seekevolution | Summer

Summer

Though Mohinder didn't buy into the saying that there could be such a thing as love at first sight, the way that Simon Petrelli looked at Molly when they were first introduced made him reconsider and then immediately close his thoughts so Matt wouldn't worry. Mohinder gently pulled her long hair back from her shoulder so his hand could rest upon it, Molly in a bright red and yellow sundress,and said shoulder covered by a small yellow half jacket. They'd both been pleased to find it at Walmart on the drive up from Fort Lee to Maine, taking the long, scenic route even though Peter had offered them a chance to teleport.

Why teleport when they could have more time together and see the country? Molly needed a little break away from enclosed spaces and the forests along their mountain roads in New York and at the southern border of Canada was just the ticket.

Of course, there had been blighted areas, places where the virus had broken out, or worse, where communities had closed their doors and grown violent. They had just guided their black SUV around the problem areas and stuck to rural hotels on the interstate.

Now, standing in the foyer of what looked like another hotel and yet, knowing it was a family summer retreat, Mohinder could feel Molly yearning to go explore...and the eldest of Peter's nephews more than willing to guide her.

They were both the same age. They'd both been without playmates (what nearly twelve year old counts their brother as a playmate?) for a long while. Mrs. Petrelli, gracious despite her furtive glances at Matt, finally gave them the go head. "Show Molly to her room. Gently, Simon. She's not one of your trucks." Molly glanced back up at Mohinder and he nodded.

"I'll come find you shortly."

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Suddenly, Matt was pacing again. He was agitated. It wasn't a good enough answer, because he'd not actually discussed part of the problem. He shook his head. "She said I was my father", he said. "That if I took that secret from her, I was as good as him. Or as bad as him, I guess. And what if I am?"

He paused, giving Mohinder that haunted, hollowed out look. He didn't look much like the person Mohinder had found in New York anymore. He'd gotten back some color and meat on his bones, had shaved and finally cut his hair, was wearing clothes that weren't bloody or dirty, but it seemed like that look would never quite go away in moments like these.

Moments of self-doubt.

"I'm not. Not yet. But I could be, and it's getting so damn easy ..." He trailed off, not sure how to articulate that. What was it that was easy? Oh, a lot of things. And he'd gotten good, too. Precise, stealthy, powerful.

He looked indecisive for a moment, then pressed his lips together rather than saying anything more.

Getting this out was important and so, even when Matt's voice broke, Mohinder let him prattle through it on his own terms. It was poison, those thoughts. It needed to be leached. And Mohinder was there to help him through it, right there, unflinching, right up until Matt said 'not yet.'

"Not ever," Mohinder replied, venomously himself. "You are not the man that locked our daughter in a nightmare. You would never, never hurt someone without reason."

Moments of self-doubt were fine, but Mohinder felt himself having to reach out over a cliff to keep Matt from falling. Perhaps he was being dramatic. The geneticist always was.

"It's easy because you can handle yourself. Your morals are in place, your desire is always to help someone. I know what you can do and I am not afraid of you." He waited for that to sink in. "And I will never be afraid of you." The corner of his lips tilted upwards. "Because you are a good man Matthew Parkman. And you know it in your heart as much as I do."

Matt had half a mind to protest - not because it was untrue that he'd never hurt someone without reason, but because he knew it would be easy to do it even without one. That's what rattled him most. Not so much what he did with his power but the knowledge of what he could, and the knowledge of what others had.

But when Mohinder said that he wasn't afraid of him, that's when Matt felt truly reassured amidst the surprise. He hadn't fully understood how much he'd wanted to hear something like that. His throat worked for a moment before his eyes dropped and a faint smile made itself known.

He remembered yelling that at his father, that he was a good man, needing to make himself believe just as much as him. Hearing someone else say it made him feel a lot better and he sank back against the wall he was leaning against with a soft laugh.

"Thanks. That's ..." Nah, he decided, trailing off. Nevermind. "What would I do without you, huh?"

In Mohinder's opinion, it was like being allowed to carry a weapon, or even drive a car. You could easily kill a person with each and yet, most people that carried guns did not go around blowing people apart with them. Matt's mind was a gun. His will could be bullets. But unlike a weapon, Matt could heal, could soothe, could diffuse as much as he could hurt.

And he'd proven, time and time again, that he was capable and willing to try that first. Mohinder said nothing at all that he didn't believe in any way. This wasn't ego stroking, just truth.

Matt's head lowering, the way he leaned back against the wall, just made Mohinder want to invade his space. And so he did, fingertips against Matt's chest as he smiled up at him.

"Well, for a start, you'd be eating a great deal more pizza and not spending a fortune in condoms."

