that means, I’ve never been sure.”
He grinned pleasantly, stupidly, and she smirked a bit more in answer, as if he was doing something funny and not realizing it. “Stay,” she chuckled, and he nodded and obeyed silently, feeling oddly but satisfyingly disjointed as he watched his mother and the blonde woman back away a few steps, trying to figure out what he had been so worried about a few minutes before as he watched them start speaking.
He’d saved the cheerleader; she was fine, right as rain, whatever that meant…
But there was something else, and the realization that there was something else caused a sharp twist in his brain, leaving him frowning as he struggled to figure out what it was, what it was he had forgotten. Isaac, something to do with Isaac, or… something…?
He had a sudden flash of red behind his eyes, and his heart jerked suddenly, twisted with a sudden understanding.
The bomb, the one Isaac had painted… the bomb…
How had he forgotten the bomb?
The happy disjointed feeling was gone, replaced with something cold and tight inside him, left him shaking as he snapped his head around, searching for any sign of Nathan and only spotting his mother, speaking quietly with the blonde woman. She looked upset, pale with something he couldn’t decipher, but- “Mom?”
His mother didn’t look at him, just held up one palm in a silent order that he had seen before and he rocked back on his heels, stung and startled, trying to remember everything he had needed to tell someone, everything the bomb that Isaac had painted. “There’s a bomb,” he started slowly, and then frowned, realizing he couldn’t hear his voice.
There was a heavy noise, something that sounded unnervingly like his own heartbeat, too loud and too fast in his ears.
Was he having a stroke?
“Oh” he breathed shakily, and reached out for something to get his balance but found nothing, hands groping at empty air as he swayed and struggled to breathe, thinking of Isaacs paintings and the one with the bomb, the one that had affected him the same way the images of the cheerleader had, a gut-deep wrenching that meant something, he was sure of it because anything that felt like that had to mean something.
“There’s a-”
The two women suddenly looked over at him, and he realized he had just yelled the words, realized it as the ground shifted violently beneath him. He took one step back but the ground moved faster, throwing him back, flinging him to the concrete with enough force that something exploded behind (beneath?) his eyes, a sudden flare of color he couldn’t name.
The disjointed feeling was back but for a heartbeat, he was aware of hands grabbing his face, fingers digging into his skin and someone calling his name, frightened orders to listen to… someone, although he couldn’t for the life of him attach a name to a face or even a face to the voice…
There was color, and echoes of voices… and he tasted Scotch…
And that heavy noise in his ears finally went quiet.
Next - History lessons with Angela, Nathan struggles with his brother's coma and his father's secrets and Mr. Bennet struggles to handle the newest ball thrown into his court as we shift even more into AU territory...
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Beta:
gidget_zb and
dreamingwriter - they 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: Begins during ‘Fallout,’ continues through; includes dialogue from the episode - AU as of "Fallout"
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine.
Notes: I'd highly recommend anyone reading this quickly pop over and read the notes, which can be found here , ;)
Teaser: Beneath everything, there’s always a foundation.
Manhattan, New York - Seven Months Ago
Her old friend (he wasn’t even a friend, but it sounded better than acquaintance) still liked his Scotch on the rocks.
She sat and waited as patiently as she could, watching him slowly enjoy his drink, watching his self-control crumble bit by bit every heartbeat. She’d seen a lot in her life and knew, even if she had never gotten a straight answer, that he had seen even more. He wasn’t aging well, not as well as she was, but then she had friends in high places who were able to help with that.
They were all old, she had come to realize slowly, but they were still who they were.
“You lower your head any deeper into that Scotch and you’re going to drown yourself.”
“Wouldn’t be such a bad thing,” he chuckled and although he nodded as if the thought wasn’t a bad one, he finished off the last of his drink and dropped the glass back with a snort. “You’re Gwen this week, right?”
“Actually, this week it’s Kath.”
“That doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
He gave her a look then, a sharp but seemingly innocent glance that she knew was anything but. He knew things, she had realized early on, had long weeks when he would know everything and have every answer and other weeks, the bad weeks- “I get the feeling that you know why I called you tonight?”
He didn’t say anything, and Kath smiled, offered him her own untouched Scotch on the rocks.
“Of course I know,” he murmured a long moment later, and took the silent gift.
“You know a lot of things.”
The hand gripping the glass trembled just the barest bit as he started nursing this drink, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly around the tumbler, and she noticed it the same way she picked up on the slightest flicker of one eyelid as he shook his head and shrugged. “I just pay attention,” he explained, and it wasn’t even a good attempt at a lie. “I can’t help you,” he said flatly, and she smiled as well as she could, a jerk of movement as her lips twisted.
“Yes, you can.”
“I’m not involved in this.”
“You are if I can give you something you want.”
He shuddered and drained that glass as well, dropping it rather roughly to the table top and jerking his chin, a silent demand for more. The drinks were on her tonight, as usual during these little meetings, and she obeyed the order, not speaking until he had another drink in front of him. “I can do it, I can give you what you want,” she whispered, and watched the tiny reaction he gave- the jerk of his head and the flicker of desperation in his eyes.
