[fanfic] 30 First Kisses - Kiss #11
Title: 30 First Kisses - Kiss #11
Author: tiptoe39
Rated: PG-13 for one innuendo that anyone under 13 probably won't get anyway.
Summary: Four months ago... (Posted just before "Four Months Ago" so I can pretend it's canon for two whole hours.)
This is the 11th of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for 30_kisses. The prompt/theme was "gardenia" (kuchinashi no hana). Previous kisses are here.
Hurts...
Hurts a lot. Don't want to be awake.
Hurts less now. I could open my eyes--
Busy place. Doctors. Doctors?
"Hello?"
"It's over. You're all done."
"What? Where am I?"
"You're in post-op. You're going to be fine."
"Fine?" Oh, that's right, I was shot.
I was shot. I was SHOT!
"Settle down, Officer. Settle down."
"Right, sorry."
Voices in my head. Crowded here.
No, I wasn't shot. I shot. But then Sylar.
SYLAR! Oh, shit!
"Officer Parkman, please calm down. You're going to be fine."
"I am?"
"Your friend took your daughter home for the night. We're going to take you up to your room pretty soon. You'll see them both in the morning."
My daughter? Who...?
Friend? Bennet? Ted?
What about Janice--
Maybe I'll just relax...
Different smell. Kind of hurting a little more now. Sunlight behind my eyelids.
It's bright. How long have I had my eyes closed?
This is kind of a nice room. It has a nice smell... it's those flowers. They smell incredible. God, look at how clean and white they are. Like hospital sheets. Who would have sent me such gorgeous flowers? Janice? Is she even bothering with me? Does she even know?
It must be her. I don't know anyone else...
There are footsteps in the hall, a child's footsteps. Fast. A child is running. I wonder, if I strain a bit to the side, if I can see him--
Ouch. No, that was a mistake.
But those footsteps are entering my room...! There's a small hand on my hand!
"Officer Parkman, you're awake!"
Molly.
I'm looking into the face of an eight-year-old girl who's crying herself sick with relief, tears in her hair and on her freckles, and she's clutching my hand like a lifetline, sniffling and whimpering. Her little lip is quivering. "You're awake, you're gonna be OK, you're gonna be OK!"
And then I wonder if those bullets punctured straight through me, because right now my heart is so full of air and light that I think I am going to go up out of my hospital bed like a balloon and just float through the ceiling.
This is the moment I fall absolutely and irrevocably in love with Molly Walker.
And then I notice who's behind her.
At first I think it's a woman. There are beautiful, delicate curls of hair and full lips and glittering eyes. And is that skin what they call olive? It looks like marble. Or something. It's a beautiful color.
But no, there's the faintest trace of stubble on the face, and the lines of the body are straight and strong. It's a man. An uncommonly beautiful man.
I know him. I've seen him before. He's the doctor who was with Molly at that place. Where I was just before I--
My chest hurts all of a sudden. I withdraw my hand and clasp at where the pain is.
"Are you all right? Are you all right?" Molly is shouting as though I'm not right there.
I fight down the pain and smile at her. "Hello, pumpkin," I whisper, though getting the breath to speak is a chore. "Nice to see you."
She starts wibbling again. The man behind her, the uncommonly beautiful man-- is that how I am going to think of him from now on?-- smiles. He has a hell of a smile. I feel kind of melty. Then again, that could be the drugs. Things are swimming a little bit right now.
"She's been waiting to see you all morning," he said. His voice is like British royalty. Like he stepped out of one of these art flicks Janice likes to watch. Where is Janice, anyway? Hasn't anyone told her where I am? I could really use a visit from her.
"Call my wife," I whisper.
"I think they have already." No, honestly, I don't think I've ever heard that accent outside of a video. I wasn't even that sure that real people talked like that. I thought maybe it was made up for the movies. "I can call the police officer who is on duty downstairs. I think he might know."
"No, wait." It's Molly who stops him as he turns to the door. "Don't go yet. He just woke up. He'll get lonely."
"Then you can stay with him, sweetheart." The man pats her head tenderly. I feel a little jealous. He's touching the girl I'm currently madly in love with. Worse, she's giving HIM the huge puppy dog eyes. If I could move, I might come to blows with this guy. A duel to the death for the affections of a third-grader.
"No, it's all right," I say instead. "Stick around."
Molly yays like this is the best thing she's ever heard. I chuckle and immediately regret it. Ow.
"Did you see the flowers? Aren't they pretty? Doctor Suresh says they're gardenias. I picked them out." She runs to the other side of the bed and grabs the vase to show me. The man starts after her, afraid she's going to spill them onto the floor, but her grasp is sure.
"They're beautiful, thank you," I croak, but all I can feel is disappointed that they're not from Janice.
She does arrive, later that evening. She comes running into the room still carrying her suitcase. I'm half asleep. "Oh my God, Matt, thank God," she fusses, ruffling my hair, kissing my forehead. I murmur. I'm pleased she's here. It's a familiar voice, familiar thoughts in my head. I know I'm half-addled with drugs, and that helps, too. It all sounds like dim music. Her face is blurry, but it's familiar. The dullness of her presence is soothing against the sharp bright whiteness of the gardenias. They never seem to go out of focus, even when my eyes are closed.
In the morning, I wake up a little more, and we talk. She's mad at me for going off on some secret mission. "I'm sorry," I keep saying, but I'm not sorry. I felt I had to do this. For my marriage, our child, our safety. I had to.
(Of course, in the end, I didn't. In the end, I protected Molly. What else could I do?)
The doctors tell me it'll be about six weeks until I'm able to go home. They have to keep X-raying me and CAT scanning me and checking to make sure my organs are all working right, and it's a good thing I am a policeman because it's gonna cost my insurance a lot. Janice seems more annoyed at all this than anything. She says to me, "Of course I'll stay as long as I can. I may have to do some work from here, though. I was just barely sliding onto the partnership track..." She rolls her eyes. How inconsiderate of me to go and get shot when she was going to make partner in four years. God knows how the inconvenience of maternity leave will affect her.
And yet, when I say, "You can go, I'll be all right," she's annoyed that I don't need her more. I can't win.
