Heroes: Commentary on Rescue Me
Nov. 25th, 2009 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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visiblemarket. This is the last chapter of Rescue Me, which can be found here.
You wanna know how this came together,visiblemarket? In a big damn hurry, because the due date was looming and I’d just about had enough of this story. Unfortunate, but true. Anyway...
“She can’t not be here,” Peter declared, “Abby knows better than that. She knows any soldier that saw her would have to throw her in a cell. Or in Human Resources... Maybe she’s taking a nap.” He poked his head into the empty bedroom, “Nope.” He walked back out to the middle of the sitting room. “Well, we’d know already if she’d been arrested- the major would be down here crowing at me and booking my flight home by now.”
Exhibit A detailing how I ran out of time on this story: The major only turning up again to do something crazy and die. Sorry, Major Miller, you were kind of becoming an interesting character for a minute there- and then I killed you.
Claude was silent, glaring at nothing, knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth.
“Maybe Decker needed her for something. He could probably get away with being her escort. I’ll call him.” Peter dug in his pocket for his cell phone, but paused, “Oh, wait. Abby has my phone. She was talking to Lee before we left.” He crossed to the cot where Abby had been sitting, looking down at the rumpled sheets, “I guess she still has it with her, wherever she is. So, okay, let’s call her.”
He picked up the receiver of the phone that sat on the kitchen counter and dialed his cell’s number. (It occurred to me somewhat belatedly that Peter’s quarters might have a regular phone in them. I’m so used to just using a cell all the time.) It rang several times before a voice that wasn’t Abby’s said, “Who is this?”
Peter frowned in confusion, “It’s Peter. Major Miller... is that you?” Claude whipped around to face him. Peter shrugged.
“Yes, yes, Peter, it’s Major Miller. Listen very closely, I can’t speak long. Miss Scott has kidnapped me and is threatening to kill me unless I allow her to leave the base and return to her friends.”
“What?” Peter cried, thoroughly bewildered now, “Major, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“All I’m saying is what I’ve been told, Peter. Now I need you to assemble a team- Lieutenant Keable, Sergeant Levy, Henriksen, and Jordan, and Corporal Park and Arnott, and tell them to come out here and subdue Miss Scott. She’s driven me out to the south gate, past the shooting range. She wants the code to unlock the gate or she’ll kill me.”
Bless you, Wikipedia- you’ve made naming characters easy with your random article generator. However, here comes Exhibit B: Ibsen’s men get 0 development. Keable at least deserved something. Oh well.
“Major, I- I don’t understand. Abby’s-”
“Please, Peter! She’s desperate and she’s dangerous. This is my life at stake here!”
“Okay, okay, stay calm. We’ll come out there.”
“Tell the team to hurry, and don’t call this number again.” The line went dead. Peter stared at the receiver.
“Pete,” he heard Claude say, “What the hell was all that about?”
“Abby’s kidnapped the major and is threatening to kill him if she’s not released.”
Peter saw his mystification mirrored in Claude’s face, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Abby would never do something like that.”
“I... Are you sure? I mean, she’s been stuck on this base, separated from Lee for over a month now... Maybe she just wanted... to...” He trailed off in the intensity of Claude’s incredulous expression.
“Abby would never do something like that,” he repeated with slow emphasis, “You just said, she knows better. This is all bollocks, the major tryin’ to trick us- or at least everyone too stupid to tell the difference- into thinkin’ she’s dangerous. That we’re all dangerous. Get us back on beds and things back to normal, the way he likes them.”
Heh, I had fun with this idea of appearances- how the whole thing could fall apart if it even looks like something’s gone wrong.
Peter groaned, “Great. I almost wish it was a bad case of cabin fever.”
“We need to find Decker, sort this out before it gets out of control.”
They set off down the hall to Decker’s office. “You know the major asked me to assemble a team to come get him and put Abby down.”
“Lemme guess, reads like a roll call for the dearly departed Captain Ibsen’s team. Everyone who hasn’t seen sense yet around here.”
Not actual character development, but anincredible half-assed simulation!
“Yeah, as if I wouldn’t notice. How dumb does he think I am?”
“Use it to your advantage, mate. If he thinks you’re dumb he’ll underestimate you, an’ this’ll be over that much quicker.”
“I hope so.” They made it to Decker’s office, going inside and shutting the door. The man looked up from his paperwork. “Abby kidnapped the major,” Peter announced.
Decker blinked. “He’s lost his mind. I thought he might be plotting something, but I didn’t think he’d gone that far round the twist,” he said, immediately divining the truth of the situation, “Give me the details.” Peter did, saying that the major was expecting Ibsen’s team at the south gate. Decker gave a small shrug, “Unless he intends to simply shoot Abby and say it was self-defense. It would be all but impossible to prove that it wasn’t.”
