Title: Flesh and Blood
Rating: PG (mention of terrible acts, but not shown)
Pairing: Arthur/Angela, Sylar, Bob, Linderman, Maury, Nathan, Dr. Zimmerman, Womb Peter.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Spoilers: Season 3
Summary: If he was her child, perhaps it happened like this.
Notes: I wrote this during the season, before we knew the truth. I usually hate AU, but I've been asked to post it and so I am. :) And I have another coming. Just as a reminder Paula and Susanne are other members of the group and are mentioned here.

Flesh and Blood

Shortly after Angela had come to her senses, shortly after her phone call cautioning Kaito of Adam's plans, on a cold November night in 1977 Gabriel was born. She had gone into labor at the Company and, unlike Nathan, he came fast and quick, painful but fleeting. The Company wasn't equipped for the delivery of a baby and so, for the only time in her life, Angela gave birth naturally. Like always, she knew it would be a boy; Arthur Petrelli would only ever give her sons. At his birth they named him Michael.

But as she lay asleep in her recovery room, her dreams filled with blood and the faces of her loved ones, other people's loved ones and of the face responsible for it all - her newborn son. When she awoke, she was so crazed, so terrified, she had to be sedated.

Arthur wouldn't believe it when she told him. Her dreams were always up to interpretation and history can change.

Angela couldn't even get herself to breast feed the boy, for just looking at her child's face brought back all the memories of her blood-drenched dreams. When Arthur took her and the baby home, with Suzanne's help, Angela looked like a dazed shell of herself, her eyes blood shot and her hands almost shaking - her body filled with hormones reeking havoc on her emotions.

"He's the punishment for all our sins," she told him. "Don't you understand."

Arthur wouldn't hear it.

Then one day, four days into her second child's life on earth,Angela sent the nanny away. Arthur had hired her to take care of the children while his wife lay motionless in her bed - postpartum depression, it was just beginning to be called in the news. Arthur was sure it would pass.

Angela found herself doing what she did next in an almost robotic haze. She drew the bath, tested the water, doing all the things a mother would do. She cradled her child, her flesh and blood in her arms, rested him in the water. She looked into his brown eyes and started to cry, she couldn't do it, she just couldn't do it, but she had to - to save her family, to save the world from such terror, her granddaughter, all of it, Nathan, her future child Peter. She wasn't at all herself and yet she was. And with her heart pumping fast and her breath shallow, her tears flowing uncontrollably, Angela slowly lowered her son under the water, watching his face as if looking at him from the other side of a glass frame..

"Angela!" Arthur found her just in time. He quickly grabbed the baby out of the water and away from her.

Angela became hysterical. Arthur dried the baby off and put him down in his crib. Arthur then tried to grab Angela and control her, but it wasn't working. It was the terror of what she almost did and the terror of his future.

"He'll kill us all!" She demanded and then her body gave out and Arthur had to catch her.

He took her in his arms and brought her to the bed. The first thing he did was call Dr. Zimmerman, who quickly sedated her to stop her screams. Arthur then called as many of the 12 as he could.

Maury, Linderman, Bob and Arthur stood outside theirbedroom as Paula and Dr. Zimmerman exited the room and into the hallway.

"I had to sedate her, she'll be out at least for a few hours." Dr. Zimmerman held tightly to his medical bag.

"She's really frightened, Arthur." Paula said forcefully.

"He's a child - of her own flesh and blood." Arthur was defiant.

Paula stood her ground. "You know how her dreams are, they are just as real to her as you are to me now - they will be real. And I've never heard her tell such frightening tales, have you?"

"History can be changed." Arthur demanded. "I won't hear this, any of this." He dismissed her and turned his face from her. "My son's future is not inevitable."

Paula took a few steps toward Arthur to get his attention. "Changed perhaps, but you know we can never know just how all of it will butterfly - and those are the large events. How do you stop a boy from becoming a serial killer, how can you even begin to know how to do that?"

Dr. Zimmerman cleared his throat and spoke. "She thinks the little boy is a judgement for all of her sins, she will not get over this - he is not safe around her. Your child will never be safe around her. " He spoke in his sharp German tones. "The best I can recommend is you have her committed."

"What?" Paula wasn't happy.

"Excuse me?" Arthur wasn't sure he heard it right. No one else spoke.

Dr. Zimmerman continued. "It would be easy. Tell anyone she's dreaming her son is a killer...." He paused. "Anyone would call her crazy in a moment. That she's a danger to Nathan as well."

"Arthur..." Paula pushed her way in front of the Doctor. "You know Angela would never hurt Nathan... "

"Crazy people, do crazy things..." Dr. Zimmerman chimed in.

"She's not crazy!" Paula was appalled that no one else was coming to Angela's defense. "Arthur?" He didn't say anything. "You can't do that to her. You know what it's like to be called crazy..."

"That's enough, Paula." Linderman stopped her from speaking.

