Fic! Heroes/Torchwood Crossover :)
Title: Forget Me Not
Fandom: A Heroes/Torchwood crossover.
Spoiler Alert: Heroes ‘Four months later’ and various Torchwood Episodes, specifically, the first one, the one with the necklace and the one where they kept killing Suzie.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen, but Peter/Nathan if you want it to be
Summary: Peter is rescued from the Irish mobsters only to wake up in Wales, the team tries to help him discover his memories the loss of which they are partly responsible for.
Forget Me Not
The man opens his eyes, the last time he did so there were people shouting at him and then, he tries not to think about the then part, and darkness once again. It is dark here too, but he is no longer in the cold and empty container. He is in a bed and there are no handcuffs. The man gingerly moves and is pleased to discover that he is neither bound nor hurt and briefly considers getting up to explore his surroundings but some cautiousness stops him. He tries to remember, to remember something but there is nothing apart from the damp floor of his prison, the dark shapes that gave him water and Nathan. The name means something to him, but he is not sure what, ‘Am I Nathan?’ he thinks, but there is no answer. After the Irish mobsters’ failed attack there was a confusion of sound and light as someone else entered the scene, he thinks, he remembers an accidental gun shot hitting his shoulder and then nothing. He automatically reaches for the wound and does feel a bandage but there is no pain.
There is no wound.
The man gasps and all caution is thrown into the wind as he gets off the bed, he is wearing a t-shirt too big for him and no socks and the cold floor makes him shiver. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness and he sees that he is not in a bedroom like he suspected but somewhere else entirely. The metal ceiling is high above and there is little furniture apart from the small bed, he moves slowly, with care, towards the door. There is a bright line of light visible from whatever lays beyond. The man opens it and peeks into, well it looks like he has entered the set of a sci-fi show and he can’t help but laugh. His laughter gets the attention of the sole occupant of one of the many computer screens.
A young Asian woman looks startled for a second before smiling broadly.
“You are awake, how are you feeling” She asks as she gets off her chair and steps closer to him.
“My name is Toshiko.” the woman offers when faced with the man’s silence.
He nods. He has nothing to offer in return. “Where am I?” he asks. ‘Who am I?’
“You are safe here” She avoids his question, which angers him. He needs to know something, anything concrete, he knows so little, knows that he is American, who the President is, knows that he can speak Italian, that his favourite ice cream flavour is mint chocolate chip but does not know his own name and nothing of his family.
She seems to sense his discomfort. “You are in Cardiff.” She says.
That tells him little, he is in Wales? He is fairly sure he had been in Ireland before. He fails to remember anything of the journey.
“Tell me” he almost whispers. “Who are you and why am I here?”
She sighs, “You need to rest, you suffered quite the injury.”
He glares at her, then, he must not have dreamed the gun shot. He takes off somebody else’s t-shirt and looks at the bandage, there is blood on it. He begins to pull it off but Toshiko is already there trying to stop him. Grabbing his hand. He stops struggling and looks at her, she meets his gaze and he can feel the weight of her sympathy.
“Fine, you look at it, I don’t think I have a wound” He says it earnestly and with a deep frown between her eyebrows she proceeds to carefully remove the bandage only to reveal completely smooth flesh. They both stare at in silence. He can feel the warmth seeping through her fingers onto his shoulder.
A door slams open and they almost jump apart.
“What do we have here? Leave you with our guest for five minutes Tosh and you’ve already taken his clothes off.” Owen, for that is soon to be revealed as his name, sounds oddly proud.
The man looks from one to the other in silence, hoping for an explanation, needing one.
Tosh ignores the comment and instead turns to him again “Look, wait here for just one moment, I will get the captain, he will explain” And she is gone.
Owen looks at him with interest. “So what is your name and how did you end up chained up in a container in Cork?”
The man feels his hope fade. “I was hoping you would tell me that.”
“You don’t remember?” Owen asks needlessly.
The man only looks at him, and is saved from retorting by the entrance of a tall very good looking male dressed, well the man has never before been to Wales, so he doesn’t want to judge.
“Hi, I am Captain Jack Harkness” He smiles and under any other circumstance the man would have found that smile completely disarming. “And you are in the secret base of an organisation called Torchwood, we found you in Cork after following a trail for our missing supply of amnesia pills.” Here Jack stops.
The man says nothing.
“We don’t know yet who did this to you or why, but we will find out”
The man’s mind is reeling, amnesia pills, someone must have done this to him.
