Thirty different ways Matt and Mohinder might share their first kiss
By Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)
Kiss #11
Gardenia (kuchinashi no hana) Setting: After Season 1
Hurts...
Hurts a lot. Don't want to be awake.
Hurts less now. I could open my eyes--
Busy place. Doctors. Doctors?
"Hello?"
"It's over. You're all done."
"What? Where am I?"
"You're in post-op. You're going to be fine."
"Fine?" Oh, that's right, I was shot.
I was shot. I was SHOT!
"Settle down, Officer. Settle down."
"Right, sorry."
Voices in my head. Crowded here.
No, I wasn't shot. I shot. But then Sylar.
SYLAR! Oh, shit!
"Officer Parkman, please calm down. You're going to be fine."
"I am?"
"Your friend took your daughter home for the
night. We're going to take you up to your room
pretty soon. You'll see them both in the
morning."
My daughter? Who...?
Friend? Bennet? Ted?
What about Janice--
Maybe I'll just relax...
Different smell. Kind of hurting a little more now. Sunlight behind my eyelids.
It's bright. How long have I had my eyes closed?
This is kind of a nice room. It has a nice
smell... it's those flowers. They smell
incredible. God, look at how clean and white they
are. Like hospital sheets. Who would have
sent me such gorgeous flowers? Janice? Is she even
bothering with me? Does she even know?
It must be her. I don't know anyone else...
There are footsteps in the hall, a child's
footsteps. Fast. A child is running. I wonder, if
I strain a bit to the side, if I can see him--
Ouch. No, that was a mistake.
But those footsteps are entering my room...! There's a small hand on my hand!
"Officer Parkman, you're awake!"
Molly.
I'm looking into the face of an eight-year-old
girl who's crying herself sick with relief,
tears in her hair and on her freckles, and she's
clutching my hand like a lifetline,
sniffling and whimpering. Her little lip is
quivering. "You're awake, you're gonna be OK,
you're gonna be OK!"
And then I wonder if those bullets punctured
straight through me, because right now my heart
is so full of air and light that I think I am
going to go up out of my hospital bed like a
balloon and just float through the ceiling.
This is the moment I fall absolutely and irrevocably in love with Molly Walker.
And then I notice who's behind her.
At first I think it's a woman. There are
beautiful, delicate curls of hair and full lips and
glittering eyes. And is that skin what they call
olive? It looks like marble. Or something.
It's a beautiful color.
But no, there's the faintest trace of stubble on
the face, and the lines of the body are
straight and strong. It's a man. An uncommonly
beautiful man.
I know him. I've seen him before. He's the doctor
who was with Molly at that place. Where I
was just before I--
My chest hurts all of a sudden. I withdraw my hand and clasp at where the pain is.
"Are you all right? Are you all right?" Molly is shouting as though I'm not right there.
I fight down the pain and smile at her.
"Hello, pumpkin," I whisper, though getting the
breath to speak is a chore. "Nice to see
you."
She starts wibbling again. The man behind her, the
uncommonly beautiful man-- is that how I
am going to think of him from now on?-- smiles. He
has a hell of a smile. I feel kind of
melty. Then again, that could be the drugs. Things
are swimming a little bit right now.
"She's been waiting to see you all
morning," he said. His voice is like British royalty. Like
he stepped out of one of these art flicks Janice
likes to watch. Where is Janice, anyway?
Hasn't anyone told her where I am? I could really
use a visit from her.
"Call my wife," I whisper.
"I think they have already." No,
honestly, I don't think I've ever heard that accent outside
of a video. I wasn't even that sure that real
people talked like that. I thought maybe it was
made up for the movies. "I can call the
police officer who is on duty downstairs. I think he
might know."
"No, wait." It's Molly who stops him as
he turns to the door. "Don't go yet. He just woke up.
He'll get lonely."
"Then
you can stay with him, sweetheart." The man pats her head tenderly.
I feel a little
jealous. He's touching the girl I'm currently
madly in love with. Worse, she's giving HIM the
huge puppy dog eyes. If I could move, I might come
to blows with this guy. A duel to the
death for the affections of a third-grader.
"No, it's all right," I say instead. "Stick around."
Molly yays like this is the best thing she's ever
heard. I chuckle and immediately regret it.
Ow.
"Did you see the flowers? Aren't they pretty?
Doctor Suresh says they're gardenias. I picked
them out." She runs to the other side of the
bed and grabs the vase to show me. The man
starts after her, afraid she's going to spill them
onto the floor, but her grasp is sure.
