2007-03-21: What Are Friends For?

Starring:

Peter_icon.gif Elena_icon.gif Eric_icon.gif Ramon_icon.gif Adam_icon.gif Jane_icon.gif

Summary: A continuation of the events in Papa Was Warned, Chiquita. Peter calls to talk to Elena, finds out she's in Mount Sinai Hospital, and hurries to her side. The two sneak into the OR wing to check on Eric, and run into Ramon and Adam. Ends with a phone call to Jane in response to a voice mail.

Date It Happened: March 21, 2007

What Are Friends For?


Mount Sinai Hospital

The midnight hour in the night before flew by in a haze of color. All she could remember really was climbing onto the ambulance and watching as the EMTs try to resuscitate Eric while they stripped his shirt off and attempted to stem the bleeding. It was going on attempt three when they finally brought out the defibrillators. After four pumps they had been able to bring him back, but he remained critical. All she knew after that was being shuffled towards the ER and told to wait. She remembers a nurse in blue scrubs who knelt in front of her and tried to ask her which family member to contact for Eric. She had to tell them she didn't know, and save for the fact that he had siblings and that he lived in an apartment in Greenwich Village, she didn't know much about his relations. But even in that haze, she has no idea what she actually said.

Her father had been once again sent out of state for RTS. She had left him a message. It was eight o'clock in the morning, he was probably still asleep. She did the same with Drake. She was running on over 24 hours without sleep, and she wanted to so badly but she had to stay awake in case Eric's folks were contacted and came. She had to tell them, and of how sorry she was.

Her phone was ringing. She glances at the cherry red thing on the tabel by her side. Caller ID: Peter was calling her. She only knew one. She rolls her head back and closes her eyes, thumping it over and over again against the wall. She didn't want to talk to anyone else right now. But it could be important. She had to take the call, despite everything.

She picks up. Her voice is hoarse and dry. "…Peter?"

—-

The Petrelli Mansion

Not too far away, but not close either, Peter's using his cellphone. The Petrelli Mansion couldn't be called completely quiet in the early hours of morning, with a maid cleaning up around the house and the guards keeping a look out for tall young men fitting Sylar's description. For the young man who's only had a little over a week of freedom, though… things are quiet right now. Thankfully so. Not that the firecracker of a girlfriend he has isn't welcome, but sometimes having time to himself is necessary— such as right now. The digital images of the Isaac Mendez paintings are spread out around him in one of the many offices of the mansion, and a notepad and pencil sit in his lap.

For the last hour he's been trying to sketch something, anything— trying to let the images come to him and just start drawing themselves— he's yet to even get a stick figure, though. Nothing's coming— maybe nothing will. He'd hoped for a clue— a sign, something to point the way they need to go. Maybe tell them where to find Sylar. Something, anything. But no such luck.

With the thoughts of the paintings and what 'they' need to do— he can't help but think back on the last day and realize he hasn't called someone just yet. It might be too late now, but…

Setting the notepad aside, he picks up his throw away phone and dials Elena Gomez's number.

"Elena, sorry I'm calling so early. I hope wake you up or anything?" Best to start with polite greetings, first. And, she does sound tired and dry— could be just woken up voice.

—-

Mount Sinai Hospital

"It's….it's okay…." Elena says, lifting a hand to rub her face. "I was awake." She shifts a bit on her chair, a blanket given to her by the nurse in the blue scrubs from the night before tossed carelessly over her shoulders. She hasn't even changed from the blood-soaked shirt from last night. And her coat was in strips, so the warm blanket was welcome. "What's up…? Did something happen? You doing okay?" She was parched all of a sudden. She looks around to see if there were any water coolers around. But this was the ER. It was already crowded. A crying teenager has just been wheeled past her in a gurney, holding a broken leg. She had almost forgotten how dismal a hospital really is when you're stuck in the right place.

The PA system activates in the ER. "Dr. Mercer, please report to operating room one," says a crisp, polished, no-nonsense female voice. "Dr. Mercer, please report to operating room one…."

She tries to shut out the background noise. "Rough days," she tells Peter. There was almost a smile there, almost. They both agreed on that the first night they shook hands at Starbucks.

—-

The Petrelli Mansion

"I just wanted to call and talk to you about Jane," Peter says. From his voice, he's concerned, but the questioning quality in the tone implies the concern is not about the topic he's bringing up. Some of the sound filtering through the phone, especially her voice, is bothering him. It hasn't been a rough day for him, yet— in fact that last few have been surprisingly quiet, but as soon as he hears the PA system and particularly the words going over the PA system—

He'd been sitting down with the pictures and the notepad. Now he's standing up, reaching to shove the pictures back into a stack so that they can be dropped back into the folder safely.

"Are you in the hospital? What happened? Are you okay?" Concern for his friends is one thing that no one's ever been able to take from him. Doesn't matter he only met her a week ago.

—-

Mount Sinai Hospital

"I visited her earlier this week," Elena says, closing her eyes and trying to remember. "…from what I found out, she's….-familiar- that she has…that she's special." She can't exactly talk about that in public, especially in a crowded place. "But it was so weird, Peter. Her apartment was intact. Usually when she's upset like she has been in the last week, she lets it out and breaks glass. Not this time. She doesn't remember much. Eric…" Her voice wavers, but she does her best to steel it. "Eric and I bought her dinner before I headed home. I couldn't…tell her much while she was in her apartment. I told you the reason why before when we last saw each other." She had mentioned to Peter than a Company agent lived in that building. She didn't want to take any chances. "So I played dumb, and… I felt so -bad- about it, but I didn't want to risk anything…"

She pauses when Peter picks up on the background noise. Unwillingly, tears start to sting her eyes again. She bites back a sob, hunching over a bit as she shakes her head. "No…I'm not hurt. I'm okay, it's just…" She clasps her hand over her eyes. "Oh god, Peter. It's all a mess. It's my fault. It's my fault. I should've stayed away, I should've…"

—-

The Petrelli Mansion

"I know why you couldn't tell her," Peter says worriedly, knowing that there's a chance he put her back in danger. However… "I already told her. Saw her two nights ago, at Jack's bar. Went to talk to him, and she was there. Couldn't keep lying to her, when she has every right to know what she did for me, what all of you did for me."

As he explains this, though, he's already starting to get moving, picking up the pencil and writing a quick note to leave downstairs for his mother, brother and Elle. Whatever is going on, picking up on the sound over the PA had been more than enough to tell him he's needed elsewhere— and her reaction to the question he asked only solidifies it.

Using one hand, he slides the pictures into the folder, and carries them, and the note with him out of the room, holding the phone steadily against his ear, "Elena, calm down. What— Where are you?" Though he wants to know above all else what happened, the completed question's the most important question right now, as he drops the short note on the table and goes towards his coat. "What hospital are you at?"

—-

Mount Sinai Hospital

"Yeah she…she says she has a paying gig now at the Den…" Elena says, but it's getting difficult to talk. She knew she shouldn't have answered the phone. But learning about what he passed onto Jane was important. That way she knows what to tell her and what not to tell her. How she could still split her brain in two at the present moment was a miracle through sheer force of will to listen and only that. But she sucks in a deep breath. "Thank…thank you for telling me, Peter. I r…really appreciate it."

She bites down on her knuckles, squeezing her eyes shut. She can barely hear the other side. "I'm at Mount Sinai. Eric…Eric's in his ninth hour in the OR," she gurgles. "I don't know how to reach his parents. He never talked much about his family. It…there was a man and he knew Papa and he said my father was doing things he wasn't supposed to…and he had a gun. He had a gun. There was blood everywhere. He flatlined when he got here but the EMTs br… brought him back…"

She's just babbling now. Bits and pieces that don't fit together in a chronological order. She was tired, her brain isn't firing straight, and she keeps trying not to cry and sound -too- pathetic over the receiver, so she sounds hoarse in some areas, and clipped in others. But one sentence kept repeating over and over. She should have stayed away. Regret was always a bitter pill to swallow, especially when the subject had little chance of coming back for her to be able to say she was sorry.

—-

The Petrelli Mansion

Mt. Sinai's not far, still in upper Manhattan, but even then…

With the phone still held in hand, Peter risks putting it down long enough to throw his coat on when he reaches the closet, putting it back against his eat as soon as he's got that arm through the sleeve. He might have missed some details, but he caught enough. Eric, the boy he'd met briefly, is the one in the hospital. Heart stopped. Gun. Gunshot wounds. "Elena, Elena calm down. It's okay, I can be there in…" By taxi it would take at least fifteen minutes— twenty with the traffic of this time of day. But above the sky, even if he's risking being spotted— He's never tried to fly while invisible. It might work. "I'll be there in five minutes."

And his brother will kill him if he's spotted— this is too important. She shouldn't be there alone. She really should not be there alone.

—-

Mount Sinai Hospital

She is brought out of her preoccupation with the surgery at the last words he says. "….what?" Elena says, sitting up and wiping her eyes rapidly. "Wh….but you're supposed to be lying low. You shouldn't….not in a public place and it's so crowded here." Their first, and hopefully last, foray at the Company facility had resulted in capture of -half- their collective group, they risked capture to just break Peter Petrelli out of his at-first self-imposed prison. He shouldn't risk himself. Not now. Not after Jane and everything.

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head to clear it. But she was exhausted. "There's really not much to do but wait," she tells him, hearing the door open on his end. "I don't…I'm not family so the doctors aren't telling me anything yet…you're probably more familiar with how long these things take than me. I'm not al….allowed to venture near any one of the ORs…"

She sags heavily on her chair. "You're…doing okay though, right? Nothing catastrophic or anything? Didn't come across anyone who could make an asteroid crash into the atmosphere?" The joke is half-hearted, but it was an effort, damn it!

—-

The Petrelli Mansion

"I know the risks, Elena. I've been testing them for days. I'm staying at my family home in the city. They could have picked me up ten times and they haven't. You're not putting me in any danger, I promise," Peter says, forgetting the scarf and most of the rest he would normally wear out in the cool air of the city, and just trying to button his coat up with the pictures secured in an interior pocket. "You shouldn't be alone right now." And with that— she'll hear the call end and should she try to call him back, his phone is off. Secured in his jeans pocket.

Getting /into/ the air is harder than it sounds, but with the determination to be there for her as she had been there for him… that helps propel him toward, especially when he thinks of his brother being in the hospital, or how long it took for him to get to his brother's side that night his wife had her accident.

The invisibility part didn't work as well, but if anyone did see it— it'd look like a blur of black in the middle of the city skies. No one believes in Superman.

Mount Sinai Hospital

The time between the phone call cuts off, and his entrance into the door of the emergency room portion of the hospital would actually be a little less than five. The flight he uses functions best at high speeds, after all. Take off and landing took more time than the actual burst of flight. Hurrying inside, he looks around, trying to find the young hispanic girl who worked at Starbucks, and walking right over to her. Laying low? Not happening.

