Participants:
| Scene Title | From Bright To Dark |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The visions of June 10th didn't change nearly as much for Gillian and Peter as they may have for others. |
| Date | November 8, 2010 |
Cliffside Apartments Construction Site
The first thing that Gillian notices is the smell. Smoke has a distinct scent. It's not cigarette, it's smoke. In the darkness, her eyes take a long time to adjust, but that smoke is there. Tickling at her nose. A moment ago she was somewhere else entirely. Somewhen else. With a heavy heart and tears in her eyes that she wanted to hide. Now she has them for another reason. The smoke makes her eyes sting.
As her eyes come into focus, she can see the framework of the half completed building. The floors, the skeletal walls…
"Of all the places you had to drop me, it had to be here." And now. The stairwells are mostly completed, with at least the skeletal work, to allow workers to get up and down and continue what they're doing. No one's working today. And after today, no one will finish.
One fire claimed this building already. A second is getting closer.
But it's not the fire she's worried about, as she clutches the precious Harmony Bear against her body and hurries toward the stairs…
It's what might be waiting for her here. Who might be waiting for her.
The building is largely empty, just as Gillian remembers it from her vision. In a harrowing way, this explains why she was even there at all. Trapped in the past and slingshot back to the present, only to find herself here, of all places, lost between a vision of the future she helped create and her memories of what this building once was before fire gutted it.
Change is always coming, and it hurts.
There's no one here though, no rioters, no sounds of chaos or fighting. The entire building is empty, and while there's sirens wailing in the distance, maybe this portion of Queens isn't as bad as the visions had made it out to be. On her way down the stairs, cradling that bear in her arms, Gillian Childs catches sight of a shadow moving into a door frame. A man's silhouette, dark and long, creeping in from the building. She can also hear the distant hum of a radio on in the background.
Then she can see boots from her vantage point, and finally, stepping into view from the street, Peter Petrelli.
He doesn't look crazed though, more worried and pensive. Dark denim jeans and a jacket is what he was wearing when he came after her in the vision, blood spattered as his clothing is. His hair is oily, tangled and messy, beard grown in a little too much. Brows furrow as he looks from left to right downstairs, then calles out loudly.
"Gillian!?"
The sound of her name attracts attention. And causes a flinch of horror. But Gillian can't help but look down the stairs, to be presented with a man she'd just seen moments ago. When he'd been hardly a man at all.
The difference is uncanny. A moment ago she stole a brief kiss on one of the cheeks she now stares at. That Peter hadn't even had stubble, much less a beard. His face was smooth, his smile sweet and gentle. No matter what he felt like he had in his life, he had happiness once. Innocence.
That no longer exists. It's been ripped away by time. A time that was only moments ago for her.
The purple teddy bear is clutched tightly in her hands. Protectively. There was no way she was leaving it behind in the past. The only gift he'd ever given her, besides the handprint on her chest, and the heartache gripping her chest. Far more precious than either…
Gillian hadn't had a bear in her vision. She hadn't had one in his, either. But she doesn't want to put it down, toss it away, leave it behind. Here anymore than the past. As she looks at him her hair doesn't look red. It's the shadows hiding the tinge. Her hand is holding a purple teddy bear against her body, turned towards her. There may no longer be butterflies to step on… But there's illusions to shatter.
"You can't be here, you shouldn't be here. This is the last place you should be today— " she chokes out hoarsely, made worse by the the tension and the smoke lingering in the air. Her cheeks are already becoming stained.
There's a moment where Peter squints at Gillian's clothing, looking like she might've picked up some old clothes at a Goodwill for all the odd fashion statement that they are. Cocking a brow up, Peter considers the purple care bear in her arms, brows lift, and there's a look of abject confusion writ across his face.
No, that can't be.
A sixteen year old memory of a redhead with that bear, an errand for his mother. Peter's lips part slowly, trying to remember the woman, failing to really recall much about her. So much has happened since then, and the death of one of his replicants scrambled his memory so bad bits and pieces have been so out of alignment.
"I— came here to make sure you were okay. I— my vision, it— you shouldn't be here. There were DHS on their way in here at the end," dark eyes sweep towards the front of the building, then back towards Gillian as Peter furrows his brows. "C'mon, I'll take you back to…" there's a pause, "where… do you even live now?"
It can't be is probably the best answer in the world.
