Heroes fic: How You Sleep (7/12?)
Title: How You Sleep - Chapter 7: What's in Reach (7/12?)
Series: Heroes
Pairing: Mylar
Rating: R
Warnings: Mpreg! BS science! Fairly dark! Consent issues!
Summary: After being doused with the complete formula, Mohinder copes with a lingering side effect as he and everyone around him try to rebuild their lives and their trust.
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
"And what, exactly, is wrong with bears?" Claire asked.
"Nothing," Mohinder said. "I just don't prefer my son's room to be covered with them."
He'd adjusted his bed so he could sit comfortably on top of the covers while Claire perched at his side with a catalog in her lap. She'd shown up an hour before with the book as a "present," and she seemed quite pleased when Mohinder agreed to look at it. Maybe she expected resistance given their last conversation, but now Mohinder was quite aware that he needed to make real plans.
"But bears are so soft and fluffy and cuddly!" Claire cooed, hugging herself. "Babies love that. Didn't you have a teddy bear?"
"I don't recall."
Claire rolled her eyes. "You probably had molecule models in your crib." She flipped to the next page. "Oh, how about ducks!"
"Why does the baby need one particular animal?"
"Well, you can't just throw a bunch of mismatching stuff together. You'll have lions with sheep, and that's just wrong."
Before Mohinder could ask why, Peter entered with a carryout bag. Help me, Mohinder mouthed, pointing to Claire over her head.
She knocked his hand away. "You need baby things," she said.
"Of course, but I don't see why I have select a single theme."
She exhaled slowly, blowing bits of hair out of her face, and dog-eared the duck page.
Peter pulled over his usual chair. "Did you come over here just to plan a nursery?" he asked. "I didn't realize you were so into babies."
"I'm being helpful," she said. "Plus I'm supposed to have lunch with Dad, but all the sudden he had a meeting with Lauren Whatzerface, so I've got time to kill."
"I feel so important," Mohinder said.
"I was gonna bring this after!" she protested. "Now, do you want ducks or not?"
"Let him have a lunch break, Claire," Peter suggested, then chuckled to himself. "I don't think shopping is really his cup of tea."
Claire stared at him. "Wow," she deadpanned. "That was bad."
"Not that bad."
"Like, really bad."
Mohinder took the catalog and tossed it to the foot of the bed. "Hand over lunch."
Claire stood up. "Fine, I'll do the planning myself." She grabbed the book and clutched it to her chest. "I will pick an array of matching, ducky things, and you will love them and buy them."
"I don't have that much savings, Claire," Mohinder said, taking a plastic fork and covered foil container from Peter. "Really, let me figure it out."
"Then I'll pick bargain, hopefully ducky things." She laughed at his exasperated expression. "I'm teasing. Sort of. Let me give it a shot?"
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for college?" Peter asked, grinning as Mohinder tore off the lid and immediately dug into his fettucine alfredo. "You realize August is over?"
"I can multi-task," she said with a shrug. "Besides, it's just clothes-packing at this point."
"Have you ever moved into a dorm?" Peter said.
Claire shot him a look. "I swear Angela told me she had professionals move you and Nathan into your dorms."
Peter flushed. "I helped."
"She offered me the same, but I don't want to look like some pampered princess to my roommate."
"Did you just call me pampered?"
"I think she called you a princess," Mohinder said around a mouthful of pasta.
"Ha." Peter moved on. "Speaking of Mom, when did you last talk to her?"
Claire looked to the ceiling as she thought. "I think it was last week when she asked me again if I was sure I wanted to go to Arlington. Why?"
"I dunno, I haven't seen her that much lately."
"I thought Dad said she's been in DC keeping tabs on this place."
"Yeah, but she's seen Nathan way more than me." Peter shrugged. "I know I've been busy at the hospital when I'm not here, but..."
"Aw." Claire reached over and patted his head. "She's probably paranoid Nathan's going to screw up royally, unlike her other son who's never done anything crazily megalomaniacal."
Peter snorted, but he caught Mohinder's abrupt drop in enjoyment of his lunch. He looked back to Claire and changed the subject. "So have you talked to your roommate?"
"Just once on the phone. Her name's Gretchen. She seems okay. She's bringing the mini-fridge."
"If only you could use it to get tanked together."
"I am doomed to a responsible college life," Claire said wistfully. "Damn this DNA!"
Mohinder twirled more noodles around his fork. "Just as well. You don't want to distract from your studies."
"I bet you were the party man on campus," Claire muttered.
Before he could launch into a rant about so many college students' determination to throw away educations they paid for, Mohinder felt sharp jabs in his right side. "Not while I'm eating," he muttered at the mound below his dish. At least it wasn't in the bladder this time.
Claire shifted from one foot to the other. "Um... can I feel?"
Mohinder hesitated. "I suppose."
She put the catalog down, and he guided her hand to where he felt the kicks. Her face lit up. "He feels strong. Like his daddy," she teased, pretending to tweak Mohinder's cheek.
"He feels cranky to me," Mohinder said.
"Maybe he doesn't like fettucine," Peter said.
"Or he senses the ice cream craving kicking in."
"That's easily fixed."
"I don't know. I'm getting longer stares now."
"If you don't feed your craving, you're gonna be the cranky one."
"Plus now I want some," Claire said as she took her hand away.
"Look what you did," Peter chided Mohinder.
Claire held up a finger. "Just give me a second."
As she closed the bathroom door, Peter leaned forward. "Has Nathan been back around?"
"No," Mohinder answered, setting his food down and maneuvering to the edge of the bed.
"I haven't seen him much either. He's focused on his legislative duties."
"Ah."
"He was genuinely sorry. He swears he was just talking in your best inter--"
"Peter," Mohinder interrupted as he got to his feet, briefly holding the other man's shoulder. "I don't need to hear this again." Peter had offered many apologies for his brother over the past couple weeks. Nathan hadn't done so much as send an email, but Bennet had probably told him to stay away until he had a handle on himself.
"I know." But still Peter rushed out: "I think he just wants to right things so badly, he let your decision get to him."
Mohinder couldn't temper the acid in his tone. "Well, he's going to have to learn to cope, because after his outburst and what happened a few months ago, I'm not counting on his good graces."
Peter had no response. The toilet flushed and Claire bounced out of the bathroom. "Let's go!" she chirped, pulling Peter from his chair. She stood between him and Mohinder and linked her arms with theirs.
"You're not supposed to be desperate for free food just yet, undergrad," Peter said as they entered the hallway. Marian was missing from her desk, and Emma's door was partially open. "Should we ask her?" Peter added.
"I suppose," Mohinder said. He hadn't really spoken to Emma. Since she'd arrived, the most he'd managed was a nod in the hall. She kept to her room when not with the doctors. He wasn't sure how they planned to treat her, but he didn't think it was his business, especially since she behaved as standoffishly as he felt.
"She reads lips, right?" Claire asked.
"Yes."
"Oh, good, 'cause I wouldn't know how to sign, 'My uncle thinks you're pretty.'"
"Claire!" Peter exclaimed as they reached the door.
"That's what you said," she sing-songed.
"I see your attentions are fickle," Mohinder sighed.
"Shut up, both of you," Peter muttered. He leaned into the doorway. "May we interrupt?" he asked, rapping lightly on the frame.
"Sure," came Marian's voice, and Peter pushed the door open all the way. Marian sat at the side of Emma's bed. Emma sat up with her bottom half under the covers, knees drawn up with her arms wrapped around them.
"Would you like to come down to the cafeteria?" Peter asked. "For ice cream, or whatever, if you haven't eaten."
Emma glanced at each of her visitors. "I'm not very hungry."
Marian touched Emma's knee. "The cookies and cream is very good," she said. "Worth getting out of this stuffy room for."
Emma frowned at her and looked up at Mohinder, Claire, and Peter again. "She's totally lying," Peter said. "It's the butter pecan that's the best."
Marian laughed, and when Emma saw she cracked a smile. She brushed her hair behind her ears, and after a moment said, "Okay." As she got out of bed, Mohinder saw she wore plain hospital scrubs. He wondered again about how she'd been apprehended; she'd obviously had no time to grab her own clothes.
It wasn't an easy subject to bring up out of the blue, so he left the conversation to Peter. Peter had spent some time with Emma before, and in the elevator he asked for her opinion on the Agency doctors and nurses and the accommodations compared to the hospital where she worked in New York. At once she seemed reluctant to talk but tried to open herself up, saying that she thought the staff was kind and professional and that she wished her hospital was as up-to-date. They reached the cafeteria at that point, and they had their IDs scanned for their complimentary treats (with Claire's charged to her father). The worker who served them gave Mohinder what was probably meant to be a discreet once-over. Otherwise, he kept his eyes on his scoop. It was the usual reaction; the staff had likely been subtly threatened enough by Bennet to mind their own business when it came to anything outside their jobs. Mohinder imagined Human Resources as a series of interrogation rooms.
Claire led the way to a table, and as they sat, Mohinder asked Emma, "So what do you do at Mercy Heights?"
"I'm a file clerk," she said, licking her cone with no enthusiasm.
Peter frowned, signaling to her with a finger. "Your chart says you're a doctor."
"I was." She tugged on her ear. "Then I had an accident."
Mohinder had a bowl of strawberry and awkwardly made patterns around bits of fruit with his spoon. Peter sat across from him, and Mohinder watched him try to think of something positive to offer. He settled on: "Does the power help?"
"It's mostly strange," she replied. "And it's not a replacement. I'm not sure of the benefits or how I could even use it. The head of security seemed worried about that."
"Matt?" Peter said. "Yeah, it's his job to know your capabilities."
Claire waved her spoon dismissively. "I'm sure my dad was the one who actually worried about you being dangerous," she said.
"Your dad?" Emma said.
"Director Bennet."
Emma nodded. "I only met him once."
"He's no social butterfly."
Mohinder touched Emma's arm. "Is that why he's kept you so long?" he asked. "Danger?"
Emma shook her head. "No, Parkman has been asking if I want to leave, actually. But I... I'm still not very good at controlling this power. It comes and goes. Sometimes I feel so much in control that I could almost touch the colors, but other times it's just a mess."
"You know," Peter said, and smiled apologetically when Mohinder had to point to him to signal Emma, "Dr. Stevenson suggested that I absorb your power and see if I can help figure it out."
Emma looked intrigued, but Claire groaned and waved her spoon again, "The human sponge, sucking up another unfamiliar power. This will go well."
"What's the worst that can happen? I see rainbows for a while, so what?"
"You would be in a controlled environment," Mohinder considered.
"Yeah, it'd be scientific and everything," Peter said to Claire.
Claire shook her head. "Whatever. I'm getting the last of the butterscotch."
Peter looked alarmed. They stared at each other, then they both bolted from their seats.
Emma laughed as they playfully fought their way to the counter. Then for a strange moment, she looked sad. When it passed, she returned her attention to her cone.
Mohinder reached across the table and uneasily asked, "So how did they find you?"
