Heroes Fic: "Five Times Nathan Petrelli Crashed Down to Earth" (Gen, PG)
I would like to report that Nathan Petrelli now owns my brain. selenak has aided and abetted this, both through great meta, lunchtime chats, awesome fic and, of course, betaing this, for which she has my thanks.
Gen, spoilers that go through the entire first season of "Heroes," PG -- probably nothing else you need to know. Hope you enjoy!
Summary: Five times Nathan Petrelli's ideas about the world collided with reality, for better or for worse.
"Five Times Nathan Petrelli Crashed Down to Earth"
1.
"You're going to have a baby brother."
"Or sister," his father added, covering Ma's belly with his hand. She smiled at her husband as though she had a secret, the best secret in the world.
Nathan didn't think it was such a great secret. He was 12, an age at which he had felt himself safe from younger siblings. When he was very small, he remembered wishing for a baby brother or sister, even asking for one; this always made his parents laugh, as though he'd told a joke. So he quit asking long before he quit wanting someone to play with, someone who would make even more noise than he did, somebody else who might mess things up in their fashionable, formal home. His nebulous concept of a sibling was essentially somebody who might get in trouble along with him. Company for when he had to go stand in the corner.
But as Nathan got older, he quit getting into trouble so often. He learned how to pitch his voice so that it would carry through the hallways without his ever having to shout. He became almost as fastidious as his mother, the first one to replace a book on the shelf. He forgot all about standing in the corner.
His parents, particularly his mother, told him often how good he was, how smart, how promising. They told him that he could be anything he wanted to be, and they suggested many fine things he might want to be. Nathan tried each alternative on in his mind, as happily as he turned to check his reflection in the mirror when they bought him new clothes. He liked looking right. Doing the right thing. It seemed that he was destined to travel a smoothly paved path of gold, and Nathan couldn't imagine needing to step off that path.
The announcement of Ma's pregnancy jarred all those plans. Nathan's firm ideas about how his life would go had all been unsettled, fragmented and forced apart to admit another person. He knew, also, that he would no longer stand alone in the spotlight of his parents' hopes - the only place he'd ever felt warm.
Nathan tried to confide in his schoolmates, but he didn’t know how to explain what was bothering him. Their sniggering jokes about his parents' sex life didn't help. Nathan kept his concerns to himself thereafter. He would always be better at making allies than friends.
He remained unhappy and confused about the entire idea until the day his parents came home from the hospital with the newborn Peter. Nathan dutifully trooped into his mother's room to examine the intruder.
"Do you want to hold him?" Pa offered a small, blue-blanketed bundle.
Nathan's first reaction was dismay. This didn't look anything like the chubby babies in TV commercials; this was squirming, red and skinny. Sort of lizard-like. Maybe there was something wrong with it.
Then the baby was settled into his arms, and Nathan blurted, "He can't hold up his head!"
"Of course not," Ma said. She sat up in bed, pillows piled behind her, a satisfied smile on her face. "He won't be able to for a while yet."
How were you supposed to do anything if you couldn't even hold up your own head? Obviously Nathan would have to take care of that. He balanced the baby's head firmly in one hand while cradling his body with the other. His brother blinked slowly, a look of utter confusion on his tiny face. Peter didn't know anything about the world yet; it would be up to Nathan to teach him.
He wondered why he was smiling.
Later, when the baby began to wail, Pa apologetically said that was how things would have to be for a while, but Nathan sort of liked it. It was the first time in his memory that the house hadn't seemed too quiet.
Nathan never spent as much time with Peter as he wanted - schoolwork, athletics and the many temptations of adolescence claimed him often enough, and Ma insisted that he butted in too often as it was. "That's the nanny's job," she would say, every time she found Nathan playing with his little brother, and on the one occasion when she walked in to find Nathan matter-of-factly changing Peter's diaper, she looked at her elder son as though he'd lost his mind.
"Li is making my lunch," Nathan said. He was making an excuse for himself, not for the absent nanny. Even the messy parts of having a baby brother were okay with him. Although he was not old enough to articulate why that was, even to himself, later he would understand that this was because everything else in his life was abstract. Only Peter was real.
2.
“What is this?”
Nathan stared down at the sheaf of legal documents his mother had placed before him. He could read the words and had picked up enough in his pre-law classes to know what they meant, but he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Read them through if you want - I suppose it would be good practice for you.” Ma’s smile was thin. She stood in the exact center of the study, her hands braced against the front of Pa’s broad walnut desk, where Nathan sat. “Some of the provisions are fairly complicated. In essence, however, it’s quite simple. You acknowledge that you are not the birth father of Meredith Gordon’s child and, in return for Miss Gordon’s discretion about your past relationship, you agree to pay her a sum of money that will ensure that she and her daughter are very well cared for.”
“I am Claire’s father.”
“Are you quite positive?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” In the early days, Nathan and Meredith had been together every night he could get away from the naval base. He remembered the whirring white noise of the AC unit in her window, cool breezes against his sweaty bare skin, and the feel of her slender hands tightening against his biceps. Meredith would whisper his name, over and over, as though the sound of it gave her as much pleasure as his body. He distrusted many things about Meredith by the time Claire was born, but he never doubted what they had been to each other at first.
“Then why did Miss Gordon sign?”
Nathan flipped through the pages to the back to see Meredith’s blue-ink, loopy signature. There were four documents, and she had signed them all; the date was exactly one week ago. That didn’t shake his conviction, however. By the time he had seen the signatures, he had also seen the dollar amounts the family attorneys had promised. “You’re trying to buy her off.”
“You’ve never been an idealist, Nathan. This is a poor time to start.”
“Did you even consider asking me about this?”
“I knew I didn’t have to. I knew you would see that this was the right thing to do.”
“I don’t see that.” Nathan finally lifted his head from the pages to stare her in the face. “I don’t see it at all.”
The confident mask of his mother’s expression shifted into something he’d rarely seen in her: uncertainty. "What is it that you plan to do? Do you intend to raise a child in that Soho bachelor pad of yours?"
"I could get another place,” he ventured. “A brownstone, maybe."
“How do you think you’ll manage law school and a baby? Do you honestly think Columbia is such a cakewalk? If so, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“I was thinking -“ Nathan ran out of breath, out of plans. His resolutions were fragile things, untested and unready. “Joint custody. Claire could come here each summer. At least at first. Meredith and I could trade holidays, maybe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Nathan’s patience snapped. “Did you honestly expect me to simply abandon my own child?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
He couldn’t say anything to that at first. Ma had regained her composure and again looked as unruffled as she did when she met her society friends for drinks at the Carlisle. She folded her arms across her chest, as if he were the one who had said something shocking and she were the one who deserved an answer. Her red fingernails gleamed vividly against the ivory brocade of her suit.