To him it was sixteen years ago. To her it was moments. Moments. But he is right. Gillian's not supposed to be here— doesn't want to be here. "I live at Redbird Security right now," she answers, reaching up with a free hand to wipe at her eyes, looking around for something from her vision.
Anything that might protect her from the eventual outcome. Maybe if they leave quickly they can avoid it.
Then she sees it. A flicker of light illuminates a work bench, where someone left some equipment. One might wonder if they abandoned their post in a hurry. But it's that one item that tells her for a fact it could still happen.
A nailgun.
"We need to go, now— please tell me you have flight or teleportation or something." Because the fast they leave, the sooner she can believe she's safe. And that the precious bear she holds in her arms is safe.
"No I— " Peter strains a sigh out his nose, "I have healing and regeneration so I could save you." There's a puzzled look on Peter's face as he looks away, over to where Gillian was but doesn't see the same problems she does, a nailgun is just a nailgun, not an instrument of terror to her. "It's pretty thick with riot police out there, we're going to need to lay low."
Glancing over his shoulder, Peter walks in further ot the building. Once deeper into the building, his brows furrow tight as he considers the redhead again. "I know you probably don't want to stay here, but if we go out there we might get caught up in something worse. Look— things are already different, Rupert's dead, the broadcast already passed. We're going to be fine."
Offering out a hand, Peter manages a weak smile. "C'mon."
Of all the times to offer her his hand. Gillian can remember so many times she wanted to be around him, and he turned around and left. So many times she wanted to take that hand and hold it… And it wasn't offered. The one time she wants to be anywhere else… is the one time he wants to stay. The one time he offers her his hand.
"There's no in between with you," she says quietly, voice whispered as she steps closer, still protecting the Care Bear with one arm. There's photographs in her pocket. The only other reminder of her trip. Neither of the two she ever wants to lose… but if things go worse…
She could lose everything. Including her own life.
The other hand reaches out to take his, squeezing. "If we can get somewhere else— I'd rather be anywhere but here right now. Even if— even if you stopped him…"
"Don't worry about it, we'll get through this. I just… after what I've gone through the last couple of days, I need— I need to feel like I did some good. I sent Knox and Oleander— uh— friends from Messiah down to Staten Island to hook up with Sasha at a triage center. They should be fine, especially after the hell they went through. It might be bad right now, but… but it's gotta' work out. It can't keep getting worse, it just— it can't."
Squeezing Gillian's hand, Peter offers a look back towards the door, all the while that radio has been prattling on well out of range to actually make out what is being said. That it's a news broadcast neither of them realized, that it's a small independant radio station is another.
That they're replaying the mysterious broadcast Gillian only realizes when she hears Nathan's voice.
Peter looks over to the radio, eyes wide, "No!" Bolting for the box, letting go of Gillian's hand, he rushes right past the nailgun, trying to shut it off before he heard
Every Prophet in his House
Peter grinds to a halt, colloding with the metal shelf that contains the boombox, one hand slapping down on top to tiurn down the volume.
Too late.
When someone says 'it can't get any worse'… it usually does.
And Peter goes and proves that law just as soon as the words leave his mouth, even as Gillian's smiling up at him— at least until the voice registers. She'd just heard it not too long ago, teasing his younger brother. A voice the man before her once admired. Envied. How everything has changed. But no matter how much she wanted to believe her vision has, as he lets go of her hand and bolts for the box, she stands in horror as she hear… a voice.
The voice. The voice that she spent a week and a half learning to build machines to try and stop. A voice of a man she's been assured is dead.
But even the dead speak. Even the dead are rebroadcast, over and over.
A few moments ago they were the happiest and most heartbreaking moments she'd ever spent with this man. And now they're becoming the most tragic.
In her vision she was running, trying desperately to get away. He could walk through walls. He chased her down… carrying…
In the seconds after the boombox is silences, she lunges forward, reaching for the nailgun. He might take it from her. This may be what draws his attention to it. But something plays again in her recent memory. He has regeneration. Nothing she does can hurt him for long…
But it may buy her a few minutes.
The nailgun is raised up toward his body… and fired.
Click.
That's the thing about nailguns, they're designed to work on a tap-impact, not as projectile weapons. That little bit of construction know-how is something that Gillian's never had to experience herself. It also means that Peter had to be hitting her with the nailgun to get her injured, an even more horrifying notion.
