Q&A: Could there be some Pemma at some point? There is a very distinct possibility, but it will probably be brief since there are a lot of butterflies to dig through.
Alternate universe where genders are reversed? While I can definitely appreciate the humor that could result from that kind of scenario, it's not currently in the plans for this story.
I loved your ideas on what Sylar's mother should be like. Hopefully this chapter will live up to your expectations.
Disclaimer: No hippies were harmed in the production of this story.
9
There Can Be No Peace
November 26, 2010
"This is promising." Peter gave her an enthusiastic smile as the time traveling duo landed in the middle of a thriving New York metropolis; Time Square, its attention diverting activity, and all of the inhabitants contentedly going about their daily business as if nothing had ever been amiss. The bustling crowds coursed down the walkways and throughout the twisted network of traffic in a noisy cacophony of advertising, honking horns, and conversations with persons on the other end of a million cell phones all in a brilliant orchestration of a healthy society. One particular man in a sharp business suit side-stepped them in the natural ebb and flow of the foot traffic without looking up from his morning paper; the page flipped around to the stock report, and his phone tucked neatly beneath his chin as he read off numbers that indicated an all-time high for the Dow Jones.
Claire wasn't sure what to think at first; her mind busily attempting to understand what direction they had sent the butterfly effect spiraling in order to reach such a point. From what she could discern as they spun around in the sea of nameless faces like gawking tourists to take in what they had created from one simple act: there had never been any such thing as a "housing bubble"; the military industrial complex was as strong as ever despite a world record for an extended international peace time; technologies and "green" advancements were skyrocketing; production and manufacturing surges had lead to a nearly nonexistent unemployment rate; and somehow, beyond all possibility, the Chicago Cubs had won the World Series.
Peter made a bee line for the first news stand that he could find and grabbed a copy of the Times. Headline after headline promised a bigger, better, and brighter future than anyone could have realistically hoped for. "States Strike Peace Accord with North Korea. The Nuclear Disarmament Race Begins," he read off, growing wildly excited as he flashed the picture at her so that she could see Vladimir Putin of Russia, Hu Jintao of China, Nouri al-Maliki or Iraq, and Kim Jong-il of North Korea all standing in a line to shake hands with one another - none less than their very own Nathan Petrelli standing in as President of the United States beside them - and all being noted as members of a new word-wide federation.
"Check that out. Apparently we pulled completely out of the Middle East back in 2006, and then made a peace treaty with Iraq. Iran and Afghanistan in '07. There's seriously peace in the Middle East," he mumbled with more than a little awe. "FDA Clinical Trials for Regenimax Exceed Expectations. Cure for HIV Imminent." He flipped another page with trembling fingers that practically refused to grip the recycled paper in their jittery state. "Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone Celebrate Third Year As World's Top Food Producers." In the next column was an article detailing the scope of Haiti's miraculous recovery from a freak blizzard that took place instead of a deadly earthquake, and how the development of multiple luxury resorts would not in any way be inhibited.
They exchanged a deeply meaningful look that managed to convey every ounce of their worry was mutual. Taking a gulp, Claire steeled herself to turn the next page herself. There's a reason why people have a tendency to believe that if something is too good to be true, then it usually is. Their newly founded Eden of commerce and peace was no exception to that rule; the proof staring them in the face under the line, "President Petrelli and First Lady Strauss Lead National Moment of Silence Following Landslide Re-election Victory." However gloriously well the rest of the world had been doing since their intervention, the ripples of time's manipulations hadn't spared the city of Los Angeles, California. Somehow, Ted Sprague had still failed to be contained, and apparently had not encountered Matt Parkman as he was supposed to in order to reach New York. 0.07% of the world's population had been destroyed in the explosion, the United States having been united in the disaster under Nathan's leadership as the Company had once designed, and a revolution of purposeful harmony coming to fruition.
And yet, there didn't seem to be any mentioning of "specials" though their exposure should have been an absolute certainty. Nor were there ability related mishaps, signs of a pandemic, or formula granted powers running rampant in spite of Sylar's apparent lack of responsibility. "What the fuck?"
