Title: And All The World Stood Still
Characters/Paring: Paire, and a slight cameo from everyone's favourite politician. :D
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,335
Spoilers/Warnings: Only for the 5YG verse. :0
Summary: The year passes quickly, so quickly, and everything degenerates around him.
Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, but I AM SO EXCITED FOR THE 4TH SEASON!
A/N: Why, no, you're not imagining me! I have NO idea how I managed to write this between all the schoolwork I have. But here I am, with Heroes fanfic! Written for the "Anniversary" theme at pairechallenge. :) Enjoy!
November 9th, 2007, 4:59 a.m.
If the road to hell really is paved with good intentions then Peter's sure that's exactly where he's headed. He had the intention of saving the world, and he ended up destroying it. And now this.
He's not exactly sure why this happened, why they happened, but here they are, sprawled across each other, wrapped in each other like they're each the blanket for the other.
He can hear her breathing gently--in... out... in... out...--soft breaths tantalizing the skin on his chest with a faux air of innocence.
He senses Claire waking next to him before she even begins to stir, feels her eyes staring at him before she even opens them. Peter can't look at her; he knows if he even dares a glance...
Her fingers reach up to trace the scar on his face, soft on the rough skin. He lets her linger there a little--just a bit longer than he should--before he pulls back and grabs at his pile of clothes on the foot of the bed. He slides them on smoothly, the action effortless to the naked eye. His heart clenches painfully underneath the surface.
You have to leave? He hears her think it involuntarily before she speaks it in a solemn whisper, "You have to leave...?"
Peter squeezes his eyes shut, stretching the taut skin between them almost painfully. He can't look at her. He can never look at her.
"Happy anniversary, Claire," he tells her before grabbing his coat and sliding silently out the door, closing it with a soft 'click'. He waits until he hears her get up and lock it behind him, and then he sets out resolutely into the chilled November air, disappearing into his dark surroundings with a flash of invisibility.
* * *
November 9th, 2006, 6:36 a.m.
All the world is still. Not even a breeze mars the utter silence that is strewn throughout the whole of New York City, its streets littered with debris and ashes for as far as anybody could see--had anyone been seeing. Onlookers from all over the world stand warily around the ruins of the once-great city, but none venture to go any closer than that. They watch, gazes sad, confused, angered, dark.
But none are darker than his. His eyes roam over the city from above, looking at the destruction he knows he let happen. The nation is going to need him. The world is going to need him.
But what Nathan Petrelli needs, right now, is somewhere in the remnants of the city below. What Nathan Petrelli needs is some sign--any sign--that the bomb he had so meticulously and callously placed was still down there, somewhere in the still world below.
So he watches.
---------
Peter's eyes crack open slowly, and something feels different--but he can't quite put his finger on it. The world seems brighter and, somehow, duller, all at once. He feels as though he's looking through the hazy sheen of fog, and he blinks rapidly before pushing himself up to sit on the street.
It hits him. In a flash he's on his feet, glancing around his surroundings with wild, wide eyes. "Wh--?" No. No, no, no, no, no. Buildings are in shambles, disintegrated and destroyed as far as he can see through the dust that's still trying desperately to settle all around him.
Peter can feel his heart sinking faster and faster as the memories of the night before flood into his mind. The fight, Sylar, losing himself, and Claire--
Claire. Claire pointing her gun at him, hands shaking and tears streaming down her face. You have to do it, Claire, it's the only way he'd told her, eyes desperate and pleading--but hers were just-so back at him as she told him that she couldn't, that there must be some other way.
There isn't, he had said. And there wasn't. He'd closed his eyes, she'd pulled the trigger, and the bullet... he remembers hearing it whizz by his ear, missing him by mere inches if that.
The gun had dropped to the ground, and Claire's cries of I'm sorries had echoed in his mind even as the rippling pain tore him open from the inside out.
Claire. It's only then that he can hear the barely-quiet sobs coming from what must have been a doorway to a building before he...
Peter rushes over to her before he even realizes he's moving, kneeling beside her huddled body, careful not to touch her. Seeing her there, huddled, naked and curled into herself... He'd seen her as the indestructible cheerleader, his source of strength and his hope for the world. Seeing her there reminds him that she was just as much a teenage girl as she was all of those.
He finds his throat struggling to work, his voice hoarse. "Clai--"
"It's my fault," she whispers, he feels more to herself than to him. "I couldn't--I couldn't--" Claire glances at him, fixing her gaze between his eyes, and for the first time he notices the sticky red liquid running down his face in rivulets and dripping off his chin. "Your face..."
Peter reaches out for her without a second thought, all but ignoring the lack of clothes between them as he encases her shuddering form with his own.
It was over. It was all finally over, and they, despite all their efforts, had lost.
The scream that tears from his throat echoes gravely throughout the barren city.
* * *
November 8th, 2007, 11:43 p.m.
The year passes quickly, so quickly, and everything degenerates around him. The world grows dark, a shadow of what it had been before. It's an upside-down world where the villains are the heroes, and the heroes are the villains, the terrorists that strike fear into hearts everywhere. He watches as families go into hiding for no crime but their birth, as children are ripped from their parents and parents from their children.
He watches, and he knows that it's all because of him; the scar on his face is a constant reminder of that--as if he could ever forget.
Peter Petrelli walks the world on the anniversary of its destruction, and somehow it leads him back to Odessa, Texas. Save the cheerleader, save the world. It had been his motto for so long that he still believes it's possible, somehow, to change it all.
He figures that's why he's led here, to her. Claire watches him in a mixture of shock and grief and relief and pain, pen dropping out of her hand as he floats through the open window to what must be her apartment. "Peter."
His hands shake involuntarily as he takes a step closer to her, and the feeling of dread and fear rising in his stomach invokes a sense of déjà vu. He almost expects her to pull a gun on him.
"It's been a year," he tells her as if she doesn't already know. Claire gazes at him unblinkingly for a few moments before smiling that sad, little smile, and Peter can feel himself crumble. He's rushing towards her again, and she's standing and rushing towards him, pushing pencils and notes to the floor without a care as she flings herself at him.
Cool fingers dig into his shoulders, grasp at the edges of his shirt and pants as kisses are peppered pleadingly against his neck.
"Please," she whispers, and Peter can feel the sting of her tears against his skin. "Please, I just need to feel something."
A year ago the idea would have never crossed his mind, but now he clutches Claire closer, relishing in the fleeting amounts of warmth she gives him.
He kisses her, melding his lips to hers in a way that brings him both pleasure and grief, and, for the first time since that morning the world woke up to a disaster, all the world stood still.