Free Fall

“Pretty much, Nathan,” he said and patted the man on the shoulder. Causing another wrinkle in the jacket, no doubt. “I would have liked to seen you in the older days. Revolutionary war. You would have tortured yourself mentally, of course, but there was no time for such dissatisfaction.”

And there was dissatisfaction in this man. Maybe that was his real curse. 

Adam stepped away. 

He wasn’t sure what to say that- was that a compliment? He just nodded, as if he understood and offered some semblance of a smile, something that reached his features but not his eyes.

Adam was an interesting man- if not peculiar.

His mom had told him that. Like she knew that he was eagerly seeking out a solace that he knew that he would never find. He could say he had no other choice. And that was truth. Of course not everyone would agree with him on that end. But he knew what was honest truths and lies fed to him to make him feel better. He wasn’t keen on the lying end. He never looked at himself and thought he was innocent of starting the war. He started it. He ended it. He won. He lost.

He looked away from his brother and sucked in a breath. Surprised that it was painful to do so. He never wanted to be weak. But it was easy with Nathan there, it was easy to revert to just being his kid brother who made a lot of stupid mistakes before he had finally found his own footing. And it turned out that maybe he and Nathan didn’t need each other as much as they had thought they had.

He didn’t take well to that thought. It was ugly and painful. And he wanted it as far away from himself as possible. He looked at Nathan again. Brief. Only to say. “Dad provoked. Woke something sleeping.”

He looked away again. Like he had given him some half felt excuse. But it wasn’t an excuse. It was truth. He had given them options, hadn’t he? And dad had carried on, Nathan had carried on. And so he had to act. Being idle would have caused everyone around him to falter, they would have drifted, some to Pinehearst, some to worse things. He would have left them all unguided and unprotected.

He was shaking his head at the words and he wasn’t sure if it was out of stubbornness or if it was because he really did feel like Peter wasn’t telling the truth. Like he was attempting to find solace where solace could not be found. There was only hopelessness around here. The kind of hopelessness that fueled wars and backed them up with an eager source of desperation.

Turning away from Peter the reminder of them being brothers stung like a flame that would not and could be extinguished. He loved Peter. Partially like a best friend and the other like a brother, a son. Only now it felt poisoned somehow. Now it felt splintered.

It took awhile for him to find a mental footing before he dragged his eyes back on over to him. Peter. This was what had happened to them after all those years of being on the other’s side. How had it all fallen apart?

A monster. He had never thought of his brother as a monster. He had thought of him as a hero. As weak. As everything that he thought that he should be. So much. But never a monster. Even in the moments when he had been pissed off at him. Never that. He knew him too well. Knew how he worked. Monsters were monsters because they were mysteries or without reason.

He let out a small scoff at the comparison though. It was fruitless, lacking in real reasoning or sense. In all of this Peter had been the one who hadn’t agreed with their dad. He had wanted nothing to do with him or his Pinehearst. He had seen the destruction that he had caused with it and had wanted it stopped.

He had also seen Sylar changed. But wasn’t that future drastically different now? Wasn’t it some sort of lost world now. What future laid before them now? Was it a world where Nathan kept so many secrets just like their parents and Claire would rather run with Sylar than come here.

He had started a war. No. His dad had. He had finished it.

“I didn’t choose dad, Nathan, you did.”

He said, pushing off the desk and moving to the window in the office. He looked out at nothing but the fading back of the building. Soon it would all be faded out. A lost relic of the past. He turned to look at Nathan again.

He shook his head slowly because he could see the denial in peter’s eyes. Sure Nathan had chosen dad, that had been on part of the blood that flowed through their veins. That had been on part because of the wreckage that Nathan felt needed to be cleaned up.

It had been because of the state of his own being. Made into one of these things. And if he was made then why shouldn’t everyone else be? He didn’t want to be the only freak to carry this burden.

He stared at his brother and he refused to look away no matter how much it hurt somewhere inside of him.

“Tell yourself you didn’t cause this war. Go on, Pete.”

And finally he looked away because those last words were either apocalyptic or merciful. He couldn’t decide which.

If he had to ask….

Adam could do two things:  reel him in, or let him go. It hadn’t been personal, with Peter, except when it became personal. When he had time to look at him on the road and see those parents of his there. And the preoccupation with being the righteous one. 

What was better? To be what you claim to be. He wanted to be a hero only truly at the end, where he’d seek redemption and wipe this slate clean. However….

He leaned forward. 

“To be a good man,” he said, as in a whisper. For Nathan, at least. If he was a hero, he’d be a villain. 

So he let him go. 

He wasn’t sure what to say to him. What to say to that answer as he contemplated the words. His brows knitted and he turned to stare at the other man with a curious look in his eyes.

To be a good man.

Was he capable of that?

She’s in a church that is something from a time long since past, some place only remembered in dusty, leather-bound texts forgotten on old shelves. The building is a relic in aged grey stone and tall stained windows, its heavy body wedged between a cheap wedding chapel and a small market and looming proudly above the tight streets. 

Claire isn’t there for worship, she isn’t there to light votives and pray for forgiveness or passage or help. She isn’t there for a God she doesn’t believe in. She’s there to teach. She sits on the pulpit, barely on the edge and there are rings of children and elderly around her. They were lost before, before her fall, lost in world who wouldn’t understand. And afraid because no one would understand. They were lost and they turned to the church and to their God and prayed for a guidance.  When she fell, they called her a shepherd.  This is how she teaches them: she sits and she tells them her stories. About her family, about her friends, about The Company, and the carnival. She brushes over the details and leaves people faceless with this person and a friend. When there are no more stories to tell, she pulls a knife from her pocket, flicks open the blade and drives it across her skin. Her blood will gurgle to the surface and she’ll cup it like it’s rich and to be coveted (some would say it is). The elderly will careen back, soft prayers under their tongues and the young with  bend forward. She wipes away the blood and her skin is stitched, untouched, pure.  A miracle, a boy says, his heavy-accented English swallowing the words.  I wouldn’t say that, she smiles. Just barely. It’s hours before she’s finished. Showing them is only a partial step into guiding them and she spends her time with children that burn at their fingertips and others whose screams rise over crowds. It’s late when she’s done. The air is crisp and the only light afforded blinks from the small market’s, red neon and flush white fluorescent. She stays closer to the church, the back of her feet pressed to its final steps. There’s a safety about it, even so late, a superficial sense of reassurance it provides. 

Never going back.

He’s finding his family.  Heidi was gone now. She had taken his death hard and had deteriorated until finally giving up living entirely. Simon and Monty were but whispers of existence now underneath floods of confusion.

He didn’t know what to tell her now that he had found her.

He had heard of her like she was a hero. A myth being bypassed for the rest of the world. She was everything they had been afraid of. A leader that could sway nations. A leader that could change the course of the world the same way that they had changed futures and lives from behind the scenes. Only Claire could do it out there in the brimming open.

She looked the same as she always did where she stood where he approached her. He wanted to tell her he was sorry for being gone for so long on he wasn’t sure how that as a first greeting would be taken. And she deserved more than that.

So clearing his throat he slipped beside her and watched the world through the ashen gray glasses that he so often way. He let out a calm breath and tried to relax. She wouldn’t hold this against him?