“Can it be reversed, can I get my memories back?” He sounds desperate. “I don’t know who I am”
Jack nods “It has been known to happen, a certain image can trigger one memory and eventually they will all flood back, but your blood shows that you have been forced an unprecedented dosage. It seems like somebody really doesn’t want you to remember”
“So we have another invincible man, maybe he and Jack are related!” Owen laughs into his takeaway.
“I don’t know, the looks they were giving each other, they better not be” Tosh laughs as well before a sudden sobering thought.
“You know what happened last time someone overdosed on the amnesia pill” She trails off. They both remember the poor guy who had gone on an insane killing rampage every time he heard the word ‘Torchwood’
“This one doesn’t look the insane type” He shakes his head.
“I hope we can help him, there must be something that can trigger the return of his memories. Maybe Gwen can do something, she is the expert.”
“Yeah, but this has never happened before, they must have mixed the retcon with something else, it is not supposed to erase everything.”
The man dreams he is flying over New York, there is someone flying with him. The other person is faster than him and the man tries to reach him, but whatever he does he is unable to get closer, he is so exhausted from the effort he needs to wake up.
The memory of the dream quickly dissipates, but one piece of knowledge remains. He is from New York, he is sure of that. As progress goes, it isn’t much, but it gives him hope.
In the morning the man is introduced to two more people, a sober dark haired man called Ianto and a pretty brunette called Gwen. Apparently she had gone through the whole amnesia thing and would try to help him, of course there is the small difference that he remembers nothing of the past and she had forgotten only a day, but he is willing to try anything.
“Tell me what you remember” She tries again.
“Since waking up in the container I remember three men, they asked me, about, well about iPods and then threatened me, and then you guys rescued me but one of the men shot me. Then I woke up healed” He misses out the little tad bit about the electric force which had stopped the unknown attackers.
“As for before. Nothing, well everything about the world around me, I still have my knowledge, I am pretty sure I can drive, and I used to live in New York, but about who I am, nothing. Just blankness.”
“No family? No name?” She insists.
“Nathan” He whispers finally. “I don’t know who he is, I even considered it might be my name, but I don’t think so, I just know he is important, whoever he is. Important to me.”
She nods towards a small box on the table between them.
“When we found you, you were wearing this” He slowly opens it, it is necklace of some sort, an odd ‘s’ shape with lines, he turns it around in his hands, trying to will himself into remembering but there is nothing.
“What is it?” He finally asks.
“Tosh is working on it, I am sure that by lunch time we will know everything, and there will be something else that you will recognise. We are also checking for missing people matching your description, but that will be a long task. In the mean time, we suggest you watch the news, just in case something works as a trigger.”
There isn’t much on the news that the man can remember, he must have been kept there for more than a couple of months, he watches everything with barely hidden nervousness. The floods in Africa, the fall in the stock market, the new climate change talks, none of these news are of any help. The man finds out today’s date, and then he knows, it has been four months he is suddenly sure, four months. He needs to tell them. Maybe that could be of help.
He seeks out Jack, he feels that Jack is someone he can talk to, he tells himself it is because of the American accent reminding him of home.
“Okay, we will find out what happened in New York four months ago” Jack reassures him. “Look, there is little you can do here, let’s go for a walk around the city, get a drink; you look like a man who can use one”
The man agrees, he really needs to get out of this confined space, to smell the sky.
They head off towards a small pub not to far from the base, it is too early and they are the only people in the whole place. They seat themselves at a corner table and order drinks. The man doesn’t like scotch but orders it just the same.
After some idle chit chat, he feels quite comfortable in Jack’s presence, Jack reminds him of someone, someone dear to him, or maybe he is just getting drunk. The downside of ordering something he doesn’t like, is that sipping it slowly is out of the question. He has had quite a few drinks while Jack is slowly nursing his first pint.
The man feels so utterly relaxed when Jack’s phone rings, he is half reluctant to return to the hub, he now knows they call it. But Jack insists that they finally have some information.
They are all there when he gets back, Tosh and Owen, Ianto and Gwen. The sit him on a table, he feels a sort of nervous excitement running through his body, this could be it. He tries to believe.
“We have done a thorough search on your necklace” Tosh nods towards the s shaped symbol. “It is a Kanji symbol” She pauses, but that means nothing to the man. “It is a combination of two characters, and it literally means ‘god sending good ability’ It can be first found on the flag and katana of Takezo Kensei, a Japanese legend from the 17th Century” All eyes are on the man, he doesn’t want to disappoint them.
