seekevolution | Quarantine

Matt didn't even reflect. It was all too easy to accept Peter's theory right away because it made far too much sense. Of course it'd be the Company, it was always the Company, and it'd be just their style to try to cover up the mess they'd caused by silencing anyone who could tell on them.

"Is Bennet here?" he asked Peter, already moving with him back outside.

"Bennet?" A puzzled look from Peter in return, but he didn't stop moving, leading the way with hurried steps. Matt kept up, not elaborating for the moment on why Bennet was on his way. That was answer enough that if he was there, he'd chosen not to announce himself.

Peter let it go, and Matt found himself speaking very quickly, trying to explain how to get to the point where you could push a thought, make people do what you wanted. It was difficult to explain but it'd work out one hell of a lot better if both of them could do it.

The main road into Odessa that Peter had blocked the previous day was ... not looking much like a road anymore, all torn up around the boulders. It looked like someone had tried to make dead sure that even if they could haul the boulders away from there the road would never be one you could travel on again. It was almost a rift in the ground. From the looks of the cars with the open doors it looked like several people had tried to get out that way. From the looks of the people slowly moving around the area, it was clear that they wouldn't.

In front of them were several official-looking people with guns, pointing them towards anyone who dared get close enough. Tension was running high, mixing with all the voices in the air. It looked bad, really bad, and Matt wished he had his gun. For now he had his mind. It would have to do.

He took a deep breath after a meaningful look Peter's way and tried to reach out to the anonymous looking people behind their masks even from this distance, trying to get to them before either side committed murder.

If it wasn't for Matt, Peter would say later, there would have been a lot of very, very dead people along the torn up road. Though one poor girl did have a violent, fever induced seizure, Peter was there to take care of her in her last moments of life and with Matt's prompts, the soldiers and the remaining, uninfected National Guard soldiers directed the near riot back to the quarantine zone.

By that point, the place looked very different. Tents had been erected in the former football field for the dead. Everyone showing symptoms were set up at at the high school. Primatech was under armed guard. The houses and businesses in between were all but barricaded from those hiding away from an airbourne illness that was just as likely to claim them inside as out with the way soldiers were insisting on banging on doors to get full blood work on everyone.

Mohinder was no where to be seen, already escorted back to his lab since someone told the commanding officer in charge that he had a way of identifying the infected. Mohinder had argued, of course, but there wasn't a lot to be done when under supervision like this.

It was worse than being at the Company, worse than being told to experiment on people with powers. Worse because he knew he was writing death warrants for each new group of individuals paraded through the lab for their blood to be drawn.

Red bracelets were issued to the infected.

White to those exposed.

There were still a whole stack of white bracelets laying in a pile on his desk and they were nearly out of red.

Matt and Peter remained outside for some time. Early morning went by quickly when you were trying to defuse any arguments you came across. There was more than one road into Odessa and even though it wasn't as bad as it had been on the highway with the others, there were still groups protesting against threatening soldiers on each of them. Matt made them all calm down. Made the officials handle it in a humane way and the people allow themselves to be herded back into the city. It was tiring him out and he'd gotten at least two nosebleeds by the time they headed back into the city, but that didn't seem important.

Peter looked bad in that obsessive way he had - too intense, too focused, forcing himself to forget about things by being as deep in the shit as he possibly could be. Matt took him aside and told him he was sorry about Nathan and suggested Peter get some actual sleep, something he'd nodded distantly at before he'd gone off again.

Matt wasn't surprised, but he'd been too tired himself to argue that any further.

Odessa started looking more and more like a ghost town. By lunch time there were only a few people out on the streets, scattered by the wind, looking uncertainly at the guards that held their posts. Matt moved around as he pleased, despite the lightheadedness that came with it.

They probably wouldn't have let him into Mohinder's lab if he hadn't made them. There were many more Guards now, demanding IDs and ranks, directing people - even the high school hallways were emptier. Most of the work was being done from the station at this point, where only the bigshots got to call the shots. With Nathan dead, there wasn't really anyone else to turn to but whoever the CDC and military had sent.

Matt didn't like it. He didn't even know who was in charge, but he was bent on distrust, and that likely showed when he entered the office-turned-makeshift-lab and only asked, "Did Bennet show yet?"

