2008-08-17: Overloaded

Starring:

Kory_icon.gif Niki_icon.gif Sophie_icon.gif

Guest Starring:

Arthur_icon.gif Peter_icon.gif

Summary: Kory and Sophie make it to Peter's bedside.

Date It Happened: August 17, 2008

Overloaded


Hospital in Nantucket

Having wasted no time in getting to the hospital after Kory touched down in Nantucket (and since it's not the biggest of places, it's all been a quick whirlwind trip from hotel to hospital), Niki leads the way down one corridor after the other. She knows the little hospital well now, and in passing, a nurse smiles and then double-takes after realizing there's been additions to the party of out-of-towners.

"There's been a nice old lady paying his medical bills," Niki says as she leads the way around a corner toward a waiting room separate from the public waiting areas of the hospital. "She found him in her lighthouse about a month ago."

Kory failed to find Dr. Awesome, but she did find Sophie. After a hurried explanation that Peter might be alive and might be lying comatose in a hospital room in Nantucket, a commuter flight and a chartered car later, she's meeting Niki. "Really…that's weird, but nice." At least the distant dreamy tone is gone and Kory is sounding more like herself now.

Sophie shakes her head, "The odd part is.. I've met him, in a way, several times. But.. the one I'm meeting now? Hardly ever. My life is pretty weird. But I hope I can help."

Niki comes to a halt, turning to face the other two women. Behind her, past the comfortable setup of chairs — obviously a well paid-for area, the best medical service — is a glass window that looks in on what is obviously a hospital room. Monitors, a figure on the bed… "She lost her son," Niki offers softly as some kind of explanation, maybe, for the old woman's act of kindness. "Tell me about it," she says to Sophie with a briefly wry smile before her expression sobers. "He's… he's not in good shape," she warns gently, "But it's… it's him. It is Peter." With a bout of hesitation, she steps aside.

"Yeah, but you handle it better than I did," Kory says, ruefully. She repaired her door. Again. And her window. And then she went reclusive, letting the world know she was still around by DJing on an online station.

"He's not in …" she trails off, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes closed. "Let's do this. Get it over with."

Sophie looks at her gloved hands and says, wryly, "Not so sure about that." but then she takes a breath and she says, "Let's do this." After all, what ever put him in a coma? She gets to experience it. Not that she's going to point that out right now.

The figure in the bed has many bandages, all recently changed and replaced. Only half of Peter's face is visible, the bandages crossing his face much like his future scar had. One eye's covered, the other is closed. Monitor's show a faster heartrate than most coma patients should have, sweat glistens on his skin where visible, and the one eye that isn't covered shifts rapidly, almost as if he's dreaming. In fact he actually is. A loop of a dream, foggy, and indistinct, almost wild. No one image, almost as if all the images bleed together.

Once Niki is in the same room as the comatose man with the various monitors hooked up to him, she's quick to step aside. She hasn't, in point of fact, spent a lot of time in this room. One look at Peter and she's forced to frown and look down. "Jack is usually here," she says quietly. "I don't … think you know him— he's a friend of mine and of Peter's. And I— started working for him recently. We never would've found him if it weren't for Jack." And Jack's shady contacts. "He'll be back soon."

Kory gasps. It's only half his face. But it's his face. It's Peter. Her breath catches in her throat and breaks free as a sob. She has to reach for the doorframe and hold on. "Oh, no." He is nearly dead. Again. Jack? Jack who? There might as well be no one else in the room now. She's withdrawn into herself, barely conscious.

Sophie didn't know this one that well, but seeing anyone like this is hard to take, especially since he looks like the one she did know. In fact.. She turns, though, at Kory's gasp. She reaches for her, after a half a second glance at her hands. That's second nature now, and she says, "I'm going to find out what happened. He needs us, you too." she takes a breath, "Jack.. Derex? I met him sort of." she takes a breath, "Its.. complicated. I'm glad he managed to find Peter. I know he was looking.." she turns, though, slowly toward Peter. She pulls off her gloves, both of them. Rubbing her hands on her pants, she sits on a chair (probably going to need to sit down for this one) and ever so gently rests one hand on the support on the side of the bed, and the other against Peter's cheek.