—-

"Peter— Peter?" Elena blinks when the line is disconnected. She tries the phone again, and the throw-away phone tells her that the number she was dialing is out of range. ….if she only knew how true that statement was considering the younger Petrelli was tearing through the skies like a bullet, she would've laughed. But all she was now was exhausted. She slowly flips the phone shut, and she cradles the cherry-red thing in her hands, hunched over on the chair and staring at the floor.

She rubs her eyes. Red rimmed and sore, she was amazed that she didn't look homeless. She managed to look somewhat presentable with her matted hair pulled back from her face, and the blanket hid the fact that her shirt was saturated in someone else's blood from holding Eric to her until the ambulance came. She herself is, however, unhurt. And when Peter arrives, the ER's sliding doors automatically parting for him, she can be found a bit further down. She looks up - despite her healthy tan, she looks pale.

She manages to give him a small smile of greeting though. Rubbing her eyes once more, she takes a deep breath and moves to stand. She keeps the blanket on her, but he can probably observe grass stains and dark, rusty spots trailing down one leg of her jeans. And whenever he approaches her, she looks up at him.

"….coffee?" is all she can say. There's a machine nearby that dispensed the cheap stuff. But when the word is out, she lowers her head. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She was on the verge of doing both, considering she was so addled.

—-

The blood on her clothes, the state of her skin tone, the way she looks… That drives home everything he'd heard in her tone of voice. Peter approaches and kneels down in front of her, instead of taking a seat her her side. "No, I've already had some this morning," he admits, glancing towards the machine. That'd be about on par with what he'd had at the hotel, he's sure, and the coffee in the Petrelli house has been a bonus. Not beating her coffee at Starbucks, of course, even if he found it difficult to drink. Not sure he could drink right now, either.

Reaching out to place a hand on he arm, he tries to look up into her face as he speaks softly, "Can you tell me what happened to Eric?" Voice soft and empathic, he's not slipping into nurse voice so much as concerned friend. That's actually the same tones he'd tend to use when doing his job, too, but he befriended his patient and his patient's family too.

—-

She glances down to her lap, and she nods wordlessly. But despite the comforting hand on her arm she's silent for a long time. Gathering her thoughts, Elena takes a couple of deep breaths, so she can speak coherently. And then she'll tell Peter what she remembers. She left the NYU library at eleven, having lost track of time studying. She had to go to a different bus stop to catch a late one that dropped her off to the closest point as possible to her father's apartment. She tells Peter about the chase, the heavy set man in the cap and the newspaper. She tells him about hiding in an alley until Eric called and alerted the perpetrator to her location. And then she tells him of running again. She speaks deliberately, not looking him in the eye. Her face twists at the memory. But she goes on.

"I ran back to the campus because I knew there would be people there. I mean, no one who was about to commit a crime would do it with witnesses right? But it was late…we were the only ones out. There was a party going on in the frat house but everyone else was inside. I ran into him, I almost thought he was a mugger or something…" Her face twists again. "Next thing I knew…"

She tells Peter about the cryptic message. Whatever happened, it was because of something her father did, or was doing, that displeased whoever it was. "It was so weird. It was like…he didn't care. Like he was some kind of robot, only human. He sounded off, the guy. And Papa was…he was acting high-strung last week too. He wanted to know more about…what…" She gestures to the side, hoping Peter would get it. "So he could be…prepared. And he brought home two guns. But he hasn't said anything to me. I don't know what's going on. A couple of weeks ago he went home, brooding after some trip upstate. He was listening to his phone over and over again. But I don't know what he was listening to."

She looks down at her hands. Her fingernails were dirty. "He's in Rhode Island right now so I can't ask him…I left him a message but he's probably still sleeping…" She buries her face in her hands. "I had a long night, I'm sorry," sh tells Peter quietly.

—-

Twice in the chest. Peter knows all too well how it feels to see someone you love shot in the chest, twice, when someone else had been trying to kill you instead. Simone never even made it as far as being able to talk, much less to the hospital to get revived and worked on. The hand on her arm tightens throughout the description of the event, but he just nods, listening, and looking up with pained eyes. Shared pain. Empathic pain.

"It's okay… Really— it's okay," he says to her apology, reaching up and smoothing her hair with his hands. An affectionate gesture, to be sure, but in many ways she's right up there with his niece already in terms of what she deserves. "You're not alone at least. You can ask your father when he calls, or try again in a little while." There's a lot that he doesn't fully understand about what's going on with this, but he has gotten one thing… "So this isn't because of the Company?" From the sounds, likely it'll be chalked up as a mugging on campus gone wrong, the young man will likely be pegged as the hero he should be, if the press even hears of it at all. If the Company was involved— he doubts she would still be sitting here, or remember what happened.

Shifting his hands down to her wrists, he touches tries to pull her hands back so he can see her face. "Do you want to find out what's going on with Eric?" With no family present, no one who they can give information to to filter to the poor girl, she's left in the dark. But there are ways to get information— even if they're not entirely legal.

—-

Empathy. She sees that plain as day. Elena looks up from her hands to watch him, the brief flicker of pain passing equally dark eyes. Petrelli was an Italian name, she spent days in Little Italy enough to know that. A brief note of curiosity is registered in her mind. Part of her believes that Peter may have seen or experienced the same thing. Though that would be too personal, and even now she knows she shouldn't ask. But at the tightening of his hand on her arm, she nods and lifts her own hand to rest on top of him to squeeze. There is, at the very least, strength in her grip. The girl will be fine, once she's out of her haze.

When he smoothes her hair back though, she can't help but hold back the tears again. Her eyes looked so red. She nods while her head is in his hands. "Yes and know…I don't know. This isn't the first time this has happened. I've had messengers like this before. There was another one. A girl that Eric knew. There was a gun too. She said something about Papa and suffering the consequences, but Eric swears that wasn't like her. I think…I think he's on to Papa." She takes a deep breath to look at Peter again. She could at least look him in the face. "He's been trying to find the man who killed Mama. She was murdered three years ago." She lowers her voice so it stays between them. "By a man who could tell people what to do and he could do it. Someone was helping us for a while….planting a note on me, planting a book in a local bookstore. Ever since then Papa hasn't rested. He finally found hope that something could be done, you know?"

She closes her eyes. "That someone was Company. It was your Haitian. That's why when I said…that he was a good man, I wasn't just saying that to make you feel better. It's true. He's been helping my family. He says the one we're looking for had been taken and held by the Company too. But he escaped, just like you and that pyromaniac who took me hostage. He said he'll tell us more once it's time. But I don't know what that means."

She lets her hands get taken away from her, and she nods. "I asked about an hour ago. He's still in surgery. They won't tell me how he is. I don't know what's going on in there."

—-

There would be a different, yet somehow similar, story that could be told from his side of things. Not just because he's Italian, either. There's plenty of stories that could be told by Italians, but his family happened to be on the more prestigious side of things… even if their father worked to defend a known mobster. Then again, maybe a Petrelli having a girlfriend die by gunshot wounds wouldn't have been that difficult to picture.

Anyway… As more details come out, the death of her mother at the hands of someone with special abilities, and the Company's involvement, he's nodding, listening to what she says without comment, until she mentions the Haitian. That causes him to blink noticeably. "Are you sure?" The gunshots in his direction while he escaped made him doubt the man's good nature. They wouldn't have hurt him, but they would have hurt the young woman he carried. "I didn't meet anyone with that ability," That he /knows/ of. "So I can't help you— but if he can just tell people what to do…" he trails off, not really sure how else to explain this. There's really a lot more to it than he could possibly know, he's sure.

"There are ways I can find out what's happening with Eric, though," he does say, feeling a little more capable of giving assistance in this. "Two ways, really— one— I'm not too good at, but it could work too. Either we can go back there invisible and try to sneak a peek at his chart, or listen in on the doctors… You'd have to be really quiet, though, or— you can invite the nurse over and ask her again, and I can try to read her mind, see if she thinks of something she knows she's not allowed to say." Yeah, neither of which are doing much for patient confidentiality, but sometimes bending rules is necessary just to give someone peace of mind.

—-

Perhaps one day that story could be retold. When it came to this entire saving the world business, Peter and Hiro were the consummate veterans. Nathan Petrelli too. Those were the three she knew of who helped stopped New York from blowing up months ago. Experiencing all this now, given her almost childish determination to do what was needed, she forgot one important thing in her quest to do good, and that was the overall cost of doing so. And what sucked about it was that the cost might not even be hers to bear. She could handle it if it was her own, maybe. But someone else's? Eric's family? If he died on the table, she knew his parents would resent her for life. No parent, after all, should outlive their children.

"I'm sure," Elena says softly. "I could never forget him. He visited me one other time before, though I don't remember it. I'm just relying on people I trust who had been there in the same place I'd been visited. But he left me a note. He was trying to help Papa. I don't know what's going on in the organization but for some reason he's…kind of like your Elle." Since Elle told the public that Peter was her boyfriend. "Helping other people on the side secretly. I know you said you were shot at by him…but were you really? I just…when you were telling me that I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to compromise him. I need him. Papa needs him. So please….please don't say anything about him?"

The last is a quiet plea.

At the last, she looks at him, her eyes wide. "…you can read minds?" She's seen him turn invisible before. But he was a telepath too? But this last particular one seems to strike a chord with her. The reasons why, she's not saying. "…which one are you better at?" she asks quietly. The last thing she needs is to lead Peter into an ability he isn't too proficient with, botch it, and then get on Big Brother's radar about it.

—-

In saving the world, a lot of things were lost. Simone might not have been intrical to saving the world, but she'd been important to Peter. And considering why she was even shot in the first place, who those bullets had been meant for, and why they were being fired… she became a victim of someone's desire to be a hero— to save the world. Not the only casualty, but the one that came to mind at the description of what happened, and especially… her own self-blame.

"I won't say anything. He— the night I escaped, after he tried to shoot me— he stood in my house. Stood right there and let me escape. We both know he could have stopped me, and made everyone forget I'd ever even escaped…" That doesn't mean he wouldn't be wary of the man, but hearing him compared to 'his Elle' and being told that he offered assistance to her… It's certainly enough to make him nod. "I won't say anything." It's a promise, even if he didn't add that particular word.

Though he notices the interest in that particular ability, he doesn't pry as to why she would be so interested. "Rarely. Sometimes it activates itself. Other times— I'm better at the invisibility," he says to answer her question. "I spent a lot longer with the man who had invisibility. I don't know if length of time spent with someone increases /my/ use of the ability or not, but… I'm a lot better at invisibility. I used it to hide the first few days out— with Elle." So he's well versed in walking around with someone else while invisible.

