Chapter Eleven:

Nathan was exhausted. Flying around the country both in a plane and under his own steam meant that by the time he landed in New York again he was ready for a shower and some sleep. Then he was going to work on a plan to keep Peter out of New York for another week or so. He knew that he had the guile to convince Peter, but he knew his mother was going to be a problem, whether she chose to be or not.

He strode through JFK airport and switched on his cell phone. After finding the network it started buzzing maniacally. He watched in surprise as it declared its inbox full, he had over 200 new messages. A shiver ran down his back, this was not normal. He knew he was an important man, but he had only been out of contact for the flight back from LA. He dialled his voice messages and heard Gail, his assistant, sound panicked.

"Nathan, as soon as you land you must get to the office. Martin has been murdered! They found him in his apartment last night and have no idea how it happened. You're acting DA, so you better get in here now, everything's going crazy!"

Nathan took a deep breath and hailed a cab. On the way to the DA's office he heard a series of similar messages from Gail and other assistant DAs, growing increasingly panicked. Then, in amongst the horror and worry, there was a much calmer message. For a moment Nathan didn't recognise the voice.

"Hi Nathan, Ted and I have got a lead in Texas. We're going to take Claire with us. Turns out the Japanese guys have got some really bad news for New York, and it's probably best that we're out of town. Mohinder reckons that I'm some sort of power sponge, absorbing everyone else's. If you could call back before 8pm that would be great. Oh yeah, I practised flying! Hit my head on the ceiling pretty hard, but still, how cool is that?"

Peter. It was strange how quickly Nathan calmed on hearing his brother's voice, even when leaving such a worrying message. But in comparison to the chaos he was about to reach, tracking down people intending on trapping superheroes seemed much more appealing.

The taxi pulled up in front of the DA's office and there was a huge gaggle of press lined up outside. It took them a moment to realise who he was before they started yelling and taking his photos.

"Mr Petrelli!" "Nathan!" "Have you heard about Martin Forbes?" "Any idea for the reason of his murder?"

Nathan pushed past them and headed into the quiet of the lobby. The receptionist gave him a sad smile before saying, "I will call everyone to your office, Mr Petrelli."

"Go ahead," Nathan said, exhausted. "Actually, give me ten minutes, and we can meet in the conference room."

He took the elevator up to the 5th floor, his head spinning. He wondered briefly at the chances of getting to his office without everyone seeing him, and decided it was probably futile to hope for a cup of coffee before the madness descended.

He was right. The minute he stepped out of the elevator fifty people were talking at him at once. After about an hour of reassuring people that the District Attorney's office would function under his temporary leadership and that they would find out who had killed Martin, he felt a hand on his arm and Gail pulled him into the nearest empty space, which happened to be the ladies' toilet.

"You have to talk to the Mayor, four congressman and Senator Myles before you do anything," she told him, reading off her hand-held computer. "They all want to be reassured that there don't have to be any special measures put in place. The congress members and the mayor are about to board a flight back from Washington, the Senator wants to conference call. Then you have to speak to the ADAs about who are taking over your cases. The police commissioner wants to talk to you about who could have killed Martin and Heidi rang, saying she will take the boys this evening if you need the time."

She looked up briefly and smiled at him. "Got all that?"

Nathan gave her a smile. "Of course. Get me a coffee. If you could possibly work a shower into my schedule that would be great as well."

Gail nodded, noting it down. "Oh, and your step-father rang to congratulate you on your promotion. He also asked a million and one questions as to why you were flying about so much."

Nathan blanched slightly before laughing, realising she met in a plane. Gail looked at him curiously and then he said, "He's causing trouble. Ignore him."

"Will do," Gail smiled and squeezed his arm. "Did you find him?"

Nathan's smile was all the answer she needed.

Forty-eight phonecalls later, Nathan felt that the DA's office was not going to fall down and that he could probably eat something. He walked down the busy corridors to a vending machine and saw that it was five to eight. Something hit him in the gut and he grabbed for his phone.

"Peter Anthony."

