A Capable Woman: 10/28 - The Petrelli Dynamic

Title: A Capable Woman: A Life Story of Angela Petrelli
Author: thepandorarose (Fanfiction.net Account)
Chapter: Chapter 10 (10/28)
Characters/Pairings (This chapter): Angela,Arthur, Nathan, Peter, Linderman (If linking please include all characters previous listed) Cameo Adam
Summary: We are not all born full of sin, we acquire it over time.
Chapter TenSummary: The Petrelli Dynamic - the lies start for protection of the family
Category: General (with a splash of tragic love)
Status: Incomplete
Rating: PG-13 (for adult themes)
Warnings: None this
Spoiler alert: The entire series
Note: Each chapter is written as one whole, separate, story and be viewed as such. Together they are a life. (For explanation of the entire series see prologue post)

Thank you SOOOOO much to noellechan for the art great art.

The rest of her great work can he seen HERE.

 Previous chapters: PROLOUGE ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE

Chapter Ten

Angela remembers how one day she came home to find Adam, Maury, Linderman, Paula., Bob and of course her husband, waiting for her in her living room; it was 1977.

Arthur handed Angela a business card. "What do you think?"

The card stated "Primatech Paper since 1962."

"It’s the front." Arthur brimmed with pride. "A real working paper company, as far as everyone else can see."

Adam grinned from ear to ear. Arthur saw it and smirked back.

"1962?" she asked and flicked the card toward him, letting it hang between her two fingers.

"All part of the game, my dear..." Daniel smiled. "All part of the game..." He took a few steps toward her and he and Arthur caught eyes. They were all very proud of themselves.

"Hummmm," Angela smirked. She looked down at the card for a moment. "I like it." She raised her eyebrows and handed the card back to her husband. "I like it a lot." Her voice had the music of possibilities in it – of what was to come.

Adam was full of excitement. "The top floor will be the paper company, three floors down, as in the blue prints will have the good stuff, jail cells, laboratory – enough room for Victoria to fully do her research, not like the sarcophagus we set up for her at Kirby Plaza. And thanks to Bob here, all the funding we need...indefinitely." He nodded his head at Bob, who smiled back.

"Good then. When are we open for business?" Angela asked.

"As we speak, my dear..." Adam smiled. "As we speak."

Paula folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. "Kaito and Victoria tell us they can set up shop in three days. She’s already started her research up again, I’m told."

Angela was pleased, so was Adam.

"We all have our roles to play." Adam echoed one of his famous lines with a glint in his eye.

And the front began.

Manhattan

1979

Angela Petrelli sat up in bed, holding her newborn son Peter in her arms, nursing him with a joy in her eyes she had lost so long ago. This was the son she promised to do right by. The son she had dreamed about, seen, known, met. He was a good man, a kind man, his heart made him who he was. He could be, as she wished one night over her six-month pregnant stomach – the only man who loved her unconditionally. Perhaps, he would be the one to save her. He was her early Christmas present and she would always regard him as such; he was her second gift from god.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in..." Angela cradled Peter in her arms as she buttoned up her nightgown with her right hand.

"Merry Christmas, Angela..." Daniel Linderman walked into the room dressed in a nice suit.

"Daniel..." Angela wasn’t expecting to see him.

Daniel Linderman, after coming into money of his own, had been making a name for himself in the years since Adam Monroe had been incarcerated, perhaps not a good name, but a name none-the-less. Wanting to build an empire of his own, Daniel Linderman, was in the middle of building another casino, this time a legitimate one, in the deserts of Nevada. And while the Petrellis were quite known in New York City society, Linderman would soon be known nationally, outshining Arthur in just the way that pleased him. Linderman would say it was all about being the best, but the truth was he never really got over how Arthur had treated him in Vietnam. How Arthur had browbeaten Daniel into doing terrible things, by Daniel’s estimation, by lording his power over Linderman, his strength - at a time when Daniel was just a young weak boy. The wrong that Daniel Linderman felt the world had put upon him was something he carried under the surface of his skin like a splinter.

Linderman smiled at Angela. "I brought a gift for the lad, I left it downstairs under the tree."

"I thought you were in Las Vegas."

"Change of plans..." He walked toward her. "May I?"

"Of course..." Angela had a stern face but she was cautious.