The only sound Peter makes is a snarling howl, a roar of some strangled sound catching in the back of his throat as he turns and hurls the radio at Gillian. The cord pops out of the wall, boombox sailing past where she reflexively ducks to avoid it, shattering on the floor behind her in a spray of plastic parts.
Peter is running with the motion of the throw, booted feet clapping on the cement floor, both hands reaching out ahead for Gillian. The sound he makes is nothing short of the strangled cry of an animal ready to strike, the look on his face like that of a crazed killer. This is the second time he's had this look in his eyes.
Last time he had a crowbar.
There had been no way for Gillian to know how they worked, honestly— she may have done a little handy-man work at the Lighthouse, but she'd had an old fashioned hammer and nail, and the realization makes her freeze for a moment. Too long a moment. The last time he had a crowbar. This time…
There's a pained sound from her throat, almost as if he's already hit her. It's perhaps the spray of plastic bits thathad, but he hasn't quite reached her yet. She doesn't have much time to act—
All she can do is what she was doing in the vision…
Sometimes fate can't be avoided. Sometimes life doesn't give a second chance…
Sometimes you just have to run away, and that's what Gillian does. Grasping the nailgun in hand to keep it from him, she does something she didn't want to do…
Harmony Bear gets left behind, landing with a bounce near the shattered pieces of the boom box.
Peter is on Gillian's heel's like a bloodhound, crashing past another loose metal shelving unit and knocking it over as he stomps down on the stuffed bear with one foot in his sprint. With legs that don't tire and an overall more athletic build, Peter catches up to Gillian enough to grab her by the back of her hair and swing her around, slamming her back up against the half finished wall. She struggles, he claws and grabs at her, one of his hands finding her wrist and slamming her hand up against the skeletal wooden framework behind her.
Peter scowls, his teeth bared like some sort of wild animal as he presses up towards Gillian and grabs her by the front of her hair, slamming the back of her head into the wooden post, a scream croaking out at the back of his throat.
There is a stairwell nearby, it's the best chance she has, if she can just get him off of her.
The first time he attacked her, she was the one with regeneration. Now Gillian's vision goes dark at the impact of her head against the wall, like little pricks of light shining in the darkness. The speckles expand to create a more solid image, what she should be seeing. Nothing has happened that she can't recover from eventually— but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel it.
There's straggled cries from her throat, pain and anger and… fear. She thought the vision was horrifying. She'd had nightmares of it for weeks, months even.
But the moment is much more terrifying.
Feet kick out frantically, trying to land on shins, on knees, stomping on his feet— nothing about it is planned. It's the struggles of someone who has been cornered. Someone who can't think about what they're doing.
Her hand twitches around the nailgun as she struggles to get it pointed the right way, press it up against his now very close body… against his rib cage. If she can just get him off her, she can get to those stairs.
She has to buy time. If what he saw told her anything… it means he'll snap out of it eventually. He has to.
Ka-Chunk
Peter howls in pain as the nail drives itself between ribs and into his lung. A gurgle of blood comes up next and his legs give out, hands grasping out and wingers winding around the nailgun as he tries to wrench it out of Gillian's hands, finally prying it free as he falls backwardss and crashes through a plastic curtain into another room.
Gillian is given the opportunity, turning the corner and bounding up the stairs, listening to Peter thrash around, wrapped up in the plastic curtain, screaming as he pries the nail out of his chest. Gillian's footfalls thunk loudly against the wooden steps, the same noise as her racing heart.
When she gets to the landing of the second floor and makes a break for a corridor with a door at the end, she suddenly recognizes the hall and a wave of nausea and fear comes washing in over her; Too familiar.
Half finished, the floor isn't even done. Planks of wood, securely nailed in places, stick up in others. The lightning is dim, flickering, casting a reddish tinge. Smoke tickles at the senses, eyes burning. Even with the stinging in her eyes, Gillian Childs' eyes are adjusted to the dark, as she hurries down the unfinished hallway… but even then, she's looking behind her, looking back, and doesn't see a missing floorboard. It catches her boot, sends her falling against the dusty floor with a grunt.
