Current mood:	contemplative
Entry tags:	fic, heroes

[FIC] Lifelines - Heroes - Ensemble
First fic for Heroes and it's chock full of angstiness and shaftage. I have no idea where it came from, but I embrace the writing thing since my fics are now so few and far between.

Title: Lifelines (Five Moments That Never Happened)
Series: Heroes
Length: 3562 words, oneshot.
Character/pairing: GEN! WTF, GEN! Characters in order: Mohinder, Molly, Nathan, Sylar, Niki, Jessica, Micah, Hiro, Ando, Peter, Claire. Maaaaaaaybe some Peter/Claire if you look hard enough; of course I want them to be together, but it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Rating/warnings: FAT SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 1.21. Don't read if you haven't seen it! Aside from that, character death (multiple), emoness and rushed writing. If you spot any errors, let me know. Also random tense changing - I just went with what felt right for each piece.
Summary: Written for the heroes_flashfic challenge 'Future Imperfect'. More like Future Shaftage, but hey. Five moments that never happened to the Heroes gang.




1.

Mohinder lets himself in to Molly's room, the pump of the oxygen filter keeping time with his quiet steps. Gone are the colourful toys and crayon pictures; in their place, neat piles of classic literature battle for space with charcoal sketches and oil prints. He nearly steps on Gulliver's Travels, lying open on the floor, and narrowly avoids cracking a canvas, leaning drunkenly against a leg of the bed.

Molly stirs - he stifles a pang of regret that he woke her from her much-needed sleep - and struggles to sit up. He rights the painting (a map of Australia, a star each in the top left corner and the bottom right) and lowers himself carefully down to the end of the bed.

"How are you feeling?" He punctuates the question with a warm smile because she told him once - back when she was almost-healthy, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes - that she liked his smile. There's little enough to smile about, these days, but it’s the least he can do for a dying girl.

Her mouth parts in parody, pale lips stretching over baby teeth. Her disease had been more brutal than he'd anticipated and too many symptoms had escalated beyond his control.

"Good," she croaks, blinking slowly, her red-bruised eyelids the only colour in her otherwise ashen face. She swallows thickly and he stands, taking a glass from the nearby table and raising it to her lips. He keeps the flow at barely a trickle and still she chokes, coughing up the fluid along with the two spoonfuls of porridge she'd had for breakfast.

He changes her nightgown without comment, his movements brisk and efficient. It's not the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last.

When she's clean and has managed to keep down an ounce or so of water, he sits again and waits. He doesn't like to press her, doesn't like to exhaust her, but he needs to know, and soon. Sylar is still out there, and this is the only way to record his movements.

"Two." The whisper, when it comes, is hardly more than an exhalation, but his hearing has become finely-tuned over the years. He schools his expression - no use lamenting or celebrating yet - and nods.

"More, or less?"

Molly knows how many of them are out there, and can tell when any fluctuation in their numbers occurs. New powers are constantly emerging, and old powers are constantly being consumed. Natural selection, he would have argued once, but nature was never this cruel.

She gives him a look, a long one, and it's the most focused her gaze has been in months, perhaps years. The edges of her smile-grimace soften and suddenly she looks more peaceful than he's ever seen her look before.

"One less," she breathes, the air catching in her throat. She coughs again but shakes her head when he half-rises off the bed. She pants a little, and somehow manages to regulate her breath again. "And...one...more."

Her eyelids flutter shut, but the smile remains. Peaceful, Mohinder thinks, rising carefully. Serene. He reaches over to tuck the blanket close around her frail form and it's only after he's lifted her head to move her pillow that he realises she's not breathing.

Before he can attempt resuscitation, before he can press the call button for help, he's tumbling, falling, right down to Lilliput where his forehead catches the edge of the book. The sharp pain lasts only a second before it's replaced by something new, and then his head is expanding, his cranium filling, names and faces and locations streaming from nowhere to jostle together inside his skull.

One less, Molly had told him, forcing the words out on her dying breath. And one more.



2.

"And then you have a lunch booked with the UN Ambassador at Govindas -" the aide glanced up from her notebook, "- a vegetarian restaurant downtown. Miss Eston is famous for her stance on animal cruelty, and it will appease the public to see you supporting her beliefs. This is followed by a meeting with the Department of Defence, and then a fundraiser for sick children -"

"What kind of sick?" Nathan interrupted, fountain pen poised over his appointment diary.

The aide blinked, obviously not expecting the question, and shuffled quickly through a sheaf of papers in her briefcase. "Ah, that would be Child Leukaemia."

Nathan nodded, marking the entry with an asterisk and wear yellow tie. "Continue."