Daniel walked closer to Peter, looking at his small face, his brown eyes and his huge mass of black hair. "Well, he’s a Petrelli for sure..." he caught Angela’s eyes. "Not, that I would think otherwise... "

"Of course."

Daniel sat on the side of the bed. "Are you dreaming, Angela?"

She looked at Daniel hard and cold. "Nooo.."

"If you dreamt what he could do, you’d tell me wouldn’t you, Angela?" He rested his fingers slowly along the top of Peter’s head.

Angela tried not to act like she wanted to recoil. "Of course. You would be the second person I’d tell."

"Of course." Linderman echoed. "You haven’t had the bomb dream, again?"

"Not for a long time now." She seemed content in that.

"Well, good then. Perhaps we stopped it. Good." He stood. "Congratulations, Angela."

Arthur walked into the bedroom and Daniel turned toward him.

"I was just congratulating you and Angela on the birth of another Petrelli son. " He smiled. "One day they will lead us all."

"Perhaps..." Arthur said sternly.

"Perhaps..." Linderman spoke with a bit more fun and optimism. "I must be going." He leaned in and kissed Angela on the cheek and she let him as if nothing was wrong. "I’ll let myself out." Linderman smiled at the couple and exited the Petrelli bedroom.

Angela still believed in Daniel Linderman and thought him to be, at his core, a caring and smart man – he had been good to her family. But Angela also knew their agendas were beginning to sever down different paths and she had to protect her own interests first. "When you put everyone else first, you end up last," was a saying she found herself uttering a lot these days; life had taught her that.

Arthur lowered his head and gazed up at Angela with his eyes. The two caught haunting looks as if they were keeping a secret. Angela held in her tears and kissed her son on his forehead. It was time to start a new front.

Angela had a dream that night. She hadn’t been dreaming while she was pregnant and it worried her. A few dreams here and there, but nothing like before. Her dreams seemed barren. Peter slept in his crib. She was alone. The room seemed cold and drafty. It was dark, night, twilight maybe, she wasn’t sure. The window to her bedroom was closed with two large panels. She felt drawn to it, the window, and when she got closer she could see the panels were two white and dirty shutters. She tugged at her robe to secure it closer around her, to keep out the cold, before lifting her slender fingers around the middle edges of the shutter doors and opening them with a single gesture of two hands.

There was a light, bright and stunning – it came from far off in the distance of the city. Then all of a sudden from below the towers of buildings came a rumbling cloud of grey, ripping through its surroundings and bursting into a mushroom cloud on its way toward her. But Angela couldn’t move, she was frozen. All she could do was watch as it all came tumbling toward her, faster and faster – she was helpless. It hit her like a fiery mass, searing her flesh and running over ever pore of her being, as if it was actually happening.

And she woke up screaming, thinking her flesh was still burning, feeling the ashes of her heart and swearing she smelled the smokey air. Her body sprung up in bed with a jolt. The baby started to cry. Arthur almost leaped up next to her. He repeated her name over and over again as he couldn’t stop her from screaming. Angela put her hands to her arms to be sure she was still there, that her skin was still attached. Her breath become more labored as her screaming stopped.

Arthur rubbed his hand over her back, soothing and calming her. "Its alright. It’s okay. Its okay. Shusshhh," he calmed her like a child.

Angela sat up in her bed, arching her body forward, sweat dripping down her face, and her long hair falling in front of her like ivy. She coughed and took deep breaths as Arthur continued to lovingly and warmly caress her back with his hand. When her breathing had subsided, Arthur stood and walked to Peter’s bassinet. His room wasn’t ready yet and Angela was more than happy to spend Peter’s first few weeks and days of life with him at her side. Peter’s cries ceased and Arthur returned from the bathroom with a glass of water.

"Here, drink this." He handed her the glass of water. He stood while she drank it. After Angela drank the glass of water Arthur sat on the bed next to her and waited for her to look at him, but she didn’t. "What did you see, Angela? What did you see?"

"It was the bomb..." she slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were glazed over and her hair was stringy with sweat. "It’s a man." She took another deep breath. "It’s a man." She hadn’t seen it, but she somehow knew it to be true.

Kirby Plaza

"A man? How is that possible?" Suzanne asked bewildered. She sat to Charles’ right around a half moon black table at the group’s Kirby Plaza offices.

