fic: Moments
Title: Moments
Characters/Pairings: Petrelli centric, Daniel Linderman, Arthur/Angela
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: If you've seen up to Volume 3, you're good
Summary: Life doesn't just flash by quickly in that very moment before your death. No, you relive the moments that had the biggest impact on you.
A/N: This fic is inspired by a conversation I had with di_elle and I did a lot of research using the GNs. So if you haven't read those, you get a taste of it in this fic! Thank you to dragynflies for being my beta and she doesn't even like Arthur!
Life doesn't just flash by quickly in that very moment before your death. No, you relive the moments that had the biggest impact on you. Peter fired that gun and time seemed to slow down and I could see the bullet inch slowly towards my head. I wasn't afraid of death. War had beaten that nonsense out of me years ago.
People say that being in a war changes a man. Those people probably didn't realize the magnitude of their quote. I knew that my life would be changed. I just didn't know how much of it would be.
November 1968
I came to his war, a little hardened by my experiences in boot camp, but utterly unprepared for what lay ahead of me. Vietnam. So many lives lost in that war, including three of the men in the mission with me. We never knew each other's real names, only the ones given to us by the government. Loredo, Amarillo, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. That's all we were. Just names. We had no dog tags, no personal belongings, nothing to identify us at all in case we were ever caught. This mission was exceedingly top secret.
Our mission in this hellhole? We were to search for a downed A4 Skyhawk. We set out on the Mekong River Delta, forever under the constant threat of death. And well, it wasn't long before death sought us out.
I should have died out there. Out of the group, I was shot first. Clean through my chest, my blood pouring out in copious amounts. Snipers got Loredo with a head shot, Amarillo and San Antonio took bullets to the chest. Austin, our medic, made it out alive and unhurt.
He saved my life. Healed me with just his touch. That wasn't natural. Nobody should be able to do something like that. Nobody.
Yet, Austin wouldn't be the only person I saw out there that could do strange things. After finding and torturing a Viet Cong, we finally stumbled onto the Skyhawk. No survivors and Austin couldn't heal the dead. My decision was quick, the two of us would carry out the mission those soldiers were supposed to have done.
Destroy Au Co.
We would avenge the deaths of our fellow soldiers and perhaps save many more lives by destroying this village. This village was no ordinary village. This one girl seemed to have the power to influence vegetation growth. Again, somebody doing something that shouldn't have been possible. Massive vegetables were everywhere on the land. This was no doubt the place that helped supply the Viet Cong. Take out this place and we could end the war. Return home as heroes.
You could really lose yourself in a war. Forget the person you were before you came to this place.
Austin and I had taken C4 we found in the Skyhawk, enough to blow up half the village. I knew the fires would take out the rest. Then the mission would be complete. We rigged up the C4 and they went off without a hitch. As we watched the village burn, that young girl with the growing power was running. A woman chased after her, calling her name. Au Co.
The mission the Skyhawk had was to destroy the girl, not the village.
In that moment of realization, my mind knew only one thing. I pictured my wife, Angela, and my boy, Nathan. Nathan who I only saw for a brief moment before I shipped out for duty. I had a letter, lost now to the Mekong, telling me of Nathan's first steps. If I didn't kill Au Co, I might never see Angela and Nathan again.
My finger tightened around the trigger and bullets flew. The little girl dropped to the ground, her blood staining the ground around her. Austin ran to go save her but I held him back. Reminded him that this was for the best. We were doing this to save the world.
Did we?
In my report, I left out nothing, which in hindsight was perhaps foolish. My report was negatively declared "fantastic" and Austin refused to corroborate with my report. Anger rose up like bile in me and I punched him square in the face.
Following my discharge, I came home a broken man. Everything I had worked so hard for in the military was lost. My life and consequently my family...seemed pointless.
