Fic: Primatech 815
Title: Primatech 815
Author: starrdust411
Fandom: Heroes (Crossover with Lost)
Characters: Ando, Bennet, Claire, Claude, Hiro, Isaac, Peter, Matt, Micah, Mohinder, Niki, Simone, Sylar (more to come)
Rating: R
Summary: A plane crash unites a group of strangers.
Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or Lost.
Warnings: AU, Violence, Action/Adventure, Drug use, Het, Slash, Crossover/Fusion
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The rain started just as abruptly as it had on their second day on the island. It was as if someone somewhere had merely flipped a switch to turn on the rain and it instantly came flooding from the sky. This time, however, everyone was prepared for it. They had all scrambled to their designated shelters and watched as the bins they'd made to catch fresh water fill up. It was comforting to know that they would soon have more water to drink. At least they could all try to live comfortably as they waited for rescue.
Niki frowned, blinking the water out of her eyes as she tied down the piece of tarp that she'd gotten from the plane to a large piece of the wreckage. She really wished that she had finished building their shelter before the rain had started, but she'd been too distracted by the fact that Micah had been seen hanging around some strange man on the beach.
"So who was that guy?" she asked him.
Micah shrugged, scooting closer to the piece of metal acting as the back wall of their temporary shelter. "What guy?"
"You know," she grunted, tying off the rope as tightly as she could manage. She tested the tarp carefully; tugging at the line and making sure the covering would not slip or blow off. "The guy with the horn-rimmed glasses."
"You mean Mr. Bennet?"
"Yeah," Niki agreed as she slid into the tent beside Micah. The blond woman felt her heart clench as her son instantly shifted away from her when she sat down next to him. "What were you and Mr. Bennet talking about?"
"Nothing," he mumbled, drawing circles in the sand and only half listening to Niki's words.
She frowned at the ten year old's response. The woman couldn't understand why the boy was being so indifferent about their situation. Micah was a smart kid, he got straight A's in all of his classes, but for some reason he couldn't see how dangerous his actions were. All Niki wanted to do was keep her son safe, and him running around in the jungle and talking to strangers was more than a little counterproductive.
"'Nothing', huh?" she pushed. "You guys were talking for a while. It looked like something to me."
Micah squirmed uncomfortably, gazing up at his mother with wide brown eyes. "Well, it's kind of a secret."
Her frowned deepened with concern and anger at her son's words. That wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear from the child. "A secret?" she repeated. "Did he tell you not to tell me?"
"No," Micah clarified. "It's just... sort of a general secret."
"Well, if didn't tell you not to tell me, then there's no harm in sharing, right?"
The boy shrugged, biting his lip nervously as he tried to decide whether or not to tell his mother what the man had said to him. "He said," he began reluctantly, "a miracle happened to him."
"A miracle happened to all of us Micah," Niki laughed. "We survived a plane crash."
"I don't think that's what he meant, Mom," Micah sighed, going back to drawing shapes in the sand as he waited for the rain to stop.
-+-+-+-
Peter felt his heart stop when he spotted Mohinder in his tent. The Indian man was kneeling beside Audrey, holding her limp wrist gently in his hand while he checked her pulse. The marshal moaned at his touch, gasping and wheezing pathetically as she struggled to regain consciousness. Audrey groaned as her eye lids slowly opened to reveal a pair of blurry, unfocused brown eyes.
"Sylar," she gasped, yanking her wrist out of Mohinder's grasp. She grunted as she strained to lift herself up, pushing at Mohinder and chanting the name "Sylar" over and over.
"What were you doing?" Peter asked, grabbing Mohinder by his shoulders and pulling him away from the marshal.
"You weren't here," Mohinder explained, backing away from him. "I was just checking on her-"
"I know who you are," he shouted, shoving the startled man out of his tent. "You're the prisoner she was escorting! Admit it!"
