Before the Company (for Boombangbing)
Title: Before the Company
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Angela Petrelli, Charles Deveaux, Bob Bishop, Daniel Linderman, Adam Monroe, Arthur Petrelli, Susan Amman, Victoria Pratt, and (briefly) the other founding members of the company, and briefly Simone, Peter, Nathan, Elle; Angela/Charles, Angela/Arthur, Victoria/Angela (unrequited), Bob/OC
Summary: When they escaped Coyote Sands, Angela knew that they were going to found a company, and Charles, Daniel and Bob agreed with her plans. But it was easier said than done, and they had no real idea about how to do it. Then one night Adam showed up, offering some advice, and then, one by one, more people seemed to be drawn to their special little group…
Word count: 6 846
Notes: Written for the Heroes Fanfic Exchange for boombangbing! Beta reader: lynchgrrrl88, thank you so much, my friend!
Notes 2: Hey, look at this: jaune_chat wrote Mama Grizzly for me - an awesome Angela&Sandra fic! Go read it, go, go! :D
His eyes are closed but he can see them in his thoughts; Peter and Simone are talking, and he hears their voices, softened by their concern for him, but unaware of the fact that he can hear them. You’re like a son to him, his daughter says, and she smiles when the young man answers that it would make them brother and sister; , awkward if I wanted to ask you out. Charles, dying, thinks that Simone is more right than she knows; the youngest son of Angela, nursing him on his death bed, is precious to him… Charles thinks that with a mother like Angela, Peter is strong… even if he doesn’t know it. Peter has not grown out of Nathan’s shadow yet, the shadow that he feels is preventing their father to see him clearly, but Charles feels for him and thinks that across the years, something of his love for Angela has lived on in Peter. He hopes that Simone will love him. They will be what he and Angela never were.
Nathan walks out the door, and her youngest crouch down in front of her chair. What were you thinking? His voice is gentle; both her sons are worried about her, but Nathan is also worried about himself. That’s natural. But not Peter; he is only thinking about her right now. I just wanted to feel alive again. Angela knows that Nathan doesn’t understand; not yet, but he will. The world will be a better place because of him. Sometimes, it is a necessary evil to erase everything, to make it possible to start over. Angela decided long ago that she has to believe in the necessity of certain things, and in the ability to build something new from scratch.
There is a cello in Bob’s office. It stands quietly in a corner, and nobody can tell if it’s ever used or not. Bob has never been seen even touching it, much less has anyone ever heard him play. But there is never even the smallest amount of dust on it. When Elle asks him if he can teach her to play, or if she can teach herself, he snaps at her to go away. No, she can’t even touch it. It doesn’t matter that she begs him with tears in her eyes, saying that she’s no longer a careless little girl. It was her mother’s cello. Her mother could play, and she would be ashamed if she saw a grown woman like Elle cry. He turns away from his daughter. He has already told her so many times that the important thing is to grow up, be strong, and stay strong.
Daniel Linderman healed a scar on Angela’s leg once. He has healed her many times since then, because that is what he does; he is a healer. If he could have been there to erase her pains of childbirth, he would have. He did the second best thing; he saw her afterwards, and took away the rest of the pain that was still echoing in her body. Then he kissed the newborn baby and healed a small scratch that a careless nurse with too long fingernails had left on his little arm. Now he is going to heal the world; they started it all together, long ago, and Angela’s son will close the process.
----
They didn’t have any methods in the beginning. No real organization, because it was just the four of them. Charles spoke for them, because it was convenient. They listened to Angela, because they realized that it was smart. Bob made sure they could pay for everything, and with Daniel there, they never had to worry about getting hurt.
They were perfect together; they were invincible. And they were going to start something big. They didn’t know what exactly, of course; they were still young and inexperienced. If an outsider had heard them talk, they would have sounded just like any little group of idealistic kids to him or her. The listener would hear them laugh, would hear them lower their voices and speak seriously, solemnly, and use big words. To make the world better. To make the world safer. To be careful, to be invisible without hiding; to live in the world and work in and for it, to change it - they were going to do this, and the listener would nod his or her head silently, thinking that all kids wanted to change the world, but very few of them ended up doing it.
The listener would be a perfect example of when they won, because they didn’t want anyone to think that they were special, different. The first point of their secret manifesto was: Never let anybody know, unless they are like us.
That first point was going to be the subject of some change, with time, like so many other things. The time came when they found that they needed other people not like them, but in the beginning, they avoided these people as much as they could.
This exclusive and reclusive little society suited Bob Bishop. He didn’t like people much anyway, because he never knew how to act around them. He liked science. When he was younger, he liked chemistry; he enjoyed the changes, the metamorphosis, the various processes …but people didn’t ever change. Bob had been fourteen when he discovered that the changes didn’t have to take place in the classroom laboratory; they came from him. And they were much more than what anyone could do with normal science, as far as he knew; what he was able to do was more like alchemy. And yet; people could not change. He could not change into another person, and he couldn’t change his parents or the other kids that bullied him, or anyone else. He could turn a handful of pebbles into marbles or coins, he could turn yesterday’s leftovers into ice cream, but what good did it do for him?
Bob Bishop wanted to change into a person his parents could love, or he wanted to change his parents into people he could love. He wanted to become powerful and respected, the kind of person who always had an answer, who always could find something to say… But he couldn’t do any of this. His strange ability seemed like a cruel joke of nature; he didn’t understand it, he didn’t want it, and it made him feel like a freak.
But Charles and Daniel were different from other people he had known. At first, he had hated Coyote Sands; to be sent there had been like a confirmation of his freakishness. It was like being transferred from one school yard where he didn’t fit in to another one, larger, full of misfits. But Charles and Daniel, both of them older than he but Daniel only by a few years, talked to him and looked at him as if he was just as normal as they were. Or just as not normal. Or whatever.
And then Angela Shaw and her little sister - yes, he thought about Alice as ‘the little one’, even if she was almost his age - were the first girls he could talk to without blushing. At least after some time, he could.
So of course he followed the three of them. He would have followed them to the end of the world, because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and they were the first real friends he ever had. He couldn’t see the mysterious promised goal as clearly as the others did, but he liked it when Angela talked about the future she had seen in her dreams.
Bob wanted the future. He knew that everything was going to make sense eventually. Until then, he followed his brothers and sister, as he sometimes called them in his thoughts, and in the big apartment where they finally settled down after some time of leading a wandering life, he thought about the man he was one day going to be.
----
Daniel was not the first one of them to feel the “family bond”, or to feel the importance of Angela’s visions. He knew, of course, that what had happened was terrible, and if he really thought about it, he was petrified… but he just didn’t think about it much.
He had never liked Coyote Sands; he had known from the start that it was a bad place, not the place for him. Why should he need Doctor Suresh, or any other doctor? But it didn’t matter anymore. They were free now, were they not? They were all alone in the world; they could do whatever they wanted and become whatever they wanted, and no grownups were ever going to watch them again.
Daniel laughed and joked, and dragged Bob along; poor Bobby who had never had much fun before - and Charles and Angela were not bad to have around either.
But Angela lost her patience very soon, and her temper.
“You boys think you’re Peter Pan”, she scolded them, “but guess what; this is not Never Never Land. This is the real world, and we’re all going to grow up in it, so you should start listening to me right now.”
“You’re right”, Charles said. “And they know it, too. It’s not like we’ve forgotten what happened back there, Angela… But you’ve got to try to understand that it’s a bit different for them. They feel free…”
“We are free”, Bob said, “but I’m sorry for you loss, Angela, I really am.”
Angela looked at the younger boy with the insecure eyes behind the glasses. She guessed that he really meant it, and that he wasn’t used to saying things like that, or even to feel them. But she didn’t have time to feel sorry for him.