“I don’t think I know anything about Japanese history.” he replies slowly.
“Another place where your symbol occurs is on the cover of a book called ‘Activating Evolution’ by a man called Chandra Souresh, curiously on his website there is a mention of Takezo Kensei and his book seems extraordinary. The introduction is on the website, you will see what we mean” She points towards the computer screen.
“Extraordinarily insane you mean?” Owen snaps, “I haven’t seen such bull in a while, that Dr Souresh is completely discredited by all his peers.”
“Like we can judge? If we were to write a book on what we’ve seen, we’d be behind bars before you can say ‘alien’”
The man ignores them, he needs to know. He scans through the introduction quickly, his mind on overload.
“What else could the human brain and body achieve with the subtlest changes in biochemistry? Teleportation, levitation, instantaneous tissue regeneration, precognition, telekinesis, and even invisibility are well within the realm of possibility. Could it even be happening already? I believe that it is.”
The man reads this out loud, can it be true? Is it possible to scientifically explain the healing of his wound, the electric shield, was he some sort of an experiment for this Dr Souresh, used and then cast aside?
‘This is insane’ Owen says again
‘Is he from the future?’
‘He has no hope’/‘What should I eat for lunch’/‘This is such a waste of time’
At that the man stops ignoring their voices and swirls around, his cheeks are red, he hadn’t realised that he’d been holding his breath.
“What do you want?” He almost shouts at them.
They stare at him, their lips not moving, but the noise is getting louder, he can hear them, hear them all. He feels sick and tries to hide from the noise. “Shut up!” he pleas. Jack tells the others to leave and as soon as he is the only one left, the silence is restored.
“What is happening to me? I could hear your thoughts.” ‘add a mere two additional neural pathways and the brain could interpret wavelengths at a frequency a thousand times greater than our current capacity, giving us the ability to hear each others' thoughts.’ “Maybe it’s possible”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry. The only other unusual thing we have discovered is that four months ago there was an explosion above New York. The press claimed that it was the testing of a new type of fireworks but conspiracy sites” here he smiles, “and we have learned to listen to those, well, they claim that a nuclear explosion occurred high in the sky above New York. Unfortunately no one matching your description has been filed as missing on or around that date.”
The man thinks, an explosion, New York, an explosion. He feels heat rising up his body, he looks at his hands in alarm. They are glowing, but they couldn’t be, the heat is burning him. He looks at Jack, can’t bring himself to speak.
Jack is looking back at him, but not at his hands, “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
The man wants to scream, and then the heat is gone, his hands seem back to normal.
“Did you not see?” He is incredulous, the light coming off his hands had been blinding. “My hands, they were on fire!”
Jack shakes his head “They weren’t, you must have remembered something, perhaps the explosion is the right catalyst, come on, I will show you something”
The man stares it his hands, turns them around this way and then and there is no sign of the fire the light, nothing.
Jack shows him a clip taken from a phone, by the looks of it, it is shaky and blurry, but the explosion is obvious, he closes his eyes and he can see it still.
“Okay, that’s enough excitement for the day, you are burning up, we’ll get some pizza and then you can spend some time on the net, maybe look at news from your home town” The man leans against the feel of a cool palm against his forehand. He feels starved for another’s touch, he must have been accustomed to affection and the touch of someone else. Nathan?
He spends the next hour or so trying to find all he can about the explosion, but there isn’t very much and nothing triggers another reaction. All the others seem to be avoiding him, though he is sure he won’t be hearing their thoughts again.
The first person to join him is Tosh.
“I know what it’s like” She says. “I have had the misfortune of hearing people’s thoughts. There was a necklace once and it gave me the ability to hear what people thought. It was the most wonderful and most horrible gift.”
He wants to be alone, but he can see that she is trying to comfort him, she is being nice to him and he hasn’t got the heart to ask her to be alone.
“Thanks Tosh, thank you so much for what you are trying to do, you and Jack and the others, I think I am getting somewhere.”
She smiles back, relief obvious on her features.
“And don’t worry I can’t hear your thoughts now, whatever it is that I have, I don’t think I can control it.”
He can’t sleep. No, he doesn’t want to sleep. Every time he falls asleep, he stumbles straight into a dream, it is similar to the flying dream, but worse, much worse. Not only can he not reach the shadowy figure, but his hands are glowing and he feels as if he is being engulfed by the heat. He gets up for a glass of water and at the sight of the computers decides to continue reading the news, there must be something that he’s missed.
