Author's Note: Alright, I have a tendency to have ridiculously long, overdone A/N's, so I'm going to try and keep it concise. Just the basics. Or… y'know… not…

This is totally AU, first off. Nathan never made his unfortunate speech at the end of Powerless, and FuturePeter never came back to stop him. So Peter has returned to New York, and is living with his family (since his apartment got rented out while he was in Level Five) because all that drama never happened. And no Arthur Petrelli. That storyline was one of the lamest things I've ever seen, and although it probably could have been well-done… it wasn't. The formula, fine, that I'll include, but not Daddy Evil #1 returning from "the dead."

Second, the two primary pairings in this fic are, believe it or not, my official ships. The only reason I bring this up is because they're both kind of rare ships. Matt/Audrey hasn't been shipped much since HTSAEM, and as far as I know, I'm the original (and possibly only) Daphne/Peter shipper, but I'm trying really hard to convert as many people as possible. Hence this fic. I'm sure plenty of you are skeptical, but just give it a chance. I hope I do it justice.

Alright, I failed to make it a short A/N, but future ones will be shorter. I promise. One final note: This begins on April 3. Not terribly important, but you may want to know. Now read the story!

--

The dream was just a blur of colors, little else. He could make out the occasional image or sound, but everything was moving too quickly for him to process. He spotted a strange, twisting symbol that he thought he recognized from…somewhere… A flash of light and a scream reached him… Caitlin's scream.

He saw Caitlin, being dragged away from him by the security team in that god-forsaken future they'd been to. He reached for her, trying to get back to her, but it was useless. He couldn't save her. But just as he was about to drop to his knees in despair, Caitlin's cool blue eyes met his, and her expression softened. It's alright, she seemed to tell him. If only he could forgive himself so easily…

And then, he caught a glimpse of a blur of red shooting past him. Distracted, he gave chase, trying to catch up to the person who was outdistancing him. Whoever it was, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, and he caught a glimpse of soulful brown eyes before…

Petrelli Mansion

Peter sat up with a gasp. He glanced around him before remembering where he was- safe in his old bedroom at the family home. Early morning sunlight streamed past the blue curtains, and the sound of horns indicated that the usual traffic on the street below was already in full swing.

He rolled out of bed, rubbing a hand across his eyes. This was the third such dream he'd had in the week he'd been back in New York. Peter had tried everything he could think of to save Caitlin, but nothing had succeeded in getting him back to that future. As far as he could work out, that particular future must have somehow split off from the universe's timeline when he had returned to the past and altered events. Now there was no going back to save her. Caitlin was lost.

If Peter had still been lacking in memories, he would have been more bothered. When he'd been amnesiac, Caitlin had been the only thing keeping him grounded and sane. But he had other anchors now that his memory was restored. He still wanted to help her, try and save her, but he knew now that he didn't love her. And all his routes to helping her seemed blocked except for the most obvious one- keep the future a good one, in the hopes that it would keep her safe.

But no matter how much he told himself that, apparently his subconscious wasn't listening, because the dreams continued to plague him. Peter wondered if it might be that talent he had picked up somewhere of dreaming the future.

No, more likely it was just his restless mind trying to make sense of the sudden return to normalcy. For more than six months, his life had been embroiled in a ridiculous amount of intrigue and things that belonged in a science fiction movie. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to find himself back in his childhood home, as if none of it had happened. As if Kirby Plaza had never happened…

Peter shook that thought out of his head. It had all turned out fairly well, under the circumstances, and there was no use in dwelling on the past.

But that didn't change the fact that he was bored out of his skull. There was no cheerleader to save, no virus to destroy… Childish though it was, he wanted something to do. It was as if someone had suddenly hit the Slow Motion button on the remote control of his life. Peter cast his mind around, until suddenly he hit on an idea. He grinned widely as inspiration filled him.

Immediately animated by the prospect of- well, not really adventure, but something to fill his time at least- Peter dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of well-worn jeans and a button-up shirt his mother had given him for Christmas two years previously. Then he raced downstairs so quickly that only liberal application of Nathan's power kept him from sprawling all the way down the stairs. "Nate! Nathan?" he called excitedly.

"In here!" Nathan's voice issued from the kitchen, and Peter hurried into the room.

Nathan was standing in front of the stove in his shirtsleeves, making omelets. "What're you doing, Nate?" Peter asked, surprised.

Nathan grinned. "Heidi's coming over for breakfast. We're trying to patch things up."

"That's really great, man," Peter said, clapping his brother on the shoulder. "Well then, I'll stay out of your way. Actually, I might be out of the way for awhile."

"What do you mean?"

Peter smiled regretfully. "I'm… Look, I don't have a job, and I'm not doing any good sitting around the house all day, bothering you and Mom. And I figure I have a lot of reconnecting to do. I was gone for almost five months, and people are probably wondering where the hell I've been, so…" He paused, trying to put this in a way that Nathan would understand. "I need something to do. Things have been so crazy, and I don't know that I can go back to the way things used to be, before all this started. I thought maybe I'd go and visit Claire, for starters. Unless you've called her, she doesn't even know I'm alive. And then I thought I'd go apologize to Hiro- I banged him up pretty bad last week. And then… I'll see where it goes from there."

Nathan placed his hands on his brother's shoulders, studying him. "Alright. Just… don't disappear of the face of the earth, okay? We just got you back."

The younger Petrelli grinned. "Don't worry. I'll keep in touch."

"Do you want to tell Mom, or should I?" Nathan asked.

Peter shrugged. "Be my guest. I kind of wanted to get under way as soon as possible, and Mom's at her bridge club, so… Hey, you said that Claire was in California now, right?"

