Soul Mates
Odessa, Texas
Sometime in the near future
"Will you tell me a story?"
"Baby, you're supposed to be getting ready for bed."
"I am, but I need a story to go to bed."
"Aren't you getting a little old for a bedtime story?"
"Nooooo."
"Okay. What kind of story do you want?"
"...a fairy tale."
"Cinderella?"
"No."
"Snow White?"
"Nooooooope."
"Sleeping Beauty?"
"Nope."
"...I know which one you want to here."
"You do?"
"I do. Come on, climb into bed. Now, how does it start?"
"Once upon a time, Mommy!"
"Okay, okay...once upon a time..."
Their romance had been anything but typical. They'd packed years worth of emotion into tension-fraught weeks. Between thought sessions on the various threats they faced, they pretended that what was between them was normal, and did the things normal couples did. The real world kept intruding into that private time, however, and what little time they had dwindled as the Day of Reckoning came closer.
They had their fights, and their make-ups, but they always knew they had each other. Maybe it was that dependency on each other to stay sane that made it so hard to say goodbye.
Claire watched him leave from their bedroom window and knew there was a chance she might not see him again. In a surprising move the day the "bomb" was supposed to destroy New York, Peter had called her father and instructed him to join them in their apartment, without telling Claire. She'd been very surprised to open the door and see the man they'd been avoiding for over a week on the other side.
Her father hadn't tried to force her to leave. Instead, he'd tried lecturing her, cajoling her, bribing her, and threatening her. She knew her father had many more devious ways he could have tried to bring her back to Odessa, but he hadn't used any of them. In light of that quirk of his character, Claire felt more forgiving of his true career path and the Company for whom he worked. The fact that he'd only used passive aggressive techniques with her made it easy for her to stay; somehow it'd convinced Peter it would be better if she went.
"Claire?"
Her eyes tracked Peter's lone form as he walked down the sidewalk, headed for God- knew-where. As he slipped out of sight, her fingers twitched and the blinds closed out the outside world. She inclined her head to her shoulder, glancing at her father from the corner of her eye. "Yes?"
"This is the right decision, Claire. Peter is a good man to think of you first, and himself second."
"He's an idiot," Claire muttered. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and resumed packing the few things she had there. "When does our flight leave?"
Noah Bennet hesitated. "Your flight leaves in two hours."
Claire froze. "My flight? What about you?"
"I'm staying, Claire."
The shirt she'd been folding, one of Peter's she realized, fell to the floor. "What? Why? Why do you get to stay and I can't?"
"I don't have a choice, Claire-bear. I have to find and destroy the tracking system the Company has. We'll never be safe otherwise."
"I'll never be safe, you mean."
Bennet nodded slowly, recognizing the subtle intonations in her voice as meaning she was very close to be very angry. "Yes. That's what I mean."
Claire's little hands fisted and she closed her eyes to count to ten. "I'm so tired of the men in my life trying to protect me." She glared at her father. "I'm capable of taking care of myself, but no one will give me the chance!"
Bennet wrapped his arms around Claire's forearms and pulled her into a hug. "I love you and though I don't like it, so does Peter. This is a bad situation, Claire. If anything goes wrong, then the destruction will be massive! I don't want you here. Peter and I need to know you're safe so we can do what needs to be done!"
Claire pulled away, brushing her sweaty hands down her sweater and looking at the wall as tears formed in her eyes. "Fine. I'll go, but I'm still not happy about it." A sudden thought occurred to Claire, and she looked back at her father. He looked older than she remembered, stress weighing on his shoulders and bowing them down. He'd turned from her, intent on heading for the kitchen and a cup of coffee to get his old bones to stop creaking. "Dad?"
"Yes?"
Claire smiled; her watery blue eyes seemed unnaturally large in her face. "I love you. And I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry, Claire, just be safe," he replied as he started back for the kitchen. Claire waited until he was out of sight to throw herself out the window. She knew she'd never make it out the door, her father in the kitchen and the silent Haitian at the front door. As she flew through the air she could only hope that the Haitian wasn't using his own special abilities and that when she hit the ground that she'd heal.
"Did it hurt?"
"Did what hurt?"
"Hitting the ground?"
"Yeah, baby, it always hurts. Only for a little while, though. Most of the pain goes away."
By the time she caught up with Peter most of the battle was done. She ran as fast as she could, but it'd taken longer than normal for her body to knit itself together. She'd had to get up and move instantly and she'd had to re-set one of her legs an hour after she'd escaped.
