Fic: Enchanted
Title: Enchanted
Author: Liritar
Pairing: Mohinder/Matt
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Mohinder and Molly spend much time in a hospital waiting room, and Mohinder thinks. A lot.
Spoilers: Season Finale.
A/N: Written for the rare_heroes Brave New Ship Challenge. Tetris is in homage to Nuclear Family by greatwhitesnark. Because it was just that good.
He ran his hand gently through the hair of the little girl nestled anxiously in his lap. He didn’t say a word, and neither did she. There was nothing that hadn’t already been said, after all. The silence was unbroken but for the blips from the various machines wired to the man that two sets of eyes watched avidly, waiting for any sign of life. Mohinder hoped, for Molly’s sake, that she wouldn’t have to watch her hero die before her eyes.
He had to admit that he would be loathe to watch the man die, himself. There was something about Molly’s Officer Parkman, a tarnished nobility that had probably been a product of extended association with Bennet. Mohinder wondered idly what he’d been like before that. A knight with a badge, slaying the demons of the city world? A burning beacon of naïve hope, much like he himself had been before coming to New York ? His arm tightened around Molly’s shoulders, offering her his silent reassurance. It was almost more responsibility than he could hold, being a child’s hero. The absolute trust she had in him was close to crushing in its weight. She truly believed that he would make everything alright. That he could hold back the darkness, and keep her policeman alive.
Mohinder just wished that she was right.
He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there when a nurse arrived to chase them out. He nodded grimly at the woman and firmly placed Molly on the floor, leading her away despite her protests. Once out of the room, he kneeled before her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll come back,” he promised softly, staring earnestly into her tear-filled chocolate eyes. “They need space to fix him. He’ll be fine. I promise.” He hated himself the instant the words left his lips, but the renewed hope in her expression, the lightening of the aura of despair that surrounded her, was all worth it. “Are you hungry?” He stood and offered her his hand. “Let’s go see what the cafeteria has to offer.”
Mohinder watched Molly bite into a hot dog with surprising vigor and cheer for-he checked his watch-3:17 in the morning, in a hospital cafeteria. He knew he needed to get her to bed, but he also knew, just as certainly, that she’d never sleep. Was this what being a parent felt like? A futile struggle against all odds? He smiled wryly, then blinked as Molly’s bubbly chatter finally pierced his introspection.
“-and when he gets better, we can all live together, right? Like a family?”
Mohinder blinked. He searched frantically for an answer to that that wouldn’t crush his little angel too badly. “Uh… Molly, Officer Parkman... He has a wife.” He dimly remembered Bennet saying something about her. Probably that he’d called her to let her know what had happened. She might even be showing up soon. He tried to pull his thoughts into order.
“She could live with us, too.” Molly beamed, smug at solving that problem so quickly.
He sighed. “He has to get better first,” he temporized. He had a feeling she could counter everything he said with a reason that made perfect sense-to an eight year old girl. And the more he argued against her idea, the less he’d see of that bright smile gracing her lips. She deserved a bit of hope. For a while, at least.
“It’ll be fun. Trust me.” Her hand found his, and held it tightly. “I’ll keep you both safe.”
“Parkman family?” Mohinder jolted to awareness and peered blearily around the waiting room. His eyes lit on the nurse who was standing in the doorway, obviously waiting for a reply. A glance at the seat beside him showed that Molly had finally drifted off, so he carefully disentangled himself from her clutches and strode to the woman.
“How is he?” Mohinder’s clipped tones held barely a fraction of the concern he was feeling; the waiting room was fairly crowded, and emotion, for him, was a very private matter.
The nurse, a slender, dark-skinned woman whose nametag read ‘Stacy,’ looked him over for a long moment, her expression gaining an air of incredulity. “You’re related to Matthew Parkman?”
He winced, wishing he’d taken time to think of a plausible story. He should have remembered that hospitals didn’t give out patient information to anyone claiming to know the subject. “No. I’m… I’m a friend.” Inspiration suddenly struck, and he indicated Molly. “His niece’s guardian. He was visiting us from L.A. when this happened.” That had to work. Molly had enough resemblance to the man to pass as a relative where he wouldn’t.
The woman’s expression softened as she took in the sleeping girl. “Poor dear. How is she doing?”
“Surprisingly well,” he murmured, “considering she just lost her parents recently.” He wondered if he was laying it on a trifle too thick, but everything he was saying was true. He didn’t know if his Molly could weather another crushing loss.