The Indian man stumbled, pushing his hair out of his eyes. The rain continued to pour all around them, instantly soaking through his clothes and making them stick to his body. "What are you talking about?"
"Someone found a pair of handcuffs in the jungle," Peter told him, raising his voice so that he could be heard above the howling wind. "Audrey told me about you! She warned me to look out for you!"
"You're making a mistake! I am not a criminal!"
"Don't lie to me!" he warned, advancing on the other man. Yet before he could even attempt to grab the Indian, a fist came flying at him, slamming into the side of his face and knocking him flat on his back. The nurse groaned, cradling his throbbing cheek as he looked up to see Gabriel standing over him.
Gabriel scowled down at him, his look icy enough to make Peter's insides freeze as the other man pressed his foot down on his chest, pushing him deeper into the sand. Peter yowled in pain as the taller man continued to press down on his chest; crushing his ribs and making him sink deeper into the soft ground. "Leave him alone," he barked, stomping on the nurse's torso.
"You don't understand," he hissed, straining to escape from underneath the man's foot.
"I understand," Gabriel shouted, shoving him harder and causing a cry of pain to escape the young man's lips. "I understand that he's been helping you and everyone else here on this sand trap since the plane landed, and now you're trying to crucify him? If you're going to start a witch hunt, the least you could do is get some real evidence first!"
"Stop it!" Mohinder yelled. He grabbed Gabriel's arm and tried his hardest to pull him away, but the pale man would not budge. "Sy... Gabriel! Please, stop it!"
Peter gasped, taking in deep greedy breaths when Gabriel finally lifted his foot off of his chest. He coughed and panted as he watched the two men walk away from him, noticing the bandages wrapped around Gabriel's wrists and the fact that Mohinder had stopped himself from calling his companion by another name.
+-+-+-+
"You know, I'm glad they're drugging me," Sylar told him. His was tone surprisingly playful considering the fact that he was currently handcuffed and waiting with airport security to be taken back to the United States. "I'd hate to be awake while Hanson does her little victory lap around the plane." He clicked his tongue, adjusting himself in his folding chair as his cuffs slid along the metal table. "She hasn't been very modest about this. In fact, she's taking all the credit for catching me. But we both know you did all the work, Professor."
Mohinder bit his cheek as he pressed himself flat against the wall. Hanson had gone to get a doctor to give Sylar his shot, leaving him and three armed guards to watch the murderer.
"Why are you still talking to me?" he snapped. Sylar hadn't stopped talking since Hanson had left the interrogation room. He wouldn't speak to her, but he wouldn't stop speaking to him. "If you truly believe that I'm the one who caught you, why aren't you giving me the silent treatment?"
"Because you'd enjoy it, wouldn't you?" The serial killer's smirk was enough to make Mohinder want to pull his own hair out. He hated being here. He hated being anywhere near Sylar, and now he was going to have to be trapped on an airplane with him for sixteen hours. Even if he would be unconscious Mohinder was certain that Sylar would find some way to irritate him. "Besides, I called you didn't I? I brought this on myself."
The Indian man raised an eyebrow at Sylar's sudden admission. "Why did you call me?"
"Because I knew you'd come," he told him casually as he studied his handcuffs.
"Then you must have known I wouldn't come alone!"
"Of course you wouldn't. You're too logical for that."
"So you're going to go to jail, just because wanted me to visit you in Australia?"
Sylar froze suddenly losing interest in his restraints. He turned and gazed at Mohinder, his expression blank and completely unreadable. "I'm not going to jail Mohinder," he told him seriously. "We are going to be together. Destiny will see to that."
+-+-+-+
The rain had come to a sudden stop around twilight and the castaways now found themselves with a fresh supply of clean water to drink. Unfortunately, they also had to deal with the constant groans and pained screams that came from Peter's medical tent. After his fight with Mohinder and Gabriel, Peter had returned to his tent to find that Audrey's abdomen had gone ridged. The woman had at least two days left to live and all Peter could do now was make sure that she was comfortable.