—-

"Thank you," Elena says quietly, taking both his hands and squeezing them. She takes another deep breath, and she wipes at her eyes defiantly yet again. "I'm a crybaby," she tells Peter, almost petulantly, but mostly self-deprecatingly, and she gives him a rueful smile. "I'm sorry for looking like a mess. I know you're worried, I don't mean to make it worse." She releases his fingers after a moment, and she leans back to push her hair away from her own face and looks around. She looks better at least. Now that there was action to be had. Self blame couldn't be helped. She shouldn't have dragged him into this. Any of this. All because she had a burgeoning crush on him. It was irresponsible. She was 18. She wasn't a high schooler anymore.

"Okay," she says, looking at Peter right in the eye and gives him a nod. "If you're serious….if you really want to risk it. Let's do this." She glances at the ER - there was one main waiting area where they are, and two hallways on either side. "The far right leads to the elevators that go up to the ORs," she says quietly. "I saw the doctor I was talking to earlier go up that way. They mentioned something about taking him to the seventh floor….but I don't know much else. I don't know which OR in the seventh floor. But I know a Dr. Hopkins is overseeing his procedure."

—-

"Someone you care about just got shot, Elena," Peter says in a rather intense manner, completely serious, but still empathic. "I think anyone would cry and look like a mess." Only once he's said that does her smile get returned briefly, one side of his mouth twitching upwards to give more of a hint of the return than a full smile. Now isn't so much the time to be smiling happily.

The agreement for the plan of invisibility is all he really needs to reach out and take her hand, "You'll have to hold onto me, and be as quiet as possible, so once we start we won't really be able to talk, unless there's a lot of noise to drown us out." Carrying on a conversation when invisible works best in crowded streets. No one cares where the noise comes from. The same could be true for a busy hospital hallway, but when actually sneaking around somewhere they are not supposed to be…

With her hand held, he'll lead her to her feet, let her gather her things, and then start towards a restroom, as if taking her there to get cleaned up. Once they're /mostly/ out of sight of people who might be watching them, he asks, "Ready?"

She won't even notice the transition, really, though she might get a sense that somethings changed. Most noticeable differences come in the form of reflections. They no longer show up on any reflective surfaces. Once invisible, they can move back towards the elevator, and wait for someone to get on. At a busy hospital like this, it shouldn't take them long to get to the 7th floor.

—-

The fact that she's acting in a way that's completely normal, from someone who understood, causes Elena to smile hesitantly at Peter. But the moment of weakness fades into a determined, almost stubborn expression. She reaches out and when he takes her hand, she stands up with him. She grabs her things - which aren't much. Just a backpack full of stuff. She slings them on her shoulder, and she's led to the restroom. When he asks if she's ready, she hesistates. She's seen him turn invisible. There's no reason to doubt him. But she can turn invisible too just by holding onto him?

He also said to be quiet, and she tests something. She looks over at him….and like what she does with her father, she thinks AT him. Out loud. Her father had explained to her that surface thoughts were the easiest for him to pick up, when a person is thinking out loud. Ramon doesn't even have to concentrate to listen to it, he just picks it up. Perhaps it will be the same for Peter.

~I'm ready.~ She watches his reaction, and darts a glance quickly before looking at him. She doesn't say anything though. Not out loud. ~Let's go.~

And this is when she 'feels' the change. It's a subtle thing, but considering she's waiting for something to happen, she feels it. It didn't feel like much of an intrusion, she wonders if she could still see herself in a mirror when she's like this. They can test that later. She'll wait for him to lead the way. She had told him where to go - down the hall and make a right and get into the elevators that led into the south wing of the facility.

That area of the ER is crowded. They would have to weave through a lot of things going on. There seems to have been a considerable car accident judging by the murmurs of people who just came in. A small child was crying loudly with a gash on his forehead that needs stitches. The cacophony is all the more worsened by a social worker trying to placate angry, outraged parents by trying to explain that it was standard procedure to call someone from DSS in whenever a child has a suspicious injury. She keeps close to Peter though.

—-

It would seem there's a definite effect there— visible too. Lines of tension suddenly appear around his forehead, eyebrows lowering as if caused by a flinch, a flinch that actually shifts his head a bit to the side… Mind reading, the version he acquired, couldn't be the most normal thing to witness. It evens out after a moment, leaving Peter staring at her in surprise. He'd not even really been trying to read her thoughts, but he had been thinking it would be helpful. The whispering tone of her mental voice is the same as her spoken one, determined. And she did that on purpose. The thoughts don't tell him that so much as her tone, and the way she's watching him.

A smile, followed by a squeeze of her hand, and the invisibility falls over them. Indeed they would have no reflection, and with the possibility of mirrors in the hallway, they'll know this for sure. Right now, though, they have a mission, and he's not completely sure he'll be able to read her mind while invisible. Testing his limits may not be the best idea right now, either. If they get caught— what are they going to do to get out of it besides say they got lost looking for the bathroom?

With the yelling in the south wing of the ER, he sees fit to speak up, looking over at the young girl beside him, able to see each other just as well as if nothing at all were different, and says softly, "You've dealt with mind reading before, haven't you?" Sending his own thoughts isn't really something he knows he's capable of doing, so talking is just how it's going to have to stay for this moment, waiting at the elevators for someone who's planning to ride up. If no one shows up soon, he could just push the buttom and hope the yelling acts as enough of a distraction.

—-

She squeezes his hand back. Determination fuels her grip - it was sturdy and sure, despite the look of her bloodshot eyes. Elena, tired as she was, finds some renewed strength with throwing her efforts in pulling off the task at hand. Because if Peter got caught, it might be disastrous. While he said the Petrelli Mansion has so far kept him safe, he might not be outside of its walls. Especially if he's found skulking around a hospital leading a teenaged girl in tow. She walks with a purpose, but her steps are careful to mirror his own. She moves when he moves. She follows his lead. She had already risked Eric. She didn't want to risk Peter too.

She watches the reflective bits of wall in the ER, her eyes wide. Despite it all she can't help but be fascinated. Invisibility. She knew boys in high school who would kill for the ability just to sneak into the girl's room after gym was over. She's heard the talk. This was a more serious situation, however. And a good part of her is grateful that Peter is obliging her. When he talks, she looks at him, startled as to how perceptive he was. He could feel her grip on his hand tensing a little bit. But she's trusted him so far. Just as he's trusted her. And wasn't she the one who gets so frustrated when the older ones wouldn't just come clean with her?

"….you can say the Force is strong in my family," she tells him quietly, throwing the movie reference in there for good measure, quirking a tiny smile. It's halfhearted, but sincere. "Just like it seems to be in yours. Drake told me about Claire the other day. About what she could do. It explains….how you're with us still." She falls silent when they're close to the elevators. She nudges him a bit, looking over her shoulder and seeing a trio of doctors with their white coats move in.

"Can you believe this…?" one of them mutters. "Just how many cars were involved in that pileup…"
"Seven, including a schoolbus."
"Jesus christ…"
"Yeah, half of them don't have insurance either. Hopefully that new Cain hospital'll do something about that. I don't know if I can handle turning away another group of parents just because they don't have insurance…"

One of the doctors hits the elevator button up. They wait for a moment for the elevator to descend, and when the metal doors slide open, the trio heads inside, and leaves the space open for them to enter for a few seconds.

—-

Not so much a matter of perception, but having told a few people some of his abilities, most wouldn't follow through on things so quickly, or with such success. They'd not even turned invisible yet, so there'd been no reason to test that. Peter didn't intend to get the answer he gets, though. She may notice a hint of a guilty smile, before he nods in response, "Claire's really special. And my brother— Not sure about the rest of my family, though."

That's something he's been speculating on, but he hasn't quite worked up the nerve to ask his mother yet. He wants the answer to be no quite a bit more than he'd admit, just to get her off the list of possible victims in that painting. Not that he wants anyone to go through what's in that painting.

Glancing towards the talking doctors, he can't help but flinch at the idea of those children, and the whole pileup. Can't save everyone, can't fix everything… Cain hospital? He'll have to look into what that is… but for now— they have to hurry and get inside the elevator with the trio of doctors. Trying to move into a spot that is not being occupied, and hopefully won't be occupied anytime in the near future by anyone. It's a good thing that hospital elevators tend to be fairly large.

—-

"I'm starting to think perhaps my other younger siblings are," Elena says softly. "But I'm not so certain. Eric…when he…the little he talked about his family, he said none of his siblings could do what he could do. But…that could be something he's just not aware of. He mentioned freaking out one of his sisters." She watches his expression then, indecision and contemplation mingling together on the handsome profile. She wondered what the look was for, did she say something wrong? She doesn't say anything though, now that it looks like they were getting a ride up.

She hears mention of the Cain hospital. Having met Jaden Cain recently, she can't help but bite back a groan. The man, if he remembered out of his crazy-seeming high the other day, was supposed to meet her at Starbucks today for a possible job prospect. Unfortunately she had called Sam to let her know she wasn't coming in today. And she never told her why. She felt guilty, worrying one of the few good, 'normal' friends she had left.

Stepping inside, the elevator was roomy. Since the elevator led up to the major operating rooms in Mount Sinai's south wing, the place needed to build it so it would have room for wheels-on stretchers to take patients and their glucose IVs up with them. Not to mention the hospital staff milling about. The elevator stops at the fourth floor, but the trio of doctors don't step out of it. When the elevators open yet again, they admit two nurses and an orderly. While people are moving in, she chances it. She reaches out quickly and presses the 7th floor button while no one is looking or paying attention, while the new group is stepping in and while the doctors are still conversing about the accident.

He would feel her grip tighten a bit when she does this. Her more ballsy self bled through when it came to people she cared about.

The elevator takes them further up. The doctors get off at the fifth floor, and the nurses don't go out until the eighth floor. The orderly steps out of the sixth floor….and when the elevator inexplicably stops on the seventh, the doors swinging open for them, she lets Peter lead. He was the Invisible Man after all.

"Huh," one of the nurses comments, looking around for the person who hit the seventh floor button outside of the elevator. "…that's weird. Guess another elevator came up early."

—-

"Could be they just haven't realized it yet, too," Peter adds in the same soft tones, looking around for a moment while the chattering continues around them. "I didn't until last year, and I was twenty six." Which would mean that some younger people might not know they can do anything until much later in life. Maybe. Or could be he was just a late bloomer, in evolved terminology. His brother took even longer, though, but he has no idea about that. With how much he hides things, he might not have known his brother could fly if he hadn't leaped off a building and made him tell. By threatening to jump off again.

The guilty look— well, that'd been because he hadn't wanted her to reveal anything personal. An acknowledgement that she did it on purpose, and knew how, had been more what he'd been looking for.

