THREE

"You look different."

She gave me the kind of condescending, 'aw bless' smile adults bestowed on little kids when they said something stupid. Peter had moved behind me, as if I was some sort of shield between him and future me.

"I stopped using my abilities to look different," she said. "No point. Not down here." Her eyes flickered to Peter, and even in those oddly familiar but not eyes I spotted hurt, anger, pain. He'd done something, something beyond just not believing in me. "You look terrible, Petrelli."

Peter just shrugged, turning his head away and staring at the floor.

"You look…hard," I said, wondering how much hell she had gone through. What the hell could make me change that much?

"I had to be hard," she snapped, before taking a deep breath. "Let's sit down."

I looked over her shoulder. She was the same height as me, but something about her made her seem taller. In the entrance to the tunnel, I spotted Mohinder and Matt, standing with Molly between them. Each man had a hand on her shoulder, but each man, like me, looked vastly different. But their eyes were lighter than future me, their eyes held something hers didn't.

Hope.

Peter stayed behind me, every eye in the place on him, as we walked over to one of the tables. Future me sat with her back to the wall, we sat opposite. Peter was trembling, and future me cast her eyes over him, before shaking her head.

"Alcohol withdrawal," she muttered. "You really are messed up, aren't you?"

Under the table, he took my hand. I glanced at him, feeling my heart sink.

"How are the others?" Future me asked. "Rin, Becky…"

"Fine," he muttered, before running a hand through his hair. "Safe. At the moment." He lifted his head and fixed his gaze on her. "Rin…you wouldn't recognise her."

"I know." She turned to me. "You've got a lot of work to do, kiddo."

"Kiddo? I'm only two years younger than you."

"And with a long, hard road ahead. Trust me, I walked it."

"So what do I do?" I asked. "To stop…" I waved my hand, wishing I could find someone to sum up this nightmare, dystopian world. "This? What do I do?"

Her eyes flickered to Peter. "Stop thinking you're so damn alone." Her gaze switched to me. "Realise that there are, and always will be, people who trust you and will help you."

"Like who?"

"Like me."

I turned. Like future me, Claire looked…well, darker, harder. Peter scrambled out of his chair, threw his arms around her. She shoved him away and I caught, in his face, the look of total hurt.

"Don't," she snapped. "Don't, Peter. It's your fault he's dead."

"Claire, I…please…"

Claire walked around the table, sat down beside future me. Crossing her arms, she leaned forward, staring into my face. "Don't go thinking I can't fight, all right? You already made that mistake."

"Of course you can't fight!" Peter said. "Jesus, Claire, don't go telling her to rope you into all this."

"Shut up, Petrelli. Let her speak." Those eyes were starting to freak me out. It was strange, seeing my natural eyes with a look in them so different to anything that had ever looked me back in the mirror. Even when I changed the colour or shape or anything, my eyes were still mine. I could still recognise me. But the woman sitting across was a complete and utter stranger.

"You think I just sat on my ass at that school?" Claire said. "I worked, and I worked hard. I learnt how to fight and I learnt how to defend myself. I had to, after what Sylar did to me."

"I should have been there," Peter muttered. Claire waved a hand, dismissing him completely.

"Boo freaking hoo, Petrelli. You think you would have got over the whole 'I need to save everyone' thing by now."

"Wait, you knew I was coming," I said, turning back to future me. "You came here too, didn't you? So why didn't you do what you guys are telling me?"

"Claire wasn't here then," future me said. "Things were…different, in smaller ways. I didn't meet up with him." She gestured her hand towards Peter. "Where did you find him, anyway?"

"The loft."

She laughed. "Of course. Why did you decide to go there?"

"Me and Hiro split up. I headed into the city, saw the…the screens."

She seemed to think it over. "The smallest of changes, huh? What made you and Hiro decide to split up?"

I shrugged. "Seemed like the best idea."

"He suggest it?"

"Yeah."

She drummed her fingers on the table. "He didn't, when I was with him. Odd that, huh? He didn't, we ran and he got captured."

"But you escaped?"

"Yes. I escaped, I found Molly and I came here."

"Hiro could have been caught," I said. "He could have still been captured."

"We'll get him out."

I nodded, feeling determination filling me up, inch by inch, like water dripping into a cup. "So you did things differently? Than the…version of us you saw?"

Future me nodded, slowly, a strange smile pulling her lips up. Not a happy smile, but a look that said she knew exactly what I was thinking.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you did things differently once you left here. I've done things differently since arriving here, but you still saw a future version of us…she saw a future version of us and did things differently too, didn't she?"

Again, she nodded, staring at me with wide eyed pity.

"Oh, God." My hands came to my face, cradling my head. "Oh, God," I repeated, then started saying it over and over again.

"What?" Claire asked. "What's wrong?"

"It's a cycle," future me explained. "We always make this trip. We always arrive, meet ourselves, do what's needed to make it different. Alter things."

"But we always end up here," I said, squeezing my eyes shut to stop the tears. "Trying to tell myself how to change things, but it always ends up the same."