“You can’t change the future, Kath.”
“You’ve done it.”
“No, I…” and he shook his head, making a face. “I’ve changed what I was supposed to change, but that’s all…”
“So you admit it?”
He didn’t say anything for a long time and she held herself back by sheer force of will, bit the inside of her cheek and counted to ten over and over again. “I think you figured out what I can do a long time ago,” he finally whispered, so quietly she almost couldn’t hear him. “You’ve never been a stupid girl, and I’ve never seen you as one, right, Kath?”
“I like to think we’ve always understood each other,” she admitted, and he smiled and nodded and went back to his booze. “We have, so…” He fell quiet again, and it took everything she had to keep breathing, knowing this was important, how he reacted now, what he might do. Kath wasn’t gifted at manipulating people, not on the whole, but he wanted to believe her, wanted to put this on her shoulders.
It was the only thing she had, right now.
“I’ve tried to change the future before and it never works-”
“You can’t know that-”
“All I’ve ever done is made things worse.”
She stared at him for a moment, unnerved at the tone, at the way he stared right through her and at something only he could see. He had his secrets, she knew, same as they all did, so she kept her mouth shut and her smile light, encouraging. And his eyes finally focused on her again, sharpened and deepened and she knew she had him.
“Tell me where she is,” the blonde woman murmured and the strength in her voice made him hesitate, lick his lips and swallow shakily. “Tell me where she is,” she whispered more firmly, a hint of an order in her tone, and curled fingers around his wrist, holding him tight, “and I can give you what you really want.”
“I don’t know where she is, not completely…”
“Tell me,” and she smiled again, making it reach her eyes. “Just give me some idea, and I can go from there.”
Odessa, Texas - Present
Mr. Bennet remembered, all too clearly, the night he first held Claire, first promised her that he would love her until the world ended. It was a promise more important to him than his wedding vows, and more sincere than even his love for Lyle, however harsh that might sound if ever put out into words. To love her and to protect her, even if it might one day mean he had to hurt her to keep her safe.
Protecting her, whether it be from teenage boys who looked down her blouse or psychopaths who wanted her power, had been the constant in his life from the second he’d first lifted her out of that plastic bassinet and held her close. He still had the shirt he’d worn that day, tucked into the back of his closet, and it still had the large drool stain from where she’d first dozed off with her head on his shoulder, tiny noises soothing him better than anything he’d ever experienced before in his life.
She’d been so tiny then, so small he had been able to wrap his palms around her middle and feel his fingers touch, and he glanced at her again as he drove, fingers just a little bit too tight around the steering wheel as he struggled to work out what he needed to do to solve all of this. She was still small, or at least on the smaller side, and she was indestructible but-
But Claire could still be hurt in ways that would hollow her out until there was nothing left of her, could still be used in ways that would destroy her long before that impossibly durable body wore out.
Mr. Bennet looked at her more carefully, took her in with that now-familiar shudder in his heart at the blood that had dried into her hair and across her face. She was staring out her window, wide-eyed and calm-faced, and he remembered that smile she’d had on her face the first weekend he watched her without any help at all from Sandra. She’d settled in his lap and peered up at him and grinned like the cat that ate the canary, like she’d won the lottery.
He turned his attention back to the road, uneasily aware of how… brittle he felt at the moment.
It was by accident that he looked up just as another car’s headlights flashed across her face in a way that made him jerk the smallest bit in recognition, knowing that look of worried attention even though he had only seen it a few times. He had seen Claire make that face before, when she was extremely focused on something, but it made him freeze up now, if only for a fragile heartbeat.
Claire had never been covered in dried blood when she’d made it before.
It took just a second before the light was off Claire’s face and she was in shadow again, but it had done its damage, shaken him enough that he struggled not to glance at her again, remembering eyes that glittered like green glass and a tiny smile that was anything but. Claire had the basic looks, but the resemblance wasn’t entirely impressive, not really, something he had always been quietly grateful for. She had the same coloring, blonde hair and green eyes and the same look of focus when she was truly determined, but it had always been the differences that Mr. Bennet had forced himself to see.
The last glance he gave her before he pulled into the drive, all he saw was Claire, no sign of her mother to be found.
Blood or not, Claire was his child and she hadn’t wanted Claire.
She hadn’t wanted Claire- but he had.
Peter was aware of the fact that, even though everything hurt, he seemed to be okay.
He had died (he wasn’t sure, had no proof, but it felt like he had died) but he was okay.
Even so, he felt a swift jerk of relief when he lifted his head from the bed and spotted his big brother, looking gracefully disheveled in a way that only Nathan Petrelli could pull off. “Nathan. What are you-what are you doing here?”
“You get in trouble; I drop everything and fix it. Isn't that how things work?”
His brother cared, so Peter savored it for a moment, focused on it even as he felt the annoyance flicker inside him, remembering a destroyed painting and that girl, that cheerleader, the one he wouldn’t have been able to save if it wasn’t for Simone. “Get you out of here soon,” Nathan sighed, his eyes steady with that familiar mix of protectiveness and exhaustion and Peter exhaled softly against it, quietly, lowering his eyes to study his hands in his lap.