"They're beautiful, thank you," I croak,
but all I can feel is disappointed that they're not
from Janice.
She does arrive, later that evening. She comes running into the room still carrying
her suitcase. I'm half asleep. "Oh my God, Matt, thank God," she fusses, ruffling my hair,
kissing my forehead. I murmur. I'm pleased she's here. It's a familiar voice, familiar
thoughts in my head. I know I'm half-addled with drugs, and that helps, too. It all sounds
like dim music. Her face is blurry, but it's familiar. The dullness of her presence is
soothing against the sharp bright whiteness of the gardenias. They never seem to go out of
focus, even when my eyes are closed.
In the morning, I wake up a little more, and we talk. She's mad at me for going off on some
secret mission. "I'm sorry," I keep saying, but I'm not sorry. I felt I had to do this. For
my marriage, our child, our safety. I had to.
(Of course, in the end, I didn't. In the end, I protected Molly. What else could I do?)
The doctors tell me it'll be about six weeks until
I'm able to go home. They have to keep
X-raying me and CAT scanning me and checking to
make sure my organs are all working right,
and it's a good thing I am a policeman because
it's gonna cost my insurance a lot. Janice
seems more annoyed at all this than anything. She
says to me, "Of course I'll stay as long as
I can. I may have to do some work from here,
though. I was just barely sliding onto the
partnership track..." She rolls her eyes. How
inconsiderate of me to go and get shot when she
was going to make partner in four years. God knows
how the inconvenience of maternity leave
will affect her.
And yet, when I say, "You can go, I'll be all
right," she's annoyed that I don't need her
more. I can't win.
Molly comes by that afternoon with her favorite
doctor in tow. Janice looks surprised-- and
kind of horrified-- to see a strange man and girl
in her husband's hospital room, bringing
fresh flowers, no less. But Molly is polite and
tells her, with sparkling eyes: "You're
Officer Parkman's wife? He saved my life, you
know." She's about to elaborate on just how
many times when Dr. Suresh sees the look of panic
on my face and grabs her outstretched hand
before the three fingers can pop up. Molly gets the
hint and ends with a charming "He's my
hero."
Janice smiles sweetly. "Yes, he's my hero,
too." She's lying, but what are you gonna do. It's
cute, even though it's obvious they're sizing each
other up.
The doctor and I share a glance. Apparently he
finds it as disturbingly cute as I do. I think
I like him. (He's taking care of Molly, so I damn
well better.)
When I wake up one morning, Dr. Suresh is replacing the gardenias in the vase with another
fresh bouquet. I watch his hands as they arrange the stems. He's very methodical. It's not
until he sees me looking and smiles briefly before returning to the arranging that I realize
Janice never brought me any flowers.
She's calling clients from the hospital room. Things about depositions and stipulations. It's
sort of ironic. She keeps letting little annoyed thoughts slip about not wanting to be here,
but she's mortally wounded if I should give her the idea that it's OK to go. She's a little
disturbed by the frequency with which Molly comes to see me. "Doesn't she have school?" she
whispers. Then, one day, she thinks, And I know that Indian guy isn't her father. Where
are her parents?!
I snap: "Her parents are dead. They were
murdered. By the same guy responsible for what
happened to me. 'That Indian guy' is all she's got
right now, so leave her alone."
Janice stares at me in shock. "Stop reading
my mind!" she demands. As though I can help it.
I'm having enough trouble controlling my bladder
these days, much less my brain.
Still, she goes on with What kind of
parents wouldn't have some sort of plan for who would
take care of her, an aunt or an uncle or a
grandparent or something? I think about trying
to explain to her that Molly's not just a girl but
a highly prized human tracking system
who's being hunted down by crazed killers and evil
corporations, but it's a little over her
head.
That's probably the issue. I've stumbled into a
world that's over her head, and I can't ever
go back to where I was before.
We can never go back.
It's a week and a half of this before the truth comes out. And I think she thinks I'm
sleeping, or she might never have let it slip. But I'm not, and she does.
Have to wait till he's out of here to
serve the papers-- pain in the ass-- looks too
heartless if I divorce him while he's in the
hospital. Awful timing. Held hostage by a
marriage that's already over...
I keep pretending to sleep. I tell myself it's on
purpose, but really, I'm just so horrified
I can't move.
I wait until the next day. When she doesn't have any more clients to call and we're sitting
there alone and silent for an hour and a half.