“Thank you, Bobby… But I’m not obsessing over my loss. I’m simply telling you to stop believing that you can play around forever. You’re not Peter Pan, I’m not Wendy; I’m not playing mother and I’m not telling fairytales.”
“We know, Angela… But how are we going to do this? Where’s this ‘company’ going to come from? And what are we going to do if we find other people like us?”
Angela looked at her three friends, the only friends she had; her new family.
“It’s not a question about ‘if’”, she said, “the word is ‘when’… and I just know that we’re going to make it happen one way or another.”
But in the beginning, they were on their own, and Angela began to wonder if the future was further away than what she had thought.
----
And then, one day when the summer was over and a few violent storms had already shaken the leaves off the trees, Angela came down to breakfast with that exhausted yet very awake look on her face that meant she had been dreaming something important.
“We’re going to meet a man called Adam”, she said. “That’s an appropriate name… because he feels as if he’s as old as Adam, the first man… but of course he isn’t. He hasn’t seen anything yet… But he will help us.”
“When will we meet him? Where is he coming from? What does he want?”
Bob sounded nervous, and maybe he had reason to be? But Angela couldn’t answer his questions.
“I don’t know. But he’s already watching us.”
“What do you mean?” Charles said sharply and Angela flinched as if he had accused her of something, but he hadn’t meant to. It was just that whenever someone seemed to pay a little too much attention to them - four young people living together, and only one of them a girl, stirred up curiosity sometimes - Charles noticed it and redirected their interest elsewhere.
“I don’t know”, Angela repeated, “but I’m sure he will tell us.”
----
Adam came like a saviour, a prophet, late on Christmas Eve, 1962.
The four of them were having dinner as usual, in their thoroughly decorated apartment. Charles and Bobby had bought a Christmas tree somewhere, a big one, and they had all helped making garlands and balls of paper, macaronis, wool and cotton. Bob put the decoration up in the tree, exactly where Angela showed him, and when he was done, their tree was more shiny and glittering than any tree anywhere in the city. Last of all, he put a paper star in the top, and it was pure gold.
Daniel was in charge of the cooking. He wore his big apron tied around his neck and around his waist, and he said, smiling, that he was going to own his own restaurant one day, maybe even a chain of restaurants, or hotels, spread out all over the continent.
“And I’ll have a casino in Las Vegas”, he dreamed on, “a big one.”
“What for?” Bob asked; he didn’t see the point of gambling for money when there was an easier way.
“For nothing”, Daniel smiled, “just for fun. And for the croupiers and waitresses, and, you know… girls. Wouldn’t you like that, Bobby? I’d give you a special discount.”
Bob frowned and blushed. He didn’t really like girls, except Angela of course. But she was more like a sister, or at least, that’s what he assumed, not ever having had any to compare their relationship with.
“What’s your favourite carol, Bob?” Angela asked, and the two of them started singing, and their voices got along very well, while the kitchen got warmer and more and more filled with the scents of Christmas food.
After some time, they were too tired to sing anymore, too stuffed with food and candy. They were also a little giggly because of the wine they had been drinking - all of them, because no one had been there to remind the older boys that Angela and Bob were still underage. That was the moment Adam Monroe chose to knock on their door and introduced himself to them as if he had been a long lost cousin or friend.
“So you’re like us?” Daniel scrutinized the young blond man. “What do you mean when you say that you’re ‘like us’?”
“Daniel…”, Angela begun, but Adam interrupted her.
“No, no - it’s all right. It’s okay to be suspicious, you should be. You’re right not to trust everyone who walks in here. But you have dreamed about me, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” Angela nodded. “You’re older than you look like. You’re going to say that you can help us.”
“What I don’t understand”, Bob said, “is why we need help from anyone. I thought we were supposed to be on our own. Never let anyone know about us.”
Charles put his arm around the younger boy.
“That’s right, Bob. We’re a family. But we’re also going to be there for others like us if we find them, remember?”
“I guess…” Bob looked suspiciously at the newcomer who was intruding on the Christmas dinner.
“So what we’re all dying to know here”, Daniel continued his interrogation, “is, to put it simple, what do you do? What’s your special thing?”
“’Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’”, Adam said and winked at Angela, “’thou art more lovely and more temperate…’ I knew the guy who wrote that, you know.”
Angela sniffed and shook her head.
“Is that what you tell all girls? Besides, I don’t believe you.”
“You’re right”, Adam confessed with a not at all guilty grin, “I didn’t know him. You’re too smart for me… But no, I don’t tell all girls that, only those who deserve it. But I could have known him, though.”
“Who, Shakespeare?” Charles said sceptically.
“I don’t get it”, Daniel said, and Bob agreed.
“Let me put it like this”, their uninvited guest said and nodded to Daniel, “my ability is a bit like yours, but unfortunately for my friends, I’m the only one who benefits from it. I also have knowledge like you,” he said and smiled at Angela “but kind of reversed. And because of that, people have sometimes mistaken me to be like you…” Now he nodded to Charles. “I’m not like you, but people are predictable and it’s only too easy to know what they are thinking most of the time. I can’t do what you can do with things”, he said to Bob, “but sometimes, I think that the hatching of ideas and plans is similar to the process of turning sand into gold.”
They all stared at him and the silence remained unbroken for a while, when they thought about how Adam claimed to be a little like every one of them.
“So what you’re saying is”, Charles tried to sum it up, “is that you’re about four hundred years old, because you can’t get hurt by anything, not even time, and that’s also why you know a lot.”
“Yeah”, Adam agreed, “that’s another way of saying it.”
Adam explained to them that every society becomes corrupt with time. Things evolve to a certain point, and then the downfall starts, until everything breaks apart and it starts all over again. Nothing can stay whole forever; it is the force of human nature that is, essentially, destructive. However, he said, the details of this process are unpredictable and different from time to time. But Adam claimed that someone with a general view of the whole of it could help and control this. If someone fixed a date for the destruction, before the corruption is too deep, and directed every move, this someone would also be in a position where it’s possible to control the healing process afterwards. In short, someone with enough power and control could make the world a better place.
“Who would this someone be?” Daniel asked.
Adam laughed, as if the question made him happy.
“A group of people like you. We need more people, of course - not too many, but people like you. Not any people like you, of course; we’d have to be careful with whom we let in, but let’s leave that for now. You have the power. You have the ambition and the determination, and most importantly, the visions.”
Adam looked deeply into their eyes, one at the time. The candles, almost burnt out, made his shadow tall on the wall, and his hair had a golden lustre like an angel on a Christmas card. They hadn’t gotten any cards during the past two years, nor had they sent any.
“Can we do this?” Bob asked.
“We can”, Angela said. She was the first one to agree, to see the truth in Adam’s words, maybe because she had seen it already, without knowing it - but Adam explained her dreams and made sense come out of them.
And then Bob followed, finally seeing a broader perspective. They were going to be alchemists of the world, to make of it what they wanted.
Daniel could feel that something began to stir within him, and he nodded. If the world needed healing, he was in.
Charles, who knew a lot more about other people than what he sometimes would have wanted, was the one who thought the longest about Adam’s words.
Then he, too, nodded. He knew that people were often unhappy for no reason, and that made them do bad things sometimes, because they wouldn’t talk to one another. They couldn’t share their thoughts like he could, and they didn’t know how to put their best qualities at use. People needed help, and protection.
So we are getting closer to it, he thought, to the future Company that Angela is always talking about. He looked at her, and her eyes were shining, and he knew that their thoughts were on the same track. This guy was going to help them get it all started, like she had said, and she was happy.
God, she was beautiful when she was happy. The love for her that he usually managed to smother into a small, almost platonic flame suddenly refused to stay tame. She was eighteen now. Young, but not too young.
He sent her another thought that had noting to do with Adam Monroe or with the future.
She blushed, looked the other way, but answered him silently.
Yes.
----
Then, as if the arrival of the blond stranger had set something in motion, things started to happen quickly.