They were having one of their seasonal meetings - everyone was there. Even Kaito had come in from Japan. He had recently married and his wife was expecting their first child. Angela knew it would be a girl; Kaito did not want to know.

"Some things should be left up to the surprise, " he told her with a sly smirk.. "I would like my future to be what I make of it." And his eyes seemed to grin at her. She had never seen him so happy and she knew he was in love.

Angela was jolted back into the current moment as Daniel made his way around the table and his cohorts.

"Possible?" Daniel questioned Suzanne’s comment. "Look at what we can do. Is a man who is capable of being a nuclear bomb really out of the realm of possibility."

"It just seems so..." Suzanne searched for the right words. "Man made."

"It’s not like we don’t know people who can do things invented by man. It’s the natural order of things. If this mutation takes on what the body needs at the time, or takes cues from one’s personality... who’s to say the mutation won’t key into the progress of the world and what man and woman..." He grinned at Paula, "can do...I think we’re all examples of that, don’t you think?"

"Talk about being a hot head, " Harry joked, but without a smile. His humor had become darker and more pulled in.

"I thought we decided the bomb was a metaphor?" questioned Bob.

"I don’t dream in metaphors anymore..." Angela joined in; her voice was flat. "Well, hardly ever."

"And how long have you been having this dream?" Suzanne wondered.

"At least more than twenty years." Angela’s eyes were stern and sure.

"Twenty years...how is that possible!?"Carlos exclaimed. "All the things we’ve changed – it’s never that far away—"

"They are..." Angela pointed out. Her eyes were tried from her restless dreams at night and her days and nights with a newborn at home. "They just evolved."

"Maybe we can’t change this one," Paula threw in with a sense of disgust.

"It sure feels like it..." Angela rose and turned her back to the group . She walked a few steps to a large window and looked out.

Daniel walked up to Angela and put his hand on her shoulder. Angela put her hand on his without looking at him while Daniel looked at the group.

"This is the one we keep trying to stop, right?" Arthur threw in. "The one thing that all our actions will stop and nothing changes." He was frustrated.

Charles stood. "I don’t like this tone, not one bit. I think we’re all just tired."

Paula stood."Speak for yourself, Charles." She took a cigarette out of her purse and looked at him. "I need a break." She opened a glass large door and walked out onto the terrace.

Daniel looked at the proceedings agreeing with everyone, but saying nothing. He was gauging the situation. He would wait his turn to speak.

Peter was always a happy baby. And Angela seemed to be a happy mother. Nathan remarked on it when he was an adult, wondering what had changed.

"I was going through a lot when you were younger," Angela told him one day. "I’m sorry for that. I guess you didn’t have a proper childhood."

Peter was different. She was a different person, an older woman. And although most women her age were just getting married, feeling unsure and new about their lives and their surroundings, Angela had a sense of confidence over the other girls her age, as if she were decades their senior. While they were all starting their first life, Angela was starting her second, a new beginning of sorts. And while Arthur wondered if his new son represented his own, "re-birth," Angela was sure he represented hers. She and Arthur promised themselves Peter wouldn’t be a part of it all. They understood long ago that they would have to mortgage their souls to save the world; to make it a better place for their children, but that didn’t mean they would take their children down with them. In both cases they understood the ends justify the means.

Nathan’s future was taken care of, he could take care of himself, at least in the real world, but Angela was concerned that reality would eat up her son Peter, until there was nothing left. She knew Nathan could have any destiny he wanted; that whatever he would do with his life he would cast a large shadow. Valedictorian, Dean’s list, she knew all these things were in Nathan’s future just by looking at him; by knowing him. Her concern for Peter was that he couldn’t survive in either worlds and it became her main focus to protect him.

Peter was a sensitive boy. Way too sensitive for Arthur’s taste, as Arthur strived to understand his youngest son better. But, Arthur was older, set in his ways, and his young son bewildered him to no end. A good student, not great, Arthur felt the boy was smart, he just wasn’t applying himself enough. He needed to work harder. Get out of his head more. For Peter was more content looking out windows and thinking of the future than spending the day at the office with his father.

"He’s still young yet," Angela would tell him. "And don’t assume he will want to follow in your footsteps like Nathan does."

"You coddle that boy too much, " he’d retort. And it was true. "You need to let him go."

