FIC: Covariance (1/2), Heroes AU, NC-17, slash and het. See header.
Any similarities between scenes across both timelines and the ‘core show’ timeline is likely intentional. Management apologizes for any confusion and hopes that it will be worth it in the end.
* * * * *
Hiro stabs Sylar and he regenerates.
After this, there’s the chaos of many people rushing the serial killer, getting thrown around like rag dolls, but getting kicks and punches and more stabs in while he’s distracted. Then there’s the bright glow from inside the knot of violence, and Hiro throws his hands out and shuts his eyes and reaches out and there are hands on his arms, jacket, shirt, as he takes everyone away.
Well, not everyone. But as many as he can, and those who escaped learn to live with the guilt of having snagged a handful of cloth while those they loved… didn’t.
***
Hiro stabs Sylar and the body disappears.
Months later, Bennet calls - late, because of the time difference - and Mohinder hangs up on him because Molly’s having a nightmare and he really doesn’t care to play Bennet’s games when his little girl is screaming down the apartment complex. Besides, the Company got its teeth pulled with Linderman and Thompson dead, and their best operatives turning rogue on them every chance they get, right?
More disturbing is the idea of Molly’s Boogeyman and her Nightmare Man both on the loose. Mohinder has his hands full.
***
Nathan Petrelli has set up office in Gracie Mansion, as the usual Congressional offices lie in rubble and the mayor has retreated to his private residence in upstate New York. Of course, the mayor visits Ground Zero for the usual photo ops and speeches, makes grand gestures and promises, but cannot match the power of Nathan’s practiced, mournful gravitas, nor his fervent pursuit of knitting together the grieving city with answers. With solutions.
A few weeks after the tragedy, Nathan requests a meeting with a relatively-unknown geneticist.
He is mildly - only mildly - surprised when Dr. Suresh actually shows up. Nathan gestures to the two armchairs by the fireplace, and takes a moment to scrutinize the other man while they both sit. He looks as if he hasn’t slept since escaping Kirby Plaza, and Nathan says so after dismissing the help.
“I appreciate your concern for my sleeping habits, what with everything else on your plate,” Suresh replies, a faint spark of wry humor beneath the exhaustion.
“What have you been doing with your time, Doctor? Have you made any strides in piecing together your father’s research since your apartment was destroyed?” Nathan raises his eyebrows a fraction, already knowing the answer. He has private investigators on permanent retainer; he inherited them from his father, along with one bodyguard and the downstairs housekeeper. They are all very good at their jobs, so Nathan knows exactly what Mohinder’s been up to (and the Petrelli silver is spotless).
Suresh fumbles in his pocket, and Nathan briefly wonders if sending his bodyguard out of the room was a good idea. But the geneticist simply removes his keys with a muted jingle, and Nathan sees a jump drive among the glinting metal. “I have his research with me at all times, and there are back-ups in -“ he pauses, replacing his key ring in his jacket. “-elsewhere.”
Nathan allows himself to smile, a little, at the other man’s caution. “I didn’t ask you here to steal your father’s research, Doctor. I want to sponsor it.” His smile widens as Suresh looks blindsided, gaping for a moment.
“Well, I’m afraid, continuing my father’s research has taken second place to - other pursuits.”
“That’s a shame, Doctor Suresh.” Nathan stands and goes to his desk, retrieving a file. “A man of your considerable ability shouldn’t be wasting his time and intellect in tracking down-” He sets the folder down on the eighteenth-century coffee table and flips it open, continuing, “-some watchmaker.”
It doesn’t escape his notice that, at the sight of the photograph clipped to the first page, Suresh visibly recoils, his hands balling into fists.
“I have far, far better resources for such a manhunt, if you are convinced that Mr. Gray, here, is someone worth finding.” Nathan sits down again and leans in, deadly serious. “And in exchange, you can do me a favor.”
Suresh’s gaze in return is appropriately wary. “Just what would that favor be, Congressman?”
“I have pledged, privately and publicly, to find those responsible for the explosion at Kirby Plaza and bring them to justice. Now that I know that this… Sylar is our man, I plan to do so.” Nathan leans back in his chair and stares into the middle distance, contemplatively. “But that’s not enough. I can’t rest, knowing that he’s not alone. There are others out there, others with abilities I can’t even dream of - and whose motives I couldn’t even begin to guess.” He turns the full force of his gaze on Suresh, knowing its effect. “I need you to continue your father’s work, towards the goal of preventing another Kirby Plaza Event. After my speech tomorrow, you’ll have all the funding you’ll ever need, and in return…” Nathan quirks his eyebrows a fraction as he pauses. “I’ll let you have the first shot at Gabriel Gray when we bring him in.”
Suresh draws in a quick breath, and Nathan knows he’s just acquired a geneticist for his staff.
***
Mohinder finds ways to fill the time, applying for citizenship and sorting through reams and reams of carbon copied-forms that are redundant and frustratingly obtuse. He studies for the exam, which takes up an hour each night for a week before Matt points out that he’s overhearing the Constitution in stereo thoughts, so why doesn’t Mohinder just study with Molly already?
Mohinder drives his taxi to bring in extra money; he doesn’t speak to his fares, anymore, pretending broken, accented English because getting Involved With Strangers is dangerous. Once, a sharp-looking blonde girl in an electric-blue suit asks him to take her to Kirby Plaza. He drives white-knuckled and tense across town, darting glances into the rearview more than is safe. She catches him and smiles, flirtatiously, and he grits his teeth and watches the road.
Occasionally, he gets a call back from one of the many universities, asking if he’s available to fill in a lecture or a class. He does, but they don’t call back, don’t offer a more permanent position.
He spends most of his time caring for Molly, and making sure Matt goes to physical therapy. He makes sure that Matt doesn’t slack off on studying for his detective’s exam (which he doesn’t, really, but Mohinder doesn’t understand that American men can’t study when there’s a “football” game on television the same way half the world goes on pause during the World Cup), and that they all eat a home-cooked meal at least once a day.
Unease creeps under his skin, dissatisfaction makes his shoulderblades twitch, after about a month. Sylar’s out there somewhere, and Molly’s nightmares are getting worse. He isn’t helping anything by standing sentinel while Matt rebuilds his life around them and Molly bounces back like this is all she’s ever known.
His father’s research is gathering dust.
He pulls out his laptop and boots up the List, watching as names scroll by. He has some editing to do.