A tiny spot of blood on the floorboards comes from Gillian's chin where skin is scraped off from the impact. Blood runs in a tiny rivulet down the front of her throat, and by the time she's managed to get herself scrambling back up onto her hands and knees, she can already hear Peter running up the stairs behind her, panting like he's out of breath, having shed his jacket somewhere downstairs, blood running from a wound in his chest where a nail once bristled. He steps up into the hallway behind Gillian, black tank top baring toned, muscular arms slicked with sweat and flecked with ashes and soot. Wild black hair is tangled into his face, parted in the middle, but it's the cordless nail gun that Peter Petrelli carries in one hand that worries Gillian the most.
That, and the blank look in his eyes.
Gillian struggles to get to her feet, breath caught in fearful gasps, harsh and hoarse, as she abandons the unfinished hallway toward the opposite room. Moisture both blurs and clears her eyes, the sting persisting as she looks around, the flickering dim light guiding her, even as she ends up running against a solid wall. No exit. A frantic search in the dim light reveals no escape. She looks back again, finally calling out in a rough voice, "Peter, stop."
The words come reflexively, familiarly.
Striding forward, Peter curls his fingers tighter around the grip of the nail gun, his head tilting to the side as he steps through a doorway and into the sparsely lit room. The glow of fire out a glassless window at his side reflects orange against one side of his face. Boots clomp heavily across the floor as Peter marches towards the brunette, lifting up the nail gun in one hand as he does. His boot falls leave dark tracks in the sawdust and ash on the floor behind him, still wet with blood from the injury Gillian inflicted on him.
He's wordless in his approach, lifting the nail gun up, head tilting to the other side as he does. There's nothing there in his eyes, no regret, no remorse, no anger— //nothing… There's just the expression of humorless intent and the threat of that nail gun.
Earlier in this day, this day to her— Gillian had told this man's mother that she would give up her life to save him, to protect him. Unfortunately, dying at his hands wouldn't do him any good. It wouldn't save him. It would reinforce self-hatred, disgust— it would destroy him even more.
This alone may have already been enough, with the blood dripping down her neck, with the fear and panic on her paling face.
The fear has a second side effect. The knot in the back of her mind strains against the influx of energy that's always there, always constant. Gnawing at her and threatening to seep out. It's an ability she hated, but the one she agreed to, when she traveled back in time, when she saw she had a choice.
The throbbing energy seeps out of her, saturating the area, though there's only one person in reach— and fueling him with her own energy won't do much good.
"Peter! I know you snap out of this— fuck." She needs to do something. But what can she do? There's only so much someone who has been cornered can do—
She does the only thing she can think of, and she lunges toward him, trying to grab the nailgun away again, hands reaching for his wrist, for the weapon… If she can get it away she can throw it out the glassless window, and hope she can survive his fists longer.
Peter screams, a furious, hateful scream as Gillian lunges for him. He backs up and collides with a door frame, they struggle with the nailgun, Peter's finger tugging at the trigger ineffectually without it pressed against anything. A growl chokes in the back of his throat, hands claw at Gillian's face, try to push her back, away. Finally, Peter shifts his weight and swings Gillian around, there's the a sudden, sharp noise that follows:
Ka-Chunk
Blood pulses from Gillian as she screams, a nail driven into her collarbone near her shoulder. In her recoil, Peter throws the nailgun aside and lunges at her, reaching up to wrap his fingers around her throat and charge forward, pushing her away from him and driving her into the plate glass leaning up against the wall behind her.
It shaters at they hit it, Gillian is dragged down through the glass as it breaks into long, vicious blades. One lances up through her stomach, another cuts her across the arm down to the bone, a smaller shart drives into her back and her face is dragged down the razor-sharp edge as the glass breaks away, leaving a deep, bloody cut from one side of her face and down to the other than bleeds profusely.
When they collide with the floor, Peter tightens his fingers around Gillian's throat, his jaws clenched and eyes wide, trying to squeeze the life out of her, thumbs pressed against her windpipe as—
The cork comes out of the champagne bottle with a noisy pop, followed by a cheer from the crowd as applause rises in the air. "To the beginning of a new future, a bright future, and to putting the dark past behind us." Pouring the first glass of champagne out of the bottle, Arthur Petrelli offers a warm smile to the crowd of men in tuxedos and women in fashionable gowns. "To our future, as bright as the sun!"//
Cheering continues as applause grows, and as Arthur steps aside and turns his attention to the young man standing at his side, his dark brows furrow together as he looks up to Peter. Black suit, bowtie, crisp white shirt and a crooked smile that seems just a little reluctant. Arthur takes another sip from his glass, clasping a hand down on his son's shoulder. "You look like you've got gas, son. Come on, what's bothering you?" Arthur's eyes drift not to Peter's, but to follow the deep cut that crosses his face from brow to cheek, a scar that has defined him for years.