"You should go back to California," I say.
She looks at me with all the usual mock outrage. "What?"
"You have to keep your eye on your health," I say. "You know, the sonograms and all that."
"Oh." She shifts and looks away, and I can't divine her thoughts. "Yes, but--"
"Besides," I say, "we're through anyhow, aren't we?"
She stares at me, and I see the tears prickle in her eyes. I haven't got the strength to cry.
She comes over to the bed, holds my hand, all of a
sudden the soul of compassion. "You know
something, Matt?" she says sadly. "I
really thought you were something when we met. Here I
was, this kid just out of high school, and you
were in the police academy, for Christ's sake.
Every girl's dream, right? A man in uniform."
She laughs bitterly. "And I was so screwed up,
but you'd been there and gotten out, and I thought
you were a godsend. Add to that how much
our mothers were shocked we'd dare marry outside
our religions, and you were a teenage
rebel's perfect match.
"But then I started getting my own life
together, and I went back to school and got my law
degree, and all of a sudden you weren't
interested. It was like you wanted a stray cat to
take care of, not a wife, and you were
disappointed that I passed by you."
She's thought about this. She's thought about it a
lot. The one thing she's missing is the
reason I was so disappointed-- the reason I wanted
her to begin with. Now that I think about
it, I'm very ashamed of it. She deserves better
than someone who hates himself so much--hates
his inability to read correctly, to move ahead in
life, even to be attracted to the right
people--that he marries the first woman he finds
who's having a shittier time than he is. "I
don't know, Jan. I haven't been a very good
husband. I could never quite figure out what you
needed, you know? And then, all of a sudden, I
could hear everything you wanted... and it
didn't help."
She nods, biting her lip. The urge to comfort her
is strong. "Look," I say. "This doesn't
change anything as far as the baby is concerned.
I'll still be there for our kid, no matter
what--"
Then the other shoe drops. And it's not even that
I hear the words-- I just know. With the
same ironclad certainty that she does.
"Oh, my God."
"I kept waiting for the right time to tell
you." Her tears are flowing now. My eyes are wet,
too, and my wounds are aching. It's getting hard
to breathe.
"Oh, God." It's all I can say. I'm dying of grief. Grief and pain.
How did it come to this?
Over the next two weeks, we work out the details. We've kept our bank accounts separate, so
the money isn't much of an issue. The one thing she's taken from me that I want back was
never really mine to begin with, so what's the use of the rest of it, anyway?
My spots of light during these weeks are Molly's
visits. She's been enrolled in school in for
the second half of the year, she says. This is
great, because she's been out of school since
her parents' death and her subsequent illness. I
doubt the Company cared much for her
education. As long as her ability was intact,
that's all they needed to invest in.
Every time she comes, she brings a new bouquet.
Always the same kind of flowers. Sometimes
Dr. Suresh comes by alone. "Molly would have
my hide if I didn't at least keep them fresh,"
he says with a dazzling smile. His teeth are
impeccable. What a thing for me to notice.
Teeth.
He's not anxious to talk without Molly present,
but in the days after Janice leaves I'm
lonely and need someone. I ask him what kind of
medicine he practices, and he laughs and says
he's not that kind of doctor. Turns out that while
he has a medical degree, his primary focus
is genetic research, and Molly is his only real
patient. "So you're studying her?" I ask,
kind of accusingly. I don't like the idea of her
being victim, patient, and then, to top it
all off, guinea pig.
"To an extent, yes," he says. "I
did a lot of work on her in the few weeks following her
recovery, mostly to track the efficacy of the
vaccine. But my interest is in finding others
like her, helping them understand what's happening
to them. This was the work my father
pursued until his death, and I'm doing my best to
carry on his research."
"And what is happening to them?"
"It varies by person," he says. His face
is animated. "In many cases, it's an ability to
generate a physical phenomenon or manipulate
matter; in others, it's an unexplained capacity
for aggregating and processing information. That's
the case with Molly."
"And with me," I muse. His eyebrows go
up, but he says nothing, not yet. I hear him think,
I would have thought it'd be physical,
what with his occupation, but I suppose there's no
predicting. I don't let him know I can
hear his surprise.