I’m sorry,englishmuffin2, but I have to come clean. Samuel Decker has always been played by James Purefoy, not Gareth David-Lloyd. It took a lot of pondering to find the perfect British actor for the part, but I did it.
Claude stiffened beside Peter and immediately wheeled himself from the room.
The other two men followed, Decker saying low in Peter’s ear, “We can’t let anyone else know what’s happening, or things will get out of hand- oh bugger.”
“What?”
“They already know.”
Peter looked ahead, and saw the soldiers the major had asked for, walking towards them with semi-automatic rifles on straps slung over their shoulders. Ready to go. “Something wrong, guys?” Lieutenant Keable asked, malicious joy not hidden well enough in his gaze.
Decker clenched his jaw, reluctantly grinding out, “We have a slight situation.”
“Oh? Where’s the major? Where’s Miss Scott?”
“At the south gate.”
“What are they doing there?”
“It’s possible that Miss Scott has taken the major hostage in order to leave the base.”
False concern replaced false innocence, “Oh no! That sounds bad. We should go out there and see if we can resolve the situation, shouldn’t we?”
Clearly loathing playing his part in the major’s pantomime, but unable to do anything else, Decker said, “Yes, we should.”
“Well let’s go, we can’t waste one second!” Keable turned to his team, “Okay, guys, move out!” He turned back, “Uh, Mister Decker, Mister Petrelli, you two can come along if you want, but I’m afraid our truck isn’t exactly handicap-accessible.”
He nodded down at Claude- who stood up. “‘S okay. Don’t need it.” He kicked his chair so it rolled several feet behind him, crossed his arms, and glared down at Keable from his superior height. Peter noticed a flash of uncertainty, almost fear, in the lieutenant’s eyes before he turned on his heel and began leading them through the base. As they passed one of the soldiers’ rec rooms, Claude suddenly called out, “Hardy! Hey, Hardy, get your arse over here!”
To be perfectly honest, I had no idea how I was going to resolve this whole “Miller taking Abby hostage but making it look like she took him hostage” situation when I came up with it. I was pretty worried about it too. Luckily it turned out I just needed Claude to step in and throw a few monkey wrenches around.
Hardy looked up from his pool game with a puzzled expression, but registered the armed team walking in front of Claude, Peter, and Decker, and quickly joined them. “Keable, what’s going on here?”
It was Keable’s turn to clench his jaw, though he was deviating from his script, “Problem with the major and Miss Scott. We’ll take care of it.”
“I dunno,” Claude was quick to interrupt, “I think we could use all the help we could get, don’t you? It would seem, Lieutenant Hardy, that my niece has taken the major hostage. She might even kill him.”
Hardy actually laughed at the notion, “What? Why would she do that?”
“My thoughts exactly, Hardy. ‘S all a bit strange, don’t you think?”
“Really strange.”
“Well, anyway,” Keable desperately grabbed for control over the conversation, “We should hurry, major wouldn’t want us to waste time flapping our jaws. If, uh, if you think you can squeeze in the truck, uh, Hardy, I guess you oughta come along.”
“Oh, I’m coming. I wanna see this.” Hardy ended up having to hang on to the back of the black truck, feet balanced on the bumper, but they all made it out to the south gate, where a car sat with its engine off. Peter could see two heads, one in the driver’s seat and one in the passenger’s.
“Mister Decker, Mister Petrelli,” Keable said, his eyes darting from the car to the men he addressed to Claude and Hardy and back, “You, uh, you go see if you can talk down Miss Scott, okay?”
“Us?” Peter asked, “Don’t you think her uncle would have more luck?”
“No, you two go,” Keable answered too quickly. His hands were on his rifle, left thumb rubbing against the barrel like it was a worry stone.
“Go on, Pete,” Claude said. The empath glanced back and caught a glimpse of a tiny smile.
“If you say so. Come on, Decker.”
As they walked, Decker leaned in close, “I must admit I have no idea what these fools are hoping to accomplish now, aside from maybe our deaths.”
Neither do I, Decker, neither do I...
“I think we’ll be okay.”
“That’s very encouraging,” Decker grumbled.
They reached the car. Peter craned his head down to look in the window on the left side. The major gave him a small, polite smile. One seat over, Abby stared at the dashboard, hands clenched in her lap. She glanced over at Peter, face a mask of fear and anger, not unlike the first time he’d seen her, in his dream. Also like in the dream, she had a gun trained on her, though this one was pressed into her ribs. “Hi, Abby.” She didn’t respond. “Listen, sir, how about you just let Abby go? She doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
The major’s smile turned indulgent, “Oh, Peter. You’re so very naïve. You don’t belong here, not at all. Why don’t you go home? Let these things be handled by men whose hands are as bloody as they’re ever going to get.”