It was easy to feel alone in the world, as if they were the last of their kind, because all the rest of them were buried back there in that godforsaken place they had fled from a couple of years earlier. But Angela knew that more people were out there, somewhere, and she had been waiting for so long when she finally found Susan Amman.
Angela’s parents had wanted her to go to college. Then when everything was turned upside down, she forgot all those things and focused on building a new life with her friends. But when the future stayed in the distance, she began thinking about herself again, and she decided to take some college classes after all.
She chose History. She didn’t know what to do with it exactly, but she figured it made sense to try to understand the past as well as the future.
Susan Amman was in her class. They had exchanged a few words, and began sitting next to each other in the lectures.
One day, Angela noticed something different. The lecturer of the day was a well-reputed professor, greatly respected in the academic world - but as a teacher, he was a terrible bore.
That day, he kept having little mishaps. Papers slipped out of his hands, he dropped chalks, and the desk was wobbly. Poor man. Angela couldn’t help but giggle a little, and she looked at the girl next to her to see if she was amused, too.
Susan looked very focused, but smiled a little.
Angela gasped as the thought hit her, and blurted out:
“You’re doing this!”
Susan glanced at her, quickly, and then she looked away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Him… Professor Boredom…”
“What about him?” Susan replied indifferently. “He seems to be having problems today…”
A student in front of them turned around and shooshed them, and Angela kept quiet. What was she going to say? Her heart was beating hard and fast. Now, for the first time outside the four walls of her home, she was next to another special one, someone with an ability - was it telekinesis? - but what was she going to say? ‘I’ve dreamed about meeting someone like you’?
Maybe Susan didn’t even know that other people like her existed, but Angela knew that Susan was going to be in her Company. It wasn’t easy for Angela to make the other girl open up to her, but she was persistent, and eventually she won Susan’s trust as well as her friendship.
Susan had the ability to make things move without touching them, just as Angela has guessed, and she had never told anyone about it before. When she had begun experimenting a few years earlier, her parents had believed that they had a poltergeist or something in the house, and they called an exorcist. The exorcist, however, left Susan unaffected, and she realized that her parents had to believe that the man got rid of the problem. If they knew that she was the force behind the moving objects, they would think that she was possessed.
But Susan didn’t feel possessed or evil, just different. Sometimes she felt mischievous and played pranks on people, but she never wanted to scare anyone or reveal herself.
“Don’t worry”, Angela and the three young men said to her, “you are among friends now.”
Charles, Bob and Daniel accepted Susan just as they had accepted Adam. And Adam told Angela that she had done a very good job.
“To bring people together”, he said, “that’s exactly what we should do. Bring them in, teach them not to be afraid of what they are, and learn from them - unless they’re dangerous of course, in which case we’ll have to protect the world from them…”
But to Angela, it was more than that. Susan was her age, and a very nice person, easy to like. Angela hadn’t had a female friend since before the camp, and she had almost forgotten what it was like to hang out with another girl. As much as she liked her boyfriend and their two roommates, she realized that she had missed that kind of friendship.
That became especially obvious when Daniel found two young men called Maury Parkman and Arthur Petrelli.
Angela didn’t know how he found them. Daniel told her when he introduced them to his friends, but as soon as Arthur smiled at her, she forgot to listen to and remember what anyone said during the next few minutes.
The more she got to know Arthur, the more confused he made her. She felt weak when he was around, and exhilarated, carefree and happy. Something drew her to him - was it his eyes, his voice, the way he talked or moved?
“You have a crush on Petrelli”, Bob said one day when he found her alone with an accusing tone of voice. “I thought you were supposed to be Charles’ girlfriend.”
“I am”, Angela said. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bob - you don’t understand this.”
But maybe he did understand. She wasn’t sure. She just knew that she couldn’t talk to him or to the others about Arthur. In their eyes, she belonged to Charles, and they all belonged together.
But Susan didn’t judge her like Bob and Daniel, she didn’t look at her with pain in her eyes like Charles did.
“You’re in love”, she said, “that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But I don’t want to hurt Charles…”
Charles was her best friend after all, and he had always been there for her, and he told her that he loved her.
“Of course not”, Susan replied, “but you’re not in love with him. You’re only with him because you didn’t know any other kind of love yet. You have to fall in love once to be able to tell the difference. I’m sure Charles will understand. I mean, of course he loves you but he wouldn’t want you to be with him when you’re in love with someone else.”
“No, maybe not…”
“So, have you kissed Arthur yet?”
“No! Of course not. But… I feel more when he looks at me than any feeling I’ve ever had when Charles kisses me…”
The mere thought of what Arthur made her feel made her blush.
“Go for it”, Susan told her. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”
Yes, Angela knew. She hadn’t even known the man a month, but she had been dreaming about him since the day they met. And when she began trying to avoid Arthur, he came after her, and then it was easier than what she had imagined.
“Don’t run away from me”, he begged. “You know that I love you.”
“Yes”, she replied, “I know.”
Her dreams had told her so, and she knew that she couldn’t ignore what she dreamed.
Arthur took her in his arms, and a new chapter of her life began.
----
When Angela and Arthur Petrelli became a couple, Bob thought that everything was going to change. Charles was hurt, anyone could see that, and could they still be a family when things changed like that and new persons were arriving?
Yes, maybe.
Charles seemed to get over it quickly. He dated some girl - someone ordinary, not special - but he didn’t bring her to their home a lot. Daniel dated, too - not the same girl all the time; he went through them quickly and Bob couldn’t keep up with his speed and stopped trying to remember any names.
Susan, Arthur and Maury became parts of their family group, even if they didn’t all live together.
And it was Christmas again, and Bob had to admit that it was kind of fun to have more people around the table, eating their turkey and admiring their tree with the decorations that Bob had made.
“I love our Christmases together”, Angela said. “This is our third. I’m sure we’re going to stay like this forever.”
“Really?” Maury asked, “Do you know it for a fact, or is it just a wish?”
“Does it matter?” Angela laughed happily. “In fairytales, wishes can come true. I wish our children will be best friends.”
“I don’t even have a wife”, Maury observed, “and you… you’re not pregnant.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Stop reading my thoughts”, Angela snapped. “It’s impolite and an ugly habit.”
“Sorry”, Maury said sheepishly. “Bad habits are hard to break… I guess you’ll have to learn to lock me out of your mind.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Children, don’t quarrel”, Adam intervened. “Let me tell you about a woman I happened to come across recently - this will be my Christmas gift to you. Her name is Paula Gramble, and I think that she has been waiting her whole life to meet people like you, my friends…”
----
“Charles?”
Charles had been out until late last night, and he wasn’t in the mood for talking. It was eleven o’clock, too early in the morning - at least for someone who hadn’t been able to fall asleep until 6 am - for serious conversations with Angela. He could hear it in her voice that she was serious. Or maybe he just picked it up from her mind, her heart - he had been around her for too long to not feel her mood as clearly as if she had told him about it in words.
But that was also the reason why he couldn’t turn away from her when she came to him.
“Yes, Angela?”
Yes, my love? he said in his thoughts. He never said it out loud anymore.
She sighed, and looked into his eyes as if she was going to reveal some big secret. As if she needed to say it for him to know.
“Don’t say it”, he said.
“I have to”, she replied, “it makes it more real… words make things seem more real. If I know it, but don’t say it, then it’s like a dream and maybe it hasn’t happened yet. And maybe it won’t ever happen. Even I have dreams that don’t come true sometimes.”
He touched her cheek, rose-red. It wasn’t his touch that made her blush.
“Charles, I’m happy.”
Angela was right. As long as the words remain unspoken, there is the possibility that what they stand for hasn’t happened yet.
“I know”, he said and didn’t want to look her in the eyes anymore. “Arthur’s a lucky guy. I’ve already told him that like twenty times already…”
“Yes, but I’m scared.”
