WHO: Nathan Petrelli, [OPEN] WHERE: the Hyperion; specifically, the F&T center WHEN: Thursday, July 21; late evening WHAT: Working off personal frustrations. RATING: TBD STATUS: thread; in-progress
Settling the weights back into place, Nathan let his arms fall to either side of the bench, staring up at the ceiling. For the past hour or more, at least, he'd pushed himself to his limits physically, seeking an exhaustion of his body that might well override the activeness of his mind. He looked the part of someone who had just pushed himself hard, but so far he felt no more tired than he had earlier. As he'd buried himself in books and paperwork a few hours earlier to no avail, he was running out of options other than to just give in and stay up.
He'd been lulled into a sense of stability of late – not security, but at least some manner of control over his life. He was making progress with most of his family, especially those he'd wronged most such as his wife and daughters. There were things in his life with no obvious solution at present, such as his continued uncertainty with his mother, everything with Cordelia and the fact a Goblin King was just a little too obsessed with several members of his family, but he'd focused on what was going well.
And then the pieces started to break off again. Claire had disappeared – and there was only one place for her to go given that she had died before arriving here – and then returned, thankfully a few weeks in the past so she was still alive, but also no memories of the time in L.A. because neither were something she had experienced. He'd barely seen her since, though it seemed she was at least coming out of her room now. Even thought he'd made progress before, he was back at square one and uncertain once more how to do that again, suited specifically to her.
He and Heidi had been doing well, better than he'd let himself hope, and he'd become a little blind because of that progress. Niki Sanders' arrival had complicated matters, as he'd been forced to face something he was ashamed of, beyond question. He could never taken back what he'd done and there was very little he could say that had any meaning if she didn't believe him, only those things he could do to prove he wasn't going to be that guy anymore. Shortly thereafter, after much internal debate and a renewal not to hide anything, no matter how painful and potentially damaging, he'd told Heidi the 'other woman' was in the city, in the interest of being honest with her rather than hiding it and having it come out in an ugly way later on – given how often things did come out in very public ways in this city, in person or in text – but he hadn't given a name or a when of arrival, simply said he had seen the woman on the message boards.
Since then, the dynamic had shifted, taken a step back to resemble how it had been around the time of the truth epidemic, Heidi less easy with him and unusually quiet, that itself speaking to the level of unrest, because he was noticing it and no doubt anyone who knew her was noticing the latter too. It meant what lay beneath was far more, but even now, he had no idea as to the depth of it. And he couldn't reassure her that this meant nothing to him, other than to say it and then carefully try to let her know where he was at all times, either directly or by sticking to a routine so that if anyone wanted to find him, usually they could. He didn't know if that had helped, or if it was in fact making things worse.
Was it a mistake to have said anything? He wasn't certain now. He knew he couldn't have done anything but be honest that, one night stand or not, the 'woman from Vegas' was in this city. He didn't want to lie and he certainly wanted to control the situation as much as he could, by telling her on his terms, rather than have it come out from someone else in some other way. But if it was a mistake, it wouldn't have been his first and no doubt it would not be his last.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he rose from the machine's bench and wiped it down before moving to another.