The Price of a Memory
Part 10/17

When Peter came storming out of Nathan Petrelli's hotel suite just a half hour or so after he'd gone in, he came within inches of tripping over Claude, who had been counting ceiling tiles from an invisible position he'd taken up on a nearby patch of floor. As it was, Peter's foot barely scraped against his and the resulting stumble could, to anyone who saw it, easily have been attributed to the boy's natural lack of grace. By the time Nathan Petrelli came chasing after his brother, Claude had gained his feet and pressed himself against the wall. He watched as Peter escaped inside an unusually well-timed lift, the door sliding shut before his brother could reach him.

"Peter, wait," Petrelli said to his own reflection, shoulders sagging a bit when he realized there wasn't going to be any kind of response. Placing his hands on his hips, he waited a bit as if expecting the lift to come back but it never did. Dejected, all he seemed able to do was return to his room, the door to which had been conveniently left open. Claude took the opportunity to let himself in, moving to the side as Petrelli entered after him.

It occurred to Claude as he watched the other man pace about the expansive hotel room that he had never actually seen Nathan Petrelli in person before. His first thought was that Petrelli was not as tall as he had expected. Not much taller than Peter even, if slightly less runt-like for all that he was built a bit more on the stocky side than his stringy little brother. The rest of it made sense. Everything from the rolled up shirt sleeves on a Saturday to the glass of watered down Scotch sitting on the table in the middle of the room. This, apparently, was the man worth rigging an election for. The man who had saved the day, flying his brother to safety when he could have just reminded him that a few deep breaths and some concentration might have kept him from blowing up in the first place.

After a few minutes of aimless puttering and still no sign that Peter was coming back, Petrelli pulled out his mobile and navigated the menu to what was obviously a familiar number. Walking to the window, he stared out at the city as he waited for the person on the other end to pick up.

"Suresh?" he said. "It's Nathan Petrelli.

The volume on his phone was turned up high and the room was quiet enough that all Claude had to do was move a little closer in order to hear what it was Suresh was saying back.

"Hello, Nathan." A less than deferential tone. "What can I help you with?"

"It's my brother," Petrelli said. Suresh said something that came out slightly muffled to Claude's ears. "No, he got here fine. It's just that he left a little earlier than I expected. I don't know where he went. I just thought you should keep an eye out for him in case…well, in case he doesn't know where he went either."

"Right," Suresh said. "May I ask what happened?"

"Nothing," Petrelli said. "He just got a little angry with me. It's nothing."

Claude was vaguely amazed, despite what he'd just seen. He hadn't known it was possible for Peter to become angry with his brother. At any rate, he hadn't heard raised voices from outside the room, but then it probably wasn't the Petrelli way to yell at one another, even in private. They seemed more the type for "heated discussions" between family than shouting matches for all to see and hear.

"One more thing," Petrelli said after Suresh had replied to his obvious non-answer. "Uh, Peter mentioned a new friend. A test subject of yours. Claude Rains, I think. Does that sound familiar?"

Claude raised an eyebrow. Was Petrelli trying to imply that he thought Claude might be Peter's imaginary friend?

"Of course," Suresh said. "Claude's been with us for several weeks now. Why do you ask?"

"You never mentioned him," Petrelli replied stiffly.

"I didn't see a reason to," Suresh said back. "Besides which, I find that I have no reliable means of contacting you unless I specify that it's an emergency. Claude Rains is not an emergency."

Claude was almost touched to hear this.

"No?" Petrelli said, skepticism evident in his voice. "You know that my brother could turn invisible before he lost his powers, right?"

"I do," Suresh said.

"He had to have gotten that talent from somewhere, don't you think?"

"I imagine that he did," Suresh replied dryly.

"So don't you think it's possible that this Claude guy knew him back then?"

A pause. "Perhaps you should ask him about that yourself, Mr. Petrelli."

Fucking Suresh. How had he known? Traitor.

"What do you mean?" Petrelli asked. But he was already looking around the room in a way that suggested he knew exactly what Suresh meant.

"Claude was supposed to come here this morning for a test I had scheduled with him," Suresh said mildly. "Suffice to say, he never showed up."

Claude winced. He'd completely forgotten about that. Sneaky bastard.

"And you think he followed my brother here."

"It's entirely possible that Claude has a few things he wants to talk with you about, yes," Suresh said.