He grimaced as he poured water down the dying woman's throat. She was burning up and her throat was most likely sore from screaming. The young man's heart clenched as he brushed his finger tips over her yellow skin and felt her flinch away from his touch.
"I want... I want to talk to him," she gasped.
"Who?" he whispered gently, although he already knew exactly who Audrey had meant.
"Mo-Mohinder."
-+-+-+-
Mohinder wasn't surprised when Peter told him that Audrey wanted to speak to him. He had known just from looking at her that she was going to die soon. The only question was what was he going to say to her? Audrey would most likely ask him about Sylar, but he didn't know whether or not to tell her the truth. A part of him wanted to lie, wanted to convince her that Sylar was dead so that she could die with a sense of accomplishment, but he knew it was wrong. She had a right to know the truth.
The geneticist frowned as he crouched beside the sick woman. She smiled weakly at him, almost as if she were amused by his expression. "Hey, Suresh," she wheezed. "Some heroes we turned out to be, huh?"
"You were very heroic, Audrey," he assured her, taking the woman's limp hand in his own. "You always did your best, even when nobody believed in you."
Her smile widened as she gave his hand a weak squeeze. "D-didn't get me very far," she whispered. "Only... only got the job half done." She paused, wincing as another wave of pain spread over her. "What... what did you wish for?"
Mohinder frowned in confusion at the marshal's words. "What?"
"On... on the plane," she wheezed. "Right before I blacked out... you said... 'I wish.' What were you gonna say?"
The Indian man flashed a sheepish small, suddenly feeling very foolish for what he had been thinking earlier. "I was going to say," he began hesitantly. "'I wish I had never gone to Australia.'"
Audrey's body began to quake as her bitter laughter quickly turned into a fit of coughs and Mohinder suddenly wished he had kept his selfish thought to himself. "If I could go back... and change all that... I would." Her face was quickly turning bright red as the coughs continued to shake her body. She struggled to take in deep breaths to calm herself. "He's... he's still out there isn't he?"
Mohinder swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Yes," he said truthfully. "He's still alive."
"D-don't trust him," she breathed. "He's... he'll turn on you. Don't believe... anything..." Her warning was cut off as she was abruptly hit by another bout of coughs.
"You have to save your strength," he urged her.
"Mohinder," she whispered, "I'm... I'm gonna die... aren't I?"
Tears began to well up in his eyes. He'd known Audrey for four years. Never would he have imaged things ending this way. "Y-yes."
Her eyes filled with tears as she flashed him a weak smile. "Well," she whispered, blinking away the tears. "Are you gonna do it? Are... are you gonna be my hero?"
-+-+-+-
"So what's going on?"
Peter smiled as he turned to see Claire approaching him. He hadn't seen much of the girl since the small group had gotten back from their trek through the jungle. "Mohinder's talking with the marshal," he told her simply.
"Mohinder?" she repeated. "That's kind of dangerous."
The nurse frowned, studying the teenager carefully. He could tell from her light tone that the girl was joking, but something still troubled him about her comment. "Dangerous? How?"
"Because he has the gun," she explained.
Peter felt his eyes nearly triple at the girl's words. "Gun?"
"Yeah, he has the marshal's gun," she shrugged. "He's been carrying it around since yesterday."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
The question had barely passed his lips before Peter turned away from the teenager and raced towards the medical tent, his heart pounding in his ears. He could hardly hear Claire saying "Because he wouldn't use it!" as he came to a halt, watching as Mohinder slipped out of the medical tent, head bowed forlornly. He was just about to say a silent pray of thanks that the man had done the right thing, when a gun suddenly went off inside the tent.
His heart stopped dead in his chest as Gabriel walked out, the recently fired weapon still in his hands.
"What did you do?" he cried. His hands began to ball themselves into fists as he fought to resist the urge to hit the other man.
