Granite

By: Stretch

Despite his general distaste for camping, hiking, chopping wood, and almost any other nature based activity, Nathan's house contained a surprising amount of wood. In its processed form he found the substance to be much more appealing than when it was coated in bark and leaves and inhabited by small, rodent-like creatures. Dark oaks and rich mahoganies coated the floors, paneled the walls in the residence's grand entranceway, in through the study and kitchen, up the wide banking staircase, and even into his personal office. He found the deep brown tones soothing, their reflective surfaces beautiful.

The slate gray steel lift was a mechanical scar on the face of that beauty. It groaned and whined and whirred, it's presence a constant reminder of the state of his life. Of his wife. Of the guilty burden he carried.

Nathan took the steps two at a time, averting his eyes from the mechanical monster, keeping his hands away from the railing it was bound to. He kept up his swift pace until the double doors to his office were closed tightly behind him. This office had once been his sanctum. Lined with self after shelf of classic novels and antique tomes, the impressive library had been started by his father, and provided the room with a feeling of knowledge and history. But now it was his self designated prison, the place he locked himself away in to hide from the world. But the world, it seemed, had a way of sneaking inside.

"Damned curtains," he hissed under his breath. Slinging his wrinkled suit jacket over the back of his chair, he hid the impressive French doors that led out to the balcony behind the deeply pleated mauve curtains. Dolores frequently opened them to let the light in while she cleaned, despite Nathan's pleading to keep them closed.

"It's stuffy like cave in here, Mr. Petrelli," she would scold in her thick, Russian accent. "The light help you work better." Sometimes it made him wonder just who employed who. But it was a strange request, he imagined, keeping the room perpetually dark. Lately it had become a something of a fixation of his, but he viewed it as a necessity. Something that had to be done.

The desire had been growing inside him. Each time he glimpsed the sky now a part of him longed to take off, to escape from it all. He'd made such a mess of his life. Leave it all behind a little voice would whisper as he walked past the windows to the bathroom in the morning. You could be free raced through his head as he gazed through the wide store front windows of his campaign headquarters. You can do it he heard as he watched the world flashing by through the tinted windows of his SUV brigade.

Just fly.

Each day it seemed like the voices of his little demons grew louder, and desire to use that most illicit gift of his grew stronger.

So he closed the curtains, and he kept his feet on the ground.

A low growl interrupted his thoughts as Nathan heard the lift monster faintly stir to life in the hallway beyond. Plopping into his chair with less dignity than usual, he waited for Heidi to knock at his door.

Naturally, she just burst through it instead.

"Hi sweetie," she greeted him, rolling gracefully through the doors, and not bothering to close them behind her. "How was Texas?" she asked suddenly and Nathan, even with all his political composure, fought to keep from swallowing his tongue. The visit was supposed to have been covert, the destination known only by the head of his security detail and the travel agency. The last thing he needed as was the news of his illegitimate daughter making the papers.

"How-," he managed to choke out before Heidi shot his a scathing look.

"Please, I'm not stupid Nathan, and your secretary likes me. How was it?"

"A giant hassle," he bluffed. "The insurance company keeps contesting some of Peter's medical expenses and…"

"I'm sure you were just doing what was in his best interests, because that's the selfless man I married." Heidi's eyes were fixed upon him with a predatory stare, her voice laced with venom that was already poisoning the conversation. Soon, Nathan would be too weak to escape. Heidi had a way of doing that to him, of stripping away all the layers he built up around himself, all the carefully constructed poise and strength that allowed him to work in his field. Politically he was a shark, but at home he was just a man with a wife who was itching for a fight. She was the predator, and he was the prey.

"Can we not do this now?" he protested in futility. "The kids are asleep right down the hall and-"

"And they can sleep through almost anything," she interrupted. "Just like me recently. I can sleep alone in that big, empty bed while you're halfway across the country doing God knows what…or who, I should say. No, I think now is the perfect time to have this conversation."

Nathan turned away from her and began digging through his papers. The local office was supposed to have couriered over a stack of fundraising request forms that he needed to have ready to go in the morning.

"Look honey, I understand that you're upset and I promise we'll talk about this, just not right now."

"Yes right now," she ordered. Rolling over beside his desk, she slammed her hands down on top file he was digging through. "Now, or this marriage won't have any time left either." Nathan felt the blood leave his face in a very speedy fashion. He was still 4 points down and time was running out. After all the scandal surrounding Peter and his father, and that woman in Vegas, the last thing he needed now was for the press to get wind that his marriage was in trouble.

