Starring:
Summary: Nathan and Heidi have a talk after quite awhile. She has a solution. He doesn't like it.
Date It Happened: 10 MAY 2009
To Forget is Divine
Niki's Apartment
He's gotten a lot of reading in.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, free arm folded casually on one knee and the other, as per usual, ignored and trapped by the thing that binds Nathan to this room, Nathan is back bent over an open hard cover on the bedsheets, almost halfway through the novel. Glasses, comfortable clothing and hair that's since grown out of its usually well-maintained conservative cut, only the handcuff is the jarring factor in this little scenario of what might read like an extended vacation. And potentially the fact he doesn't appear to have gotten much in the way of sleep might contribute to the knowledge that something is amiss.
On the outside, anyway. On the inside, Nathan reads to distract himself. The closet door towards the left of him is wide open, showing off the clothing hung up inside but more importantly, it disguises the mirror affixed to the outside of the door.
—-
Heidi's turn.
There's a sound from somewhere outside the bedroom as the apartment door opens and closes. There's a long pause before she appears at the bedroom door, eying Nathan before she enters, as if to determine if it's her husband or Logan. She's got something in her hand; looks like a picture frame.
The past couple times Heidi had her shift, she didn't come into the room. Sometimes, there's just not a lot to say to him that hasn't already been said. Talk has skirted away from blame and into the realm of small-talk lately. For some reason, the blue-eyed woman just had a moment of weakness - a moment of nostalgia. And so here she is.
Setting the frame down near Nathan's bed, she turns it toward him. It's the kids. "How've you been holding up?" she asks, dragging a chair closer and taking a seat.
—-
He only looks up when she comes into the room. Sometimes they avoid him entirely, perhaps giving him peace, which is actually fine by Nathan. There's not a lot to be desired about playing petting zoo, and besides. Reading is good for you. When he does hear her foot steps head for his bedroom, Nathan is already sitting up straighter, folding down the corner of the page and closing the shiny book. Stephen King's The Stand. One of the many fictional books Nathan had collected over the years, whether from passing interest or a gift, and had never gotten around to reading.
It's slid to the side before Heidi is coming to sit down nearby, Nathan shifting to rest his back against the bars and looking, inevitably, towards the image of his children. There's a pause before he's pulling off frameless reading glasses, folding them up, setting them down not so far from the photo.
"Started not sleeping," he reports, honestly. "The dreams aren't getting any better. His way of— " How to explain the abnormal in words? The lines at Nathan's eyes deepen slightly and he finally settles on. "Moving. Reminding me."
—-
It's occasionally occured to Heidi that maybe she's not coming in here because she just doesn't want to run the risk of running into Logan. Most people tend to find reasons to avoid the things that scare them, and high on those lists - one would suppose - would be those people who try to kill you. "Yeah, about that," she says, with a callousness and lack of gentleness that's become a defining characteristic lately. Leaning forward on her knees, Heidi leans forward on her hands. Her chin rests on them as she watches.
It's like addition and division, really. You put enough things together, and you get the right answer. It's just that in this case, they want to end up with two people divided, and one completely eliminated. They weren't kidding when they said you'd use math for everything.
"The night we caught him," she begins. "I was trying to do something. Do you remember what it was? Did Niki talk to you about it at all?"
—-
A lot of things happened that night. Apparently. Nathan only shakes his head, no, he doesn't remember. Save for flashes between excessive pain and delusion, that was ended only with a pulling down into unstoppable unconsciousness. Perhaps that does have something to so with dreams and sleeplessness, in a sense, but its lost on Nathan for now who leaves his response at a head shake and attentive look. If a slightly dull one.
—-
For awhile, Heidi is still, just looking at him over folded hands, gaze barely moving. If his eyes are dull, her's still have that spark in them somewhere. She hasn't give up just yet, even if what she's proposing is somewhere so far out in left field that it could bring an end to the Nathan they know. Still, it's better than Logan.
