Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers who celebrate it; to those who don't, I hope you're having a great November.
Chapter 26: The Cure
The blood pouring into her mouth tasted funny, its sweet, savory flavor marred by a bitter chemical tang, but Bella made herself keep drinking. Peter had said it was important, so she drank...and as she did so, she started to feel better. The pain radiating from her neck wound and pulsing through her skull lessened with every swallow, and her mind grew clearer and sharper, until at last she became cognizant of the fact that she and Peter were now lying on the bed in a tangle of limbs, his arms locked around her in the kind of death grip most people only employed if they were drowning, or in extreme discomfort.
Tearing her mouth away from his neck, she pulled back as much as his hold on her allowed and peered anxiously into his face, which was contorted in pain, his bottom lip bleeding where he bit into it while fighting the urge to scream.
"Oh no," she whimpered. "I'm so sorry..." As she glanced down at his neck, wondering if the venom had already spread too far for sucking it out to be an option, she noticed that the incision he'd made was still leaking blood and realized he must have held back his healing power to keep it open for her, which gave her an idea. Resting her weight on her elbows so she could take his head in her hands as she leaned over him again, she said urgently, "Peter, listen to me - you need to use Claire's power. I don't know if it'll recognize my venom as poison and counteract it like it would cyanide or arsenic, but it should help with the pain... Are you listening? Hey!"
She tapped his cheek as hard as she dared, and he finally opened his eyes, though she could tell he was struggling to focus on her. "Think about Claire, okay?" Pushing her newly reformed mental shield aside, she brought every image of the blonde she could recall to the forefront of her mind.
Peter latched on to her thoughts, desperate for anything to distract him from the liquid fire sizzling through him - and as her memories of Claire filled his mind, the burning pain slowly subsided. He went limp, his arms dropping to his sides as if they were weighted with lead, heart racing like a runaway train...
Then his upper body jackknifed off the mattress in a single violent, involuntary motion, snapping into a sitting position so suddenly that Bella was barely able to jerk backward in time to prevent their heads from knocking together. His wide eyes stared blankly ahead for a second or two before fixing on her face, and he grasped her arms in a slightly shaky grip. "Bella...is it over?"
"I don't know," she admitted, watching him worriedly. "Do you feel like it's over?"
"I...think so," Peter said slowly. "I've never been poisoned before, but as far as I can tell, I don't think my power's still fighting it off." He raised a trembling hand to eye level, examining it as if he expected to find some difference. "I'm not a vampire, am I?"
"I'm pretty sure you're not." He was considerably paler than usual, though that was hardly surprising after what he'd just endured, any more than the cold sweat on his forehead or the tiny tremors that were only now beginning to subside. Besides, the warmth of his hands on her skin and the deep, rich brown color of his eyes were very human, not to mention the gradually slowing drumbeat of his heart, still so loud in her ears as to leave no doubt of the organ's continued functioning... Yet there was something different about his scent, something that smelled a little less human and a little more like her own kind. "How do you feel?"
"I feel fine now... Great, actually." Now that the aftershocks of his brief exposure to Bella's venom were dissipating, he felt reinvigorated, a strange new energy like he'd never felt before coursing through him. His senses seemed sharper as well - with the thunder of his heartbeat slowing, he was suddenly aware that he could hear sounds from everywhere in the house, down to the tiniest creak of wood and rush of water flowing through the pipes, his eyes could pick out individual dust motes swirling through the air (not that there were many of those, since even with everything that had been going on in recent weeks, the Cullens had still managed to keep their house very clean), and he could smell everything from the days-old residue of furniture polish to the last traces of strawberry-scented shampoo that clung to Bella's hair (also a few days old, her personal hygiene having suffered a bit as her health deteriorated, though in her case it didn't matter too much since she didn't sweat, and vampiric skin was apparently less hospitable to the bacteria that produced body odor in humans).
"That's exactly how I felt when I woke up after they changed me," she said when he described the deluge of new sensory input flooding his brain and the increased sense of vitality - while privately thanking whatever lucky stars she might have that she didn't stink; it really was spectacularly bad timing for his nose to become super sensitive just as she had slacked off bathing. "Are you sure you don't feel different in any other ways? Not like your mind's racing ninety miles a minute, and there's so much going on in there that it's hard to stop and focus on just one thing? Not...thirsty?"
"Mouth's a little dry," Peter admitted after taking a second to assess its condition, "but I'm pretty sure I just want water."