The look Mohinder gave to Matt seemed to ask if the telepath was picking the question from his mind or if he'd really been gone so long and not to help bring Noah and the blood in. A tray of half eaten food items was next to Mohinder's work station where he was furiously colouring white bracelets red with markets and very little self control. It was no one's fault, he blamed none of their either, but putting bracelets on child unable to remain conscious--

Mohinder's heart was breaking under the pressure of it all. He'd even taken three bites of the tuna sandwich they'd brought him before he realised it, that's how troubled he was.

Stomach sour, he sighed and sat back in his desk as the Guards informed him another set of people would be brought in within the hour. They were having some trouble with some of the residents within the main quarantine zone. Mohinder didn't even ask why, he just nodded, happy to be left alone with Matt for even just a little while.

"I've only given out thirteen white bracelets," he lamented, gaze down. "Three people died in front of me this morning. I told them that I would go to the sick-- No one listens. Everyone is so afraid. They're separating families."

Matt's expression softened when he took in the state of Mohinder. His eyes seemed a bit shinier than usual, from exhaustion or emotion or whatever, and the bits of his thoughts that Matt caught seemed slow, weighed down. Matt guessed from the same exhaustion. Maybe guilt. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes.

"Hey", he said, in a hoarse tone but a gentle inflection. "You're doing what you can. We all are. People are still alive out there."

The desk seemed to change angle slightly, when he looked at it. Slipping away a bit. He went to sit down on that stool from earlier, closing his eyes and resting his head in his hands.

"We almost had a riot", he said into his hands after what felt like a long moment, voice muffled from behind them. He wasn't sure if he should tell Mohinder or not. It seemed a bit unfair to let him know, but at the same time, it wasn't something he could exactly keep from him either.

"Understandable," Mohinder said and pushed his tray towards Matt. It wasn't as good as the presto-chango mobile-to-apple trick, but it was something. One small sign that Mohinder did care. Perhaps Matt wouldn't want a partially consumed tuna sandwich but there was a fruit cup and two different bags of crisps untouched as well as a packet of cheese on cheddar crackers the Indian had swiped one of earlier.

Setting down his marker, not bothering to bring up Noah again because his phone had been taken any way, Mohinder pressed his lips together and leveled an internalized 'voice' at his friend. instead.

They're taking people with white wrist bands off in an armoured car, he thought and while that shouldn't have made him smirk, the corners of his lips did turn up. I feel like I'm trying to argue with you after Molly's bed time.

The Indian sighed. "I'll tell you one thing, and this is just a theory....but only people with O-negative blood types seem to be immune. Again, the sample size is incredibly small-- And you, obviously, aren't O-negative. But it's strange. I don't have the equipment here to do further testing. I've been told that they let the CDC know. Wherever they are."

Actually, Matt was more than willing to go for a somewhat-eaten tuna sandwich. It wasn't like Mohinder was going to finish it anyway, and it was the most food-like thing available, so he reached for it as soon as it was offered to him. He was already chewing on it when Mohinder's thoughts reached him loud and clear, and he ducked his head just slightly, showing that he'd heard, closing his eyes for a moment.

There was a twitch of a smile at the mention of Molly. She was a spot of sunshine even when she wasn't there. But he didn't allow himself to linger on the mental picture of her smile.

He had to focus ... had only projected once or twice before, but tried again now: Can you give them red ones?

He wasn't sure how much of that would go through. He'd never done it with Mohinder before, had only seemed to do it subconsciously in times of stress, but it was clear that if they could have that discussion without saying the words, that would be miles better than trying to whisper about it.

He took another bite of the sandwich, chewed and swallowed as he opened his eyes and looked at Mohinder to find him speaking. Mouth-speaking. He hadn't caught the first part of what he was saying, but definitely enough to have an opinion.

"In some pretty office where they won't have to get their hands dirty", he said with an edge of sarcasm, or maybe bitterness. "Didn't you say we might not be? Immune?"

Hold on. Hold the phone. Whatever the saying was in English? Do that. Mohinder stared at Matt with big, brown doe eyes wide. He'd get to his conclusion in a moment, but at the end of his thought process, he realized Matt's mouth had been full of tuna fish and white bread.

He hadn't slurred. No flecks of fish dotted the desk.

You can-- When did you discover that?! Excited thoughts took precedence to red tags and white tags and immunity right now. He reached across the desk in fact in his shock and scientific joy, dark skinned hand against Matt's paler tone.

He generally curtailed the 'Asian' touchiness but this was important!

"I, uh --"

Matt blinked, a little ... surprised, to say the least, at the way Mohinder was staring at him. At the way he seemingly dropped all his other thoughts to focus that one, all his attention on him. Matt wasn't usually good with spotlight like that. And even if it was just the two of them, he made a face and looked away, taking another bite of the sandwich, moving his hand away from beneath Mohinder's to scratch at his neck.

