R1C7 PART 1 Voting
Voting is DIFFERENT for the final Challenge. Please read the rules carefully.
fool_of_ships , dallin_dae and brighteyed_jill do not need to vote. You can still leave feedback if you wish:) Please remember the deadlines for your next parts:)
1. ANYONE CAN VOTE. You don't have to be a member or a participant to vote.
2. Please COMMENT and vote for THE BEST FIC Comments are screened
3. The challenge rules can be found here, Does the fic follow the rules of the challenge? Can you distinctly see ONE focus character from Column A and ONE focus character from Column B? This should be a factor in your voting.
4. You may leave feedback on any or all fics if you wish. Writers enjoy feedback. If you loved a fic, tell the author:)
5. Don't vote for your own entry.
6. Don't tell people to vote for you. Keep your fic anonymous until the results are posted.
7. Voting is screened, no one will know who you voted for.
8. You are not to vote for a particular style you don't like or something like that, but on the quality of the fics.
9. Remember. You are only voting for ONE fic of BEST quality.
Voting will be open until 10pm EST December 8th, when the next part's entries will be posted.
FIC#1
Title: Eye for an Eye
(Spoilers for 2.10 "Truth and Consequences.)
Sandra doesn't know what she's doing. The gun is uncomfortable, and she feels like a beginner; Bob is many things, but not a paper target. Don't point it if you don't intend to use it, Noah's voice says in her ear, phantom comfort steadying her hand. These are her children, more so for her choice to make them her own, to defend them as they are. What they are or aren't is none of Bob's business, and she feels the growl as steel and powder become claws.
He's talking again. Mister Bishop, call-me-Bob with the false handshake, trying to talk her down. But there's no ledge here, only a doorway. A threshold; hers, for holding back the red haze that springs up around him as he says Noah's name. He was never yours, not really, says his condescending gaze, and the tremor that runs through her is nothing to do with uncertainty. She tracks him by the movement of the urn; the reflection leaves a fiery spot in her vision, and she uses it to blank his face, as a target for her rage.
Words. So many words, so little meaning behind them. There's nothing he can say that will change the truth Claire is speaking now. Noah is gone, and soon they will be too. That doesn't mean she can't protect her home as long as they're there. But suddenly she knows she couldn't shoot, and it's Noah's words that come back to her. I didn't want her to become you. She can't stand to be the one to paint Claire's misery on another girl's face.
She waits until she's sure he's gone before lowering the gun. She can't shake the feeling that it won't be the last time she replays this impasse, and all she fears is the thought of what she might lose. Next time, there might not be anything to stay her hand.
***
There is no normal. There hasn't been for a long time. It's just that the happy, posed picture has become irretrievably lost, buried in the ashes of a previous life. Claire wonders why everything has to burn as it leaves her. It makes her want to take boxes out to the firepits on the beach and stand too close as she drops a match.
The walls of her room are already bare, the curtains packed away. It was devastating, before, losing everything; this time, they were supposed to take it along. She can't imagine some things being packed into boxes. At least flames are alive, warm and bright and open. And bullets, she knows, are fast. It doesn't make her feel better. It doesn't really make her feel anything.
There's one more box, waiting for her to add the last few items left in the room. Clothing, bedsheets, slippers and lip gloss, things she could leave behind but wants to keep. The family picture she adds to the box, fitting it in atop the single surviving teddy bear, is only weeks old. She remembers their smiles, the scratch of her father's cufflinks against her shoulder and the instant of hesitation as he signed Butler on the receipt. They'll have to do it all over again, she thinks, and this time, her eyes are burning.
***
Elle's face makes Claire feel the thud of the pavement all over again, the rush of air from her body and the crack of bone. She finds consciousness again as she's walking toward the car, wondering why nobody's calling after her.
The symmetry's all wrong. Claire's done enough essays to be sure of that. And she doesn't want to make this another mistake, adding it to the collection of regrets. But she'll survive, whether she gets her revenge with fists or machinations; she knows that all too well. She'll live to break her mother's heart plenty more times no matter who pays for breaking hers.
Sandra remembers yesterday, sparks leaping to wreathe an anguished scream, and feels just as sorry. They're just girls. There shouldn't be this fight to keep them that way. They need to leave, before Claire loses the chance two fathers have given her.