"They wouldn't tell me exactly," she said, "but they must have people hacking into records and looking for anything strange, unless they have people in random hospitals. But I was at work, and the pediatric wing had the children do a singing show. I passed by and... At first, it was beautiful, the way the colors swept through the air, but then I could see other noises, too. The air conditioner going, gurney wheels rolling, people just breathing. All I could see was a blur of color. I was a patient for about a day before two agents came to see me. The hospital thought I was going blind, but the agents looked at my blood and said otherwise."
"So you just came here with them," Mohinder said, relieved.
"They didn't have to drag me," Emma said. "I needed someone to tell me what this was, even if I don't like the answer." She hadn't even gotten her ice cream down to the rim of her cone, but she tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Why are you here?" she asked.
Mohinder had managed to go this long without having to field that question; everyone had either been not allowed to ask or didn't need to. He decided to go with the stomach distention lie-- but in the middle of his answer, the baby popped him in the gut.
Emma raised her brows when he clutched at his side. "You don't look like it's stomach distention."
Of course. She was a doctor, too. Mohinder flushed. "It's exactly what it looks like," he said quietly.
"That's an inconvenient power."
"That's not really my... It's complicated," he said.
Instead of asking how complicated, she asked, "How long do you have left?"
"Eighteen weeks."
"That's a long time in here."
"I've managed this long without going mad." He eyed her. "You don't seem at all shocked."
She smiled to herself. "It's definitely unexpected, but how can I judge? If I'm not careful, I'll see rainbows shooting from your mouth."
"Is it at least easier to control since you came here?"
She nodded. "I could go home and probably be okay. I'm just... afraid." She laughed and shook her head.
"You were just introduced to an underground of people with special abilities. It's not wrong to be scared."
"I know. I just wish... everything was normal."
Mohinder compulsively rubbed his stomach. "I know that feeling."
As Peter and Claire turned from the counter, a flash of blue whipped into the cafeteria: Darla, looking as neat as ever in a skirt and suit jacket. Mohinder waved idly, expecting that she was grabbing coffee, but she walked straight to him.
"I need you to come with me, dear," she said. She didn't smile; she looked uncharacteristically nervous.
"What's wrong?" Mohinder asked, panic stirring. His first thought was of what she'd said to him on the first day, about surprise inspections. Was that why Lauren, their government liaison, was here to see Bennet?
"Everything is fine," Darla said with a weak smile. "Well, I mean... Oh, just get your keester up." He complied and she took his arm, offering a quick apology to Emma but not thinking to face her. She didn't notice Peter and Claire watching Mohinder be led away. "We're just going to Mr. Parkman's office."
"There's a security issue?"
"No, I just don't think there needs to be a scene in the cafeteria, of all places."
"A scene?"
"Don't get flustered. It's fine. I just... You'll see."
He saw nothing out of the ordinary in the halls, and Darla said nothing more. She clutched his arm all the way to Matt's office, even as she rapped on the door. Matt called for them to come in, but Darla ushered Mohinder inside alone. He froze in the doorway.
His mother and Molly sat in chairs in front of Matt's desk. Matt sat behind it with his arms propped up on his elbows, mouth behind his woven hands. Molly twisted in her seat and greeted him with a smile. "Mohinder!" she chirped, bouncing up and wrapping her arms around him-- or trying. She backed up a step to stare at his stomach. "Wow, you're big."
His mother remained seated. "Yes," she said. "He is."
"What are you doing here?" Mohinder blurted out.
She scoffed. "How can you expect me to stay home after telling me..." She stared at his stomach and didn't finish.
"They showed up at the front gate, thanks to Molly," Matt said. He looked at her disapprovingly. "From all that TV you have to know it's a bad idea to just show up at secret government buildings."
She shrugged. "I knew it'd get back to you and you'd have to let us in."
"That's not clever, Molly," Mohinder snapped. "It's dangerous and-- and it's rude. You didn't even tell anyone!"
"I wouldn't accuse Molly of being thoughtless in this situation," his mother replied sharply.
"I told you I'd be fine!"
"Oh, yes, I'll just accept that! My son is fine. He is only pregnant because of some flash-in-the-pan serum."
He didn't know what to say to that. He felt himself wilt. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."
"You will not scold me, to start with."
He nodded meekly. He sought something more to say, coming up with only: "What about Molly's tutors?"
His mother waved her hand. "She will catch up fine. We just made her break a little early."
"I'm doing really well!" Molly chimed in. "At Tamil, too."
His mother picked up a bag by her feet. "I brought you some things. Where is your room?"
He couldn't answer, couldn't think. "I don't... could we just..."
Matt got up very fast and eased Mohinder into Molly's chair. Mohinder didn't realize how queasy he felt until he was off his feet. "Let's just take it easy," Matt said. "You okay, buddy?" he added quietly.
Mohinder nodded and closed his eyes, but only briefly. His mother had touched his shoulder, and she looked down at him with concern. "Yes," she said, "we did arrive suddenly."
"How about Mohinder and Molly head to his room while you and I take a minute to talk about your plans?" Matt suggested.
"I plan to see my son," she said sternly.
Matt picked up the phone. "Of course. I just need to know for how long, where you're staying, things like that." He dialed and after a moment said, "Marian, please bring a wheelchair for Mohinder down here."
"I'm fine," Mohinder said, even though it felt like a pasty mix of ice cream and pasta squirmed its way up his throat.
Matt hung up. "You've lost color," he retorted. He handed his trash can to Molly. "Give this to him."
"Here," she said quietly, setting it on his lap.
He hung his face over it and closed his eyes. He'd thought he had more time to prepare for them face-to-face, but he should have known his mother wouldn't stand by. He didn't develop his stubbornness from nowhere, after all.
@ @ @ @ @
As Marian wheeled the chair from his room, Peter and Claire came in.
"Hey, where'd Darla take..." Peter's eyes fell on Molly. "Hi there."
Molly looked at him for a moment, then smiled. "I remember you! You fought the Boog-- I mean, Sylar. At Kirby Plaza."
"Uh, yeah."
"I'm glad you didn't blow up."
"Thanks."
"My mother is here," Mohinder said from the bed.
Peter scratched at the back of his head. "Yeah, I figured."
"Uh, I think Dad should be out of his meeting by now," Claire said nervously. She scooped up the baby catalog and patted Mohinder's arm. "I'll get back to you on this."
Mohinder just nodded. As she left, he eased back onto his pillows. Molly watched him uneasily. She spotted the extra chair and pulled it over to sit. She had a messenger bag and held it in her lap.
"Where is your mom?" Peter asked.
Mohinder rested his hands on his chest. "Talking to Matt."
Molly rapped her fingers against her bag. "I'm sorry, Mohinder," she said suddenly.
"It's okay, Molly," he replied wearily.
"I know this is really weird for you, and you're, like, probably embarrassed, but Grandma was really worried, and I was really worried, and I thought when we got here you'd be happy."
Mohinder immediately locked eyes with her. "Don't ever think I'm upset to see you."
"But you are upset," Molly said accusingly. "You're sick."
"I'm just... I just wasn't expecting you. You are right, that I do feel embarrassed, so this was just a very big shock." He forced a smile. "If you told me you were coming, I still wouldn't have been able to stop you."
"You might've. You're really stubborn when you argue."
Peter snorted.
"It's an excellent rhetorical skill," Mohinder said dryly.
"Can I ask you something?" Molly said, looking at his stomach.
"Yes."
"I've been doing some reading on seahorses," she said, rummaging through her bag. She pulled out what looked like a paperback textbook and flipped through the pages. "I didn't really get what you said on the phone, and I still don't get it."
Mohinder felt his face burn and avoided Peter's gaze. "Ah, Molly..."
She showed him an anatomical diagram. "See, she has an 'ovipositor' that puts eggs into the boy seahorse, but human girls don't have ovipositors, so how did you get the eggs?"
"Molly," Mohinder said carefully, "it wasn't meant to be an exact comparison."
Peter's face contorted. "I'm trying not to visualize how..." He shuddered. "I'm glad you didn't have to extract any eggs."
"Peter," Mohinder said sharply.
Molly's eyes widened. "Wait a minute..."
"Do you know how long you're staying?" Mohinder tried to deflect.
"You did it with a boy!" Molly exclaimed. "I thought you liked girls?"
Mohinder sputtered. "I-I do like girls, but... I just..."
"Mira is gonna be extra mad at you."
It was an interesting comment, considering he'd hardly spoken to Mira since his father's funeral. Of course, consequently, it had been a long time since Mira was at the top of his concerns. "Molly, this is not an appropriate conversation. It's my personal business."
She shrugged, glancing sideways at nothing, "Okay." She looked at Peter. "Are you the other father?"
Peter barked an awkward laugh. "Uh, no, Mohinder and I are just friends. I'm emotional support."
"We're done talking about this," Mohinder said sharply. He regretted the hurt look on Molly's face, but he couldn't continue down this road of questioning. "How it happened is private, Molly. If you want to know about the baby himself, that's fine."
Molly traced patterns on the linoleum with her shoe. Finally, she asked, "So what's his name gonna be?"
"I don't know yet," Mohinder said evenly.
"Can I name him?" she ventured.
He cracked a smile. "Are there any Indian names you particularly like?"
She thought. "One of my tutors is named Vivek. He's nice." She put her book back. "Are we all gonna live together back in Chennai?"
"That's the plan."
She tugged at a loose thread on her bag. "Oh."
Mohinder frowned. "What's wrong? I thought you liked India?"
"I do," she said quickly. "But, well, you know, this is home. I can talk to Micah online, at least, but I only ever talk to Matt on the phone sometimes. Here, I could see him."
"I don't know if this is best place to live. And I'm not sure I like you talking to Micah."
She scowled. "Why not?"
"How did Micah know where all those people he helped were?"
Molly folded her arms. "You were one of those people!" she exclaimed. "You think I should've let that Danko guy find you and everyone else?"
"Micah left a trail to you."
"No, he didn't!" she retorted. "Micah knows how to hide himself. I was fine. Danko didn't find you, did he?"
"It would have been a matter of time. Micah himself had to be constantly moving. What would you have done if you had to run? What about your grandmother?"
Molly averted her eyes. "I wanted to help. I could help, and if I didn't..."
"I know," Peter said. "You would have felt responsible. People would have been captured without her, Mohinder."
"Peter," Mohinder snapped, fixing him in a glare.
"Well, she... I..." Peter faltered. He muttered something about Emma and slunk out.
Mohinder took a breath. "I know you felt you had a responsibility, Molly, but as impressive as he is, Micah is not omnipotent. You put yourself and Grandma in danger."
"I wouldn't have made her go with me. I would have gone alone and met up with Micah."
"Yes, a young girl all alone on the streets. Do you have any idea of all the other things that could have happened to you besides being taken by Danko? How easily you could have never met up with Micah?"
Molly pushed her bag off her lap, and it hit the floor with a loud bang. "They needed my help!" she shouted. "It would have been selfish to do nothing!"
Mohinder sat up and snapped back, "Do you have any idea how it would have killed me if something happened to you?"
Tears sprung to Molly's eyes and she brushed her arm across them. "Yeah, I might," she spat. "You sent me away from home to keep me from Sylar, and you were supposed to come later, but you didn't. I didn't know why, but when I felt for you then, I knew something was wrong. You didn't feel right. It scared me, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even talk to you because you weren't at home. And you kept getting worse, and I couldn't tell Grandma because she would have worried and no, I didn't want her to try to find you and get hurt by Sylar or anyone. I was stuck and I didn't know what was happening and then suddenly you felt fine. You finally called me and you didn't say anything but sorry and you still didn't come!" She broke off with a sob.
Mohinder felt his anger push back down his throat, curdling in his gut. He reached for her hand. "Molly--"
She hit him away. "I didn't ask what happened because I knew you were trying to protect me from something and because I was happy you were okay. But then the government came after you and everyone, and yeah, I knew I could protect you, too, and that was more important than how worried you'd be." She wrapped her arms around her stomach. "And now that I know why you didn't come home, I know that at least what I did wasn't because of a mistake!"
A too familiar sense of foolishness and failure was all Mohinder felt now. "I'm sorry, Molly," he said, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't think of any words that would be.
"You were still trying to do the right thing, though," she said, voice thick. "You were trying to help Maya. How can you yell at me for trying to help?"
"I guess I shouldn't."
He heard his mother's and Matt's voices in the hall before they appeared in the doorway. Mohinder couldn't look at them, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Matt crouch by Molly's chair. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Nothing," she grunted, turning her face away.
"What happened?" Matt asked louder, this time to Mohinder.
Molly shot to her feet. "Nothing!" she shouted and pushed past Matt into the hallway.
"I just got a well-deserved lashing," Mohinder said.
His mother didn't look surprised. She had the bag and set it on the chair. "I think we should come back tomorrow."
"It's fine, amma--"
"We're all very high strung right now," she said. "We'll take a day and talk tomorrow."
Oddly, he didn't want her to go, perhaps because he hadn't seen a single smile or any other sign that she didn't feel disappointment or disgust. "Where are you going?"
"They'll be staying at my place the next two weeks," Matt said.
"Two weeks?" Mohinder repeated.
"Is that too short?" his mother asked. At the bewildered look on his face, she sighed. "I am kidding, Mohinder. As much as I want to help you in this mess, I do have obligations at home." She unzipped the bag. "I got you some comfortable clothes that should fit and some candies. There are a few other things, including those gloves and that scarf you had at boarding school."
"It's not that cold yet," Mohinder said. A mess. She thought this was a mess. "And you kept those?"
"A mother may keep all sorts of things," she said. She bent over and took his face in both hands, pressing her lips to his forehead. The touch was brief. "You'll see." She drew back and took a long look at his stomach. "You are still healthy?"
"Yes," Mohinder answered awkwardly.
"Good. We'll talk more tomorrow."
"Okay."
"Uh, we'll go to the car in a minute," Matt said, but she'd already walked out. "I guess we're leaving now."
"Thank you for taking them in," Mohinder said. "You didn't have to."
"Of course I did. Molly's like a daughter to me, too."
"Maybe more so. You're not the one who sent her away with hardly a word after."
Matt frowned in sympathy. "That's what that was about, huh?"
"It's not a small grievance, especially with how her parents were taken away from her."
"It'll be okay, Mohinder," Matt said. "It takes time to set things right."
"Mr. Parkman!" Mohinder's mother called from the hall.
"I'll talk to Molly tonight," Matt said. "I haven't been the most attentive either; she can split the blame."
"I doubt that will lessen the damage." A mess, he thought again. That word did about sum everything up.
Matt sighed. "Do me a favor and see if any of that tea is for optimism."
@ @ @ @ @
Peter came back as Mohinder searched his closet. His old gloves and scarf had gone from white to almost gray, but they were still useful, and he decided to keep them with his newer striped scarf. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember where he put it. He swore he'd hung it on the hook inside the door, but a jacket hung there instead. He wasn't in the mood to pull the closet apart, so he stuffed the gloves on the shelf along the top.
"How'd the rest of the visit go?" Peter asked.
Mohinder replaced the jacket with the scarf and put the jacket on a hanger. "Poorly. They're coming back tomorrow."
Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Sorry about earlier. I was trying to help, but it wasn't my business."
Mohinder closed the closet and shook his head. "I don't know. It wasn't, but you were right in a way. Molly was too young to be involved, but I can't tell her helping me and other people was wrong."
"Maybe you'll perfect handling dilemmas like that before the baby comes along."
Mohinder laughed wryly. "One can hope." He stretched his arms. "Would you like to join me on the roof before your shift? I need some air."
Peter checked his watch. "Yeah, I got time."
They talked about Emma on the way up. Peter thought she seemed more talkative and encouraged Mohinder to engage with her more. Normalizing the idea of powers could help her gain control over her own. As they stepped outside, Mohinder pointed out he'd be busy dealing with his visitors for a while.
"You were really hit hard by them showing up today," Peter said.
"Of course I was."
"I know, but it got me thinking." They stopped at the edge of the roof, and Peter looked around at the landscape. "Actually, for a while, I've been wondering... I'm not trying to comment on what you should or shouldn't have done, but I wanted to ask why you decided to go ahead with it. I mean, it's Sylar's baby. Between what he did to your father and what he did to Molly's parents, it would have been easy to abort it. You were miserable and kept going."
Mohinder hung his head to stare at the roof's blacktop, but of course, his stomach filled his vision. He looked ahead instead, at the browning trees. "When I found out, I was just shocked. I denied it for a while, until the morning sickness was too much. But even at that point, I couldn't just walk into a hospital, and I don't know any surgeons. I just had the possibility that a colleague of mine or my father's could be trusted enough to find someone. But before I could try to contact anyone, we were all black-bagged, and then we were on the run." He paused. "But even then, surgery was an option, not my intention.
"Because I felt guilty, too. Not just about what happened with Sylar, but what I'd done with the experiments and how I'd only tangentially helped Maya and put her in contact with your father to do it. So when I found out I was pregnant, I..."
He thought Peter didn't need to hear more, but after a moment the younger man said, "You didn't want to punish the baby for that."
Mohinder let out a hollow laugh. "I don't consider an embryo to be a baby, Peter. I thought the pregnancy itself was a punishment."
Peter fell quiet again.
"I thought it was a punishment I deserved, and to terminate it would be denying everything I'd done. It's a horrible conclusion. The fetus is really just cause and effect. It's selfish to ascribe some divine intent to its existence. It's just an bizarre way of blaming something else while still blaming myself."
"So you don't think of it as a punishment now."
"No. Seeing the ultrasound helped. It's not some abstract idea now. It's flesh and blood that I still have control over."
"But you're still going through with the birth."
"Yes." Mohinder rested his arms around his stomach. "I've been set on it, considering the birth for so long. I... I just can't go back. And it's more than an embryo now, more than any mass of cells. It's too far along for me to be comfortable with terminating it. Him."
Peter was quiet for a long time, and Mohinder couldn't imagine what he was thinking. Peter obviously had reservations about abortion, but if his apparent policy of nonjudgment extended to his brother's mass kidnapping and imprisonment, Mohinder doubted his own opinion on terminating pregnancies would do much damage to their friendship.
"What else happened with Sylar?" Peter asked.
Mohinder couldn't help it; he flinched. "Excuse me?"
Their gazes locked again, and Peter's expression was a mix of wariness and curiosity. "I'm not saying I don't believe what you just said. It's just that when we talked about him before, I got the feeling... I don't believe that you think of Sylar as just a murderer like everyone else."
Mohinder analyzed Peter's tone. "It doesn't sound like you believe that either."
"I used to, until he was convinced he was my brother. Seeing him eager to please was kind of creepy."
"At least he wasn't doing it to manipulate you."
Peter raised his eyebrows.
Mohinder sighed and went first. "I told you I met Sylar when I came back to New York to pursue my father's research after his funeral."
"Yeah."
"He impersonated a special he'd murdered for liquefaction. He convinced me to take him with me to find other specials. To help them." Even now Mohinder berated himself for his naiveté. "It took two days before I figured out who he really was, but in the meantime... It sounds ridiculous, but we had such wonderful, complex conversations. For a while afterward, I thought it was all a part of his facade, but the subjects we discussed got very personal, about how we grew up, about how we lived now, about the people in our lives. When I was with the Company, I looked at Sylar's file and saw too many parallels to what he told me on that trip to believe that it was all fake."
"And you think he was engaged in what you told him, too?"
"I do, considering what he shared with me. He could have lied about everything or shared nothing at all and played his plot out with me being none the wiser, but his method was... companionable."
"You had feelings for each other," Peter said bluntly.
Mohinder sputtered. "I don't... It wasn't..."
Peter shot Mohinder a look. "You told me you were willing with him, Mohinder. And I don't think Sylar would have taken time out of figuring out if he should kill either or both of my parents just to mess with you."
"Yes, but I don't want you to think... I'm not keeping this child because of him. I wouldn't ever have had sex with him without that horrible serum twisting up my mind. I'm not delusional about the person he truly was. I do believe he had an infatuation with me, but that doesn't change anything. The serum..."
"Basically drove you toward some fucked up closure about the trip."
"To put it succinctly," Mohinder said with a bitter laugh. He looked at his pregnant belly. "Some closure. I never even saw him again after that-- and he had that brief tryst with poor Elle right after. I don't even know what to think."
"Sylar was never exactly simple." Peter chewed on his lip. His turn now. "You know how the future version of me took me into his present?"
"Like you do," Mohinder said with a crooked grin.
Peter reflected the look. "You've never been?" He became serious again. "I wanted to stop the world from being overrun with powers and launching into a catastrophe, but as you know, that fell apart when I got back here and my dad stopped me first."
Memories of Peter strapped to a gurney replayed in Mohinder's head, and he couldn't look at Peter's face.
"Not many people know that Future Me told me to get Sylar's intuitive aptitude before I came back."
"You saw Sylar there?"
"He still believed we were related, and he... He was so different. I can't even tell you. You wouldn't believe it. Sometimes I think it must have been a crazy dream." Peter rubbed his hands over his face, as if making sure the memory was indelible. "But he helped me absorb his power."
Mohinder waited.
"It was insane. I felt insane. Or at least looking back, that's how I see it. At the time I just felt... starved, in my mind. It was like the world was a buffet of information, and I wanted all of it. I needed all of it. The thought of anyone getting in my way was intolerable, and killing them wasn't a problem. It was the easiest solution. I knew I could just manipulate them, because their behavior was data, too, but getting rid of them was easier. It felt appealing." Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as if bracing against the chill of winter. "I don't know what would have happened if my dad hadn't sapped me."
Mohinder had trouble processing this. "So you're saying Sylar was helpless under his power?"
Peter shook his head. "As much as we talk about how nuts he was, did he really strike you as out of control?"
"No. He was very calculating."
"His power nearly drove me insane, but he lived with it his whole life. He was able to manage it." He smiled ruefully. "Honestly, even now it really bothers me. I don't doubt that his ability screwed him up, but I was in a future where I saw that he could make the right choices. In our time, he chose differently." Peter looked over at Mohinder's middle. "Although, if he was still around, he'd have another reason to become a decent person," he mused.
Mohinder snorted. "How wonderful for me. It'd be like a hostage situation. Don't ruin the domesticity, or he'll go on a killing spree." He shook his head. "I doubt he would try changing again, not when he was at the point where he still worked against specials in a crisis. You'd expect, if he wanted some mutual connection, he'd gravitate toward the opportunity to work with others against Danko. That didn't happen; he only turned against Danko for his own benefit."
"Plus Mom does have a way of souring people," Peter muttered.
"I'm not particularly sure what he would do if he was still alive and knew," Mohinder said. "I doubt it would be pleasant." He rubbed his temples. "But I suppose I can't be sure. I don't know where to draw the line. I've accepted that it's possible for us to rectify our wrongs..."
"Normally I'd say that we all get a fresh shot, but when it comes to Sylar..." Peter's tone hardened with an unfamiliar bitterness. "It's easier to think about possibilities now that the guy's dead. He had his chances when he was alive, more than most normal people get. You're right; if he was still here, he still wouldn't take them. That's the important difference between him and the rest of us: remorse."
Mohinder felt a small ball of anger throb in his chest. He wasn't sure why. He didn't believe that once upon a time, Sylar could have been different, an empathetic person, a real lover who'd stick by him now, if he was alive. Sylar was nowhere near that; even with a power of supreme understanding, he couldn't accept that his actions were wrong.
"On that cheerful note, it's time for me to go," Peter said.
Mohinder nodded. "I'll be up here a bit longer."
"Okay." Mohinder listened to Peter walk away, expecting the grind of the door, but the steps stopped first. "Mohinder."
Mohinder turned around. "Yes?"
Peter stood with his hand on the door knob. "You remember what I told you about that future, about when I found you there..." His eyes stayed locked on Mohinder as he struggled for what he wanted to say.
A gust of wind whipped by, and Mohinder shivered, feeling phantom prickles crawl from his temples down his back.
Peter turned his face into the breeze. When he looked back, he shook his head. "It was a very bad future, Mohinder. You talked about punishment, and in that place... Whatever decision you made about the baby, being able to make it is better than where we could be."
@ @ @ @ @
They sat alone in the diner. No, that wasn't right; there had been a teenage couple feeding each other pie and two old men silently eating eggs and bacon at the counter. But they hardly mattered and faded away again. The waitress did as well, after she appeared at the table for their order. With a scribble, she turned and vanished, and it was just Mohinder in a booth with Zane.
Sylar. Sylar, not Zane. Mohinder knew that now. But in the diner, he liked Sylar's shy smiles followed by broken eye contact, the way he warmed his hands on his coffee mug like a child drinking hot chocolate, the unexpected dark undertone to his voice in the asides only Mohinder was meant to hear.
The flutter in his chest signaled only an infatuation, surely. Sudden, intense, true love was a fantasy, for women who fed themselves too many trashy novels about damsels and lotharios. But Mohinder, never able to reach his father's ideal cold objectivity, found himself inexplicably drawn to a stranger in a way that felt very real, embedded in Sylar's thick brow, lying in his abrupt silences when he made Mohinder laugh, pushing through his skin when he touched the back of Mohinder's neck. Mohinder had found a multitude of incredible things in that house in Virginia Beach.
"They're not allowed to break your knuckles with a ruler anymore," Sylar said. "Though one of the older nuns did her best to 'encourage' me to be right-handed. Did they have that kind of corporal punishment in boarding schools?"
"Not with that tuition," Mohinder chuckled. "Though a number of children could have benefited from it."
"Including you?"
"Of course not," Mohinder replied, slyly smiling over his tea.
Sylar chuckled and lifted his coffee with both hands. Mohinder visualized the moment recurring in the apartment back in New York, in the kitchen, living room, bedroom. This rapport should not have been so easy; he was always so focused on his education, then his work, and attachments were so difficult to forge. Mohinder had been pursued often, but he had little idea on how to do the pursuing. Here, it seemed as if he and Sylar had drifted together in a dance.
"I used to wish I could go to a boarding school," Sylar said. "Mom was a little too... stifling. The freedom sounded great."
Mohinder's smile faded. "The grass is always greener."
"Wasn't it a good school?"
"They were all good schools, and my father happily paid to send me to them." Mohinder swirled his cup. "And when I came back home, I didn't have those familiar places, those old friends..."
"You're not always guaranteed friends," Sylar muttered. "And familiar can be... bad."
One corner of Mohinder's mouth quirked back up. "Maybe it doesn't matter where we went then. Maybe we were destined to be outcasts."
"Unique," Sylar corrected.
"If that's how you want to put it."
"Why not? You can look in from the outside, analyze, understand how it all works."
"It?"
"The biological and social rules of interaction, society. It's all compulsive or arbitrary. There's nothing notable about being a part of it. It's so much better to single yourself out, to be special."
Even at the time, Mohinder knew Sylar didn't entirely believe what he was saying. His bitterness at lacking nostalgia just moments before betrayed that. But it seemed Mohinder was constantly on the verge of lapsing into loneliness, and he enjoyed the commiseration. "You are certainly more special than I am," he said. "Your ability is remarkable."
Sylar took a moment for another swallow of black coffee, then examined the wet ring on the table. "That may be so, but you're still accomplishing something great in your research. It's the decisions you're making that will push you ahead. What you decide to do on this very trip."
"It's my father's research," Mohinder corrected.
"It's yours now. You can transform it into something new." He stared at Mohinder intently. "You don't have to follow your father's footsteps. My parents were ordinary, but I transcended them."
Even Sylar hadn't known at the time that his words were a lie, but they were something else Mohinder liked to hear, the opposite of what Peter had said in the subway. And Mohinder heard the assuredness in Sylar's voice that his statement was true for them both.
"I suppose we'll see," was all Mohinder said.
Sylar stretched his long limbs, his feet sliding forward under the table. When he relaxed again, his right calf crossed with Mohinder's left, and he did not move it. Mohinder stayed put.
Outside, a plain of grass that had cooled to gray passed quickly beneath the clouds blocking the setting sun on the horizon. Above the clouds, the receding glow warmed the sky to a soft pink, fading as it met the still ocean slate over the diner. He'd seen the sun set prettier over the ocean uncountable times, but he felt this one set into him, soothing his concerns about his research, letting his thoughts settle on his company.
"It's nice," Sylar mumbled, leaning back, eyes half-closed. Shouldn't he have his seatbelt on?
"I think I've been taking them for granted," Mohinder replied. And he shouldn't be able to stare, because this happened in the car, and his eyes should be on the road.
Sylar was suddenly awake, his expression unreadable. "Those moments are important, when you can really look."
He thought Sylar would look at him then, with another smile, but he looked down at his watch instead. It was time to go.
They slid from the booth and walked through the dirt lot to the car. Mohinder stopped outside the passenger side. Sylar had his hand on the door handle and looked at Mohinder expectantly. Mohinder resisted the urge to push him against the door. He wanted Sylar to grab him; he wanted the level of excitement of the trip to escalate, to explode, for Sylar to come out of his head and recognize this moment.
He stood close and fingered a fold in Sylar's sleeve. "It seems unnecessary to have two rooms." He could dive headfirst into this unknown, if only Sylar was ready to do the same.
Sylar stuck his hands deep in his pockets, as if they'd try to escape. "It might seem different in the morning."
@ @ @ @ @
Mohinder awoke to the baby's kicks. He wrapped an arm around his stomach and lay there for a while, until the longing dissipated, until he remembered all the reasons he shouldn't feel it at all. Even in his mash of memories, what Peter said was true: Sylar followed whatever path benefited his darker urges.
Eventually the kicks stopped, too, and with a grunt he rolled to his other side to look at the clock. Three in the morning. Not that it mattered. He was used to doing research at all hours of the day. He pulled his meal tray over, opened up his laptop, and logged in.
He reviewed the newest notes and changes to Tracy's files from the other scientists. Like him, they hadn't gotten much further in discovering why Tracy couldn't reconstitute herself. Some researchers posited that it was a downside of her power, that while she could obviously sustain freezing her own cells to a point, completely freezing herself had done far too much damage from which she could recover.
Mohinder and others were more optimistic, theorizing that liquidation was just drastically different than the cellular manipulation Tracy had been used to, and it would take her time to utilize it-- assuming that her consciousness was still intact. They'd tried adding a mixture of adrenergic drugs to the tank. Mohinder hadn't been present for the test, but the subsequent report stated that in addition to a face, fingers had emerged from the water, as if Tracy lay invisible beneath the surface. After seventeen seconds, the shapes collapsed.
He tried to focus on the existence of progress, but at this rate they might get only a torso after a few years. He couldn't imagine watching Tracy struggle for so long, especially in secret. Bennet warned him that her condition was still confidential, so Peter knew nothing about it. If Mohinder wanted to vent his frustrations, Matt was his only option, and Matt didn't like to talk about her. The research team had tried getting him to enter Tracy's mind. "It felt like drowning," he'd said. He couldn't find a thought to grab onto, just a swirl of despair and panic. Mohinder suggested that Matt try again when they refined the stimulation mixture, and Matt only grudging agreed and changed the subject.
But what did it matter, to have no one to commiserate with? Mohinder reminded himself that he'd only be here a few more months. The other scientists could competently carry on the research.
But when Mohinder remembered that wailing face, he wanted to be the one to stop the pain.
He worked until the black sky out his window turned dusty. Sleep pulled at his eyelids, and he decided to try to get a few hours of rest before breakfast. He clicked the save icon, and a window flashed up, adding Mohinder's username, the date, and the time to a list of the latest changes. Before he could reflexively close it, a username caught his eye:
npetrelli
"What were you doing in here, Senator?" Mohinder muttered. He scrolled through the rest of the available history, but Nathan didn't show up any other time. He double-clicked on the line, noting it was from the previous afternoon.
He scrolled through the file again, looking for the highlighting that was connected to Nathan's editing. He found it near the end: a slight correction in a collection of calculations for the adrenergic mixture. Mohinder went through a day-old hard copy of the file to compare. The earlier copy did indeed have a miscalculation.
Nathan didn't seem the type to have a side interest in chemistry, much less in something so advanced. He certainly didn't have the expertise to be fooling around in a serious scientific project. (The miscalculation was small and undoubtedly would have been caught by someone else.) Mohinder sent him a short email directing him to stay out of the research files. He was almost curious enough to ask about Nathan's sudden display of aptitude, but after their conversation on the roof, the less contact he had with the other man, the better.
Series: Heroes
Pairing: Mylar
Rating: R
Warnings: Mpreg! BS science! Fairly dark! Consent issues!
Summary: After being doused with the complete formula, Mohinder copes with a lingering side effect as he and everyone around him try to rebuild their lives and their trust.
Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
"And what, exactly, is wrong with bears?" Claire asked.
"Nothing," Mohinder said. "I just don't prefer my son's room to be covered with them."
He'd adjusted his bed so he could sit comfortably on top of the covers while Claire perched at his side with a catalog in her lap. She'd shown up an hour before with the book as a "present," and she seemed quite pleased when Mohinder agreed to look at it. Maybe she expected resistance given their last conversation, but now Mohinder was quite aware that he needed to make real plans.
"But bears are so soft and fluffy and cuddly!" Claire cooed, hugging herself. "Babies love that. Didn't you have a teddy bear?"
"I don't recall."
Claire rolled her eyes. "You probably had molecule models in your crib." She flipped to the next page. "Oh, how about ducks!"
"Why does the baby need one particular animal?"
"Well, you can't just throw a bunch of mismatching stuff together. You'll have lions with sheep, and that's just wrong."
Before Mohinder could ask why, Peter entered with a carryout bag. Help me, Mohinder mouthed, pointing to Claire over her head.
She knocked his hand away. "You need baby things," she said.
"Of course, but I don't see why I have select a single theme."
She exhaled slowly, blowing bits of hair out of her face, and dog-eared the duck page.
Peter pulled over his usual chair. "Did you come over here just to plan a nursery?" he asked. "I didn't realize you were so into babies."
"I'm being helpful," she said. "Plus I'm supposed to have lunch with Dad, but all the sudden he had a meeting with Lauren Whatzerface, so I've got time to kill."
"I feel so important," Mohinder said.
"I was gonna bring this after!" she protested. "Now, do you want ducks or not?"
"Let him have a lunch break, Claire," Peter suggested, then chuckled to himself. "I don't think shopping is really his cup of tea."
Claire stared at him. "Wow," she deadpanned. "That was bad."
"Not that bad."
"Like, really bad."
Mohinder took the catalog and tossed it to the foot of the bed. "Hand over lunch."
Claire stood up. "Fine, I'll do the planning myself." She grabbed the book and clutched it to her chest. "I will pick an array of matching, ducky things, and you will love them and buy them."
"I don't have that much savings, Claire," Mohinder said, taking a plastic fork and covered foil container from Peter. "Really, let me figure it out."
"Then I'll pick bargain, hopefully ducky things." She laughed at his exasperated expression. "I'm teasing. Sort of. Let me give it a shot?"
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for college?" Peter asked, grinning as Mohinder tore off the lid and immediately dug into his fettucine alfredo. "You realize August is over?"
"I can multi-task," she said with a shrug. "Besides, it's just clothes-packing at this point."
"Have you ever moved into a dorm?" Peter said.
Claire shot him a look. "I swear Angela told me she had professionals move you and Nathan into your dorms."
Peter flushed. "I helped."
"She offered me the same, but I don't want to look like some pampered princess to my roommate."
"Did you just call me pampered?"
"I think she called you a princess," Mohinder said around a mouthful of pasta.
"Ha." Peter moved on. "Speaking of Mom, when did you last talk to her?"
Claire looked to the ceiling as she thought. "I think it was last week when she asked me again if I was sure I wanted to go to Arlington. Why?"
"I dunno, I haven't seen her that much lately."
"I thought Dad said she's been in DC keeping tabs on this place."
"Yeah, but she's seen Nathan way more than me." Peter shrugged. "I know I've been busy at the hospital when I'm not here, but..."
"Aw." Claire reached over and patted his head. "She's probably paranoid Nathan's going to screw up royally, unlike her other son who's never done anything crazily megalomaniacal."
Peter snorted, but he caught Mohinder's abrupt drop in enjoyment of his lunch. He looked back to Claire and changed the subject. "So have you talked to your roommate?"
"Just once on the phone. Her name's Gretchen. She seems okay. She's bringing the mini-fridge."
"If only you could use it to get tanked together."
"I am doomed to a responsible college life," Claire said wistfully. "Damn this DNA!"
Mohinder twirled more noodles around his fork. "Just as well. You don't want to distract from your studies."
"I bet you were the party man on campus," Claire muttered.
Before he could launch into a rant about so many college students' determination to throw away educations they paid for, Mohinder felt sharp jabs in his right side. "Not while I'm eating," he muttered at the mound below his dish. At least it wasn't in the bladder this time.
Claire shifted from one foot to the other. "Um... can I feel?"
Mohinder hesitated. "I suppose."
She put the catalog down, and he guided her hand to where he felt the kicks. Her face lit up. "He feels strong. Like his daddy," she teased, pretending to tweak Mohinder's cheek.
"He feels cranky to me," Mohinder said.
"Maybe he doesn't like fettucine," Peter said.
"Or he senses the ice cream craving kicking in."
"That's easily fixed."
"I don't know. I'm getting longer stares now."
"If you don't feed your craving, you're gonna be the cranky one."
"Plus now I want some," Claire said as she took her hand away.
"Look what you did," Peter chided Mohinder.
Claire held up a finger. "Just give me a second."
As she closed the bathroom door, Peter leaned forward. "Has Nathan been back around?"
"No," Mohinder answered, setting his food down and maneuvering to the edge of the bed.
"I haven't seen him much either. He's focused on his legislative duties."
"Ah."
"He was genuinely sorry. He swears he was just talking in your best inter--"
"Peter," Mohinder interrupted as he got to his feet, briefly holding the other man's shoulder. "I don't need to hear this again." Peter had offered many apologies for his brother over the past couple weeks. Nathan hadn't done so much as send an email, but Bennet had probably told him to stay away until he had a handle on himself.
"I know." But still Peter rushed out: "I think he just wants to right things so badly, he let your decision get to him."
Mohinder couldn't temper the acid in his tone. "Well, he's going to have to learn to cope, because after his outburst and what happened a few months ago, I'm not counting on his good graces."
Peter had no response. The toilet flushed and Claire bounced out of the bathroom. "Let's go!" she chirped, pulling Peter from his chair. She stood between him and Mohinder and linked her arms with theirs.
"You're not supposed to be desperate for free food just yet, undergrad," Peter said as they entered the hallway. Marian was missing from her desk, and Emma's door was partially open. "Should we ask her?" Peter added.
"I suppose," Mohinder said. He hadn't really spoken to Emma. Since she'd arrived, the most he'd managed was a nod in the hall. She kept to her room when not with the doctors. He wasn't sure how they planned to treat her, but he didn't think it was his business, especially since she behaved as standoffishly as he felt.
"She reads lips, right?" Claire asked.
"Yes."
"Oh, good, 'cause I wouldn't know how to sign, 'My uncle thinks you're pretty.'"
"Claire!" Peter exclaimed as they reached the door.
"That's what you said," she sing-songed.
"I see your attentions are fickle," Mohinder sighed.
"Shut up, both of you," Peter muttered. He leaned into the doorway. "May we interrupt?" he asked, rapping lightly on the frame.
"Sure," came Marian's voice, and Peter pushed the door open all the way. Marian sat at the side of Emma's bed. Emma sat up with her bottom half under the covers, knees drawn up with her arms wrapped around them.
"Would you like to come down to the cafeteria?" Peter asked. "For ice cream, or whatever, if you haven't eaten."
Emma glanced at each of her visitors. "I'm not very hungry."
Marian touched Emma's knee. "The cookies and cream is very good," she said. "Worth getting out of this stuffy room for."
Emma frowned at her and looked up at Mohinder, Claire, and Peter again. "She's totally lying," Peter said. "It's the butter pecan that's the best."
Marian laughed, and when Emma saw she cracked a smile. She brushed her hair behind her ears, and after a moment said, "Okay." As she got out of bed, Mohinder saw she wore plain hospital scrubs. He wondered again about how she'd been apprehended; she'd obviously had no time to grab her own clothes.
It wasn't an easy subject to bring up out of the blue, so he left the conversation to Peter. Peter had spent some time with Emma before, and in the elevator he asked for her opinion on the Agency doctors and nurses and the accommodations compared to the hospital where she worked in New York. At once she seemed reluctant to talk but tried to open herself up, saying that she thought the staff was kind and professional and that she wished her hospital was as up-to-date. They reached the cafeteria at that point, and they had their IDs scanned for their complimentary treats (with Claire's charged to her father). The worker who served them gave Mohinder what was probably meant to be a discreet once-over. Otherwise, he kept his eyes on his scoop. It was the usual reaction; the staff had likely been subtly threatened enough by Bennet to mind their own business when it came to anything outside their jobs. Mohinder imagined Human Resources as a series of interrogation rooms.
Claire led the way to a table, and as they sat, Mohinder asked Emma, "So what do you do at Mercy Heights?"
"I'm a file clerk," she said, licking her cone with no enthusiasm.
Peter frowned, signaling to her with a finger. "Your chart says you're a doctor."
"I was." She tugged on her ear. "Then I had an accident."
Mohinder had a bowl of strawberry and awkwardly made patterns around bits of fruit with his spoon. Peter sat across from him, and Mohinder watched him try to think of something positive to offer. He settled on: "Does the power help?"
"It's mostly strange," she replied. "And it's not a replacement. I'm not sure of the benefits or how I could even use it. The head of security seemed worried about that."
"Matt?" Peter said. "Yeah, it's his job to know your capabilities."
Claire waved her spoon dismissively. "I'm sure my dad was the one who actually worried about you being dangerous," she said.
"Your dad?" Emma said.
"Director Bennet."
Emma nodded. "I only met him once."
"He's no social butterfly."
Mohinder touched Emma's arm. "Is that why he's kept you so long?" he asked. "Danger?"
Emma shook her head. "No, Parkman has been asking if I want to leave, actually. But I... I'm still not very good at controlling this power. It comes and goes. Sometimes I feel so much in control that I could almost touch the colors, but other times it's just a mess."
"You know," Peter said, and smiled apologetically when Mohinder had to point to him to signal Emma, "Dr. Stevenson suggested that I absorb your power and see if I can help figure it out."
Emma looked intrigued, but Claire groaned and waved her spoon again, "The human sponge, sucking up another unfamiliar power. This will go well."
"What's the worst that can happen? I see rainbows for a while, so what?"
"You would be in a controlled environment," Mohinder considered.
"Yeah, it'd be scientific and everything," Peter said to Claire.
Claire shook her head. "Whatever. I'm getting the last of the butterscotch."
Peter looked alarmed. They stared at each other, then they both bolted from their seats.
Emma laughed as they playfully fought their way to the counter. Then for a strange moment, she looked sad. When it passed, she returned her attention to her cone.
Mohinder reached across the table and uneasily asked, "So how did they find you?"
