Chapter the third

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes, although it is on my Christmas list.

I don't own Charmed...at least not yet.

Somewhere else in New York...

"Peter...and Sylar?"

Nathan could hear the mixture of disgust and astonishment in Claire's voice. He nodded.

"I know. It surprised me as well."

Claire looked at him. "Surprised you? Surprised you? It's disgusting. Sylar attacked me, almost killed me and Peter goes and sleeps with him?"

Nathan understood how Claire felt but Pete was his brother. "Look, I know how you feel, but this is Peter we're talking about. He must have a good reason."

And this explains why he's been avoiding me these past few weeks, he thought. I can't believe he thought he couldn't trust me.

Claire just shook her head at Nathan's stupidity. "I can't believe you're taking his side in this."

She flounced off to her room for a good sulk.

"Now you know how I felt."

Nathan turned towards his laptop and saw Noah appear on the screen.

"And how are you this fine evening, Noah?" Nathan asked, just so he could forget his horrible parenting skills.

"I'm great, Nathan. Is Sylar really with Peter? And don't worry; Claire is like that all the time. If I were you I'd be worried if she stopped acting that way."

Nathan collapsed into a nearby chair. "Yes, Sylar, who now apparently prefers to be called Gabriel , is with Peter. And no, I will not tell you where Peter is."

Noah affected a school-girl attitude. "How could you even think I would? I would never ask such a thing."

Nathan rolled his eyes. "And I'll be Prime Minister of New Zealand in under a month. Yeah, yeah, Noah, I believe you."

The door bell rang. Noah saw Nathan's head whip around and then after a moment return to a normal angle. "Ah, Noah, I have to go. Call me back in an hour."

The screen went blank. Noah swore.

Nathan went to answer the door. Claire had arrived there first. She opened it to reveal Peter and Gabriel standing there looking decidedly awkward.

"Hello, Claire," Peter said, smiling uneasily. With a determined air she slammed the door in his face.

"That went well," Gabriel said calmly.

The door was opened a second later by Nathan who said, "Hi, Pete."

" 'Lo, Nathan," Peter replied, drawing a smile from him.

Nathan stepped aside and Gabriel followed Peter in. Angry girl music could be heard coming from the direction of Claire's room. From the increase in volume since the door had been shut the noise was put on for their benefit, to show them she was not at all affected by them being there. Not at all.

"I take it she doesn't approve," Gabriel said, sitting down next to Peter on the living room couch.

"You'd be right. After all you did rummage around in her brain. She didn't take too kindly to that, I can tell you."

Silence reigned supreme for about a quarter of a second until Peter blurted out, "And what about you, Nathan? Do you approve?"

Nathan saw Peter look at him pleadingly. "Well..." he said hesitantly. "I don't exactly approve..." Peter's shoulders slumped. "...but I don't exactly disapprove either."

Peter glanced, hope suddenly appearing his eyes. Nathan smiled. "I don't approve because Sylar – I mean Gabriel – doesn't exactly have the greatest track record."

"True," Gabriel admitted.

""He has killed numerous people, scared the wits out of my daughter and generally made a nuisance of himself. How has he changed, if at all?"

Peter tried to explain himself but could not find the words. Somehow he'd expected worse than this.

Gabriel, seeing the trouble Peter was having, tried to explain for him. "I used to hate Peter, really hate him. He was always getting in the way until one day, a few months ago, I just couldn't take it anymore. I contacted him and told him to meet me, saying that I had someone with me who was dying to see him. Like the gullible fool I thought he was, he came. But something happened that day...I just can't explain it. It's not something that can be explained."

Peter smiled at Gabriel. Nathan suddenly felt very lonely and wondered if anyone would ever look at him like that. Even his ex-wife hadn't looked at him like that. Except his dream girl.

Somewhere else in San Francisco...

Phoebe rubbed her eyes and fell face forward onto her desk. Even though she'd promised herself she'd sleep in she hadn't been able to and when her alarm had buzzed at six am she'd fallen out of bed and rushed off to the office.

Just as she was about to drop off her desk and into sleep the phone rang. She wondered why her assistant wasn't picking it up then she realised that it was seven and she didn't get in until at least nine. Grumbling Phoebe answered the phone and was greeted by a too loud "Phoebe?"

"Paige? What are you doing calling me?" She idly thought about hanging up on her half-sister and going back to sleep but what Paige said next woke her right up.

"We've got trouble."

Phoebe straightened up. "Demon trouble?"

"Uh-huh."

"I'll be right there." Phoebe hung up, grabbed her coat from where she'd thrown it and in ten minutes she walked through the door of Halliwell manor.

"Speak to me, Paige," she said crankily to Paige, who had greeted her at the doorway and had kindly taken her coat. "What is it this time? Scalely demons, scabby demons, demons who want to rule to world, destroy the world, what?"