Claire makes her threat and it surprises her. All this pain over staying hidden, and now she wants to step out into a world that's proven it doesn't understand her. She's surprised, too, that no one speaks up to silence her, or point out the flaws in her logic. Maybe it's that all of them want revenge, and none of them can say it. Maybe they think she won't do it. Maybe she won't. But Elle is alone, for all her ties, and as the glass crunches under her feet Claire knows she'll do whatever is necessary. They all will.
Revenge isn't what she wants, but it'll do. The whole world's already blind. This wouldn't make any difference.
FIC#2
Title: Commencement
Spoilers: Pre-series. Subtextual spoilers through “How to Stop an Exploding Man.”
“Peter! Sit up, for God’s sake,” Angela said wearily. “You’re wrinkling your jacket.”
Peter squirmed more or less upright, trying to find a more comfortable position in the folding chair. His legs were plenty long enough to reach the ground, but he kicked under the chair anyway, swinging his legs like he was much younger than his eleven years. The speaker at the podium called another name, shook another hand, and Peter noticed restless shifting even among the rows of seated graduates, homogenous in their caps and gowns.
“Stop it.” Angela reached over to brush Peter’s bangs aside, but they fell right back over his eyes the moment she pulled her hand away. “Schedule him a haircut,” she said to herself.
For a moment Peter wished his dad had been able to come today. Dad wouldn’t complain about his hair. Then again Dad probably wouldn’t notice him at all. Peter sighed and pulled at his tie. Out here in the May sunshine it was too hot for a jacket and tie, but that hadn’t stopped his mother from choosing him an outfit that would “make the right impression,” whatever that was.
Angela, for her part, was pristine in her tan cotton dress-suit. She looked neither sweaty nor restless, but cool, collected, and beautiful, as every Petrelli except Peter managed to do effortlessly. She was every inch the proud mother, but Peter knew he wasn’t the one she was proud of. Today, as usual, Peter was just an accessory, a particularly ill-behaved lap dog. Today was for Nathan.
When Nathan had walked across the stage, Angela had instructed Peter to sit still. They weren’t supposed to clap until the end, she’d said. That seemed unfair to Peter, but when Nathan shook hands with the president of the university, Peter saw how his mother positively beamed, glowing in a way that never happened when she looked at Peter.
But Nathan had gone back to his seat long ago, and now the man at the podium was calling, “Gretchen Zimmerman.” As Peter tried to ignore the sweat creeping down his neck, a new thought occurred to him.
“Do you think I could be like that someday?” Peter whispered to his mother.
“You won’t get into Harvard if you don’t get your grades up, Peter,” she said absently.
“No, I mean… I have a destiny, don’t I?”
Angela looked at him sharply. “Why would you say that, Peter?”
The man at the podium boomed, “We now give our warmest congratulations to the class of 1991!” Around them, a cheer went up from the crowd as the new graduates threw their mortarboards in the air.
“I dunno,” Peter muttered, turning away from his mother towards the chaos of the post-graduation procession.
Angela wouldn’t be deterred so easily. “Peter.” She grabbed him by the chin and made him look up at her. “Who’s been talking to you about destiny?”
“No one.”
“Don’t lie to me, young man.” Even through the rumble of the crowd, her voice cut right into Peter as it always did, making it impossible to disobey.
“Not lying,” he said. “Just thinking.”
Angela looked at him expectantly until he went on.
“Last night I heard Dad telling Nathan about how he has a great destiny, and he’s never said anything about mine.” Then, under his breath, “He never says anything to me.” Angela gave a disapproving sniff, and Peter hurried on. “Nathan does all these great things and I’m always just…” Peter shrugged helplessly. “Me.”
Angela laid her hands firmly on his shoulders. “Peter, you are a Petrelli.” She put such meaning into the word that Peter felt his spine straighten in response. “You are meant for great things.” Her eyes lifted, swiftly scanning the faces around them before returning to Peter. “You’ll never be like your brother, but you don’t need to be. Your destiny is different.”
“But I do have one?” he asked tentatively.
Angela’s face softened, and she pulled him into her arms. “Of course you do.” She held him for a long moment, and Peter wondered if he’d said something wrong.