Matt snorted, and reached out to hug Mohinder closer so that they were leaning together.

"Uh, sorry? You think we're up to a fortune?"

Not that Matt was particularly lewd by nature, but he raised his eyebrows slightly to mark the joke Mohinder himself had started. He was comfortable with the wall for support and Mohinder in his space and he felt pretty damn lucky at that moment. Moreso when he heard the kids laughing some distance away.

It was a temporary stay, and they all knew it, but the sense of peace it offered was a welcome one.

Bright and early the next morning, Peter and a motley crew of children set off with planks and tools in metal buckets to head to the tree house for some fixing. Monty and Peter could be heard singing as they went and Mohinder stood out on the balcony and listened, cup of coffee in one hand and serene smile on his face, seen in side view, from the bed.

Lazy summer days would be too soon at an end but having Molly so happy just made Mohinder happy. Though the night before had been teasing about their actions between the sheets, he turned towards the shape, still dressed from breakfast, lounging on the bed. "You have three seconds to get those trousers off," Mohinder said, smirking with the knowledge that they had several hours alone, "before I break the zipper."

Simon stayed right by Molly and pointed out a few of his friends that came to say hello. Peter only glanced at him once, but didn't reprimand him so he figured that was all right. Animals were all over the place. One or two sticking around long enough for Molly to see? That shouldn't be a problem.

"Do you like humming birds? Grandmom has a feeder around the stables."

Matt didn't manage that in three seconds, but he did tug Mohinder into bed with him.

Molly, meanwhile, was absolutely delighted to be outside. You appreciated this kind of thing a lot more after having been cooped up in facilities so often. And New York didn't really have forests or beaches, so she felt more at home here, amongst the greenery and with the waves not too far off.

She'd decided that she really liked the Petrellis, even the sterner ones. Peter was fun and friendly and even though Monty was still kind of little she liked him too because he was nice to her and sometimes he seemed to notice things nobody else did.

She liked Simon most though even if he sometimes was a bit of a butt. Sometimes without meaning to, like with her, and sometimes because he got kinda impatient, like with Monty, but they had more things in common than they'd thought and his power was really amazing.

She looked predictably excited. "Yeah!" And as they veered away from the other two, she asked just because she was curious. "Are birds your favorite? You talk to them a lot."

From what she'd seen, it looked like there was a preference. Or maybe it was just that there were more birds around than anything else.

"I dunno, maybe. Birds are always around. And they can fly," Simon said, seemingly fixated on that. It wasn't exactly his fault, he had some father issues. Absent a lot growing up, absent now completely. They'd actually known their uncle more than their father, sad as that was. Peter was the one that came to little league games and was always at their birthday parties.

Simon couldn't remember any birthdays save for the last one that his dad attended, and scheduled for the cameras. That was right before the whole first New York thing.

Simon didn't want to go back there every again, honestly. New York just swallowed people up and kept them away from him.

"Plus it's a little hard to get rabbits into your room at night." He was lonely. Even he pretended he wasn't. "What's your favorite animal?"

Molly was starting to get a feeling for that loneliness, even if it wasn't a very conscious thing. She hadn't been lonely growing up but she'd started feeling more and more lonely the last few months - well, until Matt came back and Mohinder's work was done and they came to Maine. But there'd been a while there where she really had felt lonely and she didn't want to feel that way again.

"I don't know", she said, thinking. "Maybe rabbits. It's hard picking a favorite, there are so many."

She was smiling as they got to the stables.

"Can you tell them apart? Do they have names?"

She was so curious. It was such a different ability from hers.

"They're not really like people," Simon muses. "I mean, yeah they sort of have names but it's more like smells. Especially for rabbits. Birds have songs. Their voices are different and that's how they tell each other apart. You can't really talk to them like you talk to people. But.. There's enough to get by with." The rabbits and the birds that follow them slowly make Molly look a little bit like a Disney princess and Simon turns suddenly, Peter and Monty further ahead and still singing some stupid song about a train. "Hey. Do you want to be my girlfriend?"

He's not even a teenager but he knows how important that is. It's like family. His dad had girlfriends before and why couldn't he?

"They can't take us away from each other if we're boyfriend-girlfriend," he says, innocent of reality. Simon's disconnect might mirror Molly's in that way. Their role models haven't exactly been the sort to explain these things and kids television is full of young couples hanging out and holding hands.

Molly had to think about that for a moment, but it wasn't a very long one. No, she hadn't really had a talk about it. Boyfriend-girlfriend meant that you had something other people didn't have, but in her world, there wasn't a lot more to it. You were friends except you held hands more and maybe hugged and kissed, but you didn't really kiss until you were married.

