2007-11-20: Probably For The Better

Starring:

Mara_icon.gif Peter_icon.gif

Summary: Peter pays a friend a visit and reaffirms the validity of his actions.

Date It Happened: November 20, 2007

Probably for the Better


Mara's Apartment

The phone call came around noon. Peter sounded as if he were outside, in the open air, from the way the wind played across the phone. He sounded tense, but not tired, which is different from how the person who picked up sounded. No details were given over the phone, however he requested her new address, if she could give it to him, saying he needed to talk about something important.

About an hour later, he knocks the the door to her apartment, after buzzing in and letting her know it was him (including a password of some kind to prove it's him). He's wearing a long black coat that's well fitted, and this time, he looks healthy, rather than ill. His skintone is back to normal, and he's regained some of his lost pounds, filling out his face, and the coat that he wears.

There's a switch. Peter looks healthy and Mara's the one that looks ill. It wouldn't be the first time she's dropped a few pounds between meeting, but any further and she's going to be on the too-thin side of things. Her eyes have dark, dark circles around them and they look sunken almost. Her hair's a mess, like she just rolled out of bed and didn't bother to drag her fingers through it, let alone comb it out. Then again, the first indication that she just rolled out of bed is probably the fact that she's dressed only in a man's button-down shirt and a pair of shorts with the Cornell University logo over the left thigh. And a pair of black leather gloves.

"Peter," she murmurs groggily, seeming surprised he even came. "For a minute I thought the phone call was just another vision." She groans and stretches her arms out behind her back after allowing him into the apartment. It's stark white as the last one ever was. No personal touches, save for the obviously well-stocked (and half open) liquor cabinet, and the bottle perched atop it - a Manhattan landscape in sand. "Can I fix you a drink?" she asks. "Is it too early for a drink? It's never too early for a drink, right?"

At the opening of the door, Peter's eyes immediately fall on her and watch her with a sudden inhale. "Are you sick?" he asks, looking very worried as he steps further inside and sheds off the coat. The gloves are noted— and his eyes find the sand art that he'd given her all those months ago— and stays there for a time, until he puts the coat down on something and looks back at her. "I'll pass, and by the looks of things you should too," he says, voice genuinely concerned in sound as his eyes look over her sunken features. "You're not running a fever, are you?" There's a definite tone of worry— and hints of guilt.

"I don't have the virus," Mara assures him quickly with a dismissive wave of her hand. She runs her hands over her face and up to brush her bangs back. The stitches are gone, but the scar will be a constant reminder of what almost was. "What day is it?" She doesn't agree with his assessment on avoiding the sauce and so she pours herself a shot of gin, knocking it back with a wince. The liquid burns her dry throat and draws a shudder, but it's something. It's something real. A second shot is poured, but this one goes into a glass where tonic is poured over it.

"It's the twentieth," Peter says softly, relieved as he might be that it isn't the virus, his eyes follow her forehead around, what little he can see of it with her bangs. "Thursday," he adds after a moment, moving closer to her so that he can look at the bottle, and then into her eyes. "You look like you're not eating. You should eat more. I could go back out and bring you lunch," he says, even glancing toward the door as if he's more than willing to go and be her gopher in this case— her lack of eating isn't healthy, especially combined with copious amounts of gin. But, even if she tells him to, he ends up saying something that would derail any leaving for a while. "I fought Sylar two days ago. Stopped him from killing my niece again."

Mara stops, drink halfway to her lips. "Thursday the twentieth?" She gapes for a moment, setting her glass down with an audible thunk! on the counter. "No wonder I'm so bloody hungry!" She's rummaging around in the fridge when he drops that second bombshell on her. "Oh, my God," she whispers, peering over the door of the refrigerator to stare at Peter with wide eyes. "Is everyone all righ'?"

Looks like she does need to eat. Peter follows her over to the fridge, looking past at what's inside and half expecting to see a colony taking form inside her fridge— in a forest— or something of the like. But the bombshell had been pretty bad, so he meets her eyes and nods, "As well as we can be. The house is a bit messed up. I was able to get there in-time. Because he decided to call and taunt me about how he was killing her. Guess he didn't know I could just teleport in and punch him in the face." There's a pause. "Or maybe he did know. Maybe he wanted me to stop him… That's what I needed to talk to you about. You studied him for a long time— used your ability to see the crimes that he did— did you ever…" He trails off, as if he's not sure how to explain this.

