Hoo boy, where we go…all you reviewers have been so incredibly wonderful! Your praise is undeserved but wholeheartedly appreciated nonetheless (lets see how you all feel after this one. Yikes!). This is the final chapter in my sole canon story he he he, though in this chapter I kinda veer off into AU land once more. Follows the events in the latest installment of Heroes *except* for once crucial fact: What if HRG hadn't been behind the gun pointed at Peter? Yeah…its not pretty, fellas. Please read and review! Con crit is always appreciated.

" Take the shot!" someone had shouted out in the distance among the brush, though all that could be seen was a neon red eye with an unwavering glare. Nathan heard the distinct blast of gun shot and felt the weight of Peter's body fall away from him. He turned, sure of witnessing his brother spiral away into the dense night sky.

The sky was empty…not only of stars, but of speeding human bodies and tell-tale trails of after burn.

"We got 'im, sir," a triumphant voice trumpeted behind him. Nathan froze, his eyes continuing to gaze desperately towards the heavens, entirely unwilling to process the soldier's words though they echoed stubbornly throughout his mind.

'Maybe he teleported…or turned invisible. He could still be nearby.' Nathan lowered his gaze to give the clearing a thorough search, even while part of his mind rationalized that if Peter was invisible he would be unable to perceive him. His gaze went round, probing ever tree, rock, and hill with extreme intensity. He would have sworn that his heart rate increased ten fold every second that his brother remained unfound, pulsing and throbbing in a staccato rhythm throughout his neck and behind his eyes, forcing his breath to exhale in stertorous gasps…that is, until the moment when it stopped altogether. The moment when he felt that he might never breathe again, that his heart had beat it's last. The moment when he looked down and saw his kid brother, good ole Pete, lying at his feet in a quickly spreading puddle of blood.

'He can survive this,' was Nathan's only thought, his stubborn mantra even as all other sounds faded away. The voices of men reporting the success of their ambush over their walkie-talkies; Tracey's screams as she was hauled into the waiting vehicle; it was all nothing but white noise as Nathan stared down at the broken body of his little brother. He knelt down beside the body, unmindful of the dirt and blood mingling with his outlandishly pricey suit; his crisp political uniform.

"Come on, Pete," he whispered anxiously, "wake up." He cradled the sides of his brother's expressionless face, gently slapping with the palm of his hand. What was death to someone like Peter? It wasn't long ago that he and Claire had spoken jocularly about the subject, fully secure in their immortality. 'He must be waiting until we're all gone, 'til its safe. He's faking it, playing dead.' Peter remained still, his eyes wide open from the shock of the attack. Nathan wiped away the blood that had trickled out of the gaping hole in the middle of his forehead. What should he do? There was no neatly wedged shard of glass to be removed, just gore and far, far too much blood. Wounds that refused to stitch. "Come on, Peter. Breathe."

"Sir." A hand on his shoulder. One of the mindless drones called to him. "Sir, he's gone."

Nathan shook his head. "I don't understand." The gentle patting had evolved into rough shaking, a sad and fruitless attempt at jarring life back into the quickly cooling form. 'You can heal, I've seen you do it. What's the hold up? Peter…'

"Senator," the hand pulled at his shoulder, forcing him to turn away from the prostrate form before him. "We need to dispose of the body."

A chill thrilled down Nathan's spine at the soldier's callous suggestion. His eyes narrowed to thin slits as they raked over the man standing in front of him. "What did you just say?" he hissed, taking a threatening step towards the man in black body armor. He spoke clearly and slowly, enunciating every word. "That isn't some body, that's my brother. And you don't know the first thing about him." He gestured behind him to where Peter lay, thrusting a rigid finger in the direction of the still unmoving body. "He can heal. He will heal. He just needs time. We are not disposing of anyone."

The soldier's eyes were fixed on the recently shot young man. He had seen people play dead before, hoping to evade detection; if it was difficult to lie completely still, to hold your breath for so long, then it was downright impossible to fake the gray pallor which was currently crawling across the kid's flesh, stealing away the fresh blush of health. Could a living man remain unblinking while his once seeing eyes filmed over, covered by a grim blindfold that would never and could never be removed.

"He's missing the back of his head, Mr. Petrelli," he observed bluntly, dragging his gaze away from the unfortunate scene. "People don't come back from that. He's dead."

Nathan smirked before turning away from his subordinate to sink back to his brother's side. "I can't expect you to understand."

