Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes.
When she first heard that the Sullivan Bros. Carnival had come to Costa Verde, Claire Bennet was less than excited. Probably because it was Lyle who told her about it, and as a rule she disdained anything that threatened to make her little brother happy.
It was the middle of summer and they'd been living in California under an assumed last name for almost a month. Lyle had made a friend already but Claire hadn't; after everything that had happened the year before, all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and hope that her abilities went away.
So hearing about a carnival didn't exactly make her want to jump with joy. Her dad wouldn't let Lyle go unless Claire took him, though—Noah was caught up in his new job at an actual paper company, and Sandra was doing her best to throw herself into their new town by going to a hundred social events a day—so Lyle bugged her constantly and turned her peaceful zombie-state into hell.
Still, she might have resisted indefinitely if Lyle hadn't mentioned that this carnival was rumored to be different than all the others. That the games didn't seem rigged but somehow the kids always won and adults always lost. That the tricks were a little too realistic.
It was a long shot, of course. One or more people like her, living in a carnival? But if it were true…Well, she didn't know what that would mean, but anything had to be better than the way things had been going lately.
So she agreed to drive and take Lyle and his annoying friend Ethan along. From the outside the carnival looked just like any other and she felt a moment of trepidation, a temporary urge to bustle Lyle and Ethan back into the car and take them home, but instead she gave Lyle one of the two twenties Noah had given her and told the boys to meet her back at the entrance in two hours.
She meandered around the grounds, taking in the brightly colored lights, the worn but sturdy tents. Past the Hall of Mirrors and the Incredible Tattooed Woman. She thought about paying to see a knife throwing act, but after seeing Jackie's head sliced open with telekinesis the thought of flying blades didn't appeal to her. For a few minutes she watched a fire eater who did seem to be handling the flame a little too adroitly for someone without an ability. Finally she came to a halt beside a booth where people could throw baseballs at milk bottles for prizes.
"Care to give it a go?" the cute young man behind the counter asked with a grin.
After a moment's hesitation she shrugged and handed over the money, pocketing the change. He put two baseballs on the counter in front of her. She picked one up and tossed it up and down, testing its heft. With an unsure glance at the carnie, she pulled back her hand, focusing on the stack of milk bottles, and threw, knowing as she did that there was no way she'd be able to knock them over.
The ball headed to the left of the bottles, on course to miss them completely. Claire stifled a surge of disappointment. Then, impossibly, the ball swerved mid-air to hit the bottles dead on.
Her eyes narrowed. The carnie grinned and gave her an enormous stuffed unicorn.
She lingered at the booth long enough to watch a motorcyclist miss four throws in a row and a little girl get the milk bottles in one shot. It only took her a minute or so to catch the way the carnie twitched his hand at each toss.
Telekinesis. Like Sylar's, but apparently going to a much better purpose.
Now as she walked through the carnival she could feel it, the mystique, hanging in the air. A unique aura that had nothing to do with parlor tricks and everything to do with real magic—or whatever Dr. Suresh would call the scientific equivalent of magic. She ended up handing off her unicorn to a little girl and with an hour still to go she found herself loitering by the popcorn seller, feeling strangely comfortable and uncomfortable at once.
"Try the popcorn." The voice came from behind her and almost seemed to caress her with its smooth, seductive Irish accent. She whirled to face the man as he swaggered out of the shadows behind her. He was lean and handsome, his dark hair spiky, his nails painted black. He was probably her father's age but moved as if he'd never left his twenties. He might have seemed dangerous, if he weren't also drunk.
"Excuse me?" she said.
"I guarantee you it'll be the best you've ever had," he told her, nodding at the popcorn stand. When she continued to stare at him he offered her a strangely alluring smile. "Don't worry, I work at the carnival."
She found the words oddly comforting. As if the fact that he was a carnie rather than a random drunkard made him perfectly safe to be around.
She shrugged and bought a box of popcorn. She couldn't help the way her eyes fluttered shut at the buttery, salty flavor.
"Good, isn't it?" the man said, and grabbed a few kernels off the top, popping them into his mouth. She should have felt indignant. She didn't know why she didn't. "I'm Samuel," he said. "Samuel Sullivan."
