seekevolution | Quarantine

Already back at the microscope, mostly because Mohinder found a home in a lab and with a task that he didn't have elsewhere, he began to explain polymer chains and fatty tissue deposits, genetic proteins and RNA blockers, before he realized that he was speaking to Matt as if he was lecturing a university class well past that particular module. A glance up proved the doctor's sheepishness and he pushed away from the table, away from Matt slightly as well, so he could look up at the larger man.

"Right now, what I need are as many samples from as many people as possible. Infected people, those showing symptoms, have to be separated from those who aren't. I was told that the CDC would be here tomorrow and they'll know how better to handle the containment but--" And it was a big 'but' Matt. "The Shanti virus effected people like you, originally. This virus has jumped ship and yet certain genetic mutations are making people immune. Perhaps it has to do with natural antibodies. Perhaps it's something else. I'm not sure if my research on specials will even matter and if it does, I'm not sure they'll listen to me. That means that I'm going to need you to have Peter draw as much blood as possible and I'll try to rule out a need for my presence here in any other capacity than being able to run lab work."

He wasn't going to leave. Of course not.

"And this still doesn't mean that either of us are immune. Or that immunity for this virus exists at all. We could simply be more resilient for any number of reasons."

When the man started talking, it was hard to get him to shut up.

"I'm going to run cultures. If anyone not presenting symptoms here happens to be able to help... Send them to me." Of course, Mohinder had no way of knowing that the last half an hour he'd spent with Matt brought with it the deaths of five more people.

There was a bit of a smirk hiding in Matt's features that would probably have been a lot more pronounced if the situation hadn't been such a critical one, when Mohinder caught himself before he got down to protocol. It was reminiscent of the teasing that sometimes had the grace of showing between them but ultimately it was a short lived moment, and he listened with attention when he was given the run-down.

He was good at that, listening, and not just to words. He was a cop. Point him towards the bad guy and he'd pursue. It aggravated him that it wasn't so easy here, with a sickness you couldn't exactly gun down, but if given the means he was still dedicated. He did what needed to be done. He wanted to, had always wanted to help keep people safe.

So he nodded, then made quick work of it. "I'll talk to Peter, get the word out." He kept his eyes on Mohinder for a moment before he left to see if there was anything else, but he was out the door quickly despite the many questions he did have. Back out into the chaos.

It had been a whole lot quieter when it had just been him and Mohinder in a room. The voices and presences rushed over him and he steeled himself mentally. It didn't take much effort to block people out, these days, but he was walking a bit of a line given how he still felt the need to listen for anything important.

There were a lot of words floating arond, many of them the same. Virus. Die. Can't believe it. What's going on. But when he caught Nathan's name repeated in an almost obsessive way Matt latched onto that and followed it straight to its source on the other wing of the building where Peter seemed caught between bossing people around and hovering by Nathan's side.

Some separation work had already begun but telling Peter he shouldn't be by his brother's side seemed like a particularly bad idea, so instead Matt was quick to tell him in what ways he could help. Peter just nodded. Fell into action.

Matt found a biology teacher who had just been there working overtime before being stuck in the flurry and sent her Mohinder's way before he headed over to Primatech. They'd set up most of the quarantine work in the high school because there was a lot more room, but quite a lot of activity was still happening at the just-a-paper-factory facility and he was going to check that out before he came back.

He was tired. He disregarded it.

The influx of help was useful and maddening at the same time. With only one of him and too many blood samples to deal with, by the time Matt managed to get men and women with symptoms in a separate location from those without, he'd been through nearly one hundred samples. The prognosis wasn't as good at he was expecting either. It wouldn't take a telepath to realise that.

Having switched out contacts for glasses, though the latter rubbing against his nose was a dull pain, to combat the sting in his aching eyes, Mohinder stared at the racks of test tubes with a dread bubbling in his empty stomach.

Matt would find Peter and Mohinder half snarling at each other the next time he checked back.

