Disclaimer: Heroes, its characters, names, etc., belong to Tim Kring.

Spoilers: All Season One.

Summary: She wondered whether what she had seen as weakness wasn't indeed his strength, a strength she herself did not have.

Music: What If – Emilie Autumn

Weakness

He was weak.

She had always known it. She had known even when he was still in his crib, crying softly as though not to disturb anyone, and she couldn't help but remember that his brother's wailing had been heard in the entire house.

She had known it when he was still a child, far too believing, too trusting to survive in this world. His eyes had been large and bright, wide open to all the wonders life had to offer but blind to the pains and suffering it could bring to him. His mouth had always been quick to smile or pout, his heart had always been carried on his sleeve. In his eyes all emotions could be read and they were always an intense whirlwind that dragged him to ecstasy or devastation.

He loved hard and blindly, he put his whole heart and soul into everything he did, he forgave and forgot far too easily. He spoke the truth without filters and he could not recognize a lie in front of his eyes, deceit and pretence were invisible to him. He was willing to trust beyond what could be considered reasonable, he would never doubt those he loved. A boy like that was bound to suffer deception and heartache throughout his entire life, until he toughened up or died struggling.

He never toughened up.

He grew up taller, handsomer. He became a man and left the family home to follow his own path. But he did not change. He kept being the gullible, naïve child he'd always been, idealistic and passionate, kind and trusting. Too trusting, too kind for a world with wolf's fangs that would eat him alive. She should have teached him better. She should have showed him there were shadows in every corner, that there were horrors that didn't vanish at daybreak, that darkness lay in everyone's heart. She didn't, though, and she would pay the price.

Because she could see the path ahead him as clearly as she saw the sun rising in the east. She knew where his flights of fancy would take him, she knew where his steps were headed for even when he ignored it. And it scared her. Because she knew where the path ended, she knew the exact point where shadows would engulf her son as she had already seen them engulf her husband.

Everybody commented on how much alike her husband and her eldest son were and she usually nodded and agreed with them. Both had been stubborn, fiery-tempered and always the center of attention, ambition and sharpness of mind had been their prominent traits. Father and son had had many things in common – but it wasn't in her firstborn's eyes where she saw the ghost of her husband lurking, it wasn't in his voice where she could hear her dead husband speaking.

The vivid imagination, the passion, the idealism. She knew from whom her youngest child had inheritated those. Her husband had been like that once, when they still were young and believed they could change the world. But the world hadn't molded into their wishes, their dreams had crumbled under the weight of harsh reality. All their plans, all their fantasies were gone, leaving a trail of ashes and broken hopes behind.

They had tried to move on. They had tried to settle in, to accommodate. They had tried to achieve more modest goals, to change the things they could control and to accept those that would always remain the same.

She had managed it, because she had always been a survivor. But he was different. Slowly he started to decay, in soul and mind if not in body, as he saw all his hopes die around him. He could never accept that the world would never be the ideal place he had seen in his dreams and something vital broke inside him. She told him they could still make this world a better place, that there were other ways and methods. But his philosophy had always been all or nothing, he could never settle for anything less than perfection. And when the world around them failed to become the ideal place he'd imagined, he lost all hope and the will to live.

She had known she was losing him, but she couldn't let go and for years she had acted as his lifeline until one day the rope that tied him to the land of the living became too thin and darkness engulfed him.

But he wasn't gone, not entirely. Because she could still his spark in her child's eyes, she could still hear his passion in the boy's voice. The same dreams of greatness and glory, the same flights of fancy, the same conviction in fate – all the things that had robbed her husband from her were going to take away her son.

She would not let it happen, though. She knew what needed to be done. She would protect her child from such fate, even if it meant creating a web of lies around him. He was weak, she told herself, and therefore he would not be able to handle the truth. He was weak and a daydreamer like her husband had been, and she had seen what happened when dreams turned into ashes and depression sank in. She would not let it happen twice.

So she lied about his father's death, she lied about his own lineage and history because she knew the burden would be too heavy for his shoulders. She kept him away from the plans and schemes formed before his birth, convinced that his older brother was the one meant to carry on the family legacy, who wasn't neither soft nor trusting. Unlike his younger brother, he wasn't blind to the horrors of this world and he was strong enough to make hard choices. He would be the one to save them all, she decided one day and never thought again about it.

Until today. Until a conversation with an old friend on a roof made her reconsider a few things, such as the true motives she'd had to choose her firstborn over her youngest son to carry on their mission. She had always said it was because her eldest son had inheritated the strengths of both his parents and few of their weaknesses, because he wasn't naïve or idealistic. Now she wondered if that was the truth.

Because trust could be betrayed, but it was easier to keep on walking if you had a shoulder to rely on. Idealism could be crushed by reality, but it gave you a goal to achieve. Hope could be futile, but it could also be a light to guide your steps. Love could lead to heartache, but it gave you strength to swim against the tide.

She had always considered him weak. She had always though that she was supposed to protect him. She wondered now if that was really the case, or if it had been her own heart what she'd been trying to protect by keeping her child away from the line of fire. She wondered whether what she had seen as weakness wasn't indeed his strength, a strength she herself did not have.

Because she could see the hope and passion in his eyes, she could hear the conviction in his voice, and she knew he would be willing to risk it all for what he believed in. That he would sacrifice his own heart to save this world, that he had the strength to give up his life for other people's sake.

It did not matter, though. Her choice had already been made and it would be his eldest brother who would lead them through the dark times that lay ahead, it would be his brother who faced the terrible trials that were to come.

Because she, unlike her child, was not willing to sacrifice her heart. She would not lose the last ray of light, the last piece of warmth she had left. He could be willing to give up his life, but she would not give up on him. She could not.

For his fragility might have been his strength, but his strength was her own weakness. She could not see her child walk through the fire, she could not see the spark in his eyes gone. She wasn't strong enough to let him go, to let him fulfill his destiny.

She realized now that she had been wrong all along.

He wasn't the weak one.

She was.