You are the lighthouse, the seamark/
The tempests created this tide /
I'm pulled to the black silver ocean/
Where the current and the heavens collide/

Listening to him come in the room, Hana decided that she would have to teach Peter Petrelli how to be sneakier. He'd never had much of anything to hide from, was the problem—he'd grown up loved, privileged, American, and had no sense of blending whatsoever.

That was the problem with America as a whole, in Hana's opinion—where the rest of the world's population spent their lives trying not be noticed, to keep their heads down and keep surviving, Americans came with a built-in, burning desire to be different than anyone else. It was a nation of strong minds and innovators, where every child was taught from their birth that they could do anything, be anyone, change the world if they put their mind to it. That was all very well, in theory—but it was a simple fact that not everyone got to be astronauts when they grew up. Every American had been trained and pushed to be a leader, and there simply wasn't space for fifty thousand leaders, not in a country, not in the world.

Peter, sweet as he was, was a prime example, with all his talk of destiny and 'being special'. Though his recent experiences had made him more cynical and a great deal more fidgety, he didn't seem to have taken away any new survival instincts. Well, she would just have to teach him.

"Hi," he said, sitting down across from her. "What are you doing?"

"Carving," she told him, for she was, busily whittling away at a palm branch she'd found in the yard. She wasn't sure what it was meant to be yet, just a random design to keep her hands busy, an excuse to hold her Bowie knife.

"That's really beautiful," Peter told her, watching the blade move over the soft wood.

"Peter, what do you want?" she asked, not interested in his pointless smalltalk.

He smiled slightly and came to his point, understanding her rebuff and not hurt by it in the least. "I have an idea, and I need your help."

She set the wood and knife down next to her, careful to keep the knife's hilt close and pointed toward her. She very highly doubted Peter was about to attack her, but stranger things had happened, and old habits died hard. "So tell me."

He ran a hand through his hair, which Hana noted was completely ineffective at keeping it out of his face, but rather endearing nonetheless. "Well, as you know, we're trying to find Katie," he began, "and not really having much luck."

"Not really, no," she agreed.

"All right, well, if you were a fugitive who just escaped somewhere after years and years, what would you do?"

"I'd get out," she said instantly. "I'd leave, get as far away as I could."

"Exactly," he said, despite the fact that he hadn't quite made a point yet, definitely hadn't said anything she thought merited an 'exactly'. "You'd get on airplane, right? That's where I need your help."

"Peter, you aren't making any sense whatsoever," she told him patiently.

"If Katie's going to leave Vegas, she's going to do it in the next few days. Now, while I don't think she'd necessarily fly under her own name, I do believe that we could still pick her out based on her description. I don't quite have the hang of this wireless thing yet, but between me and you, I'm sure we could get a hold of every flight manifest for every plane leaving Nevada. Then, if we see a description that matches her, we could just go find her at the airport."

Hana leaned forward thoughtfully, hands on her knees. "You know, Peter, that's actually a good idea."

"Ouch," Peter said good-naturedly. "Don't sound so surprised."

"We'd need a very thorough description of her," Hana warned him, but he held up a piece of paper before she'd finished speaking.

"Already got it," he told her, unfolding the paper. "Mr. Bennet gave me everything he remembered. Katharine Ramira, female, twenty-five years old, five feet four inches, dark brown hair, green eyes," he read. "It's all here. He even remembered the last part of her social security number—mind like a steel trap, that guy."

"Yes," Hana said, managing to only sound slightly bitter. "A trap all too likely to snap on you and take your hand off."

"If you say so," Peter said diplomatically, unwilling to get involved in the complex pasts and quiet civil wars he'd been avoiding. "Anyway, so you'll help me?"

Hana snapped her knife closed, putting it back in her pocket. "Sure," she said. "Why not?"

---

Katie liked airports. Admittedly, she liked airports a lot less now that she felt compelled to watch every person who passed her in case they jumped her and stabbed her to death. But intense paranoia notwithstanding, she'd sort of missed airports, with their headlong mad bustle, everyone either waiting or dashing at top speed, trying to see how fast they could run while still holding a full cup of coffee. She was happy to see one, to be in one for the first time in eight years—it felt like normality, the smallest piece of her old life back.

"Hey, Jonathan," she said to the boy sitting beside her. "I don't suppose you want to go check our flight information? I'm having this sneaking feeling that we're sitting in the wrong terminal."

He took his head off his arm and looked sleepily at her, black hair standing up at impossible angles. "For the last time, Katie, we're at the right terminal," he said, sounding very adolescent and annoyed. "And no, I will not check. That screen has to be at least a whole twenty steps away, and I really don't think I would make it."

"Don't be melodramatic," she said absent-mindedly. "I told you to go to bed last night, this is your own fault."

"I'm seventeen," he said, face buried back in his sweatshirt. "I don't believe in sleep. And how well do you think I'm going to sleep, anyway, with five thousand people after us who probably want us dead?"

