WHO: Sarah Petrelli; Nathan Petrelli later WHERE: the Undergound // the Hyperion WHEN: unknown time // Friday, December 9 – partially in time with this moment WHAT: Every player has a part. RATING: PG-13 STATUS: narrative; complete
Knowing that there were people, especially ones she considered friends, who had literally been to Hell, Sarah had been hesitant about using the phrase 'Hell on earth' so freely as she once might or that others still did. But that had been before Peter had been kidnapped and she had understood what it felt like to have half of herself in an unknown limbo, unable to snap her fingers and make it all better, imagining the worst of what could be happening because her imagination had always been too damn active.
She said he's here, in the city, but it's not good, Sarah. He's in pain. I think we need to talk.
She hadn't wanted to talk, but she had, and that talk had only fueled her rage to new heights, as fiery as Peter's often was icy. It had twisted her imagination further, to darker and more horrible places, and in counterpoint to that, the desire to do something and do it now had grown exponentially.
There were two options here – well, technically, there were three. Sit down and wail and gnash her teeth and generally be the epitome of everything she had ever hated about the things that godawful situations could do to a person, turn half the city into goblins temporarily and use a newly made goblin army the size of half a city to flush out who had Peter, or go to the seat of her power and try to find him as Jareth had watched her for years.
The first was out of the question because as much as she wanted to cry, as much as she had already shed tears, giving up and being useless wasn't her. The second would be a corruption of power at the most disturbing level, disturbing because Sarah couldn't entirely dismiss to what lengths she would go to in order to have her husband back.
It would have to be the third, as much as she hated leaving right now. To find him and do it now, using her abilities, she needed the full well of her power at her disposal. She needed that excess, even if she didn't truly need it all, as time couldn't be wasted trying with the level of power she could access in Los Angeles. She needed her very best right now.
But even going there didn't mean immediate answers. Novice still define what she was as Goblin Queen, which meant the sheer force of will and the focus on the end result was what she relied on, not the hows of doing it. Camped out in the heart of her kingdom, Sarah held a crystal in front of her face and searched, options tried and discarded along the path to locating him.
Time passed without record, rarely interrupted. It was long enough that Hoggle brought her food, but it went ignored. Her one focus was the crystal in her hand, flickering images like a small television for her to watch. Her heart leapt with momentary relief once, when dark hair sliding over familiar features lit by the sun nearly let her think she had found him, that he had escaped.
But there was snow, there... there wasn't a scar. A now heavier heart for the momentary leap it had taken, she realized he wasn't her Peter, the one she was looking for. But it was the right reality. From there, zeroing in on him was just a shift of perspective and an adjustment, but it didn't mean finding him, not at first. The crystal was clouded, a thick mist that wasn't fog but magic of another kind.
Her focus from there was absolute, reaching inside herself, pushing away carefully constructed restraints to her power, personal checks and balances to make her daily, 'normal' life manageable, to pull from the unfathomable depths. Before, that yawning pit of power had terrified her, worried her, and it still did, but now it was what she needed. So she embraced it.
It was a struggle, her power, her will, against that hard-to-reach image, but the Jedi could sense him because whoever it was obviously hadn't thought of the Jedi, which meant they likely hadn't thought of the Goblin Queen either. Only a small number of people had no idea the Goblin Queen even existed, and even if they had thought of that, Jareth had proved he functioned outside the restraints of the PTB and the Senior Partners, that things that had affected everyone else glanced off the Goblin monarch along with the other gods that had willingly come to the city. She had held to her humanity all along to avoid becoming that god-like, but right now, she didn't have that luxury.
The mist parted and there Peter was, Sarah biting back a cry as she curled both hands around the crystal, as close to it as possible while still being able to look into it clearly. The image was still hazy at the edges and narrowed only to Peter, revealing no more than that he was alive, huddled somewhere – on a bed? On a floor? – with a shape she couldn't define as it fell into the hazy edges, but it was a start.
The temptation to find a way to study him from every angle was great, but she knew it wouldn't serve any purpose but her own need to see him again. Injuries had healed, ones that, judging by his pants, had been great, and even now, Nathan's words played through her mind, the truth and a fear of what had happened before repeating itself this time, a fear that she couldn't give in to, couldn't allow to shape her actions or reactions to the situation or Peter, not now, and not later when she had found her husband. It was still his to tell, every part of his life would always be his to tell and that would always be the voice she listened to and gave the greatest weight to, no matter how true the words of others were.