“Don’t be”, he replied immediately, ignoring his own pain. “You have the right to be happy, just as much as anyone.”
He took her both hands and looked intensely at her, but didn’t want to force her to believe in his words. It was important that she found the belief deep within herself.
“Do you remember when we danced?”
Yes, Charles remembered. Angela and he had danced many times, but the time she was now referring to was the first time. The short dance that only lasted half a minute while the jukebox played one of Angela’s favorite songs. Angela almost never talked about that day, but when she did, she didn’t have to say many words before he knew what she meant.
“I was happy then”, she said, “because I believed that everything was going to be all right. Then I realized that I had been wrong. And… I’ve been happy again since then, I guess, because I really do love you, Charles…”
“You don’t have to tell me…”
“I do, and I love Daniel, and Bobby, too. You will always be my family. But you know, with Arthur, I feel that I can finally have that kind of family again. It’s different. You will always be a part of it, but we will have children, and… they will never have to have cold feet, and I will love and protect them, but what if I… fail…”
Angela’s head fell to his shoulder, her tears made his shirt wet, and she was shaking. Charles held her, rocked her gently, murmured inaudible words.
He did not want to understand this love that made Angela cry. She shouldn’t have to cry if she was truly happy. She shouldn’t have to come to him if Arthur made her feel safe.
“You will not fail”, he said when her tears subsided. “Listen to me, Banana…”
Angela flinched when he used that old nickname. He had heard Alice say it once, and he had never forgotten, because it was probably the weirdest nickname he had ever heard. But Angela seemed to respond to it, and although he had been curious, he had never searched her mind for the story behind it. He hoped that she would tell him some day, but she hadn’t.
“Listen to me… What happened wasn’t your fault. It happened because… because of many things. But never again. That’s our plan, remember? We’ll work to make the world a better place, and you know; Alice will always be with you. As long as you remember her, she’ll be with you and your future children, in your heart.”
Angela was still shaking from the aftermaths of her crying. Charles stroke her back, and wondered if that was going to be the last time he held Angela in his arms like that, the last time she came to him for comfort.
She hadn’t said so, but he was pretty sure that there was going to be a wedding soon. Arthur was dying to pop the question, and Angela seemed to know already that they were going to have children…
“Come on”, he said, “I’ll take you to the nearest supermarket - maybe you’ll feel better if you do your little… thing. That is, unless you’d rather be with Arthur?”
“No”. Angela shook her head, and her eyes were red but there were no more tears in them. “I want to go to the supermarket with you.”
As they left, Charles couldn’t help smiling a little. Angela hadn’t told Arthur about the socks.
-----
After Paula Gramble, everything had been quiet for a while. The small wedding took place early in the spring of 1964 - Arthur’s mother and his brother had arrived, Daniel gave Angela way, Susan was the bride’s maid and Maury Parkman was best man.
The newly wedded couple went to Europe on their honeymoon, and the three young men who had once felt like Peter Pan had to get used to a life where Angela didn’t live with them anymore. After a while, when the Petrellis were settled in a large house where all of them easily could have lived, Daniel moved out, too; eager to get into the hotel industry, or maybe the gambling industry, or was it both? But they were still four, because Paula and Susan moved in.
As time passed, the new arrangements seemed as natural as the old had been, and all of them still met regularly. The Christmas dinners moved into the Petrelli mansion and they were joined by two more people - Carlos Mendez and Harry Fletcher, and Charles got married, too.
When Bob brought Victoria Pratt in, some of the others cooed over her because she was so young - only seventeen - but it didn’t matter; she had an incredibly sharp brain and fresh ideas. She and Bob became fast friends, a little to people’s surprise, because Bob wasn’t known to open up easily to new people. But they took it as a sign; Victoria belonged with them.
Bob realized after a while that his friends more or less expected the two of them to be dating.
“I’m happy for you”, Daniel said. “Victoria is young, but you’re not exactly an experienced man, are you, Bobby? Just make sure you can handle it. We don’t want any conflicts in the group.”
Bob was offended.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to handle it?” he grunted, “did you give the same speech to Angela a couple of years ago?”
“That’s different”, Daniel said. “Everybody knew, even Charles, that they were meant to be together. You and Victoria…”
“I know. We’re like yesterday’s re-heated leftovers. But don’t worry. We’re just friends.”
It was the truth. Bob wasn’t at all interested in Victoria in that way, and Victoria, she had - something she didn’t tell anybody else - developed a serious crush on Angela.
“I know she’s married and I shouldn’t think of her that way. And I will never tell her, of course. But I can’t help that I feel this way, do you know what I mean?”
But Bob didn’t know. He had never been in love and had no real idea about what it felt like. He was secretly glad to know about Victoria’s unrequited love, because it would make him less alone if she stayed single, too. He was a little ashamed to be thinking like that, but he suspected that Victoria felt something similar and that’s why she confided in him.
The two of them went to a concert once, with Harry and the Petrellis. Harry and Arthur loved classical music, and they had made Angela share their love. Bob and his young friend just went with them one night because Bob didn’t have anything else to do, and Victoria was too young to go out into the night with Daniel, Susan and Adam - at least Angela said so.
“I remember a girl who said she wasn’t going to play mother”, Daniel said. “Now look at Ma Petrelli…”
“But she is a mother now”, Bob pointed out, as if anybody had missed it. “And she’s right. Victoria wouldn’t get in to any of those places, unless you want to spend your Friday night eating burgers and ice-cream…”
“She would get in if Charles was with us”, Daniel said. “Angela used to do it all the time when she was younger.”
“I’m busy”, Charles said. “By the way, Victoria… did I ever tell you that my wife has a sister who is your age?”
Charles looked meaningfully at her, but she preferred the company of Bob, Harry and the married couple, and they all went to the concert hall for the first time in Bob’s life.
He hadn’t thought he cared about classical music, but it was love at first sight. Both the music and the blonde girl who played the cello.
He didn’t know it was love at first, because he had never felt anything like it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her, and later he couldn’t stop thinking about her, although he didn’t know her name.
Bob began listening to cello music at home; he bought records and began building a collection, and soon he knew almost as much as Arthur and Harry about genres and composers.
He went to the concert hall as often as he could, and he learned that the girl’s name was Eleanor. Bob was shy and it took a very long time before he mustered up enough courage even to talk to her, and even longer before he asked her out, but he watched her play and he knew that she was the only woman he was ever going to love.
----
The Company didn’t exist yet, but to Angela it was as real as her marriage, because she had lived with the idea for years. And they were all in on the plan, they all agreed. Yet, there was something missing. Or someone.
One day when she was taking the train with her husband and son to visit her brother-in-law, she fell asleep to the rhythmical throbbing of the train. When she woke up, she grabbed Arthur’s arm.
“We are so many now”, she said, “and we’ve got Adam to help us - it’s time to stop waiting and to get organized, I mean seriously. I know what’s been missing, and that’s one special point of view that only one person has. Arthur, we’re soon going to meet a man called Kaito Nakamura.”
A black-haired Asian man on the other side of the aisle slowly turned his head and looked at her with a dark, piercing stare that felt like fire, because she instantly knew that the moment was important. She had not seen the face of the man in her dream, only his eyes and his name.
“I am Kaito Nakamura”, the man said, and he looked at her as if he, too, had been waiting for a final meeting that could make all the pieces of the puzzle fall together.
They were twelve. Adam had said that twelve was a good number of members of a board, and she knew that he was right.
Finally, they were twelve, and it was time to found the company.
****
Prompt by boombangbing:
“Angela, Charles, Linderman, and Bob after the events of 1961; how do they come to found the company, how does Adam get involved, etc. I'd love to see them as a tight knit family unit with some bittersweet Angela/Charles with the arrival of Arthur.”