The name niggled at the back of her mind until she remembered the name of the carnival. "Sullivan, as in…"
"My brother and I own the carnival," Samuel said. "Though to be honest, Joseph's the one in charge. I'm mostly just a supporting character."
"So you don't…do anything?" Claire asked. Wincing at her own words, she added, "I mean, anything special?"
He grinned. "Oh, sweetheart," he said, "I'm as special as anyone here."
"Yeah? What do you do?"
He leaned in close, closer than she should have allowed, and murmured, "Claire, I can rock your world."
For a long moment she gaped at him in astonishment. Then she let out a disbelieving laugh. It was the first time she'd laughed since Kirby Plaza and it felt good. "Okay, seriously," she said, "has that line ever worked on anyone in the history of time?"
He laughed, too, but not before something flashed through his eyes, a moment of rage, or maybe hurt, that gave her pause.
"You'd be surprised the kind of lines that work on some of the women who come to the carnival," he said. "I can see that you're made of sterner stuff."
She was listening to his tone rather than his words, though. It rang false. She thought of what she'd seen people do at this carnival and wondered whether he'd been telling the truth.
"I knew someone who could move things with his mind," she said, almost idly. "And a man who could walk through walls."
His flirtatious smirk flattened into a frown in an instant. "Really?"
She raised an eyebrow and savored another bite of popcorn. "I don't know. Can you really make the earth move?"
He hesitated, licking his lips as if nervous. He opened his mouth to respond when an annoyed voice interrupted them.
"Samuel, there you are! You were supposed to be helping Edgar sharpen his knives, brother, not flirting with pretty ladies."
The speaker was a few years older than Samuel and more composed, his eyes wary as they raked over her. She recognized the look; she'd seen it in the mirror often enough. This was a man with secrets.
"Joseph!" Samuel said, hunching his shoulders a little, his face losing some of its animation, like a beta wolf in the presence of an alpha. "I'm sorry, I got a little caught up. I'll go." But he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from Claire's face. "Will you come back?" he asked her in a low voice, though of course Joseph could hear every word.
She didn't know why he thought she would come back. She didn't know why she wanted to say yes.
"Maybe," she said slowly. "If my little brother wants to."
He smiled with satisfaction. "I'll see you tomorrow, then. You should stop by the Incredible Tattooed Woman on your way out."
"Bye," Claire said, and dropped the empty popcorn container in a trashcan as she retraced her steps to the Tattooed Woman's tent.
A bouncer let her past and she stepped into the gloomy room. A woman was sitting with her back to the entrance, her shawl draped low to expose bare skin. Tattoo flowers framed a small empty square.
"Welcome," the woman said, gazing at Claire over her shoulder with dark, knowing eyes. "My name is Lydia."
"Claire. So, how does this work?"
"Just ask a question, Claire," Lydia said, "then touch my hand."
Claire hesitated, swallowed, took a step forward. Inside her mind a warning went off, saying idanger/i.
"Where am I supposed to be?" she asked, and took Lydia's hand.
Ink swirled to life on Lydia's back, and there was no question in Claire's mind that Lydia—maybe everyone at the carnival, including Samuel—was special just like she was. An image formed on the carnie's back: Claire in her old cheerleading uniform, holding a sign that said "Indestructible Girl."
Claire took a step back.
"What does this mean?" she whispered. "I'm supposed to run off and join the carnival?"
"It's up to you to interpret," Lydia said, but now there was a new light in her eyes, the same that had filled Samuel's when Claire had mentioned knowing people with abilities.
Claire thought: iThey know that I'm like them./i But she wasn't afraid.
The next night she came back but she didn't bring Lyle along. He would have wanted to come, but she didn't tell him—didn't tell anyone in her family—where she was going. They wouldn't have understood.
This time, Samuel found her right away, and she knew that he'd been waiting for her.
"Hello, Claire," he said quietly.
"Hello, Samuel," she said. "Will you show me how you make the earth move?"
He smiled and linked his arm with hers, a casual, seemingly unthinking touch that set her heart to pounding for reasons she couldn't explain. He led her through the carnival, past the lights and crowds to a collection of trailers.