Deceased. Deceased. Missing. Deceased.
Faces are conjured as he types, and he goes online to download articles he attaches to the names. Cross-references entries, based on secrets he overheard or helped expose. He blots out the emotional attachments, because how can he distill fear and rage and betrayal and admiration and awe for so many into the dry, academic database his father set up?
He opens up GoogleEarth and starts recreating his father’s map, tracing travels, and first meetings, and final breaths, attaching the tags to the List’s entries. It’s four a.m. before he realizes it’s incomplete and he can’t finish without talking to some of them…
He still has names and addresses. He can start tracking them down tomorrow.
When he finally goes to bed, Mohinder’s eyes are gritty and his back aches from the hard, wooden chair he’d been using, but the itch beneath his skin is gone. Only as he drops off to sleep does he realize he’s not just doing his father’s work.
He’s doing more than that; he’s writing history.
***
Matt leans on the doorway, looking at Molly’s sleeping form. She seems to be having nightmares, tossing fitfully in her sleep, but he can’t quite focus his ability to hear them, with the painkillers fogging his brain. He shifts his shoulder so the sling doesn’t dig so deeply into the side of his neck.
“Parkman!” A familiar voice barks behind him and he whirls to see Agent Hanson striding up to him, her expression thundercloud-dark. Nurses and med students scramble out of her path like she owns the whole damn hospital. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”
Matt smiles his best smile, working the dimples, but it doesn’t save him. The scowl doesn’t leave her face as she snags his coat and pulls him into an empty room. “Good to see you, too, Audrey. You look great. Did you do something different with your hair?” It looks darker; maybe she dyed it.
“Cut the crap, Parkman. What do you know about the Kirby Plaza Event? Was it Sylar?” She’s leaning on the only door out of the room, her arms crossed.
“Uh - Honestly, I wasn’t actually conscious when it all went down -“ This isn’t exactly true, he can remember a bright light, and a small hand reaching out to touch his face…
“But you were there, at Ground Zero. Sylar was there, wasn’t he.” It’s not exactly a question, and part of him wants to remind her of all those rookie rules about leading a witness during an interrogation, but he’s not out of the woods yet.
“Yes, but so were a lot of Specials.” After Congressman Petrelli’s speech last week, outing Sylar and his abilities as the cause of the Kirby Plaza Event, pundits had jumped on his repeated use of the word ‘special’ and coined a new minority name almost overnight. “I couldn’t even begin to list all the weird stuff everyone there could do. There was this guy who could walk through stuff, and his wife was, like super-strong.” Thank God she’d been on his side, this time. He realizes that he’s babbling, because there’s been no one else to talk to about this who’d believe him, and he couldn’t explain all this to Janice on the phone. Audrey’s eyebrow crawls right up into her hairline, but he keeps talking, recklessly. “It was incredible. Peter could even absorb other people’s abilities-“
“Peter who?” Audrey picks up on the first name he says.
“Peter Petre-“ And here, he has enough sense to stop himself, but not in time.
Audrey springs away from the door and into Matt’s personal space, and he’s reminded that people a third his size can intimidate the hell out of him. “Petrelli?! Peter Petrelli? The suicidal emo brother of Nathan Petrelli is a Special?”
Matt closes his eyes. He did not just out a Congressman’s family member as a dangerous and instantly mistrusted minority. “No, uh, no relation?” She’s not buying it and Matt bangs the back of his head against the wall.
“I don’t have to be a mind reader to know when you’re lying to me.” Audrey opens the door and drags him back into the hallway by his bad arm, and he bites back a yelp. “Come on.”
“No, no, you can’t say anything to anyone. Audrey, ow, wait!” She stops and Matt puts his good hand on her shoulder. “Please, pretend I didn’t say anything. Please.” Her eyes search his earnest gaze and she sighs, scowling again.
“Fine. But now you owe me one.” Matt nods, relieved, and glances across the hallway. There’s a familiar man, sitting next to Molly’s bedside, gently smoothing a hand over her forehead. Something about the moment triggers a twinge of homesickness, and he doesn’t know why.
“You know what?” Audrey’s voice cuts in, “I know what you can do for me. Welcome back to the FBI, Matt Parkman, you’re now my official expert on the Specials.”
***
With Molly in the hospital, Matt and Mohinder set out to find Maury Parkman, based on Molly’s last conscious act. They don’t speak to one another on the flight, both furious with themselves and with each other for what’s happened to their daughter.
When they actually confront the man, Mohinder is filled with a revulsion and disdain he usually reserves for insects. To think, both Molly and Matt were so haunted by this little cockroach of a man that they cringed at the very thought of him…
When he walks through a doorway in Maury’s vulgar little flat to find himself back in his own home, he begins to understand. He’s suddenly, sickeningly pinned to the ceiling, battered and bruised from a hundred invisible, ungentle hands and made to watch as Sylar and his own father chat amiably over tea.
Sylar talks about being a watchmaker’s son, and the desire to be more… His father laughs, calls the murderer “Gabriel,” and tells him about his own son back in India.
“Mohinder?” Sylar asks, sipping from a blue mug that Molly’s used a hundred times. “Like your lizard, there?”
Chandra chuckles, “Yes, I missed having someone to talk to; it seemed the most suitable name. But, now that I’ve found you, I anticipate better conversation.” Sylar smiles into his tea as Mohinder’s blood drip-drip-drips onto the table between them, unnoticed.
Mohinder manages to move one arm, trying to reach down to his father’s shoulder, make him see…
A hand grasps his, and he’s being hauled upward, to his feet from the floor. Mohinder staggers with disorientation, but he recognizes Matt, a grim set to the other man’s jaw. Then he sees the body at their feet, a neat hole between the eyes.
“You… you shot your father,” he gasps. Matt looks down at the blood pooling at their feet and shrugs, his forehead knitted into lines.
“Yeah, well, he’s not my family anymore,” Matt says quietly. “And he was fucking with the people who are. Now let me call this in and let’s fix the scene.”
***
A month later, another agency somehow gets wind of Matt’s abilities and absconds with him suddenly one day. It’s startling to have the door to his office opened without a knock and stern-suited men file in, but they ask politely, if curtly, enough that he knows he’s not being going to be detained. A quick surface scan of their thoughts confirm it, and they take him to see a familiar face.
“Bennet?” Matt says, stunned. “Since when do you work for Homeland Security?”