"They wouldn't tell me exactly," she said, "but they must have people hacking into records and looking for anything strange, unless they have people in random hospitals. But I was at work, and the pediatric wing had the children do a singing show. I passed by and... At first, it was beautiful, the way the colors swept through the air, but then I could see other noises, too. The air conditioner going, gurney wheels rolling, people just breathing. All I could see was a blur of color. I was a patient for about a day before two agents came to see me. The hospital thought I was going blind, but the agents looked at my blood and said otherwise."
"So you just came here with them," Mohinder said, relieved.
"They didn't have to drag me," Emma said. "I needed someone to tell me what this was, even if I don't like the answer." She hadn't even gotten her ice cream down to the rim of her cone, but she tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Why are you here?" she asked.
Mohinder had managed to go this long without having to field that question; everyone had either been not allowed to ask or didn't need to. He decided to go with the stomach distention lie-- but in the middle of his answer, the baby popped him in the gut.
Emma raised her brows when he clutched at his side. "You don't look like it's stomach distention."
Of course. She was a doctor, too. Mohinder flushed. "It's exactly what it looks like," he said quietly.
"That's an inconvenient power."
"That's not really my... It's complicated," he said.
Instead of asking how complicated, she asked, "How long do you have left?"
"Eighteen weeks."
"That's a long time in here."
"I've managed this long without going mad." He eyed her. "You don't seem at all shocked."
She smiled to herself. "It's definitely unexpected, but how can I judge? If I'm not careful, I'll see rainbows shooting from your mouth."
"Is it at least easier to control since you came here?"
She nodded. "I could go home and probably be okay. I'm just... afraid." She laughed and shook her head.
"You were just introduced to an underground of people with special abilities. It's not wrong to be scared."
"I know. I just wish... everything was normal."
Mohinder compulsively rubbed his stomach. "I know that feeling."
As Peter and Claire turned from the counter, a flash of blue whipped into the cafeteria: Darla, looking as neat as ever in a skirt and suit jacket. Mohinder waved idly, expecting that she was grabbing coffee, but she walked straight to him.
"I need you to come with me, dear," she said. She didn't smile; she looked uncharacteristically nervous.
"What's wrong?" Mohinder asked, panic stirring. His first thought was of what she'd said to him on the first day, about surprise inspections. Was that why Lauren, their government liaison, was here to see Bennet?
"Everything is fine," Darla said with a weak smile. "Well, I mean... Oh, just get your keester up." He complied and she took his arm, offering a quick apology to Emma but not thinking to face her. She didn't notice Peter and Claire watching Mohinder be led away. "We're just going to Mr. Parkman's office."
"There's a security issue?"
"No, I just don't think there needs to be a scene in the cafeteria, of all places."
"A scene?"
"Don't get flustered. It's fine. I just... You'll see."
He saw nothing out of the ordinary in the halls, and Darla said nothing more. She clutched his arm all the way to Matt's office, even as she rapped on the door. Matt called for them to come in, but Darla ushered Mohinder inside alone. He froze in the doorway.
His mother and Molly sat in chairs in front of Matt's desk. Matt sat behind it with his arms propped up on his elbows, mouth behind his woven hands. Molly twisted in her seat and greeted him with a smile. "Mohinder!" she chirped, bouncing up and wrapping her arms around him-- or trying. She backed up a step to stare at his stomach. "Wow, you're big."
His mother remained seated. "Yes," she said. "He is."
"What are you doing here?" Mohinder blurted out.
She scoffed. "How can you expect me to stay home after telling me..." She stared at his stomach and didn't finish.
"They showed up at the front gate, thanks to Molly," Matt said. He looked at her disapprovingly. "From all that TV you have to know it's a bad idea to just show up at secret government buildings."
She shrugged. "I knew it'd get back to you and you'd have to let us in."
"That's not clever, Molly," Mohinder snapped. "It's dangerous and-- and it's rude. You didn't even tell anyone!"
"I wouldn't accuse Molly of being thoughtless in this situation," his mother replied sharply.
"I told you I'd be fine!"
"Oh, yes, I'll just accept that! My son is fine. He is only pregnant because of some flash-in-the-pan serum."
He didn't know what to say to that. He felt himself wilt. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."
"You will not scold me, to start with."
He nodded meekly. He sought something more to say, coming up with only: "What about Molly's tutors?"
His mother waved her hand. "She will catch up fine. We just made her break a little early."
"I'm doing really well!" Molly chimed in. "At Tamil, too."
His mother picked up a bag by her feet. "I brought you some things. Where is your room?"
He couldn't answer, couldn't think. "I don't... could we just..."
Matt got up very fast and eased Mohinder into Molly's chair. Mohinder didn't realize how queasy he felt until he was off his feet. "Let's just take it easy," Matt said. "You okay, buddy?" he added quietly.
Mohinder nodded and closed his eyes, but only briefly. His mother had touched his shoulder, and she looked down at him with concern. "Yes," she said, "we did arrive suddenly."
"How about Mohinder and Molly head to his room while you and I take a minute to talk about your plans?" Matt suggested.
"I plan to see my son," she said sternly.
Matt picked up the phone. "Of course. I just need to know for how long, where you're staying, things like that." He dialed and after a moment said, "Marian, please bring a wheelchair for Mohinder down here."
"I'm fine," Mohinder said, even though it felt like a pasty mix of ice cream and pasta squirmed its way up his throat.
Matt hung up. "You've lost color," he retorted. He handed his trash can to Molly. "Give this to him."
"Here," she said quietly, setting it on his lap.
He hung his face over it and closed his eyes. He'd thought he had more time to prepare for them face-to-face, but he should have known his mother wouldn't stand by. He didn't develop his stubbornness from nowhere, after all.
@ @ @ @ @
As Marian wheeled the chair from his room, Peter and Claire came in.
"Hey, where'd Darla take..." Peter's eyes fell on Molly. "Hi there."
Molly looked at him for a moment, then smiled. "I remember you! You fought the Boog-- I mean, Sylar. At Kirby Plaza."
"Uh, yeah."
"I'm glad you didn't blow up."
"Thanks."
"My mother is here," Mohinder said from the bed.
Peter scratched at the back of his head. "Yeah, I figured."
"Uh, I think Dad should be out of his meeting by now," Claire said nervously. She scooped up the baby catalog and patted Mohinder's arm. "I'll get back to you on this."
Mohinder just nodded. As she left, he eased back onto his pillows. Molly watched him uneasily. She spotted the extra chair and pulled it over to sit. She had a messenger bag and held it in her lap.
"Where is your mom?" Peter asked.
Mohinder rested his hands on his chest. "Talking to Matt."
Molly rapped her fingers against her bag. "I'm sorry, Mohinder," she said suddenly.
"It's okay, Molly," he replied wearily.
"I know this is really weird for you, and you're, like, probably embarrassed, but Grandma was really worried, and I was really worried, and I thought when we got here you'd be happy."
Mohinder immediately locked eyes with her. "Don't ever think I'm upset to see you."
"But you are upset," Molly said accusingly. "You're sick."
"I'm just... I just wasn't expecting you. You are right, that I do feel embarrassed, so this was just a very big shock." He forced a smile. "If you told me you were coming, I still wouldn't have been able to stop you."
"You might've. You're really stubborn when you argue."
Peter snorted.
"It's an excellent rhetorical skill," Mohinder said dryly.
"Can I ask you something?" Molly said, looking at his stomach.
"Yes."
"I've been doing some reading on seahorses," she said, rummaging through her bag. She pulled out what looked like a paperback textbook and flipped through the pages. "I didn't really get what you said on the phone, and I still don't get it."
Mohinder felt his face burn and avoided Peter's gaze. "Ah, Molly..."
She showed him an anatomical diagram. "See, she has an 'ovipositor' that puts eggs into the boy seahorse, but human girls don't have ovipositors, so how did you get the eggs?"
"Molly," Mohinder said carefully, "it wasn't meant to be an exact comparison."
Peter's face contorted. "I'm trying not to visualize how..." He shuddered. "I'm glad you didn't have to extract any eggs."
"Peter," Mohinder said sharply.
Molly's eyes widened. "Wait a minute..."
"Do you know how long you're staying?" Mohinder tried to deflect.
"You did it with a boy!" Molly exclaimed. "I thought you liked girls?"
Mohinder sputtered. "I-I do like girls, but... I just..."
"Mira is gonna be extra mad at you."
It was an interesting comment, considering he'd hardly spoken to Mira since his father's funeral. Of course, consequently, it had been a long time since Mira was at the top of his concerns. "Molly, this is not an appropriate conversation. It's my personal business."
She shrugged, glancing sideways at nothing, "Okay." She looked at Peter. "Are you the other father?"
Peter barked an awkward laugh. "Uh, no, Mohinder and I are just friends. I'm emotional support."
"We're done talking about this," Mohinder said sharply. He regretted the hurt look on Molly's face, but he couldn't continue down this road of questioning. "How it happened is private, Molly. If you want to know about the baby himself, that's fine."
Molly traced patterns on the linoleum with her shoe. Finally, she asked, "So what's his name gonna be?"
"I don't know yet," Mohinder said evenly.
"Can I name him?" she ventured.
He cracked a smile. "Are there any Indian names you particularly like?"
She thought. "One of my tutors is named Vivek. He's nice." She put her book back. "Are we all gonna live together back in Chennai?"
"That's the plan."
She tugged at a loose thread on her bag. "Oh."
Mohinder frowned. "What's wrong? I thought you liked India?"
"I do," she said quickly. "But, well, you know, this is home. I can talk to Micah online, at least, but I only ever talk to Matt on the phone sometimes. Here, I could see him."
"I don't know if this is best place to live. And I'm not sure I like you talking to Micah."
She scowled. "Why not?"
"How did Micah know where all those people he helped were?"
Molly folded her arms. "You were one of those people!" she exclaimed. "You think I should've let that Danko guy find you and everyone else?"
"Micah left a trail to you."
"No, he didn't!" she retorted. "Micah knows how to hide himself. I was fine. Danko didn't find you, did he?"
"It would have been a matter of time. Micah himself had to be constantly moving. What would you have done if you had to run? What about your grandmother?"
Molly averted her eyes. "I wanted to help. I could help, and if I didn't..."
"I know," Peter said. "You would have felt responsible. People would have been captured without her, Mohinder."
"Peter," Mohinder snapped, fixing him in a glare.
"Well, she... I..." Peter faltered. He muttered something about Emma and slunk out.
Mohinder took a breath. "I know you felt you had a responsibility, Molly, but as impressive as he is, Micah is not omnipotent. You put yourself and Grandma in danger."
"I wouldn't have made her go with me. I would have gone alone and met up with Micah."
"Yes, a young girl all alone on the streets. Do you have any idea of all the other things that could have happened to you besides being taken by Danko? How easily you could have never met up with Micah?"
Molly pushed her bag off her lap, and it hit the floor with a loud bang. "They needed my help!" she shouted. "It would have been selfish to do nothing!"