With the extra space in the elevator, they still needed to shift around, and he nods encouragingly when she presses the buttom. Leading the way, as the Invisible Man, they step into the hallway of the seventh floor, and get to start the search for the doctor she'd heard mentioned. As this isn't exactly a visitor friendly section of the hospital, there's not as much in the way of signs or maps, but at least they can keep an ear out for the doctor's name, or mention of a gunshot victim.

But they might need to be quiet, and step lightly now.

—-

"I know…." Elena murmurs softly. "I found that the age varies. Drake found his out as early as fourteen. Eric is 19 and he's known about his for….I think three years now, maybe more. I just found out what I could do, but I could've been using it as early as sixteen without realizing it. And then there's Jane. She's in her twenties but I think she only discovered hers a few months ago…." Maybe late-bloomerness was genetic too. She had absolutely no idea when her father started having his episodes, but it was definitely before this year.

She steps out with him, falling silent. She'll follow him where he leads, still fascinated over this new invisibility thing. No one bat eyelashes in their direction, and a few of the staff even tried to walk through them if it weren't for the fact that Peter kept to the sides and away from incoming traffic. She looks around, compared to the ER, this place was much quieter. Disembodied noises will probably be heard a little more easily.

There are rooms that lead into the ORs. A few have their red lights on at the top of the door, indicating that there are a few procedures in progress. There is a nurses desk in the middle of the semi-circular space, with two people manning the desk, one man, and one woman. So far, it's quiet, until….

The code blue alarm sounds from one of the ORs to the right and back of them. It not only signals that traffic will be pouring in their direction soon - Peter would know this, given his experience as a nurse, but that something just went wrong in the room the alarm is coming from. One of the attendings pushes open the door, yanking his mask down and dressed in the familiar, green scrubs of an OR doctor. His gloved fingers, gloves he would most have to change later when entering in, are soaked in horrifying, yet familiar scarlet fluid as he calls out urgently. "Get the paddles in here now!" The sound of the alarm coming from inside of the room is almost piercing. "Walker surgery, stat!"

The nurse is on the horn in an instant. A pair of orderlies can be seen racing down the hall to assist, hearing the code blue.

The look on Elena's face is so ill she looked like her stomach could go in any second.

—-

Maneuvering around people isn't too difficult, as long as they remember not to stop for too long, and to always check the hallway behind them. Peter's used to walking around invisible. While he doesn't much bother when walking through the busy New York streets, a nurse would notice if she walked into someone and couldn't see a thing. The alarm draws his eyes, and he quickly grabs the young woman and begins pulling her close to the wall, as close as possible, to avoid getting run over. Increased activity means increased noise, so he isn't quite as worried about stepping too loud.

Still, at the mention of the name, the look on her face, what this particular situation means… he puts his other hand on the one he's already holding, and says in a whisper, sure to be drowned out from carrying by the alarm and activity, "It'll be okay…" But there's no way to be sure of that, is there? Glancing away towards the room, he frowns, trying to figure out someway they could help. If only someone had told him about his niece and how her blood healed his brother…

Looking back, he asks, "Do you think your ability might be able to help him?" There's a lot that could be done with body chemistry, but he's not sure how helpful an untrained ability would be. But he also knows what it was like to watch someone die in his arms. If he could have done anything, anything at all… Maybe he shouldn't have brought her here… "Do you want to go back?"

—-

She looks at the OR, her face ashen, but she looks at Peter determinedly. The encouragement seems to bolster her up some, and Elena nods at him. It's a grim sort of determination, on the line of her mouth. "It will be," she says quietly. "I have to believe it." Her mother's crucifix seemed to burn a hole in the dip of her collarbones when it rested. "The greatest of miracles always ran on Hope, after all." She grips his hand tightly, and looks over at the OR. "Thinking about it now I think maybe that's why Hiro wanted to break you out of prison. Even now you say that things'll be okay no matter how grim it looks, or how much….blood you just saw. Maybe that's your real power, Peter."

She falls silent then, watching the defibrillators get wheeled in. She could almost hear the charging. She could hear the surgeons inside barking orders. She is tense. She's gripping his hand unconsciously, like he was a lifepreserver or a cane, or a wall that's keeping her from keeling over from the strain. But she gives her head a hard shake.

"No," she says, taking a breath. "It was my fault. I have to stay. I was irresponsible….God, I was so childish. I was so stupid. All this stuff….I knew I didn't know what I was doing but I blundered through anyway hoping whatever I could find could help. I didn't think about the costs. I thought any cost was worth paying. But I never realized someone else might have to pay. The only reason why he's in this is because of me."

She sucks in another breath. She looks over at the door across from the OR. It is open, and it looks empty. Realizing they're whispering in an open hallway, she nods over in that direction.

—-

The odd observation of his power makes Peter look at her quietly, expression serious, but no argument rising to the surface. Hope— that's definitely something he's always tried to hold onto. The amount of blood definitely makes it difficult to assume everything will be okay automatically, but even if things take a turn for the worst… He'd been a hospice nurse. His patients were slated to die, where no one could do anything. Senseless death, though— murder… Those could have been avoided. Those could be stopped. They don't need to happen. This, however… he saved her life, he protected her. In his mind, Eric did the right thing, did what he would have done if the situation were reversed—

Not minding the grip at all, he holds back, firm, but not vicelike. Just enough to know he's there, and accepting of her hold. Though he has to make some comments on her self blame — even if he knows he'd be saying the same thing if it had been him in her place and someone he cared about took the blow for him. "It's not your fault. It's the fault of the man who pulled the trigger, of whoever made him pull the trigger. It's not your fault, anymore than it's Eric's fault for saving your life. I'm sure he did it because he cares about you a great deal, but that doesn't make it your fault. If it would have been someone after him, you would have tried to do the same thing.

Following the bidding towards the OR, he steps lightly again, noticing that he'd been trying to console her in an empty hallway… but at least it'd been empty.

—-

They move across the hall, into the vacant room where they could still see everything, but not be so much in the way. It was empty, a space to stash spare gurneys and supplies. It is somewhat chilly in this room - like most sterile environments, the temperature is kept cool to discourage the thriving of microbial organisms. Elena doesn't release her grip - she can't, if she wants to remain invisible. But there's a single, long cot in the room - probably used by residents to sneak a quick nap or so. She sinks in on the edge, and watches the red light of the OR that they can see outside.

"…..you're right," she says softly, glancing down on the floor. "It's just wigging me out a little. I mean….this….isn't this the greatest sacrifice you can offer up for someone else? Your life? What does….what does a recipient say to that? It's so big, it's not…I feel like a simple 'Thank you' doesn't cut it. Then again, that's a small thing to worry about. I just…I was just starting to get to know him. I don't want it to end so soon. Especially now. I don't want to be denied the chance to say thank you. Even if it doesn't cut it."

She watches the door, and turns to look at him. She flexes the fingers of her free hand. "I have the power to keep someone alive," she says softly. "But I don't have the power to heal - which is what he needs. I did my best while we waited for the ambulance. I kept his adrenaline up to keep his heart beating. I took away the shock from the bullets. I didn't know how long he had but if I let him sit with it, he wouldn't have made it. But I can't stop…I couldn't stop the bleeding. And I couldn't heal internal damage. That stuff is beyond my abilities and those were the things that were killing him." Her eyes look far away. "There was so much blood." That had been the most traumatizing of all, even when he tilted his head up and smiled at her, and told her she had pretty eyes.

She looks over at Peter again. "Have you ever gone through….anything like this? When you were saving the world?"

—-

If there's one ability he'd love to have… it would be the ability to heal others. Thanks to his niece, Peter can go through a lot on his own. If it'd been him taking those two bullets, he would have been healed before the ambulance would even have been called. That's not something he knows he could grant to anyone else— nor would it be sure it'd work with him even if he tried. Settling into the room, he leans against the bed, without sitting down himself at first, keeping a hold on her hand. "I can't tell you how to thank him, but I doubt he did that for a thank you. Best way to thank him would probably be to let him see your smile when he's able to open his eyes again."

The hand not clasped on hers reaches up to touch her cheek under the eyes, a light rub along where the tears have left streaks, a big brother kind of gesture, for someone who's never actually had a little sister. Might be rather odd amount of affection for someone he'd only met a week ago, but he owes her, and— he tends to get close to people fast, anyway.

At her inquiry, though, his hand drops away, the look on his face showing that she just hit it right on the nose. Who reads minds now? He knows he tends to be an open book, emotionally, but that… Shifting to settle on the edge of the bed beside her, now turning to face the doorway too, he keeps a hold on her hand as he looks off into the distance, "Kind of a long story. But— there was a woman. Simone. She got shot twice in the chest— by Isaac Mendez. By accident. He'd been trying to shoot me. To stop the bomb. I— was invisible. He shot at the first thing he saw. Just happened to be her, not me." Given rather somberly, his voice remains rough. Only way he can maintain any emotional control would be because he's looking across the hall, where her friend might be dying… much as Simone died in his arms. And that self blame he just tried to talk her out of having on her own? He's definitely still holding onto it.

—-

"….yeah….if I don't start bawling like a baby when he opens his eyes anyway," Elena says, and it's miraculous that she's able to let out a small, quiet laugh at that. "Did I tell you? Even while I was crying over him, he was sassing me. I called him on it, but…there was little way in terms of hilarity during the situation." She closes her eyes, her head drooping somewhat. She was so tired. So, so very tired… "…but I will. I won't try. I will. Like you said, it's the least I can do. Maybe I can bring him something I cooked. I used to want to be a chef before I decided to become a doctor…"

When she feels a rough, callused thumb rub gently on her cheeks, her eyes open, a little surprised by the gesture, but it's not unwelcome. In fact, such sudden show of affection on someone tired and traumatized was welcome. Tears were welling up again, much like how a little girl cries harder when held as opposed to being left alone. She didn't know why that is, but that's how girls were. She gives him a watery smile though, a few more tears coming loose, but he's able to wipe those away. She squeezes his hand. "You're a good guy, Peter," she says quietly. "I'm glad you decided to get out of there." And she means it. She always spoke to him sincerely.

When his hand drops away and the hurt appears in his face, she speaks up. "You don't have to tell me if….you know," she says. But it looks like he will. When she finds out Simone was killed by the Nostradamus painter, her eyes widen, watching his profile as his mind drifts back to relieve the pain. She falls quiet then, to listen. And when he stops, she squeezes his hand. "I don't mean to parrot but it wasn't your fault," she says softly. "You couldn't have known she was going to be there. And it's not like you would've stood around and let him shoot you. No real person would stand for that. Survival has always been the main creed of our species."

