The Price of a Memory
Part 3/17

"This place is a real shit hole, isn't it?" Claude remarked as he wandered through Suresh's flat. Five minutes he'd been there and already he'd managed to skid across the floor on no less than three stray crayons and was nearly sent sprawling by a leaning stack of textbooks by Suresh's desk. He couldn't think how he'd managed to avoid such death traps in the few days he'd spent lurking about the place, but he was convinced they were out to get him now he was an invited guest rather than an invisible intruder.

"You've been dying to say that for days, haven't you?" Suresh replied, clearing his blanket and pillow from the couch where he'd been sleeping earlier. "Perhaps it would be safer if you sat down."

"Thanks anyway," Claude said, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. "But you haven't invited me here for some bloody tea party. I prefer to stand."

"Fine," Suresh said, resigned. He seated himself on the edge of a battered armchair, hands dangling between his legs as he watched Claude pace back and forth, clearing a path for himself across the hazardous space.

"He's not been here long, has he?" Claude said, the thought occurring to him only as he voiced it aloud. Having had time now to become well-acquainted with the disaster area that was Suresh's flat, he began to see how liberally the messes that belonged to Suresh and Molly were strewn across the small living space, from the toys on the floor to the papers on the desk. These were two people who had had time to adjust to living together and become used to one another. But the evidence of Peter's existence was confined mostly to that one corner with the air mattress. He'd been there long enough that he didn't feel the need to neatly fold his clothes like some guest but he hadn't gotten comfortable enough that he wasn't about to leave things just lying around either.

"About six weeks," Suresh said. "Before that he was staying with his brother."

Claude's brow knit at that. "Not at his own place?"

"No," Suresh said. "From what I understand, Peter needed time to recover after the bomb. And with his memory the way it is, Nathan felt it wasn't safe for him to live on his own anymore." The mention of Nathan Petrelli's name brought the phantom taste of bile to Claude's mouth. "What might have been done with Peter's apartment, I'm not sure."

Claude felt an unexpected pang of regret at that. Not that his memories of the place were exactly fond, but he had somewhat grudgingly admired Peter's ability to stake out a territory of his own despite his family's sometimes overbearing influence. That flat had been his, crappy posters and all. It had been the one place they couldn't touch him and now, seemingly, it was gone.

"I see," Claude said. "So his memory loss came before he showed up here?" If nothing else, it threw a wrench in his theory that Suresh had somehow manufactured Peter's condition.

"He came to me more or less as you see him now," Suresh said. His expression became thoughtful. "You say he didn't know you when he first saw you at the coffee shop. He didn't know me either, the first time he came here. At least, he didn't know that we'd met before."

"He still doesn't," Claude guessed.

Suresh's jaw tightened. "No," he said.

"Why not?" Claude asked.

"At first, I was too shocked to tell him the truth," Suresh said. "And then Nathan Petrelli asked me not to."

"Figures," Claude said.

"You see, Peter's purpose in seeking me out this time around was very similar to when he came to see me the first time," Suresh said. "He'd found my father's book and was eager to share with me this extraordinary news he had--proof that the theories contained in the book were true." He sighed. "After a week or two, Nathan found out Peter had been coming here, that he'd come to trust me. His increasing preoccupation with his political career made it difficult for him to keep an eye on Peter and so he asked me to temporarily take over the responsibility under the guise of harmlessly entertaining Peter's interest in my father's work. The understanding, of course, was that I would interfere as little as possible with Peter's apparent memory loss."

"Sod that," Claude said.

Suresh smiled wryly. "Exactly," he replied.

Claude stilled, squaring himself in front of Suresh. "So? What've you found?"

Suresh sighed, looking down at his hands. "Not as much as I would like," he said. "To be honest, it's been a bit difficult getting enough information from Peter to make any real determinations. Besides that, I'm not a physician or a psychiatrist. While I've been able to collect a certain amount of data on Peter's condition, I've no idea what to do with what I know."

"Yeah, but what is it that you know?" Claude pressed.

Suresh sat back in his chair, a musing look on his face. "I know that he has lapses," Suresh said. "That I can be in the middle of a conversation with him and he'll forget my name. That he'll be on his way somewhere and suddenly forget his destination. That he can't read books anymore because he loses track of the story too easily." He nodded toward a small pile of paperbacks in Peter's designated corner. "I also know that he's aware that he has these lapses and that he's learned ways of trying to hide them. Mostly, he relies on cues from other people."

"Like when little Molly over there had to fill in the blanks for him about their trip to the park the other day," Claude said, nodding toward the bedroom where Molly was surreptitiously watching them through a crack in the door.

"Yes," Suresh said. "Of course, the lapses in his short term memory are only part of the problem. There's also the amnesia."

"You mean the not remembering me and you thing."

"Right," Suresh said. "The good news is that Peter hasn't lost himself completely. He knows who he is and where he came from. His childhood memories are as intact as they would be for the average person. But for some reason the past six to nine months has disappeared on him completely."

"Six to nine months," Claude said. "That's when he started figuring out about his powers."

Suresh nodded solemnly.

"Fucking hell," Claude murmured. "So he has no idea--"

"None whatsoever," Suresh said.

Claude felt his chest tighten as he fought to absorb this. "But you said he sought you out," he said, mind racing. "That he had some news that related to your research. Wasn't he talking about himself?"

