Voting R1C5- REPOST
My email was a little crazy last night and my entries were all messed up. Please, if you have voted already, if you could read the additional entry and revote, that would be great.
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stardust_rain
brighteyed_jill
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Fic #1
Title: Guardianship
(Spoilers through 2.07 "Out of Time.")
The more he thinks about it, the less sense it makes. If he's never had the virus, if it can only infect the evolved, there's no logical reason he should be a natural source of antibodies. A protein, perhaps, something that dissolves the viral capsid, interrupts its life cycle. Yes. Some effect of inheriting almost the same genes, of being the lucky one--
"You're thinking out loud again."
Mohinder looks away from the screenful of lurching blood cells, toward Niki's pained smile. "Sorry," he says, giving thanks that at least she can't hear everything he's thinking.
"It's okay," she says. "You've got a lot to think about."
He sighs, because it's true. "And I'm not concentrating on what I should be." With the equipment in this place, it should be easy, but it feels more as if the lab is mocking him. He'd tried to get around it, and still he's landed right back amid the test tubes and microscopes and victims he can't help.
Niki shrugs. "You're thinking about the virus. That counts."
"I suppose. But it's..." Frustrating. Maddening. Disheartening. "Not getting me anywhere. I don't even know where to start looking for a different cure." He'd been special, for a moment, his deeper thoughts say, and now he isn't. Not so immune to the virus's effects after all.
His momentary wallow in self-pity doesn't upset Niki. "I'd be happy not to be the cure anymore," she says, looking thoughtful. "If it was me."
"How can you say that?" Mohinder asks. Niki, of all people, who talks incessantly about protecting the ones she loves. "It's going to kill you if I can't figure out another cure in time."
"Yeah," she says, trying to fold her arms, foiled by the IV. It's useless, now, he realizes, and he goes over to remove it. "But at least it won't kill you."
She doesn't understand. But then, epidemiology isn't a popular field of study, even for Company recruits. "Niki, if this virus jumps from you to the normal population, I'm in the closest proximity to you. I'll probably be the first to go. We have to stop it before that happens, and if I'm unable to provide a cure myself and can't find another in time, it won't be just me, it'll be everyone."
"And what if it did happen to everyone, and if you were still immune?" Niki asks, looking up. There's something in her eyes that arrests him, makes him pause with a bandage half-unwrapped between his fingers. "What do you think would happen then?"
A possibility he hadn't yet considered. "I'd keep searching, I guess. Try to find a cure before...I was the last one left." The room seems somehow colder, with that thought.
"With this virus, sure," says Niki. "But if you were still the only cure? Do you think you'd survive if anyone outside the Company knew about you?"
"Don't be silly," Mohinder says, but his fingers are unsure on the back of her hand and the temperature is still dropping. "No one would want to lose the only source of the cure."
"And nobody'd want to wait to get their hands on it," Niki adds. Her voice isn't quite the same as usual, either, but that could be the rush of blood pounding in his ears. Blood that he can suddenly see on dozens of desperate hands. Some of them are familiar.
"Why do you think I was assigned to be your partner?" Niki continues. Surveillance, he doesn't say. Wouldn't say, even if he could find his voice. "You'd need protecting, if the worst happened. That's what I'm here for."
He looks at her, the determined jawline and challenging stare mocking the way she leans on the counter for support, and sees what he hopes is truth. He's been fooled by partnerships before. "I guess, in a way, we're lucky that's not necessary anymore."
Niki smiles, bitterly. "Yeah. Lucky."
"I'm sorry," Mohinder says hastily. Sure, he's been shaken up, but dear god, could he be any more insensitive? "I didn't mean--"
"I know. It's okay." She squeezes his shoulder and slides carefully off her seat, and her smile is anxious this time. "Don't get killed without me. Somebody's got to protect our kids."
The words are more real from her, from a mother. This fight has always been personal for him, so much so that he's come to think of it as his alone. It's not, anymore. He understands, and he can't believe it took him this long to realize that she does, too. "I'll do my best."