Paige pointed. They were, by now, in the living room and Paige was pointing to a young boy, who looked about ten years old, give or take a few months. He was currently playing with Wyatt and Chris, as Piper looked on. Phoebe was stumped.

"Is he a demon?" she whispered behind her palm to Paige, who shook her head.

Phoebe frowned. "I thought it was demon trouble."

"I found him in a mysteriously empty institute for homeless children. The police searched it yesterday and found nothing. When I read about it this morning in the newspaper it smelled like 'demon trouble,' as you so put it so I went and investigated."

Phoebe opened her mouth to reprimand Paige for going alone when Piper said, "Don't. I've already tried."

Phoebe exhaled noisily. She ran her fingers through her long brown hair. "Have you tried asking him?"

Silence reigned. "You didn't even think about asking him?" asked Phoebe, incredulously.

Paige and Piper looked at each other. "No. No we didn't."

Phoebe rubbed her temples. She just wanted to go to sleep and have that dream again with that beyond yummy man. If she went to sleep now she might find out his name. Glancing up at her sisters she realised this was impossible. She sighed and knelt next to said young boy.

Wyatt looked up at her. "His name's Pegasus," he said, pointing at his new friend. Phoebe smiled at her nephew. Turning to Pegasus she said, "You know, that's a very unusual name. Who gave it to you?"

"I don't know but I do know why the police didn't find me when they searched my home yesterday. I hid. They made so much noise I thought they were...them." He shuddered and the terrified look returned to his eyes.

Phoebe put her arm around him. "It's all right. You're safe here. Now, I know you probably don't want to but could you tell me what happened the day everyone else disappeared?"

He nodded his head slowly to show he complied, but the reservations were written all over his face. He began, " It was Saturday so we were all gathered in front of the big flat-screened TV in the recreation room. We were watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and it was just up to the part where the crazy doctor is about to take that guy's heart out when it turned off. The TV, I mean. They sometimes do this for a joke so we weren't worried, at first, anyway. And then the lights went out all at once. And after a moment we could hear something breathing in the room with us. Its breath smelt as though something had died awhile ago. And it felt big, like it was the room. But we couldn't feel it, I mean physically.

"And the world went crazy. Up 'til now it had been dead silent but now it was as though the whole of civilisation had appeared just outside the door. Everyone was suddenly trying to get out of the room and away from the...thing. I don't know why but I tried going in the opposite direction. I fell down and then everything went black. When I woke up everyone had disappeared. But the thing was still in the room. I felt different about it...I felt that it wasn't bad, that what had been outside was the bad thing. I felt as though whatever the thing was it had protected me.

"I don't know where everyone else went or why I didn't go with them," he finished, trying to hold back a shudder. He sniffled against Phoebe's shoulder then asked, "Where's Roger?"

Phoebe looked up at her sisters, confused.

Paige smiled. "He's in the kitchen. I'll just go get him." She left to do just that.

"Who's Roger?" Phoebe asked Pegasus.

"He's my rat," he said, waiting for Paige to return with said rat, which she did a moment later.

Just as Paige handed Roger to Pegasus Leo appeared in a swirl of blue-white lights. Piper went to him. "What did the Elders have to say?"

He looked at her and she knew that it hadn't been anything good. "They don't know where the rest of the children and others went but they do know that the boy is important. He is the key to the Ultimate Alternate Universe System, and if someone is looking for him that is very bad."

Paige was sceptical. "The Ultimate Alternate Universe System? Sounds like a video game."

"It's not, Paige. If you've ever thought that a certain place that doesn't exist except in another medium, like television for instance, is true then you're right. Every world that was ever thought up by anyone really does exist. That is the Ultimate Alternate Universe System, Paige. If someone was able to open it with a key then the barriers between our world and those worlds would break down and the consequences wouldn't be pretty," Leo finished, exasperated. He'd just wanted a day all to himself so that he could be with Piper. Obviously the powers that be did not believe in days off.

"But why is he here? And in human form?" Phoebe asked, still holding onto Pegasus, who seemed to be taking the fact that he was a key pretty well.

"I don't know, and neither do the Elders. He should be an entirely different plane of existence but he isn't. So that must mean he came here for a reason. The question is, why?" Leo asked, turning to Pegasus.

Pegasus looked down at Roger then back up to Leo. "I came because...because I need your help. That wasn't the first time they've nearly found me. So I decided to stop running and confront them. But alone I am useless. I needed help. And I knew what kind of help I needed. I needed the Charmed Ones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends, Superman and various others."

"You mean those people are all real?" Paige asked.

Pegasus shrugged. "Well...technically they are real since they exist...but that doesn't mean what you see on TV is exactly a true depiction especially if the series has ended. Time would still continue as normal in their universe as though the series had never ended."

"And opening this...system means the end of the world as we know it?" Piper asked.

Pegasus nodded. "As you know it, yes."

Phoebe sighed. "Not again."