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Angela Petrelli, Charles Deveaux, Bob Bishop, Daniel Linderman, Adam Monroe, Arthur Petrelli, Susan Amman, Victoria Pratt, and (briefly) the other founding members of the company, and briefly Simone, Peter, Nathan, Elle; Angela/Charles, Angela/Arthur, Victoria/Angela (unrequited), Bob/OC
Summary: When they escaped Coyote Sands, Angela knew that they were going to found a company, and Charles, Daniel and Bob agreed with her plans. But it was easier said than done, and they had no real idea about how to do it. Then one night Adam showed up, offering some advice, and then, one by one, more people seemed to be drawn to their special little group…
Word count: 6 846
Notes: Written for the Heroes Fanfic Exchange for boombangbing! Beta reader: lynchgrrrl88, thank you so much, my friend!
Notes 2: Hey, look at this: jaune_chat wrote Mama Grizzly for me - an awesome Angela&Sandra fic! Go read it, go, go! :D
His eyes are closed but he can see them in his thoughts; Peter and Simone are talking, and he hears their voices, softened by their concern for him, but unaware of the fact that he can hear them. You’re like a son to him, his daughter says, and she smiles when the young man answers that it would make them brother and sister; , awkward if I wanted to ask you out. Charles, dying, thinks that Simone is more right than she knows; the youngest son of Angela, nursing him on his death bed, is precious to him… Charles thinks that with a mother like Angela, Peter is strong… even if he doesn’t know it. Peter has not grown out of Nathan’s shadow yet, the shadow that he feels is preventing their father to see him clearly, but Charles feels for him and thinks that across the years, something of his love for Angela has lived on in Peter. He hopes that Simone will love him. They will be what he and Angela never were.
Nathan walks out the door, and her youngest crouch down in front of her chair. What were you thinking? His voice is gentle; both her sons are worried about her, but Nathan is also worried about himself. That’s natural. But not Peter; he is only thinking about her right now. I just wanted to feel alive again. Angela knows that Nathan doesn’t understand; not yet, but he will. The world will be a better place because of him. Sometimes, it is a necessary evil to erase everything, to make it possible to start over. Angela decided long ago that she has to believe in the necessity of certain things, and in the ability to build something new from scratch.
There is a cello in Bob’s office. It stands quietly in a corner, and nobody can tell if it’s ever used or not. Bob has never been seen even touching it, much less has anyone ever heard him play. But there is never even the smallest amount of dust on it. When Elle asks him if he can teach her to play, or if she can teach herself, he snaps at her to go away. No, she can’t even touch it. It doesn’t matter that she begs him with tears in her eyes, saying that she’s no longer a careless little girl. It was her mother’s cello. Her mother could play, and she would be ashamed if she saw a grown woman like Elle cry. He turns away from his daughter. He has already told her so many times that the important thing is to grow up, be strong, and stay strong.
Daniel Linderman healed a scar on Angela’s leg once. He has healed her many times since then, because that is what he does; he is a healer. If he could have been there to erase her pains of childbirth, he would have. He did the second best thing; he saw her afterwards, and took away the rest of the pain that was still echoing in her body. Then he kissed the newborn baby and healed a small scratch that a careless nurse with too long fingernails had left on his little arm. Now he is going to heal the world; they started it all together, long ago, and Angela’s son will close the process.
----
They didn’t have any methods in the beginning. No real organization, because it was just the four of them. Charles spoke for them, because it was convenient. They listened to Angela, because they realized that it was smart. Bob made sure they could pay for everything, and with Daniel there, they never had to worry about getting hurt.
They were perfect together; they were invincible. And they were going to start something big. They didn’t know what exactly, of course; they were still young and inexperienced. If an outsider had heard them talk, they would have sounded just like any little group of idealistic kids to him or her. The listener would hear them laugh, would hear them lower their voices and speak seriously, solemnly, and use big words. To make the world better. To make the world safer. To be careful, to be invisible without hiding; to live in the world and work in and for it, to change it - they were going to do this, and the listener would nod his or her head silently, thinking that all kids wanted to change the world, but very few of them ended up doing it.
The listener would be a perfect example of when they won, because they didn’t want anyone to think that they were special, different. The first point of their secret manifesto was: Never let anybody know, unless they are like us.
That first point was going to be the subject of some change, with time, like so many other things. The time came when they found that they needed other people not like them, but in the beginning, they avoided these people as much as they could.
This exclusive and reclusive little society suited Bob Bishop. He didn’t like people much anyway, because he never knew how to act around them. He liked science. When he was younger, he liked chemistry; he enjoyed the changes, the metamorphosis, the various processes …but people didn’t ever change. Bob had been fourteen when he discovered that the changes didn’t have to take place in the classroom laboratory; they came from him. And they were much more than what anyone could do with normal science, as far as he knew; what he was able to do was more like alchemy. And yet; people could not change. He could not change into another person, and he couldn’t change his parents or the other kids that bullied him, or anyone else. He could turn a handful of pebbles into marbles or coins, he could turn yesterday’s leftovers into ice cream, but what good did it do for him?
Bob Bishop wanted to change into a person his parents could love, or he wanted to change his parents into people he could love. He wanted to become powerful and respected, the kind of person who always had an answer, who always could find something to say… But he couldn’t do any of this. His strange ability seemed like a cruel joke of nature; he didn’t understand it, he didn’t want it, and it made him feel like a freak.
But Charles and Daniel were different from other people he had known. At first, he had hated Coyote Sands; to be sent there had been like a confirmation of his freakishness. It was like being transferred from one school yard where he didn’t fit in to another one, larger, full of misfits. But Charles and Daniel, both of them older than he but Daniel only by a few years, talked to him and looked at him as if he was just as normal as they were. Or just as not normal. Or whatever.
And then Angela Shaw and her little sister - yes, he thought about Alice as ‘the little one’, even if she was almost his age - were the first girls he could talk to without blushing. At least after some time, he could.
So of course he followed the three of them. He would have followed them to the end of the world, because he didn’t have anywhere else to go, and they were the first real friends he ever had. He couldn’t see the mysterious promised goal as clearly as the others did, but he liked it when Angela talked about the future she had seen in her dreams.
Bob wanted the future. He knew that everything was going to make sense eventually. Until then, he followed his brothers and sister, as he sometimes called them in his thoughts, and in the big apartment where they finally settled down after some time of leading a wandering life, he thought about the man he was one day going to be.
----
Daniel was not the first one of them to feel the “family bond”, or to feel the importance of Angela’s visions. He knew, of course, that what had happened was terrible, and if he really thought about it, he was petrified… but he just didn’t think about it much.
He had never liked Coyote Sands; he had known from the start that it was a bad place, not the place for him. Why should he need Doctor Suresh, or any other doctor? But it didn’t matter anymore. They were free now, were they not? They were all alone in the world; they could do whatever they wanted and become whatever they wanted, and no grownups were ever going to watch them again.
Daniel laughed and joked, and dragged Bob along; poor Bobby who had never had much fun before - and Charles and Angela were not bad to have around either.
But Angela lost her patience very soon, and her temper.
“You boys think you’re Peter Pan”, she scolded them, “but guess what; this is not Never Never Land. This is the real world, and we’re all going to grow up in it, so you should start listening to me right now.”
“You’re right”, Charles said. “And they know it, too. It’s not like we’ve forgotten what happened back there, Angela… But you’ve got to try to understand that it’s a bit different for them. They feel free…”
“We are free”, Bob said, “but I’m sorry for you loss, Angela, I really am.”
Angela looked at the younger boy with the insecure eyes behind the glasses. She guessed that he really meant it, and that he wasn’t used to saying things like that, or even to feel them. But she didn’t have time to feel sorry for him.
“Thank you, Bobby… But I’m not obsessing over my loss. I’m simply telling you to stop believing that you can play around forever. You’re not Peter Pan, I’m not Wendy; I’m not playing mother and I’m not telling fairytales.”