Fic #2
Title:Genetic Failure
He was a scientist; he was not supposed to believe in things like fate and destiny. And if this was destiny, then destiny was cruel. He had often wondered if it would have been smarter to just forget all this? To pack it all up and go home, and forget that there were people in this world who could do extraordinary things. People who could do terrible things.
He had seen things in his life that he had never thought possible, and even now, some two years after this madness had started, it never ceased to amaze him.
Of course there weren’t that many people left to be amazed at anymore. A virus, his sister’s virus, most of the population wiped out, and still there was no cure.
He looked down at the man in the cell below him. A broken man. Once the pinnacle of human evolution, here now was a man now that was simply struggling to survive. They had poked, prodded, tested; done everything that crossed their minds, in hopes of unlocking the answers. Mohinder had justified their actions, his actions. This was a murderer, a killer, someone who deserved no better. This was what was necessary to save everyone else.
But after a year, they had found no answers and Mohinder found himself questioning how right and just his work really was. He caught Sylar’s eyes and could see himself reflected back in their glossy haze. He wondered briefly if there was even anyone left in the shell of a human being that lay before him. He was doubtful.
The virus killed everything. It was what was known as a genetic failure. Sylar was immune to it, but it still destroyed him in the end. Mohinder clung to this fact. It was the virus. Because he could not blame himself. He could justify his actions all he wanted, but in the end, no one deserved this.
Eventually, if things kept going at this rate, there would be no one left. And the virus would die itself. Mohinder wondered what the point was. What was the point of this evolution if it all would be gone in the end?
He looked down again.
But then again maybe some would survive.
He hoped that some would. It was his last thought as he raised the gun. Because surely he was not one of them. No he was a coward, a man who couldn’t force himself to live with his mistakes any longer. He reached down and pressed a button to open to door to the cell. He could at least do one thing right. Make amends for past mistakes. Not that he was even sure there was a man left to escape.
All the same, he imagined he saw the man below him blink right before he pulled the trigger.
“We can both be free.”
FIC #3
Title:Of Fate and Destiny
Sometimes, Mohinder catches himself wishing that he were one of them. That his name had been on the List, that he had some wonderful ability or power. It always creeps up on him those moments, such as when he’s watching Monica unleash some moves she picked up from Enter the Dragon, or when Matt asks if he wants sugar in his tea and is already dropping one spoonful in before Mohinder’s even drawn breath to answer. He feels suddenly wistful, knowing that for these people there is an extra dimension to life that Mohinder will never be able to experience. He feels in those moments like an historian watching the marvellous events of history unfold before him, but resigned to simply recording them, never making them.
The moments increase as events escalate, and Mohinder begins to suspect that there’s more to these people than a random genetic abnormality, more than evolution in their blood. There’s a touch of destiny about them.
Of course the scientist in him rebels at the very notion, but even in Kirby Plaza it had been like watching fate unfolding. When Peter and Nathan had vanished into the night it was like watching a story, a myth, play out - somehow unreal and disconnected from the boring everyday world. And yet, even then Mohinder had felt apart, unconnected, surrounded by all these incredible people. Some might have used the term the normal one, but right then it was Mohinder who felt like the one who didn’t belong, who wasn’t right.
When reality had kicked back in minutes later and Matt was losing so, so much blood, and when D.L had been pronounced dead on arrival, and who was looking after Molly, and god where the hell was Sylar’s body… then the mythological element died instantly and cold harsh reality flooded back in. It wasn’t dull, but it sure as hell was no fairytale. And yet still, Mohinder wasn’t one of them, he was just helping them, just the scholar recording history.
Most of the time however he simply feels incredibly lucky to know them at all, no matter how many abilities he discovers, no matter what he learns about them, the thrill of discovery never dulls. Sometimes he has to pinch himself just to reassure himself that it’s all really happening.
But what must it be like to fly? To soar above the clouds and really know a world with no boundaries or borders. To walk through life knowing that no injury will set you back, no illness can strike you down or poison finish you off. To walk through walls, to read people’s thoughts, to know you are a part of all this right down in your very blood. Mohinder will never know.