"What do you mean, six--" Peter's anger wasn't helping and since Mohinder had gotten over the relief of seeing the man alive on the television a day ago, he was on the verge of strangling him.

It didn't take a lot these days for the professor to snap. "What I mean is that out of a hundred samples, only six show no signs of infection by the virus. I still can't tell why it affects some more quickly than others, but the important thing now is to keep the sick away from the healthy and--"

Peter might as well have Nathan written across his forehead, but his brother was doomed, as were most of the other people here. They weren't equipped to deal with symptoms and to work on an anti-virus.

"There is only one of me, Peter. It would take a team weeks of trials to solve this!"

"Hey. Hey."

Matt threw his hands up when he entered the yelling match in the universal bid for peace. He shot Peter a quick glare that wouldn't silence him for a long period of time at all - and he got it, he really did, because even if Peter wasn't thinking so loud he'd heard half of this argument before coming into the room, he understood wanting to protect a loved one. He understood feeling guilty about it.

"Shut up a second, both of you! Look", he started, looking between them, practically feeling the tension in the air. And he agreed - six out of a hundred was really bad news. Really, really bad news. But yelling at the messenger wasn't the brightest of ideas. Especially when the messenger was one of the few who could manage to make sense of the problem. "I went to Primatech, it's pretty bad. Lots of people who aren't dead yet. They're getting someone to send over some blood from there but they could use more help."

He fixed Peter with a look. "You want to help your brother - I get that. Yeah, I do. I want to help him too. Best way of doing that, right now? Helping everyone else."

The hard look on Peter's face wasn't at all unexpected and Matt fully expected an argument, but at the moment, he was trying to be practical. You want to fix a problem? Go after the problem.

That, and Mohinder would probably get far better results if he didn't have to defend them at every turn.

He might get better results if he had a few hours of sleep, but as it wasn't likely to happen, he'd settle for some coffee. Pulling off his glasses, Mohinder dropped them to the lab table and watched Peter go in a bit of strutting peach and gray blobs of varying shades before his attention returned to Matt. "There is absolutely no pattern," he said, talking quickly and with his hands as he stowed processed blood samples back in the mini-fridge that had been wheeled in from the teacher's lounge. "I'll admit that I'm hardly a viral expert, but I should at least have seen a pattern in the onslaught of symptoms."

He changed the weight of his body from one foot to another before snatching up his glasses again. Perched on the tape across his nose like that, they looked almost comical.

"Some people show symptoms right away. Others take longer. Some die within hours. Others...it's stretched out. We need Claire Bennet's blood--" He probably ought to explain that, but he won't. They're short on time. "I'm going to start drawing my own. It will do no one any good unless we can access Claire. I'm afraid that I've burned my bridges with his father."

In other words, Matt, make something happen while Mohinder drains his blood into rubber stoppered vials. He already has his shirt sleeve rolled up. It's been awhile since he's taken his own blood, but right now, he'd rather not call Peter back in here to help.

"Bennet?" Matt echoed in an incredulous tone. Last he'd gathered, yeah, there'd been some tension between him and Mohinder, but before that, hadn't they been awfully buddy-buddy about the little plan of theirs? Narrowing his eyes at Mohinder's choice of words, Matt could only conclude that the 'burnt bridges' he meant had to be an understatement.

That wasn't the sole reason for his reaction, though. "What makes you think he'd let his daughter within five hundred miles from here?" He went further into the room, giving Mohinder a skeptical look that only somewhat bordered on darkness. "There's no way he'll agree to that. Definitely if you've managed to piss him off. What did you do, Mohinder?"

He knew Bennet, was the thing. Knew he was smart but also reckless. And knew he'd do anything to keep his daughter safe. (It didn't occur to Matt that he understood Bennet a lot more now than he had before, but maybe it would, later.)

It might look that way, but it wasn't just about putting Mohinder on the spot. True Matt was still kind of pissed at him for his whole James Bond stunt but right now it was about facts. If they needed Claire they also needed to look at the surrounding complications.

