Safe - Chapter 28
Characters: Peter/Claude-centric ensemble
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; character death implied.
Word count: 1,600.
Spoilers: AU, but up to 1.22 ("Landslide"), to be safe.
Summary: Holocaust-era Heroes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
A/N: Today: Mr Linderman has a visitor, we meet an associate of his, and Niki comes to a difficult decision. ( Previous chapters)
"Here is my problem, Herr Linderman." Obergruppenführer Thomassen paces the long Town Hall office, floorboards creaking under his black leather boots. "I must have the boy. Berlin demands it. The Führer is not a patient man when it comes to delays in his plans."
Oscar Linderman nods sympathetically. "I do see that, Mein Herr."
"So where in this dreckigen city is he?"
Linderman spreads his hands in an expanse of reluctant helplessness. "I don't know. My men have-"
"Your men, " snarls the Nazi officer, "are about as much use as milkmaids."
Linderman chuckles. "Milkmaids would be more pleasing on the eye."
The Obergruppenführer smiles, but the sentiment does not reach his eyes. His jaw is swollen maroon and he can feel an ache pulsing there when he talks. "I don't need to remind you, Herr Linderman, that your patronage of the city-" he flashes the alderman an ironic grin, ignoring the protestations of the muscles in his lower cheek "-continues only because we permit it."
"Quite so, Herr Thomassen"
"So either you find me the boy, or it will be announced that the aldermen are relieved of their duties," he snaps. "Beginning," he adds, as Linderman opens his mouth, "with an investigation into allegations that Oscar Linderman is at the centre of a corruption and bribery racket within the City Council."
Thomassen stops pacing; leans across the desk towards the white-haired alderman. "And when that's over, you'll wish I'd put you on the train." He smiles, entirely cheerful this time, and straightens. "So which is it?"
Linderman looks up at him, lips pursed.
*
He dials the number with perfectly steady hands. Waits for the long rings to cease.
"Yes- Mevrouw Petrelli, please. Yes, it's Meneer Linderman. Thank you."
A long wait, and then- "Angela. No, my dear, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. There's been a change of plan."
Still talking, Linderman dismisses the young policeman from his office with a wave of the hand.
*
"Their papers are all in order. Here-" the policeman thrusts a collection of documents under the Nazi officer's nose.
The S.S. officer scans the papers; nods. "Very well." He waves them through to the harbour, but hesitates when the policeman follows the family through the gates. "Where are you going?"
The policeman turns. "My orders were to see them safely onto the ship."
A nod. "Very well."
As soon as they are out of sight, Elisabet's appearance shifts, melting back into her usual form.
Misha looks up at her with wide eyes. "How do you do that?"
She winks at him.
"No."
Linderman sighs. "Let me put it quite plainly, Mevrouw Sandersen, so I know you understand. Misha is no longer safe in this city." He glances at Danil. "Neither is your husband. Now-" as Nicole stands, anger ready on her face "-I am not threatening your family. The Nazis are tightening their grip on my city - our city - and I cannot allow this to happen. So I offer you this exchange: your son's talents for your safe passage to England." He regards her solemnly from beneath winter eyebrows. "The alternatives are ugly, and I have no wish to frighten your son."
She stands before him, hands on her hips, slight of body and fear trembling in her heart, but ready to do anything it takes if it means her family will be safe. Will remain safe.
"And that's it? After that, we're free to do as we please?"
"You have my word, my dear."
Misha, watching, sees his mother bite her lip.
The boat, when they reach it, is a fishing trawler, old and in need of repair but with a cheerful captain, who smiles at Misha from behind a wild, gingery beard. He and Elisabet talk for several minutes and he nods gravely at her instructions; takes the roll of currency she offers before at last leading them onto the boat.
Nicole turns, hesitates. "Thank you."
Elisabet smiles, a little sadly. "Someone will meet you at Dover."
"You're not coming with us?"
"Hush, Misha." Nicole puts a hand on her son's shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine." Elisabet squats down beside Misha; smiles with unexpected fondness at this improbably cherubic prodigy. "You take care of yourself, all right? We need that head of yours in proper working order."
He giggles. "I'll try."
Elisabet stands, and shakes hands with Nicole and Danil. "Good luck." Their expressions are guarded, eyes dark with worry; she supposes she can't blame them.
