seekevolution | The Storm

"It means I have something to synthesis. It means I not only have a potential cure isolated but a delivery system too!" Of course, those sorts of things took years to perfect and administering drugs required trials and... It's interesting but they don't have time. People here were going to die.

Mohinder couldn't reverse that. He couldn't even make them medically more comfortable unless he induced coma. That was not his call, however. He was a geneticists. A virologist. Medicine was beyond him.

"It's going to get very bad. Very quickly. Molly-- she should come here. And... I know this is ridiculous to say but we might do well with some supplies."

He'd been watching too many dooms day scenario programs while Molly was at school and Matt at work.

"Right. What, food, water? Power tools?"

It was a halfway joke, but unfortunately everything had a serious undertone. When they'd shut down Odessa, they'd had most things still. They couldn't count on that this time even if it was unlikely they'd shut the entire island down unless they planned to kill everybody on it.

But 'supplies' was a general word, especially when you were talking to someone who had a tendency to think in terms you didn't quite understand. If Mohinder needed something particular, he'd do well to say it upfront.

Although at that thought Matt withdrew to take out the other man's glasses from his pocket, holding them out.

"I'll get Molly. Just tell me what else we need, I'm on it."

Mohinder held up just one finger and went back to his work station to find something to write with. It took some time and he ran about like a spastic yearling. Endearing, perhaps, if time was not of the essence. By the morning, people would notice how wrong everything was. News shows would not be on and stations would be simply crammed with reruns to compensate for dead air. Stores would be over run. Riots would start. Rush hour... Oh God, he didn't even want to think about rush hour.

Mohinder's hand was steady, however, as he listed items for Matt to go and get. It was nearly nine. That meant stores would be closing very shortly. "Flashlights. Batteries. A lot of batteries." He also wrote down sleeping bags and other assorted gear like chemical stoves and matches, lighters...knives. Good multi-tools. "You'll want to look for light food items. Things in plastic or pouches, not cans. Things with large shelf lives. Tuna pouches, peanut butter, crackers. No soups. And headache medicines..."

Mohinder handed over the list with a somewhat desperate sigh.

"I'm going to get a space set up for us here." He ought to be working on this issue, on the virus, but it was absolutely clear that he himself thought it was a lost cause. "Bring anything Molly might need. And hurry."

And that was definitely disconcerting. How many people would survive this one? There'd only been three in Odessa that they knew of, and even if some people here were immune ... the panic, the riots ... And what would happen to the island after that? Matt thought briefly of Chernobyl. If the virus was airborne, this part of New York might be completely lost. They still hadn't let people into the center of Odessa.

And if Mohinder didn't think there was anything to do about it ... well, there probably wasn't, was there?

Matt took the list. "Yeah. Call if anything changes." And then he left, wasting no time on goodbyes because he knew he'd be back.

The streets were still mostly empty and Matt was quick to go home. Molly had her eyes on the door when he opened it, anxious but relieved, and he knew she'd kept an eye on him the entire time. He was relieved, so very, suddenly struck again by how she was a target, how she'd been targeted before, and even if Sylar was dead (his dad wasn't, though) -- he never wanted to leave her. He hated having to do it.

Now he gathered her into his arms and murmured, "You're fine, you're okay, we're gonna go see Mohinder" into her hair and she nodded into his neck and they both felt a lot better.

But first there was a bit of a treasure hunt. They went through quite a few stores, opted for all the cheap and light options, stocked up the car. It was something that felt incredibly grim. It had a finality to it that Matt didn't like and that worried Molly.

It was nearing eleven when they made their way back to the hospital. It was dark out and the streetlights painted the building in a pale, sickly yellow that was entirely too appropriate.

Molly hadn't brought much. The elephant was in the car because it had become a symbol, but she only carried her Atlas, an art pad with some pencils and a book in her backpack. Although the worry kept her more than a little awake she was incredibly tired and didn't say much when she held onto Matt's hand and he made people look the other way when they went through the corridors and up the elevators. Even if she gave him a slightly mixed look at the way he used his power.

"Don't look", he urged her quietly, meaning the sick and the dying. He was consciously blocking out their thoughts. He didn't want to hear the despair.

She looked, some. She understood a lot more than he'd ever want her to.

And back at the lab-slash-office they'd set up for Mohinder, she went up to him with slightly frightened, unsure eyes. "Will we stay together now?"