"Costa Verde," Nathan confirmed.

"I've never been to Costa Verde."

At that moment, there was a knock on the front door and Heidi appeared in the entryway. Peter gave her a warm smile and headed back upstairs, tactfully removing himself from the presence of the reconciled couple.

Five minutes later, Peter had crammed the necessities into his messenger bag, and stood on the rooftop wearing his signature long khaki coat. He glanced around, making sure no one was looking, then leaped into the air. He hovered over the building for a moment, taking a last look at his childhood home, then streaked off. Within minutes, the airspace over New York was completely devoid of Petrellis.

--

Costa Verde

West Rosen executed an easy loop-the-loop across the sky. He wasn't sure where he was going; he was just enjoying the flight. Maybe later he'd go to Claire's house, if she was even still there. He hated the way they had left things, and wanted to make peace, at the very least. And it didn't help that he missed her so much it physically hurt.

As he was coming out of his loop, something slammed into him, hard, and he went pinwheeling through the sky. Before he could right his course he had dropped a good hundred feet, and wound up hovering, completely upside-down.

"What the hell?" he demanded, straightening up. He turned around, trying to see what had hit him. West felt his eyes widen involuntarily as he saw that he had collided with a man. A flying man.

"Um... hi," said the man, clearly as shocked to see West as West was to see him. "I... sorry. I guess I ran into you. Teach me to watch where I'm going, huh?" He laughed self-consciously, and West smiled tentatively as he studied him. The older man seemed to be shorter than West- although it was harder to judge these things in the air- and had short hair, dark enough to be almost black. He looked vaguely familiar, though West couldn't quite place him. "Who are you?" the man asked.

West held out his hand politely. "I'm West Rosen."

The man took his hand, grinning crookedly. "Nice to meet you. My name's Peter. Peter Petrelli."

West recognized the name immediately. "You're Claire's uncle!" he exclaimed.

Peter looked overjoyed at the mention of her name. "You know Claire?" he gasped.

The teenager nodded. "Yeah. We... we were kind of dating for awhile. She moved to Cali a few months back and started at my school, and... I saw her cut her toe off." Peter nodded, chuckling slightly. "She mentioned you once. Never said much about you, but I found a picture in one of her photo albums and asked. I thought you were dead, though."

"No. I might've been, if it weren't for Claire... but that's a really long story," Peter said, clearly not willing to talk about it to a complete stranger. "Anyway, I haven't seen her in awhile and I thought I'd drop by to see her." Peter closed his eyes, focusing his hearing. He seemed to have picked up superhearing, along with a few abilities from Sylar on Kirby Plaza- probably one of the factors that had contributed to his meltdown. He tuned in to Claire's heartbeat, trying to pick it out from the many in Costa Verde. Just as he had narrowed in on what he thought was hers, a high-pitched scream that undeniably belonged to Claire Bennet ripped through the air, piercing his eardrums.

Peter clapped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the noise that ricocheted inside his head. He doubled over in midair. "Dammit," he hissed. When he was able to focus on anything beyond his sudden migraine, he looked up to see West looking very concerned. "It's Claire," he said. "She's in trouble."

"How do you know?" West asked, panic-stricken.

"Super-hearing," Peter responded in a strained voice. "She's screaming."

West shook his head. "What are we waiting for then?" he demanded. "Let's go!" He dropped like a stone toward the streets beneath them, Peter following close behind.

--

Paris

Six months. 145 days, to be exact. That's how long she's been free. It's a bittersweet calculation.

Daphne Millbrook dropped her bag onto a chair, having just arrived back from her last delivery of the day. She threw herself backwards onto her brass bed, gazing into the midafternoon sun that streamed through the window in her tiny apartment in the art district. The light illuminated the delicate yellow color of the walls, giving the whole room a warm, summery glow. She closed her eyes contentedly, allowing the subtle heat from the sunlight to play across her closed eyelids

Her whole life, she'd wanted to visit the City of Lights, and now she lived here. She had steady work as a messenger, and a nice place to live if a small one. Yes, life was pretty damn sweet.

Nu-uh little girl, what about the life you left behind?

Daphne pushed the traitorous thought behind the locked door in the back of her mind. She was never going back to the house that had held her captive for so long, and there was no point dwelling on it.

She lay on the bed with her eyes closed for a few minutes more, listening to the wind playing through the translucent curtains covering her windows. Then she bounced to her feet, brushing her white-lightning hair out of her eyes, as she remembered the letter that had been delivered to her apartment the day before. Some company named Pinehearst was offering her a job, and she had been invited to meet a representative at a small waterfront cafe on the Seine she had been meaning to sample for weeks. The requested time had been four o'clock. It was now two minutes to four, and the cafe was a significant distance away.

At one minute to four, after a quick change of clothes, Daphne strolled through the crowd of tables, looking for the man she was supposed to meet with. Everyone she saw seemed to have someone else with them.

Finally, at the very farthest table, she spotted the person she was looking for. A well-dressed elderly man, with a shock of white hair and electrifying blue eyes, stared out across the river, watching the tourists on the other side. She sat down in the chair opposite him, and leaned intently across the table. "You have five minutes," she said sharply, not really in the mood to deal with a sales pitch.

The man turned to face her. "Ah yes. Ms. Millbrook. My name is Mr. Linderman. I represent a company called Pinehearst. We have a job for you."

--

A Note From Lara: I love Daphne. She is my absolute favorite character, and I seriously hope she's one of the two deaths in Volume Four that's a fake-out. (Two of the three are supposed to be)