Sometimes however, normality has a very strong attraction. Destiny is a nice concept, but freedom of will can be a more compelling one. These people are remarkable, but they are also terrifying. Niki is clearly unstable, her strength making her all the more dangerous. Matt’s father, and the things he can do to people’s minds, the thing he has done to Molly. The Company, those in the paintings and whatever evils they have nurtured. And on a deep, visceral level, there’s still always Sylar, he lurks in Mohinder’s nightmares and though he’s gone (he is he is) Mohinder can’t shake the memory.
And who is to say destiny is a benevolent force anyway? One look at Nathan, who played the role fate handed him, haunted, angry, miserable and completely unable to function without Peter is enough to put anyone off destiny.
Peter. Mohinder wishes so much that Peter were still alive sometimes. He didn’t know him that well, but in so many ways Peter was the epitome of everything Mohinder had ever dedicated his life to. Unlimited genetic potential, so much power, the future personified in one man.
It is a sobering thought however, to remember where all that marvellous genetic potential got Peter in the end. Just as it sobers Mohinder a little more every day as he discovers more and more about the Company, and what is it they do to those with abilities. He reads the file on Ted Sprague, the man who inadvertently gave his wife terminal cancer. He even reads the file on the batch of vile tests and horrendous experiments conducted on Sylar, and although he wants to summon up satisfaction he can’t.
Yes, there are times when being normal is a very attractive, comforting prospect.
There are other moments as well, just recently, when Mohinder does feel part of it. Whenever he looks at Molly and feels a surge of affection, and knows that he’ll protect her forever - whatever her destiny. And how that in equal parts ties him to Matt forever as well. When he looks into Bob’s eyes and lies unflinchingly, and the calls he makes to Noah Bennet and the plans they make - he know he’ll see this through until the Company is torn down. He may not have some special ability; his destiny may not be tied here by blood, but who is to say that a man cannot make his own destiny?
Normal he may be, but Mohinder knows now that his fate is entangled utterly with these people - and despite the risks and potential terrors he would have it no other way.
Skipping:
stardust_rain
brighteyed_jill
1. ANYONE CAN VOTE. You don't have to be a member or a participant to vote.
2. Please COMMENT and vote for ONE fic of LEAST quality. Comments are screened
3. You may leave feedback on any or all fics if you wish. Writers enjoy feedback. If you loved a fic, tell the author:)
4. Don't vote for your own entry.
5. Don't tell people to vote for you. Keep your fic anonymous until the results are posted.
6. Voting is screened, no one will know who you voted for.
7. You are not to vote for a particular style you don't like or something like that, but on the quality of the fics.
8. Remember. You are only voting for ONE fic of LEAST quality.
Fic #1
Title: Guardianship
(Spoilers through 2.07 "Out of Time.")
The more he thinks about it, the less sense it makes. If he's never had the virus, if it can only infect the evolved, there's no logical reason he should be a natural source of antibodies. A protein, perhaps, something that dissolves the viral capsid, interrupts its life cycle. Yes. Some effect of inheriting almost the same genes, of being the lucky one--
"You're thinking out loud again."
Mohinder looks away from the screenful of lurching blood cells, toward Niki's pained smile. "Sorry," he says, giving thanks that at least she can't hear everything he's thinking.
"It's okay," she says. "You've got a lot to think about."
He sighs, because it's true. "And I'm not concentrating on what I should be." With the equipment in this place, it should be easy, but it feels more as if the lab is mocking him. He'd tried to get around it, and still he's landed right back amid the test tubes and microscopes and victims he can't help.
Niki shrugs. "You're thinking about the virus. That counts."
"I suppose. But it's..." Frustrating. Maddening. Disheartening. "Not getting me anywhere. I don't even know where to start looking for a different cure." He'd been special, for a moment, his deeper thoughts say, and now he isn't. Not so immune to the virus's effects after all.
His momentary wallow in self-pity doesn't upset Niki. "I'd be happy not to be the cure anymore," she says, looking thoughtful. "If it was me."
"How can you say that?" Mohinder asks. Niki, of all people, who talks incessantly about protecting the ones she loves. "It's going to kill you if I can't figure out another cure in time."
"Yeah," she says, trying to fold her arms, foiled by the IV. It's useless, now, he realizes, and he goes over to remove it. "But at least it won't kill you."