"This is where we live," he told her, but kept on walking. He took her outside of the grounds, to a broad field of weeds and dirt. He spread his arms wide. "So you want to see what I can do?"
She'd had precious little opportunity to see powers in action when someone wasn't trying to kill her. "Show me."
His boyish, playful grin coaxed a return grin out of her.
The ground came to life. Dirt clouds defied gravity and rose from the earth. Rocks of all sizes hovered mid-air. She watched it all with wide eyes.
The ground bucked beneath her feet, sending her off-balance, tumbling her into Samuel's arms. He caught her and held her, not too tight, and someone so much older than her, who smelled so heavily of booze, should not feel so right.
"That's fantastic," she breathed.
He laughed and for a moment she thought he might kiss her, but instead he helped her find her feet. "Is it? You said you've seen others with powers before. How do mine compare?"
Truthfully, she'd seen better. Hiro Nakamura could bend time and space, Peter could mimic others' abilities. But she'd never seen anyone use their powers so playfully, accepting them as just a part of life, and she decided that it was the way a power was used, rather than the form a power took, that determined how cool it was.
"Yours is better than any of them," Claire declared.
Amazingly, he blushed. She wondered at his feelings of inadequacy, but supposed that in a community made up of people with abilities his might not seem so impressive.
"What about you?" he said. "What can you do?"
She toed off her shoe, bent to pull off her sock. Then she plucked one of the rocks from the air, her fist tight around it, and slammed it down on her own foot. She grunted at the white burst of pain as bones broke and skin split, distantly heard Samuel cry, "Stop!" She dropped the rock and hopped on her good foot, holding up the injured appendage so Samuel could see it heal.
"Incredible." He stared, amazed.
She could feel his eyes on her as she bent to pull her sock and shoe back on.
"I wish it had never happened to me," Claire said. She took his hand, noting how he froze briefly in surprise before relaxing and running his thumb along the back of her hand. Together they strolled back towards the trailers.
"Why?"
"It makes me a target. Vulnerable. I can heal from anything, but that doesn't mean I can't be hurt, and it doesn't protect my family. I spent most of last year being stalked by a serial killer who cut people's heads off and stole their powers by doing something with their brains. If I had to have a power, I wish it was something that let me fight back."
"We could teach you that here," Samuel told her. "How to protect yourself, I mean. We're used to guiding people in the usage of their powers, teaching them to make their way in the world."
"Why would you help me?" she said.
He used their joined hands to tug her to a halt. His eyes caught hers and she found herself unable to look away. With his free hand he brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Because I like you, Claire."
"I'm only 17," she blurted, then instantly wished she could take the words back. Of course he didn't mean that he liked her in that way, she was stupid to assume that he was interested in—
"We're not greatly concerned with outsiders' cultural norms here," he said, moving his hand from her hair to brush his thumb across her lips. There was no mistaking the heat in his eyes. "And anyway, where I'm from you're legal."
He pulled his thumb away and she licked her lips. "How long are you going to be in Costa Verde?"
He let go of her hand only to wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her against his body. "As long as we want to be," he said. "As long as we want."
They wandered the carnival together and Samuel introduced her to the members of his family—as he called the carnies—as they went. They weren't surprised to meet her; she had a feeling they'd all been warned about her the night before. Every once in a while she'd feel eyes on her and look up to see Joseph watching them from a short distance away, frowning as if he didn't know quite what to make of her.
It wasn't until the carnival finally closed for the night that Claire felt she truly met the carnies, however. True, they used their abilities in their acts, but it was their comfort with each other, the love that they all shared, that made them special, at least to Claire. They gathered in an empty space formed by a ring of trailers and Samuel said, "Edgar, Claire would like to learn about self defense."
Edgar was the guy in the knife throwing act. Apparently he had super speed, because he zipped over to them and looked down at Claire. "Oh, yeah? Is she going to be joining the family, then?"
"I'd like to know that as well," Joseph said.
A hush fell over the other carnies at his appearance, but Claire noticed that this time—because of her presence?—Samuel didn't cower as if he were in the presence of greatness. In fact, this time Samuel met his brother's eyes and refused to look away.
