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.

Comments

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

I debate on how much I'm going to tell this surgeon who undoubtedly saved the lives of my children. I could tell him everything just to satisfy his curiosity, because once my brother gets wind of my revelation, he'll be altering memories left and right. Just like Dad.

But the preventive actions Peter will take will not be done to cover up conspiracies and attain power; they're just a necessary course of action to insure a life of privacy for us and all others like us.

If the world knew about us, they'd lock us up and throw away the key; I told Peter that once and he might not have agreed with me outright, but he heeded my words.

"I need the names of every single member of your hospital's personnel that touched my wife or my children, Doctor," I say instead, ignoring his question as we make our way to the maternity ward. I need to make this as easy as I can for my brother's damage control efforts.

The doctor nods. "Certainly, Senator Petrelli." He leaves me at the door to my brother's room.

My wife, still. She's just been through a terrible ordeal, even if no evidence of the doctor's efforts remain on her body. I lean over her and kiss her forehead. She doesn't have a trace of blood on her, and instead of smelling like strawberries, she smells of antiseptic.

I know she's fine, but with the adrenaline leeching out of my blood, a sense of relief washes over me and I cry just the same. "Peter, I'm sorry," I whisper, taking her little hand in mine. Her eyes flutter open, and the first thing she does is give me her crooked smile.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

"Are they all right?" I can hardly speak, my throat hurts. I'm sure it's from stress and emotion and nothing more. There's a big black gap in my memory. I remember Nathan showing up at the hospital...and that's about it. All I know now is that I can not feel my children. They are gone from my body. And the happy feeling of seeing Nathan now is immediately overcome by worry. "Are they all right?" I ask again, gasping as I sit up.

Nathan doesn't stop me, but I don't jump out of bed like I want to. I don't need to in the end, not when the door to my private room opens and two nurses dressed in pink slip into the room with two bundles in their arms.

"We never got their names," they say, smiling happily as they pass both children off to me. I'm already crying as two pairs of newborn-blue eyes touch me. My boys. They already have dark whispy hair peeking out from their hospital caps and I kiss them with trembling lips. "We'll need them for their birth certificates."

"Lucas Joseph," I murmur for the boy on my right. I know him by touch alone, his serenity filling me. "Daniel Anthony." He's much more active, little arms waving. Both however, are quite engaging, following my lips as I speak.

I look up at Nathan and burst out into a laughing sob.

"They're finally here. Say hello to Daddy!"

[crashgirl82.livejournal.com]

"They're beautiful," I whisper, wiping my eyes. My wife--my brother--is crying and laughing all at once, holding the infants in her arms. She knows which one is which, and I suppose I will too, soon enough. They say the parents of identical twins can easily tell the difference between them.

At this moment, I'm a father five times over, but that doesn't take away from the sense of wonder and awe I feel at bringing new lives into the world. These children are going to be special; I can just feel it. They're going to prove my mother's predictions wrong.

I take one of the babies from Peter's arms, the one who's quiet and still. He reminds me just of how Peter was when I held him for the first time so many years ago. Tiny and pink, all wrapped up in a receiving blanket, dark hair poking out from under the little hat he's wearing. It's too early to decide whether he looks like myself or Peter, or which one of us he'll take after in temperament. It doesn't matter; I'll love them no matter what. They're miracles, both of them.

"We'll be back to take them in an hour," one of the nurses informs us. They then leave us alone to bask in our newfound parenthood. Paige nestles the other infant into the crook of my arm, and watches me closely as I hold them both against my chest and look upon them. They look back at me calmly, as if waiting for me to say something. So I do, with tears in my eyes and love in my heart.

"Hi, little guys."

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

Resting my hand over the blanket, I find my eyes closing. I'm so tired. Being able to heal instantly is as much of my downfall as simply giving birth is. The energy required for using my powers is intense...even for involuntary powers such as regeneration. I remember Peggy and Slice rushing into the room...and after that? Nothing.

