Angela Petrelli (mamapetrelli) wrote in parabolical, @ 2008-12-03 11:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | angela petrelli, peter petrelli (future) |
WHO: Angela & Peter Petrelli
WHAT: Angela and Peter work towards so understanding.
WHEN: Not long after this [backdated]
WHERE: The Hyperion
RATING: PG
STATUS: Log; COMPLETE
Guilt had been gnawing at Peter ever since the outburst. He'd scared her. His own mother. There was no reason for that. No justification. He'd been angry, yes, and further at the way she kept dancing around her words, trying not to promise. They had said no more lies, but things were getting ridiculous. She was more cryptic than ever, her language more careful, structured.
His mother. Angela Petrelli. She'd let him destroy New York City. She had let him continue on that path, when a few words from her might have prevented the entire mess. The Company, another of her pets, the one that had been folded into Homeland Security and continued to destroy everything Peter had been trying to preserve.
Standing outside her door, one hand rubbed at the bridge of his nose, trying to work up the courage to knock. His fingers brushed over the marred skin, the thick scar that had come to be so much. A thick, heavy scar on skin that should have been indestructible. There were times he could almost forget. Times that he could relax, smile, even bliss. But the scar was deep, seared onto his very soul.
Scars. There were so many of them. Hidden away under clothing for the most part - only the one on his face available for public viewing. The others... Nathan must have seen them, and Sarah definitely. But neither had said a word, simply folding those scars into what they knew about Peter with quiet and complete acceptance. He hadn't spoken to anyone about them. Not all of them. None but the one everyone could see. Even then, he was evasive.
Scars. On the skin, or on the soul. They never fully healed, and every now and then, they opened up and commenced bleeding.
Peter rapped at the door, then stuck his hands in his pockets, waiting for his mother to answer.
Angela Petrelli had been an open woman once. Someone who, while she had her secrets, wasn't afraid to express the feelings in her heart, the thoughts in her head, without clipping her words or dancing around the topic at hand. But things had never been simple when it came to the Petrellis. There were things that, as much as she might want to tell her boys, she had to keep them to herself. She knew that they wouldn't understand why, or at least, she assumed that they wouldn't understand why. But Peter's threat had only solifidied that thought in her head. If he was willing to take it from her rather than wait until she was ready to tell him... Maybe he really wasn't any better than...
No. No, she wasn't going to think like that. He was Peter. He was her baby. He was her favorite. And she wasn't going to think about him like that.
The knock at the door distracted her attention from her thoughts, a frown crossing her face before she stood, opening the door. Her expression hardened at the sight of him, her gut clenching as she took a step back into the room. "I said I was wrong," Angela said as she crossed back over to her bed. "What more do you want from me?"
"Forgiveness," Peter said softly, stepping into the room. His gaze was turned downward. "I stepped out of line. I had no right to say that, and even less threatening you with it."
He paused there, not entirely sure how to continue. It had been wrong, he knew that, even if part of him still felt justified in saying it. The words to apologize were dancing on the back of his tongue, trapped there by pride and a barricade of painful memories. He'd criticized her before for not trying to know him, the version of her son that had survived the bomb and the years following. But he'd also pushed her away, treating her as the mother he knew from his own timeline.
He'd felt justified in that, considering Angela's views on things hadn't changed, even when she learned the truth. But was it true? Or had it been simply that he didn't want to get close to her again? Betrayal seemed part of her nature, and those secrets she kept were harsh, ugly things. She had her reasons, she said, but sometimes it was hard to tell what hurt the most - the lies, or the truth.
At least he could be honest. It was all he had to give. "I'm sorry, Mom."
Angela couldn't question whether he meant it or not. Sorry was a difficult thing for a Petrelli to say neigh on impossible with some of them. Whenever the words actually ventured to leave their lips, they were seldom a lip service to what had transpired. He wasn't simply trying to placate her feelings. They were sincere, and the sincerity was reinforced by the fact that they were coming from Peter. As much as she might have had a hint of doubt towards the words if they had come from Nathan and certainly if they had come from Arthur, she knew that she could trust them from Peter.
Pausing in front of the desk next to her bed, Angela leaned forward, propping herself against it as she closed her eyes. "So am I," Angela whispered, her back still to Peter as she gripped the desk. "I didn't mean to upset either of you. I'm just not very good at dealing with all of this."
Seeing her leaning on the desk, Peter frowned, shutting the door behind him before walking over and laying one of his hands on hers. "It's not easy for me. Some things... I've been holding things in for so long. Burying them inside of me where no one could get to. And the more I reach out, the more I hide."
He let out his breath. "Right now, I don't want any answers. I didn't come here for any. I just..." Peter had to pause to swallow back the lump in his throat. "I miss my mother. You're not the same woman you were in my time. Or maybe you are. I didn't get to see. She lost me after the explosion, and I never saw her again." His voice trembled with emotion. "The last thing I ever said to her, to her and to Nathan, was 'I hate you.' I can never take that back, no matter how much I regret it."
Peter's words echoed in her head, sounding almost like her own thoughts in a different voice as she reached up, settling her hand on the one resting on his shoulder as she listened to what he had to say, her heart breaking not only at the words but at the way they were being said. As he finished, Angela turned to face him, looking up at him with a soft gaze before stepping forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, and resting her head on his shoulder.
