Title: Phantasmagoria
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Rating: R
Summary: To know to change the past, one must have lived through the future.
Note: In episode 109 – Homecoming, Mohinder has prophetic dreams brought on by a young boy. In writing this fic, I choose to assume that Mohinder himself possess the ability to see the future, instead of being influenced by the young boy as told on the show. Thanks to the wonderful pyroblaze18 for the beta and title suggestion.
They get to Los Angeles, and from there on they simply drive. Through desert and farmland and small towns in the outskirts of civilization; skirting through Nevada and Utah and Colorado. Nebraska and Iowa passing by the windows, and Chicago's tall buildings looming overhead.
'New York,' Hiro keeps repeating to himself, a monotone mantra in the forefront of his mind; 'New York.'
Have to get there, have to stop it. Have to save the world.
His finger traces the lines in the well worn map; the Indiana/Michigan state line, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And then New York.
"Can we go faster?"
Ando's hands flex, then tighten their grip on the steering wheel. "I'll try."
The car surges forward, leaving Chicago behind. It is October 27th.
...
They spend more than a week in New York City. They find nothing.
They're not government officials; aren't privy to the information they need. They try to get it elsewhere, pressing the very last of their money into the hands of people who boast of being connected. In the end, there's nothing to be found, not for all the connections in the world.
The morning of November 8th, Ando makes Hiro pack his suitcase and watch as New York grows smaller in the rear view mirror. They're back in Pennsylvania when the clock strikes 11:53. Hiro could swear that he feels the ground shake, but Ando doesn't react.
They stop in Greensburg and walk into a bed and breakfast. The attention of the man behind the desk is solely focused on the small television set in front of him, and Hiro carefully places a rumpled five dollar bill on the counter. He catches a glimpse of red fire trucks flashing by on the television screen before Ando leans over the desk to snatch a room key and pulls him away.
...
Ando takes a shower, and Hiro watches the news on Fox.
Let's stay for awhile, Ando says as he comes out of the bathroom dressed in clean slacks and with a towel wrapped around his head. Let's stay, and figure out what to do now.
Hiro doesn't nod. Doesn't do anything. They were too late, and too slow, and he wasn't a hero at all. Wasn't worthy of this power.
He'd failed.
...
It's Ando's idea to stop at the small diner by the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. They're heading back. To what, Hiro doesn't know. To Los Angeles, maybe. To Tokyo. All flights across the country are grounded, so they're in no hurry. They have to wait anyway, and in the meantime they're in the parking lot of a roadside diner, and it's begun to snow.
Ando climbs out of the car and Hiro follows almost mechanically. Millions of people, dead. And he could have stopped it. Only he didn't.
It's November 18th.
...
For years to come, Hiro will associate Peter Petrelli with the smell of fried eggs. The smell hits them as they step in through the diner door, a small bell chiming above their heads. There aren't many patrons, and only one waitress. But it's warm and there's ready made coffee, and from behind the swinging doors to their right a glimpse of a kitchen can be seen. The smell of breakfast lingers over the diner like a fine mist on a cold morning.
That's when Hiro spots him.
Sitting in a booth by the windows, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Hunched over, resigned. He's wearing a knitted sweater several sizes too large for his lean frame, and his hair is dark and long, obscuring most of his face from view.
Hiro blindly reaches out to his left, managing to snag hold of the front of Ando's dress shirt. His friend says nothing; shifts slightly, but remains quiet as he follows Hiro across the diner to stand a few feet from the booth occupied by the man in the sweater.
The man straightens out, lifts his head and contemplates them. Then he smiles:
"You're Hiro."
It's not a question, and Hiro lets his eyes trace the gruesome scar running up the length of the man's face. A jagged, bright pink work of penmanship stretching from his temple to his jawline, only barely missing his left eye.
Hiro clears his throat. "Yes. Yes, I am Hiro."
The man gestures towards the booth seats opposite him, and Hiro slides in as Ando follows, tense and mistrusting, but yet by his friend's side. Hiro finds himself face to face with a second man, this one dark skinned and absent. Small, pale scars litter his cheekbones and forehead, and he is turned away from his companion, face tilted upwards towards the skies. His eyes are eerily empty, focused on nothing near or far, and Hiro realizes that he is blind.
"I'm Peter," the man with the scar says. "This is Mohinder."
The blind man – Mohinder – turns away from the window, more out of habit than anything else, his gaze sweeping across them but never quite settling anywhere.
"We're been waiting for you," Peter says, "for some time now."
"How?" Ando demands, and Hiro knows for certain that his friend is terrified. "How would you know?"
Peter glances at Mohinder, the corner of his lip twitching into a sad smile. "Because five days ago, I saw it in a dream."
Hiro exhales loudly, letting the air strain through his front teeth. Mohinder merely turns useless eyes back towards the window and the snowfall outside.
...
Peter and Mohinder fit nicely into the back seat of their rented car. They have no luggage to bring, nothing but the clothes on their back and even those are not their own; Peter's sweater was given to him at a nearby hospital, and the leather jacket weighing down Mohinder's shoulders was left forgotten in the back of an abandoned car just outside of Irwin.
As Ando pulls out of the parking lot and heads west, Peter tells them of watching the explosion from afar. Of getting out of the city in time, but not being fast enough; in the aftershocks, a stray piece of debris managed to cut Peter's face badly, and rows of windows – both of buildings and cars – imploding from the pressure of the shockwave made Mohinder lose his sight.
They might not have made it out unscathed, but they made it out alive.
"How," Ando again asked. "How did they know?"
"A dream," Hiro says, watching Peter glance at Mohinder.
"Yes," he confirms. "A dream."
They're silent the rest of the way to Indianapolis.