Here's the thing: I'm laid up. And when TV is no
good, I amuse myself with hearing the
thoughts of the people around me. It's a guilty
pleasure. Most of the nurses think I'm a
fairly nice guy, so there's not a lot of
excitement there. But sometimes they are thinking
about something at home, or something they've seen
at work, and it's a little like watching
reality TV. I was particularly amused early on to
hear one nurse, upon seeing Janice go by,
think, Frigid bitch. You don't begin to
deserve him. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm
amused.
So that's my rationale for not telling him what I
can do. Besides, what difference would it
make? He's just some doctor who brings Molly by;
I'll probably never see him again after I
leave here. That makes me feel kind of sad,
though: It means that someday I will be waking up
and there will be no gardenias there to greet me.
When the divorce is finalized, it's nearly Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in a hospital sucks. There's no two
ways about it. Not that I've really ever had
a strong tradition to compare it with. Smoked
turkey with Mom and her spinster sister, that's
my best memory from childhood. I'm kind of
depressed that day, though, sort of lost in
myself, and I'm actually surprised when Dr. Suresh
comes by with an enthusiastic Molly. He's
carrying another bright white bouquet under his
arm, and more importantly, his hands are
clutching two swollen brown paper bags, both of
which are moist from heat and giving off an
amazing smell.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Officer Parkman!"
Molly comes over to the bed, climbs up on the chair,
and plants a kiss on my cheek. My heart goes
soaring, right through the window and down the
street along with the giant Macy's parade
balloons. All of a sudden this is my favorite
holiday of the year.
We eat turkey and stuffing and talk. Molly has
stopped calling Dr. Suresh by his last name
and is now using his first name, Mohinder. It's an
interesting name. I don't think I've known
anybody of Indian descent very well, so I've
definitely never heard it before. It could just
be the Indian John Smith, for all I know. But when
Molly says it, it sounds like some
delicious nonsense from a fairy tale. Jabberwocky,
Kumbaya, Rumplestiltskin, and Mohinder.
It's estimated that I'll be able to go home in a
week. I've recovered fairly quickly. The
nurses whisper that it's probably thanks to
Molly's devotion. (They also are under the
impression that I've left my wife for another
man-- a certain other man. Which cracks me up,
because I'm fairly sure Dr. Suresh is only here
under duress. An eight-year-old duress, a
duress in a dress, even.)
Between bites of biscuits, he asks, "Do you
have plans for your discharge?" I shake my head.
I figure I'll have to fly out to California, clear
my stuff out of the house, look for an
apartment somewhere, and start all over again.
When I mention returning to the West Coast,
however, Molly gets up. Her little shoulders are
shaking with anger.
"You can't go away!" she cries.
"You've got to stay and protect me. You can stay with us! We
have room!"
A little taken aback, I laugh shakily.
"That's very nice of you, pumpkin, but I'm sure Doctor
Suresh has got..."
"No," he blurts out. "You're
absolutely welcome. We'd love to have you." I can hear his mind
racing. What on earth have I just said? I
must have gone mad.
"Mohinder!" She's all puppy dog eyes and big smiles again.
"It's fine," I protest.
For whatever reason, he's gone manic. His words
and thoughts are all jumbled up, but I think
I'm hearing what he's saying out loud. "The
truth is, I've been meaning to do some traveling.
I've been invited to speak several places about my
research, but I haven't been able to leave
her. If you were, for instance, available to take
care of her, that might free me up, so it
would be very helpful." Inexplicably, he
thinks, It might even be better if I were to stay
away. I don't know what that's about.
"You absolutely have to," Molly
emphasizes, nodding her head as if she is the Great and
Powerful Oz. She has absolutely owned my heart
from the day she came in here, and now is no
exception. Besides, where else do I have to go? I
might not yet be well enough to travel, and
it would suck to go straight from a hospital to a
crappy hotel.
"I don't really have a place to stay in the short term," I mutter.
"Then it's decided." Dr. Suresh smiles.
"I'll move my work into the living room and get a new
bedframe for that room. Aren't you glad,
sweetheart?" He puts both his hands on Molly's
shoulders and smiles down at her. She tilts her
chin up to beam back.
"Are you sure?" I crack. "I hear I snore."
"Oh, great." Molly rolls her eyes.
"He can sleep through anything, but I might need some
earplugs." I grin at her, but I'm distracted
by the thought that runs through Doctor Suresh's
mind, and I gawk at him a little. Did he just
think something about temptation under his
roof? Because if that's the case, he and I might
have something else in common.
Molly clasps her little hands as if about to pray.
"This is the best Thanksgiving ever. Dear
God, I am thankful for being alive, and having
good food to eat, and mostly I am thankful for
you bringing me two new heroes who are going to be
my new parents."