The other man cracks a grim smile. “Since they got wind of my former employers and nationalized their work. Don’t worry, this won’t be a repeat of the last time I had you brought in.”
“I know that,” Matt says brusquely. “And stop thinking in Chinese, it’s distracting.”
“Japanese, not Chinese,” Bennet replies. “And as you could conceivably pick up national secrets from my brain, you’ll just have to dial back your abilities or deal with the headache.” He gestures to the seat across from him at the desk. “Please, sit.”
Matt scowls, but complies.
“My former occupation, as you no doubt have guessed, was devoted to identifying Specials and detaining those we deemed an unacceptable risk to the population at large. We worked covertly, hoping to keep the existence of enhanced abilities a secret until we had developed an acceptable alternative to the threat they posed.”
“What kind of an alternative?” Matt asks.
“That wasn’t, ah, my department, Agent Parkman.” Bennet gives him another Cheshire-cat smile. “But I’m sure various techniques were explored by the numerous scientific staff I ran into at Company picnics.” Matt can’t tell if he’s kidding, and suppresses the urge to laugh and wince simultaneously at the prospect of a dozen men like Bennet chatting over potato salad and unevenly-grilled hotdogs while their bland little cover families mingled. “I’m assuming that those branches of the Company were absorbed into other government agencies.”
“While the field operatives are all in Homeland Security?”
“As far as I’ve been able to tell, yes. But we were a small underground operation. Even with the considerable private funding we received, we could only be so active before we caught the attention of significant members of the government.” Meaning not Agent Hanson; Matt bristles. “You’d be surprised at how much of our resources went into maintaining our secrecy.”
Matt rolls his eyes, and leans forward, tired of all the backhanded double-talk. “Good for you. But now everyone knows about us Specials, and your little underground catch-and-release games have been co-opted by Uncle Sam. Why is any of that my business, if you didn’t bring me here to ship me off to Gitmo?”
“Because our operation is no longer sufficient to meet the demands placed upon the government in wake of public knowledge of the Specials.” It takes every ounce of Matt’s remaining patience to keep himself from launching across the desk and wiping the smirk off Bennet’s face this time. It also takes a full minute for Matt to figure out exactly what Bennet just said.
“So… you’re recruiting me?”
“More than that, Agent Parkman. We’ve been keeping tabs on your progress, and would like to offer you a promotion. And a raise.” Something sparks in Bennet’s eyes. “Really, a family man such as yourself should get more than just government consultation fees.”
Matt leans back in his chair and stares out the window. After a long moment, he asks, distractedly, “What would I be doing?”
In the end, it’s quite simple. They give him a team of Specials, a list of names to investigate, and a fair amount of latitude to act when necessary. Most of the names are shady characters, people who’d discovered their abilities and put them to use in evading the letter of the law. Matt found a kind of freedom in being able to catch criminals that slipped away from traditional justice, especially as there seemed to be no way to draft legislation that covered the multitude of sins that shady Specials came up with.
The best part is that he occasionally gets slow weeks, where he just has to check his email for updates or make a few phone calls to field operatives. It’s not very often, but he spends every minute with Janice, every frequent-flyer mile in going home to California. It’s shocking how big she gets while he’s away, and he wastes no time in telling her she’s beautiful, and radiant, and how much he missed her - not just because he knows she needs to hear it, but because it’s all true.
They baby-proof the house and he gets a serious gun safe for their closet so they don’t ever have to worry. He paints the nursery in pale green and lavender, Easter colors in wide vertical stripes. She laughs when he’s done because he gets paint in his hair, and they make out wonderfully, awkwardly in the tiny bathroom when she tries to help him get it out. The sex is fun and strange and exhilarating like they’re teenagers again, because her body is changing and new to both of them, and he’s never home long enough to get used to its new shape. Their marriage is better than it’s ever been, and he leaves her more and more reluctantly each time.
The baby is born while he’s in Nevada hunting down a super-hacker, and he drops the trail like it’s cold when he finds out, giving the case to another field team in the area and passing around cigars to his own guys before driving all night to get home. Bennet calls him on the way to congratulate him, but there’s something strange and sad in his voice when he says it that makes Matt wish he could read minds over long distances.
Matt forgets all about it when he sees his exit coming up, and hangs up on Bennet with an exultant good-bye.
When he sees her, Janice’s first words are whispery with exhaustion and drugs. “You missed all the excitement.” She sounds a little sad, but Matt chalks it up to everything she’s just been through. He carefully dodges the thought of post-partum depression, because he doesn’t know how long he’ll get to stay with her before getting another call from his tracking techs.
His mother-in-law shoos him out of the room so Janice can rest, and shows him the nursery. Matt Jr. is tiny and pink and squalling with all the air his tiny lungs can hold. His thoughts are… indescribable, and amazing, and a jumble of raw sensory input that has Matt groping for a chair.
He has a headache, and he’s tired, and his mother-in-law is faintly disapproving of his constant absences, but it’s still the best day of Matt’s life.
***
Matt’s passed his detective’s test with flying colors, swearing up and down that he only used his powers during the practical, but not the written. After all, he’d be using his powers during tense situations in the field, right?
He takes the morning shifts, and Mohinder drives nights, and there’s a gap between the two where they trade ‘bad drunk’ stories and Molly tells them about her day.
It’s almost normal, except when it isn’t.
Once, Matt came home to find Mohinder having a quiet argument with two bland men in gray suits with matching smiles that don’t reach their eyes. Molly’s door is closed, and the High School Musical soundtrack is loud enough to obscure the conversation. A quick scan of the three men’s minds is enough for Matt to get caught up.
“No,” he says immediately. “Like hell Mohinder is working for you Company bastards. Now get the fuck out before I accidentally injure the guys breaking into my house.” His voice is quiet and even, almost pleasant, but he adds a bit of push with his mind and they leave without incident, their card untouched on the kitchen table.
Another time, he walks in on Mohinder with his head cradled in his hands and Molly’s arms wrapped around him. The remnants of their cordless phone lie shattered by a dent in the wall, and Mohinder’s laptop has been shoved halfway across his desk, the orderly stacks of research knocked to the floor. Matt gives Molly a look. She bites her lip, nods, and goes to get the broom and dustpan.
“They keep disappearing. I think it’s Sylar,” Mohinder says without looking up. Matt puts his palm on Mohinder’s back and tries to broadcast reassurance. “I know what you’re trying to do, Matt. Stop it.”