"I just… I didn't want to come," Peter admits reluctantly, dark eyes aimed down to his feet. "This celebration's for you and General Autumn, not me. I'm just… I'm in the way. Do you think it'd be alright if— " Arthur squeezes his son's shoulder, cutting Peter off as he slowly shakes his head, wraps one arm around Peter and points him in a new direction.
"You see that pretty young lady sitting at the bar?" Arthur queries, motioning with his glass to a slim, pale-skinned brunette sitting at the open bar by herself, hands folded over her purse, watching the crowd, listening to the music, but largely looking alone. Peter warily looks back to his father, then offers him a reluctant nod. "She was watching you for the entire speech," Arthur suddenly withdraws his hand and shoves Peter forward.
"Go talk to her."
There's an odd gesture as he finally gets shoved forward, as the young woman, Gillian Childs as she still goes by, glances at her bare wrist. It seems to be a habit gesture, like she's looking for something. A watch she's not wearing. A habit that she hasn't gotten out of, because it's barely been a month since she finally made a decision. She wouldn't wear the watch. Couldn't wear the watch anymore.
The watch was a reminder of someone who wasn't there anymore.
As she glances back up, she finds a distraction from the sudden thoughts, but she doesn't slide off the bar stool and approach, instead she raises a hand and waves down the tender. "Two more of these." A sweet and fruity drink, mostly a peach schnapps, a couple fruit juices, and vodka. It's a cocktail, not a manly drink, but it's a drink. And one she's apparently intending to share with him.
In fact the first drink is slid over to her and she holds it up at him between two fingers. "You look like you could use this."
"That obvious, huh?" Peter offers Gillian a lopsided smile and a breathy laugh, ambling over to the bar with his hands in his pockets, eyeing the drink and then looking over his shoulder to his father, who just raises a hand and fingler-waggles at Peter with a raise of his brows. Rolling his eyes and laughing, Peter eases down onto the stool next to Gillian, then reaches out to take the drink in one hand, and offers her his other for a proper introduction.
"Peter," is said with a wry tone, because it's a bit presumptious on his part to think she doesn't know who he is, when she's at his father's FRONTLINE gala. "You don't really look like you're enjoying sitting around with all these stuffed suits," dark eyes track back over to Gillian, dark eyes divided by a cruel scar.
"Thanks," Peter admits with a raise of the glass up like a toast, "I appreciate it.
"Painfully obvious," Gillian says with a smile tugging on the corner of her mouth and making dimples apparent on her cheeks. There's nothing painful about the way she's looking, and at the same time she doesn't look drunk despite this drink being at least her second. Perhaps the different fruit juice mellows it out enough. Or maybe she's that good at holding her drink. Her amusement seems genuine, soft even.
"You don't recognize me, do you?" she asks, tilting her head to the side. In all his worries of persumptions that she would recognize him, he probably never considered he should recognize her. "Shouldn't surprise me, I guess— it's been almost two years, and I've changed a lot. You still owe me a motorcycle," she adds, shifting her cocktail towards his and clinking the glasses together. "But I'll take a sit down and a drink instead."
A motorcycle. One she hasn't thought about in a long time. Two years almost. When a piece of him was shot down in the street. When she stood at the side of one of his worst enemies— and when she betrayed the man to save his life.
"Gillian Childs. I started working for your father about a year ago now. I'm one of his archivists, keep track of his paper work. That's why I'm here. The stuffy suits aside, at least it's an open bar."
Dark brows furrow the scar between them as Peter considers Gillian, a smile spread across his lips and a nervous laugh soon following after. "God, yeah I'm sorry I… I have a lot of trouble with names. You look familiar though and— and I'll take your word on owing you a motorcycle" It's like he doesn't remember at all. Snorting a laugh out, Peter lifts up his drink and takes a sip, "Maybe I need one less of these," he jokingly comments, smile growing.
Looking back to Arthur, Peter's brows furrow as he sees him standing there talking to a shorter and wiry man with a scruffy beard and an inappropriately angled fedora cast atop his head. "So, you must with with Rupert Carmichael, then?" Peter's dark eyes track back to Gillian, "that's a pretty nice position. Pinehearst's only going to get bigger and getting in now, that pretty much means you've got your future set."
