OCTOBER 2522

It's the last day of October. Once upon a time that would have meant ringing doorbells and bags of candy carried by fairy princesses and walking skeletons around America, but not now. Now all it means is a chill setting in and another day to dread the coming winter.

It's been less than a week since Dani's accident, and I've become paranoid. Every bump in the house sends me running to see if she's all right. Of course, she's been with her father, and he would never be so stupid, so goddamned careless as to let anything happen to her.

And still, my mind is reeling at the shock of it all. She can heal. She can regenerate. Just like me. Somewhere inside of me, a weight I hadn't known I was carrying is lifted. I guess Sylar was right again; the prospect of having to watch Dani grow old and die had terrified me. But not anymore. Now all I can see stretching into the future in front of me is life, an inability to die, and an eternity of what I've had to deal with. Only she won't have an enemy. Will she be able to enjoy her life without vengeance? Will she make more of her existence than I have? Will she see this curse as a gift?

I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. I was right about the bloodstain, it's permanent. I sit here and stare at it, more horrified by the thought of the water that it replaced than by its presence. And honestly, I'd rather spill my blood a thousand times over than ever have to see my baby in pain again, have to see her pale skin burn and blister under scalding water.

Still, the boards will have to go.

I think it's the wrenching crack of the floorboards coming up that brings him to the archway, but maybe he's listening into my thoughts and wanted to make me just a bit more miserable.

"Where's Dani?" I'm out of breath and my arms are straining as splinters cut into the soft flesh of my palms.

"Sleeping, but not for much longer if you keep on making all this noise."

I swear loudly, letting the ruined boards clatter back to the ground and whirling around to face the sink.

"Is that completely necessary?" He crosses his arms, leaning sideways against the wall to stare my way.

I'm shaking. With anger, resentment, fear. I can't be in the same room as him. I've been sleeping on the couch for the last few nights, and he's left me remarkably alone, not forcing the issue of sex. And still, those malicious words keep ringing in my ears.

You are a pathetic excuse for a mother. Maybe it's better that our son died. You didn't get the chance to hurt him like you hurt Danielle.

He's right. So right. And that's what kills me, the thought that I'm a terrible mother, that I don't deserve my child, and even worse, that it was my stupidity that led to the miscarriage and the death of my son. I shouldn't have spent so much time fighting him. It shouldn't have taken finding out I was pregnant to end my struggling. I should have realized beforehand that I was better off where I was. Happy, even.

What if I hadn't futilely fought Gabriel's control during those first few precious months of pregnancy when we were unaware of the changes in my body? Would my son have lived? Would he have inherited my power, be alive today? Would I have spent the last five centuries trying to murder his father and wasting any chance at happiness I'd ever had?

"You know it doesn't work that way." His voice is low behind me and I feel one of his arms wrap around my waist, his fingers spread across my abdomen as he rests his forehead on my shoulder. His breath is hot against my neck as I shake, hands clenched on the countertop.

"What?" I ask, still trembling. I barely notice the tears coursing down my cheeks as he speaks again.

"The baby. He wouldn't have been like us. Powers don't work like that. And if he had been… well then, he wouldn't have died." The logic is irrefutable. If our baby had been able to heal, my body wouldn't have been able to reject him. It was nature then. Nature and my own stupid pride. I'd killed him. I'd killed him just like I would have killed Dani if she hadn't been special. The guilt is eating at me, making me sick.

I'm shaking as he turns me in the circle of his arms and lets me cry, salty tears soaking the front of his shirt as my arms wrap around his waist and nails dig into his shirt. I can't even think straight. It's been so long since I've done this, since emotion has taken me on this roller coaster and made my body into one big mass of nerves and tears.

"I just… I don't…" I'm gasping for breath and trying to talk through the sobs that wrack my body. I can feel panic clenching me in its fists and my head is spinning. "I don't know how… I could have let this… happen… all of it. Dani. Peter. It's all… my fault. I can't… I can't… I can't breathe." And I can't. My chest is heaving and my eyes are overflowing with tears as I collapse against him and he lowers me to the ground, pulling me onto his lap and holding me like a child as he murmurs into my hair, unintelligible words in the same soothing voice he used on Dani.

"Gabriel!" I try to inhale, forcing my lungs to take in air, "It's all… my fault! I don't know why…. why I fuck everything up!" I'm starting to hiccup between gasping sobs and he's brushing my hair out of my face, rubbing my back, letting me cry and curl up in his arms.

"Shhh…" he comforts. And now I let my fists fly, pummeling his chest and crying as he settles above the ruined kitchen floor and lets me go wild, taking everything I have to give and more.

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Mel and Chuck