"My thoughts exactly," Peter grumbled in response to his niece's subconscious utterings as he crumbled the newspaper and tossed the crinkled up ball into a wastebasket earning him dirty looks from passerby for his disregard of the city's mandatory recycling policy. In a whirlwind of space jumping teleportation, Peter dropped them in the center of a pristinely decorated hallway with plush blue carpeting and took care to freeze time in its tracks as what appeared to be half a dozen hulking body guards in pressed suits started to draw their weapons. Claire's attention was ripped away from the glittering crystal chandelier warmly illuminating the cream colored space when Peter's foot heavily landed on the right side of a double set of doors, the wood cracking loudly as it swung open to dramatically bang into the wall on the other side. With his face set into a fearsome interrogative form, he approached his brother whom was caught frozen in his seat with a phone pressed to his ear and a hand keeping a formal pen aloft from a document awaiting his official signature. The second she realized that they were intruding on the Oval Office of the White House, time was set free for the room's other occupant so that the conversation needing to be held would be much less one sided.
"Pete." Nathan blinked a few times in surprise. "I'm going to need to call you back on this," he spoke in a rush to hang up the phone. Glancing around him to the open door and the conspicuous absence of his security detail, Nathan allowed his pen to fall to his desk and sat back in his chair, sure that they were alone for the meanwhile. "It's been a long time."
Peter's tension gently melted away at the simplicity of his long lost brother's words. The matters at hand were forgotten, the muscles of his shoulders relaxed, and the furious clenching of teeth for ill intentions let go as he remembered how long it really had been since he had last seen his childhood idol. Before he could stop himself, Peter had crossed the distance between them and snatched his brother around the middle in the tightest bear hug he could afford given their awkward positioning with him in the chair. "I missed you, Nathan. So much."
The older Petrelli, stuck somewhere in the middle of controlled surprise and quiet suffocation patted his brother on the back congenially with a plastic smile on his face, but was none too soon relieved when released from the strangle hold. "I see you've been into the painkillers again." When Peter pulled back in confusion Nathan waved him off with false ease. "Don't worry, Pete. I'll pull some strings. We'll get you back in the program and nobody will ever have to know that you fell off the wagon again." His shark's smile slowly faded as Nathan observed his brother more closely. "What happened to your scar?"
"What scar?" He asked the question out of habit, but already knew the answer as his fingers roamed over the center of his face where a diagonal line of jagged scar tissue would have been.
Nathan's lips hardened into a grim frown of concern for his brother's psychological well being. "Pete, you took a fifteen story swan dive into a parked car, and then tried to tell people that an invisible man pushed you. It's a miracle that you're even alive." He reached out to take Peter by the arm as if he were a small child that had escaped the watch of his caregiver, and lead him to take the chair resting in front of his grand Kennedy desk. "Here, I'll call Nikki to come pick you up…" And then his words of comfort drifted away as he caught sight of a meekly standing by Claire that looked after her undamaged uncle with large watery eyes and a heavily pregnant stomach. "Claire? How? We never found your body…" Bewildered and more flabbergasted than he would ever admit, Nathan looked back and forth between the two attempting to find reason in the displacement.
"You should introduce us to your visitors, Nathan." They all jumped in unison at the sound of Arthur Petrelli's voice. Claire turned to see one very startled Mohinder standing in the doorway, glasses left to dangle in one hand and a thick stack of papers in the other. A casually disinterested Arthur stood with his hands in his pockets at the scientist's side, the very air around him alluring that he somehow already knew what was going on.
"We thought Hiro had come to call," Suresh stuttered, unable to tear his eyes away from Peter's smooth face, or a very much alive Claire. "We stopped to say hello."
Peter defensively sprang up from the chair in his father's presence only to be forced back down into the cushions by a wave of the Petrelli patriarch's hand. "Now, Peter," Arthur gently chided, "that's no way to think about your father. I taught you to show more respect than that." He pressed a finger lightly to his temple, showcasing that their every fleeting thought were made privy to him by telepathy. No one missed the frantic eye roll in Claire's direction. She wanted to run like hell, but as with Peter, she found herself caught up in the strings of a puppet master.