She doesn't understand. But then, epidemiology isn't a popular field of study, even for Company recruits. "Niki, if this virus jumps from you to the normal population, I'm in the closest proximity to you. I'll probably be the first to go. We have to stop it before that happens, and if I'm unable to provide a cure myself and can't find another in time, it won't be just me, it'll be everyone."
"And what if it did happen to everyone, and if you were still immune?" Niki asks, looking up. There's something in her eyes that arrests him, makes him pause with a bandage half-unwrapped between his fingers. "What do you think would happen then?"
A possibility he hadn't yet considered. "I'd keep searching, I guess. Try to find a cure before...I was the last one left." The room seems somehow colder, with that thought.
"With this virus, sure," says Niki. "But if you were still the only cure? Do you think you'd survive if anyone outside the Company knew about you?"
"Don't be silly," Mohinder says, but his fingers are unsure on the back of her hand and the temperature is still dropping. "No one would want to lose the only source of the cure."
"And nobody'd want to wait to get their hands on it," Niki adds. Her voice isn't quite the same as usual, either, but that could be the rush of blood pounding in his ears. Blood that he can suddenly see on dozens of desperate hands. Some of them are familiar.
"Why do you think I was assigned to be your partner?" Niki continues. Surveillance, he doesn't say. Wouldn't say, even if he could find his voice. "You'd need protecting, if the worst happened. That's what I'm here for."
He looks at her, the determined jawline and challenging stare mocking the way she leans on the counter for support, and sees what he hopes is truth. He's been fooled by partnerships before. "I guess, in a way, we're lucky that's not necessary anymore."
Niki smiles, bitterly. "Yeah. Lucky."
"I'm sorry," Mohinder says hastily. Sure, he's been shaken up, but dear god, could he be any more insensitive? "I didn't mean--"
"I know. It's okay." She squeezes his shoulder and slides carefully off her seat, and her smile is anxious this time. "Don't get killed without me. Somebody's got to protect our kids."
The words are more real from her, from a mother. This fight has always been personal for him, so much so that he's come to think of it as his alone. It's not, anymore. He understands, and he can't believe it took him this long to realize that she does, too. "I'll do my best."
Fic #2
Title:Genetic Failure
He was a scientist; he was not supposed to believe in things like fate and destiny. And if this was destiny, then destiny was cruel. He had often wondered if it would have been smarter to just forget all this? To pack it all up and go home, and forget that there were people in this world who could do extraordinary things. People who could do terrible things.
He had seen things in his life that he had never thought possible, and even now, some two years after this madness had started, it never ceased to amaze him.
Of course there weren’t that many people left to be amazed at anymore. A virus, his sister’s virus, most of the population wiped out, and still there was no cure.
He looked down at the man in the cell below him. A broken man. Once the pinnacle of human evolution, here now was a man now that was simply struggling to survive. They had poked, prodded, tested; done everything that crossed their minds, in hopes of unlocking the answers. Mohinder had justified their actions, his actions. This was a murderer, a killer, someone who deserved no better. This was what was necessary to save everyone else.
But after a year, they had found no answers and Mohinder found himself questioning how right and just his work really was. He caught Sylar’s eyes and could see himself reflected back in their glossy haze. He wondered briefly if there was even anyone left in the shell of a human being that lay before him. He was doubtful.
The virus killed everything. It was what was known as a genetic failure. Sylar was immune to it, but it still destroyed him in the end. Mohinder clung to this fact. It was the virus. Because he could not blame himself. He could justify his actions all he wanted, but in the end, no one deserved this.
Eventually, if things kept going at this rate, there would be no one left. And the virus would die itself. Mohinder wondered what the point was. What was the point of this evolution if it all would be gone in the end?
He looked down again.
But then again maybe some would survive.
He hoped that some would. It was his last thought as he raised the gun. Because surely he was not one of them. No he was a coward, a man who couldn’t force himself to live with his mistakes any longer. He reached down and pressed a button to open to door to the cell. He could at least do one thing right. Make amends for past mistakes. Not that he was even sure there was a man left to escape.
All the same, he imagined he saw the man below him blink right before he pulled the trigger.
