6

Awakening

It wasn't until the following morning that Emma finally found Peter awake.

She had been up in Intensive Care briefly during her lunch break the previous day, but his mother had still been there, and Emma didn't feel up to meeting her just then. She still didn't know why Angela Petrelli had treated her with such open hostility the first time they had met. She supposed it somehow had to do with Peter showing up a short while later and smashing her cello, and ultimately, what had happened at the Carnival three days ago, but Peter had never had a chance to explain more fully.

When Emma had come to Peter's room that afternoon at half past five, Angela was gone, but Peter was still on mechanical ventilation, with a tube down his throat, which meant he was still heavily sedated.

She stayed with him for half an hour although he couldn't know she was there, watching his chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly with his shallow, slightly irregular breathing. Once or twice while she sat there, the oxygen unit took over, breathing for him when the intervals between his breaths became too long. She told herself that this was mostly due to his sedation, and his respiration rate would pick up once they cut back on the medication.

Her mother was on call that evening, and before Emma left, she asked her – unnecessarily – to send her a message if anything changed. No message came, but this sounded a lot more reassuring in retrospect than it did that night, as she half-expected her phone to buzz any second, knowing that her mother wouldn't call her for trifles, and fearing any messages.

She was at the hospital again very early the next morning, almost an hour early for work, and immediately took the elevator up to Intensive Care. She fought with herself for a moment before she approached the nurses' station, but told herself that, if there had been bad news, she would have heard before now.

It was the change of shift, so there were six or seven people there. One of them, a young man called Jake, had been on shift yesterday and had talked to her briefly; when he saw her, he came over, and she dared to ask: "How is he?"

He nodded. "He'll pull through. Dr Byrd extubated him earlier this morning and put him on moderate sedation; he was responsive when I checked on him half an hour ago. We haven't had any major complications, only what's to be expected given the nature of his injuries – some infection, and his oxygen levels still aren't where we'd like them – but overall, under the circumstances, he's doing pretty well. He's scheduled for another surgery this afternoon."

Emma nodded her thanks, not trusting herself to speak, and went on to Peter's room.

He looked hardly any different than he had the night before. The tube was gone, but he was still on oxygen through a non-rebreather mask. The only sounds visible in the room were faint tendrils of reddish colour issuing from the cardiac monitor at regular intervals.

Emma sat down beside him and lightly took his hand. They had removed one of the two IV lines that had been needed for pre-hospital fluid replacement, but he still had a new, smaller cannula in the back of his hand, in case another IV access was needed quickly in an emergency.

For a minute or two, she just sat there, not sure whether he was awake, or asleep, or still unconscious; then she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and said quietly, "Hey. Can you hear me?"

Emma could feel his fingers moving slightly, and his eyes opened with some difficulty. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"What happened?" he asked. She found that, through the oxygen mask, she had difficulty reading his lips, although he had been speaking very slowly.

"You were shot. Over a day ago. You're at Mercy Heights now. Do you remember?"

Peter nodded.

"Hesam and Karen O'Neill got you here." She hesitated. "You coded on the way to the hospital. That's why they've been keeping you put under. You had us all really worried."

Peter gave another nod, and grimaced slightly.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

He closed his eyes again. Hurts, she saw him mouth.

Emma frowned as she checked the IV bag and the line in his left arm. "It's not supposed to."

He completely surprised her by giving a feeble smile. She could have sworn he had said, "Yes, it is," but that made absolutely no sense.

"I'll go get a nurse," she told him, and made to get up, but he weakly held her back.

"No," he said. "Stay. Please."

She shook her head, but sat back down again. "No need to play the hero," she told him in gentle disapproval.

"I wasn'."

"That I actually believe."

They were silent for a while. It seemed to take Peter some effort to speak, even though he didn't have to do more than move his lips. "Was my mother here?" he finally asked.

"Yes. Nearly all day yesterday." Emma felt slightly guilty at this – whatever their differences, it seemed unfair that Angela had spent almost the entire day here but Peter didn't even know.

Peter said something else, but this time, Emma didn't understand. She would have liked to just ignore it, and not have Peter repeat what he had said when it cost him so much effort, but the look he gave her told her it was important to him.

"What did you say?" she asked unhappily.

He closed his eyes for a second, swallowing with difficulty, and repeated one word.

"Claire?" she asked.

He gave a weak nod.

She tried to think of what he'd meant, of Claires she knew. There was a doctor called Claire Simmons at Mercy Heights, but she worked in a different ward.

Then it hit her as she remembered the newspaper article she had read last weekend. "The girl who jumped off the Ferris wheel?"

Another nod.

"You know her?"

Peter gave another feeble smile, and said something. His face screwed up in pain.

"She's – your niece?" Emma stared at him. "Does your mother know about her ability? Why isn't she here?"

Peter nodded again, as if to say yes to both her previous questions, and underline the last one.