"It's easy enough to test that." Hurrying into the adjoining bathroom, she filled a glass with water from the sink and brought it to him, holding it out in silent invitation.
He accepted it without a word, eyeing its contents with trepidation before slowly raising it to his lips. The first sip hit his tongue with an almost shocking burst of cold, instantly banishing the cottony feeling that clung to the inside of his mouth.
Bella watched with bittersweet relief as he gulped the rest of it, the clear liquid quenching his thirst the way only blood could do for her. "Well, you're definitely not a vampire even if you did get some of our physical enhancements. Thank goodness for that."
Something in her voice made Peter lower the upturned glass, his eyes fixing on her as he set it aside on the nightstand. "Do you really mean that? You've never wished I was more like you?"
"Well, you were awfully slow when you weren't flying... But no." She shook her head, the half-smile she had hitched into place in her attempt at humor falling away. "You told Aro you weren't interested in being changed, and since I knew lifespan differences wouldn't be a problem for us - heck, you're harder to kill than I am - I didn't want to make an issue out of it. I just wanted you to be happy, and I didn't think you would be happy as a vampire." She said nothing more, but her subdued tone of voice and the almost accusatory look in her eyes made it clear that she didn't think he should have revised his opinion or risked undergoing an unwanted transformation for her sake.
"Bella," Peter sighed, "will you please get it out of your head that being with you is some kind of inconvenience for me? I love you, okay? I love you, and if that means I have to give up a few other things, I swear I don't mind. You're worth it."
"You never mind giving things up - you were willing to die for a girl you'd never even met, just because some time traveler told you to - and I love you for it, but you shouldn't always put everyone else ahead of yourself like that. When it comes to your life, you're allowed to be a little bit selfish."
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe this was me being selfish?" His question answered when her brow furrowed and her lips parted in confusion, he explained, "I knew becoming a vampire would make me even more dangerous than I already am-" He pressed a finger to her lips to forestall whatever protest she was about to utter. "I would've trusted you and the Cullens to keep me on the straight and narrow, but none of you can fly or teleport; it would've been way too easy for me to give you the slip, and that's a risk I was willing to take if it meant I didn't have to lose you. You're the one thing I'll never be able to give up."
Taking advantage of her stunned silence, he leaned forward to kiss her, and after the tiniest fraction of a second's delay, she responded with matching fervor, trying to communicate through her kiss how much his words meant to her and assure him of the strength of her own feelings in return. Their kiss deepened as they sought closer contact with one another, and it wasn't long before they ended up lying side by side on the mattress, facing each other, kissing and touching everywhere they could reach...until, as his hand slid down her back, Peter's fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her jeans.
He froze when he felt the softer cotton of her underwear, his head pulling back from hers as he waited for her reaction. During their last intimate encounter, they had gotten as far as removing each other's shirts, but although Bella seemed comfortable enough with that degree of exposure once she'd had a few minutes to get used to it, their pants and her bra had ultimately stayed on.
She watched him watching her for a moment, biting her lip as she calculated her next move... Then she very deliberately moved her hand to the fastenings of her jeans and began undoing them.
Peter's breath caught in his throat, and for several seconds he couldn't move a single muscle, but when Bella started to shimmy out of her jeans, the sight of her sky-blue panties and smooth white thighs broke through his paralysis and prompted him to ask, "Bella...are you sure? Because if this is just about relief that the cure worked or...or gratitude or something like that, you don't have to-"
It was her turn to silence him with a finger to the lips. "I know I don't have to; in all our time together you've never pressured me - aside from your irrational insistence that I had untapped heroic potential, that is," she added ruefully. "And yes, of course I'm relieved and grateful - I can't even tell you how much - but this isn't my way of thanking you or anything like that. I've been sure of how I feel about you for a long time, and now that I've seen what you were willing to do for me, it's time I stopped second-guessing whether what we have is too good to last. If I pushed you away right now, I would regret it...and after racking up a third near-death experience, I don't want any more regrets."
She pressed her lips to his once more, hoping that would convey her conviction as well or better than her words had, and it seemed to work; he kissed her back as enthusiastically as before, yet also with a tenderness that bordered on reverence, as if to assure her that this wasn't just about sex for him, that he understood and appreciated the trust she was placing in him and would do everything in his power to live up to it, not that she needed such assurances.
