A/N: Couple reminders - if you reached this chapter, or "Giving Thanks" by use of the 'last chapter posted' button, you might take note that there are four chapters between the first and Giving Thanks. I posted five chapters in as many minutes, so unless you're getting alert notifications, it might be easy to miss. I can see from the site traffic report that a lot of people hit the first chapter, then the last, and none in between. So… just FYI.
I would also like to point out that last week I added additional material to the ending of the first chapter. No alert would have gone out for that, so here's your notice.
Italics are mental conversation. Peter and Sylar (now going by Gabriel) share a permanent (at this point) mental link that allows easy telepathy and sharing of information. As time has passed, they have grown to use it more and more.
And thanks to Dragontrybe for the kind reviews. I'd say more, especially about the review for chapter 6, but not as a public statement (getting an account at FFn is easy and straightforward). I've survived too.
Oh, and I have no idea why this chapter turned out so freaking long. The voices in my head just kept talking to each other!
Sixty years
They sat in boat that was modestly sized for personal use, floating on one of the finger lakes in northwestern New York state. The three men in the vessel pretty much filled it to capacity. They had to be careful not to get in each other's way. Peter and Gabriel avoided fouling one another with preternatural ease. Simon, Peter's nephew and his brother Nathan's oldest son, did not share in this.
"Crap!" he exclaimed as he managed to get one of his fishing poles tangled with one of Gabriel's.
"Just… stop it, okay? Stop. Stop moving it." Gabriel's voice was steady and he didn't put any ability behind it, but Simon still pulled back from him as if he had. Peter glanced over at what had amounted to a flinch, but didn't say anything. Gabriel used telekinesis to unravel the tangled lines quickly and without requiring either pole to be reeled in.
"Thanks," Simon said grudgingly. He was nearing eighty years old. To an outsider, it probably looked like a grandfather fishing with two grandsons, as Peter and Gabriel still looked like they were in their early 30s. Simon had taken more after his father than Monty had, with lighter hair, chiseled features, flexible morals and lots of ambition. He'd gone far in the government, riding on his family name.
Peter's side of the family, and Nathan's, had stayed divided for most of forty years after Nathan's death. It was only in the last generation that they'd started associating again. Today they were having a Petrelli family reunion. All the descendents of Tim and Arthur were invited, though Nathan's and Peter's families were the best represented. The fishing trip had been Simon's idea, trying to mend fences after his outburst yesterday about the "freaks that polluted the Petrelli family line."
It had been Gabriel who had stopped Peter from blurting out in response that Simon's cherished father had possessed one of these "freakish" abilities. Monty had had one as well and carried the secret of it to his grave. Those with abilities who had managed to avoid being caught up in Nathan's presidential persecution rarely made themselves known. Since the trait was mainly genetic and a large part of Nathan's purge had involved sterilization, the incidence of specials in humanity had been greatly reduced.
Gabriel, Peter and Claire were among the few who had made themselves public. It wasn't Peter's or Gabriel's idea. Claire had made herself known within a year of Nathan's faux death by plane crash, staged by Gabriel. As the president's daughter, she thought she had enough political clout to make a statement about the reintegration of slaves into society and perhaps make strides towards ending discrimination against former slaves.
She'd had her ability to survive death put the test and in rescuing her, Peter's abilities had become public. Gabriel revealed himself in order to protect Peter. When it was clear that they were facing something stronger than a girl who could heal, and instead not just one, but two arsenals of abilities in the form of Peter and Gabriel, those insistent on continuing Nathan's policies against specials found it healthier to do something else with their time. Those few brave enough to rail against them chose their words carefully, lest they be chosen for them.
The fearful public and politicians representing it still shut down the artificial creation of abilities. The serum surfaced anyway on the black market, here and there, just enough so that the police and the media and the conservative forces felt justified in harassing anyone who had abilities, always casting doubt and implying they'd gained them through illicit means and not mere birth. That was the popular rumor about Peter - that he was the result of one of Nathan's and Mohinder's programs that went far beyond the super-soldier, goon squad artificial abilities, and instead had granted him a multiplicity of abilities. They called it the God Program.
Peter had never bothered to correct them on that, disturbing as the implication was.
Peter was still angry about Simon's words. "Freak" had always been one of his hot buttons. He'd steamed about it off and on since the words left Simon's mouth. That Gabriel was sitting between them on the boat wasn't an accident.