“Mostly because men who say things like that probably don’t have the best intentions for anybody, including themselves. I mean, I don’t get it. If you’re so sure you’re the right person for this job, how come you’re the one holding a gun on an unarmed woman?”
“Because, Peter, unlike some people, I don’t need a snake to bite me to know it’s dangerous. And I definitely don’t need some stupid kid letting loose a whole bag full of them in my base.”
“That only makes sense when you’re talking about snakes, major. These are people-”
“They’re mutations!” the major snapped irritably, “If we were supposed to be able to do any of the things these freaks of nature can do, we’d be able to do them!”
*sigh* Exhibit A1: Where the heck is this sudden aggressive phobia coming from, major? Somewhere in the scenes I didn’t have time to write...
A beaming smile of comprehension spread over Peter’s face, “Ohh, I see what it is now, you’re jealous!”
The major faltered, outraged fury blossoming purple across his face.
“No, no, hear me out. You’re not the perfect being looking down on the unfortunate aberrations- you’re the throwback realizing you’ve just lost your place in the food chain. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, sir. You know, now that you’re not the fittest, survival can’t last much longer. You should really just enjoy what little time you have left, don’t you think?”
Hee. I think Claude paid Peter back for the physical therapy in snark lessons.
The major groped for the door handle, eyes bulging with the burning need to shut Peter up. After a couple of seconds, many things happened all at once. Abby let out a short cry and vanished from her seat. The major’s gun went off. Peter felt hands grip his shoulder and arm and yank him backwards onto the ground. Then the sound of rifle fire piercing metal ripped the air to shreds.
That went on for a few more seconds, and then stopped, and the air reformed into empty silence. Peter and Decker sat up from where they had sprawled out on the ground. The car before them had been riddled with bullets. Gas from the punctured tank splashed onto the road. A tire had gone flat. And the back and front windows were shattered.
“Abby?” Peter called, “Abby!” He clambered to his feet and raced to the other side of the car. There, he found Abby, Claude, and Hardy lying on the ground, all wide-eyed and very still.
Claude was the first to blink up at Peter. “Hiya, mate. Guess what our friend Hardy can do.”
Carefully, with no rush, the three of them got to their feet. Peter held a hand out to Hardy, pulling the lieutenant up. Abby and Claude kept their arms around each other, and stood to the side while Peter, Hardy, and Decker confiscated the weapons from the dazed soldiers who had just killed Major Paul Miller.
What You Didn’t See: Claude and Hardy sneaking up invisibly to the passenger side of the car, Hardy grabbing Abby and pulling her through the door and onto the ground. Why yes, I did feel rather clever when I came up with that, since I hadn’t even known Hardy could phase at all.
Sidenote: Chalk it up to Claude’s iron will that he’s been walking around for much longer than the scene in the pool led the reader to believe he was capable of. *cheesy smile*
***
This was fun. It’s rare to get an original character to just sit down and talk about themselves for a while. I hope it wasn’t too out of place. You know, action action action MONOLOGUE.
Lucas Hardy discovered he could phase through objects in his early teens. “It was bad,” he told Peter, “I didn’t know what was going on with me. Usually people just thought I was really clumsy, because I couldn’t seem to hold on to anything. But then it got worse. I started falling through things. Like I’d be walking and- bam- one of my legs would just be dangling through the floor. One night, I woke up in the kitchen with a broken collarbone. Just fell straight through my bed, through my bedroom floor. I got really scared, like, what if one time I just never stopped falling? My grades at school, well... how do you concentrate when you feel like at any second you might fall into the center of the Earth or something? So that kinda screwed my chances for college- not that I’m, you know, blaming it. I mean, if I’d known... but, well, anyway. I joined the army, and that was good. Gave me something to focus on, somewhere to put my energy. Took my mind off it, you know, until I’d try to grab a pen or something and my hand would just go straight through. But, whatever, things got better. I stopped falling through floors and stuff, kind of figured out how to make it work when I wanted it to. And I started getting sent out to places, other countries, on missions. That was good. I felt like, maybe if I went far enough, I could leave it all behind me. Pretend it was something that just happened at home.”
“And when you were in Baghdad...”
“Yeah, Baghdad. Going house to house, could get ambushed at any time. I did get ambushed, me and this private. Goldberg, Alex. Funny guy. Anyway, we were on the second floor, and they were just swarming up. Heard them check the room next to us, and start to move on. I reached out and grabbed Goldberg’s jacket... and just ran straight at the wall. Through the wall. Maybe five feet altogether. Didn’t even think- was like it wasn’t even there. And then there we were, on the other side, in the room they just checked. Safe. Goldberg just looked at me like... I dunno, I don’t think he really got what happened. What I did. He just knew we weren’t about to die anymore. Everything else is pretty freaking unimportant at a time like that.”