She could hear someone crying in the shadows of the building and as she ran she spared them a glance. It seemed to be a family of sorts, a boy and a girl, a man (wounded) and a woman (angry). The man was bleeding, but in the dark Claire couldn't tell from where. He wasn't her concern, however, so she kept moving.
Closer to the sounds of fighting, the thud of fist on flesh, the small spurt of blood spurting from sudden cuts, Claire found the first body. He was against a large column, shot several times in the chest. She couldn't tell if he was bleeding and she didn't stop to check. She wondered to herself why bullets killed him. They were all supposed to be "special" right? Why such a conventional weapon?
She stumbled past the pillar and caught her first sight of what was occurring in Kirby Plaza. Her gaze went first to Hiro where he stood, his eyes wide as he stood before a stranger. The unknown man was tall with dark hair and his eyes spiraled wildly in his face as he struggled to comprehend what was going on around him.
Claire knew he had to be Sylar.
She knew he was Sylar because Hiro had stabbed him in the chest, as the paintings and the future Hiro had ordained. When the man grinned madly and slid to the ground, she felt an untold relief that she was at least safe from him. He would not be killing her for her abilities, but she did feel a smidgeon of pity for him. He was the reason Peter and she had met and fell in love. In some ways, she might even have been indebted to him for it.
Then again, he'd tried to kill them both so whatever depth they might have had was basically void.
As he hit the ground, Hiro's sword was pulled from his body. The small Japanese man stared at the bloody blade from several seconds before teleporting away with an unreadable look on his face. Claire could remember his objections to the task before him, his naïveté making him voice them clearly. Heroes don't kill.
Claire had to disagree. A true Hero knows that sometimes there is no other way. A true Hero knows that sometimes there has to be.
With Sylar on the ground and Hiro gone, Claire finally caught sight of Peter and it made her breath stick in her throat. His face was contorted with fear and horror as he started to lose control. Ted Sprague, God rest his soul, had come to New York to try to stop the Company. Sylar got to him before they'd accomplished that, but not before Peter had come into contact with the radioactive man.
He'd almost lost control then, but there was no last minute discipline riding in from Peter's subconscious to save the day this time. Claire wrung her hands and bit her lip as she suddenly wondered if she should go to him. She could heal physical injuries, but what about other kinds? Would radiation kill her? Did she care?
She briefly laid a hand on her lower abdomen and knew that she did care. Her eyes flickered around the Plaza until they found the fallen figure of her father. He'd come, in the end, to help Peter save the world. Whether because it was the right thing or because he knew that Claire would turn up here, or even because he realized that Claire loved Peter and that she needed him to live, he would never tell her.
What mattered was that he had come, and that he had what she needed.
She ran to his fallen body, he was barely conscious. She wanted to scream his name and to feel his arms around her. He'd always made her feel safe as a child. Despite being adopted, he was the only father she'd ever known. She hugged him desperately, willing him awake to tell her what to do. She couldn't remember what she was supposed to do.
Her fingers brushed the cold metal of the gun at his side. He'd dropped it when he'd hit the wall (she could see the dent he'd created). He grabbed her hand, drawing her eyes to his. "You have to stop him, Claire. He can't-" Bennet sucked in a hard breath as pain lanced up his side. "He can't kill all these people."
Claire gripped the harsh mesh handle and stood. Her back was ramrod straight as she turned to stare at Peter, who watched her with unreadable eyes. The glow from his hands was slowly spreading to the rest of his body.
She pointed it, her hand shaking under the weight of the weapon. Peter stiffened, readying himself for the blast. Her mouth puckered and her eyes watered from the light he was putting off, or maybe they teared from the weight of what she was supposed to do.
She looked away from him, glancing at Sylar's body, the bullet-ridden body, and the small family cloistered in the shadows. When she looked back at Peter, she had resolve warring with love on her face. She closed her eyes as her finger twitched on the trigger. "I love you, Peter." It was a whisper she thought he wouldn't hear.
He did.
"I love you, too," he mouthed back. He closed his eyes, prepared to end his own life to prevent the deaths of millions.
Claire went cold inside as she stared down the barrel of the gun. She had to incline her head and the gun a little to make up for the height difference and to ensure she hit the "sweet spot". She could hear a roaring in her ears as she panted and became light-headed, her sight going spotty. She could feel panic and hysteria edging in on her thoughts.
She realized too late that the roaring wasn't her imagination.
