Title: A Written Request
Summary: Peter fills out another request form. Spoilers for "Ink" and possible spoilers on Emma's character. Peter/Emma
Notes: This was the first plot idea that came to me after watching "Ink," but I had trouble writing an ending for it. Thanks for reading and reviewing!
Peter rapped on the glass wall of the hospital's records room. As he had expected, the file clerk didn't look up. He walked into the room, getting her attention.
"Hi," he said, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
She didn't reply, simply handed him a clipboard and a pen and pointed to the sign taped to her desk: "All requests MUST BE submitted in writing."
"Right," Peter said to himself. "I remember." Clearing his throat, he dutifully filled out the form. He handed the clipboard back to her, and then waited.
Emma glanced at the information Peter had written down, then looked more closely, making sure what she was seeing was real.
In the information fields, Peter had written, I'm Peter Petrelli. What's your name?
She hesitated, then wrote back, Emma.
He read her reply and smiled to himself. It's nice to meet you, Emma, he wrote. He held up the clipboard for her to see his words.
She nodded back in a gesture that said, "Likewise."
Peter wrote something else down on the form. I saw you in the park the other night. You played the cello beautifully.
She swallowed, hoping he had forgotten that. She motioned for him to give her the clipboard, then wrote back, It was nothing. Now, if there's nothing else… She handed the clipboard back to him and made sure he had read it, before looking pointedly at the door, telling him he could leave.
Peter looked at her, tilting his head slightly as he studied her. He sensed there was more to Emma than met the eye. Seeing her at the park had proved that much. The challenge was in getting her to talk to him—or in this case, to write to him.
I'd like to have coffee with you. Is that OK? he wrote.
It took Emma a second to think about her answer, and she promptly wrote it down. Thank you, but no. She looked at his face, wanting to see his reaction. He was disappointed, but apparently undaunted, as he wrote something else down.
Do you ever feel special? Like you're meant for something more? Like you can do more? he asked, underlining the word "do" for emphasis.
She shook her head, her gaze dropping from his face to his upper torso. She saw his chest move in and out deeply, and she guessed that he was sighing.
His questions rang through her mind. Emma thought of her plans before the accident, how she had wanted to become a doctor, wanted to save lives. Now, working as a file clerk in a hospital, she lived only a tiny sliver of her dream. It was, she believed, all she could hope for now.
The clipboard being passed under her nose again brought her back to reality. She glanced up, startled that Peter was still in the room with her.
Are you sure you don't want to have that coffee? he had written.
She smiled slightly, unable to help admiring his persistence, before writing back two simple words. I can't.
Peter read her message and nodded slowly to himself. Guess I'll see you around then, he wrote back.
She waved goodbye, watching him leave the records room at last. She felt a strange mixture of relief and sadness at his departure.
-*-*-
A few days later, Emma was organizing some file folders at her desk when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It was a flash of bright green light on the glass wall. She saw the light again, coming in short bursts, and realized she was seeing the sound of Peter knocking on the glass, announcing his arrival.
He entered the room, waving hello with his right hand, the one he had knocked with. His left hand was holding a small wrapped package. Peter was wearing his paramedic jacket today, and he pulled out some note cards from its inside pocket. He handed the first card from the top of the stack to her, and she took it, reading the note he had written to her.
Hi, Emma. I think I've figured out why you couldn't have coffee with me the other day. Your mug broke the day I came in here asking for one of my accident reports. I helped you pick up the pieces.
Emma nodded, remembering. It was the first time she'd really seen her synethesia.
Peter gave her another note card. Well, I brought you a couple things so you'll have to have coffee with me. No excuses. He offered her the wrapped package he had brought with him.
She took it, opening the wrapping to reveal a new coffee mug holding an individually wrapped tea bag. He had remembered that she drank tea. The gesture won her over. She smiled at the gift, then looked up at Peter, and nodded.
"Okay," she said, speaking to him for the first time. "I'll have coffee with you."
He returned her smile with one of his own. "Great."
"What if I had still said no?" she couldn't help asking.
He showed her the other note cards. "What do you think these were for?"
Her smile grew wider.
-*-*-
They met for coffee the next day. Peter came by her office at the time they had agreed upon, knocking before he came inside, and Emma removed her headphones.