"Heidi, my campaign is in enough trouble as is without you saying things like that."

"This family is in trouble, Nathan! It has been that damned accident and I don't think you even know it!"

"You told me you didn't want to make a big deal out of your…of your condition. I was just trying to respect what you wanted!" he shot back, running his hands through his travel mussed hair.

"Yes, I didn't want you acting like I was on my death bed anymore, but that didn't mean I wanted you to check out completely! I was operating at half capacity, the boys were struggling with the loss of the mother they once knew, and their Grandfather, and we needed you Nathan! We needed each other!" Her voice trailed off. "I needed you…" That familiar beast of guilt rose up in his chest, clawing at every vital organ until Nathan found it hard to breathe. Beads of sweat broke through his skin, trickled down the back of his neck as he stared down the woman who felt so betrayed by him.

"I though I was doing what you wanted," was the only defense he could muster.

"All I ever wanted was to be with you. But what did you decide to do while this family was lying in shambles? You, the man I love? You decide to run for office! And as a member of the fucking GOP no less!" They were back in familiar territory again. They'd crossed this bridge before, and Nathan was quickly growing impatient of explaining.

"Heidi, you know how hard it is for an Independent to get elected in this town!"

"Yeah, and it was never a problem until you decided you needed to get elected in the first place!" she cried, her voice reaching new octaves of exasperation. It was standing when she couldn't. "I almost think this little chair improves your chances of victory, sweetie. All of a sudden I can be the good wife these people expect you to have. Quiet woman who stays at home to tend to her children and cook your meals, pushing the vacuum along in her wheelchair with her heels and pearls on. Makes you a stiff drink when you come home after a long day at work and rubs your feet. Is that the kind of wife you want me to be?"
"Heidi, what does this-," he started to say, but she cut him off again with a furious flail of her arms.

"Because it sure as hell is the kind of wife your constituents want me to be! These uptight, narrow minded people that you're expected to cater to in exchange for a hole in a piece of paper beside your name."

"That is enough!" Nathan found he no longer cared if the boys woke up, no longer cared if the staff could here him from downstairs. His temples pulsed, throbbing deep back into his brain utill he could hardly think anymore. Palms slammed against the glass top of his desk, piercing the room with an echoing BANG that would have made war weathered men jump out of their skins.

Heidi didn't flinch in her seat. Instead she rolled past his desk and through back the curtains with a quick snap of her wrist. Hitting the doors with more force than necessary, she wheeled herself over the threshold and out onto the balcony, muttering, "I need some air," as she passed him. Nathan knew that was his cue to give her a moment before following.

"I can't do this anymore Nathan," Heidi said mournfully as he stepped thought the balcony doors behind her. She didn't even turn around, just continued to gaze out at the well manicured back yard, and the trees beyond. "I can't just ignore the lying any longer." She finally looked back at him over her shoulder. Black hair invisible against the midnight sky, her eyes were wide and distant, missing all traces of the anger that had been there minutes ago. It had burned off, leaving her quiet and sad.

Leaving her spirit broken, just like the rest of her body.

Nathan felt the bitter taste of bile rise in the back of his throat as he remembered the fiery woman he had fallen in love with, he had married.

He remembered how they used to fight just to have makeup sex for the rest of the afternoon, moving from the bed, to the couch, and eventually to the floor that was littered with their clothing.

He remembered how little Heidi had stood up to his mother as she swooped in to micro-manage their wedding, down to the color of the bridesmaid's dresses. He could see her standing there with her finger poking a baffled and disgruntled Angela Petrelli in the chest, explaining that black was only an appropriate color if someone had died and that she would have none of it at their celebration.

He remembered the breathless, whispered phone call she'd made from the ladies room at the Saks Corporate Building the day her tiny marketing firm won their representation as a client. How she'd been unable to even wait until the end of the meeting to share her victory with him.

The images ran through his head like a flood breaking past the levies. He couldn't stop it, couldn't control it. He was drowning in it. He grabbed blindly for his wife's shoulder, needing to feel her before the tide consumed him completely. She covered his clammy hand with her own smaller one, and he closed his eyes for one, brief instant. He didn't want to see her, wanted to imagine that she was still whole, if only for a moment. That she was still the same spry woman who used to jump him in the shower, who'd strolled gracefully down a flower-line isle to spend the rest of her life with him, who could stand on her two strong feet and stare down a room filled with portly executives.

Who could climb the stairs without the aid of a mechanical monster.