1972
Civilian life just never felt the same after everything I witnessed back in Vietnam. But I couldn't tell anybody, they wouldn't have believed me. The war left me cold and dead inside. Returning to my life in New York as an attorney didn't hold the excitement that it should have. I was no longer living life, just merely surviving it.
Angela noticed and I could feel her trying to help me. But I couldn't even bring myself to tell her about Austin and his "ability" or even Au Co's. Maybe I should have though.
The doorbell rang one day. Turned out to be Austin, he was older, different, and seemed more weary of the world. He also appeared to have a change of heart, concerning his ability. We walked to nearby Central Park and he told me he thought about what I had said back in the war. It made him realize something and he came to me to make me an offer.
It was also then that we finally introduced ourselves. Austin became Daniel Linderman. To him, I was no longer Dallas. I was Arthur Petrelli. Though the decision about his offer was ultimately mine to make, I told him I could not make it without discussing it with Angela. Which meant, I'd have to tell her everything.
He understood and left me a card with a phone number.
Angela was waiting for me when I got home, calmly sitting in the living room with Nathan playing with his toy airplane on the floor in front of her.
"You should take Daniel up on his offer."
I looked at her sharply. She knew him? How? She saw the look in my eyes and with a somber sigh, she told me something about her past that she had neglected to tell me before.
Back in 1961, before I knew her, she and many others had been rounded up and taken to some government settlement named Coyote Sands. All because they had abilities. Abilities like Daniel's and apparently her own, precognition through dreaming. Angela had met Daniel at Coyote Sands and he had healed a scar of hers from an accident. She had escaped with Daniel and a few others but had to leave her sister behind. At the mention of her sister, her eyes looked downward and her voice shook.
I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her, kissing the top of her head. Told her we'd eventually find her sister. Something inside me was lit after hearing her story and in a way, Daniel's as well.
How many more people with abilities were out there? And did I have one of my own?
1979
Two years since the twelve of us founded The Company. Brought together by Adam Monroe, who has been alive long enough to see history continually repeat itself. Seemingly ordinary men and women gifted with abilities...we wanted to help our own kind. Find and protect them, doing what's necessary for the world.
I came into my own ability not long after Daniel had visited and made me an offer that I later accepted. Daniel founded his own group, Linderman Group, and he needed me as his criminal defense attorney. It was then that I ran into even more people with abilities and I wanted one desperately. I needed something that would break me of feeling that life was pointless.
This feeling of want overwhelmed me and I grabbed one of the specials in an act of desperation and as I held onto him, something happened. After I let go of him, my head was swimming with thoughts. I could hear what he was thinking. I had stolen his power. But in order to have done that, I had my own power first. Absorbing abilities.
Does power corrupt?
Maybe it does.
With the birth of my second son, Peter, all I could think about was that I hoped with the combination of Angela's genes and mine, he was born with a gift too. Petrellis were not meant to be ordinary. And yet, it was Nathan, who I knew was meant for big things, was the one born without a gift.
By the time Peter was born, Nathan was 12 and showed no signs of having manifested any ability. I couldn't stand to have a son that was destined to do great things to be...deficient. Luckily, a doctor at the Company had put together a formula that allowed for synthetic abilities to be given. Angela arranged for him to inject Nathan at the soonest available time.
1987
Both my sons were disappointments to me. Nathan hadn't been born with a gift and Peter, with genetic markers all perfectly ripe for an ability, was too weak willed. Never had this been more apparent than at a hunting trip.
I took my sons to a favorite hunting spot in Pinehearst, New Jersey. I handed Peter a rifle and there was a deer in his eyeline. Even after my urging, he couldn't do it and began to cry.
As I told Angela the day's events that night, she urged me to be patient with Peter. That when he manifests, he would become a great man. After having seen Peter cry when Nathan took a shot instead, I vehemently disagreed. Peter would never become great.
Was God punishing me for what I did to Au Co?
1990
Angela often accused me of favoring one son over the other. Perhaps, I did. Despite initial disappointment, I saw a great potential in Nathan and my every move was to mold him to achieve that greatness. Peter still seemed too weak willed for my tastes but Angela kept coddling the boy, assuring him that he would do something meaningful when he grew up.
