The Wings are Wide
Bob does fine out, but he doesn’t say anything.
He just stares at Mohinder like he knows and Mohinder decides that he just doesn’t care.
He starts to petition, starts to plead with Bob because Matt is a case that could be huge, that could make the difference. He’s the guy with all these powers to suppress.
“You really think you could control him,” Bob says.
“I think I could try. If he’s as dangerous, then we should try it anyway,” Mohinder says.
“Doctor Suresh, I don’t need to tell you that if you become compromised…”
“You’ll have the Haitian then. He can monitor everything and make sure that Matt can’t use his parents.”
Bob sighs.
“You’re pretty passionate about this.”
“I am.”
“This could all go horribly wrong.”
“Then you can hold me accountable.”
“We will, Doctor Suresh. I want you to know that you will be held accountable for it,” Bob says.
“And it will not be pleasant.”
Mohinder clears his throat.
“I am.”
Bob smiles menacingly.
“Good.”
~*~
Matt paces around his office.
“You can’t hear anything?” Mohinder asks.
Matt’s eyes cut to the Haitian who’s standing there, a solid presence, but he doesn’t say anything as Matt glares him down.
He never says anything.
“No,” Matt says.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Or incredibly freaky. Take your pick.”
Mohinder frowns.
“I would have thought that you would like some privacy in your own head.”
“Yeah, but at what cost. I get privacy now, but in a few hours when you’re done head shrinking me, I have to go back to being a bumbling idiot and, as much as my wife used to say different, I don’t actually like being an idiot.”
Mohinder nods.
“I hadn’t thought… I’m not here to head shrink you.”
“No?” Matt asks, one eyebrow cocked.
Mohinder fidgets. He feels a tad bit nervous with Matt staring him down like that. It’s unnerving and, even though Mohinder knows that he can’t hear his thoughts, Matt’s looking at him like he knows everything about Mohinder.
Matt snorts and that uneasy feeling that Matt knows everything about him deepens.
Matt sighs deeply and keeps walking around Mohinder’s office. Admittedly, Mohinder thinks, there’s not much. Sparse walls and few windows. Mohinder has a few boxes, but nothing that screams slob or unorganized. But it certainly doesn’t scream I’ve been working here for years and years.
Which would be true, but it’s certainly not helping Mohinder’s credibility.
Matt’s eyes land on Mohinder’s desk, which is the only thing that actually shows signs of life. His computer is his own, old and worn and trusty. There’s a picture of him and his dad and his mother at his graduation and then there’s a picture of Molly. She’s smiling brightly at the camera.
“She’s my daughter,” Mohinder says when Matt picks up the picture.
Matt raises an eyebrow.
“Adopted daughter.” Mohinder clarifies.
“She’s no less mine though.”
Matt nods.
“I know her.”
Mohinder frowns.
“How…”
“She’s one of the eight cases I solved that month before my psychotic break.”
Mohinder’s frown deepens.
“That’s…”
“It only takes a second, doc. A stray thought you didn’t even know you had at the time. Why do you think they keep me all the way at the other end of the building? Why do you think they keep me sedated? All it takes is for one of them to think something, anything specific. To get too close.”
“I thought you said it was all just a blur.”
Matt frowns.
“It is. Most days. When I’m drugged up to the eyeballs and they’ve got me surrounded by all these other people. With all these other voices it can be a blur. But if you’re standing right next to me, if you’re thinking about it loudly enough, or often enough… I can pick it up.”
“How about now?”
Matt squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a deep breath. He shakes his head.
“No. I guess the Haitian guy is doing his job.”
Mohinder notices the glare, but doesn’t say anything.
“So this cure…”
“What makes you think I want it?”
“You wouldn’t have to live like this anymore. You could…”
“What, get back to my life? I’ve killed people.”
“Your wife…”
“Killed herself, yeah, I know. But you’re a smart man, doctor. You got to know that she didn’t do it all by herself.”
“Why?”
“Because… because I couldn’t control it. Because I was angry with her and I was angry with my life and the people that just kept thinking all these horrible things.”
“You weren’t…”
“I was. Okay. I was. I was responsible for what happened to her. I didn’t figure it out until later, you see. When… I didn’t think I was projecting anything on her. I didn’t even know…”
“That’s right. You didn’t know.”
Matt frowns.
“That’s not an excuse.”