Bennet could be one hell of a complication if he wanted.

"She doesn't have to come," Mohinder said without looking up, curls, no longer held in place with too much product and starting to frizz, fringing a shadow across his forehead and over his eyes. "I just need her blood. As much as she can spare. If the virus hasn't spread beyond Odessa, I should be able to cure those still alive with it and my own antibodies."

Mister moral high ground didn't feel the need to explain himself to Matt Parkman, but if Mohinder wanted the help, he would have to come clean. His atonement had already occurred in a hospital with a bag of Claire's blood and a feeling of loss of self. He really could do without Matt giving him another guilt inducing look-- The best way to avoid that now was to work at taking too much of his own blood to put on ice until Claire's could arrive.

He wet his lower lip again. The bile in his throat, unheeded by a decent meal in half a day, caused his nose to wrinkle slightly.

"You'll need to ask for it because I shot him." A good shot too for someone with few lessons-- Just a slip of a thought, but without any real back patting. "Claire's blood is...remarkable. But only if administered quickly and in large doses. Even to the dead. Five pints should do the trick here--"

Hopefully they wouldn't need that much. Mohinder didn't have five pints to spare himself.

Matt stared. "You're kidding", he said in a low tone, but that wouldn't convince either of them - it was just the initial denial making itself known. Because if Mohinder had gone as far as to shoot Bennet it meant he was much deeper in the Company's pocket than Matt had thought and that doubt and anger showed on his face.

A good shot. What the hell did that mean?

"So you need me to ask the guy you shot for five pints of his daughter's blood? Are you serious?" He threw an arm out, his voice rising, the effects of Claire's blood for the moment not quite listened to.

In a weird way, this was personal. Whenever him and Mohinder had gotten to the point of personal, Matt couldn't say and didn't care - he just knew that at the moment, for all that he trusted Mohinder when it came to this virus thing, he felt betrayed.

For a man with 'use me all you like' scrawled in indelible ink across his forehead, Mohinder never quite managed to look in the mirror. He didn't seem to understand how susceptible he was to being used or how much of a doormat he'd been his entire life. Oh, there was fight in him and he didn't often cower away from tasks put in front of him...even when anyone else would see the signs and edge away.

It could be that Mohinder saw the best in humanity (though he was trained as a skeptic). What was more likely, however, was that he wanted to see the best in humanity and oftentimes, his heart lead where his brain should have taken over. For a genius, Mohinder Suresh was the world's biggest idiot.

The target on his back for predators, therefore, was impossibly large.

Anger ripped through the Indian -- understanding his thoughts didn't matter when Matt could understand the emotion behind those thoughts -- and after filling a fourth vial of his blood, the Indian ripped the needle from his arm and stupidly stood up too quickly with a body suffering from blood loss, hunger, and exhaustion.

He braced himself against the table, close enough to the detective to touch him in he took too deep a breath. Their arguments had always been rather close. Blame that on the geneticist's culture. Mohinder didn't understand the Western Male need for privacy bubbles.

"I was in too deep," he growled. Yes, growled. "I didn't know what else to do." He'd been used by both sides. By that point, he'd been angry, lost-- "Just do it, Matt. I'm not asking for myself." Obviously. "I just want to save these people."

Blame Matt's part in it on the fact that he hated backing down. In arguments like these he believed that if he gave an inch he'd have lost the debate. There was no way he was losing this one when he knew he was right. He'd told Mohinder from the very beginning that he was in way over his head and while he wasn't cruel enough to say "I told you so", he'd stand his ground in a literal way to show his position.

Mohinder was in his face. Matt was in his, too. They were both too stubborn to yield like that, and yeah, Matt wasn't the most comfortable with that kind of proximity most of the time, but here? It wasn't all that different from getting up close and personal with a suspect to intimidate them to fess up.

