Adventures of Matt Parkman, Chapter 3: What didn't
A/N: The horse incident really happened about ten miles from where I live, though no interfering telepath was involved.
The next morning, Matt was still riding high on his success. He took Matty to daycare and headed to his apartment, settling in and immediately measuring out his dose. He needed more information about the accident with the horses. Somewhere, a road construction crew was, or was going to, work near a horse farm and cut down a fence. He didn't know where or when and he needed to find out. He began to paint.
His first day of painting was disappointing, as none of the events depicted seemed to bear on the object of his focus. He set those aside and tried not to be discouraged. Several more similar days passed with a gap for the weekend and a few days where he had other business to attend to for the house. Finally one of his paintings bore fruit. He had a traffic sign in the background showing a highway on-ramp. It looked like the same area as where the horses were and more to the point, he felt it was the same area. He knew they were connected even if he couldn't express how.
It took nearly a week of driving to find the place even knowing which highway it was on, because he was at first unwilling to drive out quite that far. It was at the limit of where he could get to in a day's drive and get back without arousing suspicion. He'd promised Janice months ago that he wouldn't use his abilities anymore and they'd live a normal life. He'd been able to pass off the incident with Sylar as being not his fault and he'd never told her about the adventure with Noah Bennet.
He pulled up on the side of the road and looked at the area. He could see parked construction equipment and the work zone marked out, but the fence was as yet intact. With the location known, he contemplated what to do about the time. He had no idea, really. Maybe they'd cut the fence today or maybe two months from now. He couldn't just keep coming by to see if the fence was down. It was too far. He drove back home, chewing his lip and fretting.
That night he had a nightmare of driving with his family and seeing, looming out of the darkness, horses running on the road in front of him. He swerved to avoid them, but hit one to the side he hadn't seen. The thousand pound animal flipped and crashed into the hood and windshield of the car, killing him and Janice instantly. The car careened off the road and down the embankment, carrying Matty into a deep pond. He woke in a sweat, clutching his chest where he'd been hit by one of the horse's hooves that had punched into the compartment.
Janice stirred. "Matt?"
"No, it's nothing. Just a dream - a bad dream." His voice was strained like he couldn't get his breath.
She blinked warily at him. "Like those bad dreams you had six months ago?" She was speaking of the problems he had with Sylar.
"No! No, that's over. Done with. This is… it's just a normal dream. Normal bad dream. It's nothing." He tried to convince himself it was, but he couldn't shake the thought that some precognition came in dreams. Angela Petrelli saw the future in her dreams. Previously he'd only had foreknowledge through painting. It can't possibly be…? But his ability had already mutated once. He got out of bed and sat in the living room, head in his hands.
Is it tonight? If I go look, will I die? Will Janice insist on going and we'll take Matty and it will happen just as I saw? It's going to happen. Sometime. If I don't stop it, it will happen for sure and that other painting I did of it, where that man dies trapped in his car, will come to pass. That was his car I was driving in the dream! I know that now, so that's another painting that makes sense. I've got to make sure it can't happen. If I sabotage the work project, they'll leave and it won't get done. No one will be there to cut the fence. They won't want to. That will fix it!
Armed with a plan, he set to making breakfast for everyone. Janice appreciated it, even if she was still a bit put off by the idea that his bad dreams and unpredictable, crazy behavior from months before might be resurfacing. As she recalled, he'd been moody, obsessive and at turns wildly passionate then too. She was distant from him at breakfast, watching him carefully. He didn't notice. He never read her mind if he could help it, though more than once he'd slipped into her dreams accidentally. It was a hazard of being a telepath and sleeping with someone. After he'd explained it, she'd resigned herself to it as unintentional and didn't blame him for it.
He set off that morning as soon as he could get Matty into daycare. He drove to the work site and parked. He was glad to see that workers were there now and he was quickly directed to the foreman. Parkman walked over holding a clipboard, smiling. He had a plan. It turned out to be more difficult than he'd expected to get the man alone. He tried telling the foreman twice he needed to speak with him privately, but it didn't work. After the second time, the man laughed at him and said, "If you can't tell me now, then you don't need to tell me." He turned back to discussing equipment allocation and scheduling with one of his men.