She waits until the boat is chugging, slow and heavy, towards the harbour walls, before sliding back into the policeman's shape, and heading back towards the gates.
*
Some time after leaving the harbour, when Elisabet has resumed her usual appearance, she becomes aware of someone following her.
She crosses the street; hears, more than sees, footsteps follow her. Not another soul in this part of town so late at night, and she wishes for crowds, distractions to allow her to blend in, be swallowed; become anonymous. Takes the corner, boots treading more quickly against cobbles still damp from recent rain.
She ducks into a doorway, becoming shadows and nothingness - ordinary. Unremarkable.
He - of course, she'd known it was a he; something about the square tread of feet in her peripheral vision - comes around the corner, and she sucks in her breath and concentrates hard on the faded navy-blue paintwork on the door: cracks in the paint; the tired stone doorstep. Mind focused entirely on mundane details, even as her heart pounds, protesting the lack of oxygen, from the sheer proximity of her pursuer.
Dark hair and a peculiarly feral expression in dark eyes that chills her. No uniform, which she might have expected - he wears a dark coat that hangs to mid-calf; inexpensive trousers hang over unremarkable boots. A scarf, charcoal grey in the faint glow of the streetlight, wrapped high around his neck.
All these details, she absorbs in moments; a lifetime's habit of observing in order to recreate.
He prowls past, scanning the street, and she's on the point of feeling something like relief, about to release the pent-up pressure in her chest, when he stops. Cocks his head, listening. Predatory, she thinks suddenly, and heat tightens, fear turning her lungs to rock.
Slowly, he takes two steps back, until he cannot be more than half a metre from her rigid form.
Desperately, she concentrates on the minutiae of cracked and peeling paint; aged, torn spiders' webs full of dust and the remains of leaves.
His eyes flit between the corners of the doorway, as if contemplating a particularly challenging puzzle.
"I can hear you."
Which is absurd, but she cannot doubt it. Not when he's staring at a point right in the centre of her chest, and it's the exact place where it feels as though she will burst from holding her breath.
"You're afraid," he says. "I can hear your heart beating: boom boom boom boom boom. It's like a tiny, frightened drum."
Tentatively, he reaches forward, and Elisabet knows, even without hearing that desperate marching noise in her blood, that her pulse has quickened again, because the man leers: a wicked, wolfish smile.
And then his searching hand touches her shoulder, and she fights to hold together the illusion of not being there - but his fingers grip tightly against the sleeve of her coat, and her attention wavers; breath escapes, and the illusion falters.
Delight flickers across his face, and he gestures with his other hand - Elisabet finds herself pressed, helpless, against the real door. Cracked blue paint whispering rough against her fingertips.
"Well," he says, and she does not like his smile at all. "This is new."
She conjures every eidetic detail, forces courage and becomes him. Tufty dark hair and thick eyebrows; the quirk of a cruel smile at one corner of his mouth and the square, agile shape of his shoulders beneath the dark coat.
He stares, fascinated, and she would bolt if her limbs were not trapped, pinned by some mocking, orthogonal gravity. He reaches out to touch her face, and she squirms away as his finger traces down her cheek, rasping against the illusion of stubble before it fades back into her own, smooth skin.
He grins. Raises the finger again, and this time is no caress, but a burning pain in her forehead that draws a scream from the furthest recesses of her lungs.
She flails, grasping for anything that will stop him, stop this agony. Reaches in with everything she has to find some human connection, some shred of feeling to twist, use, deflect him with. Anything.
And she thinks she's found it - a faint pulsing of familiarity and love and ... guilt. Above the bright, hard line of pain, she conjures a delicate woman with mousy hair. The weight of anxiety ingrained in sad, tired eyes.
For a moment, pain hesitates, and Elisabet feels for the first time the warm trickle running across her eyebrow and down her cheek.
He stares, all joy extinguished, and she realises that the pressure of the door against her back has lifted. Pushes at him; feels his surprised shoulders give and tilt to let her pass.
But then he shivers, blinks; focus snaps back like rubber, and a force too big and uniform ever to be hands pushes her to the ground.
The pressure of the cold stone beneath her fades quickly in the face of searing heat, and the last thing Elisabet sees is a dark patch in the overcast night sky, a solitary star swimming against the current of clouds.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to heroes_fic
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; character death implied.