That's why she'd figured Matt and Mohinder would probably get married. They kissed each other like they wanted to.

"Okay", she said, easily enough. "But I could find you anywhere, anyway." Just an observation. Her ability wasn't cool or amazing, not the same way Matt's or her father's or Simon's was, but she knew that it was useful and important. She would always be able to help keep people together.

"I could find you anywhere too," Simon said immediately. "Or... I could send one of my friends to find you. But even if we can find each other it doesn't mean that we can be together." Keeping people together was his primary goal with this endeavor. Besides, he wanted to rub it in Monty's face that he had a girlfriend. He was really mature for a pre-teen, huh?

Smiling happily now, Simon's arms almost pumped at his sides by the time he heard Peter's voice for them to catch up. "Your parents will never forgive me if you two get lost in the woods and eaten by a bear!" he called, prompting Simon to grin at Molly.

"A bear would never eat us. He'd probably let us ride him," he boasted.

Molly wrinkled her nose. Not in distaste, but in humor.

"No he wouldn't!" she protested just because of Simon's tone. Okay, and because it did seem incredulous, but mostly it was about taking him down a peg. So they were a very young couple but with the typical bickering already settling in. "There aren't bears here."

It was a question when it was said like that. She'd never seen a bear. The prospect was both scary and really cool.

Peter overheard them as they caught up and he shot them an easy grin, but raised an eyebrow faintly at Simon.

"You bet. So let's make sure we stick together, okay?"

"There are bears here. Black bears. Dad use to say he say them somethings." Simon liked being right but bringing up their father was generally a bad thing around everyone. Peter went quiet. Monty took ahold of his hand. Simon just looked annoyed.

He didn't get it. His dad was dead. Crying about it and being upset about it was stupid because nothing could bring him back. He had the wrong kind of power. The sort he wasn't allowed to tell anyone about but Uncle Peter... And now Molly.

He almost was a little too rough when he took Molly's hand, but his palm was warm and he looked like he was trying to stay calm and brave.

It sucked being the older brother sometimes.

Molly took in the silence with that maturity she'd gained all too quickly the last few months, but she reserved a particular look for Simon when he reached for her. After a moment, she squeezed his hand because maybe he needed that. Or wanted it. He had this kind of impatient look but she knew there had to be more to it than that.

Peter seemed sad. Monty seemed even sadder.

"I've never seen a bear", Molly said with that confidence some kids had when they changed the subject, or at least the focus of it. It was decisive. "Except in the zoo, but those weren't black bears."

Simon opened his mouth to say something but Peter immediately cut him off. The urge to show off was powerful. Peter knew it. He lived through it. And it cost him so much. If he'd only gone about it more slowly, if he'd only listened to Nathan-- But no. He'd been a fool. He still believed that much, though it hurt.

He'd done a lot of good...and a lot of bad. This was a blessing and a curse. It had to be hard for a kid to grasp it. He understood. But keeping secret and safe was better than being loud and proud.

As close minded as that seemed.

"Well there aren't any bears at the tree house. I'm going to need everyone's help, all right? This is a big job." Monty blinked up at Peter, eyes a little wet, and then nodded.

"Yeah, I can help," the youngest Petrelli said with a half frown and half smile. "I can help, Uncle Peter!"

"I know you can", Peter cemented the statement, and they were at the tree house shortly thereafter. Molly let go of Simon's hand when they all started climbing up. If Peter caught the older kids holding hands he didn't say anything about it.

They had some planks and nails and a hammer and rope, and Peter was the one to climb to the roof to do most of the work. If he flew just a little to get up more smoothly it was subtle, but Molly thought she saw it. But she understood why he wouldn't do that so anyone could really see. Monty was younger than them and like Simon had suggested, he'd probably be scared even if he knew.

There were a few blankets in the tree house but Molly thought there should be new ones, and pillows. She bundled them up and put them in a corner so they'd be out of the way when Peter extended an arm through the hole in the roof and asked for a plank, which the younger Petrellis helped give him. Molly was over quick enough to lend a hand if it was needed.

"We should have a sleepover here", she said with cautious excitement, looking up at Peter's sudden smile above her from where she stood next to Simon. "It'd be fun."

"That's not up to me," Peter chuckled. "You'll have to ask your respective parents. And I don't want to hear 'uncle Peter said it'd be okay.'" He'd been thrown under the bus enough thanks to family members. He didn't need the next generation following suit.

Peter looked up at the newly patched roof of the top most floor as Monty came over to lean against him. "I don't want to sleep out here," he said as quietly as possible. For an eight year old, that's not really all that quiet.

