The back and forth of questioning, from personal facts to general knowledge questions, continued as the ambulance roof lights above him gave way to night sky and then the inside of a hospital, but Nathan only answered them automatically now, because in attempting to reach out to Peter through the mental fog, he hadn't received an answer. It felt to Nathan as it did when they had each other on mute, only the barest traces of a consciousness on the other end of that connection, and even that Nathan couldn't feel, as every time he tried, his head screamed for him to knock it off.
It wasn't working. Heidi wasn't here and he couldn't reach Peter.
Reaching up the unhindered hand, he felt around his chest, his shoulder, even lower, and found nothing in the way of holes. But his hand didn't come away entirely clean. The trace of red had him turning to the emergency room nurse at his side as he did the check-over again, searching for the wound until the nurse took his hand and made him stop.
"I- where was I shot?"
The nurse shook her head at him. "You weren't shot, Mr. Petrelli."
It was then Nathan, the untitled king of composure, the self-professed shark, the man who had made an art of shoving his emotional reactions behind a wall of expectation and responsibility, completely lost it.