“Listen to me, Nathan.” Her voice cut through the seasick haze of doubt, steady as stone. “You made a mistake. The question is whether you’re going to allow that mistake to define the rest of your life.”
A mistake. Nathan could apply that word to Meredith now, without question. They had loved each other once, but the pregnancy had clarified his vision, and hers. Early in her second trimester, she had suggested marrying (“so the baby will have a name”). Nathan had hesitated, only for a second, but it was enough. She had looked up at him, eyes narrowing as she saw the coolness with which he could appraise his expectant girlfriend; in turn he had glimpsed not only wounded love but also disappointed avarice. Neither of them was pure enough to be a hero or a victim - that, at least, Meredith and Nathan had in common.
But his infant daughter - she wasn’t a mistake.
Ma kept talking. “You want to run for office someday. It’s been your dream since high school, and my dream for you. An illegitimate child is a liability you can’t afford to acknowledge.”
“Claire -“
You wouldn’t have to worry about Claire. Miss Gordon seems to love her very much. I’m certain that, with adequate financial support, she’ll prove to be a fine mother.”
He wasn’t as sure about that. Then again, what kind of a father would he be? An image flickered before him - law books stacked up around his desk, a baby wailing down the hall in the arms of a nanny, both parenthood and studies a joke.
“Don’t you realize that you’d only add chaos and confusion to Claire’s life? Shuffling between parents, never having one home or one place where she belongs - don’t you see how bad that would be for her? For her sake, as well as yours, we have to come to different arrangements.”
The doctor had let Nathan cut the cord. Blood painted his hands as he turned to the task, gory business that he disliked. Once it was done, he had held out his arms and Meredith had handed Claire to him. He had remembered baby Peter, and how important it was to support her head.
“Arrangements,” Nathan rasped. He cocked his head as he studied Ma. “I could make my own arrangements.”
“Meaning?”
Nathan laid one hand on the heavy black telephone on his father’s desk so that his fingers half-curled around the receiver. “I could call Page Six and tell them that the scion of the Petrelli family is hiding an illegitimate daughter in Texas. Anonymously, of course. They’d be more likely to believe it from an anonymous source than they would directly from me.”
Ma’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”
“You don’t want to wreck my political career ten years down the line? Then we’ll wreck it right here, right now. I’ll phone Meredith and tell her there’s no deal. That way, when the Post and People and the National Enquirer call, she’ll sell her story three times over to make her money back. Pose in the door of her trailer with Claire on her hip. That’ll be a nice photograph for the family album.”
“This is ludicrous. You -“ Her words choked off when Nathan lifted the receiver. She took a step back, one manicured hand to her throat. Nathan didn’t think he’d ever managed to scare her before; it was unnerving how good it felt.
“I’ll pretend that I’ve been publicly shamed into being a part of my daughter’s life,” he said in a low voice. “But I will be a part of her life. You can’t prevent it.”
“This is not the best thing for any of us. This isn’t how it should happen.” Ma spoke more softly now, so much so that he almost believed she really did think this was the right thing for Claire. “You can still make the correct choice, Nathan. You can still walk away.”
“I can’t, and I won’t.” Nathan hesitated, feeling the rip of his lost dreams being snatched away: Mayor Petrelli, Governor Petrelli. That would never happen for him now. Those ambitions had been his mother’s long before they became his own, but they had been his for a long time now. Letting go wasn’t easy. Ten years down the line, when Claire was old news and the scandal had lost power, maybe he could be DA; it was something, something meaningful, but not enough for him or for Ma. More quietly, he added, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who taught you poker,” Ma said dryly. “I only have myself to blame.” They smiled at each other then, adversaries acknowledging mutual respect. She continued, "Will you do one thing for me?"
"That depends."
"Don't tell anyone just yet. Not the press, not your friends, not even Peter. Allow us some time to get the word out gradually. The fewer shock waves this news creates, the better. Don't you agree?"
"That makes sense." Already he was impatient to introduce Peter to his niece, but Nathan knew how to be magnanimous in victory. "We'll give it time."
Ma’s surrender was so convincing that one month later, when the report came about the fire, it never occurred to Nathan that his tragedy was, for her, very convenient.
3.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Nathan didn’t even look at Peter. They were in the back of a taxi, coming home from the hospital. Five days after Heidi’s accident, and she still hadn’t regained consciousness. The doctors no longer thought she would die, but they didn’t know if her body or mind would ever be the same. “You’re more sure about that than I am.”
“Is there something you didn’t tell the cops? You weren’t - drinking, or talking on your cell phone -“
“Nothing like that.” Nathan thought of soaring above the car, looking down at Heidi as she screamed helplessly, and told himself that it must have been a dream. Trauma from the accident. People misremembered all kinds of things after an accident.
“Then what happened wasn’t your fault. You have to stop beating yourself up just because you were thrown clear.” Peter’s dark eyes scanned Nathan, as if searching for signs of the miracle. Nathan only leaned his forehead against the window of the taxi and watched the city lights zip by.
Monty and Simon had gone to stay with Heidi’s parents; their visit would last for almost three months. Nathan took a leave of absence from the firm with the intention of spending as much time as possible at the hospital. But Heidi wasn’t awake often, and when she was, she was usually so drugged up that Nathan felt like a fool trying to speak to her. So he ended up with long days alone at his house, not knowing what to do.
When he sat still and thought about what had happened, he thought about what he had done. Whatever power had snatched him up out of that car had left Heidi alone to die. If that power was a part of him - and maybe it was, no matter how badly he wanted it not to be - then this was his fault after all.
So Nathan did whatever he could to avoid remembering. This usually meant calling Peter, particularly late at night. They rarely talked about what was really bothering Nathan, because Peter knew better than that. Instead they might meet at a diner, where Peter would wolf down burgers and fries while Nathan stared down at his cooling coffee. Or Nathan would go to Peter’s ramshackle apartment and drink a beer while pretending to find his twenty-something hipster friends remotely interesting. At his worst, Nathan would call Peter and hardly be able to talk. Peter would run out of platitudes soon enough. After that, they would just stay on the line, sometimes for hours, saying nothing, only breathing. Nathan would clutch the receiver so tightly his hand hurt.
One night, when things were especially bad, Peter was out - probably at that home hospice car job he’d taken. Nathan wasn’t willing to disturb the rest of a dying man, but he couldn’t endure the terrible stillness of his house. He had to do something. That desperation drove him to go through a hatbox of old letters Heidi kept in the back of her closet. Nathan assumed that he already knew what was in there, more or less: mementoes of their courtship, keepsakes from college, maybe a few childhood dairies. For the most part, he was correct. So when a yellowed letter fell from its place in a stack of photographs, Nathan began to read it with no sense of intrusion. He half expected to see his own handwriting. But it wasn’t his.
