Title: Lifetime Commitment
Pairing: Peter/Claire (with references to Mohinder/Maya, Peter/Elle, and Claire/May)
Warnings: incest, violence, some gruesome imagery
Spoilers: Through S2 of Heroes, and the comics up to issue #82 (particularly "Golden Handshake", issues #43-26). No S3 spoilers.
Acknowledgments: Incredible, massive, huge, overwhelming thanks to 12cubed, my friend and beta. Seriously, you're amazing. Thanks also, to weewarrior for being the second pair of eyes on this story.
Disclaimer: Heroes, and its associated characters and situations are the property of NBC Universal and Tim Kring. No profit is being made and no infringement is meant by their use.
Author's note: I took some liberties with naming the villain referred to alternately, in the comics and interviews, as Rollo Fusor, Rollo Fusor's accomplice, and Anya. I simplified it down to just Anya Fusor. Additionally, yes, the title of the story is meant as an allusion to the catch phrase of Death the Endless, from the Sandman comics.
Summary: Completing her freshman year of NYU has left Claire feeling stifled by normalcy. Meanwhile, recovering from his latest power meltdown has left Peter emotionally devastated and withdrawn. When Angela arranges to get them back into the game, they know there's more to it than sending them undercover to deal with a dehydrating villain preying on New York's elite. More to it than the marriage license they have to sign, even.

Prologue

The world was clear and dark and double. He had not planned on a fight, but he remembered futures with one regardless.

Identity. Identity was an issue. He did recall that. Doubles surrounded him, angry and hurt, raking at him to give them back their uniqueness.

But there was no giving. There had been no taking. They were still whole. Why would they ask this of him, to carve those pieces out of himself? To commit that violence and self-annihilation against himself? He wasn't that kind of sinner. They would have to live with the company, the way he did, sleeping each night with the babble of hundreds like knives in his ears.

A burst of insanity, of Sylar, threw Claire against a wall, head connecting with a wet thud that sickened even him. But he knew. He'd never lose her, not to time or death or himself.

He thought of her again, and the edges frayed. He began to feel pulled apart in too many directions. What the doubles wanted, he could give, if only the world would stop splintering. There was focus, once. He remembered it, the clarity brilliant, beatific in design. That was the whole reason things had come to this end.

Nathan. And then murmuring in his ears, a reminder of self and non-self. He leaned against Nathan, bloody fingers clutching into a suit jacket. He pressed his face against Nathan, trying to let go of the exquisite design and all the voices who wanted it so desperately.

There was one piece, the key.

Peter would die if he let her go.