Moving around her, he reaches into the fridge to grab some of the food that still looks good, giving off the impression that he's intending to just cook for her while he tries to explain what he needs. Eggs, non-moldy cheese… simple things. "He told me to kill him. He taunted me— said he'd take everything from me— and he told me to kill him."

Mara stares blankly at Peter as he tells his story. As he reaches past her to get at the fridge, she dances back a step, making sure he has a wide berth. When he's finished explaining what happened, one hand flutters up to cover her mouth. "M'gonna be sick," she mutters, but makes no dash toward the bathroom, sink, or rubbish bin. Perhaps just this once she doesn't mean it literally. "You want me to… what?" Her hand drops again so she can reach for her gin and tonic. "He's… capable of guilt," she admits quietly after a sip to settle her nerves. "I've felt it. It's all-consuming. Makes me sick to my stomach." Implying that the same feeling must have been Gray's.

There's a small nod, agreement, as Peter sets out the eggs and the cheese, closes the fridge and goes looking for things to cook eggs with cheese in. It's one of the things he knows she'll eat, and it's something he can make for her rather quickly. It also gives him something to do while he talks, seeing as she hasn't fled the room to be ill. "He's not dead," he says, glancing over. "It's possible that he only did that to make me hesitate more, stop— I was winning for the first time. I could have killed him. But I entered his mind for a moment and— it felt like— I don't even know for sure what it felt like." He puts a pan on the stove, sprays it, lets it heat up, and glances back at her. "I wondered why we hadn't seen more dead bodies. He's been running free— and he's not much more powerful than when I fought him to save you. Just add electricity— and I know when and where he got that."

The woman nods numbly. Hair in desperate need of a dye, chestnut roots gaining ground on deep red, falls into her face. "He… If he said he wanted you to kill him, I suspect he meant it." Mara takes another long drink from her glass before setting it aside to pull herself up to sit on the counter. "It's really Thursday?" She swivels at the hip so she can open the curtains over the kitchen sink. The view isn't much, just the brick wall of the building next door, but it lets in some light. "Last time I knew, it was Sunday night…"

Cracking a few eggs, Peter sets out to start making scrambled with cheese, doing it in silence after she confirms that he'd probably meant it. That may be what he needed— confirmation from someone else, someone who had as much reason to be afraid of, and to hate him, as he did. He looks back at her when she says the last day she remembers, frowning. "Yeah, it's Thursday the twentieth. Why isn't anyone taking care of you? I know Suresh is busy helping with the virus, but the Company has a lot of doctors besides him— and not all of them are working on the virus." Or perhaps the more accurate— after adding the cheese in, which he shreds over the eggs, he glances back, "Why aren't you taking care of yourself?"

Again, the glass is brought to her lips, but she doesn't drink. She actually clicks her teeth against the rim absently as she tries to come up with the right words. "I… guess I've been in a coma. Short one, but…" She glances vaguely in the direction of her bedroom, though the walls of the kitchen get in the way. "Mum sent me a book from home that she used to read to me when I was little. I settled down in bed on Sunday to read it, and… "I must've been two or three at the time, but I saw my mum having a row with Pops. And she threw the book at his 'ead. Next thing I know, you're calling me and asking for my address, saying you need to talk." Mara turns her hazel-green eyes back on Peter, "I haven't told anyone the visions are getting worse. They'll stick me in a hospital room and never let me out again." Or that's what she suspects, at least.

"If you were in a coma that long, you really shouldn't be drinking gin and tonic," Peter says, taking the pan and scraping the eggs off onto a plate and handing it over while he goes through the cabinets to grab a glass and fill it full of something much better for her, water. "I'm sorry," he says when he gets the glass down next to her eggs, looking up to make eye contact with her. "When I got back I should have called you and given you the message I was supposed to— I went to the future." So many people in the Company know by now, there's no reason to keep it secret. "I met you there— and she told me to tell you to find a way to get rid of the ability before it drove you crazy. I hoped just making the future better would change that— that wasn't just your power causing it, that it was… other things that happened."

Grudgingly, Mara relinquishes her booze to Peter in exchange for eggs and water. She barely takes the time to chew her food, devouring it ravenously. She's halfway through the plate before she stops to respond. "The future. I… suspected." Why lie? "You saw me? Huh. At least I know I live that long. Am I off my bleeding rocker and locked up in some institution, then? Or hidden away on Level Five where I'll never be found? At the beck and call of the Company for the rest of my existence…" That unappealing thought causes a tremor to go through her body and she turns her attention back to filling her stomach with eggs and cheese once more.