I was going to tell you that I hated you for doing this. I was going to tell you that I would have married you and we could’ve been happy, happier than you’ll ever be with whatever trust-fund boy your parents pick out for you someday. I was going to call you a murderer. But then I thought about how fucking scared you must have been, and how your parents get when they tear into you, and I couldn’t be mad any more.
The only thing left for me to say is that I forgive you. I’ll always love you. I hope this gives you the new start you wanted. I’ll try to start over too. But I’ll never forget. I promise you that.
It wasn’t signed. The date set it in the summer after Heidi had graduated from high school. She had never said a word about it.
Nathan had never suspected that Heidi might have a secret. Had anyone suggested it to him, he would have reacted with derision or even outrage. But looking down at this letter, knowing the loving mother that Heidi had become, Nathan felt something very different: an almost unbearably intense wave of tenderness toward his wife.
He’d hidden Claire from her; he had hidden all his scars. Heidi had hidden hers too. Why had he assumed that she wouldn’t understand, that she, too, had always been so polished and perfect? All this time, they’d failed to tell each other who they really were. That was going to change, Nathan resolved. Heidi would come home, and she’d be okay, and everything between them could be different. He wouldn’t be mute and powerless any longer; he wouldn’t live his father’s life, watching his accomplished wife from a distance. Until this, Nathan hadn’t even realized the pattern he’d fallen into.
No, he and Heidi could make their own fate. They could know each other more intimately, with no silences and no secrets, and the happiness of their early marriage would only be a prologue to something better and deeper. At least all of this had happened for a reason.
Heidi’s condition improved. She gained strength; the painkillers were cut back. It turned out that she remembered nothing about the wreck.
“The last thing I recall is lunch,” Heidi murmured as Nathan combed her hair. “Crab cakes and a salad. I raised my hand to try and get the waiter’s attention, because I was out of water, and then - a nurse was telling me to lie still. I could feel the IV needle in my wrist and thought I’d put my hand down on my fork.”
Nathan hesitated. Should he tell her what he remembered - what he thought he remembered? He found that he couldn’t; admitting it to Heidi would have required admitting it to himself. “It’s better this way.”
She wasn’t angry then - not at first, not while there was still hope. But after the first couple of surgeries and the first months of therapy, when Heidi still couldn’t move her feet, she changed. Although she never raised her voice to Nathan, never so much as glared at him, a heavy curtain descended between them. Nathan could imagine what she was thinking: You’ve never told me about the wreck, you were driving during the wreck, what did you do to me, Nathan, what did you do?
He couldn’t tell her. And if he couldn’t tell her that, he couldn’t tell her anything: not about the letter he found in the hatbox, not about Claire, not about the person he really was.
Heidi proved herself incredibly strong - a model of bravery, an icon, not a human being. She spoke to charities and put together outreach organizations. Nathan knew why she did it; it was, in her place, what he would have done. Easier to be a paragon than a person. Although they were capable of laughing and joking around the way they had before, especially when it came to their boys, Nathan knew that something between them had been broken, maybe for good.
He read the literature the doctors gave him about paraplegics and sexuality. They tried several times, enduring nights as awkward and fumbling as junior high. The memory of the athletic sex life they’d once had taunted them as Nathan lifted her knees for her. As time went on, they tried less often.
They slowly eased into separate bedrooms and separate pursuits, both public and private. They did a lot of good for other people and elevated their standing in the city’s philanthropic and social circles. Sometimes they didn’t see each other for days.
When Nathan started screwing around on the side, he suspected that Heidi knew. They never spoke about that either.
4.
“How is Peter feeling?”
Claire stood in the doorway of Nathan’s kitchen. She wore one of Heidi’s silky robes and kept her arms crossed across her chest. For a moment she looked so much like Meredith that Nathan had to blink; then he saw the thick Petrelli eyebrows and the tilt of the head that reminded him so much of Peter. “He’s sleeping upstairs. He’s fine. Thanks to you.”
She ducked her head. “I only knew what to do because it happened to me, too.”
Nathan wanted to ask her what had happened, who had hurt her. Already the thought of someone causing her pain made his gut clench.
But asking her that was asking her to realize that he cared about her - to begin forging some kind of father/daughter relationship - and Nathan didn’t think that was fair to either of them, considering what was coming.
Instead he lifted the pan of milk he’d just put on the stove. “Hot chocolate?”
“Oh. Sure.”
He poured more milk and let it start to warm. Nathan could feel Claire watching him carefully, studying him for clues about what kind of man he was. Her mother might have told her anything about him; the worst things Meredith might have said were mostly true. He kept his voice level and neutral as he said, “So you were the cheerleader in the paintings.”
“I still can’t believe there’s some guy who can paint the future,” she confessed. The sleeves of Heidi’s robe were too long for her arms; just her fingers peeked out from the cuffs. It made her look like a younger girl than she was. “Or that any of us can do what we can do, really.”
“I don’t think it would be easy for anyone to believe. That’s probably what keeps us safe, the fact that people are so slow to believe the extraordinary - even when it’s the truth.”
“You think people would come after us? Because of what we can do? That’s what my dad thinks, too.” Her cheeks flushed as she realized what she’d said. “My other dad, I mean. My -“ Claire lifted her chin defiantly. “My real dad.”
“Then he’s a smart man.” The milk started to bubble; boiling would ruin it. Nathan deftly poured steaming milk into each of their mugs. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
Claire’s first sip left her with a foamy mustache. Nathan remembered feeding her with a bottle. That was one more thing that it wouldn’t be fair to tell her. He said, “If you want to call your dad - your mom, whoever - go ahead. You’re free to do what you want.”
“Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?”
“That’s not what I said.” Nathan took a swallow of his own hot chocolate before adding, more carefully, “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, too. I only meant that you don’t have to do what Ma tells you to do. Don’t let her boss you around.”
That made her smile a little, and Nathan smiled back before he could help himself.
You were willing to let her die. He remembered her face as Isaac Mendez had painted it, eyes wide and stark with fright. Nathan had turned his back on that anonymous cheerleader because it was her life or Peter’s, and he needed Peter. It was sickly ironic, and yet just, that he was unknowingly condemning his own daughter to death.
Every anonymous life out there - every one of those millions in New York City - they could all be Claire.
The solution came to Nathan in that moment. He thought of the explosion, the one that nobody could stop, the one that only Peter could survive. And he thought of Peter’s hope and hubris, the sheer terror of seeing his younger brother plummet from the top of a building and the relief when he managed to catch Peter in his arms.
He could catch Peter again.
