no_bodyseesme | Breaking news, and broken hopes

The message from Sandra came in the early evening: Noah was dead, shot by a Company flunkie. For a long moment, nothing had registered -- numbness flooded him, his heart breaking. They'd just recently worked through the mistakes of the past and renewed their friendship, and now the man was gone.

The image of Mendez' painting burned in his mind's eye, and when the roaring in his ears finally cleared he heard himself snarling something about 'bloody goddamned 8 of fucking 8!' He was going to kill the man who had done it -- he just had to find out who, and he'd track him down wherever he was...

Except that Noah had made him promise: if anything ever happened to him, the family needed to be protected. And so he was sitting in another bloody airport terminal, waiting for a flight out to California so he could be there for them. His search for Peter was suddenly suspended until he knew his friend's family was safe -- and a part of him wondered when the hell that could ever be, since the Company's grasp seemed to be just as far-reaching as it ever had been.

He felt sick. He'd let himself hope, again, and the world had decided to remind him exactly why he'd stopped doing that all those long years ago. The only thing that kept him going at this point was the promise he'd made...

* * *

The ice storm grounded all the flights out of New York, and the bleak grey clouds matched his mood. If it had been any other kind of weather, he would have found a way to get a rental car and driven out to California. Instead, he was stuck in the nearest Holiday Inn, staring out the window and wishing there was enough Guinness in the world to make some sense out of this.

The news blathered on the telly -- he'd turned it on to get the weather report and had left it on, too numb to really register it. Even the 'breaking news' announcement didn't filter through until he finally realized what he was seeing -- until he saw it for the second or third time. Nathan Petrelli speaking to the press from the Odessa, TX police station with Peter standing at his side. It was obvious from what Nathan was saying that he was going to tell the world about them -- about specials -- and then two shots rang out, hitting Nathan and sending the entire room into chaos.

Then the news anchor was talking about an unknown assassin and the authorities rushing Nathan to the hospital where his condition was unknown. He grabbed up the laptop Noah had given him to keep in touch (better than him 'acquiring' one when he needed it and drawing attention to himself, Noah had told him...) and started it up, impatiently waiting for it to boot up and for the wireless connection to go through.

For the second time in as many days, things whirled through his mind too quickly for him to process. Odessa, TX -- there was no way it was a coincidence. There had to be a connection -- there always was. And Peter was there, still in danger (and Noah's cop friend, Parkman, too), and god only knew what state of mind he was in... If Odessa was about to be reduced to a smoking crater...

The online news outlets carried the same footage and then some. Peter, cradling his brother in his arms, obviously screaming his name, trying to will the man to wake up and be all right. Peter, breaking... Parkman scanning the crowd of people, looking for the shooter... There were no reports of Odessa being levelled, so somehow they must have at least controlled Peter for the meantime.

He swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut, had to blink a few times to get his vision to clear again. Damn it... He clicked on the 'home' icon and waited for the page to load and--

What the bloody--?

If it was someone's sick idea of a joke...

Reports of my death have been, if not exaggerated, at least severely twisted.

That was... Bloody hell! Noah!

He read the post, feeling bile wash at the back of his throat; swallowed again and shook his head. "No..."

Claude--I'm sorry. But they'll be safe now. Go find him. And don't try to contact me.

It couldn't -- but it had to be. 'Go find him.' The rest of it someone could fake, but that part -- only those closest to him knew he was still searching for Peter. And now he'd found him...

'...don't try to contact me...' Bloody noble idiot! And he knew exactly what he'd done, turned himself in and allowed them to slip the leash around his throat, knowing full well he'd never be free of them again. The things they'd be able to get him to do now, dangling his family's safety in front of him... And he couldn't let himself think along those lines any further, because that way lay madness and betrayal and he just couldn't deal with that now.

But he was already logging onto the travel site and changing his tickets, and god help him, he was going to have to go back... there.