A Long Trip Home

[chimeramimicry]

The door is two yards away but I can't move from the top of the stairs.  It's been months, four or so, since I've been here, in this spot.  Gone were the days of trudging up the stairs with my satchel on the way home from work because my building's landlords refused to fix the elevators properly.  Gone too was the pleasure I had of returning to this apartment I paid for with my own money and not from my trust fund.  I donated all of that to charity the moment I turned twenty-five and finished paying off my loans to school.  It was two years ago.  It feels like forever.

I'm not the same man I had been.  I'm not a child anymore.  At least, I want to think that.

I'm still clutching the photograph of my brother and I in our tuxedos.  There's a smudge on it from my thumb and full of creases.  I've not let it go since I opened that box containing everything that I am.  Everything I was.  I left Ireland without looking back.  There was, there is only one thing on my mind.  Nathan.

Nathan.

Nathan.

I know he's here.  I've always felt a connection to him.  Mohinder Suresh called it part of my empathy, to feel things like that.  Funny to be so empathically linked to someone I spent my whole life pining for, who has always had a life to live without me.  He's never had time for me.  Never.

"Just walk, Peter," I whisper to myself as I move to a door I have not touched in a long time.  I swallow.  And knock.  I know he's in here without knowing it.  I almost lose the nerve to knock.  Please answer, Nathan.  Please.

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[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

And here I am, poor little brother, the one that begged Nathan to run away with me on his wedding night. Here I am laying in bed with him, pregnant with his children, rosy cheeked and glowing. What have I become? I've replaced Heidi completely and in absolutely every way. I got what I wished for.

So now I'll be the wife. I'll raise the kids and give up more of myself. And some nights he'll come home to me with a smile and flowers and be warm and wonderful. And some nights he'll come home drunk. And as he grows tired of me, some nights he won't come home. Or bring home the scent of someone else's perfume on his shirt.

How can I survive that and look at our boys?

How did Heidi survive it for ten years?

I look up at the ceiling and pull the ring from my finger. "I can't marry you, Nathan." I smile sadly.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

Peter presses the ring back into my palm, in just the same way he gave me back my own wedding ring that day in Philadelphia when he took it upon himself to save me. He saved me from myself, and he gave me another chance to put it all back together. This is how I thank him. I traded everything for him, and now I've thrown it all away.

I failed Heidi and my boys, and now I've failed my brother and my two unborn children. I have nothing.

My hand grips his tightly before he can pull it away, and I press it to my chest, as if trying to fend off the wound his words have already made inside me. My voice trembles as I plead, "Peter, please. Please don't--"

He just pulls back, and he focuses those beautiful dark eyes on the ceiling, on nothing in particular.

It's over. I'm losing him.

"I know," I say softly, finally admitting it to myself. "I know you can't marry me, Peter."

What a fool I've been to entertain Peter's fantasy and believe I could make it reality. We were meant to be together, and we were meant to push each other away. This is how it ends. He's going to run away again. He's going to take my children away from me, just like Heidi did. I'll be alone, and it's what I deserve. But Peter doesn't.

"Please don't leave me, Peter. They're counting on us," I plead, resting my head on his shoulder, pressing my hand to his stomach again. I can't let them down too.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going to run anywhere," I tell him softly. "I'll be right here when you want to see me. See us. I won't take the boys from you, I'm not a terrible person." I move my hand to his head and gently scratch his hair. "I'm not going to make you forget. I won't try to forget either... But--"

I can feel him cringe when I say that and I don't blame him. I'm trying not to cry.

"Those three days you gave me last week.. I'd do all of this again, suffer everything for you again, to have those days." And it's true. Three days of bliss where I was finally Nathan's everything made me understand what it was I had been missing my whole life. It's all right that it's over. It's all right that I woke up from the dream. I'll always have those amazing days to remember.

So far so good on the tears.

"When Daniel and Lucas are born, I'm going to go back to being Peter Petrelli. Or try to. And if I manage, Paige will have died. I'll be their father. I can't confuse them and they won't understand why their uncle is their father too." I tuck a loose curl behind his ear. "You can visit whenever you'd like, Nathan. If you want sex, I'll give you sex. But we can't be with you. I can't watch you with anyone else anymore because I need to remember those days we had so that I don't hate you."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

So that he doesn't hate me? I traded everything for him. I gave up everything I spent more than a decade of my life making for myself. I'm actually not the one throwing it away. He is.

