Title: Contingency
Rating: R
Spoilers: Everything up to Parasite, with speculation taken from .09 Percent spoilers, all the way up to Episode 9: Return, of Incidental Heroes. No doubt will become vastly AU once the hiatus ends.
Pairings: Isaac/Claire, others to be determined.
Characters: Isaac, Peter, Claire, MacKenzie (IHeroes), as well as the rest of the Heroes cast.
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance, It uses Incidental Heroes storylines and characters, so is arguably Crossover.
Warnings: Speculation!fic, character deaths, some underage themes.
Summary: Is destiny set in stone, immobile? Can disaster ever truly be prevented? And can a broken soul ever find salvation? Four broken heroes will do anything to make certain they can be.





Disclaimer: Wouldn't you just love it if I owned Heroes? I'd be easier to hunt down and force to give it up. Promise.

AN: Was kinda busy moving lately, but here I am, back again (With a snazzy layout, I might add ;p)

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Contingency

Chapter 2

The lights flashing over her head probably weren't a good thing, especially considering she had no idea how she'd gotten from a random street in the vast city of New York, to a random hallway in one of its hospitals.

Yeah, those lights were definitely a bad thing, along with the oxygen mask scratching her nose and cheeks. The massive headache, too.

She tried to turn her head to see if her friend was in a similar state next to her--given that he wasn't frantically trying to keep up with the cart--but the resulting stab of pain and dizzying spin of her vision deftly robbed her of her consciousness before she could make anything out but a few vague figures to her left.

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"I'm sorry, I've done everything I can."

She didn't wait to hear whatever more the man was going to say, before walking out of the room. She didn't need to. She couldn't.

She hated the words as soon as he spoke them--hated him, even. She had always felt that they were just an excuse for not trying hard enough, and they were never truly sorry...and clearly...clearly this was the case again.

Because there was no way he could have been killed. Not him.

Her arm trembled as she reached a hand out to touch the pale statue laying on the stool-matress-thing that was a complement to every stuffy rich furniture arrangement. His skin was soft and still held a lingering warmth just under the surface.

Even now she had difficulty convincing herself he wasn't just sleeping--because, after all, it wasn't like her hero would snore.

Her vision blurred as strong arms surrounded her shoulders and pulled her close for a meager embrace of comfort. If anything, all it did was break the dam around her tears.

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He found it humorous that he had always heard he was supposed to 'stay away' or 'run from' the light, were he ever to see the tunnel of white light. The people who would only half-jokingly tell him that, failed to mention that it pulled you into it.

He squinted against the whiteness as it enveloped him, and stifled a moment of surprise that he could squint. It didn't actually hurt, despite being absurdly bright all around him, but it was almost as difficult to see anything in it as it had been to see anything in the darkness.

Was that some twisted, ironic rule of the afterlife? Because if it was, it was rather ineffectual, aside from passing annoyance. Besides, his eyes--or whatever--had already began to adjust to the sudden light, and he cold make out the form of a young woman ahead of him.

He couldn't make out many details about her, but her dark eyes were heavy with sadness as she stared at him in silence. He tried to speak to her, but found himself unable to, which was really quite annoying.

Whether she realized he had attempted to communicate with her or not, she made no indication. She simply smiled slightly, a sad, almost distracted smile, before turning and walking off into the light.

On instinct, he moved to follow after her, and abruptly found himself standing in an almost familiar apartment. Through the cracks in the blinds, white light poured through, flooding the sparsely furnished room more brightly than summer sun in Florida.

So...eternity was a perky two-room apartment on Divine Light Way? He contemplated momentarily whether it was possible to die again when you were alread dead--if it was, he would surely die of boredom. Hopefully the after-after-life would have a pool table or something.

An unfortunately familiar voice broke him from his reverie.

He sighed in resignation as he turned toward the voice. "Guess that answers my question about whether I was in heaven or hell."

--

She groaned as focus slowly returned to the fuzzy ceiling. She still had a headache, and now her shoulder hurt, too. But at least she was stationary now, and judging by the bandages keeping her from moving properly, they had treated her without dissecting her.

That was a comfort, at least.

She sighed, now her parents really would try and have her commited...not that this little trip to the hospital had anything to do with a TV Show coming to life.

"Unless that was the explosion--and it was just a model set everyone was seeing." She laughed softly, and ran her unbandaged hand along her bangs, glancing furtively around the room for any sign of Shawn.

He was sitting in the nearby chair, smiling at her, relief clearly written in his features. And completely unharmed. The rat.

"Good to see you're okay, MacKenzie." He said without preamble.

"What the heck was that?"

He shrugged. "Car bomb. Or...I think it was an accident...I'm not sure, I didn't hear the details."

She frowned, turning her gaze up to the ceiling. "Wow...how often does that happen?"

"Too bad I didn't have the camera."

She laughed, and grinned at him. "Yeah, that would have been an interesting episode, 'MacKenzie and Shawn get blown up'!"

He grinned, and nodded, before his expression became serious again, and he leaned forward in his seat. "Did you save them?"

She blinked in confusion. "Them...? Who's them?"

"Them! Peter, Isaac, the world?"

"Shawn--"

"Miss Perrin, is everything alright?" The crisp voice of a nurse turned her attention from her friend momentarily, and she glanced over at the doorway to the woman's concerned face. "I heard voices."

"Well, yeah...that was me and--" Her voice caught in her throat. She had to attribute it to being so foggy-headed that she didn't realize it before.

"...Oh..." Her words died in her throat as she looked over at Shawn, whose colors were significantly washed out.

He grimaced slightly, and shrugged. "Sorry."

CH END

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AN: Slightly shorter, I know, but the chapters will get longer!