"Peter, it's Nathan. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you," Nathan said, smiling as he heard Peter give a chuckle. "You're cutting it fine. We're about to board."

"Sorry, everything's gone a bit crazy here," Nathan said. "The DA was murdered."

"Oh my god," Peter said. "Was it Sylar?"

Nathan hadn't even considered it. "I have no idea. But it means that I'm in charge here for a bit. You said you're heading back to Texas?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "Probably for the best. Hiro and Ando reckon that one of us could explode."

Nathan blinked. "What?"

"Hiro can bend time and space," Peter said in such a matter of fact tone that Nathan felt a migraine coming on. "He went to the future. Apparently there's a big explosion. As Ted and I are the only ones who could explode, we thought it best to get out of town. We've got a lead on the company who are after us, so we're checking that out."

"Right," Nathan said, thanking the Universe for engineering his brother's departure from New York.

"I was wondering…" Peter said, suddenly sounding a lot less sure.

"Yes?" Nathan asked, confused.

"Becky trusts you and I don't really want her to be in our apartment without me, so I was hoping you would let her stay with you," Peter said in a rush, as if nervous for Nathan's response.

"That's no problem," Nathan said. "You can all stay there if you can fit."

"Just add it to the things I owe you," Peter said with a sigh and Nathan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Saving my wife's life, making sure I was ok when I was hurt, putting us up when you barely know us…" Peter trailed off and Nathan nearly said, "What else are brothers for?" but cut himself off in time.

"Like I said," Nathan said instead, "not a problem. Keep me posted as to what you find. And look after Claire."

"Always," Peter said. "Speak to you soon Nathan, good luck with the DA thing."

Nathan hung up and saw his mother come out of the elevator. Feeling stupidly relieved that he was no longer talking to Peter he approached her.

"What are you doing here Ma?" Nathan took Angela's arm and guided her back towards his office.

"It's an important day," Angela said cryptically. Then she took a deep breath. "Is he here?"

Nathan decided to play dumb, though knowing that aggravating his mother wasn't probably his best course of action in this instant. "Is who here?"

Angela's eyes narrowed. "Peter. Where is Peter? You said you had found him. I want to see him."

Nathan gave her a disarming smile. "He's on his way to Texas."

The look his mother threw at him would have been terrifying if he hadn't seen it before. "Why is he going to Texas?"

Nathan shrugged and lied. "I'm not really sure."

Angela placed a well-manicured hand on Nathan's shoulder. "Call him; get him back here right now."

"I can't do that," Nathan told her. Her grip on his shoulder tightened like a vice.

"After all I've done for you…"

Nathan stared at her and she pulled her hand away, as if she realised she had said too much. Angela strode out of the room, Nathan's heart pounding in his chest as he watched her go. Could she have had something to do with Martin Forbes' murder?

He stood in his office doorway when almost all the phones in the office started ringing at once.

"What's going on?" he asked the nearest aide.

"The plane carrying the congressmen and the mayor back to New York has crashed," the young woman said, her eyes filling with tears. "Eye-witnesses said it just fell out of the sky!"

Nathan gripped the nearest chair and turned to Gail who was handing him his cell phone. "It's the President's office, he wants to talk to you."

Peter refused to let Claire go first back into the remains of her old house. The house itself wasn't in bad condition, but the volume of police tape around the property showed that something terrible had happened here. Peter had been surprised to find his father's old friend Matt Parkman leading the police contingent at the house. They'd had a brief conversation before Peter had brought Claire in and after one look at her face Matt let them into the house.

"What are we looking for?" Ted asked and Peter shrugged. "You saw the painting. I have no more information than that."

They both turned to Claire who said, "Dad's office is through here."

"Be careful not to touch anything," Peter said. "Matt would kill me if we wrecked his investigation."

"I think I've found something," Claire said, peering over the desk in the centre of the room. She pointed to a post-it sitting harmlessly next to the burnt out computer. Linderman, Harton, Nevada – POWERS??

Ted looked at Peter and then back at the post-it. He gave a grin and said, "At least we're getting lots of frequent flier miles."

Peter gave Claire's hand a squeeze. "Nevada it is."