“If I say it out loud, you won’t believe me,” Matt says, leaving his hand where it is. He can feel Mohinder’s shuddering breaths where his fingers splay across the other man’s ribcage. “But I’ll say it anyway: we’re both here, we can keep Molly safe. We’ve always kept her safe, we always will.” He lets the bone-deep truth of his words, his confidence, seep through his hand and into Mohinder’s spine, and he feels the muscles unknot slowly, the tension drain.
Mohinder straightens, glances at him with a strange look that Matt can’t decipher before it’s gone. Molly comes back with the broom and dustpan, and they clean up the mess.
Another time: Matt walks in, shuts the door, and feels the barrel of a gun pressed against the side of his neck. Bennet’s behind the door.
Mohinder’s in the kitchen, radiating fury and frustration. “I told you, I’m not working for the Company!”
“They let you keep Molly! Why on earth would they do that, if they weren’t getting something equally valuable?” Bennet continues the argument as if Matt isn’t even there. Matt pushes out with his mind, and Bennet cocks the gun. “Don’t you try anything, Parkman, I can shoot faster than you can think.”
“Where is Molly?” Matt asks Mohinder.
“Not here,” Mohinder replies cautiously, but his mind broadcasts the full answer. Mohinder missed picking her up, and one of the moms called; he sent her to a friend’s house rather than have her home for this. Matt nods.
“He isn’t working for the Company,” Matt says to Bennet. “They came, and we showed them the door.”
“Then why are you looking for my family? Why are you tracking down people with abilities?” Bennet’s voice is a determined growl from between his teeth.
“I’m just trying to update my father’s research! It’s my own project, it’s in the interests of science - and history - to document this phenomenon! I keep everything secure, I don’t-“ Mohinder throws up his hands in frustration and crashes them down to the counter.
“He’s telling the truth, Bennet,” Matt says into the silence. “Do you really think he’d still be driving a taxi if the Company had a lab for him somewhere?”
Another long pause. Then the click of a hammer being safely released.
“All right. But so help me, if anything happens to my little girl because of you, I will do the same to yours.”
He leaves a phone number - in case of emergencies only, but it’s a gesture of trust that keeps Matt from reaching out and turning Bennet into a drooling moron that occasionally hums Hannah Montana songs.
***
When the Linderman Act is proposed - under a different name, at first, and it starts as an addendum to the Homeland Security Act - Mohinder is busy in his lab, working with a small but efficient staff.
He doesn’t run as many tests himself as he did before, and he finds he can spend more time with Molly at home. He soothes her through her nightmares, and endures tiresome conferences with teachers who think she - and likely he, too - needs a feminine influence in her life. At least, they couldn’t question his immigration status, nor his unusual adoption of Molly - the government seemed so much easier to work with than he’d anticipated, and both sets of paperwork had been processed with almost unseemly haste.
A few months later, things happen in quick succession. First, they streamline one of the screening tests they use on the blood samples that get delivered to their lab. They pare it down to a litmus test, essentially, and churn out the test strips in bulk. “Stockpiling in case of the worst possible future,” Mohinder says one day, staring at the ream of ordinary-looking filter paper and thinking of the last chapter of his formal proposal to Nathan. “But still a possibility.”
Shortly after this, they get the kind of funding that means national budget approval. Before, he’d scrabbled for enough positively-identified blood to run all the tests he’d needed. Now, he has volunteers who come in and can actually demonstrate their abilities in a controlled environment. He’s kept so busy that it’s a relief when Molly’s nightmares disappear abruptly.
“Daddy,” he hears from his office one day as he was finishing up a rundown with his new secretary (impolite to eavesdrop, but he didn’t intend it, truly), “I don’t know about all this…”
“Now, sweetie, ever since the government nationalized the Company’s work, it’s all the more important to make a good impression. Voluntary compliance with the program will be noted, I can assure you…” The man’s voice cuts off when Mohinder enters the room.
He sees that the speakers are, respectively, a very smartly-dressed young blonde girl and a balding, bespectacled gentleman in a rumpled gray suit.
“Hi, I’m Bob,” the other man says, holding out his hand, which Mohinder shakes absently, already wondering which one of them had powers and how they manifested. “And this is my daughter, Elle.”
The girl smiles too brightly and holds onto Mohinder’s hand a bit too long, sliding her nails along the inside of his wrist as she pulls her hand away. Mohinder blinks rapidly, his train of thought derailed momentarily by the static shock that jolts him when she disengages.
“It’s, ah, nice to meet you both,” he says when he recovers. He moves to sit behind his desk and grabs paper, a pen. “So tell me, which of you are Special?”
“Both,” Bob replies with a small smile. He pulls two substantial file folders from his briefcase, and sets them on the desk, explaining, “The Company keeps extensive records on all its employees.”
Mohinder smiles eagerly at the prospect of years of research already done for him. “I’m sure that will come in handy, thank you.”
Bob and Elle sit up a little straighter. Their smiles look almost…hopeful?
Mohinder dismisses this as an unfounded assumption, and flips through their files briefly before asking the relevant questions.
***
Mohinder’s just about to get to bed at 6:30 in the morning after an hour cleaning unmentionable biohazards out of his taxi’s backseat when someone pounds at their door. Matt’s out of bed, gun in hand, before Mohinder even unlocks the first bolt.
It’s Claire Bennet, dripping wet with rain and her eyes hollowed out with exhaustion and something worse. “I couldn’t think of where else to go,” she says, voice flat. “I drove all night. Dad had your address in his wallet.” Mohinder catches her when she staggers, guides her to the nearest chair.
“Where is he?” Matt asks, checking the hall and peering through the curtains to see if she’s been followed.
“Dead,” she says, staring blankly ahead. Blood runs in rivulets from the matted tangle of her hair.
It takes a cup of tea, a shower, and a good eight hours of sleep on their couch before she says anything more.
Noah Bennet went after the new head of the Company - someone named Bishop - when they got too close, shot him point-blank during a showdown somewhere in California. Bishop’s daughter, Elle, electrocuted Noah.
Claire went after Elle. The rest of the Bennets are in hiding, and Claire is staying away to keep them safe.
“I wanted to tell you,” she says. “I thought you should know. The Company is still after me - I should go. But my dad is dead, and so are the Bishops. Someone else is in charge now, I don’t know who. I thought you should know.”
She’s gone before Molly gets home from school.