He reads the current news first, scans quickly through the latest on sports, politics and entertainment. He tries searching for ‘Nathan’ and ‘New York’, but at first the results seem too many to be of any use.
Eventually he finds something that draws his attention. The image is of a bearded man, with the name of Nathan Petrelli and the imaginative title of ‘ex congressman-elect found drunk in Central Park.’ The man looks at the photo for a long time, the crazy beard, the odd clothes, the sad eyes, he doesn’t remember who this Nathan Petrelli is, but there is something about this that makes him want to find out more.
A brief Google search presents him with a now defunct website, the image of the man here is different. There is no beard, and the smile is winning, a real politician’s smile. It is hard to equate this picture with the other one. The man feels a shudder and a flash of memory in his mind. This is him, he is sure. This is Nathan. He pokes around the website but there is little useful information there, apart from a lack of explanation in the form of a resignation letter, the date on which is a bit less than four months ago. He knows that he can find out more, but something stops him, he is almost afraid of finding out. He needs to be sure. He needs to be ready.
He feels incredibly tired and thinks that closing his eyes for a few minutes would do him good. He falls asleep almost immediately and the dream is back, but it is different now. He is no longer chasing an unobtainable shadow but Nathan, Nathan is right there next to him and they are flying together and he feels free. Nathan turns towards him and flashes him his politician’s smile, he is sure he doesn’t like it and then the smile changes. It is much more sincere and Nathan beckons him “I’m not leaving you Peter”
In the morning Ianto is the first person there, he wakes him up carefully, doesn’t ask him if he’d had a good night, but does offer him coffee which Peter gratefully accepts.
“Peter.” Peter says.
Ianto stops in his tracks.
“Nice to meet you Ianto, I am Peter.” The name fits him like nothing else, it is a small victory but he feels elated nonetheless.
Everyone seems overjoyed at his discovery, Peter only wishes that he can remember as much as he now knows. Tosh was quickly able to find out that Nathan Petrelli had a missing brother by the name of Peter. They found a grainy photograph of Peter graduating from high school, a press release informing the public about Peter’s mental state, and his frequent spells at New York hospitals.
Peter is presumed dead and is apparently mentally unstable, though he refuses to believe that. He doesn’t feel crazy.
He now knows a little about his life, but remembers none of it apart from his brother, Nathan. He knows Nathan did something important, something connected to flight and the fire released from Peter’s body. He doesn’t tell anyone about his dreams, he is afraid of what they might think, there is the evidence that he is insane.
Peter wants to contact his brother and he tells them so. Jack denies him that request, insisting that they thread carefully, as to not tip off whoever did that to Peter. He is safe here the argument goes, and before he remembers more it might be better for the world to continue believing that Peter Petrelli is dead.
Peter reluctantly agrees, though he can’t stop thinking of Nathan, of his brother who believes he is dead, who lost his career, wife and children because of his grief for Peter. Peter feels guilty, he knows this is all somehow his fault, he wishes he can remember more.
That night he welcomes the dreams.
They are no longer flying. They are on the ground, facing each other in the Kirby Plaza, there are other people there, but Peter sees only Nathan. Something terrible is going to happen he can feel it.
“I need you Peter.” Nathan says, he is not the man from the photos, the smooth politician. He has a beard and his eyes are blind, not looking at Peter but beyond him.
“Nathan” Peter wants to scream at him but no words come out, nothing but silence and Peter is falling, he is tumbling down and this time there is no one there to catch him. The speed with which his memories return to him is painful and bright. The noise is extraordinary, he feels like his head is going to explode. But it is all back, his life, his best friend in school, his father’s suicide, his nursing, Simone, his mother, Claire, Mohinder,
Nathan, always Nathan.
Sylar. How could he have forgotten Sylar.
Ted Sprague.
The explosion, he exploded. Everything till that moment is suddenly there and he can’t remember what it is like for it not to be, everything in the last four months is a hole of blackness.
He is awake now, the transition into consciousness almost unnoticeable. He is breathing hard and he feels parched. He needs water. Nathan. Fresh air. Nathan
To escape. Not that he is being kept here as a prisoner, but for all he remembers of the last four months, this could simply be a trick, an illusion, it is possible, he knows that everything is possible.
He leaves them a note, a sort of explanation, a thank you.
By the time he gets outside the sun is just about to light Cardiff and a few workers can be seen about. It is freezing however and Peter shivers in the thin cotton shirt he’d borrowed.