Holding anything against Nathan hurt.
Even so, even knowing that- “What, no lecture?”
It was petty, and he felt bad about it, but he couldn’t help it.
But the little twinge of guilt got worse when his brother immediately came to him, moved forward to hug him tightly for a heartbeat. “I'm just glad you're alive, man,” and Peter knew he was one of the only people in the world to know that tired quality in his brother’s voice. When he raised his head, his brother was pulling away, peering down at him carefully, dark eyes heavy.
Everything hurt, especially his head, so he greedily took the distraction that Nathan offered, even if it was paltry.
“Why did you destroy that painting? Why did you try and keep me from coming here?”
Yes, petty- but his head hurt.
“The painting showed you dead, Peter. And when I got the phone call, I nearly believed it for a minute.” The guilty twinge in his heart deepened in intensity as he picked up on the faint strain in his brother’s voice, and he frowned, knowing he was losing his anger and trying to hold onto it childishly.
“Yeah, I thought I'd be the hero.”
“Yeah, heh... How'd that work out for you?”
“Save the cheerleader, save the world,” and Peter desperately wished for aspirin to help ease the quiet, vicious throbbing within his skull. It wouldn’t completely help, he was sure, but it would probably help take the edge off, keep the little spots of light from exploding behind his eyes when he moved too fast.
When his brother seemed to pick up on it, moved forward and eased down beside him, a comfortable weight against his side, Peter sighed again, letting out a long breath. His brother was annoying but he was there, he had come to get him and take him home, and-
What had he been so annoyed about anyway?
“You're meant to do a lot of things, Peter. Saving the world isn't one of them. You gotta learn to recognize when life is bigger than you are. You're not a fighter. But that's okay. The world needs nurses too.”
The tone of the last words made Peter grimace despite his best attempts not to, remembering a gift of shoes, the barest sting the gift had caused in the deepest part of his heart.
“When I'm around you, I can do what you can do. Isaac, Hiro Nakamura, this girl Claire. See, I think that we're all the same somehow and this bomb that Isaac painted, I think we're supposed to stop it. But I just… I don't think I can do it.”
“That's because you can't.”
Tired, in pain, Peter turned away, feeling Nathan tighten a palm reassuringly around his shoulder, an older brother trying to enforce an unhappy truth.
When his brother finally spoke however, it was quiet and calm and wrong in ways that Nathan’s had never been- and it wasn’t Nathan, something he realized as the fingers in his shoulder twisted in painfully. “How can you stop what's coming?”
Frightened as he had been when he was five and had lost sight of Nathan in the mall, heart exploding in his chest, he snapped his head around, took in dark eyes that were wrong and an oddly strong face and that stupid baseball cap that Peter remembered from just a few hours before. “When you don't know anything about power?”
-and Peter jerked out of his nightmare, bolting up and flinging himself back, eyes snapping up to find someone standing outside his cell. It took another moment, another heartbeat to calm down, but he finally did, jerking in several breaths as he took in long blonde hair and a slight worried frown as she peered at him through the glass. Unnerved, childishly grateful not to be alone, he awkwardly tugged the bloody shirt on his frame and watched as she let herself in, never looking away from him. “You’re Peter Petrelli?”
Um- “Yes,” and he wasn’t quite sure what else to say to the comment, heart still thundering in his chest.
“Good, just the boy I was looking for.” She looked pleased at that, nodding to herself as she held out a hand, waiting. It felt odd, the way she was smiling at him, but after the last week or two he’d had, an odd smile wasn’t too much to worry about. And his head still hurt, made his eyes ache as it only got worse. “I’m Tracy,” she added, as he cautiously shook her hand, found the grip firm but not painful. Unnerved, shaken, he clung to her hand an extra moment or two, struggling to erase the nightmare. “You can call me Trace, if you’d like.”
“Do you…”
“I’m a friend of your mother’s, happened to be in town so she asked me to swing by and check on you.”
Well, that explained why she looked familiar; his mother had dozens of “friends,” peers in her social circle that she found useful when she needed something. Those same people, he had learned early in life, found her equally useful when they needed something. It seemed to work well enough for her, so he had finally stopped fretting about it, however difficult it had been. “Just a friend?”
“I’m a friend of the lawyer variety, Peter.”
“Oh” and he was once again not sure what else to say, not with the pressure in his skull that kept building.
She looked, he decided, a bit like someone’s young grandmother, not as old as his mother but probably closer than someone would guess, long hair blonde and swept back from her face, bright eyes a smoky green. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting yourself into trouble before your brother could get here,” she continued, easing herself down to sit beside him and, to his quiet amusement, kick off her flats. “I hate those things,” she explained, rolling one over with her toes. “I used to wear stilettos when I was a girl, but I can’t pull it off anymore. Flats are the best I can do, and even these kick my ass.”
“They’re not healthy,” he mumbled half-heartedly as he reached up to press a palm against his face, trying to ease the pressure filling the entire area there. “There are all kinds of studies on it…” What was that noise, that rattling? It sounded like someone was shaking something, and he thought of locker doors flying at him, forcing him to grit his teeth and try to breathe, finding it entirely too hard just to do that.