No clue if that’s in any way accurate to what urban warfare is like in Baghdad. But, y’know, it seems kind of likely.
To Hardy, the highest compliment is to be called funny. It’s just important to him. If you can make him laugh, you’re his friend.
“What’d you think when you came to Building 26?”
Hardy chuckled, “I couldn’t freaking believe it, man! God, I wanted to wake someone up so bad, ask them if it was really true, that somebody else could do some weird thing they shouldn’t be able to do. I had to make do with, you know, watching. Surveillance. We’d always get a visual confirmation of the suspect- oh, sorry. The, uh, person using their power. Just so we were sure. Major said it was a waste of time, said they had some kinda database with blood samples and their DNA... I dunno. But it was cool then, seeing, like, some woman making her plants grow just by touching them. I didn’t want to arrest her- I just wanted to talk to her. Ask her if, like, she accidentally made mold grow on her food or something. But, you know, orders. And it kinda went on like that. Until now, I guess.”
“I knew a man who could do what you could do.”
Hardy stared at Peter, eyes wide, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was kind of a... fleeting encounter, sort of. I don’t know where he is now, but you’re not the only one.”
“That’s... that’s really cool. Wow...”
Aw, poor D.L. I think he’s high up on the list of Heroes characters that got supremely shafted. Anyway, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again- I think it would be really important to a person with an ability to find someone with the same ability. Or at least know that they exist. You’ve got this completely insane thing happening to you, you’d want to know someone else is dealing with it too.
“I think you’d do really well as a Company agent, Hardy. I mean, pretty much the whole job would be talking to people about the weird stuff they can do. And Decker could definitely use the help.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll think about it, for sure. It sounds good. Really good.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Exhibit C: Decker and the New Company London Edition getting only the slightest mention before I cave and move on to the fluffy sappy slash. Sorry, Decker, you really were cool, and deserved much more attention than I ultimately gave you.
***
Peter wanted to promise he was coming back, so badly. The words were on his tongue, but he just couldn’t say them. Not when there was every chance they might not be true. Between DC and London, he honestly couldn’t say which one needed him more. Or in which one he would be more redundant as real agents returned and got caught up on the new policies. He just didn’t know, so he had to go home. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. “I want to come back,” he managed.
Claude didn’t reply. Just watched him, eyes strangely soft.
“You know, this whole time, I never got to set foot in London. Didn’t get to do a single touristy thing. I was always stuck at the base with you.”
Actually, I planned to do a scene where Decker takes Peter to a pub and they commiserate about being the underdogs of the base (Peter being the nosy civilian who wants the soldiers to be nice to the dangerous people and Decker being the nanny sent over by the British government). A line spoken by Decker I scribbled down from the unwritten scene: “No one listens to me except you. And no one’s listening to you except me. Let’s get drunk.” It amused me, anyway.
Claude cracked a smile at that, “Not quite the adventure you had in mind?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know about that, but I think I’d like to be stuck in London with you too. Or stuck in DC. Or stuck just about anywhere.” He stepped closer, slipped his hands around Claude’s waist and felt invisibility envelope him.
Claude’s fingers brushed over his cheek, through his hair. “Might take you up on that, one of these days. When I get sick of paperwork and holding some moron’s hand through their control lessons.”
Exhibit D: The vaguest mention of what Claude will be up to after all this craziness.
“Like you ever held anyone’s hand when you taught them.”
“We-ell, they won’t be able to take as much punishment as you, that’s for certain.”
“Hey, even I can’t take that much punishment, remember? No more healing. So that means no more rooftop diving.”
“You spoil all my fun.”
“All your fun? Hm, then I must’ve been doing something wrong last night. You seemed to be having a lot of fun.”
When Claude’s eyes rolled upwards and a wide smile just barely held in his laughter, Peter knew he’d won. He reached up and caught Claude’s chin in his grasp, guiding him close for a kiss that wasn’t all sorrow, or all joy. He held it as long as he could, memorizing every detail. They separated so softly it was almost silent. So many words- promises, endearments, threats, hopes- crowded up in Peter’s mouth, he knew not to say anything at all. Just step out of Claude’s arms with a smile, and head for the gate.