Thing was, eating wasn't an acceptable stalling option anymore, was it?

Few days ago. My dad ... He shook his head and started eating the sandwich with a bit more aggression than was really needed. Guess I picked up a few things from him.

Well perfect. Was he suppose to send his congratulations or his condolences? Mohinder decided, and wisely for once, on neither as the option and sat back in a chair that luckily has some sort of support to catch him. He'd tried it once on the stool a few hours ago and...that hadn't gone over well save for the children in the room. Unfortunately for them, it had been red bracelets in the end and laughter gave way to worry as soldiers took them to makeshift classrooms outfitted to be sick wards.

Mohinder could almost hear them whimpering through the ducts. It was all in his imagination of course, but guilt had a way of personifying itself evilly like that.

Useful, he replied, never bothered by Matt's attempt at distance. Especially now. I'm sorry, what were you saying? Give potentially immune people red bands? Why would-- Hold on, hamster wheels turning. Oh. Actually...

"Help me colour these in."

Oh, well, look at that. He helped.

Stuffing the last of the sandwich in his mouth in that way that had often garnered him disapproving frowns from Mohinder from across the table back in New York, he scrubbed his hands on his jeans and reached for a handful of bracelets and one of the markers.

He didn't say much after that and didn't bother projecting a response, either. It took a lot more focus than he was used to - it was like being back at the start, trying to sort thoughts out to even begin with again. That was easy now, came almost naturally. Everything else was new ground.

But he was doing something with it. That was a good thing.

Imagine what else you might be capable of with practice-- Likely, that thought hadn't been meant for Matt to pick up on, Mohinder's thoughts switches languages so easily that it was hard to follow along. He was more or less busy trying to imagine what could happen down Matt's evolutionary tree, if his children might one day have even greater powers than he did...or their grandfather did before him.

Probably not appropriate.

The soldiers weren't gone all that long and Mohinder is startled when they parade in the next group of people. He wasn't quite sure why he was surprised so many of them were in handcuffs... Not if these last few (out of the good two hundred or so processed) were the hold outs.

"Doctor--" The word through the air mask was eerie. Mohinder stood slowly, looking more at the frightened people shuffled into the room. "Here's your next batch." Batch. Like they were biscuits or dinner rolls. None of these people looked immediately ill but Mohinder knew he'd find the virus in all of their samples. His teeth were gritting.

"We know this is airbourne," he said stubbornly, hands balled into fists. "Why are you bringing potentially healthy people here when you're keeping the sick here too?!"

"Just do the damned tests," the soldier grunted.

"I won't see any more people here! I'll go with you to collect samples. In a suit. Contact with me could be spreading the virus!"

Not smart, Mohinder. Already agitated people did not need to hear any of that!

Matt had moved to stand with Mohinder when the soldiers came in, immediately taking his side in quite a literal sense. For all of their issues - and there were many - Mohinder was still the person he trusted most in this situation. He had by no means forgotten the sense of betrayal from the knowledge of what Mohinder had done and yeah, if he thought about it long enough it came with a sense of wariness, but right now that had to take second place to the fact that these likely-Company people were running the show.

And were doing it in a way Matt couldn't at all see eye to eye with.

He didn't say anything when he tried to touch their minds, still exhausted from the rounds outside, the day before, the lack of sleep, but the focused look he got when he tried to read minds would be unmistakable to anyone who knew it. If Mohinder looked, he'd see it immediately.

He'd also see the trickle of blood coming from Matt's nose, might notice the high tension in his shoulders and the increasingly shallow breathing before he fell forwards. He only barely caught himself with a hand against the desk, his other elbow having hit the edge of it painfully, and he bit back a groan.

The soldiers seemed frozen for a moment, confused, torn between two orders, two loyalties.

Ultimately, you fight uncertainty with violence. Fear makes you aggressive. A failed attempt to alter someone's mind would probably leave you with a deep sense of unease, and if you were trained to fire at will ...

Matt was still trying to make the room stop spinning when he heard the yell.

Mohinder was not the most observant of men and it wasn't until Matt stumbled and two of the men stepped forward that he understood something was going wrong. His first thought was on the virus. Could he had been incorrect about his working theory on immunity? Could he have missed a step analyising Matt's blood? Matt's had been the first he looked at from this strain, had been the test comparison he'd used against everyone else when trying to identity protein markers. If he'd gotten this wrong--

Stepping in between his friend and the soldiers was the wrong move, not because the soldiers sought to physically remove the slight Indian from the equation, but because it allowed everyone to be distracted. Those in handcuffs turned to flee. Attentions were divided. Guns were raised.