Suresh shook his head. "He came to see me because, for whatever reason, he was beginning to suspect Nathan's abilities," he said. "He appears to have no idea about himself."

"And you haven't thought to tell him," Claude said acidly.

Suresh sighed. "Another stipulation of Nathan Petrelli's," he said. "But one I'm not in total disagreement with given how little I know about Peter's condition. I certainly wouldn't want to risk more harm to him by revealing information he's obviously not ready to hear." He sat forward again. "That is to say, if he came to the information on his own, I wouldn't lie to him. But until I know more about what caused him to forget in the first place--"

"You must have some theory," Claude said. "I mean, isn't that what you do? Form theories?"

Suresh gave him a withering look. "My best guess is that it happened during the explosion," Suresh said. "It's possible he suffered some form of brain injury that night that's affected his memory. Something that, for whatever reason, can't heal itself or didn't heal properly."

"Sounds promising," Claude said sarcastically.

"It's a little grim, I know," Suresh said. "But if it makes you feel better, I don't believe that Peter's lost his powers entirely. That, whatever injury he might have sustained that may have caused him to forget, his abilities are now merely dormant rather than absent."

"What makes you think so?"

"He's let me run a few tests on him," Suresh said. "I told him I needed the information I gathered as a reference for how the gene for special abilities manifested itself in families. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to given that I never had the opportunity to run tests on him before but what I found was unusual enough that I believe he still carries with him the abilities he absorbed before the bomb. Perhaps even a few new ones he's not aware of from people he's come into contact with since then."

"You mean Molly," Claude said.

Suresh nodded.

"What's it she does, then?"

"She finds people," Suresh said. "A man called Thompson was using her as a tracking system."

Claude shuddered at the mention of another of his old colleagues. "And these episodes she has?" he asked.

"They're related to her powers. She becomes ill from time to time and can't access her ability," Suresh said. "When this happens, a blood transfusion--specifically, from me--usually helps but I've yet to find a cure."

"Fuck me," Claude mumbled. "It's like the island of misfit toys over here, isn't it?"

Suresh smiled grimly. "At least I've found a way to help Molly for the time being," he said. "With Peter…There's just nothing. He'll either remember or he won't. He'll either go out one day and know to come back or he won't. He'll either rediscover his abilities on his own or…"

"Or I could teach him," Claude said.

Suresh looked up at him. "Sorry?" he said.

"I could teach him," Claude repeated. "He came to me once before. He'd been having those dreams about blowing up the city and he thought I was supposed to help him learn to control his powers so he wouldn't explode."

Suresh arched an eyebrow. "Oh really?" he said. "And how did that turn out?"

Claude bristled. "In fact, it turned out reasonably well, thank you very much," he said. "I first met the boy and he couldn't hardly float two feet off the ground or steal a lady's handbag without getting caught. By the time I was done with him, he flew my sorry unconscious ass halfway across the city after we were attacked by…some unexpected guests."

"And what then?" Suresh prompted, sounding like he already knew the answer.

Claude toed the ground. "We parted ways a bit prematurely," he admitted. At Suresh's knowing look, he became defensive. "How was I to know he'd go gallivanting off, exposing himself to radioactive people?" He paused. "Actually, come to think of it, that's the first thing I should have thought of when I left him, idiot that he is. No sense of irony, that one."

Suresh only looked at him.

"City's still here, isn't it?"

"Yes, thanks to Nathan Petrelli of all people," Suresh said, nearly choking on the words.

"My hero," Claude said, rolling his eyes.

A pause.

"Tell me, why are you so interested in helping Peter?" Suresh asked.

Claude shrugged. "Atonement for past sins isn't a good enough reason?"

"It is a good reason," Suresh said. "It's just not a convincing one."

"Maybe I just think the boy's got a right to know," Claude said.

"And what will it to do him if he does know?" Suresh said. "You've seen how he is now. He has trouble remembering where he is half the time. Pressuring him into remembering his abilities…it might be too much."

Claude looked down at his shoes. "At least let me spend some time with him," he said. "Let me see for myself what he's like and then I can determine if it's safe for him to know or not." He lifted his shoulders. "It's not like you can watch him twenty-four hours a day."

Suresh's lips twitched and he seemed dangerously close to laughing. "I'm sorry, are you offering to baby-sit Peter for me?"

"In a sense," Claude said, annoyed. "The boy needs a minder, doesn't he? You said so yourself. Hell, I won't even throw him over the side of anymore buildings if you don't want me to. Though I can't promise I won't…nudge him a bit."

Suresh sighed.

"Listen, I don't know if having me around will actually trigger anything in the way of memories," Claude said. "But what I do know is that what you have are theories and textbooks. What I have is experience."

Suresh pressed his lips together. "If I let you do this," he said carefully, "it will only be under one condition."

"What's that?" Claude asked, immediately on guard.

"He can't know the two of you knew each other before," he said.

"Sod that," Claude said, emphasizing each syllable.

"I'm serious," Suresh said. "If Nathan Petrelli gets so much as a hint of what's going on, he'll pull Peter out of here and neither of us will ever see him again. Think about it."

"Fucking Petrelli," Claude said.

"Take it or leave it," Suresh said.

Before Claude had a chance to reply, there was the scraping of feet in the hallway and the jangle of keys in the door. Peter was back. Claude exchanged looks with Suresh. It looked like they didn't have much of a choice now.