"No," he said. He and Claire had been standing side by side with a few inches separating them, but now he grabbed her hand in a gesture that might have been meant to comfort, or to claim. "But she's got an ability, like us, and she needs help learning to use it. What kind of people would we be if we turned her away?"
Joseph's eyes drifted down to their clasped hands. Finally he heaved a sigh and said, "All right. We'll help."
And that was how Claire became a temporary, after-hours carnie.
Every night for a week she came just at closing and learned how to survive. Edgar taught her about hand to hand and knife fighting, helping her to explore her own physical limits, reminding her that even if she wasn't strong enough or skilled enough to win against every opponent, she was durable enough to win most wars of attrition. Jimmy, the boy who manned the milk carton booth, taught her how to anticipate a telekinetic's moves by watching for the way their eyes or hands twitched. Lydia taught her how to shoot a gun and gave her a handgun that Claire tucked into her purse and hoped her father never found.
And Samuel taught her to feel safe again. The warmth of his hand on hers, his arm around her shoulders made her feel somehow protected and strong at the same time. There was a softness in his eyes whenever he looked at her, an almost worshipful light that made her feel as protective of him as he was of her.
They kissed twice in that week. The first time was after her first session with Edgar. Samuel stood to one side and watched as Edgar slowly coached her through striking and blocking with knives. She could see the strain in Edgar's face of not moving fast, the difficulty in not using his powers. After about twenty minutes of showing her the basics, he apparently got bored and said, "All right, let's try putting it into practice."
"What?" was all she had time to say before a knife sliced across her cheekbone, deep enough to scar anyone but her. She stumbled back in shock, bringing up her own knives defensively.
"Edgar!" Samuel barked. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Stand back, Samuel," Edgar said, baring his teeth in a grin as he circled Claire. "I'm doing what you asked me to do."
She shot a glance at Samuel, whose lips were tight with frustration. Her distraction was enough for Edgar to come at her again, this time gutting her like a fish. Groaning with pain, she fell to the ground with her hands over her stomach, holding herself together. Her eyes closed, she felt her flesh knit back together, keeping in her intestines.
When she opened her eyes again, Samuel and Edgar were crouching over her, one concerned, the other impassive.
"Want to keep going?" Edgar asked, tapping his knife against his thigh. "Or do you give up?"
She clenched her jaw and glared at him. "Give me a hand," she growled.
They each took a hand and pulled her to her feet. She brushed off her back and picked up her knives out of the dirt.
They went at it for another hour or so, Edgar moving at about a quarter of his usual speed. Over and over again he delivered cuts that would have killed anyone else, but she brushed it off and faced him again and again. Finally he called it a night, his expression speculative.
"You've got some potential, girlie," he announced, and walked off to do his own thing.
Claire sighed with relief and leaned in to Samuel when he dropped a kiss on top of her hair.
"You all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said, with a smile to reassure him. "I'm fine."
He cupped her face with his hand. "I don't like seeing you hurt."
"Samuel, I can take anything Edgar or anyone else can throw at me."
"You're even stronger than I realized," he said, and kissed her.
Kissing Samuel was a different experience than kissing Brody or Zach. Samuel's lips were rougher, chapped, his tongue searching but not too forceful. She was surprised not to taste any booze and wondered whether he'd cut back on the drinking because of her. He held her tight and she wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe for a better angle to kiss him back. They kissed for a long time, leisurely, each taking comfort in the contact.
A throat cleared behind them and they sprang apart guiltily. They turned to see Lydia watching them, obviously amused.
"Edgar said it's my turn with her," she said.
Samuel mock bowed. "She's all yours."
The second kiss was a few days later, after Samuel and Joseph had a fight. Claire wasn't sure what the fight had been about, but Samuel stormed out of his brother's trailer, his handsome features twisted in anger, his stride stiff.
"What's wrong?" she asked, falling into step beside him. She put a hand on his arm only to have it shrugged off.
"Leave it alone, Claire," he muttered, storming through the camp and out into the same field where he'd shown her his powers.
"Tell me!" she demanded, not caring about the rocks that hovered in the air, almost threateningly, or the way his glare cut across her face.