Paula didn't flinch and continued her speech. "No. No." She looked Arthur dead on. " I'm not afraid of you, Arthur. I'll speak up for her, because I know THIS isn't you. Don't subject her to this - because if you tell her secrets to the world, if she has the world treat her like she's crazy... it will drive her crazy! And can you blame her - if all of this comes to pass - and odds are it will - your boy, as you call him - that child will manifest and kill your entire family. You've seen that power in all its glory and even if it's controlled, who's to say he doesn't kill all of us before he can be stopped.. I think changing a little history is in order. And that's cutting it out by its root, not trying to fix the cracks."

Arthur looked at Maury and then at Linderman.

"You have to choose Arthur, Angela or the child..." Dr. Zimmerman said coldly. "A child with the marker, Arthur. You must chose. That is the only answer."

There was a pause while it looked like Arthur was ruminating on the idea. "I won't allow her to kill my son." His voice was gruff.

"We know environment is just as important as genetics, Arthur. A different environment could mean he might manifest in a different way." Linderman spoke up.

"It could also cause it." Maury chimed in. "There is no evidence this isn't what causes the future." He paused.

Bob spoke up. "We do away with people because of their potential all the time. For the good of mankind."

"This is my son! Not other people!" Arthur snapped. He paced for a moment. "I am not sending Angela away, Nathan needs a mother - I will not do that to him.. I need.. I... No. No. I will not have this discussion. Angela says we'll have three sons. I won't change that." He paused again as if thinking of something. "We'll do what we did with the project children."

"Adoption?" Dr. Zimmerman was surprised.

"Close." He said pointedly. "Not to far off places like the others, like those triplets. I want him at arm's length. And I want him watched."

Paula smiled. "I know a church in Queens that takes in children."

Arthur nodded his head. Paula walked toward Arthur and leaned in, "You've made the right choice. "

Arthur wouldn't look at Paula. "We'll see about that." Arthur looked at her, "Take him before Angela wakes up." Paula nodded her head and left his side toward the baby's room.

Paula stopped before the door and looked at Arthur . "Do you want to say goodbye?"

Arthur wouldn't look at her. "No."

Paula was shocked by the coldness, but his coldness was a defense to hide away the pain.

Arthur looked at Maury. "I'm going to need you."

Maury nodded his head.

When Nathan got home from school the police were already there. He stood by the stairs when he was meant to be in his room and watched his father and the police officers talk in the living room. Another stranger stood to the side with a doctor's bag. Young Nathan would never know the stranger had been the famous Dr. Zimmerman.

"When the baby didn't look right... you called your family doctor?" The policeman asked and motioned toward the Doctor.

The Doctor nodded his head. "By the time I arrived, the baby stopped breathing."

Arthur held his hands in front of him. "My wife called me from work, she was worried. When I arrived, we called the Doctor, we didn't think it was that serious." He looked down.

The officer closed his notebook. "I'd like to talk to your wife, Mr. Petrelli, just for a moment."

"I'm afraid that's impossible", the Doctor interrupted. "She was highly hysterical, I had to sedate her."

Arthur stood. "I'd rather my wife didn't go through anymore stress, she's lost a child - we both have. "

And Maury took care of the rest and the record was natural causes like so many babies of the day - the young boy had just stopped breathing in his crib - later to be referred to as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Arthur told a disappointed Nathan that the little brother he had always wanted had died, but that one day he would have a little brother to call his own, he promised.

The next day Arthur climbed into bed with Angela and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his skin.

"He's gone, Angela." He whispered into her ear. "I sent him away." And Angela began to struggle in his grip and cry, but Arthur held tight making sure she didn't go "No. No!' he demanded. "He's long gone. You won't be able to hurt him anymore, do you hear me!" And he calmed her as she cried because he still was her son.

Nathan remembers hearing her cries and sobs from the hallway and from then on it was never mentioned again, until one time in the winter of 1979.

Angela woke up to find her eleven-year-old son standing in front of her. He remained silent, only reaching out his hand and putting it on her very pregnant stomach.

"Will this baby die too?" Nathan asked after a moment.

Angela's eyes teared up and she put her hand on Nathan's. "No. I promise you that."

Nathan nodded his head.

"His name is Peter..." Angela told him. "Do you like that name?"

Nathan nodded his head.

"Good." She smiled through her tears. "I like it , too."

And so when Angela's third child was born, she held a little more tighter than most mothers, perhaps coddling him too much. And his brother, so thankful to have a little brother, did the same. Arthur became colder and colder and Angela would remark, "That's just his way Peter, your father loves us all."

And so Peter Petrelli grew up a loving, trusting boy because of his mother and his brother clinging to him like ivy - their need for him.. It created who he was. It created how he would manifest the power theft gene his father had passed down, and it would seal his fate, just as sending his other brother away had done to him. Michael had become Gabriel, but history had not changed, it was only proved inevitable.