Peter picked up one of his two poles and gave it a quick jerk, then reeled it in with a medium-sized fish.
"Good one, Pete," Simon said.
Peter bristled inside. Gabriel projected to him, He's trying to be nice.
I'd rather he called me Peter.
Then you should tell him that sometime, rather than just getting angry at him every time he calls you Pete. Peter turned and looked at Simon, opening his mouth. Gabriel cut in, Don't tell him right now! Wait until things have smoothed over.
Peter told Simon, "Thanks," and tossed the fish in the live well.
Simon nodded and said gruffly, "How deep were you fishing?"
"About thirty feet," Peter said, equally grudging in tone.
"I didn't think the water was that deep here," Simon said archly.
He's calling me a liar! Peter complained mentally to Gabriel.
Gabriel shifted to the side of the boat and leaned over as Peter automatically and immediately shifted to the other side to balance him. Peter retrieved a minnow from the minnow bucket as Gabriel looked and said, "No, the bottom's about thirty-two, thirty-three feet here."
"Really?" Simon said. "You can see that?"
Now he's calling you a liar, Peter thought sourly, making sure his tackle was still in order. He dropped the line over the side of the boat.
Be nice, Gabriel told him. To Simon he said, "Yep."
I'm enjoying being angry at him, Peter mused, watching the fishing line play out. You know if you weren't here mediating, I'd be having to give in and do it myself. That's kind of perverse, isn't it? I would have probably already made up with him if you weren't trying to help.
I'm aware of that, Peter. But has it occurred to you that letting you be angry might be as important as letting you be happy?
No. Do you think that's true?
I'm still here mediating, aren't I?
Huh. I'll have to think about that one.
Simon had no idea of their exchange. He asked Gabriel, "Can you see the fish too?"
"Yep."
A note of real interest crept in over the doubt and disbelief. It wasn't like he didn't know they both had a slew of powers. "How many are down there?"
Gabriel looked again and Peter shifted to the other side once more as though they'd choreographed it. This time Simon noticed, but there wasn't anything to say about it. He just experienced a moment of being creeped out - not that uncle Peter and his partner Gabriel didn't already creep him out a lot. Gabriel said, "Seven right at the moment."
"And they're all down there nearly on the bottom, huh?"
"Yep."
"Wow. That must make it real easy to fish, since you can just see right where they are." He was caught between admiration and sarcasm.
Not as easy as it would be if I told the fish to jump in the boat and spare us the trouble, Peter grumped mentally.
Gabriel grinned, mostly at Peter's suggestion. "Yeah, but that's not the point of fishing, is it?"
Simon eyed him for a moment, suspicious. "What do you mean?"
"Well, if we just wanted to get fish, then we'd go to the grocery store, wouldn't we?"
Simon nodded and relaxed a little. He'd feared Gabriel was being patronizing, or bringing attention to the fact that Simon had inviting them fishing as a goodwill gesture, trying to make up for his faux pas the day before. His ego was too sensitive to handle that being pointed out directly.
Gabriel shrugged and picked up one of his poles, watching as the bobber moved erratically. After a moment of observation he decided it was just wave action. "Or we'd use commercial fishing methods."
Simon laughed a little. "In the old days, when they wanted to cheat they used dynamite. Sometimes lights. Hey, can you get me another beer?"
"Sure." See, he's warming to me already. Gabriel retrieved a beer from the cooler and handed it over.
Everyone loves you, Gabriel.
Yeah, hard to believe I used to spend my days looking for someone to cut the top of their head off of.
Peter snorted. Simon looked at him, then took a long pull from his beer. He said, "So, for you two, whaddaya do when you go fishing? Do you just not use your powers?"
Gabriel gave him a sly smile. "Well, not until we get desperate."
Usually we go out in the boat and fuck, then come back with fish, Peter provided to Gabriel, along with helpful accompanying images.
That's because you're so much more interesting than fishing, Peter.
Peter felt a gentle warmth suffuse through him as Gabriel sent along his feelings with the words. That's nice of you to say. Peter sighed happily and looked off at the shore, where various relatives of his were playing in the water.
