TWO

New York

Two Years Later

Two days of non-stop running. Could have teleported, but without Hiro at my side I didn't want to risk it. We'd teleported to the outskirts of the city, and so far I hadn't had a chance to look around or find out anything. As soon as we'd arrived, we agreed to split up, figuring it would be easier to blend in if we weren't together. So far, I hadn't even made it into the city. I'd spent the time dodging the guards who patrolled the entrance to Manhattan. Hiro had teleported away soon as we'd worked out a time and place to meet.

Somehow, I had managed to get past the patrols and into the city. The goal was to find out as much as we could in a few days, establish what exactly was going on, who was still around. We were going to meet in three days, compare notes so to speak, and work out what to do from there.

I dulled myself down, given myself darker hair, slightly darker, tanned skin and hazel eyes. Once I was in the city, I took a good look around.

Austen was still alive.

Posters with his face hung everywhere. Electronic screens showed him smiling, looking down at the city. Wishing You A Pleasant Day. Austen Administration.

I stood, staring up at one of the screens, feeling my chest tighten as the screen dissolved and showed a series of images.

Wanted. Terrorism. Mass Murder.

I struggled to breathe, as their faces appeared, one by one. Peter, Eddie, Becky, Rin, Hiro, Mohinder, Matt, Sam, Molly. Molly, a teenager, her face worn and tired, older than her years.

The next face was unfamiliar, though there was a look in the eyes that I sort of recognised. The image faded, to be replaced by another one. Different features, hair, eyes, but the same haunted look.

Melinda – highly dangerous. Can change appearance at will.

The words scrolled across the bottom of the screen. I stumbled forward, my mouth dry. Shit.

Austen appeared again, to wish the people a pleasant day. I turned, to find myself facing three guys, all in black, all pointing guns at me.

"Papers," one barked. "Now."

I wriggled my fingers in the air. They pulled their triggers and I disappeared.

The world came into focus. I'd landed in one of the few places I knew in the city, the image of an exploding New York stretching out under my feet. The painted canvases were still there, as well as the equipment Mohinder had brought into the place. It was all covered in a thick layer of dust.

Someone moaned. I turned, spotting a small alcove with a bed in it, just behind the walkway. I crept up, listening carefully for any more signs of movement from whoever was sleeping. Scattered everywhere were empty bottles. Beer, vodka, whiskey. Most of them were clustered around the bed, and I stepped around and over them to avoid making any noise.

The figure turned, but remained sleeping, and I clapped my hands to my mouth to stop myself from gasping.

Peter looked awful. Bags under his eyes, thick stubble on his chin, not quite a beard, not yet. His hair had grown long and looked greasy. The t-shirt he wore was dirty, grimy, stained.

I stepped back, feeling the tears.

"Oh, Peter," I whispered, shaking my head and wondering if this was because of me. If my hesitation in killing Austen outright, with him right there in front of me, had caused this future.

They'd thought I'd been working for him, but surely, if I was now wanted, they knew that wasn't the case?

Peter stirred and I turned, ready to run or teleport. Something held me back though, and I found myself frozen in place. Not because of any power or a force outside myself, but simply because I couldn't just leave him like that.

"Who are you?"

When I turned back around, he was out of the bed, standing there with his hands out and flames burning bright in them.

I could change my appearance. I could make myself look completely and utterly different to the point where even those who had known me the longest couldn't recognise me. But I could never change my voice.

I raised my hands, offering up the universal symbol for surrender. Peter took a step forward, glaring at me. I watched as his foot connected with one of the bottles, making him stumble. The flames disappeared and he fell to his knees. He hung his head.

"If you're here to kill me, just get it over with."

I wanted to cry. What the hell had happened to him?

"Peter?"

His head snapped back, eyes fixed on me. There were tears there. He was shaking as we both stared at each other. Last time I had seen the future version of me, I knew he wouldn't have stopped until I died. Now, he just looked defeated.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I'm not from here," I explained, wishing there was some way I could ease his pain. "I'm…I'm from the past, Peter."

He crawled forward, reached up and grabbed the end of my shirt. "You have to stop this," he said. "Whatever Austen promised you, whatever he said…Melinda, it's bullshit. You have to stop working for him!"