“I guess I’ll go back to bed,” Claire said. She lingered there, clutching her bright green mug, clearly waiting for Nathan to say something that might give her a reason to stay.
“Good night.” Nathan watched her as she walked down the hall and disappeared up the stairs.
Nathan didn’t believe it, not yet. From that moment, he told himself that he knew what he would do when the night of the bomb came; he envisioned it, over and over, he and Peter soaring upward into the sky. But it felt a little as though all his plans hinged on the cooperation of an unreliable associate, someone he didn’t know well and who might not show up.
And Isaac’s paintings had shown the city destroyed, in flames. Isaac’s paintings had been proved right before; for that matter, so had Linderman and Ma. What if Nathan’s big idea was useless? What if he got to Peter in time, they soared up into the air, and then Peter exploded only a few feet off the ground? Then New York would be destroyed anyway, and Nathan would have died for nothing.
He was acutely aware that, success or failure, his plan would kill him. Peter was the one who would mend again and be whole. But Nathan would be torn apart, no hope of recovery, no chance of rescue.
The thing was, he and Linderman had one belief in common: This was a sick world. It was hard to give up his life for a world that was sick.
Nathan said nothing about it to anyone. Nothing to Heidi, who could be safely transported out of the city with Simon and Monty just in case. Nothing to Peter and Claire, whose dark eyes looked to him first in hope, then in disappointment and recrimination. Nothing to Hiro Nakamura, who responded to Nathan’s veiled warning by calling him a villain. (Even though he and Hiro were almost strangers to each other, for some reason that word cut Nathan to the bone.) Nothing to Linderman, except one when he sneered at Pa, and even then Nathan bit back all but his first few angry words. And nothing to Ma, who would’ve done whatever it took to stop Nathan from doing what he planned. If he was going to have any chance to change their destinies, he would have to keep it a secret until the last possible second, when nobody and nothing could stand in his way.
Assuming that destinies could be changed. Nathan still wasn’t sure about that. And every time he remembered Isaac’s painting of New York in flames, he felt the slow, sick approach of the inevitable.
5.
"Hey, buddy!"
Nathan opens his eyes and is instantly blinded by a wash of sunlight. He puts his hands over his face and wonders why his whole body hurts, inside and out. It’s like the worst hangover he's ever had, times ten.
"Buddy! You okay there, buddy?"
He rolls onto his side and tries opening his eyes again. This time he can see: blades of sickly yellowish grass, a crumpled Diet Pepsi can, cigarette butts, asphalt and two tennis shoes, old and mended with duct tape. Slowly, Nathan peers upward at the shabbily dressed man who stands over him. "Where am I?" he croaks.
"Off the turnpike."
"New Jersey?" Why would he be in New Jersey? A Nets game - but basketball season hasn't started yet, has it?
Then he remembers.
Kirby Plaza, Claire weeping with a gun in her hand and Peter quivering behind him, unable to control his powers and literally glowing with pain.
Flying upward, faster than he had ever flown before, embracing Peter with all his strength even though Peter's body burned like coals and waves of radiation made him sicker and sicker.
Trying to breathe, finding no air, knowing they were far enough at last, that they'd done it, they'd done it, and -
Nathan sits upright. The movement is too quick, and both his head and stomach spin. But he can deal with that; he’s alive. Alive and in one piece and in New Jersey. He breathes out, "Holy shit."
"I'll say. You want that can?"
"What?"
"That." One duct-taped shoe nudges the Diet Pepsi can. "You want that?"
"Take it."
The shabbily dressed man takes the Diet Pepsi can and tosses it into his nearby shopping cart, then starts pushing it as he walks away, apparently satisfied that Nathan’s alive. He calls out, "You gotta cut down on your drinking, buddy."
"Thanks for the tip." Nathan watches the man go - his torn pants, his shambling gait, the shopping cart weighted down with other people's junk - and makes a mental note to look into effective community initiatives for the homeless.
And that reminds him that he's won the election, too, but compared to the saving-millions-of-lives thing, it’s only the second-best news of the day.
Nathan rises unsteadily to his feet. His clothes aren't as unscathed as he is; his suit has visible scorch marks, and holes have been burnt in his slacks and jacket. Somewhere, something cleaved his tie in two. His hands are coal-black with soot, and he can only imagine what his face must look like. Yet there isn’t a cut on him, not even a splinter. The headache is killer, but it’s only a headache. Nathan can tell.
How did he survive a nuclear blast? What power made that possible?
Peter, he thinks, and he turns his head upward. It’s a pretty day, with only a few clouds dotting the upturned blue bowl of the sky. Nathan doesn’t expect to see his brother there, but remembering their flight helps him focus on Peter, his abilities and the fact that, no matter where his younger brother is, he’s alive.
As is Claire. As are millions of New Yorkers, point-oh-seven percent of the world’s population. Alive and well.
The grin makes his cheeks burn.
Nathan starts walking toward the far-off Manhattan skyline. He didn’t bring his wallet or cell phone with him on his final flight - not much point, if you think you’re going to die. Despite his exhaustion, he knows he can trudge to a service plaza, make a collect call from a pay phone and get a car to pick him up. At first he thinks he won’t call anybody who might conceivably tell his mother; then he thinks he’ll call Ma direct. Nathan isn’t sure whether he wants to show her she was wrong or reassure her both her sons are alive. Fortunately he doesn’t have to choose between the two.
A car pulls over to the shoulder in front of him, and a woman with reddish hair leans out of the door to pour something out of a cup. “Excuse me!” Nathan calls. “Pardon me -- could I get a ride, or just use your cell phone for a moment?”
She stares at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.” Then she squints at him, obviously wondering if she’s seen him someplace after all.
Campaign posters, Nathan realizes, and he gives her his best smile, just like he did for the photographer. “I know this looks strange, but -“ There’s nothing else he can say except, “I swear, I’m a Congressman.”
The car door slams shut, and the vehicle speeds away.
So much for that, Nathan thinks. I guess I’m stuck walking.
Then he laughs, looks up and soars into the sky. Anyone could see him, but Nathan isn’t afraid of anything, not today. Today the world has been reborn as the better place he never believed in - the better place Peter always believed in. At least for today, he is the better man Peter always believed in, too. All Nathan’s old fears are abstract; Peter’s faith is the only thing that’s real.
END
**
I haven't posted in four days and it feels like I'm already so behind that I can only summarize. Last weekend was Book Expo America, which was pretty amazing if also very tiring, and there was also the great Moving of the New AC Units, which ensured that Sunday was no day of rest. Of course, after the movers left, I decided I wanted to rearrange my living room furniture and did so. My leg muscles are giving me a vote of no-confidence on that one. Then there was an altercation with a cockroach in my bathroom that was so large I could hear him walking. That's just not right.