But like any great man, he had his weaknesses. None so greater than the form of Meredith Gordon. He seemed besotted with her but I knew she wouldn't fit well with what I had planned for Nathan's future. The wrong side of the tracks, she and her brother. One thing they had going for them was that they had natural born abilities. The two of them could produce fire.
Even so, she was not the future First Lady type. I immediately advised Nathan against going any further with this woman but then news broke that she was pregnant with his child.
As much as I detested the news, there was a possibility that this child could be special. Born to parents with abilities? Even if one was synthetic, genetic markers were still there in the child. He or she could be great.
Even so, Angela and I pushed Nathan away from Meredith and quietly kept track of her and our grandchild. Even when Nathan thought his child had died in the fire, neither Angela or I told him the truth. His daughter survived and with her power, we'd have use for her later.
1998
Nathan may have been my choice as a successor but his grades at Annapolis were less than acceptable. His weakness for lithe blondes nearly put a dent in my plan. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to sway the dean. I got him to see my way rather quickly.
So my boy had graduated with honors and matriculated into law school. Again, a little help from me and he graduated with flying colors. I got him a job at the district attorney's office and I was able to keep an eye on him.
Angela and I had discussed a potential match for him and found one in Heidi. She may not have been special but she was a perfect aspiring politician's wife. It wouldn't have mattered if Nathan didn't like her at first glance, my telepathy could change that.
2006
I died that year. Well, in a legal sense. At the hands of my beloved wife and my closest ally, no less.
Years had passed by, time changing us all. Some people disdained us but those of us that founded the Company still believed in our original mission. Unfortunately, some crossed the line more than others and we had to detain and/or dispose them.
I'm not a perfect man nor have I ever been. In my eagerness to see Nathan rise to the top as well as help Daniel in his endeavors, I realized Angela had started to question my methods and ideals. I simply couldn't have a wife that wouldn't back me up. It wasn't hard to peer into her mind, erase her doubts, and she'd be none the wiser of what I did.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just Angela that was becoming trouble. Nathan was too. But my son was in for a surprise. A son could not go against his father and expect to win.
Was I sorry that Heidi was injured and paralyzed from the waist down? For a few fleeting moments. It's never easy to see beauty marred but this all was for a greater cause. Nathan needed to know his boundaries.
What I never expected was double dealings from Daniel. An attack of conscience perhaps and it lead to my being poisoned by Angela. As much as I despised what had happened, part of me greatly admired my wife's strength of character and will. I had married a great woman.
2007
One year later and my body finally restored to health, thanks to Adam's power. And yet, my life is about to end again. This time by a bullet fired by the very son I had gave up on so long ago.
Maybe Peter was one to watch afterall.
How did my life get here? My stint in the hospital, a prisoner in my own body, had given me ample time to think. A new company, one that could offer people greatness should they be willing to pay the right price for it. A world full of specials, something these times needed.
It wasn't hard to find and recruit people for my cause. I knew the ones that had gone wayward from Primatech, they were the easiest ones to persuade. Though perhaps my biggest accomplishment was convincing the very son I had ordered to death to join my side.
After all, Nathan knew the importance of synthetic abilities, since he had one himself. I knew he'd see it my way. An army of synthetic specials at one's disposal. It would secure his standing in history.
My biggest downfall was not taking the unexpected seriously. As with my "first" death, I never expected Daniel to have a change of heart and heal Angela's mind, leading her to poison my soup. And now, I never expected Peter to barrel into Pinehearst with a gun and the Haitian in tow. But there he was with his arm raised and that bullet cutting through air.
Sylar's sudden appearance afforded me a few more moments to relive the standout memories of my life. But even that had to come to an end. With the bullet no longer suspended, it hurdled through the air and struck my head.
And then I died again.
Or so you all think.