"I'm worthless here," Samuel said, his accent thickening. "The useless younger brother, the drunkard."
"You're not worthless," Claire told him, gripping his shoulders and shaking him, hard.
"What am I good for?" he snapped. "What have I ever done?"
"You brought me back to life," she snarled back, and lunged at him, kissing him with more force than skill.
He hesitated for a moment in surprise before he kissed her back. Their last kiss had been about comfort and exploration. This was all about passion. His hands gripped her hips, tight enough to bruise anyone else, and he kissed her as if he wanted to eat her alive. Someone was making little whimpering sounds and it took her a moment to realize that it was her.
With a desperate sound he pulled away, but only to press his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. His breath was fast, harsh, and hot against her face.
"How do you do this to me?" he murmured, kissing her forehead, pulling her against him so that her face nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. "I've spent my whole life learning to be numb—how is it that you can make me feel?"
"I see you," she said, her lips moving over his skin.
The next day Claire came home from walking Mr. Muggles and found Sylar sitting on her couch.
"Hello, Claire," he said with a slow, intent smile, rising deliberately to his feet. His hand came up, two fingers pointed toward her. This was the last thing Jackie ever saw, she thought.
Her fingers curled around the gun in the waistband of her pants. Before he could react, she shot him in the shoulder. He deflected her second shot but by the time he recovered enough to stand, clutching at the wound, she was out the door and sprinting to her car. She peeled down the street, urging the car faster and faster, until she was out of sight of the house. There was no question of where she was going, her hands steady on the steering wheel as she took the familiar route to the carnival.
She pulled out her cell phone and pressed one on the speed dial.
"This is Bennet," her father answered.
"Dad, Sylar's at the house," Claire said frantically. "I shot him, but he's not dead."
"Claire, slow down," he said, though she could hear the fear in his voice. "Are you all right? Where are you now?"
"I'm leaving. Sylar came here to find me. What if Mom or Lyle had been home? You know what he would have done to them!"
"So we'll move," Noah told her. "We'll change our names again, go someplace he'll never find us. Claire, don't do anything rash!"
"I love you, Dad," she said tearfully. "Warn Mom and Lyle." She hung up before he could change her mind and tossed the phone out the window.
When she reached the carnival the family was setting up for the night. She darted past Edgar and Lydia, ignoring the questions they shouted after her, until she reached the trailer she knew was Samuel's. She pounded on the door.
"Samuel!" she shouted.
"I'm coming," he called from inside. A moment later he opened the door and stared at her in confusion. "Claire? What's going on?"
"Sylar," she whispered.
He recognized the name, of course, from the stories she'd told him. He paled. "Are you all right? Your family?"
"I'm fine, but he's going to keep coming for me. I know it's dangerous—it isn't right for me to ask—but is there any chance—" she cut herself off, unable to finish the question.
Fortunately, he knew her well enough by now to know what she was trying so hard not to say.
"You want to come with us," he said, unable to hide the lilt of hope in his voice.
"I don't want to put you or anyone else at risk. It's just…I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Stay," he said quickly. "I'll work it out with Joseph."
He left her in his trailer, wrapped in a blanket, and a few minutes later sent Lydia in to keep her company. They sat together and listened to the raised voices outside.
"Joseph really doesn't like me, does he?" Claire asked.
Lydia smiled sadly. "It's got nothing to do with you. Joseph's very protective of Samuel, and he's always been a bit leery of outsiders. Trust me, he likes you as much as he likes anyone. You make Samuel happy."
A few minutes later the shouting stopped and a while after that the door opened and Samuel stepped inside. "Lydia," he said, "we're packing up. It's time to go."
Lydia smiled and left.
"I can stay?" Claire asked.
He hugged her as if he never intended to let her go.
She was surprised by how easy it was to fit into the family. They didn't have an extra trailer but there was no question that she'd bunk with Samuel. Propriety wasn't a big concern for any of them. Samuel gave her the bed and slept on his lumpy couch.
Joseph, who'd begun to warm up to her as soon as Costa Verde was far behind them, offered to let her have her own act, but she didn't feel ready for that yet. Instead she worked backstage, helping to repair costumes, running errands. And she kept Samuel grounded—he drank less when she was around, rarely let his fiery temper get the better of him, and smiled a lot more often.