There was never a time that Mohinder wasn't pleased to see Molly, but that aside, sometimes were better than others. He quickly removed his gloves and tossed them away before hugging her, hand to her shoulders as he lightly brushed her hair back from her neck. "More or less," he promised. "Though I have a lot of work to do and you have bed to get to. There's a small room back here, through this supply closet, that you'll have to stay in for a little while. Matt and I will be right here, I promise."

Lifting her up, and realising he'd not be able to do that for much longer, Mohinder leads the way into the connecting office where he'd set up a cot and a desk for her to use. There wasn't much space at all and most of the things Matt had gotten were left in the car, hidden under seats, in case anyone decided to get overly excited for candles or canteens.

Mohinder stayed only very briefly with her as she got settled and Matt brought her quilt from home in to cover her with.

I would very much like to stop this rash of desperately needing my services when all I'd like to do is sleep, he commented towards Matt and touched his hand in passing. You should sleep as best you can. I-- I am almost positive that we're going to need you sooner rather than later.

Mohinder had to work for now. He had to get everyone up to speed on his methods, had to get the entire hospital tested. At least he could leave the details of the quarantine up to people that understood best how to deal with people.

He couldn't help but think that Odessa had been a test run, however.

Matt shook his head. He was tired, yeah, but he was riled up too - sleep was far from his mind. Careful to not disturb any of the equipment he leant back against the desk, looking at Mohinder, noted that focus in his eyes that appeared when he thought at him rather than just to himself.

He opened his mouth to answer, then glanced towards where he could just make out Molly, and returned the look as he answered mentally instead. A focus. Edged with tension that looked kind of bitter.

What's the situation? How many dead?

He'd seen the people in the hallways, some lying down, others coughing, one particularly haunting glance of a teenager who looked like she'd fallen asleep sitting up except her chest hadn't been moving and she hadn't been thinking.

An oversight, maybe. They must've gotten to her by now.

"Last count was thirty-two," Mohinder said out loud with his eyes focused through microscope lenses and his mind on what he knows of retroviruses and ways to distinguish them from the rest. Shanti looked so much like the flu, worked so much like the flu, but deep down, in it's molecules, it was something so much more deadly. Viruses weren't exactly alive, not like bacteria, but they were still able to think in a way. Adapt. That was what this looked like-- Something capable of being autonomous. No wonder it had been shelved and hidden away. The people that created this strain were playing God. And they won.

Mohinder looked up from the last sample he'd been working through before Matt came in with Molly and took the glasses from his face to pinch the bridge of his nose.

If this is like Odessa, by tomorrow half of the people in this hospital will be dead. In three days, ninety-six percent will be dead.

And what would they do then?

"Is anyone thinking about what happened? How this one started? We were all cleared, Matt, we--" He was blaming himself. Hadn't they been to Coney Island last weekend, until Molly threw up on the Tilt-A-Whirl?

Matt reached out. Squeezed his shoulder. It was nice how with the intimacy that they now had there was a lot more certainty in gestures like that. Before that kiss in the kitchen Matt wouldn't have been likely to touch Mohinder at all, but now he did and looked him in the eyes and even though his own gaze had something stern about it there was a different dimension to just ... to the two of them.

"Stop it. Don't do that", he said. "If it was our fault, New York wouldn't still be here. And Peter would've spread it to god knows where. Right?"

He didn't ask because he was uncertain. That's how it worked. If Mohinder thought about it, he'd see it too.

"How do we know he didn't?" Mohinder asked. "These things can lie dormant, waiting for a spark, for a catalyst. It could be a certain percentage of nitrate in the air, it could be blocked by high pollen count or god knows what else. The point of the matter, Matt, is that we could be very much the cause of this and never even know it. The HIV virus lived and hid in the rainforest for centuries. It was our doing that allowed it to skip species. Man kind. One little mistake and hundreds of thousands of people die each year from it." He touched Matt's cheek, hardly caring that people were milling back and forth in protective suits and masks. They're going to come to the same conclusions as he himself had in a few hours.

And what then? What happens when the head of the CDC declares this a lost cause? When they abandon this part of the city, and the people in it, everything was lost.

His only hope was that they'd at least be saved when the teams pulled out. He could prove that they weren't infected. That their blood might be used to eventually synthesis a cure. They just had to hold on.

"I'm so sorry, Matt. I don't know how I've managed to be so useless."

