The Road of Trials
Part 2/2
"No."
The word dropped like a leaden pin on the floor between Mohinder and Nathan. Despite the absence of force in his voice, Nathan's expression was an iron mask of denial. Mohinder would not have expected less after laying out his theory to Peter's brother, working from the notes he'd made on a pilfered prescription pad while the doctors stabilized the patient.
Matt Parkman was less skeptical.
"But it makes sense," he said too vehemently to just be responding to Nathan's outward stubbornness. He set down the Styrofoam cup he'd first drained and then shredded during the course of the hushed conference Mohinder had called in the hospital cafeteria. "What Mohinder's saying fits."
"What the hell do you know?" Nathan snapped, lacking the energy to put proper vitriol behind the words. Realizing his own weakness, he drew in a trembling, overtired breath and visibly gathered himself. In a more diplomatic tone he added, "I'm not poison. And I won't abandon my brother."
Mohinder sighed. He leaned forward in his chair, dipping his head so that Nathan's bloodshot eyes could more easily meet his own. "You brought me here to figure out what's wrong with Peter," he said. "This is what I've come up with. It's all we have."
Nathan shook his head, clenching his jaw. "Find something better," he said.
"There is nothing better," Mohinder insisted. "You must consider it more carefully, Nathan. We've already established that when Peter is around those with powers, he absorbs the ability to do what they can do. When he's around you, he can fly. When he's around Matt, he can read minds. When he's around the painter, he can draw the future. It's actually quite extraordinary."
Nathan's expression turned thunderous as if Mohinder had just praised some form of cancer that was currently doing its best to ravage Peter's body. Mohinder instructed the eager scholar and researcher in himself to rein itself in in the name of sensitivity.
"The fact that Peter can do what he does isn't normally an issue because, as far as we know, you're the only one whose powers he's exposed to on a regular basis," Mohinder pressed on. "But from what we know of the events leading up to Peter's collapse, there could have been any number of extra exposures. It stands to reason that the cheerleader he came to save had something she could do and he met with her several times. The way the other cheerleader was murdered suggests that the killer also has some kind of special ability and it's logical to believe Peter came into contact with that person as well at some point. Then there was Matt. Then you. All within a very short period. Less than twelve hours."
Matt nodded, following the outline of Mohinder's theory easily. Of course it would be easier for him. He had no emotional attachment to Peter to speak of. Nathan, on the other hand, had left the ability to reason behind days ago. At least where Peter was concerned.
"Because his powers are still new to him, it's likely that Peter has difficulty controlling them, just as Matt sometimes can't help hearing other people's thoughts," Mohinder said, glancing at Matt, who looked vaguely sheepish. "So in that short period of time he absorbed the powers of at least four other people without giving his body time to purge any of it. It's possible his body couldn't handle the overload and simply shut down."
"Even if you're right," Nathan said, "those people are all gone now. Why didn't he get better?"
"I don't know for certain," Mohinder said, knowing that this part of his theory was the hardest of all. "But it could be that his weakened state made him especially vulnerable to his prolonged exposure to you while you were in the room with him. And then when Matt arrived, it made things worse."
In Mohinder's mind, it was almost like an allergic reaction, only more complicated.
Nathan swallowed, the bulge of his Adam's apple bobbing uneasily with the dry movement. "So, what? You're saying I'm like kryptonite to him or something?"
It was a more apt analogy than Mohinder was willing to say.
"I'm saying his body needs time to rest," he said, deciding on a more diplomatic response. "And the best way for that to happen is to minimize Peter's exposure to anything his ability might inadvertently cause his body to absorb." Seeing the twist in Nathan's expression, he was quick to add, "It would only be temporary."
"And then what?" Nathan said. "He recovers and then I go back and see him and he gets sick again? We lock him up somewhere safe until you locate every single person like us so he won't accidentally encounter them on the street and make himself sick?"