“It is if you let it be. No court of law would hold it against you.”
“I hold it against me. Do you get that? Do you understand that I feel like all this is my fault?”
He’s seen some of the people that come through here. Some of the people that end up accidentally hurting someone they love because they don’t know their own powers. He remembers Ted Sprague.
Remembers how he’d killed himself in a fiery blaze because he couldn’t live with the guilt.
“I understand.”
“Then you get why I can’t just get some cure and trot off to live a merry life. It doesn’t work that way, Doc. I’m always going to have blood on my hands.”
Mohinder bites his lip and nods.
“But punishing yourself like this isn’t going to make anything right.”
Matt stops. He turns and looks at Mohinder.
“You think I should do this?”
“Yes.”
“And not just because I would make an interesting test subject for you?”
Mohinder nods.
“I’m not going to deny that you would be an interesting case study, but… the way you’re locked up. It’s not right.”
Matt stares at him.
“Seriously.”
“Yes.”
“Even though…”
“Whatever you did, whatever prior bad acts… it… it wasn’t your fault.”
“Doc…”
“I know you feel responsible, but it wasn’t your fault. If you don’t want to believe that, then fine, but… at least believe that this is the right thing to do.”
Matt glares.
“I… I guess.”
“Mister Parkman…”
“That’s the best you’re gonna get. At least until we get this thing rolling. I just… I won’t know until we try.”
Mohinder frowns.
“Well I guess that’s better than nothing.”
~*~
Matt responds well to the treatments.
Mohinder’s not entirely sure that he’s come up with a sure fire formula. Sometimes it lasts for days, sometimes hours.
Mohinder’s not sure what kind of drugs were in Matt’s system before, what they had had him on and Bob’s not exactly forth coming with the details. He tells Mohinder that all he needs to know is that it isn’t going to interfere with Mohinder’s tests.
Mohinder doesn’t know what to think of that.
Some days, Matt can’t hear anything and he actually smiles, tells stupid jokes and laughs at stories that Mohinder tells him that Molly had told him the night before. Some days Matt is like a real person again.
Some days he’s not. Some days he hears everything going on around him and he remembers how, just a few hours ago, he could hear nothing at all. Those are the days that Mohinder sits with him and tries to think about anything that might soothe him.
It’s a work in progress. Trial and error and Mohinder will continue until he gets it right, until Matt’s fixed.
It takes time, weeks of bright smiles and unhappy times until Mohinder’s sure he almost has it, that it will make a permanent change. The drug last longer in his system, Matt’s able to hold real conversations with people who aren’t Mohinder.
Most of them are frightened nurses or orderlies, but Matt almost seems like a completely different man that some of them are actually starting to warm up to him.
Mohinder thinks he’s ready.
“You want to what?”
Bob stares at him like he’s grown an extra head and Mohinder knows that this whole thing is tricky. But he knows what he’s asking.
“I want to take Matt out. Into the world. I think that this cure… that it works. I think it’s working on him. Without the Haitian present. I really think that he could integrate back into society.”
Bob sighs and Mohinder frowns. This is what they’ve been working toward, making it so that the more dangerous individuals can have normal lives, so that the ones who don’t want it, don’t have to have it if they don’t want to. This is what Mohinder’s been working for since the company recruited him.
“Doctor Suresh…”
“Don’t just placate me. If you don’t… if you don’t think it’s a possibility, then you have to tell me. Just tell me. But I really think he’s ready. I think that, with time… I think that if we take him out everyday, just a little bit each day, he could adapt. The cure is working.”
“Matthew Parkman is an extremely powerful individual. If you’re not absolutely sure about this, then you could be risking people’s lives here. A lot of people’s lives. He can make people do anything that he wants them to. Some say he’s more powerful than Sylar was, than Peter was.”
Mohinder tries to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
“I know those individuals. They’re a lot more powerful than Matt.”
“Matt?”
Mohinder frowns.
“Yes.”
Bob sighs again.
“Doctor Suresh, I think it’s possible that you’ve formed a… bond with Mister Parkman.”
Mohinder shakes his head.
“I see him everyday. Of course there’s a bond there. A bond that any doctor would have with a patient.”
“You have many more trials, Doctor Suresh. I’m beginning to think that perhaps you’re spending too much time with Mister Parkman.”
“I’m trying to help him.”
