She's standing in a field of sunflowers, and there's a warm glow radiating around her silhouette due to the setting sun behind her. Her hair falls loosely down her back, twisting into soft curls towards the bottom, and although she's turned away from him, Peter knows she's beautiful.
She moves slightly; her neck turns and she catches his gaze over her shoulder. He just about dies. But suddenly she whips her head back round again, and she's running, and he's shouting after her but she's not coming back. He shouts and he shouts and he shouts, and, finally, she's slowing and the distance between them stops growing. It takes Peter's brain a while to comprehend that she's not slowing; he's simply chasing after her. And the gap gets smaller and smaller until he's caught up with her. He grabs her arms and stares at her.
She's tanned, most unlike his own ghostly white complexion, and she has a faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her lips are round and full and so perfectly pink. She's so innocent, so young, so pretty. But her eyes. Her eyes are the most intense things he's ever seen, and Peter knows she's seen a lot in her short life.
He wonders if she's just a figment of his own imagination, but there's something in her fervent eyes that tells him otherwise. She's very real, as real as the air he breathes and the blood in his veins, and he's connected to her in some way but he doesn't know how.
"Peter."
Her voice is soft, like music to his ears, and it's so familiar, but yet it's so unfamiliar.
"Do I know you?"
She smiles a sad little smile, and again it reminds Peter of something, but he doesn't know what.
"I think I know you."
Her sad little smile turns into a sad little laugh, and her deep eyes twinkle. "Of course you do. And I know you too, Peter Petrelli."
But her face sobers, and her eyes bore into his.
"You need to remember, Peter," she states, her voice smooth and sweet with a hint of a southern drawl. "You have to remember your part. And then you have to come back to me, Peter, because you're my hero."
Peter's eyebrows fly upwards. "Your hero? And what do you mean, come back to you? I'm here!"
She doesn't seem to have heard him. "I wish you would just remember me, Peter. And then you'll come back."
"But I'm here!"
"I miss you. Come back, Peter. Please come back…"
And her voice is drifting away from him, and the sun is setting faster now than ever and she's dimming with it, and Peter hates it. And he finds himself, once more, calling out for her, but his words are lost and she's gone.
"Peter? Peter, are you in there?"
A new voice is drowning out the last remnants of the girl in the golden sun; only the new voice is coming from somewhere else. Peter blinks, and Caitlin's hovering over him, and it takes a few more blinks to realize that the golden girl was a dream.
Caitlin's chattering away now, but he's only half-listening. His mind is on the golden girl, and how he needs to remember; because when he remembers, he can go back home, and back to the golden girl. He needs to remember. He damn well needs to remember.