Mm, airport goodbyes- a classic hurts-so-good romantic trope not absent from the list of motivations for writing this story in the first place. In any case, right at the top of that list was the fact thatenglishmuffin2 came up with a brilliant prompt and I absolutely had to take a crack at it. And, yeah, the result is definitely not flawless, but hey, maybe during a lunch break or two I’ll finally get around to writing those deleted scenes I was talking about. It’d be nice to write Decker and/or Hardy again. And maybe even the major.
visiblemarket. This is the last chapter of Rescue Me, which can be found here.You wanna know how this came together,
visiblemarket? In a big damn hurry, because the due date was looming and I’d just about had enough of this story. Unfortunate, but true. Anyway...“She can’t not be here,” Peter declared, “Abby knows better than that. She knows any soldier that saw her would have to throw her in a cell. Or in Human Resources... Maybe she’s taking a nap.” He poked his head into the empty bedroom, “Nope.” He walked back out to the middle of the sitting room. “Well, we’d know already if she’d been arrested- the major would be down here crowing at me and booking my flight home by now.”
Exhibit A detailing how I ran out of time on this story: The major only turning up again to do something crazy and die. Sorry, Major Miller, you were kind of becoming an interesting character for a minute there- and then I killed you.
Claude was silent, glaring at nothing, knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth.
“Maybe Decker needed her for something. He could probably get away with being her escort. I’ll call him.” Peter dug in his pocket for his cell phone, but paused, “Oh, wait. Abby has my phone. She was talking to Lee before we left.” He crossed to the cot where Abby had been sitting, looking down at the rumpled sheets, “I guess she still has it with her, wherever she is. So, okay, let’s call her.”
He picked up the receiver of the phone that sat on the kitchen counter and dialed his cell’s number. (It occurred to me somewhat belatedly that Peter’s quarters might have a regular phone in them. I’m so used to just using a cell all the time.) It rang several times before a voice that wasn’t Abby’s said, “Who is this?”
Peter frowned in confusion, “It’s Peter. Major Miller... is that you?” Claude whipped around to face him. Peter shrugged.
“Yes, yes, Peter, it’s Major Miller. Listen very closely, I can’t speak long. Miss Scott has kidnapped me and is threatening to kill me unless I allow her to leave the base and return to her friends.”
“What?” Peter cried, thoroughly bewildered now, “Major, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“All I’m saying is what I’ve been told, Peter. Now I need you to assemble a team- Lieutenant Keable, Sergeant Levy, Henriksen, and Jordan, and Corporal Park and Arnott, and tell them to come out here and subdue Miss Scott. She’s driven me out to the south gate, past the shooting range. She wants the code to unlock the gate or she’ll kill me.”
Bless you, Wikipedia- you’ve made naming characters easy with your random article generator. However, here comes Exhibit B: Ibsen’s men get 0 development. Keable at least deserved something. Oh well.
“Major, I- I don’t understand. Abby’s-”
“Please, Peter! She’s desperate and she’s dangerous. This is my life at stake here!”
“Okay, okay, stay calm. We’ll come out there.”
“Tell the team to hurry, and don’t call this number again.” The line went dead. Peter stared at the receiver.
“Pete,” he heard Claude say, “What the hell was all that about?”
“Abby’s kidnapped the major and is threatening to kill him if she’s not released.”
Peter saw his mystification mirrored in Claude’s face, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Abby would never do something like that.”
“I... Are you sure? I mean, she’s been stuck on this base, separated from Lee for over a month now... Maybe she just wanted... to...” He trailed off in the intensity of Claude’s incredulous expression.
“Abby would never do something like that,” he repeated with slow emphasis, “You just said, she knows better. This is all bollocks, the major tryin’ to trick us- or at least everyone too stupid to tell the difference- into thinkin’ she’s dangerous. That we’re all dangerous. Get us back on beds and things back to normal, the way he likes them.”
Heh, I had fun with this idea of appearances- how the whole thing could fall apart if it even looks like something’s gone wrong.
Peter groaned, “Great. I almost wish it was a bad case of cabin fever.”
“We need to find Decker, sort this out before it gets out of control.”
They set off down the hall to Decker’s office. “You know the major asked me to assemble a team to come get him and put Abby down.”
“Lemme guess, reads like a roll call for the dearly departed Captain Ibsen’s team. Everyone who hasn’t seen sense yet around here.”
Not actual character development, but an
“Yeah, as if I wouldn’t notice. How dumb does he think I am?”
“Use it to your advantage, mate. If he thinks you’re dumb he’ll underestimate you, an’ this’ll be over that much quicker.”
“I hope so.” They made it to Decker’s office, going inside and shutting the door. The man looked up from his paperwork. “Abby kidnapped the major,” Peter announced.
Decker blinked. “He’s lost his mind. I thought he might be plotting something, but I didn’t think he’d gone that far round the twist,” he said, immediately divining the truth of the situation, “Give me the details.” Peter did, saying that the major was expecting Ibsen’s team at the south gate. Decker gave a small shrug, “Unless he intends to simply shoot Abby and say it was self-defense. It would be all but impossible to prove that it wasn’t.”