Niki can sympathize with that look on Kory's face, not to mention the withdrawnness. She's experiencing some of that herself, an obvious distance to her demeanour behind these walls. She shifts a shoulder uncomfortably, watching Sophie's trek to the side of the bed with trepidation, not sure what to expect; quiet on all fronts, she tries to exchange a somewhat nervous look with Kory.

Kory has to take a moment to collect herself before she can look up, take in what's happening. "Soph…you sure you can handle this, Neme?" Kory remembers coming to collect Sophie after a set of memories manifested on her physically. Peter's eyes, and that telltale tingle in her backbrain let her know she could make contact instead. Without the suffering.

As the haze of memory slides into place, a voice can be heard.

"I am very disappointed in you, Peter."

A flash of electricity, lightning flies out of fingers towards the man who spoke, Arthur Petrelli, a man who would die not too long after this memory was made. The older man's hand raises, catching the lightning and deflecting it back. The pains of the burn paralyze senses, burn skin, cause the man whose memory it is to fall to his knees.

"You should have stayed in your mother's protection. You always were a disappointment, hiding behind her or your brother."

His hand whips to the side, an invisible knife cutting into skin, into face, into chest, into arms.

"You have no one to hide behind anymore."

Vision blurs, eyes close. The pain numbs, adrenaline rising. Skin starts to feel hot. A burst of energy raidiates backwards, an expanding invisible bubble rising up around him. It tosses Arthur away into a wall. Eyes open again, vision still hazy. Hands glow red, like his hand is held up against a high powered lightbulb. There's a panic inside his head. Voices start to filter in. People thinking. Wondering what the noise was, wishing the neighbors would quiet down, his father's disappointment.

Eyes close again.

The world shifts and he blacks out.

It is too late, really, once her hand touches Peter. It seems like several minutes to Sophie, but it is only seconds to everyone else. But an intense several seconds as she pales, sways and then screams. She pulls back at the end, shaking, grabbing at her chest, face, then staring at her hands.

Kory darts forward, and pulls the sleeves of her hoodie down so she can yoink Sophie backward. "Easy there," she whispers. "Maybe I should try to get through to him instead?" Easy enough now that she's been jolted — but not as badly as Sophie — back to awareness. "You're all right. Catch your breath. Find your center."

It happens so fast— ! Niki reels around to Sophie, eyes wide, agape, blown away by the woman's sudden, intense reaction. At a loss for words, she rushes to the woman's side as well, but doesn't touch her. She looks to Peter, quickly, as if his unmoving body could give her the same answers.

It's at that point that a nurse rushes to the door, drawn by the unnerving scream. "What— " Colour the poor woman bewildered. "Is everyone alright in here? The whole nurses station heard a scream…"

"Eveything's fine," Niki pipes up, smiling, although it's shaky; she hurries to the nurse, intent on leading her out with a friendly hand and leaving the other women, and Peter, alone. "Our friend is just … seeing him like this, you know, it's hard."

The nurse looks over her shoulder in worry, but goes along. "Well … good— we have some transfer forms and some questions, if you could find Mr. Petrelli…"

Sophie is taking shaky, deep breaths. She shakes her head, "His father.. his own father did this." her eyes are wide, filled with tears, "The things he said." she shivers, wrapping her arms around herself.

"His father was a monster," Kory says quietly, through her teeth. "And the monster is gone now. It's safe for his son to come out and shine." Sonshine, it's cute, but it's sincere. "You gonna be all right if I go dreamdiving?" She pulls up the other visitor chair beside Sophie. "Or you just wanna sit here and be here for him in case he wakes up?"

Sophie is taking deep breaths, "No, no.. I'm alright. I'm getting used to this. Its.. what I do." she says with a shaky breath. "He said he was disappointed. You know, given what he was, it should be a point of pride to disappoint a man like that..' she gets stronger, with sheer indignation and new protectiveness toward Peter. I want to be there for him.. if I can help. Yes, he needs someone to be there with him, to let him know it is fine to come out."