Then the moment was over, and Angela was holding him at arms length again. “What a crowd. Go find your brother and bring him back here.” Peter nodded, glad to have something to do, and darted off through the swarm of milling graduates and their families.
Angela watched him go. “Peter.” She closed her eyes, briefly pressing her hand to her chest to stem the ache there. When she opened her eyes again, she’d lost sight of Peter in the press of the crowd. “You’ll have your destiny, Peter.” Angela forced herself to stop looking for Peter, to turn away from where he’d gone. “But I hope you’ll forgive us,” she whispered, and it was almost a prayer.
FIC#3
Title: Maternal Instinct
Peter was a difficult birth; he hadn’t turned right and wouldn’t deliver. Angela didn’t remember much of it, the drugs had turned the bright lights and the voices into one blurry mass, and despite them there was still the pain, red hot and constant shutting everything else out. But she’d picked a handful of words out as they were spoken over her, ‘oxygen deprivation’, ‘potential brain damage’, and other words that fought through the pain and the drugs.
When he was finally born she didn’t hold him, just passed out from exhaustion, taking deep breaths, conscious only long enough to hear a baby crying before the blackness swam in.
When she’d woken, hours and hours later, cleaned up and covered in warm blankets, Peter was in a cot next to her. They weren’t alone, Arthur and Nathan were in the room, Arthur at her bedside, and Nathan leaning over the baby. He was smiling in bemusement as his new baby brother grasped one of his fingers, utterly entranced by the figure leaning over his cot. It was strange thought Angela, the mother should be the first family to touch her baby, or even the father, but Nathan had gotten there first. It felt odd, slightly uncomfortable watching them, like it should have been her finger Peter was clutching. She pushed the feeling aside however, she was tired, probably still had the drugs in her system, she’d never catch herself thinking that way in a normal frame of mind.
…
On Peter’s tenth birthday Angela presented him with a beautiful cake, with his name and a large ‘10’ written in an impeccable hand in perfect white and blue icing. It had come from one of the best confectioners in the city, and had cost a considerable amount of money for what it was. Peter’s friends, or rather the children that Angela thought Peter should be associating more with, had crowded round and cheered as he blew the candles out. He grinned at Angela over the smoke, and she pretended that it hadn’t been Nathan he’d been grinning at first as he’d snuffed out the candles.
That night, when the kids were gone, Nathan had headed off on the long journey back to his university and Peter was in bed, the phone rang. Angela was sitting up, a glass of gin and tonic in one hand; she’d been expecting the call.
“Hello?” she answered crisply, as though she didn’t know exactly who it was.
“Angela,” Linderman greeted her, voice deceptively warm and friendly as ever.
“Daniel,” she replied in a businesslike tone, “it’s good to hear from you.”
“How are you? And how is Arthur?”
“Up in his study getting better acquainted with another bottle of whiskey I suspect,” Angela replied dryly.
“Ah.” There was nothing in Linderman’s voice to suggest any embarrassment. “And how is Peter on his birthday?”
“He’s fine thank you. I presume it’s about him you’ve called?” She’d received the same phone call on Nathan’s tenth birthday. She still remembered the almost disturbing quiver in Linderman’s voice when he’d told her; “flying Angela, he’s going to be able to fly.” - like Nathan was his child to be proud of, not hers.
“Yes,” and there was something more than just a quiver in Linderman’s voice now, for a man normally so coolly collected there was unmistakable emotion in his tone.
“So. What is it?”
Now there was no denying Linderman’s excitement. “Are you sitting down Angela?”
…
Angela was a great believer in destiny, had seen too much of it played out not to be. Adam had believed in it fervently, but had never let them forget that destiny often needed guidance, a gentle but firm hand on the rudder.
Nathan had destiny written all over him, Angela knew this because she was one of those helping to write it. One day, after the horrible but necessary events that were to come, he would guide the country the way it should be guided. True heroism, not crass displays of powers that should be hidden and controlled.
Peter, well, Peter was carefully and blissfully out of destiny’s way. There was nothing to guide him to, nothing to prepare him for. He was free to be what he wanted, a nurse of all things, so unlike the powerful career than had fallen on Nathan. She meant what she said to Charles that day, Peter, for all the amazing - terrifying- power she knew he would be capable of, was not meant for greatness. He was caring, kind, empathetic, all weaknesses that could not have been tolerated in his brother, but in Peter - in Peter she could not just permit them, she could nurture them in what limited way she was capable of.
