Title: Squall
Fan dom: Heroes
Rating: T -Violence, Adult situations, Moderate Language
Characters: I rather surprise you, me thinks.
Notes and Spoilers: Through "Chapter 23: How to Stop an Exploding Man." Also takes background from Chapters 39 to 42 of the Graphic Novel "Betty"
Chapter 14
"No " Alex screamed.
Candice crossed her legs at the ankles, and leaned back on the fence that she was once imprisoned.
"I am sure he can take care of himself,"she said. "Screaming like a bitch isn't going to solve anything anyway."
Alex blinked.
"Who the hell are you to tell me what to think or how to feel? As you stand there wearing that human mask?"
"What? Don't test me. I can make you see things that will make you cry. Make you want to crawl back to where ever you came from?"
Alex crossed her arms.
"Oh really? I dare you." Alex dared.
Candice looked around and noticed that they were no longer in the Petrelli garden, but in a white room with lavender flowers and maple apple trees.
"I can see you for what you are," Alex said.
Candice looked down and saw her long forgotten former self.
"What did you do?" Candice shouted.
"Borrowed something that didn't belong to me. Tell me again what you are going to do to me?" Alex inquired.
Candice closed her eyes. She needed to breathe, she needed to count to ten.
"Give it back!" Candice demanded.
She had her right hand clenched into a fist. She had her left hand ready to grab and to pull.
She wasn't going to cry.
"That power. That gift is mine!"
She wasn't going to cry. No. She would slap the smirk off that bitch's face first.
She was teased in high school. They beat up her friend. Ren died. Her tears didn't bring him back. That life was over. Through her gift, that life was buried. She wasn't Ugly Betty anymore.
She left that life. Made a new one. She was Candice. She met Linderman, and he promised her that he would heal the world. And now he was dead. The bitch wasn't going to take this too.
"Give it back! Now, or you will be sorry!"
Candice grabbed Alex and spun her around and pressed her against what she assumed was the fence, as she fought hard to see through the illusion.
Alex laughed.
"I was never intending to keep it. Now let go of me before we start rolling on the floor like a couple of idiots. I figure you were picked on as a child. But just because you were bullied, it doesn't mean you get to be a bully in return."
Alex pushed Candice off her and proceeded to pull down the shirt that started to roll up in the struggle.
"Just keep this in mind the next time you threaten me. The next time you try to crush my spirits. I don't want to cry either."
Candice just started at Alex. That Alex didn't seem all there.
Alex rolled her eyes and shook her head, but released the illusion and the two young woman were back where they always were, the Petrelli Mansion.
"Can you tell me what the two of you are doing at my home?" said a new voice.
Alex turned to Candice before addressing the woman she was feared meeting the most...Her prey's mother.
Peter didn't think. He just teleported. He didn't have time to think. Sylar was at his house! The person against the fence was not his brother Nathan, but what if he was? What if he went after his mother, or his nephews. Peter shuttered. They too may had a power and they were innocent. Peter kept his eyes closed as he materialized–was it just a nervous tact he was currently employing? Would he be able to shake his fears away?
The flesh on his arms still burned. The dull ache of raw flesh.
"Leave my family alone," Peter growled.
He pressed Sylar against a nearby tree. Where this random tree was, he had no idea. There were a field nearby, a clearing, placed between what appeared to be a fairly vast forest.
Sylar laughed.
"Your girlfriend isn't here to stop me now. You are going to have to fight yourself. And how are you going to save them?"
Sylar used his returned telekinetic to send Peter across the field, but before hitting anything to interfere with inertia, Peter disappeared.
"Coward," Sylar crackled.
Janice Parkman sat on the right side of her husband's bed.
"You said you would be careful," she said in a desperate whisper. "You have to be more careful. Our son needs you."
Janice looked down at her abdomen and gently rubbed it with one hand as she held onto to Matt's hand with the other. She wasn't sure that the child in her womb was a son, but for some reason she felt that he was.
"We need you," she whispered.
She always wanted to visit New York but this was not the way she wanted to do it. She imagined her and Matt, and maybe their son if he was old enough, would be visiting the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building, or Central Park. Not spending the time in a hospital. But Janice shook her head. There would be a time for that after Matt opens his eyes. The two of them will take a week or two to get away. Matt was still between jobs.
Janice sighed that was another set of worries. She had to tell herself to put that aside. She was nearly a partner now. It might take some budgeting but the family could survive on her income. Perhaps Matt could be a Stay at Home Dad? Janice smiled for a moment, picturing the situation into her head.
