The Price of a Memory
Part 9/17

"Peter. You're here."

The front desk at the hotel had insisted on calling up to Nathan's room before allowing Peter to go up but the note of surprise Nathan greeted him with was that of someone faced with an unexpected visitor and suddenly Peter felt self-conscious. Glancing down at his watch, he was almost sure he had the right time. In fact, he was actually a few minutes early for their arranged visit. Could it be that he had the wrong day?

"We said Saturday, right?" Peter asked, frantically searching his mind as he tried to figure out what day it was.

"We did," Nathan said. "I guess I just thought maybe I'd get a few phone calls asking for directions before you actually got here. But you found the place okay. That's good." He clamped a hand on Peter's shoulder, leading him inside the hotel suite he'd rented for the weekend. He sounded like a proud father after a hard won Little League game.

Peter cleared his throat. "Yeah, I've gotten better about writing things down," he said, holding up the sticky note on which he'd scribbled the address Nathan had given him over the phone. No need to bring up the dozen other sticky notes he'd written to remind himself where he'd left the one with the address on it in the first place. "The cab driver deserves credit for the rest."

"Oh. Well, still," Nathan said, following Peter into the elaborately decorated room. They still had the family house in town for the times when Congress wasn't in session but for his weekend visits, Nathan preferred to stay in hotels. It made it harder for Peter to find him but at least it didn't require him to dust off any furniture or stock the refrigerator. "Did you have enough money for the cab?"

"Tipped the guy and everything," Peter said dryly.

"Good," Nathan said. "Well, why don't you have a seat. It's been a while."

Obediently, Peter sat on the edge of one of the overstuffed couches that had been set up in the room's common area. Nathan settled across from him, hands clasped between his open knees. They sat for a moment in awkward silence before Peter thought to ask, "How are Heidi and the kids?"

"They're doing well," Nathan said. "The kids miss you. They wanted to come with me to see you but I told them maybe some other time. I mean, I wasn't sure how you'd be feeling and I didn't want to…impose or anything."

Peter looked down at his hands, debating whether or not to call Nathan on the obvious spin he'd put on that story. The truth was, Nathan didn't want to run the risk of upsetting the boys by exposing them to an uncle who might not remember who they were from one minute to the next. What Nathan never seemed to fully grasp was that Peter knew his family. If nothing else, they were embedded in years of memories that had taken place before that lost time. He might occasionally be surprised by how old they looked compared to his more cemented memories of them but he would never forget them completely or even blank out on their names for more than a few minutes.

Nathan cleared his throat. "So," he said, "how are Dr. Suresh and…is it Molly?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "They're fine, I guess. Molly still gets sick sometimes but it seems like it's not happening as often as it used to, so that's good. Mohinder's been keeping busy with this new guy he's been working with. Claude."

"Oh?" Nathan said in that blandly icy way he must have learned from their mother.

"Claude Rains," Peter said. "Guess what he can do." He rolled his eyes, expecting Nathan to pick up on the joke. He was sure they'd watched The Invisible Man together at some point. Some long ago Halloween when Peter had been little and Nathan had purposely been trying to scare him while their parents were off at a party.

"I haven't a clue, Pete," Nathan said.

Peter was tempted to challenge Nathan to google the name and find out for himself but instead decided to make it easy on his brother. "He can turn invisible."

"Really?" Nathan said. From his tone, Peter might have just told him Claude could belch the alphabet or peel a banana with his toes. He even made a show of looking around the room as if expecting to find Claude wandering around in it somewhere, unseen. "That's very…interesting."

"You should see him, Nathan," Peter pressed on. "He's been doing it for years and he's, like, made a whole lifestyle out of it. It's really amazing."

"I bet," Nathan said, flashing Peter a brief, strained smile. "Hey, listen, would you like something to drink? I completely forgot to ask when you came in." He was already circling around to the suite's small bar. "I was thinking of fixing myself a Scotch anyway."

"Uh, no thanks," Peter said as Nathan busied himself with the various bottles and glasses. He could imagine the kind of comment Claude would make if he was here to see this--not just that Nathan was drinking so early in the morning but also that, for a politician, he had no talent for subtlety when it came to changing the subject.

"Tell me, Pete," Nathan said eventually, carefully counting out ice cubes as they clinked their way into his glass. "How's your memory been lately?"

Peter looked down at his hands. "About the same," he said. "I mean, at this point it's more about learning to cope than it is trying to get my memory to work the way it's supposed to." He cleared his throat. "Actually, Claude's been trying to help me with that. He got Mohinder to hang one of Molly's drawings on the apartment door so I'd be able to find it better."

"Hmm," Nathan said, contemplating the liquid in his glass. "So, what? Is this Claude an expert on memory or something?"

"Not that I know of," Peter said.

"Not that you know of?" Nathan repeated, a little incredulous. "Why do I feel like I should be giving you the lecture I always give the kids about not getting into cars with strangers who offer them candy?"

Peter couldn't help but bristle. "I'm not a little kid, Nathan," he said. "I know I'm not all there anymore but give me some credit, will you? Claude is my friend. He's just trying to help. You make it sound like he's asking for sexual favors or something."

"Jesus, Peter," Nathan said, setting his glass down hard. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I never thought I'd say this but I'm really beginning to wish for those days back when you were pining for that painter's girlfriend. What was her name again?"

It took Peter a second to realize Nathan was actually asking him. "Would it make things easier for you right now if I pretended to know who you were talking about?"

Nathan blinked at him before looking away. "Damn," he said, the word like a fist going through dry wall. "I forgot you didn't know her until after…"

"After what?"

"Nothing," Nathan said. "It's not important."

"Tell me," Peter said.

Nathan shook his head. "I can't," he said.

"Why not?" Peter asked, hearing the petulance in his own voice. "Don't I deserve to know? I mean, was this girl important to me? Who was her boyfriend?

Nathan held up a forestalling hand. "Just don't," he said. "This…this isn't like hanging a picture on your door so you'll remember which one is yours, okay? Maybe it's selfish of me but…I don't want you to learn how to cope. I want you to learn how to remember. And I don't think you can do that if I'm handing you these old stories all the time."

"At least give me her name," Peter said, affecting a joking tone that fell flat between them. "Maybe I can go ask her what happened."

If possible, Nathan's face became even more stony. "You can't ask her anything anymore, Peter," he said. "She's dead."

Peter swallowed, feeling like the bottom of his stomach had just dropped out. "What?" he said.

"She was killed," Nathan said. "It's complicated. But her boyfriend did it. You were there when it happened."

"Her boyfriend killed her?" Peter said. "But why?"

Nathan hesitated. "It was an accident," he said.

"Is he in jail now?"

"No," Nathan said. "He's dead too."

Peter felt some unnamable emotion swell in his chest. "You're lying."

"I'm not lying," Nathan said.

Peter shifted in his seat. "I didn't…I didn't kill him, did I?"

"No," Nathan said firmly enough that Peter believed him.

There was a pause between them as Peter struggled to piece together what Nathan was saying. These small tidbits of information meant nothing to Peter and yet a profound sense of guilt washed over him. These people had died and it sounded like he was at least partly to blame for that. Didn't he owe them the courtesy of at least remembering what they looked like? Of having some emotional attachment to their memories?

"There," Nathan said, breaking into his thoughts. "You see? This is why I don't tell you things. All it does is confuse you."

Peter stared at the floor. "This woman that died…is that…" He hesitated. "Is that why I tried to kill myself?"

He hadn't meant to bring up the vision. At least, not like this. But it had been pressing on his mind ever since the fake hypnosis, haunting him now even when he was awake. And now it was beginning to change, getting worse. Most of the time he still saw himself standing atop that building, stepping off the ledge of his own free will. But now there were other times when someone else was there with him. A faceless person whose presence he felt mostly as the weight of a hand on his shoulder as, helpless, he was thrown over the side, screaming.

"What did you say?" Nathan asked, voice hollow.

"It's this dream I keep having," Peter said.

Nathan moved around the bar and came to sit in the chair next to Peter, trying to catch his brother's eye. Peter looked anywhere around the room but at Nathan.

"Did I, Nate?" he asked, hating the fragility that had entered his voice. "Did I try to kill myself?"

Nathan pressed his lips together and took a breath that filled his chest, exhaling slowly as he selected his words with obvious care. "You jumped off a building once," he said. "But Peter--"

"Fuck," Peter said, the word bursting from him unexpectedly. "Is that why I can't remember? Is that what happened to me? I jumped from some building and hit my head on the way down?"

"No," Nathan said. "Your fall was weeks before you lost your memory. Weeks before Simone Deveaux and Isaac Mendez died, even. Believe me when I say it had nothing to do with either of those things."

"Simone and Isaac," Peter said, repeating the unfamiliar names and feeling nothing. "If it wasn't anything to do with them, then why did I do it? Why did I jump?"

It was Nathan's turn not to look at Peter. Instead, he focused on his hands, twisting his gold watch around his wrist until it left a red circle on his skin. Realizing what he was doing, he leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. Suddenly, he seemed exhausted.

"Why did I jump?" Peter repeated.

"Maybe someday you'll be able to tell me, Pete," Nathan said.

This wasn't the reply of someone who didn't know the answer to the question he was being asked. Rather than asking Peter to give him information he didn't already have, Nathan was challenging him, the same way he challenged his sons whenever they came to him with their reading assignments from school. Stumbling across a difficult word, they'd ask their father what it meant and instead of telling them, he'd hand them the dictionary so they could find out on their own. This, Peter knew, was Nathan's way of directing him to the dictionary.

It was also his way of avoiding the question.

"The important thing isn't that you jumped, Peter," Nathan continued after a minute. "The important thing is that you survived. Think about it."

But the way Peter saw it, there wasn't anything to think about. Depression ran in their family; that much his mother and Nathan had been truthful with him about since he'd woken up to find his memories missing. It just made sense that he, the eminent screw up and black sheep of the family, had inherited the gene for falling while Nathan, the perfect, heroic son, had inherited the one for flying. Somehow, nothing about the revelation surprised him. He felt only numbness.

"Look, Peter," Nathan said. "I know remembering something like that can't be easy. I mean, leaping off that building wasn't your proudest moment. I know I don't like to think about it. But at least you're making progress, right? At least it's something. Something you've remembered."

"I didn't remember it," Peter said, his voice colorless. "It was always there. I just…didn't want to see it." He felt the truth of his words only as he said them. This was why he hadn't remembered his dream until Claude had accidentally hypnotized him into it. It was a memory he hadn't been ready to see.

"Peter--"

"I have to go," Peter said, rising suddenly. "I can't be here anymore."

"What?" Nathan said. "You just got here. You don't have to run off--"

But Peter was already heading for the door. He suddenly couldn't stand the thought of being in a room with someone who knew so much more about his past than he did. Who could dangle scraps of information in front of him and then act like he needed a credit card to know more. It was hard enough not knowing who he had been or what he had done. What was even harder was not knowing whether he even wanted the answers to those questions anymore.