"You're right," the man barked, irritated by the politician's patronizing tone. "I don't get the probelm. Isn't this the point?"

"Excuse me?" Nathan slowly returned to his feet, scandalized by the accusation that having his brother shot was an element of his grand scheme.

Remembering that he spoke to a man who held the President's ear, the soldier struggled to regain composure. "With all due respect sir, isn't our objective to contain and neutralize the threat. By your own admission, aren't these people the threat?"

"Never this!" Nathan shouted, standing akimbo in front of Peter's body, attempting to block Peter from view of the other men drifting about the clearing in the hopes that he would take the opportunity to regenerate and escape. "Never. We're supposed to be saving them from their selves, protecting them along with the rest of the country. No one was supposed to get hurt!"

"Forgive me if I'm stepping out of bounds, sir," he replied, pulling his helmet wearily from it's place atop his head, "but what did you expect? For months all this team has been hearing is how dangerous these guys are, especially your brother. Getting into people's minds, nuclear explosions, super-strength…this is creepy, weird stuff. In the minds of each member of this team, every person taken into custody is considered a serious danger to this country. The men know what these people are capable of and they're terrified. You made sure of that."

Nathan's hand inched up to rub at his trembling lips. This couldn't be happening. He was supposed to be in control of the situation, so why did he suddenly feel so very small? "Clearly the team has misunderstood the directive of this mission." 'Peter, please be gone…'

"Sir, no one has acted outside of the parameters of our mission statement. As far as the US government is concerned Peter Petrelli was a terrorist and a direct threat to the life of a US senator."

Nathan's eyes flashed with a cold and flinty metallic light unnatural to his soft hazel irises. "He is my brother."

"Was, sir," the soldier returned blankly.

Nathan lunged at the other man, grabbing him by the front of his vest, throwing him off balance as he was pulled forward. "Do you think this is funny?" he hissed dangerously.

"No sir," he replied, remaining as calm as possible when nose to nose with someone who is obviously incensed. "But I do think that you brought him here. You arrested him. You put him on that plane. You brought us here with our guns and our scopes. I don't think you have any right to be surprised that he's dead."

For a moment the two men stood still, both silent. One shocked at having the bitter truth thrust upon him so unexpectedly, the other glad to have had his say. Nathan fought the bile from rising out of his stomach and projecting through his mouth, he fought the stabbing knifelike pain burning between his ribs, he fought with the glaring veracity in the soldier's words, grasping for a loop hole, any way of washing his brother's blood off of his hands.

"He isn't dead," he argued weakly, though it was unclear whether he was attempting to convince the man in his hands or himself. Nathan watched as the soldier's eyes slid away from him to the spot where Peter had been, though surely by now he was at a safe distance. He prepared himself for the relief of seeing this soldier's face disfigured with astonishment.

The man remained impassive.

Nathan's grip on the soldier was at its tightest as he hesitantly rotated his head to match the gaze of the other man. He didn't see a puddle of congealed blood and an area of disturbed dirt as he had hoped and expected. He couldn't see those things because they were covered by Peter's cold and rigid corpse. Eyes open and unseeing, mouth agape, not a hair or finger had moved since Nathan had turned away.

The older brother turned away from the soldier with an incoherent strangled lament. He stumbled across the few feed separating Peter and himself, speaking in groans singular to those who grieve. Gathering the body to his chest as he had once before, he moaned into his brother's dark hair, "Peter, Peter, Peter…" Let the wolves howl in their loneliness, let elephants trumpet in their anxiety, let a misguided man sob over the loss of a brother at his own hand. "I'm so sorry," he whispered pointlessly into the deaf ear. "This wasn't supposed to happen." Eyes streaming with tears, he pleaded anxiously to the man who continued to watch the heartrending scene, "This wasn't supposed to happen. I just wanted to be right and good…like him, for him. Never this," he groaned, stroking the hair out of Peter's eyes.

"Honestly, Senator, what did you expect to happen?" Disgusted, he turned away from the trembling man. He walked a few feet before pausing to look halfway over his shoulder. "You know, I have a younger brother and sister. They're annoying and piss me off all the time, but even at my most angry I would never involve them in shit like this."

"Dear God," Nathan shuddered, rocking his dead brother gently in his arms, "What have I done? What have I done?"

"Damn it, Peter" 18 year old Nathan barked as he stood over the remains of what had once been his first place varsity baseball trophy. Why couldn't it have been of the 3rd place JV variety? "How many times have I told you not to touch my stuff?"