All he could do, though, was be there for her. And hope for the best.
Stacy shook her head sadly. “Poor dear,” she said again, then gave a small smile. “At least you can give her some good news. We’ve managed to get Mr. Parkman stabilized. It’s still uncertain,” she added quickly, “but he’s no longer critical.”
Relief swept through Mohinder as if the woman’s words had opened a floodgate in his soul. “I am… very grateful to hear that,” he said after a long pause to compose himself.
She smiled, as if amused by his reticence, and absently straightened the hem of her scrubs. “He’s still unconscious, but visiting hours begin again at five, if you want to bring her in to see him,” she offered.
“Thank you. I’ll do that.” Mohinder nodded and watched as she slipped back out into the hall, to her work. Five. That gave him a little over an hour to coach Molly in her new role.
“Please wake up, Uncle Matt.” Molly’s small hands gently encircled the larger, still one of the cop. She had been delighted at the new ‘game,’ and seemed absolutely determined to prove to Mohinder how well she could perform. “It’s Molly, Uncle Matt. Me and Mohinder are waiting for you. But he’s being silly, so you gotta wake up and help me, ok?”
“How am I being silly?” he asked with quiet dignity belied by the twitching of his lips.
She gave an exaggeratedly exasperated sigh and turned back to her ‘uncle.’ Mohinder finally let himself smile. She was adorable, his Molly. His Molly. But she wasn’t, not really. The thought hit him like a physical blow, nearly rocking him back in his seat. He had no legal claim to the girl; she could be taken from him at any moment. The instant anyone in authority looked too closely… He grit his teeth. He’d have to talk to Bennet. The man would surely know some paralegal way around this.
If he didn’t, Mohinder wouldn’t know where to turn. But there was nothing he would not do to keep his little angel.
Molly was still chattering to the unhearing form on the bed, telling him what she’d been doing in school, this boy who was really mean to her, generally doing a superb job at being a normal girl who hadn’t been locked in a room of an office building for several weeks. He was, frankly, amazed.
Muffling a yawn with his hand, Mohinder shifted in his seat. It had been a long night, after a very wearying day. But there was little to be done about that. Neither he nor Molly were leaving this building until Parkman showed at least a few more signs of improvement. He wondered bleakly if there was any way he could get some tea. Coffee there was in abundance, of course, but a nice cup of Ceylon , or perhaps Chai… He shook his head. Unlikely. It was difficult to get good tea anywhere in this country.
“He is going to get better, isn’t he, Mohinder?” The girl looked back at him, wide, pleading eyes sparkling in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
“You know your Uncle Matt won’t give up.” It wasn’t really an answer, but it was all he had. And it, at the very least, was the truth. He hadn’t spoken long with Matthew Parkman, but there had been no hiding stubbornness that pervasive. Tenacious, that’s what he was. He would not let go. And Mohinder knew, with a sense deeper than instinct, that Parkman had metaphorical fingers clutching at life tightly enough to leave nonexistent knuckles white.
“Yeah,” Molly said, her full attention on the wounded man again. “Especially if he knows I’m waiting for him.”
Mohinder prayed to the gods his grandmother had so revered that she wouldn’t be disappointed.
Hours crawled by torpidly, time seeming a great beast lazing in the chill November sun with no inclination to move. For him, at least, Mohinder reflected. Molly, thankfully, seemed to be fully enjoying herself. He smiled fondly at the two dark heads bent over the electronic game. Their focused concentration was almost visible, crackling in the air around them.
Suddenly Molly let out a huff of frustration. “I messed up again!”
“Where did you want it?” her new companion asked, and when she pointed, he laid his finger beside hers on the little screen. “There.”
“Wow, thanks!” Molly grinned up at the boy before turning her attention back to the game.
“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” The soft voice to his left didn’t intrude upon his reverie so much as harmonize with it. By the time the words filtered through and he looked up, the blond woman from Thompson’s building had settled into a seat beside him.
“I’m sure,” he returned with a faint smile. He wondered what his Molly would be like in a year, or two, or ten, and if he’d be there to see it. “Is childhood always so fleeting when it isn’t your own?”
“Probably,” she said with a brief flash of amusement. Sobering quickly, she shot him a searching glance. “How is he? The mind reader?”
Mohinder blinked at that. “You know him?”