Angela wanted to keep the ways of the big bad world away from her sensitive son. She never wanted him, or Nathan for that matter, to encountered the same evils of life she had encounter. And perhaps, Peter, her baby, she kept too close to her breast; held to tight on the apron strings. But, Peter seemed to understand her the way no one else did. The way Arthur understood Nathan and Nathan understood Peter. Peter was her comfort, her miracle child, the one she had dreamed of.

Nathan had been what had come too early, confused her and started her life on its path. She could not love him any less, but Peter, just like his name, was her rock. Nathan grew up a cocky, smart and strong man, just like his father – not to mention stubborn as all hell. Nathan was a man much like his father, who had a deep feeling heart, but fought it off with his shark- like mentality; a hard shell – a front. Nathan soon grew to have little patience for his mother’s attention or conversation. He was blinded by youth and hero worship for his father; Angela saw it in his eyes. It was the same look Angela saw in her son Peter’s eyes toward his brother Nathan. The same look that she once had in her own eyes, and she prayed it would not be Peter’s downfall, as it had been hers.

"If you don’t show him the ways of the world he’ll never learn!" Arthur demanded to his wife. "We can’t stop anything—you can’t keep him from his enviable density."

But, Arthur was only frustrated by the son he didn’t understand. Arthur was a man who held in his feelings, like any man of his generation, an alpha dog– he didn’t care who he had to push out of the way to get what he wanted, what he needed. All the things Arthur had taught his son Nathan by words or example. Arthur was a good man, he meant well, but Peter and his father just had conflicting personalities - and as much as Arthur hated thinking it, Nathan would always be his favorite.

"He’s his mother’s boy, " Arthur would grumble behind a rumpled copy of the New York Times

And that was meant in more ways than one. Arthur and Peter would always be at odds with each other for the rest of Arthur’s life. Something Arthur would regret and Peter wouldn’t understand. Peter was just too young to understand it all. Peter was the dreamer, the good one who saw good in everything, while his father was pragmatic, the realist, demanding that Peter see the world for what it was: unforgiving. It was just who they were. And what came out as anger was only Arthur’s concern for what the big bad world would do to such a boy. What his world could do to him – his boy.

Peter was weak, both parents would agree, but Angela would tell herself her life wasn’t the life Peter would lead -- and so she pushed Nathan out in front. Nathan just took up more space; it was his destiny. Peter, Angela felt she needed to protect more and perhaps that was her problem. And perhaps Arthur was jealous? How could he compete with Peter for Angela’s affection? Maybe he was jealous of the bond he saw between the boy and his mother, the same way Angela was jealous of the bond she saw between Arthur and Nathan. All Arthur knew was that even at a very young age he worried for his son’s future just as much as Angela did; just not for the same reasons.

And then there were the times that solidified all their fears. When the madness was literally creeping toward their doorstep. On their way to their home, on their way towards their family. 1982

Arthur retrieved one of his guns from a drawer in his living room and tossed aside the white cloth it had been incased in. He made sure the clip was full and set it firmly in the holster under his jacket. He did it like most men buttered their toast.

Upstairs, Arthur took a second gun, this time from his bedside drawer and secured it in a second holster opposite the other. He locked eyes with Angela and she knew what to do. She swept into Peter's room and lifted the almost two-year-old boy quickly out of his crib and darted straight for the hallway in one powerful move.

"Nathan!" Angela yelled for her son. "Nathan?" she called to him. She rushed around the upstairs of the house looking for him like there was no time to lose – there wasn’t. Angela held Peter on her hip just as she had once done with Nathan as a child. Her state was hurried yet controlled.

Finally Angela found a thirteen, almost fourteen, year-old Nathan in the hallway in front of his bedroom. Arthur appeared around a corner behind her when Angela found Nathan.

"Nathan, come," she said commandingly, putting her hand out with great force. "We have to go to the basement -- a hurricane is coming." She shook her hand for him to come and take it.

"Do what your mother says, boy," Arthur reprimanded him.

Confused Nathan walked forward toward his parents.

"Take my hand!" Angela said earnest and strong; she had urgency in her voice.

Nathan paused where he stood. "No," he retorted feeling he was too old to hold his mother’s hand.

Angela’s face grew angry and stern as she took large steps over to Nathan, grabbing his hand with full force. "You do what you are told! " she commanded her son with her most gravitas of voices. A voice he would fear as a child, but ignore as an adult.

Angela dragged Nathan down the hall at a quick pace.