Mohinder sat up and snapped back, "Do you have any idea how it would have killed me if something happened to you?"
Tears sprung to Molly's eyes and she brushed her arm across them. "Yeah, I might," she spat. "You sent me away from home to keep me from Sylar, and you were supposed to come later, but you didn't. I didn't know why, but when I felt for you then, I knew something was wrong. You didn't feel right. It scared me, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even talk to you because you weren't at home. And you kept getting worse, and I couldn't tell Grandma because she would have worried and no, I didn't want her to try to find you and get hurt by Sylar or anyone. I was stuck and I didn't know what was happening and then suddenly you felt fine. You finally called me and you didn't say anything but sorry and you still didn't come!" She broke off with a sob.
Mohinder felt his anger push back down his throat, curdling in his gut. He reached for her hand. "Molly--"
She hit him away. "I didn't ask what happened because I knew you were trying to protect me from something and because I was happy you were okay. But then the government came after you and everyone, and yeah, I knew I could protect you, too, and that was more important than how worried you'd be." She wrapped her arms around her stomach. "And now that I know why you didn't come home, I know that at least what I did wasn't because of a mistake!"
A too familiar sense of foolishness and failure was all Mohinder felt now. "I'm sorry, Molly," he said, but it wasn't enough. He couldn't think of any words that would be.
"You were still trying to do the right thing, though," she said, voice thick. "You were trying to help Maya. How can you yell at me for trying to help?"
"I guess I shouldn't."
He heard his mother's and Matt's voices in the hall before they appeared in the doorway. Mohinder couldn't look at them, but out of the corner of his eye he saw Matt crouch by Molly's chair. "What's going on?" he asked.
"Nothing," she grunted, turning her face away.
"What happened?" Matt asked louder, this time to Mohinder.
Molly shot to her feet. "Nothing!" she shouted and pushed past Matt into the hallway.
"I just got a well-deserved lashing," Mohinder said.
His mother didn't look surprised. She had the bag and set it on the chair. "I think we should come back tomorrow."
"It's fine, amma--"
"We're all very high strung right now," she said. "We'll take a day and talk tomorrow."
Oddly, he didn't want her to go, perhaps because he hadn't seen a single smile or any other sign that she didn't feel disappointment or disgust. "Where are you going?"
"They'll be staying at my place the next two weeks," Matt said.
"Two weeks?" Mohinder repeated.
"Is that too short?" his mother asked. At the bewildered look on his face, she sighed. "I am kidding, Mohinder. As much as I want to help you in this mess, I do have obligations at home." She unzipped the bag. "I got you some comfortable clothes that should fit and some candies. There are a few other things, including those gloves and that scarf you had at boarding school."
"It's not that cold yet," Mohinder said. A mess. She thought this was a mess. "And you kept those?"
"A mother may keep all sorts of things," she said. She bent over and took his face in both hands, pressing her lips to his forehead. The touch was brief. "You'll see." She drew back and took a long look at his stomach. "You are still healthy?"
"Yes," Mohinder answered awkwardly.
"Good. We'll talk more tomorrow."
"Okay."
"Uh, we'll go to the car in a minute," Matt said, but she'd already walked out. "I guess we're leaving now."
"Thank you for taking them in," Mohinder said. "You didn't have to."
"Of course I did. Molly's like a daughter to me, too."
"Maybe more so. You're not the one who sent her away with hardly a word after."
Matt frowned in sympathy. "That's what that was about, huh?"
"It's not a small grievance, especially with how her parents were taken away from her."
"It'll be okay, Mohinder," Matt said. "It takes time to set things right."
"Mr. Parkman!" Mohinder's mother called from the hall.
"I'll talk to Molly tonight," Matt said. "I haven't been the most attentive either; she can split the blame."
"I doubt that will lessen the damage." A mess, he thought again. That word did about sum everything up.
Matt sighed. "Do me a favor and see if any of that tea is for optimism."
@ @ @ @ @
Peter came back as Mohinder searched his closet. His old gloves and scarf had gone from white to almost gray, but they were still useful, and he decided to keep them with his newer striped scarf. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember where he put it. He swore he'd hung it on the hook inside the door, but a jacket hung there instead. He wasn't in the mood to pull the closet apart, so he stuffed the gloves on the shelf along the top.
"How'd the rest of the visit go?" Peter asked.
Mohinder replaced the jacket with the scarf and put the jacket on a hanger. "Poorly. They're coming back tomorrow."
Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Sorry about earlier. I was trying to help, but it wasn't my business."
Mohinder closed the closet and shook his head. "I don't know. It wasn't, but you were right in a way. Molly was too young to be involved, but I can't tell her helping me and other people was wrong."
"Maybe you'll perfect handling dilemmas like that before the baby comes along."
Mohinder laughed wryly. "One can hope." He stretched his arms. "Would you like to join me on the roof before your shift? I need some air."
Peter checked his watch. "Yeah, I got time."
They talked about Emma on the way up. Peter thought she seemed more talkative and encouraged Mohinder to engage with her more. Normalizing the idea of powers could help her gain control over her own. As they stepped outside, Mohinder pointed out he'd be busy dealing with his visitors for a while.
"You were really hit hard by them showing up today," Peter said.
"Of course I was."
"I know, but it got me thinking." They stopped at the edge of the roof, and Peter looked around at the landscape. "Actually, for a while, I've been wondering... I'm not trying to comment on what you should or shouldn't have done, but I wanted to ask why you decided to go ahead with it. I mean, it's Sylar's baby. Between what he did to your father and what he did to Molly's parents, it would have been easy to abort it. You were miserable and kept going."
Mohinder hung his head to stare at the roof's blacktop, but of course, his stomach filled his vision. He looked ahead instead, at the browning trees. "When I found out, I was just shocked. I denied it for a while, until the morning sickness was too much. But even at that point, I couldn't just walk into a hospital, and I don't know any surgeons. I just had the possibility that a colleague of mine or my father's could be trusted enough to find someone. But before I could try to contact anyone, we were all black-bagged, and then we were on the run." He paused. "But even then, surgery was an option, not my intention.
"Because I felt guilty, too. Not just about what happened with Sylar, but what I'd done with the experiments and how I'd only tangentially helped Maya and put her in contact with your father to do it. So when I found out I was pregnant, I..."
He thought Peter didn't need to hear more, but after a moment the younger man said, "You didn't want to punish the baby for that."
Mohinder let out a hollow laugh. "I don't consider an embryo to be a baby, Peter. I thought the pregnancy itself was a punishment."
Peter fell quiet again.
"I thought it was a punishment I deserved, and to terminate it would be denying everything I'd done. It's a horrible conclusion. The fetus is really just cause and effect. It's selfish to ascribe some divine intent to its existence. It's just an bizarre way of blaming something else while still blaming myself."
"So you don't think of it as a punishment now."
"No. Seeing the ultrasound helped. It's not some abstract idea now. It's flesh and blood that I still have control over."
"But you're still going through with the birth."
"Yes." Mohinder rested his arms around his stomach. "I've been set on it, considering the birth for so long. I... I just can't go back. And it's more than an embryo now, more than any mass of cells. It's too far along for me to be comfortable with terminating it. Him."
Peter was quiet for a long time, and Mohinder couldn't imagine what he was thinking. Peter obviously had reservations about abortion, but if his apparent policy of nonjudgment extended to his brother's mass kidnapping and imprisonment, Mohinder doubted his own opinion on terminating pregnancies would do much damage to their friendship.
"What else happened with Sylar?" Peter asked.
Mohinder couldn't help it; he flinched. "Excuse me?"
Their gazes locked again, and Peter's expression was a mix of wariness and curiosity. "I'm not saying I don't believe what you just said. It's just that when we talked about him before, I got the feeling... I don't believe that you think of Sylar as just a murderer like everyone else."
Mohinder analyzed Peter's tone. "It doesn't sound like you believe that either."
"I used to, until he was convinced he was my brother. Seeing him eager to please was kind of creepy."
"At least he wasn't doing it to manipulate you."
Peter raised his eyebrows.
Mohinder sighed and went first. "I told you I met Sylar when I came back to New York to pursue my father's research after his funeral."
"Yeah."
"He impersonated a special he'd murdered for liquefaction. He convinced me to take him with me to find other specials. To help them." Even now Mohinder berated himself for his naiveté. "It took two days before I figured out who he really was, but in the meantime... It sounds ridiculous, but we had such wonderful, complex conversations. For a while afterward, I thought it was all a part of his facade, but the subjects we discussed got very personal, about how we grew up, about how we lived now, about the people in our lives. When I was with the Company, I looked at Sylar's file and saw too many parallels to what he told me on that trip to believe that it was all fake."
"And you think he was engaged in what you told him, too?"
"I do, considering what he shared with me. He could have lied about everything or shared nothing at all and played his plot out with me being none the wiser, but his method was... companionable."
"You had feelings for each other," Peter said bluntly.
Mohinder sputtered. "I don't... It wasn't..."
Peter shot Mohinder a look. "You told me you were willing with him, Mohinder. And I don't think Sylar would have taken time out of figuring out if he should kill either or both of my parents just to mess with you."
"Yes, but I don't want you to think... I'm not keeping this child because of him. I wouldn't ever have had sex with him without that horrible serum twisting up my mind. I'm not delusional about the person he truly was. I do believe he had an infatuation with me, but that doesn't change anything. The serum..."
"Basically drove you toward some fucked up closure about the trip."
"To put it succinctly," Mohinder said with a bitter laugh. He looked at his pregnant belly. "Some closure. I never even saw him again after that-- and he had that brief tryst with poor Elle right after. I don't even know what to think."
"Sylar was never exactly simple." Peter chewed on his lip. His turn now. "You know how the future version of me took me into his present?"
"Like you do," Mohinder said with a crooked grin.
Peter reflected the look. "You've never been?" He became serious again. "I wanted to stop the world from being overrun with powers and launching into a catastrophe, but as you know, that fell apart when I got back here and my dad stopped me first."
Memories of Peter strapped to a gurney replayed in Mohinder's head, and he couldn't look at Peter's face.
"Not many people know that Future Me told me to get Sylar's intuitive aptitude before I came back."
"You saw Sylar there?"
"He still believed we were related, and he... He was so different. I can't even tell you. You wouldn't believe it. Sometimes I think it must have been a crazy dream." Peter rubbed his hands over his face, as if making sure the memory was indelible. "But he helped me absorb his power."
Mohinder waited.
"It was insane. I felt insane. Or at least looking back, that's how I see it. At the time I just felt... starved, in my mind. It was like the world was a buffet of information, and I wanted all of it. I needed all of it. The thought of anyone getting in my way was intolerable, and killing them wasn't a problem. It was the easiest solution. I knew I could just manipulate them, because their behavior was data, too, but getting rid of them was easier. It felt appealing." Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as if bracing against the chill of winter. "I don't know what would have happened if my dad hadn't sapped me."
Mohinder had trouble processing this. "So you're saying Sylar was helpless under his power?"
