A Time Traveler In the Nursery
Title: A Time Traveler In the Nursery
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Angela Petrelli, Hiro Nakamura
Rating: PG
Word Count: 700
Spoilers: Vague S2, pre-series
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This was written for tvnetwork2_las for the prompt: “chance encounter.”
Summary: Angela has a most unexpected visitor where she least expects it.
The trouble with time travelers was one never knew when they were going to turn up. Or how. Would they show up from five years in the future, or five minutes? At a major crux in the timeline, or just at a random moment, purely by chance? It was so hard to tell from one’s own perspective. Even if the future was supposed to be your specialty.
For a long time, Angela Petrelli had relied on her dreams of the future to guide her steps. She’d trusted them implicitly to show her the way, the future unfolding with the ponderous, unchangeable footsteps of fate.
Then one day, while she was in the nursery watching her infant son Nathan sleep, a young Japanese man with a determinedly cheerful demeanor had appeared out of thin air. To say she was surprised would have been a gross understatement. Flabbergasted came closer. Angela was not used to being surprised. Over ten years of knowing the future had spared her from such feelings, until now.
Her unexpected visitor was no less surprised. He muttered something in Japanese as he looked around frantically. She recognized a word or two from being around her friend Kaito; he’d said something about “wrong place.”
Well, obviously. The dry thought almost made her laugh, and that snapped Angela out of her shock.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Angela hadn’t screamed for her husband Arthur yet, and she almost wondered why. Maybe because the man, barely past a boy, looked so bewildered and lost. And because this was novel. Angela hadn’t had a novel experience in a decade.
He blinked at her behind his glasses and shoved them up his nose.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, with a short, polite bow. “It was accident.” He paused for a second, searching for what to say, and settled on his name. “I am Hiro Nakamura.”
Angela started; that was Kaito’s last name! Baby Nathan stirred in his sleep, and Angela dropped a hand down on him to calm the child.
“Hiro, what are you doing here?”
“Ah, I was looking for something in the past. I did not find yet.”
He was only moderately acquainted with English, but he was clear enough. Well, his words were. His purpose, far less so.
“I’ve never seen you before,” she said a little plaintively. How dare her dreams not warn her of such an occurrence as a time traveler in her nursery!
“Sorry,” he said again, seeming as bemused as her. “I think I look for Adam, for Kensei, but mistake the time.”
Angela put a hand to her throat and swallowed hard. “Adam is downstairs with my husband.”
Hiro’s expression clouded. “He is a villain.” He stumbled over the word, but the anger in his voice couldn’t be denied. “You know him?”
“He helped gather us together…”
“He is a… good man?”
“It’s hard to say. He’s so old, he’s hard to read.”
The conversation was ridiculous. How long had it been since Angela had had to think on her feet like this?
“I must speak with him!”
“No!” Angela almost shouted, startling them both. She wanted to have a firmer reason for her objections other than the fact that chance encounters had never gone well in her life, but she didn’t. What Adam would have to say to this, she couldn’t know, but it was more than likely it would be messy. Possibly violent. Foresight had saved her too many times to count, and even this weak, intuitive guesswork triggered all her alarms. Adam must not know of Hiro’s presence here.
“If he doesn’t know you’re coming, it would be rude. A terrible shock,” she said finally, her hand never leaving her firstborn.
Hiro shook his head slightly, confused, and finally nodded. “A bad surprise?”
Angela smiled faintly. That summed up this entire encounter rather neatly. “Exactly.”
“Arigato.”
Between one blink and the next, Hiro was gone. For long moments afterward, Angela looked down at her son and thought about the proposals Adam had made for the future. Ones she’d had no dreams about, perhaps ominously so. Maybe it was time to do a little contingency planning.
After all, if this unplanned meeting had proved anything to her, it was that chance clearly favored a prepared mind.
Author: jaune_chat
Fandom: Heroes
Characters/Pairing: Angela Petrelli, Hiro Nakamura
Rating: PG
Word Count: 700
Spoilers: Vague S2, pre-series
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Heroes is owned by Tim Kring, NBC, et al.
Notes: This was written for tvnetwork2_las for the prompt: “chance encounter.”
Summary: Angela has a most unexpected visitor where she least expects it.
The trouble with time travelers was one never knew when they were going to turn up. Or how. Would they show up from five years in the future, or five minutes? At a major crux in the timeline, or just at a random moment, purely by chance? It was so hard to tell from one’s own perspective. Even if the future was supposed to be your specialty.
For a long time, Angela Petrelli had relied on her dreams of the future to guide her steps. She’d trusted them implicitly to show her the way, the future unfolding with the ponderous, unchangeable footsteps of fate.
Then one day, while she was in the nursery watching her infant son Nathan sleep, a young Japanese man with a determinedly cheerful demeanor had appeared out of thin air. To say she was surprised would have been a gross understatement. Flabbergasted came closer. Angela was not used to being surprised. Over ten years of knowing the future had spared her from such feelings, until now.
Her unexpected visitor was no less surprised. He muttered something in Japanese as he looked around frantically. She recognized a word or two from being around her friend Kaito; he’d said something about “wrong place.”
Well, obviously. The dry thought almost made her laugh, and that snapped Angela out of her shock.
“Who are you? What do you want?” Angela hadn’t screamed for her husband Arthur yet, and she almost wondered why. Maybe because the man, barely past a boy, looked so bewildered and lost. And because this was novel. Angela hadn’t had a novel experience in a decade.
He blinked at her behind his glasses and shoved them up his nose.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, with a short, polite bow. “It was accident.” He paused for a second, searching for what to say, and settled on his name. “I am Hiro Nakamura.”
Angela started; that was Kaito’s last name! Baby Nathan stirred in his sleep, and Angela dropped a hand down on him to calm the child.
“Hiro, what are you doing here?”
“Ah, I was looking for something in the past. I did not find yet.”
He was only moderately acquainted with English, but he was clear enough. Well, his words were. His purpose, far less so.
“I’ve never seen you before,” she said a little plaintively. How dare her dreams not warn her of such an occurrence as a time traveler in her nursery!
“Sorry,” he said again, seeming as bemused as her. “I think I look for Adam, for Kensei, but mistake the time.”
Angela put a hand to her throat and swallowed hard. “Adam is downstairs with my husband.”
Hiro’s expression clouded. “He is a villain.” He stumbled over the word, but the anger in his voice couldn’t be denied. “You know him?”
“He helped gather us together…”
“He is a… good man?”
“It’s hard to say. He’s so old, he’s hard to read.”
The conversation was ridiculous. How long had it been since Angela had had to think on her feet like this?
“I must speak with him!”
“No!” Angela almost shouted, startling them both. She wanted to have a firmer reason for her objections other than the fact that chance encounters had never gone well in her life, but she didn’t. What Adam would have to say to this, she couldn’t know, but it was more than likely it would be messy. Possibly violent. Foresight had saved her too many times to count, and even this weak, intuitive guesswork triggered all her alarms. Adam must not know of Hiro’s presence here.
“If he doesn’t know you’re coming, it would be rude. A terrible shock,” she said finally, her hand never leaving her firstborn.
Hiro shook his head slightly, confused, and finally nodded. “A bad surprise?”
Angela smiled faintly. That summed up this entire encounter rather neatly. “Exactly.”
“Arigato.”
Between one blink and the next, Hiro was gone. For long moments afterward, Angela looked down at her son and thought about the proposals Adam had made for the future. Ones she’d had no dreams about, perhaps ominously so. Maybe it was time to do a little contingency planning.
After all, if this unplanned meeting had proved anything to her, it was that chance clearly favored a prepared mind.