—-

"Food might be even more welcome than a smile, since he'll probably be on an IV for a few days," Peter says, softly, with a smile. Speaking as if he'll be perfectly okay and able to eat after a few days is a good way of remaining hopeful. No way to know for sure, but he can hope. "But even seeing you cry means you're alive and well, which is what he wants, I'm sure," this good guy who's practically adopted her as a younger sibling after only a week of knowing her. Such things happen. At least for him. "I'm glad too." If he'd stayed there, their rescue attempt would have been for naught, and he might not have even known everyone who tried to break him out.

But as for his own past experience with someone getting shot in the chest, twice, because of him. What she's repeating back makes him shake his head, jaw tightening to fight back the emotion, and tension forming around his eyes. "No, it was my fault." So says the man who just told her not to blame herself. "I was taunting him, you know. He'd— he'd been working with the Company. Painting for them. Giving them information on where to find me, so they could track me down, take me in. I found out it was him and went to— I don't even know anymore. I was just so mad. Because he led them right to me, I lost my friend, my mentor. The man whose power we're using now— He'd been hiding from them for years. He'd been teaching me control, and how to access and use my abilities."

Shaking his head, she might understand the odd tension on his face when she'd told him Isaac was dead. "I felt betrayed. But— he should have shot me instead. He had every reason to. A week later I would have told him to shoot me." Just like he told Claire to, and Noah. And the first words he actually exchanged with Hiro.

—-

Cue the Indiana Jones theme in the background, though Ramon isn't nearly as handsome, nor nearly as buff. Still, he snatched a doctor's coat, and he snatched a badge, and the badge kind of sort of looks like him if you squint, in that he found a Hispanic doctor's badge to swipe. He's taking an aggressive walk in. The door BAMS open and then shuts hard. The man knows how to make an entrance. The four day growth of beard says he headed here from Rhode Island, directly here. He grimaces. He'd obviously expected to find someone /else/ here while he was at it, but he only fumbles with his cell phone while he stares down at Eric, guilt twisting his face.

—-

"Yeah…." She looks down at her hands, one linked with his own, the other free and toying with the rough fabric of her jeans with a smile. "He always liked my cooking. He hid me for a few days, you know. Me and Papa." Elena looks up at the ceiling. "This agent named Angie threatened to visit him after the hostage situation. So he made me stay at Eric's place while he kept himself hidden in one of our really distant relatives in Queens. After that, Eric came home with a surprise and said he managed to nab a lake house from a friend of his for use for a while. So we had the space, and we were comfortable. There was a security system. When things died down a bit….we came back to the city. We had to work, and I had to go to school and it looked like no one was following us anymore. I'm not….I mean, Papa and I are struggling to make ends meet as it is. It's not like I could show my appreciation any other way but clean his apartment and cook for him. I didn't know what else to do to make up for his kindness."

When she listens to that time, with what happened with Isaac, she nods. She didn't know Isaac was a Company drone for a time. "….so you had a mentor?" she asks. "How were his lessons? Were you able to control your powers better after he was done with you?" Then again if the Original Invisible Man was Company, he probably knew how they trained their powered agents. They all had to start somewhere.

She nods. "…but….shooting you….wouldn't you just…come back from it? Or would it be enough to cut you off from blowing things up?"

When Ramon busts through the door, the seventh floor is quiet, the nurses looking up from the desk. "Doctor, please!" the nurse chastises him from where she's sitting. And then she continues doing her work. As for Eric….Ramon can see him through the viewing window into the OR, but it's hard to see him. He has about five surgeons working on him. A passing orderly steps around and away from the grizzled looking 'doctor', muttering under his breath. ~Kid's been in surgery for 10 hours now. He's a goner~ comes the cynical thought, floating in Ramon's mind as a surface thought as he watches the proceedings through the glass.
Eric…lies there. He's a trooper he is.

—-

Sounds to him like the kid fighting for his life not too far away is a real trooper. And a hero to Elena and her father. As well as someone who helped him out. Peter just nods, smiling faintly as she recounts the young man's deeds. That certainly sounds like a good person, to him. But while talk of Simone sombered his mood, there is one thing that can bring him out of this quiet stupor, and that's the question about his mentor. Glancing towards the young hispanic girl, he gives a hint of a smirk as he says, "He threw me off a thirty story building. To try and teach me how to fly. I landed on a cab." From the soft laugh that follows, more of an inhale, that's somehow amusing to him now. "Worked well enough, though. Before he taught me, I thought I could only use abilities around other people with them. He taught me how to use them on my own." Which made him a lot more powerful, certainly.

"I think a bullet to the head might really kill me," but he's not totally sure, by the sounds of things. That's what he'd been banking on when he handed the gun to his niece… "Don't know for sure. Not sure I want to find out— unless there's no other choice." Squinting, he tries to see what's going on through the door— but x-ray vision is not included among his abilities. Will the boy be okay?

—-

Above the OR, Ramon's jaw clenches. His fists clench too. It's not fair, not in the least bit, that this kid could die. He's never tried talking to anyone in their heads, but right now…he glowers down at the boy. He's trying to reach out. Maybe he can't. He doesn't know. But he wants this kid to leave. ~Hey. Kid.~ His mental voice is as gruff and growly as his physical one. ~These bastardos are sayin' you're going to die. Tell them they need to go (censored). Do it by getting /up/. Live. Get well. Come on.~ It's out of some hairbrained idea that the kid needs a lifeline.

—-

"He….while you didn't know how…..-really-?" Elena blanches a little bit at Peter's smirk, and how he recounts the mentor's methods. She wrinkles her nose. "Peter, you could've -died-," she mutters under her breath, trying to keep quiet. They were invisible after all. "Then again…" She pauses. "The first time I threw pain on someone, I was under high stress too. Maybe sometimes it's needed to overcome some sort of mental block." She is still looking at Peter, half-horrified at what she had heard….and also rather impressed. His mentor sounded like a badass, and a real tough cookie. Then again, if you've been hiding from the Company for a good amount of years, he probably had to be. "But it worked. I'm….not sure if I agree with the method but I guess….you weren't exactly running on an unlimited hourglass…. all you knew was that the city was going to blow up and you were the nuke."

At the last, she lifts her free hand to touch his shoulder gently. "I'm sorry about Simone," she says softly. "No one should go through that sort of thing. I'm really sorry. You…must've cared about her a lot if you're still thinking about it with the look you get when you feel really bad about something."

She looks at him even as he stares past her to look through the door, as if he could see what's going on. She looks up to catch sight of a doctor having paused to look at the boy through the viewing glass. He looks familiar…..something about the shoulders and the back of the head…

Her hand grips his suddenly. "Peter…" she hisses lowly. "That…that's my -father-. How…" She pauses. "….I didn't know he had a doctor's coat."

—-

"Probably, and if I did die, it would have saved the city anyway," Peter explains rather softly, not really sure what else to say on that. There's a lot that could have happened, and a lot that wouldn't have happened had he not been there to be the bomb. Who knows, though… There's no way to know what would have happened. As for Simone… "I loved her," he says softly, eyes lowering for a moment, before he looks back up and adds, "Isaac loved her to." A long twisted story, that one…

But as she recognizes her father, he glances from one to the girl whose wrapped in his own invisibility power, keeping them hidden even as they whisper in a room off to the side. Invisibility means nothing to a telepath, though… and should he reach out in their direction… "…I thought you said he was in Rhode Island?" Sure, not /that/ far away, but… "Maybe he borrowed it… To check on your friend."

…Their disguise is better. Thin air beats scruffy doctor any day.

—-

"That's a quitter's solution though," Elena says softly. "If you did die. I think every person has to respect the life that God had breathed onto him or her and live as much as he can for however long he could. And if his Destiny is to save the world, he has an inherent duty to survive it." She smiles ruefully. "Your name is Peter Petrelli. It's not Jesus Christ. And even He came back from the dead after three days." She winks at him, nudging him lightly on the shoulder with her own. "See? Bona fide world saviors were meant to live after the task is done in some way."

When he looks down, Elena's face softens when he confesses that he loved her. That….really sucked. If she were tapping into her girlier self she would find it romantic, that Peter still mourned her loss and especially the circumstances behind everything else. And when he tells her Isaac loved her too, she lifts her brows. It had gone from Romeo and Juliet to the OC in ten seconds. But all that tells her is… "…she must've been really something," she says, watching his profile quietly and concern etched in her features. "I'm sorry," she says softly. "I didn't mean to dredge anything up. With…this. I didn't know you've….actually been through this before. I mean, what are the chances of two people who meet each other in some random coffeehouse going through a similar thing? Then again we shouldn't be surprised by now."

She nods. "He was. I think…he drove all the way back. I told you I left him a message. God, I didn't even think he understood it. I called him while I was in the ER still. I was a mess." She peers at her father curiously, watching that familiar focused look he's directing to the glass. "…what's he…?" she murmurs. "I know that look…"

—-

Eric Walker's mind is a tumble of disjointed thoughts. All sorts of floating and random float by for Ramon's viewing should he take the time. Things like…did I turn off the stove? And….should I really have used that condom? And…Elena has the prettiest eyes. And…well, you guys get the picture. However as Ramon beams happy thoughts into his brain, one clear thought does come though.

~…you talk as much as your daughter does Boss~

—-

A look of profound relief steals over Ramon's features. ~Well her mother was taciturn,~ he mentally grunts. ~Just keep 'talking', kid.~ He peers at the vitals down there, to see if it's having any effect. ~I fully intend to smuggle you good food, not that hospital schlock, but you have to live to get it.~ A pause. ~You know, I can't admit it out loud without screwing my image, but if you're in love with my daughter it's okay by me. You've proven yourself.~

—-

"Never said I wanted to die, just that I'd be willing to if it saved everyone else," Peter explains, glancing back towards her as he says that. It just means he couldn't blame Claude for teaching him that way— well— much longer than he did blame the man. He got his revenge by throwing him off the same rooftop and then showing how much the training paid off by catching him and flying away. It works out, doesn't it? But as for being compared to Jesus, and being called a bona fide world savior? He'll— not comment. From the way he glances away, he doesn't think he's too bona fide.

Simone must have been something, yes, even if the OC-style love triangle had been a bit messed up. He nods, thinking back to the times when he'd first met her, and looking back as she goes into the destiny talk. That makes him smile for some very strange reason, even as his hand rightens around hers. Looking towards her father, the mood might be lost, because he has an idea what that look might be like too. Only not quite the same. While he's watching, he has to ask the question that came to mind… Meddling older brother that he's supposed to be. "So if you're in such a similar situation, that mean that you love that kid in there?"

—-

Eric is apparently just about as eloquent with his thoughts as he is with his words when someone suprises him. ~At least wait till I wake up. Hard to eat like this.~ A pause then in the thoughts, picture little chibi-Eric's stareing at the words that Ramon just 'spoke' and then poking them with a stick. Eyes all wide. Looks of shock on their faces.