Sliding his tongue across his lips, Peter's brows crease that scar again, and he stares down into his drink at his reflection. For the barest of moments, there's a look of uncertainty that crosses his face, a nervousness and a lack of recognition. Laughing again, Peter shakes his head and looks back up to Gillian slowly. "Sorry I…"
He was having a little deja vu.
"Rupert? Yeah— he's kind of a weasel, but he keeps very good notes, which is more than I can say for your dad— if he doesn't type it, it's nearly illegable. If I hadn't known he was a lawyer I'd think he had been a doctor in a past life," Gillian says, taking a sip of her drink, an unaptely name Sex on the Beach in Winter, while she watches him. In part, she seems a little…
Disappointed.
"Your dad's got some ambitious ideas. Are you going to be helping him out with them? If you do, we'll probably see a lot more of each other, and maybe I can help jog your memory a little."
Because if there's one thing Gillian Childs wants most— it's to leave a lasting impression.
Looking down to his drink again, as if trying to find something that isn't there anymore, Peter offers a slowly formed smile. "Yeah I… We've got this project, healing Midtown. My dad thinks he can get rid of all the radiation, bring up a huge forest where the ruins are and turn it in to a memorial park. We haven't worked out all the logistics of it yet, but between the two of us we should have enough strength to do it, with the right abilities."
Sheepishly looking across the bar to the shelves of bottles, Peter gently bites down on his bottom lip, looking worried by something. "I'm— I don't know if I can really do it, though. I mean it— it sounds nice, I'm just— maybe we're being a little too overly ambitious. I wouldn't want people to get their hopes up."
It sounds a little bit like defeatism, and in a way it is. There's still so much guilt there that he wears across his face, a badge of his shame.
"You're right," Gillian says, taking a drink from hers before she sets it down and scoots a little closer on her bar stool, practically sliding off of it as she leans in closer. "As you are right now, you can't do this." He was so defeatest, and here she is, giving him back exactly what he has been saying, but at the same time she's reaching up with her hand, fingers still slightly chilled from the cocktail.
That finger draws touches his forehead, right where that deep scar begins, and slowly begins to slide down over it, so light and gentle, it's almost a feather touch. "You can't heal the city until you start healing yourself." So many years has past, she looks familiar, but there's something quiet and knowing in the way her eyes settle on him. Possibly too knowing for comfort.
"You don't need that anymore, Peter."
Peter's eyes snap wide, his hands break away from Gillians throat and his breath chokes in the back of his throat. Shaking, blood-soated hands recoil from the scene of violence, of Gillian's blood-smeared body laying in agony on the floor of the renovated room nor further renovated by carnage and misery.
Peter rolls off of Gillian, crawls backwards through broken glass thar drives jagged shards into his skin, slivers that are spat out by his own flesh as the wounds begin to seal shut on their own. He breathes, wheezingly, watching what he'd done with a look of horrified disbelief on his face. Rupert Carmichael's psychic triggers are powerful, but there are some things stronger, and perhaps despite all evidence to the contrary, Peter's mind is one of them.
Maybe it was Claire's ability, maybe it was a thousand different things, maybe it was—
"Gillian," is gasped breathlessly as Peter crawls onto his knees, scrambling back for herm watching her blood ooze out of the deep wounds covering her. "No!"
It's hard to tell the color of anything in the haze of smoke and shadows. The fire casts a red glow, the blood darkens things that would not have been dark normally. Where there's not gashes and dark fluid, her skin is pale. The breath still comes, air weazing in and out of her lungs in wet gasps, coughs from the pressure on her neck. There's blood on her mouth, in her mouth— could be a punctured lung, could be the blood flowing down her face and forcing one of her eyes closed.
Blood stings in the eyes, it can even blind people.
It seems for a moment she's trying to speak, trying to say something a hand reaching up toward his bearded face. A fingers damppened by her ownr blood— and maybe mixed a little with his.