He looks into the fading darkness and without a shadow of a doubt flies off.
Fandom: A Heroes/Torchwood crossover.
Spoiler Alert: Heroes ‘Four months later’ and various Torchwood Episodes, specifically, the first one, the one with the necklace and the one where they kept killing Suzie.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Gen, but Peter/Nathan if you want it to be
Summary: Peter is rescued from the Irish mobsters only to wake up in Wales, the team tries to help him discover his memories the loss of which they are partly responsible for.
Forget Me Not
The man opens his eyes, the last time he did so there were people shouting at him and then, he tries not to think about the then part, and darkness once again. It is dark here too, but he is no longer in the cold and empty container. He is in a bed and there are no handcuffs. The man gingerly moves and is pleased to discover that he is neither bound nor hurt and briefly considers getting up to explore his surroundings but some cautiousness stops him. He tries to remember, to remember something but there is nothing apart from the damp floor of his prison, the dark shapes that gave him water and Nathan. The name means something to him, but he is not sure what, ‘Am I Nathan?’ he thinks, but there is no answer. After the Irish mobsters’ failed attack there was a confusion of sound and light as someone else entered the scene, he thinks, he remembers an accidental gun shot hitting his shoulder and then nothing. He automatically reaches for the wound and does feel a bandage but there is no pain.
There is no wound.
The man gasps and all caution is thrown into the wind as he gets off the bed, he is wearing a t-shirt too big for him and no socks and the cold floor makes him shiver. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness and he sees that he is not in a bedroom like he suspected but somewhere else entirely. The metal ceiling is high above and there is little furniture apart from the small bed, he moves slowly, with care, towards the door. There is a bright line of light visible from whatever lays beyond. The man opens it and peeks into, well it looks like he has entered the set of a sci-fi show and he can’t help but laugh. His laughter gets the attention of the sole occupant of one of the many computer screens.
A young Asian woman looks startled for a second before smiling broadly.
“You are awake, how are you feeling” She asks as she gets off her chair and steps closer to him.
“My name is Toshiko.” the woman offers when faced with the man’s silence.
He nods. He has nothing to offer in return. “Where am I?” he asks. ‘Who am I?’
“You are safe here” She avoids his question, which angers him. He needs to know something, anything concrete, he knows so little, knows that he is American, who the President is, knows that he can speak Italian, that his favourite ice cream flavour is mint chocolate chip but does not know his own name and nothing of his family.
She seems to sense his discomfort. “You are in Cardiff.” She says.
That tells him little, he is in Wales? He is fairly sure he had been in Ireland before. He fails to remember anything of the journey.
“Tell me” he almost whispers. “Who are you and why am I here?”
She sighs, “You need to rest, you suffered quite the injury.”
He glares at her, then, he must not have dreamed the gun shot. He takes off somebody else’s t-shirt and looks at the bandage, there is blood on it. He begins to pull it off but Toshiko is already there trying to stop him. Grabbing his hand. He stops struggling and looks at her, she meets his gaze and he can feel the weight of her sympathy.
“Fine, you look at it, I don’t think I have a wound” He says it earnestly and with a deep frown between her eyebrows she proceeds to carefully remove the bandage only to reveal completely smooth flesh. They both stare at in silence. He can feel the warmth seeping through her fingers onto his shoulder.
A door slams open and they almost jump apart.
“What do we have here? Leave you with our guest for five minutes Tosh and you’ve already taken his clothes off.” Owen, for that is soon to be revealed as his name, sounds oddly proud.
The man looks from one to the other in silence, hoping for an explanation, needing one.
Tosh ignores the comment and instead turns to him again “Look, wait here for just one moment, I will get the captain, he will explain” And she is gone.
Owen looks at him with interest. “So what is your name and how did you end up chained up in a container in Cork?”
The man feels his hope fade. “I was hoping you would tell me that.”
“You don’t remember?” Owen asks needlessly.
The man only looks at him, and is saved from retorting by the entrance of a tall very good looking male dressed, well the man has never before been to Wales, so he doesn’t want to judge.
“Hi, I am Captain Jack Harkness” He smiles and under any other circumstance the man would have found that smile completely disarming. “And you are in the secret base of an organisation called Torchwood, we found you in Cork after following a trail for our missing supply of amnesia pills.” Here Jack stops.
The man says nothing.
“We don’t know yet who did this to you or why, but we will find out”
The man’s mind is reeling, amnesia pills, someone must have done this to him.