When he gently turned her onto her back and leaned over her, she was only mildly surprised at her utter lack of nervousness; having known for a long time that she trusted him completely, all she felt was anticipation mixed with a contradictory desire for time to move slower so that every minute sensation would last longer, and when she felt him kiss her again as their bodies finally came together, one of his hands tangled in her hair while the other held hers, there was certainly no regret.
###
Whether it was a side effect of his regenerative power or he had absorbed some degree of Bella's vampiric stamina, they soon discovered that Peter didn't tire like a normal human would have, nor, it seemed, did he need to sleep, so that in the end it was only a change in the quality of light which signaled the dawning of a new day that brought their lovemaking to a halt.
"What time is it?"
"I don't know," Bella mumbled, turning her head toward the window through which the new illumination filtered into their room, "but that's definitely daylight out there." Even with the blinds closed, there was no mistaking the hazy glow peeking around their edges. She then looked back at Peter, her eyes wide. "Have we been at it all night?"
He returned her astonished stare with a grin that held more than a hint of mischief. "You know what they say: time flies when you're having a good time." The gleam in his eyes intensified as he added, "And there's still so many things I want to do with you..."
If Bella had a heartbeat, the look he gave her just then would have sent it galloping out of control, and the kiss that followed nearly stopped her heart all over again - but then he pulled away, his expression changing to one of resignation.
"...But first, we should probably let Charlie know you're okay."
Ceasing her attempts to lean in and recapture his lips, she flopped down flat on her back and pressed a hand over her eyes. "Of course, Charlie - I can't believe I forgot... Actually, I can, and it's all your fault." Her hand fell away from her face as she expressed her reluctance to leave her lover's arms with a deep sigh. "Why did I bring him here, again?"
"Because you missed him. You love having him back in your life," Peter reminded her, earning a baleful look.
"Why do you have to be right all the time? It's very annoying." Throwing off the covers, she got to her feet in a single lithe movement and stood facing him with her hands on her hips. "I'm going to take a shower; there's no way I'm leaving this room smelling like this." Then she turned and sauntered off toward the bathroom.
Peter started to get up and follow her, only to hit an invisible wall.
"No, you can't come with me," Bella informed him with a smirk. "If we shower together, we're never getting out of here."
###
After showering separately and dressing in fresh clothes, they went downstairs, where Alice had seen them coming and gathered everyone in the house's largest room, the formal living room, to wait for them. Charlie rushed at Bella the instant she appeared, first pulling her into what would have been a crushing embrace if she were softer before holding her at arm's length for a closer inspection to satisfy himself that she was really, fully healed. Elle and Edward, as her closest friends, weren't far behind; neither were Carlisle and Mohinder, though their interest in her condition was scientific as well as personal.
Claire was first in line to greet Peter, approaching him cautiously at first, then running forward and hurling herself at him when she saw that he was still human. "You're still you! How...?"
"I don't really know," he replied, catching her as she barreled into him and holding her tightly, "but I'm pretty sure you helped. Bella reminded me to use your ability to cope with the pain, and I think that's what stopped me from changing...at least all the way. I'm definitely still human, but I am a little different now."
"I can tell," Leah remarked, her nose wrinkling as she sniffed in his direction. "You don't smell as bad as most of the people here, but I'm picking up a whiff of eau de bloodsucker."
"Really?" Claire's eyebrows furrowed as she took another look at him, trying to spot any changes she might have overlooked the first time. "You look the same to me."
"Yeah, as far as Bella and I could tell it's just internal stuff - I can see and hear a lot better, smell things I never noticed before, and I feel fine after being up all night." As soon as the words left his mouth, Peter wondered if he'd said too much, but luckily no one questioned what he had done all night instead of sleeping.
"So basically you get all the perks of being a vampire with none of the downsides, because you're just that awesome?" Emmett asked with a slight pout. "How is that fair?"
"Good for you," Alice said. "You would have adjusted well enough if you'd changed completely, but you'll be happier this way."
"Wait a minute," Claire interjected, frowning at the knowing gleam in her great-aunt's eyes. "Did you know all along he wasn't going to turn into a vampire? And you didn't tell me?!"
"I saw that there was a chance," Alice replied, meeting Claire's accusing stare with a somewhat apologetic yet unwavering look, "but there were too many factors I couldn't be certain of; if Bella hadn't helped him focus, if he hadn't been so determined to hold on to his humanity, the outcome could have been different...and I didn't want to get your hopes up in case that happened." The corners of her mouth curled into a proud smile as she glanced between Peter and Bella. "I should have known better than to underestimate what those two can do together, though."