Matt heaved a put-upon sigh and turned his mind to the three men nearby. Go away. Get out of here. Scram. In turn, they each wandered away. The foreman stared after them, confused. They'd been in the middle of conversation. He turned and looked at Matt, aware on some level that Parkman was responsible for his employee's odd behavior. "What did you…?" He couldn't finish. What he suspected was so bizarre and formless. All he could imagine was collusion, but that didn't make sense.
Matt interrupted his fumbling thoughts, telling him, This work project is cancelled. You're not going to do it anymore. Take your crew and go on to some other project. After a moment of hesitation, he added, And the next time someone wants to talk to you privately, do it.
The man nodded blankly, his mind already turning to his next scheduled project, thinking about what he'd need to do to get his equipment and men relocated. He blinked at Matt, not recognizing him, but dismissing him as irrelevant. He had work to do. The foreman headed off to organize his people. Matt left.
He drove home with a clean conscience, pleased with how things went. He smiled and sang along to the radio. His first indication something was wrong was when he went to the daycare and found his wife had already picked up Matty. He hurried home with the radio off. A tense silence filled the car instead. Janice was already there. She gave him an intent, scrutinizing look as he walked in. This was not good. He vaguely recalled her looking at him like that a few times at breakfast, but he really hadn't paid attention, what with his mind on how he was going to handle his day.
"Hi. Um, guess you got off work early, huh?" He knew his fat was in the fire. He had not been where he was supposed to be.
"Not really," she said slowly, cautiously. "Daycare called. Matty had a fever. They'd called here, but there was no answer."
He shook his head and rolled his eyes, thinking dark thoughts about the daycare staff. "I was… I was just out. Just for a little while. Why didn't they call my cell? That's what they're supposed to do if no one answers here."
"I don't know. They called me instead." Her tone and posture were stiff, suspicious of him.
"Why didn't you call my cell then?" He didn't understand it. Why hadn't she called him to go pick Matty up? It wasn't like he had been close enough to do it, but she wouldn't have known that. He knew she'd be mad if she thought he was using his powers again. Technically though, his promise to her had been regarding telepathy, not precognition. At least that was what he told himself. She didn't even know he had precognition.
She didn't answer him directly. "The daycare says you've been leaving Matty there a lot recently."
He exhaled through his nose, lips tight. "So?"
"So…?" She raised her eyebrows and looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "Where've you been?"
"I've been looking for work, okay?"
She opened her mouth and closed it. She wanted to bring up her brother's job offer again, but they'd fought about that only last week. Instead she said, "If you were really looking for work, then why would you hide that from me?"
"Hide it? I told you… several times."
"I know, but I'm talking about the days when you said you were here all day and then the daycare says you checked Matty in."
"What are you doing? Checking up on me? Is that it? Trying to figure out where I am all the time?" He was mad now, raising his voice, getting in her face.
She matched him, angry and defensive. "No! I had nothing to do with it. They called me. They wanted to know if they should move us to a different price bracket because we were using them more. That's all! I didn't ask. I'm not snooping on you, Matt. But now that I know, you still haven't told me what you were out doing."
"I'VE ALREADY TOLD YOU!" he yelled at her. She closed her eyes and sighed, looking away, disappointed in him. Matt shook his head, snarling, "Fine. Don't believe me." He walked past her into the kitchen. He hadn't eaten lunch, trying to drive down there and back in one long haul so he wouldn't be late. Pointless!, he thought.
Her voice caught, "Should I believe you? Or…?" She threw up her hands in dismay. "Matt, I can't tell what's going on with you. Ever!" She looked like she was going to cry.
He turned and glared at her. It's fine! Just drop it, he told her without thinking. He blinked and sucked in air, realizing he hadn't said that verbally. He'd just slipped. Didn't I? Did I mean to do that?
Janice walked over and kissed him on the cheek while he was still aghast at himself. She said, "It's fine. I'm sorry I snapped at you. I was just…" She shook her head. "I overreact. Don't worry about it." She walked off to the living room where Matty was playing quietly with blocks. She flipped on the TV and lay on the couch, intent on enjoying her time home even if it was unplanned. After all, everything was fine.