Now, to go get caught up with the_retelling --
Gen, spoilers that go through the entire first season of "Heroes," PG -- probably nothing else you need to know. Hope you enjoy!
Summary: Five times Nathan Petrelli's ideas about the world collided with reality, for better or for worse.
"Five Times Nathan Petrelli Crashed Down to Earth"
1.
"You're going to have a baby brother."
"Or sister," his father added, covering Ma's belly with his hand. She smiled at her husband as though she had a secret, the best secret in the world.
Nathan didn't think it was such a great secret. He was 12, an age at which he had felt himself safe from younger siblings. When he was very small, he remembered wishing for a baby brother or sister, even asking for one; this always made his parents laugh, as though he'd told a joke. So he quit asking long before he quit wanting someone to play with, someone who would make even more noise than he did, somebody else who might mess things up in their fashionable, formal home. His nebulous concept of a sibling was essentially somebody who might get in trouble along with him. Company for when he had to go stand in the corner.
But as Nathan got older, he quit getting into trouble so often. He learned how to pitch his voice so that it would carry through the hallways without his ever having to shout. He became almost as fastidious as his mother, the first one to replace a book on the shelf. He forgot all about standing in the corner.
His parents, particularly his mother, told him often how good he was, how smart, how promising. They told him that he could be anything he wanted to be, and they suggested many fine things he might want to be. Nathan tried each alternative on in his mind, as happily as he turned to check his reflection in the mirror when they bought him new clothes. He liked looking right. Doing the right thing. It seemed that he was destined to travel a smoothly paved path of gold, and Nathan couldn't imagine needing to step off that path.
The announcement of Ma's pregnancy jarred all those plans. Nathan's firm ideas about how his life would go had all been unsettled, fragmented and forced apart to admit another person. He knew, also, that he would no longer stand alone in the spotlight of his parents' hopes - the only place he'd ever felt warm.
Nathan tried to confide in his schoolmates, but he didn’t know how to explain what was bothering him. Their sniggering jokes about his parents' sex life didn't help. Nathan kept his concerns to himself thereafter. He would always be better at making allies than friends.
He remained unhappy and confused about the entire idea until the day his parents came home from the hospital with the newborn Peter. Nathan dutifully trooped into his mother's room to examine the intruder.
"Do you want to hold him?" Pa offered a small, blue-blanketed bundle.
Nathan's first reaction was dismay. This didn't look anything like the chubby babies in TV commercials; this was squirming, red and skinny. Sort of lizard-like. Maybe there was something wrong with it.
Then the baby was settled into his arms, and Nathan blurted, "He can't hold up his head!"
"Of course not," Ma said. She sat up in bed, pillows piled behind her, a satisfied smile on her face. "He won't be able to for a while yet."
How were you supposed to do anything if you couldn't even hold up your own head? Obviously Nathan would have to take care of that. He balanced the baby's head firmly in one hand while cradling his body with the other. His brother blinked slowly, a look of utter confusion on his tiny face. Peter didn't know anything about the world yet; it would be up to Nathan to teach him.
He wondered why he was smiling.
Later, when the baby began to wail, Pa apologetically said that was how things would have to be for a while, but Nathan sort of liked it. It was the first time in his memory that the house hadn't seemed too quiet.
Nathan never spent as much time with Peter as he wanted - schoolwork, athletics and the many temptations of adolescence claimed him often enough, and Ma insisted that he butted in too often as it was. "That's the nanny's job," she would say, every time she found Nathan playing with his little brother, and on the one occasion when she walked in to find Nathan matter-of-factly changing Peter's diaper, she looked at her elder son as though he'd lost his mind.
"Li is making my lunch," Nathan said. He was making an excuse for himself, not for the absent nanny. Even the messy parts of having a baby brother were okay with him. Although he was not old enough to articulate why that was, even to himself, later he would understand that this was because everything else in his life was abstract. Only Peter was real.
2.
“What is this?”
Nathan stared down at the sheaf of legal documents his mother had placed before him. He could read the words and had picked up enough in his pre-law classes to know what they meant, but he couldn’t quite believe it.
“Read them through if you want - I suppose it would be good practice for you.” Ma’s smile was thin. She stood in the exact center of the study, her hands braced against the front of Pa’s broad walnut desk, where Nathan sat. “Some of the provisions are fairly complicated. In essence, however, it’s quite simple. You acknowledge that you are not the birth father of Meredith Gordon’s child and, in return for Miss Gordon’s discretion about your past relationship, you agree to pay her a sum of money that will ensure that she and her daughter are very well cared for.”
“I am Claire’s father.”
“Are you quite positive?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” In the early days, Nathan and Meredith had been together every night he could get away from the naval base. He remembered the whirring white noise of the AC unit in her window, cool breezes against his sweaty bare skin, and the feel of her slender hands tightening against his biceps. Meredith would whisper his name, over and over, as though the sound of it gave her as much pleasure as his body. He distrusted many things about Meredith by the time Claire was born, but he never doubted what they had been to each other at first.
“Then why did Miss Gordon sign?”
Nathan flipped through the pages to the back to see Meredith’s blue-ink, loopy signature. There were four documents, and she had signed them all; the date was exactly one week ago. That didn’t shake his conviction, however. By the time he had seen the signatures, he had also seen the dollar amounts the family attorneys had promised. “You’re trying to buy her off.”
“You’ve never been an idealist, Nathan. This is a poor time to start.”
“Did you even consider asking me about this?”
“I knew I didn’t have to. I knew you would see that this was the right thing to do.”
“I don’t see that.” Nathan finally lifted his head from the pages to stare her in the face. “I don’t see it at all.”
The confident mask of his mother’s expression shifted into something he’d rarely seen in her: uncertainty. "What is it that you plan to do? Do you intend to raise a child in that Soho bachelor pad of yours?"
"I could get another place,” he ventured. “A brownstone, maybe."
“How do you think you’ll manage law school and a baby? Do you honestly think Columbia is such a cakewalk? If so, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
“I was thinking -“ Nathan ran out of breath, out of plans. His resolutions were fragile things, untested and unready. “Joint custody. Claire could come here each summer. At least at first. Meredith and I could trade holidays, maybe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Nathan’s patience snapped. “Did you honestly expect me to simply abandon my own child?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
He couldn’t say anything to that at first. Ma had regained her composure and again looked as unruffled as she did when she met her society friends for drinks at the Carlisle. She folded her arms across her chest, as if he were the one who had said something shocking and she were the one who deserved an answer. Her red fingernails gleamed vividly against the ivory brocade of her suit.
