Setup: Starting after the end of „Fugitives", before the "Redemption" preview. Peter's point of view. Also appearing: Sythan, Angela, Claire, others. Start as speculative canon. As always, Petrelli-centric. ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes but promise to return it in good condition.

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Tick Tock

"Hello?"

Peter closed the front door behind him and listened, but no reply came. "Mom?" he called again, slightly louder this time. She had to be home; it would be unlike her to leave the door unlocked when she went out. But still, there was no answer.

Mystified, he went through the hall and peered into the living-room and into the kitchen, but she wasn't there.

"Mom!" Peter called again, but again, no reply.

He went upstairs to the second floor and knocked on the bedroom door before he opened it to look inside, in case she was taking a nap. Which would also be very unlike her. But again, no sign of Angela Petrelli.

He took a look into the study – still exactly as his late father (now truly late) had left it – but didn't really expect her to be there. She wasn't in the bathroom either. That left the top floor – where his and Nathan's old bedrooms had been, which were now used as guestrooms, though he knew some of their old stuff was still there – the things they had never bothered to take with them, but which their parents had been reluctant to let go. Or, in Peter's case, a lot of stuff he planned to collect as soon as he moved into a place that could hold approximately twice the number of bookshelves that his current one did.

The first door from the landing was that of Nathan's old room, and he jumped about as much as Angela did as he opened the door and found her sitting on the bed.

"Mom!" Peter said, surprised. "What are you doing up here?" There were several opened cardboard boxes that held Nathan's old stuff – mostly toys, some model aircraft, several books, and a pile of pink-tinted seventies photos.

She closed her eyes briefly and held a hand to her chest. "You gave me a scare! Why didn't you give me a shout?"

"I did," Peter said, frowning. "Something like… three or four times?" With a grin, he added, "Despite that fact that there's 'no shouting in this house'."

"Oh." Her reaction was strangely bland, Peter thought. He'd been half-prepared for a smack. He saw her eyes wandering over the odd collection on the bed, and for a second, he thought that she had been crying, but then decided it must have been a trick of the light.

"I was just going through all this stuff here," she then explained. "I wanted to make some space up here. Nathan was over this morning; I asked him to have a look at these and tell me what he still wanted to keep."

"Nathan's in New York?" Peter asked, carefully keeping the disappointment out of his voice. He could have given him a call.

"Just for a few hours, dear," Angela replied, getting up from the bed and busying herself with starting to pack away the books into a box. "He gave an interview to the Journal and had to be back in Washington for a meeting this afternoon. He did ask about you, but I told him you were at work until evening."

"I see," Peter said, still slightly disappointed, though it was nothing new. Nathan was hard to get hold of these days. It hadn't bothered Peter this spring while they hadn't been on speaking terms; but he had to concede that being on speaking terms with Nathan again didn't exactly result in a lot of communication either. "I don't even know when the last time was that we really talked. I think it was in Coyote Sands. Before we even left for Washington." He sat down on the bed and picked up a few books at random. "But I guess that's my fault too; my free days always seem to coincide with Nathan's busy ones. – Hey! It's been here all the time?" Peter blew some dust from the jacket of Treasure Island. "I've been looking for that one for ages, I thought I'd lent it to somebody and never gotten it back!"

"It's Nathan's," Angela said.

"No, it's mine. I've got Robinson Crusoe and The Last of the Mohicans in the same edition at home."

"But this is Nathan's." Angela opened the cover and pointed at the right-hand corner of the first page, which said, neatly lettered in an adolescent handwriting, Nathan Petrelli. "He probably lent it to you and you thought it was yours." He marvelled at the fact that she had known this before looking inside the book.

"Well." Peter scratched his head. "If he's never come for it in all these years, can I have it?"

It was a weird situation; for a few seconds, Angela was holding the book firmly as if to refuse him, but then she gave him a smile. "I guess he won't need it again," she said as she let him take it.

"So," she said, in a tone of voice he associated much more with his mother than what he had heard from her today – before crashing any notion of his that everything was well by saying, "What are you doing here? Just dropping by?"

"You said to come round for dinner." He said this in a carefully neutral tone.

She cast him an incredulous look and then drew a hand over her face. "Did I really? Today?"

"Well – we talked about it sometime last week, and I said I wasn't free last Friday but could make it the next. I guess I should have called, to make sure?"

Angela shook her head with a tired little smile. "No, it's fine. I'm really sorry; I've been busy too."

"Restarting the Company," he guessed.