"No, no, no, no, no, no!" The scream Peter gives rings off of the walls as he lifts Gillian's body up off of the floor, wraps one arm brneath her and starts pulling the large slivers of glass out of her. "No— no Gillian no!" Panic fills him, wells up tears in his eyes, causes his hands to shake and throat to clamp down on his breath like a vice. "Oh— oh God, Gillian hang on… hang on I can— I can make this better— p— please, Gillian hang on…"
Shame fills Peter's heart, agonizing guilt covers his face like a mask. Trembling fingers slowly pick bits of broken glass out from Gillian's body, some larger than others, each increasing the bloodflow escaping her. The horrifying warning Sasha Kozlow had given him just a day earlier makes his own blood run cold where hers burns as hot as fire over his skin; or at least it feels that way.
A warning about trying to save the dead, about the finicky nature of his ability and the repercussions for trying to bring someone back from too far past the brink. There is so much blood on the floor here that the brink may have been passed and Peter wouldn't even be able to tell. When the worst of the glass is out, the rest is left to be forced out, painfully.
Taking a hold of Gillian's arm, Peter squeezes his hand tight around her wrist, realizes what has to be done because of the severity of her injuries, just how badly she's hurt. First, there is a soft white glow that exchanges between Gillian and Peter's skin, a copying of a necessary power vital to ensuring that he's strong enough to save her, despite the cost it will have on him.
He can't amplify himself, but if he does it to Gillian in her state, it should jumpstart her ability uncontrolably.
That's never gone wrong before.
A violet glow burns brightly out of Peter's hand, augmenting Gillian's amplification power with one of his own that increases her own ability to send energy out to others. Injured, dying, and not in full control of herself, the knot of psychic discipline that keeps her power in check unravels, and Peter is cautious enough to stop his own flow of power right when the tidal-wave of her own ability augmentation hits him.
Peter sheds a soft violet corona for the barest of moments as their powers overlap, and what happens next is agonizing but necessary. Beneath where Peter's hand hold Gillian's arm, flesh blackens and welts like a burn. Muscles twist and concort and Peter screams as blood begins to blossom beneath his clothing, injuries he won't automatically heal from on his own.
One by one, each of Gilian's terrible wounds begin to heal, sealing shut by merit of the ability borrowed from Sasha Kozlow. As the healing ability twists muscles beneath flesh, stimulates regeneration and closes wounds, Peter's eyes wrench shut and his breath is sucked deep into his chest.
A cry of pain emerges a moment later as the cut on Gillian's brow begins to heal shut, and a matching cut like all of his other injuries splits open on his forehead. A terrible gash, running from the top right portion of his forehead all the way down across the bridge of his nose and to his left cheek.
Blood runs hot out of split flesh and Peter's hand comes away from Gillian with trembling shakes, a moment before he collapses onto his side on the floor.
That healing was different than the last one she had augmented. Gillian realizes it as she lays there a few moments, orienting herself by staring at her hand in front of her that he'd just let go of. For a long moment, the pain had been so much she was sure she was dead, sure that her life was flashing before her eyes… And something she realizes, painfully… Even after what just happened, she her heart still clinches at the bloodied sight of him, when she looks away from her hand, her wrist.
"Peter," she chokes out, strained voice a whisper, the taste of blood still in her mouth as she moves, the broken glass threatening, but avoided for the most part as she reaches down and touches the blood. Her blood and his.
Her voice is weak, tired, drained. The ability didn't give her back all the blood she lost— the augmentation drained her of energy too. It slows her down, but it doesn't stop her, now that most of the pain is gone. Now that she can see, and knows what happened.
"You could have just asked me to augment you," she says, leaning down over him, her damp red hair touching his face as she looks into his eyes, at the newly replaced scar. She'd not been aware of much. She may not have been able to…
"Sometimes I really hate you," she whispers quietly, as she leans in even more. This time to kiss him, perhaps banking on him being too weak to move away.
Once he'd kissed her before trying to kill her, this time she's kissing him after, though it lacks any of the jealousy, the passion. Just a simple kiss. Sometimes things need to come full circle so that it can end.
Too weak to move, in too much pain to move. Peter's injuries are not quite as severe as Gillian's was due to the way Sasha Kozlow's ability imparts them onto him empathetically, but the response to the kiss is Peter's eyes shutting and a dry, tight swallow constricting his throat. "Run," is rasped out to Gillian in a strangled voice, because while this may not have ended the same way as it did in Peter's vision, he knows what is coming next.