It occurs to Mohinder, later, that there was another way, a way Noah could have been saved and this whole thing averted. But there’s nothing he can do for it now.
(Part 2/2)
* * * * *
Hiro stabs Sylar and he regenerates.
After this, there’s the chaos of many people rushing the serial killer, getting thrown around like rag dolls, but getting kicks and punches and more stabs in while he’s distracted. Then there’s the bright glow from inside the knot of violence, and Hiro throws his hands out and shuts his eyes and reaches out and there are hands on his arms, jacket, shirt, as he takes everyone away.
Well, not everyone. But as many as he can, and those who escaped learn to live with the guilt of having snagged a handful of cloth while those they loved… didn’t.
***
Hiro stabs Sylar and the body disappears.
Months later, Bennet calls - late, because of the time difference - and Mohinder hangs up on him because Molly’s having a nightmare and he really doesn’t care to play Bennet’s games when his little girl is screaming down the apartment complex. Besides, the Company got its teeth pulled with Linderman and Thompson dead, and their best operatives turning rogue on them every chance they get, right?
More disturbing is the idea of Molly’s Boogeyman and her Nightmare Man both on the loose. Mohinder has his hands full.
***
Nathan Petrelli has set up office in Gracie Mansion, as the usual Congressional offices lie in rubble and the mayor has retreated to his private residence in upstate New York. Of course, the mayor visits Ground Zero for the usual photo ops and speeches, makes grand gestures and promises, but cannot match the power of Nathan’s practiced, mournful gravitas, nor his fervent pursuit of knitting together the grieving city with answers. With solutions.
A few weeks after the tragedy, Nathan requests a meeting with a relatively-unknown geneticist.
He is mildly - only mildly - surprised when Dr. Suresh actually shows up. Nathan gestures to the two armchairs by the fireplace, and takes a moment to scrutinize the other man while they both sit. He looks as if he hasn’t slept since escaping Kirby Plaza, and Nathan says so after dismissing the help.
“I appreciate your concern for my sleeping habits, what with everything else on your plate,” Suresh replies, a faint spark of wry humor beneath the exhaustion.
“What have you been doing with your time, Doctor? Have you made any strides in piecing together your father’s research since your apartment was destroyed?” Nathan raises his eyebrows a fraction, already knowing the answer. He has private investigators on permanent retainer; he inherited them from his father, along with one bodyguard and the downstairs housekeeper. They are all very good at their jobs, so Nathan knows exactly what Mohinder’s been up to (and the Petrelli silver is spotless).
Suresh fumbles in his pocket, and Nathan briefly wonders if sending his bodyguard out of the room was a good idea. But the geneticist simply removes his keys with a muted jingle, and Nathan sees a jump drive among the glinting metal. “I have his research with me at all times, and there are back-ups in -“ he pauses, replacing his key ring in his jacket. “-elsewhere.”
Nathan allows himself to smile, a little, at the other man’s caution. “I didn’t ask you here to steal your father’s research, Doctor. I want to sponsor it.” His smile widens as Suresh looks blindsided, gaping for a moment.
“Well, I’m afraid, continuing my father’s research has taken second place to - other pursuits.”
“That’s a shame, Doctor Suresh.” Nathan stands and goes to his desk, retrieving a file. “A man of your considerable ability shouldn’t be wasting his time and intellect in tracking down-” He sets the folder down on the eighteenth-century coffee table and flips it open, continuing, “-some watchmaker.”
It doesn’t escape his notice that, at the sight of the photograph clipped to the first page, Suresh visibly recoils, his hands balling into fists.
“I have far, far better resources for such a manhunt, if you are convinced that Mr. Gray, here, is someone worth finding.” Nathan sits down again and leans in, deadly serious. “And in exchange, you can do me a favor.”
Suresh’s gaze in return is appropriately wary. “Just what would that favor be, Congressman?”
“I have pledged, privately and publicly, to find those responsible for the explosion at Kirby Plaza and bring them to justice. Now that I know that this… Sylar is our man, I plan to do so.” Nathan leans back in his chair and stares into the middle distance, contemplatively. “But that’s not enough. I can’t rest, knowing that he’s not alone. There are others out there, others with abilities I can’t even dream of - and whose motives I couldn’t even begin to guess.” He turns the full force of his gaze on Suresh, knowing its effect. “I need you to continue your father’s work, towards the goal of preventing another Kirby Plaza Event. After my speech tomorrow, you’ll have all the funding you’ll ever need, and in return…” Nathan quirks his eyebrows a fraction as he pauses. “I’ll let you have the first shot at Gabriel Gray when we bring him in.”
Suresh draws in a quick breath, and Nathan knows he’s just acquired a geneticist for his staff.
***
Mohinder finds ways to fill the time, applying for citizenship and sorting through reams and reams of carbon copied-forms that are redundant and frustratingly obtuse. He studies for the exam, which takes up an hour each night for a week before Matt points out that he’s overhearing the Constitution in stereo thoughts, so why doesn’t Mohinder just study with Molly already?
Mohinder drives his taxi to bring in extra money; he doesn’t speak to his fares, anymore, pretending broken, accented English because getting Involved With Strangers is dangerous. Once, a sharp-looking blonde girl in an electric-blue suit asks him to take her to Kirby Plaza. He drives white-knuckled and tense across town, darting glances into the rearview more than is safe. She catches him and smiles, flirtatiously, and he grits his teeth and watches the road.
Occasionally, he gets a call back from one of the many universities, asking if he’s available to fill in a lecture or a class. He does, but they don’t call back, don’t offer a more permanent position.
He spends most of his time caring for Molly, and making sure Matt goes to physical therapy. He makes sure that Matt doesn’t slack off on studying for his detective’s exam (which he doesn’t, really, but Mohinder doesn’t understand that American men can’t study when there’s a “football” game on television the same way half the world goes on pause during the World Cup), and that they all eat a home-cooked meal at least once a day.
Unease creeps under his skin, dissatisfaction makes his shoulderblades twitch, after about a month. Sylar’s out there somewhere, and Molly’s nightmares are getting worse. He isn’t helping anything by standing sentinel while Matt rebuilds his life around them and Molly bounces back like this is all she’s ever known.
His father’s research is gathering dust.
He pulls out his laptop and boots up the List, watching as names scroll by. He has some editing to do.
Deceased. Deceased. Missing. Deceased.