Matt stood there with his mouth hanging open. Finally he shut it. Very quietly, he went about fixing a sandwich, though he'd lost his appetite. He wrapped it up after taking a single bite and put it in the fridge. He walked out and looked at Janice. "Um… honey?" he said tentatively.
"Yeah?" she sounded relaxed and indifferent, like they hadn't been yelling at each other only ten minutes ago.
"Um… would you like to go out to eat? Can I… um, can I take you somewhere special?" He didn't want to undo the command, but he felt like he needed to do something to make up for it.
"No, not really. Since I'm already here, I thought I'd just watch TV. You know, you could go rent a movie or something. Maybe we could snuggle on the couch." She turned and smiled up at him.
He tried and mostly failed to smile back.
"Is something wrong?" She looked concerned for him.
"Uh… no. I…" He hesitated. "Oh! You know, I didn't lay anything out, so ah… I can't fix dinner. How about, while I'm out getting a movie, I'll pick up some take-out. What do you want?"
"Hm." She thought about it. "How about that duck pho I had at that Vietnamese place?"
His face fell a little. He hadn't liked the pho. "Um… yeah. Wait, there's a KFC next to it, right?"
She gave him a confused look. "Yeah?"
"I'll get your pho, and I'll order some chicken for me. That way we're both happy."
She shrugged. "Sounds good." She turned and went back to watching TV. Matt slumped. She seemed content. He'd… he'd sort of hoped she'd catch him, she'd know, she'd rail at him for doing that to her. But she didn't know. She didn't seem to have a clue. He felt lost.
The next week he was a fairly model house husband, but his thoughts kept going back to the third painting he'd done. Somewhere, somewhen, a man was going to be killed execution-style and Matt could stop it. He was supposed to stop it, in fact. He wasn't sure how to balance his need to help others with his need to serve his family, to work things out with Janice and to keep his promise to her of living a normal life.
She'd just headed off to work while he was doing the breakfast dishes. He paused, listening to the television. The morning news was on. The lead story was about some accident on the highway. He hadn't cared, but for the life of him he thought the newscaster said something about horses. He heard the voice say, "Does anyone know how many horses were out on the road?"
Matt dropped the dish he was holding and it shattered on the floor. He paid it no mind and rushed into the living room, staring at the TV set. They were showing footage matching his dream, matching the paintings he'd done. A dozen or more horses were loose on the highway, running ahead of cars. A vehicle swerved, hitting an animal they hadn't seen to their side. Both horse and car went off the side of the road. In his dream, that had been the car Matt had been driving. He stared in horror.
The newscaster went on, "We're lucky to be able to show you this footage, captured by one of our fast alert teams who was in the area earlier covering the local football game. Dave, do we know if they were involved in an accident? They look like they're right there in the middle of things!" Dave said, "No, no, they were fine, but it was close. Tracy said you couldn't see the horses until you were right up on them. They only knew they were there because of the tail lights of another car that hit one." The female newscaster responded, "Oh my God! Those poor animals!"
Matt turned off the TV. He fell into a chair. I… It didn't work. I sent the crew away, but… what happened? How did it happen?
He called the news station. He crawled the internet. He investigated. Over the next two days it was revealed that the assigned work crew had been rotated off for unknown reasons and a new crew, unfamiliar with the location and the agreements made with the local horse farm, had come on site only a day before. Their site preparation had included clearing off all obstructions to work, including cutting the fences. The first crew had made arrangements with the land owners to leave the fences intact for another month, only cutting them at the last minute so they could begin work on the overpass expansion.
There were three fatalities on the highway, all in the same car Matt had dreamed he was driving. There were four injuries, three of which were severe. Seven horses had to be put down. Ten others were rounded up and received light injuries as a result of their escape. Matt spent the rest of the day sitting in the chair, staring off into space, taking only minimal care of Matty. When Janice came home and found the broken dish still littering the kitchen floor, Matty with a soiled diaper and still in his crib, she looked at Matt's depressed, thousand-yard stare and decided to say nothing. She cleaned things up quietly and locked the bedroom door. Matt didn't notice. He'd fallen asleep in the chair shortly after a silent dinner.