~Uhhuah wha?~

See. Eloquent.

—-

"I know," Elena says simply. "It's just…I'd rather here someone say 'I'm gonna save all these people, and I'm gonna live through it so I can see the gigantic kegger that's going to happen once we win' than….that." She smiles over at him sheepishly. "Too much of a teenager still, I think. I haven't seen the things you have. Haven't gone through the things you did. It's so easy to think that when the reality's kept from you still, though it's starting to break through that. Still, I like to look at the happier, crazier side of everything. The good kind of crazy." She smiles slightly at that. "You know. Will Farrell sort of crazy." Even now, Benjamin invades other people's lives in more ways than he could think of.

When Peter observes her father, she looks over at him. Papa was wearing his focused look, meaning whatever he's doing, he's using his gift. "…I don't know what he's doing," she confesses quietly. "But I've been helping him with his abilities. He can dive so deep in someone's mind he can pluck out a detail that even the subject doesn't remember. It's a new development but….I'm trying to find a way to keep him from collapsing every time he's in a crowded place and people are panicking."

When Peter asks his question, she looks at him. She has the good grace to blush, and she looks away, her eyes training on anything BUT Peter OR her father OR the OR. "Ummm….well. I've had a crush on him for a while. Kind of like the Sandra-Keanu thing in Speed, you know? Relationships born from extremely stressful situations?" she poses rhetorically, slowly. "I mean he was always there, checking on me, protecting me when Papa wasn't there. I couldn't help it. He'd give me a hug when he thought I needed it, even when he didn't ask for it. If he asked me out, I definitely wouldn't say no." She pauses. "And I do care about him. A lot. But I don't know how….what being in love means. Or feels. And I feel like sometimes there are times where I feel like I know him, but in other times, I feel like I don't. Save for how he is, I don't really know -who- he is. I mean, we just started getting to know each other." She chuckles and she winks at Pete. "I'm okay with being unrequited either way. I think he was on a date when I ran into him last night. I smelled another girl on him." Because WOMEN ALWAYS KNOW, MEN.

—-

~What, you don't think she's beautiful?~ Even from up there, even though Eric can't see him, Ramon starts /looming/. Now he's wearing his focused look-glower. ~You don't think she's a good cook? That she wouldn't keep good house for you and raise good babies and be a good intellectual equal? She's smarter than both of us.~ GLARE.

—-

~I mean! I…just…what….I DON'T…your glaring at me aren't you?!~ Pause ~AND OF COURSE SHE'S BEAUTIFUL!~ Pause. ~Don't shoot me. Or tell her I said that.~

—-

The doctors stare at the sudden increase in Eric's heart rate. Pause. Must be some damn dream.
The surgeons attempting to sew him up blinks at the sudden elevation of heartrate from the carcass on the gurney.

"…..did his heart just…?"

"It did."

"Oh my god. FINALLY. It only took TEN HOURS."

"Let's bring this kid home, boys."

Hope is a beautiful thing.

But it clearly holds no candle to Fatherly Intimidation.

—-

The kegger would be a fun thing to be there for… Instead, when the world was saved and he lived, he'd been sulking in a cell all by himself with pills that made him not care about anything for a long time. No fun party for him. Of course, it's different when you happen to be the villian that everyone needed to stop, and not the hero at all. Peter doesn't correct her on this, and instead tries to think on what she said about her father's abilities. "That's a lot stronger than what I do. All I can hear are surface thoughts. And even then not always. Which I guess is good for me." No worrying about rooms full of panicked people for him…

But as she talks about Eric, he watches her, even if she's not looking at him at first. What she says, though— that sounds close enough to love for him. He could talk about Simone. But talking about his dead 'sorta-kinda' girlfriend isn't quite the best idea right now… So instead… "When I first met Elle I didn't really like her. I didn't know much about her at all for a month, pretty much just her name, and what she could do. She opened up to me after that, but even then— we didn't get close until she brought me a picture of my brother. The first picture of my family I'd seen since I got there. And then she brought me a book. A childhood copy of hers. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It had… doodles in the margins. Of the book characters and unicorns…" From the way his voice changes, that had been some odd turn for him. "And then she convinced me to leave, helped me escape, and stayed with me. I've only really known her— /really/ known her two weeks. And I've loved her since I got to know her."

And the first person he's told it to isn't even the person he should. But hey, he kinda put her on the spot. Might as well take some of the slack off. "Could be he's just waiting for you to come around and express interest in him. You don't jump into a bullet for just anyone," he adds, before glancing across the hall again. Hey— are those the /good/ kind of sounds?

—-

~I'm not going to shoot you, moron. Didn't you pay attention? I /want you to live/.~ Ramon shoves his hands in his pockets, relaxing visibly. ~You saved my daughter's life. You took a bullet for my daughter.~ His face gets a little strange, crumples a little as he swallows back emotions which are not at all manly. ~I'll owe you till the day I die.~ He lets out a long breath and scratches at his beard. He takes out his phone again and holds it. When he's certain that the man is out of the woods, he'll call Elena and tell her.

—-

Clearly, Peter has to live a little. Nathan should take him out and get drunk somewhere. Besides, his relationship with his brother was complex too, wasn't it? Maybe some R&R with the bro might've helped things along too. Then again, if you blew up your brother like he did…. Elena watches him as he keeps watching her father, until finally, she looks at Ramon too. She has absolutely -no- idea what he's doing. Was he trying a new trick? She wasn't a mindreader - that skill went, clearly, to some other member of the Gomez family.

Love, she is a cruel and confusing mistress. It was definitely a woman.

"….well….I kind of got that from you anyway," she tells Peter honestly. "You go with your heart a lot. It's a great thing, but….not a lot of people can do that. Especially teenaged girls who think too much." She grins. "Good thing you can't dive in as deep as Papa can. Otherwise you wouldn't want to hang around me, my brain would drive you nuts I'm sure." At least she's grinning a touch now, it was a sight better condition than being huddled in a chair sobbing her eyes out earlier and dwelling on the fact that this was her fault. But when he talks about Elle, she's grinning at him. Openly. The sort of grin little sisters gave big brothers when they found someone they liked. The kind of grin that said 'You liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike her. You want to kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiss her'.

But when Peter is alerted to something, she blinks and looks at him. She then looks at her father who turns away and dials a number.

The indicator light from the OR turns green, and exhausted surgeons come filing out. The nurses who are waiting to attend to the patient file in, wearing gloves and facemasks. They would have to move Eric to ICU but….he's stable. The bleeding has stopped. And his heart will continue beating. How long he's down will be, from this point on, up to him.

"Oh my god…did he…?" Elena says, gripping Peter's hand tightly again.

And then? Her phone rings. Ramon can hear it from -across- the hall from him and into the empty space inside. But it's empty. Where's the sound coming from?

"Doctor, please!" repeats the nurse on the desk. With Ramon's phone out, obviously she thinks the ringing is from his phone.

"Oh shit!" Elena hisses, grabbing onto her phone and cutting off the ringer.

—-

"Helps that Elle's the type to— take what she wants with no shame at all," Peter adds softly, looking over and unable to surpress his own fond smile. And really, he doesn't need to dive too deep into her mind, or in her mind at all, when she's smiling at him like that. She'll hear that hint of a laugh again, one that almost sounds like he's saying 'heh' in his throat. It's a laugh, though, and he's amused by her smile, even if he'd been completely serious about his confession.

But then— he phone rings. Looking down towards the ring, he almost lets go of her hand by accident, but last second realizes the mistake he'd been about to make and holds on tighter, "Damnit, I should have told you to turn that off." Or at least put it on silent mode— Glancing back towards the door, he waits for the anvil to drop and their presence to be discovered. At least they know who's calling, because he's looking right at him… Maybe they'll still be okay. Maybe it'll be okay.

…Quite a mouth the girl he's holding hands with has, though.

—-

Ramon fumbles his phone and then shuts it. "Sorry. I fixed it." He walks away then, towards where he heard the ringing, frowning. Coincidence? Probably coincidence. Still…he's heading that way, having determined that if he stands here much longer, that nurse is going to come make a more thorough inspection into his identity.

—-

"Ballsy girls like that are rare," Elena murmurs to Peter, smiling at the fond look on his face as he talks about his Girl Friday, but with Eric out of the woods, and being able to make Peter laugh a bit, she seems to be regaining, slowly, but surely, some of her old cheerfulness. She squeezes his hand encouragingly, and she looks forward to find….Ramon, stepping into the empty room across the hall from the OR where Eric had just been.

She looks over at Peter and nods to him, silently gesturing, and then she looks over at her dad and thinks at him. ~Papa, it's me. Don't freak out, okay? But I'm in the same room as you, I'm just….see-through. I'm going to step out now. A friend is helping me keep under cover. Ready?~ And should Ramon nod his consent, she glances at Peter, and lets go of his hand gently.

In Ramon's eyes, Elena suddenly appears, as if an invisibility shield or cloak had just been whisked off her. She doesn't say anything though, not for now, but she does close the door, and gives her father a tight hug. "I didn't think you got my message."

—-

Well— it could be worse. There's a pause between Elena's appearance and the appearance of her accomplice. Peter Petrelli's clothed in his outdoor coat, still, and jeans, clean shaven and hair cropped short. He slides into opaqueness right where the other girl let go of his hand and appears, though he doesn't move forward and hug the man, or anything. Instead, he gives a mild nod, and then glances past him, looking out for a nurse or a doctor who might interupt the family reunion. Then again, if they're travelling with a "doctor" they might be mistaken as family or visitors, or someone who might be legitimate for this area. Even then… he wants to be ready to reach out and grab the young woman's arm at the first sign of an approaching nurse.

—-

Ramon catches his daughter and buries his face into her hair for a long moment. He breathes in and breathes out. Then his eyes tighten with resolve.

When he raises his head though, he simply looks up to Peter, keeping his arms tight about his girl. He extricates one to offer it to Peter. "Ramon Gomez," he offers. Quietly, because what his badge says is Dr. Joe Ruiz, and that's not the same name by a long shot.

—-

"Papa….this is Peter Petrelli. Peter, this is my Papa," Elena says, lifting her head up from her father's shoulder to look at him. "Papa, Peter is ….well. Obviously, he's like us. But at the same time, he's more. He stayed with me when Eric was brought in." At least this way Ramon knows she hadn't been spending her time waiting for word on Eric's condition alone. She had someone with her, someone she had barely met but established a strange, sisterly sort of connection with. The red thread. Stars aligning. Everything. Maybe Randall had been right all along….bring the right people in a single space, and strange/extraordinary things can happen.