"Where are we going?" Nathan whined.

"The basement, Nathan, I told you." Angela answered with much assertion.

"Isn’t that for tornados?" Nathan queried.

"Don’t question your mother, Nathan." Arthur scolded his son as he rushed his family in front of him and down the stairs.

Angela raced down the stairs at a quicken pace as if there was a fire behind them. As quickly as Angela could run with a toddler in one arm and her son Nathan’s hand in her other.

As the family reached the foyer Angela guided her children hastily toward the door under the stairs, while her husband kept up behind them.

Arthur spoke sharply. "I put a call into Maury, he’s on his way."

Angela’s eyes almost popped out of her head as they reached the basement door. "Without him here, they’ll find us for sure," she said with a hushed husky voice filled with fright for her children.

"He’ll be here," Arthur said harshly.

Angela just looked at him with a fearful panic in her eyes.

"Go!" Arthur shouted and pointed toward the basement door.

Angela let go of Nathan’s hand and opened the basement door as quickly as she could while her husband disappeared from sight. Angela turned to Nathan, but he didn’t move.

"Nathan," Angela called to her son.

"What about, Pop?"

"Your father will be fine. He can take care of himself," she snapped. "Come!" And she snatched Nathan’s hand and whisked her family into the basement, locking the door behind her, like it would matter, and barreling down the stairs. It was very dark.

"The lights, Ma!?" Nathan questioned.

"No time for lights, Nathan."

Peter started to let out a few cries, already keying into his mother’s silent hysteria, as Angela and her boys hit the basement floor. "Shhhhh." She soothed Peter by setting her lips on the side of his head and he quieted down. "There ya go, baby," she said softly. She was thankful he was such a content child.

Angela carted her family into a far off corner of the basement. It was dusty and small. She crouched down and made Nathan sit beside her while she put her arm around him, holding her family close to her; Peter sat on her lap. She held the baby close to her with her right hand and arm, holding his small head against her cheek, the fineness of his baby hair brushing up against her skin and reminding her how young he was for all of this --both her sons were. Now all they had to do was wait.

And when the roof shook and dust fell from the ceiling, Angela attempted not to show her fear, so not to scare her boys. Still Nathan saw the look in his mother’s eyes and he took her hand for a moment. They all couldn’t help but look up. Look up and wait. And about after what seemed like hours, but had only been about forty minutes, the door to the basement crept open.

"Angela!?" Arthur’s voice was heard.

"Oh, thank god." Angela whispered. "Down here!" she shouted. Angela raised herself up slowly being sure not to drop Peter.

The lights turned on and Arthur raced down the stairs. Angela’s eyes brightened as she saw him and tears came to her eyes, yet did not fall.

"Is everyone alright?" Arthur asked.

"We’re fine." Angela nodded her head. She took her free hand and ran her red finger nailed-fingers along Arthur’s left cheek. She leaned in and kissed him. "We’re fine." She saw a drop of blood by his ear and she wiped it away – behind the blood there was no wound.

Nathan saw the blood. "You alright, Pop?"

"I’m fine, son." He took the boy in a quick hug. Then Arthur Petrelli took his family back upstairs to their home.

The next day, Nathan found it odd that no one at school talked about the hurricane and when he got home that afternoon he was sure to ask his mother about it.

"Just because there wasn’t a hurricane, doesn’t mean you don’t prepare for one." She told him pointedly. "I was only taking precautions for this family, Nathan. We were lucky it passed us by this time. Next time." She looked at him with love, yet spoke forcefully. "We may not be so lucky."

And Angela Petrelli was right. A storm was coming -- of another kind. And she knew this time she would be ready for it, as Nathan’s destiny formed clearer and clearer in her mind. As she told Victoria, only a few years earlier, when the time came perhaps she would have a plan. She didn’t have a full-fledged plan yet, but she now knew its skeleton frame. Which was that Angela would keep her children from the front lines at all costs and that started with her first born son --- the future President of the United States. It was all becoming clear to her in the present moment. Angela understood now and she would help to make it a reality, she didn’t know how yet, but she would. At all costs, her son would save the world and she would save him. She would save them both. When the hurricane came again, Angela Petrelli would be ready.

 Next Chapter: Arthur visits Adam in jail and makes a decision that could impact his family’s future forever. (Teaser Trailer below)