Your eyes are like sea glass/

So weathered and worn/
From all they've seen of/

Adolescence torn/

When Nathan first started hearing Peter's voice, he thought he was going crazy, driven quite mad by the buildup of guilt and grief. Then, joined with his brother's soft tenor, he heard Simone (Simone?) speaking, which made him feel merely confused. It was only when he began to hear Candice's slick, sarcastic voice that he knew it was real, and began searching for the source of the sound. After a few minutes, he discovered that he was hearing them from another room through his heating vent, and that as long as he was quiet and stayed close to the vent, he could hear what they said.

What he heard made him angry—Candice was obviously screwing with Peter's head, playing on his trauma and impractical sensitivity for her own amusement. He listened, grinding his teeth in the way that his dentist always got angry at him for, waiting for her to leave. The moment she did, he dropped to his knees by the vent, hands on either sides of it.

"Peter," he whispered, hoping Candice couldn't hear him. "Peter!"

There was a pause, and then he heard his brother scrambling in the other room. "Nathan?"

"Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Peter said, sounding distressed. "Nathan, I didn't know she got you, too. She didn't say anything—"

"God, Pete, she told me you were dead. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear your voice."

"She told you what?"

"I don't know why you're so shocked," he said, annoyed by Peter's constant surprise at the darkness and spitefulness of the world. "I heard her messing with you, pretending to be Simone. Whoever these people are, Peter, they aren't the good guys."

"She didn't hurt you, did she?"

"Besides telling me she killed you?" he said wryly. "No. No, she didn't."

"I don't suppose there's any chance of getting out of here?"

"Not really. Not while she's got that trigger remote."

There was a pause on both sides of the vent as they considered their situation, and then a break in the silence when they realized that their situation was far too depressing to consider for long. "I hope Claire's okay," Peter said bleakly.

Nathan didn't respond, trying to understand how Peter did it—how he thought of everyone in the world before himself, that selfless, sainted mindset that sometimes made him jealous, but usually made him scornful. Nathan believed in survival of the fittest, and he believed in creating a world where you were the fittest, no matter how many blood sacrifices you had to make along the way. The only people who didn't fall into the 'expendable' category were his family, and he couldn't quite fit Claire into that group yet. And, he reminded himself, sometimes even his family had to take hits for him, if it meant that he would survive.

"Peter, what would you say if I told you I wanted to be the President of the United States?"

"Why?" Peter asked, voice carefully neutral. "Is that something you're likely to say?" He could almost see the expression on Peter's face, the skeptical, pride-deflating look that his brother used to give him when he was ten and told him he wanted to rule the world. He still wanted to rule the world, but he didn't tell people anymore—he just did it, quietly, sneakily, so that they would simply wake up one day and notice that he was looking down on them from far higher than he'd been before.

"It's been offered," Nathan told him, wondering why he was saying this to Peter of all people, Peter, the one person who had a chance of talking him out of it. "It's on the table."

"You would be a terrible president, Nathan," Peter said frankly.

Privately, Nathan was inclined to agree with him, for the reasons he'd just been thinking—he liked power, and he liked control, but he was not above sacrificing a whole country to get what he wanted. Then again, it could be argued that 'what he wanted' was the presidency; maybe, if he made it to the very top, the power-lust would finally be satisfied. "I don't know," he said. "I'm pretty good at making speeches."

"You're great at making speeches," Peter agreed. "What you're not so good at is following up on them."

Before he could reply, the door opened and Candice sauntered in, carrying a plate on the flat of her hand like a diner waitress. She kicked the door shut behind her and gave him an snarky half-smile, sliding the plate onto his nightstand "I brought you some food, and I hope you're grateful, because I considered letting you starve," she informed him sardonically. "I've got you pretty much pegged as a steak-and-potatoes guy, but I confess, I haven't a clue what to order for your brother."

"You told me my brother was dead," he said flatly.

"I lied," she said, licking her fingers clean of stray gravy without a trace of remorse.