—-

Reaching out, Peter accepts the hand, allowing Elena to do the introductions, though he does nod, and make a small correction, "I came as soon as I heard what happened. As I'm sure you did." She helped free him, as did the man laying in the other room with gunshot wounds. That's certainly an odd bond of destiny that keeps entangling them. Besides the whole… special thing. Being called /more/… well… he really wants to argue with that accessment… "I wanted to help her find out what's going on with her friend, since they wouldn't tell her anything…" Modest shrug. He really didn't do anything special. And she really was alone for many hours, too.

—-

There's a faint flicker of recognition in Ramon's eyes as Peter introduces himself. He looks, abruptly, somewhat exhausted. There are dark circles sitting under his eyes and he nods. "I did. Thank you for being with my daughter when I couldn't." The lines grow tighter. It's often, of late, that he can't. His fist clenches again. He is a man contemplating Unpleasant Things, and is now more than ready to take action. His left eye twitches. "Lets go down before we get caught. Eric will be alright."

—-

Eric was, at present, a series of tubes. The gurney where he is in is being wheeled to the third floor, where the ICU is. Orders to do so are blared outside, audibly through the closed door in the room all three were esconsed in. Elena looks over to the door, and then to her father. She nods quietly. "Okay….let's get out of here." She doesn't have a coat, and Ramon came inside clear of the nurses desk alone, so she looks over towards Peter and holds her hand out. Her expression is much different now - her eyes are still a little bloodshot, her face a little pale, and her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. But she's smiling.

—-

Yeah, his name seems to be known by just about everyone in Manhattan, as Elle pointed out in Starbucks, when half the store seemed to recognize him. Peter gives the hand a firm shake, before he lets it drop, responding simply with, "Elena's a good friend. No one should be alone at a time like this." A good friend he met a week ago? Shh, he befriends fast. As Elena holds out her hand, though, and they talk about making their way downstairs, he reaches out and takes her hand, and this time they fade from sight with an audience. A few seconds after they vanish into transparent land he speaks up, a whispered voice that Ramon will still be able to hear, "We'll be right behind you, Mr. Gomez."

Again, thin air disguise rocks so much more than scruffy doctor.
Ramon simply nods and attempts to Look Like He Belongs Here. This he accomplishes with a brisk walk and a set jaw, staring straight ahead. He's an honest person by nature, but he's not /talking/ to anyone, and he walks much as he'd walk into any building where he has to work. He's looking very Alpha Wolf as he goes, and he's hoping that will discourage anyone from questioning them — him — as he descends.

—-

When Ramon walks through, Elena follows along, though she'll still follow Peter's lead as she's tugged along by the younger, taller Petrelli. She looks around furtively and tries to make her steps as light and as quick as they can. Hopefully they'll be able to fool everyone with her father being a doctor leading them along, once they get to a more public place anyway. Once she sees the elevators in sight, she breathes a quiet exhalation of relief. She doesn't dare talk to Peter, or her father, not while they're moving. But when they're inside the elevators, and the double doors closing behind her, she looks over at Peter inquiringly, asking him with her eyes if it's safe to drop the Invisibility now. They can probably just follow Ramon and pretend that 'Dr. Ruiz' was clearing them to see a patient on that floor.

The elevator goes down….down….down. Until it hits the third floor.
As soon as they are behind the elevator, Peter takes the hint without needing to read her mind— even though he could if he really wanted to. Probably not /while/ invisible, but not the point anyway. Her face is practically projecting her throughs. Before they hit the third floor, he lets go of her hand and they both slide into view, ready to follow Dr. Ruiz to thier friend, the patient. Whom they should probably still be family of, but the person he took bullet for should count as family, in his mind. If he was a nurse working here, he'd probably been the rules a bit. But he's also a sap. "Here we are," he gives as an announcement to the doctor that his invisible stalkers are visible again.

—-

"Dr. Ruiz" glances over his shoulder at the two, then nods grimly. He steps out of the elevator as well, and goes looking for Eric's room. He wasn't really paying attention to /where/ in ICU they were going to bring him. He'd just try talking to Eric again except the unconscious boy isn't going to know what room he's in. So he just starts walking, figuring the rooms are sequential and a casual glance through the window will do. Pragmatic. His eye, and the side of his mouth, keep twitching faintly. His neck is so tight that the two behind him are likely to see the muscles standing out in sharp relief.

—-

Dr. Ruiz and crew will find a young man just being wheeled into an ICU room, with the protective screens closed around him and the doctors checking in on him and hooking him up to the EKG monitors mounted in the room. Eric's index finger is also slipped into a small finger brace that monitors his heartbeat, and this is hooked up to the monitors and the alarms in the room as well. Several nurses look up from the nurses station in the middle of the hallway….but so far, none of them pay much attention. The ICU is a little more crowded than the OR, because there are some families inside.

Grieving families of the terminally ill, plus families who are greeting those in ICU who have just risen out of a coma. And yet there are more, hunched over the waiting seats and sniffling into their tissues.

It was a depressing sight.

Still, Elena follows her father, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she goes. Her phone rings - vibrates as she had switched the settings earlier when it first rang - for the third or fourth time in the last few hours. But she lets it go to voicemail. This was too important to take too many calls. And she isn't supposed to in hospitals anyway.

—-

Once the nurses ensure that Eric is positioned and hooked up, one of the doctors pull away from the nurse's station holding a clipboard. While holding the appearance of Adam, he wears a badge that reads 'Stan Gifford, MD, ICU'. He approaches the door of the room, pausing at the entrance to review the chart silently.

—-

With his phone turned off, all the calls he might be getting are going straight to voice mail. Hopefully he won't be getting anything of dire importance from his family, but Peter tends to focus on what's in front of him at any given time. And what's in front of him right now is a worried teenager girl. Good thing she has her father with her now. He could take off— but he too wants to see the recovery of the young man who risked his life to save her— and who risked his life before that to break him out. "I'm sure he'll be okay now," he speaks up, in a voice that 'Dr. Stan' would recognize.

—-

Ramon is certainly not going to barge in while all these other doctors are in the way. So he draws to a stop, and makes a show of turning gravely to look at "Eric's Family" as if he's helping them out. He nods to Peter's words, honestly believing the same thing, but if Elena wants to stand here all night long then he'll try to figure out a way to do it without collapsing.
When Adam picks up the chart, he will learn a few things. These are the following:

The boy's name is Eric Walker. 19. There is a note that says that while his parents had been contacted, they will be sending a representative to check on him - something the Gomezes or Peter do not know. He has sustained a considerable amount of blood loss from two gunshot wounds to the chest, one having pierced his lung directly, and one dangerously close to his aorta which would have killed him if it hit. He has abrasions on his knuckles, indicating, perhaps, a barehanded fight before he got shot. An 'Elena Gomez' was said to have brought him in. Per the laws of New York City, given Eric is a victim of a gunshot wound, police have been notified of the incident. However questioning has been postponed because of the seriousness of his injuries.

It is noted on the chart that while the boy is stable, he has considerable internal damage that the surgeons can't fix yet until he is stabilized further, and the boy was also unresponsive to stimuli tests that indicate that he is, effectively, in a coma.

—-

That voice. Sounds familiar. Could it..? Not that Adam would recognize Peter's face, nor would Peter recognize him. But that voice. If it is him, now is not the place to rekindle a friendship. At least not in the open. "I take it you're this young man's family?" Adam asks, glancing towards Elena, Peter, and Ramon. "Quite some damage he's taken." he adds, flipping though the chart absently as he takes a good look at each one of them. "Two gunshot wounds. One nearly fatal. Spike in the tachacardial rhythm during surgery. Uknown explanation."

—-

When Ramon pauses, Elena pauses as well as he turns to consult with her and Peter about poor Eric's condition. Elena slides her hands in her pockets, huddling into the blanket given she didn't have a coat anymore - she ripped it to shreds to bind his wounds and try to keep her classmate alive thanks to her abilities. But when Adam approaches them, she looks over at the sandy-haired, older man with the accent. Dr. Gifford, his name is and she freezes for a moment. Oh crap. A real doctor! ….except he's really not but Elena doesn't know that. Ramon, however… "Ah, I'm his classmate." There's no way she will be able to profess a familial relation. She was of a different heritage. Peter, however…. "This is Eric's cousin, Peter. We're still waiting on the rest of his family to come by," she tells Adam softly. But at what he says about the chart, she blanches, and nods. "…he was…pretty bad off."

—-

Hey— that voice sounds sort of— Peter glances over at the doctor and stares for a moment, giving a confused expression that only he can pull off. The confused pup expression. Never having seen the face, all he can do is look and listen. The inflection nearly identical, the accent. There's only so many people that he's met that pull off that accent. But "Stan" was not the man's name, and as far as he knows, that man has far more reason to be in hiding than even him. Good thing Elena's a smooth talker. He blinks out of his thoughts and confusion and responds, "Yeah, I'm his cousin. On our mother's sides." Just in case the man asks for id, or full name. Leave it to Elena to give his real first name. Just Peter was all Drake needed to start flailing about and proclaiming him /THE/ Peter Petrelli. He needs a new name if he wants to lay low.

—-

"He's a fighter," Ramon grunts, as he proffers a polite nod to 'Stan'. That is his…entire Medical Opinion. He crosses his arms and sets himself in front of Elena and Peter. If they want to be there than he'll do his mastiff like best to make sure they can stay. Then again the man's read the chart so what does Ramon have to give medical opinion for?

—-

"Well, hospital policy is family only…" Adam starts, glancing at Ramon. "But I think we can make an exception in this case. Mr. Walker needs all the support he can get if he's to make a full recovery." That and a dose of what Adam's gonna give him. A little concoction called the Monroe Maui Cocktail. Well, not really. His green eyes sweep over to Elena. "That's putting it lightly. He's lucky to be alive." And that's his Medical Opinion. Speaking of new names and laying low, there's a lingering thought in the back of his head that the longer he delays, the longer he risks being discovered. "You're free to go in and see him if you'd like. Now that we've got him settled, I need to go get some medication for the pain, and to help him fight off any infections."

—-

Her eyes start to widen when Dr. Gifford is about to say family only, and Elena's about to argue. Come on, look at her. She's running on 24+ hours without sleep, she's in bad need of a bath, and her eyes are all puffy. But when the doctor says they'll make an exception for her, she relaxes considerably. "Thank you so much, doctor," she murmurs, looking at Adam gratefully. She also looks at Peter and her father, and she turns to start heading into the room where Eric is doing a fine impersonation of being a series of tubes. She looks over her shoulder at Peter, but then she moves forward again, pushing aside the curtains gently to look at Eric as he's lying there.

And he looks -awful-.

She feels her eyes water again, but she takes a deep breath and steels herself. Instead, she ….well. Tucks him in. As best she could without jostling the tubes around.

Ramon nods to Adam, and with that same, grim line in his mouth, he follows the girl who's so really not his daughter at the moment.