And Simon heard him. "So sleep in your room. Molly and I will sleep out here."

Peter smirked. When did he have his first girl-boy sleep over? Oh that's right. Never. His mother was entirely too careful with him, as if he might break, and Peter never really had friends growing up. He just played by himself or bothered Nathan when the twelve years his senior boy was home.

Simon's eyes fixed on Molly. "Me and you. It could be fun."

Molly tilted her head to the side like she was considering that. It would be fun because she still felt like she hadn't done anything with someone her ages for ages and Simon was pretty interesting when he wasn't all bossy, but she still took a moment before she nodded.

"Okay." She smiled, the same smile she'd likely use on her dads later. She didn't really think she'd get a no. And even if she did she'd worry about that then. She turned to look at Monty and Peter. "If we can, can we take games with us?"

Because even though it'd be fun to just talk, it was always good to have something to do, and she knew that.

"And junk food," Peter said with a laugh as he and Monty picked up the nails that had been left behind, scattered to the floor by a bunch of feet and laughing children. He'd done the repairs without any of his abilities and honestly, that felt fantastic. As much as he was grateful for them, he also knew that he couldn't constantly rely on their either. He couldn't let himself be so disconnected from people. That was Nathan's problem. All Nathan Petrelli. All the time.

His jaw set to think again of his brother and he collected the trio and helped them back down to the ground. They made it back to the big house just in time for lunch where Heidi and Mohinder were finishing up a game of cards and Matt was watching the game on TV. Peter sat down next to his friend and frowned.

"Man, it's not the same at all without New York teams being in the mix anymore..."

He's never get New York out of his system. Never.

Of course, it was all just a front for a little telepathy. Your daughter and my nephew are really hitting it off.

Matt greeted Peter when he entered, but there was a brief frown as he processed what Peter had said. For a short moment, New York teams meant New York gangs. That city and everything that'd happened definitely wouldn't leave either of their systems - not for a long time.

But as he got it his expression cleared with a half-amused snort and he picked up the remote to lower the volume a few bars.

Yeah? That's good, they could both use a friend. He tilted his head slightly, giving Peter a quizzical look. Why are we whispering?

Sorry Peter, really hitting it off kind of went over his head.

Oh Matt. Really. Peter sort of blank faced at the older man and turned towards him to take the remote and look like he was trying to change a channel. It was all very smooth. Very smooth. I'm suppose to be the cool uncle, he thought, not looking at Matt as he found a baseball game.

Maybe that wasn't smart to watch. But just because everything reminded him of Nathan, it didn't mean that he had to force himself to be cut off from what he enjoyed. Or use to enjoy.

I can't really be telling you that I caught them holding hands, you see?

Yes, really. And when it was spelled out to him? Matt had this moment of completely obviously turning with one arm flung over the back of the couch to look at the kids in question. They weren't holding hands right then. So that was something.

Purely instinctive from the guy whose protective streak apparently sprung up something fierce at the slightest things. But to his credit when he looked back to Peter he only looked mildly terrified.

And it looked like the kids hadn't noticed, so there was that.

No, come on. They're way too young for that kind of stuff.

Please?

He glanced at the kids again and there was a brief tug to his mouth.

Just ... please don't tell me they're making doe eyes at each other.

"I'm sorry, who says 'doe eyes' anymore?" Yes, out loud. No one was paying them any attention anyhow. Molly was too busy chattering with Mohinder, his hand laid face down on the table, to offer her his full attention. Even Heidi was smiling at it, glancing to Simon from time to time. They were just far enough away for their words to be inconsequential and meaningless, though their voices carried the emotion. Molly was excited. Mohinder seemed uncertain.

Peter ignored them anyway to laugh at Matt and lean on the curve of his knuckles as they rested against his knee. Doe eyes. He was still laughing at the words.

Maybe Simon is. He's taking it all harder than Monty, even if he's not showing it. Molly's good to have around. They're twelve, Matt. There's no doe eyes yet.

Matt rolled his eyes. It was an accurate term, okay? It painted the picture. And if it was dated, so sue him.

The laugh did bring a certain soft humor to his face though as he took another look at the kids. Yes, he mostly looked at Simon. But when he caught Mohinder's expression he gave Peter a look and then stood.

Yeah, well, if you'd wanted me to not keep an eye on them from now on, you should've stayed quiet.

He did approve of the friendship and having seen them get along he thought they were good for each other, but you know. Still.

Nodding towards the kitchen as an indicator of where he was going, Matt was leaning on the door frame a few seconds later, giving Mohinder a quick smile. "Hey, what's up? She giving you trouble?"

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