Too fast for me to do anything to stop her, she reached out, grabbed my wrist and brought my hand down onto the table. "It doesn't," she said. "Don't you get it, Melinda? Everything we do changes this future in some way. After a few months, I remembered who was missing from this place and I tracked her down. You brought Peter here. Things are changing."

"Last time you were here, what had changed?"

"Not a lot." Her eyes flickered to Peter, before returning to me. "There had been more deaths. Having Claire on side stopped some of them. But by the time I had tracked her down it was too late."

"So I go back, get her earlier?"

She nodded eagerly. "Exactly. I tried to find Austen, but I couldn't. I wasted too much time convinced I had to do it on my own. But between us, we've changed things. I hadn't changed anything last time. You brought Peter here."

Claire was staring at me, smiling. "Change enough and it might all end up different."

"Do you know how I can get my friends back?"

Future me shook her head. "Sorry. I know a telepath can break the brainwashing, whatever they did to them. Matt got Molly out of it. But the victim has to really, really trust the person doing it. They have to believe in them completely."

I thought over what she'd said. Peter trusted Matt, surely? The others trusted Dr Dust. "Why didn't Matt and Dust try to break them out of it?"

Future me looked up, staring over towards the entrance of the tunnel.

"We found out Matt was working with you," Peter explained, as future me waved at the group huddled at the end of the room. "Wasn't going to trust him after that."

I turned, to see Mohinder, Matt and Molly walking towards us. Behind them, slower, using a walking stick, was Dr Dust.

I couldn't do anything but blink at her as she arrived at the table, lowering herself slowly into the chair beside Claire. The others gathered at the head, Molly still in the middle.

"She's wondering why you couldn't just reach into their minds and pluck out all the crap they were fed."

Dr Dust fixed her gaze on me. She looked older, older than she should have, flecks of white streaking through her hair, her face lined.

"They thought I was helping you." Her speech was slow, a pause between each word. "They didn't trust me, Mel."

This time, I was the one who reached out. I took her hand, squeezing it, surprised at how small and frail it felt. "I won't let it happen," I said. "Not again."

Tears began to roll down her face. She lifted our hands, put the back of mine against her cheek. "Whatever happens, Melinda, I'm here for you."

"We all are," Claire said.

"You're not alone." This, from future me. "I forgot that. I forgot how damn powerful we were as a team." She turned to Peter and this time, the smile remained on her face. "We got to the top of that tower after all, didn't we?"

"Peter?"

"Yeah?"

He wasn't looking at any of us, just staring at the table as if he wanted to disappear into it. I said his name again, made him look at me. "What do you actually remember about that night? What happened after I left you guys?"

He shrugged, and I saw a flash of something in his eyes. "We got split up in the confusion. We all got out, but we weren't sure where the others were."

"Who were you with?"

"Becky and Rin. The boys were helping Tracey and Nikki."

I glanced to future me. It was there, in her eyes, the same thing I'd thought. "What happened to you and the girls?" I asked.

"Barbara turned up. She looked awful, all bruised and bloody and…and I think someone was with her. But then….they weren't." He shrugged. "We thought we must have imagined it."

It had been Barbara, Rin and Becky who had confronted me when I woke. Peter and the girls I'd seen in the future. I voiced my thoughts to future me, before adding, "Did you ever see the guys?"

"Briefly. Didn't get the chance to speak to them, though."

I drummed my fingers on the table, wondering if I'd get the chance to get Sam and Eddie on their own.

Future me looked up sharply, staring over my shoulder. I turned to see Hiro standing in the middle of the room, glasses gone, a sword strapped across his back, a scar running from under his eye down to his chin.

"Hiro!" future me cried. He looked to us, then strode across the room, coming to a stop just behind me.

"Austen's men," he said, with barely a trace of the accent. "They're heading for the city." His eyes flickered down to me. "Following rumours that you're in New York."

She was on her feet in seconds, her hand landing on Dust's shoulder and squeezing gently. Suddenly, everyone around us was moving, grabbing weapons, checking guns, flexing hands and testing their abilities.

"Make sure she survives," she said, gesturing at me. Hiro nodded, turning to me.

Around us, people were either moving back, giving the others more room, or disappearing, usually with someone else. Future me moved into the middle of the room, barking out orders. Mohinder turned to Molly, putting his hands on her shoulders and crouching down so they were eyelevel.

"Stay in here, Molly."

"I know. Come back, all right?"

"I will." He kissed the top of her head. Him and Matt moved to Hiro, took his hands, and they were gone.

It didn't take long for there to only be a handful of people left. Mostly kids, around Molly's age. A few who looked injured, like Dr Dust, and finally, me and Peter.

Peter was staring at the spot where future me had been. He looked like he was ready to move, but something was keeping him frozen in place.

Hiro reappeared.

"Good luck," Dr Dust said. I turned back to her, to see Molly standing over her shoulder, arms wrapped around herself, looking like she was struggling not to cry.

Hiro gripped my shoulder, then Peter's.

"Time to prove your worth, Petrelli."

We disappeared.