"Claire, dear, it's been a long time," he greeted as he walked her over to him. "I don't believe anyone planned on ever seeing you again." Arthur laid his open palm flush across her belly, his fingertips digging in just a bit to grip against her futile struggles. "Interesting," he mumbled almost to himself as the child within stirred. "Another Gray. That will have to be taken care of, of course." The nonchalant way that he referred to infanticide made them all physically ill.
"Arthur, that's monstrous," Mohinder spoke up with righteous indignation.
"I can't be any part of this." Nathan eyed a resigned apology to both Claire and Peter before quietly turning his back on the whole affair.
"And that child has the potential to ruin everything," Arthur rebuked the geneticist. "Are you willing to sacrifice the world we've made for everyone?" Suresh faltered, his hesitation an unspoken, if not reluctant, acceptance to what had to be done. It really was a better place though the means to cultivate such a paradise had been more than a little morally questionable.
Claire tried to scream, but the force holding her body in invisible restraints choked off the sound before it could reach her lips. She watched Arthur raise a finger towards her and clenched her eyes tightly shut to wait for… nothing. Nothing at all. Hesitantly, she cracked an eye open and found herself sitting comfortably on a sofa in a strange living room. Peter breathed a drawn-out sigh of relief at her side as Hiro Nakamura rounded a corner with two steaming cups of tea in hand.
"Peter. Claire," he quietly greeted, giving them each a slight bow as he handed over the warm mugs of soothing liquid. Hiro sat down on another couch that was placed adjacent to theirs with a small low setting table between, taking a personal moment to unabashedly stare at the pair of them. Claire ignored the joyfully surprised eyes of the Japanese man as she took a sip of her drink and willed her heart to slow back down to a reasonable pace.
"I'm sorry," Hiro apologized after a moment with a smile. "It's just been years since I've seen either of you. I almost didn't recognize you without the scar, Peter." The time traveler had grown his hair out they noticed, and wore it swept back into a neat ponytail. His glasses had been discarded, and black clothing donned to give him a far more edgy look than in times previous; but unlike a similar version of the hero that Peter had once encountered, he seemed genuinely content with life.
"Yeah. So it seems," Peter muttered. He shook his head wondering where they had gone wrong and placed his emptied cup on the table. "Why is that exactly?"
Nakamura's smile twitched and then fell away to a more somber mood. "You've been in a mental health hospital for the last three years." His eyes drifted about his shoes as he went on. "Just before Sprague detonated in Los Angeles, you took a fall from the top of a building. The only reason that any of us could think that you survived hitting that car was that you had somehow used Nathan's ability to fly before impact." Memories of a time before he had learned to control his abilities came rushing back at him. Peter had enlisted the services of Claude Rains, the "invisible man", to help him so that he could stop the bomb. Being a bit of a brash man, Claude favored the sink or swim approach to teaching and had given him a helpful push. He remembered how he had initially failed to fly as he had needed, but had discovered his adoption of Claire's regenerative ability after being impaled on a piece of bent steel. Only in the alternate universe that he was visiting, he had again never acquired Claire's power, or Hiro's either it seemed so that he couldn't have frozen himself in mid-air to fall a remaining three feet indignantly.
"After the accident you became addicted to your pain medication," Hiro drawled on sadly. "And once you were fully recovered Nathan had you sent to an institution so that you could get help for your mental illness." Peter shouldn't have been surprised about the revelation. It wasn't the first time that his brother had put a sympathetic spin on events to insure the safety of his political career. After all, it wouldn't have appeared well to the American public if a presidential candidate's brother had gone insane and tried to commit suicide. All the same, he was becoming a little tired of being pushed under the metaphorical bus. "That's where you met Nikki Sanders and Matt Parkman, your best friend."
"Hiro, why didn't you stop the bomb?"
He slouched back in his chair, his mouth pursing into a regretful pout as his haunted eyes met Peter's. "That was the hardest decision I ever had to make. I found the Ninth Wonders comic that showed me my destiny. I was meant to stop Sprague; kill him to save the city. And I was meant to be alone. Ando and I would have been killed in the process if I had let him come along. But, if I didn't stop the bomb - if we allowed it happen, then all of this became possible." Hiro raised his arms to indicate the comfortable sanctuary of his home and the tranquil peace that surrounded it. "I asked for guidance and a spirit came to me in my dreams to show me my path. I never wanted to watch those people die, but…" he rolled his weary eyes over his shoulder in the direction of another room where a noise stirred. Satisfied that there was no cause for alarm, Hiro leaned in conspiratorially and spoke in a lower voice as if quiet were needed. "I've been trying to find a better way. I've been looking for the event that could stop the bomb and save those people without plunging the world into chaos. And I think I might have finally found it."