“Peter?”
Fingers curled into his wrist, and he looked up again, found her staring at him hard, eyes glittering at him like glass in the sunlight, like the buildings in New York when he’d fallen to the street below. “Are you okay?” and before he could answer, she pressed the back of one hand against his forehead, pinched look on her face. “Have you eaten anything?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Right,” she said, and he swallowed, closing his eyes at the thought of food, at what it did to his stomach. He’d felt out of it before, but then he’d fallen five stories and if he was right, then he had died, so, why wouldn’t he feel off? This was different, though, a sudden knot in his middle that left him dizzy, gripping the cot under him out of fear of toppling off. “Have you actually slept any since they brought you in, Peter?”
Peter thought of his nightmare, remembrance of it making his hands shake slightly, and managed to nod, regretting it when it only made the room spin more viciously. “Sit up,” she snapped, voice sounding like thunder suddenly, standing and coming in front of him, “sit up and put your head between your knees, breathe a bit, don’t try to talk.” It sounded like good advice, the nurse in him insisted, so he obeyed, tightening his fingers around the cot, trying to do what she said.
He felt her palm on his head, but he ignored it, struggled to get his muscles to loosen up to allow him to breathe more easily. It took another few minutes, minutes he spent tight and tense and shaking, but he was finally able to fill his lungs, deciding as he gulped it in that air was the most wonderful thing to ever exist in the world. “I’m okay,” he mumbled, and felt her settle beside him again. He didn’t raise his head, though, not wanting another dizzy spell like that.
“I heard that you fell five stories, Peter.”
“I got lucky,” he muttered, and stared down at the floor, edgy.
“Is that all?”
It was an odd tone, felt heavy almost, and he glanced up slowly, found her staring at him with a flat gaze and a cool expression. “That’s all,” he exhaled, and she smiled, arching one eyebrow and quirking her lips into something that looked a bit like a smug smile, something that left him uneasy and restless, wanting to move but not daring to. “I suppose Claire Bennet got lucky, too, Peter?”
“Yes,” and he shut his mouth, deciding that he wouldn’t say anything else, not to that look on her face.
For a long horrible moment, she just stared at him, as if trying to frighten him into speaking. And then, abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, the quirk of her lips finally curved into a full grin, bearing white teeth. The grin made her eyes glitter as she stood and slid her feet into her shoes, stretching slightly. “I’ll call your mother, tell her you’re fine and assure her that they aren’t starving you into some kind of false confession.”
“Thanks…” He wasn’t quite sure what to say, so he went quiet again, watched silently as she slipped out of the cell and gave a little wave before she turned and strode away, melting away into the controlled chaos of the station. It left him alone again, but he didn’t care this time, not with his head throbbing and his skin feeling chilled. He lay back down and pulled the pillow over his head to block out the light, intent on staying calm until Nathan got there.
And wondering whether he’d actually managed to save the cheerleader-
No, Claire, her name was Claire.
The blonde woman had left Angela Petrelli a message on her cell phone two hours before, just as she came into the jail. It was as she was leaning against a wall and considering the surprising little twist that Peter had caused that her phone beeped at her with a surprisingly intimidating tone. No doubt in her mind who it was, she flipped it open and checked the number, grinning at being right.
Like always, there were few formalities, which the blonde woman was grateful for- she had always hated the formalities around her more than anything else. “You have nothing to do with this,” Angela blurted out instantly, and the familiar chilly strength in the voice would have cut anyone else, any sane person, off at the knees.
But the blonde woman wasn’t anyone else, and her sanity was at times a subject of discussion among her peers.
“Your son seems to be fine, although I think he’s a bit overloaded at the moment.”
“What are you talking about?” Angela sounded confused enough, but the anger was there beneath it, a quiet frustration of being forced to deal with something she didn’t want to deal with.
“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Angela, not when I know you best.” The amusement was gone from her voice now, left it sharp and dry and chilly, and while most people wouldn’t have picked up on it, Angela had never been “most people,” not by far. And yet, out of everyone the blonde woman had dealt with in her life, Angela had always been the most difficult to grasp, understand.
“I thought you said you liked Paris.”
“I do, but I have work to do here.”
“Stalking my son?”
“I was just checking on him, that was all. Friends take care of their friends’ children, right, Angela?”
“He’s no business of yours-”
“Did you know that he fell five stories, walked away fine?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
It was almost a good tone, almost a good lie but the blonde woman knew better. “I guess now we know what Claire can do, don’t we?” And there was a pause, filled with something that the blonde woman didn’t miss in the slightest, couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. “But then,” she started slowly, “I have no doubt you already knew what Claire could do, right, Angela?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about-”
“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on him until you come to pick him up,” and the blonde woman snapped the phone shut without another thought, shutting it off and tucking it away as she flexed her feet in her flats. She had a good place where she was, able to keep an eye on everything going on in the police station, and she glanced again towards the cells, toward the little box where Peter Petrelli was tossing and turning in his bloody shirt.
Despite herself, she remembered Angela’s youngest the few times she had gone to New York.