I fell to my knees, took his hands in mine. "I was never working for him, Peter. Something happened to you and the others and he just…he brainwashed you into thinking that."

He reached for me, put his hand on my back and pulled me close, kissing the top of my head. "I'm sorry," he whimpered, and I forced myself to remain still, to put up with the smell of stale alcohol. "Oh, Mel, I'm so, so sorry."

"It's okay. I'm going to fix this. But I need your help."

"Anything."

"I need to know what happened. I need to know how it got to…this." I waved a hand towards the large windows along the loft. He nodded, wrapped his arms totally around me.

"All right," he said. "But I think you need to meet Molly, first."

"Molly? You know where she is?"

"I know where you all are, Mel," he said. When I pulled away, he was smiling, though it was strained and didn't quite reach his eyes. "I messed up, though. Holed myself away."

"You've been keeping tabs on them, haven't you?"

We got to our feet. Peter stumbled again, almost falling. He would have, but I managed to grab him around the waist and keep him upright. I half-carried him down the stairs, stepping back as he fell onto a nearby chair. He gestured at a bookcase. One of the books came flying towards him, and he grabbed it out of the air before holding it out to me.

Black, leather bound journal. I took it from him, opened it up to find that each page had a name written at the top. Followed by dates and locations, some crossed out, the most recent at the bottom. I came to my page. The latest note read underground. Hiding. Safe.

"Underground?"

He nodded. "You've protected yourself too well for me to pinpoint your exact location. You've stopped me, or anyone, seeing most of your people, too."

"My people?"

He grinned. "You're not alone, Mel. After…after Austen came into power, things went crazy. He started administrating the serum to those who could pay, or those just on his side. A few of us tried to fight him. Didn't work. But we banded together, formed a group, got labelled as terrorists."

"Yeah. I saw that on the screen."

"There's a lot of us out there. But we were stupid. We fought among each other and picked fights with those who…who weren't born like us."

"Are there those who took the serum who don't work for Austen?"

"Of course there are, Mel." He reached forward, reached towards me. "Thanks to Mohinder and Dr Marie Dust."

I inhaled a sharp breath. "Dr Dust?"

He nodded, slowly. "I think it's best if I just show you. Though your people might have orders to try to kill me on sight."

"I'd never order them to do that."

"You don't know what I've done."

I crouched down in front of him, reached up, and put my hand against his cheek. "Peter, I would never issue an order to kill you. Never. Whatever happened…I know it's not you. It wasn't you. And if I know that, future me sure as hell knows that, too. What about Rin and the others?"

"Hiding, but safe. There's two fractions of what Austen is calling terrorists. Us and you."

I nodded, slowly, taking it all in. "You said we need to find Molly?"

He lifted his hand and this time, a map book flew into it. He winked at me, before closing his eyes, hand hovering over the book. Moments later the book opened and he flicked through the pages, until his finger landed on a spot. Peter reached out, took my shoulder, and we were gone, leaving only the map book and empty bottles of alcohol in the loft.

X X X

One room, a camp-bed against the wall, a camping stove in the middle of the floor and a bathroom coming off. The walls and floor were thick with dust, littered with empty cans. Peter fell back against the wall, breathing heavily with his arm across his chest.

"Pete? You all right?"

"Be fine in a minute," he muttered.

"His powers are weak."

I turned to the voice, staring at the doorway to the bathroom. Molly stood there, wearing clothes way too big for her. Her face was scarred, her eyes darker than I remembered. Her hair hung wet around her face, and I felt the urge to run to her, hug her and tell her everything would be all right.

"I try to keep an eye on him, but everything he's done to his body is fucking it up."

I winced, hearing that word come from her mouth. Not the sweet innocent kid I knew.

"What do you mean, done to his body?" I glanced at Peter. He'd sunk to the floor, head tilted back as he stared at me.

"Go on, Molly. Enlighten her."

"He can't die," she replied. "And most of the damage repairs itself. But when you do drugs and drink a shit ton of booze, that damage takes a little longer. His healing powers work harder to repair it and his other powers take a hit because of that, because one power is constantly working."

"How do you know all this?"