She dropped her lips to the crystal with a murmured I love you and a silent promise she would get him back. He was alive and though it killed her to accept it, she couldn't stop this from where she was. She didn't know enough by far to do it. It was time to go home, gather the troops and find him.
She moved to the nearest reflective surface, eyes still on the crystal and then moved through into the apartment, the actions easier now than they had been the first time she had ever done it. The clock, purchased because it bore time and date, used to help regulate their three-day Los Angeles honeymoon into a two-week one in her realm, told her not that much time had passed, for which she was grateful. She even had time to spare from her promised check in. It meant she was indeed improving in her time control of her realm, but it was an empty achievement right now.
But when Sarah looked down, that grateful feeling disappeared, because the image in the crystal had clouded again, the mist not as thick, but rendering her success minutes ago entirely moot. How could she track him if she couldn't find him here, only there? She still hadn't mastered seamless movement from one reality to another, she had to be in Los Angeles to teleport anywhere in the city.
Her hope, her almost-solution, and it was gone. Her hand closed around the crystal with that crushing feeling of defeat, the sphere not dissolving but shattering in her hand, one large crystal shard tearing across her palm as she blindly groped for a chair, then sank into it.
That was how Nathan found her when he entered the apartment moments later, having intended to call Sarah if she wasn't here, to tell her what they had found out so far.
"Christ, Sarah, what did you do?" he swore, turning her hand back and forth before yanking it and her toward the sink. Sticking her hand under the water with a gruff order to leave it there, he rummaged around in the cabinets as he updated her on the information they had drug out of the scum of the city. There wasn't much need for first-aid with Peter around, at least Sarah had stocked the apartment with a kit anyhow, which meant he had gauze to twist around her hand for now.
While there could be some merit in arguing with Nathan on a good day, even Sarah realized the futility and the stupidity of wandering around with a bleeding, untreated gash in her palm. Bleeding wouldn't make the hurt and fear trickle out and this wasn't even a case of needing it to know she was alive and this was real. The pain that wasn't from the injury told her that.
At first, she didn't give her full attention to the stray feelings, the conflictedness mirroring her own, as she was busy listening, processing and then stamping down the desire to main everyone at Wolfram & Hart, but when the anger mingled with hurt hit her, she gasped and pulled back from Nathan.
She cut him off before he could voice more than two words of an apology he didn't need to give, then closed her eyes when the anger and hurt topped out and turned to pain. Feelings from another didn't come neatly wrapped with a clear label to say who they were from, but the signature, the essence, of these were familiar, achingly, excruciatingly familiar, because it was something she had felt, had been wrapped in, countless times before.
But never like this.
"I felt things," she said, swallowing to speak around the sick lump forming in her throat, looking up to meet Nathan's questioning gaze. "I feel him."
That only earned her his patented expression of consternation gearing toward disbelief. "What do you mean, you felt Pete? If he could project anything at you, I'd feel him." He was certain of it. Even now, prodding the mental link, it was no better than it had been – utter loss.
"I feel him," Sarah repeated, the words ground out between her teeth as she slid to the floor. "He was furious and now – there's just pain." Her body hurt, not just the sympathetic response of echo headache to actual headache, not the dull throb of the cut across her palm, but her heart as well. It had hurt all along, but there was a difference between seeing Peter trapped and feeling his pain.
That was something Nathan knew well, however, seeing and hearing and feeling the things his brother experienced. Most of it, Peter tried to shield the worst of, but there had still been times he felt and saw it all and if he had to imagine any look on his face as he felt those things from Peter, it would be Sarah's expression right now.
There wasn't much he could offer her right now, more than moral support and a way to focus, so he crouched on the floor and pulled her close, the hug one-armed but strong, took her hand and then, after a pause that debated the sense and consequences of doing this, he pressed his thumb into the gauze, hard enough to hurt.
"Hurts like a bitch, but pay attention to that," he said quietly, the arm around her tightening. "Your pain. If you don't, you're not gonna to be able to breathe in a minute."
That was... entirely unexpected. There was a moment after the sharp curse that was mingled surprise and pain where Sarah nearly bit him (and she wasn't certain if that urge was meant metaphorically or literally) because having a thumb driven into a recent wound did hurt like a bitch, but the urge passed when she realized Nathan was just trying to help. If anyone knew a coping mechanism for this, it would be him.