Word count: 1,600.
Spoilers: AU, but up to 1.22 ("Landslide"), to be safe.
Summary: Holocaust-era Heroes.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine but the words.
A/N: Today: Mr Linderman has a visitor, we meet an associate of his, and Niki comes to a difficult decision. ( Previous chapters)
"Here is my problem, Herr Linderman." Obergruppenführer Thomassen paces the long Town Hall office, floorboards creaking under his black leather boots. "I must have the boy. Berlin demands it. The Führer is not a patient man when it comes to delays in his plans."
Oscar Linderman nods sympathetically. "I do see that, Mein Herr."
"So where in this dreckigen city is he?"
Linderman spreads his hands in an expanse of reluctant helplessness. "I don't know. My men have-"
"Your men, " snarls the Nazi officer, "are about as much use as milkmaids."
Linderman chuckles. "Milkmaids would be more pleasing on the eye."
The Obergruppenführer smiles, but the sentiment does not reach his eyes. His jaw is swollen maroon and he can feel an ache pulsing there when he talks. "I don't need to remind you, Herr Linderman, that your patronage of the city-" he flashes the alderman an ironic grin, ignoring the protestations of the muscles in his lower cheek "-continues only because we permit it."
"Quite so, Herr Thomassen"
"So either you find me the boy, or it will be announced that the aldermen are relieved of their duties," he snaps. "Beginning," he adds, as Linderman opens his mouth, "with an investigation into allegations that Oscar Linderman is at the centre of a corruption and bribery racket within the City Council."
Thomassen stops pacing; leans across the desk towards the white-haired alderman. "And when that's over, you'll wish I'd put you on the train." He smiles, entirely cheerful this time, and straightens. "So which is it?"
Linderman looks up at him, lips pursed.
*
He dials the number with perfectly steady hands. Waits for the long rings to cease.
"Yes- Mevrouw Petrelli, please. Yes, it's Meneer Linderman. Thank you."
A long wait, and then- "Angela. No, my dear, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. There's been a change of plan."
Still talking, Linderman dismisses the young policeman from his office with a wave of the hand.
*
"Their papers are all in order. Here-" the policeman thrusts a collection of documents under the Nazi officer's nose.
The S.S. officer scans the papers; nods. "Very well." He waves them through to the harbour, but hesitates when the policeman follows the family through the gates. "Where are you going?"
The policeman turns. "My orders were to see them safely onto the ship."
A nod. "Very well."
As soon as they are out of sight, Elisabet's appearance shifts, melting back into her usual form.
Misha looks up at her with wide eyes. "How do you do that?"
She winks at him.
"No."
Linderman sighs. "Let me put it quite plainly, Mevrouw Sandersen, so I know you understand. Misha is no longer safe in this city." He glances at Danil. "Neither is your husband. Now-" as Nicole stands, anger ready on her face "-I am not threatening your family. The Nazis are tightening their grip on my city - our city - and I cannot allow this to happen. So I offer you this exchange: your son's talents for your safe passage to England." He regards her solemnly from beneath winter eyebrows. "The alternatives are ugly, and I have no wish to frighten your son."
She stands before him, hands on her hips, slight of body and fear trembling in her heart, but ready to do anything it takes if it means her family will be safe. Will remain safe.
"And that's it? After that, we're free to do as we please?"
"You have my word, my dear."
Misha, watching, sees his mother bite her lip.
The boat, when they reach it, is a fishing trawler, old and in need of repair but with a cheerful captain, who smiles at Misha from behind a wild, gingery beard. He and Elisabet talk for several minutes and he nods gravely at her instructions; takes the roll of currency she offers before at last leading them onto the boat.
Nicole turns, hesitates. "Thank you."
Elisabet smiles, a little sadly. "Someone will meet you at Dover."
"You're not coming with us?"
"Hush, Misha." Nicole puts a hand on her son's shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine." Elisabet squats down beside Misha; smiles with unexpected fondness at this improbably cherubic prodigy. "You take care of yourself, all right? We need that head of yours in proper working order."
He giggles. "I'll try."
Elisabet stands, and shakes hands with Nicole and Danil. "Good luck." Their expressions are guarded, eyes dark with worry; she supposes she can't blame them.