“We know, Angela… But how are we going to do this? Where’s this ‘company’ going to come from? And what are we going to do if we find other people like us?”
Angela looked at her three friends, the only friends she had; her new family.
“It’s not a question about ‘if’”, she said, “the word is ‘when’… and I just know that we’re going to make it happen one way or another.”
But in the beginning, they were on their own, and Angela began to wonder if the future was further away than what she had thought.
----
And then, one day when the summer was over and a few violent storms had already shaken the leaves off the trees, Angela came down to breakfast with that exhausted yet very awake look on her face that meant she had been dreaming something important.
“We’re going to meet a man called Adam”, she said. “That’s an appropriate name… because he feels as if he’s as old as Adam, the first man… but of course he isn’t. He hasn’t seen anything yet… But he will help us.”
“When will we meet him? Where is he coming from? What does he want?”
Bob sounded nervous, and maybe he had reason to be? But Angela couldn’t answer his questions.
“I don’t know. But he’s already watching us.”
“What do you mean?” Charles said sharply and Angela flinched as if he had accused her of something, but he hadn’t meant to. It was just that whenever someone seemed to pay a little too much attention to them - four young people living together, and only one of them a girl, stirred up curiosity sometimes - Charles noticed it and redirected their interest elsewhere.
“I don’t know”, Angela repeated, “but I’m sure he will tell us.”
----
Adam came like a saviour, a prophet, late on Christmas Eve, 1962.
The four of them were having dinner as usual, in their thoroughly decorated apartment. Charles and Bobby had bought a Christmas tree somewhere, a big one, and they had all helped making garlands and balls of paper, macaronis, wool and cotton. Bob put the decoration up in the tree, exactly where Angela showed him, and when he was done, their tree was more shiny and glittering than any tree anywhere in the city. Last of all, he put a paper star in the top, and it was pure gold.
Daniel was in charge of the cooking. He wore his big apron tied around his neck and around his waist, and he said, smiling, that he was going to own his own restaurant one day, maybe even a chain of restaurants, or hotels, spread out all over the continent.
“And I’ll have a casino in Las Vegas”, he dreamed on, “a big one.”
“What for?” Bob asked; he didn’t see the point of gambling for money when there was an easier way.
“For nothing”, Daniel smiled, “just for fun. And for the croupiers and waitresses, and, you know… girls. Wouldn’t you like that, Bobby? I’d give you a special discount.”
Bob frowned and blushed. He didn’t really like girls, except Angela of course. But she was more like a sister, or at least, that’s what he assumed, not ever having had any to compare their relationship with.
“What’s your favourite carol, Bob?” Angela asked, and the two of them started singing, and their voices got along very well, while the kitchen got warmer and more and more filled with the scents of Christmas food.
After some time, they were too tired to sing anymore, too stuffed with food and candy. They were also a little giggly because of the wine they had been drinking - all of them, because no one had been there to remind the older boys that Angela and Bob were still underage. That was the moment Adam Monroe chose to knock on their door and introduced himself to them as if he had been a long lost cousin or friend.
“So you’re like us?” Daniel scrutinized the young blond man. “What do you mean when you say that you’re ‘like us’?”
“Daniel…”, Angela begun, but Adam interrupted her.
“No, no - it’s all right. It’s okay to be suspicious, you should be. You’re right not to trust everyone who walks in here. But you have dreamed about me, haven’t you?”
“Yes.” Angela nodded. “You’re older than you look like. You’re going to say that you can help us.”
“What I don’t understand”, Bob said, “is why we need help from anyone. I thought we were supposed to be on our own. Never let anyone know about us.”
Charles put his arm around the younger boy.
“That’s right, Bob. We’re a family. But we’re also going to be there for others like us if we find them, remember?”
“I guess…” Bob looked suspiciously at the newcomer who was intruding on the Christmas dinner.
“So what we’re all dying to know here”, Daniel continued his interrogation, “is, to put it simple, what do you do? What’s your special thing?”
“’Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’”, Adam said and winked at Angela, “’thou art more lovely and more temperate…’ I knew the guy who wrote that, you know.”
Angela sniffed and shook her head.
“Is that what you tell all girls? Besides, I don’t believe you.”
“You’re right”, Adam confessed with a not at all guilty grin, “I didn’t know him. You’re too smart for me… But no, I don’t tell all girls that, only those who deserve it. But I could have known him, though.”
“Who, Shakespeare?” Charles said sceptically.
“I don’t get it”, Daniel said, and Bob agreed.
“Let me put it like this”, their uninvited guest said and nodded to Daniel, “my ability is a bit like yours, but unfortunately for my friends, I’m the only one who benefits from it. I also have knowledge like you,” he said and smiled at Angela “but kind of reversed. And because of that, people have sometimes mistaken me to be like you…” Now he nodded to Charles. “I’m not like you, but people are predictable and it’s only too easy to know what they are thinking most of the time. I can’t do what you can do with things”, he said to Bob, “but sometimes, I think that the hatching of ideas and plans is similar to the process of turning sand into gold.”
They all stared at him and the silence remained unbroken for a while, when they thought about how Adam claimed to be a little like every one of them.
“So what you’re saying is”, Charles tried to sum it up, “is that you’re about four hundred years old, because you can’t get hurt by anything, not even time, and that’s also why you know a lot.”
“Yeah”, Adam agreed, “that’s another way of saying it.”
Adam explained to them that every society becomes corrupt with time. Things evolve to a certain point, and then the downfall starts, until everything breaks apart and it starts all over again. Nothing can stay whole forever; it is the force of human nature that is, essentially, destructive. However, he said, the details of this process are unpredictable and different from time to time. But Adam claimed that someone with a general view of the whole of it could help and control this. If someone fixed a date for the destruction, before the corruption is too deep, and directed every move, this someone would also be in a position where it’s possible to control the healing process afterwards. In short, someone with enough power and control could make the world a better place.
“Who would this someone be?” Daniel asked.
Adam laughed, as if the question made him happy.
“A group of people like you. We need more people, of course - not too many, but people like you. Not any people like you, of course; we’d have to be careful with whom we let in, but let’s leave that for now. You have the power. You have the ambition and the determination, and most importantly, the visions.”
Adam looked deeply into their eyes, one at the time. The candles, almost burnt out, made his shadow tall on the wall, and his hair had a golden lustre like an angel on a Christmas card. They hadn’t gotten any cards during the past two years, nor had they sent any.
“Can we do this?” Bob asked.
“We can”, Angela said. She was the first one to agree, to see the truth in Adam’s words, maybe because she had seen it already, without knowing it - but Adam explained her dreams and made sense come out of them.
And then Bob followed, finally seeing a broader perspective. They were going to be alchemists of the world, to make of it what they wanted.
Daniel could feel that something began to stir within him, and he nodded. If the world needed healing, he was in.
Charles, who knew a lot more about other people than what he sometimes would have wanted, was the one who thought the longest about Adam’s words.
Then he, too, nodded. He knew that people were often unhappy for no reason, and that made them do bad things sometimes, because they wouldn’t talk to one another. They couldn’t share their thoughts like he could, and they didn’t know how to put their best qualities at use. People needed help, and protection.
So we are getting closer to it, he thought, to the future Company that Angela is always talking about. He looked at her, and her eyes were shining, and he knew that their thoughts were on the same track. This guy was going to help them get it all started, like she had said, and she was happy.
God, she was beautiful when she was happy. The love for her that he usually managed to smother into a small, almost platonic flame suddenly refused to stay tame. She was eighteen now. Young, but not too young.
He sent her another thought that had noting to do with Adam Monroe or with the future.
She blushed, looked the other way, but answered him silently.
Yes.
----
Then, as if the arrival of the blond stranger had set something in motion, things started to happen quickly.