"You should have," Jasper agreed, grinning when her head turned sharply toward him, "but I think you secretly like to be surprised once in a while."
"Some surprises are okay," she conceded, "as long as they're pleasant ones."
"I'm just glad it's over," Peter said, shifting his weight from foot to foot as if to shrug off the looks several of them were giving him, which held a mixture of incredulity, intrigue, and admiration that he felt was entirely misplaced. They seemed to think surviving a vampire bite without being changed by it - more than that, turning it to his advantage somehow - was some great feat, yet he didn't feel like he'd done anything terribly impressive. All he had wanted was to save the woman he loved...and then, when he felt her venom burning through him - he'd thought nothing in the world could hurt as much as the internal chain reaction that had led to him exploding on Kirby Plaza, but he had to admit that what he'd experienced last night came far too close for comfort - he just wanted it to stop.
Something shifted in the room's atmosphere then, the celebratory mood draining away like air out of a punctured balloon, and he realized with a sinking feeling that while he had saved Bella, there were still others in need of healing. "...Except it's not over, is it?"
"The worst of it is," Edward said reassuringly. "After you left to see to Bella, Carlisle and Mohinder administered the antivirus to Esme and Demetri. Their appendages were reattached, and there's been no sign of any further viral spread in more than seven hours, so we think it's safe to say that reversing the effects on the afflicted parts is no longer a matter of great urgency."
Peter glanced at the pair in question as Edward spoke and saw that Demetri did in fact have his hand back, though it still looked as necrotic as before, and he didn't seem to have much movement in his fingers. Esme's foot was hidden inside her sensible yet fashionable shoe, but even though its restoration had allowed her to ditch her cane, she walked with a noticeable limp.
Despite her ongoing impairment, the smile she gave him was as warm as any he'd ever seen from her. "No, it's not. I told Carlisle to take all the time he needs to perfect the formula - after all, time is the one thing we have in infinite supply." She took an awkward, shuffling step closer, her atrophied foot dragging on the floor, and laid her hand on Peter's shoulder. "What you did for Bella was incredibly brave," she said softly, "but we won't ask you to go through it again."
"Great," Elle sighed, "so I guess it's back to the lab."
###
Bella accompanied Peter to the aforementioned lab, determined to stay with him while the doctors drew their blood samples and studied his unique ability, but when Mohinder decided to run a few tests on her as well, to learn more about exactly how the cure had worked in her, the results led to an unexpected breakthrough.
"Look at this," he said excitedly, showing his findings to Carlisle, Edward, and Leah, the latter of whom were once more acting as their assistants. "If this means what I think it does, we may already hold the answer in our hands."
"What is it?" Bella asked, craning her neck to look over their shoulders at the chemical analysis of her venom, which was completely incomprehensible to her.
Carlisle launched into an explanation which contained enough scientific jargon to make her eyes glaze over, before Elle interrupted with a blunt request for him to speak English. The doctor broke off with a look of chagrin, and Edward took over.
"What my father was trying to say, Bella, is that it looks as if the cure has become part of you. You might be the key to ending all this."
"Does that mean you won't need to poke and prod Peter anymore?" she asked hopefully.
"Not if everything we need is already inside you."
Bella breathed a sigh of relief at that, then frowned as her mind moved on to the next question. "So what do you need from me?"
"You lee-...I mean vampires - biting is what you're good at, right?" Leah said dryly. Reaching into the drawer where Carlisle had placed the body parts that had been removed from those infected at Irina's wedding who were lucky enough to have been bitten in an easily treatable location, she took out Carmen's forearm and tossed it to Bella. "Sink your teeth into this and sees what happens."
She glanced at the doctors, one eyebrow raised in a silent inquiry as to whether that was an acceptable method of testing their hypothesis; Carlisle said nothing, his face set in a look of disapproval at Leah's cavalier way of handling his friend's limb, but Mohinder merely blinked and said, "Well...yes, I guess that would be the most expedient way of determining whether Bella can pass the cure on to others."
"Don't look so disappointed, doc," Elle chided him, her eyes glinting in amusement at how the idea of such a simple, straightforward experiment disconcerted him. "I'm sure you'll get to play with your test tubes again soon." Then she turned to Bella, who was eyeing the severed arm in her hands with apprehension and a certain amount of distaste, and gave her an encouraging pat on the back. "Come on, give it a try. What's the worst that could happen?"