Congressman Nathan Petrelli landed with a small grunt in front of her and almost got shot for his trespass. Claire jumped back, her startled face staring up at his. "What-"
She'd only met him once, a few days ago when Peter had convinced her they needed his help. The risk of exposure had been all for naught, because Nathan had refused to give aid. It was there that they'd learned that the Company, responsible for countless kidnappings and tagging of "special" people, was also going to somehow be responsible for Peter "going off".
The very fact that they'd known about what was to happen but never sought to stop or inform anyone who could stop it placed much of the blame at the Company's feet, in Claire's opinion.
Nevertheless, Nathan had become a pawn of the Company and unwilling to help. Claire had figured he wouldn't, his gaze was hard where Peter's was kind. She had no doubt that the state of their hearts was of similar disposition.
He and Peter had argued and Claire had left him with some food for thought as she started to follow his brother as he stormed out. Her hand on his office door, she'd turned to him and tried to make him see that the Future is not written in stone. Just because people said something had to happen, didn't mean it would.
Now, here with his brother's life in the balance and Claire's future as well, he threw the words back in her face.
"The future isn't written in stone, Claire," he said with a small smile before walking to Peter's side.
The gun slipped from her hand as she watched the man she loved grip his brother's arms before both of them rose into the air with great speed. The pain of what was happening suddenly rushed into her chest and she fell to her knees as sobs began to tear from her throat.
When the explosion lit up the night's sky, Claire's vision began to darken immediately. She couldn't breathe, her muscles bunched up, and she suddenly couldn't see the future past the here and now.
Peter was gone.
Claire tried to breathe, knew she had to, and found that the will to do so was gone. She sat there on that hard concrete walk and felt her heart beating in her chest. It was racing, thumping against her breasts in a beat mirrored in her head.
She could hear voices as the people in the Plaza started to move, to celebrate that they'd all somehow saved the city, but Claire didn't care. The city was safe, but she never would be again, would she?
Peter was gone.
Her father dragged himself to her side, wrapping one arm around her shoulder as he tried to comfort her. Her emotions were revealed in all their painful glory as tears spilled down her blood-less cheeks. Her mouth was open and moving but nothing came out, her thoughts unspoken as she struggled to comprehend what was happening.
One fist was clenched above her heart, the other above her stomach and she started to rock back and forth. She made a small sound and startled Bennet who gripped Claire's arms and tried to wake her from this trance. "Claire?"
She wasn't saying anything. Her mouth was open and moving, and a sound was coming out, but it made no sense. It wasn't a child's sound, one that demanded comfort from a parent. It was a woman's sound, a scream of grief that nothing could comfort and Bennet was uncomfortably reminded again that his little girl was gone.
She screamed and pressed her face into her hands trying to make the world go away. She didn't want to be here, didn't want to face the truth of what had been done.
Peter was gone.
The others were startled, none more so than Dr. Mohinder Suresh, as Claire screamed and Bennet started to call for someone. Out of the building beside the Plaza a figure emerged. It was a woman with short brown hair, one some of the observers knew, and some didn't.
She ran to Bennet's side, taking in the girl in his arms. They spoke quietly and finally Eden addressed Claire.
"Claire?"
She could hear the voice calling but she felt no urge to respond.
"Claire."
She stopped screaming as breath rushed into her lungs finally, her head going light and spinning as she gulped in air. Her head fell back and she looked into the sky. She realized that the clouds had been affected by the explosion. They were no longer lumpy and whipped up; they'd stretched out and flattened from the backlash.
"Claire!"
The force of the yell was the only thing that made Claire pull her eyes from the sky. She didn't speak because she couldn't. She didn't recognize the face before her, but found that was a good thing. This woman couldn't remind her of everything she'd lost.
"Claire, hello. I'm Eden."
Did this woman really expect Claire to respond?
"Go to sleep now."
She did.
A little girl with large doe-like blue eyes stared up at her mother. "What about the Prince?"
Claire smiled and brushed soft brown hair off her daughter's forehead. "He went on a journey."
The little girl leaned close and whispered softly. "Did he die?"
Claire laughed and smoothed the covers over the little girl. "No. I don't think he did."
Isabelle Petrelli looked at her mother suspiciously. "What about the Princess?"
"She went home with the King."
"Did she wait for the Prince?"
Claire brushed a kiss over Isabella's temple and stood with a small bitter smile. "She still is, baby."
"Good night, Mommy."
Claire flicked off the overhead light, watching as her daughter turned on her side and gripped a small teddy bear. "Good night."
Her father had liked to sleep on his side too.
Fin
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