She gave a slow smile, disconcertingly unlike any he’d seen her use before. It was almost… predatory. “We’re… acquainted.” She shook her head, and the look was gone, as if it had never been. “We’ve met a few times. Business, I guess you’d call it.”
Mohinder reflected that he really should not have been surprised at that news. As good as they were at avoiding him, for the most part, the evolved humans that were his study seemed to gravitate towards each other in an almost coincidental manner. “He’s holding on,” he told her, trying to sound confident.
She nodded, as if that was what she expected to hear. “He’s a hard man to kill,” she said, with what sounded like grudging respect.
“I hope so.” Mohinder breathed a soft sigh, wondering why that remark seemed strangely ominous. After a moment, he dismissed it as irrelevant. “And your…” He broke off, not knowing what, exactly, the man was to her. He assumed he was the boy’s father, but… In this world, one could never tell.
“D. L.’s hard to kill, too,” was all she said, but her expression was grim.
Mohinder stood abruptly, suddenly needing to escape from the raw, emotionally charged atmosphere of the waiting room. “Tea,” he muttered in a short explanation to his companion. “I’m going to get some tea. Would you like anything?”
She shook her head, not speaking until he looked towards Molly. “I’ll watch her. I think she and Micah both need the company.”
“Thank you,” he said with a grateful smile.
“By the way, I’m Niki,” she added as he turned to leave.
He nodded, storing that in his memory. Niki. Micah. D. L. Friends, possibly. Allies, definitely. “Mohinder,” he tossed over his shoulder, softly acknowledging their new connection.
Clutching the cup of weak, foul tasting ‘hot water’ laughingly mislabeled as ‘hot tea’ on the cafeteria menu, Mohinder stalked the halls of the hospital. He couldn’t return to the waiting room, that tomb of despair and hopeless prayers. No. He could not cope with that much open grief, not when his own was so strong inside him.
Why he felt so fiercely for a man he’d barely met, Mohinder couldn’t say, but there was no denying it. Perhaps it was just that he knew, in the very depths of his soul, that the world would be a much darker place without Matthew Parkman.
He realized with a sudden start that his wayward feet had carried him to the edge of the ICU that, for the moment, housed the object of half of his worldly worries; the other half, of course, focused on the girl he’d left under the watchful eyes of Niki. Molly was as safe as the woman’s impossible strength could make her, and Parkman… Well, there was little he could do for the man except to watch him. A quick glance at a clock informed him that visiting hours would begin again in ten minutes; he doubted they’d throw him out for being a tiny bit early. He made his way down the hall, striving to remain unnoticed. No reason to test his luck, which, to this point, had not been exceptional. A moment later he slipped into the glass box that was the patient’s enclosure and slid the curtain shut, giving them the illusion of privacy that he so needed at that time, to keep his grip on his sanity.
He stood, a statue carved perfectly from living wood, gazing down at the man in undisturbed silence. Parkman was motionless as well, but for the slight rise and fall of his chest with each shallow breath through parted lips.
Mohinder found himself strangely transfixed by those lips; unexpectedly full for a man, the made his face striking in a way that surpassed conventional standards of attractiveness. And, staring at that one mesmerizing feature of the man’s face, Mohinder felt a slow warmth filling his body; a sensation of mixed longing and bitter pain as memories of foolish vows and heartbreak a much younger man had experienced welled up in his mind. It had lead him to make a conscious-and, he liked to think, scientific-decision to avoid the men who tempted him so; attraction merely complicated matters. It seemed, though, that his body, or perhaps his soul, had other notions this time.
And somewhere in the back of his mind lurked the recollection that, in the old stories of myriad cultures, one always awoke the enchanted sleeper with a kiss. He took in a sharp breath; allowing himself to formulate that thought brought tantalizing images to the forefront of his mind: how beautiful those lips would feel on his own, on his skin, or the man’s strong hands touching him…
He bit off a gasp as the lips he’d been watching so avidly parted further and a soft sound-a chuckle?-emerged. The eyes that had remained so stubbornly shut cracked open, and a feeble voice, though laced with humor, muttered, “Dr. Suresh, I hardly know you.”
A chill swept through the heat he’d accumulated, frigid fingers sliding up his spine. His mouth gaped open as the full implications of the word ‘telepath’ finally registered in his sleep-deprived mind. Apparently he did not have scientific immunity from the man’s gift; not that he would have expected such, he merely had not considered the matter at all.