Emma's mind raced. She knew Peter could take others' abilities, so if his niece were to come here, he would heal instantly. His mother knew this, too. So why hadn't she come here and brought Claire?

"Peter," she told him quietly. "I'm going to talk to your mother, all right? But first I'm going to find a nurse."

He looked as if he was going to put up an argument, but then closed his eyes in resignation.

Emma briefly squeezed his hand and left the room, and was back a minute later with a nurse, who checked the chart, and the monitor, and then consented to upping the dose of his medication.

Emma waited until they were alone again. Peter was looking more composed now, and very tired.

"I think," he finally said, very slowly, not opening his eyes, "that they can't find Claire."

"Probably," Emma said thoughtfully. "Where could we look for her? Where does she live? Or do you know anyone else who could help?"

She then realised that these were rather a lot of questions for someone who had just awakened from twenty-four hours of general anaesthesia.

"What can I do?" she rephrased her question.

Peter didn't answer. She could see that his blood oxygen levels dropped dangerously again before he took a shaky breath and opened his eyes a fraction.

"Peter," she said. "I'm going to see if I can find your mom, all right? We'll work something out. You need some sleep."

He nodded, and looked at her, with some obvious trouble focusing. Then he said one word she didn't understand.

"What was that?" Emma asked helplessly. She briefly considered finding pencil and paper, but then decided he'd have even more trouble writing anything down than she had understanding him through his mask.

Peter repeated the word, making an effort to speak clearly, but it made no sense to her whatsoever. It ended in something like –ler, but that was all she was sure of.

"It's OK." She saw him close his eyes again, and gently chafed his hand. "I'll go find your mother. I'll be back later."

He made no reply, only lay there with his eyes closed, his breathing shallow but even, fast asleep.

Emma went up to Intensive again one and a half hours later, and found Angela with Peter. Angela sat with her back to the Plexiglas window, stroking her son's hair, but he seemed to be still asleep.

Emma drew a deep breath, and opened the door.

Angela turned, with the same unreadable expression that she always seemed to wear. It unnerved Emma more than it would have other people, since she had nothing but expression to go by if she wanted to judge someone's mood.

Finally, Angela rose, and extended a hand. "Emma, is that right?" she said.

"Yes." Emma shook Angela's hand. "It's good to see you."

"I owe you an a…" Angela began, then ended the handshake and turned away from Emma again, obviously still talking, but Emma couldn't see what she was saying.

Emma's initial reaction was irritation that Peter hadn't told his mother that she was deaf, but her second thought was that he probably hadn't told his mother because, to him, that simply hadn't mattered.

Emma lightly touched Angela's shoulder and advanced a few steps to be able to see her face again. Angela had stopped talking and was looking at Emma with arched eyebrows.

"I'm deaf," Emma said simply, with a disarming little smile. "I need to see your face."

Angela looked at her for a few moments, and hardly missed a beat before she said, "I owe you an apology. Peter probably told you that I had… a premonition concerning you, and I regret to say I misjudged it."

Emma cocked her head. Angela wasn't going out of her way to speak clearly, but clear enunciation seemed to be her usual way of speaking, so the younger woman was having little trouble adjusting.

"No, Peter didn't tell me. There was no time before he… before this happened."

Angela looked at her son again, then turned to Emma. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yes. This morning. He was still very weak."

Angela stroked Peter's hair until she looked back again. "What did he say?" she asked, not directly looking at Emma.

Emma came closer. "I promised him I would talk to you. He mentioned his niece. Claire."

Emma could see Angela giving a bitter little laugh. "Of course. I tried to call her the instant I got the call from the hospital. But she isn't answering her phone. Neither is her father. I can't say I'm surprised, given that the whole country is going to be swarming over her after what she did at the Carnival, but this certainly is a bad time to drop off the face of the earth."

"Peter guessed something like this," Emma offered.

"You know," Angela said, finally looking at her again, "it's good to hear that he talked, and was coherent enough for all this."

"Yes." Emma looked down at her hands. "I'm sorry you haven't been able to talk to him yet."

Angela turned back to Peter, and there was a minute of silence.

"He said something else," Emma finally went on. "Something I couldn't figure out." She went around the bed, to be able to see Angela across it. "I asked him if there was anything else I could do, or anyone he could think of who could help. He said a word – I didn't understand him. I think it ended in –ler. I didn't get the first part." Emma looked at Angela intently. "You have any idea what he meant?"

Angela made no reaction, just staring at her son's still face. Emma considered repeating her question, but then decided to wait.

"Yes, I know whom he meant," Angela finally said. "Sylar."

"Sylar?" Emma repeated, to make sure she had got it right this time.

"His real name is Gabriel Gray. He has a watchmaker's shop in Brooklyn."

Emma could tell how difficult it was for Angela to tell her this, even if she didn't know why that was. She waited for Angela to continue, but when nothing came, she asked, "Can he heal too? Like Claire?"

"Yes," Angela said. "Just like Claire."