You are weathered and worn/
Your petals soft and torn/
The faded colors/
Claire looked askance at Peter, eyebrows up, her body twisted into a question mark, her whole posture seeming to say Are you kidding?
"Don't give me that look," he mock-scolded her. "I told you I sucked at pool."
Claire leaned on her cue stick, mouth twisting as she tried not to laugh. "Yes, you did," she admitted, "but I have to say, the general idea is to keep the balls, you know—on the pool table."
Peter sighed, bending to pluck a red ball from the floor. "Yeah, yeah," he said. "Rub it in, why don't you? It's not like you aren't smashing me already."
"It's all about the angles, Peter," she said, gleefully didactic. "Your grip is horrible, that's the problem."
He grinned at her and leaned back on the wall. "Oh, shut up and shoot."
Obediently, she bent to line up her shot, aiming for the only ball she had left on the table. She hit the cue ball solidly, and it headed straight for her green-striped seven, but just as they were about to collide, the seven ball moved, jumping out of the way so that the cue ball went ricocheting uselessly off the side. She pounded the table in annoyance, turning an accusing glare on the studiously innocent figure beside her.
"Peter! That's cheating!"
"Says who?" he argued. "Don't I get a handicap? You're slaughtering me!"
She punched him in the arm. "You do not get a handicap, I can't help it if I'm just an amazing pool player."
He tugged on one of her blond curls, teasing in a brotherly way that made her feel so much less lonely than she had two hours ago. "We'll see about that."
---
"Very pretty, isn't she?" Angela Petrelli asked as she surveyed the contents of their refrigerator. "She has your bone structure."
"She is pretty," Nathan replied, "and she's a problem. I have no idea what to do with her, Ma. I've never had a daughter—I don't know how."
"It's not like it's something that you can prepare for, Nathan," she said wryly. "There's no instructional handbook. But you're right, she is a problem. We can't let the press get a hold of this."
Nathan washed his hands in their gleaming stainless-steel sink. "There's some kind of feeling that keeps popping up, telling me to hug her and protect her, sort of like what I feel sometimes for Peter. Is that fatherly instinct, do you think?"
"That's what that would be," Angela said dryly. "I'm surprised you recognized it. Now, what do you want to make for dinner?"
He turned to her, drying his hands on a floral dishtowel, eyes unreadable and glinting like minted dimes. "Potpies," he said.
---
"What's that scar on your head?" Claire asked Peter as she set up a new game of pool, dropping the balls one by one into the plastic triangle. She'd thought there was something different about him, but in the semidarkness of the room, she hadn't been able to pinpoint it until now. "Is it new? I don't remember it."
He brought a hand reflexively up to his forehead, following the white mark along its length, down into his eyebrow. "That," he told her, "is where you saved my life again."
She looked questioningly at him. "Sorry? When did I do that?"
He sat down on the edge of the table, balancing his stick on his legs. "Do you remember that guy who tried to kill you?"
She snorted. "Remember him? I've had nightmares about him for weeks!"
"Right, stupid question," he conceded. "Well, it turns out you're not the only one he's after."
She grabbed his arm. "No—Peter, he didn't try to kill you, did he?"
"He did," Peter confirmed, "but, as you can see, he didn't succeed."
"What happened?"
Peter sighed, not enthusiastic about reliving his near-death experience so soon after its occurrence. "To make a long story short, he tried to cut into my head, but I got him off me and got away long enough to call Nathan, who came and rescued me, but not before I'd had an entire room collapsed on my head." Seeing her stricken expression, he added lightly. "It was all very exciting, really. I was in pretty bad shape when Nathan pulled me out, but I healed up just fine. Except for my head," he amended, "but that was only because I was panicking when I went to heal it. Anyway, I owe you again."
"Oh," she said softly. "Um...you're welcome. But, you know, considering that you've saved my life, I think we're even."
"Not really," he disagreed. "You've saved me three times, and I only saved you once."
"Three times?"
"Yeah, there was one where I got pushed off a thirty-story building and impaled myself on some taxi rebar," he explained, waving a hand at her, "but we're not going to get into that."
"If you say so," she said, and they lapsed into comfortable silence.
"You know, Nathan's really a good guy," Peter told her after a moment. "No matter what he pretends, he really cares about people. You should give him a chance."
She looked broodingly at her feet. "Yeah," she said noncommittally, and then popped up, giving him a bright but slightly unconvincing smile. "Your turn to break."
---
When Nathan heard the front door open, he was very confused—there were no servants, his mother was in the kitchen with him, and Peter and Claire had been happily engaged in a game of pool, the last time he'd checked on them. There was no reason for anyone to be opening the door. He stuck his head out into the hall, curious and annoyed—and then stopped dead. Muscling through his initial shock, he ducked back into the kitchen and looked frantically for his mother.
"Mom!" he whispered furiously. "Mom, Heidi's back!" Mrs. Petrelli dropped the potpie she was holding, looking extremely startled. "What do I do? Where's Claire?"
Angela mobilized at once, hurrying off to the other side of the house. "I'll get her out," she said firmly. "Stay here, Nathan, and act natural. Tell Heidi I'm out shopping—I'll check Claire into a hotel and be back as quickly as I can."
She disappeared out the door, leaving Nathan conspicuously frozen in the middle of the kitchen, listening to Heidi's wheelchair move down the hardwood hallway. "Nathan!" she called. "Nathan, are you home?"
He gave himself a brisk mental shake, plastered on a smile, and went out to meet her. "Heidi!" he exclaimed, leaning to kiss her. "Mom told me you were at a retreat, I wasn't expecting you."
