Don't wake me up/
I am still dreaming/
The story's undone/
Unraveled at the seams/

Nathan wondered at Heidi's calm. He knew that his wife was no delicate shrinking blossom, and he knew that she could take a lot—but he wasn't sure anyone could take what he'd told her, the comic-book saga of superpowers and death-defying feats. He was starting to think she'd gone into shock, or was waiting for a chance to knock him out and call the hospital.

"Do you understand?" he tried, hoping perhaps he'd confused her past all comprehension. It was a great deal of information he'd had to pack into her—he'd related all the epic events of the last few months (with the omission of a few strategic points, such as his relationship with Niki and Claire's full identity), even hovering a little for her to prove his point. It was enough to boggle anyone's brain right out of working order.

"Yes, Nathan," she said evenly. "I understand." He wished she'd get upset, scream or cry or throw things, confirm his view that all this was insanity, not to be believed.

Into the weird quiet came the buzz of his cell phone, and without thinking he snatched it up into his hand. Of course, he shouldn't take a call in the middle of this so-important conversation, but the display showed Wireless, and suddenly he was trapped. "I have to take this," he said apologetically. "Wait two seconds." He turned his attention to the phone. "Hana? Now is not a good—"

"Nathan, finally! Don't you ever answer your phone?"

"I've been on a plane for the last six hours," he said. "I know you're not familiar with real, tangible phones, but they don't actually allow them on airplanes."

"Doesn't matter," she said brusquely. "You're all in danger, Nathan."

"What are you talking about?" The words were toneless, resigned already to whatever new disaster she might present.

"It's Jonathan," she said. "He's betraying you, he works for Linderman. I heard him call Linderman, and Jessica while she was still alive. He's a plant, Nathan."

"Jonath—" he managed, mind catching the concept quick enough to make him lose his breath. "Son of a bitch."

"Tell me about it," she said humorlessly.

"Thanks, Hana, we'll deal with it," he said, going from zero to overdrive as all the implications hit him like bullets to the chest. He threw the phone back in his pocket and went for the door, stopping only when he caught his wife's arctic eyes burning up his peripheral vision. Heidi. He'd forgotten her again.

"I'm sorry, honey," he said quickly. "We're in danger, I need to go right now. We'll finish this later, I swear."

He went to grab his gun from the desk, but she already had it, holding it out to him with her eyes full of things he wasn't sure he wanted to understand. "Thanks," he said, giving her a swift kiss, and went out to make his house safe.

---

Jonathan was quite a bit better at pool than Peter. He was so much better, in fact, that Claire was finding it difficult to keep ahead, for the first time in a good five years. She watched in dismay as he neatly sunk a six ball, and Peter laughed at her expression.

"What's the matter, Miss Olympic Pool Team?" he teased. "Afraid of a little competition?" He'd long since given up trying to play against them, and had retreated to leaning against the wall and providing unhelpful commentary, a chaperone that Claire wasn't sure whether they needed.

Jonathan hadn't changed recognizably since their midnight heart-to-heart—he was still snarky, disrespectful, and inclined to bait anyone who was around him. He hadn't, however, so much as touched her since last night, had stopped shamelessly hitting on her the way he used to. She wondered what it meant—perhaps it had been some kind of a phase, and they had passed it now? She, at least, felt differently toward him—more patient and understanding, more willing to smile at him.

She watched him now, leaning to line up his shot, his hair falling across his forehead, eyes like the sky seconds before a storm—and she wished he was safe to touch. She wasn't looking for love, not at sixteen, but she was looking for a hand to hold and a mouth to kiss. She wished it could be him. The part of him she'd seen last night seemed to be a small part, and very well-concealed, but she'd liked what he's shown her. She wished she knew how to draw it out again. The rest of him, she disliked, didn't trust, and there was the problem.

His ball bounced off the edge of the pocket and spun away, and he threw his cue stick down in frustration. "Damn," he said, "I thought I had that one."

Suddenly, the door was flung open and Nathan stormed in, looking like murder with a gun in his hand. Before they had time to form questions or protests, he'd opened fire on Jonathan, barely missing him, bullets biting into the wall behind.

"Nathan!" Peter yelled, shocked at the unprovoked homicidal attack. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jonathan was not so slow to pick up on the reasoning behind the assault—the lights went off, then on again, and then the light bulbs exploded, small bursts of glass shards raining from the ceiling. In the darkness, there was a scream and a scuffle, and then the corner of the room was lit with unnatural, yellowish electric light. Jonathan was holding Claire with one arm around her neck and the other palm pressed flat against her temple, angry sparks crawling up and down his arms.

Nathan started instinctively forward, but as soon as he moved, Jonathan's hand burst with a hundred tiny bolts, sizzling as they brushed Claire's hair. "Don't come any closer!" he said. "It's her brain, right, that's where this healing thing comes from? Think she can survive ten thousand volts?"

"Nathan," Peter protested. "Jonathan, what is going on?"

"What'd he tell you, boy?" Nathan said, voice quiet, tight. "Did he tell you that you were important, that you were special? Did he tell you that you were like a son to him?"

"Shut up."

"Because you're not the first person he's said those things to, believe me," Nathan pressed, "and you won't be the last."

"Shut up!" Jonathan yelled, electricity snapping across him, making the air hum.

"You don't have to do this, Jonathan," Peter said, finally starting to understand the situation. "We can work this out." He was using his nurse voice, the talking-down-from-the-ledge soothing sympathetic tone that Nathan had always hated because it was so uncontrived.

"Put your gun down!" Jonathan commanded, and Nathan obeyed with a furious silent scream, tossing it into the dense, thick darkness.

Keeping his back to them, Jonathan dragged Claire to the window and opened it with one hand, creating little charred spots on the windowsill where his sparks licked the wood. That's it, Nathan thought wildly as he watched them leave. I have had enough with the big, escape-route windows in this house. We are going to have skylights and that's it, no more of this decorative bay window nonsense.

As Jonathan slid out the window behind Claire, she took advantage of his momentary distraction to hook her foot behind his, pushing him away and sending him stumbling as Hana had taught her. The electricity in his hands had been playing across her skin like a warm, tickling feeling—but as she shoved him, the sparks suddenly surged to life, charring her arm where he'd been holding her. He let go at once, watching in horror as the black skin healed back to normal.

"Claire!" he said, sounding sickened. "I'm sorr—"

"Don't," she spat, backing away from him. "Don't say it. Just go."

He stared at her for a moment, decisions flickering like lightning behind his eyes—and then he went, turning and running from the house to lose himself in the smoky New York sidestreets.

And then he was gone.