Characters/Pairings: Petrelli centric, Daniel Linderman, Arthur/Angela
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: If you've seen up to Volume 3, you're good
Summary: Life doesn't just flash by quickly in that very moment before your death. No, you relive the moments that had the biggest impact on you.
A/N: This fic is inspired by a conversation I had with di_elle and I did a lot of research using the GNs. So if you haven't read those, you get a taste of it in this fic! Thank you to dragynflies for being my beta and she doesn't even like Arthur!
Life doesn't just flash by quickly in that very moment before your death. No, you relive the moments that had the biggest impact on you. Peter fired that gun and time seemed to slow down and I could see the bullet inch slowly towards my head. I wasn't afraid of death. War had beaten that nonsense out of me years ago.
People say that being in a war changes a man. Those people probably didn't realize the magnitude of their quote. I knew that my life would be changed. I just didn't know how much of it would be.
November 1968
I came to his war, a little hardened by my experiences in boot camp, but utterly unprepared for what lay ahead of me. Vietnam. So many lives lost in that war, including three of the men in the mission with me. We never knew each other's real names, only the ones given to us by the government. Loredo, Amarillo, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas. That's all we were. Just names. We had no dog tags, no personal belongings, nothing to identify us at all in case we were ever caught. This mission was exceedingly top secret.
Our mission in this hellhole? We were to search for a downed A4 Skyhawk. We set out on the Mekong River Delta, forever under the constant threat of death. And well, it wasn't long before death sought us out.
I should have died out there. Out of the group, I was shot first. Clean through my chest, my blood pouring out in copious amounts. Snipers got Loredo with a head shot, Amarillo and San Antonio took bullets to the chest. Austin, our medic, made it out alive and unhurt.
He saved my life. Healed me with just his touch. That wasn't natural. Nobody should be able to do something like that. Nobody.
Yet, Austin wouldn't be the only person I saw out there that could do strange things. After finding and torturing a Viet Cong, we finally stumbled onto the Skyhawk. No survivors and Austin couldn't heal the dead. My decision was quick, the two of us would carry out the mission those soldiers were supposed to have done.
Destroy Au Co.
We would avenge the deaths of our fellow soldiers and perhaps save many more lives by destroying this village. This village was no ordinary village. This one girl seemed to have the power to influence vegetation growth. Again, somebody doing something that shouldn't have been possible. Massive vegetables were everywhere on the land. This was no doubt the place that helped supply the Viet Cong. Take out this place and we could end the war. Return home as heroes.
You could really lose yourself in a war. Forget the person you were before you came to this place.
Austin and I had taken C4 we found in the Skyhawk, enough to blow up half the village. I knew the fires would take out the rest. Then the mission would be complete. We rigged up the C4 and they went off without a hitch. As we watched the village burn, that young girl with the growing power was running. A woman chased after her, calling her name. Au Co.
The mission the Skyhawk had was to destroy the girl, not the village.
In that moment of realization, my mind knew only one thing. I pictured my wife, Angela, and my boy, Nathan. Nathan who I only saw for a brief moment before I shipped out for duty. I had a letter, lost now to the Mekong, telling me of Nathan's first steps. If I didn't kill Au Co, I might never see Angela and Nathan again.
My finger tightened around the trigger and bullets flew. The little girl dropped to the ground, her blood staining the ground around her. Austin ran to go save her but I held him back. Reminded him that this was for the best. We were doing this to save the world.
Did we?
In my report, I left out nothing, which in hindsight was perhaps foolish. My report was negatively declared "fantastic" and Austin refused to corroborate with my report. Anger rose up like bile in me and I punched him square in the face.
Following my discharge, I came home a broken man. Everything I had worked so hard for in the military was lost. My life and consequently my family...seemed pointless.
1972
Civilian life just never felt the same after everything I witnessed back in Vietnam. But I couldn't tell anybody, they wouldn't have believed me. The war left me cold and dead inside. Returning to my life in New York as an attorney didn't hold the excitement that it should have. I was no longer living life, just merely surviving it.
