A/N: This update is super-short, but where I ended it seemed like a natural place to leave you hanging b/c I'm evil. Just to clarify, the italics in this chapter indicate a dream sequence. Also, lately, I've been Gilmored (meaning my fanfic tends to be lately lots of talking and very little real plot, so I decided to start a real plot after eight chapters) enjoy!
Somewhere along I-87
"I cannot believe you are doing this," Elle muttered, pouting.
"Doing what?" Gabriel asked.
"Doing exactly what Angela fucking Petrelli tells you to."
"Hey, watch it," Gabriel chided, glancing at their sleeping son in the backseat.
"He's asleep and he's a year old, he won't remember Mommy's potty mouth," Elle argued. "Why are you doing this? It's not like she's your mother."
"Yes, Elle, I know that," he said pointedly.
She shrunk a little in her seat and said, "Sorry, but, really Gabriel, why are you doing this? Why would you want to protect that horrible, awful, terrible, atrocious, nasty, horrible—"
"You already said horrible."
Elle rolled her eyes and said, "You get my point, though, right?"
"Yes, and I'm not doing this because she told me to. Why do you think I stole her Land Rover to drive up there? I'm doing this for Peter."
"Oh, are you guys like a thing now?"
"Elle."
"I know. Five years in a nightmare does things to people. I guess I've just never had that sort of connection with anyone…except for him," she said, smiling back at her son.
Gabriel followed her gaze and a small smile crept onto his own face. "Why did you name him Mikey?"
Elle looked down and smiled. "Michael was an archangel, a messenger…like Gabriel," she explained.
He regarded her strangely out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't think you believed in any of that stuff."
She looked up at him and said, "I believe everyone has a soul that can be saved. I even thought you had a soul. I always did. I just…doubted, sometimes."
"I doubted it too," he confessed. "Sometimes I still do."
"Don't," she told him, wrapping her small hand around his.
He smiled slightly as he laced her fingers through hers while they drove farther into the night.
Emma Coolidge's Apartment, Midtown Manhattan
Emma knew how to make quick decisions. It was necessary to be a doctor. She did not, however, make rash decisions. Rash decisions got people hurt. She made a rash decision to join Samuel's carnival, and thousands of people nearly died. She made a rash decision to kiss Peter Petrelli. She couldn't figure out yet who would wind up hurt because of that one.
She lay awake in her bed at four-thirty in the morning rolling the events of the day over and over. Peter nearly kissed her, and then abruptly backed off. Then he died and she kissed him. Unsure of what to do next, she simply ran before either of them could do anything else.
In retrospect, running away was probably not the best idea. It was bound to give the wrong impression, although Emma wasn't entirely sure what the right impression was. Peter was the only person outside of her family she had really even spoken to in the last few years, and she connected with him. She didn't know if she loved him, but she knew she couldn't lose him.
Finally sick of the never-ending circus of thoughts in her head, she threw off the covers and went to the stove to boil some water for tea. She was going to start training her replacement in a few hours. She was also grateful that it was Peter's day off, although that wasn't a guarantee that he wouldn't take a shift and show up anyway. She wasn't sure she could face him so soon.
She shook her head to empty it as steam shot out of the spout. It was going to be a long day.
It was bright and sunny and happy. Peter couldn't remember a day so beautiful since his childhood, before he knew how ugly the world really was. He was on a beach in the Hamptons near where his family used to vacation. Someone tightly gripped his right hand and he looked over to find Emma smiling at him in her shy fashion. It took him a moment to recognize her. She was wearing a thin, flowing dress and her hair hung down in soft curls around her shoulders. He couldn't remember seeing her quite so uncoiled and happy.
He leaned over and kissed her gently as if it were the most natural thing to do. And she kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his neck as he pulled their bodies flush against one another. It was blissful. It was beautiful. It was right.
A scream pierced the air. Peter's head whipped around to find Elle weeping over Gabriel's body a few feet away. Mikey cried, sitting in a pool of his father's blood. In the other direction, Tracy Strauss and Noah Bennet were yelling for everyone to follow them away from the water. Peter recognized Molly Walker and Micah Sanders among the throng. Zach pulled a weeping Claire away from the body of someone Peter couldn't see. Zach bore a scar along one side of his face and one of his arms was missing. Peter looked down and saw blood seeping up through the sand. Emma tightened her hold on his waist. He looked up and saw Remy Griffith with her ever-present smile.
"For behold," she began, "the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people…"
The sun disappeared from the sky and darkness so black he couldn't see the woman he loved covered them all.
Peter gasped for air as his brain jumped back to consciousness. The clock on the floor next to the mattress read 4:37 a.m. He wiped the sweat from his face and sat up, still breathing heavily. There was no doubt in his mind that he just had a vision of the future. It was the sort of nightmare he hadn't had since he first saw himself explode nearly three years before.
He wanted to call his mother and ask her what it all meant, but he knew that would be pointless. Angela Petrelli shared only what suited her purposes and nothing more.
He got up and rummaged around in the sparse contents of his kitchen cabinets and was almost surprised to find what he was looking for. He swallowed one of the sleeping pills and gulped down a glass of water. His body was still so exhausted, he knew he didn't need it to sleep, but he didn't want to see that dream again. He just wanted sleep.
A/N: I know...I'm horrible. R&R does not mean rest and relaxation. Thanks!