Peter made her feel like a mother.
And she knew that the motherly thing to do was to keep him safe, and that meant keeping him from Nathan. Peter would not understand the things that Nathan would be required to do, might even try to stop him - and when he did Nathan would listen. They needed to be separated from one another to ensure their safety, to ensure destiny came about as it should.
After all, she was Peter’s mother, how close could he be to Nathan that she couldn’t drive them apart?
…
“Peter’s dead Nathan, please,” she pleaded for what felt like the hundredth time, knowing her eyes were raw with tears and not caring. Yet another visit to Peter’s apartment, yet another vicious, accusing glare from Nathan. There wasn’t so much as a scar left on him to attest to the horrendous burns he’d been covered in not two weeks ago - now he was broken in a different way, one she could fix even less, surrounded by bottles of whiskey and photo after photo of Peter.
“Get out,” he snapped at her.
“Nathan, please. You need to come to terms with it. He’s gone.” Gone, what a false way to put it, like he could come back, like he’d gone out for some coffee but would be back before dinner.
“He’s not dead!” Nathan shouted, suddenly rising from the couch - Peter’s couch - to his feet. “And I said get out.”
She wanted to say something to make him see, to make him understand, but the lump in her throat was a burning pain now so she turned silently to the door and left, turning back for a moment to see Nathan sinking back onto the seat, one hand reaching for a tumbler of whiskey the other for a picture of Peter. Even as she shut the door she knew she’d be back in another couple of days, trying again to explain harsh reality.
Peter was dead, it was a painful, agonising truth but it was the truth. She was Peter’s mother, they were connected mother-and-son, and if he were alive out there she - of all people - would know it surely. Where Peter had been in her life there was nothing but a black morass of pain and aching guilt. But Nathan kept on clinging to some ridiculous hope, as if he knew Peter were alive, wallowing in his delusion.
She turned from the closed door, walking away down the corridor, leaving her son behind her.
fool_of_ships , dallin_dae and brighteyed_jill do not need to vote. You can still leave feedback if you wish:) Please remember the deadlines for your next parts:)
1. ANYONE CAN VOTE. You don't have to be a member or a participant to vote.
2. Please COMMENT and vote for THE BEST FIC Comments are screened
3. The challenge rules can be found here, Does the fic follow the rules of the challenge? Can you distinctly see ONE focus character from Column A and ONE focus character from Column B? This should be a factor in your voting.
4. You may leave feedback on any or all fics if you wish. Writers enjoy feedback. If you loved a fic, tell the author:)
5. Don't vote for your own entry.
6. Don't tell people to vote for you. Keep your fic anonymous until the results are posted.
7. Voting is screened, no one will know who you voted for.
8. You are not to vote for a particular style you don't like or something like that, but on the quality of the fics.
9. Remember. You are only voting for ONE fic of BEST quality.
Voting will be open until 10pm EST December 8th, when the next part's entries will be posted.
FIC#1
Title: Eye for an Eye
(Spoilers for 2.10 "Truth and Consequences.)
Sandra doesn't know what she's doing. The gun is uncomfortable, and she feels like a beginner; Bob is many things, but not a paper target. Don't point it if you don't intend to use it, Noah's voice says in her ear, phantom comfort steadying her hand. These are her children, more so for her choice to make them her own, to defend them as they are. What they are or aren't is none of Bob's business, and she feels the growl as steel and powder become claws.
He's talking again. Mister Bishop, call-me-Bob with the false handshake, trying to talk her down. But there's no ledge here, only a doorway. A threshold; hers, for holding back the red haze that springs up around him as he says Noah's name. He was never yours, not really, says his condescending gaze, and the tremor that runs through her is nothing to do with uncertainty. She tracks him by the movement of the urn; the reflection leaves a fiery spot in her vision, and she uses it to blank his face, as a target for her rage.