He’d always followed her around like a puppy despite his brother’s instructions to stop it, sucking his thumb as he kept shoving that damn raggedy stuffed bear of his into her arms. She had always hated children but he had been particularly irritating, like a gnat that refused to be killed. He’d been out of diapers then, but not for long and that must have been at least twenty years ago.
And here he was, all grown up and apparently just as irritating.
This, at least, Mr. Bennet could control.
Claire seemed to be okay, seemed to be recovering well enough, which he was grateful for.
A life lived with fear, even if she was indestructible, was no life at all, especially not for someone like Claire.
Besides, he was frightened enough for her for the both of them.
“You understand what I said?”
“I got it the fiftieth time,” she sighed, and she sounded so much like the aggrieved sixteen-year old she was that he was forced to smirk slightly, squeezing a shoulder as he guided them between the cars and up the steps into the police station.
He had always been good at lying but Claire, it seemed, had none of her mother’s natural talent at twisting the truth.
The previous hours spent at home had been amusing despite his attempts to take them seriously, watching his daughter flush slightly as she tried to repeat the lies he had come up with, most of them just warped versions of the truth. The way her lips had quirked as he stared at her hard, the nervous way her fingers fluttered across the dinner table- he shouldn’t have found them so entertaining, not when they would make it harder to protect her, but they had amused him.
He remembered all the days she had sneaked cookies out of the cookie jar, the way she tried to lie but couldn’t.
Claire wasn’t gifted at this, something he was privately grateful for, but she’d be able to pull it off.
“Just follow what we planned, and everything will be fine.”
“I know,” she said again, and gave him the ‘why are you treating me like an idiot when I’m smarter than you?’ look.
Mr. Bennet was well-acquainted with that look.
He dropped a hand on her back when he saw her suddenly tense, saw her swallow and hesitate at the sight of the officer coming at her, and felt her relax the smallest bit in response, felt the worst of the tension ease. Twisting fast in front of her, he bent to press a quick kiss against her forehead and add a last encouraging whisper of “Just remember what I told you.” before pulling away and allowing the female officer to grab up Claire’s hand in a quick shake.
“We’re very glad to see you,” Audrey Hanson smiled, and almost sounded sincere as she proceeded to lead them through the halls of the station.
There were worse people to be involved in the case, Mr. Bennet had decided, and besides, he had someone at his back that could handle the telepath.
When they finally reached the correct room, the blonde officer inclined her head and stepped back, allowing Claire to step into the room first, smiling slightly, reassuringly. “Just a few questions,” she stated, and glanced at him sideways, a quick look that promptly sized him up and dismissed as something she didn’t need to worry about. “You’ll be able to take your daughter home soon,” she added, and he nodded pleasantly.
Mr. Bennet had handled bigger messes than this in his life.
Holding his next breath for an extra moment, steadying himself, he finally stepped into the room and then arched his neck, intending to watch Audrey Hanson follow after.
All he actually saw, however, was the other blonde.
He took her in completely in the single second he had before Audrey Hanson closed the door behind them, took in every aspect of the blonde woman that stood and stared at him with a broad smile. Took in long blonde hair and glittering eyes and a smile that wasn’t a smile, and he took in the way she stared at him, an unnerving look that left him floundering, scrambling for a foundation that was suddenly washed away.
It only lasted for a second before the door closed and she was gone, but it had done its damage.
In a space of a single second, sixteen years wrenched awkwardly, shifted and twisted, and his heart followed, a shudder in his chest that knocked the breath from his body before he regained his control.
“Daddy…?”
And he dropped his gaze to find his daughter gazing up at him from behind the table, green eyes worried and lips quirked into a frown. It was just Claire, just her, and he pushed the other woman away, shoved her back and focused on Claire instead, his Claire-
But his hands still shook as he took his seat and watched his daughter lie.
A few hours after that guy who looked like that guy on Alias had seemingly read his mind, Peter started hacking up his other lung.
It wasn’t enjoyable.
The guard, finally unnerved, had brought him a bag of cough drops- while they didn’t completely erase the problem, they certainly helped, allowing him to lay back and try to get some sleep.
Keyword being “try” he found.
Every time he closed his eyes, things flickered in his head, splashes of color and echoes of voices, something that tasted like Scotch flooding his mouth, a cacophony of sensations that made any kind of rest impossible. He finally did what he had done before, pulled his pillow over his head and focused on breathing, something that had never been this painful before.
If he had been completely himself, he would have realized how badly he actually felt, would have realized just how bad a shape he was in. He had always been good at that, telling when somebody wasn’t as healthy as they should be, and it was something that had always amused and irritated his mother, his constant insistence at playing the mother hen of the family-
“He looks like he’s asleep, Claire-”
Peter sat up so fast that he nearly gave all three of the people standing at the foot of his cot a stroke, watching the tall man with the glasses grab the cheerleader and pull her back protectively, such a sudden movement that Peter froze with the quiet instinct of a small prey animal, holding up his hands cautiously, startled and not sure why. “I’m awake,” he managed quickly, hoarsely, and saw, even with the big man standing between them, the way the blonde perked up at the words.