Just sleep.

It's dark when I wake up again. I can feel the children close...very close actually. We're not at the hospital anymore. The smell of that place is gone and the spiced incense I've been burning in our bedroom floods my nose. "N-Nathan?"

I blink, hands to my throat. My voice.

I nearly fall getting out of bed, blankets tangled around me, but stop just short of reaching the bathroom. The matching bascinets we bought for the nursery are not in my room, right in the corner. I put my hand on the rail of one, blinking at the size of my hands.

Masculine. Before I yell again, I move into the hallway so as to not wake the boys. "Nathan!"

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

I'm sitting in the kitchen, half-reading the New York Times, half-dropping off to sleep sitting up, thankful for some peace and quiet. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a crying baby in the house, and it's double the noise because there's two. Paige was exhausted when we got home, and she fell right to sleep. I've changed their diapers and fed them and I'm tired myself. Paige can get up with them in the next hour when they start clamoring for their bottles again.

Then I hear it--a voice I'd recognize anywhere, though I haven't heard it in eight months, calls out my name. My heart nearly leaps in my chest.

Peter's voice. He's changed back to himself. I drop the paper on the kitchen table and take the stairs two at a time.

He's standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in a lacy peach nightgown that no longer fits, and his hair is ridiculously long, but he's my brother again.

My brother.

And I almost forgot how beautiful he is.

"Peter," I breathe, opening my arms.

[chimeramimic.livejournal.com]

So it is true then. Nathan's been calling me Paige for the better part of six months, making sure that he doesn't blow my cover as his wife. I'm still shaken, not because of the transformation back again, but because of all of the missing time.

Nathan grabs me in his arms and I feel my concerns about all of that just slipping away. I was exhausted, I tell my self. Of course I don't remember the birth...or coming home. Nathan obviously does, so my blacking out was just stress.

His scent, and the reality of my world fitting itself back together neatly as he half sobbing and half laughing against his shoulder. There's a light stubble on my face and he scratches a finger against it, as if remembering what it was like to kiss a man.

I've been a woman for so long...I think I forgot all about the way he makes me feel, instantly hard, from one kiss alone.

I grin bashfully.

I never believed in fate...but it's got to be fate to become a woman long enough to get pregnant and have the children. We deserve them. Our little family.

[law-anddisorder.livejournal.com]

For the first few moments I hold my brother in my arms, reunited with him after all this time, I can't stop kissing him. I didn't realize until just this second how different he was as a woman.

I remind myself of everything I love about my brother...the scent of his skin, the taste of him as his tongue slides against mine. The light scratch of his facial hair against my cheek as I lower my head to his neck to kiss him there. I intend to take my time, get to know his body all over again, every last part of him.

"I missed you, Peter," I sigh against his shoulder. "Thought I'd never see you again..." I know it's strange, but I feel almost like I did when he came back to me after his explosion over New York. The woman I married, that I've been sleeping next to for months, quickly fades from my mind as I begin to rediscover the man my brother's always been.

He leans into each touch of my lips, rubbing himself shamelessly against me, hard already. I smile at that; I've barely even touched him yet. The insistent friction sends all the blood in my body rushing straight downward, and soon I've got him pinned against the wall, rocking my hips into him, just as hard as he is.

After a few more kisses, I force myself to pull away. "Let me see you, Peter. Let me see my beautiful brother."

He's still smiling shyly, but he does as I ask, taking off the frilly nightgown and dropping it to the floor.

It's like I'm seeing him for the first time all over again; these past eight months, all I've had of him was my memories and my dreams. Everything in its right place. Smooth chest, tight belly. Lightly muscled arms and thighs. Soft, white skin everywhere except for his cock, shaded pink from the blood trapped there. When he was a woman, he shaved everywhere, but a little bit of his body hair has come back with his transformation.

So perfect, and really, truly mine.