Time moved quickly in the carnival. Every night was a whirlwind of light and noise. The outside world didn't affect them. Claire sometimes considered calling Peter, just to see how things were going, or checking in on Nathan to see whether he was going to try to destroy the world again, but then she'd volunteer to be in Edgar's act and let him impale her hand or Samuel would take her somewhere secluded and awe her with displays of his gift, and she'd remember that she'd found the peace she was looking for.
She got better with knives and better with guns and shortly after her 18th birthday she stopped feeling pain. Which was disturbing, to say the least, but made her deadly in a fight.
For all of their flirting and closeness, she and Samuel took their relationship slowly. He knew that she'd been traumatized in the past and she got the feeling he'd been in precious few close relationships. So they kissed, and they sat together at the campfire at night, and neither of them felt like freaks in this family of freaks.
Then one night Claire was taking a break from manning the cotton candy stand when she caught sight of a vaguely familiar figure.
She blinked. "Dr. Suresh?" she called.
Mohinder Suresh froze and turned slowly to face her. He looked a lot more composed than he had at Kirby Plaza, but was otherwise unchanged. He gaped. "Claire Bennet?" He hurried over to her, clutching an antique film strip under his arm. "I'd heard that you were dead!"
That surprised her. "My dad must have spread the story to stop Sylar from trying to find me," she said. "You can't tell anyone about me."
"I won't," he promised.
"What are you doing here anyway?" she asked.
"I'm here to see—" His eyes widened as Samuel came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Claire?" Samuel said, a tinge of warning in his voice.
"It's okay," she told him. "This is Dr. Suresh. He's an old friend."
"I'm looking for Joseph Sullivan," Mohinder said.
"That's my brother," Samuel said. "We'll show you to his trailer."
They led the way and waited until Joseph let Mohinder in, his brow furrowed in puzzlement, to head back to the heart of the carnival.
"What do you think he wants?" Samuel asked, looking over his shoulder at the trailer as if it would tell him what Joseph and Mohinder were saying.
"I don't know. I really don't know him very well."
She didn't see Suresh again before he left. Joseph came to find her a few hours later, though, and asked her to accompany him back to his trailer.
"What's going on?" she asked once the door had shut behind them.
He gestured for her to sit and took a seat himself. He clasped his hands between his knees and gazed intently at her.
"You care for my brother very much, don't you," he said. She didn't reply; he knew the answer. "Do you love him?"
She and Samuel had never spoken the "L" word to one another. Still, she didn't hesitate. "Yes."
He stared at her for a long moment, assessing the truthfulness of her answer. Finally, his lips curved. "Good." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Dr. Suresh has shown me proof of something that I've long known to be true about Samuel. My brother's powers increase when he is in proximity to people with abilities. If he could surround himself with tens or hundreds of them, he could become all powerful, impossible to stop."
She bit her lip. "Samuel doesn't know. You haven't told him about this."
"I love my brother, Claire, but I know him too well to give him that kind of knowledge. Samuel's always been too ambitious for his own good. But that's changed since he met you. You keep him calm. You give him something else to care about."
"What do you want from me?" she demanded, leaping to her feet and beginning to pace. "You want me to lie to him?"
"Do you think he can handle the truth?" Joseph countered.
She considered the question, forcing herself not to just blurt out the first answer that came to mind. Even after she thought about it for a few minutes, however, she kept coming back to the same response. "Yes. If I'm around to help, then yes."
He nodded. "Then you know what I want from you, don't you?"
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she went to find his brother.
Samuel was telling a story to the kids. Claire waited until he was finished, listening with a half smile on her face, but caught his eye and gave a jerk of her head so he'd know not to start in on another. He urged the children to go work on their homework and ambled over to her.
"What is it?" he said.
"Walk with me."
They went to the nearby field—they always set up the carnival where there was a field nearby.
"I'm going to tell you something and then I'm going to ask you something," Claire said carefully. "I want you to try to control yourself for the first, but you can get as excited as you want about the second."
He laughed, as if hoping that she was about to tell a joke, but when she just gazed at him he sobered quickly.