It was easy to feel alone in the world, as if they were the last of their kind, because all the rest of them were buried back there in that godforsaken place they had fled from a couple of years earlier. But Angela knew that more people were out there, somewhere, and she had been waiting for so long when she finally found Susan Amman.
Angela’s parents had wanted her to go to college. Then when everything was turned upside down, she forgot all those things and focused on building a new life with her friends. But when the future stayed in the distance, she began thinking about herself again, and she decided to take some college classes after all.
She chose History. She didn’t know what to do with it exactly, but she figured it made sense to try to understand the past as well as the future.
Susan Amman was in her class. They had exchanged a few words, and began sitting next to each other in the lectures.
One day, Angela noticed something different. The lecturer of the day was a well-reputed professor, greatly respected in the academic world - but as a teacher, he was a terrible bore.
That day, he kept having little mishaps. Papers slipped out of his hands, he dropped chalks, and the desk was wobbly. Poor man. Angela couldn’t help but giggle a little, and she looked at the girl next to her to see if she was amused, too.
Susan looked very focused, but smiled a little.
Angela gasped as the thought hit her, and blurted out:
“You’re doing this!”
Susan glanced at her, quickly, and then she looked away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Him… Professor Boredom…”
“What about him?” Susan replied indifferently. “He seems to be having problems today…”
A student in front of them turned around and shooshed them, and Angela kept quiet. What was she going to say? Her heart was beating hard and fast. Now, for the first time outside the four walls of her home, she was next to another special one, someone with an ability - was it telekinesis? - but what was she going to say? ‘I’ve dreamed about meeting someone like you’?
Maybe Susan didn’t even know that other people like her existed, but Angela knew that Susan was going to be in her Company. It wasn’t easy for Angela to make the other girl open up to her, but she was persistent, and eventually she won Susan’s trust as well as her friendship.
Susan had the ability to make things move without touching them, just as Angela has guessed, and she had never told anyone about it before. When she had begun experimenting a few years earlier, her parents had believed that they had a poltergeist or something in the house, and they called an exorcist. The exorcist, however, left Susan unaffected, and she realized that her parents had to believe that the man got rid of the problem. If they knew that she was the force behind the moving objects, they would think that she was possessed.
But Susan didn’t feel possessed or evil, just different. Sometimes she felt mischievous and played pranks on people, but she never wanted to scare anyone or reveal herself.
“Don’t worry”, Angela and the three young men said to her, “you are among friends now.”
Charles, Bob and Daniel accepted Susan just as they had accepted Adam. And Adam told Angela that she had done a very good job.
“To bring people together”, he said, “that’s exactly what we should do. Bring them in, teach them not to be afraid of what they are, and learn from them - unless they’re dangerous of course, in which case we’ll have to protect the world from them…”
But to Angela, it was more than that. Susan was her age, and a very nice person, easy to like. Angela hadn’t had a female friend since before the camp, and she had almost forgotten what it was like to hang out with another girl. As much as she liked her boyfriend and their two roommates, she realized that she had missed that kind of friendship.
That became especially obvious when Daniel found two young men called Maury Parkman and Arthur Petrelli.
Angela didn’t know how he found them. Daniel told her when he introduced them to his friends, but as soon as Arthur smiled at her, she forgot to listen to and remember what anyone said during the next few minutes.
The more she got to know Arthur, the more confused he made her. She felt weak when he was around, and exhilarated, carefree and happy. Something drew her to him - was it his eyes, his voice, the way he talked or moved?
“You have a crush on Petrelli”, Bob said one day when he found her alone with an accusing tone of voice. “I thought you were supposed to be Charles’ girlfriend.”
“I am”, Angela said. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bob - you don’t understand this.”
But maybe he did understand. She wasn’t sure. She just knew that she couldn’t talk to him or to the others about Arthur. In their eyes, she belonged to Charles, and they all belonged together.
But Susan didn’t judge her like Bob and Daniel, she didn’t look at her with pain in her eyes like Charles did.
“You’re in love”, she said, “that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“But I don’t want to hurt Charles…”
Charles was her best friend after all, and he had always been there for her, and he told her that he loved her.
“Of course not”, Susan replied, “but you’re not in love with him. You’re only with him because you didn’t know any other kind of love yet. You have to fall in love once to be able to tell the difference. I’m sure Charles will understand. I mean, of course he loves you but he wouldn’t want you to be with him when you’re in love with someone else.”
“No, maybe not…”
“So, have you kissed Arthur yet?”
“No! Of course not. But… I feel more when he looks at me than any feeling I’ve ever had when Charles kisses me…”
The mere thought of what Arthur made her feel made her blush.
“Go for it”, Susan told her. “You know it’s the right thing to do.”
Yes, Angela knew. She hadn’t even known the man a month, but she had been dreaming about him since the day they met. And when she began trying to avoid Arthur, he came after her, and then it was easier than what she had imagined.
“Don’t run away from me”, he begged. “You know that I love you.”
“Yes”, she replied, “I know.”
Her dreams had told her so, and she knew that she couldn’t ignore what she dreamed.
Arthur took her in his arms, and a new chapter of her life began.
----
When Angela and Arthur Petrelli became a couple, Bob thought that everything was going to change. Charles was hurt, anyone could see that, and could they still be a family when things changed like that and new persons were arriving?
Yes, maybe.
Charles seemed to get over it quickly. He dated some girl - someone ordinary, not special - but he didn’t bring her to their home a lot. Daniel dated, too - not the same girl all the time; he went through them quickly and Bob couldn’t keep up with his speed and stopped trying to remember any names.
Susan, Arthur and Maury became parts of their family group, even if they didn’t all live together.
And it was Christmas again, and Bob had to admit that it was kind of fun to have more people around the table, eating their turkey and admiring their tree with the decorations that Bob had made.
“I love our Christmases together”, Angela said. “This is our third. I’m sure we’re going to stay like this forever.”
“Really?” Maury asked, “Do you know it for a fact, or is it just a wish?”
“Does it matter?” Angela laughed happily. “In fairytales, wishes can come true. I wish our children will be best friends.”
“I don’t even have a wife”, Maury observed, “and you… you’re not pregnant.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Stop reading my thoughts”, Angela snapped. “It’s impolite and an ugly habit.”
“Sorry”, Maury said sheepishly. “Bad habits are hard to break… I guess you’ll have to learn to lock me out of your mind.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Children, don’t quarrel”, Adam intervened. “Let me tell you about a woman I happened to come across recently - this will be my Christmas gift to you. Her name is Paula Gramble, and I think that she has been waiting her whole life to meet people like you, my friends…”
----
“Charles?”
Charles had been out until late last night, and he wasn’t in the mood for talking. It was eleven o’clock, too early in the morning - at least for someone who hadn’t been able to fall asleep until 6 am - for serious conversations with Angela. He could hear it in her voice that she was serious. Or maybe he just picked it up from her mind, her heart - he had been around her for too long to not feel her mood as clearly as if she had told him about it in words.
But that was also the reason why he couldn’t turn away from her when she came to him.
“Yes, Angela?”
Yes, my love? he said in his thoughts. He never said it out loud anymore.
She sighed, and looked into his eyes as if she was going to reveal some big secret. As if she needed to say it for him to know.
“Don’t say it”, he said.
“I have to”, she replied, “it makes it more real… words make things seem more real. If I know it, but don’t say it, then it’s like a dream and maybe it hasn’t happened yet. And maybe it won’t ever happen. Even I have dreams that don’t come true sometimes.”
He touched her cheek, rose-red. It wasn’t his touch that made her blush.
“Charles, I’m happy.”
Angela was right. As long as the words remain unspoken, there is the possibility that what they stand for hasn’t happened yet.
“I know”, he said and didn’t want to look her in the eyes anymore. “Arthur’s a lucky guy. I’ve already told him that like twenty times already…”
“Yes, but I’m scared.”