"I think I've heard that before," Bella muttered, "usually right before we got into trouble." Still, she raised Carmen's arm to her mouth and tentatively nipped the underside of the wrist.
The virus' taint disappeared immediately where her teeth broke the skin, and the healing effect spread even faster than the infection had, so that in less than a minute, the arm appeared good as new.
"Amazing," Carlisle breathed as he took the newly repaired limb and inspected it carefully. "Absolutely miraculous - do you realize what this means? This could be the most significant breakthrough medical science has seen in...centuries, perhaps. Of course, there haven't been any previous studies of our species, so I suppose any new discovery at all is significant... And, most importantly, Carmen will be very happy to have her arm returned - as will everyone else whose infections were dealt with in the same manner."
Bella's bite proved equally effective in repairing the various other parts, after which the doctors decided there was no reason to delay the next phase of the experiment: testing the cure on live patients. Esme volunteered to be the first test subject, rolling up her sleeve and offering her arm to the younger girl without hesitation, somewhat to the surprise of everyone watching. Even though Carlisle had explained how the cure worked, one vampire willingly allowing another to bite them was practically unheard of.
"It's all right," she said gently when Bella faltered, her eyes darting nervously from Esme to her mate and adopted children as if unsure how they would react to her biting someone they all loved so dearly. "I trust my husband, and I trust you."
Bella relaxed when she heard that, flashing a grateful smile at the Cullen matriarch. "Okay then. Sorry if this stings." Ducking her head, she bit down on the offered arm as lightly as possible, then quickly withdrew.
"How does it feel?" Rosalie asked anxiously, as she and her siblings pressed in closer to their surrogate mother.
"Is it better?"
"Can you tell any difference?"
"She will," Alice said confidently, "in just a sec-"
"Yes," Esme blurted out, her eyes widening. "The feeling's coming back to my foot, and I think... Yes - I can move my toes again!"
"May I see it, darling?" Carlisle asked.
Although sitting down was the last thing Esme wanted to do right after regaining full feeling and mobility in her foot, she obligingly took a seat in the nearest chair and removed her shoe. Carlisle dropped to one knee and tenderly held her foot in both hands, closely examining it and finding, to his immense relief and delight, that no trace of decay remained; even the hair-thin line that had marked where her foot had been reattached was gone. Esme wasn't just healed; there was nothing left to indicate that she had ever been injured in the first place.
Carlisle slipped her shoe back on and then, eyes shining with wonder, rose slowly to his feet and pulled her up as well, before drawing her into a kiss that made everyone else hastily look away, even as Jasper basked in the happiness radiating from both of them.
"And you guys give me and Rose grief about too much PDA," Emmett grumbled.
"That's nothing," Elle scoffed. "If you could see what Edward and I-"
"Which you won't, because we have the decency to keep our private matters private," Edward cut her off, shooting his brother a warning look as his eyebrows rose and a grin spread over his face. "Bella, why don't you take care of Demetri next?"
The tracker wasn't quite as eager to let himself be bitten, but faced with the undeniable evidence of Esme's recovery - and with the help of Jasper's calming influence - he too presented his arm to her. Bella did the deed even faster for him than she had for Esme, painfully aware of his tense posture and the twins' narrowed eyes watching her every move, even though she knew her friends would step in if their aggressive instincts got the better of them - assuming Peter didn't flatten all of them by himself first.
Luckily, Demetri and his fellow ex-guards managed to restrain themselves, and soon relaxed when his hand healed right before their eyes. The atmosphere lightened considerably after that, and the talk turned to things that had been forgotten or foregone while the question of whether the cure would work loomed large in everyone's minds.
"I think I'll hit the hay for a while," Charlie announced. "I didn't really sleep last night."
Bella and Peter looked rather guilty when they heard that, but fortunately for them, no one noticed.
"I feel like I've hardly slept since all this began," Mohinder concurred. "A little rest and recuperation sounds like a wonderful idea."
Claire merely nodded in agreement; while she wasn't physically tired, the emotional strain of the previous night was enough to leave her mentally exhausted, although when Leah voiced her preference for getting something to eat, Claire decided that a snack sounded good to her too.
"I'm with those two," Emmett declared. "They can keep the peanut butter and crackers, but I could go for a grizzly or two."