I’m sorry,
englishmuffin2, but I have to come clean. Samuel Decker has always been played by James Purefoy, not Gareth David-Lloyd. It took a lot of pondering to find the perfect British actor for the part, but I did it.Claude stiffened beside Peter and immediately wheeled himself from the room.
The other two men followed, Decker saying low in Peter’s ear, “We can’t let anyone else know what’s happening, or things will get out of hand- oh bugger.”
“What?”
“They already know.”
Peter looked ahead, and saw the soldiers the major had asked for, walking towards them with semi-automatic rifles on straps slung over their shoulders. Ready to go. “Something wrong, guys?” Lieutenant Keable asked, malicious joy not hidden well enough in his gaze.
Decker clenched his jaw, reluctantly grinding out, “We have a slight situation.”
“Oh? Where’s the major? Where’s Miss Scott?”
“At the south gate.”
“What are they doing there?”
“It’s possible that Miss Scott has taken the major hostage in order to leave the base.”
False concern replaced false innocence, “Oh no! That sounds bad. We should go out there and see if we can resolve the situation, shouldn’t we?”
Clearly loathing playing his part in the major’s pantomime, but unable to do anything else, Decker said, “Yes, we should.”
“Well let’s go, we can’t waste one second!” Keable turned to his team, “Okay, guys, move out!” He turned back, “Uh, Mister Decker, Mister Petrelli, you two can come along if you want, but I’m afraid our truck isn’t exactly handicap-accessible.”
He nodded down at Claude- who stood up. “‘S okay. Don’t need it.” He kicked his chair so it rolled several feet behind him, crossed his arms, and glared down at Keable from his superior height. Peter noticed a flash of uncertainty, almost fear, in the lieutenant’s eyes before he turned on his heel and began leading them through the base. As they passed one of the soldiers’ rec rooms, Claude suddenly called out, “Hardy! Hey, Hardy, get your arse over here!”
To be perfectly honest, I had no idea how I was going to resolve this whole “Miller taking Abby hostage but making it look like she took him hostage” situation when I came up with it. I was pretty worried about it too. Luckily it turned out I just needed Claude to step in and throw a few monkey wrenches around.
Hardy looked up from his pool game with a puzzled expression, but registered the armed team walking in front of Claude, Peter, and Decker, and quickly joined them. “Keable, what’s going on here?”
It was Keable’s turn to clench his jaw, though he was deviating from his script, “Problem with the major and Miss Scott. We’ll take care of it.”
“I dunno,” Claude was quick to interrupt, “I think we could use all the help we could get, don’t you? It would seem, Lieutenant Hardy, that my niece has taken the major hostage. She might even kill him.”
Hardy actually laughed at the notion, “What? Why would she do that?”
“My thoughts exactly, Hardy. ‘S all a bit strange, don’t you think?”
“Really strange.”
“Well, anyway,” Keable desperately grabbed for control over the conversation, “We should hurry, major wouldn’t want us to waste time flapping our jaws. If, uh, if you think you can squeeze in the truck, uh, Hardy, I guess you oughta come along.”
“Oh, I’m coming. I wanna see this.” Hardy ended up having to hang on to the back of the black truck, feet balanced on the bumper, but they all made it out to the south gate, where a car sat with its engine off. Peter could see two heads, one in the driver’s seat and one in the passenger’s.
“Mister Decker, Mister Petrelli,” Keable said, his eyes darting from the car to the men he addressed to Claude and Hardy and back, “You, uh, you go see if you can talk down Miss Scott, okay?”
“Us?” Peter asked, “Don’t you think her uncle would have more luck?”
“No, you two go,” Keable answered too quickly. His hands were on his rifle, left thumb rubbing against the barrel like it was a worry stone.
“Go on, Pete,” Claude said. The empath glanced back and caught a glimpse of a tiny smile.
“If you say so. Come on, Decker.”
As they walked, Decker leaned in close, “I must admit I have no idea what these fools are hoping to accomplish now, aside from maybe our deaths.”
Neither do I, Decker, neither do I...
“I think we’ll be okay.”
“That’s very encouraging,” Decker grumbled.
They reached the car. Peter craned his head down to look in the window on the left side. The major gave him a small, polite smile. One seat over, Abby stared at the dashboard, hands clenched in her lap. She glanced over at Peter, face a mask of fear and anger, not unlike the first time he’d seen her, in his dream. Also like in the dream, she had a gun trained on her, though this one was pressed into her ribs. “Hi, Abby.” She didn’t respond. “Listen, sir, how about you just let Abby go? She doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”
The major’s smile turned indulgent, “Oh, Peter. You’re so very naïve. You don’t belong here, not at all. Why don’t you go home? Let these things be handled by men whose hands are as bloody as they’re ever going to get.”