"What you couldn't," he said simply. "Being a nurse, I understand why you couldn't bring yourself to do it, but that's what she wanted. She was suffering." He smirked coldly, as he pointed the handle of the gun towards the younger man. "It was the last bullet, but I think you should keep this anyway."
-+-+-+-
"Ya know Ginger and Marie Ann have been looking for you all morning Gilligan."
Peter grimaced when the all too familiar British accent met his ears. He turned his eyes away from the rising sun to see the man he'd met in the fuselage approaching him. "That's probably because I wanted to be alone," he grumbled pointedly, turning his back towards the other man.
"So you've been up all night beating yourself up because someone else euthanized the woman you'd been torturing for three days."
The nurse clenched his teeth together, pounding at the sand in frustration. "If that's how you want to look at it, then fine!" he snapped. "Just leave me alone!"
As soon as he spoke, the other man decided to smack the back of his head. Peter grunted, turning around to face the older man, only to have him grab him by his collar and drag him to his feet. "Grow up, Pete," he barked. "You're a bloody nurse. You should be used to seeing patients die."
"That doesn't make it easy!"
"It's not about easy! It's about knowing when to let go! Ya might not like what Eyebrows did, but it was the right thing. Like it or not, we're all gonna be stuck here for a long time, and the last thing these people need is for the only nurse on the island to have a nervous breakdown. So dry your eyes, brush your hair out of your face, and be a man."
Peter felt his throat tighten and his cheeks flush bright red. He knew what the British man had said was right, even if he didn't like the way he had said it. There were other people on the island and they still needed him. Audrey was gone now and he was going to have to accept that.
"You know," Peter began, trying his best to keep his emotions in check, "you've been giving me a hard time since we met, but I don't even know your name."
The British man laughed, smacking him playfully on his back (at least, Peter had thought it was meant to be playful, but in truth, the man nearly knocked him on his face) as he began to walk way. "The name's Claude Rains," he told him, "and if you ever need a good smack, don't hesitate to come find me."
-+-+-+-
Sylar frowned as he watched Mohinder sitting hunched over his workbench. The man hadn't slept at all last night and hadn't said anything since he had given Sylar the gun and asked him to put Audrey out of her misery. He knew right away that the marshal's death was at the center of Mohinder's mind. The geneticist might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but he had had a hand in the woman's death. Your first kill wasn't an easy thing to get over, and no doubt the guilt was eating away at him.
"I brought you some breakfast," he announced, placing an apple and a bottle of water in front of the other man.
Mohinder didn't even bother to look up at him or his offerings. Instead, he stayed focused on taking apart cell phones and studying whether or not their parts would be useful for boosting the transceiver.
The serial killer sighed as he sat down beside the Indian man. "You should eat something."
"I'm not hungry," he said, his tone flat and indifferent.
Sylar scooted closer to the other man allowing his thigh to lightly brush against Mohinder's side. "You didn't do anything wrong," he assured him. "I pulled the trigger, not you."
"But she asked me to do it," he whispered. "I was... I was too much of a coward to help her."
"Having respect for human life doesn't make you a coward." The words sounded so hollow and wrong coming from him, but he knew it was what Mohinder needed to hear. "If you were a coward, you wouldn't have gone to Sydney just to find me. You wouldn't have worked with Audrey for all these years, just to protect other people and do the right thing. You're very brave Mohinder, but you are not a killer."
Sylar watched sympathetically as tears started to appear in the other man's eyes. Mohinder bowed his head, shifting away from him and Sylar reflectively moved closer, determined to maintain their close proximity. He wanted Mohinder to know that he would be there for him, that he could offer the other man a shoulder to lean on or a sympathetic ear if he needed it.
"I'm going to tell Peter," Mohinder whispered, fighting back the tears stinging his eyes. "He... He's already suspicious of us. Maybe I can regain some trust if I come clean."
"Whatever you want," he assured him, placing a comforting hand on Mohinder's shoulder only to have it brushed away. "We're in this together."