Angela noticed and I could feel her trying to help me. But I couldn't even bring myself to tell her about Austin and his "ability" or even Au Co's. Maybe I should have though.
The doorbell rang one day. Turned out to be Austin, he was older, different, and seemed more weary of the world. He also appeared to have a change of heart, concerning his ability. We walked to nearby Central Park and he told me he thought about what I had said back in the war. It made him realize something and he came to me to make me an offer.
It was also then that we finally introduced ourselves. Austin became Daniel Linderman. To him, I was no longer Dallas. I was Arthur Petrelli. Though the decision about his offer was ultimately mine to make, I told him I could not make it without discussing it with Angela. Which meant, I'd have to tell her everything.
He understood and left me a card with a phone number.
Angela was waiting for me when I got home, calmly sitting in the living room with Nathan playing with his toy airplane on the floor in front of her.
"You should take Daniel up on his offer."
I looked at her sharply. She knew him? How? She saw the look in my eyes and with a somber sigh, she told me something about her past that she had neglected to tell me before.
Back in 1961, before I knew her, she and many others had been rounded up and taken to some government settlement named Coyote Sands. All because they had abilities. Abilities like Daniel's and apparently her own, precognition through dreaming. Angela had met Daniel at Coyote Sands and he had healed a scar of hers from an accident. She had escaped with Daniel and a few others but had to leave her sister behind. At the mention of her sister, her eyes looked downward and her voice shook.
I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her, kissing the top of her head. Told her we'd eventually find her sister. Something inside me was lit after hearing her story and in a way, Daniel's as well.
How many more people with abilities were out there? And did I have one of my own?
1979
Two years since the twelve of us founded The Company. Brought together by Adam Monroe, who has been alive long enough to see history continually repeat itself. Seemingly ordinary men and women gifted with abilities...we wanted to help our own kind. Find and protect them, doing what's necessary for the world.
I came into my own ability not long after Daniel had visited and made me an offer that I later accepted. Daniel founded his own group, Linderman Group, and he needed me as his criminal defense attorney. It was then that I ran into even more people with abilities and I wanted one desperately. I needed something that would break me of feeling that life was pointless.
This feeling of want overwhelmed me and I grabbed one of the specials in an act of desperation and as I held onto him, something happened. After I let go of him, my head was swimming with thoughts. I could hear what he was thinking. I had stolen his power. But in order to have done that, I had my own power first. Absorbing abilities.
Does power corrupt?
Maybe it does.
With the birth of my second son, Peter, all I could think about was that I hoped with the combination of Angela's genes and mine, he was born with a gift too. Petrellis were not meant to be ordinary. And yet, it was Nathan, who I knew was meant for big things, was the one born without a gift.
By the time Peter was born, Nathan was 12 and showed no signs of having manifested any ability. I couldn't stand to have a son that was destined to do great things to be...deficient. Luckily, a doctor at the Company had put together a formula that allowed for synthetic abilities to be given. Angela arranged for him to inject Nathan at the soonest available time.
1987
Both my sons were disappointments to me. Nathan hadn't been born with a gift and Peter, with genetic markers all perfectly ripe for an ability, was too weak willed. Never had this been more apparent than at a hunting trip.
I took my sons to a favorite hunting spot in Pinehearst, New Jersey. I handed Peter a rifle and there was a deer in his eyeline. Even after my urging, he couldn't do it and began to cry.
As I told Angela the day's events that night, she urged me to be patient with Peter. That when he manifests, he would become a great man. After having seen Peter cry when Nathan took a shot instead, I vehemently disagreed. Peter would never become great.
Was God punishing me for what I did to Au Co?
1990
Angela often accused me of favoring one son over the other. Perhaps, I did. Despite initial disappointment, I saw a great potential in Nathan and my every move was to mold him to achieve that greatness. Peter still seemed too weak willed for my tastes but Angela kept coddling the boy, assuring him that he would do something meaningful when he grew up.