"Can you see it Matt?" she whispered. Janice shook her head. "No, that's right, you told me that you can hear thoughts, not see them. Tell me Matt can you hear me? If not my voice, my thoughts? I love you Matt. I love you so much. You have to be okay. Because I love you and I need you."
Outside the door, Molly stood on her toes to peak into the window. Mohinder stood not far behind.
"Do you think Officer Parkman would be okay?" Molly asked.
Mohinder tried to smile, but Molly's eyes stayed focused at Matt's hospital room door regardless, so she did not even notice his attempt. "He has been quite a fighter."
"Yeah," Molly agreed. "He got shot four times."
Mohinder nodded. "Exactly."
Mohinder saw many incredible things. He still couldn't shake the image of Peter after Sylar killed him with a piece of stray glass. Peter saved his life, and died for his efforts. He wouldn't let Sylar collect Peter's brain, but until he saw Peter in the center of Kirby Plaza, he didn't realize that he saved more than just Peter's brain when he threw the map at Sylar. He saved his life as well. One could even say that Mohinder instantly returned the favor. Maybe. Though, after what the group of heroes did next, showed who the real heroes were.
"Makes one appreciate just how small our planet really is. And we're all quite small really, aren't we?"
"What's your name?"
"Mohinder."
"I'm Peter. Let me ask you something, Mohinder. Do you ever... get the feeling that you were meant to do something extraordinary?"
"I'm driving a cab you may have noticed."
"No, I'm not talking about what you do. I'm talking about who you are. I'm talking about... being special."
"Some individuals, it is true, are more special. This is natural selection. It begins as a single individual born or hatched like every other member of their species. Anonymous. Seemingly ordinary. Except they're not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. It's destiny."
Destiny...
"What are you thinking about Dr. Suresh?" Molly asked.
Mohinder blinked his eyes and noticed that Molly now directed her attention to him.
He smiled.
"Just a million little things."
He had new worries now too. He was in town on a Visa. He wasn't even a registered resident alien. What would come of Molly now? Sooner or later someone would question her living arrangements. Mohinder doubted she would be safe in the system. Not with Sylar unaccounted for. And now there was also the person she feared more. Whoever that person was. Molly felt safe with him. He didn't want to worry her. And for the time being, he didn't think he had to.
"Are you hungry? Do you want to get something to eat?" Mohinder asked.
Molly paused a moment and glanced over back to Officer Parkman's door once more before answering.
"All right. I think it might be good to take a break," Molly agreed. "May I have some McDonald's hot cakes?"
Mohinder raised an eyebrow at the child. "Do you really want to go to McDonalds?"
Molly nodded. "Yeah, why not?"
Mohinder laughed. "Very well."
"I'm worried." Claire said as she poured the last of the coffee in Peter's coffee machine into her coffee cup. "I know it is New York, but this is still late even factoring that. And he won't answer his cell phone."
Claire started to pace.
Noah took a sip of his coffee. He did not want to admit it nor alarm Claire but he was a bit worried now too. But he knew Peter could take care of himself, he was a grown man. But not answering his cell phone. He didn't like that either.
"Maybe he lost service?"
"In New York?" Claire replied. "He better be either on his way home or his phone better be dead."
Claire gasped when she said the last word. She closed her eyes and took a moment to breathe. "I feel like I'm being a mother hen right now. Hoping I had access to a G.P.S. or something."
Noah stopped for a second absorbing what Claire said. He knew of someone that could act as a G.P.S. Someone that helped him find Peter before.
"And not only that," Noah replied. "By now our food must be cold."
Claire rolled her eyes. She understood her father was trying to lighten the moment but she didn't want to calm down. She wanted Peter to be home so she would know that he was safe.
Claire drank from her coffee when she heard someone from behind her. She turned around quickly.
"Peter?!" she shouted.
"Hey."
"What happen? Why didn't you answer your telephone?"
Once Claire said those words, a beep came upon Peter's cell phone. Peter looked at it and saw that it said "Voice Mail."
"That is weird. It never rang," Peter informed. "Didn't mean to scare you."
"Didn't mean to scare me?" Claire repeated.
Peter shook his arm as it finally had the time to heal.
"What happened to your arm?" Claire asked.
"Sylar." Peter replied.
To be Continued
Author's Note: Mohinder's flashback is from Volume 1: Chapter 1: Genesis . I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks for reading! A longer chapter and just in a few days. I'm so happy. I am having a blast!