Downstairs and out on the street, the sound of a vehicle approaching the tenement building rumbles through the air. Shouting voices, the cocking of rifles and the crackling pop of radios all indicate the arrival of armed individuals. Whether they're DHS, SWAT or the Army doesn't matter, their response to the pair here will be nothing short of disastrous.
"Run," Peter strains again, lifting up a bloody hand to Gillian's cheek to push her away.
Run— The hand pushes against her, causing her to stumble back and have to catch herself. The sounds outside grab her attention away from him, the lack of windows and insolation and completed walls making it sound louder than it would if they were in the room of a finished apartment. She's not sure she can run, and…
"Come on," she says instead of getting onto her feet and running toward the stairs she just fled up, pulling on him. "We have to go, please. We have to run." She recognizes that, but at the same time, leaving him there doesn't seem to be an option…
If their situations were reversed, she thinks she would do the same, tell him to leave her. But she also doesn't think he would.
This too, feels like it's happened before. "I know someplace we can go. Someplace safe." If they can make it there.
Peter lurches to his feet, knees trembling and a howl of pain escapes the back of his throat, blood wetly darkening his clothing as he's pulled to his feet. His legs buckle and Peter stumbles forward, weigh landing on Gillian. A shout downstairs indicates that Peter's cry of pain may have been heard, and booted feet are already beginning to sweep the downstairs, searching for the individuals they now rightfully believe are in the building.
Trapped on the second floor and with nowhere to go but down and into the armed members of whatever group has arrived at the building, Gillian has few options. She could be arrested and hope that when the dust settles she's released, but with the Institute looking for her there may be a fate worse than being lined up and shot waiting for her.
Peter, though, nothing good is waiting for Peter.
To be honest, Gillian would rather be shot and killed than go back to the Institute, to be used again. That's why she had been slowly killing herself when they found her in the hospital. That last cut that opened her vein hadn't been the only one. They weren't all testing slashes. She just never quite got it right, or deep enough, or bleed out enough…
And she knows if she gets captured, she'll try it again. Which would make what he just did for her meaningless.
"Come on," she says, carrying more of his weight than she probably should be able to. She's weak, more than exhausted, but the situation has such gravity. "You always liked flying, right?" she whispers to him as she pulls him along toward one of those windows without glass in them. If they can't go down the stairs… that might be their only option. Looking down she checks for people, hoping she won't have to duck her head out of the way to avoid a sniper.
All clear.
"No— No, Gillian— this is a terrible— " Peter's words turn into a gasp of fright as he is bodily pushed out a glassless window, hurled out and down into a commercial waste dumpster where he collides with broken pieces of sheet rock, contractor bags full of insulation and firm— but not back breaking— materials. When Gillian's shadow comes cast over him, Peter exhales a sharp breath and rolls out of the way before she lands atop him.
Unaware of the escape being made, the men storming the unfinished remnants of Cliffside Apartments shout orders to one another, clearing room by room downstairs. Peter is still bleeding, profusely and he isn't healing.
"…could have been worse," Gillian whispers once she recovers her breath, looking down at his body, and all the bleeding areas. Bandages need to be made, it needs to be stopped… but they may not be able to do it here of all places. A glance is cast back to the apartment building, the skeleton of one, and she listens to the noises they make. One night, nearly two years ago, she saw him get shot in the head, and she ran away. All the way home, to her other apartment building. There's no way they'll make it there.
"Come on…" she whispers as she reaches to pull on him, to drag him away from the building they just jumped out of. "Once we get a block away— there has to be somewhere we can duck into, we can get you bandaged up. Just keep breathing." If there's one thing she asks of him that she hopes he complies to, it's that.
It takes some effort to get Peter out of the dumpster, dragging his weakly stumbling form along until he collapsed onto his side on the asphalt. Choking out a wet breath, he eases up slowly onto one arm, a keening sound of pain escaping him as blood blurs his vision and drips off of the bridge of his nose from the cleft now running diagonal down his face.
His pace is staggered, wavering, and he requires Gillian's help to even tell which direction he should be running in. From the building at their backs, shouts of "Clear!" echo on their heels.
By the time the men raiding the building realize that the man they've been hunting is gone, it will be too late to find Peter Petrelli again. Disappearing into the fiery heart of Queens along with Gillian, his survival here is at all costs, against all odds. But while he may have been able to run from this fate… there is another one coming on the horizon that he and Gillian both are running towards at full speed.
A dark future awaits.