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]

God, Heidi is not helping. She wants her kids to be well adjusted -- she told me so just moments before -- and now she's making a scene? Simon and Monty are just little guys. Little guys that don't understand where this is going or why it's doing there. I feel for them. I really, truly do. Patting Nathan on the back, we continue up the stairs and I say something that I really can not believe.

"Stay in my room, you and the boys." It's big enough, the bed's got room for all of them and I still have my toys from when I was little in what use to be an attached nursery that later became my office or den as I hit high school. "I'll bunk with Nathan."

I see my mother, wine in hand, grim look on her face as we finish the last few steps out of sight. She's just come from the kitchen. She's got the most knowing look on her face.

I frown. God, she can't know does she? I could read her mind, but I refuse. I can't know for certain. I'd rather be forever in the dark. Sighing, I follow Nathan onto the top of the landing as he turns to look at me.

I hate the tears on his face, but I wait until we are alone and the thick, heavy door is locked to kiss them away.