(no subject)
One Last Interlude (Wherein Someone Else Gets A Turn).
Rating: R.
Wordcount: 809.
Pairing: Heidi/Nathan, vague Peter/Nathan if you know what's going on.
Notes: Pre-series. No spoilers.
Previous Parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, An Interlude, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Another Interlude, Part Nine, Part Ten
Occasionally, Heidi thinks that Nathan’s an idiot.
It’s not often-well, not that often-but sometimes he just does or says something that wouldn’t make sense to any right-thinking person, or at least any right-thinking person with common sense. Nathan can be blind to things happening right under his nose, and Heidi knows this, because once she removed all the photographs of her family from the house, and Nathan didn’t notice. If she had done that with the photographs of his family, he would have, but even then she knows that it’s not because he doesn’t care about her side of the world; it’s because sometimes he just doesn’t perceive anything that isn’t actively important. ‘Important’ usually means work, future, security, family (not anyone else’s-just his). And when one of those Important things goes wrong-well, Nathan instantly steps up to the plate to fix it, and that usually works, but sometimes the problem is because of one of those unimportant things he never paid attention to, and that flusters him enough to send him back into idiot mode. So sometimes Heidi thinks that Nathan’s an idiot, and she knows she’s exactly right.
This is one of those times.
Heidi has no idea what’s going on between Nathan and Peter, but it’s screwing Nathan up so badly that it can only mean it was because of one of those unimportant things, and she has enough experience in this to know that he’ll only make things worse if he tries to fix it on his own. She’s spent a month watching him crumble, and that’s a month too long; she should have taken this into her own hands weeks ago. Headaches, however, have a tendency of making one not feel like doing anything, and Heidi’s been having those for almost as long. So Heidi goes to the doctor, praying that this isn’t going to be something that makes things even worse.
When she gets back, she knows that it’s quite the opposite, and she finally has her way in.
She doesn’t implement it immediately, though, because she wants to come to terms with it herself. Jesus Christ, she’s fucking pregnant. Heidi wants kids-maybe-eventually, she wants them eventually; she never thought about eventually suddenly catching up to now. It’s a scary thought, and she goes to the kitchen just to be alone. The staff won’t be there until an hour or two before dinner, or unless she calls them, so it’s a quiet place and she can think if she wants to. So she does.
Heidi leans back against the kitchen counter, clutching her fingers on the edge, and she stares at the ceiling. After a moment, she looks down at her stomach and moves a hand to cover it, tentatively running her fingers across it, trying to imagine what’s inside. Someone new, she thinks; something in this house that can be definitively hers; there are the photographs, yes, and some books and some art, but it’s overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the real Petrelli history. Heidi isn’t a real Petrelli and isn’t even sure she wants to be; she doesn’t want to be absorbed into something that complex and that mysterious. She admires Peter for trying to escape, but she knows he won’t be able to, because he’s lived in this house and been raised by these people all his life and the family has seeped into his bones. Heidi hasn’t been here long enough to become part of what she’s decided to think of as the Petrelli conglomeration. She hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid yet.
Heidi rubs her stomach, thinking about families and life and the definition of love. She loves Nathan, and she loves her own family, and she likes Peter, and she certainly respects Nathan and Peter’s parents, but she already loves this thing inside her more than any of them, because it’s not a real Petrelli yet and she can make it stay that way. It won’t be a Bonaducci-that name faded away when she married Nathan-but it sure as hell won’t be part of whatever’s wrong with this household. It’s hers, and the hand on her stomach tightens; maybe Nathan will have his influence too, and the rest of his family will at least try, but none of them are going to be as close to it as she is. Hers. The Petrelli family bloodline is going to swerve off into something new, and it’s about damn time, Heidi thinks.
And then she remembers that first she’s going to have to ensure that the baby does at least get something resembling a father, so she takes the hand off her stomach and walks out of the kitchen and towards the study.
Nathan might be an idiot sometimes, but it’s her job to fix that, and she finally got a pension.
Part Eleven