Words. So many words, so little meaning behind them. There's nothing he can say that will change the truth Claire is speaking now. Noah is gone, and soon they will be too. That doesn't mean she can't protect her home as long as they're there. But suddenly she knows she couldn't shoot, and it's Noah's words that come back to her. I didn't want her to become you. She can't stand to be the one to paint Claire's misery on another girl's face.
She waits until she's sure he's gone before lowering the gun. She can't shake the feeling that it won't be the last time she replays this impasse, and all she fears is the thought of what she might lose. Next time, there might not be anything to stay her hand.
***
There is no normal. There hasn't been for a long time. It's just that the happy, posed picture has become irretrievably lost, buried in the ashes of a previous life. Claire wonders why everything has to burn as it leaves her. It makes her want to take boxes out to the firepits on the beach and stand too close as she drops a match.
The walls of her room are already bare, the curtains packed away. It was devastating, before, losing everything; this time, they were supposed to take it along. She can't imagine some things being packed into boxes. At least flames are alive, warm and bright and open. And bullets, she knows, are fast. It doesn't make her feel better. It doesn't really make her feel anything.
There's one more box, waiting for her to add the last few items left in the room. Clothing, bedsheets, slippers and lip gloss, things she could leave behind but wants to keep. The family picture she adds to the box, fitting it in atop the single surviving teddy bear, is only weeks old. She remembers their smiles, the scratch of her father's cufflinks against her shoulder and the instant of hesitation as he signed Butler on the receipt. They'll have to do it all over again, she thinks, and this time, her eyes are burning.
***
Elle's face makes Claire feel the thud of the pavement all over again, the rush of air from her body and the crack of bone. She finds consciousness again as she's walking toward the car, wondering why nobody's calling after her.
The symmetry's all wrong. Claire's done enough essays to be sure of that. And she doesn't want to make this another mistake, adding it to the collection of regrets. But she'll survive, whether she gets her revenge with fists or machinations; she knows that all too well. She'll live to break her mother's heart plenty more times no matter who pays for breaking hers.
Sandra remembers yesterday, sparks leaping to wreathe an anguished scream, and feels just as sorry. They're just girls. There shouldn't be this fight to keep them that way. They need to leave, before Claire loses the chance two fathers have given her.
Claire makes her threat and it surprises her. All this pain over staying hidden, and now she wants to step out into a world that's proven it doesn't understand her. She's surprised, too, that no one speaks up to silence her, or point out the flaws in her logic. Maybe it's that all of them want revenge, and none of them can say it. Maybe they think she won't do it. Maybe she won't. But Elle is alone, for all her ties, and as the glass crunches under her feet Claire knows she'll do whatever is necessary. They all will.
Revenge isn't what she wants, but it'll do. The whole world's already blind. This wouldn't make any difference.
FIC#2
Title: Commencement
Spoilers: Pre-series. Subtextual spoilers through “How to Stop an Exploding Man.”
“Peter! Sit up, for God’s sake,” Angela said wearily. “You’re wrinkling your jacket.”
Peter squirmed more or less upright, trying to find a more comfortable position in the folding chair. His legs were plenty long enough to reach the ground, but he kicked under the chair anyway, swinging his legs like he was much younger than his eleven years. The speaker at the podium called another name, shook another hand, and Peter noticed restless shifting even among the rows of seated graduates, homogenous in their caps and gowns.
“Stop it.” Angela reached over to brush Peter’s bangs aside, but they fell right back over his eyes the moment she pulled her hand away. “Schedule him a haircut,” she said to herself.
For a moment Peter wished his dad had been able to come today. Dad wouldn’t complain about his hair. Then again Dad probably wouldn’t notice him at all. Peter sighed and pulled at his tie. Out here in the May sunshine it was too hot for a jacket and tie, but that hadn’t stopped his mother from choosing him an outfit that would “make the right impression,” whatever that was.
Angela, for her part, was pristine in her tan cotton dress-suit. She looked neither sweaty nor restless, but cool, collected, and beautiful, as every Petrelli except Peter managed to do effortlessly. She was every inch the proud mother, but Peter knew he wasn’t the one she was proud of. Today, as usual, Peter was just an accessory, a particularly ill-behaved lap dog. Today was for Nathan.