“Can it be reversed, can I get my memories back?” He sounds desperate. “I don’t know who I am”
Jack nods “It has been known to happen, a certain image can trigger one memory and eventually they will all flood back, but your blood shows that you have been forced an unprecedented dosage. It seems like somebody really doesn’t want you to remember”
“So we have another invincible man, maybe he and Jack are related!” Owen laughs into his takeaway.
“I don’t know, the looks they were giving each other, they better not be” Tosh laughs as well before a sudden sobering thought.
“You know what happened last time someone overdosed on the amnesia pill” She trails off. They both remember the poor guy who had gone on an insane killing rampage every time he heard the word ‘Torchwood’
“This one doesn’t look the insane type” He shakes his head.
“I hope we can help him, there must be something that can trigger the return of his memories. Maybe Gwen can do something, she is the expert.”
“Yeah, but this has never happened before, they must have mixed the retcon with something else, it is not supposed to erase everything.”
The man dreams he is flying over New York, there is someone flying with him. The other person is faster than him and the man tries to reach him, but whatever he does he is unable to get closer, he is so exhausted from the effort he needs to wake up.
The memory of the dream quickly dissipates, but one piece of knowledge remains. He is from New York, he is sure of that. As progress goes, it isn’t much, but it gives him hope.
In the morning the man is introduced to two more people, a sober dark haired man called Ianto and a pretty brunette called Gwen. Apparently she had gone through the whole amnesia thing and would try to help him, of course there is the small difference that he remembers nothing of the past and she had forgotten only a day, but he is willing to try anything.
“Tell me what you remember” She tries again.
“Since waking up in the container I remember three men, they asked me, about, well about iPods and then threatened me, and then you guys rescued me but one of the men shot me. Then I woke up healed” He misses out the little tad bit about the electric force which had stopped the unknown attackers.
“As for before. Nothing, well everything about the world around me, I still have my knowledge, I am pretty sure I can drive, and I used to live in New York, but about who I am, nothing. Just blankness.”
“No family? No name?” She insists.
“Nathan” He whispers finally. “I don’t know who he is, I even considered it might be my name, but I don’t think so, I just know he is important, whoever he is. Important to me.”
She nods towards a small box on the table between them.
“When we found you, you were wearing this” He slowly opens it, it is necklace of some sort, an odd ‘s’ shape with lines, he turns it around in his hands, trying to will himself into remembering but there is nothing.
“What is it?” He finally asks.
“Tosh is working on it, I am sure that by lunch time we will know everything, and there will be something else that you will recognise. We are also checking for missing people matching your description, but that will be a long task. In the mean time, we suggest you watch the news, just in case something works as a trigger.”
There isn’t much on the news that the man can remember, he must have been kept there for more than a couple of months, he watches everything with barely hidden nervousness. The floods in Africa, the fall in the stock market, the new climate change talks, none of these news are of any help. The man finds out today’s date, and then he knows, it has been four months he is suddenly sure, four months. He needs to tell them. Maybe that could be of help.
He seeks out Jack, he feels that Jack is someone he can talk to, he tells himself it is because of the American accent reminding him of home.
“Okay, we will find out what happened in New York four months ago” Jack reassures him. “Look, there is little you can do here, let’s go for a walk around the city, get a drink; you look like a man who can use one”
The man agrees, he really needs to get out of this confined space, to smell the sky.
They head off towards a small pub not to far from the base, it is too early and they are the only people in the whole place. They seat themselves at a corner table and order drinks. The man doesn’t like scotch but orders it just the same.
After some idle chit chat, he feels quite comfortable in Jack’s presence, Jack reminds him of someone, someone dear to him, or maybe he is just getting drunk. The downside of ordering something he doesn’t like, is that sipping it slowly is out of the question. He has had quite a few drinks while Jack is slowly nursing his first pint.
The man feels so utterly relaxed when Jack’s phone rings, he is half reluctant to return to the hub, he now knows they call it. But Jack insists that they finally have some information.
They are all there when he gets back, Tosh and Owen, Ianto and Gwen. The sit him on a table, he feels a sort of nervous excitement running through his body, this could be it. He tries to believe.
“We have done a thorough search on your necklace” Tosh nods towards the s shaped symbol. “It is a Kanji symbol” She pauses, but that means nothing to the man. “It is a combination of two characters, and it literally means ‘god sending good ability’ It can be first found on the flag and katana of Takezo Kensei, a Japanese legend from the 17th Century” All eyes are on the man, he doesn’t want to disappoint them.