I fling his hand off me and reach over the side of the bed for my clothes. "I can visit whenever I like?" I demand, incredulity replacing the heartbreak, anger bleeding into my words. "And what are you going to tell them, Peter? That I'm their uncle?" I button my shirt with shaking fingers, and I'm barely able to buckle my belt.

Emotions cut much deeper now that I'm no longer physically dependent on alcohol, and I hope he can feel what he's done to me, how he's turned against me. I suppose I have my brother to thank for helping me to destroy my world and everything in it.

There's only one thing left that's intact, of course, and that's him. But not for long. Peter Petrelli may be indestructible, but there's one person in this world who can still break him. And I'm going to find that person. Peter is going to regret this decision he's made.

"If I can't have them, you won't either. I hope you're strong enough to run and hide for the rest of your life. I hope you can live on memories, Peter, because it's all you'll ever have. Pray that you're lucky enough to never see me again."

This damage is irreparable. He may not want to hate me now, but he will.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

I can not believe he's saying any of these things to me. I can not believe that he is threatening the life of children we made out of love. Any tears I might have cried for him are gone. Any pain I might have had from deciding to be his sometimes lover again is off the table.

He does not deserve that.

And he's not going to get very far. You do not threaten a mother. I may not be one yet, but I talk to my children. Their thoughts are my thoughts, even if they are only just starting to have them. Fuzzy, half conscious moments. But we share them. They know me. I know them. And no one, not even the man I have loved my entire life, will ever take that away from me.

Nathan goes from spitting fire and buttoning his shirt to being pinned face first to the wall.

I understand how Sylar feels, an unfortunate side effect from being too close to him for too long. He's alienated. He wants to be special. He wants someone, anyone, to love him. And if they won't love him, he wants to hurt them.

My face falls. It's flat, I suppose. Flat and dangerous. I climb out of bed while he struggles to pull himself away from the wall. I tilt my head. Sylar. I understand him. Everything about him. I accept it.

"You're not going to do anything," I say, finding a robe to slip into. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before... I... I can make you the man I want you to be."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

My body slams the wall with incredible speed and force, and I turn my head right before my nose smashes on impact. Just because I'm pressed up against the wall so tightly I'm barely able to breathe, just because I'm just a flying politician, doesn't mean I stop my angry tirade. It's all I have left.

I suck in as much air as I can, and I struggle to turn my head to see what he's doing. "You'd better kill me now, Peter. If you don't, you will fucking regret it, I promise you." He won't kill me, but he's going to wish he did, if I can manage to find a way out of this. I try to use my flight to propel myself backward against the force of his telekinetic hold, but it's no use. I struggle until I'm breathless and my heart is threatening to pound its way out of my chest. A fresh shot of adrenaline spikes into my blood as I hear Peter coming closer.

I'm not afraid of Peter. He's not a killer. For Peter to use his powers against me like this, and this particular one, I wonder if he picked up my thought of finding Sylar and convincing him to help me take revenge on my brother.

"Peter," I demand, with the last of my strength. "Let me go." The room is deathly silent, and still I can't move. Minutes pass, and still I'm anchored to the wall. What is Peter going to do to me?

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

"So what? So you can find someone that probably will kill you just because that's why he does? You're an idiot, Nathan. A handsome one, but you have no idea what you're dealing with. And you have no idea how twisted you've become."

I begin to list off his crimes. Statutory rape. "You taught me how to suck you off when I was twelve. That's pedofilia too." I smirk as he squirms and force his jaws shut when he tries to talk. "You made me dependant upon you. You used me like a whore. Every relationship I ever had was ruined because of you. You slept with my girlfriend in college. Simone was killed because you tried to stop me from saving her and everyone else. I left Caitlyn to come back to you."

I lean against the wall to look at him. I'm calm, he's furious.

"You raped me in my own bed and then beat me when I could not manage to speak...even after I made you breakfast."

At least I'm beginning to see guilt in his eyes. Everything he's ever blamed me for has been because of him. Every time I have tried to love him, to tend him, to do what's right for him, he's come to resent me a little more.You, the only man I've completely loved, are allowed a wife.

"In the end, you're allowed to sleep around, fuck whomever you want, be any man you want, but when it comes to me, you call me a slut, you accuse me of being a whore. You've had sex with a hundred more people than I have ever had. You've fathered children by three women...maybe more."

I put my hand to my stomach, cradling are babies.

"And now, because I can not live with you while you cheat on me, you are going to kill the only good thing I have ever made in this world? Out of jealousy, Nathan? You're really going to try and take my children from me?"

I cut off the blood flow to his brain. It's slow. And painful. But it will make him pass out.

"You will never hurt me again. You will never hurt our children. I swear this to you."