Well, fuck. Matt's face went through a few different expressions when Mohinder spoke and settled on a dark wariness. That information opened up entirely too many risks. Worst case, they might be targets. Although officials would probably listen, if word got out to the masses he was already picturing -

He broke away from Mohinder just by leaning to the side, one arm crossed over his chest and the other hand rubbing tiredly at his temples.

"Okay. Great. So you're saying this might be even more of a mess to clean up. Where the hell is Bennet?"

He needed some answers, but he'd already tried that one and sighed before Mohinder had a chance to answer. He'd asked him a question earlier, after all.

"Nevermind. I could ... take a walk. See if I catch anything."

Mohinder nodded stupidly and let him go, despair nothing he couldn't handle when it was all he'd felt for so long, for so many varied reasons. This was no different and it would ease with time. "Let me know," he said quietly. "And I'll call Noah."

Not that either would really care to speak to each other, but some things were important enough to set everything aside for.

It turned out that Bennet wasn't even in New York, but in Boulder Colorado. He'd answered on the third ring and sounded just so very tired. "Suresh. Good news?"

Mohinder paused to look through the long supply closet towards where the lump that was Molly happened to become while she slept. "None. They've cut us off."

"I know. Not my order. There's four other outbreak sites, doctor. There are fifty people working on this. But you--"

"But me what? You're counting on me knowing how to stop an illness because it killed my sister?" He turned and shut the door so Molly wouldn't be disturbed. "This is the third time you've had me risk my family--"

"Family? You're living with a divorcee and a girl you don't really know and after what? Eight months? You're suddenly family?"

Mohinder very nearly hung up the phone right there, though he knew it was true. Noah had been risking his life for decades, family in tow. "We're suddenly a family," he said instead. "What's going to happen to us?"

There was silence for such a long time after that. "Now's the time to pray, doctor."

Matt stalked the halls and there were so many voices surrounding him. Frantic, urgent, hard - mental and verbal. The people in protective gear all had their orders and he made a mental list of them as they came to him. Regulate the people coming and going on this floor and the third. Make sure progress is made and report any findings or shortcomings. If necessary, use force to ensure order.

And outside of the hospital it was more of the same. Make sure nobody exits or leaves. Stay behind the scenes, for now. Matt found this out after grabbing someone by the collar and snapping at them to spill, but whoever that person was didn't know who was running the operation beyond the CDC.

And the military.

It wasn't good enough, he was thinking as he rounded another corner and made his way down a flight of stairs. Not good enough. Whoever were pulling the strings had to be part of the Company or something else, because there was no other reason for the blackout. People who knew what the virus was. What it did.

But as he'd expected a scan of the lower floors didn't give anything but more despair and pleas for help. He didn't try to soothe them, like he had in Odessa. Didn't have the time.

He was tempted to leave and grab someone guarding the bridges, because he knew they were there now, there and anywhere else you might attempt to leave. Positioned there quietly. Ready for the morning. But he wasn't reckless enough and returned to Mohinder's lab before long.

"Military's here", he said immediately when he entered, shutting the door behind him and shooting a dirty look out the glass windows that let the CDC people look right in. To make sure Mohinder was doing his work, no doubt. "Or they will be."

They had orders for the hospital too, of course. Not many, but they'd be there to prevent people scrambling for their loved ones. Protests, riots, you name it. This place was a hot spot.

Mohinder had been doing just about nothing for the last hour. Going through results that turned up no new information, just sentencing someone else to a certain death was weighing down on him so much that the puffiness around his eyes and the redness around his dark irises were absolutely understandable. He once more removed his glasses, just to put the world back into a sort of comforting fuzziness.

"There are outbreaks in Boulder, Santa Monica California, Boston and Detroit Michigan," Mohinder told Matt. "They're quarentined the cities and the outlying suburbs. At six o'clock this morning, they're going to black out the city. Turn off the whole grid. Only people with generators are going to have any power at all..."

Mohinder's fear was palpable.

"I don't know what to do about it except pray I find the impossible."

Matt stared. "The others too?" he asked numbly and at the confirmation, he ran a hand through his hair, the same tiredness that was weighing Mohinder down was felt all too clearly on his sholders as well. But the fear that joined it was turned into anger, because anger was more proactive than fear, and after a moment he clenched his jaw in a show of that.

He checked his watch. Just after one. They had five hours.