A second later, her head popped into view, a small but brilliant smile greeting him.
Breathing, alive- because he had saved her- “You're okay.”
“Thanks to you,” she smiled but all he could do was grin stupidly back, jaw beginning to ache slightly.
“Mr. Petrelli, I'm Claire's father.”
“Hi,” he managed as he very carefully took the big man’s offered hand, found it heavily calloused but okay.
“You saved my little girl. I owe you my life.”
“I was just in the right place.”
Which, of course, wasn’t a lie, exactly…
“Maybe one day I'll be in the right place and can return the favor.”
Claire’s father had a slightly unnerving stare, Peter decided, a slight hardness beneath his eyes that Peter couldn’t completely wrap his mind around. There was something about his glasses, a small part of his brain insisted desperately, something to do with Nathan, but the harder he tried to figure it out, the more his brain hurt.
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, fine…” and he nodded even though it made his brain slosh around in his skull in a horrible way.
“Hey, Dad, can you wait outside?”
Peter, hazy-minded and dizzy, was grateful for the request, closed his eyes and eased down onto his cot again. He just needed to get balanced, he decided, and pressed palms against his face, aware of both father and daughter staring at him worriedly. Finally, he heard her father agree, heard his footsteps fade and the door open and close, heard the lock engage.
“Are you okay?”
He forced his head up, found her staring at him with green eyes that glittered with a nervous kind of worry.
“Fine,” he whispered slowly, and then hesitated at her disbelieving look, at the mocking arch of one eyebrow. “I’m just… tired, I think, and I’m probably getting a cold…”
“I don’t get colds,” she said softly, and he swallowed, remembering her hair hanging around her face, stringy and sticky with blood, knowing that most of the blood on her was her own. Remembered the night before, popping bones back into place after he woke up to find her staring down at him. It made something in his mind flutter excitedly, and he straightened abruptly, eyes widening.
“Do you heal? Is that it?”
And she smiled suddenly, a long little smile that was almost a grin but not quite as she slowly settled beside him, rubbing her palms on her legs and staring at him with a giddy kind of awe. “Yeah,” she finally sighed, and gave a little shake of her head, grin becoming grateful. “All this time, I thought it was just me and now there's you. Is that why you came for me? Is that why you… asked me if I was the one?”
“No, I just- I knew I had to save you.”
“Why?”
“To save the world,” he said cautiously, and was pathetically grateful when she didn’t laugh at him.
“What do I have to do with the world?”
“I don't know.” Off her wide-eyed slightly annoyed look, he quickly added, “Yet.” She gave him another look, not so disbelieving but confused, and he swallowed, unexpectedly panicked she would have him committed. “I do know that I don't think I would be here if it wasn't for you. I think I died.”
“I've died before. It's no big deal,” she assured him, a slightly brittle chuckle beneath her voice.
“I'm not like you, Claire. I-”
Her father tapped hard on the window, pointing at his watch as Claire gestured vaguely, hopefully.
It seemed to work, because he nodded and turned away, a big shadow hiding them from anyone who might want to peer into Peter’s cell. It left Claire staring at him expectantly, patiently, one eyebrow lifted.
“This, uh... this healing thing is kind of new for me.”
And he could see the gears in her head moving, saw the way her eyes flew wide open and she stared at him even harder, stunned. “You didn't know that you were gonna heal when you dove off the building?”
“No,” and he wasn’t sure why he felt like child about to be sent to time-out. “That's kinda stupid, huh?”
But she smiled again, that same smile that was almost a grin but not completely, and shook her head at him as if he was being an idiot. “No,” she finally sighed, “no, it’s not.”
And her father knocked on the glass again, hard.
Jerking a thumb over her shoulder with a sheepish grin, she stood hastily, shaking her head and blushing furiously. “He wants to get home,” she sighed, and he nodded, watching as she tilted her head back towards her father, lips twitching. “I think he’s more scared than I am,” she laughed, and he nodded even more, jaw aching from his stupid grin, watching as she made her way towards the door being unlocked and opened for her.
“You're totally my hero,” she assured him with a last sincere grin, and then she was gone, leaving him alone in an empty cell with his bag of cough drops and his migraine- and no longer feeling quite as alone as he had a few hours before.
Rural Utah
Jessica Sanders was pissed.
While not a new phenomenon, the depths of it now was something she had never felt before.
Stupid little idiot Niki, leaving Micah defenseless; stupid Niki, leaving her helpless, leaving them both helpless.
Wherever she was (and Jessica didn’t know where she was, not really, not when she wasn’t walking and talking and breathing and eating), she felt the cool weight of handcuffs around her wrists, the feel of her fingers being pressed deep into ink and then flat onto something. She was being booked, arrested, for doing what she had to do, and it was Niki’s fault, fucking Niki, too stupid to understand how the world worked.
Jessica thought of all the things that could happen to Niki in jail, and seethed quietly, silently.
Jessica thought of all the things that could happen to Micah, and shuddered softly, viciously, almost painfully.
Jessica didn’t let herself think about his wounded arm, the devastated look on his young face as he stared up at her.