"Do you want to keep it down, there, tiger? Let's try not to broadcast our fugitive status, huh?" she said, wondering once again how she'd managed to make herself responsible for this clever, obnoxious, uncaring kid. She was simply, uncomplicatedly too nice for her own good—I'm one of those idiots that you read about in the newspaper, she thought, who jump into the freezing water to save someone who's drowning and then die of pneumonia themselves. Not a terribly good trait for someone on the run, but then, she never could have left him in that place—she would have hated herself for the rest of her life.

She let her eyes slide over the crowd, trying with only marginal success to relax. Stop overanalyzing, she chided herself. I'm sure there's nobody in this airport who's looking for you.

A tallish, attractive brown-haired man sat down in the seat across from her, meeting her eyes with an open, un-airport-like directness that immediately set off warning bells through her hypertense system. "Hi, Katie," he said. "I've been looking for you."

She reacted with the reflexes of a hunted animal, jumping out of her chair, but before she could run, his hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist. "Hey, whoa! I'm not trying to hurt you!"

"Jonathan!" she yelled. "Jonathan, go, get out of here!"

But he was already scrambling to his feet behind her, sparks leaping from his fists, and Peter was thinking oh dear. This is not going well. Before things could get truly out of hand, he snatched for the first ability he could think of, relieved to see his surroundings shudder to a halt, flash-frozen.

"What—" she gasped. "Who are you?"

"Calm down," he said soothingly, releasing her wrist and backing away placatingly. "I just stopped time for a minute so we could talk."

"I don't want to talk," she hissed, trying to figure out a way to escape and bring the time-stopped Jonathan with her.

"I know what you're thinking," he said quickly. "You think I'm from The Company, but I'm not. My name is Peter Petrelli, and I—well, I'm just like you."

"What do you mean?" she asked warily.

"I'm an empath, for one thing," he explained. "But what I mean is that I escaped from Linderman yesterday, at the Monticello, just like you. All those attacks, the breakout, the whole thing—that was to get me out. I was right in there with you."

"Prove it," she said, crossing her arms.

"Oh—um, okay," he said, caught off-guard—it wasn't often that he had to explain himself to people. "That burn on your neck? That's from an electrode, right? Dr. Sorensen, creepy hawk-faced guy, specializes in empaths?"

She relented a little, bringing a reflexive hand to her neck. "How did you find me?" she wanted to know.

"Wow—um, that's a long story," he said helplessly.

"Apparently, we've got as long as we need," she said, waving a hand at their surroundings, looking like a perfect still-life, Airport in the Evening.

"The short answer is, Mr. Bennet. He told me about you and I've been looking for you ever since, because I thought you might help me learn how to control my abilities."

"Bennet?" she said, surprised. She'd always liked the man. Cold as he pretended to be, she'd felt that there was a central core of good in him, Darth Vader-style. Then again, she thought that about everyone.

"Come here," he said suddenly. "Let me fix that burn."

Confused, hesitant, she moved forward until he was close enough to reach out and take her hands. She felt herself reacting empathically, subtle changes and shifts, and she felt her burns and bruises disappearing, the pain fading without scar. "Hey," she said. "Thank you!"

She looked up into his light cinnamon-brown eyes, and suddenly they both became aware of how very close they were standing, and all the places they were touching. Something strong and insistent grabbed them both, pulling them toward each other with black-hole crushing force. Instantly, they both rebelled against it, falling back into defensive postures, leaning away and bracing themselves against the floor. It was like trying to keep their feet against a tidal wave, stealing their breath and doing its best to drag them into compliance. They pulled away from each other with some effort, both acting with little success as if nothing had happened.

"So, what do you think?" he asked, carefully not looking at her. "Do you want to come back with me? We've got five people all together, we could probably help protect you—strength in numbers, right?"

"What about him?" Katie asked, nodding to Jonathan, paused halfway to attacking Peter, sparks frozen like Christmas tinsel in his open palms. "If I go, he goes."

"Who is he?"

"Jonathan Madison—another refugee, manipulates electrical currents, as you can probably tell. I picked him up on the way out of the vaults."

"Fine," Peter agreed immediately. "Bring him. The more, the merrier."

"So we're good?"

"We're good," Peter confirmed.

There was a pause. "Right," Katie said. "Well, then, maybe you'd better start time again, yeah?"

"Oh yeah," Peter said sheepishly. "Get ready to catch the kid—I don't want to be electrocuted."

"Absolutely," Katie agreed.

A beat, and then everything jump-started back to life. As promised, Katie grabbed Jonathan's arm as soon as she saw him start moving, stopping him mid-stride. "Jonathan! Hey, Jonathan, cool it, everything's okay now!"

He looked at her like she'd just proposed they skip the flight and fly off on a magic carpet instead. "What? Are you crazy?"

Katie threw a glance at Peter, happy to have someone to share Jonathan with, his hormones and questions and attitudes. "You explain."