"Too many lies, Nathan," she whispered into the night, piercing the silence. "Since the accident there have just been too many lies."

"I know." Nathan opened his eyes to take in the full view of what he'd done to the woman he fell in love with 15 years ago. What this…what this curse of his had done to his best friend. His hand absently rubbed back and forth along her shoulder, as they both gazed out across the darkened world.

"No more." It wasn't a question, it was an order.

An ultimatum. Heidi was setting her rules.

"There really was a woman in Vegas, wasn't there?" Her voice was empty, hollow, and Nathan knew the question was practically rhetorical. "You let Peter take the fall, but there really was a woman."

"Her name was Niki. And I never meant for it to happen." Her shoulder sagged under his hand.

"I didn't need to know her name," Heidi informed him in the same blank voice. "And in Texas, was there another one there?" Nathan had been expecting that one, but the answer just wouldn't come to him.

"No, just the ghost of one from 16 years ago," he confessed finally. There was no better way to describe Meredith's sudden revival. Heidi turned to look up at him, confusion wrinkling her shadowed brow.

"Then why-," she began, but it was Nathan's turn to cut her off this time.

"Because she left someone behind that we thought we'd lost all those years ago." He met his wife's eyes, unwilling to hide from the mistakes he'd made in a different lifetime practically. "A daughter, we both thought was dead." Heidi didn't even do him the pleasure of looking moderately surprised.

"She's alive?"

"Survived a fire thought to have taken them both, adopted into a new family, curious about where she came from." He dropped his voice at the thought of another mistake he needed to add to his ever growing list. "I wasn't much of a father even when I thought she was alive though."

"I…I don't know what to say," Heidi confessed, looking at him with a lost expression. "She wasn't exactly the woman I was expecting to hear about."

"I was stationed at the naval base in Corpus Christi, and Meredith was a waitress at a dive bar nearby. It was short and we never intended for anything else to come of it. She told me she was pregnant, then 3 weeks later I was transferred back to New York."

"What did you do?" Heidi already knew the answer though.

"Sent money, same thing I did this afternoon," he mumbled. "The girl's got a family, she doesn't need me, and I just needed Meredith to stay quiet about it all. No need to rock the boat after all these years." He wanted to flash her a smile, something reassuring, but he couldn't muster up the nerve. She was taking the news that he had another child remarkably well.

"Keep 'em coming, Nathan. Might as well bare all your skeletons at once," Heidi quipped. "Your closet's getting pretty full as is."

"We all have secrets, sweetie." She flashed him a look of pure malice, brows knitted, eyes wide.

"Not from my husband I don't. Never from you," she proclaimed. "So how many other women have there been?" Nathan's throat contracted and he found himself completely taken aback, unable to speak. Heidi apparently took this as a sign of additional guilt. "You know what, I don't think I want to know if that's how long it takes you to count."

As nimbly as she used to walk, Heidi twirled her chair around and pushed past him towards the house. In a movement that surprised even himself, Nathan grabbed the handle on her chair as she moved around him.

"Wait," he managed to whisper. "Please Heidi…"

"Let me go Nathan," she ordered. "Let me go or I will back you off this ledge without so much as a second thought." She was beyond anger at this point, her voice that dangerous calm which was so much worse than the yelling. Shouting meant she was feeling something. Calm meant she was burying the anger to let it marinade for a while before exploding again.

"You'll just have to push me then, because I'm not letting go. I can't do this without you, Heidi," he pleaded, his voice sounding more like his 3 year old son's than that of a seasoned politician.

Desperate was the way to categorize it.

Nathan Petrelli was desperate.

Beneath his hand, Heidi jerked the chair forward viciously with a strength that came from her constant exercise. Nathan held on with all the resolve he cold muster, and it seemed as though he was clinging to the last vestiges of his marriage. If Heidi left him standing on that porch, he feared the view of her rolling away would be the last he ever saw of her.

"That's funny, because you're already doing just fine without me." Her head dropped, sagging as if she no long had the energy to hold it upright. In a fluid motion, Nathan side stepped around her and parked himself in the doorway, cutting off her exit.

She wanted to run, too. Just like him

But something buried deep inside himself needed her to stay.

Crouched on his knees, he used a finger to lift his wife's drooping head. There were no tears in her dark eyes, and he didn't expect there to be. This…this woman had more strength in her little finger than Nathan did in his entire being. She could escape from the shambles of their marriage without ever looking back, but Nathan would be left smoldering in the wreckage. Heidi was made of granite, nothing could break her. But Nathan…granite was too heavy to fly. He pretended he was strong, but his mother was right. On the inside, he was as fragile as glass.