"To talk to me about?" Petrelli said. "What could he possibly want from me?"

"I was thinking maybe we could start with a deep philosophical discussion on the nature of human evolution and end with you telling me what it is you did to make your brother forget everything and, more importantly, how it can be undone," Claude said, making himself visible before Suresh could reply.

Petrelli jumped back, dropping the phone he'd been holding. "Jesus Christ," he gasped involuntarily before managing to recover his dignity. For his part, Claude remained leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in what he hoped was a picture of effortless intimidation. He thought about examining his nails for effect but decided it was too over the top and so simply fixed his gaze on Petrelli, who was becoming less impressed with the situation with each passing second.

"Okay, I'll start," Claude went on when Petrelli failed to respond. "Do you believe Darwin's theory of human evolution is inherently atheistic or is the belief in God in fact compatible with his views on natural selection?" He made a show of tilting his head as if he were sincerely interested in Petrelli's answer before pressing on. "Oh yeah, and what the fuck did you do with your brother's memories and can we please have them back?"

Petrelli's face remained impassive. He said nothing.

"Look, mate, you can mentally roll your eyes at me all you like but I'm not leaving here until I get some answers from you," Claude said, now nearly nose to nose with Petrelli. "So start talking or things are going to get very ugly very fast, I can promise you that."

To Claude's great annoyance, Petrelli didn't shrink in fear but instead moved away, picking up the half-full Scotch glass from the table where it had been sitting as he went. He made his way back over to the bar where he set the glass down atop the elegantly polished wood. His jaw worked all the while as if he was sucking on an idea that was particularly sour to him.

"What is this about, Mr. Rains?" he asked. "What do you want with my brother?"

"Well, you see, I have reason to believe Peter knows the secret code to the chamber where I left the magical ancient artifact that gives us all our powers and I need him to get his memories back so I can access that chamber and save us all from certain destruction," Claude replied. "Also, I was thinking I could possibly extort some money out of you. As you can see, I'm not exactly rolling in it." He indicated his clothes.

Petrelli stared at Claude for a moment, a vaguely withering gaze. "You're a funny man," he said without any hint that he believed this to be true. "What's the real answer? Why are you here?"

"I think I was pretty clear about that before."

"You think I'm somehow responsible for my brother's memory loss," Petrelli said.

"Oh, good. You are listening," Claude said. "I was getting worried there for a second."

"What makes you think I had anything to do with that?"

"Well, your less than perfect track record for one thing," Claude said. "For another, it's all a bit suspicious to me. That is, I'm not an expert on amnesia or anything but I'd say Peter's case is a bit unusual given just how specific his memory loss is. There's a shape to that blankness and it all has to do with his powers." He lifted his shoulders. "Suresh thinks something happened to Peter during the bomb. I'm thinking there's more to it than that." He arched an eyebrow at Petrelli. "Am I close?"

Instead of answering, Petrelli pressed his lips together thoughtfully. "So I take it Suresh has been working on recovering Peter's memories?"

"Trying, anyway. Didn't get very far," Claude said.

"Apparently not if the only thing my brother seems to know about that part of his past is that he once threw himself over the side of a building," Petrelli said, his eyes finding the ceiling.

Claude nearly choked at that. "Come again?" he said.

Petrelli looked back down, his eyes meeting Claude's. "Just something he said today," he replied. "A memory I thought might have surfaced but Peter claims he's known it the whole time. Or that he knew it without knowing it. Who the hell knows? Peter doesn't exactly put a lot of effort into making sense."

"Probably because nothing makes sense to him," Claude said.

Petrelli made a gesture, conceding the point before saying, "You knew him before." It wasn't a question.

"I did," Claude said. "Briefly."

"Haven't you told him anything?"

Claude shook his head. "All he's got as far as I know is that one little scrap of a memory. And let me guess…you convinced him that the whole thing was a suicide attempt. Same way you tried to convince the public first time round."

"I didn't convince him of anything," Petrelli said. "I acknowledged that he'd once taken a less than accidental fall off of a roof. The rest he assumed on his own."

"And you let him."

"I had to," Petrelli said, voice taut.

"Why?" Claude said. "Afraid he'd remember something you didn't want him to know?"

"No," Petrelli said. "I was afraid he'd remember something he didn't want himself to know."