“And, maybe, in trying to help him, you’re forgetting important facts here. Mister Parkman is a killer. He’s admitted to killing people.”
“He cannot be held responsible for his actions. He didn’t know his power. He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“He’s admitted to the intent behind those actions.”
“The intent, yes, but he… he would have never…”
“How do you know that Doctor?” Bob asks.
Mohinder’s frown deepens.
“I…”
“Mister Parkman can make you think and feel anything he wants. How do you know that isn’t what’s happening right now?”
“It’s not.”
His voice is strong. He believes it. He knows.
“But you don’t know that for sure, Doctor. You don’t know that this isn’t his plan. To get free. To be released from this place so he can kill again.”
“It’s not.”
Bob smiles that smile that Mohinder has come to learn means Bob’s placating him. It’s forced and fake and it means nothing. It’s just another look he puts on his face so people feel at ease.
It just makes Mohinder on edge.
“I wish we could all have your confidence, Doctor Suresh, but I am afraid that I can’t allow this. Matthew Parkman is too much of a threat.”
He doesn’t allow Mohinder to say any more. Mohinder’s fist clench and he feels angry. Angry because this is what they’ve been working so hard for and now they’re close to it and Bob won’t go along. Angry because Mohinder still doesn’t know what this or any other drug that might be just as powerful might be used for.
Angry because he still doesn’t know how to make them see.
~*~
“He’s got legitimate concerns,” Matt says.
Mohinder shakes his head.
“He’s got his own concerns. His own agenda. He’s certainly not looking out for your well-being otherwise he wouldn’t have authorized the use of some unknown drug on you all this time.”
“Are you talking about your drug or theirs?”
Mohinder frowns.
“Matt…”
“This is what they do, Mohinder. They take people and they experiment and then… they can make you forgot and they can make you remember what they want. For a while… I thought it was their fault. That they made me like this. But I hear the mumbo jumbo. I was supposed to end up like this. It’s in my DNA or whatever.”
“Matt, this was not meant to happen. You were not meant to be locked up like some caged animal.”
“They had me, Mohinder. They had me before I started getting out of control and they didn’t do anything about it. I know you work for them, but…”
“Because I was under the impression that they were trying to help people.”
“Yeah, well, your impression is wrong.”
Mohinder takes a deep breath.
“I know.”
Matt sighs.
“They’re gonna make me a vegetable again, right,” Matt says.
“I… yes I think so.”
“See, I told you,” Matt says with a humorless smile.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t… I thought that they would be on board with this. I guess I was giving them too much credit.”
“So I go back to hearing everything and not being able to control it.”
“I’m going to find some way…”
“Mohinder, it’s over. They won. They give you something you want and then they take it away because they can do it,” Matt says angrily.
“Matt…”
“No, look, I don’t need you to lie to me. I just… I wanted to say thank you for the time I did have okay. It was nice. I… I forgot what it was like, but I remember now. And that’s… that’s worth it for when I’m lying here hearing everyone’s thoughts.”
Matt grabs his hand and Mohinder thinks Matt’s trying to get his point across.
“It’s not enough.”
“It never is.”
~*~
Mohinder’s still furious as he makes his way home on the subway.
He can’t believe that Bob is going to make him stop giving Matt treatments and that make is going to just accept is so cavalierly.
This is his life. He should care more than that.
But he doesn’t and he’s just willing to let himself be mad prisoner again and Mohinder doesn’t know how to change that. He doesn’t know how to make Matt see that he deserves more than this.
It’s close to his stop and he gets up from his seat, it filling rapidly by an elderly man who smiles at him when Mohinder glances his way. He walks towards the doors when suddenly, everything stops, everyone stops as if frozen in time.
“What…”
“I am sorry to meet you like this, Doctor Suresh.”
Mohinder turns and sees Hiro standing there. He’s seen enough pictures of him from the Company. They’re tapped up in a room that Mohinder isn’t allowed access to.
“What…”
“There isn’t much time to answer questions. What I can say is that I’m here from the future and I have a mission for you.”
“For me?” Mohinder says, tone incredulous.
“Yes, for you.”
“But would could I possibly do?”
He frowns, tilts his head down and sighs.
“Matt Parkman.”
Mohinder’s eyes widen.
“What about him?”
“Matt is the key. We didn’t know how important he was at the time. We still don’t know, but we do know that it’s bad in the future. Maybe worse than it would have been before with New York City exploding.”