"I know," Peter cringed, hating that he had so enraged his beloved Nathan.

"Then why?" He crouched down to scoop up his now headless symbol of success, refusing to meet Peter's eyes. He knew that one look at the woebegone expression would dismiss his every desire for swift and painful retribution. "Why can't you just listen for once?"

A sniffle. "I'm sorry, Nate. Really sorry. I just wanted to see it one more time." A pause. "Do you hate me?"

Peter's unexpected words snapped Nathan to attention. 'Man, I looked at 'im,' he moaned inwardly, reaching over to pull his downcast brother to his side. "Now why the hell would you go and say something stupid like that?"

Grateful for the familiar warmth of his brother's abdomen, Peter wrapped his small four year old arms as far around his brother as he could manage. "Cause I broke your real nice trophy that you loved so much. And you yelled at me."

"Dummy," Nathan remarked fondly, kneeling before the much younger boy to drop a soft kiss on his forehead. "I could never hate you. Sure you piss me off and annoy me to no end, but you're my kid brother. That's kinda your job."

Peter dragged his forearm across his weeping nose with a loud sniff, a habit his mother was constantly encouraging him to break. "You mean it?"

"Have I ever lied to you before?" Nathan stood and tousled his brother's already messy hair. "We're brothers, and that means forever. I'm always gonna love you and protect you. Even when you don't want me to."

"Pinky swear?" Peter asked eagerly, offering his smallest digit to his big brother.

After looking over his shoulder to ensure that no one was in the vicinity to view the silly act, Nathan took the impossibly small finger into his own. "Pinky swear." He released the hold only to throw his arm around his brother's thin shoulders. "Come on, squirt, lets go find some glue."

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…"

Nathan sat in the front pew during the funeral, beside Heidi and the boys, beside a distraught Claire. He gave a moving eulogy. He thanked the mourners for their thoughts and prayers. He mingled during the reception, over hearing snippets of hushed conversation.

"I can't believe he's gone."

"I know…so young."

"Figures he would have died trying to save someone from a burning car."

Sigh. "He was a great guy."

"I didn't see Angela at the funeral."

"No, I heard she hasn't been out of bed since she learned about the accident."

"The poor family. First Arthur barely two years ago and now this."

"Tragic. He was so young…"

He moves, he watches, he interacts, but it's all so meaningless. He's numb to everything. No anger, no grief, no tears; he's empty. Even a confrontation with a sickened Claire fails to evoke any emotion.

"He should have healed," he had murmured.

She scoffed through her endless supply of tears, repressing the urge to throw her scalding coffee directly into his face. "If you had bothered to talk to him, if you had returned even one of his calls, like a brother should, you would have know that his ability changed. That he could only hang on to one at a time. But you didn't care. You didn't care about anything but your selfish ambition and Peter paid the price. Do me a favor," she spit out, her blue eyes shining brilliantly with righteous indignation, "don't ever talk to me again. Don't try to contact me, don't interfere in my life in any way. I hate you with as much passion as I loved Peter. And that was a lot."

He should have cared that his only daughter disowned him in front of a crowd of onlookers, but he didn't. Nathan had once suggested to Peter that everything he claimed to be was the result of having his brother in his life; that if his brother was gone, the Nathan he had always been would also cease to exist. Lost in the depths of his pain and guilt, this was exactly what happened. Nathan Petrelli was never heard of again in the political realm, though the momentum of the anti-abilities movement continued along well enough without him.

Nathan never fully believed that his brother had indeed died that day, that what Claire had said about the change in his ability was true. He spent the rest of his life seeing Peter in every dark haired twenty something he met on the street. He combed through hospitals, inspecting every nurse from a distance, hoping to see that trademark crooked grin once more.

He had lost his family, his friends, his job, and his position in society, but in all fairness, regarding the battle of sibling supremacy, he had finally won.

Eeee…I cant' believe I actually did that! Anyone who's read any of my stories will attest to the fact that I really do love Peter! ::sobs:: Nathan just had to learn his lesson! Though I have to say, I'm glad that in the last episode we get to see that Nathan isn't just a horrible monster who couldn't give a flying fart whether his brother lives or dies. Maybe our loving Nate (the one who visits Peter in the hospital, gives good bye kisses and cleans up the many messes left by his brother) really is in there somewhere…