This statement was met with a flurry of nods and murmurs of assent from his family, most of whom hadn't fed in at least a couple of weeks and were now sporting bruise-like shadows under eyes that were more black than gold. In the end, Bella was the only one who opted out of the swiftly arranged hunt; although she was eager to get rid of her red irises, their color standing out even more vividly now that her eyes were unclouded by the black taint of decay, she admitted that she wasn't thirsty enough at the moment to justify killing anything.
"That's okay." Peter put his arm around her, eager to reassure her that her current eye color didn't put him off in the slightest. "We can just hang out here." Then, realizing she might interpret that suggestion as an attempt to get her back into his bed, he hurriedly amended it to, "Or we can go to Alaska and give Carmen her arm back, and track down everyone else who had to have body parts taken off."
"You can absolutely do that," Alice said while Bella smirked at him, "but you'll be getting an important call in about twenty minutes, so make sure you answer it."
Her prediction came true just as he and Bella were watching Eleazar fit his wife's arm into place, Carmen's face lighting up as the bone, sinew, and skin seamlessly resealed themselves, her family's eyes widening in amazement. Peter winced when the shrill ringing of his phone interrupted the moment, and quickly stepped outside before accepting the call.
"Nathan? What's up? I'm kind of in the middle of something-"
"Can it wait? I need you to meet me at my apartment ASAP."
Peter frowned at the phone in his hand; Nathan's tone certainly sounded serious, yet he couldn't imagine what kind of fresh problem could have arisen in the capital that his brother needed his help with. "I'll be right there."
Washington, DC
After dropping Bella off at the Cullens' mountain lodge - of course he wasn't going to leave her stranded in Alaska, despite her assurances that she could make her own way home even if it took her a little longer - Peter teleported into Nathan's small living room, just as he had the last time he'd visited his brother's working residence...only to freeze when he saw that Nathan wasn't alone.
His newly sharpened instincts and reflexes kicked in, allowing him to stop time before either of the other men in the room could make a single move. Then he stood there blinking at the scene before him, taking a moment to confirm that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him before walking over to Nathan's frozen form and placing a hand on his shoulder, drawing him into the bubble Peter himself currently occupied outside the temporarily halted flow of normal time. Nathan looked around curiously as he unfroze, slightly unnerved by the total stillness, but Peter didn't give him long to adjust.
"What the hell, Nathan?" he asked heatedly, pointing at the third man, who had just started to get up when he appeared and was now rather absurdly frozen halfway between sitting and standing. "That's the president!"
"I know that."
"What," Peter demanded as he rolled his eyes at Nathan's response, "is the president of the United States doing in your living room? And why did you ask me to come here when you knew I wasn't just going to walk in the door, without warning me? Now I'll have to wipe his memory and pray I don't screw up his head in the process - since, you know, he is the president..."
"You'll have to erase a lot more than your entrance if you do that," Nathan said gravely. "I told him everything."
"You... What?" Peter stared into his brother's eyes, hoping Nathan had just picked a really lousy time to develop a sense of humor, but saw no indication that this was a bad joke. "How could you...?"
"You told me there are practically invincible monsters walking among us, preying on defenseless humans, and that this virus that's killing all the CDC workers who went to that village in Alaska is some kind of superweapon engineered by an immortal megalomaniac to fulfill his messianic delusions of tearing our world apart and rebuilding it to fit whatever twisted vision he had-"
"Like Linderman wanted to do," Peter interjected, "with you as his puppet?"
"I was never okay with the 'mass murder' part of his plan," Nathan protested, though he wasn't quite meeting Peter's eyes anymore.
"No, but you didn't do much to stop it, and you sure didn't mind that he helped you get elected." Peter looked hard at his older brother, who he had practically idolized as a child and continued to trust implicitly well into adulthood, and wondered if Nathan had really changed that much since becoming a congressman or if he had simply been blind to his faults. Or maybe it was Peter who had changed once he discovered his powers and began to choose his own path in life, growing less emotionally dependent on his brother, and less willing to overlook his shortcomings as a result. Whatever it was that had brought him to this point, as he looked at Nathan now, he was suddenly gripped by a new awareness - or perhaps he was just now letting himself acknowledge what, on some level, he had known all along - that he was seeing a deeply flawed person; one who had his good points, to be sure, but whose ambition and self-serving tendencies meant he couldn't always be relied on.