"Heidi…since the accident I haven't been able to look at you without reliving the fact that I ruined you life." It was the first truly honest thing to slip past his lips in a long time. "I keep telling myself that if I'd done one of a hundred things differently, than you wouldn't be in this situation. If I hadn't gone after Linderman, if we hadn't gone to the party, if we hadn't taken the freeway home, if…"

"If you hadn't decided to do the right thing, Nathan, than I wouldn't be in this chair," Heidi explained. "Your decision to prosecute that man was the last noble thing I remember you doing. And when you dropped the case, it hurt worse than my injury, because you conceded the high ground. And you're…you were better than that." Glaring at him, Nathan felt like his wife's stare was piercing right through his skin. "I was the one who got hurt in that accident Nathan, but the man I fell in love with was the one who died. The man who wouldn't sell out to a known criminal, the man determined not to get sucked in like his farther, the man who put his family before everything else. That man," she muttered, her voice cracking. "That man never came home to us."

Now it was Nathan's turn to look away. The back of his throat contracted out of shame, out of pain. Deep down he knew his wife's word to be true. Things had changed that night six months ago, in more ways than he could comprehend when it happened. The first time he left the ground was when Nathan thought he'd hit rock bottom. Turned out he had a lot farther to fall.

And he was dragging his family along for the ride.

Lately, he'd been cutting them out because it was easier than dealing with the pain, with the fact that his father was dead, that his wife was injured at his hand. Dealing with that, it made him feel like the carefully executed control he had over his world was slipping. So rather than admit that he couldn't do it on his own, he did the easy thing: he cut everybody out. He found temporary passion that relieved the pain he faced at home, and he crawled into bed with the man that crippled his wife instead of stepping into the ring to face him. He sold out, he used his family, his own brother to score cheap political points. He stepped on everyone he cared about. And kneeling there before his wife, in the same position he'd proposed to her in, Nathan Petrelli realized something.

He had become his father after all.

He couldn't remember how long he stayed like that before Heidi used her long-nailed fingers to turn his head, to force him to face her.

"You're not the man I fell in love with," she told him sadly.

"I can still be that man," he muttered, peering up through the darkness and into her eyes.

"I can't hear you."

"I can still be that man," he told her again, his voice stronger than before. His hand crept up and cradled her left cheek, keeping her gaze locked on him. "I want to be the man you need, Heidi. Please let me."

"I'm not sure you remember how." He didn't respond, just continued to stare into her eyes, trying to find some trace of hope in there. Some vestige of love that would prove their marriage had a fighting chance. After seconds that passed slower than hours, Heidi covered his hand in her own gently shaking one. That was all the sign Nathan needed.

"Hey!"

Before she could stop him, he'd grabbed Heidi beneath her legs, and around her shoulders, and had hoisted her petite frame into his arms. Pressed up against her, he could feel her heart pounding from the shock of being whisked away. As if she weighed almost nothing, Nathan walked back towards the railing of the balcony, leaning against it to support both their bodies.

"What the hell are you doing?" the tiny woman demanded, her arms instinctively circling her husband's neck to keep from crashing to the concrete below.

As if he'd ever drop her.

"I wanted it to just be you and I for a second, just like it was before. No baggage, no chair, no more secrets. Just you and me Heidi. Just us." There was a note of pleading in his voice that begged her to agree with him. She glared at him, her expression still pained, but there was a hint of something in her eyes. An expression he hadn't seen in far too long. Something that bordered on affection. "I want to be the man you need, and I want you beside me for the rest of my life."

"I…" she stammered. But Nathan didn't give her a chance to finish. Gently, almost hesitantly, he pressed his lips gently against those of his wife's. She was stiff, rigid for a moment against him. But then she was kissing him back, her lips fiery against his, hands running up under his hair. Heat coursed through them as the two shared their first truly passionate embrace in nearly six months. One tongue sought another, probing between lips until they opened willingly. For one seamless instant in time the two lovers reconnected, and it wasn't until they came up for air that Nathan realized the balcony was now shrinking away several hundred feet below them. Heidi's gasp echoed in his ear as she noticed the world slipping away.

"Oh my God!" She exclaimed in a rush, her arms tightening convulsively around his next. "Nathan what…" she rasped. With his eyes truly seeing her for the first time in far too long, Nathan Petrelli leaned in close to his wife's ear.

"I told you, no more secrets." And he cradled her body tightly as they drifted away.

End