“Mostly because men who say things like that probably don’t have the best intentions for anybody, including themselves. I mean, I don’t get it. If you’re so sure you’re the right person for this job, how come you’re the one holding a gun on an unarmed woman?”
“Because, Peter, unlike some people, I don’t need a snake to bite me to know it’s dangerous. And I definitely don’t need some stupid kid letting loose a whole bag full of them in my base.”
“That only makes sense when you’re talking about snakes, major. These are people-”
“They’re mutations!” the major snapped irritably, “If we were supposed to be able to do any of the things these freaks of nature can do, we’d be able to do them!”
*sigh* Exhibit A1: Where the heck is this sudden aggressive phobia coming from, major? Somewhere in the scenes I didn’t have time to write...
A beaming smile of comprehension spread over Peter’s face, “Ohh, I see what it is now, you’re jealous!”
The major faltered, outraged fury blossoming purple across his face.
“No, no, hear me out. You’re not the perfect being looking down on the unfortunate aberrations- you’re the throwback realizing you’ve just lost your place in the food chain. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, sir. You know, now that you’re not the fittest, survival can’t last much longer. You should really just enjoy what little time you have left, don’t you think?”
Hee. I think Claude paid Peter back for the physical therapy in snark lessons.
The major groped for the door handle, eyes bulging with the burning need to shut Peter up. After a couple of seconds, many things happened all at once. Abby let out a short cry and vanished from her seat. The major’s gun went off. Peter felt hands grip his shoulder and arm and yank him backwards onto the ground. Then the sound of rifle fire piercing metal ripped the air to shreds.
That went on for a few more seconds, and then stopped, and the air reformed into empty silence. Peter and Decker sat up from where they had sprawled out on the ground. The car before them had been riddled with bullets. Gas from the punctured tank splashed onto the road. A tire had gone flat. And the back and front windows were shattered.
“Abby?” Peter called, “Abby!” He clambered to his feet and raced to the other side of the car. There, he found Abby, Claude, and Hardy lying on the ground, all wide-eyed and very still.
Claude was the first to blink up at Peter. “Hiya, mate. Guess what our friend Hardy can do.”
Carefully, with no rush, the three of them got to their feet. Peter held a hand out to Hardy, pulling the lieutenant up. Abby and Claude kept their arms around each other, and stood to the side while Peter, Hardy, and Decker confiscated the weapons from the dazed soldiers who had just killed Major Paul Miller.
What You Didn’t See: Claude and Hardy sneaking up invisibly to the passenger side of the car, Hardy grabbing Abby and pulling her through the door and onto the ground. Why yes, I did feel rather clever when I came up with that, since I hadn’t even known Hardy could phase at all.
Sidenote: Chalk it up to Claude’s iron will that he’s been walking around for much longer than the scene in the pool led the reader to believe he was capable of. *cheesy smile*
***
This was fun. It’s rare to get an original character to just sit down and talk about themselves for a while. I hope it wasn’t too out of place. You know, action action action MONOLOGUE.
Lucas Hardy discovered he could phase through objects in his early teens. “It was bad,” he told Peter, “I didn’t know what was going on with me. Usually people just thought I was really clumsy, because I couldn’t seem to hold on to anything. But then it got worse. I started falling through things. Like I’d be walking and- bam- one of my legs would just be dangling through the floor. One night, I woke up in the kitchen with a broken collarbone. Just fell straight through my bed, through my bedroom floor. I got really scared, like, what if one time I just never stopped falling? My grades at school, well... how do you concentrate when you feel like at any second you might fall into the center of the Earth or something? So that kinda screwed my chances for college- not that I’m, you know, blaming it. I mean, if I’d known... but, well, anyway. I joined the army, and that was good. Gave me something to focus on, somewhere to put my energy. Took my mind off it, you know, until I’d try to grab a pen or something and my hand would just go straight through. But, whatever, things got better. I stopped falling through floors and stuff, kind of figured out how to make it work when I wanted it to. And I started getting sent out to places, other countries, on missions. That was good. I felt like, maybe if I went far enough, I could leave it all behind me. Pretend it was something that just happened at home.”
“And when you were in Baghdad...”
“Yeah, Baghdad. Going house to house, could get ambushed at any time. I did get ambushed, me and this private. Goldberg, Alex. Funny guy. Anyway, we were on the second floor, and they were just swarming up. Heard them check the room next to us, and start to move on. I reached out and grabbed Goldberg’s jacket... and just ran straight at the wall. Through the wall. Maybe five feet altogether. Didn’t even think- was like it wasn’t even there. And then there we were, on the other side, in the room they just checked. Safe. Goldberg just looked at me like... I dunno, I don’t think he really got what happened. What I did. He just knew we weren’t about to die anymore. Everything else is pretty freaking unimportant at a time like that.”