Molly comes by that afternoon with her favorite doctor in tow. Janice looks surprised-- and kind of horrified-- to see a strange man and girl in her husband's hospital room, bringing fresh flowers, no less. But Molly is polite and tells her, with sparkling eyes: "You're Officer Parkman's wife? He saved my life, you know." She's about to elaborate on just how many times when Dr. Suresh sees the look of panic on my face and grabs her outstretched hand before the three fingers can pop up. Molly gets the hint and ends with a charming "He's my hero."
Janice smiles sweetly. "Yes, he's my hero, too." She's lying, but what are you gonna do. It's cute, even though it's obvious they're sizing each other up.
The doctor and I share a glance. Apparently he finds it as disturbingly cute as I do. I think I like him. (He's taking care of Molly, so I damn well better.)
When I wake up one morning, Dr. Suresh is replacing the gardenias in the vase with another fresh bouquet. I watch his hands as they arrange the stems. He's very methodical. It's not until he sees me looking and smiles briefly before returning to the arranging that I realize Janice never brought me any flowers.
She's calling clients from the hospital room. Things about depositions and stipulations. It's sort of ironic. She keeps letting little annoyed thoughts slip about not wanting to be here, but she's mortally wounded if I should give her the idea that it's OK to go. She's a little disturbed by the frequency with which Molly comes to see me. "Doesn't she have school?" she whispers. Then, one day, she thinks, And I know that Indian guy isn't her father. Where are her parents?!
I snap: "Her parents are dead. They were murdered. By the same guy responsible for what happened to me. 'That Indian guy' is all she's got right now, so leave her alone."
Janice stares at me in shock. "Stop reading my mind!" she demands. As though I can help it. I'm having enough trouble controlling my bladder these days, much less my brain.
Still, she goes on with What kind of parents wouldn't have some sort of plan for who would take care of her, an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent or something? I think about trying to explain to her that Molly's not just a girl but a highly prized human tracking system who's being hunted down by crazed killers and evil corporations, but it's a little over her head.
That's probably the issue. I've stumbled into a world that's over her head, and I can't ever go back to where I was before.
We can never go back.
It's a week and a half of this before the truth comes out. And I think she thinks I'm sleeping, or she might never have let it slip. But I'm not, and she does.
Have to wait till he's out of here to serve the papers-- pain in the ass-- looks too heartless if I divorce him while he's in the hospital. Awful timing. Held hostage by a marriage that's already over...
I keep pretending to sleep. I tell myself it's on purpose, but really, I'm just so horrified I can't move.
I wait until the next day. When she doesn't have any more clients to call and we're sitting there alone and silent for an hour and a half.
"You should go back to California," I say.
She looks at me with all the usual mock outrage. "What?"
"You have to keep your eye on your health," I say. "You know, the sonograms and all that."
"Oh." She shifts and looks away, and I can't divine her thoughts. "Yes, but--"
"Besides," I say, "we're through anyhow, aren't we?"
She stares at me, and I see the tears prickle in her eyes. I haven't got the strength to cry.
She comes over to the bed, holds my hand, all of a sudden the soul of compassion. "You know something, Matt?" she says sadly. "I really thought you were something when we met. Here I was, this kid just out of high school, and you were in the police academy, for Christ's sake. Every girl's dream, right? A man in uniform." She laughs bitterly. "And I was so screwed up, but you'd been there and gotten out, and I thought you were a godsend. Add to that how much our mothers were shocked we'd dare marry outside our religions, and you were a teenage rebel's perfect match.
"But then I started getting my own life together, and I went back to school and got my law degree, and all of a sudden you weren't interested. It was like you wanted a stray cat to take care of, not a wife, and you were disappointed that I passed by you."
She's thought about this. She's thought about it a lot. The one thing she's missing is the reason I was so disappointed-- the reason I wanted her to begin with. Now that I think about it, I'm very ashamed of it. She deserves better than someone who hates himself so much--hates his inability to read correctly, to move ahead in life, even to be attracted to the right people--that he marries the first woman he finds who's having a shittier time than he is. "I don't know, Jan. I haven't been a very good husband. I could never quite figure out what you needed, you know? And then, all of a sudden, I could hear everything you wanted... and it didn't help."
She nods, biting her lip. The urge to comfort her is strong. "Look," I say. "This doesn't change anything as far as the baby is concerned. I'll still be there for our kid, no matter what--"
Then the other shoe drops. And it's not even that I hear the words-- I just know. With the same ironclad certainty that she does.
"Oh, my God."
"I kept waiting for the right time to tell you." Her tears are flowing now. My eyes are wet, too, and my wounds are aching. It's getting hard to breathe.
"Oh, God." It's all I can say. I'm dying of grief. Grief and pain.
How did it come to this?
Over the next two weeks, we work out the details. We've kept our bank accounts separate, so the money isn't much of an issue. The one thing she's taken from me that I want back was never really mine to begin with, so what's the use of the rest of it, anyway?
My spots of light during these weeks are Molly's visits. She's been enrolled in school in for the second half of the year, she says. This is great, because she's been out of school since her parents' death and her subsequent illness. I doubt the Company cared much for her education. As long as her ability was intact, that's all they needed to invest in.
Every time she comes, she brings a new bouquet. Always the same kind of flowers. Sometimes Dr. Suresh comes by alone. "Molly would have my hide if I didn't at least keep them fresh," he says with a dazzling smile. His teeth are impeccable. What a thing for me to notice. Teeth.
He's not anxious to talk without Molly present, but in the days after Janice leaves I'm lonely and need someone. I ask him what kind of medicine he practices, and he laughs and says he's not that kind of doctor. Turns out that while he has a medical degree, his primary focus is genetic research, and Molly is his only real patient. "So you're studying her?" I ask, kind of accusingly. I don't like the idea of her being victim, patient, and then, to top it all off, guinea pig.
"To an extent, yes," he says. "I did a lot of work on her in the few weeks following her recovery, mostly to track the efficacy of the vaccine. But my interest is in finding others like her, helping them understand what's happening to them. This was the work my father pursued until his death, and I'm doing my best to carry on his research."
"And what is happening to them?"
"It varies by person," he says. His face is animated. "In many cases, it's an ability to generate a physical phenomenon or manipulate matter; in others, it's an unexplained capacity for aggregating and processing information. That's the case with Molly."
"And with me," I muse. His eyebrows go up, but he says nothing, not yet. I hear him think, I would have thought it'd be physical, what with his occupation, but I suppose there's no predicting. I don't let him know I can hear his surprise.