"The benefit should conclude at eleven p.m. and the night thereafter is your own." She snapped her notebook shut. "Will there be anything else?"

"No, that's it." He waved her off with a distracted hand. "Thank you."

She edged gratefully to the door but stopped with her hand on the knob. "Although, if I may..."

"Yes?" He looked up this time, impatient. "What is it?"

"Er..." She didn't meet his eyes. "Perhaps you'd like to freshen up before your first appointment, sir? You have the beginnings of worked-all-night beard and your shirt is wrinkled to Hell." Catching herself and flushing, she opened the door and slipped out. "Excuse me, Mr President!"

Nathan sighed, capping his pen and standing, pushing his chair away with the backs of his legs. "So, what you're trying to say," he said to the empty office, making his way to the attached bathroom, "is that I look like crap."

The bathroom had evidently been built on the assumption that all future presidents would be male, if the ridiculously narrow shower and extendable shaving mirror were anything to go by. The toilet was equally austere and the seat was a bitch to get down. He counted his blessings that this section of the building was not wheelchair-friendly; leaving the seat up was Heidi's pet peeve.

He twisted the shaving mirror and felt a rush of respect for the aide - what was her name? – for managing to employ as much tact as she had. Crap was an understatement. His eyes were bloodshot, his face was covered in bristles and his hair had pressed forward somehow, giving the impression of an older, grizzled Peter. He grimaced.

Leaning forward, he turned the tap on, splashing his face a few times in what was probably a futile attempt to not look like he’d slept on the streets. He'd left some shaving cream and a razor here after a previous late night/day, so he could take care of at least one of his problems. And schedule in a haircut, soon.

Hunkering down, he rifled through the boxy cupboard. "Aha," he muttered upon hitting paydirt, finding the items tucked behind an ancient bottle of shampoo. Rising, he kicked the cupboard shut, then removed his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves. He glanced at his watch. Twelve minutes before his first appointment.

He shook the can and slapped the shaving cream across his face, stifling a yawn as he worked. All-nighters really took it out of him, and he wondered if the Leukaemia kiddies would take it personally if he skipped the benefit this evening. Does that make me a bad person? he thought, reaching over to realign the mirror, smearing cream across the bottom. Scooping up some water, he splashed it off, then bent down to use the clean patch of glass. He froze.

There was someone behind him.

"I rather think it does, Mr President," said Sylar, giving him a genial smile. He stopped out of the shower and gave the tiny bathroom an appraising look. "Think of their sad little faces."

Nathan's hand tightened on the razor. "What do you want?" His voice sounded normal and he could see that his face showed no alarm, but a tight ball of instinctual fear knotted itself deep in his belly.

Sylar tut-tutted. "You haven't spoken to your brother lately, have you?"

Whirling, Nathan slammed the other man against the wall, dislodging several tiles that tinkled to the floor. Ignoring them, Nathan pressed the razor against Sylar's throat. "What have you done to Peter?!"

Sylar's expression didn't change, and with a lazy flick of his wrist, he sent Nathan flying back into the office. Hitting the desk he crumpled, winded, as Sylar followed him at a casual walk.

"Nothing, yet." He paused and tilted his head in thought. "In fact, he might be the only one who can stop me. I was merely surprised that it hadn't occurred to him to warn you that I might be dropping by."

He reached Nathan's feet and knelt beside them. "I'll be a good president, you know. I'll do my mother proud." Extending an arm, he met Nathan's eyes, and the ball of fear twisted again at what he saw in their depths. "Now, keep still, if you will. It won't hurt...much."

In a split second Nathan came to a decision, and before he could think and alert Sylar to his plan he had pushed off and up, smashing through the bulletproof window, flying as hard and as high as he dared.

By the time his heart slowed and he could think clearly, it was dark and he was halfway across the country. He set down in a small town in what looked like Kansas and made his way down the empty main street. He had to contact Peter, Heidi, his mother, had to warn them and reassure them that he was all right.

Breaking into a jog, he passed the closed shops, the bakery, drugstore and ice-cream parlour flitting by in a haze. He skidded to a halt outside the electrical store, their display televisions all set to the same channel.

Onscreen, the President smiled and waved. His wife rolled along beside, radiant in diamonds and a sleek designer dress. LIVE, said the feed, and beside it, PRESIDENT PETRELLI AND FIRST LADY AT FUNCTION FOR CHILD LEUKEMIA.

Nathan sank to his knees. He felt like screaming.

Sylar was wearing his yellow tie.


3.

Niki pauses in her pacing and gives the mirror another look. It's empty, as usual; the room and furniture are reflected , but Jessica is nowhere to be seen. She's afraid of what she's doing, out of sight, but not out of mind. (Mirror mirror, on the wall)

They've been waging this battle for years now, and she's not quite sure if she can handle even one more time. Jessica is stronger, harder, darker. She's died once, and she's not going again without a fight.