Claire felt the hair rise on the back of her neck as the black depths of Hiro's eyes settled on her. "You were killed by a man named Samson Gray after Los Angeles exploded. He took your ability to try and stop Arthur Petrelli. I believe that if we could figure out a way for the two of you to meet before Peter's accident, then he could have gained your ability and used it save the city. I just haven't found a link between you to use yet."
"Where the hell is Sylar?" she asked in frustration, setting her cup down next to Peter's. "We saved Gloria so that he could do all of this."
"Gloria?" Hiro perked up. "You know my spirit guide?" He looked back and forth between the two as Claire and Peter's eyes met. "Who's Sylar?"
"Ah, Hiro, I didn't know we had company." Everyone turned around to see a petite redheaded woman nearly as pregnant as Claire standing in the doorway of the other room.
In a flash Hiro was at her side, taking her hands in his with an adoring smile. "Peter, Claire, this is my wife, Charlie. Charlie, this is Peter Petrelli and Claire Bennet. What are you doing up?" he asked her calmly after the introductions were taken care of. "You need your rest."
"Claire Bennet?" Charlie smiled at her rosily. "The regen? Oh, my, gosh." She ignored Hiro's resistance and crossed over to Claire to heartily shake her hand. "I just want to say thank you so much. If it wasn't for regens like you, we never would have found a cure for my aneurysm, or been able to save Hiro after the operation to take out his brain tumor. Regenimax is a miracle. It really is."
"Charlie," Hiro prodded, taking her by the shoulders and turning her away. He gave Peter and Claire both a false smile that sent the alarm bells ringing. There was something that he was withholding from them of significant and dangerous importance.
"But, Hiro, without that deal you made…"
Peter watched the Nakamuras disappear into the other room, Hiro lovingly chiding his wife the entire way about how she needed to relax. As soon as they were out of view Peter turned to his niece and whispered, "I think it's time we pay Gloria a visit and find out what's really going on here."
"Agreed."
The duo reappeared just north of Ensenada, Mexico. Shielding their eyes from the sun shining brightly from high overhead, Peter lead the way up to the door of the little trailer house with all the colorfully potted flowers hanging from the awning. "Is that Lady Gaga?" Claire asked in reference to the musical beat that could be heard playing from inside. He just gave her a weary shrug and pulled open the screen door to knock.
Lyrics proclaiming a need to not be friends, and being caught in a "bad romance" escaped alongside an air conditioned draft as Gloria Gray answered the door. She had aged remarkably well since they had last seen her thirty years before, her naturally sun bronzed skin remaining smooth over her high cheek bones in spite of the miniscule crinkles that had begun to etch their way around the corners of her dark eyes. She swept her thick raven hued hair behind her ears and squinted at them curiously until it dawned on her exactly why they seemed so terribly familiar. "Oh, my, Go- Peter! Claire, sweetheart!" They were all swept up in grateful hugs and tugged inside where Gloria gave them no other option than to follow her to the tiny kitchen where blissful aromas of cooking food wafted to linger in their noses.
Gloria shimmied and shook about the kitchen to her music in jeans and a white halter top that had Peter clearing his throat uncomfortably as she pushed him onto a stool around the island table and fetched them all glasses of ice water. Apparently minor eccentricities ran through the nature of the family with or without Virginia's influence. "It's been forever since I've seen you two! And you look…" She took an extensive gaze after Claire's form before thoughtfully quirking her head to the side in a way that reminded her of Gabriel. "Exactly the same."
"Time travel," Claire grinned. "It's only been like two hours since we saw you."
Sylar's mom beamed at the thought of being able to dip in and out of time as they were doing. She flicked her little stereo off with a snap of her fingers just in time to catch the sound of Claire's stomach growling an angry demand for sustenance. Refusing to hear any of their resistance, she served them both up over filled bowls of the stew she had been preparing. "Hope you don't mind," she said with a smile, "we're vegetarians, but there's plenty of nutrients for the body and soul in there. So, what have you two crazy kids been up to?"