“Listen to me, Nathan.” Her voice cut through the seasick haze of doubt, steady as stone. “You made a mistake. The question is whether you’re going to allow that mistake to define the rest of your life.”
A mistake. Nathan could apply that word to Meredith now, without question. They had loved each other once, but the pregnancy had clarified his vision, and hers. Early in her second trimester, she had suggested marrying (“so the baby will have a name”). Nathan had hesitated, only for a second, but it was enough. She had looked up at him, eyes narrowing as she saw the coolness with which he could appraise his expectant girlfriend; in turn he had glimpsed not only wounded love but also disappointed avarice. Neither of them was pure enough to be a hero or a victim - that, at least, Meredith and Nathan had in common.
But his infant daughter - she wasn’t a mistake.
Ma kept talking. “You want to run for office someday. It’s been your dream since high school, and my dream for you. An illegitimate child is a liability you can’t afford to acknowledge.”
“Claire -“
You wouldn’t have to worry about Claire. Miss Gordon seems to love her very much. I’m certain that, with adequate financial support, she’ll prove to be a fine mother.”
He wasn’t as sure about that. Then again, what kind of a father would he be? An image flickered before him - law books stacked up around his desk, a baby wailing down the hall in the arms of a nanny, both parenthood and studies a joke.
“Don’t you realize that you’d only add chaos and confusion to Claire’s life? Shuffling between parents, never having one home or one place where she belongs - don’t you see how bad that would be for her? For her sake, as well as yours, we have to come to different arrangements.”
The doctor had let Nathan cut the cord. Blood painted his hands as he turned to the task, gory business that he disliked. Once it was done, he had held out his arms and Meredith had handed Claire to him. He had remembered baby Peter, and how important it was to support her head.
“Arrangements,” Nathan rasped. He cocked his head as he studied Ma. “I could make my own arrangements.”
“Meaning?”
Nathan laid one hand on the heavy black telephone on his father’s desk so that his fingers half-curled around the receiver. “I could call Page Six and tell them that the scion of the Petrelli family is hiding an illegitimate daughter in Texas. Anonymously, of course. They’d be more likely to believe it from an anonymous source than they would directly from me.”
Ma’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing.”
“You don’t want to wreck my political career ten years down the line? Then we’ll wreck it right here, right now. I’ll phone Meredith and tell her there’s no deal. That way, when the Post and People and the National Enquirer call, she’ll sell her story three times over to make her money back. Pose in the door of her trailer with Claire on her hip. That’ll be a nice photograph for the family album.”
“This is ludicrous. You -“ Her words choked off when Nathan lifted the receiver. She took a step back, one manicured hand to her throat. Nathan didn’t think he’d ever managed to scare her before; it was unnerving how good it felt.
“I’ll pretend that I’ve been publicly shamed into being a part of my daughter’s life,” he said in a low voice. “But I will be a part of her life. You can’t prevent it.”
“This is not the best thing for any of us. This isn’t how it should happen.” Ma spoke more softly now, so much so that he almost believed she really did think this was the right thing for Claire. “You can still make the correct choice, Nathan. You can still walk away.”
“I can’t, and I won’t.” Nathan hesitated, feeling the rip of his lost dreams being snatched away: Mayor Petrelli, Governor Petrelli. That would never happen for him now. Those ambitions had been his mother’s long before they became his own, but they had been his for a long time now. Letting go wasn’t easy. Ten years down the line, when Claire was old news and the scandal had lost power, maybe he could be DA; it was something, something meaningful, but not enough for him or for Ma. More quietly, he added, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m the one who taught you poker,” Ma said dryly. “I only have myself to blame.” They smiled at each other then, adversaries acknowledging mutual respect. She continued, "Will you do one thing for me?"
"That depends."
"Don't tell anyone just yet. Not the press, not your friends, not even Peter. Allow us some time to get the word out gradually. The fewer shock waves this news creates, the better. Don't you agree?"
"That makes sense." Already he was impatient to introduce Peter to his niece, but Nathan knew how to be magnanimous in victory. "We'll give it time."
Ma’s surrender was so convincing that one month later, when the report came about the fire, it never occurred to Nathan that his tragedy was, for her, very convenient.
3.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Nathan didn’t even look at Peter. They were in the back of a taxi, coming home from the hospital. Five days after Heidi’s accident, and she still hadn’t regained consciousness. The doctors no longer thought she would die, but they didn’t know if her body or mind would ever be the same. “You’re more sure about that than I am.”
“Is there something you didn’t tell the cops? You weren’t - drinking, or talking on your cell phone -“
“Nothing like that.” Nathan thought of soaring above the car, looking down at Heidi as she screamed helplessly, and told himself that it must have been a dream. Trauma from the accident. People misremembered all kinds of things after an accident.
“Then what happened wasn’t your fault. You have to stop beating yourself up just because you were thrown clear.” Peter’s dark eyes scanned Nathan, as if searching for signs of the miracle. Nathan only leaned his forehead against the window of the taxi and watched the city lights zip by.
Monty and Simon had gone to stay with Heidi’s parents; their visit would last for almost three months. Nathan took a leave of absence from the firm with the intention of spending as much time as possible at the hospital. But Heidi wasn’t awake often, and when she was, she was usually so drugged up that Nathan felt like a fool trying to speak to her. So he ended up with long days alone at his house, not knowing what to do.
When he sat still and thought about what had happened, he thought about what he had done. Whatever power had snatched him up out of that car had left Heidi alone to die. If that power was a part of him - and maybe it was, no matter how badly he wanted it not to be - then this was his fault after all.
So Nathan did whatever he could to avoid remembering. This usually meant calling Peter, particularly late at night. They rarely talked about what was really bothering Nathan, because Peter knew better than that. Instead they might meet at a diner, where Peter would wolf down burgers and fries while Nathan stared down at his cooling coffee. Or Nathan would go to Peter’s ramshackle apartment and drink a beer while pretending to find his twenty-something hipster friends remotely interesting. At his worst, Nathan would call Peter and hardly be able to talk. Peter would run out of platitudes soon enough. After that, they would just stay on the line, sometimes for hours, saying nothing, only breathing. Nathan would clutch the receiver so tightly his hand hurt.
One night, when things were especially bad, Peter was out - probably at that home hospice car job he’d taken. Nathan wasn’t willing to disturb the rest of a dying man, but he couldn’t endure the terrible stillness of his house. He had to do something. That desperation drove him to go through a hatbox of old letters Heidi kept in the back of her closet. Nathan assumed that he already knew what was in there, more or less: mementoes of their courtship, keepsakes from college, maybe a few childhood dairies. For the most part, he was correct. So when a yellowed letter fell from its place in a stack of photographs, Nathan began to read it with no sense of intrusion. He half expected to see his own handwriting. But it wasn’t his.