“How could that possibly be?”
“We’re being hunted. I don’t… I don’t know about before but we’re being hunted now. By some of the very people who are like us. And we’re being killed. They’re using Matt against us.”
“How…”
“He is extremely powerful, Doctor Suresh. Extremely powerful. He can delve into your mind from miles and miles away. The drug they are using on him… its meant to control him. They know he can still use them when he’s like that, but they have yet to be able to control it. They will soon,” Hiro says.
“But…”
“You have to get him out of there. No one could have predicted that he would get this strong, this fast. It was supposed to happen gradually.”
“It was his wife. That… it pushed him over the edge,” Mohinder says.
Because he knows the angry and sadness and grief in Matt’s voice when Matt’s talked about her, seen it with his own two eyes.
He knows.
“Perhaps, but you… you can help him.”
“How?”
“By getting him out of there.”
“It will be nearly impossible for me to so that.”
“Maybe. We have people on the inside to help you. All you have to do is get him out of the building and I will take care of the rest.”
“Get him out. Get him out when he can’t even control himself. He could hurt himself or others.”
“Then use your drug.”
Mohinder frowns.
“It hasn’t been perfected.”
“But you think you have right formula. You just don’t know for sure. Use it and see how long it works. We will prepare for the rest later.”
“This doesn’t sound like a very good plan.”
“It’s a hasty plan. Time is of the essence, Doctor Suresh. The Company let you mess with Matt as long as the didn’t have their drug ready. Now that they are not…”
“You think they’re gonna start using him.”
“That’s the way it happened in my time.”
“And what makes you think breaking Matt free will make things better?”
“It was not supposed to happen this way,” Hiro says.
“What way was it supposed to happen then?” Mohinder asks.
“Matt… he was supposed to be involved. We saved one fate from happening and then another occurred. But we did not know what we were making happen. We did not know that Matt…”
“You let this happen,” Mohinder says incredulously.
“No. We… we didn’t know. We just assumed that everything was following the natural sequence of events.”
“When did you know?”
Hiro frowns.
“When he was not there at Kirby Plaza. When Peter didn’t explode. You see, Matt was the one that led Ted there. But without Matt, Ted didn’t show up and Peter never came in contact with Ted,” Hiro says.
“And he never blew up New York.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that have to do with me? You said… you said I didn’t play my part.”
“Matt and Noah Bennet… they were on a mission to take out the Company’s new weapon. The one you were working on.”
“What weapon is that?”
“We… we’re not completely sure. It could be the virus that you’re working on. It could be something different. We were never made aware of what it was. Only that things did not go according to plan.”
“You’re taking a big risk.”
“Yes, I am, but it’s one that we all agreed to take. You must do it tomorrow. I will be waiting for you.”
“But what if I fail?” Mohinder asks.
Hiro smiles.
“You will have to make it so that you don’t.”
Mohinder wants to ask more questions, but Hiro disappears. The noise and the bustle of the subway starts up again and Mohinder has to hurry before he misses his stop.
~*~
He’s completely nervous.
He’s got his pass key still, Bob hasn’t taken it away yet. Hiro said do it today otherwise they were going to lose Matt forever.
Still, there’s Molly to think about and Hiro has to know about that, has to know that he’s going to be worried about her.
He waits until it’s close for her to come home. The whole thing is half cocked, but Hiro had said to trust him. Trust they everyone knew what was going on and what they had to do.
He hurriedly makes his way to Matt’s room and enters as fast as he can.
“We have to get out of here.”
Matt’s actually alert, sitting on his bed playing with the food that they’ve put in front of him.
“What?”
“I’m getting you out of here.”
Matt looks confused and shakes his head.
“No. No I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. The cure… it’ll work. You won’t hear voices, you won’ project, you won’t feel anything. You could go outside, into the real world. You would be fine. I promise.”
Matt frowns. He keeps shaking his head
“For how long? For how long until wears off and you can’t come back here because you’ve escaped with a prisoner?” Matt asks.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Mohinder.”
“We have to leave.”
Matt takes a deep, shaky breath and he starts to pace.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“You’re going to have to give me a little more than that, Mohinder. Like why are you all of a sudden freaking out?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me that I should let you out?”
“Yeah, the roles are kind of reversed here. Just… I could hurt you. I could hurt you and your daughter and half of New York City.”