"Tell me."
She told him. She told him what Joseph had told her, ignoring the way the rocks began to rattle against the ground, the furious glares he kept sending back in the direction of the camp. When she'd finished he said, "He's lied to me, all this time. My own brother has been holding me back."
He began to storm back to carnival.
"Wait!" she shouted. He froze and turned to face her. "I said I was going to ask you something. Are you ready to hear it?"
"Claire," he said, a warning note in his voice.
"Samuel," she said, mimicking his tone.
Against his own will, his expression softened. "Tell me," he said again.
She took a deep breath. Then she dropped to one knee. His eyes widened.
"Samuel Sullivan," she said, "will you marry me?"
"Claire," he gaped.
"You don't need power," she said. "You don't need to conquer the world. You have me and we have the family and the life we have now is about as idyllic as it gets. I'll never leave you, Samuel, and you know that I'm invincible, so you'll never lose me to some trick of fate. I love you and I want to be with you, forever. Will you marry me?"
He stumbled toward her, fell to his knees, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into a kiss that stole her breath away.
"Yes," he gasped once they pulled away for air. "Yes, I'll marry you."
She smiled and let out a little sob of relief or maybe joy. They moved together again, kissing, his hands moving up and down her body, brushing over her breasts down to her hips and back again. He pulled back just long enough to whip off his long jacket, spreading the duster on the ground. He helped Claire to lie down on it, following her, eyes locked with hers.
He kissed her and helped take her shirt off and kissed her again. She clutched at him, awash in sensation, moaning and breathing hard and almost oblivious as he unhooked her bra and tossed it to the side.
"Samuel," she whimpered.
He smiled, said, "I love you," and scooted down her body to take her nipple in his mouth.
She cried out. Her whole body arched, as tense as a bowstring, as he licked her and suckled at her and rolled her other nipple between two fingers of his left hand.
He was breathing hard, too, when he switched sides. He took his time, enjoying the feel of her, until Claire finally let out a groan of frustration and overloaded senses and flipped them over, straddling his hips.
"My turn," she breathed. She tugged at the hem of his shirt, pulling it up over his head, and grinned as she splayed her fingers on his chest, reveling in the feel of the sparse hair, enjoying his gasp of pleasure when she leaned in and licked his nipple.
They kissed again and as they did she unbuckled his belt and drew it out slowly, loop by loop. She undid the button on his jeans and tugged down the zipper, pressing lightly against his straining hardness. He laughed hoarsely and rolled them over again. He shucked off his shoes, pants, and underwear in a few smooth gestures. She reached down to grip him gently, lips forming an "o" as she stroked him. After a few moments he shakily pulled away and kissed his way down her torso to the waistband of her pants.
He nuzzled at her navel as he undid her pants and drew them and her underwear off, revealing inch by glorious inch of bare skin, his hands exploring the feel of her thighs.
Finally they were both nude. He crawled his way up her body again. She lifted her knee, pulling it to her chest as he held himself very still, poised just outside of her.
"I love you," he murmured, kissing her cheek. "I love you." He cupped her breast, massaged it, brushed his callused thumb over her nipple. "I love you." He captured her lips with his and thrust inside her.
She cried out at the feel of him as he stretched her. His tongue pushed inside her, mimicking the motion of his hips. He entered her with slow, gentle thrusts until he was buried deep inside her, filling her completely. It was the best sensation she'd ever felt.
"Oh God," she said. "I love you, too."
He gave her a moment to adjust to the feel of him—not that she needed it—and then began to thrust rhythmically, insistently. She moaned and writhed under him, awash in pleasure, raising her hips to meet his thrusts. More, and more, and more. He was hot and powerful inside her. One of his hands was on her hip, the other on her breast. Her hands clawed at his back. He lowered the hand on her breast to touch her between the legs, pressing and rubbing her again and again.
Her world exploded. She screamed his name as she came and a moment later he stiffened and came hard inside her.
He rolled them once more so that she was on top of him, panting, their sweat mingling. He was still inside of her.
"I love you," he moaned, running his hands down her smooth, perfect back over and over again.
"Samuel," she said.
They were married three days later.