It was painful, but he was right about what he was saying. Feeling Peter's pain meant feeling Peter and there was a part of her embracing it with nothing else to hold on to, while another part was struggling not to do so at all, struggling and failing in endeavouring to keep a sense of self, at least until she felt her own physical pain again. The feelings that weren't hers that she was receiving didn't fade, didn't relent, but she was no longer burying herself entirely inside that pain that wasn't hers.
He was in pain. Peter was in pain again and every moment that passed meant more could be inflicted on him and what if-
This time, she squeezed her own hand, her fingers pressed to Nathan's in her haste.
"Alright, easy," Nathan said, prying both their fingers off her hand. "There's a difference between focusing and permanently screwing up your hand. So you feel him. How? A new ability?"
Sarah looked up, brow creased. "What?" After a beat, she shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Not right now, at least. I'd be able to feel you if I were empathic, wouldn't I? And I'm not feeling anything. Just him." What were they doing? Peter, it's going to be okay, I swear we'll find you. Maybe trying to connect to him thought to thought was still pointless, but she had been doing it since he had vanished, she definitely wouldn't stop now that there was some connection here.
Adjusting his position so he was sitting on the floor, Nathan studied her before being satisfied she was enough in the here and now to not sink into feeling Peter's feelings, then went back to bandaging her hand. "So it's Peter doing this? If he can, why can't I feel it?"
"Because it's not just Peter," Sarah murmured, understanding dawning as her fingers came to rest over her pendant. "The ring I made him." Her gaze flickered to Nathan again, uncertain if he knew about the ring, so making the explanation short. "It was so he could still use his telepathy, his empathy, his connection to me across realities. Hypothetically, it should work in any combination of realities, but-"
She trailed off, frowning more. "But it shouldn't work this way, I shouldn't feel him. If he can project along it, it means he should be able to do anything else. He should be able to establish your mental link again. And I don't think he'd project his pain to me," she said, looking up at Nathan with eyes that glittered with unshed tears.
Nathan shook his head. "Alright, so it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to for you to try and use it. If it's two way, follow it back, like a rope."
A rope? Well, visualization had always been her thing, so Sarah closed her eyes and focused, pulling up this supposed rope and tracking back along it. Even if it wasn't a rope, if it was a path or a corridor, it still needed to be followed. Far enough and she could find him, go straight to him. She didn't need a street address, she just needed him as her end point.
And then she ran into a wall. She could feel Peter vaguely, less than before, but there was no sense of location. He was out there, but she couldn't lock on to him, use his position to teleport straight to him. As hard as her power pushed, what shielded him shoved right back. She wasn't certain how long she tried, only that the more power she used, the worse it became.
When she finally opened her eyes and slumped in brief fatigue, it wasn't with a solution, only an overwhelming disappointment and gnawing despair, but she also had an understanding now from touching magic to magic, one that she wasn't entirely certain she could explain to Nathan without sounding like a lunatic. It was nothing like she had ever experienced, but then, she had never tried power to power at its elemental, only person to person.
"It's too strong," she said softly. "I'm too strong." It wasn't an admission made with arrogance and definitely not one made lightly. "Whatever they have blocking him, it isn't meant for my magic, but it's meant to curb and block powerful magic, just like the other aspects of it curbed powerful evolved abilities."
But even that wasn't explanation enough, as there was still the question of how it had been done. "The Jedi – the Force, it's, I think, instinctive for them, in the way they can do it without a lot of effort – like how we learn to ride a bike, then don't have to think about the process, we just do it. So she could feel him in the Force like I could feel him. It's – well, the Force isn't, I guess – but the only way I can describe it is that it- well, slides under the radar, maybe?"
She rubbed her face with her uninjured hand. "But if I'm right, or at least close, the reason I can't find him, the reason Tenel Ka couldn't locate him, was that when she tried to narrow her focus to him, center her abilities only on finding him, it shut her down like it just shut me down just now. The connection is there, but if I push, my magic battling those shields and spells and whatever else drowns most of it out."
The worst part of all of this was the step forward and two steps back, as it was a state Nathan was familiar with and utterly despised. "So you don't know where he is?"
This wasn't a dead end. This was just an opportunity that needed another path. Sarah moved to her feet and then held out her hand to Nathan.
"I don't have a clue, Nathan, but I'm going to find out."