Simon laughed though at the implication of cheating as a last resort. That was something he could understand, as well as the implication that they didn't always succeed without using their abilities. As though that revelation of mortality had forged a tenuous link of trust between them, Simon worked himself up to asking something more dangerous. "You know, there's something I wonder about with you two…" Gabriel looked at him, raising his brows in invitation. "You can just tell people what to do and make them do it, right?"
Gabriel looked back over at his bobber, which was acting weird again without any accompanying wave action. Are you using telekinesis to move my bobber, Peter? "Yes, we can."
No. You've probably got a fish.
Hm. He looked down, focusing through the side of the boat and through the water. A fish had indeed taken an interest in his bait, but it was just hanging in the water near it at the moment, as though trying to decide if it really wanted to eat this particular minnow.
"Then why don't you?" Simon asked.
Gabriel watched as the fish made up its fishy mind and went upwards, well out of the depth where the others were, to immediately swallow Simon's bait. Did you see that? he thought to Peter.
No, what?
That stupid fish turned up it's nose at my bait and went for Simon's!
"Oh, I think I've got one!" Simon said cheerfully, giving his pole a yank and beginning to reel it in.
Huh. Well, good for him. Peter turned to show a polite interest in the new catch and congratulated his nephew. He held open the live well and Simon tossed it in from across the boat with a practiced flip.
"I guess even someone without any abilities can catch a fish every now and then, eh?" Simon gloated a bit.
Gabriel nodded agreeably. Peter went back to minding his poles and watching the kids on the shore. Gabriel said, "You remember the end of slavery, don't you?"
Simon nodded, struggling to catch a minnow out of the bucket. They were quick little buggers.
"What do you remember of the reasons they gave for ending it?"
Simon finally got one of the tiny fish and hooked it. He tossed in the line a moment later. "Oh, the usual stuff - how it degraded people, was cruel, made the slave-owners less human, upset the economy, set the stage for a rebellion, that sort of thing." He cocked his head. "You're saying that's why you don't use your powers on people all the time?"
"Pretty much," Peter supplied, one of the first things he'd said in the conversation.
Each of the three men was silent for a while, mulling over their individual thoughts.
Finally Simon said, "I know they talked about all those moral reasons, but I always thought the real reason they abolished it was the population thing. You know, the inheritability of slave status. Because it's one thing to enslave someone for a crime, like robbery or taking drugs or whatever, but it's another thing to say their kids will be slaves because the parents were. That just… it changes the whole thing from punitive, a sort of expanded penal operation you see, and into… I don't know, an underclass, a slave class."
Simon went on, warming to the subject, "And I know they tried to address that for a while by sterilizing all the slaves, but that just meant the population nose-dived. Everyone was in agreement at first that slaves didn't need to be having kids, but then ten years into the program, there were so many slaves out there and so many of the people who'd been enslaved anyway were usually young folks, immigrants, the poor - the exact same groups of society who had the highest birth rates."
Peter thought, Like they didn't see the connection between struggling to find your way in the world and the higher crime rate among those groups? Slavery wasn't the answer. Why do people reach for punishment before help?
Old news, Peter, was Gabriel's response. Why do you want to hurt Simon instead of helping him understand?
He doesn't want to understand. And anyway, he annoys me.
He reminds you of Nathan.
That too.
Simon kept talking, "Then they tried to fix it by letting the slaves have kids and that was just a disaster. The prices on slaves hit rock bottom. No one wanted to buy a slave who wasn't sterilized unless they wanted them as a breeder and that caused it's own problems with people bilking the government for the subsidies for the children of slaves… I mean, it was just a mess. Personally I think the big economic boom we saw after slavery ended was because we'd sterilized half the population for an entire generation."
Peter continued watching his bobber fixedly. He would think that was a good thing, wouldn't he?
He didn't say it was a good thing - he just said that was probably the cause of the economic boom. And it was. You know that. We had all kinds of resources and fewer people sharing them. Out loud, Gabriel said, "Assuming the moral reasons aren't enough for you, there are practical reasons for us to not use our abilities constantly. It disrupts things just like slavery did, just like if we used our abilities here to catch all the fish in the lake."
Simon mulled that over. "I still sort of feel like I'm here on your sufferance."
"You are," Peter said with a grunt.
"Peter! That's out of line." Gabriel's voice was sharp. His mental voice was not: I'm getting onto you for his benefit.
I know. "Sorry."