Faces are conjured as he types, and he goes online to download articles he attaches to the names. Cross-references entries, based on secrets he overheard or helped expose. He blots out the emotional attachments, because how can he distill fear and rage and betrayal and admiration and awe for so many into the dry, academic database his father set up?
He opens up GoogleEarth and starts recreating his father’s map, tracing travels, and first meetings, and final breaths, attaching the tags to the List’s entries. It’s four a.m. before he realizes it’s incomplete and he can’t finish without talking to some of them…
He still has names and addresses. He can start tracking them down tomorrow.
When he finally goes to bed, Mohinder’s eyes are gritty and his back aches from the hard, wooden chair he’d been using, but the itch beneath his skin is gone. Only as he drops off to sleep does he realize he’s not just doing his father’s work.
He’s doing more than that; he’s writing history.
***
Matt leans on the doorway, looking at Molly’s sleeping form. She seems to be having nightmares, tossing fitfully in her sleep, but he can’t quite focus his ability to hear them, with the painkillers fogging his brain. He shifts his shoulder so the sling doesn’t dig so deeply into the side of his neck.
“Parkman!” A familiar voice barks behind him and he whirls to see Agent Hanson striding up to him, her expression thundercloud-dark. Nurses and med students scramble out of her path like she owns the whole damn hospital. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?”
Matt smiles his best smile, working the dimples, but it doesn’t save him. The scowl doesn’t leave her face as she snags his coat and pulls him into an empty room. “Good to see you, too, Audrey. You look great. Did you do something different with your hair?” It looks darker; maybe she dyed it.
“Cut the crap, Parkman. What do you know about the Kirby Plaza Event? Was it Sylar?” She’s leaning on the only door out of the room, her arms crossed.
“Uh - Honestly, I wasn’t actually conscious when it all went down -“ This isn’t exactly true, he can remember a bright light, and a small hand reaching out to touch his face…
“But you were there, at Ground Zero. Sylar was there, wasn’t he.” It’s not exactly a question, and part of him wants to remind her of all those rookie rules about leading a witness during an interrogation, but he’s not out of the woods yet.
“Yes, but so were a lot of Specials.” After Congressman Petrelli’s speech last week, outing Sylar and his abilities as the cause of the Kirby Plaza Event, pundits had jumped on his repeated use of the word ‘special’ and coined a new minority name almost overnight. “I couldn’t even begin to list all the weird stuff everyone there could do. There was this guy who could walk through stuff, and his wife was, like super-strong.” Thank God she’d been on his side, this time. He realizes that he’s babbling, because there’s been no one else to talk to about this who’d believe him, and he couldn’t explain all this to Janice on the phone. Audrey’s eyebrow crawls right up into her hairline, but he keeps talking, recklessly. “It was incredible. Peter could even absorb other people’s abilities-“
“Peter who?” Audrey picks up on the first name he says.
“Peter Petre-“ And here, he has enough sense to stop himself, but not in time.
Audrey springs away from the door and into Matt’s personal space, and he’s reminded that people a third his size can intimidate the hell out of him. “Petrelli?! Peter Petrelli? The suicidal emo brother of Nathan Petrelli is a Special?”
Matt closes his eyes. He did not just out a Congressman’s family member as a dangerous and instantly mistrusted minority. “No, uh, no relation?” She’s not buying it and Matt bangs the back of his head against the wall.
“I don’t have to be a mind reader to know when you’re lying to me.” Audrey opens the door and drags him back into the hallway by his bad arm, and he bites back a yelp. “Come on.”
“No, no, you can’t say anything to anyone. Audrey, ow, wait!” She stops and Matt puts his good hand on her shoulder. “Please, pretend I didn’t say anything. Please.” Her eyes search his earnest gaze and she sighs, scowling again.
“Fine. But now you owe me one.” Matt nods, relieved, and glances across the hallway. There’s a familiar man, sitting next to Molly’s bedside, gently smoothing a hand over her forehead. Something about the moment triggers a twinge of homesickness, and he doesn’t know why.
“You know what?” Audrey’s voice cuts in, “I know what you can do for me. Welcome back to the FBI, Matt Parkman, you’re now my official expert on the Specials.”
***
With Molly in the hospital, Matt and Mohinder set out to find Maury Parkman, based on Molly’s last conscious act. They don’t speak to one another on the flight, both furious with themselves and with each other for what’s happened to their daughter.
When they actually confront the man, Mohinder is filled with a revulsion and disdain he usually reserves for insects. To think, both Molly and Matt were so haunted by this little cockroach of a man that they cringed at the very thought of him…
When he walks through a doorway in Maury’s vulgar little flat to find himself back in his own home, he begins to understand. He’s suddenly, sickeningly pinned to the ceiling, battered and bruised from a hundred invisible, ungentle hands and made to watch as Sylar and his own father chat amiably over tea.
Sylar talks about being a watchmaker’s son, and the desire to be more… His father laughs, calls the murderer “Gabriel,” and tells him about his own son back in India.
“Mohinder?” Sylar asks, sipping from a blue mug that Molly’s used a hundred times. “Like your lizard, there?”
Chandra chuckles, “Yes, I missed having someone to talk to; it seemed the most suitable name. But, now that I’ve found you, I anticipate better conversation.” Sylar smiles into his tea as Mohinder’s blood drip-drip-drips onto the table between them, unnoticed.
Mohinder manages to move one arm, trying to reach down to his father’s shoulder, make him see…
A hand grasps his, and he’s being hauled upward, to his feet from the floor. Mohinder staggers with disorientation, but he recognizes Matt, a grim set to the other man’s jaw. Then he sees the body at their feet, a neat hole between the eyes.
“You… you shot your father,” he gasps. Matt looks down at the blood pooling at their feet and shrugs, his forehead knitted into lines.
“Yeah, well, he’s not my family anymore,” Matt says quietly. “And he was fucking with the people who are. Now let me call this in and let’s fix the scene.”
***
A month later, another agency somehow gets wind of Matt’s abilities and absconds with him suddenly one day. It’s startling to have the door to his office opened without a knock and stern-suited men file in, but they ask politely, if curtly, enough that he knows he’s not being going to be detained. A quick surface scan of their thoughts confirm it, and they take him to see a familiar face.
“Bennet?” Matt says, stunned. “Since when do you work for Homeland Security?”
The other man cracks a grim smile. “Since they got wind of my former employers and nationalized their work. Don’t worry, this won’t be a repeat of the last time I had you brought in.”
