A/N: Hi! This is my first foray into "Heroes" fanfiction but the little idea for a one-shot that started nibbling at me after watching "0.07" just couldn't be ignored. It more or less charts what I imagine to be Nathan's thoughts as he sees Claire, in the flesh, for the first time. I hope it's alright – it doesn't quite correspond with the structure of that little scene in the episode (in terms of who speaks and when) which I hope doesn't bother anybody too much!
Anyway, please read, enjoy – and, of course, review!
Disclaimer: All kudos goes to Tim Kring and the rest of his genii – I could never get so many things as right as they so frequently do!
Under the Circumstances
He recognises her, of course. His first thought, as even the cradled body of his brother is briefly forgotten, is that the grainy pixels of a mobile phone camera can hardly do her justice. The waiting world soon floods back in, but still he looks at her. In reality but a few moments have passed, and her face – though it must mirror his in horrified expression – is a welcome respite from the battered, death-marked face of his little brother.
"Claire," he says, and in that one word – her name, his daughter's name, a name he himself did not place on her – he finds himself putting a lifetime's worth of imaginings. Not his lifetime – he has not spared much thought for her, after all, until he discovered she was alive, and it is questionable that even if he had known before he would have wasted what seemed like valuable time on a hope that could never be – but hers. In a different situation he could be saying that word, that name – 'Claire' – to her as she returns home from school, a daily greeting, said with the love of knowing and not the fear of not knowing. It could be said with a parent's righteous anger at the late return of that naméd child. However, in this moment, if anyone has a right to anger then it is her.
Reality comes flooding back, the weight in his arms a damnably dead one. He notes dispassionately that her eyes, seen in this light and in this situation – that is, face to face as he has never seen her before – look exactly like Peter's. Like his, too, but it is the comparison his mind (still working despite the shuddering of his tears and the sickening lurches of his heart) draws between the bright and burningly alive eyes set in his daughter's face and the cold, dead ones fixed on an eternal point in his brother's that causes him to swallow slightly and look away.
She has been standing there for less than a minute, but it seems like forever to him, filled as his unsettlable mind is of plans crashing down, and new ones springing up. He has always been a father to his two boys, and a husband to his wife, but there is one role into which he has never elected himself – a father to his daughter. He remembers being secretly glad each time his sons were born, though he knew that his wife had always wanted a girl, the joy at their sons' births tinged by her slight longing. He thinks of the irony and wonders if his wife will see it that way. Though – he glances at his mother as she moves towards the girl, looking unsurprised – she may well know already. How many secrets – which are not really secrets at all but merely matters unspoken of due to pride – does his small family hold?
One less. He glances down at Peter once more, and wonders if he should feel glad that Peter has been spared the great responsibility – and, he knows Peter would have (he has changed the tense in which he thinks of him already) regarded it, great moral crime – which Linderman had placed upon his shoulders. Well, those shoulders would bear no more burdens, and perhaps it is for the best. His politician's mind – always weighing and wondering and counting – tells him this, but his human grief scorns this thought in favour of reckless, needed tears. It is this same instinct – which sends all reason scurrying away into the same darkness from which such basic feelings are called – which urges him to rise, now, and make from Peter's death something a little bit meaningful. This instinct tells him to say that name – Claire – once more, this time not in shock or in question but in welcome, and to take her in his arms. Somehow she shares his grief, and he thinks that acknowledging this might be better for the both of them.
His mother speaks, then, though, and those barely sixty seconds of thought are broken, and when he looks back at the strange girl in the doorway he thinks none of these things, merely wonders what she is doing here and senses a heavying of his heart as he realises that not long from now he will have to take stock and responsibility of a mistake he made years ago. Whether that mistake was in letting the girl be born at all or in abandoning her after the fact, he cannot tell. But the mind of the lawyer's son charts clinically the repercussions of this meeting, and that mind does not like them, whatever the heart (beating as Peter's isn't, and Peter would take the girl in an instant, were she his) feels or desires. Claire is saying something to him, and he nods, and then his mother is telling him to leave, and he walks away, leaving his daughter alone with her grief and he alone with his. Not long later Peter returns to life, and Claire is forgotten in the noise and relief of the impossible resurrection.
The moment in which he wanted her wholeheartedly lasted barely a brief fraction of his time on earth – not even nought point nought seven percent – but in the future, when the mind of a lawyer's son and the wants of the congressman battle with his vital instincts he will recall that moment, and will wonder if perhaps he can be a father to a daughter after all.
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A/N: So, what do you think? I thought that Nathan was a little bit impersonal with Claire at the end of that episode (though considering he has just met her this is unsurprising!) so I just wanted to explore what led him to be in that mindset. I am also aware that I have, um, made up a few words - hopefully you'll get the gist, since it was mainly in the interests of 'rhythm'. Please, please tell me what you thought – all constructive criticism is very welcome!