"Okay. Right, that means we can expect the chaos to start the moment people realize. They'll try to get out of here- and uh, get gunned down if they overstep. They're authorized to shoot to kill, these guys", he said in a low tone, indicating the people in gear outside. "Fucking idiots. This is going to snowball faster than ..." Not finding a good simile, he shook his head. "More than half the people out there are thinking about Odessa."

It'd be total chaos. Total. He took another step towards Mohinder.

"Hospital will still have power, right? I don't care if you find the cure or not, work's a good excuse to stay here. I don't want either of you outside after this starts."

"There's solar power and generators. We should... I don't know exactly for how long, mind you, but we should be all right if the military can hold this." And if not... They might be all right if they move to a more secure ward. It wouldn't help when the bodies started piling up, however. The morgue could never hold them all.

The hospital could never...

"You won't leave will you?" Mohinder asked, standing from a work station where little work could possibly be done to save them. "Please...don't go out there, Matt," he begged. Yes, begged. He was clearly emotional and tired and neither made a good man any better. He didn't want to live through another Odessa.

And this would be so much worse.

"I know you can help, or try to, but if you run into danger, it might be ready for you and we need you."

A softness came into Matt's eyes at Mohinder's tone and he looked away with a sigh.

"Yeah. I ... I need you too. But that'd just it, okay? I can keep the situation under control, buy some time ... maybe stop it together. Every minute I win out there? That's another minute nobody else has to die."

He fully believed that. He was a cop, he was a good guy, he was a man who wanted to protect his family - all of that backed him up when he looked back up at Mohinder. He was driven by duty and altruism and instinct and would absolutely risk himself for the people he cared about.

But it was more than that. He was also confident, knew he was capable both with a gun, with people and with his power. He was aware of the risks but he felt he could handle them. He wasn't afraid for his own sake, nowhere near as scared as he was losing Molly or Mohinder.

"I have to do something", he added. "I can't just hide and let these things happen."

"You're one person, Matt. Nothing you can do will be anything more than a delay and what will a delay do but end up getting more people involved?" Mohinder wasn't trying to belittle his friend, he wasn't trying to downplay his abilities either. "Even if Peter were here, I wouldn't want you to go out there, not when there's nothing we can do but keep ourselves safe and help the people around us."

Mohinder wished, in this case, that he could be selfish, that he could call up Peter and have him teleport them all somewhere that this wasn't happening. A little island home, perhaps, where they could surf all day and grown coconuts and avacados. Mohinder wants and easier life than he has, he wants to go back to being a screw up on a smaller scale.

"If you need something to do, protect Molly. Keep the military out of this hospital or off of this floor. Be sure we have supplies. Be sure that when our world ends again, she's safe. You need to sleep in order to be any good to anyone."

Do you remember how it went last time, Matt?

Matt smiled then, a snorted, wry smile that looked a little dangerous even if it wasn't directed towards Mohinder personally. Yeah, he remembered. He had plenty of memories and he wasn't likely to forget many of them.

It was only fo that second, though.

"Don't worry, I'm not that stupid." He hadn't meant to run off right that second or even that hour. Knew very well he'd need a few hours of sleep before he did anything, regardless of what it was he was going to do. He seemed to weigh Mohinder's words, request rather, finding it ... reasonable. How about that?

He remembered saying something similar to Mohinder after he'd almost shot him in his own kitchen when he'd unexpectedly shown up. You want to keep her safe? Don't die on her. It was probably that echo that made it right this time, too.

"Alright. I'll be close by. I promise", he said, stressing the last word at the look Mohinder gave him, but at the same time not promising what he'd do or where. "I just don't like this, Mohinder. I have to keep an eye on it."

They both knew when Matt didn't like something, he tried to fix it.

Telling Matt to stay away from the world, to hide, to keep from bringing it justice, would be a massive mistake. No, Mohinder couldn't very well squash down the things he loved about the man. And he wouldn't. Instead, he just nodded and gestured to the back room. "It's not going to be comfortable but it'll stave off a headache at least. I'll wake you before the grid goes off."

Mohinder himself couldn't sleep. He had to carry on as if the world was all right and he'd be able to save the day. Everyone was already in the dark already. This was just one more step and Mohinder was finding it difficult to live with knowing it.

He rubbed his forehead, at a complete loss at what the next step should be.

"I... I want to let them know. I want to give these people a chance to be with their families." Even if it might doom them faster.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

He had to question it, had to bring the uncertainty of it to light. But being with your family was a good reason to do anything, and in the end Matt wasn't going to fight it. Mohinder thought it was a lost cause. Matt had a history of not always trusting Mohinder's judgment, but he believed him here.