Here's the thing: I'm laid up. And when TV is no good, I amuse myself with hearing the thoughts of the people around me. It's a guilty pleasure. Most of the nurses think I'm a fairly nice guy, so there's not a lot of excitement there. But sometimes they are thinking about something at home, or something they've seen at work, and it's a little like watching reality TV. I was particularly amused early on to hear one nurse, upon seeing Janice go by, think, Frigid bitch. You don't begin to deserve him. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm amused.
So that's my rationale for not telling him what I can do. Besides, what difference would it make? He's just some doctor who brings Molly by; I'll probably never see him again after I leave here. That makes me feel kind of sad, though: It means that someday I will be waking up and there will be no gardenias there to greet me.
When the divorce is finalized, it's nearly Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in a hospital sucks. There's no two ways about it. Not that I've really ever had a strong tradition to compare it with. Smoked turkey with Mom and her spinster sister, that's my best memory from childhood. I'm kind of depressed that day, though, sort of lost in myself, and I'm actually surprised when Dr. Suresh comes by with an enthusiastic Molly. He's carrying another bright white bouquet under his arm, and more importantly, his hands are clutching two swollen brown paper bags, both of which are moist from heat and giving off an amazing smell.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Officer Parkman!" Molly comes over to the bed, climbs up on the chair, and plants a kiss on my cheek. My heart goes soaring, right through the window and down the street along with the giant Macy's parade balloons. All of a sudden this is my favorite holiday of the year.
We eat turkey and stuffing and talk. Molly has stopped calling Dr. Suresh by his last name and is now using his first name, Mohinder. It's an interesting name. I don't think I've known anybody of Indian descent very well, so I've definitely never heard it before. It could just be the Indian John Smith, for all I know. But when Molly says it, it sounds like some delicious nonsense from a fairy tale. Jabberwocky, Kumbaya, Rumplestiltskin, and Mohinder.
It's estimated that I'll be able to go home in a week. I've recovered fairly quickly. The nurses whisper that it's probably thanks to Molly's devotion. (They also are under the impression that I've left my wife for another man-- a certain other man. Which cracks me up, because I'm fairly sure Dr. Suresh is only here under duress. An eight-year-old duress, a duress in a dress, even.)
Between bites of biscuits, he asks, "Do you have plans for your discharge?" I shake my head. I figure I'll have to fly out to California, clear my stuff out of the house, look for an apartment somewhere, and start all over again. When I mention returning to the West Coast, however, Molly gets up. Her little shoulders are shaking with anger.
"You can't go away!" she cries. "You've got to stay and protect me. You can stay with us! We have room!"
A little taken aback, I laugh shakily. "That's very nice of you, pumpkin, but I'm sure Doctor Suresh has got..."
"No," he blurts out. "You're absolutely welcome. We'd love to have you." I can hear his mind racing. What on earth have I just said? I must have gone mad.
"Mohinder!" She's all puppy dog eyes and big smiles again.
"It's fine," I protest.
For whatever reason, he's gone manic. His words and thoughts are all jumbled up, but I think I'm hearing what he's saying out loud. "The truth is, I've been meaning to do some traveling. I've been invited to speak several places about my research, but I haven't been able to leave her. If you were, for instance, available to take care of her, that might free me up, so it would be very helpful." Inexplicably, he thinks, It might even be better if I were to stay away. I don't know what that's about.
"You absolutely have to," Molly emphasizes, nodding her head as if she is the Great and Powerful Oz. She has absolutely owned my heart from the day she came in here, and now is no exception. Besides, where else do I have to go? I might not yet be well enough to travel, and it would suck to go straight from a hospital to a crappy hotel.
"I don't really have a place to stay in the short term," I mutter.
"Then it's decided." Dr. Suresh smiles. "I'll move my work into the living room and get a new bedframe for that room. Aren't you glad, sweetheart?" He puts both his hands on Molly's shoulders and smiles down at her. She tilts her chin up to beam back.
"Are you sure?" I crack. "I hear I snore."
"Oh, great." Molly rolls her eyes. "He can sleep through anything, but I might need some earplugs." I grin at her, but I'm distracted by the thought that runs through Doctor Suresh's mind, and I gawk at him a little. Did he just think something about temptation under his roof? Because if that's the case, he and I might have something else in common.
Molly clasps her little hands as if about to pray. "This is the best Thanksgiving ever. Dear God, I am thankful for being alive, and having good food to eat, and mostly I am thankful for you bringing me two new heroes who are going to be my new parents."
Doctor Suresh and I start in unison. He finds his tongue quicker than I can. "Molly, darling, you know we can't be your parents. We never can." He strokes her hair, and I'm sort of hypnotized by the motion. It's the same gentle motion of his hands that I see when he's arranging the gardenias. Deft, but at the same time loving. I feel like I could stare at them all day.
I'm a little worried about this. Granted, times are different than they were when I was a kid, but I'd already convinced myself that I was not going in this direction. Shit like this could happen to other people, but it wasn't going to happen to me. I was not going to be one of that ten percent. I'd already decided that. But here I am, fifteen years later, and I've tried marriage and it hasn't worked, and am I really so lonely that I'm ready to go back to that? It's not worth thinking about.
Besides, Molly has more to say. "I know you're not my real parents," she says. "But I think they'd like this. I think they like it when I'm with both of you. Because I know they're watching, and I know that when I'm here I sort of feel like I did when I was with them." Her eyes are getting a little misty, and I want to get out of bed and hug her tight. I can't move that fast quite yet, though. What's more, she's now come over to me and has taken both my hands. "So promise me you'll come stay with us, Officer Parkman. OK?"
God, she's such a treasure. "If I'm going to live with you," I tell her, "you'd better learn to call me Matt."
"Matt!" She's grinning and crying all at once and leaps onto my lap, and I'm very thankful that I didn't get shot in my legs because she is a big girl. I oof a little when she squeezes me and she backs off. "Sorry."
"It's OK." I kiss her forehead. Now that the shock is worn off, I think this might be a dream come true.
"And now you have to call him Mohinder too!" she says, suddenly. "Because now we're going to be a family."
I balk, but he walks over to the bed, completing the trio. "Welcome to the family, Matt," he says, holding out his hand.
I shake it firmly. "Pleasure to be here, Mohinder," I grin. The name sounds even more fantastical when I say it.
