[for matt, brian, and roger] when it rains...

[karmic_darwin]

Dated December 5thSince Parkman's arrival, Mohinder's dreams had been dark, disturbed, even violent. Knowing that Hiro had corrected the timestream, that Molly and Nathan and he had all survived Peter exploding in the square banished them in daytime, but his subconscious mind could not let go of the timeline he had lived and died in, or left from.

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[cantbebribed]

Matt froze briefly at the sound of that voice, pausing before carrying on in transferring the small handful of clothes he'd gone through since getting there into a dryer. "Maybe not quite as easily as you seem to have, but yeah, I'm making do," he answered curtly, shutting the lid of the machine with a little more force than was probably necessary.

"What do you want, Suresh?" he asked with a sigh. His instincts to take the traitor down may have subsided somewhat, but that didn't mean he was quite ready to make friends. Especially since, knowing what he now did, Matt was starting to wonder whether or not Suresh had been the only right to make the right choice.

[karmic_darwin]

Eyes rolling with disgust, Mohinder resisted the urge to snort. As it was, he had to remind himself he'd come to try to make peace to keep his feet from walking him right back up the stairs and home to (try to) sleep.

"After the second month without cardamom, I gave up and went native," he answered dryly, near certain Parkman wouldn't have the slightest idea why the lack of cardamom had been a blow. He'd never been a stupid man, but world culture definitely wasn't his strong suit.

"Which brings me nicely to the point of this little visit. As delightful as your arrival has been for both of us, it has disrupted my otherwise idyllic existence." Excellent, Mohinder, that's certainly going to help bury the hatchet. He sighed. "I came looking to see if we might put the past to rest, so that we can both get on with our future, such as it is."

[cantbebribed]

"Oh, you poor thing," Matt scoffed, shaking his head. Well, at least it was a step up from wanting to make friends. Small favors. Still, even as a spark of anger flared inside him, Matt found himself willing to go along with what the good doctor was suggesting. Between the then of Homeland Security, Sylar, and dying, and the now of Tabula Rasa, Daphne, and somehow being alive, embracing the future was something that had been on his mind as of late. That didn't mean it would necessarily be happening any time soon, but it was certainly worth addressing.

"But I guess you've had worse ideas in the past. Duty ended for me back in that hallway, so... you're right. Clearing the air would probably do us both some good," he admitted after a moment, crossing his arms. "Such as we are," he added dryly.

[karmic_darwin]

Perhaps he hadn't expected the acquiescence or perhaps it was simply the exhaustion of the past week, but Mohinder found himself uncertain where to begin. In part, too, being willing to begin served his needs. Already the tension was bleeding away, relaxing his neck and shoulders.

Pushing a hand up through his hair in the way that Abby said made him look like Beaker, whoever that was - she'd tried to explain but had gotten to orange and muppet and said she'd search the bookshelf and show him - Mohinder studied Parkman. "Do you remember what I asked you when you found me in Hiro's loft?"

The conversation had been significant for him, but Parkman had had other priorities that day. He might well have forgotten.

[cantbebribed]

Matt furrowed his brow for a second, trying to remember. When he thought back on the day he'd left, he tended to linger more on certain other parts of it, generally. "You mean your little 'changing the past' pipe dream? Unfortunately, yeah." If he'd suspected what Suresh had been planning, he probably would have paid a little bit more attention to it. Especially since, in retrospect, things like time travel didn't seem quite as weird as they had a couple weeks ago.

[karmic_darwin]

"It wasn't a pipe dream," Mohinder answered, immediately defensive again. The comic, Ninth Wonders, had been correct, precognitive painting; after these many months, he still couldn't understand how Parkman ignored that which was as obvious as his own abilities. "Hiro succeeded. Sylar never exploded. Everything we lived after the day before the explosion was changed."

Mohinder lifted his eyebrows, mouth and fingers twisting. "You and I lived together to raise Molly Walker together. In my apartment." From his tone, he made clear that seemed the most impossible change of all.