Maybe Nathan felt something shift in the air between them, or maybe - since he was still avoiding Peter's piercing gaze and therefore didn't see the look of disillusionment in his eyes - he simply wanted to move the conversation away from his own dubious actions. "Anyway," he went on forcefully, his voice unnaturally loud in the dead space around them, "you dumped all that on me, then you just disappeared again, without answering any of my questions. What did you expect me to do?"
"I expected you to trust me," Peter said quietly, "like I always trusted you. But you couldn't do that, could you? You always have to be in control. Is that what this is about? You were mad, or hurt that I was handling things without you, so you went and exposed us all? Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Although Nathan tried to hide it, Peter heard the fragment of thought that flashed through his mind - that he hadn't exposed all of them, having kept his own ability to himself. Giving his brother a disgusted look that felt strange on his face, Peter unfroze the room, allowing the president to get out of the ridiculous pose he'd unknowingly been stuck in. It was too late to undo what Nathan had done - not without risking damage to the leader of the free world's brain - so all he could do was face the consequences, whatever they might be.
The president's eyes were still fixed on the place where Peter had first appeared, but they quickly found him again; then, to his consternation, the man's face broke into his famously easy white-toothed smile. "Mr. Petrelli," he said enthusiastically, shaking Peter's hand like this was a meet and greet at one of his public appearances, "I've heard a lot about you."
"So I've been told," Peter replied tersely.
The president glanced between the two brothers with raised eyebrows, clearly wondering when Nathan had had time to tell Peter anything.
"He stopped time when he saw you, and I filled him in on what's been happening here while you were frozen."
Now finding himself the sole object of that scrutinizing stare, Peter shrugged and said, "What can I say - you startled me. I mean, it's not every day you drop in to visit your brother and find the president in his apartment. I'm guessing this wasn't an accident, that you just happened to be here at the same time he asked me to come, so the question is, what do you want with me?"
At that, the president dropped the easygoing, charming attitude he employed in encounters with his constituents and adopted the businesslike deportment his fellow politicians were more familiar with. "It was an incredible thing you did, Peter - may I call you Peter? - the way you put down the vampire that tore apart that hospital-"
"I didn't want to do it," Peter interrupted, his stomach clenching at the memory, "but we didn't have a cure then, and after seeing what she'd done and the pain she was in, I couldn't leave her like that. I didn't know what else to do."
"'Then'? Are you saying there's a cure now?"
"Yes." His mind jumping back to Nathan's diatribe on what had led him to involve the president in this situation, Peter asked, "My brother said something about the scientists who investigated the outbreak in Alaska dying, is that right?"
The president nodded grimly. "It's a real tragedy; everyone in the village died, and within a couple of days all the doctors who treated them got sick. Now all but two of them are dead, and their colleagues who took care of them are infected. I don't know how long we can keep this contained, so if you have a cure that works for humans, we need it now."
"We do," Peter answered, recalling how Mohinder's antibodies combined with Claire's blood had been enough to cure Niki. "I can get it to you today; just don't ask where it came from or what's in it." If the president found out that Claire might hold the key to curing almost every malady imaginable, there was a real chance that her nightmares of being locked up and turned into a human lab rat might come true, or at least that she would be pressured to provide more of her blood than she wanted to, and he wasn't going to let that happen to her.
"Fair enough."
Peter accepted this concession with a nod, though he suspected his stipulation had only met with such easy agreement because the president wanted very badly to end the recent spate of deaths that had occurred on his watch, and figured he could revisit the issue later, when things weren't so dire. He also had another pressing matter on his mind.
"Of course, that still leaves the vampire problem."
"The doctors I've been working with have developed a cure for them too. There won't be any more incidents like that girl in the hospital."
"That's a relief, but those creatures will still be out there killing people, won't they?"
This, Peter sensed, was the crux of the matter, the real reason the president wanted to meet him - a realization that brought with it a foreboding feeling that the jaws of some trap were closing around him. "Vampires do need blood," he said slowly, "and most of them do feed on humans...but I don't see what that has to do with me."
"You killed a vampire, Peter," the president replied while staring intently into his face, "pretty easily, from what I could tell. You can do it again, can't you?"
"What are you saying? You want me to...what, help you police them or something? No, that's not it, is it?" He took a step back, already shaking his head as he read the truth in the other man's thoughts. "You want them gone. All of them."
"They're a threat to this country, Pete," Nathan said softly, speaking for the first time in several minutes. "They don't obey our laws, they can kill whoever they want, whenever they want, and there's no way to stop them... They're too dangerous."