The first time Mohinder heard the shots, he'd been asleep, neck aching, on the carpet. They'd been far away, dream like really. This time, it happened right in front of him.

Mohinder was already shell shocked enough by gun fire in the last two days. The kick of a weapon hot in his hand was a memory he hated. The smell of cordite coming from Maya's corpse as she cooled at his feet caused him to nearly tumble over Matt as he stepped back.

"Soldier! Weapons up!" a commanding officer shouted from down the hall as the sound of troops in heavy protective gear charged towards the fleeing civilians.

One more dead. This time not from a virus at all. Luckily, he and Matt were ingored in favour of an attempt to regain order outside of the lab. Mohinder sunk to the floor beside his friend, still without looking at him.

His thoughts were singular and afraid.

If Matt was sick, Matt would die. If Matt died, he'd be alone.

How could he care for Molly on his own?

It was a very parental view point.

Matt flinched at the gunshot, the sound almost splitting his skull in half ... he wasn't sure when, exactly, he'd wound up on the floor, but he kept his eyes shut and his teeth grit in pain as he listened.

The running footfalls sounded further and further away from them. The shouts were coming from a distance.

Breathing in slowly, he pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. When he felt Mohinder by his side he calmed a little, but only so much - meant they were both fine at the moment, whatever 'fine' meant these days. Meant they weren't being apprehended, it seemed like. Unless one had remained to point a gun at them.

But when he opened his eyes for a moment he found the room to be empty. He listened to the sound of Mohinder's thoughts - just the sound, not the words - as he willed the room to stabilize. When he dried the blood from beneath his nose it smeared across his hand and he looked at it for a moment before he finally tuned in to what was happening in Mohinder's mind. He did so very carefully, his head still pounding from the inside, but whatever Mohinder was thinking was on loop and it was usually important when it was ...

His name. His name was everywhere. And Molly's.

It took him a moment to really decipher that, but when he did, it seemed to only make his headache worse.

"Don't- don't think like that." It wasn't much reassurance when it was said in such a low, tired tone, but it was all Matt could manage right then.

Bloody nose didn't fit at all with the symptoms of the virus. High fever, yes. Dizziness, yes. Coma usually quickly there after. But they were lucky that this virus wasn't hemorrhagic. In a way, it was clean. When bodies shut down, that almost never happened. Mohinder took blessings where he could find them, and right now, Matt's bloody nose was a relief.

Soft hands on a warm, soft face, Mohinder played medical doctor with a little too much voracity than he could with skill and tilts back Matt's large head to get a look at his eyes. His skin wasn't clammy. His eyes could still focus. Relief-- Relief was the only emotion the Indian had as he dropped his hands and his own head in relief.

"Over did it?" He knew that look, after all. Matt on painkillers without much ability to control his power? That's what this Matt looked like right now. Mohinder didn't assume anything else was at play, just that too many people with too many loud thoughts had infiltrated the telepath's mind. "You scared me, Matt. Just...sit. Here, have some water."

Matt let Mohinder touch him however he wanted to reassure himself mostly because he didn't have any energy to fight it. He wasn't good in a spotlight, and in a similar vein, he'd never particularly liked being fussed over either. Here, though ... his head was still pounding so bad he felt like he might be sick. He hadn't felt that way since - since months ago in the convenience store when he'd first collapsed from all the voices in his head.

It stood to reason that that's what Mohinder would assume had happened. For now, Matt only nodded, because it wasn't wrong and he didn't feel up to explaining. He gladly accepted the glass of water and kept his eyes closed again as he drank half of it, still touching his forehead, grimacing.

"Molly would be, uh ... cross with me if I went out that easily", he told his glass weakly, not quite willing to lift his eyes. It was a deliberate mimic of Mohinder's usual choice of words though and that should show that Matt was ... okay. Not sick, not hallucinating, not feverish. It was just that his head was splitting open. "I just need an Aspirin. Or ten."

"That, I actually might be able to help with," Mohinder said in a somewhat self disparaging tone because he hardly felt as if he'd done much good here. Matt's somewhat playful response at least gave the geneticist a smile on his face, no matter how soft and he stood up from his hovering, fly-like buzz around the telepath to see to the pills he'd found that afternoon in the drawer of the desk.