Over his cup of coffee and her mug of tea, Peter and Emma began talking about subjects they were both comfortable with—the weather, sports, her cat.
Finally, she got up the nerve to ask him a more personal question.
"Why do you always knock when you come in here? You know I can't hear it."
"Well, my mother told me it's polite to knock before entering a room. I can stop if you want."
"No, no, I think it's sweet."
He looked askance at her. "You do?"
"Well," she admitted, "I thought you were being ironic at first, but now I think it's sweet."
He laughed. "Okay, then."
He tried to casually remove his jacket and hang it on the back of his chair, but not before Emma saw the note cards peeking out from one of its pockets. She decided to bring it up.
"You brought note cards?"
Peter nodded, looking embarrassed. "I didn't know if you'd feel more comfortable writing things down or not."
Her gaze softened at his answer. "Thank you. That's very thoughtful."
-*-*-
They continued spending their breaks together. Occasionally, one of them would write out what they wanted to say to make sure the other person understood them, but usually they just talked.
Emma still wore her headphones at work, but always removed them during her chats with Peter. She would sometimes teach him how to sign words, and more than once, they would spend the entire fifteen minutes of their break going over the proper way to sign something.
Eventually, they were conversing in sign language for the majority of their time together. Emma loved it because they were saying so much with so little sound. Peter loved it because for him, it was a new way of understanding someone else.
One day, the two of them were laughing at a joke Emma had told. As their laughter subsided, Emma looked at Peter, as if seeing him for the first time.
"What?" he asked, signing the word at the same time.
"You asked me once if I ever thought I was special. Like I was meant to do something more," she said slowly.
He nodded, waiting for her to go on.
"I wasn't always deaf. I was in an accident. Before that, I was studying to become a doctor. But then, afterwards, everything changed."
"I know what you mean," Peter replied, and somehow, she knew he did.
Impulsively, she reached across her desk and took his hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. "Thank you," she said.
Peter smiled. "For what?"
"For helping me learn to reconnect with others again."
His smile widened, and neither of them moved their hand from the other's as Emma acted again on impulse.
She leaned forward, looking deeply into Peter's dark eyes. As she shifted, however, her arm bumped into her coffee mug, sending it crashing onto the floor.
The sound created a burst of red and green lights, the distraction making her laugh and release Peter's hand as she realized what she had been about to do.
"I'm sorry," she said to Peter, but he was silent as he stared, transfixed, at the shattered pieces of mug on the floor.
Misinterpreting the cause for his stunned expression, Emma was quick to reassure him. "I'll pay you back for the mug. Maybe I should use paper cups, huh?"
He blinked, as if coming awake from a trance. "What? Uh, no, don't worry about that." He stared at her, his brown eyes shining now with excitement. "Emma," he said, kneeling on the floor to join her as she began picking up the broken mug. He continued, only using sign language this time. Do you see sounds as colors?
Now it was her turn to be surprised. "How did you--?"
"I saw it too," he explained in a low voice. "I have an ability like you. I can absorb other people's powers."
"Other people's…? No, but the doctor—she said this is very common in deaf cases. It's called synethesia."
"Maybe it starts out that way," Peter began. "But it might evolve into something else."
Emma shook her head, unable to believe his words. "What you're saying, it—it's crazy."
"The mug," Peter reminded her. "When it broke, the sound looked like red and green lights, didn't it?" He hurried over to the glass wall of her office and rapped on it. Green bursts of light emanated from the place where his knuckles hit the glass. "That sound is green." He returned to her, pulling her to her feet and helping her into her desk chair. He crouched before her, talking quietly but clearly, so she could read his lips more easily. "How else would I know what it looks like if I didn't have the same power you do?"
I don't know, she signed.
It's okay, Peter signed back. "We can talk about this. We can figure this out together."
She inhaled deeply, trying to think. Her life had suddenly gotten very confused. "What does this mean?" she asked him.
"It means that you're special," he said, signing as he spoke. "I knew it the moment I saw you playing that cello in the park."
He looked up at her, holding her gaze for a long moment, and she read the sincerity in his eyes. Then, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, and she forgot all about her fear and anxiety, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him closer.
For the paramedic and the file clerk, nothing else mattered to them in that moment except each other.
-fin-