“We can both be free.”
FIC #3
Title:Of Fate and Destiny
Sometimes, Mohinder catches himself wishing that he were one of them. That his name had been on the List, that he had some wonderful ability or power. It always creeps up on him those moments, such as when he’s watching Monica unleash some moves she picked up from Enter the Dragon, or when Matt asks if he wants sugar in his tea and is already dropping one spoonful in before Mohinder’s even drawn breath to answer. He feels suddenly wistful, knowing that for these people there is an extra dimension to life that Mohinder will never be able to experience. He feels in those moments like an historian watching the marvellous events of history unfold before him, but resigned to simply recording them, never making them.
The moments increase as events escalate, and Mohinder begins to suspect that there’s more to these people than a random genetic abnormality, more than evolution in their blood. There’s a touch of destiny about them.
Of course the scientist in him rebels at the very notion, but even in Kirby Plaza it had been like watching fate unfolding. When Peter and Nathan had vanished into the night it was like watching a story, a myth, play out - somehow unreal and disconnected from the boring everyday world. And yet, even then Mohinder had felt apart, unconnected, surrounded by all these incredible people. Some might have used the term the normal one, but right then it was Mohinder who felt like the one who didn’t belong, who wasn’t right.
When reality had kicked back in minutes later and Matt was losing so, so much blood, and when D.L had been pronounced dead on arrival, and who was looking after Molly, and god where the hell was Sylar’s body… then the mythological element died instantly and cold harsh reality flooded back in. It wasn’t dull, but it sure as hell was no fairytale. And yet still, Mohinder wasn’t one of them, he was just helping them, just the scholar recording history.
Most of the time however he simply feels incredibly lucky to know them at all, no matter how many abilities he discovers, no matter what he learns about them, the thrill of discovery never dulls. Sometimes he has to pinch himself just to reassure himself that it’s all really happening.
But what must it be like to fly? To soar above the clouds and really know a world with no boundaries or borders. To walk through life knowing that no injury will set you back, no illness can strike you down or poison finish you off. To walk through walls, to read people’s thoughts, to know you are a part of all this right down in your very blood. Mohinder will never know.
Sometimes however, normality has a very strong attraction. Destiny is a nice concept, but freedom of will can be a more compelling one. These people are remarkable, but they are also terrifying. Niki is clearly unstable, her strength making her all the more dangerous. Matt’s father, and the things he can do to people’s minds, the thing he has done to Molly. The Company, those in the paintings and whatever evils they have nurtured. And on a deep, visceral level, there’s still always Sylar, he lurks in Mohinder’s nightmares and though he’s gone (he is he is) Mohinder can’t shake the memory.
And who is to say destiny is a benevolent force anyway? One look at Nathan, who played the role fate handed him, haunted, angry, miserable and completely unable to function without Peter is enough to put anyone off destiny.
Peter. Mohinder wishes so much that Peter were still alive sometimes. He didn’t know him that well, but in so many ways Peter was the epitome of everything Mohinder had ever dedicated his life to. Unlimited genetic potential, so much power, the future personified in one man.
It is a sobering thought however, to remember where all that marvellous genetic potential got Peter in the end. Just as it sobers Mohinder a little more every day as he discovers more and more about the Company, and what is it they do to those with abilities. He reads the file on Ted Sprague, the man who inadvertently gave his wife terminal cancer. He even reads the file on the batch of vile tests and horrendous experiments conducted on Sylar, and although he wants to summon up satisfaction he can’t.
Yes, there are times when being normal is a very attractive, comforting prospect.
There are other moments as well, just recently, when Mohinder does feel part of it. Whenever he looks at Molly and feels a surge of affection, and knows that he’ll protect her forever - whatever her destiny. And how that in equal parts ties him to Matt forever as well. When he looks into Bob’s eyes and lies unflinchingly, and the calls he makes to Noah Bennet and the plans they make - he know he’ll see this through until the Company is torn down. He may not have some special ability; his destiny may not be tied here by blood, but who is to say that a man cannot make his own destiny?
Normal he may be, but Mohinder knows now that his fate is entangled utterly with these people - and despite the risks and potential terrors he would have it no other way.