Finally, taking a breath, she sits up. "Niki got a serum from Mohinder Suresh. It… wasn't enough." Essentially, it wouldn't have done anything anyway; all Heidi can be sure of is that the small amount they had didn't work. That's beside the point, though. They can try to get more. Sure, hitting him over the head might have done the same thing, but it, unfortunately, did not.
"We want to make you forget… Everything. Forget who you are, forget your name, forget Logan. It worked with Niki. Whatever it was that she took, she forgot everything, and when she remembered, Jessica was just gone."
It seems that Heidi's learned a little bit in her time away from Nathan. She has to, though. Questions were about the only weapon she had until someone put a bat into her hand. "We think… It might work for you."
—-
Nathan's expression is neutral, simply listening, gaze wandering on over to the photograph of his children. The ones who, presumably, don't hate him yet. Somewhere through her words, Nathan is picking up his glasses again, flipping them open and settling them expertly onto his face. He's gotten good at handling a lot of things one handedly. (…ladies.)
Then, he draws the book back in front of him, flips it open to the page he'd already had opened. "Niki and Jessica became one person," he says, fingers searching out the line he'd stopped at. "Shared memories, personality, all into the same melting pot." A brown eyed glance Heidi's way, then back down to his book.
"Not interested."
—-
"You know…" she stands, walking over to the window and looking out, leaving Nathan with his book. It's not really that she's angry. She kind of expected this. "That's the problem, though. You separated yourself into two different people, neither of which has any control over the other. You put them together, and you're one whole person. Nathan, it's either that, or you black out and end up — " She pauses, deciding at the last possible moment not to drill it into him. This is something that might almost appeal to Logan more than Nathan. Talk the 'bad' side into a compromise where he won't vanish completely, and she might be all set. But no, this should be Nathan's decision.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, pressing her hands against the window. It's cool at the moment. The sun set hours ago. "You're not two different people, though. You're two sides of the same person. You bring that together, and you never have to worry about hurting anyone like you have ever again."
—-
His elbow against his knee and hand up to cup his chin, Nathan keeps his eyes trained downwards. A teenage move in many ways, but he also genuinely does want to know where the old woman Abigail went wandering amongst the wolves and weasels in the corn fields.
And he doesn't want to think about this, really. Nathan's also not going to stay completely silent, her words registering to him anyway and his usual nature to talk back forcibly taking the matter out his hands. "You'd be married to him," he mutters.
—-
As she faces the window, she scowls. This cuts deep lines in her face where it's scarred, though the expression becomes more neutral by the time she turns around to face him again. After some thought, she sits next to him on the bed, close enough to lean against him. She's not exactly relaxed, but the contact is there.
"Who are you?" she asks. It's kind of rhetorical, but at the same time, she seems to be waiting for an answer. "I think… everyone can surprise themselves once in awhile. I never would have— It just got to a point for me where I had a choice to act or not act. And if I hadn't done anything, I think maybe I'd be in the same position you are."
Maybe Heidi did go a little crazy for awhile, but she never kept anything in. If she was angry, she yelled. If she was sad, she cried. And if she felt like kicking the crap out of Nathan…
…Well.
"You're one person, Nathan. Stop thinking of yourself as a 'you' and a 'him.' I'd be married to Nathan Petrelli, just like I always have been. He'd just be far less emotionally constipated."
—-
The contact is there and it makes Nathan go still. Not as though he were moving around a lot before, but he's certainly isn't going to now. Despite himself and the wariness that slams steel through his bones as if he couldn't move if he tried, Nathan doesn't tell her to get away. Back up from the glass. His hand settles on the page he's reading, or was reading.
He snorts. "You're right, Logan has a way of really expressing himself." It's mumbled out, the hand at his chin moving to rub wearily at his face. "Who am I? I'm not a sociopath. Or even half of one."
—-
Given her own posture and stiff shoulders, Heidi doesn't exactly trust Nathan to remain himself at the moment. She's practically on the edge of her seat, ready to jump up at any moment. It'd be exceptionally strange-looking to the casual observer.