“I don’t think I know anything about Japanese history.” he replies slowly.
“Another place where your symbol occurs is on the cover of a book called ‘Activating Evolution’ by a man called Chandra Souresh, curiously on his website there is a mention of Takezo Kensei and his book seems extraordinary. The introduction is on the website, you will see what we mean” She points towards the computer screen.
“Extraordinarily insane you mean?” Owen snaps, “I haven’t seen such bull in a while, that Dr Souresh is completely discredited by all his peers.”
“Like we can judge? If we were to write a book on what we’ve seen, we’d be behind bars before you can say ‘alien’”
The man ignores them, he needs to know. He scans through the introduction quickly, his mind on overload.
“What else could the human brain and body achieve with the subtlest changes in biochemistry? Teleportation, levitation, instantaneous tissue regeneration, precognition, telekinesis, and even invisibility are well within the realm of possibility. Could it even be happening already? I believe that it is.”
The man reads this out loud, can it be true? Is it possible to scientifically explain the healing of his wound, the electric shield, was he some sort of an experiment for this Dr Souresh, used and then cast aside?
‘This is insane’ Owen says again
‘Is he from the future?’
‘He has no hope’/‘What should I eat for lunch’/‘This is such a waste of time’
At that the man stops ignoring their voices and swirls around, his cheeks are red, he hadn’t realised that he’d been holding his breath.
“What do you want?” He almost shouts at them.
They stare at him, their lips not moving, but the noise is getting louder, he can hear them, hear them all. He feels sick and tries to hide from the noise. “Shut up!” he pleas. Jack tells the others to leave and as soon as he is the only one left, the silence is restored.
“What is happening to me? I could hear your thoughts.” ‘add a mere two additional neural pathways and the brain could interpret wavelengths at a frequency a thousand times greater than our current capacity, giving us the ability to hear each others' thoughts.’ “Maybe it’s possible”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry. The only other unusual thing we have discovered is that four months ago there was an explosion above New York. The press claimed that it was the testing of a new type of fireworks but conspiracy sites” here he smiles, “and we have learned to listen to those, well, they claim that a nuclear explosion occurred high in the sky above New York. Unfortunately no one matching your description has been filed as missing on or around that date.”
The man thinks, an explosion, New York, an explosion. He feels heat rising up his body, he looks at his hands in alarm. They are glowing, but they couldn’t be, the heat is burning him. He looks at Jack, can’t bring himself to speak.
Jack is looking back at him, but not at his hands, “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
The man wants to scream, and then the heat is gone, his hands seem back to normal.
“Did you not see?” He is incredulous, the light coming off his hands had been blinding. “My hands, they were on fire!”
Jack shakes his head “They weren’t, you must have remembered something, perhaps the explosion is the right catalyst, come on, I will show you something”
The man stares it his hands, turns them around this way and then and there is no sign of the fire the light, nothing.
Jack shows him a clip taken from a phone, by the looks of it, it is shaky and blurry, but the explosion is obvious, he closes his eyes and he can see it still.
“Okay, that’s enough excitement for the day, you are burning up, we’ll get some pizza and then you can spend some time on the net, maybe look at news from your home town” The man leans against the feel of a cool palm against his forehand. He feels starved for another’s touch, he must have been accustomed to affection and the touch of someone else. Nathan?
He spends the next hour or so trying to find all he can about the explosion, but there isn’t very much and nothing triggers another reaction. All the others seem to be avoiding him, though he is sure he won’t be hearing their thoughts again.
The first person to join him is Tosh.
“I know what it’s like” She says. “I have had the misfortune of hearing people’s thoughts. There was a necklace once and it gave me the ability to hear what people thought. It was the most wonderful and most horrible gift.”
He wants to be alone, but he can see that she is trying to comfort him, she is being nice to him and he hasn’t got the heart to ask her to be alone.
“Thanks Tosh, thank you so much for what you are trying to do, you and Jack and the others, I think I am getting somewhere.”
She smiles back, relief obvious on her features.
“And don’t worry I can’t hear your thoughts now, whatever it is that I have, I don’t think I can control it.”
He can’t sleep. No, he doesn’t want to sleep. Every time he falls asleep, he stumbles straight into a dream, it is similar to the flying dream, but worse, much worse. Not only can he not reach the shadowy figure, but his hands are glowing and he feels as if he is being engulfed by the heat. He gets up for a glass of water and at the sight of the computers decides to continue reading the news, there must be something that he’s missed.