"The Company was gone in the future. Anything of it that existed was absorbed into the pro-Evolved government," Peter says softly, turning away to make yet another batch of cheesy eggs. She needs more to eat, and it gives him something to focus on while he explains a situation that's… relatively uncomfortable for him. "You were different, but you weren't locked up." There's a pause, he's cooking, but he doesn't know how to explain this. "To be honest you didn't want me to tell you anything about what happened to you— what might be— because I'm working toward changing it— not letting it happen. Forgive me if I don't go into details on some of it."

The most important things, he promised not to share… and he doesn't want to make things too painful for her to try to explain.

"Kate— that's what you called yourself in the future— I think that she spent two years of her life letting the visions tell her what to do— letting her power— as well as other things— control her and her actions." The pan is brought over, eggs piled onto the plate that's likely, by now, empty. "I believe that you can control your own ability. I don't think you need to get rid of it entirely. You may just need to believe that you can."

"Kate," Mara repeats, some flash of the familiar glimmering in my eyes. It's an alias she employs now. "You don't understand my ability like I do, Peter. There is no ignoring it anymore. It governs my actions no matter how hard I try to be the one in charge." She pauses and gives Peter a concerned look, "What could be so terrible that my future self didn't want me to know? And yet she still wanted me to know that I should be rid of my ability? Nothing could be worse than what this ability is doing to me."

When he brings the second round of eggs over, Mara flinches and squirms uncomfortably. "The fuck is with you?" she asks. "You're giving off… My skin is crawling." She scoots over on the counter a bit in an attempt to escape the energy that radiates from Peter, begging her to succumb to the story it's dying to tell her.

"I'm not saying you have to ignore it, I'm saying you're strong enough to not let it control you," Peter says, looking away from her even as he says that. The avoidance of eyecontact continues. "Sorry. I shouldn't have…" he says, trailing off and moving away to the stove to clean off the pan and let the stove cool so he can clean it too. It keeps him further away from her, at least, because what she said worries him. Maybe he shouldn't have thought to do that…

"I almost did kill him," he says, switching topics back to the reason he came, or so it would seem. "You didn't want me to have Molly's ability because of what I might use it for— because I might just hunt him down and kill him— and I nearly did. That's how I figured out exactly where Claire was, so I could teleport in in time— I used Molly's ability to find her. I've had it for a while now— and I've avoided using it, because of the argument we had. Even when I knew that Sylar was loose— I didn't use it." Not until he had no other choice.

"You…" Mara blinks at Peter several times, trying to parse what he's just told her. The plate is set aside so she can remove her gloves to toss them onto the counter beside her. But she doesn't make any move to reach out and touch her visitor, but resumes eating her brunch. "So long as you understand the gravity of what you can do… I mean, there's nothing I can do to change it. Any of it."

"You can change everything," Peter says, running water on the pan to clean off the grease before it hardens, a little steam rolling off where it's still warm. Then he lets it sit in the sink, so he can face her. "Unless you mean my meeting Molly and getting her ability. Then no, you can't change that. But everything you see— if it hasn't happened yet— you can change it. Just like I can change the future I went to, just like I already have." He looks down at his hands, playing with the cuff of his coat. "You can choose your own future. It doesn't have to be the one that you have in your visions, just like I didn't need to accept the one I traveled to."

Mara's eyes travel up and down Peter's form several times. "It's the coat," she murmurs and then hops off the counter. Food can be warmed up and consumed later. "It's new." Only an assumption because she's not seen him wear it before. "Except it isn't," because it's obviously seen use. "Second-hand?" She tilts her head to one side and steps closer. "I can't change the past, but you and I have to know what we're looking for the change the future, right?" She reaches out slowly, wanting to touch, but not wanting to touch. "If I just… touch it, it'll stop. My bones ache. I feel like they're resonating beneath my skin." Her fingers tremble and she can't decide if she can will herself the rest of the way forward, or if she hopes he'll make that decision for her.

"You're right. That's why I went there— to learn more than visions or dreams or paintings could ever tell, so I could change the future." Which is probably why he starts to consider the few steps between them. "I don't know what you'll see if you touch this," Peter admits softly, glancing down at his coat. He'd not gotten anything off of it himself, but that could be for multiple reasons. "You'll see the past or the future, or the future that's the past to me. Either way— I wonder if she gave it to me hoping that I'd keep it— hoping that I'd make the mistake of wearing it around you." There's a pause and he finally steps forward, preparing to catch her, in case she falls, which he's sure she will.