Molly's in a food coma, and we're flipping channels during halftime when something occurs to me that is long overdue. "Doctor S... I mean, Mohinder," I say. "There's something I need to tell you. Something you ought to know before I officially move in."
He turns to me, puzzled. He thinks so fast it's hard to keep track of it all. "Of course. What is it?"
"It's... what I can do." I look at the ground, the walls, anywhere but those huge dark eyes. The breath seems jagged going in and the words sound just as shaky coming out. "Since I'm invading your physical space, I think you ought to know that, well, your mental space may not be so safe."
"Meaning what, exactly?" Concern flickers across his face. I can see it out of the corner of my eye even while avoiding looking directly at him.
"Meaning I can read your mind. Not just yours. I can read minds, in general. And sometimes I do without meaning to. So I just want to say I'm sorry in advance for invading your privacy. I'll try not to."
He sits in silence for a moment. I try to avoid looking into his head, filling my brain with the police trivia I've been studying in the hopes that I can get back to work soon after I'm discharged. But after a moment of staring, he bursts out, "Fascinating!"
A cartoon scientist's word. I laugh. "I'm, uh, glad you think so. I think."
So can you hear this?
"Yeah, yeah, I can." How did I know he was going to do that?
And from his mind, just as exuberant as he'd said it aloud: Fascinating! "This is actually quite good luck, you know," he says, leaning toward me. "Molly's started to have some nightmares. I'm unsure why, but they're increasing in severity and she won't talk to me about them."
"Say no more," I answer. "I'll see what I can figure out."
He looks relieved. "I am glad you're coming to stay with us," he says. It's such a forthright emotion that I don't even know how to respond. He's completely sincere. I don't think I've known anybody that honest my whole life. It's a little hard to take, actually.
Unsure why, I blurt out: "Also? Um. I can't read too well."
He stops. "Oh. Well. I read far too much, so perhaps we're even." It's about the best response I've ever gotten from anyone I've confessed that to. I feel a sort of wave of warmth rush over me. Then Molly murmurs in her sleep, and I am giddy with happiness. This couldn't get any better.
And then it does. His thoughts have started to spin in circles. Hope he can't read everything... must get away from here soon. Perhaps to Milan, or Cairo... Too much temptation... And if that weren't enough, the kicker comes through clean and clear. He is such a good man, and I haven't felt this way about anyone in ages, but I mustn't scare him.
And it's his certainty, his lack of fear of it, that gives me a little courage. And as we sit there in silence, watching TV, I gaze at him and gaze at myself in my mind's eye until I know without a shadow of a doubt, that it is time to stop running from it, it is time to come home and be who I am, and damn the consequences. Because I can see something just beyond the horizon that threatens to make sense of my whole life. When was the last time my life made sense?
Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday of the year.
In my dream, Molly is running through a field of gardenias and Mohinder and I are on a picnic blanket watching her. Her dress is as clean and white as the flowers and she is laughing, and so are we, and I kiss those dark fingers that reach toward my face, and then the dream is completely different and we are on a black bed dotted with white petals and then I wake up with wet hospital sheets and a big throbbing hummingbird in my throat and thoughts in my head that I have successfully kept down since high school and even with all that a sort of peaceful feeling, like the que sera sera song, that things are moving in a good direction. Even with the door open only a crack, the gardenias catch the scant light like reflectors on a highway and wink at me. They know.
They're roses for a change when Molly hands them to me as they wheel me downstairs and load me into the taxi. They're burnished pink and nearly orange, and they're beautiful but unfamiliar. I am starting to be nervous. My stuff is on its way, and I've gotten a letter of recommendation from my ex-boss to present to the NYPD. But so much is in transition right now that I'm unsure what's going to happen.
In the taxi Molly chatters happily about getting ready for Christmas, and Mohinder looks vaguely uncomfortable. "I don't know a thing about these traditions," he says, "so I'm really going to need your help."
I wrinkle my brow. "We're going to have to figure out how to let her know I'm Jewish," I whisper. He stares for a moment and then bursts out laughing. Molly looks at us as though we've lost our minds.
The apartment is the top floor of a four-floor walkup. It looks like I'll be shedding those hospital-food pounds out of sheer necessity. Mohinder helps me upstairs, slinging my arm around his shoulder, and I remember the dream and blush. He seems oblivious, though, and Molly is just excited. When we get to the door, Molly says I should close my eyes. When I open them, I'm treated to a round table decked out with a chocolate cake and "Welcome Home" in blue frosting. There's confetti and a shiny tablecloth and party hats that don't match, and I can see the subtle decorating hand of an eight-year-old who's been given free rein in a party store. The rest of the apartment seems nice, although the wood is unvarnished and the bookshelves are dusty. It's definitely a place a guy could hang his hat. Best of all, and I don't even know why I like this, the roof slopes down in the alcove where Molly's bed is. I feel like I'm about to be living in somebody's grandmother's attic, and that makes me happy.
We eat cake and laugh. Molly goes to watch TV. Mohinder picks up my small overnight bag, everything I brought with me when I got to this city, and motions to me that we should go down the hall. I realize I haven't yet seen where I'll be sleeping. I'm sure it'll be small. He did say it was his study, and the desk that I saw in the living room wasn't all that big.
I follow him to the doorway. At this part of the hall, I can flatten my palm against the ceiling by stretching my hand up. But the door is at least big enough to fit through, and Mohinder pops my suitcase inside and then brushes his hands together briskly as though clearing them of dust. "I hope it'll do," he says. I peek past the door, which opens outward, counterintuitively enough, so I have to back up before I can enter. I see his face flickering with nerves, and I hear him thinking, Please let this be OK. I wonder what he's so worried about. He's the one extending charity to me, here. Beggars can't be choosers.
The room is small, but it's tidy and white. The sheets on the bed are new, and there's a small window to let air and light in. There are shelves that look newly braced to the walls, and an old set of dresser drawers. A small rug sits at the foot of the bed.
And on the nightstand there is a vase full of beautiful, ivory gardenias.
"Welcome home," he says quietly.
This is the moment I fall absolutely, irrevocably in love with Mohinder Suresh.
I go over to hug him and end up kissing him instead.
:end:
Au's note: Please remember that each of these kisses is in a different world/continuity. In this one, I decided Matt had been in the closet all his life. I often see fics where Mohinder is out but Matt has to be persuaded, and I thought I'd take a different tack, just to see where it went. Next one will probably be different.