Not Aspirin, but close enough. He'd had some himself too, just before the tuna sandwich incident. If he'd not thrown up after that, he doubted these pills to be mislabeled. Alieve sounded rather like proper stress and ache medication. Plopping two pills, not ten as requested, into the larger man's palm, Mohinder was just getting back to the desk when the door to the lab was pulled closed.

It was impossible not to figure out the clicking that came after, but that didn't stop the Indian from cursing in Hindi and, upon trotting over to try to knob, announce what they both already knew.

"Locked in."

Mohinder's forehead hit the frosted glass before he turned and slid back down to the floor.

"This might rank up there with the night I attempted homicide with a bed pan," he muttered.

Funny. The click of a lock had never been so loud before. The distorted, enlarged sound actually took a while to register to Matt, who was just drinking the rest of the water to swallow those pills, so it did take Mohinder to announce this new change in their already bad situation for him to react.

And he did, quite immediately.

"What the-"

Standing, and standing quickly, proved immediately to be a very bad idea. But Matt held onto the desk like the best of them and was growling at it like it had personally offended him until he could look up to instead glare at the door.

"- no, just- what the hell do they think they're doing?! Hey!"

Oh, that was kind of dumb too, making loud noises. He clenched his jaw, shoulders tensing.

If anyone remained outside the door, they didn't answer. There was a shadow clearly passing, but whether they truly left or simply wanted to remain out of sight ...

A lockdown. A lockdown on the geneticist of all people, the one who was supposed to be working with the CDC to fix the entire thing. Yeah. Why would you do that? You wouldn't, was the short answer. And so Matt's initial distrust levels went through the roof.

Matt might have snapped but Mohinder felt suddenly very far removed from the scene as he watched his friend -- possibly the only one he had -- stagger to his feet like a tranquilized grizzly and try to be intimidating to no one. Their captors (for that was who they really were now) were no where around. Their reasoning was lost to them until Matt could calm himself down enough to heal. For all Mohinder knew, though he felt it unlikely, it was for their own protection. After the mess with the gun, after the riots that morning, the media black out, Mohinder probably was the villain here. He did the testing. He gave out the wrist bands--

Ah, and there was the guilt again. The Indian looked at his palms, not at Matt, for several very long moments until he felt the world give way. He'd been suffering for days now, constantly in a state of terror, unable to tell any more who to trust, and the weight of it finally broke down upon him.

It was with wet lashed eyes, shining too brightly to be mistaken for anything but tears, that Mohinder moved once more to Matt's side and, hands to the larger man's shoulders, attempted to calm him down with a shaking voice that highlighted the agitation and fear he was trying to old back.

"Please--" Oh, he'd beg. He was generally too proud but today, of all days, he just needed a moment of calm. "What good will it do," he started, velvety purr becoming shrill, "if you hurt yourself more?!" He'd often thought of himself as capable of defending himself but time and time again he'd been proved so very wrong. He needed Matt for more than just a little stability now. "Stop yelling!" he shouted, not that it helped any. It just made his throat seem to close up all the more. "We need to stay calm!"

There was a moment there when they were both yelling at different things and although Matt was beginning to come out of the lightheadedness at that point since he wasn't trying to use his power, his headache still protested about as loudly as their voices. How did he tackle that? With more yelling, of course, but only for as long as it took to make sure everything else was quiet. "Okay, alright, alright!" became a mantra until there was no other noise and he shrugged Mohinder's hands off for no other reason than the fact that he was worked up.

He took a breath, wished the pounding would go away, and started speaking. "Look, just - don't you get what they're doing?" he hissed, turning towards Mohinder again, one hand on the desk like he was still bracing himself against it. "They're keeping us out of the way. That has to be it. If they're working for the Company ..."

Mohinder was all trust, at times. Matt was the opposite. Right now he could see several ways this could end badly with either or both of them dead. He was going to say something like that, probably, when he stepped closer to Mohinder. But when he really looked at him, he seemed to recoil into himself instead.

He looked upset. Matt hadn't seen that look on him before. He didn't know what to say or do in response to it. He kept eye contact but was silent, feeling his head throb with every damn heart beat, but ... well.

He shook his head, in the end, and glanced away.

"Sorry", he muttered, but seemed to mean it.

