sam_storyteller | The Hiatus Continuations, Chapter Eighteen

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The Hiatus Continuations, Chapter Eighteen

Title: The Hiatus Continuations, Chapter Eighteen: Life Is A Dream
Rating: PG-13 for language and violence
Summary: Peter learns where he's going, Mohinder learns the truth, Claude learns just how much Peter can eat, Hiro learns what it's like to survive, and Jack learns that maybe God doesn't exist (or maybe He does and is pissed off).
Notes: Thanks and credit to

utility_knife for Isaac's painting; if you'd like to comment on the art, utility.knife@gmail.com is the address to write to. And you should, 'cause it's genius how he always manages to get the angle of the image that's in my head.

Originally posted 4.17.07

PETER PETRELLI - GRACE HOSPITAL - NYC

Peter knows, somehow, that he is in two places at once. He's lying on a hospital bed, the IV needle a dull pain in his arm, the rest of his body dry and crackling with dehydration. Dimly, there are voices; his brother is most audible, but he knows that Claude is there too, at least.

At the same time, he is standing in the middle of a chilly corridor, lined with paintings on both sides, tacked to the wall in an odd, haphazard fashion. Voices echo back to him from a doorway at the end; Claude's is one of them. Claude is unsatisfied with something (when is he not?) and there is another voice, a very young voice, answering him rebelliously.

Peter peers through the doorway into an open, airy room lit by high windows, filled with electronic odds and ends. A young boy, twelve or thirteen at most, has his arms crossed rebelliously over his chest.

"Take a break," he hears himself say. "Get a sandwich or something, kid."

"Not until he gets this," Claude replies -- except the man who looks up at him isn't Claude, or doesn't look like him anyway. Younger, somehow -- maybe not younger, maybe happier. Cleaner, too, and wearing a suit with an open-throated shirt, no tie.

"Come on, lay off him," Peter says. His own voice sounds strange to him. "I want you for an hour or two."

"Fine. We'll get nothing done this way anyway," Claude, not-quite-Claude, answers him. "I've got my eye on you, Sanders."

The corridor seems to lengthen and undulate as Claude and Peter walk together; perhaps it's just the strange way the paintings are hung.

"It's about the genetics lab," Peter says.

"You took me off teaching to talk to me about Suresh?"

"I'm a little worried about him. He's working too hard. He keeps saying he's close to decoding it, but he's been sleeping here the last two nights. I'm not concerned about speed, I want good solid repeatable results."

"Well, what d'you want me to do about it?"

"Talk to him."

"For the love a' fuckin' God, Peter."

"You're better at it than you say you are. Listen, I know it's an obsessive job by nature, but you asked me to tell you this kind of thing. So I'm telling you."

Claude doesn't let his barriers down very often, and Peter's never been able to touch his mind without his permission. Still, there is a kinship between the only two Empaths still living, the only two who've been discovered at any rate. Peter doesn't need the often-too-intimate telepathic link to know what Claude is thinking. He's already turning the situation over in his head.

They emerge from the corridor into a roasting, sunlit gravel lot outside the building. It must be summer, whenever, wherever this is. In the lot, a young man is welding something together.

Except he's not using a welding torch. He's using his finger.

"I hate summer," Claude observes, apropos of nothing. "And I hate having to beat sense into people old enough to know better."

Dr. Suresh is not going to have an easy few days of it, when Claude takes him in hand. But then again, nothing good ever comes easy.

Peter can feel heavy weights on his mind. Money, of course, and social services has been sniffing around about the "homeschooling" Micah and the other kids are getting. Jessica's been seen in Georgia again, and Peter sleeps uneasily when he thinks about Jessica too much. Nathan's sons are getting big and always getting into trouble. Claire's not settling in well, so he talks to her pretty much nightly on the phone. Claude...requires a lot of management. Mohinder's sleeping in the lab. Jack goes Finding whenever the mood strikes, disappearing for days at a time, and he never leaves his goddamn phone on. Claude swears he's going to put a tracking collar on the kid.

Peter knows, though, that this is what he was aching for when he spent all that time training to heal people. This is what he wanted when he leapt off that building and Nathan caught him. This is changing the world, not in big leaps, not in single steps, but at a steady run.

This could be his future. It isn't yet, just an echo of a dream in the mind of a man lying in a hospital bed.

But it could be.

"Well, no rest for the wicked," Claude says, and the dream dissolves into oblivion.

***

HIRO AND ANDO - GRACE HOSPITAL CAFETERIA - NYC

Once Nathan and Jack arrived, Hiro and Ando faded gently into the background; clearly bodyguards weren't needed, and the popcorn Jack had made seemed like a long time ago. Ando, who knew Hiro's limits possibly better than Hiro did, took him to the cafeteria and bought them both the most Japanese food he could find, little trays of disgusting cheap sushi.

"Hiro," he said. "Hiro-kun."

"Mm?" Hiro asked, looking up from a quiet contemplation of his sushi.

"You did it. You saved New York."

"Peter Petrelli saved New York."

"You saved Peter Petrelli. No more kaboom," Ando told him. Hiro picked at one of the limp pink prawns. "Aren't you happy?"

"I'm tired," Hiro said.

"Bakeru's here. That means the Versa must be. I could drive us back to the hotel."

Hiro shook his head.

"No more explosion," he said dully. "We saved New York. But..."

Ando raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"What do we do now?"

***

NATHAN, CLAUDE, AND MOHINDER - GRACE HOSPITAL INTENSIVE CARE

Nathan didn't know how much time passed between arriving and when Claude touched his arm lightly, trying to get his attention. He was frustrated with Peter and with his own inability to help, and when that happened Nathan tended to get very quiet and very thoughtful.

"Done starin' pensively at him?" Claude asked.

"Nobody asked you to be here," Nathan replied.

"Actually, he did," Claude said, indicating the sleeping man on the bed. "In a universal sort of way. He's not going to wake up any faster for you starin' at him."

"He's my brother. He saved my life today. All our lives."

"And he's got a bloody sunburn, he'll be fine soon enough. There's someone you need to meet."

"It can wait."

"No, he can't. Suresh is here."

The curtain around Peter's bed rattled, and a man stepped through. He was pulling an IV cart after him, dressed in a hospital gown, and wore an eyepatch strapped over his left eye. Nathan looked up.

"I'm told I know you," Mohinder Suresh said, looking down at him curiously. "I'm sorry, I've lost a good chunk of the last three months. Are we friends?"

Nathan looked from Mohinder to Claude.

"Sort of," he said. "It's a very...complicated situation."

"The nurses said they've been trying to reach someone by the name of Petrelli, but his phone is switched off."

"Incinerated's more like it," Claude muttered.

"He's the one who put you here," Nathan said, nodding his head at Peter.

"This is all pretty fascinating," Mohinder said earnestly. "My father will want to hear all about it. Did you know, I have microscopic vision in my left eye? It almost makes up for being functionally blind without the eyepatch. This is what I've been studying for ages. My father too. Continuing evolution. Claude says you can fly."

Nathan pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

"Mohinder," he said gently. "Your father is dead."

There was a long silence.

"What?" Mohinder asked.

"He's been dead for a few months. I'm sorry."

Mohinder looked at Claude.

"Don't ask me, I didn't know," Claude replied. Mohinder looked around, momentarily bereft. Nathan stood and offered him his chair.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know. Peter might," Nathan said. "I know where you live. I'll make sure someone takes you there when you're ready to leave."

He touched Peter's shoulder, frowned, and shook his head. "I have to find my daughter. God knows what that stupid kid's gotten her into now."

He left Claude still standing guard over Peter, Mohinder sitting dazed and grieving in the chair. Imagine having to live three months of your life over again. Losing Dad a second time.

And doing it alone.

***

MATT, BENNET, AND ISAAC - THE WAREHOUSE

"What's wrong with him?" Isaac asked. He was wiping paint off his fingers, though his new painting didn't look like much of anything. Just a streak with a few lines through it.

Matt glanced at Bennet, who was sitting on one of the low benches in the warehouse, staring down at his hands.

"He found his daughter," he said. "Then she got lost again."

"You ever think maybe she doesn't want to be found?"

Matt knew he was taking out some odd, sympathetic anger on Isaac, but as he towered over the painter he didn't really care.

"You tell him that and I'll shoot you myself," he growled. Isaac held up his hands, grinning.

"I'm just the junkie, remember?" he said.

"Parkman," Bennet called. Matt gave Isaac a warning look, and crossed the floor.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"We have business to take care of. Come on."

"Hey, what about my fix?" Isaac called, as Matt obediently followed Bennet out the door.

"Detox for a few hours. Maybe it'll motivate you," Bennet called.

Matt was beginning to seriously worry.

***

JACK BAKER - IN UR BASE CAFE

Jack knew that this was the cheapest internet cafe in Manhattan. It was close to the hostel and the coffee was good, which was a deep consideration at eight in the morning. If he was going to find Claire's dad he'd get an early start on it.

It was just, he thought perhaps the owners were a little too zealous about the whole geek gestalt thing. Someone Set Us Up The Brownies were not, he felt, in good taste. Cyberpunkin Muffins were right out.

He sipped his coffee ("Our Beans Is Pastede On Yay") and sat at one of the public-use computers, waiting for GoogleMaps to load. When it did, he searched for the In Ur Base Cafe, and found where he himself was sitting. Man, computers were weird. Here he was, sitting somewhere, looking at a digital map of where he was. That kind of stuff could mess you up if you thought about it for too long.

Carefully, he traced his own movements over the past few days, then back further, all the way along the route he'd taken from Ojai. There was his street. He should call Mom and Dad.

He shook his head. This was only an experiment; maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't.

He scrolled back to New York, zooming out just enough so that he could see Manhattan and most of the surrounding area. He made a circle with his fingers and held it up to the screen. That was how much of New York would be gone if Peter hadn't taken Sylar into the desert yesterday. Deserts were mystical places; you went in and came out changed. Two or three major religions came from the desert.

Jack shook his head again. He dropped his right hand and turned his left hand up, palm hovering over the screen. His tattoo itched.

He didn't know what Claire's dad looked like, and they weren't blood related anyway, but Claire was who she was because of the people who raised her, just like he was. So he thought about who Claire was, and what kind of man her father had to be.

He concentrated hard, first staring at the map between his fingers and then closing his eyes.

Find him. Find him.

Nothing. Not even a tug. He bit his lower lip and doubled his efforts.

Saint Anthony, patron of lost things, Altjira god of the Dream Time, Ganesh who eases the path, Hermes the Messenger, help your servant --

His tattoo itched and burned, and he felt that if he looked it would be glowing neon, though probably that was just the vivid over-imagination of someone raised on sci-fi television.

Darwin, Watson, Crick, Venter, de Jong, Suresh, help your servant --

There was an enormously loud noise, and Jack's eyes flew open as he jerked backwards. The screen made a bzzt! sound and went blank right as the case on the CPU exploded outwards. It just sort of leapt up and crackled, and smoke emerged from the USB ports.

Okay, until they invented gods for computers, maybe GoogleMaps wasn't the way to go about this.

***

CLAUDE RAINS AND PETER PETRELLI - GRACE HOSPITAL INTENSIVE CARE

Peter woke quietly this time, not screaming or scared as he was accustomed to when he found himself in a hospital. His entire body itched, it felt like, but he didn't have the energy to scratch; he just opened his eyes and breathed in the smell of antiseptic and latex.

His mind reeled slowly backwards, over the last things he recalled before he passed out. Gabriel dying in the crater he'd created, Claude summoning him away from the eerie glass-lined hole in the earth. Claire and Nathan, carrying him to safety. Claude's hood over his head. Then...nothing.

He felt an odd sensation, a dream playing up against his consciousness -- someone was dreaming about an underground hospital, padding barefoot past observation rooms where Peter's own family spoke together or drank from little cups of water. Claire and Mom played Uno together in one of them, but in the one right next to it Claire was showing Mr. Bennet a stuffed bear. In a third, Nathan floated as if he were held up by straps, head tilted back, arms loosely outstretched. It was strange to see something in his head that wasn't his.

There was an empty chair next to his bed, or what looked like an empty chair, but Peter knew now where the dreams were coming from. He poked at the air about six inches above two odd dents in the blankets on the hospital bed -- his hand was an alarming shade of red, peeling and cracking -- and there was a snort as the invisible man woke up.

"Mfrrgh?" Claude said, reappearing and pulling his legs down from where they were propped on the blankets. "You 'wake?"

"Hi," Peter said. "You look like death warmed over."

"You should talk," Claude answered, sitting up and tilting his head to one side. His neck cracked alarmingly. "Wha' time isst?"

"I dunno."

Claude twisted his body around to look at a clock on one of the machines nearby. "Half-seven."

"Half what?"

"Listen, I don't do "people" before eight in the morning," Claude grumbled.

"How long have I been here?"

Claude pushed himself out of the chair and stretched, wincing. "Since yesterday."

"You slept in the chair?"

"Someone had to stay. Can't kick the invisible man out." Claude saw his look and frowned. "Don't go gettin' ideas about undyin' devotion. I've slept in worse places."

"You came for me. In the desert. I remember. You found me."

Claude shrugged and turned away, fiddling with one of the machines. "You called for help."

"Not in the desert."

"Doesn't matter. 'Sides, I just stood there like a useless wanker. Claire did all the work. How's your head?"

"Fine...I itch."

"Well, you know how to solve that."

Peter blinked. "I do?"

Claude gave him the most scornful look Peter had encountered since...well, to be fair, since the last time Claude threw him down the stairs.

"Oh," Peter said, and shut his eyes. He pictured Claire, remembered her walking with him over the sand, and felt the itch fade away. When he looked at his hand, it was its usual colour again. Relief washed over him like cold water.

"Now, do somethin' for me," Claude said, turning back to him. He put a hand on Peter's head, not at all affectionately, fingers curling over the top, thumb pressed tightly against his temple.

"Think of Sylar."

Peter, blindly obedient, thought of the man he'd left dying, the brilliant shockwave explosion, the chilling cruelty in his eyes when he'd held Peter against the wall, the pain and fear in them when Peter crashed into him in the middle of a New York street.

"Not Sylar," he said. "Gabriel. That was his name. Gabriel Grey."

"Go on."

Gabriel. Gabriel who wanted so badly to be unique, like Peter did, Gabriel who was devoured by guilt and fear, Gabriel whose hands were so deft, whose life was measured out in cogs and parts, incomplete...

Peter understood what Claude wanted. He wanted to see Peter call up that power, the power that had killed Sylar and Gabriel together. By all rights he should be able to; he'd been at the heart of the inferno, he'd been part of the inferno. But when he opened his eyes, there was no bright atomic fire burning on his skin.

Claude was watching him. Peter knew that if there was the slightest trace of that power, Claude would snap his neck. It wouldn't kill him, but it would definitely distract him.

"It's gone," he said. Claude's hand didn't move. "It burned away."

"Power doesn't just disappear."

"I could feel it. I can feel it. Here," Peter said, clenching his arm. Why his arm, he didn't know; he had DNA everywhere. "It's been blocked off. Didn't Mohinder say..."

"What did Mohinder say?"

"He said my DNA rewrites itself. Our DNA," Peter amended, daring Claude to disagree. "There's...it's like a piece of bone, stuck into that place. It can't rewrite. Blue screen of death," he added, laughing. "When I try it shuts down."

Claude took his hand away. As it moved, Peter felt the barest hint of a caress, his fingers smoothing down a lock of hair, thumb stroking the skin of his forehead.

So that's how it is, he thought to himself. All those demands, all that discipline, and that's the return. But he's proud of me. Finally. And because of that I'll take two seconds of contact and be content.

And he was. He didn't know if Claude had heard him think it or not and frankly didn't care. Claude was proud of him.

"That's all right then. Hospital's a bit suspicious of you; I'd like to get you out before they find you're all better. Reckon you can walk?"

Peter pushed himself up on his elbows, then sat up. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, cautiously, and slid forward. His feet touched the floor solidly enough. He didn't stagger when he put his weight on them. The IV tube tugged on his arm, and he pulled it free carefully. It felt good to move.

"Where's Nathan?" he asked, shifting from foot to foot experimentally. "Claire's okay, isn't she?"

"Right as rain. Dunno where your brother got to; he knew I was stayin'."

"Where are we going?"

"Where would you like?"

Peter thought about it. With Gabriel dead, he could probably go back to his apartment. Or he could go to Nathan's house, his mom was probably there. Or back to the safe-house, that'd be the first place people would look when they found out he was gone.

"I'm starving," he said.

***

ISAAC MENDEZ - THE WAREHOUSE

***

PETER AND CLAUDE - LOWER MANHATTAN

They stole a shirt from the hospital gift shop and a pair of scrub pants from the nearby locker room. Shoes were harder to come by when a ravenous Empath was breathing down your neck, but Claude was past master of the art of scrounge. Before long they were, if not presentable, then at least comically decent.

There was a restaurant near the hospital -- one of those horrible family-themed places with movie memorabilia on the walls. Claude wanted to find somewhere else, but it was the first place they passed.

Peter ate three poached eggs, five waffles, a double-order of bacon, two sausage links, and gulped two cups of horrible coffee. Claude watched in frank amazement.

"You going to finish that?" Peter asked, looking hungrily at the half-finished french toast on Claude's plate. It was the closest that Americans came to fried bread, which was odd considering what else Americans would fry and eat. Claude shoved the plate across and Peter, slowing down now, took the time to cut the food into pieces before eating.

"Somethin' you want to be aware of," Claude said, as Peter chewed. "You been marked, mate."

"Hmm?" Peter asked.

"There's a scar. Hospital asked about it, I put 'em off."

"Not..." Peter paused, hand going to his neck.

"No," Claude answered. And not while I'm alive, he added mentally, to himself. "On your face."

Peter raised his hand to his cheek, cautiously. Claude touched his own jaw, drawing a line from it up to his ear. Peter followed the movement, his hand touching the raised, dark-brown skin.

"How big is it?" he asked.

"Take a look, when you can. Dunno what caused it. Maybe the blast."

"I remember..." Peter's eyes clouded. "My face felt funny when I woke up."

"Looks a bit funny too."

"Nice," Peter replied, frowning.

"Get used to the stares."

"I should call Nathan, tell him I'm okay." Peter looked down at the empty plates in front of him. Claude rolled his eyes and found a few wadded bills in his pocket, tossing them down carelessly. They left without waiting for the check.

Claude lifted a mobile out of a woman's purse and passed it to Peter, who grimaced at the theft but dialed Nathan's number.

"Hey, it's Pete....Sure. Claude fed me breakfast. Where are you?" A pause. "Yeah," Peter said, looking vaguely annoyed. "Claire back at the safe house? Mmh. Okay. Meet you at the office." Peter flipped the phone shut and handed it back to Claude, who shoved it carelessly in his pocket.

"So, now you've saved the city, back to bein' Little Brother?" Claude inquired.

"Hey, gimme a day here," Peter said. "Besides, there's no rush. You taught me enough to save New York, right?"

Claude stopped suddenly, so suddenly that Peter didn't notice; he kept walking, slipping through the New York crowds like someone used to avoiding people, rather than making people avoid him.

He'd admitted to Peter that he didn't know if there was a "next step" for Empaths, that their powers had their limits, unlike others. But it was the first time a student had walked away, dismissing him and what he offered so fully and casually.

Peter stopped and turned around. "What?"

Claude disappeared.

***

JACK BAKER AND CLAIRE BENNET - THE SAFE HOUSE

Jack was sprawled on the couch, legs stretched out, head tilted over the back. He watched as Claire walked to the kitchen upside down, poured herself a soda upside down, and walked back, still upside down.

"When I was a kid," he said, "I used to hang over the end of the big chair in our living room and imagine what it would be like to walk on the ceiling."

"Anyone ever tell you that you're weird?" Claire asked.

"Didn't you do that? I mean, great big ceiling lamps in the middle of the floor, having to step over things to go through doors, being able to reach all the really cool stuff your parents kept on the upper shelves of the bookcases. I used to think, when I grew up, I was gonna get a bunch of ceiling lamps and install them in the floor of my house, like random freaky sculptures. I still might."

"I didn't expect you'd find Dad in a day," she said.

"Well, the internet was no fucking help, that's for sure." Jack said, annoyed. "I even asked Darwin, man, and Darwin made me blow up a computer. It was a close call getting out of there without having to pay for it."

"Why'd you ask Darwin?"

"He seems like the go-to guy for the evolutionary set. That's what we are, isn't it? Mutations? Like in the X-Men. Your dad would look awesome in a cape."

"You'll give yourself a head rush when you sit up," she said.

"Groovy."

"Seriously, what are you doing?"

Jack sighed. "Dunno. I mean, I could go back to where we were, but that place creeps me out, and the more people around, the harder it is."

"How does it work? For you, I mean."

"I just...know. Sometimes it's an itch. Or like something you see out of the corner of your eye. What about you? Doesn't it hurt?"

"Yeah, but...a lot less, I guess. I mean I know it's there, I can feel something's wrong, but it's all kind of distant." Claire flopped down on the couch next to him. He turned a little to look at her; she was tilting her head over the back too.

"The world's different for us," she said.

"Every kid thinks that."

"It is, though. How many people do you know are being kept in a government lockup by their congressman dad while some kid who found them on a Spirit Walk tries to find their Evil Scientist dad?"

"It's definitely a change in perspective, when you put it like that," Jack said. "Maybe that's what I need. A change in perspective. Worked when I went to the Empire State Building to find you."

"Like what?"

"I dunno. I'm looking at this wrong."

They sat there, staring over the edge of the couch, for several minutes.

"Maybe you shouldn't ask Darwin," Claire said.

"Who should I ask? I asked a bunch of people. Well, gods and people."

"Like who?"

"Ganesh, Altjira, Hermes. They make it easier to find things. I even asked Saint Anthony, and I'm not really, you know, all that down with the Catholic Church."

"But they make it easier to find everything. So you should like...ask people, or whatever, who already know where things are. Or something. You don't really believe in all those gods, do you?"

"I'm a pantheist," he said, and then paused. Idea. Whoa.

"Claire?"

"What?"

"If it didn't gross you out, I would totally kiss you again."

"It didn't gross me out," she said, annoyed.

"Okay, but you're like a genius or a muse or something." He sat up, then blinked as the world went fuzzy. "Woo! Head rush. Sit up, it's fun."

Claire laughed and sat up more slowly. He waited until she was looking at him and then grinned.

"Who knows everything?" he asked excitedly. "Come on, gods of wisdom. All-seeing eyes."

"Uh, like Sauron?"

"Okay, except not evil."

"Athena, right?" Claire said. "And um, well, you know, God god."

"And Siddhartha! He's enlightened up to here!" Jack continued excitedly. Claire frowned. "What?"

"It's just...I don't know. Do you really need all that? It's all your power. Like you said, it's DNA."

For the first time since he woke up, knowing the world was different, cold fear washed over him. If the visions were his -- if it wasn't destiny, just knowing where to find the right thing at the right time, if he hadn't actually walked in the Dreamtime or any of that...what if the gods weren't telling him anything. What if they were just watching. To see what he did.

Then he was just an asshole seventeen-year-old stoner with bum DNA, knocking around the world, thinking he was way more important than he was. Maybe Claire wasn't his soulmate, maybe there was no answer to the Spirit Walk because the Spirit Walk was just a name he gave his stupid impulses.

Man, if he were a god he'd be pissed at him right now.

"Jack, say something," Claire said, looking worried.

"Moment of existential crisis," Jack managed, trying not to cry. He was a senior in high school, seniors in high school didn't cry.

"Are you okay? Listen, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to piss you off..."

"It's okay, you didn't, honest," he said. He leaned forward, threading his hands through his hair. It didn't matter. He promised he'd help her find her dad. He still had to answer to his promises or he really was an asshole. What was it Mikey had said? He thought he was alone. But Jack found Mikey. And Claire. So he still had something.

If he thought about Mikey and that bone-crushing, desperate, frightened hug, he could see him. All the rest dropped away and across a handful of state lines he could see him, sitting in the bleachers, eating lunch, carefully avoiding his rough-housing pals, flirting with a pretty redhead.

He came back to reality with a snap so jarring his teeth clicked together. Claire looked really scared.

"Here," he said, offering her his left hand. "Put your hand on my wrist. Like this," he said, holding onto his left arm, palm covering the tattoo. "Close your eyes and think about your dad. Really hard."

Claire grasped his wrist and squeezed her eyes shut. Jack tried hard, knowing you could be a telepath because people were and even if he wasn't, maybe it would work --

He opened his eyes and realised he was standing up, somewhere outside, the cold New York wind biting through his jacket.

"What now?" someone asked, and he turned to see Claire, hugging herself to keep warm.

"Uh," he said. "Where are we?"

"I thought..." she looked at him. "Your eyes are normal again."

"Are they?" he asked, mystified. "Weren't they before?"

"Jack, we've been riding the subway for like twenty minutes and your eyes were all white and I had to tell people you were blind and mentally dysfunctional! Not to mention you wouldn't talk to me at all."

He turned around, but everywhere he looked, he just saw tall grey buildings. And smelled rank water -- they were near a dock.

"I don't...remember," he said. "I thought we were on your couch."

"Yeah, and then you freaked out and dragged me halfway across New York! You don't remember that?"

"No..."

And then that familiar sensation again, the sensation of Knowing, like knowing where his Mom's car keys were or that the twins were reading comic books when they should be sleeping. He knew.

"Your dad's in that building," he said, pointing to one of a dozen identical warehouses.

Next time, on Heroes ("News of the World"):

"His quest is over. He feels useless." "He helped save New York!" "He says, what now?"

The world narrowed down to a single sensation -- his child in his arms.

"When did you find you had this particular talent?" Mrs. Petrelli asked.

"Do you know why I'm here?" Bennet demanded. "Here, in this freezing warehouse? Do you understand what's going on?"

"Alexander Linderman can get fucked," Claude said.

"Mr. Craig was very explicit that only Mr. Bennet attend the meeting."

"But it's the future! It can't just not happen!"

Chapter Nineteen

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

YAY

Love Peter's 'vision' of the future. Also, Mohinder needs to be reaquainted with Peter, IMO. Jack rocks my socks, and I wish Nathan wasn't quite so mean to him.

(Also: First post woot!)

Poor Jack. Life with Nathan is not going to be easy on him...

Ahh, there we go. I've been waiting for this for like an hour, which is just slightly pathetic.

I like Jack's evolution... although Isaac and his rut are starting to piss me off, and I wish there'd been some clue as to what the hell Linderman is playing at.

And Bennet, oh Bennet... he's such a compelling asshole, you've got him really well.

I'm afraid I never really do give much clue as to what Linderman's playing at. *sighs* it's just one of those loose ends I couldn't tie off.

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