Claude felt his jaw snap shut on the tirade he'd been about to launch into and for a moment all he could do was stand in the silence of the hotel room staring at Nathan Petrelli, stunned. For his part, Petrelli stared back evenly, patient as he waited for what he'd said to sink in properly.

"I didn't take anything from Peter," Petrelli said eventually. "That was all him. That was how he wanted it."

It would have been easy to believe Petrelli was lying. After all he'd done in the past to hide not only his own but Peter's powers as well, it would have made sense for this just to be another instance of him trying to cover his own ass. But what he was saying also made a kind of sense, in the most fucked up way possible. Peter wasn't a victim. He was an idiot. He had always been an idiot. If what Petrelli was saying was true then he had simply achieved a level of idiocy previously undiscovered by a fully functioning human being.

The thought left Claude feeling incredulous and numb.

"How?" he asked, voice hollow. "How did he do it?"

Petrelli sighed. "What you have to understand is that after the bomb, Peter wasn't himself," he said. "He was horrified by what had almost happened. To him. To the city. To me."

Claude thought to ask how exactly it was that Nathan had managed to survive the bomb but all he could do was listen as the politician told his story.

"So basically Peter sent himself on the guilt trip of a lifetime," Petrelli went on. "He kept having these…panic attacks. His hands would start to glow like they did that night. He was convinced the explosion was going to happen all over again. A few times it almost did."

"And what? Instead of learning how to control it he decided to forget about his powers altogether?" Claude asked. "Now why does that sound astonishingly fitting?"

Petrelli's frown deepened. "It was actually my mother's idea more than Peter's," he said. "My mother couldn't handle seeing him the way he was. That is, when she saw him at all. Somehow he'd found out she knew about the bomb ahead of time and had been prepared to let it happen. It wasn't until she started dropping hints about this connection she had with a man who had a talent for 'relieving people of unwanted or inconvenient memories' that he started letting her around again."

"Bloody hell," Claude breathed. "The Haitian."

The name came back to him from those long ago days when he'd been working for the Company. Of course, the Haitian had only been a boy at the time but even then his powers had been strong. No telling what time and practice had done to improve his abilities.

Petrelli confirmed Claude's suspicions with a solemn nod.

"I should have known," Claude said. "I should have bloody well known." He slammed his fist into a nearby wall, hard enough to startle Petrelli but not hard enough to affect the man's bill at the end of his stay. "And where were you when all this was happening? Didn't you do anything to stop it?"

Petrelli hesitated. "Look, I'd be lying if I said the idea didn't have some appeal at first," he said. "I mean, the way things were looking, Peter was going to blow himself up all over again and between my work and my family I couldn't be around all the time to make sure that didn't happen. We were all at risk. But I thought maybe there could be a compromise where the only memories taken from Peter were the ones of that Ted Sprague guy. Just so he didn't have to worry about turning into a nuclear explosion again. But Peter said he wanted it all gone. He didn't want to know a thing about his powers."

"So you just let it happen."

Petrelli's eyes narrowed. "Hardly," he said. "I kept as close a watch as I could. Peter was already staying with us while he recovered so it wasn't that hard. But I guess I never believed he'd actually do anything so I may have slipped a little here and there." He cleared his throat. "All I know is one day I came home and it was done."

"Fuck me," Claude said. "So why don't you just tell him, then? If you were so against his forgetting in the first place, why don't you be honest with him about what happened during that missing time?"

"I'm just honoring his wishes," Petrelli replied. "And, frankly, I have trouble believing he'll never remember." He held up a hand to stop Claude reminding him of the exact nature of the Haitian's talents. "I know. But no one is supposed to come back from the dead either and I've seen Peter do that, too."

"It's not the same," Claude said.

Petrelli's expression faltered slightly. "Well, then, I guess Peter got his wish," Petrelli said. "This is what he wanted. Now you know."

The words echoed in Claude's mind, settling inside him uncomfortably. He wondered suddenly why he hadn't seen this coming. Knowing what he did about the boy, the possibility should at least have occurred to him before now. Instead he stood blindsided, the weight of resignation threatening to crush him as he thought of all that wasted time and effort, trying to coax Peter into remembering. There weren't many who would subject themselves to the Haitian's powers voluntarily. And as far as Claude knew, no one who did ever got back what he had taken.

No one.

TBC