"You're an idiot, Mohinder", he snapped at him, leaning subtly closer for a second himself, subconsciously using his size as a way to emphasize his words. But then he backed away and held out his hand, snapping his fingers, still looking thoroughly angry with the other man - still speaking in clipped tones. "Give me your phone."

While intimidation worked in Matt's case, Mohinder had changed his bandages for a month, seen him literally at his worst with a divorce pending and his future looking only as bright as the couch Mohinder let him sleep on because Molly couldn't be without her hero. There was no need to back down now and Mohinder sure as hell wasn't going to even attempt it. Not when pride was on the line and guilt was emblazoned in his eyes all ready.

Sorrow didn't quite override anger and nearly to the point of giving Matt little pushes with his fingertips on the larger man's chest, entirely too macho for his slight frame to be doing any way, he decided to try to diffuse the situation before his broken nose became any worse.

Or he added broken ribs as a side effect.

He was stupid. He meant well, he wanted to keep Molly and people like her safe. And in the end, all he managed to do was lose part of his soul and some of his good looks due to bruising and blood shot eyes.

"I'll do it myself," Mohinder said, turning away. It was easier in New York, his mind echoed. Only because of Molly-- She wasn't the sole reason to their friendship but Mohinder's bruised ego dismissed Matt as something less desirable than friend.

All of this posturing, however, wasn't a good idea on a run down system with four vials of it's blood sitting on the counter rather than his veins. God forbid Matt try to catch him when his knees nearly go, however. Mohinder had a stool to help him, thanks.

The thing was that Matt knew. It was easy to dismiss when he was angry (and boy, was he ever), but he thoroughly believed Mohinder to be a good guy. It was impossible to watch him with Molly and think anything else. But that's exactly what made it so infuriating, the way Mohinder insisted on putting himself and others in danger because he couldn't seem to grasp that people didn't always have each other's best interests at heart.

Matt, on the other hand, was suspicious by nature. He'd learned early on. From his dad, in school, by being a cop, not to mention now with his ... his mind thing. Hearing people's thoughts didn't instill a lot of trust most of the time. Those few times things matched up between what people thought and what they said, that's when he latched onto them.

And he had, too. With Molly and Mohinder both. That's why he was still seething even as he watched Mohinder wobble, even as he reached for him on instinct but ultimately let it be when the other man all but crawled onto the stool, but he still pinned him with a look that was even harsher now when he could actually look down on him.

"Like hell you are. Just give me the damn phone, I'll make the call."

In a way, Mohinder learned to be the man he was from his father too. Never feeling the man's love, though he had stayed with his family rather than walk out on them (physically, though Mohinder often wondered if his mother didn't assume Chandra had emotionally checked out some time after his book took over his life), only left Mohinder with a deep seated need to crave affection wherever he could.

The moment someone took interest in him, no matter their underlying intent, Mohinder was willing to do what they wanted. It was how Eden had easily gotten her hooks into him without use of her power, how 'Zane' led him to Montana on what he'd hoped might be a long, fruitful killing spree, how Noah got Mohinder to agree to infiltrate the Company and, ultimately, how Bob turned Mohinder against his own ideals.

"Just-- I can do this myself. He'll need an explanation." Mohinder didn't say it, or even think it, but the idea that, likely, Matt wouldn't be able to convey the reason certainly laid between them. Mohinder turned his back to the larger man this time, rubbing some of the strain from his forehead. He needed something sugary. He'd have to produce a lot more blood than that.

Dialing the number? Easy. Getting Noah to answer? Understandably impossible.

"You wouldn't have asked me if you thought he'd listen to you." It was a sensible observation and one Matt made with some impatience. He got it - he wasn't the brains between the two of them, but him and Bennet had worked together on more than one occasion and even though it was well known that him and Mohinder had formed a kind of team to help protect Molly he suspected Bennet might listen a bit more to him than the guy who'd hit him with a good shot. Especially given Matt's known distrust of the Company to begin with.

