Moral Obligations, Chapter One: Miracles
Peter hadn’t believed it at first when he heard about the miracle cure from a couple of fellow EMTs. It sounded too good to be true, and while it was certainly possible, things probably weren’t as simple as they seemed. O’Neill and Greentree had been assigned to run a patient to a new government research facility the day before. The patient was stable, but he’d lost his arm in an industrial accident and the specialists had ruled it was too damaged to be reattached. It was a normal enough run, considering the situation, but the remarkable part was when the patient came by their unit the next day, looking for the wallet he’d lost in the ambulance during the transfer. When they saw him, he had a healthy, functional, perfectly normal-looking new arm.
Karen O’Neill was a seasoned paramedic and Nicolas Greentree had been around long enough that people had a feel for his character - neither of them were liars or tale-tellers. They might exaggerate the occasional call (or at least Nick did; Karen tended to downplay), but this was not an exaggeration. Other people had seen him, too, because Karen and Nick made something of a big deal out of it. People didn’t just grow new arms!
Or so most people thought. Peter had seen some truly extraordinary things in the last few years. Those events had made him sensitive to anything that might be an ability and this sounded like one that he’d had before. He wasn’t as naturally curious as some, but if this was about abilities, he needed to know. The whole world could be at stake, or a single life. He couldn’t just ignore it and go on with his life like everyone else. He needed to help, if help was needed.
“Hey, Karen,” Peter asked after everyone else had dispersed, “where was this clinic, anyway?”
She gave him a long, steady look, but she and Peter had worked together before. Just as he knew what kind of person she was; she had a feel for him as well. He had a good reputation for effort and compassion, if not attendance and reliability. She told him, “We’re not supposed to tell anyone. We had to sign a release.” For a moment, the two simply looked at each other, with her silently judging him. She shared, “It’s downtown, in that Homeland Security facility. When I asked them the name of the clinic so I could put it on the run sheet yesterday, they told me it was ‘the new Building 26’, but I don’t think that’s the real name. That’s when they came out with the nondisclosure and confidentiality crap and told me I didn’t need to know anything else.”
Peter paled and his breath caught. He’d been imagining, for a moment, that someone with healing had opened a clinic and was using it as a cover to help people. He’d hoped, for once, to stumble across a use of abilities that was benign. But the involvement of the same people who had been with the old Building 26, the one in Washington, DC, lent a sinister light to the whole operation, restored arm or not. “Thanks … thanks, Karen,” he said weakly as he started to leave, cold dread growing inside him.
“Why did you want to know where it was, Petrelli?” she called after him.
He laughed a little hollowly and turned to face her, walking backwards for a bit. “Maybe they know a trick or two I could learn. Wouldn’t that be useful, to be able to heal people up like that?”
“Yeah, it would be. Let me know what you find out.”
Peter smiled. “It’s probably one of those big government secrets - ‘I’d have to kill you if I told you’ sort of things.”
She shrugged, turning away, but he still caught what she said: “Healing people like that is worth dying to know.”
Peter nodded, wordlessly agreeing, and headed out. He assumed the government had captured a special who could heal and were forcing that person to use their powers, probably against their will and possibly at a terrible price. He knew from experience how exhausting healing people could be. He couldn’t really fault their results this time though - it was their methods that were in doubt. But, perhaps the secret agencies of the government were learning something. At least, there was a young man who would have been crippled for life, who now had his limb restored. That’s something, isn’t it? Peter reassured himself, trying to keep an optimistic frame of mind. The last thing he wanted was a return to the previous year's circumstances, and life as a fugitive.
He went alone to investigate, finding the location without too much difficulty. Getting in, though, was another matter. The place was newly refurbished, including an updated security system. His current ability was Mohinder’s super-strength and agility, which was not much use in trying to get in. Peter circled the place. He pressed his fingers into the slight crevices between the bricks and could just barely get enough of a grip to climb. He looked up and considered that if he could get high enough, he could knock out a window … and probably get caught inside. Maybe I should try something a little less brute force and use some finesse. He snorted. Finesse. Nathan would be proud of me.
He looked up Sylar, who was going by Gabriel now and had set up shop in Isaac Mendez’s old loft. He’d carpeted over the floor. Apparently, having a constant reminder of the end of the world underfoot, wasn’t an endearing trait of the place. He was studying how abilities worked with, of all people, Mohinder. The pair hadn’t exactly worked out their differences, but they had a mutual passion that sadly, Peter simply didn’t share. Peter was content that abilities worked. Knowing how or why they worked didn’t interest him. Peter pretended to be checking in to make sure Gabriel was still settling in well with his new life, but he caught the raised brow and Sylar-esque look the man gave him when he patted him on the shoulder and swapped out his ability for a new one.
Gabriel followed Peter outside, ostensibly to say good-bye. Instead he asked, “Do you need any help?”
Peter gave the man a very small, knowing smile. Gabriel so wanted to be a hero these days, and every time Peter was reminded of that, it was a little bit of weight off his shoulders. Still, Peter had to bite back the automatic refusal and actually think about the request. If there really were specials confined in the building, the last person he wanted there was Gabriel. Reformed or no, he had an addiction and there was no reason to tempt him. Besides, Peter liked to work alone. “No. I think I’ve got this one. Ask Mohinder to have Molly find me if I go missing.” He refrained from saying he didn’t expect trouble, because he knew Gabriel had lie detection.
Gabriel gave him a slow nod, respecting his wishes. “Be safe, Peter.”
“I will,” he said, giving the tall, imposing man another pat on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”
XXX
It was a few days later when the opportunity to get inside the secret clinic was dumped squarely in Peter's lap. He was in the back of the ambulance teching for a patient whom he knew he was going to lose and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Even knowing that, he continued to do everything in his power to give her a chance. She was a young woman who had been walking home from work in the light rain. She’d hurried into a marked crosswalk, but hadn’t seen the car speeding towards her. Neither had the driver seen her. She was knocked back scores of feet onto the unforgiving pavement, her body twisted and battered, bones shattering on impact.
The real problem though was her brain. Bruised and abused, it was swelling with a sudden flood of blood and cerebral fluid. The resulting cranial pressure would kill her within all too few minutes. There were procedures that might keep her alive and Peter had immediately called in for them to prep a suite for her, but the odds of success were very, very low and they dropped with every second. It seemed to be taking them forever to get there, although Peter knew full well how a person’s sense of time got skewed in a life-or-death situation. He breathed slowly, calming his adrenaline-fueled nerves so he could focus and be 'ready and steady' when they arrived. He was just about to ask Hesam how much further it was when the vehicle pulled to a stop and his partner got out. Gratefully, Peter opened the back doors and jumped out. He knew it was a long shot, but maybe they weren’t too late.
Distantly, he registered that this wasn’t an emergency entrance he recognized, but his thoughts were almost entirely on his patient so he didn’t ponder it. Hesam helped him get the stretcher out and they turned in time to be greeted by two men posing as nurses. ‘Posing’ was it, too. They were beefy, slab-sided guys who were looking at Peter and Hesam instead of at the patient. They looked like a matching pair of body-builders who had been dressed up in scrubs. Peter took one look at them and his racing thoughts derailed. He looked around, making a more thorough assessment of where they were. It wasn’t a hospital entrance; it was a modified loading dock. His mouth fell open as he recognized the place as the building he’d cased out only a few days earlier.
One of the nurse-posers took over the end of the stretcher while the other one tried to intercept Peter and Hesam to transfer chain of custody and exchange paperwork. Peter finally broke from his shock and side-stepped, tapping the faux-medical technician on the arm as he passed him and telling Hesam, “I’m going to go help that other guy with the patient. I’ll catch up with you later.” Peter hurried forward to take the other end of the stretcher, which was being hauled along by brute force. He started pushing, evening out the course. When the other man looked back, what he saw was his muscular companion helping him out. The other man turned back forward without a second thought. Peter smirked to himself as a momentary flutter of nerves settled down. Shape-shifting was a useful, underrated power. At times, it was even better than invisibility, but it was tough to internalize how differently people saw him this way.
Peter watched as the guy in front navigated security for him and all he had to do was push. He spared a few apprehensive glances at his patient. She was awfully still and pale. “We need to hurry,” he said quietly. His infiltration of the place was not as important as her life, which was slipping away by the second.
“Huh?” the other man grunted. “Nah, no reason to. They’ve been wondering if it could bring back the dead. Maybe this is their chance to find out.”
“It?” Peter asked, hoping he wasn’t giving too much away by showing ignorance.
But his companion wasn’t that bright. Nor was he all that forthcoming. “Uh-huh,” the other man answered vaguely as they arrived at their destination. The stretcher was wheeled into a sophisticated operating room, crammed with all manner of monitoring equipment. Four medical technicians descended immediately and Peter had to bite his tongue to keep from giving his customary report on the patient’s status. Instead, he watched what the techs were doing. They were strapping his patient down securely, as if there was some concern she might get away. But was one of them the healer?
His eyes scanned over them. He knew that basic appearance was no indicator of ability, but as with the meathead he was currently impersonating, and the one who had been at the other end of the stretcher, there were cues a person could pick up from body language and behavior. All four of the technicians were trained medical staff - Peter picked that up as quickly as he’d noted the two men who came for the stretcher were untrained. They weren’t hurrying, which worried him, and seemed far more interested in hooking up monitors and recording the event than in treating their patient. Peter frowned, divining that these were researchers, not care specialists.
The other guy who had wheeled in the stretcher took his leave of the room almost immediately. One of the technicians, a woman who seemed to be in charge, turned to Peter, asking, “You have the paperwork showing the manner of injury, right?”
Peter stared at her, realizing the other version of ‘him’ was getting just that information from Hesam. His expression was a mix of blank and frightened and ‘oh no’, but there was nothing to fear. The tech rolled her eyes and muttered clearly enough for him to hear, “I told them they needed to hire actual nurses instead of using security for this.”
Peter blinked, offended that the tech was lumping him in with the dumbbell duo, no matter who he looked like. Suddenly his mouth engaged. He began rattling off the report, but in more detail than whatever brief notes he’d been able to jot down earlier, and probably much more accurately than whatever Hesam was filling out. The woman’s eyes widened with surprise as the burly man before her supplied far more information than she’d expected. She grabbed her own report sheet and started taking notes.
Peter watched as they set up a camera, hooked up a transfusion bag and attached leads for monitoring his patient’s condition. What he saw on the readouts was troublesome. They were losing her. He walked closer, towering over one of the techs to see. “You’ve got to do something. She’s dying,” he said. Whoever had the ability, they needed to use it soon or it would be too late, if it wasn’t already.
A couple of the techs looked at him in surprise at what was a clearly uncharacteristic level of concern. The woman he’d been talking to said, “She’ll be fine. Just step back and we’ll get started.” She reached over and fiddled with the camera, turning it on. “Did you know her or something?” she asked over her shoulder.
“No,” Peter said, staring at the heart rate monitor, where the rhythm was rapidly becoming more irregular.
The tech saw the same thing, but seemed unbothered. “Okay, open it up,” she said.
Peter frowned and shifted his weight anxiously, watching the technicians. They were all watching the patient with a sort of awe on their faces like they were about to witness a miracle. Finally he turned his eyes to her as well. His brows furrowed. Last time he’d looked at her, she’d been dreadfully pale. Now her skin was pinking. She moved slightly, breathing deeper. Then she moaned. Immediately one of the techs went to her head and put a hand on her shoulder, leaning in a little and telling her, “Ma’am, you’re going to be alright. The pain will pass. Try not to fight it.”
The pain? Peter thought. The woman’s eyes were open now - she’d regained consciousness. She moved her leg against the restraints - a leg that had been shattered before. She cried out twice, then stopped, panting. Peter watched as the abrasions on her face faded and disappeared. He looked back and forth between the techs, but only one was touching her and he’d touched her after she’d started healing.
Peter’s eyes went next to the transfusion bag. They hadn’t asked her blood type. A few more minutes passed as their patient made a complete recovery. Peter’s jaw had dropped as his mind put together what had happened. The technician he’d spoken with earlier stepped back next to him and said, “It’s incredible, isn’t it? I only wish we had authorization to take more. I’m sure she could support four or five a day and not just the two we’re allowed take.”
“She?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.
“Yes. Claire.”
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