A/N: Written very shortly after the OMGWTF-inducing season finale yesterday; betaed slightly in the morning for grammar mistakes due to excitement. I've never written Nathan before, so you have been warned. Sit back, relax, enjoy, all that jazz. Do review if you're inclined; it's fun!
Skyhigh
Nathan Petrelli knows that there's another way.
He knows he's wanted to be a hero, wanted to be somebody people talked about long after he was gone. And his mother knew how to make it happen, knew what pieces to move, who had to go and who had to die.
But the entire plan—setting up the bomb and coming back after to see the rubble and wipe the ashes from their eyes and help the world move along—it didn't seem right.
And after seeing Heidi healed, after knowing he had been re-elected, after knowing everyone would be all right—he had seen to it, and now he knew what he had to do.
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He finds them in the Kirby Plaza, Claire's gun pointed at rippling bright Peter, her eyes full of tears. She can't do it—she won't do it, and there's very very little time left.
He says there's another way.
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Peter's just burning in his arms, burning radiation-body heat white white hot, and it's singeing Nathan at the edges. He's breathing in toxins, he's just turning to ashes while Peter goes out, out like a star.
Nathan jumped so high.
He touched the sky, kissed a star before he burnt away to nothing.
And on the ground everyone looks up, pretty with ashes on their eyes, waiting for Peter to come back.
Nobody expects Nathan, who belongs to the sky now.
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