Simon looked back and forth between the two of them. "What do you two do between you?"
"What?" Gabriel was a little thrown. There were so many things that could mean.
Peter chortled in his head and suggested in a patronizing, sing-song voice, Well, when a man and a man love each other very, very much…
Hush, he's being serious. You really are in a mood today, you know that?
Simon said, "When you two disagree. What do you do? You both have the same powers, right?"
Peter continued the mental conversation uninterrupted, Oh, you love me anyway.
Yes, I do, but I'm happier when you have your head out of your ass. Did you hear what he was trying to ask? How appropriate.
Gabriel laughed. Peter smiled. Gabriel said, "We have rules. No abilities when we argue. And we do - argue, that is."
Quietly, but well enough to carry across the boat, Peter said, "It helps that we have abilities to understand where each other is coming from and what we really want."
"And that we want to be together," Gabriel added. "It… that sort of forces a compromise."
"Huh," Simon said. "You never have anything you want more than staying together?"
Gabriel looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "Um… no?" He scanned Simon's thoughts. There were all manner of things Simon wanted more than being with his second wife, 'his own way' foremost among them. Ha, Gabriel thought to Peter. I've never had my own way with you. Even the very first time didn't go like I wanted it. I guess I've gotten used to letting you call the shots.
Letting me call the shots? You bought me as a slave, Gabriel! The only thing I've ever gotten my way on was having a family and that was only after a pile of conditions!
Oh, I'll condition you…
Peter shifted as a telekinetic stroke passed up his spine and lightly ruffled the hair on the back of his head. He reached back and smoothed his hair down again. "I think we both know we'd be hopeless apart. Besides," he shrugged, "there's no one else who can dish my shit right back to me if I get carried away."
Gabriel snorted. Like that's going to happen. You're always the one who escalates.
Oh right, because if you pull out powers it's an accident. Peter's mental sarcasm was clear.
It is! When you do it, it's intentional.
And a response to one of your 'accidents!'
Gabriel was silent, flicking through his memories of various arguments and fights they'd had. There were a few times when Peter had slipped, but in general he was right. Okay, fine.
What, I win?
Yes, you win.
I am so awesome. Oh! I've got a fish! Even the fish think I'm awesome! Peter gave the pole a yank, but missed it somehow. The hook came up empty. "Dangit."
Gabriel snickered in his head.
"Missed it, huh?" Simon observed.
"Yeah," Peter said glumly, reaching for more bait.
"Well, it's nice to know it doesn't always work the way you want it to."
Peter looked at Simon for a moment and then smiled, letting some of his anger slip away. "Hey love, gimme a beer, would you?"
Gabriel handed one over and blew a kiss at Peter, who returned it.
Peter said, "Things don't work out the way I want them to just because I have a lot of powers. For one thing, I have to be paying attention - I can be caught by surprise, for example. For another, I have to have a power or an ability that can make the change I want. For a third, I have to know what change that is - I don't just know automatically what the best thing to do is. Gabriel's always been smarter at that than I am."
Gabriel gave him what amounted to a mental snort.
You are, baby, Peter responded.
Don't 'baby' me. You know I don't like that.
Oh, coochie-coo. Hey, do you know your bobber has been under water for seconds now?
What? Gabriel jumped at his pole.
Peter laughed and went on without much interruption in what he'd been saying, "And then assuming I have all that, then yeah, I can use a power to force things. But it doesn't let me control the consequences and a lot of times those are a lot bigger than whatever it was I was trying to fix to start with."
They watched as Gabriel hauled in the biggest fish they'd caught so far.
"Well, would you look at that?" Simon said. "Is that the biggest one down there?"
Peter eyed the bottom of the boat, brow furrowed. Gabriel said, "It wasn't down there when I looked before. They move around, after all."
Peter said, "It's kind of hard to tell, but there's another at least the same size. Oh, and Simon, you don't have any bait on your hook anymore."
"I don't? Oh. You can see right through the bottom of the boat?" Peter nodded. Simon reeled up and fixed his line. "Thanks," he offered.
"No problem."
That was nice of you, Gabriel thought.
See? I can behave myself. I don't always want to kill my relatives.
No, just the ones that remind you of Nathan. All the rest you just want to mind-control into obedience. He was joking, of course, but Peter did find his family frustrating at times, and not just the teenagers.