It wasn't optimistic. But he supposed the world did have a habit of beating them up every now and then for daring to be.

"How? I mean I could - maybe -" He motioned towards his own head. "I'm not sure how far I'd reach."

It would clear the hospital... It would confuse the military, the doctors... Those well would leave. Those sick-- Well they might leave too. But Mohinder had run the computer simulations with the other scientists. They'd already estimated that New York, any area cut off from the rest of the country now, would experience vast and unmitigatable losses within a week. A week.

This virus, it moved so quickly. Anyone coughing now... Everyone feeling a little under the weather would likely be dead by next Saturday. It was sobering. Mohinder looked as if he might sag under the brunt of it all.

"I'm not sure what's worse," Mohinder said, eyes filling with tears he'd not shed this night. He couldn't cry for everyone, after all. "Being immune and watching the rest die while I help them or sitting here and knowing they're dying without ever meeting them."

Matt hadn't expected to feel the way he did when Mohinder teared up; it was a rushing mix of shared pain and almost desperate affection. They'd been so happy the last few weeks he'd almost made himself forget that he'd ever seen his friend cry. And he immediately wanted to fix that too but wasn't sure how.

This was so damn big. It was bigger than any of them.

"It's not your fault", he said, went up to Mohinder and put an a hand to his cheek, a little hurried but his fingers settled gently near his ear. He looked between the other man's eyes, serious but worried, unhappy about the glossy pain he was seeing. "The Company made the virus. It's on them. You're doing everything you can. Okay?"

His other arm came around Mohinder's side, not quite a hug but an invitation in a way when Matt turned his head away to look at the corridor outside. No real movement. He supposed all that would be later.

"We'll figure this out."

Mohinder's face found the larger man's throat and buried itself there, right where it seemed to belong. Matt might not have embraced him fully but Mohinder finished his work and wrapped himself completely around the other. He was so tired--

There's not another bed, but could we at least fall asleep together? They could be with Molly, beside her. It wouldn't be comfortable, but it would be something. Mohinder had missed the closeness they'd had in Odessa. They'd not yet started a physical relationship at that point but they'd sought each other out nightly and that could be worth as much as much as kisses.

Well. Nearly so.

He didn't wait for Matt to give him an answer, he simply took both of his hands and pulled him away from his own post and down into the room where Molly slept easily. Both doors of the connecting supply closet were shut at either end and while the space was cramped, it was fine to lie down in.

Together.

Perhaps it was not as inappropriate for children as Mohinder had hinted on the phone but it would do. He wanted to guide Matt's head to his chest and stroke his hair until sleep came.

Matt followed, glad for the shifting expression in Mohinder's face but still feeling altogether ... he wasn't sure what word to pick. But he was watching Mohinder close and when there was that pause of just standing, he followed a sudden urge and leant in to kiss him. Molly was sleep. Nobody else could see. It didn't actually matter.

Although he normally had a sweet disposition, this whole thing was bringing out something deeper and different, maybe because he had a million things on his mind and knew that worst case scenario they could all be dead in a few days. That said, it wasn't really a fierce, demanding kiss. It just meant something different.

It was something he needed to do before he allowed himself to lie down, following the small suggestion found in Mohinder's mind, and he soon found his tension easing just from the fingers in his hair.

How long did they have? Three hours?

He'd been a bit unsure about if he'd even manage proper sleep but it was hard to resist the sinking, exhausting feeling of it.

Sometimes during their short respite, Molly had woken and pushed her way between them. Mohinder didn't mind waking up to long blond hair in his mouth, not as much as he'd expected to. His alarm was much more annoying and he stretched, rolling over, to find the source of it and shut it off. Ten minutes until the end of their happy little existance, he realised, and turned back to find Matt gazing at him.

Do we stay here and wait it out? Matt might be his hero if he'd only answer yes. He wanted to just be done with it, if only for the shortest while. They could be together but--

But it was extremely unlikely indeed that it would happen all at once. Panic was likely already happening but it would take a day, perhaps more, for the height of the violence to really get under way.

And they were safe here. Safer here than anywhere else at least. Matt had them. What Mohinder's status as a scientist here couldn't do, Matt could protect them. Even Molly's skill could become invaluable along the way. But for right now, Mohinder wanted to hide.

Does it make me weak?

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