{"id":1635,"date":"2012-09-05T23:43:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T23:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=1635"},"modified":"2012-09-06T03:27:05","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T03:27:05","slug":"fic-by-the-load-i-bear-heroes-mattmohinder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/?p=1635","title":{"rendered":"Fic: By the Load I Bear (Heroes, Matt\/Mohinder)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note:<\/strong> Written for icalynn for the “twelve days of Christmas” meme – I’m pretty sure this isn’t what she was looking for, and I’m not sure it really came from her prompt at all. I don’t really know *where* it came from and that kinda freaks me out a little \u2013 it’s certainly not how I planned to start this particular AU! As for the title…well, I can’t seem to keep away from near-blasphemy with titles this week \u2013 ACK.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

I am waiting in a silent prayer
\nI am frightened by the load I bear
\nIn a world as cold as stone
\nMust I walk this path alone?
\n–Amy Grant, “Breath of Heaven”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first time it happened, Mehadi thought it was revulsion. It was not a hard leap to make: she\u2019d felt little else for her traveling companion since she\u2019d found the obituary of the real Zane Taylor. It horrified her that she could have been so blind, so na\u00efve, as to simply trust this…stranger. Every touch, every kiss – the same touches and kisses that had once helped ease the desperate loneliness of appearing to the world a crackpot \u2013 now sickened her. It was only natural for that psychological response to express itself physically.<\/p>\n

The second time, she attributed it to head trauma. After all, Sylar hadn\u2019t precisely been gentle when he\u2019d pinned her to the ceiling with a thought while he tried to kill Peter. And then with Peter\u2019s death and unexpected resurrection, Sylar\u2019s disappearance, meeting Molly and the search for a cure to her illness, the whole chain of events that seemed to be rapidly spiraling out of control towards a grim and inevitable outcome, there hadn\u2019t been much time to worry about her health. If she lost the contents of her stomach a little more often than usual, well, that could be attributed to the rather extreme level of stress she\u2019d been under.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until after the explosion that lit the Manhattan sky like day, when the most stressful thing in her life was bringing Molly to the hospital for her daily visits with the recuperating officer Parkman that it began to dawn on Mehadi that perhaps she ought to see a doctor.<\/p>\n

Somewhere, deep in her mind, she already suspected what was happening to her, but only after the gynecologist at the hospital confirmed it was she no longer able to shy away from this reality that appalled her. Seeing her reaction, the doctor had quietly reminded her that there were…options. Though the choice should have been obvious, she found it wasn\u2019t and that, as much as anything else, was what terrified her.<\/p>\n

Now she lingered in the doorway of Officer Parkman\u2019s room in the hospital, watching Molly chat animatedly with the rotund but warm-hearted policeman who had, over the past few weeks, become almost as important to Mehadi as he was to the little girl. Knowing that Matthew could read her thoughts if she wasn\u2019t careful, she guarded them closely. Sooner or later, the truth would have to come out, but right now she was too afraid: afraid that this secret might destroy what she was slowly beginning to think of as her family.<\/p>\n

After all, what would they think of her if they knew that the monster who had nearly destroyed all their lives was the father of her child?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note: Written for icalynn for the “twelve days of Christmas” meme – I’m pretty sure this isn’t what she was looking for, and I’m not sure it really came from her prompt at all. I don’t really know *where* … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[76,158,577],"tags":[113,415,580,591,565,150,579,570,578,581,574],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1710,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1635\/revisions\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/azar.ink-and-quill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}