Next Chapter
Author: starrdust411
Fandom: Heroes (Crossover with Lost)
Characters: Ando, Bennet, Claire, Claude, Hiro, Isaac, Peter, Matt, Micah, Mohinder, Niki, Simone, Sylar (more to come)
Rating: R
Summary: A plane crash unites a group of strangers.
Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or Lost.
Warnings: AU, Violence, Action/Adventure, Drug use, Het, Slash, Crossover/Fusion
Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The rain started just as abruptly as it had on their second day on the island. It was as if someone somewhere had merely flipped a switch to turn on the rain and it instantly came flooding from the sky. This time, however, everyone was prepared for it. They had all scrambled to their designated shelters and watched as the bins they'd made to catch fresh water fill up. It was comforting to know that they would soon have more water to drink. At least they could all try to live comfortably as they waited for rescue.
Niki frowned, blinking the water out of her eyes as she tied down the piece of tarp that she'd gotten from the plane to a large piece of the wreckage. She really wished that she had finished building their shelter before the rain had started, but she'd been too distracted by the fact that Micah had been seen hanging around some strange man on the beach.
"So who was that guy?" she asked him.
Micah shrugged, scooting closer to the piece of metal acting as the back wall of their temporary shelter. "What guy?"
"You know," she grunted, tying off the rope as tightly as she could manage. She tested the tarp carefully; tugging at the line and making sure the covering would not slip or blow off. "The guy with the horn-rimmed glasses."
"You mean Mr. Bennet?"
"Yeah," Niki agreed as she slid into the tent beside Micah. The blond woman felt her heart clench as her son instantly shifted away from her when she sat down next to him. "What were you and Mr. Bennet talking about?"
"Nothing," he mumbled, drawing circles in the sand and only half listening to Niki's words.
She frowned at the ten year old's response. The woman couldn't understand why the boy was being so indifferent about their situation. Micah was a smart kid, he got straight A's in all of his classes, but for some reason he couldn't see how dangerous his actions were. All Niki wanted to do was keep her son safe, and him running around in the jungle and talking to strangers was more than a little counterproductive.
"'Nothing', huh?" she pushed. "You guys were talking for a while. It looked like something to me."
Micah squirmed uncomfortably, gazing up at his mother with wide brown eyes. "Well, it's kind of a secret."
Her frowned deepened with concern and anger at her son's words. That wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear from the child. "A secret?" she repeated. "Did he tell you not to tell me?"
"No," Micah clarified. "It's just... sort of a general secret."
"Well, if didn't tell you not to tell me, then there's no harm in sharing, right?"
The boy shrugged, biting his lip nervously as he tried to decide whether or not to tell his mother what the man had said to him. "He said," he began reluctantly, "a miracle happened to him."
"A miracle happened to all of us Micah," Niki laughed. "We survived a plane crash."
"I don't think that's what he meant, Mom," Micah sighed, going back to drawing shapes in the sand as he waited for the rain to stop.
-+-+-+-
Peter felt his heart stop when he spotted Mohinder in his tent. The Indian man was kneeling beside Audrey, holding her limp wrist gently in his hand while he checked her pulse. The marshal moaned at his touch, gasping and wheezing pathetically as she struggled to regain consciousness. Audrey groaned as her eye lids slowly opened to reveal a pair of blurry, unfocused brown eyes.
"Sylar," she gasped, yanking her wrist out of Mohinder's grasp. She grunted as she strained to lift herself up, pushing at Mohinder and chanting the name "Sylar" over and over.
"What were you doing?" Peter asked, grabbing Mohinder by his shoulders and pulling him away from the marshal.
"You weren't here," Mohinder explained, backing away from him. "I was just checking on her-"
"I know who you are," he shouted, shoving the startled man out of his tent. "You're the prisoner she was escorting! Admit it!"
The Indian man stumbled, pushing his hair out of his eyes. The rain continued to pour all around them, instantly soaking through his clothes and making them stick to his body. "What are you talking about?"