[cantbebribed]

Somehow, that managed to sound even more ludicrous than learning he had a wife and kids in another timeline, probably because he actually knew the man involved this time around. Matt gave a derisive snort, if for no other reason that acting disbelieving towards what Suresh was saying made it easier to avoid the revelation that the son of a bitch might have actually been right and that Matt really had been fighting for the wrong side.

"Should have known to leave it to you to come up with the most ridiculous thing I've heard since getting here," he said incredulously, shaking his head. Putting it out of his mind. Seemed like every other version of himself out there managed to pull off at least some variation of a family. "Nakamura may have beat us, but I'm not even so sure Sylar exploded in the first place, anyway. Either way, fat lot of good changing the past does us in the here and now," he said, tone not nearly as sharp as he would have preferred it.

[karmic_darwin]

The reels were in his hut. His copies anyhow. He could show them to Parkman and give him proof, but he'd learned that lesson early. Telling people they were fictional in alternate realities almost never went over well. Eventually Parkman would learn and he would know Mohinder had been right. He could wait.

Especially with what Parkman's said about Sylar.

His eyebrows climb almost to his hairline, lips pressing together in a tight frown. "Of course Sylar exploded. You were there. We both were. Nathan was giving a speech to commemorate the dead when I left."

[cantbebribed]

Matt quirked a dark grin at that, more as a defense than anything else. "Well, I guess that answers one question that I might have had. If the President's closest confidante didn't know the truth, how could I have?" The correct answer was, of course, by being a mind reader, but Sylar had apparently taken pains to cover his tracks. Matt had to believe that.

[karmic_darwin]

Bridling for the smirk, Mohinder's shoulders stiffened, spine drawing straight. "If the President's closest confidante didn't know what truth?" The hair on the back of his neck wanted to rise out of the certainty he would not like the answer.

[cantbebribed]

"That the President wasn't exactly the man we all thought he was?" Matt said, drawing it out. Treating it like this, like just another snippet of information to use and manipulate people with, somehow made it all less personal. Made the knowledge that came with it, and what it meant about all the things Matt had done over the years, seem more manageable. At least for the moment.

[karmic_darwin]

Mohinder scowled, instantly defensive. The situation had been untenable, Nathan's solution indefensible, and yet... "Nathan was under enormous pressure to resolve the situation, as you well know. I agree, genocide was an unacceptable solution, but he certainly believed he was acting in the world's best interests."

Even now, part of him wondered if that was true, but he suppressed the disloyal thought.

[cantbebribed]

"Not what I was talking about," Matt replied (far too smoothly, given the subject matter) with a slow shake of his head. "I mean, it wasn't like I had any better ideas on how to fix things. Wasn't my job to find alternatives." His job was just to play along with what the higher-ups decided. Which maybe helped to explain why he'd done what had he had in the end. Was one type of murder really so much worse than any other?

"No, I mean he really wasn't the man we all thought he was. Which would be Nathan Petrelli."

[karmic_darwin]

No, it was not his job. It had been Mohinder's and he had failed Nathan in that. Furious incredulity drowned the sting of it.

"I would have known if someone posed as Nathan. No one could have pulled off the sort of deception you're implying." But even as he spoke, suspicion pricked the back of his neck. Memories of Nathan in the early years and the sense that he had changed. "What are you saying?"

[cantbebribed]

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Matt asked seriously. "But unless Nathan could do more than just fly and I wasn't in that particular loop, then someone obviously did. What do you think I'm saying, Suresh? Did you assume Peter decided to yank himself through that door to say 'hi' to us personally?"

[karmic_darwin]

Eyebrows at his hairline, Mohinder's mouth opened, then shut, then opened again, words lagging behind the incredulous thoughts. "Nathan pulled Peter through the door? You're certain? Candice might have..." But Candice couldn't have pulled Peter through. "Who could..." He froze. Immobile. Only one person.

"Sylar." It was hardly more than a whisper. He needed no confirmation, either. There was no one else it could have been. "How long?" How long was Sylar masquerading as Nathan? It would explain the genoicide... and to think Mohinder had almost gone along with it out of love and loyalty. "How long?"