Heidi knows Nathan's not being difficult, either. She's asking him to make what might be one of the hardest decisions he's ever had to make, and it'd be just awesome if she had something profound to say to make the decision easier, but there's nothing.
And it probably doesn't need to be said what would happen if this isn't fixed soon. He gets himself locked inside a padded cell for the rest of his life where he can neither hurt nor love anyone ever again. Her eyes look downward at the floor. "You can't really be half a sociopath. I mean, if Logan were a person, he'd be one. What am I, though?" Truth be told, she would have killed him if she could have. That doesn't make her like Logan, though. It makes her someone who was too angry to be involved at the time. She shouldn't have been there. Now? She feels guilty about it, now that the anger's died down considerably and she can actually look at him again. "What do you want?"
—-
"A lot of things. A new car. Early retirement." He eases back against the end of the bed, slouched there and ignoring his open book, now, one leg curled more than the other. His glasses are taken off once more and tossed across the bedspread. No more reading. "A night's sleep. I don't know what I'm going to be like if— what you're talking about works. Niki— "
Nathan sighs, head tipping back a fraction. "Ever think she's just putting on a brave face?"
—-
Niki. Heidi didn't know her before this. Well, really, she did in passing. The blonde therapist who met Nathan in Las Vegas, though there was never a name to go with the face. There still isn't conclusively on Heidi's part, though she suspects. As Niki is both blonde and has admitted that she has done this more than once, it's not completely impossible to put everything together.
In kind of seems so unimportant now, though, like their lives have moved out of the realm of things like that completely. It's just something that occured, like a car accident. It happened, and you move on.
"You'll need a new car," she says with the slightest note of humour in her voice. It's subtle, but not so much that Nathan wouldn't pick up on it. They crashed the last one.
It's awhile before Heidi answers the question. "I don't know, Nate. Honestly, I can't imagine her being happier having to deal with two personalities seperately. At least they're together now. I'm— " Shifting enough so that she can meet his eye, Heidi realises that this is probably as close as she's been to him in a very long time. " — Not saying it'll be easy. You'll probably have a lot to get used to. You can do it, though, if you want to."
—-
Want is such a strong word. Nathan directs a look back at Heidi when she manages to meet his gaze, tilting his head in some agreement. There is certainly nothing fun about being divided down the middle. Probably when he whittles away at the obstacle he's set up between himself and agreement is—
Pride. But then again, there isn't much pride in this either. "Therapy's going to be a bitch. I just don't want to turn into something that's still too dangerous for you or the boys."
—-
The worst part of all this is… There's no guarantee that anything they do will actually work. It could kill him, or it could cure him. "Too dangerous," she finally breathes with a small chuckle. Right, too dangerous. Well, he could be. He has been. "Let's talk about that for a second now." Heidi props her feet up on the bed, not entirely relaxed, but moreso, now that she's been sitting next to Nathan for awhile sans-Logan. "Just because you have the potential to hurt someone doesn't mean you're going to. This could give you the choice. Nate, when you're Logan, you don't have that choice. You just do the worst thing possible. I…"
It's painful to think about what she has become, actually. "I had a choice. I could have stuck with the plan, but I found the bat in the closet. I was mad." Not her proudest moment. "But it was still my choice. It's not something I was forced to do. Will you at least put a little more consideration into this?"
She has to stand eventually. The proximity was getting to be too much. "I had to bring it up," she says. Leaving the picture where it's at, she moves the chair back a little bit, so the room is just about how she left it. "I'll be in the front room. Just call me if you need anything." Water. Walkies. Whatever.
—-
Whiskey? Maybe not. Nathan just nods, his hand drifting back towards his book about the apocolypse and how much worse the world could be, and how much freedom there is in letting everything go. It's why, when she turns the corner, the movement is aborted, and Nathan is left watching out the window.
Doubtful padded cells have those.