"Together, then?" Kory asks, offering her friend her hand. They'll each reach for him in their own way, and together, like when Peter and Sophie did it for her.

Sophie nods firmly, and takes Kory's hand. "Yes, together." she repeats, turning back toward Peter, and bracing once more.

Kory closes her eyes and reaches, psyche sliding into the peculiar space where dreams grow, feeling for the familiar shape of Peter's mind. You promised you'd never leave me she thinks, but keeps it to herself. He's not gone yet. Help him find his way back.

For someone in a coma, Peter's mind is very much active. Almost too much so. The space between dreams and awake doesn't seem entirely out of place, but as soon as the dream is touched, there's a sudden explosion of activity. To call the dream fuzzy would almost be an understatement. It shifts and blurs almost as if zipping around at high speeds. Buildings become visible for a moment, the streets of New York, then it rushes to zoom in, rushes past, rises higher. The dream itself seems as if it's actually flying. Peter is definitely there, but doesn't seem aware, doesn't even seem to have a fully physical form. The movement loops back around. There's things happening in those streets, but it doesn't slow down enough to make it out. The whole thing almost seems to be overloaded.

Sophie is not familiar with the dreamscape. It is different, after all, from memories in many ways. Those aren't interactive. She stands by Kory, holding her hand and trying to look around, understand what she is seeing.

Kory catches her breath as the dream seems to swoop like a runaway rollercoaster. She holds to Sophie's hand, though, eyes trying desperately to keep something like orientation so she doesn't lose her way. She reaches out, gently, trying to arrest the motion of Peter's mind's eye, the better to steady him. "It's us, Peter," she says quietly, hopefully. "Kory and Sophie and Niki. We're here."

The voice, soft as it is, slows the motions of the dream down a little. Still blurry and indistinct, like viewing something through heat-warped glass, it's difficult to tell what anything is supposed to be, even if it's slowed. No verbal response, no forms emerging out of the haze. Kory can certainly feel something pushing against her, trying to eject them both from the dream. Rather than a rejection of their company it feels more like… Peter's becomeing aware that they're here and there's something in the dream he doesn't want them to see. It's completely unlike the other times she's been in his dreams, especially when she was his only friend in Level 5.

Sophie sways and her eyes close, even in her dreaming mind. She says, "Is it always like this?" to Kory, softly, "Peter.. its us."

Kory gives Sophie a shake of her head. "N-no," she murmurs, shakily. Her grasp isn't terribly strong to begin with. She has had practice getting through to Peter in a drugged state, but this is different. "I…it's slippery. I can't…I'm…" she tries to hold on, but it's like trying to grasp mercury — it's slipping away through her grasp. "I'm not sure I can keep us here."

There's sudden burst of activity in the street. They get pulled down into it. Faded forms move by, cars honk. A siren can be heard in the distance, the siren of an ambulance. Then there's another strong push, loosening Kory's hold even more than before.

Sophie gasps, holding on tighter. She says, "We.. we can try later. Is this dangerous for you?"

Kory clenches her teeth in the real world, and her form turns transparent in the dreamscape, even as the dream goes overattenuated and overexposed like a bad bit of celluloid around her and Sophie. "I…no idea…" and before she can try to reassert her grasp or try answering Sophie in greater detail, her grip looses altogether, and she goes toppling out of the chair, jarred by the sudden change in perspective.

Sophie is probably glad she is already seated. She is a bit pale and she says, "I'm glad I don't have motion sickness.I don't know how you do that." she blinks back tears and she says, softly, "I'm sorry that.. didn't work." she reaches to touch Peter's hand, after putting on her gloves back on. "We can at least make sure he isn't alone."

Kory doesn't even try to get up again. She just lies on the floor with her eyes closed. "It isn't usually like that," she tells the other woman. And, more softly, less hopefully, to herself, she adds, "Of course it didn't work."

But faithful Sophie offers optimism, and Kory gratefully reaches for it. "That we can do."

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