"I think Peter will need to learn to control his powers," Mohinder said. "Until then, my guess is that there will be a lot of trial and error. That is, I hardly think he would tolerate us locking him up as you suggest. Not when he has a world to save." The suggestion was meant to be light, but Nathan only looked more haunted.
Matt, however, latched on to Mohinder's cautious display of humor. "You know, he could come in handy for us," he said. "We could use him like people used to use those sticks back in the old days when they were looking for places to dig wells. The ones that, like, vibrated when they got near a source of underground water."
Nathan was not amused. Matt adopted a more sober tone.
"Look, man, it's not the worst thing that could have happened," he said, reaching up to squeeze Nathan's shoulder in a brotherly fashion. "At least now you can try to get some sleep or eat something." He eyed the full cup of cold soup that still sat in front of Nathan, a prop for their pretense of having sought out the cafeteria for the purpose of preventing collapses of their own.
Of all the things any of them might have said to persuade Nathan, somehow this got through to him. He nodded, looking down at his hands in his lap.
"Fine," he said. "But I can't just leave him by himself in there."
"I can stay with him," Mohinder said, knowing his lack of power made him the obvious choice.
With that, the matter was settled.
Nathan stayed away from the hospital for a grand total of six hours and only because, according to him, he'd accidentally fallen asleep on his bed at the hotel across the street. For all that Mohinder couldn't keep him out of the building, he managed to keep him out of Peter's room with the promise of regular updates on Peter's condition. Matt, meanwhile, came in and out, attending to his job and other activities associated with an outside world Nathan had long forgotten and Mohinder felt himself losing sight of.
For his part, Peter was not as cooperative with the healing process as Mohinder had hoped. Separation from that which Mohinder believed was making him sick had not inspired Peter to suddenly spring back to life, good as new. Instead, the monitors indicated little more than a tentative struggle toward improvement that seemed uncharacteristic of the once eager young man.
At first, this seeming refusal to make progress irritated Mohinder. After all, he had better things to do with his time than sit around waiting for a person he barley knew to surface from a seemingly causeless coma. He needed to be back in New York with his father's list. Talking with Matt had only fueled his suspicion that people like Peter were in a great deal of danger. He needed to warn them. He needed to protect them.
But who will protect you? his mother had asked him back in India.
Mohinder hadn't had an answer then. He didn't have one now. But watching Peter's chest fill and empty with each breath, he began to feel that no matter what he did, this young man would somehow be at the center of it all. That there was no protecting the others without first protecting Peter.
So he reminded himself to be patient as he waited for something to happen. Anything.
"How is he?" Nathan asked, standing when Mohinder stopped by the waiting room for one of their regularly scheduled updates.
Mohinder noticed that, though he still wore the same clothes, Nathan looked more refreshed and more alert than he had since Mohinder had first arrived. A half empty cup of coffee stood vigilantly next to the chair Nathan had chosen for himself.
"He's trying," Mohinder said because it sounded better than the exact truth. "I must admit, though, he seems a bit more hesitant than I would have guessed. It almost seems like there's something holding him back."
Nathan nodded and it seemed he wasn't entirely surprised by this news.
"He's finally scared," he said.
"Yes, but of what?" Mohinder said.
"I didn't tell you before because I didn't think it was important," Nathan began as they sat down in chairs opposite each other, leaning forward so that the secrecy of their exchange would have been obvious to anyone in the waiting room aware enough to notice it. Luckily, no one was. "Peter has these dreams. They started around the same time I found out I could…"
"Right," Mohinder said, acknowledging Nathan's need for discretion.
"The dreams are the reason he thought he could throw himself off a building and not hit the ground," Nathan said. "I guess they were just that real to him." He rolled his eyes. "Idiot."
"What about these dreams?" Mohinder asked.
"He woke up right after he fell. Just for a minute," Nathan said. "When he did, he started saying something like 'It's my fault' and 'I'm the bomb.'" Nathan shook his head. "It could be he was just delirious."
"Or it could have been one of his visions," Mohinder said.
"I don't know what he meant," Nathan admitted. "But every time I think of it, all I can think about is this mural that Isaac Mendes--the painter--has on his floor. It's of New York basically going up in flames."