Doctor Suresh and I start in unison. He finds his
tongue quicker than I can. "Molly, darling,
you know we can't be your parents. We never
can." He strokes her hair, and I'm sort of
hypnotized by the motion. It's the same gentle
motion of his hands that I see when he's
arranging the gardenias. Deft, but at the same
time loving. I feel like I could stare at them
all day.
I'm a little worried about this. Granted, times
are different than they were when I was a
kid, but I'd already convinced myself that I was
not going in this direction. Shit like this
could happen to other people, but it wasn't going
to happen to me. I was not going to be one
of that ten percent. I'd already decided that. But
here I am, fifteen years later, and I've
tried marriage and it hasn't worked, and am I
really so lonely that I'm ready to go back to
that? It's not worth thinking about.
Besides, Molly has more to say. "I know
you're not my real parents," she says. "But I think
they'd like this. I think they like it when I'm
with both of you. Because I know they're
watching, and I know that when I'm here I sort of
feel like I did when I was with them." Her
eyes are getting a little misty, and I want to get
out of bed and hug her tight. I can't move
that fast quite yet, though. What's more, she's
now come over to me and has taken both my
hands. "So promise me you'll come stay with
us, Officer Parkman. OK?"
God, she's such a treasure. "If I'm going to
live with you," I tell her, "you'd better learn
to call me Matt."
"Matt!" She's grinning and crying all at
once and leaps onto my lap, and I'm very thankful
that I didn't get shot in my legs because she is a
big girl. I oof a little when she squeezes
me and she backs off. "Sorry."
"It's OK." I kiss her forehead. Now that
the shock is worn off, I think this might be a dream
come true.
"And now you have to call him Mohinder
too!" she says, suddenly. "Because now we're going to
be a family."
I balk, but he walks over to the bed, completing
the trio. "Welcome to the family, Matt," he
says, holding out his hand.
I shake it firmly. "Pleasure to be here,
Mohinder," I grin. The name sounds even more
fantastical when I say it.
Molly's in a food coma, and we're flipping channels during halftime when something occurs to
me that is long overdue. "Doctor S... I mean, Mohinder," I say. "There's something I need to
tell you. Something you ought to know before I officially move in."
He turns to me, puzzled. He thinks so fast it's
hard to keep track of it all. "Of course.
What is it?"
"It's... what I can do." I look at the
ground, the walls, anywhere but those huge dark eyes.
The breath seems jagged going in and the words
sound just as shaky coming out. "Since I'm
invading your physical space, I think you ought to
know that, well, your mental space may not
be so safe."
"Meaning what, exactly?" Concern
flickers across his face. I can see it out of the corner of
my eye even while avoiding looking directly at
him.
"Meaning I can read your mind. Not just
yours. I can read minds, in general. And sometimes I
do without meaning to. So I just want to say I'm
sorry in advance for invading your privacy.
I'll try not to."
He sits in silence for a moment. I try to avoid
looking into his head, filling my brain with
the police trivia I've been studying in the hopes
that I can get back to work soon after I'm
discharged. But after a moment of staring, he
bursts out, "Fascinating!"
A cartoon scientist's word. I laugh. "I'm, uh, glad you think so. I think."
So can you hear this?
"Yeah, yeah, I can." How did I know he was going to do that?
And from his mind, just as exuberant as he'd said
it aloud: Fascinating! "This is
actually quite good luck, you know," he says,
leaning toward me. "Molly's started to have
some nightmares. I'm unsure why, but they're
increasing in severity and she won't talk to me
about them."
"Say no more," I answer. "I'll see what I can figure out."
He looks relieved. "I am glad you're coming
to stay with us," he says. It's such a forthright
emotion that I don't even know how to respond.
He's completely sincere. I don't think I've
known anybody that honest my whole life. It's a
little hard to take, actually.
Unsure why, I blurt out: "Also? Um. I can't read too well."
He stops. "Oh. Well. I read far too much, so
perhaps we're even." It's about the best
response I've ever gotten from anyone I've
confessed that to. I feel a sort of wave of warmth
rush over me. Then Molly murmurs in her sleep, and
I am giddy with happiness. This couldn't
get any better.
And then it does. His thoughts have started to
spin in circles. Hope he can't read
everything... must get away from here soon.