The step forward he takes causes her to leap back in fear instinctively, as though a spark had jumped from his coat and to her fingertips. "Oh, my God. I haven't felt anything like this since…" Mara closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She reaches out to brace one hand around behind his neck, fingers tangling in the hair at his nape. Leverage. Then, she reaches out with the other to grasp his arm. She never quite gets a grip before she starts to slip to the floor, unconscious the moment her fingers find fabric.

This was a very bad idea. Peter puts his arms around her as she starts to sink, kneeling down with her so they're both sitting on the floor of her kitchen, and he holds on to support her. This could take a while, but he won't move until it starts getting physically uncomfortable for him. Please don't be out long. Closing his eyes, he tries to reach out toward her, as he'd done earlier with Sylar— hoping to see what she sees, or maybe pull her out of it if it's something bad.

A rooftop. Spotty weather pours rain down from the sky. A pigeon coup lays empty. A wrecked landscape all around. Two people stand, the very same people in the kitchen of the apartment.

"Don't worry about it, Peter," the woman says with bitterness. "You make up for all of it when you kill the murdering bastard before he can kill us all. You can't ever tell me - her - that this future even exists. Maybe the woman I used to be will recover from you never returning her feelings. I need you to tell me to do one thing, though, Peter. You have to look at me and tell me to get cured. Tell me to have Mohinder inhibit my ability entirely. You have to tell me to do this."

Their hands are joined now. While she's giving off hurt determination, he's confused, guilty, and more than a little sad. The guilt especially radiates off of him. He's breaking her heart and he knows it. "I don't know what happens to you if I change things— I don't know how this works at all." But he agrees, even as he leans forward. Their foreheads rest against each other, noses touching. "All right." When he pulls back, he releases the hold on her hand so he can push her bangs out of the way and kiss her forehead. "I'm sorry."

The vision twists, distorts. She's removed the coat that she was wearing and is holding it out to him. "Here. This'll actually fit you. I'll go through some of my husband's things and leave a couple changes of clothes up here for you tomorrow morning. Be safe, Peter Petrelli."

"This is how you knew to find me, isn't it? You knew you would give it to me."

"I saw myself standing on this roof, in the rain, and wearing this coat. This is my husband's coat. I have one of my own. I couldn't figure out why I would wear it. Except to fulfill my own prophecy."

It distorts again, shifts.

"Thank you. I'm— for what it's worth… I'm glad we met." He means it, too "It's nice to know not everyone hates… the man I could become."

The scene fades away, replaced now by something further from the coat's past - from its original owner. Kate and her husband run hand in hand down a corridor and it's obvious the woman is losing steam. The fear is thick in the air, and one doesn't need to be empathic to tell. Two doors open in front of them and the pair skid to a halt. The blonde's eyes grow wide as the man at her side grabs her arms and whips her around, his back to the open door. His forehead rests against hers, their noses touching. "Hold on," he tells her.

The shots ring out before they're out of harm's way and when they arrive at their destination - an apartment filled with mirrors and not a clock in sight - they both fall to the floor. She's screaming and clutching at a bullet wound in her arm, and he's bleeding out.

Within minutes, husband is scooping wife into his arms - completely recovered - and holding her still as he coaxes the bullet out of her skin with the flick of two fingers. He holds her tighter as she screams. "Shhhh," he soothes against her ear. "It's okay. You're okay."

Kate looks at Peter with wide eyes, clutching at his coat. "Thank you," she murmurs.

"Don't thank me," he responds harshly, anger directed at himself. "I don't have it in me to heal you."

"It's all right," she assures him. "You're all I need right now."

Again, shift, out of time, out of context. Her cheeks are streaked with tears while he's stern and angry, hair long and pulled back into a ponytail. There's a hint of something under the surface, a shifting, a distortion, but it doesn't dissolve, the emotions seem genuine. He's angry. Possessive. "No one. No one is taking you away from me. Especially not him." He's pulling away from her, or trying, but the coat is firmly around him, blood removed, holes mended until they can't be seen."

"You can't give up, Peter." And she knows he's giving up. "Like it or not, we're symbols. We carry on when it seems like all hope is lost. We have to. You have to." She's refusing to allow him to move away. Her hand back just as quickly as he can pull it away. "You are hope. You're my hope. You're hope to every life you touch. How many people would still be in detainment if not for you? How many would be dead?" She touches her nose to his before simply resting her forehead against his own. "I will always find my way back to you. No matter what. Promise me you'll carry on. That you won't let him win."