“Don’t be”, he replied immediately, ignoring his own pain. “You have the right to be happy, just as much as anyone.”
He took her both hands and looked intensely at her, but didn’t want to force her to believe in his words. It was important that she found the belief deep within herself.
“Do you remember when we danced?”
Yes, Charles remembered. Angela and he had danced many times, but the time she was now referring to was the first time. The short dance that only lasted half a minute while the jukebox played one of Angela’s favorite songs. Angela almost never talked about that day, but when she did, she didn’t have to say many words before he knew what she meant.
“I was happy then”, she said, “because I believed that everything was going to be all right. Then I realized that I had been wrong. And… I’ve been happy again since then, I guess, because I really do love you, Charles…”
“You don’t have to tell me…”
“I do, and I love Daniel, and Bobby, too. You will always be my family. But you know, with Arthur, I feel that I can finally have that kind of family again. It’s different. You will always be a part of it, but we will have children, and… they will never have to have cold feet, and I will love and protect them, but what if I… fail…”
Angela’s head fell to his shoulder, her tears made his shirt wet, and she was shaking. Charles held her, rocked her gently, murmured inaudible words.
He did not want to understand this love that made Angela cry. She shouldn’t have to cry if she was truly happy. She shouldn’t have to come to him if Arthur made her feel safe.
“You will not fail”, he said when her tears subsided. “Listen to me, Banana…”
Angela flinched when he used that old nickname. He had heard Alice say it once, and he had never forgotten, because it was probably the weirdest nickname he had ever heard. But Angela seemed to respond to it, and although he had been curious, he had never searched her mind for the story behind it. He hoped that she would tell him some day, but she hadn’t.
“Listen to me… What happened wasn’t your fault. It happened because… because of many things. But never again. That’s our plan, remember? We’ll work to make the world a better place, and you know; Alice will always be with you. As long as you remember her, she’ll be with you and your future children, in your heart.”
Angela was still shaking from the aftermaths of her crying. Charles stroke her back, and wondered if that was going to be the last time he held Angela in his arms like that, the last time she came to him for comfort.
She hadn’t said so, but he was pretty sure that there was going to be a wedding soon. Arthur was dying to pop the question, and Angela seemed to know already that they were going to have children…
“Come on”, he said, “I’ll take you to the nearest supermarket - maybe you’ll feel better if you do your little… thing. That is, unless you’d rather be with Arthur?”
“No”. Angela shook her head, and her eyes were red but there were no more tears in them. “I want to go to the supermarket with you.”
As they left, Charles couldn’t help smiling a little. Angela hadn’t told Arthur about the socks.
-----
After Paula Gramble, everything had been quiet for a while. The small wedding took place early in the spring of 1964 - Arthur’s mother and his brother had arrived, Daniel gave Angela way, Susan was the bride’s maid and Maury Parkman was best man.
The newly wedded couple went to Europe on their honeymoon, and the three young men who had once felt like Peter Pan had to get used to a life where Angela didn’t live with them anymore. After a while, when the Petrellis were settled in a large house where all of them easily could have lived, Daniel moved out, too; eager to get into the hotel industry, or maybe the gambling industry, or was it both? But they were still four, because Paula and Susan moved in.
As time passed, the new arrangements seemed as natural as the old had been, and all of them still met regularly. The Christmas dinners moved into the Petrelli mansion and they were joined by two more people - Carlos Mendez and Harry Fletcher, and Charles got married, too.
When Bob brought Victoria Pratt in, some of the others cooed over her because she was so young - only seventeen - but it didn’t matter; she had an incredibly sharp brain and fresh ideas. She and Bob became fast friends, a little to people’s surprise, because Bob wasn’t known to open up easily to new people. But they took it as a sign; Victoria belonged with them.
Bob realized after a while that his friends more or less expected the two of them to be dating.
“I’m happy for you”, Daniel said. “Victoria is young, but you’re not exactly an experienced man, are you, Bobby? Just make sure you can handle it. We don’t want any conflicts in the group.”
Bob was offended.
“Why wouldn’t I be able to handle it?” he grunted, “did you give the same speech to Angela a couple of years ago?”
“That’s different”, Daniel said. “Everybody knew, even Charles, that they were meant to be together. You and Victoria…”
“I know. We’re like yesterday’s re-heated leftovers. But don’t worry. We’re just friends.”
It was the truth. Bob wasn’t at all interested in Victoria in that way, and Victoria, she had - something she didn’t tell anybody else - developed a serious crush on Angela.
“I know she’s married and I shouldn’t think of her that way. And I will never tell her, of course. But I can’t help that I feel this way, do you know what I mean?”
But Bob didn’t know. He had never been in love and had no real idea about what it felt like. He was secretly glad to know about Victoria’s unrequited love, because it would make him less alone if she stayed single, too. He was a little ashamed to be thinking like that, but he suspected that Victoria felt something similar and that’s why she confided in him.
The two of them went to a concert once, with Harry and the Petrellis. Harry and Arthur loved classical music, and they had made Angela share their love. Bob and his young friend just went with them one night because Bob didn’t have anything else to do, and Victoria was too young to go out into the night with Daniel, Susan and Adam - at least Angela said so.
“I remember a girl who said she wasn’t going to play mother”, Daniel said. “Now look at Ma Petrelli…”
“But she is a mother now”, Bob pointed out, as if anybody had missed it. “And she’s right. Victoria wouldn’t get in to any of those places, unless you want to spend your Friday night eating burgers and ice-cream…”
“She would get in if Charles was with us”, Daniel said. “Angela used to do it all the time when she was younger.”
“I’m busy”, Charles said. “By the way, Victoria… did I ever tell you that my wife has a sister who is your age?”
Charles looked meaningfully at her, but she preferred the company of Bob, Harry and the married couple, and they all went to the concert hall for the first time in Bob’s life.
He hadn’t thought he cared about classical music, but it was love at first sight. Both the music and the blonde girl who played the cello.
He didn’t know it was love at first, because he had never felt anything like it, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her, and later he couldn’t stop thinking about her, although he didn’t know her name.
Bob began listening to cello music at home; he bought records and began building a collection, and soon he knew almost as much as Arthur and Harry about genres and composers.
He went to the concert hall as often as he could, and he learned that the girl’s name was Eleanor. Bob was shy and it took a very long time before he mustered up enough courage even to talk to her, and even longer before he asked her out, but he watched her play and he knew that she was the only woman he was ever going to love.
----
The Company didn’t exist yet, but to Angela it was as real as her marriage, because she had lived with the idea for years. And they were all in on the plan, they all agreed. Yet, there was something missing. Or someone.
One day when she was taking the train with her husband and son to visit her brother-in-law, she fell asleep to the rhythmical throbbing of the train. When she woke up, she grabbed Arthur’s arm.
“We are so many now”, she said, “and we’ve got Adam to help us - it’s time to stop waiting and to get organized, I mean seriously. I know what’s been missing, and that’s one special point of view that only one person has. Arthur, we’re soon going to meet a man called Kaito Nakamura.”
A black-haired Asian man on the other side of the aisle slowly turned his head and looked at her with a dark, piercing stare that felt like fire, because she instantly knew that the moment was important. She had not seen the face of the man in her dream, only his eyes and his name.
“I am Kaito Nakamura”, the man said, and he looked at her as if he, too, had been waiting for a final meeting that could make all the pieces of the puzzle fall together.
They were twelve. Adam had said that twelve was a good number of members of a board, and she knew that he was right.
Finally, they were twelve, and it was time to found the company.
****
Prompt by boombangbing:
“Angela, Charles, Linderman, and Bob after the events of 1961; how do they come to found the company, how does Adam get involved, etc. I'd love to see them as a tight knit family unit with some bittersweet Angela/Charles with the arrival of Arthur.”