If he had done so, he most definitely would not have been thinking such things in the vicinity of the man, or even in the same city.
“I don’t doubt that,” Matt said weakly, disconcertingly answering his unspoken thoughts once more.
Mohinder’s mouth snapped shut. Well, he thought, finally breaching the daze shock had enmeshed him in, I am going to have to get him to submit to a few tests. This is… fascinating. Truly amazing. He stared intently at Matt as he mentally configured the various pieces of equipment he’d need. There had to be ways to… to measure and quantify the man’s ability. He had almost forgotten the actual patient in front of him when Matt let out a small, breathless noise of protest. “Easy, doctor,” he said, his wary tone snapping Mohinder out of his tenuous plans.
He blinked at the man, trying to figure out where he’d been… threatening, was it? Or just overenthusiastic?
The tense moment was broken by a happy shriek that a wincing Mohinder would have placed money on being audible outside the city. A short blur forced itself past him, and, at the bedside, condensed into Molly. “Uncle Matt Uncle Matt Uncle Matt!” she trilled, bouncing excitedly with both hands planted firmly on the bed rails.
Matt gave Mohinder a sharp look, then nodded, understanding in his eyes. His attention was then caught by something behind him, and Mohinder turned to see Niki standing there, smiling faintly.
“Nice to see you made it,” she said dryly.
Matt gave a wry chuckle. “Thanks for being on my side this time. Find your kid?”
“Yeah,” she said as Micah peered around the doorjam. “Get the tracking system?”
“You could say that,” he replied, dropping a hand to Molly’s head and ruffling her hair.
“Uncle Matt!” she repeated insistently.
“I’m sorry, Molly, what is it?” Matt said distractedly.
Mohinder winced, absolutely certain of what the girl was going to say, and dreading the man’s reaction. He was sure that Parkman would never say anything to crush Molly’s dreams, but… he could never, ever agree to it. The very idea was ludicrous.
But Molly was speaking over his thoughts, riding roughshod over any hopes he might have had of silencing her. “Mohinder says we can’t live with you. Tell him he’s being silly?” She stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Mohinder held his breath, silently imploring the man to let her down with all possible gentleness.
“Let’s just see what happens, Molly,” Matt said, looking straight into Mohinder’s eyes, his gaze penetrating with a strange mixture of heat and chill. He shivered, briefly wishing that he could turn the man’s gift against him and learn what he was thinking.
Matt laughed suddenly. “You wouldn’t like it, doctor. Believe me.”
Molly frowned as she looked from one of her heroes to the other. “We are going to be a family,” she started with conviction.
Mohinder smiled down at her. Of course they were.
Mohinder stared once again with mounting disbelief at steadily rising stacks of boxes being piled against one wall of his fairly new apartment. He set his burden down on the one nearest him with the utmost care. He would have brushed this entire scenario off as a dream if not for the ache in his overextended muscles. There couldn’t be much more, could there? How much could the man possibly need?
“That’s almost all of it,” said a quiet voice behind him, making Mohinder start and whirl like a hunted animal looking for an escape route. He strove to still his racing hear as Matt continued. “And it’s all I own. Janice was… pretty thorough.” Emotions flashed across his face, flitting in kaleidoscopic swiftness from anger to pain, through bitterness to confusion, slowly blending into stark, dreary resignation. “I… thanks for taking me in,” he muttered, looking away. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Not really.”
“Molly would have been livid had I refused,” Mohinder said, offering him a hand and a sympathetic smile. He wished there was something, anything he could say to ease the man’s turmoil, but what does one say when a man’s wife doesn’t believe that ‘saving the world’ is a valid excuse for a prolonged, unexplained absence?
“Yeah, well, we can’t disappoint our girl,” Matt said gruffly, setting his box down beside the one Mohinder had relinquished. “I’ll be fine, Suresh,” he continued after a moment. “Just… give me some space.”
He nodded, grateful that he was blessed with as much control as he possessed; he would keep this arrangement simple. Like Matt wanted. He knew where the line was, after all, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to keep from crossing it.
Well, he hoped so. He would just have to try.
Matt nodded, as if to himself, and headed towards the door. “I’ll go get the rest of the stuff. Oh, and Mohinder?” He paused with his hand on the knob, glancing back with an unreadable expression. “Let’s just see what happens.”
The scientist gaped as the man disappeared from sight.