He put one hand over his face, suddenly feeling very tired. "Italian food," he said, words slightly muffled by his hand.

She leaned over the table, deliberately letting her shirt fall open. "Sorry, what was that?"

He left his hand blocking his eyes, studiously ignoring her and especially her body, trying to implement a lust-control he'd never seen the need to develop. She's evil, he told himself sternly. She shot you with a taser. You do not want her. "Italian food," he repeated. "He likes Italian food. Now will you please move?"

She laughed unkindly, sitting on the table. "What, am I making you uncomfortable?" She shifted into the form of Heidi, grabbing his tie and pulling him forward in a decidedly un-Heidi way. Irritated, he swatted her hand away and walked to the other side of the table. "Or does that make you uncomfortable, too? I suppose I could see why, considering how you crippled her for life, and all."

He felt a charge of paralyzing guilt race up his spine and splinter off down his arms, the words that everyone else was too polite to say hitting him with all the force of unspoken truth. He turned slowly, not sure what he intended to say or how he planned to rebuff her brutal honesty, but what he saw her new form, he lost all chance of defense. She'd now changed into that blond woman from Las Vegas (Nancy? Nikki?) and was smirking shamelessly at him.

"That's right," she said silkily. "I read your dossier, and what a soap opera it turned out to be. Honestly, I'm going to see if I can get a copy of it to read on airplanes—beats the hell out of John Grisham any day."

He ran his hands fretfully through his hair, making it stand up at odd angles in the back. He prided himself on his control, he did—but how was he to defend himself against a woman who apparently knew his whole life, and found it all incredibly amusing? He changed tack. "You can't hold me forever, you know. I'm a Congressional candidate—it's not like people aren't going to notice."

"You let me worry about that," she said, infuriatingly condescending, hopping down from the table. "Eat your dinner," she said, and walked out of the room.

---

Having eavesdropped as best he could on Nathan and Candice, Peter fully expected Candice to come into his room in the guise of someone female, overly sexy, and connected to his past. He was starting to get a handle on this woman—he still didn't understand what motivated her, but he knew her type, and her methods were predictable once you spotted them.

Or so he thought. When she came to bring him his food, he found that she'd thrown him a curveball again, and one that was going to hurt. The person who entered his room was tallish and with a distinctive, patrician bone structure and a face that was attached to a majority of his worst memories. It was his father.

"Not funny, Candice," he said testily, taking the plate of lasagna from her.

"Oh, I thought it was," she said as she changed back. "Your relationship with your father was just such a delicious tangle, wasn't it? You two should have gone on 'Oprah'."

"We had our differences."

"Yeah, I know," she said mockingly. "That's why he hated you, I take it. That must have really sucked, having your own dad think you're completely worthless. Tell me," she said, playing psychiatrist, "how do you feel about that?"

He eyed her thoughtfully. "Lonely," he said concisely.

She smiled like the devil, like a spider. "I can fix that."

He looked at her for a very long time, and she felt his eyes on her skin as they slid over her. He wouldn't, she thought. Not Peter Petrelli.

He did. Dropping the plate of pasta to splatter bloodily on the carpet, he grabbed her around the waist and jerked her to him, kissing her with an anger she didn't think he had in him, kissing her like he was trying to burn something out of himself. She kissed him back without compunctions, enjoying herself thoroughly, bringing her hands around the back of his neck. She felt his hand move up her side, making her nerve endings scream where he touched, and she found herself actually wishing he wouldn't stop, actually wanting to keep kissing him until her lungs were burning for air.

Then, abruptly, he shoved her away, breathing hard, eyes glassy. "What?" she snapped, annoyed. "You don't want to play anymore?"

He shook his head, lighting with inexplicable satisfaction. "No," he said. "No, I got what I wanted." He held up his left hand, and in it was her trigger remote. She made a snatch for it, screaming in fear and frustration, but he pulled it out of her reach, smiling as she hadn't seen him since he'd been captured. "You shouldn't wear such tight clothes," he told her. "Things show up really easily."