No clue if that’s in any way accurate to what urban warfare is like in Baghdad. But, y’know, it seems kind of likely.
To Hardy, the highest compliment is to be called funny. It’s just important to him. If you can make him laugh, you’re his friend.
“What’d you think when you came to Building 26?”
Hardy chuckled, “I couldn’t freaking believe it, man! God, I wanted to wake someone up so bad, ask them if it was really true, that somebody else could do some weird thing they shouldn’t be able to do. I had to make do with, you know, watching. Surveillance. We’d always get a visual confirmation of the suspect- oh, sorry. The, uh, person using their power. Just so we were sure. Major said it was a waste of time, said they had some kinda database with blood samples and their DNA... I dunno. But it was cool then, seeing, like, some woman making her plants grow just by touching them. I didn’t want to arrest her- I just wanted to talk to her. Ask her if, like, she accidentally made mold grow on her food or something. But, you know, orders. And it kinda went on like that. Until now, I guess.”
“I knew a man who could do what you could do.”
Hardy stared at Peter, eyes wide, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It was kind of a... fleeting encounter, sort of. I don’t know where he is now, but you’re not the only one.”
“That’s... that’s really cool. Wow...”
Aw, poor D.L. I think he’s high up on the list of Heroes characters that got supremely shafted. Anyway, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again- I think it would be really important to a person with an ability to find someone with the same ability. Or at least know that they exist. You’ve got this completely insane thing happening to you, you’d want to know someone else is dealing with it too.
“I think you’d do really well as a Company agent, Hardy. I mean, pretty much the whole job would be talking to people about the weird stuff they can do. And Decker could definitely use the help.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ll think about it, for sure. It sounds good. Really good.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
Exhibit C: Decker and the New Company London Edition getting only the slightest mention before I cave and move on to the fluffy sappy slash. Sorry, Decker, you really were cool, and deserved much more attention than I ultimately gave you.
***
Peter wanted to promise he was coming back, so badly. The words were on his tongue, but he just couldn’t say them. Not when there was every chance they might not be true. Between DC and London, he honestly couldn’t say which one needed him more. Or in which one he would be more redundant as real agents returned and got caught up on the new policies. He just didn’t know, so he had to go home. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. “I want to come back,” he managed.
Claude didn’t reply. Just watched him, eyes strangely soft.
“You know, this whole time, I never got to set foot in London. Didn’t get to do a single touristy thing. I was always stuck at the base with you.”
Actually, I planned to do a scene where Decker takes Peter to a pub and they commiserate about being the underdogs of the base (Peter being the nosy civilian who wants the soldiers to be nice to the dangerous people and Decker being the nanny sent over by the British government). A line spoken by Decker I scribbled down from the unwritten scene: “No one listens to me except you. And no one’s listening to you except me. Let’s get drunk.” It amused me, anyway.
Claude cracked a smile at that, “Not quite the adventure you had in mind?”
He shrugged, “I don’t know about that, but I think I’d like to be stuck in London with you too. Or stuck in DC. Or stuck just about anywhere.” He stepped closer, slipped his hands around Claude’s waist and felt invisibility envelope him.
Claude’s fingers brushed over his cheek, through his hair. “Might take you up on that, one of these days. When I get sick of paperwork and holding some moron’s hand through their control lessons.”
Exhibit D: The vaguest mention of what Claude will be up to after all this craziness.
“Like you ever held anyone’s hand when you taught them.”
“We-ell, they won’t be able to take as much punishment as you, that’s for certain.”
“Hey, even I can’t take that much punishment, remember? No more healing. So that means no more rooftop diving.”
“You spoil all my fun.”
“All your fun? Hm, then I must’ve been doing something wrong last night. You seemed to be having a lot of fun.”
When Claude’s eyes rolled upwards and a wide smile just barely held in his laughter, Peter knew he’d won. He reached up and caught Claude’s chin in his grasp, guiding him close for a kiss that wasn’t all sorrow, or all joy. He held it as long as he could, memorizing every detail. They separated so softly it was almost silent. So many words- promises, endearments, threats, hopes- crowded up in Peter’s mouth, he knew not to say anything at all. Just step out of Claude’s arms with a smile, and head for the gate.
Mm, airport goodbyes- a classic hurts-so-good romantic trope not absent from the list of motivations for writing this story in the first place. In any case, right at the top of that list was the fact that
englishmuffin2 came up with a brilliant prompt and I absolutely had to take a crack at it. And, yeah, the result is definitely not flawless, but hey, maybe during a lunch break or two I’ll finally get around to writing those deleted scenes I was talking about. It’d be nice to write Decker and/or Hardy again. And maybe even the major.