She reaches the far wall and turns, ready for another march across the thick pile. And then she's there, unexpectedly, smiling through the glass as if she's already won.

"Long time no see, Niki." She brings a hand up to her ear and traces the wide, gold hoop. "Having fun without me?"

Niki rushes over to the mirror (all the better to see you with) and fights the urge to burst into angry tears. "Where have you been?!" She hadn't thought anything could be worse than knowing what Jessica was doing and being unable to stop it.

She'd been wrong. So wrong.

Not knowing was the hardest part.

Jessica shrugs, still smiling, and tosses her (Niki's) hair over her (Niki's) shoulder. "Oh, you know. Things to do, people to see." She wrinkles her (Niki's) brow. "Why are you still in there, anyway?"

"In here? What are you talking about? You took over my life." She punches the mirror in frustration.

Her hand passes through the glass like air and her momentum carries her into the other room. The mirror room. The real room.

She just doesn't know any more. (Illusion like a gingerbread house)

Jessica is beside her, looping a comfortable arm through her own. "Nice to see you too, Sis." She leans in close. "Wanna play a game?"

"A game?" Niki echoes. (We all fall down)

"Yeah." Jessica lets go and takes a step back. "One of these rooms is your life, and one of them is mine. We both know that I've had some bad luck in the past, and this is your opportunity to level that score and make things right." She walks around Niki, a slow circle, a blonde vulture. "Wanna gamble? All or nothing, baby. Winner takes all."

This should be easy, Niki thinks; it's her life, it's her world. She came from her own world into Jessica's and then Jessica made her's hers. So now she's in her own life but if she went across again that would be her life too. Maybe they switched. Maybe they changed. Maybe she was there but she was here but she was nowhere all along.

"Picky Niki." Jessica laughs. (A pocket full of rhyme) "Come on, make your choice."

She's thinking and considering and looking at the mirror and then the door opens and Micah comes in to the room that she sees. "There!" she cries and rushes towards her son, passing through the air-glass for the very last time.

But the room, when she gets there, is empty save herself, and she turns but too slowly because Jessica has Micah and a gun.

"Goodbye," says her reflection before the bullet pierces the glass, and as her world shatters, falls to pieces, she hears Micah ask, "Is she gone now, Mom?"

"Yes, honey," says Jessica, in her voice, her life. "Forever."

(Couldn't put Niki together again)


4.

Hiro made a face. "I do not like this sushi, Ando-kun. I think they are mistaken when they call it 'authentic'."

Ando shrugged, staring at the television and chewing with a bored expression on his face. "It's all we can afford, Hiro," he reminded him. "We're going to have to save the world before our funds run out."

Hiro nodded and put the sushi down. "Ando-kun is right! I will go into the future again and ask myself what needs to be done."

"What?" Ando grabbed the remote and switched the television off. "We have the comic - what more could he tell you?"

"I don't know, but there must be something else." Hiro's mouth set into what he knew was his resolute face. "Maybe he can tell me how to repair the sword."

Ando shook his head. "Really, Hiro -"

Hiro scrunched his eyes shut and Ando faded out.

It was evening when he opened them, the sky hazy with dark, grey clouds. The faintest hint of moonlight filtered down to where he was standing, and turning in a slow circle, Hiro decided he was in an alleyway of sorts. Crumbling brick walls rose high on either side of him and the ground was dotted with black rubbish bags that spilled their guts all over the bitumen. Something rustled off to his far left. He took a step forward, and broken glass crunched beneath his foot.

"Who's there?" The voice was hoarse and close; Hiro snatched for his sword but the scabbard was empty. "Who's there?"

A man stepped into the moonlight, tall and scarecrow-haired, a patch over his left eye completing the menacing effect. Hiro wondered if the Vulcan greeting would work in this situation and tried it anyway, just in case.

"I-I come in peace."

The man stiffened and took a hesitant step forward. "Hiro?"

Hiro squinted. "Ando-kun?" He crossed the space between them and threw his arms around his friend. "It is Ando-kun! You live this time! Future Me was wrong!"

Ando didn't return the embrace and pushed him away instead. "Go back," he ordered gruffly. "Go back, and don't come to this time. Ten minutes after you leave, Sylar comes and kills you." He lifted a hand to the patch. "In this future, you die, Hiro." He turned and began shuffling off. "You all die. Only the unspecial live."

Hiro watched him go, noting his friend's defeated posture and limping gait. This future had broken him, just as the last future had made his future self hard. He doesn't like this future.