Author: Liritar
Pairing: Mohinder/Matt
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Mohinder and Molly spend much time in a hospital waiting room, and Mohinder thinks. A lot.
Spoilers: Season Finale.
A/N: Written for the rare_heroes Brave New Ship Challenge. Tetris is in homage to Nuclear Family by greatwhitesnark. Because it was just that good.
He ran his hand gently through the hair of the little girl nestled anxiously in his lap. He didn’t say a word, and neither did she. There was nothing that hadn’t already been said, after all. The silence was unbroken but for the blips from the various machines wired to the man that two sets of eyes watched avidly, waiting for any sign of life. Mohinder hoped, for Molly’s sake, that she wouldn’t have to watch her hero die before her eyes.
He had to admit that he would be loathe to watch the man die, himself. There was something about Molly’s Officer Parkman, a tarnished nobility that had probably been a product of extended association with Bennet. Mohinder wondered idly what he’d been like before that. A knight with a badge, slaying the demons of the city world? A burning beacon of naïve hope, much like he himself had been before coming to New York ? His arm tightened around Molly’s shoulders, offering her his silent reassurance. It was almost more responsibility than he could hold, being a child’s hero. The absolute trust she had in him was close to crushing in its weight. She truly believed that he would make everything alright. That he could hold back the darkness, and keep her policeman alive.
Mohinder just wished that she was right.
He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there when a nurse arrived to chase them out. He nodded grimly at the woman and firmly placed Molly on the floor, leading her away despite her protests. Once out of the room, he kneeled before her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll come back,” he promised softly, staring earnestly into her tear-filled chocolate eyes. “They need space to fix him. He’ll be fine. I promise.” He hated himself the instant the words left his lips, but the renewed hope in her expression, the lightening of the aura of despair that surrounded her, was all worth it. “Are you hungry?” He stood and offered her his hand. “Let’s go see what the cafeteria has to offer.”
Mohinder watched Molly bite into a hot dog with surprising vigor and cheer for-he checked his watch-3:17 in the morning, in a hospital cafeteria. He knew he needed to get her to bed, but he also knew, just as certainly, that she’d never sleep. Was this what being a parent felt like? A futile struggle against all odds? He smiled wryly, then blinked as Molly’s bubbly chatter finally pierced his introspection.
“-and when he gets better, we can all live together, right? Like a family?”
Mohinder blinked. He searched frantically for an answer to that that wouldn’t crush his little angel too badly. “Uh… Molly, Officer Parkman... He has a wife.” He dimly remembered Bennet saying something about her. Probably that he’d called her to let her know what had happened. She might even be showing up soon. He tried to pull his thoughts into order.
“She could live with us, too.” Molly beamed, smug at solving that problem so quickly.
He sighed. “He has to get better first,” he temporized. He had a feeling she could counter everything he said with a reason that made perfect sense-to an eight year old girl. And the more he argued against her idea, the less he’d see of that bright smile gracing her lips. She deserved a bit of hope. For a while, at least.
“It’ll be fun. Trust me.” Her hand found his, and held it tightly. “I’ll keep you both safe.”
“Parkman family?” Mohinder jolted to awareness and peered blearily around the waiting room. His eyes lit on the nurse who was standing in the doorway, obviously waiting for a reply. A glance at the seat beside him showed that Molly had finally drifted off, so he carefully disentangled himself from her clutches and strode to the woman.
“How is he?” Mohinder’s clipped tones held barely a fraction of the concern he was feeling; the waiting room was fairly crowded, and emotion, for him, was a very private matter.
The nurse, a slender, dark-skinned woman whose nametag read ‘Stacy,’ looked him over for a long moment, her expression gaining an air of incredulity. “You’re related to Matthew Parkman?”
He winced, wishing he’d taken time to think of a plausible story. He should have remembered that hospitals didn’t give out patient information to anyone claiming to know the subject. “No. I’m… I’m a friend.” Inspiration suddenly struck, and he indicated Molly. “His niece’s guardian. He was visiting us from L.A. when this happened.” That had to work. Molly had enough resemblance to the man to pass as a relative where he wouldn’t.
The woman’s expression softened as she took in the sleeping girl. “Poor dear. How is she doing?”
“Surprisingly well,” he murmured, “considering she just lost her parents recently.” He wondered if he was laying it on a trifle too thick, but everything he was saying was true. He didn’t know if his Molly could weather another crushing loss.