I was going to tell you that I hated you for doing this. I was going to tell you that I would have married you and we could’ve been happy, happier than you’ll ever be with whatever trust-fund boy your parents pick out for you someday. I was going to call you a murderer. But then I thought about how fucking scared you must have been, and how your parents get when they tear into you, and I couldn’t be mad any more.
The only thing left for me to say is that I forgive you. I’ll always love you. I hope this gives you the new start you wanted. I’ll try to start over too. But I’ll never forget. I promise you that.
It wasn’t signed. The date set it in the summer after Heidi had graduated from high school. She had never said a word about it.
Nathan had never suspected that Heidi might have a secret. Had anyone suggested it to him, he would have reacted with derision or even outrage. But looking down at this letter, knowing the loving mother that Heidi had become, Nathan felt something very different: an almost unbearably intense wave of tenderness toward his wife.
He’d hidden Claire from her; he had hidden all his scars. Heidi had hidden hers too. Why had he assumed that she wouldn’t understand, that she, too, had always been so polished and perfect? All this time, they’d failed to tell each other who they really were. That was going to change, Nathan resolved. Heidi would come home, and she’d be okay, and everything between them could be different. He wouldn’t be mute and powerless any longer; he wouldn’t live his father’s life, watching his accomplished wife from a distance. Until this, Nathan hadn’t even realized the pattern he’d fallen into.
No, he and Heidi could make their own fate. They could know each other more intimately, with no silences and no secrets, and the happiness of their early marriage would only be a prologue to something better and deeper. At least all of this had happened for a reason.
Heidi’s condition improved. She gained strength; the painkillers were cut back. It turned out that she remembered nothing about the wreck.
“The last thing I recall is lunch,” Heidi murmured as Nathan combed her hair. “Crab cakes and a salad. I raised my hand to try and get the waiter’s attention, because I was out of water, and then - a nurse was telling me to lie still. I could feel the IV needle in my wrist and thought I’d put my hand down on my fork.”
Nathan hesitated. Should he tell her what he remembered - what he thought he remembered? He found that he couldn’t; admitting it to Heidi would have required admitting it to himself. “It’s better this way.”
She wasn’t angry then - not at first, not while there was still hope. But after the first couple of surgeries and the first months of therapy, when Heidi still couldn’t move her feet, she changed. Although she never raised her voice to Nathan, never so much as glared at him, a heavy curtain descended between them. Nathan could imagine what she was thinking: You’ve never told me about the wreck, you were driving during the wreck, what did you do to me, Nathan, what did you do?
He couldn’t tell her. And if he couldn’t tell her that, he couldn’t tell her anything: not about the letter he found in the hatbox, not about Claire, not about the person he really was.
Heidi proved herself incredibly strong - a model of bravery, an icon, not a human being. She spoke to charities and put together outreach organizations. Nathan knew why she did it; it was, in her place, what he would have done. Easier to be a paragon than a person. Although they were capable of laughing and joking around the way they had before, especially when it came to their boys, Nathan knew that something between them had been broken, maybe for good.
He read the literature the doctors gave him about paraplegics and sexuality. They tried several times, enduring nights as awkward and fumbling as junior high. The memory of the athletic sex life they’d once had taunted them as Nathan lifted her knees for her. As time went on, they tried less often.
They slowly eased into separate bedrooms and separate pursuits, both public and private. They did a lot of good for other people and elevated their standing in the city’s philanthropic and social circles. Sometimes they didn’t see each other for days.
When Nathan started screwing around on the side, he suspected that Heidi knew. They never spoke about that either.
4.
“How is Peter feeling?”
Claire stood in the doorway of Nathan’s kitchen. She wore one of Heidi’s silky robes and kept her arms crossed across her chest. For a moment she looked so much like Meredith that Nathan had to blink; then he saw the thick Petrelli eyebrows and the tilt of the head that reminded him so much of Peter. “He’s sleeping upstairs. He’s fine. Thanks to you.”
She ducked her head. “I only knew what to do because it happened to me, too.”
Nathan wanted to ask her what had happened, who had hurt her. Already the thought of someone causing her pain made his gut clench.
But asking her that was asking her to realize that he cared about her - to begin forging some kind of father/daughter relationship - and Nathan didn’t think that was fair to either of them, considering what was coming.
Instead he lifted the pan of milk he’d just put on the stove. “Hot chocolate?”
“Oh. Sure.”
He poured more milk and let it start to warm. Nathan could feel Claire watching him carefully, studying him for clues about what kind of man he was. Her mother might have told her anything about him; the worst things Meredith might have said were mostly true. He kept his voice level and neutral as he said, “So you were the cheerleader in the paintings.”
“I still can’t believe there’s some guy who can paint the future,” she confessed. The sleeves of Heidi’s robe were too long for her arms; just her fingers peeked out from the cuffs. It made her look like a younger girl than she was. “Or that any of us can do what we can do, really.”
“I don’t think it would be easy for anyone to believe. That’s probably what keeps us safe, the fact that people are so slow to believe the extraordinary - even when it’s the truth.”
“You think people would come after us? Because of what we can do? That’s what my dad thinks, too.” Her cheeks flushed as she realized what she’d said. “My other dad, I mean. My -“ Claire lifted her chin defiantly. “My real dad.”
“Then he’s a smart man.” The milk started to bubble; boiling would ruin it. Nathan deftly poured steaming milk into each of their mugs. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.”
Claire’s first sip left her with a foamy mustache. Nathan remembered feeding her with a bottle. That was one more thing that it wouldn’t be fair to tell her. He said, “If you want to call your dad - your mom, whoever - go ahead. You’re free to do what you want.”
“Can’t wait to get rid of me, huh?”
“That’s not what I said.” Nathan took a swallow of his own hot chocolate before adding, more carefully, “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, too. I only meant that you don’t have to do what Ma tells you to do. Don’t let her boss you around.”
That made her smile a little, and Nathan smiled back before he could help himself.
You were willing to let her die. He remembered her face as Isaac Mendez had painted it, eyes wide and stark with fright. Nathan had turned his back on that anonymous cheerleader because it was her life or Peter’s, and he needed Peter. It was sickly ironic, and yet just, that he was unknowingly condemning his own daughter to death.
Every anonymous life out there - every one of those millions in New York City - they could all be Claire.
The solution came to Nathan in that moment. He thought of the explosion, the one that nobody could stop, the one that only Peter could survive. And he thought of Peter’s hope and hubris, the sheer terror of seeing his younger brother plummet from the top of a building and the relief when he managed to catch Peter in his arms.
He could catch Peter again.
“I guess I’ll go back to bed,” Claire said. She lingered there, clutching her bright green mug, clearly waiting for Nathan to say something that might give her a reason to stay.