"Peter knows about the mural?" Mohinder asked, trying to remember if he'd been told about this before, somewhere among Peter's other ramblings that day on the subway. It seemed the kind of thing that would stick in his mind, but Mohinder had been eager to forget Peter at the earliest possible opportunity and so his memory may have discarded the information. Wryly, he wondered what it would be like for Peter to wake up in a world where people actually took him seriously rather than dismissing him out of hand.
Nathan nodded in answer to Mohinder's question.
"Wouldn't it be ridiculous, though? Walking out of here with my brother alive only to lose him to something like that?" Nathan said. "But Isaac's been wrong before. He painted a picture of Peter's dead body outside the high school where he saved the cheerleader. Obviously, that didn't happen. So maybe Isaac's wrong about this."
"Perhaps," Mohinder acknowledged, privately unconvinced. After all, it wasn't Isaac that needed to be wrong. Less than perfect track record or not, Mohinder guessed that Isaac's painting had never showed the source of New York's destruction. It was Peter's supposed vision that had insinuated the answer to this question. There was no telling how much of Peter's dream world spilled over into reality but the odds gave Mohinder pause.
"I should go back," he said to Nathan, pulling himself back into the present.
Nathan nodded as Mohinder stood. "Tell him I'm still here," he said grimly. "And tell him I'm still scared. But for different reasons now."
"I will," Mohinder promised.
Sitting in silent idleness was starting to get to Mohinder. In the past, he'd heard of people talking to patients in a coma, holding entire one-sided conversations with their loved one. Supposedly, it was the hope that the patient could hear them that drove such people to speech. In Mohinder's opinion, the sheer boredom of watching an unconscious person breathe for hours on end was a more likely, if less noble motivation.
It wasn't like watching someone sleep. Mohinder had spent enough time fixated on the slumbering forms of past lovers to know the difference between someone laying completely still in a hospital bed and the various twitches and tics of someone merely asleep. Absently, he wondered what kind of sleeper Peter Petrelli was when his sleep was more natural. Was he restless, kicking at the sheets and rolling from side to side? Or was he peaceful, remaining buried under covers until it was time to emerge at the wake of a new day? Did he talk in his sleep or snore? Did his brow furrow when he was having a particularly interesting dream? Did he wake slowly or all at once?
Embarrassed to find himself thinking this way, Mohinder brought his chair closer to the edge of Peter's bed so that he was in touching distance of Peter's body. He remembered the way Nathan had held Peter's hand and reluctantly took Peter's fingers in his own, squeezing lightly as if doing so might provoke some reaction. It didn't. Feeling ridiculous, Mohinder cleared his throat and prepared to speak.
"Peter, it's Mohinder Suresh," he said.
He recalled suddenly how, when Peter had first shown up at his apartment in New York, he'd mistakenly called Mohinder by his father's name, as if the big picture of the man on the back of the book Peter had been clutching at the time wasn't clue enough that Peter had the wrong man. The error had been innocent but damaging enough that Mohinder had ultimately shut Peter out. He hoped that Peter wouldn't shut him out now, if he could hear him at all.
"If you're at all aware of what's going on around you, then it's likely you already know that it was your brother who called me here. He wanted me to help you," Mohinder went on after some thought. "You can probably imagine after our last parting that I was not entirely eager for a second meeting. Especially not like this." He gestured to the medical equipment as if Peter could see any of it or take note of just how serious his situation was.
Pausing, Mohinder couldn't help but cast a glance out the door, hoping that no passing nurses or doctors overheard him talking to himself. He moved closer to Peter so that he could use a more hushed tone. Had Peter been awake, he would have been able to feel Mohinder's breath on his face.
"As it happens, the last time we saw each other I was certain you were a lunatic," Mohinder continued. "Maybe you still are. But lunatic or not, it turns out that you were right about a number of things. You saved the cheerleader. Presumably, if that invisible man you were talking to on the subway was correct, you also saved the world."