"Not all of them," Peter protested, eyes darting between the two older men. "Some of them don't even drink human blood."
"Right, those 'vegetarian' friends of yours." The president waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "I suppose an exception can be made for them, but overall, the world would be a safer place without their species. You can see that, can't you, Peter?"
The empath folded his arms in a stubbornly defensive gesture, refusing to be cornered so easily even if maybe they did have a point. "What I see is that you're talking about genocide, Mr. President. I don't know where vampires came from or why they exist, but I don't think any of us have the right to decide they shouldn't. It's true that they're not like us; I don't like how they think killing a person for their blood is no different than us killing a cow for a burger, but that's just the way their minds work. Just because they're different doesn't mean they're not people, though. Apart from their dietary needs, they're just like us - they have families and hobbies, they're every bit as intelligent as us, they feel all the same emotions we do - and you want me to help you wipe them out just because you're afraid of them? What the hell makes you think I'd go for that?"
The president's eyes darkened, though he made an effort to keep his expression pleasant. He was unable to completely hide the disappointment in his voice, however. "I had hoped you'd be more concerned about protecting human life than those-"
He cut himself off in the nick of time, but Peter heard what he didn't say as clearly as if he'd shouted it: monsters. That was how he saw them...how he would see Bella, and even though he hadn't given up on convincing Peter that eliminating the whole vampire race was the right thing to do - after all, no one got to be president by giving up easily - there were already scattered thoughts running through his head of other evolved humans Nathan had told him about, even the Quileute wolf-shifters, who he hoped wouldn't share Peter's misguided sympathies...
Knowing he couldn't afford to give a hard 'no' and burn his bridges just yet, no matter how badly he wanted to, he took a deep breath and said, "Look, this is...not what I expected when my brother called me, and I... I just need some time to think it over."
"Of course." The president gave a single decisive nod, relieved that he hadn't blown his chance to gain the cooperation of someone who might very well be the most powerful person in the world yet trying not to show it. "I understand this is a lot to ask, and you should know that if you agree, I'll find a way to make it worth your while; this will all have to be top secret, naturally, but I'm sure I can get you on our payroll as some kind of special consultant. You can get in touch through your brother when you're ready, or... Well, I guess you know where to find me."
If Peter decided he wanted to talk again, the Secret Service agents currently stationed outside Nathan's apartment probably wouldn't be able to stop him from popping into the Oval Office any more than they had prevented his entrance into this room - which, despite Nathan's assurances that his brother wouldn't hurt a fly unless he was protecting someone, was another good reason not to alienate the man.
"Yeah, I do," Peter said matter-of-factly, not meaning the words to sound threatening and hoping the president wasn't paranoid enough to take it that way. "I'll be in touch." Then he disappeared.
The president blinked in surprise at the empty space he had occupied a second before, but Nathan just let out an exasperated sigh. "I hate it when he does that."
Cullens' Colorado residence
Peter returned to find both the main house and the guest house mostly empty; except for Charlie and Mohinder, who were fast asleep in their respective rooms, the only people around were Bella, Claire, and Leah. The three girls were in the kitchen, chattering away while the latter two browsed through the available snacks, but they all fell silent when Peter appeared and they saw the look on his face.
Bella was the first to recover enough to approach him. "What happened? What did Nathan want?"
She was obviously worried, but for once he didn't try to reassure her, instead answering her question with one of his own. "Where is everybody?"
"Out hunting," she replied with a perplexed frown. "Even Demetri and the twins went along, to see what a vegetarian hunt was like."
"I need you to go and bring them back. I have to make some calls and-" He turned to Leah, who was watching him with a similarly bemused expression "-I need you to get in touch with your pack. We've got a serious problem."
Yikes... So now we have a situation kind of similar to s4, except with vampires as the target instead of evolved humans since, frankly, they're a lot scarier than mostly ordinary people who just happen to have some unusual talents - and Peter's caught in the middle, trying to prevent an all out war between the species. By the way, if anyone here read my previous Twilight/Heroes series and thinks this scenario is close to the bad future described in Resilience, I'm aware of that, and while I typically don't like to recycle my ideas, I guess I thought that vampires and evolved humans eventually discovering each other's existence and coming into conflict is the kind of thing that would happen in any universe, albeit with different causes and results.
Also, I want to clarify that the president depicted in this story is not meant to be any real person we know of, hence why he's never given a name.