New York still burns, the radio newscaster tells them, and Washington DC has been hit.
They stop in Jefferson City, once the roads become inaccessible. There's nowhere to go.
...
Chicago is struck next, and then Houston. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are not far behind, and Hiro finds himself out in a frenzied crowd, breaking windows and grabbing as much canned food as his arms allow him to carry.
At first, he contemplates fighting back. They all do. But they don't know who they're supposed to be fighting against – Mohinder's faint whisper of the word 'Sylar' doesn't help – and so they are forced to stand by and watch a society they've all come to take for granted shake at its foundations and finally implode.
For now, it's about survival. It's about making sure they have enough to eat and about finding an abandoned building to pose as cover over their heads. And maybe then, once they've survived the chaos and the carnage, they can find the answers they're looking for.
Christmas rolls around, and Phoenix and Dallas are demolished. Then minutes into the new year, San Francisco burns.
...
In May, Mohinder wakes from a dreamless sleep, gasping and shivering, and tells Ando to head to what remains of Chicago. A child will be waiting for him there, and he's to bring it back with him.
Ando leaves and within a week he returns, clutching the hand of a bright eyed young boy who will not tell them his name.
It is two months before he speaks at all, and when he does it's with a hoarse voice that trembles with fatigue. He tells them of his mother and his father and how they had been running before the shadow found them. How they had bled and lost their voices and how the shadow had overlooked him, hidden behind the burnt out shell of a car further away.
"Sylar," Mohinder whispers again, and the child turns large eyes towards unseeing ones.
"Yes," Micah says. "That was its name."
...
Peter spends the evenings on what's left of the balcony of their makeshift home. Sometimes, Hiro will join him in silence, mimic the way Peter tilts his head to observe the starry sky overhead. His hair is longer now, swept back in a pony tail but with bangs that hand free, obscuring the scar marring his features.
The Peter that Hiro sees now is not the one he met a year ago, and he's willing to bet that the Peter he met in the diner was not the Peter Mohinder first met on the streets of Manhattan. They've all changed, all adapted to the challenges of their surroundings; they wear black, as to blend into the night more easily; carry tools to defend themselves with, should someone at last find their safehouse.
Nothing is safe and nothing is certain, except maybe, staring up at the skies, that time will pass by. And even that, Hiro knows, is not to be trusted.
"I've been thinking," Peter says, "that things might have turned out differently."
Hiro remains silent. Out here, Peter lets himself remember; drudge up memories that dwell deep within his mind. Some are of life Before, and some are of what might have been. Mostly, though, it's about the people that were lost.
Nathan is someone Hiro feels he knows, for all he's heard told of him. Nathan could fly. Nathan was a great man. Nathan died in the blast.
Isaac could paint the future. Isaac had the destruction of New York displayed in bright colors on his studio floor. Isaac was a heroin addict and disappeared before November 8th.
How great it would be, Hiro would sometimes think, to have those two with them here. To have the guidance of not only Mohinder's dreams but also Isaac's paintings. To have Nathan present to act as a support for Peter.
And how many others had there not been? Micah's mother and father, and hundreds – thousands? – of others. It didn't matter, not any more.
The balcony is a great place to get lost in one's thoughts, and Hiro does not hear Ando's approach. It's not until there's a hand on his shoulder and his own hand is grasping for the hilt of his sword that he recognizes his friend's presence.
"Ando?"
"Come, Hiro." Ando's brow is furrowed, and he glances back towards the doorway, where Micah stands watching them. "Mohinder needs to see you."
...
Mohinder's study is dark, the windows boarded up and the room bare of light sources. How strange, Hiro many times mused, that a man so fond of the sunlight would keep his surroundings so utterly dark.
Mohinder is hunched over on his bed, shoulders shaking forcefully and arms wrapped around his chest. He looks up as Hiro steps through the door and the hallway light hits his face and makes his pupils retract. Hiro thinks, maybe this is why. The blind cannot see light or dark, but can surely feel the sunlight strike their face.
He kneels at Mohinder's side, and the blind man places a wandering, trembling hand on his shoulder.
"I saw it," Mohinder breathes. "I saw the beginning."
Hiro leans in closer. "Tell me."
"You need to go back," Mohinder rasps. "You need to go back and tell Peter. He will be the one we need, the one to save her. She's the key. Save her, and you save us all. You save the world."
Grabbing hold of Mohinder's wrist, Hiro barely dares to breathe. "Who?"
"The girl." And for an impossible moment, Mohinder's eyes seem to find his. "The cheerleader."
...
Ando and Micah are waiting as Hiro steps out of the study. They're grimfaced and silent, and Hiro can't quite manage a smile.
"I'm going back."
Ando nods, like it's the most logical thing in the world, but Micah doesn't: "Where?"
"To the beginning. To New York. To Before."
"Yes," Ando breathes, but Micah goes rigid by his side.
"Hiro!" the child gasps, eyes large and fearful, fixed on something behind Hiro's back.
Ando grasps Micah by the shoulders and pulls the child towards and behind him. Hiro whirls around, takes in the tall man stepping into the hallway from the balcony. There is blood tainting his hands, and Hiro realizes with a sinking stomach exactly whose blood it is.
A strangled gasp behind him, and Hiro instinctively turns to take in rivets of blood running down Ando's face.
"Go back," his friend mouths at him with twisted lips as Micah begins to scream.
The pain strikes suddenly and nearly brings Hiro to his knees. He feels skin splitting open, hears bone crack, and then he's suppressing the screams ringing in his ears and focusing on somewhere else. Sometime else.
There's a flash, and when he opens his eyes again, he's face to face with Peter Petrelli, alive, young, scarless, and scared out of his mind.