All he could do, though, was be there for her. And hope for the best.
Stacy shook her head sadly. “Poor dear,” she said again, then gave a small smile. “At least you can give her some good news. We’ve managed to get Mr. Parkman stabilized. It’s still uncertain,” she added quickly, “but he’s no longer critical.”
Relief swept through Mohinder as if the woman’s words had opened a floodgate in his soul. “I am… very grateful to hear that,” he said after a long pause to compose himself.
She smiled, as if amused by his reticence, and absently straightened the hem of her scrubs. “He’s still unconscious, but visiting hours begin again at five, if you want to bring her in to see him,” she offered.
“Thank you. I’ll do that.” Mohinder nodded and watched as she slipped back out into the hall, to her work. Five. That gave him a little over an hour to coach Molly in her new role.
“Please wake up, Uncle Matt.” Molly’s small hands gently encircled the larger, still one of the cop. She had been delighted at the new ‘game,’ and seemed absolutely determined to prove to Mohinder how well she could perform. “It’s Molly, Uncle Matt. Me and Mohinder are waiting for you. But he’s being silly, so you gotta wake up and help me, ok?”
“How am I being silly?” he asked with quiet dignity belied by the twitching of his lips.
She gave an exaggeratedly exasperated sigh and turned back to her ‘uncle.’ Mohinder finally let himself smile. She was adorable, his Molly. His Molly. But she wasn’t, not really. The thought hit him like a physical blow, nearly rocking him back in his seat. He had no legal claim to the girl; she could be taken from him at any moment. The instant anyone in authority looked too closely… He grit his teeth. He’d have to talk to Bennet. The man would surely know some paralegal way around this.
If he didn’t, Mohinder wouldn’t know where to turn. But there was nothing he would not do to keep his little angel.
Molly was still chattering to the unhearing form on the bed, telling him what she’d been doing in school, this boy who was really mean to her, generally doing a superb job at being a normal girl who hadn’t been locked in a room of an office building for several weeks. He was, frankly, amazed.
Muffling a yawn with his hand, Mohinder shifted in his seat. It had been a long night, after a very wearying day. But there was little to be done about that. Neither he nor Molly were leaving this building until Parkman showed at least a few more signs of improvement. He wondered bleakly if there was any way he could get some tea. Coffee there was in abundance, of course, but a nice cup of Ceylon , or perhaps Chai… He shook his head. Unlikely. It was difficult to get good tea anywhere in this country.
“He is going to get better, isn’t he, Mohinder?” The girl looked back at him, wide, pleading eyes sparkling in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
“You know your Uncle Matt won’t give up.” It wasn’t really an answer, but it was all he had. And it, at the very least, was the truth. He hadn’t spoken long with Matthew Parkman, but there had been no hiding stubbornness that pervasive. Tenacious, that’s what he was. He would not let go. And Mohinder knew, with a sense deeper than instinct, that Parkman had metaphorical fingers clutching at life tightly enough to leave nonexistent knuckles white.
“Yeah,” Molly said, her full attention on the wounded man again. “Especially if he knows I’m waiting for him.”
Mohinder prayed to the gods his grandmother had so revered that she wouldn’t be disappointed.
Hours crawled by torpidly, time seeming a great beast lazing in the chill November sun with no inclination to move. For him, at least, Mohinder reflected. Molly, thankfully, seemed to be fully enjoying herself. He smiled fondly at the two dark heads bent over the electronic game. Their focused concentration was almost visible, crackling in the air around them.
Suddenly Molly let out a huff of frustration. “I messed up again!”
“Where did you want it?” her new companion asked, and when she pointed, he laid his finger beside hers on the little screen. “There.”
“Wow, thanks!” Molly grinned up at the boy before turning her attention back to the game.
“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” The soft voice to his left didn’t intrude upon his reverie so much as harmonize with it. By the time the words filtered through and he looked up, the blond woman from Thompson’s building had settled into a seat beside him.
“I’m sure,” he returned with a faint smile. He wondered what his Molly would be like in a year, or two, or ten, and if he’d be there to see it. “Is childhood always so fleeting when it isn’t your own?”
“Probably,” she said with a brief flash of amusement. Sobering quickly, she shot him a searching glance. “How is he? The mind reader?”
Mohinder blinked at that. “You know him?”