It was one of the few completely clear things that Jessica had, Micah’s baby weight in her arms after all that pain, fingers curling against her skin, breath soft and steady against the spot just above her right breast. It had been real and raw in its intensity, settling where she was, reaching her where she had restlessly waited for something, anything, to give her a reason to be. The moment was never gone, it never wavered, and it was there even when everything else faded into nothing, even when Niki was a shadow in the dark and she felt fingers digging into her neck.
Jessica hated those moments, and hated Niki for them, but even then, there was Micah, warm and soft and helpless.
Needing her, because God knew Niki was too fucking useless to take care of him herself.
And now here they were, stuck in a little box where people could poke her and prod her, and while she raged and tore at the place where she found herself caught and tangled, she was helpless. She had worn herself out, she realized now, keeping Niki in the background and this was the aftermath of it, too damn tired to really put up a fight now that Niki had finally grown herself a fucking spine.
Jessica Sanders did the only thing she could, the only thing available to her- she started working out an escape plan.
Niki could only keep her quiet for so long, even with that shiny new spine of hers.
Odessa, Texas
What had started as a semi-okay albeit roller coaster of a day was no longer anything resembling that.
It took three times to do it, her stupid hands were shaking that hard but she finally succeeded, folding herself up and counting the rings desperately before she heard the click and his voice, easing the worst of the panic filling her. Dad would take care of her, he’d come home and take care of her and protect her and tell her it would be fine and that she had no reason to feel this terrified in an empty house.
But the house wasn’t supposed to be empty, and Claire felt like there was supposed to be some kind of crappy scary music playing in the background- “Tell me you remember. Y-you remember what I told you? Last night. Don't you? You remember what we talked about?”
Claire realized how crazy she probably sounded, but couldn’t care too much.
“Of course I do. What's going on?”
He sounded like Dad, real Dad, the one who refused to let her out of the house when her jeans hung too low or her top didn’t cover her completely and not the heavy-voiced stranger who had told that he knew she could jump off an oil rig and walk away fine. Whatever else might be going on, she realized, he would always be Dad; he’d always make sure she looked “presentable,” whatever that meant. “You said that there were people who wanted to hurt me. I think they got to Zach and Lyle. They don't remember anything. It's like it never happened. I don't know what to do.”
“Where are you?”
“I'm at home. Where's Mom? Where's- where's Lyle?” The house was quiet around her, and while she once would have loved it for the privacy, now it left her alone with thoughts of Jackie Wilcox and whatever it was that had happened to Lyle and Zach.
“Just stay where you are. I'll be right there. I love you, Claire. You're gonna be okay.” It sounded like her Dad, just her Dad, and she exhaled, biting the inside of one cheek, wondering how long it would take for him to get there.
“Okay,” she finally mumbled, and forced herself to hang up, forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down and wait until Dad got home.
Claire looked up by accident and finally saw him, a big guy with deep eyes staring down at her, and she moved in the next heartbeat, panic kicking in as she launched to her feet and made a frantic run for it. She thought, for a moment, that she had it, and then he caught her, a palm clamping hard across her mouth as she shrieked, another arm locking her back against his chest. She kicked out once, twice, and then only shrieked harder when it slammed the door shut, and, oh, God, she didn’t want to think about Brody right now, not right now-
She clawed at his hand, tried to dig her nails into his skin and tear but he was holding her like she was a rag doll, like she didn’t weight anything and it wasn’t fair, why couldn’t she get super-strength or something, something better than this?! And she kept thinking of Brody and that was the worst as she struggled, throat raw from the screams that nobody even heard-“I work for your father.”
And Claire felt something relax inside her even as she tried not to let it, thinking of Dad always catching her as she tried to go out, pulling her back and telling her to go change because she didn’t look “presentable” and it was so stupid, to think of that right now with some guy holding her helpless. “He sent me here to make you forget. Like he sent me to your friend- and your brother- and to your mother so many times…”
Dad, Dad, Daddy… “He'll be here soon, expecting that ... you won't remember anything. But it is very important that you do. Tell me, Claire. Can you keep... a secret?” The last was said softly, breath ruffling the hair at the back of her neck, but she went fully still, eyes wide, feeling herself loosen in his hold and suddenly realized he wasn’t holding her as tightly anymore.
Claire nodded weakly, felt his palm ease off her mouth- and listened because there was nothing else to do.
Peter had seen the blonde twice through the glass, seen her glance his way and smile pleasantly.
The cheerleader was okay, seemed fine, so he clung to that as he waited, deciding that the discomfort of a tiny jail cell was completely worth it because, well, he had saved the cheerleader. He ached all over, though, and he wondered if maybe he hadn’t healed as well as he thought he had, it hurt that much- his entire body, especially his skull, as if too much was trying to fit in at once.
The thought of popping several aspirin and falling into his own bed was, perhaps, the most glorious thing he’d ever imagined… nice cool sheets and a cold dark room, and complete quiet that would maybe help his head stop feeling like it was going to shatter into pieces… that’s what he needed, a lot of sleep, it would make everything better.