He hasn't liked any future, come to think of it, and once again, he needs to find out what to change.

Closing his eyes and concentrating, within a breath he was back in the room.

"- you might be messing up the time-space continuum, you know that?" Ando narrowed his eyes - both eyes! Hiro noted with some relief - and gave him a disapproving look. "What knows what might happen?"

Hiro nodded. "You are absolutely right, Ando-kun."

Ando blinked. "I am?"

"Yes." Hiro rose and pulled Ando to his feet. "And now we must go."

"Huh?" Ando followed him outside in a confused stupor. "Why are we leaving?"

Hiro grinned. "Because you told me to." Grabbing Ando's jacket sleeve, he tugged him down the hall. "Unspecial Ando is very wise."


5.

Back when Claire first came to visit them, back when she was a cheerleader who was a girl who was his niece, he took her to Central Park to make her feel more at ease. "It always makes me feel better," he told her, balancing on a bench and then walking out on a straight line of air. She laughed and clapped and confided ("I wish I could fly, why wasn't that genetic?") and that had made them comrades again.

He'd had a dream when it all started, of a street devoid of people but filled with empty, accusing cars. And then there had been others, and then there had been Nathan, and then there had been Claire, all red and white and concerned as she ran towards him to stop his fate. He'd thought that would be how it happened, in a city street filled with his friends, the first to die by his hand.

The clues started appearing: Simone and Isaac had been there, taking solace in each others' arms. They were gone now, then, so their presence had to be a lie. Claire had been wearing her cheerleading uniform, and understandably she hadn't packed that when she'd gone on the run. And, Nathan had been there. Of course, that couldn't be right. When had his brother ever taken an interest in his affairs?

So that wasn't how it happened.

This was how it happened.

Ted Sprague running. Sylar chasing. Peter herding them both to somewhere more isolated, where the casualties might be fewer. His feet had hardly registered the difference in surface, when pavement became glass and the only skyscrapers were the trees. He lost them, lost sight of them, lost his own way in his own ground, and when he found them, they were in three pieces.

Sylar, Ted, and the top of Ted's head.

"The power!" Sylar had screamed, in agony or ecstasy or some sick combination of the two. He was glowing, goldenyellowbright, and Peter froze because it was up to him now, he was in charge and he wasn't ready for it; Nathan had always been the bossy one.

"Peter!" Claire had screamed, and turned to find she had followed, dogging his steps to what might have been the end.

He didn't see it. Claire did. But she couldn't tell him until after the fact.

He flew as high as he could, once, to see how far the damage had spread. Atmosphere was not a problem, after the explosion. Half the continent was an ugly black, the sea had boiled dry in places and now he could walk to New Jersey without crossing a bridge.

Apocalypse '07, the papers had called it. The most devastating tragedy the world had ever seen. Millions killed. Billions mourning. And in the northeast region, no survivors.

No known survivors, to be more precise.

"Here again?"

He hadn't heard her approach but she'd managed to do that before. She settled herself beside him, and after a moment he lifted an arm and drew her close.

"Yeah."

She nodded against his ribcage and followed his gaze across the desolate landscape. Here and there charred logs gave vague clues as to what might have been there before. Just like watching clouds, Peter had thought on more than one occasion, and making the shapes into whatever you wanted them to be.

Abruptly, he rose, pulling Claire to her feet as well. He took her hand and led her away in silence. It was always silent now, no leaves to rustle, no birds to sing, no people going about their business.

"Where to?" he asked, pretending to be unaffected, pretending that he didn’t care.

She gave the question serious consideration, or maybe she just wanted to draw the conversation out. "New Zealand."

He nodded and calculated, deciding to stop over in Chile first. "North or south island?"

"Surprise me." Her tone was flippant, but her face was grave.

He looked away, and then the patch of colour stopped him dead.

Claire paused and frowned at him. "Peter?"

Dropping her hand, Peter took a tentative stop towards the thing, hardly able to believe his eyes. He crouched and scrabbled at the black earth, nails catching on the stony ground. One split and blood mingled briefly with the soil, but when he sat back in breathless amazement the wound had, of course, healed.

"Look," he said, voice little more than a whisper.

Claire lowered herself the ground beside him, reaching over with a shaking finger to stroke the tiny blade of grass. The green was vibrant in this place of darkness, and when he met her tear-filled eyes, her smile was like the sun.






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I have no idea what I was on, writing this, but if you have any questions, let me know. I hope that Niki came across as suitably crazy in #3 (hence the random nursery rhymes) and I so want to do an AU spinoff of Future!Ando with an eyepatch, saving the world with his ragtag bunch of Unspecials.

But I won't.



Enjoy!