She gave a slow smile, disconcertingly unlike any he’d seen her use before. It was almost… predatory. “We’re… acquainted.” She shook her head, and the look was gone, as if it had never been. “We’ve met a few times. Business, I guess you’d call it.”
Mohinder reflected that he really should not have been surprised at that news. As good as they were at avoiding him, for the most part, the evolved humans that were his study seemed to gravitate towards each other in an almost coincidental manner. “He’s holding on,” he told her, trying to sound confident.
She nodded, as if that was what she expected to hear. “He’s a hard man to kill,” she said, with what sounded like grudging respect.
“I hope so.” Mohinder breathed a soft sigh, wondering why that remark seemed strangely ominous. After a moment, he dismissed it as irrelevant. “And your…” He broke off, not knowing what, exactly, the man was to her. He assumed he was the boy’s father, but… In this world, one could never tell.
“D. L.’s hard to kill, too,” was all she said, but her expression was grim.
Mohinder stood abruptly, suddenly needing to escape from the raw, emotionally charged atmosphere of the waiting room. “Tea,” he muttered in a short explanation to his companion. “I’m going to get some tea. Would you like anything?”
She shook her head, not speaking until he looked towards Molly. “I’ll watch her. I think she and Micah both need the company.”
“Thank you,” he said with a grateful smile.
“By the way, I’m Niki,” she added as he turned to leave.
He nodded, storing that in his memory. Niki. Micah. D. L. Friends, possibly. Allies, definitely. “Mohinder,” he tossed over his shoulder, softly acknowledging their new connection.
Clutching the cup of weak, foul tasting ‘hot water’ laughingly mislabeled as ‘hot tea’ on the cafeteria menu, Mohinder stalked the halls of the hospital. He couldn’t return to the waiting room, that tomb of despair and hopeless prayers. No. He could not cope with that much open grief, not when his own was so strong inside him.
Why he felt so fiercely for a man he’d barely met, Mohinder couldn’t say, but there was no denying it. Perhaps it was just that he knew, in the very depths of his soul, that the world would be a much darker place without Matthew Parkman.
He realized with a sudden start that his wayward feet had carried him to the edge of the ICU that, for the moment, housed the object of half of his worldly worries; the other half, of course, focused on the girl he’d left under the watchful eyes of Niki. Molly was as safe as the woman’s impossible strength could make her, and Parkman… Well, there was little he could do for the man except to watch him. A quick glance at a clock informed him that visiting hours would begin again in ten minutes; he doubted they’d throw him out for being a tiny bit early. He made his way down the hall, striving to remain unnoticed. No reason to test his luck, which, to this point, had not been exceptional. A moment later he slipped into the glass box that was the patient’s enclosure and slid the curtain shut, giving them the illusion of privacy that he so needed at that time, to keep his grip on his sanity.
He stood, a statue carved perfectly from living wood, gazing down at the man in undisturbed silence. Parkman was motionless as well, but for the slight rise and fall of his chest with each shallow breath through parted lips.
Mohinder found himself strangely transfixed by those lips; unexpectedly full for a man, the made his face striking in a way that surpassed conventional standards of attractiveness. And, staring at that one mesmerizing feature of the man’s face, Mohinder felt a slow warmth filling his body; a sensation of mixed longing and bitter pain as memories of foolish vows and heartbreak a much younger man had experienced welled up in his mind. It had lead him to make a conscious-and, he liked to think, scientific-decision to avoid the men who tempted him so; attraction merely complicated matters. It seemed, though, that his body, or perhaps his soul, had other notions this time.
And somewhere in the back of his mind lurked the recollection that, in the old stories of myriad cultures, one always awoke the enchanted sleeper with a kiss. He took in a sharp breath; allowing himself to formulate that thought brought tantalizing images to the forefront of his mind: how beautiful those lips would feel on his own, on his skin, or the man’s strong hands touching him…
He bit off a gasp as the lips he’d been watching so avidly parted further and a soft sound-a chuckle?-emerged. The eyes that had remained so stubbornly shut cracked open, and a feeble voice, though laced with humor, muttered, “Dr. Suresh, I hardly know you.”
A chill swept through the heat he’d accumulated, frigid fingers sliding up his spine. His mouth gaped open as the full implications of the word ‘telepath’ finally registered in his sleep-deprived mind. Apparently he did not have scientific immunity from the man’s gift; not that he would have expected such, he merely had not considered the matter at all.
