002 - Steve Harrington

The Beginning Of The End

They go back to playing a game of tic-tac-toe.

"How about we call each other by our real names?" Peter says as he fills a square in with a circle. "It has to be our little secret though."

"Does that mean I can't tell Papa?" Josephine asks him. She puts an "X" in one of the squares.

Without hesitation, Peter fills another square with a circle.

"Correct, you can't tell Papa. We will both get into big trouble. Okay Jo?" He whispers.

Josephine carefully decides where she's going to put another "X". She finds the perfect square and marks it, making her the winner.

"Okay Peter." She whispers back.

January 2, 1971

"Happy birthday Two! I colored this for you!" Three says handing her his coloring sheet.

"Thank you, Three!" She smiles at him and reaches out for a hug.

However, before they could, the doors open.

"Good morning, children!"

Two and Three quickly stand from the small table.

"Good morning Papa!" They say back.

"In honor of Two's fourth birthday, we are going to play a game."

The two children look at each other and smile excitedly. Dr. Brenner reaches out for them to hold onto his hands. They leave the Rainbow Room with Peter following closely behind.

**

Shortly, the four of them enter a room that has two white circles, drawn next to each other on the floor.

"Two, go stand in a circle." Brenner says to her. She lets go of his hand, walks to a circle and stands in the middle of it.

"Three, go stand in the other one."

Once he's in the circle, Brenner speaks up again.

"The objective of this game is to use your abilities and push the other out of their circle. The both of you must be blindfolded."

Peter goes to Three and puts a white blindfold on him. Soon after, he walks over to Two and puts the other white blind fold on her. Once Henry is standing next to Brenner again, it's time to start.

"Begin."

Two soon feels a small force pushing against her body, making her stumble. She quickly steadies herself and starts to push back, using more force than Three.

She found this game to be very easy.

With a small nod of the head upwards, Three is pushed out of his circle and falls onto the floor.

Both children uncover their eyes and look at their Papa.

Brenner smiles at Two.

"Congratulations to our very first winner. Two."

Two smiles proudly at her Papa and then looks at Peter with the same smile. Doing so, gives Brenner an idea.

"One." Brenner states looking over at him. "How would you like to try?"

"What?" Peter asks, confused.

"Yes! Go on! You against Two!"

"But, she's just a child-"

Brenner leans over and says something in his ear that the children can't hear. When he pulls away, One walks to the circle Three was in and takes the blind fold from him. Before putting it on he looks across at Two and says a quiet "Sorry." to her.

Confused, Two looks at Brenner. He walks over to her and says, "Just remember everything that you've practiced Two. You'll be alright."

"But Papa, he's stronger than me."

Brenner simply ignores what she says and puts the blindfold on her. He walks back to where he was standing and holds Three's hand.

"Begin."

This time, Josephine doesn't feel anything.

"Do I go first?" She wonders.

Just then, she felt a force push against her. This time, it was stronger than Three's. She's nudged back, but remains in the circle.

Josephine takes a deep breath and focuses on pushing back at Peter. She mustered up a lot of strength and soon finds herself struggling against him.

She can feel Peter become frustrated as he pushes harder, confused as to why she hasn't left the circle yet. Josephine feels something wet start to drip out of her nose. It's bleeding. She's quickly becoming tired and wants to give up.

"No!" She thinks. "Make. Papa. Proud!"

With every word she pushes against Peter, stronger.

Josephine quickly lifts her hand, using the last bit of her strength, and pushes Peter out of his circle, making him fly and hit the two-way mirror. It cracked.

Two falls to the floor; exhausted. She slowly lifts her blindfold, and with both nostrils bleeding, she looks at her Papa. Amazement doesn't even describe the look on his face as he looks back at her. She smiles in return, but is quickly met with darkness.

Brenner walks over to Two and picks her up, holding her in his arms.

"You've made papa proud Two." He whispers lovingly to her. "My sweet, darling Josephine."