Besides, Mohinder was looking shaky to a downright worrying degree. It only took Matt a moment's worth of deliberation before he circled the damn stool, a muttered "For God's sake--" before he just snatched the phone from the other man's hands. He shoved an apple towards Mohinder in its place. "Eat. Explain what I have to tell Bennet and I will, but just trust me for once in your life!"

It was easy to be angry. He hadn't been angry when he'd grabbed the apple from the cafeteria after he came back from Primatech.

Now he held the phone hostage, holding it in the air and practically daring Mohinder to reach for the thing.

Mobile in hand one moment, apple the next, Mohinder at least looked sufficiently cowed not to immediately jump up and retrieve his stolen device. He doubted Bennet would pick up once he saw his number and even if he did, his family was likely deeper in hiding than ever before. He didn't blame Noah for it. Mohinder might be the sort to ask all the wrong people for advice and show his hand (and heart) on his sleeve at the most inopportune of moments, but he admired the man's care of the people that needed him.

If only he could be a man like that one day.

Turning the apple over in his hand, thumbing the skin with a glint of the silver ring pressed heavily against his own, Mohinder dropped his knuckles to his thigh and blinked up at the larger man in dismay.

"I do trust you," Mohinder said, anger dissolving because he didn't have the strength any more. Anger might be easy, but it could take a great deal out of a person.

Mohinder didn't have anything else left to fuel it.

"Tell him what it is we need and why. He's bound to have seen the news by now. Claire's blood is special. He understand what that means."

Matt nodded, his own anger starting to die down as well now when Mohinder had given in. It was usually Mohinder's stubbornness that fueled his, after all. He breathed out, nodded, and took a few steps back, flipping Mohinder's phone up to scroll through his contact list. He didn't think there'd be any actual names in it, of course, that would have blown what little cover Mohinder had ever had, but 'B' was telling enough.

"Right", was his muttered agreement as he paused at the number, glancing at Mohinder and letting a beat pass before he spoke again. "Just eat the damn thing before you fall over. It ends in -49?"

Once he'd gotten confirmation, or found the right number, he got his own phone out and copied the sequence down. Because yeah, he didn't think Bennet would answer Mohinder's number either. How fortunate that almost everyone had their own phone these days, wasn't it?

Once he hit dial, he waited with a still-dark look Mohinder's way as the dial sounds went through, until there was a click and a cautious voice in his ear. He gestured briefly at Mohinder - got him - before he partially turned away, crossing his free arm over his chest.

"Bennet? It's Parkman."

The conversation felt like teeth were getting pulled, even though Mohinder wasn't part of it. He worked his jaw on the apple instead, face turned away from the man stuttering explanations towards the back of the room. The apple was warm and tasteless, not Matt's fault, and the feel of something fibrous in his stomach was starting to turn it ever so slightly. Exhaustion caught up quickly.

There was no need to be a telepath, nor hear the other end of the conversation, to know that Noah was giving Matt trouble. He glossed over the request and instead picked at the detective for information on who might have been hit, on what was being done--

Odessa had been home for a very long time, after all, even if Noah had kept his distance.

He sounded as tired as Mohinder looked. "There's been a media blackout since noon, Parkman," he said. Bad sign.

Bad sign indeed. Matt ground his teeth as he paced - he'd never been one of those people to take a call standing still, and he was circling himself slowly as he listened to Bennet and tried to get a word in edgewise. It wasn't that Bennet didn't listen to him, because he did; it was more that he seemed to have already made up his mind and refused to budge despite the arguments Matt put forth.

What aggravated Matt most, though, was that Bennet often spoke with a cool tone that held a lot of arrogance, and that tone carried over even through the tiredness that was blanketing all of them at this point.

"Yeah, that's bad, I get it", he hissed into the receiver, "but right now? We don't have time for this. No one has time for this. We need Claire's blood to save these people. If you won't listen to me, let me talk to her!"