"Someone found a pair of handcuffs in the jungle," Peter told him, raising his voice so that he could be heard above the howling wind. "Audrey told me about you! She warned me to look out for you!"
"You're making a mistake! I am not a criminal!"
"Don't lie to me!" he warned, advancing on the other man. Yet before he could even attempt to grab the Indian, a fist came flying at him, slamming into the side of his face and knocking him flat on his back. The nurse groaned, cradling his throbbing cheek as he looked up to see Gabriel standing over him.
Gabriel scowled down at him, his look icy enough to make Peter's insides freeze as the other man pressed his foot down on his chest, pushing him deeper into the sand. Peter yowled in pain as the taller man continued to press down on his chest; crushing his ribs and making him sink deeper into the soft ground. "Leave him alone," he barked, stomping on the nurse's torso.
"You don't understand," he hissed, straining to escape from underneath the man's foot.
"I understand," Gabriel shouted, shoving him harder and causing a cry of pain to escape the young man's lips. "I understand that he's been helping you and everyone else here on this sand trap since the plane landed, and now you're trying to crucify him? If you're going to start a witch hunt, the least you could do is get some real evidence first!"
"Stop it!" Mohinder yelled. He grabbed Gabriel's arm and tried his hardest to pull him away, but the pale man would not budge. "Sy... Gabriel! Please, stop it!"
Peter gasped, taking in deep greedy breaths when Gabriel finally lifted his foot off of his chest. He coughed and panted as he watched the two men walk away from him, noticing the bandages wrapped around Gabriel's wrists and the fact that Mohinder had stopped himself from calling his companion by another name.
+-+-+-+
"You know, I'm glad they're drugging me," Sylar told him. His was tone surprisingly playful considering the fact that he was currently handcuffed and waiting with airport security to be taken back to the United States. "I'd hate to be awake while Hanson does her little victory lap around the plane." He clicked his tongue, adjusting himself in his folding chair as his cuffs slid along the metal table. "She hasn't been very modest about this. In fact, she's taking all the credit for catching me. But we both know you did all the work, Professor."
Mohinder bit his cheek as he pressed himself flat against the wall. Hanson had gone to get a doctor to give Sylar his shot, leaving him and three armed guards to watch the murderer.
"Why are you still talking to me?" he snapped. Sylar hadn't stopped talking since Hanson had left the interrogation room. He wouldn't speak to her, but he wouldn't stop speaking to him. "If you truly believe that I'm the one who caught you, why aren't you giving me the silent treatment?"
"Because you'd enjoy it, wouldn't you?" The serial killer's smirk was enough to make Mohinder want to pull his own hair out. He hated being here. He hated being anywhere near Sylar, and now he was going to have to be trapped on an airplane with him for sixteen hours. Even if he would be unconscious Mohinder was certain that Sylar would find some way to irritate him. "Besides, I called you didn't I? I brought this on myself."
The Indian man raised an eyebrow at Sylar's sudden admission. "Why did you call me?"
"Because I knew you'd come," he told him casually as he studied his handcuffs.
"Then you must have known I wouldn't come alone!"
"Of course you wouldn't. You're too logical for that."
"So you're going to go to jail, just because wanted me to visit you in Australia?"
Sylar froze suddenly losing interest in his restraints. He turned and gazed at Mohinder, his expression blank and completely unreadable. "I'm not going to jail Mohinder," he told him seriously. "We are going to be together. Destiny will see to that."
+-+-+-+
The rain had come to a sudden stop around twilight and the castaways now found themselves with a fresh supply of clean water to drink. Unfortunately, they also had to deal with the constant groans and pained screams that came from Peter's medical tent. After his fight with Mohinder and Gabriel, Peter had returned to his tent to find that Audrey's abdomen had gone ridged. The woman had at least two days left to live and all Peter could do now was make sure that she was comfortable.