Author: tiptoe39
Rated: PG-13 for one innuendo that anyone under 13 probably won't get anyway.
Summary: Four months ago... (Posted just before "Four Months Ago" so I can pretend it's canon for two whole hours.)
This is the 11th of 30 possible ways Matt and Mohinder could share their first kiss, written for 30_kisses. The prompt/theme was "gardenia" (kuchinashi no hana). Previous kisses are here.
Hurts...
Hurts a lot. Don't want to be awake.
Hurts less now. I could open my eyes--
Busy place. Doctors. Doctors?
"Hello?"
"It's over. You're all done."
"What? Where am I?"
"You're in post-op. You're going to be fine."
"Fine?" Oh, that's right, I was shot.
I was shot. I was SHOT!
"Settle down, Officer. Settle down."
"Right, sorry."
Voices in my head. Crowded here.
No, I wasn't shot. I shot. But then Sylar.
SYLAR! Oh, shit!
"Officer Parkman, please calm down. You're going to be fine."
"I am?"
"Your friend took your daughter home for the night. We're going to take you up to your room pretty soon. You'll see them both in the morning."
My daughter? Who...?
Friend? Bennet? Ted?
What about Janice--
Maybe I'll just relax...
Different smell. Kind of hurting a little more now. Sunlight behind my eyelids.
It's bright. How long have I had my eyes closed?
This is kind of a nice room. It has a nice smell... it's those flowers. They smell incredible. God, look at how clean and white they are. Like hospital sheets. Who would have sent me such gorgeous flowers? Janice? Is she even bothering with me? Does she even know?
It must be her. I don't know anyone else...
There are footsteps in the hall, a child's footsteps. Fast. A child is running. I wonder, if I strain a bit to the side, if I can see him--
Ouch. No, that was a mistake.
But those footsteps are entering my room...! There's a small hand on my hand!
"Officer Parkman, you're awake!"
Molly.
I'm looking into the face of an eight-year-old girl who's crying herself sick with relief, tears in her hair and on her freckles, and she's clutching my hand like a lifetline, sniffling and whimpering. Her little lip is quivering. "You're awake, you're gonna be OK, you're gonna be OK!"
And then I wonder if those bullets punctured straight through me, because right now my heart is so full of air and light that I think I am going to go up out of my hospital bed like a balloon and just float through the ceiling.
This is the moment I fall absolutely and irrevocably in love with Molly Walker.
And then I notice who's behind her.
At first I think it's a woman. There are beautiful, delicate curls of hair and full lips and glittering eyes. And is that skin what they call olive? It looks like marble. Or something. It's a beautiful color.
But no, there's the faintest trace of stubble on the face, and the lines of the body are straight and strong. It's a man. An uncommonly beautiful man.
I know him. I've seen him before. He's the doctor who was with Molly at that place. Where I was just before I--
My chest hurts all of a sudden. I withdraw my hand and clasp at where the pain is.
"Are you all right? Are you all right?" Molly is shouting as though I'm not right there.
I fight down the pain and smile at her. "Hello, pumpkin," I whisper, though getting the breath to speak is a chore. "Nice to see you."
She starts wibbling again. The man behind her, the uncommonly beautiful man-- is that how I am going to think of him from now on?-- smiles. He has a hell of a smile. I feel kind of melty. Then again, that could be the drugs. Things are swimming a little bit right now.
"She's been waiting to see you all morning," he said. His voice is like British royalty. Like he stepped out of one of these art flicks Janice likes to watch. Where is Janice, anyway? Hasn't anyone told her where I am? I could really use a visit from her.
"Call my wife," I whisper.
"I think they have already." No, honestly, I don't think I've ever heard that accent outside of a video. I wasn't even that sure that real people talked like that. I thought maybe it was made up for the movies. "I can call the police officer who is on duty downstairs. I think he might know."
"No, wait." It's Molly who stops him as he turns to the door. "Don't go yet. He just woke up. He'll get lonely."
"Then you can stay with him, sweetheart." The man pats her head tenderly. I feel a little jealous. He's touching the girl I'm currently madly in love with. Worse, she's giving HIM the huge puppy dog eyes. If I could move, I might come to blows with this guy. A duel to the death for the affections of a third-grader.
"No, it's all right," I say instead. "Stick around."
Molly yays like this is the best thing she's ever heard. I chuckle and immediately regret it. Ow.
"Did you see the flowers? Aren't they pretty? Doctor Suresh says they're gardenias. I picked them out." She runs to the other side of the bed and grabs the vase to show me. The man starts after her, afraid she's going to spill them onto the floor, but her grasp is sure.
"They're beautiful, thank you," I croak, but all I can feel is disappointed that they're not from Janice.
She does arrive, later that evening. She comes running into the room still carrying her suitcase. I'm half asleep. "Oh my God, Matt, thank God," she fusses, ruffling my hair, kissing my forehead. I murmur. I'm pleased she's here. It's a familiar voice, familiar thoughts in my head. I know I'm half-addled with drugs, and that helps, too. It all sounds like dim music. Her face is blurry, but it's familiar. The dullness of her presence is soothing against the sharp bright whiteness of the gardenias. They never seem to go out of focus, even when my eyes are closed.
In the morning, I wake up a little more, and we talk. She's mad at me for going off on some secret mission. "I'm sorry," I keep saying, but I'm not sorry. I felt I had to do this. For my marriage, our child, our safety. I had to.
(Of course, in the end, I didn't. In the end, I protected Molly. What else could I do?)
The doctors tell me it'll be about six weeks until I'm able to go home. They have to keep X-raying me and CAT scanning me and checking to make sure my organs are all working right, and it's a good thing I am a policeman because it's gonna cost my insurance a lot. Janice seems more annoyed at all this than anything. She says to me, "Of course I'll stay as long as I can. I may have to do some work from here, though. I was just barely sliding onto the partnership track..." She rolls her eyes. How inconsiderate of me to go and get shot when she was going to make partner in four years. God knows how the inconvenience of maternity leave will affect her.
And yet, when I say, "You can go, I'll be all right," she's annoyed that I don't need her more. I can't win.