That naturally didn't fly. Matt hadn't expected it to, but that didn't make him any less frustrated, and he shot Mohinder a look that said as much on his next rotation. The demand seemed to have made Bennet even more detached, and that was bad news too, but he was still on the line. So maybe they were still at a half-half.

There was another silence on Matt's end after that, before he finally snapped, "Just tell me what it's gonna be!"

Noah had no qualms with killing people. You couldn't work for the Company, you couldn't put your life on the line, and still have a high sense of fair morality. The sigh that followed painted a picture of the man removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. "Then you have Suresh there." Not a question. Matt didn't need to answer. "Right. I'll bring it myself."

It was more than either of the two in the high school lab could have hoped for and it was better than Matt didn't get the chance to ask how, exactly, Bennet planned to get through a barricade if there was a media blackout before the CDC even arrived.

There would be double or even triple perimeters set up now. Evacuations would have ended. They were likely already trucking in additional military personnel to keep people in their homes or to enforce martial law.

Day one of a viral outbreak wasn't so terrible.

Day three? Day seven?

All hell would break loose.

Matt's posture told Mohinder the answer to his question when the other man hung up the phone. "He'll do it?" he asked, just to be sure, and relief filled him as he tilted his head forward to set his forehead on the back of one hand.

There was nothing more Mohinder could do until Claire's blood arrived except perhaps contact the hospitals away from the epicenter of Odessa's viral outbreak and walk them through testing for presence of the virus. Containment was all Mohinder could hope for until that precious blood arrived.

"Thank God."

"Yeah."

Matt rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair, breathing out slowly. He was pretty good at going on the momentums he built up and he'd been going on determination, stubbornness and anger the past few hours ... it was only now he realized how tired he was. Seemed lengthy verbal spars would do that to you, two in a row even moreso.

He needed to find a charger, he realized. It was almost funny. The end of the world just around the corner and his phone was almost out of battery and it was a legitimate concern in case Bennet would call again.

Bennet had Mohinder's number. It was probably fine, for the time being. But still something to keep in mind when he'd be navigating the halls of coughing, scared or hurried people later.

"Catch", he said after a moment, tossing Mohinder's phone back to him in a gentle arc after pocketing his own. He found himself leaning against the desk after that, both hands flat against the surface. Listening. "You can't go to all of them", he commented, looking up. "You're even thinking tired."

With the apple half eaten to the core and nibbled on around the stem, laying lopsided on the desk, Mohinder couldn't help but wonder if he looked just as beaten up as the piece of fruit did. He let out a very long breath from the pit of his lungs and dropped his mobile into his jeans pockets when he stood. Likely, he couldn't get a hand into them otherwise while seated. He did seem to prefer trousers that might have been cut for a woman back in LA. Asian fashion was always a bit out there.

"How is it possible to think tired?" he asked, a smile on his face mirroring one from what seemed like so long ago, back before 'Suresh, Mohinder Suresh' became a thing to contend with and bicker over while Molly was in her room listening to Hannah Montana or rubbing her crayons into nubs on any piece of paper should could find. "Does it slur? Like speech?"

Right now, Mohinder couldn't do much at all. Matt was right. Even a phone call to one of the hospitals might be too much, getting through reception, to the right person, bounced around through any number of administrators-- He just wasn't up for it.

"Never mind. I believe you. I don't suppose there's a free sofa around..?"

The question did cause him to reflect, because he'd just noticed it, the thinking - he hadn't really considered what tipped him off. And that was them when they were good with each other, really: Mohinder making him think and being interested in something he did or said, and Matt able to provide insight and feeling like he was learning something about either himself or Mohinder (because by learning about his research, you invariably learned something about him, too). At their best, that exchange evolved into comfortable (and sometimes not-so-comfortable) teasing. At their best, they acted like a family.

God, he missed Molly so much. He wasn't sure how many days it had been since he'd seen her - probably only two, maybe three, but he felt like a very real part of him was missing. And now in the middle of all this he wasn't sure when he'd get to see her again.