She grinned at me but like Peter's, it wasn't a real grin. It was dark and haunted. "How do you think? Mohinder and Dust."

"You don't seem surprised to see me here."

"You told me you were coming," she said. "It's in your past, after all."

I frowned at Molly, thinking over the implications of what she had said. I could barely even believe how much she had grown in two years. "If it's in my past, if I already tried, then that must mean…" I paused. It was too damn horrible to even think about. "I fail. I failed. This won't solve anything."

"Don't ask about the mechanics of time travel," Peter said. "It'll just give you a killer headache."

"Different time streams, I guess," Molly muttered. "Fingers crossed you do something different to the present Melinda, and do end up with things changing."

"Yeah, fingers crossed."

I turned to Peter. He was on his feet now, but still leaning against the wall. "Take us to her, Molly."

"Sure."

I glanced at Peter. "Sure you should come? Maybe you should head back to the loft."

He shook his head. "Nah. About damn time I did something useful." He ran a hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face. It made him look younger, somehow, and I glimpsed the Peter I had fallen in love with. "Kind of missed saving the world, if I'm honest."

Molly scowled at him. "Well, you could have helped us save it. If you and the others weren't such dickheads."

"They were brainwashed, Molly. I don't think they could help it."

She fixed her hardened gaze on me. "I fought it."

"With Matt's help," Peter snapped.

"He would have helped you, too."

"That guy saved your life more than once. You have a bond much deeper than any of us have with him, and we all thought he was helping Mel. Well, knew he was." He glanced at me. "Technically, none of us ever did break out of it. We just…"

"You thought he screwed me over," I finished, remembering what he'd said when I'd first turned up. "I'll have to remember that. Maybe Matt can help you before you start thinking he's working on the bad side."

"Won't work," he muttered. "Have to be willing."

"This is all pointless," Molly said. She moved towards the bed, reached under it and took out a crudely drawn map. She thrust it at Peter. "Here. You need to take us here."

"More teleporting?" I sighed, not looking forward to yet another bout of it. Molly flashed me a huge smile.

"You're a clever one. You can only get in by teleporting."

"What's the map for then?"

"Just helps pinpoint the location. Hiro has a copy, too."

"Present or…future…past…" I paused. My present was their past but their present was my future and if I dwelled on it too much, I was sure I was going to get a headache.

"Hiro's here, too?" Peter looked up. I nodded. "Let's hope he stays out of sight. Come on." Peter reached out, took my hand and Molly's.

Great. Just freaking great. Why couldn't I have thought of some different way of getting in without teleportation?

X X X

"We're not in Kansas anymore, are we?" I said, as my vision cleared and I looked around. We were, in the strictest sense of the word, underground. Molly blinked at me, shaking her head before she strode forward.

The place was, basically, a huge cavern. Tables had been set up around the edges, beds just behind them. And the people. There had to be well over twenty people in there, sitting around, eating, playing cards, chatting. I tried to spot anyone I knew

Molly disappeared into a tunnel, coming off the main cavern. Peter and I hung back. A few people had noticed us now. Some stared at us with fear, others with anger. One guy got up, rolled his shoulders back, and started to walk towards us.

"Petrelli," he growled, eyes dimming until they turned black. "You've got a lot to answer for, you little shit." He raised his hands. My chest tightened. I wanted to move, wanted to push him out of the way or do something, but every inch of my body was frozen as the guy came closer.

And Peter…

Peter just stood there, hands in his pockets, looking resigned as he stared at the guy.

"Don't you dare!" The voice echoed around the room, bouncing off the walls, strong and sure, powerful. I turned to see a woman stalking towards us from the cave, brown hair tied back, eyes sharp and dangerous. She flicked her hand, and the guy was pushed back, his hands dropping.

She looked so damn powerful, angry, too, and I felt stunned. I could feel it, feel her power licking along my skin, raising the hairs on my arms, my neck. And I realised I was very, very scared of her.

She stopped just in front of Peter, raised her hand and slapped him, hard. There were tears pooling in her eyes as his head turned, a red mark spreading across his skin.

"Hey, Mel," he said, barely moving.

I gaped at her. At me. Finally, she turned her blazing blue eyes to me and smiled.

"Welcome home, Mel."