Molly comes by that afternoon with her favorite doctor in tow. Janice looks surprised-- and kind of horrified-- to see a strange man and girl in her husband's hospital room, bringing fresh flowers, no less. But Molly is polite and tells her, with sparkling eyes: "You're Officer Parkman's wife? He saved my life, you know." She's about to elaborate on just how many times when Dr. Suresh sees the look of panic on my face and grabs her outstretched hand before the three fingers can pop up. Molly gets the hint and ends with a charming "He's my hero."
Janice smiles sweetly. "Yes, he's my hero, too." She's lying, but what are you gonna do. It's cute, even though it's obvious they're sizing each other up.
The doctor and I share a glance. Apparently he finds it as disturbingly cute as I do. I think I like him. (He's taking care of Molly, so I damn well better.)
When I wake up one morning, Dr. Suresh is replacing the gardenias in the vase with another fresh bouquet. I watch his hands as they arrange the stems. He's very methodical. It's not until he sees me looking and smiles briefly before returning to the arranging that I realize Janice never brought me any flowers.
She's calling clients from the hospital room. Things about depositions and stipulations. It's sort of ironic. She keeps letting little annoyed thoughts slip about not wanting to be here, but she's mortally wounded if I should give her the idea that it's OK to go. She's a little disturbed by the frequency with which Molly comes to see me. "Doesn't she have school?" she whispers. Then, one day, she thinks, And I know that Indian guy isn't her father. Where are her parents?!
I snap: "Her parents are dead. They were murdered. By the same guy responsible for what happened to me. 'That Indian guy' is all she's got right now, so leave her alone."
Janice stares at me in shock. "Stop reading my mind!" she demands. As though I can help it. I'm having enough trouble controlling my bladder these days, much less my brain.
Still, she goes on with What kind of parents wouldn't have some sort of plan for who would take care of her, an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent or something? I think about trying to explain to her that Molly's not just a girl but a highly prized human tracking system who's being hunted down by crazed killers and evil corporations, but it's a little over her head.
That's probably the issue. I've stumbled into a world that's over her head, and I can't ever go back to where I was before.
We can never go back.
It's a week and a half of this before the truth comes out. And I think she thinks I'm sleeping, or she might never have let it slip. But I'm not, and she does.
Have to wait till he's out of here to serve the papers-- pain in the ass-- looks too heartless if I divorce him while he's in the hospital. Awful timing. Held hostage by a marriage that's already over...
I keep pretending to sleep. I tell myself it's on purpose, but really, I'm just so horrified I can't move.
I wait until the next day. When she doesn't have any more clients to call and we're sitting there alone and silent for an hour and a half.
"You should go back to California," I say.
She looks at me with all the usual mock outrage. "What?"
"You have to keep your eye on your health," I say. "You know, the sonograms and all that."
"Oh." She shifts and looks away, and I can't divine her thoughts. "Yes, but--"
"Besides," I say, "we're through anyhow, aren't we?"
She stares at me, and I see the tears prickle in her eyes. I haven't got the strength to cry.
She comes over to the bed, holds my hand, all of a sudden the soul of compassion. "You know something, Matt?" she says sadly. "I really thought you were something when we met. Here I was, this kid just out of high school, and you were in the police academy, for Christ's sake. Every girl's dream, right? A man in uniform." She laughs bitterly. "And I was so screwed up, but you'd been there and gotten out, and I thought you were a godsend. Add to that how much our mothers were shocked we'd dare marry outside our religions, and you were a teenage rebel's perfect match.
"But then I started getting my own life together, and I went back to school and got my law degree, and all of a sudden you weren't interested. It was like you wanted a stray cat to take care of, not a wife, and you were disappointed that I passed by you."
She's thought about this. She's thought about it a lot. The one thing she's missing is the reason I was so disappointed-- the reason I wanted her to begin with. Now that I think about it, I'm very ashamed of it. She deserves better than someone who hates himself so much--hates his inability to read correctly, to move ahead in life, even to be attracted to the right people--that he marries the first woman he finds who's having a shittier time than he is. "I don't know, Jan. I haven't been a very good husband. I could never quite figure out what you needed, you know? And then, all of a sudden, I could hear everything you wanted... and it didn't help."
She nods, biting her lip. The urge to comfort her is strong. "Look," I say. "This doesn't change anything as far as the baby is concerned. I'll still be there for our kid, no matter what--"
Then the other shoe drops. And it's not even that I hear the words-- I just know. With the same ironclad certainty that she does.
"Oh, my God."
"I kept waiting for the right time to tell you." Her tears are flowing now. My eyes are wet, too, and my wounds are aching. It's getting hard to breathe.
"Oh, God." It's all I can say. I'm dying of grief. Grief and pain.
How did it come to this?
Over the next two weeks, we work out the details. We've kept our bank accounts separate, so the money isn't much of an issue. The one thing she's taken from me that I want back was never really mine to begin with, so what's the use of the rest of it, anyway?
My spots of light during these weeks are Molly's visits. She's been enrolled in school in for the second half of the year, she says. This is great, because she's been out of school since her parents' death and her subsequent illness. I doubt the Company cared much for her education. As long as her ability was intact, that's all they needed to invest in.
Every time she comes, she brings a new bouquet. Always the same kind of flowers. Sometimes Dr. Suresh comes by alone. "Molly would have my hide if I didn't at least keep them fresh," he says with a dazzling smile. His teeth are impeccable. What a thing for me to notice. Teeth.
He's not anxious to talk without Molly present, but in the days after Janice leaves I'm lonely and need someone. I ask him what kind of medicine he practices, and he laughs and says he's not that kind of doctor. Turns out that while he has a medical degree, his primary focus is genetic research, and Molly is his only real patient. "So you're studying her?" I ask, kind of accusingly. I don't like the idea of her being victim, patient, and then, to top it all off, guinea pig.
"To an extent, yes," he says. "I did a lot of work on her in the few weeks following her recovery, mostly to track the efficacy of the vaccine. But my interest is in finding others like her, helping them understand what's happening to them. This was the work my father pursued until his death, and I'm doing my best to carry on his research."
"And what is happening to them?"
"It varies by person," he says. His face is animated. "In many cases, it's an ability to generate a physical phenomenon or manipulate matter; in others, it's an unexplained capacity for aggregating and processing information. That's the case with Molly."
"And with me," I muse. His eyebrows go up, but he says nothing, not yet. I hear him think, I would have thought it'd be physical, what with his occupation, but I suppose there's no predicting. I don't let him know I can hear his surprise.