He reads the current news first, scans quickly through the latest on sports, politics and entertainment. He tries searching for ‘Nathan’ and ‘New York’, but at first the results seem too many to be of any use.
Eventually he finds something that draws his attention. The image is of a bearded man, with the name of Nathan Petrelli and the imaginative title of ‘ex congressman-elect found drunk in Central Park.’ The man looks at the photo for a long time, the crazy beard, the odd clothes, the sad eyes, he doesn’t remember who this Nathan Petrelli is, but there is something about this that makes him want to find out more.
A brief Google search presents him with a now defunct website, the image of the man here is different. There is no beard, and the smile is winning, a real politician’s smile. It is hard to equate this picture with the other one. The man feels a shudder and a flash of memory in his mind. This is him, he is sure. This is Nathan. He pokes around the website but there is little useful information there, apart from a lack of explanation in the form of a resignation letter, the date on which is a bit less than four months ago. He knows that he can find out more, but something stops him, he is almost afraid of finding out. He needs to be sure. He needs to be ready.
He feels incredibly tired and thinks that closing his eyes for a few minutes would do him good. He falls asleep almost immediately and the dream is back, but it is different now. He is no longer chasing an unobtainable shadow but Nathan, Nathan is right there next to him and they are flying together and he feels free. Nathan turns towards him and flashes him his politician’s smile, he is sure he doesn’t like it and then the smile changes. It is much more sincere and Nathan beckons him “I’m not leaving you Peter”
In the morning Ianto is the first person there, he wakes him up carefully, doesn’t ask him if he’d had a good night, but does offer him coffee which Peter gratefully accepts.
“Peter.” Peter says.
Ianto stops in his tracks.
“Nice to meet you Ianto, I am Peter.” The name fits him like nothing else, it is a small victory but he feels elated nonetheless.
Everyone seems overjoyed at his discovery, Peter only wishes that he can remember as much as he now knows. Tosh was quickly able to find out that Nathan Petrelli had a missing brother by the name of Peter. They found a grainy photograph of Peter graduating from high school, a press release informing the public about Peter’s mental state, and his frequent spells at New York hospitals.
Peter is presumed dead and is apparently mentally unstable, though he refuses to believe that. He doesn’t feel crazy.
He now knows a little about his life, but remembers none of it apart from his brother, Nathan. He knows Nathan did something important, something connected to flight and the fire released from Peter’s body. He doesn’t tell anyone about his dreams, he is afraid of what they might think, there is the evidence that he is insane.
Peter wants to contact his brother and he tells them so. Jack denies him that request, insisting that they thread carefully, as to not tip off whoever did that to Peter. He is safe here the argument goes, and before he remembers more it might be better for the world to continue believing that Peter Petrelli is dead.
Peter reluctantly agrees, though he can’t stop thinking of Nathan, of his brother who believes he is dead, who lost his career, wife and children because of his grief for Peter. Peter feels guilty, he knows this is all somehow his fault, he wishes he can remember more.
That night he welcomes the dreams.
They are no longer flying. They are on the ground, facing each other in the Kirby Plaza, there are other people there, but Peter sees only Nathan. Something terrible is going to happen he can feel it.
“I need you Peter.” Nathan says, he is not the man from the photos, the smooth politician. He has a beard and his eyes are blind, not looking at Peter but beyond him.
“Nathan” Peter wants to scream at him but no words come out, nothing but silence and Peter is falling, he is tumbling down and this time there is no one there to catch him. The speed with which his memories return to him is painful and bright. The noise is extraordinary, he feels like his head is going to explode. But it is all back, his life, his best friend in school, his father’s suicide, his nursing, Simone, his mother, Claire, Mohinder,
Nathan, always Nathan.
Sylar. How could he have forgotten Sylar.
Ted Sprague.
The explosion, he exploded. Everything till that moment is suddenly there and he can’t remember what it is like for it not to be, everything in the last four months is a hole of blackness.
He is awake now, the transition into consciousness almost unnoticeable. He is breathing hard and he feels parched. He needs water. Nathan. Fresh air. Nathan
To escape. Not that he is being kept here as a prisoner, but for all he remembers of the last four months, this could simply be a trick, an illusion, it is possible, he knows that everything is possible.
He leaves them a note, a sort of explanation, a thank you.
By the time he gets outside the sun is just about to light Cardiff and a few workers can be seen about. It is freezing however and Peter shivers in the thin cotton shirt he’d borrowed.
He looks into the fading darkness and without a shadow of a doubt flies off.