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]

Angela Petrelli had long since decided several things. One, she was not the best mother. Her ambition did not allow her to be. Since she was a teenager, she'd lived on her own, trusted only her own kind, and pulled herself from nothing to become a hero. She only had the best intentions, but even the best intentions can be twisted by a false sense of power.

I never really understood my mother until this moment, standing behind her as she kicks Nathan since she managed to push him down to the gleaming, polished floor of City Hall. For such a tiny woman, she's got so much strength.

"Oh my God, that woman is beating up your--"

"That's my mother," I say without thinking. Peggy puts her hand to my shoulder, trying to give me strength I think. But how can she give me strength when I've picked up everything that was going on inside of my mother's head?

My birth was planned for a particular reason. I was to keep Nathan in line, to give him a connection, and ultimately, to kill a lot of people to boost his career. My mother foresaw so many things. Her gift was a curse, but she followed her visions blindly.

The fact that she's grown a conscious now should make me laugh, but it doesn't.

I sway and then stride forward, so easily breaking the hold on my shoulder as I rush in white pumps to stop the fight. "Please--"

"My God, Peter!"

I pause and straighten up, smiling softly as I touch my stomach. "Paige, actually."

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

This day started out really well. Now I'm on the marble floor of City Hall, bleeding from my lip and my nose, and being stomped by my mother's size seven heels. She's the epitome of a woman scorned, and I don't think I can remember the last time I've seen her this angry. She lands a severe blow to my ribs, the point of her shoe stabbing me right between two of them, and now I can hardly breathe. I cover my face and she kicks me again, this time in the wrist. I moan, "Ma, would you fucking stop it? Peter, do something before she puts one of my eyes out!"

Paige's eyes go wide as saucers, and she reaches over and grabs our mother before she's able to stab me in the jugular vein with the heel of her pump.

Peggy and Slice are looking at one another and mouthing, "What the fuck? Who the hell is Peter?" They have no idea about how severely dysfunctional the Petrelli family really is. And I just called my brother by his real name. Fuck.

Peter is the next recipient of our mother's rage. She pushes him off with strength I can't even believe she has, and Peter lets go, more stunned than overpowered. I have just enough time to notice she's actually a little taller than he is, before she goes after him. She cocks back and slaps him across his face too, and spits, her eyes burning, "You should be ashamed to call yourself my son, Peter. Did Nathan put you up to this charade?" As I get to my feet, she turns and kicks me once more in the shin for good measure.

People are milling around to watch, and I swipe at my bloodied face and dismiss them with a brilliant smile and a wave of my hand. "Everything's fine, folks, nothing to see here." I lean in and grip my mother's arm. "Ma, you have to calm down. You're making a scene," I advise her. Someone here is bound to know that I'm a New York State Senator, and just like that, this altercation will be all over the news. I hope Peter has some kind of tricks up his sleeve to get control of this situation before it gets even more out of hand.

This is a nightmare. I should have known if I wasn't going to screw this up, the Petrelli matriarch would do a fine job of it in my place.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Stumbling backwards, towards two girls ready to claw out the eyes of anyone that hurts me, I stop time. I'm alone in the silence after that, and it lets me drop to my knees to sit out the fit of hyperventilation I'm experiencing. It's been awhile since I've had a panic attack, and I accept it as it is and just let it go, exhaling through my nose until everything stops spinning.

I don't know how to handle this. Situation control is not my forte and I pick myself up slowly to move to Nathan's side. He's still got our mother's wrist, and that's good enough.

I touch them both and for them at least, the world resumes it's course. Everyone else is struck with looks of confusion on their faces. Immediately, Mom pulls herself away from us and gives me a push as she looks around, makeup smeared on her face.

"You have no idea," she says, choking on her own tongue as she tries to stop her quaking, "what you two are doing!"