“I know that,” Matt says brusquely. “And stop thinking in Chinese, it’s distracting.”
“Japanese, not Chinese,” Bennet replies. “And as you could conceivably pick up national secrets from my brain, you’ll just have to dial back your abilities or deal with the headache.” He gestures to the seat across from him at the desk. “Please, sit.”
Matt scowls, but complies.
“My former occupation, as you no doubt have guessed, was devoted to identifying Specials and detaining those we deemed an unacceptable risk to the population at large. We worked covertly, hoping to keep the existence of enhanced abilities a secret until we had developed an acceptable alternative to the threat they posed.”
“What kind of an alternative?” Matt asks.
“That wasn’t, ah, my department, Agent Parkman.” Bennet gives him another Cheshire-cat smile. “But I’m sure various techniques were explored by the numerous scientific staff I ran into at Company picnics.” Matt can’t tell if he’s kidding, and suppresses the urge to laugh and wince simultaneously at the prospect of a dozen men like Bennet chatting over potato salad and unevenly-grilled hotdogs while their bland little cover families mingled. “I’m assuming that those branches of the Company were absorbed into other government agencies.”
“While the field operatives are all in Homeland Security?”
“As far as I’ve been able to tell, yes. But we were a small underground operation. Even with the considerable private funding we received, we could only be so active before we caught the attention of significant members of the government.” Meaning not Agent Hanson; Matt bristles. “You’d be surprised at how much of our resources went into maintaining our secrecy.”
Matt rolls his eyes, and leans forward, tired of all the backhanded double-talk. “Good for you. But now everyone knows about us Specials, and your little underground catch-and-release games have been co-opted by Uncle Sam. Why is any of that my business, if you didn’t bring me here to ship me off to Gitmo?”
“Because our operation is no longer sufficient to meet the demands placed upon the government in wake of public knowledge of the Specials.” It takes every ounce of Matt’s remaining patience to keep himself from launching across the desk and wiping the smirk off Bennet’s face this time. It also takes a full minute for Matt to figure out exactly what Bennet just said.
“So… you’re recruiting me?”
“More than that, Agent Parkman. We’ve been keeping tabs on your progress, and would like to offer you a promotion. And a raise.” Something sparks in Bennet’s eyes. “Really, a family man such as yourself should get more than just government consultation fees.”
Matt leans back in his chair and stares out the window. After a long moment, he asks, distractedly, “What would I be doing?”
In the end, it’s quite simple. They give him a team of Specials, a list of names to investigate, and a fair amount of latitude to act when necessary. Most of the names are shady characters, people who’d discovered their abilities and put them to use in evading the letter of the law. Matt found a kind of freedom in being able to catch criminals that slipped away from traditional justice, especially as there seemed to be no way to draft legislation that covered the multitude of sins that shady Specials came up with.
The best part is that he occasionally gets slow weeks, where he just has to check his email for updates or make a few phone calls to field operatives. It’s not very often, but he spends every minute with Janice, every frequent-flyer mile in going home to California. It’s shocking how big she gets while he’s away, and he wastes no time in telling her she’s beautiful, and radiant, and how much he missed her - not just because he knows she needs to hear it, but because it’s all true.
They baby-proof the house and he gets a serious gun safe for their closet so they don’t ever have to worry. He paints the nursery in pale green and lavender, Easter colors in wide vertical stripes. She laughs when he’s done because he gets paint in his hair, and they make out wonderfully, awkwardly in the tiny bathroom when she tries to help him get it out. The sex is fun and strange and exhilarating like they’re teenagers again, because her body is changing and new to both of them, and he’s never home long enough to get used to its new shape. Their marriage is better than it’s ever been, and he leaves her more and more reluctantly each time.
The baby is born while he’s in Nevada hunting down a super-hacker, and he drops the trail like it’s cold when he finds out, giving the case to another field team in the area and passing around cigars to his own guys before driving all night to get home. Bennet calls him on the way to congratulate him, but there’s something strange and sad in his voice when he says it that makes Matt wish he could read minds over long distances.
Matt forgets all about it when he sees his exit coming up, and hangs up on Bennet with an exultant good-bye.
When he sees her, Janice’s first words are whispery with exhaustion and drugs. “You missed all the excitement.” She sounds a little sad, but Matt chalks it up to everything she’s just been through. He carefully dodges the thought of post-partum depression, because he doesn’t know how long he’ll get to stay with her before getting another call from his tracking techs.
His mother-in-law shoos him out of the room so Janice can rest, and shows him the nursery. Matt Jr. is tiny and pink and squalling with all the air his tiny lungs can hold. His thoughts are… indescribable, and amazing, and a jumble of raw sensory input that has Matt groping for a chair.
He has a headache, and he’s tired, and his mother-in-law is faintly disapproving of his constant absences, but it’s still the best day of Matt’s life.
***
Matt’s passed his detective’s test with flying colors, swearing up and down that he only used his powers during the practical, but not the written. After all, he’d be using his powers during tense situations in the field, right?
He takes the morning shifts, and Mohinder drives nights, and there’s a gap between the two where they trade ‘bad drunk’ stories and Molly tells them about her day.
It’s almost normal, except when it isn’t.
Once, Matt came home to find Mohinder having a quiet argument with two bland men in gray suits with matching smiles that don’t reach their eyes. Molly’s door is closed, and the High School Musical soundtrack is loud enough to obscure the conversation. A quick scan of the three men’s minds is enough for Matt to get caught up.
“No,” he says immediately. “Like hell Mohinder is working for you Company bastards. Now get the fuck out before I accidentally injure the guys breaking into my house.” His voice is quiet and even, almost pleasant, but he adds a bit of push with his mind and they leave without incident, their card untouched on the kitchen table.
Another time, he walks in on Mohinder with his head cradled in his hands and Molly’s arms wrapped around him. The remnants of their cordless phone lie shattered by a dent in the wall, and Mohinder’s laptop has been shoved halfway across his desk, the orderly stacks of research knocked to the floor. Matt gives Molly a look. She bites her lip, nods, and goes to get the broom and dustpan.
“They keep disappearing. I think it’s Sylar,” Mohinder says without looking up. Matt puts his palm on Mohinder’s back and tries to broadcast reassurance. “I know what you’re trying to do, Matt. Stop it.”