“Good night.” Nathan watched her as she walked down the hall and disappeared up the stairs.
Nathan didn’t believe it, not yet. From that moment, he told himself that he knew what he would do when the night of the bomb came; he envisioned it, over and over, he and Peter soaring upward into the sky. But it felt a little as though all his plans hinged on the cooperation of an unreliable associate, someone he didn’t know well and who might not show up.
And Isaac’s paintings had shown the city destroyed, in flames. Isaac’s paintings had been proved right before; for that matter, so had Linderman and Ma. What if Nathan’s big idea was useless? What if he got to Peter in time, they soared up into the air, and then Peter exploded only a few feet off the ground? Then New York would be destroyed anyway, and Nathan would have died for nothing.
He was acutely aware that, success or failure, his plan would kill him. Peter was the one who would mend again and be whole. But Nathan would be torn apart, no hope of recovery, no chance of rescue.
The thing was, he and Linderman had one belief in common: This was a sick world. It was hard to give up his life for a world that was sick.
Nathan said nothing about it to anyone. Nothing to Heidi, who could be safely transported out of the city with Simon and Monty just in case. Nothing to Peter and Claire, whose dark eyes looked to him first in hope, then in disappointment and recrimination. Nothing to Hiro Nakamura, who responded to Nathan’s veiled warning by calling him a villain. (Even though he and Hiro were almost strangers to each other, for some reason that word cut Nathan to the bone.) Nothing to Linderman, except one when he sneered at Pa, and even then Nathan bit back all but his first few angry words. And nothing to Ma, who would’ve done whatever it took to stop Nathan from doing what he planned. If he was going to have any chance to change their destinies, he would have to keep it a secret until the last possible second, when nobody and nothing could stand in his way.
Assuming that destinies could be changed. Nathan still wasn’t sure about that. And every time he remembered Isaac’s painting of New York in flames, he felt the slow, sick approach of the inevitable.
5.
"Hey, buddy!"
Nathan opens his eyes and is instantly blinded by a wash of sunlight. He puts his hands over his face and wonders why his whole body hurts, inside and out. It’s like the worst hangover he's ever had, times ten.
"Buddy! You okay there, buddy?"
He rolls onto his side and tries opening his eyes again. This time he can see: blades of sickly yellowish grass, a crumpled Diet Pepsi can, cigarette butts, asphalt and two tennis shoes, old and mended with duct tape. Slowly, Nathan peers upward at the shabbily dressed man who stands over him. "Where am I?" he croaks.
"Off the turnpike."
"New Jersey?" Why would he be in New Jersey? A Nets game - but basketball season hasn't started yet, has it?
Then he remembers.
Kirby Plaza, Claire weeping with a gun in her hand and Peter quivering behind him, unable to control his powers and literally glowing with pain.
Flying upward, faster than he had ever flown before, embracing Peter with all his strength even though Peter's body burned like coals and waves of radiation made him sicker and sicker.
Trying to breathe, finding no air, knowing they were far enough at last, that they'd done it, they'd done it, and -
Nathan sits upright. The movement is too quick, and both his head and stomach spin. But he can deal with that; he’s alive. Alive and in one piece and in New Jersey. He breathes out, "Holy shit."
"I'll say. You want that can?"
"What?"
"That." One duct-taped shoe nudges the Diet Pepsi can. "You want that?"
"Take it."
The shabbily dressed man takes the Diet Pepsi can and tosses it into his nearby shopping cart, then starts pushing it as he walks away, apparently satisfied that Nathan’s alive. He calls out, "You gotta cut down on your drinking, buddy."
"Thanks for the tip." Nathan watches the man go - his torn pants, his shambling gait, the shopping cart weighted down with other people's junk - and makes a mental note to look into effective community initiatives for the homeless.
And that reminds him that he's won the election, too, but compared to the saving-millions-of-lives thing, it’s only the second-best news of the day.
Nathan rises unsteadily to his feet. His clothes aren't as unscathed as he is; his suit has visible scorch marks, and holes have been burnt in his slacks and jacket. Somewhere, something cleaved his tie in two. His hands are coal-black with soot, and he can only imagine what his face must look like. Yet there isn’t a cut on him, not even a splinter. The headache is killer, but it’s only a headache. Nathan can tell.
How did he survive a nuclear blast? What power made that possible?
Peter, he thinks, and he turns his head upward. It’s a pretty day, with only a few clouds dotting the upturned blue bowl of the sky. Nathan doesn’t expect to see his brother there, but remembering their flight helps him focus on Peter, his abilities and the fact that, no matter where his younger brother is, he’s alive.
As is Claire. As are millions of New Yorkers, point-oh-seven percent of the world’s population. Alive and well.
The grin makes his cheeks burn.
Nathan starts walking toward the far-off Manhattan skyline. He didn’t bring his wallet or cell phone with him on his final flight - not much point, if you think you’re going to die. Despite his exhaustion, he knows he can trudge to a service plaza, make a collect call from a pay phone and get a car to pick him up. At first he thinks he won’t call anybody who might conceivably tell his mother; then he thinks he’ll call Ma direct. Nathan isn’t sure whether he wants to show her she was wrong or reassure her both her sons are alive. Fortunately he doesn’t have to choose between the two.
A car pulls over to the shoulder in front of him, and a woman with reddish hair leans out of the door to pour something out of a cup. “Excuse me!” Nathan calls. “Pardon me -- could I get a ride, or just use your cell phone for a moment?”
She stares at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you.” Then she squints at him, obviously wondering if she’s seen him someplace after all.
Campaign posters, Nathan realizes, and he gives her his best smile, just like he did for the photographer. “I know this looks strange, but -“ There’s nothing else he can say except, “I swear, I’m a Congressman.”
The car door slams shut, and the vehicle speeds away.
So much for that, Nathan thinks. I guess I’m stuck walking.
Then he laughs, looks up and soars into the sky. Anyone could see him, but Nathan isn’t afraid of anything, not today. Today the world has been reborn as the better place he never believed in - the better place Peter always believed in. At least for today, he is the better man Peter always believed in, too. All Nathan’s old fears are abstract; Peter’s faith is the only thing that’s real.
END
**
I haven't posted in four days and it feels like I'm already so behind that I can only summarize. Last weekend was Book Expo America, which was pretty amazing if also very tiring, and there was also the great Moving of the New AC Units, which ensured that Sunday was no day of rest. Of course, after the movers left, I decided I wanted to rearrange my living room furniture and did so. My leg muscles are giving me a vote of no-confidence on that one. Then there was an altercation with a cockroach in my bathroom that was so large I could hear him walking. That's just not right.
Now, to go get caught up with the_retelling --