Moral Obligations, Chapter Three: Introspection
Later that night, Peter limped into his apartment, looking like Peter Petrelli once more. Shape-shifting had not healed him, which was annoying. He sort of wished Sylar was here to come home to like he used to be, so Peter could swap powers. It wasn’t worth calling him, not with the risk that the man might take it upon himself to get involved and Peter still hadn’t figured out what needed to be done.
He made a new ice pack to replace the one he’d rigged at work and changed into some loose-waisted boxers so he could apply an ACE bandage. Then he flopped onto the couch and finally started applying the RICE treatment that Hesam had nagged him about for the last portion of his tour. Peter had rarely taken good care of himself. The only reason he was doing it now was so he could think.
As his hands went about the familiar work of wrapping his knee, his thoughts turned to college.
If I remember that philosophy class correctly, a moral dilemma is any time two moral principles are in conflict. It’s general. I think the classic is how to love your neighbor when your neighbor is doing something harmful to you. But in a lot of cases, you can look at the situation and choose to do nothing, which still means you kind of suck, but you have a sort of moral high ground by not having acted to contradict either of your principles. It’s kind of like turning the other cheek. No, that’s it exactly. Civil disobedience maybe.
But a moral obligation is when you can’t just stand there and do nothing. You have to act. You have an obligation to act. Just like … I have abilities. I’m obligated to use them to help people. That’s my job; that’s my real job. He sighed. Claire … is she obligated to use her ability to help others? She wouldn’t be feeling guilty about it if she didn’t recognize that on some level. But … should I help get her out? If I do, then there are people who won’t be saved. If I don’t, then … really, what are they doing to her that’s so bad?
Peter grimaced and rubbed at his forehead in frustration. This would be so much easier if she had agreed to the process, if she didn’t seem like a prisoner and a victim herself, if she hadn’t looked at him like she had, like he’d driven a knife into her heart. That was what hurt the most - her expression and the emotion he knew was behind it. He squirmed uneasily on the couch like he couldn’t get comfortable and the truth was he couldn’t - not while that vision of her face was haunting him. Guilt would not let him rest. It gnawed at his gut at the same time that his throat felt like it was closing off in panic. Panic that he was missing something. Claire had been so angry, so outraged, and vicious ... even though the situation looked benign, the way she acted, you would think they were torturing her. Violating her.
They’re just taking her blood. I take people’s blood all the time. He growled in irritation, mostly at himself, because he could already see where this line of thought was going. There were people in the medical industry who said that giving blood should be mandatory. They said that organ donation should be default. He understood. He didn’t agree, but he understood. He put IV lines into people sometimes a half dozen times a day. He didn’t ask permission. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked permission. It was usually just “I’m sorry, but I have to do this,” followed by a brief explanation of why, and even that assumed his patient was conscious. If they weren’t, no one considered later that no consent had been given. Blood samples were taken routinely and again, there was no issue with obtaining consent in a case of medical emergency. In fact, as an emergency responder, he was legally obligated to do whatever was medically necessary to sustain the patient.
The people Claire’s blood was helping - they were medical emergencies. And it would be an easy decision for Peter if Claire was actually hurt by what they were doing, but he doubted it. From what he’d overheard, they were respecting her limits. From what he’d seen they were making her life as good as they could. Even if it was a cage, they’d at least gilded it. He suspected that if they didn’t think she’d flee, if she could be trusted to show up each day like it was a job, then she wouldn’t even be confined. Or maybe she would, because Peter knew she was going to be mobbed if news ever got out that she was restoration and resurrection on legs for anyone who could hold her down and drain her blood. The whole world would turn into a bunch of vampires, because who didn’t have a loved one with an illness or a disability? And then there was the likely possibility that her blood could be used to slow aging or enhance performance. Her blood could become a drug, sold for the highest price. He shuddered at the idea and the horrible images his mind was coming up with. Claire thought she was a prisoner now, but there was far worse that she could be going through.
Claire needed the protection the government could give her, because the news of what she could do was getting out. Ironically, her attempt to come out to everyone had flopped and been discounted as fake, but now people were starting to believe. How could you not when you had an arm back, good as new, that had previously been lost? Peter had only heard about it because whatever the government had been doing to date to keep this under wraps was failing. It was only a matter of time, and not much time at that, before it was well known. There would be testimonials. There would be people demanding the government make transparent how they were doing this. There would be people demanding that they find Claire’s limits and see if she could heal three, or four, or ten people a day.
Put that way, he really had no choice. Or at least, inaction was not a moral choice. If he left her in there, it was going to get bad. She was going to be hurt. She was going to be abused and he couldn’t stand by for that. The restraint that had been shown to date would not continue. Peter knew how people were, especially when their loved ones’ lives were on the line. He knew what he would have done, there in the Stanton Hotel, if he’d known her blood could have revived his brother. He certainly wouldn’t have asked her permission, and he loved Claire. They would kill the goose that laid the golden egg; it would be a tragedy of the commons. He had to get her out of there and get her somewhere that she could be safe in anonymity for a while longer. Noah had been right.
Peter set aside his warring senses of duty. His panic and doubts were swept aside by the rising tide of momentum and the clarity of purpose. She was his niece. He was worried for her. She needed him. He would act.
That resolved, he levered himself off his couch and sat up, putting the ice pack to the side for the moment. He was thinking that the first thing he needed to do was go visit Gabriel and Mohinder again. He’d need their help. That was when his door was busted in.
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