But like any great man, he had his weaknesses. None so greater than the form of Meredith Gordon. He seemed besotted with her but I knew she wouldn't fit well with what I had planned for Nathan's future. The wrong side of the tracks, she and her brother. One thing they had going for them was that they had natural born abilities. The two of them could produce fire.
Even so, she was not the future First Lady type. I immediately advised Nathan against going any further with this woman but then news broke that she was pregnant with his child.
As much as I detested the news, there was a possibility that this child could be special. Born to parents with abilities? Even if one was synthetic, genetic markers were still there in the child. He or she could be great.
Even so, Angela and I pushed Nathan away from Meredith and quietly kept track of her and our grandchild. Even when Nathan thought his child had died in the fire, neither Angela or I told him the truth. His daughter survived and with her power, we'd have use for her later.
1998
Nathan may have been my choice as a successor but his grades at Annapolis were less than acceptable. His weakness for lithe blondes nearly put a dent in my plan. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to sway the dean. I got him to see my way rather quickly.
So my boy had graduated with honors and matriculated into law school. Again, a little help from me and he graduated with flying colors. I got him a job at the district attorney's office and I was able to keep an eye on him.
Angela and I had discussed a potential match for him and found one in Heidi. She may not have been special but she was a perfect aspiring politician's wife. It wouldn't have mattered if Nathan didn't like her at first glance, my telepathy could change that.
2006
I died that year. Well, in a legal sense. At the hands of my beloved wife and my closest ally, no less.
Years had passed by, time changing us all. Some people disdained us but those of us that founded the Company still believed in our original mission. Unfortunately, some crossed the line more than others and we had to detain and/or dispose them.
I'm not a perfect man nor have I ever been. In my eagerness to see Nathan rise to the top as well as help Daniel in his endeavors, I realized Angela had started to question my methods and ideals. I simply couldn't have a wife that wouldn't back me up. It wasn't hard to peer into her mind, erase her doubts, and she'd be none the wiser of what I did.
Unfortunately, it wasn't just Angela that was becoming trouble. Nathan was too. But my son was in for a surprise. A son could not go against his father and expect to win.
Was I sorry that Heidi was injured and paralyzed from the waist down? For a few fleeting moments. It's never easy to see beauty marred but this all was for a greater cause. Nathan needed to know his boundaries.
What I never expected was double dealings from Daniel. An attack of conscience perhaps and it lead to my being poisoned by Angela. As much as I despised what had happened, part of me greatly admired my wife's strength of character and will. I had married a great woman.
2007
One year later and my body finally restored to health, thanks to Adam's power. And yet, my life is about to end again. This time by a bullet fired by the very son I had gave up on so long ago.
Maybe Peter was one to watch afterall.
How did my life get here? My stint in the hospital, a prisoner in my own body, had given me ample time to think. A new company, one that could offer people greatness should they be willing to pay the right price for it. A world full of specials, something these times needed.
It wasn't hard to find and recruit people for my cause. I knew the ones that had gone wayward from Primatech, they were the easiest ones to persuade. Though perhaps my biggest accomplishment was convincing the very son I had ordered to death to join my side.
After all, Nathan knew the importance of synthetic abilities, since he had one himself. I knew he'd see it my way. An army of synthetic specials at one's disposal. It would secure his standing in history.
My biggest downfall was not taking the unexpected seriously. As with my "first" death, I never expected Daniel to have a change of heart and heal Angela's mind, leading her to poison my soup. And now, I never expected Peter to barrel into Pinehearst with a gun and the Haitian in tow. But there he was with his arm raised and that bullet cutting through air.
Sylar's sudden appearance afforded me a few more moments to relive the standout memories of my life. But even that had to come to an end. With the bullet no longer suspended, it hurdled through the air and struck my head.
And then I died again.
Or so you all think.