"I probably shouldn't have said what I did yesterday," Simon said out of the blue a few minutes later.
Is that an apology? Peter thought. Out loud he said, "We're all Petrellis here."
I am not, Gabriel thought.
You are by marriage.
We're not married. Gabriel added a mental sniff to it.
We are too. Shut up, Peter chided telepathically.
Are not.
You're silly.
You're childish.
"Yes, we are," Simon said and sighed. "I suppose if it really is genetic like they say it is, then it's something we all have to live with."
Like it's a burden. Christ, Peter thought.
"True," Gabriel said. "Calling someone a freak was probably a little over the top, though, don't you think?"
Simon bristled a little. "I didn't call anyone a freak!"
"No, of course not," Gabriel soothed.
Simon went on like he hadn't spoken. "I said it was a freakish ability and it is. It's not normal."
Calm down, Peter.
I didn't say anything.
Yeah, but I know you.
I'm not doing anything here. His mental tone was tense and the lack of feedback through the link - the mental silence he was giving off - was a clearer indicator to Gabriel than if he'd been yelling.
Well, then keep doing that. Aloud Gabriel said, "Regardless of how common it is, it happens to be something some members of the family have."
Simon huffed and said nothing, pulling up one of his lines as if suspecting he had a bite. He didn't. He fussed with it a bit and dropped the line back in. "Like a birth defect," he muttered, clearly audible.
"That's not fair, or polite," Gabriel said with a warning tone.
Simon glanced over at him with narrowed eyes. Gabriel had been the nice one thus far. Peter's end of the mental link was dead silent.
"You're right," Simon said. "I'm sorry."
Gabriel exhaled in relief at the admission.
Simon had to add though, "It's just that… this thing has really changed the family and how we turned out. Anyone hears my last name and they don't think of my father, they think of him," he said, hooking a thumb at Peter.
Jealousy, Peter thought, along with, A-ha. Now it makes sense.
"And my father was one of the greatest presidents we ever had!"
Peter coughed. When Simon looked over at him, he smiled weakly and said, "I think I swallowed a bug," and coughed again.
Gabriel expressed his humor mentally and kept a straight face. "He's remembered well, that's true."
Peter interjected, Sometimes I wish we'd made it clear what a bastard he was before staging his death. I never expected this fucking martyr crap to follow him for decades!
Peter, one of the traits of your family is a nearly supernatural charisma. Nathan had it just as you do.
Simon shrugged. "Yeah, he left a good legacy, getting all that straightened out before he… before the end."
Gabriel and Peter both perked up. Nathan's death had been set up as an accident - a tragic accident. Gabriel said cautiously, "You… say that like you think maybe he was taking care of his affairs."
Simon was quiet for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, I think that's exactly what happened. He wasn't the same that last year." He glanced over uneasily at Peter. "He… after you got caught, he went crazy. He never recovered, as far as I could tell. He was weird, after that, and I didn't see him much. He wrapped everything up though, made all those sweeping changes, presided over the election, and then boom. Dead. I don't think it was an accident. I think he couldn't stand the idea of what had happened to his own flesh and blood."
Gabriel tilted his head slightly and lifted his brows for a moment. "Well, put that way… maybe you're right."
Simon gave himself a little shake and looked over at Peter. "I've researched him… and you know this better than I do, I know, but I never had a chance to talk to you about it… when he was running for election as a senator, he talked about your suicide attempt. And then there was granddad, and how he went. I suppose what I should be more surprised about is how no one ever questioned it."
"There were some questions," Peter murmured, just loud enough to be heard. "We took care of them. I didn't want anyone to think that of him."
"Because of… because of how he used your suicide attempt for his election?"
"Yeah," Peter said, looking blankly out across the lake. He wasn't angry at Simon anymore. The emotion was gone with the realization that Simon just wanted to think the best of his father and had been stewing for all these decades on the thought that it was losing Peter that had driven Nathan to reverse so many of his policies and then kill himself. Simon was so wrong about so many things, but he was only able to work with the information available to him.
Peter exhaled and said, "Your father… I knew him better than anyone else did. He would have been proud of you."
Simon smiled. "Thanks for that. Obviously you meant the world to him." He nodded to himself and went back to fishing. The three men spent the remainder of their outing in a comfortable quiet, having put the wrongs of the past behind them.