When Nathan had walked across the stage, Angela had instructed Peter to sit still. They weren’t supposed to clap until the end, she’d said. That seemed unfair to Peter, but when Nathan shook hands with the president of the university, Peter saw how his mother positively beamed, glowing in a way that never happened when she looked at Peter.
But Nathan had gone back to his seat long ago, and now the man at the podium was calling, “Gretchen Zimmerman.” As Peter tried to ignore the sweat creeping down his neck, a new thought occurred to him.
“Do you think I could be like that someday?” Peter whispered to his mother.
“You won’t get into Harvard if you don’t get your grades up, Peter,” she said absently.
“No, I mean… I have a destiny, don’t I?”
Angela looked at him sharply. “Why would you say that, Peter?”
The man at the podium boomed, “We now give our warmest congratulations to the class of 1991!” Around them, a cheer went up from the crowd as the new graduates threw their mortarboards in the air.
“I dunno,” Peter muttered, turning away from his mother towards the chaos of the post-graduation procession.
Angela wouldn’t be deterred so easily. “Peter.” She grabbed him by the chin and made him look up at her. “Who’s been talking to you about destiny?”
“No one.”
“Don’t lie to me, young man.” Even through the rumble of the crowd, her voice cut right into Peter as it always did, making it impossible to disobey.
“Not lying,” he said. “Just thinking.”
Angela looked at him expectantly until he went on.
“Last night I heard Dad telling Nathan about how he has a great destiny, and he’s never said anything about mine.” Then, under his breath, “He never says anything to me.” Angela gave a disapproving sniff, and Peter hurried on. “Nathan does all these great things and I’m always just…” Peter shrugged helplessly. “Me.”
Angela laid her hands firmly on his shoulders. “Peter, you are a Petrelli.” She put such meaning into the word that Peter felt his spine straighten in response. “You are meant for great things.” Her eyes lifted, swiftly scanning the faces around them before returning to Peter. “You’ll never be like your brother, but you don’t need to be. Your destiny is different.”
“But I do have one?” he asked tentatively.
Angela’s face softened, and she pulled him into her arms. “Of course you do.” She held him for a long moment, and Peter wondered if he’d said something wrong.
Then the moment was over, and Angela was holding him at arms length again. “What a crowd. Go find your brother and bring him back here.” Peter nodded, glad to have something to do, and darted off through the swarm of milling graduates and their families.
Angela watched him go. “Peter.” She closed her eyes, briefly pressing her hand to her chest to stem the ache there. When she opened her eyes again, she’d lost sight of Peter in the press of the crowd. “You’ll have your destiny, Peter.” Angela forced herself to stop looking for Peter, to turn away from where he’d gone. “But I hope you’ll forgive us,” she whispered, and it was almost a prayer.
FIC#3
Title: Maternal Instinct
Peter was a difficult birth; he hadn’t turned right and wouldn’t deliver. Angela didn’t remember much of it, the drugs had turned the bright lights and the voices into one blurry mass, and despite them there was still the pain, red hot and constant shutting everything else out. But she’d picked a handful of words out as they were spoken over her, ‘oxygen deprivation’, ‘potential brain damage’, and other words that fought through the pain and the drugs.
When he was finally born she didn’t hold him, just passed out from exhaustion, taking deep breaths, conscious only long enough to hear a baby crying before the blackness swam in.
When she’d woken, hours and hours later, cleaned up and covered in warm blankets, Peter was in a cot next to her. They weren’t alone, Arthur and Nathan were in the room, Arthur at her bedside, and Nathan leaning over the baby. He was smiling in bemusement as his new baby brother grasped one of his fingers, utterly entranced by the figure leaning over his cot. It was strange thought Angela, the mother should be the first family to touch her baby, or even the father, but Nathan had gotten there first. It felt odd, slightly uncomfortable watching them, like it should have been her finger Peter was clutching. She pushed the feeling aside however, she was tired, probably still had the drugs in her system, she’d never catch herself thinking that way in a normal frame of mind.
…
On Peter’s tenth birthday Angela presented him with a beautiful cake, with his name and a large ‘10’ written in an impeccable hand in perfect white and blue icing. It had come from one of the best confectioners in the city, and had cost a considerable amount of money for what it was. Peter’s friends, or rather the children that Angela thought Peter should be associating more with, had crowded round and cheered as he blew the candles out. He grinned at Angela over the smoke, and she pretended that it hadn’t been Nathan he’d been grinning at first as he’d snuffed out the candles.