"Oh, well," she said smilingly. "The pipes burst in the spa, flooded the whole place. They told me to come back in a week."
"They have a spa?"
"Just built one," she said briskly. "The place has changed quite a bit since I last visited. I should really go more often."
"If it's that nice, I should go next time," Nathan joked, hoping she didn't notice the slight stiffness in his voice, or how he was subtly blocking her from moving past the entryway. "Well, you go get cleaned up. I'm making dinner, it'll be ready in about an hour."
"You, making dinner?" she laughed. "What's the occasion?"
"Nothing, really," he said breezily. "Peter came by, and I thought I might get my hands dirty for once, cook something for my family."
"Peter's here?" she said interestedly. "I haven't seen him in ages, where is he?"
"In the library," he told her, hoping Peter had had the sense to move out of the pool room, where there was clearly a game set up for two.
"I'll go say hi to him, and then I'll get ready for dinner," she said, rolling by him. As she turned down the hall, he saw his mother's car pulling out of the driveway, and let out a tense sigh of relief. That, it seemed, was that—now, he just hoped his potpies hadn't burned.
---
Heidi found Peter in the library, sprawled on a couch in that boneless way he had, reading one of their many leather-bound books. He looked up at her as she entered, surprise showing on his face.
"Hi," he greeted, setting his book on the table. "I wasn't expecting to see you, weren't you at—"
"A retreat," she confirmed. "The pipes in the spa broke, so they sent me home."
"Lucky for us," he said, coming forward to kiss her on the cheek. "It's great to see you."
"You too," she said warmly. "I just came by to say hello, and to tell you that Nathan says dinner will be ready in an hour." She began to leave, then stopped. "Oh—Peter, do you think you could grab something for me? There's a Jane Austen book on the third shelf, about halfway in…"
"No problem," he said amiably, turning to search for the book.
Heidi waited until he had his back to her, then pulled a gun from inside her jacket and coolly shot him. Tasers-bullets leapt from the barrel and hit him in the shoulder, voltage coursing into him through the connecting wires. He only had time to whirl and stare at her in shock before he collapsed with a throated cry. She stood up, reloaded her gun, and waited.
---
Nathan had been looking at his burned potpies sadly, trying to think how to rescue them—they weren't that burned, only black around the edges—when he heard Peter yell from the library. Instantly, he abandoned his potpies, sprinting out of the kitchen, any number of horrible scenarios suggesting themselves to his panicked mind. However, he did not expect the one he found: Heidi, standing over Peter with a gun in her hand.
"Heidi—what—" he stammered, trying to understand how his wife was walking, why she's shot his brother, what was going on.
"Nope," she said in a tone he'd never heard her use before, a sarcastic, cutting tone, "sorry. Not Heidi."
He watched in astonishment as the air around her twisted, blurred, and formed itself into a woman he'd never seen before, standing where Heidi had been. As he stumbled back, stunned, she planted a spike-heeled foot on Peter's chest and pointed her gun at his head. "Don't even thinkabout flying," she said patronizingly. "You really don't want to leave your brother alone with me." She turned her pose so that it was suddenly provocative, making miniscule changes in the way she stood so that he was forced to notice her long legs and too-short skirt.
He brought his hands up conciliatorily, using his best soothing-diplomat voice. "Fine. That's fine. We can work this out. Just—don't hurt him."
"Oh, I won't," she said, sounding obscenely amused. "Especially because this isn't a real gun." Before he could react, she snapped the muzzle up to him and fired, and he felt the bullets bite through his expensive suit into his skin, pouring electricity into him—
Candice watched him drop with dispassionate satisfaction. "Sucker," she said. Stepping over Peter, she flipped her cell phone open and dialed. "Yes, this is Candice Wilmer requesting cleanup on aisle three," she deadpanned as soon as Thompson picked up. A pause. "What? What do you mean, 'a situation'?" She kicked Peter's unconscious form in annoyance. "I told you he'd be a problem. I told you he'd get out, why didn't you watch him better? No, I know I'm out of line—I'm just pissed off, okay?" She tapped her pique into the oak floor, silently fuming. "Yes, I can watch them. Just promise me it won't be long." She waited long enough to hear his response, then snapped the phone closed.
She glared down at Nathan and Peter, irritated. Now, she wondered philosophically, how the hell am I going to get them into my car?
Angela Petrelli pulled into her driveway, hoping that everything had gone well while she'd been gone. She had complete confidence in her sons' abilities to pull off a bluff, even Peter—he'd inherited it, and even if he chose to use it less often, he still had it in him to straight-faced lie. That said, Heidi was the wild card in the situation. Despite all his practice, she could sometimes see straight through Nathan's lies. That was the one trait she'd disapproved of when Nathan had proposed to her—anyone married to Nathan needed to be a little bit blind.
She walked into the house with her game face on, ready to play whatever part turned out to be necessary.
The first thing she noticed wrong was the silence. There was no sound whatsoever in the house, no screaming, no arguing, no pleasant conversation—just sterile emptiness. Then, she noticed the smoke. Hurrying into the kitchen, she found Nathan's potpies in the oven, burning merrily to a crisp, clearly unattended for some time. Confusion giving way to heavier concern, she searched room-to-room down the hallway, occasionally calling the names of her boys. There was no answer, and when she got to the library, she knew why.
There were signs of a struggle—books strewn on the floor, furniture askew, the huge portico windows smashed. As she hurried over to the windows, she saw tire tracks running under them where car tires had cut into the immaculate lawn. She gripped the windowsill, knuckles going white, panic rising like bile in her throat.
Peter and Nathan were gone.