“But you won’t. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing here.”
“I can feel the doubt that you have in yourself.”
Mohinder frowns.
“The drug…”
“It’s not… it’s not an empathic thing, okay. It’s a ‘Matt knows Mohinder better than he should’ kind of thing. You don’t think this is the right thing to do.”
“I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. There’s a difference.”
“There is?” Matt asks, eyebrow cocked.
Mohinder nods.
“Yes, there is. I… I think it is the right thing to do, but I don’t know for sure. I could be the absolute wrong thing to do. I could be screwing things up worse than they already are, but… I don’t feel like I am.”
Matt looks at him questioningly and Mohinder takes a deep breath. He walks over to Matt and takes his shoulders in his hands, soft white fabric under his fingers, Matt’s warm skin right underneath.
“I don’t feel like I am. So… so could you just trust in that? Could you just trust me?”
Matt swallows thickly and he bites on his lower lip.
“I…”
“Please,” Mohinder says.
He knows. He knows that he’s begging, but he’d been prepared to beg if he had to.
He’ll keep begging if he has to.
“Mohinder.”
He takes a few more breaths.
“You’re going to loose everything.”
“I’m very much aware of that.”
“You’re messing with people who have long arms here. Long arms and deep pockets and they’re not going to take too kindly to you taking hostage one of their top prisoners.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that as well.”
“Molly…”
“Molly will be fine. We’ll be fine. There’s a… there’s a bit of an underground movement of sorts. It’s small, but… they’re willing to help.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
“I know that they’re going to help, but we have to do this fast,” Mohinder says.
He pulls out a syringe, filled with the newest batch of the drug.
“What… what are you doing?”
“I’m going to give you this so that you’ll be able to leave.”
“It doesn’t…”
“It works. It works for the time that it needs to work.”
“Mohinder…”
“You have to be here with me. I’m not going to do this unless you agree to do it.”
“This is pretty fast. I mean I don’t have any time to think.”
“I know, but we don’t have much time.”
“Mohinder…”
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but it’ll mean that they use you for things that are infinitely worse then what you did.”
Matt pales.
“What…”
“Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. So we either leave right now or I watch you lose yourself at the hand of the people who are keeping us both hostage.”
Matt frowns.
“I’m just scared, okay.”
Mohinder takes Matt’s hand is his own and squeezes.
“I know. I’m a little scared as well, but we’re going to make this work. But we have to do it now.”
“They’ll be after us.”
“I imagine they already are. Hiro said all we have to do is get out of the building. He’ll take care of the rest.”
“Who?”
Mohinder smiles.
“Just trust me.”
“I do,” Matt says, no hesitation.
Mohinder nods and puts the syringe in Matt’s arm. He hisses, but Mohinder’s done this so much that it doesn’t hurt that much. At least he hopes so.
It takes a minute before Matt can stand, but Mohinder helps him and they shuffle out of the room.
The minute they step out, the alarm bells ring.
“Guess you were right about them knowing.”
“We have to hurry.”
Mohinder’s seen the security guards. He knows they have to hurry.
Luckily, Mohinder knows this place like the back of his hand. He runs through the corridors, Matt leaning on him some, trying to keep up the fast pace. Mohinder is close to the door when he spots him.
The Haitian.
He starts walking really fast toward them and Mohinder’s eyes widen. He starts to run, but Matt is almost like dead weight leaning on him and they’re not anywhere near as close as they should be.
Mohinder turns when he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns and he doesn’t know what to do, the Hatian staring at him s intently.
“Come with me.”
Mohinder frowns.
“What?”
“I know what you are doing. Come with me. I know where Hiro is.”
“You’re helping me. You’re helping us,” Mohinder says.
“Duh, Mohinder,” Matt mutters.
“Yes. I am. But we must go now.”
Mohinder nods and follows the Hatian through some corridors, Matt finally able to carry his own weight now.
He has so many questions, but he doesn’t ask any questions. He just follows the Haitian to some places that he hadn’t known was there. Somehow it’s a back entrance of sorts and Mohinder still doesn’t question.
Hiro’s standing right there.
“It is time to go,” he says.
“Hi,” Matt says.
“Hello, Matt Parkman. I am sorry we could not meet under better circumstances,” Hiro says.
“Yeah, well, let’s just get out of here,” Matt says.
“Agreed.”
Part Three