He grimaced as he poured water down the dying woman's throat. She was burning up and her throat was most likely sore from screaming. The young man's heart clenched as he brushed his finger tips over her yellow skin and felt her flinch away from his touch.
"I want... I want to talk to him," she gasped.
"Who?" he whispered gently, although he already knew exactly who Audrey had meant.
"Mo-Mohinder."
-+-+-+-
Mohinder wasn't surprised when Peter told him that Audrey wanted to speak to him. He had known just from looking at her that she was going to die soon. The only question was what was he going to say to her? Audrey would most likely ask him about Sylar, but he didn't know whether or not to tell her the truth. A part of him wanted to lie, wanted to convince her that Sylar was dead so that she could die with a sense of accomplishment, but he knew it was wrong. She had a right to know the truth.
The geneticist frowned as he crouched beside the sick woman. She smiled weakly at him, almost as if she were amused by his expression. "Hey, Suresh," she wheezed. "Some heroes we turned out to be, huh?"
"You were very heroic, Audrey," he assured her, taking the woman's limp hand in his own. "You always did your best, even when nobody believed in you."
Her smile widened as she gave his hand a weak squeeze. "D-didn't get me very far," she whispered. "Only... only got the job half done." She paused, wincing as another wave of pain spread over her. "What... what did you wish for?"
Mohinder frowned in confusion at the marshal's words. "What?"
"On... on the plane," she wheezed. "Right before I blacked out... you said... 'I wish.' What were you gonna say?"
The Indian man flashed a sheepish small, suddenly feeling very foolish for what he had been thinking earlier. "I was going to say," he began hesitantly. "'I wish I had never gone to Australia.'"
Audrey's body began to quake as her bitter laughter quickly turned into a fit of coughs and Mohinder suddenly wished he had kept his selfish thought to himself. "If I could go back... and change all that... I would." Her face was quickly turning bright red as the coughs continued to shake her body. She struggled to take in deep breaths to calm herself. "He's... he's still out there isn't he?"
Mohinder swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Yes," he said truthfully. "He's still alive."
"D-don't trust him," she breathed. "He's... he'll turn on you. Don't believe... anything..." Her warning was cut off as she was abruptly hit by another bout of coughs.
"You have to save your strength," he urged her.
"Mohinder," she whispered, "I'm... I'm gonna die... aren't I?"
Tears began to well up in his eyes. He'd known Audrey for four years. Never would he have imaged things ending this way. "Y-yes."
Her eyes filled with tears as she flashed him a weak smile. "Well," she whispered, blinking away the tears. "Are you gonna do it? Are... are you gonna be my hero?"
-+-+-+-
"So what's going on?"
Peter smiled as he turned to see Claire approaching him. He hadn't seen much of the girl since the small group had gotten back from their trek through the jungle. "Mohinder's talking with the marshal," he told her simply.
"Mohinder?" she repeated. "That's kind of dangerous."
The nurse frowned, studying the teenager carefully. He could tell from her light tone that the girl was joking, but something still troubled him about her comment. "Dangerous? How?"
"Because he has the gun," she explained.
Peter felt his eyes nearly triple at the girl's words. "Gun?"
"Yeah, he has the marshal's gun," she shrugged. "He's been carrying it around since yesterday."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
The question had barely passed his lips before Peter turned away from the teenager and raced towards the medical tent, his heart pounding in his ears. He could hardly hear Claire saying "Because he wouldn't use it!" as he came to a halt, watching as Mohinder slipped out of the medical tent, head bowed forlornly. He was just about to say a silent pray of thanks that the man had done the right thing, when a gun suddenly went off inside the tent.
His heart stopped dead in his chest as Gabriel walked out, the recently fired weapon still in his hands.
"What did you do?" he cried. His hands began to ball themselves into fists as he fought to resist the urge to hit the other man.