—-

Eric, being a fighter, lies there and…well…thats about all he does. Lie there.

—-

Tensing momentarily when it looks as if Elena may get sent away, Peter relaxes when the doctor gives consent for her to say. As she heads inside, he follows close behind, but doesn't step all the way in, obviously letting the girl pay the most attention. Really, why would a guy want a guy who is "related" to him in the hospital room over a cute girl his own age? Who he just took bullets for? No guy! Except maybe Peter with his brother, but that's another story all together. Peter loves his brother very much. Though the girl might still be more welcome at a time like this. Hanging back, he glances in the direction the doctor left and fails to hide his frown all together. It might be mistaken as concern, worry that the doctor's giving them best case scenerio and he's not out of the ball park yet. Except that's not why he's staring at all.

—-

So far, the hospital staff deem nothing amiss with Dr Gifford's behavior. It seems he knows hospital protocol and access codes. So much that he disappears into a room marked 'Medicine Storage', only to appear a moment later with a bottle of Morphine and two syringes. One filled with a red liquid very similar in viscosity to blood. "This should help him with the pain and any infection that might set in." he states, as he appears back into room and approaching the side of the bed that has Eric's IV lines. He takes the empty syringe and draws a little morphine from the vial, injecting it into the IV line.

—-

God he looked terrible. Elena can't help but feel guilty. The look on her face says it all. Sensing that Peter is lingering in the background however, she looks over at him…and blinks when Peter frowns at the doctor. She furrows her brows a little bit. Why was that? Maybe because the doctor seemed he was going to send her away? That was probably it, eh? When Dr. Gifford returns, however, she eases away from the bed, and moves away when the doctor expertly injects morphine into the IV. She falls a step back, next to Peter and sliding her hands in her pockets. Her eyes fall on the vial of red liquid as well. "Will he be okay, doctor?" she asks, rubbing her bare arms a bit underneath the blanket on her shoulders.

—-

Ramon, as well, makes way for Dr. Gifford - but that's because he's a 'real' doctor and he's just pretending to be one on the computer screen. He crosses his arms over his chest, observing the room for now, and keeping a close eye on his daughter. He doesn't speak, unless he's spoken to.

—-

Yeah, he's totally watching the doctor when he returns, but Peter might not notice anything inconsistant. Listening to his voice, even if he's not talking much. It's so familiar… But it can't be, can it? Shaking his head, he finally dismisses this, and glances towards the medicine. Having dealt in morphine quite a bit with his patient Charles, he squints quietly at the vial of red liquid. A medicine he's never heard of… possibly. He's five months out of date, and he treated a terminal patient, making their quality of life better for the last months they have left. As Elena steps back over to him, he puts his hand on her back and gives her some tactile support. A friendly and brotherly gesture, honest. And just going to keep watching the Doctor. He's not in a position to question methods, all he can do is watch. And the voice— is one he did trust. If it'd been any other voice he heard in the Company, he might be more worried.

—-

"He'll be fine." Adam nods, giving Elena a bit of a smile in hopes of reassuring her and giving her a bit of hope. "The morphine will help him with any pain." he adds, knowing that it's only just for show. The next injection is the big finale. "And this…" he says, holding up the syringe of red fluid. "…is RGN-400+. It's the latest medication approved for testing by the FDA. It's designed to assist cells in rejecting infection and protecting them while they restore themselves." And in goes the second injection. The solution in the IV bag turns a light red, as the fluid mixes with the saline. He keeps talking, hoping that the more familiar Peter's voice sounds, the more familiar his will. "It will take a few days…" ok, that's a lie. Maybe an hour or less. "but he'll be good a new in no time. And if you need me, don't hesitate to call." The last is said as he hands out his card to Elena, Peter, and Ramon. "Or the hospital can page me."

—-

The touch on her back causes the teenager to look over at Peter and gives him a grateful smile. That was it. She didn't know when. She didn't know where. But he's getting cake. Really good cake. Cake he can share with his Elle.

RGN-400+? Elena furrows her brows a little bit. She was pre-med but….she hasn't heard of it. Was there a journal article she missed? Then again, she has been preoccupied with her own tests with the people she knows, documenting her findings. She hasn't picked up American Scientific lately either, whenever she could afford to spend that much on a magazine anyway. But still…why hasn't this been brought up in her classes? She takes the card, and at the reassuring smile, she can't help but smile back. She can't help it, the man was handsome - and his accent gave him an undefined sort of charm. "Thank you very much, Dr. Gifford for all your help." She seems relieved, at least, to be reassured by a professional.

Ramon takes the card as well, looking at Adam and giving him a slight nod. He remains silent, but he makes a better guard dog impression than he does a doctor, really. He stows the man's card in his pocket.

—-

Indeed, the more the man says, the more Peter is convinced that this man occupied the cell next to him for a few months, one of his only companions besides the source of his pills and the man who held him there. Even if he agreed to being held. The cake better not be a lie! But the medicine… he hasn't heard of it. Doesn't mean he completely doubts it. Recently approved is possible. He's been behind for six months, there abouts. Taking the card, he inclines his head towards the man, and adds, "Yes…" There's a pause, as if he's trying to remember the exact wording. "Eric's been through something awful…" Yes, that's the right wording… The exact thing the man in the other cell had said to him when he finally coaxed his name out of him. "Thank you." And that might mean more than just helping Eric. In fact, it does.

—-

Well, what's done is done. If that doesn't make front page news, then Adam's failed his mission. Though the secondary objective…ok, so it's not really an objective. Still, he's finally managed to place that voice. "You're quite welcome, miss." he replies, nodding at Elena and then looking at Peter dead in the eyes. "My pleasure. Remember, if you need /anything/ at all, don't hesitate to call." At that point, the pager which Adam so conviently programmed to go off after a preset amount of time does indeed go off. Green eyes dart down to the display. "That's the ER. I should go. Have them page me if I'm needed." And with that, he's towards the door, attempting to disappear into the crowded ICU.

—-

She watches Peter and the doctor, Elena observing the interaction between the two even as the doctor moves out of the room to rejoin the ER. When he's gone, she still looks skeptical. A regenerative drug? "….what was that about, Peter?" she asks quietly, watching the look on the younger Petrelli's face. She glances over at Eric again, and she absently smoothes down his blanket. She pauses, and pushes a lock of hair away from his forehead….a tender gesture unconsciously done. She watches his face then, her expression softening.

Ramon discreetly turns on his heel, and walks just a bit out of the room to linger at the doorway. "Thank you again, Mr. Petrelli," he rumbles lowly, once Adam is gone. He, too, watches the mysterious doctor as he wanders off.

The brunette sighs quietly. She can't exactly get to Eric's mouth, it's got a tube in it. But she leans forward to press a warm, lingering kiss on his forehead. "….funny, huh?" she murmurs to the patient, a small smile curling up on her mouth. "In this scenario, you get to be the princess." She eases away from the edge of the bed, and walks over so she could hug Peter. She doesn't say anything else. After all, what else is there to say that hasn't been said so many times earlier?

—-

"He— reminded me of someone. A good someone," Peter says, watching the door for a moment. Considering how fast it took him to adopt Elena as a 'sibling' it shouldn't be a surprise he still trusts a man who shared a wall with him. It was a very important wall. And he'd actually opened up to him, gave sympathy, and pulled him out of the first month of depression when he didn't want to speak to anyone. When that man had disappeared, he'd lost his only real friend. Until Elle came back a changed woman, at least. "Don't worry about it."

He pockets the card while he nods in response to the girl's father. "No problem at all, Mr. Gomez. Elena and Eric helped me out. It's the least I could do."

Speaking of which— he's getting a hug. Wrapping his arms around the girl to return the hug, "He'll be fine now. Why don't you go home and get some rest with your father and check back here in a few hours?" If he's stable, then there's no reason for her to stay up the rest of the day waiting. "I need to get home. I'm glad I could be here." And if 'Stan' is who he thinks 'Stan' is… he has a number he's definitely going to need to call. After he makes sure his family is okay. Once he's released from the hug, he gives them both a smile, and circles back out into ICU, planning to head back across the island as soon as possible. And on the way down, he'll turn his phone back on, and check his voice mail…


Jane left a voice mail for Peter while his phone was off.

// On The Phone //

You dial the number 283-2260. It begins to ring.

The other end answers, "Hello?"

Peter says, "Jane?"

Jane says, "Peter? Have you seen Elena?"

Peter sounds surprised, "Yeah, I just left her a little while ago. Is everything okay? Did she leave you a message?

Jane replies, sounding worried, "Last night I called her twice, somebody had her phone, and today I just get voice mail. Where is she?"

Peter says, "She… there were some problems last night. I'm not sure who had her phone, but she turned it off in the hospital after— it's kind of a long story. She was being followed last night. I don't think it was… related to our problems. A family matter, sounds like. But her friend Eric was shot. He was in surgery all day. I went to the hospital to be with her as soon as I found out. He was fairly stable when I left, though. Out of the OR and in ICU. Her father's with her now, too."

Jane draws in a sharp breath. "Oh, God, ohmygod. I met Eric once. I… I'm headed there now. Which hospital?"

Peter sounds fairly calm, but serious, "Mount Sinai, in Upper East Side. I don't know if Elena's still there. I told her she should go home and get some sleep. They won't let her stay in the room with him if she's not family. Not much we can do until his family shows up— though you could claim you're his lawyer."

Jane replies "Hospitals are like that, yeah. Going home and getting sleep is good, hopefully she'll call me soon. It's good she has family with her, I wouldn't wish going through anything like this alone on anyone." Her voice carries the sound of having been there.

Jane says, "Should I go there now, or wait for her to call, Peter?"

Peter says, "I don't know how much you could do. You could check on the hospital, just in case she hasn't left. I'm probably going to call her tomorrow morning, you could too. I— really am curious who was answering her phone though." There's the sound that almost gives off his frown. "Was it a man or a woman?"

Jane says, "It was a man named Zac, it felt like a prank. His number ends in 5309."

Jane says, "But when she still didn't call me today, I got concerned."

Peter sounds confused, "She was over occupied today… But… the phone mixup sounds weird. Unless it was some kind of freak mistake. Zac… huh?" A paused sound, as if he's doing something, like writing down a number, perhaps?

Jane speaks in reply. Near the phone is a sound like plastic or metal sliding along a wooden tube, and the rustle of fabrics, like she's in the closet getting out lawyer garb. "Things can happen so fast, and I won't leave friends hanging with weirdness around. Anyway, I'll wait to hear from her, she and I can talk about the attorney angle. Thanks for calling back, Peter."

Peter says, "Especially since he was shot. The police would have been informed as soon as they brought him in. And you're welcome, Jane."

Jane says, "Take care."

The phone call has been ended by the other person.

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