"Actually, we came here to find that out from you." Peter nudged his spoon around his bowl solemnly while Claire busily shoveled one greedy mouthful after another into a body that demanded its appetite be sated. "Everything seems great on the surface, but I can't shake the feeling that there's more to the story."
Gloria nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I don't know much. After you helped Gabriel and me leave Samson behind, we spent most of our time on the road just trying to keep away from him. We stayed off the radar for years. Finally the cancer from all that time he spent chain smoking got the best of him, and we were able to settle down out here. Lucky too that we were already past the border when that nuke went off, or we might have been stuck in the slave system. We still have to be careful of course, but this area is pretty friendly to people like us."
"Slave system?" Claire almost choked on her food. They hadn't seen hide or hair of "specials", but neither had dared to think that the reason might pertain to something so ghastly.
"Oh, yeah," Gloria nodded, taking a quick drink. "The government likes to keep it hush-hush, and the people that know what's really going on stay quiet, but the Sureshs found some way to find people with abilities and then they just disappear. Suddenly nobody's getting sick or dying anymore. The economy is perfect. There's plenty of food to go around for everybody, and all the different governments are getting along…
"Don't get me wrong, sweetie, I love world peace as much as anybody. But anyone with a power gets taken in the name of "safety" for everybody else, and then they get used to fix all the world's problems whether they want to or not. Regens get their blood drained day after day for the hospitals until they finally dry up. Anybody that can control plant life is put to work in fields growing food around the clock. And telepaths? Forget the telepaths. Them and all the people with abilities like mind control or suggestion get turned into political assassins; making people comply with the Petrelli administration's ideals when they never would have on their own." Gloria sighed, idly tracing the rim of her cup. "The world is getting off balance. These are dark times for us all. We just don't know it yet."
The occupants of the kitchen lapsed into a stoic silence as they all pondered the extent of the inevitable damage to a world that suffered from too much of a good thing at an unworthy cost. Peter and Claire were both beginning to learn a valuable lesson about just how tenuous the balance of life could be. While it was a wonderful thing to experience a time where such basic principles of existence as disease and hunger had been eradicated, that also meant that the fundamentals of population control had been destroyed. Like any other species without a natural predator to keep them in check, their numbers would explode exponentially across the globe to decimate natural resources faster than any ability gifted slaves could hope to replenish them. Prosperity, also highly desirable, would eventually also run amok as the class system would be forced to regulate itself through inflation lest the necessary leadership be dissolved and nations plunged into anarchy. It was more than probable though that the new parameters for peaceful coexistence would disappear long before those days came. Any peace bought with the blood of others was doomed to fail. Eventually the "specials", the future of man's evolution as a species, would either be exhausted into extinction at the rate that they were being worked to death, or revolt in a mass coup that would overthrow all castes.
"A friend of ours, Hiro Nakamura, said that you were his spirit guide once?"
"Guilty as charged," she muttered with less than enthusiasm. "That night we stayed in the motel you dropped us off in, I prayed long and hard for some kind of sign about what I was supposed to do. I can't lie. Being all alone with Gabriel and nothing but the clothes on our backs; I was scared. And then a guide came to me and put us on our path. I must have picked up the ability too because I've been answering the call ever since." Gloria flickered a smile before sinking back into her reverie. "That Nakamura boy though… Sometimes I wonder if I really did the right thing by him. He had the choice to stop that bomb and die doing it, or to let it happen and get his happily ever after. Maybe it isn't so happy though when he was forced to help catch people like himself to keep his own freedom. I just couldn't make myself send the poor boy to his death though."