If he had done so, he most definitely would not have been thinking such things in the vicinity of the man, or even in the same city.
“I don’t doubt that,” Matt said weakly, disconcertingly answering his unspoken thoughts once more.
Mohinder’s mouth snapped shut. Well, he thought, finally breaching the daze shock had enmeshed him in, I am going to have to get him to submit to a few tests. This is… fascinating. Truly amazing. He stared intently at Matt as he mentally configured the various pieces of equipment he’d need. There had to be ways to… to measure and quantify the man’s ability. He had almost forgotten the actual patient in front of him when Matt let out a small, breathless noise of protest. “Easy, doctor,” he said, his wary tone snapping Mohinder out of his tenuous plans.
He blinked at the man, trying to figure out where he’d been… threatening, was it? Or just overenthusiastic?
The tense moment was broken by a happy shriek that a wincing Mohinder would have placed money on being audible outside the city. A short blur forced itself past him, and, at the bedside, condensed into Molly. “Uncle Matt Uncle Matt Uncle Matt!” she trilled, bouncing excitedly with both hands planted firmly on the bed rails.
Matt gave Mohinder a sharp look, then nodded, understanding in his eyes. His attention was then caught by something behind him, and Mohinder turned to see Niki standing there, smiling faintly.
“Nice to see you made it,” she said dryly.
Matt gave a wry chuckle. “Thanks for being on my side this time. Find your kid?”
“Yeah,” she said as Micah peered around the doorjam. “Get the tracking system?”
“You could say that,” he replied, dropping a hand to Molly’s head and ruffling her hair.
“Uncle Matt!” she repeated insistently.
“I’m sorry, Molly, what is it?” Matt said distractedly.
Mohinder winced, absolutely certain of what the girl was going to say, and dreading the man’s reaction. He was sure that Parkman would never say anything to crush Molly’s dreams, but… he could never, ever agree to it. The very idea was ludicrous.
But Molly was speaking over his thoughts, riding roughshod over any hopes he might have had of silencing her. “Mohinder says we can’t live with you. Tell him he’s being silly?” She stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes. Mohinder held his breath, silently imploring the man to let her down with all possible gentleness.
“Let’s just see what happens, Molly,” Matt said, looking straight into Mohinder’s eyes, his gaze penetrating with a strange mixture of heat and chill. He shivered, briefly wishing that he could turn the man’s gift against him and learn what he was thinking.
Matt laughed suddenly. “You wouldn’t like it, doctor. Believe me.”
Molly frowned as she looked from one of her heroes to the other. “We are going to be a family,” she started with conviction.
Mohinder smiled down at her. Of course they were.
Mohinder stared once again with mounting disbelief at steadily rising stacks of boxes being piled against one wall of his fairly new apartment. He set his burden down on the one nearest him with the utmost care. He would have brushed this entire scenario off as a dream if not for the ache in his overextended muscles. There couldn’t be much more, could there? How much could the man possibly need?
“That’s almost all of it,” said a quiet voice behind him, making Mohinder start and whirl like a hunted animal looking for an escape route. He strove to still his racing hear as Matt continued. “And it’s all I own. Janice was… pretty thorough.” Emotions flashed across his face, flitting in kaleidoscopic swiftness from anger to pain, through bitterness to confusion, slowly blending into stark, dreary resignation. “I… thanks for taking me in,” he muttered, looking away. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Not really.”
“Molly would have been livid had I refused,” Mohinder said, offering him a hand and a sympathetic smile. He wished there was something, anything he could say to ease the man’s turmoil, but what does one say when a man’s wife doesn’t believe that ‘saving the world’ is a valid excuse for a prolonged, unexplained absence?
“Yeah, well, we can’t disappoint our girl,” Matt said gruffly, setting his box down beside the one Mohinder had relinquished. “I’ll be fine, Suresh,” he continued after a moment. “Just… give me some space.”
He nodded, grateful that he was blessed with as much control as he possessed; he would keep this arrangement simple. Like Matt wanted. He knew where the line was, after all, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to keep from crossing it.
Well, he hoped so. He would just have to try.
Matt nodded, as if to himself, and headed towards the door. “I’ll go get the rest of the stuff. Oh, and Mohinder?” He paused with his hand on the knob, glancing back with an unreadable expression. “Let’s just see what happens.”
The scientist gaped as the man disappeared from sight.