“If I say it out loud, you won’t believe me,” Matt says, leaving his hand where it is. He can feel Mohinder’s shuddering breaths where his fingers splay across the other man’s ribcage. “But I’ll say it anyway: we’re both here, we can keep Molly safe. We’ve always kept her safe, we always will.” He lets the bone-deep truth of his words, his confidence, seep through his hand and into Mohinder’s spine, and he feels the muscles unknot slowly, the tension drain.
Mohinder straightens, glances at him with a strange look that Matt can’t decipher before it’s gone. Molly comes back with the broom and dustpan, and they clean up the mess.
Another time: Matt walks in, shuts the door, and feels the barrel of a gun pressed against the side of his neck. Bennet’s behind the door.
Mohinder’s in the kitchen, radiating fury and frustration. “I told you, I’m not working for the Company!”
“They let you keep Molly! Why on earth would they do that, if they weren’t getting something equally valuable?” Bennet continues the argument as if Matt isn’t even there. Matt pushes out with his mind, and Bennet cocks the gun. “Don’t you try anything, Parkman, I can shoot faster than you can think.”
“Where is Molly?” Matt asks Mohinder.
“Not here,” Mohinder replies cautiously, but his mind broadcasts the full answer. Mohinder missed picking her up, and one of the moms called; he sent her to a friend’s house rather than have her home for this. Matt nods.
“He isn’t working for the Company,” Matt says to Bennet. “They came, and we showed them the door.”
“Then why are you looking for my family? Why are you tracking down people with abilities?” Bennet’s voice is a determined growl from between his teeth.
“I’m just trying to update my father’s research! It’s my own project, it’s in the interests of science - and history - to document this phenomenon! I keep everything secure, I don’t-“ Mohinder throws up his hands in frustration and crashes them down to the counter.
“He’s telling the truth, Bennet,” Matt says into the silence. “Do you really think he’d still be driving a taxi if the Company had a lab for him somewhere?”
Another long pause. Then the click of a hammer being safely released.
“All right. But so help me, if anything happens to my little girl because of you, I will do the same to yours.”
He leaves a phone number - in case of emergencies only, but it’s a gesture of trust that keeps Matt from reaching out and turning Bennet into a drooling moron that occasionally hums Hannah Montana songs.
***
When the Linderman Act is proposed - under a different name, at first, and it starts as an addendum to the Homeland Security Act - Mohinder is busy in his lab, working with a small but efficient staff.
He doesn’t run as many tests himself as he did before, and he finds he can spend more time with Molly at home. He soothes her through her nightmares, and endures tiresome conferences with teachers who think she - and likely he, too - needs a feminine influence in her life. At least, they couldn’t question his immigration status, nor his unusual adoption of Molly - the government seemed so much easier to work with than he’d anticipated, and both sets of paperwork had been processed with almost unseemly haste.
A few months later, things happen in quick succession. First, they streamline one of the screening tests they use on the blood samples that get delivered to their lab. They pare it down to a litmus test, essentially, and churn out the test strips in bulk. “Stockpiling in case of the worst possible future,” Mohinder says one day, staring at the ream of ordinary-looking filter paper and thinking of the last chapter of his formal proposal to Nathan. “But still a possibility.”
Shortly after this, they get the kind of funding that means national budget approval. Before, he’d scrabbled for enough positively-identified blood to run all the tests he’d needed. Now, he has volunteers who come in and can actually demonstrate their abilities in a controlled environment. He’s kept so busy that it’s a relief when Molly’s nightmares disappear abruptly.
“Daddy,” he hears from his office one day as he was finishing up a rundown with his new secretary (impolite to eavesdrop, but he didn’t intend it, truly), “I don’t know about all this…”
“Now, sweetie, ever since the government nationalized the Company’s work, it’s all the more important to make a good impression. Voluntary compliance with the program will be noted, I can assure you…” The man’s voice cuts off when Mohinder enters the room.
He sees that the speakers are, respectively, a very smartly-dressed young blonde girl and a balding, bespectacled gentleman in a rumpled gray suit.
“Hi, I’m Bob,” the other man says, holding out his hand, which Mohinder shakes absently, already wondering which one of them had powers and how they manifested. “And this is my daughter, Elle.”
The girl smiles too brightly and holds onto Mohinder’s hand a bit too long, sliding her nails along the inside of his wrist as she pulls her hand away. Mohinder blinks rapidly, his train of thought derailed momentarily by the static shock that jolts him when she disengages.
“It’s, ah, nice to meet you both,” he says when he recovers. He moves to sit behind his desk and grabs paper, a pen. “So tell me, which of you are Special?”
“Both,” Bob replies with a small smile. He pulls two substantial file folders from his briefcase, and sets them on the desk, explaining, “The Company keeps extensive records on all its employees.”
Mohinder smiles eagerly at the prospect of years of research already done for him. “I’m sure that will come in handy, thank you.”
Bob and Elle sit up a little straighter. Their smiles look almost…hopeful?
Mohinder dismisses this as an unfounded assumption, and flips through their files briefly before asking the relevant questions.
***
Mohinder’s just about to get to bed at 6:30 in the morning after an hour cleaning unmentionable biohazards out of his taxi’s backseat when someone pounds at their door. Matt’s out of bed, gun in hand, before Mohinder even unlocks the first bolt.
It’s Claire Bennet, dripping wet with rain and her eyes hollowed out with exhaustion and something worse. “I couldn’t think of where else to go,” she says, voice flat. “I drove all night. Dad had your address in his wallet.” Mohinder catches her when she staggers, guides her to the nearest chair.
“Where is he?” Matt asks, checking the hall and peering through the curtains to see if she’s been followed.
“Dead,” she says, staring blankly ahead. Blood runs in rivulets from the matted tangle of her hair.
It takes a cup of tea, a shower, and a good eight hours of sleep on their couch before she says anything more.
Noah Bennet went after the new head of the Company - someone named Bishop - when they got too close, shot him point-blank during a showdown somewhere in California. Bishop’s daughter, Elle, electrocuted Noah.
Claire went after Elle. The rest of the Bennets are in hiding, and Claire is staying away to keep them safe.
“I wanted to tell you,” she says. “I thought you should know. The Company is still after me - I should go. But my dad is dead, and so are the Bishops. Someone else is in charge now, I don’t know who. I thought you should know.”
She’s gone before Molly gets home from school.
It occurs to Mohinder, later, that there was another way, a way Noah could have been saved and this whole thing averted. But there’s nothing he can do for it now.
(Part 2/2)