"I forgive you, Peter," Angela whispered, closing her eyes as she held him. If he didn't want answers right now, she wasn't going to bother to try and explain right now. He didn't need Angela Petrelli, Company Woman. He needed Angela Petrelli, Loving Mother. She could only hope that she remembered how to be that without having the Company factored into things. Lifting her head slowly, Angela raised a hand, brushing her fingers lightly through Peter's hair. "Do you think you can do the same for me?"
Peter wrapped his arms around her as well. He didn't speak, he wasn't sure enough of his voice, but he nodded. Yeah. I forgive you. His eyes shut, leaning against her, his cheek on the top of her head. He wanted to feel those walls crumble away, but they wouldn't. Hairline splinters raced through, but his emotional shields weren't ready to commit to Angela Petrelli just yet.
"I don't.." He lifted his head, starting over to gather his thoughts. "Gabriel. I want him to be himself again. But there's no going back, is there?" Another sigh. "I can't let him slip again. He'll kill someone. He won't want to, but he will. And once that happens, once he gains another power, it'll be too late. He'll be Sylar."
He couldn't help the shiver that went through him at that name.
Angela sigh, looking up at Peter as he shivered. There was so much that she wanted to say, so much that she couldn't say right now that showed in her expression. "It's... It's not that simple, Peter," she said, finally, worrying her inner cheek as she settled a hand on Peter's cheek. "It's just not that simple."
The expression on her face made Peter sigh in frustration. "You know something. You know something, and you can't tell me. Or won't tel me. The word doesn't really matter. I told you I didn't want any secrets, and I meant it. But somewhere in this city, Sylar is killing again. I'm not saying it's Gabriel. But I can't let Sylar go free. I can't. So if whatever you won't say can't help me with that, then I don't want to know."
He moved his hand to cover the one she had to hs face. "This is who I am, Mom. I'm your son. I've been through hell, I've watched cities burn, and now, I'm the one meant to protect this city and everyone in it. I might not have asked for it, but it's where I belong. Can you understand that? Can you accept that?"
"I know something," Angela repeated with a nod, his eyes ducking to look at anything other than his face. "I know a lot of somethings, and as much as I promised you that there wouldn't be anymore secrets, Peter, there are some things... There are some things that I need to wait to tell you, some that you don't need to know yet, some that you probably don't need to know at all," She said as she looked back up at him. "This... This you need to know eventually, but right now, it would just make things so much harder than they need to be," She said with a soft sigh.
"I know who you are, Peter," Angela said gently. "I know you're not exactly who I remember. I know there is much more than that you have been through than I know. But I do understand who you are here, who you are to everyone here, and I respect that. I accept it," She said before a soft smile spread across her face as she leaned forward, pressing a light kiss to his forehead. "But you're still my baby boy, and that means that I am still going to think that I know what's best for you even if really I don't. Do you think you can accept that?"
Peter nodded, slowly. "I can understand that. And I can accept that's what you think. But our ideas of what's right for me are very different things. I'll listen if you have something to say, but I need you to agree that the decisions have to be mine. And I need to know why you think your way is best. If you can't tell me, you still need to let the decision be mine."
It was a compromise. They had to lay down the lines, had to communicate to know how to live with each other. It was the only way to live together. Peter had gone long enough without his mother. He didn't want to keep missing her when they were under the same roof.
"The decisions are yours, Peter," Angela said gently. In the end, as far as Angela was concerned, they always had been. She had only tried to guide each of them onto the path that she had believed would work out best. She had been wrong, so very wrong, when it had come to Peter. She knew that she wasn't infallible, and she hated that something that she had approved of had done this to her baby. But there wasn't anything that she could do to take that back. All she could do was start again and try to be better than she had been. "But I wish that you could trust me sometimes. There are some of things that trying to explain why would be too difficult."
Peter clasped her hand, looking at it. "It's hard. Trust. It's... delicate. Fragile." And his had been broken so many times that it was too precious a commodity to give lightly. He could trust his own intuition. He could even trust others based on that intuition. But if that trust was betrayed, the walls would go up again, tenfold stronger and thicker.
After a few moments to breathe and regain some control of himself, Peter looked his mother in the eyes. "It's about Sylar, isn't it? You know something about him. Fine. I'm going to do what I have to do to stop him. But once he's," (dead) "dealt with, I want you to tell me. Is that fair enough?"
"And I've given you every reason not to trust me," Angela said quietly as she looked over at him. She couldn't help the anxiety that clenched in her gut when Peter said the words 'dealt with', but she couldn't not agree. There was nothing that she could possibly do to try and stop him from what he had set himself to doing. The Gabriel that was calling himself Sylar was dead. She quietly resigned herself to that knowledge as she nodded slowly to Peter's last words, "That's fair enough."
It was going to hurt him. It was going to make things harder. Harder than taking a life already was for him. Even one as twisted and corrupt as Sylar.
But he wouldn't know until after. He could push the knowledge away, and focus on the man. The killer. The monster.
Peter hugged Angela, and kissed her cheek. "Thank you." He let out his breath, far more at ease than how he had entered the room. "I have to get back to work." The smile he offered was small, soft, but it was genuine. "I love you, Mom."
"I love you, too, Peter," Angela said, returning the smile as she settled a hand on Peter's cheek. She was reassured for the most part that they were going to be all right eventually. At least, she could only hope that things would stay that way. It was hard to tell with the burden that she still had to bear, with the information that she still had to share. But right now, those worries weren't in the forefront of her mind. She was just happy to have settled some things. "Try not to work too hard."