A distortion again. Like feedback. "…if you're captured, you have no control over what I'll do." The anger grows as he talks, something cold and far more familiar— something buried. A hunger. "You're mine. If I have to tear down all of Washington to get you back, I will."

Mara! a new voice cuts through, trying to call out to her, force her to wake up. Wake up.

Consciousness comes crashing down on Mara like waves against an eroding cliff face. She stares up wide-eyed at Peter, gasping for breath with tears in welling up and distorting her vision. The way he holds her feels so achingly familiar after the visions. "Oh, my God." She isn't sure whether to panic or to kiss him. Neither are really good options, so she settles on inaction, holding perfectly still until he says something to her again.

Tension starts to relax from the young man's face. Peter looks different from the man she saw in the visions— all except the first one at least. And there's hints this could have gone on for quite some time. The coat probably has quite a history to it, most in the hands of it's previous owner. He lets out a relieved sound, even as he continues to hold her. "Least I know telepathy can pull you out of these," he says in a quiet voice, before he does realize what this may look like after everything she could have felt— everything she could have seen— he only caught fragments— distortions— mostly words.

As he starts to pull away from her, he says, "It wasn't really me, Mara. The man who wore this coat before you gave it to me… you didn't know. No one did. Not until he revealed himself." It's a confession he's told to others before her, warnings really, but for her it's far more personal. "He killed me. I don't know when. If it was before or after or— he killed me and took my place. All those threats he made about what he would do— he did to me in that future."

Panic. Definitely panic. Mara's eyes widen more until she feels as though they might pop right out of her head. She pulls free from Peter's embrace and goes scrambling across the floor until her back's against the fridge. "No. No. You're lying."

"Why would I lie about something like this?" Peter says, pushing himself to his feet, a little unsteady because of the telepathic communication he'd needed to do. There's no blood running down from his nose, but… As he stands, he starts to take off the coat he'd been given. "You were right. I should have destroyed this if I took it back with me. I shouldn't have held onto it— but it was one of the only things I had from there. From then. But I'm not lying. I fought him while I was there. After he killed— a lot of people." People who, from the sound of it, were very important to him.

"I married that monster?" Mara looks ill. She wraps her arms around her frail body and shivers. "No. No, no, no. That's not possible. It can't—" She looks up at Peter with begging eyes. "Please, tell me it's not true."

"He tricked you. And it wasn't just you, Mara— he tricked everyone," Peter says, trying to stress this. "You, Nathan, everyone. He ran an entire organization with my name and no one knew. He made it look like I killed him." There's a wounded look from him as well, though it's wounded for reasons outside of this room. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let you see. Not after what— I'm sorry." He straightens fully and starts to move away, the coat wrapped up in his arms.

Mara reaches out both hands, arms outstretched and fingertips extended as far as she can manage it. "Please, Peter… I'd like to have the coat." The look in her eyes is sad, but there's something else there. Something… different. "I still felt some glimmer of happiness in those visions. Please."

"I know you felt happiness," Peter says softly, looking down at the coat quietly. "It was false happiness, though— something that… you didn't know. Maybe part of you suspected, but you didn't want to believe it. I don't want to believe it." That the monster could walk around wearing his face so effectively that no one noticed— that no one could look at him and go 'that's not Peter.' That the changes had been so believable that… After a long pause he hands over the coat, watching to see if it looks like she'll collapse again. "It's not happiness, Mara. It's a deception. A lie. And it's not going to happen."

"Don't tell me what's real and what isn't," Mara snaps, clutching the coat to her chest defensively. "It doesn't matter. It feels real enough. And I need something that feels like happiness. I know it will never happen." She looks away, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. "I can't believe she told you when she fell in love with you." A pause. "She. I. Me. I guess I'm doomed to foolishness."

"You're not doomed, Mara," Peter says softly, having dropped the nickname he'd given after he got back from the future, and after he used it in front of Nathan for the first time. "Just don't cling too much to visions. Of the past or the future. It may give a feeling of happiness, but you deserve something now. Something tangiable. Something that's completely yours." He looks at the the coat quietly, part of him wishing he'd left it behind, destroyed it, or at least left it shoved up into the backpack for the last few months. The clothes she wore back, the backpack itself, and the coat— three of the biggest things he brought back. And this one would be the most dangerous of all. "It's yours."

He starts to move as if to go toward the door, but he stops where the sand art in a bottle happens to be. When she fell in love with him. There's some things he's not entirely sure how to address, so he just looks at it for a while, forehead creased.