But Mohinder was smiling at him and he smirked tiredly back at him. There was that, at least.

"Wouldn't bet on it. You might want to consider the floor, doc."

The sad part was that it looked like the most viable option. Any sofas were occupied or moved out of the way - more poeple than Mohinder needed the sleep, especially with the darkness outside. When had the whole thing started? Just before lunch time? The sun had set a while ago.

There had been many nights with a six pack of beer and American football on the television in the background (Mohinder couldn't figure the game out and in the end, simply pretended not to mind it so much when Matt needed the game to work through the pain of healing entirely too many bullet wounds) when discussions would turn towards Matt's blossoming ability and Mohinder would find himself going off on a verbal tangent stream of consciousness as he pondered the applications of telepathy in every day life. A little bit of alcohol and the professor still wouldn't shut up but at least he spoke slower and repeated himself quite a lot so Matt could keep up with the conversation. It had felt right to share his life with the two at that point, at least until Noah put it in his head that he'd best serve his little not-quite family by playing spy.

Conceivably, their lives could have been so very different if he'd only been capable of settling down. Perhaps, after this, they could bring Molly home together and try again? He'd even give Matt his bedroom in exchange for the couch if that's what it took!

Ah. A couch. Mohinder glanced around the lab and sighed. "It won't be the first time I've slept on the floor. I wonder if the administrator's office at least has carpeting though," he mused out loud. "You ought to rest too. I might not be able to hear your thoughts slur, but you look as exhausted as I feel. I'll give myself three hours, but you've been at this for almost a day longer than I have."

At least the apple seemed to allow his knees to function correctly this time.

He'd be able to see himself someplace at least a little more comfortable for a nap.

"It's not really slurring", Matt answered, wanting to sort it out now when he was thinking about it. "It's more, uh ... it's like a focus thing. Like your thoughts are less complete. They trail off, start over. You know?"

It was a figurative question, of course, since Mohinder wasn't a mind reader himself, something Matt was quite glad for at times. But it had turned into the question Matt used the most to make sure that Mohinder was following what he was trying to say. He'd been on the receiving end for quite a bit of questions after a while; it was naturally impossible to live with probably the only person in the world researching abilities to not ask him about them.

Molly was usually kept out of that kind of poking and prodding, but she was different. And with the way they were all trying to lie low Matt had quickly become one of Mohinder's very few test subjects. Matt usually didn't mind too much, and that's what he fell into now when he moved away from the desk and stuck his hands in his jacket pockets, following Mohinder out the door.

It struck him that he could make people clear an area to let them sleep, if he wanted. It was a subtly scary thought, but it remained in his head.

"I'll live", he responded to what was likely underlying concern on Mohinder's part, but he'd barely said it before he had to stifle a yawn.

Missed this, comes unfiltered and unfocused, unconnected from the surface thoughts of Mohinder's brain, floating over probability and mathmatical equations on the likelihood of seeing everyone make it through this. Without knowledge that the original National Guard were now getting ill, even those who had not worn their masks for simply a moment, and were being replaced by soldiers in tough viral suits tightening down the border between the infection zone and the standby areas, this little nap was going to cost people lives.

Mohinder simply could not function any longer. A slip up could cause even more death. He wasn't really trained for this. He'd been interested in practical medical vaccine production as a student and then in human evolution post-graduate. None of those things provided the stalwart ability to look the dying in the eye and still study them.

He wasn't quite up to that point.

So falling back on conversation with Matt, sleepy and comfortable, about what he could do and how he could react to it was lulling and safe.

One of the side offices, lucky for them, was indeed carpeted and even had two plush chairs to steal the cushions from for pillows. As Matt had said, it wouldn't be comfortable, but Mohinder really had slept in worse places before. He moved through muscle memory alone, setting up a place for Matt first before he tosses himself into a corner, shoes placed carefully on a window ledge. Sleep. And then he'd call Molly as promised.

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