"Hey, ma, I'm home," an all too familiar voice called out from behind them all. Claire turned to see Sylar maneuvering his way through the front door with a surf board decorated in multicolored peace signs. "Sweet. Didn't know we had guests." The spoon fell out of Peter's mouth with a loud clink as he watched his former nemesis wander over to the stew pot wearing a wet suit that was opened and folded over to expose his lean torso of ripped muscle. His damp, spiky hair bleached from excessive sun exposure gave the more tan version of himself a definitive beach bum look. "Caught some waves that were pretty rad -"
"Can you excuse us, please?" Peter tugged a stunned, and slightly salivating, Claire free from her stool and lead her by the hand into the first bedroom he found, quickly shutting the door behind them. They both muttered incoherently at the sight of black light posters featuring more peace symbols, a toy replica of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and a fantasy dragon bong laid out on the rainbow bed spread next to a bag of dehydrated apple chips. "Jesus, Sylar's a hippie."
Peter grunted in disgust as he kicked away a dirty sock before taking a seat on the edge of Sylar's bed. "Apparently making him a better person through peace, love, and understanding isn't as helpful as we thought." Hanging his head in his hands, the Petrelli wracked his brain for an answer to the dilemma.
"What the hell do we do? Slap the kumbaya-yas out of him?" Claire made a face as she picked up a half-open jar of something called Sex Wax that was left on a dresser next to a pyramid of empty soda cans, and a zip lock baggie of a green leafy substance that she didn't want to question.
"No, you can't have her! Get out of here!" The sound of a woman's shrieking brought Peter bounding out of Sylar's room. He found Gloria sobbing on the floor at the feet of Arthur Petrelli, smugly looking into the glimmering ball of light that he held in his hand. Sylar, absolutely frothing at the mouth with a ravenous intention to get to him, was held at bay on the ceiling overhead. Another unfortunate side effect of the natural born killer being allotted a lifetime of happy comfort seemed to be a lack of offensive power to fight back with. What call was there to hunt when he had been kept away from the hungry draw of others with abilities?
"I've come for Claire, Peter," Arthur drawled out in a bored tone. "I can't allow that baby to ruin my plans. You're not going to stop me."
"He took my empathy," Gloria cried, helpless.
Claire peeped around Peter's furiously quaking side and instantly wished that she hadn't. Arthur looked down on Sylar's mother pitilessly. "You were on the wrong side. The Grays have to die so that we can save the world." He flicked a finger and her body collapsed lifelessly with the sound of bone snapping from her neck. Sylar's eyes were flooded a hellish black of focus; not even really registering the fact of his mother's death in the depths of his instinctual drive. She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the circumstances around them. Claire had never felt such a chill come off of the beast so much as it did once having been repressed and then faced with the most tantalizing of demons.
But then he was gone too. Arthur's eyes rounded on the thrashing would-have-been monster in his clutches, studying him as though he were some kind of experimental specimen. A rather narcissistic smile for his own superiority lifted the edge of the Petrelli's lips as another nonchalant wave of his hand stole the life away from his unprepared enemy. Sylar's body fell limp from the ceiling and landed on the floor with a dull thud that made her stomach lurch.
"As I was saying -" Arthur's speech was cut off by a banshee's scream of twisting metal as the front of the trailer house was torn open like a sardine can. Outside, shining in the afternoon sunlight like a champion of yore, stood the devil's very own - Samson Gray. While his hair remained silver in color, taking Claire's regenerative ability had done wonders for his health. His skin flushed smooth with enviable vitality, his back straight and proud, the arthritis in his joints nonexistent, and his eyes alight with a vigor that betrayed his age.
Samson took his precious time with the last drag of his cigarette, analyzing the Petrelli for the threat that he was. Once his internal verdict had been ruled, he lazily tossed the butt to the ground and ground it out with the heel of his boot. "You don't know anything about real power."
Steam sizzled in the warm air as ice was drawn over the flesh of his hands. Flames began to lick the skin of Arthur's palms in response as he took a bold step towards his foe. Claire was temporarily blinded by the harsh flashes of light that followed Samson's telekinetic gripping of Arthur free from the trailer. A burst of flame singed her hair, and the earth trembled below their feet.
"It's okay," Peter soothed, pulling her into his chest. "You're safe now. We'll figure this out." Claire sniffed as he thumbed away a stray tear, the terror refusing to relinquish its hold on her even as her fried retinas healed to reveal Big Jim's Franks and Fries diner, thirty years from the clash of the monstrous titans.
To be continued...
Disclaimer #2: Sex Wax is actually a product intended for surf boards. Now get your minds out of the gutter!