Peter took another breath and let it out slowly (even breathing was beginning to hurt) and looked up just in time to see the blonde woman coming back, looking tired but pleased. Sitting up a bit more, he jerked in surprise at the sight of his mother at her side, already meeting his eyes even with the distance between them.
His mother, unlike the blonde woman named Tracy, did not look at all pleased.
After a brief moment in which Peter gave serious consideration to hiding under the cot, a consideration he dismissed with the thought of sleeping in his own bed, he forced himself to his feet and leaned against the wall by the door, closing his eyes to catch his breath and calm down.
By the time he managed to open his eyes again, the door was being opened and his mother was talking to him, the blonde woman studying him with a small smile that he couldn’t decipher even if he wanted to. “Told you I’d take care of him,” she chuckled but his mother only made a short noise in her throat, holding his chin and turning his head to stare at him hard.
“Have you slept?”
“Um, a bit, but…” and he shook his head, although he wasn’t sure if he was shaking his head in an attempt not to think about the dream or as an actual answer to his mother’s sharp question.
“I’ll take that as a no,” she murmured unhappily, and he flashed a tiny smile, the best he could manage with his body beginning to tremble slightly. “You should have slept,” she snapped, and carefully led him out of the cell, jerking her head to stare hard at the blonde woman. “You should have made sure he got some sleep, he’d be feeling better by now.”
“I’ll sleep when I get home-”
“You’ll sleep as soon as you get out to the car, and on the plane, and then at home and you will not get out of bed until I tell you that you can.”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“He’s handling some business right now, so I came to get you,” and his mother had the tone of someone who was getting irritated with being asked questions. There was something else about it, about how she said it, that seemed off but he was so tired and his head hurt so much, so much worse than any of the headaches he could remember having ever before in his life.
“Okay,” he finally sighed as he mother led him through the police station. “Okay, I think you’re right…”
“Of course I’m right, I’m your mother,” and they finally left the jail, stepping out into the night. The sudden fresh air wrenched him a bit more awake, allowed him to take a breath that didn’t hurt his chest and he moved more steadily, only slowly becoming aware of the fact that the blonde woman was holding onto his other arm.
“I can’t believe Nathan isn’t here…”
“Your brother’s busy, just like your mother said,” Tracy smiled slightly, and reached out to brush his hair back with a maternal frown at the offending bangs. “You look horrible with that hair,” she added but he could only nod carefully, enjoying the air coming into his lungs. “After a good sleep and a few days rest, you’ll be right as rain.” She paused, quirked a lip into what seemed to be a sincere little grin. “Whatever that means, I’ve never been sure.”
He grinned pleasantly, stupidly, and she smirked a bit more in answer, as if he was doing something funny and not realizing it. “Stay,” she chuckled, and he nodded and obeyed silently, feeling oddly but satisfyingly disjointed as he watched his mother and the blonde woman back away a few steps, trying to figure out what he had been so worried about a few minutes before as he watched them start speaking.
He’d saved the cheerleader; she was fine, right as rain, whatever that meant…
But there was something else, and the realization that there was something else caused a sharp twist in his brain, leaving him frowning as he struggled to figure out what it was, what it was he had forgotten. Isaac, something to do with Isaac, or… something…?
He had a sudden flash of red behind his eyes, and his heart jerked suddenly, twisted with a sudden understanding.
The bomb, the one Isaac had painted… the bomb…
How had he forgotten the bomb?
The happy disjointed feeling was gone, replaced with something cold and tight inside him, left him shaking as he snapped his head around, searching for any sign of Nathan and only spotting his mother, speaking quietly with the blonde woman. She looked upset, pale with something he couldn’t decipher, but- “Mom?”
His mother didn’t look at him, just held up one palm in a silent order that he had seen before and he rocked back on his heels, stung and startled, trying to remember everything he had needed to tell someone, everything the bomb that Isaac had painted. “There’s a bomb,” he started slowly, and then frowned, realizing he couldn’t hear his voice.
There was a heavy noise, something that sounded unnervingly like his own heartbeat, too loud and too fast in his ears.
Was he having a stroke?
“Oh” he breathed shakily, and reached out for something to get his balance but found nothing, hands groping at empty air as he swayed and struggled to breathe, thinking of Isaacs paintings and the one with the bomb, the one that had affected him the same way the images of the cheerleader had, a gut-deep wrenching that meant something, he was sure of it because anything that felt like that had to mean something.
“There’s a-”
The two women suddenly looked over at him, and he realized he had just yelled the words, realized it as the ground shifted violently beneath him. He took one step back but the ground moved faster, throwing him back, flinging him to the concrete with enough force that something exploded behind (beneath?) his eyes, a sudden flare of color he couldn’t name.
The disjointed feeling was back but for a heartbeat, he was aware of hands grabbing his face, fingers digging into his skin and someone calling his name, frightened orders to listen to… someone, although he couldn’t for the life of him attach a name to a face or even a face to the voice…
There was color, and echoes of voices… and he tasted Scotch…
And that heavy noise in his ears finally went quiet.
Next - History lessons with Angela, Nathan struggles with his brother's coma and his father's secrets and Mr. Bennet struggles to handle the newest ball thrown into his court as we shift even more into AU territory...