Peter shook his head. "As much as we talk about how nuts he was, did he really strike you as out of control?"
"No. He was very calculating."
"His power nearly drove me insane, but he lived with it his whole life. He was able to manage it." He smiled ruefully. "Honestly, even now it really bothers me. I don't doubt that his ability screwed him up, but I was in a future where I saw that he could make the right choices. In our time, he chose differently." Peter looked over at Mohinder's middle. "Although, if he was still around, he'd have another reason to become a decent person," he mused.
Mohinder snorted. "How wonderful for me. It'd be like a hostage situation. Don't ruin the domesticity, or he'll go on a killing spree." He shook his head. "I doubt he would try changing again, not when he was at the point where he still worked against specials in a crisis. You'd expect, if he wanted some mutual connection, he'd gravitate toward the opportunity to work with others against Danko. That didn't happen; he only turned against Danko for his own benefit."
"Plus Mom does have a way of souring people," Peter muttered.
"I'm not particularly sure what he would do if he was still alive and knew," Mohinder said. "I doubt it would be pleasant." He rubbed his temples. "But I suppose I can't be sure. I don't know where to draw the line. I've accepted that it's possible for us to rectify our wrongs..."
"Normally I'd say that we all get a fresh shot, but when it comes to Sylar..." Peter's tone hardened with an unfamiliar bitterness. "It's easier to think about possibilities now that the guy's dead. He had his chances when he was alive, more than most normal people get. You're right; if he was still here, he still wouldn't take them. That's the important difference between him and the rest of us: remorse."
Mohinder felt a small ball of anger throb in his chest. He wasn't sure why. He didn't believe that once upon a time, Sylar could have been different, an empathetic person, a real lover who'd stick by him now, if he was alive. Sylar was nowhere near that; even with a power of supreme understanding, he couldn't accept that his actions were wrong.
"On that cheerful note, it's time for me to go," Peter said.
Mohinder nodded. "I'll be up here a bit longer."
"Okay." Mohinder listened to Peter walk away, expecting the grind of the door, but the steps stopped first. "Mohinder."
Mohinder turned around. "Yes?"
Peter stood with his hand on the door knob. "You remember what I told you about that future, about when I found you there..." His eyes stayed locked on Mohinder as he struggled for what he wanted to say.
A gust of wind whipped by, and Mohinder shivered, feeling phantom prickles crawl from his temples down his back.
Peter turned his face into the breeze. When he looked back, he shook his head. "It was a very bad future, Mohinder. You talked about punishment, and in that place... Whatever decision you made about the baby, being able to make it is better than where we could be."
@ @ @ @ @
They sat alone in the diner. No, that wasn't right; there had been a teenage couple feeding each other pie and two old men silently eating eggs and bacon at the counter. But they hardly mattered and faded away again. The waitress did as well, after she appeared at the table for their order. With a scribble, she turned and vanished, and it was just Mohinder in a booth with Zane.
Sylar. Sylar, not Zane. Mohinder knew that now. But in the diner, he liked Sylar's shy smiles followed by broken eye contact, the way he warmed his hands on his coffee mug like a child drinking hot chocolate, the unexpected dark undertone to his voice in the asides only Mohinder was meant to hear.
The flutter in his chest signaled only an infatuation, surely. Sudden, intense, true love was a fantasy, for women who fed themselves too many trashy novels about damsels and lotharios. But Mohinder, never able to reach his father's ideal cold objectivity, found himself inexplicably drawn to a stranger in a way that felt very real, embedded in Sylar's thick brow, lying in his abrupt silences when he made Mohinder laugh, pushing through his skin when he touched the back of Mohinder's neck. Mohinder had found a multitude of incredible things in that house in Virginia Beach.
"They're not allowed to break your knuckles with a ruler anymore," Sylar said. "Though one of the older nuns did her best to 'encourage' me to be right-handed. Did they have that kind of corporal punishment in boarding schools?"
"Not with that tuition," Mohinder chuckled. "Though a number of children could have benefited from it."
"Including you?"
"Of course not," Mohinder replied, slyly smiling over his tea.
Sylar chuckled and lifted his coffee with both hands. Mohinder visualized the moment recurring in the apartment back in New York, in the kitchen, living room, bedroom. This rapport should not have been so easy; he was always so focused on his education, then his work, and attachments were so difficult to forge. Mohinder had been pursued often, but he had little idea on how to do the pursuing. Here, it seemed as if he and Sylar had drifted together in a dance.
"I used to wish I could go to a boarding school," Sylar said. "Mom was a little too... stifling. The freedom sounded great."
Mohinder's smile faded. "The grass is always greener."
"Wasn't it a good school?"
"They were all good schools, and my father happily paid to send me to them." Mohinder swirled his cup. "And when I came back home, I didn't have those familiar places, those old friends..."
"You're not always guaranteed friends," Sylar muttered. "And familiar can be... bad."
One corner of Mohinder's mouth quirked back up. "Maybe it doesn't matter where we went then. Maybe we were destined to be outcasts."
"Unique," Sylar corrected.
"If that's how you want to put it."
"Why not? You can look in from the outside, analyze, understand how it all works."
"It?"
"The biological and social rules of interaction, society. It's all compulsive or arbitrary. There's nothing notable about being a part of it. It's so much better to single yourself out, to be special."
Even at the time, Mohinder knew Sylar didn't entirely believe what he was saying. His bitterness at lacking nostalgia just moments before betrayed that. But it seemed Mohinder was constantly on the verge of lapsing into loneliness, and he enjoyed the commiseration. "You are certainly more special than I am," he said. "Your ability is remarkable."
Sylar took a moment for another swallow of black coffee, then examined the wet ring on the table. "That may be so, but you're still accomplishing something great in your research. It's the decisions you're making that will push you ahead. What you decide to do on this very trip."
"It's my father's research," Mohinder corrected.
"It's yours now. You can transform it into something new." He stared at Mohinder intently. "You don't have to follow your father's footsteps. My parents were ordinary, but I transcended them."
Even Sylar hadn't known at the time that his words were a lie, but they were something else Mohinder liked to hear, the opposite of what Peter had said in the subway. And Mohinder heard the assuredness in Sylar's voice that his statement was true for them both.
"I suppose we'll see," was all Mohinder said.
Sylar stretched his long limbs, his feet sliding forward under the table. When he relaxed again, his right calf crossed with Mohinder's left, and he did not move it. Mohinder stayed put.
Outside, a plain of grass that had cooled to gray passed quickly beneath the clouds blocking the setting sun on the horizon. Above the clouds, the receding glow warmed the sky to a soft pink, fading as it met the still ocean slate over the diner. He'd seen the sun set prettier over the ocean uncountable times, but he felt this one set into him, soothing his concerns about his research, letting his thoughts settle on his company.
"It's nice," Sylar mumbled, leaning back, eyes half-closed. Shouldn't he have his seatbelt on?
"I think I've been taking them for granted," Mohinder replied. And he shouldn't be able to stare, because this happened in the car, and his eyes should be on the road.
Sylar was suddenly awake, his expression unreadable. "Those moments are important, when you can really look."
He thought Sylar would look at him then, with another smile, but he looked down at his watch instead. It was time to go.
They slid from the booth and walked through the dirt lot to the car. Mohinder stopped outside the passenger side. Sylar had his hand on the door handle and looked at Mohinder expectantly. Mohinder resisted the urge to push him against the door. He wanted Sylar to grab him; he wanted the level of excitement of the trip to escalate, to explode, for Sylar to come out of his head and recognize this moment.
He stood close and fingered a fold in Sylar's sleeve. "It seems unnecessary to have two rooms." He could dive headfirst into this unknown, if only Sylar was ready to do the same.
Sylar stuck his hands deep in his pockets, as if they'd try to escape. "It might seem different in the morning."
@ @ @ @ @
Mohinder awoke to the baby's kicks. He wrapped an arm around his stomach and lay there for a while, until the longing dissipated, until he remembered all the reasons he shouldn't feel it at all. Even in his mash of memories, what Peter said was true: Sylar followed whatever path benefited his darker urges.
Eventually the kicks stopped, too, and with a grunt he rolled to his other side to look at the clock. Three in the morning. Not that it mattered. He was used to doing research at all hours of the day. He pulled his meal tray over, opened up his laptop, and logged in.
He reviewed the newest notes and changes to Tracy's files from the other scientists. Like him, they hadn't gotten much further in discovering why Tracy couldn't reconstitute herself. Some researchers posited that it was a downside of her power, that while she could obviously sustain freezing her own cells to a point, completely freezing herself had done far too much damage from which she could recover.
Mohinder and others were more optimistic, theorizing that liquidation was just drastically different than the cellular manipulation Tracy had been used to, and it would take her time to utilize it-- assuming that her consciousness was still intact. They'd tried adding a mixture of adrenergic drugs to the tank. Mohinder hadn't been present for the test, but the subsequent report stated that in addition to a face, fingers had emerged from the water, as if Tracy lay invisible beneath the surface. After seventeen seconds, the shapes collapsed.
He tried to focus on the existence of progress, but at this rate they might get only a torso after a few years. He couldn't imagine watching Tracy struggle for so long, especially in secret. Bennet warned him that her condition was still confidential, so Peter knew nothing about it. If Mohinder wanted to vent his frustrations, Matt was his only option, and Matt didn't like to talk about her. The research team had tried getting him to enter Tracy's mind. "It felt like drowning," he'd said. He couldn't find a thought to grab onto, just a swirl of despair and panic. Mohinder suggested that Matt try again when they refined the stimulation mixture, and Matt only grudging agreed and changed the subject.
But what did it matter, to have no one to commiserate with? Mohinder reminded himself that he'd only be here a few more months. The other scientists could competently carry on the research.
But when Mohinder remembered that wailing face, he wanted to be the one to stop the pain.
He worked until the black sky out his window turned dusty. Sleep pulled at his eyelids, and he decided to try to get a few hours of rest before breakfast. He clicked the save icon, and a window flashed up, adding Mohinder's username, the date, and the time to a list of the latest changes. Before he could reflexively close it, a username caught his eye:
npetrelli
"What were you doing in here, Senator?" Mohinder muttered. He scrolled through the rest of the available history, but Nathan didn't show up any other time. He double-clicked on the line, noting it was from the previous afternoon.
He scrolled through the file again, looking for the highlighting that was connected to Nathan's editing. He found it near the end: a slight correction in a collection of calculations for the adrenergic mixture. Mohinder went through a day-old hard copy of the file to compare. The earlier copy did indeed have a miscalculation.
Nathan didn't seem the type to have a side interest in chemistry, much less in something so advanced. He certainly didn't have the expertise to be fooling around in a serious scientific project. (The miscalculation was small and undoubtedly would have been caught by someone else.) Mohinder sent him a short email directing him to stay out of the research files. He was almost curious enough to ask about Nathan's sudden display of aptitude, but after their conversation on the roof, the less contact he had with the other man, the better.