That night, when the kids were gone, Nathan had headed off on the long journey back to his university and Peter was in bed, the phone rang. Angela was sitting up, a glass of gin and tonic in one hand; she’d been expecting the call.
“Hello?” she answered crisply, as though she didn’t know exactly who it was.
“Angela,” Linderman greeted her, voice deceptively warm and friendly as ever.
“Daniel,” she replied in a businesslike tone, “it’s good to hear from you.”
“How are you? And how is Arthur?”
“Up in his study getting better acquainted with another bottle of whiskey I suspect,” Angela replied dryly.
“Ah.” There was nothing in Linderman’s voice to suggest any embarrassment. “And how is Peter on his birthday?”
“He’s fine thank you. I presume it’s about him you’ve called?” She’d received the same phone call on Nathan’s tenth birthday. She still remembered the almost disturbing quiver in Linderman’s voice when he’d told her; “flying Angela, he’s going to be able to fly.” - like Nathan was his child to be proud of, not hers.
“Yes,” and there was something more than just a quiver in Linderman’s voice now, for a man normally so coolly collected there was unmistakable emotion in his tone.
“So. What is it?”
Now there was no denying Linderman’s excitement. “Are you sitting down Angela?”
…
Angela was a great believer in destiny, had seen too much of it played out not to be. Adam had believed in it fervently, but had never let them forget that destiny often needed guidance, a gentle but firm hand on the rudder.
Nathan had destiny written all over him, Angela knew this because she was one of those helping to write it. One day, after the horrible but necessary events that were to come, he would guide the country the way it should be guided. True heroism, not crass displays of powers that should be hidden and controlled.
Peter, well, Peter was carefully and blissfully out of destiny’s way. There was nothing to guide him to, nothing to prepare him for. He was free to be what he wanted, a nurse of all things, so unlike the powerful career than had fallen on Nathan. She meant what she said to Charles that day, Peter, for all the amazing - terrifying- power she knew he would be capable of, was not meant for greatness. He was caring, kind, empathetic, all weaknesses that could not have been tolerated in his brother, but in Peter - in Peter she could not just permit them, she could nurture them in what limited way she was capable of.
Peter made her feel like a mother.
And she knew that the motherly thing to do was to keep him safe, and that meant keeping him from Nathan. Peter would not understand the things that Nathan would be required to do, might even try to stop him - and when he did Nathan would listen. They needed to be separated from one another to ensure their safety, to ensure destiny came about as it should.
After all, she was Peter’s mother, how close could he be to Nathan that she couldn’t drive them apart?
…
“Peter’s dead Nathan, please,” she pleaded for what felt like the hundredth time, knowing her eyes were raw with tears and not caring. Yet another visit to Peter’s apartment, yet another vicious, accusing glare from Nathan. There wasn’t so much as a scar left on him to attest to the horrendous burns he’d been covered in not two weeks ago - now he was broken in a different way, one she could fix even less, surrounded by bottles of whiskey and photo after photo of Peter.
“Get out,” he snapped at her.
“Nathan, please. You need to come to terms with it. He’s gone.” Gone, what a false way to put it, like he could come back, like he’d gone out for some coffee but would be back before dinner.
“He’s not dead!” Nathan shouted, suddenly rising from the couch - Peter’s couch - to his feet. “And I said get out.”
She wanted to say something to make him see, to make him understand, but the lump in her throat was a burning pain now so she turned silently to the door and left, turning back for a moment to see Nathan sinking back onto the seat, one hand reaching for a tumbler of whiskey the other for a picture of Peter. Even as she shut the door she knew she’d be back in another couple of days, trying again to explain harsh reality.
Peter was dead, it was a painful, agonising truth but it was the truth. She was Peter’s mother, they were connected mother-and-son, and if he were alive out there she - of all people - would know it surely. Where Peter had been in her life there was nothing but a black morass of pain and aching guilt. But Nathan kept on clinging to some ridiculous hope, as if he knew Peter were alive, wallowing in his delusion.
She turned from the closed door, walking away down the corridor, leaving her son behind her.