Here's the thing: I'm laid up. And when TV is no good, I amuse myself with hearing the thoughts of the people around me. It's a guilty pleasure. Most of the nurses think I'm a fairly nice guy, so there's not a lot of excitement there. But sometimes they are thinking about something at home, or something they've seen at work, and it's a little like watching reality TV. I was particularly amused early on to hear one nurse, upon seeing Janice go by, think, Frigid bitch. You don't begin to deserve him. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm amused.
So that's my rationale for not telling him what I can do. Besides, what difference would it make? He's just some doctor who brings Molly by; I'll probably never see him again after I leave here. That makes me feel kind of sad, though: It means that someday I will be waking up and there will be no gardenias there to greet me.
When the divorce is finalized, it's nearly Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in a hospital sucks. There's no two ways about it. Not that I've really ever had a strong tradition to compare it with. Smoked turkey with Mom and her spinster sister, that's my best memory from childhood. I'm kind of depressed that day, though, sort of lost in myself, and I'm actually surprised when Dr. Suresh comes by with an enthusiastic Molly. He's carrying another bright white bouquet under his arm, and more importantly, his hands are clutching two swollen brown paper bags, both of which are moist from heat and giving off an amazing smell.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Officer Parkman!" Molly comes over to the bed, climbs up on the chair, and plants a kiss on my cheek. My heart goes soaring, right through the window and down the street along with the giant Macy's parade balloons. All of a sudden this is my favorite holiday of the year.
We eat turkey and stuffing and talk. Molly has stopped calling Dr. Suresh by his last name and is now using his first name, Mohinder. It's an interesting name. I don't think I've known anybody of Indian descent very well, so I've definitely never heard it before. It could just be the Indian John Smith, for all I know. But when Molly says it, it sounds like some delicious nonsense from a fairy tale. Jabberwocky, Kumbaya, Rumplestiltskin, and Mohinder.
It's estimated that I'll be able to go home in a week. I've recovered fairly quickly. The nurses whisper that it's probably thanks to Molly's devotion. (They also are under the impression that I've left my wife for another man-- a certain other man. Which cracks me up, because I'm fairly sure Dr. Suresh is only here under duress. An eight-year-old duress, a duress in a dress, even.)
Between bites of biscuits, he asks, "Do you have plans for your discharge?" I shake my head. I figure I'll have to fly out to California, clear my stuff out of the house, look for an apartment somewhere, and start all over again. When I mention returning to the West Coast, however, Molly gets up. Her little shoulders are shaking with anger.
"You can't go away!" she cries. "You've got to stay and protect me. You can stay with us! We have room!"
A little taken aback, I laugh shakily. "That's very nice of you, pumpkin, but I'm sure Doctor Suresh has got..."
"No," he blurts out. "You're absolutely welcome. We'd love to have you." I can hear his mind racing. What on earth have I just said? I must have gone mad.
"Mohinder!" She's all puppy dog eyes and big smiles again.
"It's fine," I protest.
For whatever reason, he's gone manic. His words and thoughts are all jumbled up, but I think I'm hearing what he's saying out loud. "The truth is, I've been meaning to do some traveling. I've been invited to speak several places about my research, but I haven't been able to leave her. If you were, for instance, available to take care of her, that might free me up, so it would be very helpful." Inexplicably, he thinks, It might even be better if I were to stay away. I don't know what that's about.
"You absolutely have to," Molly emphasizes, nodding her head as if she is the Great and Powerful Oz. She has absolutely owned my heart from the day she came in here, and now is no exception. Besides, where else do I have to go? I might not yet be well enough to travel, and it would suck to go straight from a hospital to a crappy hotel.
"I don't really have a place to stay in the short term," I mutter.
"Then it's decided." Dr. Suresh smiles. "I'll move my work into the living room and get a new bedframe for that room. Aren't you glad, sweetheart?" He puts both his hands on Molly's shoulders and smiles down at her. She tilts her chin up to beam back.
"Are you sure?" I crack. "I hear I snore."
"Oh, great." Molly rolls her eyes. "He can sleep through anything, but I might need some earplugs." I grin at her, but I'm distracted by the thought that runs through Doctor Suresh's mind, and I gawk at him a little. Did he just think something about temptation under his roof? Because if that's the case, he and I might have something else in common.
Molly clasps her little hands as if about to pray. "This is the best Thanksgiving ever. Dear God, I am thankful for being alive, and having good food to eat, and mostly I am thankful for you bringing me two new heroes who are going to be my new parents."
Doctor Suresh and I start in unison. He finds his tongue quicker than I can. "Molly, darling, you know we can't be your parents. We never can." He strokes her hair, and I'm sort of hypnotized by the motion. It's the same gentle motion of his hands that I see when he's arranging the gardenias. Deft, but at the same time loving. I feel like I could stare at them all day.
I'm a little worried about this. Granted, times are different than they were when I was a kid, but I'd already convinced myself that I was not going in this direction. Shit like this could happen to other people, but it wasn't going to happen to me. I was not going to be one of that ten percent. I'd already decided that. But here I am, fifteen years later, and I've tried marriage and it hasn't worked, and am I really so lonely that I'm ready to go back to that? It's not worth thinking about.
Besides, Molly has more to say. "I know you're not my real parents," she says. "But I think they'd like this. I think they like it when I'm with both of you. Because I know they're watching, and I know that when I'm here I sort of feel like I did when I was with them." Her eyes are getting a little misty, and I want to get out of bed and hug her tight. I can't move that fast quite yet, though. What's more, she's now come over to me and has taken both my hands. "So promise me you'll come stay with us, Officer Parkman. OK?"
God, she's such a treasure. "If I'm going to live with you," I tell her, "you'd better learn to call me Matt."
"Matt!" She's grinning and crying all at once and leaps onto my lap, and I'm very thankful that I didn't get shot in my legs because she is a big girl. I oof a little when she squeezes me and she backs off. "Sorry."
"It's OK." I kiss her forehead. Now that the shock is worn off, I think this might be a dream come true.
"And now you have to call him Mohinder too!" she says, suddenly. "Because now we're going to be a family."
I balk, but he walks over to the bed, completing the trio. "Welcome to the family, Matt," he says, holding out his hand.
I shake it firmly. "Pleasure to be here, Mohinder," I grin. The name sounds even more fantastical when I say it.