Mohinder's eyes immediately shifted. He was pent up, frustration and terror and sorrow and very poignant feelings of guilt had collided inside of him. Screaming was a good way to let it out, but Mohinder was just a little too soft spoken for that and the tears were already coming any way. Americans had such issue with crying. Rather than being therapeutic or a valve to release pent up energy, they saw it as weak. Confusing. He was too tired to play into Matt's stereotypes right now. A blink of long lashed eyelids caused the first in a string of droplets to trace down his cheeks; first the left, then the right. He turned his face away too the moment Matt shoved him off.

Mohinder didn't really understand the need for the other man to exist in an island unto himself. He'd cleaned stabbing over stitches and staples for nearly a month when Matt first came into his care from the hospital. He'd never complained about that--

Then again, it did set off a lot of arguments. Could that have just been Matt's discomfort with closeness? Was it something else? Mohinder was in no mood to try and pick apart his flatmate's psyche right now.

He rubbed a hand across his eyes and gave Matt the space he craved. His posture was awkward, shoulder back but head still down. His fingers tangled in curls that had seen much better days.

"Just-- Just sit down before you hurt yourself even more." Mohinder has his own island. He was very use to existing alone. And yet, give him a home to return to where there were two people genuinely happy to have him there and...something had changed.

Matt could hear more than half of that in the space between them. His mind was still open - blocking things out was a conscious effort he hadn't even thought to pull off right then. And he didn't like listening to those thoughts but only partially because it made him awkward. The other reason was because Mohinder had it wrong.

"I'm fine", he dismissed the request, fingers once again finding the way to his temples as he felt Mohinder's thoughts build. He shook his head again like he was trying to shake it all off. Everything. There were a lot of things he wanted to disappear right now.

"It's not- it's not that", he started explaining, because now he felt like he had to, didn't want that look on Mohinder's face when he looked at him. "Look, I'm bad at this, alright? Janice, she ..." Cutting himself off, he changed directions. He didn't like talking about her. How their relationship had ended still stung him deeply. "Point is, I know you're feeling ... guilty", he said, finding the word from Mohinder's mind. "I get that. I don't think you're weak, Mohinder. I just ... I can't let anything happen to you. You and Molly."

Though Janice had been frequently angry with Matt for accidental -- or otherwise -- scoping out of her mind, Mohinder was less bothered by it. He'd been a human yo-yo once, hadn't he? Being held captive by those with abilities was more a scientific privilege than it was a violation of his personal space. Hadn't he originally felt that way when Sylar stopped the bullet? If only for a second, before feat overwhelmed him? Mohinder was a strange fellow in many ways. And very much his father's son.

He did not, therefore, jump immediately on Matt for the mind reading. When you were involved in any way with a telepath, you just had to expect that to happen fairly frequently. Of course, that didn't stop him from clicking his thoughts to Hindi as a general hand slapping.

There was something about Matt's confession that did something to him. When people cared, openly, honestly (or even lied really, he could rarely tell at first) about how they felt about him, it was almost impossible for Mohinder not to mirror it, even if it got it so often wrong.

Face in profile to Matt, Mohinder kept his eyes down and his breathing even. "I suppose I might mention that I'm not a replacement for your wife, but Molly is our daughter, in my mind at least, and you two are my family."

Could this little half confession be the reason Matt had never moved into his own flat? One where he had an actual bed and not the sofa?

Misunderstanding would be the death of the Indian one day.

There was a puff of air from Matt when Mohinder pointed that out, the first part - not a snort, not quite a laugh, but something that sounded both disbelieving and amused. Not a replacement for his wife -- that was putting it mildly. Matt had been well aware of the differences between Mohinder and Janice the moment he'd been hit in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher.

The problem was that Matt often had trouble deciding which life he liked better. Mohinder infuriated him almost as often as he didn't, but when they got along they had a much more comfortable rapport than he'd had with Janice for years. But he'd had years with her and cared deeply about her in so many ways ... Things were complicated with her because he didn't understand her, where he often thought he had Mohinder at least mostly figured out. Things were complicated in a wholly different way with Mohinder and Molly. Yet maybe for that reason, it was also easier to handle.

Our daughter. It had been "our girl" so often - the word daughter, that really weighed it down. Family. He kind of had to smile, just a little bit, with that disbelief. To think he'd be cut off from one and find another so damn fast.

"Yeah", he agreed, looking up at Mohinder more steadily, only halfway tuning out the stream of Hindi that acted as a backdrop to his spoken words. "You're right. That's just it, you know?" He gestured vaguely between them, then threw his arm out towards the door. "You protect your family. We can't just stay here."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject