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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[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

"Okay, Paige, honey, you're going to be all right," I console her as she nearly fractures my hand with her super-strength. Even with her healing ability, her body must be experiencing excruciating pain.

I'm a slight bit worried about what the doctors are going to think once she's had the children and her body speedily recovers. I don't know if the healing is a passive thing, if she can possibly hold it off as not to arouse suspicion. If anything I suppose she's always got Parkman's power to fall back on, though it exhausts her to use it.

And from my past experience with Heidi, I know childbearing is a daunting, draining effort. I feel helpless, but I know just my presence is all Paige needs. I'm her husband. And his brother, too.

No time to worry about any of that now. My heart is pounding against my ribs, and I feel a light sweat breaking out on my body as Paige unsuccessfully tries to hold in a desperate scream of pain. It's been ten years since I've been through this; I missed Monty's birth, but was present at Simon's. Heidi was in labor for seven hours, and by the end of it she was cursing me and threatening to kill me.

Paige knows when things are moving to the next stage even before the obstetrician does, and I see her grasp the edges of the bed she's lying in, her legs spread, her chest heaving, and with a heavy rush of air out of her lungs, her entire face flushes bright red and she bears down with all her strength, which is quite a bit. My eyes go wide when I see she's dented the metal she's gripping. I may love my brother, but there's no way I'm giving him my hand again. Instead I run my fingers gently over her sweaty hair, and try to comfort her as best I can.

The doctor ushers Peggy, Slice, and her girlfriend out of the room, and Peggy calls, "I love you, honey, you're gonna be just fine!"

"Looks like they really want out of there," a fresh-faced intern who's there for the learning experience says to the obstetrician. "I can see the head already."