"What you couldn't," he said simply. "Being a nurse, I understand why you couldn't bring yourself to do it, but that's what she wanted. She was suffering." He smirked coldly, as he pointed the handle of the gun towards the younger man. "It was the last bullet, but I think you should keep this anyway."
-+-+-+-
"Ya know Ginger and Marie Ann have been looking for you all morning Gilligan."
Peter grimaced when the all too familiar British accent met his ears. He turned his eyes away from the rising sun to see the man he'd met in the fuselage approaching him. "That's probably because I wanted to be alone," he grumbled pointedly, turning his back towards the other man.
"So you've been up all night beating yourself up because someone else euthanized the woman you'd been torturing for three days."
The nurse clenched his teeth together, pounding at the sand in frustration. "If that's how you want to look at it, then fine!" he snapped. "Just leave me alone!"
As soon as he spoke, the other man decided to smack the back of his head. Peter grunted, turning around to face the older man, only to have him grab him by his collar and drag him to his feet. "Grow up, Pete," he barked. "You're a bloody nurse. You should be used to seeing patients die."
"That doesn't make it easy!"
"It's not about easy! It's about knowing when to let go! Ya might not like what Eyebrows did, but it was the right thing. Like it or not, we're all gonna be stuck here for a long time, and the last thing these people need is for the only nurse on the island to have a nervous breakdown. So dry your eyes, brush your hair out of your face, and be a man."
Peter felt his throat tighten and his cheeks flush bright red. He knew what the British man had said was right, even if he didn't like the way he had said it. There were other people on the island and they still needed him. Audrey was gone now and he was going to have to accept that.
"You know," Peter began, trying his best to keep his emotions in check, "you've been giving me a hard time since we met, but I don't even know your name."
The British man laughed, smacking him playfully on his back (at least, Peter had thought it was meant to be playful, but in truth, the man nearly knocked him on his face) as he began to walk way. "The name's Claude Rains," he told him, "and if you ever need a good smack, don't hesitate to come find me."
-+-+-+-
Sylar frowned as he watched Mohinder sitting hunched over his workbench. The man hadn't slept at all last night and hadn't said anything since he had given Sylar the gun and asked him to put Audrey out of her misery. He knew right away that the marshal's death was at the center of Mohinder's mind. The geneticist might not have been the one to pull the trigger, but he had had a hand in the woman's death. Your first kill wasn't an easy thing to get over, and no doubt the guilt was eating away at him.
"I brought you some breakfast," he announced, placing an apple and a bottle of water in front of the other man.
Mohinder didn't even bother to look up at him or his offerings. Instead, he stayed focused on taking apart cell phones and studying whether or not their parts would be useful for boosting the transceiver.
The serial killer sighed as he sat down beside the Indian man. "You should eat something."
"I'm not hungry," he said, his tone flat and indifferent.
Sylar scooted closer to the other man allowing his thigh to lightly brush against Mohinder's side. "You didn't do anything wrong," he assured him. "I pulled the trigger, not you."
"But she asked me to do it," he whispered. "I was... I was too much of a coward to help her."
"Having respect for human life doesn't make you a coward." The words sounded so hollow and wrong coming from him, but he knew it was what Mohinder needed to hear. "If you were a coward, you wouldn't have gone to Sydney just to find me. You wouldn't have worked with Audrey for all these years, just to protect other people and do the right thing. You're very brave Mohinder, but you are not a killer."
Sylar watched sympathetically as tears started to appear in the other man's eyes. Mohinder bowed his head, shifting away from him and Sylar reflectively moved closer, determined to maintain their close proximity. He wanted Mohinder to know that he would be there for him, that he could offer the other man a shoulder to lean on or a sympathetic ear if he needed it.
"I'm going to tell Peter," Mohinder whispered, fighting back the tears stinging his eyes. "He... He's already suspicious of us. Maybe I can regain some trust if I come clean."
"Whatever you want," he assured him, placing a comforting hand on Mohinder's shoulder only to have it brushed away. "We're in this together."
Next Chapter