Perhaps to Milan, or Cairo... Too much
temptation... And if that weren't
enough, the kicker comes through clean and clear. He
is such a good man, and I haven't felt this way
about anyone in ages, but I mustn't scare
him.
And it's his certainty, his lack of fear of it,
that gives me a little courage. And as we sit
there in silence, watching TV, I gaze at him and
gaze at myself in my mind's eye until I know
without a shadow of a doubt, that it is time to
stop running from it, it is time to come home
and be who I am, and damn the consequences.
Because I can see something just beyond the
horizon that threatens to make sense of my whole
life. When was the last time my life made
sense?
Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday of the year.
In my dream, Molly is running through a field of gardenias and Mohinder and I are on a picnic
blanket watching her. Her dress is as clean and white as the flowers and she is laughing, and
so are we, and I kiss those dark fingers that reach toward my face, and then the dream is
completely different and we are on a black bed dotted with white petals and then I wake up
with wet hospital sheets and a big throbbing hummingbird in my throat and thoughts in my head
that I have successfully kept down since high school and even with all that a sort of
peaceful feeling, like the que sera sera song, that things are moving in a good direction.
Even with the door open only a crack, the gardenias catch the scant light like reflectors on
a highway and wink at me. They know.
They're roses for a change when Molly hands them to me as they wheel me downstairs and load
me into the taxi. They're burnished pink and nearly orange, and they're beautiful but
unfamiliar. I am starting to be nervous. My stuff is on its way, and I've gotten a letter of
recommendation from my ex-boss to present to the NYPD. But so much is in transition right now
that I'm unsure what's going to happen.
In the taxi Molly chatters happily about getting
ready for Christmas, and Mohinder looks
vaguely uncomfortable. "I don't know a thing
about these traditions," he says, "so I'm really
going to need your help."
I wrinkle my brow. "We're going to have to
figure out how to let her know I'm Jewish," I
whisper. He stares for a moment and then bursts
out laughing. Molly looks at us as though
we've lost our minds.
The apartment is the top floor of a four-floor
walkup. It looks like I'll be shedding those
hospital-food pounds out of sheer necessity.
Mohinder helps me upstairs, slinging my arm
around his shoulder, and I remember the dream and
blush. He seems oblivious, though, and
Molly is just excited. When we get to the door,
Molly says I should close my eyes. When I
open them, I'm treated to a round table decked out
with a chocolate cake and "Welcome Home"
in blue frosting. There's confetti and a shiny
tablecloth and party hats that don't match,
and I can see the subtle decorating hand of an
eight-year-old who's been given free rein in a
party store. The rest of the apartment seems nice,
although the wood is unvarnished and the
bookshelves are dusty. It's definitely a place a
guy could hang his hat. Best of all, and I
don't even know why I like this, the roof slopes
down in the alcove where Molly's bed is. I
feel like I'm about to be living in somebody's
grandmother's attic, and that makes me happy.
We eat cake and laugh. Molly goes to watch TV.
Mohinder picks up my small overnight bag,
everything I brought with me when I got to this
city, and motions to me that we should go
down the hall. I realize I haven't yet seen where
I'll be sleeping. I'm sure it'll be small.
He did say it was his study, and the desk that I
saw in the living room wasn't all that big.
I follow him to the doorway. At this part of the
hall, I can flatten my palm against the
ceiling by stretching my hand up. But the door is
at least big enough to fit through, and
Mohinder pops my suitcase inside and then brushes
his hands together briskly as though
clearing them of dust. "I hope it'll
do," he says. I peek past the door, which opens outward,
counterintuitively enough, so I have to back up
before I can enter. I see his face flickering
with nerves, and I hear him thinking,Please let this be OK. I wonder what he's so
worried about. He's the one extending charity to
me, here. Beggars can't be choosers.
The room is small, but it's tidy and white. The
sheets on the bed are new, and there's a
small window to let air and light in. There are
shelves that look newly braced to the walls,
and an old set of dresser drawers. A small rug
sits at the foot of the bed.
And on the nightstand there is a vase full of beautiful, ivory gardenias.
"Welcome home," he says quietly.
This is the moment I fall absolutely, irrevocably in love with Mohinder Suresh.
I go over to hug him and end up kissing him instead.
:end:
Au's note: Please remember that each of
these kisses is in a different world/continuity.
In this one, I decided Matt had been in the closet
all his life. I often see fics where
Mohinder is out but Matt has to be persuaded, and
I thought I'd take a different tack, just
to see where it went. Next one will probably be
different.