"Among other things, but mostly that, yes." She shut the lid of the box. "I'm really sorry I forgot you, Peter. Let's just go out for dinner; I don't really feel like cooking tonight."

"I'll help you clear that up," Peter offered, and scooped up the pile of photographs, but she took them from him and replaced them on the bed. "No, just leave it. I don't feel like clearing up either."

"OK," Peter said with a shrug, and followed her from the room.

"I'll get my coat," she told him, and he lingered behind when he saw that the door to his old bedroom was ajar. Puzzled, he went to close it, and became even more bewildered when he saw, through the door, that it looked just like Nathan's had, with old toys and books spread out on the bed.

He cast a look back to his mother going down the stairs, and into the room again. Then, shaking his head, he quietly pulled the door close, and followed her downstairs.

"So, what would you like?" Angela asked Peter.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "Just nothing big. None of your caviar places." He gave her a grin, and was rewarded with a light smack of her leather gloves that felt oddly reassuring after her strange behaviour earlier.

"Let me guess," she said with an arched eyebrow. "Chinese? Or pizza?"

"Nothing wrong with pizza," he replied, still grinning as he offered her his arm. "Something in walking distance. Some fresh air would be good too."

She steered him to an Italian restaurant that fell about halfway between his usual standard and hers, and when their food arrived, he asked, cautiously, "So, Mom, are you all right?"

She gave a small laugh and busied herself with the contents of her handbag, circuitously putting away her gloves. Peter did note she didn't look at him. "Of course I am. I told you I was busy. There are a lot of things that have to be done, setting up a new Company."

Peter looked unhappy. "I never really liked calling it 'The Company.' Conjures up too many ghosts of the past. In Coyote Sands, I said it was more like a family."

Angela laughed. "Oh, of course. And what better place to discuss that than an Italian restaurant. Might as well go all the way with those mafia connotations."

Peter didn't take the bait. "Aren't you worried about repeating the old mistakes?"

She sobered and looked him in the eyes. "We need to talk about these things, Peter… standard protocols that need setting up."

He raised an eyebrow. "Old mistakes."

"And how to avoid them, yes." She took a sip from her wine glass. "Noah and I may want to fall back into old habits every once in a while, but we do want your input."

"I'm not gonna be your pet watchdog, Mom. If we do this, we'll do it properly. No pulling innocent people from their beds. No isotope markers, no lifelong imprisonments, no experiments."

She set down her glass, and her face was serious now. "You will have to make some allowances, Peter. No lifelong imprisonments, you say. You saw Level Five. You met Flint, and Knox. You can't have these people running free."

Peter poked at an artichoke on his pizza, his jaw working. She had struck a chord. "You are right, we'll need standards," he said. "And one of the main criteria will have to be whether the people are dangerous, not their abilities." He looked up. "What does Nathan say? Distinguishing dangerous people from dangerous abilities hasn't been one of his strong points recently."

"He's prepared to steer the ship around. I know, Peter – if you see the old Company's methods as evil, Nathan's have been even further towards the wrong end of the scale, from your point of view. These things will need to be worked out."

"Maybe I should phone his secretary, set up an appointment," Peter said, the words coming out more bitingly than he had intended.

"Or maybe you should find a job that doesn't have you working twenty-four hour shifts," Angela replied.

"I'm not even working twenty-four hour shifts yet. Paramedic-Intermediate exam is in September. Nathan's the one who's got a whole department jumping whenever he snaps his fingers. I can't do a whole lot about my working hours. Or evening classes."

Angela cast him an unhappy glance. "Are you sure this paramedic thing is what you want to do?"

Peter smiled. "Absolutely, Mom."

"What if it collides with Company work?"

He gave a shrug. "I'll deal with that when it happens."

He was home at ten thirty, having offered to accompany Angela home, but she had told him she was fine. He remembered what she had been like just after the supposed death of their father, how she had never wanted any pity, but had seemed lost all alone in the huge house. She had seemed the same way tonight. He wondered why. It wasn't as if anyone had died.

He took a glance at his watch, hesitating for a second, but then picked up the phone and dialled Nathan's Washington number.

The call was answered by Nathan's answering machine, the usual, dispassionate words, "This is Nathan Petrelli; please leave a message." Even at this hour, Nathan apparently still wasn't home.

Peter sighed. "It's me. I… We haven't seen each other in ages. I know you're busy but… just give me a call, okay? I got the weekend off." He hesitated, then he shut off the connection with another sigh and put down the phone.

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To be continued (?)