He tightened his grip on Peter's hand as his words grew more urgent, more intense.
"So you saved the world from one apocalypse only to find yourself at the center of a more brutal one," he said. "That is, if your vision is to be believed." He swallowed, noticing the warmth of Peter's hand. How not like a corpse he really was. "I don't know what you saw, Peter. Whatever it was, I know it frightened you. Perhaps that's why you had to be the one to see it. Because, of everyone, you would be the most ready to believe. As you always have been. From what I gather, you were never smart enough to be scared of your powers. To be scared of what it could all mean. That's why your brother was so afraid for you when you began to discover what you could do. When everyone else--including me--ran away, you ran forward. Toward the danger. Toward the uncertainty."
He sighed. "Until now. Now it seems our positions have been reversed because I'm not running anymore and you're laying in a hospital bed, hiding from whatever it is that's supposed to come next."
He gazed steadily at Peter's face, wishing for some kind of emotion to register. Something to indicate that he was being heard, even if it was a defiant denial of the kind of fear Mohinder referred to.
"For my part, I don't know where any of this is going. And I can't promise that bad things won't happen. I can't promise that you won't die. But I can promise that there are people, including me, who will do everything we can to protect you. If you'll let us."
Mohinder shifted in his chair.
"When my father started his search for people with the kind of special abilities he saw in my sister, all he found was a man who murdered him in the end," Mohinder said. "The person he should have found was you."
Peter's fingers suddenly seemed to flex in his and, though Peter didn't wake up, Mohinder knew progress had been made.
Mohinder didn't know how long he'd been awake before he realized he was no longer the only conscious person in the room. He only knew that as soon as his eyes opened he felt that something was different and his gaze passed over Peter's form several times before he realized that the young man's eyes were open and scanning the room in disoriented bewilderment.
Mohinder stood, placing himself in Peter's line of vision, knowing he hadn't seen him yet. The unexpected movement visibly startled Peter, his dark eyes widening before registering a deeper degree of confusion. Mohinder smiled soothingly, running his fingers through Peter's hair while Peter opened his mouth, trying to talk. Nothing came out.
"I'll get you some water," Mohinder said, already moving to the half full pitcher and empty cup on the table beside the bed. It was room temperature and he honestly had no idea how long it had been there, but it was wet and Mohinder wasn't about to risk leaving the room to search for something better.
Water poured, Mohinder positioned the straw so that it met with Peter's lips. Peter took a few tentative sips before reaching up to push Mohinder's hand away. Mohinder obeyed, placing the water within Peter's reach in case he changed his mind.
But Peter was already fading again, his body yearning for natural rest. Still, he was predictably defiant and kept his heavy gaze leveled on Mohinder.
For a long moment, Mohinder felt that Peter was going to ask him who he was or what he was doing in Peter's hospital room. He fully expected that the young man would ask for his older brother or at least someone who had exhibited slightly less hostility toward him than Mohinder had in the past.
What Peter actually said, in a whisper so faint it was little more than a movement of his lips, "I look different without the scar."
Mohinder felt his brow furrow tightly. "What?" he said.
Peter swallowed again. "Hiro," he said. For a moment, Mohinder thought he meant "hero" until he added, "In the subway." He could only guess that Peter was referring to the invisible man who had brought him messages from the future. "He told me I look different without the scar."
Mohinder didn't know exactly what that meant and he suspected that Peter didn't either. Whatever the meaning behind it, it seemed to give Peter more comfort than Mohinder felt the promise of future disfigurement really merited. Then again, people who found themselves at the center of an apocalypse didn't normally get to walk away with little more than a scar to show for it so perhaps it was good news after all.
"You were running before," Peter went on, his murmured words beginning to slur. "I was the bomb and you were running from me."
Mohinder was surprised to receive what he supposed was an insight into Peter's vision. "I'm not running now," was all he could think to say.
Peter used the last of his energy to take Mohinder's hand in his. "Good," he said. Just before he drifted off he added, one last time, "I look different without the scar."
END