"Just take it," Mara tells him bitterly, eyes too falling to the bottle. "All it is is another reminder of what will never be." Just as surely as the garment she clutche to her chest is. One symbolises a hope, and the other an omen to her, however. "Give it to someone who'll appreciate it. Someone who's ready to move on with their life." That person isn't her. Not today. Sometimes she wonders if not ever.

"You appreciated it," Peter says softly, but he does move forward to pick up the bottle and hold onto it. Giving it to someone else is out of the question, it wouldn't mean as much to them. As he no longer has a coat, he glances back at the door quietly for a moment, suddenly glad he'd put his phone and most of the rest of his things in his pants pockets instead. "Take care of yourself, Mara." There's a pause and he adds on, "Hiro Nakamura is back from his time travelling. Next time I see him I'll give him your number and tell him to get ahold of you." And with that, he closes his eyes— if she doesn't say something to stop him, it's very likely he'll just use said man's ability to get back to his apartment without braving the cold.

"Wait," Mara calls out, climbing to her feet swiftly and wobbling there on unsteady legs for a few moments. "Peter, I…" Only when she's sure he'll stay and hear her out does she continue. "Why… would you have Nakamura seek me out?"

There's a pause, Peter's eyes open again. "Weren't the two of you friends?" There's a pause. "I mean I don't know for sure if you ever mentioned each other before, but I'm pretty sure you'd met and talked. I don't know— maybe he can give you a direction." There's a quiet shrug, as if this is a topic he's not entirely sure on.

"If you want to give me direction, tell me where I can find Gray." The coat is set aside and Mara pads forward slowly, bare feet on cool tile. "Or help me find someone who can take this ability from me. I can't go on living like this. Help me eliminate one nightmare. I can't live with both." The bogeyman, or her ability. Something needs to go.

"Your ability has a reason, Mara— you just need to learn how to control it. I know you don't think I know what I'm talking about, but I have almost fourty abilities now," Peter says softly, not sounding as if he's bragging or proud of it, but he probably isn't exaggerating either. "It took me a long time to figure out how to control what it is that I do— and I think you can do that too. Without drugs or without losing your ability all together." There's another pause, before he addresses the first issue. "I'll help you find Sylar. Once I'm sure about how to handle this. I'm not quite as good at this as Molly is— I get flashes more often than pin-point map coordinates."

"Well, when you figure out what purpose my ability has, and how it can serve that purpose without driving me mad, get back to me, would you?" Mara wraps her arms around herself tightly and bites at her lower lip. "Just point me in the right direction. I'm a detective, you know. I can handle the rest." Finally, she unwraps one arm and reaches out. "Give me the bottle." It means too much to her to let a snap decision get the better of her.

"I thought that…" Peter trails off, stepping closer again and placing the bottle in her hand. "I'm glad you're keeping it. Purples aren't really my color." It's said with a hint of a smile, lopsided and flawed, but it's there. "I'll let you know when I get an idea of where he is. I really do want you to take care of yourself, okay?" Even if they can't be more than friends, that doesn't mean he doesn't care about her.

"I'm doing my best to take care of myself, I assure you," Mara murmurs, clutching the bottle to her chest now. "You don't get so wrapped up in saving the world that you start neglecting yourself, too." She sighs quietly, "And if you need some help on the visionary front, just call on me. I'll do my best."

"Helps I don't have to sleep anymore," Peter says with a hint of a smile, not sounding as if he's being sarcastic as he says that. "Not even sure if I need to eat, for that matter. But you do. So maybe you should set an alarm in place, to go off a couple times a day or something. If my phone call could wake you… then maybe an alarm'll do the trick."

Mara chuckles quietly, "Oh, your phone call did not wake me. I've got about twenty or thirty missed calls on that thing. You just got lucky." She smiles and shrugs. It is what it is. "I'm amazed you were able to pull me out of that…" The earlier vision. "Thanks."

There's a pause with visible hesitation, then Peter nods, as if he reached a decision. "I'll call every so often, then. If you don't call me back in a few hours, I'll come check on you," he says seriously. "Maybe I can pull you out of it again." It's about time telepathy worked in his favor, for a change— "That should give you some time in case your phone's off for… work or something. I'll also call if I need you." There's a pause. He doesn't close his eyes this time, but he adds, "I'll see you later, Mara."

"Be safe, Peter." Mara steps back a few steps, not that he needs the space to pull off the feat, but it's a habit.

Eyes close again and Peter stands there a few moments until he vanishes, leaving behind nothing except the coat that he wore. A coat with an entire future worth of memories wrapped up inside it. A future that will never happen. Probably for the better.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License