She waits until the boat is chugging, slow and heavy, towards the harbour walls, before sliding back into the policeman's shape, and heading back towards the gates.
*
Some time after leaving the harbour, when Elisabet has resumed her usual appearance, she becomes aware of someone following her.
She crosses the street; hears, more than sees, footsteps follow her. Not another soul in this part of town so late at night, and she wishes for crowds, distractions to allow her to blend in, be swallowed; become anonymous. Takes the corner, boots treading more quickly against cobbles still damp from recent rain.
She ducks into a doorway, becoming shadows and nothingness - ordinary. Unremarkable.
He - of course, she'd known it was a he; something about the square tread of feet in her peripheral vision - comes around the corner, and she sucks in her breath and concentrates hard on the faded navy-blue paintwork on the door: cracks in the paint; the tired stone doorstep. Mind focused entirely on mundane details, even as her heart pounds, protesting the lack of oxygen, from the sheer proximity of her pursuer.
Dark hair and a peculiarly feral expression in dark eyes that chills her. No uniform, which she might have expected - he wears a dark coat that hangs to mid-calf; inexpensive trousers hang over unremarkable boots. A scarf, charcoal grey in the faint glow of the streetlight, wrapped high around his neck.
All these details, she absorbs in moments; a lifetime's habit of observing in order to recreate.
He prowls past, scanning the street, and she's on the point of feeling something like relief, about to release the pent-up pressure in her chest, when he stops. Cocks his head, listening. Predatory, she thinks suddenly, and heat tightens, fear turning her lungs to rock.
Slowly, he takes two steps back, until he cannot be more than half a metre from her rigid form.
Desperately, she concentrates on the minutiae of cracked and peeling paint; aged, torn spiders' webs full of dust and the remains of leaves.
His eyes flit between the corners of the doorway, as if contemplating a particularly challenging puzzle.
"I can hear you."
Which is absurd, but she cannot doubt it. Not when he's staring at a point right in the centre of her chest, and it's the exact place where it feels as though she will burst from holding her breath.
"You're afraid," he says. "I can hear your heart beating: boom boom boom boom boom. It's like a tiny, frightened drum."
Tentatively, he reaches forward, and Elisabet knows, even without hearing that desperate marching noise in her blood, that her pulse has quickened again, because the man leers: a wicked, wolfish smile.
And then his searching hand touches her shoulder, and she fights to hold together the illusion of not being there - but his fingers grip tightly against the sleeve of her coat, and her attention wavers; breath escapes, and the illusion falters.
Delight flickers across his face, and he gestures with his other hand - Elisabet finds herself pressed, helpless, against the real door. Cracked blue paint whispering rough against her fingertips.
"Well," he says, and she does not like his smile at all. "This is new."
She conjures every eidetic detail, forces courage and becomes him. Tufty dark hair and thick eyebrows; the quirk of a cruel smile at one corner of his mouth and the square, agile shape of his shoulders beneath the dark coat.
He stares, fascinated, and she would bolt if her limbs were not trapped, pinned by some mocking, orthogonal gravity. He reaches out to touch her face, and she squirms away as his finger traces down her cheek, rasping against the illusion of stubble before it fades back into her own, smooth skin.
He grins. Raises the finger again, and this time is no caress, but a burning pain in her forehead that draws a scream from the furthest recesses of her lungs.
She flails, grasping for anything that will stop him, stop this agony. Reaches in with everything she has to find some human connection, some shred of feeling to twist, use, deflect him with. Anything.
And she thinks she's found it - a faint pulsing of familiarity and love and ... guilt. Above the bright, hard line of pain, she conjures a delicate woman with mousy hair. The weight of anxiety ingrained in sad, tired eyes.
For a moment, pain hesitates, and Elisabet feels for the first time the warm trickle running across her eyebrow and down her cheek.
He stares, all joy extinguished, and she realises that the pressure of the door against her back has lifted. Pushes at him; feels his surprised shoulders give and tilt to let her pass.
But then he shivers, blinks; focus snaps back like rubber, and a force too big and uniform ever to be hands pushes her to the ground.
The pressure of the cold stone beneath her fades quickly in the face of searing heat, and the last thing Elisabet sees is a dark patch in the overcast night sky, a solitary star swimming against the current of clouds.
( Next chapter)
x-posted to heroes_fic