Molly's in a food coma, and we're flipping channels during halftime when something occurs to me that is long overdue. "Doctor S... I mean, Mohinder," I say. "There's something I need to tell you. Something you ought to know before I officially move in."
He turns to me, puzzled. He thinks so fast it's hard to keep track of it all. "Of course. What is it?"
"It's... what I can do." I look at the ground, the walls, anywhere but those huge dark eyes. The breath seems jagged going in and the words sound just as shaky coming out. "Since I'm invading your physical space, I think you ought to know that, well, your mental space may not be so safe."
"Meaning what, exactly?" Concern flickers across his face. I can see it out of the corner of my eye even while avoiding looking directly at him.
"Meaning I can read your mind. Not just yours. I can read minds, in general. And sometimes I do without meaning to. So I just want to say I'm sorry in advance for invading your privacy. I'll try not to."
He sits in silence for a moment. I try to avoid looking into his head, filling my brain with the police trivia I've been studying in the hopes that I can get back to work soon after I'm discharged. But after a moment of staring, he bursts out, "Fascinating!"
A cartoon scientist's word. I laugh. "I'm, uh, glad you think so. I think."
So can you hear this?
"Yeah, yeah, I can." How did I know he was going to do that?
And from his mind, just as exuberant as he'd said it aloud: Fascinating! "This is actually quite good luck, you know," he says, leaning toward me. "Molly's started to have some nightmares. I'm unsure why, but they're increasing in severity and she won't talk to me about them."
"Say no more," I answer. "I'll see what I can figure out."
He looks relieved. "I am glad you're coming to stay with us," he says. It's such a forthright emotion that I don't even know how to respond. He's completely sincere. I don't think I've known anybody that honest my whole life. It's a little hard to take, actually.
Unsure why, I blurt out: "Also? Um. I can't read too well."
He stops. "Oh. Well. I read far too much, so perhaps we're even." It's about the best response I've ever gotten from anyone I've confessed that to. I feel a sort of wave of warmth rush over me. Then Molly murmurs in her sleep, and I am giddy with happiness. This couldn't get any better.
And then it does. His thoughts have started to spin in circles. Hope he can't read everything... must get away from here soon. Perhaps to Milan, or Cairo... Too much temptation... And if that weren't enough, the kicker comes through clean and clear. He is such a good man, and I haven't felt this way about anyone in ages, but I mustn't scare him.
And it's his certainty, his lack of fear of it, that gives me a little courage. And as we sit there in silence, watching TV, I gaze at him and gaze at myself in my mind's eye until I know without a shadow of a doubt, that it is time to stop running from it, it is time to come home and be who I am, and damn the consequences. Because I can see something just beyond the horizon that threatens to make sense of my whole life. When was the last time my life made sense?
Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday of the year.
In my dream, Molly is running through a field of gardenias and Mohinder and I are on a picnic blanket watching her. Her dress is as clean and white as the flowers and she is laughing, and so are we, and I kiss those dark fingers that reach toward my face, and then the dream is completely different and we are on a black bed dotted with white petals and then I wake up with wet hospital sheets and a big throbbing hummingbird in my throat and thoughts in my head that I have successfully kept down since high school and even with all that a sort of peaceful feeling, like the que sera sera song, that things are moving in a good direction. Even with the door open only a crack, the gardenias catch the scant light like reflectors on a highway and wink at me. They know.
They're roses for a change when Molly hands them to me as they wheel me downstairs and load me into the taxi. They're burnished pink and nearly orange, and they're beautiful but unfamiliar. I am starting to be nervous. My stuff is on its way, and I've gotten a letter of recommendation from my ex-boss to present to the NYPD. But so much is in transition right now that I'm unsure what's going to happen.
In the taxi Molly chatters happily about getting ready for Christmas, and Mohinder looks vaguely uncomfortable. "I don't know a thing about these traditions," he says, "so I'm really going to need your help."
I wrinkle my brow. "We're going to have to figure out how to let her know I'm Jewish," I whisper. He stares for a moment and then bursts out laughing. Molly looks at us as though we've lost our minds.
The apartment is the top floor of a four-floor walkup. It looks like I'll be shedding those hospital-food pounds out of sheer necessity. Mohinder helps me upstairs, slinging my arm around his shoulder, and I remember the dream and blush. He seems oblivious, though, and Molly is just excited. When we get to the door, Molly says I should close my eyes. When I open them, I'm treated to a round table decked out with a chocolate cake and "Welcome Home" in blue frosting. There's confetti and a shiny tablecloth and party hats that don't match, and I can see the subtle decorating hand of an eight-year-old who's been given free rein in a party store. The rest of the apartment seems nice, although the wood is unvarnished and the bookshelves are dusty. It's definitely a place a guy could hang his hat. Best of all, and I don't even know why I like this, the roof slopes down in the alcove where Molly's bed is. I feel like I'm about to be living in somebody's grandmother's attic, and that makes me happy.
We eat cake and laugh. Molly goes to watch TV. Mohinder picks up my small overnight bag, everything I brought with me when I got to this city, and motions to me that we should go down the hall. I realize I haven't yet seen where I'll be sleeping. I'm sure it'll be small. He did say it was his study, and the desk that I saw in the living room wasn't all that big.
I follow him to the doorway. At this part of the hall, I can flatten my palm against the ceiling by stretching my hand up. But the door is at least big enough to fit through, and Mohinder pops my suitcase inside and then brushes his hands together briskly as though clearing them of dust. "I hope it'll do," he says. I peek past the door, which opens outward, counterintuitively enough, so I have to back up before I can enter. I see his face flickering with nerves, and I hear him thinking, Please let this be OK. I wonder what he's so worried about. He's the one extending charity to me, here. Beggars can't be choosers.
The room is small, but it's tidy and white. The sheets on the bed are new, and there's a small window to let air and light in. There are shelves that look newly braced to the walls, and an old set of dresser drawers. A small rug sits at the foot of the bed.
And on the nightstand there is a vase full of beautiful, ivory gardenias.
"Welcome home," he says quietly.
This is the moment I fall absolutely, irrevocably in love with Mohinder Suresh.
I go over to hug him and end up kissing him instead.
:end:
Au's note: Please remember that each of these kisses is in a different world/continuity. In this one, I decided Matt had been in the closet all his life. I often see fics where Mohinder is out but Matt has to be persuaded, and I thought I'd take a different tack, just to see where it went. Next one will probably be different.